Three days later and with her husband still absent in Cambridgeshire, Lady Anne Abdy left her London town house with her pet dog and walked determinedly along Dean Street towards Hyde Park and a pre-arranged rendezvous with her lover. A gig was waiting for her and Lord Charles Bentinck sat on the driver’s seat. Lady Anne settled herself next to her lover and the couple quickly drove away, but for all their haste they had been spotted and it was only a matter of hours before Sir William’s mother and sister were informed; they made straight for Hill Street and demanded admittance. Upon searching Lady Anne’s bureau, the effusive and quite frankly laughable letters written by Charles were found and any hope of a satisfactory resolution vanished.
While Lord Charles had clearly been biding his time with only one object in view, that of an elopement, and although the plan had been discussed, it is likely that Anne acted with an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment impetuosity. One can imagine her pacing her drawing room, wondering whether to meet Lord Charles and, on a fatal and fateful whim, suddenly dashing from her home. She took nothing with her other than her pet dog; no clothes, jewels or money and, perhaps more importantly, left behind all the evidence of her affair in the form of the letters in her bureau. She also almost instantly regretted her decision and sent a letter into Cambridgeshire, post-haste and marked ‘to be given immediately’ to Sir William in which she confessed her rash action and begged his forgiveness:
Oh! do not come to town. I am gone; I am a lost, miserable wretch; I have given up everything for Charles Bentinck. He has caused my ruin; he has made me wrong you so cruelly. I could never bear to see you again. Forgive me. I shall never forget your kindness to me; you have been indeed a kind husband to me. I am unworthy of you. I shall always regret you; always love you, as long as I live. Oh! may you be as happy as I am wretched and miserable. This is the only wish I can have upon earth. Bless you, my dear, dear William. Oh! I am distracted.1
Sir William came straight back to London with the intention of reclaiming his wife but went first to his mother’s house where he found her in possession of the letters from Charles to Anne and in no mood to allow her son to admit his wife back into his house.2 The two ladies, the Dowager Lady Abdy and Sir William’s unmarried sister Harriet, schemed behind his back to this end. Harriet received a letter from her sister-in-law a day or two after the elopement in which Anne admitted her guilt and begged for forgiveness, pleading to be allowed to return to her Hill Street town house and roundly abusing Lord Charles, but the existence of the letter was kept concealed from Sir William. Harriet also wrote to Anne’s mother, Lady Wellesley, to inform her of her daughter’s disgrace and eliciting a flurry of letters written in the marchioness’s interminable French to the rest of the Wellesley family.
A fully furnished house on Crooms Hill at the edge of Greenwich Park (where the Royal Observatory stands) had been taken by Lord Charles under the name of Captain Charles Brown (although he paid the rent with a banker’s draft in his own name, a mistake that would later help to confirm his true identity), and Lady Anne passed as his wife for the time being. Walter Phillips, Lord Charles’ valet, attended him but out of livery so no one would recognize him and even Phillips did not know who the lady actually was until she had lived in the Crooms Hill house for three weeks. The couple remained there, undetected, until late November, although the ton was agog with the scandalous reports of their elopement:3
ELOPEMENT IN HIGH LIFE! – A young married Lady of rank, and highly distinguished in the fashionable circles by her personal attractions, is said to have absconded from the neighbourhood of Berkeley-square a few days since, in order to throw herself into the arms of the brother of an English Duke.4
A married Lady has recently eloped with the brother of an English Duke. A female friend, on learning the story, coolly observed – ‘Who could expect a tame duck out of a wild duck’s nest?’5
Faux Pas – The Lady of a Baronet has eloped with a Noble Lord, and no less than five actions for Crim. Con. are to be tried the ensuing Term in the Court of King’s Bench, four of which have originated in the intemperance of noble blood.6
Hyacinthe Gabrielle, the ‘wild duck’ referred to in the newspaper snippet above, was appalled by her reprobate daughter’s behaviour which, if not managed correctly, would see Anne forever ruined in the eyes of society. It was what she had always feared. Two years before Anne’s marriage when she was being courted by beaux and suitors, the marchioness was afraid her daughter would ‘choose to be foolish’, knowing full well that society would blame the mother for the daughter’s indiscretions and point to Hyacinthe Gabrielle’s own past.7 For the Wellesley family, the preferred course of action was for Anne to be reunited with her husband with the minimum of fuss but otherwise a full divorce, which would allow her to marry Lord Charles Bentinck, would be the next best scenario. Only they had no idea whether Sir William, under the domineering influence of his female relatives, could ever be induced to take his wife back or whether Lord Charles would be willing to marry her. The fortune she had brought to her marriage as a dowry would be forfeited in the case of a divorce and Lord Charles could be financially ruined by damages awarded against him in a Crim. Con. action; even if a divorce was obtained and a marriage effected, Lord Charles and Lady Anne’s scant finances could condemn them to a life lived in reduced circumstances.
Almost immediately after the elopement Harriette Wilson was surprised by a visit from Sir William Abdy, whom she hardly knew other than by sight and reputation:
‘I have called upon you, Miss Harriette,’ said Sir William, almost in tears, ‘in the first place because you are considered exactly like my wife,’ – my likeness to Lady Abdy had often been thought very striking – ‘and, in the second, because I know you are a woman of feeling.’
Lady Anne Abdy was also considered to resemble Lord Charles Bentinck’s first wife, Georgiana; if Harriette Wilson resembled Anne, then she must also have looked very similar to the first Lady Charles and this may suggest a further reason for Charles’ attendance in her rooms. Suggesting his rival was even more stupid than he was himself (poor Anne! Neither man was particularly bright), Sir William explained to Harriette how it had come to pass that his wife had eloped:
‘That Charles Bentinck,’ said he, half angry, ‘is the greatest fool in the world; and in Paris we always used to laugh at him.’
‘But,’ said [Harriette], ‘why did you suffer his lordship to be eternally at your house?’
‘Why, dear me!’ answered Abdy, peevishly, ‘I told him in a letter I did not like it and I thought it wrong, and he told me it was no such thing.’
‘And therefore,’ [Harriette] remarked, ‘you suffered him to continue his visits as usual?’
‘Why, good gracious, what could I do! Charles Bentinck told me, upon his honour, he meant nothing wrong.’
‘Why did she run away from you?’ said [Harriette]. ‘Why not, at least, have carried on the thing quietly?’
‘That’s what I say,’ said Abdy.
‘Because,’ [Harriette] continued, ‘had she remained with you sir, you would have always looked forward with hope to that period when age and ugliness should destroy all her power of making conquests.’
‘Oh,’ said Abdy, clasping his hands, ‘if any real friend like you had heartened me up in this way at the time, I could have induced her to have returned to me! But then, Miss Wilson, they all said I should be laughed at and frightened me to death. It was very silly to be sure of me to mind them; for it is much better to be laughed at, than to be so dull and miserable as I am now.’
‘Shall I make you a cup of tea, Sir William?’
‘Oh! Miss, you are so good! tea is very refreshing when one is in trouble.’
Struggling not to laugh, Harriette bitingly told Sir William that Lady Anne had good blood running through her veins from her mother’s side of the family and then casually dropped the bombshell that she did not believe Lord Charles was his wife’s only lover:
I think Fred Lamb was one of her seducers; but how many more may have had a finger in the pie, I really cannot take it upon myself to say . . . I have seen Fred Lamb daily and constantly riding past her door. I know him to be a young man of strong passions, much fonder of enjoyment than pursuit; and further, my sister Fanny, one of the most charitable of all human beings, told me she had seen Fred Lamb in a private box at Drury Lane with your wife, and her hand was clasped in his, which he held on his knee!
Frederick Lamb was nominally the son of Peniston Lamb, the 1st Viscount Melbourne and his wife, Elizabeth Milbanke. Nominally as, due to his mother’s numerous affairs, his parentage could never be definitively proved (it was thought that, along with his elder siblings William and Emily, his father might have been George Wyndham, the 3rd Earl of Egremont). Young, debonair and handsome, Fred was made in the mould of his mother and known for his many (albeit discreet) affairs. Lady Wellesley concurred with Harriette’s opinion of Fred Lamb; she too thought he had seduced her daughter and she blamed a family friend for initiating and encouraging the situation, the exotically beautiful Madame Rosina Parnther.
Lady Wellesley had written an increasingly hysterical letter to Sir William’s mother, believing their previous friendship would prevail upon her to accept Anne back into her family if she could only be induced to leave Charles’ side. She implored Sir William ‘on her knees’ to be indulgent to her unfortunate daughter as he, as well as she, knew Anne had both virtue and a proper idea of her duties (the Dowager Lady Abdy and her son could perhaps be forgiven for not readily believing the marchioness in light of recent events). Hyacinthe Gabrielle put Anne’s rash act down to her ‘silliness, naughtiness and feather-headedness’.8
When the letter arrived Sir William’s mother and sister were entertaining a guest, none other than Madame Parnther herself. Although it seems to have been assumed that this lady was also a Frenchwoman, possibly an émigrée following the Revolution, she was only born around 1789 and was formerly known by the name of Rosina Burrell, not a particularly Gallic surname. She was perhaps of Irish extraction and her marriage to the wealthy Robert Parnther, Esquire had produced two sons and established her as a society hostess; she was known to the diarist Fanny Burney and both Mr and Madame Parnther were intimate friends with Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Wellington. Hyacinthe Gabrielle’s writing, always in French, was hard to decipher and Madame Parnther was asked by the two Abdy ladies to help translate and to read it. Consequently Rosina, who also counted Lady Wellesley as a friend, had to unwittingly read aloud what that lady had written about her:9
I am almost sure that there must have been some sort of argument between [Anne] and F. Lamb which resulted in a quarrel between her and Lord C.B., and that he took the opportunity to force her consent to follow him to prove that she loved him more than F. Lamb. And you know that she always acts on impulse and in a moment will have said the fatal ‘yes’ and 24 hours afterwards, would have been perfectly miserable and would not have dared to return home . . . Perhaps that Madame Panther [sic] has schemed all this to make certain of Lamb with whom she is madly in love. He is at her house every day. She is much more cunning than Anne and could trick her very easily. She has always been jealous of Anne and Hyacinthe. At any rate try to find out something on that score without however her guessing what has happened in case she does not know. We must keep this business as secret as possible . . . [Sir William] could see very well all that was happening and also, knowing that F. Lamb was in London, and that she could meet with him at any moment ‘chez la Panther’, he should not have left her. I always told you that he should have been more firm and prudent.10
Anne’s sister Hyacinthe and her husband came to London to meet with Sir William and try to discover Anne’s residence so they could speak to her. Hyacinthe had been luckier than her sister in her own marriage for she had been allowed to choose her husband and had married for love, not duty, even though it was also a most suitable match in the eyes of her parents.11 The handsome Edward John Walhouse Littleton, the future 1st Baron Hatherton, was both a wealthy Staffordshire landowner (he had inherited Teddesley Hall near Penkridge in 1812) and a Whig MP; he was born Edward Walhouse but took the surname of Littleton in compliance with the inheritance of his great-uncle, Sir Edward Littleton, 4th and last Baronet Littleton. Although noted as occasionally tactless, he was also a sensible man who was well liked and totally trusted by the Wellesley family. The couple had married just before Christmas in 1812 at St George’s in Hanover Square and by the time of Anne’s elopement they had two daughters to whom Hyacinthe was devoted.12 The diarist Hester Piozzi thought Mr Littleton greatly preferable to Sir William Abdy. She knew people who were connected to the Abdys by marriage and wrote to her late husband’s nephew and her adopted son, John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury, giving her opinion on the ensuing drama:
The Elopement of Sir William’s Lady with Lord Charles Bentinck gives much Concern of Course. She is Sister to pretty Mrs. Wallhouse Lyttelton [sic], who must behave better, and not follow bad Example – her Husband is probably more amiable (you knew him) than the Baronet; and it behoves Gentlemen to make themselves beloved – when no stronger Tye [sic] than mere Preference restrains the Lady.13
With letters flying back and forth between Anne’s siblings it was decided, as the affair was now becoming widely known, that their father must be informed and it fell to Richard as the eldest son to write. Lady Wellesley picked up her pen too. While the Wellesley siblings conferred with each other and with their father, all of a mind that Sir William should be separated from his female relations and induced to take back his errant wife, the marchioness wrote an ill-considered letter from her Brighton home to Lord Charles, threatening to bring down upon his head the full and frightful wrath of the Wellesley family if he did not return Anne to Sir William. Having no idea where Lord Charles was hiding, she sent the letter to Sir William’s mother, the dowager Lady Abdy, in the hope that she would know and forward it on. Richard and his brother Henry, together with their mother, set off in a coach for London to attempt a rescue; they hoped to return Anne to her Hill Street home and the arms of her husband.
Upon arriving in London, Lady Wellesley found a reply from Sir William’s mother. The rash letter to Lord Charles was returned with a terse note accompanying it that rejected any hopes of a reconciliation. The implication was clear: Sir William would do as his mother desired and his mother wanted nothing more to do with her disreputable daughter-in-law. Sir William dithered for a while in the middle ground, in turn influenced by his mother and then by the Wellesleys, but his overriding concern was always for his public image and he feared he would look weak if he forgave his errant wife.
Even as the Wellesleys futilely tried to effect a reconciliation, they were also busy on all fronts attempting to stop scurrilous articles appearing in the press, exploring the possibilities of a full divorce and scheming to extract a promise from Lord Charles Bentinck that he would marry his mistress. The ever-resourceful Hyacinthe Littleton had decided upon Bath House, the Duke of Portland’s residence in Piccadilly, as a neutral place for letters to be exchanged between the parties (it was just a short distance from the Littletons’ Arlington Street house) without revealing Lord Charles’ hiding place in Greenwich and eventually the two sisters arranged to meet at the duke’s house. Hyacinthe even persuaded her sister to accompany her to her former marital home on Hill Street but Sir William refused to see them and so Anne returned to the ‘protection’ of Lord Charles. With matters at an impasse, the Littletons set off for Teddesley Hall and Lady Wellesley, together with her sons Richard and Henry, made for Brighton.
With the Wellesleys clear of London, still unaware of Anne’s ‘amorous retreat’, Sir William made one attempt to break free of his meddling mother (who had also conveniently left London). Somehow he discovered the whereabouts of ‘Captain and Mrs Brown’ and began to correspond with and even visit his wife; he also sent all her clothes and her harp to her. When they heard of this both Richard Wellesley and Edward Littleton wrote to Anne and Sir William, inviting them to Staffordshire for a visit, so hopeful were they now of a happy resolution to the saga. For Edward Littleton to invite his sister-in-law for a visit was truly generous on his part for he had an extremely low opinion of her and, to be blunt, hated the sight of the woman and this notwithstanding the present scandal. Littleton thought Sir William should take Anne back and the reunited couple should live abroad for a year or two while the gossip died down. However, all was not settled and with yet another twist Richard was informed by Sir William’s mother and sister that they had found letters in Anne’s former home proving that the elopement had been planned much longer ago than had first been supposed, dating from the time both were in Worthing. Anne’s duplicity in concealing her plans for so long did not bode well for any reconciliation between herself and her husband.
Meanwhile, the Wellesleys, ever determined not to keep all their eggs in one basket, continued to make discreet enquiries relative to a divorce. Their most pressing concerns were to tie Lord Charles Bentinck down to a promise, on his honour (and preferably in writing), to marry Anne if a full divorce was granted and to minimize the financial damages that Sir William might seek to claim. Too high an amount and Lord Charles would be left with nothing to live on and then Anne would suffer as her marriage settlement of £11,000 was already forfeited to Sir William by her actions. Sir William’s behaviour was alarming to the Wellesleys, blowing hot and cold on the idea of a reconciliation but intimating he would not allow the clause to stand that would enable the parties to marry again, should they divorce. A vague rumour of a cohabitation by Sir William with a ‘former female connection’ that may have been carried on alongside his marriage (and which would, if true, suggest the rumours of his impotence were false), gave hope to the Wellesleys that they might prevail in obtaining a full divorce for Anne.
If Sir William was blowing hot and cold, so too was Anne, to the absolute and utter despair of her family. She wrote to her sister Hyacinthe:
As for him [Lord Charles] there is nothing honourable I am sure he will not do, and as for his family they have always been so famous for their honourable principles that he says that they would be the first he is sure to urge him to make every reparation should he ever be inclined otherwise, indeed the only thing he seems afraid of is losing me . . . I have another plan in my head which I have not let him [Lord Charles] suspect. Only think yesterday I saw Sir William opposite my window in a state of phrensy [sic]. I flew out to him and did everything to calm and compose him. Oh Hyacinthe, if I had not been afraid of Lord Charles interfering I would never have left him . . . Oh, if you had seen the delight he was in at seeing me again, he said it seemed as if I had come out of the grave to him. I left him with the hopes of meeting again tomorrow. Oh Hyacinthe, is it too late now if I was to go and stay with you? He would then I know take me back. He says he cannot live without seeing me now. And then I cannot either. And then it is dangerous. If Lord Charles’s family were to know it might prevent the divorce. But I must see him. He is to write to me today after he has seen the lawyers to tell me if it is improper. And if I am not to see him again I shall go distracted . . . he is afraid of what the world will say. I told him I would live by myself and he might come and see me, but he cannot bear that either and he is so afraid of his family. Think of his mother and sister leaving him in town by himself. He hates them.14
Lord Charles knew that his mistress was meeting with her husband but could not or would not stop her, even though it made him miserable to see it. Anne, with both men now dangling from her fingertips, magnanimously told Hyacinthe it would be a great sacrifice to give up Lord Charles and would undoubtedly send him mad but she would rather see Sir William happy. She ended by begging Hyacinthe to tell her what to do, ‘for I have not a settled thought in my head. Wherever I turn, whatever I think of it is a distraction. To stay here or go away is both equally horrible. Excuse this scrawl, I hardly know what I have written.’15
Hyacinthe’s opinion, in a letter written to her brother Gerald, was that Anne:
feels too late the disgrace and misery she has brought upon herself and bewails her fault in agonies of grief . . . but I cannot help pitying her, when I think that Sir W. has been so much to blame for his silly management of her and I think that, with a man of the least sense, she would have turned out a very different person.16
Sadly for Anne, Lord Charles had no more sense than her husband and she was now doomed to either one or the other. With a change of heart, she swung her desire towards a full divorce; she told her family she thought she had persuaded Sir William this was now the best path for them both to follow.
Hyacinthe, seven months’ pregnant with her third child, travelled to London and her brothers, Richard and Henry, met her there.
With the Greenwich house now fully discovered, Hyacinthe sallied to the door of her sister’s love-nest and found both Charles and Anne at home. Mrs Littleton had evidently reached the end of her tether, for an argument ensued during which she gave Lord Charles a piece of her mind and left him in absolutely no doubt of her opinion of him. She succeeded in persuading Anne to temporarily leave him and place herself under her sister and brotherin-law’s protection in their Arlington Street house, albeit with the freedom to write to whom she pleased and able to leave when she chose. Hyacinthe triumphantly sent a note to Richard who was at their mother’s house in nearby Great Cumberland Place, saying ‘She is here!’ and asking him to come alone to dinner. She also wrote to Sir William and, after a bit of negotiation, he came to Hyacinthe’s house to speak to his wife.
Sir William intimated he would allow Anne to return to their Hill Street home, but only if a suitable position could be found for him by Anne’s father or by her uncle, the Duke of Wellington. He believed that this would deflect any ridicule attaching to him in appearing weak by taking her back, ever his main concern since the elopement; damage limitation was all, both for Sir William and for the Wellesleys, and only Charles and Anne appeared to act first and foremost with their hearts rather than their heads. Although Richard Wellesley visited Hyacinthe he declined to see his other reprobate sister and though he was loath to comply with Sir William’s mercenary and self-centred request, he did broach the subject with both his father and his Uncle Wellington (his father wisely refused to have anything to do with finding employment for Sir William).
Lord Charles confirmed in writing that he ‘engaged upon his honour’ to marry Anne as soon as he was able, in the event of a divorce, and agreed not to contact her in the meantime. Sir William, who had papers ready to serve on Anne for a divorce, agreed to wait for a week or so before taking action. While the Wellesley family was waiting for the Duke of Wellington’s reply to the letter Anne had written under Richard’s hesitant direction (the duke was in Paris at the time), asking for a position to be found for Sir William, they resolved, if Sir William would not once and for all take back his wife, that they would encourage her to return to Lord Charles. Thinking that all eventualities were covered, Richard and Henry returned to Brighton to visit their mother who was unwell.
The Duke of Wellington had a busy schedule in Paris where he had been appointed ambassador to France. Peace treaties were ongoing following his victory at Waterloo and his own social life was a whirl of balls and parties. To these engagements, even though his wife had moved to Paris when he had been appointed ambassador, he was often accompanied by Lady Caroline Lamb (Fred Lamb’s sister-in-law), Lady Frances Webster and Lady Frances Shelley who was the niece of Lord Charles Bentinck’s former mother-in-law, the courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott.17 However, the duke was an honourable man with a keen sense of family, and even though he was busy he treated his niece’s request sympathetically and with thoughtfulness. He penned Anne a kind letter:
Dearest Anne, I received last night your letter of the 8th.
When I first heard of the misfortune which had occurred I had intended to write to you to offer any service which you might think I could render you, and I refrained from doing so only because I did not know where any letter could find you . . . you will readily believe, therefore, that your letter has not found me indisposed to do everything in my power for you.
I am quite certain, however, not only that I have it not in my power to prosecute Sir William Abdy’s views of employment abroad, but that to attempt it at present would be highly injurious to his reputation and to yourself. I should not succeed because Sir William has, till now, had no experience in public business and it would naturally create suspicion in the minds of those to whom application should be made in his favour of the motive for making it, if it were brought forward at the present moment.
I therefore strongly recommend that all thoughts of this kind shall be laid aside for the moment, and that Sir William should be satisfied with the goodwill of all your family and with the desire which they cannot fail to manifest in every way to render him as happy as it is possible to make him.
Pray let me hear from you again, and believe me, Dearest Anne,
Ever yours most affectionately,
Wellington.18
However, before the duke’s letter had been received back in London, Anne had once again had a change of heart: she now wanted to be with Lord Charles.
The ever-perceptive Hyacinthe, in a letter written to her mother and hand-delivered by Richard upon his return to Brighton, said she was certain Anne, however guilty she felt, would take little persuasion to finally sever all ties with Sir William. ‘The very idea of going to bed with him again fills her with horror!’19 Vacillation ran in the family for, with Anne now favouring a divorce, her father (who, up to this point, even though he did not preclude a reconciliation, had privately been staunchly for a divorce and remarriage) now wrote to his eldest son to say he had reconsidered and thought it would be best for Anne to return to her husband. Richard, upon receipt of the letter, must have felt he was doing little but banging his head against a brick wall in the midst of the drama. The marquess had been discreetly offering sage advice throughout from the safety of his Ramsgate seraglio and with his latest courtesan not far from his side; any irony in the situation was lost upon him.
Lord Charles, meanwhile, heightened the drama when he wrote to Hyacinthe to tell her he was about to confess all to his employer, the Prince Regent. He had already tendered his resignation from his household position, which the prince had refused to accept, and now felt the need to lay his conduct before the man who was simultaneously the regent of the realm, employer, friend and putative former father-in-law to Lord Charles, not to forget probably grandfather to little Georgiana who seems to have been overlooked in the middle of this chaos (she was no doubt safely ensconced in the Cholmondeleys’ nursery, as her mother had been before her). The letter was twice rejected by Hyacinthe and the servant carrying it was sent away. On the third attempt she accepted the letter when the servant solemnly informed her that it concerned the prince. Anne demanded the letter but Hyacinthe refused to put it into her sister’s hands and, moreover, refused to either read it or to send a reply. Unsure of the contents of the letter and desperate to know, Anne threatened to write to Lord Charles. In despair, Hyacinthe left her home, going to her mother’s empty house in Great Cumberland Place before, at Anne’s request, calling on Sir William. Anne wished to see her husband.
With Hyacinthe absent, Anne pre-empted her sister. As soon as Mrs Littleton left Arlington Street Anne called a carriage and appeared at her old Hill Street address where she gave Sir William an ultimatum: either he agreed to take her back there and then and let her remain in her home, or she would that instant return to the protection of Lord Charles. Regardless of the pressing urgency in Anne’s request and much as he had prevaricated all through the muddle, Sir William still declined to know his own mind. Faced with her husband’s indecision, Anne made up his mind for him and, returning to the carriage, ordered it to drive to Bath House where she knew Lord Charles awaited her. From this second elopement there was no going back, especially as Anne, within weeks, found herself with child, Lord Charles Bentinck’s child.
Hyacinthe was furious, writing to her mother to ask ‘is it not maddening after all that we have done for her?’20 Maddening it may have been, but the deed was done and the die was finally cast. All that was wanted now was a full divorce.
Hyacinthe wrote to the Duke of Wellington for advice on how she should behave towards her sister, and he replied advising her that the whole family ‘must now make the best of it’. He continued:
I am not astonished at your feeling for your sister; but you must not allow these feelings to keep you out of the World or to make you believe that people will on that account think the worse of you; nor on the other hand should you regret any good-natured act you may have done by her, or be induced to abandon her in her misfortunes.21
The duke ended his letter by affectionately begging Hyacinthe to tell Anne that if he could help in any way, she merely had to ask.