THE KING’S BENCH PRISON
Earliest mention--Lord Chief Justice and Prince Hal--The first
prison destroyed by the Lord George rioters--Rebuilt--Notable
inmates--Richard Baxter--Sir William
Reresbury--Chatterton--Smollett’s description in “Roderick
Random”--George Morland frequently a prisoner--John Wilkes
imprisoned and the disturbances that resulted--His career and
death--William Hone, the well known litterateur, lodged in the
King’s Bench for debt, where he compiled his “Every Day Book,”
“Table Book,” and “Year Book”--Colonel Hanger, soldier, courtier,
beau--A chosen companion of the Prince of Wales--His services in
the American War--His difficulties and arrest--Lord Cochrane, a
distinguished naval officer--Committal to the King’s Bench--Plot of
which he was the victim--His adventures in the King’s Bench--Method
of escape and appearance in Parliament--Later career in South
America. Brilliant services and tardy rehabilitation by the British
government.
The first King’s Bench Prison stood on the east side of the High Street
Borough, Southwark, near the Marshalsea and dated from 1377, the time of
Richard II. It is memorable as the prison to which Chief Justice
Gascoigne committed Prince Hal, the heir apparent of the English throne,
and later King Henry V, the hero of Agincourt. The royal offender,
Prince Hal, had been guilty of contempt of court in taking one of his
suite from the custody of the court and offering violence to the judge
on his bench. The story is held by some to be apocryphal, but the
Prince’s prison chamber was still shown in the time of Oldys,[5] the
historian. The prison was moved to the southwest corner of Blackman’s
Street and the entrance of the Borough Road, and was standing there when
burned down by the Lord George Gordon rioters in 1780, but was rebuilt
on the lines described by Mr. Allen in his history of Surrey, and
survived until a quite recent date. According to the account there
given, it occupied an extensive area of ground and consisted of one
large pile of buildings about 120 yards long. The south or principal
front had a pediment under which was the chapel. There were four pumps
of spring and river water in the interior. It contained 224 rooms or
apartments, eight of which being much larger than the others were called
staterooms. A coffee-house and two public houses were to be found within
the walls, with shops and stalls for the sale of meat, vegetables and
necessaries like any public market. “The number of people walking
about,” says Allen, “or engaged in various amusements are little
calculated to impress the stranger with an idea of distress or even of
confinement.” The walls surrounding the prison were thirty feet high
and were crowned with a _chevaux de frise_ to prevent escape. The
“Rules” were extensive and included all St. George’s Fields, one side of
Blackman Street, and part of the Borough High Street, enclosing
altogether an area of three miles in circumference. These “Rules” were
purchasable by prisoners at various rates; when the debt was
considerable the price was eight guineas for the first hundred, and half
that sum for every hundred in addition. Day rates cost 4_s_ 2_d_ for the
first day and 3_s_ 10_d_ for the days following. The exact limits of the
Rules were never strictly defined and Lord Ellenborough, when Chief
Justice of the King’s Bench, being asked to extend them, said he saw no
necessity, as to his certain knowledge they already included the East
Indies, implying that fugitives had fled there. Of course in such a case
the marshal was held responsible for the debt of the one who had run
away. The practice of permitting prisoners to live beyond the prison
originated, it was said, in the days of the Plague.
Among the earliest records of the King’s Bench prison of Southwark was a
petition from the prisoners to the Privy Council for its enlargement and
the erection of a chapel. It was pleaded that at this time, through
over-crowding, there was “much sickness in the house.” In later days
under the Commonwealth it was called the “Upper Bench Prison.” Among the
early inmates of any note was Dr. Robert Recorde, said to have been
physician to King Edward VI and Queen Mary; he was a Fellow of All
Souls, Oxford, and died in the King’s Bench in 1558, when confined there
for debt. John Rushworth, author of the “Historical Collections” of
facts, 1618-1648, was a prisoner in the Bench for six years, and the
notorious Judge Jeffreys committed Richard Baxter, the non-conformist
advocate, to it for eighteen months. An inmate of title who had fallen
sadly away from his high estate was Sir William Reresby, the son and
heir of Sir John, whose “Memoirs and Travels,” with anecdotes and secret
history of the courts of Charles II and James II are full of interest.
Sir William was the third baronet, a reckless spendthrift and gamester
who wasted large sums at the tables and in cock-fighting. He lost his
fine estate of Dennaby at a single throw of the dice and was afterward
tried and imprisoned for cheating in 1711. He eventually became a
tapster in the King’s Bench.
Chatterton, the youthful poet, who forged the apocryphal poems of Thomas
Rowley, the supposititious monk of the fifteenth century, was at one
time a prisoner in the King’s Bench, whence he dated a letter, May 14th,
1770, saying that a gentleman had recommended him as the travelling
companion for the young Duke of Northumberland, but that alas! he spoke
no language but his own. Chatterton’s fraud was one of the most curious
crimes in literary history. He was a native of Bristol and an attorney’s
clerk, when he pretended to have discovered an ancient manuscript,
which he put forward as authentic, but which was soon pronounced a
forgery by Mason and Gray and other contemporary poets. Nothing daunted,
Chatterton came to London to seek his fortune in literature; he produced
great numbers of satirical poems, political essays and critical letters
which found their way into print, but without remuneration. When
threatened with penury, he committed suicide at his lodgings in Brook
St., Holborn. He was undoubtedly a genius and he has been called the
greatest prodigy in literature, for he was no more than eighteen when he
died and he had already produced some fine, vigorous work.
A good picture of the King’s Bench is given by Smollett about this date
(1750) in his “Roderick Random:” “The prison is situated in St. George’s
Fields, about a mile from the end of Westminster Bridge, and it appears
like a neat little regular town, consisting of one street, surrounded by
a very high wall, including an open piece of ground which may be termed
a garden, where the prisoners take the air, and amuse themselves with a
variety of diversions. Except the entrance, where the turnkeys keep
watch and ward, there is nothing in the place that looks like a gaol, or
bears the least colour of restraint. The street is crowded with
passengers; tradesmen of all kinds here exercise their different
professions; hawkers of all sorts are admitted to call and vend their
wares as in any open street in London. There are butchers’ stands,
chandlers’ shops, a surgery, a tap-house well frequented, and a public
kitchen, in which provisions are dressed for all the prisoners gratis,
at the expense of the publican. Here the voice of misery never
complains; and indeed little else is to be heard but the sounds of mirth
and jollity. At the further end of the street, on the right hand, is a
little paved court leading to a separate building, consisting of twelve
large apartments called ‘State rooms,’ well furnished, and fitted up for
the reception of the better sort of Crown prisoners; and on the other
side of the street, facing a separate piece of ground, is the Common
Side, a range of rooms occupied by prisoners of the lowest order, who
share the profits of the begging-box, and are maintained by this
practice and some established funds of charity. We ought also to observe
that the gaol is provided with a neat chapel, in which a clergyman in
consideration of a certain salary, performs divine service every
Sunday.”
Artists shared with men of letters the honours of the King’s Bench. One
whose work is perhaps more highly appreciated to-day than in his own
time was George Morland, the painter, who was born in London on the 26th
June, 1763, and was the son of Henry Robert Morland and grandson of
George Henry Morland. He is said by Cunningham to have been lineally
descended from Sir Samuel Morland, while other biographers go so far as
to assert that he had only to claim the baronetcy in order to get it.
He began to draw at three years old and at the age of ten (1773) his
name appears as an honorary exhibitor at the Royal Academy. Although the
publishers reaped the principal profit from the sale of his works,
Morland’s credit and resources enabled him for some years to lead the
rollicking life he loved without much pressure of monetary care. At one
period he kept eight saddle horses at the White Lion Inn. But as time
passed he became crippled with debts and a prey to creditors who gave
him no peace. He lived a hunted life and was only able to escape from
the bailiffs by his knowledge of London and the assistance of friends
and interested picture dealers. He fled from one house to another,
residing now in Lambeth, now in East Sheen, now Queen Anne Street, the
Minories, Kensington or Hackney. At this last place his strict seclusion
aroused a suspicion that he was a forger of bank notes and his premises
were searched at the instance of the bank directors, who afterward made
him a present of £40 for the inconvenience caused by their mistake.
In November, 1799, Morland was at last arrested for debt, and he was
allowed to take lodgings “within the Rules” of the King’s Bench to which
his most discreditable friends constantly flocked. During this mitigated
imprisonment he sank lower and lower. According to the “Dictionary of
National Biography” he was often drunk for days together and generally
slept on the floor in a helpless condition. It is probable that these
stories are exaggerated, for he still produced an enormous quantity of
good work. “For his brother alone,” says Redgrave, “he painted 192
pictures between 1800 and 1804, and he probably painted as many more for
other dealers during the same period, his terms being four guineas a day
and his drink.” Another account says that during his last eight years he
painted 490 pictures for his brother and probably 300 more for others,
besides making hundreds of drawings. His total production is estimated
at no less than four thousand pictures. In 1802 he was released under
the Insolvent Debtors’ Act but his health was ruined and his habits
irremediable. About this time he was seized with palsy and lost the use
of his left hand so that he could not hold his palette. Notwithstanding
this, he seems to have gone on painting to the last, when he was
arrested again for a publican’s score and died in a sponging house in
Eyre Street, Cold Bath Fields, on 27th October, 1804. His much wronged
wife was so afflicted at the news of his death that she died three days
afterward and both were buried together in the burial ground attached to
St. James’ Chapel in the Hampstead Road.
Morland’s epitaph on himself was, “Here lies a drunken dog.” His
propensities to drink and low pleasure appear to have been unusually
strong. He had opportunities of indulging them at an unusually early
age and throughout life, except for a short interval of courtship and
domesticity, he was surrounded by associates who encouraged his
debauchery. “But though he was vain and dissolute he was generous, good
natured and industrious and appears to have been free from the meaner
and more malicious forms of vice. It should also be placed to his credit
that however degraded his mode of life, he did not degrade his art to
the same level.”
It would be difficult to define the exact place of John Wilkes in the
history of this time, but he figures largely in that of the King’s Bench
prison, both as an inmate and the cause of much loss of life in the
disturbances to which his committal gave rise. To-day he is rightly
judged as an insolent demagogue who misled the ignorant public by his
intemperate attacks upon the government and his offensive writings in
the _North Briton_, which cost him several duels and an embittered
prosecution. He gained immense popularity with the mob as his long trial
proceeded, which culminated in serious riots when the case at last went
against him, and he was sent to the King’s Bench. The carriage in which
he was conveyed was seized by the crowd, the horses removed, and the
vehicle was dragged to a public house in Spital Fields north of the
present Liverpool Street Railway Station. Here he was allowed to alight
and at eleven o’clock at night to escape from his over zealous friends,
taking immediate advantage of his liberty to surrender himself at the
King’s Bench prison. The next day a vast mob collected outside the
prison, and some hostile demonstration was feared. Nothing worse
occurred than the tearing down of the fences surrounding the prison and
burning them in a bonfire, while the residents in the neighbourhood were
compelled to illuminate their windows. Legal proceedings were resumed in
the days following and Wilkes’ counsel pleaded for arrest in judgment on
the ground of illegal action, but the Crown would not yield, and a day
was fixed for the final discussion whether or not the sentence of
outlawry passed on him should be maintained.
The malcontents held their ground about the prison in threatening
numbers, and resisted all efforts of the civil authority to disperse
them, and the troops were called out. The riot act was read and after
the warning the order given to fire, which was promptly obeyed with
fatal results. A number of persons were killed and wounded, the shots
aimed high after taking effect upon those at a distance. Further violent
outrages were not committed. Later a mob attacked the house of Lord
Bute, hated Prime Minister of that day, and the Mansion House and
private apartments of the Lady Mayoress were invaded and wrecked. People
were everywhere forced to illuminate their windows and the street echoed
with cries of “Wilkes and Liberty.” The rioters were guilty of many
outrages. Several quiet folk were killed, numbers wounded, windows were
broken, furniture destroyed, royal residences even were threatened. The
tumults extended to the provinces, the working classes were disaffected
and demanded higher wages, and when denied went out on strikes, the
earliest instances of them known. The disturbances were taken up by the
seamen in the Pool, and a body of thousands of sailors marched in
procession to the St. James Palace with drums beating and colours flying
to present a petition to the King, praying for a relief of grievances.
The following day they assembled in a great multitude in Palace Yard,
boisterously clamouring for an increase of wages, but dispersed on an
assurance from two M. P.’s that their requests should receive attention.
A fresh tumult arose at Limehouse where several outward bound vessels
were boarded and prevented from going to sea. All workers in
London--sawyers, hatters, watermen and the Spital Fields
weavers--combined in demanding an increase of wages, and confusion and
unrest were general throughout London. The commotion gradually subsided
and the principal rioters were brought to justice, while Wilkes still
remained in the King’s Bench prison. The sympathy shown him took a very
practical form. Some £20,000 were subscribed for the payment of his
fines and debts, many valuable gifts were presented to him: plate,
jewels, wine, furniture and purses embroidered in gold and containing
specie.
A word or two about John Wilkes will illuminate the foregoing recital.
He was born in 1727, the son of a brewer or distiller at Clerkenwell,
and had been well educated at the University of Leyden. On his return to
England at the early age of twenty-two he married an heiress, Miss Mead,
ten years his senior. Although he was without personal attraction, his
ready wit and charming manner gave him such an advantage with the fair
sex that he was fond of saying that he was only ten minutes behind the
handsomest man in a room. He kept a good table and soon won a large
circle of friends, but his extravagant ways and love of dissipation
involved him in difficulties. He quarrelled with his wife, they
separated, and in the lawsuit his character and reputation were much
damaged. When in 1757 he entered the House of Commons as a member for
Aylesbury, he joined the agitation against that already most unpopular
minister, Lord Bute, and founding the notorious _North Briton_,
succeeded by persistent attacks in the paper in driving him from office.
The next minister was no less fiercely assailed and Wilkes so far forgot
himself as to charge the King (George III) with telling a lie. For this
his house was entered and his papers seized and he himself committed to
the Tower, but released on his claiming privilege as a member of
Parliament. The _North Briton_ was publicly burned by order of the House
of Commons; Wilkes retaliated by an action against the Government for
the improper seizure of his papers, and he was awarded £1,000 damages
with a dictum from the Lord Chief Justice that general warrants were
illegal.
Wilkes then was expelled from the House of Commons and went over to
France. In his absence the Government proceeded to blacken his character
by publishing an obscene poem of which he was the joint author, but it
was shown that a printed copy had been obtained by underhand methods,
the ministers incurring so much odium that they were driven from office.
When the new Government was formed Wilkes returned to England and was
now elected member for Middlesex. It was at this time that the riots
described above occurred. Wilkes impugned the conduct of ministers and
accused them of responsibility for the “massacre in St. George in the
Field.” This was held in the House of Commons to be a seditious libel
and Wilkes was again expelled from the House. The electors of Middlesex
protested by returning him again and again, defying the House of Commons
and glorifying Wilkes--who was still imprisoned in the King’s Bench--as
the champion of national liberty. Wilkes was now the most popular man in
England. Soon afterward he won a suit against Lord Halifax with £4,000
damages and in the following year was released on giving a bond for
seven years’ good behaviour. Three years after he was made Lord Mayor of
London and once again elected as member for Middlesex, which he now
represented for several years. Wilkes in his last days sank into
comparative obscurity and died an “extinct volcano” in 1792. Wilkes was
not the immediate cause of the confinement in the King’s Bench prison of
William Hone, but this well-known writer owed his protracted trials
directly to the famous demagogue. He was arraigned at the Guildhall in
1817, charged with having printed and published the profane but curious
“Wilkes’ Catechism,” which purported “to have been from the original
manuscript in Mr. Wilkes’ handwriting and never before printed.” It was
described as a catechism or “Instructions to be learned of every person
before he be brought to be confirmed a placeman or pensioner by the
minister.” The first questions and answers indicate its character. “Q.
What is your name? A. Lickspittle. Q. Who gave you this name? A. My
sureties to the ministry in my political change wherein I was made a
member of the majority, the child of corruption and a locust to devour
the good things of the kingdom.” Then follows the “belief,” which is too
blasphemous for quotation, and the commandments, one of which ran,
“Honour the Regent and the helmets of the Lifeguards, that thy stay may
be long in the place which the Lord thy ministry giveth thee.” The
general tenor of this catechism will be seen in the question “What is
thy duty towards thyself?” and the answer, “My duty towards myself is to
love nobody but myself and to do unto most men what I would not that
they should do unto me; to sacrifice unto my own interest even my father
and mother; to pay little reverence to the King, but to compensate that
omission by my servility to all that are out in authority under him,”
and so on.
The prosecution was no doubt inspired by the fierce party spirit
prevailing at the time and caused great excitement; the Court, that of
the King’s Bench in Guildhall, was densely crowded by an audience by no
means in sympathy with the Attorney General when he unsparingly
denounced the publication, and the violent coughing and other marks of
disapprobation during his address roused the judge, Mr. Justice Abbott,
to declare that he would clear the court. Mr. Hone defended himself
ably, pleading that the whole publication was intended as a parody, but
that he had stopped its sale directly he found it was looked upon as
profane. A verdict of “not guilty” was speedily brought in by the jury,
which was received with loud demonstrations of approval. Mr. Hone was
again put on his trial, first for publishing a parody entitled “The
Political Litany,” and again for publishing a parody on the “Athanasian
Creed” styled the “Sinecurist Creed.” His defence, which he again
conducted personally with such great boldness that the sitting judge,
Lord Ellenborough, designated it as outraging decency and propriety,
resulted in another verdict of “not guilty,” a decision greeted with
loud cheers extending far beyond the limits of the court. These matters
would have no permanent interest nor would William Hone call for
reference here, but that he was afterward arrested by a creditor and
lodged in the King’s Bench when he was engaged upon the production of
his “Everyday Book,” a work full of curious and useful information,
completed within the walls of the prison. He also began and finished
there his “Table Book” and his “Year Book,” productions that have long
survived the personality of their author.
An interesting character, the hero of many striking adventures and who
passed through some strange vicissitudes and misfortunes, found himself
more than once in the King’s Bench at the latter end of the eighteenth
century. This was Colonel Hanger, commonly known as George Hanger, for
although he eventually succeeded to his father’s title of Lord
Coleraine, he steadfastly objected to assume it. He was a man of
substance in his time, having property in his own right, and he early
entered the army as an officer in the 1st regiment of Guards, from which
he passed during the war with the American Colonies into the service of
the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel. He was a prominent dandy in his time,
lived fashionably, spent large sums on his clothes, and although he
played little at cards, he gambled continually and for large sums on the
turf. It was the rule for well-born youths in his time to dress
extravagantly; young Hanger tells us in his memoirs that one set of
winter dress clothes cost him £900 and he adds, “This should not so much
astonish the reader as the fact that I actually paid the tailor.” The
expense of appearing properly on the King’s birthday was enormous, an
officer of the Guards being obliged to have two suits, and he says: “My
morning vestments cost me nearly £80 and those for the state ball above
£180. It was a satin coat and the first that had made its appearance in
this country; shortly after, satin dress clothes became common among
well-dressed men.... I had no office of emolument, advantage or trust
about his Majesty’s person, except an ensigncy, the pay of which did not
amount to four shillings per day, a sum insufficient to meet the
tailor’s charges for one single button and button-hole to my gala suit;
the very stitching of a button-hole in those days cost me more, and the
embroidered gold clocks on my stockings in which I never failed to
appear at a ball were very expensive.” Hanger became one of the chosen
companions of the Prince of Wales (George IV) and lived at the same
pace. He kept race-horses, backed them for considerable sums and once
stood to win or lose 3,000 guineas on one race. “I can with truth say
the turf had done me justice,” he writes, “but the extravagance of the
times, the delightful pleasure of that age and the frailty of my own
nature were my ruin.” He lived in fact far above his income which never
exceeded eleven hundred pounds a year, and presently he became
seriously involved. He had recourse to a mortgage on his estate for
£13,000, and as he became more and more indebted was obliged in due
course to sell it when it fetched rather less than half the sum at which
it had been originally valued. He accompanied his regiment to America,
took part in the war of Independence, but made the mistake of leaving
the British Guards for the Hessian service. He found friends in Sir
Harry Clinton and Colonel Tarleton, by whom he was appointed to the
British Legion, and distinguished himself in the field.
When the war ended and Major Hanger was due to return to England, his
affairs were so straitened that he took refuge in Calais, leaving
friends to act for him at home and arrange with his creditors. But for
the generous assistance of Mr. Richard Tattersal he could not have
landed in England, for he was now completely beggared, and when directly
he reappeared in the world, was arrested by his creditors. It was at
this time that his estate was forcibly sold at such a loss. He now
surrendered himself at the King’s Bench, where he was detained for some
months but by the help of friends was admitted to take the “Rules.” His
detention was brief, but his experiences as told in his “Life and
Adventures” throw a strong light upon the iniquitous system still in
force with regard to debtors as described later.
A distinguished naval officer, Lord Cochrane, afterward Earl of
Dundonald, was committed a prisoner to the King’s Bench in 1815, on
conviction of seeking to influence the stock markets by the
dissemination of false news. His eminent services in the late war with
France were forgotten and he was denied a fair, unprejudiced trial. It
was clear that he was the victim of a dastardly plot and was sacrificed
to the treachery of the villainous author of it. Lord Cochrane had
recently been given the command of a King’s ship, and was on the point
of sailing for the North American station. One day a visitor named de
Berenger called at his house, pretending to be an officer and prisoner
for debt, within the Rules of the King’s Bench. He said he had come to
Lord Cochrane to implore him to release him from his difficulties and
give him a passage across the Atlantic. His application was refused,--it
was forbidden indeed according to naval rules,--and de Berenger was sent
away. But before he left the house he pleaded piteously that to return
to the King’s Bench prison in full uniform would attract suspicion. It
was not stated how he had evaded its jurisdiction, but he no doubt
implied that he had escaped and changed into uniform somewhere. Why he
did not go back to the same place to resume his plain clothes did not
appear. Lord Cochrane only knew that in answer to his urgent entreaty he
lent him some clothes (the room was at that moment littered with
clothes, which were to be sent on board the _Tonnant_). He unguardedly
gave de Berenger a “civilian’s hat and coat.” This was a capital part of
the charge against Lord Cochrane.
De Berenger had altogether lied about himself. He had not come from
within the Rules of the King’s Bench but from Dover, where he had been
seen the previous night at the Ship Hotel. He was then in uniform and
pretended to be an aide-de-camp to Lord Cathcart, who was the bearer of
important despatches. He made no secret of the transcendent news he
brought. Bonaparte had been killed by the Cossacks, Louis XVIII
proclaimed and the allied armies were on the point of occupying Paris.
To give greater publicity to the intelligence he sent it by letter to
the port-admiral at Deal, to be forwarded to the Government in London by
means of the semaphore telegraph. The effect of this startling news was
to send up stocks ten per cent., and many speculators who sold on the
rise realised enormous sums.
De Berenger, still in uniform, followed in a post-chaise, but on
reaching London he dismissed it, took a hackney coach and drove straight
to Lord Cochrane’s. He had some slight acquaintance with his lordship
and had already petitioned him for a passage to America but the
application had been refused. There was nothing extraordinary, then, in
de Berenger’s visit. His lordship, again, claimed that de Berenger in
calling on him, instead of going straight to the Stock Exchange to
commence operations, indicated that he had weakened in his plot and did
not see how to carry it through. “Had I been his confederate,” says Lord
Cochrane in his affidavit, “it is not within the bounds of credibility
that he would have come in the first instance to my house and waited two
hours for my return home in place of carrying out the plot he had
undertaken, or that I should have been occupied in perfecting my lamp
invention for the use of the convoy of which I was in a few days to take
charge, instead of being on the only spot where any advantage to be
derived from the Stock Exchange hoax could be realised had I been a
participator in it. Such advantage must have been immediate, before the
truth came out; and to have reaped it, had I been guilty, it was
necessary that I should not lose a moment. It is still more improbable
that being aware of the hoax, I should not have speculated largely for
the special risk of that day.”
We may take Lord Cochrane’s word, as an officer and a gentleman, that he
had no guilty knowledge of de Berenger’s scheme; but here again the luck
was against him, for it came out in evidence that his brokers had sold
stock for him on the day of the fraud. Yet the operation was not an
isolated one, made on that occasion only. Lord Cochrane declared that he
had for some time past anticipated a favourable conclusion to the war.
“I had held shares for the rise,” he said, “and had made money by sales.
The stock I held on the day of the fraud was less than I usually had,
and it was sold under an old order given to my brokers to sell at a
certain price. It had necessarily to be sold.” It was clear to Lord
Cochrane’s friends--who, indeed, and rightly, held him to be incapable
of stooping to fraud--that had he contemplated it he would have been a
larger holder of stock on the day in question when, actually, he held
less than usual. On these grounds alone they were of opinion that he
should have been absolved from the charge.
The part taken by the late Lord Playfair in the rehabilitation of Lord
Cochrane has been told by Sir Wemyss Reid in his admirable “Memoirs” of
Playfair. The Earl of Dundonald died in October, 1860. To his grandson,
the present gallant earl, whose brilliant achievements as a cavalry
leader in the great Boer War have shown him to be a worthy scion of a
warrior stock, his last will bequeathed as follows: “All sums due to me
by the British Government for my important services, as well as the sums
of pay stopped under perjured evidence for the commission of a fraud
upon the Stock Exchange. Given under my trembling hand this 21st day of
February, the anniversary of my ruin.”
Lord Playfair was an intimate friend of the much-worried admiral, and
while he was a member of the House of Commons he made a strenuous effort
to carry out the terms of the above will by recovering the sums
mentioned in it. What followed shall be told in Playfair’s own words.
“In 1814 Lord Dundonald and Lady X were in love and though they did not
marry, always held each other in great esteem for the rest of their
lives. Old Lady X was still alive in 1877, and she sent me a letter
through young Cochrane, the grandson, authorising me to use it as I
thought best. The letter was yellow with age, but had been carefully
preserved. It was written by Lord Dundonald and was dated from the
prison on the night of the committal. It tried to console the lady by
the fact that the guilt of a near relative of hers was not suspected,
while the innocence of the writer was his support and consolation.
“The old lady must have had a terrible trial. It was hard to sacrifice
the reputation of her relative; it was harder still to see injustice
still resting upon her former lover. Lord Dundonald had loved her and
received much kindness from her relative, so he suffered calumny and the
injustice of nearly two generations rather than tell the true story of
his wrong.
“I had long suspected the truth, but I never heard it from Lord
Dundonald. The brave old lady tendered this letter as evidence to the
Committee, but I declined to give it in, knowing that had my friend been
alive he would not have allowed me to do so. At the same time I showed
the letter to the members of the Committee individually and it had a
great effect upon their minds and no doubt helped to secure the report
recommending that the Treasury should pay the grandson the back salary
of the admiral.
“The interesting letter itself I recommended should be put in the
archives of the Dundonald family and this I believe has been done.”
Lord Cochrane’s incarceration in the King’s Bench was the cause of
considerable trouble. He had been committed there in default of a
payment of the fine of a thousand pounds and with a sentence of one
year’s imprisonment during which, in company with his alleged
confederates, he was to stand once on the pillory in the open space
before the Royal Exchange. Lord Cochrane was at that time a member of
the House of Commons and it was moved in the House that he should be
expelled, which was carried by a large majority. He found many warm
friends, however, and chief among them Sir Francis Burdett, who, when
the seat of Westminster was declared vacant, proposed Lord Cochrane for
re-election, and his lordship was unanimously returned. He continued,
however, to reside in the King’s Bench until the time of the next
session approached, and he was resolved to break prison in order to
appear in his place when the House met. He did, in effect, but in none
of the ways reported at the time. One report was that he went out
concealed in a sofa bedstead; another that he was sewn up inside a
mattress with the feathers; a third that he passed the gates in
disguise, but not unknown to the authorities, whom he had bribed to wink
at his departure. The real truth was that having arranged for the visit
of three or four Life guardsmen, he exchanged clothes with one of the
troopers and walked out unmolested wearing the soldier’s uniform.
Lord Cochrane remained at large for a fortnight and evaded pursuit until
he presumed to enter the House of Commons where he found a seat upon the
Treasury bench. While he was addressing the House and reading the
documents connected with his own case, the marshal of the King’s Bench,
who had been notified, accompanied by several officers, walked into the
House and proceeded to arrest his lordship, who immediately demanded the
authority. He was told that it was the public proclamation offering a
reward for his apprehension. Lord Cochrane demurred, violently resisted
his capture, and something like a free fight occurred upon the floor of
the House; eventually his lordship was overpowered and reconducted to
the King’s Bench. Mr. Jones, the marshal, no doubt a little unhappy at
his temerity, humbly submitted himself to the Speaker, hoping he had not
been guilty of disrespect, for if he was wrong it was from an error of
judgment and due to no wish to offend the House. The matter was made the
subject of some debate, but when referred to the Committee of Privilege,
they considered that the case was quite novel and it did not appear to
them that the privileges of the House had been violated or that there
was any call for interference. The time remaining for the completion of
the term of imprisonment Lord Cochrane spent in a conflict with the
marshal as to his accommodation and general treatment in the prison, in
which Mr. Jones was ultimately exonerated and Lord Cochrane admitted
that he had no complaint to make of the marshal, or of any of the
officers of the prison.
Lord Dundonald’s later career is in a sense outside of my subject, but
it was distinguished by many brave exploits and his capacity as a naval
leader was usefully exercised in the service of another country than his
own; his merits were recognised by the Emperor of Brazil, who gave him
the command of the Brazilian fleet and created him a marquis. Through
his able leadership the South American colonies of Spain gained their
freedom and he assisted largely in the Greek war of independence. At
length in 1830, tardy justice was done him and Earl Grey, now in office,
believing him to have been the victim of a cruel and unjust persecution,
restored him to his rank in the British navy. He was granted the Grand
Cross of the Bath and appointed to a command, as an admiral. He was a
man of strong character, remarkable for his inventive genius, a skilled
and adventurous seaman, who won renown afloat although constantly
opposed to forces superior to his own in numbers and metal. At the end
of his life he enjoyed the sympathetic esteem of his fellow countrymen.
His heirs were eventually granted compensation for the pay and
allowances as a naval officer so long withheld from him, while under a
cloud.