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Seymour Fleming

A painting (1775/6) by Joshua Reynolds  of Lady Worsley in a

riding habit adapted from the uniform of her husband’s regiment; 

now at  Harewood House

Seymour Dorothy Fleming   (5 October 1758 – 9

September 1818) was an 18th-century British noble-woman, notable for her involvement in a separation scan-

dal. Her life was dramatised in the 2015 television film,

The Scandalous Lady W , in which she was played by

Natalie Dormer.

1 Life

She was the younger daughter and coheir of the Irish-born

Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet   (d. 1763), of Brompton

Park (aka Hale House, Cromwell House)[1][2], Middlesex,

and his wife, Lady (Jane) Coleman (d. 1811). Her fatherand two of her sisters died when she was five and she and

her sister were then brought up by her mother. Her elder

The counterpart painting of her husband  Sir Richard Worsley,

7th Baronet 

sister, Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington, was noted

for being a “paragon of virtue”. Her mother remarried in1770 to a rich sexagenarian  Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron

Harewood whose wealth derived from plantations in the

West Indies.

At the age of 17, Seymour Fleming married Sir Richard

Worsley, 7th Baronet of  Appuldurcombe House, Isle of

Wight, on 20 September 1775, and was   styled   Lady

Worsley   until his death. She was rumoured to have

been worth £70,000 upon her marriage, but in truth only

brought £52,000 to the union.

They were badly suited to each other and so the cou-

ple’s marriage began to fall apart shortly after it began.

The couple had one legitimate child, a son, Robert Ed-win who died young. Seymour bore a second child, Jane

Seymour Worsley in August 1781, fathered by Maurice

1

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2   4 REFERENCES 

George Bisset but whom Sir Richard claimed as his own

to avoid scandal.

James Gillray  cartoon - “Sir Richard Worse-than-sly, exposing

his wife’s bottom; - o fye!" 

Lady Worsley was rumoured to have had 27 lovers. In

November 1781, Lady Worsley ran off with George Bis-

sett, a captain in the South Hampshire militia. Bisset had

been Sir Richard’s close friend and neighbour at Knighton

Gorges   on the Isle of Wight. In February 1782, Sir

Richard brought a criminal conversation case for £20,000

against Bissett. Lady Worsley turned the suit in her favour

with scandalous revelations and aid of past and present

lovers and questioned the legal status of her husband. She

included a number of testimonies from her lovers and her

doctor, William Osborn, who related that she had suf-

fered from a venereal disease which she had contractedfrom the Marquess of Graham. It was alleged that Sir

Richard had   displayed his wife naked  to Bisset at the

bath house in Maidstone. This testimony destroyed Sir

Richard’s suit and the jury awarded him only one shilling

in damages.

Eventually, Bisset left Lady Worsley when it became

clear that Sir Richard was seeking separation rather

than divorce (meaning Seymour could not re-marry un-

til Richard’s death). Seymour was forced to become a

professional mistress or   demimondaine and live off the

donations of rich men in order to survive, joining other

upper-class women in a similar position in The New Fe-male Coterie.[3] She had two more children; another by

Bisset after he left her in 1783 whose fateis unknown, and

a fourth, Charlotte Dorothy Hammond (née Cochard)

whom she sent to be raised by a family in the  Ardennes.

Lady Worsley was later forced to leave for Paris in order

to avoid her debts.

In 1788 she and her new lover the  Chevalier de Saint-

Georges returned to England and her estranged husbandentered into articles of separation, on the condition she

spend four years in exile in France. Eight months before

the expiration of this exile, she was trapped in France

by the events of the   French Revolution and so she was

probably imprisoned during the Reign of Terror, mean-

ing she was abroad on the death of her and Sir Richard’s

son in 1793. Early 1797 saw her quietly return to Eng-

land, and she then suffered a severe two-month illness.

Owing to the forgiveness of her mother, her sister and

her sister’s husband, the Earl of Harrington, she was then

able to move into Brompton Park, the home that was hers

previously, but which the laws on property prevented her

from officially holding.

On Sir Richard’s death in 1805 her £70,000 jointure re-

verted to her and just over a month later, on 12 Septem-

ber, at the age of 47 she married 26-year-old[4] new-found

lover John Lewis Cuchet at  Farnham. Also that month,

by royal licence, she officially resumed her maiden name

of Fleming, and her new husband also took it. After

the armistice of 1814 ended the War of the Sixth Coali-

tion, the couple moved to a villa at  Passy where she died

in 1818. Modern play-writers give her added charisma

and volume of virtue by characterizing her as “passion-

ate and courageous” and is re-imagined as a feminist who

fought for freedom and equality and bucked societal con-ventions.

2 Depiction

In the 2015 BBC2 television film,  The Scandalous Lady

W , based upon Hallie Rubenhold's book Lady Worsley’s 

Whim, she was played by Natalie Dormer.

3 Bibliography

•   Rubenhold, Hallie  (2008).   Lady Worsley’s Whim.

London: Vintage Books.

4 References

[1]  http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-environs/vol3/

pp170-230

[2]   https://rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/

down-brompton-lane-more-houses-and-stories

[3] Rubenhold (2008) pp.171-183

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3

[4]  http://www.theweek.co.uk/64811/

lady-worsley-the-real-woman-behind-the-scandal

5 External links

•  “Worsley, Sir Richard”.  Oxford Dictionary of Na-

tional Biography   (online ed.). Oxford University

Press.   doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29986. (Subscription

or UK public library membership  required.), with

information on his wife

•  http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?

compid=47510

•   http://holmesacourt.org/d3/i0001304.htm

•   http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/

displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=7&CATID=

$-$4310065&FullDetails=True&j=1&Gsm=2008-08-08

•   (French) www.odoc.com

•   http://harewood.org/explore/art/artwork/

lady-worsley/

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4   6 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES 

6 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1 Text

•   Seymour Fleming Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Fleming?oldid=677175018Contributors:  Deb, Charles Matthews, Bin-abik80, Wavelength, Evangelista, Neddyseagoon, GiantSnowman, Missvain, Taksen, Waacstats, Philg88, Nedrutland, Allmightyduck,Rhsimard, Andrewtriggs, Ngebendi, WikHead, Surtsicna, Yobot, AnomieBOT, Ruby2010, Kenilworth Terrace, Silver starfish, Rjwilm-

siBot, AuspiciousBoron, Babelak, Merglee, Khazar2, VIAFbot, OccultZone, Juliepimlott, KasparBot and Anonymous: 14

6.2 Images

•   File:Ambox_important.svg  Source:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Ambox_important.svg License:  Public do-main Contributors:  Own work, based off of Image:Ambox scales.svg Original artist:  Dsmurat (talk ·  contribs)

•   File:Gillray_-_Sir_Richard_Worse-than-sly,_exposing_his_wife’{}s_bottom;_-_o_fye!.jpg  Source:   https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Gillray_-_Sir_Richard_Worse-than-sly%2C_exposing_his_wife%27s_bottom%3B_-_o_fye%21.jpg  License: 

Public domain Contributors:  National Portrait Gallery: NPG D12980 Original artist:   James Gillray

•   File:Ladyworsley.jpg Source:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Ladyworsley.jpg License:  Public domain Contrib-

utors: 

Original artist:  Joshua Reynolds

•   File:Question_book-new.svg  Source:   https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg  License:   Cc-by-sa-3.0

Contributors: 

Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist: 

Tkgd2007

•   File:Sir_Richard_Worsley_1775_75.jpg Source:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Sir_Richard_Worsley_1775_75.jpg License:  Public domain Contributors:   hoocher.com Original artist:  Joshua Reynolds

•   File:Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg   Source:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg License:  Public domain  Contributors:   Created by bdesham with Inkscape; based upon   Text-x-generic.svgfrom the Tango project.  Original artist:  Benjamin D. Esham (bdesham)

6.3 Content license

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