It chimes in, first, with the fact that while Clive certainly suffered from depression, pain and illness shortly before his death, he showed no hint of morbidity or suicidal tendencies, however wretched he may have felt, throughout his life after his early unhappiness in Madras. He wrote histrionically to Strachey a few weeks before his death, ‘How miserable I am. I have a disease which makes life insupportable and which the doctors tell me won’t shorten it one hour,’ but that was hardly a death-wish. Once absolved by parliament, he had shown vigour and zest for life, embarking on the refurbishments at Oakly and Claremont with characteristic energy – until his last illness. It is hard – although not impossible – to believe he was plunged into such deep melancholy and pain within a few weeks as to stab himself to death in the most painful manner conceivable.
To do so with a penknife, which in its original incarnation was very small, required a degree of strength, effort, application and heedlessness of pain of an almost superhuman kind (one conceivable explanation is that Clive was suffering from porphyria, a quasi-psychotic illness; and he was capable of great feats of endurance). It would be far more in keeping with Clive’s background, and quicker, easier and less painful, if he had shot himself, as he is supposed to have attempted to do in youth. But, extremely difficult as it is to cut one’s own throat, it is much easier to cut someone else’s, either in self-defence or attack.
If Clive was killed, why was this not made known? Clive certainly had a formidable list of enemies who wished him dead. Few public men have been so intensely hated, before or since. Many regarded him as the cause of their financial ruin. The ruthless new governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings, had become his enemy. Sulivan, the Johnstones, Fletcher and others detested him. An attempt had already been made to eliminate his reputation, possibly to remove him as a likely commander of British forces in America. It is in fact far from inconceivable that an assassin could have been paid to get into his house, posing as a servant or tradesman, and murdered him in those days long before the tight security that surrounds modern public figures. A more remote, if romantic, possibility is that an Indian servant did the deed.
But if so, why the cover-up? Conceivably because Clive’s murder would have had huge public repercussions in a country which had so recently pilloried one of its greatest heroes. If killed by an Indian patriot, his death might have provoked an uprising in Bengal. That would account for the need not to let people see the body – and explain why it was permissible to bury Clive on consecrated ground. Yet this theory seems just as unsatisfactory as the rest: if he had been assassinated by one of his enemies, the family would surely have insisted eventually on setting the record straight.
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A fourth possibility exists: that Clive was killed by an intimate in a fit of personal exasperation or temporary distraction, or by someone in self-defence. We have Carnac’s report that Clive, when ill, was deeply disturbed. Laudanum was notorious as a stimulant to greater excitability, as well as a sedative later; the story of his double dose may have been true in that respect. It is clear that Clive, in one of his fits of illness and depression, was an almost impossible man to live with, being self-centred, complaining and boorish. Margaret Clive makes this clear in her revealing remarks six months after his death, in a letter to her brother: ‘… now that I feel less anguish, I feel renewed my former sensations of love, of gratitude, of the softest affection for my own dear Lord, whose qualities had almost ceased to present themselves to my mind for the few days that it was so distracted in London.’ It is highly unusual to admit thinking ill of a loved one immediately after his death.
An intimate could have got close enough to inflict the wound or surprise Clive without his offering any resistance (on one account Clive was on the lavatory when it happened). The strangeness of the weapon would also be explained: while a penknife is a curious and painful choice of suicide implement, it would be an obvious chance weapon to hand in a fit of passion, unreason, in a quarrel or by someone under assault at close quarters.
Self-defence or an attack by a close relation or friend whom the family wanted to protect would perfectly explain the family’s obsessive desire for secrecy; the removal of the body without an examination; the burial in a secret grave from which the body could not later be exhumed; and the fact that, as he was not a suicide, he was buried in consecrated ground. Such a death would explain the continued and excessive secrecy even centuries later. To protect the tragic perpetrator, silence and even rumours of suicide would be preferable to exposure – particularly if Clive was viewed as more to blame for the tragedy than his killer.
Who might have been the assailant, on this hypothesis, is pure speculation. Those known to have been present in the house, apart from Clive, were Margaret, the Stracheys and Patty Ducarel. If the perpetrator had been a servant, the story would almost certainly have come out. One could hypothesise that the strains of looking after Clive proved too much even for Margaret, normally cool-tempered, intelligent, gentle and devoted to him. As we have seen, their marriage was an unusual one, with its ups and downs, lengthy partings – most recently on his grand tour to Italy – and favourites on both sides, as well as the strains of his illness. There had clearly been a major row between them over her fondness for Philip Francis, who had taken Carnac’s place in her affection.
On two accounts, she was the first to find Clive, alone, and herself blacked out. Small in stature, and perhaps frightened, it might have been natural for her to strike up at his neck in the middle of a violent domestic row, for example. Suicide would have been a natural immediate cover story for the servants. Her amnesiac breakdown afterwards also fits the theory. Yet such an action would seem remarkably out of character with everything else we know about this self-possessed, intelligent, slightly eccentric, sweet-tempered woman.
The loyal and dependable Strachey makes an unlikely murderer, and hardly one to use such a weapon. The 35-year-old Jane Strachey had been through a wild period in her youth – as demonstrated on her visit to Bombay in 1755, when she seemed quite out of control and may have been experiencing a psychotic attack. But she was heavily pregnant at the time of Clive’s death – not that that would have stopped someone really determined or alarmed. Yet the only documented accounts suggest that both the Stracheys and Margaret were in the same room when Clive left, failing to return. If these accounts are to be believed, only Patty Ducarel, out of the room, or conceivably Margaret, who left to look for Clive, could have done the deed.
Patty Ducarel was the last person to see Clive alive; certainly her reported action in licking his blood off her hands was hysterical – and deeply symbolic – but perhaps understandable in view of the horror of the scene. According to one account, Clive came into her room; according to another, she into his. The eighteenth century was far less prudish than the Victorian; even so, it must have been unusual, on whatever pretext, for a man to enter a young lady’s room or vice versa. Clive was said to have found her tiresome. Could her reason have snapped when faced with his irascibility, or could she have acted in self-defence against a psychotic or laudanum-induced attack or unwanted advance? The five occupants of that house have carried the secret to their graves.
A household tragedy of the kind outlined above, however improbable and melodramatic, would go a long way towards explaining the extraordinary and immediate cover-up and secrecy surrounding his death, then and since. There is no direct evidence to support this version, but then there is none for any other explanation. A domestic tragedy fits all the circumstances; suicide – which is also supported by hearsay evidence – fits some, although not all, of the circumstances; while murder by an outsider or a natural or accidental death seem the least plausible explanations.
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Margaret was in shock for a while, and Jane opined that ‘she will never again be what you and I have known her’. Yet Margaret remarked only six months later that ‘my health and spirits are much better’. She was still only 39 years old. She was to live to
the ripe old age of 82, beyond the victory at Waterloo, well into another century, the nucleus of a large circle of friends and family, an alert and remarkable old lady. In the prime of the industrial revolution, she was to witness her family ascend to the highest ranks of the aristocracy, a feat that had eluded Clive throughout his lifetime.
Her eldest son, Ned, was created Earl of Powis on the death of the second earl, whose daughter, Lady Henrietta Herbert, he had married. Although formally a new creation, it was virtually unprecedented for a succession effectively to pass to a man through the female line. Almost certainly this was a belated act of contrition by the Crown for the lack of recognition displayed to Clive when he was alive: Ned’s family seat became the splendid Powis Castle, with its tiered gardens. Ned was to enjoy a distinguished career in India, becoming Governor of Madras.
The descendants of Ned’s younger son were to marry into the illustrious Windsor family, and become Earls of Plymouth. Another daughter of Ned’s was to marry the fifth Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, the ‘prince of North Wales’ of his day. The arriviste, the nouveau riche, the ‘nabob’, shunned during his lifetime by the swells of British society, pilloried by his fellow countrymen, thus absorbed two of Britain’s most aristocratic dynasties, and married into a third.
His three great houses remain enduring monuments today to his wealth and taste: the Earl and Countess of Plymouth still live in Oakly, magnificently refurbished after Clive’s death. Walcot is beautifully tended by the extensive family of Michael and Billa Parish, worthy successors of Clive. Claremont’s lovely garden is now a National Trust property, recently opened to the public.
CHAPTER 26
The Legacy
What of British India, his most spectacular creation? The administration of Warren Hastings, Clive’s successor, was to show how fragile his conquest was. It was Hastings’s terrible destiny to act as the consolidator of Clive’s conquests; and he did this with intelligence, patience, vigour and such staggering lack of scruple in pursuit of his ends as to offend both his English contemporaries and successive generations, and to cause his own impeachment, although subsequently acquitted.
Hastings was not a soldier or romantic. He was far more devious, unprincipled and cruel than Clive. His role was to set the Indian empire on a secure footing. His rule was also to confirm three of his predecessor’s achievements: first, that he had created an enduring empire with only a handful of men; second, that he had created the institutional and legal basis for British rule in India; and, third, that he had been a remarkably humane and tolerant man for a conqueror and absolute ruler. Hastings was to rule by guile, ruthlessness and statesmanship; Clive had ruled through natural brilliance, soldiery, deceit, courage, humanity and total indifference towards the men who challenged him.
A quick glance at Hastings’s career bears this out. He quickly abandoned Clive’s system of rule through local puppets. The chief minister of Bengal was Muhammad Reza Khan, an old ally of Clive’s, while the Nawab was the infant son of Mir Jafar. Reza Khan was as loyal a servant of the British as had ever ruled Bengal; but as was usual with Bengali rulers, he failed to deliver the necessary revenues.
This, and his closeness to Nundcomar, the brahmin who had so often intrigued against the British under Clive but always survived, led to his downfall. The directors in London issued orders for Muhammad Reza Khan to be removed. Hastings, who saw the chance to rule Bengal directly, promptly obliged, surrounded Reza Khan’s palace with a battalion of sepoys at midnight and had him arrested. The British now assumed direct responsibility for administering Bengal, assigning nominal control to the infant-king. Muhammad Reza Khan was soon set free, and Nundcomar, who had long aspired to take his place and hated Hastings after earlier clashes of personality, was set aside.
Hastings next turned his attention to raising money. Bengal had always shown great promise of revenue, but disappointed expectations. He stopped the country’s tribute to the Great Mogul and occupied two border provinces, Allahabad and Corah, that belonged to him, selling them off to the Nawab of Oudh, Bengal’s most powerful neighbour.
Hastings then entered into a dreadful compact with the Nawab, Clive’s old friend, Shuja-ud-Daula. The latter had long coveted the territory of the Rohillas, dwelling in the spectacular valley of Ramgunga, where they administered one of the most well-run and enlightened princedoms in India. The Rohillas were of Afghan descent and formidable fighters.
Shuja-ud-Daula in effect bought the British, at a staggering cost of £400,000, to act as mercenaries to destroy the Rohillas. The British fought the war. The Nawab’s army took the spoils and laid waste to this beautiful and peaceful land. Villages were razed to the ground and some 100,000 people were forced to flee their homes. But Hastings had his money; he had now increased Company revenues by £500,000 or so and obtained a capital sum of £1 million for his immediate purposes.
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In spite of his successes by fair means and foul, the East India Company, partly at Clive’s instigation, had decided to send out a committee to curb his powers. It consisted of four men, one an ally of the governor, the others implacably hostile: they included Francis, the brilliant, acerbic protégé of the Clives who was almost certainly the author of the mid-eighteenth century’s bitterest polemic, the Letters of Junius, published anonymously.
Francis and his two colleagues staged a coup, seized power from Hastings, and with the vigour of eager young men just out of England, began to maladminister Bengal. Nundcomar now stepped forward to provide evidence of corruption by Hastings, his deadly enemy, which the new council was delighted to take seriously.
Hastings promptly offered his resignation as governor, while at the same time engineering a prosecution by the supreme court in Calcutta against Nundcomar for forgery. The brahmin was found guilty and sentenced to death. Hastings then implacably saw the death sentence through, defying the pressure of the majority on the council and the population as a whole. Macaulay sets the scene:
The day drew near; and Nuncomar prepared himself to die with that quiet fortitude with which the Bengalee, so effeminately timid in personal conflict, often encounters calamities for which there is no remedy. The sheriff, with the humanity which is seldom wanting in an English gentleman, visited the prisoner on the eve of the execution, and assured him that no indulgence, consistent with the law, should be refused to him. Nuncomar expressed his gratitude with great politeness and unaltered composure. Not a muscle of his face moved. Not a sigh broke from him. He put his fingers to his forehead and calmly said that fate would have its way, and that there was no resisting the pleasure of God. He sent his compliments to Francis, Clavering, and Monson, and charged them to protect Rajah Goodras, who was about to become the head of the Brahmins of Bengal. The sheriff withdrew, greatly agitated by what had passed, and Nuncomar sat composedly down to write notes and examine accounts.
The next morning, before the sun was in his power, an immense concourse assembled round the place where the gallows had been set up. Grief and horror were on every face; yet to the last the multitude could hardly believe that the English really purposed to take the life of the great Brahmin. At length the mournful procession came through the crowd. Nuncomar sat up in his palanquin, and looked around him with unaltered serenity. He had just parted from those who were most nearly connected with him. Their cries and contortions had appalled the European ministers of justice, but had not produced the smallest effect on the iron stoicism of their prisoner. The only anxiety which he expressed was that men of his own priestly caste might be in attendance to take charge of his corpse. He again desired to be remembered to his friends in the Council, mounted the scaffold with firmness, and gave the signal to the executioner. The moment the drop fell, a howl of sorrow and despair rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds turned away their faces from the polluting sight, fled with loud wailings towards the Hoogley, and plunged into its holy waters, as if to purify themselves from the guilt of having looked on such a crime.
; Thus Hastings, through an act of vengeance against an always unprincipled man, instilled terror into the people of Bengal. The governor then proceeded to regain control of the government. Although formally dismissed by the East India Company, he ignored the order, obtained the backing of the supreme court, and put his opponents in a minority. It was an early example of rebelliousness by a colonial leader against his nominal superiors far away in London.
The supreme court, under Judge Impey, Hastings’s erstwhile ally, now began to exercise its powers and throw its weight around Bengal, terrorising subjects and those who got in its way. Hastings turned the council against it – and was promptly served with a writ, which he ignored. He set free many of those wrongfully arrested by Impey in the past. The court, which had served Hastings so well against the council, was placed under the latter’s control. Francis, now in a minority there, sought out Hastings for a duel, which the latter accepted. Francis was shot, but not mortally wounded.
Hastings, thus spared, turned his energies to the most ferocious Indian leader the British had yet encountered, Hyder Ali, King of Mysore. In the space of a few months, supported by the French, Hyder Ali’s huge army left Mysore to ravage the Carnatic and terrorise the British community of Madras back into Fort St George. The British armies, led by Baillie and Sir Hector Munro, were put to flight. The French now proposed to help the Indian attack on Fort St George. Hastings promptly despatched a large army under Sir Eyre Coote, Clive’s old bête noire, now grown much older but still a good soldier, to relieve Madras. With extraordinary leadership, he defeated Hyder Ali.
Hastings returned to the business of plunder. His next objective was the remarkable and beautiful holy city of Benares, whose rajah had supported Francis. He rained huge financial demands upon him, eventually receiving £500,000 as a ransom against being handed over to the Nawab of Oudh.
Clive Page 44