Mary Frances Heaton
In this sampler, Mary gives us her recollections of events leading up to her committal to the Asylum.
Many of the details in her account of her appearance in front of the Mayor of Doncaster are confirmed in contemporary reports in the local newspaper.
'Mrs Seymour' is how Mary refers to herself; other samplers show she believes she had a relationship with a former employer, Lord Seymour.
British Government
Doncaster Sep 7 1837 Thursday
Lord Nugent & Life Treason against the State Welsh Paupers & Death
1840 1840
In its blackest, most heart sickening, most confirmed, most important, most unequivocal, and most extraordinary form, whereby the world is reduced to a blank, and the brevity of human life the only consolation the heart can ever know, such its dire effects.
Mrs Seymour deposes on oath thus, I had 4 excellent teachers for French before I was 21. My father being a good French scholar was desirous about it, the last, a professor, took especial care to inform everyone that he had had the honor to read Raçine to George 4, when Prince Regent, fm him, acquired a good knowledge of the author of ‘Brittanica’ etc. but knew nothing of the other Raçine until 1830 when I read his ‘Esther’, and referring to the old text, there traced a most curious resemblance between 3 of its foremost passages, and 3 of the most remarkable events of my life.
The office of ‘Mayor of Doncaster’, was filled in 1837 by a fellow for whose crimes the punishment awarded to the assassin of Henry 4 wou’d not be disproportioned, and I solemnly believe that the British Government will be of the opinion shou’d I live to relate my story. Having purposely & distinctly remarked in the presence of half a dozen persons including the the Mayor that I wished the vicar would submit to arbitration, my claim against him for music lessons given to his daurs regularly twice a week during the years 1834 -1835.
Great was my astonishment when 2 or 3 weeks afterwards, the mayor said to me with an air of the utmost misery & mauvaise honte, “you have no means of subsistence” my first impulse was laughter, but on reflection, actuated by the most noble motives, I addressed to him a few words dated Esther 2.16 and signed as below.
If I should be told that because I was not known to him I had no right to expect that he should allow me to explain myself, my answer is “That at all events there are 2 point on which he ought to be strictly examined”, these, viewed as precedent, are of such import, that vols might be devoted to the subject, they are, 1st the source from whence the fellow obtained his information concerning the poverty of a woman who had been 15 years mistress of her own castle 2ndly the right whereby, & the group whereupon, he refused me half an hour in which to procure bail in the street where the most friendly of men had lived for more than 30 years.
Throwing to the clerks the fatal letter, intended for his private information, thro’ them it passes to the canaille, and the drunken wife of a ranter parson, countenanced, as I have reason to suspect, by “Sir Oracle de Twopenny”, takes upon herself to dispose of the private affairs of a nobleman’s governess.
Time’s great periods
The three lustres
Esther Aurelia of the Trinity
“Expression’s last receding Ray”
Fm 1837 To 1851
Lord Morpeth and my last ball
Dec 1834
Melbourne Morpeth Duncannon
DONCASTER BEVERLY WAKEFIELD
[This lower row of place names is embroidered upside down, reading from left to right if the sampler was turned through 180 degrees]
It's now 18 weeks since the world changed and Carrie reflects on the impact of not being able to work, missing her family and the power of a good cry.