Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power

Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power
Claudia Renton

A rich historical biography of ‘those wicked wicked Wyndhams’ – three beautiful, cultured aristocratic sisters born into immense wealth in late Victorian Britain.Mary, Madeline and Pamela – the three Wyndham sisters – were raised surrounded by the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, in a family famed for its bohemian closeness. The liberal upbringing of these handsome, intelligent daughters of a maverick politician and an artistic but emotionally unstable mother prompted one family to forbid their offspring ever to play with ‘those wild Wyndham children’.In adulthood, the sisters became intimate with ‘the Souls’, an intellectual and flirtatious aristocratic set, whose permissive beliefs scandalised society. Eldest and youngest sister became the objects of press fascination as the confidantes of great statesman – Mary of Prime Minister Arthur Balfour; Pamela of the Liberal politician Edward Grey. Madeline had the only happy marriage of the three.Their lives were intertwined with some of the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day: Oscar Wilde, who fell in love with their cousin Bosie Douglas; Marie Stopes, to whom Pamela became patron; and the iconoclast poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, lover both of Mary and her mother before her. Their lives would be irrevocably devastated by the horrors of the First World War.In their first ever biography, Claudia Renton, drawing on a rich archive of letters, charts these women’s intimate stories in their own voices, from romantic beginnings through the passions and disappointments of womanhood to the tragedy that brought a definitive end to their era, against the backdrop of the political and social events that shaped their age. Those Wild Wyndhams is an unforgettable historical biography that captures the high drama of this grand family against the political and social events that shaped their age.

Dedication (#ulink_e94439ab-1da6-54d1-9e2f-61f774c8dae1)

For Mama.

Always.

Epigraph (#ulink_2932c562-62f2-54e7-90f6-2c9d2917ccc3)

‘La Chanson de Marie-des-Anges’

Y avait un’fois un pauv’gas,

Et lon la laire,

Et lon lan la,

Y avait un’fois un pauv’gas,

Qu’aimait cell’qui n’l’aimait pas.

Elle lui dit: Apport’moi d’main

Et lon la laire,

Et lon lan la,

Elle lui dit: Apport’moi d’main

L’cœur de ta mèr’ pour mon chien.

Va chez sa mère et la tu

Et lon la laire,

Et lon lan la,

Va chez sa mère et la tue,

Lui prit l’cœur et s’en courut.

Comme il courait, il tomba,

Et lon la laire,

Et lon lan la,

Comme il courait, il tomba,

Et par terre l’cœur roula.

Et pendant que l’cœur roulait,

Et lon la laire,

Et lon lan la,

Et pendant que l’cœur roulait,

Entendit l’cœur qui parlait.

Et l’cœur lui dit en pleurant,

Et lon la laire,

Et lon lan la,

Et l’cœur lui dit en pleurant:

T’es-tu fait mal mon enfant?

Jean Richepin (1848–1926)

‘Do you know Richepin’s poem about a Mother’s Heart? It means something like this:- “there was a poor wretch who loved a woman who would not love him. She asked him for his Mother’s heart, so he killed his Mother to cut out her heart and hurried off with it to his love. He ran so fast that he tripped and fell, and the heart rolled away. As it rolled it began to speak and asked “Darling child, have you hurt yourself?”’

George Wyndham to Pamela Tennant, 11 March 1912

Contents

Cover (#u92fac752-4e29-5933-96ab-350d581322cf)

Title Page (#u32d4d11a-7dcb-59db-8569-2ea1f13903d4)

Dedication (#ub0f9d869-39d4-54b6-b5f6-335615b7780e)

Epigraph (#ubaf6b94d-e0df-5c1b-ab58-aaaccc6e56b5)

Family Tree (#u34406507-a1a2-58b3-a323-b9d622abb0fd)

Prologue (#u353ba36c-72ab-5bac-a5fd-0e536442ad6e)

1. ‘Worse than 100 boys’ (#u40239673-8dc2-5239-9d0b-7910e5effa83)

2. Wilbury (#u40cd861c-83c3-55a1-a351-db8ef194f96d)

3. ‘The Little Hunter’ (#uc70df969-c6dc-5582-abae-1e6dc93d2a29)