WEBVTT - The Plot to Undo Mary Eleanor Bowes, Part 2 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:05.160 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:09.680 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. This is 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.440 part two of our two part series on Mary Eleanor 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.079 Bow's so if you haven't listened to part one you 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:20.040 should probably start there. And just a brief content warning, 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:30.360 this episode contains descriptions of spousal abuse. In early February 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:35.720 seventeen eighty five, a scandal swept the coffeehouses of upper 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:41.040 crust Georgian London. Mary Eleanor Bows, one of the richest 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:46.320 women in Britain, had disappeared. She had always been a 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.680 little bit eccentric, but in the years after marrying Irish 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:57.480 soldier Andrew Robinson Stoney, things had gotten well stranger. Bows 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:02.000 was known for being well spoken, elegant and poised, but 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.720 recently she had been appearing at dinners in tattered clothes 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:12.400 with cuts and bruises, sometimes barely saying a word, and 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:17.320 then one day she was gone. The most plausible hypothesis 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.760 was that she had eloped with some other man, but 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.880 even that was far fetched. No one had even heard 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:28.920 a rumor about another swain or suitor. The truth was 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:33.960 something no one could have guessed Mary Eleanor Bow's wealthy 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:39.280 heiress was hiding out using a fake name with no money, 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:44.559 in a small apartment off an alleyway. At the time 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.320 of her disappearance, Mary Eleanor Bows had been married to 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:54.000 Andrew Robinson Stoney for eight years. As she discovered soon 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:58.200 after their shotgun wedding, he had wooed her under false 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:04.320 pretenses orchis an elaborate scheme including a fake psychic reading 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.840 and a fake duel to marry her and arrest control 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:14.239 of her vast coal fortune. Stony then made Mary Eleanor's 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:20.359 life a living hell, starving her, isolating her, and beating her, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:26.200 which brings us to her disappearance in early seventeen eighty five. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.760 Fearing for her life, Mary Eleanor escaped with the help 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.320 of a few of her maids. She fled to a 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.440 little apartment off an alleyway in Holborn, with no possessions, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:42.000 no money, and using a false name. Soon the public 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.880 would learn what had happened. As Mary Eleanor made initial 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.600 steps to secure her independence, she set in motion three 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.880 separate legal proceedings to try to get her freedom. The 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.600 first was to protect her life, getting physical protection from Stony. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.720 The second motion was to protect her fortune, trying to 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.359 ensure a prenup that she had managed to secretly smuggle 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.520 away from under Stoney's nose would be honored. But it 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.440 would be the third motion that would prove most difficult 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:20.840 of all. Mary Eleanor Bowes was seeking a divorce from Stony, 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:38.840 the man she accused of quote beating, scratching, biting, pinching, whipping, kicking, imprisoning, insulting, provoking, tormenting, mortifying, degrading, tyrannizing, cajoling, deceiving, lying, starving, forcing, compelling, 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:43.320 and ringing of the heart. Under British law, that was 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:48.320 technically grounds for divorce, but in practice divorces were expensive 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:53.400 and extremely uncommon. Most of the plaintiffs in divorce cases 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:58.040 were men. Women rarely filed for divorce and rarely won. 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.600 Mary Eleanor must have been daunted by the legal battles 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.720 She knew she faced ahead, but achieving her freedom would 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.400 turn out to be more lengthy, expensive, and emotionally taxing 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.800 than she could have ever imagined, and it would put 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:20.680 her fortune, her reputation, and her life at risk. I'm 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:29.400 Danish Schwartz, and this is noble blood. Back at Gibbside Castle, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:34.200 Stony was already enraged at Mary Eleanor's disappearance, so we 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.960 can only imagine his anger when he heard of the 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.680 three motions she was filing. He set his sights on 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.880 tracking his wife down, bribing servants to find and reveal 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.840 her address, and even paying off shop owners to keep 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.520 them from giving her food, hoping that if she's starved, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.760 she might be more likely to return to him and 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:02.440 reconsider divorce. Stony also began in timid and paying off witnesses, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.240 threatening to fire maids and valets to prevent them from 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.520 testifying against him. While he was stalking Mary Eleanor and 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:16.320 bullying potential witnesses in private. He took great pains to 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:21.359 appear in public as a long suffering, compassionate husband whose 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:26.159 mercurial wife had suddenly up and left, deserting him and 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:30.560 two young children. This made it all the harder for 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.040 Mary Eleanor, who was trying to find support for her 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:38.640 legal cases while still in hiding. Unlike Stony, who had 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:43.960 unfettered access to her family's estate, Mary Eleanor had no money. 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.279 She reached out to her own family for financial, legal, 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:54.119 or even emotional support. But they politely declined they saw 0:05:54.240 --> 0:06:00.560 her divorce as an embarrassment. Surprisingly, it was actually Stoney's 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.880 family who was far more sympathetic to Mary Eleanor's plight. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.719 Stoney's sister, who was grieving the death of her first child, 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.240 wrote a letter to Mary Eleanor saying, quote what a 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.040 blessing it would be if my brother had been taken 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:21.600 off at that age, while Stoney's father told Mary Eleanor 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.880 that Stoney was quote the most wretched man I ever knew, 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:31.560 But family loyalty prevented them from publicly supporting Mary Eleanor. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:36.200 They refused to appear in court. While the Georgian elite 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.440 was more than willing to cast Mary Eleanor aside, as 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.880 scholar Wendy Moore put it, quote, those who had the 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:48.800 most to lose showed her the greatest loyalty. Mary Eleanor's 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.520 maid supported her without wages and were willing to appear 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.560 in court to speak about Stoney's abuse, putting their careers 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.760 and even their lives at risk. When shopkeepers were forbidden 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:05.279 from providing Mary Eleanor with food, gardeners sent her fruit 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.640 and vegetables to eat. Mary Eleanor's lawyers worked on her 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.400 case pro bono, assuming they would be paid if she won. 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:19.400 Needing a panoply of witnesses to provide proof of Stoney's mistreatment, 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.160 Mary Eleanor spent her days writing and responding to letters 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.960 trying to drum up support for her case. As her 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:32.280 maid and close confidant, Mary Morgan, ran the letters to 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:37.040 the post office. Being granted a divorce by a British 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:42.080 court required a high burden of proof. A separation would 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:46.640 only be granted if the offending party perpetuated life threatening, 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:53.360 unprovoked acts of violence and cheated habitually. Mary Eleanor had 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.800 a few witnesses testifying to Stoney's violence, but she needed 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:02.640 to prove his adultery to shore her case. Dorothy Stevens, 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.280 a wet nurse in the Beau's household, not only witnessed 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:11.480 Stoney's abuse but suffered it herself. Stoney had raped her 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:16.000 and gotten her pregnant before depositing her in a brothel 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:20.960 and leaving her and her newborn child destitute. When Mary 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.320 Eleanor tried to get in contact with sex workers that 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.200 lived with Dorothy, no one had seen any sign of her. 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:32.960 Four weeks it wasn't until Dorothy's parents reached out to 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:37.640 Mary Eleanor in April seventeen eighty five that Mary Eleanor 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:42.480 figured out what had happened. In order to prevent Dorothy 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:47.199 from testifying against him, Stoney had kidnapped her and their 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.000 three month old daughter and imprisoned them in a house 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:55.800 in Kensington. Mary Eleanor and Dorothy's parents obtained a writ 0:08:55.800 --> 0:09:00.360 of habeas corpus to free her from Stoney's grasp. Dorothy 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.560 appeared in court two weeks later, calling Stoney quote a 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:13.239 man of very cruel, savage and abandoned disposition. Dorothy's testimony 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:18.400 opened the floodgates. From then, many of Stoney's tenants and 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.920 staff came forward with their own first hand experiences of 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:27.720 his violence toward his wife. Perhaps sensing that the tide 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:33.000 was turning against him, Andrew Stoney proposed an arbitration to 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:37.960 divide up the estate between him and Mary Eleanor in 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:43.760 exchange for Mary Eleanor suspending her divorce case. She agreed, 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.000 but we should know by now that peace seeking was 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:52.360 not in Stoney's nature. What would have normally been a 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:59.400 conciliatory move masked Stoney's plan to crush Mary Eleanor into submission, 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.440 Stoney used the guise of reconciliation to try and track 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.360 Mary Eleanor down. He told his staff, who he knew 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.400 were providing Mary Eleanor with provisions and support, that they 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.600 had reconciled and that there was no more need to 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:20.240 hide her location. Finally, Stoney managed to find his wife 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.280 by seizing a weekly delivery of garden produce from one 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:29.120 of the groundskeepers, which contained her address. But Mary Eleanor 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.040 was tipped off to Stoney's attempt to find her, and 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.600 she managed to flee her apartment with no time to spare. 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.400 She rejected Stoney's settlement and pressed forward with her trials. 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.280 Back when Stoney had been trying to woo Mary Eleanor, 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.080 he had staged a duel. Now in an effort to 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.720 push back their divorce, he told the press that he 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:58.000 had shot himself. He hadn't, but he thought the confusion 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:02.960 might delay things. But on May sixth, seventeen eighty six, 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.520 the divorce suit finally came up for hearing. According to 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.920 the court conventions at the time, lawyers had been hearing 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.880 depositions from witnesses on both sides for over a year, 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.200 cross examining them in private. The court convened just so 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:24.040 that the judge could make his decision. Astonishingly, he sided 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.640 with Mary Eleanor. The judge mandated that the couple be 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:34.360 divorced from bed bored and mutual cohabitation, and allotted Mary 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:38.320 Eleanor three hundred pounds a year in alimony on the 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:43.520 grounds of both adultery and cruelty. Mary Eleanor must have 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:47.040 been relieved to see her hard work pay off. She 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.040 had only sex workers and servants on her side, no 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.160 money to pay her lawyers, and struggled against a patriarchal 0:11:55.240 --> 0:12:01.480 society that demonized divorce. But after an unless win, Mary 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:06.760 Eleanor perhaps could exhale. But this was only the beginning 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:12.040 of the legal battle ahead. Mary Eleanor's prenuptial agreement was 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.520 still up for debate, which would either give her access 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.760 to the fortune she had lost or condemn her to 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:23.560 a life of poverty. Moreover, Andrew Stony, a man who 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.640 had faked his own death two weeks earlier to avoid 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:30.840 appearing in court, was not going to let go so easily. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:35.800 He immediately appealed the divorce decision, sending the couple back 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.560 to court once again, and this time he was going 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:49.280 to play dirty to win. Even with another divorce trial 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.720 on the horizon and her prenup still up for debate, 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.360 Mary Eleanor was free, at least for a moment. At 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:02.280 social events, she appeared happy and relf. She visited friends 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:07.079 in the countryside and played quadrille at opulent parties awaiting 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.680 the new legal term in the fall. But when the 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:15.760 conversation veered toward her ex husband, Mary Eleanor's fear and 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:21.240 anxiety emerged. She spoke to friends about strange men pretending 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.880 to be law officers appearing at her doorstep, of deranged 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:30.240 women trying to break into her house, of carriages following 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:35.240 her down city streets, her male getting intercepted. Polite society 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:41.079 dismissed her concerns, calling her paranoid. Behind her back, even 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.200 Mary Eleanor was questioning her own sanity. One night in 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:49.319 October seventeen eighty six, one of her maids told her 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.480 that a Hackney carriage had been following their coach. The 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.480 maid could have sworn that she saw Stony leaning out 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.320 of the window of the carriage, but it turned doubt 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.199 that she was mistaken. He had been convalescing in bed 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:08.320 after falling off his horse a few days prior. Even so, 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.520 Mary barred any strangers from entering her house, and she 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:17.079 vowed to stay inside until her divorce appeal was over. 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.360 She hired a bodyguard to keep an eye out for 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:26.720 any suspicious carriages or onlookers lingering outside her home. After 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.560 a few days, on November tenth, seventeen eighty six, Mary 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.000 Eleanor felt sick of being cooped up and decided to 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.320 visit a friend on Oxford Street, not far from the 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.280 house on Bloomsbury Square where she was staying. Her bodyguard 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.000 told her that she had nothing to worry about, but 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.840 Mary Eleanor had trouble relaxing. She had barely sat down 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:53.120 for tea when she heard some commotion outside, and, fearing 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.480 the worst, she locked herself in a garret room before 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.640 her bodyguard appeared and told her it was safe to leave. 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:04.360 As Mary Eleanor walked out the door onto Oxford Street, 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.560 she was greeted with a crowd of armed men pointing 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:13.080 their pistols right at her. Her bodyguard told her that 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.640 she was being arrested, and he led her into her 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:22.160 carriage at gunpoint. Mary Eleanor screamed for help, begging to 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.000 be let go, but the gathering crowd simply watched as 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:31.000 the carriage sped away. She wasn't being arrested. It was 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.840 a kidnapping. On the carriage ride. Mary Elinor must have 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.120 wondered whether this was Stoney's doing or whether she just 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.320 happened to be the unlucky victim of an extortion or crime. 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.480 But as the carriage arrived at the Red Lion Tavern, 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.040 she had her answer. Stoney was waiting for her outside 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:55.280 the front door. It turned out that all of Mary 0:15:55.320 --> 0:16:00.280 Eleanor's paranoia was warranted. Stoney had been planning this kidnap 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.440 for almost a month. Fearing that he would lose his 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:09.600 divorce appeal, Stoney came up with yet another scheme. If 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.360 he couldn't threaten Mary Eleanor into dropping the suit, he 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.640 would force her to live with him, which would undermine 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.080 her case, because the thinking went, why would he file 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:25.080 a divorce against someone you were quote unquote willingly living with. 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:30.360 He had bribed the man that became Mary Eleanor's bodyguard 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:35.000 to insinuate himself into her life when she hired him. 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.920 He reported to Stoney daily update about what she was 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:43.880 up to. The bodyguard told Stony that Mary Eleanor planned 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.960 to leave the house on November tenth, and so Stoney 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.880 set the last steps of his plan into motion. He 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:55.000 gathered together a group of cronies with guns to surround 0:16:55.040 --> 0:17:04.879 her and force her into a carriage. Immediately upon returning 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:09.320 to Gibside Castle, Stoney and Mary Eleanor sat beside each 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.359 other at the long dinner table in the dining room. 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.879 He held a pistol to her breast, threatening to shoot 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:21.840 her if she didn't drop the lawsuit. She refused. He 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.159 told her to pray, and she did, saying I recommend 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.960 my spirit to God and my friend to his protection. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:35.800 Fire and Stony did, but when he pulled the trigger, 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:41.760 the gunpowder failed to ignite. Enraged, he punched her twice 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:44.960 and asked her if that made her change her mind. 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.320 She said, you may shoot me or beat me to 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.760 a mummy. My person is in your power, but my 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.480 mind is beyond your reach. Perhaps a little in awe 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.479 of her determination, he said, by God, you are a 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:05.080 wonderful woman. He had two of his cronies drag her 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.240 up to their bedroom and he ordered her to sleep 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.400 with him, knowing that if they had sex, he could 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.760 claim that she wanted to remain his wife, which would 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:19.600 render the divorce suit invalid. But Mary refused to consent, 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.960 saying that she would accuse him of rape if he 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:27.640 laid a hand on her. Stoney relented, letting her sleep alone. 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.560 The next day, he fled the castle and went into hiding, 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:37.719 taking Mary Eleanor with him. Mary Eleanor's supporters produced a 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:42.679 writ of habeas corpus ordering Stony to bring Mary Eleanor back, 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.160 but that wouldn't be enough without a nationwide police force 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:51.359 to help her. Supporters hired a court tipstaff, which is 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.800 basically an armed bailiff, to track her down. Stoney and 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.960 Mary Eleanor moved throughout the English countryside, where he told 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.040 villagers that he was a doctor and she was his 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.840 delusional patient, which meant that the villagers could ignore her 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.879 cries for help. In the days after her kidnapping, the 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:18.199 astonishing story spread throughout England as multiple newspapers reproduced the 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:22.000 sordid details. A plowman who had heard about the case 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:27.520 spotted a mysterious couple riding in Tunetia and ambushed them 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.680 with that Mary Eleanor hopped on the generous plowman's horse 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:37.280 and they rode away back to London. Mary Eleanor appeared 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.760 in court a few days later, on November twenty third, 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:46.440 to call for Stoney's arrest. She was clearly disheveled, covered 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:50.240 with bruises and welts, and was in so much pain 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.240 she could barely walk as she spoke of her kidnapping 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:59.000 and mistreatment. The journalists and spectators in the crowd were 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:04.040 shocked and moved. One wrote, quote, Lady Strathmore, from the 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:09.600 extreme ill treatment she has perceived since forced from the metropolis, 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.199 is become an object of the most extreme pity and 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:18.080 compassion to every beholder. Stoney tried to make a play 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.800 for the audience's sympathy using his favorite trick, faking his 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.800 own death. He gave himself an emetic and made a 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.399 show out of vomiting on the street, bribing a doctor 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.000 to tell the court that he was too sick to 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.439 come in, But the judge dismissed his claims, and the 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.560 audience booed and heckled him as he limped into the courtroom. 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.760 The judge ordered Stony to jail until the divorce case 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.680 was heard setting his bail at twenty thousand pounds, which 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.280 was likely the largest bail figure to date in a 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.880 case of domestic abuse. According to Wendy Moore, Stoney's lawyers 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.960 begged the judge to let him free, as a stint 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.679 in jail might make his injuries and illness worse. The 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:08.439 crowd laughed, tipstaffs carried Stoney out of court, and a 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:13.720 huge mob of onlookers crowded him, hurling insults and jeers. 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.560 Even on the way to jail. Stoney still had tricks 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.879 up his sleeve. The incredible story of Mary Eleanor's kidnapping 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.679 had made the trial a media circus, with onlookers and 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:32.080 journalists filling the courtroom. Stoney planned to exploit the gossip 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.879 hungry press to turn the tide against Mary Eleanor and 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:41.960 perhaps rest control over her and her fortune once and 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:51.840 for all. Stoney had already made modest attempts to undermine 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.719 Mary Eleanor's reputation in the press even before his arrest. 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:59.320 Less than a month after Mary Eleanor won her first 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.840 divorced tree, while he commissioned a pornographic cartoon of her, 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.600 which appeared in the window of a print shop. The 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:11.800 caption proclaimed that Mary Eleanor was going to give her 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:16.080 stepson a taste of her dessert after dinner. A scene 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.960 performed every day near Grosvenor Square to the annoyance of 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:24.440 the neighborhood, and she was pictured drunk and bearing her 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:29.840 breasts as she beat an afraid looking boy. Other cartoons 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:35.200 would follow. A particularly salacious one was her breastfeeding her 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.560 cats as her son cried, I wish I was a cat. 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:44.600 My mama would love me. Then, now, with Stony's reputation 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.160 in shambles, he had to bring out the big guns. 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:52.600 One off cartoons in random print shops weren't going to 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.400 cut it. It helped that he had purchased an interest 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.640 in The Times, which was more than willing to give 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.280 air time to his side of the story. From his 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:08.600 prison cell, Stoney promised the press that Mary Eleanor's sympathetic 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.200 story was not what it seemed, and that he would 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:17.720 reveal her equally scandalous misdeeds in court. On January twentieth, 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:22.240 seventeen eighty seven, when Mary Eleanor's second divorce hearing began, 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.879 onlookers and reporters filed into the court room Stoney began 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:31.480 the hearing with a bombshell allegation that Mary Eleanor had 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:36.080 been brazenly and repeatedly cheating on him with any male 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.760 acquaintance that would give her the time of day. While 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:43.439 most of these made up encounters were dismissed by the court, 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:49.040 one made a particular splash. Stony accused Mary Eleanor of 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:53.280 an affair with George Walker, the executor of her prenup. 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:57.000 Stony was probably trying to kill two birds with one 0:23:57.080 --> 0:24:02.320 stone here, both smearing Mary Eleanor's image and introducing evidence 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.880 that could get the prenup annulled. The problem was there 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:10.960 was no evidence for this alleged affair. Later, Walker told 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:14.320 the press that Stoney had approached him with a bribe 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:19.240 to lie on the stand, but Walker responded, I despised 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:24.280 his offers, as I despised the man, even though his 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:30.359 claims she committed adultery strained credulity. Stoney's lawyers brought out 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:34.560 a document that would shock the court and the public alike. 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:40.000 During their marriage, Stoney had forced Mary Eleanor to write 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:44.439 a list of her sins to prove that she deserved 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:49.840 his abuse. Stoney's lawyers brought this one hundred page document 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:54.480 to court titled The Confessions of the Countess of Strathmore. 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:59.960 In the document, Mary Eleanor revealed various flirtations, the affe 0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:05.240 she had had well married to her first husband, multiple abortions, 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.000 and her pregnancy out of wedlock, and all of it 0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:14.359 was unmistakably in her handwriting. At first, it seemed like 0:25:14.640 --> 0:25:19.080 Stoney might have made a mistake in introducing the document 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:23.360 to the court. Mary's lawyer dismissed it since it had 0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:28.240 clearly been written at Stoney's insistence. Even if the scandals 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:32.120 it contained were true. The lawyer called it a pocket 0:25:32.200 --> 0:25:36.320 pistol meant to destroy her ladyship's fame and to harden 0:25:36.359 --> 0:25:40.320 and steel the hearts of everyone against her. The judge agreed. 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:43.879 The courtroom clerk read only a few pages before the 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:46.879 judge told him that this document was irrelevant to the 0:25:46.920 --> 0:25:49.359 case at hand and should be thrown out of court. 0:25:50.000 --> 0:25:54.159 They were right. Even if Stony had not forced Mary 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:57.600 Eleanor to create the document, and even if we agreed 0:25:57.640 --> 0:26:01.360 that having an abortion or cheating on your cold, indifferent 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:07.199 first husband were unpardonable sins, Mary Eleanor's misdeeds would have 0:26:07.359 --> 0:26:10.920 no bearing on whether or not Stoney had abused her. 0:26:11.480 --> 0:26:16.720 The judge granted Mary a divorce yet again on May seventh, 0:26:17.000 --> 0:26:25.280 seventeen eighty seven, but the court of public opinion began 0:26:25.359 --> 0:26:29.359 to see things differently the times which Stony had a 0:26:29.440 --> 0:26:33.760 staken wrote quote, the cause of her ladyship is not 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:37.800 so immaculate as the world at large have been taught 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:42.040 to believe. Even Stoney's father, who had called his son 0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:45.560 quote the most wretched man he knew, was now saying 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:50.640 that quote, there has certainly been many faults on both sides, 0:26:51.080 --> 0:26:55.040 and that the divorce would set quote a dangerous precedent. 0:26:55.840 --> 0:26:58.919 That said, he didn't totally take the side of his 0:26:59.040 --> 0:27:02.080 son when when he died the following month, he left 0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:07.080 Stoney only two pounds as an inheritance. Even though Mary 0:27:07.119 --> 0:27:11.880 Eleanor's quote confessions were thrown out of court, Stoney's more 0:27:11.960 --> 0:27:17.199 sympathetic framing in the press did have legal implications. His 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:21.560 jail time was reduced from fourteen years to two, and, 0:27:21.920 --> 0:27:26.560 feeling optimistic about the turning tide of public opinion, he 0:27:26.640 --> 0:27:31.359 appealed the divorce decision yet again at the High Court 0:27:31.520 --> 0:27:34.560 of Delegates, which is the highest court of appeals the 0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:39.639 case could go. Mary Eleanor struck back with another lawsuit, 0:27:39.880 --> 0:27:44.480 charging Stoney with quote five counts of conspiracy that accused 0:27:44.520 --> 0:27:48.000 him of imprisoning Mary in order to compel her to 0:27:48.119 --> 0:27:52.639 drop her divorce suit, which brought the total lawsuits in 0:27:52.720 --> 0:27:57.760 process to three, the prenup lawsuit, a divorce and a 0:27:57.800 --> 0:28:01.679 criminal trial. The criminals suit was heard first, and the 0:28:01.760 --> 0:28:05.960 trial more closely resembled what we picture in a modern courtroom, 0:28:06.359 --> 0:28:09.879 with a jury, a judge, and two lawyers cross examining 0:28:09.920 --> 0:28:15.479 witnesses and giving impassioned arguments. Mary Eleanor's lawyer spoke in 0:28:15.480 --> 0:28:18.560 front of the crowd as he described her kidnapping and 0:28:18.720 --> 0:28:24.520 imprisonment in lurid detail. While kidnapping one's wife at gunpoint 0:28:24.560 --> 0:28:29.960 in broad daylight was considered uncouth, it wasn't technically illegal 0:28:30.600 --> 0:28:33.439 at the time. A husband had the legal right to 0:28:33.560 --> 0:28:38.920 confine and reprimand an unruly wife, but Mary Eleanor's lawyer 0:28:39.360 --> 0:28:43.480 pushed against the legal limits of the time. He described 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:47.360 how Stony forced himself on Mary Eleanor as she fought 0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:52.120 him off, telling the likely skeptical all male jury that 0:28:52.240 --> 0:28:55.440 a husband is liable to be tried for a rape, 0:28:55.760 --> 0:28:59.640 even on his own wife, even though marital rape would 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:03.960 not considered a crime for another two hundred years. The 0:29:04.040 --> 0:29:08.160 strategy worked. It took only a few minutes for the 0:29:08.240 --> 0:29:13.240 jury to unanimously declare Stony guilty, and the judge sentenced 0:29:13.320 --> 0:29:17.040 him to three years in prison. On June twenty sixth, 0:29:17.320 --> 0:29:22.760 seventeen eighty seven. The next trial was for reinstating Mary 0:29:22.800 --> 0:29:27.200 Eleanor's pre nup. This case, hinging on the validity of 0:29:27.240 --> 0:29:31.680 a decade's old document might seem tangential, but this was 0:29:31.840 --> 0:29:35.920 as important as the divorce trial itself, because even if 0:29:35.960 --> 0:29:39.200 Mary Eleanor was granted her divorce, she would not be 0:29:39.400 --> 0:29:43.960 entitled to any financial remittance outside of the poulsterry monthly 0:29:44.040 --> 0:29:49.360 alimony payments. Meanwhile, Stoney was flush with money that, lest 0:29:49.400 --> 0:29:55.000 we forget, was originally Mary Eleanor's inheritance. While Mary Eleanor 0:29:55.080 --> 0:29:58.400 had no money to speak of, relying on her friend's charity, 0:29:58.840 --> 0:30:03.280 Stoney was i enjoying a rich man's life on her dime, 0:30:03.840 --> 0:30:08.520 even while ostensibly in prison. He lived in a lavish 0:30:08.560 --> 0:30:12.400 apartment in the Marshall, where he threw parties, eight decade 0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:16.600 in food and had affairs with mistresses, in addition to 0:30:16.880 --> 0:30:22.280 hiring various cronies to abduct friends and servants of Mary Eleanor's. 0:30:22.800 --> 0:30:27.760