SOPHIA BADDELEY'S REPUTATION REMAINED AN ADVANTAGE THAT DREW COMPETITIVE OFFERS FROM OTHER MEN

Born into a good family associated with the Royal Family, married, earning her own fortune through acting and singing:  all these things helped Sophia Baddeley maintain a high profile at a time when most Courtesans where understood to be Courtesans and not acceptable to the same society in which the men who gifted them and their wives belonged.

Page 48:

"Sophia's wealth enabled her to make 'an appearance equal to a woman of the first rank' - a suspiciously ostentatious display for a mere actress.  Nonetheless, as the celebrity of the moment she continued to enjoy the kind of public approbation that was wholly denied to ordinary courtesans. however successful."

Page 33:

 "Sophia Baddeley's short by meteoric life was nothing if not full of drama.  An actress who could not act - who, in fact, avoided the fatigue of the acting life whenever she could - she nevertheless became one of the most famous players of her day, achieving the kind of overwhelming celebrity which is rare even in our own celebrity-obsessed age.  hers was an erotic beauty which had the power to bewitch both men and women, and which exerted that kind of charisma which, unless tempered with unusual reserved of moral strength and level headedness, can hopelessly distort lives, and even unhinge the rational mind. "

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Page 49:  ... "It was now widely known in the world of gallantry - as the English demi-monde was then called - that Sophia was the kept mistress of Lord Melbourne, but this fact, instead of keeping other admirers at bay, only served to increase their attentions.  Mrs. Baddely had nos so much lost her reputation, as gained one.

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Missy here:  It was as if dozens of admirers had fallen in love with Sophia at the same time and could not help themselves but to call upon her and that it gave them pleasure to please her and buy gifts for her.  Some of the offers she got were doused with romantic notions, such as that she be divorced and remarried, though divorce was expensive and uncommon.  When the man or the offer were not to her liking, she suggested she wanted to stay true to Lord Melbourne. 

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