Lady W (Revisited)

 

My first ever post was on one of my favourite historical figures, the Scandalous Lady W. To celebrate a whole year of Herstory Revisited I decided to reshare her story for the 1000 extra followers I have gained since then, because quite frankly I'll take any excuse to talk about this woman!

Seymour Dorothy Fleming (1758 – 1818), styled Lady Worsley from 1775 to 1805, was a member of the British gentry, notable for her involvement in a high-profile criminal conversation trial. More commonly known in her day as “The Scandalous Lady W” (1758-1818), Seymour created controversy when she publicly left her husband to elope with her lover and humiliated herself in court to protest being treated as property.

Fleming was the younger daughter and coheir of the Irish-born Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet (d. 1763), of Brompton Park (aka Hale House, Cromwell House), Middlesex, and his wife, Jane Coleman (d. 1811). She was probably named for her maternal grandmother, Jane Seymour, a daughter of Sir Edward Seymour, 5th Baronet.

Her father and two of her sisters died when she was five, and she and her surviving sister were raised by their mother, who remarried in 1770 to the eldery slave plantation owner  Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood. Her elder sister, Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington, was noted for being an "epitome of virtue", in stark contrast to the reputation her younger sister would soon accumulate.

On 20 September 1775, at the age of 17, Seymour Fleming married Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet of Appuldurcombe House, and was styled Lady Worsley until his death. She was rumoured to have been worth £70,000 upon her marriage, but in truth brought £52,000 to the union (equivalent to over £6.5million today - still not too shabby I'd argue!)

The pair were illsuited from the start and was never a happy one. They had one child, Robert, but he died in infancy. In August 1781 Seymour bore a second child, Jane Seymour Worsley, who was fathered by her lover George Bisset, a militia captain and close friend of Sir Worsely. Worsley claimed the child as his own to avoid scandal, but was fully aware of Jane's paternity. (1/3)

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Throughout the marriage, Lady Worsley was rumoured to have had 27 lovers. In November 1781, she run away with Bisset. This caused Worsley to sue Bissett for theft of his "property" to the sum of £20,000 (£2+ million today) in February 1782. Rather than meekly accept her position as livestock belonging to her husband, Lady Worsley turned the suit in her favour with scandalous revelations which shattered the reputation of her husband. She included a number of testimonies from her lovers and her doctor, William Osborn, who related that she had suffered from a venereal disease which she had contracted from the Marquess of Graham. She alleged that Worsley had displayed his wife naked to Bisset at the bath house in Maidstone and that he enjoyed watching his friend and his wife make love. The scandal became front page news with both Seymour and her husband torn apart by the press. The scandal destroyed Worsley's suit and the jury awarded him only one shilling (2015: £5.54) in damages, adding insult to injury after the public humiliation he had already faced (my heart bleeds...)

However, Seymour's moral victory did not grant her a happily ever after with Bisset. He eventually abandonded her when he realised that they could never marry, given Worsley's determination not to divorce his wife (possibly out of spite, or out of fear of further financial losses). Alone in France with only her lustful reputation, Seymour was forced to become a professional mistress (or demimondaine) and live off the donations of rich men in order to survive, joining other upper-class women in a similar position in the New Female Coterie. She bore two more children: another by Bisset after he left her in 1783, whose fate is unknown; and a fourth, Charlotte Dorothy Hammond (née Cochard), who she sent to be raised by a family in the Ardennes.

Lady Worsley later fled to Paris to avoid her debts. In 1788, she and her new lover, the composer, conductor and champion fencer Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, returned to England, and her estranged husband entered into articles of separation, on the condition she spend four years in exile in France. However, before she could return to England she became trapped in France by the French Revolution. Some believe she was imprisoned during the Reign of the Revolution.  She was not present for the death of her son Robert in 1793. In early 1797, she returned to England but was debilitated by illness for the first two months of her return. She eventually earned the forgiveness of her surviving family, who secured her return to Brompton Park where she had lived but was legally excluded from officially owning. (2/3)

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On her husband’s death in 1805, she finally inherited his £70,000 fortune and within a month the 47 year old Seymour had married her 26 year old lover John Lewis Cuchet. Rather than taking his name, she legally resumed her maiden name, Fleming which her new husband also adopted - very controversially for the day. She died in their home in Passy aged 59 in 1818 and was buried in Paris.

I hope that it's now clear why Lady W is one of my greatest sheroesShe was the ultimate bad bitch - she defied the patriarchy, was unashamed of her sexuality and the ultimate feminist in my eyes. She gave no damns what anyone thought of her and never apologised for who she was. She knew that people's opinions and a man's love are both fickle and that women need neither of them to survive. She had the courage to fight for what women everywhere are still fighting for. She didn't take the easy option - she actively fought for what was right at the cost of everything she treasured (except her freedom). She knew that she wasn't worth £20,000 or a shilling - she, like every woman, is priceless and that our worth is not at all dependant on a man. She stuck by her principles despite everything and it worked out alright in the end - even in today's society very few men take their wife's name.

So thank you, Seymour Dorothy Fleming, for being an inspiration to women through the ages, and especially to me. Y'all should watch Natalie Dormer’s amazing portrayal of her if you can, and read the novel that inspired it (shown in stories). We can all learn from the amazing, and scandalous, Lady W. Without her, there may have been no @HerstoryRevisited (3/3)