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Tag Archives: hell fire

Naughty Nuns and Frisky Friars: Sir Francis Dashwood’s Hell-Fire Club

12 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by Lenora in Bizarre, General, History

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abbey, Caves, Cellar books, club, eigheenth century, England, Fanny Murray, Friars, George Selwyn, Georgian, hell fire, Lord Bute, Lord Sandwich, Medmenham, Monks, Paul Whitehead, Satanic Rituals, Sir Francis Dashwood, West Wycombe, Wharton

Hogarth_Dashwood_wikip

Sir Francis Dashwood worshiping Venus, with the Earl of Sandwich reflected in his halo.By Hogarth.

Philip, Duke of Wharton was the trailblazer of all things Hell-fire, with his notorious  Hell-Fire Club of the 1720’s.  But his was by no means the only Hell Fire club, nor the most famous spawned in the enthusiastically libertine eighteenth Century.  In the 1740’s a club was formed that became infamous as THE Hell-Fire club.  A secret cabal made up of the landed elite and political opposition – a shadow government in waiting; rumored to hold secret Satanic rituals in a secluded abbey and nearby caves, engaging in blasphemous orgies where members, dressed as friars and nuns, met in all manner of fornication and adulteries. Eventually they took power in the ministry of Lord Bute, but soon over-reached themselves, and were ultimately betrayed by one of their own.  Oh, and there was also a baboon involved along the way, as if all that wasn’t enough.

Sounds like the perfect template for a Hell-fire Club- except that this particular Hell-Fire Club, wasn’t quite as devilish as it’s reputation suggested…and it’s founder was no latter-day Wharton, brilliant, bitter and blasphemous – nor yet some Georgian Crowley figure – he comes across as rather more, well, jolly.  A traveler to foreign parts, a fan of dressing up, a bit of a practical joker,  with a mixed up view of religion.

The King of clubs: Sir Francis Dashwood (1708-1781)

Sirfrancisdashwood_wikip

Sir Francis dressed to impress, at the Divan Club.

The mark of a gentleman in the eighteenth century, was to be clubbable.  Societies and clubs sprang up like mushrooms in this very sociable century – if you had a particular interest, you could bet your life there was a group of like-minded fellows meeting in a tavern near you, on the second Tuesday of every month.   If you couldn’t find a club to suit you, you could start your own – no matter what your tastes ran too.

Sir Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer, was no stranger to this eighteenth century trend.  In 1732/3 after traveling in Italy and meeting the formidable Lady Mary Wortley Montague, he founded the famous Dilettante Society.  Later, following a sojourn in the Ottoman Empire, where he again crossed paths with Lady Mary, he founded the Divan Club, which ran until about 1746.  Later still, he founded the little known Lincoln Club which ran from the 1750’s to the 1770’s.  These clubs focused on an aesthetic appreciation of the ancient and the exotic, ladies could be members.  Fine dining and fancy dress were the order of the day (although there are no records of whether Lincoln green was required dress for the Lincoln Club) and there was much imbibing of alcohol, one would imagine.

During his Grand Tour to Italy, Sir Francis got about a bit, he flirted with Jacobitism and meet with the Bonny Prince himself;  he is also said to have developed an antipathy towards the more excitable aspects of Catholicism at that time, due in part to an over-zealous tutor.

Madonna della Misericordia (detail), 1418-1422 by Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano, Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon.

Penitents scourging themselves.  Detail of Madonna della Misericordia, 1418-1422 by Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano, Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon.

A penchant for irreligious practical jokes may also have emerged during this trip. That doyenne of eighteenth century gossip, Horace Walpole, recounted one such (likely apocryphal) incident in which the young Sir Francis attended a solemn candlelit ceremony in the Sistine Chapel, in which penitents were offered token whips to scourge themselves of sin. Showing a thoroughly wicked sense of humor and a flair for the theatrical, Sir Francis disguised himself in a night watchman’s cloak, then leaped out on the unsuspecting faithful. Striding up and down the dimly lit aisle of the chapel cracking a horse whip he managed to scare the bejezus out of the penitents, who thought the very devil himself had put in an appearance…

The Order of the Knights of St Francis of Wycombe

Back in England,  having established himself as a man who was well-traveled, with a passing interest in the occult (his library contained a number of occult texts), irreligious by nature, fond of dressing up and keen on forming clubs, Sir Francis went on to form what would become one of the most notorious clubs in the eighteenth century.  It was founded in 1746, and began life as Order of the Knights of St Francis of Wycombe, also known as the Monks or Friars of Medmenham.  However posterity erroneously remembers it as The Hell-Fire Club.

West Wycombe, glimpsed through the trees.

West Wycombe Park, glimpsed through the trees. (Image: Lenora).

Like many private clubs at the time, it began life in a pub, the ominously named George and Vulture tavern at Cornhill in London.  The private meeting room is said to have boasted a ‘Rosicrucian lamp, a large crystal globe encircled by a gold serpent, tail in its mouth, crowned with silver wings’ [1].  The club proved popular, and Sir Francis soon sought to acquire more private accommodation for his illustrious members.  Taking the club out to Buckinghamshire and his newly leased property of West Wycombe.  The first meeting of the brotherhood was said to have taken place on Walpurgis night, 1752, much to the annoyance of Sir Francis’s prudish wife [2].  Eventually, due to spousal pressure (?)  the club began looking for more exclusive and more atmospheric premises.

Medmenham Abbey and the Gothic Revival

medmenham-abbey-buckinghamshire-d85xtw

Print of Medmenham Abbey

In the mid-eighteenth century all things Gothic were making a comeback, scholars and antiquaries were bringing ancient England into the public consciousness.  Initially, as an architectural style, it was mocked as being in rather vulgar taste, something popular with ‘new money’ and rather going against the Classical tide of the century.   It was not until Horace Walpole created his Mock Medieval Masterpiece at Strawberry Hill, that it became truly acceptable to the Bon Ton.  To Sir, aka, Saint, Francis and his merry band of fornicating friars, a picturesque Gothic pile was just what the Order ordered.

The Mausoleum, funded by George Bubb Doddington. Image Lenora.

The Octagonal Mausoleum, featured in many Hammer Horror films. Image Lenora.

Medmenham had been a Cistercian Abbey, originally founded in the twelfth century.  Like many such religious houses, it fell foul of that jolly old wife-killer, Henry VIII, and was sold to the Duffield family who remodeled and rebuilt it over the centuries.  Sir Francis leased the Abbey from the Duffield’s in 1755 and began renovating the property to suit his peculiar tastes. He repaired the ruined cloister, tower and chapter house, a refectory, dining room and common room and catered for the ‘private devotions’ of the monks by providing them with their own ‘cells’.  The ethos of the club was proudly inscribed above the main door ‘Fais ce que tu voudras’ – that ever popular Rabelaisian dictum ‘do as you will’ – thereby leaving no doubt as to the philosophy of its founder.

Harpocrates. Image via wikimedia.

Harpocrates. Image via wikimedia.

Secrecy and voyeurism were also part of the ethos – the refectory was presided over by Harpocrates, the Greek god of silence and Angerona, the Roman goddess of secrecy.  Apertures in the anteroom adjacent the dining room allowed secret observations.

The costumes of the monks were described by Horace Walpole, who visited the abbey in the 1760’s.  He described the chapter house as being decorated by prints of monks and nuns, pegs on the walls held their costumes: white hats, jackets and trousers, a red hat for the Prior.  Looking, he thought, rather like the costumes of boatmen.  Hardly the robes of Satanic devil-worshipers.

Fais ce que tu voudras: Do what thou wilt

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The Secrets of the Convent c1763.  Trustees of the British Museum.

But what did the monks actually get up to?  Was there any evidence of actual Satanic practices, or was it all just posh boys putting it about?  There is little evidence of any really Diabolical practices, most of this comes from later rumors.  Many of the documents relating to the club have been lost, the cellar book survives, and is a great source for identifying meetings, and prospective members, but has little on the actual ‘doings’ of the club.

Horace Walpole, following his visit to Medmenham Abbey, reported on the practices of the Monks:

“practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus and Venus were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed; and the nymphs and the hogsheads that were laid in against the festivals of this new church, sufficiently informed the neighborhood of the complexion of those hermits.”

Sex and wine certainly seem to have been a major part of the rituals – even the landscape was sexualized.  The gardens included a Temple of Venus and Parlour of Venus as well as statues of Pan and Priapus – perfect for a club dedicated to divine procreation.  One dramatic feature, described by Burgo Partridge in his ‘History of Orgies’ was:

‘[Dashwood] had laid out one part of the gardens i the shape of a woman, with much suggestive grouping of pillars and bushes, an expensive smutty joke which could not be appreciated fully until the invention of the aeroplane.’

Dan Cruikshank, in his book on Georgian London, considers the possibility that Sir Francis may have been aware of antiquarian and later-day Druid, Rev William Stukeley and his theories about fertility rights and the Mother Goddess at Stonehenge.  Stukeley re vivified the Druid movement, and interest in a pre- Roman Britain, naming himself Chief Druid in 1722.

cimg3654

Cruikshank considers it is possible that Sir Francis, in the design of his gardens at West Wycombe and Medmenham, might in fact have been aiming less for a smutty joke, and more at a nod towards the Goddess.  Another alternative he considers, could be that the Order in fact represented a humanist tradition, questioning traditional morality and the confines of the established religion of the time… either way, he is impressed with the result, stating:

‘They [the gardens] remain an outstanding example of the libertine vision of antiquity, a perfect fusion of nature, the classical world, ancient British traditions and virtually ungoverned sexual encounter.’ [3]

The Rakes Progress by Hogarth.

The Rakes Progress by Hogarth.

Who were the Monks and Nuns of Medmenham?

Paul Whitehead, Secretary of the Club.

Paul Whitehead, Secretary of the Club.

Sir Francis was the founder, but did not always act as the Abbot, this role seems to have been rotated amongst members of the inner circle.  The loyal Paul Whitehead, known as The Aged Paul, was club steward, George Bubb Doddington was also a key member (and a bequest from him funded the completion of the octagonal Mausoleum).  Later members include the notorious John Wilkes, whose political spat with fellow monk, and founding member, the Earl of Sandwich, would expose the activities of the club to censure and cement its notoriety in the public imagination.

Chevalier d'Eon by Thomas Stewart, bought by the National Portrait Gallery. Click for full picture. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery, London

Chevalier d’Eon by Thomas Stewart. NPG.

There have been many suggestions of other possible members, some more likely than others and encompassing both the famous and infamous of eighteenth century ‘celebrities’.  From Benjamin Franklin, founding father of the USA and fan of the madness inducing glass harmonica, Chevalier D’Eon the sexually ambiguous cross-dressing French Spy, and George Selwyn the eighteenth centuries own necrophiliac ‘gentleman sadist’, to name but a few.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague, in Turkish Dress.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague, in Turkish Dress.

Ladies were also reported to be members, with the Lady Mary Wortley Montague being perhaps the most illustrious.  She was certainly a member of Sir Francis’s other clubs, however it has been suggested her membership may have been honorary due to her advanced age, and the fact that she spent much of her time abroad.  It was rumored that many noble ladies attended the club in disguise, in order to conduct affairs, and it would seem likely that many of the members would have brought their mistresses to partake of the delights of Medmenham.  It also seems likely that Sir Francis was shipping in the creme of societies courtesans to act as naughty nuns.  The beautiful Fanny Murray, famed courtesan and former mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, was almost certainly a member.

Fanny Murray by Thomas Johnson. Via Wikimedia.

Fanny Murray by Thomas Johnson. Via Wikimedia.

That Devil Wilkes – the beginning of the end

John Wilkes by Hogarth.

John Wilkes by Hogarth.

The Medmenham Set have sometimes been seen as a sinister political cabal, pulling strings and being implicated in all manner of conspiracies.  In fact, many of them did eventually take a role in government, in the ill-fated ministry of Lord Bute.   The Friars certainly attracted many of disaffected ‘opposition’ during the period of Robert Walpole’s ‘Robinocracy’.  The eventual undoing of the club occurred during a political cat-fight between the Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes (a hell-raiser and famously known as the ugliest man in Britain).

Now for the baboon story. Some say, Earl Sandwich had a bee in his bonnet about John Wilkes following an incident involving a baboon dressed as the devil.  John Wilkes is alleged to have hidden the baboon in a chest, releasing it mid ceremony in a pant-wetting moment for the Earl of Sandwich.  (Alas, this story seems to originate in a pornographic tale called ‘Chrysal: the adventure of a golden Guinea’ in 1766 and is unlikely to be true…although oddly enough the club may have actually owned a baboon).  In any event, the antipathy between the two spilled over into the a very public political antagonism which got dirty very quickly. Sandwich tried to get Wilkes expelled from parliament because of his connection with a pornographic poem, ‘Essay on Woman’, even going so far as to read out selected saucy passages to suitably horrified/titillated MPs. Wilkes struck back in 1763 by writing of the antics of the Friars and exposing them to the full glare of public opprobrium:

‘The favourite doctrine was not penitence, for in the centre of the orchard was a grotesque figure, and in his hand he had a reed stood with flaming tips of fire.  To use Milton’s expression, Pente Tente (penitence) or Peni Tenti (erection).’ [4]

Wilkes also hinted that Pagan practices, by way of some form of English Eleusinian Mysteries dedicated to the Bona Dea (good Goddess), were performed.

It was now open season for speculation, an updated version of Chrysal came out in 1766 elaborating and embroidering upon Wilkes’s revelations, and so the Hell-fire reputation began to form…and fiction became accepted as fact.

‘Every sacred right of religion was profaned, hymns and prayers were dedicated to the Devil ‘ the monks, it was alleged carried out  ‘gross lewdness and impiety’

The club limped on for a while, but political scandal and public censure took its toll.  Curious tourists visited the Abbey post-Wilkes.  But the memory of the Friars of Medmenham lived on, in fiction and the popular imagination.  What was probably posh boys having naughty boozy weekends with perhaps a little light paganism thrown in, became the stuff of Hell-fire legend and infamy.

It seems fitting to end on a poignant little tale, in 1781 the ghost of ‘Aged Paul’ (Whitehead), whose heart was interred at the famous octagonal Mausoleum, appeared at West Wycombe and was seen beckoning and signalling.  Dashwood’s own sister was a witness to this manifestation.  It is said that upon hearing of the apparition, Sir Francis knew it was his loyal old friend come for him, and he died soon after. One can only hope that they continue their carousing in spirit. [5]

The Mausoleum, where the heart of Paul Whitehead was interred. Image by Lenora.

The Mausoleum, where the heart of Paul Whitehead was interred. Image by Lenora.

Sources and notes

Arnold, Catharine, ‘City of Sin, London and its Vices’, 2010, Simon & Schuster. [1] [2]

Ashe, Geoffrey,  ‘Sex, Rakes and Libertines, The Hell-fire Clubs’, 2005, Sutton. [5]

Cruikshank, Dan, ‘The Secret History of Georgian London’, 2010, Windmill Books. [3]

Dashwood, Sir Francis, ‘The Dashwoods of West Wycombe’, 1987, Aurum Press.

Lord, Evelyn, ‘The Hell-Fire Clubs, Sex, Satanism and Secret Societies’, 2008, Yale University Press. [4]

Image sources

Garden: Citation: Jason M. Kelly, “A Nymphaeum and a Temple to Venus in an Eighteenth-Century English Garden,” Secrets of the Hellfire Club Blog (8 March 2012), …

 

 

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A Whiff of Brimstone: the Original Hell-fire Club

08 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Lenora in Bizarre, General, History

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Bishop Wake, blasphemy, Duke of Wharton, eighteenth century history, England, George I, Georgian clubs, hell fire, Hell-fire Club, hellfire, jacobites, Lucy Loftus, Philip, satanism, secret societies

London 1721:  The King uncovers Satanism in High Society

220px-London_Gazette(1705)WikiOn the 28 April 1721 the London Gazette reported on the Governments attempts to quash the nefarious activities of a group of young persons, both men and women, drawn from the cream of society, whose outrageously irreligious behaviour was thought to be causing moral anarchy and endangering the very fabric of society.  Although not named directly, the main target of the King and the government’s legislation was the notorious Hell-Fire Club.

His Majesty have received Information, which gives great Reason to suspect that there have lately been and still are, in and about the Cities of London and Westminster, certain scandalous Clubs or Societies of young Persons who meet together, and in the most impious and blasphemous Manner insult the most sacred Principles of Holy Religion, affront Almighty God himself, and corrupt the Minds and Morals of one another;

London Gazette, 28th April 1721

A Tabloid Drama unfolds

As soon as the activities of the Clubs became public knowledge, moral panic and prurient interest walked hand in hand and the flames of public interest were fanned enthusiastically by the press.  The early eighteenth century was a time of coffee houses and clubs where newspapers were widely circulated, read and re-read, often read out loud to those who could not themselves read.  The news that there was a blasphemous secret society or club, right in the heart of London’s high society was a sensation.  People clammered for details of the clubs membership and activities.  It was even rumoured that one of the Queen’s Ladies in Waiting was a member – leading King George I to order an investigation of his own household.

The Club was alleged to have met in Westminster, Conduit Street and Somerset House and the illustration below published in 1721 in a pamphlet entitled ‘The Hellfire Club: kept by a society of Blasphemers’ shows an imagined meeting of the Somerset House Hellfire club.

AN00254238_001_l BM Collection

‘The diabolical maskquerade, or the dragons-feast as acted by the Hell-Fire-Club, at Somerset House in the Strand’. 1721 © Trustees of the British Museum

According to Appleby’s Journal, reporting after the club had come to public attention, the Hellfire club comprised about 40 persons of whom, scandalously, 15 were ladies of quality.  Appleby’s also reported that members routinely dressed up as Biblical characters, took the names of patriarchs and sought to mock Christianity.  They imbibed ‘Hellfire punch’ and dined on Holy Ghost Pie (an imitation host made with angelic root), Devils Loins and Breast of Venus. It was also claimed that if a member died they became the club’s ‘Ambassador in Hell’.  One can almost imagine Appleby’s Journal as the ‘Daily Mail’ of its day – with stolidly respectable readers being at once shocked, outraged and titillated by these antics.

A Touch of Brimstone, Avengers,

A Touch of Brimstone, Avengers, 1966, produced by Brian Clemens and Julian Wintle

From Blasphemy to Satanism

The most damning accusation levelled at the Hellfire club was of mocking the Trinity: nibbling on Holy Ghost Pie while dressed as a patriarch and fornicating with the Lady Hellfire was pretty much guaranteed to get the Establishment frothing at the mouth…. Mists Weekly Journal from 20th February 1720 referred to the Hellfire club as having:

“transcendent Malignity: deriding the forms of Religion as a Trifle.  By a natural Progression they turn to Substance; with Lucifer they fly at Divinity”  concluding that “Ladies shield their faces because of the whiff of brimstone when they pass” (Lord p52)

Baphomet

Baphomet, Public Domain image via Wikimedia

Actual reliable evidence about the activities of the club is extremely scarce, as Evelyn Lord points out in her book ‘The Hell-Fire Clubs: Sex, Satanism and Secret Societies’. Most of the alleged activities reported above appeared in Journals well after the club’s existence was exposed.  And, even in their lurid and oh so very tabloid accounts, evidence of actual Devil Worship seems limited to toasting the devil and generally misbehaving.  So why then, did the Hell-fire club(s) gain a reputation for Satanic practices?

The answer seems to lie in the mind of Bishop Wake the Bishop helped to draft the Bill against the Hell-fire club(s).  His main aim was to uphold Anglican Orthodoxy and the settlement of 1688 against the rise of Jacobitism and the perceived Catholic threat following the failed Jacobite uprising in 1715.  He considered that anyone denying the Trinity must ipso-facto be in league with the Devil.  Hence the Hell-fire Club’s activities fell by default into the category of not only blasphemy, but effectively Satanism as well.

But was there more to the suppression of the Hell-fire club than upholding the state religion and protecting the morals of the nation?  It would seem so…

The man behind the Diabolical Maskquerade

480px-DukeOfWharton

Philip, The 1st Duke of Wharton, public domain image via Wikipedia

Enter Philip, Duke of Wharton.  Brilliant, charming, charismatic, rebellious, debauched, rake-hell and libertine extraordinaire.  The dyspeptic Alexander Pope described him as: “The scorn and wonder of our days” (Cruikshank p390)

Philip was born in 1698 the grandson of a Puritan (!), son of the author of the Lillibularo and Lucy Loftus (a lady whose beauty had been the toast of the famous Kit Cat Club).

Philip was given a vigorous education, ranging from maths to metaphysics, the classics to Shakespeare.  He also excelled at languages and was a talented mimic.  Destined for a fast-track career as a statesman, his family were horrified when at 17 he eloped with the daughter of a penniless Major-General.  It was rumoured that his father was so distraught that the marriage could not be annulled that he died only weeks later.  No doubt a sad event, but one that left the wild-child heir free of paternal control.

In order to reign in the wayward heir, he was packed off by his trustees on a Grand Tour of the continent.  Not the usual fun places like France and Italy where a good time could definitely be had; but to the austerely protestant Holland, Hanover and Geneva.  However this dull itinerary did not suit the wayward Duke, he ditched his tutors in Geneva in 1716 and headed directly for the epi-centre of sophistication and the heart of the Jacobite court in exile – Paris.  Here an anecdote relating to his meeting with a Jacobite exile named Gwynne, living in a Parisian garret, which reveals his already outrageous personality:

“Philip said he hoped the stairs didn’t lead up to heaven, because if they did he would go down again, and invite Gwynne to join him in Hell, where he was to be the Devil’s lord of the bed-chamber”  (Ashe p52)

After various other brushes with the Jacobite court in exile, including a meeting with the Old Pretender himself, Philip returned via Ireland to England.

Perhaps concerned by this prominent figure’s Jacobite exploits, George I gave Philip a Dukedom in 1718. If he hoped it would cement his loyalty, George was wrong.  Taking up his role as statesman Wharton soon became a vociferous critic of Robert Walpole, the de-facto Prime Minister of England and representative of Whig party interests.  In his opposition to Walpole and the Whig parties hold over politics Geoffrey Ashe, in his book ‘The Hell-Fire Clubs’, credits Philip with political importance as being the first to see opposition to the Whig ‘stranglehold’ on eighteenth century politics and patronage as crucial.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu by Jonathan Richardson the Younger public domain , via Wikimedia

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu by Jonathan Richardson the Younger public domain , via Wikimedia

Given his unconventional and rebellious nature it is unsurprising that Philip was the founding member and creator of the original Hell-fire club.  As noted above Clubs were all the rage in the very sociable eighteenth century – and not all of them were as respectable as the Kit Cat Club. In 1712 the Mohocks, a gang of gentlemen, terrorised London with their violent antics; and Daniel Defoe wrote of “a pagan circle, near Old Charing, where God was owned, sworn by, imprecated, blasphemed, and denied all in one breath”. (Lord p47). 

Wharton appears to have started the Hell-fire Club at sometime in 1720.  Evelyn Lord notes that his son died at about the same time, Wharton had left his wife and began associating with the unpleasantly nick-named ‘Rape Master General’: Colonel Charteris.  Perhaps the two of them dreamt up the Hellfire Club as the ultimate rebellion against the solidly mercantile respectability promoted by Georgian Society. 

Members were said to include Viscount Hillsborough and Sir Edmund O’Brien.  It was rumoured the famous Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was also a member. Evelyn Lord comments that Lady Mary first met and became friends with Wharton when he was living in Twickenham in 1722 – a year after the club folded.  Lady Mary appears to have written about a later club called the Schemers ( an orgiastic club set up by Lord Hillsborough) and this reference has become conflated with that of the Hellfire club. Her evident friendship with the scandalous duke added fuel to the fire and her name became linked to the Hellfire club.  (Lord p58).

Sedition and Secret Societies

The reasons that the Government feared clubs such as the Hell-fire club was that they could be hot-beds of sedition.  England in the first quarter of the eighteenth century wasn’t the bucolic fantasy of Fielding’s Tom Jones. Ever since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the protestant William of Orange had supplanted the Catholic James II, the Anglican’s had been edgy.

The_Old_Pretender_lands_in_Scotland,_1715

The Old Pretender Lands in Scotland, 1715. Public Domain via Wikimedia

The Government needed a tame clergy but not one with pretensions to Catholic style priestly interventions with the divine.  Hence the Convocation of the Church of England (who favoured this  view) was suspended in 1717.  The remaining clergy became pluralistic ‘yes-men’.  Nevertheless maintaining the illusion of their moral authority was still important to the Establishment – especially after the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1715.  Add to this the disastrous South Sea Bubble Speculation that bankrupted everyone from Dukes to housemaids and the stability of early Georgian Society comes seriously into question.  Many people genuinely believed that the nation was being punished by God – so in the popular mind having a society of blaspheming Devil Worshipper’s at large in the capital might have been seen as a symptom of the declining morals of the nation and further anger God.

Neither could the government risk having possibly seditious secret societies such as the Hell-fire Club, run by a suspected Jacobite sympathiser, remain unchecked as they felt it could risk political instability and moral anarchy.  Add to this the personal enmity between Wharton and Walpole (who was the prime mover behind the Act) and it becomes clear that the Hell-fire Club’s days were numbered.

Spawn of Hell-fire

The Club, which had run for less than a year, was finished by 1721.  Banned by an Act of Parliament – although nobody was ever prosecuted.  The Duke of Wharton eventually left England and died in debt at the age of only 33 after a characteristically eventful exile.  He was eventually immortalised in fiction as the anti-hero Lovelace in Samuel Richardson’s novel ‘Clarissa Harlowe’.

The Hellfire club however, did not disappear from memory.  As well as the Grub Street Hacks who did much to create its infamy, many respectable persons wrote of it in their memoirs:  Mrs Delaney, William Whiston and others.  And it spawned many other Hellfire groups – particularly in Ireland (Wharton had spent some time in Ireland – even charming the notoriously misanthropic Dean Swift, of Gulliver’s Travels fame).  Many of those Irish clubs had much more claim to a Satanic reputation than Wharton’s club of blasphemers.

One final legacy left by the original Hellfire Club was that Wharton, in his will bequeathed what was left of his estate to the Lord Treasurer, one George Doddington.  ‘Bubb’ Doddington would later become infamous due to his association with perhaps the most famous Hell-fire club of all: The Monks of Medmenham.  But that is a tale for another day!

Sources

Ashe, Geoffrey, 2005, The Hell-Fire Clubs, Sutton
Cruikshank, Dan, 2010, The Secret History of Georgian London, Windmill
Lord, Evelyn, The Hell-Fire Clubs: Sex, Satanism and Secret Societies, 2008, Yale

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