On one occasion, about three o’clock in the morning, the Duke of York, Colonel St. Leger, Tom Stepney, and others, came up St. James’s Street in very rollicking mood, and, reaching Brooks’s, knocked in vain for admission, everyone being asleep. They were determined, however, to get in, and, when the door was at length cautiously held open, rushed into the inner hall. They commenced the destruction of chairs, tables, and chandeliers, and kicked up such a horrible din as might have awakened the dead. Every male and female servant in the establishment now came running towards the hall from all quarters, in a state of semi-nudity, anxious to assist in protecting the house or to escape from the supposed housebreakers. During this riot there was no light, and the uproar made by the maid-servants, who in the confusion rushed into the arms of the intruders, and expected nothing short of immediate violence and murder, was most tremendous.
At length one of the waiters ran for a loaded blunderbuss, which, having been cocked, and poised on an angle of the banisters, he would have discharged amongst the intruders. From doing this, however, he was most providentially deterred by the housekeeper, who, with no other covering than her chemise and flannel petticoat, was fast approaching with a light, which no sooner flashed upon the faces of these midnight disturbers than she exclaimed: “For Heaven’s sake, Tom, don’t fire! It is only the Duke of York!” The terror of the servants having vanished by this timely address, the intruding party soon became more peaceable, and were sent home in sedan-chairs to their respective homes.
At that time many a challenge was given and accepted within the club walls. One evening Fox, in the course of conversation, spoke disparagingly of the gunpowder issued by the Government. Adams, who was in some measure responsible for the supply, considered it reflection, and sent Fox a challenge. Fox went out, and took his station, giving a full front. Adams said: “You must stand sideways.” Fox said: “Why, I am as thick one way as the other.” “Fire” was given. Adams fired, Fox did not; and when they said he must, he said: “I’ll be d——d if I do! I have no quarrel.” They then advanced to shake hands. Fox said: “Adams, you’d have killed me if it had not been Government powder.”
Dandy Raikes, though a member of Brooks’s, had never been known to enter the club, till one day in March 1827 he saw Lord Brougham go in, upon which he followed, and grossly insulted him during luncheon, with the result that a challenge became inevitable. Lord Brougham applied to General Ferguson, who had heard part at least of the insulting expressions, to convey a challenge for him to Raikes. This, however, the General peremptorily declined to do, upon the grounds of having been mixed up in so many similar affairs. Brougham eventually got General Sir Robert Wilson to deliver the challenge; but in the mean time he had been taken into custody, carried to Bow Street, and bound over to keep the peace. “This was owing to Jack the Painter, alias Spring Rice, who had been present at the row, and had immediately hastened to Bow Street to inform; his object, no doubt, being not to lose Brougham’s vote that night upon that most vital of all subjects, the Catholic question.”
The Hon. Frederick Byng, known as “the Poodle,” from his curly hair, was a very well-known member of Brooks’s. He was one of the hundred additional members selected in 1816 by the special committee, was a prominent figure in London society, and had had many interesting experiences. As a very small boy he had acted as a page of honour to Prince George of Wales at his ill-starred marriage with the Princess Caroline in 1795, and used to relate the curious incident of his being taken to Carlton House to be looked at by the Prince before appointment. He was in Paris in December 1815, and was present at the execution of Marshal Ney.
As an old man, the Poodle was very autocratic in his ways, and something of a bully. He once severely reprimanded a younger member for lighting his cigar beneath the balcony outside the club, which no longer exists. On one occasion Mr. Byng was much disturbed to find seated before the fire in the drawing-room a gentleman who, having pulled off his boots, had rung the bell and asked the waiter for slippers! It turned out that the perpetrator of this outrage was a new member, an M.P. for some manufacturing constituency, who, of strangely unconventional habits quite unknown to the committee, had been elected without anyone troubling or caring much about him, and who presumably would have been more at home in a commercial room than in the sacred precincts of the club.
Brooks’s is connected with an unsolved historical mystery, through one of its members—Mr. Benjamin Bathurst (elected in May 1808)—a diplomatist who disappeared in an unaccountable fashion, whilst on a mission from Vienna to England in 1809, and was never heard of again.
Mr. Bathurst had been sent to Vienna by his relative, Lord Bathurst, at that time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It is believed that the latter sent his kinsman to the Court of Vienna in order to induce Austria to go to war with Napoleon, a mission which was completely successful.
Mr. Bathurst on this account entertained a strong belief that the great Emperor bore him special enmity, and therefore, when the war was over, apprehending, it is said, danger on the road, he resolved to return to London by way of Berlin and North Germany. For this journey he assumed the name of Koch, whilst his private secretary acted as courier, under the name of Fisher.
About midday on November 25, 1809, the two travellers with a valet arrived at Perleberg, on the route from Berlin to Hamburg, halted at the post-house for refreshments, and ordered fresh horses for the journey to Lenzen, which was the next station. Near the post-house was an inn—the White Swan—to which Bathurst went and ordered an early dinner, the horses not to be put in until he had dined. The White Swan was not far from the gate of the town, through which the road to Hamburg lay, and outside of it was a poor suburb of cottages and artisans’ houses. After lunch Bathurst inquired who was in command of the soldiers quartered in the town; and having been directed to his address, he called upon Captain Klitzing, the officer named, and requested that he might be given a guard in the inn, saying that he was a traveller on his way to Hamburg, and that he had strong and well-grounded suspicions that his person was endangered. During this visit it is significant that he showed great signs of agitation and fear. Captain Klitzing, though he laughed at Mr. Bathurst’s apprehensions, nevertheless gave him a guard of a couple of soldiers.