Wedlock (29 page)

Mary Eleanor Bowes, for all her commitment and investment in botany, would never achieve such recognition. Despite having the vision to sponsor one of the most daring overseas explorations of the eighteenth century, and despite her intense study, detailed knowledge and careful nurturing of exotic plant life, Mary’s contribution as one of the most accomplished female botanists of the age would never be acknowledged. Her talents effectively nipped in the bud by Andrew Robinson Bowes, who had triumphantly sold her Stanley House gardens and greenhouses during the African journey she had sponsored, she could only seek to protect the few Cape exotics she had salvaged from his neglect. As the
Gentleman’s Magazine
would later record: ‘The Ladyship had begun to build extensive Hot Houses and Conservatories, brought exotics from the Cape, and was in a way of raising continually an Increase to her Collections, when by Her fatal marriage the cruel Spoiler came, and threw them, like loathsome weeds away.’
⁵⁵

There was little hope, of course, that William Hickey would recover his money from Bowes that summer. Skilfully dodging creditors all his life, Bowes was far too intent on his next scheme to let such a trivial claim upset his plans. Having set his heart on obtaining an Irish peerage, either for prestige among his relatives or for pecuniary advantage, he knew that the surest way to achieve his aim was by gaining a parliamentary seat. So as the canvas opened in August for the start of one of the most fiercely fought general elections of the century, Bowes was determined this time to seduce the recalcitrant electors of Newcastle.

 

 

 

 

A
fter five years of bloodshed, military incompetence and growing insurrection on the battlefields of America, anti-war feeling was running high among the radicals in Newcastle. Linking the American rebels’ cause with their own grievances over high taxes, inadequate representation and government corruption, the activists had steadily garnered support among the craftsmen, shopkeepers and middle-class professionals who comprised the city’s electorate. Ever since they had narrowly lost their campaign to unseat the ruling oligarchy at the 1777 by-election, the radicals had redoubled their efforts with hard-hitting pamphlets and rousing calls to action in newspapers sympathetic to their cause. So when news reached the city that the Prime Minister, Lord North, had declared a snap general election in September, the popular movement looked forward to the contest with relish.

With elections throughout the eighteenth century being decided almost exclusively on local issues according to local allegiances, the 1780 general election was the first to canvass national opinion on a major political question. Although the beleaguered Lord North had long since lost his appetite for the war in America, as well as for the consequent drain on the national coffers, George III remained resolutely committed to retaining his beloved colonies across the Atlantic. Convinced that American independence would eventually have to be conceded, particularly since France and Spain had joined forces with the colonists, North had even attempted to broker a coalition with the leader of the opposition, the Marquis of Rockingham. When his conciliatory efforts failed, North had wrongfooted Rockingham by calling an early general election seeking a national mandate to continue the American war. Having already suffered a series of humiliating defeats on allegations of corruption and waste over the summer, North faced the election with some apprehension.

If Lord North lacked enthusiasm for the political fray, Andrew Robinson Bowes had no such qualms when he declared himself a candidate for the Newcastle poll. Although Georgian elections rarely involved a contest - the members usually being agreed in advance at a cordial meeting of civic worthies - Bowes knew that Newcastle promised an intense political skirmish. Having heavily invested his money and his time in wooing the local electorate since his by-election defeat, he now approached the September poll with bullish self-confidence. Of the borough’s two sitting MPs, Sir John Trevelyan had staunchly backed the Government’s American campaign while Matthew White Ridley had wavered between government and opposition - at one point refusing to present a petition opposing the war to Parliament. Skilfully judging the mood of the moment, Bowes firmly staked his colours to the anti-war platform. Earlier in the year, he had spoken forcefully against the war at a packed meeting in Newcastle’s Guildhall.
¹
Cleverly appealing to his listeners’ pockets as much as their moral values, he had stormed, ‘we are taxed to support the luxuries and the corruption which we condemn.’ And with no trace of irony, the High Sheriff, who desperately sought an Irish peerage, passionately pledged his backing to the radical demands for an end to government sinecures and pensions. Writing to a sceptical friend at the time he had declared: ‘I am glad to find the opinion of people in London against my election; it will give you the opportunity of making some good bets.’
²
So certain was Bowes of victory indeed that he even promised to compensate his friend should he lose the gamble, adding darkly, ‘But you must bet upon a proviso, that L—[ady] S—[trathmore] lives.’ For all his radicalism, he was well aware that his reputation stood or fell by his connection with the Bowes family name.

With Trevelyan having wisely decided to seek re-election elsewhere and Ridley a certainty for one of the seats, Bowes knew that his biggest challenge was to be adopted as the single radical candidate. As well as avoiding an unpleasant and unnecessary contest, of course, this would save Bowes the immense expense of another election campaign. In May, therefore, Bowes had addressed a meeting in London at the Hole in the Wall, the Fleet Street tavern where Newcastle exiles congregated, insinuating that he and Ridley had agreed to stand on a joint ticket. The cosy compact was upset the following month, however, when a third candidate, Thomas Delaval, put himself forward as the people’s choice. As Ridley hurriedly sought to distance himself from both Bowes and Delaval, all three candidates set out their stalls at a lively public debate in August. Delivering what one newspaper described as a ‘spirited harangue’, Bowes bluntly informed the gathered freemen that since he had already spent a large fortune fighting the previous election they owed him their support for this one.
³
When both Bowes and Delaval vowed to back key radical demands for triennial elections and increased representation - and Ridley stubbornly refused to make any such promises - the contest seemed as open as ever. ‘The canvass is begun at Newcastle - three candidates, all upon different interests,’ Bowes wrote to his friend in London, adding with a note of desperation, ‘for God’s sake use your influence with as many people of the WHOLE in the WALL as you possibly can find out, and pray use ANY MEANS to procure them for me.’
⁴
So as the election campaign began in earnest with the dissolution of Parliament on 1 September, the three Newcastle candidates squared up for battle.

Just as in the 1777 by-election, Bowes was prepared to go to any lengths to win a seat. Inevitably, this would prove an expensive business. Despite his enduring financial difficulties, Bowes threw open Gibside Hall and hosted lavish entertainments in the city in a bid to win over the 2,500 or so freemen eligible to vote. Once again, Bowes demanded that Mary Eleanor turn her literary talents to championing his cause. Taking two meagre rooms above a china shop in the Bigg Market as lodgings for the duration of the campaign, Bowes installed Mary under the scrutiny of loyal servants. Here she was kept busy at her desk from morning to night, churning out stirring messages for handbills, campaign songs and vote-seeking letters while Bowes strutted through the town, she later wrote, ‘flirting with his mistresses’.
⁵

Just as with the previous contest, Bowes’s moral character emerged as a central issue in the campaign. One anonymous correspondent in the government-supporting
Newcastle Courant
branded him ‘an abandoned
prodigal
’ addicted to ‘habitual luxury and extravagance’.
⁶
Having attained his fortune through the ‘fancy of a weak
undiscerning
female’, the writer grimly predicted that Lady Strathmore’s death would ‘soon . . . deprive him’ of his wealth and status. Lumbering to his defence, one of Bowes’s supporters in the radical-leaning
Newcastle Chronicle
feebly countered that his closest friends ‘think they observe a real progress of reformation in such parts of his behaviour as seemed to require it’. Having scaled the ladder of rank and fortune, the writer was sure Bowes now felt ‘the obligation of becoming more respectable in his personal character’. Falling back on the age-old appeal not to pry into a politician’s private life, his defenders hoped to deflect Bowes’s failings by pushing Mary into the limelight as: ‘A Lady, whose fine natural talents, improved by a most liberal education, have furnished her with a share of good sense, real knowledge, and great proficiency in the politest arts and literature, which are equalled by few men’.

Polling began on 11 September and lasted 11 days, barring Sundays. Each morning Bowes marched confidently from his committee rooms to the hustings with his band of followers to deliver the slick slogans and impassioned promises calculated to win wavering electors to his cause. Each day was dedicated to winkling reluctant voters out of taverns and coffee-houses with inducements of ale, nourishment and other entreaties. Young men fearful of being forced into service with the navy were promised protection from the impress while those Geordies living out of town were tempted with travel expenses, even from London, to return homewards and cast their votes. As Bowes would later put it, an honest freeman of Newcastle could hardly be expected to travel three hundred miles at his own expense to cast his vote in an election. When his attempts to wine and dine the voters failed to secure the desired result, Bowes resorted to his usual dirty tricks. At one point he fooled a group of his opponents’ supporters into boarding a ship in expectation of customary hospitality. Once aboard the well-bribed captain weighed anchor and set sail for Ostend blaming unhelpful winds for his inability to return in time for polling.
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As in most contested elections voting continued, with the accumulated results of the open ballot published daily, until only a trickle of electors remained. Finally, on 21 September, a total of 2,245 freemen having cast their votes, the outcome was announced. As expected, Ridley retained his seat, winning 1,408 votes. His fellow MP, elected with 1,135 votes, a clear 50 ahead of his rival Delaval, was Andrew Robinson Bowes.

As the radicals toasted their hero on his historic victory, the honourable new member for Newcastle broadcast his success by ringing the church bells in Whickham. A week later, Bowes joined with a somewhat reluctant Ridley in hosting a celebratory ball in the assembly rooms which many of the local gentry pointedly boycotted. As Ridley’s brother, Nicholas, wryly remarked: ‘Bowes is not the kind of colleague that a man would wish for.’
⁸
Thomas Delaval, meanwhile, responded angrily to his defeat by launching a legal challenge, levelling accusations of bribery against his rival. When the charge finally came before a House of Commons committee almost two years later, Delaval would withdraw his allegations having failed, rather surprisingly, to gather sufficient evidence of Bowes’s trickery.

Certainly, Bowes had expended a colossal sum on his campaign - in excess of £20,000, more than the combined outlay of his fellow opponents, according to one estimate.
⁹
From his point of view, it had been worth every penny. As a Member of Parliament he was now in a prime position to take advantage of and dispense government patronage and was fully confident that the desired Irish peerage finally lay within his grasp. Just as he had seduced countless women with his false promises and fake flattery over the years, Bowes had cynically duped the Newcastle electorate. And just as he had discarded the women who fell under his spell once they had served their purpose, he now proceeded to treat his constituents and their concerns with barely concealed contempt. Soon abandoning his pretended radical views, Bowes would rarely bother to attend Parliament, vacillate between government and opposition when he did vote, and speak only once - to oppose a bill to reduce election bribery on the grounds that existing laws were already ‘too severe’. For all his declared opposition to the American war, he refused to condemn the Government’s continued campaign. Indeed it was Ridley, the government loyalist, who would unexpectedly win the freemen’s gratitude over the coming parliamentary term for his bold criticism of ministerial policy. Yet while North and his successors would continue to dangle an Irish peerage before Bowes’s greedy eyes as a lure to support the Government on crucial votes, the longed-for prize would remain elusive.