the Portsmouths of Hurstbourne Park

At nearby Hurstbourne Park, residence of the Earl of Portsmouth, a very public adulterous relationship was turning the Earl into a cuckold. Jane Austen had known the Earl as a young boy when he had lived with her family at Steventon as one of George Austen's pupils. As a young woman she occasionally attended balls at Hurstbourne Park. Mrs. Austen had commented when he lived with them on the backwardness of the little boy, and as he grew up the Earl's mental condition worsened. In spite of his mental incapacity, however, he was married off in 1814 to Mary-Anne Hanson, daughter of the family lawyer. Locking up her mad husband and treating him with great cruelty (she had him whipped on a regular basis), Mary-Anne very soon brought her lover William-Rowland Alder into the house. Together they had three children. The Earl was formally declared insane only many years after Jane Austen's death. Mary-Anne was then able to marry her adulterous lover (Letters [Notes] 564-65). the free library

 

A magnificent, mid-18th century, walnut trestle table retaining its original gilding; from Hurstbourne Park, the former seat of the Earl of Portsmouth 

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