Their families went to litigation, and eventually produced a settlement in 1750 whereby Lady Mary could live with her mother at Sudbrook but had to remain married to Coke until his death, which came in 1753, when Mary was 26. Already having received a handsome legacy from her father, she set out on her life of independence (she never remarried), that became (as her entry in the "Dictionary of National Biography" puts it) "marked by gossip, travel, devotion to royalty, and self-imposed misadventure".