Talk:John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey

Bisexual?

I removed the following:

Hervey was bisexual. He found women attractive: besides to his marriage to Mary Lepell, he had an affair with Anne Vane, and possibly ones with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Princess Caroline. But there can also be no doubt that he found men attractive. He lived with Stephen Fox often during the decade after he followed him to Italy in 1728. He wrote passionate love letters to Francesco Algarotti, whom he first met in 1736. He may have had a sexual affair with Prince Frederick before their friendship dissolved.<ref>Reed Browning, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004</ref>

The prose is a bit un-encyclopedic ("He may have had..." & "But there can be also be no doubt..."). Also, claims about his sexuality should be well referenced - this one seems too tabloidy, to me. Can we back this up a bit better? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 08:08, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

This is what the source says about John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey. (Does the scholarship exclusion in copyright mean quoting it is OK here?)

"Lord Hervey was bisexual. It is necessary to state this point directly because changing senses of propriety over the years, combined with the bite of Pope's caricature, have obscured a proper understanding of the nature of his sexual orientation. There can be no doubt that he found women attractive. In addition to his marriage to Mary Lepell, he wooed and bedded Anne Vane and claimed (along with others) to be the father of the child she bore in 1733. He may have had an affair with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and perhaps one with Princess Caroline. But there can also be no doubt that he found men attractive. He followed Stephen Fox to Italy in 1728 and frequently lived with him over the next decade. He wrote passionate love letters to Francesco Algarotti, the multi-talented Italian intellectual whom he first met in 1736 and for whose affections his chief English rival was, of all people, Lady Mary. He may have had a sexual affair with Prince Frederick before their friendship dissolved.

While the laws of the eighteenth century prescribed harsh penalties for men who engaged in homosexual activities, high society generally preferred being amused to being outraged when the miscreant was one of their own. Hervey, moreover, was happy to play the role of amuser, sometimes striking feminine attitudes and happily conjoining them with feminine behaviours. He was undisguisedly, even proudly, androgynous. He thus was the frequent target of salacious humour. William Pulteney called him ‘Mr Fainlove … such a nice Composition of the two Sexes, that it is difficult to distinguish which is more praedominant’ (Norton, 149), while an anonymous tract styled him the ‘Lady of the Lords’ (ibid., 152). And, leaving Pope's contributions aside, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu delivered the most celebrated of the contemporary judgements when she wrote that humankind was divided into three sexes: men, women, and Herveys (Hervey, Some Materials, 1.xiv)."

The Dictionary of National Biography is about as good as source as one could wish, I'd have thought. I have reverted. My attempt at paraphrasing may be clunky. Please feel free to rewrite. Soane (talk) 22:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm actually still not happy with that - it really reads tabloidy. But whatev - if anyone wants to re-write to take out the "may have..." and "possibly...", that would be great. And/or better refs? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 01:31, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Wrong Richmond?

"He was a frequent visitor at the court of the prince and princess of Wales at Richmond" (redirecting to Richmond, North Yorkshire). Surely it should be Richmond, London, or more specifically Richmond Lodge, the prince and princess's country residence. --rossb (talk) 09:07, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

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