Book review: Wedlock

Published on Friday 23 January 2009 15:00

WEDLOCK Wendy Moore Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, £18.99

THE tempestuous couple at the heart of this rattling Georgian romp are laced so tightly into the stereotypes of period melodrama that they seem to have sprung directly from the pens of Messrs Mills and Boon.

It comes as a surprise then to learn that Captain Andrew Robinson Stoney, the brooding, bodice-ripping brute, and Mary Eleanor Bowes, his long-suffering, aristocratic spouse, were real people. Not only that, but for a spell in the late 18th century, theirs was the most famous, and notorious, coupling in England. Moore's exhaustive research has allowed her to expertly dramatise their lives in this novelistic non-fiction account.

At the age of 13 the cosseted Bowes inherited her coal magnate father's fortune of more than 1m, making her the richest heiress in King George's kingdom. Instead of using her wealth merely to become the Paris Hilton of Georgian society, she invested in her education, becoming a talented scientist who scandalised the all-male Royal Society by having the temerity to apply for membership.

Despite her intelligence, Bowes soon found herself in a loveless marriage to the Earl of Strathmore and shed few tears when he died in his prime. With almost indecent haste the 27-year-old widow went about celebrating her independence, unaware that rugged Irish suitor Stoney was hatching a plan to win her heart and fortune. After being gravely wounded fighting a duel to protect her honour, the countess had no hesitation granting his dying wish and the pair were married. Soon after, Stoney staged a miraculous recovery and it became clear his chivalrous sacrifice was no more than a ruse, concocted with a bribed opponent and ladles of pigs blood.

Stoney then shows his true colours, subjecting his spouse to brutal beatings, imprisoning her in her own pantry and siphoning off the family fortune on grog, gambling and prostitutes.

However, in an inspirational climax, Bowes squares up to the centuries-old legal toleration of domestic abuse by taking her husband, by then a powerful politician, to court. This horse-drawn stagecoach of a yarn plods slightly in the middle, but gallops headlong towards an unbelievably tense denouement which any work of Hollywood fiction would struggle to match.