Walsh 1713
Bentley 1962
Dancing Master II, Published in Fallibroome #1
Longways duple minor
Recording: mrs_savages_whim-bnbc7-15.mp3.zip

Part  Beats   Description
A1     12     1st gent step and honor 2nd lady. Gents 2-H turn.
       12     1's back to back(6) and turn single L(6).
A2     12     2nd lady step and honor 1st gent. Ladies 2-H turn.
       12     2's back to back(6) and turn single L(6).
B      12     1's cross and dance outside to 2nd place/2’s move 
              in and lead up (6); all back-to-back partner (6)
       12     1's 1/2-figure 8 up (9) and turn single away (lady L, 
              gent R) (3)

The back-to-back moves in parts A1 and A2 are, for this dance, traditionally performed so that the dancing couple pass R shoulders forward, then retire until they have just passed their left shoulders (and could look each other in the eye), then they both turn single R to place. Will practice, this can be very stylish.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jwRJCzi6WQ

The Savage family history is peppered with noteworthy and notorious—women including Elizabeth Savage, Countess Rivers, who flung a box with her treasured pearls into a pond to keep them from angry Parliamentarian rioters,
as well as Anne Gerard, mistress of the 4th Earl Rivers and probable mother of the poet Richard Savage.

By far the likeliest Mistress Savage circa 1710, however, is Elizabeth Savage, daughter of that same 4th Earl Rivers, who eloped with James Barry, 4th Earl Barrymore in 1706.
Despite the couples efforts, Elizabeth Savage’s father never forgave her; when he died in 1712, he excluded her from his will. Barrymore successfully contended for the recovery of part of her inheritance; she herself died in 1714

The signature movements of the dance, with its fickle gestures toward three different dancers in quick succession, must have seemed an apt illustration of the fibs and false promises of elopement and secret marriage, and must have come to seem prophetic of Barrymore's career, as he, after Elizabeth's death, went on to be viewed as one of the most double-dealing politicians in England: only his advanced age spared him from trial and probable execution in 1745, after the failure of Charles Edward Stuart's attempt to seize the English Crown.