A Scandalous Life. Mary S. Lovell

smart christening party was held only a fortnight later, and within two months or, as one biographer cheerfully put it, ‘as soon as she could get her stays fastened again’, Jane was back in circulation apparently in glowing good looks.⁸ Lord Ellenborough was now more preoccupied than ever with his work of national importance, though Jane accompanied him to several state functions at this time.

      She was a poor mother, which is surprising, for she was a warm and caring person by nature. But she was unable to form any maternal bonds with her baby. It was not that she did not love him, but it was as though the child belonged to someone else. This disappointed her, but, as she wrote to her brother, she was as a child ‘never naturally fond of babies, never played with dolls, if you recollect, but was much fonder of animals etc.’⁹ Her inability to bond may also have been rooted in the fact that her lifestyle did not allow a great deal of contact with her ‘darling boy’.¹⁰ It was the established custom of the upper class to have children cared for by servants, thus enabling the mother to regain her place in society quickly. Moreover, London with its winter palls of smog from coal fires, and its summer plagues of typhoid, was considered unhealthy; the mortality of infants was high enough (hence Ellenborough’s remark ‘if he lives’), without exposing a child to additional risks. It was considered almost a duty to have a child professionally cared for in a quiet, healthy place. In little Arthur’s case this care devolved initially on a wetnurse and nursemaid in the country.

      Despite her glowing appearance, Jane was deeply unhappy in the weeks and months following her confinement. Edward was tolerant but remote, and her relationship with her child was conducted at arm’s length. She pined, according to her poetry, for the days of love and laughter, and the ‘magic’ she had shared with George.¹¹

      The Ellenboroughs’ close friendship with the Russian and Austrian ambassadors and their wives meant that Jane was a frequent guest at embassy balls. It was at one such ball at the Austrian embassy, in May 1828, shortly after her twenty-first birthday, that Jane’s life was changed for ever. Her son’s godmother, Princess Esterhazy, introduced her on a warm early-summer evening, when the lilac trees in London squares were drenched in rain and heady scent, to Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, the newly arrived, darkly handsome attaché and secretary to Prince Esterhazy.

      Prince Felix Ludvig Johann Friedrich zu Schwarzenberg was a member of one of the great aristocratic families of Europe. Born the fourth child and second son of a happy marriage, he grew up at Schloss Krumlov, one of the most beautiful and romantic castles in Bohemia, situated amid dense forests on rocks overlooking the River Vltava. His father’s holdings of land amounted to half a million acres over which the family ruled in an almost feudal manner.¹²

      The name Schwarzenberg was already familiar in London and Paris for the exploits of Felix’s uncle, Field Marshal Karl Philipp Schwarzenberg, Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian forces ranged against Napoleon at Leipzig; and no less for the tragic story of Felix’s mother Princess Pauline who died at a state banquet given in Paris to honour Napoleon and Marie-Louise in 1810. When the building caught fire everyone was successfully ushered to safety, but a false report that her daughters were trapped in their bedchambers sent Princess Pauline flying back inside to rescue them. When they found her body next day, crushed by a fallen roof beam, all that was recognisable in the charred remains was her diamond necklace.¹³

      By the age of twenty-one, Felix had attained the rank of captain in a cavalry regiment bearing his family name (the Schwarzenberg Uhlans). After catching the eye of the self-appointed kingmaker, Prince Metternich, Felix joined the Austrian Diplomatic Corps. His first assignment was to the legation at St Petersburg where the Tsar was a friend of his father.¹⁴ Unfortunately, he became innocently involved in the Dekabrist revolt of army officers attempting to overthrow the Tsar’s government – a minor embarrassment which made it politically expedient to transfer him to another post. He was sent to Portugal to prepare for the arrival of Dom Miguel, Metternich’s choice for King. Dom Miguel was not the choice of the people, however, and Prince Felix subsequently found himself very unpopular, on one occasion being stoned by a mob from which he was lucky to escape without serious injury. He stuck to his post, regardless of unpopularity and, once Dom Miguel was safely installed in 1826, Felix was sent via Paris to London, where he took a ship for Rio de Janeiro on a special mission.¹⁵ He was subsequently appointed as attaché to London in May 1828.

      At the time he met Lady Ellenborough, Prince Felix was twenty-seven years old, handsome, dashing and accomplished. Highly intelligent, he was an excellent linguist, speaking fluent German, Czech, French, English, Latin and Spanish. He studied anatomy and, to judge from remarks by his biographer, it is probable that he was a natural healer.¹⁶ Felix was a music lover with a good voice, who wrote musical comedies to entertain his friends.¹⁷ ‘He was’, wrote one contemporary, ‘artless … and kind and friendly,’¹⁸ and according to his friend Count Rodolphe Apponyi, the Hungarian-Austrian diplomat and diarist, he was witty and amusing to be with.¹⁹ On that night at the Russian embassy ball Jane knew only that the prince smiled down into her eyes with uncomplicated admiration, waltzed as only someone who had learned to waltz in Vienna could, and held her attention to an extent that made her forget, for a while, her wretchedness over George Anson.

      Even Schwarzenberg’s biographer, who had no good word for Jane, admitted grudgingly that, as soon as the prince laid eyes on Jane, ‘it was love at first sight in the Byron style.’²⁰ Jane was attracted but not smitten. It was the prince who laid siege to Jane with flowers, poems and notes. Wherever Jane went, the prince managed to be, and soon she was seen in his company, as she had previously been seen in George’s, riding with him in Rotten Row, in his cabriolet at the races, waltzing at Almack’s, in his box at the opera, walking round the Zoological Park on his arm.²¹ To find herself so courted and so desired after her lover’s seemingly callous desertion and her husband’s indifference was balm to Jane’s wounded spirit. Despite initial discretion it was quickly apparent to interested members of society that Lady Ellenborough had exchanged her regular escort, Colonel Anson, for the handsome foreign prince. It suited Jane’s hurt pride that society assumed the change was by her own choice, but her poetry confirms that she was not yet in love with the prince.

      The 1828 Derby, held shortly after Jane met Felix, was narrowly won by the Duke of Rutland’s Cadland, with the King’s horse, The Colonel, which started favourite, finishing in second place. It seemed excruciatingly amusing when Felix suddenly acquired the nickname ‘Cadland’, because, as the fashionable world tittered, ‘he had beat the Colonel’ out of Jane’s affections. Later Cadland was shortened to ‘Cad’. In that form it has been passed down to the present day as a synonym for ungentlemanly behaviour – not surprisingly, given the prince’s subsequent conduct.

      In June, several Harley Street residents noted a striking girl visiting number 73, a house that had been taken by Prince Schwarzenberg and Count Moritz Dietrichstein,²² two young attachés from the Austrian embassy. There was no reason why Jane should not be seen walking in Harley Street. Her parents’ home at number 86 was a mere hundred yards away at the opposite end of the block. The Ellenborough town-house at Connaught Place was a fifteen-minute stroll along Oxford Street, or a five-minute drive by horse and carriage. Jane’s carriage was an elegant small green phaeton, drawn by two long-tailed black horses which, being an able whip, she habitually drove herself. She was always accompanied by a groom, a fifteen-year-old boy dressed in Lord Ellenborough’s livery of drab olive with blue-lined facings and a top hat with a band of silver lace. This boy often stood about in the afternoon, holding the horses while he waited for his mistress, who visited a house a few steps away on the corner of Queen Anne Street and Harley Street.

      One resident who lived opposite saw the young woman several times through the window of the first-floor drawing-room. As the summer wore on, her visits became more frequent, often three or four times a week, and the neighbours noticed with heightened interest that sometimes she came on foot, and started wearing a veil. Her phaeton was spotted in adjacent streets, sometimes Wimpole Street, sometimes Portland Place. Several times she left her carriage in Cavendish Square and walked past her parents’ house to number 73, and on a few occasions she came by hackney coach.²³

      But it was not until