Madness, property and power: the strange case of Mary Davies

HistoryExtra podcast

HistoryExtra

History

4.3 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Leo Hollis untangles the bizarre 18th-century court case surrounding Mary Davies: a wealthy heiress married in mysterious circumstances In 1701, Mary Davies – a hugely wealthy widow struggling with bouts of unstable behaviour – took a room in Paris’s Hotel Castile. The coming days are a tangle of conflicting accounts, but it seems that she emerged from her rooms as a married woman, before hastening back to London and vehemently denying her change in circumstances. However, her husband soon came calling, demanding his rights to her extensive land and property. Leo Hollis explores a bizarre court case that shocked London. +++AFFILIATE TEXT +++ (Ad) Leo Hollis is the author of Inheritance: The Lost History of Mary Davies: A Story of Property, Marriage and Madness (Oneworld, 2021). Buy it now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inheritance-History-Property-Marriage-Madness/dp/178607995X/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-hexpod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:29.8	excludes plug-in hybrids, Delantis Financial Services. Hello and welcome to the History Extra podcast from BBC History Magazine, Britain's best-selling history magazine.
0:50.5	I'm Ellie Cawthorthorne. In 1701, a wealthy young widow named Dame Mary Grovener
1:01.5	woke up in a room at the Hotel Castile in Paris and found a strange man in her bed.
1:08.0	The heiress to a huge London estate, she'd struggled with bouts of unstable behaviour
1:12.8	and may have been ensnared by a pair of opportunistic brothers eager to capitalise on the plight
1:18.6	of a grieving woman. A new book, Inheritance, The Lost History of Mary Davies, tells the unexpected
1:25.5	story of what happened to Mary and the strange, scandalous court case that followed.
1:31.4	Our sub-editor, Riannon Davies, was joined by its author Leo Hollis.
1:36.3	So, Leo, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
1:39.4	Thank you for having me.
1:40.3	And we're here to talk about your new book, Inheritance.
1:44.1	So I thought that a great place to
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