13 November 2013

Emily Eden's letter to Earl Stanhope (1861)

I’m trawling through some notes I took on some of the documents in the Pitt MSS (at the Kent History and Library Centre in Maidstone), and I’ve come across some notes from two letters in 1861 between Emily Eden (Eleanor Eden’s youngest sister - born in 1797) and Earl Stanhope. He had written to Miss Emily Eden to ask for her permission to see the correspondence between Pitt and Lord Auckland relating to Eleanor Eden. Emily wrote back in a rather haughty manner saying that, although she knew the letters were still in Beckenham at Eden Farm, she didn’t allow Stanhope to see them as she said it was a private matter. Emily also told Stanhope that Eleanor (who died ten years before) didn’t like the subject of Pitt being mentioned, and that she [Eleanor] found the subject difficult to discuss… 
 
And, as far as I can tell, that’s where the correspondence between Emily Eden and Stanhope ends!

No comments:

Post a Comment