Wedlock by Wendy Moore

Author:Wendy Moore
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Autobiography, Linguistics, Science & Technology, Literary, Women linguists, Social History, Botanists, Monarchy And Aristocracy, Dramatists, Women dramatists, Women botanists, Historical - British, Women, Language Arts & Disciplines, Historical - General, Linguists, Historical, Great Britain - History - 18th Century, History, Art, General, Biography & Autobiography, Scandals, Biography
ISBN: 9780307383365
Publisher: THREE RIVERS PR
Published: 2010-06-14T07:00:00+00:00

When the general election was finally declared at the end of March, Bowes was summoned north to justify his woeful parliamentary record to the disgruntled voters in Newcastle with Mary his stalwart consort as usual. Having expended vast sums securing his parliamentary seat only to have his aspirations to the peerage repeatedly stalled, Bowes was in no mood for a third expensive contest to woo the Newcastle freemen. Having placed their trust in the radical campaigner only to see him flagrantly ignore their interests in Parliament, the city’s electors were equally in no mood to squander their vote on Bowes a second time. Not surprisingly, therefore, many of the radicals were eager to switch their support to an alternative candidate, Charles Brandling, an independent thinker from a long-established local coal-owning family. So as the three prospective candidates - Ridley standing on a certainty again - set out their policies in the Guildhall, the gathered freemen anticipated a vigorous meeting. Bowes did not disappoint them. After Ridley gave a ‘short, though sensible’ speech, Bowes launched into a belligerent, menacing and, quite probably, drunken tirade which lasted nearly two hours. Dismissing well-founded rumours that he had been seeking a seat in Durham, he tersely informed the voters that it was their fault if he had not followed their desires in Parliament as they had not given him adequate instruction. He then levelled a personal attack on Brandling with such ferocity that he would later be forced to quash suggestions that this amounted to a challenge to a duel.43

As popular support for Pitt swelled across the country, it was little wonder that the tide of feeling ran strongly against Bowes in the weeks leading to the opening of the poll on 26 April. One anonymous voter summarised the mood in the local newspaper: ‘Can the Free Burgesses of Newcastle stoop to support a man who intended to have deserted them? Will they suffer themselves to be made a mere step ladder to Mr Bowes’s ambition to be kicked down when he has attained the summit of his views? Have we not seen, whilst he was in Parliament, that his duty to the public, and to his private debts have been discharged with equal punctuality?’44 Reminding the electors that Bowes’s fortune would be entirely lost on Lady Strathmore’s death - which those with memories extending back to his first marriage may have thought relatively imminent - the anonymous correspondent asked: ‘And is there any one action of his life which an honest man can imitate, or a good man applaud ?’ As Ridley and Brandling marched eagerly to the hustings at the start of the poll the crowds waited in vain for Bowes to appear. When finally he arrived it was to announce his resignation from the contest. It was a ‘handsome farewell speech’, Ridley’s brother, Nicholas, remarked with some relief, adding: ‘Mr B’s leavetaking seemed to be for ever.’45 As Ridley and Brandling were chaired through the narrow streets by their jubilant supporters, Bowes walked away from the hustings a defeated and a dangerous man.

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