The Maid of Buttermere

by Melvyn Bragg

The story of an imposter and bigamist, who travels to the North where he marries "the maid of Buttermere", a young woman whose natural beauty inspired the dreams and confirmed the theories of a=early 19th century writers.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

478 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 1987

About the author

Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, FRSL, FRTS (born 6 October 1939) is an English author, broadcaster and media personality who, aside from his many literary endeavours, is perhaps most recognised for his work on The South Bank Show.

Bragg is a prolific novelist and writer of non-fiction, and has written a number of television and film screenplays. Some of his early television work was in collaboration with Ken Russell, for whom he wrote the biographical dramas The Debussy Film (1965) and Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1967), as well as Russell's film about Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers (1970). He is president of the National Academy of Writing. His 2008 novel, Remember Me is a largely autobiographical story.

He is also a Vice President of the Friends of the British Library, a charity set up to provide funding support to the British Library.

Reviews

[Sally Wragg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is based on the true story of Mary Robinson, 'The Maid of Buttermere', a shepherdess and the daughter of a local innkeeper, who in 1802, met and married the fraudster and bigamist, John Hatfield, presented to her as a 'Colonel Hope', the wealthy brother of an Earl. When his falsehood came to light, he was arrested and tried and later hung for his misdeeds. The case was of national interest and elicited much sympathy amongst the general population, not only for Mary Robinson, but more surprisingly, for John Hatfield too, who despite his criminal behaviour was also a very personable and charming man. He must have been really, to have got away with so much for so long.

It took me a while to get into this book but I'm glad I persevered and I was genuinely sorry at the end to discover the price Hatfield paid for his misdeeds. It's the tale of a true love affair, the couple genuinely did love each other and I couldn't help but wonder if only Mary Robinson had met John Hatfield before he fell into such bad ways, she could very possibly have been the saving of him.

[Ape · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished reading this last night and today we drove up to Buttermere and walked up one side of the lake (and back) - absolutely stunning and as we arrived early, it's out of season and we're still on semi covid restrictions, it wasn't too busy. But this has nothing to do with the book, and I am rambling.

I hadn't heard of this story before. It's fictionalised history, and at the time, about 1802 I think, it was big news up and down the country. The Maid of Buttermere was Mary Robinson, daughter to an innkeeper up in this remote fell, who is stunningly beautiful. And thanks to the Lakeland poets bleating about her, she has become a bit of an attraction, so a lot of tourists - for the Lakes were becoming popular even then - come to oggle her, and her father almost encourages it as it is good for business. Mary doesn't enjoy the attention even at this point.

Despite the title, this book is also about John Hatfield - real name- who for a great deal of this book goes by the name of Colonel Hope, who was a real person, but who he certainly wasn't. In short, the man is a con man, but not only that but so self assured and self absorbed that he never shows any remorse for any of his victims, in fact I don't think he even realises there is such a long list of victims. The world owes him, he's had it had, he's so popular now blah blah blah. Bizarre as well, although this is something that happens even now, that people suck up to him because he is believed to be titled and rich, people merrily give him credit and lend him money because he is rich - why is it ok for rich folk not to pay, whilst at the same time there was chronic poverty? In the background you see the beggars and deserted army wives for example, travelling on foot with their starving children, freezing to death up on Honister Pass, as indeed may have happened with Hatfield's second wife and children towards the end of the book - a fact that he shows no worry over. Because as well as being a con man, he is also a bigamist. When he arrives in the Lakes he is searching for a rich hieress, which he does find and woo and propose to, but on a trip to Buttermere he falls in love with Mary and the beauty of the place and decides he has found God and peace and the woman he was meant to be with. Messes the heiress about, marries Mary then when it looks like his game is up, runs off and leaves her. She's pregnant, a child is born who then dies before he turns one. It's awful. The newspapers are lapping up the story, Coleridge writing long articles about it all, so even in her grief, the tourists who have been reading about it all and happen to be there at the time turn up for Mary's little boy's funeral, as if it's a tourist attraction. But before we judge, I doubt we're any better these days. You just need to think of the papparazzi and the gossip magazines. And everybody loves an anti hero, and the country seems to be cheering for Hatfield. It beggars belief. And in early trending style, the ditched hieress tries to become chums with Mary and take her to London to get her away from it all - thank goodness Mary has enough sense not to go, for we see Amarylis, as she is called, thriving in the attention of her connection to the story. Had Mary been with her I'm sure she would have been paraded about the place like a freak show. I suppose that's the clever side of the book, it's not all black and white, there are no pantomine villains and angels, in fact most people including most of the British public have some behaviour they ought not to be so proud of in the story. But I still couldn't emphathise with Hatfield. First wife he takes to America with his three little girls, all of whom he deserts. The wife dies in destituion, no one knows what happened to those little girls. Does he care? No. Second wife - she funds him, gets him out of prison at Scarborough, and then turns up when he's finally arrested and supports him again. Decides to walk up to Carlisle with their little girls, never heard of again. May well have frozen to death going through the Lakes. Does he care? NO. Mary's child dies. Does he care? NO. He's too busy bleating on and navel gazing in his journals and letters that he writes in prison. And that's not even to start on all the people and businesses he ruins who give him credit and lend him money, people's faith in humanity he breaks... And at the end of the day he is tried for posing as someone he's not and posting letters as an MP (which he also wasn't - apparently MPs were entitled to send their post for free back then). Which somehow seem like trivial things on a human level compared to what else he did, but that's what they get him on and that's what they hang him on.

It is a very good story, well worth a read and for any tourist or person interested in the Lake District, it's all there, darting about from Keswick to Grasmere, to Buttermere, even Caldbeck gets a mention - that's the north Lakes. We had a day up there and Fellside which was a lovely wilderness.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Robinson, the eponymous Maid of Buttermere, was a real-life Lakeland beauty of her day, who attracted both local and national attention. She was not short of suitors, though she resisted all offers up until 1802 when, at the age of twenty-four, a visiting nobleman and member of Parliament, captures her heart.

Only he does so under false circumstances.

Alexander Augustus Hope initially cuts a decidedly unromantic figure, albeit a lusty one. The lakes and fells fail to stir his interest by themselves, beyond the fishing. A confidence trickster, he is there purely to dupe a wealthy tourist into marriage.

Then he meets Mary.

In the heartland of the Romantic Movement, made famous by figures such as Turner, Wordsworth and Coleridge, who plays an active hand in the story as a local journalist, Bragg expertly fictionalizes a tale he considers an 'important marker on the new drawn human map of Romaticism', one which could easily have degenerated into melodrama in lesser hands.

I have no idea how much of the character of Hope is taken from testimony and how much is Bragg's own invention. It's a sympathetic portrayal of a greedily aspiring yet conflicted man, driven to some degree by a superior schemer whom he owes some allegiance, the unscrupulous Newton, but essentially caught up in his own trap.

Hope, real name James Hatfield, despite his dishonest and exploitative behavior, appears to be genuinely pious, easing his guilt through the trick of objectifying himself outside of his own body in times of stress, staring on as if helpless and blameless.

Lakeland life is 'a life rooted in simplicity shielded by innocence', where easy pickings seem abundant to a man of Hatfield's charm and connivance. Yet even the holidaying gentry are seduced by his refinement and a few external riches.

I must have owned this novel for near a score of years before finally getting around to reading it. I thought that the author, Mervyn Bragg, merely presented the long-running television arts program The South Bank Show, or sat around mussing about with his extraordinary hair, which is something of a national enigma here in Britain.

Not so. He is also the author of many novels, a good one at that if this is any indication. A native of the Lake District himself, he even finds the courage here to take something of a pop at its famous son Coleridge, considering him hypocritical in damning Hatfield so severely, speculating that jealousy may have motivated his wrath.

A beautifully told romance set in a beautiful place.

[Vivienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating. little-known story from 1802. Although entitled The Maid of Buttermere, who back in the day was generally referred to as the Buttermere Beauty, the main protagonist of the novel was in fact her seducer. At times Part I was slow but I still enjoyed the plot and the details and snippets that Bragg included on Lakes history, geography, fauna, writers and 18th/early 19th Century politics. Part II was much more exciting and I particularly liked the way Bragg interwove the storyline with the historical evidence. This novel is a must-read for fans of the Lake District or fans of 19th Century crime. I would have scored it 4½ if Goodreads had allowed it!

[Joe Stamber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Melvyn Bragg obviously has a great command of and a great love for the English language. The Maid of Buttermere is written in his usual eloquent style that requires a little more effort on the reader's part than much of the fare I digest. Probably because of Bragg's great love he also has a tendency to meander off into realms that have only a vague relevance to the plot. However, some readers will find these wanderings a joy to digest, and as The Maid of Buttermere is such an entertaining tale told by a fascinating collection of characters many will find it a worthy read. A 3 star rating is therefore a bit mean, and I would give it 7/10 if possible.

[Shauna]

I got 40 pages into this one and abandoned it. Frankly it read like a third-rate Thomas Hardy novel but as I can see that it would appeal to lots of other readers I shan't rate it at all rather than mark it low just because I didn't like it.

[Nik Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Maid of Buttermere is Melvyn Bragg’s twelfth novel and was published in 1987; my copy is a fourth impression, 1988. It’s a fictional account about the historical figures of a shepherdess Mary Robinson, the Maid of the story, and her suitor, Colonel Hope.

Taking place in 1802, the tale is told in the measured language of the period, and the point of view is omniscient.

It is clear early on (even if you haven’t read the giveaway blurb) that the main male character is suspect. He recounts to himself and the empty Morecambe Bay sands his identity: ‘I am Alexander Augustus Hope, Colonel, Member of Parliament for Linlithgowshire and brother to the Earl of Hopetoun’ (p20). Interesting to me, he also states: ‘now Lieutenant Governor of Tynemouth’ (p21) which is just down the road from where I live. Though carrying himself as a gentleman and of high birth, he is not averse to talk with anyone on an equal footing. He meets a fish-woman on the shoreline and tells her, ‘If they bathed you in oils, Anne Tyson, and put you in silk gowns, you’d be as fine a lady as them all’ (p24). In short, he’s a sweet-tongued womaniser. Not long after this conversation, he is having sex al fresco with a local woman Sally, and they depart, he promising to see her on the morrow, but lying.

Hope has a confederate, Newton, who seems to have a peculiarly strong hold over Hope. Their joint intention is for Hope to find and marry a rich heiress and as soon as possible afterwards run off with the loot to America. Newton’s dark presence hovers even when he is absent, like the black dog of depression. It is hinted at that he has committed murder, but I must have missed the actual revelation. A list or real characters is listed at the back; Newton’s name does not appear there, so it is possible he is to all intents and purposes Hope’s conscience.

In Chapter Two we encounter Mary Robinson who is a beautiful shepherdess and helper for her father in the Fish Inn. She has been discovered by poets and artists and her fame has spread and she gained the sobriquets ‘Mary of Buttermere’, the ‘Maid of the Lakes’ and the ‘Beauty of Buttermere’. Yet she has managed to repel all suitors, while attracting customers to her father’s hostelry. A local lad, Richard Harrison, is too tongue-tied to be her suitor, but at their first meeting he realises ‘She was everything they said she was’ (p41).

While visiting the ancient upright stones of Castlerigg, Hope encounters a group comprising Colonel Moore, his wife and their ward, Miss Amaryllis D’Arcy. The young woman seems the ideal prospect for his purpose.

Mary is not short of friends, one of whom is Kitty, an old woman who lives in the wood, was ‘gypsy brown, the tan so shiny on the mild skin that it was like a fresh varnish. She sat in front of her turfed tepee like a re-located squaw – the mass of brown hair loosely braided and heaped on her head like a parcel carelessly tied with twine, her forget-me-not blue eyes looking at Mary only when she thought she was unobserved…’ (p97). Another friend is Alice, who married Tom, a boy who Mary had rejected.

Hope is referred to in several ways, among them ‘the man who called himself Hope’, John-Augustus, John, and Hope. This may imply that there is a touch of schizophrenia harbouring in the conman Colonel’s psyche. Indeed, Samuel Taylor Coleridge stated: ‘It is not by mere Thought, I can understand this man’ (p291).

Hope also makes the acquaintance of the attorney Mr Crump and his wife who constantly interrupts him, affording us a few humorous scenes: ‘ “We are in fact,” continued her husband, who took no offence at her interruptions, indeed, in these foreign circumstances, counted on them as if his sentences were much improved for being broken into…’ (p149).

Bragg’s descriptions naturally evoke the place, his own beloved Cumbria, as well as the period. ‘It was still damp, a little drizzle now and then, the fells purpling with misty mizzle, the greens of trees drenched greener, their green swan song before the winds and colds of autumn drained them yellow and blew them down’ (p252).

This is a true tragic and notorious story, fictionalised, and inevitably true love does not run smoothly: ‘The future had become impenetrable as any of the large darkening silent fells between which the coach rocked and waddled its way’ (p301).

Bragg has insinuated himself into all the characters – thanks to the POV he has employed – and given them depth and imbued them all with sympathetic traits and human flaws.

[Mark Ludmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melvyn Bragg retells the true story of John Hatfield who, under the fake name of Colonel Hope, bigamously married Mary Robinson, an inn-keeper’s daughter who was admired for her beauty by the Romantics, propelling her to celebrity. It focuses on Hatfield’s motivations, depicting him as a man who is charming and well-meaning but a habitual liar and fantasist. As in other novels such as The Hired Man, Bragg mixes fictional speculation with a more detailed documentary style that puts the story into a cultural and historical context, aiming to understand why it was such a cause célèbre at the start of the 19th century.

[Helen Birkbeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love anything about the Lakes and also historical romance, so this should have been great for me. It does have some lyrically beautiful descriptions of scenery and human love and some moving accounts of spiritual experience, but it seemed a bit overwritten and overlong.

Mary is almost too perfect but just human enough and she really deserves the reader's sympathy; the antihero a disquieting mix of attractive and repulsive.

There is a lot about radical politics and attitudes to religion in here too - but it is hard to tell how much were 'Hope's' thoughts and how much Melvyn Bragg's.

[Judith Greve · Rating 2 out of 5]

What begins as an interesting historical novel drags and drags in an endless story. In the second part, the novel seems abandoned and the story becomes a report of actual facts.
I love a historical novel, especially when it is based on a true story and I also like a slow book but this book is very boring.
Two stars because of the extensive research Bragg must have done.

[Paola Zamora Jojot · Rating 2 out of 5]

I personally didn't find the protagonist interesting, which made the book not as enjoyable to me as I couldn't connect with JH. The way the book was narrated was sometimes confusing. The interesting part of it was to read about how things were in the early 1800's.
It got a bit more interesting towards the last 100-150 pages.

[Steve Chilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bragg weaves an absorbing novel around the events of the late 18th century about a publican's daughter of renowned beauty that she became a tourist attraction. The main male character sets eyes on her and instantly drops his plan, in an advance stage of preparation, to marry a rich heiress, and bigamously weds the maid of Buttermere. The story details the exposure of the con-man who is later hanged for his crimes. A fascinating study of a schizophrenic character and a hopeless out of place female, which nicely gives a feel for the period too.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must read this again. It's several decades since I read it but I loved it. My favourite Melvyn Bragg novel.