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Jane Elizabeth Digby, Lady Ellenborough (3
April 1807 – 11 August 1881) was an English aristocrat who lived a scandalous
life of romantic adventure, spanning decades and two continents. She had four
husbands and many lovers, including King Ludwig I of Bavaria, his son King Otto
of Greece, statesman Felix Schwarzenberg, and a Greek brigand general
(Christodoulos Hatzipetros). She died in Damascus,
Syria as the
wife of Arab Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab, who was 20 years her junior.
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Jane Elizabeth Digby was born in Forston
House, near Minterne Magna, Dorset on 3 April 1807, 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 many admirers.
Jane's father seized the Spanish treasure ship Santa Brigada in 1799 and his
share of the prize money 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.
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| Forston House, near Minterne Magna, Dorset |
Considered promiscuous for her times, she
was first married to Edward Law, 2nd Baron Ellenborough (later Earl of
Ellenborough), who became Governor General of India, on 15 October 1824. 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. They had one son, Arthur Dudley Law (15 February
1828 – 1 February 1830), who died in infancy.
After affairs with her cousin, Colonel
George Anson (born 1799) (who Jane thought was the biological father of her
son), and Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, 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; Mathilde "Didi" (born 12 November
1829 Basel and raised by Felix's sister) and
Felix (born December 1830 Paris)
who died just a few weeks after his birth. The affair with Felix ended shortly
after the death of their son.
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| King Ludwig I of Bavaria |
She then moved on to Munich
and became the lover of Ludwig I of Bavaria.
In Munich, she
met Baron Karl von Venningen (6 January 1806 – 10 June 1874). They married in
November 1833 an had a son, Heribert (27 January 1833 Palermo-1885 Munich), and
a daughter, Bertha (4 September 1834 Mannheim-22 September 1907).
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| Baron Karl von Venningen |
In 1838, Jane found a new lover in the
Greek Count Spyridon Theotokis (born 1805). Venningen found out and challenged
Theotokis to a duel, in which the latter was wounded. Venningen generously
released Jane from the marriage and took care of their children. They remained
friends for the rest of their lives.
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| Greece's King Otto became her next lover. |
Though she was not legally divorced from
Venningen until 1842, Jane converted to the Greek Orthodox faith and married
Theotokis in Marseille in 1841. The couple moved to Greece with their son Leonidas (21
March 1840 Paris-1846 Athens). In 1846, after their son's fatal fall off a
balcony, Theotokis and Jane divorced. Greece's King Otto became her next
lover.
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| General Christodoulos Chatzipetros |
Next came an affair with a hero of Greek
revolution, Thessalian general Christodoulos Chatzipetros, 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.
At age forty-six, Jane travelled to the
Middle East, and fell in love with Sheik Abdul Medjuel el Mezrab (also known as
Sheikh Abdul Mijwal Al Mezrab in accounts by contemporary Western travellers in
Syria).
Abdul Medjuel was a sheik of the Mezrab section of the Sba'a, a well-known
sub-tribe of the great 'Anizzah tribe of Syria'. However Abdul Medjuel or
Abdul Mijwal (Slave of Medjul dates) is a nonsensical name. Arabic sources give
the Shaikh's name as Mijwal al-Musrab. It has also been written that Jane Digby
was referred to as Shaikhah Umm al-Laban (literally Shaikhah Mother of Milk
i.e. Milky lady) due to the color of her skin.
Although he was twenty years her junior,
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 Digby died in Damascus in 1881.
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 enjoyed in a palatial villa that she had 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. She was buried with her horse in attendance at the funeral.
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 rented 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 Abdul Medjuel's son in the 1930s.
Jane Digby would have been very pleased!!!
By A Customer on 24 Aug. 1999
During her "Scandalous Life" Jane
Digby was often written about in the popular press and remained a topic for tea
time gossip for more than 50 years! Victorian England was fascinated by this
unconventional woman who lived her life as she followed her heart and passions
across Europe and the Middle East. Her story
has so many twists and turns that it needs no embellishments.Mary S Lovell's
research on Jane's life relied upon the volumes of diaries and letters she
discovered . This brings a validity to her work that other writers have lacked.
Jane's experience with the "tabloid press" type stories about her adventures
(especially Isabel Burton's exaggerated account written when she thought Jane
had died) had to leave her very cynical of potential biographers...but I really
believe she would have been very pleased with Mary Lovell's book. The author
presented Jane's life without moralizing and judging her and focused on her
unique strengths and appreciation of strong personalities without prejudice of
any kind. I was fortunate to find a copy of this biography while visiting in
Ashburton,Devon, this August.It is out of
print here (as "The Rebel Heart") and Mary Lovell's fans hope the
publisher will reconsider. I was first introduced to Jane's extraordinary life
when I read a biography of her distant relative, Pamela Digby Harriman and the
reference was made to the similarities between these two unconventional women.
After reading Pamela's life story...I knew I had to find out more about this
earlier Digby woman that Pamela felt such a connection with. Mary Lovell has a
real flair for writing about strong women characters.
.JPG)
.JPG)
