Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Christian Cameron, Lady Rosehill?


Lord Rosehill David Carnegie was the oldest son of the Sixth Earl of Northesk, a Scottish peer and admiral in the British navy. If aristocrats often entered into romantic and sexual liaisons with actresses, they rarely recast those mistresses as wives. But Rosehill was an impetuous young man, just nineteen years old. He had arrived in the colonies in late 1767 or early 1768, following two years as an ensign in the 25th Regiment of Foot, a Scottish infantry unit of the British army. The circumstances were not auspicious. The fact is that Lord Rosehill was already married: in January 1767, at age seventeen, he wed Christian Cameron at Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. Though a priest performed the rite, no witnesses were present or required by Scottish law. The couple consequently acknowledged their new status to various persons, "after which they were bedded." When Lord Rosehill's commanding officer heard the news, he placed his ensign under arrest and expelled the lady from the garrison. Ten days passed before the matter could be resolved, at which point Lord Rosehill was released from prison, his wife readmitted to the fort, and the couple granted two nights together. Lady Rosehill then left to stay with a cousin (her father Alexander Cameron of Dungallon had died fighting at Quebec), while Lord Rosehill "went abroad." These details come from a process of Declarator of Marriage filed against David Carnegie by Christian Cameron, asserting her status as wife, in 1769. [Source]

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