Mistress of the Elgin Marbles

by Susan Nagel

  Both families were eager to encourage the match. Elgin knew that this girl would please his mother in every way; William Nisbet, like Elgin, foresaw a dynasty. Mary did not miss the double entendre about the links of Gullane and the “link” to Broomhall made ever so subtly by her Aunt Mary (Campbell). The man who would “enchain” (another pun) himself to Mary would be a happy man, indeed, she wrote her niece. Her point was made more directly when she campaigned for Elgin: “he was a favorite of mine,” “an incomparable young Man.”

  Elgin was twelve years older than Mary and was apparently proficient in both his professional life and the bedroom. Word had circulated, after one near catastrophe in Paris with the wife of his law professor, that Lady Elgin had written to her son to beware the constant danger of sexually predatory women. Elgin fled Paris for a smaller town to avoid Madame Bouchard’s advances, only to begin an affair with another married woman. This married woman, whom Elgin would not name, had been the kept mistress of a man long before she had wed. Lady Elgin believed that her innocent son was a victim of women who could not resist his charms, and she was alarmed.

  Elgin, once experienced in the ways of the flesh, discovered that these encounters were best kept from his very nervous mother. He was a man of high testosterone and demonstrated a consistent pattern, preferring dalliances with married women who provided sexual pleasure without matrimonial consequences. In Berlin, Elgin enjoyed an affair with another older, married woman named Madame Ferchenbeck. In contrast to these married women who, to some degree, were able to come and go as they pleased, Mary was highly chaperoned, and her excursions would often include church outings.

  Elgin behaved in a very correct manner and proceeded with all proper comportment to please the Nisbets. They, in turn, approved of his polish. He had an English accent, not a Scottish one, because he had spent very little time in Scotland—and his last name was Bruce. He had lived among royalty in Europe and was someone Mary could lean on, look up to, and be proud of. He had the kind of confidence and masculinity that came from experience, travel, and professional success. Mary, who had known from her youth that her marriage would have to be more than just a love match, in the end responded to Elgin from her heart and not just to his curriculum vitae.

  Although theirs was an attraction of opposites, for better or worse, they had much in common. They could both be quite capricious, both were extremely close to their mothers, and both had periodic asthma attacks. Mary rarely took medicine. She would occasionally remain in bed until her spasms subsided. Elgin, on the other hand, aggressively battled his ailments with onerous treatments. He would suffer through leeches, mercury treatment, and bleeding. This shared debilitating illness gave them great empathy for each other. Both Mary and Elgin, who had penetrating eyes, turned heads when they entered a room (Mary later wrote her mother-in-law from Turkey: “could you but see Elgin your Heart would dance for joy, he is such a pretty Boy”), and they both had an enormous sense of entitlement. Lady Elgin and Mrs. Nisbet raised their children with conflicting signals: on the one hand, they were strict Sabbatarians and instilled in their children a strong adherence to Christian doctrine; on the other hand, these women participated, for better or worse, in the world of high society and its foibles. While there was no dancing or card playing on Sundays, weekdays could be filled with frivolity.

  Mary could enjoy her wealth without worry, but Elgin, who understood austerity, had been pushed into a world the Bruces could not afford and was intensely frustrated by the unhappy harness of financial constraint. Surrounded by the richest boys in England wherever he went to school, he spent his summers at Toppingham Park with his very rich cousins, the Ailesburys. Martha placed him in that milieu hoping he would benefit from the advantages, but the results were disastrous. Elgin longed to possess what he could not afford, and he began to borrow money carelessly. He acquired and spent and spent and borrowed. By the time Thomas Bruce met Mary Nisbet, he was looking for a way out of a financial mess.

  As the newly appointed ambassador extraordinaire to the mighty Ottoman Empire, Elgin needed a wife who could perform with ease on the international stage. Mary could fulfill that role with style. If she could be lured from this harbor of hovering family, the two of them might prove a potent team. While Elgin was dreaming of making his mark in history, Mary, despite her Scottish sensibility, had been schooled on Blake, Wordsworth, and Rousseau and was looking for romance. She was in love with the wunderkind and his devastating blue eyes, and her sweetness toward Elgin actually softened his heart.

  Her diary entries reveal that on Sunday, March 3, “Mr. & Mrs. N, L’E & I went to Kirk,” on Monday, March 4, they all dined at Pencaitland with the Hamiltons, and on Monday, March 11, they were, once again, before God.

  Chapter 3

  THE NEWLYWEDS SET SAIL

  Mary Nisbet of Dirleton became the Countess of Elgin on March 11, 1799. At the wedding, she had an attack of nerves—or perhaps, as she sometimes admitted to having, a presentiment—because at one point, she stopped the proceedings and withdrew to compose herself. Her sudden emotional outburst surprised the guests, because she was widely known as a very levelheaded young woman. The presiding clergyman, Bishop Sandford, asked Mary if she had anything to confide in him. She went on with the wedding. Mary noted in her diary that after the ceremony, the Nisbets, Colonel and Mrs. Hamilton, Bishop Sandford, and Elgin’s good friend and neighbor Mr. Oswald joined the newlyweds for dinner. She scribbled, “Lady Elgin dined.”

  The Lady Elgin she was referring to was herself; as Martha, the Dowager Countess, was not present at the wedding. Whether it was her position at Court—often jealously sought—which enslaved her to the whims of the royal family, or her need to be with her own daughter, Lady Charlotte, whose own wedding was in two weeks, the Dowager Countess remained in London. She wrote loving notes to her son wishing him all happiness and offering her blessings, and notes to Mary and her parents attesting to her happiness from her London home on Downing Street, and notwithstanding her own limited funds, she sent Mary a wreath of diamonds as a wedding present to make a very loud statement of approval. “My sons attachment was deeply rooted from the first visit he paid at Archerfield & it must prove a great delight to both Familys to think that neither could have any motive but affection for preferring each other.”

  Martha hoped that her son’s new bride would ensure that his financial worries would be over. William Hamilton Nisbet, however, was too shrewd to turn significant funds over to his new son-in-law. He was well apprised of Elgin’s disregard for budget and presented his new son-in-law with a £10,000 bond from which the young couple could receive only interest. The bond had been part of Mary’s mother’s own dowry, so in effect this cost Mr. Nisbet nothing. It was clear that Mr. Nisbet was not going to give Elgin free rein with Mary’s fortune; and when the money would run out, as he knew it would, he would not have to wait long to hear from his favorite girl.

  Elgin had already worn out his welcome in the financial community in Edinburgh, and his lawyer, James Dundas, warned his client that he would have to obtain financing in London, where people would charge him astronomical interest rates. Since the plan was to leave for the Middle East, Dundas and Mary urged Elgin to recruit trustees for Broomhall who could oversee his estate while he was away. So Elgin asked his mother, his new father-in-law, his uncle Erskine of Cardross, and his good friend Mr. Oswald of Dunnikier to take on that responsibility.

  The couple stayed at Archerfield for their wedding night, and then on Thursday, March 14, they left for Broomhall. Dowager Countess Martha wrote, “I think you are gone to Broomhall. Much Happiness may You and my Son enjoy there, and in every place you go to.” The Nisbets arrived two days later. Another letter arrived from Dowager Countess Elgin. She seemed to be swept away with emotion; however, in this note she also revealed an autocratic and meddling side that Elgin was familiar with. Recognizing that young Mary would now have a great deal of sway with her son, she addressed the note to the new Countes
s of Elgin:

  Few Circumstances in this Life, ever gave me more real pleasure than I feel at this Moment, in addressing you as Mistress of Broomhall—How happy must my Son be and as You bear my Name, I hope you experience the Gratification I did, on going there, and finding myself the beloved Wife of his most Aimiable Father—I can hardly think of you my Dear Child, without Tears of joy, I think I see You and Elgin, walking about, & laying all You Planns … [but it would] be a disagreeable Reflexion to Elgin, as long as he lives, if he don’t come up to give his sister away—I trust to You my Dear Child for Granting this request.

  The following Friday, the earl, his bride, and her parents were back at Archerfield, where the newlyweds said their good-byes and dutifully left for London. Unbeknownst to Mary, that would be the last time she would see Scotland for seven years.

  On Tuesday, March 26, they arrived in London just in time for Lady Charlotte’s wedding on Thursday, March 28. While the young Countess of Elgin was celebrating her twenty-first birthday amid the London social whirl on Monday, April 18, 1799, the British ground forces stationed thousands of miles away in the Middle East were witnessing another stupendous celebration in Constantinople, soon to be Mary’s new home. In a sense, they were paving the way for her arrival.

  At eleven o’clock in the morning on April 18, in Constantinople, the English soldiers and officers under the command of General Koehler arrived at the Sublime Porte. Standing under the grand gate of coronation at the Seraglio, the sultan’s palace, a large body of Turks gathered for prayer inside the courtyard. A little before noon the Ottoman Empire’s leading officers and officials of state, such as Foreign Minister Effendi, gathered and with much pomp, bearing their flag, they marched to the bottom of the steps of the palace where the Muslim religious leaders conducted solemn worship. At precisely twelve o’clock, when the sun was at its highest, the flag was raised and planted. Twelve sheep were immolated and the foot of the flag was washed in their blood. This standard was to wave for forty days until the Grand Vizier led his troops across the desert in Koehler’s battle charge. The English and the Turks were now joined as one military force against their common enemy, Napoleon.

  On April 26, the sultan presided over the ceremony of the Captain Pasha’s departure with Turkish and British forces. The sultan, surrounded by his fiercest guards, had a short conference with the Captain Pasha and then invested the warrior with a splendid caftan, a robe of honor. Six of the Captain Pasha’s captains were also brought forward to receive robes. The Captain Pasha then proceeded, surrounded by saluting soldiers, to his gilded twenty-four-oared barge, the Selim. This ship was escorted ceremonially by four more barges, all departing to the music of gunshots.

  Mary would later see and hear these same sights and sounds, but for the moment, in the spring of 1799, she remained a brand-new bride surrounded by her family and enjoying her usual London pastimes. The young couple lived at the Nisbets’ house on Portman Square. They dined frequently with the Dowager Countess at Downing Street and with Mary’s family at Grosvenor Square. On Saturday, April 30, all of the Bruces, the Dowager Lady Elgin, and the new Lady Elgin joined Lady Robert at Grosvenor Square for dinner, and the young count and countess went on to the opera.

  As the couple of the moment, they were in demand and spent all spring and summer enjoying the whirlwind season of balls and parties at Court. On Tuesday, May 16, they attended the most coveted event of the year, the Queen’s Ball, and were regulars at the city palaces of the Duchess of Bolton and the Duke of Cumberland, and at smaller gatherings with the Princess of Wales.

  In July they took a trip, chaperoned by the Nisbets, to see Chichester Cathedral, visited the Dukes of Arundel and Richmond, and had a delightful time at Brighton, the seaside resort in the south of England.

  Aside from all the gaiety, Lord Elgin had a mission to complete. Mary’s diaries reveal a new dimension to their entertaining schedule at Portman Square that summer. These dinner guests were not quite as aristocratic and, in essence, came for job interviews. Their names include Mr. Morris, Mr. Hunt, Dr. Hall, Mr. Carlisle, and others who were going to be part of Elgin’s embassy in Constantinople. Mary was beginning her new role as the ambassador’s wife. Each of these men had a particular expertise and was thought to be valuable to her husband in his new post. She treated them with the same deference and hospitality as she did any duchess who came through their Portman Square door.

  Mary had periodic bouts of asthma that summer, which Elgin believed to be psychological. Assuming that Mary’s ill health was brought about by fear of going to Constantinople, he offered to decline the post. Mary wouldn’t hear of it. She had married a diplomat and resolved to follow him in his career. Her job as a wife would have to take precedence over her interests as one of Britain’s largest landowners.

  Elgin’s youngest brother, Charles “Andrew,” returned from India that summer and regaled Mary with exotic stories. Apparently, they got along famously, as Mary wrote to her mother-in-law, “I really never saw any body that I felt so much affection for, on so short an acquaintance.” Their summer fun, the London season, was coming to an end. Soon, they would leave for the East, and there was one additional complication. On August 1, Mary noted, “Dr. MacLean dined—The Child.” She was pregnant. It would have made perfect sense for her to stay in England, but she chose to go with Elgin because she understood her husband’s historic position and his great ambition. While the young Mr. Bruce entertained his new sister-in-law, Elgin dined with embassy appointees, lawyers, and politicians.

  Mary, mindful that her impending journey was the result of Nelson’s victory, noted its first anniversary, “L’Nelson’s Victory,” on August 10. On August 27, the Nisbets said good-bye to their pregnant daughter and returned to Scotland. “The last three days I was in London were indeed by far the most painful ones, I ever passed in my life … it is a severe thing parting with so many Friends at once,” she wrote her mother-in-law. On August 31, Mary, Elgin, and Charles Andrew had dinner in Portsmouth.

  On September 3, 1799, some ten months after Elgin’s official appointment, the Elgins set sail from Portsmouth on the frigate HMS Phaeton. Parliament’s instructions to Elgin were: persuade the Turks to open the Black Sea to trade, establish a postal station at Suez, get the French out of Egypt, and keep the Ottoman Empire on friendly terms with Great Britain.

  Ironically, the HMS Phaeton was named for the arrogant, self-destructive son of Apollo whose voyage caused widespread ruin. Equipped with thirty-eight guns, it had only one deck and was ready in case of piracy or a Napoleonic attack. Mary, her lady’s maid, who was named Masterman, two other maids, and a few other female servants were outnumbered and surrounded by a crew of rough, but skilled, English sailors and Lord Elgin’s embassy entourage. Elgin’s staff included the twenty-eight-year-old Reverend Philip Hunt, an antiquities scholar who was knowledgeable about archaeological sites; Professor Joseph Dacre Carlyle, who had held the chair in Arabic at Cambridge and whose personal mission was to convert Muslims by giving them the Christian Bible translated into Arabic; William Richard Hamilton, Elgin’s first personal secretary; Dr. Hector McLean, who came along to be the embassy doctor but disappointed everyone because he was a drunk; and twenty-two-year-old John Morier, who had been born in Smyrna when his father had been consul there, so he was familiar with Ottoman grandees. Mary brought along some dogs, including Boxer and Coquette. She sent ahead carriages, heavy trunks, furniture, and her pianoforte. The ship, far from luxurious, had tiny sleeping quarters divided by curtains of green baize, the feltlike fabric that covered billiard tables and was often used to separate servants’ quarters in a grand home, making the interior extremely hot. The ship pitched and rocked through stormy weather for two days, and Mary, two months pregnant, was sick the entire time; “nothing but Laudnum [a mixture of opium and alcohol] eased me,” she wrote her mother-in-law. Afterward, she claimed great satisfaction in reporting that even Captain Morris got sick.

  Also on board was a twent
y-five-year-old Irish lieutenant, Francis Beaufort, later Admiral Beaufort, who studied the rough gales on their journey, developing the wind force scale that was later named after him. Beaufort, desiring adventure and excitement, scoffed at his assignment as “an intolerable service,” in essence providing a ferry service for a nobleman and his wife, and wrote with indignation in his diaries, “our passengers seeming to compare His M. ship to a stage coach in which they had nothing to do but take their place and be set down in safety at the place of destination.” He also noted in his diaries that the Countess of Elgin spent most of their journey violently ill, but he decided, in fact, the aristocratic bride displayed a wonderful “good-natured, unaffected affable” temperament despite her seasickness. A rugged, scrappy, seafaring man, Beaufort found it entirely unusual that Lord Elgin was “most unfashionably attached to his wife,” and although he would not go so far as to call Mary a beauty, he unexpectedly developed a fondness for the couple.

  Beaufort was among the group accompanying Captain Morris and Elgin’s staff as they went in search of antiquities around the Greek islands, and although he would spend a good deal of his life at sea, he gave Lord Elgin complete credit for igniting his own enthusiasm for ancient treasures, declaring his journeys on board the Phaeton to be a surprisingly wonderful experience. After helping Lord Elgin and his men to collect “4 Marble Stones in Cases” on the way to Turkey, he noted in his journal, this time with wry humor, that they had at last arrived in Constantinople, the “troublesome cargo” safely delivered.