Hon. John Charles WALLOP 3rd Earl of Portsmouth

  General Notes:

NOTEWORTHY: Was Viscount Lymington until 1797;
Upon his father's death, he became the 3rd Earl of Portsmouth in 1797

MENTAL ILLNESS: The Earl was known from an early age to have an unsound mind. While he had periods in which he appeared sane, he often engaged in a variety of bizarre and sadistic behavior. He whipped his servants, beat and bled his horses, and slaughtered cattle, shouting, with an ax. The Earl showed a remarkable mania for funerals. He attended them frequently, insisting on tolling the bells at Hurstbourne for funerals there, and sometimes flogged the ringers with the bellrope afterwards.
His first wife, the Hon. Grace Norton, helped to moderate the Earl's behavior until her death in 1813. One of the trustees of his estate, John Hanson, immediately arranged to have the Earl married to his daughter Mary Anne without informing the other trustees or the Earl's relatives. The Earl's brother, Newton, tried unsuccessfully to then have the Earl declared insane in order to annul the marriage.
The Earl's second wife, Countess Mary Anne Hanson, had an affair with William Alder, who fathered three children by her. They became so bold as to have intercourse in the same bed with the Earl. In 1823, when it was discovered that the Countess Hanson and her lover William Alder had beaten the Earl, spat on him, and mistreated him, the Earl's nephew, Henry Wallop Fellowes, successfully petitioned to have the Earl declared insane since 1809. Consequently, the marriage between the Earl and Countess Hanson was annulled and her three children were declared bastards. A judgment of £40,000 was issued against her, and she fled abroad.

DEATH: The Earl died in 1853 at the age of 85 without leaving issue.

  Research Notes:

-- The Peerage, by Darryl Lundy (www.thepeerage.com/p47479.htm#i474781)
-- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wallop,_3rd_Earl_of_Portsmouth)