Wedlock
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Entering through one of the stately gates into the capital’s narrow streets, visitors were universally struck by the density of the crowds impeding the progress of carriages, carts and sedan chairs. Although well-paved in comparison with London’s rutted and mired roads, the Parisian thoroughfares provided no pavements as refuge for pedestrians. And while London boasted nearly twice the population of Paris by the late eighteenth century - nearly one million compared to the French capital’s five hundred thousand or so residents - the crowds milling through the confined streets under towering apartments could still feel oppressive. ‘There are infinite Swarms of inhabitants,’ grumbled the poet Thomas Gray, the late Earl of Strathmore’s tutor, ‘& more Coaches than Men.’10 Accustomed as they were to the extremes of poverty and wealth rubbing shoulders on London streets, British visitors were shocked at the even sharper contrasts in Paris. Gawping at the opulent palaces of the nobility, the elegant townhouses of the bourgeoisie and the luxury goods such as porcelain, glassware and tapestries on show in the new Parisian factories, newcomers could not fail to notice the hungry faces of the tax-burdened poor. Pronouncing the humdrum city food shops as the ‘poorest gloomy Dungeons’, the Reverend William Cole noted robins, larks and stinking ‘carrion’ on sale in the markets.11 A guidebook of 1784 observed wryly: ‘Poverty and narrowness of circumstances soon meet an experienced eye.’
Nevertheless, the glaring iniquities did little to quell the tourists’ appetites for the city’s sumptuous cuisine, abundance of entertainments and opportunities for sightseeing. No trip to Paris could be complete without taking in a play or opera at the numerous theatres, promenading in the Tuileries, and, of course, visiting Versailles to watch members of the royal family going about their daily lives blithely ignorant of the approaching storm just five years ahead. Indeed, with memories of London’s frightening anti-Catholic riots of 1780 still fresh, one French writer could confidently predict: ‘Any attempt at sedition here would be nipped in the bud; Paris need never fear an outbreak such as Lord George Gordon recently led in London’.12
For Mary Eleanor, fluent in French, a connoisseur of the arts and a patron of science, the prospect of a trip to Paris, unquestionably the cultural and scientific capital of Enlightenment Europe, in the spring of 1784 should have promised a sensory and intellectual delight. Hostilities with France over the American War of Independence had ceased the previous year and the resulting French national debt which would ultimately precipitate state crisis had yet to be fully felt. In the lull between war and revolution, therefore, British visitors could be assured of a warm Gallic welcome. But fleeing England with a thirteen-year-old ward of Chancery stowed away, as fugitives from British justice and her husband’s creditors, the journey ahead held little joy for Mary.
In his haste to leave Grosvenor Square, Bowes had left his tangled finances in the hands of William Davis, his loyal agent, and his two-year-old son in the care of Dorothy, his reluctant mistress who was now three months pregnant. Fearful for her future, Dorothy had already confided in her mistress that the expected baby was Bowes’s child. Little Mary, pining alone in her Queen’s Square boarding school as the holidays approached, had been all but forgotten. Mary Eleanor was in no position to help either of them. Bereft at leaving her two youngest children, befuddled by her enforced role in Bowes’s latest ploy, she barely knew her own mind. She had been ill repeatedly since the start of the year, suffering debilitating pains in her legs which Bowes assured the doctors were caused by anxiety at missing her children but were almost certainly due to the violence and distress caused by him. On the day of their departure Bowes had pinched her left arm so severely, as punishment for not playing her part in the deception to his satisfaction, that her upper arm from shoulder to elbow had been left black and blue.13 As she headed for the coast, in anxiety and pain, she was as much a captive as her teenage daughter, albeit one far less willing.
After spending the night in Dover, the little party crossed the Channel in an open boat hired by Bowes, rather than the busy packet favoured by most travellers, doubtless to avoid being detected by fellow passengers. Safely landed in Calais, where Bowes knew the British legal authorities had no jurisdiction, he could afford to be a little less circumspect. There he took rooms, almost certainly in the popular Hôtel d’Angleterre, for Bowes would refer to its famous proprietor by his pseudonym Monsieur Dessein in later correspondence. And it was on that first night in Calais, as she helped Mary prepare for bed, that Mary Morgan first began to uncover the truth behind her new mistress’s wretched demeanour. Since the elaborate gowns worn by fashionable eighteenth-century women generally came in several sections held together with pins, it was literally impossible to dress and undress without assistance. As she unpinned and removed the sleeves, bodice and skirt of her mistress’s tattered gown, Morgan’s eyes fell on a ‘large black mark as large as the Palm of [my] hand’ between Mary’s left elbow and shoulder.14 When Morgan asked her mistress how the bruise had been caused, Mary swiftly replied that she had bumped herself in the carriage on the way to Dover. Remembering that her mistress had sat on the right side of the carriage for the journey, Morgan kept her suspicions to herself.
As the family sped through the open countryside towards Paris with the carriage blinds fastened to keep out inquisitive stares, Morgan noticed Bowes slyly kicking and pinching Mary whenever he thought nobody was watching. If Mary made a comment, Bowes contradicted her, when she pulled down the blinds to look at the passing farmland he immediately drew them up, and throughout the journey he ‘treated her upon all occasions with the greatest indignity possible’.
Once the party arrived in bustling Paris, Bowes took a suite of rooms in the Hôtel de Luxembourg in the fashionable Faubourg Saint-Germain - the ‘politest part of the Town’ according to an earlier visitor.15 Long popular with British tourists, the hotel had provided hospitality to both Gray and Walpole on their Parisian jaunt in 1739 and to Lord Chesterfield, the late Earl of Strathmore’s guardian, two years later. But the opulent surroundings only furnished a new stage for what Morgan would later describe as ‘one continued scene of abuse, insult and cruelty’. When Bowes summoned Mary to his bedroom, which adjoined that which Mary Eleanor shared with Anna, Morgan almost invariably heard ‘Slaps or Blows’ followed by the sounds of Mary crying or screaming. Helping Mary undress for bed each night, Morgan noted that her flesh was ‘seldom free from bruises upon her face, neck, or arms’. Yet to all Morgan’s inquiries, Mary maintained a steadfast silence. She well knew, as Bowes had warned her on numerous occasions, that he would beat her ‘most unmercifully’ if he ever found that she had confided in one of the servants. Meanwhile, Bowes assumed his customary pose as the indulgent husband sorely tried by his obstinate wife - a myth which fooled the gullible Anna if not the observant Morgan.
Settling into his comfortable rooms at the Hôtel de Luxembourg, Bowes bombarded William Davis in London with instructions on the conducting of his legal battle to retain his grip on Anna. Having committed the grave offence of abducting a ward of Chancery under the noses of her guardians, Bowes knew that not only could Anna be seized the moment they set foot back on British soil but also that he could be arrested and possibly imprisoned for contempt of court. It was imperative, therefore, that he not only develop a plausible case for abducting Anna but also - should his pleadings fail - be able to exonerate himself from all blame. His paper trail of letters to Davis, which crossed the Channel in the trusty packet throughout the summer, would provide a lasting testament to the extraordinary gymnastics of his nimble mind. Dictated by Bowes to Mary, they would faithfully be reproduced by Foot as a powerful example of the ‘masterpiece of villainy’ of which Bowes was capable.16 Seemingly concerned only for the happiness of his dear wife, Bowes portrayed himself as an innocent pawn caught up in Mary’s obsessive campaign to regain custody of her five eldest children. Declaring himself perfectly willing to comply with whatever the law decreed, and return to England immediately if required, he insist
ed that it was Mary Eleanor who refused to yield up her daughter.
On the receiving end of this deluge of excuses and procrastinations, the hapless Davis was expected to mastermind Bowes’s crusade for justice. Prior to leaving, Bowes had also instructed his lawyer friends, John Scott and John Lee, to champion his case. Both popularly known as ‘Jack’ and both MPs - albeit now on opposite sides of the floor - the two high-flying barristers had first met during Bowes’s 1777 by-election campaign when they had won their spurs contesting the result.17 Newcastle-born Scott, the youngest son of a coal agent, had attracted local scandal when he eloped with a city beauty, Bessie Surtees, in 1772; after working with Bowes during the by-election, the pair had become regular drinking chums. Now carving out a successful career at the bar in Chancery, Scott had shrewdly switched political allegiances to support William Pitt. He would shortly be appointed Solicitor General within Pitt’s administration and would ultimately become Lord Chancellor, as Lord Eldon, the top legal officer in England. Destined to become the longest-serving holder of that post, Scott would preside over some of the court’s longest-running cases, mercilessly lampooned in Dickens’s Bleak House. Lee, the youngest son of a Leeds cloth merchant, was a fiery radical and dissenter who had defended John Wilkes and served as Solicitor General and Attorney General under Fox. Coarse, outspoken and hard-drinking, his liberal tendencies extended only so far: in 1783 ‘Honest Jack’ had unsuccessfully defended the owners of the slave ship Zong when they were accused of throwing 133 sick captives overboard in order to claim insurance money. Ambitious, industrious and ruthless as they were, the two Jacks were nevertheless taking on one of their most challenging briefs in defending their fugitive friend.
Having presented their bill to reclaim Anna to Chancery on 27 May, it was nearly two weeks later, on 9 June, that the two guardians, Thomas Lyon and David Erskine, were given leave to argue their case before the Lord Chancellor, Baron Thurlow.18 The petition, as usual, was presented in the names of the children, including Anna, ranged against their mother and Bowes. Relating the sorry tale of Anna’s abduction and the attempted kidnap of Maria, the petition described how an increasingly desperate Mrs Carlile had scoured the West End attempting to discover the whereabouts of her pupil when she had failed to return to school that evening. Refused any information by Bowes’s servants and William Davis, who were all bound to secrecy, the guardians had only discovered Anna’s fate when Lady Anne Simpson received a letter from her niece posted in Calais several days later. Inured as they were to Bowes’s ploys, the family had been so aghast at this latest turn of events that Maria now declared herself willing to attend court in person and to testify against her mother and stepfather. Nicknamed ‘Tiger’ for his ferocity in court, Lord Thurlow lost no time in ordering that Mary and Bowes should bring back Anna and defend their actions in court, while also demanding that William Davis and Mary Reynett should explain their role in the affair.
Having embroiled his friends as accessories to his misdeeds while he remained at a safe distance in Paris, Bowes pronounced himself ‘very satisfied’ with the outcome of the preliminary hearing.19 Studiously maintaining the myth that he was a mere bystander in Mary’s bid to regain her children, his next letter assured Davis that he was determined to return to England but issued the proviso that, ‘I am equally resolved to permit Lady S- and her daughter to do exactly as their own wishes may happen to dictate.’ He added: ‘They wish, I believe, to remain in their present asylum.’
For Mary, if not for Anna, remaining in Paris certainly resembled life in an asylum, although not the tranquil sanctuary that Bowes had invoked. Even as Bowes forced her to write letters pleading his concern for her wellbeing, he subjected her to ‘unequalled’ cruelty.20 Anxious to avoid being recognised, he beat her several times for failing to pull her bonnet far forward enough to conceal her face and on one occasion he pinched her for not standing behind Anna when watching a public firework display. When visiting their friends, the physician John Scott and his wife, whom Bowes had summoned to keep them company in Paris, Mary unthinkingly removed her cloak, revealing her tattered gown with gaping holes beneath the arms. Marching her to a quiet spot in the Luxembourg gardens, Bowes scolded and pinched her for half an hour before almost tearing one of her diamond earrings out of her ear.
Equally determined that Mary should enjoy none of the cultural or intellectual treats that Paris had to offer, Bowes forbade her from visiting any of the famous sights, conversing in French or studying the native botany. ‘Having incautiously mentioned that one of my chief delights in France would be picking up any curious plants which might fall my way, Mr Bowes gave me the strictest orders never to pull them,’ she would write. ‘[B]ut as we were walking through a Vineyard at l’Etoile, near Paris, I perceived so very curious a flower within my reach, that as I thought he was too earnest in discourse to observe me, I snatched at, and slipped it into my pocket, however not unnoticed for Mr Bowes instantly said “What is that you have got, shew me.” I did, upon which he flung it away, and whispering some abusive language, gave me a sly pinch on my arm.’
While Mary Morgan quietly observed each fresh assault and noted the marks on her mistress’s flesh each night, Mary Eleanor contrived to suffer Bowes’s brutality in silence. But towards the end of June, his abuse reached extremes that would have far-reaching consequences.
Alone in her hotel room, Mary was drawing back the curtains to look down on the coach yard below when Bowes walked in.21 Enraged that she should expose herself to view, he flew at her with his fists, punching, kicking and pushing her around the bedroom. He then seized her ear and wrung it so hard, with his nails digging into the flesh of her neck, that blood started pouring from the wound. As blood soaked into Mary’s neckerchief and gown, Bowes attempted to staunch the flow with his own handkerchief. It took two handkerchiefs and a towel to stop the bleeding. Sick with pain and sobbing, Mary leaned against a chest of drawers as Bowes opened the door and yelled for Morgan. Summoned from the adjoining room, Morgan was horrified as she took in her mistress sobbing uncontrollably, the blood-soaked handkerchiefs and the bloody towel strewn on the floor. But far from suggesting she offer solace to her mistress, Bowes angrily instructed Morgan always to place a chair against the door because ‘that woman’ - pointing at Mary - ‘can take no care of herself’. Mary, he declared, had let the wind slam the door causing her to run a pin through her ear. Well accustomed by now to Bowes’s violence and Mary’s lame excuses, Morgan was incredulous. Observing the torn flesh behind Mary’s ear, which looked ‘very unlike any Wound made with a Pin’, she was convinced that Bowes had clawed at the skin with his own nails.
This time, when Morgan later pressed her about the incident, Mary Eleanor finally confessed the truth: it was Bowes who had caused all her bruises, black eyes, scratches and cuts with his sustained campaign of violence. Swearing Morgan to secrecy, Mary had taken what was probably the most crucial step of her life. Although the ill-treatment continued, she finally had an ally.
If Mary’s maid now fully appreciated her misery, her own daughter was seemingly indifferent. Sharing a room with her mother in the close confines of the hotel suite, Anna frequently heard and on occasions witnessed her stepfather beating her mother. When Bowes abused Mary at length in the Luxembourg gardens, Anna had watched the entire performance; she would later admit that she frequently heard her mother scream and saw her cry during her time in Paris.22 And yet, having just turned fourteen, a naive and impressionable adolescent, Anna had plainly fallen for the Bowes magic. Relishing her role at the centre of the family drama, flattered by the attentions of the stepfather who had whisked her away from the dullness of boarding school life, she was in thrall to Bowes. Still handsome at thirty-seven, impeccably dressed and as silkily manipulative as ever, Bowes filled the vacuum left by the father she barely remembered and presented a welcome antidote to her severe and puritanical uncle. While in Paris, she would later say, her stepfather bought her expensive gowns, engaged the best tut
ors for her lessons and in short ‘did all in his power’ to make her happy. So when Bowes scolded her mother for wearing tattered clothing, complained of her clumsiness or admonished her for being too familiar with the servants, Anna placidly swallowed the charade. Indeed, she would later argue, if her mother had only followed her husband’s instructions more carefully ‘they might all have lived more happily than they did’. But not only did Anna condone Bowes’s cruelty, she was even emboldened to emulate him, treating her mother with contempt and callousness. The friction led to fierce arguments, which Bowes eagerly fanned by supporting Anna and admonishing Mary for treating her daughter too harshly. Mary herself would later accuse Bowes of prevailing upon Anna to ‘treat me almost as ill as you did’.23
Precisely how far the alliance between Bowes and Anna extended is unclear. Although Bowes had evidently plotted to marry Anna to a wealthy suitor in France, it is plausible that his thoughts may even have turned to acquiring a second Bowes heiress for himself. After all, his own claim to fortune lasted only for the duration of Mary’s lifetime which - under his bullying regime - might not be overlong. Certainly Anna’s school teachers would later refer obliquely to her having ‘erred’ during her time in France, while her mother would express a desire to ‘avoid exposing my Daughter’ to unwelcome scandal. Most tellingly, Bowes’s own sister would write to Mary with the words: ‘Your account of your unnatural Daughter (as you justly stile her) indeed strikes us all with horror. Can they be so base? God Almighty reform them.’24 And while her uncle harried his lawyers to secure her rescue, Anna seemed in no particular hurry to return.