CATHERINE WALTERS INTO OLD AGE : WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT and THE PRINCE OF WALES FIGURE INTO HER SURVIVAL

Perhaps the most surprising thing about courtesan Catherine Walter's story is that ex-lover, poet, and confidant Wilfrid Scawen Blunt figured in it to the end.

After her brief time in Paris, Catherine returned to England.  In the 1880's she featured in the goings on in Mayfair - London, as she had twenty hears earlier when her beauty and horsemanship made her career. She set herself up in a house in 1882 and began writing with Blunt once more, despite the ending of their romance which had been horrible for him. It turns out that she and Wilfrid wrote letters back and forth to each other for forty years.  Perhaps her instincts had been right that he would make for a loyal friend all along.  

At her house in Mayfair, Catherine became the hostess of a salon, which was the more fashionable way to be 'at home' to receive friends on a certain day and hour, as had been the custom. It was because of this salon that she began to be included again in society at least a little bit, as the class structure and notions of womenhood began to change slowly. She held teas on Sunday afternoons, when she knew that men would be able to come and women would generally not be able to. Both Blunt and the Prince of Wales came to visit as did the Prime Minister Gladstone. The women who showed up tended to be artists, writers, and actresses. 

It's not known who all were her 'protectors' were in her years as a courtesan in England, but what is known through Blunt is that in his last visit to her, when he and she were both debilitated with age, she showed him a drawer full of letters which proved that she also had been writing back and forth with the Prince of Wales, who seemed interested also in her welfare. Implied is that possibly the Prince had been one of the men who had once had a relationship with her and provided for her.

Catherine Walters had the gift of making old lovers into friends. (This reminds me of the woman who may be considered the most famous courtesan of the 21st century, Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman who also remained friends with the various men who kept her.)

She kept a friendship with Marquis of Hartington - Spencer Compton Cavendish, now in politics, who had been a man she once wanted to marry, and whose family had provided a liveable, life-long annuity.

However, as she aged she had increasing trouble with her lungs and at one point it was HRH, the Prince of Wales who sent a doctor to attend to her.  In 1889 the cure was the South of France, and months away from cold, rainy London.  Both Hartington and the Prince of Wales came to visit her as she lived in the South of France.  In her mid sixties her health had declined to the point where was in pain and took daily medications. She grew thin and was half deaf and half blind by 1918. She still wrote, using pencil instead of pen, her handwriting difficult to read. In 1920 she had a fatal stroke and died.

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VICTORIAN ERA ENGLAND AND IMPROVEMENTS FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS

 Page 309 :

".... All the great courtesans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries treasured their autonomy and guarded it jealousy, an impropriety which marked them off, more than most anything else, from their 'respectable' sisters. This was so even though the position of women - particularly married women - in the mid-nineteenth century was better than it had ever been.  It is hard to imagine, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the profoundly radical changes to the position of women about the Divorce Act of 1857, and the Married Women's Property Act of 1882. Before the latter a married woman could own no property (although among the very rich, pre-nupital settlements often circumnavigated this), nor even control any earnings she might have (this was changed by legislation in 1878), and she had the legal status of a minor, on par with children, criminals and the insane. Although prior to 1857 she could be divorced by her husband, she herself was debarred from filing a divorce suit - or any other kind of legal action - against him. Most critical of all was the fact that the husband had complete control over the children, who like his wife, were his legal property. A woman had no redress. In the case of her adultery, for instance, a husband could - and invariably did - simply take her children away from her for good.

The Acts of 1857 and 1882 changed all this.  As well as divorce and other law reforms, the nineteenth century saw many other campaigns by women to improve their circumstances - the campaigns for the vote, for the expansion of job opportunities, and for better educational rights all belong to this period..."

ARE YOU A FEMINIST?

Britannica defines FEMINISM

  

HOW COURTESANS TOOK ON MALE PRIVILEDGE FOR THEMSELVES

One of the fascinating aspects of Katie Hickman's book about courtesans, which focuses on the women of England who came into this lifestyle, is her reportage on other aspects of a courtesan's lifestyle. She reports on finances, on contraception, and on the character and personalities and values of the successful courtesan.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt moved on from his fraught relationship with Catherine Walters in Paris.  When it seemed that his association with Catherine would cause scandal, his boss removed him to another diplomatic post.  He was considered an eligible bachelor and even became the unsaid fiancee of a young woman whose parents approved of the match but, reminded of his love for Catherine and seeing how it compared for his feelings for this other woman, he was unable to make the proposal.

These excerpts from pages 308 and 309 have much to say:

"In many ways Blunt's behavior was not at all unusual for a man of his class and times.  The ability to separate what he himself would call "practical romance" from either idealized romance or sexual conquests was a perfectly acceptable way for a man to conduct his affairs, so long as he was discreet: and Blunt who later quite consciously made the decision to marry for money, saw no shame in it. ..."

***

He was aware of the double standard - one for men - another for women.

***

Page 309:  "It goes without saying that when women tried to emulate this masculine behavior it became an "immorality" for which society could not forgive them.  The only women who were in some measure outside these constraints were courtesans.  The penalties melted out by society could not touch the demi-monde (although some would say that being part of this shadowland , was the penalty) and as a social group they were thus almost uniquely free.

It was not just sexual chastity that was the issue here, but also, by extension, a woman's whole autonomy. Blunt, who in his way, was in many ways a forward thinker about women, never really blamed Catherine for her promiscuity, or even for the fact that she accepted money for it (although he did not like it).  His blame was for something altogether more subtle, something that he himself could barely articulate: the fact that she could accept him as a lover, but still desire to keep her independence from him. This was the really tormenting fact for him about their liaison. And it was this which, in his eyes, made her 'unvirtuous.'

Ask your self this question (and maybe you'll want to leave me a comment) :  Do you compartmentalize one relationship from another and why?

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CATHERINE WALTERS and DIPLOMAT WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT : HIS FIRST EROTIC OBSESSION ENDS IN HEARTBREAK AND A LIFETIME OF FIGURING OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM

He was twenty-three and unconventional for a diplomat attached to the British Embassy in Madrid, Spain. She was twenty-four. Her relationship with Marquis of Hartington - Spencer Compton Cavendish was over and, if she didn't overspend, she had decent financial support for life from his family. The beginning of their relationship was played out in the luxury society resort of Biarritz

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt fell immediately in love with Catherine, who he called Esther in some of his poems, as if to keep some privacy for the two of them. Not inexperienced sexually, he was also erotically obsessed with Catherine. When they first met, he was honored that she showed off that she was with him. He was sure she loved him back and never imagined that their relationship would end.  She had seduced him and she shut out all others to concentrate on him - at first.

He was young but had been posted in three capitols and he had even kept a mistress himself in Madrid for a while.  How innocent could he be?  He believed himself to be special because she had chosen him.  Doubt and jealousy began to plague the man, however, and what made it all worse was that he insisted in going back to Paris with her and there could be no doubt that she was not his at all. They broke up and he was devastated. Catherine Walters was not about to give up her life as a courtesan because she aspired to the rich life. So when he got posted to Paris in 1864 he didn't seek her out right away.

When he did meet up with Catherine again, it was she who summoned him and suggested they find a place to live together. She was in charge. Wilfrid saw that she was living in lesser circumstances than she had lived in before and Catherine claimed that she no longer wanted luxury. They found a suitable four room apartment and he moved in. But first, before she went to live with him, she had to take care of some business in London. That business was obviously a contract to be kept by yet another man of wealth, an old friend she said, an Englishman.

When she returned to Paris, Blunt realized that once again Catherine had allowed him to live in fantasy. He stayed in the four room apartment while she again lived in luxury. Just as Sophia Baddelely had her Mrs. Steele who lived with her and played many roles in her life including intermediary, Catherine had her Julie who was to explain the change to Blunt.  Catherine now had her young sister living with her, she said.  As if her teenage sister, sixteen and her age when she first became a kept woman, needed to be kept from the truth?

One day Blunt walked in and there he was - her English patron - comporting himself as Catherine's owner. One does wonder if Catherine allowed this to happen.  Maybe Blunt took some time to get used to the idea of sharing her with this man.  What was worse was seeing that she was also entertaining other men.

Blunt was willing to have Catherine however it effected him emotionally. While she received from her rich English patron, who Blunt thought of as a man who needed to spend to show off his wealth, Blunt benefited by her generosity to him. If she had not said so, somehow he had not realized the obvious, and yet it is clear that she did value him as a confidant for some time and then he spent his life trying to understand her and what had happened to him.  She trusted Wilfrid enough to talk about her life with him and he would preserve much of what we know about Catherine Walters.

One of her personal policies was to not have any women friends.

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CATHERINE WALTERS : IRISH-ENGLISH HORSEWOMAN WHO EVEN IMPRESSED THE FRENCH and RETIRED WELL

Continuing with author and historian Katie Hickman's book, we now focus on another English Courtesan she profiles, Catherine Walters, who was called The Courtesan's Courtesan and rose to fame in Victorian England and, of course, Paris.

CATHERINE WALTERS

"Skittles"

1839-1920

Though the Parisians and the French in particular were skeptical of the English Courtesans, and Paris therefore would seem an unlikely place for an English Courtesan to rise, this is where Catherine Walters did indeed become famous, though she wasn't there for long.  

The astonishingly beautiful Catherine was first kept at the age of sixteen. Then in London, in 1863, she began a relationship with a young man who was inspired to write poetry by her, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who, it was said, was so obsessed with her that he could never really love another woman again after Catherine. Some of the information we have about Catherine's life comes from Blunt who played a supportive role in her life but also seems to have been tremendously swayed by idealism, unable to fully face the reality of Catherine's lifestyle.

Catherine was reportedly a blond with deep blue eyes, though photographs show her to be brunette and her hair was also called auburn. (Perhaps she had dyed her hair?)

Her body was so exquisite that she was considered to be perfectly formed. She most impressed others - in particular the French. with her style as a horsewoman for when she was riding sidesaddle, she wore a garment so well cut to show her body that it was rumored she was naked beneath the cloth.  People were in awe to see her as she joined the parade of other courtesans who rode to show off their fine clothing, jewelry, horses and carriages.

Page 279 : ... "And how smart, how elegant, what a horse woman, what an air of originality and honesty in the presentation of her carriages!' wrote Zed in his portrait of her. 'When she appeared on the avenue de L'Imperatrice driving herself with two beautiful sparkling pure-blooded horses, followed by two grooms on horseback in splendid and elegant uniform... every head turned, and all eyes were on her.'...

She gave off aristocratic bearing but she was born in Liverpool to a sea captain and his Irish wife and was raised as a Catholic.  Blunt, who claimed to be her confidant, said her mother died when she was four and that as a girl Catherine was sent off to be raised in a convent school. After running away from the school she worked for a horse stable and rode the horses to display them to customers, earning a percentage. Her nickname 'Skittles' came from that time.

At sixteen she was already a mistress of a man named George Lord Fitzwilliam, the master of the Fitzwilliam Hounds.  When she separated from him after a year, he gave her a settlement if 300 pounds a year plus a lump sum of 2000 pounds.

Her story reminds us a bit of that of CoCo Chanel, who was also motherless at a young age and raised in a convent school, and who left there in need of earning her own keep, becoming a a young kept woman in the process.

Walters' career as a courtesan did not end in her teenage years with a first lover, who, it could be argued, provided her enough money to settle into a different, more modest lifestyle. Like many a courtesan, she desired to experience more, to own more,  to take it as far as it would go, and her beauty plus her horsemanship attracted many potential suitors.  

Though we know the names if some of them, money she was given in her teens and early twenties may have allowed her to leave fame behind and settle into a house in Mayfair where she continued to maintain old friendships with some of the noteworthy men she'd had relationships with and possibly attract more such suitors.  She was able to retire well, with the attention of some of those she had met years earlier seeming to care about her welfare and continuing to provide in some way.  

Catherine Walter's will described her as a 'spinster.'  She had never married and had no children. Unlike Sophia Baddeley she had not spent herself into poverty, though she surely had some times in her life when she had to budget carefully.

Something we always wonder is how or if or when a courtesan is in love or loves the man who has set her up in luxury.  If not, how does she separate that relationship, in which she must show special devotion and often be on call for him from other relationships? Is she an expert at compartmentalization? Or is it that she separates love from sex? Or is it that she can love more than one person at a time? In the case of Blunt, author Katie Hickman gives us the impression that Catherine knew to keep him around because she needed him and his devotion to her, prioritizing the men who could provide for her as he, a mere diplomat, could not.  As I see it, to do so took some diplomacy, keeping some air of mystery, some ability to not tell the whole truth perhaps, or to allow a man to think what he might while she took care of herself. Is that manipulative or is it simply that we cannot be fully responsible for what someone else is thinking or feeling?

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The image on the book cover of Courtesans by Katie Hickman is not Catherine Walters but is a portrait of actress Sarah Bernhardt..

Wikipedia is the source for the photo of Catherine Walters used above.

SUCH A GENTLEMAN : COMING UP AUGUST 3rd : ANOTHER ENGLISH COURTESAN

I'm starting August 2024 posts on the Saturday the 3rd! 

 

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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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. "

***

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.

***

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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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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SOPHIA BADDELEY : HIGHLY PAID GEORGIAN COMEDIC ACTRESS : BECAME A COURTESAN AFTER MARRIAGE and A HEARTBREAK BUT BEING ON STAGE SAVED HER

Katie Hickman's book includes two of the women I featured here at Mistress Manifesto in the past: Harriet Wilson and Cora Pearl.  However this summer we'll be focusing on two other women, historical Courtesans, who lived in England.

SOPHIA BADDELEY

Sophia Snow

1745-1786

Sophia Baddeley, according to author Katie Hickman, was an actress who could not act.  Rather it seems that this gorgeous English woman made it onto the stage due to her beauty and became famous for being famous, though she did have some talent.  Her personality counted too.  She was adored by her fans and her fellow actors and the servants for she practiced a kind of trickle-down economics.  Whatever clothing and jewelry she acquired, she was sure to give it away.  In 1771, at the opening event of the Panthenon, a concert hall that did not wish to admit "undesirables" as the upper classes of society attended there, over fifty men, including nobles holding swords, threatened an uprising if she was not admitted to attend the performance.  She had only become a courtesan as well as an actress a year or so before.

"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 reserves of moral strength and level-headedness, can hopelessly distort lives, and even unhinge the rational mind. ....Sophia Baddeley had neither the moral strength nor level-headedness.  She was vain, spoilt, impetuous, lazy, spendthrift, only moderately intelligent, and possessed a great deal of sexual energy.  She was also warm-hearted, affectionate, funny, mercurial, and generous to a fault.... it was impossible not to love Sophia.  It is also clear that she was much beloved by many others, not just by her aristocratic admirers --- the majority of whom hunted her quite ruthlessly both for sex and for her fashionable cachet --- but by the ordinary people who came across her: her servants, her fellow actors, the everyday public who came to hear her act and sing, and who so relished the stories of her scandalous life and loves." (page 33)

Unlike some of the other courtesan's I've included here at Mistress Manifesto, who were born in poverty or who renamed themselves aristocratic names to suggest they had been born into a higher class, Sophia was born into a 'respectable' family.  Her father, Valentine Snow, once worked as a musician for King George II and one of her grandfathers had been a Royal Musician. She and her brother were also trained in music, with the idea that she might play the harpsichord - clearly a genteel instrument.  She could have married well enough and not lived through the life she did but her divergent path began with her marriage.

At eighteen, in 1864, she eloped with Robert Baddeley, an actor almost twice her age, but in 1770 they agreed to legal separation and then never filed for divorce. Robert was promiscuous and it would seem he never did have any expectation that the beautiful Sophia would be faithful to him. It was Robert who insisted that Sophia be given an acting part for a production at the Drury theater where he was well known. She went on as a stand in and then continued to appear in the theater's productions, including taking leading lady roles in Shakespeare's plays As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Five years into their marriage, Sophia was best known for 'genteel comedy.' Management hated to admit it, but she had draw and attracted audiences, never mind her acting. She could sing. She was hired to sing at other venues and paid the highest wage of any actress at the time!  

While they apparently did not maintain attraction for each other, both Sophia and Robert had a variety of dalliances. When one, a Mr. Mendez, began to woo her, Robert pimped his wife out to the man and encouraged her towards him. Very slowly Sophia got what is thought of as a courtesan's attitude; she decided that she would accept the patronage or a rich man who would provide for her a lavish lifestyle while being sexual with him and it would be she who chose among the men who wanted her. She finally lost her heart though - perhaps for the first time - to a man who was a member of the Irish peerage - but poor - and then switched to his brother.  This brother spent money on her.  When he ran out of money, she took over paying their shared expenses. Then it was all too much and the debtors were after them. He said he had to leave her.  She tried suicide by overdose and lived for the rest of her life with stomach ailments. She was not a person with strong health.

Sophia Baddeley, when first pursued as a Courtesan, was both protected in a sense by her marriage, her status, her career as an actress, and her ability to make her own good money, which was rare for any woman in Georgian England. However, when the main man who made all things possible, Lord Melbourne, lost interest, she quickly lost her status.  A shopaholic, she had spent the fortune she was given rather than invest, was deeply in debt, and risked sinking into common prostitution.  Unwisely, perhaps because the married Melbourne had been exceedingly generous, she had never had a legal contract with him for support that would last past his interest in her.

Sophia was a shopaholic, a person who dealt with the psychological and emotional stresses in her life though compulsive acquisition of things she really did not need.

Though she lived through falling in love with men who were opportunists and users, being betrayed and deserted by them, Sophia was able to survive without becoming a prostitute. She was able to support herself and her family which included three extramarital children she had with two other men, as an actress, far from London, in northern England, and especially Edinburgh, Scotland. In the end it was her fans who did not desert her and the career her husband had instigated for her was allowed her to persevere.  Her health declined steadily and she died in 1786 at forty-one with consumption - TB - which she no doubt had for some time.

This month we will follow the courtesan career of Sophia Baddeley, and learn more about what life of a Courtesan was in the late 18th century, Georgian period England.  Author Katie Hickman's book is the primary reference for these posts.

See you next post!

Missy

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Check my archives!   You can also bring up posts by using the search feature embedded on the sidebar of the Google Blogger.

April 2013             

HARRIETTE WILSON : One of Four Mistress Sisters of Regency England 

July 2012       

CORA PEARL

Brought Out Naked on a Silver Dish, Lined With Violets

P.S.  The Image on the book cover is not Sophia!  I'll be posting a lithograph of her and you'll probably not think of her as beautiful by today's standards.  Which, I think, proves that personality counts!

IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A COURTESAN AND A MISTRESS THAT THE COURTESAN CHOOSES HER LOVERS?

In the book "MY LADY SCANDALOUS", author Jo Manning quoted Katie Hickman, who wrote a book called "Courtesans."

On page 2 of the hard back book it says that a Courtesan is a woman who accepts money for sexual favors but considers herself the lover of just ONE MAN.  Though many mistresses become courtesans, unlike prostitutes, a courtesan always chooses her patrons - for her pleasure too -  Her gifts are erotic pleasure, company, and conversation.

CORA PEARL SUITE AT THE GROSVENOR HOTEL IN LONDON : KATIE HICKMAN, BIOGRAPHER, ON CORA

Katie Hickman says Cora Pearl reinvented herself and was "good at the theatre of life." Cora dyed her hair blue and dyed her dog's hair blue too. (Think Madonna!) Linking to an article by Kickman, Cora's biographer, says "Sexiness and availability were never enough to succeed as a courtesan. Cora was also an extremely good business woman. At the height of her success she was said to have earned over 50,000 francs a month (£90,000). She owned several houses in Paris, a chateau, a world-famous stable; her jewels alone were worth over a million francs. Cora was one of the first women in Paris to wear couture (she was an early patron of Worth); make-up; lingerie. Best of all - and I speak as an Englishwoman - she bested the French at their own game."