The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce (21 page)
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Authors: Hallie Rubenhold
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BOOK: The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce
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For those who found this sort of mocking too vulgar,
The Maidstone Bath, or The Modern Susanna
offered a more aesthetic alternative. Its anonymous author wanted to create a realistic picture of the transactions at the bathhouse, drawing on two well-known ancient stories. The Susanna to which
the title refers was a Babylonian maiden, who after being spied in her bath by two elders was forced to submit to their lust, while the inscription,
Candaules Invenit
, which appears along the side of the image, ties the players to the drama of King Candaules who opened the door to his destruction by inviting his servant Gyges to admire his naked wife. From behind the wall of the bathhouse, this contemporary Candaules assists his friend to a porthole where he can gaze on Lady Worsley, a Susanna, modestly posed like the Venus di Medici, standing in a plunge pool.
The Maidstone Bath, or The Modern Susanna
offered a more aesthetic alternative. Its anonymous author wanted to create a realistic picture of the transactions at the bathhouse, drawing on two well-known ancient stories. The Susanna to which
the title refers was a Babylonian maiden, who after being spied in her bath by two elders was forced to submit to their lust, while the inscription,
Candaules Invenit
, which appears along the side of the image, ties the players to the drama of King Candaules who opened the door to his destruction by inviting his servant Gyges to admire his naked wife. From behind the wall of the bathhouse, this contemporary Candaules assists his friend to a porthole where he can gaze on Lady Worsley, a Susanna, modestly posed like the Venus di Medici, standing in a plunge pool.
The most iconic of these bathhouse pictures was created by the young cartoonist, James Gillray.
Sir Richard Worse-than-sly Exposing his Wife’s Bottom; O fye!
presents the same arrangement of characters and setting; Sir Richard squats down outside the building while Bisset, in a conquering pose stands on his back.
5
Inside, a completely naked Lady Worsley is tended by Mary Marriott. Here, Seymour says nothing but coyly exchanges glances with her lascivious spectator, as her husband helps him to the view. ‘My Yoke is Easy and my Burden Light,’ Worsley says, while Bisset, playing the militia captain reports to his commander, ‘Charming View of the Back Settlements Sir Richard.’ Only Mary Marriott, in accordance with her trial statement, appears startled. ‘Good lack!’ she exclaims, waving her hand in the air, ‘My Lady the Captain will see all for Nothing.’ But the three parties are too preoccupied with indulging their whims to take much notice.
Sir Richard Worse-than-sly Exposing his Wife’s Bottom; O fye!
presents the same arrangement of characters and setting; Sir Richard squats down outside the building while Bisset, in a conquering pose stands on his back.
5
Inside, a completely naked Lady Worsley is tended by Mary Marriott. Here, Seymour says nothing but coyly exchanges glances with her lascivious spectator, as her husband helps him to the view. ‘My Yoke is Easy and my Burden Light,’ Worsley says, while Bisset, playing the militia captain reports to his commander, ‘Charming View of the Back Settlements Sir Richard.’ Only Mary Marriott, in accordance with her trial statement, appears startled. ‘Good lack!’ she exclaims, waving her hand in the air, ‘My Lady the Captain will see all for Nothing.’ But the three parties are too preoccupied with indulging their whims to take much notice.
Bribery was the accepted way of silencing the printing presses, but if Worsley attempted to take such measures there is no indication that he was successful. According to historian Vic Gatrell, in the face of such a barrage it was traditional for those subjected to the engraver’s mockery to ‘maintain a contemptuous silence rather than to stoop to challenge gutter products’. Outwardly they might express only fleeting disdain. Those such as politicians who were more accustomed to lampooning readily shrugged off the images as jests, or, as William Pitt deemed them, ‘the harmless popguns of a free press’. But for individuals like Sir Richard Worsley, who found themselves attacked for their personal failures rather than their political ideologies, the assaults from the printing presses could be genuinely wounding. As the fashionable classes were slaves to vanity, gossip and
scandal could be lethal weapons in bringing down a reputation. No punishment was dreaded more than public demolition of one’s character. Relentless satirisation drove men like William Cobbett and Richard Payne Knight to despondency. Goldsmith expressed the fear of many who sat in the expensive theatre boxes when his character Charles Marlow in
She Stoops to Conquer
trembled at the thought of being ‘laughed at all over the whole town’ and being ‘stuck up in caricatura in all the print shops …’ Featuring in the print seller’s window was tantamount to appearing in the public stockades. For one accustomed to respect and deference, there could not be a more humbling experience.
scandal could be lethal weapons in bringing down a reputation. No punishment was dreaded more than public demolition of one’s character. Relentless satirisation drove men like William Cobbett and Richard Payne Knight to despondency. Goldsmith expressed the fear of many who sat in the expensive theatre boxes when his character Charles Marlow in
She Stoops to Conquer
trembled at the thought of being ‘laughed at all over the whole town’ and being ‘stuck up in caricatura in all the print shops …’ Featuring in the print seller’s window was tantamount to appearing in the public stockades. For one accustomed to respect and deference, there could not be a more humbling experience.
Worsley’s ruin occurred on a number of levels. The trial and its revelations exposed his weaknesses, the press and the print shops then disseminated them. Their writings and engravings helping to consolidate all of Georgian England’s assumptions and prejudices about men of Worsley’s position and about Sir Richard as an individual. They universally condemned him as an arrogant fool but also as something much worse. Among the most shocking revelations to emerge from
Worsley
v.
Bisset
were the acutely mortifying details of Sir Richard’s irregular sexuality. What became apparent to all of society was that the baronet was a voyeur.
Worsley
v.
Bisset
were the acutely mortifying details of Sir Richard’s irregular sexuality. What became apparent to all of society was that the baronet was a voyeur.
On its own, voyeurism offered no great offence to eighteenth-century sensibilities. ‘Keeking’ or secretly spectating on the sexual act or on unclothed women, while not encouraged, had a place within the spectrum of ordinary erotic experience. Exposure to the human body in unexpected and accidental circumstances was common. A general lack of physical privacy and a greater acceptance of bodily functions meant that one was likely to encounter uncovered flesh on a fairly regular basis. Before the widespread introduction of reliable indoor plumbing this might include frequent sightings of men and women urinating, defecating and washing on street corners, in alleys, in streams, pools, gardens and hedgerows. Neither the rich nor the poor had complete privacy. Servants were constantly moving through the rooms of their masters, while the poor bunked together or huddled into close living quarters. Under these conditions sexual pleasure had to be taken without concern about its visibility. Lovers of all classes copulated in corners, behind buildings, against trees and in the camouflage of the undergrowth. Prostitutes pleasured clients in shared beds, married couples made love behind curtained mattresses from which their children, parents or household staff might hear their sighs. Country dwellers stumbled across courting couples in the fields
while Londoners cavorted in the metropolis’s parks and pleasure gardens. These sights were so common that they were likely to be most of the population’s first exposure to sex. In adulthood these experiences might take on voyeuristic dimensions as they often did in the era’s erotic literature and art. The majority of the eighteenth century’s most infamous works, including
Fanny Hill
,
A Dialogue between a Married Lady and a Maid
, and
Venus in the Cloister
incorporate at least one incident of voyeurism, where a couple or an individual are unwittingly observed by a third party. Engravings, usually created to accompany salacious publications, are also replete with images of the voyeur. Clergymen peek through grates at scenes of carnality in
Histoire de Dom B——
as bawds; Roman gods and putti observe the rutting taking place in the popular sex manual,
Aretino’s Postures.
while Londoners cavorted in the metropolis’s parks and pleasure gardens. These sights were so common that they were likely to be most of the population’s first exposure to sex. In adulthood these experiences might take on voyeuristic dimensions as they often did in the era’s erotic literature and art. The majority of the eighteenth century’s most infamous works, including
Fanny Hill
,
A Dialogue between a Married Lady and a Maid
, and
Venus in the Cloister
incorporate at least one incident of voyeurism, where a couple or an individual are unwittingly observed by a third party. Engravings, usually created to accompany salacious publications, are also replete with images of the voyeur. Clergymen peek through grates at scenes of carnality in
Histoire de Dom B——
as bawds; Roman gods and putti observe the rutting taking place in the popular sex manual,
Aretino’s Postures.
While voyeurism in itself may not have been considered deviant, using one’s wife for the sport was. It contravened not only the traditional morality that governed married sexual behaviour and notions of female modesty, but also the dictates of common sense. As one moralist wrote, the deliberate exposure of a woman’s body was ‘an unpardonable crime … an offence against nature’ and should a man subject his spouse to the gaze of another ‘many inconveniences may arise from it’; not least, as the fabled King Candaules learned, a wife’s ‘wish for vengeance against such ill treatment’. Even to those willing to wink at the indiscretions of voyeurism, Sir Richard’s fetishistic interests would be considered a shameful abnormality and a step too far.
Worsley’s secret would have been acknowledged only among his most intimate companions, gentlemen such as Lord Deerhurst and George Bisset who were honour bound to maintain their silence. However, after the sensational verdict revealed his foibles to the public, stories otherwise safeguarded began to circulate. In the months following the trial the popular press regaled readers with additional incidents said to have been whispered about town. Sir Richard’s practice of displaying his wife was rumoured to have begun shortly after marriage. Worsley’s vanity was cited as the root of his undoing. For a short period and much to the groom’s conceit, their union of wealth, youth and attractiveness had been the subject of fashionable society’s admiration. Sir Richard, it was claimed, ‘was not a little pleased at the
fancied envy
which he supposed himself the object of’ and as a result ‘never seemed so well pleased as when he could introduce his friends to a participation of his happiness’. The first opportunity for this arose during the winter of 1776 when Worsley hosted a hunting party at Appuldurcombe.
The baronet was said to have enticed his guests with the promise of ‘a sight of the most beautiful woman in the world’ before ‘taking them to a glass door that communicated from his study to her ladyship’s dressing room’. There ‘while the unsuspecting beauty was disrobing [he] presented them with a
side glance
of the toilet’.
fancied envy
which he supposed himself the object of’ and as a result ‘never seemed so well pleased as when he could introduce his friends to a participation of his happiness’. The first opportunity for this arose during the winter of 1776 when Worsley hosted a hunting party at Appuldurcombe.
The baronet was said to have enticed his guests with the promise of ‘a sight of the most beautiful woman in the world’ before ‘taking them to a glass door that communicated from his study to her ladyship’s dressing room’. There ‘while the unsuspecting beauty was disrobing [he] presented them with a
side glance
of the toilet’.
Like the situation that Deerhurst had described in his testimony, it was alleged that these sorts of ‘presentations’ were commonplace entertainments for Worsley’s friends. A similar viewing was said to have been staged for Lord Cholmondeley, who at the time was already involved with Sir Richard’s wife. The spectacle was believed to have been the result of a wager. Cholmondeley, noted for his extensive knowledge of the female form, was invited by Worsley to examine his wife’s naked body and to judge for himself whether she was not one of ‘the finest proportioned women in Europe’. According to the author of
The Memoirs of Sir Finical Whimsy
, it was unknown to Cholmondeley that the baronet ‘had communicated the whim to his lady’, who prepared to titillate both her lover and her husband with an exhibition of her flesh. Under the direction of Sir Richard, Seymour was to disrobe, wash and then dress herself with deliberate slowness. Rather than performing this usual morning routine in her dressing room, she was to move to the parlour where Worsley and Cholmondeley could observe her from behind a sham door disguised as a bookcase. Together, Sir Richard and his guest squeezed into the aperture and awaited the peep-show. Lady Worsley did not disappoint them. In order to give ‘the umpire a fair opportunity of making an impartial decision’ she ‘displayed herself in the several postures, which the nicest virtuoso could have required: first sitting in front of the book case to draw on her stockings, and then setting her foot on the chair with her back the same way to tie on her garters’. It was purported that after the performance, and much to Worsley’s satisfaction, Cholmondeley was forced to ‘confess his wager lost’.
The Memoirs of Sir Finical Whimsy
, it was unknown to Cholmondeley that the baronet ‘had communicated the whim to his lady’, who prepared to titillate both her lover and her husband with an exhibition of her flesh. Under the direction of Sir Richard, Seymour was to disrobe, wash and then dress herself with deliberate slowness. Rather than performing this usual morning routine in her dressing room, she was to move to the parlour where Worsley and Cholmondeley could observe her from behind a sham door disguised as a bookcase. Together, Sir Richard and his guest squeezed into the aperture and awaited the peep-show. Lady Worsley did not disappoint them. In order to give ‘the umpire a fair opportunity of making an impartial decision’ she ‘displayed herself in the several postures, which the nicest virtuoso could have required: first sitting in front of the book case to draw on her stockings, and then setting her foot on the chair with her back the same way to tie on her garters’. It was purported that after the performance, and much to Worsley’s satisfaction, Cholmondeley was forced to ‘confess his wager lost’.
As this distasteful aspect of the baronet’s personality came into sharper focus it opened the door to further conclusions about his character. To many, his voyeuristic habits were to be expected from someone so interested in artistic connoisseurship and collecting. Sir Richard defined himself as part of the cognoscenti; the intellectual elite. He allied himself with scholars of the classical world as well as acknowledged arbiters of taste, men who immersed themselves in the detailed study of artistic beauty, who debated its principles and dissected its components. In its pursuit, they ogled the
round bottoms and firm breasts of marble Venuses, admired prostrate goddesses spread naked in bucolic landscapes, stared at disrobing Susannas, bathing Dianas and seductive Europas. However, as true connoisseurs they aspired to be unmoved by these shows of classical flesh. In the practice of evaluating beauty, they prided themselves on their dispassionate stoicism and strove to unplug their animal reactions. It was a type of behaviour that many critics believed to have a detrimental effect on a man’s sexuality. A connoisseur’s ‘dry aestheticism,’ John Brewer explains, appeared ‘to undermine his virility’. In relying exclusively on his gaze, the connoisseur ‘risked becoming merely a passive spectator in the thrall of feminine beauty’. It was argued that ‘looking took the place of anything more active’.
round bottoms and firm breasts of marble Venuses, admired prostrate goddesses spread naked in bucolic landscapes, stared at disrobing Susannas, bathing Dianas and seductive Europas. However, as true connoisseurs they aspired to be unmoved by these shows of classical flesh. In the practice of evaluating beauty, they prided themselves on their dispassionate stoicism and strove to unplug their animal reactions. It was a type of behaviour that many critics believed to have a detrimental effect on a man’s sexuality. A connoisseur’s ‘dry aestheticism,’ John Brewer explains, appeared ‘to undermine his virility’. In relying exclusively on his gaze, the connoisseur ‘risked becoming merely a passive spectator in the thrall of feminine beauty’. It was argued that ‘looking took the place of anything more active’.
This could be a genuine problem where the connoisseur’s wife was concerned, particularly as these men frequently ‘failed to distinguish between canvas and flesh and blood’. According to the moralist, Hannah More, the connoisseur had an unfortunate habit of regarding his wife as merely another valuable object for display. As he might with an antique urn or a painting, he delighted in sharing her beauties with his associates, permitting her to ‘escape to the exhibition room’ where she could be shown as if she were not ‘private property’. Just as Sir Richard Worsley had, his good friend and fellow antiquarian Sir William Hamilton fell into this trap. Renowned for his collection of art and artefacts, Hamilton also acquired an exceptionally beautiful mistress, Emma Hart who later became his wife. Emma, described by William Beckford as ‘a breathing statue’, was regularly placed on display at the collector’s villa in Naples. Hamilton would invite his guests to a spectacle where his mistress, through an artful use of shawls, expressions and postures transformed herself into classical goddesses and heroines. Hamilton, so pleased with his animate
objet d’art
eventually created an appropriate display case for her, consisting of ‘a chest … its front … taken off, the interior painted black and the whole set inside a splendid gilt frame … large enough to hold a standing human figure’. Given her exposure, it came as no surprise to anyone when, like Worsley, Hamilton became a willing participant in his own cuckolding by his friend, Admiral Lord Nelson.
objet d’art
eventually created an appropriate display case for her, consisting of ‘a chest … its front … taken off, the interior painted black and the whole set inside a splendid gilt frame … large enough to hold a standing human figure’. Given her exposure, it came as no surprise to anyone when, like Worsley, Hamilton became a willing participant in his own cuckolding by his friend, Admiral Lord Nelson.
These and similar incidents demonstrated to the eighteenth-century public that connoisseurship emasculated men. It detached them from the practical world and enslaved them to beauty. Overawed by women, they were incapable of discharging their masculine roles and performing sexually. As Thomas Rowlandson presented them in his cartoons
The Collectors
and
The
Cunnyseurs
, these were impotent fetishists, only able to admire and observe but not to please. The connoisseur may be a learned man, but he is also a confused buffoon, unable to grasp or admit that he delights in the unclothed female body. Worsley’s identity as a member of the cognoscenti when coupled with his behaviour at the Maidstone bath instantly qualified him to be counted among these feeble and sexually dysfunctional specimens of masculinity. Accordingly, the lampoonists who attacked him embellished their depictions with references to his deficiencies. As Sir Richard treats Bisset to a view of his naked wife, the creator of
The Maidstone Bath, or The Modern Susanna
has strategically positioned a water spout shaped like a drooping penis at the height of the cuckold’s crotch. The artist behind
A Bath of the Moderns
is even more explicit. By including the caption ‘Lately discovered at Maidstone, by Sir Cuckledome Worse-Sly, Fellow of the Society of Antiqueerones’, he draws a direct correlation between the ‘queer’ or sexually base activities of the Society of Antiquarians to which Worsley belonged and the behaviour of one of its Fellows.
The Collectors
and
The
Cunnyseurs
, these were impotent fetishists, only able to admire and observe but not to please. The connoisseur may be a learned man, but he is also a confused buffoon, unable to grasp or admit that he delights in the unclothed female body. Worsley’s identity as a member of the cognoscenti when coupled with his behaviour at the Maidstone bath instantly qualified him to be counted among these feeble and sexually dysfunctional specimens of masculinity. Accordingly, the lampoonists who attacked him embellished their depictions with references to his deficiencies. As Sir Richard treats Bisset to a view of his naked wife, the creator of
The Maidstone Bath, or The Modern Susanna
has strategically positioned a water spout shaped like a drooping penis at the height of the cuckold’s crotch. The artist behind
A Bath of the Moderns
is even more explicit. By including the caption ‘Lately discovered at Maidstone, by Sir Cuckledome Worse-Sly, Fellow of the Society of Antiqueerones’, he draws a direct correlation between the ‘queer’ or sexually base activities of the Society of Antiquarians to which Worsley belonged and the behaviour of one of its Fellows.
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