It wasn't just the matter of the lace.......

In Mrs Penelope Benwell's diaries are to be found these entries:

November 1804

"On Mrs Leigh Perrot of lace-stealing notoriety, having been detected lately in embezzling some gree house plants from a gardeners at Bath,Dr Harrington(1727-1816)-[a magistrate and Mayor of Bath-JW]of the place wrote the following lines:

Sub judice lis est
To love of plants who has the greatest claim,
Darwin the Bard or Perrot's wily Dame?
Decide the cuase, Judge Botany, we pray,
Let him the Laurel take and her the Bay."

Later in the year Penelope received information from her friend Mrs Rich about Mrs Leigh Perrot.Peneope sent it on to her step brother and the missive abvout Mrs L_P was carefully copied out by Penelope's niece, Anne Loveday:

"Miss Rich says that since Mrs Perrott's stealing teh plants everybody has dropped her acquiaentacne and she is universally shunned.It seems she was cheapenng plants at a gardeners,and wanting to buy a small one growing which he refused to sell at the price she proposed; on his back being turned a young lady in the gardeneer saw her stooping down to the border and appearing very busy with her hands which was to loosen it from the ground,for on rising she dropped her pocket handkerchief on the spot,and then stooped to pick up that and the plan t together and put both in her pocket.The young lady told the gardener, who taxed her with it.She positviely denied the charge, but he insisted on searching her pockets where it was found;she then burst into tears and intreated that it might not be put in the papers.The man resolved on prosecuting her, but this was put a stop to from the father of the young lady precipitately taking her from Bath to prevent her appearing ina court of justice as a witness against this infatuated woman."

Sarah Markham in the 1991 JAS report says that all that can be safely said of this tale is that a number of peopel in Bath did not give Mrs L_P any benefit of the doubt.;-)