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Arabian Horse In History L ady Jane Digby ’s
Scandalous Life And Desert Romance
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by Andrew K. Steen
Lady Jane Digby was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful, remarkable and notorious women of the 19th century. In the words of one of her biographers, she was “the female counterpart of the Byronic hero—the proud, passionate, moody, often anguished sinner, who defied every rule that confined the human spirit … determined to wrest happiness from a gloriously inviting life.” Others, less sympathetic to her unconventional and emancipated lifestyle, labeled her as merely “a fallen and promiscuous woman.” Certainly, few women of any age ever provoked such firestorms of controversy and gossip.
The Arabian Horse
In History
Jane Digby’s true-life saga reads like that of a heroine summarized on the back cover of a Harlequin® romance or a similar sentimental yarn. Over the last 150 years, her scandalous escapades and highly-adventurous life have provided the fodder for numerous romantic novels and several motion pictures, including The Wind and the Lion. Alas, those aspects of her amorous odyssey have often eclipsed her singular exploits and involvement with the Bedouin tribes of the Syrian deserts. Jane Digby was not the only European woman of her era to be linked to the exotic Arab world and the Middle East. Others that left an indelible mark Holkham Hall, the English mansion upon the romanticized lore of the Orient include where Jane Digby was raised. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Isabel Arundell Burton, but Jane Digby was in many ways the most extraordinary. Not A Privileged only was she a woman of exceptional physical beauty, she And Uncommon also possessed a great intellect and a variety of talents which Upbringing in her day were thought to be inappropriate for a member Jane’s background, childhood and young adulthood of the fairer sex. were not at all typical. She was raised in the privileged environment of the English aristocratic class. Her illustrious She ended her days in Damascus, Syria, as the respected wife ancestors included such prominent individuals as Sir of a Bedouin sheikh. Her three decades of direct association Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice to both Queen Elizabeth with the various nomadic tribes and the Arabian horse in its I and King James I. native habitat were in many respects even greater than Lady Jane Elizabeth Digby was born on April 3, 1807, at Forston Anne Blunt’s activities. The fact is that Jane Digby and her House on her father’s estate in Dorset, England. Her last husband, Medjuel el mother Lady Jane (née Coke) Andover went by the name Mezrab, supplied much of and title of her first husband, who had died in a hunting the history of the Arabian accident. Jane’s father, Henry Digby, was a highly-decorated horse that Lady Anne naval hero who eventually rose to the rank of admiral. Prior and her daughter Lady to his marriage to Lady Andover, he served under Admiral Wentworth used in their Horatio Nelson as captain of HMS Africa and participated momentous books. in the Battle of Trafalgar. However, it was Captain Digby’s intrepid aptitude for capturing enemy ships which had However, long before made him a very wealthy man. During his first two years Digby became famous in on the high seas, he captured six French privateers and one the Middle East, an illicit corvette, L’Egalité, reaping a total of 144 cannons and 774 love affair in England had men. In addition, he was responsible for sinking or seizing provoked such sensational Jane Digby's father, no less than 48 merchant ships. Later, he apprehended publicity that she was Sir Henry Digby, K.C.B. two French men-of-war, Le Dépit and La Courage. Then, forced to flee to the in 1799, two Spanish frigates, which carried $3 million Continent. Before she finally found herself in the Islamic in gold, Thetis and Brigide, surrendered to his ship’s guns. world, a staggering number of romances and marriages Fifty military wagons were needed to transport all of the would follow her across Europe as she fell in and out of love spoils. Captain Digby’s share of the booty was £57,000, and with a series of remarkable and very powerful men.
another £7,000 over the next five years, which was a huge sum of money by any standard of the times.
Sir Thomas Coke And Holkham Hall Throughout most of her youth, Jane Digby was raised and educated by her maternal grandfather Sir Thomas Coke, the Earl of Leicester, amidst the magnificent splendors of Holkham Hall, which even today is regarded as one of England’s greatest mansions. The Palladian palace, which was designed in the style of a Roman temple, housed a world-class art collection and library. The paintings that decorated its stately walls included important works by Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Van Dyck, Rubens, Gainsbourgh and many other celebrated artists. Thomas Coke was widely regarded as the most powerful and important commoner in England. He had been offered peerage by King George III, but refused to give up his independence and his seat in the House of Commons. Jane Digby's grandfather, Young Jane received a most Sir Thomas Coke. unusual education for a girl of her times—that of a man. She was trained in the classics in literature, music and art, and studied ancient civilizations and history. From an early age she became fluent in Latin and Greek, and in due course became expert in nine languages. She was also a gifted sketch and watercolor artist. As part of her preparation, her grandfather had taken special pains to teach her how to ride far beyond the normal “cantering about the dells” that most English girls received.
Jane also learned about stable management, veterinary techniques, and the science of horse breeding. In the wellresearched biography, A Scandalous Life, author Mary Lovell observed that Jane was: “… totally fearless, she could ride anything in the Holkham stables, and was as at home looking after a sick beast as riding one.” Surprisingly, Jane somehow managed to emerge from her extraordinary education relatively unspoiled and without excessive vanity. At 16, she was described as tall, with a perfect figure, a lovely face with a wild-rose complexion, pale-gold hair and wide-spaced dark blue eyes.
A Teenage Bride And The Firestorm Of Scandal When she was only 17 years old, Jane’s family arranged her marriage to Lord Edward Law, the 2nd Baron of Ellenborough, later the 1st (and as fate would have it, the only) Earl of Ellenborough, an arrogant, ambitious and imposing man who was 17 years her senior. On October 15, 1824, Lord Edward became Governor General of India and wielded great power administering the immensely rich monopoly of the East India Company. During his tenure at that post, he backed Col. F. R. Chesney’s ill-fated Euphrates Expedition of 1836. Ellenborough’s meteoric career was enhanced when England’s prime minister, the Duke of Wellington, appointed him to the important cabinet post of Lord Privy Seal in 1828. Although Lord Edward was a skillful politician, he was a poor, negligent and philandering husband. As sinister in affairs of the heart as Jane was innocent, he soon grew bored with his beautiful young wife. Supposedly, the couple had a son named Arthur Dudley. However, Jane later confided to a friend that the boy’s father had been George Anson. In any case, the child died in infancy, depriving the Earl of an heir. Suffering from Ellenborough’s indifference, Jane soon began seeking affection elsewhere and apparently was not greatly concerned with concealing her quest for love and happiness. She first had a brief affair with 26 year-old Frederic Madden, a scholar at the British Museum, and then had an amorous liaison with her cousin George Anson. Later, she fell in love with Felix Schwarzenberg, an Austrian Prince serving at the Embassy in London, whose last name was already familiar in London and Paris because his uncle, Field Marshal Karl Schwarzenberg, had been the Austrian Commander-in-Chief at the battle of Leipzig.
Divorce By Act Of Parliament Thanks to a loose-lipped servant, in April 1830 Jane’s affair with Schwarzenberg provoked a sensational scandal. In those days, the only means of procuring a divorce was by a special Act of Parliament. To the astonishment of its readers, for the first time in its history the London Times cleared its classified advertisements from the front page and carried a verbatim report of all of the spicy testimony of the Ellenboroughs’ divorce hearing, which was taking
The Arabian Horse
In History
place in Parliament. Because of her social position, Jane’s extramarital affair became the first great sex scandal to be reported in graphic detail by the press.
James C. Simmons, author of Passionate Pilgrims, mused that: “… What is of particular interest was Balzac’s almost psychic foreshadowing of her actual future, for in his novel he made Lady Arabella Dudley the heir to Lady Hester Stanhope’s mantle in the Middle East. Lady Hester sends Lady Arabella a gift of a magnificent Arabian stallion, which she in turn gives to her lover so that he may come swiftly to her in the evenings.” He added: “According to contemporary reports, Jane was the perfect ‘hausfrau’ during the day, but at night left the palace and rode her black steed to rendezvous with her Greek lover.”
The tabloid atmosphere, coupled with a mixture of English morality and an insatiable craving to know all of the titillating details, snowballed into a maelstrom of gossipmongering that quickly pervaded all levels of London’s judgmental (albeit hypocritical) society. In the end, drained by the court proceedings and publicly disgraced, young Lady Jane Ellenborough was forced to abandon England.
Scandalous Reputation She spent the next two years in Paris living with Felix Schwarzenberg. Evidently, her stunning beauty and scandalous reputation were less offensive to French sensibilities, for she received invitations to all of the great balls and elite gatherings. Perhaps her shocking past even escalated Jane’s acceptance amidst the Parisian aristocratic society. Jane and Schwarzenberg had two children: a daughter, Mathilde, and a son named Felix, who died a few weeks after The Austrian prince his birth. Unfortunately, Felix Schwarzenberg. Jane’s liaison with the Austrian prince eventually came undone due to pressures from his family. In the spring of 1831, Schwarzenberg left Jane in Paris and returned to Vienna, where many years later he became prime minister.
King Ludwig’s Mistress Shortly thereafter, Jane moved to Munich, which was undergoing a cultural renaissance thanks to the progressive endeavors of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. In the words of one historian, Ludwig’s “fetish was beauty in general, and Grecian beauty in particular; beauty in art, beauty in architecture, beauty in women.” Therefore, it is not too surprising that Jane became his mistress, and by most
King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
accounts her daughter Bertha was Ludwig’s child. The King commissioned several artists to immortalize Jane, including Joseph Carl Steiler, who executed her most famous portrait. Although their love affair eventually cooled, their close friendship endured for many years, even after 1841, when Ludwig’s affair with Lola Montez provoked such public indignation that he was forced to abdicate his throne.
A Bavarian Baron And Honoré De Balzac Meanwhile, Jane became involved with Bavarian Baron Karl Theodore von Venningen, whom she married in 1832, and with whom she had a son named Heribert. The couple moved to the Baron’s estate at Weinheim, a small town near Heidelberg. There, in the spring of 1835, Jane met the great French novelist Honoré de Balzac. There were persistent accusations that the two had been lovers during her stay in Paris in 1830-31, but there is no evidence to support such claims. Balzac recorded their only meeting thusly: “This beautiful English lady, so slender, so fragile; this peaches and cream woman, so soft, so mildmannered, with her refined brow crowned by shining chestnut hair, this creature who glows with strange phosphorescence, has a constitution of iron.” However, French Novelist, it is known that because of Honoré De Balzac. their brief encounter, Balzac modeled his character Lady Arabella Dudley in “Le Lys dans la Villée” (one of his novels in the series La Comédie humaine) after Jane.
Jane’s Greek Tragedy She next came to know a Greek nobleman, Count Spyridon Theotky, who was on a diplomatic mission to Munich. Jane could not resist his swashbuckling spirit and as might have been anticipated, a series of secret meetings took place. Growing suspicious, von Venningen caught the two lovers together at a ball for the King of Prussia and challenged Count Theotky to a duel. The Baron wounded the Greek, then magnanimously released Jane from their marriage, consented to raise her children Bertha and Heribert and somehow managed to remain her friend. Jane married Theotokis and they moved into a whitewashed house with few amenities, on the small island of Tinos in the Aegean Sea where the couple had a son named Leonidas and enjoyed several years of conjugal bliss. They often traveled to Athens, which at the time was just a small town that resembled the American Wild West. Greece had only recently been liberated from centuries of oppressive Ottoman rule. Jane recognized the city’s potential for rapid growth and purchased land in downtown Athens. She then engaged an architect and workers to build a large mansion that was more luxurious than the Royal Palace. Her lavish lifestyle was funded by money that her father and grandfather had bequeathed her. Together with her divorce settlement and investments, her annual income amounted to £3,000, which in 1837 was the equivalent to £34,450. In impoverished Greece, Jane’s yearly income was considered a fortune. Just as Jane had captivated King Ludwig I, she charmed his son King Otto, who had been invited to become the King of Greece in 1832 after that nation’s independence from Turkey. She moved into her new home and each day
A famous portrait of Jane Digby by Joseph Karl Stieler.
exercised her grey Arabian stallion Athos on the outskirts of the city, jumping over the ditches and galloping through the fields. In her superbly cut French riding habits and stylish hats, she was sometimes mistaken for Queen Amalie and greeted as such. The rivalry between the two women became almost legendary. Although many sources assert that Jane and King Otto were lovers, there is little evidence to substantiate those claims. By the summer of 1846, her affection for Count Theotokis had waned. Seeking a change of air, Jane traveled with 6-year-old Leonidas to the Tuscan village of Bagni di Lucca for an extended vacation. Unbeknownst to Jane, her young son attempted to slide down the banister of a lofty staircase, but fell to his death and landed on the marble floor. Jane was beside herself with grief, as Leonidas was the only one of her six children for whom she felt any real maternal love. Her response to the loss was to rush headlong into other romantic relationships.
The Lonely Years In the intervening years of 1847 to 1849, Jane traveled widely around Europe and became caught up by the exotic lure of the Orient. She drifted from place to place, to Smyrna (Turkey), Constantinople, Jaffa (now part of
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In History
Tel Aviv) and to Egypt, where she sailed up the Nile. Jane would later deliberate about her wanderlust, “Persia, Egypt, Paris—are not these, and my liberty, in fact, more necessary to me in the long run than marriage and a home?” Her footloose wanderings were not motivated by romantic notions or following the men that she loved from place to place. Much of the happiness during her years in Greece was derived from her opportunity to utilize her classical education and knowledge of ancient Greek civilization to investigate the many architectural remains that were scattered about the Hellenistic world. Seduced by the splendid ruins of the great cities of the past, subconsciously, Jane was moving closer and “Initially, closer to the Orient.
Caravan To Baghdad
Hadji-Petros eventually chilled when she discovered him having an affair with her maid. In April of 1853, she abruptly ended their relationship and departed Greece. According to Lovell, “Jane’s intention was to return to Syria to purchase one of the rare and costly Arab horses she had seen there.”
Desert Campfires Lesley Blanch, another of Jane’s biographers, observed in The Wider Shores of Love that: “Each new love was the love of her life. … Perhaps she even believed she had reached her destination. But it was only another interlude; her life was made up of such; forever darting from one campfire to the next, warming herself in it was the flames, and forever wondering why they flickered out.”
Medjuel’s horse that
Nevertheless, these lonely years were marked At the age of 46, when many women by several casual affairs, which in the words had caught her eye, might have thought that the time for of Lady Isabel Arundell Burton were “best for it was just such youthful adventures had come and gone, forgotten.” Several unsubstantiated stories Jane returned to the Holy Land and set fueled the flames of her notoriety. It was a horse that Jane about seeing all of the prominent historic rumored that while in Italy, she became sites of the past. She had long dreamed of involved with an Italian artillery officer and wanted for herself.” visiting the ancient ruins of Palmyra, which a young diplomat at the same time, and that since Roman times had been seen by only the jealous men resolved their differences a handful of European explorers and one woman, Lady in a duel with swords. Both assumed Jane would marry the Hester Stanhope, some 30 years before. She ignored the survivor. The diplomat, though badly slashed about the face, pleas of Richard Wood, the British Consul in Damascus, ran his sword through the captain, whereupon he demanded not to attempt the long and dangerous journey, and paid Jane’s hand in marriage. When she refused him, he is said to 6,000 francs to the Mezrab tribe for an armed Bedouin have killed himself. escort to take her small caravan to the magnificent ruins.
Jane’s Albanian Pallikar
Jane returned to Athens. At the Royal Court, she met 60-year-old General Xristodolous Hadji-Petros, a Pallikar (mercenary) from the Albanian mountains who was a highly-decorated hero of the Greek War of Independence. Up to that time, her affairs had been with men who were refined and cultivated. Nevertheless, she was smitten by Hadji-Petros’ courage and wild, romantic looks. He was the real thing, a rogue and freebooter who led a private army of mercenaries. Thereafter, she divided her time between the comforts of her city manor and life in the mountains with her charismatic brigand and his men. During their amorous escapade, her exceptional equestrian skills served her well when she joined her general on his long journeys in the mountains and lived under the same rugged conditions as his men, sometimes in caves. However, Jane’s love for
Palmyra And Queen Zenobia More than one author has speculated that Jane’s obsession to visit Palmyra was because she strongly identified with Queen Zenobia. They point out that the classical textbooks of Jane’s youth were saturated with a pantheon of male heroes and conquerors. Therefore, the uniqueness of Zenobia and the ancient city where she once had reigned must have been a particularly alluring place for her. In the 3rd Century A.D., the warrior queen had led an army of 70,000 Arabs into battle and had driven the Romans out of Syria. Zenobia then marched into Egypt, destroyed the imperial garrisons and consolidated her control over all of the desert’s lucrative caravan routes. She ruled over her dominion from a magnificent palace
Jane Digby's last husband, Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab.
at Palmyra, the ancient biblical site of Solomon’s Tadmor. The Romans eventually defeated Zenobia and carted her off to Rome, where she was publicly displayed shackled in gold chains. Although Palmyra was sacked and razed in retribution, Jane no doubt empathized with Zenobia’s fall from grace. Indeed, after her first of many visits, Jane always called the lost city by its ancient Arabic name, Tadmor. In late May of 1853, near Nazareth, Jane met Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab who escorted her to the ruins of Palmyra. He was the younger brother of Sheikh Mohammed, whose small Mezrab tribe was a faction of the larger Sebaa tribe, which was in turn part of the great Anazeh confederation of tribes. Lovell wrote, “Initially, it was Medjuel’s horse that had caught her eye, for it was just such a horse that Jane wanted for herself. When she raised the matter with him, he told her that few mares were sold outside the tribes, for they were a precious commodity and guarded jealously to ensure the purity of lineage. … Jane told him she would pay almost any price for such a horse. It was perhaps not a sensible thing to say to an Arab.”
After her journey to Palmyra, Jane returned to Athens only long enough to put her mansion up for sale and attend to her business affairs. Her next great adventure was a camelback journey to Baghdad. Medjuel was unable to escort her, so she rode with Sheikh el Barak. Jane traveled not as a “Frank” (the term used by the Arabs since the times of the Crusades for all foreigners) tourist, but as a working member of the caravan. They departed Damascus on December 19, 1853, in the dead of winter. It was no pleasure trip, and Jane endured considerable hardships—constant rain, the furious blast of the wind, and even a snow storm. During her cold, wet trek, she was accompanied by 25 aghaylats (bodyguards). Nevertheless, after one week on the march, they were attacked by raiders from the M’wayaja tribe and forced to pay a heavy ransom to Faris ibn Hedeb, a famous sheikh often mentioned by desert travelers of the era. Upon hearing the wail of the attackers, Jane had reached for her gun, but as she turned around, an Arab on a chestnut horse, with the sharpened point of his lance held before him, rode into the open tent and “made us fairly his prisoners.” A large group of the “ruffians” then herded Jane off to the conquerors’ tent until payment of a substantial levy was arranged.
Colonel Rawlinson And Sheikh Ferhan Of The Shammar Jane spent three weeks in Bagdad, touring the crumbling, sun-baked mud city and visiting with everyone of note, including the emir and his harem. Naturally, she dined with Colonel Henry C. Rawlinson, the famed archeologist who had deciphered the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian languages. Thanks to their mutual interest in ancient civilizations, they established a lasting friendship through regular correspondence and several subsequent meetings in London. At Rawlinson’s suggestion, Jane rode to Mosul with only a small escort and tracked down Austen Henry Layard’s picturesque Bedouin friend Ferhan, the celebrated sheikh of the Shammar tribe, whose audacious acts of bravery and exploits plundering livestock were legendary throughout Arabia. She charmed Ferhan into providing her with a Shammar escort so that she could sketch several of the distant Assyrian ruins. Then she hurriedly rode back to Baghdad to rejoin Barak and his caravan on its return march to Damascus. ■ See Part II in next month's issue. Author’s Note: As usual, the Arabic spellings of names ( Jane’s husband Medjuel, Midjuel, Midgwell, Mijuel and Mijwal; his tribe Mezrab, Mizrab, and Mesrab) vary considerably among the different authors.