Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle
Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle (born at Falkingham, now Folkingham, Lincs, in 1779, died 1857) was the main author of the extensive Wynne Diaries and wife of the celebrated Royal Navy officer Thomas Fremantle (1765-1819), a close associate of Nelson.
Life
Known in the family as Betsey, she was born Elizabeth Wynne, the daughter of Richard Wynne (1744-1799) and his wife Camille (born de Royer), who were Roman Catholics. Wynne was a fast liver, later a friend of Casanova. He got into financial difficulties in 1788, sold his Lincolnshire estate, and took his family abroad. Elizabeth married Fremantle in 1797, after he had rescued her and her family from Leghorn during the 1796 French invasion of Italy and taken them to safety in Corsica. The marriage took place in Naples on January 12, 1797, at the house of the British envoy, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, who took care of the arrangements.
Thomas Fremantle bought the manor of Swanbourne, Buckinghamshire, for his family in 1798 for 900 guineas.[1] Elizabeth lived there for the rest of her life. The Fremantles' children included Thomas (1798-1890), a Tory politician later created 1st Baron Cottesloe, a daughter Emma (born June 13, 1799),[2] Charles (1800-1869), a Royal Navy officer after whom the city of Fremantle in Western Australia is named, and William Robert (c. 1809-1895), who became Anglican dean of Ripon in Yorkshire.
Privately, Elizabeth lost sympathy with Lady Hamilton and Nelson when their conspicuous affair became known: "I had a letter from my husband today.... Lady Nelson is sueing for a separate maintenance. I have no patience with her husband, at his age and such a cripple to play the fool with Lady Hammilton."[3] Fremantle, in command of the Ganges, distinguished himself at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 under Nelson's command. He was also prominent at Trafalgar in 1805. Elizabeth bore her husband's absences at sea with difficulty, especially as her family grew. They kept up an intimate correspondence, which is spliced into the 1952 edition of the diaries. They received a good deal of hospitality from the family of Lord Buckingham, who lived nearby at Stowe. Buckingham was also a help to Fremantle in his career.
The Wynne Diaries
The early parts of the Wynne Diaries, which run from 1789 to 1857 in 41 manuscript volumes, provide a vivid and informative account of a well connected English family in Europe (mainly in Germany and Italy). The bulk of them were written by Elizabeth, but diaries of her younger sisters Eugenia (born 1780) and Harriet (born 1786) have also survived. The first two years of Elizabeth's are in French and the rest in English, with some passages in French and German.[4]
The diaries, except for one notebook covering part of 1796, which was lost at sea, were preserved by the Fremantle family, but not published until the 1930s.[5] Swanbourne House is still owned by the Fremantle family trust, but now occupied by a coeducational prep school.
Commemoration
There is a public house and restaurant named “The Betsey Wynne” in Swanbourne.
References
- ^ The Wynne Diaries 1789–1820. Edited and selected by Anne Fremantle. World's Classics. (London: OUP, 1952), pp. 297 ff.
- ^ Ibid., p. 301.
- ^ Ibid., March 3, 1801, p. 310.
- ^ Ibid., “Preface”, pp. vii-ix; http://www.pikle.co.uk/diaryjunction/data/fremantle.html.
- ^ Elizabeth Wynne Fremantle: The Wynne Diaries. Vol. 1 1789-1794, Vol. 2 1794-1798, Vol. 3 1798-1820. Edited by Anne Fremantle. [Including extracts from the diaries of Eugenia and Harriet Wynne.] (London: OUP, 1935, 1937 and 1940).