Lady Louisa Stuart
Encyclopedia
Lady Louisa Stuart was a British
writer of the 18th and 19th centuries. Her long life spanned nearly ninety-four years.
Stuart was one of the six daughters of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute
(1713–1792), who at the time of her birth in 1757 was the closest friend of the future King George III
. Her mother was Mary Stuart, Countess of Bute (1718-1794). Lord and Lady Bute also had five sons. Although Bute was Scottish, he spent much of his time at his grand London
house in Berkeley Square
. In 1762, he bought the estate of Luton Hoo
in Bedfordshire
.
George III came to the throne in 1760, and in 1762 his friend Bute became prime minister
. As a statesman, Bute was massively unpopular with the English, for a variety of reasons. He was a Scot, a Royal favourite, and a handsome man who was lampooned for his vanity, and was constantly the butt of biting political satire, scandal, and gossip. This included frequent allegations of an affair with Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
(1719–1772), the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales
. Bute's ministry fell in 1763, when his daughter Louisa was five years old, and Bute retired from public life to Luton Hoo and thereafter devoted himself to botany
, horticulture
and other country pursuits.
Stuart's mother, the Countess of Bute, was herself the daughter of the famous writer and traveller Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
(1689-1762).
By the time she was ten, Stuart had begun to follow in the footsteps of her writer grandmother. She had begun a French novel and had also started planning a Roman play. She felt threatened by her brothers, who teased her about her learning.
With her mother, the young Lady Louisa Stuart attended the ball
s, rout
s and soirées of London society, but she also followed the literature of the day and corresponded with friends. She had great powers of observation from an early age, and a manuscript notebook survives in which she describes her circle.
Fanny Burney
often met Lady Bute and her daughter Lady Louisa and described Lady Bute as "forbidding to strangers", but entertaining and lively among friends. Burney writes of mother and daughter on one occasion:
On another occasion, in 1786, Burney found both Stuart and her mother at the house of Mary Delany
after a return from the spa
town of Bath and writes that they were:
(1744–1814), a Tory
Member of Parliament
from 1766 to 1776, later a Privy Councillor and a Fellow of the Royal Society; The Hon. Sir Charles Stuart (1753–1801), a soldier who saw active service in the American Revolutionary War
and the Napoleonic Wars
and rose to the rank of lieutenant-general; The Most Rev. and Hon. William Stuart
(1755–1822), a clergyman who became Archbishop of Armagh, and James Archibald Stuart (1747–1818), another soldier who raised the 92nd Regiment of Foot
in 1779.
Her sisters were Lady Mary Stuart (c. 1741–1824), who married James Lowther
, later the 1st Earl of Lonsdale
; Lady Anne Stuart (born c. 1745), who married Lord Warkworth
, later the 2nd Duke of Northumberland
; Lady Jane Stuart (c. 1748–1828), who married George Macartney
, later the first Earl Macartney; and Lady Caroline Stuart (before 1763–1813), who married The Hon. John Dawson, later first Earl of Portarlington
.
In 1770, at the age of thirteen, Lady Louisa fell in love with her second cousin
, William Medows
(1738-1813), the son of Philip Medows of Nottinghamshire
, Deputy Ranger of Richmond Park
, and of Lady Frances Pierrepont, who like Louisa's mother was a granddaughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull
. Medows was then a forty-one year old lieutenant-colonel of the 5th Regiment of Foot, and Lord Bute considered him unsuitable and put a stop to it. Lady Louisa was bitterly disappointed. She wrote of Medows:
Later the same year, Medows married another lady, Frances Augusta Hammerton, and went on to become a Lieutenant-General, a Knight of the Bath
, and Governor-General
of Madras.
Stuart was not a beautiful woman. Fanny Burney
wrote of her in 1786:
Louisa Stuart does not seem to have fallen in love again, but she had at least two other pursuers. Her next was Henry Dundas (1742-1811), member of parliament
for Midlothian
and Lord Advocate
of Scotland
, later created Viscount Melville
. Dundas was a gallant and good-looking man who had been married but was legally separated from his wife. His devotion worried the Bute family, but it turned out to be brief and merely amused Lady Louisa. Her last serious suitor was John Charles Villiers
(1757-1838). He was the second son of Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon
, and for a time overwhelmed Stuart with his admiration. Her parents encouraged the match, and she was tempted, but she finally decided that a "love match without any love is but a bad business". As a result, she never married. In 1791, Villiers married his cousin Maria Eleanor Forbes, a daughter of Admiral John Forbes, and in old age he inherited the family's titles and estates from his older brother Thomas Villiers, 2nd Earl of Clarendon
(1753-1824), who never married.
When the Earl of Strafford
(1722-1791) was widowed in 1785, society gossip quickly linked his name with Stuart's, leading Lady Diana Beauclerk to remark "So Lady Louisa Stuart is going to marry her great-grandfather, is she?" However, Stuart looked on Strafford merely as an elderly uncle, and not as a suitor, and he for his part did nothing to promote such an alliance.
Stuart later became a close friend of the novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott
(1771-1832), a friendship which lasted from the 1790s until Scott's death in 1832. Scott regularly sent Stuart his work for her opinion, describing her as the best critic of his acquaintance.
as a lady
of quality, Stuart had no wish to see anything she had written published under her name, and it was not until 1895, more than forty years after her death, that this happened. Lockhart
's Life of Scott (1837—1838) had contained several of Sir Walter Scott's letters to Stuart. In a letter to his publisher Robert Cadell, Scott writes "I trust you have received the printed sheets of Lady Louisa Stuart, but for your life mention [not] her name."
Much of Stuart's writing is still in the form of unpublished memoirs and letters, mostly addressed to women, but interest in her as an observer of her times began to increase towards the end of the nineteenth century. Between 1895 and 1898, Mrs Godfrey Clark edited and published three volumes of Stuart's work called Gleanings from an Old Portfolio (Correspondence of Lady Louisa Stuart), and the Hon. James A. Home followed these with Lady Louisa Stuart: Selections from her Manuscripts (New York & London: Harper Brothers, 1899) and with two volumes of Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton, published in Edinburgh in 1901 and 1903.
Stuart's memoir of Lady Mary Coke
, written in 1827, represents Coke as a virtuous woman suffering from a brutal husband, but also as a tragedy queen subject to paranoia
. Her essay Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M. W. Montagu (published anonymously as an introduction to the 1837 edition of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters and Works) focusses largely on the work and political position of Lady Mary's husband Edward Wortley Montagu, giving Stuart the chance to air her own views on Wortley Montagu, Walpole, Harley, Halifax
, and the Whigs
and Tories generally, demonstrating her own loyalty to the side of the Tories. Devoney Looser considers that Stuart (whom she calls "the socially correct octogenarian") was troubled by her grandmother's focus on sexual intrigues and says that Stuart did not see Lady Mary's Account of the Court of George I at his Accession as history.
Conscious of Walter Scott
's, Alexander Pope
's and Samuel Johnson
's poetry, Stuart wrote verses of her own, including fable
s and a ballad
about cannibal brothers and what happens to an unfortunate woman who has married for money.
Stuart was not a Bluestocking
, and although her writing has a dash of malicious humour, it lacks their mutual admiration. She had a great lady's fine scorn for Elizabeth Montagu
's habit of welcoming into society those born outside its pale, and she ridiculed "college geniuses with nothing but a book in their pockets". She wrote "The only blue stocking meetings which I myself ever attended were those at Mrs Walsingham’s and Mrs Montagu’s. To frequent the latter, however, was to drink at the fountain-head..."
Jill Rubenstein describes Stuart as "Tory to the bone, never having forgiven the pain inflicted on her father by the scurrilous personal attacks of Wilkes and others" and compares her politics to those of Sir Walter Scott
, "a principled and consistent conservatism".
Professor Karl Miller, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, praises Stuart's "magnificent pieces of writing". He also reports on her inconsistencies. On the matter of the emancipation of women, she was both for and against it, and while she favoured the old order in politics and had an aversion to the mob, she also admired "unadorned human worth". Miller calls Stuart "the least-known, but by no means the least, of the good writers of her long lifetime".
at 108, Gloucester Place, Marylebone
, and from there she walked in Regent's Park
. At home, she would sit with her books, and although something of a recluse, on occasion she was also highly sociable. She destroyed many of her manuscripts, but continued to write letters and to talk and to visit great houses. A few months before her death, she was sketched by Sir George Hayter
, and died at home in London on 4 August 1851.
for September 1851:
By mistake, a shorter version of this notice appeared again in the The Gentleman's Magazine Obituary pages for December 1851, preceded by the date "Oct. 4.". Much the same obituary appeared in the annual The Musical World for 1851, but by then Stuart's age had been corrected to "aged nearly ninety-four". The quarterly The Eclectic Magazine for September to December 1851 had the same correction and reported Stuart's death together with that of Harriet Lee
under the heading DEATH OF LITERARY LADIES.. The Annual Register for 1851 carried a shorter version of the obituary, repeating the mistake of listing Stuart's death as on 4 October..
painted her with her sisters, and this group portrait was used for the cover of Karl Miller's Authors (1989). A portrait of Stuart as a young woman by Mrs Mee is reproduced in James Home's Lady Louisa Stuart: Selections from her Manuscripts (1899). An oil sketch of Stuart in 1851 by George Hayter
was used to illustrate the chapter on her in Harry Graham's A Group of Scottish Women (1908), and was then in the collection of a Lieutenant-Colonel Clinton. A chalk sketch by J. Hayter dated 1837 is in a private collection.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
writer of the 18th and 19th centuries. Her long life spanned nearly ninety-four years.
Early life
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute KG, PC , styled Lord Mount Stuart before 1723, was a Scottish nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain under George III, and was arguably the last important favourite in British politics...
(1713–1792), who at the time of her birth in 1757 was the closest friend of the future King George III
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...
. Her mother was Mary Stuart, Countess of Bute (1718-1794). Lord and Lady Bute also had five sons. Although Bute was Scottish, he spent much of his time at his grand London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
house in Berkeley Square
Berkeley Square
Berkeley Square is a town square in the West End of London, England, in the City of Westminster. It was originally laid out in the mid 18th century by architect William Kent...
. In 1762, he bought the estate of Luton Hoo
Luton Hoo
Luton Hoo straddles the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire borders between the towns of Harpenden and Luton. The unusual name "Hoo" is a Saxon word meaning the spur of a hill, and is more commonly associated with East Anglia.- Early History :...
in Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....
.
George III came to the throne in 1760, and in 1762 his friend Bute became prime minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
. As a statesman, Bute was massively unpopular with the English, for a variety of reasons. He was a Scot, a Royal favourite, and a handsome man who was lampooned for his vanity, and was constantly the butt of biting political satire, scandal, and gossip. This included frequent allegations of an affair with Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg was Princess of Wales between 1736 and 1751, and Dowager Princess of Wales thereafter. She was one of only three Princesses of Wales who never became queen consort...
(1719–1772), the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales
Frederick, Prince of Wales
Frederick, Prince of Wales was a member of the House of Hanover and therefore of the Hanoverian and later British Royal Family, the eldest son of George II and father of George III, as well as the great-grandfather of Queen Victoria...
. Bute's ministry fell in 1763, when his daughter Louisa was five years old, and Bute retired from public life to Luton Hoo and thereafter devoted himself to botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
, horticulture
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
and other country pursuits.
Stuart's mother, the Countess of Bute, was herself the daughter of the famous writer and traveller Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
The Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English aristocrat and writer. Montagu is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about...
(1689-1762).
By the time she was ten, Stuart had begun to follow in the footsteps of her writer grandmother. She had begun a French novel and had also started planning a Roman play. She felt threatened by her brothers, who teased her about her learning.
With her mother, the young Lady Louisa Stuart attended the ball
Ball (dance)
A ball is a formal dance. The word 'ball' is derived from the Latin word "ballare", meaning 'to dance'; the term also derived into "bailar", which is the Spanish and Portuguese word for dance . In Catalan it is the same word, 'ball', for the dance event.Attendees wear evening attire, which is...
s, rout
Rout
A rout is commonly defined as a chaotic and disorderly retreat or withdrawal of troops from a battlefield, resulting in the victory of the opposing party, or following defeat, a collapse of discipline, or poor morale. A routed army often degenerates into a sense of "every man for himself" as the...
s and soirées of London society, but she also followed the literature of the day and corresponded with friends. She had great powers of observation from an early age, and a manuscript notebook survives in which she describes her circle.
Fanny Burney
Fanny Burney
Frances Burney , also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King’s Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to musical historian Dr Charles Burney and Mrs Esther Sleepe Burney...
often met Lady Bute and her daughter Lady Louisa and described Lady Bute as "forbidding to strangers", but entertaining and lively among friends. Burney writes of mother and daughter on one occasion:
On another occasion, in 1786, Burney found both Stuart and her mother at the house of Mary Delany
Mary Delany
Mary Delany was an English Bluestocking, artist, and letter-writer; equally famous for her "paper-mosaicks" and her lively correspondence.-Early life:...
after a return from the spa
Spa
The term spa is associated with water treatment which is also known as balneotherapy. Spa towns or spa resorts typically offer various health treatments. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but are...
town of Bath and writes that they were:
Brothers and sisters
Louisa's own brothers included John Stuart, 1st Marquess of ButeJohn Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute
John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute, PC, FRS was a British nobleman.He was the son of the 3rd Earl of Bute and the former Mary Wortley Montagu, a granddaughter of the 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull and great-granddaughter of the 1st Earl of Sandwich...
(1744–1814), a Tory
Tory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
from 1766 to 1776, later a Privy Councillor and a Fellow of the Royal Society; The Hon. Sir Charles Stuart (1753–1801), a soldier who saw active service in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
and the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
and rose to the rank of lieutenant-general; The Most Rev. and Hon. William Stuart
William Stuart
William Stuart may refer to:*Lord William Stuart, naval commander, MP for Cardiff*Hod Stuart, William "Hod" Stuart", Canadian ice hockey player*William Corwin Stuart , U.S...
(1755–1822), a clergyman who became Archbishop of Armagh, and James Archibald Stuart (1747–1818), another soldier who raised the 92nd Regiment of Foot
92nd Regiment of Foot
92nd Regiment of Foot may refer to:* 92nd Regiment of Foot , a British Army regiment 1760–1763* 92nd Regiment of Foot , a British Army regiment 1779–1783* 92nd Regiment of Foot , a British Army regiment 1793–1795...
in 1779.
Her sisters were Lady Mary Stuart (c. 1741–1824), who married James Lowther
James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale
Sir James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale was the son of Robert Lowther and Catherine Pennington.He married Mary Crichton-Stuart, daughter of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute and Mary Wortley-Montagu, 1st Baroness Mount Stuart on 7 September 1761.On 9 June 1792 he fought a duel with a Captain Cuthbert...
, later the 1st Earl of Lonsdale
Earl of Lonsdale
Earl of Lonsdale is a title that has been created twice in British history, firstly in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1784 , and then in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1807, both times for members of the Lowther family....
; Lady Anne Stuart (born c. 1745), who married Lord Warkworth
Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland
Lieutenant-General Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, FRS was an officer in the British army and later a British peer...
, later the 2nd Duke of Northumberland
Duke of Northumberland
The Duke of Northumberland is a title in the peerage of Great Britain that has been created several times. Since the third creation in 1766, the title has belonged to the House of Percy , which held the title of Earl of Northumberland from 1377....
; Lady Jane Stuart (c. 1748–1828), who married George Macartney
George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney
George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, KB was an Irish-born British statesman, colonial administrator and diplomat. He is often remembered for his observation following Britain's success in the Seven Years War and subsequent territorial expansion at the Treaty of Paris that Britain now controlled...
, later the first Earl Macartney; and Lady Caroline Stuart (before 1763–1813), who married The Hon. John Dawson, later first Earl of Portarlington
Earl of Portarlington
Earl of Portarlington is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1785 for John Dawson, 2nd Viscount Carlow, who had earlier represented Portarlington in the Irish House of Commons...
.
Disappointment in love
Cousin couple
A cousin couple is a pair of cousins who are involved in a romantic or sexual relationship.-See also:*Consanguinity*Genealogy*Genetic sexual attraction*Westermarck effect*Inbreeding*Pedigree collapse*Prohibited degree of kinship-External links:...
, William Medows
William Medows
General Sir William Medows KB was an Englishman and a general in the British Army.-Military career:Sir William was the son of Philip Medows, deputy ranger of Richmond Park, and Lady Frances Pierrepont, daughter of the Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull.He entered the British Army as an ensign in the 50th...
(1738-1813), the son of Philip Medows of Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, Deputy Ranger of Richmond Park
Richmond Park
Richmond Park is a 2,360 acre park within London. It is the largest of the Royal Parks in London and Britain's second largest urban walled park after Sutton Park, Birmingham. It is close to Richmond, Ham, Kingston upon Thames, Wimbledon, Roehampton and East Sheen...
, and of Lady Frances Pierrepont, who like Louisa's mother was a granddaughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull
Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull
Evelyn Pierrepont, 5th Earl and 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull had been member of parliament for East Retford before his accession to the peerage in 1690. While serving as one of the commissioners for the union with Scotland he was created Marquess of Dorchester in 1706, and took a leading part in...
. Medows was then a forty-one year old lieutenant-colonel of the 5th Regiment of Foot, and Lord Bute considered him unsuitable and put a stop to it. Lady Louisa was bitterly disappointed. She wrote of Medows:
Later the same year, Medows married another lady, Frances Augusta Hammerton, and went on to become a Lieutenant-General, a Knight of the Bath
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
, and Governor-General
Governor-General
A Governor-General, is a vice-regal person of a monarch in an independent realm or a major colonial circonscription. Depending on the political arrangement of the territory, a Governor General can be a governor of high rank, or a principal governor ranking above "ordinary" governors.- Current uses...
of Madras.
Stuart was not a beautiful woman. Fanny Burney
Fanny Burney
Frances Burney , also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King’s Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to musical historian Dr Charles Burney and Mrs Esther Sleepe Burney...
wrote of her in 1786:
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Midlothian
Midlothian
Midlothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. It borders the Scottish Borders, East Lothian and the City of Edinburgh council areas....
and Lord Advocate
Lord Advocate
Her Majesty's Advocate , known as the Lord Advocate , is the chief legal officer of the Scottish Government and the Crown in Scotland for both civil and criminal matters that fall within the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament...
of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, later created Viscount Melville
Viscount Melville
Viscount Melville, of Melville in the County of Edinburgh, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1802 for the notable lawyer and politician Henry Dundas. He was made Baron Dunira, in the County of Perth, at the same time, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom...
. Dundas was a gallant and good-looking man who had been married but was legally separated from his wife. His devotion worried the Bute family, but it turned out to be brief and merely amused Lady Louisa. Her last serious suitor was John Charles Villiers
John Villiers, 3rd Earl of Clarendon
John Charles Villiers, 3rd Earl of Clarendon PC , styled The Honourable until 1824, was a British peer and Member of Parliament....
(1757-1838). He was the second son of Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Family:Clarendon was the second son of William Villiers, 2nd Earl of Jersey and his wife Judith Herne, daughter of Frederick Herne....
, and for a time overwhelmed Stuart with his admiration. Her parents encouraged the match, and she was tempted, but she finally decided that a "love match without any love is but a bad business". As a result, she never married. In 1791, Villiers married his cousin Maria Eleanor Forbes, a daughter of Admiral John Forbes, and in old age he inherited the family's titles and estates from his older brother Thomas Villiers, 2nd Earl of Clarendon
Thomas Villiers, 2nd Earl of Clarendon
Thomas Villiers, 2nd Earl of Clarendon , known as Lord Hyde from 1776 to 1786, was a British peer and Tory Member of Parliament....
(1753-1824), who never married.
When the Earl of Strafford
William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (1722-1791)
William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford , styled Viscount Wentworth until 1739 was a peer and member of the House of Lords of Great Britain.-Ancestry and career:...
(1722-1791) was widowed in 1785, society gossip quickly linked his name with Stuart's, leading Lady Diana Beauclerk to remark "So Lady Louisa Stuart is going to marry her great-grandfather, is she?" However, Stuart looked on Strafford merely as an elderly uncle, and not as a suitor, and he for his part did nothing to promote such an alliance.
Stuart later became a close friend of the novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
(1771-1832), a friendship which lasted from the 1790s until Scott's death in 1832. Scott regularly sent Stuart his work for her opinion, describing her as the best critic of his acquaintance.
Work
For fear of losing casteCaste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
as a lady
Lady
The word lady is a polite term for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to, or spouse of, a lord or gentleman, and in many contexts a term for any adult woman...
of quality, Stuart had no wish to see anything she had written published under her name, and it was not until 1895, more than forty years after her death, that this happened. Lockhart
John Gibson Lockhart
John Gibson Lockhart , was a Scottish writer and editor. He is best known as the author of the definitive "Life" of Sir Walter Scott...
's Life of Scott (1837—1838) had contained several of Sir Walter Scott's letters to Stuart. In a letter to his publisher Robert Cadell, Scott writes "I trust you have received the printed sheets of Lady Louisa Stuart, but for your life mention [not] her name."
Much of Stuart's writing is still in the form of unpublished memoirs and letters, mostly addressed to women, but interest in her as an observer of her times began to increase towards the end of the nineteenth century. Between 1895 and 1898, Mrs Godfrey Clark edited and published three volumes of Stuart's work called Gleanings from an Old Portfolio (Correspondence of Lady Louisa Stuart), and the Hon. James A. Home followed these with Lady Louisa Stuart: Selections from her Manuscripts (New York & London: Harper Brothers, 1899) and with two volumes of Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton, published in Edinburgh in 1901 and 1903.
Stuart's memoir of Lady Mary Coke
Lady Mary Coke
Lady Mary Coke was an English letter writer and noblewoman.-Marriage and separation:...
, written in 1827, represents Coke as a virtuous woman suffering from a brutal husband, but also as a tragedy queen subject to paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
. Her essay Biographical Anecdotes of Lady M. W. Montagu (published anonymously as an introduction to the 1837 edition of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters and Works) focusses largely on the work and political position of Lady Mary's husband Edward Wortley Montagu, giving Stuart the chance to air her own views on Wortley Montagu, Walpole, Harley, Halifax
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax PC was an English statesman, writer, and politician.-Family and early life, 1633–1667:...
, and the Whigs
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
and Tories generally, demonstrating her own loyalty to the side of the Tories. Devoney Looser considers that Stuart (whom she calls "the socially correct octogenarian") was troubled by her grandmother's focus on sexual intrigues and says that Stuart did not see Lady Mary's Account of the Court of George I at his Accession as history.
Conscious of Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
's, Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
's and Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
's poetry, Stuart wrote verses of her own, including fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
s and a ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
about cannibal brothers and what happens to an unfortunate woman who has married for money.
Stuart was not a Bluestocking
Blue Stockings Society (England)
The Blue Stockings Society was an informal women's social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century. The society emphasized education and mutual co-operation rather than the individualism which marked the French version....
, and although her writing has a dash of malicious humour, it lacks their mutual admiration. She had a great lady's fine scorn for Elizabeth Montagu
Elizabeth Montagu
Elizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonist, literary critic, and writer who helped organize and lead the bluestocking society...
's habit of welcoming into society those born outside its pale, and she ridiculed "college geniuses with nothing but a book in their pockets". She wrote "The only blue stocking meetings which I myself ever attended were those at Mrs Walsingham’s and Mrs Montagu’s. To frequent the latter, however, was to drink at the fountain-head..."
Jill Rubenstein describes Stuart as "Tory to the bone, never having forgiven the pain inflicted on her father by the scurrilous personal attacks of Wilkes and others" and compares her politics to those of Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, "a principled and consistent conservatism".
Professor Karl Miller, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, praises Stuart's "magnificent pieces of writing". He also reports on her inconsistencies. On the matter of the emancipation of women, she was both for and against it, and while she favoured the old order in politics and had an aversion to the mob, she also admired "unadorned human worth". Miller calls Stuart "the least-known, but by no means the least, of the good writers of her long lifetime".
Later life
In her later years, Stuart took a house in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
at 108, Gloucester Place, Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
, and from there she walked in Regent's Park
Regent's Park
Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...
. At home, she would sit with her books, and although something of a recluse, on occasion she was also highly sociable. She destroyed many of her manuscripts, but continued to write letters and to talk and to visit great houses. A few months before her death, she was sketched by Sir George Hayter
George Hayter
Sir George Hayter was a notable English painter, specialising in portraits and large works involving in some cases several hundred individual portraits...
, and died at home in London on 4 August 1851.
Obituary
A paragraph on Stuart's death appeared in the Obituary pages of The Gentleman's MagazineThe Gentleman's Magazine
The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical...
for September 1851:
By mistake, a shorter version of this notice appeared again in the The Gentleman's Magazine Obituary pages for December 1851, preceded by the date "Oct. 4.". Much the same obituary appeared in the annual The Musical World for 1851, but by then Stuart's age had been corrected to "aged nearly ninety-four". The quarterly The Eclectic Magazine for September to December 1851 had the same correction and reported Stuart's death together with that of Harriet Lee
Harriet Lee
Harriet Lee was a novelist and playwright.Born the daughter of actor John Lee, Harriet Lee grew up in an artistic family. In 1786 she published The Errors of Innocence, an epistolary novel...
under the heading DEATH OF LITERARY LADIES.. The Annual Register for 1851 carried a shorter version of the obituary, repeating the mistake of listing Stuart's death as on 4 October..
By Stuart
- Biographical Anecdotes [by Lady Louisa Stuart, published anonymously] is one of three introductions to the 1837 edition of Lady Mary Wortley MontaguLady Mary Wortley MontaguThe Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English aristocrat and writer. Montagu is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from Turkey, as wife to the British ambassador, which have been described by Billie Melman as “the very first example of a secular work by a woman about...
's Letters and Works - Gleanings from an Old Portfolio (Correspondence of Lady Louisa Stuart), ed. Mrs Godfrey Clark (3 volumes, privately printed, 1895-1898)
- Lady Louisa Stuart: Selections from her Manuscripts, ed. the Hon. James A. Home (New York & London: Harper Brothers, 1899)
- Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton, ed. the Hon. James A. Home (Edinburgh: D. Douglas, 2 volumes, 1901 and 1903)
- The Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart, selected and with an Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson (London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1926)
About Stuart
- Harry Graham, Lady Louisa Stuart (1757-1851), Chapter XVIII of A Group of Scottish Women (New York, Duffield & Co., 1908)
- Susan Buchan, Lady Louisa Stuart: Her Memories and Portraits (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1932, 275 pages, illustrated, with fold-out genealogical table)
- Professor Karl Miller, Authors (1989): a collection of essays on authors, most living, some of whose work is relevant to the question of what authors mean to their readers. The book centres on the memorial writings of Louisa Stuart and Primo LeviPrimo LeviPrimo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
. - Karl Miller, Stuart, Lady Louisa (1757-1851) in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004, revised for online edition 2006).
Portraits
Few portraits of Stuart survive. In 1770, Johann ZoffanyJohann Zoffany
Johan Zoffany, Zoffani or Zauffelij was a German neoclassical painter, active mainly in England...
painted her with her sisters, and this group portrait was used for the cover of Karl Miller's Authors (1989). A portrait of Stuart as a young woman by Mrs Mee is reproduced in James Home's Lady Louisa Stuart: Selections from her Manuscripts (1899). An oil sketch of Stuart in 1851 by George Hayter
George Hayter
Sir George Hayter was a notable English painter, specialising in portraits and large works involving in some cases several hundred individual portraits...
was used to illustrate the chapter on her in Harry Graham's A Group of Scottish Women (1908), and was then in the collection of a Lieutenant-Colonel Clinton. A chalk sketch by J. Hayter dated 1837 is in a private collection.