Marilyn Monroe may have thought that diamonds were a girl’s best friend when she sang about it in the movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, but we think she had it wrong. Dogs are are girl’s best friend. Still, the tradition of getting a diamond as as sign of a betrothal dates all the way to Archduke Maximillian of Austria who commissioned the very first diamond engagement ring for his intended, Mary of Burgundy, in 1477.
We think, however, that Dorothy Osborne had the right idea.
Nearly 300 years ago, Dorothy, the youngest of ten children born to a staunchly Royalist family, was being wooed by Henry Cromwell. Knowing that Henry’s father was about to visit Ireland, she begged Henry to persuade his father to get her an Irish Wolfhound. “Whomsoever it is you emply,” she wrote, “he will need no other instructions but to get the biggest he can meet with; ’tis all the beauty of these dogs, or of any, indeed, I think. A masty is handsomer to me than the most exact little dog that ever lady played withal.”
Henry promised Dorothy that the “highest functionaries of Dublin” should get her a fine Irish hound.
It worked. Dorothy, in fact, got two Irish Wolfhounds. She wrote about having received, “Two of the finest young Irish greyhounds that e’er I saw: a gentleman who serves the General sent them to me. They are newly come over, and sent for by H.C. [Henry Cromwell].”
Dorothy, however, did not marry Henry. She married Sir William Temple, and she must have really wanted an Irish Wolfhound because even before they married, Dorothy was playing both sides of the street. Dorothy wrote to Sir William: “You shall do one favour for me. When your father goes into Ireland, lay your commands upon some of his servants to get you an Irish greyhound. I have one that was the General’s (i.e. Cromwell’s), but ’tis a bitch, and those are always much less than the dogs. I got it in the time of my favour there, and it was all they had. Henry Cromwell undertook to write to his brother, Fleetwood, for another for me; but I have lost my hopes there. Whomsoever it is that you employ he will need no other instruction, but to get the biggest he can meet with; ’tis all the beauty of those dogs, or of any kind, I think. A mastiff is handsomer to me than the most exact little dog that ever lady played withal. You will not offer to take it ill that I employ you in such a commission.”
We part company with Dorothy’s view of bitches, but she sure got it right about the whole dog thing.
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