In sharp contrast to the happiness of the newlywed Pitts were the burgeoning marital problems of second sister Charlotte. Robert Fettiplace had looked like a good match when Charlotte married him eleven years earlier. His family were descended from baronets; he boasted an income of £7,000 a year.16 When Charlotte wed, she was twenty-nine, an age considered to be rather advanced in an era when women were expected to marry young. Perhaps that is why Horace Walpole, critical as usual, suggested that “three bottles of burgundy” were necessary to get Fettiplace to the altar.17 Others thought that it was the bride who had made the greatest sacrifice. “[H]e is a simpleton,” pronounced one lady, suggesting that Charlotte and her mother, the Dowager Lady Howe, should take charge of him, for “it is not every body that is fit to be trusted to themselves.”18 Fettiplace had the usual vices of the age—gambling and philandering. His great weakness was owning racehorses, and he was unlucky. “I pitty Charlotte excessively to be joined to such a wretch!” pronounced her mother, after Fettiplace absconded to the Continent to escape creditors in 1762.19 He was back a few years later, and he and his horses were once again scattered across the sheets of the newspapers.20
The Dowager Lady Howe certainly did not remain an onlooker while postwar Britain came back to life. Now almost sixty, Charlotte Howe joined the surge of tourism to the Continent, taking the opportunity to return to Hanover for the first time since her girlhood. The occasion was the decision of the Countess of Yarmouth to retire to her native country following the death of George II, and Lady Howe was her sole traveling companion. The two set out in April 1763.21
Caroline reported excitedly that her mother and Lady Yarmouth saw Frederick the Great when he and his entourage made a stopover in Hanover. Frederick—lauded in the mid-eighteenth century as a military genius who had unleashed Prussia as a major power in Europe, a self-styled “enlightened despot” who played the flute and entertained Voltaire at his palace of Sanssouci, and famously shouted to his hesitating troops, “Dogs! Do you want to live forever?”—was not a figure who played to the crowds.22 But at Hanover he was coaxed out of his coach by the news that Lady Yarmouth was among the spectators. Caroline recounted:
We had a fine account of my mother of the King of Prussia’s person, & his passing through Hanover, . . . the Guards all drawn up, & men women & Children collected together to have a sight of this extraordinary man, he excused his alighting on account of great hurry, but when he heard that Lady Yarmouth stood in the Street, he immediately opened the Door, threw himself out, & made her a very pretty compliment, he staid talking about a quarter of an hour whilst his Horses were changed, & then with many bows went off.23
Frederick had been Britain’s most important ally on the Continent during the war. His army was heavily subsidized by Parliament and his victories made him a hero among the British public. As the war drew to a close, however, the cabinet of George III saw fit to end the unpopular subsidies to Prussia, and many, including Frederick himself, felt he had been abandoned by “perfidious Albion.” Lady Yarmouth nevertheless remained his faithful ally throughout, a fact he was no doubt aware of when he leapt from his carriage to pay his respects.24
By July, Charlotte had taken her leave of Lady Yarmouth and was in the Ardennes at the famous resort of Spa, the leading continental health resort for British tourists. Like Bath, Spa always had a community of fashionable English travelers who maintained a lively social scene.25 Renowned for its healing waters since the fourteenth century, it was a difficult place to get to by coach, a small town lying in hilly, heavily wooded countryside. Life there was pleasant and genteel, yet with an atmosphere more unconventional than in Bath. Outlawed Scottish exiles of the “Forty-five” Jacobite rebellion could be found there, as well as loyal supporters of Britain’s Hanoverian dynasty, impoverished continental aristocrats, and convalescing officers of the Austrian and French armies.26 Viscountess Charlotte Howe was probably more in her element at Spa than in rural Langar. At any rate, the change seemed to be good for her. She was back in London by November, “perfectly well & with good looks.”27
William Howe came back from the war determined to enjoy himself. As MP for Nottingham, his official residence was at Epperstone Manor, not far from Langar.28 But he was often busy elsewhere, visiting and participating in country sports and games, and his presence weaves in and out of his eldest sister’s letters during these years. He went to Ranelagh Gardens with Richard and Caroline; he was a frequent guest at Hanslope, where the family played games of bowls on the summer lawn; he went to Wakefield Lodge with Caroline, where the Duke of Grafton laid on foxhunts, and then on to the Nottingham Races.29 He ice-skated in London’s Kensington Gardens; he resumed his beloved pastime of angling, prompting his mother to boast to her fashionable court friends that “Son William out does you all at fishing.”30 He brought back partridges from the campaign at Havana as a gift for a family friend, leaving them in the care of his obliging oldest sister Caroline while he set off on excursions of pleasure.31 His playful nature was what Caroline liked.
William had a striking family nickname, “the Savage.” The earliest known reference to it is in Caroline’s letters in 1761, the year after he had returned from the American campaign. Its origin is unknown, but historians have offered various theories. Historian Ira Gruber has speculated that it could have been “a tribute to his long service in America or his primitive behavior at home.”32 David Hackett Fischer refers to a legend that William returned from his American service during the Seven Years’ War wearing buckskins and Indian moccasins, but no source is given.33 This ties in with another longstanding Howe family tradition regarding William—that he is a figure dressed in buckskins and a dark-green ranger’s coat in Benjamin West’s famous painting The Death of General Wolfe.34
Art historians have challenged the identification of West’s ranger as William Howe, pointing out that he was not a ranger and there is no direct proof that he modeled for West. And the ranger in the painting is wearing a powder horn inscribed “S(r). W(m) Johnson.” Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet, was a superintendent of Indian affairs in the colonies and an able military commander who led Native American forces. But just as William was not a ranger, Johnson was not in Quebec in 1759.35
Johnson may not have been in Quebec, but he did meet George Lord Howe in America.36 He may well have gifted the powder horn to his prestigious brother-in-arms. Exchanging and gifting of accessories and weapons between Native American warriors and British officers was widespread. Sir William Johnson made a regular practice of it.37 George Howe’s personal effects were returned to England after his death.38 It is entirely possible that the powder horn belonged to George, and that when asked to pose for the artist Benjamin West, William assembled the outfit of a ranger from his own personal American souvenirs and those of his brother. This would explain why West, who sought out authentic artifacts for his history paintings, would include a powder horn inscribed with the name of someone who was well known in London military circles not to have been present at Quebec. If the figure leaning toward the dying Wolfe, pointing to the victory of British arms in the distant field, is indeed William Howe, it is the only substantiated surviving image of him.
William remained in the army in the years following the peace. He was a lieutenant colonel of the 58th Foot until November 1764, then became a full colonel in the 46th Regiment of Foot.39 This meant Ireland. The 58th had been stationed there after the peace, and the 46th was also in Ireland by 1764.40 It is clear from Caroline’s letters that William was traveling back and forth between Ireland and England during this period. In peacetime, he was not always required to stay with his regiment. His freedom no doubt suited him very well, for the woman he was to marry, Frances “Fanny” Conolly, belonged to a wealthy Anglo-Irish family with aristocratic English connections, and she also moved between England and her brother’s estate of Castletown in County Kildare.
Fanny Conolly was not a typical Howe woman. Barely twenty when William met her, she was tim
id, with a “little meek way” of speaking that aroused a protective response in some, and irritation in others.41 A comical, wild-looking girl was how one lady described her.42 But she clearly caught the eye of William Howe. He probably courted her in Ireland, because Caroline knew nothing of the chosen bride of her favorite brother. “The Savage is going to be married to Miss Conolly,” she wrote to a friend in May 1765. “I fancy it is no secret, but if you do not hear of it from other people do not mention it from me, I am not at all acquainted with her, those that are commend her, & her appearance & manner deserve it.”43
They were married less than a month later. If Caroline ever discovered what William saw in Fanny, she did not say. The sisterly camaraderie that comes through clearly in her relationship with Richard’s wife Mary—“Dickess”—never developed between Caroline and Fanny. Perhaps Caroline saw that Fanny was not cut out to be a military wife, but the young lady did love William dearly. If she seemed to lack backbone, her mother made up for it. Lady Anne Conolly was the eldest daughter of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. She had very strong notions of the rights of daughters to inheritance, even disputing bitterly with her own son in her pursuit of equitable portions for her six daughters. She has been described (perhaps unfairly) as “a strong-willed, volatile, meddlesome, domineering woman.”44 Still, she, like her daughter, adored William; through his marriage, “the Savage” extended his circle of admiring kinswomen.
William’s new family had strong English ties. Lady Anne, who was widowed, lived mainly in London or at the family seat of Stretton Hall, Staffordshire. Fanny’s brother Tom Conolly was “the richest commoner in Ireland,” having inherited a fortune while still in his teens. He was an MP in both the British and the Irish Houses of Commons and had townhouses in London and Dublin.45 Tom, almost ten years younger than his new brother-in-law, William, was most happy while gaming and chasing foxes.46 Fun-loving and good-humored, he was described variously by contemporaries as empty-headed or merely immature. But there was nothing imprudent about his marriage in 1758 to Louisa Augusta Lennox, sister of Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond.47 The Duke of Richmond—wealthy, Whiggish, and a race enthusiast with a celebrated horse-racing track at his estate of Goodwood—was a life-long friend of William Howe, who had served alongside him in the 20th Foot.48 The ties between the Howes and Richmond were strengthened by William’s marriage into the Conolly family.
The youngest of the Howe brothers, the elusive Thomas, returned home shortly after the end of the war. It was not the close of hostilities that brought about his return, however, but rather a pilot’s blunder guiding his vessel, the Winchelsea, out of the Bengal River. His men were saved, but the cargo was lost. The accident brought Thomas home in 1764, “near two year sooner than he would have done,” reported Caroline, giving an idea of the stretches of time he spent seafaring far from home and family.49
Thomas Howe is the least known of the brothers. His biography in The History of Parliament is four sentences long, gives the wrong year of birth, and provides no information about his life other than the fact of his seat in Parliament.50 We have seen that Thomas likely joined the merchant marine when he left Eton, at age twelve or thirteen. He was twenty-six when he became captain of the 499-ton East Indiaman, the Winchelsea, in 1757.51 Over the next ten years, he traveled farther and saw more of the world than any of his brothers. During the Seven Years’ War, the Winchelsea was part of a convoy arriving at Madras (now Chennai) that ended the French siege of Fort St. George in 1759. From Madras, Thomas and the Winchelsea proceeded to China, reaching the coast by July 1759. On May 12, 1760, by then off the coast of Natal, South Africa, the Winchelsea encountered a Portuguese ship, and Thomas learned of the victories involving his brothers at Quebec and Quiberon Bay. By June, the Winchelsea had arrived at the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic.52 Thomas was back in England in September 1760, shortly before his brother William returned from America. He had been away for almost two years.
Like all the Howe men, Thomas had physical courage and was known for his “coolness of Temper.”53 He also had the charm of George and William. A friend of Caroline’s described him as “remarkably pleasing,” intelligent, knowledgeable, and “a very extraordinary young man.”54 He also knew how to fight, according to Caroline, who described his encounter with a French frigate near the end of the war. Thomas “contrived to kill him[self] a number of men & to drive [the Frenchmen] off with the loss of only 3 of his men, we are told he has gained great honour,” reported his sister, always eager to laud the feats of her brothers.55
Being remote from his mother country did not mean Thomas was disengaged from it. As a sailor on the far-flung margins of Britain’s overseas empire, he was very aware of the French aggressions against British possessions in North America and the Caribbean, and the British East India Company’s factories at Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Madras. Like all the Howes, he was interested in imperial matters, and he contributed valuable information to the proliferating maps and charts of the outermost edges of British navigation. Thomas Howe’s charts were used by Sir William Draper when he attacked the Spanish stronghold of Manila in 1762. Draper had left Madras on the Winchelsea in 1759, and the idea of the expedition against the Spanish walled city in the Philippines had been hatched during the long voyage home.56
But despite his patriotic credentials, Thomas showed himself capable of flagrantly self-serving behavior in pursuit of personal wealth. In March 1766, a year and a half after the accident off Bengal, he went to sea once again, this time in command of the East Indiaman Nottingham, bound for Mumbai.57 When he reached his destination, he found himself the subject of a rather unpleasant inquiry at Calcutta. Howe and the commanders of three other East Indiamen had been detected smuggling on a very large scale. In May 1766, all four were dismissed from their commands. This was really just a suspension, for the East India Company needed skilled commanders, and smuggling was an acknowledged fact of life; reinstatement in a few years was usually taken for granted. Thomas, however, was obliged to apply by letter to be forgiven and restored to his command, for his offenses were initially considered too flagrant to be pardoned. This probably means he was smuggling military stores—cannon and small arms. Even so, he was permitted to return to the service in 1770.58
By then, however, this fourth Howe brother had found himself more honorable if less profitable employment in Parliament. In 1768, he ran as MP for the borough of Northampton. Once again, it was the hand of a Howe woman that set this youngest brother’s political career in motion, for Caroline was on an intimate footing with the wife of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer. Lord Spencer provided the funds and the political influence needed for Thomas’s campaign. In 1768, the Spencers wanted to wrest control of the borough of Northampton from two fellow peers, Lords Halifax and Northampton, who for many years had controlled the local elections without serious opposition. The resulting election was so hotly contested that it became known as “the contest of the three earls.” Levels of corruption were legendary. Election officials looked the other way as voters neglected to take the oath against bribery. The wool-combers, weavers, and shoemakers who constituted much of the electorate feasted and drank as Lords Halifax, Northampton, and Spencer all held open houses. In support of their respective candidates, they drained their cellars of the best port and claret. The lucky electorate numbered only about a thousand souls, who knew their value and gathered as much as they could in kind and cash.
After fourteen days of voting, Thomas Howe came last, mainly because the polling officer, in the pay of another earl, found excuses for rejecting 110 of the votes cast for Thomas. His mother anticipated the outcome. A society gossip, who met Lady Charlotte Howe playing at quadrille, reported: “She told me her Son wou’d certainly lose the Election at Northampton, but there had been such unfair practices that Ld Spencer intended he shou’d petition.”59 Just as Lady Howe predicted, the weary business of petitioning Parliament against the results came next. The expense was monstrous
, as the three earls now shifted their focus away from the Northampton electorate to try their arts of persuasion on members of Parliament. Thomas Howe, however, ultimately prevailed, becoming the fourth Howe brother to take a seat in the House of Commons.60
For now, the Howes had three of their men simultaneously in Parliament, enough to fulfill a family ambition to create a recognizable Howe “interest.” In the years to come, they would also be able to call upon the votes and support of a handful of other MPs who owed their positions to the Howes. This was quite an accomplishment for a dynasty that did not boast great wealth or the control of any seat or borough. And it was wholly respectable in an age of aristocratic supremacy in politics.
In what was possibly the only example of all three Howe brothers acting together in the House of Commons, they would show their interest in imperial affairs. In early 1771, Thomas, William, and Richard opposed a bill to allow the East India Company to maintain a regiment in Britain for the defense of its possessions in India.61 One of their objections was purely practical: that an East India regiment in Britain would compete with the regular British army for recruits. But there was a more important ideological objection as well. The Howes feared that the East India army would become a threat, in its own right, to British liberties. The old connection with Pitt the Elder was in evidence, as he approved of the stance taken by the Howes.62 The brothers were not political theorists or ideologues, but they and Pitt shared many of the same political instincts with respect to managing an empire. This is noteworthy, because, as will be seen, in the political conflict between Britain and her colonies that would dominate the decade after the Seven Years’ War, William Pitt was seen by the American colonists as the greatest champion of their rights.
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