The Cottage Countess

Hi, Jo here, with the toys en masse.

I thought I'd offer a strange but true story from the past. If we tried to pass this one off in a romance novel, we'd probably be told it was unbelievable.

The Cottage Countess

In 1789 a stranger arrived in the Shropshire village of Great Bolas and took a room at the inn. He introduced himself as John Jones and though clearly an educated gentleman, took part in village affairs, even playing the violin in the inn for dancing. The village beauty, 16-year-old Sarah Hoggins, took a great fancy to him, but he was twenty years older.

People were generally suspicious of strangers, especially strangers with ample money and no need to work, and some even began to say he was a highwayman. Instead of leaving, John Jones bought some land and planned a house there, Bolas Villa. He left to go to England, but only to git the money. When he returned, he moved into the Hoggins home until his new house was ready, and there was a general expectation that he would marry Sarah.

However, at this point he  revealed the truth, or so the story goes. As with many old tales, it's not clear what's truth and what's whitewash.

He wasn't John Jones, he was Henry Cecil, nephew of the Earl of Exeter, and he was already married. As a young man, he had married Emma Vernon, but the marriage had failed and she'd run off with another. At this time of stress, Henry had assumed the persona of John Jones and ended up in Great Bolas.

The aspect that makes me wonder if he did tell all is that not long afterward "John Jones" and Sarah Hoggins were married. From the parish register.  "13 Apr 1790  No. 54. John Jones of this parish and Sarah Hoggins of this parish were married in this Church by Licence this 13 Apr 1790 by me Cresswell Tayleur. This Marriage was solemnized between Us John Jones, Sarah Hoggins In the presence of John Picken, Sarah Adams."

Henry did manage to get a divorce, but not until June 1791. At that point he and Sarah married again in London, and it's after that that their first child is born. Again, from the register. "27 Feb 1792 Sophia, d. of John and Sarah Jones was baptd.  27 Feb 1792 " That's close to 9 months, which makes me wonder if the first, bigamous marriage wasn't consummated. After all, Henry would know that if he and Sarah had a son outside of legitimate marriage the son could never inherit the family title. But in that case, why marry at all? Bigamy was a serious crime.

Anyone want to speculate?

However, in 1794 his uncle died and he became Earl of Exeter and owner, among other properties, of Burghley House, one of the most impressive and important Elizabethan palaces. Sarah was tossed into aristocratic life and there seems no record of her reactions.

I hope this couple enjoyed happiness and love. They were not to have the "happily ever after", alas. Sarah died three weeks after the birth of her third son in 1797 at the age of 24. Nearly four years later, Exeter married the Duchess of Hamilton, who had been divorced in 1794 "at her suit" according to this site.

Divorce initiated by the woman was rare. If anyone has time to try to chase up the details of that, have at it! By the way, he was the son of one of the famous Gunning sisters.

Henry died in 1804 at the age of 50, and was succeeded by his son Brownlow, aged 9. He died in 1867.

John Jones/Henry Cecil seems to have settled into the life of a country gentleman with ease and perhaps he and Sarah would have been happier like that. There seems no way to tell. This is Burghley. You can take a little tour of it here. As you'll see below, the general belief is that when Henry took Sarah there she had no idea what was ahead of her. Want to speculate on her reaction?

I found most of this information in a little booklet called "The Lord  of Burghley and Sarah Hoggins," by David J L Elderwick, which seems to have been self published in 1982.

I did find one story about this marriage in an anecdote about the artist, Lawrence. "His Lordship's first marriage had been unfortunate, and his second was at least singular. Disturbed in mind at the unhappy result of his first union, he had retired to a farm-house near Shrewsbury, where he lived incog., and solaced himself in rural musings. His command ofmoney, and his want of employment, at last set the busy gossips of the neighbourhood at conjectures, and inferences were drawn not very favourable to his character and sources of indolent support. At last, his host thought of cutting acquaintance, partly on this score, and partly because the neighbourhood began to  think him attached to his daughter. "But," replied the noble recluse, " what would you say, if I really loved Sarah Hoggins, and married her ?" This altered the case. The wedding was agreed upon, the parties repaired to Burghley, and until they arrived at the splendid palace of the Cecils, Sarah Hoggins had no idea that she was to be the Marchioness of Exeter." 

Did he perhaps only marry her to preserve his protective country escape?

What do you think? Is truth stranger than fiction?  The hero of one of my stories in Lovers and Ladies has a wife who's run off.

Do you know of other unlikely historical matches? Please share the details. And just to share the thrill, A Lady's Secret, which will be out in just over a month (yikes!) has received a wonderful review from Romantic Times. "Extraordinary storyteller Beverley mixes witty repartee, danger and simmering  sensuality with her strong and engaging characters, including a fetching  Papillon, in this delightful, delicious gem of a book." Doesn't get much better than that, does it!

Raise a glass of champagne, port, or ice tea -- whatever is your tipple of choice.

Jo

Comments

[Elaine McCarthy]

OK, I'm up early and curious about this Duke of Hamilton whose wife divorced him, so I noodled around the internet and found out the following:

The Sir Douglas Hamilton, 8th Duke of Hamilton, succeeded to the title at age 13. He did the grand tour between the ages of 16-20, and married Elizabeth Ann Burrell in 1778; he was 22, she was 21. They were married for 14 years before the marriage was dissolved.

Elizabeth's father held a Master of Arts degree, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and served as a Member of Parliament from 1759 to 1774.

Her brother was also an M.P., was knighted in 1781, and was created 1st Baron Gwydyr in 1796 (two years after the divorce, so it doesn't seem to have done him any political harm). He also became the 2nd Baronet Burrell upon the death of his father's brother. He was a famous cricketeer and one of the founders of the Marylebone Cricket Club which became the governing body of cricket and which owns Lord's Cricket Grounds.

This family background was not good enough for the Dowager Duchess, however. She disapproved of the marriage on the grounds that 'the daughter of a private gentleman, however accomplished, was not qualified to be allied to her'.

The 8th Duke died at the age of 43, without issue.

Based on the admittedly sketchy evidence of the above, and my impression that non-consummation would be the only possible grounds for a woman being able to get a divorce, I'm guessing the Duke was either gay or impotent.

There are certainly some interesting websites out there! I will probably be going back to thePeerage.com often! Thanks for the stimulus!

[Patricia Rice]

Way too much fascinating info at this hour for me to dwell upon for the rest of the day. Makes our romances almost seem tame!

I'm looking for the feed comment button but apparently it isn't turned on yet. Will have to poke around again.

[Virginia]

The trick with the Hamiltons is that it was a Scottish marriage and a Scottish divorce. The divorce laws of Scotland were quite different from those in England. See: Alienated Affections: The Scottish Experience of Divorce and Separation ...
By Leah Leneman

The Hamilton case discussion starts on p. 125.

[Virginia]

If you look at the Leneman book (you can see into it online via amazon.com), you may want to back up to p. 119, which starts the discussion of the divorce of the Earl and Countess of Eglinton on grounds of Frances' adultery with the 8th Duke of Hamilton.

It's also useful to look at Lawrence Stone, Road to Divorce: A History of the Making and Breaking of Marriage in England 1530-1987 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), with specific reference, starting p. 332, to Lord Loughborough's Rules in 1798 as a reaction to the legalization of divorce with right to remarriage in revolutionary France. In France, "Between 1792 and 1801, there was one divorce for every eight marriages, three-quarters of them being instituted by wives."

Overall, it was far harder to obtain a divorce in England than in any other location in Protestant Europe (that goes for the Germanies, the Netherlands, Geneva, etc.) from the 1600s onward. I can provide English-language bibliography upon request (also other languages, if desired).

[kay]

The peerage of Great Britain is so interesting. Henry comes from so many families filled with great stories...Cavendish, Howard, Cecil, Stuart, Spencer...all mixed together and all related. I believe Bess of Hardwicke would be one his ancestors. Love her.

[Virginia]

Hmmn. Sarah Hoggins' widower, the Marquess of Exeter, married the divorced Duchess of Hamilton in 1800. It may have been just one big, unhappy, highly dysfunctional, extended family.

Certainly that letter from Hamilton to Frances Twysden, Countess of Eglinton, after their affair was detected, was cold enough that a novelist could create a really horrid protagonist or antagonist from his personality.

Otherwise, as far as statistics go, in the Lutheran and Calvinist areas of the continent, from the Reformation onward, about half of all divorce actions and many more than half of actions for legal separation were brought by women; they were granted just about as often as those brought by men.

Actions for legal separation in Lutheran and Calvinist territories were usually brought when a husband was either abusive or spendthrift, but had not provided either of what these governments regarded as the biblical grounds for divorce (adultery and desertion). The wife could, and usually did, also petition for a restraining order and request that the consistory and council appoint trustees to collect the husband's wages and ensure they were spent on the support of his wife and children. Most of these actions were brought by ordinary people rather than the nobility.

This doesn't mean that the nobility did not divorce (see, for example, the adventures of the father of the painter Pieter Paul Rubens with Anna of Saxony, one of the wives of William the Silent, Prince of Orange and Stadholder of the Netherlands).

The English laws were . . . unusual in their tolerance for male adultery. Although it was socially tolerated on the continent, the laws themselves generally put it on precisely the same footing as female adultery as a ground for divorce.

[Virginia]

Hmmn. Sarah Hoggins' widower, the Marquess of Exeter, married the divorced Duchess of Hamilton in 1800. It may have been just one big, unhappy, highly dysfunctional, extended family.

Certainly that letter from Hamilton to Frances Twysden, Countess of Eglinton, after their affair was detected, was cold enough that a novelist could create a really horrid protagonist or antagonist from his personality.

Otherwise, as far as statistics go, in the Lutheran and Calvinist areas of the continent, from the Reformation onward, about half of all divorce actions and many more than half of actions for legal separation were brought by women; they were granted just about as often as those brought by men.

Actions for legal separation in Lutheran and Calvinist territories were usually brought when a husband was either abusive or spendthrift, but had not provided either of what these governments regarded as the biblical grounds for divorce (adultery and desertion). The wife could, and usually did, also petition for a restraining order and request that the consistory and council appoint trustees to collect the husband's wages and ensure they were spent on the support of his wife and children. Most of these actions were brought by ordinary people rather than the nobility.

This doesn't mean that the nobility did not divorce (see, for example, the adventures of the father of the painter Pieter Paul Rubens with Anna of Saxony, one of the wives of William the Silent, Prince of Orange and Stadholder of the Netherlands).

The English laws were . . . unusual in their tolerance for male adultery. Although it was socially tolerated on the continent, the laws themselves generally put it on precisely the same footing as female adultery as a ground for divorce.

[Jo Beverley]

Great comments, everyone. Do please keep on poking around divorce, marriages and such and bring your finds back. It enriches our picture of the past.

We have to remember that this was essentially an 18th century situation, and the Hamilton one even more so. Things became more restrictive in the 19th.

Which is why I enjoy playing in the 18th century sometimes. Wild & wacky without need to be stupid.

Jo :)

[Susan/DC]

It has nothing to do with 18th C divorce laws, but for a life that would not be believable within the covers of a Romance, see the recent movie "La Vie en Rose" about Edith Piaf. Her mother abandoned her while her father was off fighting in WWI, so she initially lived with her maternal grandmother. Then her father removed her from that situation and put her with his own mother, a cook in a brothel. At one point she went blind, but regained her sight after the whores prayed for her recovery. After her father retrieved her at war's end, she lived with him in a traveling circus, where he was a contortionist. The movie is hard to sit through in places because she was, truth to tell, often a very unpleasant person, but it is nonetheless a fascinating portrait. Marion Cotillard did an amazing job, the music is marvelous, and Jean Pierre Martins, who plays the love of her life, could easily play the dark-haired hero of many a Romance novel.

[Virginia]

Does this whole scenario remind any other readers of the "Gleniston House set" in Tracy Grant's Beneath a Silent Moon?

It was a prequel to Daughter of the Game, even though published later.

[Helen]

I think it is easy to forget what a tangled mess people can get into when divorce is very difficult to obtain, and how very recently divorce became a real possibility for many people.
I know a man who lived in England in the 1950's and fell in love with his secretary. He begged his wife for a divorce but she was religious and didn't believe in divorce. He couldn't ask the government for a divorce himself because he had no grounds for separation. In the end, he came to America and married his secretary here without ever resolving the situation in England.
I know another man, in Spain, whose wife left him and moved to Germany where she got a divorce and married her lover. The Spanish government would not recognize the German divorce and it took over ten years for the husband in Spain to straighten out the legalities so he could marry his (by this time long-time) girlfriend. They married just a few yers ago.

[talpianna]

Tennyson wrote a poem about it: "The Lord of Burghley." It's not online, but I found it quoted in a life of Queen Victoria:

Burghley, apart from the statesman Cecil and his weighty nod, had been the scene of such a romance as might well have captivated the imagination of a young princess, though its heroine was but a village maiden--she who married the landscape-painter, and was brought by him to Burghley, bidden look around at its splendour, and told

"All of this is thine and mine."

Tennyson has sung it--how she grew a noble lady, and yet died of the honour to which she was not born, and how the Lord of Burghley, deeply mourning, bid her attendants

"Bring the dress and put it on her
Which she wore when we were wed."

I got this from Wikipedia, about a couple of well-known Regency figures:

Sir John Lade, 2nd Baronet (1 August 1759 – 10 February 1838) was a prominent member of Regency society, notable as an owner and breeder of racehorses, as an accomplished driver, a protégé of Samuel Johnson and one of George IV's closest friends. At the time he caused some sensation both because of the extent of his debts and the scandal attached to his marriage to his wife Letitia, a woman who was generally supposed to have been previously the mistress of both the executed highwayman John Rann and the Prince Regent's brother, the Duke of York.

Letitia Derby (or Smith, the sources are unclear) was a woman of unclear origins who, prior to being discovered by the royal circle, was fairly definitely a member of the working class in the Drury Lane district, and possibly a servant in a brothel[14]. Subsequently she befriended and was probably the mistress of "Sixteen String Jack" Rann[15]. After that notorious highwayman was hanged in 1774, she became the mistress of the Duke of York. Soon enough, however, her looks - and her seat on a horse and skills as a driver - attracted Lade's attention and they were married, after a long affair and in spite of familial disapproval, in 1787. It is conjectured that Lade and Rann knew each other well, as Rann patronised races and had once been coachman of Hester Thrales's sister[14].

Letitia Lade was a great favourite with the Regent and his set; she was more than willing to join in the culture of excess that they were infamous for, and once wagered on herself in a driving-contest at - scandalously - the Newmarket races; and also once bet five hundred guineas on an eight-mile race against another woman[16] She took after her husband in dress and demeanour, and eventually overtook him: her casual use of profanity was so "overwhelming", in fact, that it came to be acceptable to say of someone using particularly strong language that "he swears like Letty Lade."[17] She is the subject of a famous equestrian portrait by Stubbs in the Royal Collection, that was commissioned by the Regent to hand in his chambers; Lade and she were also the subject of a well-known pair of portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds that now hang in the National Gallery.

[talpianna]

Tennyson wrote a poem about it: "The Lord of Burghley." It's not online, but I found it quoted in a life of Queen Victoria:

Burghley, apart from the statesman Cecil and his weighty nod, had been the scene of such a romance as might well have captivated the imagination of a young princess, though its heroine was but a village maiden--she who married the landscape-painter, and was brought by him to Burghley, bidden look around at its splendour, and told

"All of this is thine and mine."

Tennyson has sung it--how she grew a noble lady, and yet died of the honour to which she was not born, and how the Lord of Burghley, deeply mourning, bid her attendants

"Bring the dress and put it on her
Which she wore when we were wed."

I got this from Wikipedia, about a couple of well-known Regency figures:

Sir John Lade, 2nd Baronet (1 August 1759 – 10 February 1838) was a prominent member of Regency society, notable as an owner and breeder of racehorses, as an accomplished driver, a protégé of Samuel Johnson and one of George IV's closest friends. At the time he caused some sensation both because of the extent of his debts and the scandal attached to his marriage to his wife Letitia, a woman who was generally supposed to have been previously the mistress of both the executed highwayman John Rann and the Prince Regent's brother, the Duke of York.

Letitia Derby (or Smith, the sources are unclear) was a woman of unclear origins who, prior to being discovered by the royal circle, was fairly definitely a member of the working class in the Drury Lane district, and possibly a servant in a brothel[14]. Subsequently she befriended and was probably the mistress of "Sixteen String Jack" Rann[15]. After that notorious highwayman was hanged in 1774, she became the mistress of the Duke of York. Soon enough, however, her looks - and her seat on a horse and skills as a driver - attracted Lade's attention and they were married, after a long affair and in spite of familial disapproval, in 1787. It is conjectured that Lade and Rann knew each other well, as Rann patronised races and had once been coachman of Hester Thrales's sister[14].

Letitia Lade was a great favourite with the Regent and his set; she was more than willing to join in the culture of excess that they were infamous for, and once wagered on herself in a driving-contest at - scandalously - the Newmarket races; and also once bet five hundred guineas on an eight-mile race against another woman[16] She took after her husband in dress and demeanour, and eventually overtook him: her casual use of profanity was so "overwhelming", in fact, that it came to be acceptable to say of someone using particularly strong language that "he swears like Letty Lade."[17] She is the subject of a famous equestrian portrait by Stubbs in the Royal Collection, that was commissioned by the Regent to hand in his chambers; Lade and she were also the subject of a well-known pair of portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds that now hang in the National Gallery.

[talpianna]

There seems to be a problem with Typepad. I found I'd posted the same comment twice, as did someone else earlier.

[Elaine McCarthy]

OK, guess I was wrong about the Duke being unwilling or incapable; just goes to show that jumping to conclusions never pays! History is so fascinating I sometimes wonder why we bother to write fiction.

[Jo Beverley]

Great stuff, Talpianna.

There's a picture of Wade here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sir_john_lade.jpg
and it's interesting that he doesn't look a rough and tumble guy.

Letty Lade is one of Prinnyworld's stock characters because she was mentioned in Heyer -- in Regency Buck, I think, but she's often presented as young then, when she was really a Georgian star.

There's another bit about Sarah and Henry in this Victorian magazine, that takes the line that Sarah wasn't as low born.
http://tinyurl.com/3bzjum

It also mentions a play, which I found slightly reviewed in 1846.

THE LORD OF BURGHLEY. A Play, in Five Acts. 8vo. London. E. Churton.
THE " Lord of Burghley" has some very pleasing and beautiful writing, but as a drama it is deficient hi all the requisites of passion,
character, action, contrast, and plot. As a narrative poem it would
have been less open to objection; and the author's genius seems more akin to this species of literature, delighting as it does in amplifying,
very much in the manner, if not to say in direct imitation of Sheridan
Knowles, a common-place thought and every-day occurrence in various
pleasing fancies. The cadences and turn of verse are borrowed too
from this popular writer. It is but justice to add, it is one of the most
evenly sustained works we ever read—as level as a railroad, though not
so monotonous to travel over.

It's always fun to travel a wandering research path through the internet.

Jo :)

[Jane O]

Thank you all. This is a truly fascinating topic. The weird and wonderful world of reality.

[Santa]

Fast forward to the 20th century (the year is 1950) and a beauty contest in which a sixteen year old Sophia Loren meets a 37 year old judge named Carlo Ponti. Oh, and he's already married to Giuliana.

Seven years later, after having obtained a Mexican divorce, they marry by proxy. One month later they are charged with bigamy. In order to ensure that Carlo is not arrested, they cannot be seen together in public and must live for under assumed names. They annual the marriage in 1962.

In a groovy, sixties move they, along with Giuliana, go to France where Giuliana and Carlo become French citizens so they can divorce in a French court.

Carlo and Sophia marry in 1966 French civil ceremony and go on to live for a time in Switzerland in order to avoid arrest on tax evasion in Italy. They return years later, serve time and, much like the Italian royal family, are 'abbracciati di nuovo' by one and all.

They have lived their own 'happily ever after' more than thirty-eight years later.

Cary Grant notwithstanding....

[Sherrie Holmes]

I once read in an old Regency newspaper that a young man had married a wealthy woman, aged 80, "for love." The report was sarcastic in the extreme. *g*

My godparents are a success story. He was 20 years younger than his wife, and were happily married until her death in her mid-eighties.

[talpianna]

And then there is the extremely annoying Lady Colin Campbell, who among other things was born with some sort of genital defect and spent the first 18 years of her life as a male:

http://tinyurl.com/yrn9pz

http://tinyurl.com/26syao

http://tinyurl.com/yuaf96

[Jo Beverley]

Jo here, and sorry to have been missing. I'm volunteering at an event here and it's taking a lot of time.

Great reminder about Sophia Loren. There are all kinds of dramatic, strange, and even unbelievable stories in the real world. As they say, fiction isn't like real life -- it has to make sense!

Jo :)

[Sherrie Holmes]

Good heavens, Talpianna, that Lady Colin Campbell is something else!

[talpianna]

Sherrie, I bought a copy of her etiquette book when it was remaindered. It seems that despite her gender-reassignment surgery, she still has brass balls!

[Anielka]

Talpianna, Hester Thrale didn't have a sister. Her daughter (also Hesther Thrale) had an assortment of sisters but the eldest of these would have only been 4 at the death of Jack Rann (3 elder having died as children). What was "source 14"?