Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox 1740 - 1832

by Stella Tillyard

  In Dublin, Sarah and Louisa put Pamela on a boat for England, in compliance with government orders. They were refused permission to see Lord Edward, and had to be content with ambivalent reports from the surgeon that filtered out from Newgate Gaol in Green Street.

  More arrests followed Lord Edward’s capture, persuading what was left of the United Irish leadership that the rebellion must begin immediately. Signals to rise were sent to local organisations weakened by arrests and the disarmament campaign. From 24 May groups of rebels six or eight hundred strong, many armed only with pikes forged in village smithies, began to assemble in valleys, woods and quiet village streets. Loyalists watched the enemy emerge from the mists; not a revolutionary force but bands of poorly armed men moving down roads in search of a main army. On 26 May, after risings in Carlow and at Naas, Clare and Prosperous in Kildare county, Louisa looked out of her bedroom window and saw a party of 200 rebels armed with pikes make their way across the lawn in front of her house. It was three in the morning. The air was warm and still, heated by days of unusually hot weather. Apart from rustles and clinks, the men were silent. They locked the gates at either side of the park, left word that they would harm none of the inhabitants of the house and lodges and moved off into the night to join a rebel army. Louisa, staring out from her bedroom bedecked with purple ribbons, was terrified. Although she admitted that ‘they marched in great order and quietness and did not molest me,’ she added that, ‘it was not a pleasant sight.’ She decided to put Castletown into a state of defence and had doors blocked, windows shuttered and servants armed. Then she took up her pen. Writing might provide her with a defence against fear. ‘I will endeavour to keep a journal of what passes here,’ she wrote to Ogilvie.

  As the rebellion spread from Kildare to Wicklow and Wexford, Lord Henry Fitzgerald was making his way towards Dublin, determined to see his brother. Lord Edward’s condition was getting worse. The balls were still in his shoulder, the wound was discharging pus and the heat prevented doctors operating. The Dublin government had already refused Louisa permission to see her nephew. Now he refused Lord Henry too. ‘Has he got fruit?’ ‘Does he want linen?’ Lord Henry wrote in his notebook. On 30 May Ryan, whom Lord Edward had stabbed repeatedly during his arrest, died, adding a charge of manslaughter to the charge of sedition. ‘How will the death of Ryan affect him? What informers are supposed to be against him?’ Lord Henry wrote anxiously.

  Captured rebels and rumours came into Dublin while Lord Henry waited; different reports that flowed into one story. The risings in Carlow and Kildare had been local and unconnected. There were burnings, killings and horrific torture, but no apparent plan. But in the south an army of 20,000 had marched into Wexford town and proclaimed a republic. While groups of victorious rebels roamed the streets and householders hurriedly hung green flags out of their windows, a mixed bunch of leaders, including two Protestant landlords sympathetic to the United Irish cause, tried to impose some sort of order. Only one garrison, at New Ross, stood between the United army camped outside Wexford and county Waterford. If New Ross fell, government supply lines to the military base at Waterford would be severed and the rebels might open up the sparsely garrisoned counties to the south and west. As news of the rebel success at Wexford and of atrocities on both sides reached Dublin and Castletown, Louisa’s confidence faltered and gave way. She abandoned her short journal, writing on it, ‘too full of misery to continue’.

  In London, Emily feverishly attempted to gather support for her son. She went to the Prince of Wales and to his brother the Duke of York, and asked them to intercede with the King on Lord Edward’s behalf. She sent notes to Fox and her brother asking for help, but she had few useful allies. Fox and the Prince of Wales were liabilities, the latter seen as a wastrel, the former as a regicide. Only Richmond could be of any use. Seizing his chance to assert himself within the family, Richmond hurried to see Pitt and asked for a postponement of Lord Edward’s trial. With Pitt’s permission, Richmond wrote to Lord Camden, ‘in whose justice and moderation I have too much confidence not to believe but that they will have weight.’ Fortified by her brother’s optimism, Emily set off for Ireland on 1 June. Her youngest daughter, Mimi, went with her. Ogilvie stayed in London with Pamela and Lord Edward’s three children.

  At Leinster House, Lord Henry Fitzgerald had become desperate. On 1 June and again on the 3rd, Lord Clare refused him permission to see his brother, although in his second letter he admitted that Lord Edward’s condition was serious. The same day Lord Henry received a smuggled letter from an acquaintance who had been picked up and confined in Newgate. ‘My Lord … I take the liberty of writing to inform you that your brother, Lord Edward, is most dangerously ill – in fact dying – he was delirious some time last night. Surely, my Lord, some attention ought to be paid him. I know you’ll pardon this application. I am yours, with respect and regard, Matt. Dowling. Past Two. Seeing you or any friend he has confidence in, would, I think, be more conducive to his recovery than 50 surgeons. I saw him a few moments last night – but he did not know me. We’ll watch over him as well as is in our power.’

  Lord Edward was dying from septicaemia, wild with pain. On 2 June his jaws locked and closed on his tongue in a spasm that lasted half an hour. That evening his mind began to wander. He paced up and down his cell, saying that he did not want to live and that ‘God would receive him for having contributed to the freedom of his country’. Dr Garnett, the surgeon attending him, was alarmed at the ferocity of his desire for death and martyrdom. ‘No remonstrance could restrain him; he raved most impetuously and exerted a wonderful degree of strength even with his wounded arm; I said everything I could think of to dissuade him from agitating himself. He cried out, “Dear Ireland! I die for you! My country, You will be free,” And then “Damn You! Why don’t you let me die! I want to die. You are a tyrant. If I had a knife I would kill myself”.’

  Lord Edward’s shouting caused a commotion in the goal. Prisoners who were free to walk about, Matthew Dowling among them, gathered on the stairs leading to his room. People in the street heard Lord Edward shrieking. Dowling was called into Lord Edward’s cell and entreated to calm him down. Lord Edward seemed not to recognise him, shouting ‘damn you, damn you’ loudly and indiscriminately to everyone who came near him.

  Eventually he was exhausted. Forty drops of laudanum pacified him and stopped his jaw dropping open. But he slept little during the night and his pulse became rapid and irregular. At eleven o’clock the next morning, 3 June, Dr Garnett went into Lord Edward’s room again. ‘While I sat by his bedside he observed to me “I have a brother Henry that I dote on; I wish greatly to see him, but I suppose that cannot be allowed.” After a short pause he said, “I have a brother Leinster for whom I have a high respect. He might depend on everything I did.”’ This pathetic plea did no good: Garnett had instructions to allow no visitors.

  Unbeknown to the doctor, however, the authorities, realising that Lord Edward was dying, had allowed a message to reach Louisa at Castletown which hinted that Lord Edward had little time to live. Louisa immediately set off for Phoenix Park with Emily Napier. There, Louisa left Emily in the carriage, went into the Vice Regal Lodge and asked for Lord Camden. A few minutes later she came back, Emily Napier reported, ‘in a most dreadful state of agitation, saying as she leant back in the carriage, “order them to drive home. I have knelt at his feet and the brute has refused to let me see my dying Edward.”’ Instead of going back to Castletown, however, they decided on one last effort and drove round to Ely Place where Lord Clare, the Lord Chancellor, lived.

  Lord Clare had already decided upon clemency. When Louisa and Emily arrived, he ordered his own carriage, bundled them into it, drove to Leinster House, where they picked up Lord Henry, and went on to the prison. There he was the only one of the party to break down, weeping openly in an adjoining room while Louisa and Henry sat by Edward’s bed.

  Later Louisa wrote Ogilvie an account of their visit. ‘I first approached
his bed; he looked at me, knew me, kissed me, and said (what will never depart my ears), “it is heaven to see you!” and shortly after, turning to the other side of his bed, he said, “I can’t see you!” I went round and he soon after kissed my face, and smiled at me, which I shall never forget, though I saw death in his dear face at the time. I then told him that Henry was come. He said nothing that marked surprise at his being in Ireland, but expressed joy at hearing it and said, “where is he, dear fellow?” Henry then took my place, and the two dear brothers frequently embraced each other, to the melting of a heart of stone, and yet God enabled both Henry and myself to remain quite composed. As everyone left the room, we told him we only were with him. He said, “that is very pleasant.” However, he remained silent, and then I brought up the subject of Lady Edward, and told him that I had not left her until I saw her on board, and Henry told him of having met her on the road well. He said, “And the children too? – She is a charming woman” and then became silent again. That expression about Lady Edward proved to me that his senses were much lulled, and that he did not feel his situation to be what it was; but thank God they were enough alive to receive pleasure from his brother and me. Dear Henry, in particular, he looked at continually with expressions of pleasure … When we left him, we told him that, as he appeared inclined to sleep, we would wish him a good night and return in the morning. He said, “Do, do,” but did not express any uneasiness at our leaving him. We accordingly tore ourselves away … He sometimes said, “I knew it must come to this, and we must all go,” and rambled on about militia and numbers; but upon my saying to him “It agitates you to talk upon these subjects,” he said, “well, I won’t.’”

  Three hours after Louisa and Henry left, Dr Garnett wrote the last entry in his notes. ‘Two O’clock – After a violent struggle that commenced a little after twelve o’clock, this ill-fated young man has just drawn his last breath. J. Armstrong Garnett. June 4 1798.’

  Dr Garnett’s account of Louisa’s visit was very different from her own. He noted that Lord Edward had scarcely recognised his aunt and brother. His body was occupied with death and his mind with rebellion. Garnett told him that Louisa and Henry were in the room. He named and kissed them affectionately but soon his attention wandered. ‘He raved while they were with him of battles between the insurgents in the north and some regiments of militia. He talked of the Fermanagh militia and talked of a battle in Armagh that lasted for two days.’

  Louisa said nothing to Ogilvie about Lord Edward’s dementia. Her letter had two functions. The first was to give Ogilvie the news of Edward’s death in such a way that when he caught up with Emily on the road he could put Louisa’s letter into her hand. The second was to offer Emily a picture of her son’s last hours that she could carry through her grief. In Dr Garnett’s notes Lord Edward was a revolutionary in the last stages of dementia. In Louisa’s letter he was a loving brother, nephew and father, rambling a little, but beatific and, at last, at peace. Emily never gave any sign that she suspected that it was a fabrication and all the family connived at the deception.

  Ogilvie set off after Emily and Mimi as soon as Louisa’s letter reached him, first dispatching a messenger who overtook the party at Towcester and prepared Emily to hear the worst. He took Sophia and Lucy Fitzgerald with him to comfort their mother. At the same time, Pamela left Harley Street for Richmond House and the protection of the Duke of Richmond. Ogilvie’s party caught up with Emily at Coleshill in Warwickshire. For a few days they all stayed where they were and then turned round and sadly made their way back to London.

  Members of the family consoled themselves in different ways. Louisa found refuge in practical details. She arranged Lord Edward’s funeral (a botched affair that took place in St Werbergh’s Church at the dead of night) and collected relics. ‘I have got the watch and chain that hung constantly round his neck, with a locket of hair which I send you,’ she wrote to Lord Henry. ‘I have also been with Hamilton the painter. There are two pictures of him, one for your mother and one for you.’ She hung on to the belief that Edward was not really guilty of treason. ‘The friends that he was entangled with pushed his destruction forward, screening themselves behind his valuable character.’ Lord Henry and Sarah, who never doubted Edward’s guilt, dissipated grief in anger. Lord Henry dispatched a furious letter to Camden, the Lord Lieutenant, accusing the government of murder. ‘Now, my Lord, shall I scruple to declare to the world – I wish I could to the four corners of it – that amongst you, your ill-treatment has murdered my brother, as much as if you had put a pistol to his head.’ Sarah also blamed the government and trusted to time to restore Lord Edward’s good name. Lucy Fitzgerald sat down as soon as she got back to Harley Street and dashed off a letter entitled ‘To the Irish nation’, that exhorted the Irish people to fight for ‘happiness, freedom, glory’: ‘One noble struggle and you will gain, you will enjoy them for ever.’ This letter was never sent, but Lucy did dispatch a letter to Thomas Paine, sending him a picture of Lord Edward: ‘Citizen, In those happy days when I dwelt under the humble roof of my beloved brother Edward, your picture ornamented his chimney. As the small circle drew round the fire, their eyes rested on the resemblance of the Author of The Rights of Man. Citizen, although he was unsuccessful in the glorious attempt of liberating his country from slavery, still he was not unworthy of the lessons you taught him. Accept then his picture from his unhappy sister.’

  Emily wrote nothing about her dead son. Indeed, a month after Edward’s death she wrote to Henry, ‘Goodwood July 1798. Fatal year! We are neither of us in a state at present, my beloved Henry, to touch on a subject so heart rending and distracting as all that has passed within these last three months of wretchedness; but I am sure you will be glad to know from myself that I am much better.’ The Duke of Richmond described Emily as ‘quiet and composed’. Knowing that Emily was unwilling to write about her son, Louisa and Sarah felt that they could not do so either. The subject became a barrier between them. Louisa admitted later that ‘all the misery that I had endured on my sister Leinster’s account had worked me up into such a dread of seeing her that I almost wished never to see her again.’ Sarah left Louisa to make the first move, taking refuge herself in what she called her ‘inferiority’. Eventually, however, she wrote a long letter to Emily which she regretted as soon as it had left her hands. She followed it with a contrite note to Lucy Fitzgerald, asking how she should approach the task of writing, ‘for till I have resumed the habit of corresponding with her, I must feel the common lot of separation which commonly ends in a degree of coolness which would make me wretched to be sensible of from her whom I love much more like a mother than a sister.’

  It was Emily, three months after Edward’s death, who broke the silence. In the middle of September Louisa received a letter which began ‘My beloved sister, I live to say my Eddy is no more!’ She begged Louisa to visit her. ‘You, my Louisa,’ Emily wrote, ‘have ever been my comforter. You share it all and yet have the power of soothing, you have ever been the companion of my sorrow.’ Louisa wrote back straight away: ‘My beloved, my adored sister. My heart still beating with the agitation that the sight of your dear handwriting gave me this morning … I sit down without delay to thank you. I longed to have the ice broke, that numbed my correspondence, but have never felt courage to do it myself.’

  Although she did not write to her sisters for three months after Edward’s death, Emily had not been inactive. She curbed her grief by devoting herself to little Eddy who became a surrogate for his father. She went through Edward’s last letters and labelled them. ‘Six precious letters I received at Ealing and Tonbridge,’ she wrote on the back of the letters Edward sent from Hamburg and Ireland in 1796 and 1797. On the cover sheet that bound the bundle she wrote ‘precious remains’. She also copied out a passage from Joseph Priestley, which she entitled, ‘Dr. Priestley, applicable to my beloved and adored Edward’, noting on the back, ‘private paper for myself only’. Then she put the note aside, an open invi
tation to anyone who found it to discover and disclose its contents.

  The passage Emily transcribed was a justification of rebellion. Using Priestley as her authority, as she had always used texts to make sense of her life, Emily determinedly memorialised her son as a martyr whom time would vindicate. Priestley said that rebellion was justified if government was oppressive, because a government was made for the happiness of its subjects. So an oppressive government was unconstitutional and should not be protected ‘from the generous attack of the noble and daring patriot’. Priestley went on and Emily added her own underlinings: ‘if the bold attempt be precipitate and unsuccessful the government will be sure to term it rebellion, but the censure cannot make the thing itself less glorious. The memory of such brave tho’ unfortunate friends of liberty and of the rights of Mankind as that of Harmodius and Aristogiton among the Athenians and Russell and Sidney in our own country, will be held in everlasting honour by their grateful fellow citizens, and History will speak another language than laws.’

  This passage came from a fairly obscure pamphlet by Priestley put out in 1768 by a triumvirate of radical publishers during the height of Wilkes’s attack on parliamentary prerogative, entitled An Essay on the First Principles of Government; and on the Nature of Political, Civil and Religious Liberty. There was no collected edition of Priestley’s works in which Emily might have found it in the 1790s. She may have read it when it came out. The Duke of Leinster, interested like Wilkes in attacking Westminster (though not for the same reasons), may have bought it and put it in the Carton library. Edward Fitzgerald may have brought it to his mother’s attention. But however she got the pamphlet it was rare and radical stuff for a duchess to be reading and suggests that her researches in radical politics went far further than she ever suggested in her letters.