A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby (Text only)
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5 E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, p. 150.
6 BHM, Bavarian Consul in Athens to CVV, 17 January 1842, ref. NL Ludwig I, 90–1–2; and, Edmond About, La Gréce contemporaine, 8th French edition, p. 104.
7 Alexandre Buchon, Premier Voyage dans les Cyclades (Émile Paul, Paris 1911), pp. 7–8.
8 MH/02. This diary has survived only partially. All the pages from October 1841 to November 1854 have been cut out close to the binding, and were destroyed by Jane’s nieces after her death. The contents of the surviving pages are covered in a later chapter. Fortunately, on several journeys JED recorded her day-to-day experiences in draft form, to transfer to the formal diary, and these have survived intact.
9 Harriet, Countess of Granville, Letters 1810–1845, p. 335.
10 BHM, Bavarian consul in Athens to CVV, 17 January 1842, ref. NL Ludwig I, 90–1–2.
11 E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, pp. 153–4.
12 SCA, JED to KD, 19 September 1841.
13 PRO, Chancery Lane, London, D 11 1979, Last Will and Testament of Admiral Sir Henry Digby, p. 312.
14 MH/10, Lady Andover’s diary, 10 December 1842.
15 Oddie, Portrait of Ianthe, pp. 158–9.
16 Ibid., pp. 161–2; and Margaret Fox Schmidt, Passion’s Child, p. 149.
17 Schmidt, Passion’s Child, p. 149.
18 MH/04, diary entry, 12 December 1856.
19 MH/14, Mathilde Diebitsch to Lord Digby, March 1883.
20 MH/01, p. 5, and MH/04, diary entry dated 15 August 1859.
21 Ibid.
22 Schmidt, Passion’s Child, p. 151.
23 Oddie, Portrait of Ianthe, p. 162.
Chapter 11 The Queen’s Rival
1 E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, p. 162.
2 Ibid.
3 Horace Wyndham, The Magnificent Montez {Hutchinson, 1935), pp. 108–17.
4 MH/13, CV to JED, 27 June 1868.
5 Ibid.
6 MH/01; also MH/03, 22 November 1854.
7 MH/04, October 1856.
8 MH/08, notes in sketchbook.
9 Irving Wallace, Nymphos and Other Maniacs (Simon & Schuster, NY), pp. 158–9. No source is given for this story.
10 Edmond About, La Gréce contemporaine, 8th French edition (Hachette et cie, Paris, 1854), p. 104.
11 MH/01, p. 5.
12 This was a well-ingrained habit with JED, and a useful ‘footprint’ for researchers. A great number of these lists and accounts survive within the papers in the possession of the Digby family in Minterne.
13 MH/04, diary entry, 27 November 1855.
14 About, La Gréce contemporaine, 8th French edition, p. 104.
15 Lesley Blanch, The Wilder Shores of Love, p. 158.
16 Nassau Senior, Journal Kept in Turkey and Greece 1857–58, 20 November 1857.
17 Blanch, The Wilder Shores of Love, p. 159.
18 Oddie, Portrait of Ianthe, p. 327.
19 About, La Gréce contemporaine, 8th French edition, p. 105.
20 Ibid., pp. 31–2.
21 MH/03, diary entry, 4 January 1854.
22 MH/05, 8 May 1853.
23 About, La Gréce contemporaine, p. 106.
24 Oddie, Portrait of Ianthe, p. 171.
25 MH/02, diary entry, 8 May 1853.
26 Oddie, Portrait of Ianthe, p. 165.
27 The sketch upon which JED was working when this incident occurred still exists, dated 23 and 25 February 1852; MH/14.
28 About, La Gréce contemporaine, p. 394.
29 Ibid., p. 96.
30 Ibid., pp. 99, 107.
31 W. H. Wilkins, The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton, p. 395.
32 About, La Grèce contemporaine, p. 109.
33 MH/08, 17 September 1852.
34 La Grèce contemporaine, p. 109.
35 MH/02, diary entry, 8 May 1853.
Chapter 12 The Road to Damascus
1 Edmond About, La Grèce contemporaire, French 1st edition (1854), p. 109.
2 Emily Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, p. 158. This is a contemporary description, written six years after Jane arrived there, in 1859.
3 Some of the sketches and a formal landscape survive: MH/08, ‘Off Carpha’, June 1853.
4 MH/03, diary entry, 6 May 1854.
5 MH/04, diary, Thursday 14 March 1855.
6 Several sketches of Jerusalem survive: see notebook MH/08.
7 Letter to the author from Lear’s biographer, Valerie Noakes, August 1994.
8 MH/04, diary entry, 6 January 1855.
9 Nassau Senior, Journal Kept in Turkey and Greece 1857–58 (Longmans 1959), p. 145.
10 Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, pp. 331–2.
11 Bayard Taylor, Lands of the Saracen, p. 76.
12 Visitors are still shown this view today. It is believed also to be the site where Cain slew Abel.
13 This description is an amalgam of the books of several contemporary writers, including Isabel Burton and Anne Blunt. The Barada River (said to be the ancient Abana mentioned in the Bible) is no longer clear as then, and its abundant fast-flowing muddy waters are confined in a concrete canal during its passage through the city centre.
14 Taylor, Lands of the Saracen, p. 123. This description was written six months before Jane stayed at the hotel and in the absence of her own words suffices to give an impression of what she found.
15 Acts 9: 1–25.
16 All these bazaars still exist, and still provide some of the most exciting shopping in the world. When I visited Damascus in 1993 and walked alone among the crowds in the souk I saw only two other Europeans, and they were members of the party with which I travelled out. Apart from the invention of electricity, the area is probably exactly as it was in Jane’s day.
17 Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, vol. 1, p. 325.
18 MH/03, 25 December 1853.
19 Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, p. 326.
20 Much of the description used here is an amalgam of Jane’s diaries and the account of Emily Beaufort, who six years later went to Palmyra with Medjuel and Jane and wrote a colourful description of the trip. See chapter 17.
21 MH/02, Jane diaries, 4 April 1854.
22 Mary Mackintosh, Damascus and its People, p. 222.
23 Beaufort. Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, vol. 1, p. 346.
24 The Times, obituary, 4 September 1881, p. 11, col. 4.
25 E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, pp. 190–1.
26 Lady Anne Blunt, Journalists and Correspondence 1878–1917, pp. 62–3.
27 1 Kings 9: 18.
28 Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, p. 369.
29 Ibid. p. 377.
30 MH/04, diary entry, 20 May 1855: ‘Khan el Arrouss … it was here, a year ago, that Medjuel wished to take me on his Hadjin.’
31 Isabel Burton, The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine and the Holy Land, p. 238.
32 MH/04, diary entry, 23 October 1857.
33 All unattributed information in this chapter is taken from Jane’s diaries and sketchbooks, or from the first-hand accounts of travellers in Syria who were contemporaries of Jane and who had relevant experiences.
Chapter 13 Arabian Nights
1 MH/08, coded notes in JED’s pocket sketchbook.
2 MH/07, 8 October 1866.
3 MH/02, 2 November 1853.
4 MH/03, 26 November 1853.
5 MH/02, 19 December 1853.
6 Ibid., 21 December 1853.
7 Ibid., 19 December 1853.
8 Isabel Burton The Life of Sir Richard Burton, p. 493V.i.
9 MH/02, 26 December 1854.
10 Ibid.
11 MH/02, 28 January 1854.
12 MH/02, 4 January 1854.
13 Ibid., 5 January 1854.
14 Ibid., 9 January 1854.
15 MH/04, 1 January 1855.
16 Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810–95) was a noted oriental scholar. As a young army officer he was sent to Persia in 1833
to reorganise the Shah’s army. In his spare time he studied undeciphered cuneiform texts. It was he who translated the triple texts of Behistun, providing the foundation of all our knowledge of ancient Babylon and Assyria.
17 MH/08, from notes and sketches in pocket notebook.
18 MH/08, sketch in pocket notebook entitled ‘Messoul March ’54’.
19 MH/02, 5–7 April 1854.
20 Ibid., 4 May 1854.
21 Ibid., 21 April 1854.
22 Ibid., 19 April 1854.
23 Ibid., 6 May 1854.
24 Ibid., 8 May 1854.
25 Ibid., 14 May 1854.
26 Ibid., 21 May 1854.
27 Ibid., 22 May 1854.
28 Ibid. This was the final entry in a soft notebook of the type Jane sometimes used to make aides-mémoire which would later be transferred into a diary in a ‘fair hand’. This book contained the entire record of her Baghdad trip, much of it written in tiny cramped handwriting in pencil, often by the aid of firelight in camp, and sometimes as she rode along on her camel.
Chapter 14 Honeymoon in Palmyra
Note: The primary source for this chapter, and for most of the quotations, is JED’s diary. Where the quote is an obvious diary entry and/or the date is given in the text, separate citations have been omitted.
1 Edmond About, La Grèce contemporaine, 1st French edition, pp. 110–11.
2 MH/03, 23 October 1857.
3 About, La Grèce contemporaine, p. 111.
4 MH/03, 19 November 1854.
5 Ibid., 22 November 1854.
6 Ibid., 2 December 1854.
7 MH/03, 19 January 1855.
8 Richard Wood was wrong in this assertion. Though they may not instigate or refuse a divorce, bedouin women have considerable rights in the event they are divorced (and Islam itself gives women the right to divorce). See H. R. P. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, pp. 106–7.
9 MH/03, 26 February 1855.
10 Ibid., 27 March 1855.
11 Ibid.
12 Emily Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, p. 386. Emily Beaufort undoubtedly had this information from Medjuel and Jane during her journey with them to Palmyra in 1859.
13 1 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 329 and 342. When the slave children grew up they were usually given their freedom, according to Emily Beaufort’s research. Some, however, remained in the household of the former master ‘on an equality with the rest of the people and the fact of being a slave [is] no social disadvantage’. See Lady Anne Blunt, Journals and Correspondence 1878–1917, p. 75.
14 MH/03, 20 March 1855.
15 Ibid., 31 December 1856.
16 Ibid., 22 March 1855.
17 Ibid., undated, July 1855.
18 Ibid., 15 August 1855.
19 Ibid., 25 August 1855.
20 Ibid.
Chapter 15 Wife to the Sheikh
Note: Because many of the extracts from Jane’s diary are identified and dated as such within the text I have not sourced every extract. Those separately identified here are those where the text may not make the precise source or date clear.
1 BL, Lady Anne Blunt’s diaries, 10 April 1881.
2 MH/04, diary entry, 12 November 1855.
3 MH/04, diary entry, 18 November 1855.
4 A. M. W. Stirling, Coke of Norfolk and his Friends, p. 350.
5 The description of Jane’s house and garden is taken from various entries by Jane, and the journals of many visitors to the house.
6 RB/01, JED to KD, 15 October 1862.
7 MH/04, 24 November 1855.
8 Ibid., 7 December 1855.
9 MH/04, 5 March 1856.
10 These drawings and watercolours still exist in the possession of Lord Digby at Minterne House, Dorset.
11 MH/04, 16 February 1856.
12 Ibid.; also Emily Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, p. 374.
13 MH/04, 14 April 1856.
14 Ibid., 21 April 1856.
15 RB/01, JED to KD, 22 June 1856.
16 Through marriage the estates subsequently passed to the Wingfield Bakers.
17 RB/01, JED to KD, 22 June 1856.
18 MH/04, diary entry, 14 September 1856.
19 Sir Horace Rumbold, Final Recollections of a Diplomatist, pp. 36–8.
20 MH/04, 3 December 1856.
21 See chapter 14: ‘Frangya’ was an affectionate corruption of the bedouin word for western Europeans, Ferengi (Franks), still in use today.
Chapter 16 Return to England
1 Jane had spent some summers in Tunbridge Wells at the house of Countess Huntington when she was a boarder at school.
2 MH/04, 28 December 1856.
3 Ibid., 3 January 1857.
4 Ibid., 24 March 1857.
5 RB/01, JED to KD, 15 July 1857.
6 MH/04, 25 August 1857.
7 Lieutenant-Colonel R. W. C. Charlton (Rtd), who spent many years serving in the East and in Syria, told me that one year in India his regiment had produced a cartoon Christmas card showing an 8th Hussar trooper cutting off the head of the Rani of Jhansi. ‘Months later,’ he said, ‘I was sitting with the Roalla tribe, well east of Aqaba, when a song was sung to the rushaba (the bedouin single-string violin) about the Ferengi cutting off the head of the Queen of the Jhansi. The song had travelled from India across the deserts … On that occasion only, I did not mention my regiment!’ Letter to author 20 March 1994.
8 A. M. W. Stirling, Coke of Norfolk and his Friends, p. 351.
9 RB/01, 5 February 1858.
10 MH/04, 2 May 1858.
11 RB/01, JED to KD, 17 July 1859.
12 Ibid., 30 June 1858.
13 MH/13, CV to JED, 7 November 1858.
14 RB/01, JED to KD, 7 November 1858.
Chapter 17 Alone in Palmyra
1 MH/08, draft in JED’s notebook, translated by Jehan Rajab.
2 MH/03, 1 January 1859.
3 Ibid., Monday 24 January 1859.
4 Ibid., 17 February 1859. The chief purpose of the search by the old man was, of course, for jewellery, which the women of the desert greatly prized, but of almost equal importance was the gummy cloth close to the bodies valued by the bedouin men for the treatment of splints and sprains in horses. See also Emily Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, vol. 1, p. 382.
5 MH/03, 20 February 1859.
6 Laudanum, a tincture of opium, was used extensively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a painkiller and powerful analgesic.
7 A. M. W. Pickering, Memoirs of A. M. W. Stirling, p. 194.
8 MH/03, 19 March 1859.
9 Isabel Burton, Life of Sir Richard Burton, p. 486.
10 MH/13, CV to JED, 7 August 1859.
11 Beaufort, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, vol. 1, pp. 324–6.
12 Ibid., p. 331.
13 Ibid., pp. 351–75.
14 The splendid portraits of Jane and Medjuel reproduced elsewhere in this book are the property of Mr and Mrs Tareq Rajab of the TSR Museum in Kuwait, and by whose kind permission they are included. Carl Haag’s work has not received the recognition today that it undoubtedly deserves, as the works owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum. London, readily reveal.
15 RB/01, JED to KD, 1 January 1860.
16 Isabel Burton, The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine and the Holy Land, vol. 1, pp. 125–6.
Chapter 18 The Massacre
1 Isabel Burton, The Inner Life of Syria, p. 68.
2 T. E. Lawrence wrote of similar doors in his desert fortress at Azrak: ‘The door was a poised slab of dressed basalt, a foot thick, turning on pivots of itself, socketed into threshold and lintel. It took a great effort to start swinging and at the end went shut with a clang and a crash, which made tremble the west wall of the old castle.’ See Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Reprint Society, 1939, p. 445.
3 Burton, The Inner Life of Syria, vol. 2, p. 68.
4 MH/04, 14 May 1860.
5 RB/01, JED to KD, 30 July 1860.
6 William G. Palgrave, Four
Lectures on the Syrian Massacre, pp. 11–44.
7 Charles H. Churchill, The Druzes and the Maronites, p. 210.
8 Burton, The Inner Life of Syria, p. 109.
9 MH/04, 9 July 1860.
10 RB/01, JED to KD, 30 July 1860.
11 MH/04, 10 July 1860. Mr Graham was a missionary whom Jane had befriended. He had provided her with a supply of Arabic primers so she could teach the bedouin children to read.
12 RB/01, JD to KD, 30 July 1860.
13 MH/04, 11 July 1860.
14 RB/01, JED to KD, 30 July 1860.
15 MH/04, 21 July 1860.
16 MH/13, CV to JED, 6 February 1861.
17 RB/01, JED to KD, 9 September 1867.
18 E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, p. 250.
19 MH/04, 10 October 1860.
20 Ibid., 1 December 1860. Dibs are sundried grapes dipped in a sweet coating. They are mentioned several times in the Bible.
21 Ibid., 18 December 1860.
22 Ibid., 24 December 1860.
23 Ibid., 13 January 1861.
24 RB/01, JED to KD, 21 March 1861.
25 MH/04, 21 March 1864.
26 RB/01, letter from Mrs Charlton to Theresa Buxton (granddaughter of Kenelm Digby), February 1956.
Chapter 19 Visitors from England
1 BL, Wentworth Bequest no. 53892, Lady Anne Blunt, diary, 8 April 1878.
2 Isabel Burton, The Inner Life of Syria, p. 109.
3 Details of Jane’s life in camp are taken from a number of sources, chiefly her diary, her letters home; from the diaries, journals and correspondence of Richard and Isabel Burton; and from those of Lady Anne Blunt.
4 E. M. Oddie, A Portrait of Ianthe, p. 234.
5 MH/04, 8–10 March 1862.
6 Isabel Burton, Life of Sir Richard Burton, p. 512.
7 RB/01, JED to KED, 19 March 1862. Kenelm was Rector of Tittleshall, a village near Holkham in Norfolk, the living of which was in the gift of his uncle the Earl of Leicester (i.e. Thomas Coke’s son by his second wife).
8 MH/04, 7 April 1862.
9 RB/01, Caroline Digby to JED, 19 February 1862.
10 Royal Archives, diary of HRH Edward Prince of Wales, 29 April 1862. Included by gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.
11 Valerie Noakes, Edward Lear (Collins, 1968), p. 164.