Lord Digby Married His Third Cousin Lady Theresa Anna Maria Fox-Strangways, Daughter of Henry Fox-Strangways, 3Rd Earl of Ilchester, in 1837
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Accession Number: 1978/2.21 Artist: John Hoppner Object Creation Date: circa 1778-1810 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Digby Jane Elizabeth Digby, Lady Ellenborough (3 April 1807 – 11 August 1881) was an English aristocrat, famed for her love life and lifestyle. She had four husbands and many lovers, including King Ludwig I of Bavaria, his son King Otto of Greece, statesman Felix Schwarzenberg, and a Greek general (Christodoulos Hatzipetros). She died in Damascus, Syria, as the wife of Arab Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, who was 20 years her junior. Jane Elizabeth Digby was born in Forston House, near Minterne Magna, Dorset on 3 April 1807,[3] daughter of Admiral Henry Digby and Lady Jane Elizabeth. Jane's father seized the Spanish treasure ship Santa Brígida in 1799 and his share of the prize money established the family fortune. Marriages, scandal, and affairs Considered promiscuous for her times, Digby was first married to Edward Law, 2nd Baron Ellenborough (later Earl of Ellenborough), who became Governor General of India, on 15 October 1824. At the time of her marriage, she was described as tall, with a perfect figure. She had an attractive face, pale-gold hair, wide-spaced dark blue eyes, long dark eyelashes, and a pink complexion. They had one son, Arthur Dudley Law (15 February 1828 – 1 February 1830), who died in infancy. After affairs with her maternal cousin, Colonel George Anson, and Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, she was divorced from Lord Ellenborough in 1830 by an act of Parliament. This caused considerable scandal at the time. Digby had two children with Felix; Mathilde "Didi" (born 12 November 1829 Basel and raised by Felix's sister) and Felix (born December 1830 Paris) who died just a few weeks after his birth. The affair with Felix ended shortly after the death of their son. She then moved on to Munich and became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria. In Munich, she met Baron Karl von Venningen (6 January 1806 – 10 June 1874). They married in November 1833 and had a son, Heribert (27 January 1833 Palermo-1885 Munich), and a daughter, Bertha (4 September 1834 Mannheim-22 September 1907). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stieler-Jane_Digby.jpg#/media/File:Stieler-Jane_Digby.jpg Portrait of Digby by Joseph Karl Stieler (1831) In 1838, Digby found a new lover in the Greek Count Spyridon Theotokis (born 1805). Venningen found out and challenged Theotokis to a duel, in which the latter was wounded. Venningen generously released Digby from the marriage and took care of their children. They remained friends for the rest of their lives. Though she was not legally divorced from Venningen until 1842, Digby converted to the Greek Orthodox faith and married Theotokis in Marseille in 1841. The couple moved to Greece with their son Leonidas (21 March 1840 Paris-1846 Athens). In 1846, after their son's fatal fall off a balcony, Theotokis and Digby divorced. Greece's King Otto (son of her previous lover, King Ludwig) became her next lover. Next came an affair with a hero of Greek revolution, Thessalian general Christodoulos Chatzipetros,[4] acting as 'queen' of his army, living in caves, riding horses and hunting in the mountains. She walked out on him when he was unfaithful. Life in Syria Jane Digby, Lady Ellenborough (William Charles Ross) https://www.bonhams.com/press_release/11988/ This miniature sold at auction in Nov 2012 for £13,750, over ten times the original estimate of £800-£1,200, at Bonham’s, London. At age forty-six, Digby traveled to the Middle East, and fell in love with Sheik Medjuel el Mezrab. (Twentieth-century sources sometimes incorrectly report it as "Abdul Medjuel el Mezrab.") Medjuel was a [7] sheik of the Mezrab section of the Sba'a, a sub-tribe of "the great Anizzah tribe of Syria." He was twenty [8] years her junior. The two were married under Muslim law and she took the name Jane Elizabeth Digby el Mezrab. Their marriage was a happy one and lasted until her death twenty-eight years later. It has been written that Jane Digby was referred to as Shaikhah Umm al-Laban (literally sheikha mother of milk) due to the colour of her skin. Digby adopted Arab dress and learned Arabic in addition to the other eight languages in which she was fluent. Half of each year was spent in the nomadic style, living in goat-hair tents in the desert, while the rest was enjoyed in a palatial villa that she had built in Damascus. She spent the rest of her life in the city, where she befriended Richardand Isabel Burton while the former was serving as the British consul, and Abd al-Kader al-Jazairi, a prominent exiled leader of the Algerian revolution. Death Jane Digby died of fever and dysentery in Damascus on 11 August 1881, and was buried in the Protestant [9] Cemetery. She was buried with her horse in attendance at the funeral. Upon her footstone – a block of pink limestone from Palmyra – is her name, written in Arabic by Medjuel in charcoal and carved into the stone by a local mason. Balzac & Lady Ellenborough https://academic.oup.com/fs/article-abstract/XII/3/247/624769?redirectedFrom=PDF. Balzac’s purple prose: https://books.google.com/books?id=0IKiAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false Can’t vouch for the accuracy, but: https://cherylsregencyramblings.wordpress.com/category/jane-digby/ More pictures http://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/jane-digby/ https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/cheltenhams-luxury-ellenborough-park-hotels-a-sure-bet-fo r-great-weekend-away-36706111.html Ellenborough Park Hotel: I wonder if any have stayed in Room 56, reputedly haunted by Lady Ellenborough. In the last three years, 13 people have complained about "a presence", although when I enter the room, where her portrait hangs on blood-red walls, I fail to find any ghostly guests. Edward St Vincent Digby, 9th Baron Digby (21 June 1809 – 16 October 1889), also 3rd Baron Digby in the Peerage of Great Britain, was a British peer. Digby was the son of Admiral Sir Henry Digby, who fought at the Battle of Trafalgar, and Lady Jane Elizabeth Coke, daughter of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester. Jane Digby was his sister. He was commissioned a captain in the Dorsetshire Yeomanry on 12 November 1848. On 12 May 1856 he succeeded as ninth Baron Digby (in the Peerage of Ireland) and third Baron Digby (in the Peerage of Great Britain) on the death of his first cousin twice removed, Edward Digby, 2nd Earl Digby (on whose death the earldom became extinct), and was able to take a seat in the House of Lords. On 26 July 1856, he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in the Yeomanry, and on 19 July 1866, succeeded Lord Rivers as lieutenant-colonel commandant of the regiment. He resigned the command in 1870. Lord Digby married his third cousin Lady Theresa Anna Maria Fox-Strangways, daughter of Henry Fox-Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester, in 1837. He died in October 1889, aged 80, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son Edward Henry Trafalgar Digby. Lord Digby's great-granddaughter was the Hon. Pamela Digby, aka Pamela Churchill Harriman American Ambassador to France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geashill The Digbys developed Geashill as a planned estate village. Samuel Lewis, writing in 1837, described the village as containing 87 mostly thatched houses arranged around a triangular green [1]. Fairs were held on May 1, October 6 and December, the latter being one of the largest pig markets in Ireland. Consisting of 2 over 34,000 acres (140 km ), the Digby estate was the largest in County Offaly. Edward St Vincent Digby, the 9th Baron Digby, came into the estate in 1856, but had no money to keep it. Consequently, he evicted a large number of families from their lands. A local priest, Father Patrick Dunne, arranged for 400 people to be taken to Australia on a ship named the Erin-go-Bragh, which [3] took a record 25 weeks to reach Moreton Bay; 51 passengers died en route. Following the evictions, Digby carried out extensive improvements in the 1860s and 1870s and many of the current buildings around the triangular green date from this time. The Kings County Directory recorded that Digby had "converted the village of Geashill into what it now is, one of the neatest, cleanest and best kept in Ireland" [2]. At the Paris Exhibition of 1867 Digby was awarded the bronze medal for models of the village he was building. He was awarded the gold medal for three years by the Royal Agricultural Society, for improving the greatest number of cottages in the best manner in the Province of Leinster. The Digbys built a house called Geashill Castle near the medieval tower house but this was burnt down during the Civil War in 1922. http://www.offalyarchives.com/index.php/digby-edward-st-vincent-9th-baron Reginald Digby Annual Reports to 9th Baron Digby W. S. and T. W. Trench Annual Reports to the 9th Baron Digby Authority record Edward St.Vincent Digby, 9th Baron, aka Lord Digby 1809-1889 History Edward St. Vincent Digby, 9th Baron Digby of Geashill was born on 21 June 1809.He was the son of Admiral Sir Henry Digby and Lady Jane Elizabeth Coke. He gained the rank of Lieutenant in the service of the 9th Lancers. When his cousin, Edward, the unmarried 8th Baron and 2nd Earl Digby died, he succeeded to the title of 3rd Baron Digby of Sherborne, Dorset and to the title of 9th Baron Digby of Geashill, King's County on 12 May 1856.