18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 32

[cahn]

:) Still talking about Charles XII of Sweden / the Great Northern War and the Stuarts and the Jacobites, among other things!

Comments

Re: Earl of Mar

[selenak]

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.

Re: Earl of Mar

[luzula]

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.

Poor Frances, anyway. : (

Re: Earl of Mar

[cahn]

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?

Edward Wortley-Montagu: The Limbo

[selenak]

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!

Re: Edward Wortley-Montagu: The Limbo

[mildred_of_midgard]

she went to Italy to live with Algarotti. (And we know how that turned out.)

If you joined salon recently and you don't actually know how that turned out, we have in rheinsberg a summary of Algarotti's life, and a summary/paraphrase of Lady Mary's letters to him, in all their painfully unrequited love. You will see what Selena means by her last sentence. :(

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

[luzula]

Thanks! *goes to read*

Re: Edward Wortley-Montagu: The Limbo

[cahn]

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 :) )