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Love and Madness
The Murder of Martha Ray, Mistress of the Fourth Earl of Sandwich
Chapter One
Why Vainly Seek to Flee? Love Will Pursue You.
Martha Ray had a great deal on her mind during the evening of Wednesday, April 7, 1779, as her personal maid set about preparing her for a night at Covent Garden Theatre. She had not been out of the Admiralty building for several days, and as the mistress of one of George III's most hated ministers, the first lord of the Admiralty, John Montagu, fourth earl of Sandwich, she had good reason to worry about her security. Many people held the earl personally responsible for the country's difficulties in its lackluster campaign against the rebellious American colonies and for the fractious behavior of its naval officers. Although news had recently arrived in London of a British victory in the southern states, many of the king's subjects were unimpressed. They had heard it all before -- wild optimism, followed by retreat or surrender.
For several nights, gangs of roughnecks had taunted Sandwich and his mistress by singing antigovernment ballads under the Admiralty's back windows. To the household, their behavior must have recalled recent memories of the night of February 11, when the Admiralty had been attacked by a mob inspired by a court martial's acquittal of one of Sandwich's enemies, the member of parliament and admiral Augustus Keppel. On that occasion, the mob had torn the courtyard gates off their hinges and broken most of the Admiralty's windows. According to gossip Horace Walpole, Lord Sandwich, "exceedingly terrified," had fled with Miss Ray through the Admiralty garden to the Horse Guards nearby, where he had betrayed a "most manifest panic."
Martha was about thirty-four years old; Sandwich, sixty. She was five feet five inches tall, dark-haired, and "fresh-coloured," with a cleft chin, bright, smiling eyes, and a warm, open countenance. On this evening, her maid piled her hair fashionably high, dressed her in an expensively cut silk gown, ruched and lightly decorated, and finished by adorning her with a diamond cross and earrings.
It was Sandwich who persuaded her to go to the theater. He had much to occupy him at home. The opposition, led by the aristocratic and ineffective marquess of Rockingham and the epicurean Charles James Fox, had tabled another of several motions to inquire into his handling of naval affairs, and he had a speech to write and papers to assemble in his defense. As first lord of the Admiralty, his responsibilities included almost every detail of naval organization, from the inspection of George III's dockyards to matters of tactics and strategy.
Martha's heavy, four-wheeled carriage began the short journey to Covent Garden Theatre just after six o'clock. Although it was early spring, an unusual warm spell enveloped London and green tufts of grass sprouted between the paving stones. Due to the Easter holidays, most of the capital's wealthier residents had already departed for their country estates or the spa towns of Bristol or Bath. Conse- quently, much of the traffic Martha passed was ordinary Londoners and foreigners, who lacked cooking facilities and were headed to the eating houses that thrived during this hour.
Soot blackened most of the buildings Martha's carriage rolled by, for London was a prodigiously dirty city with an unenviable reputation for ruining the health of its inhabitants. Traveling along Whitehall and into Charing Crossher carriage took her through Cockspur Street and into the Haymarket and James Street. It then stopped outside a lodging house to pick up one of Martha's friends, a middle-aged Italian woman named Caterina Galli.
Soon the two women passed along some of London's liveliest streets -- probably Chandos Street and Henrietta Street, possibly New Street or Maiden Lane -- the locations of innumerable acts of braggadocio and uncountable numbers of brothels, cheap lodging houses, taverns,and coffeehouses. They then traveled by Covent Garden's popular fruit and vegetable market toward the northeastern end of Inigo Jones's once fashionable piazza,where the carriage stopped and the two women alighted. They now stood outside the entrance to Covent Garden Theatre,one of London's three patent theaters. On either side of the doorway two guardsmen stood stiffly at attention as the ladies entered the building, gliding into a dimly lit lobby area crowded with a large and noisy gathering of fashionable beaux, fruit women, procurers, soldiers on furlough,and similarly well-dressed ladies. Before long, Martha fell into deep conversation with a rakish young nobleman, an Irish beau named Lord Coleraine.
As the time for the play drew near, Coleraine escorted Martha and her companion into the theater and joined them for the evening. This night's entertainment was a benefit, one of a large number of performances set apart toward the end of each theatrical season in which the profits went to an actor or other member of the theatrical community. On this occasion Martha and others had purchased their tickets on the behalf of the singer and actress Mrs. Margaret Kennedy at the lady's lodgings in nearby Bow Street. Martha or Sandwich had paid dearly for the privilege, for Martha and her friends occupied some of the most expensive seating, one of the small number of stage boxes positioned immediately to the left and right of the stage and in full view of the rambunctious audience. It was here, too, that the king and other members of the royal family customarily sat; the king preferred Covent Garden to its rival at Drury Lane, partly because the latter theater was increasingly associated with opposition politics.
When the musicians filed into the orchestral well and the violinists began drawing their bows against their instruments' strings, a huge cheer arose from the upper gallery, which was reserved for servants and penny-pinching theater- goers and where seats cost one shilling. As was customary, they hurled orange peels into the pit area and onto the stage.
Love and Madness
The Murder of Martha Ray, Mistress of the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Copyright © by Martin Levy. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.