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“Thinking Upon Paper”: Lady Sarah Lyttelton’s Journey to the Baltic

Thinking Upon Paper”: le voyage de Lady Sarah Lyttelton dans la Baltique
“Thinking Upon Paper”: El Viaje de Lady Sarah Lyttelton al Báltico
Marta Zonca

Résumés

Lady Sarah Lyttelton est surtout connue pour avoir été la Lady of the Bedchamber de la Reine Victoria (1837‑1842) et Governess of the Royal Children (1843‑1850). Toutefois, elle se distingue également par son voyage de noces en Suède et en Russie en 1813, période encore marquée par les conflits et les tensions provoqués par les guerres napoléoniennes. Bien que sa présence dans le contexte historique de la Baltique ait été négligée, sa correspondance personnelle et son journal de voyage, partiellement publiés par sa nièce Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham en 1912 sous le titre Correspondance de Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttelton, 1787‑1870, offrent une perspective unique et captivante sur les relations entre l’Angleterre, la Suède et la Russie au cours de cette période troublée. Mon objectif est de retracer le voyage de Lady Lyttelton dans la région baltique et de redonner à sa production écrite la légitimité qu’elle mérite en tant que récit de voyage. En effet, les remarques de Lady Lyttelton offrent un aperçu précieux de la situation politique et sociale de l’époque. L’itinéraire même de son voyage de noces est révélateur. Elle et son mari se rendent directement à Göteborg, en évitant le Danemark, allié de Napoléon, récemment vaincu par la Grande‑Bretagne à la bataille de Lyngør (1812). Ensuite, ils traversent la mer Baltique pour se rendre en Finlande, récemment annexée à la Russie et devenue une destination sûre après les changements d’allégeance du Tsar Alexandre I. Après un hiver à Saint‑Pétersbourg, ils rentrent en Angleterre en passant par Riga (1812), récemment assiégée et incendiée, et par les provinces prussiennes affaiblies.

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Introduction

  • 1 Betty Askwith dedicates a section of her study to the peculiar words and expressions Lady Lyttelt (...)
  • 2 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Countess Spencer, June 22nd, 1813, Worcester Archive and Archaeology (...)

“Such as travel to those quarters” (Sweden etc.) “are entitled to a degree of regard and esteem which cannot justly be claimed by those who visit the South of Europe, journeys in the North will be undertaken by those only who have a just and masculine taste for Nature, under every aspect, and are actuated by a desire of enlarging their own information, and instructing others!!!” There’s for you zitis!1 So says Mr Acerbi, and Mr Lyttelton just coming to that passage, I transcribed it for you to learn to respect us properly, our intentions at least.2

  • 3 Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference. An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism, Lond (...)
  • 4 Nicolas Bourguinat, “Introduction”, in Nicolas Bourguinat (dir.), Voyageuses dans l’Europe des co (...)
  • 5 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Earl Spencer, September 3rd, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/16.
  • 6 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Georgiana Spencer, October 15th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/24.

1Lady Sarah Lyttelton’s tour of Sweden, Finland, Russia, and the Baltic region in 1813 – undertaken with her husband – has not received much attention in the analysis of nineteenth‑century travels in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The reason may be that her travel writings, like those of many other women writers, have suffered from a double invisibility, both because of the low status accorded to travel writing and because of the marginalisation of women’s writing,3 believed to focus solely on domesticity and the status of other women, and thus considered as less worthy.4 Besides, her texts were conceived for private use and circulation, to be read “in that dear circle” of her family while she could fill up “the details of [her] story de bouche.5” Taken together as the outcome of her “long northern expedition,6” the letters she wrote to her family while abroad and her travel journals complement each other to provide interesting details about travelling and life in the countries around the Baltic, which at the time were undergoing significant changes because of the Napoleonic Wars, and prompt reflections on the intricate dynamics of cultural representations. Throughout her observations and remarks, Lady Lyttelton demonstrates awareness of the historical context of her visit, which took place at a crucial period of national developments and reconfigurations, as well as changes in the power relations across Europe.

1. Lady Sarah Lyttelton: an adventurous young spirit

  • 7 George John was a member of the Spencer family of Northamptonshire, one of the most distinguished (...)

2Lady Sarah Spencer was born at Althorp on July 29th, 1787. She was the second child of Lady Lavinia Bingham (1762‑1831) and George John, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758‑1834).7 At the age of twenty‑five, when all prospect of marriage seemed remote, Sarah attracted the attention of William Henry Lyttelton (1782‑1837), a Greek scholar and Whig politician. After a brief engagement, the couple got married in March 1813 and left on their honeymoon in June of that same year. In 1828, following the death of his eldest half‑brother, the Honourable George Fulke (1763‑1828), William Henry inherited his baronetcy and the Lyttelton family seat in Worcestershire, Hagley Hall, which became their new permanent home. He died in 1837, leaving Lady Lyttelton a widow with five children and a precarious financial situation, which prompted her to accept the position she was offered at Court through the intermediary of one of her brothers. Thus, she officially became one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber (1838‑1842) to the very young Queen Victoria. Gradually earning considerable respect, in May 1842 she was appointed Governess to the Royal Children, a role she fulfilled with passion and dedication until December 1850, when the death of one of her daughters forced her to resign and dedicate the rest of her life to the care of her family, until her death in 1870.

  • 8 Betty Askwith, The Lytteltons…, op. cit.; K.D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society (...)
  • 9 Jennifer S. Uglow, In These Times. Living in Britain Through Napoleon Wars, 1793‑1815, London, Fa (...)
  • 10 Caroline Lavinia Lyttelton (ed.), Letters from Sarah, Lady Lyttelton, 1787‑1879, London, Spottisw (...)

3Lady Lyttelton is most widely remembered for her later roles at court, thus her correspondence from these later years and with Queen Victoria has been widely researched.8 Considering her status within the Court and the prestige of her family, it is perhaps surprising that Lady Lyttelton has been primarily defined by her presence at the Palace while relatively little attention has been directed to her earlier life. Indeed, her private correspondence and diaries encompass more than just the Royal Household and its inhabitants, which after all represent only a part of her life, although a significant one. Sketching her portrait, the social historian Jennifer Uglow defined her as “one of a new generation of aristocratic women, all tireless letter‑writers.9” One of her daughters, Caroline Lavinia Lyttelton recognised the merits of her writing, and decided to have a selection of her personal correspondence published in the very rare volume Letters from Sarah, Lady Lyttelton, 17871879, printed for private circulation in 1873 by the King’s Printer Spottiswoode & Co.10 The preface, halfway between celebratory and matter‑of‑fact, suggests that Lady Lyttelton’s letters were already regarded as remarkable by her correspondents:

  • 11 Ibid., p. vvi.

It has been very generally thought among her relations and friends that her letters are of a high order of merit, in that peculiar province of composition; and the Editors of this Selection believe they will be found of great interest to a small circle.11

  • 12 Sarah Spencer Lyttelton, Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham (ed.), Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, Lady (...)

4Lady Lyttelton’s niece, Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, agreed, but aimed at a broader readership, believing that “a selection [of the letters] might be of interest to a wider circle, describing as they do many of the notable events and people of that day.12” Indeed, Lyttelton’s letters offer a lively description of her daily life and an insight into the social milieu of the early nineteenth‑century upper classes in England, as her niece observes:

  • 13 Ibid. supra, p. xixii.

They give a vivid picture of the life of the period, the leisurely sheltered life of women, how it was impossible for two healthy young ladies to walk along a country road unescorted by a “beau” and “a manly” arm “to lean upon, or of climbing a ladder” for fear of breaking or shewing our legs.13

  • 14 Ibid.

5Thus, by 1912, Sarah’s niece edited a new selection of letters, enriching the honeymoon section, the main focus of this article, with excerpts from her travel diaries. This collection was published as Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttelton, 17871870 under the imprint of John Murray.14 Both her daughter’s and her niece’s volumes were tentative attempts to introduce these documents into the dominant public discourse, although the success of these endeavours is difficult to judge as there is unfortunately little evidence of their circulation.

  • 15 Ibid., , p. 48.

6Lady Lyttelton’s first journeys were domestic, as she moved with her family across England from one residence to another. They included Althorp, the family’s main seat in Northamptonshire, Wimbledon House, at the time a manor in the countryside, Spencer House in London – overlooking Green Park –, a rented house in Brighton, and the more‑recently built Westfield Park in Ryde, the family’s summer residence in the Isle of Wight. Nevertheless, these “journeys” satisfied neither her desire to travel nor her young and adventurous spirit, as she implies in her letters. Writing to her brother Robert about a dinner she had at the residence of Frederick North, later fifth Earl of Guilford, she drew attention to his “very wise plan” to travel to Sicily. She confessed her desire to be a “very rich single man” in order to experience the same freedom and “put those passing whims into execution every now and then.15” Yet, compliant, she restrained her yearnings and admitted bitterly that she had equally often

  • 16 Ibid.

corrected that wish, for, ten to one, if I was in that situation, instead of being a happy, well‑employed, respectable character, like Mr North, I should turn out something like Lord Stair, who, from total liberty to do whatever comes uppermost, never knows which is uppermost of his ideas: gets into his post‑chaise and four, before he determines whether to travel North, South, East, or West, and has now two enormous and magnificent town houses in his possession, without being able to decide which he chuses [sic] to keep and live in.16

7Only a year later young Sarah renegotiated this thought and advocated more liberty for women, pioneeringly declaring that they would make excellent and even better travellers than men:

  • 17 Ibid., p. 93‑94.

I wish it were the fashion for young ladies to go and travel in the Mediterranean, why shouldn’t it? I am sure most of the young gentlemen who do, are much more helpless than any girl, and I am convinced we should manage quite as well, and perhaps, n’en deplaise pas à vos hautes puissances ye lords of the creation, we might derive something more of knowledge and advantage from the journey than is common to the said young gentlemen.17

  • 18 Nicolas Bourguinat, op. cit., p. 6.
  • 19 Yaël R. Schlick, Feminism and the Politics of Travel after the Enlightenment, Lewisburg/Lanham, B (...)
  • 20 Carl Thompson, “Journeys to Authority: Reassessing Women’s Early Travel Writing, 1763‑1862”, Wome (...)

8These remarks challenged the idea that women were not entitled to travel – as travelling could disrupt the domestic sphere and corrupt women’s morality18 – and point in the direction identified by Carl Thompson and Yaël Schlick, who have claimed that travel accounts have been employed “by women writers as a means of arguing for greater freedom” and access to the public sphere, “the arena of politics,19” as well as a means of wielding “public influence and agency” to get “wider recognition as ‘intellectuals’ and ‘cultural commentators’” – in a process that Thompson describes as “a journey to authority.20

2. A Nordic Honeymoon

  • 21 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 139.
  • 22 Lady Lyttelton was one of the first British travellers to reach these northern shores. A notable (...)
  • 23 The Napoleonic Wars had a profound impact on Northern countries, shaping modern nation‑States, an (...)
  • 24 Nicolas Bourguinat, op. cit., p. 12.
  • 25 Andrew G. Newby, “Peregrinations in Old Norway: Robert Wilson’s Tour of Norway, 1830”, in Nordic (...)
  • 26 In line with Gilles Montègre’s concept of « archives de voyage », Lady Lyttelton’s unpublished di (...)

9Lady Lyttelton’s first journey abroad took place after her marriage, finally turning her desires into reality. In a letter written before her wedding, she explains the original plan: marry at Wimbledon, honeymoon there, and then return to Spencer House for a couple of months, before spending the summer at their “beautiful home in Worcestershire.21” Bride and groom must have reconsidered their plans along the way, looking for a little adventure before settling down for, on June 29th, they set sail towards the North.22 The journey took them first to Sweden, then to St Petersburg and the Baltic regions, and finally to Germany, the Netherlands, and France on their way home. The last entries of her diary are written in Limburg, today Limburg an der Lahn, Germany, but from her letters it is possible to reconstruct the latter part of her journey, which led the couple to Utrecht and Amsterdam, then France, although no record of their stay there has yet been found. They made it back to London by Christmas 1814, after about a year and a half. Lady Lyttelton does not overtly account for the choice of destination in the surviving letters, nor in her journal, whose first entry is from Stockholm, August 17th, five months into the journey. Moreover, she makes no mention of her husband’s possible need to travel North on business, which might have led to their travelling together. The reasons behind the Lytteltons’ unconventional tour, comprising countries that were not a usual destination for the English, thus remain uncertain. Giuseppe Acerbi’s quote from his travelogue – reported above – supports the assumption of a deliberate educational journey. However, it seems unlikely that this was the only motivation, given that the couple’s decision was made against the background of ongoing conflict and tension caused by the Napoleonic Wars, which precluded a more conventional honeymoon. The somewhat impulsive decision to proceed to Russia likewise indicates a lack of forethought and underlines the inherent insecurity of their journey. It is therefore plausible to suggest that Sweden was perceived as a safer destination due to its peripheral position, which left it relatively untouched by the war raging in central Europe. However, it was neither entirely excluded nor unaffected, a point that will be explored in more detail later.23 The very historical backdrop of her experience is what adds to her already interesting personal correspondence and travel diary a unique perspective on AngloSwedish and AngloRussian relations during this tumultuous period. Unpublished texts, especially those by women, who had little incentive to publish,24 are precious documents, and, as Andrew Newby illustrates,25 significantly enhance our understanding of travels to and within the Nordic countries, which is what Lady Lyttelton’s under‑researched letters effectively do with reference to Sweden and the Baltic.26

  • 27 The League of Armed Neutrality, or League of the North was an alliance between Denmark‑Norway, Ru (...)

10The very route of the Lytteltons’ honeymoon is telling (Fig. 1). They travelled directly to Gothenburg, bypassing Denmark. Until then, Copenhagen had usually been the first city visited when travelling to the Scandinavian region, but the joint kingdoms of Denmark‑Norway had been recently defeated by the British Navy at the Battle of Lyngør (1812), bringing the Danish‑Norwegian naval involvement in the Napoleonic conflicts to an end. Hence, British travellers were not very welcome in either country. AngloDanish relations had already started to deteriorate in 1801, when the British pre‑emptively bombed the Danish fleet and capital – an action repeated in 1807, during what is remembered as the Battle of Copenhagen. Both attacks were prompted by the threat posed by the possibility that Denmark‑Norway might join the war on the side of Napoleon. Britain misread Denmark’s attempt to remain neutral by joining the League of Armed Neutrality as a form of alliance with France, an interpretation that triggered the first attack in 1801.27 As a matter of fact, the British offensive pushed Denmark to accept Napoleon’s help. Furthermore, the collapse of the League of Armed Neutrality and Denmark’s siding with Napoleon led to a conflict between Denmark‑Norway and Sweden (Dano‑Swedish War, 1808‑1809), later followed by a skirmish between Sweden and Britain – in truth a phantom war during which no military intervention took place – that ended in 1812. By the time Lady Lyttelton visited, however, the situation in Sweden had mostly returned to normal.

Figure 1: Lady Sarah Lyttelton’s Journey, 1813

Figure 1: Lady Sarah Lyttelton’s Journey, 1813

11Droits de reproduction : carte de l’auteur, modèle disponible sur <https://d-maps.com/​carte.php?num_car=13541&lang=it>

  • 28 After the Franco‑Russian Treaty of Tilsit, Russia declared war on Sweden by invading Finland, sub (...)
  • 29 Caroline Lavinia Lyttelton, Letters from Sarah…, op. cit., p. 121.

12After unsuccessfully looking for a vessel going back to England from Karlskrona, in the South of Sweden, the Lytteltons decided to continue their journey, crossing the Baltic Sea to Finland, recently annexed to Russia,28 then a fairly safe destination after the latter’s changes of allegiance. Lady Lyttelton’s reassurances to her family suggest that she must have been aware that the situation was still not ideal for travelling to Russian territories. Indeed, she repeatedly mentioned that they would take precautions, pay the utmost attention, hoping that their “return [had] a great a chance of being safe!29” All things considered, theirs was a courageous decision: Czar Alexander I had changed Russia’s stand in the war several times between 1804 and 1812. After siding with Britain in the War of the Third Coalition against Napoleon (1805‑1806) and suffering massive defeats, Alexander I deemed it safer to switch side to form an alliance with the French general in 1807, signing the Treaty of Tilsit. Russia thus became an enemy to Britain (and to Sweden, Britain’s ally) and remained so until hostilities officially terminated in 1812 – although the Czar never enforced strict measures to prevent clandestine trade with the British Isles, nor effectively enforced the blockade required by the Continental System, which he had joined when accepting the 1807 Treaty with France. Concurrently, since 1810, the relations between France and Russia had been worsening, and tension culminated in the attempted French invasion of Russia in June 1812, just a year prior to Lady Lyttelton’s journey. Hence, venturing there still represented quite a daring decision, since Napoleon had only retreated from Moscow the previous year.

  • 30 Ibid., p. 154.
  • 31 Ibid.

13After their wintry sojourn in St Petersburg, the newlyweds made their way back by land, through the recently besieged and burned Riga (1812) and the weakened Prussian provinces, affected by the French campaign into Russia. They could then travel safely back home through Germany, after Napoleon’s conditional abdication and the ratification of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (signed April 11th, 1814), which triggered the beginning of the restoration of peace. Nevertheless, the couple avoided “towns where any great battles ha[d] lately been fought” thanks to Count Spencer’s intelligence that prompted them to “make every sort of enquiry before [they went] into any30”. Consequently, decisions regarding their route and the cities they would traverse were deferred until the last minute. For instance, “Leipsic [they] had thought of, but not yet, and not at all unless it is quite safe31” – which it eventually was.

3. Navigating Politics and Society: Lady Lyttelton’s Observations

  • 32 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Earl Spencer, July 18th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/10.

14The first city reached by the Lytteltons was Gothenburg. Contrary to the common belief that few Englishmen visited the area, Lady Lyttelton remarks that “so many English are about, one hears it often spoken”, adding that she “shall be glad to go on to someplace where the Swedish manners are more unmixed”.32 Her comment suggests that Gothenburg – far from being an unfamiliar destination – was actually frequented by British travellers. This challenges the narrative of Sweden as a remote and unfamiliar land and could reasonably lead to infer that Sweden’s major cities and ports, like Gothenburg, were more integrated in European networks than some travel accounts of the time may indicate. Whether driven by business, curiosity, diplomatic affairs, or other interests, it is likely that many British citizens, just like the Lytteltons, found Sweden to be a less threatening destination at the time. Not particularly enjoying Gothenburg, the newlyweds sojourned there for less than a week before proceeding to Stockholm, one of the main ports on the Baltic Sea, where they arrived by July 30th.

  • 33 Carl Thompson, op. cit., p. 132.
  • 34 “Well now, all these very silly political sentences I write because I have had no letters to answ (...)

15Aligning with the unwritten rules governing women’s writing, in her “journey to authority” Lady Lyttelton employs a range of “strategies of irony, self‑deprecation, and what is sometimes dubbed the ‘modesty topos’33”. This is evident in the way she downplays and trivialises her own opinions, and in her justification that they became the focus of her writing for want of more interesting topics to discuss.34 Despite her words, readers must not be misled. She was neither naïve nor uniformed. On the contrary, her plentiful remarks are evidence that she was acutely aware of the overall political situation and the dynamics of the war raging across Europe, a point that will be explored in greater detail later. Furthermore, as Lady Lyttelton herself claims, her putting words onto paper represents an exercise of rationality – something which does not stop her words from flowing unrestrained, as underlined by the following excerpt from an early letter addressed to her brother:

  • 35 Ibid., p. 126.

You see, Bob, this is not talking (writing still less); it is thinking upon paper; but I believe you would have it so, and therefore go on “Free as clouds, or sun, or gale, flow on, flow unconstrained my tale.” […] Poor Sir Walter Scott never was pressed into so unpoetical a service, I fancy, before, and I don’t think I quoted him correctly either.35

  • 36 Caroline Lavinia Lyttelton, Letters from Sarah…, op. cit., p. 15.

16The idea that she was a very rational, attentive, and profound woman is also conveyed in an earlier letter, when she confesses to her brother how much she abhors “jumbling about […] from one neighbour to another, to say and listen to the very same things, upon the very same subjects”, a reflection she wittily concludes by rhetorically asking him: “Can I admire the conversation of women who have no conversation?36

  • 37 Ibid., p. 114.
  • 38 Ibid., p. 112.
  • 39 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 157.
  • 40 Ibid., p. 158.
  • 41 Ibid., p. 176.

17As mentioned earlier, sparse remarks and comments hint at the critical situation of Europe. For example, one of Lady Lyttelton’s major concerns regards her correspondence, as she was told that letters sent by Post would be certainly opened, “and perhaps detained, especially if directed to the Foreign Office in London”37. For this reason, she took the precaution of only sending letters by messengers once in a fortnight, a detail which gives an idea of the prevailing climate of tension and distrust. Additionally, reading her journal and letters contributes to creating a chronology of relevant events and how they affected – or did not affect – both the countries around the Baltic and British travellers abroad. On July 30th, for instance, Lady Lyttelton mentions the victory of the British, Portuguese and Spanish coalition led by the 1st Duke of Wellington over Joseph, Bonaparte’s brother and King of Spain, at Vitoria (June 1813). She confesses feeling “quite proud in foreign parts to be of Lord Wellington’s nation38”. A similar enthusiasm she displays after reading the newspapers (“What very glorious work seems to be going on everywhere!”), once again in praise of Lord Wellington (“a God‑send to poor old England39”), as she perceives the end of the war is approaching: “Oh peace, peace! blessed peace! Shall we ever see it? May we begin to hope we shall40”. A similar ardent wish for peace she expresses in a later letter from Russia, written in December 1813, ignoring that in just a few months she would be finally able to witness it: “What a time this is of great events! What would I give to know what has happened by this time, and whether the war is not at last really and truly rather on its last legs!41

  • 42 Ibid., p. 165.
  • 43 Ibid., p. 168.

18If European matters seem to be quite of interest to her, she does not seem much concerned about internal affairs, such as the Queen Dowager Sofia Magdalena’s death. On the contrary, Lady Lyttelton sounds almost bothered that it occurred during her Swedish trip, because it turned into one of the few topics of conversation, one obviously not suitable to her taste, and it also caused every woman – including herself – to be wearing unfashionable black dresses as a sign of mourning.42 The event also resonated in Russia, as she sharply complains: “We are to go to be introduced in form to the Comtesse Litta […]. She is to direct my dress, and the degree of mourning we are to wear, for the odious old Queen of Sweden’s memory pursues us here.43

  • 44 Ibid., p. 149.

19If on the one hand Lady Lyttelton conveys a sense of pride for being English – as previous examples have alluded to – on the other hand she seems reluctant to let her foreignness be too noticeable, arguably because her nationality might pose a potential problem, even though Sweden was no longer directly involved in the conflict. In particular, she was self‑conscious about her Britishness being reflected in her appearance and in the way she dressed, making her stand out in a crowd or while walking around town. For this reason, she tried to cover up the fact that she was a foreigner by dressing – or at least trying to dress – like Swedish women, a fashion she did not like. Although she assures that her disguise is flawless and she looks “for all the world like a Swede, except that [she] can’t help having black eyes and sharp elbows”, she is “stared at so vastly, with such extreme wonder, in walking the streets” that she modestly concludes that it must be due to her “extreme, and really after all, dazzling beauty44”. Either her light‑heartedness is merely a façade hiding her uneasiness, or she was very self‑mocking, or perhaps she was unaware of others’ opinion of her (the descriptions provided by her niece in the Correspondence reveal that she was not considered particularly attractive). Given the tone of her letters, a combination of the first two options is the most likely. Nonetheless, in spite of all her humour and good spirit, being stared at stops being flattering and becomes annoying, as she discloses in a later letter: “In walking the streets still, in spite of fashionable dress, and perfectly quiet and stupid demeanour, I am really stared at now”, to such an extent that Mr Lyttelton “is ready to knock down two or three badeaux a day on an average”. The rest of the message gives a good idea of her writing style and attitude, as she recounts:

  • 45 Ibid., p. 165.

I always know when we meet [a badeau], by a sort of darting forward of my knight, and a low grumble of “Impudent scoundrel! he deserves a good thrashing!” and all for stopping to stare quite bouche béante at your poor sister who has not poussé a second head or an eleventh finger since you saw her, to make her a natural curiosity.45

  • 46 Ibid., p. 154.
  • 47 Ibid., p. 184.

20Although she professed an “indescribable happiness in [her] wanderings46”, one cannot help noticing a sense of nostalgia when she contemplates the thought of being parted from her family for a long time. This feeling intensified with time and came to encompass British habits and pastimes: “We read the Berlin papers we take in, till our mouths water at the accounts of rainy days, public amusements out of doors, and villas to be let for the summer.47” Missing home – and probably tired from their trip in Sweden – at the end of September the Lytteltons tried to make their way back, although they had already mentioned the possibility of moving on to Russia. From Stockholm, they went as far as Karlskrona, where they would look for ships bounded to England. Not finding any, they reverted to their original plan and went back to Stockholm in order to cross the Baltic Sea into Russia. On October 20th, the couple sailed to Finland – thereby officially setting foot on Russian soil – and arrived at St Petersburgh on November 5th. On their way there, Lady Lyttelton records rumours about Napoleon suffering a great defeat in Germany, but she only receives confirmation upon approaching St Petersburg, lit up in celebration of the victory. The reference here is to the Battle of Leipzig, fought in October 1813, one of the decisive defeats that eventually led France to surrender. Alongside the excitement provoked by the news, Lady Lyttelton notices in the Russians a general state of

  • 48 Ibid., p. 171.

great uneasiness about their military relations, as, owing to the barbarous neglect of sending an immediate return, or, indeed, any official one at all, they are obliged to depend on private, and often very tardy, accounts of the losses after every battle, and none have yet arrived since that of Leipsic.48

  • 49 Ibid., p. 168.
  • 50 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Countess Spencer, December 12th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/26-27.

21In a following letter addressed to her mother – a detail particularly worthy of notice because of the gender of the correspondents and the content of the exchange – she displays a keen awareness of the political circumstances shaping the prosecution of her journey. For instance, she envisioned the following steps, conditioned by “the state of Germany” and “the probable effects of the Battle of Leipsic, which most surely [would drive] the war quite home to France.49” Additionally, in the Russian social circles she frequented, she was exposed to conversations about politics and the end of the conflict – “Whether it is from living where little else is talked of now but general politics, or from the thing being really so [meaning peace approaching], I can’t tell50” – an exposure that seems to deepen her engagement with these issues. Lady Lyttelton’s desire to share these reflections with her family – but particularly with her mother – is striking, as she is supposedly required by gender to be little interested in politics. Furthermore, it indicates that, contrary to societal expectations, she felt rather at ease discussing “masculine” matters, revealing her intellectual curiosity but also the bond with her family members, who did not condemn such politically engaged discourse.

22Most of Lady Lyttelton’s times in Russia was spent at receptions, dinners and events. In her journal, although not meticulously recorded as she does not write every day, she takes note of the names of people she meets, usually providing details or remarks about everyone. Askwith romantically comments:

  • 51 Betty Askwith, The Lytteltons, op. cit., p. 21.

The little descriptions are not particularly interesting in themselves, but they become fascinating when we realize that the Lytteltons were actually meeting and moving in the society that Tolstoy recreated for ever in War and Peace. We almost expect to hear of them meeting Pierre or Prince Andrew at dinner, or attending Anna Pavlovna Scherer’s salon.51

  • 52 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 179.

23It was one of these social gatherings that favoured their meeting with Admiral “Tschitchagoff” (usually spelled Chichagov). He was the commander who was held responsible for not stopping Napoleon’s retreat into Poland at the Battle of Berezina, when the French army had already been weakened after the failed occupation of Moscow. She was so struck by their conversation that she took note of it. He admitted that the weather was the primary factor in the failure of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, in that “frost did all last year: skill nothing.52” In this passage, the voices of Lady Lyttelton and the admiral overlap, and it is not clear whether she is merely reporting his strongly held beliefs, or she has formed a distinct and clear‑cut opinion on the matter, which prompts her to pose many thought‑provoking questions and observations:

  • 53 Sweden Dag Bok, December 27th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/1/2.

French decidedly victorious as far as Moscow, which place Koutousoff pledged “his white hair” to defend to the last, and did he defend it? If it had been intended to sacrifice it, why not give notice to the inhabitants? Why not empty the town? Why leave it full of all sorts of useful ammunition? Why not take his Kaluga position before the French went to Moscow, which must have stopped them? […] Le grand mérite! After he had evacuated the capital and left it to the enemy, to begin proclaiming that Moscou n’est pas la Russie! N.B. Said proclamation has always been stated to us as having been written avant coup as a projet for the sacrifice of Moscow, not as an apology, which it now turns out to have been.53

24As the ice began to melt with the advent of spring, the Lytteltons were compelled to abandon their plans to travel to Moscow by sledge, and instead started their homeward journey. Passing through Livonia, Lady Lyttelton mentions that roads conditions were not very good. The year before Riga, to which she does not dedicate many pages, had been besieged and its suburbs burned. It all happened during Napoleon’s attempted invasion of Russia: Riga – under Russian control – was a port situated in a favourable position for attempting to advance into the Empire. The governor of Riga, feeling threatened, after considerable confusion ordered the burning of the suburbs, adopting the scorched‑earth military strategy. Lady Lyttelton records the impact of French occupation not only on the capital of Livonia, but also on the surrounding areas. For instance, she describes Mitau, today’s Jelgava, as “a dreary picture of decayed neatness and comfort”. The journal continues – in its rather dry style:

  • 54 Ibid., p. 189.

Great palace, once the Duke of Courland’s, now a dismal barrack. Remains of pretty good houses and churches, must have been a cheerful sort of little capital. All this province is said to have grown worse in every respect, à vue d’oeil, since the Russians conquered and enslaved it.54

  • 55 Ibid., p. 191.
  • 56 Ibid., p. 193.
  • 57 Ibid.

25The couple continued through the territory that is today Lithuania, not spared by the war. The first thing Lady Lyttelton noticed was that the people they met along the road were “looking ruddy, smiling, and bold, as if free.55” She underlined the last word, stressing its importance in the context and probably to mark the contrast with the recent dark events. Further on, the newlyweds stopped in Hochzeit, now Stare Osieczno in Poland, where they conversed with the postmaster, and “talked long with him about the late sufferings of Prussia”. He remembered bitterly how, “when their troops were stationed about the country after the Peace of Tilsit”, he had to provide accommodation to a French captain and two or three officers, who “consumed in eleven weeks three fat oxen, sixty sheep, and ten hogs,56” a quantity of food that could have fed a significantly larger number of people. Lady Lyttelton, not losing a chance to praise her beloved country, adds: “He said much of the extreme insolence of the French: burning down a village if refused anything; despising the Germans openly. Old man very well convinced of the merit of England in the war.57

  • 58 Ibid., p. 191.
  • 59 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Countess Spencer, December 12th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/26-27.

26As hinted at by the above examples, Lady Lyttelton reported at length the conversations she had about politics and war. By doing so, she defied some of the constrains imposed upon her arbitrarily by her gender and exhibited a keen interest and remarkable curiosity in contemporary matters. For instance, in “Memel” (the German name for Klaipėda) the couple became acquainted with “M. de Goldbek”, a post director who informed them “of the insolence of the French in Prussia, and of all the miseries of their dominion58”. In Riga, she met “Mr Cumming the banker, a civil Scotsman” who talked a great deal of politics and “let out an ugly story of the autocrat” – as Lady Lyttelton got to identify the Czar – about the truth behind the Battle of Bautzen, lost because the army was detained to protect the emperor. Although she subtly conveyed her negative opinion of Alexander I, whom she had never met, it is evident that she does not hold him in high esteem. Lady Lyttelton is amazed at “the load of flattery” the Russians bestow “upon their autocrat”, who “is talked of quite as if he was far above his namesake of old, and called the deliverer of the world, with as bold a bonne foi as if Lord Wellington and Blucher and Bernadotte had done nothing but obey his orders!59” She expressed all her disgust and repulsion for the man very instinctively, with a sharp tongue and a witty tone:

  • 60 Ibid.

There stands his bust opposite me; I declare his soft face makes me sick, out of mere perverseness from hearing him so praised. Et il aurait pû être tout aussi grand, tout aussi heroïque, et cependant ne pas posséder en même tems [sic] tous les avantages extérieures. Mais que ce soit aussi le plus bel homme de son Empire ! Absolument le plus beau !” Thus said a lady to us t’other day; I might have told her “parmi les aveugles”; for to be sure, such frights as the men who are still here I never did see. I fancy they must have chosen out all who were not hideous to send them to the army.60

  • 61 Caroline Lavinia  Lyttelton, Letters from Sarah…, op. cit., p. 117.
  • 62 Ibidem.
  • 63 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 158.

27Lady Lyttelton’s perception of the Crown Prince Bernadotte, who would become King of Sweden and Norway in 1818, and of his son Oscar contrasts sharply with that of the Czar. Indeed, despite their being French and the natural animosity that might have arisen on the basis of the strained relations between France and Britain, she refers to them in very kind terms. She describes Oscar as “a handsome, manly little fellow of thirteen, about whom and his father every Swede we have seen raves,61” demonstrating a genuine admiration. Yet, rather than downplaying the importance of nationality, she takes the chance for praising her own culture, stressing the fact that Bernadotte was educating his son Oscar “in a very manly English way”, not even allowing him “to speak a word of French.62” Her overall positive perception may initially seem surprising, were it not for the admission that she is soaking in the widespread enthusiasm manifested by the Swedes themselves, as “it is quite impossible not to grow enthusiastic a little, if one lives in Sweden and hears much of him.63” It should be here mentioned that lacking an heir to the throne, Sweden had chosen Bernadotte as Crown Prince in 1810 in the hope of strengthening the relationship with Napoleon. However, by 1812 – following the French invasion of Swedish Pomerania – Jean‑Baptiste Bernadotte proved that he was not a puppet in Napoleon’s hands and showed the first signs of an emerging independent government, by allying with the Czar and playing a pivotal role in the reconciliation between the latter and Britain, as well as in securing the victory of Leipzig.

Conclusion

  • 64 Hans Erich Bödeker, “Letters as historical reflections – Some concluding reflections”, in Reading (...)

28Despite their relative obscurity, Lady Lyttelton’s letters and journal provide a rich and unique source for gaining insight into the political and social dynamics of nineteenth‑century northern and Baltic countries and how these were perceived by foreigners. Her keen observations offer valuable insights into specific events – such as some of the battles –, into the ever‑changing allegiances and hostilities – which forced her and her husband to follow an unconventional route for their honeymoon –, and into the general conditions of travel affected by the conflict. Furthermore, her writings showcase her attentiveness to and engagement with the wider political landscape, challenging the expectation that women, particularly of her rank, would be either uninterested in or uninformed about such topics. Although she was not a political representative, her perceptive commentary on the shifting political landscape of the Baltic contributes meaningfully to our understanding of her travel experience as well as of the period, in terms of both regional history and the broader representation of northern Europe during the early nineteenth century. Given that female letters have been shown to play a “decisive role in the ‘disputed space’ between ‘private’ and ‘public’,64” the exploration of Lady Lyttelton’s writings points to the role of female‑authored accounts in the construction of knowledge, awareness and cultural commentary in Britain, and prompts a re‑evaluation of women’s voices in travel writing, particularly in terms of their contribution to broader discourses on politics, society and power relations, as well as their role in shaping perceptions of unfamiliar regions.

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Notes

1 Betty Askwith dedicates a section of her study to the peculiar words and expressions Lady Lyttelton used in her letters, assuming they were often adapted from foreign languages she might have heard. One of the most recurrent words is “ziti”, which must have been initially a sort of endearment for children, but was later adopted for all her loved ones, her grandmother for instance being identified as “the old ziti”. Betty Askwith, The Lytteltons. A Family Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century, London, Chatto & Windus, 1975, p. 12.

2 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Countess Spencer, June 22nd, 1813, Worcester Archive and Archaeology Service (WAAS), BA15492/139/2/2. Here she is quoting from Giuseppe Acerbi’s, Travels Through Sweden, Finland, and Lapland, to the North Cape, in the Years 1798 and 1799, which was published in London in 1802 (2 vol., J. Mawman). The unpublished surviving correspondence and the complete manuscript journals are held at Worcester Archive and Archaeology Service. A particular warm thank you goes to the archivists for their help and guidance.

3 Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference. An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism, London/New York, Routledge, 1991, p. 61.

4 Nicolas Bourguinat, “Introduction”, in Nicolas Bourguinat (dir.), Voyageuses dans l’Europe des confins : xviiiexxe siècles, Strasbourg, Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, « Sciences de l’histoire », 2014, p. 6.

5 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Earl Spencer, September 3rd, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/16.

6 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Georgiana Spencer, October 15th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/24.

7 George John was a member of the Spencer family of Northamptonshire, one of the most distinguished lineages in England, which includes notable figures such as Lady Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757‑1806) – Sarah’s aunt – and Lady Diana (1961‑1997), Princess of Wales.

8 Betty Askwith, The Lytteltons…, op. cit.; K.D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain, Oxford, Clarendon Press, “Oxford historical monographs”, 1998; Kate Hubbard, Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household, London, Chatto & Windus, 2012; Mariusz Misztal, The Victorian Royal Nursery 1840‑1865. Creation, Organisation, Staff, Financing, Kraków, TAiWPN Universitas, 2020.

9 Jennifer S. Uglow, In These Times. Living in Britain Through Napoleon Wars, 1793‑1815, London, Faber & Faber, 2014, p. 319.

10 Caroline Lavinia Lyttelton (ed.), Letters from Sarah, Lady Lyttelton, 1787‑1879, London, Spottiswoode & Co., 1873.

11 Ibid., p. vvi.

12 Sarah Spencer Lyttelton, Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham (ed.), Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttelton, 1787‑1870, edited by her great-grandaughter, the Hon. Mrs Hugh Wyndham…, 4th ed., London, John Murray, 1912, p. v.

13 Ibid. supra, p. xixii.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., , p. 48.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., p. 93‑94.

18 Nicolas Bourguinat, op. cit., p. 6.

19 Yaël R. Schlick, Feminism and the Politics of Travel after the Enlightenment, Lewisburg/Lanham, Bucknell University Press/The Rowan & Littlefield publishing group, “Transits”, 2012, p. 14.

20 Carl Thompson, “Journeys to Authority: Reassessing Women’s Early Travel Writing, 1763‑1862”, Women’s Writing, 2017, vol. 24, nº 2, p. 133, Doi: <https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2016.1207915>.

21 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 139.

22 Lady Lyttelton was one of the first British travellers to reach these northern shores. A notable predecessor was Mary Wollstonecraft, although the destination of her journey – Norway – and the reasons behind it were quite different.

23 The Napoleonic Wars had a profound impact on Northern countries, shaping modern nation‑States, and ended with a massive territorial and political shift in 1814. See Morten Nordhagen Ottosen, “The Napoleonic Wars in Scandinavia”, in The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars: Volume ii: Fighting the Napoleonic Wars, Bruno Colson and Alexander Mikaberidze (eds), 3 vols, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, p. 541‑562.

24 Nicolas Bourguinat, op. cit., p. 12.

25 Andrew G. Newby, “Peregrinations in Old Norway: Robert Wilson’s Tour of Norway, 1830”, in Nordic Travels, Janicke S. Kaasa, Jakob Lothe and Ulrike Spring (eds), Oslo, Novus Press, 2021, p. 141‑159.

26 In line with Gilles Montègre’s concept of « archives de voyage », Lady Lyttelton’s unpublished diaries and letters are of major historical interest and help to reflect on how knowledge is produced. Obviously, such sources, when considered as historical documents, require in‑depth critical evaluation because of the interplay of multiple factors, such as accuracy, intended audience, and personal biases. See Gilles Montègre, Voyager en Europe au temps des Lumières : les émotions de la liberté, Paris, Tallandier, 2024; Irina Paperno, “What Can Be Done with Diaries?”, The Russian Review, vol. 63, nº 4, 2004, p. 561‑573, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3663979>; Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir, “Fragments of Lives – The Use of Private Letters in Historical Research”, NORA, vol. 15, nº 1, 2007, p. 35‑49, Doi: <https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740701253551>.

27 The League of Armed Neutrality, or League of the North was an alliance between Denmark‑Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Prussia to ensure free shipping in the Baltic against British interference, whose policy was to search neutral ships to fight French smuggling.

28 After the Franco‑Russian Treaty of Tilsit, Russia declared war on Sweden by invading Finland, subsequently incorporated into the Russian Empire as the aftermath of this confrontation (Finnish War, 1808‑1809).

29 Caroline Lavinia Lyttelton, Letters from Sarah…, op. cit., p. 121.

30 Ibid., p. 154.

31 Ibid.

32 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Earl Spencer, July 18th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/10.

33 Carl Thompson, op. cit., p. 132.

34 “Well now, all these very silly political sentences I write because I have had no letters to answer”. Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 158.

35 Ibid., p. 126.

36 Caroline Lavinia Lyttelton, Letters from Sarah…, op. cit., p. 15.

37 Ibid., p. 114.

38 Ibid., p. 112.

39 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 157.

40 Ibid., p. 158.

41 Ibid., p. 176.

42 Ibid., p. 165.

43 Ibid., p. 168.

44 Ibid., p. 149.

45 Ibid., p. 165.

46 Ibid., p. 154.

47 Ibid., p. 184.

48 Ibid., p. 171.

49 Ibid., p. 168.

50 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Countess Spencer, December 12th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/26-27.

51 Betty Askwith, The Lytteltons, op. cit., p. 21.

52 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 179.

53 Sweden Dag Bok, December 27th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/1/2.

54 Ibid., p. 189.

55 Ibid., p. 191.

56 Ibid., p. 193.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid., p. 191.

59 Letter by Lady Lyttelton to Countess Spencer, December 12th, 1813, WAAS, BA15492/139/2/26-27.

60 Ibid.

61 Caroline Lavinia  Lyttelton, Letters from Sarah…, op. cit., p. 117.

62 Ibidem.

63 Maud Mary Lyttelton Wyndham, op. cit., p. 158.

64 Hans Erich Bödeker, “Letters as historical reflections – Some concluding reflections”, in Reading, Interpreting and Historicizing: Letters as Historical Sources, Regina Schulte and Xenia von Tippelskirch (eds), San Domenico, Florence, European University Institute, “EUI working papers, HEC, 2”, 2004, p. 201, <https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/2600/HEC04-02.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y>.

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Titre Figure 1: Lady Sarah Lyttelton’s Journey, 1813
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Marta Zonca, « “Thinking Upon Paper”: Lady Sarah Lyttelton’s Journey to the Baltic »Les Cahiers de Framespa [En ligne], 45 | 2024, mis en ligne le 16 décembre 2024, consulté le 18 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/framespa/18209 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12z4v

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Marta Zonca

Marta Zonca est doctorante en littérature anglaise à l’université du Piémont Oriental (UPO) en Italie. Sa Thèse porte sur les récits de voyageurs britanniques dans les pays de l’Europe du Nord entre la fin du xviiie siècle et le début du xixe siècle.
marta.zonca@uniupo.it

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