The Toils of Celebrity

Mobs of fans swarming around celebrities in the streets is no new concept.  Just ask the gorgeous Gunning sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who could barely go anywhere in public without being stared at.  This extreme facet from the new culture of celebrity took many by shock, prompting some amusing poetry.  After being mobbed in the park for the umpteenth time a satirist imagined Maria petitioning the king for protection from her fans:

'Shut, shut up the Park I beseech you;
Lay a Tax upon staring so hard;
Or, if you're afraid to do that, Sir,
I'm sure you will grant me a Guard!'

The Boon thus requested was granted:
The Warriors were drawn up with care;
'With my slaves and my Guards I'm surrounded,
Come, stare at me now if you dare!'

The poem puts me in mind of the ever-obnoxious TMZ, I like to think of it as a predecessor.  In the end Maria did end up having to hire body guards in the form of the (very official) Brigade of Guards.  However, her personal escorts only served to attract more attention.  No surprise there!

Country Homes: Croome Court

Location: Worcestershire
Famous Inhabitants: Maria Lady Coventry
Website: National Trust Croome Park

Tart of the Week: Elizabeth Campbell

Elizabeth Gunning was born in 1734, a year after her sister Maria. Being so close in age, the sisters were best friends and a true duo. This especially rang clear when their mother, unable to afford raising them, moved the girls to Dublin to become actresses.

Elizabeth and her sister may not have necessarily been good actors, but they did become very popular and were soon known as "The Beauties." Even Peg Woffington was seen with the Gunning sisters. As proof of just how popular Elizabeth was, when James Duke of Hamilton (who had just been jilted by Elizabeth Chudleigh) met Elizabeth he wanted to marry her that night, and marry her he did. He called a local parson who refused to marry the couple without a license or even a ring. This didn't deter the lovestruck duke who brought Elizabeth to Mayfair Chapel and with a bed curtain ring, made her his duchess in a clandestine ceremony. Oh the scandal! It all seemed way to easy. A mere actress who couldn't even afford her own trousseau was now one of the grandest Duchesses in Scotland.

Elizabeth promptly retired from the stage, and her wedding ring was likely replaced with many jewels. Elizabeth enjoyed her new position as a Duchess and now used her charisma to be a successful society hostess. She also fulfilled her wifely duty of providing her husband an heir and spare. But sadly, their marriage would end prematurely. While out hunting, the handsome 33 year old Duke caught a bad cold which killed him. The young beautiful was now a widow.

She got over the loss very quickly, for before James' body could even begin to decay she was already engaged...to another Duke! While so many aristocratic mothers lost sleep over trying to get their daughters married to any sort of peer, Elizabeth made it look all to easy to capture these men of the highest rank's hearts. This duke was Francis, the Duke of Bridgewater who was very young and, of course, wealthy. However the engagement was short-lived when Francis told Elizabeth that in order for them to marry, she would have to give up her acquaintance with her sister, Maria. Elizabeth was all, "screw you Bridgewater!" and he died without a wife or an heir almost fifty years later.

Our gorgeous heroine did not have to wait quite so long to find love (or at least a husband) again. A year later she was married. The lucky guy this time was another Scotsman, John the Marquess of Lorne, a strapping soldier. Since he ranked under her, Elizabeth was still considered the dowager Duchess of Hamilton which she would go by until 1770, when John became the Duke (of course) of Argyll.

The saucy beauty was finally done marrying the richest men in Scotland but she continued to break hearts at court while she served Queen Charlotte as a Lady of the Bedchamber for 23 years. While she went through the heartbreak of loosing her sister to lead poisoning in 1760 she also happily had four of her sons succeed to Dukedoms and became a baroness in her own right (something highly unusual). Not bad at all for a second-rate actress!

Tart of the Week: Maria Lady Coventry

Do you still have that sour taste in your mouth from last week's tart? You should! This week I'll take it easy on you. This tart comes with a moral that our mothers would probably like.

Maria Gunning and her sister Elizabeth were born into humble beginnings. When things didn't begin to look up for them their mother urged her two expensive daughters to make a living by moving to Dublin to become actresses. This was almost the equivalent to selling your daughter to the whore-house but the girls went anyway.

Both girls became successful enough in Dublin that they eventually made it to West End. It was on her return to London that the Earl of Coventry met, fell in love with, and married Maria. On their honeymoon they traveled to Paris and Maria was MISERABLE. First of all, she didn't speak French very well. More importantly, Maria, being a fashionista and huge fan of makeup, wanted to wear red powder on her cheeks since that was what all the fashionable French ladies were wearing. The Earl wasn't having it, and forbade her from any rouge. Maria was determined to look beautiful in France and wore the powder anyways. When the Earl saw he embarrassed her by attempting to wipe it off her face with his handkerchief!

Upon their return to England, Maria became known as a notable beauty and social hostess. It may come as no shock that the marriage did not remain a happy one. The Earl began a public affair with the notorious tart, Kitty Fisher (we'll get to her later) and the two women were known to have even more public cat fights whenever they came in contact. Maria also retaliated to her husband's infidelities with her own.

It was her makeup habits that were to cause the untimely end of this Jezebel tart. After years of wearing lead-based makeup to keep that fashionably pale look, Maria died from blood poisoning; a real-life example of why sometimes less is best. She became known through social circles as a "victim of cosmetics."