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In Bed with the Georgians Page 16


  Another member of the New Female Coterie was The Honourable Catherine Newton. She had figured in a particularly infamous divorce case – a case where the lurid details of her repeated infidelities left little to the imagination. The details were published as The Trial of the Hon. Mrs. Catherine Newton, Wife of John Newton… Upon a Libel and Allegations, Charging her with the Crime of Adultery with Mr. Isham Baggs, a Young Oxonian, 1782. She was aged 16 at the time of her marriage to the 58-year-old John Newton in 1762, and the trial records show a history of her cavorting nearly-naked with a succession of stable lads, house servants and so on. Servants being servants, there were many willing to testify to the occasions when hands were seen placed on naked thighs, or that inappropriate assistance had been given when Catherine was being helped to mount her horse. House maids complained of having to re-make the beds several times each day, and there was much evidence of adjoining rooms not being locked, and of undergarments being found in inappropriate places. By the time young Master Baggs appeared on the scene Catherine’s attentions to him were so obvious that even her old goat of a husband noticed. He kicked her out and she went back to live with her father in Wells, Somerset. Before long she embarked on an amour with a Captain Ackland, and became pregnant by him. Following her very public divorce she drifted to London and became part of the circle of disgraced ladies who sought support from each other’s company.

  One other member of the coterie was the beautiful Henrietta, wife of the First Baron Grosvenor. Despite the fourteen year age difference, she had married the man within a month of their first meeting, presumably unaware of his appetite for gaming and whoring. He is generally thought to have lost some £250,000 on the horses and at the gaming tables – a vast sum of money even for the gambling-mad eighteenth century. More to the point, he was one of the most debauched characters of the time, spending his time with a constant succession of whores. This left Henrietta with the view that what was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose, and as mentioned earlier in Chapter Six, she embarked on an affair with George III’s brother, Henry, Duke of Cumberland.

  In the crim. con. trial which followed, Henrietta had tried to play down the significance of her affair by throwing as much dirt as possible at her husband, producing witness after witness from a variety of brothels across town. It worked in so far as it enthralled the readership of the newspapers which reported every word of the trial, but failed in the sense that her husband was awarded £10,000 in damages – a sum met by King George III, and hence ultimately by the British taxpayer. In the court case, Richard had sworn blind that ‘from the time of his marriage he had always behaved towards his wife with true love and affection, and did all in his power to render her completely happy, and was and is a person of a sober, chaste and virtuous life and conversation….’ Henrietta countered with tales of ‘great neglect, indifference and dis-affection’ and alleged that ‘he held a criminal conversation and adulterous intercourse with divers [sic]strange women, leading a vicious lewd and debauched life … by visiting, corresponding with, and carnally knowing … prostitutes at … houses of ill-fame and reputation.’ There were no half-way measures in this story.

  The mud-slinging produced strong moral outrage at Henrietta’s conduct (presumably the conduct of her lover and her husband was no worse than was to have been expected). She became the object of innumerable bawdy songs and faced hostility in the press. Even years later, when she publicly attended the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings, in the company of Lady Seymour Worsley, the Morning Post of 11 June 1788 commented on the irony, saying that ‘The chaster part of the female company did not seem highly satisfied with these unexpected visitors.’

  The legal separation from her husband left Henrietta with a paltry annual allowance of £1,200, and it seems that she may well have supplemented her income by ‘a spot of freelance work’ at Sarah Prendergast’s seraglio. While her husband was alive, and was unable to divorce her because of his own adultery, she remained in social limbo until his death in 1802. Within a month his widow had become married to George Porter, Sixth Baron de Hochepied, and lived quietly and out of the public eye until her death in 1828.

  THE GORGEOUS GUNNING GIRLS

  When the Duke of Hamilton married Elizabeth Gunning in 1752 he was marrying into a family which had had been very much in the public eye for over three years. She was one of the two Gunning sisters who had captivated London society.

  The Gunnings, Elizabeth and Maria, deserve a mention, not because they did anything scandalous, but because their story illustrates several important threads – the manipulation of the Press, the insatiable appetite for news of glamour and beauty, and the tragic consequences which often followed as a result of being a dedicated follower of fashion.

  The sisters were born around 1730 into a well-connected but impoverished family which had moved to Ireland while the girls were still young. They may well have spent time in the Dublin theatres, which would explain why, when a ball was held in Dublin Castle in 1748 and hosted by Viscountess Petersham, they turned up wearing borrowed theatrical costumes. One went as Juliet, the other as Lady Macbeth. Thus attired they were introduced to the Earl of Harrington, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. They appear to have made quite an impression on him, and their mother persuaded the Earl to provide her with a small pension – enough for her to pay for her to travel back to England with her two girls. She was clearly determined to propel her daughters into successful marriages, come what may, and when they arrived at their original home in Huntingdon she set about ensuring not just that the girls were seen at all the balls and social occasions, but that the local papers reported on the events and commented upon the beauty of her daughters.

  By modern standards their looks may not seem anything special – but in the 1750s there was no doubting that their looks were considered sensational. Their fame built up to the extent that news of their beauty reached London – well-planned and wellpublicised walks at Ranelagh Gardens ensured that by the time they were presented at the Court of St James on 2 December 1750 they were already famous. Reports in the Press suggest that the courtiers were standing on their chairs trying to catch a glimpse of them through the throng of admirers.

  Horace Walpole took up the story of Elizabeth, the younger of the two sisters:

  The Duke of Hamilton, hot, debauched, extravagant … fell in love with the youngest at a masquerade. At my Lord Chesterfield’s house, the Duke of Hamilton made violent love at one end of the room, while he was playing at pharaoh at the other end; that is, he saw neither the bank nor his own cards, which were of three hundred pounds each: he soon lost a thousand. I own I was so little a professor in love that I thought all this parade looked ill for the poor girl; and could not conceive, if he was so much engaged with his mistress as to disregard such sums, why he played at all. However, two nights afterwards, being left alone with her while her mother and sister were at Bedford House, he found himself so impatient, that he sent for a parson. The doctor refused to perform the ceremony without license or ring: the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop—at last they were married with a ring of the bed-curtain, at half an hour after twelve at night, at Mayfair chapel.

  No licence was needed for the clandestine wedding in the Chapel; the date was 14 February 1752, which must have made it a Valentine’s Day surprise for the bride, as well as for her mother and sister. She was now a Duchess. Her husband died in 1758 and shortly afterwards she re-married, to John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne. He became Duke of Argyll in 1770, thereby making Elizabeth a duchess twice over. She was a great favourite at Court, and in time George II awarded her the title of Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon in her own right. She bore her first husband three children, and her second one five, and died in 1790, her reputation untarnished in any way.

  Her elder sister Maria was not quite so lucky in love. It started well enough – in 1752 she became a Countess by virtue of marrying the Sixth Earl of Coventry. The newly-weds travelled to Paris, but Maria felt unco
mfortable there because she could not speak French. To add to her woes, her husband forbade her to wear rouge (then highly fashionable in France) and he publicly tried to wipe it off her face when she arrived at dinner wearing heavy make-up. When the couple eventually returned to England she was repeatedly mobbed whenever she appeared in public. Meanwhile her husband took up with one of the most famous courtesans of the day – Kitty Fisher. Once, while riding in Hyde Park, wife and mistress bumped into each other. An eyewitness by the name of Guistiniana Wynne reported:

  …. Lady Coventry politely asked Kitty the name of the dressmaker who had made her dress. Kitty Fisher answered that Maria had better ask her own husband as he had given her the dress as a gift. The altercation continued with Lady Coventry calling her an impertinent woman, and Kitty replying that she would have to accept this insult because although Maria became her ‘social superior’ on marrying Lord Coventry, she was going to marry a Lord herself just to be able to answer back.

  Poor Maria only lived a few more years; she died in 1760. She should have listened to her husband’s advice about wearing make-up, but she did not, and paid the price for slathering on too much lead-based face powder. The skin eruptions caused by the lead meant even thicker amounts of ‘paint’ were applied, leading in time to blood poisoning and death at the age of 28. In the end, the vanity which had propelled her to the top of the social ladder caused her early death. As ever, beauty was not even skin deep.

  LADY ANNE FOLEY

  Lady Anne Foley was the third daughter of Maria Gunning and she was to hit the scandal sheets, in a way that would have horrified her mother, after her adulterous relationship with the Earl of Peterborough.

  Losing her mother when she was 3 years old may have helped her wayward behaviour; being ‘groomed’ by a family friend called George Selwyn who was described at the time as ‘singular’ – a euphemism for an eccentric creep and very possibly a paedophile – may have made her worse. Whatever the reason, Lady Anne Coventry was never going to be happy with just one man in her life. In October 1778 she married. Her husband Edward Foley was the second son of a newly created baron. They appear to have had residences at numerous addresses including the family seat at Stroke Court in Herefordshire, at Weymouth Street, and at Somerset Street in the parish of Marylebone, and at various addresses on the South coast including Weymouth, Hastings and Brighton. His family were wealthy but his ability to spend money at the card tables far exceeded his assets. His wife felt neglected by her husband and sought out those who would offer rather more physical attention to her needs. On the occasions when she and her husband were at different addresses she does not appear to have been short of a bed companion. When she gave birth to a child, exactly nine months after the wedding, others might have assumed that Edward was the father, but she allegedly wrote to the Honourable Richard FitzPatrick saying ‘Dear Richard, I give you joy. I have just made you the father of a beautiful boy…P.S. This is not a circular.’ This might suggest that she was well aware that she already had a reputation for promiscuous behaviour.

  No further mention is made of the infant, who appears not to have survived childhood. In 1781 she was introduced to the Right Honourable Charles Henry, Earl of Peterborough, by her brother Lord Deerhurst. The pair quickly became intimate – or as the subsequent divorce proceedings put it:

  …she the Right Honourable Lady Ann Foley being of a wicked and lustful disposition, wholly unmindful of her conjugal vow; and not having the fear of God in her eye did…. carry on a lewd and adulterous correspondence with the said Lord Peterborough, in divers places, and on many occasions committed the foul crime of adultery with him.

  At first Foley seemed oblivious to the affair but eventually decided that he could make a few bob out of the relationship, and sued for damages in crim. con. He only needed to prove one instance of adultery – ‘the affair in the shrubbery’ – but it was sufficient for him to win damages of £2,500 against Lord Peterborough. But when Foley then sued for divorce, he asserted various other occasions of adultery, including ‘the amour at the oak tree’ (where Ann was observed being rogered by the randy Earl of Peterborough while leaning up against the trunk of a convenient oak tree) the ‘affair on the heath’ (she did like her pleasures en plein aire!) and ‘the case of the rocking carriage’ (where it was noted that the carriage, although standing on the same spot, was observed to be in motion for upwards of an hour, in circumstances where servants were able to identify the occupants). Not only were the allegations sensational, but Foley ensured that they got maximum publicity by setting out all the lurid details in a well-received pamphlet. The case became a cause célèbre and the entire evidence heard at the trial at Doctor’s Commons was published in a book. The preface included images of the oak tree incident, the frolic on the heath, and the rocking carriage just in case the public needed to get the picture more clearly.

  The DRIVING SCENE.

  The OAK TREE SCENE.

  The FURZE BUSH SCENE.

  An example of the lurid detail appears from the following trial extract:

  …they walked together about fifty yards from where the carriage stood and then the said Right Honourable Lady Ann Foley laid herself down upon the grass, near some gorse, and then the said Lord Peterborough unbuttoned his breeches, and pulled up her petticoats, and laid down upon her; and they then and there had the carnal use and knowledge of each other’s bodies, and thereby the said Right Honourable Lady Ann Foley committed the foul crime of adultery; and they continued on the ground together about ten minutes, during all which time they were plainly seen and observed….

  Added humiliation was heaped on the parties when both Houses of Parliament discussed the affair before agreeing to the divorce.

  Poor Anne: the Earl of Peterborough chose not to marry her, and he went away to lick his wounds and to stump up the £2,500. Anne did not remain single for long – she married an officer in the Fifteenth Hussars called Samuel Wright, went to live in Nottingham, and disappeared from public view.

  She was not the only child of the gorgeous Gunning girls to attract the attention of Grub Street – her cousin Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Derby, was equally news-worthy.

  ELIZABETH, COUNTESS OF DERBY – a truly scandalous affair, because she left him.

  Lady Betty Hamilton, daughter of Elizabeth Gunning and the Sixth Duke of Hamilton, had married the Twelfth Earl of Derby in 1774, and went on to give birth to three children. She was for a while one of the great arbiters of fashion, a style icon paired with the Duchess of Devonshire. But five years into her marriage she did the unimaginable – she embarked on a very public affair with the Third Duke of Dorset. Not only were the couple indiscreet, but she eventually walked out on her husband. Such brazen behaviour was unforgivable in the eyes of polite society.

  The Duke was a well-known philanderer. On the plus side, he was a cricket-playing fanatic, which compared with the more typically aristocratic pursuit of horse racing was almost benign. He supported his own team, at a cost of a mere £3,000 a year (excluding what he spent on betting). On the other hand he had numerous affairs, besides the one with the Countess of Derby. One affair was with the Venetian ballerina Giovanna Zanerini who performed under the stage name of Giovanna Baccelli. She accompanied him openly when he went to Paris as the British Ambassador to France. He also had an affair with Elizabeth Forster. She eventually went on to become a great friend of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, openly living in a ménage à trois with the Duke and Duchess and eventually succeeding Georgiana to the title of Duchess of Devonshire in 1809, three years after Georgiana died.

  But it was the Duke of Dorset’s affair with Elizabeth, Countess of Derby which scandalised society. When the Earl of Derby made no attempt to divorce his wife, the Duke lost interest in her. No-one thought any the less of him for his wayward ways – indeed he was even able to resume his friendship with the Earl of Derby once the affair had come to an end. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was forced to escape to the continent to avoid t
he opprobrium that followed, only returning once her husband’s infatuation with the actress Elizabeth Farren became very public knowledge. The Countess eventually died aged 44, leaving the diminutive Earl of Derby to marry his actress lover just two months later.

  ELIZABETH FARREN – an actress of many parts.

  So, what of Miss Farren? She was the exception that proved the rule – not all actresses were prostitutes, just as not all prostitutes strutted their stuff on the stage. She was the daughter of a drunken surgeon-cum-apothecary from Cork, who had leanings towards the theatre. When he died, his widow was penniless and she returned to her home town of Liverpool with the young Elizabeth and her two sisters in tow. Mother and daughters appeared on the stage, and by the time she was 15, Elizabeth was showing enough promise to be employed at the theatre in Liverpool. In 1776 she moved to London where her attractive, slender figure, blue eyes, and fine manners gained her many admirers. She was especially well received for her portrayal of Miss Tittup in David Garrick’s farce Bon Ton or High Life above Stairs. All went swimmingly for a year or two. She attracted a large male following including the likes of Charles James Fox, who very publicly lusted after her, until 11 July 1778 when she played Nancy Lovel in Colman’s Suicide. This was a ‘breeches’ part, and Fox, in company of many other males, was rather looking forward to seeing her in tight trousers. It was after all, a time when the theatre was much like the modern pantomime with its principal boy, played by a girl, contrasting with the man playing a fat and florid female in a voluminous dress (think Widow Twankey). But horror of horrors, Miss Farren did not have the legs for the part! Or more accurately, she had a backside which positively drooped and Fox was vociferous in his disappointment. Her derriere was a disaster. No matter that the poor girl was magnificent as Miss Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer or that her Hermione was second to none – she would henceforth be remembered for her saggy posterior. In practice she managed very well without Fox’s approbation, and although her name was linked romantically with other actors, notably John Palmer, she remained chaste as well as chased.