Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope

Stanhope, Lady Hester (1776–1839), was the niece of the younger Pitt, in whose house she gained a reputation as a brilliant political hostess. In 1814 she established herself in a remote ruined convent at Djoun in the Lebanon where she lived in great magnificence among a semi-oriental retinue; she gained some political power in Syria and the desert. In later years her debts accumulated, her eccentricity increased, and she claimed to be an inspired prophetess and mistress of occult sciences. She became a legendary figure, and was visited by many distinguished European travellers, including Lamartine and Kinglake.

Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope 1776-1839, English traveler. Leaving England in 1810, she traveled in the Levant, adopting Eastern male dress and a religion that was a composite of Christianity and Islam. She finally settled among the Druze of the Lebanon Mts. in an abandoned convent that she rebuilt and fortified. The indigenous population regarded her as a prophetess, as, in time, she came to regard herself; she incited them to resist an Egyptian invasion (1831) of Syria. European travelers, including A. M. L. de Lamartine and A. W. Kinglake, wrote accounts of their visits to her. Her personal physician, C. L. Meryon, recorded her life in Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope (3 vol., 1845) and in Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope (3 vol., 1846).