Mary Byerley

Mary Wharton was born in 1677.1  She was the daughter of Hon. Philip  Wharton, and the great-niece of the 4th Lord Wharton, also named Philip. 

1 She married Hon. James Campbell, son of Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll and Lady Mary Stuart, on 14 November 1690, after he forcibly carried her off, with the aid of Archibald Montgomery and Sir John Johnston.1

1 Her marriage to Hon. James Campbell was annulled by Act of Parliament five weeks later on 20 Dec. 1690.1 Johnston was found guilty of forcible abduction and hanged at Tyburn on 23 Dec. 1690. Campbell escaped to Scotland and was never prosecuted.

Mary is believed to have given birth to a son nine months after the marriage in August of 1691. The baby was named Thomas Wharton. (1691-1746) Mary married her cousin Robert Byerley in 1692, and they had five children, all of whom died without issue. There is no record or evidence that her son by James Campbell ever lived with her.

The Scots Peerage reports that in 1695, James Campbell married Margaret Leslie, third daughter of David Leslie, 1st Lord Newark, and they had four children.

Citations

  1. [S8] Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, 2 volumes (Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 1999), volume 1, page 105. Hereinafter cited as Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition.

Forced marriage

Scandal erupted in 1690 when Captain James Campbell, aided by Sir John, son of Sir William of Johnston (who had served in King William's War and as a captain at the Battle of Boyne),[3] and by Archibald Montgomery, abducted and married a young heiress in London. The teenaged Mary Wharton was heir to her father Philip Wharton of Goldsborough Hall in North Yorkshire, who had died in 1685. On her 13th birthday, Mary had come into an annual income of £1,500, equivalent to £264,000 in 2020.

On 10 November 1690, Mary was lured outside from the home she shared with her great aunt on Great Queen Street, Westminster, where the three men forced her into a six-horse coach and took her off to the coachman's house. There, she was forcibly married to Campbell, without her consent, and without the presence of her legal guardian Robert Byerley, the son of her great aunt. By order of the Lord Chief Justice, the marriage was annulled and Mary was returned to her guardian within two days, to whom she was wed two years later. Sir John was then arrested and indicted for the abduction on 11 December, convicted by jury, and hanged at Tyburn on 23 December 1690. Reputedly a "nasty piece of work", Johnston had previously been involved in a similar elopement with a Miss Magrath in County Clare, Ireland and had subsequently been imprisoned in Dublin as a debtor. He was also alleged to have committed rape in Utrecht.

However, the real culprit was Campbell, who had lured the impoverished Johnston with money, but escaped scot-free. Abduction and forced marriage was an ancient custom in the Scottish Highlands,[8] but in London Campbell was regarded as lucky to have escaped the hangman's noose.

The marriage was annulled on 20 December 1690 by the Parliament of England, which passed a personal Act of Parliament:[1] the Mary Wharton and James Campbell marriage annulment Act (2 W.& M. c. 9).[9] Campbell's older brother, the 10th Earl of Argyll and later 1st Duke of Argyll, had unsuccessfully petitioned against the annulment.

In 1692, Mary was married to her guardian, Robert Byerley. She died in 1727, having had two sons and three daughters. Campbell remarried in 1694 to Margaret Leslie, daughter of General David Leslie, 1st Lord Newark. They had two sons and three daughters.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Campbell_(of_Burnbank_and_Boquhan)]