Improbable Women: Five Who Explored the Middle East

8. Everything for Love

88 8 Everything for Love Cast against a background of loss, grieving, and romantic failure, the loss of General John Moore was the event that thrust Hester Stanhope into the journey that would last the rest of her life. Similarly , cycles of romantic hope and disappointment drove the life and travels of Jane Digby. In Jane’s case, disappointment did not lead to a change of strategy but rather to a new fascination and a fresh attack. Her scorecard shows four husbands and at least six lovers. She had a vision of what love should be and a conviction that her ideal could be found; that she did not find him immediately was not owing to a lack of effort. She was an example of a class of successful people personified by the entrepreneur who invests everything in a new business, fails, loses all, and then picks herself up and struggles again, and again, until she achieves success. And Jane Digby did. In the early nineteenth century, the upper classes of England were the nobility and the gentry. The latter were well-born, generally wealthy, and frequently landowners, and were entitled to a coat of arms. They did not, however, bear a title. The nobility included the royal princes and the peerage: those bearing the title of duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. Lesser nobility included baronets , who could transmit their title to the next generation, and knights, who could not. In 1801, all titled individuals in England totaled fewer than 1,500 and this was in a total population of 8.5 million. The nobility and gentry together would number no more than 10,000. Thus Hester Stanhope, whose father was an earl, was a member of a select level of society even without her family’s connections to political power. Everything for Love • 89 Jane Digby was born into the same level. Her grandfather was Thomas Coke, the first Earl of Leicestershire of Holkham; her mother, Lady Andover, was the widow of Viscount Andover; and her father was Henry Digby, a naval captain with many prize ships and thus considerable wealth to his credit. With Lord Nelson at Trafalgar , he became a national hero when, misunderstanding a signal from the flagship ordering him to stand away to safety, he laid on all sails and bore into the enemy fleet, a daring and successful maneuver. Captain Henry Digby was honored by both houses of Parliament and awarded a gold medal. His career prospered, and he was eventually promoted to rear admiral, vice admiral, and admiral. Jane was born in Forston House, Dorset. Forston House, a country estate, overlooks the Cerne Abbas giant. The giant, likely of Celtic origin, is formed by trenches carved into the hillside and filled with chalk. Not least of its remarkable features is an erect phallus that was lengthened by some seven feet during the Victorian era. While Jane’s father was away at sea, her mother took her to spend extended stays at her grandfather’s 43,000-acre estate, Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Set in the midst of a park with lakes, forest, and a distant view of the sea, Holkham Hall was famous in Jane’s day and is still magnificent today. The massive building, built in Palladian style between 1734 and 1762 by Thomas Coke, the first Earl of Leicester, still sits on 3,000 acres with a one-mile-long lake. While her parents cared about her and were involved in her upbringing, the era and their class called for the services of a governess . Miss Margaret Steele was the daughter of a poor but scholarly clergyman. Educated as a lady but never married, when her father died she was forced to seek employment and found both a position and a lifelong relationship with Jane and her family. She would play a treacherous role in Jane’s life. Jane was adventurous and fearless: a potent combination. She could ride anything found in the stables at Holkham, and she led her brothers and cousins on expeditions through the maze of corridors and rooms of the great house. At age eight she wandered away with a troop of gypsies, was recaptured, and returned to Holkham Hall. 90 • Lady Jane Elizabeth Digby El Mesrab When Margaret Steele took command of Jane at age ten, she found that she had an apt pupil. Jane was adept at languages, loved literature, and had...