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Tough travails of a romantic aristocrat
By Maggie Scarf |
May 24, 2009, Sunday
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Print Edition
"THERE was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck," D.H. Lawrence wrote in "The Rocking-Horse Winner." "She married for love, and the love turned to dust." This was certainly true of Mary Eleanor Bowes, the subject of Wendy Moore's fast-paced, horrifying book, "Wedlock." The bright, engagingly pretty sole heiress to one of the great fortunes of Georgian England, Bowes was also naive, with a romantic, nearly fatal, soft spot for Celtic men.
Married at age 18 in 1767 to a taciturn Scotsman, John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore, Bowes was the widowed mother of five children by the age of 27. In 18th century Britain, a married woman could not own property, so Bowes' extensive holdings reverted to her husband. After his death, however, the countess found herself both wealthy and independent.
Bowes' chilly marriage had left her with a craving for affection, and even before she knew of her husband's death - the earl died at sea, on his way to sunny Portugal - she had taken a lover, George Gray, an entrepreneur who had amassed a fortune by dubious methods while employed by the East India Company.
She was two months pregnant by Gray, and engaged to marry him, when she became acquainted with a charming, handsome Irish rogue named Andrew Robinson Stoney, who managed to seduce her.
Stoney wove a spider's web of "incidents" that would entrap Bowes, the capstone of which was a sham duel, fought to defend her honor, in which he was said to have been fatally wounded. Naturally the countess granted Stoney's last wish, which was to marry him on his deathbed. And equally naturally he recovered with amazing rapidity. As the husband of the Countess of Strathmore, he now assumed the last name of Bowes - and a considerable share of her riches.
Within days, an ugly side of the sweet-talking Irishman's temperament emerged. He was prone to violent rages, particularly when he learned of a prenuptial document his wife had secretly signed, meant to protect her estate and yearly income. Soon the furious Stoney began setting rigid curbs on Bowes' every movement. An avid botanist, she was prohibited from visiting her gardens and greenhouses unless accompanied by her husband. Starved of both food and money, she became gaunt and shabbily dressed. A maid who brought Bowes a piece of chicken without her husband's permission was immediately dismissed.
A heavy drinker, an out-of-control wife-batterer and a flagrant adulterer, Stoney reigned supreme over his tormented spouse. He also tried to make Bowes sound stupid or deranged. "On occasions," Moore writes, "he would warn her to reply yes or no to any question, at other times only to say that the weather was hot or cold, and sometimes to refuse to speak at all." If she deviated from this behavior, her mate would frown threateningly and give her a pinch or a sly kick, "out of sight of his guests." Eventually, Bowes came to fear for her very life.
With the connivance of compassionate servants, she managed to flee her prison-like household and seek an ecclesiastical "separation from bed and board," citing a litany of outrages. The prenuptial agreement, which Stoney had sought in vain to find and destroy, became crucial to Bowes' divorce case.
As Moore makes clear, this was far more than one of Georgian England's greatest scandals. The long legal proceedings (which inspired Thackeray's novel "The Luck of Barry Lyndon") would eventually help to alter British marital law, then based firmly on a husband's unquestioned dominance. The case also serves as a provocative footnote to the country's modern-day aristocratic travails: the unhappy countess' third son, Thomas, the 11th Earl of Strathmore, was the great-great-grandfather of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, mother of England's current queen.
Married at age 18 in 1767 to a taciturn Scotsman, John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore, Bowes was the widowed mother of five children by the age of 27. In 18th century Britain, a married woman could not own property, so Bowes' extensive holdings reverted to her husband. After his death, however, the countess found herself both wealthy and independent.
Bowes' chilly marriage had left her with a craving for affection, and even before she knew of her husband's death - the earl died at sea, on his way to sunny Portugal - she had taken a lover, George Gray, an entrepreneur who had amassed a fortune by dubious methods while employed by the East India Company.
She was two months pregnant by Gray, and engaged to marry him, when she became acquainted with a charming, handsome Irish rogue named Andrew Robinson Stoney, who managed to seduce her.
Stoney wove a spider's web of "incidents" that would entrap Bowes, the capstone of which was a sham duel, fought to defend her honor, in which he was said to have been fatally wounded. Naturally the countess granted Stoney's last wish, which was to marry him on his deathbed. And equally naturally he recovered with amazing rapidity. As the husband of the Countess of Strathmore, he now assumed the last name of Bowes - and a considerable share of her riches.
Within days, an ugly side of the sweet-talking Irishman's temperament emerged. He was prone to violent rages, particularly when he learned of a prenuptial document his wife had secretly signed, meant to protect her estate and yearly income. Soon the furious Stoney began setting rigid curbs on Bowes' every movement. An avid botanist, she was prohibited from visiting her gardens and greenhouses unless accompanied by her husband. Starved of both food and money, she became gaunt and shabbily dressed. A maid who brought Bowes a piece of chicken without her husband's permission was immediately dismissed.
A heavy drinker, an out-of-control wife-batterer and a flagrant adulterer, Stoney reigned supreme over his tormented spouse. He also tried to make Bowes sound stupid or deranged. "On occasions," Moore writes, "he would warn her to reply yes or no to any question, at other times only to say that the weather was hot or cold, and sometimes to refuse to speak at all." If she deviated from this behavior, her mate would frown threateningly and give her a pinch or a sly kick, "out of sight of his guests." Eventually, Bowes came to fear for her very life.
With the connivance of compassionate servants, she managed to flee her prison-like household and seek an ecclesiastical "separation from bed and board," citing a litany of outrages. The prenuptial agreement, which Stoney had sought in vain to find and destroy, became crucial to Bowes' divorce case.
As Moore makes clear, this was far more than one of Georgian England's greatest scandals. The long legal proceedings (which inspired Thackeray's novel "The Luck of Barry Lyndon") would eventually help to alter British marital law, then based firmly on a husband's unquestioned dominance. The case also serves as a provocative footnote to the country's modern-day aristocratic travails: the unhappy countess' third son, Thomas, the 11th Earl of Strathmore, was the great-great-grandfather of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, mother of England's current queen.
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