Improbable Marriages #3: The Actress and the Duke

Harriot Mellon (1817-18)

The most improbable of all improbable marriages?

The year: 1827

The hero: William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St. Albans

The heroine: Harriot Mellon, the daughter of strolling players (though some sources say her father was a chimney sweep) and a celebrated actress in London.

Their happily ever after: Harriot was swept off her feet by an extremely rich banker, Thomas Coutts, who married her in 1815. After his death in 1822, she took helped run his bank and became extremely rich. She was, by all accounts, very poised, and a kind and generous hostess, even when some members of society cut her. She caught the duke’s eye soon afterwards, and when he was courting her, Sir Walter Scott (who seemed to have been somewhat of a matchmaker for this couple) said:

‘If the Duke marries her, he insures an immense fortune: and if she marries him, she has the front rank. If he marries a woman older than himself by twenty years, she marries a man younger in wit by twenty degrees. I do not think he will dilapidate her fortune: he seems good and gentle. I do not think she will abuse his softness of disposition-shall I say? or of heart.’ (1)

Harriot married the duke in 1827, and she became the Duchess of St. Albans. He was 23 years younger than she was!

For more about Harriot Mellon and the duke:

History Today

British Isles Genealogy (1)

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