Inheritance: The tragedy of Mary Davies

Property & madness in eighteenth-century London

Leo Hollis

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2021
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786079961
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

‘Brilliant’ Financial Times

‘Hollis expertly weaves together the human tragedy and high politics behind the explosion of one of the world’s greatest cities’ Dan Snow

The reclaimed history of a woman whose tragic life tells a story of madness, forced marriages and how the super-rich came to own London

June 1701, and a young widow wakes in a Paris hotel to find a man in her bed. Within hours they are married. Yet three weeks later, the bride flees to London and swears that she had never agreed to the wedding. So begins one of the most intriguing stories of madness, tragic passion and the curse of inheritance.

Inheritance charts the forgotten life of Mary Davies and the fate of the land that she inherited as a baby – land that would become the squares, wide streets and elegant homes of Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington and Pimlico. From child brides and mad heiresses to religious controversy and shady dealing, the drama culminated in a court case that determined not just the state of Mary’s legacy but the future of London itself.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 ‘The Way to be Rich’
• 2 ‘Lord, Have Mercy on Our Souls’
• 3 The Preparation of the Bride
• 4 ‘All the Trouble in the World’
• 5 ‘To Such a Mad Intemperance Was the Age Come’
• 6 ‘A Woman of Great Estate’
• 7 ‘Let Him Prove the Marriage’
• 8 ‘One Degree of Madness to Marry a Man Not Worth a Groat’
• 9 ‘For the Good of Her Family’
• 10 ‘An Amazing Scene of New Foundations’
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Index
• Copyright