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alone, but rather by ‘love and £80,000’.
    Indeed, pecuniary issues more than emotional desires played the largest role in dictating when a couple might marry. While fashion now demanded that love or at least an abiding mutual affection should form the foundation of a marital union, a marriage contract which committed to writing the financial expectations and arrangements of both parties always lay at the core. Negotiations between the solicitors and trustees representing Sir Richard and Seymour’s respective interests began shortly after the confirmation of their engagement and took several months to complete. As a woman and a minor, Seymour’s concerns were represented by her uncles, Francis and Edward Colman who held legal responsibility for her share of her father’s estate and for the decisions made on her behalf. By August it had been agreed that Seymour would deliver to her husband on their wedding day ‘for his sole use and benefit’ a parcel of property and ready cash. From a total of £52,000,
£19,645 11s. 6d. was to be invested in the purchase of lands adjacent to the existing Appuldurcombe estate, a gesture which would expand Sir Richard’s holdings and therefore his political influence. At Worsley’s insistence, a further £4,789 15s. would be put towards the purchase of an appropriate London town house for the couple. The bitterness of his father’s disgrace still lingered in his thoughts. He had learned from Sir Thomas’s mistake that an impressive house in town was essential to a gentleman’s self-respect. Accordingly, before their wedding the deeds of sale were signed for a recently built property on Stratford Place, a short street off the western end of Oxford Road, near enough to Mayfair to be considered within the pale of fashion.
    As the legalities of the impending nuptials were being addressed by the men, Lady Fleming was preparing Seymour for her passage into matrimony and motherhood; that state which was regarded as a woman’s raison d’être . From her ample marriage portion, £3,000 was deducted for her trousseau, the collection of clothing, linens and ornaments necessary for equipping a young woman for married life. For ‘ladies of quality’ this not only included night clothing and ‘child bed linen’ but outfits suitable for public events, ball gowns, sporting attire for riding, and country wear made of sturdy textiles. In the months prior to the wedding, Mr Lascelles’s Portman Street house in the capital would have been a scene of scurrying activity as dressmakers and milliners, tradesmen and servants came and went from below stairs ferrying wrapped parcels and bolts of muslin and satin. Lady Fleming would have led her daughter proudly to the shops along Pall Mall and in Piccadilly to purchase gloves, lace, caps and ribbons. In the course of their errands, her mother would not have neglected to trail her before the windows of jewellers and goldsmiths.
    Part of Seymour’s trousseau was an assortment of twinkling necklaces, earrings and brooches, hair slides, petite watches and dainty bracelets which in her new identity as a married woman would hang from her as a silent proclamation of her wealth. The filling of her jewellery box was a task for her family and her husband. In order to facilitate this and as a token of faith in their union, Seymour was presented with the money remaining from the purchase of her trousseau ‘to dispense with at her discretion’. On the eve of her wedding she lovingly awarded this sum to Sir Richard ‘for the purchase of jewels on her behalf’. Worsley, who would eventually earn a reputation for spendthrift indulgence, increased the gift substantially with
a contribution of his own. It is estimated that £7,000 in total was poured into the hands of gem dealers and goldsmiths, who strung and fastened and moulded the portable fortune that would adorn Seymour’s earlobes and décolletage.
    In the midst of this pre-nuptial excitement there was