Betsy and the Emperor

by Anne Whitehead

  7 Chaplin, Napoleon’s Captivity on St Helena, 223.

  8 Brookes, St Helena Story, 196. Dame Mabel Brookes claimed that Betsy’s victim was Charlotte Johnson, Lady Lowe’s elder daughter, which may well have been so, but the evidence must be in Betsy’s untraceable diary.

  9 Abell, Recollections, 41–2; Brookes, St Helena Story, 196.

  10 Gourgaud, Journal, 8 July 1817.

  11 Chaplin, Napoleon’s Captivity on St Helena, 223; see also Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 135–6.

  12 Chaplin, Napoleon’s Captivity on St Helena, 222–3.

  13 Chaplin, Napoleon’s Captivity on St Helena, 222–4.

  14 Gourgaud, Journal, 12 July 1817.

  15 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 18 July 1817.

  16 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 18 July 1817.

  17 Gourgaud, Journal, 22 and 24 July 1817; Bertrand’s Cahiers 1816–1817, on 22 July 1817, noted: ‘The Emperor visits Mme Bertrand and returns when Mr Balcombe arrives. He gives his hair to Mr Balcombe for the Empress and the Cardinal Fesch; Major Fehrzen undertakes to carry them.’

  18 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 23 July 1817.

  19 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 23 and 25 July 1817.

  20 Gourgaud, Journal, 27 July 1817.

  21 Gourgaud, Journal, 28 July 1817.

  22 Quoted in Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 201.

  23 Bathurst to Lowe, 19 August 1817, St Helena Archives, Lowe Papers.

  24 Quoted in Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 203–4.

  25 Gourgaud, unpublished journal, 12 February 1817, translated and quoted in Aubry, St Helena, 209; Felix Markham, Napoleon, London, Penguin, 1995, 250.

  26 Quoted in Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 145.

  27 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 22 August 1817, 156.

  28 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 177.

  29 Gourgaud, Journal, 8 September 1817, and O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 9 September 1817.

  30 Kemble (ed.), St Helena: Gorrequer’s diary, 19, entry for 9 September 1817.

  31 Abell, Recollections, 112–13; St Helena historian Trevor Hearl noted in a letter to the author, 10 March 2006, that ‘Mrs Abell herself did not attempt to embroider the occasion’, but he considered some later writers overstated ‘Betsy’s equestrian performance at the races—such as it was!’ One had her entering Napoleon’s horse in a steeplechase, and Dame Mabel Brookes wrote that she was awarded a ‘little silver trophy’, presumably by the governor (Brookes, St Helena Story, 151)—whereas, as Hearl observed, ‘her father was later summoned before Sir Hudson and curtly warned that another display from his daughter like that, and he would be on the next ship back to Britain’. See Trevor Hearl, ‘“Derby Days” at Deadwood: Highlights of Horse-Racing at St Helena’, Part I, article for Wirebird: Journal of the Friends of St Helena, Issue 29, Autumn 2004.

  32 Abell, Recollections, 125–6.

  33 Gourgaud, Journal, 25 September 1817.

  34 Gourgaud, Journal, 26 September 1817.

  35 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 26 September 1817.

  36 Sir Thomas had relinquished his formal position as the prince’s secretary in 1812 when he became Black Rod in the House of Lords, while remaining a close friend of the prince. Balcombe, on the island since December 1805, may have been unaware that he no longer held the secretary position, or not have mentioned it, for he was known to boast of his connection through Tyrwhitt to the prince.

  37 Gourgaud, Journal, 26 September 1817.

  38 Gourgaud, Journal, 26 September 1817.

  39 Gourgaud, Journal, 4 October 1817.

  40 Bathurst to Lowe, 21 August 1816, St Helena Archives, Lowe Papers Vol. 20115 f.80.

  CHAPTER 18

  1 Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, 1845, Heron Books, 1968, 486, entry for 9 May 1836.

  2 Abell, Recollections, 114–16.

  3 Information from A. Hyatt King, Some British Collectors of Music c.1600–1960, 2011, 51.

  4 Frémeaux, With Napoleon at St Helena, 52–4.

  5 Frémeaux, With Napoleon at St Helena, 54.

  6 Lowe Papers, BL Add. MSS 20,140, f.53.

  7 Gourgaud, Journal, 12 October 1817.

  8 Gourgaud, Journal, 15 October 1817.

  9 G.H. Heathcote in Edinburgh, letter to Mrs Jane and Betsy Balcombe in Sydney, 25 March 1826, Mitchell Library Folio ML MSS 848X.

  10 Gourgaud, Journal, 15 October 1817.

  11 Gourgaud, Journal, 16 October 1817.

  12 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 13 October 1817.

  13 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 18 October 1817.

  14 Gourgaud, Journal, 18 and 19 October 1817.

  15 Gourgaud, Journal, 6 November 1817.

  16 Gourgaud, Journal, 18 November 1817.

  17 Bertrand, Cahiers 1816–1817, 18 November 1817.

  18 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 176.

  19 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 181.

  20 Gourgaud, Journal, 21 and 14 December 1817.

  21 Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 145.

  22 Gourgaud, Journal, 1 January 1818.

  23 Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Report No. 27, 13 December 1817, 146.

  24 Gourgaud, Journal, 1 January 1818.

  25 H. Chamberlain, British ambassador to Brazil to Lowe, 3 December 1817, St Helena Archives, Lowe Papers.

  26 Général Bertrand, Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène, Journal 1818–1819, Paris, Éditions Albin Michel, 1878, 19. Note that in this volume, precise dates are given only erratically, events grouped under months; therefore page numbers are indicated instead.

  27 Gourgaud, Journal, 26 and 27 January 1818.

  28 Gourgaud, Journal, 30 January 1818.

  29 Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Report no. 3, 15 February 1818, 162.

  30 Gourgaud, Journal, 2 February 1818.

  31 Princess Charlotte died on 6 November 1817.

  32 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 3 February 1818.

  33 Stürmer to Metternich, quoted in Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Balmain Report No. 3, 15 January 1818, 165.

  34 Gourgaud, Journal, 6 and 11 February 1818.

  35 Quoted in Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, 164. Balmain (or editor Park) quoting Bonaparte to Bertrand, ‘Speak to me no more of that man.’

  36 Kemble (ed.), St Helena: Gorrequer’s diary, 41, entry for 12 February 1818.

  37 Bertrand, Cahiers 1818–1819, 71.

  38 Gourgaud, as quoted in Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Report No. 3, 14 March 1818, 164.

  39 Gourgaud, Journal, 27 February 1818.

  CHAPTER 19

  1 See Martineau, Napoleon’s St Helena, 173.

  2 Kemble (ed.), St Helena: Gorrequer’s diary, 39, entry for 10 February 1818.

  3 Park (ed.), Napoleon in Captivity, Balmain Report No. 3, 14 March 1818, 164.

  4 Stürmer Reports, quoted in Park (ed), Napoleon in Captivity, Report No. 3, 15 January 1818, 165–7.

  5 Sir Hudson Lowe to Major-General Sir Henry Torrens, 2 September 1818, BL Add. 20123 f.342: ‘respecting a present reported to have been given by Napoleon Bonaparte to Major Poppleton . . . I feel it a duty to address you officially on the subject’. Torrens was head of the Horse Guards, the army equivalent of the Admiralty and Poppleton’s ultimate superior. Lowe wrote to him after he heard that Poppleton had been promoted to major; he obviously expected his information might cause Poppleton to be dismissed. He also wrote to Lord Bathurst on the same matter (Lowe to Bathurst, 4 September 1818, BL Add. 20123 f.351).

  6 Jacques St-Cère and H. Schlitter (eds), Napoléon a Sainte-Hélène, Rapports Officiels de Baron Stürmer, Commissaire du Gouvernement Autrichien, Paris, a La Librairie Illustrée, n.d., Stürmer to Prince Metternich, Report No. 11, 31 March 1818, 174.

  7 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 186.

  8 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 17 February 1818.

  9 Kemble (ed.), St Helena: Gorrequer’s diary, 43, entries for 11 and 17 February 1818.

/>   10 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 18 February 1818.

  11 Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. II, 209: O’Meara reports to Lowe ‘he apprehended his patient might be suffering under an attack of chronic hepatitis’.

  12 Goulburn to Lowe, 18 September 1817, St Helena Archives, with enclosures from Charles Stuart, British ambassador in Paris, 4 September 1817.

  13 Bathurst to Lowe, 1 January 1818, Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20121 f.3.

  14 Although its content is referred to, the actual letter from Tyrwhitt has not been located. It may be that he asked for the letter to be destroyed, or that Balcombe did so on his own initiative.

  15 Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt to Sir Hudson Lowe, 8 December 1817, Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20120.

  16 Lowe to Bathurst, 24 February 1818, Bathurst Private Papers, 57/43 f.184; Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20121 f.230.

  17 Lowe to Bathurst, 24 February 1818, Bathurst Private Papers, 57/43 f.184; Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20121 f.230.

  18 Journal for ‘Earl Spencer’, 25 April 1803 to 16 April 1805, BL India Office Archives L/MAR/B/227D, naval researcher Stephen T.J. Wright via Keith and Shirley Murley of The Briars, Mt Martha,; census records, East India Company records and The National Archives, CO/201/229 under ‘Balcombe’.

  19 Journal for ‘Earl Spencer’, 25 April 1803 to 16 April 1805, BL India Office Archives L/MAR/ B/227D.

  20 Balcombe’s debt was paid at Ryde on the Isle of Wight in 1805 by Matthew Burchell, father of William Burchell, Balcombe’s new business partner, just before the departure of Burchell as well as Balcombe and his family for St Helena: Burchell, ‘St Helena Journal’, St Helena Archives.

  21 Marcus Arkin, ‘John Company at the Cape: A history of the Agency under Pringle 1794–1815’, Archives Year Book for South African History, 1960, Vol. 2, Pretoria 1962, 257–8 (Arkin notes the following sources: re ‘improper trade in East India goods’, Pringle to Beatson, 17 May 1813, CGH, FR, XIX; re ‘condemned by Customs’, D. Denyssen (the Fiscal) to Pringle, 19 May 1813, CGH F.R. XII; re ‘escorted out of Table Bay . . . no longer heard of’, Pringle to Beatson, 19 May and 28 May 1813, CGH, FR, XIX).

  22 Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt to Sir Hudson Lowe, 8 December 1815, Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20120; Yale University, Beinecke Collection, Osborn Shelves FC111-112/24.

  23 Lowe to Bathurst, 24 February 1818, Bathurst Private Papers, BL 57/43 f.184; Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20121 f.230; Brookes, St Helena Story, 211–12.

  24 Gourgaud, Journal, 13 March 1818.

  25 Gourgaud, Journal, 13 March 1818.

  26 Gourgaud, Journal, 14 March 1818.

  27 Abell, Recollections, 228.

  28 Kemble (ed.), St Helena: Gorrequer’s diary, entry for 16 March 1818.

  29 See Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I, 170.

  30 Abell, Recollections, 189–90.

  31 Montholon, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. III, 17, and on 97 confirmed in Napoleon’s will, dictated to Montholon, 26 April 1821.

  32 Marchand, Mémoires, Vol. II, 187–8.

  33 Abell, Recollections, 230–1.

  CHAPTER 20

  1 Sir Thomas Reade to Sir Hudson Lowe, March 1818, Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20121 f.473 & f.96.

  2 Mrs Charles Johnstone, appendix to 3rd [4th] edition (1873) of her late mother Mrs Abell’s Recollections, 311–12.

  3 The death in Paris of the Countess Dillon was reported in the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany, December 1817.

  4 The Indiaman Waterloo sailed just after the Winchelsea, also the naval vessel HMS Melville. The name of the recipient of Fanny Bertrand’s letter is obscured, but as the letter was written in English it was almost certainly to her aunt, Lady Jerningham in Norfolk.

  5 The Countess Bertrand letter was supplied by Barbara George, found in the St Helena Archives by Lally Brown (aka Liz Sargeant) for her book The Saint Helena Counterpoint: Napoleon’s exile—The myth exploded, Warwick, Sargeant Press, n.d., 90.

  6 Lowe to Bathurst, 22 March 1818, Bathurst Private Papers, BL 57/43 f.190.

  7 The Times, 12 May 1818, Ship News: Lymington, 10 May, half past 4 pm, ‘Just landed here the Purser of the Winchelsea Indiaman’. Other passengers who disembarked were Major Gall of the Bengal Bodyguard with his wife and family and Mr Torin of the Bombay Establishment.

  8 The Times, 8 May 1818.

  9 The Times, 18 May 1818.

  10 The Times, 23 May 1818.

  11 BL Add. 20126, f.313.

  12 Goulburn to Bathurst, 10 May 1818, BL Add. MSS 2021 f.119.

  13 Clarence Edward Macartney and Gordon Dorrance, The Bonapartes in America, Philadelphia, Dorrance & Co., 1939, Ch XIV, ‘American Plots to Rescue Napoleon’.

  14 Lowe to Bathurst, 14 March 1818, Bathurst Private Papers, BL 57/43 f.186.

  15 Information courtesy of Caroline Gaden.

  16 ‘Irish typhus and dysentery epidemic’, 1817–1818, George Childs Kohn (ed.), Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence, Facts on File Library of World History, 3rd edn, 2007; Keighley & District Family History Society, ‘Major Epidemics and Disease Outbreaks Timeline’, compiled in 2011 for the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies.

  17 In Ireland in 1818 one in six suffered from typhus out of a population of six million, and 65,000 died of it: ‘Irish typhus and dysentery epidemic’, 1817–1818, Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence, Keighly, Keighly and District Family History Society, 2011.

  18 Will of Stephen Balcombe, proved September 1818, Public Record Office, UK National Archives.

  19 Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter, ‘The “Insanity” of King George III: A classic case of Porphyria’, British Medical Journal, 8 January 1966, 65–71; Priestley, The Prince of Pleasure, 14.

  20 Neville Thompson, Earl Bathurst and the British Empire, 1762–1834, Barnsley, Leo Cooper, 1999, 9–10; J. Brooking-Rowe, Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and Princetown, Plymouth, W. Brendon & Son, 1905, 9.

  21 Thompson, Earl Bathurst and the British Empire, 1762–1834, 52.

  22 In letter from ‘James’ [William] Balcombe to O’Meara on 24 June 1818 he noted ‘I have been hard at work for you, and what has been said has been listened to. I am just going to the Secretary of State’s office where I have been twice before on your business.’ Enclosed in Lowe despatch to Bathurst, 29 September 1818, BL Add.20123 ff.399–406.

  23 Lowe despatch to Bathurst, 29 September 1818, BL Add. 20123 ff.399–406, containing letter from ‘James’ [William] Balcombe to O’Meara, 24 June 1818.

  24 The Times, 5 June 1818.

  25 The Times, 10 and 13 June 1818.

  26 Thompson, Earl Bathurst and the British Empire, 109–10.

  27 The Examiner, 1 February 1818.

  CHAPTER 21

  1 Lowe to Bathurst, 24 February 1818, Bathurst Private Papers, BL 57/43 f.184; Lowe Papers, BL Add. 20121 f.230: ‘The [Balcombe] daughters I believe correspond occasionally with Lady Malcolm, but of this I cannot speak with positive certainty.’

  2 Christopher Summerville (ed.), Regency Recollections: Captain Gronow’s guide to life in London and Paris, Welwyn Garden City, Ravenhall Books, 2006, 89.

  3 Gronow, Regency Recollections, 131: Christopher Summerville (ed.) estimates that during the Regency the ‘vast majority of British subjects, an impoverished working class [were] lucky to earn ten shillings a week’, and that figures for the period should be ‘multiplied by a factor of fifty for a rough modern equivalent’; by that calculation, the five Balcombe children had inherited £5000 each.

  4 Gronow, Regency Recollections, 49.

  5 Bryant, The Years of Victory, 1802–1812, London, Collins, 1945, 318.

  6 Bryant, The Years of Victory, 1802–1812, 313–14.

  7 EIC Court Book April 1818 to September 1818, 178, 22 May 1818, BL India Office 126-B/167. (Confirms appointment of Edward Abell Esquire as civil agent of the Government of Ceylon to the EIC Presidency of Madras. Travel at his own expense.)

  8 The Times, 27 June 1818.

  9 The Times, 13 January
1818.

  10 O’Meara to John Finlaison, 12 July 1818, quoted in Benhamou, Inside Longwood, 161.

  11 Dr John Stokoe to Admiral Plampin, 13 July 1818, quoted in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. III, 404.

  12 But Boys would return, to Lowe’s disappointment—this was apparently only a holiday.

  13 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 235–6; letter published in Morning Chronicle, 21 August 1818.

  14 Morning Post, 20 July 1818.

  15 O’Meara to Sir Hudson Lowe, dated Longwood 19 April 1818; Morning Chronicle, 18 July 1818; duplicated in The Times and Morning Post, 20 July 1818.

  16 Finlaison to O’Meara, 24 January 1818, BL Add. 20231, f.21.

  17 Bathurst to Lowe, 18 May 1818, Despatch No. 132, quoted in Forsyth, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, Vol. III, 400.

  18 Sir Thomas Reade to Dr O’Meara, 19 April 1818, published in Morning Chronicle, 22 July 1817.

  19 Napoleon’s margin comments of 25 April 1818, published in Morning Chronicle, 22 July 1817.

  20 Morning Chronicle, Bury & Norwich Post, 21 and 22 July 1818.

  21 Bathurst to Lowe, 22 July 1818, BL Add. 20123 f.128.

  22 Morning Post, 27 August 1818.

  23 O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 236.

  24 Young, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II, 104; Young noted that the articles described were mentioned in O’Meara’s will.

  25 O’Meara to Finlaison, 10 August 1818, quoted in Benhamou, Inside Longwood, 169–74.

  CHAPTER 22

  1 Lowe to Bathurst, 29 September 1818, Bathurst Private Papers, BL 57/43 f.407.

  2 W.J. Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, 2 vols, London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1822; Burchell, ‘St Helena Journal’, St Helena Archives.

  3 Sir George Cockburn was Conservative MP for Plymouth in 1818 and appointed a Junior Lord of the Admiralty from April 1818 to 1827. That Balcombe assisted in his electoral campaign is confirmed in a letter from Lowe to Bathurst of 25 September 1818, BL Add. 20123 f.382: ‘Captain Brash went to Mr. Holmes’ office who told him that Mr. Balcombe was at the time attending an election.’

  4 Balcombe from Hythe to William Fowler, 21 August 1818, Lowe Papers, BL MS Add. 20123 f.320.

  5 Kemble (ed.), St Helena: Gorrequer’s diary, 102, entry for 10 December 1818.