most of her friends, and the scandal of the Mrs. Delanys, her sons’
Scotch tutor, Mr. Ogilvie. The marriage, contrary to expectation, turned
out extremely well. Under a rather dry and unattractive exterior Mr.
Ogilvie had a kind heart, and was most devoted to his step-children,
who, on their side (and this is true of Lord Edward in a special
degree), were very fond of him. Lady Sarah Bunbury,[26] writing from her
brother-in-law, Mr. Connolly’s place at Castletown, to her friend, Lady
Susan O’Brien, shortly after the marriage took place, hints that the
Duchess had been forced to the step she had taken, by “the impertinence”
of her daughter, Lady Emily, who had recently married the dissipated
Earl of Bellamont, to her mother’s intense displeasure. It further
appears, she told her son (William, Duke of Leinster), her
mother-in-law, and her sister (Lady Louise Connolly) that she thought it
very possible she should marry Mr. Ogilvie. They all agreed in the same
thing for answer, that they could not _wish it_, but if she was happy it
was all they wished; and that she could not choose a person she had a
better opinion of and had more regard for. With such a sanction, you
would perhaps think there was nothing for her to do, but to inform her
brother (the Duke of Richmond) of her marriage _tout simplement_, but I
wish you had seen the affectionate, the reasonable manner in which she
wrote to my brother, and indeed to all her friends. One of her
expressions to him is, ‘I am content that you should call me a fool, and
an _old fool_, that you should blame me, and say you did not think me
capable of such a folly; talk me over, say what you please, but remember
that all I ask of you is your affection and tenderness.’ My brother says
there is no resisting her owning herself in the wrong, and begging so
hard to be loved, so you see the good effect of meekness; I assure you
my sister _gains_ friends instead of losing any by her manner.
Footnote 26:
Letter of July 29th, 1775, “Letters,” I., pp. 240-241.
After her second marriage the Duchess and her husband, Mr. Ogilvie,
taking the younger children with them, went to live in France, where her
grace’s brother, the Duke of Richmond, had put his house at Aubigny at
their service. Here the two little Ogilvie girls were born, Cecilia and
Emily, and were made heartily welcome to the family circle by their
kind-hearted half-brothers and sisters, the Fitzgeralds. In the meantime
these boys and girls were going on with their studies under Mr.
Ogilvie’s direction, and the successful careers of Lord Charles and Lord
Gerald in the navy, Lord Edward in the army, Lord Henry in politics, and
Lord Robert in diplomacy were largely due to the skill and prudence with
which Mr. Ogilvie directed their preparatory studies.
In 1780 the family returned to Ireland, and the Duchess saw her brood of
boys scatter for their first flight. For the next six or seven years
she, with her girls, divided her time between Ireland and England. But
from 1785 to 1787 she was settled in Dublin with Lord Edward, back for a
portion of the time, under her wing, and her girls going out a good deal
under the chaperonage of the young Duchess of Leinster, and their aunt,
Lady Louisa Connolly. In the summer of 1787 we learn from Lady Sarah
Napier that the Duchess was in Barège for the sake of Lady Lucy’s
health, and she was looking forward to the pleasure of being joined by
three of her sons, when news of Lord Gerald’s death at sea reached her.
From 1788 the Duchess took up her permanent abode in London, probably
with the idea of getting her daughters suitably settled. As regards Lady
Charlotte these expectations were fulfilled the following year when she
married Mr. Strutt.
In 1788 and 1789 Lord Edward was in Canada and his letters to his mother
describing his adventures, “deep in Canadian woods” and on the banks of
Canadian lakes and rivers, were looked forward to with great eagerness
by the Duchess, and passed from hand to hand among the family circle,
even finding their way from London to Castletown, for Lady Louisa
Connolly’s and Lady Sarah Napier’s delectation. “He writes,” the latter
informs her friend, “the most natural and pretty account of his journey
you ever read, comments on the spirit of the chase, the melancholy end
of it, the inferior passions of hunger driving away pity, his low
spirits when he thinks of all his friends, and ends: ‘My dear mother, I
fear we are all beasts and love ourselves best.’” Lord Edward was a
special favourite of his aunt, Lady Sarah, and nothing that befel “this
dear spirited boy” left her cold. One of the most delightful spectacles
in the world was to see how he brought his love-troubles to her and to
“his dearest mother” with the full certainty of their sympathy and help,
and understanding.
He had been for some time deeply in love with his cousin, Georgina,
daughter of Lord George Lennox, but the young lady’s father would not
consent to the match and married the girl to Henry Bathurst, Lord
Apsley. By an unfortunate chance Lord Edward, arriving in England,
unexpectedly from Canada, drove up to his mother’s house in Harley
Street at the very moment she was giving a dinner-party in honour of the
bridal pair.
Disappointed in love, Lord Edward threw himself eagerly into politics,
and devoted his time to his duties in the Irish Parliament. On the
outbreak of the French Revolution he hurried to Paris, and in the
enthusiasm with which he adopted revolutionary principles, he took the
extreme step of “renouncing” his title, and in consequence of this he
was dismissed from the English army.
In December, 1792, Lord Edward married Pamela, who was generally
believed to be the daughter of the Duke of Orleans and Madame de Genlis.
The marriage cannot have been much to the liking of the Duchess. But,
like the wise woman she was, she offered no opposition to her son’s
choice, once she saw his heart was set on it, and when he came to her a
few weeks later to present his bride to her, she opened wide her heart
and arms to “the dear, little, pale, pretty wife.”
* * * * *
During the five years that followed, Lord Edward and Pamela kept in the
closest possible touch with the Duchess through a constant
correspondence and frequent visits. But it was only one portion of his
existence which her son revealed to his loving mother. There is no hint
of politics, of the stern business which was to be wound up in the
bloody liquidation of “’Ninety-Eight,” in the letters which “Eddy”
writes in the open bay window of the little book-room in Frescati, with
the birds pouring out their song and the perfumed garden its fragrance
all around him. It is of her flowers and shrubs he tells the Duchess, “I
believe there never was a person who understood planting and making a
place as you do. The more one sees of Carton and this place [Frescati]
the more one admires them; the mixture of plants and the succession of
them are so well arranged.” He gladdens her heart with a description of
Frescati and the shrubs she had planted, in all their June loveliness.
“All the shrubs are out, lilac, laburnum, syringa, spring roses, and
lily of the valley”—in short the whole is heavenly. He seeks her
approval for his own gardening plans and labours: he has had the little
green full mowed and rolled, the little mound of earth that is round the
bays and myrtle before the house planted with tufts of gentianellas and
primroses, and lily of the valley, and they look beautiful, peeping out
of the dark evergreen; close to the root of the great elm he has put a
patch of lily of the valley. A fine February morning finds him “digging
round roots of trees, raking ground and planting laurels,” and planning
to have hyacinths, jonquils, pinks, cloves, narcissi in little beds
before the house and in the rosery. If his mother will trust him to
prune the trees, in the long round, he thinks he can do it prudently.
Later on he tries very hard to make his mother see the home he has made
for his wife in Kildare—the little white house with bay windows, all
covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle—the “dear wife” herself in
her little American jacket planting sweet peas and mignonette—her
work-box with the little one’s caps on the table in the open window.
The expected “little one,” “the little young plant that was coming,”
filling its young father with proud joy, arrived in October, 1794, in
the shape of another little Eddy, and the Duchess was very glad to
accede to her big Eddy’s request, and to be its godmother. The little
Eddy was subsequently left with his grandmother for good, after his
parents’ visit to Hamburg in 1796, which was to have such momentous
political consequences. Little did the poor Duchess know for what his
father was preparing when “the precious Babe” was left with her! She is
full of gratitude for the gift, and full of appreciation of the
sacrifice the “dear Edwards” have made in parting with it—they “who
adore it and delight in its pretty ways.” We get charming glimpses of
the Duchess and the pretty boy in some letters to Lady Lucy. Now he is
at play among the sheep on the green hill beneath her window; now at her
elbow while she is writing, and full of messages for her to give to Papa
and Mamma. “Eddy, dood boy, Eddy, happy boy. Papa ride horseback, Mama
dance.” which shows, the Duchess remarks, “that he remembers them.”
Again, the Duchess is showing him a lock of Papa’s hair which Lady Lucy
has sent her mother, and Eddy is kissing it a thousand times: “Papa’s
hair, Eddy’s own Papa’s hair!” She loves to gather up his comical
remarks. “I told him something he was eating was _enough_ and that more
was _too much_. ‘But Eddy don’t like _enough_, Eddy like _too much_.’”
In October, 1797, Lord Edward saw his mother for the last time. After
that, events moved with tragical swiftness to the catastrophe of May
19th, 1798.
It was ten days after Lord Edward had got his fatal wound in the
altercation with Major Ryan that his mother was told of his condition.
As soon as the news was broken to her, she declared that she must go to
her boy at once. They kept her in London, persuading her that it was
there she might serve his cause, seeing great people, using all the
influence she could command to have his trial put off. Only poor Lucy,
more closely in sympathy with Lord Edward than any of the others, feels
how useless all this is. “All that human foresight could point out they
are doing, but alas! Edward is dying and alone!”
It was only on June 6—when Lord Edward had been two days dead—that the
Duchess, Mr. Ogilvie, Lady Sophia, Lady Lucy, and “Mimi” Ogilvie set out
at length for Ireland. They were met on the road by the messenger
bearing the fatal news.
* * * * *
Lord Edward’s daughter, Pamela, shall tell us the end of the story: “The
Fourth of June, when the guns fired for the King’s birthday, was always
a dark day in the house; poor Grandmamma appeared in deeper mourning,
and somehow there was a sort of stillness; we spoke with bated breath,
and went softly ... it was the anniversary of my father’s death.
Grandmamma wore his coloured handkerchief next her heart, and it was put
into the coffin with her.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mother of the Sheareses
JANE ANNE SHEARES, _née_ BETTESWORTH (-1803)[27]
“Come to me, O Christ,
Take swiftly my soul
Alike with my sons.”
—_Lament of Mothers of Bethlehem._
Footnote 27:
_Authorities_: Madden’s “United Irishmen,” Fourth Series, Second
Edition.
ON Saturday, May 19th, 1798, Lord Edward, desperately wounded in the
gallant fight he had put up—one man against the multitude of his
assailants—was taken prisoner and lodged in Newgate. Wounded and alone
he lay in his gloomy cell, and on his hard prison bed through the long
hours of the hot May Sunday that followed, and none of those who loved
him was near at hand to bring healing to his fevered body, or comfort to
his tortured heart.
On that same May Sabbath, when, from every open space that the
retreating country had left behind her, in her flight before the city’s
advance, there came the smell of the lilac and hawthorn, the honeyed
fragrance of lime trees and chestnut blossoms—“all the sweetness of the
May”—a different scene was taking place in another part of the city. In
a handsome house at the corner of Baggot Street and Pembroke Street, a
dinner-party was in progress. The _cuisine_ was irreproachable, the wine
excellent, the conversation of a high order. The master of the house, a
tall finely-built man of about forty-five, with something of the soldier
in his bearing, sat at one end of the table. His countenance, usually
somewhat stern and forbidding, owing to the haughty glance of his dark
eyes, and the curious blood-red birth-mark which stained the lower part
of his face, was softened now into geniality as his eyes swept the
little circle of relatives and guests gathered around his hospitable
board. His brother, a man of about thirty-two, of a singularly open and
pleasing countenance, blue-eyed, clear-complexioned, with well-formed
features and a clever mobile mouth, that showed, as the frequent smile
parted it, a row of perfect teeth—sat opposite. An old lady—their
mother—very stately and handsome in her rich dark dress and priceless
lace, sat near her eldest son. Beside her was that son’s beautiful wife.
On the opposite side of the table was the host’s sister, and beside her
his daughter by an earlier marriage. By the side of the younger brother
sat a tall man in the uniform of a Captain in the King’s County Militia.
Presently, dinner being ended, the ladies left the men of the party to
their wine, and retired to the drawing-room. A knock at the front door,
followed by the _frou-frou_ of silks and the murmur of feminine voices
in the hall, announced the advent of after-dinner visitors. At the
proposal of the younger brother of the host, the political discussion
which the three men had inaugurated over their port was postponed, and a
dish of tea with the ladies in the drawing-room was suggested. The dark
eyes of the master of the house were full of merriment, while he
explained to the guest what the magnet was that drew John from his
politics. As the voices floated past them in the hall there had been
clearly discernible the silvery tones of their beautiful neighbour, Miss
Maria Steele. “You should hear some of the poetry he addresses to his
Stella, Captain Armstrong!” said the host in laughing tones.
Captain Armstrong! Captain Warneford Armstrong! We know now, with that
name ringing in our ears, that darker than the tragedy of Lord Edward,
lying wounded to death in his prison cell at Newgate, is the tragedy
that is being enacted before our eyes in this pleasant hospitable house.
In this handsome dining-room, around the gleaming mahogany with its
genial burden of fruit and wine, there sit—the informer, Captain John
Warneford Armstrong, and his victims, Henry and John Sheares! And
presently, if we have the courage to face it, and will follow the three
men in their passage to the ladies in the drawing-room, we shall see an
even more harrowing spectacle. For in that charming eighteenth-century
room, all full of May sweetness from the tall open windows, all full of
lovely ladies and beautiful children in their picturesque
eighteenth-century costume, we shall presently see the traitor gather
the two little children of Henry Sheares upon his knee, while their
mother tunes her harp, and sings in her glorious voice, some exquisite,
moving strain for his delectation.[28] It is the picture which the
genius of Curran has made immortal: “I am disposed to believe, shocking
as it is,” he cried, while he turned to the Jury, in the dim light of
the ghastly midnight court where the Sheareses stood, two months later,
on trial for their lives, “that this witness had the heart, when he was
surrounded by the little progeny of my client—when he was sitting in the
mansion in which he was hospitably entertained—when he saw the old
mother, supported by the piety of her son, and the children basking in
the parental fondness of the father—that he saw the scene, and smiled at
it—contemplated the havoc he was to make, consigning them to the storms
of a miserable world, without having an anchorage in the kindness of a
father. Can such horror exist, and not waken the rooted vengeance of an
eternal God?”
Footnote 28:
The incident of Mrs. Henry Sheares singing to her harp for the
entertainment of Armstrong was related to Madden by Miss Maria Steele,
the friend of John Sheares. In Curran’s “Life,” written by his son, it
is stated on the authority of a gentleman who had dined with the
Sheareses, on the day in question that “he observed Armstrong, who was
one of the guests, taking his entertainer’s little children upon his
knee, and as it was then thought, affectionately caressing them.”
Armstrong denied to Madden the truth of these statements, but his
denials were not considered convincing.
* * * * *
The poor old lady, on whom the diabolical treachery of the guest of that
Sunday dinner-party was to bring such suffering that the whole annals of
“’Ninety-Eight” have nothing to surpass it, had already tasted in a
fuller measure, than is the lot of common women, the joys and the
sorrows of life. The near kinswoman of the distinguished lawyer,
Sergeant Bettesworth, and a relation of the Earl of Shannon, she had
been married, while still very young, to a wealthy Cork banker, Mr.
Henry Sheares, son of Henry Sheares, Esq., M.P., of Goldenbush. At
Goldenbush, by the pleasant Bandon river, the young couple resided for
some time, and here a number of their children were born. But at a later
date the family lived at Glasheen, about a mile and a half from Cork,
and their abundant means allowed them to keep up another establishment
in the city—a house which has been identified by Dr. Madden as situated
at the corner of Moore Street and Nile Street.
The young wife was highly accomplished, and it is rare to find a couple
so perfectly matched, as were she and her husband, in every noble
quality of heart and mind. She entered into his philanthropic schemes
with the greatest zeal. Out of the abundance with which God had blessed
them it was their joy to help all those in need. One of the spectacles
which moved their compassion most keenly was that of decent poor people
who, having fallen into debt, were by the barbarous law of the time,
liable to be hauled off to prison for it, and to be herded with
criminals, by whom they were too frequently contaminated. To help these
unfortunates, whose only crime was poverty, Mr. Sheares instituted “the
Society for the Relief of Persons Confined for Small Debts,” and in
about nine months the secretary, Rev. Dr. Pigott, was able to report
that “more than seventy poor wretches have been relieved by this
institution from the depths of misery, and all the horrors of loathsome
confinement—by which, at the same time, above 240 children (besides
wives and other poor dependent relations) have had those restored to
them from whose labour they derive their bread, and the community has
been enriched by the replacing of many useful and industrious members.”
We have already spoken of the culture which marked the merchant princes
of Cork in the eighteenth century. Even in their cultured ranks Mr.
Henry Sheares stood prominently forth. He was a clever writer, and his
contributions over the pen-name “Agricola,” to the Cork periodicals of
his day were keenly appreciated by their readers. It was held by some of
them that “no moralist—not even Mr. Addison—excelled him in the
composition” of the little moral essay, which was his favourite vehicle
of instruction. Two of his essays, one “On Forgiveness,” the other “On
Man in Society, and at His Final Separation from it,” are reproduced by
Madden; and they show, beneath the somewhat stilted and formal style
which was so much to the taste of their day—and so little to that of
ours—a depth of religion, feeling, a noble philosophy of life which can
never be out of date. He was the founder of a Club, somewhat in “the
Spectator” style, “where popular and literary subjects were debated, and
his speeches at this Club were long remembered by his friends as
pleasing memorials of great historical knowledge, a fine taste and
graceful elocution.” He sat as member of Parliament for the borough of
Clonakilty—which was in the patronage of his wife’s kinsman, the Earl of
Shannon—in the Irish House of Commons from 1761 to 1767; and the
_Parliamentary Debates_ for these years show that he took an active part
in the proceedings of the House.
Mr. Sheares died in 1776, leaving his widow and family in very
comfortable circumstances. Nine children are mentioned in his will:
Henry, Robert Bettesworth, Richard, John, and Christopher Humphrey;
Letitia, Mary, Jane Anne Bettesworth, and Julia. Of these it was their
mother’s tragic fate to survive all but the youngest, Julia.
The greatest pains had been taken with their education, and for their
settlement. Of the four daughters, all were married except Julia: one to
Mr. Gubbins, of Limerick, another to Mr. Henry Westropp, another to Dr.
Payne of Upton. “The sons,” writes one who knew the family, “had the
best masters to attend them in their father’s house, under their
father’s eye; he narrowly inspected what company they kept, and at a
proper age they were sent to the University, where, being young men of
good natural parts, they acquired a considerable degree of reputation.”
The high hopes that had been built on these boys were overturned, in the
case of three of them, by very early deaths. One day Robert and John
were out bathing together, when John got into difficulties, in saving
him poor Robert was drowned. A little later, Christopher, who had chosen
the army for his profession, went out to the West Indies, on John’s
advice. A few months later there came to his loving mother in Ireland
the news of his death by yellow fever. Richard, who had entered the
navy, perished on the _Thunderer_, which went down, with all hands, off
the West Indies, in the great hurricane of October, 1779.
The eldest son, Henry, who inherited his father’s real and personal
property, estimated at about £1,200 a year, was educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, and first chose the army for his profession. In 1782,
when he was scarcely twenty years of age, he eloped with Miss Swete, of
Cork, whose father, Alderman Swete, was considered one of the wealthiest
men in the City. Young Councillor Fitzgibbon (afterwards Lord Clare) had
been among Miss Swete’s suitors, and it is said that he never forgave
the man whom she preferred to him—and that thoughts of this early
rivalry in love were at the bottom of the implacable hostility which
drove Henry Sheares to his doom. Shortly after the marriage, Alderman
Swete became bankrupt, and his daughter’s fortune having vanished with
the rest of his assets, Henry Sheares was obliged to give up the army
and take up the study of law. He was called to the Bar in 1790, his
brother John, thirteen years younger than he (born 1766) having been
called the preceding year. The brothers began practice together, taking
up their residence in Dublin—at first in a house on Ormond Quay, and
from 1796 in Baggot Street (now 128).
A little after the move to Dublin the young wife of Henry Sheares died
(December 11th, 1791) leaving her husband four little children. Three of
the children were taken by the grandparents, the Swetes, and educated by
them in France. The youngest child, Jane, appears to have been put in
charge of Grandmother Sheares and Aunt Julia.
In 1792 Henry Sheares, accompanied by his brother, John, went to France
to visit his children. The stirring events which were taking place in
Paris drew the brothers to the capital, and here they made the
acquaintance of some of the most prominent men of the Revolution;
notably Roland and Brissot. The influences under which they found
themselves in this atmosphere were to give the most decisive direction
to their political philosophy, and ultimately to seal their fate. The
ardent spirit of John was irresistibly attracted to the new doctrines,
and where John led, Henry, who loved him with a love surpassing the love
of ordinary brothers, was fain to follow. Left to himself, poor Henry
would have felt little call to republicanism; he liked dignified
splendour; a fine house, a good table, a choice library. He loved
society in which from his conversational powers, and his charming
deferential way with women, he was a great favourite. He was a devoted
family man—a loving son, and husband and father—and his happiest hours
were spent in his own beautiful home in Baggot Street in the years which
followed his second marriage with Miss Sarah Neville, a lady of good
family in the County Kilkenny. In this home, with its rich furniture and
fine library, he was soon joined by his mother and Julia and little
Jane; and Sarah Sheares, who was a woman of character, as well as of
accomplishments and charm, lived on the happiest footing with her
people-in-law. John was also a permanent member of the household.