Sisters of Ill Repute:
The Regency's Harriette Wilson and
Her Profligate Sisters
By Cheryl Bolen
The names of very few members of
the demimonde from Regency England survive. A noticeable
exception is Harriette Wilson (not her real name). Her entre´ into
history was provided by her own witty pen. The women who once moved in
the same circles with Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, and other
aristocrats penned her tell-tale memoirs some years after age and
circumstances robbed her of her once-lofty position. And those memoirs
are still interesting reading today — even though the bedroom door stays
closed.
At the age of fifteen, Harriette
became the mistress of Lord Craven. Though she had been born Harriette
Dubouchet, she adopted the surname Wilson, probably in an effort to
protect the respectable members of her family. She was one of fifteen
children born in London to John Dubouchet (a Swiss) and his wife Amelia,
who was thought to be the illegitimate daughter of a well-to-do English
gentleman.
Four of the Dubouchet sisters
were to become Cyprians. Besides Harriette, these profligates included
Fanny, Amy (who bore a son of the Duke of Argyle), and the youngest,
Sophy (who brought the family a degree of respectability by marrying a
peer).
At age thirteen, Sophy became
the mistress of Lord Deerhurst but while still very young managed to
persuade Lord Berwick to marry her.
During Harriette's brief reign
over London's demi rep, she lived in fashionable houses with a
staff of servants, patronized the best modistes, and even had her own
box at the theatre (where all of London could view the notorious woman).
In her memoirs, Harriette writes
of her mother with great affection, explaining that what her mother
lacked in fortune she bestowed tenfold in giving her children a fine
education. All the children were as fluent in French as they were in
English.
Harriette insists that no blame
for hers or her sisters' lifestyle should attach to the mother. "The
respect I feel for the memory of a most tender parent," Harriette wrote,
"makes me anxious that she should be acquitted from every shadow of
blame, which might, by some, perhaps, be imputed to her, in consequence
of her daughters' errors, and the life they fell into."
It was some consolation to the
parents when Sophy snagged a title.
Sadly, the other sisters did not
fare as well. Fanny died a painful death after the love of life left
her. The circumstances of Amy's later years are not known, and though
little is known of Harriette's later years, it is thought she died in
poverty.
This article was first published in The
Regency Reader in
November 2009.
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