Fistiana

“When the boy's blood began to flow, she (Lady Meux) was delighted, and considered the ordeal was making a man of him.” – Sir Leslie Ward, portrait artist and caricaturist

That Lady Valerie Meux had a taste for blood and violence, at least as a spectator sport, we know seen from the Sunday Fight Nights at Theobalds Park. Guests were pitted against each other in humiliating and sadistic entertainments.

Arthur Lambton, Sir Henry’s secretary, was an unwilling participant in the thrashings. “… fisticuffs were absolutely forced upon us.” He even took boxing lessons to improve his skills. [1] Portrait artist and caricaturist Leslie Ward witnessed the fights, including one where Lady Meux decided to test the courage of one of her husband’s nephews.

Ward said: “Her sporting instinct, which was very strong, was sometimes carried to extremes; for instance, she once wished to test the courage of a nephew of her husband's who was staying in her house, and engaged a professor in the gentle art of prize-fighting to come down and try the boy. The man, by way of a preliminary, knocked the boy about a little, which did not satisfy Lady Meux, who urged the prize-fighter on to harder blows. When the boy's blood began to flow, she was delighted, and considered the ordeal was making a man of him; he made a very plucky stand against his professional antagonist, and when his strength was just at its ebb, the thoughtful lady let him off, and immediately gave him a handsome present for the pluck he had shown.” [2]

There are even stories of Valerie, carefully disguised, visiting prize-fights. [3] On more than one occasion.

But was she ever given indulging in personal acts of violence? There is little evidence but she was included in a list of society women prone to use their fists on staff, servants and lackeys who displeased or failed them. One American newspaper called them ladies who ‘slug’. They had the manners of the prize-ring and were 'bad women of rank' who have “blackened the eyes of persons who have been unfortunate enough to incur her wrath.” [4]

Who were these brawlers among whom Valerie was said to belong?

Lady Emily Margaret Spencer Clifford (1865–1924) arrived at Royal Anchor Hotel, Liphook, Hampshire, with her daughter and stayed the night. Next morning, at breakfast, she complained about the toast and that the door to the coffee room had not been kept closed as she instructed.

Mrs. Priscilla Mary Messiter, wife of the hotel’s proprietor, said the toast was freshly-made and it was not the custom to close the door of a public room when no-one was occupying it.

Without provocation, Lady Clifford said, ‘You fool’ and struck Mrs. Messiter on the side of her head with her fist. Mrs. Messiter fetched her husband. How dare Lady Clifford strike his wife?

“I have done so, and I would do so again,” said Lady Clifford.

She then called the landlord a ‘bully’ and told him she was quite a match for him. Now, very excited, Lady Clifford refused to have her breakfast, saying she would go to the local Rector for some. Mr. Messiter asked for her name and address but she refused. A policeman was sent for.

Lady Clifford now left the hotel and created a disturbance outside, “running up and down in her heavy boots, and calling out ‘Cuckoo’ to her daughter who was looking out of an upstairs window and laughing.

The police arrived and Lady Clifford once again refused to give her name. She went to the Rector’s – Canon Cape – staying ninety minutes before going to the home of Sir Archibald Macdonald. She was followed by a constable and arrested.

She was brought before a magistrate at Petersfield, defended by Mr. Hyde. Lady Clifford, he said, had been seriously ill and was put into a smokey bedroom and treated with much rudeness by Mrs. Messiter. After breakfast, she was determined to leave but Mrs. Messsiter tried to stop her. Mr. Messiter then appeared and called her a thief and a liar.

Lady Clifford was fined 20s and 15s costs. a cross-summons was dismissed with costs. [5]

The violence attributed to the Marchioness of Waterford, [6] was provoked by animal cruelty. While was writing letters near the first-storey window of her house in Belgravia, the Marchioness saw a cabman strike his horse over the head with the handle of his whip. She hurried downstairs, gathered her skirts in her left hand, went out on to the pavement  to upbraid the man. The cabbie lost his temper. As Lady Waterford tried to push him away from the horse, he jabbed his elbow into her breast. She clenched her fist and let fly at the man’s jaw, knocking off his heels and into the gutter. Climbing back to his feet, he was arrested and charged with gross cruelty to animals and deprived of his licence. The Marchioness later died of breast cancer, caused, it was claimed, as a result the blow she received in the confrontation.

Caroline, Duchess of Montrose (1818–1894), of Belgrave Square, London, and Sefton Lodge, Newmarket, a racehorse owner who used the name Mr. Manton. She was known as the Red Duchess from her scarlet racing colours and habit of dressing from head to foot in that colour at race meetings [7]. She was well known on the turf and, apparently, known to smack her jockeys’ faces when they did not ride her horses to suit her and lost. She once administered a swinging blow to the ear of her trainer in full view of the entire paddock at Newmarket races. In the grounds of her home Sefton Lodge, Newmarket, she built a chapel for the use of her stable employees. She would be sometimes be seen on Sunday, entering the chapel after the service had begun, clutching the ears of stable boys or young jockeys who had attempt to avoid the service.

The Marchioness of Donegall [8] was ‘renowned for her violence’. She was peaceful enough when sober, but in her cups became bellicose. She was repeatedly arrested by the police in London for fighting, in several instances, her husband, once endeavouring to ‘brain him with a hatchet’, before being taken into custody. Lord Donegall had often tried to divorce his wife on account of her violence and misconduct. However, as the marquis himself was regarded as completely disreputable, the courts refused to part such ‘a well-matched couple’ [9]

Lady Plowden (1841–1915) was a member of the Bass brewing family. While travelling through the south-west of America, she came to notoriety in a Galveston hotel, for her individual approach to staff relations. Lady Plowden decided to air the bed clothes out of the front windows of the hotel. A hotel chambermaid, who tried to stop her, got her ears boxed. The hotel housekeeper came to investigate and was promptly thrown out of the room. Later a clumsy bellboy spilled a pitcher of ice water over her ladyship’s dress. He received a ‘drubbing’ before escaping. It was said Lady Plowden previously had similar difficulties with servants at a San Antonio hostelry. [10]

Lady Plowden was “a woman of imposing presence and exuberant spirits, the later due perhaps to the fact that she is a member of the great Bass family, of brewing fame.” [11]

And the brewing connection leads to Valerie. “Another titled Lady, likewise connected with the brewing industry, Lady Meux, has been up before the courts on similar charges.” But no specific incidences are mention.

In Vienna, Countess Strachwize, wife of a colonel in the Hussars, “was imprisioned for one week for blackening the eye of one of her grooms. She was, it seems, in the habit of punching her stablemen in the face. [12]

In 1885, Princess Monlear, [13] an Austrian, was murdered by one of her stablemen, whom she had been castigating, partly with her fists and partly with her riding whip.

“She was a most extraordinary woman, very masculine in her dress, wearing top boots, a short black skirt reaching to her knees and a man’s overcoat and hat. She would smoke cigars and ride not side-saddle, but astride her horse, to which she was devoted. Indeed, her whole interests and happiness centred on her stud farm. She thought and spoke of nothing else but horse breeding, her language on such occasions being of the most unvarnished plainness, in flagrant violation of the modesty for which one is accustomed to look in maiden ladies.” Her killer was never caught and was believed to have escaped to America. [14]

[1] Lambton, Arthur. My Story, Hurst & Blackett Ltd, London, 1925.

[2] Lambton, Arthur. My Story, Hurst & Blackett Ltd, London, 1925. See chapter The Nest of Sycophants and  Ward, Leslie, Sir. Forty years of  “Spy”, Chatto & Windus, London, 1915, p167.

[3] The Gazette, Montreal, Saturday 24th December 1910 p13.

[4] The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 22nd December, 1895, p19.

[5] Reynolds's Newspaper, Sunday, 17th November 1895, p6; The Boston Guardian and Lincolnshire Independent, Saturday, 23rd November 1895, p2. The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 22nd December, 1895, p19.

[6] Lady Blanche Elizabeth Adelaide Somerset (1856-1897) was the wife of John Henry de la Poer Beresford, 5th Marquess of Waterford (1844-1895), who shot himself in the head with a revolver at his home in Curraghmore, County Waterford, Ireland. The Yorkshire Gazette, Saturday, 26th October 1895, p3.

[7] Hull Daily Mail, Friday 16th November 1894, p3.

[8] Please note the spelling is Dongegall when referring to the title and Donegal for the town and county in the Republic of Ireland.

[9] As this story appeared in 1895, the events described clearly happened earlier. But it is not clear people are referred to. From 1883 to 1889 Edward Chichester (1799-1889) was 4th Marquess of Donegall. His wife was Amelia Spread Deane O'Grady. George Hamilton Chichester (1797–1883) was 3rd Marquess of Donegall from 1844 to 1883. His first wife was Lady Harriet Anne Butler, died 1860, and his second wife was Harriet Graham, who died in 1884.”

[10] The Pittsburg Dispatch, November 25, 1890, p4.

[11] The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 22nd December, 1895, p19.

[12] Pittsburgh Daily Post, Sunday, 29th December, 1895. I have found no reference to Countess Strachwize.

[13] Pittsburgh Daily Post, Sunday, December 29, 1895. I have found no other reference to this story or to Princess Monlear. There is a reference to La Princesse de Monléar in Paris in 1893, although whether they are one and the same is unknown. See: New-York Tribune, Sunday, 5th March 1893, p16.

[14] The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 22nd December, 1895, p19; Pittsburgh Daily Post, Sunday, December 29, 1895, p21; The Courier-Journal, Saturday, 14th December 14, 1895, p2.