Andrew Stoney lied and cheated his way into becoming the husband of Mary Bowes, an heiress who would endure decades of abuse at his hand.
Wikimedia CommonsAndrew Robinson Stoney.
Tragedy made Mary Eleanor Bowes the richest child in Britain. In 1760, her father, wealthy coal magnate George Bowes, passed suddenly. He left his 11-year-old daughter his fortune with some strings attached.
Determined to keep the Bowes name alive, her father specified in his will that his only daughter would never take another man’s name through marriage — though nothing in the will would protect her or her finances from falling under the control of a future spouse.
Bowes would come to this unfortunate realization over time, albeit not initially. At age 18 she wed John Lyon, the ninth Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn. Lyon, an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II, took Bowes’ name per her father’s stipulation, which required an Act of Parliament to make official.
The pair had little in common, and because divorce was both rare and difficult to obtain in those days, Bowes resigned herself to the idea of living out her days in an unhappy union. Nevertheless, Mary Eleanor Bowes and John Lyon did have five children together before he died at sea in 1776 — just nine years after they tied the knot — which released her of their bond.
Now a young widow with five children to look after, Bowes immediately searched for a new companion, though scandal motivated her movement more than a desire to complete her family. When her husband passed, Bowes was pregnant with her sixth child, the product of an extramarital affair with her lover, George Gray. Hoping to avoid a scandal, Mary arranged a marriage to take place before the pregnancy became too obvious.
Before she could marry her soon-to-be second husband, a man named Andrew Robinson Stoney came into the picture and changed Bowes’ life for the worse.
A widowed seaman with a history of domestic abuse (though this detail went unbeknownst to Bowes until it was too late), Stoney began hanging around Bowes’ crowd, using his charm and good looks to get close to the wealthy, and technically single, widow.
After failing to convince her to break off her engagement with Gray, Stoney hatched a scheme so elaborate one would be tempted to call it impressive, were its ends not so vile.
Wikimedia CommonsMary Bowes.
Andrew Robinson Stoney started out by fabricating derogatory stories about Bowes’ character, which he published anonymously in the gossip section of The Morning Post, a popular newspaper. He then challenged the editor of said paper to a duel to defend Bowes’ honor.
Stoney publicly lost, and the duel left him wounded, bloody, and near-death in the streets. When Bowes arrived to find the man who gave his life to vindicate her name, she agreed to marry him after hearing that his only dying wish was to be her husband.
What Bowes didn’t know was that the entire thing was staged. Stoney had not only bribed the editor of the paper to fake the duel, but also a local doctor to corroborate. The doctor doused Stoney in animal’s blood and declared him almost dead.
A reluctant Bowes only consented to marry Stoney after finding him in such a condition, expecting him to live no more than a few days at best. Stoney’s health unsurprisingly improved, and he would go on to subject his wife to physical and psychological torture for eight long years.
The abuse began right away and started with Andrew Robinson Stoney’s censorship and total control of everything that might connect Bowes to the outside world, such as her mail. He banned her mother and many of her friends from visiting her at home, and on the rare occasions that she was allowed to leave the premises she was followed by servants, who reported back with the details of her every move.
Physical violence soon followed, and Bowes would suffer countless beatings. Sometimes Stoney punched and kicked Bowes; at other times he would club her with a candlestick or the handle of his sword.
Her new husband also attempted to take immediate control over Bowes’ vast fortune — but that came to a halt after he discovered a legal document that guaranteed all of her wealth to be passed onto her children.
Enraged, the beatings intensified. Stoney eventually forced Bowes to sign a contract which nullified the earlier one, and instead transferred total control of Bowes’ money and estate over to him.
This prompted Bowes’ ex-brother-in-law, Thomas Lyon, to remove his nieces and nephews from her care out of fear that Stoney would attempt to control the children. Thus Bowes was left alone with her abuser, and would continue to suffer to the point that she started to believe that she deserved the beatings.
Andrew Robinson Stoney completely destroyed the woman he married. The abuse went on for years until one day a newly hired maid named Mary Morgan helped Bowes escape. Staging a fight with another maid, Morgan distracted a guard while her mistress crept undetected into the night, hidden under a servant’s cloak.
Wikimedia CommonsAndrew Robinson Stoney appears in the Court of King’s Bench on November 28, 1786 to answer the articles brought against him by his wife.
Bowes lived in hiding for only a few months before Stoney learned of her new address and sent his men out to kidnap and retrieve her.
She suffered even more abuse at the hands of Stoney’s men, but luckily she and her captors were spotted, and she was rescued and released from the cruelty of her husband for good.
Andrew Robinson Stoney was sentenced to only three years in prison after being found guilty of assault. Bowes proceeded with divorce as he sat behind bars, where he still did his best to make things as difficult as possible for his wife. Despite his efforts, Bowes eventually won her landmark divorce case and even had the contract assigning control of her wealth to Stoney overturned.
Mary Eleanor Bowes went on to live a quiet life in the country, where many viewed her as an eccentric outsider. She died in 1800 and was buried alongside the only friend she had come to know in the later years of her life: her former maidservant, Mary Morgan.
For more insight into how couples would part ways in pre-divorce Britain, check out this explainer on wife selling.
