Penelope Ligonier | |
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Born | Penelope Pitt 1749 |
Died | 1827 |
Spouse(s) |
Captain Smith (
m. 1784) |
Parent(s) | Penelope Atkins George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers |
Penelope Ligonier, née Penelope Pitt (1749-1827), was an English aristocrat and socialite, and first wife of Edward Ligonier, Earl Ligonier of Clonmell.
She was the eldest daughter of Penelope Atkins (c. 1724 - 1795) and George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers. [1] Both her parents were 'noted for their extraordinary physical beauty' [2], but their family life was unhappy due to her parent's turbulent marriage. Horace Walpole, an admirer of Penelope Atkins, alleged that George Pitt 'had heaped on her every possible cruelty and provoking outrage', and alleged that after their separation he prevented her from seeing their four children. [3]
During the 1760s, while her father was serving as envoy-extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turin, she was enrolled in a convent school in Lyon, where she met Edward Ligonier. They were married at the British Embassy in Paris on 16 December 1766. [4]
When they relocated to Cobham Park after their marriage they continued to entertain an international circle of friends, one of whom was Count Vittorio Amadeo Alfieri, an Italian poet and dramatist, with whom she began an affair. [5] The discovery of her infidelity by her husband in 1771 led to a duel Alfieri and Ligonier in Hyde Park, followed by a criminal conversation trial which made public the salacious testimony of servants, and extracts from the couple's passionate love letters. [6] A fictionalised version of the relationship appeared titled Lord Lelius and the Fair Emelia, or, The Generous Husband, and Alfieri would later include a sensational account of his liaison with Lady Ligonier in his memoirs. [4] [7] Ligonier would eventually divorce her via the expensive and protracted process of a private parliamentary bill of divorce. [8] However, due to rumours of previous relationships between Penelope and members of her household staff, Count Alfieri refused to marry her and salvage her reputation. [5]
After the 1771 trial she took a 12-week trip to Italy to escape from the scandal, accompanied by Alfieri, her mother, and her sister-in-law Frances Balfour. On her return to England she returned to live in a cottage on the outskirts of her father's estate at her father's request. [5] She joined a circle of contemporary aristocratic women who could still participate in polite London society, but as a result of scandalous personal lives were generally considered courtesans by wider society as a result of their personal choices. She was a prominent member of the New Female Coterie, a social club founded for such women, alongside such personal friends and fellow 'demi-reps' as Lady Grosvenor and Seymour Dorothy Fleming. [5] Her reputation for licentiousness was so strong that she was featured in a satirical 1777 cartoon of licentious aristocratic women called 'The Diabo-Lady' in The London Magazine. [9]
At Northampton on May 4 1784 she married Captain Smith, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guard Blues. [2]
In April 1791 she wrote to Alfieri that their affair had liberated her from the constraints 'of a world in which I was never formed to exist', and her contentment and health in her life after leaving her first marriage. [5]
Categories:
English socialites
Alfieri's memoirs;
First
image link: see html, remember to go to wikimedia and link
Penelope Ligonier (née Pitt), Viscountess Ligonier
Lady Ligonier
Lady Rivers, who probably lived separately from her husband from 1771 onwards, had resided mostly in France and Italy, and she died in Milan on 1 January 1795. [ref ODNB baron rivers
cite ODNB 'Pitt, George, first Baron Rivers (1721–1803)' by G. F. R. Barker, revised by R. D. E. Eagles, url: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/22328 end ref.
cite: Letters of Horace Walpole to Horace Mann 1760 - 1785, Volume 2, p.226, pub Rich Bentley, 1843.
cite ODNB Ligonier, Edward, Earl Ligonier of Clonmell (1740?–1782) by James Falkner, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/16651 end ref.
Alfieri first ref cite Rubenhold 9781446449691 p. 177.
Love letters (cite ref: 9780750964517 end ref)
fictionalised affair (ODNB ligonier end ref),
cite BL BLL01018910515 and Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Victor Alfieri; written by himself. Translated from the Italian. Count Vittorio Alfieri end ref)
(cite parliamentary private bill of divorce: https://archives.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/GB61_HL_PO_PB_1_1772_12G3n71 end ref)
servant/groom p. 178.
NFC [rubenhold 176]
request rub 178
(link: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1578506001)
letter quoted in Rubenhold, and her lack of regret at her actions. Rubenhold 178.
Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor Henrietta Vernon 1745 1828 England|English | spouse =
| parents =
}}
Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor | |
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Born | Henrietta Vernon c. 1745 |
Died | 1828 |
Spouse(s) |
George Porter (
m. 1802) |
Parent(s) | James Vernon Lady Henrietta Wentworth |
Info box: (bap. 1745, d. 1828)
Henrietta Vernon was one of the four daughters of Lady Henrietta Wentworth and her husband James Vernon of Hilton Hall, former Member of Parliament for Lichfield and Newcastle under Lyme. [10]
On 19 July 1764 she married Baron Richard Grosvenor (1731–1802) at St George's Church, Hanover Square. [11] They had four sons. [10]
In 1769 she was discovered in flagrante delicto with the Duke of Cumberland, brother of King George III. Their affair became a national scandal when her husband sued the Duke on the grounds of ' criminal conversation' with his wife, and the lovers' correspondence was published in the press as part of the trial reports. The jury awarded the baronet damages of £10,000 pounds in recognition of the damage to his marital property. [5]
Lady Grosvenor prevented the Baron from securing a divorce on the grounds of her adultery by gathering evidence of his own extensive sexual misconduct, personally 'going into bawdy houses [...] to search and procure witnesses'. [5] The diarist and artist Joseph Farington dubbed Lord Grosvenor as 'one of the most profligate men of his age, in what relates to women'. [11] This wealth of evidence meant that the Baron could not be granted an annulment, and was obliged to support his wife for the rest of his life. The couple's legal separation in 1771 included yearly maintenance payments of £1200 to Lady Grosvenor. [5]
She lived in Paris and London in the subsequent years, with the emotional and financial support of several men, and the press continued to report on her lovers and her appearances at social occasions for decades. She was a member of the social club for the 'demi-reps' nicknamed the New Female Coterie by the English press, whose members comprised fellow elite women publicly shamed for infidelity such as Caroline Stanhope, Countess of Harrington and Seymour Dorothy Fleming. Janine Barchas suggests that the scandals attached to Henrietta Vernon may have inspired Jane Austen in writing her early epistolary novel Lady Susan, which centres on the charming and flirtatious Lady Susan Vernon. [12]
On 1 September 1802 Lady Grosvenor married George Porter, who later inherited the Hungarian title of Baron de Hochepied. She died in 1828. [10]
The New Female Coterie was an 18th century London social club.
It was probably founded around 1770, when Caroline Stanhope, Countess of Harrington was blackballed from joining The Female Coterie, an exclusive 18th century social club for aristocrats, though its name was probably derived from the press. [13] [5]
The New Female Coterie became a social outlet for ‘demi-reps’ [14], a word Henry Fielding coined in 1749 in his novel Tom Jones to refer to a woman ‘who intrigues with every Man she likes, under the Name and Appearance of Virtue’. [15] The members came to include high-status women who had been publicly shamed for promiscuity or adultery, such as Lady Henrietta Grosvenor, Seymour Dorothy Fleming, Penelope Ligonier, Lady Margaret Adams, Lady Derby, Lady Ann Cork, and the Honorable Catherine Newton. [5] [16] Meetings took place at the exclusive brothel on King's Place run by Sarah Pendergast, a friend of the Stanhopes, and included supper and gambling as well as a forum for discussion, an outlet for disgraced women who would otherwise have been ostracised from their 'respectable' female family and friends. [5]
The journalist Thomas Robertson attended several of their meetings, and reported on them in the Rambler's Magazine. In one article his coverage revealed that the topics under discussion included the moral and philosophical implications of sexual relationships as well as their pleasures, ranging from inequality of men and women within marriage, to the ethical nuances of adultery. [17] [5] In another the members were satirised under aliases for their lascivious discussions. [18] Categories:
Defunct clubs and societies of the United Kingdom
1770 establishments in England
English socialites
Women's clubs Cut:
A satirical article in Town and Country Magazine purported to be written by a member under the pen name ‘Leonora’, which included stipulations that its female members should be ‘painted and enamelled according to the highest stile of the bon ton [sic], have had several extramarital relationships, and that married women should be allowed to open their husbands’ letters, while their own should ‘remain sacred and untouched’.
[ref: "By Laws of the Female Coterie," Town and Country Magazine Or Universal Repository of Knowledge, Instruction, and Entertainment , Vol II, 1770, p. 408.
[think original source must be untitled article, The Town and Country Magazine ii., 1770, p. 231]
Rubenhold, Hallie (7 July 2009). The Lady in Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal, and Divorce. Macmillan. ISBN 9780312359942. Retrieved 22 September 2020 – via Google Books. demimondaines [link to demimonde] who belonged to the category of women referred to as a ‘demirep’ (‘demi reputable’ or adventuress), or ‘demimondaine’ (a courtesan or sex worker to the wealthy or noble).
Code to make a table from:
Name | Title at the time of Signature | Date of Signature | Image |
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Charlotte Seymour | Duchess of Somerset | 9 March 1729 | ![]() |
Ann Vaughan | Duchess of Bolton | 22 April 1729 | ![]() |
Henrietta Needham | Dowager Duchess of Bolton | 25 April 1729 | ![]() |
Sarah Lennox | Duchess of Richmond | 22 December 1729 | ![]() |
Isabella Montagu | Duchess of Manchester | 6 January 1730 | |
Ann Russell | Duchess of Bedford | 7 January 1730 | ![]() |
Elizabeth Knight | Baroness Onslow | 6 April 1730 | |
Anne Pierrepoint | Dowager Baroness Torrington | 14 April 1730 | ![]() |
Frances Byron | Baroness Byron | 14 April 1730 | ![]() |
Selina Shirley | Countess of Huntingdon | 21 April 1730 | ![]() |
Juliana Hele | Duchess of Leeds | 24 April 1730 | |
Frances Finch | Countess of Winchilsea and Nottingham | 25 April 1730 | |
Frances Hales | Countess of Lichfield | 27 April 1730 | |
Dorothy Boyle | Countess of Burlington | 19 May 1730 | ![]() ![]() File: |
Elizabeth Brudenell | Countess of Cardigan | 19 May 1730 | |
Frances Thynne | Countess of Hertford | 26 May 1730 | |
Mary Tufton | Countess of Harold | 6 November 1733 | |
Anne Lennox | Countess of Albermarle | 6 November 1734 | |
Anne Weldon Barnard | Baroness Trevor | 2 December 1734 | |
Anne King | Dowager Baroness Ockham | 21 January 1735 | |
Margaret Cavendish Harley | Duchess of Portland | 7 May 1735 | ![]() |
New Female Coterie
Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor
The New Female Coterie
Anne, Baroness Ockham
Name | Dates | Image | References |
---|---|---|---|
Marcel Baschet | 1862–1941 | ![]() |
[19] |
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant | 1845–1902 | ![]() |
[20] |
Drafts:
Anne, Baroness Ockham
Anne, Baroness Trevor
Mary, Countess of Harold
Yvonne Canu
Robert Sang Mackecnhie
Margaret Helen Barnard
Gerda Roosval-Kallstenius
Mary Helen Carlisle
Elyse Ashe Lord
Mona Hopton Bell
Emma Boorman
Mina Carlson
Joséphine Benoîte Coffin-Chevallier, also Joséphine Bowes
To-Work-on-List:
Jules Pellechet - french architect, worked for John and Josephine Bowes
Elizabeth, Baroness Onslow
Frances, Countess of Winchilsea and Nottingham
Zhou Sicong (周思聪)
Zhou Sicong (1939-1996) was from Ninghe, Hebei Province. Ms. Zhou graduated in 1963 from the Chinese Painting Department of the Central Art Academy. She worked in the Beijing Painting Institute.
Ms. Zhou was known for her figurative paintings, but also worked in watercolours and oil paintings.
Michael Sullivan, Modern Chinese Artists - A Biographical Dictionary (Berkeley, etc: University of California Press, 2006)
Zhongguo meishuguan (ed.), 中国美术年鉴 1949-1989 (Guilin: Guangxi meishu chubanshe, 1993)
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