The Gunning Sisters – A Georgian Cinderella Story

When you were younger did you ever dream that one day you would meet a prince, be swept off your feet, and then get married and live happily ever after?  Well, then you may not be too surprised to learn that during the Georgian period two beautiful sisters from fairly humble origins took London Society by storm and then married into some of the most aristocratic families in the land. These two beauties were Maria and Elizabeth Gunning, and their wit, liveliness and good looks captured the public interest and their fame led to them being mobbed when they promenaded in the park and spectators standing on chairs when they were presented at Court.

So how did two unknown girls, lacking in fortune and connections, ever reach these dizzy heights?  The sisters were born around 1733 in Hemingford Grey in Huntingdonshire, the daughters of an Irishman called John Gunning and his wife the Honourable Bridget Bourke.  They were raised in genteel poverty and in 1740 or early 1741 the family returned to Ireland where they rented a house in Dublin and also resided in the ancestral home of Castlecoote House, County Roscommon. As soon as they were old enough it seemed that the Gunning sisters started working in the theatres of Dublin to boost the family income, which was very unusual for daughters of the gentry during the Georgian period, as it was widely assumed that most actresses were also courtesans.

However, in 1748 they were still regarded as respectable enough to be invited to a ball hosted at Dublin Castle by Viscountess Petersham.  It is said that at this point the Gunning sisters were so impecunious that they could not even afford to buy suitable ball gowns for the occasion, and that they were rescued by a theatre manager called Tom Sheridan who lent them a Lady Macbeth and a Juliet costume to wear to the dance. At some point during the ball they were presented the Earl of Harrington, who was the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and they made such a good impression on this noble personage that in 1750 he granted their mother a generous pension.

On receipt of her pension their mother immediately swept the Gunning sisters back to England and their house in Huntingdon, where they entered local Society.  The two beautiful girls were an instant hit at nearby Assemblies and balls, and soon their fame had even spread as far as London. They soon moved to the capital, where their celebrity continued to grow, taking Polite Society by storm.  They were even accorded the honour of being presented at Court in December, 1750, an event which was even chronicled in the newspapers of the day.

The Gunning sisters were much courted and admired, and in January 1752 Elizabeth Gunning was introduced to the Duke of Hamilton.  This fateful meeting led to a whirlwind courtship and at a St Valentine’s Day party in Bedford House the Duke threw caution to the wind and demanded that a local parson marry them then and there.  The parson refused as the Duke of Hamilton had not procured a licence and the banns had not been called.  Undeterred by this setback, the Duke took his bride-to-be to the Mayfair Chapel, where they were married without a licence and with a ring taken from a bed curtain.  These ceremonies were known as ‘clandestine marriages’ and although regarded as somewhat improper were legally binding and valid.

As Duchess of Hamilton, Elizabeth Gunning bore three children, but unfortunately the Duke passed away in 1758.  She had not lost her allure, however, and attracted the attention of the Duke of Bridgewater, and entered into an engagement with this illustrious gentleman.  However, for reasons that are not known, the engagement was terminated, and in 1759 she married John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne.  In 1770 Elizabeth Gunning became the Duchess of Argyll when her husband succeeded to the dukedom, and she went on to have a further five children.  She was a great favourite with the royal family, and between 1761 and 1784 she served as a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte and King George III created her the Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon in her own right. The impoverished Irish beauty had become one of the greatest ladies in the land and she was also the darling of some of the period’s finest artists, being painted by both Gavin Hamilton and Sir Joshua Reynolds.  She lived to the age of 57 and passed away on 20^th December 1790 in her London home, Argyll House and was laid to rest at Kilmun in Argyllshire.

Elizabeth Gunning

In contrast, her sister, Maria Gunning, lived a much shorter and arguably less respectable life.  As beautiful as her sister, Maria Gunning was also well known for being incredibly tactless.  In London Society this tactlessness just added to her popularity, and she even told King George II that the spectacle that she would most like to witness was a royal funeral.  Fortunately George II found this comment amusing, and Maria went on to marry the 6^th Earl of Coventry in March 1752.  The noble couple took themselves off on a tour of the Continent for their honeymoon, taking along Lady Petersham in their train.  The two women did not seem to overly enjoy this trip, and the new Countess of Coventry took a special dislike to the romantic and sophisticated city of Paris.  This might have been because her husband was beginning to show his controlling tendencies, and was refusing to allow her to wear the excessive rouge on her face that was so fashionable in Paris at that time.  As the story goes, the Earl even went as far as wiping her face with his handkerchief when she appeared at dinner with an overly made up face.

When they returned to London, Maria Gunning’s popularity had not waned, and she even had to have her own guard to keep her from being mobbed in the park that was headed by the Earl of Pembroke.  She was not immune from scandal however, as her husband became involved with the notorious courtesan Kitty Fisher, and the two women even clashed over the Earl in public. She was probably no angel either, as it was rumoured that she had an inappropriate romantic liaison with the Duke of Grafton.

But the Countess of Coventry was not to enjoy a long life.  Despite her husband’s protestations, she continued to wear the heavy face make-up that was so fashionable at the end of the eighteenth century.  Unfortunately these cosmetics contained lead and arsenic, which are both highly toxic.  These toxic ingredients would have caused the skin to become highly irritated and break out and would probably have prompted Maria Gunning to have plastered on even more of the make up to cover these skin imperfections.  Continued overuse of the toxic cosmetics eventually caused lead poisoning, which in this case proved fatal, and Maria died on 30^th September 1760 at the tragically young age of 27.

So, it was possible for two unknown and impoverished Irish beauties to capture the hearts of fashionable society and marry rich, powerful men. For one of the Gunning sisters it was unfortunately not a case of happy ever after, but is shows that the rest of us can still dream on. One day our prince just might arrive on his white charger!

The Extraordinary Murder of Stanford White

Imagine that you are part of High Society in New York at the turn of the 20^th century.  You are relaxing with your friends, the drinks are flowing and you are all enjoying the premiere of a new musical show called ‘Mam’zelle Champagne’ being staged at the fashionable Madison Square Roof Garden when all of a sudden a smartly dressed man in an unseasonably heavy overcoat walks up to a table and shoots another man in the face three times at point blank range.  At first you and your friends laugh as you think that it is just another of the famous practical jokes that are so in vogue at that time, but then people start screaming and you see the blood – you have just witnessed the extraordinary murder of Stanford White.

So what led to this cold-blooded killing in a social venue thronged with potential witnesses?  As with so many acts of violence it was born out of one unbalanced man’s rage and jealousy, as he failed to come to terms with the fact that the woman he wanted had, initially, been with someone else.  This man was a millionaire called Harry Kendall Thaw, who had been born in 1871, the son of Pittsburgh coal and railroad baron William Thaw.  Harry Thaw, according to his own mother, had been trouble since the day he was born and even all of his father’s immense fortune and social clout could prevent him from being expelled from several elite private schools.

He went to the University of Pittsburgh to do a law degree, and used his father’s money and contacts to get a transfer to Harvard.  He spent much of his time in College drinking, taking drugs, gambling and chasing women.  He was eventually sent down after an incident where he pursued a cab driver through the streets of Cambridge with a shotgun, although Thaw claimed it was not loaded at the time.

He moved on to mingle with the rich and famous of New York society, where he carried on his dissolute ways and spent much of his time watching Broadway shows and trying to ingratiate himself with the chorus girls.  It was here in New York that he became aware of a much older man called Stanford White who was a great socialite, very sophisticated and very popular with the ladies. Stanford White’s popularity and prowess with the fairer sex drove Thaw to a frenzy of jealousy and paranoia. This was allegedly triggered by an incident when Thaw was desperately trying to impress a trio of chorus girls without success and White, who just happened to be present, made some denigrating remarks about Thaw to the girls. When all of the chorus girls turned Thaw down, he became convinced that it was the fault of Stanford White and from that day on his jealous obsession was born.

Evelyn Nesbit

So who was Stanford White?  He was an older, sophisticated man about town in his late forties.  He was born in 1853 and was a well known architect in New York who designed palatial homes for the wealthy and grand public buildings. Ironically he had been the architect who drew up the plans for the Madison Square Roof Garden where he would be murdered fifteen years later.  Despite his age, White was a great success with women and was rumoured to have several apartments where he would entertain chorus girls and actresses. One of these apartments on West Twenty Fourth Street was especially notorious, as it was where Stanford White had installed a red velvet swing, so that he could enjoy watching scantily clad young girls disporting themselves.

In 1901 Stanford White stated paying court to one very beautiful and very young chorus girl – she was sixteen and he was forty seven – called Evelyn Nesbit.  Evelyn Nesbit had been born in Pittsburgh in 1884, but her father died young leaving his widow to struggle to bring up their two children.  As Evelyn was a very beautiful girl, she started working as an artist’s model at a very young age.  Her mother moved the family to New York and Evelyn started modelling for some very famous artists and was also one of the first popular photographic models, and was a favourite model of Charles Dana Gibson.  She also started working in the shows and when she was sixteen was dancing as a gypsy in the chorus of Florodora. This is where Harry Thaw spotted her and, mainly because he knew that she was connected romantically to Stanford White, became infatuated with her.  He was determined to lure her away from White and pursued her ardently.

Stanford White tried to warn Evelyn about Harry Thaw and for a while she stayed out of his way, but then she was sent to hospital with suspected appendicitis and Thaw started to visit her, showering her with gifts and bouquets of flowers.  White arranged for Evelyn to convalesce in a sanatorium in upstate New York and for a time both men visited her there, but White lost interest, leaving the field open for Harry Thaw. He whisked both her and her mother away to Paris on her release and lavished money and designer clothes on her.  Certain of success he proposed to Evelyn.  She refused him, but he wouldn’t give up and eventually she admitted that she didn’t feel she could become his wife as Stanford White had taken her virginity, after drugging her with champagne. Eventually he persuaded her mother to return to New York and took Evelyn to a castle in a remote region of Germany where he repeatedly beat her and forced himself on her to try and get her to accept his offer of marriage.

Despite this bad treatment, Evelyn did not part from Thaw and eventually she persuaded him to let her return to New York.  For several years Thaw continued his pursuit of Evelyn’s hand, but it wasn’t until Thaw’s mother turned up on her doorstep begging Evelyn to marry her son and get him to settle down a bit that she gave in and went to Pittsburgh to marry him. Fairly predictably, once Evelyn Nesbit was his, Thaw lost interest in her and continued his drinking, womanising and drug taking ways.  He would regularly take long trips abroad on his own and would disappear for days on end.

Fatefully, in the spring of 1906 the couple decided to take a trip together to New York and then on to Europe.  While they were out socialising in New York, Thaw encountered Stanford White in the Cafe Martin and found out that they would all be attending the premiere of the new show ‘Mam’zelle Champagne’ that evening.  Thaw immediately hustled his wife back to their hotel, and disappeared, returning only in time to escort Evelyn to the show.  Although it was a hot summer night, he also insisted on wearing a heavy, black overcoat, and would not hand it over to the hat check girl however many times she asked him for it.  He was seen acting suspiciously during the show, often seeming to approach Stanford White’s table and then backing away, and it wasn’t until the final provocative number ‘I Could Love a Million Girls’ that he did march up to Stanford White and shoot him in the face, killing him instantly. Thaw then coolly walked through the crowd and out of the room, meeting Evelyn who was waiting for him by the elevator and informing her that he had probably just saved her life.

The ensuing trial of Harry Thaw in 1907 became a media sensation and became known as the ‘Trial of the Century’. Harry Thaw had pled insanity and the jury was deadlocked over their verdict.  Evelyn Nesbit had refused to testify at this trial, but as the retrial was being prepared for Thaw’s mother asked her to testify and say that son had only being trying to protect her from Stanford White’s unwanted advances.  If she agreed Harry Thaw would give her a divorce and $1 million.  Evelyn testified, and though she got her divorce, she never saw the money.  Harry Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was placed in Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He was not restrained there in any way and in 1913 he just decided to leave and crossed the border into Canada.  He was extradited back to the United States, where a court deemed him to be sane and he was released in 1915.

Harry Thaw would go on to live until the age of 76, although he had to undergo another period of incarceration for insanity as he attempted to slit his own throat after being accused of sexually assaulting and horsewhipping a young student called Fred Gump Jr whom he had brought to New York. Evelyn Nesbit’s career after the trial did not mirror her earlier success, and she also made several suicide attempts as she had become an alcoholic and dependent on morphine.  She, however, overcame these addictions and during her life she wrote two memoirs and lived to the grand old age of 82.

Mystery People of History – Arthur Duke of Brittany

Poor old Arthur of Brittany! They say that you can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family, and for this royal prince, born into a brood of constantly fighting and cantankerous Plantagenets, this was a very apt saying.  There have been many mystery people of history and in medieval times even a royal prince could disappear without trace. Probably the most famous princes to mysteriously vanish off the face of the Earth were the Princes in the Tower, supposedly murdered by their much vilified uncle, King Richard III. But Richard III was not the only Plantagenet monarch who was thought to have murdered a nephew.  King John enjoys a very bad reputation in English history; he tried to steal his brother’s crown while he was away fighting in the Third Crusade, when he became king riled up his barons so that they rebelled against him leading to the signing of Magna Carta and at the end of his long and not very illustrious career he has thought to have lost the crown jewels while he was crossing the Wash in bad weather. But what is not so well known, is that he is also thought to have been responsible for the death of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany.

Arthur of Brittany & Philip II of France

King Henry II, his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their sons were famous for their quarrelling and for fighting among themselves for territory and prestige.  This was a time when primogeniture was not yet firmly established and the King could name his heir, which tended to set brother against brother and cause long-festering family feuds.  Arthur was the only son of Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany and his wife Constance.  The couple already had an elder daughter Eleanor, known as the Fair Maid of Brittany, but Arthur was a posthumous child, born in Nantes in 1187 after his father was killed during a tournament in 1186. Although a claimant to the throne of England, Arthur was French through and through, and never once visited the British Isles during his short life and could not speak English.  The Plantagenets wanted this royal infant to be named Henry after his grandfather, King Henry II of England, but his mother Constance chose the name Arthur, in honour of the mythical king who was so revered by her Breton subjects. Arthur was to be much influenced by his mother and it was probably from her that he gained his leanings towards France and the French crown

When the old King Henry II died in 1189, he was succeeded by his son Richard I, known as the ‘Lionheart’. Richard I decided that it was a good idea to patch up his ongoing feud with his younger brother John, in order to try and maintain peace in his realms.  In those days the Angevin Empire encompassed huge swathes of France as well as the kingdom of England, and Richard I was really not much interested in his English fiefdom, preferring to spend his time rampaging around France.  However, early on in his reign he decided to take up the Cross and join the Third Crusade. At this time Richard the Lionheart was unmarried and childless, so named the infant Arthur as his heir, just in case he came a cropper at the hands of the Saracens.  As part of the deal, he also arranged the betrothal of Arthur to a daughter of Tancred of Sicily, although this alliance was broken when the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI conquered Sicily in 1194. He also made his brother Prince John swear an oath that he would not set foot in England while he was away.  Was this a red rag to a bull or what?  With his nose well and truly put out by Richard’s naming of Arthur as his heir, John duly proceeded to land in England and tried to get the English crown onto his own head.   Over in Brittany, Constance was also taking advantage of Richard I’s absence, and to try and wrest more autonomy for Brittany had Arthur hailed Duke of Brittany in 1194 at the tender age of 7. Unfortunately for Prince John, after a series of adventures, his brother Richard returned in 1194 and very firmly reclaimed his crown.

Once again in 1196, Richard I named Arthur as his heir, and to cement this relationship he summoned both Arthur and his mother to where he was currently residing in Normandy.  However, unfortunately Constance was abducted on the road by her estranged husband, one Ranulf de Blondeville, Earl of Chester.  This English aristocrat had been married off to Constance at the age of 17, as King Richard did not trust where her loyalties lay and wanted to ensure her continued obedience by wedding her to one of his more trusted barons. However, the marriage had not been a success and the couple were living separate lives. The abduction infuriated Richard I, who then led his army to Brittany to secure possession of Arthur, but the young Duke was whisked away in secret by his tutor to the French court where he was brought up alongside Prince Louis of France. In 1199 Constance managed to escape from her unwanted spouse and their marriage was dissolved on the grounds of desertion.

Richard the Lionheart died on April 6, 1199 during the siege of the castle of Chaluz-Chabrol.  He had been walking around the castle perimeter without his chainmail when he took a hit in his left shoulder from a crossbow.  He first tried to pull the missile out himself, and then had it removed by a bungling surgeon.  Richard developed gangrene in his wound, which proved fatal, and before he died he named his younger brother John as his heir.  Richard feared that as Arthur of Brittany was only 12 years old at this time that he was too young to be a decisive leader and, moreover, was far too much under the influence of the French Court. John was actually staying with Constance and Arthur in Brittany, when the news of his brother’s death and his elevation to the throne of England was brought to him.  He immediately made haste to secure the royal treasury that was housed in the castle at Chinon, while the intrepid Constance raised an army and took the town of Angers.

John’s claim to the English throne was supported by his indomitable mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine and William Marshall, a powerful English Baron.   However, the French nobility were resentful of the new King John, and favoured Arthur’s claim to the throne, especially as Arthur had declared himself as a vassal of the King of France, Philip II. The French King recognised Arthur of Brittany’s rights to the territories of Anjou, Maine and Poitou and headed up an army, which he took to Anjou and Maine to reinforce Arthur’s claim.  From April 18 of that year, Arthur styled himself Duke of Brittany, Count of Anjou and Earl of Richmond. Unfortunately, the young Prince’s staunchest supporter, his mother Constance, died in 1201, leaving him bereft of support.  Constance had remarried after her early union had been dissolved, to one Guy de Thouars, bearing him twin daughters, and she may well have died while giving birth again.

Philip II of France’s championing of Arthur of Brittany was due to the fact that he was always keen to exploit any family rifts among the Plantagenets for his own ends in order to extend the territory and influence of the French crown.  However, this stirring led to King John invading France in 1202, which forced Philip to recognise John as his late brother’s legitimate heir to the English throne at the Treaty of Le Goulet. The French King abandoned his support of the young Prince Arthur and forced him to acknowledge his uncle as his new overlord.  Arthur was mortified by this turn of events and fled to the sanctuary of his uncle’s Court where he was warmly welcomed, but soon became wary of King John’s real objectives, and swiftly returned to Angers.  King John’s marriage to Isabella d’Angoulême once again stirred up the resentment of the French nobility against him, as this lady had previously been betrothed to a French baron called Hugh de Lusignan.  Hugh de Lusignan rounded up his supporters and rebelled against King John, appealing to the French King for aid.  Philip II firmly requested that King John appear at his Court to explain his actions, and when John was a no show, Philip declared all of the English monarch’s land in France forfeit, and awarded Normandy and Anjou to young Arthur of Brittany.

Despite his youth, Arthur was shaping up to be just as warlike and belligerent as the rest of his Plantagenet forbears, and besieged his own grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, where she was holed up in Mirebeau Castle. Queen Eleanor managed to get a message to John, who managed, in a huge feat of endurance and determination, to march his army the eighty miles between Le Mans and Mirebeau in just two days.  Arthur was captured by john’s forces and imprisoned in the fortress at Falaise in Normandy, under the watchful eye of Hugh de Burgh.  His sister Eleanor was also captured and sent to England to be imprisoned in Corfe Castle.  The following year Arthur was transferred to Rouen and put in the charge of William de Braose, and in April 1203 he mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again.

Now to our modern minds it may seem utterly incomprehensible that a royal prince, the ruler of large territories in northern France, could just vanish without trace, but you have to remember that we are talking about a time where there was no mass media, no CCTV cameras and no photographs.  Very few of the ordinary people in Rouen would ever have seen Arthur of Brittany in the flesh, so would not recognise him without his royal regalia and retinue.  This was also a period where there was little portraiture, so many would not have even seen a likeness of the prince. Inevitably stories about Arthur’s disappearance soon started to circulate, and unfortunately to King John, most of them put him firmly in the frame.  Hugh de Burgh supposedly made a claim that he knew the details of Arthur’s demise, and that the young prince had been blinded and castrated by John’s henchmen, and had died of shock.

Another account offered in the Margam Annals, penned by an unknown Welsh monk, stated that one night King John got very drunk.  Arthur, being at the time a stroppy adolescent, rubbed his uncle up the wrong way by being rude and defiant, which caused John to kill him.  To get rid of his body, John weighted it down with stones and dumped it in the River Seine. The body then became caught in the hooks of local fisherman, who hauled it onto the shore.  They recognised the corpse as being that of Arthur of Brittany, and fearing reprisals from King John if he got to know about their discovery, took the body for secret burial at the priory of Notre Dame de Pres at Bec. Arthur’s jailer at the time of his disappearance, William de Braose, suddenly rose very high in John’s favour, being showered with lands and titles in the Welsh Marches, which led people to think that he had been complicit in Arthur’s demise.

It was unfortunate for William de Braose that many years later, after arguing and being in conflict with King John, William’s wife Maude de Braose openly accused John of being responsible for the murder of his nephew. As at the time of these accusations William de Braose also owed King John a large sum of money, the English monarch demanded that they hand over their son William as a hostage to enforce their continued loyalty and ensure that they kept their mouths shut.  Maude had apparently made audible comments in the presence of the King’s officers that ‘she would not deliver her children to a king who had murdered his own nephew’. This naturally outraged the hot-tempered King John, so he seized their lands in the Welsh Marches, which caused them to flee to Ireland, where Maude and her eldest son were eventually captured trying to escape to Scotland. They were sent back to England and imprisoned in Windsor Castle, and then sent on to Corfe Castle, where they are believed to have been starved to death.  William de Braose managed to escape to France, where he is thought to have written an account of the true fate of young Arthur of Brittany, but no traces of it remains.

William Shakespeare incorporates the tragedy of Arthur of Brittany into his play King John, where the young prince is portrayed as an inexperienced youth, who has no responsibility for the fate that befalls him.  Shakespeare kills off Arthur by having him jump from the walls of the castle where he was imprisoned, while fleeing from the tyranny of his wicked uncle.  But then, wicked uncles slaying their blameless nephews was a favourite historical theme used by Shakespeare in his plays. I feel that it is unlikely that King John himself would have dirtied his hands by personally killing his nephew, but it is more than likely that it was he who ordered the boy’s death.  If Arthur had remained alive, he would have been a continual thorn in John’s side, and as the boy got older he could have made a strong alliance through marriage and built up a dynasty that would have been a constant threat to John’s power and prestige in northern France.  Arthur’s sister Eleanor of Brittany fared no better in life, as King John and then his successor and son Henry III kept her captive in England until her death at the age of 57.  The French barons were inclined to believe in John’s guilt, and used it as another reason to unite against him, eventually taking Richard the Lionheart’s mighty Chateau Gaillard and pushing John and his army back across the Channel to England. The dukedom of Brittany, which should have gone to Eleanor, was passed on to Arthur’s half-sister Alix de Thouars, who was married Peter de Dreux, creating a new Breton dynasty of rulers.

So will we ever really know what happened to poor Arthur of Brittany? Probably not, unless some amazing new discovery is made.  But written evidence from that period is scanty, and it is unlikely that new documents regarding Arthur’s fate will be uncovered now. It is possible that Arthur died of natural causes or was whisked away into hiding somewhere, but then why was his body not given the funeral due to a prince of the blood, and surely if he had gotten away at least some rumours of his whereabouts would have circulated?  So do you think that it was a case of a wicked uncle slaying his innocent nephew, or do you think that Arthur’s fate was due to other causes?


Image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain