In the history of every country a few figures stand out conspicuous, not necessarily for ability or virtue, or even vice, but through the power of a dominating personality or the strangeness of their career. In the Georgian annals of England in the forefront of these heroes of romance stands, head and shoulders above the rest, Charles James Fox, whose genius and fascinations, indeed, whose very faults, seize the imagination, and hold it captive, a willing prisoner; but there are others, minor lights to this great star, yet still shining so brightly as to dazzle the sober senses of twentieth-century social historians, a body not given unduly to hero-worship. Such a one was Brummell, another was “Beau” Nash, both arbiters of fashion, veritable kings in the eyes of their contemporaries; a third was Elizabeth Chudleigh, Countess of Bristol, Duchess of Kingston, greater still as Beatrix, queen of hearts, in “Esmond”; and to a place in this gallery of adventurous spirits none can deny the right of Philip, Duke of Wharton, Richardson’s Lovelace, gallant, wit, statesman, satirist, poet and pamphleteer, like Dryden’s Zimri, “everything by starts and nothing long,” a man who threw away great gifts, honour, loyalty and love, as freely, and with as little regard for consequences, as Fox squandered his gold.

Philip, born on Christmas Eve, 1698, was the only son of Thomas, fourth Baron Wharton, by his second wife, Lucy, daughter of Lord Lisburne, who in that year was a toast at the Kit-Cat Club:

Lord Wharton—for his services to William III. created in 1706 earl, when his heir became known as Viscount Winchendon—was not only a pleasure-loving man, but also a strenuous politician. He, imbued with the idea that his boy, in his turn, might add further laurels to the family name, with this object in view kept a more than paternal eye upon the direction of the youngster’s studies. To his parents’ great joy, Philip gave signs of precocious cleverness, and it was decided to have him educated by private tutors, instructed, after their pupil was well grounded in the classics, to teach him in a very thorough manner the history of Europe, with, of course, special reference to that of his own country; and to train him as an orator by making him read and recite passages from Shakespeare and from the great speeches of the most eloquent statesmen of that and bygone ages.

Philip evinced much readiness, and diligently applied himself to his studies; but his father’s love of pleasure was in his blood, and while for some time he submitted to the company of his teachers, with little or no relaxation from his books, at last, as was only to be expected from a high-spirited lad, he broke over the traces. Handsome and graceful, he found his pleasure with women: a fault which his father, now created Marquis of Wharton, could overlook in consideration of his son’s promise in other directions. However, the young man destroyed all the Marquis’s hope of an alliance with some lady of high rank and vast wealth by secretly espousing, at the Fleet, on 2nd March 1715, when he was in his seventeenth year, Martha, the penniless daughter of Major-General Holmes—a proceeding that the Marquis took so much to heart that, it was said, his death six weeks later was directly attributable to his grief and anger.

The effects of this madcap escapade might not have been very serious, for there was nothing to be urged against the girl except her lack of money and great connections, if the accomplished fact had been recognised in the right spirit by the young husband’s family; in which case, it is more than probable, his career might have been very different. As it was, however, his mother and his father’s trustees, Lord Dorchester, Lord Carlisle, and Nicholas Lechmere, thought it advisable temporarily to separate man and wife, and sent the Marquis abroad in charge of a French Protestant.

In this uncongenial company Philip visited Holland and Hanover and other German courts, and eventually settled down at Geneva. There he remained for a while, galled by the restrictions upon his personal liberty by the tutor, and infuriated by the inadequacy of the income allowed him by his trustees. The latter annoyance he overcame by raising money at, of course, exorbitant interest; the former by the simple expedient of running away from Geneva without his companion, who, a few hours after the flight of his charge, received from the latter a note: “Being no longer able to bear your ill-usage, I have thought proper to be gone from you; however, that you may not want company, I have left you the bear, as the most suitable companion in the world that could be picked out for you!”

The Marquis made his way to Lyons, where he arrived on 13th October 1716, and from there he sent a complimentary letter to the son of James II. at Avignon, and with the letter, as a present, a magnificent horse. The Pretender, delighted by the prospect of being able to detach from the Hanoverian interest even an eighteen-year-old marquis, and especially the son of that very pronounced Whig, Thomas Wharton, graciously despatched one of his Court to invite Philip to Avignon. There the lad went, stayed a day and night, and received from his host the dangerous compliment of an offer of the title of the Duke of Northumberland, after which, to make matters worse, he repaired to St Germain’s to pay his respects to Mary, Queen Dowager of England. The folly of his actions is the most remarkable thing about them. Had he been attached to the cause of the Chevalier de St George, the visits would have been natural; had he even desired, as so many had done, to be sufficiently attentive to the Prince so as to be free from molestation in case the latter should ever ascend the throne of England, the visits would have been explicable; but since he was not a Jacobite, and, if not too honest, at least too careless of his personal interest to be a “trimmer,” the only solution of the matter is that his actions were dictated by a spirit of revolt, the not unnatural reaction on escaping from custody.

How little the Marquis meant by his visits—which, in after days, he declared were mere personal courtesies—may be deduced from the fact that, as soon as he arrived at Paris, he called on Lord Stair, the English Ambassador—at whose table, it is said, in a drunken frolic he proposed the health of the Pretender! At a time when it was a matter of vital importance to know who was for and against the home Government, and when a fortune was spent on spies, Lord Stair, of course, knew that the Marquis had been to Avignon and St Germain’s; but if he did not close his ears to the tales of the young man’s doings, at least he did not avert his countenance from him. On the contrary, he received him with every attention, realising that here was, so to speak, a brand to be plucked from the burning. The lad was only eighteen, and so indiscretions might be dismissed as of no importance; whereas to dwell on them unduly would perhaps turn him into a Jacobite. Therefore much show of kindness was diplomatic, coupled, Lord Stair thought, with a trifle of admonition.

However, when the Ambassador began to utter a word in season, the Marquis did not show himself amenable to advice. Indeed, when Lord Stair, extolling the virtues of his guest’s father, said, “I hope you will follow so illustrious an example of fidelity to your Prince and love to your country,” the Marquis retorted, “I thank your Excellency for your good counsel, and as your Excellency had also a worthy and deserving father, I hope that you will likewise copy so bright an original and tread in all his steps”—which reply, though showing a keen sense of humour, was brutal, for the first Lord Stair had unhesitatingly betrayed his sovereign!

As a matter of fact, the Marquis would tolerate no interference, and when a friend, whether or not set to task by Lord Stair has not transpired, expostulated with him for having abandoned the principles of his father, “I have pawned my principles,” he said jauntily, “to Gordon, the Pretender’s banker, for a considerable sum; and till I have the money to repay him, I must be a Jacobite; but,” he added, “as soon as I have redeemed them, I shall be a Whig again!”

Perhaps this remark was conveyed to the Marquis’s trustees, for it is to be presumed that the Marquis’s financial obligations were discharged, since on his arrival in Ireland at the beginning of 1717 the Government seems to have connived at his taking his seat as Marquis Castlereagh, in the Irish House of Lords, though only in his nineteenth year—“which,” Budgell wrote to Mr Secretary Addison, “is the highest compliment that could have been paid to him.” Here Philip showed an apparently earnest desire to atone for his misdemeanours abroad, and his great talents made the task easy. He took a prominent part in debate, sat on committees, and in his official capacity conducted himself so that the British Government, congratulating themselves on their tact in having made light of his doings in France, thought it well to endeavour to bend him still more closely to their interests, by bestowing on him, perhaps as a set-off against the ducal title offered by the Pretender, an English dukedom.

“As it is the honour of subjects, who are descended from an illustrious family, to imitate the great examples of their ancestors, we esteem it no less our glory, as a King, after the manner of our predecessors, to dignify eminent methods by suitable rewards,” so ran the preamble to the patent. “It is on this account that we confer a new title on our right trusty and entirely beloved cousin, Philip Marquis of Wharton and Malmesbury, who though he be born of a very ancient noble family, wherein he may reckon as many patriots as forefathers, has rather chosen to distinguish himself by his personal merit. The British nation, not forgetful of his father lately deceased, gratefully remember how much their invincible King William III. owed to that constant and courageous assistor of the public liberty and the Protestant religion. The same extraordinary person deserved so well of us, in having supported our interests by the weight of his councils, the force of his wit, and the firmness of his mind, at a time when our title to the succession of this realm was endangered; that in the beginning of our reign we invested him with the dignity of a Marquis, as an earnest of our royal favour, the farther marks whereof we were prevented from bestowing by his death, too hasty, and untimely for his King and Country. When we see the son of that great man, forming himself by so worthy an example, and in every action exhibiting a lively resemblance to his father; when we consider the eloquence which he has exerted with so much applause in the parliament of Ireland; and his turn and application, even in early youth, to the serious and weighty affairs of the public, we willingly decree him honours, which are neither superior to his merits, nor earlier than the expectation of our good subjects.”

Vanity, it is generally assumed, was the moving spirit of the new Duke of Wharton, and it seems that to have earned a dukedom at twenty years of age temporarily lulled that passion, for, after the bestowal of that high honour, the recipient seems to have rested on his oars, and for the next year to have abandoned himself to unbridled excesses in drink and profligacy. “Aye, my lord,” said Swift, who admired his talents, when his Grace had been recounting some of his frolics to the Dean of St Patrick’s, “Aye, my lord, you have had many frolics; but let me recommend you one more: take a frolic to be virtuous; I assure you it will do you more honour than all the rest!”

Whether caused by Swift’s words, or whether it was the swing of the pendulum, on coming of age Philip made a complete change in his mode of living, and for a while led a decent private life. “The Duke of Wharton has brought his Duchess to town, and is fond of her to distraction; to break the hearts of all the other women that have any claim on his,” Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote to her sister, Lady Mar. “He has public devotions twice a day, and assists at them in person with exemplary devotion; and there is nothing pleasanter than the remarks of some great pious ladies on the conversion of so great a sinner.” How long this period of conjugal fidelity might have endured is uncertain, but it was brought to an untimely end when the Duchess, in defiance of her husband’s command, came from Winchendon to London, bringing with her their child, the twelve-months’ old Earl of Malmesbury, who in the metropolis caught smallpox and died. This, it is said by all loyal biographers, so affected his Grace that, regarding the bereavement as caused by the violation of his wishes, he could not bear the sight of his wife. Persons less prone to sentiment than biographers may perhaps see in this yet another swing of the pendulum.

If the Duke’s private life was for a while exemplary, the same cannot at any time be said of his political career. A young man may change his opinion once without giving serious offence, he may even be forgiven for reverting to his earlier beliefs, but he can expect but scant mercy if he chops and changes with every breath of wind. At Avignon Philip had accepted a title from the Pretender, in Ireland he had accepted a dukedom from George I. as a reward for his vigorous support of the ministry; but now, when he took his seat in the English Parliament, to the general astonishment, he threw himself into uncompromising opposition.

The report of his great talents, his brilliant oratory, and his powers as a debater had reached Westminster, where his appearance was eagerly awaited, and he felt it incumbent upon him to show that rumour had not magnified his gifts; on 24th April 1720 he took part in a debate on a Bill to give further powers to the South Sea Company, and made a magnificent onslaught not only on this proposal, but on the entire policy of the Government, concluding with a terrible attack on Lord Stanhope, whom he accused of having made, or at least of having fostered, the breach between the King and the Prince of Wales, comparing him to Sejanus, “that evil and too powerful minister who made a division in the Imperial party, and rendered the reign of Tiberius hateful to the Romans.” Lord Stanhope was not the man to sit quiet under such castigation, and he turned the tables on his assailant with undoubted dexterity. “The Romans were most certainly a great people, and furnished many illustrious examples in their history, which ought to be carefully read,” he said in reply. “The Romans were likewise universally allowed to be a wise people, and they showed themselves to be so in nothing more than by debarring young noblemen from speaking in the Senate till they understood good manners and propriety of language; and as the Duke has quoted an instance from this history of a bad minister, I beg leave to quote from the same history an instance of a great man, a patriot of his country, who had a son so profligate that he would have betrayed the liberties of it, on which account his father himself had him whipped to death.”

The Minister’s apt retort rankled, and it doubtless did much to confirm the Duke in his attitude. He spoke against the Government, not only in the House of Lords, but in the City of London and in the country; and in the following year, returning to the question of the South Sea Company’s affairs, he attacked Lord Stanhope in so brilliant and bitter a speech that the latter, rising in a passion to reply, broke a blood-vessel, from the effects of which he died on the following day. It was somewhat later that the Duke attacked Lord Chancellor Macclesfield, suspected and eventually found guilty of fraud in connection with the South Sea Company’s affairs, not only by word of mouth, but also in a satirical ballad entitled “An Epistle from John Sheppard to the Earl of Macclesfield”:

Having established his fame as an orator with his speeches on the South Sea question, Wharton gained yet further distinction by his impassioned defence of Bishop Atterbury, but what reputation he gained as a speaker he lost in honour, for he had obtained the material for his oration by a mean trick. The day before he spoke he went to Sir Robert Walpole, told him he was sorry for his opposition to the Government and intended to reinstate himself in favour at Court and with the Ministry by speaking against the Bishop, and he begged the Prime Minister to give him some assistance in preparing his arguments. Walpole went carefully over the ground with his visitor, and showed him the strong and the weak points of the case. The Duke expressed his thanks, spent the night in a drinking bout, and, without going to bed, went to the House of Lords and spoke for the Bishop, making use most effectively of the information he had obtained on the previous day. Then, when sentence of banishment was pronounced on the Bishop, he saw him off, and, returning home, wrote and published some verses on “The Banishment of Cicero,” in which, of course, the Bishop was Cicero, and George I. Clodius, concluding:

In the meantime the Duke had reverted to his dissipated habits in private life, and it amused and annoyed many of his contemporaries that in public he, the President of the Hell-fire Club, should, on the ground of morality, inveigh against various measures. Wharton, however, paid little or no heed to those who held the view that a profligate is not the proper person to preach virtue; but when the King in council, on 29th April 1721, issued a proclamation against “certain scandalous clubs or society, who in the most impious and blasphemous manner insult the most sacred principles of our holy religion, and corrupt the minds and morals of one another,” Wharton, as President of the Hell-fire Club, rose in his place in the House of Lords, declared he was not, as was thought, a “patron of blasphemy,” and, pulling out a Bible, proceeded to read several texts.

He went occasionally to his seat in Westmoreland, and was a frequent visitor to the seat of his kinsman, Sir Christopher Musgrave, at Edenhall, where was preserved the great crystal goblet, supposed to have been seized by some earlier Musgrave from a fairy banquet, and known as “The Luck of Edenhall.” The legend ran:

but in spite of this warning the Duke, out of sheer devilment, would toss the goblet high in the air, and once, but for a wary butler, it would have fallen to the ground and have been smashed to atoms. It was at Edenhall that the Homeric drinking match took place, which Wharton, its proposer, celebrated in verse in the form of “An Imitation of Chevvy-Chace.”

So began the ballad, and it goes on to tell how the news of the battle spread, how others then hastened to the board, and fell, man by man, overcome by their potations.

The Duke, however, did not care for his place in the north, and was more frequently to be found at Twickenham, a fact duly noted by Horace Walpole in his “Parish Register” of that village:

It was not by accident that Walpole put these names in juxtaposition, for there was a great intimacy between the two, and it was said, probably with reason, that it was the Duke’s attentions to the lady that turned Pope’s affection to hatred and caused the historic breach between them. But though Lady Mary “Worldly” Montagu, as Philip called her, may have been attached to the Duke, she was never in any doubt as to the worthlessness of his professions of love. “In general, gallantry never was in so elevated a figure as it is at present,” she told Lady Mar. “Twenty very pretty fellows (the Duke of Wharton being president and chief director) have formed themselves into a committee of gallantry. They call themselves Schemers; and meet regularly three times a week, to consult on gallant schemes for the advantage and advancement of that branch of happiness.”

Wharton’s gallantries, or, to give them their proper though less euphonious name, profligacies, were carried to such excess that they, together with his political infidelities, disgusted even his far from strait-laced contemporaries; and it was only his great talents that enabled him to hold his own with them. But his marvellous gift of oratory and his ingenious but always sound reasoning were appreciated even by, or, perhaps, it should be said, especially by, his enemies; while his occasional outbursts of humour made it difficult for anyone to keep a straight face. Who could help laughing when a certain Bishop in the House of Lords rose to speak and remarked he should divide what he had to say into twelve parts, and Wharton, interrupting, begged he might be permitted to tell a story that could only be introduced at that moment: “A drunken fellow was passing by St Paul’s at night, and heard the clock slowly chiming twelve. He counted the strokes, and when it was finished, looking towards the clock, said, ‘Damn you, why couldn’t you give us all that at once?’” There was an end of the Bishop’s speech!

But not great talents, combined with a keen sense of humour, could save a person as volatile as the Duke. He founded in 1723 an Opposition paper, The True Briton, written by himself, issued twice weekly, which secured a large circulation, and for publishing which, Payne, indicted for libel, and found guilty, was heavily fined; but this may be regarded as a legitimate political move. As he was known to be in correspondence with the Pretender, it is not easy to see how he escaped impeachment, unless it was that the Government was reluctant to proceed against a young man, the son of a valued supporter and an old friend of Sir Robert Walpole, and the godson of the two preceding sovereigns of Great Britain.

The Government, however, was soon relieved from any anxiety on this score, for the Duke’s extravagance in money matters had been so great that his creditors had, for their own benefit, obtained a decree of the Court of Chancery placing his estates in the hands of trustees until his liabilities had been liquidated. These trustees allowed his Grace an income of twelve hundred pounds, upon which, deciding it was impossible in this country to support his dignity on that sum, he left England, thus bringing to a close the first act of his wasted life.

Before the Duke went abroad he had been careful to make his peace with the Pretender, for the latter, writing in 1725 to Atterbury, then at Paris, says: “I am very glad you were to send into England ... for everybody is not so active as Lord Wharton, who writes me often and wants no spur.” The Pretender had not yet discovered the danger of a follower so wayward and unreliable as this young man, who did more harm than good to any cause he espoused; and so, when the Duke arrived on the Continent in May 1725, he sent him as envoy to Vienna to do his utmost to promote a good understanding between his master and the Emperor Charles VI. In this Wharton was not altogether unsuccessful, and when he reported the result of his mission the Chevalier de St George, then resident at Rome, rewarded him with the empty title of Duke of Northumberland and the Order of the Garter.

In the following April the Duke was sent to Madrid, where his folly became notorious. “The Duke of Wharton has not been sober, or scarce had a pipe out of his mouth, since he came back from his expedition to St Ildefonso,” wrote Mr (afterwards Sir Benjamin) Keene, British Ambassador at Madrid. “He declared himself to be the Pretender’s Prime Minister, and Duke of Wharton and Northumberland. Hitherto, added he, my master’s interest has been managed by the Duke of Perth and three or four old women, who meet under the portal of St Germain’s. He wanted a Whig, and a brisk one too, to put them in a right train, and I am the man. You may now look upon me, Sir Philip Wharton, knight of the Garter, and Sir Robert Walpole, knight of the Bath, running a course,—and, by heaven! he shall be pressed hard. He bought my family pictures, but they shall not be long in his possession; that account is still open.” In spite of the Duke’s follies, the Court of Spain did not show itself so unfriendly to him, and to the cause he represented, as Keene thought it should; and he warned his Government. The reply from England came in the form of a summons under the Privy Seal to the Duke to return at once to his own country—a summons which, it is needless to say, was ignored by the recipient.

While at Madrid Philip learnt that his wife, whom he had left in London, had died, and forthwith he proposed to Maria, the daughter of Colonel Henry O’Beirne, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Spain. Her Majesty raised various objections, but was eventually persuaded to consent to the alliance, which took place in July 1726, after the Duke had embraced the Roman Catholic faith, a step he took in spite of the fact that on 17th June he had written to his sister, Lady Jane Holt, assuring her he would never forsake the religion in which he had been born and bred.

It is probable that the Duke changed his faith to win his bride, but there may have been at the back of his mind the thought that it would please his master. If this was so, it was an entirely mistaken idea, because his conversion—occurring at the same time as that of Lord North, who had also left England and abjured the Hanoverian cause—gave the impression that to be in favour with the Chevalier de St George it was necessary to be of his faith, which in English eyes was a fatal objection. This, indeed, the Chevalier had realised, as may be gathered from a letter of the Duchess of Orleans, so far back as 10th September 1712: “Our King of England, I mean the true one, no longer dislikes Protestants, for he has taken many of them for his servants.” What Atterbury thought of the Duke’s action, he said very clearly in a letter to the Pretender: “The strange turn taken by the Duke of Wharton gave me such mortifying apprehensions that I have forborne for some posts to mention him at all. You say, Sir, that he advised with few of his friends in this matter. I am of opinion he advised with none. It is easy to suppose you were both surprised and concerned at the account when it first reached Rome, since it is impossible you should not be so; the ill consequences are so many, so great, and so evident, that I am not only afflicted but bewildered when I think of them. The mischief of one thing you mention is, that he will scarce be believed in what he shall say in that occasion (so low will his credit have sunk), nor be able effectually to stop the mouth of malice by any after declaration.” In England nothing that the Duke of Wharton could do created any astonishment, such was the estimate in which he was held in his own country; and popular opinion was expressed by Curll in an epigram:

On the Duke of Wharton Renouncing the Protestant Religion

“N.B.—To believe every Thing and Nothing is much the same.”

After his marriage, the Duke paid a visit to his master at Rome, but he “could not keep himself within the bounds of the Italian gravity,” and the Chevalier ordered him and his wife to return to Spain. There he volunteered to serve with the Spanish army in the siege of Gibraltar. Hitherto there had been some suspicion of his courage, but that slur he now wiped off by exposing his person freely; indeed, the story goes that one day he walked from the Spanish camp to the very walls of Gibraltar, and, when challenged, declared his identity, and sauntered back leisurely, the soldiers, unwilling to kill a great nobleman of their own nationality, holding their fire.

After the siege, the Duke returned to Madrid, where he was given the rank of Colonel-Aggregate to the Irish regiment, Hibernia, in the Spanish service, commanded by the Marquis de Castelar; and then proposed to settle for a while at the Pretender’s Court. That royal personage, however, had by this time realised that his adherent’s gifts were so handicapped by various undesirable qualities that he showed very plainly that he wished any intimate connection should cease: he did, indeed, consent to grant a last interview at Parma, but he neutralised the effect of this favour by taking the opportunity to refuse to allow the Duke to reside at his Court.

The Duke took the rebuff in good part, wrote to the Chevalier reiterating his great and enduring devotion to the Jacobite cause, and, journeying with his wife to Paris, in that city at once made overtures to Horace Walpole, the British Ambassador. “I am coming to Paris, to put myself entirely under your Excellency’s protection, and hope that Sir Robert Walpole’s good nature will prompt him to save a family, which his generosity induced him to spare,” he wrote in May 1728. “If your Excellency would permit me to wait upon you for an hour, I am certain you would be convinced of the sincerity of my repentance for my former madness; would become an advocate with his Majesty to grant me his most gracious pardon, which it is my comfort I shall never be required to purchase by any step unworthy of a man of honour. I do not intend, in the case of the king’s allowing me to pass the evening of my days under the shadow of his royal protection, to see England for some years, but shall remain in France or Germany, as my friends shall advise, and enjoy country sports till all former stories are buried in oblivion. I beg of your Excellency to let me receive your orders at Paris, which I will send to your hotel to receive. The Duchess of Wharton, who is with me, desires leave to wait on Mrs Walpole, if you think proper.”

Horace Walpole received him, listened to his assurances of future loyalty, and conveyed his protestations of good behaviour to the Duke of Newcastle, who replied on 12th July:

“Having laid before the King your Excellency’s letter, giving an account of a visit you had received from the Duke of Wharton, and enclosing a copy of a letter he wrote to you afterwards upon the same occasion, I am commanded to let you know that his Majesty approves of what you said to the Duke, and your behaviour towards him; but that the Duke of Wharton has conducted himself in so extraordinary a manner since he left England, and has so openly declared his disaffection to the King and his government, by joining with and serving under his Majesty’s professed enemies, that his Majesty does not think fit to receive any application from him.”

It is unnecessary to give in detail the subsequent actions of the Duke: how, incensed by the King’s refusal, he printed in Mist’s Journal a bitter satirical attack on George II. and his ministers; how he was tried for high treason for having taken up arms against his country, found guilty, outlawed, and deprived of his property; how at the eleventh hour unofficial overtures were made to him from England, which he refused to entertain unless unconditional pardon was granted him; how he stayed awhile in a monastery, a fervent devotee, and after a few weeks returned to the world to plunge into greater excesses; how he publicly proclaimed his attachment to the Pretender and the Catholic religion.

His estates being sequestrated, he was now penniless, and reduced to most miserable straits. “Notwithstanding what my Brother Madman has done to undo himself, and everybody who was so unlucky as to have the least concern with him,” wrote a friend who journeyed with him from Paris to Orleans at the beginning of June 1729, “I could not help being sensibly moved at so extraordinary a vicissitude of fortune, to see a great man fallen from that shining light, in which I have beheld him in the House of Lords, to such a degree of obscurity, that I have observed the meanest commoner decline his company; and the Jew he would sometimes fasten on, grow tired of it; for you know he is but a bad orator in his cups, and of late he has been but seldom sober.” Eventually, after overcoming great difficulties, the Duke arrived in Spain, where he joined his regiment, and endeavoured to live upon his pay of eighteen pistoles a month, and sums of money sent to him by the Pretender. He devoted his leisure to reading and to the composition of a play based on the tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots, and, after an illness of some months, he died on 31st May 1731, at the age of thirty-two, in the shelter of the Franciscan monastery of Poblet.

Such is the story of the life of Philip, Duke of Wharton, which, surely, arouses feelings of pity rather than anger. “Like Buckingham and Rochester,” says Horace Walpole, “he comforted all the grave and dull by throwing away the brightest profusion of parts on witty fooleries, debaucheries, and scrapes, which may mix graces with a great character, but can never compose one.” He had, indeed, genius, wit, humour, eloquence, rank, wealth and good looks, but because he lacked stability and principles, all his great talents went for nothing. Never was there a character more fitted to point a moral, and if the writers of Sunday school prize-books have not taken him as their text, this can only be because they are unacquainted with his history. “The great abilities of the Duke of Wharton are past dispute,” Atterbury wrote to the Pretender, in September 1736; “it is he alone who could render them less useful than they might have been.” And this was kindly put, for Atterbury might well have said that as an adherent to any cause so unreliable and faithless a person was an open danger.

For every man some excuse can be found, but while excuses for the Duke of Wharton there must be, it is, indeed, not easy to find them. His early training may have been unsuitable for a character so mercurial, and the early death of his mother and father probably removed any change of controlling him. That he was mad is a theory practical enough, for this would explain many sudden changes of opinion, and many instances of unfaithfulness, which had not even self-interest to explain them; and it seems certain that he was intoxicated with vanity. This last assumption is supported by the testimony of Pope, who has for all time put on record a character sketch of the Duke, which, in spite of the poet’s bias, must unfortunately be accepted as a portrait all too true: