Tears in Parliament: the Assassination of Spencer Perceval 1813

 

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I suspect there is only a small anthology to be assembled around the theme of tears shed in Parliament and I have only a small contribution to make. But it does give me an excuse to illustrate the old Houses of Parliament with this 1815 engraving by Miss Letitia Byrne, a prolific water-colourist and engraver.

In May 1813 John Borthwick was in London to press his family’s claim to the title of Lord Borthwick, dormant since 1774. The case was to be heard by the Lords’ Committee of Privileges. On 7 May he wrote to his father in Edinburgh reporting progress at a preliminary hearing: Lord Lauderdale had told him, in confidence, that the Chancellor Lord Eldon was on side but that the Duke of Norfolk would speak against when the case came to be heard on the 13^th May. But events intervened; John Bellingham assassinated the Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons on the afternoon of the 11^th. John Borthwick consequently sends unexpected news to his father on the 13^th :

“All business is at a stand. I was in the House of Lords yesterday and the Chancellor seemed as if he had been crying & awake all the preceding night. He got up to speak, & when he pronounced the words Spencer Percival he burst into tears, & was forced to sit down. He, therefore seems quite unfit for hearing causes. Mr Campbell & I have just called at the Parliament office & have heard that nothing of that kind is to be done. I must therefore wait two or three days to see what happens. Several of the heads of Government are afraid to shew themselves, in case of a general plan of assassination. Bellingham is to be tried on Friday; probably on Saturday or Sunday something will appear of what is to be the future line of procedure. Mrs Percival is to get £2000 a year & the 12 children £50,000. If there is a public funeral I shall see it well from my window”.

John Borthwick sheds no tears for Spencer Perceval and on the streets there was plenty of rejoicing. The authorities feared that the murder might spark larger popular unrest and, at least, attempts to rescue Bellingham who was hanged on 18^th.May, exactly a week after the assassination.  The Borthwick’s application was heard and denied on 21^st June 1813; the family finally succeeded with their claim in 1870. Such are the law's delays.

Infanticide, an anonymous letter to John Murray, Lord Advocate of Scotland 1836

 

This anonymous letter accuses Alexander Greenlees of Campeltown of the crime of infanticide in November 1835. The Greenlees of Campbeltown (Argyll and Bute) appear to have been whisky distillers and so well-off enough to employ servants inlcuding a girl named only as Macmillan/McMillan in this letter; the surname was very common  in the district and I cannot provide a first name for the girl.

A case was opened in Campbeltown against Greenlees for "Child Murder" on 24 February 1836 but there is no further relevant record; the explanation may be this: born on the 6th October 1817 in Campbeltown, Alexander Greenlees died - according to a grave inscription in his home town - on the 11th April 1836 in Siam.

I am suspicious of the Siam death with this exact date, located for me by Dr Richard Forty. It is true that the principal merchant in Bangkok at this time was Robert Hunter of Glasgow who travelled back and forth to Siam. So there could have been a ship which went out to Bangkok at the right time and the Greenless family may have been able to put forward Alexander with or without Hunter's knowledge of the accusation against him. If he then died in Siam, Hunter or his local manager would have written to Scotland with the exact date of death. Siam would have provided better protection than India where the administration could have caught up with him. There was no British administration in Siam. 

It is still the case that the time-frame from early February to the supposed  date of Greenlees' death is very tight; further research would have to point to a ship completing a voyage from Glasgow to Bangkok within a two-month time frame. An alternative hypothesis is that Greenlees did not die, that his family pretended that he did, but that in reality he made his escape to some British colony, Australia or New Zealand for example, where he might have been able to create a new identity.

The anonymous letter has a BROOMIELAW postmark which is a dockside area in Glasgow and the writer who has detailed knowledge of the case may also have heard about a possible escape.

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Transcription

No Dateline and no signature

Addressed to: J.A. Murray Esqr.   M.P. for Leith    London with Mr Cleghorn written above in another hand

Postmarks: straight line BROOMIELAWE which should help identifications (The Broomielaw is a historic street and waterfront area on the north bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow) transit GLASGOW 8 APR 1836; Free Frank privilege mark in red dated 11 AP 1836 and applied in London

Docketing note: Anonymous Letter to the Lord Advocate

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As Lord Advocate for Scotland perhaps you have never heard if the following case which occurred in a Small Town in Argleshire some time ago a common report went through the town that a Girl the name of Macmillan servant to Alexr. Greenleas) was with child and that the Father of the child was Alexr. Greenlees Junr son of the Girls Master the Girl left her service on the 1^st Novr last in bad health and went to stay with an Aunt where Dr Mackae was called to see her on the 4^th Novr she got well in a few days & went to stay with her sister  at a farm about 10 miles from town Nothing was ever heard of her or her child from the time she left her service until the 5ht of Feby when the Body of a child wrapped in a sheet & petty Coat was found in a ditch near the town. McMillan girl was immediately suspected to be the Mother of the Child on account of Mrs Greenlees initials being on the sheet. The Procurator Fiscal immediately apprehended McMillan and young Greenlees and both were put into Gaol where they underwent several examinations the purport of which was that the Girl was delivered of a child in her Masters house about 2 o’clock on the morning of the 1^st Novr that after the child was born she gave it to its Father along with the sheet off the Bed and a petty Coat of her own that he immediately went away with it but she could not tell what became of it afterwards. She did not suppress her cries during the Labour and she thinks the whole of Greenlees’ family must have heard her, Greenlees’ daughter slept with her the night the Child was born yet this Girl says she never heard her but it easily can be proven where Mrs Greenlees  told that she had instructed her Daughter what to say in her examinations it likewise can be proven where the Girl McMillan told she neither said or did anyting but what she was bribed to, one medical man proves that the Girl McMillan was with child a second Medical man proves she was delivered of a child and other two proves that there were marks of violence on the head of the child found wrapt  in the sheet and petty Coat which the Public are certain was the very sheet and petty Coat which young Greenlees put the child into.

McMillan told her Agent that the child was born live that she gave it to its Father alive therefore he must have murdered it. The Agent made no secret of what was told him as McMillan said she had told her Aunt all about it.

The whole case was faithfully reported to the Crown Counsil at Edinbr – they sent back an order to liberate the Prisoners without the least show of Trial or any other thing whatever the Public say that Bribery must have been used to get the prisoners off but if so you will know in what Quarter cases of trifling importance to the above are often tried before the Lords of Justice & the offenders severely punished

If the above is not further looked after means will be taken to represent the case to Parliament

Jamaican Slave Owner John Scrogie’s daughter runs away with Mary Jacobi’s son 1782

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The letter transcribed below is in fine condition and the handwriting easily read. The internet carries information which supplies most of the missing detail. John Scrogie was a first-generation settler and slave owner in Jamaica living at “Scrogiehall” either in or close to the parish of St Ann’s. At a later date (1792) he was recorded as the owner of 30 enslaved people. He is writing by regular Packet mail to John Plomer, a well-known figure in Northamptonshire, living at Welton Place near Daventry; I can’t establish his relationship with the writer. In very measured terms, he writes about the elopement of his daughter [ who is not named] with George Amos, the son of Mary Jacobi by her first marriage – she has now been twice-widowed; later, in 1792, she is recorded as owner of 49 enslaved people. She lives in St Ann’s parish. The young couple who have married are now in England; nothing clarifies whether they married in Jamaica or in England.

George Amos’s mother intended that he should marry his cousin Miss Catherine Wordie who would indeed have been a good match: she is recorded as dying still single in 1837 and has having been owner of 114 slaves on the Schwalenberg Estate. In contrast, the girl who George Amos has run away with had only ten negroes to her name, according to her father’s letter.

It seems that George Amos did return to Jamaica: in the 1837 Militia list for St Ann’s parish, John Scrogie is listed as Lieutenant and George Amos as an Ensign. But whether he came with  John Scrogie’s daughter, I cannot establish though it seems the most likely outcome: intriguingly a Mary Ann Amos claimed in the 1830s for one slave on St Kitts and is conceivably the same person as the Mary Ann Scrogie who claimed for seven in Jamaica. George Amos is not recorded as making any claim and was presumably dead by then.

 

Scrogiehall Jamaica 11^th September 1782

To John Plomer Esqr, Welton near Daventry Northamptonshire

[sent] per packet.

Sir

Your favour of 23d May came to my hand only the 6^th Instant having been left at a post office, to which I seldom have an opportunity and is owing to Mr Amos constantly putting St. Ann’s on the address.

I most sincerely feel for his & my Daughters distress, but must own it is what I expected, nor was it in my power to prevent it, having done as much as possibly I could before their departure from this island.

Mr Amos has every reason to believe he was of age [twenty one]  April last [1782], as his now wife & I were invited by his mother [ Mrs Jacobi] the 10^th Apr 1781 to drink his health on being twenty years old; and till  they found him fixed in his resolution of marrying my Daughter, to whom they could have no just objection, but that it prevented his union with his Cousin Miss Wordie it never was doubted, but he would be of age April last [1782]. Mr Macauley [a local clergyman presumably] has been dead these ten years, & the present Incumbent told me he had a Letter from Mrs Jacobi his Mother wanting to know if any Register of Births was kept in the parish.

I wave taking notice of his Mother & Aunts behaviour, before & since his marriage, it is too well known here, and looked on in the light it deserves. I have wrote him [George Amos] thrice since his departure, & in each letter pressed him to use every means to be in friendship with his Mother, as there is no evident way, how he can maintain himself & family on returning to this country, without her reconciliation and assistance.

I was bred to no particular employment, but my anxiety to support my Family & love of being independent of my Relations, made me try every means rather than be idle.

Necessity drove me to take up house soon after my arrival in this Island, with my children mostly young & uneducated, nor have I yet cleared off the debts contracted then. With a negroe girl I gave my Daughter & her issue, and others bought with a legacy left her by my uncle, she has now ten negroes young & old which is all she can expect till my death and it would much grieve me to think they must sell them without it put them in an evident way of getting a good livelihood.

Your observation of Mr Amos incapacity of putting his hand to any employment is too true, but also his not being desirous to do any thing to maintain himself and Family much grieves me, & what I dreaded.

I have distantly given him hints on that subject in all my Letters, and as the strain of your Letter breathes benevolence and Friendship, will take the liberty to request your talking or writing to him on that subject in such a way as he may seriously lay it to heart. He is young and healthy, & I know his wife is virtuous and sensible.

Capt King’s behaviour is truly generous; and if any post in the Navy or any other way could be procured for him in Eng[lan]d I see evident destruction of his coming to this country without his Mother’s reconciliation and he ought not in any event to come until he is of age.

I am Sir

Your most obed & hble Servant

J Scrogie 

Lady Augusta Murray, Duchess of Sussex, writes to her son Augustus Frederick 1807

 

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In 1802 George the Third promoted his youngest son Augustus Frederick to the Dukedom of Sussex. In the normal course of things his wife Augusta would have become the Duchess of Sussex, his eight-year-old son would be known as Prince Augustus Frederick, and his one-year-old daughter as Princess Augusta Emma. Unfortunately, Frederick had married in 1793 without his father’s consent, required by the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, and George acted swiftly to get his disobedient son’s marriage annulled, leaving Lady Augusta Murray to give birth out of wedlock in 1794 and again in 1801. George was more tolerant of his sons who had children in extra-marital relationships, most clearly true of the Duke of Clarence, later William IV, who had ten acknowledged children by the actress Dorothea Jordan and one other child by a different partner. The Prince of Wales, later George IV, almost certainly had children born to mistresses though except perhaps in one case the list continues to be disputed.

Prince Augustus Frederick always considered himself married and though he abandoned Augusta in 1800 did not re-marry until after her death in 1830. Augusta never abandoned the claim to be married to the king’s son and never re-married, though she had a third child Henry (1805-1824) - about whose life I can trace almost nothing - in the course of a long adulterous relationship with Lord Archibald Hamilton which appears to have precipitated the breach with her husband. Nonetheless, she continued to self-identify as wife of the king’s son and when he became Duke of Sussex began to style herself Duchess of Sussex and her children as Prince and Princess. This infuriated the King and his court and they set about making Augusta’s already difficult life more difficult with some kind of compromise only arrived at in the period 1806-1809: her debts were cleared, she got a pension and title (Lady D’Ameland) but lost control over the education of her son. All this has been explored at length, most recently in Julia Abel-Smith’s Forbidden Wife (2020).

She was supported by her own family headed by her father the Earl of Dunmore and was able to make a home for herself in the busy port and fashionable resort of Ramsgate, eighty miles east of London and overlooking the English Channel. There she occupied a fairly modest house, Mount Albion, set in grounds which she extended and carefully attended to. It was a home for her children. In Ramsgate her self-identification was always accepted as local newspaper announcements indicate: The British Press of 31 July 1804 recorded that “Ramsgate is expected to be this season uncommonly full …. The Duchess of SUSSEX (LADY AUGUSTA MURRAY) arrived here last week, to pass the season with us”; The Oracle and the Daily Advertiser for 7 December 1805 records the departure of “The Duchess of SUSSEX and family, from Ramsgate to Lower Grosvenor-street”. A seasonal Duchess - even a scandalous one - was an enhancement both to the splendour and prosperity of Ramsgate.

Elizabeth Grant recorded her childhood memories of holidaying next door to the family in her Memoirs of a Highland Lady (1898), describing Augusta’s two children as “a boy and a girl, fine, large handsome young people, unduly imbued with the grandeur of their birth. She never committed herself by calling herself or them by any title: “My boy, my girl”, she always said in speaking of or to them. The servants, however, mentioned them as the Prince and Princess, as did all the acquaintances who visited the house” ¹.

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The Ramsgate post office would have had no difficulty in delivering the 1807 letter I recently discovered, the address panel of which is my Exhibit A and the contents of which are transcribed below.

 

 

 

It is written by Augusta to her son addressed as “Prince Augustus Frederick”, exactly the kind of thing to which the Court objected. It may be a concession that the seal on the reverse does not bear the royal arms but is simply inscribed with a letter “A”.

The address panel repays some forensic attention. In Britain until the 1840s postage was generally paid by the recipient and General Post Office charges were high. But some people - members of both Houses of Parliament and so on – could claim “Free Frank” privileges using a standard formula: top of the address panel, write full date and place of despatch, in this case “1807 London August twenty nine”; then bottom left sign your name in a consistent style which identifies this sender as Lord Archibald Hamilton, younger son of the Duke of Hamilton, and since 1802 MP for Lanarkshire. But on this occasion he is providing a service for Augusta by adding his signature to a letter written in another hand, a very common favour. She may have been living or staying in his house and, if not, then with her parents nearby. In the letter she writes that she has driven a horse several times around the sqre. Unfortunately for me, both Hamilton’s house and the Dunmore’s home boasted a nearby square. Whether she was caring for her third child Henry I also do not know. The letter when handed to a postal clerk was stamped in red to confirm that no delivery charges should be levied; in this instance the handstamp topped with a crown is just visible in the middle.

The contents of the letter are in her characteristic spontaneous and direct style, something which can be confirmed from other letters and notebooks by Augusta held by the Royal Collections Trust which always refers to her as “Lady Augusta Murray” ². Augusta uses the word “Treasures” frequently to characterise her children.

Augusta had loyal servants who stayed with her for years even through financial difficulties which left bills unpaid. At the end of her letter she sends greetings to “Mrs Jones” who is clearly in charge of her older son; at the same time a “John” sends his love to his “Mammy” and I take this to be a John Jones who is employed by Augusta in London. Mrs Jones may well be the Mary Jones who appears in December 1793 as witness to the unlawful marriage of Augusta at St George’s Hanover Square; she was a dressmaker for Augusta’s family; her husband, who served as second witness, was a coal merchant. I have attempted unsuccessfully to find out more about this relationship with the Joneses which seems to have endured and been important to both parties.

In 1830 Augusta’s son was eventually granted a sinecure and the title of Sir Augustus d’Este by a sympathetic Willaim IV. His adult life was limited and shortened by muscular dystrophy but included active involvement with the London-based Aborigines’ Protection Society. It is in that connection that the second letter in my possession is written to him from Canada with whose indigenous populations he concerned himself ³.

A mausoleum, now derelict and graffitied, was erected in Ramsgate by Augustus and contains his remains along with those of his mother and her parents and his own sister Emma, later Lady Truro. The title of Duke of Sussex became dormant in 1843 when George the Third’s youngest son died but was revived in 2018.

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Transcription

My dearest good for nothing Boy I write to you tho’ you do not deserve it, but you know from Experience that mothers do not always act towards their children as they deserve – they are too much guided by affection to be wise, & this is my case at present. I expected that the day you were confined to your Room I should have heard from you, but I was mistaken – you never thought once of writing to me tho’ I had even complained of your silence; My Girl must behave better than this, - or I shall begin to believe what I have often heard – that it is a great error to love one’s children too well, - that it makes them ungrateful, instead of producing love in their hearts, love of duty. My own most dear, & for long only loved Treasure pray never let Mama feel like this. – I was very sorry not to be able to leave London this morning, - but on Monday, I do hope & trust nothing shall prevent my being with you at about six, or seven o clock in the Evening. – you have never informed me of the arrival of your Trunk, - that Trunk which I myself packed, according to your desire, the very next day of my arrival, & most of the day following that, I do hope you have received it. – The Coachman has just brought me a most magnificent Horse for driving I drove it several times around the sqre. & thought it too frisky – however the Coachman was so delighted with it that I have consented to his buying it for Mammy, but I don’t think she will allow anyone to be with her when she drives it …... – do you continue to study Mathematicks – I don’t remember yr. having an Euclid but you can get one at Burgess’s [a Ramsgate bookseller]. Pray give my love to dearest little Correspondent [his sister Emma] & Mrs Jones. Adieu my Treasure – John sends his love to his Mama & you … God bless my Treasures.

 

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References

1. Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus (1898), Memoirs of a Highland Lady, quoted from the 1950 edition published by John Murray, page 105.
2. https://www.rct.uk/collection/royal-archives/georgian-papers-in-the-royal-archives/additional-georgian-papers/lady-augusta-murray
3. Wikipedia: Augustus d’Este

Further reading

Julia Abel-Smith (2020), Forbidden Wife, London: The History Press

Mollie Gillen (1976), Royal Duke: Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843), London: Sidgwick and Jackson

Acknowledgment

Elizabeth Peters of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives found the Ramsgate newspaper reports for me.

An Unhappy Clergyman's Wife, Augusta Whittington, Mrs Henry Raikes 1820

 

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…Here dearest Henry I am utterly at a loss to conceive your meaning 

I have just read a fourteen-page Wikipedia entry for a clergyman I had never heard of; it boasts 117 footnotes and tells me that Henry Raikes (1782-1854) became a powerful figure in the Diocese of Chester involved in many evangelical organisations including the Liverpool Auxiliary Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, the Lancashire Society for Promoting the Due Observance of the Lord’s Day, and the Church Missionary Society. He was also involved in the work of Chester’s Female Penitentiary, the Female House of Refuge, the Ragged School Society, the Mendicity Society, and more besides.

From inheritance, his marriage settlement, and the considerable emoluments of high office in the Church of England he died a wealthy man. But it was subscribers who paid the stonemasons to erect an elaborate chest tomb and canopy over his grave; it’s still there though knocked about a bit. The National Gallery will sell you a reproduction of a steel engraving of the Chancellor of Chester; Amazon offers a print on demand copy of his Remarks on Clerical Education (1831). Such is his continued existence. He lacks only the upright Victorian effigy.

Henry married Augusta Whittington in 1809 at fashionable St George’s, Hanover Square; they had five children, the youngest Emily born in 1820. Henry disapproved of Augusta’s parents who had broken their marriage vows and legally separated; he would not allow them to see their grandchildren. But the Wikipedia biographer writes “Raikes’s married life was happy”.

I had gone to the internet after transcribing a letter from Augusta written to her husband during a holiday at Worthing in August 1820. She is answering Henry who has written to express dissatisfaction with her as wife and mother; she doesn’t come up to the mark and the mark is quite a demanding one.

I am not the sort of person to amend a Wikipedia page but I offer Augusta in her own words, possibly dormant for two centuries since Henry added to the letter a business-like docketing note, “2^d 22 July 1820”. I can do nothing about the imminent tragedies: before the end of 1820, baby Emily dies followed by her mother at the age of thirty-eight. Henry’s sister Charlotte took charge of the four surviving children and lived with her brother until her death a few months before his.

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Transcription

Addressed to:  The Rev^d Henry Raikes    Burnham   Maidenhead    Berks

Datelined:  Worthing   Tuesday

Docketing note: 2^d   22 July 1820

I promised you to write today dear Henry and I will tho’ you will probably receive it only a few hours before I see you. I rejoice to hear all is well at home but feel too much occupied by the rest of your letter to dwell on anything besides. Tho’ you tell me you feel kindly tenderly for me there is apparent so much that you do not like, the whole line of my conduct seems so forcibly different from your wish, that my heart sinks & my mind is filled with alarm – you will start here and [say] that this is my way of taking your suggestions and that my pride revolts at being told I am wrong. Far from it. I wish to know how I stand tho’ mortified to find the truth, still I must be wrong but where to begin I know not. I look back to the last ten days and cannot believe that this alone could cause what you have written, besides unless I am most abismally blind to my own faults I really know not wherein I have been wrong except in not sooner seeking an explanation from you but you perpetually foiled the question  by expressions & looks of returning confidence & kindness and I have trusted all would again be harmonious without any scene, and ignorant & blind as I may be, believed at least that I speak the truth when I say that I felt you alone were in fault and from delicacy hesitated to press you at a time when I knew you were so much harassed & occupied with other things.

Little could I imagine it was not the events of the moment that were causing you anxiety but a review of what I should have called our past happy life – that while I dreamt of peace & confidence you were lamenting that your poor Augusta was not the wife, was not the Mother, you desired.

Once more I must refer to your own words you say “if we are not taking pains to please we are growing indifferent, & indifference is dangerous for it is the very opposite of love”. I deny the charge altogether. I first awakened your displeasure by my disappointment in not having you on this journey, was this indifference? Had I been indifferent should I have cared. But it has ever been my misfortune to be supposed to feel less than others. Happy would it have been for me had it been so. You tell me again that you show more love for me by urging me to exertions that are disagreeable but which will make me valuable to others & precious to you, than you would by allowing me to pursue a path that must ultimately separate our feelings from each other. Here dearest Henry I am utterly at a loss to conceive your meaning, what path am I pursuing, how am I acting, that the return to your wishes & the hope of becoming valuable should be disagreeable to me.

I am little able to speak with you, much less able to write, but I would feign exculpate myself from any intentional wrong. My time & thoughts are devoted exclusively to my family & that alone is sufficiently large to occupy & interest a more enlarged mind than my own. Accomplishments I never boasted when you thought I could make you happy; but our awakened spiritual turn of mind I heartily desire and constantly pray for. Here do I fall infinitely below you & your helping hand is wanted. Look with tenderness on me who was not blessed like yourself with Religious parents anxious to lead you in the path to Heaven but who caught all serious impressions as it were by chance and tho’ I am far from thinking that any excuse for the want of spiritual disposition now when I am capable of knowing How & where to seek after those things which are alone necessary yet the early impressions & regularly formed religious habits in which you were bred will ever be wanting and make my path more difficult, but do not think I value them less -  no on the contrary I covet them for my children beyond measure & would not for the worlds neglect to instil into them that which I hourly feel to be so essential & so wanting in myself. 

I have filled my paper & have in some degree relieved my own heart tho’ it is impossible to feel happy until I am again at home & I could say restored to your love but that cannot be yet in full confidence for your opinions cannot change suddenly tho’ the kindness of your heart may lead you to promise me peace.

Henry is very well today but he suffered sadly yesterday & indeed all the night before with the tooth-ache which ended in a very large swelling in his mouth which broke before he went to bed & greatly relieved him.

We were at Church on Sunday & Mr Irwin preached - but I have not seen Monck nor indeed anyone. The coach goes from here at 10 so I shall be set down at Burford Bridge at about 3 o’clock on Thursday. The carriage came last night. Do not forget my shawl for I have nothing for the Tilbury [an open carriage].

And now God bless you my dearest Henry your dear Boy remembers you with the tenderest affection as does your wife tho’ at the moment you will not readily believe it yet have patience with a creature full of faults but whose heart at least is right & earnest in desiring your friendship and believe that I am

Yr affectionate AR

Endnotes

Wikipedia: Henry Raikes (1782–1854) was an English cleric…

Rev Chancellor Raikes reproduced under Creative Commons from his Wikipedia page