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Jackie Gordon, the lively, spirited daughter of Charles Gordon of Cluny Castle, was not one to give up what she believed to be hers by right. Despite another young woman’s snide remarks about how “ridiculously” she dressed when they met in Edinburgh, young Jackie did not lack for admirers. In 1804, John William Henry Dalrymple, a 20-year-old officer in the 5th Dragoon Guards, became the suitor who would define her life.
Dalrymple stood in the line of succession to inherit the title of Earl of Stair, with all its incumbent wealth and status. Jackie Gordon was the daughter of Charles Gordon of Cluny, a member of the landed gentry but far from an earl. Dalrymple knew that his father would object to him marrying a young woman below his own illustrious family’s station, but he couldn’t help himself.
He warned Jackie again and again that they had to keep their relationship secret. To win his beloved’s trust, he wrote, “I do solemnly promise, as soon as it is in my power, to marry you, and never any other person.” Jackie, perhaps wary of a man so eager to keep his relationship with her secret, asked for a more assured assertion of his relationship to her. To assuage her, he wrote: “I hereby acknowledge Joanna Gordon (her legal name) to be my lawful wife,” and the two young lovers signed below. With this assurance in writing, Jackie trusted Dalrymple had only the most honorable intentions, and they carried on as man and wife while he was stationed in Edinburgh.
Before Dalrymple left Edinburgh, he asked Jackie to promise in writing that she would protect the secret of their marriage and give it up only if in desperate straits. Already, whatever love he felt for his young bride was stained with the even greater shame he felt at the thought of his father discovering his rash choice. Distance does not always make the heart grow fonder, and Dalrymple’s passion for Jackie cooled so much after he left Scotland that he threw away her letters without any response. She wrote to his father for his address, despite his many pleas for secrecy. Dalrymple was stationed in Malta and horrified at Jackie’s persistence, so he sent an agent to Scotland to try to persuade her to hold her tongue. She refused. After his father died, she considered any promise of discretion to be null and void and urged him to acknowledge his legal responsibility to her, his lawful wife. Although she gave no hint that she was willing to let their youthful tryst disappear into the past, Dalrymple decided to proceed as though there was no Jackie at all. He had a sizable fortune and a title, and he wed a pretty young woman from a good family named Laura Manners.
A more demure 19th century heroine would have accepted her fate and let her deceiver escape into the arms of his new wife, but Jackie was a daughter of the Highlands. She was not one to give up what she saw as rightfully hers. She sued Dalrymple in court, and the judge ruled that their informal marriage contract spelled out in correspondence and simple promises amounted to a legal marriage. For women, the ruling was a victory—a man could not escape a promise he made that put a young woman’s honor and future on the line. Miss Manners, however, found herself with her marriage evaporated and little to no prospect of a second one given the muddy circumstances of her first. She tried suing Jackie for interfering in her marriage, but her suit failed. Dalrymple divorced Jackie for adultery (charges which may or may not have been conveniently drummed up to get rid of her). Jackie, unphased by the divorce, saw no issue with adopting the title “Countess Dowager of Stair” until her dying day. Dalrymple, Jackie, and Miss Manners remained unwed for the rest of their lives.
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