Eighteenth Century Sensation

Northern Advocate, 30 December 1938, Page 4

Eighteenth Century Sensation

The engagement of Lady Mabel FoxStrangways, Lord Ilchester’s daughter, to Lord Wimborne’s heir, says the “Manchester Guardian,’’ recalls : the marriage, with its attendant scandal, of her eighteenth-century ancestress, Lady Susan Fox-Strangways, to the actor O’Brien, of which Horace Walpole records: “Poor Lord Ilchester is almost distracted. Indeed, it is the completion of disgrace—even a footman were preferable. The publicity of the hero’s profession perpetuates the mortification. I could not have believed that Lady Susan would have stooped so low.” The affair had gone on under Lord Ilchester's nose for eighteen months, and so well had O’Brien counterfeited the handwriting of Lady Sarah Bunbury that Lord Ilchester himself delivered his letters into his daughter’s hands. .When, at last, he was informed. Lady Susan “flung herself at her father’s feet, confessed all and vowed to break off.” But the morning after she came of age ”she walked downstairs, whipped into a hackney-chair, { and was married at Covent Garden j Church.” The couple set out in October for America, and reached New j York in thirty-four days. “a rapid i passage for the time of the year.” Lady i Susan’s exploit was followed by Lady ! Harriet Wentworth’s marriage to an Irish footman, William Sturgeon. “She has given away all her clothes and says linen gowns are properest for a footman’s wife.” It was these romantic histories which Thackeray had in mind, and used, in “The Virginians.”