The Lady in the Madhouse

Loretta reports:

The re-release of "The Mad Earl's Bride," seems the right moment to look at madhouses.  (At left is Hogarth's view of Bedlam, from the series, The Rake's Progress.)

In 1728--100 years before the time of my story--Daniel Defoe had this to say:

… the vile practice now so much in vogue among the better sort as they are called, but the worst sort in fact; namely, the sending their wives to madhouses, at every whim or dislike, that they may be more secure and undisturbed in their debaucheries; which wicked custom is got to such a head, that the number of private madhouses in and about London are considerably increased within these few years.

This is the height of barbarity and injustice in a Christian country, it is a clandestine inquisition, nay worse.

…In my humble opinion, all private madhouses should be suppressed at once, and it should be no less than felony to confine any person under pretence of madness without due authority.
For the cure of those who are really lunatic, licensed madhouses should be constituted in convenient parts of the town, which houses should be subject to proper visitation and inspection, nor should any person be sent to a madhouse without due reason, inquiry, and authority.
…

A lady of known beauty, virtue, and fortune, nay more, of wisdom, not flashy wit, was, in the prime of her youth and beauty, and when her senses were perfectly sound, carried by her husband in his coach as to the opera; but the coachman had other instructions, and drove directly to a madhouse, where the poor innocent lady was no sooner introduced, under pretence of calling by the way to see some pictures he had a mind to buy, but the key was turned upon her, and she left a prisoner by her faithless husband, who while his injured wife was confined and used with the utmost barbarity, he, like a profligate wretch, ran through her fortune with strumpets, and then basely, under pretence of giving her liberty, extorted her to make over her jointure, which she had no sooner done but he laughed in her face, and left her to be as ill-used as ever. This he soon ran through, and (happily for the lady) died by the justice of heaven in a salivation his debauches had obliged him to undergo.

During her confinement, the villain of the madhouse frequently attempted her chastity; and

the more she repulsed him the worse he treated her, till at last he drove her mad in good earnest. Her distressed brother, who is fond of her to the last degree, now confines her in part of his own house, treating her with great tenderness, but has the mortification to be assured by the ablest physicians that his poor sister is irrecoverably distracted.

From Augusta Triumphans: or, the Way to Make London the Most Flourishing City in the Universe.  The entire work is well worth a read.

Though acts regulating the treatment of insane were passed through the 18th and 19th centuries, the above practice continued, unfortunately, well past the time of my story.  Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White is one of the more famous examples.  (The poster illustration is courtesy The Victorian Web, scanned image by Philip V. Allingham.)