Seymour Dorothy Fleming (5 October 1758 – 9 September 1818), styled Lady Worsley from 1775 to 1805, was a member of the British
gentry
Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past.
Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies
''Gentry'', in its widest c ...
Sir Edward Seymour, 5th Baronet
Sir Edward Seymour, of Berry Pomeroy, 5th Baronet (1660 or 1663 – 29 December 1740) of Bradley House, Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire was an English landowner and Tory politician.
Early life
Seymour was baptized on 18 December 1663, the eldest ...
.
Her father and two of her sisters died when she was five, and she and her surviving sister were then brought up by their mother, who remarried in 1770 to Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, a rich sexagenarian whose wealth derived from sugar plantations in the West Indies. Her elder sister, Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington, was noted for being an "epitome of virtue".
Appuldurcombe House
Appuldurcombe House (also spelt Appledorecombe or Appledore Combe) is the shell of a large 18th-century English Baroque country house of the Worsley family. The house is situated near to Wroxall on the Isle of Wight, England. It is now managed ...
,
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Is ...
, and was styled ''Lady Worsley'' until her death. She was rumoured to have been worth £70,000 upon her marriage, but in truth brought £52,000 to the union ().
The couple were badly suited to each other, and the marriage began to fall apart shortly after it began. They had one child, a son named Robert Edwin who died young. In August 1781 Seymour bore a second child, Jane Seymour Worsley, fathered by Maurice George Bisset but claimed by Worsley as his own to avoid scandal. Bisset, a captain in the South Hampshire
militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
, had been Worsley's close friend and neighbour at Knighton Gorges on the Isle of Wight.
Lady Worsley was rumoured to have had 27 lovers. In November 1781 she ran off with Bisset, and in February 1782 Worsley brought a criminal conversation case against Bisset for £20,000 (). Lady Worsley turned the suit in her favour with scandalous revelations and the aid of past and present lovers; and questioned the legal status 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
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and ora ...
shilling
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence ...
(2015: £) in damages.
Bisset eventually left Lady Worsley when it became apparent that Worsley was seeking separation rather than divorce, meaning Seymour could not remarry until Worsley's death. 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 had 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
The Ardennes (french: Ardenne ; nl, Ardennen ; german: Ardennen; wa, Årdene ; lb, Ardennen ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Be ...
.
Lady Worsley later left for Paris in order 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. Eight months before the expiration of this exile, she was unable to leave France because of the events of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
and she was probably imprisoned during the
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First French Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public Capital punishment, executions took pl ...
, meaning she was abroad on the death of her and Worsley's son in 1793. In early 1797, she returned to England, and she then suffered a severe two-month illness. Owing to the forgiveness of her mother, her sister and her sister's husband, the
Earl of Harrington
Earl of Harrington is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain that was created in 1742.
History
The earldom of Harrington was granted in 1742 to William Stanhope, 1st Baron Harrington, the former Secretary of State and then Lord President o ...
, she was then able to move into Brompton Park, her previous home, but which the laws on property prevented her from officially holding.
Later life
On Worsley's death in 1805, her £70,000 jointure reverted to her and just over a month later, on 12 September, at the age of 47 she married 26-year-old newfound lover John Lewis Cuchet (d. 1836) at Farnham. Also that month, by royal licence, she officially resumed her maiden name of Fleming, and her new husband also took it. After the armistice of 1814 ended the
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition (March 1813 – May 1814), sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, and a number of German States defeated F ...
, the couple moved to a villa at
Passy
Passy () is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.
Passy was a commune on the outskirts of Paris. In 1658, hot springs were discovered around wh ...