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[Eliza Straubenzee, formerly wife of the London banker John Hankey.] Autograph Letter Signed to her 'dear Children', addressed to her son John Peter Hankey, written from India following her 'interesting and remarkable trial' for adultery.

Author: 
Eliza [Lydia] Straubenzee [née Thomson; previously Hankey] (c.1757-1825), wife of Lt Col. [Marwood] Turner Van Straubenzee (c.1748-1823), following her divorce from London merchant banker John Hankey
Publication details: 
Poonamalee [Poonamallee, India]. 29 January 1784.
£180.00

The present item presents a double significance as a result of the circumstances in which it was composed. The author writes in a tone of forced levity to her two sons John Peter Hankey (1770-1807) and Thomson Hankey (1773-1855), grandsons of the banker Sir Thomas Hankey (1704-1770), from whom she is separated as a result of her divorce from their father, following a sensational adultery case, her marriage to Hankey having been dissolved by an act of parliament in the previous year, her hairdresser and maid having deposed that she was living in a state of intimacy with Lt-Col.

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Autograph Letter Signed ('C. Bellew') from Lady Caroline Bellew of Stockleigh House, with note describing the assault on her in Paris by Lord William Paget and Cassidy.

Author: 
Miss Caroline Bellew [Caroline Countess Bellew] (d.1863), of Stockleigh House, North Gate, Regent's Park [Lord William Paget; Cassidy]
Publication details: 
25 September 1849; Stockleigh House, Regent's Park, London.
£180.00
Autograph Letter Signed ('C. Bellew') from Lady Caroline Bellew

12mo, 1p. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper. She is happy that her correspondent is enjoying himself, and looks forward to seeing him the following day, 'to take a friendly dinner'. An initialed pencil note in a contemporary hand at the head of the page reads 'The celebrated Lady who prosecuted Lord Wm Paget - Cassidy - others for getting into her Bed room at night in Paris to endeavour to carry her off & marry her for her large fortune to Cassidy | [signed] ' The incident - a great scandal of the age - was alluded to in 1844 in the Annual Register and other papers.

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