Knole and the Sackvilles

by V. Sackville-West

The author of this obituary notice was at great pains to clear the young man of any charge of “unseasonable levity”:

It has been said [he observes] that the Duke, in his dying moments, made use of the expression “I am off.” He did so; but not, as has been very erroneously supposed, by way of heroic bravado, or in a temper of unseasonable levity; but simply to signify to his attendants, who, in pulling off his boots, had drawn him too forward on the mattress, and jogged one of the chairs out of its place, that he was slipping off, and wanted their aid to help him up into his former position. He was the last person in the world to be guilty of anything like levity upon any solemn occasion, much less in his dying moments. The fact was, when he used the expression “I am off” he had become very faint and weak, and was glad to save himself the trouble of further utterance....

Now suppose a stranger to the real character of this excellent youth to have heard no more of him than what he would be most likely to hear of one whose constitutional modesty concealed his virtues, namely, that he was very fond of cricket, that he hurt his eye with a tennis-ball, that he lost his life hunting, that his last words were “I am off”; would not a person possessed of this information, and no more, naturally conclude that the Duke was a young man of trivial mind, addicted to idle games and field sports, and apt to make light of serious things? How false a notion would such a person form of the late Duke of Dorset! As to the four circumstances above alluded to, if he was fond of cricket, it was in the evening generally that he played. When he hurt his eye [it was on the 7th of December] he had been at his books all the morning, and went between dinner and dusk to take one set at tennis. When he lost his life hunting, he had not hunted ten times the whole season. And what have been represented as his last words were not his last words; and, even if they were, they had no other meaning than “Pray prevent a helpless man from slipping down out of his place.” That he was not a mere sportsman, a mere idler, or a mere trifler, witness the wet eyes that streamed at every window in the streets of Dublin as his hearse was passing by; witness the train of carriages that composed his funeral procession; witness the throng of Nobility and Gentlemen that attended his remains to the sea-shore; witness the families he had visited in Ireland; witness the reception of his corpse in England; witness the amazing concourse of friends, tenantry, and neighbours, that came to hear the last rites performed, and to see him deposited in the tomb; witness the more endeared set of persons who still mean to hover round the vault where he is laid!

§ ii

It now became apparent how exceedingly wise had been the precautionary measures taken by the duchess in regard to her husband’s will. A distant cousin, the son of Lord George, succeeded to the title as fifth and last duke—this part of the succession was beyond the reach of her control—but under the terms of the will Knole became her property for life, and she received in addition, on the death of her son, an increase in her income of nine thousand a year. She must certainly have been one of the richest women in England. Lord Whitworth, meanwhile (till 1817), continued as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and as the originals of the following letters written to him by Sir Robert Peel, with enclosures in Peel’s handwriting, are at Knole, I think it not wholly irrelevant to print them here, with a few other notes, in view of their interest as being written immediately after the battle of Waterloo, and having, so far as I know, never before been published.

Irish Office.

June 22nd, 1815.

Private

Dear Lord Whitworth,

You will receive by this express the official accounts of the most desperate and most important action in which the British arms have ever been engaged. The Gazette details all the leading particulars—I have just been at the War and Foreign Offices to collect any further information that may be interesting to you. It is evident that the attack was in a great degree a surprise upon the Allies, Bonaparte collected his troops and advanced with much greater rapidity than could have been expected. It was supposed that it would have required three days to bring the British force into line for a general engagement—but the suddenness of the attack gave them a much shorter time for preparation. It is said that on the 16th the Prussians lost fourteen thousand men.