The Dukes (27 page)

There is one sophisticated exception to this sorry list - Topham Beauclerk, friend of Dr Johnson, and grandson of the 1st Duke of St Albans. His name derived from the outrageous character of his father, Lord Sidney Beauclerk, a pursuer of elderly rich ladies, and a handsome bounder, who persuaded Mr Topham of Windsor to leave him his fortune. Topham Beauclerk was dissolute, but cultured, intelligent, and enlightened. Johnson told him, "Thy body is all vice, and thy mind all virtue." He was good company, entertaining, well informed, and very well read. When he died, his library was sold at public auction, and fetched £5011 in 1781. Johnson wrote: "Poor dear Beauclerk -
nec, ut soles, debis joca.
His wit and folly, his acuteness and maliciousness, his merriment and reasoning, are now over. Such another will not often be found among mankind."

He had another, less savoury, reputation for lice, which flourished under his wig. He freely admitted that he had enough to stock a parish.

The most famous in the St Albans line, however, is one of the duchesses. Harriot Mellon, later Harriot Coutts, and finally Duchess of St Albans, was born penniless, and died one of the richest women in England. Like Nell Gwynn, she was working-class, an actress, and with wealthy admirers. Her marriage to the Duke caused quite a stir, as she was then fifty years old, stout, and a widow, while he was a mere simple-minded youth of twenty-six, who refused to grow up. They suited each other at the time. The St Albans purse needed replenishing (as always), and Harriot needed to be accepted in society; she married for rank, he for money. They were to be nick­named "Lord Noodle and Queen Dollabella". Harriot Mellon was born in or near 1777, the daughter of an Irish peasant woman and a mysterious soldier, whom no one has ever been able to trace. Mother and daughter lived by their wits, from day to day, and joined a travelling group of actors. Harriot was on stage before the age of ten, though she and her mother subsisted on a beggar's income never far from abject poverty, until she was noticed by the playwright Sheridan, when she was about sixteen, and promised advancement. Sheridan had to be pestered to keep his promise, but eventually arranged for Harriot to appear as Lydia Languish at Drury Lane. Her career progressed, including parts in
Twelfth Night
and
The Merry Wives of Windsor,
but her most famous role was Mrs Candour in
The School for Scandal.
She also played, unsuccess­fully it appears, as Ophelia in
Hamlet,
Rosalind in
As You Like It
and Miranda in
The Tempest.
Her salary advanced to two guineas a week.

Two fortuitous events in 1806 or 1807 overturned Harriot's life. She won £10,000 (or a portion of it) in a raffle, and was able to buy a house in Highgate called Holly Lodge, which was later famous for her extravagant parties. The second stroke of fortune came when Thomas Coutts, the banker and the richest man of his day, fell hope­lessly in love with her. He lavished expensive gifts upon her, and lifted her and her mother to the dizzy heights of sumptuous living. It was common knowledge that they were soon living together.
¹⁰¹
Two circumstances made the liaison particularly distasteful: Mr Coutts was still married, and he was nearly eighty years old. Harriot was in her early thirties. Her reputation never recovered from the malicious gossip which began to circulate. "Society", which consisted of about 300 people in London in those days, looked down its nose at this cheap adventure, and would never, but never, accept Harriot into their hallowed circles, however much money she might have. It has since become clear that the raffle she won was a discreet fiction; the money for Holly Lodge was put up by Coutts.

Mr Coutts's first wife died in 1815, and a few months later he secretly married Harriot. When the news became known, "decent" people felt outraged, though she cared little, for life was pleasant, money was abundant, and she had servants, style, and sequins. Mr Coutts was not a lascivious old man, but a kindly gentleman infatuated with Harriot's theatrical presence; he may even have been stage-struck. One day a jeweller called Mr Hamlet happened to show him a beautiful diamond cross. "How happy I should be with such a splendid specimen of jewellery," said Harriot, now Mrs Coutts, with as much subtlety as she could muster. Mr Coutts asked the jeweller how much it was worth. "I could not part with it for under £15,000," he said. "Bring me pen and ink," said Coutts, who simply wrote out a cheque.
¹⁰²

Thomas Coutts was over ninety when he finally died in 1822 (perhaps later than Harriot might reasonably have expected). His will left the whole of his fortune, about £900,000, to Harriot "for her sole use and benefit, and at her absolute disposal, without the deduction of a single legacy to any other person", although he had three daughters by his first marriage. Again, tongues wagged, but this was not so heartless as it seemed; all three daughters married well, and were comfortable, whereas Harriot had only what he could give her; besides, he trusted her not to forget them, and his trust was proven to be justified.

Three years later the romance with the Duke of St Albans began. To her credit, she did everything to discourage the young man, whose father had been courting her as well. She was a portly middle-aged woman, but with the high spirits and vivacity which in our own day has turned the head of many a young man beguiled by the theatrical manner. Besides, St Albans, who had only recently succeeded to the title, had not much money, and she now had plenty. He proposed in 1826, and she refused him, telling him to ask her again in twelve months' time if he still wanted her. When the year was up, he proposed a second time. She refused, sending her letter with a messenger on horseback. Then she thought better of it, and sent another messenger to catch up with the first and get the letter back.
¹⁰³
The engagement was duly announced.

"The Duke of St Albans is to be married to Mother Coutts on Saturday", wrote Creevey, sardonically.
¹⁰⁴
In another place he referred to her as "the old Dowager Coutts" and said "a more disgusting, frowsy, hairy old B. could not have been found in the Seven Dials".
¹⁸⁵
Nevertheless, London society nodded knowingly and looked askance. Broughton said, "There are all sorts of ridiculous stories about the Duke and his marriage, but the baseness is more prominent than the folly of such a transaction",
¹⁰⁰
and Sir Walter Scott wrote: "If the Duke marries her, he ensures an immense fortune; if she marries him, she has the first rank. The disparity of ages concerns no one but themselves; so they have my consent to marry, if they can get each other's."
¹⁰⁷
Her stepson-in-law, Sir Francis Burdett, sat up all night before the wedding trying to persuade her not to go through with it.
¹⁰⁸

Before the ceremony, Harriot's servants wore the Coutts livery. Immediately afterwards they appeared in the St Albans yellow and black stockings.
¹⁰⁹
He received, as a result of the union, £30,000, plus an estate in Essex valued at £26,000; all his unsettled property was answerable to the Coutts bank for any claims upon it. Lady Holland reflected on the appearance of the couple. The Duke, she wrote, "is rather melancholy ... a handsome face with features quite immoveable, no sort of expression. A large, handsome, dark, fixed, glazed eye. She affected to be very joyous, but I think her gaiety all assumed. It is a strange alliance."
¹¹⁰

Strange indeed. The new Duchess took into the marriage the pillow on which old Mr Coutts had expired. She travelled with it everywhere. The pillow and her favourite bible (which had belonged to Coutts) were always in a plain case by her side wherever she went.
¹¹¹
Still she was not accepted in society. She gave marvellous parties in Highgate, at which she hired all the birds from all the bird-dealers in London, and hung them in the grounds of her house, in keeping with her husband's office as Grand Falconer;
¹¹²
there were similarly extrovert parties at St Albans House in Brighton. But Lady Holland noticed that she was treated with spite. "The ladies did not behave prettily or at all like
grandes dames
to the Duchess of St Albans. They really
shouldered
her on their bench. How can women behave so to one another!"
¹¹³
Creevey professed to be appalled at her squandering of wealth while poor people were starving, and called her "a prodigal fool and devil", but again he was unjust. She was well known to be profusely generous and benevolent, and her kindness to the poor in Highgate is legendary. She never forgot her origins. She once heard that a woman was living in poverty in Brighton, disguised herself and visited her, leaving behind an envelope contain­ing £300.
¹¹⁴
If she was cold-shouldered by the nobility, she remained vastly popular with the people. She felt her isolation. "All is coldness, reserve, and universal ennui", she wrote.
¹¹⁵
The Queen pointedly omit­ted her from an invitation to a ball at the Brighton Pavilion at which 830 persons were present; there was hardly anyone of sub­stance left in Brighton who was not invited.
¹¹⁶
When she fell ill she subsisted for the last two months on arrowroot and a little brandy, and nothing more. She clutched Mr Coutts' pillow to her, and expired on 6th August 1837.
¹¹⁷
The English nobility lost a colourful and unlikely member of their ranks. When her will was published those who had scorned and mocked had cause to show remorse. She left to the Duke of St Albans an annuity of £10,000, and two houses (including Holly Lodge). The rest of her vast fortune, now £1,800,000, she left to Miss Angela Burdett, Mr Coutt's grand-daughter. The newspapers gleefully pointed out that this fortune in gold weighed more than thirteen tons, that it would require 107 men to carry it, if each one carried 298 lb. equivalent to a sack of flour, or in sovereigns it would cover more than twenty-four
miles and take more than ten weeks to count.
¹¹⁸
Angela grew into the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the philanthropist.

The 9th Duke of St Albans, having first seduced a servant-girl, took as his second wife an Irishwoman called Elizabeth Gubbins. The marriage was a disaster as far as the descendants were (and are) concerned, for it is Miss Gubbins who is suspected of having brought insanity into the family. Her brother Charles Gubbins was mad.

For the time being, however, nothing was untoward. They had a son and heir, who succeeded as 10th Duke in 1849, and married Sybil Grey. With the next generation, the wayward seed was apparent. The nth Duke of St Albans (1870-1934) went irretriev­ably mad, spending the last thirty years of his life locked up in a Sussex clinic. His brother William set fire to a building at Eton and then succumbed to total insanity. It is difficult to say whether this weakness must be traced
only
to Elizabeth Gubbins; after all, her husband the 9th Duke himself died of an epileptic fit at the age of forty-eight, and, further back, the 6th Duke died of apoplexy of the brain in 1815.

The next Duke was 'Obby', Osborne de Vere Beauclerk, 12th Duke of St Albans, half brother to the nth, and grandson of Elizabeth Gubbins. Though he was always said to be "mad as a hatter" by nearly ever/one who knew him, Obby's eccentricities did not make him certifiable. He never lost sight of the madness which afflicted both his brothers and was apt to be melancholy at times. Those who remember him (he died in 1964, nearly ninety years old) have a clearer impression of his colourful nonconformity. He proposed appearing at the coronation of 1953, for example, with a live falcon to remind everyone that he was Hereditary Grand Falconer, and when permission was not granted he elected not to go at all. He was a familiar sight in the church near where he lived in Ireland, snoring with a handkerchief over his face, only waking up to contradict the preacher with shouts of "Rubbish!" On a visit to Lord Dunraven, he arrived with a brown paper bag containing pyjamas and a toothbrush.
¹¹⁹
And he was known to ask the hall porter at his club to wind his watch for him. There was one occasion when he sat impassively in a hotel restaurant when a fire alarm disturbed him. He refused to move. As waiters tried to get him to escape, he said "Nonsense! Bring me some more toast." "But your Grace's clothes!" exclaimed the manager. "Throw them out of the window," said Obby.

The Duke married but had no children, which was a relief to him, for he feared passing on the hereditary madness. The fear did not extend to illegitimate offspring, of which he mischievously claimed a far greater number than could have been true. He had no time for his successor, the present Duke, whom he invited only once. He used to ask other members of the family to "do something about the heir". When he died it was realised that he had done precious little to protect what remained of the St Albans inheritance, and so passed on to the next duke nothing but death duties. "Bury me where I drop," he used to say.
¹²⁰

The man who succeeded as 13th Duke of St Albans in 1964 was Mr Charles de Vere Beauclerk, a descendant of the 8th Duke who died in 1825, before Miss Gubbins came into the picture. He had a Cambridge M.A. degree, and was decorated for his work in the Intelligence Division during the war with the O.B.E. After that he had a distinguished career in the Civil Service, in the Central Office of Information. He was still there when he became Duke, and did not in fact resign until six months later. He presented the unusual spectacle of a middle-class duke, descended from the coupling of King and Cockney girl, without a landed estate and dependent on a salaried position. He then went into the City, with a variety of companies whose interests include property, travel, advertising and finance. He had the acumen to make himself a millionaire, though he has not escaped some criticism.