[‘I knew the lady well’: General Sir Nevil Macready on Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, her field hospital and marital misadventures.] Autograph Letter Signed to William Toynbee, editor of the diaries of his father, actor William Charles Macready.

Macready’s entry in the Oxford DNB states that he destroyed his diary and personal papers after the publication of his memoirs in 1924. If the present gossipy specimen is anything to go by, the loss of this material is most regrettable. (The ODNB entry for his father notes that he dealt with William Charles Macready's ‘copious and uninhibited diaries’ in similar fashion in 1914 - two years after the appearance of Toynbee’s edition.) See also the entry for Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland (1867-1955). 2pp, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged and folded for postage. Signed 'C F N Macready' and addressed to 'My dear Toynbee'. He begins by explaining that he has been confined to his room since ‘a sharp attack of Bronchial Influenza’: ‘The bore of it is that it touches up the lungs & that entails care for some weeks.’ Turning to the English papers he writes: ‘I see by this mornings Daily Mail that Almeric Fitzroy has apparently disturbed the Empire with his book!’ (Fitzroy’s memoirs were published in 1925, and quickly went through a further five editions.) There follows a long assessment of Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland and her three marriages (she had divorced the third, Col. George Ernest Hawes, as a result of his homosexuality earlier in the year), prompted by her book ‘That Fool of a Woman, and four other Sombre Tales’ (1925), which, according to the Oxford DNB, revealed ‘much about her marital misadventures’. ‘I saw a notice of Millicent Sutherland’s book but that is all. I knew the lady well. She has traces of great beauty and during the War ran a hospital first at La Panne for the [?] Belges & later as an annexe to one of our hospitals at Calais. She tried to work old Johnnie French to let her & her nurses roam about the battle front, and I was called in to anchor her which I did effectually at Calais. Her husband the Duke was much older than her & in love with his library, & it is well known that she “kept” the FitzGerald man & gave him a good allowance. No one could understand why she married him on the Duke’s death as he drank like a fish & was a notorious waster. Having divorced him it was equally incomprehensible why she married Hawes. Of course her stock - the Rosslyn - is queer, & may account for much! I don’t know Hawes but did hear that he had a tendency towards the Dead Sea fruits.’ He ends by asking Toynbee’s opinion of Sinclair Lewis, and by explaining that ‘this grippe of mine will delay my trip to London for a bit. If we get a St. Martin’s summer I may venture’.