Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors (59 page)

Two events, one in England and one in France, dominated Stuart’s private and secret work during the second half of his first term as ambassador at Paris. In January 1820, George III died, and the accession of the Prince Regent as George IV made his wife, Caroline, Queen of England; in February 1820, the Duc de Berri, second in line of succession to the French throne, was assassinated, and public reaction brought the ultra-royalists to power. Stuart also had to contend with Castlereagh’s death in 1822, when George Canning became Foreign Secretary again. Neither George IV nor Canning was well known or trusted by the sovereigns and statesmen of Europe.

The Prince of Wales’ marriage to Caroline of Brunswick had been a disaster from the first, and the Princess had been living a peripatetic existence in Europe for several years. Now that they were king and queen, George wanted to divorce her, but his ministers were anxious to avoid a divorce—as much mud would stick to him as to her, and the Monarchy would suffer. Sir Charles was drawn into the affair officially as one of the King’s ministers abroad, and unofficially as a private investigator.

When Caroline returned to England and proved to be more popular than the king, Stuart worked to bring to light Caroline’s sexual relationship with her servant, Pergami, but he failed. He had several agents working on the case, and there was no doubt that Pergami had lived with the lady, but they found no evidence that she had provided him with more than board and lodging. The trial duly took place, but it had an inconclusive ending. The bill was withdrawn; Caroline was never given the recognition that she craved, and she died less than a year later.

Charles was created Count of Machico in 1825 and Marquess of Angra in Brazil in 1825.

In 1825, the Portuguese King John VI named Stuart his plenipotentiary with powers to negotiate and sign with Brazil a Treaty on the recognition of that country’s independence. Invested with those powers, Stuart signed the treaty recognizing Brazilian independence on 29 August 1825, and on 15 November of the same year the Portuguese King ratified the treaty.

In January 1828 he was once again appointed Ambassador to France and was raised to the peerage as Baron Stuart de Rothesay of the Isle of Bute at the same time. He continued as Ambassador to France until 1831. In 1841 he was made Ambassador to Russia, a post he held until 1844.

Lord Stuart de Rothesay married Lady Elizabeth Margaret, daughter of Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke, on 6 February 1816. They had two daughters: the Hon. Charlotte Stuart (1817-1861), wife of Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning; and the Hon. Louisa Anne Stuart (1818-1891), wife of Henry Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford.

Between 1831 and 1835 Lord Stuart de Rothesay constructed Highcliffe Castle at Highcliffe, Dorset.

With his wife at his side, de Rothesay died there, most likely from cerebro-vascular disease in November 1845, aged 66, when the barony became extinct. Lady Stuart de Rothesay remained a widow until her death in June 1867.

Source

Franklin, Robert.
Private & Secret: The Clandestine Activities of a Nineteenth-Century Diplomat.
Book Guild, 2005.

11 May 1812: The Death of a Statesman

by M.M. Bennetts

I
t had been a hellish kind of a day already. And it was only gone five in the afternoon.

First on the agenda had been the bruising debate over the Conduct of the War in the Peninsula, with the Whigs and Radicals joining forces like some verbal artillery unit.

And in less than an hour, there would be yet another stormy session in the Royal Chapel of St. Stephen, where the House of Commons met—this time over the repeal of the Orders in Council, which the Government had announced they intended to do on 29 April. That at least ought to please the pro-American radical factions on the opposition benches. And one trusted it would stop this silly to and fro-ing with the Americans over impressment. Because what England did not want was a war with the Americans. Not at this time. Not when they were utterly dependent on wheat and flour from New England to feed Wellington’s troops in the Peninsula.

But the debate finished, Brougham having finally closed his gob for the moment, and MPs were pouring out through the lobby doors and into the stone hallway...many of them on their way to the necessary chamber, no doubt. It was the usual crowd. Lord Osborne, General Gascoyne, Smith, the MP for Norwich...and emerging from a side door which stood adjacent to a stone staircase, known chiefly for its worn treads, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Spencer Perceval, deep in conversation with Lord Osborne.

It was just a normal Monday afternoon. The afternoon of 11 May 1812.

John Bellingham had been a merchant and, with his wife, had travelled to Russia. There, his business had failed and he, owing many roubles, had been placed under house arrest. He’d finally been freed and the debt forgiven on the understanding that he would leave Russia.

Upon his return to England, he’d taken to writing letters to various Government officials accusing the Russian envoy of ruining his business and demanding restitution—which letters had eventually all been passed to the Treasury to be handled by the Chancellor. But over a period of three years, the Chancellor had given him no joy—despite the hundreds of letters and petitions he’d written.

Angry and resentful over his ill-treatment, for the past several months, he’d taken to sitting in the gallery of the House of Commons, assessing its weak points, learning to identify the various Honourable Members. He’d also sent threatening letters informing the Chancellor that as he’d failed to dispense justice, Bellingham felt at liberty to execute justice himself. But no one paid much heed—it’s doubtful his letters were even read. Most probably they were just added to the already overladen pile of his ceaseless correspondence.

Now, armed with a pair of pistols, at just gone five in the afternoon, as the members were streaming from the chamber, he had hidden himself in the shadow of the stone stairs, just behind the folding doors. And as the Prime Minister emerged into the lobby, Bellingham stepped forward, aimed for Perceval’s heart, and fired.

The shot reverberated through the closed stone corridor, deafening all.

The Prime Minister, his hand clutched to his breast, reeled backwards and fell, murmuring, “Murder!” (Or as other eyewitness accounts have it, “I am murdered!”)

Smith, with Osborne’s help, struggled to raise the fallen man. Someone cried,
“Oh my God! It’s the Prime Minister!”

Someone else called for a doctor.

Smith, Osborne, and a few others lifted him to carry him to the closest chamber, that of the Speaker’s Secretary, and there laid him on a sofa.

Back in the hallway, chaos had broken out. There were calls to seal off the doors, shouts that it was a conspiracy and a French conspiracy at that.

A black-coated doctor from Great-George-street arrived and was shown to the small room. He searched Perceval’s neck and wrists for any sign of a pulse, then said what they’d all been fearing for the past quarter of an hour:
“It is too late, gentlemen. I am sorry, he is dead.”

(The shot, fired at point-blank range, had passed through Perceval’s heart.)

In the hallway, the MPs were milling and congregating in a fury of concern, and there were loud cries of
“Shut the doors, let no one out!”
Then, as the reality of what they had witnessed dawned upon them all, there were exclamations of
“Where’s the murderer? Where’s the rascal that fired?”

From out the shadows of the stone staircase, John Bellingham, dressed in an overlarge and worn brown coat, stepped forward and loudly proclaimed,
“I am the unfortunate man!”

If it had been chaos before, now it became a scene from bedlam. Instantly, Bellingham was seized and searched—in his pockets another primed and loaded pistol, an opera-glass, and a number of papers and bundles of letters. The spent pistol was not found. Upon being questioned why he had done such a thing, he replied,
“Want of redress and denial of justice.”

To which there were calls for him to be hanged or taken out and shot. Clerks were racing through the corridors, locking doors—for if this was part of a conspiracy, who or what was next?

The Speaker of the House banged and banged with his gavel, desperate in his attempts to bring the House to order. But to no avail. Finally, fearing for Bellingham’s safety—for the honourable members were now a mob of angry, murderous men—he had no choice but to order that he be removed by the Sergeant of the House to the prison room, by means of a secret passage.

With many doubting that Bellingham had acted alone, and given the Napoleonic state’s record in dispossessing European countries of their legitimate rulers, an emergency Cabinet Council was called.

Over the fraught course of that evening, they arrived at a series of measures to prevent further disturbance and panic, and to flush out fellow-conspirators and/or French spies. Sharpshooters were installed atop government buildings and on the roof of 10 Downing Street. The mail was stopped and all foreign letters opened and scrutinised at the Foreign Letter Office. The Household Cavalry guarding the King and Queen at Windsor and the Prince Regent in London was trebled. The Thames River police were put on high alert and ordered to search vessels for possible conspirators. And the militia was called out to patrol the streets of the capital in force. It was as full-on as any modern government’s response to a terror attack.

Taken before the Magistrates that evening, Bellingham denied any personal enmity towards Perceval, expressing great sorrow for his death and insisting he had only taken away the life of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Despite, or perhaps because of, Bellingham’s obvious mental derangement, a verdict of “wilful murder” was returned by the Coroner. At last bound over for trial, at 1.00 a.m., Bellingham was escorted, manacled, from Westminster to Newgate Prison by a company of the Light Horse.

The next day, 12 May, the Foreign Secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, addressed the Commons on the proposal to award Perceval’s widow and children a handsome annuity in recognition of the great sacrifice he had made on behalf of his country. But as he paid tribute to his friend and colleague, Castlereagh broke down, sobbing, before the assembled MPs and had to be helped back to his seat—to strong sympathy from the House.

John Bellingham was tried for murder on 15 May at the Old Bailey before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, with the Duke of Clarence, the Marquis Wellesley, and almost all the aldermen of the City of London occupying the bench. The jury took fourteen minutes to return a guilty verdict.

The following Monday, the 18th, Bellingham was hanged before the Debtor’s Door of Newgate Prison.

Sir Spencer Perceval was buried in the family vault of St. Luke’s, Charlton on 16 May. A memorial to him was placed in Westminster Abbey in June 1812.

Spencer Perceval remains the only Prime Minister to ever have been assassinated in British history. Though that’s not the only reason he should be remembered. He had been a good man and a good Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, respected by his contemporaries to a remarkable degree. He had steered the country through a most volatile and dangerous period, both domestically and abroad.

Yet saddest of all, like his mentor, the great William Pitt, he did not live to see the fruition of his work to defeat Napoleon. Indeed, he didn’t even know that at the moment of his death, the tide was at last turning against the Napoleonic juggernaut.

His murder, although generally overlooked today, summoned up the same fears for national security as we have suffered in our generation. This is perhaps best seen in a letter written by his step-mother to Lord Castlereagh shortly afterwards:

What a catastrophe, my dearest Castlereagh, are you condemned to witness, and what privation has the country suffered in this tragedy of Mr Perceval’s murder. Never since the Duke of Buckingham has such a daring assassination been attempted in England; but what a difference in men; one justly an object of public jealousy and contempt; the other admirable in all his attributes and every day obtaining more confidence. Some deep plot must be at the bottom of this desperate act. I can never credit that a lunatic alone conceived and executed it. I now tremble for your life.... There is a conspiracy against everything good and great. I hope you do not despise caution in your own person.

Perceval’s assassination and the subsequent private and political turbulence form the cornerstone of my novel,
May 1812
. The above account, as well as that in the book, is drawn from several eye-witness accounts found in the newspapers and journals of the day.

London in the Early 19th Century

by M.M. Bennetts

W
e like to think of London in the early 19th century—at the time of Jane Austen or the Regency—as this almost magical place. One where the traffic-less streets and squares are lined with graciously proportioned brick or Bath stone mansions, inside which ladies clothed in beautiful muslins and gentlemen in cravats flirted discreetly while sipping their ratafia. Right? And it all ends happily in marriage.

Whereas dramas purporting to shew mid-18th century London offer a robust, even rambunctious, view of the city with all classes and trades rubbing coat-tails in a Hogarthian panorama, the early years of the 19th century are presented as one of an ordered, elegant, static society operating within this hermetically-sealed neo-classical environment of pristine paintwork and pilasters...with, if I may say so, nary a sniff of reality.

For the reality is quite, quite different.

In 1800, London was the greatest metropolis in Europe, with a population of 1.1 million souls. Great Britain itself had a population of some 11 million. So roughly one-tenth of the population lived within the city boundaries of London and Westminster.

And, like all cities during all periods of history, London in the early 19th century was a place of transition, never static. It was a city in flux, a product of the Tudor, Restoration, and Georgian building, development, and neglect, a rambling amalgamation of the centuries which was only starting to give way to the ideas of the new century—ideas of adequate housing for the poor, proper sewage and drainage, safety....

The London fog—which is not a product of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s imagination, but rather the effect of burning coal for domestic heating—was pervasive, even in summer, an acrid, dull grey blanket hanging perpetually over the city, obscuring the dome of St. Paul’s, even often making it impossible to see across the street.

Gas-lighting in the streets wasn’t really introduced until 1814 and thereafter. The roads and streets were rarely cobblestone, but rather clay poured onto grit which turned to a glaucous soup of sludge during heavy rain—and would have been covered in horse muck. (As in Dickens’ day, there would have been sweeps, who, for a small fee, stood ready to clean the way across the road for pedestrians.)

There were somewhere around 30,000 vehicles in London in 1813, including 1100 hackney coaches for hire and about 400 sedan chairs. Some 400 coaches departed London each day for destinations all over the country too—most of them from Charing Cross. So London was a place of perpetual comings and goings, of bustle and hub-bub.

And the noise of it—all the people and horses and carriages and drays, the industry, the docks and dockworkers—was immense, unimaginable even.
“A universal hubbub; a sort of uniform grinding and shaking, like that experienced in a great mill with fifty pairs of stones...”
is how one visitor to the West End described it.

Visitors to the city were often by struck by two things—the beauty and magnificence of the great monuments, such as St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, and the “tumult and blaze”, or in other words, the noise and smoke and fog. As in Shakespeare’s day, London could still be smelled and tasted on the wind from as far away as 50 miles.

And even that area we associate with Regency society, the West End, was in a state of flux—only half built or only recently completed, and there were building sites and builder’s rubbish everywhere. Building in the 18th and 19th centuries was a slow process even at the best of times—builders were often speculators who went bust before completion. And there were, of course, no power tools.

St. James’s Square, the ultimate address (Viscount Castlereagh and his wife lived at Number 11), was only completed in 1792, though it had been begun in 1736. Berkeley Square was built and completed in the mid-18th century, as was Chesterfield St. (home to Beau Brummell until 1814). Hay Hill was under construction from 1760 until 1812.

Boodles’ Club on St. James’s Street was only completed in 1765 and Brooks’ in 1778, with some building works unfinished until 1826. So much of St. James’s Street was still brand spanking new, though it was, from the outset, a male enclave with all of a gentleman’s requirements and desires catered for within just a few minutes’ walk in one direction or the other. Hatchard’s the bookseller was and is just around the corner on Piccadilly; Lock’s, the hatter, still has premises just a few steps down from White’s Club. And St. James’s Street itself runs directly into King Street, a not-new neighbourhood, well-known for its high-class brothels and gambling hells.

And here, let me say that in the 18th and early 19th centuries, London was the sex capital of Europe. There have been several reprints of the notorious Harris’s List—an address book of prostitutes in the capital. The artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, (founder of the Royal Academy) was known to have had at least one copy. Nor was he alone in this. The small book went into several printings (usually sold out within days)....

And just beyond the permeable boundaries of the West End enclave of the rich and aristocratic, rubbing shoulders with it, jostling it at every turning, the rest of London was not new, not pristine...quite the opposite.

It was Old London, slum after slum of the vilest, most notorious reputation—always well-earned. Or it was home to the industry which had made the city rich. A city of banking and mercantile interests that spanned the globe. Or it was dockland—for London was a great port as well as everything else.

The most notorious slum of Old London was the “Mint”, a ten-minute amble from London Bridge (present day Southwark)—a place of uninhabited buildings, unroofed and in ruins, many shored up by great beams propped up in the centre of the road, blackened timber houses, their upper floors leaning precariously over their foundations, or relics of once-fine mansions now falling down and surrounded by narrow courts and alleys—a place of unimaginable squalor where some 3000 families lived in cramped rooms where the sewage bubbled up through the floorboards—home to the most desperate of thieves, beggars, prostitutes, and outlaws.

Near Westminster Abbey was another notorious slum, the Almonry, which lay beside Tothill Fields—though many knew the area as “the Devil’s Acre”. Near St. Martin-in-the-Fields, at the west end of the Strand, was another warren of squalor. And beyond that, to the west, St. Giles, the most notorious of all, also called the Rookery or Little Dublin because of its predominately Irish population—conveniently located for those who followed thievery as a trade at the east end of Oxford St., which even 200 years ago was a mecca for shoppers. (There was a good reason for taking a tall, strapping footman to attend on one when one went to shop....)

The names of the streets perhaps evoke most effectively this London: Dark Entry, Cat’s Hole, Pillory Lane.... Beyond St. Giles lay Seven Dials and beyond that Clare Market—a maze of streets with an evil reputation into which wayfarers were said to vanish and from which they never emerged.

Beyond, to the east, lay Saffron Hill and Chick Lane—washed by the stinking River Fleet—a teeming thieves’ quarter with rooming houses where the freshly laundered (stolen) handkerchiefs would be suspended on poles across the narrow streets to ruffle and shimmer in the breeze.

And so it goes. Clerkenwell, which contained Jack Ketch’s Warren, leads on to Smithfield with its cattle market, Spitalfields, and another thieves’ quarter around Flower and Dean Street, and beyond, Petticoat Lane—the distribution centre for much of the city’s stolen goods.... And south of that, Whitechapel with its many slaughterhouses.

South of the river, around Lambeth were the suburbs of labourers—artisans, clerks, and tradesmen. Indeed tradesmen, merchants, warehousemen, and shopkeepers could be found living just about anywhere, for London was a teeming residential city, with many of its workers living “above the shop”, even in St. James’s.

And beyond? Beyond the city lay not countryside, but wasteland. Or something we don’t associate with European cites at all: shanty-towns.

Tomlin’s New Town, a vast spread of wooden hovels, had been growing up on what is modern-day Paddington for nearly forty years since the mid-18th century. Elsewhere, animal dealers lived in wagons and huts, surrounded by their dogs, rabbits, fowls, and birds. Over in Battle Bridge (what is now King’s Cross) there were “
mountains of cinder and filth
”, thousands of vast piles of horse dung, or the refuse of “waste-grains and hop-husks” dumped there by generations of London ale-brewers.

Amazing, isn’t it? And terrifying. And alarming and exciting. This then is the real London of the early 19th century, a roiling sea of humanity, all shouting, hawking, riding, running, buying, selling, banking, dealing, stealing, eating, laughing, praying, all caught up in the business of living in the new century, following all walks of life, from “St. Giles to St. James” as they used to phrase it.

Food for more than one novel, wouldn’t you say?