Mary Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne
Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (24 February 1749 – 28 April 1800) was a notable member of the British aristocracy during the Georgian period in the 18th century.
Her husbands were the 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and Anglo-Irishman Andrew Robinson Stoney, the latter of whom treated her very cruelly during their marriage.
Amongst many other achievements in her life, including a significant expertise developed in the field of botany, Mary Eleanor Bowes was one of the early pioneers of women's rights in relation to divorce.
[3] Bowes died when Mary was 11 years old, and left her a vast fortune (estimated at between £600,000 and £1.04 million), which he had built up through membership of the Grand Allies, a cartel of coal-mine owners.
While the Earl spent much of his time restoring his family seat, Glamis Castle, the countess self-published a poetical drama entitled The Siege of Jerusalem in 1769, which remained her only literary effort,[5] although she maintained remarkably candid diaries for much of her life.
She also professed interest in botany and financed an expedition by the explorer William Paterson to the Cape in 1777 to collect plants for her.
As a widow, she also regained control of her fortune, centred on the mines and farms around her childhood home of Gibside in County Durham.
However, that same summer of 1776, the dowager countess was seduced by a charming and wily Anglo-Irish adventurer, Andrew Robinson Stoney, who manipulated his way into her household after squandering the inheritance from his first wife, Hannah Newton, (using the governess of the children, Eliza Planta) and into her bed.
Calling himself "Captain" Stoney (although in reality, he was a mere lieutenant in the British Army) he insisted on fighting a duel in the dowager countess's honour with the editor of The Morning Post, a newspaper which had published scurrilous articles about her private life.
He now faked a duel with the editor, the Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley, to appeal to Mary's romantic nature.
Two children were born to Mary during the term of this marriage: After the wedding, Stoney Bowes attempted to take control of his wife's fortune, as was the custom of that era.
When he discovered that Mary had secretly made a prenuptial agreement safeguarding the profits of her estate for her own use, he forced her to sign a revocation handing control to him.
He is then alleged to have subjected Mary to eight years of physical and mental abuse, including confining her to her own house for a period.
In 1785, with the help of loyal maids, Mary managed to escape Stoney's custody and filed for divorce through the ecclesiastical courts.
She later alleged that he threatened to rape and kill her, that he gagged and beat her and carried her around the countryside on horseback in one of the coldest spells of an unusually cold winter.
Following this death, Mary did not socialise at all, but spent most of her time looking after pet animals, including a large number of dogs, for whom hot dinners were cooked daily.
Towards the close of the century, Mary called in some trusted friends from Pokesdown village to witness her final will, and began making presents of dresses and other items to the community.
