The Portrait of Dido Belle

The girl's neck is adorned with a coiled strand of pearls. Her cool toned, pale cheeks are flushed, and her hair, styled low, is arnished with over a dozen small roses. With her left hand, her thumb holds her place in a book, the book's painted edges matching the rosy color of her confectionery dress. With the girl's right hand, she holds onto the arm of another young woman, someone she

wants close by. The second woman is positioned slightly behind her seated companion and appears to be in a carefree motion, eager to explore her surroundings. Once the hours of portrait sitting are complete. This woman's dress is a lushly draped silk satin wrap, the champagne to her companions cake. She also wears a tight strand of pearls, though hers are slightly larger, which matched the girl's incredibly enviable pair of

pearl babble earrings. The second woman's cheeks also have a rosy blush, but as opposed to her sitting hates, her complexion is warm and dark. Her hair is also worn low but a top. It sits a silk turban adorned with a teal ostrich feather. With her left hand, she carries a basket of fruit, overflowing with grapes, pears, and what look to be peaches. With her right hand, she touches her cheek with her index finger, highlighting a slightly

mischievous smile. These two girls are cousins, Lady Mary Elizabeth and Dido Elizabeth Bell. It's a beautiful portrait. The colors are romantic, the texture of the clothing is gorgeously rendered, and the air of contentedness imbued portrays a clear sisterly love. The portraits fame, however, stems from the obvious It's a portrait of society ladies from the seventeen hundreds, in which one of the women is black, and she isn't in

a position of servitude. No, Instead, the cousins are portrayed as relative equals, neither stands out to the viewer's eye more than the other. While the painting does not tell the story of Didobell's life, I believe it's important to start with as it's this painting that gave Idobell new

life in modern culture. The lovely two thousand thirteen film Bell, an embellished biopic of Dido's life, was born when screenwriter Missan Saga discovered the portrait on display at Scon Palace and knew there had to be more to the story than the portraits label Lady Elizabeth Murray and Dido the Housekeeper's daughter. Dido has also had an even more recent resurgence in our own cultural imagination thanks to the popularity

of Netflix. Bridgerton, which portrays an integrated regency society and has spurred headlines like Britain's Black Presence isn't total fan to see, it's hidden history. Hidden history is pretty accurate, though we have a much better picture than we once did. There isn't an abundance of information on Dido's real life, and in this case, the truth often sounds like fiction. There are remarkable ways that parts of Dido's story seem

like well, a movie. In this sense, the Mona Lisa smile in her portrait is all the more fascinating all the secrets she holds that will never know. I'm a Danis Schwartz and this is noble blood. In seventeen sixty one, an English ship called the h MS Trent docked in the West Indies. It was captained by Sir John Lindsay, a naval officer and younger son of a baronet. Younger sons had limited options to make name for themselves, and

the navy was often a solid choice. Sir John Lindsay was doing just that, earning prestige in the Seven Years War. The fruit of that labor was his being made Captain of the Trent in seventeen fifty seven, where his job was mainly to capture Spanish ships in both English and West Indies water. Years later, stories would be told back home in England about one of Lindsay's missions. They said that aboard one of these Spanish ships, he took a liking to a woman, a slave. The woman's name was Maria,

and she became his mistress. The legitimacy of the story is questionable, but it's as plausible a meeting as any other explanation. The Trent did keep records of slaves from captured ships, now essentially prisoners of war, but the name Maria specifically never pops up. We also know from these records that men of these prisoners who had been captured in Havannah were discharged in seventeen sixty three onto a

place called Bell Island. If the telephone version of events does have any truth to it, and Maria was one of these Havannah prisoners, Bell Island could in theory play an etymological role in the story of Dido Elizabeth Bell. What we know for sure is that Dido was born to an enslaved woman, most likely called Maria, and Sir

John Lindsay in seventeen sixty one. Dido was likely born at sea, and Maria likely remained on board the Trent with Lindsay until the ship was decommissioned in seventeen sixty three. At the end of the war. Regulations and instructions relating to his Majesty's service at seas. Article thirty eight of the Rules for Captains and Commander states that quote, he is not to very women, to see, nor entertain any foreigners to serve in the ship without orders from the

Admiralty end quote. John Lindsay certainly would have had a copy of that manual, but it's possible he just skimmed it. It does seem kind of dry. You may be shocked to hear that. There was evidently a lot of skimming of the rule book. It was not uncommon for wives and mistresses to be aboard Royal Navy ships. It was even the origin of the phrase son of a gun. It was also not uncommon for a child to be

born to an enslaved woman and an englishman. The English, with their ever enduring love of micro classifications and deeply arbitrary rules, had devised a system of identifying these children. A quote Mulatto described the offspring of a white and black pairing, a sambo referred to that of a mulatto and black pairing, and a quadroon was yet another category

for that of a mulatto and white pairing. Because of the inherent drastic power dynamics of the parents in these cases, many of whom would have been slaves and slave masters. Many of these children were often the product of rape or coercion. We don't know the details of the relationship between John and Maria, nor the details of Dido's conception, just as we know next to nothing about Maria herself.

The extent of Lindsay's affection for his daughter, however, leads historians to believe there was at least some form of fondness on his end for Dido's mother. If it had not been for this fondness, though, what would have happened to Dido. Most children in her situation, that is, born into slavery with the distinction of being called quote mulatto, were often treated differently than field slaves and became housekeepers or seamstresses or wet nurses to white babies. There was

nothing particularly unique about the circumstances of Dido's birth. The uniqueness of her life would come later. Understanding that uniqueness requires discussing John Lindsay's lineage a bit more. His father, Sir Alexander Lindsay, was the third Baronet of evil ex and his mother Amelia Murray was the daughter of the Viscount of Stormont. More importantly to our story, however, is that she was the sister to William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield, also known as the Lord, Chief Justice and

Master of his domain at Kenwood. Lord Mansfield was an incredibly powerful man, now referred to as the most powerful British justice of the century, and it is he who was responsible for pushing forward many of England's abolitionist reforms. It was a critical time in English history, and Dido's great uncle was the man with the power to change everything. Ken Would, the estate Lord Mansfield acquired for four thousand

pounds in seventeen fifty four, would be Dido's home. It was there that she was raised as an englishwoman by the Lord and his wife, Elizabeth Finch. The understanding we can construct of the Man's fields is that they were both serious looking people who were unexpectedly caring and funny. There was a bust sculpted of Lady Mansfield that portrays her sternness, but her surviving letters reflect a woman full of warmth and humor. Even the powerful law man, Lord

Mansfield apparently didn't take himself too seriously. There's an account of a visit to Kenwood from a relative who said of the Chief Justice quote, he says, with the gravest face, the most comical things imaginable end quote. The couple was happy, but they were unable to have children. Elizabeth was thirty four when she married her husband, considerably past society's ideal age for marriage and childbirth at the time, but she

would still end up with two surrogate daughters. Some time before these arrangements, Lord Mansfield, recognizing that the couple would not have children of their own, decided that he would leave his estate to his nephew, David, the new Viscount Stormont. Letters reveal he was very close to both his uncle and aunt, some of which comes from his time abroad

as an envoy in Warsaw. In seventeen fifty nine, there, in a love match, he married a young widow and the daughter of a Saxon diplomat, a woman named Henrietta Frederica de Beauregard. A year later, the couple had a daughter, Elizabeth, which you may have noticed was a favored name for Murray women. Only six years later, Henrietta died at twenty nine, and the loss seemed to have triggered a nervous breakdown

in David. Between his mental state and diplomatic duties, he was not in a position to adequately care for six year old Elizabeth, who looked so much like her deceased mother, So the girl was brought to Kenwood and placed in the care of her father's beloved aunt and uncle. Here's

quite the NEPO baby anecdote. With his daughter in England, David, no doubt, thanks to the influence of his powerful uncle, actually became ambassador to France from seventeen seventy two until seventeen seventy eight, and was actually a confidante to Louis the sixteenth and Marie Antoinette. If you heard that date above and it sparked something in your brain, you're right.

He timed his exit pretty much perfectly. David also eventually remarried a woman thirty years younger than him, and when the couple and the five children they had together moved back to England, Elizabeth continued to stay with her aunt, uncle and cousin Dido. We don't actually know whether Dido or Elizabeth arrived at Kenwood first, but many historians believe it was possible Dido was accepted into the home as

a companion for Elizabeth. As is the case with many stories in Dido's life, we know the outcomes, but not the circumstances. She was likely left in the care of the Murrays so her father could continue his military career, and it's worth noting again how remarkable it was at the time that he brought Dido back to London in the first place, and to add to those remarkable circumstances, the fact that Lord and Lady Mansfield accepted Dido into

their home as their own blood. The only surviving account mentioning Dido's birth reads quote Sir John Lindsay, having taken her mother prisoner in a Spanish vessel, brought her to England, where she delivered of this girl and then with child. This was written by a visitor to Kenwood, seemingly recounting the story as told to him by Lord Mansfield, but it's hard to piece together how accurate that version of

events actually is. It doesn't seem to line up with the dates we hear in other accounts, including Dido's birth in seventeen sixty one and Lindsay's return to England in seventeen sixty five. Speaking of dates, our first dated record of Dido being in England comes from the November seventeen sixty six baptismal Register of St George's, Bloomsbury. The record lists the names of children, the names of their parents, and their birth dates, all relative really close to the

date of baptism, with one exception. Twenty on the list is one Dido Elizabeth, daughter of Bell and Maria, his wife, aged five years. Though this mysterious Bell is odd, it would be odder if there was another Dido Elizabeth, sharing the name of the African queen of legend and the Murray family women at the Murray's parish in eighteenth century England, baptism took place as close to a child's birth as possible,

fearing the statistically likely possibility of an early death. With this information, we can probably conclude that Dido arrived in the Mansfield's care, if not England, at five years old and around the same time as her cousin. It's also possible she was brought into their care as an infant and they only decided to baptize her upon the arrival of Elizabeth. When it was decided that the two girls

would be brought up together. There's no record of Maria having ever been in London, so we will never know which version of events is true. The Bell listed is likely a pseudonym for Lindsay, due to both his being absent at the baptism and dido status as a bastard. In official documents going forward, Dido would always be referred to as Dido. Elizabeth Bell spelled b E l l E, a feminized version of her father's fake name, meaning beautiful. So here we are at Kenwood with a unique family dynamic.

One of the most powerful men in England, his wife, and they're two great nieces, one of whom is both half black and illegitimate. Originally a country house for the couple, Lord and Lady Mansfield decided the estate just outside of London would be the permanent residence at which they would raise the two girls. To give you an idea of the kind of life Kenwood provided Dido and Elizabeth, here's some information taken from an inventory of the estate in

eighteen thirty one. Kenwood contained over eighty rooms, which included a music room, a schoolroom, the Japan Room, the clock room, the long gallery, the white room, the Pink Room, the Blue Room. You get the idea. There there was also a list of possessions such as Turkish rugs, fine china, and a collection of oil paintings. This was only the interior. Kenwood was also known for its exquisite gardens, which also happened to be the location of the famous portrait Lord

Mansfield commissioned of his great nieces. While we don't have recorded accounts of the education of the two girls specifically, it's fairly certain they received the standard education of young women of their status, likely basic reading and writing, along with the skills befitting of an accomplished woman such as

needle point, piano and dancing. This education was designed not for solely enriching the minds of these young women, of course, but to prepare them for the marriage market, making them as desirable candidates as possible. Will circle back to the conversation of marriage in Dido and Elizabeth's lives in a

bit from later account. We know Dido and Elizabeth were great friends, and you can imagine the kind of bond that forms between two cousins only a year apart in age, brought to a new fancy home at such an early point in their lives. Despite being so young, they had both already endured the trauma of losing their mothers, So to end up with not only a companion, but by all accounts an incredibly loving home on the whole, must

have fostered between them an environment of real closeness. Much of our knowledge of Dido's life is pieced together from accounts of others who visited Kenwood and commented on her. One such account came from Thomas Hutchinson, an American guest of the Man's Fields. Hutchinson had been Governor of Massachusetts, but his loyalist opinions on the event known as the

Boston Tea Party resulted in his exile in London. His diary entry on his visit to Kenwood in seventeen seventy nine, when Dido would have been around eighteen, provides one of the fullest descriptions we have of Dido and her life at Kenwood. He begins by speaking of the Man's Fields themselves dined at lord Mansfields in kane Wood. My Lord, at seventy four or five has all the vivacity of fifty. He gave me a particular account of his releasing two

Blacks from slavery since his being Chief Justice. One of the is referred to here is most likely Lord Mansfield's most famous case, seventeen seventy two's Somerset v. Stewart. To briefly summarize, an enslaved man named James Somerset was owned by Charles Stewart, an American man. Stewart brought Somerset with him while traveling to England on business, and while there

Somerset escaped. He was eventually recaptured by Stewart, but three people made the claim to be Somerset's godparent and appealed the arrest as unlawful detention. Lord Mansfield's ruling found that capturing and jailing Somerset was illegal on the ground that while slavery was permitted in British colonial territories, no English laws recognized the existence of slavery, and therefore slavery was

illegal in England. In reading his judgment, he not only cited the legality of the case, but the morality, declaring slavery odious. Contemporary scholars believe his decision to introduce morality into his ruling was influenced by his close relationship with Di do But back to Hutchinson. He goes on to describe Lady Mansfield's taste and class, enthusiastically commending her for her age appropriate dress as opposed to another lady he recently saw, who had the audacity to dress like a

young duchess. As we will see, Hutchinson is quite obsessed with the way women dress. He then pivots to his fascination that takes up the bulk of his entry. Di do quote. A black came in after dinner and sat with the ladies, and after coffee, walked with the company in the gardens. One of the young ladies having her arm within the other. She had a very high cap, and her wool was much frizzled in her neck, but not enough to answer the large curls. Not in fashion.

She is neither handsome nor genteel pert enough. I knew her history before, but my Lord mentioned it again. And this is a quote we have heard before. Quote Sir John Lindsay, having taken her mother prisoner in a Spanish vessel, brought her to England, where she was delivered of this girl, of which she was then with child, and which was taken care of by Lord m and has been educated by his family. He calls her Dido, which I suppose is all the name she has. He knows he has

been reproached for showing fondness for her. I dare say not criminal end quote. There's a lot to unpack there. For one, there's the difference between the way he speaks about Lady Mansfield and didos outfits. Lady Mansfield's dress is perfectly simple, but didos curls, in his eye, were not extravagant enough. There's also the way he describes her appearance as neither handsome nor genteel, despite the fact that, as

we know from her portrait, that Dido was beautiful. There's an underlying current that Hutchinson doesn't want to say up front, the sentiment that Dido is not enough, or rather not white enough. He does argue that she is quote pert enough, meaning impertinent or cheeky. This tells us that Dido was confident, unafraid to not only join in the conversation, but likely speak her mind. Despite being relegated to the post dinner coffee.

Thanks to social customs, it was not proper for Dido to dine with her family when guests were present, but after dinner. Once the rules relaxed a bit, she could be reinvited into their night. This paragraph also gives us insight into her closeness with Elizabeth. Hutchinson witnessed them walking arm and arm in the gardens. We also gain more

insight into Dido's relationship with Lord Mansfield. The idea that he has been quote reproached for showing fondness for her is likely connected to his abolitionist views and their influence on his rulings, as evidenced by the next part in the diary entry. Quote, a few years ago, there was a cause before his lordship brought by a black for

recovery of his liberty. A Jamaica planter, being asked what judgment does his lordship, would give no doubt, he answered, he will be set free, for Lord Mansfield keeps a black in his house, which governs him and his whole family unquote. Hutchinson describes Dido's governing as such, quote, she is a sort of superintendent over the dairy poultry yard, et cetera, which we visited. And she was called upon by my Lord every minute for this thing and that,

and showed the greatest attention to everything. He said end quote. Hutchinson is trying to frame Dido as sort of a servant, but historians seem to read a different interpretation that Dido and Lord Mansfield shared a close relationship and he was instead calling upon her every minute to make sure she was included as a member of the family. Hutchinson sadly represents the mindset of most Englishmen at the time, and likely the mindset of most of Kenwood's visitors upon meeting Dido.

Kenwood would suffer a great loss in seventy four with the passing of Lady Mansfield. The newspapers at the time reported that Lord Mansfield was most assiduous in the sick chamber, constantly administering what the physicians had ordered and sitting up several nights together. This once again proves that the couple truly loved each other, and there's no doubt that Dido and Elizabeth also aided in taking care of their sick aunt surrogate mother. Elizabeth would face another great change the

next year. It was necessary for Elizabeth, as the daughter of Lord Stormont, to make a good match, and in December seventeen eighty five, she married her cousin George Finch. Hatton, Lord mansfield nephew, who would later become an MP. Upon their marriage, the couple moved to Eastwick Park in Kent, leaving Dido without her companion at Kenwood for perhaps the

first time in her life. Dido and Lord Mansfield were soon joined by two more of Mansfield's nieces, Lady Anne and Lady Marjorie Murray, both spinsters, who seemed to have come to help run the house. We know this thanks to a surviving account book from Lady Anne dated January seventeen eighty five to April seventeen ninety three, which gives

us some insights into these years of Dido's life. We learned that from seventeen eighty five Dido received a quarterly allowance of five pounds, and from seventeen eighty nine this was augmented by birthday and Christmas presents of five guineas, for a total yearly allowance of thirty pounds. For comparison, however, before her marriage, we learned Elizabeth received a yearly allowance of one hundred pounds. A reminder of the gap in their status is but it's also worth noting that that

money wouldn't have been given arbitrarily. We know that Elizabeth attended balls with the Princes of Wales, balls that Dido wouldn't have been allowed to attend, balls for which Elizabeth would have needed to purchase dresses, and she would have need to go to other events at which she would have needed to be seen and look marriageable. The accounting book also tells us that Dido's health was well taken

care of. In seventeen eighty nine she had two teeth extracted for five shillings each, and in seventeen ninety one she was given Ass's milk, a recognized tonic at the time, to treat an illness, at the pricey cost of three pounds four shillings. Other surviving documents from this time show us that Dido impressively began to write letters for Lord Mansfield. In May seventeen eighty six, she wrote a letter to a colleague, Justice Butler about a marine insurance case they

were working on. Her script is elegant and clear, and the letter ends with a message, this is wrote by Dido. I hope you will be able to read it, whether that it was an addition from Dido herself or dictated by Lord Mansfield. It appears to be playful because the letter is quite obviously legible. You can view a scanned

copy online. After Elizabeth's match was made, Lord Mansfield updated his will to add an extra two hundred pounds to go to Dido, which he then updated once again, writing I think it right considering how she has been bred and how she has behaved, to make a better provision for Dido. I therefore give her three hundred pounds more. It wasn't the only will in which Dido was left as son. In sevent her father, Sir John Lindsay, died,

making the following bequest. In his will, I further give and bequeath onto my dearest wife, Mary Lindsay, one thousand pounds in trust, to be disposed by her for the benefit of John and Elizabeth, my reputed son and daughter, in such a manner as she thinks proper. We know nothing of John, only that he was apparently Dido's half brother and the product of another affair in Scotland. Sir

Lindsay and his wife Mary never had children together. In an obituary for Sir Lindsay, Dido was described as a quote Mulado brought up in Lord Mansfield's home almost from her infancy, and whose amiable disposition and accomplishments have earned her the highest respect from all his lordship's relations and visits. We do not know if Dido and her father ever saw each other again in her lifetime, but it's clear

he continued to care for her despite their distance. She obviously was the Elizabeth he referred to as the reputed daughter in his will, and there was a generous sum attached to it. This is the first mention of Dido in a public text, and it's a positive portrait. On March twentie, seventeen ninety three, Lord Mansfield died at home in Kenwood at age eighty eight. Dido, in him lost her father, figure with whom she had shared a close relationship.

But we have no record of how she felt or how she more, and all we know is that upon the death of her uncle, Dido was now a woman of means. Between the inheritance from her father and the allowance in Lord mansfield will, Dido was once again in a unique position for women in society. Only now her unique position was due to her having her own money

with which she could make her own choices. Kenwood was left to the Viscount Stormont, and it is likely Dido left the estate for the first time to live elsewhere. The next we know of Dido is a name change. In seventeen ninety four, she changed her last name from Belle to Davinier, confirmed with the surviving receipt of her seventeen nine seven annuity signed Dido Elizabeth Davinier. So who

is that guy? Jean Louis Charles Davinier anglicized as John Davinier, was a Frenchman who moved to England to work as a valet for the politician John Crawford. We do not know how the couple met, but it argued in Paula Burn's Bell The True Story of Dido Belle that perhaps they were introduced through Lord's Dormont, former ambassador to France,

who kept a number of French servants in Kenwood. Their marriage register for St. George's Hanover Square was dated fifth December seventeen ninety three, and the couple were married there by license, a more expensive practice than getting married by bands. Upper class couples were often married by license, and this may have been seen as a bit of a flex

of Dido's wealth. A year later, she would change her bank account to bear the name Dido Elizabeth da Vinier, and a year after that she gave birth to twin boys, Charles and John. It appears that John did not survive past infancy, and the couple had another son in eighteen hundred,

William Thomas, sharing the first name of Dido's uncle. Tax documents revealed that the family lived in Pimlico, a middle class area with properties of the time described as a neat lease hold house very pleasantly situated, containing two rooms on each floor, with convenient offices and a large garden. It wasn't Kenwood, but it was home for Dido and the family she built. Dido died in eighteen o four,

in her early forties. The cause isn't known to us, but we know she was buried at St. George's Hanover Square, where she was married years earlier. For a long time, that was the end of Dido's story. Her life and its remarkable circumstances nearly doomed to be forgotten. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, a local Camden historian by the name of Gene Adams began to comb through documents associated with Kenwood with the task of piecing together the story

of the women in the portrait at Skont's Palace. Then came Ama Sante's Bell, the film in cementing Dido as a Georgian heroine alongside the likes of beloved Jane Austen characters. With the release of the film, a biography was commissioned the aforementioned Bell, The True Story of Dido Belle, which provides the most comprehensive knowledge to date for historians and artists.

Dissecting the brush strokes of Dido's metaphorical portrait might be a complicated task, but it's a project that's given the girl in the painting her voice. That's the true story of Dido Elizabeth Bell. But keep listening. After a brief sponsor break to he here a little bit more about her famous portrait. The Portrait of Dido Bell and Elizabeth Murray was once attributed to German artist Johann Zofanie, but today we believe it to be the work of Scottish

artist David Martin. That's not the only mystery of the painting, though it's currently dated seventeen seventy eight, but fashion historians have reason to believe that that's around a decade too late. Combining knowledge of both the trends and age appropriate styles of the decade, historians estimate our pair of cousins to actually be only around ten years old at the time of painting. An article from the Fashion Institute of Technology

details their reasoning. Elizabeth appears to be wearing a bibbed apron, which were iconic signifiers of childhood in English portraiture. Her hair, rounded and styled with flowers, was the popular style from around seventeen sixty three to sixty eight. Remember Hutchinson's comment about Dido's curls not being big enough. His visit was in seventeen seventy nine, only a year after the portrait was actually dated. Yet neither of the girl's sport the

piles of curls that would have been in fashion by then. Dido, for her fashion's role in the portrait is in an orientalist style costume that we see in portraits from the seventeen twenties through the seventeen eighties, which could place the painting in either timeline. Dido's outfit certainly serves to exoticize her in the portrait, but it actually wasn't an uncommon look.

David Martin in particular, painted many society women in similar wrapping gowns and turbans, even down to the posed finger resting on the cheek. With that analysis, they believe the painting is more accurately dated in the seventieen sixties, which might also explain the seemingly childish delight in Dido's pose. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted

by Me Danish Sports. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.