Mistress of the Elgin Marbles Read online

  Doctor Scott is arrived at last, but Oh, O-H my Dearest Lady Elgin what a Tongue! he is clever … but such a monotonous voice as I never heard, and I am sorry to say he has already told us all about China, Japan &&&: … Woe’s me he told the exact same Story word for word this morning at Breakfast that he told me yesterday at the same hour. He absolutely drives me out of the room, I have not patience for it, for if he told us new stories every day at least it would be more bearable but when you come to Ditto repeat, Alas it is all over.

  After that initial letter, Mary felt great remorse for her grumpiness and she repented, sweetly offering great—and deliberately thorough—details to her mother-in-law of the excellent care the dowager’s protégé, Dr. Scott, was providing to the entire family and the good work that he was doing for mankind while he was stationed in the East. Mindful to be sensitive to the Dowager Countess, who was quite worried about her son’s health, Mary reported that Dr. Scott prescribed regular “Sea bathing,” and a change of habits. Elgin “eats a great deal plainer than he used to do, does not sleep excepting in Bed, and the greatest of all objects carried, has left off Suppers and the quantity of wine he used to drink after supper, he now only takes a Glass of Wine & Water.” In the summer of 1801, after little Bruce had suffered “a most violent flux,” she wrote the Dowager Countess, “the Doctor has quite gained my heart, he is so exceedingly attentive. He gives him Port Wine, Rice & chicken every day.”

  Mary was by nature an empathetic person, and motherhood turned her into a crusader on behalf of children’s health care. “What a dreadful thing it is to see a poor little Child suffer,” she wrote her mother-in-law, and she decided that she would at least try to protect all children from the ravages of smallpox. At the request of the twenty-two-year-old Countess of Elgin, a steady stream of deliveries containing vials of the smallpox vaccine began arriving at the British Embassy in Turkey. Despite the growing discomfort of her pregnancy, Mary worked tirelessly to dispatch doctors and these vials to Baghdad, the Persian Gulf, and Bombay, where a vaccination board was established to coordinate the distribution of the medicine in India. In her letters home, she would report on the numbers of people receiving treatment—in one letter she counted seventy people in Belgrade and hundreds of children in Smyrna who had been vaccinated.

  About one year and five months after the birth of Lord Bruce, Mary’s second child, Mary, was born on August 31, 1801, and she was just one week old when on September 6 she received the first of three injections of the smallpox vaccine.

  Mary’s heart as a mother propelled her to reach out to other mothers, and she became an ambassador in her own right.

  Chapter 8

  CAPTAIN OF HER SHIP

  Everyone in the family had been thrilled that Mary was pregnant with her second child in early 1801. Everyone, that is—except Mary. Despite her husband’s claim to the contrary, she most certainly did not forget her pains. She wrote to her mother-in-law, “Alas! It is but too true; perhaps you will not believe me when I say that really I think Elgin is almost as sorry as myself, I suffer so dreadfully from sickness it is quite terrible to look forward to seven or eight months spent in this manner.” Still, she hosted a number of masked balls, managed three houses—Broomhall, the embassy residence in Constantinople, and the house in Pera—and, like any mother of a toddler, was running after a very active little boy.

  Mary and Elgin were delighted that little Lord Bruce spoke his first words in Greek. By late spring, he was walking about with confidence. An English ship captain had carved a carriage for the little boy, and Mary reported, “You cannot imagine his joy when he gets into it. The misfortune is, he will not get out again.”

  Without her mother by her side—her parents were traveling around Greece in May—Mary reached out once again to her grandmother, her aunts, and her mother-in-law for decorating tips and advice. She was bustling about getting the family, servants, and staff settled in the enormous summer house in Büyük Déré, but the underlying longing for a home back in Scotland became evident as she chatted about buying fabrics for Broomhall. In Turkey, the ambassador and his wife could not travel light, and “setting up house” meant configuring an embassy, which was much like planning corporate offices—taking everyone else’s needs into account:

  Excepting the Russians and Baron Hubsch’s houses, it is, without any comparison the best in Bouyouk Dere. The drawing room is a famous large room, and besides that, we have 8 other good rooms on the first floor, all of which I mean to take possession of for myself and Bab. Below stairs there is a very large dining room, a writing room, and plenty of room for your gentlemen. At the top of the house are exceeding good garrets. We can put up all our people in it…. Do you recollect the house? … I think you must remember the flower pots on the top of a nice garden wall, and an odd shaped scraggy looking tree at the top of the hill, which was a market object from the Bosphorus; that tree, and a vineyard behind it, belongs to us. What a pity we had it not last year, for you would have been most capitally lodged; and then you would have had the amusement of seeing us make our wine … there are two or three large trees with benches under them, and from thence is the most beautiful view of the Bosphorus and Giant’s Mountain, I have ever seen.

  In early June, she hosted a grand fete in honor of King George’s birthday. Smack in the middle of the festivities, Reverend Hunt arrived from Athens bearing letters from the Nisbets. That brought very good news for their son-in-law as well.

  Your letter put Elgin into the greatest glee, he was quite charmed at your entering so heartily into his cause; your visit would undoubtedly renovate the Artists and make them work with fresh spirit—Elgin is going immediately to set about getting the proper Firman for Minerva’s Temple. I shall write you word if it succeeds.

  Up to that point, the Nisbets had regarded Elgin’s interest in reproducing classical artifacts an insignificant distraction and hobby. They changed their minds and caught his fever when the archbishop of Athens, as a token of respect for their daughter, presented them with the ancient gymnasiarch’s chair, sat upon by one of the judges at the ancient Panathenaic games.1 Viewing the priceless antiquities firsthand for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Nisbet finally understood that these unique treasures, mementos of history, could be turned to dust by soldiers. The Nisbets enjoyed the fun of bringing home a few souvenirs. In June 1801, Mary wrote to her father:

  But now my Dearest Father prepare to hear with extasy what I am going to tell you! Captain Briggs, Commander of the Salamine Brigg has at this moment on board, one piece of Porphyry 4 foot and a half long, & 3 foot and 1/2 round. Another, 7 foot and a half long, & 3 1/2 round. And another—Open Your Eyes! Eight feet long, & seven feet round!!! ‘Pon honor, fact, Dear Sir!

  As they headed home, the Nisbets faced great danger because of the continuous fighting all around the Mediterranean. Mary wrote to her mother-in-law that on March 21, General Menou led a French army of intoxicated soldiers and lost 2,000 men. In that skirmish, Sir Sidney Smith had been wounded, Sir Ralph Abercromby lost a limb and soon thereafter died, and Colonel Hope lost a finger. Elgin had been assisting Abercromby with a steady stream of financial support and supplies that he had obtained by convincing creditors that the British government would repay all debt. Because the money was necessary for the war effort, Elgin felt, as ambassador in the region, he should do all that was in his power to secure British victory. The borrowed money was used to procure weaponry and build ships; however, when he petitioned the foreign minister for reimbursement, he was ignored. He and Mary were then held personally liable for a vast sum of money that had been turned over to the armed forces. Unfortunately for Elgin, his own patriotism caused serious financial reversals for his family that would affect generations to come. Abercromby’s replacement, General Hutchinson, expressed his gratitude in a letter to Elgin:

  I do not know how we should have been able to have existed at all in this country had it not been for the great exertions which you have used to procure us money
, and to administer to our other various wants…. I shall ever bear testimony to the zeal and ability with which you have exercised the most important public functions.

  Another turn of events occurred when General Kléber was assassinated and Menou was named the new general in charge of the French forces. Menou boldly threatened, “Nous ferons vigoureusement rebrousser chemin à Messieurs les Anglais.” (“We will make the Englishmen turn and run vigorously” could be loosely translated as “run for their lives.”)2

  The Nisbets made it to Malta for the requisite smallpox quarantine and went on to Italy. Mary waited anxiously for every letter that could substantiate their safety, and faithfully sent her usual, numbered letters with couriers and ship captains. On July 9, she reminded them sadly that one year ago “did my very dear Father and Mother kiss my Bab for the first time, what a different day did I pass to what this is. But I must not compare.”

  General Hutchinson, despite his kind words to Elgin, negotiated a treaty without Elgin’s help, and Elgin was disappointed that he was not consulted. Much like the unsatisfactory El Arish agreement, it required no French surrender, just safe passage home. Elgin wrote a private letter critical of the bargain to Frederic, the Duke of York (King George III’s second son), who had been appointed commander in chief of the army in 1799. The duke allowed publication of this letter, causing great pain to Elgin. Mary wrote to her mother-in-law, “Poor Elgin he is also extremely annoy’d at his private letter to the duke of York being published,” and she wrote of the betrayal to her parents on June 26:

  I will tell you one thing which is that Elgin is most amazingly hurt at finding a private letter he wrote to the Duke of York, published. He wrote both to the Duke and to Lord Hawkesbury [secretary of state for foreign affairs] yesterday very forcibly upon this subject, to say how exceedingly hurt he is to find his private letter published—particularly as he had been so much with the Army, he is always extremely cautious never to meddle with military details when he can possibly avoid it, knowing how much the least inaccuracy affects the characters of officers. E. says he has always been accustomed to correspond with the Duke of York privately, that makes it doubly unfair, him allowing it to be published. I hear the Opposition papers quiz E.’s intelligence.

  Mary wrote that Elgin would face criticism for whatever he said or did. “I am afraid Elgin will be abused, but he has nothing to do with the conditions G.H. [General Hutchinson] has allowed the French, and in his private letters to Lord Hawkesbury and a Mr Somebody belonging to the Duke of York, he has not concealed his opinion that the terms are infamous.” Mary was frustrated that important decisions concerning world events were being made without her husband’s input. She felt that as he possessed considerable skill, he was being abused. Were they needed for their country only to serve as a pocketbook? When would her husband finally, truly be appreciated for his brilliance as a negotiator and politician?

  Much to Elgin’s and Mary’s delight, word came that “Lord Keith and General Hutchinson have removed Sir Sydney for the command on the Nile” and “Mr. Straton was coming.” Alexander Straton, Spencer Smith’s replacement, meant that Smith would not be returning despite persistent rumors to the contrary. Mary wrote to her mother-in-law:

  Elgin is writing to you so he will tell you how happy Mr. Straton’s appointment to be Secretary of Legation has made him—I own it has given me the greatest satisfaction, as all the Germans and some of the English Merchants have been constantly declaring that Smith was to return here—& both the Russian and Prussian Ministers have expressed their astonishment at E’s having so little influence—I dare say both Sir Sidney and his Brother will endeavor to do Elgin all the mischief they can when they get to England.

  On their way back to London, the Nisbets began to hear rumors accusing their son-in-law of receiving bribes and participating in illegal trade. They were extremely irritated at having to defend him, but as they had seen his hard work and had been themselves the recipient of the sultan’s largesse, due to his admiration of their daughter, they were extremely credible defendants. They had seen firsthand that despite England’s bungling of foreign relations and the Ottomans’ weariness with the British government, the Elgins were being treated like royalty. And although the Smith brothers headed home with tantalizing tales of the sultan’s alleged bribery at the Elgin embassy, Mary and Elgin were busy using their own public relations to control the damage. Elgin reported back with ferocity to Grenville, to the new foreign minister, Lord Hawkesbury, to his mother, and to anyone who might shoulder his cause. Mary’s own chronicles went to Lady Robert, Dowager Lady Elgin, the Duchess of Montrose, and other women who could “kiss and tell.” She substantiated Elgin’s hard work with phrases about his “scribbling,” his “writing,” meaning that he spent a lot of time writing in self-defense and reporting home. She herself had told everybody that the sultan had given her a sum of money to buy a beautiful adornment. If, in fact, this were a bribe, she would have kept the transaction a secret. Instead she sent the money back to London to have something spectacular fashioned. On August 28, she wrote to her mother-in-law:

  I wrote to Bluey some time ago to send me a Diamond necklace, I hope it is on the road as I wish to exhibit it here, to shew the Grand Signior I have bought something handsome with his Money—I told Miss Manners she might spend Twelve or Thirteen hundred pound upon it, now as I have got more presents I do not care if she adds £100 or £200 more provided it is required to make the Necklace very handsome.

  This was a young woman who could buy herself anything she wanted. She understood that this was not money to spend on something practical, rather it was a token of admiration from a forty-year-old man to a twenty-three-year-old woman, and she knew it was important to dazzle this “Kutchuk.”

  Her baby was overdue and Mary was quite grumpy when she wrote to her mother-in-law that she had hoped to have an addition to the family by now to write about. She hurled a complaint against her husband in this letter to the Dowager Countess—”your Son … to let you into a secret is no comfort to me for he is always scribbling’—which, of course, was really a backhanded compliment: her way of communicating how hard he was working. She signed off, “Farewell my Dearest Lady Elgin I am really so uncomfortable I can hardly write.”

  In a long letter to her parents written throughout the summer, which she finally concluded—also—on August 28, she remarked that although she had intended to have her message delivered by a German carrier, she decided that because it contained gossip about the Smiths, she’d have it reach them another way. Mary was thrilled that she was able to share the splendors of the East with her parents for the past year, and her letters contained a new kind of shorthand: “You remember the old-fashioned gigish pieces of furniture we saw in the Seraglio? Now what I want is little tables, a good deal ornamented, inlaid boxes and drawers: dear Mother will you see about this?” She playfully christened her correspondence “the Bouyouk Dere Scandalous Gazette”—including spicy anecdotes about the “little Spaniard,” the Prussians, the Russians, the papal emissary, whom she called “the Internonce,” his “yellow wigged sister,” and other local characters. Sprinkled in with war news and political public relations, she sent on entertaining tidbits about the little Prussian’s attachment to an English Major Bromley—an alias for M. de Tromelin, a Frenchman who had been Sidney Smith’s accomplice in his escape from the Temple Prison. Forced to flee France for his life, he went to England to serve His Majesty King George. Apparently, the little Prussian’s husband, the big Prussian, was furious with jealousy over his wife’s infatuation. Mary also reported on a young Miss Abbott and her crush on the wrong man. Apparently, Miss Abbott’s trustees in London had gotten wind of her romance and they asked Elgin to interfere; Mary gleefully told how Elgin wrote back, insisting he was much too busy to wreck anybody’s dalliances. Mary forwarded the hilarious incident concerning a Mademoiselle Leiger and her lover, a musician named Beldi. Miss Leiger, in an effort to find her amour, covered herself
in a burka and went out on the street incognito. She was paid back for all of her effort when she found her Mr. Beldi—with another woman.

  Mary also felt that now that her parents had been converted to Elgin’s artistic cause, she could also share with them detailed accounts of the artists’ progress in Greece and the exciting news that “Elgin has had letters from Hunt [from Athens] and all has been managed better than we could have expected at the Temple of Minerva. Free access is given to the Artists into the Citadel from sunrise to sunset.” After all, it was now clear that this was to be a very expensive undertaking, and any and all Nisbet money was certainly welcome. The Nisbets began to fund Elgin’s artists in their endeavors, and they all wanted to make sure that Mary’s parents knew how grateful they were. Mary’s long, long letter completed on August 28 went out before she could tell them about the next bit of exciting news.