At the tender age of 11, Mary Bowes (above) became a wealthy heiress when her father, a coal magnate, died in 1760 (via All That’s Interesting). All that he asked was when she married, she would never take another man’s last name. It’s a promise she kept and when she wed John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, he became a Bowes (via Westminster Abbey).

After five children together and nine years of marriage, Lyon died at sea. Bowes, who was pregnant with another man’s child, decided she needed to remarry immediately to avoid a scandal. Before she could walk down the aisle with her soon-to-be second husband — the father of her unborn child — Andrew Stoney came into the picture.

Greedy and a known abuser (details Bowes did not know), Stoney was attracted to the heiress’ wealth and so he did what he could to dissuade her from marrying her fiance. He failed. Undeterred, he crafted a plan so ridiculous that there was no way it could work — until it did. Stoney published anonymous stories (untrue of course) in a local newspaper that damaged her reputation. He then staged a fake duel and challenged the paper’s editor (who was in on the ruse) to defend Bowes’ honor.

According to Ranker, Stoney pretended to be mortally wounded in the duel. His dying wish? To see Bowes. Thinking he would be dead in a matter of days, Bowes agreed to marry him. Except, Stoney didn’t die, in fact, he was as good as new and soon, Bowes’ life became a nightmare. 

For the next eight years, Stoney would torture Bowes

James Gillray/ Wikipedia