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The document discusses 'Mapping Social Memory: A Psychotherapeutic Psychosocial Approach' by Nigel Williams, which explores the interplay between psychic and social processes in understanding human experiences. It emphasizes the importance of affect, unconscious processes, and the historical context of trauma, particularly in relation to psychoanalysis and memory studies. The text also highlights the significance of interdisciplinary approaches in psychosocial analysis and the need for acknowledgment of historical traumas in societal healing.

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STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOSOCIAL

Mapping
Social Memory
A Psychotherapeutic
Psychosocial Approach

Nigel Williams
Studies in the Psychosocial

Series Editors
Stephen Frosh, Department of Psychosocial Studies,
Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK
Peter Redman, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Wendy Hollway, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Studies in the Psychosocial seeks to investigate the ways in which psychic
and social processes demand to be understood as always implicated in
each other, as mutually constitutive, co-produced, or abstracted levels of
a single dialectical process. As such it can be understood as an interdisci-
plinary field in search of transdisciplinary objects of knowledge. Studies
in the Psychosocial is also distinguished by its emphasis on affect, the
irrational and unconscious processes, often, but not necessarily, under-
stood psychoanalytically. Studies in the Psychosocial aims to foster the
development of this field by publishing high quality and innovative
monographs and edited collections. The series welcomes submissions
from a range of theoretical perspectives and disciplinary orientations,
including sociology, social and critical psychology, political science, post-
colonial studies, feminist studies, queer studies, management and organi-
zation studies, cultural and media studies and psychoanalysis. However,
in keeping with the inter- or transdisciplinary character of psychosocial
analysis, books in the series will generally pass beyond their points of
origin to generate concepts, understandings and forms of investigation
that are distinctively psychosocial in character.
Series Peer Review Policy:
Proposals for books in this series are single-blind peer reviewed by experts
in the field as well as by the Series Editors. All manuscripts will be reviewed
and approved by the Series Editors before they are accepted for publication.

More information about this series at


http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14464
Nigel Williams

Mapping Social
Memory
A Psychotherapeutic Psychosocial
Approach
Nigel Williams
University of the West of England
Bristol, UK

ISSN 2662-2629 ISSN 2662-2637 (electronic)


Studies in the Psychosocial
ISBN 978-3-030-66156-4 ISBN 978-3-030-66157-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66157-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting,
reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical
way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software,
or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover image: ‘World’s End’ © Nigel Williams

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland
AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Dr. Lita Crociani-Windland for her support and wisdom.
Foreword

In a talk given in Vienna in 2020 to commemorate the anniversary of


Freud’s death, Jacqueline Rose reflected on how Freud was shaped by
living through the global pandemic of 1918, two world wars, and the
necessary losses these events entailed for his family. Commenting on
Freud’s internal struggles, Rose states that she “became acutely aware
of the way the disasters of history penetrate and are repudiated by the
mind” (2020, np). She goes on to note that psychoanalysis begins with
“a mind in flight”, because of the inherent ability of the human mind to
take the measure of its own pain, and she offers rich illustrations from
Freud’s own writings of the difficulties Freud had experienced in holding
on to a capacity for thought as political disasters loomed and inconsolable
personal losses weighed him down. Rose traces a trajectory in Freud’s
writing from valorizing self-preservation and mastery as core elements of
his theory of psychoanalysis to acknowledging the power of the repetition
compulsion and the apparent human capacity for destruction embodied
in the death instinct. Drawing on Freud’s paper “A phylogenetic fantasy,”
suppressed by Freud but finally published in 1985, Rose notes how far

vii
viii Foreword

Freud shifted from science to feeling in acknowledging the phylogenetic


and genealogical origins of contemporary psychic suffering:

What passes through the generations, then, deep within the psyche of the
people, is anxiety. Anxiety in response to an imperilled world, but also as
a reaction to the tyranny of the powers that come to meet it. This is what
children usher down through the generations: ‘the children bring along
the anxiousness of the beginning of the Ice Age.’ The child is repeating the
history of the species, offering Freud support in his belief in phylogenetic
transmission—the ‘preponderance of the phylogenetic disposition over
all other factors’. An emphasis which, he also insists, does not eliminate
the question of acquisition: ‘It only moves it into still earlier prehistory.’
What this strange unpublished meditation allows us to infer is that the
concept of phylogenesis is his way of acknowledging the parlous state of
mankind: want, poverty affliction and trouble, the catastrophes of history,
the burden of the past. Modern-day psychoanalysis talks of ‘transgenera-
tional haunting’, the unconscious passage of historical trauma from one
generation to the next. We bring our ancestors trailing behind us, which
means that, while we may die our own death, we also die on behalf of
others who were there before us. Once more way ahead of his time, Freud
has taken this reality, which is now clinically recognised, and injected it
into the bloodstream of humankind. (Rose, 2020, np)

Acknowledging the death instinct entails, as Rose notes, coming to


terms with the darker aspects of our own being and accepting that the
forces of darkness that underlie colonialism, genocide, fascism, ecocide,
and other forms of mass violence, are rooted in each one of us. Can
a society possibly heal from the consequences of slavery, for example,
without owning historical patterns of colonial conquest by ancestors as
well as acknowledging the white supremacist hatred within white people,
and within the institutions and systems in which white people seek
comfort and belonging? (O’Loughlin, 2020). What are the consequences
if we avert our eyes? By failing to subvert the colonial gaze are we not
paving the way for a repetition?
The feeling versus scienc e struggle manifests in psychohistorical
research and memory studies as the polarity between socially-based
psychoanalytic and critical inquiry on the one hand, and positivist forms
Foreword ix

of anthropology and history on the other. This tension is readily evident


in one of my own areas of inquiry. Born in Ireland, I have an interest
in Irish history, and particularly in the psychological sequelae of chosen
traumas (cf. Volkan, 2001) such as Ireland’s Great Famine. The term
“Famine” is highly contested as Britain exported large quantities of live-
stock and grain during the period, suggesting either genocidal intent or,
at best, a Malthusian indifference to the lives of its colonized subjects. In
a recent paper I summarized the state of Famine scholarship this way:

The potato was the almost exclusive diet of the poorest segments of the
population. From 1845 to at least 1850 Ireland suffered successive catas-
trophic failures of the potato crop because during those years climatic
conditions were ideal for repeated outbreaks of blight caused by what
was identified forty years later to be the fungus phytophthora infes-
tans. There had been prior crop failures and scattered famines during
the previous century, but a cascade of failures, beginning in 1845, led to
mass starvation among the poorest segments of the population. Approxi-
mately one million people died of starvation and famine related diseases
including typhus and cholera, under the most appalling conditions. Many
more fled the country in the steerage compartments of often perilously
inadequate sailing ships, sometimes referred to as coffin ships. Following
150 years of silence by the government of Ireland, a period in which
only desultory attempts were made at commemoration, this famine finally
became a speakable trauma in the mid-1990s. Irish historians, too, had
been silent. Cecil Woodham-Smith’s (1962) bestselling book The Great
Hunger, written by a scholar outside the academic establishment, was
derided by Irish historians. Woodham-Smith broke two taboos: She docu-
mented in painful detail the emotional toll of the Famine and she
laid considerable responsibility at the door of Sir Charles Trevelyan, the
British civil servant ultimately responsible for Famine relief. This counter-
narrative threatened a comfortable status quo of denial and studied silence
within both the Irish government and the academy (Kinealy, 2006).
Official commemoration of the Famine and critical scholarship on that
national catastrophe were not to emerge until the mid-1990s in Ireland. It
appears that a culture of silence, censure, and negation reigned in official
Ireland. This left little room for interiority, emotional soothing, reckoning
with losses, or any recognition of the ways in which linkages between
current personal and national suffering and genealogical and ancestral
x Foreword

lineages of the kind discussed earlier might have facilitated mourning.


(O’Loughlin, in press)

As new scholarship has emerged, influenced by cultural anthro-


pology, psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, and feminist and postcolo-
nial studies, the ensuing interest in feelings and psychological remnants
has produced a burgeoning of new ways of thinking about memory,
memorialization, and cultural and transgenerational transmission of
trauma in Irish Famine studies. In my own work, for example, I embrace
folklore, poetry, and music, as well as oral history and autobiograph-
ical introspection as legitimate forms of evidence that can illuminate
the psycho-historical record. Particularly relevant to the Irish context is
the issue of language loss. For a variety of complex reasons, including
the cultural genocide associated with colonization, the Irish language
came close to annihilation. Reckoning with the massive cultural sever-
ance this entailed—what de Fréine (1978) called The Great Silence—Irish
poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill speaks eloquently to the need to come to
terms with this buried past: “Famine and the trauma of colonisations is
something that we are finally coming to terms with. It is as if we are
waking up from a state of zombification, of a waking death where we
had no emotional memory of who it was that we were or what it was that
happened to us” (1993, p. 69). Speaking of a visit to Ireland’s National
Famine Museum, she summarized the lack thus:

Is it any wonder, therefore, that I leave the museum somewhat dissatisfied,


as I always am when faced with memories of that time, by a sense of
overwhelming and unconscionable loss? Unconscionable, because of what
has been lost to consciousness, not just the tunes, and the songs and the
poetry, but because the memory that they were all in Irish—and that they
are part of a reality which was not English—has been erased so totally
from our minds. This seems to be part of the Famine trauma which is
still not acknowledged by the post-colonial Irish reality. This collective
memory-loss, this convenient amnesia is still one of the most deeply-
etched results of the Famine. (1993, p. 72)

Despite these eloquent pleas it is disheartening that Irish historians such


as Foster (2004) and Ó’Gráda (2001), and cultural historians of the
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Foreword xi

Famine such as Mark-Fitzgerald (2013) are skeptical that psychoanal-


ysis or trauma theory can inform historical studies, with Foster going so
far as to dismiss any study of melancholic residue or transgenerational
transmission as psychobabble.
How then are people who have been estranged from their genealogical,
linguistic, and mythic origins, people whose autobiographic conscious-
ness has been erased, to regain a foothold in history? Davoine and
Gaudillière (2004) speak of bringing back the voices of the dead, of
acknowledging the spectral revenants of which Derrida (2006) speaks.
Similarly, Abraham and Torok are clear on the need to investigate
the phantomic presences at the root of ancestrally and genealogically
inherited suffering:

The concept of the phantoms moves the focus of psychoanalytic inquiry


beyond the individual being analyzed because it postulates that some
people unwittingly inherit the secret psychic substance of their ancestor’s
lives… redraw[ing] the boundaries of psychopathology and extend[ing]
the realm of possibilities for its cure by suggesting the existence within
an individual of a collective psychology comprised of several generations.
So that the analyst must listen to the voices of one generation in the
unconscious of another. (1994, p. 166)

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Derek Walcott (1992) reminds


us of the beauty and possibility of such genealogical work. Speaking of
the polyglot culture of his native Antilles, and the pain stitched into its
history, he outlines the reparative possibilities thus:

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than
the love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. The
glue that fits the pieces is the sealing of its original shape. It is such a love
that reassembles our African and Asiatic fragments, the cracked heirlooms
whose restoration shows its white scars. This gathering of broken pieces
is the care and pain of the Antilles, and if the pieces are disparate, ill-
fitting, they contain more pain that their original sculpture, those icons
and sacred vessels taken for granted in their ancestral places. Antillean art
is thus restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our
xii Foreword

archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the original
continent. (1992, np)

Nigel Williams’ erudite book is a meditation on memory that is consis-


tent with the spirit of Walcott’s vision. Nigel’s ambition is to account for
the sociohistorical origins of subjectivity. He explores the kinds of subject
formation that emerge from migrations, displacements, language loss,
severance of social linkages, and the “unhappy internment” of family,
community, and national traumas. His literature review is comprehen-
sive and evocative and seeks to reach for an articulation of a mourning
and a reclamation of spirits that obviates melancholia and leads to gener-
ativity and subjective possibility. In addition to exploring relevant liter-
ature across a wide range of disciplines, Nigel incorporates narratives
from a diverse array of conversational partners so that this work is
grounded in the hopes, lives, and hauntings of living people—a process
that Nigel refers to as research in action. While grounded in a vision of
reconciliation and dialogue, Nigel’s work does not shy away from the
difficult political questions of decolonization and of how societies may
become hardened in a Kleinian paranoid-schizoid manner where dialog
is foreclosed and where possibilities for affiliation, mutual understanding,
mentalization of past traumas, and reparation are purposely occluded.
Nigel is a psychotherapist. In addition to speaking to the social impli-
cations for communities, societies, and nations he takes us into the
consulting room and explores in detail the complex issue of engaging
psychotherapy patients with the ghosts of their pasts. Preoccupied not
only with the question of where generational suffering goes, Nigel seeks
to articulate a therapy which allows such demetaphorized affect and what
Garon (2004) calls skeletons in the closet to be reclaimed, named, and
metabolized. Drawing on the language of hauntology Nigel understands
that ghosts must be invited in and he offers an eloquent discourse on the
critical role of attuned listening and the importance for therapists who
are to become cultural and ancestral interlocutors of developing a refined
autobiographic consciousness.
As I write these words, the entire world is in the grip of a pandemic the
management of which has been characterized by necropolitical callous-
ness, managerial ineptness, and a striking opportunism by too many
Foreword xiii

world leaders. It will create another traumatic residue for our world to
absorb. Will this, too, become an unspeakable tragedy—one in which
older people, people of limited means, and people who have already been
deprived of opportunity because of their racial or ethnic origins, become
further burdened with unnamable suffering? Nigel’s book, written in an
engaging critical voice, and drawing on a lifetime of attuned, humble
listening is a reminder that our world might be otherwise, and that we
should struggle hard to fight for an ethic of care and a true psychology
of reminisces and a reclamation of lore that will allow people to embrace
their pasts and hence live their lives more freely.

Professor Michael O’Loughlin


Ruth S. Ammon School of Education
Derner School of Psychology, College
of Education & Health Sciences
Adelphi University
New York, USA

References
Abraham, N. and Torok, M. (1994) The Shell and the Kernel. N.T. Rand (Ed.
and Trans.). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Davoine, F. and Gaudillière, J.-M. (2004) History Beyond Trauma: Whereof One
Cannot Speak, Thereof One Cannot Stay Silent. S. Fairfield (Trans.). New
York: Other Press.
Derrida, J. (2006) Specters of Marx. London: Routledge.
Foster, R.F. (2004) The Irish Story: Telling Stories and Making It Up in Ireland .
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garon, J. (2004) Skeletons in the closet. International Forum of Psychoanalysis.
13, pp. 84–92.
Kinealy C. (2006) This Great Calamity. The Irish Famine 1845–52. 2nd ed.
Dublin: Gill and MacMillan.
Mark-Fitzgerald, E. (2013) Commemorating the Irish Famine: Memory and the
Monument. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press.
Ní Dhomhnaill, N. (1997) A ghostly Alhambra. In: Hayden, T. (Ed.) Irish
Hunger: Personal Reflections on the Legacy of The Famine. Niwot, CO: Roberts
Rinehart Publishers.
xiv Foreword

Ó’Gráda C. (2001) Famine, trauma and memory. Bealoideas: Journal of the


Folklore of Ireland Society. 69, pp. 121–143.
O’Loughlin (2020) Whiteness and the psychoanalytic imagination. Contempo-
rary Psychoanalysis. 56 (2–3), pp. 353–374.
O’Loughlin, M. (In press) Cultural ruptures and their consequences for mental
health across generations: The case of Ireland. In: Lambrecht, I. and Lavis,
A. (Eds.) Culture and Psychosis. New York and London: Routledge.
Rose, J. (2020, November 19) To die one’s own death: Jacqueline Rose on
Freud and his daughter. London Review of Books. 42 (22). [https://www.lrb.
co.uk/the-paper/v42/n22/jacqueline-rose/to-die-one-s-own-death\.
Volkan, V. (2001) Transgenerational transmissions and chosen traumas: An
aspect of large-group identity. Group Analysis. 34 (1), pp. 79–97.
Walcott, D. (1992). The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory. The Nobel Lecture.
New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.
Preface

The personal inspiration for this book is to do with my own interest


in ancestry. I have researched both sides of my family and through this
exploration have had several surprising and unexpected meetings with
living relatives, my ancestors and descendants of some of their friends.
I mention friends because I am not deeply enamoured with the idea of
bloodlines. I’m as happy with a lateral movement through the records
which has allowed me to meet people who were descended from friends
of my grandfather or my great-great-grandmother for example. In this
sense I am curious: I want living history, not a done-and-dusted family
tree. Ancestry, like life, is messy.
Meeting people from the past is rarely a neutral experience. I have
been moved to tears by some of the things my ancestors went through
and did to themselves and others. I found that I met them through what
they had done, decisions and actions taken for better or worse. I have
often wondered why I continued with my quest. Looking back now, I
realise that a series of attachments had formed inside me to people I had
never met. I felt compelled to get to know them better. Sometimes they
seemed to speak to me, particularly throughout the tedious process of

xv
xvi Preface

record-based research. I made some odd and intuitive leaps. Looking at


the conclusion of this book, I’d now say that I had learned to use my
sociological imagination. In doing so I felt ‘increased’, as if there were
more of me than when I started studying ancestry.
My professional life has been in psychotherapy. I offer this detail
as a caveat and for context. As a psychodynamic psychotherapist I am
interested in the past in the present, and this book is in step with my
working model. I have an interest in loss, mourning and creativity—these
themes are staples in the psychodynamic tradition. I was less familiar
with haunting (a key theme in this book) and tended to think about
the more troubled side of human psychic life—psychosis, dissociation,
trauma, abuse—in very personal terms, or not influenced by any wider
a circle than the family of the individual involved. As a therapist I know
that without a grasp of the details of people’s lives and experiences, no
real work is possible. Writing this book has stretched and sometimes
redefined this latter assumption, for which I am grateful.
My experience of engaging with my ancestors has brought a sense of
increase. I recognise some of my own strengths and weaknesses and some
familial and less familiar traits and talents. I know more people than I
knew before; my network is deeper and wider. This book and its central
argument is a product of this expanded viewpoint and the key idea of
intergenerational companionship comes out of it. The idea is not new,
but it does come out of my experience and the experiences of people I
have talked to during the research.
Are some of the ideas wild and unrealistic? I hope so! I am, after all,
an idealistic and political animal. Many of my ancestors and their friends
were too, and on occasion it got them into big trouble!
There is a slightly self-conscious concept in psychosocial research
called ‘wild analysis’ where, because of the subjective methodology,
data may be constructed in a self-fulfilling way or over interpreted.
Psychotherapy is vulnerable to similar problems, and supervision is the
usual control. In relation to research it is broadly the same; collegial
oversight sometimes passes by the technical name of ‘triangulation of
data’. In the psychosocial tradition, this is typically done in Balint groups
(Salinsky, 2013) to maximise the peer collaborative components and the
Preface xvii

all-important element of ‘free association’ alongside the routine discipline


of hypothesis formation.
Talking of free association, that staple of psychodynamic therapeutic
practice, the capacity to use one’s imagination in the presence of another
is a very useful way of exploring what is happening with people in many
other settings. More recently it has become evident to me that it is very
useful when thinking about things as well, such as buildings or tech-
nical systems. To someone artistically or poetically trained, this will be
no surprise. Since Keats, we have had a term for it: ‘negative capa-
bility’. Since the Surrealist movement, we have been able to see it and
experiment with imaginatively informed inquiry.
Memory is a deeply contested subject both in ordinary life and in
the sciences. In writing this book I have picked out the theoretical and
research strands that in my view make the most sense when thinking
about the multigenerational transmission of memory. In Chapter 1, I
introduce a narrative on memory and how it works, weaving a story as
well as defining some key ideas. These ideas are discussed in more depth
in Chapter 2. I alternate between narrative and exposition throughout
the book: it is a way of writing that I hope will help readers, whether
academics, therapists or students, find the book accessible.
This book is at root an invitation to imagine, to enter a social and
psychological trance about our ancestors and forebears. It is a book about
social memory, remembering and forgetting. It also anticipates a future
in which thinking about several generations at once might be more
commonplace for our social cohesion and survival.
Any wild analysis or overly free interpretations in this book are
entirely my own. On a more technical note, in a book with a subject
matter as complex and wide ranging as this one, there will be gaps and
contradictions. Like the generations themselves, it is a work in a progress.
Since a research project sits behind the book, I would like to acknowl-
edge separately the enthusiasm and interest that those who have taken
part in the study have shown. Without their participation, this survey
xviii Preface

would have been much reduced and the ideas less grounded in social and
psychological reality.

Bristol, UK Nigel Williams


July 2020

Reference
Salinsky, J. (2013) Balint Groups and the Balint Method . Available from: https://
balint.co.uk/about/the-balint-method/ [Accessed 10 September 2020].
Acknowledgments

Dr. Jane Woodend for her untiring work on data analysis over several
years.
Dr. Phoebe Beedell for her help with the literature review.
Susannah Sallé for her editorial oversight.
Sophie Savage for her editorial assistance.
Dr. Kieran McCartan for his support of the research at the University
of the West of England.
Liz Frost, Miltos Hadjiosif, Tim Hockridge, Liz Maliphant, Marianne
Pawloff, Jem Thomas and Paul Zeal for their feedback and comments.

Organisations
The Association for Psychoanalysis Culture and Society, USA, for
providing a space in its conferences for valuable exchanges and connec-
tions with like-minded colleagues.
Group “O”, UK, a UWE alumni group, for peer support over many
years.

xix
Contents

1 Introduction 1
2 Imagining the Generations: Introduction to the Nature
of Multigenerational Memory 11
3 Mapping the Generations: Survey of the Literature
on Multigenerational Memory 41
4 Reconceptualising Loss and Reaching for Creativity 81
5 Haunting 97
6 Images of Nature in Multigenerational Memory 117
7 Therapeutic Implications of Working
with Multigenerational Memory 125
8 The Psychosocial and the Transgenerational 151
9 Conclusion 173

Index 195

xxi
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On a Tuesday morning, the 7th of March 1775, a slender, middle-
aged gentleman walked into the counting-house of Messrs
Drummond, the great bankers of Charing Cross. Garbed in a trim
snuff-coloured suit, and betraying none of the macaroni
eccentricities with the exception of a gold-laced hat, his dress suited
the rôle that he played in life—a sleek and prosperous apothecary.
This Mr Robert Perreau of Golden Square was welcomed cordially by
Henry Drummond, one of the partners in the firm, for an apothecary
was almost as eminent as a doctor, and the men had met and known
each other at such houses as my Lord Egmont’s or that of my Lady
Lyttelton. Producing as security a bond for £7500, bearing a
signature that should have been honoured by any house in London,
the visitor requested a loan of £5000. However, strange to say,
banker Henry, who had been joined by his brother Robert, seemed
dissatisfied.

“This bond is made payable to you,” he remarked. “Was you present


when it was executed?”

“No, I was not present,” was Mr Perreau’s reply.

“It is not the signature of William Adair, the late army agent of Pall
Mall,” was the startling comment of Robert Drummond. “I have seen
his drafts many a time!”

The prim countenance of the apothecary remained unperturbed.

“There is no doubt but it is his hand,” he answered, with perfect


composure, “for it is witnessed by Mr Arthur Jones, his solicitor, and
by Thomas Stark, his servant.”

“It is very odd,” replied the incredulous Robert Drummond. “I have


seen his hand formerly, and this does not appear to be the least like
it.”

Brother Henry Drummond echoed the same sentiment, whereupon


Mr Robert Perreau waxed mysterious and emphatic.
“Mr Adair is my particular friend,” he declared. “There are family
connections between us.... Mr Adair has money of mine in his hands,
and allows me interest.”

“Come to-morrow, Mr Perreau,” said Henry Drummond, “and we will


give you an answer.”

Having received this promise the apothecary departed, but after the
lapse of two hours he returned, and was seen by banker Henry once
more. Without the least reserve he confessed that he had been
much concerned by what the Messrs Drummond had told him.

“I could not be easy in my mind till I had called on Mr Adair,” he


explained. “Luckily I catched him in his boots before he went to take
his ride.”

Naturally, the good banker listened with interest, noting the words,
for it seemed odd that Mr William Adair, the rich squire of Flixton Hall
in Suffolk, whose son was carrying on the army agency, should raise
money in such a style.

“I produced the bond to Mr Adair,” Robert Perreau continued. “It was


his signature, he said, but he might possibly have altered his hand
from the time you had seen him write.... You might let me have the
£5000, Mr Adair said, and he would pay the bond in May, though it is
not payable till June.”

The astute banker, who had talked the matter over with his brother
in the interim, did not express his doubts so strongly.

“Leave the bond with me,” he suggested to his visitor, “in order that
we may get an assignment of it.”

Which proposal Mr Robert Perreau assented to readily, believing, no


doubt, that it was a preface to the payment of his money. In the
course of the day the document was shown to a friend of Mr Adair,
and finally exhibited to the agent himself. Attentive to the hour of his
appointment, Mr Perreau left his gallipots in Golden Square, and
reached the Charing Cross bank at eleven o’clock on the following
morning. Both partners were ready for him, and suggested that to
clear up all doubts it would be wise to call upon Mr William Adair
without delay. To this the apothecary assented very readily—indeed,
in any case a refusal would have aroused the worst suspicions. As it
was a wet morning, he had come in his elegant town coach, and he
drove off immediately with one of the bankers to the house of the
late agent in Pall Mall. Upon their entrance the squire of Flixton took
Mr Henry Drummond by the hand, but, to the surprise of the worthy
banker, made a bow merely to the man who had boasted him as his
‘particular friend’ Then, the bond being produced, Mr Adair at once
repudiated the signature. For the first time Robert Perreau betrayed
astonishment.

“Surely, sir,” cried he, “you are jocular!”

A haughty glance was the sole response of the wealthy agent.

“It is no time to be jocular when a man’s life is at stake,” retorted


the indignant Henry Drummond. “What can all this mean? The
person you pretend to be intimate with does not know you.”

“Why, ’tis evident this is not Mr Adair’s hand,” added his brother, who
had just arrived, with similar warmth, pointing to the forged name.

“I know nothing at all of it,” protested the confused apothecary.

“You are either the greatest fool or the greatest knave I ever saw,”
the angry banker continued. “I do not know what to make of you....
You must account for this.... How came you by the bond?”

Then there was a hint that a constable had been summoned, and it
would be best to name his accomplices.

“How came you by the bond?” repeated Mr Drummond.


At last the bewildered Mr Perreau seemed to realise the gravity of
his position.

“That will appear,” he replied, in answer to the last remark, “if you
will send for my sister.”

“Who may she be?”

“Why, my brother Mr Daniel Perreau’s wife.”

Calling his servant, the apothecary bade him take the coach for his
sister-in-law, who, he said, might be at her home in Harley Street,
but most likely with his wife at his own house in Golden Square. It
was evident that the carriage did not go farther than the latter
direction, for in a short time it brought back the lady, who was
ushered into the room. Then indeed the hearts of those three hard-
pated men of finance must have been softened, for their eyes could
have rested upon no more dazzling vision of feminine loveliness
within the British Isles. Of medium height, her figure was shaped in
the robust lines of graceful womanhood, but the face, which beamed
with an expression of childish innocence, seemed the daintiest of
miniatures, with tiny, shell-like features, and the clearest and fairest
skin. In the fashion of the time her hair was combed upward,
revealing a high forehead, and the ample curls which fell on either
side towards her neck nestled beneath the smallest of ears. Without
a tinge of colour, her complexion was relieved only by her red lips,
but the healthy pallor served to heighten her radiant beauty. A thin
tight ribbon encircled her slender neck. Below the elbow the close
sleeves of her polonese terminated in little tufts of lace, while long
gloves concealed her round, plump arms. Dress, under the influence
of art, was beginning to cast off its squalor.

Grasping the situation in a moment, this lovely Mrs Daniel Perreau


asked if she might speak with her brother-in-law alone, but the
request was refused. Then the beauty, making full use of her shining
blue eyes, besought Mr Adair to grant her a private interview. But
the old man—not such a gay dog as kinsman Robin—was proof
against these blandishments.

“You are quite a stranger to me,” he answered, “and you can have
no conversation that does not pass before these gentlemen.”

For a short time the beautiful woman appeared incapable of reason.


At last she seemed to make a sudden decision.

“My brother Mr Perreau is innocent,” she cried, in an agony of


distress. “I gave him the bond.... I forged it!... For God’s sake, have
mercy on an innocent man. Consider his wife and children.... Nobody
was meant to be injured. All will be repaid.”

“It is a man’s signature,” objected one of the bankers. “How could


you forge it?”

Seizing a pen and sheet of paper, she imitated the name on the
bond with such amazing fidelity that all were convinced. Then,
according to promise, Robert Drummond destroyed the writing, for
he, at least, was determined that no advantage should be taken of
her confidence.

Little information was gained from Daniel Perreau—twin brother of


the apothecary—who had been summoned from his spacious home
in Harley Street, save shrugs of shoulders and words of surprise.
Between him and Robert there was a striking likeness. Both were
handsome and well-proportioned men, but a full flavour of macaroni
distinguished the newcomer—a ‘fine puss gentleman’ of the
adventurous type. To him dress was as sacred as to his great
predecessor, Mr John Rann of the Sixteen Strings, who only a few
months previously had met with a fatal accident near the Tyburn
turnpike. Indeed, the macaroni was as great an autocrat as the
dandy of later days, and princes, parsons, and highwaymen alike
became members of his cult. So the gentleman from Harley Street,
flourishing his big stick, and shaking the curled chignon at the back
of his neck, tried with success to look a great fool.
Quite appropriately, it was the woman who determined the result.
Less dour than the squire of Flixton, the two bankers had no
objection to accompany her into an adjacent room, where they
listened with sympathy to her prayers. Being younger men than Mr
Adair, they were full of respect for her brave deed of self-accusation,
moved by the piteous spectacle of beauty in tears. In the end,
confident that she spoke the truth, they began to regard Robert
Perreau as her innocent dupe. So the constable was sent away, for
macaroni Daniel seemed too great an idiot to arrest, and it was
preposterous to dream of locking up his lovely wife. Thus the three
grave financiers promised that the adventure should be forgotten,
and the Messrs Perreau drove away from the house in Pall Mall in
Robert’s coach, assured that they had escaped from a position which
might have cost them their lives. Almost as clever as she was
beautiful was this charming Mrs Daniel Perreau.

Surely, all but a fool would have tried to blot the incident from his
mind, content that the gentlemen concerned believed his honour to
be unsullied, too humane to betray a pretty sister into the bloody
hands of justice—all but a fool, or a criminal seeking to escape by
sacrificing an accomplice! Yet Mr Robert Perreau, although anything
but a fool, would not rest. Without delay he sought advice from a
barrister friend, one Henry Dagge, with the amazing result that on
the following Saturday forenoon, the 11th of March, he appeared
before Messrs Wright and Addington at the office in Bow Street to
lay information against ‘the female forger’ Luckily, the magistrates
took the measure of the treacherous apothecary, and committed him
as well as the lady to the Bridewell at Tothill Fields. On the next day,
fop Daniel—a base fellow, who had acted as decoy while his brother
was effecting the betrayal—was sent to keep them company. It was
a rueful hour for the two Perreaus when they tried to pit their wits
against a woman.

On Wednesday morning, the 15th of March, in expectation that the


three distinguished prisoners would appear before Sir John Fielding,
the Bow Street court was besieged by so large a crowd that it was
deemed prudent to adjourn to more commodious quarters in the
Guildhall, Westminster. Surprising revelations were forthcoming. It
was found that the forgery discovered seven days ago was only one
of many. Two other persons—Dr Brooke and Admiral Sir Thomas
Frankland—less cautious than the Drummonds, came forward to
declare that they had obliged their friend Mr Perreau by discounting
similar bonds, all of which bore the signature of William Adair! Plain
indeed was the motive of Robert’s betrayal. It was not enough that
the bankers should forgive him—it was needful that the woman must
answer as scapegoat for much more.

Never had a fairer prisoner stood before the blind magistrate than
the intended victim. Above a striped silk gown she wore a pink cloak
trimmed with ermine, and a small black bonnet—as usual, daintiest
of the dainty, in spite of her tears and shame. Hitherto, she had
given splendid proofs of courage and loyalty, but treachery had
changed her heart to stone, and she lent herself to a cunning
revenge. A youthful barrister named Bailey, who was hovering
around Bow Street soon after her arrest, had been lucky enough to
be accepted as her counsel. Clever almost as his client—in spite of
contemporary libels from Grub Street, that repute him more intimate
with Ovid’s Art of Love than Glanvill or Bracton—he came forward
with the naïve suggestion that she should be admitted as evidence
for the Crown! And a witness she was made there and then, two
days later being let loose on bail, which created a very pretty legal
causerie in a little while. On the other hand, the unhappy brothers
were committed to the New Prison, Clerkenwell, on the capital
charge of forgery. All this was very welcome entertainment for the
fashionable mob that crushed into the Westminster Guildhall.
Margaret Caroline Rudd
The repartee of one of Sir John’s myrmidons, often quoted by wags
of the time as an excellent joke, is not without its moral. One of the
doorkeepers refused entrance to a certain person on the ground that
he had been told to admit only gentlemen.

“That is Mr ——, the great apothecary,” quoth a bystander.


“Oh!” returns the doorkeeper, “if that’s the case, he must on no
account go in, for my orders extend only to gentlemen, and the
whole room is filled with apothecaries already.”

It would have been well for Robert Perreau had he held no more
exalted opinion of his station in life than the Bow Street officer.

To the delight of all the bon ton, the scent of scandal rose hot into
the air. The charming lady who had passed as the wife of Daniel
Perreau proved to be his mistress. Although she had lived with him
for five years, bearing him no less than three children, her real name
was Margaret Caroline Rudd, whose lawful husband was still alive.
Being the daughter of an apothecary in the North of Ireland, by his
marriage with the love-child of a major of dragoons, who was a
member of the Scottish house of Galloway, her boast that the blood
of Bruce ran in her veins was strictly true, in spite of the scoffs and
jeers with which it was hailed by her enemies. Early in the year
1762, when only seventeen, she had married a dissolute lieutenant
of foot, named Valentine Rudd, the son of a grocer at St Albans.
Soon his society proved distasteful, and the fair Margaret Caroline
eloped with a more congenial partner. During the next few years she
lived the life of a Kitty Fisher or a Fanny Murray—a gilt-edged
Cyprian—selling her favours, like Danae, for no less than a shower of
gold. Of all her patrons, the most faithful and generous by far was a
rich Jew moneylender named Salvadore, whose name remains still
as a landmark in the purlieus of the metropolis. Good Lord Granby is
said to have visited her out of mere affection. Among others, it was
whispered that Henry Frederick, a gentleman of easy virtue, like all
Dukes of Cumberland, became one of her intimate friends. Possibly
she may have listened to couplets from the Essay on Women, for
patriot Wilkes, the member of Parliament for the county of
Middlesex, is believed to have cultivated her society, going to the
extent of finding her a home at Lambeth. Peers flocked to Hollen
Street or Meard’s Court to pay her homage. A favourite device of
hers was to impersonate a boarding-school miss or a lady of quality.
Few women of pleasure have possessed the fertile imagination of
Mrs Margaret Caroline Rudd.

In May 1770 she met the foolish Daniel Perreau—not stupid from the
woman’s point of view, since he was a dashing dog with a taste for
all the pleasant things in life—and in an unlucky moment she
accepted him as her protector. However, in other respects, although
he had travelled far over the world, his intellect was no mate for
hers. In business he had been a failure both at home and abroad.
Three times, it is recorded, he was obliged to make composition with
his creditors. Only a fortnight before his alliance with the bewitching
Irishwoman his certificate of bankruptcy had been signed. Still, he
was a man suited to the fair Margaret’s taste, handsome, gay, and
genteel, with a complacency that paid no regard to her methods of
raising money—a partner, in short, who gave her back the status in
society that she had forfeited.

Naturally, Daniel was more than satisfied with his beautiful


companion, allowing her to pass as his lawful wife, forming an
establishment for her in Pall Mall Court—the cost of which, since
Salvadore and others were as lavish as ever, she appears to have
provided. Golden dreams had captured his silly brain, and he
believed that Exchange Alley would bring a more propitious fortune
than vulgar trade. Funds could be obtained from his dear Mrs Rudd.
Secret news from the French Embassy was furnished by his
confederate, one Colonel Kinder—an Irish soldier. It would be easy
to cut a brilliant figure at Jonathan’s, and restore his shattered
credit. Thus, relying upon certain information, he insured the
chances of war with Spain; but the Falkland Island convention
happened to bring peace, and Daniel Perreau suffered his first big
loss in the Alley.

Still, this did not deter him, for the finances of Mrs Rudd seemed
inexhaustible, and sometimes he made a lucky stroke himself. In
addition to her pretended fortune, which Daniel knew was not
bequeathed by any relative, she declared to her friends that a
windfall had come to her in the shape of an annuity of £800 a year
from Mr James Adair, the wealthy linen-factor of Soho Square. This
kinsman of the Pall Mall agent chanced to be acquainted with the
maternal uncle of Margaret Caroline Youngson—a tenant farmer of
Balimoran, County Down, John Stewart by name, another unlawful
offspring, possibly, of the amorous major of the house of Galloway—
and, after the custom of a man of the world, as he is described, he
became even more interested than the royal duke in the fortunes of
the pretty niece. It is doubtful whether his generosity reached the
sum named, but with so many sources of income strict accuracy in
detail may have been difficult to Mrs Rudd. Indeed, the despicable
Daniel Perreau did not require them. It was a great thing to boast at
Jonathan’s that his wife was a connection of one of the great Adairs.
With such a surety funds might be borrowed easily.

Apparently, being much attached to her protector, Margaret Rudd


was quite content to live with him in their humble quarters in Pall
Mall Court, and to present him at appropriate intervals with pledges
of their mutual ardour. Probably she shared his golden visions,
hoping for future affluence. At all events, she gained no monetary
advantage from the connection. Moreover, it was not until the
beginning of the fatal year that she was mistress even of a house of
her own, for the elegant residence on the west side of Harley Street
was purchased on the 31st of December 1774.

Brother Robert watched with amazement the progress of the


fortunes of his twin, for it was wonderful that bankrupt Daniel should
be able to live in decent lodgings with a stylish lady, to pursue
fashion in all its vagaries, and to throw about money in the Alley. A
different man this Robert—solemn, laborious, and intelligent, making
a hard-earned income of a thousand pounds a year. Nevertheless,
his soul soared above his gallipots. It was his ambition to make a
figure in the world, so that his wife could woo society with drums,
routs, hurricanes. When he looked around he saw that fortunes were
being won on every side. A wave of prosperity was bearing the
empire on its crest. The Great Commoner had wrenched America
and India from the hereditary enemy. To these vast markets British
seamen were carrying the exports of their country. At home, the
clever inventors of the North, Watt and Arkwright, Hargreaves and
Brindley, had increased the powers of production a thousandfold.
England was setting up shop on a scale undreamt of hitherto in the
world’s philosophy. Why spend one’s life in dispensing pukes and
boluses, thought apothecary Robert, when the Alley is open to all
who dare take advantage of this golden age?

Since this was his character, brother Daniel and his pretty chère amie
soon tempted the misguided man to share their fortunes, glad to
seek the cover of his reputable name to fashion new and more
desperate schemes. For earls and bishops were clients of the
apothecary, and ‘honest Perreau’ was one of his appellations. Yet to
preserve the co-operation of such respectability a pleasant little
piece of fiction had to be maintained. Brother Robert, not a fool by
any means, was willing to assist their plans, but only in the character
of an ingenuous agent; a method—as, no doubt, he pointed out—
that must disarm all suspicion. Thus, when he canvassed his friends
to advance money on bonds in pursuance of the new policy, he
would be able to pose as the emissary of his sister-in-law Mrs Daniel
Perreau and her doting relatives Messrs James and William Adair.
Indeed, there was a letter in his pocket, authorising some such
scheme, which, not being penned by the Pall Mall agent, probably
was the work of the clever woman who could give imitations of other
people’s handwriting. Such a letter would be useful in case his
possession of an Adair bond was questioned, but most useful of all—
and this most certainly Mr Robert Perreau would not point out to his
confederates—in making him appear a guileless dupe in the hands of
an artful woman. Very cleverly had he arranged the saving of his
own skin, this sly, precise apothecary.

For no game could be more hazardous than the one which the guilty
trio continued to pursue. Forgery was needful to cover forgery. As
one bond became payable another had to be discounted to provide
the money. A couple of bonds to the value of nearly £8000 were
cashed by banker Mills in the City. On two others the large sums of
£4000 and £5000 had been advanced by Sir Thomas Frankland. In
this way more than a dozen were negotiated during the twelve
months that preceded the discovery. All were signed with the name
of the army agent—the pretended benefactor of Daniel’s wife—and
their total value reached the huge sum of £70,000. Thus the
Perreaus had been able to continue their speculations in Exchange
Alley. Their sole chance of coming out of the mischief scot free was
a lucky stroke at Jonathan’s, or the death of one of their victims.

Public interest in the case was aroused no less by the personality of


the prisoners than by the mystery surrounding the actual criminal.
For the brothers on one side, and Mrs Rudd on the other, told two
wonderful and contradictory stories. This most artful of women,
whined the Messrs Perreau, using consummate guile, had revealed
to them gradually a dazzling and enticing prospect. First Mr James
and then Mr William Adair was represented as the lavish benefactor
of their beautiful relative. Yet such was the modesty of these
capitalists, that although they declared their intention of procuring a
baronetcy for Daniel, and an estate in the country for Robert,
besides setting up the twins as West-End bankers, they would
communicate with Mrs Rudd alone! Moreover, such was the
impecuniosity of these wealthy men that they were able to carry out
their benevolent intentions only by the aid of notes of hand!
However, the brothers protested that these assurances had been
given to them by the lady, and that all the forged bonds had been
received from the fair Margaret Caroline by innocent Daniel or
ingenuous Robert, in the belief that the Messrs Adair, who had
signed them, intended a gratuitous present. A most happy stroke of
luck, coinciding fortunately with the period of their bold speculations
at Jonathan’s! Yet what was Mrs Rudd’s motive in running these risks
to provide funds from which she received little benefit, was not
made clear.

Even more wondrous was the other story. Although her conduct at
the house in Pall Mall—whether we deem her guilty or innocent—
showed something of nobility, she had no mercy for her
confederates after they had played her false. While confessing once
more that she had forged the bond which the Drummonds had
rejected, she declared that her keeper Daniel had forced her to do
so by standing over her with an open knife, threatening to cut her
throat unless she obeyed. An incredible story, but no more
improbable than the other! With the exception of this compulsory
forgery, Mrs Rudd avowed that she was innocent. Amidst all this
publicity it is likely that poor Mr James Adair, who had been very
much the lady’s friend in former days, would have an unpleasant
time with Mrs James Adair, and with his son, young Mr Serjeant
James, M.P., the rising barrister!

Such an entertainment was a novel and delightful experience for the


British public. Since the wonderful time (fourteen summers ago)
when mad Earl Ferrers had made his exit at Tyburn in a gorgeous
wedding dress, and amidst funereal pomp, the triple tree seldom
had been graced by the appearance of gentlefolk. Broker Rice,
whose shady tricks at the Alley made him the victim of Jack Ketch
three years after his lordship, was almost the only respectable
criminal who had been hanged for more than a decade. Indeed,
except Mother Brownrigg and Jack of the Sixteen Strings, no criminal
of note had dangled from a London scaffold since the days of
Theodore Gardelle. Yet a glorious era was dawning for the
metropolitan mob, when, in quick succession, Dodd, Hackman, and
Ryland were to journey down the Oxford Road—the golden age of
the gallows, when George III. was king!

On Friday, the Ist of June, Robert Perreau was put to the bar at the
Old Bailey. Owing to ill-health he had been allowed to remain in the
Clerkenwell prison, and was not taken to Newgate until the morning
of his trial—a privilege shared also by his brother. The President of
the Court was Sir Richard Aston, who, as a junior of the Oxford
circuit, had helped to defend the unfortunate Miss Blandy. By his
side sat the Right Honourable John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London, a
quite tame City patriot now almost ready for the royal embraces,
very different from the Wilkes winged by pistol-practising Martin,
M.P., and hounded by renegade Jemmy Twitcher. This same City
patriot—if we may credit one of Dame Rumour’s quite credible
stories—whispered into the ear of the judge the most important
words spoken during the trial:—“My lord, you can convict these men
without the woman’s evidence.... It is a shocking thing that she
should escape unpunished, as she must if you call her as a witness!”
Which advice—if the lady had been as kind to ‘squinting Jacky’ as
the world believed—shows that he was rising on stepping stones of
Medmenham Abbey to higher things. At all events, instead of
summoning Mrs Rudd into the box, the judge startled the world by
ordering her to be detained in Newgate.

In spite of the efforts of his counsel and his friends, the Court did
not put the least faith in the wily apothecary, refusing to believe that
he had been ignorant of his brother’s relationship to his mistress, or,
if this were true, that an innocent man would obtain cash for a
succession of huge bonds, drawn on the well-known house of Adair,
at the bidding of a woman without making inquiries. Even granting
that he was so credulous as to remain silent when he saw that
suspicion was aroused, it was clear that no man of honour would
strive to stifle mistrust by telling lies. Then there were other
compromising circumstances. It was apparent that the Perreaus
needed money to repay certain bonds that were falling due. Robert
had antedated the latest forgery to make it agree with one of his
falsehoods to the Messrs Drummond, for in the previous January he
had endeavoured to obtain money from them by a fictitious story.
Not only did the employment of a scrivener have no weight in his
favour, but pointed to premeditation. In the face of these facts his
guilt seemed clear. Notwithstanding an eloquent defence written for
him by Hugh M’Auley Boyd, in which he protested that he had
received the bonds from Mrs Rudd in good faith, the jury required no
more than five minutes to return a hostile verdict.

At nine o’clock on the following morning there were similar dealings


with brother Daniel. Seeing that his case was hopeless, he did not
deliver the elaborate address that had been prepared, choosing to
print it, like Pope’s playwright. Naturally, his expectations were
fulfilled, and he was found guilty of forging one of the bonds in the
name of William Adair, on which his friend Dr Brooke had lent him
£1500. On the 6th of June, at the close of the Old Bailey sessions,
he was sentenced to death along with Robert by Recorder Glynn,
while on the same day Mrs Rudd was told that as bail could not be
granted, she must remain in prison. In spite of their dishonesty, and
still baser treachery, it is impossible to think of the cruel sentence of
the unfortunate Perreaus without a thrill of horror. Yet no qualms
disturbed the tranquil conscience of King George, who believed he
was doing the Lord’s work in hanging men and women for a paltry
theft.

The charming Mrs Rudd was not disposed of so easily as her unlucky
confederates. From April onwards she had attracted more attention
than the skirmishes with our rebellious colonists at Bunker’s Hill and
Lexington. While she was at large and the brothers were under lock
and key, public sympathy had remained on their side. Moreover, her
tactics were not too reputable, and until it was evident that she was
struggling in her prison with the valour of desperation against
overwhelming odds, popular compassion did not condone her shifty
methods. Still, whatever her guilt, she waged her long battle with
surpassing dexterity.

One of the foremost of her foes, and not the least dangerous, was
George Kinder, the Irish colonel—Daniel’s emissary in the unlucky
touting at the back stairs of the French Embassy—a gentleman who
had sought vainly to win the good graces of Miss Polly Wilkes. There
was no false delicacy about this warrior, as the letters in the Morning
Post under pseudonyms ‘Jack Spry’ and ‘No Puffer’ bear ample
testimony, and soon he had made the whole world familiar with the
amatory history of Margaret Youngson. Yet Colonel Kinder was too
reckless in the delivery of his attacks, and, like many another
dashing soldier, he found himself often outflanked. For Mrs Rudd
wielded her pen brilliantly, and her replies to critics of the press were
not unworthy—both in style and context—of a novelist of later days.
At all events, the vulgar diatribes of Colonel Kinder helped to bring
popular sympathy to the side of his fair antagonist, and this is
precisely what the clever lady must have foreseen.

Another enemy, as inveterate as the Irishman himself, appeared in


the person of a rough-and-ready sea-dog, ex-Admiral Sir Thomas
Frankland—whom the Perreaus had swindled out of thousands of
pounds—a lineal descendant of Protector Cromwell. More truculent
even than his great ancestor—for surely Oliver never confiscated ruff
or farthingale belonging to Henrietta Maria—he pounced upon Mrs
Rudd’s clothes, and indeed upon all property that might help to
repay his loans. Remaining loyal to his old friend the Golden Square
apothecary—for the choleric gentleman was convinced that he was
an innocent instrument in the hands of the woman—he seized
anything that Daniel and his mistress happened to possess. In
consequence of this brigandage there was a pitched battle between
the employees of the admiral and the sheriff’s officers for the
possession of the house in Harley Street, in which the former got the
worst of the tussle. Running amuck at all who took the other side—
Barrister Bailey, Uncle Stewart, the Keeper of the Lyon Records—
each in turn received a broadside from the fiery old salt. Shiver-me-
timbers Frankland—this Paul Pry of a lady’s wardrobe—wrought
more good out of evil to the cause of Margaret Rudd than any other
man, and his fair enemy was nothing loth to let him run to the top of
his bent.

Nowhere was the diplomacy of Daniel Perreau’s mistress more


remarkable than in the negotiations with her old servant, Mrs
Christian Hart. Early in July there was an interview between the pair
in Newgate: the handmaid compassionate and pliable; the prisoner
full of subtle schemes against her enemies. Barrister Bailey was
present, and a lengthy document was drawn up—a paper of
instructions in the form of a narrative for the guidance of the faithful
‘Christy’—wherein was set forth the details of a wicked conspiracy,
which the servant was to pretend that she had overheard, between
old sea-dog Frankland and Mrs Robert Perreau to swear away Mrs
Rudd’s life. Promising to learn her story and stick to the text, Mrs
Hart went away with her manuscript; but, frightened by her husband
or bribed by the admiral, in a little while she deserted to the other
side. In no wise dismayed, Margaret Rudd retorted that ‘Christy’ had
volunteered the story, and that the instructive document was a
faithful copy of the woman’s narrative as dictated by herself, another
copy of which she produced, attested by the faithful Bailey.
Moreover, she alleged that the whole business was a thing devised
by the Perreaus for the purpose of compromising their enemy, a
most dexterous plot to make it appear that Mrs Rudd was
endeavouring to create false evidence! Thus, even when the first
scheme failed, she gained the effect desired by its very failure. Poor,
persecuted woman, thought the big-hearted British public, and what
a shocking old admiral!

A little later, the fair captive in Newgate triumphed over another


enemy, one Hannah Dalboux, a second domestic. This Hannah had
been nurse to the youngest of Daniel Perreau’s children since the
mother had been put in prison. One morning in August the
newspapers announced that the woman had refused to surrender
the child, and that the woman’s husband had tried to thrash the
inevitable Mr Bailey when he paid a visit with his client’s request.
“The baby shall be given up when I am paid for its board and
lodging,” was the sum and substance of Hannah’s ultimatum. All the
same the child had to be delivered to its rightful owner, and husband
Dalboux was locked up for the assault. A great opportunity, indeed,
which Mrs Rudd did not neglect. All the journals were full of hints
concerning the horrid old admiral, who had employed people to steal
the lady’s baby as well as her petticoats—about the last two things
in the world a swell mobsman would choose, unless they were
accompanied by the proprietress. Yet the salient fact, remembered
by the British public in a little while, was that this inveterate sea-dog
was the prosecutor at Mrs Rudd’s trial.
The well-known anecdote told of her by Horace Walpole, must, if
true, have reference to an incident that occurred during her
imprisonment in Newgate.

“Preparatory to her trial, she sent for some brocaded silks to a


mercer. She pitched on a rich one, and ordered him to cut off the
proper quantity, but the mercer, reflecting that if she was hanged, as
was probable, he should never be paid, pretended he had no
scissors. She saw his apprehensions, pulled out her pocket-book,
and giving him a bank-note for £20, said, ‘There is a pair of scissors.’
Such quickness is worth a hundred screams. We have no Joans of
Arc nor Catherines de Medici, but this age has heroines after its own
fashion.”

Whenever a Gordian knot presented itself the undaunted Mrs Rudd


was always ready with a pair of scissors!

Like all other popular entertainers, the fair Margaret Caroline had
rivals in the public favour. On the nineteenth of August, “one of the
prettiest young women in England,” Jane Butterfield by name, was
tried for her life at Croydon on a charge of poisoning a foully-
diseased old man for whom she kept house. Paramour also to this
rotten William Scawen was Miss Jane, debauched by him when a
child. Although the poor girl was acquitted amidst tears and huzzas,
she lost the fortune that should have come to her, for her protector,
who had listened to the accusations of his Dr Sanxy—the instigator
of all the proceedings against the innocent Jane—lived long enough,
unhappily, to cross her out of his will. For a while all England forgot
Margaret Rudd in its generous sympathy for the beautiful heroine of
Croydon. Soon also the ubiquitous Elizabeth Chudleigh monopolised
public attention, to the exclusion of everyone else, under her new
rôle as Her Grace of Kingston; while the sex of the mysterious
Chevalier D’Eon continued to be the subject of many wagers.

For six months Mrs Rudd remained a prisoner in Newgate—from the


day of Robert Perreau’s condemnation on the 1st of June until the
morning of her own trial on the 8th of December—using every
endeavour so that she should not be brought to the judgment-seat.
A few weeks after the close of the summer sessions—on the fourth
day of July—she was summoned to Westminster Hall to listen to the
ruling of Chief-Justice Mansfield, an unrivalled exponent of amazing
decisions, with regard to her status as king’s evidence. Superfine,
indeed, was the quality of Mansfield’s red tape:—“The woman did
not confess that she was an accomplice, but an assistant by
compulsion, therefore she may be presumed to be innocent,
consequently there is no reason why she should not be tried! Only a
guilty person can be admitted as a witness for the Crown!” Yet the
great Chief-Justice had a more cogent reason still—one that is
irrefutable: “Since the lady did not disclose all she knew, she has
forfeited indulgence!” Quite proper, no doubt, in a legal sense, but
foreign to the eternal ethics of British equity, that has permitted
‘burker’ Hare to escape the halter, believing that it is monstrous to
ask a jury to try a prisoner from whom a confession has been
extorted under promise of pardon. There was no false delicacy about
the learned Mansfield’s interpretation of the law.

However, his lordship was the autocrat of all bigwigs, and none but
the most stout-hearted ventured to challenge his decisions. When
the case was argued by her counsel before three judges, sitting as a
Court of Gaol Delivery in the middle of September, one Henry Gould,
who feared a Chief-Justice as little as a Gordon riot, appears to have
realised that the law must keep its faith. So he gave a flat
contradiction to the ruling of the King’s Bench. “How can we know
that the woman was cognisant of any other forgery than the one to
which she has confessed unless we bring her to trial?” demanded
this judge Gould. “And if we bring her to trial we break our word!”
Nevertheless his two colleagues, remembering possibly the Mansfield
temper and the Mansfield tongue, maintained the arguments of the
Chief-Justice, and thus it was decreed that Mrs Rudd must go before
a jury. Early in November twelve judges assented to this decision.
Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd at
the Bar of the Old Bailey
Published dec.r 15.th 1775 according to Act of Parliament

Confident that her long struggle had not been futile, since this
breach of faith must shock the public mind, the beautiful prisoner
prepared to face her terrible ordeal. In a letter from Strawberry Hill
we catch a glimpse of her on the eve of her trial. “... She sent her
lawyer a brief of which he could not make head nor tail. He went to
her for one more clear. ‘And do you imagine’ said she, ‘that I will
trust you or any attorney in England with the truth of my story? Take
your brief: meet me in the Old Bailey, and I will ask you the
necessary questions.’ ...” And when the time came she kept her
promise to help him through.

On Friday, the 8th of December, she was placed in the dock at the
Old Bailey. During her long imprisonment the popular sympathy had
come over to her side, and a friendly crowd filled the galleries before
daybreak. With much tenderness Judge Aston explained to her the
reason that she was put to the bar, his chief argument being the
elusive one that she had not spoken the whole truth before the
magistrates. No woman could have been more dignified or
composed. An air of melancholy rested on her beautiful face, which
appeared more pale in contrast to her garb of mourning. A silk
polonese cloak, lined with white persian, was thrown round her
shoulders. Beneath, her gown was black satin, appliquée with
wreaths of broad silken ribbons, her skirt draped upon the small
hoop worn with an evening toilet. Above the tall head-dress
demanded by fashion, a white gauze cap, dotted with small knots of
black, rested lightly upon her powdered curls. It was almost the
same costume that she had worn before the three judges.

Only for a short time were the spectators in doubt as to the result of
the trial. None of the evidence was convincing; each witness seemed
more feeble than his predecessor. Serjeant Davy, rough and ready,
tore their statements to tatters. To the jury Mrs Robert Perreau
seemed eager to swear aught that might save the life of her
unhappy husband. Admiral Frankland, in the face of his petticoat
theft, appeared to have pressed the prosecution out of greed and for
the sake of revenge. John Moody, a footman discharged by the
prisoner, must have been regarded, very properly, as a barefaced
liar. The famous Christian Hart, another old servant with a grudge,
who was answered on all points by the evidence of the indefatigable
Bailey, could prove nothing concerning the forgery cited in the
indictment.

All the while Mrs Rudd kept on passing notes to her counsel—more
than fifty in number—suggesting questions to baffle the hostile
witnesses. The trial lasted for nearly twelve hours. When the jury
returned into court, after an absence of thirty minutes, Henry
Angelo, the fencing-master, saw the gay auctioneer who was the
foreman throw a meaning smile towards the beautiful prisoner. “Not
guilty according to the evidence before us!” declared the jury, while
the court thundered with applause. At last her bitter ordeal was over,
and Margaret Rudd, smiling through her tears, stepped gaily into a
coach that was waiting at the door of Old Bailey. Then she was
driven, post haste, to her new home with the wicked Lord Lyttelton.
Certainly this charming and clever woman was far from being too
good to live.

Naturally, the acquittal of Mrs Rudd determined the fate of the


unfortunate twins, who had been kept alive all this time pending the
result of her trial. Only in one way could Robert, deemed the less
guilty, have been spared. Had Daniel confessed that he was the
forger, exonerating his brother, probably a pardon would have been
granted. Not being built, however, after the fashion of martyrs, he
continued to make frantic protests of innocence, thereby sealing the
doom of both. For arguments that were incredible merely in the case
of the apothecary became preposterous when applied to Daniel. Yet
the loyalty of Robert was admirable, as although he knew that his
one hope was to be dissociated from his brother, he would not
pretend that he had been his dupe. Desperate efforts were made to
save the unhappy men. A petition, signed by more than seventy
bankers and influential men of business, was presented to the King.
Mrs Robert Perreau with her three children, all in deep mourning,
flung herself at the feet of the Queen. But good King George III.
was a stranger to mercy, and Justice Mansfield was not the sort of
person to make the introduction.
On Wednesday, the 17th of January 1776—a bitter morning, with
keen frost in the air and deep snow on the ground—the two poor
brothers were led out to die. When they were brought from the
chapel into the day-room within the Press Yard, to await the coming
of the hangmen, they found only a few faithful friends who wished
to say farewell. For, to prevent an unseemly crowd, good Keeper
Akerman stood himself at the gate of the fatal quadrangle, denying
entrance even to his own acquaintances. Daniel Perreau, apparently
unmoved, gave a bow to his friends, and then sought the warmth of
the fire. Robert, less resolute than his brother, was unmanned for an
instant by the sight of the cords and halters upon the table. In a few
moments their steps were ringing across the flags of the courtyard,
as with bound arms they followed the Sheriffs towards the gate.
Those who gazed upon these poor victims of a merciless law testify
that their tread was firm and their faces hopeful and serene. For,
save in that first base betrayal of a woman, no one can accuse
Daniel and Robert Perreau of cowardice. Five others bore them
company to the grave.

Shortly after nine o’clock the City Marshals, attended by the full
panoply of sheriffdom, started the procession. Next came an open
cart, covered with black baize, where sat three of the convicts, and
then a hurdle, dragged by four horses, on which rested a pair of
wretches condemned for coining. And last, there followed the
sombre mourning-coach—a special privilege—with the unhappy
brothers. All around lay a winding sheet of snow, crusted thick on
the housetops, piled in deep billows against the walls. A piercing
east wind shot down the Old Bailey, while the prison gleamed in the
frosty mist like a monument of hard black ice.

Beyond Newgate Street the bell in St Sepulchre’s high steeple rang


fiercely over the frozen roofs, as though pealing forth a pæan of
exultation upon the procession of death. Here there came a halt in
the march, while from the steps of the church, in time-honoured
fashion, the sexton delivered his solemn exhortation to the
condemned prisoners:—
“All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who
are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll....
“Lord have mercy upon you,
Christ have mercy upon you.”

Backwards and forwards around the mourning-coach surged the


mob, clamouring with ribald fury for a glimpse of the celebrated
forgers. Robert Perreau, sitting with his back to the horses beside
one of the sheriff’s officers, pulled down the glass meekly, and gazed
out with calm, unruffled features. Then the long journey was
resumed. Over the heavy road the wheels and hoofs slipped and
crunched down the slopes of Snow Hill, and toiled up the steep
ascent into Holbourn. Standing erect in the cart, George Lee, a
handsome boy highwayman, gorgeous in a crimson coat and ruffled
shirt, doffed his gold-laced hat with a parade of gallantry to a young
woman in a hackney coach. Then, while a hundred eyes and a
hundred loathsome jests were turned upon her, the poor girl burst
into a flood of tears. In another moment her lover had passed away
for ever. Huddled in the same tumbril with the swaggering youth, a
couple of Jews, condemned for housebreaking, shook and chattered
with dread, their yellow faces livid as death, a strange contrast to
their florid, bombastic companion. Shivering with cold, the two
tortured coiners were jolted over the snow, bound fast to their
hurdle, their limbs turned to ice by the frost. Within the black coach,
the brothers listened calmly and reverently to the prayers with which
Ordinary Villette, who sat by the side of Daniel, supplicated the
Almighty to pardon these victims unworthy of human mercy. And all
the while, the mob—forty thousand strong—shrieked, danced and
hurled snowballs, maddened like fierce animals by the scent of
blood.

It was only half-past ten o’clock when the cortege reached the triple
tree. Two separate gallows had been prepared, for it was not meet
that Hebrew and Christian should hang from the same branch. So
the tumbril was drawn under the smaller crossbar, and, their halters
being fixed, the two Jews were left to their rabbi; while highwayman
Lee, and the coiners Baker and Ratcliffe, were placed in a second
cart. Seated in their coach a little distance away, the two brothers
watched these ghastly preparations with unruffled mien. When all
was ready Sheriff Newnham gave them a signal, and they descended
to the ground. A moment later they were standing beside their three
wretched compatriots. Then the Rev. Villette came forward to play
his usual part. Holding the same prayer-book, Daniel and Robert
Perreau followed the services with pious attention, their reverence
forming a marked contrast to the swagger of the boy highwayman.
For some time they were allowed to converse with the Ordinary, and
each gave him a paper containing a last solemn declaration of their
innocence. It was noticed that Daniel raised his eyes to the sky, and
boldly asserted that he was guiltless.

At half-past eleven all was ready for the final scene. Ordinary Villette
offered a last shake of the hand; Sheriffs Haley and Newnham
bowed in solemn farewell. Having been fee’d by his distinguished
clients, Jack Ketch gave a moment’s grace while the brothers
embraced tenderly. Faithful unto death, the brave fellows exhibited
more nobility in their last few hours than during the whole of their
lives. As the cart drew away and their foothold slipped beneath
them, their hands were still clasped together. For a full half minute
their fingers remained linked as they dangled in the air, and then fell
apart as they passed into oblivion beside their five dying
companions. Four days later, on Sunday, the 21st of January, they
were buried together in a vault within St Martin’s Church, Ludgate
Hill.

No mob could have behaved with more indecency than the howling,
laughing throng that gazed upon this scene of death, increasing by
their wanton rioting the agony of the poor sufferers a thousandfold.
With great difficulty an army of constables—three hundred in
number—kept a clear space around the scaffold. After the spectacle
was over it was found that there had been numerous accidents. A
woman was beaten down and pressed to death; a youth was killed
by a fall from a coach. One of the stands near the gallows collapsed
during the execution, and three or four persons lost their lives.

In the history of crime the case of the unfortunate brothers forms an


important landmark. Although many a forger had gone to the
gallows before, they were the first ‘distinguished victims’ of the
merciless code. Thus their fate served as a precedent. “If Dr Dodd is
pardoned, then the Perreaus have been murdered!” quoth the crazy
king, when he was asked to forgive ‘the macaroni parson’
Henceforth, it was as safe to blow out a man’s brains as to
counterfeit his handwriting. At last, when the first humane monarch
for more than a hundred years set his face against such butchery
the lawgivers were unable to preserve the bloody statutes that had
slaughtered thousands during the half century which separated the
deaths of Robert Perreau and Henry Fauntleroy. By the side of
Mackintosh, Romilly, and Ewart, the fourth George is entitled to an
honourable place.

Public opinion changed once more with wonted inconsistency after


the acquittal of Mrs Rudd, and the apothecary in particular, as the
bankers’ petition indicates, received the widest sympathy. Still, it
seems strange that his guilt could have been doubted by reasonable
persons. No other defence was open to him save the one he used,
old as human sin—it was the woman!—and even this apology
involved the most absurd pretences. Clearly, the fable had been
prearranged between the conspirators. Treachery brought its own
reward, and Robert Perreau, forgetting that there should be honour
among thieves, was ruined because he did not trust his fair
accomplice to the full extent. No doubt she would have soothed sea-
dog Frankland just as she pacified the bankers Drummond.

In all the sordid history the one bright spot is the loyalty of
charming, wicked Mrs Rudd to her grimy confederates, for the scene
in old William Adair’s parlour on that stormy March morning might
well have cost her life. Had the bankers proved to be curmudgeons,
the Perreaus would not have raised a hand to save her from the
shambles. Since she must have known the men who were her
associates, she must have realised also her own risk. Yet still she
kept her faith, while perceiving that safety lay in betrayal. Truly a
noble act of heroism, though based upon a mud-heap. Thus when
we bear in mind how the two brothers repaid her trust, and reflect
upon the breach of law-honour sanctioned by James Mansfield,
there comes the obvious suspicion that, whatever her iniquity, the
woman was more than repaid in her own coin.

Little is remembered of her subsequent history. A few days after her


trial it is recorded that she visited the play in Lord Lyttelton’s chariot.
During the following spring she was honoured by the polite
attentions of James Boswell. On the 15th of May of this year, great
Johnson himself declared that he would have visited her at the same
time as his fidus Achates were it not that they had a trick of putting
everything in the newspapers! Possibly other references occur in
‘Bon Ton Magazines’ or similar chroniques scandaleuses, now
treasured in tree calf or crushed morocco, and vended at so many
guineas per ounce. There is a hint somewhere that her charms had
begun to wane, although she was only thirty at the time of her trial,
for a life and experiences such as hers trace lines upon the face and
dim the lustre of the eye. Still, whatever the cause, we may
conjecture that her friendship with Lord Lyttelton did not last much
longer than a couple of years, as, while he succumbed to the famous
bad dreams on the 27th of November, she died before June 1779 in
very distressed circumstances. Possibly she was supplanted by the
famous Mrs Dawson.

In the testimony of her contemporaries there is unanimity with


regard to the beauty and wit of Margaret Rudd—the sole grudge,
even of the women, being that she was clever enough to cheat the
gallows. To pretend sympathy with those who were saddened
because she received no punishment is superlative cant, for the
penalty would have been out of all proportion to the offence. Thus
the cheers that rang through the Old Bailey on that December
evening long ago find an echo in our hearts to-day. Moreover, since
it was needful to offer up a propitiatory sacrifice to Mammon, it was
a shrewd common-sense that selected the brothers as the more
deserving of the awful atonement.

In the scarlet pages of the chronicles of crime there is not another


dazzling figure such as the mistress of poor Daniel Perreau. Yet she
walks across the dim stage in the guise of no tragedy queen as Miss
Blandy. If at all, she compels our tears amidst our smiles, and such
tears are the most gentle and spontaneous. Light, sparkling, joyous,
she chases pleasure with reckless laughter, meeting the fate of all
who pursue the glittering wisp, heedless of the deepening mire
through which they tread. It is wrong to watch her dainty person
with delight, but we cannot avert our eyes. Alas, transit gloria
mundi! One of the most excellent of modern critics speaks truly of
this immortal lady as a forgotten heroine of the Newgate Calendar,
and she—the idol of princes and lord mayors—has not received a
niche among the national biographies!

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PERREAU CASE

I. Contemporary Tracts

1. The Female Forgery, Or Fatal Effects of Unlawful Love. J. Bew, No.


28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. “With a beautiful whole-length
portrait of Mrs Rudd resolving whether to sign the Bond or forfeit her
life. From the capital drawing of an eminent master.” (Published April
22, 1775.)

2. Forgery Unmasked, or Genuine Memoirs of the Two Unfortunate


Brothers, Rob. and Daniel Perreau, and Mrs Rudd. A. Grant, Bridges
Street, Covent Garden. Price 1/. “Illustrated with a New and
Beautiful Engraving of Mr Dan. Perreau in the act of threatening to
Murder Mrs. Rudd, unless she would sign the Fatal Bond.” (April 25,
1775. A pro-Rudd Tract, containing the case of Mrs Rudd, as related
by herself, which appeared originally as a series of letters in the
Morning Post from March 27 to April 10.)

3. Genuine Memoirs of Messieurs Perreau; (Now under


Confinement.) With many Curious Anecdotes relative to Mrs Rudd;
G. Allen, No. 59 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. Brit. Mus. (April 26,
1775.)

4. The Genuine Memoirs of the Messers Perreau. G. Kearsley, 46


Fleet Street. Price 1/6. (Published May 11, 1775. Second edition
June 8, 1775.)

5. The Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau. T. Bell, at (No. 26) the
Top of Bell-Yard, near Temple Bar. Taken down in shorthand by
Joseph Gurney. (June 6, 1775.)

6. Mr. Daniel Perreau’s Narrative of His Unhappy Case. T. Evans, No.


50 in the Strand, near York Buildings. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (June 9,
1775.)

7. A Letter to the Right Hon. Earl of Suffolk.... In which the


Innocence of Robert Perreau is demonstrated. T. Hookham, at his
Circulating Library, the Corner of Hanover Street, Hanover Square.
Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (July 13, 1775.)

8. Facts, or a Plain and Explicit Narrative of the Case of Mrs. Rudd. T.


Bell, 26 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 1775. This
tract contains the “Case of Mrs. Rudd as related by herself,” with the
addition of her “Narrative,” which appeared originally in the Morning
Post. July 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 14.)

9. Observations on the Trial of Mr. Robert Perreau. With Mr. Perreau’s


Defence, as spoken on His Trial. S. Bladon, No. 16 Paternoster Row.
Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 17, 1775.)

10. The True Genuine Lives and Trials, etc. of the Two Unfortunate
Brothers. Illustrated with Two New and Beautiful Engravings, 1st.
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