I wish I had written this book, but as usual Valerie Grosvenor Myer has
beaten me to it. Last time I envied a book of hers it was her sparkling
biography of Jane Austen, the good girl of the Regency. Now she has turned
her attention to the bad girl, Harriette Wilson.
I remember when I first heard of Harriette Wilson thirty years ago, it
was like hearing gossip about a contemporary, not historical facts from
the dusty archive of the past. Harriette Wilson was the Duke of Wellington's
mistress and when she was planning to publish her memoirs and tried to
blackmail him, he replied: 'Publish and be damned!' You never forget such
anecdotes - even though, as Valerie Grosvenor Myer shows, that particular
one is unlikely to be literally true.
But there are plenty of other hot and spicy anecdotes about Harriette,
and they are served up here with a saucy relish. She wrote to the Prince
of Wales, inviting him to have an affair with her; she always went to
bed elegantly dressed in case she died in her sleep; she once got rid
of a troublesome IOU by swallowing it. And she enjoyed and endless succession
of lovers, from pale, handsome foot-fetishist Ponsonby who haunted the
parks accompanied by his Newfoundland dog, to Worcester, an Oxford undergraduate
and the heir to the Beaufort estates, who became her adoring toyboy, and
wanted to marry her, through his father the Duke bribed her to keep away.
Ponsonby and Worcester, along with most of her other lovers, were either
already married when she met them or soon contracted prudent marriages
to other, decent women, often heiresses. And beyond Harriette's insatiable
progress through the breeches of the beau mondewe can detect the
'debts and terrifying insecurity' which haunted her and her many similarly
naughty sisters.
Indeed it seems that she only turned to blackmail in desperation, when
her attractions were on the wane, influenced by the proximity of the debtors'
prison and a husband who was a bad influence. Yes, she did finally marry,
though paradoxically her spouse Rochfort plays an insignificant part in
her emotional history. Nowadays he would probably be known as her publicist.
Her Memoirson which Valerie Grosvenor Myer has satisfyingly drawn,
evoke a scintillating and sensational society. Provincial England may,
as Jane Austen suggests, have been all proprieties, rookeries and rectories,
but the London over which Harriette Wilson triumphed was a hurly-burly
of adultery, prize-fighting, wantonness and drunkenness. Harriette had
her standards, however. She was always an elegant figure, dressed in white
and wearing diamonds, and she insisted on 'respect' - one of many details
which make her seem very vividly our contemporary.
Though her humble birth meant that to be a Lady of Pleasure was the only
outlet for her personal magnetism, Harriette took full advantage of her
sexual powers, not scrupling to manipulate her lovers, take bold initiatives
to recruit new and distinguished admirers, and stand up to the most powerful
figures in society if she found their conduct wanting. She rebuked Prince
Esterhazy for hogging the fire and not removing his hat and, despite the
almost masculine vigour of her wit and energies, she preferred lovers
whose manners were 'luxuriously sly and quiet.'
Too often we experience the past, especially the Regency period, through
a veil of reverence. Not here. Harriette's story is told with gusto, more
tabloid than tableau. It's totally compulsive reading, whether one is
glimpsing celebs at the Drag Ball held to celebrate peace with Napoleon,
hearing Harriette tell us that Wellington looked like 'a ratcatcher',
or watching her fascinate whole regiments of officers. It's rather like
eloping with Lydia Bennet instead of staying at home and, as Valerie Grosvenor
Myer suggests, 'behind Becky Sharp lurks the ghost of Harriette Wilson's
Memoirs, bowdlerised'.
But Harriette was a real person, not a literary creation, and her story
could not have been more triumphantly unzipped, or more shamelessly and
enjoyably displayed.