The Unhappy Countess and England`s Worst Husband
Andrew Robinson Stoney (1747 – 1810) was an Anglo-Irish rake and adventurer – a conman who gained infamy by tricking an unsuspecting noblewoman into a horrific marriage. That marriage, to Mary Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1749 – 1800), an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II who became known as “The Unhappy Countess” as a result, scandalized England and ended in a riveting divorce case.
Mary was born in London to a wealthy coal baron who died when she was 11, and left her a fortune of about £ million pounds – Paris Hilton type money in those days. It made Mary the wealthiest heiress in Europe, and one of Britain’s most desirable women. Aristocrats wooed her, and she enjoyed and encouraged the attentions, before finally marrying the Earl of Strathmore and Kingmore on her 18th birthday.
The couple had five children, but when the Earl caught tuberculosis, Mary grew frustrated with his increasing debility and lack of sex drive. She started cheating on her husband with a series of lovers, and earned a reputation for licentiousness in the process. When the Earl finally succumbed in 1776, the widowed Mary resumed control of her fortune, and took up with a lover, George Gray. He got her pregnant four times within a year, with Mary aborting each one.
She finally resigned herself to marry Gray after the fourth pregnancy, when she met and was seduced by Andrew Robinson Stoney, a British Army lieutenant who styled himself a “Captain”. In 1777, Stoney wrote scurrilous articles about Mary, and arranged to have them published in a newspaper. He then feigned outrage over the insult to Mary’s honor, and challenged the newspaper’s editor, who was in on the scam, to a duel. In the ensuing fake fight, Stoney pretended to have been “mortally injured”, and appealing to Mary’s romantic side, begged her to grant him his dying wish: her hand in marriage.
Moved, and figuring that the marriage would only last a few hours, Mary agreed to wed Captain Stoney, who was carried down the aisle on a stretcher. Soon after the vows were exchanged and the ceremony concluded, Stoney made a miraculous recovery. In those days, husbands had the right to control their wives’ finances, but Stoney discovered that a prenuptial agreement stood in the way. Undaunted, he forced Mary to revoke the prenuptial and hand control of her fortune over to him.
Stoney then began squandering Mary’s wealth like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and kept her a prisoner in their home. Over the next 8 years, he made his captive wife’s life a living hell, abusing her physically and emotionally, while raping and impregnating her maids. He also brought prostitutes home, carried on numerous consensual affairs, and fathered a brood of illegitimate children in the process.
Mary finally escaped in 1785 and filed for divorce, but Stoney was loathe to give up on his meal ticket. So he tracked Mary down and kidnapped her. He took her to northern England, where he tortured her, and threatened to rape and kill her. He also forced her to ride around the countryside on horseback during an extremely cold winter, hoping she would sicken and die.
She was eventually rescued when a hue and cry was raised, and Stoney was tracked down and arrested. The divorce case, along with the criminal charges against Stoney, resumed, captivating Britain for years. Stoney and his accomplices were eventually convicted of abduction and sentenced to three years imprisonment, and Mary finally got her divorce in 1789.