Chapter XVII: Fast Young England (2)

The great social scandal to which we have frequently alluded, has now become blazoned to the world through the instrumentality of the Divorce Court. Nothing was left undone that might hush it up, so that the Prince of Wales' name should not figure in so discreditable a business. Every effort was made to silence Sir Charles Mordaunt. A peerage was, we believe, offered him. Any place of emolument he asked for would willingly have been given him. All the honors and dignities the crown and government have it in their power to bestow would readily have been prostituted to insure his silence. Lord Penzance, at the last moment, earnestly strove to keep the name of the Prince from coming before the public. Sir Charles Mordaunt, however, was deaf to every persuasion, and, like a noble minded man and high spirited gentleman, scouted all attempts to shut his mouth; and, with contemptuous indifference to the entreaties of the judge, and disregarding the course adopted by his own counsel, at once told the whole story of his supposed dishonor, without blinking facts or concealing names. He told the court that he forbade his wife continuing her acquaintance with the Prince of Wales on account of his character. He intimated to the Prince that his visits should cease. He, however, alleges that, despite this intimation, they were surreptitiously continued; that letters of a compromising character were found; and that other circumstances occurred leading him to suppose that an improper intimacy existed between, the Prince and his wife. It should be borne in mind that when all this is said to have occurred the Prince of Wales was a married man himself, and the father of a family. The question, therefore, remains to be solved, is he an adulterer or not? Can he disprove the apparently damnatory allegations of Sir C. Mordaunt? Of course we do not wish to prejudge the case. We hope, for his own and for his wife's sake, that he can completely refute the heavy accusation laid to his charge, and that he will do so at the earliest opportunity. But we have no hesitation in declaring that if the Prince of Wales is an accomplice in bringing dishonor to the homestead of an English gentleman; if he has deliberately debauched the wife of an Englishman; if he has assisted in rendering an honorable man miserable for life; if unbridled sensuality and lust have led him to violate the laws of honor and of hospitality--then such a man, placed in the position he is, should not only be expelled from decent society, but is utterly unfit and unworthy to rule over this country or even sit in its legislature."

[Sidenote: THE FASTEST MAN IN ENGLAND.]

I don't see how any writer could make a stronger case against Royalty, (however hostile his spirit,) than this fearless exposition by the English journal of wide circulation, to which I have referred. The evidence of Sir Frederick Johnstone, which I have omitted, was too disgraceful to appear in this work, although the English papers printed every line of it. Well, the case went to the jury at last, after Lord Penzance had properly and carefully manipulated them, and a verdict was brought by them "that Lady Mordaunt being of unsound mind, was totally unfit to instruct her attorneys," and thus Sir Charles Mordaunt, having been dishonored and his domestic happiness destroyed by a conspiracy of titled persons, had to be satisfied with the verdict. In these days the plea of insanity is always a convenient one, and is very useful in a desperate case. Sir Charles was not daunted, however, and appealed his case, but met with defeat again, and thus the matter rests, and will rest. It is the intention of the injured husband to visit America, as he is an admirer of our institutions. I do not wish to offer any comment whatever on the state of society in which such corruption exists. The facts must speak for themselves.

The "fastest" young man in England is undoubtedly, William Alexander, Louis, Stephen, Douglas-Hamilton, Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Hamilton, Marquis of Douglas, Earl of Angus, Earl of Arran, Earl of Lanark, Baron Hamilton, Aven, Polmont, Macanshire, Innerdale, Abernethey and Jedburgh Forest, and premier Duke and Peer in the Peerage of Scotland, Duke of Brandon (Suffolk), and Baron Dutton in the Peerage of Great Britain, Duke of Chatherault in France, Hereditary, Keeper of the Holyrood House, and Deputy Lieutenant of some county with an unpronounceable name in Scotland.

Possibly some of my readers, in going over this long line of titles, will recall the days of Bruce and Douglas, of "proud Angus," whom Marmion bearded in his hall, and of that Douglas who carried the heart of Bruce, like a Paladin, amid the lances of Spain; or perhaps the picture of Chevy Chase, and Douglas, and Percy, in armed fight, will be evoked with thoughts of the greatest historical House in Europe. Nobler descent, or more genuine historical honor, cannot be claimed by the holder of any lordly or royal title, than that which belongs to the present Duke of Hamilton, who is as yet only twenty-seven years of age. He is a first cousin of the Emperor of France by his mother, Stephanie, Duchess of Baden, a noble, beautiful, and good woman,--who married the old Duke of Hamilton; and one of his sisters is married to the Prince of Monaco, a sovereign in his own right. Two other sisters of the present Duke are nuns, having been educated in the Roman Catholic faith by their mother. The fourth sister is married to a private gentleman of large fortune.

[Sidenote: INSULTS THE EMPEROR.]

The old Duke was in every sense a gentleman and a man of honor, but his two male descendants, the present Duke of Hamilton, and his brother, Lord Churchill Hamilton, are sad scapegraces--indeed I doubt if a rougher name would not be more appropriate. The young Duke, as soon as he came of age, fell heir to an income of £300,000 a year, and eight or nine country seats and residences. He had no sooner entered into possession of his estate, than he was surrounded by betting men, turf blackguards, spendthrifts, abandoned women, and dissolute noblemen of his own age. Every shilling of his gigantic fortune was squandered in three or four years, and his proud old name became a by-word of scorn and reproach when it was found that his debts amounted to £130,000. He had for his associates the Earl of Jersey, the Marquis of Waterford, the Prince of Wales, Lord Carington, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Winchelsea, the Earl of Westmoreland, and other bankrupt and dissolute nobles. For a long time polite society tolerated the Duke of Hamilton, because of his family, birth, and fortune, but when he lost the latter, those who formerly laughed at his wild actions and peccadilloes, now began to frown upon him as an _enfant perdu_. He was sowing too much wild oats, and his friends began to desert him in disgust. A bad set of men who had control of the Duke, did not hesitate to drag his proud name and title through the gutters. At last his fellow noblemen, thoroughly ashamed of him, determined to give him a lesson. His name was put up for membership in the Jockey Club, and he was black-balled with great unanimity. The Duke of an almost royal family was treated in this ignominious way by the fathers of families, and brothers of girls of stainless birth, as a caution to him. The Duke being both bankrupt and disgraced, left England for the Continent, to avoid his thousand and one creditors, who cursed him bitterly when he departed. Passing through Paris, his cousin, the Emperor, invited him to dine at the Tuilleries. The Duke returned a curt verbal answer to his imperial relative, that he could not accept the invitation, "for he had neither clothes nor manners in which to appear at the Emperor's table." That same evening he appeared in a private box at the opera, dressed in a short double-breasted shooting jacket, in company with two or three of the turfites (broken down betting men, who hung on to him for what they could get), and afterwards presided at a supper of which the less that is said the better, concerning the "ladies," who composed one-half of the twenty-four persons who sat down to table.

After the Duke left England for the Continent, a sale of his effects was had. Hundreds of purchasers attended the sale out of curiosity, as they had attended the sale of "Skittle's" furniture, or as the Parisian dandies and lorettes attended the sale of the household gods of Marguerite Gautier, afterwards known as the "Dame aux Camelias." Every article belonging to the Duke realized a value of more than two or three hundred per cent. over its original value. Crowds of "snobs" and "cads" bought whips and pipes, riding jackets, cigar cases, canes, gloves, and boots, pictures of French dancers and German soubrettes, as well as articles of crockery, at the most extravagant prices, simply because they had once been in the possession of a real live Duke, although he was a scamp. One miserable little tea-broker gave twenty-five pounds for a worn, poorly bound copy of the "Kisses of Johannes Secundus," with the idea that he was getting something very immoral--but he was disappointed of course.

I saw him twice, this Duke of Hamilton, once in a low cabaret in Paris, which had for a name the strange and I thought very inappropriate title of the "Groves of the Evangelists."

It was in a little street, or rather lane, called the Rue Belle-Cuisse, which is in the Quartier Breda.

It was a low dingy little hole, this "Groves of the Evangelist," and the people present were chiefly infantry privates of some of the line regiments, who serve as a part of the garrison of Paris. They were a hard-drinking, ruffianly lot, and the women who sat on their laps were of all the obscene birds of night that I encountered in Paris, the very worst and most abandoned.

A little girl, with a bold face and wearing a slatternly, torn dress, with a brazen pair of steely blue eyes, acted as bar-girl in this place, and measured out to the customers, petit verres of fiery Nantes brandy.

Two men, young, and fashionably dressed, sat at a table, who appeared to be strangers in Paris, although they conversed fluently enough, in French, with each other.

One of these was a fair, girlish-faced, young gentleman, with hair which is always termed auburn by the poets, while, as a contradiction it is generally denominated, in police returns--"red hair." This was the Duke of Hamilton.

[Sidenote: VILLAINY OF THE MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.]

The second person at the table was a tall, athletic, and handsome-looking fellow, of twenty-four or five years of age, with a smooth face, daring, black eyes, and a massive head well set upon a pair of broad shoulders.

This individual was John De La Poer Beresford, Marquis of Waterford, Earl of Tyrone, Viscount Tyrone, and a Baron five times over in England and Ireland, a relation of the Archbishop of Armagh, Protestant Primate of Ireland, and having an income of about half a million dollars, annually, in his own right.

This young Marquis of Waterford, did a most dastardly thing when he seduced the wife of his bosom friend, the Hon. J.C.P. Vivian, M.P., a Junior Lord of the Treasury, who had placed the utmost confidence in the Marquis. He took Mrs. Vivian with him to Paris, and there lived with her in open adultery for some time until he became tired of his victim and then he ordered her with great coolness to return to her dishonored husband. To make the matter worse she was the mother of two lovely children. Her married sister, the Honorable Mrs. Somebody, went to Paris to attempt to reclaim her, held an interview with her, and begged of her to return to her husband. She blankly refused to do so, giving as her reason that she loved "John" too much,--"John," I need not say, being the Marquis of Waterford.

Mr. Vivian having commenced a suit for divorce, the utter villainy of the Marquis appeared when the letters of that nobleman to his quondam friend Vivian were read, in which the great trust reposed by Mr. Vivian in Waterford was most publicly made manifest.

This young nobleman is a grandson of the second Marquis of Waterford, who was distinguished as a companion to the Prince Regent, and as well for breaking off door-knockers and bell-handles--a complaint that was chronic with him, and that seems to run in the family.

The Marquis of Waterford is not quite so impoverished through his excesses as some of his friends, but I understand that his debts at one time amounted to £60,000.

My readers may recollect that, during the visit of the Prince of Wales to America, he had in the suite which accompanied him, a certain Duke of Newcastle, a young nobleman, who married, some years ago, a daughter of the great banker, Hope, who brought her husband an immense fortune. Beside these advantages there were few noblemen in England as highly connected, or as wealthy, as the Duke of Newcastle. Well, Miss Hope only served to stay the waning fortunes of this spendthrift for a short time, as he is now a bankrupt, and has to reside out of England to avoid the Sheriff's officers. While the execution was being levied in the magnificent mansion of the Duke, and before his wife could leave the premises, the Duke had gambled away thirteen thousand pounds, the last remnant of his once princely fortune. This hopeful Duke has always been very intimate with the Prince of Wales.

Another of the same reckless unprincipled set is the young Earl of Jersey, who was left an income of £50,000 a year, every shilling of which is gone. This young fool, who is endowed with the manners of a cabman, and who has a pot-house air in everything that he says or does, was deeply in debt at sixteen years of age, and before he left school he had borrowed £25,000 from the Jews, who now own him body and soul. His grand-mother, the Countess of Jersey, was, I believe, a mistress of George IV.

[Sidenote: THE MARQUIS OF HASTINGS.]

The Marquis of Hastings, who died about two years ago, was also one of this same set of spendthrift, young harum-scarum, unprincipled scions of the Bluest Blood of which England can boast. All his magnificent fortune went in horses, and women, and yachts, and at last, when he died, at the age of 26, he had squandered some three or four millions of dollars, and, I believe, the title created as far back as 1389, became in the direct line, extinct. The Marquis lost one day at the Derby race on Lady Elizabeth, a favorite horse of his, the enormous sum of $150,000 in gold. He married a beautiful and wealthy girl, and her fortune went in the general crash after his death. He owned a magnificent yacht, and was in the habit of cruising in the Mediterranean with a coterie of dissolute young aristocrats like himself, and on board of this yacht scenes took place that might have made the cheek of Sardanapalus to blush--that is, provided that that bloated Assyrian ever blushed.

Prince Christian of Schleswig, a beggarly little German kinglet, who was allowed to marry the Princess Helena, a daughter of Queen Victoria, and a very good girl, is said to be rather wild in his ways, but his allowance, £10,000 a year from Parliament, has to satisfy him whether he likes it or not. But in 1869 Prince Christian and the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz had occasion to journey from Dover to Calais, and the little German had the impudence to send a bill of sixty eight pounds expenses to Parliament, despite the fact that he received his allowance regularly. Professor Fawcett, a liberal member of Parliament, who brought in bills to abolish religious distinctions in Dublin University, and in favor of woman suffrage, demanded the items of the bill, and failing to get them, moved that the Prince Christian's bill be struck out of the estimates. To show what is thought of such unbridled extravagance--the fare being only about two pounds from Dover to Calais--I give the satire and comments of the _Queen's Messenger_ of August 5, 1869, upon the matter. This paper is a weekly organ, published in London.

"Happily there are always two ways of looking at a question, else the following bill, which was presented last week to Parliament, might have suggested puzzling reflections:

DUE FROM BRITISH TAXPAYER TO BRITISH GOVERNMENT:

For cost of presents made by Duke of Edinburgh during voyage
to Cape and Australia, £3,374 14 0

For conveyance of Prince Christian and Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
from Dover to Calais, 68 0 0

For royal present to Peter, king of Congo, as reward for act
of Christian charity, 0 12 6

For luncheon to Prince William of Hesse, 13 0 0

For providing food for inhabitants of Cephalonia after the
island had been injured by earthquake, 10 9 6

For rigging-out a pier at Antwerp for reception of Prince of
Wales, 2 1 0

For robes, collars, and badges for certain persons who had received
honor of knighthood, 1,000 0 0

For maintenance of Congo, pirate chief, at Ascension, 38 3 0

Cost of presents to King of Masaba, by Captain of H.M. ship
Investigator, 2 0 4
========
£4,509 0 4

Thus it costs 13l. to give a luncheon to Prince William of Hesse, and only 10l. to relieve an island full of people who are dying of famine. It requires 2l. to lay down red cloth for the Prince of Wales to walk on, and only 12s. 6d. to reward King Peter for an act of Christian charity. These are facts worth knowing. The only thing we regret is that Government should have withheld information as to the precise nature of the gift with which King Peter was gratified. Did this mighty Empire present him with six pairs of cotton socks, or request him to accept a gingham umbrella second-hand? And the King of Masaba, who figures anonymously, what did he get for 2l. 0s. 4d.? Was it a pair of boots and some pocket-handkerchiefs, or a few pots of Scotch marmalade and a dozen pints of Bass? As to the other items of the bill, it is so obviously right that the country should be made to pay 68l. every time Prince Christian crosses the Channel, that we can only wonder anybody should ever have thought otherwise, and moved, as Mr. Fawcett did, that the sum be struck out of the estimates. We live in strange times, forsooth, when a prince cannot charge the cost of his railway-tickets on to the national purse without being made the subject of unmannered comments!"

[Sidenote: LORD ARTHUR CLINTON.]

And now having given as brief a resume as I possibly could of the salient characteristics of the "fast" young English aristocracy--having shown how extravagant, useless, dishonorable and unprincipled many of them are, I will close by mentioning that it is not long since the English journals were filled with the evidence on the trial of two young men who were arrested in London for dressing and appearing in public as females. They were frequently seen at the Opera, the race course, and in other public places, in company with Lord Arthur Clinton, a well-known young nobleman. Their apartments were searched, and waterfalls, chignons, puffs, and all the articles of the female toilet and female wearing apparel, were found in their possession. Brought before a magistrate, they manifested a strange and unmanly behavior, and bore without shame the details of the medical examination. Lord Clinton, in company with some other friends, had been paying their addresses to these hybrid creatures, and following in the footsteps of some of the disgusting court favorites, of which Juvenal and the Satirists of the Lower Empire speak, he was jealous of another young Lord, the cause being a rivalry for the affections of one of these hybrid things in a woman's clothes!