by Wendy Moore
44 Narrative, pp. 127-8; answer of Mary Morgan, 17 March 1787, ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15. Morgan describes the arrangements for the escape in this testimony. Charles Shuter was not Morgan’s cousin, as suggested by Arnold, but the brother-in-law of her friend Miss Charles.
CHAPTER 10: VILE TEMPTATIONS
The main sources for Mary’s escape are Foot, pp. 114-6 ; answer of Mary Morgan, 17 March 1787, ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15; affidavit Susanna Church, divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12; and Depositions of Mary Reynett and Anna Maria Bowes, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282. Background information on the history of the English legal system is from Baker.
1 Narrative, pp. 48, 50, 129-30 and 133.
2 Copy of letter MEB to ARB, 3 February 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1. The copy was made by MEB herself.
3 HW to Lady Ossory, 5 February 1785, in Lewis, W. S., vol. 33, pp. 459-60.
4 Handwritten copy of Articles of the Peace exhibited by MEB against ARB, 7 February 1785: SPG, Bowes Paper, vol. 41; Gentleman’s Magazine, 55 (1785), p. 152. Another handwritten copy of the articles exists in SPG, volume C which has a poem, presumably by Mary, on the reverse. It reads: ‘Our poets oft have satire tried,/To stop the hideous female rore,/But Bowes his keener pen apply’d,/And woman for a while gave o’er,/Thus may their tongues for ever bleed,/And pens be ne’er employ’d in vain,/Bowes then may glory in the Deed,/And try the experiment again.’
5 Morning Chronicle, 8 and 24 February 1785.
6 Narrative, p. 7.
7 Foot, p. 117.
8 Affidavit Dorothy Stephenson, divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12. Dorothy said she left on 25 February 1785.
9 ARB to Charles Harborne and James Seton [MEB’s attorneys], 11 February 1785, cited in Answer MEB, ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15; ARB to same, 16 February 1785, copy: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.
10 Answer MEB in ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15; Foot, p. 119.
11 Bill ARB in ARB v MEB: NA Chancery C12/608/15. The bill says Stephens was ‘late under treasurer’ of the Middlesex Hospital, now in the East Indies, in December 1786.
12 Dickens (1991, first pub. 1852-3), p. 53.
13 For information on the history of divorce in England see Phillips (1988) and (1991); Stone (1995); and Baker, pp. 490-8.
14 Hay and Rogers, p. 53.
15 Stone (1995), pp. 153-5. Eldon and Kenyon subsequently attempted to abolish private separation deeds.
16 Stone (1995), p. 213; Lord Abergavenny against Richard Lyddel for criminal conversation with Lady Abergavenny, in anon, A New Collection of Trials for Adultery, vol. 1, case 7, p.12.
17 Anon, A New Collection of Trials for Adultery, vol. 2, p. iii.
18 According to Stone, cases seeking separation which reached the Court of Arches (the appeal court for southern England) rose between 1780 and 1810, while matrimonial litigation at the London Consistory Court, the biggest of the preliminary courts, doubled between 1750 and 1820. Stone provides a breakdown of plaintiffs to the LCC by gender between 1670 and 1857. Stone (1995), pp. 40, 43 and 428.
19 Stone (1995), pp. 309-11.
20 Phillips (1988) p. 65.
21 Campbell, vol. 7, pp. 153-5.
22 Dickens (1938, first pub. 1849-50), p. 320.
23 Foot, p. 120. Mary’s libel was lodged on 4 May 1785 and is given in LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/180. The depositions are collected as LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.
24 MEB to Thomas Johnston, 27 April 1785, in Stoney, appendix to p. 55.
25 Foot, p. 119. Foot meant in financial terms.
26 MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 15 June 1785: SPG, volume C.
27 Mary Lawrenson (née Stoney) to MEB, March 1785, George Stoney to MEB, 31 March 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1; George Stoney to General Armstrong, 6 April 1785, cited in Stoney, p. 56.
28 Thomas Lyon to MEB, 27 May 1785: SPG, box 201, bundle 3; TL to MEB, 27 July 1786: SPG, box 69, bundle 4.
29 Elizabeth Parish to Thomas Lyon, 4 May 1785: SPG, box 146, bundle 6; same to same, 3 November 1785: SPG, box 99, bundle 2.
30 Foot, p. 119. William Lyon describes himself as a distant relation in anon, A full and accurate report of the trial, p. 32-3.
31 Foot, p. 120; Jessé Foot to MEB, 24 May 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1; Jessé Foot to MEB, 24 May 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1; deposition of Jessé Foot, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.
32 John Hunter to MEB, 18 September 1785: DCRO SEA St/C1/9/5. The feud between Foot and Hunter may have been at least partly motivated by their opposing loyalties in the Bowes divorce case. The following year, 1786, when Hunter published his long-awaited treatise on venereal disease, Foot responded with a virulent counter-attack. While Hunter characteristically dismissed the diatribe with the aside that ‘every animal has its Lice’, Foot would have the last laugh: penning a poisonous biography of the revered surgeon the moment he was safely dead. See Moore (2005), pp. 199-201 and ODNB, vol. 20, pp. 245-6. Depositions of John Hunter and Richard Thompson, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.
33 The Times, 27 April and 9 May 1785. The Stephensons’ story is told in Statement by Mary Stephenson, n.d. [1785/6]: SPG, box 185, bundle 2. Dorothy’s statement of her ordeal is given in Affidavit Dorothy Stephenson, 3 May 1785, for divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12.
34 Francis Bennett to MEB, 31 May 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.
35 Depositions of Dorothy Stephenson, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.
36 Robert Thompson to MEB, 16 March 1785 and 3 April 1785: SPG, box 69, bundle 6 and bundle 4.
37 Letters Francis Bennett to MEB, 12 March to 19 July 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.
38 MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 31 May 1785: SPG, volume C. Colpitts’s father and grandfather had worked as agents to the Bowes family.
39 MEB, handbill, 24 December 1785: BBP DUL box 71, 248.
40 William Stephenson to Mary Stephenson, 3 February 1786: SPG, box 185, bundle 3.
41 Various letters Ann and George Arthur to MEB, 7 March to 21 October 1785 and undated: SPG, box 185, bundle 2. 42 MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 2 August 1785: SPG, volume C.
43 MEB, handbill, 24 December 1785: BBP DUL box 71, 248. MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 7 January [the letter is dated 1785 but was definitely 1786]: SPG, volume C.
44 James Farrer and Thomas Lacey are listed in Browne’s General Law-List for 1780-2 at 8 Bread Street Hill and noted as specialising in the King’s Bench. Farrer does not appear in other biographical directories of lawyers and little more information can be found about him beyond his copious correspondence with MEB. His brother Henry Farrer was born in Yorkshire c. 1745. I am grateful for the help of Christopher Jessel of Farrer & Co, the law firm still based in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, for ascertaining that Mary’s attorney was not the James Farrer who worked there contemporaneously.
45 Mary Morgan to Thomas Colpitts, 19 January 1786: SPG, volume C. The succeeding quotes are from MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 14 February 1786: SPG, volume C, and James Farrer to Thomas Lacey, 9 December 1786: SPG, box 185, bundle 2.
46 Testimony Francis Bennett, 29 July 1788, divorce appeal to Delegates: NA DEL 2/12; Robert Thompson to MEB, 14 December 1785: SPG, box 81, bundle 5.
47 Countess of Strathmore v Bowes, in Brown, William, vol. 2, pp. 345-50.
48 Transcript letter ARB to Mr Langstaff, 2 March 1786 and Thomas Colpitts to James Farrer, 2 February 1786: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.
49 John Hall to MEB, 26 April 1786 and James Smith to MEB, 2 May 1786: SPG, box 69, bundles 4 and 7; English Chronicle, 6 May 1786, BM Album. 50 The Times, 19 May 1786.
CHAPTER 11: SAY YOUR PRAYERS
Background on Gillray and the Strathmore prints is from Gatrell, pp. 258-74 and 331-44. Also see McCreery, pp. 173-4 and 195-6, and George, vol. 6, nos. 7011, 7013 and 7083. All sources agree that at least the first two prints were probably commissioned by Bowes. The three prints are ‘LADY TERMAGANT FLAYBUM going to give her STEP SON a taste of her DESERT after Dinner, a Scene performed every day near Grosvenor Square, to the annoy
ance of the neighbourhood’, 1786; ‘The Injured COUNT..S’, (undated but most probably 1786); ‘The MISER’S Feast’, 1786. There seems no apparent reason for Morgan’s wasp-waist other than that Gillray was experimenting with such figures at the time. My thanks to Vic Gatrell for advice. The third print was labelled ‘Lady Strathmore’ by Edward Hawkins, keeper of antiquities at the British Museum from 1826 to 1867, according to Gatrell, p. 340 and 645n. The connection is still unclear, however. The anecdote about the tenth earl appeared in The Ton Gazette, 1777, copy in BBP DUL box 71, 248.
1 MEB bill in MEB v ARB, 3 June 1786: NA C12/605/34. Bowes replied on 3 July with a scurrilous attack on Mary, claiming he had cut the trees because they were old. The felled trees were advertised on 3 June 1786, with a counter advertisement from MEB, in the Newcastle Courant. The injunction was granted sometime in July.
2 Thomas Colpitts to James Farrer, 14 July 1786: SPG, box 69, bundle 4.
3 Robert Thompson to MEB, 24 July 1786: SPG, box 69, bundle 6. Several authors report Bowes visiting Scandinavia on a tour with Sir Henry Liddell and Matthew Consett at this time. This trip took place between 24 May and 12 August 1786. But as these tenants’ letters show Bowes was very much at large in County Durham during those months. The ‘Mr Bowes’ who accompanied Liddell and Consett was probably Thomas Bowes of Durham, listed as a subscriber to the book describing the expedition. See Consett. The tenants’ letters mentioned below are Robert Thompson to MEB , 24 March 1786; Hannah Dixon to MEB , 17 July 1786; William and Mary Stephenson to MEB , 23 May 1786 and same to Farrer, 26 July 1786: all SPG, box 69, bundle 4. Various eviction notices are mentioned including three in a letter from John Glover to Farrer, 27 April 1786: SPG , box 69, bundle 5, as well as others referred to below.
4 Thompson to MEB, 16 July 1786: SPG, box 69, bundle 4.
5 MEB to Colpitts, 16 July 1786: SPG, volume C.
6 MEB to Colpitts, 16 July 1786: SPG, volume C.
7 Farrington, p. 261; Captain Farrer’s divorce bill, Journal of the House of Lords, 36 George III, vol. XL (1796), p. 654. Farrer had served a seven-year apprenticeship at sea and worked up the ranks before being given command of the True Briton in 1782. The divorce was granted in April 1796. Mary’s letter referring to him is MEB to Colpitts, 16 July 1786: SPG, volume C.
8 Miniature of MEB, watercolour on ivory, by J. C. Dillman Engleheart, c. 1800, in the BM. The list of works kept by J. C. Dillman Engleheart shows that he painted MEB’s portrait ‘for my Aunt W’ on 9 August 1800 and it is believed this was copied from an earlier portrait by his uncle George Engleheart, which is since lost. Mary had died a few months prior to the nephew’s portrait. Williamson (1902), p. 130; BM catalogue details, record no. 1509.
9 MEB to Colpitts, 22 October 1786: SPG, volume C. The ensuing details are described in Affidavit Mary Morgan, n. d.: SPG, box 69, bundle 5; MEB to Colpitts, 16 August 1786; Morgan to Colpitts, 26 October 1786: SPG, volume C; and Morgan to Colpitts, 26 October and 2 November 1786: SPG, volume C. The two coaches followed Mary’s on 22 October 1786.
10 MEB to Colpitts, 7 November 1786: SPG, volume C; Morgan to Colpitts, 7 November 1786: SPG, volume C.
11 Details of the abduction are described in many sources. The principal ones I have referred to are Lady Strathmore’s Narrative, vol. 2, Narrative of my journey from Streatlam Castle to the Highlands etc. and my return to Bread Street Hill, hereafter called Narrative, vol. 2.; Information filed for the King’s Bench, Hilary term 1787, in the case of abduction on 10 Nov 1787 against ARB and others: SPG, box 186, bundle 1; affidavit of Henry Farrer and Mary Morgan for habeas corpus against ARB , 11 November 1786: NA KB/1/25/1, Michaelmas bundle 1. The ironmonger is variously named Edward Foster and Forster, but the former is given in street directories. The shop was at 253 Oxford Street, close to Oxford Circus. Lowndes’s London Directory for the year 1787, p. 56; Kent’s Directory for the year 1794.
12 Information filed for the King’s Bench: SPG, box 186, bundle 1. Details of Bowes’s plans also emerged at the later court case.
13 MEBto Morgan, 10 November 1786: DCRO SEA D/St/C2/11/21.
14 Durham County Council, pp. 18-23; Tipping; Sale catalogues, Streatlam Castle, 1922 and 1927: BM Archives.
15 Events during 11 and 12 November at Streatlam Castle are described in Narrative, vol. 2, pp. 175-88.
16 Horace Walpole to Lady Ossory, 1 December 1786, in Lewis, W. S., vol. 33, pp. 536-40; Duchess of Brunswick to the Duchess of Argyll, 26 December 1786: B L add. MSS 29577.
17 London Evening Post, 11 November 1786: B M Album; The Times, 16 November 1786; Gentleman’s Magazine 56 (1786), p. 991; Madras Courier, 6 December 1787, cutting in a scrapbook of news cuttings compiled by MEB, entitled ‘Paragraphs Etc Pro and Con Concerning Myself & Family’, in the possession of the Bowes Lyon family at St Paul’s Walden Bury, hereafter called SPWB Album.
18 Affidavit Henry Farrer and Mary Morgan for habeas corpus against ARB , 11 November 1786: N A KB/1/25/1, Michaelmas bundle 1. Background on policing is from Hay and Snyder, passim. In 1856 it became compulsory for every county in England and Wales to have a police force.
19 English Chronicle, 14 November 1786, BM Album.
20 London Evening Post, 11 November 1786, BM Album; handbill, 11 November, SPWB Album.
21 Zachary Hubbersty to ‘Lacey and Farrer’, 13 November 1786: SPG, box 69, bundle 5.
22 Robert Thompson to Morgan, 19 December 1786: SPG , box 69, bundle 6.
23 English Chronicle, 21 November 1786, BM Album; London Chronicle, 28-30 November 1786.
24 Rambler’s Magazine, 1786, p. 444; letter, anon to anon: BM Archives; Lady Darlington to her son, 16 November, 1786: B M Archives.
25 Margaret Liddell to Thomas Colpitts, 13 November 1786: SPG, volume C.
26 Edward Whatmore to Frederick Gibson, 13 November 1786: SPG, box 69, bundle 5.
27 Affidavit Thomas Ridgeway, 13 November: NA KB/1/25/1, Michaelmas bundle 1.
28 News cutting, no title or date: BBP DUL box 71, 243; Gentleman’s Magazine 56 (1786), p. 991.
29 Information filed for the King’s Bench: SPG , box 186, bundle 1.
30 Letter, anon to anon: BM Archives.
31 Details of Mary’s ordeal from 12 to 20 November differ slightly in dates and locations according to various sources. My main source has been Narrative, vol. 2. Details can also be found in Information filed for the King’s Bench: SPG, box 186, bundle 1. The autumn season of 1786 (September, October, November) was not only the coldest of the eighteenth century but also since records first began in 1659 according to the Hadley Centre Central England Temperature Handset, http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/. My thanks to Barry Gromett of the Met Office. Background information on the Pennines is from Smith, On Foot in the Pennines, pp. 111-12; Marsh, passim; Defoe, vol. 3, pp. 75-6. Access is now restricted in the area Mary crossed since large parts are private grouse moors or artillery ranges.
32 Ridgeway’s and Captain Farrer’s search efforts are described in Information filed for the King’s Bench: SPG, box 186, bundle 1; Thomas Colpitts junior to James Farrer, 18 November 1786: SPG, volume C.
33 Letter, anon to anon, B M Archives.
34 Margaret Liddell to Thomas Colpitts, 19 November 1786: SPG, volume C.
35 Several copies of reward posters with different dates and text survive in SPG, volume C and the SPWB Album. Mrs Liddell refers to a poster in her letter of 19 November.
36 Information filed for the King’s Bench: SPG, box 186, bundle 1.
37 Details of the rescue are contained in Narrative, vol. 2; affidavit of Gabriel Thornton, 5 December 1786: N A KB/1/25/1, Michaelmas bundle 2.
38 Thomas Lacey to Thomas Colpitts, 21 November 1786 and Mary Morgan to Thomas Colpitts, 23 November 1786: SPG, volume C.
39 English Chronicle, 25 November 1786, BM Album; Public Advertiser, 24 November 1786, SPWB Album. Several poems and leaflets are preserved in the SPWB Album with titles such as: ‘A True and Particular Account, of the Many Hardships, and Surprizing Es
cape, of the Countess of Strathmore Who was rescued from Mr Bowes, by a great Number of Country People in a Field, near Darlington, in the County of Durham’.
CHAPTER 12: THE TAMING OF BAD WIVES
Details of ARB ’s court appearance are contained in the newspaper articles mentioned as well as numerous others contained in the SPWB Album and BM Album. The scene is pictured in James Gillray, ‘Andrew Robinson Bowes Esqr. as he appeared in the Court of Kings Bench. . .’, (London, 1786). See Gatrell, pp. 340-2; McCreery, pp. 174-7; George, vol. 6, no. 7012. His journey to court and time in jail is described in Foot, pp. 138-9.
1 The Times, 29 November 1786; Gentleman’s Magazine 56 (1786), p. 1081; Morning Chronicle, 29 November 1786.
2 Foss, vol. 1, pp. 137-8; ODNB , vol. 8, pp. 617-9. Although Buller was heavily backed by Lord Mansfield, eventually Lord Kenyon was appointed Mansfield’s successor in 1788.
3 Sureties of between £500 and £1,000 were commonplace for such cases; even Earl Ferrers had been allowed bail totalling £10,000. See Doggett, p. 13. Foot, p. 139; cutting [no title], 29 November 1786, BBP DUL, box 71, 248.
4 Morning Chronicle, 29 November 1786; Newcastle Journal, 9 December 1786.
5 Anon, ‘The Irishman in Limbo, or, Stony Batter’s Lamentation for the loss of his Liberty’, n. d., BBP DUL, box 71, 248; Anon, ‘Who Cries Andrew now?’, (London, 12 May 1788), BBP DUL, box 71, 248; Martin Brown, ‘Paddy’s Progress, or the Rise and Fall of Captain S-y’ (Durham, 1808): DCRO SEA D/St/C1/13/16. An earlier version of the latter ballad, published 23 July 1788, is preserved in the SPWB Album.
6 Testimony John Beaumont, apothecary, Information filed for the King’s Bench: SPG, box 186, bundle 1; anon, The Trial of ARB. . . for a Conspiracy , p. 31.
7 MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 28 December 1786: MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 8 January 1787; MEB to Thomas Colpitts junior, 13 December 1786: SPG, volume C.
8 MEB to Thomas Colpitts, 28 December 1786: SPG, volume C.
9 Cokayne, vol. 12, pp. 400-1. Lord Strathmore enrolled as a cornet on 15 November 1786. Mary collected news cuttings on his career in the SPWB Album which she began in 1786.