THE WICKED BARON
The British Peerage, like most other human flocks, has had many black
sheep within its fold; but few of them have been blacker than Charles,
fifth Baron Mohun of Okehampton, who shocked the world by his violence
and licentiousness a couple of centuries ago.
Charles Mohun had in his veins the blood of centuries of gallant men and
fair women, from Sir William de Mohun, who fought so bravely for the
Conqueror on the field of Hastings, to his father, the fourth Lord of
Okehampton, who took to wife a daughter of the first Earl of Anglesey, a
man who won fame in his day by his statesmanship and his pen. But there
was also in his veins a black strain which branded the Mohun 'scutcheon
with the stigma of eternal shame.
From his early youth he exhibited an unbridled temper and a passion for
low pursuits. In an age when loose morals and violence were winked at,
he soon won an unenviable notoriety by his excesses in both. Wine and
women, gambling and duelling, were the breath of life to him, and in
each indulgence he was infamously supreme. He was twice arraigned for
murder, and in the prime of life he died a murderer.
Such was the fifth Lord Mohun when our story opens, towards the close of
his shameless career; and in the first of the disgraceful episodes that
marked its close, as in so many others of his career, a beautiful woman
figures prominently--none other than the celebrated Mrs Bracegirdle, the
most fascinating actress of her day, whose witcheries made a lover of
every man who came under the spell of her charms.
Her army of lovers ranged from Congreve and Rowe, who wrote inspired and
passionate plays for her, to the Dukes of Dorset and Devonshire and Lord
Lovelace (among a hundred other titled gallants), who were ready to shed
their last drop of blood in defence of her fair fame; though each sought
in vain to besmirch it in his own person. But her virtue was reputed to
be "as impregnable as the rock of Gibraltar." Dr Doran describes her as
"that Diana of the stage, before whom Congreve and Lord Lovelace, at the
head of a troop of bodkined fops, worshipped in vain"; although, with
all her unassailable propriety, she did not escape outspoken suspicions
of being Congreve's mistress all the time.
Describing her charms, another chronicler says:
"She was of a lovely height, with dark brown hair and
eyebrows, black sparkling eyes, and a fresh blushing
complexion; and, whenever she exerted herself, had an
involuntary flushing in her breast, neck, and face."
Such, in the cold medium of print, was Mrs Bracegirdle when she became
the central figure of a great tragedy, the horrors of which have sent a
thrill down to our own time.
Among Mrs Bracegirdle's many baffled wooers was Captain Richard Hill, a
boon companion of Charles, Lord Mohun, and a man of unrestrained
passion. To all the Captain's coarse advances the actress turned a
contemptuous shoulder, until in his rage he swore that at any cost she
should be his. There was, he was convinced, only one real obstacle to
the success of his suit, Jack Montford, the handsomest actor of his day,
to whom Mrs Bracegirdle was said to be very kind; and the furious
Captain vowed: "I am resolved to have the blood of Montford, and to
carry off his charmer by force if need be."
Captain Hill made no concealment of his purpose. He mouthed his threats
aloud at his favourite tavern in Covent Garden and elsewhere; and he
found a willing helper in Lord Mohun, who was always ripe for any
dastardly scheme; and, with Mohun's help, he carefully prepared his
plans for both murder and abduction, for on both his heart was set.
By lavish bribes the two conspirators engaged half a dozen soldiers to
assist in their scheme; they arranged that a coach with two horses, and
four others in reserve, should be in waiting at nine o'clock in Drury
Lane, close to the theatre at which Mrs Bracegirdle made her appearance
nightly; and, equipped with a formidable armoury of swords, daggers, and
pistols, they repaired at the appointed time to the scene of action.
For a full hour they waited, watching with lynx eyes the door from
which the fair actress would emerge; but, as luck would have it, she was
not playing that night. She was, in fact, at the moment supping at the
house of a friend, Mrs Page, in Princes Street, close by; and they were
on the point of proceeding there when the lady made her appearance, with
her mother as companion and Mr Page and her brother for escort, on her
way home to her lodgings in Howard Street across the Strand.
At sight of their fair prey two of the soldiers rushed forward, snatched
Mrs Bracegirdle from her mother's arm and dragged her, screaming and
resisting, towards the coach in which Lord Mohun was sitting by his
cases of pistols, and in which it was intended to carry her off to
Totteridge. When her escort rushed to her rescue, Hill struck at the old
lady with his sword; but the cries and sounds of scuffling attracted
such a crowd that a change of plans became necessary.
With consummate cleverness the adroit Captain now took each of the
ladies by the arm and coolly conducted them himself out of the crowd to
their lodgings, Mohun and the soldiers following ignominiously behind.
Upon reaching Howard Street, the ladies safely indoors, the soldiers
were dismissed, and Mohun and his ally, with drawn swords, paced up and
down the street, vowing vengeance on the unhappy Montford, whom they
considered the cause of all their troubles, and who, sooner or later,
must pass through Howard Street on his way to his house in Norfolk
Street adjoining.
For two long hours they kept their bloodthirsty vigil, feeding the
flames of hate with copious draughts of wine, which they procured from
a neighbouring tavern. The lady had escaped them, but they would at
least make sure of her lover, the handsome actor, who on the stroke of
midnight turned the corner into Howard Street.
Montford had, it appears, already heard of the frustrated attempt to
carry off Mrs Bracegirdle, and that Mohun and Hill were keeping watch
outside her lodgings; so that he was not unprepared for an unpleasant
scene. Picture his amazement then when Lord Mohun advanced smilingly to
meet him, and embraced him with a great show of affection. "I am not
prepared for such cordiality," the actor said coldly, as he disengaged
himself from the unwelcome embrace. "I should prefer to learn how you
justify Captain Hill's abominable rudeness to a lady, or keeping company
with such a scoundrel."
At this moment the Captain, inflamed with drink, strolled insolently up
to the pair, and, giving Montford a resounding box on the ear,
exclaimed, "Here I am to justify myself. Draw, fellow!" But before
Montford had time to recover from the blow and to unsheath his sword,
Hill ran him through the body. Without a groan the wounded man sank to
the ground. A cry of "Murder" arose; the watchmen rushed to the scene.
But before they arrived Hill had made his escape; while Mohun, who at
least had the courage of his race, submitted himself to arrest. His
first question to the watchmen was, "Has Hill escaped?" And when he was
assured that he had, he added: "I am glad of it! I should not care if I
were hanged for him."
Such was the story which sent a thrill of horror through London on the
day following the tragedy, and which aroused a fury of anger against the
cowardly assassins; for not only was Jack Montford a popular idol who
had captured all hearts with his handsome face and figure, his clever
acting and his unaffected personal charm, but his wife, who had been
thus tragically widowed, was one of the most gifted and delightful women
who ever adorned the stage.
It was thus inevitable that Lord Mohun's trial by his Peers, which was
opened on the 31st of January 1693, in Westminster Hall, and which was
invested with all the pomp and ceremonial befitting such an occasion,
should attract crowds of excited spectators, curious to see the
principal actors in this sensational drama, and burning to see justice
done to the noble instigator of the murder. The pent-up excitement
culminated when Mrs Bracegirdle, looking more beautiful than ever in
spite of her pallor and evidences of suffering, entered the witness-box;
and every word of the story she told was listened to in a silence that
was painful in its intensity.
In answer to the Attorney-General's request that she should "give my
lord an account of the whole of your knowledge of the attempt that was
made upon you in Drury Lane, and what followed upon it," she said:
"'My lord, I was in Prince's Street at supper at Mr
Page's, and at ten o'clock at night Mr Page went home
with me; and, coming down Drury Lane there stood a coach
by my Lord Craven's door, and the hood of the coach was
drawn, and a great many men stood by it. Just as I came
to the place where the coach stood, two soldiers came and
pushed me from Mr Page, and four or five men came up to
them, and they knocked my mother down almost, for my
mother and my brother were with me.
"'My mother recovered and came and hung about my neck, so
that they could not get me into the coach, and Mr Page
went to call company to rescue me. Then Mr Hill came with
his drawn sword and struck at Mr Page and my mother; and
when they could not get me into the coach because company
came up, he said he would see me home, and he had me by
one hand and my mother by the other. And when we came
home he pulled Mr Page by the sleeve and said, "Sir, I
would speak with you."'
"ATTORNEY-GENERAL:--'Pray, Mrs Bracegirdle, did you see
anybody in the coach when they pulled you to it?'
"MRS BRACEGIRDLE:--'Yes, my Lord Mohun was in the coach;
and when they pulled me to the coach I saw my Lord Mohun
in it. As they led me along Drury Lane, my Lord Mohun
came out of the coach and followed us, and all the
soldiers followed them; but they were dismissed, and, as
I said, when we came to our lodgings, Mr Hill pulled Mr
Page by the sleeve and said he would speak with him.
Saith Mr Page, "Mr Hill, another time will do; to-morrow
will serve." With that, when I was within doors, Mr Page
was pulled into the house, and Mr Hill walked up and down
the street with his sword drawn. He had his sword drawn
when he came alone with me.'
"ATTORNEY-GENERAL:--'Did you observe him to say anything
whilst he was with you?'
"MRS BRACEGIRDLE:--'As I was going down the hill he said,
as he held me, that he would be revenged, but he did not
say on whom. When I was in the house several persons went
to the door, and afterwards Mrs Browne (my landlady),
went to the door, and spoke to them, and asked them what
they stayed and waited there for. At last they said they
stayed to be revenged of Mr Montford; and then Mrs Browne
came in to me and told me of it.'
"ATTORNEY-GENERAL:--'Were my Lord Mohun and Mr Hill both
together when that was said, that they stayed to be
revenged of Mr Montford?'
"MRS BRACEGIRDLE:--'Yes, they were. And when Mrs Browne
came in and told me, I sent my brother and my maid and
all the people we could out of the house to Mrs Montford
to desire her to send, if she knew where her husband was,
to tell him of it; and she did. And when they came
indoors again I went to the door, and the doors were
shut, and I listened to hear if they were there still;
and my Lord Mohun and Mr Hill were walking up and down
the street. By-and-bye the watch came up to them, and
when the watch came they said, "Gentlemen, why do you
walk with your swords drawn?" Says my Lord Mohun, "I am a
peer of England--touch me if you dare!" Then the watch
left them, and they went away; and a little after there
was a cry of "murder." And that is all I know, my lord.'
When at the close of the case Lord Mohun was asked if he had anything to
say in his defence, he answered:
"My lords, I hope it will be no disadvantage to me my not
summing up my evidence like a lawyer. I think I have
made it plainly appear that there never was any formal
quarrel or malice between Mr Montford and me. I have also
made appear the reason why we stayed so long in the
street, which was for Mr Hill to speak with Mrs
Bracegirdle and ask her pardon, and I stayed with him as
my friend. So plainly appeareth I had no hand in killing
Mr Montford, and upon the confidence of my own innocency
I surrendered myself to this honourable house, where I
know I shall have all the justice in the world."
The trial, which lasted five days, resulted in a verdict of
acquittal--sixty-nine peers voting Lord Mohun "Not Guilty," and fourteen
finding him "Guilty."
One would have thought that such a severe lesson and narrow escape would
have given Mohun pause in his career of vice and crime. On the contrary,
it seems merely to have whetted his appetite for similar adventures. He
plunged into still deeper dissipation; one mad revel succeeded another;
duel followed duel, all without provocation on any part but his own. He
killed in cold blood two more men who had innocently provoked his
enmity, "as if increase of appetite did grow by that it fed on," until
he rightly became the most dreaded and hated man in all England, a man
to whom a glance, a gesture, or a harmless word might mean death.
But his evil days were drawing to their end; and appropriately he died
in a welter of innocent blood. When the Duke of Hamilton was appointed
Ambassador to the French Court, the Whigs were so alarmed by his known
partiality for the Pretender that the more unscrupulous of them decided
that, at any cost, he must be got rid of. What simpler plan could there
be than by provoking him to a duel; what fitter tool than the
fire-eating, bloodthirsty Mohun, the most skilled swordsman of his day?
Mohun jumped at the vile suggestion, and lost no time in seeking the
Duke and insulting him in public. His Grace, however, who knew the man's
reputation only too well, treated the insult with the silence and
contempt it deserved; whereupon Mohun, roused to fury by this studied
slight, changed his _rôle_ to that of challenger. Thrice he sent his
second, one Major-General Macartney, almost as big a scoundrel as
himself, to the Duke's house in St James's Square; the fourth time a
meeting was arranged for the following morning at the Ring, in Hyde
Park, a favourite duelling-ground of the time. The intervening night
hours Mohun and his satellite spent in debauchery in a low house of
pleasure.
In the cold, grey dawn of the following morning--the morning of 15th
November 1712--the principals and seconds appeared almost simultaneously
at the Ring--in the daytime the haunt of beauty and fashion, in the
early morning hours a desolate part of the Park--and the preliminaries
were quickly arranged. Turning to Macartney, the Duke said: "I am well
assured, sir, that all this is by your contrivance, and therefore you
shall have your share in the dance; my friend here, Colonel Hamilton,
will entertain you." "I wish for no better partner," Macartney replied;
"the Colonel may command me."
A few moments later the double fight began with infinite fury. Swords
flashed and clattered; lunge and parry, parry and lunge followed in
lightning succession; the laboured breaths went up in gusts of steam on
the morning air. There was murder in two pairs of eyes, a resolve as
grim as death itself in the stern set faces of their opponents. Soon the
blood began to spurt and ooze from a dozen wounds; the Duke was wounded
in both legs; his adversary in the groin and arm. Faces, swords, the
very ground, became crimson. Colonel Hamilton had at last disarmed his
opponent, but the others fought on--gasping, reeling, lunging, feinting,
the strength ebbing with each thrust.
At last each made a desperate lunge at the other; the Duke's sword
passed clean through his adversary up to the very hilt; Mohun, reeling
forward, with a last effort shortened his sword and plunged it deep into
the Duke's breast. Colonel Hamilton rushed to his friend and raised him
in his arms, when Macartney, snatching up his fallen sword, drove it
into the dying man's heart, then took to his heels and made his way as
fast as horse and boat could carry him to Holland.
Before the Duke could be raised from the ground to which he had fallen,
he had drawn his last breath. A few moments later Mohun, too, succumbed
to his wounds--the "Dog Mohun," as Swift called him, lying in death but
a few yards from his victim.
"I am infinitely concerned," Swift wrote the same day,
"for the poor Duke, who was an honest, good-natured man.
I loved him very well, and I think he loved me better."
Thus, steeped in innocent blood, perished Charles Lord Mohun, who well
earned his unenviable title, "The wicked Baron."