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Lesser Known But Intriguing Historic Criminals

Khalid Elhassan October 17, 2019 32 min

U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History - Crime

17. The Conman Who Landed Europe’s Richest Heiress

Anglo-Irish adventurer Andrew Robinson Stoney (1747 – 1810) gained infamy by tricking an unsuspecting noblewoman into a horrific marriage. His victim was Mary Eleanor Bowes, Dowager Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (1749 – 1800), an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II. Bowes became known as “The Unhappy Countess” as a result of the marriage, which scandalized England and ended in a riveting divorce case.

Mary was the daughter of a wealthy coal baron who died when she was 11, and left her a fortune of about a million pounds – Paris Hilton-type money back then. That made Mary the richest heiress in Europe, and one of Britain’s most desirable women. Aristocrats wooed her, and she enjoyed and encouraged the attention, before finally marrying the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne on her 18th birthday.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

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.