Hester Stanhope

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Hester Stanhope

Hester Lucy Stanhope (born March 12, 1776 in Kent , † June 23, 1839 ) was an adventurer. She ruled over a local "empire" in the Druze Mountains of Lebanon .

Life

Hester Stanhope was born the daughter of the liberal politician and inventor Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope . Her grandfather was the Earl of Chatham and her uncle was the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger , with whom she later became the housekeeper. From her father, it is said, she got her keen intellect and her taste for eccentricity; on Downing Street she got to know power and intrigue.

When she lost her prominent position after the early death of Pitt in 1806, she no longer wanted to be without all this and moved to the east as one of the adventurers of the early modern age. In Lebanon, where she ruled and lived in an abandoned mountain monastery from 1810 until her death, i.e. for almost three decades, she became Europe's "Queen of the Desert" and the "Mystery Lady of the Orient".

She was the first western woman to set foot in Palmyra and to be celebrated by the Bedouin tribes as the new Zenobia . At her fortified seat near Joun near Sidon , the remains of which are still called “Deir es Sitt” (mistress's fountain), she intrigued against Emir Bashir II, the high gate in Constantinople , the governor of Tripoli , Mustafa Babar Agha, and the most diverse Druze fractions.

Little by little she rebuilt the old monastery of Joun, fortified it again, planted an exotic garden and the rarest trees. The water for this had to be dragged up the mountain for an hour. In the midst of pseudo-oriental pomp and 24 cats, two of which she assigned to a zodiac sign , she welcomed European globetrotters from time to time , including Alphonse de Lamartine and Hermann von Pückler-Muskau . A Napoleonic officer became her favorite. Noble horses stood in her stable, including a white foal on which she intended to ride into Jerusalem . Robber chiefs entered their property at night and through the escape gate with secret messages, whole mountain tribes sought protection behind their walls. She once set fire to a village, and dozens of residents are said to have died. The English social press followed and printed their escapades. But she was not only becoming increasingly aloof, but also sick and weak. In addition, she was hopelessly in debt. Little by little, she sold her inventory and had to fire her servants. She died lonely. The English consul, who had come from Beirut on the news , found the place deserted and Lady Hester with nothing but her jewelry on. He had them buried under mulberry figs nearby .

bibliography

  • Her personal physician Charles Meryon wrote her "Memoirs" in 1845 ( Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope , London, H. Colburn 1845).
  • Prince Pückler describes in his writings a visit to Deir es Sitt .
  • She appears in André Maurois ' Byron biography.
  • Colin Thubron writes about her in a Lebanon travel guide.
  • Lytton Strachey devotes a chapter to her in Books and Characters, French & English (London 1922). Contained in German in: Lytton Strachey, Das Leben, ein Errtum. Eight eccentrics . Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1999. ISBN 3-8031-1186-2 . Pp. 58-71.
  • Arno Schmidt describes Stanhope's life in his last novel Julia, or the paintings (Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1992, p. 71 f.) And in this way characterizes his protagonist Sheila .

In 1995 the BBC made a TV film about her life: Queen of the East , with Jennifer Saunders as Hester Stanhope

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norman N. Lewis: Stanhope, Lady Hester Lucy (1776-1839). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
personal data
SURNAME Stanhope, Hester
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lady Stanhope, Hester Lucy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British "Queen of the Desert" and "Mystery Lady of the Orient"
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1776
PLACE OF BIRTH Kent
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1839