A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby (Text only)

by Mary S. Lovell

  Even Princess Lieven, whom, together with her husband, Ellenborough regarded as a friend, was less than happy, writing to Earl Grey, ‘You will imagine that I am not highly delighted at seeing Lord Ellenborough, a rabid Turk, in the Ministry.’6 And, though there were some who felt that Ellenborough had earned his appointment, clearly the King was not among them. He met the new Lord Privy Seal only once, out of courtesy. He was charming and polite but Ellenborough was never again invited into his presence.

  Ellenborough did not allow his monarch’s dislike to worry him. He wrote a triumphant personal note in his political diary:

  Janet has brought me a boy. I put this down as a political occurrence because I shall make him, if he lives and I live, a political Character. I shall ask the Duke of Wellington and Lord Dudley to be his Godfathers. Princess Esterhazy is to be his Godmother. A good diplomatic introduction to the world.7

  One must assume from this that Ellenborough accepted the child as his. The baby was named Arthur Dudley after his illustrious godparents. Evidently the birth was an uncomplicated one, for the smart christening party was held only a fortnight later, and within two months or, as one biographer cheerfully put it, ‘as soon as she could get her stays fastened again’, Jane was back in circulation apparently in glowing good looks.8 Lord Ellenborough was now more preoccupied than ever with his work of national importance, though Jane accompanied him to several state functions at this time.

  She was a poor mother, which is surprising, for she was a warm and caring person by nature. But she was unable to form any maternal bonds with her baby. It was not that she did not love him, but it was as though the child belonged to someone else. This disappointed her, but, as she wrote to her brother, she was as a child ‘never naturally fond of babies, never played with dolls, if you recollect, but was much fonder of animals etc.’9 Her inability to bond may also have been rooted in the fact that her lifestyle did not allow a great deal of contact with her ‘darling boy’.10 It was the established custom of the upper class to have children cared for by servants, thus enabling the mother to regain her place in society quickly. Moreover, London with its winter palls of smog from coal fires, and its summer plagues of typhoid, was considered unhealthy; the mortality of infants was high enough (hence Ellenborough’s remark ‘if he lives’), without exposing a child to additional risks. It was considered almost a duty to have a child professionally cared for in a quiet, healthy place. In little Arthur’s case this care devolved initially on a wetnurse and nursemaid in the country.

  Despite her glowing appearance, Jane was deeply unhappy in the weeks and months following her confinement. Edward was tolerant but remote, and her relationship with her child was conducted at arm’s length. She pined, according to her poetry, for the days of love and laughter, and the ‘magic’ she had shared with George.11

  The Ellenboroughs’ close friendship with the Russian and Austrian ambassadors and their wives meant that Jane was a frequent guest at embassy balls. It was at one such ball at the Austrian embassy, in May 1828, shortly after her twenty-first birthday, that Jane’s life was changed for ever. Her son’s godmother, Princess Esterhazy, introduced her on a warm early-summer evening, when the lilac trees in London squares were drenched in rain and heady scent, to Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, the newly arrived, darkly handsome attaché and secretary to Prince Esterhazy.

  Prince Felix Ludvig Johann Friedrich zu Schwarzenberg was a member of one of the great aristocratic families of Europe. Born the fourth child and second son of a happy marriage, he grew up at Schloss Krumlov, one of the most beautiful and romantic castles in Bohemia, situated amid dense forests on rocks overlooking the River Vltava. His father’s holdings of land amounted to half a million acres over which the family ruled in an almost feudal manner.12

  The name Schwarzenberg was already familiar in London and Paris for the exploits of Felix’s uncle, Field Marshal Karl Philipp Schwarzenberg, Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian forces ranged against Napoleon at Leipzig; and no less for the tragic story of Felix’s mother Princess Pauline who died at a state banquet given in Paris to honour Napoleon and Marie-Louise in 1810. When the building caught fire everyone was successfully ushered to safety, but a false report that her daughters were trapped in their bedchambers sent Princess Pauline flying back inside to rescue them. When they found her body next day, crushed by a fallen roof beam, all that was recognisable in the charred remains was her diamond necklace.13

  By the age of twenty-one, Felix had attained the rank of captain in a cavalry regiment bearing his family name (the Schwarzenberg Uhlans). After catching the eye of the self-appointed kingmaker, Prince Metternich, Felix joined the Austrian Diplomatic Corps. His first assignment was to the legation at St Petersburg where the Tsar was a friend of his father.14 Unfortunately, he became innocently involved in the Dekabrist revolt of army officers attempting to overthrow the Tsar’s government – a minor embarrassment which made it politically expedient to transfer him to another post. He was sent to Portugal to prepare for the arrival of Dom Miguel, Metternich’s choice for King. Dom Miguel was not the choice of the people, however, and Prince Felix subsequently found himself very unpopular, on one occasion being stoned by a mob from which he was lucky to escape without serious injury. He stuck to his post, regardless of unpopularity and, once Dom Miguel was safely installed in 1826, Felix was sent via Paris to London, where he took a ship for Rio de Janeiro on a special mission.15 He was subsequently appointed as attaché to London in May 1828.

  At the time he met Lady Ellenborough, Prince Felix was twenty-seven years old, handsome, dashing and accomplished. Highly intelligent, he was an excellent linguist, speaking fluent German, Czech, French, English, Latin and Spanish. He studied anatomy and, to judge from remarks by his biographer, it is probable that he was a natural healer.16 Felix was a music lover with a good voice, who wrote musical comedies to entertain his friends.17 ‘He was’, wrote one contemporary, ‘artless … and kind and friendly,’18 and according to his friend Count Rodolphe Apponyi, the Hungarian-Austrian diplomat and diarist, he was witty and amusing to be with.19 On that night at the Russian embassy ball Jane knew only that the prince smiled down into her eyes with uncomplicated admiration, waltzed as only someone who had learned to waltz in Vienna could, and held her attention to an extent that made her forget, for a while, her wretchedness over George Anson.

  Even Schwarzenberg’s biographer, who had no good word for Jane, admitted grudgingly that, as soon as the prince laid eyes on Jane, ‘it was love at first sight in the Byron style.’20 Jane was attracted but not smitten. It was the prince who laid siege to Jane with flowers, poems and notes. Wherever Jane went, the prince managed to be, and soon she was seen in his company, as she had previously been seen in George’s, riding with him in Rotten Row, in his cabriolet at the races, waltzing at Almack’s, in his box at the opera, walking round the Zoological Park on his arm.21 To find herself so courted and so desired after her lover’s seemingly callous desertion and her husband’s indifference was balm to Jane’s wounded spirit. Despite initial discretion it was quickly apparent to interested members of society that Lady Ellenborough had exchanged her regular escort, Colonel Anson, for the handsome foreign prince. It suited Jane’s hurt pride that society assumed the change was by her own choice, but her poetry confirms that she was not yet in love with the prince.

  The 1828 Derby, held shortly after Jane met Felix, was narrowly won by the Duke of Rutland’s Cadland, with the King’s horse, The Colonel, which started favourite, finishing in second place. It seemed excruciatingly amusing when Felix suddenly acquired the nickname ‘Cadland’, because, as the fashionable world tittered, ‘he had beat the Colonel’ out of Jane’s affections. Later Cadland was shortened to ‘Cad’. In that form it has been passed down to the present day as a synonym for ungentlemanly behaviour – not surprisingly, given the prince’s subsequent conduct.

  In June, several Harley Street residents noted a striking girl visiting number 73, a house that had be
en taken by Prince Schwarzenberg and Count Moritz Dietrichstein,22 two young attachés from the Austrian embassy. There was no reason why Jane should not be seen walking in Harley Street. Her parents’ home at number 86 was a mere hundred yards away at the opposite end of the block. The Ellenborough town-house at Connaught Place was a fifteen-minute stroll along Oxford Street, or a five-minute drive by horse and carriage. Jane’s carriage was an elegant small green phaeton, drawn by two long-tailed black horses which, being an able whip, she habitually drove herself. She was always accompanied by a groom, a fifteen-year-old boy dressed in Lord Ellenborough’s livery of drab olive with blue-lined facings and a top hat with a band of silver lace. This boy often stood about in the afternoon, holding the horses while he waited for his mistress, who visited a house a few steps away on the corner of Queen Anne Street and Harley Street.

  One resident who lived opposite saw the young woman several times through the window of the first-floor drawing-room. As the summer wore on, her visits became more frequent, often three or four times a week, and the neighbours noticed with heightened interest that sometimes she came on foot, and started wearing a veil. Her phaeton was spotted in adjacent streets, sometimes Wimpole Street, sometimes Portland Place. Several times she left her carriage in Cavendish Square and walked past her parents’ house to number 73, and on a few occasions she came by hackney coach.23

  But it was not until many months later that Jane would be able to write of recovery from the depression over what she called George’s ‘betrayal’, though it is difficult to see what he could have done given their situation. Even then she could not accept that George could apparently forget her so finally and transfer his affections so quickly. At length she came to realise that their youthful love had been perhaps no more than ‘the bright creation of a heated brain’, and that her ‘idolisation’ of him had been misplaced. ‘Now’, she wrote, ‘another love inflames my lonely heart’, and this new love promised ‘far, far higher ecstasy’. At last, she wrote, there was ‘sun in a breast which else were cold’.24

  Prince Felix courted Jane hotly throughout the summer. In the early part of their relationship it was he who set the pace, he who fretted when she could not meet him or went away with her husband. At the end of July, when society decamped to the country, Jane was due to leave town for a short stay at Roehampton before a visit to Cowes in early August. The diplomat diarist, Count Rodolphe Apponyi, wrote of dining with Felix at the Esterhazys’ and finding the prince very preoccupied because Jane was due to leave town within a few days. ‘This did not suit him and consequently he was in a very bad humour.’25

  But the prince was to see Jane several times before she left, once in the park, where they rode their horses together, and again on the evening of the same day at a masked ball given by Lady Londonderry, Ellenborough’s former mother-in-law.26 The Londonderrys’ town-house was very grand and had formerly belonged to the late Queen Caroline. It was here, among a vast glittering throng, that Count Apponyi was to meet for the first time the lady whose imminent departure was causing his old friend Felix Schwarzenberg such dejection. Guests were dressed magnificently in historical costume. As they were announced, each had to curtsy or bow to their hostess, who, in the guise of Queen Elizabeth I, graciously inclined her head in greeting. To some the hostess showed individual favour and, since she had met Apponyi in Paris, Lady Londonderry went to some pains to introduce the count to as many people of influence as she could:

  among all these people, one lady in particular attracted my attention. It was Lady Ellenborough, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Nineteen years of age [sic], with fair hair, a magnificent complexion, large blue eyes and the figure of a nymph, she is everything that is desirable. It is she whom Schwarzenberg adores, and I lost no time being introduced. I was not overawed by her intellect, it is true, but one cannot have everything. The expression on her face is sweet, as is her voice, and her whole personality exudes an indefinable air of modesty and decorum which I found ravishing.

  The coldness and formality of first acquaintances did not last long between us. She spoke to me very freely about her husband, whom she accuses of being jealous, and of not understanding her. This is what she likes to say, but in reality I think that Lord Ellenborough, preoccupied with the duties of his position, has no time to give good advice to his young wife.

  … I had already danced with Lady Ellenborough when Schwarzenberg arrived. Madame did not reveal that she had danced with me and instructed him to engage me with her for the first waltz which I accepted with great pleasure. I was so preoccupied with dancing and with my partner that I had to endure reproaches from all the ladies I know whom I had not yet approached.27

  It is strange that Jane complained to Apponyi of Edward being ‘jealous’ when his coolness towards Jane was so marked that it was noticed by a number of writers, contemporary and later, with the added explanation that he was totally dedicated to his work. But despite Apponyi’s excuses for Jane’s husband it would be fair to say that Ellenborough too had his share of extramarital diversions. He had at this time two mistresses that are known about and contemporary gossip speaks of another. One was the Countess St Antonio, an aristocratic member of the set to which Jane’s parents so objected. The other, ‘a very pretty girl’, according to Joseph Jekyll, was ‘the pastry-cook’s daughter at Brighton who Ellenborough preferred to his bride’; she was also referred to in The Times as a ‘confectioner’s daughter’.

  The latter allegedly had a child by him and, being cast off in disgrace by her family, might have starved had not Lord Ellenborough finally been shamed into providing support for the mother and child under threat of exposure – or so said the equivalent of today’s tabloid press.28 Since Jekyll’s gossip was written in 1829 after the birth of Jane’s child, it is probable that the term ‘bride’ was being used figuratively rather than literally. Whoever she was, the ‘pastry-cook’s daughter’ was the on dit in London that winter and there is even evidence that Jane may have met this young woman. In her notebook Jane wrote the first line of a poem, ‘Ah! Wert thou, love, but all thou seemed …’ She got no further than the first line but she scribbled underneath, in the ‘secret code’ she had used since her childhood, the explanation that she had written it ‘on meeting the poor woman who called on my lord’.29

  The Ellenboroughs officially ‘quit town’ at the end of the season, but Edward continued to use the town-house as a base when he was detained in London for reasons of work. Jane, in summer residence at Roehampton, was therefore free to meet Felix by prior arrangement. Each morning she rode out with her young groom, William Carpenter. Sometimes she rode as far as Wimbledon Common, and there, at the old windmill, she met Felix. One wet and windy day when the prince could not keep his appointment he sent his groom, who handed Jane a letter. The two grooms watched from a distance as Jane read the letter and placed it back in the envelope with a red rose which she had brought with her. She handed the envelope to the prince’s groom and told him to return it to his master.30

  Given Jane’s immature romanticism and her self-confessed rebellious nature, these illicit trysts, so eagerly sought by the inflamed Prince Schwarzenberg, must have in themselves been a major attraction to her. Thwarted lovers, a handsome prince and a beautiful girl, meeting in secret, with all the sweet sadness the frequent partings inevitably brought about, was the stuff of the romantic novels that Steely loved. Sometimes when they met and rode together they stopped at inns and hotels, such as the Castle at Richmond.31 Jane had the utmost confidence in her youthful groom, for he was always present to see to her horse. By the time summer slid into autumn she had ceased to think of the relationship as a flirtation; she was deeply, passionately in love, and this time she had the delight of knowing that her chosen partner loved her equally. Jane had fought the feeling at first, not because of Edward – she had already released her hold on that relationship – but fearing to let go of her girlish adoration of George Anson. But it dawned on her that th
e glow she felt whenever the prince was near was love. Gradually her affair with George became as a candle to the sun of the emotions she began to experience. When she was with Felix she felt whole and alive; at other times she looked for him everywhere she went, and thought only of him and the next time they would be together. Gone was any thought of the discretion she had employed in her affair with Anson; she spoke openly of her love to anyone who cared to listen. According to one acquaintance,

  Lady Ellenborough … tells everybody she meets the whole history, and it is a long one, of her and Schwarzenberg. Any indifferent person by whom she sits at dinner is sure to get up intimately acquainted with every circumstance related to their intercourse. How she drives to Schwarzenberg’s lodgings, and how Dietrichstein, who lodges with him, sees her. What they do together, how often they have been in Schwarzenberg’s cabriolet to the White House in Soho Square etc. How she meets Ellenborough, as she walks the streets, who intent on high matters does not know her.

  And then she concludes with most amiable naïveté by exciting indignation against George Anson who is so ‘uncivil and unkind. Do you know he is gone out of town without giving me up the key to the secret door at Roehampton though I asked him so often for it.’32

  What Jane related to her cronies was that on most weekday afternoons when she was in town she called at 73 Harley Street in her carriage. If Dietrichstein was at home he quickly made his excuses and left. The lovers would spend an hour or two together. Several times she rode there accompanied by her groom, who returned her horse to the stables off Portman Square; when Jane and Felix subsequently left his house they drove off together in his cabriolet.

  Sometimes they called on friends such as Princess Esterhazy upon whose discretion they believed they could rely. On at least one occasion they drove together to the house of Felix’s colleague, the Count St Antonio, whose wife was widely rumoured to be Lord Ellenborough’s mistress. Jane’s carriage had been ordered to meet her fifty yards from the countess’s gate, where she transferred to it and drove up the drive to the entrance. Felix ‘arrived’ five minutes afterwards. When they left at ten o’clock that night Felix drove out and waited for her carriage to catch up. Jane then joined him in his closed chaise and they travelled to within a short distance of Elm Grove, where he handed her out and she returned home in her own carriage, while he continued on to London.