Napoleon's British visitors and captives, 1801-1815

by John Goldworth Alger

Of the Earls, Aberdeen—Byron’s ‘travelled thane, Athenian Aberdeen’—was the future Prime Minister of 1852. His six weeks in Paris were said to have cost him £3000. Lady Bessborough had been at school at Versailles before the Revolution, and had been noticed by Marie Antoinette. Beverley, a son of the Duke of Northumberland, had been created a peer in 1790. He had distinguished himself by his courage during the riots of 1780, and we have already heard of his son. Cadogan had divorced his wife in 1796, so that she travelled by herself. Camelford had refused to illuminate for the peace, and his house had consequently been sacked. He pretended in 1801 to be an American named Rushworth, but was arrested, and after some days expelled. In March 1803 he again landed at Calais, but was discovered and apprehended, for he was said to have boasted in London that he would kill Bonaparte. He wrote, however, from the Temple prison an abject letter to Napoleon, pleading that his mother would die if she heard of his arrest. He also threw out of the window a letter to Lord Grenville, which the picker-up was requested to forward, but it was intercepted. He was sent to Boulogne and shipped to England.[56] Jackson was afraid of his committing suicide, so that he must have shown symptoms of the mental derangement which led in 1804 to a fatal duel with Captain Best. He was reputed to be the best shot in England. Carhampton had in 1796 been commander-in-chief in Ireland. It was reported that incensed at having, in company with other English, to wait three hours in an anteroom without chairs, before being received by Talleyrand, he went next day to the Tuileries in colonel’s uniform without epaulettes. Bonaparte asked him therefore whether he was a militia officer. ‘No,’ he proudly replied. ‘Then what is your rank in the army?’ ‘I was Commander-in-Chief when the French army under General Hoche endeavoured to land in Ireland.’[57] It was scarcely fair of Carhampton thus to retaliate on Napoleon for Talleyrand’s discourtesy.

Cavan had just returned from Egypt, where he had commanded a division under Abercromby. The Cholmondeleys had been in Paris in 1791, their son and heir being born there. We shall hear presently of their equipages. The Countess (afterwards Marchioness) Conyngham is notorious for her liaison with George IV. Egremont was long a prominent figure in London society, but is more deserving of notice as one of the earliest patrons of Turner the artist. Elgin, of marble fame, was on his way home from the Constantinople embassy. We shall have to speak hereafter of his wife and her paramour Ferguson. Fife, afterwards a distinguished general in the Peninsular War, wounded at Talavera and Cadiz, was great-uncle of the present Duke of Fife. Fitzwilliam had in 1794 been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, where his three months’ rule was looked back to with regret. Lady Granard, sister of the Earl of Moira, on her honeymoon in 1780 had seen Cardinal York, and had also witnessed a review by Frederic II. Guilford was the son of the Lord North who lost us our American colonies. He stayed seven months, and would have remained longer but for the rupture.

Lady Kenmare (Mary, daughter of Michael Aylmer) was known for her Sunday evening receptions in London, and for a romantic story of her husband’s attachment to her before his first wife’s death, or even before his first marriage. A Gerald Aylmer, who also visited Paris, was probably her kinsman. The Countess of Kingston, who must not be confused with the Duchess of Kingston, the notorious bigamist, was accompanied by two unmarried daughters, probably also by her other daughter, Lady Mount Cashell. One of these daughters had in 1798 been the occasion of a duel in which her brother shot his adversary. Lady Lanesborough, daughter of the Earl of Belvedere, had, as we shall see, found a second and plebeian husband. Lauderdale had witnessed and sympathised with the Revolution, Dr. (father of Sir John) Moore then accompanying him as physician. His Whig opinions had made him lose his seat as a Scottish representative peer in the House of Lords, and his anxiety for the maintenance of peace made Whitworth shut his door to him as one of ‘our rascally countrymen.’[58] His son, moreover, a youth of eighteen, styled himself ‘citizen’ Maitland.[59] Minto, the Gilbert Elliot who, ward of David Hume, was at school with Mirabeau, and was consequently sent over in 1790 to bribe him into keeping France neutral in our threatened quarrel with Spain over Nootka Sound, had been Governor of Corsica. He was one of the earliest visitors, was on his way home from the Vienna Embassy, and was destined to be Viceroy of India. Mount Edgecumbe was an amateur actor and musical composer. His wife,[60] with their young daughter Emma Sophia, afterwards Countess Brownlow and writer of Reminiscences of a Septuagenarian, had previously been to Spa, where she met the Duchess of Gordon, the Conynghams, the Bradfords, Charles and Lady Charlotte Greville, and Dudley and Lady Susan Ryder. She had a serious illness in Paris. Lord Oxford had a great admiration for Napoleon and also for Murat. His wife, who required change of climate, was very handsome, though not rivalling Madame Tallien. Pembroke was the father of Sidney Herbert, the statesman of our time, and in 1806 was Ambassador at Vienna. He stayed three months, and being an excellent observer and a patient listener, his account of Paris was eagerly sought for. Shaftesbury, uncle of the philanthropist of our day, took his wife, a daughter of Sir John Webb, and their daughter. Winchilsea was the father of the fanatical Orangeman who in 1829 fought a duel, on account of Catholic Emancipation, with Wellington, but happily without bloodshed. Viscount Falkland, less fortunate, was killed in a duel in 1809. Viscountess Maynard was the notorious Nancy Parsons whom Lord Maynard had married in 1766, in spite of her antecedents. She had been a widow since 1775, and had been the mistress of the late Duke of Bedford, who, by his will, continued his annuity to her of £2000. Lord Monck, who took over his wife and two daughters, was the grandfather of the Viceroy of Canada. He died shortly after his return, in June 1802. Viscount Strangford was afterwards Ambassador at Lisbon, Stockholm, Constantinople, and St. Petersburg, and translated Camoëns’ Lusiad. Moore, Rogers, and Croker were among his friends.

We now come to the lowest grade of the peerage. Barrington, leaving a wife behind, but taking a mistress with him, probably went, from what we afterwards hear, to escape his English creditors; but we shall find that he got into debt in France. Blayney has been already mentioned among prospective M.P.’s, for, being an Irish peer like Palmerston, he was eligible for the Lower House. Cahir, who crossed over as early as June 1801, was afterwards created Earl of Glengall; he remained till April 1802. Invitations to Madame Bonaparte’s receptions were commonly obtained through his wife’s good offices. Lady Carington was the wife of one of Pitt’s banker peers. There was a rumour that Pitt intended to marry her eldest daughter. It was her grandson who, in 1872, having horsewhipped Grenville Murray on the steps of the Reform Club on account of a scurrilous article on his family in Broad Arrow, was convicted of assault at Clerkenwell sessions, but was simply bound over to keep the peace. Murray shortly afterwards became an outlaw. Cloncurry in 1859 published his reminiscences. He was accompanied by his three sisters, of whom more anon. He dined with Napoleon, and made acquaintance with Kosciusko, Helen Williams, and Madame Récamier. He invited the two Emmets to dinner the day before Robert’s return to Ireland, from which he could not be dissuaded. Cloncurry in the winter of 1802 proceeded to Italy, where he presented a telescope to Cardinal York, who gave him one of his medals, and he returned home after the rupture by way of Germany.[61] Lady Crofton, widow of Sir Thomas Crofton, was a baroness in her own right. Her daughter Frances accompanied her. Grantham, who was on his way to Italy, in 1833 succeeded his aunt in the De Grey earldom. He was first Lord of the Admiralty in 1834–1835, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1841–1844, was a collector of sculptures, was President of the Institution of British Architects, and published Characteristics of the Duke of Wellington. He was uncle of the present Marquis of Ripon, ex-Viceroy of India. Holland, who had seen Paris in 1791, protested in 1815 against Napoleon’s captivity at St. Helena, and Lady Holland, the divorced wife of Sir Godfrey Webster, forwarded the prisoner books, in gratitude for which kindness Napoleon sent her an antique diamond presented to him by the Pope. Lady Holland’s receptions were afterwards famous. Hutchinson had succeeded Sir Ralph Abercromby in Egypt. On his brother’s death he became Earl of Donoughmore. In the autumn of 1789 he had applied at Paris for an escort to go and rejoin his family near Amiens, disturbances having broken out there, but was told that order had been restored. He was Lafayette’s aide-de-camp from 1789 to 1792. Northwick was an art connoisseur. Stawell was Surveyor of Customs for the Port of London.

Of the eldest sons or other successors of peers, Eardley deserves notice on account of the history of his family. Sampson Gideon, a Portuguese Jew, made a fortune in London, and as a reward for financial services obtained a baronetcy, not for himself, for a Jew was then deemed ineligible, but for his son, then at Eton, at the age of fifteen. That son, Sampson the second, was brought up a Christian by his English mother, and was nicknamed ‘Mr. Pitt’s Jew.’ In 1789 he was made an Irish peer as Lord Eardley, a title explained by his having married, in 1766, Maria, the daughter of Sir John Eardley Wilmot, Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas. He was elected first for Coventry and afterwards for Wallingford, but retired in 1802. He had two sons, Sampson and William; the former was the visitor to Paris, but both died before their father, with whom the peerage expired in 1824. His three daughters married Lord Say and Sele, Sir Culling Smith, M.P., and Colonel Childers. Childers, the well-known member of the Gladstone Cabinet, was doubly descended from Pitt’s Jew, for his father was an Eardley Childers, and his mother a Culling Smith. Colonel Molesworth was drowned with his wife on his way to the Cape in 1815.

The younger sons of peers comprised Arthur Annesley (son of Viscount Annesley), Lord William Bentinck, afterwards Viceroy of India (Duke of Portland), William Brodrick (Viscount Midleton), Lord John Campbell (Duke of Argyll), Lord George Cavendish (Duke of Devonshire), Robert Clifford (Lord Clifford), Colonel Robert Clive (Lord Clive), Edward Spencer Cowper (Earl Cowper), Keppel Craven (Lord Craven), Francis Cust (Earl Brownlow), Henry Dillon (Viscount Dillon), Lord Robert Stephen Fitzgerald (Duke of Leinster), Lord Archibald Hamilton (Duke of Hamilton), William Hill (Lord Berwick), John King (Lord King), George Knox (Lord Northland), Lord Frederic Montagu (Duke of Manchester), Augustus John Francis Moreton (Earl of Ducie), Arthur Paget (Lord Uxbridge), Henry Pierrepont (Viscount Newark), Lord Arthur Somerset (Duke of Beaufort), John Talbot (Baroness Talbot de Malahide), and John Trevor (Viscount Hampden). Charles James Fox, Edward Paget, General Fitzpatrick, Lord Robert Spencer, and Charles Wyndham, have been already mentioned as M.P.’s.

There were also several daughters of peers. Lady Elizabeth Foster, widow of John Thomas Foster, M.P., was daughter of the Earl of Bristol, and there were strange stories of her relations with the Duke of Devonshire. According to the generally accepted version[62] the Duchess, famous in election annals, was forced by her parents, at sixteen years of age, to marry the Duke, though she was in love with the Duke of Hamilton, who killed himself in despair. She refused, however, to allow him the rights of a husband, and Lady Elizabeth Foster, living harmoniously with them, had several children by the Duke, who were brought up under an assumed name. In 1789, however, the Duchess losing £100,000 at play at Spa, the Duke went over and paid her debts on condition of consummating the marriage. The result was the birth of a son and heir at Paris in January 1790. The Duchess died in 1806, and three years afterwards Lady Elizabeth agreed to marry the widower. Gainsborough painted her as Lady Foster in the picture mysteriously stolen in London in 1875 and recovered in America in 1900. She was now accompanied to Paris by her legitimate son, Augustus John Foster, who was just of age. In 1811 he was sent as Envoy to Washington, in 1814 to Copenhagen, and in 1824 to Turin. In 1831 he received a baronetcy. Lady Isabel Style, daughter of Lord Powerscourt, and widow since 1774 of Sir Charles Style, had been a prisoner in France in 1793, and now revisited France. Lady Anne Saltmarsh was daughter of the Earl of Fingall. Lady Hester Stanhope, daughter of Earl Stanhope, who was not yet her uncle Pitt’s housekeeper, was, to avoid a stepmother, travelling with the Egertons, probably Sir Peter Warburton Egerton.

There was also Lady Mary Whaley, née Lawless, the widow since 1800 of an Irish M.P., nicknamed Jerusalem Whaley, for, having said in joke that he was going to Jerusalem, he won a bet (of £15,000 it is said) that he would really go thither. At sixteen years of age this Thomas Whaley, inheriting £15,000 from his father, was sent to Paris with a ‘bear-leader’ to learn French. He there bought a town and country house, kept a pack of hounds, entertained company, and gambled, losing £14,000 at a sitting. He returned to Ireland, compounded with his creditors, and squandered the Jerusalem bet money. He revisited Paris in 1791, and witnessed the King’s return from Varennes. He became a cripple for life by jumping from a drawing-room window on to the roof of a passing hackney-coach, or, as we should now say, cab.[63] He gambled at Newmarket, Brighton, and London, and eventually settled in the Isle of Man, where he brought up an illegitimate family.[64] He married, in January 1800, Lady Mary Catherine Lawless, daughter of Lord Cloncurry, but died in the following November. His widow lived till 1831. She was accompanied by her sister, Lady Valentia Lawless, who afterwards married Sir Francis Burton, Lord Conyngham’s half-brother, and by Lady Charlotte, who became Lady Dunsany. There was likewise a Lady Giffard, probably Lady Charlotte Courtenay, daughter of the Earl of Devon, who in 1788 had married Thomas Giffard of Chillington, Staffordshire. Lady Charlotte Greville, née Charlotte Bentinck, daughter of the Duke of Portland, was there with her husband Charles Greville, father of the diarist. Miss Caroline Vernon, maid of honour to the Queen, was a daughter of Lord Vernon and died in 1815. Lady Catherine Beauclerk was daughter of the Duke of St Albans.

The baronets included, besides several already mentioned, William Call, John Chichester, Simon Clark, John Coghill, William Cooper, James Craufurd, Herbert Croft, Thomas Clavering, Michael Cromie, George Dallas, James De Bathe, Beaumont Dixie, N. Dukinfield, Alexander Grant, John Honywood, John Hope, John Ingilby, William James, Richard Jodrell, Thomas Lavie, John Morshead, George Prescott, George Shipley, Charles Talbot, Thomas Tancred, Grenville Temple, Henry Tichborne, Thomas Webb, Robert John Wilmot, and Charles Wolseley.

Some of these will be mentioned hereafter. At present we need speak only of Sir Charles Wolseley, who, like Sir Francis Burdett, boxed the political compass. He witnessed, and apparently took part in, the capture of the Bastille. In 1819 the Birmingham Radicals nominated him their so-called ‘legislatorial attorney,’ and in the following year he was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment for a seditious speech at Stockport. He ultimately gave up political life, embraced Catholicism in 1837, and died in 1846.