The Creevey Papers
Eleanor Creevey to Thomas Creevey, 8 November 1805
“Friday night, 12 o’clock.
“. . . I think you will like to hear I have spent a
very comfortable evening with my mistress.* We had a long discourse about
Lady Wellesley. The folly of men
marrying such women led us to Mrs. Fox,
and I saw she would have liked to go further than I dared, or than our
neighbours would permit. . . . They were all full of Prussians and Swedes and
Danes and Russians coming soon with irresistible destruction on Buonaparte. I wonder if there is a chance of it.
I don’t believe it. . . .”
Thomas Creevey (1768-1838)
Whig politician aligned with Charles James Fox and Henry Brougham; he was MP for Thetford
(1802-06, 1807-18) Appleby (1820-26) and Downton (1831-32). He was convicted of libel in
1813.
Elizabeth Bridget Armistead Fox [née Cane] (1750-1842)
English courtesan who succeeded Mary Robinson in the affections of the Prince of Wales;
she was secretly married to Charles James Fox in 1795; the marriage was publicly
acknowledged in 1802.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
