By Elizabeth Lane
Horace "Haw" Tabor may not have been long on talent or ambition, but he made up for it with sheer dumb luck. The year 1878 found the 48-year-old Tabor running a store in Leadville, Colorado, while his loyal wife, Augusta, kept a boarding house. Storekeepers at the time had the option of providing a "grubstake" for miners on their way to the wilds for a shot at fortune. In return, the storekeeper was entitled to one-third of any riches the miners discovered.
That spring, Tabor grubstaked a pair of sorry-looking miners named August Rische and George Hook. They didn't seem to know much about prospecting, but the two of them wandered into the hills and, by chance, dug into a vein of pure silver. Their Little Pittsburgh Mine yielded $20,000 a week. Haw Tabor's $60 investment earned him $2 million in the first year alone without getting his hands dirty. In short order he became mayor of boomtown Leadville and lieutenant governor of Colorado. Augusta, unable to adjust to her husband's meteoric rise, became more and more reclusive.
Enter Baby Doe. Born Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt, and newly divorced from her slacker husband, Harvey Doe, she was blue-eyed, blond, spunky, and irresistible. In 1879 she met the newly-rich Haw Tabor. Despite their 26-year age difference, the two fell in love. Over the next few years, as Tabor's relationship with Augusta became more distant, his liaison with Baby Doe became increasingly public. In 1881, Tabor quietly obtained a backwoods divorce from his wife (without bothering to inform her). At some point he and Baby Doe were quietly married.
Eventually word of the secret divorce reached Augusta Tabor. She hauled her ex-husband into court and received a million dollar settlement.
In 1883 Tabor was appointed to fill a 30-day vacancy as U.S. Senator from Colorado. He and Baby Doe took advantage of the chance to stage a lavish Washington wedding, attended by no less a person than President Chester A. Arthur. Soon, however, the gossip caught up with them. The priest who'd performed the ceremony declared the marriage illegal because both parties had been divorced. But since they'd already married each other earlier, it didn't make any difference. The wedding had been pure theater.
That was the end of Tabor's political career. Although he and Baby Doe lived well for a time, and he attempted to run for governor and senator, public opinion had turned against him.
In 1893 the final blow cam when the federal government announced that it was going to stop buying silver for its currency and convert to the gold standard. The crash ruined Tabor. Everything he had was sold, but nothing he could do was enough to support Baby Doe and their two daughters. In 1899 he died of appendicitis in the single room he shared with his family. Shortly before his death, he reportedly told his wife to "hang onto the Matchless Mine."
Baby Doe spent the remaining thirty-five years of her life in a cabin outside the Matchless Mine in Leadville. Still beautiful, she could have easily remarried. She chose instead to "hold onto the Matchless."
In early March of 1935, her frozen body was discovered on the floor of her cabin. Deserted by her daughters, she had passed into legend. Her life has been the subject of two books, a Hollywood movie, two operas, a screen play, a one-woman show and countless other books and articles.
By Jennifer Linforth
Alexandre Dumas's The Man in the Iron Mask penned Louis XIV's brother as identical, and a man who was later locked away with his face obscured so he could never pose a threat to the king. In reality there was no way Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, was a threat to Versailles.
Monsieur, as he was known, was more apt to act like a madame than anything else. An iron mask had nothing to do with his alleged impotence; that was more a result of his chosen lifestyle--a lifestyle encouraged by his family so never to pose any threat to the king's position. It seems this royal family had a history of tempestuous family relations...
Philippe loved putting on dazzling displays of fancy wigs, rings, flashy clothing and, yes, high heels. He sashayed through the halls of Versailles blowing kisses to boys and indulging in all manner of more feminine activities. A court reporter cited as claiming him "short and pot bellied" and the sort of man who would cover himself in ribbons and women's perfumes.
Louis XIV adamantly disliked such behavior on men, but tolerated it from his brother, who he adored. Philippe was encouraged to engage in his frilly ways in order to leave the more masculine ways to his older brother. When court business would arise, Louis would tell Philippe to go amuse himself so he could settle down to the work of running a kingdom. Off the duc would go to his favorite pastimes. Philippe enjoyed gambling, chasing young men, and court life. He was an art collector and patron of architecture and despite what his debts and dalliances might have cost Louis, the brothers spent much time together.
He was married twice. His second wife, Elizabeth Charlotte, a princess of the German House of Wittlesbach, bore him his only surviving son--Philippe Charles d'Orléans, petit-fils de France, Duke of Orléans.
Despite the women's clothing, make-up and jewels, Philippe Duc d'Orleans proved himself a fierce warrior in battle and fought without fear. His wife remarked he was more afraid of gunpowder smoke than actual bullets. Perhaps the smoke did more damage to his flamboyant wigs.
By Anna C. Bowling
Though Anne Bonny earned herself a spot in the history books as one of the most famed female pirates off all time, she started her life of scandal right out of the gate with her birth in 1700 (or 1702 depending on source). Reputed to be the daughter of Irish attorney William Cormac and one of the family's maidservants, Anne's arrival did not please Mrs. Cormac one bit, though one account has suggested that Mrs. Cormac revealed her knowledge of her husband's affair by waiting in the maidservant's bed for William to come for one of his regular visits. However the family dealt with this new development, William absconded to Charleston, South Carolina, with the maidservant and baby Anne to start life anew.
Colonial life brought prosperity to the Cormac family, and Anne grew up with a degree of privilege, though her fiery nature manifested itself early on. Some accounts claim that Anne stabbed one of her maidservants and at another time set fire to her father's plantation, but there is no conclusive evidence to support or deny either claim. Anne's wild ways led to an impulsive teenage marriage to James Bonny, a sailor with a taste for the high life, who hoped to gain control of Anne's family's fortune. William Cormac would have none of that, or of his daughter and son-in-law, so the newlyweds set sail for New Providence Island in the Bahamas.
Their rocky marriage crashed. James became an informant for Governor Woodes Rogers, while Anne preferred to spend her time in local taverns rather than keeping house. It was there that she met the dashing pirate James could never be. Calico Jack Rackham, so named for his flashy style of dress, matched Anne in spirit and thirst for adventure, and the two soon began an affair. James Bonny brought his wife before Governor Rodgers to have her flogged for the crime of adultery. She was ordered to return to him to live as a proper wife. Such was the law of the land, but as pirates subscribed to a law of their own, Jack Rackham had a counter-offer.
Jack offered to buy Anne from James in a divorce by purchase--not entirely legal, but accepted practice in some circles. Anne refused; she was not property to be bought and sold. Anne's sentence was passed but not carried out (foreshadowing alert), and she and Jack disappeared to embark on their piratical partnership. They would later acquire another companion, the female pirate Mary Read, who had a scandalous background of her own. Mary was raised in male disguise by her widowed mother, as her paternal grandmother would support a grandson but not a granddaughter. The trio wreaked havoc upon the seas, taking many prizes. Some accounts have Anne bearing Jack's child during their two years together, though varying accounts list the child as being stillborn or left to be raised with a family in Cuba.
The pirate's life is said to be a merry but short one, and in 1720, Anne and company found this to be true. Captain Jonathan Barnet, working for the governor of Jamaica, captured the trio's ship. Only Anne and Mary fought to the end, the men reputedly being too drunk to fight. All were brought to trial for piracy, and Anne and Mary both plead their bellies, claiming to be pregnant, which would earn them stays of execution until their children were born. Neither execution ever took place. Mary died of a fever which may or may not have been connected to childbirth. Anne's fate was a mystery for quite some time.
Had she in fact been executed? No documents or contemporary sources existed to that effect. What then? Had she died in prison like Mary? Again, no documentation existed anywhere to indicate that. Had she perhaps escaped and resumed piracy under a new identity? The truth, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, using evidence provided by Anne's descendants, is that William Cormac ransomed his daughter back to South Carolina. There she bore Jack Rackham's posthumous child. She later married James Burleigh, bearing him eight children, and lived a quiet and circumspect life until her death at the age of eighty-two. Perhaps that was her most scandalous feat of all.
By Anita Davison
Born in 1648, Thomas Thynne was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Thynne and his wife, Stuarta. On the death of his childless uncle, Sir James Thynne, in 1670, he inherited Longleat House and the family's estates, and his nickname derived from the fact he was believed to have an income of £10,000 p a.
Richer than most peers, Thomas spent most of his money on his own pleasure. He dressed as if he were the epitome of the Restoration rake, sporting "a gray wide-brimmed hat, silk shirts and stockings...a lace embroidered waistcoat, black velvet breeches and a green frock coat," all topped off with a gold-fringed scarf seven yards long.
Having gone to Oxford, he joined the entourage of James Stuart, Duke of York, but later some quarrel arose between them, and Tom switched allegiance to the rival camp of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth. Thomas spent most of his time at his London house in Cannon Row, leaving his Wiltshire estates in the hands of agents, and himself free to tour London's brothels and gaming houses in the company of the Duke of Monmouth. When Monmouth made a tour of the west country in 1680 his arrival at Longleat was greeted by flowers strewn in his path.
As a member of the Green Ribbon Club, Thomas took a leading role in the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-1681. On 30th June 1680, he was one of ten lords and ten commoners who proposed that the Duke of York should be brought before the grand jury of Middlesex as a papist. As a result, Charles II deprived Thomas of his command of the Wiltshire militia in November 1681.
Thomas married Elizabeth Percy, the only child of the deceased Joceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland. Despite being only fifteen, Elizabeth was already an extremely rich widow, having married Henry Cavendish, Earl of Ogle, at the age of thirteen. The earl died within the year, and since Elizabeth had remained with her grandmother at Petworth throughout that time, it was almost certain that the marriage was never consummated.
The dowager Countess of Northumberland, Elizabeth Howard, was equally keen for her grand-daughter to marry the wealthy owner of Longleat. To obtain her acquiescence to the match, Thomas promised Elizabeth an allowance of £2,000 a year, and during the course of the wedding ceremony in July 1681, with the pronouncement of the words "with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he produced a bag holding one hundred gold guineas and held them out to his intended, who promptly wrapped it in her handkerchief and stuffed it down the front of her dress.
Having escaped her grandmother's clutches, Elizabeth was reluctant to shut herself away in Longleat House, so she went to the Netherlands for a year with Lady Dorothy Temple, the wife of William Temple. Thomas happily spent the intervening time gaining control of his wife's property despite the protests of many of her relations, whilst awaiting her return.
In the Hague, Elizabeth met John Philip Köningsmark, a Swedish Count, adventurer and serial seducer of impressionable women. Having succeeded in making Elizabeth his latest conquest, Köningsmark twice issued Thomas Thynne a challenge to fight a duel through his steward, Captain Christopher Vratz. Thomas declined, but it is said to have sent his own party of six men to France to murder Köningsmark, or at least forcibly dissuade him from further contact with his wife.
Undaunted by their failure, in February 1682 both Köningsmark and Vratz arrived in England, and together with the count's groom, a Pole named George Boroski, and Swedish mercenary John Stern, they met at a tavern in Whitehall. Whilst Thomas's carriage travelled down the Pall Mall, where he had gone to pay a call on the dowager Countess of Northumberland. Vratz seized the horses and forced the carriage to stop, while Boroski fired his blunderbuss at Thomas Thynne. Stern was too drunk to take any direct part in the murder, but fled the scene.
Wounded in four places, Thomas and rushed to his house in Cannon Row and died in his bed at six the following morning, surrounded by the Duke of Monmouth and his friends.
Magistrate John Reresby conducted the investigation, and on the 13th February, Vratz was arrested in his lodgings and gave up the whereabouts of the other two. All three were apprehended and taken before the king.
Vratz admitted that he had been employed by Köningsmark, but claimed that the intention was only to force Thomas to fight a duel and that Boroski had misinterpreted his instructions. Boroski in turn swore that Vratz had ordered him to kill Thynne, whilst Stern pleaded that he had no knowledge of either the planned duel or the murder and had simply the misfortune to be in the company of Vratz when the deed was done. Nevertheless all three were placed in Newgate prison. Charles II was relived to discover the arrest of three foreigners meant that the crime was of no political significance, and was unlikely to stir up anti-Catholic sentiment.
Count Köningsmark was apprehended a week later at Gravesend by the Duke of Monmouth's steward, where he had been trying to obtain passage home to Sweden. He was briefly examined before the king and council and again by the Lord Chief Justice Francis Pemberton, before being committed to Newgate.
Vratz, Stern and Boroski were charged with murder, while Köningsmark was charged as an accessory before the fact. His cohorts were all found guilty, but Köningsmark was acquitted. The judge, the Lord Chief Justice Francis Pemberton, condemned the three conspirators as "not fit to look upon themselves as accounted men," favoured Köningsmark during the trial at the Old Bailey, and directed the jury to acquit him. Reresby claims he had been offered (and declined) a bribe to favour the Swede and John Evelyn said that Köningsmark "was acquitted by a corrupt jury".
Vratz, Stern and Boroski were sentenced to be hanged at Pall Mall on the 10th March 1682, the scene of the murder. Vratz faced his fate with stoicism and asked to be excused the customary blindfold; "Never man went so unconcerned for his fate," wrote John Evelyn. Boroski shook with fear, whilst Stern verged on hysteria. As the man who had pulled the trigger, Boroski's corpse was hung in chains at the Mile End Road as the customary warning, Stern's remains were quietly buried, whilst Vratz's corpse was embalmed and returned to Germany in a lead-lined coffin "too magnificent for so daring and horrid a murderer," according to Evelyn.
Köningsmark was killed in 1687 at the Siege of Argos fighting the Turks. The twice-widowed Elizabeth Percy married Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, known as "The Proud Duke" who was rumoured never to have addressed his wife by her given name.
Thomas Thynne's remains were interred at Westminster Abbey in a marble tomb. Beneath his recumbent figure flanked by a prancing cherub, a bas-relief panel depicts a representation of the scene of his murder at Pall Mall.
An anonymous verse circulated soon after his death:
Here lies Tom Thynne of Longleat Hall
Who never would have miscarried,
Had he married the woman he lay withal
Or laid with the woman he married.
By Michelle Styles
In 1782, the chattering classes of Britain and the United States were held transfixed by the trial of George Bisset for criminal conversation. The transcript had seven printings in the first year--even George Washington requested one.
The action was brought by Sir Richard Worsley and he claimed damages of £20,000. In 1775, Worsley had married a very rich heiress, Seymour Dorothy Fleming. At first they were the perfect power couple of Georgian England. Sir Richard became a rising star in Lord North's government and Lady Worsley was popular in the ton. They had a son, Robert Edwin, within a year or two of the marriage and to the outside word, a daughter born August 1781.
However, all was not happy and Sir Richard buried himself in his work and in the Hampshire Militia. Worsley was also a collector of Roman artifacts and there is a suggestion that such men often preferred not to look at women. Lady Worsley would later say that for the the first three months of her marriage, it was like living with a brother. In any case, there is evidence that he did not pay Seymour much attention and Lady Worsley craved attention.
Lady Worsley took a number of discrete lovers. Her friendship with one George M Bisset became something more and she gave birth to their daughter.
On 18 November 1781, she eloped with Bisset, travelling in a carriage from Lewes to London where the pair hid. It can be assumed that Lady Worsley felt a quick divorce would be in the offing and everything would be settled discretely. After all Sir Richard had been content with the previous arrangement and had even accepted Bisset's daughter as his own.
Faced with the humiliation of a runaway wife, Sir Richard decided to take his revenge. He sued George M Bisset for £20,000 in damages. This would have ruined Bisset.
As the pair had been discovered in London, there was no real defence on Bisset's part. He had eloped with another man's wife. However Sir Richard had reckoned without his estranged wife. Rather than allow her lover to be ruined, Seymour decided to run the defence that not only had her husband known about her various relationships, he had approved of them.
Thus a series of men were called who gave discrete evidence about relations with Seymour. All of London, in particular the demi-monde, turned out to hear the case.
However, it was the evidence of the bath lady that stunned the court. She could well remember that sunny day when the Worsleys and Captain Bisset came to use her bath house. She had helped Lady Worsley undress. Suddenly she had heard Sir Richard saying in a loud voice: "Seymour, Seymour, Bisset is looking at you." Furthermore, the bath lady announced the only way Bisset could have achieved this feat was by standing on Sir Richard's shoulders. In short, Sir Richard had been exposed as a voyeur. The cartoonists had a field day and ever afterward, people would think of the cartoons rather his collection of Roman cameos or his position as counsel in Venice.
The jury took every little time in deliberating. Sir Richard won his case but was rewarded one shilling for his trouble rather than the fortune he had demanded. A transcript of the trial can be seen here.
While the case was going on, Lord North's government was busy collapsing and it has been speculated that because Sir Richard was distracted, the government fell and a government that was sympathetic to ending the American Revolution was installed.
Sir Richard, his career and reputation in ruins, took more revenge by refusing to divorce Seymour. They formally separated in 1788 and she was only entitled to pin money, rather than her extensive dowry. Neither did she have any access to her lavish wardrobe or jewels. Seymour and Bisset's love affair ended as they could not marry and she took a series of lovers in order to survive (as well to rub her husband's nose in her notoriety).
Unfortunately Sir Richard also refused to allow her access to either of her children and the little daughter died. Seymour suspected that the death was from neglect. There was further tragedy when their son, in his late teens, died due to an accident with the militia. Because of the Napoleonic War, their son had not been able to have Grand Tour (not considered safe) but had served for a time with the Hampshire Militia.
It was only after Sir Richard's death that Seymour regained control of her fortune. She eventually married a second time--to a much younger man. She was never received in polite society again but was eventually allowed to have some contact with her sister and mother.
If you are interested in the scandal, Hallie Rubenfield wrote a comprehensive account of it in Lady Worsley's Whim.
By Zoe Archer
Long before there ever was a TMZ, People or Page Six, early 18th century scandal sheets fed the reading public's insatiable appetite for gossip. Readers, mostly in London, went to their coffee or chocolate house to find issues of their favorite tattling periodicals and there read about and discuss the scandals du jour.
Newspapers were a relatively recent phenomenon, and expensive. Not many could afford to have them delivered to their homes. To catch up on the latest gossip, men went to public coffee houses and gaming clubs, and women visited India Houses (tea shops with a considerable amount female customers), and there, over revivifying beverages, they could chat with friends and read about the scandalous events amongst London's elite.
Just like today, when we have a huge range of tabloids to choose from, the Londoner in search of scandal had a range of rags and broadsheets, including The Tatler [sic], The Flying Post, The British Apollo, The Observator, and The Female Tatler. Some were published for years. Others folded within weeks or months. The periodicals were themselves the subject of scandal, such as The Female Tatler, whose authorship by "Mrs. Crackenthorpe" was debated, and, for a time, there were two Female Tatlers, each claiming to be real.
Almost all of these scandal sheets claimed that their purpose was to be instructional and morally edifying. Mrs. Crackenthorpe claims:
When we daily hear of unaccountable whims and extravagant frolics committed by the better sort, we must expect those of inferior classes will imitate them in their habits of mind, as well as body, and the only way to correct great men's foibles, is handsomely to ridicule 'em; a seasonable banter has often had a reclaiming effect, when serious advice from a grave divine has been thought impudence.
No doubt this is a case of protesting too much. As soon as people stop misbehaving, then there is nothing left to publish, and the tabloid folds up shop. And besides, reading about scandals is just plain fun.
While The Tatler, penned by "Isaac Bickerstaff" (in reality Richard Steele), often reported on foreign and domestic news in its "St. James' Coffee-House" section, poetry in its "Will's Coffee-House" section, and juicy gossip (or "accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment") was found in its "White's Chocolate-House" section. Those being gossiped about were given pseudonyms, the Blind Items of the day. Readers could entertain themselves for weeks speculating on the identities of the mystery persons. In the Thursday, April 21, 1709 issue, the following sensational tidbit was published:
...do but observe Clarissa the next time you see her, and you will find, when her eyes have made their soft tour round the company, she makes no stay on him they say she is to marry, but rests two seconds of a minute on Wildair, who neither looks nor thinks on her, or any woman else.
Other tasty morsels include Mrs. Crackenthorpe's exposure of a certain "Beau Maskwell:"
...one of the walking gentlemen of the age; a person Sans Consequence, who every day makes his tour of public places with a kind of thoughtless serenity....who has studied Piquet more than Aesculapius ever did Physics, can slightly place the cards to his own advantage.
In other words, don't take him up on an offer of a friendly card game, or find your purse lighter than before.
Everyone loves to read about people behaving badly. And the 18th century scandal rags gave readers plenty of outrageous behavior. Consider, for example Mrs. Crackenthorpe reporting on:
...Madam Slender-sense, who is lately fallen ill of a swelling she receiv'd by a slip the last ball night. Some are so rude as to say that Beau Garsoon, the French dancing master, was the occasion of it; and Mrs. Manlove, who generally searches into the bottom of such an affair, solemnly protests she saw them go up one pair of stairs together. What they did there, she can't tell, but the lady has been ailing ever since.
And long before Mr. Blackwell had his infamous Best and Worst Dressed, list, 18th century broadsheets loved mocking over- (and under-) dressed people, especially women trying to look and act younger than they were.
Mrs. Tawny alias Tawdry, is desired not to be so fantastically whimsical in her dress...nothing is more disagreeable and ridiculous than to see a woman of her years affect the gay, youthful airs of their daughters. And, by the by, she is reminded that if she will be so preposterously gaudy and flaunting, that if there was little more economy observed in her dress, she would not be altogether the subject of so much laughter.
No matter the century, it seems scandal never goes out of style!
By Lorelie Brown
A lot of things have been said about William Randolph Hearst. He was the inspiration for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, so that ought to tell you something. He was maniacal, driven, ruthless, and quite a bit shady--and by all appearances, he was also in love with one woman for a huge portion of his life.
William Randolph Hearst
Only problem? That woman was not his wife, Millicent, whom he married in 1903. Whoops.
Marion Davies*
Hearst's long-time "companion" was Marion Davies, a very beautiful show girl and movie star. Hearst and Davies met in 1918, and she was very shortly starring in a movie backed by Hearst money (she'd been in two others already). It was the beginning of a long, long pattern. Hearst so believed in his girlfriend that he backed picture after picture for her, and pushed reviewers at his many newspapers to sing her praises. The bummer is that he probably did more harm than good for Davies. For one thing, he liked her in big, dramatic historical pieces, when her talent was really comedy. Yeah, way to be tuned in to your girl, dude.
Between Davies filming an average of three movies a year, and Hearst's incessant publicity blitzes, they held court at San Simeon, also known as Hearst Castle. It's a 60,000 square foot mansion, yo! 60K! I can't even wrap my head around that, personally. And that's just the main building--including three quest houses it's more than 90 THOUSAND square feet. Fifty-six bedrooms. I don't think I even have 56 pairs of socks.
Hooch flowed freely at San Simeon (but drinking to insensibility was not tolerated), and Davies and Hearst hosted a crush of parties, with the guest lists consisting of a who's-who in Hollywood--Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Jean Harlow. Seen a movie from the 20s or 30s? The actors were probably guests at San Simeon at some point. Marion and Hearst supposedly had a child, Patricia Van Cleve, who was raised as Marion's "niece" for most of her life.
Patricia Van Cleve Lake
Despite his apparent devotion for Davies, Hearst never divorced his wife. He ostensibly considered it at various points, but decided it was "cheaper to keep her." Despite all this drama, the biggest scandal Marion and Hearst were involved in was by far the Thomas Ince Affair. (No, no, I didn't say Thomas Crown Affair!)
Thomas Ince
The details of Thomas Ince's death are clouded in mystery. Here's what's acknowledged as fact: On November 16, 1924, Ince joined Hearst and Davies aboard the yacht, The Oneida. Among the guests were Louella Parsons and Charlie Chaplin. On November 19th, Ince left the Oneida in physical distress.
Marion Davies waving hello to Thomas Ince from the deck of the Oneida.
The official story, put out by Hearst's considerable media empire and concurred with by a District Attorney who interviewed exactly one person, is that Ince left the yacht suffering from acute indigestion and subsequently died of a heart attack. (He did have a history of ulcers and other health issues.)
There seem to be as many unofficial stories as there were mouths on that boat. Hearst caught Davies and Chaplin "in an intimate embrace" (I've always wondered--does that mean kissing, or some bow-chicka-wow-wow?) and Ince was caught in the crossfire when yelling and shouting drew attention. Hearst walked in on Ince and Davies in a dark room and simply assumed the other man was Chaplin. Ince caught a stray bullet that went through a wall.
Did ya notice that in every story where the gunman's identified, it's Hearst? Veeeerrrrrry curious.....
In drama that seems to be unrelated (but it's hard to tell in this mess), Abigail Kinsolving, Davies's secretary, claimed that Ince raped her but made no connection to his later death. Kinsolving had a baby a few months later, and after that died under suspicious circumstances, so it's hard to tell if that's truth or she was grabbing a dead man as a fall guy.
After 85 years, and the deaths of all the major players, it's a sure bet no one will ever truly solve the mystery of Ince's death. The incident didn't seem to affect Davies and Hearst's relationship in any way. They remained involved for more than 30 years, until Hearst's death in 1951. Just ten weeks after his death, Davies finally married someone--Horace Brown, who many said bore a striking resemblance to a younger Hearst.
* The very super gorgeous colorized picture of Marion Davies is courtesy of Kevin Scrantz. I stumbled across his blog, Claroscureaux, when looking for the pictures, and if you're at all interested in old movies you really need to give it a peek. A lot of the colorizations I've seen have been quite garish, but Kevin has a deft touch.
By Jeannie Lin
The month's theme of "Scandal" has brought about many delicious stories of notorious women. I thought it might be interesting to look into how a scandalous woman becomes notorious. Especially in the days before mass media.
The Tang Dynasty (618 A.D. - 907 A.D.) was a particularly literate time. Now, by literate that doesn't mean that every peasant and farmer could read and write, but people outside of the highest noble classes studied calligraphy and poetry and read the classics. Empress Wu supported the imperial civil examination system as a way for commoners to elevate themselves in the ranks. You could rise above your station and the way to do it, was through education. Then on top of that, people seemed fascinated with the lives of the imperial family. They were the subjects of painting, sculpture and poetry.
Enter Yang Yuhuan. Consort Yang was arguably the most famous concubine in Chinese history--she's credited with bringing down the Golden Age with her beauty.
She appears as one of the Four Beauties--a very common theme in Chinese artwork. What draws people to Concubine Yang's story is that it starts as a romance and ends so tragically. Emperor Xuanxong sees her bathing in a pool among other palace beauties and he falls madly in love with her. At that time, he's 61 and she's 26.
He installs her in his palace and spends every waking moment by her side. He gives her the title of "Yang Guifei" which means "Precious Consort Yang". The title elevates her to the most highest ranking woman in the court besides the Empress. Then he starts promoting her family members to key positions.
hat's where things go wrong. The early part of Emperor Xuanzong reign is considered the height of the Golden Age. The empire is prosperous and wealthy and the arts flourish. At the later part of his reign, strife and rebellion start to brew. The regional warlords, many who are ethically non-Han, start wresting power from the central imperial government. The empire suffers several disastrous military losses to. The Emperor is criticized for leaving the rule of the empire to corrupt eunuchs and officials. His infatuation for Yang Guifei is an easy target.
This period of unrest culminates in the Anshi rebellion when warlord An Lushan marches on the imperial capital and the Emperor and his consort or forced to flee. But suddenly, the Emperor's guards will go no further. They refuse to protect him unless he orders the death of the one woman blamed for starting the downfall.
The Emperor orders the eunuchs to execute Yang Guifei, the love of his life, then and there, by the side of the road. She's strangled with a horse whip and buried in an unmarked grave.
It is said that Emperor Xuanzong mourned for her for the rest of his life. Once the Anshi rebellion was put down, he abdicated the throne. He tried to return to the roadside and find her grave, but when they opened it, there was nothing left. He died heartbroken.
Consort Yang became notorious in her time because of the prevalence of poetry and propaganda that publicized her relationship with the Emperor. The story of the Emperor's obsession with her became so well known that she became a scapegoat for political events that were out of her control. Perhaps it was easier to blame a beautiful "femme fatale" than a great Emperor for the downfall of the kingdom.
The Tang poet, Bai Juyi (772 - 846 A.D.) immortalized her in "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow". Bai Juyi's poetry as very accessible and immediately popularized the romance and tragedy of Consort Yang and the Emperor.
Scandal by epic poetry!
The secondary character of Lady Ling in my forthcoming debut, BUTTERFLY SWORDS, was inspired by the Consort Yang Yuhuan. Perhaps she'll get her own, happier ending one day.
By Sandra Schwab
Imagine--it's 1838, the old king is dead, the new queen acceded to the throne the year before and is about to be crowned in Westminster Abbey in June. The new fashion for all things Gothic and medieval has swept up the rich and the titled, therefore they are all looking forward not only to the coronation in the Abbey, which, no doubt, will be a splendid affair, but also to the ceremony that will follow upon the service: the state banquet in Westminster Hall with its most wonderful medieval trappings. There will even be a real knight in shining armour--the King's, or, in this case, the Queen's Champion, who will ride into the hall on his steed, fling his glove onto the ground and challenge all people present to deny the sovereign's right to the throne. The whole thing will be perfectly marvellous, something to tell the grandchildren about.
But alas, it was not to be.
The Prime Minster announced that for economic--there were people starving, for heaven's sake!--and practical--remember 1685, when the King's Champion had flung not only his glove, but also himself to the ground? Highly embarrassing, that!--reasons the state banquet and all the outdated medieval ceremonies were cancelled. The Tories were incensed. There were heated arguments in the House of Lords, and the merchants of the City of London put together a petition because the City, too, would have played a part in the coronation banquet Yet despite heated arguments, the Prime Minster, Lord Melbourne, stood his ground and Victoria was crowned without medieval pomp and circumstance. The peers of the realm smarted, and those who would have had to fulfil special duties during the state banquet felt cheated. Among them was a dashing, young Scottish lord, Archibald William Montgomerie, the 13th Earl of Eglinton.
He had been brought up with stories of chivalry, and, moreover, as the Knight Marshal of the Royal Household his stepfather would have had the honourable task of leading the Champion's horse up the hall. The family's extreme disappointment at the Queen's "Penny Coronation" can be easily imagined. To cheer Eglinton up, one of his acquaintances jokingly suggested that he should add some medieval games to his next annual private horse race at Eglinton Park. Out of this rather unfortunate suggestion there quickly grew a rumour which spread like wildfire: Lord Eglinton was going to hold a tournament at his country estate in Scotland. Equally unfortunate was Eglinton's decision to finally announce that the rumour was true and to thus embark on what one author has called "the greatest folly of the century."
It was an enormous undertaking--at Eglinton a tournament ground with stalls and galleries and what not had to be erected. The knights had to chosen, armour to be ordered. The rehearsals for the tournament were held in London in June and July 1839. Not surprisingly, all of London was atwitter and the rehearsals were well attended. For some of the spectators they were a disappointment. After all, there is quite a difference between imagining Sir Walter Scott's medieval heroes riding grandly around and about in their shiny armour, and seeing 19th-century gentlemen trying to conquer the difficulties of moving about in full-scale body armour. The Knight of the Swan literally flew over the neck of his horse, and the unfortunate Knight of the Dragon got stuck in his armour, face downwards, on a dunghill. Only after 20 minutes did his squires manage to help him out of this stinky predicament.
Still, applications for tickets from all around the world continued to pour in at Eglinton's estate. Of course, only conservatives needed to apply for a place on the galleries. Lucky was the man who could claim his wife had once nearly clubbed a Radical to death with a candlestick! The press was also invited, and then there were the many uninvited spectators who gathered outside the palisade and whose numbers reached, if contemporary sources are to be believed, 80,000 or more. In short, the Eglinton Tournament provided for the most enormous traffic jam Scotland had seen so far. In the towns and villages surrounding Eglinton Park all available rooms had been let, and to their dismay, many late-comers found that no accommodation was to be had, not even for ready money. Indeed, the American visitor Nathaniel Parker Willis had to shave and freshen himself up in the pantry of an inn, which presently functioned as the bedroom of three ladies' maids.
At the gates of Eglinton Park, maps and programmes could be bought, and the gaily attired masses (naturally, medieval costume was a must) wandered towards the stands. At the house itself the knights and their entourage got ready for the big procession. Everything had been prepared splendidly, and everybody was ready to thoroughly enjoy themselves. But alas, nobody had taken into consideration the contrary British weather. For just as the Queen of Beauty was about to get on her snow-white horse, the skies opened and it started to pour.
Soon everybody who didn't bring an umbrella was drenched, the tilting ground was transformed into mud, and, to make matters worse, it turned out that the makeshift roof that was supposed to protect the people in the galleries, was not up to its job. Neither was the dye of some of the medieval costumes. Nevertheless, the knights attempted to muddle through, and so at first, the tilting commenced.
It was only interrupted when the rain increased. To the dismay of the invited guests in the galleries, Eglinton had to inform them that the pavilion in which the great banquet was to be held had not withstood the rain either and that he could only entertain as many of his friends as to fit around the dining table at the house. The retreat of the thousands of spectators was chaotic, to say the least. Willis describes it thus:
The rain poured in a deluge. The entire park was trodden into a slough, or standing in pools of water – carts, carriages, and horsemen, with fifty thousand flying pedestrians, crowding every road and avenue. How to get home with a carriage! How the deuce to get home without one! [...] Six hours of rain, and the trampling of such an immense multitude of men and horses, had converted the soft and moist sod and soil of the park into a deep and most adhesive quagmire. Glancing through the labyrinth of vehicles on every side, and seeing men and horses with their feet completely sunk below the surface, I saw that there was no possibility of shying the matter, and that wade was the word.
Even if the tournament was eventually held two days later, the damage had been done, and the press, quite literally, had a field day. Poor Eglinton was ridiculed up and down the country, and the image of the knight under the umbrella not only became the symbol of the tournament, but throughout the century it was also used to mock and satirise Victorian medievalism.
By Erastes
This scandal has lost a lot of its fame due to another homosexual scandal that emerged a year or so later, about a certain Irish poet and a peer of the realm...
But in 1889, there existed a male brothel in Cleveland Street, London. It was a higher class of brothel, set in Fitzrovia, Central London, and attracted a higher range of clients. It was likely that the brothel would have continued unimpeded, for it's very probable that the constabulary were well aware of its existence had it not been for a spate of thefts at the Central Telegraph Office.
Whilst investigating these thefts, Police Constable Luke Hanks was interviewing and searching the staff. Telegraph boys were forbidden to carry personal money on them, as they had to handle money in the course of their business, and Hanks found one young man having the sum of fourteen shillings on him. A sum that was, in that time, the equivalent of many weeks work at the Telegraph Office and one that is worth around £400 in today's money.
When pressed, the telegraph boy, one Charles Thomas Swinscow, admitted that he hadn't stolen it, but had earned it as a prostitute at 19 Cleveland Street, employed by a man called Charles Hammond. He said he'd been introduced to Hammond by others in the Telegraph Office. It transpired that several young men worked for Hammond and statements were taken from them all.
Hanks realised that this matter needed to go further up the chain of command and the case was delegated to Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline. Abberline went to arrest Hammond but he'd fled--one of the young men, Henry Newlove, had tipped him off, but Newlove himself hadn't been able to get away and was taken to the police station. Once in custody, he named names--notable names--and the scandal began to leak out.
He named Henry FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, (who later successfully sued the newspapers for naming him as a client of Cleveland Street), Colonel Henry Jervois, and worst of all Lord Arthur Somerset, Equerry to the Prince of Wales. The police and government were reluctant to act due to the sensitive nature of the business and the high profile accused clients. They continued to search for other clients of the brothel, which of course had been closed down.
Then in August they went to arrest George Veck--a man who posed as a clergyman (an offence in itself) and a close friend of Hammond. A rentboy found in Veck's rooms told the police where to find him, and upon his arrest he was found to be holding incriminating letters from one Algernon Allies. When questioned, Allies said that he'd been working at Cleveland Street--and he confirmed that he'd been in a relationship with Somerset, and had been receiving money for sexual favours. After the police interviewed him, Somerset left the country for Germany.
Shortly afterward, Veck and Henry Newlove went to trial. But guess who their lawyer was? None other than Lord Somerset's own solicitor, Arthur Newton! And guess who paid the legal fees? Yep. Lord Somerset. As you can imagine, the press was having a field day by this point. NOBS NOB RENT BOYS!!! would be the headlines in the press today. The press were vitriolic about the aristocracy indulging in vice.
Due to the fact that Newlove and Veck both pled guilty to indecency, their sentences were "lenient." They were sentenced to four and nine months' hard labour. Other telegraph boys also caught up in the trial were dealt with leniently. Hammond was never extradited and the charges were eventually dropped.
As for Somerset himself--his life was never the same. He attempted several times to return to England, but risk of arrest kept him having to leave again. He eventually spent his life in France.
The trial, with its intermittent flare ups thereafter in the press, which reinforced negative attitudes about homosexuality as an aristocratic vice, kept homosexuality high in the public eye. Details had been available to the public in a way it never had been before. This didn't help Oscar Wilde when, a few years later, he was tried for gross indecency.
Despite the fact that Prince Albert Victor (pictured) had never been mentioned in the press (this was not allowed as he had not been brought into the trial--oh, HOW things have changed, eh?), speculation rumbles on from that day to this as to whether the second-in-line to the throne had ever been a customer of the notorious 19 Cleveland Street. The American press certainly seemed to have no such scruples on the matter:
By Lisa Yarde
Long before Eleanor of Aquitaine was born in 1122, scandal surrounded her family. Her grandfather Duke William IX of Aquitaine had been carrying on an affair with Dangereuse, wife of his vassal Aimery I de Rochefoucauld, Viscount of Châtellerault. A Papal legate warned William that he'd suffer the church's wrath if he didn't give up his mistress, but not even the threat of excommunication swayed him. Dangereuse's influence extended beyond her relationship with the Duke; she apparently influenced his decision to permit his heir, also named William, to marry her daughter Aenor. Eleanor was the first child of William X and Aenor's union. In time, she would prove she had inherited more than just the willfulness of her paternal grandfather and the shrewdness of her maternal grandmother.
Photo: Eleanor of Aquitaine riding with one of her sons.
Eleanor grew up the cultured courts of her father at Poitiers and Bordeaux, where she learned to read and speak Latin and Poitevin, though apparently not to write, as well as the arts of music and literature. She developed a love of falconry and riding. Her father's heir William died when he was four along with their mother, and while her father had other illegitimate sons, he did not acknowledge them as potential heirs. Eleanor's father died in April 1137 while on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Saint John of Compostela, in Spain. At his passing, Eleanor inherited territories that encompassed almost a third of modern France. Entrusted to the care of King Louis VI of France, Eleanor soon found herself facing the prospect of marriage to his son Louis.
When the new king Louis VII clashed with Pope Innocent II over the appointment of an archbishop, the Pope blamed Eleanor's influence over her husband, perhaps recalling her grandfather's defiance of the Church. When Eleanor’s younger sister married, scandal again touched the ducal family, for her new husband had cast aside his first wife. Eleanor urged her husband to support the marriage. Trouble started for Eleanor when the influential abbots Bernard of Clairvaux and Suger judged her too worldly, high-spirited and much too involved in the politics of her husband's kingdom.
Although her influence over her husband seemed strong, Eleanor also sought to do her duty by Louis and bear his heirs. In April 1145 their daughter Marie was born. Eight months later, at the command of the new Pope, Eugenius, King Louis took up the Second Crusade, and his wife went with him accompanied by her train of ladies. One of Eleanor's vassals, Geoffrey de Rancon protected the rear with the ladies and their baggage. A brutal attack followed and Eleanor was blamed for causing the army to dawdle.
While on Crusade she and her husband visited her paternal uncle Raymond of Antioch, son of Duke William IX. Eleanor and Raymond's closeness from her childhood days continued, and seeing this, Louis grew suspicious, and accused his wife of having an incestuous affair with her uncle. Likely, he also grew tried of her arguments on Raymond's behalf for help in the conquest of Aleppo. For this, Louis imprisoned his wife.
Perhaps understandably, Eleanor had enough of her husband by the time they returned to France, but the Pope refused her first petition for an annulment and ordered the pair to reconcile. Their second daughter Alix was born in 1151, but the prospect of a male heir dwindled with their growing continued. In March of 1152, the union of Eleanor and Louis was annulled, allowing for both to re-marry. And two months later, Eleanor wed her second husband, Duke Henry of Normandy.
The grounds for the dissolution of her marriage to Louis VII should have prohibited Eleanor's second marriage; the new couple were third cousins, just like Eleanor and Louis, and both were descendants of Duke Robert II of Normandy. But her willfulness ensured that Eleanor got what she wanted; she had sent envoys to the Duke and suggested their marriage herself. Henry was twelve years her junior and within two years of their marriage, became King of England. Together they had at least five sons; three of whom would be a source of strife between Eleanor and her husband.
When Henry II quarreled with the archbishop Thomas Becket and sanctioned his murder, Eleanor was horrified. She'd withstood Henry's numerous affairs but a simmering resentment of her husband soon turned dangerous. In 1173, in support of an eighteen-month revolt against the King led by their youngest son, also named Henry, Eleanor tried to follow him and his brothers Richard and Geoffrey when they withdrew to Paris.
Arrested, Eleanor learned the revolt had ended in July 1174 during her imprisonment at Rouen. Over the next sixteen years, Eleanor spent most of her time separated from her husband and children, though her husband sometimes relented and allowed her release at Christmas. She enjoyed her first years of freedom after her husband’s death and the ascension of her son King Richard I, surviving into the reign of her son King John. Eleanor died in 1204, and though many scandals have been attached to her name, she remains one of Europe's most remarkable medieval women.
Photo: Eleanor of Aquitaine's effigy. She's buried beside her husband Henry II and her son Richard I.
By Blythe Gifford
Scandal! The delicious intersection of sex, money, and power. That certainly describes the story of Alice Perrers, the mistress of England's 14th century monarch, Edward III.
I've written two books inspired by her daughters, and I call her his "notorious mistress." If you Google her, "notorious" is the nicest word that pops up. The list includes greedy, unscrupulous, shrewd, venal, shameless, and rapacious.
Who was this woman who engendered such vicious epithets?
We don't really know. There's disagreement about who her family was, when she was born, when she became the king's mistress, when she was married, who her children were (and whose), and even what she looked like.
One biography exists: Lady of the Sun: The Life and Times of Alice Perrers, by F. George Kay. Published in 1966, it is readable but not scholarly. (There's a list of sources, but not one footnote.) So what do we know?
She came to court as a lady in waiting to Queen Philippa prior to 1366. The Queen died in 1369 and by 1375, the king was parading Alice through the streets of London, clothed in cloth of gold, on her way to a tournament dedicated to her as the "Lady of the Sun." Were they lovers before the Queen's death? It seems likely. This puts estimates of Alice's birth around 1348 and suggests that when she was the king's mistress, she was near 30, by no means a nubile young girl, but still roughly half the age of the king, who by this time was in his mid-sixties and generally considered senile.
So Alice had the misfortune to hook up with King Edward during his declining years. In hindsight, he's considered one of the best of English kings, both warrior and statesman. But near the end of his life, military, fiscal, and political problems were mounting, many of them blamed on poor Alice.
But kings had had mistresses before. Why was this one so hated that she was impeached by Parliament and banished from court in 1376?
It did not help that Philippa was one of the most beloved English queens in history. People did not take kindly to seeing her displaced by a younger woman, particularly after Alice was seen flaunting the dead queen's jewels.
The chroniclers who wrote of her during that time were hardly impartial observers. The dead queen was the patron of one of them. The other was embroiled in a lengthy dispute with Alice's family over land ownership. Thus, they gleefully accuse her of sitting beside the judges at Westminster to influence their decisions in her favor and stripping the rings off the dead king's hands on his deathbed. All in all, she sounds like a greedy, vicious, unlikeable b***h.
It's hard to reconcile this woman with the one who was, we know, a friend and colleague of Edward's sons, of the poet Chaucer, and of the chancellor of England. The woman his son's lobbied to have returned to court in 1377 so she could sit beside Edward's deathbed.
In the post feminist age, scholars have revisited the records. Among the things they uncovered was that Alice amassed control of lands, castles, and London real estate that gave her an income stream an earl would envy. Some were gifts of the king, but a detailed reading of the records reveals that most were not.
She was, as one writer puts it, "a remarkably powerful and independent woman." Today, we would admire her as a shrewd business woman who, through smart legal arrangements and investments put together a portfolio that would have supported her, and her children, nicely after the king’s death, had she been allowed to keep it.
That was not to be. At Edward's death, she was stripped of all she had garnered. More than 20 years later, she was still waging protracted, unsuccessful legal battles to regain her property.
In creating her as a character, I developed my own take on her life and motives. The more I dug into her story, the more I became convinced that she was hated more because she had amassed money and power than because of her sexual liaison with the king. In IN THE MASTER'S BED, my heroine, Jane, makes a comment about her mother. "She was a strong woman. And she was not liked for being strong."
I do not mean to imply that she was a sweet innocent. She undoubtedly did take advantage of the king's mental state for personal gain, but she also was his constant companion for nearly a decade. In 21st century hindsight, I think she was scandalous because she exceeded the boundaries set for a mistress in her age. Yes, even today, we might use the "B" word to describe her, but had she been a man, she would have been admired for her wealth and power.
Partial list of sources:
"The management of position: Alice Perrers, Edward III, and the Creation of Landed Estates, 1362–1377," by James Bothwell, Journal of Medieval History, March 1998.
Chaucer, His Life, His Works, His World by Donald R. Howard.
Lady of the Sun by F. George Kay.
Author photo by Jenifer Girard
By Delia DeLeest
If you think the actions of tabloid fodder like Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton are a twenty-first century phenomenon, think again. New York Daily News, the first of America's tabloids, hit the stands in 1919, and within five years it had the nations highest newspaper circulation. Unlike mainstream newspapers, tabloids served up lurid stories of sex and violence not seen previously. One of the most famous of these was the story of Peaches and Daddy.
In 1926, New York real estate tycoon Edward "Daddy" Browning was a 51-year-old millionaire when he met fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, Frances "Peaches" Heenan. Thirty-seven days later, on her sixteenth birthday, they were married. They were seen around town, at the theater, and going on massive shopping trips. Daddy's car bulged with new clothes and fur coats for Peaches. Ten months later they were in divorce court, and in typical roaring twenties fashion, their trial was larger than life and the subject of the New York Graphic's notorious falsified photographs.
Peaches: People say I married Daddy for his money, but that's not true. I had dreams of love, wife and motherhood. Instead, my dreams have turned into a nightmare. Daddy's unnatural urgings have left me suffering from seizures. My dreams are shattered. I thought he married me for love also, but instead, I discovered that there had been investigations started regarding Daddy's relationship with young girls. He simply married me as a distraction to protect himself. Everything he did, he did for show. He was a ruthless man and a tighwad. I was just a bird in a gilded cage. (**At this point, we imagine Peaches burying her face in her $10,000 mink coat and crying her pretty little eyes out.)
Daddy: When I married Peaches, I wanted to become a father, but that wasn't to be. (**This is true. Before meeting Peaches, Daddy had put an ad in the paper looking to adopt a "pretty, refined girl to be brought up as my own child." Uh...yeah!) My marriage to Peaches was in name only. Her mother lived with us and, many time, slept in the same room. I couldn't even whisper sweet nothings to my darling without waking her mother.
Peaches: That's not true. My mother didn't always sleep in the same room. She didn't come along on our honeymoon, though now, I wish she had. Maybe she could have protected me from Daddy's bizarre imaginations. My innocent sensibilities were astonished when he came lumbering into our bedroom dressed as a sheik and growling "woof woof" at me like a bear. Naturally, I went into a swoon. Besides, I feel that if he got to bring his pet duck along on our honeymoon, I should have been able to take my mother. The nasty thing has free reign of the house, just honk, honk, honking all day long. (**The duck, not the mother.)
Daddy: Peaches and her mother would lock me in my room and treated me like the hired help. I was there only to fix the shades and keep them supplied with hot coffee. I thought she was the love of my life, but instead, she was a vicious golddigger.
And you thought Michael Jackson was strange!
America was riveted to the story of the breakup of this bizarre May-December romance. The tabloid press and wide-eyed public filled the courtroom during the five day divorce hearing, listening to Peaches allegations of "depraved tastes" and "abnormal activity," while Daddy Browning denied all and claimed to simply be a man deprived of having a happy marriage with the woman he loved.
Despite the strange twists and turns of Peaches and Daddy's relationship, the court of New York refused to grant Peaches her sought after divorce, agreeing with Daddy that she was a golddigger. The court denied Peaches the $4000 a month alimony she requested (about $48,000 in today's dollars--a girl has a lot of expenses, you know!). Instead they granted the couple a legal separation and cut Peaches off without a cent.
Peaches used her newfound notoriety to become a vaudeville performer. There was never a divorce and because of subsequent court actions filed when Daddy died in 1934, Peaches claimed enough money from his estate to keep herself out of the poorhouse until her death in 1956.
By Elizabeth Lane
That spring, Tabor grubstaked a pair of sorry-looking miners named August Rische and George Hook. They didn't seem to know much about prospecting, but the two of them wandered into the hills and, by chance, dug into a vein of pure silver. Their Little Pittsburgh Mine yielded $20,000 a week. Haw Tabor's $60 investment earned him $2 million in the first year alone without getting his hands dirty. In short order he became mayor of boomtown Leadville and lieutenant governor of Colorado. Augusta, unable to adjust to her husband's meteoric rise, became more and more reclusive.
That was the end of Tabor's political career. Although he and Baby Doe lived well for a time, and he attempted to run for governor and senator, public opinion had turned against him.
