Chapter Seventeen: Lord Staines fights a duel

 (Charles Huntingdon is in London, where the political situation is in the balance) 

   The winter of 1761-2 was a very cold one. The Thames was frozen solid for many days, and people skated on it, or even set up stalls on the ice. But I spent most of my days, and many nights too, with Elizabeth, who could seldom be prevailed upon to venture out of doors in such weather. She continued to be a most insatiable lover; often so exhausting me that I afterwards fell asleep, whether it was night or day. But sometimes I would be smitten with a sudden desire for an independent life, and would use the excuse of pressing Parliamentary business to retreat back to my old lodgings for a few days of peace.

  There I would find waiting for me piteous letters from Clifford, telling me of the deaths of sheep and cattle, the dearness of provisions and the shortage of firewood, and the consequent sufferings of my tenants. I replied authorising him to spend any money that might be available to relieve distress. There was little else I could do at the time, for few coaches were running and letters arrived seldom.

  Meanwhile, the war continued. Pitt’s predictions concerning Spain soon proved correct, for early in the new year and, following the safe arrival of her annual treasure fleet from the Isthmus, Spain declared war on Britain. Fortunately, although the great man was no longer in office, we soon discovered he had already drawn up plans for this eventuality, and during the course of the year Havana in Cuba and Manila in the Philippine Islands fell to British arms.

   In Europe we did not have to wait more than a few weeks before there was more amazing news from Russia. One of the first actions of the new young Tsar Peter III was to withdraw Russian troops from the war and instead seek an alliance with Frederick of Prussia, his country’s enemy! And then, as all the world now knows, the unfortunate Peter only reigned a few months before he was deposed and murdered; and his wife, despite the fact that she had not a single drop of Russian blood in her veins, was hailed as the Empress Catherine II, and rules in St. Petersburg to this day!

   The unexpected salvation of our Prussian ally led to great relief in Britain, but at the same time caused people to wonder whether the war should not now be brought to a speedy close. Tensions between the partisans of Lord Bute and those of the Duke of Newcastle grew ever higher; opinion on the streets continued strong in support of Pitt, and the attacks on Lord Bute in the public prints reached new depths in libellous obscenity. He was shown conspiring with the French, or leading the blindfolded King by the nose, and to indicate his Scottishness he was always shown dressed in tartan. Some of the more disgraceful of these attacks took up the story that the King’s mother, the Princess Augusta was Bute’s lover. Did ever a royal lady have to endure such outrageous libels without any means of response?

 Lord Teesdale was cautious in expressing his opinion, and appeared to be waiting on further developments but his son Lord Staines was now a passionate advocate of an immediate peace, and did not hesitate to disparage Pitt and his friends in the most violent language.

 

    One day that spring I was seated at a table in Brown’s club when Staines entered in a state of great agitation. He brandished a paper at me, and asked me whether I had read it. He was in such a fury I had never seen in him before, so that his hands shook as I took it from him.

   I found that it contained a scandalous attack on him, or rather on a certain L**d S*****s, who was further described as “the catamite of L**d G****e S*******e”, “the coward of Minden”. Although the names were disguised in this manner, anyone who was acquainted with public affairs could have no doubt as to whom was meant. I remembered what Lord Staines had told me, at our very first meeting, about the unfortunate events at Minden, in consequence of which Lord George Sackville had been publicly disgraced and Staines had resigned his commission. So much had befallen me since that it all seemed a very long time ago.

    I asked if he knew who had written it. He told me that it was anonymous, but he was certain that the author was Mr John Wilkes, whose name he pronounced with great anger. “He libels anyone who dares attack Pitt, and he knows I am for a swift conclusion to the war. Scoundrel!” he added.

  I knew Wilkes as the silent Member of Parliament for Aylesbury, though everyone had heard rumours that he frequented a notorious assembly known as the Hellfire Club.

   I told Lord Staines that such low degraded stuff was beneath his attention, and best ignored; and that I was sure that his father would have given the same advice. But he told me that he had approached Wilkes, demanding an apology for this insult to his honour; and, not having received a satisfactory reply, he had issued a challenge to a duel. Staines requested me to be his second. I was reluctant to accede to this, but nothing I could say deterred him.

   Accordingly, soon after sunrise a few days later we took a coach out to Putney Heath. It was a bright morning, but cold. Dew lay heavy on the grass, and glittered on cobwebs on the bushes. There was no-one in sight except our opponent and his second, and another man I did not know. I was told his name was Doctor Blake, who was there in the event of any serious injury.

   It was my first sight of Mr Wilkes, who was shortly to become a most celebrated person; loved by some but hated by others. He was well dressed and slender of build, but his face was disfigured by the most violent squint, which caused his eyes to point in clean different directions. I wondered how, with this handicap, he could ever aim a pistol with any accuracy. He talked merrily, and appeared entirely unperturbed by the peril of his situation. His second was a large, burly fellow; and I was astonished to discover that under his cloak he wore a clergyman’s gown. I was informed that this was the Reverend Charles Churchill, the popular poet. Hogarth once depicted him as a bear, clutching a foaming pot of beer and an immense club, which I thought very apt.

   Doctor Blake then asked whether the two gentlemen were determined to proceed with the duel. Lord Staines replied, with no little heat, that his honour had been most grossly traduced, and that nothing but the most profuse and abject apology would satisfy him. He kept muttering violent epithets under his breath, whereas Mr Wilkes appeared to make light of the whole matter. He said that Lord Staines had produced no evidence that he, Wilkes, was the author of the offending article, but having read it, his opinion was that it contained more than a grain of truth; and, furthermore, since Lord Staines had seen fit publicly to dub him a liar and a scoundrel, he was the one entitled to an apology. These words angered Lord Staines even more, which was undoubtedly Wilkes’s intention.  

   A case was produced and opened, containing a brace of very fine silver-mounted pistols. Churchill and I checked that they were properly loaded. I attempted to hold my hands steady: it was the first time I had ever witnessed a duel and I was alarmed; for if someone was killed, might I be held to be an accessory to murder?  

   Lord Staines and Mr Wilkes walked twelve paces apart, then turned and presented their pistols. Lord Staines fired first, and grazed his opponent’s coat, but did no further harm. Mr Wilkes then raised his pistol and aimed it steadily at Staines’s breast, for what seemed like an age. Staines looked pale in the face, but did not flinch. Suddenly Wilkes laughed, lowered his pistol and deliberately fired at the ground, so that his bullet skipped across the earth some distance from Lord Staines’s feet. He then advanced towards his opponent with his hand extended.

   “Sir,” he said, “You have shown yourself to be a gentleman of courage, as befits an officer of the crown. I regret that you might feel I have offended you, and would be honoured if I might now be considered your friend.” 

   Staines, however, was by no means reconciled. He said this was no kind of apology, refused to take Wilkes’s proffered hand and ordered the pistols to be reloaded for a second firing. Mr Churchill now announced that, in his decided opinion, sufficient satisfaction had been given and that the business had been ended with perfect honour to both parties. I agreed with this, and so did Doctor Blake; but Lord Staines, ignoring Wilkes, departed forthwith, without giving me a glance. While I admired my friend’s courage, I could only be disappointed by his surly conduct afterwards.

   Doctor Blake did not stay long, but I remained at the tavern with Wilkes and Churchill for the remainder of the morning. Wilkes, aware of how alarmed I had been, told me that it was rare for duels these days to lead to any bloodshed. I asked him how the challenge to the duel had come about. He told me:

   “Lord Staines burst into my room in an agony of passion, brandishing the paper and demanding to know whether or not I was the author. I said that I was a free and independent English gentleman and that I refused to be catechised in this fashion. He then produced a brace of pistols and demanded immediate satisfaction. Finally, he calmed to the extent of agreeing to postpone the duel until three days later, with the result that you know.”

   He recounted how he had recently fought a duel with Lord Talbot, who, like Staines, had felt that he had been insulted.

   “We met at Bagshot. We both fired, but happily there was no shedding of blood, for neither took effect. I walked up immediately to Lord Talbot and said that I regretted that I had offended him. His lordship paid me the highest compliments on my courage, said he would declare everywhere that I was a noble fellow, and desired that we should now be good friends and retire to the inn to drink a bottle of claret together, which we did with great good humour. That is how duels should end. It is a pity that your young friend could not show the same magnanimous spirit.”

  I found Mr Wilkes the most engaging of companions. For his part, on discovering that I was new to political life, he suggested that I might enjoy reading a certain weekly paper known as the “North Briton”. I promised to look for it, and we shook hands and parted.

 

                                           (John Wilkes, by Hogarth)

   Rumours of the duel soon spread around the town. Henry Darnwell sought me out and demanded a full account. “But have you heard the other news?” he asked, “Our old friend John Robertson is contracted to be married! The bride is the daughter of a London merchant. The bad part of it is that her family is of the Methodist persuasion, and Robertson is now obliged to be a reformed character and excessively moral in his behaviour, but the vast wealth he will come by will no doubt console him amply for having to abandon his old rakish friends. On Friday we are holding a dinner at the Beefsteak Club to congratulate and console him. You must join us!”

    The dinner was a splendid occasion. Most of my friends from my early days in London were there, but Staines himself was absent. I gathered that he had been summoned to an important meeting with his father at Maybury.

   “The old man must be negotiating to find him a wife,” Darnwell said, “After all, he’s never going to find one for himself, is he?”

   Many toasts were drunk to Robertson’s future with his bride, together with ribald remarks that Robertson ignored, but somehow the tone was a little muted, as if we realised it might be the last time we were to meet together. In the absence of Lord Staines, I was pressed to give a full and accurate account of his duel; which I did, though avoiding mention of his ungentlemanlike conduct at the close. All praised Staines’s courage, though George Davies commented that he considered the formality of a duel unnecessary. Had he been in Staines’s position he would have invaded Wilkes’s premises and knocked him down, and Churchill too had it been necessary.

   Mention of John Wilkes brought forth stories concerning the Hell-fire Club, which was said to meet at West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, the home of Sir Francis Dashwood. All had heard tales about it, which they now recounted in the most lurid detail: of mysterious grottoes with obscene Latin puns above the entrance, of statues of naked goddesses and nymphs in erotic positions, with guests dressed as monks and young girls in nuns’ habits. How much of this was true and how much the product of over-lively imagination I had no means of telling, for it transpired that none of those present at our dinner had actually visited the house. I was urged to pursue my friendship with Wilkes in the hope that I might receive an invitation to join the society, and then bring my companions with me. John Robertson, however, took me aside to warn me against any further association with Wilkes. The Hell-fire Club, he understood, indulged in the most lewd and blasphemous rituals, and Wilkes himself would infallibly find himself in prison, or worse, ere long, as a result of his libellous writings. But despite this advice, I resolved to see more of Wilkes should the opportunity arise.

 

                                                  (West Wycombe Park today)

     At the very same time there came another great change in the ministry. The great Duke of Newcastle had resigned! Lord Teesdale explained that the Duke had found the Cabinet unwilling to continue the Prussian subsidy now that Frederick was so providentially saved, and he resigned his office, thus bringing to an end an almost unbroken period of forty years in government. Lord Bute took his place at the Treasury and was now undeniably the Prime Minister, with none other than Sir Francis Dashwood, the supposed host of the Hellfire Club, as a most unexpected choice as Chancellor of the Exchequer! An embassy was now sent to Paris to negotiate a peace treaty, and Lord Teesdale expected an end to the war in a matter of weeks.

    It was at Westminster around this time that I first beheld our new minister. A whisper came down the hall that Lord Bute was approaching, and for the first time I beheld the great Scots lord himself. I half expected him to be wearing the tartan plaid in which he was invariably depicted in the public prints, but which in reality of course he never wore. He was followed by a crowd of sycophants and petitioners. I bowed and remained silent. He looked at me as if he wished to speak, but not knowing my name, after a brief pause turned and walked away. This was to be my only meeting with the man who was now our sole minister and dictator. Many, then and since, portrayed him as endangering our venerable constitution; but, looking back on the scene I now consider him a shy, uncertain man, torn between ambition and timidity. Mr Walpole thought him merely pompous and ridiculous.  

 

  Throughout this time, I had yet to open my mouth in the House of Commons, but I was now called upon to make my maiden speech! Parliament was to debate a Bill of the Duke of Bridgewater, enabling him to build a canal into Manchester from the docks he was constructing at Runcorn on the River Mersey. This was a subject concerning which I knew nothing; but Lord Teesdale, who had an interest in the project, requested that I should support the Bill and supplied me with information on what to say. I patiently studied this until I knew it by heart and hoped I could recite it as fluently and convincingly as Garrick on stage. 

   I was intensely nervous when the Speaker called me, and trembled as I rose to my feet, with a wild fear that I could not remember a single word of what I had intended to say; but once I had stumbled through my opening lines I grew increasingly confident. I not only praised the Duke’s plans, but, as Lord Teesdale had suggested, looked forward to a time when more and more similar schemes would be enacted, to the great advantage of all. My fellow-members were kind enough to listen to me patiently, and without interrupting.

  Following this, I was nominated to the committee considering the Bill in detail. There a mechanic by the name of Brindley, unlettered but a most ingenious fellow, appeared as a witness and drew chalk diagrams on the floor to explain the working of lock gates on the canal. The Bill was duly made law. Lord Teesdale thanked me for my support, and hinted that he would not be pressing for repayment of the debts I owed him from the election. He furthermore advised me to support any future canal projects. I found I was gaining the reputation of being a man knowledgeable in such matters. This might in truth have been wholly undeserved, but it enabled me to consider myself becoming a person of some importance.

 

  The “North Briton”, which Wilkes had recommended, now began to be published every Saturday, and was being read and discussed with great delight at Brown’s club. Everyone believed that Wilkes was the author, with help from Churchill and others. We all laughed at its satirical attacks on Lord Bute and his fellow-Scots, portraying them as Jacobites, agents of the French and supporters of arbitrary government. All this was much more to my taste than crude and obscene prints.

  The fame of the paper spread to all parts of the kingdom. I heard how back in Bereton Martin Clifford eagerly awaited each new issue, and even Ned Timmis knew of it, and pronounced its author “a true spokesman for English liberty”.  This astonished me, since I had presumed that, despite his many admirable qualities, Ned Timmis never read anything at all.

 

  I had not visited Bereton since the autumn, and even when the cold weather at last eased I remained in London. Sir James Wilbrahim never came to Parliament, and my exchanges of letters with Louisa became less frequent. I felt there was little I could tell her: I never mentioned Elizabeth Newstead, I felt an account of Lord Staines’s duel would alarm her, ministerial changes would scarcely be of interest, and her father would be unlikely to approve of my work on the Canal Bill. Louisa wrote of how she wished her father would have allowed her to help in relieving the distress caused by the cold weather.

   Then, in the spring, I received a letter from Mrs Timmis, the only one she had ever sent me, containing some unexpected information.

   “We had a gentleman visiting us here.” she wrote in a painstakingly neat and careful hand, “He said his name was Lord Staines and a friend of yours. I told him you were not expected here at any time. I showed him the house and offered him tea, but he declined this, saying he had pressing business nearby. Did I do right, sir?”

  I mentioned this letter to Elizabeth, jesting that I formed the impression that my good housekeeper did not approve of Lord Staines as a suitable friend for me, and how at times she was far too motherly in her protection of my interests. Elizabeth’s reaction was unexpected.

   “Your Mrs Timmis is a woman of good sense,” she said. “Why do you remain friends with Staines? His private life is scandalous and he has no loyalty to anyone: you may be sure that he mocks you behind your back.”

   I replied that I would forever be grateful to Staines, since without his help I would never have risen to my present position.

  “That may be true,” she replied, “but now you are a gentleman of some eminence you must choose your friends with care!” 

  

     Why Lord Staines should visit the Priory, out in the countryside that he had so openly despised in the past, and what his “pressing business” there might be, were mysteries yet to be resolved. Despite Elizabeth’s warnings, I would ask him next time we met.