Adele was engaged to
Lord Cairns, but broke off the engagement on the eve of their wedding "owing to the prospective bridegroom's extortionate demands for a settlement." After the Earl's death, in 1916, Adele was rumoured to be engaged to the
Duke of Connaught (a younger brother of King
Edward VII, who became widowed himself in March 1917).
Vegetarianism Adele became a
vegetarian in 1904 which she attributed to regaining her beauty. She was a member of the London Society of Vegetarians and embraced a unique form of exercise that involved balancing and lifting
pumpkins.
Death Adele lived as the Dowager Countess of Essex at her London home, 72 Brook Street,
Mayfair, where she died, aged 55, on 28 July 1922. Adele was found dead in the bath by her maid. She suffered from heart affection and it was suggested that whilst taking her bath she had a fatal seizure. A memorial service was held at
St Margaret's, Westminster among whom
Arthur Balfour and
Winston Churchill attended. She was cremated at
Golders Green Crematorium.
Legacy She was the model for
Hubert von Herkomer's portrait, 'Lady in White', and an 1892 portrait by
Edward Hughes. A portrait of Adele Capell by the English painter
Edward Robert Hughes hangs in the
Watford Museum. Another portrait, painted in 1906 by the American painter
John Singer Sargent and entitled
The Countess of Essex, currently hangs in The Museum of Fine Arts-Houston. It is privately owned, and on long-term loan to the museum. ==Gallery==