Career As A Courtesan
Not long after the incident with Fox and Egremont, Lord Bolingbroke took Mrs. Armistead out of the brothel and made her his mistress. Divorced from Lady Diana Spencer, Bolingbroke had consorted with many of the most celebrated courtesans of the time. According to Westminster Magazine, he arranged for his new mistress to try her hand at acting. In the autumn of 1774, billed as “a young lady who has never appeared on any stage,” Elizabeth Armistead appeared three times at Covent Garden playhouse, performing the role of Indiana in Richard Steele’s The Conscious Lovers. Shortly thereafter, she played Perdita in A Winter’s Tale. The magazine was critical of her acting but praised her figure and voice.
As the viscount’s mistress, Mrs. Armistead soon made friends with his circle including Fox, Egremont, the Hon. Richard Fitzpatrick, Lord Robert Spencer and James Hare. Mrs. Armistead’s beauty and gentle nature made her sought after and ensured her the attentions of a string of rich notable clients. By 1776, Town and Country Magazine reported that she could “claim the conquest of two ducal coronets, a marquis, four earls and a viscount.”
Elizabeth Armistead’s standing as mistress to high nobility attracted the interest of General Richard Smith, a man of humble origins who had amassed a fortune while in command of the East India Company's army of Bengal.. Smith provided his new mistress with the leasehold of a house on Bond Street and a handsome allowance to maintain it. He may also have given her an annuity. The General enjoyed little of her company however, for he was soon imprisoned on corruption charges for trying to buy a seat in Parliament.
Mrs. Armistead’s next notable patron was John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset. She may have met the duke through her friendship with his maternal cousin, Richard Fitzpatrick. Elizabeth Armistead was one of a number of celebrated courtesans kept by the duke over the years of his extended bachelorhood. It may have been from Lord Dorset that Mrs. Armistead acquired the leasehold of a house on Clarges Street that was to become her principle residence. Toward the end of their alliance in 1777, she appeared in two plays by George Coleman at the Haymarket Opera House. According to Town and Country Magazine, Dorset’s patronage ceased abruptly when he embarked on an affair with Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, Countess of Derby. His desertion was reported to have caused Mrs. Armistead a period of financial difficulty.
For a time, she spread her favours among several patrons including Lord George Cavendish, but soon the cuckolded Earl of Derby sought her favours. In the summer of 1778, the threat of French invasion sent Lord Derby to a militia camp in Winchester. George Selwyn wrote: “He does not, however, think his establishment complete without a declared mistress and he is therefore to take Mrs. Armstead from Lord George that he may have the privilege of supporting he expenses entirely to himself.” That autumn the earl set her up in a house in the quiet suburb of Hampstead Heath. Though the scandal magazines predicted their liaison might become a lasting one, Mrs. Armistead elected to return to Lord George Cavendish, who provided her with her second annuity.
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