They Came to Bath   

Bath has attracted an extraordinary number of well-known people to visit or live in this enchanting environment.
 

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Elizabeth LINLEY
1754-1792

11 Royal Crescent

She was beautiful, and she sang like an angel, Gainsborough and Reynolds painted her portrait; two men fought duels over her; and George III, if we are to believe Horace Walpole, 'ogled her at an oratorio'.
  Elizabeth Linley was a member of a very talented musical family. Her father, Thomas Linley, arranged concerts in Bath, gave music lessons, and played the harpsichord expertly. Thomas, her brother, was an accomplished violinist who visited Italy as a child prodigy, and won the friendship and approbation of Mozart: he died tragically in a boating accident when he was twenty-two. And Mary, her sister, was also a talented singer. The family had lived in Bath for many years—first at Abbey Green, then at Pierrepont Place, close to the Doric archway that links Orchard Street and Pierrepont Street (there is a bronze tablet here), and finally at 11 Royal Crescent.
  Elizabeth's beauty naturally attracted several suitors. But eventually two men emerged as chief contenders in the inevitable race for her favours. One was Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the future playwright, whose father taught elocution in Bath; the other was a married man, Captain Thomas Mathews. Sheridan showed his resourcefulness by persuading the lady to elope with him to France from 11 the Crescent; but when they returned to England, Captain Mathews was simmering with hostility, and lost no time in publishing a strongly-worded attack on Sheridan in the Bath Chronicle. The two men fought twice with swords, in London and at Kingsdown near Bath, and in the second encounter Sheridan was seriously wounded.
  The passionate scenario appeared to have a happy ending when Elizabeth ultimately married Sheridan at Marylebone Church in 1773. But two or three years later, the embryo playwright emerged into the limelight; his two great comedies, The Rivals and The School for Scandal were staged successfully, and he became the proprietor of the Drury Lane theatre. Later, he was elected MP for Stafford, and achieved some notoriety as a politician and a close friend of the Prince of Wales. Poor Elizabeth found it difficult to cope with her changed circumstances, and with Sheridan's infidelity. She contracted tuberculosis and died in 1792, at the tragically early age of thirty-eight. The bronze tablet on the facade of 11 Royal Crescent commemorates her famous elopement in 1772.

 

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