On 10-Feb-23 10:13 AM, taf wrote:
On Thursday, February 9, 2023 at 2:35:07 PM UTC-8, Peter Stewart wrote:
According to a legend in the family of Mabel Loomis Todd, who had a
double-adulterous affair with Emily Dickinson's brother Austin, her
paternal grandfather Nathan Loomis was a direct descendant of Richard
the Lionheart.
Does anyone know how this fanciful link was supposedly traced?
I had not seen this specific claim before. The Loomis family by the end of the 19th century had conjured for their immigrant ancestor a bogus gentry connection, thence royalty, but not specifically to Richard I. I have to think this was a secondary
embellishment, the specific king chosen for his heroic nature, independent of genealogy, to suit some type of narrative.
Ah, perhaps Mabel invented it herself in order to impress Amherst
society when she first arrived there.
She was an inveterate embellisher - although she never set eyes on Emily Dickinson until she saw her in an open coffin at her funeral, she
claimed an intimate friendship with her and became the first editor of
those gnomic ditties that somehow still have an embellished reputation
as "great" poetry.
Peter Stewart
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