ROMANCE OF DISGUISE.
PISANIO to IMOGEN:
You must forget to be a woman; change
Command into obedience: fear and niceness--
The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,
Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage:
Ready in gibes, quick answered, saucy, and
As quarrelsome as the weasel; nay, you must
Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek
Exposing it--but, Oh! the harder heart!
Alack! no remedy! to the greedy touch
Of common-kissing Titan, and forget
Your laboursome and dainty trims.
"_Cymbeline_," ACT III., SC. 4.
That a woman, under any circumstances, should dismiss her proper
apparel, it has been remarked, "may well appear to us as something
like a phenomenon." Yet instances are far from uncommon, the motive
being originated in a variety of circumstances. A young lady, it may
be, falls in love, and, to gain her end, assumes male attire so that
she may escape detection, as in the case of a girl, who, giving her
affections to a sailor, and not being able to follow him in her
natural and recognised character, put on jacket and trousers, and
became, to all appearance, a brother of his mess. In other cases, a
pure masculinity of character "seems to lead women to take on the
guise of men. Apparently feeling themselves misplaced in, and
misrepresented by, the female dress, they take up with that of men
simply that they may be allowed to employ themselves in those manly
avocations for which their taste and nature are fitted." In
Caulfield's "Portraits of Remarkable Persons," we find a portrait of
Anne Mills, styled the female sailor, who is represented as standing
on what appears to be the end of a pier and holding in one hand a
human head, while the other bears a sword, the instrument doubtless
with which the decapitation was effected. In the year 1740, she was
serving on board the _Maidstone_, a frigate, and in an action between
that vessel and the enemy, she exhibited such desperate and daring
valour as to be particularly noticed by the whole crew. But her
motives for assuming the male habit do not seem to have
transpired.[43]
A far more exciting career was that of Mary Anne Talbot, the youngest
of sixteen illegitimate children, whom her mother bore to one of the
heads of the noble house of Talbot. She was born on February 2nd,
1778, and educated under the eye of a married sister, at whose death
she was committed to the care of a gentleman named Sucker, "who
treated her with great severity, and who appears to have taken
advantage of her friendless situation in order to transfer her, for
the vilest of purposes, to the hands of a Captain Bowen, whom he
directed her to look upon as her future guardian." Although barely
fourteen years old, Captain Bowen made her his mistress; and, on being
ordered to join his regiment at St. Domingo, he compelled the girl to
go with him in the disguise of a footboy and under the name of John
Taylor. But Captain Bowen had scarcely reached St. Domingo when he was
remanded with his regiment to Europe to join the Duke of York's
Flanders Expedition. And this time she was made to enrol herself as a
drummer in the corps.
She was in several skirmishes, being wounded once by a ball which
struck one of her ribs, and another time by a sabre stroke on the
side. At Valenciennes, however, Captain Bowen was killed; and, finding
among his effects several letters relating to herself, which proved
that she had been cruelly defrauded of money left to her, she resolved
to leave the regiment, and to return, if possible, to England.
Accordingly she set out attired as a sailor boy, and eventually hired
herself to the Commander of a French lugger, which turned out to be a
privateer. But when the vessel fell in with some of Lord Howe's
vessels in the Channel, she refused to fight against her countrymen,
"notwithstanding all the blows and menaces the French captain could
use." The privateer was taken, and our heroine was carried before Lord
Howe, to whom she told candidly all that had happened to her--keeping
her sex a secret.
Mary Anne Talbot, or John Taylor, was next placed on board the
_Brunswick_, where she witnessed Lord Howe's great victory of the 1st
June, and was actively engaged in it. But she was seriously wounded,
"her left leg being struck a little above the knee by a musket-ball,
and broken, and severely smashed lower down by a grape shot." On
reaching England she was conveyed to Haslar Hospital, where she
remained four months, no suspicion having ever been entertained of her
being a woman. But she was no sooner out of the hospital than,
retaining her disguise, she entered a small man-of-war--the
_Vesuvius_, which was captured by two French ships, when she was sent
to the prisons of Dunkirk. Here she was incarcerated for eighteen
months, but, having been discovered planning an escape with a young
midshipman, she was confined in a pitch-dark dungeon for eleven weeks,
on a diet of bread and water. An exchange of prisoners set her at
liberty, and, hearing accidentally an American merchant captain
inquiring in the streets of Dunkirk for a lad to go to New York as
ship's steward she offered her services, and was accepted.
Accordingly, in August, 1796, she sailed with Captain Field, and, on
arriving at Rhode Island, she resided with the Captain's family.
But here another kind of adventure was to befall her--for a niece of
Captain Field's fell deeply in love with her, even going so far as to
propose marriage. On leaving Rhode Island, the young lady had such
alarming fits that, after sailing two miles, Mary Anne Talbot was
called back by a boat, and compelled to promise a speedy return to the
enamoured young lady. On reaching England, she was one day on shore
with some of her comrades when she was seized by a press-gang, and
finding there was no other way of getting off than by revealing her
sex, she did so, her story creating a great sensation. From this time
she never went to sea again, and soon afterwards lived in service with
a bookseller, Mr. Kirby, who wrote her memoir.[44]
And the late Colonel Fred Burnaby has recorded the history of a
singular case, the facts of which came under his notice when he was
with Don Carlos during the Carlist rising of the year 1874: "A
discovery was made a few days ago that a woman was serving in the
Royalists' ranks, dressed in a soldier's uniform. She was found out in
the following manner. The priest of the village to where she belonged
happening to pass through a town where the regiment was quartered, and
chancing to see her, was struck by the likeness she bore to one of his
parishioners.
"You must be Andalicia Bravo," he remarked.
"No, I am her brother," was the reply.
The Cure's suspicions were aroused, and at his suggestion, an inquiry
was made, when it was discovered that the youthful soldier had no
right to the masculine vestments she wore. Don Carlos, who was told of
the affair, desired that she should be sent as a nurse to the hospital
of Durango, and, when he visited the establishment, presented the fair
Amazon with a military cross of merit. The poor girl was delighted
with the decoration, and besought the "King" to allow her to return to
the regiment, as she said she was more accustomed to inflicting wounds
than to healing them. In fact, she so implored to be permitted to
serve once more as a soldier, that at last, Don Carlos, to extricate
himself from the difficulty, said, "No, I cannot allow you to join a
regiment of men; but when I form a battalion of women, I promise, upon
my honour, that you shall be named the Colonel."
"It will never happen," said the girl, and she burst into tears as the
King left the hospital.
At Haddon Hall may still be seen "Dorothy Vernon's Door," whence the
heiress of Haddon stole out one moonlight night to join her lover. The
story generally told is that, while her elder sister, the affianced
bride of Sir Thomas Stanley, second son of the Earl of Derby, was made
much of in her recognised attachment, Dorothy, on the other hand, was
not only kept in the background, but every obstacle was thrown in her
way against a connection she had formed with John Manners, son of the
Earl of Rutland. But "something of the wild bird," it is said, "was
noticed in Dorothy, and she was closely watched, kept almost a
prisoner, and could only beat her wings against the bars that confined
her." This kind of surveillance went on for some time, but did not
check the young lady's infatuation for her lover, and it was not long
before the young couple contrived to see one another. Disguised as a
woodman, John Manners lurked of a day in the woods round Haddon for
several weeks, obtaining now and then a stolen glance, a hurried word,
or a pressure of the hand from the fair Dorothy.
At length, however, an opportunity arrived which enabled Dorothy to
carry out the plan which had been suggested to her by John Manners. It
so happened that a grand ball was given at Haddon Hall, to celebrate
the approaching marriage of the elder daughter, and, whilst a throng
of guests filled the ball-room, where the stringed minstrels played
old dances in the Minstrels' Gallery, and the horns blew low, everyone
being too busy with his own interests and pleasures to attend to those
of another, the young Miss Dorothy stole away unobserved from the
ball-room, "passed out of the door, which is now one of the most
interesting parts of this historic pile of buildings, and crossed
the terrace to where, at the "ladies' steps," she could dimly discern
figures hiding in the shadow of the trees. Another moment, and she was
in her lover's arms. Horses were waiting, and Dorothy was soon riding
away with her lover through the moonlight, and was married on the
following morning. This story, which has been gracefully told by Eliza
Meteyard under the title of "The Love Steps of Dorothy Vernon," has
always been regarded as one of the most romantic and pleasant episodes
in the history of Haddon Hall. Through Dorothy's marriage, the estate
of Haddon passed from the family of Vernon to that of Manners, and a
branch of the house of Rutland was transferred to the county of
Derby."
[Illustration: DOROTHY VERNON AND THE WOODMAN.]
But love has always been an inducement, in one form or another for
disguise, and a romantic story is told of Sir John Bolle, of Thorpe
Hall, in Lincolnshire, who distinguished himself at Cadiz, in the year
1596. Among the prisoners taken at this memorable seige, was "a fair
captive of great beauty, high rank, and immense wealth," and who was
the peculiar charge of Sir John Bolle. She soon became deeply
enamoured of her gallant captor, and "in his courteous company was all
her joy," her infatuation being so great that she entreated him to
allow her to accompany him to England disguised as his page. But Sir
John had a wife at home, and replied--to quote the version of the
story given in Dr. Percy's "Relics of Ancient English Poetry":--
"Courteous lady, leave this fancy,
Here comes all that breeds the strife;
I in England have already
A sweet woman to my wife.
I will not falsify my vow for gold or gain,
Nor yet for all the fairest dames that live in Spain."
Thereupon the fair lady determined to retire to a convent, admiring
the gallant soldier all the more for his faithful devotion to his
wife.
"O happy is that woman
That enjoys so true a friend!
Many happy days God send her!
Of my suit I make an end,
On my knees I pardon crave for my offence,
Which did from love and true affection first commence.
"I will spend my days in prayer,
Love and all her laws defy;
In a nunnery will I shroud me,
Far from any company.
But ere my prayers have an end be sure of this,
To pray for thee and for thy love I will not miss."
But, before forsaking the world, she transmitted to her unconscious
rival in England her jewels and valuable knicknacks, including her own
portrait drawn in green--a circumstance which obtained for the
original the designation of the "Green Lady," and Thorpe Hall has long
been said to be haunted by the lady in green, who has been in the
habit of appearing beneath a particular tree close to the mansion.
A story, which has been gracefully told in one of Moore's Irish
Melodies, relates to Henry Cecil, Earl of Exeter, who early in life
fell in love with the rich heiress of the Vernons of Hanbury. A
marriage was eventually arranged, but this union proved a complete
failure, and terminated in a divorce. Thereupon young Cecil,
distrustful of the conventionalities of society, and to prevent any
one of the fair sex marrying him on account of his position, resolved
"on laying aside the artificial attractions of his rank, and seeking
some country maiden who would wed him from disinterested motives of
affection."
Accordingly he took up his abode at a small inn in a retired
Shropshire village, but even here his movements created suspicion,
"some maintaining that he was connected with smugglers or gamesters,
while all agreed that dishonesty or fraud was the cause of the mystery
of the 'London gentleman's' proceedings." Annoyed at the rude
molestations to which he was daily, more or less, exposed, he quitted
the inn and removed to a farm-house in the neighbourhood, where he
remained for two years, in the course of which time he purchased some
land, and commenced building himself a house:
But the landlord of the cottage where he lived had a beautiful
daughter of about seventeen years, to whom young Cecil became so
deeply attached that, in spite of her humble birth, and simple
education, he resolved to make her his wife, taking an early
opportunity of informing her parents of his resolve. The matter came
as a surprise to the farmer and his wife, and all the more so because
they had always regarded Mr. Cecil as far too grand a person to
entertain such an idea.
"Marry our daughter?" exclaimed the good wife, in amazement. "What, to
a fine gentleman! No, indeed!"
"Yes, marry her," added the husband, "he shall marry her, for she
likes him. Has he not house and land, too, and plenty of money to keep
her?"
So the rustic beauty was married, and it was not long afterwards that
her husband found it necessary to repair to town on account of the
Earl of Exeter's death. Setting out, as the young bride thought, on a
pleasure trip, they stopped in the course of their journey at several
noblemen's seats, where, to her astonishment, Cecil was welcomed in
the most friendly manner. At last they reached Burleigh, in
Northamptonshire--the home of the Cecils. And on driving up to the
house, Cecil unconcernedly asked his wife, "whether she would like to
be at home there?"
"Oh, yes," she excitedly exclaimed; "it is, indeed, a lovely spot,
exceeding all I have seen, and making me almost envy its possessor."
"Then," said the young earl, "it is yours."
The whole affair seemed like a fairy tale to the bewildered girl, and
who, but herself, could describe the feelings she experienced at the
acclamations of joy and welcome which awaited her in her magnificent
home. But it was no dream, and as soon as the young earl had arranged
his affairs, he returned to Shropshire, threw off his disguise, and
revealed his rank to his wife's parents, assigning to them the house
he had built, with a settlement of £700 per annum.
"But," writes Sir Bernard Burke, "if report speak truly, the narrative
must have a melancholy end. Her ladyship, unaccustomed to the exalted
sphere in which she moved, chilled by its formalities, and depressed
in her own esteem, survived only a few years her extraordinary
elevation, and sank into an early grave," although Moore has given a
brighter picture of this sad close to a pretty romance.
You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,
How meekly she blessed her humble lot,
When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,
And love was the light of their lowly cot.
Together they toiled through wind and rain
Till William at length in sadness said,
"We must seek our fortunes on other plains";
Then sighing she left her lowly shed.
They roam'd a long and weary way,
Nor much was the maiden's heart at ease,
When now, at close of one stormy day
They see a proud castle among the trees.
"To night," said the youth, "we'll shelter there;
The wind blows cold, the hour is late";
So he blew the horn with a chieftain's air,
And the porter bow'd as they pass'd the gate.
"Now welcome, Lady!" exclaimed the youth;
"This castle is thine, and these dark woods all."
She believed him wild, but his words were truth,
For Ellen is Lady of Rosna Hall!
And dearly the Lord of Rosna loves
What William the stranger woo'd and wed;
And the light of bliss in those lordly groves
Is pure as it shone in the lowly shed.
But one of the most extraordinary instances of disguise was that of
the Chevalier d'Eon, who was born in the year 1728, and was an
excellent scholar, soldier, and political intriguer. In the service of
Louis XV., he went to Russia in female attire, obtained employment as
the female reader to the Czarina Elizabeth, under which disguise he
carried on political and semi-political negotiations with wonderful
success. In the year 1762, he appeared in England as Secretary of the
Embassy to the Duke of Nivernois, and when Louis XVI. granted him a
pension and he went over to Versailles to return thanks for the
favour, Marie Antoinette is said to have insisted on his assuming
women's attire. Accordingly, to gratify this foolish whim, D'Eon is
reported to have one day swept into the royal presence attired like a
duchess, which character he supported to the great delight of the
royal spectators.
In the year 1794, he returned to this country, and, being here after
the Revolution was accomplished, his name was placed in the fatal list
of _emigrés_, and he was deprived of his pension. The English
Government, however, gave him an allowance of £200 a year; and in his
old days he turned his fencing capabilities to account, for he
occasionally appeared in matches with the Chevalier de St. George, and
permanently reassumed female attire.
This eccentric character was the subject of much speculation in his
lifetime, and, curious to say, in the year 1771, it was proved to the
satisfaction of a jury, on a trial before Lord Chief Justice
Mansfield, that the Chevalier was of the female sex. The case in
question arose from a wager between Hayes, a surgeon, and Jacques, an
underwriter, the latter having bound himself, on receiving a premium,
to pay the former a certain sum whenever the fact was established that
D'Eon was a woman. One of the witnesses was Morande, an infamous
Frenchman, who gave such testimony that no human being could doubt the
fact of D'Eon being of the female sex, and two French medical men gave
equally conclusive evidence. The result of this absurd trial was that
the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, with £702 damages.[45]
But all doubt was cleared away when D'Eon died, in the year 1810, for,
an examination of the body being made, it was publicly declared that
the Chevalier was an old man. Walpole collected some facts about this
remarkable man, and writes: "The Due de Choiseul believed it was a
woman. After the death of Louis XV., D'Eon had leave to go to France,
on which the young Comte de Guerchy went to M. de Vergennes,
Secretary of State, and gave him notice that the moment D'Eon landed
at Calais he, Guerchy, would cut his throat, or D'Eon should his; on
which Vergennes told the Count that D'Eon was certainly a woman. Louis
XV. corresponded with D'Eon, and when the Duc de Choiseul had sent a
vessel, which lay six months in the Thames, to trepan and bring off
D'Eon, the king wrote a letter with his own hand to give him warning
of the vessel."
Like the Chevalier D'Eon, a certain individual named Russell, a native
of Streatham, adopted the guise and habits of the opposite sex, and so
skilfully did he keep up the deception that it was not known till
after his death. It appears from Streatham Register that he was buried
on April 14, 1772, the subjoined memorandum being affixed to the
entry: "This person was always known under the guise or habit of a
woman, and answered to the name of Elizabeth, as registered in this
parish, November 21, 1669, but on death proved to be a man. It also
appears from the registers of Streatham Parish, that his father, John
Russell, had three daughters, and two sons--William, born in 1668, and
Thomas in 1672; and there is very little doubt that the above person,
who was also commonly known as Betsy the Doctress, was one of these
sons."
It is said that when he assumed the garb of the softer sex he also
took the name of his sister Elizabeth, who, very likely, either died
in infancy, or settled at a distance; but, under this name, he
applied, about two years before his death, for a certificate of his
baptism. Early in life, he associated with the gypsies, and became the
companion of the famous Bampfylde Moore Carew. Later on in life he
resided at Chipstead, in Kent, and there catered for the miscellaneous
wants of the villagers. He also visited most parts of the continent as
a stroller and a vagabond, and sometimes in the company of a man who
passed for his husband, he moved about from one place to another,
changing his "maiden" name to that of his companion, at whose death he
passed as his widow, being generally known by the familiar name of Bet
Page.
According to Lysons, in the course of his wanderings he attached
himself to itinerant quacks, learned their remedies, practised their
calling, his knowledge, coupled with his great experience, gaining for
him the reputation of being "a most infallible doctress." He also went
in for astrology, and made a considerable sum of money, but was so
extravagant that when he died his worldly goods were not valued at
half-a-sovereign. About a year before his death he returned to his
native parish, his great age bringing him into much notoriety; but his
death was very sudden, and great was the surprise on all sides when it
became known that he was a man. In life this strange character was a
general favourite, and Mr. Thrale was wont to have him in his kitchen
at Streatham Park, while Dr. Johnson, who considered him a shrewd
person, held long conversations with him. To prevent the discovery of
his sex he used to wear a cloth tied under his chin, and a large pair
of nippers, found in his pocket after death, are supposed to have been
the instruments with which he was in the habit of removing the
tell-tale hairs from his face.[46]
In some instances, as in times of political intrigue and commotion,
disguise has been resorted to as a means of escape and concealment of
personal identity, one of the most romantic and remarkable cases on
record being that of Lord Clifford, popularly known as the "shepherd
lad." It appears that Lady Clifford, apprehensive lest the life of her
son, seven years of age, might be sacrificed in vengeance for the
blood of the youthful Earl of Rutland, whom Lord Clifford had murdered
in cold blood at the termination of the battle of Sandal, placed him
in the keeping of a shepherd who had married one of her inferior
servants--an attendant on the boy's nurse. His name and parentage laid
aside, the young boy was brought up among the moors and hills as one
of the shepherd's own children. On reaching the age of fourteen, a
rumour somehow spread to the Court that the son of "the black-faced
Clifford," as his father had been called, was living in concealment in
Yorkshire. His mother, naturally alarmed, had the boy immediately
removed to the vicinity of the village of Threlkeld, amidst the
Cumberland hills, where she had sometimes the opportunity of seeing
him.
But, strange to say it is doubtful whether Lady Clifford made known
her relationship to him, or whether, indeed, the "shepherd lord" had
any distinct idea of his lofty lineage. It is generally supposed,
however, that there was a complete separation between mother and
child--a tradition which was accepted by Wordsworth, with whom the
story of the shepherd boy was an especial favourite. In his "Song at
the Feast of Brougham Castle," the poet thus prettily describes the
shepherd boy's curious career:--
"Now who is he that bounds with joy
On Carroch's side, a shepherd boy?
No thoughts hath he but thoughts that pass,
Light as the wind along the grass.
Can this be he who hither came
In secret, like a smothered flame?
O'er whom such thankful tears were shed
For shelter, and a poor man's bread!
God loves the child; and God hath willed
That those dear words should be fulfilled,
The lady's words, when forced away,
The last she to her babe did say,
'My own, my own, thy fellow guest
I may not be; but rest thee, rest,
For lowly shepherd's life is best.'"
Many items of traditionary lore still linger about the Cumberland
hills respecting the young lord who grew up "as hardy as the heath on
which he vegetated, and as ignorant as the rude herds which bounded
over it." But the following description of young Clifford in his
disguise, and of his employment, as given by Wordsworth, probably
gives the most reliable traditionary account respecting him that
prevailed in the district where he spent his lonely youth:--
"His garb is humble, ne'er was seen
Such garb with such a noble mien;
Among the shepherd grooms no mate
Hath he, a child of strength and state!
Yet lacks not friends for solemn glee,
And a cheerful company,
That learned of him submissive ways;
And comforted his private days.
To his side the fallow deer
Came, and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty;
And both the undying fish that swim,
Through Bowscale-Tarn did wait on him,
The pair were servants to his eye
In their immortality;
They moved about in open sight,
To and fro, for his delight.
He knew the rocks which angels haunt
On the mountains visitant,
He hath kenned them taking wing;
And the caves where fairies sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old."
But one of the first acts of Henry VII., on his accession to the
throne was to restore young Clifford to his birthright, and to all the
possessions that his distinguished sire had won. There are few
authentic facts, however, recorded concerning him; for it seems that
as soon as he had emerged from the hiding-place where he had been
brought up in ignorance of his rank, finding himself more illiterate
than was usual, even in an illiterate age, he retired to a tower,
which he built in a beautiful and sequestered forest, where, under the
direction of the monks of Bolton Abbey, he gave himself up to the
forbidden studies of alchemy and astrology. His descendant Anne
Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, describes him as "a plain man, who
lived for the most part a country life, and came seldom either to
Court or London, excepting when called to Parliament, on which
occasion he behaved himself like a wise and good English nobleman." He
was twice married, and was succeeded by his son, called Wild Henry
Clifford, from the irregularities of his youth.
And we may cite the case of Matthew Hale, who, on one occasion was
instrumental to justice being done through himself appearing in
disguise, and supporting the wronged party. It is related that the
younger of two brothers had endeavoured to deprive the elder of an
estate of £500 a year by suborning witnesses to declare that he died
in a foreign land. But appearing in Court in the guise of a miller,
Sir Matthew Hale was chosen the twelfth juryman to sit on this cause.
As soon as the clerk of the juryman had sworn in the juryman, a short
dexterous fellow came into their apartment, and slipped ten gold
pieces into the hands of eleven of the jury, giving the miller only
five, while the judge was generally supposed to be bribed with a large
sum.
At the conclusion of the case, the judge summed up the evidence in
favour of the younger brother, and the jury were about to give their
verdict, when the supposed miller stood up, and addressed the court.
To the surprise of all present, he spoke with energetic and manly
eloquence, "unravelled the sophistry to the very bottom, proved the
fact of bribery, shewed the elder brother's title to the estate from
the contradictory evidence of the witnesses," and in short, he gained
a complete victory in favour of truth and justice.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] See "Annual Register," 1813, 1835, and 1842, for similar cases.
[44] See Notes and Queries, 6th Series, X., _passim_, for "Women on
board ships in action"; and "Chambers's Pocket Miscellany," "Disguised
Females, 1853."
[45] See "Dictionary of National Biography," xiv., 485.
[46] Arnold's "History of Streatham," 1866, 164-166. An extraordinary
case of concealment of sex is recorded in the "Annual Register," under
Jan. 23, 1833. An inquiry was instituted by order of the Home Secretary
relative to the death of "a person who had been known for years by the
name of Eliza Edwards," but who turned out to be a man.