Clandestine Marriages: Five tales of abduction from the 17th and 18th centuries

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bride abductions, Bridget Hyde, clandestine, Earl of Rochester, eighteenth century, Elizabeth Malet, fleet marriages, forced, heiress, Marriage, Marriage Act 1753, Mary Wharton, Pleasant Rawlins, seventeenth century, Sibble Morris

Lovelace and Clarissa Harlowe. Wikimedia.

Nowadays the idea of anything being clandestine suggests something having an unsavoury, grubby and secretive undertone but in the 17^th and 18^th centuries many couples preferred to have a clandestine marriage. Tens of thousands of couples from all walks of life were legally and respectably married in clandestine ceremonies.

Clandestine marriages were recognised in Canon Law as long as the ceremony was performed by an ordained clergyman. A clandestine marriage had a number of advantages over an official marriage for instance it did away with the need for publishing banns and buying a licence making the ceremony cheaper and quicker, the betrothed couple were not restricted to marrying in their own parish, if need be the date could be backdated to cover an unplanned pregnancy and couples could be married away from the public eye as well as interfering relatives. This type of marriage could be especially convenient for foreign couples who had just moved to England and as yet were not registered in a parish or soldiers and sailors on limited leave[1].

A number of places became well-known centres for clandestine marriages including All Hallows Church in Honey Lane, St Pancreas in Soper Lane, Mayfair Chapel (which tried to encourage business by having as a centrepiece the supposedly embalmed corpse of the wife of the parson[2]) and the notorious area of the Fleet.

Under The Rules of the Fleet

Strangely enough the Fleet Prison was one of the most popular settings for clandestine marriages in the 17^th and 18^th centuries and whereas elsewhere this type of marriage was seen as perfectly reputable, Fleet marriages were often viewed with suspicion.

Prior to the law of 1711 (which closed a quirky loophole in the law) marriages took place in the prison chapel. The prison was well set up for the celebration of nuptials with the happy couple able to enjoy a range of facilities including a tap-room, coffee-house, public kitchen and eating room and even a sports area which had been built to accommodate the hundreds of visitors the prison attracted each week[3]. As with all prisons at the time bribery was rife and anyone willing to pay could do as they pleased. This ensured that the prison wardens and clergy for the correct fee would obligingly look the other way if the marriage was in any way dodgy.

The Fleet Prison. Image Wikimedia.

When the prison was finally banned from holding marriages, business just moved outside its walls to an area which for some bizarre reason fell beyond the jurisdiction of the church but was still classed as being under ‘the Rules of the Fleet’. This unsavoury neighbourhood which had sprung up allowed prisoners to live in lodgings outside the prison compound as long as they paid the keeper a fee for loss of earnings[4]. The taverns and coffee houses such as the Bull and Garter, The Great Hand and Pen and The Star took full advantage of the new business opportunity and turned themselves into extremely profitable ‘marriage houses’ (half the marriages in London took place in the Fleet)[5]. These marriage houses used any means possible to encourage business and some even had their own in-house clergyman such as Dr Gainham who could be found at the Rainbow Coffee House[6].

Touts were employed to harass and persuade visiting couples to pop into their marriage house for a quick ceremony and even single gentlemen were approached – I guess that there must have been a pool of potential wives that you could marry at short notice!

It is not surprising then given the character of the place, the booming marriage industry and the fierce competition amongst around 80 disgraced clergymen at a loose end and living in the area, that everyone involved was prepared to turn a blind eye to unwilling participants or repeat customers.

Fleet Street Marriage. Via Wikimedia.

Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753

The passing of the Marriage Act proposed in 1753 by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke and implemented the following year put an end to clandestine marriages. From then on it was illegal to get married without bans or a licence, girls under the age of 21 had to get the permission of their parents or guardians and the marriage itself had to take place in an Anglican church (Jews and Quakers were exempt). Verbal and written contracts were no longer accepted as legal evidence of marriage. Couples had to register their marriages in a parish’s register and the signatures of the bride and groom had to be witnessed[7].

Lord Hardwicke. Image Gretna Green Website.

This Act would have appealed to Daniel Defoe and other like-minded individuals who believed that prior to this “a gentleman might have the satisfaction of hanging a thief that stole and old horse from him, but could have no justice against a rogue for stealing his daughter” [8] and who had to confine his daughters to their chambers to prevent them from being abducted by “rogues, cheats, gamesters and such like starving crew…”[9].

It took six days for the new legislation to be passed as there were influential opponents of the law who believed that all that was needed was a tightening up of the current system and better record keeping. The politician Henry Fox was concerned that the delay which publishing banns and obtaining a licence created might even ruin some women. He believed that some rogues would convince their intended wife to compromise herself and then drop her before they got to the altar. The Act was also accused of being used to protect the insular nature of the aristocracy by barring new blood and commoners from entering its hallowed circle and some worried that the law would prevent children from being legitimised[10].

The downside of the current system was the few but distressing cases of forced marriages of young girls in particular heiresses and the numerous cases of bigamy which came up regularly at the Old Bailey. Although these cases gave weight to the necessity of the Act, the MP Charles Townshend questioned those who regularly spouted these examples. He believed that the legislation was an overreaction and asked his peers to consider that although forced marriages were scandalous and “a public evil. But how rarely do such infamous marriages happen, especially with respect to those that are under age”[11].

How often did these sorts of marriages really occur is difficult to gauge. Forced marriages did happen but in reality Charles Townshend was correct and these incidents were rare. Nevertheless the damage and distress they caused their unfortunate victims should not be underestimated.

The notion that an unscrupulous and undesirable suitor could persuade or force a wealthy young heiress into an unsuitable marriage against the wishes of her family generated a high level of paranoia amongst the aristocratic and wealthy classes. Older relatives trying to pre-empt and restrict inappropriate behaviour in their female offspring recounted to them cautionary tales of the perils of abduction and impulsive marriages.

The Bolt by Fragonard.

Elizabeth Malet

Elizabeth Malet by Peter Lely.

“Here, upon my [Samuel Pepys] telling her [Lady Sandwich] a story of my Lord Rochester’s running away on Friday night last with Mrs. Mallett, the great beauty and fortune of the North, who had supped at White Hall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather, my Lord Haly, by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and foot men, and forcibly taken from him, and put into a coach with six horses, and two women provided to receive her, and carried away.”[12]

The abduction of the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Malet on the 26

May 1665 scandalised London and infuriated King Charles II who quickly signed a warrant for the arrest of Lord Rochester. Sent to the Tower and later to sea, it seems that Rochester’s had not abandoned his matrimonial plans as in January 1667 he again ran off with Elizabeth (this time with her consent). They married in a clandestine ceremony at Knightsbridge Chapel against the wishes of her father, John Malet.[13]

Bridget Hyde

Bridget was the daughter of the acknowledged beauty Mary Hyde and the wealthy Sir Thomas Hyde. On the death of her father shortly after she was born, Bridget became an heiress worth £100,000 and a pawn in her relatives’ tug of war game.

The Family of Sir Robert Vyner (Bridget is on the far left). Image NPG 5568;

In 1674, Mary became seriously ill and Bridget now aged about twelve was sent to stay with her mother’s sisters, Susan and Sara in Hertfordshire.  Her aunts had not done quite as well in their marriages as their successful sister, marrying two brothers of the name Emerton who worked as bailiffs on the Hyde estate[14]. Aware that Bridget’s step-father, Robert Vyner was hoping to marry Bridget to the son of Lord Danby (in return for a cancellation of his debts which were the result of lending money to Charles II) and afraid for their own livelihood, Bridget’s aunts decided to marry her to her cousin, John. Probably presenting the marriage in the form of a game, Sara and Susan convinced Bridget to go through the ceremony which was conducted by the morally challenged priest, John Brandling. When Vyner found out about the marriage he was furious seeing all his plans falling apart. Determined not to be bested by his wife’s deceitful relatives, Vyner took the case to the Ecclesiastical Court to have it declared null and void. In the meantime Bridget returned to her step-father’s care but her estates were awarded by the Court of the King’s Bench to Emerton. The case lasted six years!

Lovelace Abducting Clarissa Harlowe – Louis Edouard Dubuf

For some reason, Bridget seemed to attract trouble like a moth to a flame. Whilst the legality of her marriage was being debated she became the subject of a second marriage plot. One fateful night, Vyner invited a man known as Henry Wroth to dinner at his house in Ickenham. On finishing his dinner Wroth repaid his host’s hospitality by pulling out a gun and absconding with Bridget. Wroth with his ‘unwilling bride to be’ headed towards Richmond where he had a ferry waiting for them. Vyner pursued and Wroth was arrested. Bridget was unharmed except for losing an amber necklace and a hankerchief[15].

In 1680 the Ecclesiastical Court finally came to a decision and announced in favour of Emerton (possibly due to the key witnesses being unable to testify as they had been excommunicated) [16]despite the fact that the marriage was conducted without the consent of the Bridget’s guardian, Vyner or even Bridget herself. The story did not end there as Danby was still determined that Bridget would eventually marry his son. For the next two years Danby and Vyner entered into negotiations with Emerton. All Emerton had ever really wanted was financial compensation in order for him to renounce the marriage. Thinking that things were progressing far too slowly, Viscount Dunblane decided to matters into his own hands and eloped with a this time willing Bridget to St Marylebone Church (another notorious location for clandestine marriages). The Ecclesiastical Court ever mindful of their own interests, suddenly decided that the marriage with Emerton was not legal!

Although it is sad that even after all this, Bridget did not have the fairy tale ending she deserved (as in a few years Dunblane had run through all his wife’s fortune forcing her “to part with all her plate”) she did in a way finally get the man she wanted as shortly after their marriage it was reported “The Lord Dunblane is dancing with his mistress day and night, and she dotes on him.”[17]

Pleasant Rawlins

Contemporary pamphlet from the abduction trial. Source Heineonline.

In 1701, the seventeen year old heiress, Pleasant Rawlins was arrested for an imaginary unpaid debt of £200 trumped up by a Haagen Swendsen, a German adventurer whose advances Pleasant had previously rebuffed.

Seized under false pretences, Pleasant was taken first to the Star and Garter in Drury Lane and then moved to The Vine in Holborn where Swendsen’s accomplice, a Mrs Baynton convinced Pleasant that she would be incarcerated in Newgate if she refused to go through with the marriage. Now more afraid of being murdered by her captors than worried about imprisonment, a terrified Pleasant reluctantly agreed to the union and was married to Swendsen in the Fleet Prison.

When Pleasant’s horrified family finally found out what had happened to her, Swendsen and Mrs Baynton were arrested and the marriage ruled illegal. Swendsen was found guilty and hung but a pregnant Baynton escaped the death penalty[18].

Mary Wharton

The Honourable James Campbell of the Clan Campbell was an officer in the Royal Scots Army and the British Army, politician[19] and unsuccessful kidnapper. In November 1690 Campbell conspired with Sir John Johnson to abduct the thirteen year old daughter of the late Philip Wharton (cousin of Lord Wharton) worth £1500 and heiress to Goldsborough Hall in North Yorkshire from outside the home of her mother in Westminster.

Image by Hogarth.

Her aunt and cousins who had been in the coach with Mary testified in court that after having returned from dinning with a Mr Archibald Montgomery in Soho they saw a coach drive hurry past them. On stopping, three men jumped out and in the process of forcing Mary into the six horses coach knocked the footman down and pushed one of her cousins into the gutter. Mary was taken to Watson the coachman’s house where despite being in tears and protesting she was coerced in to marrying Campbell. Disturbingly evidence from the Old Bailey trail also suggests that she tricked into sleeping in the same bed as Campbell by his female accomplice, Mrs Clewer[20] (whether or not Mary was raped by Campbell can’t be ruled out but is not inevitable as often girls married before their 14th birthday would sleep in the same bed as their husband on their wedding night but actually consummate the marriage a few years later).

The next day Campbell compelled Mary to write a reassuring letter to her aunt telling her that she was happily and safely wed and that they would soon visit. Whilst Mary and Campbell were having breakfast, Mary felt ill and was taken to an apothecary where her family finally found her and removed her from Campbell’s clutches by order of the Lord Chief Justice.

Although Johnson was convicted of abduction and sentenced to death, Campbell escaped due to a plea of ignorance of English law. Apparently in Scotland at the time abduction was a conventional method of obtaining a wife and he was falsely led to believe by Johnson that such practices were also accepted in England. Even though his excuse was accepted as reasonable by the powers that be it does sound a little dubious to me.

The marriage was annulled on the 20 December of that year and Mary later married her guardian, the son of her aunt. Hopefully after undergoing such a horrible ordeal Mary went on to have a happy and successful life.

Sibble Morris

The evidence given in the case of Sibble Morris is particularly disturbing and heart-breaking and does clearly reveal how vulnerable young girls could be.

On the 5 March 1728, Sibble Morris and her maid Anne Holiday were paying a second reluctant visit to a Mrs Hendron. On the way they met two acquaintances of theirs, Kitty Pendergrass and Peggy Johnson who told them that Mrs Hendron was not at home and was instead visiting a house in New Round Court in the Strand. They convinced Sibble to accompany them there. On arrival they all entered the house and made their way to a shuttered candle lit room filled with a number of people including a Mr Richard Russel (who Sibble had met only once on the previous visit to Mrs Pendergrass’ house and whom she believed to be a wealthy merchant) and a clergyman.

Frightened and wanting to leave both Sibble and her maid were pulled into the room and the door closed behind them. Mrs Pendergrass told Sibble that it was no use screaming as no-one would hear her. Despite the fact that the girl was young only about 16 years old, was in a near faint and had to be held up throughout the ceremony and could not speak, the clergyman seemed not to notice anything amiss. Even when questioned in the trial he maintained his innocence and stated that he was under the impression that he was marrying a gentleman to a servant and that she was just overcome by the whole situation.

After the ceremony, “Hendron and others dragg’d her [Sibble] up Stairs to a Bed-Chamber, which was also shut up with Shutters, and Kitty Pendergrass and Peggy Johnson, pulled off her Cloaths by Force, Hendron holding her Hands; and that one Mrs. Rigy was there present while all this was done, that they forc’d her into Bed, and that Hendron held her down in Bed”[21] and waited until Russel joined them.

Futile Resistance by Fragonard.

It was only on the following Thursday that Sibble’s father heard about the marriage from a man who had pretended to be a friend of Russel. On hearing the devastating news Mr Morris confronted his daughter, who in her distress admitted that it was due to fear and shame that she had not told him what had happened. Mr Morris refused to speak to Russel who on hearing that a warrant for his arrest had been issued, fled.

Throughout the trial, Sibble maintained that she had never at any point agreed to the marriage. Russel’s female accomplices were found guilty of aiding and abetting a kidnap and rape and sentenced to death but the incompetent, oblivious and brainless clergyman (if you can believe he really did not know what was going on) was let off[22].

To love, honour and OBEY!

What did Hardwicke’s law really achieve? Girls were still forced to marry men they abhorred and detested just now they did it with their parents or guardians’ blessing. The main objective of the Act was never the welfare of vulnerable young girls but the protection of a family’s property by placing complete control on where it would be bestowed in the hands of the heiress’s parents or guardian. Girls lost any power or control they may once have had over their own lives and became just a pawn in their family’s dynastic game of chess. Any chance of escaping their family’s clutches and marrying their own choice of husband was now cut off (although the long shot of Gretna Green was still available).

In an ironic way if one of the aims of the Marriage Act was to protect women it did so by imprisoning them within their families and making them even more vulnerable to forced marriages then before.

The ambitious mother and the obliging clergyman by Charles Dana Gibson.

Bibliography

Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Wilmot,_Countess_of_Rochester

Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys

Georgian London: http://www.georgianlondon/post/494612709431/fleet-marriages

Marriage among Londoners before Hardwicke’s Act of 1753: when, where and why?  http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/people/newton/MarriageArticleDRAFT.pdf

Fleet Prison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Prison

The Fleet Prison: http://www.okima.com/tour/fleet.html

From Fleet Street to Gretna Green: The Reform of “Clandestine Marriage” under Lord Chancellor Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753, http://jenpayne10.info/clandestine.html

Daniel Defoe: Conjugal Lewdness or Matrimonial Whoredom

Nigel Pickford: The Sad History of Bridget Hyde

Nigel Pickford, Lady Bette and the Murder of Mr Thynne, 2014

Naomi Clifford: Two 18th-century bride abductions http://www.naomiclifford.com/two-18th-century-bride-abductions/

James Campbell (of Burnbank and Boquhan): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Campbell_(of_Burnbank_and_Boquhan)

John Johnson, William Clewer, S – C -, Grace Wiggan, Miscellaneous > kidnapping, 10th December 1690: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t16901210-56

Mary Hendron, John Wheeler, Margaret Pendergrass, Miscellaneous > kidnapping, 1st May 1728. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17280501-13-off75&div=t17280501-13#highlight

Guardian Shorts: A Marriage Proposal by Sophie Ward http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/jan/30/guardian-shorts-a-marriage-proposal-by-sophie-ward-chapter-1

The History of Parliament: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/osborne-peregrine-1659-1729

Jacqueline Rose: Godly kingship in restoration England: The politics of the royal Supremacy, 2011

Notes

[1] Georgian London: georgianlondon/post/494612709431/fleet-marriages

[2] Marriage among Londoners before Hardwicke’s Act of 1753: when, where and why?  http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/people/newton/MarriageArticleDRAFT.pdf

[3] ibid

[4] Fleet Prison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Prison

[5] Full text of “The history of the Fleet marriages [electronic resource] http://www.archive.org/stream/historyoffleetma00burnrich/historyoffleetma00burnrich_djvu.txt

[6] ibid

[7] From Fleet Street to Gretna Green: The Reform of “Clandestine Marriage” under Lord Chancellor Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753, http://jenpayne10.info/clandestine.html

[8] Daniel Defoe: Conjugal Lewdness or Matrimonial Whoredom

[9] Nigel Pickford: The Sad History of Bridget Hyde: http://nigelpickford.com/sad-history-bridget-hyde-2/

[10] From Fleet Street to Gretna Green: The Reform of “Clandestine Marriage” under Lord Chancellor Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753, http://jenpayne10.info/clandestine.html

[11] ibid

[12] Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, Entry on the 28 May 1665

[13] Elizabeth Wilmot, Countess of Rochester: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Wilmot,_Countess_of_Rochester

[14] Nigel Pickford: The Sad History of Bridget Hyde: http://nigelpickford.com/sad-history-bridget-hyde-2/

[15] ibid

[16] Nigel Pickford, Lady Bette and the Murder of Mr Thynne, 2014

[17] ibid

[18] Naomi Clifford: Two 18th-century bride abductions http://www.naomiclifford.com/two-18th-century-bride-abductions/ Naomi Clifford

[19] James Campbell (of Burnbank and Boquhan): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Campbell_(of_Burnbank_and_Boquhan)

[20] John Johnson, William Clewer, S – C -, Grace Wiggan, Miscellaneous > kidnapping, 10th December 1690: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t16901210-56

[21] Mary Hendron, John Wheeler, Margaret Pendergrass, Miscellaneous > kidnapping, 1st May 1728. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17280501-13-off75&div=t17280501-13#highlight

[22] ibid

Victory regarding the Right of Witch Priests and Priestess in PA to legally marry couples, or as Charlton Heston said in “The 10 Commandments” – “Victory is Mine Sayeth The (Horned God) Lord”

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Covens fight, Legal rights, Marriage, pennsylvania, USA

Here is a quick update on a post I recently reblogged from Coven of the Catta/Blau Stern Schwarz Schlonge ‘My fight as an ordained witch priest to legally perform marriages in Pennsylvania’. The fight for Ordained High Priests and High Priestesses to perform legally binding marriage ceremonies in Pennsylvania has been won! Well done to Shawnus and his Coven for taking on the fight and winning! Hopefully this local victory for the Coven will translate into wider tolerance and acceptance that not everyone follows a ‘religion of the book’ and that there are equally valid alternatives to the mainstream religions.

Coven of the Catta

Image from Wikicommons

To quote Charlton Heston from “The Ten Commandments” I have just added this Addendum and post to my original post Our Covens Fight as Witch Priests and Priestesses to legally Perform Marriages in PennsylvaniaHere is the hopefully Final Addendum and Comments at the final end of that post so read thru All of them, and i am just pasting what i just posted there –

“Addendum 6 March 2014 – To quote Charlton Heston from the 10 Commandments – “Victory is Mine Sayeth the (Horned) Lord” – The lawyer i went to to last week to do my Will (dont need a lawyer or notary or even witness in PA so free) and to combine my deeds on tracts of land to reduce my taxes, is also The Lawyer for this county. He told me last week, after explaining what Wicca is in my Will etc…

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The Real Barry Lyndon – Stoney Bowes, a Georgian Sociopath

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Bowes, eighteenth century, eighteenth century ireland, English history, Georgian, Gibside, history, Irish adventurers, Marriage, Mary Eleanor Bowes, North East, Sociopaths, Stoney Bowes

The Infamous Life of Stoney Bowes

Andrew Robinson Bowes, MP, by John Downman 1781 (Fitzwilliam Museum Cambs)

The tale of Andrew Robinson Stoney Bowes came to the attention of William Thackeray direct from the grandson of one of ‘Stoney Bowes’ most famous victims -his unfortunate second wife Mary Eleanor Bowes – and became the inspiration for Thackeray’s picaresque and satirical novel ‘The Luck of Barry Lyndon’.  Unusually, the fictional character is a much tamer version of the real man, for Stoney Bowes must rank as one of the eighteenth centuries most disturbing characters.  Handsome, charming and deadly he was an adventurer, wife-beater and pathological liar with a victim complex.

His behaviour was often censured by contemporary society as being more extreme than was acceptable but was he just an over zealous eighteenth century male or was his behaviour that of a Georgian sociopath?

Origins

Andrew Robinson Stoney came from a genteel but impoverished Anglo-Irish family and was born in 1747 in Greyfort House, County Tipperary.  Although he was a favorite son, his temperament and ambitions did not suit him to become a down at heel gentleman farmer on the family farm.  Even as a young man he was hot-tempered and arrogant.  By the 1760’s he was enlisted as an ensign in the British Army and following a misprint in a local newspaper promoted himself to the rank of Captain.

His army chums found him good company and his debauchery was well-known to his comrades.  He had the sense to keep it under wraps in polite society where he cut a dashing figure with his good looks, athletic figure and charming Irish brogue – a natty red uniform must have helped too.

“His speech was soft, his height was more than five feet ten, his eyes were bright and small, he had perfect command of them, his large eye brows were low large and sandy, his hair light,  and his complexion muddy, his smile was agreeable, his wit ready.”  So said his friend and some-time henchman the Surgeon Jesse Foot.

The charming Irish adventurer was a staple feature of eighteenth century life and heiress hunting was practically a national pass-time for many an ambitious and penniless gentleman.   This was Stoney’s special area of expertise.  He had a way of gaining the loyalty of men, and the adoration of women.  His first victim – for victim she most definitely was – was Hannah Newton.  As a wealthy heiress from Burnopfield, County Durham, he soon targeted her as a lucrative marriage prospect and he began courting her in earnest.

Bagging his first heiress

18th Century Lady, Bowes Museum

From here the charming adventurer began to show his true colours as a manipulative and mercenary predator.  He successfully inveigled his way into Hannah’s, and even her mother’s, affections by posing as a love-lorn and wealthy suitor.   Very soon the young girl was besotted and Stoney pressed his advantage home – being so frequently in Hannah’s company he was effectively ensuring she would have to marry him in order to protect her reputation from scandal.

Nevertheless Hannah’s father had left a clause in his will to protect his daughter’s inheritance – any future husband must have at least £50 per year income and any interest in the Newton fortune would die with his wife unless a male heir was forthcoming.  Stoney was aware – well aware – of this obstacle.

He considered elopement, but had rejected it as it would cost him Hannah’s fortune and all Hannah represented to him was cold hard cash.  Instead he begged and bullied his family, writing by turns pleading and aggressive letters demanding they give him the money.  At the same time he further manipulated Hannah and her mother by offering to release the besotted twenty year old from her obligations to him.   He is quoted as cynically saying:

Detail from ‘Company at Play’, Thomas Rowlandson, Plate 8 from Comforts of Bath, 1798

“You may be assured I had no intention of going, for I well knew I would not be permitted.  However, with the help of a few tears, I was prevailed to remain with her.”

His machinations were eventually successful, his family made him a settlement, and he was married to Hannah Newton and her twenty thousand pounds fortune on the 5th November 1768.  They moved to her home at Cole Pike Hill in Durham.  Stoney rejoined his regiment and resumed his debauched and violent lifestyle but now with ample funds to squander.

Hannah must have had a miserable marriage and was often at Bath for her health, Wendy Moore writing in ‘Wedlock’ thinks if not physically caused by Stoney, Hannah’s ill-health was exacerbated by his harsh treatment of her.  He engaged in legal wrangles with the Trustees of her father’s will when he tried to exploit the ancient woodlands on her estates, and he forced her to make a £5000 settlement on him should she die childless.  eventually Hannah did die, along with the child she had just given birth too.  Stoney reluctantly gave up his grip on her fortune.

A second heiress comes along

£5000 in his bank account, Stoney left the North, and set out in search of another cash cow to wed.  Anne Massingberd of Ormseby Hall was his next target and he soon had her eating out of his hand, his attentions were callously calculated to  ruin her reputation and any alternative marriage prospects.  However Stoney was in for a shock when he realised that Anne wasn’t quite as well off as she seemed and the liaison was soon over as far as he was concerned.  Anne felt differently and does not seem to have gotten over being jilted by Stoney, writing many letters to him begging for him to return to her.

The Richest Woman in England in his sights

Mary Eleanor Bowes, by JC Dillman, 1800 copied from George Englehart (Bowes Museum)

Despite the fact that Stoney’s reputation for bad treatment of women seems to have been well-known it is a measure of his charm and charisma and sexual chemistry that so many women fell for him.  True Hannah and Anne had led very sheltered lives, but his next victim Mary Eleanor Bowes was highly educated, a widow and had been living it up in a very scandalous manner since the death of her husband the Earl of Strathmore in 1776.

But in order to capture the largest fortune in England, Stoney would have to sink to very underhand and theatrical tactics and spin a web of deception and lies.  in 1776 Mary Eleanor was already planning to marry her current lover, Nabob Gray, and had even gone so far as to draw up crucial legal papers protecting her inheritance from any future husband, when Stoney appeared on the scene.  It is rumoured that he boasted openly that he was planning to go to London and marry the dowager Countess of Strathmore, such was his over-weaning confidence.

Duel Thomas Rowlandson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Still, it took a spy in her household, a rigged slander campaign in the Morning Post – where Stoney acted the part of both slanderer and saviour with equal relish – and a faked duel in a crampt and darkened room at the Adelphi Tavern to achieve his aim.  He had already made advances towards Mary Eleanor, and when he offered to fight a duel with the editor of the Morning Post, Mr Bates, Mary Eleanor seems to have been caught up in the drama and romance of the situation, especially when Stoney was mortally wounded defending her honour.

Only, things weren’t quite what they seemed.  Bates and Stoney were in cahoots, they met a year earlier in Bath, and may well have hatched the whole plot there and then.  Stoney also roped in his friend and ally Jesse Foote, a surgeon, in order to authenticate his fatal wounds.  Mary Eleanor didn’t stand a chance, at his apparent deathbed she agreed to his request that he be married to the woman whose honour he had defended.  Thinking he would be dead soon anyway, Mary Eleanor made the biggest mistake of her life and agreed.  On the 17 January 1777, Stoney was carried to the altar in a stretcher, and he married his second fortune and took on the name of Bowes in accordance with her fathers will.

Stoney made a rapid recovery and soon made his true nature know to Mary Eleanor.  Finding out he was not in control of her fortune, and that prenuptial agreements had been put in place to limit the financial powers of any husband, he began a sustained and brutal campaign against her – eventually tricking her in to revoking the deed. She endured 8 years of beatings, starvation, humiliation and control at the hands of Stoney.  She finally escaped his clutches in February 1785, when with the help of her brave maid Mary Morgan and some other equally brave servants, she made her getaway.  Penniless, she set about getting a divorce and regaining her fortune.  She won.  But at a high price to her health and her reputation.

Divorce and abduction

Public opinion was initially with the Countess, the divorce made people aware of the brutal treatment she had suffered at the hands of Stoney Bowes.  But Stoney ruthlessly began to slander her reputation, buying a newspaper for the purpose and commissioning cruel satirical prints against her.  The Georgian public swiftly turned against her, a wife who had lived a scandalous life – he had forced her to write her highly damaging ‘confessions’ and he later published them.  A wife, furthermore, who had tried to prevent her husband from his legal rights to her money and property.  Many people at the time would see him as a man standing up for his rights and he swayed the public opinion in his favour.  Even those people who thought he had gone to far, may have thought she was getting no better than she deserved.

However, when legal proceedings began to turn in favour of Mary Eleanor, and Stoney Bowes knew his case would be lost, he took things into his own hands.  He had his wife abducted in broad daylight.  Bundled into a carriage and dragged back up north.  Threatened with rape and violence Mary Eleanor was then dragged on horseback on a desperate cross-country flight for weeks and in the depths of winter until she was finally rescued, and Stoney arrested.

Stoney Bowes at the Court of Kings Bench, James Gillray

Abduction was one step too far, and Stoney Bowes was given three years in prison for the abduction. The divorce was finally settled in 1789 but not before he had hammed up his own sense of victimisation as much as possible – as Gillray’s cartoon of his Court appearance shows.

Deprived of his wife’s fortune, lambasted in print (even as early as 1777 The Stoniad had accused him of domestic violence and financial abuse of his wife), Stoney Bowes spend the last years of his life in debtors prison –  eventually dying in 1810.

Stoney Bowes via wikimedia

Yet, even in prison he wangled the best rooms, enticed young lawyers to take up his legal shenanigans, and spend his time seducing innocent girls.  Polly Sutton fell into his clutches because her father was  also in prison.  By all accounts she was a lovely young girl with prospects when he met her – yet even in prison he was able to ensnare her. Stoney  had several children with Polly and kept her locked up in a room he hired at the prison.  She got the same treatment that all of his previous wives received – violence and abuse.

Typical Georgian Gent or Sociopath?

The eighteenth century, despite being a rather feminine century, was essentially a mans world.  Men ran things and owned most of the property whilst women were in the power of their fathers, brothers or husbands for most of their lives.  Men expected to own their wives as much as they owned the property their wife brought to the marriage.  Society was also tolerant of some levels of domestic violence against women.

Stoney Bowes went much further than this.  He was clearly charming and charismatic, but he bullied, cajoled, and manipulated male friends into becoming his accomplices, and women into becoming his victims.  He was an extremely good liar, and appears to have had absolutely no conscience in relation to his dealings with women or empathy for the suffering he caused.  He lived a parasitic lifestyle – to him, women were a meal-ticket, he manipulated their emotions then trapped them into violent abusive marriages.  He was promiscuous, violent, controlling and showed no remorse for any of his actions.  I’m certainly no expert on psychology, but I would say that Andrew Robinson Stoney Bowes was quite likely a bona-fide Georgian Sociopath.

Sources

Arnold, Ralph, The Unhappy Countess, Constable, 1987 edition
Moore, Wendy, Wedlock, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2009
Parker, Derek, The Trampled Wife, Sutton, 2006
Thackeray, William, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Futura, 1974 edition
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robinson_Stoney
Author unknown, Profile of the Sociopath, http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html