A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby

Brighton, Friday night

[postmarked 7 February 1829]

To Lord Ellenborough

Connaught Place, London

Dearest Oussey,

I am just arrived, and will only write you one line as I am tired to death with my journey, the roads were so very heavy. I found Arthur looking really pretty – you may believe it if I say so – and appears to me much improved in strength, but he greeted me with such a howl!! We shall improve upon acquaintance.

If you go to Mrs Hope’s tonight, have the thought to make my ’scuses to save me the trouble of writing them.

The post is ringing –

Good night, dearest

Janet1

Felix arrived at the hotel between six and seven o’clock in a hired yellow-bodied chariot driven by a post-boy. He alighted from the coach carrying his cloak and a carpet-bag which bore his coat of arms and initials, and was shown to a room in the west wing. This room was approached by the centre stairway from the main hall of the hotel. Having settled in and had his luggage unpacked by a member of the hotel staff, he took dinner in his private sitting-room and as the waiter was clearing away he asked casually who else was staying in the hotel at this unseasonal time of year. He was told that Lady Ellenborough was in residence. ‘Is that the dowager Lady Ellenborough?’ the prince enquired. ‘No,’ was the answer. ‘It is the young Lady Ellenborough.’2 The prince asked the waiter to take his card to the lady with his compliments.

Within a short time the waiter returned to the prince with the message that the lady would be delighted if, after the prince had dined, he would take tea with her in her room. The waiter personally served tea to Lady Ellenborough and her guest and noted that they remained together until half-past ten, when the prince left to return to his sitting-room. Requesting the waiter to fetch a bedroom candle and light it, Felix said goodnight and went up to his bedroom.

At about midnight the hall porter, Robert Hepple, who was sitting in his pantry awaiting the late return of a family who had gone out for the evening, heard someone coming down the main stairs. He walked across the hall foyer, which was illuminated by gas lighting, and saw the prince descending the stairs. As soon as the prince saw the porter, he retreated back up the stairs.

Hepple was ‘anxious to know what a person at that time of night was wishing to do … and kept out of sight’ for a while. To ensure that he was not seen, he put out the light in his pantry. His vigil was not long. Within ten or fifteen minutes the prince, still wearing the ‘frock coat, trowsers and boots’ in which he had dined, softly descended the stairs, crossed the hall and went along the passage leading to the east wing’s private stairway. Mr Hepple followed him and watched as the prince entered Lady Ellenborough’s bedroom without knocking. The door was closed and the key turned in the lock. After peering through the keyhole and listening for some fifteen minutes at the door, Mr Hepple formed his own opinion of what was happening within. He returned to his pantry. When he retired at 3 a.m., the prince had not yet reappeared. Next morning Hepple was summoned to the prince’s room and asked to press some clothes.

At about 9.30 a.m. the prince descended to the hotel sitting-room, where he joined Lady Ellenborough for breakfast. Although it is not possible to say for certain what Jane and Felix spoke of over breakfast, it is possible to guess that one subject under discussion was an unpleasant incident which had occurred in Jane’s bedroom earlier that morning. Mr William Walton, the proprietor’s brother, who was responsible for waiting on the suite of rooms in the east wing, took it upon himself to tell her ladyship that his colleague, Mr Robert Hepple, had confided in him what he had seen and heard the previous night. Mr Hepple felt that the information ought to be communicated to Lord Ellenborough, a frequent guest in the hotel.

Jane was taken by surprise but did not panic, relying upon her ability to charm the opposite sex. She admitted ‘that what she had done was wrong’ and said she did not wish anyone to learn about what had transpired. Begging Walton not to repeat what he had told her to anyone, especially not to her maid, she then gave him ‘a present’ of £20. Not surprisingly, Walton promised his silence in response to such generosity. It was not often that he received a tip that equalled half a year’s wages, even though he subsequently gave Hepple £5 of it.

The prince watched Jane depart at eleven o’clock with her small retinue before he also left at about noon in the hired chariot to post back to London.

Within weeks Jane discovered she was pregnant. There was no doubting the paternity of her second child, since, although she had a bed in the marital bedchamber, she and Edward had not enjoyed sexual relations for some months at her own request. A miniature, painted by James Holmes at this time, shows Jane reclining in gipsy-style déshabillé on a couch draped with an Eastern rug. She has lost the wide-eyed innocence of earlier portraits and despite the slimness of her hips appears voluptuous. The diarist Thomas Creevey met her in the same month at a party held by Lady Sefton. Present were ‘Mrs Fox Lane, Princess Esterhazy, Lady Cowper … Lady Ellenborough and the Pole, or Prussian or Austrian or whatever he is … anything as imprudent as she or as barefaced as the whole affair I never beheld … in short by far the most notorious and profligate women in London.’3

Meanwhile, reports of Jane’s flagrant behaviour had finally begun to make an impression on Edward, especially when his brother Henry related gossip which reflected unfavourably upon her. Too late, Ellenborough accepted the sense of Margaret Steele’s warnings and the letter he had received from Lady Anson strongly urging he spend more time with his young wife. At first his concern showed itself in requests for Jane not to visit those very people to whom he had introduced her.4 At length he received a letter from one Robert Hepple, a former employee of the Norfolk Hotel in Brighton. Unfortunately £5 had not seemed sufficient reason for Mr Hepple to keep his lordship uninformed about Lady Ellenborough’s delinquency; he felt his knowledge might be worth more to her husband. The letter contained information which, though he was reluctant to believe it, Lord Ellenborough could not ignore.

When Ellenborough confronted his wife with the contents of the letter Jane confessed, but only partially. She admitted her attachment to Felix, though not the full extent of it, and she denied the act of adultery at Brighton. This was foolishness taken to an absurd degree, for she could not have hoped to hide her condition indefinitely; and at the date of this discussion she must at least have suspected her pregnancy. Probably because of Ellenborough’s political commitments the matter was left hanging bitterly between them.

Jane’s first thought was to rush to Felix and lay her problems upon his broad shoulders; but she got little comfort from him. Apparently realising for the first time the predicament in which he was now placed, the prince was appalled. He saw clearly that the matter could cause a major diplomatic incident and the end of his promising career. He immediately reported the matter to his ambassador and was given forty-eight hours to put his affairs in order, pack and leave for home, pending an imminent transfer to the Paris embassy. Ambassador Esterhazy knew that here was a man marked out by destiny for greater things than a life spent as secretary to the Ambassador at the Court of King James; the great Metternich himself took a keen interest in Schwarzenberg’s progress. Esterhazy decided to place the young man out of harm’s way and ride out any resulting unpleasantness.

On 11 May 1829 Felix left for Europe, telling Jane he had no alternative but to accept his new posting and suggesting that, since she could not confess her pregnancy, she should attempt to obtain Ellenborough’s permission to go abroad to be confined in secret.5 He would, of course, do all in his power to assist her in this delicate matter. His suggestion was not made coldly; he was, according to his letters, still very much in love with Jane. Yet, whatever protestations of love Felix made to her, the fact remains that he rode off leaving his pregnant young mistress to face public condemnation and the wrath of her husband, for the sake of his career. Jane blamed the Esterhazys for transferring Felix and quarrelled with them, and also with Princess Lieven, who was furious that Jane had endangered 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 with Lady Anson.

Meanwhile Edward, acting on the strong recommendation of his brothers and cousin, had contacted a solicitor and produced certain papers alleging infidelity by his wife, including the letter from Hepple. The solicitor felt initially that, though damaging, there was insufficient evidence to warrant an investigation. Who would take the word of a hotel waiter against that of a peeress? However, some weeks later in early July, Ellenborough’s cousin again contacted the solicitor and suggested that he begin private investigations into Lady Ellenborough’s behaviour during the past twelve months, starting at number 11 Holles Street where Prince Schwarzenberg had most recently lived until his precipitate departure for Europe.

Within a short time all was discovered. A routine call at the Holles Street address led the detective inevitably to the prince’s former address in Harley Street and the many eye-witnesses to Jane’s indiscreet conduct. Next he visited Robert Hepple and William Walton, both of whom had been dismissed from the Norfolk Hotel for their part in the affair. Their testimony, however, led first to the post-boy who had driven the prince to Brighton, and then to the hirer of the yellow chariot. In attempting to make Jane’s groom betray his employer, the solicitor hit his first difficulty. The boy was as uncooperative as could be without telling any untruths, and gave evidence as near to ‘no comment’ as he could manage. There was no mistaking where his sympathies lay.

It made no difference, of course. Ellenborough ‘appeared to be amazed’ at the evidence, according to his legal advisers. Surprisingly – or perhaps not so, bearing in mind his behaviour towards his wife – Ellenborough’s diary entries at this date betray no personal emotions, minutely detailing instead the daily meetings and committees and conversations at formal dinners that he attended. His manner was not one of outrage: indeed he made it clear to his legal advisers and Jane’s family that his wife was always to be treated with all the courtesies to which her rank entitled her. He arranged for a generous allowance to be paid to her, and, though he asked for the return of heirloom items, he insisted that she keep the magnificent jewellery which he had given her during their marriage. His generosity prompted Jane to write dispiritedly:

My dearest Edward,

I hope you will believe me when I say that I feel myself utterly unequal to writing to you today. I cannot thank you enough for your kindness but entreat you will not think of making me such an allowance. Indeed it is more than I can possibly want. I will send back the green box tomorrow.

Ever, ever yours,

Janet10

In a letter written from his father’s palace, Frauenhof, near Vienna, Felix advised Jane to leave England as quickly as possible for the address in Basle which he had indicated in a previous letter, where she would be cared for during her confinement. He instructed her not to come to him, as he suspected (incorrectly) that all his movements were being watched by agents of Lord Ellenborough. He bitterly regretted the position she had lost because of their affair, and the more so, he said, because it would be impossible for the sake of his future, as well as hers, that they should ever marry. Nevertheless, he swore, he loved her, and his life would be devoted to her happiness and that of their child.11

Soon after receiving this letter Jane left England in the face of all entreaties from her distraught mother to remain. She could not bear to be separated from Felix and believed that he would find some way of joining her if she went, as he advised, to Basle. Her father told her that if she went ahead with this plan Ellenborough would have no option but to divorce her. Her reputation, he said, though damaged, might yet be partly restored if she were to remain in England and lead an exemplary life. Furthermore, it was not impossible that Ellenborough might be persuaded to reconsider; no man in his position would wish to be involved in a divorce. Gossip about the affair was confined to her own class and, after a time, would be overlooked if not forgotten. But the inevitable consequences, if she ran away now, were that she would never be permitted to resume her place in society. Nor could she depend upon marriage to the prince; his Catholic faith precluded it. What she was contemplating was lifelong exile from her country and her family, and total disgrace.

For anyone but Jane, with her entire family pleading for her to give Felix up and remain in England under their protection, there would surely have been some wavering of resolve at this point. She adored her parents and her brothers, and the feeling was reciprocated, as letters and diaries would show. But her love for Felix was transcendent. His frequent letters to her, swearing eternal devotion if not promising marriage, bolstered her insistence that there was no future happiness for her without him. She must join him whatever the cost.

Edward Digby accompanied Jane and Steely to the east coast, where they took the packet ferry to the Continent. Steely travelled as far as Brussels and then returned home. Jane continued on with her maid to Basle, where she assumed the name of Madame Einberg at the accommodation arranged by Felix. By then she was six months pregnant.

Rumours had already started to swirl in London, and the ripples quickly spread outward to Jane’s greater family in Norfolk.12 With the open intelligence that Jane had fled to Europe to have Schwarzenberg’s child, Ellenborough’s original plan of a formal separation was dropped in favour of his seeking a legal divorce. This was the man who had once alienated the King by expressing disapproval when George IV attempted to divorce Caroline of Brunswick. He was also, and remained long afterwards, a friend of Jane’s father. The two men met and reached an amicable agreement; obviously they decided to make the best of a bad business.

News of Ellenborough’s intention to seek a divorce spread like a bushfire. Some tried to excuse Jane – ‘but think of being very pretty and very young and just finding oneself married to such a monster of odiousness as Lord Ellenborough, and then discovering that he wanted the only quality for which women ever forgive monsters’.13 These allusions to Ellenborough’s lack of sexual ability, or alternatively his extreme licentiousness, were common, and summed up by one correspondent: ‘Ellenborough’s divorce is going on – so we shall soon know, I hope, whether he is as Lady Holland says, impotent, or as others say given to bad women and blessed with a family of natural children.’14

Meanwhile, Jane was quite alone in Basle apart from her servants. Contrary to legend, her family did not abandon her but stayed in constant touch by letter. There is a report that her husband visited her, and indeed Ellenborough made a visit of several weeks to the Continent in early September 1829.15 There is no way of verifying this rumour, for such a visit would have been the subject of greatest secrecy to avoid any accusations of collusion between the divorcing parties. However, in view of what followed it is more than likely that Ellenborough visited Jane to ensure that she fully realised how the mechanism of divorce worked.