| ( 46 ) |
The following reminiscences were written by Mr. Creevey in 1821, but as they refer chiefly to his doings in 1805, they find their proper sequence in this place. At the time they were written Mr. Creevey’s feelings towards the Prince of Wales had undergone a complete revulsion; but in 1805 he was full of enthusiasm for the Heir Apparent, upon whom the hopes of the whole Whig party were fixed.
“It was in 1804 when I first began to take a part in the House of Commons, at which time the Prince of Wales was a most warm and active partizan of Mr. Fox and the Opposition. It was then that the Prince began first to notice me, and to stop his horse and talk with me when he met me in the streets; but I recollect only one occasion, in that or the succeeding year, that I dined at Carlton House, and that was with a party of the Opposition, to whom he gave various dinners during that spring. On that occasion Lord Dundas and Calcraft sat at the top and bottom of the table, the Prince in the middle at one side, with the Duke of Clarence next to him; Fox, Sheridan and about 30 opposition members of both Houses making the whole party. We walked about the garden before dinner without our hats.
“The only thing that made an impression upon me in
favour of the Prince that day (always
excepting his excellent manners and appearance of good humour) was his
receiving a note during dinner
| 1805.] | THE HEIR APPARENT. | 47 |
“During dinner he was very gracious, funny and agreeable, but after dinner he took to making speeches, and was very prosy as well as highly injudicious. He made a long harangue in favour of the Catholics and took occasion to tell us that his brother William and himself were the only two of his family who were not Germans—this too in a company which was, most of them, barely known to him. Likewise I remember his halloaing to Sir Charles Bamfyld at the other end of the table, and asking him if he had seen Mother Windsor* lately. I brought Lord Howick† and George Walpole home at night in my coach, and so ended that day.
“At the beginning of September, 1805, Mrs. Creevey and myself with her daughters went to Brighton to spend the autumn there, the Prince then living at the Pavilion. I think it was the first, or at furthest the second, day after our arrival, when my two eldest daughters‡ and myself were walking on the Steyne, and the Prince, who was sitting talking to old Lady Clermont, having perceived me, left her and came up to speak to me, when I presented my daughters to him. He was very gracious to us all and hoped he should see me shortly at dinner. In two or three days from this time I received an invitation to dine at the Pavilion. . . . Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom I had never been in a room with before, sat on one side of the Prince, and the Duke of Clarence on the other. . . . In the course of the evening the Prince took me up to the card table where Mrs. Fitzherbert was playing, and said—‘Mrs. Fitzherbert, I wish you would call upon Mrs. Creevey, and say
* A notorious procuress in King’s Place, † Afterwards Earl Grey, the Prime Minister. ‡ His step-daughters, the Miss Ords. |
| 48 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“. . . Immediately after this first visit from Mrs. Fitzherbert, Mrs. Creevey and her daughters became invited with myself to the Prince’s parties at the Pavilion, and till the first week in January—a space of about four months—except a few days when the Prince went to see the King at Weymouth, and a short time that I was in London in November, there was not a day we were not at the Pavilion, I dining there always once or twice a week, Mrs. Creevey frequently dining with me likewise, but in the evening we were always there.
“During these four months the Prince behaved with the greatest good humour as well as kindness to us all. He was always merry and full of his jokes, and any one would have said he was really a very happy man. Indeed I have heard him say repeatedly during that time that he never should be so happy when King, as he was then.
“I suppose the Courts or houses of Princes are all alike in one thing, viz., that in attending them you lose your liberty. After one month was gone by, you fell naturally and of course into the ranks, and had to reserve your observations till you were asked for them. These royal invitations are by no means calculated to reconcile one to a Court. To be sent for half an hour before dinner, or perhaps in the middle of one’s own, was a little too humiliating to be very agreeable.
“. . . Lord Hutchinson* was a great feature at the Pavilion. He lived in the house, or rather the one adjoining it, and within the grounds. . . . As a military man he was a great resource at that time, as we were in the midst of expectations about the
* Brother of the 1st Earl of Donoughmore; a general officer, succeeded Sir Ralph Abercromby in command of the army in Egypt, and was raised to the peerage in 1801, with a pension of £2000. Died in 1832. |
| 1805.] | LIFE AT THE PAVILION. | 49 |
“I had heard a great deal of the Prince’s drinking, but, during the time that
I speak of, I never saw him the least drunk but once, and I was myself pretty
much the occasion of it. We were dining at the Pavilion, and poor Fonblanque, a dolorous fop of a lawyer, and a
member of Parliament too, was one of the guests. After drinking some wine, I
could not resist having some jokes at Fonblanque’s
expense, which the Prince encouraged greatly. I went on and invented stories
about speeches Fonblanque had
| 50 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“It used to be the Duke of
Norfolk’s custom to come over every year from Arundel to
pay his respects to the Prince and to stay
two days at Brighton, both of which he always dined at the Pavilion. In the
year 1804, upon this annual visit, the Prince had drunk so much as to be made
very seriously ill by it, so that in 1805 (the year that I was there) when the
Duke came, Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was
always the Prince’s best friend, was very much afraid of his being again
made ill, and she persuaded the Prince to adopt different stratagems to avoid
drinking with the Duke. I dined there on both days, and letters were brought in
each day after dinner to the Prince, which he affected to consider of great
importance, and so went out to answer them, while the Duke of Clarence went on drinking with the Duke of
Norfolk. But on the second day this joke was carried too far,
and in the evening the Duke of Norfolk showed he was
affronted. The Prince took me aside and said—‘Stay after
everyone is gone tonight. The Jockey’s got sulky, and I must give him
a broiled bone to get him in good humour again.’ So of course I
stayed, and about one o’clock the Prince of Wales
and Duke of Clarence, the Duke of
Norfolk
| 1805.] | SHERIDAN. | 51 |
“Among other visitors to the Pavilion came Sheridan, with whom I was then pretty intimate, though perhaps not so much so as afterwards. I was curious to see him and the Prince daily in this way, considering the very great intimacy there had been between them for so many years. Nothing, certainly, could be more creditable to both parties than their conduct. I never saw Sheridan during the period of three weeks (I think it was) take the least more liberty in the Prince’s presence than if it had been the first day he had ever seen him. On the other hand, the Prince always showed by his manner that he thought Sheridan a man that any prince might be proud of as his friend.
“So much for manners; but I was witness to a kind of altercation between them in which Sheridan could make no impression on the Prince. The latter had just given Sheridan the office of Auditor of the Duchy of Cornwall, worth about £1200 per annum, and Sheridan was most anxious that the Prince should transfer the appointment to his son, Tom Sheridan, who was just then married. What Sheridan’s object in this was, cannot be exactly made out; whether it really was affection for Tom, or whether it was to keep the profit of the office out of the reach of his creditors, or whether it was to have a young life in the patent instead of his own. Whichever of these objects he had in view, he pursued it with the greatest vehemence; so much so, that I saw him cry bitterly one night in making his supplication to the Prince. The latter, however, was not to be shaken . . . he resisted the demand upon the sole ground that Sheridan’s reputation was such, that it made it not only justifiable, but most honourable to him, the Prince, to make such a selection for the office. . . .
“This reminds me of another circumstance relating to
the same office when in Sheridan’s
| 52 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“‘A damned odd thing happened to me this morning, and Hester [Mrs. Sheridan] and I have agreed in coming down here to-day that no human being shall ever know of it as long as we live; so that nothing but my firm conviction that Hester is at this moment telling it to Mrs. Creevey could induce me to tell it to you.’
“Then he said that the money belonging to this office of his in the Duchy being always paid into Biddulph’s or Cox’s bank (I think it was) at Charing Cross, it was his habit to look in there. There was one particular clerk who seemed always so fond of him, and so proud of his acquaintance, that he every now and then cajoled him into advancing him £10 or £20 more than his account entitled him to. . . . That morning he thought his friend looked particularly smiling upon him, so he said:—
“‘I looked in to see if you could let me have ten pounds.’
“‘Ten pounds!’ replied the clerk; ‘to be sure I can, Mr. Sheridan. You’ve got my letter, sir, have you not?’
“‘No,’ said Sheridan, ‘what letter?’
“It is literally true that at this time and for many, many years Sheridan never got twopenny-post letters,* because there was no money to pay for them, and the postman would not leave them without payment.
“‘Why, don’t you know what has happened, sir?’ asked the clerk. ‘There is £1300 paid into your account. There has been a very great fine paid for one of the Duchy estates, and this £1300 is your percentage as auditor.’
| 1805.] | SHERIDAN. | 53 |
“Sheridan was, of course, very much set up with this £1300, and, on the very next day upon leaving us, he took a house at Barnes Terrace, where he spent all his £1300. At the end of two or three months at most, the tradespeople would no longer supply him without being paid, so he was obliged to remove. What made this folly the more striking was that Sheridan had occupied five or six different houses in this neighbourhood at different periods of his life, and on each occasion had been driven away literally by non-payment of his bills and consequent want of food for the house. Yet he was as full of his fun during these two months as ever he could be—gave dinners perpetually and was always on the road between Barnes and London, or Barnes and Oatlands (the Duke of York’s), in a large job coach upon which he would have his family arms painted. . . .
“. . . As I may not have another opportunity of committing to paper what little I have of perfect recollection of what Sheridan told me in our walks at Brighton respecting his early life, and as he certainly was a very extraordinary man, I may as well insert it here.
“He was at school at Harrow, and, as he told me, never had any scholastic fame while he was there, nor did he appear to have formed any friendships there. He said he was a very low-spirited boy, much given to crying when alone, and he attributed this very much to being neglected by his father, to his being left without money, and often not taken home at the regular holidays. From Harrow he went to live in John Street, out of Soho Square, whether with his father or some other instructor, I forget, but he dwelt upon the two years he spent there as those in which he acquired all the reading and learning he had upon any subject.
“At the end of this time his father determined to
open a kind of academy at Bath—the masters or instructors to be Sheridan the father, his eldest son Charles, and our Sheridan, who was to be rhetorical
usher. According to his account, however, the whole concern was presently
laughed off the stage, and then Sheridan described his
happiness as beginning. He danced with all the women at Bath, wrote sonnets
| 54 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“It was at this period of his life he fell in love with Miss Lindley, whom he afterwards married, but she was carried off by her father at that time to a convent in France, to be kept out of his way. Then it was he became embroiled with Mr. Mathews, who was likewise a lover of Miss Lindley, as well as her libeller. Sheridan fought two duels with Mr. Mathews upon this subject, both times with swords. The first was in some hotel or tavern in Henrietta St., Covent Garden, when Mathews was disarmed and begged his life. Upon Mr. Mathew’s return to Bath, Sheridan used his triumph with so little moderation, that Mr. Mathews left Bath to live in Wales; but soon he was induced to believe that he had compromised his honour by quitting Bath and leaving his reputation at the mercy of Sheridan. Accordingly, a messenger arrived from him to Sheridan, with a written certificate in favour of Mathews’s undoubted honour in the former affair, to be signed by Sheridan, or else the messenger was to deliver him a second challenge.
“Sheridan preferred the latter course of proceeding, and the duel was fought at King’s Weston (if I recollect right). According to Sheridan’s account, never was anything so desperate. Sheridan’s sword broke in a point blank thrust into Mathews’s chest; upon this he closed, and they both fell, Mathews uppermost; but, in falling, his sword broke likewise, sticking into the earth and snapping. However, he drew the sharp end out of the ground, and with this he stabbed Sheridan in the face and body, over and over again, till it was thought he must die. Sheridan named both the seconds, but I forget them. He said they were both cut for ever afterwards for not interfering. He said, likewise, there was a regular proceeding before the Mayor of Bristol, on the ground that Mr. Mathews had worn some kind of armour to protect him, which broke Sheridan’s sword. . . . Sheridan was taken to some hotel at Bath, where his life for some time was despaired of, but. . . he rallied and recovered.
“He then lived for some time at Waltham Cross,
| 1805.] | SHERIDAN’S MARRIAGE. | 55 |
“Miss Lindley had £3000 of her own, of which Sheridan gave her father £2000. With the remaining £1000, the only fortune Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan began the world with, he took a cottage at Slough, where they lived, he said, most happily, a gig and horse being their principal luxury, with a man to look after both the master and his horse. But by the end, or before the end, of the year, the £1000 was drawing rapidly to a finish, and then it was that Sheridan thought of play-writing as a pecuniary resource, and he wrote The Rivals. Having got an introduction to the theatre, he took his play there, and finally was present to see it acted, but would not let Mrs. Sheridan come up from Slough for the same purpose. The Rivals, upon its first performance, was damned; when Sheridan got to Slough and told his wife of it she said:
“‘My dear Dick, I am delighted. I always knew it was impossible you could make anything by writing plays; so now there is nothing for it but my beginning to sing publickly again, and we shall have as much money as we like.’
“‘No,’ said Sheridan, ‘that shall never be. I see where the fault was; the play was too long, and the parts were badly cast.’
| 56 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“So he altered and curtailed the play, and had address or interest enough to get the parts newly cast. At the expiration of six weeks it was acted again, and with unbounded applause. His fame as a dramatick writer was settled from that time. When it was he became proprietor of Drury Lane Theatre, or how it was accomplished, I did not learn from him, but it was the only property he ever possessed, and, with the commonest discretion on his part, would have made him a most affluent man.
“Sheridan’s talents, displayed in his plays, procured him very shortly both male and female admirers among the higher orders. The families of Lord Coventry and Lord Harrington he spoke of as his first patrons. When it was he begun with politicks, I don’t recollect, but he was a great parliamentary reformer the latter end of the American war, and one of a committee of either five or seven (I forget which number) who used to sit regularly at the Mansion House upon this subject.
“In 1780, the year of a general election, his object was to get into Parliament if possible, and he was going to make a trial at Wootton-Bassett. The night before he set out, being at Devonshire House and everybody talking about the general election, Lady Cork* asked Sheridan about his plans, which led to her saying that she had often heard her brother Monckton say he thought an opposition man might come in for Stafford, and that if, in the event of Sheridan failing at Wootton, he liked to try his chance at Stafford, she would give him a letter of introduction to her brother.
“This was immediately done. Sheridan went to Wootton-Bassett, where he had not a chance. Then he went to Stafford, produced Lady Cork’s letter, offered himself as a candidate, and was elected. For Stafford he was member till 1806—six-and-twenty years. I remember asking him if he could fix upon any one point of time in his life that was decidedly happier than all the rest, and he said certainly—it was after dinner the day of this first election for Stafford,
* Second wife of the 7th Earl, youngest daughter of the 1st Viscount Galway. |
| 1805.] | FROLICS AT BRIGHTON. | 57 |
“I did not hear any further of his own history from himself than this first getting into parliament. It has been a constant subject of regret to me that I did not put down at the time all he told me, because it was much more than I have stated; but I feel confident my memory is correct in what I have written.
“To return to Sheridan at Brighton in the year 1805. His point of difference with the Prince being at an end, Sheridan entered into whatever fun was going on at the Pavilion as if he had been a boy, tho’ he was then 55 years of age. Upon one occasion he came into the drawing-room disguised as a police officer to take up the Dowager Lady Sefton* for playing at some unlawful game; and at another time, when we had a phantasmagoria at the Pavilion, and were all shut up in perfect darkness, he continued to seat himself upon the lap of Madame Gerobtzoff [?], a haughty Russian dame, who made row enough for the whole town to hear her.
“The Prince, of course, was delighted with all this; but at last Sheridan made himself so ill with drinking, that he came to us soon after breakfast one day, saying he was in a perfect fever, desiring he might have some table beer, and declaring that he would spend that day with us, and send his excuses by Bloomfield for not dining at the Pavilion. I felt his pulse, and found it going tremendously, but instead of beer, we gave him some hot white wine, of which he drank a bottle, I remember, and his pulse subsided almost instantly. . . . After dinner that day he must have drunk at least a bottle and a half of wine. In the evening we were all going to the Pavilion, where there was to be a ball, and Sheridan said he would go home, i.e., to the Pavilion (where he slept) and would go quietly to bed. He desired me to tell the Prince, if he asked me after him, that he was far from well, and was gone to bed.
|
* Isabella, daughter of 2nd Earl of Harrington, and widow of the 9th Viscount and 1st Earl of Sefton. |
| 58 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“So when supper was served at the Pavilion about 12 o’clock, the Prince came up to me and said:
“‘What the devil have you done with Sheridan to-day, Creevey? I know he has been dining with you, and I have not seen him the whole day.’
“I said he was by no means well and had gone to bed; upon which the Prince laughed heartily, as if he thought it all fudge, and then, taking a bottle of claret and a glass, he put them both in my hands and said:
“‘Now Creevey, go to his bedside and tell him I’ll drink a glass of wine with him, and if he refuses, I admit he must be damned bad indeed.’
“I would willingly have excused myself on the score of his being really ill, but the Prince would not believe a word of it, so go I must. When I entered Sheridan’s bedroom, he was in bed, and, his great fine eyes being instantly fixed upon me, he said:—
“‘Come, I see this is some joke of the Prince, and I am not in a state for it.’
“I excused myself as well as I could, and as he would not touch the wine, I returned without pressing it, and the Prince seemed satisfied he must be ill.
“About two o’clock, however, the supper having been long over, and everybody engaged in dancing, who should I see standing at the door but Sheridan, powdered as white as snow, as smartly dressed as ever he could be from top to toe. . . . I joined him and expressed my infinite surprise at this freak of his. He said:
“‘Will you go with me, my dear fellow, into the kitchen, and let me see if I can find a bit of supper.’
“Having arrived there, he began to play off his cajolery upon the servants, saying if he was the Prince they should have much better accommodation, &c., &c., every one waiting upon him. He ate away and drank a bottle of claret in a minute, returned to the ballroom, and when I left it between three and four he was dancing.
“In the beginning of November, as Sheridan was returning to London, and I was
going there for a short time, he proposed our going together, and nothing would
serve him but that we must be two days on the road: that nothing was so foolish
as
| 1805.] | WARREN HASTINGS. | 59 |
“We set off in a job chaise of his, Edwards the box keeper of Drury Lane being on the dicky box, for he always acted as Sheridan’s valet when he left London. Before we had travelled many miles, having knocked my foot against some earthenware vessel in the chaise, I asked Sheridan what it could be, and he replied he dared say it was something Edwards was taking to his wife. Arriving in the evening at Sutton, I found there was not a soul in the house who had ever seen Sheridan before; that his letter had never arrived, and that no dinner was ready for us. I heard him muttering on about its being an extraordinary mistake, that his particular friend was out of the way, and so forth, but that he knew the house to be an excellent one, and no where that you could have a nicer little dinner. He went fidgetting in and out of the room, without exciting the least suspicion on my part, till dinner was announced. Then I found his fun had been to bring the dinner with him from the Pavilion. The bowl I had kicked contained the soup, and there were the best fish, woodcocks and everything else, with claret and sherry and port all from the same place.
“Among other persons who came to pay their respects to the Prince during the Autumn of 1805 was Mr. Hastings,* whom I had never seen before excepting at his trial in Westminster Hall. He and Mrs. Hastings came to the Pavilion, and I was present when the Prince introduced Sheridan to him, which was curious, considering that Sheridan’s parliamentary fame had been built upon his celebrated speech against Hastings. However, he lost no time in attempting to cajole old Hastings, begging him to believe that any part he had ever taken against him was purely political, and that no one had a greater respect for him than himself, &c., &c., upon which old Hastings said with great gravity that ‘it would be a great consolation to him in his
| 60 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“Another very curious person I saw a great deal of this autumn of 1805, sometimes at the Pavilion, sometimes at Mrs. Clowes’s, was Lord Thurlow, to whom the Prince always behaved with the most marked deference and attention. I had never seen him but once before, and the occasion was an extraordinary one. Lady Oxford, who then had a house at Ealing (it was in 1801) had, by Lord Thurlow’s desire, I believe, at all events with his acquiescence, invited Horne-Tooke to dinner to meet him. Lord Thurlow never had seen him since he had prosecuted him when Attorney-General for a libel in 1774 (I believe it was), when the greatest bitterness was shown on both sides, so that the dinner was a meeting of great curiosity to us who were invited to it. Sheridan was there and Mrs. Sheridan, the late Lord Camelford, Sir Francis Burdett, Charles Warren, with several others and myself. Tooke evidently came prepared for a display, and as I had met him repeatedly, and considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen, in point of skill and dexterity (and, if at all necessary, in lying), I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his topsail to him. But it seemed as if the very look and voice of Thurlow scared him out of his senses, and certainly nothing could be much more formidable. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and tho’ not a drinker, was very drunk. But all would not do; he was perpetually trying to distinguish himself, and Thurlow constantly laughing at him.
“In the autumn of 1805, Thurlow had declined greatly in energy from the time I refer
to. It was the year only before his death. He used to read or ride out in the
morning, and his daughter Mrs. Brown, and Mr.
Sneyd, the clergyman of Brighton, occupied themselves in
procuring any stranger or other person who they thought would be agreeable to
the old man to dine with him, the party being thus 10 or 12 every day, or more.
I had the good fortune to be occasionally there with Mrs. Creevey. . . . However rough
| 1805.] | LORD THURLOW. | 61 |
“Having seen this property of his, I took care, of course, to keep clear of him, and have often enjoyed extremely seeing the figures which men have cut who came with the evident intention of shewing off before him. Curran, the Irish lawyer, was a striking instance of this. I dined with him at Thurlow’s one day, and Thurlow just made as great a fool of him as he did formerly of Tooke.
“Thurlow was always dressed in a full suit of cloaths of the old fashion, great cuffs and massy buttons, great wig, long ruffles, &c.; the black eyebrows exceeded in size any I have ever seen, and his voice, tho’ by no means devoid of melody, was a kind of rolling, murmuring thunder. He had great reading, particularly classical, and was a very distinguished, as well as most daring, converser. I never heard of any one but Mr. Hare who had fairly beat him, and this I know from persons who were present, Hare did more than once, at Carlton House and at Woburn.
“Sir Philip Francis, whom I knew intimately, and who certainly was a remarkably quick and clever man, was perpetually vowing vengeance against Thurlow, and always fixing his time during this autumn of 1805 for ‘making an example of the old ruffian,’ either at the Pavilion or wherever he met him; but I have seen them meet afterwards, and tho’ Thurlow was always ready for battle, Francis, who on all other occasions was bold as a lion, would never stir.
“The grudge he owed to Thurlow was certainly not slightly grounded. When Francis and Generals Clavering and Manson were sent to India in 1773, to check Hastings in his career, their conduct was extolled to the skies by our party in parliament, while, on the other hand, Lord Thurlow in the House of Lords said that the greatest misfortune to India and to England was that the ship which carried these three gentlemen out had not gone to the bottom. . . .
| 62 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“. . . During the autumn of 1805 the Prince was a very great politician. He considered himself as the Head of the Whig Party, and was perpetually at work cajoling shabby people, as he thought, into becoming Whigs out of compliment to him, but who ate his dinners and voted with the Ministers just the same. I remember dining with him at George Johnstone’s at Brighton—the Duke of Clarence, old Thurlow, Lord and Lady Bessborough and a very large party, of which Suza, the Portuguese Ambassador was one. After dinner the Prince, addressing himself to Suza, described himself as being the Head of the great Whig party in England, and then entered at great length upon the merit of Whig principles, and the great glory it was to him, the Prince, to be the head of a party who advocated such principles. Finally, he appealed to Suza for his opinion upon that subject; but the Portuguese was much too wary to be taken in. He thanked the Prince with great force, ability and propriety for his condescension in giving him the information he had done, but, as he added, the subject was an entirely new one to him, he prayed his Royal Highness would have the goodness to excuse him giving an opinion upon it, till he had considered it more maturely.
“It seemed at that time the Prince’s politicks were almost always uppermost with him
. . . Upon one occasion I remember dining with the Prince at Lady Downshire’s, Lord
Winslow and different people being there. After dinner he said
to me privately: ‘Creevey, you
must go home with me.’ So when he went he took me in his coach,
and when we got to the Pavilion he said: ‘Now,
Creevey, you and I must go over the House of
Commons together, and see who are our friends and who are our
enemies.’ Accordingly, he got his own red book, and we went over the
House of Commons name by name. He had one mark for a friend and another for an
enemy, and of course every member of the Government who was then in the House
of Commons had the enemy’s mark put against his
name. . . . Having made all these marks himself, he gave me the book, and told
me to take it home with me. At this time Lord
Castlereagh had just lost his election for the county of Down,
entirely from Lady
| 1805.] | THE DUKE OF YORK. | 63 |
“When the Prince returned from a visit of two or three days to the King at Weymouth, he was very indiscreet in talking at his table about the Kings infirmities, there being such people as Miles Peter Andrews and Sir George Shee present, in common with other spies and courtiers. So when he described the King as so blind that he had nearly fallen into some hole at Lord Dorchester’s, I said—‘Poor man, Sir!’ in a very audible and serious tone, and he immediately took the hint and stopt.
“Upon another occasion the Duke of York* came to the Pavilion. It was some military occasion—a review of the troops, I believe—and there was a great assemblage of military people there. Nothing could be so cold and formal as the Prince’s manner to the Duke. As he was coming up the room towards the Prince, the Prince said to me in an undertone—‘Do you know the Duke of York.’ On my replying—‘No, sir,’ he said—‘He’s a damned bad politician, but I’ll introduce you to him,’ and this he did, with great form.
“Amongst other things, the Prince took to a violent desire of bringing Romilly into Parliament, and having found that I was well acquainted with him, he commissioned me to write to Romilly, and to offer him a seat in the House of Commons in the Prince’s name. This of course I did, but, in so doing, I did not hesitate to express my own suspicions as to the reality of the thing offered, nor did I withhold my opinion as to Romilly’s doing best to decline it, could it even be accomplished. I begged him, however, to write me two answers, one for the Prince’s inspection, and the other for my own private instruction, if he was desirous the project should be entertained at all. Romilly, however, as I was sure he would, wrote me an answer that was an unequivocal, tho’ of course very grateful, refusal of the favour offered him.†
“Having mentioned a dinner I had at Johnstone’s in Brighton in 1805, I can’t help adverting to what took place that day. The late King (George IV.) and
* Commander-in-chief. † See p. 40, supra. |
| 64 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“Lord Thurlow was a great drinker of port wine, and Johnstone, who was the most ridiculous toady of great men, said to him that evening—‘I am afraid, my lord, the port wine is not so good as I could wish;’
* Henry Pearce, the “Game Chicken,” champion of England. † John Gully [1783-1863], son of a publican and butcher, made his début in the prize-ring in 1805, and was recognised as virtual, though not formal, champion after Pearce, the Game Chicken, retired at the end of that year. In 1808 he became a bookmaker and publican. He made a good deal of money; became a successful owner of racehorses; and, having purchased Ackworth Park, near Pontefract, represented that borough in Parliament from 1832 till 1837. |
| 1805.] | SOCIETY AT BRIGHTON. | 65 |
The foregoing narrative will enable the reader to understand many of the allusions in the following letters written by Mrs. Creevey from Brighton to her husband while he was attending to his parliamentary duties. It must be understood also that Creevey was quite sensible of the advantage which might be expected in regard to his own political prospects from the favour he had found in the royal leader of the Whigs. The King’s madness might return on any day; the Prince of Wales would become Regent, and nobody doubted that, so soon as he had the power, he would dismiss the Tory Ministers of his father. Mrs. Creevey, therefore, loyally played up to her husband’s hand, and, like her lord, continued charitably blind to the character and habits of their master. Like all who ever made her acquaintance, both Mr. and Mrs. Creevey speak enthusiastically of the unfortunate Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom the Prince had married in 1785.
“. . . Oh, this wicked Pavillion! we were there till ½
past one this morng., and it has kept me in bed with the headache till 12
to-day. . . . The invitation did not come to us till 9 o’clock: we went
in Lord Thurlow’s carriage, and were
in fear of being too late; but the Prince
did not come out of the dining-room till 11. Till then our only companions were
Lady Downshire and Mr. and
Miss Johnstone—the former very good-natured and
amiable. . . . When the Prince appeared, I instantly saw he had got more wine
than usual, and it was still more evident that the German Baron was extremely
drunk. The Prince came up and
| 66 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“It appears to me I have found a true friend in Mac.* He is even more foolish than I expected; but I shall be disappointed if, even to you, he does not profess himself my devoted admirer.
“Afterwards the Prince led all the party to the table where the maps lie, to see him shoot with an air-gun at a target placed at the end of the room. He did it very skilfully, and wanted all the ladies to attempt it. The girls and I excused ourselves on account of our short sight; but Lady Downshire hit a fiddler in the dining-room, Miss Johnstone a door and Bloomfield the ceiling. . . . I soon had enough of this, and retired to the fire with Mac. . . . At last a waltz was played by the band, and the Prince offered to waltz with Miss Johnstone, but very quietly, and once round the table made him giddy, so of course it was proper for his partner to be giddy too; but he cruelly only thought of supporting himself, so she reclined on the Baron.”
“And so I amuse you by my histories. Well! I am glad of it, and it encourages me to go on; and yet I can tell you I could tire of such horrors as I have had the last 3 evenings. I nevertheless estimate them as you do, and am quite disposed to persevere. The second evening was the worst. We were in the dining-room (a comfortless place except for eating and drinking in), and sat in a circle round the fire, which (to indulge you with ‘detail’) was thus arranged. Mrs. F[itzherbert] in the chimney corner (but not knitting), next to her Lady Downshire—then Mrs. Creevey—then Geoff—then Dr. [erased]—then Savory—then Warner—then Day, vis-a-vis his mistress, and most of the time snoring like a pig and waking for nothing
* The Right Hon. John Macmahon, Private Secretary and Keeper of the Privy Purse to the Prince of Wales. Died in 1817. |
| 1805.] | EVENINGS AT THE PAVILION. | 67 |
“She was raving mad for some time, and Mrs. F. describes her as being often nearly so now, but at other times most interesting, and most miserable. Her husband and children come to England to visit her, and Mrs. F. says she is an eternal subject of remorse to Lord Whitworth, whom she [Mrs. F] spoke of in warm terms as ‘a monster,’ and said she could tell me far more to make me think so. The story sometimes hit upon points that made her blush and check herself, which was to me not the least interesting part of it. . . . She laughed more last night than ever at the Johnstones—said he was a most vulgar man, but seem’d to give him credit for his good nature to his sister and his generosity. The Baron is preparing a phantasmagoria at the Pavillion, and she [Mrs. F] laughs at what he may do with Miss Johnstone in a dark room.”
“. . . My head is very bad, I suppose with the heat of
the Pavillion last night. We were there before
| 68 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“I am much flatter’d, dearest Creevey, that you complain when my letters are
short. . . . I went to the Pavillion last night quite well, and moreover am
well to-day and fit for Johnstone’s ball, which at last is to be. They were at
the Pavillion and she [Miss Johnstone] persecuted both the
Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert like a most impudent fool. The former was all
complyance and good nature—the latter very civil, but most steady in
refusing to go. She said she could not go out, and Miss J.
grinned and answer’d—‘Oh! but you are
out here’—then urged that it had been put off on purpose
for Mrs. F., who said she was sorry for it, but hoped it
wd. be put off no longer. All this Mrs. F. told me
herself, with further remarks, just before I came away, which I did with
Lady Downshire, and left the
Johnstones with their affairs in an unsettled state,
and with faces of great anxiety and misery. But the attack was renew’d,
and the Prince
| 1805.] | DEATH OF NELSON. | 69 |
“I have had new visitors here this morning—Madle. Voeykoff, the niece of the old Russian, and Mde. Pieton, a young friend, daughter of the famous Mrs. Nesbitt and Prince Ferdinand of Wirtemburgh, as is supposed. I talked with her last night, because Mrs. F. praised her as a most amiable creature, and I liked her very much. In short, as usual, the Pavillion amused me, and I wd. rather have been there again to-night than at Johnstone’s nasty ball and fine supper.”
“The Prince has
this moment recd. an account from the Admiralty of the death of poor Lord Nelson, which has affected him most
extremely. I think you may wish to know the news, which, upon any other
occasion might be called a glorious victory—twenty out of three and
thirty of the enemy’s fleet being entirely destroyed—no English
ship being taken or sunk—Capts. Duff and Cook both
kill’d, and the French Adl. Villeneuve taken prisoner. Poor Lord
Nelson recd. his death by a shot of a musket from the
enemy’s ship upon his shoulder, and expir’d two hours after, but
not till the ship struck and afterwards sunk, which he had the consolation of
hearing, as well
| 70 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“. . . I think you will like to hear I have spent a very comfortable evening with my mistress.* We had a long discourse about Lady Wellesley. The folly of men marrying such women led us to Mrs. Fox, and I saw she would have liked to go further than I dared, or than our neighbours would permit. . . . They were all full of Prussians and Swedes and Danes and Russians coming soon with irresistible destruction on Buonaparte. I wonder if there is a chance of it. I don’t believe it. . . .”
“. . . [The Prince’s] sorrow [for Nelson’s death] might help to prevent his coming to dinner at the Pavillion or to Johnstone’s ball. He did neither, but stayed with Mrs. Fitz; and you may imagine the disappointment of the Johnstones. The girl grin’d it off with the captain, but Johnstone had a face of perfect horror all night, and I think he was very near insane. I once lamented Lord Nelson to him, and he said:—‘Oh shocking: and to come at such an unlucky time!’ . . .”
“. . . The first of my visits this morning was to ‘my Mistress.’ . . . I found her alone, and she was excellent—gave me an account of the Prince’s grief about Lord N., and then entered into the domestic failings of the latter in a way infinitely creditable to her, and skilful too. She was all for Lady Nelson and against Lady Hamilton, who, she said (hero as he was) overpower’d him and took possession of him
| 1805.] | MRS. FITZHERBERT. | 71 |
“. . . Mrs. Fitzherbert came before 12 and has literally only this moment left me. We have been all the time alone, and she has been confidential to a degree that almost frightens me, and that I can hardly think sufficiently accounted for by her professing in the strongest terms to have liked me more and more every time she has seen me, tho’ at first she told Mr. Tierney no person had ever struck her so much at first sight. . . . So much in excuse for her telling me the history of her life, and dwelling more particularly on the explanation of all her feelings and conduct towards the Prince. If she is as true as I think she is wise, she is an extraordinary person, and most worthy to be beloved. It was quite impossible to keep clear of Devonshire House; and there her opinions are all precisely mine and yours, and, what is better, she says they are now the Prince’s; that he knows everything—above all, how money is made by promises, unauthorised by him, in the event of his having power; that he knows how his character is involved in various transactions of that house, and that he only goes into it, from motives of compassion and old friendship, when he is persecuted to do so. In short, he tells Mrs. F. all he sees and hears, shews her all the Duchess’s letters and notes, and she says she knows the Dss. hates her. . . . We talked of her life being written; she said she supposed it would some time or other, but with thousands of lies; but she would be dead and it would not signify. I urged her to write it herself, but she said it would break her heart.”
“. . . I was very sorry indeed to go to the
Pavillion, and ‘my Master’ made me no amends for my
exertion—no shaking hands—only a common bow in passing—and
not a word all night, except just before came away some artificial stuff about
the Baron, and then a little parting shake of the hand with this
| 72 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. III. |
“. . . Well, I am quite in favor again. When I entered Gerobtzoff’s room last night Prinny* was on a sofa directly opposite the door, and in return for a curtsey, perhaps rather more grave, more low and humble than usual (meaning—‘I beg your pardon dear foolish, beautiful Prinny for making you take the pet’), he put out his hand. . . . We soon went to see the ball at the Pavillion, and Mrs. Fitz selected me to go in the first party in a way that set up the backs of various persons and puzzled even Geoff. . . . We were soon tired of the amusement and sick of the heat and stink. Neither the Prince nor any one stay’d long, and the rest of the evening was horribly dull; but luckily for me, when the Prince returned I was sitting on a little sofa that wd. only hold two, and the other seat was vacant; so he came to it, and never left me or spoke to another person till within 10 minutes of my coming away at ½ past 12. . . . We had the old stories of Mrs. Sheridan, only with some new additions . . . we had Charles Grey too, and he talked of his [Grey’s] dislike to him, because in the Regency he wd. not hear of his being Chancellor of the Exchequer. He talked of his bad temper and his early presumption in overrating his own talents. . . . He told me that when he was king he wd. not give up his private society, and on my saying a little flattering sentence about the good I expected from him, he actually said—‘he hoped I should never have cause to think differently of him.’ This was going his length, so I stopt.”
“. . . We have been at the Pavillion both Friday and yesterday, and Mrs. F. has desired us to come every night without invitation. . . . Both these parties
* The Prince of Wales. |
| 1805.] | THE PRINCE OF WALES. | 73 |
“. . . It was a large party at the Pavillion last night, and the Prince was not well . . . and went off to bed. . . . Lord Hutchinson was my chief flirt for the evening, but before Prinny went off he took a seat by me to tell me all this bad news had made him bilious and that he was further overset yesterday by seeing the ship with Lord Nelson’s body on board. . . . None of them knew Pitt was gone to Bath till I told them. I ask’d both Lord H[utchinson] and his Master if they wd. like him to die now, or live a little longer to be turn’d out. They both decidedly prefer instant death. . . . I think Sheridan may probably return with you on Friday if you ask him. On second thoughts—I would not have you ask him, for he will make you wait and sleep at the Cock at Sutton.”
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