Wedlock (60 page)

33
Morning Post
, 13 October 1788, SPWB Album.

34
Thomas Colpitts junior to Mary Morgan, 16 October 1787: SPG, box 185, bundle 3; James Smith to MM, 20 February 1788: DCRO SEA D/St/C2/11/22.

35
MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 17 December 1787: SPG, volume C.

36
Several sources, including Arnold, pp. 146-7, state that Anna was living with her mother in Fludyer Street when she eloped. She was actually living with Mrs Parish at that address as documented by rate books, letters from Mrs Parish and newspaper reports. Parish rates books, St Margaret’s Church, CWAC, 1786 re Fludyer Street; various letters Elizabeth Parish to Thomas Lyon: SPG, box 99, bundle 2;
London Evening Post
, 29 January 1788 and
Newcastle Journal
, 2 February 1788: BM Album. The eventual marriage settlement is cited in Invoice signed J. Ord, paying first instalment of marriage settlement of July 1789 to Henry James Jessop, 29 December 1789: SPG , box 99, bundle 3.

37
Full details of the hearing in the Court of Common Pleas are published in anon,
A full and accurate report of the trial
, which went to three editions in 1788.

38
Gentleman’s Magazine
, 58 (1788), p. 459.

39
Doggett, p. 101.

40
William Watson to Frances Bennett, 24 June 1788: SPG , box 185, bundle 1.

41
Farrer.

42
The Times
, 16 and 22 December, 1788; Rowe, p. 61.

43
Duncan,
passim
; Stone (1995), p. 183;
Reports of the Commissioners of the Ecclesiastical Courts of England and Wales 1831-2
(1832). According to Stone there were eleven appeals in the thirty years in the mid-eighteenth century while the commissioners’ report states there were ninety-five in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century.

44
NA DEL 2/12.

45
Gentleman’s Magazine
59 (1789), p. 267.

46
The World
, 7 March 1789: SPWB Album.

47
MEB, An Epitaph, Lady Strathmore’s Miscells. Verses & Prose: SPG, vol. 335. Foot says MEB sent the poem to ARB in prison after the divorce victory. Foot, p. 147.

Background details on Newington and Southwark are taken from London County Council, vol. 25, pp. 2-19 and 81-3. MEB’s correspondence with Eliza is in Ann (Eliza) Stephens (née Planta) to MEB, 31 October, 20 and 31 December 1789, 3 January and 13 February 1790: SPG, box 185, bundle 3.

1
SPWB Album.

2
Affidavits ARB 30 January 1790 and MEB , 3 February 1790: NA DEL2/12.

3
Schedule of excommunication, 5 February 1790: NADEL 2/12.

4
Mary Morgan [on behalf of MEB ] to anon [?Lacey], 7 March 1790: SPG , box 185, bundle 3.

5
Mary Bowes to MEB, 5 March 1790, copy: BM Archives.

6
Mary Morgan [on behalf of MEB] to anon [?Lacey], 7 March 1790: SPG , box 185, bundle 3.

7
The
habeas corpus
writ is mentioned in Mary Morgan’s letter of 7 March 1790,
ibid
, and referred to in the title of a document at DCRO, ‘Brief for Lady Strathmore on a Habeas Corpus to produce the body of Mary Bowes’, her daughter, at the suit of Andrew Robinson Bowes, 1790’, which is among a number of documents currently closed at the family’s request: DCRO SEA D/St/L1/2/16. It must therefore have been served on either 6 or 7 March. However, there appears to be no trace of the writ in King’s Bench records at the NA. No record of the decision in Chancery can be found at N A either but agreement must have been reached by the time of the deed of revocation, which granted allowances for William and Mary, signed on 25 September 1790.

8
MEB to James Farrer, 25 April 1790: SPG,box 185, bundle 3.

9
Deed of revocation and appointment, 25 September 1790: DCRO SEA D/St/D13/4/32.

10
Stone (1993), pp. 35-7. Details on Shelley are from ODNB, vol. 50, p. 206. General information on child custody is from Pinchbeck and Hewitt, vol. 2, p. 370; Stone (1995), p. 173. The remark by Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay, 1 January 1794, is cited in Hill, Bridget, p. 103.

11
Hare, vol. 2, p. 172; Mrs Bland to Miss Heber, 16 February 1793, cited in Arnold, p. 159.

12
English Chronicle
, 19 May 1789: BMAlbum.

13
Wills (1995), p. 82. The Gibside household accounts were resumed in 1791.

14
Askham,
passim
; Swinburne, vol. 2, pp. 86-90; Wheatley, vol. 5, pp. 201-2. Swinburne’s comments are in Henry Swinburne to Sir T. Gascoigne, March 1791, in Wheatley, vol. 5, pp. 86-90. The earl’s activities were reported in
The Bon Ton Magazine
, 1 (1791), p. 400. The Isaac Cruikshank cartoon was ‘A Strath Spey or New Highland Reel as Danced at Seaton D-l’ (London, 29 December), described in George, vol. 6, 1784-92, no. 7741. Although no year is mentioned on the cartoon, George dates it to 1790 but the sequence of events suggests that it was a year later.

15
Gazetteer
, August and December 1791;
Star
, 24 January 1792: SPWBAlbum.

16
Venn, vol. 1, pp. 342-3. George was admitted on 9 May 1791 and Thomas on 13 December 1792.

17
MEB,‘Tomy son Bowes on his coming of age’, Miscellaneous poems of Lady Strathmore’s written since 1792: SPG, vol. 336.

18
SPWB Album.

19
Farrington, p. 261; Captain Farrer’s divorce bill,
Journal of the House of Lords
, 36 George III, vol. XL (1796), pp. 654 and 709. Captain Farrer died on board the
True Briton
on 21 May 1800 and was buried at sea. Log book
Hindostan
: BL India Office, L/MAR/B/267C.

20
The portrait hangs still in the hall of the house at St Paul’s Walden Bury.

21
Foot, pp. 142-56.

22
The Star
, 1 April 1793: SPWB Album.

23
Letter MEB, 14 April 1793, in the
True Briton
and
Hampshire Chronicle
, 18 April 1793: SPWB Album.

24
Garlick and MacIntyre, vol. 1, p. 176. MEBreferred to Mrs Ogilvy in a note in
Miscellaneous poems of Lady Strathmore’s written since 1792
: SPG, vol. 336.

25
Morning Post
, 25 December 1792.

26
Reading Mercury
,15 July 1793: SPWB Album.

27
Dale. All quotes during Mary’s time at Stourfield are from this booklet unless otherwise stated. Richard Dale was born in the year MEB arrived at Stourfield. His text was first published in
Notes and Queries
in 1876. Stourfield House later became a care home and has since been demolished although its front steps and portico remain, now serving a block of flats, with a blue plaque affixed. The area is now the Southbourne suburb of Bournemouth.

28
Dale, pp. 5-6. My thanks to Dr Donald Stevens, archivist of Priory Church Christchurch, for checking the inscription.

29
House of Lords report, 1796: SPG, volume C; Countess of Strathmore v Bowes in Brown, William, vol. 2, pp. 345-50.

30
MEB to James Farrer, 18 and 20 December 1796: SPG,box 185, bundle 3.

31
News cutting, no title, July 1798: SPWBAlbum.

32
Funeral fee book 1783-1811, Westminster Abbey, p. 157; Chester, vol. 10, pp. 463-4; Will of MEB, NA, prob/11/1374; Obituary,
Gentleman’s Magazine
70 (1800), p. 488; note in Chester, vol. 10, pp. 463-4.

33
Will of ARB : NA , prob/11/1514.

34
Cokayne, vol. 12, p. 400.

35
Mosley, vol. 3, pp. 3,281-4.

36
Hare, vol. 2, p. 181.

37
Hardy (1970); Wills, pp. 89-92.

38
Thomas married three times and died in 1846. He had an only child, Thomas, by his first wife, who died in 1834 so that his grandson, also Thomas, became the twelfth earl. Cokayne, vol. 12, p. 401.

39
Thackeray stayed at Streatlam Castle in June and July 1841 and after hearing Mary Eleanor’s story wrote to his publisher: ‘I have in my trip to the country found materials (rather a character) for a story, that I’m sure must be amusing. . .’ He began writing
The Luck of Barry Lyndon
in October 1843 and it was serialised in
Fraser’s Magazine
throughout 1844. After a pirated version was published in the US as a book in 1852 it was first published in book form in the UK in Thackeray’s
Miscellanies: Prose and Verse
in 1856 when it was renamed
The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon Esq. of the Kingdom of Ireland
. About two-thirds of the book relates imagined events before the marriage. Ray, pp. 271, 339 and 346.

Baker Baker Papers, DUL

Bowes Museum - ‘Memoranda relating to A R Bowes and the Countess of Strathmore’, cited as BMAlbum; correspondence and other material in Bowes Museum Archives

Howard Letters 1760-1816, Arundel Castle

Royal Archives, Windsor

Royal Society of Archives

St Paul’s Walden Bury Album, album of newspaper cuttings collected by MEB at St Paul’s Walden Bury

Strathmore Estate Archives, Durham County Record Office

Strathmore Papers, Glamis Castle (National Register of Scotland 885)

Anon,
The British Code of Duel, a reference to the laws of honour, and the character of gentleman
(London, 1824)

Anon,
A full and accurate report of the trial between the Reverend John Stephens, trustee to E. Bowes, commonly called Countess of Strathmore, and Andrew Robinson Stoney Bowes, Esq. her second husband, in the Court of Common Pleas, before the Right Hon. Alexander Lord Loughborough and a special jury, on Monday, May 19th, 1788
(London, 1788, third edition.)

Anon,
The Irish Register, or a list of the Duchess Dowagers, Countesses, Widow Ladies, Maiden Ladies, Widows, and Misses of large fortunes in England
(London, 1742)

Anon,
The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend
(Newcastle upon Tyne, 1887)

Anon,
A New Collection of Trials for Adultery
(London, 1799)

Anon,
Sketches of the Characters of the Hon. Thomas Erskine, and James Mingay, Esq. interspersed with anecdotes and professional strictures
(London, 1794)

Anon,
The Stoniad
(Newcastle, 1777)

Anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq. Edward Lucas, Francis Peacock, Mark Prevot, John Cummins, otherwise called Charles Chapman, William Pigg, John Bickley, Henry Bourn, and Thomas Bowes, Attorney at Law, on Wednesday, the 30th day of May, 1787 . . . for a Conspiracy against the Right Hon. Mary Eleanor Bowes, commonly called Countess of Strathmore
(London, 1787)

Anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq; first heard in the Arches Court of Doctors Commons; and, in consequence of an Appeal, determined in a Court of Delegates . . . when the Right Hon. the Countess of Strathmore obtained a divorce
(London, 1789)

Anon,
Trials for Adultery, or the history of divorces, being select trials at Doctors Commons, for adultery, fornication, cruelty, impotence,
. from the year 1760, to the present time
(London, 1779-80)

Anon,
A Turkish Tale
(London, 1770)

 

Aiton, William,
Hortus Kewensis
(London, 1789)

Allan, G. C.,
The Adelphi, Past and Present: A History and A Guide
(London, 2001)

Andrews, John,
Letters to a Young Gentleman on his Setting Out for France
(London, 1784)

Angerstein, Reinhold,
R. R., Angerstein’s Illustrated Travel Diary 1753-55
, translated by Torsten and Peter Berg (London, 2001)

Arnold, Ralph,
The Unhappy Countess and her Grandson John Bowes
(London, 1957, reprinted 1993)

Askham, Francis,
The Gay Delavals
(London, 1955)

Aspinall, Arthur,
Politics and the Press c. 1780-1850
(Brighton, 1973)

Astell, Mary,
Some Reflections upon marriage
(London, 1700)

Atkinson, Frank,
The Great Northern Coalfield 1700-1900
(Newcastle, 1966)

Atkinson, John A.,
The British Duelling Pistol
(London, 1978)

Attwater, Aubrey,
Pembroke College, Cambridge: A Short History
(Cambridge, 1936)

 

Bacon, Matthew,
A New Abridgment of the Law
(London, 1778, first pub. 1736)

Baker, J. H.,
An Introduction to English Legal History
(London, 2002)

Baldick, Robert,
The Duel: A History of Duelling
(London, 1965)