GEORGE ANNE BELLAMY .sx By The Rev. BROCARD SEWELL , O.Carm. .sx GEORGE ANNE BELLAMY , once a leading figure on the London stage and in the fashionable society of her time , is today hardly known except to students of theatrical history .sx Her life was on the whole unfortunate , and her end sad ; yet she was a fascinating personality and a fine actress , while her life-story is highly romantic .sx It is not easy to see why her memory should have faded , especially as she wrote a most readable autobiography which went quickly through several editions .sx Recently , however , she has found a sympathetic biographer in Mr Cyril Hughes Hartmann , whose delightful book Enchanting Bellamy ( Heinemann , 1956 ) puts her story within the reach of all and sorts out a good many of the puzzles which face the reader of her own narrative , now a very rare book , An Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy , late of Covent Garden Theatre , Written by Herself ( London , 1785) .sx She was a sincere Catholic , notwithstanding the chronic disorder of her matrimonial affairs , for which she was not altogether responsible .sx For the Catholic reader part of the interest and fascination of her Apology lies in the glimpses that she gives us of Catholic life and personalities in eighteenth-century London .sx Mr Hartmann , himself not a Catholic , and writing for the general reader , has included in his own narrative only a selection of the episodes of Catholic interest .sx Since Miss Bellamy's Apology is now so difficult a book to obtain it seems worth while to attempt a short survey of her life that will do justice to her adherence to the faith in which she was brought up .sx George Anne Bellamy was born at Finglas , near Dublin , on 23 April 1728 .sx The name which her mother wished to give her , Georgiane , was , through some blunder , entered in the baptismal register as George Anne .sx Her mother , a Mrs Bellamy , was a Quakeress from near Maidstone who had taken to the stage and entered on a liaison with James O'Hara , Baron Kilmaine and second Lord Tyrawley ( 1690-1773 ) , Field Marshal and diplomat , Ambassador in Portugal and later in Russia .sx Lord Tyrawley was considered 'singularly licentious even for the courts of Russia and Portugal' ; he acquired three wives and fourteen children during his Portuguese embassy alone .sx But he was a very able man , possessed of considerable charm and some claim to polite cultivation :sx qualities which George Anne would seem to have inherited from him .sx Lord Tyrawley was not a Catholic ; but for some reason he had George Anne brought up in the old religion , and she was sent to school with the Ursulines at Boulogne .sx Her time there passed happily , and in her Apology she always speaks with affection of the nuns .sx Her mother was acquainted with many of the leading actors and actresses of the day .sx When George Anne was eleven or twelve years old she and her mother were invited to attend some amateur theatricals held in a barn at Mrs Woffington's Thames-side residence at Teddington .sx This was in 1744 , and the performance was got up in honour of Margaret Woffington's daughter Mary , aged sixteen , also just home from her convent-school on the continent .sx The play was Ambrose Phillips' The Distressed Mother .sx Garrick himself played Orestes , with Mary ( Polly ) Woffington as Hermione and George Anne Bellamy as Andromache .sx 'Though I was inferior in beauty to my fair rival,' she tells us , 'and without the advantages of dress , yet the laurel was bestowed upon me .sx ' She was seen at once to have unusual talent , and Garrick encouraged her to take up a career on the stage .sx She was to have a number of misunderstandings and disagreements with Garrick , who was not always an easy man to deal with ; but she admits in her memoirs that her break with Garrick in 1753 , largely out of pique on her part , was the mistake of her life .sx Some time in the year 1744 , after the amateur theatricals at Teddington , George Anne was taken on by John Rich , the patentee and manager of Covent Garden Theatre , and made her de@2but as Monimia in Otway's tragedy The Orphan .sx The leading man , James Quin , objected to the introduction of this inexperienced child-actor in a principal part , and Rich had a good deal of trouble with him and the rest of the company as a result .sx Her appearance on the first night was very nearly a fiasco , until , as she tells us , in the fourth act to the astonishment of the audience , the surprise of the performers , and the exultation of the manager , I felt myself suddenly inspired .sx I blazed out at once with meridian splendour .sx . Mr Quin was so fascinated at this unexpected intervention that he waited behind the scenes till the conclusion of the act ; when lifting me up from the ground in a transport he exclaimed aloud , 'Thou art a divine creature , and the true spirit is in thee .sx ' At this time George Anne had two suitors :sx Lord Byron , 'a nobleman who had little to boast of but a title and an agreeable face' , and a Mr Montgomery ( who subsequently became , through a change of name , Sir George Metham) .sx There seems to have been a half-hearted and unsuccessful attempt by Lord Byron to abduct her , as a result of which she became seriously unwell .sx When she had recovered she went down to Essex to stay with some relatives ; but the visit did not pass off too happily .sx On her way back to London she stopped for dinner at an inn in the town of Ingatestone :sx During dinner [the landlady] informed me that Lord Petre had a noble house and estate adjoining to that town ; adding that his Lordship's family was one of the worthiest in the world , although they were Roman Catholics .sx I could not help smiling at this reservation ; which she observing , begged my pardon ; saying , 'I fear , Madam , you are one .sx ' As I spoke , the starting tear glistened in my eye , at the recollection of my remissness in the duties of the religion I professed .sx I however smothered the upbraidings of my mind , and enquired who lived at the farmhouse which was so pleasantly situated at some distance from the town .sx She informed me that it belonged to a rich farmer , but they were Papishes .sx I then desired she would instruct me in the distinction between Roman Catholics and Papishes , as she termed them .sx 'Lord , miss,' answered she , 'sure you know the difference between a Hind and a Lord ?sx ' In 1745 Bellamy rather unwisely deserted Rich and Quin and accepted an offer from Tom Sheridan to play at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin .sx Arrived in the Irish capital she went at once to call on Miss O'Hara , Lord Tyrawley's unmarried sister , who welcomed her warmly and introduced her into Dublin's fashionable society .sx In Dublin she played Cleopatra in Dryden's All for Love , against Barry's Antony and Sheridan's Ventidius , appearing also in Rowe's The Fair Penitent and in The Provok'd Husband by Vanbrugh and Cibber , in which Lord and Lady Townley were played by Garrick and George Anne .sx She also had a great success as Portia in The Merchant of Venice .sx While in Dublin she befriended a Mrs Gunning and her family , who were involved in the deepest distress and were about to be turned out of their house .sx Two of the children were later the celebrated eighteenth-century beauties , the Gunning sisters , who became respectively Countess of Coventry and Duchess of Hamilton .sx From even before their arrival in Ireland George Anne's mother had been trying to induce her to marry an Irish linen-draper called Crump , a worthy but slightly ridiculous man with little to commend him to her except his money .sx Her mother's insistence on this match , at the urging of Lord Tyrawley who wanted to get his daughter off his hands , seems to have been singularly stupid , and she was certainly a good deal to blame for all the unhappiness that was to follow from George Anne's refusal to consider so unattractive a suitor .sx Although a Quaker , her mother was far too flighty and worldly to make the kind of friend and adviser her brilliant daughter needed ; and Lord Tyrawley was an equally unsatisfactory parent .sx He certainly treated his illegitimate children kindly , and even generously .sx They were admitted to his own family circle as though by right , which says much for the patience and large-heartedness of Lady Tyrawley , who was a thoroughly good-natured soul .sx But his care for them was fitful and spasmodic , largely because of his frequent absences abroad ; and he was ill-equipped to give them anything in the way of moral or religious guidance .sx To the misfortune of her birth and her lack of a proper home must be attributed in large part the misfortunes of George Anne's life .sx Back in London George Anne became the principal tragic actress in Quin's company , appearing as Belvidera in Otway's Venice Preserv'd , Statira in Lee's The Rival Queens , and other parts .sx In comedy she was less successful :sx Mrs Ward had given way to her in tragedy , but Peg Woffington was not to be supplanted as principal interpreter of comedy .sx Still , George Anne made creditable appearances as Harriet in Etherege's The Man of Mode :sx or Sir Fopling Flutter , Lady Froth in Congreve's The Double-Dealer , and as Lady Fanciful in Vanbrugh's The Provok'd Wife .sx In 1749 George Metham was renewing his attentions to Miss Bellamy .sx In the Lent of that year they were both attending the Wednesday and Friday evening devotions at the Bavarian Embassy chapel , one of the few places of worship available to the Catholics of London since diplomatic privilege secured for it immunity from the penal laws then in force .sx Originally attached to the Portuguese Embassy the chapel , adjacent to Golden Square , is said to have been built soon after the Restoration of 1660 .sx Subsequently rebuilt and enlarged at different periods it is now the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory , Warwick Street , W.1. When the Portuguese Ambassador removed to South Street , Mayfair , in 1736 , the Bavarian Embassy took over the house and chapel in Golden Square .sx Mrs Bellamy ( most actresses in the eighteenth century , once over a certain age , were usually known as Mrs whether married or not ) became closely acquainted with the Bavarian Ambassador , Count Franz von Haslang , a nobleman of fine character who was to prove one of her most faithful friends in all the distresses of her life .sx In 1780 the chapel was wrecked in the Gordon Riots .sx It is usually assumed that the chapel was totally destroyed , but Bellamy's evidence seems to show that this was not so .sx It appears more likely that the furniture and appointments were destroyed and the fabric badly damaged , but that the chapel was still able to be used for occasional services , such as that held for the Count's funeral in 1783 , until it was rebuilt about the year 1787 .sx If this is so , and there seems to be no real reason for doubting it , then surely Warwick Street church can claim the longest continuity of worship of any Catholic church in England , apart from certain chapels belonging to noble houses or to religious communities ?sx Such , at any rate , is Mr Hartmann's opinion .sx Among the clergy at Warwick Street when Mrs Bellamy knew it was the Reverend John Darcy , who was there from 1748 to 1758 and who appears to have been her confessor and spiritual director , as well as her trusted friend .sx She mentions also the well-known Dr James Archer , who had begun life as potboy at the Ship Tavern , near the Sardinian chapel in Lincoln's Inn Fields , and whose sermons went through several editions and were appreciated by Catholics and Protestants alike .sx She also knew well the celebrated Franciscan Arthur O'Leary , founder of the mission of St Patrick's , Soho Square .sx To return to the year 1749 :sx before long George Anne Bellamy considered herself as virtually engaged to George Metham ; but unfortunately Lord Tyrawley intervened and expressed great displeasure at her rejection of Mr Crump , whom he was still insistent on her marrying .sx