Georgian Wrangle #2

One of the most famous---and infamous---divorces of the 18th century was that of Sir Richard Worsley and his wife, Seymour Dorothy Worsley (nee Fleming). The scandalous behaviour of the participants kept the gossipmongers occupied for weeks, and a summary of the trial transcript underwent seven printings in less than a year! Even George Washington requested one.

Seventeen-year-old Seymour Dorothy Fleming was the daughter of a baronet, the step-daughter of a earl, and a great heiress. Richard Worsley was a handsome baronet of twenty-four with a promising career in government. Their marriage, in September 1775, had the makings of a fairy-tale, but it ended as one of the most sensational and highly publicized divorce cases in history. (The image at right is Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait, painted in 1775, of Sir Richard Worsley in his uniform as a colonel in the Royal Hampshire Militia. (As always, click on any photo to enlarge it.)) Shortly after the wedding, the couple moved to the Isle of Wight, Sir Richard's family home.

Seymour Fleming's dowry was reputed to be 70,000 pounds (equivalent to almost 10 million dollars today), but was actually about 52,000 pounds (equivalent to 7.3 million dollars). In 1774, after returning from his Grand Tour, Sir Richard had been elected as M.P. for Newport. After his marriage to Seymour, his political star continued to rise. He supported Lord North's government, became a clerk comptroller in 1777, was comptroller of the king's household from 1779-1782, became a privy councillor in 1780, and was Governor of the Isle of Wight from 1780-1782.

Lady Worsley (shown at right in Sir Joshua Reynolds's 1780 portrait of her) presented her husband with a son and heir a year after their wedding, but the boy died at age twelve. During the autumn of 1780, while her husband was electioneering for his seat in Parliament, Lady Worsley, who had already earned a reputation for being free with her affections, began an affair with a local militia captain, George Bisset, who was a friend of Sir Richard's, as well as a fellow officer in the Royal Hampshire Militia. In August 1781, she gave birth to a daughter, fathered by Bisset, which Sir Richard acknowledged as his. In November 1781, the lovers decided to run away to London, well aware that their indiscretion would set Sir Richard on the path to the most public revenge.

 Sir Richard launched a criminal conversation ("crim. con.") action, which involved proving that Bisset had defiled his wife and reduced her worth. Sir Richard demanded 20,000 pounds in compensation, an astronomical sum at the time, and one that would have condemned Bisset to debtor's prison for the rest of his life. (Twenty thousand pounds in 1782 is equivalent to equivalent to 2.67 million dollars today.)

The facts of the elopement were clear. The couple had been living in the Royal Hotel in Pall Mall. Servants had been interviewed, the bed linen examined, and witnesses had contrived to see them in bed together. There was no doubt of culpability. Seymour, Lady Worsley was Sir Richard's chattel, and Captain Bisset had made off with her. How was the aggrieved husband to be compensated? What value could be placed on a privy councillor's matrimonial honour?

The subsequent trial left all parties nursing their egos. In order to prove Lady Worsley's worth was tarnished long before the arrival of Bisset, the defence adopted a unique---and unprecedented--- strategy.  They attempted, with Lady Worsley's assistance, to prove that she had not only behaved in a manner that was inappropriate for the wife of a nobleman, but that she had done this with the active collusion of her husband. A procession of aristocratic lovers were brought before the bench to testify that Sir Richard had contrived to display his unclothed wife before them and encouraged sexual liaisons, which he had observed from the concealment of her dressing room. (At right, James Gillray's 29 April 1782 caricature, A peep into Lady W!!!!!y's seraglia.)

Three of Lady Worsley's lovers are named in the summary trial transcript. Reputedly, there were 24 others! (The couple had been married only six years.)

Other people, including a bathhouse attendant, testified that Sir Richard had actively encouraged Bisset to peer at his naked wife through a bathhouse window. (At right, James Gillray's 14 March 1782 caricature, Sir Richard Worse-than-sly, exposing his wife's bottom;---o fye!)

The court proceedings gave the scandal sheets and gossip columnists much to write about. Although a large amount of personal correspondence relating to the affair was destroyed, the trial transcript is 300 pages of the most damning evidence one is ever likely to read.

Servants, friends, and family were all called to give evidence, and the tawdry picture of the threesome kept the masses entertained for months. Captain Bisset was eventually found guilty, but because of Worsley's connivance, he was awarded just one shilling in compensation---the price of a pound of soap, a muslin neckcloth, or a roast beef dinner.

At the end of the trial, Sir Richard was a figure of ridicule, but Lady Worsley continued to defy social convention. She never once betrayed a hint of regret and showed no intention of withdrawing from fashionable London life. Sir Richard lost all his political offices when Lord North's government fell in the autumn of 1782, but his political career had already been damaged by the scandals surround his wife and the crim. con. case. He departed for the Continent, and did not return to England until 1788.


Worsley did not grant Seymour a divorce, which prevented her from remarrying, and denied her access to her children and her fortune, both of which remained under his control. (Including her daughter by Bisset, since Sir Richard had claimed the child.) Sir Richard and Lady Worsley entered into Articles of Separation in 1788.

While she was pregnant with her lover's second child, Bisset left her. Sir Richard spent 15 years trying (unsuccessfully) to redeem his character by documenting his impressive art collection in a large leather-bound volume, which also contained drawings of the monuments of Ancient Greece.

On the death of her husband in 1805, Seymour's property and fortune were restored to her. Seymour, who was 47, married her 26-year-old lover, a Swiss musician. Their affection for each other seemed genuine, and he remained at her side until she died 13 years later.

Next post: a scandalous Regency divorce.

Susannah

P.S. Like my last post, this one is straight out of my lecture notes for Jane Austen's England (Spring 2009 honors seminar, Lecture 22). In addition to the references cited in my last post, I would add the following:

Rubenhold, Hallie, Lady Worsley's Whim: an 18th-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal and Divorce, Chatto and Windus, 2008. (The U.S. edition of the book is titled Lady in Red: an 18th-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal and Divorce, St. Martin's Press, 2009.)

Chaos Controlled

The chaos of this past week is under control. Barely, perhaps, but it no longer has the upper hand. Professor O is gone (leaving his office full of...stuff and looking like it was struck by a tornado). No white knight has ridden over the horizon, ready to teach Professor O's classes. The teaching schedule has been reshuffled once again---for the third time in less than two months---and all the courses that are supposed to be taught this semester will be taught, except for one graduate class. Of course, to ensure that all those courses are taught, three professors (one of whom is me) will be teaching an extra class, but the students won't suffer due to Professor O's last-minute resignation.

Now, if only peace (and sanity) will prevail.

James Gillray's famous caricature on the Peace of Amiens, entitled "The first Kiss this Ten Years!---or---the meeting of Britannia & Citizen François", published 01 January 1803. The French officer's hat and sword lay on the carpet. Britannia's shield and trident rest on the wall behind her chair. Above them are portraits of George III and Napoleon, facing each other. They almost appear to be shaking hands, but with very bad grace.

The French officer says, "Madame, permittez me to pay my profound esteem to your engaging person!---& to seal on your divine Lips my everlasting attachment!!!" Britannia says, "Monsieur, you are truly a well-bred Gentleman!---&, tho' you make me blush, yet, you Kiss so delicately, that I cannot refuse you, tho' I was sure you would Deceive me again!!!"

The Peace of Amiens lasted only a few months after this caricature was published. A few months of peace sounds divine. A few years sounds better.

Susannah

"Some days you feel like a chair...

...other days you feel like a stool." So spaketh one of my colleagues, chair of one of the largest departments in the School of Arts and Sciences.

I'm not sure whether, in his quote, "stool" is intended to mean "a less elegant form of seating" or if the intended meaning was "an essential, multi-purpose piece of furniture." Already I have had days when I felt like a prop holding open doors (or opportunities), and also days when it feels like I am the glue holding the department together. Although people who are not in academia may not be able to relate to that, I think everyone will understand what I mean when I say that I am supposed to be on vacation this week and have spent three days at the University. But...on the first of those three days, I filled my third faculty position for the coming year, so I count that day well spent.

So far, the two worst things about being chair are: (1) trying to match faculty members and courses for the fall semester (a headache I am still trying to resolve) and (2) faculty colleagues (and/or their spouses), who know that my original plans for the summer included writing the middle half of my current WIP, coming up to me at social events and asking, "How is your summer going?" or "How is the writing going?"

There is no easy answer to the first question, except to say that my summer has been very different than I expected. In early May, I had no idea that my father was going to require open heart surgery or that my department chair was going to resign and that the dean would choose me as the new chair. Those two key events have shaped my summer in ways that I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams. They have also, inevitably, affected my writing, or rather, the time I have to write.

For the first three weeks of the summer my writing was going very well. With two years of research behind me, I was writing a chapter a week, sometimes a bit more. But that progress came to a screeching halt when, within four days, my department chair announced his resignation and my dad underwent open heart surgery. The fact that, six weeks later, my dad still requires in-patient care and rehabilitation therapy has effected the course of my days. The fact that I was named the new chair has determined what I do with my time between 8am and 5pm. At 5 o'clock, I drive the 50 miles from work down to see my mom and have dinner with her, then I go to see my dad. After visiting him, I drive the 30 miles back home, rarely arriving before 9pm.

Next week I will be on vacation (I hope!), and writing is one of my big goals. I hope to write at least one more chapter. Until then, I will share with you two caricatures I found in my research. The first (at right) is Parisienne, the second (below) is British, but both mock the fashions of 1810.

The French caricaturist is unknown, but the caricature is titled "Les Modernes Incroyables"; the British caricaturist is Henry Humphrey, who was better known as a print seller (he and his relatives published the caricatures of James Gillray and George Cruikshank, among others), but he also engraved and published a number of caricatures. This caricature, titled "Les Invisibles," brings to mind a number of caricatures in which Gillray satirized the fashionable. It also, undoubtedly, served as a model---or at least an inspiration---for some of George Cruikshank's later works, such as "Monstrosities of 1818" (or 1821, 1822, or whatever year).

Susannah