These proved fully equal to the occasion. Somewhat small in Mary Anne Clarke. stature, nature had nevertheless endowed her with a remarkably well turned figure, well shaped arms, comely features, a singularly clear complexion, and blue eyes full of light and vivacity. Dressing with considerable taste and elegance—utterly shameless—without principle or character, with nothing to lose—everything to gain, the woman was eminently fitted to succeed in the peculiar path in life she had elected to follow. Throwing her line with all the dexterity of an accomplished angler, she succeeded almost at her first cast in hooking a very large fish indeed—his Royal Highness Frederick Duke of York, Commander-in-chief, Prince-bishop of Osnaburgh, who had attained at this time the respectable age of forty-six years.
Mary Anne proved, as might have been expected, an expensive plaything. In the short space of two years, the duke seems to have handed his mistress upwards of £5,000, besides expending on her in payments to tradesmen for wine, furniture, and other “paraphernalia,” at least £16,000 or £17,000 more. In time, as is not unusual in matters of this kind, the duke seems to have grown tired of his enslaver, and endeavoured to pension her off with an annuity of £400 a year; but with the niggardliness which was so distinguishing a characteristic of his family, payment was not only withheld, but when the woman applied for payment, the duke was mean and foolish enough to threaten her with prison and the pillory. Mrs. Clarke, a woman of genius and resource, instead of being frightened, straightway betook herself to Messrs. Wilberforce and Whitbread, the supporters of the impeachment of Lord Melville, and confessed to them certain irregularities of which she had been guilty.
Into the unsavoury revelations of Mary Anne Clarke, her traffic in the sale of military commissions, and still worse, in a system of ecclesiastical patronage in which she alleged his Royal Highness connived, we need not enter. They are set out as far as is necessary in Mr. Grego’s book, and also in Mr. Wright’s treatise on James Gillray and his works. Suffice it to say, that all these miserable exposures would have been saved, had the duke, instead of seeking to save his pocket, paid the annuity to which the woman was entitled. If by resigning, he thought to silence his unscrupulous persecutor, he was quickly and unpleasantly undeceived. The clever, unscrupulous woman had reserved her trump-card to the last. All this time she had been engaged in preparing her “Memoirs,” comprising not only the history of her transactions with his Royal Highness, but a series of his letters, containing, it is said, anecdotes of illustrious personages of the most curious and recherché description. The immediate publication of these “Memoirs” having been announced to his Royal Highness, the duke was driven in spite of himself to effect an arrangement. For a payment of £7,000 down, an annuity of £400 for her own life, and one of £200 for each of her daughters, the printed “Memoirs” (eighteen thousand copies) were destroyed, the publication suppressed, and above all the terrible private correspondence duly surrendered.
The mover of the committee of inquiry was one Wardle, colonel of a militia regiment, who for a very brief space of time was permitted to figure as a patriot; that he was a mere instrument in the hands of other persons seems now abundantly clear. No sooner had Mary Anne Clarke landed his Royal Highness, than she fixed her hook in the jaws of the luckless colonel, who, tool as he was, proved to be by no means a sharp one. It is obvious a woman of Mrs. Clarke’s character would be the last person to open her lips, unless it was made clear to her that it would be worth her while to do so. Her go-between in the transaction was a certain “Major” Dodd. Wardle gave Mrs. Clarke £100 for present necessities, and by way of earnest of more liberal promises which seem afterwards to have been repudiated by his employers. Through Major Dodd, the clever, unprincipled woman secured a house in Westbourne Place, which she furnished in a style of comfortable elegance, and succeeded by her blandishments in swindling Wardle into becoming security for her furniture. The inevitable result of course followed. On the 3rd July, 1809, Wright, the upholsterer, brought his action against Wardle and recovered £1,400 damages,[17] besides costs, “for furniture sold to the defendant to the use of Mary Anne Clarke.” The colonel, like the commander-in-chief, thus found himself not only out-manœuvred by his clever and unscrupulous ex-ally, but reaped the obloquy attendant on exposure and ridicule, instead of the glorification which had at first greeted his patriotic exertions.
Mary Anne Clarke and the Duke of York, afforded (as might have been expected) plenty of employment to the caricaturists. The theme, however, is treated too grossly for description, a subject to be regretted, as most of the satires, containing as they do admirable portraits of the principal personages, are exceedingly clever. The subject suited an artist who delighted in delineating the immodest and full-blown beauties of Drury Lane; and accordingly, more than forty caricatures on the subject of “The Delicate Investigation,” as it was called, are due to the pencil of Thomas Rowlandson.
In order to show the character of this infamous woman, we must The end of Mary Anne Clarke. follow her progress a little farther than either Mr. Grego or Mr. Wright appear to have done. In February, 1814, she once more made a public appearance: this time in the Court of Queen’s Bench. She seems to have got the Right Hon. William Fitzgerald, Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, by some means or other into her clutches, in connection with the proceedings of 1809. By this time, however, she had descended so low, that exposure was threatened unless a sum of money was deposited under a stone. In her threats, she announced her intention of “submitting to the public in a very short time two or three volumes, which might be followed by others as opportunity should suit or circumstances require.” This threat, instead of extorting money, consigned Mary Anne to the custody of the marshal of the King’s Bench Prison for the space of nine calendar months, at the end of which period she was ordered to find securities to keep the peace for a space of three years. It might have gone harder with the brazen woman if the proceedings had taken any other form than that of an indictment for libel, and if she had not admitted her fault, and in some measure thrown herself upon the mercy of the court. The pages of history do not appear to be sullied with the intrusion of Mary Anne Clarke’s name after this period.
The year 1811 is marked by an event which claims special record in a work treating of English caricatures and caricaturists of the century. In that year, James Gillray executed the last of his famous etchings; and although mere existence was prolonged for nearly four years afterwards, till the 1st of June, 1815, he sank in 1811 into that hopeless and dreary state of mingled imbecility and delirium from which the intellect of this truly great and original genius was destined never to recover.
[9] “If it had not been for you English, I should have been Emperor of the East; but wherever there is water enough to float a ship, we are sure to find you in our way.”—Napoleon to Captain Maitland. See Maitland’s “Narrative of the Surrender of Bonaparte,” p. 99.