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Penelope Ligonier
Penelope Ligonier, née Penelope Pitt (1749–1827), was an English aristocrat and socialite, and first wife of Edward Ligonier, Earl Ligonier of Clonmell. She was the eldest daughter of Penelope Atkins () and George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers. Both her parents were 'noted for their extraordinary physical beauty', but their family life was unhappy due to her parents' turbulent marriage. Horace Walpole, an admirer of Penelope Atkins, alleged that George Pitt 'had heaped on her every possible cruelty and provoking outrage', and alleged that after their separation he prevented her from seeing their four children. During the 1760s, while George Pitt was serving as envoy-extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turin, Penelope was enrolled in a convent school in Lyon, where she met Edward Ligonier. They were married at the British Embassy in Paris on 16 December 1766. When they relocated to Cobham Park after their marriage they continued to entertain an international circle of fri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier
Lieutenant General Edward Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier KB (1740 – 14 June 1782) was a British soldier and courtier. He was the illegitimate son of Col. Francis Augustus Ligonier, the brother of John Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier. He served with Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick during the Seven Years' War, and was appointed a captain in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards. In 1763, he was appointed a royal aide-de-camp, and from 1763 until 1765, he was secretary to the embassy at Madrid. On 12 November 1764, he was appointed a Groom of the Bedchamber to the Duke of Gloucester. On 6 December 1766, he married Penelope Pitt, daughter of George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers. Her relationship with Vittorio Amadeo, Count Alfieri, provoked a duel between her husband and her lover in Green Park on 7 May 1771, and Ligonier was able to obtain a divorce by Act of Parliament in 1772. He married Lady Mary Henley, daughter of Robert Henley, 1st Earl of Northington, on 14 December 1773. In the meantime, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers
George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers (1 May 1721 – 7 May 1803) was an English diplomat and politician. Background and education He was born in Geneva, the eldest son of George Pitt of Stratfieldsaye (today rendered Stratfield Saye), Hampshire, and his wife Mary Louise Bernier from Strasbourg. General Sir William Augustus Pitt was his younger brother. He was educated at Winchester, with attendance recorded in 1731, and matriculated on 26 September 1737 at Magdalen College, Oxford, being awarded an MA on 13 March 1739 and a DCL on 21 August 1745. He travelled on the continent from 1740 to 1742 and succeeded his father in 1745. He inherited Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire, making extensive alterations to the house and park. Politics Soon after returning from Europe, he was elected Member of Parliament at a by-election for Shaftesbury that followed the death of Charles Ewer, and sat as a Tory. He voted with the opposition during the War of the Austrian Succession against the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, '' The Castle of Otranto'' (1764), and his ''Letters'', which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes. In 2017, a volume of Walpole's selected letters was published. The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford of the second creation on his nephew's death in 1791. Early life: 1717–1739 Walpole was born in London, the youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and his wife Catherine. Like his father, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is mainly on the western bank of the Po (river), Po River, below its Susa Valley, and is surrounded by the western Alps, Alpine arch and Superga Hill. The population of the city proper is 847,287 (31 January 2022) while the population of the urban area is estimated by Larger Urban Zones, Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD to have a population of 2.2 million. The city used to be a major European political centre. From 1563, it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the House of Savoy, and the first capital of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1865. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, northeast of Saint-Étienne. The City of Lyon proper had a population of 522,969 in 2019 within its small municipal territory of , but together with its suburbs and exurbs the Lyon metropolitan area had a population of 2,280,845 that same year, the second most populated in France. Lyon and 58 suburban municipalities have formed since 2015 the Metropolis of Lyon, a directly elected metropolitan authority now in charge of most urban issues, with a population of 1,411,571 in 2019. Lyon is the prefecture of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and seat of the Departmental Council of Rhône (whose jurisdiction, however, no longer extends over the Metropoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vittorio Alfieri
Count Vittorio Alfieri (, also , ; 16 January 17498 October 1803) was an Italian dramatist and poet, considered the "founder of Italian tragedy." He wrote nineteen tragedies, sonnets, satires, and a notable autobiography. Early life Alfieri was born at Asti, Kingdom of Sardinia, now in Piedmont. His father died when he was very young, and he was brought up by his mother, who married a second time, until, at the age of ten, he was placed in the academy of Turin. After a year at the academy, he went on a short visit to a relative at Coni (mod. Cuneo). During his stay there he composed a sonnet chiefly borrowed from lines in Ariosto and Metastasio, the only poets he had at that time read. At thirteen, Alfieri began the study of civil and canon law, but this only made him more interested in literature, particularly French romances. The death of his uncle, who had taken charge of his education and conduct, left him free, at the age of fourteen, to enjoy his paternal inheritance, au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Conversation
At common law, criminal conversation, often abbreviated as ''crim. con.'', is a tort arising from adultery. "Conversation" is an old euphemism for sexual intercourse that is obsolete except as part of this term. It is similar to breach of promise, a tort involving a broken engagement against the betrothed, and alienation of affections, a tort action brought by a spouse against a third party, who interfered with the marriage relationship. These torts have been abolished in most jurisdictions. The tort of criminal conversation was abolished in England and Wales in 1857; in Northern Ireland in 1939; in Australia in 1975; and in the Republic of Ireland in 1981. Prior to its abolition, a husband could sue any man who had intercourse with his wife, regardless of whether she consented – unless the couple was already separated, in which case the husband could only sue if the separation was caused by the person he was suing. Criminal conversation still exists in parts of the United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Female Coterie
The New Female Coterie was an 18th-century London social club. The exact founding date is unknown, though it is assumed to be circa 1770, when Caroline Stanhope, Countess of Harrington was blackballed from joining the Female Coterie, a club for aristocrats, though its name was probably derived from the press. The New Female Coterie became a social outlet for "demi-reps", a word Henry Fielding coined in 1749 in his nove''l Tom Jones Tom Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Tom Jones (singer) (born 1940), Welsh singer *Tom Jones (writer) (1928–2023), American librettist and lyricist *''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'', a novel by Henry Fielding published in 1 ...'' to refer to a woman ‘who intrigues with every Man she likes, under the Name and Appearance of Virtue’. The members came to include high-status women who had been publicly shamed for promiscuity or adultery, such as Henrietta Grosvenor, Seymour Dorothy Fleming, Penelope Ligonier, Lady Margaret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demimonde
is French for "half-world". The term derives from a play called , by Alexandre Dumas , published in 1855. The play dealt with the way that prostitution at that time threatened the institution of marriage. The was the world occupied by elite men and the women who entertained them and whom they kept, the pleasure-loving and dangerous world Dumas immortalized in the 1848 novel and its many adaptations. Demimondaine became a synonym for a courtesan or a prostitute who moved in these circles—or for a woman of social standing with the power to thumb her nose at convention and throw herself into the hedonistic nightlife. A woman who made that choice would soon find her social status lost, as she became . The 1958 film '' Gigi'', based on a 1944 novella by Colette, vividly portrays the world of the demimonde near the end of its existence. Gigi's Aunt Alicia, a legendary courtesan now enjoying a wealthy retirement, trains her teenage niece in elegant manners and deportment and the va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor
Henrietta de Hochepied, Baroness de Hochepied (née Vernon; formerly Baroness Grosvenor) – 1828) was an English aristocrat, socialite, and courtesan. Early life She was one of four daughters born to Lady Henrietta (née Wentworth) Vernon (third daughter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford) and Henry Vernon of Hilton Hall, former Member of Parliament for Lichfield and Newcastle-under-Lyme. New Female Coterie After her separation from the Baron Grosvenor (who was made Earl Grosvenor in 1784), Henrietta lived in Paris and London in the subsequent years, with the emotional and financial support of several men, and the press continued to report on her lovers and her appearances at social occasions for decades. She was a member of the social club for the 'demi-reps' nicknamed the New Female Coterie by the English press, whose members comprised fellow elite women publicly shamed for infidelity such as Caroline Stanhope, Countess of Harrington and Seymour Fleming. Janine Barc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seymour Fleming
Seymour Dorothy Fleming (5 October 1758 – 9 September 1818), styled Lady Worsley from 1775 to 1805, was a member of the British gentry, notable for her involvement in a high-profile criminal conversation trial. Early life and family Fleming was the younger daughter and coheir of the Irish-born Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet (d. 1763), of Brompton Park (aka Hale House, Cromwell House), Middlesex, and his wife, Jane Coleman (d. 1811). She was probably named after her maternal grandmother, Jane Seymour, a daughter of Sir Edward Seymour, 5th Baronet. Her father and two of her sisters died when she was five, and she and her surviving sister were then brought up by their mother, who remarried in 1770 to Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, a rich sexagenarian whose wealth derived from sugar plantations in the West Indies. Her elder sister, Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington, was noted for being an "epitome of virtue". Marriage to Worsley On 20 September 1775, at the age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Horse Guards (The Blues)
The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards (The Blues) (RHG) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry. Raised in August 1650 at Newcastle upon Tyne and County Durham by Sir Arthur Haselrigge on the orders of Oliver Cromwell as a Regiment of Horse, the regiment became the Earl of Oxford's Regiment in 1660 upon the Restoration of King Charles II. As, uniquely, the regiment's coat was blue in colour at the time, it was nicknamed "the Oxford Blues", from which was derived the nickname the "Blues." In 1750 the regiment became the Royal Horse Guards Blue and eventually, in 1877, the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues). The regiment served in the French Revolutionary Wars and in the Peninsular War. Two squadrons fought, with distinction, in the Household Brigade at the Battle of Waterloo. In 1918, the regiment served as the 3rd Battalion, Guards Machine Gun Regiment. During the Second World War the regiment was part of the Household Cavalry Composite Regim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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