Book group guide and questions

Wedlock:  How Georgian Britian's Worst Husband Met His Match 

How did you come to write Wedlock?

‘Wedlock’ is my second book and also my second relating the life of an 18th-century personality. After writing my first book, The Knife Man, about the 18th century surgeon John Hunter, I was scouting around for another idea. I was still drawn to the colourful world of medical history and spent many weeks pottering around dusty medical archives when suddenly Mary Eleanor Bowes burst into my life.

I had had a brief encounter with Mary Eleanor Bowes, the Countess of Strathmore, in writing my first book. She was a friend of John Hunter and donated to him the skin of a giraffe which had been brought back from an expedition she had sponsored to southern Africa. I knew no more about her until the curator of the Hunterian Museum in London, where John Hunter’s human and animal body parts are exhibited, mentioned that the countess had a fascinating story of her own. Not expecting much, I ordered a few books – accounts of the divorce case and the kidnap trials published at the time - when I next visited the British Library. I could scarcely believe what I read. The shocking story of an accomplished heiress who was tricked into marrying an Irish scoundrel by a fake duel, her wretched married life, her audacious escape and landmark legal battles and – most staggering of all – her abduction by her estranged husband from a busy London street, seemed like the stuff of fiction. I was hooked. Immediately I dropped the other ideas I had been exploring and began a detective trail exploring Mary Eleanor Bowes’s life and times.

For the next two years I devoted myself to researching and writing Mary Eleanor’s story, visiting her childhood home of Gibside in north-east England – where her house is still in ruins - and the romantic Glamis Castle belonging to her first husband in Scotland – where the late Queen Mother was brought up – as well as trawling through countless boxes of letters, diaries, bills and even school books in various archives. It has been an enthralling journey.

What made you want to write a book about the Countess of Strathmore?

Above all, it was the action-packed story which initially inspired me to write about Mary Eleanor. I’m a journalist by training and I know a good yarn when I hear one. But as I got deeper into my research I became fascinated by the themes which the story illuminated – how our ideas about marriage have changed, why divorce has risen from the 18th-century onwards, arguments about child custody and women’s rights – all issues which are just as topical today. I find the 18th-century compelling for this contradiction: so many of the customs, fashions and characters seem bizarre and eccentric to us today and yet so many of the concerns – celebrity, relationships, media obsession – are exactly the same.

What original sources did you use in the research?

I was extremely lucky to find a rich treasure trove of material in archives, particularly at Glamis Castle. I made seven trips to Scotland, where I ploughed through dozens of boxes of neatly tied bundles of letters, accounts and legal documents which had to be transported for me from Glamis Castle (where they are kept in a cold and inhospitable turret) to Dundee University. Reading Mary’s letters and the replies to her from her lawyers, her family, her tenants and her friends helped me piece together the jigsaw puzzle of her marriage and divorce. In earlier biographies – all by male authors - she had been depicted as vain, selfish and gullible and it was reading her descriptions of her ordeal in her own words that brought to life the intelligent, compassionate and much-wronged woman to whom I felt a strong connection. Some of the items – particularly the little bills for shoes, clothes and medical treatment for the five Strathmore children – were very poignant. Often it is a small specific detail – like the bill which mentioned lettuce for the young 10th earl’s tortoise – that can bring out the human element in a story.

Were there are problems in writing the book?

One of the difficulties was trying to understand what attracted people – women and men - to Andrew Robinson Stoney when obviously he was such a villain. How could they be so easily fooled? It helped to read the desperate letters of Anne Massingberd, whom he seduced between his two marriages, which plainly revealed that women were totally besotted with him. Evidently, he possessed some strong magnetism which women found hard to resist. It was also challenging to unravel the complexities of the 18th-century legal world and understand the botany of southern Africa but I was lucky to find experts in both fields who helped me.

Were you surprised to discover the limits on women’s freedom and rights?

My last book centred very much on the men’s world of 18th-century medicine and science. Researching Wedlock brought home to me that the 18th century in general was indeed a man’s world. I hadn’t realised the extent to which girls and women were effectively ruled by their fathers and then their husbands. Not only were women’s lives generally governed by men, they really had no legal status at all so that their property, their income and even their children all belonged to men. The stories of babies and young children being taken from their mothers and handed over to their fathers when couples divorced – often never seeing their mothers again – were harrowing to read, especially as a mother myself. What was perhaps more surprising, though, was how many women spoke out against their lack of rights and how many became celebrated, respected and powerful figures despite the legal and society restraints. I have huge admiration for women like Mary Wollstonecraft, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Mary Eleanor Bowes who refused to accept the status quo and stood up for their principles.

What was life like for an intelligent, highly-educated, wealthy woman in mid-18th-century Britain?

Highly frustrating, I imagine. The few women like Mary Eleanor, who were sufficiently privileged to enjoy a full and rounded education, could hold their own in salon conversations about science and the arts. But they were barred from any serious involvement in either the scientific or arts worlds – unable to join organisations like the all-male Royal Society and disparaged if they tried to compete on equal terms in writing poetry or books. Several women, like Hannah More, Elizabeth Carter and Mary Wortley Montagu, did earn respected reputations for their learning but they were also viewed as oddities and unfeminine. As the Bishop of London said: ‘Nothing, I think, is more disagreeable than learning in a female.’ Having said that, Mary Eleanor would probably have been relatively happy had she been allowed the freedom at least to pursue her passion for botany and her love of writing; both were stifled by her successive husbands.

Questions for readers

1. Mary Eleanor Bowes was brought up by her father to be a self-confident, ambitious and clever girl. Thanks to him she enjoyed an education only normally provided for the sons of aristocratic families and through his wealth she enjoyed a pampered, privileged youth.
Was this upbringing and education her downfall? Did it make her a poor judge of character, naively assuming that those who pandered to her needs had genuine affection for her? Or was it her final strength which gave her the self-belief to escape and fight back against her bullying second husband?

2. Mary Eleanor married her first husband, the 9th Earl, with romantic expectations of a loving, harmonious marriage. She was just 16 when they became engaged and had led a largely closeted life. Steeped in romantic fiction, she was captivated, she said, by his ‘beauty’ and a ‘vision’ in which he appeared to her (p 42 UK book). He was older, sexually experienced and worldly-wise, having enjoyed a tempestuous affair with an Italian Contessa (p. 71 UK book).
Was their marriage doomed from the start? Whose fault was it that the marriage failed and Mary ultimately sought affection in an affair? Did you feel any sympathy towards the earl? What role did the earl’s brother, Thomas Lyon, play in the relationship and was the two brothers’ closeness perhaps a factor in the failure of Mary and the earl’s marriage?

3. Mary Eleanor herself confessed she was not fond of her three sons although later in life she tried to patch up her relationship with them.
Was her initial distance from them an inevitable result of customs in 18th-century wealthy families? The children were wet-nursed, looked after by nursemaids and governesses, then sent away to boarding school. Was it perhaps a flaw in Mary’s personality or a result of her own pampered upbringing?

4. Andrew Robinson Stoney, later Bowes, was undoubtedly one of history’s worst husbands and biggest scoundrels – a liar, a cheat, a womaniser, a bully and a fraud. He seemingly had a relatively normal upbringing for the period in a generally happy family with fairly liberal parents. His own father called him ‘the most wretched man I ever knew’ (p. ?? end chapter 10) yet the poignant letters from Anne Massingberd (p.?? p 107 UK book and pp ?? p 139-40 UK book) reveal his obvious attraction to women.
What could possibly have caused his extraordinary personality traits? How would someone like him operate today? Would he perhaps have been diagnosed with a psychotic personality disorder? And why was he so successful in seducing women? Are men like him still attractive to women today?

5. Mary Eleanor Bowes was vilified during the divorce cases as an outrageous libertine, an ungrateful wife and a hard-hearted mother. In biographies since her death she has been portrayed as a silly, vain and naive female who – to a greater or less extent – received her just desserts in her miserable second marriage.
Is there any justification in these descriptions or are these just male interpretations of a woman who sought a liberated lifestyle? Did she bring her misfortunes on herself? How would a woman today who followed a similar lifestyle be treated?

6. Mary Eleanor endured eight years of almost unspeakable abuse and torment at the hands of her second husband.
Why did she not confide in anyone for most of this time? Why did she wait so long before leaving him? Was this mainly a result of her reluctance to leave her children, her fear of society’s condemnation and the financial deprivations she knew she would incur or was there any element of hoping her husband would change? When writing her ‘Confessions’ she seemed hopeful she could convince him of her devotion while mindful of her duty to ‘obey him’ (p. 147 in UK book). Was she still partly in love with him or was she terrified he would come after her? Why do some women today continue to live with abusive husbands?

7. Most marriages in the first half of the 18th-century among wealthy and landed families were arranged by parents as advantageous financial matches. Some were forced on young people. Gradually during the century views changed so that the idea of marrying for love and the ideal of a harmonious companionate marriage – our modern western idea – became the norm. Some commentators blamed this change on the rise of the novel pedalling romantic ideas of love and the promotion of self-expression. Can novels have such a profound impact on society? Did the ideal of a blissfully happy marriage – the novel’s perfect ending – set up unrealistic expectations in couples? Was this the reason for rising divorce rates from the 18th-century onwards and is that necessarily a bad thing?

8. During the 18th century, reading and writing books and other forms of literature became an important vehicle for enabling women to express their views. Women met in literary salons like the famous ‘blue-stocking club’ – prototypes for today’s reader groups – and some women enjoyed success in writing poetry and especially novels. So how do books play a role – then and now - in empowering women? Can literary gatherings or reader groups help in emancipating – or subverting – women?