24 The Cottage Clique had as its members the King; the Lievens; the Hanoverian Ambassador, Count Munster; the Esterhazys (she was a distant cousin of the King); the King’s current mistress, Lady Conyngham; and the Duke of Wellington. For further information, see Alan Palmer, George IV (Weidenfeld & Nicholson and Book Club Associates), 1972, p. 199.
25 The Times, transcript of the Ellenborough divorce hearing, 2 April 1830, p. 1.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 MH/01, p. 1.
29 Harriet, Countess Granville, Letters 1810–1845, vol. 1, p. 183.
30 Keele, SC8/115 and 129.
31 Ibid.
32 The Times, 6 April 1830, p. 3; The Age, 4 April 1930, p. 106.
33 The third son born to Mr Thomas Coke and his wife Anne in January 1827.
34 Diary of Sir F. Madden, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS, Eng. hist. C147, 14 March 1827.
35 Ibid., 16 and 17 March 1827.
36 Ibid., 18 March 1827.
37 Ibid., 20–22 April, 1827.
38 Ibid., 24 April 1827. Against lingering parental opposition, after gaining a post at the British Museum, Madden married Mary. As she was a small woman, her doctors warned her against having children. She ignored them, and complications developed during the birth of a much-longed-for child. Both mother and son died. Madden mourned for years, racked with guilt. Each daily entry mentioned her: ‘Oh, my poor Mary. Oh, that dear child’, etc. In 1831 he became Assistant Keeper of the MSS Department at the British Museum (his portrait still dominates the reading room of the Manuscripts Department), subsequently rose to become Keeper and was knighted by Queen Victoria. He eventually remarried, but he never again mentioned Jane in his diaries.
39 MH/06, poem dated 19 March 1827, Holkham.
40 Ibid., poem dated 15 April 1827.
41 RB/01, JED to KD, 1 February 1870.
42 MH/06, poem dated 23 May 1827.
43 Keele, SC8/31, G. Agar Ellis to Ralph Sneyd, 16 March 1829.
Chapter 4 A Dangerous Attraction
1 MH/06, poem annotated ‘Cowes, August 19th 1827’.
2 Ibid., 23 August 1927.
3 Letter from Lady Anne Coke to Lady Ellenborough: ‘Now you, dear Jane, have had your first experience of motherhood, while I am somewhat ahead of you with my three small sons.’
4 Joseph Jekyll, Correspondence with Lady Sloane Stanley, p. 176.
5 Keele, Lord Clare to Ralph Sneyd, SC6/142, 21 January 1828.
6 Princess Dorothea Lieven, Correspondence with Earl Grey, 20 January 1828.
7 Lord Ellenborough, Extracts from his Papers, 15 February 1828.
8 Margaret Fox Schmidt, Passion’s Child, p. 47.
9 RB/01, JED to KD, 18 May 1867.
10 MH/06, poem annotated ‘Paris December 29th, 1830’.
11 MH/06, poem annotated ‘April 5th 1828’.
12 Adolph Schwarzenberg, Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg, p. 11.
13 Ibid., p. 5.
14 Ibid., p. 11.
15 Count Rodolphe Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. 33.
16 Schwarzenberg, Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg, p. 1.
17 Irving Wallace, Nymphos and Other Maniacs, p. 140.
18 Ibid.
19 Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. 33.
20 Schwarzenberg, Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg, p. 13.
21 Evidence given in Ellenborough Divorce Case, Second Reading of the Bill, House of Commons, 1 April 1830, p. 44.
22 Dietrichstein eventually became Austrian Ambassador to London.
23 Facts taken from evidence given at the divorce hearings in Parliament in 1830; House of Lords, Minutes of Evidence Taken at the Second Reading of the Bill, 15 March 1830; House of Commons, 1 April 1830.
24 MH/06, poem annotated ‘JE 11 th December 1828’.
25 Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. 134.
26 Facts taken from evidence given at the divorce hearings in Parliament in 1830; House of Lords, Minutes of Evidence Taken at the Second Reading of the Bill, 15 March 1830; House of Commons, 1 April 1830. See also Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, pp. 138–40.
27 Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, pp. 138–40.
28 The Age, 21 March 1830, p. 91.
29 MH/06, sundry notes on undated page in notebook.
30 Evidence given in House of Commons, 1 April 1830, by both grooms.
31 Ibid.
32 Keele, Sneyd Collection, SC8/115, G. Agar Ellis to Ralph Sneyd, 22 November 1828.
33 Evidence given in House of Commons hearing on the Ellenborough Divorce Bill, 1 April 1830.
34 Ibid., evidence of Margaret Steele, p. 37.
35 MH/06, poem dated 22 December 1828.
36 F. Bamford and Duke of Wellington, Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot, p. 350.
37 Keele, SC8/115.
38 Jekyll, Correspondence, p. 187.
39 SCA, sundry correspondence of Mary Spencer-Stanhope.
40 JD802, SC8/115, G. Agar Ellis to Ralph Sneyd, 22 November 1828.
41 Poem, undated but written at Holkham, c. 1829.
42 Keele, SC8/31, G. Agar Ellis to Ralph Sneyd, 22 November 1828.
43 JED to Lord Ellenborough dated 6 February 1829. Presented in evidence at House of Commons hearing on Ellenborough Divorce Bill, 1 April 1830.
Chapter 5 Assignation in Brighton
1 Unless otherwise stated, all the details given in this chapter of Jane’s rendezvous in Brighton and the letters quoted are contained in the Minutes of Evidence of either/both the House of Lords Papers, 1830, vol. 16, no. 36, pp. 333 ff.; and the House of Commons Sessional Papers (7), 1830, vol. 10, no. 214, p. 51 and pp. 867–918. The three letters from Jane to Lord Ellenborough quoted in this chapter were offered in evidence. (The page no’s which follow are those in the individual reports.)
2 House of Lords Minutes of Evidence given by William Walton, p. 8 of report.
3 Sir H. Maxwell, The Creevey Papers, p. 308.
4 Margaret Steele’s evidence to House of Commons, p. 41.
5 MH/01, p. 1.
6 Margaret Steele’s evidence to House of Commons, pp, 36–1 of report.
7 F. Bamford and Duke of Wellington, Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot, pp. 276–7.
8 MH/01, pp. 1–2.
9 Margaret Steele’s evidence to House of Commons, pp. 36–1 of report.
10 House of Commons, Minutes of Evidence, p. 48 of report.
11 MH/01, pp. 1–2.
12 SCA, Mary Spencer-Stanhope to Eliza, 60612, 5 June 1829.
13 Keele, SC3/60, G. Agar Ellis to Ralph Sneyd, 29 June 1829.
14 Ibid., SC8/129, 14 September 1829.
15 PRO 30/12, Ellenborough Papers, box 1(5), 7 September 1829.
16 MH/01, p. 1.
17 PRO, 30/12, Ellenborough Papers, Mrs Mowcock to Lord Ellenborough, 27 January 1830.
18 Ibid., Mr March to Lord Ellenborough, 29 January 1830.
19 PRO 30, box 7 (6–9), Ellenborough Papers housed in the Public Record Office at Kew.
20 MH/01, p. 2.
Chapter 6 A Fatal Notoriety
1 This paragraph and the quotations from witnesses that follow are extracted from the Minutes of Evidence of both the House of Lords Papers, 1830, vol. 16, no. 36, pp. 333 ff.; and the House of Commons Sessional Papers (7), 1830, vol. 10, no. 214, p. 51 and pp. 867–918.
2 The Times, 2 April 1830, p. 2, col. 3.
3 Ibid., opinion column, p. 3.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., 20 March 1830, p. 2, col. 6.
6 The Age, 14 March 1830, p. 107.
7 Ibid., 21 March 1830, p. 91.
8 Horace Wyndham, Judicial Dramas, p. 194.
9 The Times, leader, 7 April 1830, p. 5.
10 Ibid., 2 April 1830, p. 2, col. 3.
11 Count Rodolphe Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. 155.
12 Keele, Lord Clare to Ralph Sneyd, SC7/13, 5 April 1830.
13 E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, p. 98.
14 PRO 30/12, box 1(7), Ellenborough Papers, 16 April 1867
, to Mrs Pembroke (governess to his daughters) ‘The future of my daughters when I am no longer here to protect them has long been a matter of great anxiety to me …[I intend to make] a provision with a view to leaving them … in comfort and advantage when I am gone … I remember with gratitude the zeal you have had for their instruction and the indulgence with which you have treated their occasional waywardness.’
15 Will of Lord Ellenborough, Somerset House, London.
16 MH/01.
17 Ibid.
18 Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. xxv of Introduction.
19 MH/01 p. 2; quotes letter written by Felix Schwarzenberg on 31 December 1830.
20. Ibid.
21 MH/06, poem entitled ‘To Felix’ (her dead child), dated Paris, 29 December 1830.
22 Letter from FS to JED, dated 31 December 1830; quoted in MH/01, p. 2.
Chapter 7 Jane and the King
1 Harriet Countess Granville, Letters 1810–1845, January 1831, p. 76.
2 Count Rodolphe Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, pp. 423 ff.
3 MH/01, pp. 2–4.
4 MH/06, poem written by JED in Paris, undated, 1831.
5 Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. 423.
6 MH/01, letter quoted from FS to JED, 31 December 1830.
7 MH/01, letter from FS to JED, 20 June 1831.
8 MH/01, p. 3.
9 Adolph Schwarzenberg, Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg, p. 11.
10 Elizabeth Holland, Lady Holland to her Son, 17 March 1830.
11 MH/04, diary entry, 15 December 1856; and BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 27 February 1836.
12 Sir H. Maxwell, The Creevey Papers, 21 April 1823 et seq.; and E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, p. 119.
13 Oddie, Portrait, p. 119.
14 Henry Channon, The Ludwigs of Bavaria, p. 29.
15 Ludwig’s father Maximilian I was the first King of Bavaria, having been elevated from the status of Prince Elector by Napoleon.
16 Channon, The Ludwigs of Bavaria, p. 29.
17 Prince Leopold, widower of Princess Charlotte, who died in childbirth, and to whom Britain felt a moral responsibility, was a leading contender for the Greek throne but withdrew from the lists, having had a better offer from Belgium.
18 He was christened Louis after his godfather Louis XVI of France. ‘Ludwig’ is the German equivalent of ‘Louis’. Charles Venningen always referred to King Ludwig as ‘King Louis’ in his letters to Jane, e.g. MH/13, CV to JED, 4 November 1865.
19 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 26 October 1831. Jane met the King on 7 and 8 October. In his diary he describes her as twenty-one years old and says he paid his first visit to her home on 13 October; three days later he wrote a poem to her; Gerard Hojer, Die Schönheitsgalerie König Ludwigs I (Schnell & Steiner), 1990, p. 72.
20 Ibid., 20 October 1831.
21 MH/01, p. 3.
22 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 30 October 1831.
23 At the Bayerisches Hauptsarchiv, Munich there are seventy-five letters from Jane Digby to King Ludwig. The first is dated 18 October 1831, the last 19 January 1838.
24 BHM, 24 July 1832.
25 Irving Wallace, Nymphos and Other Maniacs, p. 140.
26 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 30 October 1831.
27 Poem entitled ‘He comes not …’, dated 3 November 1831.
28 Today this collection of portraits is displayed at Nyphenburg Palace, once King Ludwig’s summer palace outside Munich but now within the city limits.
29 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 11 November 1831.
30 MH/01, p. 3.
31 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, undated, c. 15 December 1831.
32 Ibid., 8 February 1832.
33 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 25 March 1832.
34 Ibid., 10 November 1832.
35 Margaret Fox Schmidt, Passion’s Child, p. 106.
36 Ibid.
37 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 10 November 1832.
38 MH/01, p. 3.
39 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 10 November 1832.
40 Ibid., 13 July 1832.
41 Ibid., 24 July 1832.
42 Ibid., 11 September 1832.
43 Ibid., 21 October 1832.
44 MH/01, p. 3.
45 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 12 December 1832.
46 Ibid.
47 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 1 January 1833.
48 MH/13, letter from CV to JED, 6 February 1861. De Laurin, the Austrian consul at Palermo, had personally registered the birth of Heribert to LJD [Lady Jane Digby], knowing her true identity. When Heribert grew up it was vital in order to claim the Venningen inheritance to prove his parentage. At Charles’s request Jane sent a full statement to de Laurin and a request that he would confirm the real facts. De Laurin complied, and Charles wrote to her that their son was now safe, ‘due to you. Without the different documents which you were good enough to send … it would have been difficult if not impossible to prove that he is the same person born to L.J.D., on January 27th 1833. Thanks to you we are able to prove it.’
49 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 6 January 1833.
50 Ibid., 8 March 1833.
51 MH/04, diary entry, 12 May 1854.
52 MH/11, letter from Didi to Lord Edward Digby in 1883.
53 MH/01, p. 3.
54 Ibid.
55 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, undated, c. 6 July 1833, written at Kehl.
56 Ibid., 28 August 1833.
57 MH/01, p. 3; and H.J. Hunt, Balzac and Lady Ellenborough, French Studies (Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 255.
58 Princess Dorothea Lieven, Correspondence with Earl Grey, 10 October 1833.
59 Princess Dorothea Lieven, Correspondence with Palmerston, p. 154.
60 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 28 August 1833.
Chapter 8 Ianthe’s Secret
1 BHM, CV to King Ludwig, 26 October 1833. This was possible because the baron had property in the Duchy of Hessen as well as in that of Baden.
2 MH/01, p. 3.
3 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 27 November 1833.
4 Ibid., 13 October 1833.
5 Letters from Charles Venningen to King Ludwig; Bayerisches Hauptsarchiv, No. NL Ludwig, I, C10 dated 26 October 1833 and 9 November 1833.
6 Ibid., and JED to King Ludwig, 8 September 1833.
7 Ibid.
8 These letters were destroyed after her death by a member of the Digby family in England; however, a summary was first made of the contents; see MH/01.
9 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 26 October 1833.
10 Ibid., letter 48, undated, December 1833.
11 The Venningens’ home at Weinheim is now the town hall.
12 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, undated, December 1833.
13 Ibid., undated, February 1834, headed ‘Saturday morning’.
14 Sir Henry Keppel, A Sailor’s Life under Four Sovereigns, p. 339. (It was generally but wrongly believed that Lord Ellenborough was over seventy when Jane married him; see Die Schönheits-Galerie, p. 72.)
15 Ibid., p. 342.
16 MH/13, CV to JED, 16 February 1839. ‘Mazeppa’ by Lord Byron was published in 1819.
17 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, undated, February 1834, headed ‘Saturday’.
18 Ibid., 22 April 1834.
19 Ibid., 23 May 1834.
20 Ibid., 18 August 1834.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., 12 July 1834.
23 Conversation between Lord Digby and the author, Minterne House, 15 April 1993. It is a historical fact that several of Ludwig’s children and grandchildren suffered mental illnesses ranging from mild eccentricity to complete insanity. His grandson Ludwig II, builder of the ethereal-looking castles, was suspected of madness prior to his mysterious death, in the lake at Berg in 1886. The next brother in line, King Otto I, had to be removed from the throne in 1913 because of insanity.
24 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 8 February 1832.
25 Ibid., 10 November 1832.
26 MH/13, CV to JED, 16 February 1839.
27 Ibid.
28 BHM, JED to King Ludw
ig, undated, July 1834.
29 Ibid., 27 June 1835.
30 Honoré de Balzac, Lily of the Valley, Heron Books edition, pp. 287–8.
31 See Honoré de Balzac, Lettres à l’étrangère, 15 May 1840; also H. J. Hunt, ‘Balzac and Lady Ellenborough’, French Studies (1963), Bodleian Library, Oxford University. The original letter JED to Balzac, dated 19 July 1835, is archived at the Museé Balzac, Chantilly, France. See also Balzac, The Love Letters of Honoré de Balzac 1833–1842, vol. 2, p. 63.
32 Balzac, Lily of the Valley, p. 414.
33 Ibid., pp. 356–7.
34 JED to Balzac, 19 July 1835, Musée Balzac, Chantilly, France.
35 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 23 July 1835.
36 Ibid., JED to King Ludwig, 21 September 1835.
37 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, undated, October 1835.
38 Ibid. The whereabouts of this portrait are unknown.
39 Ibid., undated, October 1835, headed ‘Tuesday morning’.
Chapter 9 A Duel for the Baroness
1 MH/13, CV to JED, 16 February 1839.
2 Honoré de Balzac, The Love Letters, vol. 2, p. 346, and Lettres à l’étrangère, January 1836.
3 Count Rodolphe Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. 159.
4 MH/13, CV to JED, 16 February 1839.
5 Count Rodolphe Apponyi, Vingt-cinq ans à Paris, p. 159.
6 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 27 February 1836.
7 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 22 December 1836.
8 MH/13, CV to JED, 16 February 1839.
9 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 18 July 1837.
10 RB/01, JED to KD, 1 February 1870.
11 BHM, JED to King Ludwig, 19 January 1838.
12 Ibid., and CV to Edward Digby, 25 March 1839.
13 MH/13, CV to ESD, 25 March 1839.
14 Ibid., CV to JED, 16 February 1839.
15 Ibid., CV to ESD, 25 March 1839.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., CV to JED, 16 February 1839.
18 Ibid., CV to JED, 27 June 1847.
19 Ibid.
20 MH/04, diary entry, 22 January 1857.
Chapter 10 False Colours
1 MH/10, Lady Andover’s diary, 17 August 1840.
2 Ibid., 12 September 1840.
3 Ibid., 19 September 1840.
4 Ibid., 2 November 1840.
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