A NOBLE VAGABOND
The circle of the British Peerage has included many "vagabonds," some of
whom have worn coronets in our own day; but it is doubtful whether any
one of them all has had the _wanderlust_ in his veins to the same degree
as Edward Wortley Montagu, whose adventurous life was ignominiously
ended by a partridge-bone more than a century and a quarter ago.
It would have been strange if this blue-blooded "rolling-stone" had been
a normal man, since he had for mother that most wayward and eccentric
woman, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who dazzled England by her beauty and
brilliant intellect, and amused it by her oddities in the days of the
first two Georges. This grandson of the Duke of Kingston, and
great-grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich was "his mother's
boy"--with much of his mother's physical and mental charms, and more
than her eccentricities, as his story abundantly proves.
As a child of three he accompanied his parents to Constantinople, where
his father, the Hon. Sydney Montagu, was sent as our Ambassador; and
there he won a place in history at a very early age as the first English
child to be inoculated for the small-pox. Probably, too, it was his
boyish life in Turkey that inoculated him with the passion for all
things Eastern, that so largely influenced his later life.
His adventures began when his parents returned to London, and the boy
was sent as a pupil to Westminster. It was not long before he rebelled
against the discipline and trammels of school-boy life; and one day he
threw down his Euclid and Cæsar and vanished as completely as if the
earth had swallowed him. Every street, court, and alley was searched in
vain for the truant; advertisements and handbills offering a reward for
his recovery were equally futile. Not a trace of the runaway was to be
found anywhere.
One day, a good twelve months after his family had concluded that the
lad was dead, or, at least, lost for ever, Mr Foster, a friend of his
father, chanced to be in Blackwall when he heard a familiar voice crying
fish. "That is the voice of young Montagu," he exclaimed, and promptly
despatched his servant to bring the boy to him. The fish-seller
innocently came back, his basket of plaice and flounders on his head,
and was at once recognised by Mr Foster as the truant son of Lady Mary.
For a time he denied his identity with the utmost coolness; then, seeing
that denial was useless, he flung away his basket and took to his heels.
It was not, however, difficult to trace him; he was tracked to his
master's shop, where it was found that he had been a model apprentice
and fish-hawker for a year; and he was induced to return to his parents
and to school. Thus ignominiously ended Edward's first adventure, the
precursor of a hundred others.
He had, however, only been back at his books a few months when he
vanished again--this time as apprentice on a vessel bound to Oporto, the
captain of which, a Quaker, treated the lad with all kindness and
consideration. Arrived at Portugal he ran away again, and, tramping into
the interior, begging food and shelter on the way, he found work in the
vineyards, where for two years or more he shared the life of the
peasants. One day, as good or ill luck would have it, he was ordered to
drive some asses to the nearest seaport, where he was recognised both by
the English Consul and his old friend, the Quaker; and once more the
prodigal was induced to return to his father's roof.
For a time he proved a model student, to the surprise and delight of his
parents; but once more "hope told a flattering tale." For the third time
he disappeared, and was soon on his way to the Mediterranean as a sailor
working before the mast, and ideally happy in his vagabond life. This
time his father's patience was quite exhausted. He refused to trouble
any more about his prodigal son, declaring that "he had made his bed and
must lie on it."
Mr Foster, however, the rescuer from the fish-basket, was of another
mind. He went in chase of the fugitive, ran him to earth, and brought
him again triumphantly home, submissive but unrepentant. It was quite
clear that the boy would never settle down to the humdrum life of home
and school, and, with his father's permission, Mr Foster took the
restless youth for a long visit to the West Indies, where it seemed that
at last he was cured of his passion for straying. A few years later we
find him back in England, a model of stability, a student and a scholar,
who, in 1747, blossomed into a knight of the shire for the County of
Huntingdon. The rolling-stone had come to rest at last, and had actually
developed into a pillar of the State!
But this eminently respectable chapter in Montagu's chequered life was
destined to be a short one. He soon found himself so uncomfortably deep
in debt that he vanished again--this time to escape from his creditors.
He turned up smiling in Paris, where the sedate legislator blossomed
into the gambler and _roué_, dividing his time between the seductive
poles of the gaming-table and fair women.
His course of dissipation, however, received a sudden and severe check
one Sunday morning in the autumn of 1751, when he was rudely disturbed
by the entry of a _posse_ of officials into his room, armed with a
warrant for his imprisonment.
"On Sunday, the 31st of October 1751," Mr Montagu
records, "when it was near one in the morning, as I was
undressed and going to bed, I heard a person enter my
room; and upon turning round and seeing a man I did not
know, I asked him calmly _what he wanted_? His answer was
that _I must put on my clothes._ I began to expostulate
upon the motive of his apparition, when a commissary
instantly entered the room with a pretty numerous
attendance, and told me with great gravity that he was
come, by virtue of a warrant for my imprisonment, to
carry me to the Grand Chatelêt. I requested him again and
again to inform me of the crime laid to my charge; but
all his answer was, that _I must follow him_. I begged
him to give me leave to write to Lord Albemarle, the
English Ambassador, promising to obey the warrant if his
Excellency was not pleased to answer for my forthcoming.
But the Commissary refused me the use of pen and ink,
though he consented that I should send a verbal message
to his Excellency, telling me at the same time that he
would not wait the return of the messenger, because his
orders were to carry me instantly to prison. As
resistance under such circumstances must have been
unavailable, and might have been blameable, I obeyed the
warrant by following the Commissary, after ordering one
of my domestics to inform my Lord Albemarle of the
treatment I underwent.
"I was carried to the Chatelêt, where the jailors,
hardened by their profession, and brutal for their
profit, fastened upon me as upon one of those guilty
objects whom they lock up to be reserved for public
punishment; and though neither my looks nor my behaviour
betrayed the least symptom of guilt, yet I was treated as
a condemned criminal. I was thrown into prison, and
committed to a set of wretches who bore no character of
humanity but its form. My residence--to speak in the jail
dialect--was in the SECRET, which is no other than the
dungeon of the prison, where all the furniture was a
wretched mattress and a crazy chair. The weather was
cold, and I called for a fire; but I was told I could
have none. I was thirsty, and called for some wine and
water, or even a draught of water by itself, but was
denied it. All the favour I could obtain was a promise to
be waited on in the morning; and then was left by myself
under a hundred locks and bolts, with a bit of candle,
after finding that the words of my jailors were few,
their orders peremptory, and their favours unattainable.
"I continued in this dismal dungeon till the 2nd of
November, entirely ignorant of the crime I was accused
of; but at nine in the morning of that day, I was carried
before a magistrate, where I underwent an examination by
which I understood the heads of the charge against me,
and which I answered in a manner that ought to have
cleared my own innocence."
The story of the charge and trial is a long one; but it can be briefly
outlined as follows:--It seems that one, Abraham Paya, a Jew, who,
disguised as "Mr Roberts," was staying with a Miss Rose who was not his
wedded wife, accused Montagu and two of his friends, Mr Taafe and Lord
Southwell, of making him drunk as a preliminary to inveigling him into
play and winning 870 louis d'or from him.
As the Jew, whom his losses had sobered, refused to pay, Montagu and his
associates had compelled him by violence and threats to give them drafts
for the sums owing to them. Then, knowing that payment would be refused,
"Roberts" shook the dust of Paris off his feet, turned his back on lady
and creditors alike, and ran away to Lyons. Whereupon, so said the
complainant, Montagu and his fellow-thieves had ransacked his baggage
(which he had foolishly left behind him), and appropriated all his money
and jewels, to the value of many thousands of livres.
To quote Mr Montagu again, the latter part of the charge was that Mr
Taafe
"smashed all the trunks, portmanteaus and drawers
belonging to the complainant, from whence he took out in
one bag 400 louis d'or, and out of another, to the value
of 300 louis d'or in French and Portuguese silver; from
another bag, 1200 livres in crown pieces, a pair of
brilliant diamond buckles, for which the complainant paid
8020 livres to the Sieur Piérre; his own picture set
around with diamonds to the amount of 1200 livres ...
laces to the amount of 3000 livres, seven or eight
women's robes; two brilliant diamond rings, several gold
snuff-boxes, a travelling-chest containing his plate and
china, and divers other effects, all of which Mr Taafe
(one of Montagu's co-defendants) packed up in one box,
and, by the help of his footman, carried in a coach to
his own apartment. That afterwards Mr Taafe carried Miss
Rose and her sister in another coach to his lodgings,
where they remained three days, and then sent them to
London, under the care of one of his friends."
Fortunately for Montagu, the verdict of the Court was in his favour;
and, after such an unpleasant experience, he was glad to return to
England, where, such an adept at quick-changing was he, that we soon
find him a full-blown Member of Parliament for Bossinery, lightening his
legislative labours by writing a learned treatise on the rise and fall
of ancient Republics. Was there ever such a man? Duke's grandson,
fish-hawker, common sailor, peasant, _roué_, gambler, Member of
Parliament, scholar--all _rôles_ came equally easily to him; and many
more just as varied were to follow. It was while thus wearing the halo
of learning and high respectability that his father died, leaving him a
substantial income, and a large estate in Yorkshire to his eldest son,
if he should have one. And now we find him leaving his law-making and
cultivating letters and science in Italy, further enriched by the guinea
which was all his mother, Lady Mary, condescended to leave her vagrant
son. The rest--an enormous property--went to his sister, the Countess of
Bute.
From Italy he went on a long tour through the East, where he seems to
have played the _rôle_ of Lothario very effectually. At Alexandria (to
give only one of his love adventures) he lost his fickle heart to the
beautiful wife of the Danish Ambassador, whom, under various pretences,
he induced to leave the coast clear by getting him to go to Holland. The
husband thus safely out of the way, Montagu proceeded to dispose of him.
He showed the lady a letter from Holland giving sad details of his
sudden death, and consoled the bereaved "widow" so well that she
consented to reward him with her hand and to accompany him to Syria.
By the time the dead husband had returned to life Montagu was already
weary of honeymooning, and was thankful to make his escape to Italy,
free to woo, and, if necessary, to wed again.
We next find this human chameleon at Venice, wearing a beard down to his
waist, sleeping on the ground, eating rice and drinking water, and
recounting his adventures to all who cared to hear them. He was an
Armenian, and played the part to perfection--until he wearied of it, and
found another to play. At this time he wrote:
"I have been a labourer in the fields of Switzerland and
Holland, and have not disdained the humble profession of
postillion and ploughman. I was a _petit maitre_ at
Paris, and an abbé at Rome. I put on, at Hamburg, the
Lutheran ruff, and with a triple chin and a formal
countenance I dealt about me the word of God so as to
excite the envy of the clergy. My fate was similar to
that of a guinea, which at one time is in the hands of a
Queen, and at another is in the fob of a greasy
Israelite."
From land to land he wandered, assuming a fresh character in each, and
thoroughly enjoying them all. During a two years' residence at Venice he
was visited by the Duke of Hamilton and a Dr Moore, the latter of whom
gives the following entertaining account of the visit.
"He met us," Dr Moore writes, "at the stairhead, and led
us through some apartments furnished in the Venetian
manner, into an inner room quite in a different style.
There were no chairs, but he desired us to seat
ourselves on a sofa, while he placed himself on a cushion
on the floor, with his legs crossed, in the Turkish
fashion. A young black slave sate by him; and a venerable
old man with a long beard served us with coffee. After
this collation, some aromatic gums were brought and burnt
in a little silver vessel. Mr Montagu held his nose over
the steam for some minutes, and snuffed up the perfume
with peculiar satisfaction; he afterwards endeavoured to
collect the smoke with his hands, spreading and rubbing
it carefully along his beard, which hung in hoary
ringlets to his girdle. This manner of perfuming the
beard seems more cleanly, and rather an improvement upon
that used by the Jews in ancient times.
"We had a great conversation with this venerable-looking
person, who is, to the last degree, acute, communicative,
and entertaining, and in whose discourse and manners are
blended the vivacity of a Frenchman with the gravity of a
Turk. We found him, however, wonderfully prejudiced in
favour of the Turkish characters and manners, which he
thinks infinitely preferable to the European, or those of
any other nation. He describes the Turks in general as a
people of great sense and integrity; the most hospitable,
generous, and the happiest of mankind. He talks of
returning as soon as possible to Egypt, which he paints
as a perfect paradise. Though Mr Montagu hardly ever
stirs abroad, he returned the Duke's visit, and as we
were not provided with cushions, he sate, while he
stayed, upon a sofa with his legs under him, as he had
done at his own house. This posture, by long habit, has
become the most agreeable to him, and he insists upon its
being by far the most natural and convenient; but,
indeed, he seems to cherish the same opinion with regard
to all customs which prevail among the Turks."
It was during this interview that Mr Montagu declared: "I have never
once been guilty of a small folly in the whole course of my
life"--probably making the mental reservation that all his follies had
been great ones. Thus this singular sprig of nobility drifted through
his kaleidoscopic life, changing his religion as lightly as he changed
from priest to ploughman, or from debauchee to Armenian storyteller.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing he ever did was the publication of the
following advertisement, the object of which was evidently to secure the
large Yorkshire estate devised by his father to any son he might have:
"MATRIMONY.--A gentleman who hath filled two succeeding
seats in Parliament, is near sixty years of age, lives in
great splendour and hospitality, and from whom a
considerable estate must pass if he dies without issue,
hath no objection to marry any lady, provided the party
be of genteel birth, polished manners, and about to
become a mother. Letters directed to ---- Brecknock,
Esq., at Wills's Coffeehouse, facing the Admiralty, will
be honoured with due attention, secrecy, and every
possible mark of respect."
At this time Montagu was the father of three children--two sons (one a
black boy of thirteen, who was his favourite companion) and a daughter;
but they all lacked the sanction of the altar.
A lady answering these delicate requirements was actually found, and
Montagu would probably have graduated as a respectable husband and
father of another man's child had not his vagabond career been cut
tragically short. One day, when he was dining at Padua with Romney, the
famous artist, a partridge-bone lodged in the old man's throat, and
refused to budge. He was suffocating; his face grew purple--almost
black. In terrified haste a priest was summoned to administer the last
consolations of religion; but the dying man would have none of him. When
he was asked in what faith he wished to leave the world, he gasped, "A
good Mussulman, I hope." A few moments later Edward Wortley Montagu, who
had played more parts on the world's stage than almost any other man who
ever lived, was a corpse. This grandson of a Duke had begun his life of
adventure as a fish-hawker, and ended it as "a good Mussulman."