Eliza Stephens

It is possible she had an affair with Stoney and carried his child when she married Reverend Henry Stephens, tutor to the Bowes children, shortly after meeting him.

Other members of this circle were James Matra, who was another companion of Cook, and his brother, Perkins Magra, a captain in the British Army.

[35][36][c] Elizabeth's younger sister Eliza Planta was then hired as the new governess for the children of Mary Eleanor Bowes, and she quickly became an important and trusted companion to her mistress.

[38] When Bowes and Gray became formally engaged in St Paul's Cathedral in August or September 1776, Planta served as one of the witnesses.

[52] Searching for advice about her own romantic situation, Bowes pretended to be a grocer's widow and asked whether she "should marry a brewer or a sugar-boiler".

[70] On 13 January 1777, Stoney duelled with the newspaper's editor Henry Bate in defence of Bowes's honour and was seemingly mortally wounded.

[76] A witness later claimed to have seen Stoney leave Eliza's bedroom at 5 o'clock one morning after the election, suggesting their affair was still ongoing.

[78] After spending ten days in France, Henry and Eliza left for Stoney's estate at Colepike Hall near Lanchester, County Durham.

"[80] It is not quite known what caused Bowes to write in such terms about her previously intimate friends;[81] it is possible that this was Stoney's doing, but he and the Stephenses later reconciled their differences.

[91][92] By the time of the trial between Stoney and Bowes in February 1789, Henry Stephens had assumed the post of curate at Ponteland, Northumberland.

[95] Afterwards, Eliza attempted to reconcile with Bowes and informed her about her daughter Mary's location and helped to remove her from Stoney's influence.

[19][96] Within six months of Henry's death, Stephens left without her children for Saint Petersburg, Russia, in spite of the fact that she had no employment offers.

[19][96][h] Her brother Joseph wrote to his friend Andrew Samborski [ru], who was living there after having served for many years as chaplain of the Russian Orthodox Church in London.

[19][96] Listing her qualifications, he noted that Stephens was fluent in English, French, and Italian; was a talented vocalist; played the harpsichord; and was skilled in needlework.

[19] He suggested that because of her skill, taste, and temperament, she was suitable for a post in the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens,[97] a finishing school for aristocratic girls.

[98] Samborski was able to find Stephens a position with Countess Catherine Shuvalova, who was the widow of Andrey Shuvalov [ru],[96] a writer who held several governmental posts in the Russian royal court.

After several months of satisfactory service, Shuvalova allowed Stephens to bring her children – Elizabeth, Francis, and Marianne – and their nurse, Miss Joyce, to Saint Petersburg.

[110][111] Stephens went abroad with Shuvalova in 1792 to bring back Louise and Frederica, Princesses of Baden, as potential brides for the future Alexander I.

[112][113] In 1797, Alexandra married Franz Joseph, Prince of Dietrichstein, and Stephens's daughter Elizabeth met Mikhail Speransky while she was visiting at the summer cottage of Samborski.

[96][114][116] Elizabeth and Speransky married at the end of 1798 and shortly after their wedding, Stephens moved to Vienna with the Dietrichstein family and her own children, Francis and Marianne.

[124][125][126] Vasily, who was fond of Marianne, suggested that the Stephens family take a trip to Baldone (now in Latvia) to enjoy the sulfur water spa there.

[136][135] Melanie went to Kyiv to join Stephens, where she met Christian Gottlieb Bunge [de], a pediatrician honoured several times for his work.

[142][143] In the early summer of 1809, Stephens, Francis, and her grandchildren returned to Saint Petersburg at Speransky's request and moved into his new house near the Tauride Garden on Sergievskaya Street.

[96][148][149] Speransky had risen from being born on the Saltykov estate in Cherkutino, as the son of a priest who was a peasant with no surname, to the role of Secretary of State.

[151] In March 1812, Speransky fell out of favor with the Tsar, primarily because of his inability to cooperate or ingratiate himself with Russian nobility and was sent into exile.

[158][159] In the late summer, Speransky was relocated to Perm,[160][161] approximately 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Saint Petersburg,[162] and Stephens moved there with the rest of the family.

[161] Because Russian law forbade the recognition of an illegitimate child and imposed harsh penalties on the parents,[174][n] Speransky came up with a plan to care for Annette and protect her from the social stigma attached to illegitimacy.

To explain why he was providing funds for her, Annette was to be enrolled under the name of Anna Andreevna Smirnovna, as the fictitious orphan daughter of Speransky's nephew, Andrey Smirnov, who had died without having any children.

[180] In April 1825, at the home of Alexei Andreyevich Yelagin and his cousin Avdotya Yelagina in Saint Petersburg, Annette married Alexey Osipovich Imberg [ru], an administrator for Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky, the Governor-General of the Poltava Governorate.

[198][199] Her daughter, Maria Frolova-Bagreeva, married Prince Rodion Nikolaevich Cantacuzène [wikidata] on 19 November 1846,[200] and they took over management of Speranskaya's estates when she moved to Austria.