Biography

Mary Coke. (1726-1811) (aka. Lady Mirabel)

Daughter of the second Duke of Argyll, and widow of Edward, Viscount Coke.

Some of Mary Coke's letters and journals have been published, first in 1896 in Edinburgh, and again in 1970 in Bath as "The letters and journals of Lady Mary Coke".

Life with James Boswell:

On January 14, 1763 Boswell quoted a conversation he had with a Lady Mirabel at Lady Northumberland's. Lady Mirabel was described as "a lady of quality whom I was a little acquainted with", and "[f]rom th[e] conversation and Lady Mirabel's looks, [he] entertained some notion that an intrigue would not be disagreeable to her Ladyship". According to Pottle in the notes in LJ, Lady Mirabel (which was quite explicitly a false name which Boswell used in his journal) may have been Lady Mary Coke.

Boswell visited her again on January 18 and met her at Lady Northumberlands on January 21. His memorandas from March 20 and 21, 1763 both announce his intention to go see her on those days, but his journal entries doesn't mention "Lady Mirabel" again.

On August 19, 1764, Boswell met Lady Mary Coke at Brunswick and on August 20 they were both at the Hereditary Princess's - on this occasion Boswell wrote:

"I was vexed with Lady Mary Coke, in whom I found all the absurd distance of manners by which the English ladies petrify people [...] At last I stepped up to her and said ,"How comes it, Madam, that I can speak to all these foreign ladies with ease, and can scarcely say a word to your Ladyship?" "Sir", said she, "we have not the same ease with them." Some more syllables feebly muttered in the air, and then our lips were again glued - not hers to mine and mine to hers, but as if each had been afraid that the other would bite and had got them bound over to the peace. O sad manners! Avaunt!"

Boswell's somewhat excessive reaction to Lady Mary's behaviour and his concluding comments are rather suggestive, and may be some of those "minor pieces of evidence" hinted at by Pottle in the above mentioned notes concerning the identity of Lady Mirabel.

This article was last updated at February 07 2008 13:06:11 CET

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