Wedlock (58 page)

1
Narrative, p. 85.

2
Testimony MEB, 16 December 1784 [in pursuit of Chancery case to regain custody of her children], submitted by ARB in divorce appeal to Delegates: NA, DEL 2/12. The letters quoted, contained in the testimony, are from Thomas Lyon to MEB, 5 May 1784 and MEB to TL, 10 May 1784. The lack of punctuation is typical of court clerical transcribing, not Mary’s normal impeccably grammatical style.

3
Augustus Hare, vol. 1, p. 25.

4
Deposition of Mary Reynett, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

5
Transcript of letter Mary Bowes to MEB, 12 May 1784: BM Archives. This letter was erroneously ascribed by Arnold to Maria Jane who had, of course, already left the school by then. The writing style and a reference to not yet being able to dance at balls make clear this could not have been Maria Jane. See also an unpublished tract by Charles Hardy, ‘Mary Bowes 1777-1855’, BM Archives, 1974.

6
Foot, p. 88-94. Foot describes the kidnap and subsequent stay in France in detail, no doubt briefed by William Davis.

7
NA, Chancery Orders and Decrees, C33/461/part 1, p. 365. The guardians presented their bill on 27 May 1784 according to the Orders and Decrees book. James Menzies having died, only Thomas Lyon and David Erskine remained as guardians. The original petition appears not to have survived.

8
For general information on Paris and France in the eighteenth century see Black (2003). The contemporary accounts cited are Bessborough, p. 18 and Reichel, pp. 265-75. For background on France in the approach to the revolution of 1789 see Price, pp. 57-87; Doyle,
passim
; Schama (2004),
passim
. 9 Sterne, pp. 32 and 149n.

10
Thomas Gray to Thomas Ashton, 21 April 1739, in Toynbee (1915), vol. 1, p. 213.

11
Cole, pp. 40 and 51; Andrews, p. 12.

12
Simpson, Helen, p. 109. Mercier’s writings on Paris were first published in 12 volumes between 1782-8.

13
Narrative, pp. 75 and 87.

14
Deposition of Mary Morgan, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282; anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq; first heard in the Arches
, pp. 39-68.

15
Cole, p. 55.

16
Foot, pp. 96-111. All letters subsequently quoted from ARB to Davis are from these pages.

17
For information on John Scott, Lord Eldon, see Surtees, William
;
Twiss; and Melikan. Arnold states that it was William Scott, who took on the Chancery case but it was obviously John, who made his career in Chancery. Information on John Lee can be found in Schama (2005), pp. 157-60 and 166-7; and ODNB, vol. 33, pp. 82-3.

18
NA, Chancery Orders and Decrees, C33/461/part 1, p. 365.

19
ARB to William Davis, 13 June 1784, in Foot, p. 97.

20
Narrative, pp. 86, 92, 98 and 94.

21
Narrative, pp. 87-89; Deposition of Mary Morgan, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282; anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq; first heard in the Arches
, pp. 39-68.

22
Deposition of Lady Anna Maria Bowes, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

23
MEB to ARB, 3 February 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.

24
Mary Lawrenson (née Stoney) to MEB, March [no day] 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.

25
Foot, pp. 101 and 110. The outcome is recorded in NA, Chancery Orders and Decrees, C33/461, part 2, p. 562. The case was heard on 3 August 1784.

26
Narrative, p. 99. The succeeding episodes are from Narrative, pp. 101-2 and 95-7.

27
Foot, p. 107.

28
Deposition of William Davis, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

29
Deposition of Dorothy Stevenson (sic), LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

30
Narrative, pp. 103-4; Depositions of Mary Morgan, Ann Parkes and Lady Anna Maria Bowes, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

31
Depositions of Susannah Sunderland, Richard Thompson and Dorothy Stevenson [sic], LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282. Bowes himself would suggest Sunderland ran a brothel in the interrogatories, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/180.

32
Narrative, pp. 106-16; Testimony of MEB, 16 December 1784, originally produced for Chancery case, Lord Strathmore and others v ARB and MEB, c. 1784, produced by ARB in Delegates case, 9 April 1788: NA DEL 2/12.

33
Todd, pp. 286-7; Wollstonecraft, pp. 147-8. Interestingly, the novel tells the story of an educated woman who is deprived of her daughter and confined to an asylum by her licentious husband.

34
My thanks for advice to Peter Homan, Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

35
Venn, vol. 1, p. 342. John was admitted on 9 November 1784; Testimony of MEB, 16 December 1784, originally produced for Chancery case. Accounts 1782- 5: SPG, box 146, bundle 3.

36
Testimony of MEB, 16 December 1784, originally produced for Chancery case.

37
Narrative, pp. 90-1.

38
Stone (1995), pp. 167-8; Foyster (2002).

39
Narrative, pp. 120 and 89-90.

40
Deposition of Mary Morgan, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

41
Foot, p. 112.

42
Answer MEB, 15 March 1787, ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15.

43
Answer ARB, 3 July 1786, MEB v ARB: NA Chancery C12/605/34.

44
Narrative, pp. 127-8; answer of Mary Morgan, 17 March 1787, ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15. Morgan describes the arrangements for the escape in this testimony. Charles Shuter was not Morgan’s cousin, as suggested by Arnold, but the brother-in-law of her friend Miss Charles.

The main sources for Mary’s escape are Foot, pp. 114-6 ; answer of Mary Morgan, 17 March 1787, ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15; affidavit Susanna Church, divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12; and Depositions of Mary Reynett and Anna Maria Bowes, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282. Background information on the history of the English legal system is from Baker.

1
Narrative, pp. 48, 50, 129-30 and 133.

2
Copy of letter MEB to ARB, 3 February 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1. The copy was made by MEB herself.

3
HW to Lady Ossory, 5 February 1785, in Lewis, W. S., vol. 33, pp. 459-60.

4
Handwritten copy of Articles of the Peace exhibited by MEB against ARB, 7 February 1785: SPG, Bowes Paper, vol. 41;
Gentleman’s Magazine
, 55 (1785), p. 152. Another handwritten copy of the articles exists in SPG, volume C which has a poem, presumably by Mary, on the reverse. It reads: ‘Our poets oft have satire tried,/To stop the hideous female rore,/But Bowes his keener pen apply’d,/And woman for a while gave o’er,/Thus may their tongues for ever bleed,/And pens be ne’er employ’d in vain,/Bowes then may glory in the Deed,/And try the experiment again.’

5
Morning Chronicle
, 8 and 24 February 1785.

6
Narrative, p. 7.

7
Foot, p. 117.

8
Affidavit Dorothy Stephenson, divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12. Dorothy said she left on 25 February 1785.

9
ARB to Charles Harborne and James Seton [MEB’s attorneys], 11 February 1785, cited in Answer MEB, ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15; ARB to same, 16 February 1785, copy: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.

10
Answer MEB in ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15; Foot, p. 119.

11
Bill ARB in ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15. The bill says Stephens was ‘late under treasurer’ of the Middlesex Hospital, now in the East Indies, in December 1786.

12
Dickens (1991, first pub. 1852-3), p. 53.

13
For information on the history of divorce in England see Phillips (1988) and (1991); Stone (1995); and Baker, pp. 490-8.

14
Hay and Rogers, p. 53.

15
Stone (1995), pp. 153-5. Eldon and Kenyon subsequently attempted to abolish private separation deeds.

16
Stone (1995), p. 213; Lord Abergavenny against Richard Lyddel for criminal conversation with Lady Abergavenny, in anon,
A New Collection of Trials for Adultery
, vol. 1, case 7, p.12.

17
Anon,
A New Collection of Trials for Adultery
, vol. 2, p. iii.

18
According to Stone, cases seeking separation which reached the Court of Arches (the appeal court for southern England) rose between 1780 and 1810, while matrimonial litigation at the London Consistory Court, the biggest of the preliminary courts, doubled between 1750 and 1820. Stone provides a breakdown of plaintiffs to the LCC by gender between 1670 and 1857. Stone (1995), pp. 40, 43 and 428.

19
Stone (1995), pp. 309-11.

20
Phillips (1988) p. 65.

21
Campbell, vol. 7, pp. 153-5.

22
Dickens (1938, first pub. 1849-50), p. 320.

23
Foot, p. 120. Mary’s libel was lodged on 4 May 1785 and is given in LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/180. The depositions are collected as LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

24
MEB to Thomas Johnston, 27 April 1785, in Stoney, appendix to p. 55.

25
Foot, p. 119. Foot meant in financial terms.

26
MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 15 June 1785: SPG, volume C.

27
Mary Lawrenson (née Stoney) to MEB, March 1785, George Stoney to MEB, 31 March 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1; George Stoney to General Armstrong, 6 April 1785, cited in Stoney, p. 56.

28
Thomas Lyon to MEB, 27 May 1785: SPG, box 201, bundle 3; TL to MEB, 27 July 1786: SPG, box 69, bundle 4.

29
Elizabeth Parish to Thomas Lyon, 4 May 1785: SPG, box 146, bundle 6; same to same, 3 November 1785: SPG, box 99, bundle 2.

30
Foot, p. 119. William Lyon describes himself as a distant relation in anon,
A full and accurate report of the trial
, p. 32-3.

31
Foot, p. 120; Jessé Foot to MEB, 24 May 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1; Jessé Foot to MEB, 24 May 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1; deposition of Jessé Foot, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

32
John Hunter to MEB, 18 September 1785: DCRO SEA St/C1/9/5. The feud between Foot and Hunter may have been at least partly motivated by their opposing loyalties in the Bowes divorce case. The following year, 1786, when Hunter published his long-awaited treatise on venereal disease, Foot responded with a virulent counter-attack. While Hunter characteristically dismissed the diatribe with the aside that ‘every animal has its Lice’, Foot would have the last laugh: penning a poisonous biography of the revered surgeon the moment he was safely dead. See Moore (2005), pp. 199-201 and ODNB, vol. 20, pp. 245-6. Depositions of John Hunter and Richard Thompson, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

33
The Times
, 27 April and 9 May 1785. The Stephensons’ story is told in Statement by Mary Stephenson, n.d. [1785/6]: SPG, box 185, bundle 2. Dorothy’s statement of her ordeal is given in Affidavit Dorothy Stephenson, 3 May 1785, for divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12.

34
Francis Bennett to MEB, 31 May 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.

35
Depositions of Dorothy Stephenson, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

36
Robert Thompson to MEB, 16 March 1785 and 3 April 1785: SPG, box 69, bundle 6 and bundle 4.

37
Letters Francis Bennett to MEB, 12 March to 19 July 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.

38
MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 31 May 1785: SPG, volume C. Colpitts’s father and grandfather had worked as agents to the Bowes family.

39
MEB, handbill, 24 December 1785: BBP DUL box 71, 248.

40
William Stephenson to Mary Stephenson, 3 February 1786: SPG, box 185, bundle 3.

41
Various letters Ann and George Arthur to MEB, 7 March to 21 October 1785 and undated: SPG, box 185, bundle 2. 42 MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 2 August 1785: SPG, volume C.

43
MEB, handbill, 24 December 1785: BBP DUL box 71, 248. MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 7 January [the letter is dated 1785 but was definitely 1786]: SPG, volume C.

44
James Farrer and Thomas Lacey are listed in
Browne’s General Law-List
for 1780-2 at 8 Bread Street Hill and noted as specialising in the King’s Bench. Farrer does not appear in other biographical directories of lawyers and little more information can be found about him beyond his copious correspondence with MEB. His brother Henry Farrer was born in Yorkshire c. 1745. I am grateful for the help of Christopher Jessel of Farrer & Co, the law firm still based in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, for ascertaining that Mary’s attorney was not the James Farrer who worked there contemporaneously.

45
Mary Morgan to Thomas Colpitts, 19 January 1786: SPG, volume C. The succeeding quotes are from MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 14 February 1786: SPG, volume C, and James Farrer to Thomas Lacey, 9 December 1786: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.

46
Testimony Francis Bennett, 29 July 1788, divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12; Robert Thompson to MEB, 14 December 1785: SPG, box 81, bundle 5.

47
Countess of Strathmore v Bowes, in Brown, William, vol. 2, pp. 345-50.

48
Transcript letter ARB to Mr Langstaff, 2 March 1786 and Thomas Colpitts to James Farrer, 2 February 1786: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.

49
John Hall to MEB, 26 April 1786 and James Smith to MEB, 2 May 1786: SPG, box 69, bundles 4 and 7;
English Chronicle
, 6 May 1786, BM Album. 50
The Times
, 19 May 1786.

Background on Gillray and the Strathmore prints is from Gatrell, pp. 258-74 and 331-44. Also see McCreery, pp. 173-4 and 195-6, and George, vol. 6, nos. 7011, 7013 and 7083. All sources agree that at least the first two prints were probably commissioned by Bowes. The three prints are ‘LADY TERMAGANT FLAYBUM going to give her STEP SON a taste of her DESERT after Dinner, a Scene performed every day near Grosvenor Square, to the annoyance of the neighbourhood’, 1786; ‘The Injured COUNT..S’, (undated but most probably 1786); ‘The MISER’S Feast’, 1786. There seems no apparent reason for Morgan’s wasp-waist other than that Gillray was experimenting with such figures at the time. My thanks to Vic Gatrell for advice. The third print was labelled ‘Lady Strathmore’ by Edward Hawkins, keeper of antiquities at the British Museum from 1826 to 1867, according to Gatrell, p. 340 and 645n. The connection is still unclear, however. The anecdote about the tenth earl appeared in
The Ton Gazette
, 1777, copy in BBP DUL box 71, 248.