A LEGAL CONTRACT BETWEEN A COURTESAN and HER PATRON IN THE LATE 1700's

Is 'patron' the right word to use when describing a person who provides financial support to another in a non-marital contract which includes sexuality, romance, even love?  In the art world patron refers to a person, persons, even an organization or group that provides funds so that an artist can create.  Maybe the word was used to mean support of the Courtesan who might have aspirations in theater, music, fine art, fashion or design.

The attraction of the Courtesan drew in many potential suitors who competed for her favors.  These men won not just her company but a prestige among other men.  Most of them were married.  Their marriages were often contractual as well in the more traditional way; families who wanted to keep their money and status by intermarrying among their peers but for whom love or even companionship was not a consideration.  Breeding and keeping the wealth in the family or increasing it was the primary concern.

For a woman who married a peer in an arranged marriage there was usually no way out. Divorce was impossible or exceedingly uncommon and might result in her impoverishment since she could not be married and in control of the money. Whatever inheritance she might have when entering the marriage, in a dowry or other arrangement, went over to her husband.  So much depended on what power she might personally have in her relationships. Especially when a woman was not attracted to her husband or they were not sexually compatible, or when childbirth threatened her existence, she might welcome his having another woman. Some people think that a man having a mistress or a courtesan is actually more civilized than divorce.

Ah well... It was advisable for a woman to have a contract that defined the benefits she could expect from a man even after their relationship cooled, with foresight to her old age.

On pages 51 and 52 of Katie Hickman's book, Courtesans, it's explained that people in the 18th century were very curious about the "settlements" that men made.  And as an example, is given an agreement made by another popular Courtesan, a contemporary of Sophia Baddeley named  Ann (or Nan) Cateley, also an actress and singer of the 1760's.  In this case Nan had made a deal for marriage which fell through, but it's an interesting look at the legal monetary proposal.

Page 52: .... "Nan had made him sign a paper, properly drawn up by an attorney, which set out very precisely the terms and conditions designed to protect her in the (highly unlikely)event of her surviving him:

1) That he should settle 1000 pounds on her, to be paid within one month of his funeral, and 100 pounds during her natural life.

2) That he should settle the like annuity on every one of the children she might have by him, to be paid them also during the term of their natural life.

3) That previous to their marriage, he should invest a sum, or sums, sufficient to produce the aforesaid annuities in any of the public funds, or lend the same on mortgages, or lands, or houses, or on eligible securities, for payment of them.

4) That in the case of failure of any of the said conditions, the marriage shall be null and void, and she be at liberty to marry again.

(Ann was popular in the 1760's - 1770's.

So get your inflation calculators out.  Using the Bank of England and 100 pounds in 1770 we get over $150,000.

Missy

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SOPHIA BADDELEY : DESERTED BY A ROGUE SHE FELL FOR, SHE BECAME THE SOLE SUPPORT OF THREE CHILDREN.

Stephen Sayer was one of the Sheriffs of the City of London, a politician who was not an aristocrat or a noble.  Mrs. Steele, Sophia's friend-companion-chaperone-servant did not like the man, perhaps thinking him not good enough for Sophia. Sophia continued to spend more money than she had and Sayer lived off Sophia and treated her as a servant.  Mrs. Steele quit! 

Sayer humiliated Sophia by leaving her while she was pregnant to marry another, richer woman. He was an opportunist and user.

Though Elizabeth Steele did continue to look in on her friend, she no longer worked on the Memoirs and so we have only glimpses of Sophia's life after so many rich details were accounted.

Sophia did return to the stage after the birth of her son and what is called "a long illness.'  I wonder to myself if she had post partum depression. Her salary as an actress was increased to 8 pounds plus a clothing allowance.  She was still popular with the audiences even if she was excluded from society.  In 1778 she earned a huge sum.   And she found love again with a fellow actor with whom she had two more children - three total.  

When Mr. Webster, the father of her two children, died, she'd become nervous and unstable.  Perhaps she had long suffered from a psychological condition. 

Sophia left London with yet another man, John, and moved to Dublin, where she appeared onstage, and then on to Edinburgh and York.  Her heath was poor, she was chased by debt, and she had a new addiction, laudanum, a tincture of opium.  Her addiction intensified. She appeared on stage when possible, until the end of the 1785; for ten years she supported her family as an actress.  What happened to John who had moved her north from London is not known.  

Sophia was reported to have 'consumption.' This usually means tuberculosis, and if so, then Sophia likely had been infected years earlier.  She was also reportedly "lame' a more generic term, not to mean that she limped but that she was weak. Sophia was only 41 years old when she died.  

She was loved enough by her fellow players in Edinburgh that they contributed to pay for someone to tend to her on her deathbed. 

I feel grateful to author Katie Hickman for this well researched and interesting book. the primary reference for this month's post. 

SOPHIA BADDELEY: DISCONNECTED FROM THE REALITIES OF SPENDING AND TOOK ON MULTIPLE LOVERS ASIDE OF LORD MELBOURNE

Missy here!  Lord Melbourne continued to be Sophia's keeper, without any legal contract, generous but not obligated, and then slowly withdrew his presence and his money.  Mrs. Steele, who would someday write the memoir for Sophia Baddeley, tried to curb her spending without effect.  Sophia's fame had become a trap, a lifestyle in which she got no rest from her fans' attentions.  She felt hunted. Other men besides Lord Melbourne continued to declare their love or keep her, including noble men and ambassadors but what she seemed to want was her independence.  

Sophia was a shopaholic, using shopping to cope with her life.  She took to buying dozens of stockings, shoes, gloves, and other items as well as things that were of questionable need or value.  She ran up serious debt.

Page 64:  Sophia now had debts of more than 3000 pounds (180,000 pounds at the time the book was published in 2003).  Although she was still besieged by her admirers,it was not obvious even to her that Melbourne's passion was cooling.  To add to her problems, she found that she was pregnant... although she miscarried soon afterwards.  Nonetheless, the frantic pursuit of pleasure continued unabated. 'Our life was such a continued scene of bustle and dissipation,' wrote Mrs. Steele, ' that I wonder how she looked so well,'

Page 66: Money was not the only temptation in Sophia's way.  She was a woman of strong appetites in every respect.  While Lord Melbourne remained her official protector during this period, there was also a continual stream of unofficial lovers - mostly young officers and undergraduates, neither rich nor well connected - to whom Sophia was attracted for her own sake.  Even Mrs. Steele's disapproval could not keep them away entirely. If anything, this evidence of Sophia's view of her own sexuality as a source of pleasure - rather than just as a commodity to be bartered - was the cause of even greater tension between the two women than were the scores of amorous old aristocrats laying siege to her. 

***

Sophia lost Lord Melbourne.  Though she had been loyal to him in turning others away, she had overspent and was deeply in debt and faced selling her diamonds to make minimal payments.  She also caught him paying attention to another Courtesan who he had been with before his neglected marriage.  She returned to the stage after three years absence.  Her reputation and status were in decline and she had still had the shopaholic's addiction to spending and acquiring things. 

Pages 74-75:  Nonetheless, Sophia's status, in some indefinable way, had declined.  Although she was still receiving an extremely handsome salary - 7 pounds per week the following season, in which she opened as Olivia in Twelfth Night - it was by no means the dizzying sum she had commanded at the height of her powers.  Her desertion by Melbourne had left her vulnerable in areas other than merely financial ones.  Imperceptibly, the grayest of grey areas, the infinitely subtle line between a courtesan, with enough glamour and fashionable status to pick and choose her protectors, and a plain woman of the town (available to more or less anyone so long as the price was right), was slowly beginning to shift."

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LEGAL AGREEMENTS BETWEEN COURTESANS and THE MEN WHO PROVIDED RICHES

Missy here:  As I read these passages,  I thought how it seems to me so few women today realize their worth and are willing and able to negotiate to get what they want with any particular man.  Speak up my dear readers.  Be true to yourself. If you want a commitment, say so. If you want an open relationship, say so. It is respectful to another person to be honest and well, we know that honesty does not require you carelessly hurt someone's feelings.

***
 

Page 51:  "Sophia must have been very sure of her hold over Lord Melbourne at this point, for her arrangement with him was - for her - a dangerously informal one.  By the eighteenth century it was a common practice for a man to make a formal financial offer to the actress or courtesan he wanted to keep, together with any other terms and conditions the couple might mutually agree on.  These were legal documents, drawn up and witnessed by lawyers.  When Lord Molyneaux, one of Sophia's first admirers, had approached her, he was so anxious to expedite their arrangement that he had actually brought his attorney - the 'dissector of his patrimony' - and the deeds of settlement drawn up by him to her house....  No one amongst the middling and upper classes would have thought of getting married without making a similar financial settlement, so these transactions did nor perhaps seem quite so baldly mercenary as they do today."

The eighteenth century was intensely interested in details of this kind..."

Missy here!  Sophia's Memoirs apparently give some interesting financial transaction details.

And they have been republished as "culturally significant."

So Sophia had no legal agreement to be in the Lord's keep.

Page 52 : ... "Melbourne was lavish to the point of recklessness in his largesse to her.  Although he probably did intend to formalise their arrangement .... somehow he never got round to it.  Instead, he was in the habit if dropping great wedges of banknotes - sometimes as much as 500 pounds at a time - carelessly on the table after one of his visits.  It was more than most men could afford to give her in a year; but for how long would it go on? As her friends had pointed out to Sophia before, only a settlement would 'outlive the constancy of the donor', and provide a comfortable resource on which to fall back when age came on.

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READ THE MEMOIRS OF SOPHIA BADDELEY BY HER FRIEND MRS. ELIZABETH STEELE ON INTERNET ARCHIVE (CIRCA 1796)

INTERNET ARCHIVE.ORG MEMOIR OF SOPHIA BADDELEY - by ELIZABETH STEELE 

Full title : The memoirs of Mrs. Sophia Baddeley, late of Drury Lane Theatre

Elizabeth Steel is the woman who in great friendship but also servitude, lived with Sophia Baddeley. She was her chaperone, gave her opinions about the various men who wanted to be patrons, lived with her, tried to keep her out of trouble.

 I think a question we might have in 2024 is if the two women also had a sexual or romantic relationship.  I have to let that question hang in the air.  It was uncommon for any woman to live alone and most Courtesans had servants. The role of Mrs. Elizabeth Steele, who was about the same age as Sophia, was of friend, companion, chaperone, house-mate, advocate, and servant who, arguably, actually cared about Sophia and was steady in her life for many years.

Mrs. Elizabeth Steele wrote the memoirs of Sophia, and according to author Katie Hickman, set herself as a moral arbitrator of the story and as the most self-sacrificing person in the Courtesan's life.

Page 68: ... "I had given her my little fortune, which I had for years worked for, and did not repine; that I had also forsaken my husband, neglected my family, and given her myself, and would not give up my life, if necessary, to serve her.'

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texts

ACTRESS SOPHIA BADDELEY WAS SLOW TO ACCEPT FINANCIAL OFFERS CONSIDERING HER OWN IMPRESSIVE INCOME FROM ACTING AND SINGING

We continue with our book review-report...

The first man to take on Sophia Baddeley was married, Lord Molyneux. Still edging into the courtesan mentality, it bothered the actress that he was married.  Lord Molyneux persisted, suggesting she should accept him by offering to pay off all her debts and settling 400 English pounds on her per year. Her friends encouraged her towards him but, though the debts were significant, and she could spend, she considered that her singing and dancing brought her income to about 90,000 pounds a year in modern money. This was an amount beyond the possibilities for most of her peers in acting. She could afford her own private carriage, servants, expensive clothing, so why would she need him? 

She and her husband appeared on the same stages as actors though formally separated and that helped preserve her reputation some. When King George III was so taken with her beauty that he commissioned her portrait to be painted by an esteemed artist, society opened to her. The painting was called The Clandestine Marriage, though. She was invited to charity events and teas and was given more respectability. Noblemen began to pursue her, wanting the prestige of their association with her.

But, that was not all they wanted.

A hundred years earlier or so, in 1660, women had just been allowed on stage. Until then male actors played female roles.  An actress was thought to be a prostitute. Theaters, called playhouses, were in the hub of the prostitute's trade. Actresses experienced being kidnapped, raped, or entrapped in illicit "marriages." Actresses left the stage to become Kept women.  King Charles II was the person who had reestablished theaters in the mid to late 17th century and he himself had taken two mistresses who had been actresses, Mary "Moll" Davis, and Eleanor "Nell" Gwyn.  So there was a precedent set. 

However, by Sophia's time the roles actresses played had also changed; less foul mouthed, not so sexual.  There were basically better roles, roles women in the audience could relate to so that they too became fans. As the roles got better, the reputations of actresses improved as well.

Soon enough a new pursuer, Lord Melbourne, twenty-one, recently married, and very rich, came into Sophia's life. Once again, because he was married, Sophia refused him.  First he sent her a 'present' of about 18,000 modern pounds, then came to call upon her himself, leaving thousands more, and then again, till he had given about 50,000 pounds.  He said he would spend his whole fortune on her if that was what it took to possess her.

Though she was rich in her own right, Lord Melbourne prevailed and Sophia took to spending his money on fine things - silks - diamond earrings - which added to her costumes.  She had a habit of giving things away to anyone who complimented her.  Before she wore her garments three or four times, she handed them off to servants who appreciated them.  Sharing her wealth made her popular with the people who worked around her.  However, she grew bored of Lord Melbourne, his presumptions that he could show up at any time and that she would have sex with him that was not satisfying.  She preferred him away.

Page 45: "As Sophia surrendered herself to this life of extravagance and luxury, the toils of her theatre career began to seem increasingly irksome."

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