(Lady Wellesley)
From portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence
The event was a welcome one to William Patterson, who was at the time the wealthiest merchant in America. The wedding ceremony was performed in the private chapel of the Carroll family by Archbishop Carroll, who four years previously had similarly united Elizabeth Patterson and Jerome Bonaparte. In April, 1811, Robert and his wife, accompanied by her sisters Elizabeth and Louisa, went abroad, sailing from Baltimore on one of his father's ships and landing in Lisbon in the latter part of May. Robert Patterson had already travelled and lived much in Europe. To the Catons it was the first of a series of numerous trans-Atlantic trips.
While in Spain they met the Duke of Wellington, who was there at that time conducting the peninsular war, and Colonel Sir Felton Bathurst Hervey, who had been his aide-de-camp at Waterloo and whom Louisa Caton afterwards married. Charles Carroll, writing of Hervey after his marriage to Louisa, which occurred on the 1st of March, 1817, said, "All who know him love him." He was a gallant soldier and had lost his right arm at Vittoria.
The Duke of Wellington's ardent admiration for Mrs. Patterson drew him within the wake of the little American party as they progressed in their travels over Europe, lending them the prestige which opened for them the most exclusive houses in England. Apparent as his admiration was, not the least breath of scandal ever touched the name of this beautiful young matron. The Prince Regent, to whom Wellington presented her, spoke later to Richard Rush, the American Minister, of her unusual beauty. When she came, later in life, into contact with William IV. as first lady in waiting at Windsor, she won the sincere admiration of that sovereign on account of the high standard of morality which she maintained.
After the marriage of Hervey and Louisa Caton they were entertained by the Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle. The Duchess of Rutland gave them a ball, and bestowed upon the sisters on that memorable night the title under which they became famous,—the "American Graces." Hervey's death occurred in 1819, and Robert Patterson's at Baltimore in the fall of 1822. The widow of the latter shortly afterwards rejoined her sisters in England, where they were again entertained at Wellington's country-seat. While there they met for the first time his eldest brother, Richard Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, and like himself a soldier and a statesman. In 1797 he had been made Governor of India by George III., who, in return for the services he rendered there, had created him Marquis of Wellesley. At the time he met Mrs. Patterson and her sisters he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Two years later, when Mrs. Patterson and Elizabeth Caton visited Dublin, he entertained them royally, bestowing the most devoted attentions upon the former, to whom he subsequently offered himself.
After a brief engagement they were married at the viceregal castle, the ceremony being performed twice, to accord with the religious convictions of both the bride and the groom, the Archbishop of Dublin marrying them according to the rites of the Catholic Church, and the Lord Primate of Ireland according to those of the Church of England.
Unusual magnificence marked the festivities which followed this event, as well as those of the remainder of Lord Mornington's reign as viceroy.
On July 4, 1827, Bishop England, of South Carolina, gave the following toast to Charles Carroll, who was the last survivor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence: "To Charles Carroll of Carrollton: in the land from which his grandfather fled in terror his granddaughter now reigns a queen."
It was rather a strange coincidence that two daughters of the little American town of Baltimore, Elizabeth Patterson and Mary Caton, neighbors and contemporaries, should have married brothers of two of the most formidable characters in modern history,—Napoleon Bonaparte, the self-styled conqueror of the world, and the Duke of Wellington, his conqueror.