Knight, Phillipina (Deane), Lady
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- Knight, Phillipina (Deane), Lady
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(1726 - 99), yr. dau. of Anthony Deane of Harwich; m. by 1756 Adml. Sir Joseph Knight (d. 1775); d. Palermo.
1778 - 99 Rome (9 Mar. 1777 - 2 May 1785), Naples (5 May 1785 - May 1786) [France] Genoa (Mar. 1790 - 6 Apr. 1791), Parma (five days), Modena, Bologna, Florence (six days), Rome (30 Apr. 1791 - Feb. 1798), Naples (Feb. - Dec. 1798), Palermo (1 Jan. - d. 20 Jul. 1799)
After the death of her husband, 'a brave officer that served his country 52 years', Lady Knight was left without a pension and 'finding that she could not live in London with that propriety which she had at heart, made up her mind to go abroad, with the intention of remaining three years on the Continent'.1 With her nineteen-year-old daughter Cornelia, she set off to spend a year in France before arriving in Rome on 9 March 1777; Italy was to be their principal home for the next twenty-two years.
They were a distinctive couple, both oddly dressed, strait-laced and clever, rather resentful of their circumstances. 'I am a happy, happy mother, in having my daughter a faithful friend', wrote Lady Knight in 1790; 'we have always lived in the best company and not inelegantly, though with a severe economy in our table and by my daughter's being the milliner and I the mantua-maker, stay-maker and workwoman. We make dress but a small part of our expenses, and we really spend about a tenth part of what our country persons do, yet we can not sometimes help regretting the hard fate we have had'.2
In her letters to Mrs Drake (a sympathetic and more fortunate cousin), Lady Knight stressed her enforced frugality. 'I am sure few persons in the world have preserved independence upon so small a pittance, or are more clearly of pecuniary obligations' she wrote after fifteen years in Italy (Mar. 1793). In 1778, nine months after leaving Toulouse, they had spent just £;250, and Rome was 'the cheapest city in the world and the most beautiful' (29 Oct. 1778). She consistently quoted the rental for their various apartments. After first lodging by the Piazza di Spagna, she took rooms at £;36 a year (the entrance 'in the second-best street of Rome, and my drawing room looks upon the very best [the Corso]' (15 May 1778); in March 1779 they moved to Castel Gandolfo (six months for £;7.10s; 3 Mar. 1779); returning to Rome on 27 March 1780 they had apartments near the Barberini Palace at £;14.10 per year with £;35 for furniture (9 May 1780), and with the use of the Barberini and Villa Sciarra gardens (20 Jun. 1780); by October 1781 they were lodged in the centre of Rome, opposite the famous column of Antoninus, at about £;18 per year (21 Oct. 1781); in Genoa in 1790 they had 'a little habitation that I furnished' for £;11 a year (2 May 1790), and then had a house on a hill outside the city for £;5 (ibid.); their final accommodation in Rome was a suite of eight rooms on the Campo Carleo near the Corso at about £;12 a year; in London, Lady Knight observed, 'they would cost us at least two hundred per annum' (7 Jun. 1791).
But while Lady Knight advertised her economy, she was also at pains to assert her propriety and to demand respect from society. Cardinal de Bernis and the Prince of Palestrina were particularly kind to them and when the Prince let them use his palace at Palestrina she emphasised that this was 'much beyond that of Hampton Court' (20 Jun. 1782). In Naples, where they spent a year from May 1785, the Queen and Sir William and Lady Hamilton were 'very attentive', but in the end 'the hours were so late and the generality so dissipated' that they decided to move on, back to the south of France. When they came to Genoa in 1790 they were 'under the protection of persons of the first fashion' (2 May 1790); they were 'very generally known', and partook 'of most that goes forward, but I do not pursue gaieties daily and nightly as some of our acquaintance do' (29 Nov. 1790); 'books are very little read; the whole business of life is money-getting' (19 Mar. 1791).
Thomas Brand observed another side of her character when he met her in Genoa. He thought she had lived there long enough: 'she has found out every body's good and bad qualities & I believe in return they have found out hers and if once she quarrels with any of them it is all over'.3 The Knights left Genoa 'when the intrigues of the revolutionary government of France rendered this city an undesirable residence for English families'.4 In Rome in 1791 Mesdames Adelaide and Victoire, the exiled aunts of Louis XVI, were behaving 'with great prudence and civility to everybody, and have been particularly kind to us' (7 Sep. 1791); 'we generally make our visits [to them] once a week, except when we have either too many to make or illness prevents us' (Mar. 1793). At this time the Knights were receiving twice a week 'from eight or nine to twenty persons' but there being only conversation, guests were not always anxious to attend (ibid.). Her approval of the young Prince Augustus gave way to criticism after his ill-judged marriage: 'a tender heart combined with ignorance of the ways of the world has been his misfortune' (19 Apr. 1795), and an incident with Robert Fagan, one of the Prince's favoured artists, at a ball at Lady Plymouth's, led to an affront from the Prince, as it was construed, and the exclusion of the Knights from his circle (ibid.). Lady Knight, as Thomas Brand commented, was 'ever getting herself into scrapes & yet keeping her head above water. She is very violent on all political occasions. It is well her principles are so just & honorable or we should have work indeed'.5 Lady Webster once observed in the Capitoline in Rome 'an old witch, by Salvator Rosa, which might easily be mistaken for a portrait of Lady Knight'.6
'It's said that in this city eight thousand artists from different nations are constantly employed' wrote Lady Knight from Rome (15 May 1778), but her involvement with the fine arts was peripheral. The Knights collected in a fashion, picking up 'things, marbles, very cheap; but most that we have were gifts. The working of fine marbles is very dear, or I should be tempted to have many made up' (20 Jun. 1780). Thomas Jenkins, whose nephews acted as bankers for the Knights, was a friend and they stayed in his country house at Castel Gandolfo (18 Nov. 1780, 21 Oct. 1781). Lady Knight had known Angelica Kauffman in England and 'we have always been very intimate with her' (23 Aug. 1793); she painted Cornelia's portrait in Rome in 1793 (Manchester AG).
Cornelia meanwhile was reading, writing and drawing, Cardinal de Bernis particularly attending her needs (11 Jul. 1778). According to her mother she had made 550 drawings and paintings by May 1781, and 1800 drawings - 'some with the pen, but mostly coloured ones, the former from imagination, the latter from nature' - by May 1790. The same letter announced that Cornelia was learning Swedish as a tenth language. Thomas Brand at this time considered that Cornelia had 'grown thin & has alter'd in her person a great deal for the worse'.3 In 1792 Cornelia had published in London Flaminius, a view of the Military, Social and Political Life of the Romans, a didactic romance in the form of letters, which Brand considered would be 'as immortal as Livy, Tacitus, Horace, etc.'7 It was followed in 1793 by Dinarbus (a continuation of Johnson's Rasselas); Bodoni in Parma printed her lines celebrating Lord Cornwallis's victory over Tipoo Sahib [1793] and a sonnet on Cardinal de Bernis's death, On the Amphitheater of Vespasian at Rome [1794]. Cornelia corresponded with Bodoni between 1792 and 1795.8 In 1794 she presented Lord and Lady Bruce to the Duke and Duchess of Cesi (13 Nov. 1794). Her mother was very proud of her: 'It's a loss to her country that necessity obliges us to be removed from it ... Her learning is very profound, and at the same time very general ... but what avail her talents or services? Fifty-eight years her father was a great and good servant of the public, and his widow and orphan - ' (Mar. 1793).
Lady Knight's opinion of the Italians mellowed over the years. In 1778 she disdainfully wrote that they were 'I believe, a very worthless set of people, but very few worth knowing. The ladies dress most horribly, like strolling players, and have as many shining stones around them as the waxworks in Fleet Street' (15 May 1778). Nor did she discover Roman gravitas: 'Matters and follies that a peasant in England would be ashamed of are here the entertainments of the highest rank. I believe there are in Rome more revels than in any other city in the world. To its treasures ... all nations must bow, but it's from those who visit it only you can hope to meet with society or sense or knowledge. There is hardly such a thing as a native learned in either arts or sciences. As for friendship, they have not the occasion for such a word in their language, so it's useless' (29 Oct. 1778). But fifteen years later she was writing that the Italians were 'a very sensible, agreeable people', and Rome 'a cheap and friendly home; from the highest down to the lowest persons ... they are ready to show us esteeem and courtesy' (Mar. 1793).
By 1794 Lady Knight was not enjoying good health: 'I am afraid she cannot last very long. Her wonderful spirits carry her through everything', said Thomas Brand.9 But she and her daughter stayed on in Rome up to the French invasion in February 1798. They escaped, with some difficulty, to Naples and when the French threatened that city they were able to sail to Palermo (on the Alliance) at the same time as the King and Queen of Naples, arriving on 1 January 1799.(10) There Lady Knight died on 20 July 1799, having commended her daughter to the protection of Sir William and Lady Hamilton.(11) Cornelia finally arrived in England on 9 November 1800 with the Hamiltons and Lord Nelson.
1. Cornelia Knight, Autobiography, 1:22. 2. Knight Letters, 137 (2 May 1790); subsequent dates given in brackets. 3. Brand letters MSS E (13 Oct. 1790). 4. Knight (at n1), 1:98. 5. Brand letters MSS E (20 Feb. 1793). 6. Holland Jnl., 1:38. 7. Brand letters MSS E (12 Sep. 1791). 8. Bodoni cart., cass.42. 9. Brand letters MSS E (22 Mar. 1794). 10. Knight (at n1), 1:129, 133. 11. Ibid., 138.