Illegitimacy 18th century gentry

[WillowG]

[...]

“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you. I think seriously of Miss Smith!—Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to—Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!—No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received—”

[...]

Harriet’s parentage became known. She proved to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to have always wished for concealment.—Such was the blood of gentility which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!—It was likely to be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley—or for the Churchills—or even for Mr. Elton!—The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed.'

[wildwitch]

Oh this is all very exciting indeed!
I have just dug out the letter that tells me the financial figures. There are many letters that tell me how the family lived. His father owned a small rural estate in the north east and married an heiress to a local estate, thus combining these estates. The old manor house in the father's estate was pulled down and the family lived in the grand manor house on mums estate, which was only built in around 1700 (or thereabouts)! Once he came into his inheritance he initially also lived at this grand manor house. Within 2-3 decades though they were living on what they referred to as a 'farm' on his father's estate (him, mistress and children). The grand manor house increasingly fell into disrepair and eventually was a complete ruin by around 1840. The family never returned there to live. The money debate first came about when it came to the marriage of the son, who was expected to marry well and it materialised that much of it was to do with a new manor house that the family was trying to (and later did) build. The building was completed in around 1790.
In the early 1780s the son had fallen in love and wanted to marry an esquires daughter with a dowry of £5000. The father though objected firstly because the money was insufficient and secondly (although this is only hinted at) because he disliked her father and this dislike seems to have run deep (they were neighbours). The whole lot went to the full extent that the couple continued certainly to meet in secret for at least another few years and I am fairly certain that they went on to have an illegitimate child, because the son did have an illegitimate daughter born around the time where both of them suddenly married other people. She by this stage was in her late 20s!!! and He in his 30s! For all of these years his dad had been in poor health, so I feel they tried to bide their time and consequences occurred. Indeed after all this he married a woman worth only £5000 + 500 for clothes and jewels!
Anyway in the early 1780s the father explained his financial situation to his cousin, who was encouraging the above match and in whom the son had confided: 'He has often updated a saying of yours that no one should marry for Money or Liking singly, but both should have a share I wished him to act upon it how far he has done so I know not, but that you may judge. I will beg leave to refresh your memory with a short abstract of my property which from the Wooll business is much hurt: is as at present as under
My rental income greatly £3000 (*in fact it could looking now even read 3800!!)
The old A... mortgage (*A=his mother's family) with more borrowed by my father & mother jointly on B... (*his mothers estate) £9200
You thought I ought not give C (*=his daughter) less than £10000 
===£19200
Still no place to live at & what that will cost to be made as he would Wish let him consider for he has that about it '
We know from other letters that they at this stage lived on a farm. For such a family the whole idea of entertaining and what their neighbours thought must have been quite the deal. I get a feeling that he wasn't a great spender. We also know that he didn't give his son an allowance. His son had to come to him for money and at one stage the son wrote to a friend that he couldn't afford to go on a certain trip and he didn't want to burden his father by allowing him to know that he had run out of money. The son we know spent around £600/year in the late 1770s whilst he had not yet come into his inheritance. Oddly the son also went to Cambridge, but failed to gain a degree, so was sent on grand tour. There are letters to suggest how he wanted to come home quoting his reasons as partly being because he felt he was wasting money the family didn't have i.e. whilst being in France: having to buy and wear clothes without which he wouldn't be received, which he would never be able to wear at home again without looking ridiculous. University and a grand tour would have though been important I believe to get him recognised into the right sort of society as the illegitimate son of a family who had such financial difficulties and no proper home. This sort of background clearly was not exactly going to attract a rich heiress. However having such an education/trip would have brought him into contact with the right sort of society where he may have met such a woman. The backwater in which the family lived certainly did not have as many prospects here. There were probably not that many rich heiresses running around the local assembly rooms. Also such an education may help him gain a good position. They somehow I believe had to get their illegitimate children recognised and 'accepted.'
So we can tell I feel that he must have inherited quite some debt, if £9200 was still left 30+ years after he inherited the debt. His posh house fell into ruin and they lived on a farm. He kept his son on a tight financial reign so to speak, whilst trying to also finance things that would enable his children to have a great future. The daughter also went to boarding school. There is little evidence to tell us how much of a social life he had and overall the feeling is that he mainly stayed on his estates or visited family/friends. He doesn't appear to have been the wild London socialite or the heavy gambler.

[WillowG]

How curious indeed!

Just a small correction: £600 was actually quite an enourmous sum a year to live on for an unmarried man who had not yet come into his inheritance!

Married men of the gentility with entire families to support were often expected to survive on much less.

In Sense and Sensibility, Edward Ferrars, who is then to marry Lucy Steele, is offered a living of and expected to live on about £200 a year — £250 at the utmost. And he is considered lucky to have it. Later, when he marries Elinor Dashwood instead, his mother relents and lets him have £10 000 as his share of the inheritance. Elinor herself has £3 000. Wisely invested this would give a yearly income of between £520-£650 by itself. (Jane Austen herself is a bit unclear here, as she always talks about 4 percent interest, but seems to count £50 yearly interest for every £1000.) Leaving the Ferrars to live on anything between £720, £770, £850 and £900 at the very most.

"With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them, they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the living, but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with an eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making considerable improvements; and after waiting some time for their completion, after experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments and delays from the unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen, Elinor, as usual, broke through the first positive resolution of not marrying till every thing was ready, and the ceremony took place in Barton church early in the autumn.

The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the Mansion-house; from whence they could superintend the progress of the Parsonage, and direct every thing as they liked on the spot;—could chuse papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep. Mrs. Jennings's prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by Michaelmas, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really believed, one of the happiest couples in the world. They had in fact nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne, and rather better pasturage for their cows."

(An explanation for the word living: Mr. Edward Ferrars had a university degree, which made eligible to take holy orders, that is to say, become a clergyman. A living was the position of a clergyman in a parish. This living could belong to the owner as an estate to give out as a favour, to a younger son, or in exchange for money (but only before the current holder of the living died!) This right was called advowson - (Thank you so much to Bookbox for teaching me that word! - I have always wondered what the right itself was called. I love this site) )

How sad for the young couple that they did not hold out for a few months more! I do not believe in separating young people who care very much for one another, though I can understand not standing neighbours, lololol

Yes, then the debts must indeed have been staggering!!! My money is on gambling (note the use of irony in my choice of words here ) on either his parents or their ancestors/relatives part. I can't think of anything else that could have drummed up such an enourmous debt in such a relatively short time (I assume) with nothing to show for it.

Of course, other expenses of the times could be ruinous, clothes, carriages, jewellery, plate, furniture ... But to again use an example: If you or I had indulged ourselves of everything our hearts could possibly desire moneywise, would we even then have incurred debts of such a nature? That our grandchildren even with an enormous income would still be struggling to pay them off 30 years later? I think not. While someone addicted to gambling even today could easily build up debts that amounted to £10 000 000 in less than a decade ...

But the simplest solution to make his illegitimate children acceptable to good society would have been to marry their mother! I trust you have searched for a possible earlier marriage for Mary? Or a possible earlier marriage for the father?

[WillowG]

Also, a historical example of illegitimacy in these times.

Banastre Tarleton, the inspiration for Colonel Tavington in the movie The Patriot:



Had for a long time a relationship with this lady, Mary Robinson, without being married to her:



You can read all about that here:

https://lifetakeslemons.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/ban-and-mary-a-lovers-wager/

Once that relationship was over, Banastre Tarleton married Susan Priscilla Bertie, the illegitimate daugther of the Duke of Ancaster.

I quote freely from a now defunct website, which can still be found here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060709201553/http://home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/friends/bertie.html

'Susan Priscilla Bertie (Tarleton)
(1778 - 1864)

One of Ban Tarleton's many friends during the occupation of Philadelphia was Robert Bertie, a wealthy young aristocrat who was a couple of years his junior. Early in 1778, Bertie made a trip to England to attend his severely ill father, the Duke of Ancaster. He found time while he was home to become involved with a woman named Rebecca Krudener, and when he returned to America after his father's death, she was expecting his child. Robert seems to have been genuinely attached to Rebecca, so perhaps he mentioned his impending fatherhood to Banastre. If he did, neither of them could have had the least suspicion that some twenty years later Robert's love child, Susan Priscilla, would become Mrs. Banastre Tarleton.

After only a short stay in America, Robert returned to England. He died soon afterwards, possibly of a combination of heat stroke and excessive drinking. He was twenty-two. In his will he left Susan a comfortable inheritance and the legal right to his name. His mother, the dowager Duchess of Ancaster, persuaded Rebecca to allow her to adopt Susan Priscilla. I haven't been able to track down when or under what circumstances Susan entered the custody of her paternal grandmother, but in November 1782, when she was four years old, her mother married a man named William Walker in Saint James, Westminster, London. Possibly Mr. Walker did not welcome the presence of a child to remind him of his wife's past as a nobleman's mistress.

In her grandmother's care, the little girl was raised within one of England's most powerful and influential families. By the time she was twenty, Susan was variously described as well-educated, accomplished in music, eccentric, spoiled, intelligent and quite imperious. She liked to ride unruly horses, she kept numerous pets, and while she loved the mad whirl of London society, she did not approve of vices such as heavy drinking and gambling.

She was, as Holley once so aptly phrased it, "the handful Fate had bestowed on an aging stud muffin."

Susan and Banastre met in 1798 when he was attending a house party at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, the country seat of Lord Cholmondeley, who was Susan's uncle by marriage. Susan was being widely courted at the time, by a circle of admirers that included Beau Brummell (less than seriously), and (quite seriously) the Duke of Bedford. Ban was old enough to be her father -- in fact, he was two years older than her father -- and in the throws of a midlife crisis. His long relationship with Mary Robinson had recently come to an end, he was trying to kick his chronic gambling habit, and he was questioning his political alliances. He was, to put it mildly, no longer having a good time with the riotous lifestyle he'd been living for the past twenty years.

They were as unlikely a couple as could be found, but, gray-haired or not, Ban had lost none of his infinite charm. Virtually penniless, and in the face of a circle of rivals which included a wealthy and powerful duke, he courted Susan and won her hand in less than a week. In fact, the Sun newspaper gossiped, "In three days the match was settled, and the lady was content to resign all the luxuries of the fashionable life to attend her military husband abroad on his professional duties."

A few days later, Viscount Palmerston commented on both the marriage and Tarleton's foreign posting in a letter to his wife:

Our troops are going as you know to Portugal....Tarleton is to command the Cavalry, but before he goes he is to marry Miss Bertie, a daughter of the late Duke of Ancaster whom we saw I believe with Lady Willoughby. She has £12,000. The Duke of Bedford seemed to like her very much but she has taken Tarleton. I suppose his wooing was like Othello's.

Lady Palmerston sent him an unimpressed reply: "How could Miss Bertie wed Othello when she appeared the object of so fair a Duke's admiration. I, certainly much as I love seeing new countries, had rather marry the Duke of Bedford with all his faults and stay at home rather than General Tarleton with all his virtues and go to Lisbon."'

[WillowG]

'Susan, obviously, was of a different opinion. On December 17, 1798 -- less than three months after they were first introduced -- she and Banastre married. The following day, The Times carried this description of the event:

Last night at eight o'clock was married by special licence, Major General Tarleton to Miss Bertie, niece to Lady Willoughby. A grand entertainment was given on the occasion by Lord Gwydir, at his house at Whitehall, where the ceremony was performed after dinner by the Rev. Mr. Western of Canterbury. His Lordship officiated as father: the Bridesmaids were Miss Walls, Miss Lisle, Miss Clitheroe, and Miss Seymour. At ten o'clock the new married pair left town for Langley.
 
Miss Bertie, is a natural daughter of one of the branches of the House of Ancaster. She has a fortune of about 12,000l. and is a very accomplished Lady. She is to accompany the General abroad.

In their reports on the wedding, a few newspapers added a dig at Susan's parentage which Bass believed was a final, vindictive barb from the "forsaken" Mary Robinson, who at the time was editor of the poetry column in the Morning Post. Other papers, such as Bell's Weekly Messenger, picked up on the gossip: "The Miss Bertie, whom General Tarleton has espoused, is a natural daughter of his late friend, the young Duke of Ancaster. Mrs. Tarleton's maiden name is Kreudorer [s.b. Krudener], and not Bertie. The natural relationship which she bears to the family of Ancaster induced many to suppose that she bore the name of that Noble house. Mrs. Tarleton is reckoned one of the most beautiful young women within the circle of fashion."

Susan's dowry is mentioned in nearly all of the newspaper accounts of their wedding. (Variously reported anywhere from £12,000 to £20,000.) No doubt it enhanced her initial attraction for Tarleton, but it is somewhat misleading. Invested wisely -- and Susan seems to have possessed considerably more financial wisdom than her new husband -- it represented an income of roughly £600 a year. That amount would provide a very comfortable lifestyle, but not a lavish one. Susan was not fabulously rich. She was, however, sensible.

Despite a few rough years near its beginning, marred by Banastre's acknowledgment of an illegitimate daughter, their thirty-five year marriage seems to have been happy. By November, 1803, Lady Harriet Cavendish gossiped to her sister that, "General and Mrs. Tarleton are thought too conjugal, as they always sit on the same chair and eat out of the same plate." When she met Susan soon afterward at the fashionable spa at Bath she gushed to her sister,

But my adoration at present is dear little Mrs. Tarleton. She is perfectly delightful and so kind to me that that alone would almost make me love her. I was with her yesterday from 2 till 5, and she is so entertaining, merry and goodhumoured that it seemed like 10 minutes. I was quite ashamed coming home loaded with presents, for whatever I looked at, she gave me and she lent me the most beautiful books to read. It is delightful to have her too at the stupid rooms and I am quite delighted with her being here. The only flaw in her character is her great admiration of Miss Seymour, but that I am doomed to meet with. She [Mrs. Tarleton] is rather pretty, I think, but so original, so remplie de talents, so fond of her husband, so good and so giddy.

A few weeks later, she told another friend that Susan "is a delightful person and I do not know which to admire most, her good or her brilliant qualities. She has certainly a greater share of both than generally falls to the lot of mortals, and what is perhaps more uncommon, a perfect command over them. That is she never gives you too much or too little of them and employs her talents as the embellishments, and not the object of her existence. Do not you think this requires sense and judgement and deserves admiration?"

Susan seems to have also turned that sense and good judgment to weaning Banastre away from both the worst of his vices -- which no doubt helped his life expectancy, to say nothing of his finances -- and his radical politics. She accompanied him to Portugal, Ireland and a parade of different army posts in England until he finally retired. Eventually, they settled down in a country house which still stands in the village of Leintwardine, Herefordshire.

In Leintwardine, they lived out the remainder of Banastre's life in bucolic tranquility. During those years, Ban kept a personal journal filled with sketches and scraps of poetry. One short poem expresses both his affection and his awareness of the effect Susan had on his life:

            "To Lady Tarleton
By ambition tormented, by fortune sore crossed
Without little Su, I had paradise lost
Though deep sunk in debt, yet my fame was unstained
And winning Sweet Susan, I had paradise gained" B.T.'

[WillowG]

'As she aged, Susan's merriness and love for society devolved into a Victorian soberness which was darkened by religious fanaticism. Writing just after 1900, A.G. Bradley mentions a local tradition that "they lived very quietly and did not mix with the neighboring country families. This may have been due to failing health or age infirmities. But a further tradition exists of Lady Tarleton not having been 'persona grata.' Though hardly the case then in London society, even a duke's left-handed offspring might have been looked at askance in the provinces." If there is any truth to that legend, it may explain why Susan left Leintwardine after Banastre's death to live elsewhere. She outlived her husband by more than thirty years, never remarried, and is said to have been remembered by the younger members of his family as a beloved but eccentric old lady.

She died on August 13th, 1864, aged eighty-seven, in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Her will begins with the admonition, "I direct that my funeral shall be private and as economically conducted as decency will admit and I direct that under no circumstances shall...my Executors expend theron a larger sum than one hundred pounds," which supports hints that in later life she developed an excessive frugality, unrelated to her comfortable financial circumstances. The will goes on for several pages, suggesting that her widowhood was far from lonely. She left sizeable bequests to one Chevalier Franscisco d'Orhando de la Banda of Berne Switzerland and his three children, as well as to a number of others -- presumably friends or neighbors -- in addition to recognizable members of her family and Banastre's.

An interesting aside to finish up: Whatever Susan may have felt about her husband's ex-mistress, Mary Robinson, it would seem she became friends with Mary's daughter, Mary (or Maria) Elizabeth. In 1804, Mary Elizabeth published an anthology entitled The Wild Wreath, which contained poems by her mother, Coleridge, Monk Lewis and several others. What makes this especially interesting is that the engravings for the book are based on drawings by "Mrs. B. Tarleton."'

[wildwitch]

I have hunted high and low and cannot find anything even up to her death. Indeed in 1776, 12 years before her death she was still referred to by her actual name in his will. Even if they had married later though their children would have remained illegitimate. The only way I recon they could have moved decently in society is through a decent dowry (£10000) and by having the right education (Uni/grand tour) and then having the ready cash to go to the right places and meet the right people (£600 in 1779). The son was after all expected to bring in a rich bride to wipe the families problems out. The £600 and all that education would have been an investment towards this. The son married a London socialite whom's dowry was no higher really than that of the woman he had hoped to marry in the first place. His wife though was used to the high life and spent her life spending money (fancy clothes, friends with royalty, time in London, parties etc). He also went on to enjoy the high life and had probably got used to it as a young man. He eventually found himself in some serious financial difficulty and had to sell off property. At the time of his death in 1815 his income was £4000/annum, so quite the sum, but he described how he was struggling to provide for his family with this!

[WillowG]

I did not mean a marriage between Mary and the father I meant a marriage between one of them and somebody else.

That would have prevented Mary and the father from marrying. A previous spouse was a very common reason for being unable to marry the one you wanted ...

How curious. Stopping that marriage seems to have been a bad decision over all. Rather than sending his son on a grand tour and to university he ought to have taught him some common sense. But then again he does not seem to have been over-encumbered with that himself 

Have you found Mary's Christening? That could give us the answer to if her full name was indeed her maiden name.

No, if Mary and the father had married, at any point in their relationship, even at his deathbed, this would have legitimized the children. The church and the law gave parents this chance to set things to right.

[wildwitch]

Oh how very interesting. They really did get about in those days.
My Mary really could have been anybody then really. It seems others have hit a brick wall with her as well the published pedigree records her as his 'other half' but records her as daughter of ...(blank) and has no record of her birth or their marriage either. She must though clearly have come from a sensible enough background though. I can't see her as having been rich or coming from a wealthy family, otherwise he would have gotten on with marrying her. Indeed though it may be right that he had gotten used to being a bachelor, since he was 42 when his first child was born. I feel strongly that they never married, but that all efforts were made to 'fudge over' the fact that their children were illegitimate children of a man with serious debts. I feel this was done by spending a lot of money on their prospects. the sheer fact that his wealthy first cousin (and closest surviving relative) not only suggested the the for him pretty stupendous dowry, but also the financially significant grand tour suggests to me that there was some sort of stigma here. There is also no evidence to suggest that the son had a sponsor on his grand tour. My other nosey though would be why he was at Cambridge for 3-4 years without gaining a degree. Did he get up to something that got him expelled, in which case how does one find out? the Cambridge alumni provides no info here.