I know nothing about Mar except as a name connected with the Jacobite rising I barely studied, so I can't comment on Grundy's assessment of his personality.
Lol Wikipedia:
Mar married his second wife Lady Frances Pierrepont, daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull. The match was a success in that it finally provided Mar with the funds to begin to clear his inherited debts. Lady Frances went mad in 1728 due to the stress of his exile in France.
That's a hell of a segue. "The match was a success in that the husband got money! The wife went mad."
Just to play Horowski‘s game of showing how interconnected and related the nobility is:
So, Lady Mary‘s brother in law (to her great regret, she oculdn‘t stand him) was the Earl of Mar, instigator of the 15. Her son in law was the Earl of Bute, educator and first PM to G3, bete noire of Fritz for cutting his subsidies in the last year of the 7 Years War. Lord Bute‘s younger brother is also the guy who was Barbarina‘s lover and temporary fiance when Fritz had her dragged to Prussia from Venice. And given Lady Mary‘s pining for Algarotti, this means we can connect all the early Jacobites within six steps to Algarotti, too, even without using the brothers Keith (who of course have the closest connection, due to sitting at the same table with him).
I think my head is exploding a little! That is... really interconnected :) (It's also kind of amazing that I generally speaking know who these people are now! :P )
Re: Oglethorpe, and we still wouldn't know if not for a footnote to the historical-criticial edition of Boswell's German travel diary! (Which manages to explain why Mitchell editor Andrew Bisset, publishing mid 19th century before Boswell's journals got published, had no idea.) Some day in the far, far future when I have way more time, I really must write that Black Sails crossover this immediately brought to mind for me in order to aquaint the world at large with the fact.:)
I'm pretty excited myself about us being able to make all these connections. And hey, that's why cahn won my Frederician Quiz. :)
Cool! Looking forward to it. Americans (or at least cahn and I) have all learned about Oglethorpe in school, multiple times, thanks to him founding the colony of Georgia. Seeing him show up in Frederick the Great history, and especially under a different name (Tebay), was a bit of a shock!
Yep! If you founded an American colony, I've heard your name, multiple times. (My kids apparently aren't learning this stuff in school... I have no idea what they will come out with in their memories.) I was wondering if he was related!
I have to say, as colony founders go, Oglethorpe - anti slavery, forbids it (which makes how Georgia turned out after him a bitter irony), falls out with William "The Butcher" Cumberland over the treatment of Scottish rebels, goes undercover to serve with James Keith, is with him and takes care of his slain body in a dangerous battle - sounds like a really good egg!
Let's see what Bruce Lenman says about him (a consistently snarky historian, you should see him snark on the topic of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat--it's epic).
Mar had been a very active champion of the Act of Union. After raising the standard of rebellion he had to try to talk this episode away but it was in fact typical, for Mar was a government man through and through. He loved office, revelled in the deference which a minister of the King could extract from his contemporaries, and appreciated the salary. Political principles were never Mar's strong suit. (from "The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689-1746")
It goes on to describe how he was one of those Tories brought down when Queen Anne died. I enjoy this sort of snark, but at the same time wonder how the author feels able to judge people's character like that! I mean, maybe he had read lots of the guy's letters or something, but...
Here's his sister-in-law's biographer having a go at him right when he's introduced to the tale. The Sister-inlaw was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the bit about Paradise and Hell is what she, her sister Frances and their friends as young girls had invented as catagories for suitors - "Paradise" is the guy you want yourself, "Hell" is an unwanted guy your family makes you wed, and "Limbo" is a compromise guy who you don't love but think you can get along with for life. Lady Mary, btw, had married a limbo, but one she'd picked for herself.
Meanwhile the prospect of sister Frances's wedding crept closer. It was two years since Frances had confided to Philippa her misery at losing her Paradise and her belief that 'ev'ry living body shou'd fear hell above all other things'. Now her father had chosen for her a widower fifteen years her senior, father of a schoolboy son: John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar. He was a Tory (though his family were Presbyterians), markedly Scottish in his speech. His portraits show him as handsome, though his body was said to be crooked. He claimed to have been long in love with Lady Frances. He was doing well under Queen Anne, as a Privy Counsellor and Secretary of State for Scotland (a post carrying a house in the Privy Garden, Whitehall), and a pension of 3.000 Pounds secured for him by Lord Oxford. But neither his circumstances nor his character would stand scrutiny. His rental income was only 261 Scottish Pounds (with odd shillings). His debts and his late father's came to over 150,000 in the same currency, though he gave assurances that they could not 'touch' his estate or the money he would receive from Lady Frances. Besides, as she was later to know too well, the rental from Scottish estates was by custom paid in arrears, and in kind. The initial arrears would be doubled by the haggling ncessary to convert kind to cash. And Mar's character: an associate later thought it 'impossible for him to even play a fair game, or to mean but one thing at once'. A historian calls his letters 'models of ineptitude and tergiversation'. For Lord Mar the beneffits of this marriage were clear: Lady Frances was a catch. Twelve years later he tried to justify his second marriage to his son by his first (who might 'repine' at the income he proposed to leave his second wife if he died). He insisted he had married to serve 'the good of the family'. He could hardly have been more open about his marrying for what he could get. On the other side, it was a strange marriage for a daughter of Evelyn Pierrepoint, Marquess of Dorchester. Lady Mary thought Frances was pressured by Aunt Cheyne and a Mar relative. One of Dorchester's Whig circle wrote, 'there's a good Whig marr'd by taking a Scotch Jacobite for her Husband'. Did Dorchester miscalculate, seeing the high office and the estates, failing to note the debts? His 'design to marry himself' made it urgent for him to dispose of his remaining single daughter. But also, with Queen Anne's health in rapid decline and the succession uncertain, eminent Whigs were hedging their bets. Marlborough did this; Dorchester may have done so, too. If the Elector of Hanover succeeded to the throne, well and good; but if it should be James III. after all, a Scotch Jacobite son-in-law might be handy.
Interesting, thanks! Yeah, Scots noblemen were in general much poorer than English ones. Tory + Presbyterian seems an unusual combination.
And interesting about the hedging of bets...I mean, the Whigs had been making up to George-I-to-be for a while, since they were so shut out during Anne's reign (and would soon shut the Tories out in their turn), so they must've been pretty sure of coming into power so long as George I got on the throne. But yeah, there might be a rebellion, which of course there was.
The Hell/Limbo/Paradise thing is cute (teenage girls: the same over space and time??) but like luzula says, poor Frances! :( But Lady Mary seems to have done pretty well for herself with a Limbo?
She got along well with her husband. Though after the first few years, it was always a long distance marriage even before she went to Italy to live with Algarotti. (And we know how that turned out.) It also has to be said that she knew him pretty well by the time she married him (to avoid a "hell" her father had in mind for her, and after losing a "paradise"), so they both knew what they were getting and entered into the marriage clear-eyed. Originally, she had been friends with his sister Anne. Then young Edward decided he found young Mary intrigueing, and comandeered his sister's correspondence with her. I.e. he started to reply, roleplaying Anne. (And also dictating to Anne, so the different hand writing wouldn't give up the game.) Then Anne died young (of typhus), and after a few weeks Edward wrote as himself, confessed what he'd done, and started to woo her. They kept corresponding and meeting and breaking up and reconciling etc. for a good while (he was pretty bossy at first, which she didn't take well to) until she decided to accept his proposal and run away with him. (Which they had to since Dad wanted the Hell guy for Mary.) But while Lady Mary always kept up writing to her husband even during her years of living in Italy till he died, Grundy and Halsband both think she was never in love with him, and it was always friendship for her.
Mind you, given what happened when Lady Mary really truly deeply fell in love, the "Limbo" was definitely better!
The good news is that even without Algarotti, she liked Italy enough to spend the rest of her life there, until her husband died and she came back to England, then died herself there a year later.
Aww, that is really a cute story actually! I... guess i can't say I ship them, but I am HERE for their quasi-platonic "limbo" friendship, Lady Mary & Edward yay! (I'm not sure whether I find the Anne roleplaying cute or creepy -- probably a little of both -- but I have way lower standards for the 18th century, and I guess since he confessed in the end it more-or-less turned out okay?)
It reminds me of what Heinrich said about love, or at least passion -- that friendship was much better and long-lasting :P <3 (I tried to find the quote for luzula but couldn't -- but I know you guys know it :) )
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Earl of Mar
BTW, am I misrenembering or was this the guy who married Lady Mary's sister Frances, and in Isabel Grundy's biography of Lady Mary is described as an utter pig?
Re: Earl of Mar
I know nothing about Mar except as a name connected with the Jacobite rising I barely studied, so I can't comment on Grundy's assessment of his personality.
Lol Wikipedia:
Mar married his second wife Lady Frances Pierrepont, daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull. The match was a success in that it finally provided Mar with the funds to begin to clear his inherited debts. Lady Frances went mad in 1728 due to the stress of his exile in France.
That's a hell of a segue. "The match was a success in that the husband got money! The wife went mad."
Re: Earl of Mar
So, Lady Mary‘s brother in law (to her great regret, she oculdn‘t stand him) was the Earl of Mar, instigator of the 15. Her son in law was the Earl of Bute, educator and first PM to G3, bete noire of Fritz for cutting his subsidies in the last year of the 7 Years War. Lord Bute‘s younger brother is also the guy who was Barbarina‘s lover and temporary fiance when Fritz had her dragged to Prussia from Venice. And given Lady Mary‘s pining for Algarotti, this means we can connect all the early Jacobites within six steps to Algarotti, too, even without using the brothers Keith (who of course have the closest connection, due to sitting at the same table with him).
Re: Earl of Mar
Re: Earl of Mar
ETA: And yes, it's extremely exciting how far you've come! (And all of us, really, but especially you!)
Re: Earl of Mar
I'm pretty excited myself about us being able to make all these connections. And hey, that's why
Re: Earl of Mar
Re: Earl of Mar
Re: Earl of Mar
Re: Earl of Mar
Re: Earl of Mar
Re: Earl of Mar
Re: Earl of Mar
Mar had been a very active champion of the Act of Union. After raising the standard of rebellion he had to try to talk this episode away but it was in fact typical, for Mar was a government man through and through. He loved office, revelled in the deference which a minister of the King could extract from his contemporaries, and appreciated the salary. Political principles were never Mar's strong suit. (from "The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689-1746")
It goes on to describe how he was one of those Tories brought down when Queen Anne died. I enjoy this sort of snark, but at the same time wonder how the author feels able to judge people's character like that! I mean, maybe he had read lots of the guy's letters or something, but...
Re: Earl of Mar
Meanwhile the prospect of sister Frances's wedding crept closer. It was two years since Frances had confided to Philippa her misery at losing her Paradise and her belief that 'ev'ry living body shou'd fear hell above all other things'. Now her father had chosen for her a widower fifteen years her senior, father of a schoolboy son: John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar. He was a Tory (though his family were Presbyterians), markedly Scottish in his speech. His portraits show him as handsome, though his body was said to be crooked. He claimed to have been long in love with Lady Frances. He was doing well under Queen Anne, as a Privy Counsellor and Secretary of State for Scotland (a post carrying a house in the Privy Garden, Whitehall), and a pension of 3.000 Pounds secured for him by Lord Oxford.
But neither his circumstances nor his character would stand scrutiny. His rental income was only 261 Scottish Pounds (with odd shillings). His debts and his late father's came to over 150,000 in the same currency, though he gave assurances that they could not 'touch' his estate or the money he would receive from Lady Frances. Besides, as she was later to know too well, the rental from Scottish estates was by custom paid in arrears, and in kind. The initial arrears would be doubled by the haggling ncessary to convert kind to cash. And Mar's character: an associate later thought it 'impossible for him to even play a fair game, or to mean but one thing at once'. A historian calls his letters 'models of ineptitude and tergiversation'.
For Lord Mar the beneffits of this marriage were clear: Lady Frances was a catch. Twelve years later he tried to justify his second marriage to his son by his first (who might 'repine' at the income he proposed to leave his second wife if he died). He insisted he had married to serve 'the good of the family'. He could hardly have been more open about his marrying for what he could get.
On the other side, it was a strange marriage for a daughter of Evelyn Pierrepoint, Marquess of Dorchester. Lady Mary thought Frances was pressured by Aunt Cheyne and a Mar relative. One of Dorchester's Whig circle wrote, 'there's a good Whig marr'd by taking a Scotch Jacobite for her Husband'. Did Dorchester miscalculate, seeing the high office and the estates, failing to note the debts? His 'design to marry himself' made it urgent for him to dispose of his remaining single daughter. But also, with Queen Anne's health in rapid decline and the succession uncertain, eminent Whigs were hedging their bets. Marlborough did this; Dorchester may have done so, too. If the Elector of Hanover succeeded to the throne, well and good; but if it should be James III. after all, a Scotch Jacobite son-in-law might be handy.
Re: Earl of Mar
And interesting about the hedging of bets...I mean, the Whigs had been making up to George-I-to-be for a while, since they were so shut out during Anne's reign (and would soon shut the Tories out in their turn), so they must've been pretty sure of coming into power so long as George I got on the throne. But yeah, there might be a rebellion, which of course there was.
Poor Frances, anyway. : (
Re: Earl of Mar
Edward Wortley-Montagu: The Limbo
Mind you, given what happened when Lady Mary really truly deeply fell in love, the "Limbo" was definitely better!
Re: Edward Wortley-Montagu: The Limbo
If you joined salon recently and you don't actually know how that turned out, we have in
The good news is that even without Algarotti, she liked Italy enough to spend the rest of her life there, until her husband died and she came back to England, then died herself there a year later.
Re: Edward Wortley-Montagu: The Limbo
Re: Edward Wortley-Montagu: The Limbo
It reminds me of what Heinrich said about love, or at least passion -- that friendship was much better and long-lasting :P <3 (I tried to find the quote for