The Siege of Jerusalem

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The Siege of Jerusalem (1771) is a poetical drama, full of high drama and unrequited love, written by Mary Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, an ancestor of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

Mary Eleanor Bowes, the daughter of George Bowes of Streatlam and Gibside, married John Bowes, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. The Earl, who suffered from tuberculosis, often was away from home seeking a cure. The bored Countess began writing The Siege of Jerusalem "to amuse herself", in the words of one of her biographers. After its publication in 1774, the Countess turned to extramarital affairs for amusement.

On March 7, 1776, Lord Strathmore died of tuberculosis. The Countess subsequently married the Irish rakehell and fortunehunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, and their tempestuous liaison and divorce became a major scandal in Georgian Britain. The story of Stoney Bowes and the Countess of Strathmore was fictionalized by William Makepeace Thackeray in The Luck of Barry Lyndon.

[edit] Influences

There is another poem entitled The Siege of Jersualem in the English language, an anonymous Middle English work. This earlier Siege of Jersualem is an epic poem written in the second half of the 14th century (possibly ca. 1370-1380). It is uncertain whether this piece influenced Bowes' own work, though its gore and extreme anti-semitism differeniate it from her more romantic work.