Adeline, Countess of Cardigan and Lancastre - Countess of Cardigan

Countess of Cardigan

Rumours spread after she was frequently seen riding without a chaperone in the company of seventh Earl of Cardigan, who famously led the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, and was a friend of her father. The Earl was still married to the former Mrs. Elizabeth Tollemache Johnstone, whom Cardigan had married in 1826, after she was divorced by another army officer, Lt. Col. Christian Johnstone, although Cardigan was separated from his wife since 1837. Criticism from her father caused her to leave home in 1857. After a period in a hotel, she took a furnished house in Norfolk Street, Park Lane, and became the Earl of Cardigan's mistress. After the Earl's wife died in July, 1858, the couple sailed away together on the Earl's yacht and married in Gibraltar on September 28, 1858. She was shunned by polite society, but was an accomplished musician and horsewoman, and acknowledged as a leading courtesan. She was left a life interest in the Cardigan estates on her husband's death in March, 1868.