Lady Mary Coke (6 February 1727 – 30 September 1811) was an English noblewoman known for her letters and private journal. She made pointed observations of people in her circle and political figures. Although not intended for publication, an edition of her letters and journal, including entries from 1766 to 1774, was published in 1889 by a distant great-nephew.
Life
Marriage and separation
She was the fifth and youngest daughter of the soldier and politician
John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll
Field Marshal John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, 1st Duke of Greenwich, (10 October 1680 – 4 October 1743), styled Lord Lorne from 1680 to 1703, was a Scottish nobleman and senior commander in the British Army. He served on the contine ...
(1680–1743), and his second wife, Jane (c.1683–1767), a
maid of honour
A maid of honour is a junior attendant of a queen in royal households. The position was and is junior to the lady-in-waiting. The equivalent title and office has historically been used in most European royal courts.
Role
Traditionally, a queen ...
Inveraray
Inveraray ( or ; gd, Inbhir Aora meaning "mouth of the Aray") is a town in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is on the western shore of Loch Fyne, near its head, and on the A83 road. It is a former royal burgh, the traditional county town of Arg ...
in Argyll at least once and possibly more often.
She married on 1 April 1747,
Edward Coke, Viscount Coke
Edward Coke, Viscount Coke (2 February 1719 – 31 August 1753), styled The Hon. Edward Coke from 1728 to 1744, was a British Member of Parliament. He represented Norfolk in Parliament from 1741 to 1747 and Harwich from 1747 to his death.
He ...
(1719–1753); son of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester. Their courtship had been strained, and in retaliation Edward left her alone on their wedding night and from then on virtually imprisoned her at his family estate at
Holkham Hall
Holkham Hall ( or ) is an 18th-century country house near the village of Holkham, Norfolk, England, constructed in the Neo-Palladian style for the 1st Earl of Leicester,The Earldom of Leicester has been, to date, created seven times. Thomas C ...
, Norfolk. She reacted by refusing to have sex with him. She never used the title Viscountess Coke.
Their families went to litigation, and eventually produced a settlement in 1750 whereby Lady Mary could live with her mother at Sudbrook but had to remain married to Coke until his death, which came in 1753, when Mary was 26. Already having received a handsome legacy from her father, she set out on her life of independence (she never remarried), that became (as her entry in the '' Dictionary of National Biography'' puts it) "marked by gossip, travel, devotion to royalty, and self-imposed misadventure".
Mary occupied Aubrey House, in the
Campden Hill
Campden Hill is a hill in Kensington, West London, bounded by Holland Park Avenue on the north, Kensington High Street on the south, Kensington Palace Gardens on the east and Abbotsbury Road on the west. The name derives from the former ''Campden ...
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
blue plaque commemorates her and other residents of the house. In 1786 she purchased a house in
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
from the Ashburnham estate and in 1793, she purchased additional land at Sandy End, Chelsea. In 1807, she sold her Chelsea estate and moved to her final home at Chiswick.
Empress Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position '' suo jure'' (in her own right) ...
and was warmly welcomed at the
Viennese Viennese may refer to:
* Vienna, the capital of Austria
* Viennese people, List of people from Vienna
* Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna
* Music of Vienna, musical styles in the city
* Viennese Waltz, genre of ballroom dance
* V ...
court. She alienated her friend on her third visit in 1773 by interfering in court intrigue. Mary, however, did not see that this predicament had been self-inflicted and from then on saw any disaster – servants' incompetence, unsuccessful auction bids, rheumatism – as part of a Maria Theresa-instigated plot pursuing her across Europe. Emily Barry (née Stanhope, Countess of Barrymore, and wife of the 6th Earl) was accused by Mary of luring away her previously faithful servant whilst she was in Paris in 1775, to aid an alleged assassination plot against her by Maria Theresa's daughter Marie Antoinette and her underlings.
Walpole
It was the 1775 event which finally drove away another of Coke's close friends, Horace Walpole. Though devoted and mock-gallant in his flattery of her (his ''
The Castle of Otranto
''The Castle of Otranto'' is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – ''A Gothic Story''. Se ...
'' in 1765 was dedicated to her), Walpole also believed that she had a lack of a sense of humour and pride in her own self-importance which made most of her misfortunes self-inflicted. He called her and two of her sisters ( Caroline Townshend, Baroness Greenwich, and Lady Betty Mackenzie) the three
furies
The Erinyes ( ; sing. Erinys ; grc, Ἐρινύες, pl. of ), also known as the Furies, and the Eumenides, were female chthonic deities of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the ''Iliad'' invokes the ...
, and wrote elsewhere:
'She was much a friend of mine, but a later marriage, which she particularly disapproved, having flattered herself with the hopes of one just a step higher, has a little cooled our friendship. In short, though she is so greatly born, she has a frenzy for royalty, and will fall in love with and at the feet of the Great Duke and Duchess, especially the former, for next to being an empress herself, she adores the Empress Queen, or did—for perhaps that passion not being quite reciprocal, may have waned. However ... Lady Mary has a thousand virtues and good qualities: she is noble, generous, high-spirited, undauntable, is most friendly, sincere, affectionate, and above any mean action. She loves attention, and I wish you to pay it even for my sake, for I would do anything to serve her. I have often tried to laugh her out of her weakness, but as she is very serious, she is so in that, and if all the sovereigns in Europe combined to slight her, she still would put her trust in the next generation of princes. Her heart is excellent, and deserves and would become a crown, and that is the best of all excuses for desiring one.'
Political observer
Lady Mary saw evidence of a conspiracy (this time a Catholic one against the Protestant succession) in Margaret Nicholson's attempt to assassinate
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
in 1786 and Maria Fitzherbert's rumoured marriage to George, Prince of Wales.
Some of her observations were more accurate, for example her praise of the Duchess of Devonshire's political skill, in 1787: "As soon as ever any young man comes from abroad he is immediately invited to
Devonshire House
Devonshire House in Piccadilly, was the London townhouse of the Dukes of Devonshire during the 18th and 19th centuries. Following a fire in 1733 it was rebuilt by William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, in the Palladian style, to designs ...
and to Chatsworth—and by that means he is to be of the higopposition". She avidly collected political information, deploying it to protect herself, her friends and her family, and passing it on to her sisters in her journal. She was a frequent visitor to the Houses of Commons and Lords, witnessing political controversies such as
Warren Hastings
Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first Governor-General ...
's trial and the debate over the Cumberland election petition in 1768 (in which she backed Sir James Lowther).
Death
She bought Morton House, Chiswick four years before her death there in 1811. She appreciated that Sir Stephen Fox had built it late in the 17th century and the house had been little altered since. She was buried in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...
in her father's family vault on 11 October 1811.
Journal
Lady Mary is mainly known from her journal, never intended for publication and instead written for self-amusement and for the amusement of her sisters, most especially Anne (1719/20–1785), who had married
William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford
William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (8 June 1626 – 16 October 1695), KG, of Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, was a prominent landowner.
Origins
He was born at Wentworth Woodhouse, the only surviving son of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Ea ...
, in 1741. Her Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) entry states:
"The journal ranges from banal descriptions of card games and weather to perceptive social observation and expressions of sincere affection, often closely and unselfconsciously juxtaposed. The personality which emerges from the whole combines elements of the mundane and the preposterous with the deeply sympathetic."
She began writing it in August 1766 and stopped making regular additions in January 1791, when Anne's husband died. The published edition includes entries only up to December 1774. (Her great-great-great-nephew James Archibald Home edited this edition.) After 1791, Lady Mary continued to pass on her opinions to friends and relatives, such as her niece Lady Frances Scott (her sister Caroline's daughter by her first marriage to Francis, earl of Dalkeith) and her first cousin once removed
Lady Louisa Stuart
Lady Louisa Stuart (12 August 1757 – 4 August 1851) was a British writer of the 18th and 19th centuries. Her long life spanned nearly ninety-four years.
Early life
Stuart was one of the six daughters of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute ...
. Louisa Stuart in 1827 wrote an acerbic memoir of Lady Mary, which is another major source for her life.Miller, Karl, ''Stuart, Lady Louisa (1757–1851), writer'' in ''
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'',
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, September 2004 online edition January 2006 (subscription required) accessed 29 February 2008
Publication
-Lady Mary Coke, ''The letters and journals of Lady Mary Coke, Volume 1,'' London, Kingsmead Bookshops, 1889
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...