Embassy to Constantinople: The Travels of Lady Mary Wortley Mantagu

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. 1988. Embassy to Constantinople: The Travels of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu / introduced by Dervla Murphy; edited and complied by Christopher Pick. New York: New Amsterdam

The spring and early summer of 1716 were filled with preparations for the journey to Constantinople. Since Wortley was expecting to be away for at least five years, the domestic arrangements, which he left in Lady Mary's hands, were considerable. She appointed a chaplain, one William Crosse, who had already served as chaplain to the English settlement in Constantinople in 1712, and a surgeon, Charles Maitland. Another important post was that of nurse to the Wortleys' three-year-old son Edward; despite all the dangers and rigours of the forthcoming journey, Lady Mary was determined not to leave him behind. She chose the sister of her servant Matthew Northall, someone she must already have judged would be a reliable and loving companion for the boy, and soon persuaded her to travel down from Yorkshire so that child and nurse could get to know one another before the

journey began. Lady Mary had hoped to persuade Sarah Chiswell, her childhood friend from Nottingham, to join the party as her own companion, and must have been disappointed when Sarah's fearful relatives prevented her from accepting the invitation.

There were possessions to attend to as well. Lady Mary had twenty suits of livery made for the servants, and no doubt ordered clothes for herself and her husband, medical supplies and equipment, and the inevitable books: everything she and her entourage could possibly require for such a long stay abroad. The lavish presents that a newly arrived ambassador customarily gave to the Sultan and his officials also had to be procured; parsimonious as ever, Wortley negotiated a £500 payment from the Levant Company to cover both these and his travelling expenses.

Once the leave-takings were over - Pope was particularly effusive, claiming that he valued no woman more than Lady Mary - and the commissions had been received (Jane Smith asked for lace to be sent from the Continent, and Lady Bristol wanted exotic eastern stuffs), the Ambassador's party set forth from London on I August 1716. Offered a choice of routes, Wortley had for once decided against saving money. Although either a direct sea voyage to Constantinople or an overland journey to Marseilles and then a sea passage would have enabled him to make a profit on his expenses, he decided to travel via Vienna; the opportunity of an audience with the Emperor Charles VI would, he anticipated, assist his peace-making efforts, especially since he carried a letter to the Emperor from the English King George 1. After a difficult crossing from Gravesend on the Thames estuary - a two-day calm was followed by a violent storm - the party landed in Holland, hired horses and immediately set out south towards Vienna. Progress was quick at first, not least because all the heavy baggage had been sent ahead to Turkey by sea, but between Nijmegen and Cologne there were unexpected delays, and at Ratisbon the Ambassador had to wait several days while Lady Mary recovered from a heavy cold.

Even in these first few weeks of her journey, Lady Mary found all her high expectations of travel fulfilled. She took a lively, if sometimes rather censorious, interest in everything and everyone. While the cleanliness of the streets and people of Rotterdam was approved, and Nijmegen was judged to enjoy 'one of the finest prospects in the world', the statues of the saints and the relics encountered in the Roman Catholic churches of southern Germany were dismissed as vulgar farce - Lady Mary confessed to coveting a pearl necklace decorating an image of Saint Ursula - and the intrigues of the princely court at Ratisbon as petty quarrelling.

In Vienna, which she reached on 3 September, there was rich material for Lady Mary's pen. While her husband was deep in political negotiations (he was received by the Emperor the day following their arrival), she had ample time to explore the city, to attend the opera and dine with 'several of the first people of quality', and, following her reception at Court, to attend all its ceremonies and festivities. But her audience with the Empress Elisabeth had to wait until the correct gown was made it was, she wrote, 'a dress very inconvenient, but which certainly shows the neck and shape to great advantage'. Lady Mary's letters record many of the foibles of Court life: the obsession with rank, for instance, and the delicacy with which affairs of the heart were managed. As was to be the case in Turkey, she dwelt at length on matters of marital fidelity. In Vienna, she wrote to Lady Rich on 20 September, it was 'the established custom for every Lady to have two husbands, one that bears the

name, and another that performs the duties'. When, attending an assembly one evening, a young count made the most polite and tactful of overtures to Lady Mary, she declined gravely, refusing even his offer to approach on her behalf anyone else she preferred. What thoughts, one wonders, did she confine to her Journal that night - for by now, after four years of marriage, her husband's true nature, his self-centredness and meagre passions, must have been apparent to her.

By November, Wortley might have been expected to press on east in order to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity for diplomacy. Following his army's defeat by the Imperial forces under Prince Eugene of Savoy at Peterwaradin in August, Sultan Ahmed III had agreed to allow the English to mediate, and the Pasha of Belgrade had sent a message urging Wortley to set out for Turkey immediately. Instead, Wortley left Vienna on 13 November for the English court at Hanover, where he received further instructions and credentials from the King. It was an eventful journey which Wortley and Lady Mary almost failed to complete; crossing the Bohemian mountains, the coach almost plunged off the path into the River Elbe below as the postillions dozed in their seats. At least when they reached Leipzig, Lady Mary was able to buy liveries for her pages, and material for herself, at rather less than half their price in Vienna.

Lady Mary's brief stay in Hanover must have been a pleasant interlude in her constant journeying: many Court friends and acquaintances had joined the King at his German capital, and at dinner at the King's table she was served oranges, lemons and pineapples ripened in nearby hothouses. Soon Wortley and Lady Mary were underway once again, travelling over Christmas to reach Vienna on 27 December. Before they set out once more on i6 January 1717, Lady Mary had time to enjoy the Viennese carnival with its balls and performances of Italian comedy. She looked forward to her journey across the Hungarian plain to Peterwaradin and Belgrade with trepidation; she feared 'being froze to death, buried in the snow, and taken by the Tartars', she told Pope, and wished that Wortley would delay until the Danube had thawed and they could travel by boat.

The journey was nothing like as unpleasant as she had feared, and through the expedient of fixing their coaches on sleighs the party made rapid progress over the deep snow. Buda was reached after five days, then, after the crossing of the Danube, Esseck (modern Osijek) and finally Peterwaradin, a fortress town on the very edge of the Imperial lands. Here Wortley awaited word from the Pasha that they might cross into Ottoman territory. A strong escort of 200 Imperial troops accompanied them to the border at a tiny village named Betsko, where the new Ambassador was met by an even stronger force of Janissaries (soldiers), who escorted them to Belgrade.

Belgrade gave Lady Mary her first taste of the East she had so longed to see. Her initial impressions were largely favourable, even though she felt uneasy in a town so subject to 'insolent soldiery'; while nominally ruled by a Pasha, the city was in fact controlled by Janissaries. Always susceptible to men of breeding and culture, she was greatly entertained by Ahmed Bey Effendi, the scholar with whom they were lodged; he read Arabic verse to her, she in return helped him to master the Roman alphabet, and together they supped, drank wine and conversed about religion and what was soon to become a favourite topic of Lady Mary's, the true position of women in Ottoman society. But Wortley and Lady Mary were both eager to continue their journey, and immediately permission arrived from the Sultan they set out for Adrianople.