The real Mary Crawford?

Eliza de Feullide, nee Hancock, was born in Calcutta, India, in the year 1761. Her mother, Philadelphia, was George Austen’s older sister, and thus Jane’s aunt.

One can say Eliza had been raising eyebrows in polite society since her birth, because that was when the rumours of her illegitimacy started. There were people who suspected that her real father was none other than the formidable Warren Hastings. The man in question cut a far more imposing figure than poor Mr. Hancock, and would go on to become a de-facto Governor-General of India from 1774 to 1785. That was not the only reason why the gossips suspected the beautiful Philadelphia Hancock really had welcomed his attentions: the lady in question had been married for eight years without any offspring. It was possible her husband was unable to have children.

The rumour mill continued to grind even after both families returned to England – as it turned out, temporarily. Hastings and Hancock both had vastly overestimated their Indian fortunes’ capacity of sustaining them through London expenses, especially since both took fashionable addresses. In the end, both men decided to return to India, while Eliza remained in England with her mother. To her credit, Philadelphia was insistent that her daughter must receive the best education possible. Her husband wavered at this point, but ultimately agreed with her argument. As a result, Eliza studied with the best tutors available when it came to French, music, and arithmetic, as well as having a good ‘Writing Master’.

Mr. Hancock ended up dying in India; however, after this tragic event, Eliza received a generous gift from none other than Warren Hastings – £10,000 placed in a trust. As you can imagine, this did nothing to convince people that Hastings really had nothing to do with her! Although, to be clear, he was also her godfather, so it might have been an innocent matter of obligation.

In order to live within their means, Philadelphia and Eliza moved to the Continent, which would have seemed much more understandable if the place they settled in eventually was not Paris. The city was not exactly known for its frugality – but, on the other hand, it also gave Eliza ample opportunities for husband-hunting.

The man who asked for her hand in the end was a dashing officer and nobleman with the impressive name of Jean-François Capot de Feuillide. There was only one problem. It turned out later than his title was self-styled – in other words, false. Moreover, his estate of 5,000 acres in in south-western France was essentially mostly marshland; he needed an heiress wife to get some cash to drain the place and convert it into a farmland. To be fair, Eliza was not exactly left with nothing in the arrangement. After the couple married in 1781, his status, reputation, and connections secured her an entry into the glittering French court.

A number of Eliza’s letters to her countryside-dwelling cousin Phylly Walter (confusingly, her mother’s namesake, so I called her by her diminutive name here) have survived. They paint a picture of glamorous fêtes and courtly balls. In one letter, Eliza even describes seeing Marie-Antoinette:

“The Queen is a very fine Woman … She had on a corset & Petticoat of pale green Lutestring, covered with a transparent silver gauze, The petticoat & sleeves puckered & confined in different places with large bunches of roses an amazing large bouquet of White Lilac, The same flower, together with gauze, Feathers, ribbon & diamonds intermixed with her hair.”

That period in Eliza’s life came to a close five years later, when she found out she was expecting a child. She and her husband decided that it might be better if the baby were born in England. In practice, despite the arduous journey, Eliza was delivered of her first – and only – son in Calais. The infant got a name as grand as his father’s, if not more so: Hastings-François-Louis-Henri-Eugène.

Upon finally reaching England, Eliza and her mother stayed with George Austen and his family. The visit was relatively brief, but they quite enjoyed it, and came again in 1789. That trip, however, turned into a permanent move, as the family heard about the revolution in France. Although Jean-François joined his wife for a while, in the end he was forced to return to Paris or risk losing his property.

Instead, he lost his life: ostensibly, he was guillotined for an attempt at bribery and corruption of a French citizen (there were some ill-advised business dealings), but the invented title could not have helped.

Eliza is sometimes accused of having been overly flirtatious, having attracted the attention of both Austen brothers – James and Henry – so soon after becoming a widow. However, there is little evidence that she welcomed the attention or courted it deliberately. In fact, she actually rebuffed both brothers, at least to start with. She only changed her mind and accepted Henry’s proposal years later, marrying him on the last day of 1797. According to the admittedly slim evidence we have, Jane Austen’s reaction to her new in-law was mostly neutral, while George Austen was fond of Eliza, or at least approving of the match – he gave £40 to his son’s regiment to celebrate the wedding properly.

Eliza’s second marriage proved to be happier than her first; by all accounts, Henry was a gentle husband and not an overly jealous one, despite her robust habits of flirtation. She actually wrote to Phylly about her admirers, regarding the whole thing as a harmless diversion, provided it never grew into actual adultery. Unfortunately, we know little of what Jane Austen thought of all this. There is a possibility, however, that Eliza became an inspiration for Mary Crawford’s character – her charm, her love for the stage, and, last but not least, her proficiency at playing the harp.

There was more to Eliza’s personality than flirtatiousness and love of glamour, however. For example, she proved to be an attentive and caring mother, teaching her son to read herself instead of delegating the task of tuition to paid help. She also took the sickly boy around all the spas and bathing establishments she could think of in order to improve his health. Tragically, none of that helped; Hastings-François-Louis-Henri-Eugène died at age fifteen.

Despite the tragedies that haunted her life, Eliza remained a vivid presence in her in-laws’ lives. We know, for instance, that she drew upon her experiences in France to help the Austens organize private theatricals at home, and herself played a few witty heroines in comedies there (neither she nor Jane appeared to have liked tragedies).

Like her mother Philadelphia before that, Eliza succumbed to breast cancer in 1813, at the age of 51.

Mansfield Park came out a year later. It might be that her time as the leading lady in those domestic plays inspired a significant part of the novel. Eliza de Feullide’s life fluctuated between great highs and devastating lows – but, if those versions are correct, she left quite a legacy in the world of literature, even if she is not widely known for that.

Further reading: Deirdre Le Faye (2002). Jane Austen’s ‘outlandish cousin’: the life and letters of Eliza de Feuillide. 

Image info: Tysoe Saul Hancock, his wife Philadelphia, their daughter Elizabeth and their Indian maid Clarinda. Painting by Joshua Reynolds, 1765

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Ann Hawthorne specializes in closed-door Regency romances where the sparks fly in the ballroom, not the bedroom. You can find her and her books at http://annhawthornestore.com