Seymour Fleming
| Seymour Fleming | |
|---|---|
A painting (1775/6) by Joshua Reynolds of Lady Worsley in a riding habit adapted from the uniform of her husband's regiment; now at Harewood House
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| Born |
Seymour Dorothy Fleming 5 October 1758 |
| Died | 9 September 1818 (aged 59) Passy, Paris, France |
| Spouse(s) |
Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet (m. 1775; his death 1805) John Lewis Cuchet (m. 1805; her death 1818) |
| Children | Charlotte Dorothy Hammond (née Cochard) with Worsley: Robert Edwin Worsley with Maurice George Bisset: Jane Seymour Worsley (ill.) |
| Parent(s) |
Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet Jane Coleman |
| Relatives | Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington (sister) |
Seymour Dorothy Fleming (5 October 1758 – 9 September 1818) was a British noblewoman, notable for her involvement in a high-profile criminal conversation trial.
She was the younger daughter and coheir of the Irish-born Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet (d. 1763), of Brompton Park (aka Hale House, Cromwell House), Middlesex, and his wife, Jane Coleman (d. 1811). Her father and two of her sisters died when she was five and she and her sister were then brought up by her mother. Her elder sister, Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington, was noted for being a "paragon of virtue". Her mother remarried in 1770 to a rich sexagenarian Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood whose wealth derived from plantations in the West Indies.
At the age of 17, Seymour Fleming married Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet of Appuldurcombe House, Isle of Wight, on 20 September 1775, and was styled Lady Worsley until his death. She was rumoured to have been worth £70,000 upon her marriage, but in truth only brought £52,000 to the union.
They were badly suited to each other and so the couple's marriage began to fall apart shortly after it began. The couple had one legitimate child, a son, Robert Edwin who died young. Seymour bore a second child, Jane Seymour Worsley in August 1781, fathered by Maurice George Bisset but whom Worsley claimed as his own to avoid scandal.
Lady Worsley was rumoured to have had 27 lovers. In November 1781, Lady Worsley ran off with George Bisset, a captain in the South Hampshire militia. Bisset had been Worsley's close friend and neighbour at Knighton Gorges on the Isle of Wight. In February 1782, Worsley brought a criminal conversation case for £20,000 (2015: £2,220,000) against Bisset. Lady Worsley turned the suit in her favour with scandalous revelations and aid of past and present lovers and questioned the legal status of her husband. She included a number of testimonies from her lovers and her doctor, William Osborn, who related that she had suffered from a venereal disease which she had contracted from the Marquess of Graham. It was alleged that Worsley had displayed his wife naked to Bisset at the bath house in Maidstone. This testimony destroyed Worsley's suit and the jury awarded him only one shilling (2015: £5.54) in damages.
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Wikipedia