In Bed with the Georgians

by Rendell, Mike;

  Within days, pamphlets giving lurid details of the trial appeared not just in London but across the country. One ran to thirty-two pages and was published by Joseph Harrop, printer and proprietor of the Manchester Mercury. He sold it for three pence, or offered it for free to subscribers of his newspaper. In effect it was the forerunner of the free supplements which accompany today’s gossip magazines.

  The run-in with Samuel Foote led to a secondary scandal, which was to ruin the actor-playwright. Elizabeth employed the Reverend William Jackson as her secretary. He wrote articles in the Public Ledger suggesting that Foote was a homosexual. Foote successfully sued for libel, but the Reverend, probably bankrolled by Elizabeth, and using the nom de plume of Humphrey Nettle, published a lengthy attack on Foote under the title of Sodom and Onan. It contained a recognisable portrait of Foote, together with an illustration of a large naked foot. The satire attacked Foote as a sodomite, using language which was neither subtle nor appropriate for a man of the cloth. Foote responded by re-writing A Trip to Calais as The Capuchin, with Reverend William Jackson lampooned as ‘Dr Viper’. The bitter exchange of vitriol was followed by criminal charges being brought against Foote in late 1776. He appeared before the Kings Bench to answer allegations, made by his former footman John Sangster, that Foote had attempted to commit an unnatural act upon his person twice in May 1775. Lord Mansfield heard the case, and concluded that the whole thing was a conspiracy to blacken Foote’s character, and Foote was acquitted. But the damage had been done, and Foote died, a broken man, shortly afterwards. He was 57.

  On the back of the bigamy trial the Meadows family sought to have the Will set aside. A suit in the Court of Chancery would inevitably take many years, and during this time Elizabeth drifted from one European court to another. To her great consternation, she was not an honoured guest at Maria Theresa’s court in Vienna, thanks in part to the intervention of the British Ambassador. She found greater favour at the court of the Russian Empress, and bought an extensive estate near St Petersburg which she named Chudleigh. She also had residences in Rome and in Paris, finally dying in the French capital in 1788, still legally the Countess of Bristol but denied the title of Duchess of Kingston. The Meadows family descended on her assets like vultures, reclaiming what they saw as rightfully theirs. News quickly crossed the Channel and, in death, the bigamist Elizabeth became famous once more, with pamphlets and newspapers reviving public interest in her scandalous life. One book ran to 252 pages and bore the title Authentic Particulars of the Life of the Late Duchess of Kingston During Her Connection with the Duke: Her Residence at Dresden, Vienna, St. Petersburgh, Paris and Several Other Courts of Europe, Also a Faithful Copy of Her Singular Will.

  Was she a gold digger, a callous woman who lied through her teeth and enjoyed a status to which she had no entitlement? Or was she simply a woman who genuinely did not regard herself as being married (whatever the letter of the law) when she had spent so little time with Hervey as man and wife? Perhaps she had simply convinced herself that she was entitled to regard the order from the Ecclesiastical Court as binding. Having been raped by Hervey, who can blame her? Certainly she appears to have been a loving and devoted partner to the Duke – he was clearly the love of her life, and vice versa. In the event it did not really matter – the public were able to indulge their appetite for scandal, gossip and intrigue, and the case sums up much about Georgian attitudes and hypocrisy towards marriage, infidelity, the courts and money.

  SALLY SALISBURY – beware of a whore with a knife.

  Right at the start of the Georgian period a young prostitute called Sally Pridden hit the headlines. She had been born in Shrewsbury in 1690, the daughter of a bricklayer, and she used the name ‘Salisbury’ because she reputedly resembled Lady Salisbury. She rose to the dizzy heights of being a famous courtesan thanks in part to her ready wit, droll sense of humour and quick repartee. And also because she was willing (and apparently able) to sell her virginity to eager customers on no fewer than twenty-six occasions. Her entry into the world of prostitution received a huge boost when she was taken under the wing of the notorious bawd Mother Wisebourn. The introduction to the famous ‘abbess’ was subsequently described in detail: she was made to stand naked while an intimate inspection was carried out. As a contemporary report stated, Mother Wisebourn ‘felt every limb one by one, touch’d her to see if she was sound, as a jockey handles a Horse or Mare’ while checking that she had the right demeanour to pass the test of appearing pure and innocent. In time she was to claim to have had a string of aristocratic lovers, ranging from Lord William Bentinck, Charles Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and his half-brother the Duke of Albans, to Lord Bollingbroke and Lord Cardigan. Indeed she even claimed that the Prince of Wales (later to become King George III) had been her lover.

  Her downfall dated from the night of 22 December 1722. She had turned up at the Three Tuns Tavern in Chandos Street, rather the worse for drink and possibly suffering from delusions brought on by drug-taking, and there she met her lover John (‘Jacky’) Finch. He came from a well-respected family – his elder brother was a lord. They argued, especially over the fact that Finch had bought opera tickets and given them to Sarah’s younger sister Jenny. Sarah was convinced that Finch was trying to have his wicked way with Jenny and in a fit of rage picked up a knife and stabbed him close to the heart. He was not expected to live, but miraculously recovered, and swore forgiveness. It did not stop Sally being dragged off to face a charge of attempted murder. She was found guilty of assault, but was acquitted on the more serious charge, was fined £100 and sentenced to a year in Newgate prison. There she caught ‘gaol fever’ (i.e. typhoid) and died in February 1724. The London Journal remarked that ‘the famous Sally Salisbury died on Tuesday… of a consumption … preceded by a fever, so that she was reduced almost to a skeleton.’ A more flippant obituary appeared some years later in the Weekly Oracle (1735):

  Here lies flat on her Back, but unactive at last

  Poor Sally lies under grim Death;

  Through the course of her Vices she galloped so fast

  No wonder she’s now out of Breath.

  The goal of her Pleasures she drove very hard

  But was tripped up e’er half way she ran;

  And though everyone fancied her life was a Yard*

  Yet it proved to be less than a Span.

  TERESIA CONSTANTIA PHILLIPS – bigamy.

  Teresia Constantia Phillips – or ‘Con’ Phillips as she was generally known – was a woman who tended to do things to excess. As a ‘courtesan to the nobility’ she was the mistress of a surprisingly large number of people who were rich and famous. As a wife she got through rather more husbands than was seemly, marrying five times. She may have been a serial bigamist, and was also a woman who gave her backing to one of the most famous sex-shops in the country (the shop known as The Green Canister, mentioned previously, where customers could buy condoms, dildos and other erotica). She is also regarded as an important figure in the development of the autobiography. Her An Apology was published in serial form (there were eighteen parts or instalments) with several editions appearing in print between 1748 and 1760.

  An Apology may well have been intended as a kiss-and-tell memoir designed to earn Con a few pounds from blackmail, at a time when her traditional income was declining. It also gave her a chance to get her own back at the men who had used her, and at the chicanery of a legal system which had failed her. An Apology became a popular work – even though no publisher could be found to take the risk of being linked to its publication. Con therefore had it printed herself, and signed each copy as a sign of its authenticity.

  She was raped as a teenager, allegedly by Lord Chesterfield, leading her to a life in the sex trade. It was a life marked by debt and frequent litigation, punctuated by trips to and from the Caribbean. In the 1740s, Grub Street castigated her for her loose morals, and its hacks derided her conduct, all of which made her famous to the extent that mezzotints of her portrait wer
e bought in their thousands. An Apology makes it clear that she was well aware that at least one of her trips to the altar was bigamous, but felt that the public was entitled to hear her side of the story. She had been used by men, and was perfectly willing to use them in return. Marriage certainly helped her precarious finances, but when she died, in Jamaica in 1765, she was destitute and friendless. The Gentleman’s Magazine of that year contained a lengthy and somewhat critical obituary, but also reflected that she had been ‘mistress of the revels’ on Jamaica, a post which apparently gave her the right to a benefit on stage twice a year, each one earning her an estimated 100 guineas. She was 59 when she died, and apart from the opprobrium which bigamy brought her name, she was never convicted of a criminal offence as a bigamist. Her portrait appears as Image 67.

  LORD BALTIMORE – a kidnapper, a rapist, a liar – but a free man.

  The thirty-nine years which Frederick Calvert, Sixth Baron Baltimore, spent on this earth were not exactly useful or commendable. He inherited his title, and vast swathes of Maryland, when he was 20. He took no interest whatsoever in his colonial heritage, instead preferring to swan around Europe visiting Turkish brothels and hitting on the idea of coming back to Britain to convert his stately pile into a Turkish-style seraglio, where he could keep his harem of mistresses. In 1753, at the age of 22, he married Lady Diana Egerton, daughter of the Duke of Bridgewater. He was described at the time as ‘a disreputable and dissolute degenerate’ and also as being ‘feeble in body, conceited, frivolous, and dissipated…’ His marriage was a disaster and they separated in 1756. He lived openly with a number of mistresses and became father to a small tribe of offspring. In 1758 it was rumoured that he had insisted on taking his wife out for a drive in her carriage, but that the phaeton had overturned. The one certain thing was that the poor lady died as a result of her injuries. Foul play was hinted at but no charges were brought.

  Even with his harem of willing concubines under his roof, he yearned for new conquests and it looks as though some of his friends were perfectly willing to assist in procuring them for him. He took a fancy to a young God-fearing Quaker girl called Sarah Woodcock. She was a virtuous young innocent living in London with her father, while working in a millinery shop. Lord Baltimore saw her, took a fancy to her, and lured her to his home under false pretences. Once there she was imprisoned and threatened with violence unless she gave in to his Lordship’s advances. Too scared to eat or drink in case she was being poisoned, she was kept a prisoner for four days until, weak and broken in spirit, she was raped by Lord Baltimore. He kept her in his house for a whole fortnight, raping her constantly, before her desperate father heard of her plight, and of her whereabouts, and secured a writ of habeas corpus.

  Lord Baltimore’s trial at Kingston Assizes was a sensation. He claimed that Sarah consented, and indeed that she had been free to go at any time. Basically his defence was no more than: ‘It is her word against mine, and I am Lord Baltimore, son of a very distinguished father, and that should be good enough for the jury.’ Amazingly – it was sufficient, and after eighty minutes of deliberation the jury acquitted him of all charges, as well as dismissing the cases brought against two of his employees who had been accessories.

  Innocent in the eyes of the law maybe, but the newspapers generally sided with the humble milliner and savaged Baltimore for being an aristocratic debaucher who had behaved abominably and then tried to hide behind his rank and privilege. He suffered further embarrassment when Sarah Watson, one of the former members of his harem, published her memoirs under the title of Memoirs of the Seraglio … by a Discarded Sultana (London, 1768). It contained many salacious details, eagerly lapped up by the public, including the suggestion that although he kept eight mistresses Lord Baltimore was not actually able to satisfy even one of them.

  He was driven into exile by all the adverse publicity, and died of a fever contracted in Italy. For him it really was a case of ‘See Naples and die’. His body was returned to England and he was buried at Epsom. Reflecting on the case, the Newgate Calendar commented ‘What shall we think of a man, of Lord Baltimore’s rank and fortune, who could debase himself beneath all rank and distinction, and, by the wish to gratify his irregular passions, submit to degrade himself in the opinion of his own servants and other domestics?’

  Others might think that degrading himself in the eyes of his servants was nothing compared to the wrong he did to a terrified Sarah Woodcock.

  MARTHA RAY – death at the opera.

  Of all the people who one might expect to ‘seduce ’em and leave ’em’ the Earl of Sandwich was a real paradox when it came to Martha Ray. He was, after all, a member of Dashwood’s notorious Hellfire Club, which met at Medmenham Abbey and specialized in bringing in whores by the cartload for general orgiastic enjoyment. Years earlier he had seduced a young girl who went on to become the illustrious whore called Fanny Murray. He was also, over a period of time, Postmaster General, First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State for the Northern Department. This powerful figure with a reputation for gambling, whoring – and inventing the sandwich – met Martha Ray when she was a 16-year-old girl training to be a milliner, in a shop on Tavistock Row, off Covent Garden. The girl had a fine singing voice and had an ear for music. Instead of debauching her and moving on, the Earl paid for her to go to France so that she could further her musical education and become proficient on the harpsichord, and also to acquire a grounding in etiquette, fine manners and other social graces. She returned and became, to all intents and purposes, the wife of the good Earl. Except that he already had a wife; one who had been declared insane and was living with her sister in apartments at Windsor Castle. Undeterred by such niceties, Martha took up residence at the Earl’s home in Westminster and at the family seat at Hinchingbrooke, and got her feet under the table to the extent of producing at least five (and possibly as many as nine) children. The Earl accepted these mini-Sandwiches to the extent that he appeared to like them rather more than his legitimate issue.

  The problem faced by Martha was that she had no security whatsoever – the Earl could chuck her out at a moment‘s notice. Also, he was twenty-four years older than her, and if he died she would be homeless, penniless and a social outcast. She decided to take up a career on the stage, in musical roles, in order to be financially independent – and although the Earl was not in favour of the idea he had little say in the matter because he was heavily in debt following rather too many losing streaks at the gaming tables. Martha became well-known in operatic circles, and on the night of 7 April 1779 had gone to see a musical starring Margaret Kennedy called Love in a Village at The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. She went in the company of her great friend, the singer Caterina Galli, because the Earl had work commitments and was unable to attend. As Martha was leaving the theatre to alight her carriage a man stepped forward brandishing two pistols. He fired at her head at point blank range and she died instantly. The assailant then put the other pistol to his head and tried to pull the trigger. Notwithstanding his army training (he was an ex-army captain) he missed, which left the man frantically trying to club himself over the head with the pistol butt … not an effective way to try and commit suicide. The assailant was detained and turned out to be the 26-year-old Reverend James Hackman, a man besotted with the deceased ever since he had met her at Hinchingbrooke as a guest of the Earl. He had apparently proposed marriage to Martha, and been turned down out of hand. He then decided that she would be bound to change her mind and look favourably on his proposal if he left the army and became a vicar. Once he had become the Reverend James Hackman he renewed his pursuit and was again repulsed. The deranged man then developed the fixation that Martha was having an affair with someone else – possibly George Hanger, Fourth Baron Coleraine. He watched Martha go into the opera house and had popped home to pick up the two pistols. When he was arrested he was carrying two letters, one addressed to his brother-in-law which pretty well amounted to a confession, and the other a love lett
er to Martha.

  The death was a shattering blow to the Earl – the first he knew of the incident was when her carriage returned to his doorstep, minus any passenger. He apparently ‘wept exceedingly’ and lamented ‘I could have borne anything but this.’ Martha was only 37 years old when she died; two days later she was buried at Elstree parish church, still dressed in the robe she was wearing when she was shot. Within days of the funeral, Hackman was on trial for his life. Oddly, he pleaded ‘not guilty’, claiming that he only intended to kill himself. The second pistol rather indicated otherwise, and the verdict of ‘guilty’ was returned without hesitation. Justice was swift – the trial followed just five days after the shots had been fired, and the trip to the gallows at Tyburn followed just a couple of days later. Before he was hanged, Reverend Hackman sought forgiveness from the Earl, and apparently was given it although the Earl stated that Hackman had ‘robbed him of all the comfort in the world.’ After the hanging, Hackman’s body was cut down and taken away for dissection at Surgeon’s Hall.

  The public were fascinated at the crime of passion, the sad tale of a man so besotted by love that he killed the object of his desire. As The Newgate Calendar later noted: ‘this shocking and truly lamentable case interested all ranks of people, who pitied the murderer’s fate, conceived him stimulated to commit the horrid crime through love and madness. Pamphlets and poems were written on the occasion, and the crime was long the common topic of conversation.’ One year after the shooting the events surrounding the murder formed the basis of a novel by Herbert Croft entitled Love and Madness.