Mistress of the Elgin Marbles

by Susan Nagel

  Mary made regular trips to Edinburgh to the Nisbets’ town house on Cannongate, at Reid’s Close, within walking distance of Holyrood Palace. The house, built by a Nisbet in 1624,3 was imposing. Directly across the street lived Adam Smith, author of the capitalist’s bible, The Wealth of Nations. In town, she went to balls, and in the country, she participated in social evenings where either eight or sixteen young people would be invited to dance Scottish reels.

  By 1799, when she had just turned twenty-one, Mary Nisbet was a star in the matrimonial whirl of the London and Edinburgh social scene. Being pretty, vivacious, and very good at card games, she was an asset to anyone’s evening. She loved to dance and really enjoyed playing the pianoforte. Her impeccable pedigree and enormous fortune were additional attractions.

  In the political arena, Mary was able to count most of her cousins among the two hundred peers in the House of Lords. Her grandfather and maternal uncle were both generals. Her maternal great-uncle, Henry Pelham, had been prime minister in the 1740s to 1750s. The current duke’s younger brother, Lord Robert Manners, who would be tragically killed in the Battle of the Saintes in the Caribbean skirmish with the French, was a powerful member of Parliament—MP—as well.4

  Her financial portfolio was equally impressive. She would inherit two major estates in England (Lincolnshire) once owned by her great-grandmother Lady Lucy Sherard, the second wife of the Duke of Rutland. In 1711, the South Sea Company was established to trade with the Spanish Americas; when shares of the stock escalated in 1720 and then plunged, much like the dot-com stock fiasco of the late twentieth century, the “South Sea Bubble” ruined many unfortunate investors. Lucky Lady Lucy, who had been a shareholder but who had sold and gotten out in time without any significant loss, turned some of her capital toward real estate. Her daughter, Lucy Manners, Mary’s favorite “Aunt Bluey,” would remain childless and unmarried, leaving Mary Nisbet the properties, which included Bloxholm in Lincolnshire. From the Nisbet side of the family, the properties that Mary would inherit constituted about two-thirds of East Lothian and included Dirleton and Gullane, the estates of Pencaitland and Belhaven, once owned by her paternal grandmother, and Biel, located in Stenton Parish, which at one time was said to be the longest house in Europe. Stenton Parish, about nine square miles, was home to some 630 people in the early 1790s. In all of these towns, Mary would “have the living,” collecting handsomely from farmer tenants while she was obliged by the Poor Law and the Presbytery to provide for the poor, support the schools, and select the ministers for the local churches. East Lothian, prized today for some of the greatest golf courses in the world, was at that time considered the most luxuriant farmland in Scotland.

  If her fortune weren’t enough to incite jealousy, Mary was also beautiful and lively. She could have been a boring, perfect, and dull young noblewoman, but she was not: she was screamingly funny. Mary was so comfortable with the rules that compliance was natural and no great burden; but this well-raised young lady knew how to have a good time. She was modern, outrageous, and irreverent—bringing fresh air into the stuffy drawing rooms of London and Edinburgh. Because of her engaging personality she was popular, in demand, the “it” girl of the day, and she had so many suitors to choose from that her Aunt Mary teased her about how difficult it must be to have so many boyfriends.

  Mary genuinely enjoyed society and was in no rush to get married. She was most definitely a daddy’s girl and understood that her fortune and family position were serious factors in any union she might consider. Besides, most of the men she knew were no match for her father—until Thomas Bruce came courting.

  Chapter 2

  NEW HORIZONS

  Most girls of Mary’s status—and certainly with her fortune and family connections—would have taken the stylish Grand Tour of the Continent to complete their education as young women. There are no records, however, of her having done so—and with good reason. There was an unpredictable and uncontrollable power holding most of the Continent hostage. For a young Englishwoman, it was not a safe time to travel abroad.

  For much of the 1790s, England lived in fear of invasion by Napoleon. By early 1798, he had already marched through Italy and Switzerland and had captured Vienna. The incomparable English Navy, with billowing sails snapping open like protective umbrellas, patrolled the Channel, poised for battle. In addressing the fate of England, however, Napoleon’s genius became apparent when, instead of invading the mainland, he decided to cripple England by cutting off her sea route to the East, thereby eliminating a great source of her riches.

  In May 1798, Napoleon commanded four hundred ships covering four square miles sailing south on the Mediterranean, their towering masts painting an ominous portrait on the horizon as they rolled on like a caravan of camels across the desert. Fifty-five thousand men, more than one thousand cannon, field artillery, and horses were on board as the ships plowed through the stormy seas en route to Egypt. Napoleon’s ship, L’Orient, had 120 guns and weighed over two thousand tons. At first, Napoleon’s armada seemed invincible. The French gained Malta. They marched through Alexandria, on to Rosetta, and triumphed in the Battle of the Pyramids. Napoleon’s conquest of Alexandria, ruled by Mameluke warriors who reported to the great sultan of the Ottoman Empire, destroyed a 350-year alliance between the Sublime Porte (Turkey) and France.1

  In the summer of 1798, British Admiral Horatio Nelson, turning forty, one eyed, one armed, and a veteran sailor since his early teens, traversed the seas in search of Napoleon. He arrived on the Greek islands in pursuit but could not find the general and his forces. He sailed on to Palestine and back toward Italy. One lucky day, Nelson captured a French corvette, interrogated the crew, and learned of Napoleon’s whereabouts. Nelson diverted the English navy to Aboukir Bay where, in a night attack, the bay became incandescent. L’Orient went up in flames, and the detonated gunpowder was heard forty miles away. Nelson crippled the French fleet, gaining Egypt, Malta, and the gratitude of the sultan of the Sublime Porte. The Battle of the Nile, which took place at Aboukir Bay and not on the Nile, made Nelson a hero, and Napoleon’s resolve to topple the British became an obsession as he retreated into Egypt.

  Like a caged animal, Napoleon was held captive and could not escape by sea; instead, he marched through the Suez peninsula, harassing Selim’s subjects and Turkish soldiers in his path. Nine months later, in May 1799, the brash and romantic figure Sir Sidney Smith attacked Napoleon on the coast of Israel at Acre, causing another stupendous loss for the French. General Koehler, a seasoned British commander, led the ground forces along with thousands of Turkish warriors. In August 1799, Napoleon began a two-month cat-and-mouse retreat until he finally reached France in October, only to find political chaos back home.

  After two stunning victories, the British were now poised at what they felt was an historic moment. Sir Robert Ainslie, England’s minister to the court in Turkey, had previously made overtures of friendship to the sultan and was quite harshly rebuffed.2 But Selim III, now enraged at Napoleon’s betrayal, was on the verge of forging a new alliance with the British government and sent his foreign minister, Yusuf Aga Effendi, to pay his respects to the Court of St. James’s. King George III and his Parliament already had Spencer Smith (brother of Sir Sidney Smith) and the Levant Company in Turkey for commerce, but a new ambassador was needed for more extensive negotiations. The king’s personal choice for the job was Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine, a thirty-two-year-old Scottish diplomat and politician.

  Thomas Bruce was descended from Norman knights who arrived in Britain with William the Conqueror. The most notable member of the family was the revered Robert the Bruce, king of Scotland from 1306 to 1329. Bruce’s victory over Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314 delivered independence to his people and an unshakable place in history for the family name. In 1603, Edward Bruce accompanied Scotland’s King James VI to England (where he established himself as King James I) and there established the Earl of Ailesbury line. Edwar
d’s son George founded the extremely profitable salt works and coal mines at Culross and became the patriarch of a family that included the Earls of Ailesbury, Elgin, and Kincardine, as well as James Boswell3 and the wife of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  Broomhall, a family estate outside Dunfermline in Fife, was built in 1702 in the austere style of the old Scottish castles. Dunfermline, the medieval capital of Scotland, was the home of the Bruce family for hundreds of years; Dunfermline was also the birthplace of national bard Robert Burns and, later, Andrew Carnegie. Born in 1732, Charles Bruce, whose father died when he was eight years old, inherited Broomhall, both the Elgin and Kincardine titles, and the Bruce dream of turning Scotland’s natural resources into thriving industry.

  This young man with the imposing titles of 5th Earl of Elgin and 9th Earl of Kincardine had an equally grand dream. Why not develop the limestone deposits, transport them, and build a model town for his employees? His mother, Janet, who had served as custodian of Broomhall until Charles was of age, warned him against overspending, but he ignored her and incurred massive debt.

  In 1759, Charles married Martha Whyte, daughter of a London banker. Martha’s mother had died a few days after her birth, so Martha was sent to Kirkcaldy, near Dunfermline, to be raised by her uncle and his wife. Charles won Martha away from the Earl of Galloway, and they settled at Broomhall to manage their limestone quarry and raise their family. They shared the tragedy of the loss of an infant son, and in 1771, tragedy struck once again. Martha was pregnant with their eighth child when Charles suddenly died. William, their second and now eldest surviving boy, became the 6th Earl of Elgin and 10th Earl of Kincardine until only a few months later he, too, became ill and died. The titles now fell to Thomas, who was only five years old.

  Young Thomas now became the 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine, never again to be called “Thomas” but to be known as “Elgin,” even to his own mother. Quite understandably, Martha became obsessed with the health of all of her children and placed them under lifelong neurotic watch. She was now a widow with six children, and she had great plans for all of them. The name Bruce was a grand one, but because of the scope of her husband’s plans and his massive borrowing to finance them, Martha had very little money. So, not one to be pitied, the formidable Lady Elgin took over her family’s affairs just as her mother-in-law had done.

  She turned to the very rich Bruce cousins, the Marquess and Marchioness of Ailesbury, for help. The Ailesburys approached King George III for Martha and her brood and secured a small annuity; they also handed over tuition money for the young Lord Elgin. For Elgin, there was no question about his duties; he became the hope of their entire family and understood that his weighty task was to procure the happiness and success of his five surviving siblings. In those days, boys’ boarding schools were places of pervasive filth, and when stories of ringworm and lice reached Lady Elgin, she had her son transferred. He studied at Westminster, Harrow, and the University of St. Andrews, where he won the University Prize for an essay on tragedy. Interested in politics and the law, he headed for Paris to continue his education with the eminent legal lecturer Professor Bouchard, whom he impressed with his argument of why there should be no classes on Sundays. During this time, Elgin met the elderly Benjamin Franklin and read the recently published Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire while his mother kept an eye out for excess by keeping him on a very tight budget.

  At home, Martha was busy planning Elgin’s future. Through a high-ranking military relation, she obtained for Elgin a prestigious military commission that required no previous battle experience. In addition, she put out feelers, through the Ailesbury Bruces, as to whether or not Elgin could be a serious contender for a seat in Parliament. The only way for a Scot to gain a place in the Upper House was to win one of the sixteen peerages legislated by the Union of 1707.

  For most of the second half of the eighteenth century, Henry Dundas4 was Scotland’s most powerful Tory “party boss.” In 1790, a new group, led by Lord Selkirk and Lord Kinnaird, attempted to topple Dundas’s influence. This group was quite liberal and seemed like a fresh wind. Elgin, a young man, flirted with their cause. His English Bruce cousins, loyal Tories, were horrified with his refusal to toe the line. They admonished Elgin, and he, displaying precocious diplomatic prowess, ran a shrewdly balanced campaign, impressing both the radicals and the established machine. Elgin realized not only that he enjoyed politics but also that he excelled at it, and at twenty-four years old became a member of Parliament.

  The following year, 1791, this attractive and clever young man was appointed envoy extraordinary to the newly crowned Austrian emperor, Leopold II. Based in Vienna, Elgin accompanied Leopold on trips around Austria and Italy until Leopold’s death in 1792. Elgin was rewarded for his growing skill and reputation with subsequent appointments to Brussels and Berlin.

  While Elgin was living abroad, the English royal family suffered an embarrassing scandal of its own when the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and his wife (nee Caroline of Brunswick) separated, leaving their infant daughter, Princess Charlotte (their firstborn and only child and, therefore, heiress to the throne), in the custody of her grandfather, King George III. The king appointed Elgin’s mother, Martha, the little girl’s governess. Princess Charlotte adored Martha, Lady Elgin, and called her “Eggy.” Lady Elgin, who taught the princess to love both her parents despite their despicable behavior, won the king’s respect. Observing her wonderful relationship with his granddaughter, the king grew curious about Martha’s own parenting. He inquired after the Bruce children, and after learning a bit about them, the king declared Lady Elgin to be a superlative mother. King George became interested in Lord Elgin’s career, and when Elgin returned to London in 1798, it was the king himself who advised Elgin to petition the foreign minister, Lord Grenville, for the post of ambassador to Turkey.

  Diplomacy, however, was a rich man’s game. Much of an embassy’s expenditure was expected to come from the private finances of the ambassador; it was imperative for the appointee to have a large fortune. There was much whispering in London that Elgin did not have the money for the post. At a ball in Weymouth in August 1798, Elgin danced with the king’s daughter, Princess Augusta, and the king took Elgin aside to reiterate his support for Elgin’s appointment to the post in Turkey. The king had one further comment: he delicately suggested that Elgin would be a much stronger candidate if he found a wife—the right wife (in other words, one with money). In the fall, Elgin went home to visit Broomhall mindful of the king’s directive and his own mother’s ambition. With his family name, elegant appearance, and accomplishments, he was welcomed by all of the most important families as an eminently eligible bachelor.

  For most of the 1790s, Elgin had been on the Continent while Broomhall was under expensive renovation. The young Lord Elgin had visions of completing his father’s dreams as well as constructing a great estate that befitted his titles. Elgin’s plans to build a new harbor in order to facilitate transport of the limestone worried his mother, who had been down that road before. She was extremely wary of her son’s increasing debt and made it very clear to her son that he had to choose his bride wisely. As she was tied to the Court with her own duties, she did not accompany him to Scotland, assuming that local friends and family would assist him in his needs.

  Mary Nisbet had not only known Lady Elgin and Elgin’s sister, Charlotte, but they were all related through the Montagu line, descended from the Dukes of Rutland. Mary had dined with Lord Elgin’s mother and sister in London and at Archerfield. Mary, mischievous and fun loving, could not have had a more opposite disposition from that of the intense Lord Elgin, who was prone to worry. He was exacting; she was forgiving. Elgin sought out the young woman with the outrageous manner and the widely known fortune, and he visited her for tea on December 8, 1798. Two days later he appeared again but he “went early,” according to Mary. She was confounded. At the time, there were many other young men in pursuit of Mary, and their names
were scribbled in her diary. Local friends and long-distance contestants threw their hats into the ring. On one day it was George, on another it was another George. When she was ill, they came anyway—just to show how much they cared. George Sommers came all the time. A Mr. Ferguson of Pitford of the famed weaponry family was also quite persistent. They would certainly not be eager to leave her company “early.”

  Elgin disappeared during the Christmas holidays and reappeared on January 3 when he returned to Archerfield with Thomas Harrison, who was his friend and an architect. Mary was obviously falling under his spell because barely one week later, on January 10, her diary reflects a significant, emotional change. Here, Lord Elgin becomes “L’E”—”L’E went”—on the fifteenth, “L’E came,” and from then on there was steady reference to his presence in Mary’s life, and all contenders apparently lost to the ambitious, complicated Lord Elgin. He was calculating yet spontaneous, contemplative yet impassioned, and it was clear that he fascinated her. Her parents and family took notice.

  On January 30, “Mr. & Mrs. H.N., L’E, Mr. Harrison and I dined at Rockvale.” On Friday, February 1, “Mr. And Mrs. N, L’E and I dined in Edinburgh.” On Saturday, February 2, the very next day, Elgin was again with Mary and her parents. “L’E, Mr. & Mrs. N & I returned to Archerfield to dinner.” The following Thursday, February 8, they went out in a public way together, and she wrote, “L’E, Mr. & Mrs. N & I went to Edin: & to a Ball given by Col: Hamilton at St George’s Square.” Next, it was time for him to face the rest of the clan. On Monday, February 11, “L’E, Mr & Mrs N & I dined at Mrs. Campbell … went to the Play (Bluebeard).” Next it was on to Biel to be inspected by the Hamiltons.