The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford and Cromer Road / Sport and history on an East Anglian turnpike

by Charles G. Harper

Felbrigg, whose name seems to have been brought from Denmark by the early piratical settlers from that country, in fond remembrance of their own Felborg, lies on a slip road into Cromer, beside the main highway, and is worth notice, not merely on account of this heathy picturesqueness, like that of a sublimated Hampstead Heath, innocent of houses, Cockneys, and County Council notice-boards, but by reason of its ancient Hall and the Windhams who for centuries owned the property. The Windhams came originally from Wymondham in the fifteenth century, and at first spelled their name in precisely the same way as that of the town. They replaced the ancient knightly family of De Felbrigge, whose stately monuments in brass still remain on the pavements of the church. There is the brass to Simon de Felbrigge, 1351, and the particularly fine one to a Sir Simon, who died in 1443, and is represented here as a Knight of the Garter and Standard-Bearer to Richard II. The ancient home of the Felbrigges was rebuilt by Windhams in a mixed Jacobean and Dutch style, and is a stately residence deeply bowered in a densely wooded Park. The pierced parapet inscription, “Gloria Deo in Excelsis,” seen against the sky, is earnest of the piety of the Windhams of that time.

The Windhams—the real Windhams, for the later ones were merely Lukins, who assumed the name on inheriting the property—ended with William Windham, the statesman, who, having played an enlightened and patriotic part as Secretary for War under Pitt from 1794 to 1801, and as Secretary for War and the Colonies in Lord Grenville’s Administration of 1806, died in 1810. With him ended the high reputation of that family, and although romance of a kind speedily made the name better known all over England than ever it had been before, it was a romance that conferred notoriety rather than fame.

Felbrigg does not merely look romantic: every circumstance of latter-day romance attaches to that noble Hall, those green o’er-arching glades. It is true that the story is of an ignoble and sordid type, but what it lacks in sweetness and good savour it fully makes up for in the matter of human interest. It is the way of latter-day romance to be unsavoury, and the story of Felbrigg Hall and “Mad Windham,” the talk of England in the early sixties, and still vividly recollected in Norfolk, reeked with foulness beyond the common run of public washings of dirty linen.

FELBRIGG HALL.

It was a tale of family degeneracy, in which the honoured name of Windham should, strictly speaking, have had no part. When the famous statesman died, the historic property went to his nephew, William Howe Lukin, who assumed the name of Windham, and married Lady Sophia Hervey, sister of the Marquis of Bristol. In November, 1854, the self-styled William Howe “Windham” died, leaving a widow and an only son, William Frederick, at that time fourteen years of age, and already, at Eton and elsewhere, an ill-disposed and uncontrollable buffoon and vicious idiot. Among the guardians of this promising heir to the name and lands of the Windhams were his mother and his uncle, General Windham, whose actions and motives were so severely and unjustly criticised by the Radical press and the lower orders in course of the notorious “Windham Trial.”

William Frederick Windham would, in the ordinary course, have come of age and succeeded to his inheritance, without question, in 1861; but his conduct as a boy and as a growing man was so extraordinary and outrageous that it was reluctantly decided by General Windham and others to petition for a judicial inquiry into the state of mind of this heir, who, they claimed—and after-events fully supported that claim—could not be safely entrusted with the management of his own affairs.

The Commission “de Lunatico Inquirendo,” popularly known as the “Windham Trial,” granted to the petitioners, began on December 16th, 1861, and lasted thirty-four days. Extraordinary interest was taken in the proceedings, and even now the pamphlets printed and sold by thousands, containing the dreadful evidence taken in those thirty-four days, may be occasionally met with in the cottage homes of Norfolk.

According to the opening statement, the alleged lunatic would, on coming of age, have been entitled to Felbrigg Hall and rents of £3,100 per annum, subject to the deductions of an annuity of £1,500 for his mother and £350 for upkeep of property. In all, he would have enjoyed an income of about £1,300, to be increased by 1869 to between £4,000 and £5,000, on succession to the neighbouring Hanworth estates. The object of the petitioners seeking to have their ward adjudged incapable of managing his own affairs was not to deprive him of liberty, but merely to procure legal sanction of their proposal for themselves to be made guardians of the property during his lifetime, in the interests of the lunatic himself, who was not, and had never been, according to their contention, a sane and reasoning human being. To support that contention, they made, by the opening statement of counsel, and in the evidence of troops of witnesses, a long series of allegations, showing that he had exhibited simple imbecility in early childhood, and that with his physical growth his mental powers had continually decayed. The cold, dispassionate opening speech of counsel for the petitioners, recounting Windham’s idiotcies, still, even though the actors in that drama are now all dead, makes the reader shiver at its businesslike unfolding of a nature scarce removed from that of a beast. Sent to Eton, he was a buffoon there, and commonly known as “Mad Windham.” His indescribable habits led to his being early removed and placed under the care of a long succession of tutors, none of whom could make anything of him, and threw up the impossible task, or were relieved of it, one after another. Many testified in court that he was incapable of reasoning, addicted to low associates, filthy and profane language, and wanton and capricious cruelty to animals. He would gorge his food, feeding without the aid of knife and fork, and, eating until he was sick, would begin again, like a dog. This extraordinary conduct was not caused by drink, for, among all his failings, drunkenness was not one. His violent and capricious temper had led to extraordinary scenes. At an evening party he had rushed at a gentleman whom he had never before seen and to whom he had not spoken a word, and, shrieking like a wild Indian, had pinned him to the wall by his whiskers. He was exceptionally and consistently rude and offensive to ladies, and delighted to tear their clothes and make grimaces at them. He could not follow out any train of thought, and acted from one minute to another without reference to previous actions, becoming the laughing-stock of servants. He would throw money away in the streets, and laugh when saner people scrambled for it; would fondle a horse one moment and thrash it unmercifully the next. These actions, said counsel, could not be those of a person enjoying reasonable use of his faculties, but there was worse to come. It was only with reluctance General Windham was obliged to bring these painful affairs of his unhappy nephew into the light of publicity; but there was no other course, for his vile associates had persuaded him that all the efforts being made to prevent his moral, physical, and financial ruin were only part of a scheme by his uncle to deprive him of his liberty and property. That it was not so might be at once explained by the statement that, as a matter of fact, whichever way the inquiry resulted, or whatever happened to his nephew, in no case would General Windham be the heir.

Witnesses were then called who bore out the opening statement, and added a great deal more. Some told how Windham would at times pretend to be a fireman, and, dressing in character, go about in a devastating manner with an axe and chop down doors and smash windows. At other times the fancy took him to act the part of a railway guard. With uniform made for the character, he would frequent railway platforms, blow a whistle, and wave a flag. Once, performing these pranks, he nearly caused a railway disaster. At other times he would make off with passengers’ luggage. Altogether, it will be conceded, from the public, as well as from the family, point of view, he should have been put under restraint.