Besides the moving and tragic story of Caroline Norton, another case that inspired the scandal in THE WIFE’S TALE was the case of the infamous Lady Worsley, who was the subject of a scandalous criminal conversation suit by her husband in the late eighteenth century.

In those days, a husband could sue his wife’s lover for damages because she was legally his chattel (like a chair or a table or a horse) and the lover had interfered with the husband’s possession and enjoyment of her. No, I am not making this up!

So, in a trial for criminal conversation, to maximise the amount of compensation he received, it was to the husband’s benefit to prove that his wife was virtuous before the defendant corrupted her and had his way; it was advantageous to the defendant to prove that the wife was already sleeping with half of England before he came along–and this was precisely what the defendant in this case set out (fairly successfully) to establish about Seymour. He also claimed that Seymour’s husband had encouraged other men to spy on his wife while she was naked at public baths.

Cartoonists such as Gillray had a field day with this titillating story, and depicted here are two of the cartoons that resulted from the trial. One shows the husband giving the defendant a boost up so he can spy on Seymour in the baths. The other depicts the long line of Lady Worsley’s lovers, several of whom testified a the criminal conversation trial.

The verdict was that while the defendant was indeed guilty of the act in question, the damages the husband received were nominal.

The Worsleys lived at Appuldurcombe, a beautiful Palladian mansion on the Isle of Wight surrounded by a park designed by Capability Brown, and I based Seagrove on this estate.

However, Delany owes very little except her circumstances to Seymour, who, as far as I can discover, had very little in the way of character or intelligence to recommend her. She was part of a wild set of young ladies who hobnobbed with the Duchess of Devonshire and hung around the military camps–wearing (most stylishly) a feminised version of the redcoat uniform–and husband-swapping at a great rate.

If you’d like to read more, I thoroughly recommend Hallie Rubenhold’s The Scandalous Lady W.