Tower and Town, August 2024 (view the full edition)Marie Louise RevisitedIn the February 2023 edition of Tower and Town I suggested that the lovely Marie Louise Ride in Savernake Forest could be named after the Duchess of Parma, Napoleon's wife, on her visit to Bath Spa. Further research however revealed a rather major error: there is no evidence and no reasonable likelihood of the Duchess ever visiting Bath... it was another important Marie Louise who did, and initialled her visit 'ML" which suggests she preferred to omit her middle name of Theresa. This was the beautiful and very wealthy Marie Louise of Savoy, Princess of Lamballe, confidante of, and head of the household for, Queen Marie Antoinette of France. She married the Prince of Lamballe at the age of 17 in 1766 but he died of syphilis within the year, aged just 20. One suspects therefore that the marriage was not consummated as it is implied that Marie Louise remained disease free. In 1787 however she was advised to 'take the waters' at Bath Spa, which she did. I do hold to my original hypothesis that London to Bath, being a two day journey, she would need to rest halfway, and a fine house in a large estate would have been more to her taste than a coaching inn. Savernake Estate with Tottenham House is half way to Bath. In 1765, the Earl of Ailesbury who resided at Tottenham House, engaged Lancelot 'Capability' Brown to design and develop Tottenham Park, close to the house and this inspired the Earl to develop the area we now know as the forest. It had been rough impoverished scrubland with several aging and quite worthless oak copses so he planted thousands of trees, linking the old copses and preserving the ancient oaks. It was he who created the Grand Avenue, Eight Walks and the Rides we now like to stroll. In 1787, his grand design would be showing its promise with new trees up to twenty years old. I feel sure he would not only have welcomed the Princess but escorted her on his new rides. Perhaps he honoured her there and then by naming the Marie Louise Ride, but just maybe it was later, when he heard that in 1793 the Princess was butchered to death by the Paris mob, and her head paraded around the streets on a pike. Maybe the naming of the ride was in her memory. Note: Lamballe is a small commune in Brittany, a backwater now but very important in the 18th century with a castle and a monastery. Its name is believed to come from the Breton 'Llan' meaning church as in Welsh, and 'Paul' a shortening of St Paul, thus Llanpaul, and a short step to Lamballe. Peter Noble |