The courtesans revenge, p.1
The Courtesan's Revenge, page 1
THE COURTESAN’S REVENGE
Harriette Wilson, the Woman who Blackmailed the King
Frances Wilson
For Anthony and Anne
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
1 Mayfair
2 John and Amelia Dubouchet
3 Queen Street
4 Courtesans
5 Lord Craven
6 Frederic Lamb
7 Julia Johnstone
8 The Marquis of Lorne
9 Sir Arthur Wellesley
10 Lord Ponsonby
11 The Mary Anne Clarke Affair
12 Sophia
13 The Marquis of Worcester
14 Meyler
15 Paris
16 Henry Brougham
17 Retirement
18 The Moustache
19 Stockdale
20 The Memoirs and the Confessions
21 The Blackmail Campaign
22 Stockdale’s Persecution
23 Panic at the Palace
24 Trevor Square
25 Mary Magdalen
26 Sophie Stockdale’s Offer
27 A Further Instalment
Bibliography
About biography
Copyright
List of Illustrations
PLATE SECTION I
1 Harriette Wilson, engraving by Cooper from an original drawing by Birch, date unknown (Hulton Getty Picture Collection)
2 The May fair, 1716 (H. V. Morton, Mayfair, 1927)
3 Piccadilly from Coventry Street (H. V. Morton, Mayfair, 1927)
4 Amy Dubouchet, attributed to ‘Lister’, no date, frontispiece to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Douglas, 1825)
5 Sophia Dubouchet, date and artist unknown, frontispiece to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Douglas, 1825)
6 Julia Johnstone, date and artist unknown, frontispiece to Confessions of Julia Johnstone (Benbow, 1825)
7 Ashdown House, engraved by Kip from a drawing by Knyff, c.1716 (Country Life Picture Library)
8 Brighton, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Dunbar, 1825)
9 Brighton (The English Spy, 1826), by Robert Cruikshank
10 ‘Harriette’s Apartment, Frederick Lambe rather too loving’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Duncombe, 1825)
11 The Marquis of Lorne, from a drawing by Henry Edridge, 1801 (from Ian G. Lindsay and Mary Cosh, Inveraray and the Dukes of Argyll, 1973)
12 Harriette Wilson, engraving published by Robert Jones, 1825 (British Museum)
13 ‘Patience! The Duke of Argyle, whistling & sitting on a gate’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Duncombe, 1825)
14 Amy Dubouchet, date and artist unknown, frontispiece to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Duncombe, 1825)
15 Covent Garden Theatre, by Thomas Rowlandson ([William Coombe] The Tour of Dr Syntax in search of the Picturesque, 1812)
16 ‘A Masquerade at the King’s Theatre Opera House,’ by Robert Cruikshank (Alfred Thornton, Don Juan, 1822)
PLATE SECTION II
17 The Duke of Wellington, by Juan Bauzit, 1812 (National Portrait Gallery)
18 ‘Venus and Mars! He look’d very much like a Rat-catcher’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Dunbar, 1825)
19 ‘Disopintment! The Duke of Wxxxlxxxtxn, Alais, the Rat catcher refused admittance to H. Wilson’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Duncombe, 1825)
20 ‘Harriette Wilson and Byron at Wattier’s Masquerade’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Duncombe, 1825)
21 Mrs Mary Anne Clarke, c.1809, artist unknown, frontispiece to W. Clarke [pseud.] The Authentic and Impartial Life of Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, 1809
22 ‘Harriette Wilson with Lord Ponsonby’s farewell letter’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Stockdale, 1825)
23 ‘Lord Ponsonby’s house: Disappointment – despair – madness’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Duncombe, 1825)
24 ‘Employment! the Marquis of W—r Laceing H. Wilson’s Stays, & makeing toast for breakfast’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Duncombe, 1825)
25 ‘The Sugar Baker’s decent, from the Duchess to the Demirep’, illustration to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs (Dunbar, 1825)
26 List of names on the back of the first instalment of the Memoirs (Stockdale, 1825)
27 Henry Brougham, by Lonsdale (National Portrait Gallery)
28 ‘La, Coterie, Debouché, – Intended as a Frontisepiece to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs’, H. H. Heath, 1825 (British Museum)
29 Harriette Wilson, frontispiece to Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs, lithograph by Berggraf taken from a portrait by Hoffay (Stockdale, 1825)
30 ‘Scarlet Fever versus Yellow Jaundice, or the Libel Publisher Cut-Up, July 1, 1825’, by Robert Cruikshank (British Museum)
31 ‘The Cyprian’s Ball at the Argyle Rooms’, by Robert Cruikshank (The English Spy, 1826)
32 The Fleet Prison (R. Ackermann, The Microcosm of London, 1808–11)
33 King George IV, by Lawrence (National Portrait Gallery)
34 Elizabeth, Lady Conyngham, by J. Singry (Lewis Melville, The First Gentleman of Europe, 1906)
35 Edward Bulwer Lytton, by Alfred Challon (National Portrait Gallery)
36 Brougham arranges Harriette’s funeral (Beaufort Archives, with kind permission of the Duke of Beaufort)
37 The Pavilion, Hans Place, Chelsea, from an engraving published in 1810 (Sir Walter Besant, London North of the Thames, 1911)
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
Frontispiece: Detail showing Mayfair, ‘London and Westminster, 1797’, published by John Fairburn
1 St George’s, Hanover Square, National History and Views of London, 1834
2 Crib designed by Sheraton, Edwin Foley, The Book of Decorative Furniture, 1910
3 The May Queen, The Gem, 1829
4 Draped Bed, Foley’s Decorative Furniture
5 ‘Harriette Wilson viewing Lord Craven while sailing at Brighton’, Memoirs of Harriette Wilson (Douglas, 1825)
6 Library Bookcase, Foley’s Decorative Furniture
7 ‘Alteration’, by George Cruikshank, The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder, 1820
8 Entrance to Zoological Gardens, Regents Park, Views of London
9 Cadiz Mortar, Views of London
10 ‘Lord Ponsonby’s meeting with Harriette at her own house’, from Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, (Douglas, 1825)
11 The Duke of York, by George Cruikshank, The Political “A, Apple-Pie”, 1820
12 Washing Commode, Foley’s Decorative Furniture
13 Kensington Gardens, Views of London
14 Lyme Regis, from a print in the British Museum reproduced by R. W. Chapman, ed., The Novels of Jane Austen, 1926
15 Corinthian Tom, from Pierce Egan’s Life in London, 1821
16 Houses of Parliament, Views of London
17 Chippendale Sofa, Foley’s Decorative Furniture
18 Bergami, from The Trial of Queen Caroline, 1820
19 Haymarket Theatre, Views of London
20 Writing desk, Foley’s Decorative Furniture
21 ‘L – Longed for it’, by George Cruikshank, from The Political “A, Apple Pie”
22 ‘Go draw your quills, and draw five bills’, by George Cruikshank, from A Political Christmas Carol, 1820
23 St James’s Palace, Views of London
24 Regency Chairs, Foley’s Decorative Furniture
25 Patent Bread Works, Pimlico, Views of London
26 Cherubs, from the Chatto Archive, Reading University
Tailpiece: Psyche, Borne by the Zephyrs to the Island of Pleasure, engraved by F. Engleheart, The Literary Souvenir, 1828
Acknowledgements
In the notes he wrote for Nana, his novel about a courtesan in Second Empire Paris, Zola imagined ‘a whole society hurling itself’ at her body, ‘a pack of hounds after a bitch, who is not even on heat and makes fun of the hounds following her’. This might also describe the life of Harriette Wilson, whose unguarded pursuit by the leaders of the British aristocracy, the army, the government and opposition made her the most desired, and then the most dangerous, woman in Regency London.
As a courtesan, Harriette Wilson belonged to a sexual underworld whose existence is rarely admitted to in the lives of the nineteenth century’s great men, and as a blackmailer all but a few of her letters have been destroyed. So erased from the annals of history had she become when my interest in Harriette Wilson began that she threatened to remain for me the figure of fantasy she had been in her lifetime. I owe the fact that I have found such rich material to the help and support of many people. Julian Loose, my editor, encouraged the project from the very start, as did all those at Faber and my agent, Lisa Darnell. Their enthusiasm was a great motivator, particularly at the beginning when Harriette (as I call her for simplicity’s sake, her name having changed so often in her career) was stubbornly refusing to show in the books and boxes of letters which were piling up around me like pillars. Working with Faber is a great pleasure.
My research would still be continuing were it not for the generosity of the Leverhulme Trust. I am enormously grateful to Michael Holroyd, Michèle Roberts and Professor Rachel Bowlby for supporting me in my application for a Leverhulme Fellowship, and to my colleagues in the English Department at Reading University for covering my teaching in my absence. I would also like to thank the st aff at The British Library, The British Museum Print Room, the Colindale Newspaper Library, Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections, the Guildhall Library, the London Library, Special Collections at London University Library, New York Public Library, Berkshire County Records, Buckinghamshire County Records, Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, Derbyshire Record Office, Dorset Record Office, the Family Records Centre, the Hampshire Record Office, Hampton Court, the Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, London Metropolitan Archives, the Public Records Office at Kew, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, and Westminster Public Archives. Thanks are due to Virginia Murray for permission to reproduce letters from Harriette Wilson in the John Murray Archive, to The Honourable Henry Lytton Cobbold for permission to reproduce letters to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton kept in the Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, to Durham University Library for permission to reproduce letters from the Earl Grey Papers, and to the Duke of Beaufort for permission to reproduce letters from the Badminton archives. I am most grateful to Margaret Richards for her kindness in taking me through the Somerset letters at Badminton, and for her subsequent help. Vital information was generously given to me about the background of the Cheney family by Michael Capel Cure, and of the Proby and Storer families by Peter Fullerton.
For permission to reproduce the pictures in the plate section, I would like to thank the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Country Life and the Hulton Getty Picture Collection. Except where shown otherwise, the illustrations are reproduced, by kind permission, from copies in a private collection. All illustrations in the text are reproduced, by kind permission, from copies in a private collection.
Many others have enabled this book come to fruition and I am in the debt of Mike Bott, Professor Cedric Brown, James Burmester, Jill Burrows, Angus Cargill, Ann Carey, Juliet Carey, Simon Carey, Adina Carlson, Emma Clery, Stephen Colclough, Ron Costley, Dan Cruickshank, Ben Dean, Jean Debney, Edward and Bridget Dommen, Ophelia Field, Edmund Grey, John Gurnett, the Earl of Harewood, Dr Christine Kenyon Jones, Frances Henderson, Christopher Hibbert, Alastair Laing, Nick Peacock, William Proby, Dr Jane Ridley, Jill Tovey, Kate Ward, Steve Weissman, Rollo Whately, Ann Woodley, and Andrew Wordsworth. Dr Adam Smyth was an excellent research assistant. My greatest thanks go to William St Clair for reading and commenting on the drafts, and for his willingness to discuss my ideas and share his own.
My parents never ceased to lend me their support, from researching, proof-reading, and reference hunting to photocopying and babysitting. It is to them that this book is dedicated.
Across the broad continent of a woman’s life falls the shadow of a sword. On one side all is correct, definite, orderly; the paths are strait, the trees regular, the sun shaded; escorted by gentlemen, protected by policemen, wedded and buried by clergymen, she has only to walk demurely from cradle to grave and no one will touch a hair of her head. But on the other side all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course. The paths wind between bogs and precipices. The trees roar and rock and fall in ruin. There, too, what strange company is to be met – in what bewildering variety! Stone-masons hobnob with Dukes of the royal blood – Mr Blore treads on the heels of His Grace the Duke of Argyll. Byron rambles through, the Duke of Wellington marches in with all his orders on him. For in that strange land gentlemen are immune; any being of the male sex can cross from sun to shade with perfect safety …
VIRGINIA WOOLF, ‘HARRIETTE WILSON’
St George’s, Hanover Square, Views of London
CHAPTER 1
Mayfair
Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs omit both time and place; there are no addresses given, no locations described, no elections, diseases, or wars. ‘Dates make ladies nervous and stories dry,’1 she wrote. Her scandalous book liberates us from established order and event and presents instead a form of utopia where great men wait in the rain for courtesans, gold watches are left by lords beneath pillows, and the French Revolution passes over the heads of the English aristocracy without stirring so much as a hair. But time and place are essential to an understanding of Harriette Wilson because she could not have existed anywhere other than Mayfair, in the heart of London, at any time other than the dawn of the nineteenth century: her story would simply not have been possible. Mayfair was in Harriette Wilson’s very being; she was as vital a part of its body as the Church of St George in Hanover Square or the Dog and Duck at the foot of Hertford Street. So grounded were the events of her life in the streets of her childhood that it is tempting to think that she owed her refusal to be put down, her scorn of authority, her insolent wit and bawd and insistence on pleasure above all else, to the ghost of the annual spring carnival that gave its name to her kingdom and on whose site, on 22 February 1786, she was born. Harriette Wilson was the May fair’s spirit incarnate, its Queen of Misrule.
One hundred years before her birth, Great Brookfield, where the fair laid down its roots, was a meadow. It lay on the far side of Piccadilly, which ancient artery stretched out of the clutter of Soho and reached westwards, past St James’s Church, past taverns, courts, and stable yards, past Clarendon House and Berkeley House and up to the toll gate at Hyde Park Corner. Here the paved road ended with such abrupt rudeness that the edge of a cliff or even the edge of the world might have been reached. Leaving behind the stench and smoke of the city, Piccadilly now fell into pastures, hamlets, and isolated farms; herds and herdsmen, brick kilns and dung hills speckled the landscape. Great Brookfield lay where London became Middlesex, and every May Day holiday for sixteen days revellers poured here from the Strand, Lambeth, Spitalfields, and Charing Cross and from the surrounding villages of Kensington, Hampstead and Marylebone. Here they sang, danced and drank, saw fire-fighters and rope-dancers, midgets and albinos, giants and mermaids, bearded women and obese men, mock executions, jugglers, wild beasts and performing animals. It was a fortnight of drunkenness, debauchery and disobedience.
But as the eighteenth century rolled by, the land over which the May fair spread itself became the most coveted in the country and the open pastures were gradually eaten up by a body of muscular streets and squares that were finer and more handsome than any other part of London’s swelling corpus. Only the name adopted by the new village and the names of the roads that now rippled over the old farmland, ‘Farm Street’, ‘Brook Street’, ‘Hill Street’ and ‘Mill Street’, revealed its humble origins. ‘When do you come?’ Horace Walpole asked a friend in 1759. ‘If it is not soon, you will find a new town. I stared today at Piccadilly like a country squire; there are twenty new stone houses; at first I concluded that the grooms that used to live there, had got estates and built palaces.’2 In the 1760s the Earl of Coventry moved into one of the Piccadilly palaces, and his first act as a resident was to get rid of the fair, which moved itself eastwards to Bow.
London had never felt more magnificent; it was the largest city in Europe and Mayfair, enclosed to the north by Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street) to the south by Piccadilly, to the east by Swallow Street (now Regent Street) and to the west by Tyburn Lane (now Park Lane) was the jewel in its crown. The titled and the super-rich moved westwards here from Covent Garden, Soho, St Giles in the Fields, Leicester Fields and Golden Square to build their piles. It soon contained, Sydney Smith believed, ‘more intelligence, human ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty than the world ever collected in so small a place before’.3 Years of intermarrying had turned the ‘people of fascination’ into one incestuous tribe and here they all lived, an extended family of dukes, earls, admirals and generals, cheek by jowl with drapers, breeches-makers, hosiers, fishmongers, coal merchants and stocking-cleaners.4
In its transformation from fields to fashion, Great Brookfield became Shepherd Market, Mayfair’s commercial centre. Behind the old Dog and Duck Inn lay a pond shaded by willows and surrounded by a gravel walk; here crowds gathered to send spaniels after ducks and place wagers on the winner. The noise of splashing, flapping, barking, quacking and cheering from the garden drowned out the other market activities. In one of the houses overlooking the pond, Harriette’s newborn cry broke into the flickering light of a freezing black night. Or perhaps her first breath pierced the watery sunlight of the steely February dawn. She says she was born at ‘ten minutes before 8 o/c’ but we do not know if this event took place at the start or the close of the day. It seems appropriate, however, that the scene take place in semi-darkness as she would live her life in the shadows. She was raised in the full glare of Mayfair when it felt itself the centre of the world, but along with the city’s other Cyprians and Great Impures, as the courtesans were called, she lived in its twilight realm. In her youth she was ‘as familiar in the streets as the bill of the play or the walking advertisement of a lottery office’,5 but Harriette can never come fully into focus for us; despite the blaze of her prose she will always remain a figure of myth. She formed the fantasies of her age and slid back, when her role was over, into the city’s dusk.
