Harriet Arbuthnot - Marriage

Marriage

Harriet Fane married Rt Hon Charles Arbuthnot, member of Parliament, at Fulbeck on 31 January 1814. Born in 1767, her husband was 26 years older than she was, an age difference which had initially caused her family to object to the marriage. Another of the principal obstacles to finalising the arrangements for the marriage was financial. Her widowed mother delegated the arrangements for the marriage of her 20 year old daughter to her elder son Vere, a 46-year-old widower who was considered qualified in these matters as he worked at Child's Bank. It seems that Vere Fane and his mother were not initially prepared to settle enough money on his sister to satisfy her future husband, causing the prospective bridegroom to write to his fiancée: "How can you and I live upon £1000 or £1200 and Fane finds it so impossible to live upon her £6000 that she can offer you no assistance whatsoever?"

Charles Arbuthnot was a widower with four children; his son Charles was a mere nine years junior to his new wife. His first wife Marcia, a lady in waiting to the notorious Princess of Wales, had died in 1806. Like the other two men his second wife so admired, Viscount Castlereagh and Wellington, Charles Arbuthnot was a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. He had been a Member of Parliament since 1795, when he became the member for East Looe. At the time of his marriage to Fane, he was the member for St Germans. He had briefly interrupted his political career to become Ambassador Extraordinary to the Ottoman Empire between 1804 and 1807. Marriage to such a pillar of the establishment as Charles Arbuthnot opened all doors to his young new wife, who, as one of the 14 children of a younger son of an aristocratic family possessed of no great fortune, would otherwise have been on the periphery of the highest society. However, as the debate and wrangling over her dowry proved, money was tight.

Throughout her marriage, Mrs Arbuthnot, the former Harriet Fane, formed close friendships with powerful older men. She described Castlereagh as her "dearest and best friend" until his death in 1822, when she transferred her affections to the other great 19th-century Anglo-Irish peer, the Duke of Wellington. All social commentators of the time, however, agree that her marriage was happy; indeed, her husband was as close a friend of Wellington's as was his wife. Married to a politician, she was fascinated by politics and enjoyed success as a political hostess while exerting her energies to promote Tory causes. However, while she was the dominant partner, her conservative outlook ensured her continued favour among her elderly Tory admirers. During the early part of her marriage, her husband served as an Under-Secretary at the Treasury. Later, in 1823, he was given the Department of Woods and Forests, a position which gave him charge of the Royal parks and gardens. The subsequent access to the Royal family this allowed increased not only his status but also that of his wife.

When remarking in her diaries on other women who shared their affections with great men of the day, Arbuthnot displayed a sharp, ironic wit. Of Wellington's one-time mistress Princess Dorothea Lieven, wife to the Imperial Russian ambassador to London from 1812 to 1834, she wrote "It is curious that the loves and intrigues of a femme galante should have such influence over the affairs of Europe." Arbuthnot obviously failed to realise she was regarded by some in London society as a femme galante in a similar situation herself.

Her political observations are clearly written from her own Tory viewpoint. However, her detailed description of the rivalry for power between the Tories and Liberals which took place between 1822 and 1830 is one of the most authoritative accounts of this struggle.