Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore

by Wendy Moore

When Mary Eleanor Bowes, the Countess of Strathmore, was abducted in Oxford Street in broad daylight in 1786, the whole country was riveted to news of the pursuit. The only daughter of a wealthy coal magnate, Mary Eleanor had led a charmed youth. Precocious and intelligent, she enjoyed a level of education usually reserved for the sons of the aristocracy. Mary was only eleven when her beloved father died, making her the richest heiress in Britain, and she was soon beset by eager suitors. Her marriage, at eighteen, to the beautiful but aloof Earl of Strathmore, was one of the society weddings of the year. With the death of the earl some eight years later, Mary re-entered society with relish and her salons became magnets for leading Enlightenment thinkers - as well as a host of new suitors. Mary soon fell under the spell of a handsome Irish soldier, Andrew Robinson Stoney, but scandalous rumours were quick to spread. Swearing to defend her honour, Mary's gallant hero was mortally wounded in a duel - his dying wish that he might marry Mary. Within hours of the ceremony, he seemed to be in the grip of a miraculous recovery.
Wedlock tells the story of one eighteenth-century woman's experience of a brutal marriage, and her fight to regain her liberty and justice. Subjected to appalling violence, deception, kidnap and betrayal, the life of Mary Eleanor Bowes is a remarkable tale of triumph in the face of overwhelming odds.

• ISBN10: 0307383369
• ISBN13: 9780307383365
• Publish Date: 10 March 2009 (first published 15 January 2009)
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Out of Print: 29 December 2011
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Random House Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 386
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Mary Eleanor Bowes was a lucky girl. An only child, she was indulged and educated but was also an heiress. Her first marriage wasn't really much, Lord Strathmore or John Lyon, wasn't really a good match, he didn't really approve of her botanical studies (though he didn't stop her); and he was a little jealous of the wealth she brought into the relationship, along with stipulations. In 18th Century England a woman owned nothing, it was the males in her life that owned things, she was completely dependent. However Mary Eleanor's father ensured that she would have something. When Lord Stratmore died she wasn't heartbroken, and looked at this as an opportunity for a life without too much interference.

Little did she know what was going to happen next.

Andrew Robinson Stoney entered her life. He was a dashing soldier and when he had a duel over her honour and looked like he was a death's door she agreed to marry him. But it was all a lie. He recovered very quickly and proceeded to make her life a living hell. Beating her to unconsciousness (she describes in letters not being able to hear or see properly for a number of days after some of the beatings) forbidding her access to her gardens (and eventually ripping them out or selling them); parading his mistresses before her; raping the servants; starving her and generally being a horrible man.

One passage that stood out was a description by someone else about how she looked to him for permission to eat food offered to her. Permission he often denied. This man wanted full control over her and any other woman in his circle and was willing to do anything to create this. It reads sometimes like fiction but this is a true story.

Eventually Mary Elizabeth had an ally, a servant also called Mary who was horrified and helped her escape. These friends stood with her through the innumerable court cases, abduction and mud-slinging that Stoney engaged in until she won her freedom and Stoney's incarceration.

It's a riveting read, a moment in time where one woman stood up and said "enough" and started the ball rolling for more rights for women.