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American History

Historic Love and Marriages From Hell

Jerry Lee Lewis - Myra Gale Brown
Jerry Lee Lewis and his child bride, back home after a disastrous overseas trip. The Commercial Appeal

9. Torrid Love Affairs

Mary Bowes. Westminster Abbey

Mary Bowes and the Earth of Strathmore and Kingmore had five children. However, when the Earl caught tuberculosis, Mary grew frustrated with his increasing debility and low libido. She started cheating on her husband, carried on a series of love affairs, and earned a reputation for licentiousness in the process.

Contemporary cartoon mocking the Earl of Strathmore and Kingmore for his wife’s licentiousness. Wikimedia

When the Earl finally died in 1776, the widowed Mary resumed control of her fortune, and took up with a new beau, George Gray. He got her pregnant four times within a year, with Mary aborting each one.

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A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.

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