Jane Digby
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| Jane Elizabeth Digby | |
 Artist Joseph Karl Stieler (1831)
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| Born | 3 April 1807 Minterne Magna, Dorset, England, UK |
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| Died | 11 August 1881 (aged 74) Damascus, Syria |
| Cause of death | Fever and Dysentery[citation needed] |
| Resting place | Damascus, Syria |
| Spouse(s) | Edward Law Baron Venningen Spyridon Theotokis Abdul Midjuel el Mezrab |
| Parents | Admiral Sir Henry Digby Lady Jane Elizabeth (née Coke) |
Jane Elizabeth Digby (3 April 1807 – 11 August 1881) was an English aristocrat who lived a scandalous life of romantic adventure.
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[edit] Family
Jane Digby was born in Forston House, near Minterne Magna, Dorset,[1] daughter of Admiral Henry Digby and Lady Jane Elizabeth née Coke, a renowned beauty. She was often called Jenny, or Aurora, the latter bestowed upon Jane by one of her admirers.[2] Jane's father seized the Spanish treasure ship Santa Brigada in 1799 and his cut established the family fortune. As captain of HMS Africa he participated under Admiral Nelson's command in the Battle of Trafalgar. His estate, Minterne Magna, was inherited. Jane's maternal grandfather was Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester. Pamela Churchill Harriman was the great-great-niece of Jane Digby.
[edit] Marriages, scandal, and affairs
Considered promiscuous for her times, she was first married to Edward Law, 2nd Baron Ellenborough (later Earl of Ellenborough) on 15 October 1824 who became Governor General of India. At the time of her marriage, Jane was described as tall, with a perfect figure. She had a lovely face, pale-gold hair, wide-spaced dark blue eyes, long dark lashes, and a wild rose complexion.[3] They had one son, Arthur Dudley, who died in infancy. After affairs with her cousin, George Anson, and Felix Schwarzenberg, an Austrian statesman, she was divorced from Lord Ellenborough in 1830 by an act of Parliament. This caused considerable scandal at the time. Jane had two children with Felix before he left her in Paris, a daughter, Mathilde "Didi" (born 12 November 1829 ) in Basel, Switzerland and a son Felix (born December 1830) who died just a few weeks after his birth.
She then moved on to Munich and became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria, but had a son, Heribert, by the Bavarian Baron Karl von Venningen, whom she married in a relationship based on convenience in 1832. Heribert was born on 27 January 1833 in Palermo, Sicily where Jane was residing at the time with her husband.
Soon she found a new lover in the Greek count Spyridon Theotokis. Venningen found out and challenged Theotoky in a duel. He wounded him but generously released her from the marriage, took care of her children, and remained her friend. Jane married Theotoky and they moved to Greece. Greece's King Otto (son of Ludwig I of Bavaria), became her lover. The marriage to Theotoky ended in divorce after the fatal fall of their 6 year old son, Leonidas.
Next came an affair with an Albanian general, acting as 'queen' of his brigand army, living in caves, riding horses and hunting in the mountains. She walked out on him when he was unfaithful.
[edit] Life in Syria
At age forty-six, Jane travelled to the Middle East, and fell in love with Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab (also known as Sheik Mijwal in accounts by contemporary Western travellers in Syria). Medjuel was a sheikh of the Mezrab section of the Sba'a, a well-known sub-tribe of the great `Anizzah tribe of Syria. Although he was twenty years her junior [4], the two were married under Muslim law and she took the name Jane Elizabeth Digby el Mezrab. Their marriage was a happy one and lasted until her death 28 years later. Jane adopted Arab dress and learned Arabic in addition to the other eight languages in which she was fluent. Half of each year was spent in the nomadic style, living in goat-hair tents in the desert, while the rest was spent in the palacial villa she built in Damascus.
She spent the rest of her life in that city, where she befriended Richard and Isabel Burton while he was the British consul, and Abd al-Kader al-Jazairi, a prominent exiled leader of the Algerian revolution. She died of fever and dysentery in Damascus on 11 August, 1881 and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery there, where her grave may still be seen today. Upon her footstone - a block of pink limestone from Palmyra - is her name, written in Arabic by Medjuel in charcoal and carved into the stone by a local mason. After her death her house was let and the family of the young H. R. P. Dickson rented it. A small part of the house still survives today, still in the ownership of the same family who purchased it from Medjuel's son in the 1930s. However, there are proposals extant to demolish that district to provide a ring road around the ancient walled city.
[edit] References
- Lovell, Mary S. (1998). A Scandalous Life: A Biography of Jane Digby. Fourth Estate. ISBN 1857024699.
- Ure, John (2004). In Search of Nomads. Constable and Robinson. ISBN 1-84529-082-8.
- Bedell Smith, Sally (1996). Reflected Glory. The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80950-8.
