The Dangerous Duellist: Charles, Baron Mohun

by Margaret Porter

The 4th Baron Mohun

Charles Mohun, the 4th Baron Mohun, was born about 1675 to the 3rd Baron Mohun of Okehampton and his wife Lady Phillipa Annesley. Through the latter the infant was grandson of the 1st Earl of Angelsey, who served as Lord Privy Seal and produced political and religious treatises. Pepys referred to Anglesey as 'one of the greatest knaves in the world,' and during his life little Charles would exceed his grandsire's reputation.



His father had inherited substantial lands in Cornwall and Devon--as well as considerable debts. The marriage to Lady Phillipa was entirely mercenary, she was a termagant, and the union neither prospered nor lasted. Shortly after his heir's birth, the 3rd Baron served as Lord Cavendish's second in a duel with an Irish officer. At the conclusion of the contest Mohun insulted his friend's opponent, resulting in a second swordfight, and the brawling baron died from his severe wounds.
The infant 4th Baron and his two-year old sister Elizabeth were left to the care of a cruel, careless, and quarrelsome mother. His upbringing was hardly the sort to bestow virtue, patience, and manners. Unlike most young men of noble birth, he did not attend university. He married in 1691, aged just fifteen. His bride was Charlotte Orby, his guardian's daughter and the niece of his close friend Lord Macclesfield, and she had no dowry. In November of 1692 she bore a stillborn son.

Several weeks after this distressing event, the sixteen-year old baron fought his first duel. After a night of drinking he quarreled with Lord Kennedy, four years his senior. King William III, hearing of it, feared that a duel might ensue, and commanded both young gentlemen to remain at home. They chose not to obey their monarch's edict. In the course of their battle, each received a minor wound.

Two days later Mohun assisted his closest friend, the equally wild Captain Richard Hill, in the failed abduction of the actress Mrs Bracegirdle. Hill, who regarded actor William Mountfort as his rival for the lady's affection--quite mistakenly--ran him through with a sword late at night in the middle of a London residential street. Hill fled the country. Mohun was arrested. His response: 'Goddamme, I am glad he's not taken, but I am sorry he has no money about him, I wish he had some of mine. I do not care a farthing if I hang for him.'

The magistrates charged him with murder but after a single night in jail his bail was paid and he was released. Judged a flight risk by the House of Lords, he was confined to the Tower of London to await his fate.

In a sensational trial, the House of Lords tried the baron as an accessory to the crime, and in February 1693 he was acquitted and released. Either the weeks of his imprisonment impaired his health, or his celebrations after gaining his freedom, because by October that year it was reported that he 'lies very ill at Bath.' Mountford's outraged widow attempted to appeal what was, from her perspective, a most unjust verdict. Her father had recently been convicted of a capital crime--clipping coins--and by dropping her intended action she was able have her parent sentenced to transportation rather than execution.

Recovered from his ailment and back in London, Mohun returned to form. Drawing his sword against a hackney coachman, he was prevented from slaying the man by a member of Parliament, whom he then challenged to a duel which never actually took place.

Deciding to use his fighting instincts in the service of king and country, he joined the military. On March 10, 1694 the diarist Luttrell records, 'The Lord Mohun is made a captain of a troop of horse in Lord Macclesfield's [sic] regiment.' Three days later he noted, 'The Earl of Macclesfield goes with his majestie to Flanders, as a major general, and the Earl of Warwick and Lord Mohun as volunteers.' Warwick was one of Mohun's cronies, a partner in drinking and debauchery.

Whatever discipline the baron absorbed in the ranks, it didn't improve his behaviour. In spring 1695, he battered a member of the press in a London coffee house. Two years later his next duel took place in St James's Park. His opponent, Captain Bingham, survived the encounter--park keepers intervened--and Mohun sustained a wound to his hand.

In September of that same year, 1697, at the Rummer Tavern in Charing Cross, he engaged in a drunken quarrel with a Captain Hill. This was not the perpetrator of the Mountford murder, but another of that name and rank serving in the Coldstream Guards. Mohun stabbed him and fled; the captain later died. Mohun took refuge in the Earl of Warwick's house, where the constables seized him. At the coroner's inquest he was judged guilty of manslaughter.

According to a contemporary account, 'Yesterday [27th November] the lord Mohun appeared upon his recognizance at the King's Bench bar, and there being an indictment of murther found against him by the grand jury of Middlesex for killing Capt Hill, the court committed him to prison in order to be tryed for the same.' His place of confinement was not to his liking or  suitable to his status, and on the 13th of December 'the lord Mohun petitioned the house of peers to be removed from the King's Bench where he was committed last term for the murder of Captain Hill, to the Tower, which was granted.'

This time, however, he avoided trial--most likely because he'd reached his majority. Now twenty-one, he was entitled to take his seat in the House of Lords, and the King needed his support. At the 11th hour he received a royal pardon, which he duly presented to the House. Within days he was seated with his fellow peers as a Whig lord with good reason to approve all of His Majesty's demands for additional war funding.

Never one to learn from past crimes, Mohun committed another in late October of the very same year:

On Sunday about 3 in the morning a quarrel happened at Locket's [a tavern] near Charing Crosse between Captain Coot [sic] son to Sir Richard Coot, and Mr French of the Temple, who thereupon went and fought in Leicester Feilds. The Earl of Warwick and Lord Mohun were for the first, and Captain James and Ensign Dockwra for the 2d. Coot was killed upon the spott, and it's said French dangerously wounded but made his escape with the rest.

The House chose to try Mohun and Warwick separately, but it was uncertain which of the five men present at the altercation had struck the fatal blow. In January Mohun returned to the Tower to await trial and remained there for several months. On 28th March, 1699, 'the earl of Warwick and lord Mohun were brought by the lord Lucas from the Tower to Westminster the axe being carried before them they are now on their tryalls on account of the death of captain Coot [sic] which is like to last long.' On that day the earl was convicted of manslaughter and given the mildest of punishments: a cold branding iron in the shape of 'F' for 'felon' was applied to his hand, leaving no permanent mark upon it. The following day Mohun was unanimously acquitted but received a severe warning from Lord Chancellor Somers that he could not expect mercy in future if he continued on his disastrous path.

In 1701 the Act of Settlement designated the Protestant Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her heirs as William III's successors to England's crown. Lord Macclesfield was the King's choice to deliver a ceremonial copy of the decree, and Lord Mohun accompanied him to Hanover. Within days of their return to London, Mohun stood at his gravely ill friend's bedside. The earl's death on 4th November was followed by the discovery that he'd disinherited his entire family in Mohun's favour.



James, 4th Duke of Hamilton

As possessor of a fortune between £40-100,000 and now a visible, active, and useful member of the House of Lords, Mohun's problems ought to have been behind him. Unfortunately, he had an enemy--James, the Scottish 4th Duke of Hamilton, husband of another of Lord Macclesfield's nieces. The duke, in desperate financial need, felt entitled to Macclesfield's estate, and legal battles ensued. Bills were filed. Chancery suits were begun. The King died. A Queen was crowned. Under the new regime, Hamilton's sometime support of the Catholic Pretender did not work in his favour. As for Mohun--he was a Whig, and Queen Anne a staunch Tory.

In 1711, Mohun, by then a widower, took his mistress as his second wife. She was Elizabeth Griffith, widow of a colonel and a daughter of Sir Thomas Lawrence, a physician to the Queen. He had hardly installed her in his residence, Macclesfield House, than he departed it to take up lodgings in Great Marlborough Street.

Not until 8th February, 1712, was his inheritance dispute with Hamilton heard by the Committee of Privileges in the House of Lords. A tie vote resulted--Mohun voting in his own interests, Hamilton absent. When proxies were counted, Mohun prevailed in a vote of 40 to 36. And still they waited for the ruling from Chancery.

But it wasn't the courts that put an end to a dispute. It was, of course, a duel. Not a polite, mannerly affair between a pair of nobleman who deemed honour at risk. What occurred in Hyde Park on the early morning of 15th November was a brutal and decisive battle between bitter adversaries.

When the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Mohun, and Macartney [Mohun's second] came to the place agreed on them to fight, the Duke and Lord Mohun had no sooner drawn their swords than Macartney drew his, as Colonel Hamilton did the same . . . he [the Colonel] striking down Macartney's sword...closed with Macartney and took his sword from him, by which time Lord Mohun was down on the ground and His Grace upon him. The Colonel, the better to help the Duke up, flung both swords upon the ground . . . Macartney came with a sword in his hand, and gave a thrust into the duke's left breast . . . the Duke at the same time saying, I am wounded, and whilst the said Colonel Hamilton was helping him Macartney escaped.

A representation of the doubly fatal duel in Hyde Park

The stab wound to the duke's chest was superfluous; one of Mohun's blows had severed the artery in his wrist. The two enemies lay dead, their blood seeping into the grass.

The Colonel stood trial, was convicted of manslaughter, branded with the cold iron, and went free. General Macartney fled England and tried to exonerate himself through pamphlets. While in Europe he gained an ally in the future George I and wished to follow the new King to England. He sought to have his outlawed status altered in order to belatedly stand trial for his role in the duel.

Two years later, when the case was finally heard, Hamilton said he couldn't swear that the accused had actually murdered the duke. Macartney likewise received a non-branding and went free--as the bad baron had done so many times in the course of his duelling career.

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Margaret Porter is the award-winning and bestselling author of twelve period novels, whose other publication credits include nonfiction and poetry. One notorious incident in which Lord Mohun participated appears in A Pledge of Better Times, her highly acclaimed novel of 17th century courtiers Lady Diana de Vere and Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans. Margaret studied British history in the UK and the US. As historian, her areas of speciality are social, theatrical, and garden history of the 17th and 18th centuries, royal courts, and portraiture. A former actress, she gave up the stage and screen to devote herself to fiction writing, travel, and her rose gardens.
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The Duel that Shocked the Nation

by M.M. Bennetts

On the 21st of September 1809, just after the dawn of a sunny and clear morning, Viscount Castlereagh made his way with his cousin, Lord Yarmouth, toward Yarmouth's cottage, discussing as he went the fashionable soprano, Angelica Catalani, and even humming the tunes of her arias.  Awaiting them at the cottage were George Canning and Charles Ellis, Canning's second.  

After Ellis made one final attempt at reconciliation between the two principals, at shortly after six, Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning took the ten required paces, turned and took aim, both missing their first shot. After which, Castlereagh declared himself unsatisfied and the pair resumed their positions.

This second time Castlereagh's aim proved more accurate and Canning collapsed on the grass with a bullet in his thigh. Castlereagh, honour now satisfied, rushed to his fallen adversary's side, and taking him by the arm, carried him to a neighbouring cottage to receive medical attention.    

However, within weeks, The Battle of the Blocks, a satire mocking the profligacy and arrogance of the duellists, was published to the delight of the jeering classes.  And it was only the first of many such poems and satires.

  

But what can have occurred to have brought a man like Castlereagh, about whom one of his fellow diplomats would later write, "the suavity and dignity of his manners, his habitual patience and self-command, his considerate tolerance of difference of opinion in others...his firmness, when he knew he was right, in no degree detracted from the influence of his conciliatory demeanour..." to be involved in such a scandalous activity as a duel?  

Look no further than his opponent and rival, George Canning.  

Under the aegis of the aging and somewhat sickly Duke of Portland as Prime Minister, a government had been formed in March 1807 with Spencer Perceval as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House, Canning at the Foreign Office, and Castlereagh at the War Office.  

Castlereagh, with customary diligence, threw himself into his work reorganising the Volunteers and the militia to bolster Britain's expeditionary forces, as well as commissioning a series of reports from intelligence agents across Europe in an attempt to find the weak points in Napoleon's empire.

In the Lower House, he was also frequently called upon to stand firm against the attacks from the Opposition on the conduct of the war, in particular defending the actions and honour of Sir Arthur Wellesley, first in regard to his action in Denmark and latterly over events in the Peninsula which had culminated in the disastrous Treaty of Cintra.  

(In a nutshell:  Wellesley had trounced the French at the Battle of Vimeiro on 21 August 1808.  All well and good.  Within a day however, Wellesley was superseded by two older armchair generals, Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Hew Darymple, who negotiated a completely ruinous treaty with the French General Junot, in which Britain was required to transport all the defeated French troops back to France carrying with them their 'personal' items, which happened to be all they'd looted from the Portuguese.  When news of the treaty got out in London, there was a huge outcry--and Wellesley was blamed, though he had not been a signatory to the Treaty.)

By late September, as the news of the Battle of Vimeiro was published and the details of the dishonourable treaty leaked out, Canning, in private, grew strident in blaming both Castlereagh and Wellesley for the debacle.  

Though a new Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Moore, was given command of the Peninsular Campaign, by the end of January 1809 he was dead, and the surviving British troops had been evacuated following the Retreat to Corunna.  (No, things weren't looking great on the war front...)  Nevertheless, by April, heartily supported and endorsed in Parliament by Castlereagh, Wellesley was on his way back to the Peninsula as Commander-in-Chief, to aid the beleaguered Portuguese and Spanish in ridding themselves of the Napoleonic yoke. 

At the same time, Castlereagh proposed within the Cabinet attempting to open up another front in the war against Napoleon, this time in northern Germany near Flushing--later this would be known as the Walcheren Campaign.

And it is at this time, around Easter 1809, that Canning's campaign to discredit and undermine Castlereagh got going.  Thus as the months of meetings with his fellow Cabinet-members moved forward, as Castlereagh relied on their support and expertise and trust for his pursuit of the country's war aims, Canning was pursuing a secret campaign to have him removed from office even as in public he made a show of friendship and support.  A letter here, a comment there, it was a perpetual drip-feed of undermining criticism, and although the Prime Minister was unwilling to act on Canning's advice and remove Castlereagh, Canning's duplicitous backstabbing and insidious whispering campaign continued unabated.

And no one, not even his uncle, said a word, leaving Castlereagh completely and utterly in the dark.  

In early September, as the sick troops began to return home from the disastrous Walcheren Expedition and Castlereagh felt that the weight of responsibility for the debacle lay upon his shoulders, he also learned of Canning's efforts to unseat him and his fellow Cabinet members' silence on the subject.  Shocked and demoralised, on 8 September he resigned from the Government.  

Over the next few weeks, as more and more details emerged of Canning's ambitious plotting, including his letter to George III suggesting himself as a new Prime Minister (an unprecedented act) and the deal he had struck with Portland to replace Castlereagh or he himself would resign, Castlereagh felt more and more keenly the humiliation of his position.  Thus on 19 September, he wrote to Canning that he had acted, "in breach of every Principle of good Faith, both public and private...It was therefore your act, and your conduct, which deceived me, and it is impossible for me to acquiesce in being placed in a situation by you which no man of honour could knowingly submit to, nor patiently suffer himself to be betrayed into without forfeiting that character." 

Castlereagh's letter left Canning--who had never fired a shot in his life--with little alternative but to agree to the duel which had previously been suggested.  (Castlereagh was known to be a crack shot...)

Following the duel and the news of it leaking to the press and every scandal-monger in Britain, both Castlereagh and Canning remained on the backbenches of the House of Commons and outside the Cabinet for some time. 

Castlereagh's reputation recovered first and he was soon offered the position of Foreign Secretary by Spencer Perceval, now the Prime Minister, a position which he held from February 1812 until his death in 1822, becoming over the course of those ten years one of the most renowned diplomats of the 19th century and possibly the greatest of Foreign Secretaries for his work at the Congress of Vienna in 1814.  

It wasn't until after Castlereagh's death that George Canning held office again--a high price for his ambitious machinations against a fellow Cabinet member.  (And he limped.)

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M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early 19th century British and European history and the Napoleonic wars and is the author of two novels, May 18122 and Of Honest Fame set during the period.  A third novel, Or Fear of Peace, is due out in 2014.

For further information, please visit the website and historical blog at www.mmbennetts.com