Read Online The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce by Hallie Rubenhold - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Hallie Rubenhold
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hostess in a busy round of election entertaining. Candidates were expected to amply reward their supporters, regardless of their social standing. While the candidate’s elite coterie would be acknowledged privately with invitations to balls and suppers, all freeholders were regaled throughout the election period at raucous public banquets. Sir Richard, who delighted in advertising his position with grandiose displays, was renowned for the extravagant feasts he spread before his voters. While his opponent hosted measly ‘venison roasts’, the baronet laid on ‘public breakfasts … for five hundred persons’ who were promised ‘tea, coffee, chocolate and a cold collation’, in addition to ‘three sheep … roasted whole’, and served up to the accompaniment of ‘several bands of music’. It was during the election season, at events such as these that Seymour was drawn to the company of her new neighbour, Maurice George Bisset.
Until that year, neither Sir Richard nor Lady Worsley had met the twenty-three-year-old owner of Knighton Gorges, the estate that lay a mere four miles from Appuldurcombe. Bisset had only recently returned from his continental grand tour to assume responsibility for the property he had inherited from his maternal grandfather, General Maurice Bocland. Unlike the Worsleys or the Flemings, the Bissets were neither wealthy nor titled. George Bisset (as he preferred to be known) was the eldest of five sons and two daughters born to the Reverend Doctor Alexander Bisset, the Archdeacon of Connor in Ireland. His early years had been spent in the parish of Kilmore, in County Armagh, in a rectory house bursting with children. From accounts, Dr Bisset was a devout and compassionate father, an academic man and an influential member of the Society for Promoting Protestant Schools. For him and an increasing contingent of the upper middle classes and lower gentry, education was of supreme importance. Nothing honed both mind and soul with as much precision as the philosophical writings of history’s learned men. A devotion to books not only bred civility and politeness but chased away the temptations of idleness, a sin linked to the insidious lures of the card table, the bottle, and fornication. Dr Bisset did not wish to see any of his sons fall victim to indolence, especially his favourite child, George, who due to his grandfather’s bequest of land was more likely than his brothers to be lured into its lair. All five of the Reverend’s boys were dispatched to Westminster School and at least three of them later matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford. George Bisset did so in 1775 and on completing his university study went on to learn the letters of the law at Lincoln’s Inn.
Beyond the basic details of his life, very little is known about the young man who stepped into the realm of inherited wealth while his brothers were left to find their feet in the church and the military. What few images there are of Maurice George Bisset are caricatures which portray him as being quite tall and of a slight build. In some, his nose appears long and sharp, while his small eyes are etched with dark brows. If a brief comment in the Morning Post is to be believed, Bisset was not the most conventionally attractive of men. He ‘owes but little to nature for exterior graces’, the author wrote; however, he was persuasively charming and ‘possesses in a great degree the art of captivating by address’. With the exception of this statement, no one, not even his neighbour John Wilkes who befriended him in his later years, passes any remark about his character. When his name first entered into common conversation by way of the events in
which he would feature, fashionable society regarded him as a complete unknown.
However, within the provincial circles of the Isle of Wight, George Bisset would have been a recognised figure. The families of ‘quality’, the merchants of Newport, the villagers, drovers, farmers and
Until that year, neither Sir Richard nor Lady Worsley had met the twenty-three-year-old owner of Knighton Gorges, the estate that lay a mere four miles from Appuldurcombe. Bisset had only recently returned from his continental grand tour to assume responsibility for the property he had inherited from his maternal grandfather, General Maurice Bocland. Unlike the Worsleys or the Flemings, the Bissets were neither wealthy nor titled. George Bisset (as he preferred to be known) was the eldest of five sons and two daughters born to the Reverend Doctor Alexander Bisset, the Archdeacon of Connor in Ireland. His early years had been spent in the parish of Kilmore, in County Armagh, in a rectory house bursting with children. From accounts, Dr Bisset was a devout and compassionate father, an academic man and an influential member of the Society for Promoting Protestant Schools. For him and an increasing contingent of the upper middle classes and lower gentry, education was of supreme importance. Nothing honed both mind and soul with as much precision as the philosophical writings of history’s learned men. A devotion to books not only bred civility and politeness but chased away the temptations of idleness, a sin linked to the insidious lures of the card table, the bottle, and fornication. Dr Bisset did not wish to see any of his sons fall victim to indolence, especially his favourite child, George, who due to his grandfather’s bequest of land was more likely than his brothers to be lured into its lair. All five of the Reverend’s boys were dispatched to Westminster School and at least three of them later matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford. George Bisset did so in 1775 and on completing his university study went on to learn the letters of the law at Lincoln’s Inn.
Beyond the basic details of his life, very little is known about the young man who stepped into the realm of inherited wealth while his brothers were left to find their feet in the church and the military. What few images there are of Maurice George Bisset are caricatures which portray him as being quite tall and of a slight build. In some, his nose appears long and sharp, while his small eyes are etched with dark brows. If a brief comment in the Morning Post is to be believed, Bisset was not the most conventionally attractive of men. He ‘owes but little to nature for exterior graces’, the author wrote; however, he was persuasively charming and ‘possesses in a great degree the art of captivating by address’. With the exception of this statement, no one, not even his neighbour John Wilkes who befriended him in his later years, passes any remark about his character. When his name first entered into common conversation by way of the events in
which he would feature, fashionable society regarded him as a complete unknown.
However, within the provincial circles of the Isle of Wight, George Bisset would have been a recognised figure. The families of ‘quality’, the merchants of Newport, the villagers, drovers, farmers and
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