Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore

Slowly, slowly I am getting used to the audio books. Some are more suitable than others to be listened too. I find it difficult though to blog about audio books. While writing I often go back to look at passages in the books, and that is not possible here. Anyway, I am getting there.

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore (excellently narrated by Rachel Atkins) was quite a long audio book. I have listened to it over several months. You might think that this is a fiction book while reading it. Big mistake and it just shows that real life often is more dramatic and terrible than anything you can make up. Mary Eleanor Bowes was the only child of rich parents. She got a good education for a woman at the time. She married, accordingly, the Earl of Strathmore, with whom she had five children. Eleven years later the Earl died of tuberculosis. So far so good.


Andrew Robinson Stoney was a good looking Irish fortune-hunter. He was, more or less the cause of the death of his first wife, Hanna. He was fighting to become an MP, so her fortune was needed. He was a scrupulous man in all aspects of life; with friends, with women, politics, trade or whatever branch he decided to have a part in. So, when his eyes fell on the most eligible widow in town, she had no chance. Fooling Mary, whom he had already courted, that he was dying from a duel (which he himself had arranged), she felt obliged to grant a dying man his last wish and married him. The doctor had said it was only a matter of days before he would die.  That was the biggest mistake of her life.

It is a very, very long story, and the more you get into it, the more terrible it becomes. Mary Eleanor Bowes was an educated, spirited and intelligent woman with many interests. Once married to Stoney, she became a prisoner, beaten and mistreated in any way you can think of, and some more. One thing though; she had actually written a pre-nuptial to save her fortune for her children, since she was intending to marry another man. It did not go down well with Stoney.

The story is sometimes so terrible, that you can hardly continue to read/listen. Many times I had to close down, because I could not bear to hear of the abuse Mary was exposed too. In the end, after so many ordeals, she managed to run away, take him to court and get a divorce. This was quite a treat under normal circumstances, because there was not many ways for a woman to divorce a man. Just shows what a remarkable woman she was.

Here we meet a woman who could have achieved so many things. She was intelligent and had a good education, had a place in society with one of the biggest fortunes in Europe. Instead her life became a nightmare and in the end she had to fight for survival for herself and her children. Finally, Stoney ended up in prison. There he charmed another woman who bore him five children and were kept a prisoner with him. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone who can tell her story.

An interesting and terrifying and story of a remarkable woman. Wendy Moore has done a lot of research and it is not just a story of a woman.  It is a story how it affected Mary's own family, but also people outside the family, those loyal to her. I don't think I have ever read anything of a person so devious, corrupt, evil and mean as Stoney.

Apart from the main story Moore gives us a glimpse of the society in which Mary lived, women's rights, politics and the world of 18th century England. A masterpiece with many different layers. Historical non-fiction at its best. I would also like to mention the excellent narration by Rachel Atkins.

The story of the Countess of Strathmore and Stoney was fictionalised by William Makepeace Thackery in The Luck of Barry Lyndon, which was adapted to the film Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick.