The last of the Stanleys of the Manx dynasty died childless in 1735, and
then the lordship of Man devolved by the female line on the second Duke
of Athol by right of his grandmother, who was a daughter of the great
Earl of Derby. There is little that is good to say of the Lords of the
House of Athol except that they sold the island. Almost the first, and
quite the best, thing they did on coming to Man, was to try to get out
of it. Let us make no disguise of the clear truth. The Manx Athols were
bad, and nearly everything about them was bad. Never was the condition
of the island so abject as during their day. Never were the poor so
poor. Never was the name of Manxman so deservedly a badge of disgrace.
The chief dishonour was that of the Athols. They kept a swashbuckler
court in their little Manx kingdom. Gentlemen of the type of Barry
Lyndon overran it. Captain Macheaths, Jonathan Wilds, and worse, were
masters of the island, which was now a refuge for debtors and felons.
Roystering, philandering, gambling, fighting, such was the order of
things.
What days they had! What nights! His Grace of Athol was himself in the
thick of it all. He kept a deal of company, chiefly rogues and rascals.
For example, among his "lord captains" was one Captain Fletcher. This
Blue Beard had a magnificent horse, to which, when he was merry, he made
his wife, who was a religious woman, kneel down and say her prayers. The
mother of my friend, the Reverend T. E. Brown, came upon the dead body
of one of these Barry Lyndons, who had fallen in a duel, and the blue
mark was on the white forehead, where the pistol shot had been. I
remember to have heard of another Sir Lucius O'Trigger, whose body lay
exposed in the hold of a fishing-smack, while a parson read the burial
service from the quay. This was some artifice to prevent seizure for
debt. Oh, these good old times, with their soiled and dirty splendours!
There was no lively chronicler, no Pepys, no Walpole then, to give us a
picture of the Court of these Kings of Man. What a picture it must
have been! Can you not see it? The troops of gentlemen debtors from
the Coffee Houses of London, with their periwigs, their canes, and
fine linen; down on their luck, but still beruffled, besnuffed, and
red-heeled. I can see them strutting with noses up, through old Douglas
market-place on market morning, past the Manx folk in their homespun,
their curranes and undyed stockings. Then out at Mount Murray, the home
of the Athols, their imitations of Vauxhall, torches, dancings, bows and
congés, bankrupt shows, perhaps, but the bankrupt Barrys making the
best of them--one seems to see it all. And then again, their genteel
quarrels--quarrels were easily bred in that atmosphere. "Sir, I have the
honour to tell you that you are a pimp, lately escaped from the Fleet."
"My lord, permit me to say that you lie, that you are the son of a lady,
and were born in a sponging-house." Then out leapt the weapons, and
presently two men were crossing swords under the trees, and by-and-by
one of them was left under the moonlight, with the shadow of the leaves
playing on his white face.
Poor gay dogs, they are dead! The page of their history is lost. Perhaps
that is just as well. It must have been a dark page, maybe a little red
too, even as blood runs red. You can see the scene of their revelries.
It is an inn now. The walls seem to echo to their voices. But the tables
they ate at are like themselves--worm-eaten.
Good-bye to them! They have gone over the Styx.