Read The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce Online
Authors: Hallie Rubenhold
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If any party was made to bear the sharp end of the Worsleys’ misadventure, it was their son Robert Edwin. The short life of their sole legitimate heir was a desolate and tragic one. Correspondence and family documents contain so little mention of him that it is as if his name, inextricable from that of his parents, also carried their shame. The few references that do survive sketch out a childhood led without a mother and only a shadow for a father. When Seymour last held her son in 1781, Robert was five years old. Over the years and with Sir Richard’s encouragement, the early recollections he retained of his mother were eventually outgrown. Raised by nursery maids, servants and tutors, he had little contact with his father who had disappeared abroad when his son was not quite seven and returned to
him a stranger when Robert was twelve. Within a year, Worsley had enrolled Robert at the school he had attended as a boy, Winchester College, where he remained until 1793. That June, only months before the baronet again left England for Venice, he purchased his son an Ensign’s commission in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
him a stranger when Robert was twelve. Within a year, Worsley had enrolled Robert at the school he had attended as a boy, Winchester College, where he remained until 1793. That June, only months before the baronet again left England for Venice, he purchased his son an Ensign’s commission in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
Like his father, Robert’s blossoming talents inclined towards the intellectual. In 1792, he was awarded a school prize for a poem entitled ‘The Execution and Death of Lady Jane Grey’ and when John Wilkes encountered him across a dinner table in December 1788 the old politician found Robert ‘a very handsome and promising youth’. Wilkes also noted that, as expected of Sir Richard’s boy, ‘he is reading Virgil and Ovid’. Undoubtedly, the baronet hoped to send his son on the grand tour, but the bloodshed on the continent prevented him and many other wealthy parents from doing so. A period of military training was seen as a fitting alternative. At the time he joined his regiment, the King’s Royal Rifle Corps was stationed on the Isle of Wight and seemingly beyond harm.
The cause of Robert Edwin Worsley’s death on the 10th of April 1795 is undisclosed. He is noted only as having died in Gloucestershire, quite probably while on exercise as ‘a Lieutenant in Prince William of Gloucester’s Regiment’. Given his father’s posting in Venice and his estrangement from his mother, Robert would have been committed to the family vault with little ceremony. The news of the loss of Appuldurcombe’s only heir must have come as a debilitating blow to both Sir Richard and Lady Worsley. One can only imagine how the baronet, a man whose entire philosophy turned on the notion of an inherited family legacy and who had devoted so much effort to cleansing the Worsley name, contended with this.
Evidence suggests that Seymour was not able to return to Britain until at least a year and a half after her son’s death, in early 1797. The adversity she had suffered in France, compounded by her recent bereavement, had drained her fortitude as much as it had her finances. With little of the flamboyant spirit and carefree demeanour that had so astonished society, Lady Worsley slipped quietly back to England. Shortly after establishing herself at a discreet and inexpensive address, she became seriously ill. ‘I did not think some time since that I should have ever been alive,’ Seymour wrote of those despairing days when ‘an inflammation upon the lungs’ and ‘the expense of a long illness’ drove her to reach for her pen. Since the public disgrace of the criminal conversation trial, all communication between Lady
Worsley and her mother and sister had, for propriety’s sake, ceased. Her sister, Lady Harrington had been abroad with her husband on his postings to Jamaica and in Ireland and was therefore spared the full force of Seymour’s embarrassment as it rebounded on to the family. Her mother and her stepfather had been placed directly in the path of the storm. Until this time, how much they knew of her suffering in France or the extent of her impoverishment is questionable.
Worsley and her mother and sister had, for propriety’s sake, ceased. Her sister, Lady Harrington had been abroad with her husband on his postings to Jamaica and in Ireland and was therefore spared the full force of Seymour’s embarrassment as it rebounded on to the family. Her mother and her stepfather had been placed directly in the path of the storm. Until this time, how much they knew of her suffering in France or the extent of her impoverishment is questionable.
Her family offered reconciliation tentatively at first. After two months of Seymour’s illness, Lady Harrington and her mother, the recently titled Baroness Harewood, crept to her bedside. ‘You will now be glad to hear that I am restored to the love and regard of all my family,’ she wrote triumphantly to her husband’s steward: ‘they have all been to see me and … they are all goodness to me.’ Their reunion was soothing medicine. ‘Think what happiness I must feel at an event that I have so long wished for,’ she exclaimed.
Although the support of her sister and mother helped Lady Worsley to recover from the worst of her affliction, her empty purse continued to cause her distress. Seymour claimed that her doctor had directed her ‘to go immediately to the sea’ in order to recover her ‘lost health’, but in May 1797 she could not afford the trip. ‘I am quite ruined,’ she wrote to William Clarke, ‘and now without a guinea’. She required an advance of £50 on her quarterly allowance which would allow her to travel to Weymouth and breathe the fresh air thought to cure respiratory illnesses. ‘If you can not make it convenient,’ she implored him, ‘I must remain here until my quarter is due … nothing but my bad health could induce me to ask so great a favour of you.’ Due either to her husband’s intervention or Clarke’s obstinacy, only half of the funds were granted.
However, salvation did arrive from an unexpected source. In the early summer, Lord and Lady Harrington escorted Seymour to the sea, first to Weymouth and then Brighton. As both the Earl and Countess held positions in the royal household and sat at the very centre of respectable social circles, their appearance in public with Lady Worsley was a conspicuously grand gesture of forgiveness. Once the road to
rapprochement
had been officially opened, others were swift to come down it. Soon her ‘dearest mother’ was also seen unashamedly accompanying Seymour on her Brighton promenades. She had ‘come 280 miles to see me’, Seymour wrote, ‘and you may imagine how happy this new proof of my mother’s love and affection must
make me’. Even relations on her husband’s side were prepared to offer forgiveness: ‘All my family are very good to me,’ she said; in particular she mentions Lord Cork, who ‘paid me a visit at Bristol’ and even her mother-in-law, Lady Betty Worsley who was ‘very good in enquiring kindly after me of my mother’. These events and the magnanimity displayed by her family made her reflect on her situation. ‘I really think one of the greatest blessings is being beloved by ones nearest and dearest,’ she wrote.
rapprochement
had been officially opened, others were swift to come down it. Soon her ‘dearest mother’ was also seen unashamedly accompanying Seymour on her Brighton promenades. She had ‘come 280 miles to see me’, Seymour wrote, ‘and you may imagine how happy this new proof of my mother’s love and affection must
make me’. Even relations on her husband’s side were prepared to offer forgiveness: ‘All my family are very good to me,’ she said; in particular she mentions Lord Cork, who ‘paid me a visit at Bristol’ and even her mother-in-law, Lady Betty Worsley who was ‘very good in enquiring kindly after me of my mother’. These events and the magnanimity displayed by her family made her reflect on her situation. ‘I really think one of the greatest blessings is being beloved by ones nearest and dearest,’ she wrote.
Unfortunately, although her relatives were willing to embrace her, they were in no position to alleviate her poverty and debts. ‘If I were not so poor I should indeed be comfortable,’ Seymour complained to William Clarke and later, on hearing that Sir Richard would be returning to England, she suggested that ‘if he does come … it would be very desirable for us both to come to some arrangements’. Lady Worsley would never be satisfied with the size of her allowance while the bulk of her assets remained beyond her grasp and entirely at the disposal of her vindictive husband. Now that the rift with her family was healed, what Seymour desired most was the reinstatement of her fortune, which was possible only if she managed to outlive Sir Richard.
With the assistance of the Earl of Harrington, one of the trustees of her and her sister’s property at Brompton, Seymour was able to take up residence in the house that was rightfully hers but which the law prevented her from owning. Although the Brompton estate had been inherited by her father, the Fleming family had never used the dated seventeenth-century manor house, its outlying buildings or its land. Behind the estate’s walls lay over 95 acres of fields, gardens and nurseries filled with ‘several kinds of fruit trees and evergreen shrubs’, as well as an impressive array of rose bushes. In 1784, the trustees of Brompton Park House had renovated the building and divided it into a row of three separate dwellings. These new homes, along with Hale House, a smaller residence near the estate’s perimeter, were then let out to an assortment of tenants. With its location off the main road, and lying just outside the village of Brompton, the collection of houses became a favoured retreat for those wishing to escape the public eye. When Lady Worsley established herself in the westernmost of these, her neighbours were Henry Richard Fox, 3rd Lord Holland, and his mistress, Elizabeth Vassall Webster, who was then embroiled in a divorce. The easternmost house was occupied first by Seymour’s banker, Thomas Hammersley and later by his business partner, Charles Greenwood. As friends of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, both men had a reputation for fast living, Greenwood in particular; he died
in the arms of the Duke of Clarence after an over-stimulating game of cards. They were eventually joined by Grace Elliott when she rented the middle house.
in the arms of the Duke of Clarence after an over-stimulating game of cards. They were eventually joined by Grace Elliott when she rented the middle house.
Lady Worsley owed much to the Earl and Countess of Harrington and her mother. But Seymour was on a short lead and recognised this. With the zeal of the recently reformed, she boasted of her altered character and of the regard that others now had for her, commenting to William Clarke that she had ‘entirely given up’ unreliable associations and ‘when at Brompton … am very often with my mother and sister and many ladies of their acquaintance’. In fact, Lady Worsley, having settled into a nest of rakes and
demi-mondaines
, was by no means prepared to reform entirely. But with maturity she had acquired a sense of discretion, a virtue she had lived without for so long.
demi-mondaines
, was by no means prepared to reform entirely. But with maturity she had acquired a sense of discretion, a virtue she had lived without for so long.
Her persistent financial troubles as well as her desire for excitement made Seymour continue to court and accept the advances of men who would subsidise her lifestyle. On two separate occasions her name became entangled with those who lived on the Brompton estate. In the summer of 1797, while claiming to have rehabilitated her character, she was engaging in a liaison with her ‘near neighbour’, Colonel George Porter, a fortune-hunting Whig politician devoted to the Prince of Wales and the pursuit of divorced ladies. He later married the notorious Lady Grosvenor, in 1802. His bride was at least eleven years his senior. Another of Brompton’s tenants with a similar taste for experienced older women was the man who lived in Hale House, Jean Louis Hummell.
Like Dick England, and the Chevalier Saint-Georges before him, Jean Louis Hummell would not have been considered fitting company by Seymour’s ‘mother and sister and many ladies of their acquaintance’. Hummell had been born Jean Louis Couchet (or Cuchet) in Geneva in 1779. As children, he and his sister Eugenia had been taken to London by their mother Françoise Couchet and their stepfather, Charles Hummell. The family eventually settled in Covent Garden where Charles Hummell traded as a ‘stocking manufacturer’, but aspired to make a living as a composer. A fondness for music was something he shared with his stepson. As a boy Jean Louis developed a powerful singing voice, and living within earshot of the capital’s two principal theatres enabled his guardian to push him under the appropriate noses. From as early as 1794, ‘Master Hummell’, who had not quite reached the age of fourteen, was appearing on stage at the Theatre Royal in performances
of Handel and Corelli’s choral works. The name Hummell would certainly have worked to his advantage in the musical world. Although Jean Louis bore no relation to Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a musical child prodigy of almost identical age who lived in London during the early 1790s, there was much scope for a favourable confusion of identities. Charles Hummell used his stepson’s successes to further his own career and by 1799 the duo was composing music together. None of their works, which include a number of popular songs and sonatas as well as military music, are especially memorable, though Jean Louis did cultivate a name among the English musical establishment of his day.
of Handel and Corelli’s choral works. The name Hummell would certainly have worked to his advantage in the musical world. Although Jean Louis bore no relation to Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a musical child prodigy of almost identical age who lived in London during the early 1790s, there was much scope for a favourable confusion of identities. Charles Hummell used his stepson’s successes to further his own career and by 1799 the duo was composing music together. None of their works, which include a number of popular songs and sonatas as well as military music, are especially memorable, though Jean Louis did cultivate a name among the English musical establishment of his day.
Jean Louis Hummell must have been an alluringly romantic figure. A frequent performer at private musical parties, he could be found standing by the side of a fortepiano, his voice warbling the lyrics to ‘My True Love’s on the Sea’, one of his melodies. It is likely that Lady Worsley met him in such circumstances, just after the start of the new century. With a family background in trade, earning a living as a singer and minor composer, Hummell would not have been wealthy. Seymour, in her mid-forties, was old enough to be his mother. Neither was in any way appropriate for the other but mutual attraction drew them together. In Jean Louis, she may have imagined something of the son she had lost. In Lady Worsley, with an ageing husband and an heir in his grave, he would have seen the distant possibility of £70,000.
A Deep Retirement
On the 23rd of May 1797, Britain’s Minister-Resident to Venice disembarked from a sloop of war in the Hungarian-ruled port of Fiume on the border of Dalmatia. Amid a disarray of trunks and boxes stuffed with personal items and documents, Sir Richard sat down to write an account of the events that had sent him fleeing from Italy. Long before his first letters arrived in London, England had learned of the Venetian Republic’s fall to Napoleon’s forces. As the French entered on the 12th of May, the city erupted into riot. General Bonaparte had pointed his cannons at the Republic’s celebrated domes and bell towers and demanded ransom. Wishing to avoid a siege, the Great Council of Venice capitulated within twenty-four hours. The
grande dame
that had been La Serenissima, the proud city-state of 1,070 years, was then ravished; stripped of her territories, her gold, and her art.
grande dame
that had been La Serenissima, the proud city-state of 1,070 years, was then ravished; stripped of her territories, her gold, and her art.
Worsley had been at the ambassadorial Palazzo as the French troops sailed through the canals and mustered in the Piazza San Marco. From his windows he had seen the masts of their gunboats as they glided into the lagoon. This sight left him little ‘room to doubt as to what manner in which they would treat the capital’. Sir Richard’s sense of alarm began to swell as the crowds of Venetian citizens pushed their way across the bridges and splashed through the water in a terrified exodus. Throughout the night of the 12th, their shouts could be heard outside his residence. His apartments glowed with lamplight into the early morning as the Minister’s household staff stripped his lodgings of their treasures and frantically packed
them for transportation. In his three and half years in Venice, Sir Richard had transformed his Palazzo into an extravagant showroom of masterworks. Not only had he lined his corridors with a second collection of marbles, but by 1797 his rooms were adorned with fifty-eight paintings by Italy’s most pre-eminent artists, living and dead. The great prizes that filled his home were as precious to him as children. Upon the arrival of Napoleon’s forces, he paced through his apartments accounting for each of them, scribbling a hurried inventory of careful descriptions and precise values to the last Venetian sequin. From their hangings the servants pulled his proud triplet: three Titians featuring images of St Jerome, the Prodigal Son ‘and a small head of cupid’. A Veronese and a Raphael nestled beside them. Quickly they loosened from the walls
The Continence of Scipio
by Caravaggio, scenes by Correggio, Sebastiano del Piombo, Carracci, Salavator Rosa, Guercino, Canaletto, Albani, Guido Reni, and ‘a small picture representing Redentore Giovanna,’ by Leonardo da Vinci. Then, believing his ‘person to be in some danger and my effects in still greater’ he said, he ‘immediately hired two very large sailing boats’ in preparation for his flight. It was only ‘with much difficulty’ that Worsley obtained an exit visa from the French chargé d’affaires, who had been asked by the recently divested Doge to discharge the diplomatic corps from the city unharmed. On the day that the fleet carrying Napoleon’s reinforcements arrived into port, the British Minister cast off from the lagoon and watched from his ship as Venice diminished into the horizon.
them for transportation. In his three and half years in Venice, Sir Richard had transformed his Palazzo into an extravagant showroom of masterworks. Not only had he lined his corridors with a second collection of marbles, but by 1797 his rooms were adorned with fifty-eight paintings by Italy’s most pre-eminent artists, living and dead. The great prizes that filled his home were as precious to him as children. Upon the arrival of Napoleon’s forces, he paced through his apartments accounting for each of them, scribbling a hurried inventory of careful descriptions and precise values to the last Venetian sequin. From their hangings the servants pulled his proud triplet: three Titians featuring images of St Jerome, the Prodigal Son ‘and a small head of cupid’. A Veronese and a Raphael nestled beside them. Quickly they loosened from the walls
The Continence of Scipio
by Caravaggio, scenes by Correggio, Sebastiano del Piombo, Carracci, Salavator Rosa, Guercino, Canaletto, Albani, Guido Reni, and ‘a small picture representing Redentore Giovanna,’ by Leonardo da Vinci. Then, believing his ‘person to be in some danger and my effects in still greater’ he said, he ‘immediately hired two very large sailing boats’ in preparation for his flight. It was only ‘with much difficulty’ that Worsley obtained an exit visa from the French chargé d’affaires, who had been asked by the recently divested Doge to discharge the diplomatic corps from the city unharmed. On the day that the fleet carrying Napoleon’s reinforcements arrived into port, the British Minister cast off from the lagoon and watched from his ship as Venice diminished into the horizon.
In his letter to William Clarke, Worsley recounted the frightening experience, claiming that ‘it would be scarcely possible for me to describe to you the dangers which I have run and the difficulties I encountered in getting away’. Once put to sea in the Adriatic, Sir Richard and his cargo were no safer than they had been in Venice. Seventy miles into their journey they narrowly escaped discovery by ‘a French 40 gun frigate with several armed vessels’, and were saved only by a thick fog which had ‘sprung up immediately as if directed by the hand of providence’. While the French patrolled the coasts of Italy, Worsley’s small convoy remained vulnerable and so at the first opportunity Sir Richard transferred himself onto ‘a sloop of 14 guns’ and parted with his cherished objects. Instructions were given that his ark of valuables was to idle in port at Fiume until political events allowed their safe passage to England. When the baronet fretted in his letter to Clarke about having ‘saved many things’ while ‘leaving many others behind’, his
thoughts were as much at sea with his floating collection as they were in Venice among his abandoned household possessions.
thoughts were as much at sea with his floating collection as they were in Venice among his abandoned household possessions.
Sir Richard’s arrival in Fiume marked the beginning of an even greater overland trek homeward across a continent besieged by war. Though ‘little recovered from the fatigue of my voyage’, he wrote, Worsley prepared to ‘proceed through Croatia and Hungary to Dresden’ where he would ‘await His Majesty’s leave to return to England’. ‘May it please God that I escape the Dangers of so long a journey,’ he added.
Worsley eventually crossed the North Sea from the German port of Cuxhaven and landed on English shores in mid-September. Although in his absence the corporation of voters on the Isle of Wight had secured his reelection to Parliament for the seat of Newtown, Sir Richard had little appetite for public life. On his return he purchased a town residence in Grosvenor Square for the sake of convention, but rarely used it. Instead, he preferred to retreat almost entirely to the isolation of a cottage on the fringes of his estate. According to the correspondence of John Wilkes, work had begun in 1791 on the conversion of a small building ‘on the brink of the Ocean in the Parish St Lawrence’. By the following year, a ‘neat and elegant building’ with a slated roof and sashed windows had been completed. The house, designed with the new fashion for informality in mind, featured two spacious reception rooms on the ground floor. Its large windows and doors opened directly on to 10 acres of picturesque gardens which tumbled down to a rugged coastline. While Sea Cottage attracted curiosity, it was the property’s grounds that piqued the most interest.
Although Sir Richard had grown into an introvert over the years, he gave open expression to his personality and interests on the land surrounding his home. Like the travels of many late eighteenth-century gentlemen, Worsley’s experiences on the continent influenced the shape his property assumed. Exotic foreign vistas and the untamed elements of nature were combined and transplanted into his grounds. Inspired by the vineyards of the Mediterranean, Worsley was convinced that his parcel of land, situated on the temperate Undercliff of the Isle of Wight, was capable of supporting wine-producing grapes. In 1792, ‘three acres containing seven hundred plants’ were laid out ‘on a terrace of seven stages’ and tended to by ‘a French Vigneron’, whom the baronet had brought over from Brittany. The experiment failed to yield the desired results, but it did contribute to the overall sense of what one observer described as ‘the picturesque and romantic scenery’.
Amid the landscape of ‘bold fragments, jutting rocks, irregular lawns, a crystal rivulet, and natural groups of fine elms’ Worsley had installed several manmade features. A grotto was created over the property’s well where ‘a pillaried stream burst from its spring’ and ran ‘through the verdant lawns’ before terminating ‘in a cascade to the beach’. An ‘Elegant Grecian Temple’ to Neptune, an orangerie ‘in the design of a Temple dedicated to Virgil’, and ‘a pavilion … fitted up as a banqueting room’ decorated the view from his windows. However, none of these garden follies reveal more about the baronet’s state of mind than what he erected on the property’s periphery. After his return from Venice, Worsley gave instructions for ‘a battery of several pieces of cannon’ to be constructed ‘for protection against invasion’. As he began to sever more of his ties with the world beyond Sea Cottage, it is likely that Sir Richard was as concerned about invaders from his own country as he was about those from France.
Amid the landscape of ‘bold fragments, jutting rocks, irregular lawns, a crystal rivulet, and natural groups of fine elms’ Worsley had installed several manmade features. A grotto was created over the property’s well where ‘a pillaried stream burst from its spring’ and ran ‘through the verdant lawns’ before terminating ‘in a cascade to the beach’. An ‘Elegant Grecian Temple’ to Neptune, an orangerie ‘in the design of a Temple dedicated to Virgil’, and ‘a pavilion … fitted up as a banqueting room’ decorated the view from his windows. However, none of these garden follies reveal more about the baronet’s state of mind than what he erected on the property’s periphery. After his return from Venice, Worsley gave instructions for ‘a battery of several pieces of cannon’ to be constructed ‘for protection against invasion’. As he began to sever more of his ties with the world beyond Sea Cottage, it is likely that Sir Richard was as concerned about invaders from his own country as he was about those from France.
As Worsley had learned much to his bitterness, any action or creation associated with his name was certain to provoke fascination. According to
Bon Ton
magazine in 1794, ‘everyone would be glad to take a
peep
’ at Sir Richard Worsley’s ‘residence at the Undercliff’, especially as ‘the whole domain seems laid out for the residence of some fairy prince’. In the eighteenth century it would have been difficult for Sir Richard to have achieved a greater degree of isolation than on the sparsely populated Isle of Wight. Even behind the walls of Appuldurcombe, where Worsley had professed to ‘live in the deepest retirement’ and ‘scarcely pass the park gates’, he had begun to feel exposed. Sea Cottage, balanced virtually on the edge of England, was as far as he could withdraw from the leers and jibes which he now recognised would pursue him to his grave. As the writer M.P. Wyndham discovered, Sir Richard was unlike most country house owners in that he had no desire to open his secluded retreat to censorious busybodies. After making his way to this sequestered part of the island, Wyndham commented that he was ‘surprised … to see a painted board at the entrance, with the following words,
The Sea Cottage Is Not Shew’d
’. ‘It is remarkable,’ he continued, ‘that there should be much the same forbiddance to the house at Appuldurcombe, and even to the road through the park; for though a ticket of admittance for a particular day, is, occasionally granted by Sir Richard’s steward at Newport, yet the application for it has been known to be refused.’
Bon Ton
magazine in 1794, ‘everyone would be glad to take a
peep
’ at Sir Richard Worsley’s ‘residence at the Undercliff’, especially as ‘the whole domain seems laid out for the residence of some fairy prince’. In the eighteenth century it would have been difficult for Sir Richard to have achieved a greater degree of isolation than on the sparsely populated Isle of Wight. Even behind the walls of Appuldurcombe, where Worsley had professed to ‘live in the deepest retirement’ and ‘scarcely pass the park gates’, he had begun to feel exposed. Sea Cottage, balanced virtually on the edge of England, was as far as he could withdraw from the leers and jibes which he now recognised would pursue him to his grave. As the writer M.P. Wyndham discovered, Sir Richard was unlike most country house owners in that he had no desire to open his secluded retreat to censorious busybodies. After making his way to this sequestered part of the island, Wyndham commented that he was ‘surprised … to see a painted board at the entrance, with the following words,
The Sea Cottage Is Not Shew’d
’. ‘It is remarkable,’ he continued, ‘that there should be much the same forbiddance to the house at Appuldurcombe, and even to the road through the park; for though a ticket of admittance for a particular day, is, occasionally granted by Sir Richard’s steward at Newport, yet the application for it has been known to be refused.’
In spite of his disastrous relations with members of the opposite sex and the legal entanglements they brought, Sir Richard was never interested in
leading a chaste life of solitude. By prohibiting access to his residences Worsley was in part protecting his domestic arrangements from prying spectators. He was determined to conduct any further amorous relationships in complete secrecy. Furthermore, since the ecclesiastical establishment still regarded the Worsleys as married, any romantic affair that either party pursued was tantamount to an act of adultery, although conventional opinion was kinder to estranged husbands who kept mistresses than it was to estranged wives who took lovers. Consequently, insight into the baronet’s thoughts, desires or conquests following the trial and separation have remained shrouded in mystery, but for two poorly disguised instances.
leading a chaste life of solitude. By prohibiting access to his residences Worsley was in part protecting his domestic arrangements from prying spectators. He was determined to conduct any further amorous relationships in complete secrecy. Furthermore, since the ecclesiastical establishment still regarded the Worsleys as married, any romantic affair that either party pursued was tantamount to an act of adultery, although conventional opinion was kinder to estranged husbands who kept mistresses than it was to estranged wives who took lovers. Consequently, insight into the baronet’s thoughts, desires or conquests following the trial and separation have remained shrouded in mystery, but for two poorly disguised instances.
Perhaps adding credibility to the rumours of Sir Richard’s early associations with a number of fashionable courtesans is a document that attests to his affair with one such woman in Paris. In May 1784,
en route
from Spain to Rome, Worsley passed several months in France in the company of a lady calling herself Clara Margaretta Sophia de Auguste de Ceve de Villeneuve Solar, the Countess d’Amey. In reality, the Countess d’Amey’s claim to noble birth was complete fabrication; she was commonly known as ‘Madame Palmerini’. Sir Richard had been fully aware of her identity when she became his mistress and subsequently attempted to defraud him of 75,000
livres
. Their four-month liaison ended at the baronet’s solicitors in 1787, after the Countess d’Amey had travelled to London in an unsuccessful bid to obtain her money.
en route
from Spain to Rome, Worsley passed several months in France in the company of a lady calling herself Clara Margaretta Sophia de Auguste de Ceve de Villeneuve Solar, the Countess d’Amey. In reality, the Countess d’Amey’s claim to noble birth was complete fabrication; she was commonly known as ‘Madame Palmerini’. Sir Richard had been fully aware of her identity when she became his mistress and subsequently attempted to defraud him of 75,000
livres
. Their four-month liaison ended at the baronet’s solicitors in 1787, after the Countess d’Amey had travelled to London in an unsuccessful bid to obtain her money.
Worsley’s next relationship was concealed only slightly better. In December 1796, Lady Berwick wrote from Venice glowingly of the British Minister-Resident to her friend, Lady Bruce. She had believed that the ‘very civil’ gentleman who paid them visits and sent them ‘all the newspapers’ would have made a suitable husband for her eldest daughter, had she not learned that he kept ‘a bad woman’. ‘I am afraid,’ she wrote with gravity, that ‘she is
one very bad woman
’. The person to whom Lady Berwick referred was a self-professed widow by the name of Mrs Sarah Smith. Sarah Smith’s background and history are unknown, but she is thought to have entered Worsley’s life on his return from Italy in 1788. On legal documents she is cited as Sir Richard’s housekeeper, an eighteenth-century euphemism frequently employed to veil a relationship when a couple of unequal social status were cohabiting. Having travelled with her lover from England to Venice and braved the perilous journey by sea and land back to the Isle of Wight, Mrs Smith was undeniably a most dedicated mistress. It is hard to imagine that anything but a genuine love held the two together.
one very bad woman
’. The person to whom Lady Berwick referred was a self-professed widow by the name of Mrs Sarah Smith. Sarah Smith’s background and history are unknown, but she is thought to have entered Worsley’s life on his return from Italy in 1788. On legal documents she is cited as Sir Richard’s housekeeper, an eighteenth-century euphemism frequently employed to veil a relationship when a couple of unequal social status were cohabiting. Having travelled with her lover from England to Venice and braved the perilous journey by sea and land back to the Isle of Wight, Mrs Smith was undeniably a most dedicated mistress. It is hard to imagine that anything but a genuine love held the two together.
Although his relationship with Sarah Smith managed to withstand the adversities of the 1790s, Worsley’s finances did not fare so well. The protracted dispute surrounding his separation, and the expenses necessary to underwrite his travels and fondness for collecting, had by 1792 become a drain on the profitability of his estate. His situation was worsened still more by his hasty removal from Venice and loss of a position that had paid him a living of £600 per annum. He returned home in 1797 to a pile of bills, many of which had been outstanding since his departure four years earlier. Re-establishing himself in England involved further costs and resulted in the mortgage of several of his properties as well as a request for a £10,000 bank loan. The worst in a series of pecuniary calamities was to befall him in 1801.
By then four years had passed since Worsley had abandoned his collection of masterpieces in Fiume. As one of Napoleon’s objectives in his conquest of Italy had been the appropriation of the country’s celebrated works of art, Sir Richard’s vessel, its creaking hull loaded with booty, must have been an appealing spoil of war. After February 1801, when the defeat of Austria ceded further territories in Europe to the French, concealing the ship and its cargo would have proved even more difficult. In March, Worsley had ordered that the
Robert Pattison
, the hulk carrying his possessions, attempt to run the French blockade of the Mediterranean and sail for England. Six months later he received a letter. The vessel, which ‘had been brought into port at Malaga by a French Privateer’, had been emptied of its contents. ‘The pictures were bought up by the orders of Lucian Bonaparte on very moderate terms,’ wrote his correspondent, an agent of the British government. ‘ … All that remains at present are the antiquities which it is in my power to purchase’; the ‘original drawings of the Museum Worsleyanum and the other engravings’ he commented, ‘may also be had for a price’. In Venice, Sir Richard had purchased a number of historic manuscripts which, the agent mentioned with regret, ‘were all seized by the French Commissary’ and, with the other items, ‘forwarded to Paris’. Edward Bedingfield, the fateful letter’s author had requested that Worsley advise him on the size of ransom he wished to pay to have the remnants of his collection returned.
Robert Pattison
, the hulk carrying his possessions, attempt to run the French blockade of the Mediterranean and sail for England. Six months later he received a letter. The vessel, which ‘had been brought into port at Malaga by a French Privateer’, had been emptied of its contents. ‘The pictures were bought up by the orders of Lucian Bonaparte on very moderate terms,’ wrote his correspondent, an agent of the British government. ‘ … All that remains at present are the antiquities which it is in my power to purchase’; the ‘original drawings of the Museum Worsleyanum and the other engravings’ he commented, ‘may also be had for a price’. In Venice, Sir Richard had purchased a number of historic manuscripts which, the agent mentioned with regret, ‘were all seized by the French Commissary’ and, with the other items, ‘forwarded to Paris’. Edward Bedingfield, the fateful letter’s author had requested that Worsley advise him on the size of ransom he wished to pay to have the remnants of his collection returned.
BOOK: The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce
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