Victor Stater. Duke Hamilton Is Dead: A Story of Aristocratic Life and Death in Stuart Britain. London: Hill & Wang, 1999. xi + 266 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8090-4035-3.
Reviewed by Lawrence B. Smith (Dept. of History, Lenoir-Rhyne College)
Published on H-Albion (February, 2001)
Eighteenth-century British historians occasionally encounter misconceptions that are evinced by students and, occasionally and perhaps more discreetly, by specialists of other areas and periods as well. These misconceptions run something on the order of general disinterest in the period because of its supposedly dull, rather static nature. Ancien rgime politics under the later Stuarts and early Hanoverians was thoroughly dominated by an aristocratic and increasingly whig oligarchy, the importance of religion and morality dwindled steadily, and the dramatic social and economic changes of the later 1700s and the Industrial Revolution still loomed in the distant horizon.
Thus the period between 1688 and 1815 attracts fewer monographs and generates less research interest than have the centuries immediately prior to the 1700s and in the Victorian age which followed. Victor Stater, Associate Professor of History at Louisiana State University, has written the type of book that ought to supply a healthy corrective to this ill-founded view. In numerous ways and on several diverse levels, Stater's book exemplifies what makes the later Stuart period so interesting and the neglect it sometimes receives so ill deserved. The subtitle of Stater's book is a clear indication of his main theme, essentially an analysis of the changes affecting British society -- and specifically aristocratic society -- during the late seventeenth century and continued during the 1700s. A central focus of his study is how aristocrats endeavored to succeed in parliamentary politics, manipulate the legal system to their advantage, and bolster their careers and financial status to weather the changing economic times, all the while victims of and often contributors to what the book's jacket describes as an "era in which incivility and moral turpitude held sway."
Despite recent interest in the rise of politeness in early modern Europe and Britain, this book largely confirms the pessimistic foreboding of its jacket blurb. Stater centers this reconstruction of the period and his examination of the British aristocracy around an analysis of a long-standing feud between two noblemen, Charles, 4th Baron Mohun (pronounced "moon," 1677-1712), and James, Duke of Hamilton (1658-1712), that culminated in a violent, deadly confrontation and which became one of the greatest scandals of Queen Anne's reign. Other than a popular account of Lord Mohun dating from the 1920s[1], a brief study of the duel itself by eighteenth-century British political historian H.T. Dickinson (University of Edinburgh) in the 1960s,[2] an article analyzing the political implications of Hamilton's appointment to the British peerage shortly prior to the duel,[3] and several studies undertaken on figures in the duelists' families,[4] little has been published recently on the subject.
Stater's book therefore supplies a useful account of what on initial examination appears a mere personal squabble, but which actually proved to have significant historical ramifications upon important events during the final years of Anne's reign, including a void left in the leadership of the Scottish Jacobites after 1712 and Britain's representation and its aggressive role in peace negotiations with the French as the War of the Spanish Succession ground to its conclusion.
Stater's preface reveals this tale of murder and aristocratic immorality and ostentation initially grew out of the author's interest in the context for the political unification of England and Scotland. It is appropriate then, that his study of the duel between two individuals demonstrates how, in a broader sense, it underscored festering economic, political, and social issues arising from the Act of Union in 1707. Popular responses to the duel and its aftermath revealed how a seemingly localized and perhaps minor event could illustrate social inequality and political disparity between English and Scots politicians in that society. Beginning with a brief discussion of the growing prosperity of the English aristocracy, and its accompanying immorality, extravagance, and the banned practice of duels, the introduction proceeds to assist the non-specialist understand the rising crescendo of partisan rancor, the rhetoric and doctrines argued between Whig and Tory, and how these forces were manifested in the quarrel between Hamilton and Mohun.
Chapter One provides a comparative chronicle of the lives of the book's two main characters. Stater effectively contrasts their social and intellectual backgrounds and political influences. Herein lies a key to the book's appeal. This is not simply a narrative of a property dispute between two aristocratic politicians. Their personal squabbles highlight growing social and political frictions that consumed the nascent British state: one was Scottish, the other English; one staunchly Tory, the other Whig; one a fervent supporter of the Glorious Revolution and the Protestant Succession; the other, a staunch Jacobite and, indeed, a relative of the exiled Stuart monarch with his own shadowy pretensions to the Scottish throne. Yet one striking aspect of the early sections of the book is Stater's explication of how remarkably similar these two figures were in their early years. Both were parental disappointments, either squandering opportunities for education or young men who matured largely without close parental guidance, free to embrace lives of profligacy and dissolution.
Hamilton's lazy university years left him with little more than a penchant for drink and familiarity with poor company, encouraged by his parents' acquiescence into providing him with the funds for an extended and expensive Grand Tour that lasted two years and deeply influenced him. Both Hamilton and Mohun spent time in the Tower of London prior to their duel. Furthermore, as young men, both peers were targets of bitter recriminations from dowager female relatives who refused them complete control of their inherited and, in both cases, deeply encumbered, landed estates.
Mohun's father, whom also died in a duel, gives new meaning to the adjective unscrupulous; his greed was so overpowering that he sued his own mother. His heir, the Whig Lord Mohun, showed little remorse in the face of frequent brushes with an ineffective judicial system in which political privilege and connections repeatedly enabled him to escape serious punishment, and despite his obvious commission of an officer's murder in 1697 and his service as a second in a fatal duel only a year later. Mohun emerges as unrepentant lifelong rake and hellion, an aristocratic thug who squandered time by frequenting smoky taverns in an advanced state of inebriation and griping about various subjects with mixed company of his social inferiors.
The next chapter carries one back beyond the dates of the protagonists' births in order to supply the complicated historical background of the families who began the quarrel that Mohun and Hamilton would inherit and help escalate: the "evil inheritance" of the estate of Gawsworth in Chester, which was reckoned to be worth 40,000 in the late 1600s. The central figure here, Charles Gerard, served as the link between the destinies of Mohun and Hamilton. A lucid discussion of the origins of this dispute clarifies the claims of both the Gerards and their opponents the Fittons, as well as an assessment of respective claims based on contemporary legal practices and property and inheritance laws, which often fluctuated according to the political tendencies of respective sides and the dramatically shifting political landscape from 1640 onwards. In the process, the chapter successfully provides the uninitiated with an lucid explanation of practices employed in the transfer of estates, wills, marriage contracts, and a thriving trade in forgeries of legal documents, one of which played a major role in precluding legal acceptance of Hamilton's claim to the Gerard estate. Several family trees inserted as diagrams prevent confusion about the descent of rival parties, and the widespread prevalence of adultery among aristocratic couples as well as the legal difficulties in obtaining divorce prior to new legislation in the 1750s heightens awareness of the rather combative and stale matrimonial state prevailing in many noble households.
Chapter three, "Lawyers and Politicians," highlights the workings of the legal profession as illustrated by the activities of attorneys representing the claims advanced by Mohun and Hamilton. The chapter also introduces a Gerard descendant, later 2nd Earl Macclesfield, whose contentious marriage was rendered more difficult by his wife's open displays of affections for Jacobite poet Sir Richard Savage. Macclesfield ultimately became something of a father figure to Mohun and, following an unprecedented divorce, he married Macclesfield's niece.
Mohun shared many traits with his mentor Macclesfield; both were whigs, rakes, and adulterers without heirs. A whig peer who died just as his star was rising, Macclesfield disinherited his own family and named Mohun as heir to an annual income of 6,000 and estates worth between 40,000-100,000. Hamilton's growing importance as one of the most prominent Jacobite leaders and his somewhat duplicitous behavior regarding negotiations resulting in the Act of Union, also receive discussion. Hamilton was initially an outspoken opponent of the Union Treaty, but Stater rightly notices that with the passage of the Act of Union and his patent as a British peer, the Duke of Brandon (which passed the House of Lords in 1711), he actually enhanced his legal advantages in the case against Mohun. From a broader perspective, Hamilton's Brandon peerage was problematic on a national level, and became a divisive issue amongst noble supporters of the Union, Whigs, Tories, and Scots in general.
Stater proceeds by describing the shift in political power in England following the 1710 election and the Tory ministry's accession to power, emphasizing that these ministerial changes effectively removed Mohun's former privileged position and political influence and thus rendered his confrontation with Hamilton inevitable. Readers are also introduced to one of the more memorable characters in the book: General George Maccartney. The Irish-born Maccartney served as Mohun's second in the 1712 duel and was blamed by Hamilton's second as having inflicted the fatal stab wound that killed the Duke. Maccartney provided Mohun with an appropriately dissolute companion, and exceeded him in his penchant for violence, especially toward women. Not only had Maccartney squandered his wife's fortune and subjected her to physical abuse, but in 1709 was charged with a brutal attempted rape of a landlady who had resisted his advances that resulted in mutilation of. As with Mohun, however, Maccartney's political influence allowed for his acquittal and the retention of part of his income from his officer's commission. Then in late 1710 came the rather humorous incident that brought about Maccartney's complete reversal of fortune. A drunken incident in which he and several other pro-whig officers loyal to Marlborough fired their pistols at a crude effigy of Lord Chancellor Robert Harley and made derogatory toasts calling for the downfall of Harley's new ministry were the precipitating circumstances for Maccartney's loss of his regiment and its accompanying financial perquisites. This caused the debauched officer grave financial difficulties and his sudden, embarrassing impoverishment only provided extra incentive for violence such as he displayed alongside his boon companion Mohun.
The final two chapters bring Stater's narrative to its climax, exquisitely detailing events leading up to the ill-fated duel, followed by a conclusion that summarizes its aftermath for the deceased peers' family members and analyzes the duel's broader political and social consequences. The meticulous description of the duel itself draws the reader into the drama and action as if a firsthand observer. Increasing hostility, regardless of the numerous efforts at pre-emptive intervention by influential acquaintances, and a precipitate, simultaneous decline in both men's fortunes, brought on the tragic result of their mutual acrimony. A significant ruling in Hamilton's favor in the Duke's Chancery case had the effect of placing the burden of proof as to whose claim was the more legitimate claim to the "evil inheritance" upon Mohun.
Hamilton's exorbitant demands to Harley for support alienated him from the new ministry and almost certainly explain his appointment as ambassador to France in 1712 as a method by which the troublesome and dangerously influential duke could be removed from court and the Lords. The embassy was actually delayed because of the interminable suit between Hamilton and Mohun. Nonetheless, Hamilton's appointment was of enormous potential consequence; his political activity was highly significant for any hopes of a Stuart restoration. It is interesting to speculate about the eventual outcome of his embassy under different circumstances, given the level of his popularity in Scotland and considering Louis XIV and James's respect for him. Stater concludes the duel was symptomatic of the creation of a new social order of which the book's protagonists were both beneficiaries and victims, and reiterates the similarities, the distinctive personal qualities and the upbringing that shaped their personalities. Archival work in Edinburgh and apparently unrestricted access to the Hamilton papers at Lennoxlove, the bulk of which are still held privately, greatly enhances Stater's research.
Yet instances arise where one can raise quibbles with the book. The overwhelming majority of readers will doubtless fail to comprehend the true political importance of Maccartney's removal and loss of his regiment in 1710 as represented here, in which Stater describes the officer and his companions as mere "Colonels" (p. 157). Although they were indeed colonels of regiments, Meredith and Honeywood, the two officers cashiered along with Maccartney, were not only devoted political subordinates of the Duke of Marlborough but were also high-level general officers (Meredith actually held the rank of Lieutenant General which exceeded Maccartney's). As such, their removal fulfilled part of an ongoing, widely-concerted scheme perpetrated by pro-ministerial army officers such as the Duke of Argyll and others intended to undermine Marlborough's military authority in the field.
Another example of Stater's failure to convey adequately the importance of certain issues is his unsatisfactory discussion of Hamilton's stature as leader of Scots Jacobite peers who, by 1712, were becoming bitterly opposed to the Union. Hamilton's prestige and his somewhat surprising appeal as a natural leader of Scottish Jacobites, perhaps inflated by his experience as a suspect who was imprisoned in 1708 on suspicion of treason, is minimized and rendered somewhat ambiguous, leaving the impression that Stater's final assessment of Hamilton, while allowing for his speculation about the possibility that Hamilton's very appointment manifested aspects of a Jacobite conspiracy planned by Anne's Tory ministers themselves (p. 284), places him as more of a fickle moderate Tory rather than the acknowledged leader of anti-Unionists in the House of Lords and a tenuous claimant to the Scottish crown. The failure of any viable replacement for Hamilton to appear after 1712 and the ineptitude of Scots in the critical days following Anne's death and during the Fifteen amplify the significance of his death in this regard.
Specialists in the period might also find minor points of contention when examining Stater's methodology. Comments in the book's acknowledgments indicate he apparently allotted insufficient time to peruse the holdings of major archives such as the British Library. When this reviewer compared the results of a name index search for Mohun and Hamilton in that archive's online manuscript catalog with Stater's bibliography, the search revealed that roughly half of the existing catalogued items for each of these two peers were omitted from the book's bibliography. Determining whether these items were actually consulted and simply escaped inclusion, and assessing the significance of the omissions and their potential effects on the book's narrative is, of course, extremely problematic. Yet assuming the catalog entries are indeed correct, it is particularly surprising that one omission, BL, Egerton MS 2623, f. 53, consists of a deposition on the inquest on the peers' deaths, while another, BL, Add. MS 52474, f. 56, is a letter relating to the 1712 duel.
A possibility that may partially explain these omissions is that this material was reproduced in one of the many printed accounts of the duel and its aftermath. A final critical observation of minor concern is the book's omission of certain people who bore historical connections to the duelists and their fluctuating political fortunes and who are, at the very least, equally as relevant as some of the more colorful yet peripheral celebrities who are described at length. One prominent example is Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery (1674-1731). Gravely wounded himself in a duel similar to the Hamilton-Mohun encounter and fought in a Hyde Park gravel pit in 1700 over alleged electoral improprieties at a Huntingdon election, Orrery's political career is intertwined with that of the duellists' at several points. As an adherent of Tory minister Robert Harley, Orrery was the loyal beneficiary of the aftermath of the reckless partisan binge which led to Maccartney's loss of the prestigious Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1710 and had also brashly suggested such a political be taken swipe at Marlborough. Orrery's own patent for a British peerage (the Orrery earldom was Irish) was passed in the Lords alongside Hamilton's patent for the British dukedom of Brandon, by which time Orrery had been conveniently sent on his own diplomatic mission in Flanders. And, ironically, in June 1716, the very same month that Maccartney, now no longer declared a Continental fugitive, after George I's accession, was tried and freed after a token punishment, Orrery was dismissed from his own court posts and forced to resign his colonelcy of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, which was fittingly and rather insultingly returned to Maccartney.
Observations such as these do not compromise the strength of the volume as a whole. This book remains a simultaneously entertaining and yet authoritative and insightful introduction to the period and merits broad readership. Founded on a narrative style that might be termed almost anecdotal or "human-interest," sections of Stater's book are reminiscent of the late Lawrence Stone's later work; suspicions of Stone's influence are raised by his favorable comments gracing the dust-jacket. One leaves the book with a sense of having experienced an invigorating revival of old-fashioned historical narrative in a biographical vein, replete with bawdy tales of marital friction and expressions of aristocratic obnoxiousness and immorality that were viewed almost as a birthright, yet which also deftly incorporates an awareness of broader more modern historiographical perspectives that encompass elements of social history. Much of this book's appeal derives not only from the author's lively presentations of its subject matter but from its comprehensive discussions of the duel's historical and social background; vibrant, kaleidoscopic presentations transport readers effortlessly through the rich imagery of a London three centuries ago.
The characters and situations which spring from the opening pages are the stuff of legend and the picaresque: highwaymen, mistresses, courtiers, colonels of regiments, lascivious, arrogant noblemen maintaining lifestyles they hopelessly realized they could ill afford for inordinate lengths of time, irascible dowager duchesses, promiscuous actresses engaged in steamy affairs with socially-ambitious military officers, a notorious general and reputed rapist who escaped repeated convictions, professional forgers of estate documents, disreputable, dilatory attorneys who intentionally prolonged resolution of their clients' cases to inflate their fees. Rather than distracting, the book's numerous brief digressions and character sketches explain how later Stuart society, with all its inequalities and eccentricities, actually worked -- gilt-bedecked nobles clutching powdered periwigs as their footmen stumbled through filthy streets riddled with mud-holes and filled with pickpockets, prostitutes, and poverty. Readers of Stater's book sample Augustan life through the eyes of a wide array of viewpoints, and encounter the bagnios, drawing rooms, dingy street corners and taverns they inhabited. In some instances the portrayals are disconcertingly modern; the majority are consistently humorous and memorable.
This engrossing book examines the social, cultural and political world of the late Stuart period in a manner that will appeal to both undergraduate and graduate students and professional historians alike. Stater succinctly describes many aspects of later Stuart Britain that this reviewer only began to comprehend fully in a far more circuitous and laborious journey during his own graduate research. With an uncanny sense of familiarity, Stater's images and conclusions have reaffirmed why this reviewer was seduced by the period to begin with and why it retains his abiding interest. There is little reason to contradict suspicions that it will evoke similar fascination in other readers as well.
Notes:
[1]. Robert Forsythe, A Noble Rake: The Life of Charles, Fourth Lord Mohun (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928).
[2]. H.T. Dickinson, "The Mohun-Hamilton Duel: Whig Conspiracy or Sham Plot?," Durham University Journal, lvii (1967).
[3]. Geoffrey Holmes, "The Hamilton Affair of 1711-12: A Crisis in Anglo-Scottish Relations," in Politics, Religion and Society in England, 1679-1742, ed. Geoffrey Holmes (London: Hambledon Press, 1986).
[4]. E.g., Rosalind Marshall, The Days of Duchess Anne: Life in the Household of the Duchess of Hamilton 1656-1717 (New York, 1973).
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Citation:
Lawrence B. Smith. Review of Stater, Victor, Duke Hamilton Is Dead: A Story of Aristocratic Life and Death in Stuart Britain.
H-Albion, H-Net Reviews.
February, 2001.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4940
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