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Article Excerpt
One of the most piquant episodes in the early history of English opera concerns a secret marriage between the third Earl of Peterborough and the singer Anastasia Robinson. According to The Complete Peerage, "this appears to be the first marriage of a peer with an actress, singer or dancer." (1) What no one has ever settled is whether the couple got married once, twice, or not at all.
A batch of correspondence in the Dyce Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum throws some light on the last days of the Earl (1658-1735), soldier and diplomat. It includes an unpublished autograph letter of his friend Alexander Pope, along with items written by Robinson, the former operatic soprano (later contralto) singer, by the courtier Stephen Poyntz, and by Dr. Alured Clarke, a prominent clergyman favored by Queen Caroline. Together with other unexplored documents, including Peterborough's own will, the letters confirm some details previously known only by hearsay, and help to clarify the chronology of events. They suggest that the family acted out a complex drama, with Pope a keen, but relatively disinterested, observer.
I
In the course of his last few months the Earl is said to have acknowledged his marriage to Robinson, which had allegedly taken place in 1722 or, more likely, 1723. According to a tenacious story, he also went through another marriage ceremony with Anastasia at this date. As will emerge, Pope provides the original source for both of these supposed events, but the most explicit report of an earlier marriage can be traced back to a passage in Charles Burney's General History of Music (1789), drawing on information supplied by Mary Delany.
In his discussion of the operatic career of Anastasia Robinson, Burney prints anecdotes which had been "communicated to me in 1787, by the late venerable Mrs. Delany, her cotemporary and intimate acquaintance," stating that these will "doubtless be read with confidence and pleasure." The ensuing account describes Robinson's relations with the Earl, and her rejection of a dishonorable offer he had made to her. Delany's narrative continues:
At length Lord P. made his declaration to her on honourable terms; he found it would be vain to make proposals on any other, and as he omitted no circumstance that could engage her esteem and gratitude, she accepted them as she was sincerely attached to him. He earnestly requested her keeping it a secret till it was a more convenient time for him to make it known, to which she readily consented, having a perfect confidence in his honour. Among the persons of distinction that professed a friendship for Mrs. A. Robinson were the Earl and Countess of Oxford, daughter-in-law to the lord treasurer Oxford, who not only bore every public testimony of their affection and esteem for Mrs. A. Robinson, but Lady Oxford attended her when she was privately married to the Earl of E and Lady E ever acknowledged her obligations with the warmest gratitude; and after Lady Oxford's death, she was particularly distinguished by the Duchess of Portland, Lady Oxford's daughter.
Delany goes to relate how the Earl took a house for Anastasia near his own villa at Parson's Green, in Fulham. She proceeds:
They never lived under the same roof, till the earl being seized with a violent fit of illness, solicited her to attend him at Mount Bevis, near Southampton, which she refused with firmness, but upon condition that, though still denied to take his name, she might be permitted to wear her wedding ring; to which, finding her inexorable, he at length consented.
According to Delany, the Earl's "haughty spirit was still reluctant to the making a declaration, that would have done justice to so worthy as the person to whom he was now united; and, indeed, his uncontrolable temper, and high opinion of his own actions, made him a very awful husband, ill suited to Lady E-'s good amiable temper, and delicate sentiments." However, "after many severe trials in her conjugal state," Anastasia induced her protector to do the right thing. "At last he prevailed on himself to do her justice, instigated, it is supposed, by his bad state of health, which obliged him to seek another climate, and she absolutely refused to go with him unless he declared his marriage: her attendance upon him in his illness nearly cost her her life."
At this point Delany outlines with some particularity how the relationship was formally acknowledged, filling out a brief reference by Pope:
He appointed a day for all his nearest relations to meet him at the apartment, over the gate-way of St. James's Palace, belonging to Mr. Pointz, who was married to Lord Peterborough's niece, and at that time preceptor to prince William, afterwards Duke of Cumberland. Lord P. also appointed Lady P. to be there at the same time; when they were all assembled he began a most eloquent oration, enumerating all the virtues and perfections of Mrs. A. Robinson, and the rectitude of her conduct during his long acquaintance with her, for which he acknowledged his great obligations and sincere attachment, declaring he was determined to do her that justice which he ought to have done long ago, which was presenting her to all his family as his wife. He spoke this harangue with so much energy, and in parts so pathetically, that Lady P. not being apprised of his intentions, was so affected that she fainted away in the midst of the company. (2)
This circumstantial narration has provided the basis for all biographic studies of both Robinson and Peterborough. Clearly it deserves to be taken seriously. As the closest confidante of the Duchess of Portland in later years, Delany may have come to know Anastasia well through visits both women made to the ducal estate at Bulstrode. She was living in London in 1735, a near neighbor and friend of Handel, and heavily involved in operatic circles. Nothing, however, tings more true than her depiction of Anastasia's emotional distress.
Against this there exist several factors which diminish credence in the story Burney prints. First, Delany was eighty-seven when she gave the doctor these anecdotes, and had only one more year to live. Second, the events now lay more than fifty years in the past, and the supposed first marriage had taken place all of sixty-seven years prior. Third, in the early 1720s, home for Mary was a rotting house in remotest Cornwall as the wife of a gouty alcoholic named Alexander Pendarves: she spent only limited periods in London until her first husband died in 1724. Subsequently, her informant on events in the capital was probably Lady Margaret Harley, daughter of the Countess of Oxford, and the future Duchess of Portland: but at this time Lady Margaret (born 1715) was no more than a girl. Fourth, Anastasia Robinson had retired from the stage before Mary became an habituee of the opera, and took no active part in this world after her retirement. Fifth, some minor errors in the story could derive either from what Delany said or from the transmission of her words by Burney (himself far too young to serve as a firsthand witness of the episode). The name of Peterborough's home at Bevis Mount undergoes reversal, while Prince William had been created Duke of Cumberland in 1726, almost a decade before the event under review. More seriously, Lady Oxford survived until December 1755, and thus outlived Anastasia by eight months: as a result, Delany's statement about her plainly cannot stand up. Last, Delany passes over the supposed second wedding in Bristol: this might be because Robinson chose not to reveal the event to her, but equally because it never really happened.
By chance, Pope found himself better placed than most in 1722 to keep an eye on what was going on. He had become friendly with Peterborough about three years earlier, and he probably knew Anastasia not long afterwards. She was of course a member of the relatively small Roman Catholic community who based in and around London. In 1721 Giovanni Bononcini, the rival composer to Handel, went to live at Twickenham, where Pope had moved a year or two earlier. Here Bononcini gathered together a support group including Pope and Peterborough. In fact Pope helped to organize a subscription campaign for Bononcini's Cantate, and gained the support of Prince and Princess of Wales and...
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