The Girl who Owned London

Mary Davies, uber-heiress

It may be that you are, as I am, doing your tax return.

So here is a story about how money doesn’t bring happiness.

It is the tale of Mary Davies, born in London in 1665, married at the age of twelve to a Cheshire landowner named Sir Thomas Grosvenor, who had bought her for £9000. He was the highest bidder in an auction that had been staged over the pa…