Download PDF | The Earl and His Butler in Constantinople, The Secret Diary of an English Servant Among the Ottomans, By Nigel and Caroline Webb I.B. Tauris Publishers (2009).
273 Pages
Caroline Webb graduated in History from the University of London and read Italian and Art History in Cambridge and Verona. She has worked as a historical researcher and teacher.
Nigel Webb is the author and series editor of numerous educational books. He studied at the University of Cambridge and has worked as a teacher, both in the UK and in Tanzania. He is a direct descendant of Samuel Medley, whose diary was one of the inspirations for this book.
Acknowledgements
We feel especially indebted to Philip Mansel whose book Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire, 1453-1924, with its excellent 22-page bibliography, was the starting point for our background reading.
We should also like to thank, particularly, the following people for their help, advice and encouragement: Dr David Allen (University of St Andrew’s); Matthew Bailey (National Portrait Gallery); Ray Barnett, who designed the first edition of this book; John Bowden; the late John Buchanan; Duncan Bull (Raksmuseum, Amsterdam); Peter and Reyhan Bull; Professor John Cairns (Edinburgh University); Dr Philip Carter (publication editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography); Selina Cohen; Professor Richard Dale; Anthony Earl; Professor Bill Forster; the late Michael Frewin; Liz Friend-Smith; Robert Frost (Yorkshire Archaeological Society); Dr Seth Gopin; Pamela Horn; Dr Simon Hyde; Scilla Landale; Doug McCarthy (National Maritime Museum); Sheila Mackenzie (National Library of Scotland); Professor Giandemetrio Marangoni (University of Padua); Christopher Medley, George Medley and Robin Medley; Emeritus Professor David Pailin; Dr Ruth Paley (History of Parliament); Andrew Parker of Printhaus Northampton; Andrew Peppitt (The Devonshire Collection); Leidy Powell; Katja Robinson (National Galleries of Scotland); Alan Samson; Dr Richard Sharp; Murray Simpson; Eveline Sint Nicolaas (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam); Professor Harry Solomon; Lucie Stericker; Michael Stevens; Liesbeth Strasser (Nationaal Archief, The Hague); Dr Stephen Thompson; Nigel Wilkins (English Heritage); Philip Winterbottom (Royal Bank of Scotland Group Archives); Caroline Wittop Koning (Riksmuseum, Amsterdam).
We would also like to thank the staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the staff of the British Library; the staff and Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the staff of the Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, the staff of The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) at Kew and of the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh; the staff and Trustees of the National Library of Scotland and the staff of Yorkshire Archaeological Society.
Crown copyright material in the custody of the National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) is reproduced by kind permission of the Keeper of Public Records.
Introduction and a note on dates
A Journal Begun this 16" day of October 1733 — Tuesday — Being the Day that Compleats 4 years Since I Came on Board Mr Addames Sloope at Wapping New Stairs and Entered Into the Retinue of his Excellencie the Earl of Kinnoul as his Stoor keeper & Cheife Buttler But at this time Groome of the Chambers.
So begins the journal of Mr Samuel Medley, butler to Lord Kinnoull, the British Ambassador to Constantinople.
He seems not to have been at all a typical butler. Butlers did not normally write diaries and Medley’s intellect, as indicated by his notes of things he had read, seems beyond the normal expectations for such a post, although it was not uncommon for a servant to imitate the master’s reading habits to some extent (and in some houses to borrow his books).' Further, he actually joined Lord Kinnoull, at the age of 62, as “Groome of the Chambers’, lowest among the male upper servants, in a role more likely to be fulfilled by a young man in his twenties.’
However, one feels that Lord Kinnoull cannot have regretted his decision to employ Medley, for whatever reason, because Medley comes across, through the pages of the diary, as having all those qualities of loyalty, humility, reliability, discretion and integrity’ that Kinnoull would have expected of a good butler whereas, already by July 1730, Kinnoull was writing that: ‘in six months time, I don’t believe that I shall have two [men servants] left out of twenty, which I brought with me.”
Medley remained with him throughout his period as ambassador and presumably returned with him to England. Nothing definite is known of Medley before this period but he had a grown up son’ who was married in England during his father’s absence and it is tempting to suspect that he was at this time a widower. It also seems highly likely that he came from the Pontefract area to which he returned after this trip abroad.
It is a consequence of the Medley family’s pride in Samuel Medley, butler, that the diary has survived and been passed down through nine generations to the present authors,’ who have felt that it deserved research and publication in some form. Our problem has been that many of the entries of greatest interest require extensive explanation of the historical or cultural background to permit the reader to make sense of them — much more than could sensibly be accommodated in footnotes.
Hence, we have taken the decision to interchange background for foreground and consign the full text of the diary to the website www .leginipress.co.uk, while quoting its most interesting passages, as appropriate, to complement the story of Lord Kinnoull and his embassy staff in Constantinople. We believe that this will help the general reader better to comprehend the picture as a whole, while still making the source material available for further research.
The first half of this book is therefore concerned mainly with placing in context the story of the embassy of George Hay, 8th Earl of Kinnoull, to Constantinople, 1729-36, of which period Medley’s diary covers the second half. In Chapter 1, we introduce the Earl, giving a biographical sketch of the years leading up to his improbable appointment as ambassador, and we accompany him (and Medley) on the journey to Constantinople. In Chapter 2 we look at life in Constantinople at the time of their arrival there, while Chapters 3 and 4 cover the extraordinary story of Lord Kinnoull’s embassy and the misjudgements and intrigues leading to his recall. Here we have included quotations from his butler’s diary where relevant, and have introduced the political and historical background where we hope it will be found most helpful in enabling the reader to understand the attitudes and actions of those involved.
With this background, the reader is then in a good position, should he or she so wish, to dip into the diary itself using the website www.leginipress.co.uk. This is likely to raise various questions, particularly about the roles of those people mentioned who are not central to the embassy story. In Chapter 5, therefore, we take Medley’s viewpoint and focus on the diary itself under various headings, attempting some deductions about its author.
Medley’s diary contains many observations on the writer’s health and the weather; many brief accounts of short excursions, for pleasure or for house business, with friends and colleagues; plenty of factual observations on who comes to the house or who ‘My Lord’ goes to visit; a few brief accounts of news of major happenings at Constantinople or elsewhere (the reliability of which news he rightly often questions).
It also includes a few observations — one could wish for more — on those around him whose habits, customs or beliefs he finds sufficiently different from his own to demand comment. It is only in this sort of context that he permits himself the addition of a note of criticism to his normally dispassionate observations. ‘Popery’, in particular, arouses him, as on 28 November 1734:
I went in the State Liveray — to St demetree Chappel — the funerall of M’ Temoneys aunt a young woman where I Se more Superstiton than I have Seen Before — w* is to teadious and vexatious to Express — a 100 & more Popeish priests — some 100° of wax Candles all the way Beside flamb’g Incence holly watter &c — L* Enable me to keep my heart w” Dilligence to y‘ truth as it is in Jesus — w'out Supertition.’ In this case, however, he has confused Greek Orthodox ceremony with ‘popery’!
What is conspicuously missing is any significant opinion on or description of those who move in Lord Kinnoull’s circle, or of Lord Kinnoull himself: That is perhaps not surprising in that “The servant was. expected to know his place and under all circumstances to maintain a deferential manner, whatever his private thoughts” and, doubtless, Medley will have made this attitude a habit of mind from which, even in his private diary, he will have thought it unwise (if not actually immoral) to stray.
As a bonus, though, we find, on the pages opposite the daily entries, quotations from a range of contemporary religious and other writers, in prose and verse, with occasional critical comment from Medley. The books he was reading could have belonged to Lord Kinnoull or could have been obtained from the Levant Company library to which it is likely that Medley would have had access (although he never mentions it). Medley’s prose and poetry quotations are published in full, with notes, on the website www.leginipress.co.uk, but are also summarized, with comment, in Chapter 5. They are of interest as an additional source to illuminate Medley’s character but they are also of special importance to those with an interest in the literature of the period and its readership.
Medley continued the journal until 9 November 1736, when he evidently ran out of steam. He had, in fact, lost enthusiasm for writing more than one line a day, normally, about a year earlier and the reader will much regret that he did not think to start the diary four years earlier, when the ship left England to carry him and his master, then the new ambassador, to Constantinople. On the flyleaf of the diary is the following inscription: ‘This diary was kept in Turkey at Constantinople by my great Grandfather M’ Sam Medley. Signed by me Sam Medley Chatham 2 July 1851.’
This Samuel Medley (1769-1857), author, artist, member of the Stock Exchange and active Baptist who was associated with the foundation of University College London, wrote a biography” of his father the Reverend Samuel Medley (1738-99)" within which he actually devoted 37 pages to his great grandfather, the butler. He describes him as ‘a man of lively wit, sound understanding, great penetration, and unaffected piety’ and says that he wrote not only the Constantinople diary but also ‘his Miscellaneous Observations’ (which were, in fact, apparently based on his notes on the pages opposite the daily entries) and ‘his more private experience as a Christian (which) was begun when he must have been 70 years of age’ (that is, probably on his return from Constantinople).
In further description of his great grandfather, he writes: He was particularly noted for his cheerfulness, and was a pleasing example of remarkable confidence in God, as it respected his providential dispensations, frequently saying, he never could fret five minutes in his life, let things look ever so dark. This even disposition, it appears, arose from a settled persuasion of the wisdom, power and goodness that God, who governs, sustains, and provides for all; especially for those who could claim so dear a relation, as it was his high honour and peculiar privilege to do, in calling this God his Father, which, with the simplicity of an affectionate child, he a hundred times repeats.
Certainly, whenever there is an improvement from his periodical brushes with the gout, Samuel the butler is quick to give God the credit, as for example on 17 June 1736, when he says ‘Better in my foot Bbmgg [Blessed be my Good God].’ Perhaps Samuel Medley, the author and artist, viewed his great grandfather through spectacles tinted with the flush of his own success in life, for he described the butler not as a butler but as having ‘held a respectable situation in the suite of the Earl of Kinnoull, in his embassy from the British court to Constantinople’. His sister’s version, in a rival biography’ of her father, even promotes the butler to ‘Secretary to the Earl of Kinnoull’!
He says that, after returning from Constantinople, his great grandfather “ended his days at Pomfret (= Pontefract), in Yorkshire, in a good old age, coming in like a shock of corn in its season.’
ZICR
In discussing the political machinations of the period, the authors have sometimes followed Lord Kinnoull or his butler in describing the Ottoman Empire as Turkish; the Holy Roman Empire as Austrian or German; the States General as Dutch: historians are asked to bear with this.
A NOTE ON DATES
In the 1730s, the Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese states were following the Gregorian calendar (introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XII) while England, Russia, Sweden and Greece still followed the Julian calendar. Thus, where a letter is dated 3 March 1731 OS (Old Style), this indicates the Julian date in use in England and sometimes this date may be shown as 3 March 1731/32. The equivalent continental date is 14 March 1732.
Lord Chesterfield’s Act 1751-52 was designed to change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Under the Julian calendar the year ran from 25 March to the following 24 March; under the Gregorian, from 1 January to 31 December. There was also 11 days difference. To achieve the change, 1752 began on 1 January and, that year, 2 September was followed by 14 September, thus losing 11 days (which caused some rioting).
We have done our best to follow the convention used by many other authors writing about this period and have used, normally, the contemporary English calendar, ‘OS’, as regards the date and month, while giving the year as if beginning on 1 January, and not using the contemporary English year beginning on 25 March. Any exceptions to this, where we have mentioned continental dates, are designated ‘NS’.
The Earl of Kinnoull Sails for Constantinople
INTRODUCING THE EARL OF KINNOULL
GEORGE HAY, 8th Earl of Kinnoull, was born in 1689. He had hid a somewhat chequered career before being appointed British ambassador to the Sublime Porte in 1729. He became Viscount Dupplin in 1709, the year of his marriage to Abigail Harley, younger daughter of Sir Robert Harley, later 1st Earl of Oxford and Queen Anne’s Lord High Treasurer. Between 1710 and 1723, the couple had ten children, four boys and six girls.
Lady Abigail seems to have inspired the affection of those who knew her. One visitor to the Kinnoull family seat, Dupplin House, in Perthshire, where the Dupplins were living at the time, described her as ‘the fine lady who is mistress of it, at the head of her family of most delicate children.”’ Lady Abigail’s letters show her to be a fond and caring parent.
But Dupplin House was too far from the centre of political life and, in any case, it was the home of Dupplin’s father, the 7th Earl. Shortly after their first child Thomas was born in 1710 in Scotland, the Dupplins left on a house-hunting expedition to London. The baby was entrusted to Sir Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre, an old family friend, and his wife, who received frequent letters from Abigail, inquiring after Thomas’s health: I’m extremely glad to hear my dear little boy is so well and takes to his feet. ... I long to see my dear Child. I dream of him every night; Pray remember me to nurse ... tell her I heartily rejoice y' her Master has a tooth ... pray let me know if his tooth be on the upper or lower side.”
In the early years Lady Abigail expressed her satisfaction with married life: in connection with her brother’s marriage she wrote: ‘I hope he will make as good a Husband as my L* Dupplin. I need say no more to commend him.” As a young man George Hay seemed destined for a successful career. With Harley’s help,’ he became the member of parliament for Fowey in 1710, aged 21. For Harley, he was a valuable link to Scottish politicians. He ‘was classed as a Tory on the “Hanover list”? of 1710 and named as a “worthy patriot”. In 1711 he was appointed as a Teller of the Exchequer. Speaker Bromley wrote of this appointment in glowing terms to the Earl of Oxford, Dupplin’s father-inlaw: ‘He is so pretty a gentleman, so generally well beloved ... that their friends will universally approve it.”
In addition to his Scottish title, George Hay was granted the title of Baron Hay of Pedwardine in 1711 as one of the 12 English peers created by Sir Robert Harley to ensure the passage of the Treaty of Utrecht through the House of Lords.
However, by 1714 Dupplin had unfortunately lost his place as Teller. This seems to have been through no fault of his but was, rather, on account of his close association with Harley who resigned from the post of Lord High Treasurer a few days before the death of Queen Anne. Dr William Stratford of Christchurch College, Oxford, a friend of the Harley family and a prolific correspondent, wrote to Edward Harley, Abigail’s brother, that: “Lord and Lady Dupplin are wisely resolving to suit their expenses to their circumstances, they are going to part with their house in town and to retire wholly to the country.” Dupplin had resolved to buy an estate in Yorkshire for his growing family; in 1713 he purchased Brodsworth House near Pontefract and he, Lady Abigail and their sons Thomas and Robert moved in.
However, unfortunately for him and for the family, in 1715 he was arrested, along with others, including his own father, and imprisoned in the Tower of London on suspicion of having been involved in the Jacobite rising of that year. This was not surprising because his younger brother, John Hay of Cromlix, was deeply involved, as was the Earl of Mar whose late wife Margaret had been the sister of George and John Hay. Dupplin was in due course admitted to bail, in 1716, and formally cleared in 1717; all the properties of the Earl of Mar and of John Hay were, however, forfeited and he and Mar followed the Pretender to Avignon and then Rome.”
Dupplin later wrote to his uncle, Lord Foley: ‘I had long before my imprisonment taken the resolution to retire into the Country in hopes to pass my time there in a very private manner at a distance from all publick affairs. And to that End I had purchased a little thing in Yorkshire.” George Hay added to the not insubstantial Brodsworth house and estate, over the years, by purchasing more land, and it became the centre of family life for Abigail and her children, most of whom were born there. She wrote to her Harley aunt from there, saying: ‘Thank God that I can live here with so much satisfaction and delight.’ In the four years following his release from prison, Dupplin appears to have spent much time in Yorkshire attending to his new estate. Abigail wrote that ‘never any one was so full of business now as he is between the stables, garden and hay makers he is never in the house in daylight but to eat his dinner.”
There are, however, letters to Abigail’s brother Edward Harley in 1718, from the poet Matthew Prior who was a friend of his, speaking affectionately of ‘Dup and Dupplinia’, with whom he dines in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, indicating time spent by both of them in London as well as Yorkshire. Prior, Swift and Pope were all friendly with Harley and Prior, who eventually died at Harley’s home, and Wimpole, evidently knew the Dupplins well. His letter of 10 September 1718 reports that ‘Little Tommy Haye has the smallpox of a very good kind and is likely to do well’ and, by 29 September 1718, ‘little Dup is perfectly recovered’.
Dupplin succeeded to the title of Earl of Kinnoull on the death of his father in 1719 and, though trustees were mainly responsible for running the Scottish estates, there was inevitable business to be attended to in Scotland, and Dupplin House was now another potential home for the family. On occasion Lady Abigail was left at Dupplin House with the children while her husband remained in London. She asked her brother Edward to write to her often: ‘It is charity now I am so far from all my friends.”"” However, her loyalty to her husband was unswerving. She wrote from Edinburgh, in 1721, that the place was dull, but ‘I have so much of my Lords company for he is almost always at home & that makes any place agreeable.’"
By 1720, the new Lord Kinnoull was spending much time in London again, playing an active part in investment in the South Sea Company. Harley, his father-in-law, had been chief founder or regulator of the South Sea Company and its governor from 1711; Kinnoull was appointed commissioner for taking subscriptions to the Company in that year.’ Kinnoull wrote to Harley that: ‘I hope to make such profit in the South Sea Stock as to make the Dear Children’s provision very easie & yr. Daughter’s Comfort & the Care of those Dear Babies being my Greatest Concern in this World.’ Kinnoull’s’ personal bank account at Drummond’s Bank in London” doubtless gives a far-from-complete picture of his financial transactions, but between 9 April and 2 June of 1720, for instance, there were in-payments of £7171 and outgoings of £5972: substantial sums for him to be handling privately.
As well as investing himself, he was approached by others from both Scotland and Yorkshire, no doubt knowing of his connection with Lord Oxford, to subscribe on their behalf. One Mr Clelland was advised by Kinnoull to invest, but had no ready cash to advance. Writing to Lord Grange, another potential investor, Clelland remarked of Kinnoull: ‘I would not ask him why he who had so much and had made so much in it would not advance it himself.’ This remark implies that Kinnoull had made substantial amounts of money or, at least, that others thought he had done so. Stratford, writing to Edward Harley, observed with hope: ‘I would congratulate him [Kinnoull] too upon his gains in the South Sea. When his younger children are largely provided for, I hope the overplus will go to support episcopal seminaries in his own fatherland.’” In 1712, Stratford himself had ventured ‘all the little ready money that I have’ in the South Sea Company.” However, Lady Abigail was less happy with this craze: ‘The town is quite mad about the South Sea. ... It is being very unfashionable not to be in the South Sea. I am sorry to say, I am out of the fashion.” But she was wise to be unfashionable and, for reasons apparently mainly associated with the collapse of the South Sea Company, the family’s finances seem to have suffered serious problems in the early 1720s. Not long into 1721 Kinnoull was asking Sir Robert Harley, his father-in-law and a trustee of the estate, permission to sell an indemnity for £17,000.”
But Harley was upset by what he saw as Kinnoull’s dissimulation: ‘Had he let me know that he had plung’d himself & that this was the best way (perhaps the only) to extricate himself from his difficulties, it would have moovd compassion’ (and if Kinnoull had been honest about his circumstances) ‘it would have given me some hopes that experience would have curd him of ... Buble hunting, w” I do not expect.’” In the first half of 1722, most of the payments into Kinnoull’s Drummond’s bank account were from sale of South Sea stock and by the second half of 1723 the turnover had fallen to less than £1000 for the six-month period with more than half the income being derived from a Scottish source.”
With business on the wane and affairs in Scotland requiring attention, Kinnoull seems to have felt the need to reduce expenditure in Yorkshire and to maintain a presence at Dupplin House as well as in London. Stratford writes to Harley that “Your sister Kinnoull, with all those ‘bearns’ that are with her, is ordered by her Lord to follow him to Kinnoull, and is now on the road thither.’ Stratford believes Kinnoull intends to leave her there and he adds: ‘I wish you may ever see your sister again.” To add to his difficulties, in 1722 Kinnoull was under investigation again, in connection with the Layer conspiracy, as regards possible Jacobite sympathies,” probably not without good cause since it was not until 1723 that, whether on account of his personal finances or out of caution, he ceased giving secret financial support to his younger brother John, who was then heavily involved with the Pretender’s activities.”
In August 1723, Lady Abigail explained to her aunt that a settlement had been made regarding the Scottish estates, with Sir Patrick Murray as one of the trustees: “every one of the children are therein provided for; tho’ it is very small, but I hope it will please God to spare my L* to clear his Estate & see his Children disposed of & then I don’t doubt that he will do better for them’.” By this time the family consisted of four boys and six girls, so it was no trivial matter to ensure that they were adequately provided for.
Years later she wrote to Sir Patrick praising her children and saying that ‘it is the very greatest comfort I have in this life to see my Children so hopefull and deserving.” She expressed her deep gratitude for his long-term support of her and her family.
This settlement seems also to have taken some immediate pressure off Kinnoull’s financial situation in London. Whereas he had found it necessary to transfer £1100 to his wife from his Drummond’s Bank account in 1721, after July 1723 there were no further payments from this source.” However, in early 1724, William Drummond, in Edinburgh, a trustee of the Kinnoull estates, was working to disentangle Kinnoull from a complicated string of debts, to the tune of over £6000, related at least in part to South Sea Company investments.”
Ever loyal, Lady Abigail did her best to impress her aunt with her husband’s generous nature and good intentions. On the death of a certain Dr Bower, whom Kinnoull had helped financially, she wrote: ‘he [Dr Bower] had wanted bread if it had not been for my L”s kindness to him which was very well bestowed.” But in October 1724 Stratford is condemning Kinnoull, with extraordinary viciousness, for unspecified reasons:
[He] uses such a wife and his own family, in so vile a manner. But if | am informed right, he is likely to pay for it in this world, and will not be able to get so much as bread in a little time. Should that be his case ... I think he ought to be left to die in a ditch.”
It seems hard to believe that such strong condemnation can have been triggered solely by Kinnoull’s financial misfortune and mismanagement. From the context of these remarks, it seems that in fact Kinnoull is being condemned by Stratford more for what he has or has not done in connection with the arrest of Marjory Hay (wife of Kinnoull’s Jacobite brother John, who had come to England in search of funds for the Pretender’s cause) than for the way he ‘uses’ his wife and family.
Exactly what was the state of the personal relationship, by 1724, between Kinnoull, based in Whitehall, and Lady Abigail, at Dupplin House, we do not know. But when her father died in May, Kinnoull, who was in London, did not go north but wrote to the faithful Sir Patrick Murray asking him to break the news to her.”
By 1726 matters seem to have been no better financially; Stratford knew that Abigail’s brother, Edward Harley, was helping the family with money and advised: “Be as private as you will in your relief of them ... [Kinnoull] will trust that you will not see them starve.’” It appears that Kinnoull was never good at managing his financial affairs and found little time for his Scottish estates, even after his father’s death. As early as 1713 he was asking Sir Patrick Murray to manage his affairs in Scotland and hold his power of attorney, hoping that he ‘would be pleased to act in everything w" relation to my estates & money in Scotland arising from To be fair, though, he can hardly have been expected to foresee thence. the loss of his lucrative job as teller to the exchequer or the disaster that befell the South Sea Company.
As far as the estate at Brodsworth was concerned, money was often tight here, with creditors having to press for payment and with Lady Abigail perpetually short of cash. In 1726 she wrote to Sir Patrick Murray, thanking him for advancing the fares to enable her young children to travel from Dupplin to Brodsworth, and gratefully mentioning trustees of the Kinnoull family estates.” The trustees who were based in Edinburgh and included Sir Patrick Murray apparently made Kinnoull an allowance of £2500 a year in 1729.” The trust appears to have been set up between 1713 and the death of the 7th Earl in 1719.
Lady Abigail’s friends and family frequently expressed their concerns about the way she was treated. Her aunt, Abigail Harley, thought it quite wrong that Kinnoull should leave his wife to travel south from Scotland alone with the children early in 1726, and reveals her low opinion of him: ‘I am not surprised he leaves them to shift for themselves in a long journey and through such dangerous ways.’ By March 1726, Lady Abigail had arrived in town and ‘keeps up her spirits to a wonder, at least hides her trouble to a great degree’ but ‘her circumstances are very deplorable’.”
Kinnoull’s eldest son Thomas, by then known as Viscount Dupplin, also suffered because funds were short. He went up to Christchurch in 1726, with his arrival there noted by Stratford who observed that Dupplin ‘must be on a frugal footing’ so far as his lodgings were concerned." Stratford later wrote to Edward Harley: ‘Do you know that, by Sir Robert’s [i.e. Walpole’s] interest, the King allows somewhat for the maintenance of Dup[plin] here?” In 1728 he told Harley that Dupplin had ‘owned that he and his brother [Robert] could not yet come down [from Oxford] because the father could not furnish them with any [money]’.”” When, the following year, Lord Kinnoull was appointed ambassador to Constantinople, Dupplin accompanied his father who hoped that this experience might increase his son’s chances of employment.
But William Drummond believed that: The reason certainly for My Lord Kinnouls takeing Lord Dupplin with him is that his allowance of £2500 Ster ... can but Just support him at Constantinople and so cannot spare anie thing for Lord Dupplin and indeed to leave him behind without fund for his support would be hard enough.”
Certainly, the appointment appeared not to promise any immediate improvement to Kinnoull’s finances and Lady Kinnoull and family were apparently expected to live on the rental from the lands at Brodsworth, where she was very actively involved with running the estate, with the help of the steward Jos Dickinson.”
It is something of a puzzle to know why Kinnoull was selected to be ambassador in Constantinople, lacking, as he did, any experience in the diplomatic field and given the history of suspicions of Jacobite sym-pathies. In a letter to Horace Walpole from Constantinople Kinnoull revealed that his appointment was due to the patronage of William Cavendish, second Duke of Devonshire ‘that Great person, who as he was a father to me, was likewise a true friend and support’.
The Duke of Devonshire was a Whig whose wealth gave him extensive influence; he also held high office. Walpole would certainly have given his recommendations careful consideration for these reasons alone. Before succeeding to the title, Devonshire had been one of the MPs for Yorkshire, where Hay had estates. He was also one of the commissioners to negotiate the Treaty of Union with Scotland.”
In a letter to Horace Walpole, Kinnoull also gave credit to ‘your brother Sir Robert Walpole [who] for many years favour’d me with his particular affection and esteem. I owe my being imployed to the good opinion he was pleased to have of me.’” An earlier letter from Horace Walpole to Kinnoull also refers to the Duke of Devonshire as ‘the great Person by whose credit your Lordship was employed’.
Kinnoull did not apparently think much of the job initially: “The Imployment that the King has honoured me with is not a great one. [However,] ... I shall certainly have an Opportunity to do real Service to my family, in a very honourable way and entirely Consistent w" my Duty to the King and to the [Levant] Company.” But Lady Abigail would presumably have welcomed her husband’s appointment as ambassador in 1729, even though it was not practical for her and the large family to go with him; Stratford also thought it a good thing: ‘I think it very happy for Her and her Family that Her Lord goes Abroad. He may if he is not void of common sense ... retrieve his Affairs in some measure in that post.”” At that time, the ambassador, though appointed by the King and answerable to the Secretary of State the Duke of Newcastle, was largely financed by, and effectively an employee of, the Levant Company, and was expected to devote a good proportion of his time and energy to the welfare of the merchants and their trading enterprises. No doubt Kinnoull hoped to earn enough money from his post to improve his financial position at home. However, like previous and later ambassadors, he did not find the financial arrangements of the employment at all satisfactory, as we shall see in Chapter 3 under the section entitled The Levant Company and the embassy.
Others had their own opinions of this appointment. William Drummond, brother of Kinnoull’s banker, declared, in a letter to Sir Patrick Murray: ‘Some posts agoe my brother wrote me that My Lord was to be cleared out one way or another from London. ... I hope all shall be for his own families good at last.’ He believes that his brother Andrew, of Drummond’s Bank, ‘has done my Lord great Service at this Juncture with the Turkie Company’,” presumably to try and overcome the known misgivings of the Levant merchants at the King’s appointment of Kinnoull, for he had no more experience of business such as theirs than he did of diplomacy.”
Kinnoull and his eldest son finally left England on HMS Torrington late in 1729 and arrived in Constantinople in April 1730, with Samuel Medley and the other servants on board. To the last he was sending instructions to his faithful friend Sir Patrick Murray in Scotland: ‘I have desired Mr Ranken to send me some Oatmeal, some Salt Salmond & some Herrings & some Scots Snuff every year. Pray order him to get them all in perfection.” One wonders if William Ranken, his steward at Dupplin, dispatched these annually to Constantinople, and in what state they arrived.
THE JOURNEY OUT
There are several accounts of Lord Kinnoull’s journey from England to Constantinople in 1729, as well as his own observations in letters to the Duke of Newcastle (Secretary of State) and others. His private secretary, William Sandys, wrote a long account of the voyage to Charles Delafaye, Under-secretary of State,” mainly to set out a list of complaints against the captain of the British man of war, HMS Torrington, which carried the party. Then there is the simple, factual log of the Torrington that Captain Philip Vincent kept.” Another account, in French, was written by César de Saussure, a young adventurer originally from Lausanne. The beginning of de Saussure’s account is dated 5 October 1729.” Writing to a friend, he explained that after four years in England he was ready to embark on a further round of travels in Europe. Hearing that Kinnoull was to replace Abraham Stanyan as British ambassador in Constantinople, he had found a mutual acquaintance in London to introduce him to Kinnoull who had received him courteously and agreed to allow him to accompany the embassy party to Turkey.
Kinnoull visited the ship on 2 September after which, under a column headed ‘Remarkable Observations & Accidents on board his Majts Ship Torrington’, Captain Vincent wrote: ‘Saluted the Earle of Kinnoul with 15 guns at his going ashore from our Ship.” Presumably, this visit was to negotiate arrangements for his party but it was not until six o’clock on the evening of 5 October that de Saussure embarked at the Tower of London on a small boat carrying Kinnoull’s baggage and some of his servants to the ship at the mouth of the Thames. Medley, writing the first entry in his diary four years after the event, says he left Wapping on the 16th; presumably, though, he was one of the servants on de Saussure’s boat. (De Saussure gives 5 October as the date and he uses Old Style, which Medley also normally uses throughout the diary. Very probably Medley obtained this date from his master who, at that time, was using New Style dating, which would have reckoned it as 16th.)
At five o’clock the next morning they found very rough seas at the river mouth, and had considerable difficulty boarding the ship, over the following three hours.
The Torrington (originally built in 1676 and named the Charles Galley) had been recently rebuilt and this was to be its first voyage under its new name,” with a crew of 200 under Captain Vincent. The following day the Torrington set sail for Portsmouth where Kinnoull and the rest of the party were to embark, finally arriving at Spithead on 25 October. Kinnoull was eventually able to board on 8 November, but, to his dismay and financial embarrassment, it was then a further five weeks before the Torrington eventually set sail. They left on 14 December in good weather, with a brisk north-easterly blowing.
Why had nearly two months elapsed between the advance party leaving London and the final departure from Spithead? Sandys reports that Kinnoull was ready to embark on 26 October but that the captain declared there were still repairs outstanding. From 8 November, Captain Vincent kept postponing their departure on the grounds of contrary winds. Sandys did not believe this was true: ‘all the Captains at Spithead were surprised what could be the meaning that we never took the proper advantages of the Winds.’™ He believed that Vincent still had personal business to attend to. Kinnoull remained on board for the entire five weeks, not wishing to give Vincent any excuse for delaying their voyage further: ‘I have not set my foot on shore since 8th of November.”
The Torrington reached Lisbon on 1 January 1730 where the British ambassador to Portugal, Lord Tyrawley came aboard. Again, Captain Vincent delayed their departure, this time for five weeks. Sandys believed this was to allow the captain to embark ‘a freight of Moidores (Portuguese gold coins) and Barrs of Gold to carry to Genoa and other places’; the Portuguese authorities forbade such cargo, but being a British man of war, the Torrington was not liable to be searched. Sandys also deplored the fact that ‘every week that the Voyage was prolongued His Excy’s Expence in maintaining a great number of Servants on Board was very much encreased.”” Kinnoull wrote to Newcastle that he was ‘fatigued ... after being aboard five weeks at Spithead and eighteen Days mostly in bad weather at sea’.” However, there were consolations, as he reported to Newcastle that he had had an audience with the King and Queen of Portugal, and the Prince and Princess of Brazil.
Kinnoull’s son, Lord Dupplin, wrote to his aunt, the countess of Oxford, from Lisbon: We anchored here on Wednesday ... since when L* Tyrawley has entertained me with y greatest civility, & this day my Father & I were introduced to y King and Queen. The character of y’ Portuguese people is generally represented very indifferent, being lookt upon as a proud, stubborn, ignorant people.”
The party finally set sail from Lisbon on 31 January, calling at Gibraltar on 4 February and Port Mahon on the 13th. From the 19th to the 26th they were anchored off Genoa and from 28 to 18 March off Livorno, then known by the British as Leghorn.” (We have used Old Style dates in the text above. Kinnoull in fact uses New Style dates in his letter, which makes them 11 days further advanced than those of de Saussure.)
By this stage Sandys could no longer contain his anger at Vincent. The problem was not just the endless delays, but the captain’s attitude to Kinnoull right from the start of the journey. When Kinnoull came on board at Spithead, he ‘was receiv’d with no Salute which is the usual Compliment paid to His Majesty’s Ambassador.’ Sandys later speaks of Vincent’s ‘want of Good Will’ and his ‘most haughty and Insolent Manner’. At Livorno the captain did fire the usual salute when Kinnoull left the ship, but soon reverted to his former behaviour: when His Excy went on Board attended by the Consul & others, the Capt receiv’d him with less Respect than he would a private man, no Respect paid to his Person, no Salute given to his Character, tho he had taken his Character of Amb’ upon him while he was at Leghorn.”
The Torrington was more than two weeks at Livorno, finally departing on 18 March. Malta was the next port of call on 27 March, where they stayed for four days. Here Sandys again found fault with Captain Vincent. This time there was a last-minute dinner invitation that Vincent accepted from the ‘General of the Maltese Galleys’ even though the Torrington’s anchors were up and it was ready to sail in a fair wind. When Kinnoull remonstrated with the captain, Sandys declared that:
You will hardly believe that any man cou’d give the Answer that the Capt did. That he was Master and not to be directed by any Body. That he wou’d stay there rather because His Excy had desired the Contrary; for if he should comply with what His Excy proposed, he said, it wou’d look as if he had not an intire Authority which he wou’d maintain.
Vincent then left the ship, ordering his first lieutenant Mr Orchard to take the Torrington out of the harbour, whereupon Orchard ran the ship onto a rock; only the prompt action of the British consul Mr Young, who happened to be on board, saved the situation.”
After all this the ship left Malta on 31 March. De Saussure gave details of the final leg to Constantinople. They passed between Cerigo and Cerigotto, then between ‘I’Ile Longue e celle de Zia; et entre le Négrepont et Ile d’ Andros’. They then anchored off Ipsera and two days later dropped anchor between Tenedos and ‘le continent de l’Asie, vis a vis des Ruines de Troye’.”” Finally they were able to enter the Dardanelles, where they passed between two Turkish castles, one on the European shore and the other on the Asian. As night was coming on, the captain dropped anchor and the English consul of the Dardanelles came on board, with a dragoman (i.e. interpreter) from the British ambassador. Two days later the ship was in the Sea of Marmara, and arrived off Constantinople in the evening of 14 April,” having taken four months to complete the journey.
De Saussure reported that the first secretary of the outgoing ambassador, Stanyan, and his master of horse came on board to greet Kinnoull, along with the chancellor and treasurer of the Levant Company, and five or six merchants. Kinnoull then disembarked, with the crew giving him three cheers or ‘hourrds’. This time Captain Vincent did his duty and gave the ambassador the usual 21-gun salute. De Saussure stayed that night on board, before disembarking the next day to lodge with a watch maker, a fellow countryman from Geneva, but not before he was lucky enough to see a spectacle of great interest to someone newly arrived in Turkey.
The Sultan or Grand Signor was seen to embark on one of his galleys from a kiosk near the Seraglio, on his way to his palace at Beshiktash on the Bosphorus. De Saussure described the boat as having ‘24 rowers’ and as being ‘extremente ornée et embelli de beaucoup de dorure, de sculpture et de peinture’. The Sultan sat on a magnificent ‘sopha’ in the prow, beneath a sort of pavilion of red velvet. He was clearly interested in this British warship as he ordered the Bostangi-Bashi to row near the Torrington, and spent about ten minutes looking at it. (This steersman of the royal barge was the head gardener as well as the chief executioner.)
As he left, the captain of the Torrington ordered a 21-gun salute. Half an hour later the grand vizier’s boat also came past; this had only 12 oarsmen and a pavilion of green velvet. The grand vizier was head of the administration of the Ottoman Empire, and a very important figure in relations between the state and all foreign ambassadors. Once again the Torrington fired its guns, this time with a 15-gun salute.”
Sandys had no more to say about the voyage after the problems at Malta. However, his letter to Delafaye continued to castigate Captain Vincent. He emphasized that Kinnoull had instructed all his retinue to be civil to the captain, ‘but no good usage cou’d work upon him, it was washing a Blackamoor for not only he, but such of his People as he had an Influence Upon, behaved themselves at all times very indecently towards His Excy’. Sandys said that Kinnoull had asked him to write to Delafaye rather than bother Newcastle with this sorry tale, and that Kinnoull would leave it to Delafaye whether to take any action against the captain or not. Sandys also stated that Kinnoull had decided to appoint him as Cancellier or Chancellor to the Levant Company, and he hoped that the Duke of Newcastle would approve this.
The only other incident of interest on the voyage to Constantinople was the curious complaint made to the Duke of Newcastle by some members of the Levant Company. Newcastle wrote to Kinnoull that the “Turkey Co.’ had ‘taken umbrage at some women that they alledge are gone in the same ship as you to Constantinople’, and he asked for comments.” Neither party can have been pleased to have had to correspond on so apparently trivial a matter at the start of Kinnoull’s embassy, but Kinnoull explains himself in a suitably dignified manner:
I return your Grace my most humble thanks for your friendship in this Affair for these Gentlemen might have done me a great Injury, if they had made any representation to the King, upon such aSubject. Since their anger is grounded upon a mistake & must proceed from a Number of Malicious lyes, that a young fellow One Gregory, that was not satisfied with his Accommodation in the ship, spread all over London™ Which I had an Acc’. of & which gave me no uneasiness, not believing it possible that any one would give Credit to the lyes & storys of Such a Worthless young fellow.
My Lord, All the Women that I brought here with me are servants — to clean my house & wash my Linnen and they are turn’d so idle here that I resolved to Send them all back before I recd. Yr. Graces letter. My steward brought his wife & children with him ... [and] ... I brought a French Cook with me & he must have his wife with him too — but I discharg’d them in about a Month after my arrival.
So that your Grace may Assure the duke of Chandos that if the Turkey Company have no reason to complain of me, but with relation to my women, I shall be very happy in their Service. For in a very little time I shall not have one English woman left: they all return to their several countreys ... and I must content my self to have my house cleaned & my Linnen washed by Greek women; who are very indifferent servants, tho’ the better Sort of them are the most Beautiful women in the world.”
There is some suggestion here that some Levant Company merchants were displeased about Kinnoull’s appointment and were using any excuse to discredit him from the start. Gregory had left the ship and Kinnoull’s service on 13 November 1729 and the story obviously spread and became part of London gossip, with Alexander Pope referring disparagingly to ‘K-I’s lewd cargo.” Pope takes the opportunity to air two pieces of scandal in the same line: ‘K-l’s lewd Cargo, or Ty-y’s crew’. The second part refers to James O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley (1690-1773). He was the ambassador to Portugal who had welcomed Kinnoull to Lisbon and of whom Walpole wrote, some years later: “My Lord Tyrawley is come from Portugal, and has brought three wives and fourteen children’.” However, another curious feature of this story is that none of these women, not even the wives Kinnoull mentioned, appear on the passenger list for the Torrington on its outward journey. Presumably, Kinnoull would have supplied this list to the captain; however, the equivalent list for the return journey, when Stanyan was on board, appears to have included the women travelling in his party — three of them, listed specifically, by name.” Did Kinnoull, in fact, have something to hide? As we shall see, one person at least was going to claim that he had a mistress in Constantinople very soon after his arrival.
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