Maurice George Bisset

James Gillray cartoon - "Sir Richard Worse-than-sly, exposing his wife's bottom; - o fye!". Bisset sits atop Worsley's shoulders and looking through a window into a bath-house at his naked wife remarks to him "Charming view of the Back Settlements Sir Richard". Lady Worseley's maid says to her mistress "Good lack (? sic) my Lady, the Capt'n will see all for nothing". On a parchment on the ground by Worseley's hat is written "My yoke is easy and my burden light" (Matthew 11:28–30). It was alleged in the court case that Worsley had displayed his wife naked to Bisset at the bath house in Maidstone[1]

Maurice George Bisset (1757–1821) of Knighton Gorges on the Isle of Wight, and of Lessendrum in Aberdeen, Scotland, 18th Scottish feudal baron of Lessendrum,[2] is famous for his involvement in the scandalous court case involving his mistress Seymour Dorothy Fleming (Lady Worseley) and her husband Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet, of Appuldurcombe House, Isle of Wight. The case was the result of his affair with Lady Worseley, by whom he had a daughter, Jane Seymour Worsley, of whom Richard claimed paternity in order to avoid scandal.

  1. ^ "The Life of Lady Worsley". Harewood House. 14 August 2015
  2. ^ Temple, William, The Thanage of Fermartyn, including the district commonly called Formartine, its proprietors, with genealogical deductions; its parishes, ministers, Churches, churchyards, antiquities, [etc.], Aberdeen, 1894 [1] summary pedigrees [2]