The Spencer Family

by Charles Spencer

  With the first news of the French defeat came rumours that seven of Nelson’s battleships had been lost. Lavinia continued:

  All the captains in the fleet were our particular friends, and for some of them we felt the anxiety which we should have felt for a son.

  Many weeks passed before the official account came. I was sitting in my drawing room talking to Mr Grenville over the pros and cons, when Mr Harrison, Lord Spencer’s secretary, burst into the room, and cried: ‘Such a victory has never been heard of — the Town is in an uproar — my Lord is in his office — the particulars have not transpired.’ And away he went.

  Half an hour later, George John sent for his wife. She found him prostrate on his bed, ‘pale as death’. He squeezed Lavinia’s hand reassuringly, and said: ‘God be thanked.’ He then asked his staff to tell her the detailed results of the engagement, including the fact that not a single British ship had been lost. When his secretaries had told the First Lord the same news earlier, he had turned round, headed for the door, then fainted — ‘His joy had mastered him,’ as Lavinia put it. The Spencers dined alone that night, Pitt interrupting them to congratulate George John personally on his triumph.

  In his poem celebrating the battle, Southey dedicated a section to the First Lord of the Admiralty, acknowledging his role in the glorious achievement:

  Spencer! Were mine the pow’r, by lofty lays,

  Guerdon of high desert, to lift thy name

  On the proud column of recording fame,

  I, to bold notes, that swell the song of praise,

  Had tun’d the lyre ...

  If the Nile was the most dramatic achievement of George John’s time in charge of the Navy, there were other events which he oversaw that had less obvious, but long-term, positive effects on the service. In general, Spencer was respected by his juniors for his attention to detail and his ability to get things done. He was always at his desk at the Admiralty by nine o’clock in the morning, and was available to all for an appointment at short notice.

  His drive for efficiency extended to the dockyards, where officers were told to give regular reports on their everyday operations; and these were expected to be handed in on time. Accompanied only by a servant, George John surprised the workmen at the docks at Deptford one morning by riding down before they started work, in order to see for himself the operation of the store ships there.

  The First Lord was also adept at spotting improvements that could be made to assist in the smooth running of the Navy. Indeed, it was through George John’s patronage that the engineer Brunel was first brought to public attention.

  Brunel was convinced that he had invented a system of ‘block machinery’ which would be of great help to the dockyards in sorting out the potential muddle of vessels coming in and out of a harbour, but nobody in the relevant naval departments was prepared to look at his work with an open mind. So Brunel resolved to side-step officialdom and go straight to Spencer, who had a reputation for encouraging scientific endeavour of all sorts. With this in mind, he presented Lavinia Spencer with a prototype of his machinery; a mechanical toy into which a pack of cards could be inserted, which obviated the need for shuffling; the cards were dealt out in whatever manner the countess required. Lavinia was captivated by the device’s cleverness, and excitedly showed it to her husband. It was Spencer who ordered the system proper to be installed at Portsmouth. It was completed under his successor, St Vincent, in 1802.

  George John also had to contend with two mutinies, which jeopardized the effectiveness of the Royal Navy as a military force. As one of his contemporaries noted in the 1790s:

  The minds of men of all classes and descriptions had been more or less affected by the principles and successes of the French revolution, where the permanent efficiency of physical force was exemplified, and encouragement given at the same time to the adventurous exercise of talent. The leaven of insubordination set to work in France had insensibly spread, the ideas of what are termed national rights were disseminated in numerous cheap or gratuitous publications, the discussion of bold opinion became fashionable in public houses, and our honest and open hearted seamen were seized with the contagion.

  Conditions in the Navy were extremely tough. Half of the crews were pressed into service, either seized off the streets, or forced to serve through being held in debtors’ prisons. Few sailors volunteered to be subjected to an existence whereby ships could be away from home for months, if not years, and living standards rarely rose above being wretched.

  Discipline was invariably harsh, with the cat o’nine tails a constant threat to the miscreant, along with other punishments that, although not designed to be capital, frequently resulted in death. One such was keel-hauling, whereby a wrongdoer was bound by his feet with one rope, and his hands with another, before being thrown over the bow of the ship and then dragged the length of the vessel underwater. Apart from the danger of drowning, or crushing, there were also such hazards as barnacles below the waterline, which could cut a man open.

  By the 1790s, British crews were not prepared to put up with the prevailing conditions any longer. They insisted on better wages, and on such remuneration actually being paid when due. At Portsmouth, the first rising was quickly dealt with when George John agreed to the demanded raise, and gave them back pay that had been owing for as much as three years, in some instances. When the same problems started to surface in the Channel fleet at the Nore, Spencer removed the ships’ buoys and stopped the sailors putting to sea, while cutting them off from all contact with the shore. An unconditional surrender by the sailors was the conclusion. At one stage 50,000 men in 113 Royal Navy vessels had been in open mutiny against their officers and the Admiralty.

  A year later, in June 1800, the Pitt administration came to an end when the Prime Minister resigned, and the Addington premiership began. George John stepped down as First Lord, and returned to the Whig party, acknowledging that the threat of the French revolution overtaking Britain seemed to have passed. However, he was not convinced that the end to hostilities between France and Britain, formalized at the Peace of Amiens, could last, given that so many issues between the protagonists remained unresolved. Napoleon was to prove his scepticism well founded.

  Almost a century later, the Daily News would remember George John as ‘the ablest administrator in the Government of Mr Pitt’. The reason he has not received more attention from historians has been put down to the fact that, soon after his retirement from political life, a servant inadvertently destroyed the bulk of his personal correspondence from his years of influence, depriving subsequent generations of an insight into the Second Earl Spencer.

  However, the fact is that politics were never George John’s main interest, and he partook in them only because he felt he should do so, out of a belief that people of his status and privilege had a duty to serve their country to the best of their ability. It is clear that, in 1807, after a brief stint as Home Secretary, he was happy to slip away from the front line of public service. Faced with limitless time, he now embarked on what he believed to be the purpose of his life, and the occupation that gave him immeasurably more satisfaction than being a cabinet minister ever had.

  *

  At Althorp there are portraits of George John by Reynolds, Kauffmann, Copley, Hoppner, Shee and Clint. They all bear out the description of him as ‘tall and athletic, if not robust’, as The Gentleman’s Magazine described him in his prime. With light-red hair and all-knowing eyes, there is a presence about him that his contemporaries noted with respect. Even at play, people reacted to George John’s charisma. As a young man he was reputed to be one of the finest skaters on the Serpentine, where he would attract an audience keen to witness his effortless style.

  The Second Earl was also to be the inventor of a style of coat, considered very elegant at the time. ‘The Spencer’ was essentially a morning coat, but devoid of the bottom section. My father told me that this was an unintentional invention: George John had fallen asleep in front of a
fire at Althorp and some coals rolled out of the grate on to the coat he was wearing, burning off the tails. Awaking with a start, and dousing the flames, George John found he liked the cut of what he was left with, and had other coats of his adapted to the look.

  At the same time the Earl of Sandwich, eager to find a way of feeding himself conveniently and frequently, so as to be able to gamble for twenty-four hours at a time without too many breaks for sustenance, invented the food that has ever since borne his name. The two novelties together led a contemporary wit to write:

  Two noble earls, whom, if I quote,

  Some folks might call me a sinner,

  The one invented half a coat,

  The other, half a dinner.

  The plan was good, as some will say,

  And fitted to console one,

  Because, in this poor starving day,

  Few can afford a whole one.

  The fashionable George John also enjoyed adventure. He and Lavinia were known for their daring travels — including, in 1786, a visit to the rumbling Mount Vesuvius, which Horace Walpole noted in a letter, with a mixture of wonder and disapproval: ‘Lord and Lady Spencer have ascended the mountain while the lava boiled over the opposite brim. I should have no thirst for such bumpers.’

  Each of these snippets gives us an insight into the multi-faceted George John. However, soon after his death, this more general assessment of him was given in a memoir of his life, in The Atlas:

  In person Lord Spencer was tall; in his deportment eminently courteous, affable, and kind. His countenance was thoughtful, and could be severe; but in the circle of his family and friends it was lighted up with a benignity of expression which truly bespoke the benevolence of his heart. His habitual temper was in the highest degree cheerful, enjoying every thing — eager in all his pursuits, and delighted with witnessing the happiness of others. His charity flowed from his sympathy with distress ... He lived honoured and respected by all men, even in a country where the violence of [political] party too often embitters the intercourse of private life. His memory will be revered by those who value the union of public principle and private worth, and the poor, lowly, and unfortunate will mourn the loss of a kind and generous benefactor.

  The above qualities would explain the immense respect Lavinia held for her husband, demonstrated in her correspondence with him. From this it is also clear that she found him extremely physically attractive, something which made her the scourge of his various portrait painters who, she consistently believed, failed to do George John justice in their representations of him. In 1783, she wrote:

  I forget whether it was after or before dinner that you told me your picture was like you. I think it must have been after, as you do not drink in the morning, and when you said this you must have been at least elevated, if not dead drunk. Oh Mr Humphry, I wish I had you here to have you ducked in the horse ponds before my windows! Such a vulgar spiritless ugly creature as he has made you I never saw. You that are the direct contrary to these three things.

  Five years later, with another portrait planned, she again transmitted her concerns to George John:

  I wish I could think that Lawrence will paint you like. I fear it is impossible for anyone to hit off that dear delightful expression of countenance which I so well know. Ah no! I must not expect it! That angelic benignity, that manly spirit, that perpetual good humour, that admirable good sense, that gentleness of nature and that firmness of mind. Can he express all these? Poor, poor Lawrence, how surely wilt thou disappoint me!

  George John needed all these diverse qualities to cope with the flaws in Lavinia’s own character, which nobody ever sought to eulogize. The couple’s daughter, Sarah, recalled after Lavinia’s death:

  My mother was very indolent, hated all inferior society, and had somehow a higher position than was quite properly hers, owing, I believe, to my father’s very high character and rank, so that she was, or behaved as if she was a sort of queen — and popular she never was anywhere.

  Lavinia’s difficult nature was often a source of embarrassment for George John. She seems to have enjoyed creating problems, before setting her husband the trying task of championing her intolerable position. To his credit, George John unfailingly rallied to his wife’s defence, but, in so doing, he had to become accustomed to the humiliations that frequently attended his loyal stance.

  An example of this took place in 1804. The artist Archer Shee had agreed to paint George John, and create a copy of the portrait for a friend of the Spencers. With no evidence whatsoever, Lavinia claimed that Shee had originally promised to let the couple have a copy at a discount of five guineas, forcing the painter to take his case direct to Spencer, with whom his indignation had to be cloaked in politeness. However, he made his disgust at the countess’s questionable honesty evident to his patron. ‘I consider myself very unfortunate,’ wrote Shee, ‘in having undesignedly given to Lady Spencer any grounds to misconceive my terms, for I very solemnly assure your Lordship that I never for a moment intended, directly or indirectly to impress her Ladyship with an idea that I should execute a copy on lower terms than the original picture, much less at a price which I should consider an humble recompense for the performance of the lowest student of the art; nor until the receipt of your Lordship’s letter did I conceive that any conversation had passed on the subject.’

  George John quietly paid the amount in full, no doubt aware that the artist was telling him the truth, while his wife was wilfully creating trouble where none was either necessary or desirable.

  In fact, this questioning of expenditure was an all too rare event in the spendthrift existence of the Second Earl and Countess. Brought up in an atmosphere where extreme extravagance was the norm, George John found it impossible throughout his life to economize. There were periodic evaluations of the estate, its worth and its debts, but they never resulted in any notable changes in attitudes as to how life should be lived, or lifestyle funded.

  Soon after becoming the Second Earl Spencer, George John resolved to have Henry Holland, the favourite architect of the Whig grandees in the 1780s, make a few alterations at Althorp. The result was a complete overhaul of the Spencer ancestral seat in Northamptonshire, the whole building becoming encased in off-white ‘mathematical’ tiles, the red-brick structure beneath condemned to eternal imprisonment. At the same time, Holland added corridors to the inside sections of both sides of the front courtyard, and sealed the oak panelling of the Picture Gallery — the only room in the house that had been left unaltered from its early Tudor origins — with wallpaper. The Saloon, which had been the internal courtyard of the house before Dorothy Sunderland’s widowhood, had its mighty staircase painted white, in order to augment the natural light that the ceiling’s windows allowed into this central space.

  There had been no budgeting for this work. To finance it, George John had to resort to the desperate measure of borrowing money from Holland himself, repaying him periodically with interest. This occurred at a time when he already had huge financial worries. However, he was used to things being done to the highest standard, regardless of affordability, and Holland guaranteed that his ‘improvements’ would be magnificent. The result was a bill for over 20,000.

  Profligacy was the underlying theme throughout the half-century of George John’s earldom. Two years on the Continent, after Cambridge, had left him susceptible to the desirability of the finest objects Europe had to offer. In 1785, he went alone to Rome to look at various sites that he was interested in from his classical studies. It was not long before he had a confession to make to Lavinia, back at Althorp:

  I cannot release you till I have told you of a piece of folly I have committed today, which is the more ridiculous as I had determined in my own mind not to be drawn into it; however I was tempted and the influence of the air of Rome, which makes everybody almost do the same sort of thing, overpowered me and in short I bought an Intaglio.

  Writing from the Barberini Palace on the same visit, he acknowledge
d his monetary problems even more candidly: ‘I have but very little money to spare ... my finances are in such a situation that nothing but some very tempting picture would induce me to deviate any more from my resolution.’

  George John had inherited fifty estates and mortgages in 1783, the fruits of the Spencers’ medieval farming prowess married to the accumulations of Sarah Marlborough. In the 1780s and 1790s, he sold several of the larger ones: Chippenham, in Buckinghamshire, for £22,000; Chilworth, in Surrey, for £25,000; Balking, Inkpen, Tulwick, Syndelsham and Shillingford, all in Berkshire, for around £100,000; as well as St Thomas, Bashwick, Drayton and Weston, in Staffordshire, for £60,000. By the end of his life, George John had disposed of two-thirds of the properties that had come to him by way of inheritance. Even the Bedfordshire patrimony of the First Baron Spencer — Dunton and Milhoe — and Sarah Marlborough’s beloved Holywell House were sacrificed in the constant quest for funds.

  The primary cause of George John’s parlous finances was his ever-deepening obsession with his library. The roots of this can be found in his time as the pupil of William Jones. There had also been a tradition of book collecting in the Spencer family, which may have fostered the Second Earl’s interest. Wormleighton had had a library of renown before the Civil War, and the First Earl of Sunderland’s brother, Lord Teviot, had left his own fine collection to the senior branch of his family on his death, in the mid seventeenth century. The intervening generations — especially the Third Earl of Sunderland — had maintained such traditions, although the best of the books had gone with the Fifth Earl of Sunderland to Blenheim, when he inherited the Marlborough dukedom.

  But the family had never known a book collector like George John. His unprecedented appetite for literature was unleashed in earnest in 1789 and, from that date till his death in 1834, he ‘spared neither time, labour nor money’ in compiling what was to become, reputedly, the finest private library in Europe. His first major acquisition was the entire library of a Hungarian nobleman, Count Karolyi Reviczky, which consisted of Greek and Latin classics. Various rare Bibles, and works from the presses of Aldus and the Elzevirs, were also secured with this purchase.