A Scandalous Life. Mary S. Lovell

the prince’s career.

      With no alternative, Jane did as Felix suggested, choosing the evening of 22 May to make her request to Edward. But Edward refused to allow her to go abroad to ‘reflect on her feelings’ for Schwarzenberg. The entire matter seems to have culminated in a quarrel in which Jane said she could not live without Felix. The outcome was that Edward proposed a formal separation in which they would each go their separate ways, but leaving little Arthur in his custody. Edward would, he said, make adequate provision for Jane’s future needs, and before leaving for an important dinner party with Lord Hill to discuss a military matter he arranged for her departure for Roehampton with her personal servants. The following morning, before attending a Cabinet meeting, he found time to write to his mother-in-law, Lady Andover, suggesting she join her daughter immediately at Roehampton.

      All her life Jane hated to quarrel with anyone, and the fracas with Edward unnerved her. However, the thing was done. Naively, she thought the worst was now behind her, and her sole ambition was to leave immediately and join Felix. The explanatory note she wrote to her Aunt Anson must have come as a relief to Lady Anson, for Jane’s former relationship with George remained the subject of gossip. Since Jane made no mention of her pregnancy, Lady Anson was inclined at first to think the matter was a storm in a teacup, an affair that, with careful management of Ellenborough’s natural anger, might be smoothed over and the couple brought together again. She called on Ellenborough later that day as a peacemaker and later wrote to her niece, no doubt pointing out the impossibility of her travelling abroad without her husband’s permission. The following letter from Jane was the result:

      Lord Ellenborough,

      Connaught Place

      Roehampton,

      Saturday night

      Dearest Edward,

      Forgive me if I do wrong in writing to you, a note just received from Lady Anson seems to imply that you have expected it. I had begun a letter to you this morning, thanking you from the bottom of my soul for your unbounded kindness in act and manner – it was far more than I deserved, and I am deeply grateful.

      I again renew all the assurances I gave you last night, that in act I am innocent. I hardly know what or how to write to you; I daren’t use the language of affection, you would think it hypocrisy, but though my family naturally wish all should be again as it once was between us, those feelings of honour which I still retain towards you, make me still acquiesce in your decision. I continue to think it just and right

      I have not been able to speak to them on the subject I confessed to you last night; I have spoken little today but have never for an instant swerved from my own original opinion. I write this to YOU, if it is possible for you to keep what I have said from them, do, as they would only set it down as another proof of unkindness on my part.

      Could you write me a line through Henry; were it only to tell me your opinion, be assured I should think it right. But Oh! Edward, dear Edward! ought not time, solitude, and change of scene to be tried by me, to conquer or obliterate sentiments so inimical to our mutual peace? Pray write to me, tell me all you think upon the subject, all you wish me to do. I shall now answer you candidly, and without a shade of deception.

      God bless you, dearest Edward,

      Janet

      If my Aunt has misunderstood any expression and you did not expect or wish to hear from me personally, forgive me, for although I longed to tell you how gratefully I feel towards you yet I confess I should never have ventured to write. Ever Yours. J.

      Were it not for two short declarations, ‘that in act I am innocent’ and ‘my family … would only set it down as another proof of unkindness on my part’, this would be a straightforward letter. Yet she could hardly profess to be innocent in act without lying. And surely the act of infidelity merited a word stronger than merely ‘unkind’? Not that it made a scrap of difference; the extent of her relationship with Schwarzenberg could not be concealed for much longer.

      On Sunday, 24 May, Miss Margaret Steele received a hand-delivered message from Lady Anson. It asked her to go immediately to Elm Grove, where Lady Andover and Lady Ellenborough were in need of support. Steely was living with her sister and a friend in Stanhope Terrace in London’s Regent’s Park, so it took her only a few hours to arrange a chaise and travel to the Ellenboroughs’ house at Roehampton. There, in place of the normally relaxed household presided over by Jane, she found a strained atmosphere.⁶ In residence, as well as Jane and her mother, was Henry Law – Edward’s brother – whom Jane disliked at the best of times and who now wore a face of self-righteous gloom.

      It took only a short time for Steely to discover the reason her presence had been requested and the news came as a thunderclap to her, for despite her reservations about Jane’s companions she was under the impression, as she was shortly to state under oath, that the Ellenboroughs had always lived together ‘most happily’. Jane was tearful but obstinately determined, ultimately, to join Schwarzenberg. Lady Andover was distraught but equally determined that her daughter should not leave the country. For a week the unhappy quartet shared Elm Grove, during which time arrangements were made for Steely to take Jane to the West Country. There they were to join Jane’s brother Edward, by now a twenty-year-old subaltern in a cavalry regiment, in a rented cottage at Ilfracombe. Jane’s parents must have hoped that a holiday in rural surroundings, miles from any social diversions, would bring Jane to her senses. At the very least it might stay the gossip which was already on everyone’s lips, and faithfully recorded within forty-eight hours by Mrs Arbuthnot, close companion of the Duke of Wellington and a frequent guest of the Ellenboroughs:

      There has been an explosion at last in the house of Lord Ellenborough. He has found out all or at least a part of the improprieties of her conduct. Her lover, Prince Schwarzenberg, is gone back to Austria &, at just the same time, Lord Ellenborough took her to her father & refused to live with her any longer. She has been boasting of her own infamy & ridiculing Lord Ellenborough’s blindness; but now she protests that, however foolish and indiscreet she may have been, she is not a criminal. I understand she has gone down to Roehampton where he has allowed her to be for the present. What will be the end of it I do not know.⁷

      Jane and her companions remained at Ilfracombe for a month during which Miss Steele wrote at Jane’s request to Lord Ellenborough, asking once again for permission to take Jane abroad for a period of reflection. He replied in a kindly manner but refused. During this entire period Jane was somehow receiving letters from Felix at the rate of two a week and she was presumably responding.⁸ On 1 July the two women left Ilfracombe and travelled to Minterne, where Admiral Digby and Lady Andover arrived for a prearranged visit with Lord Digby.

      Jane was then five months pregnant. Two days after arriving at Minterne her condition became apparent to the straitlaced Steely and, ‘much agitated’, she broached the subject. By then Jane was relieved to be able to discuss the matter that had been at the forefront of her mind for so long. Admitting her condition, she broke down and sobbed, ‘God knows what will become of me, for the child is not Lord Ellenborough’s but Prince Schwarzenberg’s.’ She then confessed the entire circumstances of her adulterous relationship, including the overnight stay in Brighton. When questioned about how she could be sure the child was not her husband’s, Jane admitted that they had not slept together for some time prior to her becoming pregnant.⁹ Only a few weeks earlier, Steely had remarked to Jane that her sleep was troubled and that she spoke in her sleep. On that occasion Jane had answered lightly that Edward said the same thing to her. From this Steely had supposed that they slept together, but Jane subsequently explained that they had two beds in the same room.

      Miss Steele was not only a spinster but, according to Jane, a ‘gloomily severe’ Christian. Nothing could have prepared for her such news from her former pupil. She had hardly started to gather her thoughts together before Jane, who had recovered her composure and did not wish her plans to be thwarted, was beseeching her not to divulge what she had been told to Lord Ellenborough, her parents or her aunts. Steely reluctantly agreed not to do so without Jane’s permission. However, before the month was out Jane consented to share the appalling secret