Sir Walter Elliot and Elizabeth Stevenson's marriage

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire, married Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of Gloucester, on July 15, 1784. The marriage is recorded in the Baronetage, the only book Sir Walter ever read for amusement, where he found occupation for an idle hour and consolation in a distressed one. The entry, originally printed by the printer's hands, was later improved by Sir Walter himself, who inserted the exact day of the month on which he lost his wife, demonstrating his characteristic vanity of person and situation.

The Character of the Marriage

Lady Elliot was an excellent woman, sensible and amiable, whose judgement and conduct, if they might be pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never required indulgence afterwards. For seventeen years she humoured, softened, or concealed her husband's failings and promoted his real respectability. Though not the very happiest being in the world herself, she found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children to attach her to life. Sir Walter, by contrast, was a man whose vanity was the beginning and end of his character; he had been remarkably handsome in his youth and at fifty-four was still a very fine man, considering the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy. The union thus paired a woman of very superior character with a man who deserved nothing of the kind.

The Legacy of the Marriage

The marriage produced three daughters: Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son on November 5, 1789; and Mary, born November 20, 1791. Lady Elliot died in 1800, leaving her three girls—the two eldest sixteen and fourteen—as an awful legacy to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father. She had, however, one very intimate friend, Lady Russell, a sensible, deserving woman who had been brought by strong attachment to settle close by her in the village of Kellynch, and on whose kindness and advice Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help and maintenance of the good principles and instruction she had been anxiously giving her daughters.

Financial Consequences of Lady Elliot's Death

While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method, moderation, and economy which had just kept Sir Walter within his income. With her died all such right-mindedness, and from that period he had constantly been exceeding it. He had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was imperiously called on to do, but blameless as he was, he was not only growing dreadfully in debt but was hearing of it so often that it became vain to attempt concealing it longer. The Kellynch property was good, but not equal to Sir Walter's apprehension of the state required in its possessor. The marriage thus established a pattern of prudent management under Lady Elliot's influence that collapsed entirely after her death, leading directly to the family's financial distress and eventual removal to Bath.