In his fascinating book Inheritance, Leo Hollis shines a light on a unique period in English history when, as he puts it, London went from a dilapidated backwater to the largest city in the world, all within the span of a single lifetime.
The life in question was that of heiress Mary Davies. It lasted from 1665 to 1730, a period of unprecedented commercial, political, scientific and physical development in England’s capital city.
Mary was only six months old when her father, Alexander, perished in the burning hot, plague-ridden summer of 1665. He had been among the early London property developers and so, as his only child, Mary was bequeathed a parcel of land – the Manor of Ebury.
This, in itself, was not exceptional. But what makes Mary noteworthy is where and when her inheritance was. The Manor may have been merely fields and marshy riverbanks when it passed to her, but by her sixth decade, the capital’s exponential growth had reached Ebury and marked it out as among the most valuable real estate in the world – the future Mayfair and Belgravia.
As the infant Mary grew, so did London and the value of her inheritance. At the age of seven, her family entered marriage negotiations on her behalf with a titled family. It came to nothing but the die was cast. Young Mary Davis had become a valuable commodity.
And it is the genius of Inheritance that Hollis has identified, in her unfolding story, a prism through which to view and understand many of the intertwining forces that drove London’s growth, while also highlighting the treatment of women in this time of great change.
Like most accounts of this period, his source material is patchy. Many years of Mary’s life are not well documented. But, in 1701, she became embroiled in a ‘cause célèbre’. A suitor claimed to have married her during a visit to Paris (and so, of course, inherited her property), with the marriage consummated in her hotel bedroom, both of which Mary denied. Add to that serious questions about her mental health, and the subsequent court battle was the talk of London for months, later to be mostly forgotten. But it left behind an invaluable archive for Hollis to explore.
The author, blessed with a forensic temperament and highly readable writing style, then manages seamlessly to interweave the potentially dry subjects of land law and arcane court structures with the very human story of Mary’s ordeals, without missing a beat.
On the final page of Inheritance, Hollis states that Mary’s story shines a light on the relationship between private property and politics, gender and economics, land and the city.
It’s a big claim, but one he is justified in making after writing this enjoyable and thought-provoking book.
Michael Ward is a journalist, academic and writer, and the author of the historical series, ‘The Thomas Tallant Mysteries’. The Wrecking Storm is his latest book.
