Edward Bearcroft, Bisset’s leading counsel, rose from his place on the wooden bench and turned to face Judge Mansfield. It seemed as if the defence had been routed and that it was prepared to concede defeat before Bearcroft had so much as put his first point. The attorney claimed that he, Samuel Pechell and Henry Howorth could not ‘attempt to make any defence in controversion of the charge exhibited against the Defendant’ and that they were ‘very ready to admit that the Plaintiff was entitled to a verdict.4 The only question which then remained was upon the subject of damages …’ It was upon this basis and on ‘the mitigation’ of the award that he would ‘defend his client’. Then, like a gambler with a winning hand pressed to his chest, Bearcroft addressed those assembled. He intended ‘to prove to the satisfaction of the jury that Sir Richard not only acquiesced under repeated acts of his own dishonour with various persons, but even excited and encouraged it’. Puzzled glances must have passed around the court.
Justice Mansfield’s attention had been piqued. ‘If a Plaintiff encourages, or is privy to, or consenting at all, or contributing to the debauchery of his Wife, or joined in it, he ought not to recover a verdict,’ he commented, citing the law.
Bearcroft, with enthusiasm, claimed that in the case of Sir Richard Worsley, ‘he could prove this to be fact’. ‘Why’, he wondered, had the prosecution ‘not called some persons belonging to, or about the family, in order to prove how the parties lived together, a circumstance very material in a case like this?’ he questioned, referring to the suspicious omission of any detail about the Worsleys’ house at Maidstone. In fact, ‘they had only called one person belonging to the family; that was the Butler, who had lived in the house but one day, and who, of course, could not speak to that point’. Sir Richard Worsley was hiding something. Bearcroft was about to unveil it.
He began his story, claiming that ‘The licentious conduct of Lady Worsley was so notorious that it had been the subject of common conversation; and that many Ladies of Distinction in the Isle of Wight and elsewhere, had frequently remonstrated with Sir Richard on the subject, and told him, that if he did not attempt to restrain her conduct, her character would be ruined and destroyed.’ He continued: ‘ … the answer Sir Richard made was, that Lady Worsley liked it, and he chose to do it to oblige her; upon which a very sensible Lady, who had frequently remonstrated [with] him on the subject, replied, if this is the case, God help you! You are the most contented———HUSBAND I ever knew …’ Then Bearcroft with all the drama of a showman moved to lift the lid on his most devastating of revelations. This tale was not mere chatter invented to entertain ageing gossips. Lady Worsley, even before her association with Bisset, had enjoyed ‘many prior connections’. Prior connections to such an extent that ‘the idea of seduction by the present Defendant was totally done away’.
In the months since November 1781, Seymour had been busy writing letters to those who, like Bisset, had once warmed her bed. She asked them for the sake of her current lover to come to her aid. Outside the Court of the King’s Bench awaited three of these faded flames. Somewhere among the town houses of Mayfair and St James, the soft green hills of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and along the cobbled roads of continental Europe were rumoured to be twenty-four more.
14
‘Lady Worsley’s Seraglio’
The baronet was fortunate to be sitting behind the courtroom’s muslin curtain, obscured from view when Bearcroft fired his resounding volley across the room. Of all the scribes in the gallery on that day, not one was able to record his expression. This strange counter-attack by the defence took everyone by surprise.
Maurice George Bisset had not been the first of Sir Richard’s wife’s lovers, merely one among many who had courted her and intrigued with her in a variety of places and circumstances. The defence, with Lady Worsley’s assistance, had gathered together a collection of men, who had all conducted some form of relationship with Seymour over the past four years. Bearcroft would parade each of the cuckolders before the jury and the judge. They would sit under Worsley’s nose, the stench of their filthy stories airing freely in the courtroom.
The first of these names, that of George William Coventry, Viscount Deerhurst, was cried through the hall of justice. Worsley would not have found the defence’s decision to summon him surprising. As the Viscount was the scheming facilitator of his wife’s elopement, Sir Richard would have come to revile him nearly as much as he did his former companion, Bisset. There was, however, nothing triumphant about Deerhurst’s manner as he was guided to his place in the witness box. Though he could not see the assembled spectators, he must have sensed the weight of their gaze. By ‘a particular request from the lady herself’ the Viscount had been called to appear as the defence’s key witness. In assuming this role he had agreed to disclose the details of his relationship with Worsley’s wife in the most explicit terms. Filled with anxiety and shame, ‘he appeared …’, according to the Morning Herald, ‘particularly distressed at his situation’.
‘On what year was your Lordship first acquainted with Lady Worsley?’ Howorth asked.
‘In the year 1779.’
‘Had you occasion to know Sir Richard also?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Did she receive, during the time you knew him, any endeavour, or attempt, on his part, to check the dissoluteness of her conduct?’
‘None.’
‘Does your Lordship remember being on a visit to the Isle of Wight, at Sir Richard’s House?’
‘I do,’ replied Deerhurst. Indeed, it would have been difficult for him to have forgotten it.
In the summer of 1779, Lord Deerhurst had found himself in a great deal of trouble. The seeds of his woes were sown many years before but only recently had come into bloom. From a young age, the Viscount, who would inherit his father, the 6th Earl of Coventry’s fortune, had acquired a taste for cards, horses and reckless friends. Described as ‘tall and elegant’ and possessing ‘an uncommonly pre-engaging countenance’, the Viscount’s charms made him a favourite with women. By 1776 at the age of nineteen, his handsome features and ‘sprightly and vivacious’ character had won the affection of Catherine Henley, the daughter of the Earl of Northington, with whom he stole away to Gretna Green for a clandestine wedding. His father was outraged at his son’s behaviour and the embarrassment it brought. Banned from the ancestral home, Croome Court as well as the family’s London house, the Viscount spent the next several years of his life begging his stepmother to help him secure a reconciliation with his father. His pleading correspondence rings with desperation and heartache. ‘The disgrace at his denial of me,’ he claimed, ‘renders my life in reality a burthen …’ ‘[I] would willingly enter a dungeon’ if it would ‘recover my father’s favour,’ he wrote. Deerhurst’s anguish was increased by his financial difficulties and intensified further in March 1779, when his beloved wife died in childbirth.
His friend Worsley’s invitation to visit Appuldurcombe had come at an opportune juncture. Since Lady Deerhurst’s death, the Viscount had shut himself away at Stoke Park with his sister, Lady Anne Foley and her husband. In early September, as debt snapped at his heels and depression ate into his spirit, he wrote to his stepmother that he had not yet ‘determined upon any plan for the winter as my sole object is the recovery of my father’s favour’, but as ‘Mr Foley and Lady Anne are soon going to Croome’ where he was not welcome, he would instead ‘take this opportunity of paying a visit to Sir Richard Worsley in the Isle of Wight’.
It is unknown how long Deerhurst had been acquainted with the Worsleys at the time he accepted the baronet’s invitation. The Genuine Anecdotes and Amorous Adventures of Sir Richard Easy, which refers to Deerhurst as ‘the Lothario of the age’ and as a man who ‘had already established his reputation for gallantry and intrigue’, implied that they had forged a friendship at one of the fashionable sea bathing towns: Brighton or Weymouth. However, it was not until his stay at Appuldurcombe that an attraction developed between the Vi
scount and Lady Worsley. Deerhurst claimed that his host was not only aware of his wife’s allure but had encouraged his guest to make sexual overtures to her. According to the account published in The Memoirs of Sir Finical Whimsy, the Viscount and Sir Richard had been examining his works of art when Lady Worsley passed by the window. As their eyes followed her across the landscape, her appearance sparked admiring comments from both her husband and his guest.
‘Has your Lordship any recollection of any particular expressions Sir Richard Worsley made use of, respecting his Wife, in addressing himself to you?’ Mr Howorth said, continuing with his cross-examination.
‘I hope I am not called to betray any private conversation?’ the Viscount answered, making a pretence of maintaining decorum. Justice Mansfield confirmed that this would not be the case and Deerhurst resumed his story. ‘He did then say, that many young men had tried her to no effect; and that I had his permission to try my chance with her.’ But the Viscount, surprised by his host’s unusual suggestion, ‘took it in a laugh’.
For all that was said openly in Deerhurst’s testimony, much more was being implied between the lines. Worsley’s pert remark, which the Viscount claimed to dismiss as a joke, was a challenge he would accept. With an invitation to pursue his friend’s wife, Deerhurst’s affair with Seymour soon took fire directly beneath the gaze of a permissive husband.
Mr Howorth turned to the Viscount in the witness box and pointedly questioned him: ‘Do you remember whether Sir Richard Worsley had an opportunity at any time of observing the intimacy and attention Your Lordship paid to Lady Worsley?’ Deerhurst hesitated. Howorth led him further. ‘And Your Lordship will mention the particular time …’
‘He found me in her dressing room, adjacent to her bedchamber, at four o’clock in the morning,’ the Viscount stated boldly. The jury knew what this implied. There was only one reason why a man would be in a woman’s private rooms at that time of night.
‘How was Lady Worsley dressed at the time?’
‘I don’t particularly recollect.’ To Deerhurst, this seemed a strange question.
‘In a dress,’ Howorth groped for detail, ‘or undress?’
‘I don’t remember; I made no observation upon it,’ the Viscount claimed. His true concern at that moment had not been the state in which he had left Lady Worsley, but rather that as he had slipped from her separate bedchamber he encountered her husband barring his route of escape. The men were equally embarrassed at their unexpected meeting. Deerhurst had been so flustered that he could only recall Sir Richard’s ‘astonishment at finding me there at that hour’.
‘Do you recollect his expression?’ asked the defence counsel.
‘He said–Deerhurst! How came you here? And after that I went to my bedroom.’ Worsley’s guest suggested that he offered no explanation for his conduct beyond that, although the anonymous author of Sir Finical Whimsy claims that the Viscount at least made an attempt to excuse the incident ‘as an unhappy custom I have of walking in my sleep’. However, Deerhurst’s evidence, as it stands, introduces the possibility that Worsley, who was out of bed and lingering in his wife’s dressing room in the depths of night had also been caught in a position of compromise, one that he was eager for his guest to forget. In spite of the fact that Lord Deerhurst had clearly emerged from his wife’s bedchamber, Sir Richard chose to say nothing more on the subject. It is more than likely that Deerhurst knew precisely why the baronet had been loitering outside his wife’s bedroom at 4 a.m.; the keyhole would have provided a luscious eyeful of the illicit activities. In most circumstances the Viscount’s behaviour would have been considered a gross breach of conduct but Worsley’s guest was neither reprimanded nor requested to leave. Instead, he was encouraged to remain at Appuldurcombe and treated by his host as if the incident had never happened.
Howorth continued with his questioning. ‘How long did your Lordship continue there, after that?’
‘To the best of my recollection, three or four days afterwards.’
‘Do you recollect whether, after that, you were permitted to attend Lady Worsley out upon parties?’
‘I was,’ he responded.
‘To what parts of the country?’ Howorth was inching his witness towards another potentially damning admission.
‘I don’t particularly remember.’
‘Do you remember going to Southampton?’
This, Deerhurst did recall. For nearly two weeks, the Viscount had eaten from the Worsleys’ table and slept between their sheets. He had admired Sir Richard’s collection of art, leafed through the books in his library, and galloped around the perimeters of Appuldurcombe. He had observed Sir Richard and his young wife breezing by one another, their interactions, their exchanged scowls, simpers and words, and learned a great deal about the nature of their marriage. By the time his valet had begun to pack his belongings, Deerhurst had sampled enough of Appuldurcombe to detect an unpleasant tinge in its owner’s character. Whatever he had experienced, whether it was the open proffering of Lady Worsley by her husband, or an iciness about Sir Richard, it was enough to turn him with great conviction against the baronet. It was also enough to make him sympathise with his wife. From the date of his visit to the Isle of Wight, the Viscount would unfailingly rally to her side.
To Lady Worsley, Deerhurst represented a means of escape: from unhappiness, from the Isle of Wight, and potentially from her marriage. In the ten days that they had passed together, an affection had taken root between them. Unhappy at the prospect of parting, Seymour began plotting a way to follow her paramour off the island. At the time, the Viscount was planning to return to London via Southampton. Finical Whimsy maintains that shortly after he revealed his intended route, Lady Worsley invented a reason ‘to set off for town to consult her physician’.
On the day of their guest’s departure, Worsley, his wife and Deerhurst set out for Cowes. Sir Richard had no objections to the Viscount escorting Lady Worsley to Southampton. He saw no need to accompany them across the Solent. Riding eight miles with them from Appuldurcombe, he then bid them farewell and turned his horse for home, leaving Seymour and Deerhurst to embark alone. The couple could not have foreseen such a stroke of good fortune.
Mr Howorth appeared quite incredulous at Lord Deerhurst’s account, that Worsley would so readily entrust his wife to the care of a man whom he, only nights before, spotted sneaking out of her rooms.
‘Was Lady Worsley travelling by herself, unattended, or was Sir Richard with her, or any other person?’ he demanded emphatically.
‘She was quite alone,’ responded the Viscount.
‘Did you know of her intention of going?’ asked Howorth. Deerhurst’s answer hinted at the possibility that this excursion had involved more forethought than chance. ‘Yes,’ he replied that he was aware that Lady Worsley had been planning a journey to Southampton. From there they had travelled towards London together, stopping for the night ‘at Kingston [Hampshire] and afterward at Godalming’.
‘Did she sleep there?’
‘Yes,’ Deerhurst stated frankly.
‘Had your Lordship any particular intimacy with her that night?’
The Viscount sensed that he had let propriety slip slightly too far. ‘Be so kind as to put that question again,’ he responded tartly.
‘Was you particularly connected with her that night?’
Though a notorious rake, Deerhurst still upheld the gentleman’s honour code which barred even the nose of the law from parting his bed curtains. He appealed to Lord Mansfield. ‘With your Lordship’s permission,’ he begged, ‘I decline that.’
‘Certainly,’ the judge defended him. ‘You have no right to be asked that.’ In one simple gesture, George William Coventry, Viscount Deerhurst and the future Earl of Coventry, asserted his position above that of those who challenged him. In theory, as an aristocrat, he towered above the law. He could choose to abide by it or discard it, to recognise its disciples or to ridicule them. He, like all the men instrumental to
this trial, could provide or deny information at his own discretion. These men answered as they saw fit, and the courts bowed in acknowledgement to this. Unwilling to concede anything further, Deerhurst fell silent and Howorth could do little more than dutifully resume his seat.
There was much about his relationship with Lady Worsley that Deerhurst refused to present as public knowledge. From a legal perspective it was essential that he avoid making an incontrovertible admission that he had enjoyed sexual relations with Sir Richard’s wife. His evidence had to be folded into an agreed storyline and his answers skilfully threaded through loopholes in order to prevent Worsley from bringing a charge of crim. con. against him as well. The Viscount also found it difficult to participate in a pillorying of Seymour’s character, a woman for whom he held an enduring fondness. In September 1779, Deerhurst had washed up on the Isle of Wight in a low state. Rootless, abandoned by his father and still mourning for his wife it is likely that he found support and understanding in Lady Worsley, herself succumbing to a growing discontent. As their relationship had a genuine emotional foundation, eventually sexual desire cooled into a meaningful friendship. Of all her lovers, the Viscount remained, over the years, the most constant in his concern for her. By assisting her elopement and acting as her protector, Deerhurst laid bare his already fragile character to wounding criticism. His confessions at the trial led to a general belief that the Viscount ‘had repaid the hospitality of a host by betraying his honour’. This, coupled with his public championing of Lady Worsley and her shameful conduct, resulted in further estrangement from his family. In the wake of the scandal, his aunt, the Duchess of Argyll expressed her disapproval of his behaviour by refusing to speak with him again. For someone who could have opted to remain anonymous during Lady Worsley’s ordeal, Deerhurst chose instead to sacrifice himself for a woman he held dear.
The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce Page 16