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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 THE STORY OF DOROTHY JORDAN
 
 BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE EARLY COURT OF 
 QUEEN VICTORIA 
 
 THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 QUEEN VICTORIA 
 
 THE FAIR LADIES OF 
 HAMPTON COURT 
 
 THE BEAUX AND THE 
 DANDIES 
 
 ELIZABETH IN SEARCH OF 
 A HUSBAND
 
 3Kerr. 
 
 ^~fs*>fa>Gv/U' J'&faLa,'??/, 
 
 /s&'
 
 THE STORY OF 
 DOROTHY JORDAN 
 
 BY 
 
 CLARE JERROLD 
 
 AUTBOR OF 
 ' THH KARLV COURT OP QUERN VICTORIA," KTf. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE 
 COLLECTIONS OF A. M. BROADLEY AND OTHERS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 1914
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN Mrs. Jordan's life "delightful Mrs. Jordan, 
 whose voice did away the cares of the whole house " 
 there was no mystery : she was frank, gay and 
 sensible, holding reserve only upon those things which 
 she thought might discredit people whom she loved. 
 Yet her biographers, Sir Jonah Barrington and James 
 Boaden, managed to find mystery at every step of her 
 career. The mystery about the date and place of her 
 birth was simple enough : firstly, no one tried to solve 
 it, and secondly, Mrs. Jordan had no wish for people 
 to say that she was nearly four years older than the 
 Duke of Clarence ; has it not always been a woman's 
 privilege to be vague about the year of her birth? 
 The mystery about her father's and mother's station 
 in life needed seeking in the right direction, though 
 that which surrounded their asserted marriage was 
 perhaps more difficult. The reason generally given 
 for the adoption of the name of Jordan rests only on 
 the word of that genial and self-complacent boaster, 
 Tate Wilkinson, who gives several versions of his 
 share in that matter. Whether the Duke took money 
 from her or she took money from him has been the 
 cause of another argument; her biographers hastily 
 scouting the first idea with royal scorn. Her separa- 
 tion from the Duke, after twenty years of life together, 
 and the cause of her exile, were deliberately turned into 
 mystery by the two contemporary writers, one of whom 
 
 1221887
 
 vi Preface 
 
 at least professed to know all the circumstances. 
 James Boaden, author, dramatist, dramatic critic and 
 editor of the Oracle, even tried to make a mystery of 
 the last event of all, and adduced facts to prove that 
 Mrs. Jordan was not dead. 
 
 Why should all this have been, seeing what an open- 
 hearted, downright woman she was ? The reason was 
 not far to seek. These two biographies were written 
 during the life of William IV; Barrington's before 
 1830, and Boaden's in 1830 and both these men wor- 
 shipped at the shrine of royalty; they kissed the feet 
 of the King, and, obedient creatures, strove hard to 
 blot from their pages everything which could hurt his 
 extremely delicate susceptibilities. The very strength 
 of their protestations as to the virtue and honour of 
 William partly gave their case away. In a recent 
 biography of Mrs. Jordan published when this book 
 was nearing completion there is also a tendency to 
 save the Duke's character at the woman's expense, by 
 throwing doubt upon statements adverse to him made 
 by the author of a third early book upon the actress's 
 life; an author who, undaunted save in declaring his 
 name, voiced during the reign of William the beliefs 
 of the multitude and the pronouncements of the day. 
 This anonymous writer added much to the accounts 
 given by Barrington concerning Mrs. Jordan's death 
 and burial. 
 
 In the present volume will be found authorized 
 statements, many of which have never before been 
 published, as to Dorothy Jordan's parentage, both on 
 her father's and mother's sides; as to her brothers, 
 sisters and other relatives, showing her to have been 
 the centre of a large family group; also indisputable
 
 Preface vii 
 
 evidence of the date of her birth and baptismal name, 
 hitherto frankly regarded as impossible of discovery. 
 A new reason is here suggested, based upon family 
 matters, for her adoption of the theatrical name of 
 Jordan; here is her own evidence as to the Duke's 
 constant acceptance of benefit from her work, and 
 legal proof as to the way in which he repaid part of the 
 sums she lent him. Here from contemporary writings 
 is shown why she and the Duke parted, and why she 
 went to France ; and here is conclusive evidence of her 
 death. Thus much new light is thrown, not only upon 
 the life of Dorothy Jordan, but upon the character 
 of that obstinate, erratic, stupid, good-natured and 
 intensely selfish King known as William IV. 
 
 For the knowledge which I have been so fortunate 
 as to obtain I am grateful to many friends. First and 
 foremost to Mr. A. M. Broadley, who, possessing a 
 large number of Mrs. Jordan's autograph letters and 
 other documents, suggested the writing of this book, 
 lent me all he had on the subject, and gave many of 
 the illustrations. Mr. Broadley had already caused 
 the registers of and around Waterford the place 
 usually assigned to her birth to be searched, and as 
 these gave no proof, pointed out to me the place where 
 it might be and was found. It was he, also, who 
 instituted inquiries at St. Cloud, the place of her death, 
 and successfully discovered valuable evidence. 
 
 Another most kind and valued helper has been 
 Mr. J. Franklin Fuller, F.S.A., of Dublin, a descend- 
 ant of the Bland family, who has not only lent me 
 priceless books and letters, but at much expense of 
 time to himself has aided me in clearing up disputed 
 points, secured for me portraits of Mrs. Jordan's
 
 viii Preface 
 
 relatives and the right of quoting from family corre- 
 spondence. To these two I owe more than I can 
 repay. 
 
 I offer my grateful acknowledgments to the Earl 
 of Munster for permission to reproduce the statue of 
 Mrs. Jordan, executed by Chantrey; to Mr. Horace 
 Bleackley, M.A., who kindly allowed me to consult 
 in his library otherwise unobtainable books and maga- 
 zines; to Mr. Richard Kelly and Mr. W. J. Lawrence, 
 who together gave me the key which opened one door 
 of knowledge; to General Thomas Bland Strange, 
 R.A., for permission to use letters; to Mr. William 
 Roberts for information concerning the portraits of 
 Dorothy Jordan; and also to Mrs. White of Dublin, 
 Major L. Hewson and Messrs. Duveen Brothers for 
 permission to reproduce pictures. 
 
 CLARE JERROLD. 
 
 Hampton-on- Thames.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAf. 'AGE 
 
 i DOROTHY'S FAMILY n 
 
 ii DOROTHY'S PARENTS 31 
 
 III THAT RUFFIAN DALY 4^ 
 
 IV "IT! THE GREAT TREASURE" 56 
 
 V DOROTHY AND THE BRITISH PUBLIC . . . 8 1 
 
 VI RIVALRY AND LOVE ..... . 99 
 
 VII SUCCESS AND FAILURE II? 
 
 VIII A RELAPSE . . . - > j-jrrfj *3 2 
 
 IX THE PRINCE AND MR. FORD . ,,..; . . . 146 
 
 X THE PRINCE 163 
 
 XI DOMESTICITY AND WORK . . . '"',""' . . 183 
 
 XII FROM PETERSHAM TO BUSHY PARK .... 204 
 
 XIII FAMILY CARES . . , . 229 
 
 xiv "SLINGS AND ARROWS" . . . . . 248 
 
 XV DAME GOSSIP AND DOROTHY , . - . - . . . 269 
 
 XVI TOIL AND TROUBLE ''*' . . . . . 289 
 
 XVII THE SEPARATION . . . . . . .310 
 
 XVIII CUPID YERSUS CASH 333 
 
 XIX THOSE DOROTHY LOVED -. . -, -. , . 355 
 
 XX DEATH THE RELEASER . , . . 3?6 
 
 XXI THE DEAD AND THE LIVING . , . . . . 399 
 
 XXII GATHERED ENDS - 4'5 
 
 INDEX . . . 423
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 To fact page 
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN . . , . Frontispiece 
 
 (Front a painting by John Hoppner, R.A. Reproduced front a photograph 
 by kind permission- of Messrs. Duveen Brothers) 
 
 JUDGE BLAND . . . ... . . .24 
 
 DERRIQUIN CASTLE, SEA FRONT . 'P . . . . 34 
 
 *DOROTHY JORDAN, RICHARD DALY AND FRANCES DALY 
 
 (MRS. ALSOP) . , , r , 54 
 
 *DOROTHY JORDAN AS PEGGY IN THE COUNTRY GIRL . . 82 
 
 (After Romney) 
 
 WILLIAM, DUKE OF CLARENCE . . -, ' \ " V' . . 148 
 
 (front a miniature by Cosway) 
 
 *SIR RICHARD FORD AND LIEUT. CHARLES POWLETT DOYNE . l8o 
 
 *DOROTHY JORDAN AS HYPOLITA IN SHE WOULD AND SHE 
 
 WOULD NOT 2 2O 
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN AS THE COMIC MUSE .... 304 
 
 (From a mezzotint after Hoppner in the collection of ike Cunard Company) 
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN . . . > , ./ .... 346 
 
 (From a pastel by John Russell, R.A.) 
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN 418 
 
 (from the statue by Chantrey in the possession of the Earl ofAfunster) 
 
 * These illustrations are reproduced from prints in the 
 Collection of Mr. A. M. Broadley.
 
 THE 
 STORY OF DOROTHY JORDAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DOROTHY'S FAMILY 
 
 " What is known can seldom be immediately told, and when it might 
 be told it is no longer known." MALEY'S Historical Recollections. 
 
 " How happy the soldier who lives on his pay, 
 And spends half-a-crown out of sixpence a day." 
 
 From a song sung by Dorothy Jordan. 
 
 IF there is one person in our later history who might 
 stand as the type of motherhood, it is Dorothy Bland, 
 later known as Mrs. Jordan. Her great yet unblessed 
 quality was protectiveness, and from her childhood she 
 expended her sympathy and help upon those who were 
 weak and appealing; in her girlhood she supported 
 those who should have worked for her, in her woman- 
 hood she spent herself upon her children and upon 
 the helpless man who, thinking he conferred honour, 
 made extravagant demands upon her income, her 
 strength and her love. She gave with both hands, 
 gave honestly and fearlessly, and though in middle 
 life she refused to go penniless when called upon to 
 stand bereft of all before the world, yet she never took 
 back the love she had given, never publicly uttered a 
 word of reproach against the Duke who cast her entirely 
 
 ii
 
 12 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 out of his life, while her daughter led the dance at the 
 Regent's balls and her sons were accepted naturally 
 in Court circles. 
 
 A hundred and twenty years ago social morality was 
 much the same as it is now : a man might become the 
 lover of many women, and only add a glorified halo 
 to his reputation ; but the woman who, in addition to 
 having a lover was not in an assured social position, 
 was condemned. An actress was, ipso facto, without 
 the pale, and the curious thing was that it was not so 
 much Society which judged as the intellectual portion 
 of the community, that very portion which now is 
 striving to equalize the standard of morality between 
 man and woman, which is beginning to assert that what 
 is sin in the one is sin in the other. When Dorothy 
 Jordan lived, however, the gay and frivolous cared 
 very little what she had done, and they felt quite able 
 to judge between her and the Prince; it remained for 
 the staid, reforming writers to expend their wrath and 
 indignation over the woman who was the centre of a 
 royal scandal. It was the virtuous British public which 
 screamed itself hoarse in reprobation of her, and then 
 went into the street to cheer the Duke of Clarence's 
 carriage as it splashed mud over them from the gutter. 
 After Dorothy's death that same public screamed at 
 the Duke and wept for her. So far as the public went 
 it implied no more than that it loved to have its 
 feelings well moved, and that any determined hand 
 could thoroughly stir up the puddle of popular 
 emotion. 
 
 When Boaden, in 1830, brought out a life of Mrs. 
 Jordan, some critic asked why such a person should be 
 brought into notice at all. Cobbett, too, raked up an
 
 Dorothy's Family 13 
 
 old story and in extreme scorn spoke of her as " Mother 
 Jordan," thus giving her the great title that really all 
 the world loves. Dr. Townsend Young expressed his 
 belief in her wickedness when, in the chapter upon her 
 that he added to Sir Jonah Harrington's Personal 
 Sketches, he did it, as he piously said, " not merely to 
 enhance the value of this volume by gratifying the 
 curiosity created by Mrs. Jordan's name, but also to 
 assert the dignity and safety of principle, to point a 
 moral, and to indicate the consoling maxim, 'Virtue 
 alone is happiness below.' ' 
 
 That Dorothy was not virtuous in the way he meant 
 was not her fault; the desire of her life was to be 
 legally married, and she fought hard for the fulfilment 
 of that desire, but circumstances were too strong for her. 
 She was born illegitimate, though her parents lived 
 together for fifteen years; she was forced by threats 
 to bear an illegitimate child, and later, sophistries 
 and broken promises put her into the position of an 
 unmarried wife. Then she gave up the struggle and 
 frankly became a mistress, and from that time held 
 the post of whipping-boy to the Duke of Clarence. 
 Her most important biographers, in the frantic desire 
 to lick the Duke's boots, regarded his grasping selfish- 
 ness as but the manifestation of some amiable weak- 
 ness on the woman's part. They were men, and they 
 felt, even if unconsciously, the natural sex bias for the 
 Duke. Up to the present day all who have written 
 upon Dorothy Jordan have sung to the same note. 
 They praise, they pity, they admire, but through every 
 phase of their recitals, there rings a faint cynicism, a 
 consciousness that the subject of their memoirs was, 
 after all, only a light woman, and so not to be treated
 
 14 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 by an ordinary standard; they feel a little apologetic, 
 too, that such a matter should engage their attention, 
 and a little ashamed of the fascination that it holds for 
 them. They cannot believe that this woman can have 
 wielded a good influence over a Royal Duke, and so 
 they leave alone this side of her character, and spend 
 pages in trying to prove that only a few harmless 
 episodes can be recorded against him, and that his 
 worst fault was a want of tact. 
 
 So Dorothy Jordan is now remembered as a 
 renowned actress, a person of low origin, one who 
 knew not her grandfathers, who lived a mistress and 
 who died mysteriously. While the general idea of 
 William is that he possessed bluff, hearty ways, 
 showed faithful affection to his wife Adelaide, and 
 love for his children ; that he was a man of hot temper, 
 was sometimes rude to those who annoyed him, was 
 even sometimes a little stupid, but that he was the best 
 of the .Georgian line of kings, indeed, as good a king 
 as he knew how to be. 
 
 But would King William IV have been even so 
 much as this had it not been for Dorothy Bland if 
 she had not rescued him from the companionship of 
 his dissipated brothers, if she had not given him twenty 
 years of her life, fostered his domestic instincts, kept 
 him respectable when all other surroundings tempted 
 him into irregularities, and often filled his empty purse 
 with her hard-earned money? 
 
 By him she had ten healthy children, whose numer- 
 ous descendants appear in Debrett and The Landed 
 Gentry -, and most of whom founded or strengthened 
 our noble families. Among them now, at least, her 
 name is honoured, even though her eldest son and
 
 Dorothy's Family 15 
 
 daughter were too uplifted by their father's rank to 
 remember their mother. But Elands and Fitzclarences 
 alike now prize the memory of the gallant, loyal, little 
 woman to whom laughter was life, and who died 
 despairingly when tears burned her cheeks and sorrow 
 filled her heart. 
 
 Strangely enough the great purist, Queen Victoria 
 herself, helped to pick Dorothy out of the contemptu- 
 ous public indifference, when she allowed her grand- 
 daughter, our Princess Royal, the daughter of King 
 Edward and a sister of our present King, to marry the 
 Duke of Fife, a great-grandson of Dorothy through 
 her daughter Elizabeth. Queen Victoria, before her 
 moral sentiments became too rigid, was very tender- 
 hearted, and to Dorothy's family she was always good, 
 even to the extent of allowing from her own purse an 
 annuity of 100 a year to Hester, the actress's eldest 
 sister, until her death in 1848. 
 
 If mother-love was Dorothy's strongest quality, its 
 cousin, loyalty, was almost as sturdy. From the first 
 to the last she uttered no complaint against those who 
 put their burdens on her shoulders, an insincere and 
 weak father, a dependent mother, incapable brothers 
 and sisters, selfish children, and the broken reed of a 
 man upon whom she put her trust ; she bore with them 
 all, through good and ill, and, as far as those outside 
 her home knew, their faults were for her writ in water. 
 
 " Had he left me to starve I would never have 
 uttered a word to his disadvantage ! " she once said of 
 the Duke, and she meant it. To the end of her life 
 she shielded him and all of them with a fine generosity, 
 and they all took it as a matter of course, and left 
 her to face loneliness and death unshielded herself.
 
 1 6 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Surely an account of her life is worth writing, not 
 so much by way of categorical description of her daily 
 round and common task, as in revealment of her 
 character and as an account of the romance which from 
 first to last hovered round her. Yet it may be wondered 
 whether the strength of romantic love ever claimed 
 her personally, whether in her youth she had the 
 chance of expending herself upon one whose touch 
 could send a thrill through her veins, or whose glance 
 could bring a glow to her face. 
 
 Daly, the man who in her girlhood regarded her 
 simply as a feminine thing placed naturally within his 
 grasp, she loathed with all her heart. Richard Ford ! 
 she must have liked him well to have accepted him, 
 but there is no proof that she loved him with any 
 intensity. When it came to the Duke of Clarence girl- 
 hood had departed, her life was arranged, and romance 
 had fled on the delicate wings of innocence. Yet faith- 
 ful love and loyalty remained, and these she nurtured 
 and poured out upon him and her children. There 
 were many storms in her existence, and there were 
 exquisite times of happiness as there must always be 
 for one who loves much ; but the whole was completed 
 by months of martyrdom caused by those she had 
 cherished, by their stupidity, their self-love and the 
 fatal fault of leaving to others to do the thing that 
 should have been done by themselves. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It has not been easy to determine the parentage and 
 early surroundings of Dorothy Jordan, for the earliest 
 publications about her were not correct, yet correct 
 enough to be generally disbelieved, as they showed 
 her birth to be not altogether despicable. Probably
 
 Dorothy's Family 17 
 
 the first published account of her was in a number of 
 the Town and Country Magazine in 1786, though it 
 was very slight. James Boaden, who was a journalist 
 and who knew her personally, gives in his Life of Mrs. 
 Jordan a by no means true account of her parents, but 
 he followed other publications which had never been 
 contradicted, and he was partly right. Jordan's Elixir 
 of Life, first published in 1788, provided the best sum- 
 mary that can be found. This little book was a selec- 
 tion of songs sung by her, issued at a time when her 
 gaiety had infected the public, when crowds would 
 gather at the stage door to watch her step into her 
 carriage, and when her acting, her salary, and her 
 private life formed the staple topic of conversation 
 among theatre lovers. 
 
 The Elixir gave her a father, Captain Bland, a 
 mother, Grace Philipps, a maternal grandfather, 
 paternal relatives, four brothers and sisters, a birth- 
 year which was quite wrong, and declared her to be 
 an orphan. This was followed by an article in the 
 anonymous Secret History of the Green Room (written 
 by Joseph Haslewood, about 1791), in which these 
 facts were amplified; and the Bon Ton Magazine, 
 which had been in the habit of giving criticisms of her 
 in its monthly parts, practically lifted the " Secret 
 History" article for its March number of 1793. This 
 Bon Ton Magazine, or Microscope of Fashion and 
 Folly, was issued monthly for some years, and 
 regarded as interesting reading for Society was most 
 extraordinary in its vulgarity of moral tone and its 
 erotic prints. Yet quite as indecent pictures were 
 published by the caricaturists and sold to the populace 
 as well as to those whose opportunities for licentious-
 
 1 8 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ness were increased by wealth and position. If these 
 things were produced because as the newspaper 
 people say of their productions now they were what 
 the public wanted, then the Royal Princes have been 
 somewhat hardly treated in being regarded as the 
 supreme exponents of the vices of their age. For a 
 magazine of this sort could not have been published 
 for a decade had it not been popular enough to pay for 
 its production. Each month inter alia it contained 
 an account of some vulgar amour among notable 
 people, accompanied by a picture emphasizing their 
 follies; and seemingly no protest was ever offered. 
 This magazine, however, appears not to have been 
 considered worthy of preservation, for there are very 
 few copies now in existence, the only one I know of 
 being in the possession of Mr. Horace Bleackley. 
 
 The next detailed account of Dorothy Bland was 
 considerably later, when between the years 1826 and 
 1831 Sir Jonah Harrington published the story of her 
 death as well as many reminiscences of her in his 
 volumes of Personal Sketches. James Boaden's long 
 and rambling Life of the actress up to the present 
 regarded as the standard biography was written in 
 1830, and was quickly followed by that peculiar and 
 most interesting publication The Great Illegitimates, 
 a collection not only of personal reminiscences, but of 
 much that had appeared in the daily papers, as well 
 as the usual biographical items. This book, which is 
 now extremely rare and not to be found either in the 
 British Museum or the London Library, but of which 
 I know of two copies, one in the library of Mr. Broadley 
 and one in that of Mr. J. Franklin Fuller, was styled 
 on its front page " The Great Illegitimates. The
 
 Dorothy's Family 19 
 
 public and private life of that celebrated actress, Miss 
 Bland, otherwise Mrs. Ford or Mrs. Jordan, late mis- 
 tress of H.R.H. Duke of Clarence, now King William 
 IV, founder of the Fitzclarence family; delineating 
 the vicissitudes attendant on her early life, the splen- 
 dour of her noon-tide blaze as mistress of the Royal 
 Duke, and her untimely dissolution at St. Cloud, near 
 Paris resulting from a broken heart." This, accom- 
 panied by numerous remarks and anecdotes of illus- 
 trious and fashionable characters, was written by a 
 " confidential friend of the departed." 
 
 There have been various guesses as to who the 
 confidential friend could have been, but it is possible 
 that the outspoken book is the anonymous work of 
 Robert Huish, for a great part of it is included as 
 original matter in his History of the Life and Reign 
 of William IV ', published in 1837. It has been sug- 
 gested that Boaden wrote it, but this is unthinkable, 
 seeing that he is subjected to much scorn in its pages 
 for his obsequiousness to royalty. 
 
 In all these biographies the date of Dorothy's birth 
 is given as 1762, 1764, or 1766, the earliest date being 
 the most frequent; in all but the Elixir of Life the 
 place is given as Waterford, or near Waterford. There 
 was, indeed, no question raised about it even in 
 Dorothy Eland's lifetime, and in spite of the excite- 
 ment caused by her death in 1816, and the fiercer 
 excitement raised in 1824 when her creditors were 
 advertised to receive five shillings in the pound, no 
 writer upon her then or subsequently tried to verify the 
 statements made. 
 
 Probably the first person who thought of doing this 
 was Mr. A. M. Broadley, who, possessing many auto-
 
 2O The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 graph letters and documents, had the registers in and 
 around Waterford searched, but drew blank, and felt 
 convinced that the account of Dorothy Eland's birth 
 in London was correct. Mr. J. Franklin Fuller, of 
 Dublin, seeking for Bland information, and also inter- 
 ested in the great comedian, discovered a mass of 
 evidence about Dorothy's mother's family which sets 
 all doubts at rest. 
 
 It is as well to sum up the story generally accepted 
 about Mrs. Jordan's parentage and early life before 
 relating the actual and authentic account. 
 
 Her mother was Grace Philipps, one of three sisters, 
 daughters of a clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Philipps. Her 
 father was a Captain Bland, who possessed a small 
 fortune. Being stationed in Wales, he met and fell in 
 love with Grace, inducing her to fly to Dublin with him, 
 where they were safely married by a Catholic priest, 
 both being under age. Captain Bland was the son of 
 a prominent civilian in Dublin, a doctor-at-law, who 
 was extremely angry when he found that his son had 
 married an actress (for Grace acted on the Dublin 
 stage) and still more angry when that son took to the 
 stage himself. To show his displeasure he stopped all 
 supplies, and reduced the young people to great diffi- 
 culties. However, they had many years' happiness 
 together, and were blessed with nine children; after 
 which Dr. Bland caused the marriage to be annulled 
 on the plea that it was contracted in nonage and with- 
 out his consent. Captain Bland then left his wife 
 and family and married " a nymph who adored him," 
 and who also possessed much money; but he there- 
 upon " endured agonies of conscience which no riches 
 could deaden, and sank into an early grave, the victim
 
 Dorothy's Family 21 
 
 of his own heartlessness." As long as he lived Cap- 
 tain Bland sent some of his new wife's money to his 
 family, but at his death they were left destitute, until 
 at last, to quote the style of the sentimental thirties, 
 "actuated by sentiments of common humanity, his 
 relatives afforded some relief to the offspring, but 
 totally abandoned the wretched mother to her fate." 
 
 The account in the Elixir of Life does not give 
 Bland military rank and does not mention a second 
 marriage, but states that after some years of happy 
 life together Bland, having a long and expensive ill- 
 ness, was sent to the south of France, but returned 
 home to Wales to die; Grace, for her part, being so 
 occupied with the cares of her family that she devoted 
 her time exclusively to it. This account was probably 
 inspired by Dorothy, that she might not only shield 
 her mother, but herself from the charge of illegitimacy. 
 Joseph Knight, in the Dictionary of National 
 Biography, says that the Elixir gives an untrust- 
 worthy account of her life; the story of the death of 
 Bland was certainly not altogether true, but in other 
 respects it was more trustworthy than all the other 
 accounts put together. Mr. Knight also believed that 
 Dorothy's father was merely a stage underling, and 
 that he was a scene-shifter at Cork when Dorothy was 
 acting there in 1778, a supposition based on a curious 
 error of identity which will be explained in its place. 
 Other accounts also ignore the statement in the Elixir 
 that Francis Bland was well connected, being cousin 
 to General James Johnston and to Sir Francis Lumm, 
 a statement which was quite true. 
 
 On the father's death the date is not given Mrs. 
 Bland was in Dublin, her two daughters being engaged
 
 22 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 in a milliner's shop in Dame Street, and eventually 
 Dolly went on the stage. The number of Dorothy's 
 brothers and sisters are variously estimated as four, 
 five and eight, the last being the favourite number, 
 though only two definitely appear in the published 
 histories and fragments about her life. In face of all 
 these vague and conflicting statements it is a satis- 
 faction to sift the false from the true, fill up gaps, 
 give an account of the families both of father and 
 mother, of the exact time and place of her birth, sweep 
 away the mysteries which have been said to envelop 
 her origin and later movements, the quarrel with the 
 Duke and her death, even to supply at least another 
 and perhaps more exact reason for the assumption of 
 the name of Jordan. 
 
 The following is the true account of her origin 
 Dorothy was of gentle birth on both sides, her 
 mother being one of the three daughters of the Rev. 
 Philipps of Carmarthenshire probably Richard 
 son of the Rev. Scuddamore Philipps of Kiffig, who 
 entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1702. 
 
 One of the Philipps sisters, who was named 
 Blanch Scuddamore Philipps, married a man named 
 Thomas Williams, of Trelethyn, a village in the west 
 of Wales, two miles from St. David's. The Rev. 
 [PRichard] Philipps may have had a living there or at 
 St. Davids, for exact knowledge as to his domicile is 
 wanting. But if he lived there with his daughters at 
 the western extremity of Wales, whence on fine days 
 the Wicklow hills can be dimly seen, it is curious to 
 think that a straight line drawn thence to the west of 
 Ireland would almost have passed over the house near 
 the western extremity of that country where dwelt the
 
 Dorothy's Family 23 
 
 lad who was to bring the second daughter, Grace, both 
 happiness and misery. In Derryquin Castle, near 
 Sneem, on the estuary of the Kenmare River, the 
 Atlantic waves washing the edges of its lawns, Francis 
 Bland, a beautiful if not a clever boy, was growing up 
 to manhood. These girls from the west of Wales 
 and this boy from the west of Ireland were to meet in 
 Dublin, a meeting which was on both sides brought 
 about by the positions of the fathers of the young 
 people. 
 
 A clergyman's life in a country place in the middle 
 of the eighteenth century was not altogether enviable, 
 and so the three daughters of the Rev. Mr. Philipps 
 determined that they had a choice between work and 
 poverty. Most girls would have accepted the lesson 
 taught them that their work lay at home, and that they 
 were destined to welcome both it and poverty. But 
 by some strange influence these girls had become 
 stage-struck, which was probably a sore grief to their 
 father, for an actor then had no status higher than that 
 of a strolling player and vagabond. 
 
 It seems as though the eldest girl tried a flight in 
 London first, as a Miss Philipps was acting Zara 
 in a play of that name in the season of 1755-6 at 
 Covent Garden when Thomas Sheridan was there, and 
 he, perhaps, engaged her to go to his theatre in Dublin 
 when he re-opened it in the autumn of 1756. In any 
 case, two or three the number is variously given of 
 the Philipps sisters appeared there then, with the 
 record of being determined to act together, and of 
 being able to supplement each other's parts. Hitch- 
 cock, the historian of the Irish stage, described them 
 as ladies who had received a finished and accomp-
 
 24 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 lished education. He asserts in one place that one 
 married an actor named Usher, but this seems wrong, 
 as all three can be accounted for. Blanch eventually 
 married Williams, and lived at Trelethyn for the rest 
 of her life. Another, Miss M. Philipps I have 
 adopted the family way of spelling the name did not 
 marry at all, but continued acting ; the other, generally 
 regarded as the second sister, Grace, became in course 
 of time the mother of Dorothy Bland, Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 At this time a man of great importance in Dublin 
 city was Judge Nathaniel Bland, for he was not only 
 a man of wealth and estate, but one of great attain- 
 ment as well as of great family, by which I do not 
 simply mean rich and powerful, but rather that it was 
 a family so prolific, so skilled and so energetic that 
 it made itself felt through centuries both in Eng- 
 land, Ireland and America. The name of Bland was 
 taken from Eland's Gill, a hamlet in the parish of 
 Sedbergh in the north of Yorkshire, where the Blands 
 long lived, and from the beginning of the fourteenth 
 century the family doings are recorded. 
 
 In 1303 a Bland was Mayor of London, and in the 
 same century Patricius de Bland of Yorkshire fur- 
 nished men to the king for expeditions against the 
 Scots. In 1557 a John Bland brought to England the 
 first intimation of the Spanish preparations for the 
 Armada, and from Sedbergh came the learned and 
 pious John Bland, M.A., Rector of Adisham in Kent, 
 who with three others suffered martyrdom by burning 
 at Canterbury in 1555. In 1560 one Adam Bland was 
 appointed Sergeant Skinner to Queen Elizabeth; two 
 hundred years later a Mary Bland was the grand- 
 mother of Lord Nelson, while Dean Bland was a
 
 JUDGE BLAND 
 
 (THE ORIGINAL on. TAINTING is IN THE POSSESSION OF MAJOR i.. IIEWSON)
 
 Dorothy's Family 25 
 
 figure in elegant literature as well as provost of Eton 
 in the early eighteenth century. 
 
 When Henry Viscount Sydney became Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland in 1692 he took with him as 
 chaplain James Bland, a descendant of the old family 
 stock, gave him the vicarage of Killarney and succes- 
 sively appointed him Archdeacon of Aghadoe and 
 Dean of Ardfert. This Bland married Lucy, the 
 daughter of Sir Francis Brewster, who held large 
 forfeited estates in Kerry. 
 
 This James Bland begat two sons and three 
 daughters, the eldest of whom was Francis, who 
 became the Vicar of Killarney after his father; the 
 second, Nathaniel, was born in 1702, and the daughters 
 were Lucy, Dorothea and Hester, a triad of names 
 which appears again and again in the Bland family; 
 one of these was grandmother to Lord Napier, the 
 conqueror of Scind. 
 
 But Nathaniel was the person of importance in this 
 generation, his great capacities bringing him honours, 
 even in his own country. In time he became a doctor- 
 at-law, held the Metropolitan Seal at Dublin, sitting 
 in that city as Judge in the Prerogative Court, and 
 he purchased Derryquin Castle, a beautiful house, 
 whether viewed from the sea or seen on the land side, 
 with its ivy covered and turreted walls. He married 
 twice : first with Diana Kemeys of Dublin, by whom 
 he had two sons, John and James, the elder of whom 
 he designed for the bar and the younger for the 
 Church. His second wife was Elizabeth Heaton 
 (wrongly named Lucy in Carlisle's genealogy) of 
 Mount Heaton, and by her he had three sons and three 
 daughters, the eldest son of this family being named
 
 26 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Francis and the second Nathaniel, the daughters being 
 again Lucy, Hester and Dorothy. 
 
 Though Nathaniel the elder had most generously 
 fulfilled all the hopes which his parents had enter- 
 tained concerning him, he was not to be so happy in 
 his own children ; yet at first he had great pleasure in 
 his eldest son John, of whose early life I must give a 
 slight sketch, because it has often been confused with 
 that of his young half-brother Francis, as in Actors of 
 the Century, by Frederick Whyte; because his doings 
 had a distinct influence on Dorothy's father and 
 because from time to time his name reappears in this 
 story. 
 
 John Bland inherited all his father's quickness and 
 cleverness, but this was accompanied by too great a 
 versatility, too much good humour, and a love of life 
 too widely spread. Destined for the bar he was 
 admitted at Lincoln's Inn early in 1741, but in March 
 of the same year threw up his profession and 
 entered the army, his enthusiasm being such that, 
 though nearly twenty years old, he became cornet in 
 Eland's Regiment of Dragoons, commanded by his 
 kinsman, General Humphry Bland. He carried the 
 colours in the battle of Dettingen and fought at 
 Fontenoy, being taken prisoner. On his escape he 
 joined, under General Honeywood, in the suppression 
 of the Scottish Rebellion of 1745 at Clifton Moor. 
 
 While in Scotland, or perhaps earlier, Bland became 
 friendly with a young man known as West Digges, 
 supposed to be the illegitimate son of John West, Earl 
 de la Warr, who was stationed there with his regiment. 
 Digges later left the army, probably because of an 
 accumulation of debt, and in 1749 appeared in Sheri-
 
 Dorothy's Family 27 
 
 dan's company on the Dublin stage. Here the young 
 men may have met again, in any case John Bland 
 suddenly took to the stage, and West Digges was 
 regarded as the tempter. 
 
 This was a terrific blow to Dr. Bland, one which 
 not only injured his pride, but overturned all the hopes 
 he had entertained of his brilliant but erratic son. 
 Could it be possible that a brave soldier, a clever 
 lawyer, the heir to Derryquin Castle and its lands, 
 above all, the son of Dr. Nathaniel Bland, one of the 
 most considerable men in Dublin, could stoop so low 
 as to strut and prance upon the boards for the amuse- 
 ment of the public ? Was it thinkable that such could 
 become a strolling player, a mere vagabond in the 
 eyes of the law? 
 
 Whatever arguments or entreaties were used, John 
 stuck to his point, and actually had the temerity to 
 appear on the stage as Polydore in The Orphan at 
 Covent Garden on the i7th of October, 1751. He 
 was not a success, though he certainly had no fair 
 trial, for Carlisle l said that " he was hissed off by the 
 merited indignation of his father's friends." 
 
 Then the deepest penalty of the family anger was 
 inflicted : banishment from his father's house, loss 
 of his allowance, total disinheritance, for Derryquin 
 Castle was not entailed; and greatest vengeance of 
 all his very name was erased from all further editions 
 of Burke's Landed Gentry. Carlisle mentions and 
 gives some particulars of him, but even he does not 
 think it worth while to state whether he married or had 
 children. 
 
 1 Collections for the History of the Ancient Family of Bland, by 
 Nicholas Carlisle.
 
 28 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Yet he did marry, though it is not known when or 
 whom, but he called his wife Nancy, and she either 
 was at the time of her marriage an actress or became 
 one later. John Bland had several children, and 
 through these sons and daughters he was progenitor 
 of an army of actors, musicians and composers (such 
 as William Howard Glover) and soldiers. Many of 
 the latter among them the Angelos served with dis- 
 tinction in India; while the Indian Mutiny, the Afghan 
 War and the South African War each claimed toll of 
 his blood. In face of this what a childish act it was 
 to erase his name from a printed book ! 
 
 But Dr. Nathaniel Bland resolutely shut his son 
 John out of his life, and bequeathed Derryquin Castle 
 to his second son, James the clergyman : his resent- 
 ment and anger being, one would think, sufficient to 
 frighten his other sons from ever even remembering 
 that there was any charm about the stage. Yet this 
 was not so, for his third son Francis followed his 
 step-brother John's example. 
 
 However, there was a difference in procedure. 
 Francis did not hurry to disport himself before the 
 public, he began by frequenting the theatre and 
 watching pretty Grace Philipps every night. 
 
 The various biographers place the meeting between 
 Grace and Francis in Wales, but the former left that 
 country in 1756, and the love affair did not develop 
 to any purpose until two years later, when Francis 
 Bland was twenty-two or twenty-three years of age. 
 
 By that date the two young people had fallen hope- 
 lessly in love, so hopelessly that Francis forgot his 
 filial duty, forgot the fate of his brother, and forgot 
 the havoc he might work in his family. Then it was
 
 Dorothy's Family 29 
 
 given out among the theatrical people that these two 
 lovers were married, and Grace became known as 
 Mrs. Francis, not as Mrs. Bland. 
 
 Francis Bland was a tall, good-looking man, 
 pleasant and kindly in manner, but never regarded 
 as clever. One biographer lamented that he was not 
 endowed with mental as well as personal attractions, 
 for though his appearance was " stately and comely," 
 his mind was " corrupt and depraved." But Francis 
 Eland's portrait 1 does not bear this out, and we must 
 judge the writer to be prejudiced by his sympathy for 
 Grace. 
 
 Much as I should like to prove that Francis and 
 Grace were man and wife by law as well as by natural 
 fact, it is beyond my powers. There is no legal proof 
 anywhere of the marriage or of its annulment, and if 
 there had been proof would Grace Bland not have 
 made a fight for the recognition of her children when 
 their father died? 
 
 It was in 1758 that the union took place, and in 
 1759, when two of the Philipps sisters seem to have 
 been absent from Dublin, Grace's first child was born, 
 receiving the name of Hester; who seemingly grew to 
 resemble her father both in good looks and in an 
 inability to make her own way in the world. 
 
 That Judge Bland found out the whole affair is 
 evident, that he was very angry is also certain, but as 
 Francis had not committed the final sin of making his 
 marriage legal there was some palliation. Yet the 
 rupture was bitter between father and son, and neither 
 would give way. Francis is said to have lost his 
 allowance, and in consequence to have taken to the 
 
 1 Unfortunately the miniature could not satisfactorily be reproduced.
 
 30 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 stage, and by so doing he put the seal on his father's 
 anger. Then in October 1760 the Judge died at 
 Currens, his will being proved on the 24th of that 
 month. 
 
 It is impossible not to be sorry for this proud man 
 who had won success for himself, and yet had found 
 such bitter disappointment in his two sons; it may 
 even be that the trouble with Francis accelerated his 
 end, for he was not turned sixty when he died. 
 
 Through the spring and autumn of 1760 two of the 
 Philipps sisters were acting at Smock Alley Theatre, 
 but in October as Hitchcock says " the two Miss 
 Philipps, with several of less note, returned to 
 England." 
 
 What would have been the natural thing for Francis 
 Bland to have done in these circumstances? He 
 was banished from his mother's home and execrated 
 by his family; he may have been without the means 
 of earning his living, though this is a disputed point, 
 and he had a wife and child to claim his attention. 
 It is impossible to judge otherwise than that he 
 accompanied Grace to England, and definitely threw 
 in his lot with hers.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 DOROTHY'S PARENTS 
 
 " Oh, what a simpleton am I 
 
 To make my bed at such a rate ! 
 Now lay me down, vain fool, and cry, 
 The true love seeks another mate. 
 No tears, alack, 
 Will call him back, 
 No tender words his heart allure; 
 I could bite 
 
 My tongue, through spite, 
 Some plague bewitched me, that's for sure." 
 
 Sung by Dorothy Bland in Dublin. 
 
 IT is very possible that in London, that Mecca of 
 the distressed, Francis knew that he should find his 
 brother John, to whom he would now be doubly drawn 
 by his similarity of fortune, and he might even have 
 chosen his home that he might be near him. For 
 John Bland was in London at this time, and a little 
 later was living with West Digges in St. James's 
 Sanctuary, which was probably the remnant of some 
 street near the palace which in early times had served 
 as a real sanctuary. 
 
 Francis and Grace seem to have settled down in 
 St. Martin's parish, near the theatres, for there the 
 second child was born, and there I found proofs of its 
 birth. In the register of the Church of St. Martin's- 
 in-the-Fields is this crisp line 
 
 Dec. 5, 1761. [Baptized] Dorothy Bland, [daughter] 
 of Francis and Grace [Bland, born] Nov. 22. 
 
 Thus the doubt about the date of Mrs. Jordan's 
 
 3'
 
 32 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 birth is settled. It was in 1761, a year earlier than all 
 the accounts allow, and several years earlier than some 
 give. Her name is also proved to have been neither 
 Dorothea nor Dora, but Dorothy, though she used 
 both the former names in signing letters. 
 
 There were two other entries in the same year's 
 register, which might have been mere coincidences, 
 and yet, on the other hand, might supply evidence 
 could the links be traced. One ran as follows 
 
 Nov. 12, 1761. [Baptized] John Bland [son] of 
 John and Mary [Bland, born] Oct. 26. 
 
 Now John Bland, who probably did not marry until 
 he took to the stage (that is, after 1749), had a son 
 John, and this entry may indicate the birth of that 
 son. But he called his wife Nancy, and as Nancy 
 she was named in the notices of his death in 1808. 
 However, Nancy may have been a pet name, and the 
 two babies may have been cousins born within a month 
 of each other, or they may have been the most distant 
 and unknown relatives who never met. 
 
 The third entry belongs to a later period in the 
 story. 
 
 Here in London the young people already had a 
 circle of friends in John Bland and his family, West 
 Digges, Grace's sister, and to these may be added 
 Francis Lumm, the son of Francis Eland's aunt, who 
 was always an affectionate friend to his cousin. 
 
 Except for the recurring births of children, there 
 is little by which to trace the Blands during the next 
 few years, and even concerning these it is impossible 
 to tell in what order the children arrived. A girl 
 named Lucy was born in 1 764, and died at the age of
 
 Dorothy's Parents 33 
 
 fourteen, being buried at Trelethyn. A boy named 
 Nathaniel was born in 1767; other members who have 
 been traced are Francis and George, and, in a shadowy 
 way, another girl. Thus six or seven children born 
 to Francis and Grace Bland are identified. Nathaniel 
 was described in his college list as son of Francis 
 Bland of St. Oswald's, Chester (City), and it is not 
 unlikely that he was born there, as Chester was a usual 
 halting-place between Dublin and London. 
 
 Whether Francis Bland was a captain in the army 
 is difficult to determine. His portrait, taken from a 
 miniature, looks more like that of a genial actor; but, 
 as he is wearing a green uniform with yellow froggings, 
 he may have been a soldier. The Morning Chronicle 
 of October 27, 1788, reported him as having com- 
 manded a company on the Irish establishment " while 
 he lived," implying that he remained in command 
 until his death; but it is not unlikely that he went on 
 half pay and adopted his wife's profession. The 
 Blands seem not to have lived in Wales, as reported 
 by the Elixir of Life, for in a private letter from a 
 member of the family is the following statement 
 
 " During a rebellion in Ireland Mrs. Bland brought 
 her children to St. Davids and resided here for a while, 
 her husband going to the south of France to his father. 
 When he returned she joined him, leaving Lucy (her 
 little daughter) with her sister (Mrs. Williams)." 
 Francis's father had, however, long been dead, and 
 the journey to France must have been in search of 
 health. His illness would have been sufficient reason 
 for a reconciliation with his mother, and he may have 
 gone from France to his old home, where he may 
 have met the rich Catherine Mahoney, who fell in love 
 c
 
 34 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 with him, for she lived at Killarney. That he came 
 back restored to health seems probable, for his friend- 
 ship with Miss Mahoney ended in their marriage on 
 May 17, 1774, not at Killarney but at St. Botolph's 
 Without, Aldgate. Thus, when Grace left St. Davids 
 to rejoin her husband, as her relatives thought, she 
 may have met him only to separate for ever, and to 
 face a life of hardship and poverty, with some of 
 her children on her hands. That the Welsh records 
 entirely ignore some of her children, while other 
 accounts ignore others, seems to prove that from the 
 first Francis Bland made himself responsible for 
 some, while some were left to their mother's care. 
 
 As for Francis, his health soon failed again, and if 
 this failure was, as Boaden asserts, caused by remorse 
 for his irrevocable treachery, it shows that something 
 good still lived in his soul. Once again he started for 
 France, but he only got as far as Dover when death 
 seized him. His cousin Sir Francis Lumm, then 
 .Governor of Ross Castle, had his body taken home to 
 Killarney for burial, and put up a slab to his memory 
 in the church there, the inscription upon it being 
 
 " To the memory of a once much loved and much 
 lamented friend, Francis Bland, Esq., on whose kind 
 heart, in his forty-third year, at Dover, on the second 
 day of January, 1778, the curtain of this world's stage 
 untimely dropped, this stone is placed by Sir F. L., Bt." 
 
 Francis left by Catherine two children, a son Francis 
 his second of that name and both living and a 
 daughter Frances. Was it lack of heart or want of 
 firmness that made him call Catherine's boy by the 
 name of Grace's son ?

 
 Dorothy's Parents 35 
 
 There is nothing but mere assertion to show that 
 Grace and Francis were safely married by a Catholic 
 priest, or that that marriage was annulled ; and indeed 
 Judge Bland could not have procured the annulment, 
 as he died in 1760, when only one child, Hester, had 
 been born, and before the birth of five or six other 
 children. In addition to this, Francis was not under 
 age when the marriage is said to have taken place. 
 
 After Francis Eland's death administration was 
 granted to his wife Catherine, who swore to the place 
 and date of their marriage, adding that " both were 
 free from all marriages or matrimonial contracts what- 
 soever save to each other." Of course this proves 
 nothing; Catherine may not have known of a former 
 legal marriage, and, if she did and yet married him 
 herself, she would have lied rather than tell the fact. 
 
 But the matter that seems to offer conclusive evi- 
 dence is that if there had been a marriage Grace Bland 
 would have fought for her children's position in the 
 world. As a matter of fact she did make an effort, 
 for a "pretended claim" was put in either by or for 
 Nathaniel Bland. As the boy was then only eleven 
 years old, the claim must have been made for him 
 by " his next friend," as the legal phrase goes, perhaps 
 his mother. This claim was disallowed, probably 
 because the widow pleaded his illegitimacy, as she 
 would have been sure to do. 
 
 Grace's sojourn in Wales may have synchronized 
 with the period when Francis was married to Catherine 
 Mahoney, but, if so, she and her relatives kept his 
 treachery secret, for the succeeding generation did not 
 know all the incidents. Then, on hearing of Francis's 
 death, she may have returned to Dublin with some of
 
 36 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 her children, the two eldest girls and Nathaniel, and 
 put in this claim on behalf of her son. The material 
 consequences of her loss must have fallen upon her 
 now, for the mental anguish of her husband's defection 
 had long been deadened. While he lived he had 
 provided for that large family which had been banished 
 from his life, but his care of them could not extend 
 beyond his death, for the money was Catherine's, and 
 not his, and she turned her back utterly upon her 
 husband's first family. However, other relatives, 
 perhaps his mother or his half-brother James, were 
 induced it has been said to afford some relief to 
 the offspring, while totally abandoning " the wretched 
 mother to her fate." Not that the " wretched mother " 
 had any intention of being abandoned to any fate, for 
 though she was not like the fox, who had a hundred 
 ways of eluding the dogs of sport and death, she some- 
 what shared the quality of the cat who knew at least 
 one safe way. She had acted on the stage with 
 success, and she had a daughter Hester in the first 
 bloom of womanhood, handsome and accomplished, 
 able to dance, play, and speak French who had, in 
 fact, been more or less prepared for a theatrical career. 
 Grace was probably training this girl for the stage 
 during those years of loneliness, and if she went back 
 to Ireland early in 1778, she did not there remain help- 
 less or idle. She made, or caused to be made, the 
 claim on behalf of her son; she must have worried the 
 Bland family by her demands, and she seems promptly 
 to have put her two daughters to work in a milliner's 
 shop in Dame Street. One theatrical chronicle says 
 that they were working there in 1776, another puts it 
 later, others ignore it altogether. Indeed, among all
 
 Dorothy's Parents 37 
 
 the accounts of Dorothy's life, when as a girl of 
 eighteen she first went on the stage, it is difficult to 
 find the true one, so contradictory are they. The 
 certain thing is that Grace was not in Wales in 1778, 
 for it was then, on May 4, that her daughter Lucy, a 
 girl of fourteen, died at Trelethyn, just four months 
 after her father's death. Mrs. Williams, thus left 
 without a child in her house, adopted Nathaniel as her 
 son, sending to Ireland for him. Where some of Mrs. 
 Eland's children were placed cannot be said, but she 
 evidently then caused another son to come to share her 
 lot, as she had a boy with her in 1782, who must have 
 been George, for he had a good voice and was one of 
 the choir boys in St. Patrick's Cathedral. In later 
 years one of George's qualifications for the stage was 
 his ability for taking part in opera. 
 
 There must have been something too repressive in 
 Judge Eland's training of his sons, as his fourth boy- 
 Nathaniel (each generation included this name), next 
 brother to Francis, also kicked over the traces, and 
 lived away from home. At some period he made him- 
 self responsible for his dead brother's boy Francis, 
 perhaps sending him to school from the first. 
 
 One of the most romantic accounts of Dorothy's 
 introduction upon the stage is given by Joseph Dowling, 
 who, more than fifty years later, published his reminis- 
 cences under the name of J. D. Herbert, giving them 
 the title of Irish Varieties for the Last Fifty Years. 
 There were many mistakes in this story, and probably 
 the old man's memory played tricks, softening here, 
 embroidering there, but some basis of truth there 
 must have been. 
 
 Herbert says that, on returning from a bathe one fine
 
 38 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 summer's day in 1780, he was accosted on the Pigeon 
 House Wall by a lad of about fourteen, who carried 
 a handkerchief bundle, and who told him that he had 
 just landed from Wales with his mother and two 
 sisters, they being strangers to Dublin; he then drew 
 Herbert towards the ladies, whom he found handsome 
 and interesting, and who told him that they wanted 
 comfortable but not expensive lodgings. The upshot 
 was that they walked into Dublin together, and 
 Herbert found them lodgings in South Great George 
 Street, three doors away from where he himself lived, 
 making good terms for them. 
 
 Grace Bland told the boy that her name was Francis, 
 that she had been an actress, but had married a 
 captain in the army who was on half-pay, and that her 
 husband had died in Wales, where they had lived for 
 economy's sake ; and that now, having cut herself adrift 
 from the stage, she could not support herself and her 
 children on the allowance made to a captain's widow, 
 and so was obliged once more to turn to acting. 
 
 The family of four settled down in South Great 
 George Street, and Mrs. Francis being furnished with 
 a letter of introduction to Ryder, the manager of 
 Crow Street Theatre, waited to hear from him. The 
 name of " Grace Philipps " alone would have been 
 sufficient to cause Ryder to give her an interview, for 
 they had acted together twenty years earlier, but that 
 was probably her way of explaining the matter. He 
 came, saw Hester, the elder girl, found her able to 
 play, sing and do other theatre tricks, and engaged her, 
 hoping that he had found a treasure. Then he billed 
 her well and waited for the fateful night to arrive. 
 The house was filled with a cheerful audience ready to
 
 Dorothy's Parents 39 
 
 see and encourage a new and pretty actress, but to 
 every one's horror, most of all to her own, poor Miss 
 Francis was afflicted with such an acute attack of stage 
 fright that she could not utter a word. No happy flash 
 of memory or confidence came to her assistance, and 
 she had to be led off the stage by the chagrined 
 manager, while some one else took her place. Young 
 Herbert, then only a boy, was present next morning 
 when Ryder went to see Mrs. Bland, and, finding her 
 crying, told her that she should have a part at the 
 salary he had offered her daughter, and that if she 
 would for a time go into the country towns to get once 
 more accustomed to the boards, he would try the 
 second girl Dorothy in place of her sister. 
 
 " Oh ! " replied the mother, " Dolly would be no 
 use at acting, she is but a tomboy; it was only just 
 before you came in that she was jumping downstairs, 
 and boasting that she could jump one step more than 
 either of the boys dared attempt. Then, too, she is 
 so untidy why, even her stockings are down to her 
 heels." 
 
 " But, my dear madam, she will mend ; she will grow 
 older," interposed Ryder. 
 
 ' Yes, but see how plain she is, with smallpox 
 spoiling her skin." 
 
 ' The stage will hide such trifling blemishes," was 
 the optimistic retort. 
 
 Dolly had been sent out of the room to make herself 
 tidy, and at this minute she came back, looking quite 
 neat and smart. Ryder, gazing well into her face, 
 said, with a laugh 
 
 " Smallpox, aye, and very small too ! Here, Dolly, 
 get up the part of Phoebe in As You Like It"
 
 Dolly was neither bashful nor bold ; she was indeed 
 thoughtless enough and high-spirited enough to do a 
 thing without troubling about responsibilities or conse- 
 quences; so she got up the part and went through it 
 in public with the happy carelessness of a schoolboy, 
 whatever the terrors might have been that she experi- 
 enced at the first sight of the audience. That audience 
 accepted her with good humour, but saw no occasion 
 to be overwhelming in its praise, and indeed its atten- 
 tion was more likely concentrated upon the prominent 
 actors. However, she had found her metier; she felt 
 that she could act, and she studied without ceasing 
 to acquire the qualities necessary to help her to 
 success. 
 
 The 'definite assertions in this story are fwrong. 
 Thus the Elands were in Dublin long before 1780; 
 if Hester made such a terrible failure on her introduc- 
 tion, she somewhat retrieved it, for she was acting in 
 that year ; then there is no trace in any theatrical record 
 of Grace acting anywhere, and Dorothy did not begin 
 her stage career as Phcebe. Her first appearance was 
 in The Virgin Unmasked, on the 3rd of November, 
 I779. 1 As You Like It was put on later in November, 
 and Dorothy may have taken the part then, but it was 
 not her first attempt. The first playbill now existing 
 which includes her name is one dated May 20, 
 1780, when The Governess was acted for O'Keefe's 
 benefit. 
 
 At that time Ryder was at his wit's end to provide 
 variety and draw an audience, so in this play he hit 
 on the plan of a topsy-turvy cast men taking women's 
 
 1 Mr. W. J. Lawrence, who is one of our first authorities upon the 
 British stage.
 
 Dorothy's Parents 41 
 
 parts and vice versa Dorothy being allotted the 
 prominent character of Lopez, and gaining great 
 applause for her symmetrical figure and beautiful legs. 
 Before she had been acting long she persuaded Ryder 
 to let her introduce a song, and this brought her into 
 especial favour. Her voice was not highly trained 
 and did not go well with accompaniment; but it was 
 so sweet, and she had already so mastered the art of 
 throwing her emotions into her tones, that a song 
 from her would often have to be repeated twice to a 
 delighted audience. Her first and one of her most 
 famous songs was that of " Melton Oysters," which 
 was especially popular in Dublin, as its title was 
 deemed to be " Miltown Oysters " Miltown being a 
 suburb of Dublin, near Donnybrook Fair, a spot 
 historic as a recreation and sporting resort, where 
 refreshments of all sorts, from goat's milk to whisky, 
 and from buns to oysters might be obtained by the 
 holiday-making people. This song she persuaded 
 Ryder to let her introduce, and however dubious was 
 his consent, the result was extremely pleasing to him. 
 Its first verse ran 
 
 " There was a clever, likely lass, 
 
 Just come to town from Glos'ter, 
 And she did get her livelihood 
 By crying Melton Oysters." 
 
 The one farcical comedy part which Dolly essayed 
 in Ireland was Miss Tomboy in The Romp, the only 
 hoyden character which she acted at that early stage 
 of her career, for the value of those plays had not yet 
 become apparent, the audience even then considering 
 tragedy more enjoyable than farce. 
 
 Another thing that the girl did particularly well was
 
 42 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 speaking the prologue and epilogue, which have long 
 been discarded from our evening's amusement at the 
 theatre; so a special prologue was written for her in 
 the character of an Irish Volunteer, for which she had 
 to wear the soldier's uniform and strut about the stage 
 with martial weapons a proceeding which drew shouts 
 of applause from the young folks of Dublin. 
 
 But Ryder at that time was fast going downhill, and 
 his actors were not always paid, so Dolly and her 
 family sometimes " experienced the severest effects 
 of poverty"; and according to Walker's Hibernian 
 Magazine for August 1792, "Prudence obliged Mrs. 
 Francis to forsake the Crow Street standard " and go 
 over to Smock Alley, where she got an engagement 
 from its new manager Daly, and though the salary 
 was low, yet it was punctually paid, which at least 
 allowed them to live. 
 
 Dorothy made a great impression upon some people 
 while in Ireland; one of whom was Betsy Sheridan, 
 later Mrs. Lefanu. One night she took a Mr. Cham- 
 berlayne to the theatre, and, pointing to Dorothy, 
 said 
 
 ' That little girl, if she lives, will be some time or 
 other the first comic actress in England or Ireland. 
 She is a Miss Francis. She has not been long on 
 the stage, but for chastity of acting, naivete, and being 
 the character she represents, young as she is, she 
 surpasses what could have been expected; but mark 
 my words, she will one day or other be a favourite 
 and the first in her line of acting." 
 
 Mr. Chamberlayne wrote down these words and 
 sealed them in an envelope, which eventually passed 
 into the possession of the Editor of the Gentleman's
 
 Dorothy's Parents 43 
 
 Magazine. The envelope was not opened until 1822, 
 and its contents were published in June 1824. 
 
 It is open to doubt whether there was any time in 
 her life when Dolly Bland was serenely, quietly and 
 safely happy, when she could " look before and after " 
 and see happiness both ways. Such a time could not 
 have come to her in Dublin, and it certainly was not 
 hers in the next stage of her career. Yet it may be 
 that it seemed always within her reach, for she was 
 not given to retrospection or anticipation. For her, 
 to-day was the point of life, and if all were well or 
 ill to-day, why gloat or worry over past or future. It 
 was, however, a good thing that she could not forecast 
 events; that she could struggle on more or less gaily 
 and not ask too minutely what price was eventually 
 to be paid at the Dublin theatre for the best woman's 
 parts. 
 
 One curious mistake which was made about Dorothy 
 was by a young soldier named Pryse Lockhart 
 Gordon, one which he crystallized in his volume of 
 Personal Memoirs many years later, and which has 
 without fail been copied by each successive biographer 
 of Dorothy Bland. 
 
 With one exception, she acted in Dublin as Miss 
 Francis, and events point to the fact that the Blands 
 must have made it a condition of their assistance that 
 their name should be dropped. Mr. Gordon, however, 
 declares that when he was stationed in Cork in 1778 
 " Miss Phillips " was taken there by Daly, and acted 
 for i a week, for which sum her father, a scene- 
 shifter, threw in his services. The girl's benefit was 
 a failure, and the group of young men, of whom 
 Gordon was one, threatened violence until the manager
 
 44 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 promised her another benefit night, which was well 
 attended, bringing the young actress 40. 
 
 This account has caused one of the " mysteries " of 
 Dorothy's birth, and, as has been said, The Dictionary 
 of National Biography favours this statement as to 
 the low origin of Dorothy's father. But Pryse Lock- 
 hart Gordon, as military records prove, went to Cork 
 in 1778, and left Cork for foreign service in 1780; 
 while Dolly Francis's first visit to that city was in 
 1781, and she never acted anywhere under the name 
 of Phillips. Mr. W. J. Lawrence, in his interest 
 concerning the stage, made special investigations into 
 this matter, and he discovered that there was a Miss 
 Phillips acting in Cork in the year 1778 whose father 
 was at the time a scene-shifter, but who had no con- 
 nection with our heroine. This Miss Phillips was two 
 years younger than Dorothy, and gained great renown 
 later as Mrs. Crouch, acting at Drury Lane, and not 
 only becoming a bitter rival to our heroine, but at 
 times causing her much unhappiness. 
 
 Herbert unconsciously gives evidence of Dorothy's 
 being in Cork in 1781, for he tells that when visiting 
 some friends there the next year he heard a little 
 musical prodigy singing a song about her love for 
 Ti-co-thy, and, on asking how she had learnt it, was 
 told that a lady named Francis, who had been acting 
 there the previous summer, had taught it to the child. 
 It is to be hoped that at last the lie has been over- 
 taken, but one never knows; a romantic lie is dear to 
 the imagination, and is not given up without a pang. 
 
 Another incident, and one of a tender nature, took 
 place also at this time, it being twisted somewhat out 
 of shape by Sir Jonah Barrington in his account of
 
 Dorothy's Parents 45 
 
 Dorothy's Dublin career, and this was her first serious 
 offer of marriage. 
 
 A certain young soldier named Charles Powlett 
 Doyne, son of the Dean of Leighlin, who was cornet 
 in the 2nd Regiment of Horse in Dublin, fell in love 
 with the attractive young actress at first sight, and felt 
 that the only happiness in the world for him was to 
 make her his wife. So he took counsel with his 
 friends, of whom Harrington was one, and as these 
 friends were also very young, they advised him to go 
 in and win. But the courageous cornet found that 
 there were other people to consider besides Dorothy 
 and himself, and that Mrs. Bland was adamant to him 
 and his desires. She rightly saw that Doyne could 
 not support a wife, his commission was of the smallest 
 and his private fortune was little larger; she also had 
 no desire to be bereft of her chief means of support, 
 so however much Dorothy liked the young man, she 
 was induced to give him up. 
 
 The queer thing is that Barrington, who was on the 
 scene, gives his friend wrong rank, wrong regiment 
 and wrong Locale, saying that he was a lieutenant of 
 the 3rd Heavy Horse stationed at Waterford, and 
 to this adds the slighting inference that he was ugly. 
 The facts being that Doyne met, loved and lost Dolly 
 in 1780 while he was a cornet stationed in Dublin; 
 that he never was stationed in Waterford, though two 
 years after Dorothy had left Ireland he was at 
 Clonmel, which is very near. His lieutenancy was 
 gained in June 1781, some months after he had left 
 Dublin in a very inconsolable frame of mind. How- 
 ever, in 1785 he married a Miss Vicars, who was an 
 heiress, and a year later he left the army.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THAT RUFFIAN DALY 
 
 " Her face, if not exactly beautiful, was irresistibly agreeable ; her 
 person and gait were eminently elastic ; her voice in singing perfectly 
 sweet and melodious, and in speaking clear and impressive." JOHN 
 ADOLPHUS on Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 " His feathers, which in beauty vied 
 With all the peacock's glittering pride, 
 Were trimmed with artfulness and care 
 T'attract the notice of the fair. 
 
 PETER PINDAR, Jun. 
 
 IN Ryder's company at Crow Street was a man 
 named Richard Daly, who by some was described as 
 better as business man than as actor. Herbert says of 
 him that he had a good memory, a good person, a good 
 wardrobe and good parts to play, which were the 
 entire constitution of his good acting; and in Roscius, 
 a short-lived paper, it was declared that his acting 
 was slovenly. When he first played for Ryder it was 
 with a Mrs. Lyster, once Miss Barsanti, who was 
 fortunate enough to have money; she also could earn 
 money, and the combination of possessions and talent 
 was too much for Richard Daly, so Mrs. Lyster 
 became his wife. 
 
 This man was in one respect Irish of the Irish, for 
 he loved a fight; in another he was alien to his race, 
 as the Irish are renowned for their care for the honour 
 of their women. He, however, was an extreme sen- 
 sualist, and allowed nothing to stand in the way of 
 his desires; thus as manager he became a byword in 
 Dublin for his baseness and cruelty to young actresses. 
 
 46
 
 That Ruffian Daly 47 
 
 He was a member of the Fire-eaters' Club, and 
 prided himself on his bravery and his dexterity with 
 sword and pistol ; his number of duels being put down 
 as sixteen in two years, three with swords and thirteen 
 with pistols. It was a pistol duel that he fought with 
 Jonah Harrington, who affirmed that he had never 
 spoken to Daly, had scarcely ever spoken of him, and 
 never knew why the challenge was sent. 
 
 Harrington and his second, known as " Balloon " 
 Crosby, because he had constructed the first balloon 
 ever made in Ireland, sat up all night making pistols 
 from a number of odd locks, barrels and stocks. 
 When they had succeeded and drunk chocolate 
 followed by cherry brandy, they started out for the 
 fight. Harrington thus describes his opponent's 
 appearance 
 
 " He was a very fine-looking young fellow, but with 
 such a squint that it was totally impossible to say what 
 he looked at, except his nose, of which he never lost 
 sight. His dress made me ashamed of my own; he 
 wore a pea-green coat, a large tucker with a diamond 
 brooch stuck in it, a three-cocked hat with a gold 
 button, loop and tassels, and silk stockings, and a 
 couteau-de-ckasse hung gracefully at his thigh." 
 
 This gorgeous figure made Harrington uneasy, for 
 he liked neither his steady position, showy clothes nor 
 his squinting eye ; but the delighted Crosby soon had 
 his men in position, crying 
 
 " Hip the macaroni ! Never look at the head or 
 the heels, the hip for ever, my boy." 
 
 As soon as Daly took his stand, about nine paces 
 off, and presented his pistol, Harrington let fly, and, 
 as he says, " without losing a single second and with-
 
 48 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 out taking aim," which is but another proof that the 
 punctiliousness said to be observed at duels was on 
 occasions but a sham. Daly staggered, put his hand 
 to his breast, and cried, " I'm hit," without having fired 
 a shot. 
 
 The three young men gathered round, opened his 
 waistcoat and found a black spot about the size of 
 half-a^crown directly over his breast-bone. The 
 diamond brooch had saved the macaroni's life ! a 
 fragment of the trinket still sticking into the bone. 
 But for the vanity of that brooch the future of Dorothy 
 Bland might who knows ? have been very different, 
 for Daly would of a certainty have been killed. 
 
 It is amusing to find that Barrington, who was quite 
 ready to kill Daly in this foolish affair and to look 
 upon the deed as an honourable achievement, was 
 shocked at the sight of the diamonds sticking into 
 Daly's breast-bone. Crosby, on the other hand, cursed 
 and stamped over the bad powder, then laid hold of 
 the jewellery and pulled it out. Daly put his handker- 
 chief to his breast with a bow, Barrington returned 
 a deeper bow, and so they parted, excepting that 
 when the latter asked for an explanation of the 
 challenge Daly replied that he would give none, for 
 Rule 8 observed by Fire-eaters commanded that if a 
 party challenged accepted the challenge without ask- 
 ing the reason of it, the challenger was not bound to 
 divulge it afterwards ! 
 
 However, it was not to Daly's advantage to fight 
 duels when he was at work, though he and Kemble 
 did, in 1785, determine to take each other's lives, and 
 to make sure of the deed arranged to meet in secret 
 and fight their quarrel out. Kindly friends, though,
 
 That Ruffian Daly 49 
 
 had warned the sheriffs and so saved both a good 
 actor and a weak villain. 
 
 But in a usual way after his youth Daly's tastes lay 
 towards cards and young actresses. He would have 
 been thought the last person to join a Temperance 
 Club, yet he was a constant attendant at one such, 
 where the only refreshments allowed were biscuits and 
 water. But then it was not altogether strange that 
 many of the most prominent bloods of the town were 
 also members of this club, for its one purpose was 
 gambling. This was the man who was to give Dorothy 
 Francis her first insight into the ways of the libertine, 
 and who was to awaken a lasting hatred in her heart. 
 
 It was in 1780 that Daly, concentrating his energies 
 upon an attempt to give himself a permanent and 
 lucrative footing on the Dublin stage, became lessee 
 of the hitherto neglected Smock Alley Theatre. One 
 chronicler says that the theatre was opened by Daly on 
 Wednesday, November 3, 1780, with a prelude named 
 Smock Alley Secrets, or the Manager Worried. This 
 may have been so, for Dorothy had joined his com- 
 pany before August 1781, when they all went to 
 Waterford. Oxberry, in his Reminiscences, says that 
 on their return Dorothy was given a salary of ,3 a 
 week, which is hardly credible, seeing the poverty 
 of the theatres, and the relative value of money at that 
 time. When the grand opening of Smock Alley was 
 made in November 1781, and Kemble was engaged, 
 he only had 5 a week. However, Daly may have 
 had reasons for ingratiating his little actress, and if 
 Herbert is to be trusted, she had money to spare, for 
 he says that she often tipped him a crown. It is to be 
 supposed that the Blands were still contributing some
 
 5O The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 pittance to Grace, and there is evidence of strained 
 feeling between the families on one occasion : the 
 report being that Dorothy, angered by hearing of some 
 slighting remark, with her characteristic impulsive- 
 ness, had herself announced on the play-bills as Miss 
 Bland, instead of Miss Francis. This lasted but a 
 few days, for, moved either by threats or reassurances, 
 she soon resumed the latter name. 
 
 When Daly made his great flourish and engaged 
 Kemble, that young gentleman was still but a pro- 
 vincial performer, who had by no means attained to 
 anything like his later celebrity, and 5 a week was 
 a very good salary to him. Hamlet, The Belle's 
 Stratagem, and The Count of Narbonne were played, 
 the last being a piece dramatized from Walpole's 
 Castle of Otranto by Jephson. Dorothy took the part 
 of Adelaide in this play, and made a particular 
 success; while Kemble, in this Dublin engagement, 
 won such praise that his future London career was 
 assured. 
 
 The exact facts about Dorothy and Daly can now 
 never be known, but she must by this time have been 
 well aware of the man's character, which, according 
 to all the chroniclers, was that of a villain of promis- 
 cuous tendencies, whatever his other virtues. 
 
 The following severity from the pen of William 
 Oxberry, the comedian, is but an example of others 
 
 " It was the practice of this hollow sensualist to 
 advance money to the ladies he had a design on, and 
 then second his attempt with an arrest for debt. He 
 had often recourse to brutal violence. Even now, 
 when that weak villain's bones have returned to the 
 corruption that best befitted them, we could find it in 
 our hearts to call them from the grave to be burnt as
 
 That Ruffian Daly 51 
 
 a sacrifice to offended decency ; and in saying this, we 
 arrogate no particular virtue to ourselves : we do not 
 mean to condemn in one sweeping clause the race 
 called (falsely called) men of pleasure; but let them 
 fight their battles fairly, at all events, and not win by 
 meanness (or violence, should be added), that which 
 should be gained by favour." 
 
 Daly did not find it so easy with Dorothy Bland; 
 she was only just twenty and, like other girls, looked 
 forward to romance and happiness with some one 
 whom she loved. Thus the adulterous advances made 
 by him terrified her. He was coarse enough to say 
 that he loved her, and this love which he gave so 
 freely could have had no pretty-pretty sentiment in it, 
 no honesty; it meant the enslavement of body and 
 mind, rough and lewd handling, such as Mrs. Roman- 
 zini, an Italian Jewess, complained of when her 
 daughter of about fifteen had the misfortune to come 
 under Daly's management. 
 
 "Vat you vant vid my daughter?" she asked 
 angrily. ' You are always running after her and 
 touching her. You have one ver fine wife of your 
 own, so I beg you will leave my child alone." 
 
 Daly is said to have obeyed on that occasion ; but he 
 was not always so amenable. If the actress proved 
 difficult it was easy for him to change familiarity into 
 threat or bribe, and if he foresaw that his chase would 
 be arduous, he used a little diplomacy. These 
 methods were tried upon Dorothy, seemingly without 
 avail, and though there are various versions of the 
 affair, all agree that it was by force rather than consent 
 that the young actress was brought to submission. 
 
 One of Daly's approved plans was deliberately to 
 degrade a girl from good to inferior parts with less
 
 52 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 pay, and get her so thoroughly broken that the only 
 escape would seem to be in his arms, and it is signi- 
 ficant that Dolly's name was anything but prominent 
 in the theatre during the first part of 1781. It is very 
 possible, too, that during that year the family had been 
 reduced to great straits, a situation which implies debt. 
 
 When an actress had been reduced to this condition 
 it was Daly's gentle plan to sympathize and offer to 
 lend her a sum of money, which the poor thing had 
 little choice but to accept, perhaps regarding it as 
 unaffected kindness on Daly's part. 
 
 If the girl could not be won with neglect or kindness 
 Daly then had a new system of torture, and that was 
 to threaten arrest for debt. In face of that what could 
 a friendless young girl do, for what was a debtor's 
 prison to such but a living death from which only 
 real death could release her? This creature seems to 
 have gone through the whole series of his little 
 methods with Dorothy, and The Great Illegitimates 
 affirms that Daly's loan was made after a severe illness 
 on the part of Mrs. Bland, which took all their money, 
 and continues that threats and cajolery all being 
 unsuccessful, Daly ended with pure violence. She 
 was by some means decoyed to the house of a person 
 dependent upon him, and there forcibly detained, 
 " until every unfair advantage had been taken of her 
 defenceless situation." The Secret History and other 
 accounts add that no sooner " did she escape from so 
 cruel and infamous a treachery," than she " fled from 
 Dublin, and accompanied by her mother went to 
 Leeds." In these accounts truth lies, but the form in 
 which that truth is presented varies with each writer's 
 sentiments and ideas. Dorothy certainly did not flee 
 from Dublin directly Daly had reduced her to his will ;
 
 That Ruffian Daly 53 
 
 on the contrary, she was given very good parts, and 
 continued to play at Smock Alley for some months. 
 From the beginning of 1782 she acted constantly with 
 Kemble, taking the parts of Adelaide in The Count 
 of Narbonne, Charlotte in The Gamester, for 
 Kemble's benefit; Selina to his Bajazet in Tamerlane; 
 Lady Anne to his Glo'ster in Richard III ; Miss Ogle 
 in Mrs. Cowley's Belle's Stratagem; Louisa in The 
 Discovery, and Maria in The School for Scandal. On 
 May 14 she was Katherine to Kemble's Petruchio; and 
 on the 1 6th of that month she spoke the Prologue 
 before Burgoyne's musical comedy, The Maid of the 
 Oaks. 
 
 From that day she disappeared from the Dublin 
 boards ! 
 
 What could have happened then? Whatever had 
 passed between her and Daly, she hated him with all 
 her heart, yet she must have remained in his company 
 for some months after she had surrendered her body 
 to his will. It is probable that the situation had become 
 too repulsive to be borne any longer, and that there 
 was a desperate quarrel, in which Daly had the upper 
 hand all along. He may have seen what was coming, 
 and true to his treacherous nature have kept back her 
 salary. In a quarrel the impulsive girl would, as was 
 her wont, betray all that was in her heart without 
 thought of the future; and perhaps it was then and 
 not earlier that the threat of prison unless she repaid 
 the early loan descended upon her bewildered mind. 
 The very idea of a debtor's prison put her into a panic, 
 as it did thirty years later, and she determined to flee 
 from Dublin with her family. 
 
 Young Herbert, who was in entire ignorance of the 
 reason of the flight, says that he saw them before they
 
 54 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 left, and knowing that they were going in poverty, 
 he pressed into Dorothy's hands a little bag contain- 
 ing many of the crowns which she had bestowed upon 
 him, but she gave it him back, saying 
 
 " No, I will not ; if I were more distressed I would 
 not touch a penny of what I had hoped you would 
 have taken in good part." 
 
 Then, forgetting herself, she proceeded to give him 
 hints about acting, as she knew he wanted to become 
 an actor. 
 
 In Walker's Hibernian Magazine (1792) it is 
 asserted that the fruits of "an accident began to be 
 visible, and a variety of reasons pressed her imme- 
 diate departure." This is scarcely probable, as her 
 child was not born until six months later, and she 
 could have well hidden the matter until the end of 
 the season. 
 
 However, knowing what fate awaited her before the 
 end of the year, without luggage and with little money, 
 Dorothy, her mother, sister and brother, fled from 
 Dublin to England in June 1782. There can be no 
 doubt of the girl's feelings for Daly, for no bribe or 
 entreaty would induce her later to act in Dublin while 
 he was there, though once he offered her a princely 
 sum to help to restore something like glory to his 
 theatre. 
 
 It may be objected that Daly did not habitually 
 pursue the system described above, and that the whole 
 account was intended to shield Dorothy's name from 
 lightness. But there are many proofs that he followed 
 this plan of threatened imprisonment on many occa- 
 sions. There was the case of the young and pretty 
 Mrs. Esten, who was deserted by her husband and 
 who was thus treated by Daly, having been arrested
 
 FRANCES DALY, MRS. ALSO!' 
 DAUGHTER OF DOROTHY JORDAN 
 
 FROM AN ENORAVING IN THE 1'OSSESSION OF MR. J. F. FULLER 
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN AND RICHARD DALY 
 
 FROM AN ENGRAVING IN THE "TOWN AND COUNTRY MAGAZINE" 
 DECEMHER 1786
 
 That Ruffian Daly 55 
 
 at his instigation. For this he was attacked in the 
 Dublin Evening Post by its proprietor-editor, Magee, 
 against whom Daly had the temerity to press a libel 
 suit. During the hearing of the case the following 
 letter from the chivalrous Magee to the actress was 
 read in Court 
 
 "August 21, 1789. Mrs. Esten, on the immediate 
 receipt fly to Mr. Edwards, bookseller, Cork. I have 
 enclosed him for your use a draft on London for 
 twenty guineas. Fly ! Fly ! I know you were 
 arrested by a ruffian in uniform on Friday last at 
 dinner. I heard of the outrage, and instantly flew to 
 the bailiff's lock-up house to the Marine Hotel. 
 There I learned that you were forced to Cork. 1 I 
 know how you have been used by that villain, that 
 ruffian Daly. Fly ! Fly ! I leave this for London 
 on the ist of September; leave address at James 
 Woodmason's, Leadenhall Street. Yours, J. MAGEE. 
 To Mrs. Esten, Cork." 2 
 
 In later years, when Daly got into a habit of sum- 
 moning Astley for infringing the rights of his patent, 
 his counsel stated that the penalties recoverable would 
 be given to the Lying-in Hospital. In reply, the 
 opposing counsel said : ' That it was notorious no 
 man in Dublin had contributed more largely, in one 
 way, to the Lying-in Hospital than Mr. Daly; and it 
 was therefore but fair, if he recovered in this action, 
 that he should give them the cash; but," continued 
 the facetious counsel, " although Mr. Daly's attach- 
 ment to good pieces is proverbial, we don't choose 
 that he shall monopolize all the good pieces in Dublin, 
 from My Grandmother down to Miss in her Teens" 
 
 1 Daly owned the Cork theatre also. 
 
 8 A Curious Genealogical Medley, by J. F. Fuller,;F.S.A.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " IT ! THE GREAT TREASURE " 
 
 " Just emblem of all lovely nature, 
 Ordain'd to charm by ev'ry feature, 
 Reigning unrivall'd in thy art, 
 Delight of ev'ry feeling heart ; 
 Applause await and crown thy wishes, 
 Nations accord, ' She all possesses ! ' " 
 
 " My acquaintances are so censorious (oh, 'tis a wicked censorious 
 world, Mr. Homer !), I say, are so censorious, and detracting, that 
 perhaps they'll talk to the prejudice of my honour." The Country 
 IVije, by WILLIAM WYCHERLEY. 
 
 TATE WILKINSON had become renowned in the 
 theatrical world by 1782 more by his powers of 
 mimicry than by his acting, and still more by his 
 remarkable energy in organizing the work of several 
 theatres at once. He first appeared on the stage in 
 Dublin in 1757, when in the old Aungier Street 
 Theatre he acted with Grace Philipps. Later he 
 became known as the lessee and manager of the York, 
 Leeds and Hull theatres, and he also took companies 
 to Doncaster, Wakefield, Sheffield and other towns in 
 Yorkshire. In addition to this he from time to time 
 acted in many of the provincial towns, and even in 
 Covent Garden, thus earning for himself the title of 
 ' The Wandering Patentee." In the eyes of the law 
 actors were but strolling vagabonds, in the eyes of the 
 public they were the public's most obliged and 
 obedient servants, ready meekly to apologize if they 
 failed to please, and were expected to look upon it as 
 but justice if their property were wrecked by an ill- 
 
 56
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 57 
 
 mannered mob; in the eyes of society the best actor 
 was not fit to tie the shoelace of a gentleman nor to call 
 himself a gentleman. Tate Wilkinson, however, was 
 the son of a Doctor of Divinity who had been chaplain 
 to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and who, for solemniz- 
 ing marriages in defiance of the Marriage Act of 
 George II, was sentenced to transportation to America, 
 but died at Plymouth on the outgoing voyage. Tate 
 Wilkinson finished his education at Harrow, and was, 
 as a contemporary said, a polished gentleman ; yet, in 
 spite of all the social prejudices against actors, he 
 chose the despised profession that he might indulge 
 his love of mimicry. 
 
 By 1782 his position and fame had long been 
 assured, and Mrs. Bland, who seems from this point 
 to have taken her husband's real name, turned her 
 thoughts to him in her necessity. 
 
 Wilkinson was at that time stationed at Leeds, and 
 there the Blands finished their journey from Dublin, 
 arriving early in July. But in what a plight were 
 they! 
 
 How was it that within six weeks of acting the 
 principal woman's parts for months in Dublin, Dorothy 
 and her family arrived at Leeds so ill-dressed that 
 Tate Wilkinson was ashamed of them? To put it in 
 his own delicate way, they were not " so well accoutred 
 as I could have wished for their sakes and mine own." 
 Dorothy was destitute of clothing, the others were in a 
 deplorable state, without money, friends, acquaint- 
 ances, or any possibility of credit. The girl's attrac- 
 tion depended on her animation, yet here on first seeing 
 the actor from whom she desired work she was in such 
 a state of depression that there was no prettiness in her
 
 5 8 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 looks; on the contrary, she was dejected and melan- 
 choly, the tears slowly dropping, so sad and so helpless 
 that the man's pity was awakened and he checked the 
 decided " No " which rose to his lips at the request 
 that he would give her a trial. 
 
 There can be but the one explanation that I have 
 given : that in a panic Dorothy rushed from Dublin, 
 without her salary and without luggage, ready to starve 
 rather than to remain longer in Daly's vindictive 
 power. 
 
 On their arrival at Leeds Mrs. Bland wrote to 
 Wilkinson, and he went to see them at their inn, being 
 most unfavourably impressed by them and their sur- 
 roundings. Mrs. Bland, poor woman, whom he recog- 
 nized as the Grace Philipps of a quarter of a century 
 earlier, was so eager for his approbation that she 
 overdid the praises of her daughter, talking so ful- 
 somely that Wilkinson was disgusted, and at once 
 resolved to have nothing to do with them. 
 
 The thing which most upset him, however, was that, 
 having heard Mrs. Bland talk ad nauseam, he turned 
 to Dorothy with the question 
 
 " But what do you play ? Comedy, tragedy, farce, 
 or what ? " 
 
 " All ! " replied the girl, with dull indifference. 
 
 Wilkinson gasped and stared; and Dorothy, in 
 telling the story in later life, would add 
 
 " Sir, I never saw an elderly gentleman more 
 astonished." 
 
 Yet the pathos of Dorothy's aspect was too much 
 for his kind heart, and he compromised by going away 
 for half an hour to think matters over. He was not 
 only horrified by their poverty and distress, but fearful
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 59 
 
 of the load which Dorothy was bearing. He could 
 pay an actress sufficient for her own support, but 
 sufficient for the support of four persons was quite 
 another thing, and he was afraid of what demands 
 might be made upon him. He came to the conclusion 
 that he might at least see what the young lady could 
 do, and with that intention returned. Dorothy, how- 
 ever, declared that she was not then equal even to 
 repeating some lines, and would rather have a fair trial 
 on the boards, to which the manager reluctantly agreed. 
 
 The trouble probably was that the Elands were all 
 hungry, and Dorothy was too low to be able to put any 
 heart into her words. Wilkinson ordered a bottle of 
 madeira, and while they were drinking it Mrs. Bland 
 gave him the news of Dublin, which allowed time 
 for her daughter to pull herself together, the wine 
 helping her and sending a warmer current through her 
 veins. Seeing this, Wilkinson again suggested that 
 she should speak a few lines from the part of Callista 
 in The Fair Penitent, a play then much appreciated, 
 and she agreed. 
 
 On hearing her wonderful voice Wilkinson was con- 
 quered, and records, " I felt inwardly surprised and 
 delighted, and could not repress my hopes and my 
 compliments, and assured her I was lucky in such an 
 acquaintance. She, on her part, said if she could 
 please me she did not fear the audience; for Mr. 
 Wilkinson was a man (though a stranger to her) of such 
 well-known honour that his word and direction should 
 be her guide ; she knew if she had merit it would soon 
 be found out by the public; and her diligence, her 
 anxiety to deserve my favour, should be unbounded; 
 and gratitude being her natural good quality, I should
 
 60 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ever receive that payment for my kindness to her in 
 her destitute case. And so we complimented and 
 flattered, and flattered and complimented, till we really 
 found a sudden impulse of regard, and parted that 
 noon with mutual good wishes and assurances." 
 
 The good man went from that strange interview with 
 a pleased mind and a feeling that he had really found 
 a treasure, and he could not hide his satisfaction, for, 
 joining his company for a rehearsal, he entertained 
 them with a description of the little " female Proteus " 
 who had applied to him. 
 
 Wilkinson had also a further motive of association 
 to induce him to consider Dorothy as a possible 
 member of his company, for the unmarried Miss 
 Philipps her mother's sister, who had been on the 
 stage in minor companies presumably ever since that 
 visit to London had been acting sometimes in York 
 and elsewhere under his management. 
 
 In the Elixir of Life it is asserted though Wil- 
 kinson does not give the incident either in his Memoirs 
 which were published at York in 1790, nor in The 
 Wandering Patentee which saw the light five years 
 later that he was from the first prejudiced against 
 the Elands by Daly, who had written to him that 
 Dorothy "was the worst of wretched actresses." If 
 that is true, the letter would probably have followed 
 and not preceded the arrival of the impecunious 
 family, and so would have received no notice. It cer- 
 tainly did not precede them, for Wilkinson announces 
 their coming in his most entertaining book with " The 
 MRS. JORDAN suddenly starts upon me at Leeds with 
 her mother, Mrs. G. Phillips, Master and Miss Francis 
 her brother and sister, all hand in hand."
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 61 
 
 Once having made up his mind to try Dorothy, the 
 manager, without asking questions, billed his new- 
 comer as Miss Bland, somewhat to the mother's dis- 
 turbance, who told him that for the future the name 
 of Francis was to be used in public. She was hoping 
 not only for the continuance of the dole the Blands 
 made her, but that they would at least do something 
 substantial for the boy, the son of Francis Bland, and 
 she had no wish to offend them. 
 
 Besides billing the new actress well, Wilkinson did 
 everything he could to ensure a good audience for 
 her first night, with the result that the theatre was 
 crowded on July 11,1782, when Dorothy duly appeared 
 as Callista in The Fair Penitent. She was horribly 
 nervous as she stood in the wings; it is said that she 
 always lost her head before going on the stage, but 
 that the first step on the boards banished every atom of 
 self-consciousness. Thus it was on this first perform- 
 ance in England, and she pleased the audience, which 
 was inclined to be critical first and pleasant only as an 
 afterthought. She had stipulated that, the play being 
 over, she should go on again to sing the song of " The 
 Greenwood Laddie," a song with which she was accus- 
 tomed to get good results; and Tate Wilkinson did 
 his best to dissuade her from it. 
 
 " How can you die pathetically and then come on 
 all alive and singing a pretty ballad ? " he asked. 
 
 But she would not be moved, so after her death as 
 Callista she appeared again in a simple frock and 
 little mob-cap, and sang the song with such effect that 
 both the audience and the manager were fascinated by 
 the melody of her voice. She played sufficiently and 
 successfully enough that month to have a benefit on
 
 August 6, and then the whole company went to 
 York. 
 
 For their work in that city Wilkinson had prepared 
 bills announcing Miss Francis, and Mrs. Bland once 
 more interfered, sending him a note in which she said 
 that for very important reasons the name of Francis 
 must be changed. His natural retort was, " Why not 
 Bland, then?" Dorothy answered that that would 
 injure them too much with her father's relatives, and 
 it is obvious that in changing her name from Francis 
 her design was again to hide her identity from them. 
 Wilkinson gives two different accounts of how the word 
 Jordan was chosen, and others have added their ideas : 
 " For pregnant reasons the name of Francis gave place 
 to that of Jordan," flippantly asserted one wag. 
 
 One of Wilkinson's accounts runs that he said to 
 her, " You have crossed the water, my dear, so I'll call 
 you Jordan ! " Then, in telling the tale in later life, 
 he always added, " And, by Sam, if she didn't take my 
 joke in earnest, and call herself Mrs. Jordan ever since." 
 
 His more restrained explanation is that he and the 
 Elands met to talk it over, and ultimately the name of 
 Jordan was adopted ; " and a good name it has proved 
 for her credit, and will be remembered with the tribute 
 of honour to her undoubted excellent talents while the 
 stage is permitted any share in history or conversation." 
 
 One newspaper account of her life says that Dorothy 
 herself explained her name by saying to a friend that 
 she was sure that in Ireland she had shed enough tears 
 to overflow the River Jordan, on which the friend 
 pointed out that there was a name for her choice. 
 
 But, so far as I can prove, this was another of those 
 incidents in her life of which Dorothy alone kept the
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 63 
 
 secret. Wilkinson in a vague way, and Boaden, who 
 wrote of her in 1831, both connect the choice of the 
 name with the Miss Philipps who was then dying in 
 the very city which the company had reached. Boaden 
 remarks in his usual discursive fashion he was a 
 wonderful person for talking around the subject and 
 never arriving at the point 
 
 ' The reader must be made acquainted with the 
 reason which produced this new decision as to the 
 name on the arrival at York. . . . The fact is that her 
 aunt, Miss Philipps, who had also been an actress in 
 the York company, and was now lying dangerously ill, 
 had that last infirmity of the Welsh mind, a high value 
 for the families to which she claimed alliance the 
 Ap-Griffiths, the Winnys, and the Aprices of Wales. 
 She had earnestly entreated to see her sister, Mrs. 
 Bland, and to welcome her niece, whom she pro- 
 nounced to be already an honour to the stock from 
 which she derived alike her theatrical and lineal 
 honours, and as this near relative was at the point of 
 death . . . prudence and affection concurred in allow- 
 ing the last wish of an aunt who felt her interest so 
 strongly." 
 
 Now what was the wish? To see her sister or to 
 agree to the change of name? Boaden starts to give 
 the reason for the change of name and ends by telling 
 nothing. 
 
 My conjecture is that this biographer intended to 
 give the real information, but that his habit of slurring 
 anything which would detract from the honour of the 
 connections of his heroine he does it all through his 
 book made him temporize and reduce his information 
 to the finest point.
 
 64 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 When hunting for confirmation of my suspicions 
 concerning the birth of Dorothy Bland I found, as has 
 been told, a third entry in the book in St. Martin's 
 vestry, to this effect 
 
 Aug. 14, 1761. [Baptized] Dorothy, [daughter of] 
 Ignatius and Mary Jordan. [Born] Aug. 14. 
 
 Now this was at a time when Miss Philipps was most 
 probably in London with her sister and settled near her 
 in St. Martin's parish. She may have made a marriage 
 which was unhappy, or of short duration ; she may not 
 even have married Ignatius at all, only the absurdly 
 ponderous name makes it impossible to connect the 
 young man with any lightness of thought. If some 
 trouble occurred and she found it necessary soon to go 
 back to her work alone, it was certain that she would 
 take it up again under the name by which she had so 
 far been known, and she certainly would have no 
 reason to confide her private affairs to any one, 
 certainly not to such an inveterate gossip as Tate 
 Wilkinson. 
 
 Thus my theory is that the little Dorothy Jordan 
 who was born so weakly that she had to be baptized 
 the same day, and then most likely died, was the 
 daughter of Miss M. Philipps, and that the wish to 
 which " both prudence and affection " conceded was 
 that the girl who seemed on the road to fame should 
 bear with her the memory of the little cousin whom she 
 had never seen, and so warm the soul of the dying 
 woman with the idea that her child would not be wholly 
 forgotten. But this is all theory drawn from the 
 association of names, and the " wish " of Miss Philipps. 
 
 Miss Philipps had been acting for Tate Wilkinson
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 65 
 
 for some years until 1769, when she ended her engage- 
 ment with him in angry jealousy of a young actress 
 named Baker, for the elder lady believed greatly in her 
 own prowess and could not bear to see another take her 
 parts. After that she acted in many provincial towns ; her 
 name is recorded at Manchester, for instance, in 1771. 
 
 If Boaden, awed by having known personally and 
 having made himself very useful to Mrs. Jordan, and 
 by having on various occasions come in contact with 
 the Duke of Clarence, was too subservient to his king, 
 William IV, to speak out, such is not the character of 
 Wilkinson. He had the fault or the virtue of all good 
 raconteurs, he never could resist telling a good story. 
 As regards Miss Philipps, he also betrays some slight 
 resentment, which makes him relish making such a 
 statement about the meeting of the relatives as " She 
 had plenty of clothes and linen (at the pawnbroker's); 
 she bequeathed them to her beloved niece (which under 
 the rose was not at that time by any means unaccept- 
 able)." He also confides to his public that Miss 
 Philipps had a fatal weakness probably the drink or 
 drug habit. 
 
 That Daly in his spite did threaten to sue Dorothy 
 is quite true. She had signed a contract to work for 
 so long with him, and she left before that time was up, 
 the full penalty being 250. So the choice was put 
 before her, either to return or to pay the money, which, 
 however, was really a choice between returning to 
 Dublin or going to prison. But by the time this affair 
 had grown serious, Tate Wilkinson was perfectly per- 
 suaded that he had obtained a treasure, and he had 
 exerted himself to befriend that treasure to the best of 
 his ability. Probably thinking that her acting would be
 
 66 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 better for a little tuition, he had introduced her to a 
 dramatic critic, an old gentleman named Cornelius 
 Swan, who was much respected in York, and who 
 thought highly of Dorothy's powers, though he was 
 also certain that no one could approach himself in the 
 knowledge of how things should be done. 
 
 Mr. Swan undertook to give Dorothy lessons, and he 
 was so eager to see her improvement that it is said that 
 when she was ill (perhaps during her stay at York) he 
 was admitted to her bedchamber, and would sit by the 
 side of her bed, wrapped up and adorned in Mrs. 
 Eland's old red cloak, and so instruct the girl in how 
 to act the character of Zara in the tragedy of that name 
 by Hill. 
 
 " Really, Wilkinson," said he, " I have given the 
 Jordan but three lessons, but she is so adroit at 
 receiving my instructions that I swear that she repeats 
 the character as well as Mrs. Gibber ever did ; nay, let 
 me do the Jordan justice, for I do not exceed when 
 with truth I declare Jordan speaks it as well as I could 
 myself ! " 
 
 His friendship went further than his praise, for when 
 he knew the dreadful predicament in which Dorothy 
 was placed, he actually paid the 250, rather than lose 
 so promising a pupil, or let the stage be robbed of one 
 for whom he expected fame. It was done with many 
 assurances of lasting friendship and declarations that 
 for the future she must consider herself his adopted 
 daughter ; but the exacting manager noted that he " did 
 not prove a tender, fond parent, for at his death he did 
 not leave her a shilling." 
 
 Wilkinson had started his young actress with fifteen 
 shillings a week little enough, it may be thought, and
 
 " It ! The Great Treasure " 67 
 
 much less than she had been receiving ; but then these 
 small theatres did not bring in much money, and it was 
 hard work to pay all and still retain something. But 
 the race week at York was not only successful, it made 
 the intelligent Patentee see the need for keeping his 
 " treasure " in his own hand. Among those who came 
 down to the races that year, and who came every year, 
 was an actor known at Drury Lane and in the profes- 
 sion as Gentleman Smith, and he spent the first evening 
 of his stay in the theatre. There to his surprise he 
 found a girl who gave great promise, and with whose 
 acting he was so much impressed that he repeated his 
 visits to the play every evening, watching Dorothy in 
 many different parts, and confiding his opinion of her 
 ability to the genial manager. To guard against thefts 
 and accidents the alert Wilkinson at once doubled 
 Dorothy's salary, and gave her an extraordinary 
 benefit, " for her services were truly valuable, and she 
 not only wanted but truly deserved every encourage- 
 ment/' One wonders if he would have been so sure 
 of this if he had not also been afraid that Gentleman 
 Smith might lure her to London. To make matters 
 entirely safe he, as soon as he got back to Leeds, had 
 the articles of a long engagement settled, and there- 
 after he felt less alarmed concerning any reports that 
 Gentleman Smith might give in London of Mrs. 
 Jordan's cleverness. 
 
 But in one respect Dorothy had succeeded too well 
 for her comfort. The absurd practice of women taking 
 men's parts was tried by Wilkinson, and one actor left 
 the company in disgust because his part was given to 
 Mrs. Jordan; the actresses, also, were too jealous to 
 be friendly. " Why should this new-comer have two
 
 68 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 benefits in three months ? " they asked ; which was 
 indeed too sore a point to be forgotten; thus as soon 
 as Dorothy appeared in the Green Room in the 
 evenings she would hear some such conversation as 
 
 " Pray, ma'am, when is your benefit ? " 
 
 " Oh, I cannot say. When is yours ? for I see Mrs. 
 Jordan begins with one next Wednesday." 
 
 They all turned against her, and if it had not been 
 for the support of Wilkinson for she had gregarious 
 instincts, and to be sent to Coventry by those around 
 her depressed her miserably she would have failed 
 under the daily snubbing she received. Her com- 
 panions could not believe that her talents were in any 
 way superior to their own ; they put her good fortune 
 down to the partiality of the manager ; and he, totally 
 indifferent to their attitude to him, could only feel that 
 it was impossible to let slip one who, to use his own 
 words, "gave uncommon labour and study to the 
 theatre"; one whose spirits (temper?), as he quaintly 
 says, "were never violent except when scolding the 
 manager or having an empty pocket." 
 
 Dorothy went with the company to other Yorkshire 
 towns (Wakefield, Doncaster and Sheffield), and it was 
 at the last place that she had a narrow escape of her 
 life; for when playing the part of the chambermaid, 
 with Knight, the Liverpool manager, as footman in 
 The Fair American, a drop-scene on a heavy roller fell 
 suddenly at their feet. A few inches more to the back 
 and Mrs. Jordan would never more have been heard 
 of, while Knight would have had his career cut short. 
 During this visit to Sheffield the Duke of Norfolk 
 he whom the Prince of Wales once made so frightfully 
 drunk on brandy at the Pavilion developed an
 
 " It ! The Great Treasure " 69 
 
 admiration for Dorothy and would bring a troop of 
 friends to see her act whenever she was in that town. 
 
 But to return to the jealous ladies : one of the most 
 jealous was a Mrs. Smith "who toiled hard in my 
 vineyard and earned her reward," says Wilkinson. 
 This lady regarded her reward, however, as something 
 more than work or wages ; she required to stand first in 
 public and managerial estimation. Unfortunately for 
 this ambition, she was that summer and autumn in that 
 condition which a woman desires to be who loves her 
 lord, and the fear of her enforced rest acted on her 
 nerves, producing an exceptional amount of spite and 
 rivalry. However, inexorable Nature decreed that 
 Mrs. Smith should lay down her arms, and Dorothy 
 Jordan joyfully took up the burden of the fight. Wil- 
 kinson says that the latter would learn a new part in 
 twenty-four hours, and that she played night after 
 night with unremitting zeal. She, too, knew that her 
 time was short, but she made the best of it both for 
 her manager and herself. It would have been better 
 for Mrs. Smith had she been content comfortably to 
 let things slide, for the laugh would have been on her 
 side in November and December. But she was so 
 determined to allow no advantage to her rival by a 
 lengthy absence, that "in a short time of her lying- 
 in" (I cannot decide whether this means before or 
 after, for Tate Wilkinson adds " though a very remark- 
 able wet September"), she would walk in a damp 
 garden to get strength for the journey of eighteen 
 miles from Doncaster to Sheffield, to which place the 
 company went on October 13. Her infant was born 
 on the second of that month, so if the walks in the 
 damp garden were taken between the second and the
 
 70 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 eighteenth, then Mrs. Smith simply asked for disaster. 
 Wilkinson begged her neither to go to Sheffield nor to 
 act until she was quite strong, but she insisted upon 
 taking the journey and it meant driving in as cheap 
 a way as possible, or walking with the consequence 
 that she had fixed lameness in her hip, which was likely 
 to prove dangerous. Even that did not keep her from 
 the boards ; act she would and act she did, limping and 
 hobbling over the stage rather than let Dorothy appear, 
 and in no way prevented by the manager's assurance 
 that, as Jordan was at hand, there was no need for her 
 attendance. The result of this headstrong act was a 
 relapse and an enforced rest until December 18. As 
 Dorothy took her " rest " from November 2 until late 
 in December, Wilkinson was left lamenting two of his 
 chief characters. 
 
 She spent this retirement in Hull, and her absence 
 from the stage gave plenty of opportunity for malici- 
 ous gossip, deliberate efforts being made there to 
 destroy her reputation a proof of her merit, else such 
 indefatigable pains to injure and depress had not been 
 taken. Thus when she appeared on the Hull stage in 
 the part of Callista on December 26, 1782, though the 
 house was good, her reception was cool, and, as all her 
 life she was more than ordinarily affected by the atti- 
 tude of her audiences, her performance was languid 
 and spiritless. In the succeeding song, " The Green- 
 wood Laddie," she was hissed. 
 
 Wilkinson puts this all down to the malevolence of 
 what he calls the " Scandal Club," otherwise the 
 jealous tongues of the actresses in his company, who 
 represented to the ladies in the town that Mrs. Jordan 
 was too improper a person to receive their support.
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 71 
 
 It was not long, however, before Dorothy's merits 
 overcame prejudice, and slander was mute. 
 
 At Sheffield, in 1783, theatrical affairs were very 
 low in public estimation, the takings one night being 
 only 6 95., though Dorothy's benefit gained 57. 
 Six pounds nine shillings is bad enough, but it is on 
 record that on one occasion when Garrick and Mrs. 
 Gibber were acting at Drury Lane the evening's cash 
 receipts amounted only to 3 i$s. 6d. The Scandal 
 Club was in great strength in Sheffield, headed by 
 Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Ward, a new acquisition whose 
 husband was in the band. The latter was very proud 
 of herself in small clothes, and resented the fact that 
 Mrs. Jordan had all the parts in which the debonair 
 young man was played by a woman. Indeed, her 
 resentment amounted to hatred, and she fanned Mrs. 
 Smith's jealousy to an active state. These two women 
 soon infected the others, and an organized attempt was 
 made to render Dorothy's play bad by small persecu- 
 tions, the favourite scheme being for several of them 
 to sit in a group at the stage door, or the wings, and 
 do everything in their power to disconcert her when 
 going through her part. Wilkinson frustrated this by 
 having all the doors which were not needed padlocked 
 each night, and the knowledge that the manager was 
 aware of what was going on acted as a deterrent. 
 
 Dorothy was a clever girl though, and not an actress 
 for nothing, and she managed to secure retribution for 
 her rivals in their loss of popularity. She would go 
 on the stage with an air of the deepest distress, her 
 eyes red and tears trickling, her tongue tied in the 
 effort to prevent sobbing. At this sad sight the 
 audience would ask what could possibly be the matter?
 
 72 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 was she ill or injured? and then the whisper would 
 circulate as to the unkindness of her sister actresses. 
 Mrs. Smith never could conquer her hatred, and 
 favours received from her rival only made her more 
 bitter. When that winter she and her husband had a 
 benefit, Dorothy, with fine magnanimity, offered her 
 services and drew a great house, thus contributing 
 largely to the sum pocketed by the Smiths, and the 
 lady thanked her by grumbling; as Wilkinson says, 
 "Jordan was the fly in the ointment, and still Mrs. 
 Smith was not happy." 
 
 There were some incidents in her life which Dorothy 
 Bland never forgot, among them being naturally the 
 horror and distress brought upon her by the tyrant 
 Daly, and the struggles of her early years on the stage. 
 Her memory of the first filled her mind with tender 
 feelings for women in the same plight, and after the 
 birth of her daughter she kept by her several complete 
 sets of linen necessary to a lying-in, which she lent 
 out to poor women. When in after years she had more 
 money to spend she increased the number of these 
 bundles, and round Richmond and Drury Lane was 
 often blessed by women who knew not where to secure 
 necessities in their extremity. 
 
 For struggling actresses she always felt a generous 
 sympathy and often showed it actively. Thus a girl 
 of fifteen named Wilkinson applied to Tate (who was 
 no relation) for work. Fifteen seems an absurd age 
 to think of being self-supporting, but this girl had 
 several years earlier, with other children, including the 
 future Mrs. Kemble, little Romanzini, who was the 
 future Mrs. George Bland, and others, acted at the 
 circus in London in a piece by old Dibdin called
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 73 
 
 The Boarding School, or Breaking Up, a performance 
 which was so successful that the patent proprietors 
 interfered, and the children narrowly escaped gaol. 
 
 Wilkinson had no part for the young actress and 
 could offer little hope of one, but to relieve her imme- 
 diate needs he promised her a benefit performance 
 on the last day of the year. She was quite unknown 
 to the company, and there was little reason why any 
 members should take trouble over her; but Dorothy, 
 thinking pitifully of her own hard struggle, acted as 
 Lionel to her Clarissa, and thus earned for herself the 
 lasting friendship of the girl who, as Mrs. Mountain, 
 was later well known on the London boards. Mrs. 
 Smith kept her jealousy of Dorothy alive, and as in 
 her benefit during the winter of 1783 she was not only 
 not grateful but even spiteful, so in the winter of 1784 
 she followed the same tactics : for that benefit a new 
 play, Fontainebleau, was acted, and though Mrs. 
 Smith was given the part most suited to her, she was 
 so annoyed that she could not have that allotted to 
 her rival that she quarrelled violently with Wilkin- 
 son, and swore she would spoil the character every 
 time she played it. This she proceeded to do, forget- 
 ting that while she was glorying in vexing the manager 
 she was also losing her reputation as an actress. 
 
 During the winter season, however, of 1784-5 
 Dorothy lost some of her charm. She was ill and in 
 poor spirits. Wilkinson, who was a kind-hearted man, 
 though he had grown cynical in a good-natured way 
 through his constant study of the actor-character, could 
 not be sure whether she was really ill or only affected 
 to be so. It is a curious fact that though Dorothy was 
 always praised for her spontaneity and her natural
 
 74 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 acting, she was all through her life to be suspected of 
 acting when illness kept her off the stage. She was 
 not a strong woman, but any indisposition on her part 
 was generally the signal for some cry equivalent to the 
 word malingering. 
 
 It has generally been said that Dorothy entirely 
 supported her family of five persons while in York, 
 but this was not so; for if Hester did not start acting 
 as soon as she got to Yorkshire, it was not long before 
 she began. On July 16, 1793, she made her first 
 appearance on the Leeds stage, as Miss Francis, with 
 a song, and she gradually progressed until two years 
 later she was acting more constantly than Dorothy, and 
 in important parts Polly in A Beggar on Horseback, 
 Juliet in Measure for Measure, etc. George also, as 
 Master Francis, filled up gaps, such as a printer's 
 devil, a messenger, an archer, and occasionally sang 
 duets on the stage with Dorothy. It is, however, very 
 possible that he got little or nothing for his juvenile 
 performances. 
 
 All through these years George Inchbald, stepson 
 to Mrs. Inchbald, was a member of the company, and 
 there was the beginning of a romance between him and 
 Dorothy. One gossiper records that he loved her, but 
 that circumstances were too desperate and her pride 
 was too great for her to accept him, but the weight of 
 evidence lies on the side of a strong emotion on the 
 part of the lady which won a condescending but weak 
 reciprocation from the gentleman. Dorothy's way- 
 wardness, her recurring depression and fitful humour 
 at this time point rather to a trouble of the heart and 
 mind than to disease of the body, to unhappiness rather 
 than to unhealthiness. George, however, was a pru-
 
 'It! The Great Treasure* 75 
 
 dent man, too prudent to catch opportunity at its call 
 too prudent, in fact, ever to achieve success. " The 
 humble Nell of the York stage " was too humble to 
 draw the magic declaration from him, and perhaps her 
 unhappiness was too great for her to rise above it. So 
 Dorothy gained the reputation that winter of being 
 careless and inattentive to her parts, and the irritation 
 of the audience culminated in March 1785 when a 
 benefit performance was given of Cymbeline, followed 
 by The Poor Soldier, and she was billed to sing a song 
 at the end of the third act of the tragedy and to play 
 in the farce. She said she was not well, and she evi- 
 dently intended to lighten the evening's work by 
 cutting out the song in Cymbeline; but the audience 
 wanted the song, they refused to do without it; they 
 demanded the song or nothing with their vengeance 
 to follow. 
 
 Wilkinson unsuccessfully used all his art to make 
 his actress sing, but, as he said, " no persuasion would 
 do. Those who know Mrs. Jordan must know, without 
 the least offence, she is very obstinate, she may be led 
 but will not be driven on the stage or off, unless she 
 is in the humour." 
 
 The audience were even more obstinate than she ; 
 they reasoned that if she were really ill she would 
 have stayed at home and given up her part in the farce ; 
 and if she were well enough to play and sing in the 
 farce, she could also sing a song in the earlier piece. 
 Of course she had to give way, for she had no wish to 
 create a riot, so at last she staggered on to the stage, 
 looking frightfully pale and already dressed as the 
 poor soldier. Telling the audience she was ill, she 
 promptly fainted against the background. The seep-
 
 7 6 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ticism in front was, however, proof even against this, 
 and when she was recovered sufficiently she was 
 obliged to sing 
 
 " In the prattling years of youth," etc. 
 
 In giving his personal recollections of Mrs. Jordan 
 during these three years Tate Wilkinson is very apolo- 
 getic humorously so, for he published his Wandering 
 Patentee just ten years later, when she was at the 
 height of her fame, and he might well have thought 
 that he was telling things she might prefer to have 
 kept hidden. At one point he says 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan has more sense than to suppose, in 
 relating these transactions, I mean any more than to 
 make her laugh as well as any other reader; her not 
 being so affluent at the time I am making mention 
 reflects not the least disgrace, as she never can shine 
 more in her days of prosperity than in her days of 
 affliction." 
 
 But he had practically quarrelled with her in 1791, 
 four years before the book came out. As he says in 
 another part of it, " I have ever entertained a regard 
 for Mrs. Jordan, but speaking the truth, I trust, will 
 little wrong her; we have often been very strong 
 friends, and as often at whimsical jarrings. It is not 
 only in 1782 I shall have the honour of introducing her, 
 but occasionally, and will extend to 1790, and then I 
 believe I made my rough bow, and the lady not any 
 courtesy; and it is probable that we shall never meet 
 again." 
 
 They never did meet again, I believe, though 
 Wilkinson did not die until 1803. 
 
 In the summer of 1785 the great chance came for
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 77 
 
 Dorothy; for Gentleman Smith had never forgotten 
 the girl he had first seen acting in York three years 
 before, and whom he had made a point of watching 
 every race week in that town since. 
 
 Mrs. Siddons was then the one star of Drury Lane, 
 <r the great Siddonian Queen," as one of her admirers 
 called her, and there seems to have been no one to act 
 as understudy to her; so Smith suggested that Mrs. 
 Jordan should be engaged to play second to their 
 incomparable actress, at four pounds a week. 
 
 At that time Dorothy had not seen Mrs. Siddons, 
 but she was ready to go to London on almost any 
 terms, for she had now been working three years in 
 Yorkshire for a little wage, and she found that in 
 London her salary could be more than doubled, so 
 the arrangement was made that she should begin her 
 assault of London in the autumn of 1785. As to her 
 work there she may from the first have made some 
 mental reservations, for the desire of her heart was to 
 play second to no one, not even to Siddons. 
 
 There was a certain play written by Wycherley 
 known as The Country Wife, which in its immorality 
 and wit well represented the somewhat free days of its 
 original production. To meet the demand for con- 
 stant change and variety, this old play had been 
 revived by Garrick, who, seeing its dramatic possibili- 
 ties, changed it sufficiently to make its presentation 
 possible in an age which seemed quite as pure after 
 the licence of the Restoration period as that age itself 
 seems impure to the increased delicacy of our own 
 time. 
 
 The great David, after his pruning exertions, re- 
 named it The Country Girl, and brought it up to the
 
 78 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 level of his usual audience not a particularly high 
 level, for, despite the Shakespearean vogue, rape and 
 adultery were the stock subjects of much of the 
 popular drama of the time. Oxberry says that 
 Francis Bland was responsible for a re-revival of this 
 play, and that Grace acted in it. This may have been, 
 but it again had fallen out of use when, in 1785, an 
 actress named Mrs. Brown, belonging to the Norwich 
 company, took it to York in April, and Dolly watched 
 its performance critically. She saw greater possibili- 
 ties in it than Mrs. Brown had brought out, and deter- 
 mined to make the play her own. Though she had 
 acted since her first days in Dublin in The Romp, she 
 had never yet identified herself with farcical comedy, 
 but was considered that somewhat colourless person, 
 a good all-round actress, with especial talent for senti- 
 ment. Now The Country Girl woke her from her 
 lethargy, and she began to lay plans for her future in 
 London. 
 
 It was said that Mrs. Brown taught Dorothy Jordan 
 how to play the part, a statement upon which Wilkin- 
 son throws his light scorn : " I do not think Mrs. Brown 
 had a wish to give any instructions, nor the other lady 
 the least inclination to receive them, had they been 
 offered; each held the abilities of the other in the 
 highest contempt, and there was no love lost between 
 them." 
 
 It is evident from all accounts that Dorothy's acting 
 was of a poor quality this summer, for Mr. Yates, the 
 husband of the actress, seeing her in Yorkshire, gave 
 his opinion that Mrs. Jordan was a piece of theatrical 
 mediocrity, while he thought Miss Wilkinson, who had 
 succeeded in getting a position with the company, both
 
 "It! The Great Treasure" 79 
 
 pleasing and promising, and Mrs. Brown as the height 
 of excellence. Mrs. Siddons, too, who was touring 
 there in August, and doubtless knew that this young 
 woman was to be her " second," gave it as her opinion 
 that Mrs. Jordan had better remain where she was and 
 not attempt the London boards. It is curious to note 
 that this same advice was given to Mrs. Siddons 
 herself in her early days by William Woodfall, the 
 dramatic critic, for he thought her too weak for the 
 large London theatres, and recommended her to keep 
 to small houses where she could be heard. 
 
 The struggle for life was so bitter, and the mental 
 horizon of the players so limited that their quarrels 
 and there were many seem often to have verged upon 
 farce; and this year the introduction of a new actress 
 into Wilkinson's company, a Mrs. Robinson, later 
 known as Mrs. Taylor, gave a delicious example of the 
 effects of jealousy. It was at Leeds that Wilkinson 
 engaged her, recording that " her figure in small- 
 clothes was neat to perfection," and probably by his 
 favourable impression of her he at once set the heart 
 of a loving mother beating with anger. For Mrs. 
 Bland still thought her daughter possessed of the very 
 highest attributes of her art, and she despised any one 
 who dared to strut in the characters that she regarded 
 as sacred to Dorothy. As a new actress or any special 
 occasion would draw the unoccupied members of the 
 company to show their curiosity by hanging round the 
 doors which opened on to the stage, Mrs. Bland one 
 night took a chair, and sitting where she could see 
 everything well, watched Mrs. Robinson perform. 
 It was a sight which saddened her almost to distrac- 
 tion, and when the manager came her way she caught
 
 8o The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 him by the coat, and, holding her apron over her eyes, 
 demanded earnestly that he would tell her, as an act 
 of kindness, when that fright should have done acting 
 and speaking, for it was so horrid that she could not 
 bear to look at it. 
 
 Mrs. Robinson was just as flattering to Dorothy; 
 when in conversation with Wilkinson one evening she 
 wondered how he could say that Mrs. Jordan had so 
 much merit; for her own part she could not discover 
 that she had any, or, if any, only a small share, and 
 that mediocre. " I flatter myself that I have some 
 judgment, and I venture to say that when you lose 
 your great treasure in the autumn, and IT goes to 
 London, IT will be glad to come back if you will 
 accept IT." 
 
 That Mrs. Robinson had some reason for her 
 opinion the public testified when, at Dorothy's benefit, 
 which occurred on July 25, it refused to attend, the 
 house holding but a sprinkling of people to see her act 
 Imogen in Cymbeline, and Rachel in The Fair 
 American. 
 
 With nonchalant weariness Dorothy trod the York 
 boards for the last time early in September, and made 
 her last appearance in Yorkshire as a member of Wil- 
 kinson's company at Wakefield on the ninth of that 
 month in The Poor Soldier. It was with no great hope 
 that she set off for London, for life and acting had 
 staled for her; she was sure of nothing, not even of 
 herself, and no presentiment of what was to come shed 
 any glow over her mind, though her new salary of 
 four pounds a week must have been very comforting 
 in anticipation.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DOROTHY AND THE BRITISH PUBLIC 
 
 " Her laughter is the happiest and most natural thing on the stage ; if 
 she is to laugh in the middle of a speech, it does not separate itself so 
 abruptly from her words as with most of our performers. . . . Her 
 laughter intermingles itself with her words as fresh ideas afford her fresh 
 merriment, she does not so much indulge as she seems unable to help it ; 
 it increases, it leSsens, with her fancy, and when you expect it no longer 
 according to the usual habits of the stage, it sparkles forth at little 
 intervals as recollection revives it, like flame from half- smothered embers. 
 This is the laughter of the feelings, and it is the predominance of heart 
 in all she says and does that renders her the most delightful actress in 
 the Violante of The Wonder, the Clara of Matrimony, and in twenty 
 other characters." LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 IN September 1785 the Elands went to London, the 
 party consisting of Mrs. Bland, Hester, Dorothy and 
 the little Frances, daughter of Daly. There is no 
 mention of a brother at this time, the report being that 
 he had been sent to school and college by his father's 
 relatives. This, however, was a confusion with Mrs. 
 Williams and Nathaniel, for George was with his sister 
 all the time they were in Yorkshire, though she may 
 have sent him to school later. Henrietta Street, 
 Covent Garden, seems to have been the first London 
 home of the family. 
 
 At this time Mrs. Siddons was the one great actress 
 at Drury Lane, Miss Farren being the only other of 
 note, and she played the dainty fine lady of the con- 
 ventional type to perfection ; but there was no one to 
 represent farcical comedy, and, indeed, farcical 
 comedy was not in favour. Mrs. Siddons had so 
 accustomed the public to the representations of death 
 
 F 8l
 
 82 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and tragic endings that people went to the theatre to 
 cry, to shudder and often to faint. So often was the 
 last-named luxury indulged in, and so complimentary 
 was it thought to be to the chief actress, that later public 
 mockery was made of it in bogus advertisements, as 
 when Mrs. Elizabeth Screech announced that she was 
 well known at Drury Lane Theatre, having had the 
 honour of fainting for a great tragic actress there these 
 ten years past, where she flatters herself she has given 
 ample satisfaction, etc., etc. 
 
 Such a theatre was just the right place for Dorothy 
 Bland, for though she could not honestly desire to 
 understudy Mrs. Siddons, she yet had the capacity to 
 lighten the gloom and educate the theatre-loving 
 London to a greater variety of taste. She was 
 announced in the papers first as a new performer, as 
 thus from the Morning Post: " Mr. Lawrence and two 
 young female performers were to have come out in 
 Philaster, but they will now make their entries 
 separately." This was corrected by : " The lady who 
 is to make her first appearance in the revived Philaster 
 is not, as has been said, a dramatic novice, but one 
 initiated in every mystery of the scene. Her name is 
 Jordan." 
 
 But Dorothy successfully claimed the right to 
 choose the play in which she should first appear, and 
 flew in the face of usage by demanding to make her 
 debut as Peggy in The Country Girl. Eventually 
 Tom King, the nominal manager, and Sheridan, the 
 lessee-manager, agreed, and it was whispered among 
 theatrical circles that they decided to run the risk of 
 introducing her in farcical comedy because their great 
 star was too high fixed for them. Her haughtiness
 
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN AS PEGGY IN THE COUNTRY GIRL 
 AFTER ROMNEY, F.NORAVKI) BY J. OC.BORNE, 1786
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 83 
 
 offended all, and those with whom she acted were in 
 the humiliating position of being made to feel it an 
 honour to act with her. It may have been manner 
 only, but Mrs. Siddons seemed never to have been 
 able to forget either her talent or her virtue. Thus 
 proprietor, managers, actors all had a score up against 
 her, and felt that the only method of holding their 
 own was to make an attack from within. So on 
 Gentleman Smith's recommendation Dorothy was 
 allowed innocently to take the position of chief 
 attacker. 
 
 The chosen night was October 18, 1785, a day of 
 mingled hopes and fears for the young actress, 
 followed by deadly nervousness, but once on the stage 
 she became totally unconscious of all but the part she 
 had to play. 
 
 The house was not good for fashionable people 
 would not go to see an unknown actress and the 
 criticisms of the following morning were varied, a few 
 bad, but mostly good. " Mrs. Jordan was vulgar," 
 said one, she might do as " Filch in The Beggars' 
 Opera" said Harris of Covent Garden, to which an 
 enthusiast retorted, " Certainly, for she filches our 
 hearts away." 
 
 Henry Tremamondo, better known as Henry 
 Angelo, was present that evening, and says of it in 
 his Reminiscences: " The first night of Mrs. Jordan's 
 appearance at Drury Lane, as Peggy in The Country 
 Girl, I was in the balcony box, over the stage, in com- 
 pany with Parson Bate and Duffer Vaughan, . . . 
 at the time they were so delighted with her debut, 
 that they both decided on her future excellence, 
 particularly Mr. Bate, whose critique the next morn-
 
 84 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ing, in the Morning Herald, speaking of her per- 
 fections, ' true to nature,' foretold her future abilities." 
 
 One paragraph of Mr. Bate's criticism gives some 
 idea of Dorothy's appearance : " She is universally 
 allowed to possess a figure, small perhaps, but neat 
 and elegant, as was remarkably conspicuous when she 
 was dressed as a boy in the third act. Her face, if 
 not beautiful, is said by some to be pretty and by some 
 pleasing, intelligent or impressive. Her voice, if not 
 peculiarly sweet, is not harsh, if not strong, is clear 
 and equal to the extent of the theatre. She has much 
 activeness, and gave every point of the dialogue with 
 the most comic effect, and improved to the uttermost 
 all the ludicrous situations with which The Country 
 Girl abounds. From such premises there is and can 
 be but one conclusion, that she is a most valuable 
 acquisition to the public stock of innocent enter- 
 tainment." 
 
 It was six nights before Dorothy again acted, for 
 Mrs. Siddons expecting the birth of a child in mid- 
 winter, was taking every night that she could at the 
 theatre so as to fulfil her contract and yet have two or 
 three months' rest. But each time Dolly played the 
 audience was larger, and before the winter was over 
 there was a line of carriages stretching through the 
 streets around Drury Lane such as had been regarded 
 as a tribute solely to the powers of Mrs. Siddons. As 
 soon as her success was assured paeans of praise were 
 heard : " Perhaps no debut, except that of young 
 Roscius, has excited so great a sensation in the dramatic 
 world," said a writer in the Dramatic Magazine, well 
 after the event; and others did the same, giving 
 accounts which, though quite true of the real result,
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 85 
 
 were not true of the first night. Mrs. Inchbald, who 
 had met Dorothy again and again, and later wrote 
 one or two plays for her, said that " She came to town 
 with no report in her favour to elevate her above a 
 very moderate salary or to attract more than a very 
 moderate house. But she displayed such consummate 
 art, with such bewitching good nature, such excellent 
 acting and such innocent simplicity, that her auditors 
 were boundless in their plaudits and so warm in their 
 praises when they left the theatre, that their friends 
 at home would not give credit to their eulogies." She 
 went on to say that Dorothy's pronunciation was im- 
 perfect and that most of her words were pronounced 
 with a kind of provincial dialect, a remark which 
 annoyed Boaden very much, and he retorted in his 
 Life that Mrs. Jordan was guided by the principle 
 of giving to certain words a fullness and comic rich- 
 ness, which rendered them most truly representative 
 of the ideas they stood for ; " it was expressing all the 
 juice from the grape of the laughing vine. To instance 
 once for all : she knew the importance attached to a 
 best gown. Let the reader recollect the full volume 
 of sound which she threw into those words, and he will 
 understand me. It was not provincial dialect, it was 
 humorous delivery, arid as a charm only inferior to 
 her laugh." 
 
 To this may be added what Gait said in his refuta- 
 tion of the idea that Mrs. Brown taught Dorothy to 
 act in this piece. ' The elastic step, the artless action, 
 the sincere laugh, and, if the expression can be used, 
 the juicy tones of her clear and melodious voice, so 
 peculiar to Mrs. Jordan, could never have been 
 attained by studying any other. The manner in which
 
 86 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 she used to pronounce the single word ' Ecod ! ' was 
 as if she had taken a mouthful of some ripe and 
 delicious peach." 
 
 This curious simile of luscious fruit was indulged in 
 by Hazlitt when he criticized King's acting in later 
 life, which he said left " a taste in the palate sharp 
 and sweet like a peach; with an old, hard, rough, 
 withered face, like a John-apple, puckered up into a 
 thousand wrinkles, with shrewd hints and tart replies." 
 
 As Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres were 
 each anxiously trying to outdo the other, the former 
 theatre introduced Miss Brunton in Dorothy's line, 
 and for a short space there was discussion as to which 
 of the two actresses was the better. Then near the 
 end of January Mrs. Brown was brought up from 
 Norwich by Harris to act The Country Girl before a 
 London audience. But success did not attend his 
 effort, for not only were the two actresses quite differ- 
 ent, but their acting was quite different also, and 
 Dorothy had the gorgeous quality of youth : the 
 laughter, the innocence, the ingenuous air all seemed 
 real ; while Mrs. Brown was a matron " long past the 
 season in which alone the hoyden can look natural 
 and prove attractive." 
 
 The critics were constantly comparing Dorothy with 
 Peg Woffington and Kitty Clive, and, indeed, since 
 the retirement of the latter there had been no actress 
 on the boards who could wring a hearty laugh from 
 the audience. 
 
 It is noteworthy that on the 6th of December, two 
 months after Dorothy's debut in London, Mrs. Clive 
 died at Strawberry Hill, and Horace Walpole, who 
 did not think that any one could equal her in her
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 87 
 
 particular style, put a memorial urn in her cottage 
 garden, having inscribed upon it 
 
 "This is Mirth's consecrated ground. 
 Here lived the laughter-loving dame 
 A matchless actress Clive her name. 
 The comic muse with her retired 
 And shed a tear when she expired." 
 
 To this Peter Pindar (Dr. Wolcot), who was a 
 devoted admirer of Dorothy Jordan, retorted 
 
 " Know Comedy is hearty all alive, 
 
 Truth and thy trumpet seem not to agree ; 
 The spritely lass no more expired with Clive, 
 Than Dame Humility will do with thee." 
 
 To sum up the results of Mrs. Jordan's early appear- 
 ance in London, both critics and actors were unani- 
 mous in declaring her a force on the boards. Bannister 
 was enthusiastic, Sheridan was joyful, and King, 
 though no admirer of her style, foresaw new life and 
 new prosperity for the theatre which he had served 
 so long; its affairs were in such a condition that any 
 one who could bring gold to its coffers was heartily 
 welcomed by the harried sub-manager. Sheridan was 
 the real despot, but he had far too many arduous 
 occupations not to need some one to do the work and 
 receive the kicks of fortune for him. 
 
 As for Dorothy herself she started with 4 a week, 
 and in a few days was promised 8. Poverty had not 
 blinded her to her own merit, and when she saw how 
 thoroughly she had dragged Drury Lane out of its 
 sluggish despondency she asked a further rise, and 
 after some discussion another 4 a week was added 
 to her receipts. Physical strength and hope had 
 returned, she seemed to be on the top of the wave, and 
 enjoyed the position. It is not necessary or interesting 
 to go through a list of the parts she played, except
 
 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 where they did something more than fill the theatre 
 or put money in her pocket. But one of the pieces 
 which added to her fame this winter was The Trip to 
 Scarborough, which was an expurgated edition of Sir 
 John Vanburgh's Relapse, also prepared by Sheridan. 
 
 This play was hardly as refined as might be wished, 
 one prominent character being Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, 
 whose name alone implies grossness. Mrs. Jordan 
 took the part of his daughter, the joyous, rustic Miss 
 Hoyden, showing in all its perfection the kind of young 
 lady who has left the nursery without being old enough 
 to appear in the drawing-room, who felt the sentiments 
 of a woman while still retaining the petulance and way- 
 wardness of a child. Her dress in this character was 
 described by Mrs. Tickell sister to Mr. Sheridan 
 as x "A blue ground with red flowers upon it, in the 
 shape of a slip, but evidently ill made on purpose and 
 too scanty by a breadth or two. Her bib or apron had 
 scarcely a pin, a pair of long gauze ruffles, the under 
 part before, and continually slipping below her elbows, 
 with a very vulgar cap all on one side." 
 
 In the character of Miss Hoyden Dorothy Jordan 
 won fame, and kept it. Yet in this part she never 
 quite rivalled herself in that other popular character 
 of Miss Tomboy in The Romp, the farce in which she 
 acted in Dublin and which Kitty Clive had so 
 identified with her own name. It was in this character 
 that Romney painted his beautiful picture of her, and 
 it was declared that this part alone stamped her as an 
 actress as great in her own way as Mrs. Siddons was 
 in hers. 
 
 A curious result of Dorothy's first autumn in town 
 was that the tragedy queen was touched to the heart 
 
 1 Sheridan, by Walter Sichel.
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 89 
 
 by the girl's success, and at the end of October it was 
 announced that she intended to appear in comedy, and 
 "to render Thalia as fashionable as Melpomene." 
 This was when Dorothy had acted only three times, 
 and Mrs. Siddons's autocratic mind here showed itself ; 
 it was as though she said : " An unimportant new 
 person has come here to make the world laugh, so I 
 will show how it should be done." Mrs. Siddons 
 could brook no rival near her throne, but alas, for 
 her pride as one of her daughters was born at the 
 end of December she had to leave Dorothy supreme 
 at Drury Lane. When she returned in February she 
 found little pleasure awaiting her, for tragedy at Drury 
 Lane had been worn down by endless repetition, and 
 the public, delighted with its new sensation, reserved 
 its enjoyment and its money for the comedy which 
 Jordan offered them. That she might attract by 
 novelty, Mrs. Siddons revived the somewhat feeble 
 tragedy of Percy > and in The Merchant of Venice 
 played her original trial part of Portia. 
 
 Dorothy was acting so constantly that The Public 
 Advertiser remarked : ' That charming, endearing, 
 beautiful, little, accomplished actress, Mrs. Jordan, 
 makes us suffer more than we can describe, as we are 
 always desirous to see her, and yet cannot help wish- 
 ing her a rest from her fatigues. It is said that an 
 application will be made to Parliament for leave of 
 absence for a fortnight." She had two benefits in the 
 spring, at one of which she played the Irish Widow, 
 such an audience being collected as had been very 
 seldom seen. Her triumph was increased by the fact 
 that the members of Brooks's Club presented her with 
 a purse containing 300. Another character which 
 was very popular was her Hypolita in She Would
 
 90 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and She Would Not, of which she said in 1814 when 
 some one told her of the pleasure experienced in 
 seeing her in it : " Aye, that was one of the parts on 
 which I used to pique myself." 
 
 Her labours had been so great that on May 25 the 
 management gave her the last fortnight of the season 
 as a holiday, and she immediately went for a few 
 nights to Manchester, then to Liverpool and Birming- 
 ham; after which she took Leeds on her way to 
 Edinburgh, where she appeared on July 17. 
 
 Her success had been equal to her energy, it had 
 even been great enough for George Inchbald, who 
 came up to London that spring, filled with the warmest 
 protestations of love, and thinking to find again the 
 Dorothy Jordan he had deliberately let out of his 
 reach. On arriving at her house he sent up his card, 
 and was admitted only to learn that the past was past 
 and could never be recalled, or, as one chronicler puts 
 it : " That he was always welcome to a knife and fork, 
 but that nothing farther could thereafter be thought 
 of seriously." There is no real record that this first 
 season in London drew to Dorothy's side any admirer 
 more devoted than the general flock, yet there is at 
 least the suspicion that she may have fallen to the 
 level of the parts she reproduced, and have taken a 
 lover, whose name was Bettesworth. 
 
 Posting from Birmingham to Scotland she could not 
 resist the delight of going back to old haunts to flaunt 
 her new importance before that varied company in 
 which she had suffered so many pinpricks from jealous 
 comrades. 
 
 Mrs. Robinson, the graceful and neat, was still 
 there, and mischievous fate must have been in her 
 most ironic mood when she allowed Dorothy's arrival
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 91 
 
 at Leeds on her way to Edinburgh to coincide with 
 the benefit of the lady who had expressed so disdain- 
 ful and pitying an opinion of the Jordan's powers. 
 It was on the night of June 16, 1786, that Mrs. Robin- 
 son disported herself as Horatio in The Roman Father 
 and Widow Brady in the farce of The Irish Widow. 
 The house was not good, indeed very inferior to that 
 on her benefit the year before, when Mrs. Jordan was 
 in the company. This was depressing enough in it- 
 self, but when, early in the evening, Mrs. Robinson 
 heard a murmur in the audience, and looking for the 
 cause saw Mrs. Jordan attended by her mother and 
 sister in one of the boxes, she felt that fate had indeed 
 dealt hardly with her. Dorothy carefully ensured the 
 attention of the house by her prominence, for now was 
 her triumph not only over the rival of last year, but 
 over the audience which had turned away from her at 
 the same time. Now she, whom every one had re- 
 garded as Mrs. Nobody, was Mrs. Somebody, and 
 quite naturally she wanted to enjoy the fun that the 
 old bitterness might be banished from her memory. 
 Having well preened herself in the eyes of the cheer- 
 ing people for her fame had spread " to the North 
 Pole and excited offers of bewitching golden fire " 
 she condescended to go behind scenes that she 
 might greet her old manager, friends and acquaint- 
 ances and ask them how they all did, " and not with- 
 out an additional grace of an alluring nod and smile, 
 which had been purchased at the London market of 
 fashion, during a whole winter's residence of good 
 luck, fortune and everything that was enviable." 
 Even the humorous and kindly Wilkinson was not 
 proof against the jealousy which Jordan's success had 
 raised in the hearts of those of her old set, for the
 
 92 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 last sentence is his. That Dorothy enjoyed this little 
 triumph is doubtless, but that her only emotion on 
 being back in the scenes among which she had spent 
 over three years of her life, and among people from 
 whom she had experienced much kindness if some 
 annoyance should have been a condescending ex- 
 hibition of her own self-importance was not possible 
 to one of her ardent and generous temperament. 
 Wilkinson could never resist writing for effect, and 
 also he did in this case read too much of his own 
 suspicions into her conduct. 
 
 His description of her effective but wordless inter- 
 view with Mrs. Robinson on the stage is pure farce, 
 and, however much exaggerated, makes too good a 
 story not to be given in his own words. Mrs. Jordan 
 went to an opening on the stage to watch the play, 
 and stood in such fashion that she could be seen by 
 the audience. " In short, by slow degrees she 
 advanced so far on the stage, that at the fist-hold of 
 her sister's arm she was at the very edge of the wing 
 on the stage part; this was during the small clothes 
 scene in The Irish Widow in the last act of that farce. 
 This enraged the Widow Robinson to a degree. . . . 
 She, however, kept up her spirits to let the Jordan 
 see how well she could act, and with a sneer not the 
 gentlest darted a glance at the Jordan, insinuating, 
 ' Can you act like this ? ' The other, with all the 
 nonchalance of fashion, said a great deal without 
 speaking even a word, for her gestures and pantomime 
 actions were inimitable ; and as she leant on her sister, 
 she pointed at Widow Brady's buckles, then at her 
 figure, next with a shrug signifying that the whole was 
 intolerable, and at last, after giving the torture in an 
 elegant and truly significant manner, she gave her a
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 93 
 
 last look and turned away with the grandest contempt 
 and hauteur. Now it may be asked why I did not 
 prevail on Mrs. Jordan to quit so improper a situation 
 for herself, and cruel to a degree, as Mrs. J.'s marks 
 of disapprobation were of great consequence in 
 the minds of many that year, though the effect might 
 have been widely different the year before. But in 
 answer, it is probable that my request would not have 
 been complied with, for the manager she had looked 
 up to was no longer the man of terror and command, 
 but then looked down upon if he dared to assume 
 authority; and another hidden reason might be the 
 cause, had my desire of her quitting so conspicuous a 
 situation been complied with, it might not have given 
 me the ill-natured satisfaction I enjoyed, for Mrs. 
 Robinson had quarrelled violently with me the day 
 before, and as I love a little mischief it is in my 
 nature, and oh, Nature ! Nature ! who can stop thy 
 course? I felt for Mrs. Robinson, yet at the same 
 time I immoderately chuckled at the mischief I wit- 
 nessed going forward. . . . Mrs. Robinson had fore- 
 told that Mrs. Jordan would be back with me before 
 twelve months were gone and over, and so far her gift 
 of double sight was verified (so were the witches' 
 prophecies in Macbeth], but not as either Mrs. Robin- 
 son or Mr. Wilkinson expected, for instead of the 
 suppliant she came splish, splash, dish, dash, to the 
 Leeds play-house, and tassles dangling, etc. Oh, it is 
 a charming thing to be a woman of quality ! And in 
 lieu of her asking me for an engagement, the case was 
 so greatly altered, for I was obliged to solicit the lady 
 who formerly solicited me, and it was no more than 
 a comic adventure between us three, like a party of 
 pleasure at a quadrille, where all should play and pay
 
 94 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 alike. ' Ay, but,' says Mrs. Robinson, ' you have made 
 me at this game pay more than my share.' Well, Mrs. 
 Robinson, never mind it, I will pay two-thirds at our 
 next meeting to clear the debt; I am a rich man in 
 that respect, and will deal most cheerfully and 
 liberally, and I hope this nonsense will be read by the 
 two ladies, as I mean it whimsically and for us all three 
 to laugh at." In such an account, " whimsical," as it 
 may have been, we get an impression of reality. Here 
 are the real people, with no attempt on the writer's 
 part either at whitewashing or at be-littling. Dorothy 
 Jordan was no saint, yet some of her biographers have 
 tried to glorify her into something other and less than 
 she was, thus in The Great Illegitimates we are told 
 that she went behind the scenes and, " with her accus- 
 tomed sweetness of temper, renewed acquaintance with 
 her former associates " ! Mrs. Robinson must have 
 prayed devoutly to be delivered from any further taste 
 of such sweetness. She probably also prayed for 
 revenge, and that prayer was heard. 
 
 That night Tate begged the actress who a year ago 
 had been earning i us. 6d. a week under his care 
 to play one night for him. She was quite willing, but 
 she dictated her own terms, which were half shares 
 after 15 had been deducted for house expenses. 
 This he instantly agreed to, not that he expected a 
 great profit either for Mrs. Jordan or for himself; but 
 that he thought it would do him good in the public 
 estimation to show her again on his boards. Her 
 acting was well known in a town where she had played 
 for four consecutive summers, and her last benefit had 
 been quite neglected, so that except for the kudos the 
 genial manager only expected an ordinary night. 
 
 She played The Country Girl, which was new to
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 95 
 
 Leeds, and The Romp, which was known almost to 
 weariness; but to Wilkinson's astonishment the house 
 was overflowing before the curtains were drawn. 
 Seven rows of the pit "were laid into the boxes to 
 greet her return," which was rather hard on the pittites. 
 " What is to be said for these things? Why, nothing, 
 for it never was strange that the world should be 
 whimsical." 
 
 At Edinburgh, where her brother George accom- 
 panied her, though Wilkinson does not mention him 
 in Leeds, Dorothy found her uncle John in the part of 
 treasurer to the Theatre Royal, a man then over sixty ; 
 and when she acted Peggy in The Country Girl her 
 aunt took the part of Lucy and her cousin, John's 
 eldest son, was Belville. Dolly, with her keen family 
 instincts, must have enjoyed this unusual meeting 
 with real relatives, and it is possible that the elder 
 family were gratified by meeting and acting with one 
 who was on the high road to success. 
 
 John Bland, the elder, having gone to Edinburgh 
 in 1766 to visit some relatives, lent a large sum of 
 money to Ross, the manager, and put 1600 in the 
 theatre. Thus he had sufficient interest to remain in 
 the town, and in 1772 he joined West Digges as co- 
 lessee of the theatre. It was not a fortunate engage- 
 ment, for the latter got into great difficulties, was 
 thrown into prison, and escaped, owing his comrade 
 1300. The theatre was left in Eland's hands, and 
 swallowed everything else that he had. So that at 
 last he had to close it from sheer inability to keep it 
 going; but when Jackson, the next proprietor, took it 
 he became treasurer. 
 
 There are many stories of John Eland's absence of 
 mind concerning the way in which he used to forget
 
 96 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 what part he was acting. On one such occasion he 
 told the audience that " he vowed to his God he could 
 not say how this happened, for he could appeal to 
 Nancy that he had repeated the part to her that morn- 
 ing as perfect as an angel." Once, when the audience 
 was so small that it was decided to return the money, 
 he came forward on the stage, saying 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, as there is not a soul in 
 this house worth playing to, this play will be repeated 
 to-morrow." 
 
 I find that he, his wife, his eldest son and his son 
 John were acting for years on the Edinburgh boards, 
 and that they acted with Dorothy every time she went 
 there until 1792, when John, the elder's name, seems 
 to have been withdrawn. John Bland had the lovable 
 qualities of his family and more than his share of 
 general capacity, for he wrote a novel which was well 
 reviewed, entitled Frederick the Forsaken, suggested 
 perhaps by his own life, and he was also the author of 
 the Edinburgh Rosciad as well as other publications. 
 He died in 1808, and Carlisle says an annual sub- 
 scription for his support was sent him from his family 
 for some years previous to his death. So a moiety of 
 the plenty which should have been his through life 
 was grudgingly doled to him at the last to keep him 
 from death. 
 
 Perhaps if he, " a brave, proud, generous, affable, 
 friendly, honest, unthinking man," 1 had had a touch 
 of his father's hardness of character as the strengthen- 
 ing alloy to so much gold, his life would have been 
 more successful. 
 
 In Edinburgh Dorothy had a great welcome, for 
 
 1 Hibernian, Magazine.
 
 Dorothy and the British Public 97 
 
 this was her first appearance in Scotland ; but though 
 the excitement over her acting was considerable, the 
 newspapers gave her little notice, because Mrs. Sid- 
 dons was there regarded as the only great woman actor, 
 and the taste of the day had got well settled down to 
 tragedy. It needed custom and usage to persuade the 
 business-like Scot that Miss Tomboy and Dorothy's 
 other characters were not over-frivolous. 
 
 But " Thalia," a name by which her admirers had 
 already begun to ennoble her, was well content with 
 her reception, and on the 6th of August, when she 
 played Mrs. Cowley's Belle's Stratagem for her 
 benefit, she delivered an epilogue which she had 
 written herself, one which, if somewhat lacking in 
 metrical excellence, is graceful enough in sentiment 
 to merit repetition. 
 
 " Presumption 'tis, in learning's seat, 
 For me the Muses to entreat ; 
 Yet, bold as the attempt may be, 
 I'll mount the steed of poesy ; 
 And as my Pegasus is small, 
 If stumbling, I've not far to fall. 
 
 Hear then, ye Nine ! the boon I ask, 
 While (throwing off the comic mask) 
 With gratitude I here confess 
 How much you've heightened my success. 
 
 By sealing thus my sentence now, 
 You've heaped new laurels on my brow ; 
 Nor is the Northern sprig less green, 
 Than that which in the South was seen ; 
 For though your sun may colder be, 
 Your hearts I've found as warm for me. 
 
 One wreath I only gained before, 
 But your kind candour gives me more ; 
 And, like your union, both combine 
 To make the garland brighter shine. 
 
 'Tis true such planets * sparkled here 
 As make me tremble to appear ; 
 
 1 An allusion to Mrs. Siddons.
 
 98 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 A twinkling star, just come in sight, 
 
 Which, towards the pole, would give no light. 
 
 Melpomene has made such work, 
 Reigning despotic like the Turk ; 
 I feared Thalia had no chance 
 Her laughing standard to advance ; 
 But yet her youngest ensign, I 
 Took courage, was resolved to try, 
 And stand the hazard of the die. 
 
 Since then the venturous game I've tried, 
 
 With Nature only for my guide ; 
 
 The bets if fairly won I'll take 
 
 Nor wish to make it my last stake." 
 
 From Edinburgh she went to .Glasgow, and there 
 the audiences were so delighted that they presented 
 her with a gold medal, bearing an inscription on one 
 side with the Glasgow arms, a tree, and a verse on the 
 other side with a feather above it. The first ran 
 
 "TO MRS. JORDAN. 
 
 " MADAM, Accept this trifle from the Glasgow audience, who are as 
 great admirers of genius as the critics of Edinburgh." 
 
 The verse was as follows 
 
 "Bays from our tree you could not gather, 
 
 No branch of it deserves that name ; 
 So take it all, call it a feather, 
 And place it in your cap of fame." 
 
 On her return journey in September she played at 
 Hull and Wakefield, and at the latter place experi- 
 enced a shock, for the Wakefield people were angry 
 with Tate Wilkinson because he had brought Mrs. 
 Siddons there for only one night and then taken her 
 for a week to Leeds ; therefore they turned their backs 
 upon his theatre and upon Dorothy. Wilkinson him- 
 self explains the incident thus : " Melpomene's bowl 
 and dagger having left such an awful gloom, that even 
 Thalia could not laugh, or, if she did, it was very 
 mortifying, as it was to herself almost without 
 company or any throng of visitors."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 RIVALRY AND LOVE 
 
 " CUPID to HYMEN. 
 
 Thou bane to my empire, thou spring o contest, 
 Thou source of all discord, thou period to rest ; 
 Instruct me what wretches in bondage can see, 
 That the aim of their life is still pointed to thee. 
 
 "HYMEN to CUPID. 
 
 Instruct me, thou little impertinent god, 
 
 From whence all thy subjects have taken the mode 
 
 To grow fond of a change, to whatever it be, 
 
 And I'll tell thee why those would be bound who are free. 
 
 VANBRUGH, The Relapse. 
 
 IN September 1786, Dorothy made a great impres- 
 sion upon the public as Matilda in the curious play 
 of Richard Cceur de Lion, curious because General 
 Burgoyne, who adapted it from the French play of 
 Sedane, made Matilda and Blondel one and the same 
 person, thus giving greater scope to Dorothy, for whom 
 he designed that part. She threw herself enthusiasti- 
 cally into this character, for the disguised and sorrow- 
 ful wife wandering through Europe to look for the 
 lost husband, appealed to her love of sentiment. 
 " Another character wherein I took infinite delight was 
 Matilda, in Richard Coeur de Lion, because it strongly 
 savoured of the pathetic," she said thirty years later, 
 when talking with Helen Maria Williams, now for- 
 gotten, but then well known for her writings on Paris 
 and the Revolution. This new play was a favourite for 
 years, but it had to share the boards with tragedy, and 
 in October Mrs. Siddons made a sensation in the 
 
 99
 
 ioo The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 play of Cleone, by Dodsley. In this she so affected 
 the ladies among the audience that on the second 
 night the boxes were nearly empty. The critics 
 attributed this to the frivolous atmosphere which 
 had come over the stage with the advent of Mrs. 
 Jordan, one adding that "the refined feelings of the 
 present time affect to revolt at tragedies where insi- 
 pidity does not prevail." Boaden, however, in more 
 downright fashion says that it was truly distressing to 
 see Mrs. Siddons in the agonies of Cleone a mother 
 raving over her murdered child only a little month 
 before her own confinement. "If there be anything 
 whatever in stage exertion, Cleone was quite enough, 
 one would think, to destroy her." 
 
 From the very first, the sense of rivalry was keen 
 between Dorothy and the great Siddons, and this 
 became to our actress one of the most disturbing 
 influences in these years when she was achieving 
 and the latter had won fame. In temperament and 
 character they were as far as the poles apart, and Mrs. 
 Siddons did nothing to hide the scorn she felt for her 
 rival, while Dorothy chafed always under the sense of 
 inferiority with which Mrs. Siddons burdened her. 
 This rivalry led both to take characters which were 
 most unsuited to them, though Dorothy always was 
 troubled with a desire to act sentimental parts. In a 
 conversation with Miss Williams, she said 
 
 " During the very zenith of my career in the walk of 
 comedy, I still had a strong hankering after the 
 sentimental ; I was always gratified in the extreme when 
 it fell to my lot to sustain characters of such a cast. 
 For instance, when I personified Little Pickle in 
 The Spoiled Child, in the particular scene where I
 
 Rivalry and Love 101 
 
 sang ' Since then I'm doomed/ I uniformly called up 
 everything I could, expressive of the pathetic, as well 
 in countenance as voice and manner, on which 
 occasions nothing was so truly gratifying to my feelings 
 as the applause which followed ; mind, I do not merely 
 allude to the air, but the verbal delivery of my part, 
 which never failed in producing its effect upon my 
 auditors." 
 
 She also had a wish to shine in polite comedy, in 
 spite of the fact that her real strength lay in depicting 
 simple, arch, buoyant girls, or spirited, loving women ; 
 and in spite of that other fact that she thoroughly 
 enjoyed acting handsome hoydens. Mrs. Siddons, 
 on the contrary, could only show the height of her 
 great powers in tragedy. These two were, in truth, the 
 complement of each other in the dramatic world, 
 needing only such graceful if artificial actresses as 
 Miss Farren to play the high-born dame in comedy to 
 complete the circle. But this they never seemed to 
 realize, and there were two historic trials of strength 
 between them. The one was when Dorothy took the 
 part of Imogen in Cymbeline. She had tried it in 
 Yorkshire, attaining no great success. In London she 
 did little better, for she lacked that delicate dignity 
 which Imogen needs in some of her scenes. Yet the 
 ordinary public, willing by this time to applaud any- 
 thing she did, were delighted. Mrs. Siddons must 
 have revelled in the real failure of Dorothy on this 
 occasion, and to prove to every one that it was a failure, 
 she announced for her benefit in the spring of 1787, 
 that she would take the part of Imogen. Thomas 
 Campbell, her admiring biographer, declared that he 
 believed that she only did it to prove that she could
 
 102 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 beat Mrs. Jordan ; and he concluded his account of the 
 evening by recording that by acting Imogen only once, 
 our actress put a stop to Mrs. Jordan's competition 
 with her on the graver stage. Imogen, having to 
 repulse Cloten, and to rebuke lachimo, requires not 
 only sweetness, but dignity of demeanour. Of the 
 latter princely quality, the lovely and romping Mrs. 
 Jordan had not a particle. 
 
 The poet was too intent on the play and the actress 
 to note that which the less concentrated mind thought 
 of importance. For Mrs. Siddons's sense of delicacy 
 was so great that her sense of propriety suffered. She 
 was filled with horror at the idea of dressing as a boy. 
 So she wrote to Hamilton, the artist, asking him if he 
 would be so good as to make her a sketch of a boy's 
 dress to conceal the figure as much as possible. And 
 she appeared in a nondescript apparel which excited 
 mirth among the laughter-loving part of her audience. 
 Boaden described the incident rather well when he 
 said : " A taste, which I will neither censure nor 
 examine on the present occasion, calls upon females 
 who assume the male habit for a more complete display 
 of the figure than suits the decorum of a delicate mind. 
 Mrs. Siddons assumed as little of the man as possible, 
 so that the most powerful scenes were those in the 
 dress of her sex." 
 
 But though Mrs. Siddons came out victor in this 
 trial, it was Mrs. Jordan to whom the crown was given, 
 when they competed as Rosalind in As You Like it. 
 The former had played this part in a benefit some time 
 earlier, but she had not the qualities of roguishness 
 and lightness it required, and she was too squeamish to 
 take the manly dress in a manly spirit. For that
 
 Rivalry and Love 103 
 
 part she had other garments designed for her, which, 
 also, were suitable neither for man nor woman, and 
 so drew much ridicule upon her stately head, a ridicule 
 which Genest trenchantly said was very deserved ; 
 " she had it at her option to act Rosalind or not to act 
 Rosalind but, determined to act the part, she should 
 have dressed properly." Campbell mournfully and 
 grudgingly admitted that if her impersonation was 
 not entirely a failure she had equally fallen short of 
 triumph. " Here, I believe, in the whole of her pro- 
 fessional career, Mrs. Siddons found a rival, who beat 
 her out of a single character. But those who best 
 remember Mrs. Jordan will be the least surprised at 
 her defeating her great contemporary in this one 
 instance. Mrs. Jordan was, perhaps, a little too much 
 of the romp in some touches of the part ; but altogether 
 she had the naivete of it to such a degree that Shake- 
 speare himself, if he had been a living spectator, would 
 have gone behind the scenes to have saluted her for her 
 success in it." 
 
 While the conclusion of his paragraph was the 
 highest praise Dorothy Jordan could have received, the 
 first sentence was scarcely fair to her, for she played 
 many parts in which Mrs. Siddons would have been 
 impossible. 
 
 Among the characters which added to Dorothy's 
 popularity were Miss Prue, in Love for Love; Juletta 
 to Kemble's Pedro in The Pilgrim, by Fletcher, and 
 Roxalana in The Sultan. In the last, Barrymore took 
 the part of the Grand Turk, and he found Roxalana 
 so fascinating that he could not always properly sustain 
 the character of the stern Bashaw. On quitting the 
 boards one night he ran into the Green Room, threw
 
 IO4 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 himself on a sofa, and after indulging in a laugh that 
 was nearly suffocating, turned to Mrs. Jordan, saying, 
 " By the Holy Prophet, madam, if you continue to play 
 after this fashion you will despatch me in an agony of 
 laughter to the seventh heaven, there to enjoy my 
 houris everlastingly." 
 
 Mrs. Jordan was very busy that autumn and in the 
 early part of 1787, after which her name appears less 
 frequently in the lists. This does not mean that she 
 was always absent unless her presence was reported, 
 but she really did not act so often, and for this there 
 were several causes. 
 
 There were the Kembles always to be considered, 
 and Dorothy's activity in the winter is to be explained 
 by the fact that Mrs. Siddons was again absent from 
 the theatre, for family reasons. When she was back 
 at work there was naturally less scope for her rival's 
 powers. 
 
 During this first year in London there is silence 
 about Dorothy's private life. She lived in Henrietta 
 Street with her family, but the newspapers were con- 
 cerned solely with her theatrical triumphs. A great 
 deal has been said about her absolute integrity, and her 
 freedom from the sins of her sister actresses, though 
 one biographer, shocked at her wifely connection 
 with the Duke of Clarence, called her a degraded 
 woman, who had brought disgrace upon an honourable 
 profession. This was pure nonsense, for the general 
 life of an actress, then, was far from being as respect- 
 able as Dorothy's, and when one was high-minded 
 like Mrs. Siddons, it was regarded as a miracle. 
 Society had pronounced the actress a pariah, and gave 
 her no temptation to be a saint.
 
 
 Rivalry and Love 105 
 
 In December 1786 a sketch of Mrs. Jordan ap- 
 peared in The Town and Country Magazine, one 
 paragraph of which began with the words : " Mrs. 
 Jordan has always been prudent in her amours. Her 
 present favourite is not the choice of love." Then 
 comes a description of the man who, having great 
 influence at the theatre, had convinced her that it was 
 to her advantage to accept his suit. This proves one 
 thing and infers another; the proven thing being that 
 before that date Dorothy was known to be the mistress 
 of Richard Ford. But the first words hint that there 
 had been some one else who had also appealed to her 
 prudence. If such an inference may be drawn, this 
 some one else was a man of property named Bettes- 
 worth, for, twenty years after, one of her daughters was 
 stated to be the child of an old gentleman named 
 Bettesworth, who had left her money on the condition 
 that she took his name. This, however, comes later. 
 
 Much has been written about the statement that 
 Dorothy only yielded to Ford on the solemn promise 
 that he would make her his wife. Boaden, in his desire 
 to please the Duke of Clarence, makes scarcely any 
 mention of the Ford connection, which, however, lasted 
 for five years, and no light is thrown by him on the 
 subject. The Great Illegitimates, however, asserts it 
 was accompanied by " a solemn promise of marriage, 
 which the gentleman said must be deferred, under the 
 dread of giving offence to his father, on whom he was 
 dependent; when, confiding in the honour and 
 promises of her suitor, Mrs. Jordan at length consented 
 to place herself under his protection." 
 
 If this was so, it was not unlikely that Dorothy 
 was willing to give up a rich, but married lover, for a
 
 io6 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 young and impecunious man ; for her great desire was 
 to be a legally wedded wife. Ford was the son of Dr. 
 James Ford, of Albemarle Street, Court physician and 
 favourite, who had a very heavy monetary interest in 
 Drury Lane, being at one time the sole capitalist, 
 holding a mortgage of 31,500 on the theatre. Thus, 
 Richard Ford was free to come and go just as he 
 pleased; and, being a friend of Sheridan's, he seems 
 to have taken full advantage of his position, even to 
 the falling in love with Dorothy. There is no record 
 that he had any particular ability beyond that of 
 generally managing to attain his ends, and he has left 
 but a shadowy character behind, with few to praise. 
 Boaden said of him, that of all the men he had ever 
 known there was none about whom there was so little 
 to say. He asked men of Ford's standing at the Bar 
 and on the Bench their recollections of him, and adds, 
 ' They knew him as I did personally, but he had 
 impressed their minds as a fly did their hands, they had 
 just shaken it and it was gone." 
 
 When the struggle over the promise and the taking 
 of the name, Mrs. Ford, began it is not easy to say, but 
 the two took a house, No. 5 Gower Street, some time 
 in 1787, Dorothy calling herself privately Mrs. Ford, 
 though all their friends of course knew that they were 
 not married. Later, a little place was taken at Rich- 
 mond, probably for the babies that quickly arrived, and 
 as a week-end resort. In May 1787, a gossiping para- 
 graph in a daily paper ran to the effect that " Mrs. 
 Jordan, generally styled the daughter of Thalia, will 
 soon make the Muse a grandmother." From time to 
 time Dorothy used all her arts to induce this man of her 
 choice to retrieve his promise by fulfilment, but always
 
 Rivalry and Love 107 
 
 unsuccessfully. In relation to this it is interesting 
 to note as an example of the far-seeing wisdom of the 
 ancient writer who declared that there is nothing new 
 under the sun that in The Great Illegitimates runs 
 the sentence, " She was fed up with the hopes that the 
 old doctor would be reconciled to the match, and the 
 consummation of the nuptials was never supposed on 
 her part to be half a year distant." 
 
 Fed up ! To think that even our street slang is but 
 a thing pilfered from the mouths of our forefathers ! 
 
 Whether Richard Ford ever intended to fulfil his 
 plighted word cannot be known ; he had, however, done 
 a very good thing for himself in forming this alliance. 
 Dorothy's salary, to begin with, was not to be despised 
 by a man who, in addition to the paternal allowance, 
 was living on hoped-for briefs ; her benefits two in a 
 season doubled that salary, and her summer tours 
 added some hundreds of pounds to her exchequer. 
 Not a great fortune in all, but a very welcome addition 
 to a budding barrister's fees. 
 
 Though comment was fast and free upon this union, 
 Dorothy's popularity and a general sympathetic belief 
 in the honesty of her situation induced society to look 
 with kindliness upon her, and she was well received in 
 various circles. Among her friends she counted the 
 man who had championed her father through his life, 
 had probably carried his dead body back to Ireland, 
 and had raised a stone to his memory, Sir Francis 
 Lumm ; Lady Lumm accepted Dorothy as Mrs. Ford, 
 though she knew the truth concerning the alliance, and 
 pressed invitations to her routs and parties upon her. 
 Cards and card-sharping were the great amusement 
 of the time, but Dorothy is said never to have touched
 
 io8 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 a card. Among the noted players to be met there was 
 Lady Collier " famed for pilfering card money " 
 others were the Miss Dalrymples, Captain William 
 Bayley, brother to Lord Anglesey, and his wife, John 
 Foster Hill and his wife, Lady Anne, a daughter of 
 Lord Molesworth; which seems to prove that the 
 intimacy lasted a long time, as the Hills did not marry 
 until 1792. The author of The Great Illegitimates 
 who speaks of himself as a mere stripling at the time 
 says of Dorothy at these gatherings : 
 
 " Our heroine's affability of manners and sweetness 
 of deportment were the general themes of admiration, 
 a sentiment still more enhanced when she electrified 
 the auditors by warbling one of her ballads wild, 
 
 That flowed like softest music 
 
 O'er the placid surface of the deep.' " 
 
 That in the late spring of 1787 Dorothy expected a 
 child to be born to her would be one reason why she 
 did not act constantly, and another was a certain 
 feeling against her irrespective of the Kembles in 
 the theatre, one which emanated from the manager, 
 Tom King. 
 
 He had at first been delighted to hail the girl who 
 could raise the revenue of the establishment, but her 
 acting was not really pleasant to him. He was nearly 
 sixty years old, and had been bred in a theatrical 
 atmosphere too rarefied for the goddess Nature. All 
 acting went by rule to his thinking ; Tragedy was the 
 stately Mrs. Siddons; Comedy was a gentle lady who 
 curtsied and walked with mincing step, laid hand to 
 heart, and in high-falutin strain protested this and 
 that ; in all circumstances she dressed and powdered to
 
 Rivalry and Love 109 
 
 perfection, exhibited an affected graciousness, and 
 otherwise belonged to his early days. 
 
 Dorothy Jordan, whose laugh came from her heart, 
 who dressed for her part without shame or vanity, 
 shocked him and upset all his sententious mannerisms. 
 How could he, being what he was, act comfortably 
 with her, she being what she was? So, for his prin- 
 ciple's sake, he began to edge her off the stage ; he put 
 on pieces which needed the affected ways of Miss 
 Farren, or the pretty sprightliness of Mrs. Crouch; for 
 fine ladies were his delight. This tendency became a 
 habit, and Dorothy found herself relegated to second 
 place in the theatre; though it was not so with the 
 public, who gathered in little crowds round the stage 
 door, only to see her step into her carriage, and talked 
 of her salary, her success and her parts. 
 
 Yet she played sufficiently not to be forgotten, and 
 her benefits were crowded, her receipts on such 
 occasions often being larger than those of any other 
 actor. Thus in May 1788 her benefit night brought 
 her 325, while Kemble's produced ^290, Bannister's 
 (senior) 300, Bannister's (junior) 295, and Mrs. 
 Crouch 280. 
 
 Perhaps disgusted with the managerial partiality, 
 or perhaps for other and more personal reasons, 
 Dorothy went north at the end of May 1787, before 
 Drury Lane had closed, and acted again for Tate 
 Wilkinson at Leeds, the theatre being brilliantly 
 attended among the audience the Duke of Norfolk 
 and a crowd of his friends were prominent. Yet before 
 her Yorkshire visit was over, the hurt feelings which 
 had prompted her rush from London were revived by 
 the knowledge that Miss Farren was billed at York and
 
 iio The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Hull in some of her own comedy pieces. Perhaps it 
 was this little piece of independence on the part of 
 Tate Wilkinson for she considered Miss Farren's 
 talent to be too near akin to her own to share so small 
 a field which induced her to play a trick on him; at 
 least, he considered it as such. She recommended a 
 Miss Barnes as a diamond of the first water, which was 
 not sufficiently valued at Drury Lane. So Wilkinson 
 engaged Miss Barnes, and appointed Juliet for her 
 first appearance, " but the London lady's Juliet was 
 very hissing hot, indeed, so much so, that she never 
 played with me again. This was a joke to Mrs. Jordan 
 but not so with me," he adds. 
 
 Dorothy appeared in Edinburgh as early as June 
 7, and continued to act until the middle of July, 
 though she did not leave the society of her kinsmen in 
 the northern town until well into September, as a girl 
 was born to her at the end of August. Was this child 
 the Miss Bettesworth who enjoyed a brief period of 
 prominence in 1806, or was she really Ford's daughter? 
 When the newspapers were anticipating the opening of 
 the theatres, one of Dorothy's champions in The Public 
 Advertiser announced coarsely, under the headlines of 
 "THEATRICALS. HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 " Shirley : Owner. The Jordan from Edinburgh a 
 small sprightly vessel went out of the London 
 harbour laden dropt her cargo in Edinburgh. The 
 Siddons, been to refit was said to be damaged in her 
 upper works," etc. 
 
 By Richard Ford, Dorothy had four children, that 
 is, including this girl, born in 1787; only one was a 
 boy, and he died at birth. In 1792, The Morning Post 
 described her family as four, one being Frances Daly.
 
 Rivalry and Love 1 1 1 
 
 In 1798, the Fashionable Cypriad also gave her four 
 girls, in addition to the then existing Fitzclarences, 
 but in Boaden, Harrington and The Great Illegitimates 
 only three girls, Frances, Dorothea and Lucy, are 
 ever named. This is somewhat mysterious, and would 
 be more so if it were not that all the accounts are 
 based upon two, and these two designed to hide every- 
 thing that did not redound to the credit of the subject 
 of the biography. Thus it was quite possible to lose 
 all trace of one of the girls, about whom there may 
 have been some untoward story of her birth. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan came back to her work in the autumn 
 of 1787, to find matters rather worse than better at 
 Drury Lane. The theatre was ruled, not by its acting 
 manager, Tom King, but by its actual manager and 
 part proprietor, R. B. Sheridan, who had little time to 
 attend to the needs of the drama ; as King said, when 
 he had appointments with him he was always in " a 
 great hurry, or surrounded by company," and further 
 declared that he had no power to refuse or accept a 
 play, to appoint or discharge an actor, nor even to buy 
 a yard of copper lace to add to a coat, " which was so 
 much wanted." Thus, between one authority and 
 another, or rather because of the want of properly 
 delegated authority, the theatre was starved, and the 
 company was deeply dissatisfied. King and Kemble 
 were often at variance, so that for all concerned con- 
 ditions were fast drifting to an impasse. In such a 
 state Dorothy stood little chance, with King's dis- 
 approbation on the one hand, and on the other " the 
 great uneasiness in the house of Kemble," which, it is 
 said, led brother and sister to take every opportunity to 
 lessen her importance,
 
 H2 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Another source of great trouble to Dorothy was that 
 Mrs. Robinson, who had married again, and was 
 now Mrs. Taylor, had secured an engagement at Drury 
 Lane, and was bent on proving herself the better 
 actress of the two. Failing in this one critic said, 
 " On the stage Mrs. Taylor has less fear than we have 
 for her " she bent her energies constantly to annoying 
 Dorothy, in and out of season, and used every art to 
 make the other performers dislike her. Thus Dorothy 
 was anything but happy in her work, she acted less 
 than usual, and her popularity was said to have 
 waned. This was rather a newspaper announcement 
 than a real fact, and was founded on her absence from 
 the stage, for which absence the initial and most im- 
 portant reason was a long and severe illness. She bore 
 her children quickly, and seems to have suffered much 
 in health at intervals through the period of gestation ; 
 so both public and employers, getting annoyed at 
 these recurring absences, began a habit which lasted 
 many years of calling her a malingerer. A comic 
 opera had been projected, Love in the East, by 
 James Cobb, with music by Linley, in which Dorothy 
 was to have a chief part, thus there was especial 
 anxiety for her reappearance; so the paragraphists 
 were, as usual, busy with her name, and they found out 
 or invented explanations which would please their 
 public, and insinuated trouble between Ford and 
 Dorothy, with consequent sulks on her part. That 
 there should have been quarrels can scarcely be sur- 
 prising, for she had lived with Richard Ford eighteen 
 months, had borne him a child, and still he had not 
 redeemed his promise of marrying her. 
 
 In the heyday of his passion for her Ford had
 
 Rivalry and Love 1 1 3 
 
 probably meant what he said, but his father still lived, 
 and had the power materially to aid his career. Dr. 
 Ford was at that time trying to realize his capital, one 
 way being to sell what remained of his share in Drury 
 Lane for 17,500, and Richard Ford may have been 
 made nervous as to his father's intentions when he 
 retired as he wished to do. Before the end of the year 
 the doctor did retire, the papers said with a fortune 
 of 100,000. 
 
 Gossip also asserted that Dorothy, being known as 
 Mrs. Ford, was determined to act under that name, 
 but that King absolutely refused so to bill her, while 
 she, on her part, refused to play otherwise, and had 
 resigned her salary. In answer to this Dorothy wrote 
 to the papers giving a positive denial to the statement 
 that she declined performing until she was announced 
 in a manner different from what she had been, and 
 asserting that a long continuance of severe illness 
 had alone been the cause of her absence. This, how- 
 ever, was regarded as not true, and the heckling 
 continued. 
 
 By this time Ford had entered Parliament as a 
 member for Grinstead, and through Sheridan's interest 
 probably hoped for some good post under government, 
 being at the same time ambitious for high honours. 
 Thus, if he was looking to the future, he may have 
 considered that the woman who had yielded to him in 
 trust could not be deemed worthy of so great a person- 
 age as himself. On the other hand, he may have 
 learned hidden matters about the Bettesworth affair, 
 which changed his intentions. 
 
 It may have been, too, that Dorothy's family in- 
 fluenced him, for to most of them her purse was con-
 
 ii4 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 stantly opened. There were her mother and four or five 
 brothers and sisters, most of whom seemed incapable of 
 becoming independent. No one could have expected 
 it of the mother, who, though not much over fifty, was 
 at that time far from the possibility of earning her 
 living, and Dorothy never gave any sign of even 
 thinking her a burden, for she was the most loving of 
 daughters. 
 
 Of the brothers, family papers say that Francis, 
 probably the eldest, was, in his turn, called Captain 
 Bland; he may have been in the militia, the navy, or 
 the army, but the army lists for that period do not go 
 so far back. He was a wild and reckless person, and 
 for a long period an expense to his sister, always 
 begging from her, and receiving help. 
 
 Nathaniel was never a charge upon Dorothy. He 
 was sent to Brasenose College, Oxford, by his aunt, 
 and matriculated in October 1786, taking his B.A. in 
 1790. What occupation he followed later is not 
 known, but he settled down at Trelethyn, and married 
 a lady named Phcebe James, sister-in-law of the Rev. 
 William Richardson, vicar and canon of St. David's. 
 Having no children, these Blands adopted a boy, 
 nephew to Mrs. Nathaniel. 
 
 As for George, the third boy, he seems generally to 
 have hung on to Dorothy's fortunes, being the cause 
 of considerable friction between Dorothy, who wanted 
 him to be included in the Drury Lane company, and 
 first King and then Kemble, both of whom refused to 
 admit him, though Kemble eventually gave way. 
 
 The eldest sister, Hester, lived with Dorothy for 
 years, often acting in minor parts, but the date on 
 which she went to Trelethyn and settled down is lost,
 
 Rivalry and Love 1 1 5 
 
 as is also the date on which the younger sister became 
 a charge upon Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 This younger sister and one of Dorothy's daughters 
 it is suggested in family papers that her name was also 
 Hester remain but shadowy people in this record, 
 for they did little to become known or to be reported 
 in the papers, yet here and there evidence of their 
 existence is given. 
 
 Of all these at this time George was the best known 
 weight upon his sister, who could see nothing for him 
 but a stage career ; year after year she pressed his name 
 upon the manager, and year after year that gentleman, 
 like Ford, sought to soothe her with promises. 
 
 Though Tate Wilkinson does not mention him, 
 George was with her each time she went to Edinburgh, 
 and he was also with her at Cheltenham, besides acting 
 in the provinces whenever an opening could be secured 
 for him. Occasional and not always good-natured 
 references were made to him in the papers ; such as : 
 ' The male Jordan, brother of the Romp of that name, 
 who has been on the Northern tour with his sister, and 
 performed several characters, particularly in the sing- 
 ing line, is, we hear, to try his skill at the old Drury 
 this winter." These would generally be followed by a 
 counter announcement to such effect as (The Public 
 Advertiser) : " The brother of Mrs. Jordan, who has to 
 boast much of her archness and comic power, is not yet 
 to appear at Drury Lane." Thus one gathers that 
 disappointment after disappointment waited upon 
 Dorothy and George, and it is only possible to think 
 that the cause was the young man's own inefficiency, for 
 the management had many chances of studying him, 
 and were always keen to secure a clever actor. He,
 
 n6 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 like Nathaniel, must have been a gentle and, to some 
 extent, a retiring man ; personally, he was said to have 
 been remarkably like Dorothy both in feature, height, 
 and slimness of figure. 
 
 Now, to all the unsuccessful members of her family 
 Dorothy was lavish with money, and it must be ad- 
 mitted that if she earned much she also spent much 
 though history shows no evidence of personal extrava- 
 gance on her part; Ford may have disliked the 
 presence of so many of Dorothy's people about the 
 house, and still more have disliked her spending 
 money on them. But, on the whole, there must have 
 been a great gulf fixed between the characters of the 
 two; Ford, with a trained legal mind, alive to the value 
 of pounds, shillings, and pence, as stepping-stones; 
 and Dorothy, born and bred in Bohemia, nursed in 
 the midst of financial difficulty, and endowed with an 
 unusually generous nature. It is a marvellous thing 
 that, however they lived, together or parted, there is 
 no recorded word of Dorothy's derogatory to Richard 
 Ford, and though later many journals fought a public 
 battle over their separation, she let them say, and kept 
 a discreet silence.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SUCCESS AND FAILURE 
 
 " Sweet child of nature, born to pleasure, 
 Decked with Thalia's dearest treasure, 
 Armed with smiles all hearts to gain, 
 With love and laughter in thy train ; 
 While with every changing scene 
 Fresh graces deck thy comic mien. 
 Thy wild notes sweetly thrill the heart, 
 By nature taught, disdaining art ; 
 No laboured sounds distort thy face, 
 All's done with nature's simple grace." 
 
 ANON. To /?./., as Harry Wildair. 
 
 IT was not until the beginning of April 1788, the 
 5th to be precise, that Dorothy appeared again on 
 the stage, having given up her part in Love in the 
 East, which was produced in February. She knew 
 that, much as her voice charmed the public, it was not 
 sufficient to carry on the sustained effort of an opera. 
 For this reason, when a year or two later, an attempt 
 was made to include her services in the oratorio which 
 took place annually at Drury Lane, she first hesitated 
 and then definitely refused. 
 
 In spite of the reports of her unpopularity, the house 
 was crowded for her benefit on May 2, when she played 
 Harry Wildair in The Constant Couple for the first 
 time, and she was so enthusiastically received in it that 
 she gave the play renewed life for twenty years. 
 
 Her part abounded in sprightly dainty repartee, 
 and her slight, beautiful figure was shown to perfection 
 in the picturesque dress of the dissolute young man, 
 Harry Wildair, that stage apology for immorality 
 
 117
 
 ii8 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 which so delighted the good people of the period, who 
 could never make the two ends of ideal and practice 
 meet. John Adolphus in his Memoirs of Bannister 
 fairly well puts the matter in saying that " the display 
 of manly virtue at the close when a gentleman of high 
 breeding and indisputable courage chooses to make 
 honourable reparation to a lady for an undesigned 
 affront, rather than extricate himself by means of a 
 duel, throws around him a charm which makes us not 
 only forget, but absolutely love the levities and the 
 faults which before required all the charm of his wit 
 and his graces barely to palliate." 
 
 At the end of the play it was Dorothy's business, 
 as chief male character, to announce the next per- 
 formance, which was to be All for Love on the Monday, 
 and, with her acute sense of public feeling, she ended 
 her announcement with the words spoken in the most 
 respectful and kindly way, " being for the benefit of 
 Mistress Siddons." At once the audience was newly 
 captured, and burst into loud applause at her magna- 
 nimity, for all the world knew the feeling which 
 existed in Siddonian circles against their Thalia. 
 
 Of Dorothy one critic said the next day that "her 
 voice was sweet and distinct, and she played rakes 
 with the airiest grace and handsomest leg that had been 
 seen on the stage for a long time." Indeed, " the 
 symmetry of her lower parts," to quote Boaden, was 
 a constant inspiration to the journalistic pen. A year 
 or two later one of the monthly magazines published 
 a picture in which Mrs. Jordan, as Harry Wildair, and 
 Mrs. Crouch were depicted as comparing the beauty 
 of their silk-hosed legs for the judgment of the Prince 
 of Wales and the Duke of Clarence.
 
 Success and Failure 119 
 
 Dorothy, however, played little this spring, in spite 
 of the warm appreciation at her benefit, though she 
 went on until June 13; and in July she, for the first 
 time, acted at Cheltenham, taking with her her brother 
 George, who had a part at a pound a week. This was 
 the summer in which the mental illness of the King 
 began, and he had gone to Cheltenham, hoping to 
 regain the health which was so subtly and fearfully 
 leaving him. So quick-witted Dorothy saw her oppor- 
 tunity, and arranged an engagement with the manager 
 of the little Theatre Royal there. The Court, includ- 
 ing the King and Queen, went to see her act several 
 times, and her benefit night was again a triumph, an 
 announcement being made that a gold medal was in 
 course of manufacture for her, which the nobility and 
 gentry of the countryside desired to present. 
 
 This medal took the form of an " elegant medallion 
 locket," richly set on one side with fine pearls, in the 
 centre of which was a beautiful painting of the comic 
 muse, from Sir Joshua Reynolds's picture. On the 
 reverse was placed in blue enamel an oval of fine 
 brilliants, and in the centre the following inscription 
 in gold letters on white enamel 
 
 " Presented to Mrs. Jordan. Thalia's sweetest child." 
 
 The Drury Lane troubles through that spring and 
 summer became acute and the company gradually 
 disintegrated. King distrusted Kemble's more 
 advanced ideas, and Kemble unwillingly submitted 
 to King's old-fashioned ways; Gentleman Smith 
 backed up King, yet felt himself out of the centre of 
 things. The Kembles were afraid of Mrs. Jordan's 
 popularity, and Mrs. Jordan hated them for their air 
 of superiority and their power to put her in the shade ;
 
 120 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 there was no love lost between Miss Farren and Mrs. 
 Crouch on the one hand, and Dorothy on the other. 
 She had to see them take parts which she regarded as 
 peculiarly her own, and they knew that the public 
 laughed louder and more heartily at and with her than 
 it did at them. Mrs. Siddons often, as at her benefit 
 this year, ranged herself among the comedy actresses 
 rather than let Dorothy become too prominent. 
 Sheridan's constant money troubles made him cut 
 down the expenses of the theatre to such a close 
 margin that King could put on no new plays, and had 
 ever to ring the changes on the old, with the result 
 that though he had the four greatest performers of the 
 day in the theatre, Harris easily outrivalled him at 
 Covent Garden. 
 
 Some of the older actors grew tired of the struggle, 
 and the first to give up was Gentleman Smith, termed 
 by Churchill in The Rosciad, " Smith the genteel, 
 the airy, and the smart," who announced his retirement 
 from Drury Lane and any other stage in April 1788, 
 and made his last appearance on the 9th of June; 
 thus weakening King's hands and strengthening those 
 of Kemble. Palmer and Parsons drifted away, and 
 then King, seeing three of his own supporters disap- 
 pear, sent in his resignation and, to make it irrevoc- 
 able, left London the same day. Indeed, the personnel 
 of the theatre seemed to be almost in the condition of 
 the " one-hoss shay," that is of suddenly and entirely 
 falling to pieces. 
 
 In the autumn the company was without a manager, 
 for King was gone and Kemble was standing out for 
 his own terms, including a certain amount of free- 
 dom in internal arrangements; in fact, he intended
 
 Success and Failure 121 
 
 to be manager and not just a buffer between Sheridan 
 and all the small troubles incidental to a theatre. He 
 gained his way, of course, for Sheridan had no choice. 
 
 When the Duke of Clarence, known then as Prince 
 William, was first attracted to Dorothy no one can 
 say; but during October of 1788 he was at the theatre 
 to see the first performance of Love for Love, a play 
 which Genest described as without a spark of honour 
 or virtue in any person. 
 
 Bannister Junior took the part of Ben the sailor, 
 and entering the Green Room on trie first night ready 
 to appear on the stage, he found the Prince there, and 
 was subjected to a critical examination. 
 
 "What!" said William, "would you wear that 
 coloured handkerchief round your neck? That must 
 be changed." 
 
 Upon this a black handkerchief was found, and 
 " the good-natured, open-hearted Prince assisted with 
 his own hand " to give it the correct position and knot, 
 and in other ways he helped to make the actor as like 
 as possible to a genuine son of the ocean. 
 
 It is not likely that so soon as this the Prince was 
 attracted to Dorothy, for her second Ford child was 
 born either in October or November, so she was not 
 in the theatre. On the 22nd of the latter month The 
 Morning Post declared that it would be an advantage 
 to Drury Lane when Mrs. Jordan recovered, as hers 
 were the only bills from that quarter that were duly 
 honoured. 
 
 While she was away from the theatre Mrs. Inch- 
 bald's farce, The Child of Nature, was first played at 
 Covent .Garden, with Miss Brunton in the chief part, 
 and on seeing it George Saville Carey, dramatist,
 
 122 The Story 01 Dorothy Jordan 
 
 author of The Nut-brown Maid, and son of the man 
 who wrote " God Save the King," sent two verses to 
 The Morning Post, which fixed the name of " Child 
 of Nature" on Dorothy for evermore. 
 
 " The play, Fair Inchbald, surely is miscalled, 
 
 I fain would have you name the brat again ; 
 That name was surely long ago forestalled, 
 The Child of Nature is at Drury Lane. 
 
 " Yet am I pleased with thy prolific Muse, 
 
 Nor would I wish to check thy rising fame, 
 Nature thought fit a favourite to choose, 
 The world approved, and Jordan is her name." 
 
 Through that winter Dorothy acted constantly and 
 in several new parts. She was Beatrice in a play by 
 Bickerstaff, renamed by Kemble The Panel; The 
 Impostors was written specially for her by Cumber- 
 land, but it was weak in construction, and, to the 
 author's disgust, who blamed Dorothy, it only ran four 
 nights. She took Rosalind for her benefit in Decem- 
 ber, played in Vanbrugh's Confederacy ', while the old 
 plays, The Devil to Pay and The Romp held their 
 own. The latter being in book form, published at one 
 shilling, was dedicated by the author to Mrs. Jordan 
 in the following words : " You have made the piece 
 particularly your own by your happy conception and 
 admirable representation of the principal character, 
 and have raised this bagatelle to an importance which 
 the most sanguine partiality of its author could never 
 have hoped for. You have rescued it from oblivion 
 and fostered it with the exertion of your splendid 
 talents, and it is now respectfully offered to your 
 acceptance." 
 
 In her desire to become known as a mistress of 
 polite comedy perhaps she also wished to show that
 
 Success and Failure 123 
 
 she could equal Miss Farren on her own ground 
 Dorothy took the part of Lady Bell in Know Your 
 Own Mind, which the critics agreed in thinking less 
 than admirable ; Boaden describing her in this repre- 
 sentation of a fine lady as " a smart soubrette, who had 
 hurried on her ladies' finest apparel, and overacted the 
 character to avoid being detected." 
 
 But in spite of a mistake of this sort Dorothy 
 Jordan this winter sealed her fame for all time, and, 
 as a writer in The Dramatic Magazine somewhat 
 vulgarly says, she " fairly beat Melpomene " (Mrs. 
 Siddons as typifying tragedy) "out of the field." 
 Another opinion, published in The Rambler, assured 
 the public that : " Few actresses have so suddenly 
 gained or, indeed, so well deserved the universal 
 approval of the town as Mrs. Jordan. She has given 
 celebrity to several dramatic pieces that but for her 
 would never most probably have been revived." And 
 later the same writer added : " Nothing can be a greater 
 proof of excellence than that her spritely, animated 
 Miss Tomboy occasioned the revival of The Romp, 
 which had an astonishing run at Drury Lane, inso- 
 much that the receipts of the House when this actress 
 performed greatly exceeded the attractions of the 
 famous Melpomene." 
 
 As for Mrs. Siddons there was a grain of truth about 
 her being beaten out of the field, though she by no 
 means ceased to play. She had her brother being 
 manager relinquished her contract to act at least 
 three times a week for 30, for the more advantageous 
 one of acting only when she chose on a payment of 
 30 a night, which meant that she acted less and 
 gained more.
 
 124 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 The feeling between Dorothy and the Kembles 
 grew more bitter after this; Kemble's first year was, 
 in fact, distinguished by quarrels with both actors and 
 actresses, who resented his improvements and his high- 
 handed methods of carrying them out; comments upon 
 all of which the papers joyfully published. With 
 Dorothy matters came to a crisis early in January 1789, 
 and on the loth she was not at the theatre, a Mrs. 
 Foster taking her part. It may have been illness, or 
 it may have been a quarrel which kept her away, for 
 she was angry about her brother, as Kemble not only 
 refused to take him, but had even endeavoured to 
 prevent his presence in the stage part of the theatre 
 at all, The Morning Post reporting that the door- 
 keeper was fined five shillings for allowing him 
 entrance. This was a small penalty for a small thing, 
 for Kemble fined Mrs. Crouch five guineas for refus- 
 ing to appear when he and she had had a desperate 
 quarrel concerning her clothes. 
 
 If Dorothy was in a general state of irritation about 
 George, she was also brooding over the fact that she 
 who drew the largest audiences to the theatre was 
 securing only twelve guineas a week, while Mrs. 
 Siddons had thirty. However, she soon recovered, for 
 her absence only lasted eleven days, but the strain 
 between Thalia and Melpomene grew keener, and a 
 long letter appeared one day in March in The Morn- 
 ing Post commenting on a saying by Dorothy's friends 
 that she ought not to act on the same night as Mrs. 
 Siddons, it being alleged that by so doing she filled 
 the house for her rival and was thus forced to hold 
 up the train of the tragedy queen. 
 
 Then Harris, the manager of Covent Garden, took
 
 Success and Failure 125 
 
 advantage of these rumours to offer her a position in 
 his theatre at any salary she liked to name. Upon this 
 Dorothy wrote to Sheridan, detailing the points of her 
 complaints concerning the Kembles, telling him of 
 the Harris offer, and saying that it was not to her 
 interest to continue to play at Drury Lane. Sheridan 
 was at this time deep in the arraignment of Warren 
 Hastings, but this was too important a matter to be 
 put aside, and he went to see Dorothy, promised to do 
 away with all her grievances, and suggested 30 a 
 week as a salary. 
 
 She had no real desire to change her theatre, and 
 at once agreed to his terms, so for the rest of the 
 spring she was constantly acting. 
 
 The London season of 1789 over, Dorothy took a 
 week's engagement at Richmond, starting on June 29, 
 in The Constant Couple, and following it with The 
 Romp, the manager Edwin on opening the theatre 
 announcing her advent in a prologue of which two 
 lines ran 
 
 41 My next vast merit, I must have a word on ! 
 Ecod ! d'ye know, I've got you Mistress Jordan I" 
 
 and the succeeding lines made mention of her leg, her 
 ankle, her foot, and promised the girls a kiss from 
 Harry Wildair. 
 
 At the end of the week she did one of her impul- 
 sively generous deeds. She had heard that Tate 
 Wilkinson had been crippled by an accident, so 
 offered to act Sir Harry Wildair and Nell for him 
 for nothing at his benefit on Monday, the ;th of July. 
 This if her Richmond engagement finished on the 
 5th left her little time to get to Leeds. It is needless 
 to say that Wilkinson accepted her offer with alacrity,
 
 126 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and thought himself very fortunate ; but he estimated 
 a little too nicely what he thought Mrs. Jordan was 
 likely to do. Thus, fearing that she could not get to 
 him in time, he altered the day from Monday to Wed- 
 nesday the 9th, and then watched with some misgiving 
 for the arrival of the actress. Sunday, Monday morn- 
 ing and she did not come ; his spirits rose, he began to 
 pat himself for his acumen; two o'clock on Monday 
 and she had not arrived; then he was quite sure that 
 he had done the wise thing, for he persuaded himself 
 that she would not think of playing without a previous 
 rehearsal. 
 
 The Fords to give them the name Dorothy wished 
 and under which she was billed at Leeds had, how- 
 ever, travelled by post from Richmond, and arrived in 
 the town on the Monday afternoon; and as they 
 entered it the first thing Dorothy looked for was a 
 theatre bill. On seeing one her warm feelings received 
 a shock, for her name was not upon it, and she 
 naturally thought that Wilkinson had simply put her 
 aside, and was angry that she should have taken so 
 much trouble for nothing. At half-past four the 
 gentleman received a note from her, saying that she 
 was in the town and was surprised not to see her name 
 announced for that night; so he went with trepidation, 
 we may believe to her hotel, grumbling to himself 
 that any one in their senses would think it too great 
 a hardship to undergo two exhausting performances 
 just after finishing such a journey. He must have felt 
 uneasy about the interview, for he had had some 
 experience of Dorothy indignant; and truly it was 
 scarcely pleasant. To all his excuses the actress 
 replied that she would act that night or not at all;
 
 Success and Failure 127 
 
 that she could not stay beyond the next day, as her 
 engagement with Mr. Jackson of Edinburgh involved 
 a fine of 500 if she were not there at the time fixed. 
 Wilkinson tried persuasion and cajolery, pointing out 
 how terribly the town would be offended if she did 
 not perform at his benefit, and that every one was 
 speaking in praise of her generosity in acting for 
 nothing. 
 
 " Nothing ! " said the irritated lady, " nothing ! No, 
 I cannot stay here three days, risk my fine at Edin- 
 burgh and all for nothing; I shall want thirty guineas 
 if I stay." 
 
 Poor Wilkinson felt that the glory of his benefit 
 had departed, and he debated with himself whether, 
 after all, he would not gain as much without her as 
 with her on such terms; then Dorothy relented, and 
 said she would stay and act for twenty guineas. And 
 so the matter was fixed. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan was expecting the birth of another babe 
 in the winter, and Wilkinson suggests that the ladies 
 at Leeds considered her representation of Sir Harry 
 Wildair indelicate under such conditions; but it may 
 be, on the other hand, that the whole affair had 
 destroyed that happy balance of mind which could 
 ensure success; yet, to put the third possibility, the 
 good Tate may have been deaf to the applause as he 
 had lost twenty guineas; for he says there was no 
 great applause shown such as she was accustomed to, 
 for though ladies in London would laugh at Farquhar 
 and Congreve, those in the country judged Sir Harry 
 at best as a loose companion, his chastity being any- 
 thing but strengthened when acted by a woman. So 
 he concludes that Dorothy, being unappreciated, was
 
 128 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 angry with her reception; yet "they parted excellent 
 good friends." 
 
 But it is a question whether Mrs. Jordan was treated 
 by the Yorkshire audience with any particular 
 disdain. It seemed to be generally acknowledged 
 that they, in common with other country audiences, 
 were slow to applaud, so much so that even their idol 
 the Queen of Tragedy that very summer of 1789 felt 
 depressed by their attitude when she played Mary 
 Queen of Scots to them, saying that it took double the 
 strength and force of will to act in the provinces that 
 it took on the London boards. 
 
 On the way to Leeds Dorothy was to play at 
 Harrogate for several nights, which was probably a 
 further reason for her annoyance with Wilkinson's 
 change of dates. While playing there a young, dark- 
 eyed girl sat in the gallery watching this noted " star," 
 one who later was known as Harriot Mellon, and who 
 married Coutts, the banker, becoming eventually 
 Duchess of St. Albans. 
 
 Dorothy's mother was at that time in bad health, 
 and it may be that she left her in that resort for 
 invalids, while she went on to the Scotch capital, 
 where of necessity she was late in arriving, Jackson, 
 the manager, being in an irate frame of mind, and 
 seriously contemplating a demand for the 500. It 
 was certainly a great temptation to him as his affairs 
 were in a particularly bad state, and such a sum of 
 money would have been a godsend. However, the 
 demand would also have meant the loss of Mrs. 
 Jordan's presence on his boards, and probably such a 
 retaliation from the public as would have precipitated 
 his total failure.
 
 Success and Failure 129 
 
 So he bad-temperedly waived his legal right, and 
 Mrs. Jordan proceeded to charm the people of the 
 North into gaiety, also to renew her friendship 
 with her uncle John Bland and his family, with all of 
 whom she again acted. 
 
 Before her engagement was completed she had news 
 that her mother was likely to die, and as she had 
 of all the children been the only one to help or 
 do anything for that mother, it was scarcely likely 
 that she would let business cause her to desert her 
 at the last. Thus the plays had to proceed without 
 Dorothy, and poor Grace Philipps, who had made 
 one great mistake, who had had about fifteen years of 
 presumably happy married life with a man who, 
 tempted beyond his strength, left her; who had 
 struggled hard for her children until one of them 
 gladly took up the burden and worked for her Grace 
 Philipps died, an inconsiderable person, who must 
 have left the world little poorer for her loss, though 
 her daughter's grief was great. In the Edinburgh 
 Herald some time later appeared the following lines, 
 written by Dorothy * 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A MOTHER. 
 
 " Be ready, reader, if thou hast a tear, 
 Nor blush if sympathy bestows it here ! 
 For a lost mother, hear a daughter's moan, 
 Catch the sad sounds, and learn like her to groan. 
 Yet, all those groans, sad echoes all to mine, 
 Must prove faint offerings at so dear a shrine. 
 If feeble these, how feebler far must be 
 The tribute to be paid by Poesy ! 
 The bleeding heart, that's whelm'd with real woe, 
 Affects no flowers near Helicon that grow ; 
 Sobs and swoln sighs ill suit smooth-numbered lay, 
 The tear that waters cypress, drowns the bay. 
 
 1 They were also published in The Gentleman's Magazine^ Dec. 1811, 
 when her name was most prominently before the public. 
 
 I
 
 130 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Hard, then, must be the task, in mournful verse, 
 
 The praise of a lost parent to rehearse. 
 
 Mild suffering saint exemplary through life, 
 
 A tender mother, and a patient wife ; 
 
 Whose firm fidelity no wrongs could shake, 
 
 While curb'd resentment was forbid to speak. 
 
 Thus, silent anguish mark'd her for his own, 
 
 And comfort, coming late, was barely known ; 
 
 It, like a shadow, smiled and slipped away, 
 
 For churlish Death refused to let it stay ; 
 
 A two-fold dart he levell'd, to destroy, 
 
 At once, both mother's life and daughter's joy. 
 
 Better a double summons had been given, 
 
 To wipe out sorrow's score, and make all even, 
 
 By kindly calling both at once to Heaven I " 
 
 They are not particularly good, but they give some 
 hints as to the mother's character 
 
 "Whose firm fidelity no wrongs could shake, 
 While curb'd resentment was forbid to speak." 
 
 We here find the same quality which animated 
 Dorothy; loyalty under loss and ill-treatment, a loyalty 
 which refused to divulge the truth about Francis Bland 
 or to give rumour the chance of blaming him. 
 
 Jackson had no idea of letting Dorothy off scot free, 
 he was in such difficulties that he probably eagerly 
 hailed any method of evading his payments, so she 
 could get no money from him, and had to borrow to 
 pay her expenses in Edinburgh. The company of 
 which she was for a time a member went on to Glas- 
 gow, and then, before leaving, the Fords wrung from 
 Jackson a bill for 100 to be paid in London. He 
 avenged himself by publishing various statements 
 against Dorothy, among them that her presence had 
 not brought him any advantage, and comparing the 
 receipts from her acting with the sums that Mrs. 
 Siddons had drawn from the public earlier. 
 
 From Edinburgh the Fords went on to Chester, and 
 there Jackson's bill was returned to them dishonoured,
 
 Success and Failure 131 
 
 and they heard of his doings in Glasgow, which drew 
 a public letter from Dorothy, explaining the straits 
 to which she had been put, and ending with 
 
 " I have now entirely done with the subject, and, 
 thank God, with Mr. Jackson, who, I hope, by his 
 punctuality to pay his present protested note, will not 
 compel me to resume any acquaintance with him by 
 the methods the law points out. 
 
 " P.S. As to Mr. Jackson's comparative statement 
 of the receipts, I am no judge, I can only say that the 
 houses were apparently very good when I performed ; 
 perhaps it would not have been amiss, but rather 
 fairer, if he had said that in the year 1785, from whence 
 he drew Mrs. Siddons's account, that lady performed 
 at the advanced London prices."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A RELAPSE 
 
 "Apologies for plays, experience shows, 
 Are things almost as useless as the beaux. 
 Whate'er we say (like them) we neither move 
 Your friendship, pity, anger, nor your love. 
 Tis interest turns the globe : let us but find, 
 The way to please you, and you'll soon be kind : 
 But to expect, you'd for our sakes approve, 
 Is just as though you for their sakes should love." 
 
 VANBRUGH, The Relapse. 
 
 IN the summer of 1789, George Bland was acting 
 at Liverpool, independently of his sister, and there he 
 did what the impecunious young man so often Hoes, he 
 married. Not that he made an unworldly choice, but it 
 was too quick a one to be the result of anything but 
 sudden attraction. The lady, I can scarcely call her 
 fair, was Maria Romanzini, whom Daly had attempted 
 to win in 1781, and who had been acting with Dorothy 
 at Drury Lane. Her child-life had been one of hard- 
 ship, for her mother like Topsy, she seems to have 
 had no father was a poor Jewess, who was glad 
 enough when Cady, the hairdresser at the Royal 
 Circus, suggested that the little one had sufficient voice 
 even then to be valuable as a performer. Through his 
 influence the child was articled to the Circus, doing 
 little recitations at a very small salary. As she 
 possessed arch humour and a pretty way of singing, 
 she soon became a favourite, and when the Patent 
 Theatre made an attack on the Circus, because of the 
 child plays acted there, she was one of the company 
 who had a narrow escape from imprisonment. 
 
 In appearance, she was very small and dark, and 
 
 132
 
 A Relapse 133 
 
 though graceful as a girl, she grew too broad with 
 advancing years. Her deep voice was effective in 
 operas, and in plays that needed much singing. Leigh 
 Hunt said of her when writing on The Old Actors, 
 " Mrs. Bland, the favourite little singer, with a voice 
 like her name, and a short, thick person, and dark 
 face to match, whom her sweet ballads made ever 
 welcome." 
 
 The urgent need to live seems to have divested both 
 her and her mother of any steady principle, and 
 various stories are told of the way they used to conform 
 to any demand which the mischievous public made 
 upon them. The Secret History of the Green Room 
 asserts that, when in Liverpool in 1789, Miss Roman- 
 zini knew that there were a great number of Roman 
 Catholics in the town, and that they liberally 
 patronized those of their own persuasion, so she 
 regularly displayed her devotion at their chapels. But 
 a wicked wag, by circulating the report of her being 
 a Jewess, obliged her to sit sewing at her window every 
 Saturday afternoon, to show that she broke the 
 Sabbath; and the better to contradict the assertion, 
 she made her mother buy a live pig in the evening, and 
 go to every person with whom she could pretend 
 business, " and pulling the young Sir Joseph Maubrey 
 by the tail, tell that it was for the dinner of her and her 
 daughter next day." 
 
 Romanzini was due at Drury Lane in the autumn 
 of 1789, but, encouraged by Dorothy's increase of 
 salary, she refused to return unless her own was in- 
 creased. This the management would not agree to, so, 
 after a few weeks, she and her bridegroom appeared in 
 London, and the bride took up her work at the old 
 price.
 
 134 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 That two favourite actresses now had an interest in 
 George Bland must have somewhat embarrassed 
 Kemble, and he at last succumbed to the pressure put 
 upon him, for early in February 1790, George acted 
 Sebastian to Dorothy's Viola. How this was brought 
 about is left to conjecture, also why Dorothy did not 
 act at all in the autumn of 1789. Was it true that her 
 increase of salary was not being paid, as it was 
 rumoured in the summer ? or was it that she was using 
 her absence to force Kemble to include her brother in 
 the company? Or was it solely because a third 
 daughter was born to her this winter, and she was 
 probably unable to work in the preceding months ? 
 
 From February 1790, however, she was acting 
 incessantly, sometimes as much as five nights a week, 
 taking several new plays through the season, by which 
 she added the parts of Polly Honeycomb, Lsetitia 
 Hardy in The Belle's Stratagem, and of Lydia 
 Languish to her list. She also created for her benefit, 
 in March, Little Pickle, in The Spoiled Child, a play 
 supposed to have been written by Richard Ford, but 
 the papers of the day asserted that Dorothy herself 
 was the author. Boaden suggests that it was an 
 anonymous production by BickerstafT, which is quite 
 likely, Dorothy altering it to suit her ideas, for years 
 later she had a play acted of which she was part 
 author. 
 
 There is in the British Museum, a little slip of paper, 
 relating to this benefit night, which runs : 
 
 "Received, 27 March, 1790, of Mr. Westley, Thirty-nine 
 pounds 17/7 in full for my benefit balance this season. 
 
 "DOROTHEA JORDAN. 
 39 -i 7- 7-"
 
 A Relapse 135 
 
 As Mrs. Siddons did not act at all at Drury Lane 
 this season, it is probable that Dorothy was more 
 contented, especially as her brother seemed, at last, 
 to have won a position of independence. George 
 Bland was given by Kemble the really good salary 
 for a beginner in London of 5 a week, an arrange- 
 ment which lasted some time. In October 1791 he 
 and his wife went with the Drury Lane Company to 
 the Haymarket; The Bon Ton Magazine comment- 
 ing in its usual frank fashion : " Those who heard her 
 masculine pipe and the effeminate voice of her 
 husband, wonder much at the circumstance of a 
 bouncing boy." 
 
 History places three children to the credit of the 
 Elands; this bouncing boy of 1791, and twin boys in 
 1792, but there may have been more. About the twins 
 The Secret History of the Green Room tells a story 
 apropos of Bland : " The character that has given him 
 most reputation is Arionelli, in The Son-in-law, which 
 he performed at the Haymarket, with a degree of 
 applause that might have pleased a Siddons or a Dall. 1 
 He assumed the Italian Catastro in a most happy 
 manner, and in the songs displayed not only good 
 taste, but a powerful voice. The plaudits he received 
 were extraordinary, and the good humour of the 
 audience was not a little increased when he said 
 
 " ' Marriage ! Oh ! dat is quite out of my way.' 
 
 "Wilson, as Cranby, retorted with an original 
 sentence 
 
 " ' Indeed ! Then how came you to have twins 
 t'other day ? ' A retort which produced a universal 
 burst of laughter." 
 
 1 An actress then well known at Covent Garden.
 
 136 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 For several years Mr. and Mrs. Bland acted 
 together, and then we find Maria frequently in 
 London, while her husband's name appeared only on 
 provincial bills. So George and his wife drifted apart, 
 and then gossip asserted that when they were together 
 she not only betrayed, but ill-treated him. Caulfield, 
 the comedian, then shared her home, and she had many 
 children, one of whom died tragically. She was one 
 day, says Oxberry in his Memoirs, working some 
 expensive lace into a dress, and being suddenly called 
 from the room, she went back, after an interval, to find 
 that one of the children had cut the lace to pieces. In 
 a rage, Maria shook the poor little thing violently, and 
 put it out of the door. At length, going out of the 
 room, she found the child lying dead on the mat. This 
 horrible event brought on a fit of insanity, from which, 
 however, she recovered, and worked many years, 
 though she was insane at the end of her life. 
 
 Bland, alone, cast from his home, and unsuccessful 
 " in what is called the walking gentleman he is more 
 than useful, his person and deportment being very 
 genteel," was a height of praise with which he could 
 surely have cheerfully dispensed eventually went to 
 America, that place of hope for English actors, and 
 in the Gentleman's Magazine . f or November 1807, 
 appeared the following paragraph 
 
 "At Boston, in America, about four months since, 
 in the utmost poverty and indigence, poor Bland, the 
 brother of Mrs. Jordan, and husband of Mrs. Bland of 
 the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." 
 
 Poor Bland ! It expressed the general feeling about 
 a man who was not clever, but who won general affec- 
 tion. Dorothy Jordan seemed to bear Maria Teresa no
 
 A Relapse 137 
 
 malice, however, and towards the end of her life spoke 
 well of her professional qualities, thus there may have 
 been more in the separation than is revealed. 
 
 It would probably have been no satisfaction to 
 Bland to know that his successor, Caulfield, shared his 
 own fate, of dying alone in America, though it was not 
 until 1815, when he fell down in a fit, and expired on 
 a Kentucky stage. 
 
 As for Mrs. Bland, it was not until January 1838 
 that a morning paper announcement ran : " Mrs. Bland 
 died this day, aged 75 ; she married the brother of Mrs. 
 Jordan, but the chances are that those who never aided 
 her living are not likely to mourn for her dead ! ' O 
 world, thy slippery turns ' what a ballad singer ! 
 in appearance like a fillet of veal on castors it was 
 vox, et praeterea nihil but what a vox ! " 
 
 During the summer and second half of the year 
 1790, also in the first half of 1791, there is little 
 reported about Dorothy's movements, though she 
 seems to have been as busy as before; and it was at 
 this time that a certain scandal began to be whispered, 
 which, however, will be detailed in the next chapter. 
 
 She had, again this winter, several new characters to 
 support, which always pleased her, among them being 
 The Greek Slave, altered from an old play; Better 
 Late Than Never, which was a failure, though her 
 acting in it was warmly praised, and The Intriguing 
 Chambermaid. During the spring and summer of 1791 
 she was anything but well, and began to spit blood, 
 which probably frightened her and upset her usual 
 happy serenity. The doctor ordered her a thorough 
 change of air, so after a week or so at Richmond, she 
 went up north with Richard Ford, who was at this
 
 138 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 period very particular in accompanying her every- 
 where. She had made quite good business terms with 
 Wilkinson, that she should act on shares and have a 
 clear benefit on the Saturday in Assize week, and in the 
 following week she was to act conditionally on one 
 night, which was to be arranged when they met. 
 
 Wilkinson advertised her to play on the first night 
 The Country Girl and The Devil to Pay. As Miss 
 Peggy in the first was an exhausting part, involving 
 singing, and generally an encore, Dorothy said that she 
 could not do both on one evening; The Devil to Pay 
 must wait. So she followed Peggy with a play entitled 
 The Mock Doctor. 
 
 The only account of the trouble in Yorkshire this 
 summer is given by Tate Wilkinson, a somewhat 
 partial witness, and certainly some discount should 
 be made from this record of Dorothy's ill-doings. 
 Though The Country Girl, as first given by Mrs. 
 Brown, was warmly received in York, Tate says that 
 the Yorkshire ladies were now too delicately minded to 
 enjoy it, and the audience was not enthusiastic ; he adds 
 that Dorothy was in a devil of a humour, and that she 
 grumbled to him that had the Yorkshire people pos- 
 sessed either life or soul she would have sung to them. 
 
 " Sing ! " he besought her, and indicated a song 
 written by Miss Ryder, a daughter of the Ryder to 
 whom she had owed the first step in her profession. 
 She could not refuse that, and Wilkinson says, " She 
 did sing it, and the whole theatre was one voice, one 
 soul, one mind, to burst into loud encores, and to do her 
 great merit justice." But the reaction came, and the 
 evening did not close so well as it might have done. 
 
 On Tuesday things went more successfully with
 
 A Relapse 139 
 
 The Devil to Pay and The Trip to Scarborough, and 
 with hilarity and good humour the Fords supped with 
 Wilkinson. But with each night matters dragged 
 more slowly, the audiences were lukewarm, and 
 Dorothy's spirits were dashed ; then her natural devilry 
 helped to spoil matters. She uttered scathing com- 
 ments on the public who could not appreciate her, and 
 these were carefully repeated through the town. Mrs. 
 Esten had acted Rosalind to them, and they had fallen 
 in love with her languorous speech and movements, 
 which they preferred to the more roguish acting of 
 Dorothy, so, according to Wilkinson, she began, " first 
 to pin, then to sew, and by degrees to bolt and bar up 
 all her acting," and seemed more ready to offend than 
 conciliate, declaring that she had a double weight to 
 carry, a stupid audience and a stupid company. On 
 Friday there was only ,25 in the house, and her benefit 
 the next night was poor. After the second act she 
 told the manager she would not play in York again, 
 but he, thinking this only a fit of temper, announced 
 her for Monday ; which was curious, seeing that he had 
 been grumbling about the bad receipts. 
 
 At the end of the evening the actress and the 
 manager had a row, she " almost swearing that she 
 would not act again, and speaking disrespectfully of 
 the beggarly engagement she had entered into." This 
 touched Wilkinson who prided himself on his 
 liberality and justice in a tender spot, and he read 
 her a lecture, adding for his reader's information 
 
 " Surely I had a right to speak when so wronged : 
 for if she was a theatrical duchess, why I was a 
 theatrical monarch Who's afraid ! " 
 
 Dorothy reddened and looked angry at the lecture,
 
 140 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and though Wilkinson hoped she would relent and 
 become good-humoured, "her mind settled quite 
 gloomy," and he says she never forgave him his 
 words. 
 
 The Fords were to have dined with the Wilkinsons 
 on the Sunday, and about midnight on Saturday the 
 following letter was delivered at the house of the 
 latter 
 
 " I have mentioned to Mrs. Ford the substance of 
 the conversation you favoured me with this evening, 
 and stated to her how anxious you were that she should 
 enlarge her engagement ; she appears, however, to be so 
 very averse to it that I must desist from further press- 
 ing her. The night due to you she is ready to perform 
 on next Wednesday, 1 or any earlier time you may please 
 to appoint. She desires me to add, that as she feels 
 herself very unwell and much fatigued, she is desirous 
 of passing a day or two in the country, and therefore 
 hopes that you will excuse her from doing herself the 
 pleasure of waiting upon you and Mrs. Wilkinson 
 to-morrow. 
 
 " I am, dear sir, 
 
 ' Your very obedient, humble servant, 
 " RICHARD FORD." 
 
 That there was something more than Wilkinson 
 described to make Dorothy dissatisfied with her en- 
 gagement was very possible, for the writer of The 
 Great Illegitimates declares that she was subject to 
 gross insult while on the stage from the interference 
 of some rigid moralists, in consequence of her living 
 1 She was to perform that night without payment.
 
 A Relapse 141 
 
 with Ford. Wilkinson was probably too angry to 
 betray this, for he was, where his feelings were 
 concerned, quite untrustworthy. 
 
 Thus, when praising a new young actress in "the 
 Jordan line," he said that Dorothy must be a dupe to 
 her own art, if she supposed that a girl of eighteen 
 would not please better than an old married one of 
 forty-four" Yet when the book in which this was 
 written came out, Dorothy was only then thirty-four ! 
 
 Kemble was in York en route to Newcastle, and 
 staying with the Mayor, who was a personal friend, 
 and this probably added bitterness to Dorothy's anger, 
 for the Kemble-Jordan feud never really died out. 
 Much has been said about the greed of Kemble and 
 his sister, Mrs. Siddons, and much has been said to 
 prove that they were generous, yet the ways of John 
 Kemble with Tate Wilkinson were scarcely those of a 
 generous heart. 
 
 In his embarrassment, Wilkinson went to Kemble, 
 who saw Dorothy Jordan, and arranged that she should 
 take a week at Newcastle with his brother Stephen in 
 his stead, while he acted in York. To Tate Wilkinson 
 he dictated terms. 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan shall not play on the Wednesday, as 
 that is the most fashionable night, but I will play, 
 and, as I act for fame, not for money, I will take only 
 thirty guineas in payment." 
 
 The horrified Wilkinson ejaculated " Pounds ! " 
 
 "Then that's the end of the matter," equably 
 returned Kemble. 
 
 " Then guineas let it be," murmured the manager, 
 who was, to use his own words, " jammed in a corner." 
 
 However, Wilkinson was no fool, so he went home
 
 142 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and wrote to Dorothy, giving her the alternative of 
 paying him thirty pounds or being advertised as per- 
 forming on the Tuesday. To which she replied 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " I agree with pleasure to your proposal of 
 giving you thirty pounds rather than ever perform in 
 York again. I shall return to-morrow and settle the 
 balance of the account. 
 
 " I am, dear sir, 
 
 " Your obliged, humble servant, 
 " D. FORD." 
 
 The theatre had to be closed on the Monday, and 
 Tate Wilkinson issued the following notice 
 
 "Theatre Royal, York, 
 
 "Monday, August 15, 1791. 
 
 " Mr. Wilkinson is under the disagreeable necessity 
 of closing the theatre this evening, as Mrs. Jordan has 
 positively declined any future performance on this 
 stage : Mr. Wilkinson is extremely sorry for the dis- 
 appointment, but has the unexpected satisfaction of 
 informing the public that 
 
 MR. KEMBLE 
 Manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane 
 
 (whose abilities are universally known and established), 
 perceiving Mr. Wilkinson's embarrassed situation, 
 has kindly offered his assistance during this Festival 
 Week, and will appear to-morrow, in the character, 
 
 OTHELLO 
 
 MOOR OF VENICE."
 
 A Relapse 143 
 
 However, the clever Tate crowed a little too soon, 
 for he was not yet out of his difficulty. 
 
 Dorothy returned to York on the Monday, and paid 
 him the 30, saying that she had done rightly, and 
 that she would be ruined as an actress if she were 
 to play to such a milk-and-water audience. But the 
 Kembles dined with him that Monday, and, at the 
 table, Kemble calmly announced that, after all, he 
 would not play for thirty guineas on Wednesday, that 
 it was not worth his trouble or attention, and that it 
 would be to slight his reputation if he did not clear 
 ,160 for the five nights; therefore he would share 
 the house that night. He had probably heard that 
 that was the arrangement with Mrs. Jordan during 
 that uncomfortable week, and would not condescend 
 to play for less. 
 
 The thunderstruck manager refused peremptorily, 
 and they separated. When the Tuesday rehearsal time 
 came, Kemble was in bed, having given orders that he 
 was not to be disturbed; which put his friend, the 
 Mayor, into a panic for his own reputation with the 
 townspeople. However, Kemble stolidly refused to 
 appear unless "the mistake about Wednesday were 
 put right," and at one o'clock, Wilkinson again ex- 
 plained affairs to the public and announced The Battle 
 of Hexham without Kemble. The actor was probably 
 just trying to screw as much as he could get out of 
 the manager, for when the agitated Mayor suggested 
 a compromise, the terms of which, however, Wilkinson 
 did not reveal, both parties accepted it. So the busi- 
 ness-like tragedian played, and netted nearly 150 
 for the rest of the week. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan set out for Newcastle, but Kemble
 
 144 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 seems to have played her as false as he did Wilkinson, 
 f or he had not troubled properly to instruct his brother 
 Stephen as to what was arranged, nor even to have 
 learned whether this change of plan was such as 
 Stephen Kemble's company could fall into. That 
 actor's people were prepared for Kemble, they knew 
 nothing of Mrs. Jordan's farces, and could not get 
 them up in the few days given them, so they did not 
 even leave Lancaster; and though Newcastle was 
 billed with The Country Girl, Mrs. Jordan was the 
 only actor present in the town. 
 
 It was probably the most mortifying summer 
 Dorothy had known, and she talked of bringing an 
 action against the Kembles, but the matter died down, 
 though it is scarcely likely that the anger raised was 
 easily allayed. 
 
 Wilkinson was a good bargainer, and never could 
 reconcile himself to the fact that one of his own poorly 
 paid actresses should have risen to such a height as to 
 be able to dictate terms to him, thus in his books he 
 indulged in little hits at Dorothy, such as the 
 following 
 
 " But now, dear Mrs. Jordan, you do like the cash, 
 and I believe and hope you take care of it; that you 
 love to receive it I know, and so does every other 
 manager; you have made us all feel that. You will 
 excuse me being jocular." 
 
 And again 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan is certainly the lucky child o' fortune, 
 billed, caressed, and nursed in the lap o' Nature ; she 
 is undoubtedly the reigning Thalia of the age 1791, 
 and deservedly so ; and to her comic talent, archness, 
 whim, and fancy, I submissively bow, and also acknow-
 
 A Relapse 145 
 
 ledge her humanity and goodness to her late parent. 
 But am compelled, as Mr. Manager, to declare, like 
 Mr. Foote in his Devil upon Two Sticks, that Mrs. 
 Jordan, at making a bargain, is too many for the 
 cunningest devil of us all." 
 
 When Kemble forced the poor man to pay him 
 thirty guineas for an evening which Dorothy was 
 giving free of charge, he was certainly out-doing Mrs. 
 Jordan, and when Wilkinson, in his turn, forced 
 Dorothy to pay that thirty guineas, really the evidence 
 of being " the cunningest devil at making a bargain " 
 seems to rest with Tate Wilkinson.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PRINCE AND MR. FORD 
 
 " Behold sportive Jordan, that favourite fair, 
 Who was sent by mankind to avert your despair ; 
 With her you've successfully baited your trap, 
 She's in truth the best feather you have in your cap. 
 How you got her, to me, I must own, is a wonder, 
 When I think of your natural aptness to blunder." 
 
 ANTHONY PASQUIN, 
 
 ACTORS have always desired the favour of princes, 
 for it affects their social status and heightens their 
 commercial value. Thus Dorothy was fortunate in 
 that she had not been in London a month before the 
 Prince of Wales went to see her in The Country Girl, 
 was present when she played Viola on November 16, 
 1785, and often saw her act later. 
 
 On January 18, 1786, "their Majesties seemed 
 highly entertained with the pert humour of Mrs. Jordan 
 in The Country Girl and The Rom-p" That autumn 
 they saw her in Richard Cceur de Lion, and they were 
 present with the Princesses when she played in Love 
 for Love the following year. They may also have 
 gone on other occasions, as the above are but chance 
 discoveries. 
 
 Prince William Henry also must have seen her in 
 the first autumn of her London career, as he was in 
 London at the end of September and part of October, 
 and from time to time he had many opportunities of 
 studying the vivacious young actress. But it was not 
 until Dorothy captured his heart by the beauty of her 
 
 146
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 147 
 
 form and the witchery of her high spirits in the spring 
 of 1790, when she played Little Pickle in The Spoilt 
 Ckild y that he could have thought seriously of her. 
 However, as he was appointed to command the Valiant 
 in May of that year, he had little chance of allowing 
 his admiration any outlet, and it was perhaps not until 
 the end of November, when his ship was paid off and 
 he was withdrawn from the sea with the title of Rear- 
 Admiral, that he saw Little Pickle again. His ship 
 was sailing in home waters, however^ during October 
 and November 1790, and he may have occasionally 
 been in London then. 
 
 The Duke a title recently conferred upon him 
 was the product of his family and his time ; brutalized 
 by the educational lash in his boyhood, his emotions 
 stunted by lack of parental affection, treated with such 
 parsimony by his father that debt became an inevitable 
 condition, inducted into licentiousness by his licentious 
 elder brother, he had the vices of the Carolian Court 
 without any of its picturesqueness. Differently trained 
 and circumstanced, he would probably have been quite 
 an amiable and respectable man; but the children of 
 George III, boys and girls alike, had little chance of 
 attaining either real happiness or virtue. 
 
 Between the ages of fourteen and fifty-four Prince 
 William made several attempts to evade the family 
 Marriage Act, which decreed that no prince or princess 
 should marry any one who was not royal, and all these 
 attempts being frustrated, he did quite conveniently 
 without marriage. Like the jolly tar in the song, he 
 was credited with a wife or two in every port, and 
 his erotic doings were for long the subject of waggish 
 paragraphs.
 
 148 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 At fourteen he was taken to the watch-house for 
 brawling at Vauxhall. He had gone to a masquerade 
 there as a young sailor, and was flirting with a nun, 
 when a Spanish Grandee began to pester the latter. 
 High words ended in a general row, and all the party 
 were marched off by the watchmen. When the young 
 men unmasked before their captors the latter heard 
 
 " Eh, George, is that you ? " from the sailor to the 
 Spanish Grandee ; and " Eh, William, is that you ? " 
 from the Spanish Grandee to the sailor. This episode 
 earned the boy William banishment on the Channel 
 Fleet. His next vagary was more sentimental, and 
 intended to be strictly honourable. For at sixteen 
 he fell in love with the Hon. Julia Fortescue, a girl 
 of his own age, and one of the rising beauties of the 
 Court. As the Fortescues' house fronted on the Green 
 Park, these children had plenty of opportunities to 
 meet and discuss their approaching marriage, a cere- 
 mony only prevented "by the iniquitous Marriage 
 Act." Then the affair being discovered, the little 
 Julia was sent in disgrace to Scotland where she 
 married later by her royally disgraced parents. The 
 boy prince was shipped off again to Gibraltar, and then 
 to America and Jamaica; at which last place the story 
 went that he secured the convenient absence of a tire- 
 some husband while he consoled the fascinating wife. 
 
 Early in William's reign the first part of a book was 
 published and dedicated to the British nation, bearing 
 the title, "Memoirs and Amorous Adventures by Sea 
 and Land of King William IV. Interspersed with One 
 
 Hundred Curious Anecdotes. By Captain M , 
 
 R.N., who has the honour of being a shipmate of his 
 Majesty's." Only this first part was published, and
 
 >,,,,,
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 149 
 
 thus not many of the hundred curious anecdotes 
 reached public knowledge, otherwise many more love 
 adventures would have furnished cause for merriment 
 among the subjects of William IV. 
 
 During the two years William spent on the Con- 
 tinent visiting Hanover, Brunswick and Osnaburg, he 
 got into innumerable scrapes both over cards and 
 women, though, or perhaps because, his pocket-money 
 allowance was said to be only 100 a year. 
 
 This visit caused a great scandal a few years later, 
 for when his brother, Prince Edward, went to Hanover 
 he was attacked by the civil authorities of that 
 country, who demanded that Prince William should 
 conform to their laws and provide for the child of a 
 lady whom he had ruined. Edward wrote to William 
 about this, who told him to disown the whole affair. 
 But Hanover was not to be treated so cavalierly. 
 Mother and child were sent to England to make the 
 demand publicly, and a paragraph appeared in The 
 Times detailing the whole affair, but not telling exactly 
 which royal Duke was the culprit. A copy was sent 
 to William, and he at once opened negotiations through 
 his lawyer, Barton, with the lady, and it was finally 
 agreed that the annual sum of 100 should be paid 
 until the child was of age, the Duke defraying all the 
 expenses of their return to Hanover. 
 
 Many of the writers concerning royalty at the end 
 of the eighteenth century spoke bitterly of the Royal 
 Marriage Act, as though the sins of the princes arose 
 from the fact that they could not marry any one they 
 chose and when they chose. It is, however, quite 
 certain that some of the brothers, if left in perfect free- 
 dom, would not have been content to marry only once,
 
 150 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and some Prince William, for example would have 
 had many wives. It is more or less proved that the 
 Prince of Wales married Mrs. Fitzherbert, and there 
 is a story that William married at least once in his 
 youth and left his wife to languish. This story was 
 published in the form of letters by a well-known 
 Leipzig firm in 1880, and the translation of the volume 
 appeared in England through the agency of Messrs 
 Sonnenschein & Allen, entitled Caroline von Linsingen 
 and William IV '. 
 
 There is something very curious about this story, for 
 the names of Caroline's people were truly given, and 
 their home at Luneberg is truly described. Lieutenant- 
 General Wilhelm von Linsingen, the father, was 
 entrusted with the military tuition of Prince Ernest, 
 the Duke of Cumberland, by George III, and 
 Caroline's brother, Ernest von Linsingen, was often 
 at the English Court. From time to time during 
 thirty years the papers announced the meeting of the 
 princes with the General or his son, as in 1812 it was 
 reported that Clarence and the Prince Regent "went 
 down to Ipswich and dined with Baron von Linsingen, 
 who commands the cavalry of the German Legion." 
 
 The letters in this book only vaguely dated 
 describe the love story, the clandestine marriage and 
 its termination. The editor puts the dates between 
 1790 and 1792 ; if he had stated them as being between 
 1783 and 1785 there might have been some truth in the 
 matter, as William was on the Continent then. But 
 that which really seems to disprove the idea is that the 
 Prince, primitive as he was, could not have written the 
 letters ascribed to him here. And is it possible that 
 the William we know could have been filled with so 
 holy a love for the wife he had married that he would
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 151 
 
 pass the only two hours he had in her company, in the 
 middle of the night, kneeling arm in arm with her at 
 the bedside, making vows of purity and honour ? 
 
 Thus, beautifully and Germanically sentimental as 
 is this story, it must be put aside as fiction, in spite of 
 its realism in personages, for the Prince's mind and 
 habits were totally different from those betrayed in the 
 epistles supposed to have been written by him. As 
 Grantley Berkeley says in his reminiscences 
 
 " Oaths were employed in conversation by men of 
 the highest rank even in the presence of ladies. The 
 Prince of Wales and his brothers adopted it ! The 
 Duke of Clarence not much more sparingly than the 
 rest. An imprecation commonly began every sentence, 
 the Lord's name was taken in vain, and the speaker's 
 own soul sometimes consigned to perdition ; " a habit 
 which certainly does not fit in with Caroline's descrip- 
 tion of her royal husband. 
 
 Prince William indulged in many other amorous 
 affairs, notably one with a Portsmouth belle, while he 
 was the talk of the town in 1788 because of a coloured 
 girl he was said to have brought home with him on the 
 Pegasus from the West Indies, and who rejoiced in (/ 
 the name of Wowski. Gossip and paragraphists said 
 that she was left in Plymouth, generally on board ship, 
 and The World announced on January 8, " The royal 
 sailor is very observant of forms, and whenever any 
 decent person appears Wowski is always kept in the 
 background. On board ship he compares her to a 
 mole who in sight of anybody goes under imme- 
 diately." Other paragraphs asserted that she was 
 playing with a Newfoundland dog when the Prince 
 Regent went to see his brother ; that she was struggling 
 with the alphabet and trying to crook a finger over a
 
 152 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 pen ; and her presence at a drawing-room was satirically 
 discussed. 
 
 In 1789 William was created Earl of Munster and 
 Duke of Clarence and St. Andrews, and with this he 
 was given an allowance of 12,000 a year, a table and 
 covers for his own use at St. James's Palace, the 
 number of courses to be limited, and a house at Rich- 
 mond, which was to be furnished and kept up for him. 
 This latter, often spoken of as the Lodge at Richmond, 
 was Clarence Lodge, in Kewfoot Lane (now called 
 Clarence Street), " on the edge of the old Deer Park," 
 a small Georgian house on the boundary between Kew 
 and Richmond, and quite close to the latter town. The 
 house is still in existence ; three or four steps lead up 
 to the narrow door which, as Horace Walpole told the 
 Duchess of Orrery, the Duke locked up himself every 
 night that his servants should not stay out late. In the 
 rooms where Clarence never drank at dinner " but a 
 few glasses of wine " the poorest Richmond folk now 
 herd in their tenement rooms, dirty children gaze from 
 the two windows on either side of the door, and rags 
 of blinds obscure the row of windows above; in its 
 courtyard a tin chapel has found a lodgment, and its 
 gardens are filled with slum cottages. But a century 
 and a quarter ago it was surrounded with a green park, 
 the silver Thames not far away, and the Richmond 
 theatre quite close. 
 
 The young Duke had not been long in this abode 
 when, in spite of his careful supervision, it caught fire, 
 and he found that he was responsible not only for 
 restoring the house but replacing the furniture. 
 
 Following upon this accident, he took Ivy House, 
 on the river bank above the ferry at Richmond, 
 opposite Cambridge House on the other bank ; a pictur-
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 153 
 
 esque building with two noble columns of ivy-covered 
 bay windows. In this house it is asserted quite mis- 
 takenly that Dorothy joined him, and the cause of the 
 mistake is a letter of Horace Walpole's to Miss Berry, 
 dated September 4, 1789, in which he says, "The 
 Duke of Clarence has taken Mr. Henry Hobart's house 
 point blank over against Mr. Cambridge's, which will 
 make the good woman of the mansion cross herself 
 piteously, and stretch the throat of the blatant beast 
 at Sudbrook (Lady Greenwich), and of all the other 
 pious matrons a la ronde; for H.R.H., to divert lone- 
 liness, has brought with him , who, being still more 
 
 averse to solitude, declares that any tempter would 
 make even Paradise more agreeable than a constant 
 tete-a-tete" 
 
 The person who was taken there by him, and whose 
 name was left out of the earlier printed editions of his 
 letters, was a very different person, a girl named Polly 
 Finch, " sprung from the Lord knows whom, and born 
 the Lord knows where," whose qualifications were youth, 
 vivacity and a tolerable share of good looks, with a 
 weak and uncultivated mind. This affair ended in 
 October when he departed again for the West Indies. 
 
 In December 1790 the Duke was busy having his 
 apartments in St. James's re-decorated, and The 
 Gazetteer commented that he must have taken lessons 
 from the Duke of Queensberry, for he had a door 
 opened in the outer wall of the parlour under his bed- 
 room, which was painted to have the resemblance of 
 bricks, of which door William alone kept the key. 
 
 Much has been said to prove that there was no con- 
 nection between Dorothy and the Duke anterior to the 
 autumn of 1791, and this was perhaps true, yet the 
 Duke was so thoroughly attracted to her probably by
 
 154 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 that personation in the spring of 1 790 of Little Pickle 
 much earlier than this, that it became a matter of 
 public comment. 
 
 As early as March 15, 1791, a vulgar caricature 
 was published entitled, " The New Papa Disappointed ; 
 with Justice Shallow's attempt to charm the Brutes." 
 This showed the front of Dorothy's house in Somerset 
 Street, with a young man in black, wearing a star on his 
 breast (Richard Ford), dancing, beating a tambourine 
 and calling to an organ-grinder and trumpeter, repre- 
 senting the British Public, to " Come along, my boys, 
 that's your sort ; keep it up ! I won't commit you now, 
 never fear; it's rare fun, ain't it? and all gratis." To 
 this the organ-grinder replies aside, " Oh, the tremen- 
 dous Justass Midas ! Oh, what a Solomon is Justass 
 Midas ! " On the balcony of the house is a doctor, 
 holding a dead baby, marked with a star on its breast, 
 
 and shouting, " D your noise, Rascalls, you'll 
 
 disturb Mrs. Pickle, who has just made a faux couch 
 of a young sea-gull." 
 
 The Duke of Clarence, in the garb of a buxom 
 nurse, leans on the balcony rail, and from the doorway 
 below an old woman looks up at them, murmuring 
 " Bless the baby, how like its daddy ! what a pity it 
 should be a slink ! 1 Aye, marry, and marked with a 
 star." 
 
 That this picture should have been published early 
 in 1791 proves that scandal was then busy with 
 Dorothy's name, probably quite unjustly; it also indi- 
 cates that the fourth Ford child was still-born, an event 
 which must have taken place in February, as Dorothy 
 was acting on March the I7th, on the 25th, and through 
 April. 
 
 1 A term for a cast calf.
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 155 
 
 There had been a curious incident on December 
 22, 1790, when for her benefit Dorothy acted Celia, 
 who was the mistress of the King's son in The Greek 
 Slave, an incident which Boaden declares was but 
 coincidence. For this play, adapted from Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's The Humorous Lieutenant, Harry Bun- 
 bury wrote an epilogue which Dorothy had to declaim, 
 part of which ran as follows 
 
 11 How strange methinks I hear a critic say, 
 What ! she the serious heroine of the play ! 
 The manager his want of sense evinces, 
 To pitch on hoydens for the love of princes, 
 To trick out chambermaids in awkward pomp, 
 Horrid ! to make a princess of a Romp. 
 'Depend upon't,' replies indulgent John, 
 'Some damn'd good-natured friend has set her on.' 
 ' Pugh ! ' says old Surly, ' I shall not expect 
 To see Jack Pudding treated with respect ; 
 Cobblers in curricles alarm the Strand, 
 Or my Lord Chancellor drive six-in-hand. 
 But I've a precedent can quote the book 
 Czar Peter made an empress of a cook."' 
 
 This epilogue was published in The Bon Ton 
 Magazine the next month, but was not connected with 
 the name of the Duke of Clarence, and it is almost a 
 proof that there was nothing serious between the Duke 
 and Dorothy then that that scandal-loving magazine 
 did not begin to comment on this subject until August 
 1791, when it announced, "The Duke of Clarence's 
 penchant for a certain celebrated actress, notwithstand- 
 ing what report says, has proved unsuccessful. The 
 fact is, the Ford is too dangerous for him to cross the 
 Jordan." 
 
 It is also a remarkable thing that the promoters of 
 this paper should not have heard the whispers which 
 prompted the publication on March 15 of the carica- 
 ture described above. 
 
 The Bon Ton Magazine declared of The Greek
 
 156 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Slave that the alterations of the play were made by 
 Dorothy herself, " done with no uncommon felicity," 
 and that so great was the enthusiasm on her benefit that 
 nine crowded rows of the pit were laid in the boxes, 
 and the house was overflowing in every part this 
 though Mrs. Siddons had acted the night before, and 
 there was an opera at the Hay market. 
 
 Matters had, however, come to a sore point between 
 Dorothy and Ford ; she demanded with more insistence 
 that he should give her a legal position, and Ford was 
 torn two ways, his ambition dragged him the one and 
 his love of ease and fatherly affection the other. The 
 first would not allow him to do what Dorothy wished, 
 the latter made him intensely jealous and determined 
 to hold what he had got. During the spring he 
 shadowed Dorothy wherever she went, saw her to the 
 theatre, remained in the Green Room and saw her 
 home. " Dick Ford, ever a dramatic amateur, has 
 lately paid particular attention to the acting of Mrs. 
 Jordan." He ostentatiously handed her about at Rich- 
 mond as Mrs. Ford, causing Horace Walpole to take 
 the marriage seriously, writing in September : " Do you 
 know that Mrs. Jordan is acknowledged to be Mrs. 
 Ford?" adding "but she does not quit the stage." 
 
 Ford watched her through her engagement at Rich- 
 mond, and went on that disastrous visit to Yorkshire 
 with her, she being billed as Mrs. Ford, and there can 
 be little doubt that the unevenness of her temper while 
 there had some association with the trouble between 
 them. 
 
 That remark of Horace Walpole's must indicate the 
 very last standpoint that Dorothy made before she 
 cast the whole Ford incident away. She was not 
 actuated by love for the Prince ; the one love of her life
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 157 
 
 was given to her children, and she hungered also to 
 give them a legitimate father. The shame of illegiti- 
 macy had hung over her from her baby days : in her 
 youth she had writhed under the scorn of her father's 
 people, who could accept the erring man with open 
 arms, but condemn the erring woman and the innocent 
 children of both. In her youth, too, she had been 
 forced by a scoundrel to bear an illegitimate child, and 
 now again a weak and stubborn man was proving the 
 falseness of his character and giving illegitimacy to 
 her other children. She knew that if Richard Ford 
 married there was no law to make him support his 
 children by her; he could turn his back on them, 
 leaving them to die of starvation and be no worse, 
 except for the sentimental opinion of some foolish 
 people brought into the world before their time. It 
 was for the children that she fought, for them she 
 begged that at last, after five years, he would redeem 
 that solemn promise upon which he had won her. But 
 in spite of his jealousy, in spite of his desire to keep 
 his place in town and his place at Richmond, and to 
 share the carriage supplied by Dorothy's money, in 
 spite of all he would not marry ; the furthest he would 
 go was to say to every one, " This is my wife ! " 
 
 For Dorothy's purpose this was no good. Ford 
 might swear through thick and thin that she was his, 
 but without the legal ceremony he could leave her 
 at any moment, feeling no moral responsibility for 
 the children. 
 
 She took counsel with her friends, among whom was 
 Lady Francis Lumm, and probably her father's 
 brother, the second Nathaniel Bland, then living in 
 London. The author of The Great Illegitimates says 
 that often at the house of Lady Lumm the conversa-
 
 158 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 tion would turn upon the wooing of the Duke of 
 Clarence, and that these conversations would end with 
 Lady Lumm's uniform observation, " I shall again this 
 evening instil into her mind the absolute necessity of 
 sticking to Mr. Ford, for I am well convinced that no 
 good will accrue from the princely association." The 
 author continues, " This advice her ladyship never 
 failed to inculcate, making our actress take her seat 
 by her at the card-table, when she would at intervals, 
 in a half-whisper, repeat the counsel alluded to." 
 
 B'ut Dorothy demanded an honourable return for 
 her fidelity, and that Ford would not give. The 
 Prince was ready to promise all he could indeed, all 
 she asked, and to fix his promise upon parchment with 
 the aid of lawyers. However long Dorothy looked at 
 the situation she could but see that the Prince's offer 
 was better than Ford's demand to take all and give 
 nothing ; than his sullen assertion that things could go 
 on as they were. She knew that they could not go on 
 as they were, for the relations between them were 
 terribly strained, and so at last, it is said, she gave her 
 ultimatum. Within so many days Ford was to ratify 
 his promise, or she would be at liberty to do as she 
 thought fit. 
 
 Ford followed his former tactics of letting things 
 slide, and found that he had let them slide once too 
 often. It is odd that, behaving as he did, he yet 
 seemed to be angry and sore at Dorothy's desertion, 
 and anxious to pose as an injured man. 
 
 Horace Walpole followed his September letter with 
 one dated October 16, 1791, saying that 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan, whom Mr. Ford had declared his wife 
 and presented as such to some ladies at Richmond, 
 has resumed her former name, and is said to be much
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 159 
 
 at a principal villa at Petersham, which I do not affirm 
 far be it from me to vouch a quarter of what I hear." 
 
 Clarence had, perhaps with some such arrangement 
 in his mind, bought Petersham Lodge in 1790, giving 
 12,000 for it, which, it was said, his father helped 
 him to pay. It was on the edge of Richmond Park, 
 about a mile beyond the town. 
 
 The London theatrical season began in the middle 
 of September, and The Bon Ton Magazine of October 
 and many other papers abounded in paragraphs upon 
 the association of the Duke and the actress, which 
 showed that negotiations had been going on a con- 
 siderable time. In November The Bon Ton gave a 
 frontispiece of Clarence and Dorothy, he kneeling 
 upon one knee, she sitting upon the other, her arm 
 round his neck and his arm round her waist, he fanning 
 her, she smiling at him. Little Pickle, the accompany- 
 ing text declares, " studied no arts to attract the Prince, 
 who only received her smiles and jokes in common 
 with others. She was attached in friendship and 
 affection to the father of her children, and was resolved 
 to resist her royal suitor, but he opened his campaign 
 with so much energy, and at the same time in a 
 manner so gentle and noble, that she soon yielded to 
 his arms and arguments; but such are the conditions 
 of her submission that, should he at any time forget or 
 break the bond of union, she would be in a much more 
 formidable and independent state than ever." It 
 further said that, as she gave no answer to several 
 letters of love and generosity, the Prince determined 
 upon a personal assault, and, by the aid of her servant, 
 contrived one night after the play to obtain access to 
 her apartments. 
 
 How and when the affair was arranged, Richard
 
 160 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Ford made much trouble over it. He was a lawyer, 
 and the knowledge of the letter of the law seems often 
 to cripple the power of deciding simple questions of 
 right or wrong. That Dorothy should attempt to 
 bind him was unbearable, but it was also an infamous 
 thing that she should consider herself free of bond to 
 him. His friends and relatives took his part, and 
 inspired spiteful paragraphs concerning Dorothy's 
 deserted children, and her wantonness in preferring 
 a royal lover to sweet, respectable but precarious 
 domestic bliss. As Boaden remarks, these people 
 knew nothing of Ford's privity to the advances made 
 by the Duke : " They had never seen him at the wing 
 of the theatre, and thrown their eyes up, as he must 
 have done, to the private boxes." It is not unlikely 
 that Ford had his price, for some time later he was in 
 possession of Drury Lane shares, and, on the definite 
 formation of the police magistracy in 1792, he was 
 given the Court of Shadwell, and also became Under 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 It was not until the year 1800 that he was moved 
 from Shadwell to Bow, which gave him priority over 
 all the other police magistrates, and on the i6th of 
 December, 1801, he was knighted. "Thus," says 
 Watkins, author of the Life of William IV, " without 
 any merit of his own, he obtained a fortune and a title." 
 It is doubtful whether his later honours had anything 
 to do with Dorothy or the Duke, for all the magistrates 
 of that time, with the exception of two, were knighted. 
 
 He certainly after the event got the credit of selling 
 Dorothy, more, perhaps, because he and his friends 
 became so clamorously angry than because there was 
 proof of it. On the other hand, he and his friends 
 were able to inspire many paragraphs against Mrs.
 
 The Prince and Mr. Ford 161 
 
 Jordan, the general cry being that she was cruelly and 
 unnaturally deserting her children for grandeur. 
 
 Thus said The Bon Ton Magazine: " To be mis- 
 tress of the King's son Little Pickle thinks respect- 
 able, and so away go all tender ties to children. 
 Ecod ! she says she will now be company for some of 
 your royal Duchesses, as others in her royal line are ! " 
 
 It was, however, known in the autumn of 1791 that 
 the Duke had been paying his suit for months, that 
 Ford had persistently refused to marry Dorothy, and 
 that he knew all that was going on. So when, the 
 matter being completed, a dead set was made against 
 Dorothy by his friends in the theatre and out, the 
 blame of it, after the first excitement, was ascribed to 
 Ford. 
 
 So great an impression was made by this onslaught 
 on the part of Ford that even after his death one 
 biographer, unaware that he was no longer living, 
 accused him of engineering a furious attack upon 
 Dorothy in 1809. 
 
 She seems to have known her man and anticipated 
 something of the sort, for she secured two exonerating 
 notes from him when the agreement was made among 
 the three of them, and, with the first rise of public 
 blame, sent copies of these to the papers. 
 
 MR. FORD'S letter to MRS. JORDAN : 
 
 " Lest any insinuations be circulated to the prejudice 
 of Mrs. Jordan in respect to her having behaved im- 
 properly towards her children in regard to pecuniary 
 matters, I hereby declare that her conduct in this 
 particular has been as laudable, generous and as like 
 a fond mother as in her present situation it was pos- 
 sible to be. She has indeed given up for their use
 
 every sixpence she has been able to save from her 
 theatrical profits, she has also engaged herself to allow 
 them 550 per annum, and at the same time settled 
 ^50 a year on her sister. It is but bare justice to her 
 for me to assert this, as the father of those children. 
 
 " Signed, 
 
 " RICHARD FORD. 
 
 " October 13, 1791." 
 
 " To MRS. JORDAN : 
 
 " In gratitude for the care Mrs. Jordan has ever 
 bestowed on my children, it is my consent and wish 
 that she, whenever she pleases, see and be with them, 
 provided her visits are not attended by any circum- 
 stances which may be improper to them or unpleasant 
 to me. 
 
 " RICHARD FORD." 
 
 Ford did not deny that these letters were written 
 by him, but he did make a protest in The Morning 
 Post that they were published without his knowledge 
 or consent. At first, perhaps, he intended to stick to 
 his share of the bargain, for he decided to go on a 
 visit to France, and crossed, curiously enough, with 
 the writer of The Great Illegitimates then only a 
 youth and his father, who says that Ford was in no 
 amiable frame of mind, for those friends to whom he 
 had introduced Dorothy as his wedded wife had been 
 demanding explanations. 
 
 Two or three years later Ford married a Miss Booth, 
 an amateur artist of great ability, whose father was 
 known as a connoisseur and collector of pictures. To 
 them three children were born, the eldest being the 
 Richard Ford who won fame as a writer upon Spain. 
 To Sir Richard Ford is ascribed the introduction of 
 mounted police in London.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PRINCE 
 
 "As Jordan's high and mighty squire 
 
 Her play-house profit deigns to skim, 
 Some folks audaciously inquire 
 
 If he keeps her or she keeps him." 
 
 PETER PINDAR, Junr. 
 
 "Though always a mistress she has always acted up to the rigid 
 principles and economy of a wife. She has never been lavish of her 
 favours, but ever true and constant to the man she has lived with." 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 
 AMONG those who now joined hands with Ford and 
 became, therefore, his close friends, were some of those 
 actresses who had been jealous of Dorothy's position, 
 one, unnamed, being reported as particularly active. 
 She was said to be more beautiful, but less successful 
 than Dorothy, to be living in open adultery and to be 
 jealous not only of her acting, but of her conquest of 
 royalty, she having failed to bind one of the royal 
 princes to herself. Further she had much influence 
 with the press, and later historians accused her of the 
 drink habit. This could only have been Mrs. Crouch, 
 who separated from her husband because of her tran- 
 sient connection with the Prince of Wales ; who lived 
 with Kelly the actor; who, though better looking than 
 Dorothy, was distinctly second to her in her art, yet 
 always desirous of taking her place; who gave 
 luxurious parties to which she invited all who might 
 serve her, and who suffered severely from curious falls 
 and accidents, which her friends deplored as misfor- 
 tunes, but her enemies regarded as retribution for a 
 bad habit. 
 
 163
 
 164 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 This actress inspired many of the ill-natured para- 
 graphs which appeared, and did her best to pave the 
 way for her own pre-eminence by playing upon the 
 sentimentality of the British public. Taken as a 
 whole this public loves to be flattered, to be told that 
 it is honest, sincere and moral, and as such cannot 
 countenance anything base. So it was made to believe 
 that their Thalia was a wicked mother, who would sell 
 not only herself, body and soul for a thousand a year, 
 but her children. Thus the people were fired to a 
 point where they only waited opportunity to visit their 
 virtuous wrath on Dorothy's head. The Great Ille- 
 gitimates declares that this actress even went to the 
 length of writing letters to the Duke with the hope 
 which was unavailing of prejudicing him against 
 Dorothy. 
 
 But before the affair came to its height the agree- 
 ment between Dorothy and the Duke was made and 
 signed, there being diverse reports concerning it, the 
 general assertion being that she was given an allow- 
 ance of 1000 or ,1200 a year, with an additional 
 500 a year if the Duke left her. Upon this some one 
 started the cry of mercenary, of immoral barter, and 
 the booby public in reality excited and pleased at 
 the royal favour showered upon its favourite actress 
 at once took the bait, and joined in the cry, the 
 paragraphs flying from column to column and ring- 
 ing through every newspaper sheet in London. The 
 Morning Chronicle remained her friend, and went to 
 the other extreme in the following note on Novem- 
 ber 29, 1791 
 
 "Among the ungenerous attempts which have been 
 made to lower Mrs. Jordan in the public estimation,
 
 The Prince 165 
 
 may be ranked the information that she has made a 
 mercenary agreement with her present protector. . . . 
 Although she has settled half her future income from 
 her profession and all that she has saved in it upon 
 her children, she has absolutely rejected every idea of 
 settlement or pecuniary aid herself. Her independ- 
 ence is in her talents, the unrivalled excellence of 
 which is evidently the cause of so much unmanly 
 scurrility having lately appeared against her." But 
 the Chronicle protested too much, for undoubtedly a 
 settlement was made. 
 
 During this autumn another member of the Bland 
 family came to London to qualify for the bar, a cousin 
 of Dorothy's, son of that James Bland who had 
 been given the possession of Derryquin Castle. This 
 young man went to see his uncle Nathaniel, younger 
 brother of Francis Bland, and there he heard a version 
 of the transaction which was probably true. For 
 Nathaniel, Dorothy's uncle, had, as has been said, 
 been kind to his brother's deserted children, and had 
 done his best for young Francis, the eldest son, who 
 it will be seen from the following extracts had not 
 repaid his care. 
 
 The long letter from which this quotation is made 
 was written from the Temple Coffee House, Devereux 
 Court, on November 12, 1791, to his father by Francis 
 Christopher Bland, subsequently the grandfather of 
 Mr. J. Franklin Fuller of Dublin, to whom I owe so 
 much information about the family : 
 
 " I have seen my Uncle Nathaniel, who received 
 me very cordially, gave me a good dinner, and, I think, 
 a hearty welcome. He said he would now call me 
 Frank, as he had for the second and last time dis-
 
 carded the other Frank, who has again behaved very 
 ill to him. Mrs. Jordan is now kept by the Duke of 
 Clarence, from whom she received .3000 upon the nail 
 and a settlement of 1000 a year, which, if the Prince 
 was to leave her to-morrow, he cannot take away from 
 her. I think, with this and thirty guineas a week, her 
 theatrical salary, she may very well provide for the 
 cashier'd Captain. Sir Francis (Lumm) is not yet 
 arrived in Argyle Street. . . . Lady Lumm is very 
 bad, and is obliged to be drawn about from one room 
 to another in an arm-chair." 
 
 As Dorothy was probably in touch with this uncle 
 of hers, the actual fact of what the settlement was 
 may have been made known to him by her. It must 
 be agreed that if a settlement was considered necessary 
 when a legal marriage took place, it was even more 
 necessary in such circumstances as Dorothy's, and that 
 she was right to take what steps she could to guard 
 herself. 
 
 This is the only mention I have found of 3000 
 down, and from a curious piece of evidence given by 
 the Gazetteer of November 28 it seems to be a fact 
 that she did receive a sum of money at this time. The 
 paragraph was headed 
 
 "LITTLE PICKLE IN DISTRESS 
 
 "If there were not something more fanciful than 
 commendable in the distress of any person so situated 
 as this lady, we should not be found to introduce the 
 topic, but as it is, it may as well be given. 
 
 "Only eleven days ago Little Pickle was, as she 
 called it, in great distress. She wanted 300, and 
 this being refused by the person from whom she
 
 The Prince 167 
 
 expected it, she determined to raise it peremptorily 
 by the sale of her furniture. A broker and his clerk 
 were employed two days in appraising ; then she came 
 to town, said her distress was over, and gave them a 
 ,io note to go and laugh at it, as she said." 
 
 Thus while out of town she had secured a sum of 
 money from which to relieve herself of trouble. 
 
 Some time between 1789 and 1791 the old bio- 
 graphers were very loose about dates Dorothy is said 
 to have received a substantial addition to her income 
 " by the death of a near relative to her mother," which, 
 together with her theatrical emolument, brought her 
 income up to 3000 per annum (Secret History of the 
 Green Room]. This legacy is said by most writers 
 to have been antecedent to her connection with the 
 Duke, but it is never further explained. It is not easy 
 now at a distance of a hundred and twenty-five years 
 to say from whom it came, but it may have been from 
 her aunt, Blanch Scuddamore Philipps, otherwise 
 Mrs. Williams, who died in 1788, at the age of sixty- 
 eight years. She was well-to-do, and may have left 
 the niece, who was burdened with so many family 
 responsibilities, something to help her discharge them. 
 
 In the letter by Francis Christopher Bland, the 
 cashiered captain, the other Frank mentioned, is 
 Dorothy's eldest brother, who had been helped by his 
 father's brother Nathaniel, and who had evidently 
 more than once repaid his care with ingratitude, as 
 well as spoilt his own chances professionally. 
 
 The new connection with the Duke meant the read- 
 justment of domestic affairs. Though Ford had 
 written of Dorothy going to see his children, there is 
 no evidence that he retained, nor that she was
 
 1 68 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 separated from, them; and when the place at Rich- 
 mond was discontinued, it was necessary to find 
 them another home ; and this may explain the remarks 
 in the papers, which raised some curiosity, announc- 
 ing that " little Pickle " and the Duke were several 
 times seen walking westward in the afternoon. It 
 was the Gazetteer which discovered the reason for 
 this, and informed the world that the lady had taken 
 a house at Brompton, " not in the Row, but in the 
 town, which is more private." Here it is very prob- 
 able that the children lived for a short time, but a 
 year or so later a little house was taken for them on 
 Ham Common, causing a wag to say that thenceforth 
 it would be known as Doll Common. 
 
 The great public excitement over Mrs. Jordan took 
 place, not in Old Drury Lane, but in what up to that 
 time had been called the Opera House, and then was 
 known as the King's Theatre, Haymarket. For it 
 had been decided that Old Drury was not sufficiently 
 large or up-to-date, and that therefore it must give 
 place to a more commodious building. Its demolition 
 began in the summer of 1791, and the winter term was 
 opened in the Haymarket, September 22, with a 
 farcical prelude written for the occasion, and named 
 Poor Old Drury; The Haunted Tower and The 
 Panel, in which Dorothy acted Beatrice. 
 
 From that date Dorothy played with great vigour, 
 and Boaden says that no other great actress laboured 
 as she did; she played twenty-four nights in two 
 months, and very frequently two parts in one night; 
 then, if there were no other attraction, she would be 
 put up for three nights running. He comments upon 
 this, that if, in such a course of duty, indisposition
 
 The Prince 169 
 
 sometimes caused an apology to be made, there was 
 obviously a reasonable ground for it without resorting 
 to caprice or blaming her private engagements. But 
 he adds that it began to be whispered that she was 
 able to play if she chose, or that if she was not very 
 well she was not confined to her room, and if she could 
 get out at all she ought to be acting. 
 
 Twenty-four nights in two months may not seem a 
 heavy task to-day, but there was more strain when the 
 piece was changed every evening, and also Dorothy 
 sometimes took two heavy parts in one night. At this 
 period, however, all her parts were old and well worn, 
 which Dorothy considered unfair, for she knew that 
 a new play might mean a new success, and if it did not 
 make her more popular, it would tend to brighten up 
 the lustre which was around her name. 
 
 At the end of November Richard Cceur de Lion 
 was on the boards, and when the audience assembled 
 to see this favourite play on Saturday the 26th the 
 management announced that, as Mrs. Jordan had 
 been taken violently and alarmingly ill, the play would 
 be changed to High Life below Stairs. 
 
 The audience had evidently been waiting for some 
 announcement of this sort to give an opening for a 
 demonstration, for instantly an extraordinary clamour 
 arose. The people stamped, bawled, groaned and 
 shouted 
 
 " Return the money ! " 
 
 " Why did you not put a notice on the doors ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Crouch ! we will only have Mrs. Crouch ! 
 with her there is no occasion to lament the absence of 
 Mrs. Jordan." 
 
 So declared the Gazetteer, and other papers not
 
 170 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 only reported the disturbance joyfully, but added their 
 share of criticism ; " papers over which the Bacchante 
 above alluded to possessed great influence, railed at 
 Mrs. Jordan with the most unmerciful abuse; truth 
 and falsehood were brought forward with the same 
 readiness to stigmatize her," etc. 
 
 So on the night of the 26th the audience were given 
 their will, and Mrs. Crouch who was quite ready for 
 the situation took the part of Matilda, another actress 
 taking her character. After the second performance 
 of this part by her it was reported that when she 
 appeared she was received with seven or eight dis- 
 tinct general and long plaudits. " They are the 
 decrees of the public that Mrs. Jordan shall have that 
 part no more, whether it is held by Mrs. Crouch or 
 any other person. One good we may venture to pre- 
 dict from the conduct of the audience, that there will 
 be fewer illnesses this season at either theatre than 
 can be remembered at any other." The Public 
 Advertiser joined in the howl with 
 
 " Amidst the clamour on Saturday night ' No 
 Jordan ' was distinct. An English audience, merely 
 because a performer in a very narrow cast of parts 
 has been successful, are not to be insulted. Mrs. 
 Jordan may rest assured, notwithstanding nature has 
 well formed her for certain characters for her art in 
 acting is very trifling she can be better spared from 
 the stage than many who give themselves less 
 consequence." 
 
 From Mrs. Crouch the paragraph writers turned to 
 Mrs. Goodall, who took Lydia Languish's part during 
 the next week, and congratulated themselves and the 
 world that this elegant play had been relieved from 
 the boisterous vulgarity with which it had been de-
 
 The Prince 171 
 
 formed, and that the acting of Miss Farren and Palmer 
 seemed to be improved by the superior performance 
 of Lydia. 
 
 The Morning Chronicle told the public that with 
 the utmost authority it could state that Mrs. Jordan 
 had suffered from severe indisposition, having been 
 bled on Sunday morning by Dr. Keate and still being 
 much indisposed. But for a whole week the audience 
 condemned her, and shouted for Mrs. Crouch, prob- 
 ably enjoying the fun, until Mrs. Crouch's prettiness 
 and daintiness failed to keep flowing the magnetism 
 with which Dorothy seemed to inspire her characters. 
 
 That which added fuel to the fire and kept anger 
 alive was the fact that early on the Sunday evening 
 she was seen to leave the house in a carriage with the 
 Duke of Clarence, and the following note from the 
 Gazetteer, which at this period made a cult of reporting 
 Mrs. Jordan, always taking the double duty of instruct- 
 ing and reflecting the public mind and often with 
 mischievous intent, is worth recording 
 
 " And it is now with great pleasure that we inform 
 Mrs. Jordan's admirers, who may have been uneasy 
 on her account, that yesterday she set off in a post- 
 chaise and four, from her house in Somerset Street, 
 with the Most High and Most Puissant Prince His 
 Royal Highness William Henry, Duke of Clarence 
 in England and St. Andrew's in Scotland, Earl of 
 Munster in Ireland, an Admiral of the Royal Navy, 
 K.G. and K.T., for his seat at Petersham." 
 
 If Mrs. Jordan had gone away on the Saturday it 
 might have been definitely judged that the illness was 
 an excuse only ; but as she remained in Somerset Street 
 and was attended by a doctor that day and Sunday, it 
 was probably a reality, though had she known how
 
 172 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 seriously it would have been taken she might have 
 made an effort to go through with her work. 
 
 Some of these papers had in September declared 
 that Mrs. Jordan was again in a fair way to increase 
 the population, and the two historians upon the life 
 of King William, the Rev. Dr. John Watkins and the 
 Rev. William Wright, 1 attribute her illness on the 
 night of September 26 as due to a confinement. This 
 was scarcely possible, though it might have been due 
 to another miscarriage. 
 
 Certainly on the Monday, perhaps on the Sunday, 
 Dorothy would have learned of the row at the theatre, 
 and have rightly judged that it would be useless for 
 her to return to the stage for some days, for a theatre 
 mob was like a beast of prey, ready to tear its greatest 
 favourite equally with its most hated bore. Thus for 
 a space Mrs. Crouch sat on a pedestal and hugged 
 herself with triumph, hoping that at last she had 
 managed to sweep from her path the one person who 
 seemed able always to put her in the second place. 
 
 In spite of her banishment from London, Dorothy 
 did not sit and mourn; rather did she amuse herself 
 in the country, taking part, among other entertain- 
 ments, in a gathering given by the Duke to his Rich- 
 mond friends, November 30. Clarence may truly 
 have been said to be wanting in tact, for during this 
 month he had promised to go to a party given by a 
 Mrs. Bouverie, and with the utmost coolness he asked 
 whether he might bring a lady with him. To this Mrs. 
 Bouverie answered that any lady he wished to intro- 
 duce would be welcome. When the evening arrived 
 who should accompany him but " Mrs. Pickle," 
 
 1 As these two histories are identical, save for later news in one 
 concerning the King, the Rev. William Wright was probably but a 
 pseudonym for Watkins, in order to give an old book a new lease of life.
 
 The Prince 173 
 
 hitherto accepted in that house as Mrs. Ford. The 
 ladies present said nothing, Mrs. Jordan was very 
 entertaining, sang a number of droll songs, told a few 
 stories, and Mrs. Bouverie did not mention Mrs. Ford ! 
 There was probably much consultation in the Peter- 
 sham Lodge circle over the serious theatrical situation, 
 for the Duke had no idea of Dorothy's remaining idle ; 
 so during the week succeeding the fiasco of the 
 Saturday the following letter was sent out to the 
 papers, addressed from the Drury Lane Treasury 
 Office- 
 
 11 SIR, 
 
 " I have submitted in silence to the unprovoked 
 and unmanly abuse which for some time past has been 
 directed upon me, because it has related to subjects 
 about which the public could not be interested ; but to 
 an attack upon my conduct in my profession, and on 
 the charge of want of gratitude and respect to the 
 public, I think it is my duty to reply. Nothing can 
 be more cruel or unfounded than the information that 
 I absented myself from the theatre on Saturday last 
 from any other cause than real inability from illness 
 to sustain my part in the entertainment. I have ever 
 been ready and proud to exert myself to the utmost 
 of my strength to fulfil my engagements with the 
 theatre and to manifest my respect for the audience, 
 and no person can be more grateful for the indulgence 
 and applause with which I have been constantly 
 honoured. I would not intrude upon the public an 
 allusion to anything that does not relate to my pro- 
 fession, in which alone I may without presumption 
 say I am accountable to them; but thus called on in 
 the present instance there can be no impropriety in
 
 174 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 my answering those who have so ingeniously attacked 
 me, that if they could drive me from that profession 
 they would take from me the only income I have or 
 mean to possess ; the whole earning of which upon- the 
 past and one half for the future I have already settled 
 upon my children. Unjustly and cruelly traduced as 
 I have been upon this subject, I trust that this short 
 declaration will not be deemed impertinent, and for 
 the rest I appeal with confidence to the justice and 
 generosity of the public, 
 
 " Yours, etc., 
 
 "D. JORDAN." 
 
 The response to this in the form of an open letter 
 was published on December 3 by those papers which, 
 having condemned, were not too virulent to retract. 
 
 "To MRS. JORDAN. 
 " MADAM, 
 
 " As your very sensible and feeling appeal to 
 the public must have completely done away any 
 momentary unfavourable impression that might have 
 been made by the industrious malice that has so long 
 and so laboriously been exercised at your expense 
 if any impression has been made, which I by no 
 means admit to have been the case, except in the con- 
 tempt that has been excited against its authors 
 justice requires that you should immediately recom- 
 mence your theatrical exertions, and in the applause 
 that you will receive exact the severest retribution from 
 your base and dastardly libellers. 
 
 " AN ADMIRER OF REAL MERIT." 
 
 This was turning the tables with some complete-
 
 The Prince 175 
 
 ness, but it was not until a week had passed that an 
 announcement of Dorothy's reappearance was made, 
 and The Morning Chronicle of December 10 added 
 the- paragraph : " Mrs. Jordan is particularly prohibited 
 from singing by her physician, because the exertion 
 will renew the spitting of blood." 
 
 Dorothy appeared that night, and every means was 
 taken by herself and her friends to ensure a good 
 reception. The Prince of Wales, with Col. St. Leger, 
 Count Belsance and Major Hanger were in one box, 
 the Duchess of Gloucester with her son, Prince 
 William, was in another, and many other interested 
 friends to the Duke were in different parts of the 
 house. The Duke of Clarence himself stood behind 
 the scenes on the King's side of the house, and 
 received Mrs. Jordan when she left the stage, handing 
 her into her carriage at the end. 
 
 The crush outside the theatre at the beginning was 
 so great that several hundreds were unable to get in, 
 and Mrs. Jordan's first appearance on the stage was 
 welcomed with reiterated shouts of applause, though 
 a few unreconcilables hissed. The tumult subsiding, 
 she came forward, and in a voice clear enough to 
 penetrate every part of the house, said 
 
 " LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 " I should consider myself as totally unworthy 
 of the distinct favour and approbation I have ever 
 received from you if the smallest mark of your dis- 
 pleasure did not sensibly afflict me. Give me leave to 
 assure you that I never absented myself from the 
 theatre but when compelled to it by real indisposition. 
 Ever since I have had the honour and happiness of 
 appearing before you, it has been my pride, my unre- 
 mitting study to endeavour to entertain and amuse
 
 176 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 you, and I trust I may while so employed consider 
 myself as under your protection." 
 
 Boaden, who was present in the theatre that night, 
 owns that he thoroughly enjoyed it, adding his 
 criticism that : " While making the protest on the stage 
 her manner was extremely good; the little hardship 
 that sat upon her brow, and, like a cloud, kept back 
 the comic smile that but waited their cheer to burst 
 forth, the graceful obeisance that followed her com- 
 plete triumph (for it was complete), and the mode in 
 which she resumed her task to delight, after she had 
 personally suffered pain were all inimitable." 
 
 Of this event The Great Illegitimates grandilo- 
 quently said : " Such is the creature doomed to 
 encounter the shafts of some despicable wretch, who 
 from personal hatred, or more probably suborned to 
 do the work of a hidden assassin of character (mean- 
 ing Richard Ford), embodies his venom in the filthy 
 columns of the most venal of prints, thus attempting 
 to stab a reputation too permanently established in the 
 good opinion of the public." 
 
 These "most venal of prints" now proceeded to 
 congratulate the public on retaining a charming actress 
 who would no doubt long continue to deserve their 
 kindness, and who had certainly suffered much more 
 than could be deserved even if the suspicions relative 
 to her had not been sufficiently removed. 
 
 So ended this exciting episode, though the hints 
 that she intended to retire from the stage were kept 
 alive by her enemies. 
 
 But if Dorothy's faults were allowed to be buried 
 for a time, those of the Duke of Clarence were well 
 canvassed; if Dorothy was accused of sharing his 
 establishment from mercenary motives alone, the
 
 The Prince 177 
 
 Duke was charged with a mercenariness which was 
 far meaner. The Bon Ton and many other periodicals 
 asserted that he was so short of money that he collected 
 Mrs. Jordan's salary in person, and even took it in 
 advance on the night of the performance. As early 
 as November 3 it was reported at the end of a para- 
 graph that : " We have only to add that as Banker 
 to Her Highness he actually received her week's 
 salary from the Treasurer on Saturday last ! " Ten 
 days later Peter Pindar, Jun., gave to the laughing 
 gossips the verse which heads this chapter. Other 
 gibes followed, one paper going so far as to say that 
 the Duke forebade Dorothy to appear unless the 
 money were first paid. 
 
 In the middle of December a caricature was 
 published, entitled " Saturday Morning," or the 
 " Theatrical Pay-day," in which the theatrical manager 
 stands on one side of a counter and the Duke on the 
 other, the former bowing, and saying : " We under- 
 stand as much you are welcome each week and we 
 wish you a good Benefit with your bargain." The 
 latter murmurs, while sweeping a lot of gold coins into 
 an earthenware vase : " My precious eyes and limbs, 
 this belongs to the Jordan, but it is mine," etc. 
 
 Punch declared years later that the Duke of 
 Clarence was often behind the scenes in Drury Lane 
 Theatre, adding, " indeed, it is said that the royal 
 autograph is extant in the Saturday Treasury book for 
 Mrs. Jordan's salary." 
 
 Unfortunately that Treasury volume has since dis- 
 appeared from the world of books that are no books. 
 
 The caricaturists were extremely active over the 
 royal love affair, and skits of all sorts were published, 
 some shocking in their vulgarity, all more or less
 
 178 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 coarse. December 2 , 1791, saw one issued giving a pic- 
 ture of the stage, Dorothy looking horribly ill sitting 
 on the Duke's knee, and he offering her a glass of gin. 
 
 " Indeed, indeed, I am indisposed, upon my 
 honour," she is saying, to which the Duke replies 
 
 " My poor, dear little Pickle. the lubbers, I 
 
 wish I had them lashed fast to the main rigging, I'd 
 give them a dozen a-piece." 
 
 Earlier than this Dorothy had been shown as stand- 
 ing before a mirror, dressed in purple and wearing a 
 duchess's coronet. " Oh, Gemini," she is saying, " is 
 that gay, fine thing me? If it is, and the glass be true, 
 I am no less than my Lady Duchess ! " 
 
 From that time the title of duchess was flung at her 
 in and out of season, her brother George coming in 
 for a share of the compliments in such paragraphs as : 
 " Interest is making to have Bland the actor knighted ; 
 it is so awkward to have the brother of a Duchess a 
 plain Mister. The title he solicits is Sir Simpleton 
 Squeekum." Or : " Little Eland's husband has lately 
 added to the family escutcheon the arms of a prince, 
 and he triumphantly bears it about with him on every 
 occasion." 
 
 Years later, when Dorothy was cast for the part of 
 Sir Edward Bloomly in Fred Reynolds's comedy of 
 Cheaf Living, and she was inclined to resent it, for 
 she was then a-weary of breeches parts and of playing 
 the dissipated youth, the irritated manager Wroughton 
 said 
 
 "Why, you are grand, madam, quite the duchess 
 again this morning ! " 
 
 " Very likely," replied Dorothy, " for you are not 
 the first person this very day who has condescended 
 to honour me with the title."
 
 The Prince 179 
 
 Then, without the slightest pique and with all her 
 characteristic humour, she told how, having to dis- 
 charge her Irish cook for impertinence, when she paid 
 her the wages due the woman showed her a shilling, 
 and banging it down on the table, cried 
 
 "Arrah, me honey, with this thirteener won't I sit 
 in the gallery? and won't your Grace give me a 
 curtsy ? and won't I give your Royal Highness a howl 
 and a hiss into the bargain? " 
 
 A picture, drawn by Gillray and given to the grin- 
 ning public on October 24, was called " The Devil to 
 Pay : the Wife Metamorphosed, or Neptune Repos- 
 ing," in which the Prince is shown asleep, but Dorothy 
 is sitting up in bed, and saying in bewilderment : 
 " What pleasant dreams I have had to-night ! Me- 
 thought I was in Paradise upon a bed of violets and 
 roses. Ha! bless me! where am I now? Am I in a 
 bed ? The sheets are sarcenet sure, no linen ever was 
 so fine. What a gay silken robe have I got.'' Oh, 
 heaven ! I dream. Yet if this be a dream I would not 
 wish to wake again. Sure I died last night and went 
 to heaven ! " Some of the letterpress upon this is too 
 coarse to be repeated in full, and the plate itself was 
 one of a number rigidly suppressed. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzherbert, poor woman a separation had 
 just been arranged between her and the Prince of 
 Wales because of his marriage had never any kind- 
 ness for Dorothy. Their cases were so similar in spite 
 of the marriage ceremony, which she knew to be 
 illegal, that Mrs. Fitzherbert, clinging as she did to 
 social station, could not afford to be friendly. 
 The cartoonists fastened upon this in such pictures 
 as "The Pot calling the Kettle Black," which 
 showed the buxom Mrs. Fitzherbert, wearing a blue
 
 180 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ribbon with Ich Dien worked upon it in her hair, 
 turning her back upon Dorothy, and asking how she 
 dares to enter her presence, or to think that she would 
 keep company with such a pickle. " Pray, sir," she 
 continues to the Duke, " keep your creature out of my 
 sight, I am an honest woman, I am." 
 
 Dorothy responds in like manner, pointing out that 
 if Mrs. Fitzherbert has as many thousands as she has 
 hundreds (the former was accredited with obtaining 
 10,000 a year), then she was the worse of the two. 
 Clarence says apologetically to the Prince : " Why, 
 you know, George, we leaped the broom as well as 
 you, and though you palavered a good deal to quiet 
 the lady's conscience, I did it with less ceremony, 
 that's all." 
 
 Another suppressed plate was of the Duke of 
 Clarence running, with broken china tied to his coat- 
 tails, Mrs. Fitzherbert and other women following and 
 scolding him, while the Duke utters unrepeatable 
 language. 
 
 Another skit, " A Virtuous Flame," represented the 
 Duke of York and his bride passing before a house, 
 at the window of which sit Clarence and Mrs. Jordan, 
 she in the least covering of garments; and a further 
 jeer at the royal family was entitled "Vices Over- 
 looked at the New Proclamation." In this the Queen, 
 hugging bags marked 3,000,000, sits at a table 
 opposite the King, whose money bags contain 
 5,000,000, denoting avarice; drunkenness is exem- 
 plified by the Prince of Wales being led home by 
 watchmen, gambling by the Duke of York at cards, 
 and debauchery by Clarence and Mrs. Jordan 
 embracing. 
 
 By the end of December Ford had returned to
 
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 The Prince 181 
 
 England, and he joined the band of Dorothy's 
 enemies, attending Mrs. Crouch's revels and going 
 there to little suppers after the play. He also recom- 
 menced his visits behind the stage and to the Green 
 Room, and probably was not above making himself 
 obnoxious to the woman whom he had, morally, 
 deserted. If the papers are to be trusted the Duke 
 asked Sheridan to forbid Ford's entry behind the 
 scenes, for the following was published by one of the 
 morning journals on December 13 
 
 ' The naval officer, who too often infests the scenes 
 of the Haymarket to the annoyance of every one who 
 belongs to the house, but one, had the modesty the 
 other day to desire Mr. Sheridan to forbid Mr. Ford 
 the privilege of appearing behind the scenes. Mr. 
 Sheridan very properly told the naval officer that 
 Mr. Ford's behaviour as a gentleman precluded 
 such a prohibition, and that in point of right Mr. 
 Ford had as much pretension as (Mr. Sheridan) 
 himself." 
 
 That this left-handed alliance provoked much 
 curiosity and no displeasure at Court is proved by the 
 fact that the King and Queen went to the theatre on 
 the 4th of January, 1792. Since the King's illness they 
 had shunned Drury Lane, for they hated Sheridan as 
 one who encouraged the Prince of Wales in his 
 assumption of power, but their interest was too keen 
 for resistance ; so we find the King and Queen occupy- 
 ing a box "at a distance of three from the stage," 
 where it was easier to see every corner than from the 
 stage box; six of the Princesses were in the box on 
 the left of their parents, the Duke and the Duchess 
 of York and the Duke of Clarence being in a box 
 exactly opposite. " Their Majesties' gratification
 
 1 82 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 broke forth in the most rapturous of expressions," said 
 The Advertiser. 
 
 A bad accident, however, preceded this perform- 
 ance, for the public's anxiety to see how their sovereign 
 would look upon Mrs. Jordan had brought overwhelm- 
 ing crowds, and the Royal Theatre, Haymarket, was 
 a place of narrow passages and steep steps. One 
 man was trampled to death, and one woman terribly 
 injured in the struggle to get down the stairs to the 
 pit. This was, however, hidden from the royal visitors. 
 
 The oft-repeated story of the King's comment on 
 his son's new domesticity may or may not be true, 
 but it is certainly characteristic of George's love of 
 economy. 
 
 "Clarence! Clarence! how's this? You you keep 
 an actress keep an actress ! " 
 
 " Yes, Sire." 
 
 "Ah ! how much d'ye give her, eh? " 
 
 " A thousand a year, Sire." 
 
 "A thousand too much, too much ! Five hundred." 
 
 Some wag later added that the Duke wrote to 
 Dorothy (there was really no need for him to write) 
 and repeated the parental dictum, and that she, tear- 
 ing off the bottom of a play-bill upon which was 
 printed " No money returned after the raising of the 
 curtain ! " enclosed it in an envelope to him. 
 
 Dorothy Jordan was quite outspoken, and she was 
 not a fine lady, but she had much of good sense, which 
 would have condemned such a vulgarity. Also I find 
 that the usual announcement at the bottom of a London 
 play-bill was simply, " No money to be returned ! " 
 Thus, in any case, the latter part of the sentence must 
 be regarded as embroidery.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DOMESTICITY AND WORK 
 
 " Need any bard despair, 
 If Jordan serve and Bannister be there?" 
 
 M Mrs. Jordan, delightful Mrs. Jordan, whose voice did away the cares 
 of the whole house, before they saw her come in." LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN was not exempt from a certain 
 vanity which expresses itself in all ages, that of 
 having her portrait painted, and there are an extra- 
 ordinary number of her portraits still in existence, 
 though our National Portrait Gallery does not pos- 
 sess one. She was represented as Nell, Peggy, 
 Priscilla Tomboy, Hypolita, Lucy, Fidelia, Phaedra, 
 Isabel, Matilda, Rosalind, with Falstaff, and as the 
 Comic Muse. Among the artists were Romney, who 
 painted six pictures of her; Hoppner, who painted 
 three, his Mrs. Jordan as Hypolita being judged by 
 some critics as his masterpiece; Gainsborough, 
 Morland, W. A. Chalmers and others. 
 
 One of the earliest portraits painted of Dorothy was 
 that now known as The Country Girl, by Romney, her 
 first sitting for this being on November 17, 1786.* 
 Twelve times between that date and January 15, 1787, 
 did she go to Romney's studio, always between one 
 and two in the day, her address being at that time 
 5 Gower Street. Concerning the pose of this picture 
 a note given from Sir Henry Russell's MS. presents 
 her characteristically 
 
 ^ by Humphry Ward and W. Roberts.
 
 184 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 " I recollect hearing Romney describe her as she 
 came to sit to him for her picture. For some time 
 they could hit upon no attitude that pleased them both : 
 whatever the one proposed the other rejected; at last 
 Mrs. Jordan, pretending to be tired and to be going 
 away, sprang out of her chair, and putting herself into 
 an attitude, and using an expression belonging to her 
 popular part in The Romp, said 
 
 "'Well, I'm a-going.' 
 
 " Romney instantly exclaimed, ' That will do ! ' and 
 in that attitude and uttering that expression he painted 
 her." 
 
 This portrait was intended to represent Priscilla 
 Tomboy in The Romp, but when engraved in 1788, 
 by John Ogborne, it was called Peggy in The Country 
 Girl, and has always since retained that name. 
 Though Dorothy spent some time in sitting for the 
 portrait she evidently neither took possession of it nor 
 paid for it, for it was not until November 26, 1791, 
 that it left Romney's studio, having become the pro- 
 perty of the Duke of Clarence, who had paid seventy 
 guineas for it to the artist, and who ordered it to be 
 sent to Petersham Lodge. 
 
 This picture must have appealed to Romney, for 
 he made three versions of it, one of which was given 
 by the Duke to his daughter Amelia, who married 
 Viscount Falkland, this being now in the Falkland 
 collection ; a second was in the possession of Dorothy's 
 eldest son, the Earl of Munster, and though this is 
 said to have been sold to the late Baron F. de Roths- 
 child, it still hangs in the present Earl of Munster's 
 drawing-room. Another copy was in 1894 in the 
 possession of Sir Charles Tennant. The picture which 
 the Duke of Clarence retained for forty years hung
 
 Domesticity and Work 185 
 
 in his dining-room at Bushey Park, and when Queen 
 Adelaide died in 1849 our national jester and exponent 
 of true sentiment, Punch, told its readers the follow- 
 ing anecdote : Upon a certain benefit the actor Dow- 
 ton waited upon the sailor Duke, and was received 
 with the old kindness and simplicity. In the course 
 of the interview, the Duke observed the actor look 
 significantly at a portrait over the chimney the 
 portrait of Mrs. Jordan. " Yes, Dowton," said the 
 Duke, "she was an excellent woman; and, by the 
 way, I'll tell you a little story about that picture. It 
 always hung there, but some time before I was married 
 to the Duchess I caused it to be removed. Well, 
 shortly after I brought the Duchess home, I found one 
 morning the picture in its old place. * This,' said the 
 Duchess, ' was done at my desire. I discovered that 
 the picture had long hung there ; it was the picture of 
 the mother of your children, and it was not fit that it 
 should be displaced. You must gratify me and let it 
 
 remain.' 
 
 The Garrick Club possesses a Romney portrait of 
 Dorothy, and there are several others. Romney, like 
 Greuze and Lely, painted a certain expression into 
 the faces of his sitters which, while adding to the 
 regularity of their beauty and the sweetness of their 
 bearing, perhaps helped to lose something of indi- 
 viduality and character. Thus, comparing all the 
 portraits together, that of her in the part of Hypolita 
 gives probably the most characteristic likeness. 
 
 Hoppner was the first to produce an elaborate sub- 
 ject picture of Dorothy, one, which as the Comic Muse 
 was exhibited in 1786 in the Academy, being sternly 
 criticized. This for many years hung at Hampton 
 Court, though now it has a place in Buckingham
 
 1 86 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Palace. He also painted her as Hypolita before 1791, 
 and as Rosalind and Matilda. The Rosalind was 
 exhibited at the Academy in 1796 and sold in 1894 
 for 1 100 guineas. 
 
 One of Gainsborough's last pictures was a Portrait 
 of Mrs. Jordan, and George Morland also depicted 
 her in his later days, probably in 1800. 
 
 The sketch of her known as " The Comic Muse, by 
 Goles," was made about 1787, and the portrait of her 
 as Sir Henry Wildair, by W. A. Chalmers, must have 
 been painted immediately after the famous benefit 
 night in the spring of 1788, for it was engraved before 
 November of that year. 1 Thus between 1785 and 1791 
 some of the most noted of Dorothy's portraits were 
 already in existence, although some of these were 
 erroneously said later to have been painted for the 
 Duke of Clarence. 
 
 In 1792 another portrait by Chalmers was published 
 as a frontispiece to a farce by George Saville Carey, 
 entitled Dupes of Fancy, or Every Man his own 
 Hobby. In this Dorothy wears hat and feathers with 
 ribbons tied under her chin, a distinguishing feature 
 of the picture being a brooch with the Duke's portrait. 
 Saville prefaced his farce with an adulatory dedication 
 to Dorothy, part of which ran : " The tutelary sisters 
 Melpomene and Thalia, who preside over all scenic 
 acts, have taken you by the hand and placed you on 
 a pedestal so high that envy lowers her scowling front 
 whenever she casts her jaundiced eye upon your 
 exalted station, for you justly assimilate the pathetic 
 manners of the one, and fascinate with the bewitching 
 archness of the other." 
 
 1 "Pictures of Mrs. Jordan," by W. J. Lawrence, in The Connoisseur.
 
 Domesticity and Work 187 
 
 Dorothy thought it no shame to wear the Duke's 
 picture at her breast at all times, and a story is told 
 that when in September 1792 she went to see a young 
 actress, Mrs. Litchfield, play at Richmond, she 
 clapped so heartily that her hands caught and broke a 
 golden chain that held his miniature, which dropped 
 upon the stage. 
 
 Dorothy was, indeed, always ready to stand by her 
 actions. She had consented to throw in her lot with 
 the Duke, and she did it with her face to the world. 
 She made no attempt at self-deception as did Mrs. 
 Fitzherbert, and she seems not to have been troubled 
 by any qualms of conscience. If fate had decreed that 
 she should never be legally wed, she would accept that 
 decree with as gay a heart as possible. She had done 
 little which was outside the code of morality of her 
 fellow-workers at the theatre, many of whom, like the 
 artists in the Quartier Latin of a later date, considered 
 that there was nothing derogatory or blameworthy in 
 a union unsanctioned by the Church. Although The 
 Secret History of the Green Room said that morally 
 her conduct was not to be defended, it admitted that, 
 as a partner of a man's life and as a mother, it was 
 " worthy the imitation of many ladies who had actually 
 entered into the state of matrimony," for her loyalty 
 never swerved. 
 
 To her credit it must be put that during the twenty 
 years which she passed by the side of the Duke of 
 Clarence, but for one or two passing whispers, scandal 
 was silent as to the doings of that Prince. He settled 
 down as other men who are married settled down to 
 the quiet domestic life; he became keenly interested 
 in the children who were born to them, superintending 
 their lives and giving them a father's affection. He
 
 1 88 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 also held the high hand over Dorothy's work, so that 
 she never accepted an engagement' without his permis- 
 sion, and when a new play was offered for her con- 
 sideration he read it first and would taboo it if he 
 thought it unsuited to her. 
 
 Dorothy, having taken this position, was faithful to 
 it all through, so that this union was as clean and 
 commonplace and sane as any ordinary marriage. She 
 turned an erratic and coarse youth into the nearest she 
 could to a reputable family man, and she did more 
 than this, for, as her letters show, she took a keen 
 interest in his parliamentary career and inspired the 
 best of his efforts. England could have done very 
 well without his speeches, but the fact remains that he 
 was a better man for trying to work than he would 
 have been had he remained inert. 
 
 In 1792 the Duke began his series of tirades against 
 the abolition of the Slave Trade, and was regarded 
 as voicing the thoughts of the royal family. His 
 speeches were superlative examples of insufficient 
 knowledge, violence and vituperation; but they im- 
 plied a mental effort and an attempt to express his 
 conclusions concerning things he had seen in America 
 and Jamaica. When some years later, the enlightened 
 Lords brought in a bill to forbid any divorced person 
 marrying again, he added to the discussions some 
 arguments which can only have been the result of a 
 thoughtful woman's influence. 
 
 He opposed the bill on the grounds that it would 
 bear most heavily upon women, and would give them 
 no chance either of regaining respectability or even of 
 living at all. At that time if a wife were found guilty 
 she was not only divorced and disgraced, but her hus- 
 band secured the whole of her dowry or property in
 
 Domesticity and Work 189 
 
 any form. Thus she was turned out into the world 
 homeless and penniless, her only chance being the 
 humanity of her lover. To deprive her of that the 
 Duke argued was generally to drive her to prostitu- 
 tion or to suicide. 
 
 So far it was a remarkably enlightened speech, but 
 it made no effect upon the Lords, perhaps because 
 this unmarried husband prefaced and punctuated his 
 arguments with such sentences as : "If any such there 
 should ever unfortunately be, who, forgetting what 
 they owed to their God, their country and themselves, 
 should be induced to lead a profligate and immoral 
 life," etc., etc. 
 
 While anchored to Dorothy Clarence was, however, 
 fairly respectable, and being of no great importance, 
 he sank into a comfortable obscurity, the limelight 
 being only very occasionally turned upon him ; after 
 the separation between them, however, he again 
 became the butt of the papers and the caricaturists, 
 the weak lover of women, the sordid hunter for money. 
 
 Through the spring and summer of 1792 Dorothy 
 acted constantly, mostly in old characters : The 
 Fugitive, by Richardson, in April, being the only 
 novelty. Upon her playing Nell in The Country Girl 
 for her benefit The Bon Ton Magazine sarcastically 
 informed its readers that Mrs. Jordan had so bad an 
 attack of gout in the right hand that the Duke of 
 Clarence was absolutely obliged to take the trouble 
 of helping her with her benefit tickets. The scale of 
 receipts for the various benefits this year was as 
 follows : Bannister 545, Jordan 540, Siddons 490, 
 Kemble 480, and Crouch 470, which gives some 
 indication of relative popularity. That Dorothy's 
 benefits generally put her near the top of the list, did
 
 190 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 not make her more loved by the Kembles or her other 
 rivals; and Kemble gave her little scope for new 
 triumphs, a matter which was seething in Dorothy's 
 mind, to bear fruit in the autumn. Most writers on the 
 subject place her absence from the stage immediately 
 after her reconciliation with the public. The Secret 
 History of the Green Room, for instance, says that 
 the papers " did all in their power to drive her from 
 the stage, on account of her connection with the Duke 
 of Clarence, and now that she does not perform they 
 accuse her of ingratitude, of refusing to amuse that 
 public which, a little month ago, they pretended would 
 never suffer her again to appear before them ! Can 
 anything be more insulting to common justice, or to 
 common sense ? " The theatre advertisements show, 
 however, that Dorothy was constantly on the stage 
 until she became ill at the end of July, and before this 
 happened her name was dragged prominently before 
 Society over a small affair of royal want of tact. 
 
 Mrs. Hobart, who lived at Richmond, was devoted 
 to amateur theatricals and cards, her husband sharing 
 the acting mania, so much so that though the heir to 
 his brother, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, he was for 
 a time manager of the Opera House. This Mrs. 
 Hobart, who was then over fifty and so fat as to be 
 dubbed by the gossips Mrs. Circumference, was noted 
 for her garden parties in the country, her faro parties 
 in town, and her theatricals in both places. 
 
 At all of these the Princes were her constant guests, 
 and she also knew Dorothy. " The Hon. Mrs. Hobart 
 and Little Pickle are to visit, already they have one 
 box in common at the Haymarket. The Romp's 
 salary, indeed, is an object to any of the Pharo tables," 
 commented the malicious Bon Ton Magazine.
 
 Domesticity and Work 191 
 
 To a "rural breakfast" at the end of May 1792 
 Mrs. Hobart had invited the usual crowd, but the morn- 
 ing brought a deluge of rain, and the lady was in an 
 irritable frame of mind, when a note from Petersham 
 Lodge was delivered. It ran 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan presents her compliments to Mrs. 
 Hobart, and at the request of his Royal Highness the 
 Duke of Clarence, begs leave to offer his excuses for 
 not being able to wait on her to-day, having a previous 
 engagement, which he forgot till this morning. Should 
 Mrs. Hobart's fete be put off on account of the badness 
 of the weather till Monday or any other day, his Royal 
 Highness will be extremely happy to wait on her." 
 
 Mrs. Hobart must have been inwardly delighted 
 with this delicious letter, though she would not own to 
 it. The day was bad and her party spoiled, but 
 heaven had sent her the wherewithal to amuse her 
 guests, and she made the very most of it, for, with vivid 
 expressions of scorn and anger, she passed the letter 
 about. The ripples caused by the incident quickly 
 spread through society to the papers ; " By the rights 
 of man all women are on an equality, and vice mutato 
 nomine is virtue " one commented. The most piquant 
 note was given by the acid pen of Walpole. " Mrs. 
 Hobart, poor lady, she has already miscarried of two 
 fetes of which she was big, and yet next minute she 
 was pregnant of another. Those fausses couches and 
 Mrs. Jordan's epistle to her, and daily as well as 
 nightly robberies, have occasioned as much cackling 
 in this district as if a thousand hen roosts had been 
 disturbed together." 
 
 At Mrs. Hobart's second party in July there was no
 
 192 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 need for Little Pickle to write another letter of excuse, 
 for " her Billy was not invited." 
 
 At the end of that month Dorothy fell ill, and on 
 August 6 she had a serious miscarriage of a five months' 
 child. " It died immediately," said The Gentleman's 
 Magazine. There is some reason to suspect that this 
 was really the birth of the first child Sophia, hidden for 
 fear of again raising a storm of public opinion, as she 
 is supposed to be the eldest Fitzclarence, and George 
 was born in January 1794. If so, Dorothy's subse- 
 quent absence from the stage would be accounted for. 
 During this illness the Duke was the most devoted of 
 men if we may judge by his letters. One, written to 
 Admiral Sir Charles Christian on August 10, will 
 sufficiently show this 
 
 ' This morning I received yours, and in return am 
 to acknowledge your kind inquiries after Mrs. Jordan. 
 The papers have on this occasion told truth, for she 
 was last week for some hours in danger, but now, thank 
 God, she is much better and I hope in a fair way of 
 perfect recovery. It is my present intention to set out 
 on the 23rd inst. for the seaside, in order that Mrs. 
 Jordan may bathe for six weeks. As the place we 
 mean to go to is no great distance from the Isle of 
 Wight, and if you have nothing better to do, I should 
 be very happy to see you there, and Mrs. Jordan has 
 likewise desired me to say as much." 
 
 However, on September 26 he wrote again from 
 Petersham : " I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt 
 of your friendly letter of the 2ist inst., and to request 
 you will accept Mrs. Jordan's thanks as well as my 
 own for your very handsome offer of your house in the 
 Isle of Wight ; it is still a matter of doubt whether we
 
 Domesticity and Work 193 
 
 shall go at all to the seaside, the weather being so 
 far advanced; but the Duchess of Cleveland has 
 promised me a house at Margate, which if I go I mean 
 
 to use." 1 
 
 All through that autumn many tales were told to 
 account for Dorothy's absence from the theatre. It 
 was said that she demanded the Siddons's system, of 
 a large payment for one night's acting instead of a 
 weekly salary, that " the town was not full enough for 
 her ladyship to appear," that she had deliberately put 
 herself on the shelf. But it may be that she found 
 it impossible to act in the inimical atmosphere of the 
 theatre, for in addition to the jealousy of her rivals, 
 the quarrel with Kemble had again come to a climax. 
 He steadily refused to put on these new plays, in which 
 both dramatists and performers delight. As Boaden 
 admiringly remarked : " Mr. Kemble always did his 
 utmost to keep down this rage for novelty." Yet 
 history shows that the theatre's worst times were when 
 the manager was afflicted by that particular form of 
 economy. Kemble himself was something of a victim, 
 for he had got to that point when he could secure 
 nothing from Sheridan and felt cramped all ways. At 
 last he determined to have it out with his chief, taking 
 the opportunity when both were supping with Mrs. 
 Crouch. He began operations by refusing, on enter- 
 ing, to speak to R. B. S., then, after seating himself 
 at table, he rose and fixing his eyes upon Sheridan, 
 cried 
 
 " I am an eagle whose wings have been bound down 
 by frosts and snows; but now I shake my pinions, and 
 cleave into the general air, unto which I was born." 
 
 1 Romantic Annals of a Naval Family^ by H. M. A. Traherne. 
 
 N
 
 194 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Then he sat down, " looking as if he had relieved 
 himself of an intolerable thraldom." Sheridan, know- 
 ing his man, moved his chair to Kemble's side, and by 
 two minutes' smoothing had brought him back into 
 subjection. 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, however, could not so win Kemble, 
 and it was not until she had once more appealed to 
 Sheridan that her wishes received attention. Her 
 letter to him was as follows 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " From the very handsome manner in which 
 you acceded to my proposals, and, as I conceived, 
 concluded my engagement, I flattered myself that I 
 should have no difficulty to encounter in immediately 
 entering into my agreement with you an event I have 
 waited for with increased anxiety, from the circum- 
 stance of having, through your liberality, been for 
 some time in the receipt of a very large salary, without 
 being permitted to perform. 
 
 " I am totally at a loss to account for the conduct 
 of the manager, in any other way than his continued 
 disinclination to let me appear in any new character 
 whatever, a complaint I have often been constrained 
 to make to you, and you have as often acknow- 
 ledged the justice of it; and in our last negotiation 
 endeavoured effectually to remove, but without 
 success. 
 
 " As a duty I owe myself and the public I mean to 
 publish a copy of this letter, to serve as a simple but 
 fair contradiction to some malicious reports that are 
 circulated, insinuating that / have withdrawn myself 
 from their protection, a circumstance I have every 
 reason to be proud of, of which I shall ever retain the
 
 Domesticity and Work 195 
 
 most grateful remembrance, accompanied by the 
 sincerest regret at being deprived of the happiness of 
 manifesting, in the duties of my profession, the truth 
 of this assertion. You, sir, I make no doubt, will 
 candidly confess that I have already been too much 
 tormented with regard to this engagement, and also, 
 from this unnecessary delay in bringing forward the 
 comedy, that it is now void; and when I assure you 
 that my situation at the theatre has for a considerable 
 time been made very irksome to me, and that, should 
 I attempt to continue in it out of respect to you, I 
 should subject myself to still greater perplexities, 
 which it is not in your power to prevent; I am there- 
 fore confident that you will release me from that kind 
 of embarrassment, which the liberality of your conduct 
 towards me, makes me suffer, in the justice of my wish 
 to quit the Haymarket Theatre. 
 
 " In complying with the above request you will 
 greatly add to the favours already conferred on, 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Yours, etc., 
 
 " DORA JORDAN. 
 
 "Somerset Street, 
 
 "Jan. 29, 1793." 
 
 From this letter it may be inferred that Dorothy had 
 entered into a new and advantageous engagement, in 
 which she had made it a condition that she should be 
 allowed fresh characters to act. This condition had 
 become centred round a play called Anna, which a Miss 
 Cuthbertson had written especially for Dorothy, and 
 which Dorothy had in her turn altered to suit herself. 
 Thus it is probably true that she staked her reappear- 
 ance on the Drury Lane stage upon the production of 
 this play, and that Kemble held out against it. However.
 
 196 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 this letter to Sheridan settled the matter, for on 
 February 22 Dorothy was back on the boards as 
 Laetitia Hardy, and on the 25th the new play was put 
 on. It probably was not a good play, for it most 
 certainly was not a success. And to help its fall 
 Kemble's attitude was too strongly apparent for the 
 actors to do their best in it, or for the critics to praise. 
 It was acted only once, and, as the pliant Boaden 
 says, " both triumphed." " Alas ! poor Anna" 
 mourned the more humorous Wilkinson, " she dropped 
 like an unfortunate young lady's pad." 
 
 From that date Dorothy continued playing in many 
 of her old parts, while two new ones were added to her 
 list : Lady Restless in All in the Wrong, and Clara in 
 The Female Duellist. She was not great in Lady 
 Restless, for she was not really meant for the fine 
 lady, and was more apt to kick her train out of her 
 way than to move with languid grace. But in all that 
 she played the town was delighted to see her again, 
 and little as Kemble would have allowed it, prosperity 
 shone more certainly over the theatre when she was 
 actively in the company. 
 
 However, the trouble between the two great actors, 
 though scotched was not killed, and through the spring 
 it resolved itself into another, somewhat to the amuse- 
 ment of the other actors and the public, for now it 
 took the form of a dispute over the wording of the 
 play bills. It had for long been the custom to 
 advertise, first the men's parts, putting the most 
 important characters last in such words as "And 
 Macbeth, Mr. Kemble." This was followed by the 
 women's parts ending, for example, with " And Nell, 
 Mrs. Jordan." 
 
 Kemble, who was something of a solemn arbiter
 
 Domesticity and Work 197 
 
 upon trifles, invented a new bill which gave precedence 
 to conventional social status without regard to the 
 importance of the characters in the play. So Dorothy, 
 who, since the first month of her London career, had 
 held the post of honour in print, now saw her name 
 placed on a level with the rank and file, and she 
 rebelled. Other actors did the same thing Lee 
 Lewis threw up his engagement with Stephen Kemble 
 rather than submit to it; but Dorothy, being the most 
 renowned dissenter from the new custom, was made 
 the most of as a rebel, and her name was bandied about 
 in jokes, questioning her real importance. Who was 
 she ? And who was her husband ? Why, her husband 
 had been killed in the battle of Nubibus, etc. 
 
 In the autumn of 1793 the Drury Lane company 
 was without a home, for the Haymarket Theatre was 
 needed for opera. Colman the younger made an 
 arrangement with Sheridan to engage some of his 
 actors for what was then known as the Little Theatre, 
 but Mrs. Siddons, Dorothy, Miss Farren and the 
 Popes were not of that number, they being probably 
 beyond Colman's means. This did not trouble 
 Dorothy, for on January 23, 1794, her first Clarence 
 son was born, receiving the name of George Augustus 
 Frederick. Up to this date her family consisted of 
 four girls; Frances Daly, Hester, Dorothea Maria, 
 and Lucy Ford. Two premature births had also been 
 announced, a boy in 1791 and a girl in 1792. That 
 Mrs. Jordan was happy in her enforced idleness can 
 scarcely be doubted, but when the new Drury Lane 
 opened and its programme excluded her name con- 
 jecture at once arose. 
 
 The theatre opened in April 1794, with an oratorio 
 as a benison on the new building, and then started to
 
 198 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 elevate the public mind by producing tragedy after 
 tragedy. The degraded people, however, would have 
 preferred to laugh, and came in no great numbers to 
 weep, yet Kemble held on his course, and when Mrs. 
 Siddons withdrew in the middle of June, Drury Lane 
 became moribund. Kemble tried to temporize, put- 
 ting on farces which pleased no one, says Boaden, 
 though if Dorothy had only played in them they would 
 have brought money to the theatre. Once only did 
 she act, and that was on July 2, when she gave her 
 performance in The Country Girl for the benefit o* the 
 widows and children of those who perished in Lord 
 Howe's victory on " the glorious first of June." 
 
 It was not until November 4, 1794, that Dorothy 
 again took a part on the Drury Lane boards, and then 
 as Lady Content in The Wedding Day, written by 
 Mrs. Inchbald especially for her, and of which per- 
 formance Genest said she "was the great support of 
 it all." This play gave her one of the songs that 
 became associated with her name, and which she may 
 have written, " In the Dead of Night," a line of which 
 ran, " Cupid knocked at my window disturbing my 
 rest." This caught on with the public, and so, says 
 an anonymous writer, in every mouth was heard " like 
 the natural notes of some sweet melody which drops 
 from it whether it will or no, nothing but Cupid ! 
 Cupid ! The whole city, like the heart of one man, 
 opened itself to love." 
 
 The great theatrical event of the autumn was the 
 presentation of Nobody, a two act comedy by Mrs. 
 Robinson, whom we know as " Perdita," who had for 
 years devoted herself to literature. She had had the 
 temerity to ridicule in this play the outstanding vice 
 of the day among women, that of gambling^ and under
 
 Domesticity and Work 199 
 
 the title of the Lady Greeks she scattered satire upon 
 those who allowed " speculators in ruin " to open a 
 bank at their evening parties and share the profits. 
 The cast included Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Goodall, Mrs. 
 Pope and Bannister; Miss Farren should have been 
 in it, but gave up her part because she said one of her 
 most intimate friends was attacked in the play. 
 Another actress of outstanding fame probably 
 Dorothy was said by Mrs. Robinson to have received 
 a letter anouncing that 
 
 "Nobody should be damned." 
 
 Mrs. Robinson herself received threats, neverthe- 
 less the rehearsals continued, and the night of the 
 performance found the players in a more than usually 
 nervous state. As soon as the curtain drew up some 
 men in the gallery, whose liveries betrayed their em- 
 ployers, declared they were sent there to " do up " 
 Nobody p , and a scene of confusion ensued, even women 
 of distinguished rank hissing through their fans. Ban- 
 nister and Mrs. Jordan did their utmost to procure a 
 fair hearing, and the more rational part of the audience 
 were inclined to see it through; but effort was use- 
 less, and after the third stormy night the play was 
 withdrawn. 
 
 Boaden, who displays no knowledge of the hidden 
 machinery of this disturbance, says that Dorothy was 
 very nervous, and hints that it was caused by the fact 
 that Mrs. Robinson was a writer as well as an actress 
 and would visit the failure upon anything rather than 
 the piece. Knowing to what a brutal length theatre 
 brawls could go, Dorothy might well have expected 
 dreadful things to happen when the curtain drew up 
 that night. 
 
 From then until February, when Alexander the
 
 200 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Great, a pantomime ballet, was put on, Mrs. Jordan 
 acted constantly. After that her next appearance 
 was in April, when, "with characteristic kindness," 
 she played for Bannister's benefit, he, like a good 
 comrade, performing for her in May. During the 
 latter month a play by Cumberland named First Love, 
 with " neither plot nor incident nor wit to recommend 
 it," said Bannister, enjoyed a short run because of the 
 acting of Dorothy and Miss Farren. One scene 
 between these two was so affecting that the author 
 remarked : " When two such exquisite actresses con- 
 spired to support me, I will not be so vain as to pre- 
 sume I could have stood without their help." On 
 May 4 Dorothy took the part for the only time in her 
 life of the Old Maid in a play of that name, and 
 thenceforward continued her exertions until the end 
 of the season. On August 19 " Nell of Clarence plays 
 Ophelia at Richmond," said Walpole, writing to Miss 
 Berry, and a week later in the same correspondence 
 occurs : " It was printed at the bottom of the play-bills 
 at Richmond last week that Mrs. Jordan would not 
 perform, as it was the birthday of his R.H. the Duke 
 of Clarence no, to be sure she could not, for the 
 Prince of Orange 1 was to dine with him, and she did 
 the honours at the head of the table ; no, the Princesses 
 were not there." 
 
 Dorothy had for July an offer so splendid that she 
 might well have been forgiven had she accepted it, 
 but it was from Daly, and her hatred of him was too 
 extreme for her to be beguiled, even though he was 
 ready to give her a hundred guineas a night, and to 
 
 1 The Prince and Princess of Orange were living at Hampton Court 
 Palace at the time.
 
 Domesticity and Work 201 
 
 deposit the total sum in the bank for her before she 
 left England. Hints as to this crept into the papers 
 to be asserted, commented upon, and contradicted. 
 " Surely there can be no ground for the general com- 
 plaint of scarcity both of money and all other neces- 
 sities when the public on one hand can afford to pay, 
 and an actress on the other afford to decline a hundred 
 guineas per night for a few hours' exertion." 
 
 It would have been worth as much as Daly offered 
 if Dorothy would have acted for him again, for his 
 fortunes were on the wane. He had suffered much 
 from the competition of Astley at the Amphitheatre, 
 who encroached largely in his shows upon what were 
 regarded as the sole rights of the patent houses, and 
 who, having secured a patent in Dublin for a circus, 
 went on to present musical farce. Daly commenced 
 action after action against him, and was eventually 
 ruined, partly because personal character entered 
 largely into the affair. He had won a reputation so 
 atrocious in many ways that he was generally 
 execrated, while Astley was generous, respected and 
 known to most people of influence as a teacher of 
 riding and driving. Now that Mrs. Jordan was famous 
 Daly's vile behaviour to her was public property, and 
 rose ever in his path ; so that he felt that the one thing 
 to do was to get her to play for him at any cost. But 
 no lure was strong enough to draw her there while he 
 was in power, and he had to continue on his downward 
 road, being swept away at last by a society of gentle- 
 men players, who, headed by Lord Henry Fitzgerald, 
 built a small theatre in Shaw's Court in opposition 
 to him. 
 
 It is said that Dorothy refused even to see him or
 
 2O2 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 to allow him to see his daughter when, in his visits to 
 London, he approached her. Nothing could ever 
 make her forget the injury he had done her. 
 
 That autumn Dorothy acted with Kemble in The 
 Plain Dealer, one of Wycherley's plays. It was a very 
 rare thing indeed for these two to act together, and 
 perhaps had Kemble tried the experiment oftener, 
 there would have been less friction between them, 
 for Boaden, who was very friendly with Kemble, tells 
 how irresistible the latter found Dorothy and the 
 melody of her voice, adding, " He used the language 
 of Yorick when he was no jester : * It may seem 
 ridiculous enough to a torpid heart I could have 
 taken her in -my arms and cherished her, though it was 
 in the open street, without blushing.' ' 
 
 There was a family reason for the rest Dorothy took 
 in the spring of this year, a reason which The Bon Ton 
 Magazine foretold some months before, announcing : 
 " Mrs. Jordan is shortly expecting to produce some- 
 thing, whether a young Admiral or a Pickle Duchess 
 it is impossible yet to tell." This prophecy was ful- 
 filled when, on March 27, 1795, a boy appeared, "to 
 the great satisfaction of his royal highness." 
 
 The author of The Great Illegitimates gives a story 
 of Dorothy as a truly domestic and unostentatious 
 mother, which is somewhat amusing and which removes 
 her far from the " fine " lady. He says that " we " 
 have often seen her arrival " in a plain yellow chariot 
 at Miss Tuting's, a milliner in St James's Street, 
 where she would alight with an infant in her arms, and 
 during her stay frequently change the linen of the 
 little one in the shop, while freely conversing with the 
 person in attendance."
 
 Domesticity and Work 203 
 
 There seems reason to believe that matters were 
 somewhat strained between the Duke and Dorothy at 
 the end of 1795, as hints were given in the papers con- 
 cerning his flirtations; Mrs. J 11 being one lady 
 
 who had completely " brought to " a celebrated naval 
 commander. The Bon Ton declared in February 
 1796 that a separation was immediately expected to 
 take place, adding, that the benevolence of the lady's 
 heart and the generosity of her disposition had left 
 her scarcely any property " but what she derived from 
 the exercise of her exquisite talent." And the notice 
 
 ended with the suggestion that a Mrs. J C 
 
 was her successful rival. However, this little flame 
 seems to have puffed out before it was well alight, for 
 there is no further evidence of its existence. 
 
 On December 10, when Dorothy should have been 
 acting the part of Julia in The Surrender of Calais, she 
 was suddenly taken ill ; but she was at work again 
 before the month was finished. Nature was making 
 too great a demand upon her; had she been able to 
 take life easily and to do no fatiguing work things 
 might have gone well; as it was, she had further 
 attacks of illness, and in February 1796 suffered from 
 another miscarriage. A third letter from the Duke 
 to Admiral Christian, written from Clarence Lodge, 
 which he still kept up, refers to this illness : " Dear 
 Christian, I have hitherto been prevented answering 
 you by attending Mrs. Jordan, who has been very ill 
 indeed." What a picture of domesticity these two 
 lines raise !
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FROM PETERSHAM TO BUSHY PARK 
 
 "And she is Nature's own. I found her such, 
 Nor marred the copy by a single touch ; 
 The finished work such high perfection bore, 
 Art could add nothing ; Nature give no more." 
 
 The Comic Muse, on Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 IF the thoughts of the Duke were wandering to other 
 fair ladies at the end of 1795, usage had made certain 
 habits so strong that they could not be broken through. 
 Dorothy would drive down to St. James's to breakfast 
 with Clarence (she generally did so, says The Fashion- 
 able Cypriad), perhaps entering through that side door 
 which he had been so thoughtful as to have made as 
 soon as the rooms were allotted to him, though there 
 could be nothing surreptitious in her visits, as her 
 carriage would be there for all to see. 
 
 It was in this dining-room that, on November 17, 
 1795, he and she awaited the appearance of Samuel 
 Ireland, who himself believed, and for a time made 
 half the London world believe, that his son, William 
 Henry, then a lad of eighteen, had discovered a 
 number of Shakespeare documents in an old trunk. 
 Through that year all the learned men were engaged 
 in a dispute over these plays and deeds, but so strong 
 and influential was the party which looked upon the 
 parchments as genuine that Sheridan accepted the 
 tragedy of Vortigern and Rowena by William Shake- 
 speare but in reality by William Henry Ireland for 
 production at Drury Lane. 
 
 204
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 205 
 
 The play being accepted, there arose the question 
 of actors, and it was probably this which roused 
 Dorothy and the Duke to keen interest. Neither 
 could be regarded as a judge of ancient literature, but 
 the fact that many literary people Boswell, uttering 
 a Nunc Dimittis, had gone on his knees to kiss the 
 manuscript had signed a paper testifying to their 
 belief in its authenticity was enough, naturally, to give 
 them a bias. So they determined to see the play for 
 themselves, and appointed a time for the Irelands to 
 bring it to the palace. In his Confessions published 
 in 1805 young Ireland declared that the Prince and 
 Mrs. Jordan most carefully examined all the docu- 
 ments shown them, and asked many questions, which 
 seem to have been asked by most people, for he goes 
 on to say that he gave the usual answers. The Prince, 
 he adds, made numerous objections, particularly to the 
 redundancy of letters in the spelling apparent through- 
 out the papers ; but whatever doubts Clarence had were 
 set at rest, for Dorothy was duly cast for a part in 
 Vortigern. 
 
 Kemble at first believed in the play, then doubted, 
 and delayed its appearance until he was by pressure 
 obliged to produce it, and, being obliged, he calmly 
 set apart April i, 1796, for its production. To this 
 Ireland naturally objected, whereupon the 2nd of the 
 month was appointed, Kemble securing his gibe by 
 following it with a farce entitled My Grandmother. 
 
 Dorothy acted her part of Flavia with " exquisite 
 simplicity," says Boaden. She had accepted the char- 
 acter, and therefore felt it incumbent upon her to make 
 the most of it. Not so other actors ; Mrs. Siddons and 
 Mrs. Palmer resigned their parts on the plea of ill-
 
 206 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 health, and some of the men, knowing that Kemble 
 was performing against his will, acted up to the 
 manager's opinion rather than to the possibilities of 
 the play. 
 
 The audience had heard all sides, and knew 
 Kemble's standpoint; it was, therefore, frankly and 
 good-humouredly critical, and roared with laughter 
 when the actor announced 
 
 "And when thy solemn mockery is o'er, 
 With icy hand thou takst him by the feet 
 And upwards so, till thou dost reach the heart, 
 And wrap him in the cloak of lasting night." 
 
 The play being announced for reappearance, an 
 outburst of howls condemned the proposal. 
 
 Ireland declared later that he had written every part 
 in the play for a particular actor, and that he had pur- 
 posely assigned to Mtrs. Jordan a Character which 
 needed small-clothes, and had introduced a song in 
 which she might touch the audience with her pathetic 
 rendering. He and his father were ruined, 102 13$. 3^. 
 being their share of the night's receipts; and that was 
 all they got according to the writer in The Dictionary 
 of National Biography, though Boaden affirms that 
 300 had previously been paid them. Samuel Ireland 
 had believed implicitly in all that his son had told him, 
 but every one treated him as guilty, and he died four 
 years later, asserting that " he was totally ignorant of 
 the deceit." Young Ireland fled from his father's 
 house, and for years became more or less of an outcast. 
 In the book he published later he paid strong tribute 
 to Dorothy's particular kindness and affability when 
 he went to see her and in the Green Room where he 
 remained through the night of the representation, 
 " when not only her transcendent abilities as an actress
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 207 
 
 were exerted in my behalf before the curtain, but 
 reanimating expressions while in the Green Room con- 
 tinually flowed from her lips, in order to rouse me from 
 the mental depression under which I so obviously 
 laboured." 
 
 Kemble did not grieve over the failure of this play, 
 and his attitude proved him a man before he was an 
 actor, being better pleased to say " I told you so " than 
 to try for success. The management were inclined to 
 blame his acting for the extent of the fiasco, and there 
 was a general sense of friction, ready to blaze forth on 
 the least occasion. The occasion was not long in 
 coming, for Dorothy chose Hamlet for her benefit 
 night. Why she did this it is impossible to say, as 
 Kemble had already advertised it for his own benefit. 
 It may have been pure cussedness in retaliation for his 
 acting in Vortigern, or she may have wished to try 
 conclusions with him; in any case her choice led to 
 high and violent disputes, and the matter was at last 
 offered to the arbitration of Sheridan, who gave the 
 wise judgment that neither should take Hamlet as a 
 benefit play, which so annoyed Kemble that he 
 threatened to resign. Boaden carefully gives no hint 
 of this affair either in his Life of Kemble or that of 
 Mrs. Jordan. Kemble's annoyance was loudly uttered 
 and widely criticized, one letter among the many which 
 appeared in the press containing the following 
 paragraphs 
 
 " Kemble can never stand in the first rank of favour- 
 ites till he evinces greater abilities and less self- 
 conceit. Before that period arrives he will constantly 
 meet with mortifications whenever he contends with 
 a performer of Mrs. Jordan's merits, who is singularly
 
 2o8 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 capable of supporting the interests of the theatre, as 
 he has himself most injudiciously proved by placing 
 her perpetually in situations where all around her were 
 drawbacks instead of assistants. If any dispute 
 between actors be brought before the public, their 
 motto must, of course, be Spectemur agenda Let our 
 performances be the test and upon this ground the 
 question has long been completely divided between 
 the contending parties. ... I cannot quit this subject 
 without remarking that I have scarcely ever observed 
 a more glaring instance of clumsy misrepresentation 
 than in the statement made of the loss likely to be 
 sustained by the lovers of the drama in consequence, 
 forsooth, of this fracas. A long list of performers is 
 pompously held forth as following Mr. Kemble upon 
 this his threatened secession; whereas, most unfor- 
 tunately, not only all those who frequent the theatre, 
 but all who cast their eye upon a newspaper, have 
 repeatedly been informed that every individual of that 
 list has, for some time past, resolved upon quitting the 
 stage at the conclusion of the present season, and that, 
 too, before Hamlet (which, it seems, was the bone of 
 contention) was even put into rehearsal. 
 
 "Miso PUFF." 
 
 Dorothy chose the part of Juliet for her benefit on 
 April 25, to which character she scarcely did justice; 
 for, as with Imogen, she did not possess the right 
 qualities to interpret it well. The benefit system must 
 have been somewhat of a charge upon a noted and 
 good-humoured performer, who was far more likely to 
 be solicited to play than one of more austere mood, 
 such as Mrs. Siddons. There was ever some reason
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 209 
 
 for Dorothy to give her work with only sweet words 
 for payment, and if she now and then repented and let 
 another slip into her place, her taskmaster, the public, 
 was always ready with flagellation. 
 
 Thus, in this year of 1 796, after her own benefit, she 
 had to repay the favours received in a way that no less 
 popular person would have been required to do. At 
 Mrs. Pope's benefit, May 5, she played Lucy in The 
 Virgin Unmasked; for Barrymore, on the 2oth, she 
 took Juliet for the third time; for Bannister the next 
 night she was Nell in The Devil to Pay; then came a 
 charity performance at Covent Garden, and another at 
 Drury Lane, on June 9, for the widows and orphans 
 of Benson, who had acted with her in Vortigern. 
 Benson had thrown himself down from the top of his 
 house in a delirium, which was caused, it was reported, 
 by the fact that the scornful shouts of the audience 
 over that play rang constantly in his ears. 
 
 For some reason Dorothy resigned her part at the 
 Covent Garden benefit and drew the usual public 
 rebukes. " How is it that Mrs. Jordan was absent on 
 an occasion of charity? " " If Mrs. Jordan refused to 
 play she was wrong ! " " There is too much fuss over 
 the little Sultana," etc. Truly the public was a hard 
 taskmaster. 
 
 For the last time she took the part of Priscilla Tom- 
 boy in The Romp on May 6 of this year, for she was 
 now nearly thirty-five, and began to feel disinclined 
 for the breeches parts in which she was so popular. 
 
 Kemble's position had not improved as a manager. 
 
 Not only the performers but the weekly workmen were 
 
 often unpaid; duns were always about the doors, and 
 
 almost nightly he received notes, such as " Mrs. 
 
 o
 
 2io The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 So-and-So will not go on the stage to-night unless all 
 arrears are remitted " ; or " Messrs. This-and-That will 
 not supply the stage furniture unless the previous bill 
 is paid." To one who was straightforward and scrupu- 
 lous in his dealings this was a refinement of torture, 
 which culminated when he was actually arrested for 
 some theatrical debt. He paid the money and resigned 
 his post. This resignation has been attributed by 
 some biographers to the quarrel over Hamlet with 
 Dorothy, but his relation with her formed but one of 
 a long list of grievances which made things unen- 
 durable. 
 
 Dorothy, it is said, nearly always got her money, 
 for she had "a very powerful friend who would not 
 allow her to be trifled with," especially on such an 
 important matter as money, might have been added. 
 Boaden said that this " friend " had secured a " steady 
 aversion which, in a certain quarter [Kemble], was 
 always manifested at the very sound of his name." 
 However, if in London she had to be always on the 
 defensive, in little Richmond she queened it over 
 every one. She played what she liked, and occasion- 
 ally indulged herself in those sentimental parts which 
 were not so popular in town, drawing from one critic 
 the remark that he would hint to her that she could 
 not be Mrs. Siddons, Miss Farren and Mrs. Jordan 
 at one and the same time. When she played there 
 in September the ever-ready reformer rebuked her in 
 The Monthly Mirror 
 
 " There is a custom at this theatre which cannot be 
 too much reprobated, and which is that of assigning the 
 whole of the Green Room to Mrs. Jordan during her 
 engagement, for the purpose of dressing ; so that while 
 one actress is occupying a large apartment, which
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 2 1 1 
 
 ought to be devoted to general use, twenty or thirty 
 performers are under the necessity of standing by the 
 sides and back scenes for several hours together among 
 lamp-lighters and scene-shifters, because Mrs. Jordan 
 is too great to intermingle with the rest of the com- 
 pany." In this case sympathy must be with the other 
 performers, though they had, as alternative to the 
 sides, various dressing-rooms in which to wait. 
 
 Dorothy's desire to play sentimental parts was 
 further gratified when Miss Farren left the stage, 
 which she did in the midst of an uproar in 1797. One 
 night the audience was kept waiting three hours for 
 her to appear, and were then told that she was too ill 
 the management having spent its time in futile per- 
 suasions. It owed her a tremendous sum, and nothing 
 but an unattainable golden salve would have cured 
 her illness. Having presumably made her terms, she 
 appeared again four nights later, to meet a house which 
 was gathered for the sole purpose of hissing and raging 
 at her, and she left the theatre rather than apologize 
 for a fault which she considered not to be hers. This 
 was the easier in that she no longer needed the favour 
 of the public, for the Countess of Derby died on 
 March 14, and on May i Miss Farren married the 
 delighted Earl, who had long paid his suit to her. 
 With the loss of Miss Farren and the Kembles, and 
 with Wroughton as manager, Dorothy was practically 
 supreme at Drury Lane. 
 
 In 1797 the Duke of Clarence made a change of 
 residence, and one which was decidedly for the better. 
 Petersham Lodge was not a large house, though it was 
 built on a stately plan round three sides of a grassy 
 court on the edge of Richmond Park. This, probably 
 wanting money, he had sold in 1794, though he still
 
 212 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 continued to live there. 1 But when old Lady North 
 died in the early part of 1797, Clarence was made 
 Ranger of Bushy Park in her stead, and in conse- 
 quence of his position as Chief Steward of the 
 Honour of Hampton. Thus Bushy House became 
 his residence. 
 
 Bushy House, surrounded by lovely gardens and 
 inset in the park of that name, was built in the reign 
 of William III, of red brick and was somewhat 
 curious in form; for on either side of the great square 
 of the main building are lower wings, possessing 
 rounded ends and extending both ways, forming the 
 whole as the letter H. In the end of one wing looking 
 west was the ballroom, its companion wing on the 
 same side holding the chapel, for William of Clarence 
 was devout in the blind fashion which considered that 
 religion had little to do with ethics, and he appointed 
 several chaplains for his service. The drawing-room 
 its moulded ceiling upheld by pillars and the other 
 sitting-rooms in which Dorothy lived for fourteen 
 years, are now filled with the delicate machinery of the 
 National Physical Laboratory, in connection with which 
 many buildings have risen in one corner of the garden ; 
 yet the house itself has suffered little change, and much 
 of the garden remains as it was a hundred years ago, 
 still containing the temple, or pillared summer-house 
 which was erected in honour of Lord Nelson. 
 
 For Dorothy this sylvan spot must have been a great 
 contrast to her Drury Lane existence, and she soon 
 grew to love it. Here most of her children were born, 
 and here they grew up and dwelt long after she had 
 gone out of their lives. In 1798 the number of her 
 
 1 Petersham Lodge was pulled down in 1834 and the grounds included 
 in the park. The present Petersham Lodge is the third of that name.
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 213 
 
 children were seven, three of them Fitzclarences. 
 About the date of the birth of the first Fitzclarence 
 girl, Sophia, there is, as has already been said, some 
 doubt; it may have been in 1797, but if so, she " came 
 out " at the early age of fourteen. On the other hand, 
 a member of the family asserts that Sophia was the 
 eldest Fitzclarence child, in which case she must have 
 been born in 1792, when Dorothy was said to have 
 suffered such a serious miscarriage, and the birth must 
 have been concealed from the public because of 
 the recent sensation concerning the Clarence-Jordan 
 alliance. The way in which this event was announced 
 in The Gentleman's Magazine " a five months' child, 
 which died immediately " almost raises suspicion that 
 this was so. But nineteen was considered at that date 
 as very late for presentation in Society. However, 
 succeeding years were apportioned to births or mis- 
 carriages, January 1794 and March 1795 to the former, 
 and March 1793 to the latter. 
 
 With her generous nature, Dorothy made warm 
 friends both among her dependents and outside her 
 home; nothing testifies so much to this as the letters 
 which she wrote at this time, many of which are still in 
 existence. They were often undated, but from internal 
 evidence and the watermarks it has, however, been easy 
 to assign them to their right period. The following, 
 perhaps to Miss Turner, was written soon after the 
 settling in Bushy House in 1797, and betrays in- 
 teresting facts about the family. 
 
 "July 9th, Bushy House. 
 
 " I will not, my dear friend, set about accounting for 
 my apparent neglect of you your own kind heart will 
 find excuse for me, and will, I am sure, do me the
 
 214 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 justice to feel it did not arise from any want of affec- 
 tion ungrateful indeed must I be to forget all your 
 kind affections believe me, I miss them on all occa- 
 sions. I am now settled here for some time but not 
 paid. Fanny [Frances Daly, then fifteen years of 
 age] has taken up her residence at Elliott's, Dora and 
 Lucy I have got comfortably lodged and boarded 
 within a quarter of a mile of me my sister is with me. 
 I had come to the resolution of parting with her, but 
 she shew'd so much contrition and sorrow at the idea 
 that I shall try her once again; the dear little ones 
 are all quite well, but, unfortunately, the smallpox 
 surrounds us. God preserve them. I am sure that 
 you will be glad to hear that the Duke gain'd a great 
 triumph in the House of Lords. Mrs. Lloyd was very 
 anxious to have the use of my house again [probably 
 in Somerset Street], but I positively refus'd her. I 
 expect Mrs. Sinclair, however, in a day or two. I saw 
 her last Friday, when she requested me to remember 
 her affectionately to you ; so write, and do not treat me 
 as I deserve. God bless you, my dear girl, and tell me 
 when it is likely that I shall see you; you will not 
 surely return without letting me hear from you. I am 
 in your debt, but that I can pay ; but how shall I make 
 a return for all your goodness and the many happy 
 moments you have afforded me let me see you again, 
 and I think I shall prove better how to value you. 
 Once More God Bless You. 
 
 " Yours ever affectionately and sincerely, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 The name of the unsatisfactory sister not being 
 given, it is not possible to say whether this was Hester 
 or the younger one ; the Mrs. Lloyd mentioned was the
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 215 
 
 wife of the Rev. Mr. Lloyd of Ewell, chaplain to the 
 Duke, who would come over, bringing his surplice with 
 him, when he thought it right to conduct a service in 
 the ducal establishment. A little later, for a con- 
 sideration of 400 a year, paid by Dorothy, he 
 undertook to board, lodge and teach Dorothy's eldest 
 children, as well as the young sister. As Hester was 
 thirty-nine at the time, no stretch of imagination could 
 turn her into a young thing needing education, and it 
 may even be doubted whether this girl was a sister at 
 all, for the youngest sister Dorothy could have had 
 would have been twenty-five. May she not have been 
 the elusive Hester, who exists rather by hints than 
 facts Dorothy's own child by an untraced man 
 named Bettesworth, born before the Ford connection? 
 It is noteworthy that at this time Dorothy was short 
 of money and " had not been paid " by whom ? the 
 theatrical people or the Duke ? There is also another 
 point in this letter which is quite remarkable. She 
 mentions a Mrs. Sinclair as being expected on a visit 
 to Bushy House. Now this lady, the wife of Robert 
 Sinclair, Laird of Fiswick, was Dorothy's aunt, her 
 father's own sister, and daughter of the stern Judge 
 Bland. Thus it is proved that she was accepted 
 socially by another legitimate member of the Bland 
 family, in addition to John Bland of Edinburgh 
 and Nathaniel Bland, her father's brother in London. 
 Mrs. Sinclair was a lady of social importance, and the 
 Duke of Clarence wrote to her concerning one of her 
 visits to Bushy as follows l 
 
 1 To General Thomas Bland Strange, R.A., a descendant of Mrs. 
 Sinclair's sister, Lucy Bland (Mrs. Orpen), I am indebted for kind 
 permission to reproduce this letter.
 
 216 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 "Bushy, Monday night. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, 
 
 ' This evening I received the enclosed letter 
 from Lord Harcourt, by which you will perceive at 
 length it is settled that Strange is to be considered 
 as entitled free of all expense. 1 Keep the letter to 
 prevent future disputes. 
 
 ' The country is beautiful, and as Mrs. Jordan's 
 carriage returns from London on Thursday, you will 
 perhaps come in it, and enjoy the fresh eggs, butter 
 and cream. Remember we dine at five, and ever 
 believe me, 
 
 :< Yours sincerely, 
 
 "WILLIAM." 
 
 Another letter of Dorothy's, written two years later 
 to Miss Turner, who had probably held the position 
 of governess in the family, may be reproduced here, as 
 it deals with domestic events, and again shows the 
 pressing want of money. 
 
 " Why will you, my dear girl, make yourself uneasy 
 about me. Believe, I am very well; however, I 
 think a little bark may strengthen me. I am sincerely 
 sorry that you are going to leave us, but won't blame 
 your friends for their anxiety to see you. Let me 
 know when we may expect to see you again. Let me 
 request you will not stay long away; believe me, you 
 have not, among the people who love and who must 
 love you, one who more truly values your friendship 
 than I do. My poor little girls will miss your society 
 greatly. You give me great pleasure in saying that 
 
 1 An allusion to the fact that her nephew, Alexander Strange, grand- 
 son of Judge Bland, was made a Knight of Windsor for distinguished 
 military services.
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 217 
 
 you think Mrs. Betty will answer; God grant she 
 may. And now, my dear girl, the money I owe 
 you is among the least of the kindnesses I have 
 received from you, and it is the only one of the many 
 I can make a return for. Let me know how much it 
 is, and I will so far gratify your good heart as to let 
 you have it as I can spare it. The dear little ones are 
 all well. God bless you, and may you be as happy 
 as you deserve and as I shall now wish you, 
 
 ' Your affectionate friend, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN. 
 
 " The Duke desires to be remembered affectionately 
 to you." 
 
 To this may be added a third letter, written in 1800, 
 and probably also to Miss Turner. In this Dorothy 
 mentions buying a house, but which house this was it 
 has not been possible to trace. 
 
 "... Your kind remembrances, my dear friend, 
 and gentle rebukes sensibly affect me ; believe me, no 
 length of time or space can ever lessen the love I have 
 for you. You know my dislike to writing, which has 
 been greatly strengthened by seldom having anything 
 pleasant to communicate. I hate talking of myself. 
 I hear of you, tho' not from you, which I own I have 
 no right to complain of ; do not, I entreat you, punish 
 me too severely by not keeping your promise of coming 
 to us. The house will be ready to receive you the end 
 of September ; I should be afraid of your going into [it] 
 before. Can your dear and good friends part with 
 you ? I admit their superior claims to your company. 
 ... I trust the girls will be comfortably settled. 
 Mrs. Elliot has got them a very superior governess,
 
 218 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 who will, I hope, make the house very agreeable to 
 you all. I shall be with you some part of every day 
 too vain I am to hold this out to you as an inducement 
 to fulfil your promise. George sends his love to dear 
 Dott ; so far from having forgot you, believe me, you are 
 a very constant theme. I am sure you will be glad to 
 hear that dear Mrs. Elliot has got a little girl. The 
 dear children are all in high health, and really I think 
 Frederick the finest and handsomest boy I ever saw, 
 but he has not a tooth yet, which makes me rather 
 uneasy. I have been playing . . . and fagging myself 
 to death, but it has enabled me to pay a good part of 
 the purchase money of my house. The dear good 
 Duke desires me to say that he shall be the first to 
 welcome you. God bless you, dear. I rejoice to hear 
 that your health is so much improved; may you enjoy 
 that and every other blessing is the sincere prayer of 
 your affectionate friend, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 It was about the year 1797 that Dorothy exerted 
 herself to gain the friendship of a man who might be 
 useful to her. She was so often vilified by the press 
 that it is not to be wondered at that she looked round 
 for a friend in its ranks who would now and then do 
 her a good turn. She had seen James Boaden in the 
 company of Kemble and Sheridan, and as he was the 
 editor of The Oracle, also a playwright and a critic, 
 she secured an introduction to him (or, as he himself 
 says, introduced herself to him), and afterwards occa- 
 sionally wrote to ask his advice upon some theatrical 
 matter. 
 
 Boaden dearly loved high rank, and the favour of 
 a prince was sufficient to give him exquisite happiness,
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 219 
 
 so thenceforth all things that Dorothy asked of him 
 were granted, in so far as was possible. He may have 
 known more of the joint life at Bushy Park than he 
 revealed ; indeed he must have known more, for things 
 which were not included in his book were often public 
 property at the time of their happening, and when he 
 was in Dorothy's confidence. In writing his Life 
 of her, too, he started by making great promises of 
 settling all mysteries, yet he ended having probably 
 been cajoled by William IV by telling nothing, his 
 chief new contribution being a number of letters written 
 to him by Mrs. Jordan. As The Dramatic Magazine 
 said of his book, " it might with equal propriety have 
 been termed a History of England or a Life of George 
 III," so diffuse was he. 
 
 He does, however, give some interesting pictures of 
 Dorothy, such as the following, which belongs to 1798. 
 She had sent for him to Somerset Street to talk over a 
 new play The Secret by Morris, which was filled 
 with improper situations, such being, as Dorothy 
 pointed out, "quite usual on the stage, whatever the 
 world might think of it." His advice was against it, 
 and she told him that the Duke, who had read it, had 
 uttered the same verdict. Boaden adds 
 
 " She was in charming spirits, and occasionally ran 
 over the strings of her guitar. Her young family 
 were playing about us, and the present Colonel George 
 Fitzclarence, then a child between four and five years 
 old, amused me much with his spirit and strength; he 
 attacked me as, his mother told me, his fine-tempered 
 father was accustomed to permit him to do. He cer- 
 tainly was an infant Hercules." From this it may be 
 gathered that Dorothy sometimes took her children to 
 town with her when making a stay there.
 
 There was one event which happened just now which 
 caused Dorothy much pain ; a small thing, but remem- 
 bered to the end of her life. Charles Macklin, " the 
 father of the Stage," died in 1797 at the age of ninety- 
 seven, and two years later his Life was published. 
 In this was detailed a promise made and broken by 
 Mrs. Jordan. The old man's last years had been 
 rendered comfortable by the sale of a subscribed 
 edition of his works in 1791, at which time Dorothy 
 had written him as follows 
 
 " I have done myself the pleasure of subscribing to 
 your works ten pounds, and request you will accept the 
 same from me, every year, in remembrance and respect 
 of your superior abilities." 
 
 After this, however, she had found a more insistently 
 needy friend in the Duke of Clarence, and was unable 
 to continue the ten pounds a year promised, which 
 made Macklin very angry; he wrote for the money, 
 and she, shrinking from a definite refusal, did not 
 answer. So in his Life appeared the following 
 criticism : " She " (Mrs. Jordan) " had received all the 
 merit and praise due to her for her promised liberality, 
 because her letter addressed to Mr. Macklin was en- 
 closed under cover to Mr. John Bell, bookseller, 
 Strand ; was handed about in his shop as a testimony 
 of her generosity, and announced publicly in the news- 
 papers; but, lest the world should be misled, we can 
 assure the public that Mr. Macklin never received one 
 single shilling from Mrs. Jordan subsequent to her first 
 subscription. The sum of the transaction is this : Mrs. 
 Jordan had all the merit of the bounty; Mr. Macklin 
 had not the benefit of it."
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 221 
 
 Would Macklin's vexed spirit have been soothed 
 had it known how deeply Dorothy felt this reproach, 
 and what an impression his hardness made upon her 
 mind ? In one of her conversations with Miss Williams 
 at St. Cloud in 1816 she referred to the Macklin 
 episode 
 
 " I must repeat, Miss Williams, that it never came 
 within my knowledge to observe cruelty a predominant 
 passion in a performer; the only instance I remember 
 upon record of malice being carried to a pitch of 
 revenge was exemplified in the conduct of Mr. Macklin, 
 who certainly seemed to possess the germs of vin- 
 dictiveness in his composition." She continued, re- 
 ferring to the Kembles, but not by name : " As for 
 jealousy and ill -nature, I had an awful share to 
 encounter in the progress of my public life, and from 
 quarters pursuing a different walk, consequently the 
 last who ought to have manifested their spleen towards 
 me. For a considerable time I met those shafts with 
 good nature, but, finding such conduct increase rather 
 than otherwise, I banished my smiles and had recourse 
 to reserve, until, the attacks becoming too frequent and 
 pointed for further endurance, I was compelled to 
 make my grievances known in another channel" (Sheri- 
 dan), " where immediate redress was accorded me." 
 
 Dorothy worked very hard this year, and appeared 
 in several new pieces, one being The Will, by 
 Frederick Reynolds, another Cumberland's The Last 
 of the Family, in which Dorothy took the part of the 
 heroine. In June she closed the Covent Garden 
 season by acting Peggy and Nell for a benefit, and at 
 Drury Lane she did The Country Girl for the widows 
 and orphans made by the battle off Cape St. Vincent. 
 Later, a benefit was given for the sufferers in Lord
 
 222 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Duncan's action off the coast of Holland, when 
 Dorothy Jordan acted in The Will and The Prize. 
 " In short," says Boaden, " she was a full and perfect 
 contrast to those whose services were always to be paid, 
 though exerted even for a relation." By which last 
 sentence Boaden meant Mrs. Siddons, who, whether 
 she deserved it or not, had gained the reputation of 
 never playing except for money. 
 
 That summer Mrs. Jordan acted both at Richmond 
 and Margate. At the latter place she found the 
 bracing air very good after the closeness of London 
 and the relaxing effect of the Thames Valley, and from 
 this time she often not only refreshed her body but 
 replenished her purse in the small but fashionable 
 Thanet resort. 
 
 Once while on the Margate stage she had to act with 
 a hitherto unknown Irishman, and at the point where 
 he had to kiss her in the play she turned her head so 
 as to present little more than her ear. 
 
 "Och, by Jasus," said he, " I'll be d d if I kiss 
 
 you at all, at all ; if you won't let me play my part as 
 a man should, you may do it all yourself." And he 
 very deliberately walked off the stage, to the loud and 
 delighted laughter of the audience. 
 
 Among her plays that autumn was The Castle 
 Spectre, by " Monk " Lewis, which was very short but 
 regarded as astonishingly beautiful, its chief attraction 
 being a glorified ghost scene in which the spirit of 
 Angela's mother comes from an oratory, which is sud- 
 denly and miraculously illuminated, to bless her 
 orphan child. This made the little play so popular 
 that it was acted nearly fifty times during the season. 
 
 This character of Angela explains an allusion in a 
 hurried letter Dorothy wrote to Lewis, asking that she
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 223 
 
 might bring a new comedy of his before the public. 
 The letter is undated, but as the comedy was brought 
 out in 1 799 it must have been written about this time. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " Before I had the pleasure of seeing you last 
 I had determined to write to you to request that you 
 would have the goodness to enable me to have the 
 happiness of presenting the public the Comedy of the 
 East Indian^ as any production of yours would prove 
 of the utmost consequence. I cannot describe to you 
 how disappointed I should be, independent of the great 
 loss of so great an attraction. I will put off my night 
 till after Bannister's; don't let poor Angela plead in 
 vain. I will have the copy returned to me after the 
 play; of the success I have not a doubt. Once more 
 let me entreat. 
 
 " Yours ever obliged, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 From January 16 to March 14, 1798, Dorothy acted 
 every theatrical night, and then, an opera being 
 put on, she had some rest. In May she was in 
 O'Keefe's She's Eloped, in which she " laboured hard 
 for the author, but the task was hopeless from the first 
 act." Of this failure O'Keefe wrote 
 
 " For ' She's Eloped ' her gentle heart much grieved, 
 That jilt, called Fortune, ceased to use me well, 
 My comic efforts were but ill received, 
 With Dora tho' she came, frowns greet my Arabel." 
 
 In June, to mention benefit nights only, she gave her 
 services for the General Lying-in Hospital; her 
 Beatrice in The Panel drew crowds to Miss De Camp's 
 evening, and in September she acted in The Stranger
 
 224 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 for the benefit of John Palmer's children; he, poor 
 man, having fallen dead on the stage in the May of 
 that year, it was said, through grief at the loss of his 
 wife and a favourite child. This summer she acted at 
 Richmond, but nowhere else, for which abstinence 
 there was sufficient family reason, in that on November 
 1 8 her daughter Mary was born at Bushy House. 
 
 This time she seems to have taken a long rest, for 
 the next public mention of her is in March 1799; for 
 her benefit in April she played in the East Indian the 
 part she had been so anxious to secure from " Monk " 
 Lewis. In May Mrs. Siddons, Kemble and Dorothy 
 were rehearsing Pizarro, a tragedy by Kotzebue, whose 
 Stranger had made him popular in England. Sheridan 
 had spent months in altering the play, and so took a 
 paternal interest in its representation, passing an even- 
 ing of acute misery in his box on the opening night. 
 He did not believe in Mrs. Jordan for tragedy, but had 
 to give her the second woman's part that he might 
 secure the attraction of her name, but he was certain 
 that she would not come up to his ideal. Boaden says 
 that he was in the utmost ill-humour, shocked, almost 
 stamping with anger at everything Dorothy said, and 
 declaring that she could not speak a line of it properly. 
 But his chief terror was over Mrs. Siddons, who had 
 not fallen in with his notion of the character, and he 
 kept saying, " There, there, I told you, Richardson, 
 that she would never fall into the character." With 
 Kemble, however, he was transported, crying, " Beau- 
 tiful ! sublime ! perfection ! " 
 
 However, the players settled down to their parts, 
 and the piece had a wonderful run ; as some one said, 
 " Fortunately the health and strength of the performers 
 lasted through thirty-one repetitions," Sheridan being
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 225 
 
 the better by 15,000. These Kotzebue dramas were 
 all built upon seduction and villainy, but their intense 
 Teutonic sentimentalism made them very dear to the 
 English heart. 
 
 Through all this work Dorothy continued her mater- 
 nal cares, her children coming quickly one after the 
 other, and on December 9 she gave birth to the boy 
 Frederick mentioned in a foregoing letter. There 
 was, in fact, little truth in the compliment which The 
 Comic Muse tried to pay the new Countess of Derby 
 through Dorothy 
 
 " Jordan be sure to do your house a grace 
 Would cease her labours for the Brunswick race ; 
 Proud for your brow the laurel wreath to twine, 
 Lop off one hero from the royal line." 
 
 It was just at this time that Kelly and Sheridan laid 
 a bet as to whether the King could be induced to attend 
 the Drury Lane Pantomime of Blue Beard, evidence 
 of which is preserved in the British Museum on a scrap 
 of paper bearing the following 
 
 " Dec. 8, 99. Mr. Kelly Bets Mr. Sheridan a Rump 
 and Dozen that the King comes to Drury Lane 
 Theatre this season to the performance of Blue Beard. 
 
 "M. KELLY. 
 " R. SHERIDAN. 
 " At 40 Curzon Street." 
 
 Pressure was probably put upon the King to extend 
 his patronage once more to Drury Lane, though 
 whether he saw Blue Beard must remain unknown. 
 But if Kelly lost his bet the moral victory lay with him, 
 for George IV commanded several performances in 
 the spring of 1800, and he always had the good taste
 
 226 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 to choose plays in which Dorothy took part. On 
 Thursday, March 20, she played before him as Lady 
 Contest in The Wedding Day ; on Thursday, April 3, 
 she was Miss Prue in Love for Love; and on May 15 
 the commanded play was She Would and She Would 
 Not. 
 
 This last was an evening long to be remembered. 
 The King, Queen and no less than four princesses 
 arrived in state, the younger people anxious again to 
 see the woman who "appeared to have justified the 
 attachment of one so dear to them, and to retain his 
 respect as well as his affection." Scarcely, however, 
 had they entered their boxes indeed before all were 
 in, and while the King stood for a moment in the front 
 looking upon the theatre, when a half-crazy man, 
 named Hadfield, shot at him from the pit. The Queen 
 pressed forward to know what was wrong, and was 
 told it was only a squib. But she was too alert to be 
 deceived, and asked her royal spouse if they should 
 remain. 
 
 " Certainly ! the whole of the entertainment," was 
 the kingly response. 
 
 So these poor frightened ladies sat out a long per- 
 formance, three of the princesses appropriately faint- 
 ing according to the fashion of the times. All honour 
 to the fourth, Elizabeth, who resisted the temptation 
 to add to the confusion ! 
 
 The audience enjoyed themselves by terrific excite- 
 ment, demanding that the would-be assassin, who had 
 been dragged neck and crop over the orchestra box 
 into the nether regions, should be produced on the 
 stage that they might be satisfied that he was properly 
 bound. So Dorothy, with her pretty voice, came on to 
 assure them that the miscreant was perfectly well
 
 From Petersham to Bushy Park 227 
 
 secured and properly attended. Then, with the intro- 
 duction of " God save the King," the play commenced. 
 Every one was too agitated to act well, and the even- 
 ing drew to an early close. It is said that the King 
 recoiled when the pistol-shot sounded; then stepped 
 boldly to the front of the box, put his opera-glass to 
 his eyes and calmly looked round the house. That 
 night the monarch had to spend a considerable time 
 going from room to room to calm the weeping and 
 fainting princesses, Amelia falling into one fit after 
 another, until it was wondered whether she would 
 recover at all. Some people are fearing to-day lest 
 women should lose their womanliness that is to say, 
 lest they should lose their sentimentality, their depend- 
 ence, their sweet, clinging ways ; but how would those 
 people like it if the dear things went back to the 
 manners of a hundred years ago, fainting and shedding 
 floods of tears whenever any untoward event occurred ? 
 
 Boaden says that the shooting incident was bitter 
 for the actors, as they could no longer hope for the 
 King's presence in their house. 
 
 Dorothy's first appearance this year, March 18, 
 1800, was an ovation. She had made too long an 
 absence, said The Monthly Mirror, and she was wel- 
 comed " with a warmth which proved that she had not 
 lost any portion of that popularity which her admirable 
 comic talents had so deservedly gained her." 
 
 For the first time she played Lady Teazle on May 
 27, a part which was a favourite with her to the end of 
 her life. It was this month that she introduced " a 
 simple little ballad " into her part of Beatrice in The 
 Panel, called " The Blue Bells of Scotland," and the 
 following year this song was published as being com- 
 posed and sung by her, which gave rise to a Notes and
 
 228 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Queries controversy in 1852, as well as a reputation to 
 Dorothy in her own day of being a composer; a fact 
 which shows how ready the world was to credit their 
 Thalia with powers unusual to an actress. 1 She was 
 known to write some of the songs she sang, and even 
 published them at a profit, as one of her letters shows ; 
 she was believed to be the author, or part-author, of 
 at least two plays, The Spoiled Child and Anna, and 
 now her admirers credited her with being a composer 
 of music. 
 
 1 The words of the song in question were of much earlier date ; the 
 composer remains undiscovered.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FAMILY CARES 
 
 " Should British women from the contest swerve ? 
 Well form a female army of reserve 
 And class them thus. Old maids are pioneers; 
 Widows, sharpshooters ; wives are fusileers; 
 Maids are battalions that's all under twenty ; 
 And as for light troops, we have them in plenty; 
 Vixens the trumpet blow ; scolds beat the drum 
 When thus prepared, what enemy will come ? " 
 
 From The Soldier's Daughter, by CHERRY. 
 
 " She was a constant wife, an affectionate mother and a sincere friend, 
 ever solicitous and on the watch for their united comfort and happiness." 
 The Fashionable Cypriad, on Dorothy Jordan. 
 
 FOR some years Dorothy Jordan's life seems out- 
 wardly to have run smoothly, and to offer nothing of 
 great moment to the chronicler. She passed most of 
 her time at Bushy, a new baby appearing almost every 
 year. 
 
 When the theatre opened in September 1801, 
 Dorothy acted for about two months, then went into 
 the country to prepare for the coming event, which 
 occurred on January 18, on which date her daughter 
 Elizabeth was born she who, through her marriage 
 with the Earl of Errol, was to become the grandmother 
 of the late Duke of Fife. 
 
 Thirteen months later, on February 18, 1802, 
 another child arrived, Adolphus, whether to the delight 
 or distress of his parents is not revealed. By this time 
 the public was beginning to look askance at that 
 establishment at Bushy House, which seemed capable 
 of producing a whole generation of pseudo-princelings, 
 to demand support from John Bull. Thus, the Duke 
 
 229
 
 230 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and Dorothy were made by newspaper comment to feel 
 their children something of a care, and to regard each 
 successive arrival with apprehension. The caricaturist 
 also found this family a fit subject for brush and pencil 
 though the output of pictorial skits was nothing 
 compared with that which harried the early matri- 
 monial life of Queen Victoria. The pictures were, 
 however, much uglier ; all Clarence's personal defects, 
 his short stature, thick lips and goggle eyes being 
 cruelly exaggerated. In one cartoon he is represented 
 like a rough farmer mopping his heated brow, while 
 he drags through the park a perambulator containing 
 three hideous children, the mother walking behind 
 and assiduously studying a theatrical part. But a hint 
 or drawing of Dorothy, describing her as extravagant, 
 or using money wrongly is not to be found among 
 them, the tendency being rather to prove that she had 
 little money to spend. Indeed, these two people 
 seemed always to be hard up ; the Duke's income was 
 gone before it came, even though he lived fairly 
 quietly, and Dorothy was too generous ever to be rich. 
 She had many ways of spending an income, quite apart 
 from her own home and personal expenses, and it was 
 not difficult for her income to melt and leave no trace 
 behind. The public seemed always to know when she 
 felt particularly short of money, as the following 
 very likely false anecdote shows 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan, being once in great distress, and 
 dunned by an apothecary, besought him to desist, as 
 she was unable to pay him, and begged that he would 
 be satisfied with taking her life. The son of ^scula- 
 pius, although he had no objection to sending people 
 out of the world, professionally, and secundem artem, 
 was yet, nevertheless, quite staggered at a proposal
 
 Family Cares 231 
 
 that sounded so terrible, and recoiled from it in 
 evident horror. Mrs. Jordan, however, presented to 
 him good heavens, a dagger, or some other dreadful 
 weapon? No, reader, the instrument she presented 
 was merely intended to kill time, viz. two volumes of 
 her own Memoirs, which she tendered to the man of 
 medicine, and thus relieved him from his amazement 
 and apprehension." 
 
 At this time, there seems to have been little differ- 
 ence in her family dependents. George, gentle, 
 affectionate and inefficient, was, more than likely, still 
 a pensioner, though he was soon to seek his fortunes 
 in America and to find there a pitiable death. Frank 
 was, undoubtedly, still requiring all the assistance he 
 could get from Dorothy, who could never refuse giving 
 if she had anything to give. He was also the occa- 
 sional cause of domestic trouble between her and the 
 Duke, who, whatever his promises, protestations and 
 bonds, seemed much more concerned about the dis- 
 position of her money than about bestowing upon her 
 the promised ,1000 a year. 
 
 The following letter must have been written when 
 custom had staled the Duke's love and trust in his 
 partner's carefulness ; for it reveals a somewhat painful 
 state of things : 
 
 " DEAR FRANK, 
 
 " Having written to you immediately on the receipt 
 of your last, saying that as soon as I got the money I 
 would send you what I could spare, I was greatly 
 surprised in not hearing from you in reply. That the 
 person to whom I entrusted the letter actually opened 
 it and kept it till this day, will account for my wishing 
 you to copy the enclosed in a strange hand, and direct
 
 232 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 it to Mrs. King, George's Coffee-house, Haymarket. 
 This woman was many years in the family at St. 
 James, and I suppose wanted to catch me sending 
 money to you or any of my family. The sooner you 
 write the better. You must afterwards write such a 
 letter to me that I may be able to show should (it) be 
 necessary, and which I would indite for you. I will 
 send you to-morrow 5. 
 
 " Yours, 
 "D. J." 
 
 From this letter it can be seen that the Duke thought 
 himself justified in saying how Dorothy might spend 
 the money she earned, and that if she wished to help 
 a worthless brother, disguised handwriting and round- 
 about methods were requisite. It shows also a worse 
 thing, and that was, that people about the Duke 
 (notably one who had long been a servant in the Royal 
 household), had permission, if not instructions, to spy 
 upon Dorothy, and intercept her letters ! 
 
 Frank had married, but he led an unsettled life, for 
 he had now no profession. When he went to Trelethyn 
 he was no doubt persuaded by Dorothy, who gave him 
 an allowance of 50 a year ; so he took a little house 
 in the Cathedral Close of St. Davids, probably hoping 
 to live the simple life within his income, as he had no 
 children to support. However, this did not last long, 
 and Captain Frank Bland returned once more to the 
 wider world. What he did then is matter for con- 
 jecture; begged of Dorothy, certainly, while she tried 
 various means of finding him occupation. A friend of 
 mine recently saw a letter which the Duke of York 
 wrote to her from the Horseguards, in the spring of 
 J 799 promising to accede to her request of appoint-
 
 Family Cares 233 
 
 ing some one to a certain post. Who was this? 
 Perhaps Frank, under his own, or an assumed name ; 
 for the Duke of York, who was soon after sent to the 
 Netherlands, was in a position then to make appoint- 
 ments for that expedition. Perhaps Francis went with 
 him, only to return once more to worry his sister. In 
 any case, he entirely disappears from record after this, 
 and it may be that a strange story told by Laurence 
 Oliphant explains what became of him. 1 
 
 Oliphant tells that when in Italy, in 1862, he visited 
 Manfredonia, a town on the western coast. Walking 
 through the streets one day, he was accosted by a little 
 girl, who gave him a note which ran 
 
 " Miss Thimbleby requests the pleasure of the 
 English Gentleman's company to tea to-night, at 
 nine o'clock. Old English Style." 
 
 Possessed by the spirit of adventure, he accepted 
 the invitation, and found his way in the evening to an 
 6ld tumble-down palazzo. On entering, he mounted 
 a wide and beautiful staircase of carved oak, at the top 
 of which stood a little old woman, like a witch in 
 appearance, bobbing and curtseying all the time he 
 was making the ascent. She shook hands affection- 
 ately and warmly, trembling with excitement or age 
 for she was very, very old, well on in the nineties, she 
 said. She had forgotten much of her English, having 
 been in Italy since 1804, when she had gone there with 
 her brother, who was appointed English Consul at 
 Manfredonia, that year. Her brother and his wife had 
 died long before, but she had a small pension from the 
 English Government, and was taken care of by nieces 
 
 1 Episode in a Life of Adventure in Albania and Italy. By Laurence 
 Oliphant, 1887.
 
 234 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and nephews. She also said that her brother had been 
 connected with the Duke of York's expedition, and 
 that her sister was the celebrated Mrs. Jordan. Oli- 
 phant finishes his story with, " Manfredonia was an 
 odd place to come to to gather the moss of English 
 history, but I really felt as if I had made a discovery 
 when I learnt from this most venerable, and highly 
 respectable old lady that Mrs. Jordan, the actress's real 
 name was Thimbleby." 
 
 Oliphant certainly told this in all good faith, and 
 was quite convinced of the good faith of the old lady, 
 who was so used to her name that it could not occur to 
 her that the family name was different; and though 
 some critics may think it absurd to attach importance 
 to the story, yet a student of biography knows the 
 futility of putting aside any honest evidence without 
 sifting it; and in this matter there is certainly room 
 for conjecture. General circumstances lend to it an 
 air of truth, for, early in the nineteenth century, when 
 Napoleon was harassing Italy, many sub-consuls were 
 appointed, especially for towns on the coast. So here 
 arose a way of disposing of the tiresome Frank, and 
 one which, by good management, it was easy to take. 
 The Duke of Clarence, however, through whom it 
 would have been worked, would not have risked, under 
 the recurring state of public irritation against himself, 
 the securing of even a minor appointment for a Bland, 
 and the obvious method would have been to change 
 the name. So a not inconceivable theory is that Frank, 
 his wife, and his youngest sister, all under the name of 
 Thimbleby, were comfortably shipped off to vegetate 
 in the little town, whence they would find it very 
 difficult to return. In any case, Frank is heard of no 
 more as a hanger-on to Dorothy's fortunes, and the
 
 Family Cares 235 
 
 relatives in Wales knew neither where nor when he 
 died. 
 
 Thirty years after the English Sub-consul was 
 appointed at Manfredonia, a stranger called upon 
 Hester Bland at Trelethyn, and told her that he was 
 her nephew, " a son (as I thought) of her brother, 
 Francis Bland." * But Hester was getting old, 
 seventy-five then, and she had never been clever, so 
 she told him that he was not a Bland at all, and that her 
 brother had no son. If the Thimbleby story is true, 
 Frank had both son and daughter, after going to Italy. 
 
 Hester, with her annuity of 50 a year, probably 
 settled down in Trelethyn before the beginning of 
 1800, for about this time, says the Welsh chronicles, 
 three of Dorothy's girls were sent, under the care of an 
 aunt, on a visit to their relatives there, staying a while 
 in lodgings in St. Davids. As Hester was well-known 
 by everyone there, and by the writer of the letter, 
 stating this fact, it would have been recorded had she 
 been the chaperone. 
 
 Nathaniel, who alone, needed nothing of Dorothy, 
 lived his quiet, childless life at Trelethyn until his 
 death on May 31, 1830, his wife surviving until 1852. 
 
 So, gradually, the burden of Dorothy's contem- 
 porary relatives slipped from her shoulders, and left 
 her free to think of the children who needed so much, 
 and for a year or two she had something like family 
 peace. But she could never have felt quite secure with 
 such a man as Clarence, though she would now have 
 found it difficult to imagine her life in any other cir- 
 cumstances. Her love for the stage had waned, her 
 ambition was satisfied, she had received adulation 
 without stint, and she knew herself to be the best 
 
 1 Family Letters.
 
 236 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 comedy actress on the stage. So she took longer holi- 
 days before and after each confinement, and there were 
 times when Drury Lane had cause to regret her 
 absence. Yet the want of pence was too pressing for 
 her to dream of retiring, even if her rivalry with Mrs. 
 Siddons would have allowed her to desert the field of 
 battle before that majestic actress did so. 
 
 As for William of Clarence, if at one time he had 
 shown signs of an errant fancy, he now appeared to 
 take his domesticity as a long-standing habit, desiring 
 nothing else. He was too far from the throne four 
 lives for him to be a person of national importance, 
 and no one cared whether he passed his life by the 
 side of a comedy actress, or whether he married an 
 impecunious German princess. Indeed, his fond 
 parents, at this time, probably preferred the actress, 
 as with her there was no need to keep up state, and she 
 could do much to help the family exchequer. Habit 
 and intimacy had deepened Dorothy's feelings, so that 
 the connection, begun as a bargain, had developed into 
 one of warm affection. She wrote in one letter of her 
 dislike to writing of herself, but when she was away 
 from Clarence she wrote to him almost every day, 
 indeed, sometimes twice a day. These were not letters 
 in the usual sense, they were emanations of herself, as 
 inevitable as the atmosphere, she wrote because she 
 must, and because her whole heart and soul were 
 wrapped up in that nestful of children that she had 
 left behind at Bushy Park, and the man who guarded 
 them. 
 
 William took naturally to the part of husband and 
 father, as has been said ; he read over and criticized all 
 new plays that might, or did, offer her a part; he not 
 only considered all offers from managers, b it was some- 
 
 '
 
 Family Cares 237 
 
 times the first person to be approached by a manager. 
 His vanity still drew him to the Green Room when she 
 performed, for he liked the more than respect which 
 was offered him, the deference to his opinion however 
 stupid or wild, which the actors gave; and he really 
 believed himself a theatrical critic. 
 
 In the autumn, Kemble re-took the management of 
 Drury Lane, for he hoped to secure a third share in the 
 theatre, the money matters of which were being 
 adjusted. He had not altered, he still believed that 
 Shakespeare was the only dramatist worthy of his 
 attention, and this, while it proved him to be a man of 
 literary perception, also proved his weakness as a 
 caterer for the public. But modern comedy had no 
 fascination for him, and new plays he still hated ; yet 
 when Mrs. Jordan made her reappearance in March 
 1 80 1, he had to agree to its being in The Country Girl, 
 and, as manager, he must have been glad that the house 
 was overflowing, and that she was received with shouts 
 of delight; the papers next day reporting her as look- 
 ing extremely well, and fascinating everyone with her 
 winning gestures and sweet silvery voice. 
 
 But Kemble did not follow up this advantage. He 
 next put on a tragedy, Count Julian, which was "full 
 of tedious horrors," and then a play in which a ghost 
 appeared three times, so that, at last, in place of a 
 shuddering thrill, the spectred shade was greeted with 
 hilarious laughter. Boaden says of him at this time, 
 ' Though Kemble had the best comic actress in the 
 world in his company, he let Covent Garden take all 
 the advantage of him " ; and whenever he was at a 
 loss he put on A Bold Stroke For a Wife, his stock 
 piece " for all the damned among the plays." He 
 loved spectacle almost as much as he did Shakespeare,
 
 238 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and was kept as before, almost without money. Thus, 
 having come back to all the old disadvantages, and 
 retaining all his old predilections, it is not surprising 
 that the theatre closed in the middle of June, after a 
 disastrous season. 
 
 In the spring of 1802, Dorothy did not appear in 
 London until April 5th, beginning as usual in The 
 Country Girl. " She never looked better, nor played 
 with greater effect," said a writer in the Monthly 
 Mirror. She was now forty, and seems to have re- 
 tained her youthful appearance remarkably for that 
 period. At Richmond that summer, it was judged that 
 " time had made no inroads upon her superior talent," 
 and one paper declared that her private character was 
 so " that were we to divest it of its great public excel- 
 lence, which is certainly unrivalled, the countenance 
 and support that lady receives from the nobility and 
 gentry round Richmond would not be unmerited." 
 
 She acted almost every summer at this town, and 
 also at Margate, probably not being always quite 
 punctual in arriving, as the following advertisement 
 makes a special point of the fact that she was already 
 in the town 
 
 "MRS. JORDAN 
 
 is engaged to perform six nights and will make her first appearance 
 
 this evening in the character of Letitia Hardy. 
 
 N.B. Mrs. Jordan is arrived. 
 
 Theatre Royal, Margate. 
 
 This present evening 
 
 Monday, the zjrd of August, 1802, 
 
 will be presented the favourite comedy of 
 
 'THE BELLE'S STRATAGEM.' 
 
 Dorincourt Mr. Russell."
 
 Family Cares 239 
 
 The following letter to the manager of the Margate 
 Theatre, arranging for this visit is interesting, in that 
 it shows the terms Dorothy made at this time; terms 
 which seem to be peculiarly complicated ; and also that 
 she acknowledges that she has " permission " to play, 
 this could have been only from the Duke, as presum- 
 ably no permission was necessary during the summer 
 season, when Drury Lane was closed. 
 
 " Bushy House, Saturday. (Postmark 1802.) 
 
 "Mrs. Jordan's compliments to Mr. Shaw; if the 
 following terms meet his approbation, she will perform 
 at Margate six nights, at thirty guineas per night, the 
 7th, clear of all expenses, for her benefit; twenty 
 guineas for her expenses ; in consideration of this, she 
 will perform the 8th night for ten pounds, for the 
 proprietors. Mrs. Jordan will be obliged for an 
 immediate answer, having got permission to play, and 
 having many applications." 
 
 Before she ended her visit to the Kentish watering- 
 place, an alarming accident occurred while The 
 Country Girl was being acted, for in the window scene 
 the flame from one of the lamps on the stage caught 
 the train of her dress, and she was instantly in a blaze. 
 Happily there were many people at hand to help, and 
 she was not hurt, though one side of her clothing was 
 almost consumed. The fright among the audience was 
 great, but Dorothy insisted upon going through with 
 the play, "though in a very depressed state." She 
 ought, according to the fashion of the time, to have 
 fainted, but was too unconsciously modern for that. 
 
 It was on May 25, 1802, that Tom King took his 
 farewell of the public, and Dorothy played Lady 
 Teazle with great vivacity to his Sir Peter. King had
 
 240 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 been acting for fifty-four years, and had well-earned 
 in his turn the title of the Father of the Stage. On this 
 his last night, at the conclusion of the play, Charles 
 Kemble led the old man to the front, and he tremu- 
 lously stumbled through his farewell, being raptur- 
 ously applauded by the touched audience. When he 
 had finished, Mrs. Jordan, looking " absolutely beauti- 
 ful from the interest she took," led him from the stage 
 to a seat in the Green Room, where he had to listen 
 to the usual kindly speeches, and accept a silver salver 
 and cup, Dorothy raising the latter to his lips that he 
 might consecrate it to his own use. 
 
 In May of the following year she helped another 
 old actor, Charles Lee Lewis, to say farewell to the 
 public at Covent Garden, playing Violante in The 
 Wonder, with him. Mrs. Litchfield, whom she had once 
 watched acting at Richmond with so much interest, was 
 to recite " Alexander's Feast," and coming downstairs 
 dressed for her part, she met Dorothy, who complained 
 to her that she was suffering from nervousness, and 
 taking Mrs. Litchfield's hand, she pressed it to her 
 heart (which was generally in her mouth, says the 
 facetious Boaden) to feel how it trembled. " Now 
 you are a good, kind creature," she said, "will you 
 take the book to the wing and prompt me if I should be 
 at a loss?" 
 
 In the summer of 1802, Kemble again, and finally, 
 resigned his management; making his last speech in 
 Drury Lane Theatre on June 24th, after Dorothy had 
 been playing Viola. He had been receiving fifty-five 
 guineas a week, and was not then forty-five; but his 
 desire to be owner of a theatre bearing his name made 
 him break entirely with the house in the service of which 
 he had spent so many years, and go to Covent Garden
 
 Family Cares 241 
 
 with Mrs. Siddons and his brother Charles. To guide 
 the theatre, a board of management had been estab- 
 lished, and one of its five members was Sir Richard 
 Ford, elected because of his position as a shareholder. 
 Bannister, who believed in comedy, became acting- 
 manager, and he and Mrs. Jordan were the two main 
 props of the theatre, for Mrs. Crouch was also gone. 
 ' Time was when she possessed great powers of 
 attraction, but now the period is past past, never to 
 return. She is getting old," announced a magazine. 
 It was not age, for she was two years younger than 
 Dorothy, but illness induced by drink said some, 
 consumption said others and she died abroad in 
 1805. 
 
 Towards the end of 1802, Dorothy was away from 
 the theatre, not because of her own illness, but because 
 of the serious illness of one of her children. She was 
 engaged to play Miranda in The Busybody for the 
 first time, and Bannister, fearful of losing her help, had 
 his anxiety relieved when, early in December, she 
 wrote to him 
 
 " I am sure you will be glad to hear that my dear 
 little girl is so much better to-night, that Sir John 
 Hayes has pronounced her quite out of danger. I shall 
 therefore be ready for to-morrow's rehearsal at eleven 
 o'clock, and also to play Miranda. The Duke, as well 
 as myself, is most obliged to you for your kind concern 
 and attention, which I shall ever think of with pleasure 
 and gratitude. 
 
 " Yours, D. JORDAN." 
 
 Serious domestic worry was beginning to press 
 hardly upon her, for the affairs of the Duke were 
 getting into a worse and worse condition, debt was 
 Q
 
 242 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 piling heavily upon him, and much as Dorothy might 
 have liked to devote herself to her family, the need of 
 money was too great for her to have the opportunity of 
 doing so for long at a time. If Clarence did sometimes 
 wish that she might stay at home, as is generally 
 affirmed, he was very philosophical over her absences, 
 and as Boaden said about the play The Marriage 
 Promise by Allingham, which brought much grist to 
 the mill 
 
 " Mr. ' Adviser ' did not in the least demur to Mrs. 
 Jordan's accepting her character in the present 
 comedy." 
 
 Another cause of growing worry was her eldest 
 daughter, Frances, or Fanny as she was generally 
 called, who was a troublesome person to manage. She 
 was not at all beautiful ; when, in 1815, she tried acting 
 the critics variously pronounced her as "too deficient 
 in personal appearance," " face and figure an insuper- 
 able bar to success," " she has but little to account for 
 to nature in point of her personal appearance. Short 
 in stature, lusty in person, and not very elegantly 
 formed, nor blessed with very fascinating features." 
 This would have mattered little, in one way, had she 
 been of a more sober character, but her whole history 
 points to fickleness, hot temper and want of self- 
 control. 
 
 However, Dorothy was ever hopeful about her girls, 
 who, as long as they remained girls, were to her the 
 best living. So when Frances came of age in 1803, 
 she gained her desire of a house in London, one being 
 chosen in Golden Square, where, with much festivity, 
 she was settled, in touch with many of her mother's 
 friends. The other two girls, Dorothea and Lucy, 
 lived sometimes with her and sometimes with their
 
 Family Cares 243 
 
 mother at Bushy. Of the third girl, Hester, there 
 is at this time no record. 
 
 If Dorothy was so extravagant as to allow her eldest 
 daughter an income and a house in town, she had to 
 pay for it, though there was evidence later that she 
 had saved money for this purpose which money had 
 been lent to the Duke. So that her daughter might 
 frivol in London, she started her spring season of 1804 
 as early as January 2, and acted almost without rest 
 until the autumn. With her representation of Widow 
 Cheerly in The Soldier's Daughter, she made both 
 public and management happy, for the play produced 
 ,7500 in twenty nights, and this was partly owing to 
 her ability to seize on popular fervour at the right 
 moment. There was just then a tremendous enthu- 
 siasm for volunteering, and she electrified the 
 audience by giving a soldier-like delivery of Atten- 
 tion ! and speaking an epilogue describing, with much 
 humour, the constitution of a female army of reserve. 
 
 Delaval and Clara Dorothy is said to have entirely 
 saved from destruction, but The Land we Live In 
 having been tremendously well-announced was, 
 partly by reaction, found disappointing. The audience 
 showed its scorn so actively that Dorothy most wisely 
 refused to speak the Epilogue, which ran 
 
 "'Give you an Epilogue? not I,' says he, 
 'An epilogue's an ex post facto plea 
 That comes behind, when all the mischief's done, 
 And play and poet, hooted, damned and gone." 
 
 She played at Bannister's benefit at Drury Lane, 
 and for that of Bannister Junior at Covent Garden, 
 and in the summer went to Margate for eight nights, 
 where, though there was " much genteel company in the 
 boxes, the house was not well attended." However, 
 she carried away 208 as a result of the week's work.
 
 244 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1804 that England went 
 foolish over a child of thirteen years, whose name was 
 Henry West Betty, and who, having seen Mrs. 
 Siddons in her deepest tragedy two years earlier, was 
 so inspired with emulation, that he declared he should 
 die if he were not an actor. His father encouraged 
 him, gave him some training, and took him through 
 Ireland, Scotland and the Provinces acting the chief 
 characters in tragic plays. The novelty affected the 
 public in an extraordinary way; so that Mr. Betty 
 considered that only the most important theatres in the 
 country were suitable as settings for his son's talents. 
 Thus, in December 1804, he appeared at Covent 
 Garden, and on the first night crowds gathered as 
 early as one or two o'clock for the doors to open, people 
 stretching in thick impenetrable columns across Bow 
 Street. Those who had no hope of entering the 
 building lined the streets and windows, the excitement 
 being so great that a large number of police officers 
 were gathered inside the theatre, and a detachment of 
 guards outside. Many in the crowd fainted, and when 
 at last the doors were opened there was danger of 
 suffocation in the passages. People paid for boxes 
 and arrived to find seats crammed with those who had 
 climbed in over the front from other parts of the house, 
 others paid their money for the pit, and on getting in, 
 found it thronged to suffocation by folk who had taken 
 more expensive places, and had climbed down from 
 the boxes. It was uproar and confusion of the worst 
 kind, for no consideration was given to anybody. The 
 manager, Kemble, came on to speak the prologue, and 
 was howled off, the discriminating audience wanted to 
 see Betty, and Betty only would they see and hear.
 
 Family Cares 245 
 
 Even the first act of the play, Barbarossa, in which the 
 boy did not appear, was hissed, and cries made for 
 him. When he was on the stage, everything he did 
 or said was applauded rapturously, for only he existed 
 for this demented audience. 
 
 Thomas Campbell was full of scorn for him, saying 
 that, " The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who 
 possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a 
 hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our 
 theatre history. . . . He received payment for his 
 childish acting that was never accorded to Garrick or 
 Siddons." 
 
 This infant played ten nights at Covent Garden, 
 taking fifty guineas a night, and then went to Drury 
 Lane ; the twenty-eight nights he played there bringing 
 to the theatre 17,210, snatching it from ruin, and 
 causing his far-seeing father to double the price of his 
 services. Neither Dorothy nor Mrs. Siddons could 
 have any hope of working this miracle, and while the 
 second retired from sight, and Kemble had a con- 
 venient illness, the first mildly joined in the general 
 excitement. Whether she believed in Betty or not, 
 the Duke of course did, and she was naturally 
 influenced by him. Being a comedy actress, her 
 prestige did not suffer as that of the Kembles did 
 so bitterly equally with her pocket. So she went 
 to see the boy, applauded him, and probably watched 
 with amused indulgence the enthusiasm of that great 
 dramatic critic, the Duke of Clarence. He made 
 himself very busy over Betty, frankly taking him 
 up, interviewing him at St. James's Palace, having 
 portraits of him painted by James Northcote, the 
 academician, sometimes driving him to the studio for
 
 his sittings, and even remaining to watch the painting. 
 One of these portraits, that in the character of young 
 Norval, the Duke presented to young Betty, who had 
 it engraved and dedicated to his patron. 
 
 For one season, Master Betty flourished like the 
 green bay tree, but in the second season the changeable 
 London audience began to laugh in the wrong places, 
 and " he faded like a premature blossom," as Bannister 
 said. However, while he acted, he amassed a sufficient 
 fortune for him to live in comfortable style in the West 
 End of London until he died of old age. 
 
 Drury Lane was in low water, and made desperate 
 attempts to swell its exchequer by introducing one 
 freakish child after another, one being four and a half 
 years old, and even to the extent of engaging a whole 
 troup of German infants, and putting on a confident 
 little girl named Fisher to act Little Pickle. The 
 audience seems to have put up with it once in the 
 spring of 1805, but when she appeared again in 
 October, they yelled and hissed until the curtain was 
 dropped, and not a word of the farce was heard. 
 Dorothy herself seems to have been responsible for the 
 introduction of a little boy, "another Roscius, who 
 acted at Richmond that summer with some eclat." 
 Slowly the craze died out, and the theatrical world 
 recovered its sanity. 
 
 There was some disagreement between Dorothy and 
 Bannister at Drury Lane at the beginning of 1805, over 
 a play named The Honeymoon, She might have had 
 the choice of two parts, but it seems that, not unlike 
 actresses of a more recent date, she wished to focus 
 attention upon herself, and, finding that these two parts 
 were equally important, and that the honours must be
 
 Family Cares 247 
 
 shared, she determined not to play at all; a decision 
 which Bannister thought unjustifiable; however, 
 Harriot Mellon came to the rescue, and was very 
 successful. 1 
 
 Thus, her own benefit in April or May, and benefits 
 for other actors made up her theatrical life for the first 
 half of 1805. But her absence from the theatre just 
 then was only partially due to the dispute, for on 
 March i a son was born to her at Bushy House, to 
 whom was given the name of Augustus ; another baby, 
 Augusta, having come into the world on November 20, 
 1803. This gave her twelve or thirteen children to 
 think about, and it is no wonder that her attendances 
 were less and less frequent at the theatre. Yet, in 
 September 1805, she started again in The Country 
 Girl, " the chef d'oeuvre of this incomparable actress," 
 performed Violante in The Wonder for some one's 
 benefit, and was acting through to December. 
 
 1 Memoirs of Harriot, Duchess of St. Albans. By Mrs. Cornwell Baron 
 Wilson.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SLINGS AND ARROWS 
 
 " I frequently asked myself as the encore was reiterated, what in the 
 name of reason could conduce to call forth such popular enthusiasm. 
 That a few simple notes uttered by a very mediocre voice, unadorned 
 by shake or cadence, should create a ferment bordering on enthusiasm, 
 was, I confess, to me inexplicable, and what is more, will ever remain so ; 
 at the same time, do not misunderstand me, the plaudits were not one 
 jot the less welcome to my feelings." DOROTHY JORDAN on her own 
 singing. 
 
 THE Duke had struggled on with his monetary diffi- 
 culties until early in 1806, and then he had a stroke 
 of luck : for some vessels captured after the Battle 
 of Trafalgar had brought a large sum to the King's 
 treasury, and the King's sons were given a share of 
 the spoil Clarence, Kent, Cumberland and Sussex 
 having each 20,000 wherewith to pay off some of 
 their debts. This was a prize ; but early in 1 806, Pitt 
 having died in January, the Duke of Clarence's con- 
 stant application for a larger income was met by an 
 increase of 6000, bringing up his annual total to 
 18,000. He had further the pay of an Admiral of 
 the Fleet and " the profitable situation of Ranger of 
 Bushey Park." In addition there was Dorothy's in- 
 come; as The Monthly Mirror grumbling over the 
 increase put it, he had the peculiar advantage of an 
 excellent and economical housekeeper " who has acted 
 her part both in public and private with deserved suc- 
 cess." Thus, apart from Dorothy's money, he had 
 not less than 20,000 a year, and probably more. 
 
 It is true that he had by bond settled a thousand a 
 year upon the mother of his children, but what did 
 that exactly mean ? Simply that she lived with him as 
 
 248
 
 Slings and Arrows 249 
 
 his wife, and shared in his surroundings. That she 
 kept her income separately from his is scarcely to be 
 credited, any more than it can be believed that he paid 
 over to her a certain sum quarterly or yearly. The 
 author of The Great Illegitimates, in a temporary fit 
 of admiration, says that he was munificent to those 
 around him and lived upon his income, and that 
 Dorothy, instead of forcing him into dissipation and 
 folly, led him into paths of domesticity, study and 
 self-improvement, and that though she might be a 
 somewhat expensive treasure she curbed prodigality 
 to any dangerous extent; also, that his conduct 
 endeared him to the whole neighbourhood in which he 
 lived. Then it added that this esteem in a slightly 
 lesser degree was extended to Dorothy, because it 
 was known that she could not possibly be more 
 honourably allied to Clarence "without breaking the 
 sacred bar of an Act of Parliament." Yet, after all 
 this is said, the Duke was constantly in debt, and 
 though he had an idea that to have his income 
 increased by half would mean riches, he soon dis- 
 covered that it meant little but the opportunity for a 
 little more indulgence, and a great deal more debt. 
 However, just at first this conjugal pair thought they 
 were going to do wonders^ 
 
 In the early part of the year, before the grant was 
 made, Dorothy was quite prepared to continue her 
 work, as is shown by the following letter written in 
 February to Bannister the younger, who had had an 
 attack of gout 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I have been prevented by constant employ- 
 ment from answering your obliging notes. I am
 
 250 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 sincerely sorry for your confinement, but trust it will 
 soon end. We never know how to value a friend and 
 great talents sufficiently till we are deprived of them. 
 We have been long enough without you to make us 
 subscribe now heartily to this old saying. 
 
 ' The three tragedies you have sent me I have read 
 this day, and, notwithstanding there is much pretty 
 writing in the part you mention, I do not think I could 
 do myself or the author any service by undertaking it. 
 I think Mrs. Siddons would do great justice to it. I 
 find laughing agrees with me much better than crying. 
 Do come out soon and re-establish my health I mean 
 my theatrical health which without you is certainly 
 on the decline. My best compliments to Mrs. 
 Bannister and your fair daughters. 
 
 : ' Yours very sincerely, 
 
 " D. JORDAN." 
 
 But though Bannister got well again and took up 
 his duties Dorothy forgot her theatrical health, and 
 went no more on the stage, it being probably agreed 
 that now she could afford to be idle, excepting when 
 she gave her services, as on February 12, when she 
 took prominent parts for the benefit of Tom King's 
 widow, for the old actor had not long survived his 
 retirement. 
 
 The company gave The School for Scandal and 
 The Fair Circassian, following these with a tableau 
 named " Thalia's Tears," showing Parnassus in the 
 background with Mrs. Jordan as Thalia sitting upon 
 a pedestal in the centre weeping over Tom King's urn. 
 On each side stood actors dressed in the most admired 
 of the old man's characters, while Thalia, " in melli- 
 fluous tones and feeling energy of gesture," recorded
 
 Slings and Arrows 251 
 
 King's virtues, after which lines were recited by the 
 other performers and a dirge was sung by Braham, 
 Kelly, Storace and Mrs. Bland. 
 
 Now we come to an incident which seems to point 
 back to Dorothy's past. Boaden and the author of 
 The Great Illegitimates emphasize the belief that, but 
 for Ford and Clarence Daly can scarcely be blamed 
 to her her life had been spotless. This was not 
 altogether the general opinion in the first year of her 
 life in London, when a report arose of the Prince of 
 Wales's admiration for her, which, however, was con- 
 tradicted by the observation that it " sprung from 
 cunning ; it was the puff of the day to put a feather in 
 the lady's cap, and had the good effect of advertising 
 her into popularity." 
 
 In the same article (in The Town and Country 
 Magazine] it is frankly assumed that she had lovers : 
 " Mrs. Tomboy has always been prudent in her 
 amours. Her present favourite (Ford) is not the choice 
 of love ; his proximity to one of the proprietors of the 
 theatre secures her a strong interest which she wisely 
 considers of more real value than any immediate 
 pecuniary advantage." 
 
 From this it might be gathered that Ford was not 
 the first of Dorothy's town lovers, that there had been 
 one other at least. However, if so, no direct evidence 
 has been gathered of his personality or position ; there 
 are, however, the references made in various journals 
 to the number of her children independent of the 
 Fitzclarences. Four, said The Morning Post, in 1 792, 
 four, said The Fashionable Cypriad in 1798, and five, 
 "one of whom died," said The Great Illegitimates. 
 The young sister who was educated with her children 
 by Mr. Lloyd in 1798 is another curious fact. On the
 
 252 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 other hand, only the three girls Frances, Dorothea 
 and Lucy are mentioned by Boaden. Now Boaden 
 knew things which he did not tell, but very occasionally 
 he told things which others did not know, and thus it 
 is he who seems to give a clue to the mystery. 
 
 In 1806 a rumour arose that Mrs. Jordan's daughter 
 had been left a fortune by an old gentleman on con- 
 dition that she took the name of Bettesworth. No one 
 knew much about this, and no one was quite clear as 
 to the condition; one said that the money had been 
 offered to Dorothy, but that she refused to change her 
 name, and her eldest daughter was suggested as a 
 substitute; others that it had been bequeathed direct 
 to the girl. No one is sure as to which girl benefited; 
 private letters suggest it to be Dorothea or Lucy, 
 and some newspapers declare it to be Frances, rest- 
 ing that belief in the words " Mrs. Jordan's eldest 
 daughter." 
 
 There is no doubt of the fact that there was money 
 left in some way, for early in 1806 Dorothy took a 
 house on Twickenham Common, known then as 
 Gyfford Lodge. The common was a common then, 
 and not a small triangular green. Gyfford Lodge 
 largely rebuilt, and now spelt Gifford still stands, its 
 gardens contracted, and surrounded by a high wall in 
 place of the low wooden palings of a century ago. 
 In this house the Marchioness of Tweeddale had died 
 in 1788, and General Gunning, a brother of the second 
 set of beautiful Miss Gunnings, lived there for a time. 
 It was let to Dorothy for ^50 a year equal, per- 
 haps, to 150 at the present day but in 1807 she 
 got it reduced to 45, the rates being I cannot refrain 
 from saying " Happy rate-payers ! " but a shilling in 
 the pound.
 
 Slings and Arrows 253 
 
 The house secured, decorating and furnishing must 
 have been an absorbing matter, and then on July 12 a 
 great coming-out or coming-of-age party was given in 
 it by Miss Bettesworth. And as Frances had come out 
 long before, and had come of age to a fanfare of 
 trumpets three years earlier, when she was settled in 
 Golden Square, she may be ruled out of the matter, 
 for she could scarcely have repeated the process in a 
 new house, among the old friends. Here are some 
 of the contemporary accounts of the party. The Sun 
 of July 13 reported that, "Miss Bettesworth, Mrs. 
 Jordan's eldest daughter, gave a splendid rural fete 
 on Monday last at Gyfford Lodge, Twickenham. The 
 grounds were decorated with great taste, splendour 
 and beauty, but the weather was not .very favourable 
 to entertainments out of doors. The whole of the 
 house, but particularly the great saloon, was adorned 
 and illumined in a very brilliant and elegant manner; 
 a military band afforded much pleasure, and some 
 rustic sports varied and enlivened the scene. There 
 was a magnificent supper about twelve o'clock after 
 dancing, and Mrs. Jordan presided over the whole. 
 The Duke of Clarence was, of course, of the party, 
 and a very large part of the fashionable circles was 
 present. A vast crowd from neighbouring villages 
 assembled round the mansion and gardens, and were 
 happy spectators of this superb and beautiful scene of 
 rural festivity." 
 
 A further paragraph added that Miss Bettesworth 
 assumed that name on account of considerable pro- 
 perty which had been bequeathed her on that con- 
 dition, and described her as "a very amiable and 
 accomplished young lady." 
 
 The Morning Post of Monday, July 14, notices that
 
 254 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 to the fete six hundred guests were invited, including 
 the Dowager Countess of Buckinghamshire (Mrs. 
 Hobart of the letter) and the Earl of Massereene, that 
 the breakfast was given at 4.30 in four tents on the 
 lawn, and that ten thousand people from the country- 
 side stood round the railings to see the favourite 
 actress entertaining her friends. 
 
 One daily paper announced in its theatrical gossip 
 that at Richmond, notwithstanding the heavy rain, a 
 grand fete champetre was given by Mrs. Jordan on 
 the coming-of-age of her eldest daughter. 
 
 It was, however, Boaden's paper, The Daily 
 Advertiser and Oracle, which gave a remarkable note 
 to the affair : " The father of Miss Bettesworth, Mrs. 
 Jordan's eldest daughter, died not long ago, and has 
 left the young lady a very handsome fortune ; it is not 
 flattery to say he has not bequeathed her more than 
 she deserves, for she is a very amiable young woman 
 and no ' spoilt child.' * Of this matter the writer of 
 The Great Illegitimates knew little, and simply 
 reported that it was said "that an elderly gentleman 
 named Bettesworth at this juncture tendered Mrs. 
 Jordan a very ample fortune in the event of her taking 
 his name, and becoming his representative." 
 
 Boaden, the only other important chronicler of 
 Dorothy's life, concealed his knowledge under, " I 
 understand some old gentleman of the name of Bettes- 
 worth offered Mrs. Jordan a very handsome fortune 
 to take his name and become his representative.'* 
 
 Search has revealed no Bettesworth will or deed 
 bequeathing money to any of the Jordans; it has, how- 
 ever, shown that on November 27, 1805, there died at 
 Swanmere House, near Salisbury, William Augustus 
 Bettesworth, aged 70, formerly Judge Advocate of
 
 Slings and Arrows 255 
 
 his Majesty's Fleet and many years an eminent 
 attorney at Portsea. This gentleman had no children ; 
 his will was somewhat curious, too, for though in it he 
 leaves to his mother, wife and brother a great quantity 
 of landed property, no money at all is mentioned, 
 which leads to the natural supposition that he had 
 already disposed of his money. 
 
 There is no proof in this that he was once connected 
 with Mrs. Jordan, but the date of his death was just 
 at the right period, and the affair must be left at that. 
 
 The curious point is that Miss Bettesworth disap- 
 pears entirely from the story after this, only the three 
 girls known as Jordan, both before and after the event, 
 being mentioned in Boaden's Life; thus that eldest 
 girl, said to have been named Hester and generally 
 regarded as a Ford daughter, probably took her 
 money with her name, and was henceforth little 
 involved in the fortunes of her mother's family. 
 
 Frances was occupying the house in Golden Square 
 for several years, which is proved by an undated letter 
 written by Dorothy on paper made in 1805 concerning 
 a dispute about a harp. 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan's compliments to Mr. Hyde, she was 
 very sorry she was not at home when he called in 
 Golden Square, as she wished to come to some settle- 
 ment with regard to the harp she was to receive as a 
 remuneration for a song she gave him permission to 
 print on these terms, she has before acquainted Mr. 
 Hyde that the instrument was so very bad that she 
 never could make use of it in consequence of its 
 having been of unseasoned wood; the first week she 
 had it it burst, even the brass that was connected with 
 the machinery, and has remained in that state ever
 
 256 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 since, as every workman she applied to mend it 
 declared that it was never good for anything. Mrs. 
 Jordan is fearful that this statement, that has been laid 
 before Mr. Hyde two or three times, has escaped his 
 recollection, for she is certain that when she gave the 
 preference to his house he meant to have given her a 
 good instrument, and so far a return for a song which 
 was very popular and consequently very profitable, 
 and for which she could have been very handsomely 
 paid. Mrs. Jordan requests he will take this into 
 consideration, and she makes no doubt of the result 
 being perfectly satisfactory to her." 
 
 The Bettesworth party was not the only one which 
 made a sensation this summer in social circles, for 
 when the Duke of Clarence attained his forty-first year 
 in August he, too, gave a party. He had done the 
 same before without attracting notoriety, but unfor- 
 tunately for his peace of mind much advertisement 
 was given to it this year, probably through Dorothy's 
 own thoughtless agency in allowing such full reports 
 to appear in the papers. These passed for the moment 
 without criticism; but William Cobbett was editor of 
 The Political Register, a man whose soul was burning 
 within him at the hardships of the poor, and who had 
 been deeply influenced by the French Revolution. 
 He had no love for princes, and the lives of the King's 
 sons were scarcely likely to give him any respect for 
 them; he had also been keenly opposed to the grant 
 to Clarence. So in September 1806 he reprinted the 
 report of the August birthday party, adding to it a 
 bitter and contemptuous criticism. He was a j ournalist 
 as well as a reformer, and if he could have eliminated 
 from his attack the trick of exaggeration and false
 
 Slings and Arrows 257 
 
 conclusion his article would have been more crushing. 
 As it was, it was more likely to provoke anger than 
 anything else. The report is as follows 
 
 "The Duke of Clarence's birthday was celebrated 
 with much splendour in Bushy Park on Thursday. 
 The grand hall was entirely new fitted up with bronze 
 pilasters and various marble imitations; the ceiling 
 very correctly clouded, and the whole illuminated with 
 some brilliant patent lamps, suspended from a beauti- 
 ful eagle. The dining-room in the right wing was 
 fitted up in a modern style with new elegant lamps at 
 the different entrances. The pleasure ground was dis- 
 posed for the occasion, and the servants had new 
 liveries. In the morning the Dukes of York's and 
 Kent's bands arrived in caravans ; after dressing them- 
 selves and dining, they went into the pleasure grounds 
 and played alternately some charming pieces. The 
 Duke of Kent's played some of the choruses and 
 movements from Haydn's Oratorio of the Creation, 
 arranged by command of his Royal Highness for a 
 band of wind instruments. About five o'clock the 
 Prince of Wales, the Dukes of York, Kent, Sussex 
 and Cambridge, Colonel Paget, etc., arrived from 
 reviewing the German Legion. After they had 
 dressed for dinner they walked in the pleasure 
 grounds, accompanied by the Lord Chancellor, Earl 
 and Countess of Athlone and daughter, Lord Lei- 
 cester, Baron Hotham and Lady, Baron Eden, the 
 Attorney General, Colonels Paget and M'Mahon, 
 Serjeant Marshall, and a number of other persons. At 
 seven o'clock the second bell announced the dinner, 
 when the Prince took Mrs. Jordan by the hand, led her 
 into the dining-room, and seated her at the head of 
 the table. The Prince took his seat at her right hand,
 
 258 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and the Duke of York at her left; the Duke of Cam- 
 bridge sat next to the Prince, the Duke of Kent next 
 to the Duke of York, and the Lord Chancellor next 
 to his Royal Highness. The Duke of Clarence sat 
 at the foot of the table. It is hardly necessary to say 
 the table was sumptuously covered with everything 
 the season could afford. The bands played on the lawn, 
 close to the dining-room window. The populace 
 were permitted to enter the pleasure grounds to behold 
 the Royal Banquet [all of whom partook of the royal 
 bounty, says another report], while the presence of 
 Messrs. Townsend, Sayers and Macmanus, preserved 
 the correct decorum. The Duke's numerous family 
 were introduced and admired by the Prince, the Royal 
 Dukes and the whole company; an infant in arms, 
 with a most beautiful white head of hair, was brought 
 into the dining-room by the nursery maid. After dinner 
 the Prince gave ' the Duke of Clarence,' which was 
 drunk with three times three; the Duke then gave 
 ' The King,' which was drunk in a solemn manner. A 
 discharge of cannon from the lawn followed ' The 
 Queen and the Princesses,' ' the Duke of York and the 
 Army.' His Royal Highness's band then struck up 
 his celebrated march." 
 
 The white-haired boy would have been Augustus. 
 As to the cannon which were fired so joyfully, they 
 are still at Bushy House guarding the main entrance. 
 But before Mr. Glazebrook took his wonderful 
 Laboratory there they served a very undignified but 
 useful purpose, their ends being embedded deeply at 
 either side of the front door, and lamps fixed into their 
 yawning mouths. To return to Cobbett's criticism 
 
 He began by pretending that the whole story was a 
 lie, it being reprinted by him solely that the Duke
 
 Slings and Arrows 259 
 
 might deny it publicly. Then the Duke of York's 
 marches came in for pointed satire, for it was barely 
 half-a-dozen years since he had been obliged to march 
 out of Belgium. But Cobbett reserved his fury of 
 contempt for the musical incident 
 
 ' The representing of the oratorio of The Creation, 
 and arranged by the Duke of Kent, too, applied to the 
 purpose of ushering in the numerous family of the 
 Duke of Clarence, thus representing the Duke of 
 Kent as employed in an act whereby the procreation 
 of a brood of illegitimate children is put in comparison 
 with the great work of the Almighty is, in this writer's 
 opinion, an act of the most insidious disloyalty, and 
 of blasphemy the most daring." 
 
 Now the playing of the selections took place in the 
 afternoon and in the garden, while the babies were 
 not introduced to the dining guests until after seven 
 in the evening ; thus in the minds of the arrangers of 
 the fete the two events were in no ways connected, 
 and neither blasphemy nor insidious disloyalty ex- 
 isted save in Cobbett's somewhat crooked reasoning. 
 Would God " whatever God there be" consider a 
 lusty young family such as Dorothy's something to be 
 despised, even though certain formulas had not been 
 uttered over the parents? A marriage ceremony is a 
 protective rite, invented by society; children are a 
 work of nature and it may be therefore the most 
 important part of the affair in the "eyes of the 
 Creator. 
 
 Cobbett proceeded that it was foully to slander his 
 Royal Highness to declare that he had been guilty 
 of the crime of bringing bastards into the world; and 
 then turned his attention upon Dorothy. While 
 speaking of the Duke he had retained a mock respect-
 
 ful air, but as soon as he spoke of her he fell into 
 vulgarity; for humanist as he was, he evidently held 
 that the sin of the man who sins is venial compared 
 with the equal sin of the woman. He said 
 
 " This representation and accusation I must and do 
 find false (that this dinner was held), and I am con- 
 firmed in this my opinion, when I hear the same writer 
 assert that the Prince of Wales took Mother Jordan 
 by the hand and, in the presence of a Countess, a 
 Countess's daughter and a Baroness, seated her at the 
 head of the table, taking his place upon her right hand, 
 his royal brothers arranging themselves, according to 
 their rank on both sides of the table, the post of honour 
 being nearest Mother Jordan, who, the last time I saw 
 her, cost me eighteen pence in her character of Nell 
 Jobson." 
 
 If the articles in The Bon Ton, Town and Country 
 and kindred magazines may be credited, there were 
 many high-born ladies at the period, who were wives 
 and mothers and yet notorious for the looseness of 
 their morals, and compared with whom Dorothy was 
 a good and respectable woman, yet they went free of 
 the reformer's biting words ; but, then, an actress was 
 but a vagabond, after all, and, as Dorothy often 
 proved, could be thrashed with impunity for the sins 
 of the world. 
 
 Twenty-six years later, in 1832, when the Reform 
 Bill was agitating all politicians, and a multitude of 
 people who were no politicians, Cobbett reprinted this 
 article as an attack upon the Earl of Munster, 
 Dorothy's eldest son, who was accused of influencing 
 the King against reform; and the article was then 
 headed The Fitzjordans, part of the introductory 
 paragraph being : " Twenty-six years ago, when these
 
 Slings and Arrows 261 
 
 people were babies, I foresaw the consequences that 
 might arise from their existence." 
 
 Never again was there any public advertisement 
 made of Dorothy's festivities at Bushy House, and 
 when the Duke's birthdays came round only the names 
 of men were reported as present. 
 
 But if purists were concerned in throwing odium 
 upon Dorothy's name, there were many needy people 
 who were ready to bless her. Pierce Egan, in his 
 entertaining book, The Life of an Actor, gives a story 
 which proves this. Strolling players attended at fairs 
 to make their harvest, often a poor enough one; and 
 Egan was in the habit of taking his company to 
 Twickenham Fair. In 1807 he determined to have 
 one night extra a private night he calls it after the 
 fair closed; so he sent out bills announcing Douglas, 
 and The Miller of Mansfield. The performance was 
 to be given on their temporary stage on Twickenham 
 Common, nearly two miles from Richmond Theatre, 
 at which Messrs. Copeland and Russell's company 
 was acting. It was customary with Egan to invite his 
 people to a picnic on Eelpie Island the day after the 
 fair, so they were all gathered there eating eel pies 
 and drinking ale and " as merry as could be," when 
 a note was brought to them from the Richmond 
 managers, saying that a benefit was taking place that 
 night at their theatre, and if Egan dared to perform 
 they would apply to a magistrate and have the whole 
 company locked up. 
 
 The laws concerning theatres were stringent, and 
 yet more honoured in the breach than in the observ- 
 ance ; but they could be put into force both easily and 
 cruelly. The players at a fair were frankly vagabonds 
 and, according to law, in their right place ; but as soon
 
 262 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 as they began to act independently they like dust 
 were but matter in the wrong place, something to be 
 removed. Thus this threat was a serious thing; yet 
 Egan, well warmed with ale, only laughed and 
 returned answer that if he were taken up, it should be 
 by the authority of a magistrate and not by two 
 vagrants like himself. However, he had not drunk 
 too much to have his wits about him, and he went off 
 at once to Mrs. Jordan, "that justly celebrated and 
 much lamented actress," who was then at Gyfford 
 Lodge. She heard his story, and could scarcely 
 believe that Copeland and Russell would be guilty 
 of such meanness, yet as she knew the handwriting 
 well she promised to use her influence, and advised 
 Egan to go back to his company and perform without 
 any fear. She also promised to make up a party, and 
 if she could not come herself, to send some of her 
 children. She kept her word, and the evening passed 
 successfully and without mishap, though the next morn- 
 ing Copeland and Russell tried to retaliate by engag- 
 ing Egan's chief actor, who, however, loyally refused 
 to leave his company until the end of the season. 
 
 The following undated letter to some journalist 
 will also serve to show how keen were Dorothy's 
 sympathies, and how ready she was to do good in 
 secret fashion. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " Perhaps the same pen which so feelingly 
 described the distress of an unfortunate family would, 
 on perusal of the enclosed, exert itself once more, in 
 the same way, and through the same channel. I will 
 pay for the articles, and should be happy if by 
 this means and my own exertions I could be enabled
 
 Slings and Arrows 263 
 
 to get a few pounds for this unhappy writer, whose 
 situation I know to be exactly what is described. I 
 will not run the risk of offending you by apologies, the 
 motive will, I am sure, be sufficient to procure me 
 pardon. I will send you, if requisite, respectable 
 references. 
 
 ' Yours obliged and sincerely, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 Through the autumn of 1806 Clarence and Dorothy 
 kept to their decision that there should be no more 
 acting, and on March 20, 1807, their last child, Amelia, 
 was born. But in the spring of that year she was on 
 the stage occasionally if not constantly ; for in January 
 she was in a new play, Something to Do, which was a 
 failure, and in April she was again Widow Cheerly in 
 The Soldier's Daughter; but she did not take seriously 
 to it again until September, when the need for money 
 had once more become pressing. 
 
 That the elder girls did not marry was a great 
 disappointment. Frances, plain, giddy and unintel- 
 lectual, was a difficult problem for the mother who 
 loved her children so deeply that she was prepared to 
 make any sacrifice for them, and who feared that if 
 she died they would be penniless. This, of course, 
 should not have been, for earlier in her career she had 
 saved money with the express intention, it was said, 
 of dowering these girls. But since then all her earn- 
 ings had been spent and her savings lent, and though 
 her income was very much smaller than the Duke's, it 
 is doubtless true that he had had as much advantage 
 of it as she. 
 
 A further source of trouble was her increasing tend- 
 ency to stoutness, for she felt that the particular parts
 
 264 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 in which she was strongest would suffer from such a 
 physical defect, and she made strenuous efforts to 
 reduce her size. So when she began work again in 
 September it was noticed that she was thinner, but 
 The Satirist deprecated the fact on the plea that 
 "where violent, artificial modes are adopted to 
 diminish bulk the countenance is the sufferer ; so with 
 Mrs. Jordan, she does not look so well in the face as 
 we have seen her, but by dint of exercise the tout 
 ensemble is so far reduced as to make the boy's dis- 
 guise not quite unnatural. She played it as usual 
 with the greatest spirit, and was greeted with warm 
 applause." 
 
 Through the following years many were the com- 
 ments made upon Dorothy's size, yet it could not have 
 been so extraordinary, for in 1813, when she was sup- 
 posed to be enormous, Leslie the artist wrote, on 
 seeing her in As You Like It, " I had been taught 
 to expect an immensely fat woman, and she is but 
 moderately so. Her face is still very fine; no print 
 that I ever saw of her is much like. Her performance 
 of Rosalind was, in my mind perfect, though I am 
 convinced the character from its nature did not call 
 forth half Mrs. Jordan's powers." 
 
 Having started work in earnest Dorothy was in the 
 theatre several times a week, and then came a sudden 
 break. On Saturday, October 12, she was playing in 
 the Wedding Day, and though feeling ill herself she 
 had dragged Mathews through his part, for he " played 
 like a man dreaming of something he did not like : 
 like a canary bird singing in the dome of St. Paul's, 
 so faint that he could not be understood." Dorothy 
 was loudly encored in her song of " In the Dead of 
 Night," and sang it through twice " as exquisitely as
 
 Slings and Arrows 265 
 
 ever." " Before she had finished," said The Courier, 
 "she was affected by a severe pain between the 
 shoulders, which struck into her chest, and only her 
 great spirits and firmness could have made her finish 
 the play. Early on the Sunday morning, after cough- 
 ing, a considerable quantity of blood came from her 
 chest, and it was evident that she had broken a blood 
 vessel. Dr. Blane took twelve ounces of blood from 
 her arm by lancet and eight ounces by cupping, thus 
 relieving the pain, but reducing her so low that she is 
 forbidden to take anything but cold water." On the 
 Monday she was much better, though the pain was 
 still severe, and she was somewhat naturally seeing 
 the remedy employed very weak. Those who had 
 hoped to see her as Peggy that night were disap- 
 pointed, and for ten days she did not appear. 
 
 The Duke was staying at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, 
 and seems not to have hastened his return unduly, for 
 he did not arrive at St. James's until the following 
 Saturday. Then he stayed only long enough to 
 change horses before setting out for Bushy Park. 
 Dorothy went for a short drive on the Friday, and on 
 the Tuesday, much too soon, returned to the theatre, 
 having denied that a ruptured blood vessel was the 
 cause of her illness. She showed great languor on 
 her appearance, but gradually recovering her spirits 
 she seemed in her usual health before the end of the 
 evening. The next Saturday she played Lady Racket 
 in Three Weeks After Marriage to a house which was 
 said to have scarcely a person of rank or fortune 
 absent, and at its close she got into her carriage, 
 having arranged to drive straight back to Bushy 
 House with the Duke. But pain in her chest again be- 
 came acute, and she went instead to her town home in
 
 266 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Mortimer Street (for she had by then left Somerset 
 Street) and to bed, suffering from a return of the 
 inflammation. The Duke also stayed in town, and 
 she being better on the Monday, he took her home 
 with him. Again it was denied that this new indis- 
 position was a relapse, and these denials of the serious- 
 ness of her illnesses indicate that Dorothy was afraid 
 of being regarded as weakly, afraid that any strong 
 impression should get abroad that her physical powers 
 were declining; in fact, it hinted at some desperate 
 need for her to keep her place in her profession. In 
 any case so keen was she to make money that she was 
 on the boards again in seven days, and from that time 
 was acting all through the winter. 
 
 There was some reason for her fear of finding her- 
 self put upon the shelf, for many were the hints that 
 the public would soon lose her, thus The Monthly 
 Mirror, declaring that her appearance proclaimed her 
 the genuine offspring of Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, went 
 on to say 
 
 " In her undress, when skipping and turning round, 
 with her hand on her heart and exposing her shape, 
 ' if shape it might be called that shape had none/ we 
 really beheld her with more pain than pleasure. This 
 sensation probably arose from a fear that the hour is 
 not far distant when she will be compelled to relinquish 
 altogether this, her inimitable line." 
 
 But whatever might be said about her size, there 
 were no murmurs about her singing, and she captivated 
 the audience with " Drink to Me only with Thine 
 Eyes " and " A Shepherd Once had Lost His Love." 
 
 From the middle of December she had two or three 
 weeks' holiday, spending Christmas with most of her 
 children, while the Duke went on a visit to Berkeley
 
 Slings and Arrows 267 
 
 Castle, taking with him George and Sophia. On their 
 way back they stayed for two days at Buscot Park in 
 Berkshire, and arrived home about January 15. This 
 is but one evidence that far from repudiating his 
 children, as Cobbett suggested, the Duke was 
 thoroughly proud of them, and often took them about 
 with him. Mrs. Calvert noted in her diary for i8o4, x 
 " that the Duke went to the Pavilion for the Prince's 
 birthday and had two natural children with him fine 
 boys. Mrs. Jordan is the mother." A year or two 
 later she speaks of meeting the Duke and his eldest 
 daughter out at dinner. 
 
 Clarence was already making plans for his 
 children's careers, though there are indications that 
 Dorothy's solicitude for her elder and less fortunate 
 children somewhat irked him. The Hanoverian boy 
 who had claimed his parentage in 1790 had been 
 placed in the Navy, and was under the command of 
 Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge upon the Blenheim, 
 a worn-out ship, which was, however, thought good 
 enough for the Commander of the East Indian Seas, 
 and which foundered in a cyclone off Madagascar in 
 1807 with all lives lost. William wrote to Admiral 
 Collingwood in May 1808 : "Though I have lost one 
 son on board the Blenheim, I have just started another 
 with my old friend and shipmate Keates, and I have 
 another breeding up for the quarter-deck. ... I took 
 my second son to Deal, which gave me an opportunity 
 of visiting the different ships there." 
 
 This second son, who was started off from Deal to 
 join Keates, was Henry, who began life on board, 
 though he later became a soldier. Augustus also 
 began in the Navy, only to end as a " fisher of men," 
 
 1 An Irish Beauty of the Regency, by Mrs. Warenne Blake.
 
 268 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 but Adolphus was probably the one who was breeding 
 up for the quarter-deck. The eldest boy, George, 
 became a Cornet in 1807, and in October 1808 his 
 fond father took him to Portsmouth, where he em- 
 barked with his regiment, the loth Dragoons, for 
 Spain. There at Corunna he became aide-de-camp to 
 General Slade, and in 1809-11 he was in the Penin- 
 sula with the Marquis of Londonderry, Wellington's 
 Adj utant-General .
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 DAME GOSSIP AND DOROTHY 
 
 " Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt ! " Hamlet. 
 " It's well I have a husband a-coming, or i' cod, I'd marry the baker, 
 I wou'd so!" Miss HOYDEN. 
 
 DOROTHY'S work in 1808 began on January 8 with 
 The Country Girl, and scattered through books and 
 papers are many indications of her acting, her health, 
 her dress, " blue and silver, very pretty and becoming," 
 her popularity and her weak points. " On Monday we 
 were charmed at Drury Lane with Mrs. Jordan in 
 Three Weeks after Marriage. I admire her so much 
 I could forgive the Duke of Clarence anything," wrote 
 Marianne Stanhope. 1 In January Miss Berry noted 
 in her diary : " Mrs. Jordan bringing out too often her 
 oyster woman notes in Violante, which destroys all the 
 effect of her otherwise captivating singing." And the 
 succeeding month the same playgoer recorded that 
 " her Nell is incomparable, but she was not in high 
 spirits." 
 
 " Public love in this instance is staunch, and Miss 
 Peggy, on the verge of fifty, is still able to give the 
 play an irresistible charm," said another critic. Even 
 the papers which commented most on Dorothy's size 
 always salved their criticisms with affectionate praise. 
 On May 26, for instance, when she played for Miss 
 Pope's farewell benefit, The Theatrical Inquisitor re- 
 marked, " This great actress should take a hint from 
 the race so judiciously run by Miss Pope and begin to 
 
 1 Letter-bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer Stanhope. By A. M. W. Stirling. 
 
 269
 
 270 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 think of suiting her characters to her form and age 
 the converse is a dangerous trial. She has outgrown 
 her frocks! " 
 
 Another journal, criticizing her performance in June, 
 was somewhat muddled in style and not quite so kind 
 in the following paragraph : " Mrs. Jordan's Viola and 
 Beatrice were, as usual, full of the delices of genuine 
 acting. Her dress in Viola cannot be described it 
 need only to be seen to be felt. Her white breeches 
 (small-clothes it would be unjust to call them) and 
 white jacket, which, through a red net in which she 
 was caught, looked behind like the tail of a short skirt, 
 were very affecting to the whole house." 
 
 And in September we read that she strongly exhibits 
 the superiority of mind over matter, " for she no sooner 
 opens her mouth and displays her genius than you 
 forget the mortal incumbrances. Such intellectual 
 powers compensate for her form it is as broad as it is 
 long." But Dorothy, feeling that her best powers were 
 shown in her early and most popular characters, could 
 never be induced to alter either the characters or their 
 dresses. 
 
 On April u, 1808, Dorothy began a series of 
 yearly visits to Bath which were always successful, 
 acting until May 2. In one letter to the Duke from 
 that town she wrote : " I should be sorry to be obliged 
 to give up Bath for various reasons. I shall be glad 
 when Thursday is over. I am very fickle on these 
 occasions, and always grow tired of the audience before 
 they seem to weary of me. Great crowds are expected 
 at the theatre to-morrow my night, and, thank God, 
 the last night but one. On Thursday I finish with The 
 Country Girl. We are to have a very grand dinner at 
 Canons, and it would make you laugh to hear the
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 271 
 
 manoeuvring there has been by several people to get 
 invited." 
 
 After this she was again at Drury Lane, the season 
 closing in June, but on the last night Dorothy was away 
 because of illness, and all through the remainder of the 
 year she had attacks of illness which constantly inter- 
 fered with her work. Thus, early in August she was 
 ill, but by the 24th was well enough to delight all the 
 fashionables in the neighbourhood of Richmond, who 
 made a " splendid overflow " to witness her Belinda 
 in All in the Wrong. The Duke of Clarence, too, was 
 ill with gout, which Dorothy described as " the old 
 periodical attack." 
 
 This summer Frederick Jones who, with Lord 
 Westmeath, had started the "gentleman's theatre" 
 about ten years earlier in Dublin, in rivalry with Daly 
 was in London negotiating for the purchase of Drury 
 Lane (a bargain which was never completed), and 
 he was in and out of the theatre for a month. It 
 may have been then that he persuaded Mrs. Jordan 
 to engage herself to Dublin for the summer of 
 1809, an engagement from which both hoped to profit 
 materially. 
 
 In September, with renovated health and spirits, she 
 started again at Drury Lane, where Tom Sheridan 
 was now manager, and Wroughton deputy. But in 
 October illness claimed her, and her absence was 
 lamented in November, as the new comedy, The 
 Chances, required all her vivacity to give life to a tame 
 and insipid piece. 
 
 It was not until the 28th of December that she really 
 began a long spell of acting. Yet, though at work, 
 she managed to take her children to the pantomime, 
 writing to the Duke, who was absent, that " The boys
 
 272 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 were delighted with Robinson Crusoe. I think it was 
 tolerably well got up. The house was very full last 
 night; the new comedy does not come out till Thurs- 
 day." This comedy was Man and Wife, written by 
 S. J. Arnold and put on on January 5, 1809 ; in this she 
 took the part of Helen Worry, and successfully kept 
 a poor play going for twenty nights. On the 2ist of 
 February she was acting, and the next night the swan 
 song of Drury Lane was sung in an opera, The Cir- 
 cassian Bride, the theatre being totally destroyed by 
 fire on the 24th. 
 
 It may well be asked why Dorothy was so feverishly 
 anxious for work, and the only answer can be that it 
 was for her daughter's benefit. 
 
 Some time in 1808 Dorothy had the pleasure per- 
 haps the dubious pleasure of marrying her eldest girl 
 Frances with one named Thomas Alsop, who was a 
 clerk of the delivery of small arms in the Ordnance 
 Office, a post soon after abolished. Frances, then in 
 her twenty-sixth year, was giddy and irresponsible, 
 with little of the repose of Vere de Vere, and it is open 
 to wonder whether it was merely a coincidence that 
 within two minutes' walk of Gyfford Lodge (which was 
 given up before July 1808), and where for two years 
 the elder girls had lived, a hostel stood in four acres 
 of ground of whom the owner was a man named 
 William Alsop. Nothing is known of Thomas Alsop, 
 and he may have been the innkeeper's son. Doubtless 
 Frances was promised a dowry of 10,000, as were her 
 sisters. According to the agreement made between 
 Dorothy and the Duke in 1791, the latter was respon- 
 sible for part of this, but how much was ever paid it is 
 difficult to say ; certainly the various sons-in-law never 
 did receive the sums they were led to expect when they
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 273 
 
 married, and the nature of the settlements may be 
 gathered from that made upon Dorothea, whose 
 wedding was celebrated in the following March, also 
 with a clerk in the Ordnance. 
 
 In reference to this latter wedding The Gentleman's 
 Magazine made a curious mistake, publishing in the 
 marriage columns the two following items, one after 
 the other 
 
 " 1809. March 4th. Dorothea Maria Ford of 
 Bushy Park married F. E. March, Esq., of the 
 Ordnance Office, the Tower. 
 
 " March 6th. Mr. Fitzgerald, son of Lord Henry 
 Fitzgerald, to Miss Ford, daughter of Mrs. Jordan." 
 
 In the next number, of course, a correction appeared, 
 pointing out that F. E. March, Esq., and Mr. Fitz- 
 gerald were one and the same person, and that Miss 
 Jordan and Miss Ford were also the same, the mistake 
 arising from the facts that Mr. March was the natural 
 son of Lord Henry Fitzgerald, while Miss Ford was 
 the natural daughter of Mrs. Jordan. The bride's 
 address was given otherwhere as Park Place, St. James, 
 which was the home of the newly married Frances 
 Alsop. 
 
 There is one good thing to be said of those loose, 
 bad days, when the standard of morality was lower 
 than at present, and that was that the natural children 
 were far better seen after by the most responsible 
 parent, the father, than they are now. The men had 
 no shame in such connections, regarding them as only 
 to be expected, and they did very often acknowledge 
 and provide for these children of irregular birth. Mrs. 
 Jordan, I think, made a mistake when she entirely
 
 274 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 relieved Richard Ford of all responsibility for his 
 children; though, on the other hand, that may have 
 been one of the conditions upon which that gentleman 
 insisted when he found himself superseded. 
 
 But to return to the marriage settlement a porten- 
 tous vellum document consisting of four pages, each 
 about two feet square, stamped with seals worth 
 4 ios., dated March 3, 1809 described in the most 
 flourished of flourishing writing as 
 
 " Settlement on the marriage of Frederick Edward 
 March, Esq., with Miss Dorothea Maria Jordan," and 
 it betrays some curious things concerning the monetary 
 arrangements between Dorothy and Clarence. 
 
 The five parties to it were in the following order : 
 Frederick Edward March, Dorothea Jordan of Mor- 
 timer Street, Dorothea Maria Jordan, spinster, of 
 Mortimer Street, H.R.H. William Henry, Duke of 
 Clarence, and Thomas Alsop and William Bignall, 
 trustees. 
 
 By this deed Dorothy undertook to provide the sum 
 of 2000 as a marriage portion, and a further sum of 
 200 annually, thus making up the 10,000 she 
 always intended to give each one. Of the 2000 
 Dorothy had already paid one, which had been in- 
 vested in the purchase of 1,484 43. 6d. in three per 
 cent, consolidated annuities. The second thousand 
 was paid by a bond or obligation in writing given under 
 the seal of H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence, " whereby 
 His said Royal Highness, in consideration of the sum 
 of 1000 heretofore advanced to him by the said 
 Dorothea Jordan which he doth hereby acknowledge, 
 hath, at her request, testified by his executing these 
 presents, etc., etc." 
 
 It is needless to say that when a comparatively
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 275 
 
 simple affair of this kind is wrapped up in twelve or 
 sixteen square feet of writing it is not altogether easy 
 to get at its meaning, but the above is clear, as is also 
 the fact that the Duke could not pay such a sum as 
 1000 down, but undertook to pay it in quarterly 
 instalments of 62 ios., with interest at the rate of 
 five per cent, per annum, this sum to be completed in 
 four years from the 26th day of the following July; 
 and for the better securing of this two life insurance 
 policies were taken out in the Westminster Life Insur- 
 ance Society in the names of the trustees, whereby the 
 sum of 500 should be paid to them if the Duke died 
 within two years. This document was signed in the 
 presence of the lawyer, Charles H. Ware of Gray's 
 Inn, by all but one of the trustees, William Bignall, 
 who signed after having had it duly stamped. 
 
 From this paper it is made evident how very true 
 were the reports then current concerning the debts and 
 difficulties under which the Duke was labouring. It 
 also hints at one reason for the quarrels which were 
 said to rise frequently between him and Dorothy. If 
 she pinned him down in this way to paying her some- 
 thing back on account of the money he owed her, he 
 must have felt very sore, and she probably only 
 exacted it by great persistency. 
 
 It is said that in the letters from the Duke to 
 Dorothy, which Mrs. Alsop threatened to publish after 
 her mother's death, there was evidence that the former 
 had received loans from the latter, amounting in all 
 to 30,000. If this was so there can be little wonder 
 when Dorothy wished to portion her daughters, and 
 found herself able to do so partially only by the most 
 strenuous and continuous work, that she should 
 demand back some of that money which was definitely
 
 276 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 lent, especially as she regarded that money as put 
 aside for the very purpose of portioning these girls. 
 
 Information about quarrels not only leaked out but 
 was published in some Sunday and gossiping papers, 
 copies of which no longer exist, and the slanderous 
 comments included her girls as well as herself. Dorothy 
 was described as a match-making mamma surely no 
 great crime ! only equal to the Duchess of Gordon, 
 a lady of whom it was said that she went over to Paris 
 in pursuit of the Duke of Bedford, whom she desired 
 as a husband for one of her daughters, and triumph- 
 antly brought him home to be married. There was 
 also a widespread rumour that the Bushy household 
 was to be broken up, even that a parting had taken 
 place. 
 
 Concerning the gossip over the marriages, Dorothy 
 wrote the following letter to James Boaden, one in 
 which the mother's heart speaks plainly 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " Having frequently experienced your kindness 
 in assisting to do away any unfair impression, your 
 candour, believe me, cannot be better employed [in 
 the Press] than in the defence of three as good and 
 virtuous girls as ever existed. It would be painful to 
 me and unnecessary to you to mention the cruel and 
 infamous reports for some time in circulation, and to 
 the extent of which I was really a stranger till last 
 week. To say it has made me ' sick at heart ' is saying 
 little. 
 
 " I remain, your obliged humble servant, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 In many ways this year was one of terror both to 
 Clarence and to Dorothy, for on February i began the
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 277 
 
 Parliamentary investigation into the conduct of the 
 Duke of York for wrong use of his military patronage. 
 His mistress, Mary Ann Clarke, had, under his pro- 
 tection, taken a great house in Gloucester Place, and 
 been remarkably extravagant, keeping horses, carriages, 
 a number of servants and three chefs, and all on the 
 promise of one of the Royal Dukes of an income of 
 12,000 ! To a woman of her quality a promise was 
 for a time as good as a fulfilment so long as there was 
 credit to be obtained, but when that time had passed 
 she began to feel the pressure, which she lightened by 
 taking money from officers who wanted promotion; in 
 plain language by using the Duke as a tool for the 
 selling of commissions, and the evidence at the trial 
 pointed to the fact that more than one Duke benefited 
 as well as herself from the sales. 
 
 There were eight charges against the Duke, all of 
 which were decided to be not proven, though naturally 
 there was no hesitation concerning the guilt of Mary 
 Clarke. However, she was not upon her trial in 
 actual fact, and she did not care in the least what 
 people said of her, so she kept a cool courage, made 
 herself look as charming as possible, and was not at all 
 frightened when being examined at the bar of the 
 House. She became indeed the heroine of the affair, 
 being cheered in the streets on occasions ; and York, in 
 spite of the finding, was the person who felt it neces- 
 sary to hide his head and resign his post of Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, which meant the relinquishment of 
 about 6000 per annum. 
 
 This affair considerably scared the King and Queen 
 and all the Royal Family. It was one thing for the 
 good Queen to encourage her young sons to find mis- 
 tresses, or even to hunt round for such for them, with
 
 278 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 the kindly, motherly intention of keeping them out of 
 temptation and danger ; but it was quite another matter 
 when such mistresses, instead of allowing themselves 
 meekly to be kicked out of the way when done with, 
 tried to save their own skins by independent action. 
 Mrs. Fitzherbert had been tiresome in a dignified 
 manner, but then she made so much of the marriage 
 ceremony, and was so respectably connected as well 
 as strong-minded, that the Royal parents grudgingly 
 accepted her at her own valuation. 
 
 They had, however, no love for Dorothy, who had 
 been most inconsiderate in having so many children, 
 a matter which much annoyed them as well as John 
 Bull, and as they feared that composite person they 
 began to wish that she could be swept out of their 
 existence, but they found it hard to invent a method of 
 getting rid of her. Clarence himself was undoubtedly 
 distressed, as indeed were all the brothers, for they 
 knew themselves to be sinners in money affairs, and 
 they never could tell when some meddlesome paper 
 would not turn into a bludgeon for their chastisement. 
 
 Thus this affair of Mary Clarke was in itself enough 
 to cause irritable temper at Bushy House, and when 
 later that clever dame had the Duke of York's letters 
 to her printed in a neat volume and much advertised, 
 though they were never published, it was confusion 
 worse confounded. Clarence had written hundreds of 
 letters to Dorothy, letters which would be a revela- 
 tion of many hidden things could we but see them 
 now, and though in his heart he must have known 
 that she would never use them as a weapon against 
 him, yet he was, when angry, inclined to say rash 
 things. So the irritation deepened and the rumours 
 expanded.
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 279 
 
 There was a curious but extraneous cause for royal 
 alarm this year, and it lay in the many conflagrations 
 of public buildings, which was put down to incendiar- 
 ism, to the growth of republican ideals caught from 
 France, and to a desire to degrade the Royal Family. 
 Covent Garden Theatre was the first to be destroyed, 
 September 20, 1808; in January 1809 the whole of the 
 east wing and the apartments occupied by the King 
 and Queen at St. James's Palace were burned down, 
 the fire originating close to the Duke of Cambridge's 
 rooms. The next month the New Sessions House, 
 Westminster, was in flames; Drury Lane Theatre was 
 burnt out in three hours ; a fire occurred at Kensington 
 Palace ; and the gloom was deepened in the first week 
 of March by a report that Hampton Court Palace had 
 been burnt down, and a rumour again false that a 
 train of gunpowder had been found at the King's 
 Theatre. Though reasons were hazarded for one or 
 two of the fires, a panic seized upon the public, and it 
 was declared that after the burning of St. James's 
 Palace a letter was received by the Prince of Wales, 
 telling him that he would shortly hear of the destruc- 
 tion of other public buildings; and that after the 
 fire at Drury Lane the Prince showed this letter to 
 Sheridan. 
 
 Thus the Royal Family were in a terrible state of 
 nerves, and the princes felt that it behoved them to 
 walk warily, to reform their evil ways and to curry 
 favour with their people, among whom were some who, 
 not being too enlightened about the meaning of words, 
 were loudly accusing Clarence of living in open 
 adultery. 
 
 The burning of Drury Lane merits more than a 
 mere mention here, as it marked a distinct epoch in
 
 280 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Dorothy's life. It had been her theatrical home for 
 nearly a quarter of a century, and now in February 
 1809 she ended her career there with a flourish, turning 
 a somewhat poor play into a great success, and so say- 
 ing adieu to the scene of her greatest triumphs. For 
 in the new Drury Lane which was opened in 1813 she 
 only acted once. 
 
 It was widely declared that this theatre fire was 
 caused by wilful incendiarism, as the theatre had been 
 closed that day, though others contended that plumbers 
 had made an exceptionally big fire at which to melt 
 lead, and had left the fire burning. It was not, how- 
 ever, until after eleven at night that the flames were 
 seen, and in a few minutes they burst out in every 
 direction. Little was saved beyond some theatrical 
 books. Dorothy was one of the greatest losers, as 
 she kept a large number of dresses and other stage 
 property there ; but the thing that she valued most 
 her bureau was rescued by the bravery and exertion 
 of a literary gentleman named Kent, "who smashed 
 in the door of her dressing-room and secured it. What 
 it contained, however, remains a secret." 
 
 The building of this theatre had cost 129,000, there 
 were debts on it amounting to 300,000, and the in- 
 surance was only for the small sum of 35,000, so 
 Sheridan's situation was really desperate, though it is 
 reported that during the fire he went to the Piazza 
 Coffee House, and upon a friencl remarking his 
 philosophic calm, he replied, " Surely a man may drink 
 a glass of wine at his own fireside." 
 
 The actors were also in despair, but were some- 
 what relieved by a subscription and a benefit perform- 
 ance at the Opera House, to which Dorothy gave her 
 services. Taylor, the lessee of the Opera House,
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 281 
 
 offered his theatre to the company free for three nights, 
 and, by being their own door-keepers, the actors took 
 ^2,200. After which, until April, when they went to 
 the Lyceum, the Drury Lane company acted several 
 times a week at the Opera House ; but Dorothy did not 
 join them. 
 
 Rumour asserted that a serious and violent quarrel 
 occurred between herself and the Prince on the night 
 of the conflagration, and it is not unlikely, seeing that 
 the marriage settlement of her daughter Dorothea 
 must then have been under discussion. Whether there 
 was a quarrel or not, Boaden declares that she with- 
 drew from all permanent engagements from that time, 
 " it not being the wish of her illustrious friend that she 
 should continue in the profession of which she was so 
 great an ornament." A statement which is partly 
 borne out by one of the following letters, obviously 
 written to Boaden, and touching upon the defamatory 
 strictures upon her daughters as well as upon her 
 quarrels with the Duke. The latter, with her usual 
 large-heartedness and pride, she denies in toto, and 
 yet there are so many hints of the trouble, so much 
 evidence of it, that it is not possible to accept literally 
 what she says. It must also be remembered that she 
 considered Boaden as the representative of the Press, 
 and that she wrote to him, in answer to an invita- 
 tion from him, that which she wished the world to 
 believe. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I should be very ungrateful indeed if I could 
 for a moment consider as an enemy one from whom I 
 have received very decided proofs of kindness and 
 attention. I love candour and truth on all occasions,
 
 282 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and the frankness with which you speak of my profes- 
 sional merits stamps a value on your opinion of them, 
 and which (entre nous] I really believe is quite as much 
 as they deserve ; but we do not feel inclined to quarrel 
 with the world for thinking better of us than we 
 deserve. 
 
 " I do not know how to thank you for the humanity 
 with which you seem to enter into my feelings; they 
 are indeed very acute, and, did you know the three 
 incomparable and truly amiable objects of my anxiety, 
 you would not be inclined to withdraw your sympathy. 
 
 "With regard to the report of my quarrel with the 
 Duke, every day of our past and present life must give 
 the lie to it. He is an example for half the husbands 
 and fathers in the world, the best of masters, and the 
 most firm and generous of friends. I will in a day or 
 two avail myself of your kind offer to contradict those 
 odious and truly wicked reports. I am so ill that I can 
 do nothing myself, but must wait for the assistance of 
 a good and clever friend who is at present out of the 
 way, and who, if the truth is not quite scared out of 
 the world, will endeavour to do away the ill impres- 
 sions those reports were meant to make. In the 
 meantime accept my thanks, and believe me, 
 
 ' Yours truly, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 The second letter, on the same point and written 
 to the same person, was dated from Bushy House on 
 March 27, 1809, and runs 
 
 " When I last did myself the pleasure of writing to 
 you I mentioned that I waited for the assistance of a 
 friend, who was not just then in the way, to contradict
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 283 
 
 the cruel and defamous reports that were then in cir- 
 culation ; but on my application to him (perhaps he was 
 right), he said that what had been done had every good 
 effect that could possibly be expected or wished for, 
 and that a renewal of the subject might do more harm 
 than good. Of this I should like to have your opinion 
 when you have read the enclosed. I need not add 
 that you will set the author down for a very partial 
 friend indeed. In obedience to the Duke's wishes, I 
 have withdrawn myself for the present or at least 
 till there is a theatre royal for me to appear in. Mr. 
 March and Mr. Alsop, the two gentlemen to whom 
 my daughters are married, will do themselves the 
 pleasure of leaving their cards at your door next 
 week. 
 
 " I ever am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your obliged, humble servant, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 " P.S. I am to play to-morrow week at the Opera 
 House ; and, as it is likely to be my last night, it would 
 not be amiss to have it ' insinuated ' into the boxes." 
 
 Boaden comments upon this last letter that the 
 intended visits of Alsop and March were, " I know 
 never made." 
 
 Writing from memory long after the events, Boaden 
 is at times curiously misleading, for he declares that 
 Dorothy had been away from Drury Lane for two 
 seasons, and " now returned only to suffer in its fall." 
 As a matter of fact she had been acting through those 
 two seasons perhaps more persistently than at any 
 other time of her life. 
 
 In one of the letters quoted Dorothy spoke of some- 
 thing having been done to stop the slanders, and the
 
 284 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 method adopted by the clever friend is indicated in a 
 paragraph from The Morning Post of March 7, 1809. 
 ' The infamous lies for some time past in circulation 
 respecting Mrs. Jordan and her unoffending and inno- 
 cent family are likely to have an end ; for as Sheridan 
 says in The School for Scandal, ' If the forger of the 
 lie is not to be found, the injured parties should imme- 
 diately fix on some of the endorsers.' This method 
 will be pursued, and, it is supposed, will be the means 
 of shutting up the mouths of some very infamous, base 
 and malignant characters." And it really seems to 
 have had some effect in putting an end to the noxious 
 paragraphs. 
 
 That Dorothy withdrew from her profession is 
 emphatically stated by Sir Jonah Barrington, who 
 asserts that he frequently heard her solicited to retire 
 (he does not say by whom, but leaves it for inference 
 that it was the Duke), and adds that she was urged to 
 forego all further emoluments from its pursuit, and 
 "this single fact gives the contradiction direct to the 
 reports which I should feel it improper even to allude 
 to further." (That the Duke took the money she 
 earned.) 
 
 Both Barrington and Boaden were tremendously 
 affected by the honour which Royalty did them by 
 knowing them, and Barrington's chief care was to 
 whitewash the Duke as far as lay in his power. Boaden 
 knew Dorothy far better by correspondence than by 
 contact, and some of his information he took directly 
 from Barrington, thus repeating the same mistakes. 
 
 As a matter of fact, at this time the Duke was far 
 too dependent upon Dorothy's earnings for him to 
 wish her to withdraw from the stage, and he was so 
 keen upon her acting that he almost always arranged
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 285 
 
 her provincial tours for her with great care, and was 
 particularly anxious to secure her the best terms 
 possible. 
 
 That she did not at the time act with the Drury Lane 
 company is to be explained by the fact that with them 
 she could not possibly have received the salary which 
 would have made it worth her while, and that a week 
 in a country town was equal in value to a month in 
 London. 
 
 Dorothy's facility in letter writing has already been 
 mentioned, and it is an extraordinary thing, due to the 
 method or want of method of the Duke of Clarence, 
 that hundreds of her letters to him are still in exist- 
 ence. In June 1906 as many as 335 letters, written 
 between 1808 and 1810, were sold at Sotheby's for 
 ^333, being described as "the property of a lady." 
 These were written from London, Liverpool, Man- 
 chester, WakefieloV, Bath, Cheltenham, York, 
 Leicester, Dublin and other places, giving a minute 
 description of her theatrical life and experiences. A 
 casket of her letters was also recently offered for sale 
 in London. 
 
 Many valuable letters by her are also in the private 
 collection of Mr. A. M. Broadley. In 1899 six of her 
 letters to her eldest son were sold in the Wright sale, 
 fetching such sums as 14 15$. and ,13 15^. each, 
 and these were later sold at considerably advanced 
 prices. The collection sold at Sotheby's had been 
 found at Bushy Park by Queen Adelaide, who, with 
 her usual kindliness, handed them to Lord Frederick 
 Fitzclarence. How they found their way to the sale- 
 room is not known. In one of the envelopes an old 
 Bank of England note for 2 was discovered, and I 
 am assured by the owner of this batch of letters that
 
 286 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 nearly every one of them contained money, while her 
 weariness of acting- and her desire to give up her 
 profession were constantly expressed. 
 
 Here is first-hand evidence, not only that the Duke 
 could not or would not let her have the rest which she 
 so thoroughly deserved, but that he did the thing that 
 most of her biographers emphatically some scornfully 
 deny : he took every advantage of her labours. 
 Thus, until she was fifty, instead of living a pleasant, 
 luxurious life of splendid guilt, and receiving 1000 
 a year for her personal needs, she was burdened with 
 the responsibility of adding what she could to the 
 Duke's household expenses. There have been many 
 controversies over this point, which these letters settle 
 once for all. 
 
 That there was no intention in the mind of the Duke 
 that Dorothy should leave the stage is proved by the 
 fact that on Monday, April 10, 1809, Dorothy left 
 London to go on a tour to Bristol and Bath a tour 
 which, no doubt, the Duke arranged for her with his 
 usual care. She took one daughter probably Lucy 
 with her, and soon found that the slanders had not only 
 preceded her, but had formed so excellent an advertise- 
 ment for her as to produce large receipts. From that 
 town she wrote to Boaden a letter which gives an echo 
 of her weariness of the stage, tells of her success of the 
 moment and of the gossip which surrounded her. It 
 is really a very interesting letter, and her statement 
 that she started life at fourteen gives weight to the 
 report that she began life in a milliner's shop. She 
 also speaks of brothers and sisters, which shows that 
 she had more than one sister, and alludes to the 
 favours probably of Press announcements which 
 Boaden has granted her.
 
 Dame Gossip and Dorothy 287 
 
 "Bath, Sunday, April 22, 1809. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I should be more insensible than my heart 
 tells me I am if I did not experience much gratification 
 from your very kind and friendly letters friendly 
 they must be, for I am ever asking favours of you, and 
 feel it impossible that I can ever return them. 
 
 " My professional success through life has, indeed, 
 been most extraordinary, and, consequently, attended 
 with great emolument. But from my first starting in 
 life, at the early age of fourteen, I have always had a 
 large family to support. My mother was a duty. But 
 on brothers and sisters I have lavished more money 
 than can be supposed, and more, I am sorry to say, 
 than I can well justify to those who have a stronger 
 and prior claim to my exertions. With regard to 
 myself (as much depends on our ideas of riches), I 
 have certainly enough, but this is too selfish a con- 
 sideration to weigh one moment against what I consider 
 to be duty ; I am quite tired of the profession. I have 
 lost those great excitements, vanity and emulation. 
 The first has been amply gratified, and the last I see 
 no occasion for; but still, without these it is a mere 
 money-getting drudgery. 
 
 " The enthusiasm of the good people here is really 
 ridiculous, but it brings grist to the mill, and I shall, 
 notwithstanding the great drawback of unsettled 
 weather, clear, between this place and Bristol, from 
 800 to 900. 
 
 " Though I very seldom go out when from home, 
 I was tempted by my dear girl to go to a fashionable 
 library to read the papers, and, not being known, was 
 entertained by some ladies with a most pathetic de- 
 scription of the parting between me and the Duke !
 
 288 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 My very dress was described, and the whole conversa- 
 tion accurately repeated ! Unfortunately for the 
 party, a lady came in who immediately addressed me 
 by name, which threw them into the most ridiculous 
 and (I conceive) the most unpleasant embarrassment 
 imaginable. In pity to them, I left the place imme- 
 diately, and flattered myself that I did not show any 
 disgust or ill-nature on the occasion. 
 
 !C The last favour I asked of you was not to gratify 
 
 my own vanity, but my best friends' ; who, in spite of 
 
 the world, are, as I can with truth assure you, as much 
 
 interested about me as they were seventeen years ago. 
 
 " Believe me ever your truly obliged 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 " P.S. I fear I have tired you with my scrawl." 
 
 Her engagement at Bristol was for Monday, April 
 10, and her six or seven nights at Bath would extend 
 over two or three weeks, as she now only acted two or 
 three nights a week, and thus she did not get home 
 again until the end of the month, the Bath verdict upon 
 her being that she had never acted better in her life.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TOIL AND TROUBLE 
 
 " To comic Jordan's laughing eye, 
 
 The tear of pity stole ; 
 But in revenge she drew a sigh, 
 From each spectator's soul." 
 
 ANON. 
 
 " It is by the ignorant that worth is most usually injured. It is by 
 those who know her not that Mrs. Jordan is discredited. Those who do 
 know her, never can know enough of her good qualities, her conciliatory 
 temper, her engaging manners, her readiness to oblige, and her willing- 
 ness to assist, the open generosity of her hand, the superior liberality of 
 her mind." Contemporary Criticism. 
 
 IF Dorothy was agitated about her girls, she now 
 began to know what it meant to have a boy in danger ; 
 for while she and her children were preparing for 
 Christmas in 1808, her son George was tramping with 
 Sir John Moore's army to Corunna, and taking part in 
 the battle of that name. Some time in February he 
 was home again, and his coming brought joy to his 
 parents, the Duke writing to his sister Amelia, who 
 took an affectionate interest in his children, announcing 
 his return : " I am happy to inform you that George 
 arrived last night, in high health and spirits, after 
 having established a perfect character with all ranks in 
 our army. General Stewart, who certainly on one 
 occasion saved his life, speaks of my son in such terms 
 of commendation, that unless writing to you I would 
 not mention the circumstances. Indeed, in the event 
 of the General going again he told me he would rather 
 have George than any other for his aide-de-camp." 
 
 In April, George did go again to the Peninsula, and 
 in July was fighting in the Battle of Talavera, when a 
 T 289
 
 290 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 splinter of a shell grazed his thigh and knee, but did no 
 severe damage. It was concerning him and his ex- 
 ploits that Dorothy wrote to Boaden while she was in 
 Ireland, incidentally indicating the domesticity of 
 her home, while hinting at Boaden's press services. 
 For in June 1809, Dorothy with her daughter Lucy 
 and Kemble went to Dublin, where they proved 
 equally popular. What terms Kemble made is not 
 known, probably 100 a. night, for he was said to leave 
 the Irish capital with ^1500 in his pocket. Dorothy's 
 arrangement was for half the receipts, one which left 
 plenty of opportunity for evasion an opportunity 
 which seems to have been liberally taken, as though the 
 house was crowded when she played, the takings were 
 always reported as small. 
 
 Dublin, Sunday, June i8th, 1809. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I had left Bushy for this place before the 
 arrival of your letter. That you would enter into my 
 feelings respecting my dear boy, I was convinced, 
 when I sent you the ' extract ' ; and as you rightly 
 supposed, only meant it for your own perusal; for, 
 however gratifying it might be to my feeling, to see any 
 testimonial of his good conduct before the world, I 
 have reason to believe that he would be very angry 
 with me if he thought I had made it public. I only 
 mention this to show you that he is an unassuming, 
 modest boy ; so much so, that we never get him to speak 
 of the business at Corunna, where he was himself 
 concerned; but the accounts of him from every other 
 quarter, were, indeed, most gratifying. 
 
 " With regard to myself, I have not much to say; the 
 audience are, of course, very kind, and my reception 
 was most brilliant. But entre nous, I do not think I
 
 Toil and Trouble 291 
 
 shall make as much money as I expected. With every 
 good wish, I remain, Dear sir, Your most obliged, 
 Humble Servant, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 The visit promised well, and might have gone well 
 but that Jones the manager, and Crampton, probably 
 the stage manager, appeared to imagine that such a 
 person as Dorothy could carry the whole comedy on 
 her own shoulders, and needed no particular support 
 from other actors. The company was a poor one, as 
 Harrington says, " many of the performers were below 
 mediocrity. One was forgetful another drunk. I 
 confess I never myself saw such a crew." Boaden 
 went further, saying that they were unable to give cues, 
 and knew nothing of stage business. Jones himself 
 is accused of disrespect to Dorothy, he being probably 
 actuated by a belief in the scandals which had made 
 her so miserable earlier in the year. 
 
 Peggy was her introduction on Wednesday, June 14, 
 and the next night she played Lady Teazle to the 
 Charles Surface of an actor named Dwyer, from 
 Edinburgh. The Saturday was regarded as an 
 especial performance, being under the patronage of 
 the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, and then she 
 played Beatrice to Dwyer's Benedick. Twice she was 
 Bizarre in The Inconstant, a play new to Dwyer, and 
 in which, on both occasions, he disgraced himself, for 
 he not only had not troubled to learn his part, but on 
 June 27 he was certainly drunk, and probably on other 
 evenings too. That night he broke down hopelessly, 
 and Dorothy did her best to prompt him, until at last 
 she lost patience. Upon this, Dwyer appealed to the 
 audience, declaring that he played the part at short
 
 292 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 notice to please Mrs. Jordan; and then " an uncommon 
 clamour instantly ensued, and the remainder of the 
 play was completely destroyed," says the Freeman's 
 Journal. 
 
 Dorothy naturally refused to act again with Dwyer, 
 and finished her term there without realizing that 
 anything else would occur. Dwyer, however, had lost 
 the chance of any further engagement in Dublin, and 
 his reputation had suffered, which he could not pass 
 over. 
 
 Socially, Dorothy seems to have been a success, 
 having invitations poured upon her; Barrington does 
 not fail to mention that he himself met her at various 
 houses, and had her at his own. He says, though, that 
 people who expected to hear wit dropping from her lips 
 every time she spoke were disappointed, as in society 
 she was quiet, " almost reserved," and " the performer 
 was wholly merged in the gentlewoman." 
 
 As far as can be traced this was Barrington's intro- 
 duction to Mrs. Jordan, and he ran the friendship 
 vigorously. But in his sketches he would have the 
 world believe that he had known her long and inti- 
 mately. He talks of "her last visit to the Irish 
 capital," "when last in Dublin," " I once accompanied 
 Mrs. Jordan to the Green Room at Liverpool," " I have 
 seen her on a cruise, that is, at a provincial theatre, 
 having gone over once from Dublin for that purpose ; " 
 etc. " I have seen this accomplished woman in the 
 midst of one of the finest families in England, sur- 
 rounded by splendour, beloved, respected, and treated 
 with all the deference paid to a member of high society. 
 I have had the gratification of knowing intimately that 
 amiable woman and justly celebrated performer. Her 
 public talents are recorded, her private merits are
 
 Toil and Trouble 293 
 
 known to few. I enjoyed a portion of her confidence 
 on several very particular subjects, and had full 
 opportunity of appreciating her character." And in 
 another paragraph he asserts : " I chanced to acquire 
 the honour of a very favourable introduction to His 
 Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, who became 
 the efficient friend of me and my family not with that 
 high and frigid mien which so often renders ungra- 
 cious the favours of authorities in the British Govern- 
 ment, but with the frankness and sincerity of a prince. 
 He received and educated my only son as his own, and 
 sent him, as Lieutenant of the 5th Dragoon Guards, 
 to make his campaign in the Peninsula." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Harrington saw Dorothy Bland 
 as a girl, on her first introduction to the Irish stage, and 
 his next meeting with her was on her last, it is true, but 
 only other visit there. Then he paid strong court to 
 her, became her champion, and by her means gained 
 an introduction to the Duke. With Dorothy he 
 achieved a definite end, for she appears to have invited 
 young Edward Barrington to go back with her to 
 Bushy Park on a visit, which ended in his being sent 
 by the Duke to the Military College at Marlow, where 
 George Fitzclarence had been educated. Barrington 
 also struck up a friendship with Lucy Ford, as is 
 shown by various remarks in letters. 
 
 Dorothy had arranged to take her leave of Dublin 
 on Monday, July 3, but probably stayed a few days 
 longer, as she did not arrive at Bushy until a week 
 later. There she found a great disappointment await- 
 ing her, which caused the announcement of her arrival 
 to Barrington to be of a somewhat agitated kind. 
 
 " My dear Sir, I have returned here. But, alas ! the 
 happiness I had promised myself has met a cruel
 
 294 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 check at finding the good Duke very unwell. You can 
 scarcely conceive my misery at the cause of such a 
 disappointment; but there is every appearance of a 
 favourable result not being very distant; 'tis his old 
 periodical attack [asthma followed by gout], but not 
 near so severe as I have seen it ... I shall have 
 neither head nor nerves to write, or even to think, till 
 I am able to contribute to your pleasure, by announcing 
 my own happiness and his recovery." 
 
 The Duke was sufficiently recovered to go down to 
 Brighton to help to celebrate his eldest brother's 
 birthday at the beginning of August, and Dorothy was 
 alone when the news of Talavera filtered through. 
 Concerning this she wrote to some sympathetic friend, 
 perhaps Boaden, as he possessed the letter 
 
 " Bushy, Thursday, August 1 7th, 1809. 
 
 " I am very vain, but still I have judgment enough 
 not to be fond of doing that which I know I do 
 very ill. Still, I feel pleasure in writing to you who 
 so kindly enter into all my feelings. You may easily 
 guess what they were last Monday night, when I heard 
 the account of the Battle of Talavera. Five thousand 
 killed ! the Duke at Brighton ! I went to bed, but not 
 to sleep. 
 
 :< The Duke set out at five o'clock on the Tuesday, 
 to be the first to relieve me from my misery. I am 
 mentally relieved ; but it has torn my nerves to pieces. 
 I have five boys, and must look forward to a life of 
 constant anxiety and suspense. I am at present very 
 ill Excuse this hasty scrawl, and believe me, Your 
 ever obliged, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 She had not been long at home when news reached
 
 Toil and Trouble 295 
 
 her of an action for libel Dwyer intended to take 
 against a man named Corri sometimes given as 
 Conolly who was associated with The Dublin 
 Satirist, and the whole matter took on the aspect of a 
 new scandal, in which the minor press delighted. One 
 cause being that, among the old acquaintances whom 
 Dorothy found in Dublin was an actor named Barratt, 
 who had been in the theatre when she, as Dolly 
 Francis, uttered her first laugh on the stage. When he, 
 old and poor, made himself known to her she gave 
 him assistance with her accustomed generosity. The 
 counsel for Dwyer, a man named Gould, twisted this 
 natural incident into something unclean and bad, 
 blackening her character as much as possible; for 
 Harrington, who joined in the fray, found that part of 
 Gould's cross-examining consisted of asking questions 
 " highly improper to that lady, but he (Gould) took care 
 not to go too far with me when I was present a mono- 
 syllable or two I found quite sufficient to check the 
 exuberance of * my learned friend.' ' 
 
 Harrington kept Dorothy posted up in the matter, as 
 is seen by her letter to him ; and some allusions were 
 made in the English press. 
 
 "Bushy House, Wednesday. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 " Not having the least suspicion of the busi- 
 ness in Dublin, it shocked and grieved me very much ; 
 not only on my own account; but I regret that I should 
 have been the involuntary cause of anything painful to 
 you, or to your amiable family. But of Mr. Jones I 
 can think anything; and I beg you will do me the 
 justice to believe that my feelings are not selfish. 
 Why, indeed, should I expect to escape their infamous 
 calumnies? Truth, however, will force its way, and
 
 296 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 justice exterminate that nest of vipers. I wanted 
 nothing from Mr. Crampton's generosity; but I had a 
 claim on his justice, his honour. 
 
 " During the two representations of the Inconstant, I 
 represented to him the state Mr. Dwyer was in, and 
 implored him, out of respect to the audience, if not 
 in pity to my terrors, to change the play. As to the 
 libel on Mr. Dwyer, charged to me by Mr. Gould, I 
 never, directly or indirectly, by words or by writing, 
 demeaned myself by interfering, in the most remote 
 degree, with so wretched a concern. I knew no editor, 
 I read no newspapers, while in Dublin. The charge is 
 false and libellous on me, published, I presume, 
 through Mr. Gould's assistance. Under that view of 
 the case he will feel himself rather unpleasantly cir- 
 cumstanced, should I call upon him either to prove or 
 disavow his assertions. To be introduced in any way 
 into such a business shocks and grieves me; he might 
 have pleaded for his companions without calumniating 
 me; but, for the present, I shall drop an irksome 
 subject, which has already given me more than 
 ordinary uneasiness. 
 
 ;< Yours, etc., 
 
 "DORA JORDAN." 
 
 The Monthly Mirror, commenting on the incident, 
 added : " Some of the papers state that there was a 
 fracas between Mrs. Jordan and another performer 
 at the Dublin theatre. There was no fracas; but the 
 fact is Mr. Dwyer behaved improperly on the stage, 
 and the manager very properly withdrew him during 
 the remainder of Mrs. Jordan's performances there. 
 If Mr. Dwyer will send on a relation of the story as 
 he tells it, it shall be inserted." An invitation which 
 Mr. Dwyer did not accept.
 
 Toil and Trouble 297 
 
 Judgment was not given in this case until February 
 1810, the verdict being that Dwyer was to receive 200 
 damages from Corri for the publication of strictures 
 upon his conduct in appealing to the audience against 
 a rebuke given him by Mrs. Jordan for his acting, in 
 consequence of which he had lost the benefit of his 
 employment by the managers of the Dublin and 
 Galway theatres. With this 200 Dwyer went to 
 America, " where he was much admired." 
 
 Beginning September 18, 1809, Dorothy, taking 
 Frances Alsop with her, made a north-westerly tour, 
 acting at Liverpool, Chester and Leicester, and clear- 
 ing about 1200, a proof, said The Sun, "that 
 theatrical judgment is not confined to the metropolis." 
 It was seven years since she had last been to Liverpool, 
 and she had changed much in that time, for life had 
 dealt hardly with her of late, she had had much to 
 endure, and she knew that however brave and cheer- 
 ful the accounts of her domestic happiness given to her 
 friends that happiness, if not entirely doomed, was 
 slowly eluding her; she knew that Clarence could 
 never really stand out against the Royal wishes, and 
 against his own monetary difficulties. So at Liverpool 
 it was remarked that that laugh which had been so 
 essential to her well-being was rarely heard in private. 
 Barrington, who went over from Dublin to see her act 
 for a few nights, says that Mrs. Alsop and "her old 
 maid who assiduously attended her," would go to the 
 Green Room with her, she being languid and depressed. 
 Yet it seemed that the moment her feet touched the 
 boards, her spirits rose, her voice rang clear, and her 
 ready laugh dispelled every symptom of depression. 
 
 Her " cruise " over, Dorothy wrote to Barrington in 
 November
 
 298 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 " My dear Sir, I returned here on the ;th inst., after 
 a very fatiguing, though very prosperous cruise of five 
 weeks, and found all as well as I could wish. Your 
 Edward left us this morning ; I found him improved in 
 everything. I never saw the Duke enjoy anything 
 more than the poultry you sent us ; they were delicious. 
 He desires me to offer his best regards to yourself and 
 your ladies. Lucy is gone on a visit to Lady de Roos." 
 
 A little later she wrote : " I cannot resist the pleasure 
 of informing you that your dear boy has not only 
 passed, but passed with great credit, at the Military 
 College. It gives us all the highest satisfaction. My 
 two beloved boys are now at home; they have both 
 gone to South Hill to see your Edward. We shall 
 have a full and merry house at Christmas; 'tis what 
 the dear Duke delights in. A happier set, when 
 altogether, I believe never existed. The ill-natured 
 parts of the world never can enjoy the tranquil 
 pleasures of domestic happiness. I have made two 
 most lucrative trips since I saw you. Atkinson came 
 to see me at Liverpool : quite as poetical as ever." 
 
 In a further letter, early in 1810, announcing a 
 return from Maidenhead, where the Duke had a small 
 house, she describes how well Edward looks in his 
 uniform, and adds 
 
 " I am sure you will be pleased to hear that your 
 young friend Lucy is about to be married, much to my 
 satisfaction, to Colonel Hawker of the i4th Dragoons : 
 he is a most excellent man, and has a very good private 
 property : she will make the best of wives a better 
 girl never lived : it makes me quite happy, and I intend 
 to give her the value of 10,000." 
 
 The various allusions in these letters to Liverpool, 
 to her boys being at home, and to Lucy's engagement,
 
 Toil and Trouble 299 
 
 date them all as being written within eight months of 
 the Dublin visit, in spite of the wily Harrington's 
 insinuating way of trying to make us believe that he 
 was a long-tried friend of the family. That gentleman 
 had done what he had angled for, he had got a free 
 education with further prospects for his son, and he 
 paid for it by writing a most fulsome panegyric upon 
 the Duke of Clarence in his Recollections; asserting 
 that to the last hour of his life the Duke's solicitude 
 for Dorothy was undiminished. If this was truly so, 
 most folks would agree that his Royal solicitude was 
 a most undesirable thing. " He was incapable of 
 unkindness to Mrs. Jordan ... he begged her to 
 leave the stage, but, infatuated with attachment to 
 theatrical pursuits," she continued to act; "she re- 
 mained, to the very moment of her death, in full 
 possession of all the means of comfort nay, if she 
 chose it, of luxury and splendour'' And he finishes 
 his absurd and untrue tirade by saying grandiloquently 
 of her miserable stay in France, "as she (Dorothy) 
 wished, during her residence in France, to be totally 
 retired, she took no suite." 
 
 Of the visit to Chester, Ryley, an old actor who, as 
 The Itinerant, wrote nine volumes of reminiscences, 
 gives an anecdote which, if long and oft-quoted, is 
 interesting for its further proof of Dorothy's kindness 
 of heart. The old man prefaced his story by the 
 following 
 
 ' Those who, like me, have had the pleasure of 
 being on terms of friendly intimacy with that unri- 
 valled actress, equally a credit to her profession and 
 an honour to human nature, will corroborate my testi- 
 mony in asserting that, in addition to her many other 
 qualities she possessed a heart sensible of the most
 
 300 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 tender and humane emotions, called into instant action 
 by the least approach of misery or distress." 
 
 Then comes this relation : " During her short stay 
 at Chester, where she had been performing, her 
 washerwoman, a widow with three small children, was, 
 by a merciless creditor, thrown into prison; a small 
 debt of about forty shillings was increased, by law 
 expenses, to eight pounds. As soon as Mrs. Jordan 
 heard of the circumstance, she sent for the attorney, 
 paid him the demand, and observed, with as much 
 severity as her good-natured countenance could 
 assume, ' You lawyers are certainly infernal spirits, 
 allowed on earth to make poor mortals miserable/ 
 The attorney, however, pocketed the affront, and with 
 a low bow made his exit. 
 
 " On the afternoon of the same day the poor woman 
 was liberated; as Mrs. Jordan was taking her usual 
 walk with her servant, the widow, with her children, 
 followed her, and just as she had taken shelter from a 
 shower of rain in a kind of porch, dropped on her 
 knees and with grateful emotion, exclaimed, ' God for 
 ever bless you, Madam ! You have saved me and my 
 children from ruin.' The children, beholding their 
 mother's tears, added, by their cries to the affecting 
 scene, which a sensitive mind could not behold but 
 with strong feelings of sympathy. The natural liveli- 
 ness of Mrs. Jordan's disposition was not easily 
 damped by sorrowful scenes; however, although she 
 strove to hide it, the tear of feeling stole down her 
 cheek, and stooping to kiss the children, she slipped 
 a pound note into the mother's hand, and in her usual 
 playful manner, replied, * There, there ; now it's all 
 over ; go, good woman, God bless you ! don't say 
 another word.' The grateful creature would have
 
 Toil and Trouble 301 
 
 replied but her benefactress insisted on her silence and 
 departed. 
 
 " It happened that another person had taken shelter 
 under the porch, and witnessed the whole of this inter- 
 esting scene, who, as soon as Mrs. Jordan observed 
 him, came forward, and he, holding out his hand, 
 exclaimed with a deep sigh, ' Lady, pardon the free- 
 dom of a stranger; but would to the Lord the world 
 were all like thee ! ' The figure of this man bespoke 
 his calling; his countenance was pale; and a suit of 
 sable, rather the worse for wear, covered his tall and 
 spare person. The penetrating eye of Thalia's 
 favourite votary soon developed his character and 
 profession, and, with her wonted good humour, 
 retreating a few paces she replied, ' No, I won't shake 
 hands with you.' ' Why ? ' ' Because you are a 
 Methodist preacher, and when you know who I am, 
 you'll send me to the devil ! ' 
 
 * The Lord forbid ! I am, as you say, a preacher 
 of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who tells us to clothe the 
 naked, feed the hungry, and relieve the distressed ; and 
 do you think I can behold a sister fulfil the commands 
 of my Great Master, without feeling that spiritual 
 attachment which leads me to break through worldly 
 customs, and offer you the hand of friendship and 
 brotherly love ? ' 
 
 ' Well, well, you are a good old soul, I dare say 
 but I I don't like fanatics ; and you'll not like me 
 when I tell you who I am.' ' I hope I shall.' * Well, 
 then ; I tell you I am a player.' The preacher sighed. 
 1 Yes, I am a player; and you must have heard of me; 
 Mrs. Jordan is my name.' After a short pause he 
 again extended his hand, and with a complaisant 
 countenance replied, * The Lord bless thee, whoever
 
 302 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 thou art; His goodness is unlimited. He has bestowed 
 on you a large portion of His spirit; and as to thy 
 calling, if thy soul upbraid thee not, the Lord forbid 
 that I should.' 
 
 ' Thus reconciled, and the rain having abated, they 
 left the porch together; the offer of his arm was 
 accepted ; and the female Roscius of Comedy, and the 
 disciple of John Wesley proceeded arm in arm to the 
 door of Mrs. Jordan's dwelling. At parting, the 
 preacher shook hands with her, saying, ' Fare thee 
 well, Sister ; I know not what the principles of people 
 of thy calling may be; thou art the first I ever con- 
 versed with; but if their benevolent practices equal 
 thine, I hope and trust, at the great day, the 
 Almighty God will say to each, " Thy sins are forgiven 
 thee." ' " 
 
 Colonel Hawker of the i4th Dragoons was a 
 person of considerable interest to Dorothy early in the 
 year 1810, for he was going to marry her daughter 
 Lucy. He was not a young man, being about fifty at 
 the time, a widower whose first wife had died the 
 preceding May, and the father of a grown-up daughter, 
 who was to be married during the following year. He 
 was aide-de-camp to the King, and had been raised to 
 the rank of Colonel in November 1809. He was also a 
 friend of the Prince of Wales and of Clarence, and so 
 had opportunities of meeting Lucy frequently. It must 
 be noted that the girl had many friends in aristocratic 
 circles, and among her mother's relatives, and was not 
 in the least leading the secluded vicariously penitent 
 life of a child of shame, as good Victorians later would 
 have thought the correct thing. Hawker's daughter 
 was a visitor in the Clarence household, and helped to 
 make Lucy's path smooth.
 
 Toil and Trouble 303 
 
 To give this daughter a standing independent of 
 herself, Dorothy took for her a house named the 
 Priory at Sydenham, and it was probably thence the 
 week before the wedding that the following letter was 
 addressed to the Duke 
 
 " There was a mistake in the order for the carriage 
 which is the reason of its coming down so late. I saw 
 Hawker last night, who is better, and will dine with 
 you if you have no objection. The two beautiful Birds 
 are come, and I shall be at a loss how to keep them, 
 as their present cage is too small ; however, I must keep 
 them here till Saturday, when I wish you would make 
 it convenient to send the carman for the large cage, 
 which is just the thing for them. Henry is very well 
 and very happy. 
 
 " Miss Hawker will return to-morrow with Sophy ; 
 love to all, I shall be very glad when this week is over. 
 
 " God Bless you all, 
 
 "D. J. 
 
 " I don't know whether you enclosed me this letter 
 from George or not." 
 
 So on April 30, 1810, Samuel Hawker was married 
 to Lucy Ford in the presence of Dorothea Jordan, 
 Sophia Fitzclarence, Andrew Nixon, and Henry 
 Edward Fitzclarence. 
 
 It is curious, after the stones of mystery about 
 Dorothy's birth, parentage, and death, to find that 
 there were no mysteries, only commonplace facts, 
 covered with the dust of time, which no one seems to 
 have taken the trouble to disturb. She had a circle 
 of relatives with whom she mixed when she had 
 opportunity, and kept in touch with her mother's 
 relatives in Wales. Thus, some time after her
 
 304 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 marriage Lucy Hawker went down to Trelethyn for a 
 long visit, and had a daughter baptized there. 1 
 
 Of the three sons-in-law Dorothy best liked Edward 
 March, in some way he appealed to her, and she 
 accompanied her liking with both trust and respect, 
 only to find herself treated later with horrible ingrati- 
 tude, and almost incredible cruelty. 
 
 In the month of her daughter's marriage a bogus 
 epitaph upon Dorothy was published in The Monthly 
 Mirror. The epitaph in itself was but a pun, the 
 comment upon it, however, was so painfully, though 
 unintentionally, prophetic that it gives a shock to the 
 reader aware of after events 
 
 "When in a MERRY strain 
 
 What rare delight she gave ! 
 But now she gives us pain, 
 Because she's in a GRAVE." 
 
 The writer followed this with a grumble that people 
 would not die, and so give him the chance of exercis- 
 ing his art of epitaph-making, and added, " Mrs. 
 Jordan goes to Ireland with only, as Brutus says, 
 a plank between her and eternity; but nothing 
 happens. Others have been drowned going thither; 
 some women kissed to death, and many murdered 
 there in more expeditious and certain ways, but no, 
 nothing happens to her. Something might have been 
 expected from children, but as they grow up none of 
 them vex her to death not one if but one had done 
 it I should have been contented." 
 
 The writer had not many years to wait for satisfac- 
 tion, for Mrs. Alsop did her best to grant his wish, and 
 Edward March contrived to get it fulfilled. 
 
 In January 1810 Dorothy was delighting Manchester, 
 
 1 Family Letters.
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN AS THE COMIC MUSE, SUPPORTED BY EUPHROSVNE 
 
 FROM A MEZZOTINT BY THOMAS PARK, AFTER A 
 
 TAINTING UY JOHN HOPPNER, R.A., IN THE AQUITANIA COLLECTION 
 OF THE CUNARL) COMPANY
 
 Toil and Trouble 305 
 
 closing there on Saturday the 2oth and playing at 
 Leeds in February. There she received a curious 
 letter of remonstrance signed by several professed 
 Methodists, which testified to the power of her acting. 
 
 She was solemnly accused of holding communication 
 with the Wicked One, who had lent her charms, spells, 
 and magic, since, as they alleged, they had been 
 tempted against their will to go to the Devil's House 
 six times, though they had never seen a play before, 
 and hated alF such abominations ; that she had thus 
 spirited the money out of their pockets and induced 
 them to neglect their families and employments. The 
 letter concluded with a serious admonition to her as 
 she appeared to have a soul worth saving, to give up 
 her profession and intimacy with the Wicked One. 
 
 As to the charge of magic spells, etc., she might 
 fairly in answer have referred to her natural talents 
 and genuine humour, and have said with Othello, 
 " this is the only witchcraft I have used." 
 
 March and April were partly absorbed by prepara- 
 tion for the wedding, and though she was acting 
 practically all the rest of the year the information 
 available about her movements is but scrappy. In the 
 beginning of June she was in Edinburgh, and finish- 
 ing there on the 2oth, she went on to Glasgow, where 
 her affectionate heart received a terrible shock. 
 
 The Duke of Clarence's summer illness came on 
 as usual, but this year he was very bad indeed ; so bad, 
 that he thought death was at hand, and sent an express 
 messenger to the north to summon Dorothy. The 
 managers of the theatre most nobly "relinquished all 
 the advantages which might be expected from the 
 exertions of her talents, and Mrs. Jordan immediately 
 set off for Bushy." She drove night and day, leaving 
 u
 
 306 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 her carriage neither to eat nor to sleep, and her state 
 of mind may be imagined. But on arrival at Bushy 
 she found the Duke slightly better, though attended 
 constantly by Doctors Dundas and Blane. 
 
 To this time belongs a letter from Dorothy, which 
 Boaden carelessly places a year and a half later after 
 the separation had been effected. Not only the fact of 
 the Duke's illness, but the allusions to the " very great 
 shock," and to " two Drury Lanes " proves this, to say 
 nothing of the circumstantial evidence that they would 
 scarcely have been inhabiting the same house on such 
 amicable terms after Dorothy had received her 
 marching orders. 
 
 " Dear Sir, Allow me to thank you for your kind 
 attention to my request. We really live so much in 
 the country, and so entirely within ourselves, that we 
 might be dead and buried, without our friends knowing 
 even that we had been ill. 
 
 " I have the heartfelt happiness of informing you 
 that the Duke is considerably better, though far from 
 being as we could wish. However, his physicians 
 have given His Royal Highness permission to go to 
 town to-morrow. I have been confined ever since my 
 return, owing to the fatigue and anxiety I have gone 
 through. I fear it will be some time before I recover 
 the very great shock I received. I hear there are to be 
 two Drury Lanes, I believe just as likely as one. 
 Yours ever, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 To this illness, which must temporarily have caused 
 Clarence to see things with clearer vision, is to be attri- 
 buted the announcement that this coming season of 
 1 810-181 1 was to be the very last in which Mrs. Jordan
 
 Toil and Trouble 307 
 
 would be seen on the stage, an announcement which 
 was made in the papers of July. That decision arrived 
 at, the Duke, as soon as he was well enough, set to work 
 to map out her winter travels and make the very best 
 terms possible for her. Dorothy was probably very 
 happy for a month or two that summer, forgetting the 
 old proverb which tells how when the devil was sick 
 the devil a monk would be, but that the devil when well 
 the devil a monk was he. The very thing which had 
 brought her and the man she loved closer together, 
 was also the first step towards their parting; for the 
 Queen, that masterful and often hard-hearted mother, 
 had been upset by her son's illness. For years he had 
 been practically in disgrace, and rarely included in any 
 Court festivities; now, however, the Queen began to 
 invite him to Windsor and to Buckingham House, and 
 actually, in August, went to the length of celebrating 
 his birthday as a family festival at Frogmore House, 
 where she resided when at Windsor. She had 
 probably at last come to the somewhat obvious conclu- 
 sion that the worst way of convicting him of folly was 
 by closing the doors upon him, and the best way of 
 weaning him from his companion of eighteen years was 
 to separate them by bringing him back into the Royal 
 circle. His sister Amelia, too, was desperately ill all 
 through this autumn, and so from one cause and 
 another Clarence was thenceforward constantly at 
 Windsor, sharing in all fetes and brought directly 
 under the influence of the Queen. 
 
 The enigmatic observation in Dorothy's letter of 
 two Drury Lanes refers to a managerial idea that the 
 public had so increased that there was room for two 
 new theatres under the one management. There had 
 been whispers about this during the past autumn, but
 
 308 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 it was just being discussed openly when the letter was 
 written. 
 
 In August 1810, Dorothy was faced with the fact 
 that managers were beginning to think they ought to 
 get her services on terms more advantageous to them- 
 selves, and she had a discussion with the Richmond 
 people which drew an ultimatum from her 
 
 " I must either decline performing at Richmond or 
 do so on the old terms, twenty guineas per night for six 
 nights, paying you twenty for the seventh; twice a 
 week; the time from the loth or i2th of August. 
 You arranging the plays and prices yourself and 
 directing the business, or I must decline it altogether." 
 
 Whether the Richmond manager climbed down I 
 do not know, but shortly after she was endeavouring 
 to arrange that her farewell should be given from the 
 stage of Covent Garden early in 1811, at the large 
 salary of 100 a night. However, the management 
 thought the terms excessive and in spite of the 
 following letter the matter hung fire for a time. 
 
 "Bushy, Friday. 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan presents her compliments to Mr. 
 Henry Harris. A long engagement in London being 
 an object of moment to her, on reflection, Mrs. Jordan 
 thinks that a few nights ( which she first mentioned to 
 Mr. Harris) would not answer her purpose or that of 
 her employers. Mr. Wroughton, an old friend of hers, 
 has at her request kindly undertaken to present this, 
 and being in possession of her ideas and expectations 
 on this occasion has full power to negotiate for her. 
 Mrs. Jordan is quitting Bushy on Monday, remaining 
 absent near two months." 
 
 Thomas Harris, the proprietor and manager of 
 Covent Garden, being away ill at Brighton explains
 
 Toil and Trouble 309 
 
 the fact of the letter being addressed to a junior 
 member of the family. The two months' absence to 
 which the letter refers was occupied in touring, and 
 as far as Dorothy believed in saying farewell to the 
 towns which she had known in the height of her powers. 
 She started at Cheltenham in September, and though 
 it is not possible to give a list of the places she visited, 
 I find her at Liverpool, " acting with as much spirit 
 as ever she did," in October, and at Hull, where she 
 was judged as too matronly both in figure and manner, 
 but " in characters of a ripened age," such as Widow 
 Cheerly, Lady Bell, Widow Belmour, and Mrs. Sullen 
 (a part which she had once before played and then 
 vowed she would never play again) " she exacted 
 universal admiration." In December she was at 
 Manchester. 
 
 It is pathetic to think that this dear, hard-worked 
 woman driven by necessity was tramping the weary 
 round of the principal theatres for two or three months 
 at a time when she was longing for rest and the natural 
 reward of her many years of exertion, and it is horrible 
 to realize that a man whose absolutely assured income 
 to say nothing of other emoluments was 18,000 a 
 year was urging her on to work, arranging her tours, 
 and receiving money from her in almost every letter 
 she wrote him. That this was so, can be absolutely 
 proved by the letters of Dorothy's to the Duke penned 
 at this period. 
 
 She would have worked herself to death for him, 
 and was giving him everything that she could, for she 
 knew that the idea of separation was only scotched, 
 not dead, and as the Duke's debts accumulated she 
 saw the end of all happiness approaching unless she 
 could do something to hold it.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE SEPARATION 
 
 " O unfortunate woman ! A combination against my honour ! which 
 most concerns me now, because you share in my disgrace, sir." From 
 The Country Wife, by WYCHERLEY. 
 
 "Therefore, my noble lord, have a little patience, we'll go and 
 look over our deeds and settlements immediately." From A Trip to 
 Scarborough. 
 
 " If you should get a wife, I trust, 
 You'll prove to her a little just ; 
 Prove to her love more true and fond, 
 Than when you stole poor Jordan's bond." 
 
 PETER PINDAR, Jun. 
 
 THE list of engagements with which the last chapter 
 ended effectually disproves the statement, based upon 
 the careless assertions of the early biographers, that 
 Dorothy lived a purely domestic and happy connubial 
 life through 1810, and that for some peculiar and 
 hidden reason she returned to the stage for a solitary 
 engagement in Bath in February 1811. Also the new 
 light thrown by her letters upon the Duke's attitude 
 and action concerning these engagements disprove the 
 common statement that Dorothy had such a hankering 
 after the boards that she simply could not keep off them, 
 though the Duke was always begging her to retire. 
 
 As was 1810 so was 1811; indeed, in one essential 
 it was worse, for while Dorothy was laughing on the 
 stage for money, Clarence was courting a girl of 
 twenty-two for money. The apologists for the Duke 
 declare that in asserting these things writers were 
 eager to present him in an unfavourable light, and 
 stated what they could not prove, and that no letters 
 existed to clear up vexed points. 
 
 310
 
 The Separation 3 1 1 
 
 Well ! many letters exist to prove many things, and 
 there is the evidence, sometimes unconsciously given, 
 in newspapers, and the circumstantial evidence 
 gathered from a careful comparison of events, all of 
 which tend to show that the princely Duke is smirched 
 and dishonoured by his treatment of Dorothy during 
 the last years of her life. The mantle of Queen 
 Charlotte, the enemy of her own sex, had fallen upon 
 him; he not only used his wife, for she was that by 
 every natural law, to his own advantage, but threw her 
 aside with a callous cynicism that was foreign to his 
 character. He did the actual deed with tears, he so 
 reasoned with her as to make her believe that it was 
 vitally necessary, and afterwards she followed his 
 dishonourable career with a pitying love, resolutely 
 refusing ever to speak against him. 
 
 " Had he left me to starve I never would have 
 uttered a word to his disadvantage ! " was her 
 passionate exclamation. 
 
 In later years, when Adelaide had rescued him from 
 the mud, the character given him was that of a kind, 
 affectionate, passionate and often stupid man; one 
 who in anger would swear at a clergyman or hold a 
 relative up to public ridicule; yet, on the other hand, 
 soft-hearted and anxious not to inflict pain. But his 
 treatment of Dorothy this year shows an absence of 
 feeling, which reflects the character of the Queen. 
 The public records of his movements at this time prove 
 that he was constantly in touch with his mother, that 
 all through his negotiations with Miss Tylney Long, 
 the heiress, he was dining at Windsor and leaving 
 there for Bushy the same night. He was there con- 
 stantly while arranging his separation with Dorothy, 
 and was in consultation with the Queen a night or two
 
 312 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 before he followed Miss Long to Ramsgate. Thus it 
 is scarcely possible, knowing how much Charlotte dis- 
 liked his connection with Dorothy by this time, and 
 how acquisitive she was, not to suspect that the Queen's 
 influence was strong upon him, and that she was fully 
 conversant with his intentions towards the heiress. 
 
 However, to follow events as they happened. In 
 January 1811 Dorothy again went to Bristol, and on 
 the 22nd she began a ten nights' engagement at Bath, 
 acting every second night in her usual characters. 
 Though her movements in the provinces were not much 
 chronicled, she afterwards acted at various places; it 
 is a mistake to assume that she only performed when 
 Boaden mentions it, for it was usually only when some- 
 thing notable happened at this or that town that her 
 presence there was recorded, such as the tragic incident 
 of Cheltenham this year. 
 
 In June she came forward for the first time in the 
 new Covent Garden at a benefit, " and she never gave 
 the character of Peggy with more vivacity, nor was 
 ever received with warmer applause." Her reception 
 was, in fact, so wildly enthusiastic that the manager 
 of the theatre suddenly awoke to the fact that she was 
 worth her own price, and offered her an engagement 
 for July at 100 a night. So on July 2 she began a series 
 of ten performances, acting three times a week, and 
 being welcomed by many congratulatory and affection- 
 ate comments in the papers. On the i ith of the month, 
 when The Way to Keep Him was the play, and " the 
 elegant, the accomplished Widow Belmour was person- 
 ated by Mrs. Jordan," there was a chorus of praise over 
 the manner in which she delivered her rules for the 
 keeping of a husband ; the following passage receiving 
 three rounds of applause
 
 The Separation 313 
 
 " To win a heart is easy to keep it is the difficulty. 
 After the fatal words, ' for better for worse,' women 
 relax into indolence, and, while they are guilty of no 
 infidelity, they think everything safe. But they are 
 mistaken and a great deal is wanting; an address, a 
 vivacity, a desire to please ; the agreeable contrast ; the 
 sense that pleases, the little folly that charms." 
 
 How men have always loved think that they loved 
 " the little folly that charms," and how many a woman 
 in the past has received black eyes and a beating for 
 trying to display it. As a matter of fact, a real man 
 hates folly, hates a woman to affect it and hates still 
 more that a woman should really possess it; the only 
 thing that he does like about it is the hidden sentiment 
 behind the words, the idea that a woman will conde- 
 scend even to folly that she may prove him the superior, 
 and even this is the characteristic of a weak man only. 
 
 Poor Dorothy might well utter this passage with 
 " inimitable effect," for her attempts " to keep him " 
 by loyalty and hard work had not been successful, and 
 she may have wondered whether a " little folly " would 
 not have been more efficacious. She was struggling 
 with all her strength against impossible odds, for the 
 money she could dribble into the ducal purse was gone 
 before it was received. Barrington pompously and 
 solemnly vows that she earned 7000 the last year of 
 her acting. Even if she had in 1811 earned anything 
 like that, it would have been of no use to a man who 
 had a determined eye on a much larger income. 
 
 From Covent Garden Dorothy went in August to 
 Leeds and to York ; back to York ! the town where 
 Gentleman Smith had so often watched her and where 
 she and Tate Wilkinson, now dead, had so often 
 quarrelled. After that she may have taken Richmond,
 
 314 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 but Margate was not visited that summer. The fare- 
 well winter season had stretched through the spring 
 and summer to August and September, and she was 
 still acting without a break, though from time to time 
 the public were reminded that her last visits were 
 being made. 
 
 The relations between the Duke and Dorothy were 
 very strained this summer, and it is probable that they 
 were not often at Bushy House at the same time, and 
 when they were they quarrelled. 
 
 The Great Illegitimates affirms that by this time 
 "unpleasant bickering frequently occurred; that the 
 children of our actress were estranged from her, and 
 as pecuniary resources failed, a palpable coldness and 
 total neglect became apparent in a certain quarter. 
 We do not pretend to deny that a want of money might 
 be experienced by one individual, but we are by no 
 means enabled to account for such a deficiency in 
 another quarter . . . that she did begin to feel 
 pecuniary embarrassment is a notorious fact, the solu- 
 tion of which some persons perhaps may shrewdly 
 surmise, notwithstanding all varnish used to gloss over 
 and mystify the fact." 
 
 The report of one fateful quarrel was preserved by 
 Frances Alsop, who was in the room at the time, 
 Dorothy being at work on a little wool rug designed 
 for wrapping round a tea-urn. Clarence had by then 
 made up his mind concerning his future, but the way 
 in which he conveyed his plans to Dorothy seem to 
 have been more the result of irritation than of a 
 determined plan. I quote the passage from The Great 
 Illegitimates 
 
 " Some altercation taking place, and words growing 
 high, the unfortunate lady, in the irritation of the
 
 The Separation 315 
 
 moment arising from wounded pride and indignant 
 feelings, threw the rug at the head of her friend, which 
 piece of workmanship we have recently had in our 
 hands. We give this as one of the statements fre- 
 quently reiterated by Mrs. Alsop, which becomes the 
 more valuable as tending to confirm the statement we 
 have previously made respecting the real cause of Mrs. 
 Jordan's separation from her protector [the courting 
 of Miss Long]." Mrs. Alsop would scarcely have 
 invented this story, and I have proved several times 
 the truth of incidents given in this book from corro- 
 borative evidence in contemporary biographies. 
 
 Dorothy, seeing what was before her, yet hoping to 
 avert her fate, placed every obstacle in the Duke's 
 way, and declared her determination not to be cast out 
 into beggary. She had her bond, drawn up in 1791, 
 and that should be kept to the letter. She herself 
 must have failed to see how Clarence could possibly 
 carry out its provisions, and perhaps hoped thus to 
 stave off the final separation. Her future was impos- 
 sible to contemplate; her best days were past, each 
 year lessened her chance of making an income, her 
 promises to her three daughters had not been re- 
 deemed, and she was often ill and incapable of 
 acting. Thus she could only anticipate an old age 
 of want. 
 
 Concerning the bond there is a story told that the 
 Duke contrived by some means to get it from her and 
 keep it. It is alluded to by many writers, and one 
 hints at it in the following 
 
 " In regard to the thousand pound settlement, such 
 things have been heard of as procuring the loan of a 
 bond under specious pretences, and never returning 
 the same. Transactions of this nature will sometimes
 
 316 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 occur in families, as a lady of the name of Robinson 
 could testify was she still in existence." l 
 
 Boaden does not mention it, but he admits that " it 
 is not unlikely that she might have placed some part 
 of her fortune at the temporary disposition of her noble 
 friend," which for such a royalist was a serious admis- 
 sion. The evidence, however, points to the conclusion 
 that, whatever the Duke tried in this way, Dorothy 
 retained possession of the document. 
 
 It was money, money, money which caused the 
 separation, she said, and some people who want money 
 will sell their souls for it. The Duke would have been 
 horrified at such a suggestion, and yet he was prepared 
 to go a long distance in a transaction of the sort. For 
 by this time it was an open secret that he was paying 
 court, not so much to a young commoner, as to her 
 fortune. 
 
 Two years earlier, when Dorothy's heart was break- 
 ing over the vile calumnies which were being spread 
 abroad concerning her, that is in April 1809, a certain 
 lady arrived in London with her household, announc- 
 ing that arrival to her friends by sending out invita- 
 tions to a sumptuous party in Grosvenor Square This 
 was Lady Catherine Tylney Long, widow of Sir James 
 Tylney Long, who had brought her two daughters up 
 to town for the season. The ball was opened by her 
 eldest daughter Catherine dancing with the Marquis 
 of Tweeddale, and though there were many notabilities 
 present the Duke of Clarence was not among them. 
 In October 1810 Catherine came of age, being one of 
 the richest girls in England, the daily papers crediting 
 her with landed property which brought her a rental of 
 
 1 Perdita, whom the Regent kept by means of a bond, the conditions 
 of which he never fulfilled.
 
 The Separation 317 
 
 73,000, and an accumulation of 350,000 in money, 
 making her yearly income as much as 93,000. As a 
 matter of fact she had 40,000 a year, and she neces- 
 sarily had also such a train of applicants for this 
 fortune with herself thrown in that she hardly knew 
 some of the individuals which composed it. Yet for 
 nearly three years after her first introduction into 
 London she remained single. As her name spread 
 the attention of the Royal Dukes was attracted, and 
 Clarence decided that in her lay his salvation. In this 
 belief he was encouraged by his brother the Prince of 
 Wales, who, on his becoming Regent, was said to be 
 ready to use all his influence to get the Marriage Act 
 repealed for the purpose. 
 
 The Duke proposed to Miss Long in the summer 
 of 1811, and was refused; but he by no means lost 
 heart not imagining that a commoner could sniff at 
 a Royal Duke ; and he continued to endeavour to put 
 Dorothy out of his life, one method being to declare 
 his intention of giving up Bushy House. He also 
 wrote to Miss Long making a renewed declaration of 
 his love, and she " wrote him a very proper letter in 
 answer, declining the honour in the most decided 
 terms," says the Duke of Buckingham in his Memoirs 
 of the Court of England during the Regency. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dorothy went to Cheltenham about the 
 1 6th of September, to act ten times as usual, on 
 alternate nights. Her engagement ended, but it hap- 
 pened she had promised to act one night more to swell 
 the benefit receipts of the manager, Watson. William 
 Oxberry, who was at the theatre that night and who 
 naturally knew nothing of what had gone before, gave 
 an account of the incident in his Dramatic Biography, 
 which conveyed the impression that Dorothy received
 
 318 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 then the first hint of an intended separation. The 
 Duke believing her engagement ended sent her a letter 
 that afternoon by the hand of .General Charitie, his 
 personal friend and confidant, said Edward Stirling, 
 asking her to go straight from Cheltenham to Maiden- 
 head finally to arrange the terms of their parting. 
 
 So at last the blow had actually fallen, at last hope 
 was really dead, and Dorothy felt all the anguish of 
 total loss. Boaden says she had a succession of faint- 
 ing fits, and Oxberry says she became frantic and had 
 hysterics, but they could only know anything about the 
 receipt of the letter from hearsay; Stirling also is so 
 thoroughly wrong in all the facts he gives about her 
 that the Duke left her to marry Adelaide, for instance 
 that it practically remains for our own imagination 
 to determine as to how she received the news. She 
 was not a fainting woman, but she may have fainted, 
 and it is doubtful whether she was hysterical. What- 
 ever she felt she refused to entertain the idea of giving 
 up the performance that night and duly appeared on 
 the stage. 
 
 One pathetic incident marked the evening in a scene 
 where she should have been accused by a character 
 named Jobson of having been made laughing drunk. 
 The poor thing tried to laugh at her cue, and instead 
 burst into tears, upon which keen-witted Jobson said 
 
 "Why, Nell, the conjuror has not only made thee 
 drunk, he has made thee crying drunk." 
 
 The fact that the Duke had expected her to leave 
 Cheltenham that day, and would await her at a certain 
 time caused Dorothy to have a travelling carriage 
 ready at the stage door as soon as the play was over, 
 into which she got without even stopping to change 
 her theatrical clothes.
 
 The Separation 319 
 
 Given baldly this sounds rather unbalanced, but it 
 must be remembered that she would have her maid 
 with her, and that a travelling coach was quite com- 
 modious enough to be, and indeed often was, used as 
 a dressing-room. Thus Dorothy had no intention of 
 doing her whole journey or of appearing in Maiden- 
 head as Nell. 
 
 The interview, which must have been painful 
 enough, took place, but with little tangible result, as 
 Dorothy refused to accept the terms offered by 
 Clarence, but what those terms were no one knows. 
 This summons was not as is always represented the 
 first hint Dorothy had of a separation, nor was the 
 matter settled then by any means. It just happened 
 that Oxberry heard the story of the summons while at 
 Cheltenham, and so, this one incident being definitely 
 known, biographers leapt to the conclusion that it was 
 the only incident in the whole affair. 
 
 The Duke went back to Bushy House after seeing 
 Dorothy, and was there during the whole of the next 
 week, perhaps longer, and it is very likely that Dorothy 
 went with him, as there was still much to arrange. 
 Whatever their separate movements the discussion as 
 to terms was prolonged until December. 
 
 In October Miss Long, with her little court, went 
 to Ramsgate, and the Duke with George, his son, 
 then Captain Fitzclarence, was staying in the neigh- 
 bouring town of Margate, it being said that they 
 intended to make " a tour round the island." How- 
 ever, Clarence wanted advice, so he turned from there 
 westward instead of southward, and on the 22nd was 
 dining with his mother at Windsor, starting a day or 
 two later for Ramsgate in the wake of Miss Long. 
 
 Whether his royal parent had given him carte
 
 320 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 blanche, or whether it was his own idea, this impecuni- 
 ous person began to make a great splash at Ramsgate, 
 fitting up the warm baths in a very elegant manner for 
 the benefit of the town, entirely at his own expense; 
 holding on the 28th a great review of the Somerset 
 Regiment of Militia, at which the number of fashion- 
 able spectators was very great, and giving the same 
 evening a grand ball to two hundred friends, Miss 
 Long being the object of all this. 
 
 That which condemned Clarence above everything, 
 both his good heart and his wit, was that being on such 
 a quest he took with him Dorothy's eldest daughter 
 Sophia, who was then either fourteen or nineteen, 
 probably the latter. That summer she had come out 
 in Court circles under her father's protection at the 
 Carlton House fete, that magnificent party by which 
 the Regent, with execrable taste, celebrated the hope- 
 less illness of his father and his own accession to 
 power. Sophia was reported the next day in the usual 
 newspaper phrase as being " an amiable and highly 
 accomplished young lady." All through the summer 
 this young girl was by Clarence's side, hearing him 
 discuss her mother with the people he visited, and 
 watching him perhaps sympathizing with his endeav- 
 ours when he courted Miss Long. Can anything 
 more heartless on a man's part be imagined, and is it 
 to be wondered that Dorothy's girl, thus tutored, left 
 her mother to die and did not even see that her body 
 was given a decent grave? 
 
 Miss Tylney Long was an independent young 
 person, and she could not have found it an added 
 attraction in the Duke that he should thus flaunt his 
 family before her eyes, and keep in her mind the 
 woman who had lived with him for twenty years.
 
 The Separation 321 
 
 Though she was not an actress, she was a commoner, 
 and when she considered she could surely see little 
 security for herself in such a marriage, so she refused 
 the Duke's offers again and again. 
 
 Most of the biographers assert that the Tylney Long 
 affair had no foundation excepting in gossip ; but they 
 wished to think that and looked for no evidence. 
 Boaden, true to his conception of royalty as something 
 immaculate and divine, says 
 
 " If this were ever a matter of deliberation in the 
 royal mind, I am quite sure it was rejected upon 
 principle, and every notion of such a thing was soon 
 closed by the union of the wealthy heiress in March 
 1812 with Mr. Wellesley Pole, the son of Lord 
 Maryborough." 
 
 However, solid fact is more valuable than virtuous 
 suppositions, and in a letter written on November 3, 
 1811, by the Hon. Mrs. Calvert, 1 we find "The Duke 
 has proposed for Miss Long, the great heiress, and has 
 promised that the Regent will get the Act of Parlia- 
 ment repealed which prevents the Royal Family 
 marrying subjects. She has refused him, but still 
 encourages him, and some think it will be a match." 
 
 A fortnight later she wrote 
 
 ' The Duke of Clarence and his daughter have been 
 paying Lady Darnley a visit. He told her that he had 
 proposed for Miss Long and had been refused, but he 
 did not despair, for he felt sure that the tenth time he 
 would be accepted. Lady Darnley says Miss Long is 
 a very high young lady, * Set her up, say I ! ' The 
 Duke is going to part with Mrs. Jordan." 
 
 From this we see that the rupture between Dorothy 
 and Clarence had not until then, November 18, been 
 
 1 An Irish Beauty of the Regency^ by Mrs. Warenne Blake. 
 x
 
 322 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 talked of generally, though it was known at Richmond, 
 and this note also proves the fallacy of the idea that the 
 summons from Cheltenham marked the total severance 
 of all connection between the two. As a matter of fact, 
 Dorothy was at that time at Bushy House, and there 
 was still considerable trouble over the negotiations, 
 which were being carried on by John Barton for the 
 Prince, and General Samuel Hawker for Mrs. Jordan. 
 The Duke of Buckingham throws some light on the 
 situation 
 
 " After his (the Duke of Clarence) arrival (at Rams- 
 gate) he proposed three or four times more; upon his 
 return to town he sent her an abstract of the Royal 
 Marriage Act, altered, as he said it had been agreed 
 to by the Prince of Wales, whom he had consulted, 
 and also conveyed the Queen's best wishes and regards 
 to neither of whom had he said one single word on 
 the subject." 
 
 Now the Duke of Buckingham was a great friend of 
 the Prince Regent's, and the Prince, being a moral 
 coward, usually not to state it too bluntly said that 
 which was most convenient at the moment, so Bucking- 
 ham's accusation against Clarence's truthfulness must 
 not be taken literally. Circumstances point to his 
 having been quite truthful on this matter. Bucking- 
 ham gives further information, this time about 
 Dorothy, saying that on Clarence's return to town 
 from Ramsgate he proposed that Dorothy should keep 
 half the children and he would allow her ^800 a year. 
 
 " But she is most stout in rejecting all compromise, 
 till he has paid her what he owes her ; she stating that 
 during the twenty years she has lived with him he has 
 constantly received and spent all her earnings by 
 acting, and that she is now a beggar, by living with
 
 The Separation 323 
 
 and at times supporting him. This she repeats to all 
 the neighbourhood of Bushy, where she remains and 
 is determined to continue." 
 
 This is the only reference I have come across of 
 Dorothy ever speaking a word against the Duke, and 
 seeing the state of mind to which she was reduced it 
 is not wonderful that she was momentarily and out- 
 wardly bitter. 
 
 Though she knew that Clarence was wishing to 
 marry Catherine Long, she did not know all the details 
 of the affair, and her friends soon repaired this omis- 
 sion. It was, however, left to that arch mischief-maker, 
 the Duke of Cumberland, "who must interfere in 
 everything," to give her a full account of what hap- 
 pened at Ramsgate. She was furious, and wrote 
 Clarence a furious letter. Buckingham says that she 
 also wrote an acknowledgment to Cumberland, and 
 that in the agitation of the moment she made the usual 
 fatal mistake, of directing the letters wrongly. The 
 result was a great quarrel between the brothers, and 
 really between two such men, both delighting in bad 
 language, it would certainly have been a lively scene. 
 
 The Duke of Cumberland seems to have taken a 
 great interest in the proceedings, for on October n, 
 between the meeting at Maidenhead and the Rams- 
 gate visit Dorothy wrote to Clarence : " The Duke of 
 Cumberland has been here for the last two hours, 
 expressing the strongest friendship for me, and hoping 
 that I should not go into the country again, but make 
 a permanent engagement in London. I do not know 
 whether he spoke from higher authority than his own, 
 but he seemed very strenuous on the subject, he 
 appeared quite at a loss for your going." 
 
 It was later than this that Dorothy wrote a long
 
 324 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 letter to her Confidential friend, a letter in which she 
 shows a brave front to the world, making the very best 
 of the Duke's conduct, trying to console her wounded 
 heart with the superficial praise and promises lavished 
 upon her by the Regent and the Royal Family, 
 and betraying the lengths to which her self-sacrifice 
 could go. 
 
 " Bushy, Saturday. 
 " MY DEAR SlR, 
 
 " I received yours and its enclosure safe this 
 morning. My mind is becoming somewhat reconciled 
 to the shock and surprise it has lately received, for 
 could you or the world believe that we have never had 
 for twenty years the semblance of a quarrel, but this is 
 so well known in our domestic circle that the aston- 
 ishment is greater ! Money, money, my good friend, 
 or the want of it, has, I am convinced, made him at 
 this moment the most wretched of men, but having 
 done wrong he does not like to retract, but with all his 
 excellent qualities, and his domestic virtues, his love 
 for his lovely children, what must he not at this 
 moment suffer! His distress should have been 
 relieved before, but this is entre nous. 
 
 "All his letters are full of the most unqualified 
 praise of my conduct, and it is a heartfelt blessing to 
 know and feel that to the best of my power I have 
 endeavoured to deserve it. 
 
 " I have received the greatest kindness and atten- 
 tion from the Regent and every branch of the Royal 
 Family, who in the most unreserved terms deplore this 
 melancholy business, the whole correspondence is 
 before the Regent, and I am proud to add that my 
 past and present conduct has secured me a friend who
 
 The Separation 325 
 
 declares he never will forsake me, my forbearance, he 
 says, is beyond what he could have imagined ; but what 
 will not a woman do, who is firmly and sincerely 
 attached had he left me to starve I would never have 
 uttered a word to his disadvantage. I enclose you two 
 other letters, and in a day or two you shall see more, 
 the rest being in the hands of the Regent. And now, 
 my dear friend, do not hear the poor Duke of Clarence 
 unfairly abused; he has done wrong, and he is suffer- 
 ing for it, but as far as he has left it in his own power 
 he is doing everything kind and noble, even to the 
 distressing himself. I thank you sincerely for the 
 friendly caution at the end of your letter, there will, I 
 trust, be no occasion for it, but it was kind and friendly, 
 and as such I shall ever esteem it. 
 
 " I remain, dear sir, 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN. 
 ' These letters are for your eye alone." 
 
 Boaden puts a footnote, " The two letters enclosed 
 by Mrs. Jordan returned to her, faithfully obeying the 
 condition attached to their communication." 
 
 That Dorothy should again assert that she and the 
 Duke had never had a quarrel points to Boaden again 
 as the confidential friend. She had done the same 
 thing early in 1809 when the terms upon which they 
 lived became the subject of public talk, and when also 
 her protective instinct was shown to be stronger than 
 her candour. It is not possible to think, even without 
 evidence to the contrary, that over such events no 
 hint of anger could have been betrayed. The Duke 
 was subject to mad fits of rage, as is evidenced by his 
 public treatment of the Duchess of Kent in later days,
 
 326 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 and when obsessed by such he roared like the very 
 bull of Bashan before the whole world. Dorothy 
 herself was quick-tempered, and accustomed to plain 
 speech; thus, in spite of her brave words, they cannot 
 be taken so much as adhering to fact as giving the 
 impression which she desired to be handed on to the 
 public. A curious point in this letter is the caution 
 which her correspondent had given her. Who or what 
 was it against? As far as can be traced the key to it 
 is to be found in the letter she wrote to Clarence, in 
 which she mentions the Duke of Cumberland. Of all 
 the Princes Cumberland bore the worst character for 
 amativeness, and later other crimes were imputed to 
 him. And it is evident that this dangerous person was 
 interesting himself much in Dorothy's affairs, but why? 
 It could not be love, for she was just fifty and had 
 had fourteen children, thus some other motive must 
 have actuated him. 
 
 As usual the biographers are vague about these 
 years, and Huish, a contemporary writer, places the 
 Cumberland incident in 1809, but as he crowds many 
 events of different years together, he cannot be taken 
 as exact, though his summing up is worth recording. 
 At this time, he says, extreme moral delinquency was 
 imputed to Clarence, who was labouring under great 
 pecuniary distress ; and ruinous measures were resorted 
 to to provide for each day. But " whatever his case, 
 there was no excuse for the Duke to allow Mrs. Jordan 
 to be the object of the rancour and malice of a certain 
 party whose infamous design was to attach criminality 
 to her, and in a point in which she was as pure as the 
 snow which lies in Diana's lap." 
 
 Boaden said that the causes of the calumnies during 
 these years were three, concurring to swell the tide of
 
 The Separation 327 
 
 persecution, while the press was equally well disposed 
 to help each one. And he gives those causes as : 
 First, numerous scribblers who hated the Duke; 
 secondly, a few writers connected with the theatres 
 who were ready to convert Dorothy's virtues into pitch 
 and declare that if she benefited any one " she did it 
 for her body's lust"; thirdly, more important people 
 who tried to engender distrust or disgust in the mind 
 of the Duke of Clarence, hoping that this, joined to 
 his monetary embarrassment, would make him part 
 finally with Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 Huish goes further when he insinuates that there 
 was a plot among the royal relatives to ensure a 
 rupture, thus leaving Clarence blameless in the eyes 
 of the world when he married, as they hoped he would 
 do. The Cumberland scandal appears never to have 
 been widely circulated, but it was forced upon 
 Dorothy's notice, and she followed her last letter to 
 Boaden with the following cry of pain 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I should be sorry the letters I have enclosed 
 to you were the only vouchers I could produce to the 
 world, if necessary. But, good God ! what will not 
 the world say? I received two letters this day, telling 
 me that I was accused of intriguing with the Duke of 
 Cumberland ! 
 
 " I am heart-sick and almost worn out with this 
 cruel business; but I am, 
 
 " Very gratef uly yours, 
 
 "DORA JORDAN." 
 
 At the end of November matters began to move 
 more quickly. Clarence returned to London about the
 
 328 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ioth, and on the 24th was at Portsmouth, continuing 
 with George his " tour round the island." In between 
 those dates he had as has been seen been trying his 
 own hand at arranging the settlement, and failing. On 
 the 25th the coming marriage of Miss Tylney Long 
 with Mr. Wellesley Pole was announced, and on the 
 29th Boaden had conveyed to the public the chief 
 points in Dorothy's letter to him. 
 
 She had been negotiating a second engagement with 
 Covent Garden, which was to be " the very last time " 
 she would appear on any stage, so Boaden's paragraph 
 took the following form 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan, it seems, has declined all theatrical 
 engagements at present, on account of the agitation 
 of her feelings, arising from a late extraordinary event, 
 so extraordinary that it is difficult to form any reason- 
 able conjecture on the subject, as nothing has been 
 urged against her conduct, which indeed has received 
 every satisfactory testimony and even soothing com- 
 munications, from the quarter where objections might 
 be supposed to exist, if they had any existence." 
 
 The papers were discreet and perhaps commiserat- 
 ing, for there was scarcely any further public allusion 
 made to the separation, and no stones were thrown to 
 deepen Dorothy's trouble. Clarence remained at 
 Portsmouth ten days and arrived at St. James's on 
 December 5, after which he pushed matters through 
 about the settlement. Rumours were floated that he 
 had increased it to 1200 a year, and then that it 
 would be four times that amount, and at last in the 
 middle of the month the thing was concluded. 
 Dorothy wrote a letter from St. James's dated 
 December 7 (probably copied wrongly by Boaden 
 for 17)
 
 The Separation 329 
 
 "Mv DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I lose not a moment in letting you know that 
 the Duke of Clarence has concluded and settled upon 
 me and his children the most liberal and generous 
 provision, and I trust everything will sink into oblivion. 
 
 ' Yours ever, 
 
 " DOROTHY JORDAN." 
 
 In a letter which she wrote to the Duke from Bushy 
 House a little later occurred the paragraph 
 
 "With your arrangements I again unequivocally 
 repeat I am most perfectly satisfied, but under all cir- 
 cumstances I did and had a right to expect some con- 
 sideration from another quarter, but I am sorry to say 
 that in an appeal I made to the mercy and munificence 
 of your Royal brothers, I perceive that they appear 
 totally ignorant of the meaning of those words." 
 
 What can this mean, read with the earlier letter 
 mentioning the royal brothers, but that she had made 
 great concessions in the agreement under the belief 
 that the Princes intended to safeguard her to some 
 extent ? 
 
 Years later the Duke's man, Thomas Barton, pub- 
 lished to the world the terms upon which the separation 
 was arranged, and they may as well have place here. 
 She was to have the care up to a certain age of her 
 four youngest daughters, for whose maintenance she 
 was to receive 1500, and for their house and carriage 
 600. For her own use she was given 1500, and 
 800 to make provision for her elder daughters, not 
 the children of the Duke, which made in all 4400. 
 
 Barton adds, ' ' This settlement was carried into 
 effect, a trustee [himself] was appointed, and the 
 monies under such trust were paid quarterly to the
 
 330 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 respective accounts at the banking house of Messrs. 
 Coutts and Co. It was a stipulation in the said settle- 
 ment, that in the event of Mrs. Jordan's resuming her 
 profession, the care of the Duke's four daughters, 
 together with the 1500 per annum for their mainten- 
 ance, should revert to his Royal Highness. . . . Upon 
 settling the annual allowance to Mrs. Jordan, every- 
 thing in the shape of a money transaction was brought 
 to account, and the most trifling sums, even upon recol- 
 lection, were admitted, and interest being calculated 
 upon the whole in her favour to the latest period, the 
 balance was paid over by me on the part of the Duke, 
 and for which I hold Mrs. Jordan's receipt." 
 
 On paper this sounds very well, though Barton's 
 further claim that the Duke was liberal, noble and 
 generous to the highest degree will not stand when the 
 matter is examined. To take the money items first. 
 The ,600 for the house and carriage was not Mrs. 
 Jordan's at all, but was paid through the bank and the 
 trustee for its specific purpose; the 1500 was to be 
 used for the little girls, including education. The 
 800 had nothing to do with Dorothy, being paid 
 direct to the daughters by the bankers, and thus 
 Dorothy's income was the mere 1500! Quite 
 enough ! those purists will say who can only look on 
 her as a mistress and a thing of nought. But it must 
 be remembered that she could earn very much more 
 than that amount in one year, and that to gain the 
 1500 she was bound never to act again under pain of 
 losing the children who were so dear to her, children 
 of the ages of 13, 10, 7 and 5. The youngest boy, 
 Augustus, six years old, was taken from her already, 
 as was the eldest girl, Sophia, the darling of her 
 father's heart. 

 
 The Separation 331 
 
 Barton asserts, too, and probably quite truthfully, 
 that everything that Dorothy had lent or given to the 
 Duke was added together, interest calculated and the 
 balance paid over; but he does not say how that 
 balance was paid over, and he is careful not to hint 
 that the 800 a year paid to the Ford daughters was 
 the interest on the greater part of that balance. The 
 way in which the Duke settled to pay 1000 towards 
 Dorothea March's marriage settlement is a revelation 
 in the method by which he discharged his liabilities, 
 and it must be remembered that he was worse off in 
 1811 than he had been in 1809, that his debts were 
 greater, and that, in fact, he was in desperate straits. 
 That he paid over tens of thousands of pounds in 
 money is not to be credited for one moment, though 
 it is quite easy to believe that once again he found 
 parchment an extremely good medium. Whatever 
 may have been the form that his " great generosity " 
 took, Dorothy's affairs showed no signs of increased 
 affluence, not a single act of extravagance is on record 
 to prove that she was in really easy circumstances, one 
 writer declaring to the contrary that she was very 
 needy; and when six months later a new and tremen- 
 dous demand was made upon her she had no capital 
 with which to meet it. 
 
 Her daughters only received 200 a year each, and 
 there was a fourth 200 which is not historically- 
 allotted to any one, which is another indication of the 
 existence of Hester Bettesworth, who is so consistently 
 ignored by Boaden. In considering this it must not 
 be lost sight of that the very names of the Fitzclarence 
 children at this time have to be sought for, and had 
 they not been of royal parentage would most probably 
 never have been recorded.
 
 332 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 On the subject of the giving up of the stage or the 
 children there is something to be said. In the first 
 place, it was Dorothy's own desire that she should give 
 up her profession, one which she had been unable to 
 gratify because of the ever present need of money in 
 the Duke's household. In the second place, this royal 
 Prince could never again hope to benefit by her work, 
 and therefore would at this juncture be quite ready to 
 let her have her will. And in the third he was moved 
 with fatherly solicitude for his children, and would 
 wish that if they were away from him they should have 
 the constant presence and care of their mother. 
 
 Dorothy's welcomed absence from the theatre, how- 
 ever, only lasted a few months. When she was, in 
 May 1812, tempted to go again upon the boards she 
 used the Duke's prohibition as an excuse against it, and 
 when she was forced by necessity to take up work 
 again she did as she had done for over twenty years, 
 threw dust into the eyes of the public and shielded the 
 Duke by declaring that she worked to gain money for 
 her elder daughters, and that the Duke had in his great 
 kindness granted her permission to play in the hope 
 that it might improve her health.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CUPID V. CASH 
 
 " Oh, where among our nobles will you meet 
 A man so faithful, modest and discreet, 
 As love-sick Clarence, amorous and gay, 
 Who steals the ladies' tender hearts away? 
 Offers his hand to Long, short, fair and brown, 
 And gains among the females great renown." 
 
 PETER PINDAR, Jun. 
 
 " Had he left me to starve I never would have uttered a word to his 
 disadvantage." DOROTHY JORDAN. 
 
 IT was not unnatural that Catherine Tylney Long 
 should share with the Duke in the attention at this 
 time bestowed upon his hunting of fortune, and Gillray 
 and other caricaturists were busy with pen and brush. 
 One imposing caricature showed a group upon the 
 bank of the Thames at Hampton, with a boat drawn 
 up to the shore. The boatman, Tom Tugg, alias the 
 Duke, stands hat in hand before the heiress, inviting 
 her to take a cruise. Miss Long, grasping large rent 
 rolls and an apron full of gold pieces, has Wellesley 
 Pole by her side, while Dorothy, surrounded by her 
 children, is in the background, crying 
 
 " What, leave your faithful Peggy?" 
 
 Miss Long refuses Mr. Tugg quite nicely with, " I 
 am sorry that I can't be yours, for indeed I find it 
 impossible to resist Mr. Pole ! " And that young man 
 remarks, " I'll tell you what, Master Tugg, you'll not 
 be first oars here this little rosebud I intend to pluck 
 for myself; therefore be off." The Duke answers 
 
 333
 
 334 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Miss Long with, "Why, look you, miss, I'll go on 
 board of a man-of-war, for I cannot bear to see you 
 in the arms of another. Then farewell, my trim-built 
 wherry and the Rent Roll, then farewell ! " 
 
 " Princely Amusements," a picture by Gillray, 
 showed the Regent dancing with three befeathered 
 ladies, the Princess of Wales vanishing through the 
 doorway. At a round table, Clarence, York, Mrs. 
 Jordan and Mrs. Clarke are playing whist, Clarence 
 saying, " I revoke." Upon the mantelpiece is a pole 
 surmounted by a cockscomb, up which a little white 
 hen is climbing, while a puppy, labelled D. of CL, is 
 licking its foot. A portrait of the King as Tony 
 Lumpkin, and of the Queen as Old Snuffy, adorn the 
 walls. 
 
 This caricature, about which there was nothing 
 lovely, was yet quite refined compared with some con- 
 cerning the Princes' doings ; and that such things were 
 popular shows how eager was the public to watch and 
 criticize these faithless men who had been placed by 
 Providence (!) at the head of the nation; they also 
 show the depths of degradation to which the Throne 
 had sunk when the King and Queen so shared in the 
 public disrespect. 
 
 Peter Pindar, Jun., one of the imitators of John 
 Wolcot, wrote many verses upon the Tylney Long 
 incident, caustic verses of a broad humour, not always 
 repeatable, but these three are mild specimens 
 
 " I've illegitimates at home, 
 
 And illegitimates abroad ; 
 But now the hour of thought has come 
 And I'll reform, I will, by G . 
 
 "'Angel,' quoth he, 'for such thou art, 
 Come be the sharer of my pillow ; 
 Take, prithee take, my melting heart, 
 And doom me not to wear the willow.
 
 Cupid v. Cash 335 
 
 " ' I am the oflfspring of a king, 
 
 Yet do I woo thee, gentle maiden ; 
 I will not leave thee, no such thing, 
 My love for thee shall be unfading.'" 
 
 Another satire gave Miss Long's reply as follows 
 
 " Sir, if your passion is sincere, 
 I feel for one who is not here ; 
 One who has been for years your pride, 
 And is, or ought to be, your bride ; 
 Shared with you all your cares and joys, 
 The mother of your girls and boys. 
 
 "'Tis cruelty the most refined, 
 And shows a mean, ungenerous mind, 
 To take advantage of your power, 
 And leave her like a blighted flower. 
 
 " Return to Mistress Jordan's arms, 
 Soothe her and quiet her alarms ; 
 Your present differences o'er, 
 Be wise and play the fool no more." 
 
 Poor Catherine ! She was too upright to marry a 
 man who belonged to another, too prudent to risk any 
 disregard of the Marriage Act; but though she chose 
 a scoundrel of the deepest dye, would a better fate 
 have been hers if she had taken " our Billy " ? For 
 when that gentleman had spent her money, as he spent 
 Dorothy's, he would have had every right to turn her 
 adrift, as he did Dorothy, and look out for another 
 woman to help support him. That she should have 
 refused a prince of the blood in so determined a way 
 shows her to have been a person of character, even 
 though she was helped to independence by her inevit- 
 able popularity, for Lady Granville wrote of her as 
 refusing men right and left. But the Prince's per- 
 tinacity had shown her that the time had come to make 
 a decision, and, alas ! she chose the very worst man 
 possible, the Hon. Wellesley Pole, son of Lord Morn- 
 ington, Baron Maryborough, and cousin of the Duke 
 of Wellington ; one of whom Mrs. Calvert said, " No
 
 336 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 one rejoices at Mr. Pole's success. He is an ill- 
 conditioned and, I believe, not a very wise young 
 man." Buckingham avers that Pole was solely in- 
 debted to the Duke for his acceptance, and another 
 writer said that in "her terror of Clarence she threw 
 herself into the arms of Pole." 
 
 The marriage was solemnized in March 1812, and 
 the very incidents of the ceremony were typical of the 
 rest of her life. She wore a dress which cost six 
 hundred guineas and a necklace worth thirty thousand, 
 but the man who was ready to share her wealth had not 
 even remembered to buy a wedding ring. So the 
 noble party in Lady Tylney Long's drawing-room had 
 to take a rest in the middle of the ceremony while a 
 jeweller was fetched from Piccadilly with a boxful. 
 Thus began a disastrous marriage with a man whose 
 chief ideas of educating his children was to hire 
 French beggar boys, when in Paris, to teach them the 
 lowest oaths, his sons doing a corresponding service 
 for the French boys. He spent all her money, got a 
 mortgage of ,100,000 on her property, and spent that, 
 then she had to make him and the woman he lived with 
 an allowance out of her pin money of ,13,000. Her 
 horror of him grew so intense that her health gave way, 
 and at last she began proceedings for a divorce, part 
 of the process being to stop his allowance. Upon that 
 he returned suddenly to England, went to see her, and 
 put her in such fear of her life that " she was forced 
 to take refuge in a pantry and to make her escape from 
 the house by the assistance of a Bow Street officer," 
 said the judge in Chancery, when Pole applied for the 
 custody of his children. 
 
 She died a few weeks after, in September 1825, but 
 at least she died with her children and sister about
 
 Cupid v. Cash 337 
 
 her and in the comfort of a home, blessings which 
 were not allowed to Dorothy. The disreputable 
 Pole passed his later life as a three-hundred-a-year- 
 pensioner on his cousin, the Duke of Wellington. 
 
 The failure of the arrangement with the heiress did 
 not turn William's heart back to Dorothy, and Buck- 
 ingham declares that he wrote to Lord Keith to pro- 
 pose for his daughter Margaret Elphinston, who was 
 in her own right through her mother, Baroness Nairn ; 
 this proposal was, " in the most decided and peremp- 
 tory terms, rejected." 
 
 The Duke's further matrimonial -quest, of course, 
 became public news, and early in 1812 another cartoon 
 was published, showing him disguised as King Nep- 
 tune and kneeling before a negress, named Venus 
 Barton, who carries great green bags full of gold. 
 This nymph I have not traced, but she was much car- 
 tooned at the time. Her reply to her suitor was much 
 the same as that of the heiress. 
 
 "Ha, Massa Neptune, vat you vant ? 
 Me quite up to all your cant ; 
 For if Miss Golden Long would have you, 
 You would not come to me to sue, 
 And leave your wife and piccaninnies, 
 To come and try to take my guineas." 
 
 It gives real pleasure to know that for years after 
 this the Duke of Clarence sought in vain for a woman 
 who would marry him. He was credited in 1812 with 
 proposing for a sister of the Czar Alexander ; the next 
 year it was announced that he had really opened a 
 treaty of marriage, and early in 1814 Her Serene High- 
 ness, under the title of the Duchess of Oldenburg, was 
 met by Clarence on her arrival in the Medway. Now 
 every one was sure of the marriage; but the lady 
 accepted his attentions, stayed weeks in England, was
 
 338 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 much caressed a word very popular then by the 
 Queen, and then gaily sailed away again. She had 
 cultivated a friendship with the Princess Charlotte, 
 and had perhaps learned too much about the Princes 
 to wish to enter the family. 
 
 Clarence then cast his eyes on a Princess of Den- 
 mark, and Peter Pindar asserts that Southey wrote two 
 sonnets to her, which William sent as his own produc- 
 tion. She, however, refused to have anything to do 
 with "a carpet admiral." His other serious attempt 
 at marriage was in 1817, when he made love to a young 
 lady named Wykeham, the heiress of all the estates 
 in Oxfordshire left by Lord Wenman. It was at 
 Brighton that the Duke wooed her, telling her that he 
 had not a single farthing, but if she would like to be a 
 Duchess, and perhaps a Queen, he would be happy to 
 arrange it, and he eventually gained her consent by 
 sending her the sonnets written for "sweet Anne of 
 Denmark," pretending that they were the result of the 
 inspiration gained from Miss Wykeham's eyes. 
 
 This may be contemporary embroidery upon the 
 fact, but the Queen, the Regent, the Lord Chancellor 
 and the Privy Council were all mightily perturbed, and 
 her Majesty was furious when Sweet William went 
 down to Windsor to announce " the happy event " to 
 her. She was sufficiently agitated to put off a Drawing- 
 room, and the Regent, who had been encouraging his 
 brother, turned his back on him when it came to 
 difficulty. 
 
 "Do you know Miss Wykeham? She is a fine, 
 vulgar miss," wrote W. H. Fremantle to the Marquis 
 of Buckingham. " There is nothing talked of but the 
 Duke of Clarence having been refused by the Princess 
 of Denmark, and having proposed since for Miss
 
 Cupid v. Cash 339 
 
 Wykeham, who has accepted him. I believe there is 
 no doubt of the truth of this, but it is not thought that 
 they will be allowed to marry," wrote Mrs. Calvert. 1 
 
 By March Clarence had been persuaded finally to 
 abandon Miss Wykeham, and Lord Grenville com- 
 mented, "Whether the love-sick youth is to transfer 
 his flame elsewhere and where I know not." But the 
 love-sick youth had not much chance of doing any- 
 thing, for the Regent and his mother took his affairs 
 in hand, and before two months were over he was 
 betrothed to Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. The terms 
 he at first demanded from Parliament were, said the 
 Duke of Kent to Creevey, impossible, being payment 
 of all his debts, a settlement suitable for a Prince who 
 marries for a succession to the throne, and a handsome 
 provision for all his natural children. 
 
 When Clarence was King he made Miss Wykeham 
 Baroness Wenman, and she died unmarried in 1870. 
 ****** 
 
 During December and January 1812 Clarence was 
 in London except for a week or two spent at Ports- 
 mouth, and he did not return to Bushy Park till the 
 end of January, so Dorothy had plenty of time to move 
 her possessions. Simultaneously with her arrival in 
 London arose anew the rumour that she intended to 
 take an engagement at Covent Garden, and would 
 follow Mrs. Siddons after Easter. She was accredited 
 with two London residences, one at Hammersmith, 
 which " also became the partial residence of her illus- 
 trious friend," and one in Cadogan Place, Sloane 
 Street, "where she and some of the younger female 
 branches of her family are in future to reside." The 
 inference is that for a time the house in Hammersmith 
 
 1 AH Irish Beauty of the Regency. By Mrs. Warenne Blake.
 
 340 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 was occupied by Dorothy and her little girls, and that 
 when she wanted a town address she used Cadogan 
 Place. Her letters prove that she took a long lease 
 of the latter house and furnished it, and that not only 
 Mrs. Hawker but the Marchs and their two families 
 of children lived there (the General too probably, 
 when not on duty), and kept a home for Dorothy when 
 she needed it. 
 
 Until the autumn of 1812 Dorothy lived a private 
 life, and when in May Jones of Covent Garden wrote 
 asking her help for his benefit, she replied, " When it 
 is in my power there is none that I would sooner serve 
 than yourself, but your very good friend Mrs. Lane 
 will explain to you the serious restrictions I am under 
 with respect to my never returning to my profession. 
 I have therefore only to add that I very sincerely wish 
 you every possible success, and such as your merits 
 fully entitle you to." 
 
 Who saw after Clarence's little boys of about ten 
 and seven years old, now deprived of their mother's 
 care, is not revealed; but probably Jane Lloyd, who so 
 faithfully kept Dorothy in knowledge of their doings. 
 There is nothing to prove that the latter was forbidden 
 to see them, as has been stated, and she certainly 
 received visits occasionally from her children. For 
 Sophia a chaperone or companion was engaged, prob- 
 ably the lady to whom Dorothy wrote as follows from 
 Cadogan Place 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, 
 
 " I should be extremely insensible if your very 
 kind and considerate letter had not afforded me much 
 pleasure. Your opinion of dear Henry, while it does 
 hina justice, reflects the highest honour on your feelings
 
 Cupid v. Cash 341 
 
 and observation he is indeed an admirable boy; I 
 cannot recollect any obligation you owe me for any 
 former expressions of admiration I have made use of, 
 but I trust and feel I shall owe you many in your 
 future care and affection towards dear Sophia. I shall 
 feel much pleasure in being personally known to you, 
 and hope you will accompany my dear boy and girl 
 and take a family dinner with us. I will be with 
 Sophy by three." 
 
 Sophy by this time was a very gay young person, 
 the papers including her name among the notabilities, 
 such as " To-day the Duke of Clarence and Miss Fitz- 
 clarence arrived in town from Bushy " ; " The Duke 
 of Clarence is indisposed at Bushy, Miss Fitzclarence 
 left town immediately to attend him " ; " The Duke 
 and Miss Fitzclarence are expected in town to-day," 
 etc. 
 
 For some time a lady named Sketchley had been 
 helping with Dorothy's children, and from this period 
 until her death Miss Sketchley remained attached to 
 her and her fortunes; and though she was suspected 
 later of intrigue and even of dishonesty, she was the 
 only person who remained faithful to the end. She 
 accompanied the lonely woman on her tours, nursed 
 her in illness, comforted her in sorrow, and took the 
 place not only of a friend but of that old nurse who 
 had been with Mrs. Jordan for years, and was now pen- 
 sioned in a little house at Englefield Green, which 
 Dorothy paid for. But the establishment at Hammer- 
 smith soon disappeared, for in the summer a new and 
 bitter trouble arose. 
 
 Thomas Alsop had left his work, or it had left him ; 
 he was heavily in debt, and it was necessary that his
 
 342 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 affairs should be examined. The result proved that 
 he was financially ruined, and Dorothy took much of 
 this burden upon her shoulders. Probably to save the 
 man from imprisonment she mortgaged part of her 
 income from the Prince, and then that she might live 
 she had again to go on the stage. So for a scamp like 
 Alsop and a giddy fool like Frances, Dorothy had to 
 give up the society of her little children, the quiet com- 
 fort which the Duke's various payments afforded as 
 long as they were continued and a large part of the 
 ,1500 a year which remained to her; and once again, 
 more alone and bereft than ever, take up the weary 
 round over the country in pursuit of work. But where 
 was that great sum which the Duke had paid over to 
 her in discharge of all she had paid and lent during 
 twenty years? 
 
 Boaden and succeeding biographers have placed the 
 Alsop trouble in 1814, but its true date was 1812, 
 though Frances remained a care to the end. 
 
 Dorothy caused Alsop to insure his life for his wife's 
 sake and paid the premium herself, and then cast 
 about for some method of providing for him. When, 
 in November 1812, Lord Moira was appointed 
 Governor-General of Bengal and Commander-in-Chief 
 of the forces in India, some good friend found her the 
 way. It may have been worked through the Duke of 
 Clarence, for M'Mahon, the Regent's Comptroller of 
 the Household, had something to do with it. Thus, 
 when in April 1813 Lord Moira embarked for India he 
 carried in his train a scallywag who called himself one 
 of his under-secretaries as an excuse for his presence. 
 Dorothy and her daughter Frances never again saw 
 Thomas Alsop ; their part was to repair the damage he 
 had done a part which Frances entirely repudiated.
 
 Cupid v. Cash 343 
 
 There can be no doubt but that the Duke was con- 
 sulted, personally or through his agent, upon all this, 
 and gave what help he could; and that Dorothy's 
 representations as to the permanent inroads Alsop had 
 made upon her income convinced him that the only 
 course was to keep to their bargain that is, to take 
 the children back to his own home, and reclaim the 
 1500 for their maintenance and the 600 for their 
 house and carriage. This would leave Dorothy with 
 her own 1500 and the 800 for her daughters. 
 Frances's share of that 800 was perhaps pledged to 
 her husband's creditors, for during the next few years 
 she had no income; the rest belonged to the other 
 daughters, while Dorothy's own allowance was also 
 partly pledged, though to what extent it is difficult to 
 say. Dr. Townsend Young declares that she then had 
 but 200 a year left, and that much had gone to pay 
 her own debts. She herself speaks of having sunk 
 about 300 for Frances's benefit, and does not mention 
 what went for Alsop's debts or her own. How- 
 ever, to judge of the way in which Dorothy lived in 
 France, an income of 200 seems to be more than 
 could be accounted for. In addition to the mortgage 
 on her income, Dorothy must from time to time have 
 paid heavy lump sums upon the Alsop debts, for she 
 complained that she had spent all her money on one 
 to the exclusion of those who better deserved it. This 
 referred to the fact that she had been in the habit of 
 making an allowance to her sons when they went into 
 the world, and that this had been interrupted by the 
 needs of her son-in-law. 
 
 So, seeing what was before her, Dorothy once more 
 made use of Boaden, as usual taking the onus of her 
 new departure upon herself, and extolling the Duke
 
 344 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 for his goodness in relieving her from her promise to 
 act no more. 
 
 " Cadogan Place, Thursday. 
 " MY DEAR SlR, 
 
 " I fear I must have appeared unmindful of your 
 many kindnesses in having been such a length of time 
 without writing to you; but really, till very lately, my 
 spirits have been so depressed that I am sure you will 
 understand my feelings when I say it cost me more 
 pain to write to those interested about me than to a 
 common acquaintance; but the constant kindness and 
 attention I meet with from the Duke, in every respect 
 but personal interviews (and which depends as much 
 on my feelings as his), has in a great measure restored 
 me to my former health and spirits. Among many 
 noble traits of goodness, he has lately added one more, 
 that of exonerating me from my promise of not return- 
 ing to my profession. This he has done under the 
 idea of its benefiting my health and adding to my plea- 
 sures and comforts, and though it is very uncertain 
 whether I shall ever avail myself of this kindness, yet 
 you, if you choose, are at liberty to make it known, 
 whether publicly or privately. I wish I could see you ; 
 but it is such a long way for you to come. 
 
 " Yours ever, etc., 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 Py August 1812 the new Drury Lane Theatre was 
 nearly finished, and its opening in the autumn was 
 being discussed, so paragraphs appeared at the end of 
 the month to the effect that Mrs. Jordan was "pre- 
 paring some magnificent dresses for a provincial tour. 
 It is more probable, however, that they are intended 
 to grace the opening of the new theatre in Drury Lane.
 
 Cupid v. Cash 345 
 
 But such an actress needs not the outward aid of 
 ornament, as she has the powerful recommendation 
 of first-rate comic genius." 
 
 She probably was thinking of Drury Lane, for 
 negotiations as to an engagement went on for some 
 time, falling through at last because she and " the 
 Theatrical Committee of Drury Lane are at variance 
 as to the terms upon which she is negotiating for an 
 engagement, and the lady finds that she can employ 
 herself better in a provincial ramble than even at a 
 magnificent theatre in the metropolis." 
 
 On October i that autumn Clarence went with the 
 Queen and the Prince Regent to inspect the new Drury 
 Lane before it opened. One wonders whether any 
 painful memory of the old theatre and all he had 
 gained in it assailed him ! 
 
 So in the autumn Dorothy went again on tour. In 
 September she was playing at Plymouth, her benefit 
 on the 28th drawing a brilliant and overflowing house; 
 then she went to Portsmouth, and before the close of 
 the year she was at Leicester, where the young Mac- 
 ready saw her for the first time, and acted under her 
 directions. His impressions of her, given in his 
 Reminiscences, show her as one absorbed in her work 
 while at work, quick to make the very best of the 
 material at her hand, and wise in enriching that material 
 with her praise. The following, it must be remem- 
 bered, was written when she was fifty-one years old. 
 
 "All the attributes of Thalia were most joyously 
 combined in Mrs. Jordan. With a spirit of fun that 
 would have outlaughed Puck himself there was a dis- 
 crimination, an identity with her character, an artistic 
 arrangement of the scene that made all appear sponta- 
 neous and accidental, though elaborated with the
 
 greatest care. Her voice was one of the most melo- 
 dious I ever heard, which she could vary by certain 
 bass tones, that would have disturbed the gravity of a 
 hermit; and who that ever heard that laugh of hers 
 could ever forget it? The words of Milman would 
 have applied to her : * Oh, the words laughed on her 
 lips ! ' Mrs. Nesbit, the charming actress of a later 
 day, had a fascinating power in the sweetly ringing 
 notes of her hearty laugh, but Mrs. Jordan's laugh was 
 so rich, so apparently irrepressible, so deliciously self- 
 enjoying as to be at all times irresistible. Its con- 
 tagious power would have broken down the serenity of 
 Lord Chesterfield himself." 
 
 This tribute to her qualities Macready followed with 
 a description of her method at a rehearsal of The 
 Wonder: " I remarked, as I watched this charming 
 actress intently through her first scene, how minute 
 and how particular her directions were; nor could she 
 be satisfied till by repetition she had seen the business 
 executed exactly to her wish. The moving picture, 
 the very life of the scene was perfect in her mind, 
 and she transferred it in all its earnestness to every 
 movement on the stage." 
 
 Macready was nervous, but Dorothy's good-nature 
 soon relieved him, and when he said something well 
 she paused, apparently in a sort of surprise, " and, with 
 great and grave emphasis, said, ' Very well, indeed, 
 sir ! ' " which gave him his perfect self-possession. 
 "Where was there a Violante who could, like her, 
 excite the bursts of rapture in an audience. . . . The 
 mode in which she taught Flora to act her parts was a 
 lesson to make an actress . . . the effects these gifted 
 individuals produced on their audiences was such as 
 succeeding aspirants have never been able to excel."
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN 
 
 FROM A PASTEL BY JOHN RUSSELL, R.A. REPRODUCED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 
 IN THE POSSESSION OF DR. C. C. WILLIAMSON
 
 Cupid v. Cash 347 
 
 Finishing at Leicester with The Belle's Stratagem, 
 Dorothy went further north, and the next place she is 
 mentioned as visiting is Newcastle. In January 1813 
 she was acting for seven nights at Bath, and on 
 February 12 she commenced a two years' engagement 
 at Covent Garden by playing Violante in The Wonder . 
 The audience hailed her with repeated shouts of 
 delight. Over twenty years before the superfine moral 
 sense of the great British public, which loved to delude 
 itself upon its own virtue, had shown its scorn, hissing 
 and abusing her, but that could never happen again. 
 What though she had grown fat, and was growing old ? 
 She was their one comedian for them in England, and 
 they welcomed her with all their hearts. However, one 
 poor cowardly and cantankerous spirit hissed loudly 
 enough to be heard all over England, one that never 
 missed an opportunity of railing against the Princes. 
 A writer upon The Times had already found that it 
 was dangerous to attack royalty too openly, and so by 
 crushing Mrs. Jordan hoped to reach Clarence. Truth 
 was of no importance ; had not the paper's own repre- 
 sentative been punished for telling the truth, and a 
 prince's mistress deserved castigating anyhow. So 
 this unknown writer used The Times as his shield, 
 and flung not one stone but a whole shower of stones 
 in the face of the woman whose life had become a 
 tragedy of self-sacrifice. The article itself is not 
 worth reproducing, but here are two or three para- 
 graphs showing its virulence and coarseness * : 
 
 " Here they [the playgoers] had found a woman 
 that, after forming her experience by a personal trial 
 of almost every possible condition of life, had at 
 length crowned her career by a full admission to the 
 
 1 The Times, February u, 1813.
 
 knowledge [of high life] which but for her [ ? other- 
 wise] had been hopeless; a woman who, like Lady 
 Wortley Montagu, had been admitted into the secrets 
 of harems and palaces, seen their full exhibition of 
 nude beauty and costly dissoluteness; the whole in- 
 terior pomp of royal pleasure, the tribes of mutes and 
 idiots, sultans and eunuchs, slavish passion and lordly 
 debility. The price paid for this indulgence was prob- 
 ably in both cases equally peculiar; but in both the 
 reward was knowledge, not attainable on lighter terms. 
 We are not then to wonder that Mrs. Jordan's return 
 should excite the utmost extravagance of popular 
 curiosity. The sentiment has been the same before 
 she was born to delight princes. . . . 
 
 : ' This woman, to whom nature has had so few 
 reserves, whose ' proper study/ as Pope says, ' has 
 been man/ whose opportunities of study have been 
 furnished, in the course of a diligent life, from every 
 rank and every age; who has adopted Shakespeare's 
 conception in its fulness, and come ' home to the 
 hearts and the bosoms of men/ with such unremitting 
 assiduity ; who has, eminently above all other women, 
 deserved the renowned motto of ' Humani nihil 
 alienum? even she failed last night to give pleasure. 
 ... Is not the public forced to find the alternative 
 for this degraded woman's appearance in the decline 
 of life either in her own vile avarice or in the viler 
 breach of stipulation by those who should never 
 abandon her to poverty ? We cannot believe that the 
 latter is the case; and if the former, what share of 
 public approbation should be permitted to one for 
 whom it is impossible to feel any share of personal 
 respect ? Whose sons and daughters are now strangely 
 to move among the honourable people of England,
 
 Cupid v. Cash 349 
 
 received by the Sovereign, and starting in full appetite 
 for royal patronage, while their mother wanders, and 
 is allowed to wander, from barn to barn and from town 
 to town, bringing shame on the art which she practices, 
 and double shame on those who must have had it 
 in their power to send her back to penitence and 
 obscurity." 
 
 It was an unusually bitter and cowardly attack, even 
 at a time when men like Cobbett and The Times writer 
 still believed in chivalry, but were always careful 
 before exercising it to knock the woman down. 
 
 Many papers took up the cudgels in Dorothy's 
 defence, among them The Morning Post, The News, 
 The Sun, The Theatrical Inquisitor and Bell's 
 Weekly, and the playgoing public showed its resent- 
 ment in the theatre. When, some nights later, 
 Dorothy was playing Nell, and one of the characters 
 addressed to her this sentence, " You have an honest 
 face and need not be ashamed of showing it anywhere," 
 the play was stopped by shouts of approval, followed 
 by three rounds of applause, which so overcame her 
 that she burst into tears. 
 
 Dorothy heard of this article in The Times, but did 
 not trouble even to see it; however, the Duke must 
 have been troubled, and it appears as though his fac- 
 totum, Barton, drew Dorothy's attention to the duty ( !) 
 she owed her princely light-o'-love. Barton reproduced 
 the letter she then wrote to the papers, and which was 
 widely circulated when, ten years afterwards, he had 
 to make a public defence of the Duke, and he intro- 
 duced that letter into his defence in the following 
 words : " Reflections were thrown out against both the 
 Duke and herself; whereupon Mrs. Jordan, indignant 
 at the attack upon His Royal Highness, wrote the
 
 3 so The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 following letter, which was published in the papers of 
 the day." The italics are mine; she had, of course, no 
 cause to be indignant on her own account. That some 
 such negotiation went on is proved by the fact that 
 Dorothy's dignified and restrained letter did not 
 appear until more than a week after the accusatory 
 article. 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " Though I did not see the morning print that 
 contained the paragraph alluded to in your liberal and 
 respectable paper of yesterday, yet I was not long left 
 in ignorance of the abuse it poured out against me; 
 this I could silently have submitted to, but I was by 
 no means aware that the writer of it had taken the 
 opportunity of throwing out insinuations which he 
 thought might be injurious to a no less honourable 
 than illustrious personage. 
 
 "In the love of truth, and in justice to His Royal 
 Highness, I think it my duty, publicly and unequivo- 
 cally, to declare that his liberality towards me has been 
 noble and generous in the highest degree. But, not 
 having it in his power to extend his bounty beyond the 
 term of his own existence, he has, with his accustomed 
 goodness and consideration, allowed me to endeavour 
 to make that provision for myself which an event 
 that better feelings than those of interest made me 
 hope I shall never live to see would entirely deprive 
 me of. 
 
 " This, then, sir, is my motive for returning to my 
 profession. I am too happy in having every reason to 
 hope and believe that, under these circumstances, I 
 shall not offend the public at large by seeking their 
 support and protection, and, while I feel that I possess
 
 Cupid v. Cash 351 
 
 those, I shall patiently submit to that species of un- 
 manly persecution which a female so particularly 
 situated must always be subject to. Ever ready to 
 acknowledge my deficiencies in that respect, I trust I 
 may add that I shall never be found wanting in 
 candour and gratitude, nor forgetful of the care that 
 every individual should feel for the good opinion of 
 the public. 
 
 " I am, sir, 
 
 '* Your much obliged, humble servant, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 From that time until into June Dorothy was acting 
 at Covent Garden. On June 22 both she and Mrs. 
 Siddons, who had then retired from the stage, appeared 
 to swell the receipts for the benefit of the Theatrical 
 Fund at the new Drury Lane, which had opened the 
 previous October. Mrs. Siddons was Lady Randolph 
 in the play of Douglas, and Dorothy was Beatrice in 
 The Panel, the results being satisfactory to the extent 
 of 983. At the end of July Mrs. Jordan went to 
 Ryde to open the new theatre there. " We have heard 
 that it was filled every night; as Mrs. Jordan per- 
 formed there it is not to be wondered at." From Ryde 
 she should have gone to Brighton where she had 
 played several times before, and once more had been 
 obliged to insist upon her " usual terms." In this plan, 
 however, she found herself face to face with a diffi- 
 culty, and the Brighton visit was put off until 
 December. For, just at the time of her engagement, 
 the Regent, the Duke of Clarence and her daughter 
 Sophia were at the Pavilion, while the papers an- 
 nounced that the Queen, with two of the Princesses, 
 intended to join the party. The awkwardness of such
 
 352 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 possible meetings was too much for Dorothy, and so 
 the engagement was postponed, and she went instead 
 to Portsmouth, Guildford and other southern towns. 
 
 It was a position to make the gods laugh! The 
 father and daughter inmates of a palace " The Prince 
 of Orange and Miss Fitzclarence led the dance at the 
 Regent's ball at Brighton. The Duke of Clarence 
 danced with great vivacity" the mother travelling 
 from town to town to earn a living, and shrinking from 
 showing herself in the same place as the man to whom 
 she had given everything, and with whom she was 
 forbidden to communicate in any way. 
 
 When, at the beginning of January 1814, the Duke 
 of Clarence went on a visit to Holland, and started on 
 the long drive to Deal as early as 7.45 in the morning, 
 " his numerous family " were gathered on the steps of 
 his house in Stable Yard, St. James's Palace, to take 
 an affectionate leave of their loving father. There is 
 no hint anywhere that the mother, who loved this same 
 family passionately, was ever blessed on her going out 
 or her coming in by a sight of their happy faces 
 watching her. 
 
 From the autumn of 1813 until the spring of 1815 
 Dorothy was acting constantly. Whitehaven, Mar- 
 gate, Brighton, Sheffield, Carlisle, Blackburn, Bir- 
 mingham, Brussels and many other places unnamed 
 were visited by her. In January 1814 she was again 
 at Bath, and from February to June, barring an interval 
 of severe illness in March, she filled her engagement 
 at Covent Garden, acting on April 20 in a new comedy, 
 Debtor and Creditor, said to be the last new part she 
 ever took. 
 
 In spite of age and size her popularity continued, 
 for she had secured the hearts of the people. " To
 
 Cupid v. Cash 353 
 
 praise Mrs. Jordan is an act of officious superfluity, yet 
 we cannot refrain from testifying the uncommon 
 delight of the audience and ourselves at her persona- 
 tion of Rosalind; the triumph of mind over matter in 
 this wonderful performance was complete. Her voice, 
 manner and look were all in perfect conformity with 
 the character; the depredations of time and the dis- 
 advantages of person are forgotten in our admiration 
 of that naivete, vivacity and irresistible expression of 
 nature which characterizes every tone and motion. 
 There is no actress whose loss will be more generally 
 felt or less easily supplied." ^Theatrical Inquisitor^] 
 But, in spite of such brave words from her friendly 
 critics, Dorothy knew that she could not work much 
 longer; her fits of illness probably brought on by 
 over-exertion and exposure to all the draughts and 
 hardships of stage life recurred with alarming fre- 
 quency, and she was too old for the only parts she 
 could play most successfully. Yet for need's sake she 
 persevered. A letter from Margate in the summer of 
 1814 gives an impression of her life when in this town, 
 which had always heartily welcomed her, and it showed 
 her still affectionately regardful of her friends, the 
 Lloyds, at Teddington. 
 
 "Margate, August 24, 1814. 
 
 " MY DEAR JANE, 
 
 " I hope this will find you as well as I wish. I 
 enclose the cap for your dear mother, to whom and 
 the rest of the family I beg my love. This place is 
 very pleasant now. I concluded my engagement last 
 Saturday, which turned out very well. I am anxious 
 to hear of John's business. The libraries are crowded 
 every night; it is the only public amusement. I have
 
 354 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 gone there every night and have met with so much 
 attention and respect that were both embarrassing and 
 pleasing. Seats for me and my friend are kept every 
 night, and when it is known whom they are for nobody 
 will attempt to sit in them. I have not been very well ; 
 I have had spasms across my kidneys very painful 
 indeed. I have just heard from dear George and 
 Dora, who is going on very well. Adieu, dear Jane, 
 for the present." 
 
 The cap was a yearly gift, first sent at the time when 
 the Lloyds took the children to educate, as is shown 
 by a note sent to Frances all those years before, 
 enclosing the first such present, with Mrs. Jordan's 
 affectionate regards and adding, " I hope to have the 
 same pleasure every year on the same occasion." 
 
 Directly after the date of the letter Dorothy sailed 
 from Margate for Ostend on her way to Brussels, from 
 which place she planned to go to Lille and Paris. But 
 this plan was not carried out; she returned to Margate 
 on September 19, giving her friends an animated 
 picture of the gaiety of Brussels. Was it sentiment 
 which took her to the sociable Belgium town ? It is at 
 least a coincidence that Clarence had, on his way home 
 in the spring of the year, spent a month there.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THOSE DOROTHY LOVED 
 
 " Children are earthly idols that hold us from the stars." DOUGLAS 
 JERROLD. 
 
 "To the winds, to the waves, to the woods I complain, 
 
 Ah, well-a-day, my poor heart ! 
 They hear not my sighs, and they heed not my pain, 
 
 Ah, well-a-day, my poor heart ! 
 "To the sun's morning splendour the poor Indian bows, 
 
 Ah, well-a-day, my poor heart ! 
 But 7 dare not worship where I pay my vows, 
 Ah, well-a-day, my poor heart 1 " 
 
 From Song sung by Dorothy Jordan. 
 
 WHILE acting in Stratford in October 1814 Dorothy 
 wrote to the manager of the theatre at Blackburn, offer- 
 ing to play there one or two nights toward the end of 
 the month, "having experienced much kindness and 
 attention during my short [earlier] stay at Blackburn 
 . . . this time a clear half," and she asked that the 
 reply should be sent to Sheffield. But at Sheffield she 
 had an attack of illness and only played one night, an 
 illness brought on by her anxiety about her two boys, 
 George and Henry, who had with twenty-three other 
 officers got into military trouble. 
 
 George the eldest had been much out in the Penin- 
 sula, having in 1811 had his horse shot under him at 
 Fuentes d'Onoro, been wounded and taken prisoner, 
 though he contrived to escape in the confusion. On 
 his return home he was promoted to a troop in the 
 loth Hussars, and went out again in 1813, his brother 
 Henry accompanying him in the same regiment. Their 
 chief officer was Colonel George Quentin, who appar- 
 
 355
 
 356 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ently possessed little of the martial spirit, so little that 
 on the return to England twenty-five of his commis- 
 sioned officers preferred four charges against him, con- 
 sisting of neglect and abandonment of duty, leaving 
 some of his divisions without orders or support when 
 attacked by the enemy, entirely leaving his regiment 
 in one battle, and allowing a relaxed discipline. 
 
 The result of these charges was a court-martial for 
 the Colonel in October 1814, with a view, not to judg- 
 ing him fairly, but to re-establishing his character 
 and punishing his detractors. The trial was a pure 
 mockery, the feeling in military high quarters being at 
 that day perhaps it is in this that the men should 
 suffer all things gladly, even being given over to death 
 and imprisonment by an incapable officer. The first 
 charge was proved, the others were dismissed, and 
 Colonel Quentin was reprimanded, then acquitted and 
 finally reinstated at the head of his regiment. The 
 twenty-five inferior officers were kicked out, and one 
 by one were drafted into other regiments, their swords 
 being forfeited. This was attributed to the influence 
 of the Duke of York, Commander-in-Chief , backed up 
 by the Prince Regent, both of whom fell under strong 
 public obloquy because of their partiality. 
 
 The two Fitzclarence boys George was then 
 twenty and Henry two years younger were the 
 especial object of their uncle's wrath, being not only 
 turned out of their regiment, but banished to India. 
 Even that was not enough, for the Regent's man, 
 Colonel M'Mahon, wrote to the superior officer under 
 whom they sailed, that he should treat them with 
 marked disrespect and severity. This gallant officer 
 answered that he "had received the colonel's letter, 
 and that he should have returned it with the contempt
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 357 
 
 it deserved, but that he chose to retain it that he might 
 have it in his power to expose him, should such unfair 
 and offensive conduct be repeated, and that no British 
 officers would be dictated to in their line of conduct 
 with those under their command." 
 
 Dorothy loved these boys so much that worry over 
 the trial, which occurred towards the end of October, 
 was quite enough to incapacitate her from work, and 
 so to lose her a considerable sum of money. The 
 following letter alludes to this as well as to the affairs 
 of Alsop, whose insurance money she was still paying, 
 though he had been gone from England a year and a 
 half. The insurance society had evidently demanded 
 a larger fee because of the extra risk of life in a foreign 
 land. 
 
 " Whitehaven, November nth, 1814. 
 
 " MY DEAR [Edward March], 
 
 " This moment only have I received both your 
 letters, therefore you will not be surprised that I grew 
 uneasy. The other half of the cheque you will have 
 received by this time ; so far all is right. It was from 
 Howard's own mouth that I got the disagreeable 
 information, that I was liable to pay the additional 
 insurance on Alsop's life. I need not tell you, my 
 dear [Edward], how much obliged I should be to you 
 if you would regularly arrange this very disagreeable 
 and unfortunate business for me. I trust that the 
 heavy addition will be prevented, and I am truly sorry 
 that you have not been comfortable. What has been 
 the matter? 
 
 " I have been very ILL, but do not let them know of 
 it at home. So much so, that I was obliged to give up 
 my engagement at Sheffield after playing only one
 
 358 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 night, which was doubly unlucky from the prospect 
 there was of great success. I lose 150 by it. I am 
 doing very well here, but the theatre is not large 
 enough. God bless you all ! 
 
 ' Your affectionate, 
 
 "D. J. 
 
 " P.S. I believe I shall go to Edinburgh but 
 Newcastle first." 
 
 March must have written her some letter of com- 
 plaint, perhaps upon the ever-pressing subject of 
 money, or even more likely upon Mrs. Alsop, who was 
 then living in Cadogan Place, and who about this time 
 committed an unforgivable sin in Dorothy's eyes. 
 
 In this the biographers once again show their casual- 
 ness about dates, indeed, scarcely a fact they assert 
 can be accepted in point of time without corroboration. 
 For instance, they all pack into one year the Alsop 
 ruin, and the banishment of the Fitzclarences, yet the 
 two events were just two years apart. Boaden actually 
 gives cause and effect in the matter of Frances Alsop, 
 and quite unconsciously puts the cause later than the 
 effect, making her letters to the Duke the result of 
 having to support herself upon nothing. 
 
 But as a matter of fact she still was, as she ever had 
 been, her mother's care, and was being supported by 
 her. However, being more or less deprived of money 
 for extravagance she was miserable, for she was a 
 spendthrift in every way. Casting about for a means 
 of securing what she wanted her thoughts naturally 
 went to the Duke of Clarence, and resulted in a series 
 of " virulent and violent letters," by which she hoped 
 to get money. She may have enjoyed writing the 
 letters, but he naturally objected to receiving them,
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 359 
 
 for Frances knew all there was to know about the 
 monetary transactions between him and her mother, 
 and was in a situation both to make pressing demands, 
 and to say very pointed things. 
 
 The useful Barton and a witness named Wilkes 
 went to Cadogan Place and interviewed Mr. March 
 (Dorothy being in the North at the time). That March 
 was known to be in monetary difficulties is shown by 
 the fact that he was suspected of being the instigator 
 of these letters. However, he managed to clear him- 
 self entirely, and gave all the necessary assurances. 
 
 He, of course, wrote to Dorothy on the matter, and 
 the following is one of the letters sent in return by the 
 distracted mother. 
 
 " Carlisle, Saturday, December 3rd, 1814. 
 
 " I was prevented by illness, both of body and mind, 
 the last time I wrote, from saying one half of what it 
 is necessary should be now perfectly understood with 
 regard to Mrs. Alsop. You say that in order to assist 
 her you must spend ^30 or 40. I am sorry for it, as 
 it will not be in my power to reimburse you ; and trust 
 the love and duty you owe to your own family will 
 interfere, and point out to you the injustice of it. You 
 talk of Mrs. A.'s desire to go to her husband. If it 
 were affection or duty that prompted her I should pity, 
 though even in that case it would at this time be out 
 of my power to forward her wishes ; but this is not the 
 case, as you must know. I have at present melancholy, 
 but far better claims on me claims that, to my bitter 
 remorse, I have almost deprived myself of the means 
 of affording to two amiable children by having lavished 
 them on one. She never could have been sensible of 
 the sacrifice, or I should not have met with such
 
 360 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ingratitude. For the last time, dear [Edward], shall 
 this subject ever employ my pen, and I trust you will 
 give it the attention I feel due to it. In the event of Mrs. 
 A.'s going abroad, I must sink another 100 per year 
 to the 260 (independent of the additional insurance 
 on A.'s life), making in all near ,400 a year. He has 
 no employment, and how will he support her? And 
 am I to have the additional misery of thinking that she 
 may be starving in a foreign land? I therefore, for 
 the last time, most solemnly declare to her, through 
 you, that these are the last and only propositions that 
 shall ever be offered. THAT she shall go to her uncle 
 in Wales, when I will pay 40 a year for her board and 
 lodging, allowing her 50 a year for clothes, till such 
 time [as] her husband may be able to maintain her 
 abroad, when every exertion shall be made to send her 
 out. If she refuses this, I here swear, by the most 
 heart-breaking oath that presents itself to my tortured 
 mind, that ' may I never again see those two sacrificed 
 young men, if I ever (if possible) think of her again, 
 as a child that has any claim on ME.' And I shall be 
 led to doubt the affection of any one who may, by a 
 mistaken motive, endeavour to make me break an oath 
 so seriously and solemnly taken. If she has an atom 
 of feeling, and wishes to regain any part of my affec- 
 tion, she will instantly agree to this ; if NOT the 90 a 
 year shall be regularly paid to her so long as I have it 
 to give. Let her not look on this as a banishment, let 
 her look on the fate of two gallant young men, sub- 
 mitting to a cruel exile without a murmur, whatever 
 they may feel. I shall send a plan to Mrs. Williams, 
 and shall be under the disagreeable necessity, my dear 
 [Edward], of withdrawing from you the little addition 
 I could have wished to continue to you. When every-
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 361 
 
 thing is adjusted, it will be impossible for me to remain 
 in England. I shall, therefore, go abroad, appro- 
 priating as much as I can spare of the remainder of 
 my income to pay my debts. And now, my dear 
 [Edward], for the last time on this cruel subject, 
 adieu ! I write this from a sleepless pillow. God 
 bless you all ! I shall be home by the i$th or i6th. 
 I have been obliged to give up all my engagements. 
 Love to all. 
 
 ' Your affectionate, 
 
 "D. J. 
 
 " For the little time I shall be in C[adogan] Place, 
 after the departure of all happiness; tell dear Lucy 
 that I will pay her three guineas per week, for myself, 
 Miss S., and the two servants, finding our own tea, 
 sugar and wine. Be silent on the subject of my going 
 abroad, or it may embarrass me." 
 
 The postscript of this proves that Lucy Hawker 
 was the actual or temporary (Dora being ill) house- 
 keeper at Cadogan Place, just as a postscript to a 
 later letter shows that Dora March was settled there. 
 Thus Dorothy's three eldest children with their 
 belongings both Hawkers and Marchs had several 
 children were living in a house leased and furnished 
 by Dorothy. Consistent self-sacrifice is a virtue 
 carried to its extreme, and therefore a mistake. If 
 Dorothy's nature had not been so " loving and giving," 
 if she had in her turn demanded, her children might 
 have had more independence and backbone, they 
 might not have taken with two hands and refused to 
 give with one. Sorrows had come so thickly upon 
 her, that she thought the loss of her two eldest 
 sons must mark the supreme misery. Poor thing !
 
 362 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 it was well that she could not see what was still to 
 come. 
 
 The uncle who was to receive Frances was 
 Dorothy's brother Nathaniel, living then quietly in 
 the little country place, Trelethyn. Taking into 
 account his gentle, retiring nature, he would have been 
 worthy of pity had he really been saddled with the 
 company of such a rip. Alsop eventually secured the 
 post of chief magistrate in Calcutta, and held it to 
 his death in 1826, living there with a white woman 
 by whom he had three children, and for whom a 
 subscription was raised when he departed this life. 
 
 By this letter it is obvious that Frances was no 
 longer drawing from Coutts's bank her 200 a year; 
 either it was not being paid by the Duke, or it was 
 ear-marked for the creditors. Had she still got it her 
 mother would not be offering to raise with difficulty 
 90 a year for her support. It also shows that 
 Dorothy was in desperate need of money, as, though 
 she made 150 by an engagement, she could not 
 repay the sum of 30 expended by March on her 
 daughter's behalf; and, to pay the 90 a year for 
 Frances, she must withdraw " the little allowance " 
 she would have wished to continue to her favourite 
 son-in-law. Could a person enjoying an independent 
 income of over 2000 a year (according to Barton) and 
 earning as much again, have been so troubled over 
 
 It must be noted that even then Dorothy looked 
 upon France as a possible resort, where she could get 
 rest from the demands made upon her, and also by 
 being there in the worst parts of the year improve her 
 health. So thoroughly was she looking forward to 
 this that she was offering first to one son-in-law and
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 363 
 
 then to the other the chance of taking the house, in 
 which both lived, off her hands. 
 
 There had evidently been a suggestion on the part 
 of Frances Alsop that she should go out to India and 
 join her husband, and either she or some one else had 
 added the idea that she should go in the same ship 
 as her half-brothers George and Henry. This Dorothy 
 knew would not be feasible, though she wrote to 
 George about it. Her next letter deals with this point, 
 a letter which followed quickly upon the other. 
 
 "Carlisle, Sunday, December 4th, 1814. 
 
 " MY DEAR [Edward], 
 
 " When I received your letter relative to Fanny, 
 I immediately wrote to George, without endeavouring 
 to prejudice him in the smallest degree, but was not 
 at all surprised at the enclosed answer, which you may 
 show [to her] or not, as you shall judge best. You 
 have, of course, received my last. I will spare what I 
 can to send her to Wales, and enable her uncle to 
 receive her comfortably. Whenever Alsop is in a 
 situation to provide for, or maintain, her abroad, I will 
 exert my utmost to send her to him. 
 
 All personal discussions on such subjects are doubly 
 painful, therefore, my dear [Edward], to prevent such 
 I take the opportunity of repeating this by letter, and, 
 in future, I have only to refer Fanny to my last letter 
 to you. If she and Mrs. Williams should prefer living 
 in any cheap part of France, they may do it to more 
 advantage. It is very probable that I shall find it 
 necessary to live there thy best part of every year. 
 Dear George's account of everybody in Cadogan 
 Place, gives me great pleasure. I could wish Mrs. 
 Alsop and Mrs. Williams would make up their minds
 
 364 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 before I return. I shall be back, if those dear boys 
 go soon, by the I5th or i6th. God bless you all. 
 
 ' Yours affectionate, 
 
 (Signed) "D. J." 
 
 The letter from Captain George Fitzclarence 
 
 " London, December 2nd, 1814. 
 
 " MY DEAREST MOTHER, 
 
 " Nothing is yet settled when we start ; but we 
 are to go out in Admiral Boulton's ship, who goes out 
 to take command in India. I am now certain to join 
 Lord Moira ; but, if anything is said about it, the Duke 
 of York will give me positive orders to join my horrid 
 regiment. 1 I really think we go out in the happiest 
 way, and ought, if we choose to stay long enough, to 
 make our fortune. My father, poor soul, has suffered 
 much, but is now better; his anxiety actually made 
 him very ill, but both go in the same ship, which is 
 a great comfort. Although we are a long way from 
 each other (700 miles), yet I hope, should any good 
 situation offer, to bring Henry to Calcutta. The girls 
 have made up their minds to it very well. March did 
 not mention anything about Fanny ; but I cannot take 
 her on board the King's ship. It will be impossible ; 
 I would not shackle myself with her. M'Mahon 
 gives me the most certain assurances of Alsop being 
 provided for. I will do all I can; but I cannot take 
 Fanny out with us. It will cost 3000 to get us out to 
 India where is all this to come from ? " 
 
 Here the letter breaks off unfinished. 
 
 1 George had been transferred to the 24th Light Dragoons, then in 
 India, but hoped to be retained in the suite of Lord Moira.
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 365 
 
 George Fitzclarence ended this part of his letter as 
 most of Dorothy's children seem to have ended their 
 affectionate intercourse with her, on the " money " 
 note: "Where is all this to come from?" He prob- 
 ably knew that his mother would be ready to sell her 
 frocks, her house, her comfort and her health to help 
 in such a difficulty, and he knew also that his father, 
 "poor soul," was too helpless, too extravagant, too 
 penniless to give them so much money. Between her 
 fits of illness Dorothy was working at the top of her 
 strength, and what for? That she might get free of 
 Alsop's difficulties, settle Frances Alsop, smooth the 
 path of Edward March, and find money to help " two 
 gallant young men " to go out to exile in comfort. 
 
 The receipt of George's letter raised vague fears 
 in her mind, and she at once wrote to the people who 
 acted as go-between with her and the Duke, the kindly 
 family who were always ready to soothe her with news. 
 She does not write to the Duke, even epistolary com- 
 munication had been stopped, and yet it is evident that 
 her heart was filled with sympathy and affection for 
 him. 
 
 " Mrs. Jordan at Carlisle to Miss Lloyd, Teddington, 
 
 Middlesex: 
 
 "Sunday, December 6th, 1814. 
 
 " I do not know, my dear Jane, how to acknowledge 
 or value sufficiently your kind, considerate and 
 friendly letter. I write this from my bed by all 
 accounts the dear Duke has been very ill, he has 
 indeed, for I can judge of his heart by my own, 
 formerly we supported each other, but when I reflect 
 what those dear gallant boys have done, I feel nothing 
 but never mind, have they not acted according to
 
 366 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 their feelings of honour, and what can a man do more ? 
 I do not understand where Henry is to be at least 
 700 miles from his brother, but where? I shall be back 
 on the 1 5th or i6th of this month. I am not able to 
 continue my engagements. I have kept my bed many 
 days to the moment of my going to the theatre. My 
 nights have been literally sleepless, and if it was not 
 for a few hours' sleep in the day I think my mind and 
 memory would have suffered very much. . . . Miss 
 S. is all kindness and attention. Dear, affectionate 
 Frederick has told me of your kindness in constantly 
 writing; your account of Sophy's conduct gives me 
 much pleasure. Tell dear Eliza and Mary that I will 
 write soon. Love to your dear mother. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " D. JD. 
 "Going to bed with a raging headache." 
 
 In the next letter she offers the house to the General, 
 and repeats her intention of going abroad if she cannot 
 go on with her work. 
 
 " Carlisle, December 6th, 1814. 
 
 " MY DEAR EDWARD, 
 
 "I shall be home by January 1 I5th or i6th. 
 Truly sorry am I to be under the necessity of disturbing 
 dear Dora [then recovering from a confinement] ; sooner 
 than do so, if I was not very unwell, I would take 
 lodgings. The enclosed to the General contains a 
 proposition, similar to the one I made you, concerning 
 the house, which, if it does not appear eligible to him, 
 I shall dispose of as soon as possible ; and, if not able 
 to follow my profession, I shall immediately go 
 abroad. God bless you ! 
 
 "D. J. 
 
 1 A mistake for December.
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 367 
 
 " P.S. I trust in God you will exert yourself in 
 pointing out to Fanny the absolute necessity of her 
 prompt compliance with the proposal ; in which case, 
 she shall ever find me her mother and friend." 
 
 The last letter in this series shows the beginning of 
 the shadow which was to cover and blacken the end 
 of her life. 
 
 "Mv EVER DEAR [Edward], 
 
 " I thank your kind and considerate letter and 
 reap all the consolation from it that my present melan- 
 choly situation will allow of. I inclose the notes. I 
 have just written to dear Dora. God bless you all. 
 
 " D. J." 
 
 One may imagine Edward March helpful, agree- 
 able, ever fascinating to Dorothy, giving her sympathy 
 and kindly words, yet adding his petition to those of 
 all the others. " I am in such and such a difficulty, 
 it is very little, if you would help me, simply a 
 temporary affair ; you know you may trust me to repay 
 it," etc. And then, grateful for his sympathy, trusting 
 and believing in him she sends him the notes for which 
 he begs, either bank notes or notes of hand, the space 
 for the amount left blank ! 
 
 Mrs. Alsop had no intention of going to Wales, 
 nothing but London with its life and variety would 
 suit her, and when her brother-in-law, indignant at the 
 visit of Barton which she had brought upon him, for- 
 bade her ever again, while in his house his house, 
 modest man ! to write another letter of the kind, she 
 packed her things and left her mother's home for 
 good. It is to be hoped that this happened before 
 Dorothy's return to London, and that she had not to
 
 368 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 endure the pain of seeing her go. Frances intended 
 to have amusement at any cost, so she "assumed a 
 conduct which cannot but be deeply regretted." The 
 result of which conduct was shown when she was acting 
 in the autumn. 
 
 Dorothy's reputation was sufficient to gain Mrs. 
 Alsop an engagement at Drury Lane, which began on 
 October 18, 1815, and during which she acted Rosa- 
 lind five times and the Country Girl once, " and that, 
 probably was as much as she could venture before 
 Christmas." As one contemporary critic gently wrote : 
 " Of her figure it would be unjust at present to speak. 
 She appears to be far advanced in the style in which 
 ladies wish to be who love their lords." And Frances's 
 lord had been out of England two and a half years ! 
 
 In March 1815 Dorothy saw her boys leave her for 
 ever, though mercifully she was not aware of that. 
 From that time the records of the few remaining 
 months that she spent in England are almost non- 
 existing. She was acting in Bath the early part of 
 January, and it was then that Charlton, the stage 
 manager, suggested that she should take the part of 
 the old maid in the play of that name, her answer 
 being that she would not do so, she had done it once 
 as a frolic for her benefit, but would not act such parts 
 again. 
 
 After this the account of her engagements ceases, 
 not because the public had grown tired of her, for she 
 had many applicants for her services, but that before 
 her sons went away she could think of little else and 
 wanted to be in London, and afterwards she was too 
 prostrated by grief to be able to work. 
 
 In May 1815 Bannister, the man with whom she 
 had so often acted, announced his determination to
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 369 
 
 take his leave of the stage in a benefit performance 
 on June 17, and he wrote to Dorothy asking her to 
 act for the last time with him. Her answer, written 
 on May 3, will explain why she had to refuse, and 
 shows incidentally how many were her chances of 
 work if only she could have seized them. 
 
 "May the 3rd. 
 " MY DEAR SlR, 
 
 ' Your letter came at the time Sir Gilbert, my 
 physician, was with me, or I would not have sent your 
 servant away without an answer, for it was my inten- 
 tion to have written to you at all events this evening. 
 
 "/ am very ill, and in the sincerity of my good 
 wishes request you to give up all thought of me. My 
 health is in so very precarious a state that I have not 
 been two days together out of my own rooms since my 
 return home : so situated, I have been obliged to 
 refuse many applications, including one very pressing 
 one from the Caledonian Society. 
 
 " I have been obliged to give up one of considerable 
 advantage that was to have commenced at this very 
 time, and I have, too, some reason to fear that I shall 
 be under the necessity of forfeiting one still more so ; 
 that, too, was to have begun at the end of this month, 
 and to have concluded in the middle of June. You 
 perceive how unfortunately I am situated, for if I 
 should be well enough to play on the ist of June in 
 London, I should be able to fulfil my engagements in 
 the country, if not the consequence would be that I 
 must disappoint you. Added to this my friend and 
 medical adviser is very anxious that I should give up 
 every hope of playing this summer, and as soon as I 
 am able, to repair to the seaside, from which I felt 
 some relief last year. 
 
 A A
 
 370 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 " Do me the justice to believe that, independent of 
 my own sufferings, it is a real mortification to me to 
 be deprived of the what shall I say, pleasure or 
 pain? of witnessing the last exertions of one of the 
 most genuine performers of the age. May every 
 happiness attend you. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "DORA JORDAN." 
 
 It was on May 19 that she wrote a short and signi- 
 ficant note to Mrs. Lloyd. Putting the two letters 
 together, what is to be thought of Harrington's 
 inspired paragraph asserting that she earned 7000 
 this last year? 
 
 He was a most subservient receiver of favours, and 
 never stinted that gratitude which he hoped would 
 encourage other favours to follow. In his white- 
 washing of the Duke he had the effrontery to assert 
 of Dorothy's income "that the very last year she 
 remained in England brought her a clear profit of 
 near 7000. I cannot be mistaken in this statement, 
 for my authority could not err on that point. The 
 malicious representations, therefore, of her having 
 been left straitened in pecuniary circumstances were 
 literally fabulous" etc. 
 
 The following note is a pungent satire upon the 
 biographer's extravagant assertion 
 
 " DEAR MRS. LLOYD, 
 
 " I return you the one-pound note with many 
 thanks; best regards to you all. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " DORA JORDAN. 
 
 " 10 o'clock night, igth May, 1815."
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 371 
 
 How could Dorothy have earned 7000 a year? 
 an engagement for six or seven nights for which she 
 received 150 would take two or three weeks to com- 
 plete, for she only acted two or perhaps three evenings 
 a week. At that rate, if she worked without cessation 
 the whole year round she would only have gained 
 2500. Who was Harrington's unassailable authority? 
 By whose influence did he further assert that Dorothy 
 acted, when tired of the stage and all its ways, simply 
 because she was infatuated with it, and how could he 
 tell that the Duke had no concern directly or indirectly 
 with the cruel and disastrous circumstances which 
 caused the last catastrophe? 
 
 I fear Harrington, like some other gentlemen, did 
 protest too much and show too plainly where he learnt 
 his lesson, for Clarence was hard put to it to find 
 apologists when all the circumstances of Dorothy's 
 death were made public. 
 
 By this time her third son Frederick, said to be by 
 far the best looking of the five boys, had gone out 
 into the world to prove his courage, and this sixteen- 
 year-old boy was in one of the greatest battles that 
 the world has ever witnessed. Dorothy had gone on 
 that revivifying trip to the sea of which mention has 
 been made earlier, and from the unnamed town she 
 wrote to Miss Lloyd in answer to a letter telling her 
 of the results of Waterloo. It should be noted that 
 she wrote to ask a simple thing about the whereabouts 
 of her son, and again wrote, not to the Duke who had 
 the information, but to her old friend, who was 
 evidently in constant touch with him and with her 
 children.
 
 372 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 "(Postmark) June 24th, 1815. 
 
 " MY DEAR JANE, 
 
 " I return you many thanks for your very kind 
 attention. I wish I had seen the paper, and my mind 
 is for the present much relieved, but what I have 
 suffered for these few days past is beyond description. 
 I have not yet recovered [from] it, but ought [to be], 
 and indeed [am], most thankful to God for his pre- 
 servation of that dear object of my constant anxiety. 
 I had a most charming letter from [him] only two 
 days before the battle. He desires me to send him a 
 small canteen that I have got for him, and [I] should 
 be obliged, dear Jane, if you will find out how I can 
 send it, and where I am now to direct to him. This is a 
 delightful spot, but I have really suffered great anxiety 
 in it, but I will trust in God's mercy and hope for 
 happier days. My blessing [on] the dear children and 
 best regards to all your family." 
 
 There was one more and a very significant letter 
 which was written from Cadogan Place early in 
 August, and which again shows that even in distress 
 she was not allowed to apply personally to Clarence, 
 though he only could have helped her. The letter 
 does not give the year, but there can be no doubt as 
 to when it was written, as John Pyne Coffin was on 
 foreign service until July 1814, when he returned from 
 Genoa, where he had been under the command of 
 Lord William Bentinck, and was given the rank of 
 Brevet-Colonel. During this year in England he 
 left again towards the end of 1815 he got into money 
 difficulties and his appeal for help was passed on to 
 Dorothy, which points to the probability that his debts 
 had had something to do with the young Fitzclarences,
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 373 
 
 who, knowing their father's usual impecunious state 
 and their mother's loving generosity, took the line of 
 least resistance and enlisted her sympathy. She paid 
 the money and procured the freedom of the unmanly 
 soldier from the sponging-house in which he lan- 
 guished, receiving a foul reward, as her letter shows. 
 
 " To the Rev. Thomas Lloyd, Teddington, 
 Middlesex: 
 
 " Cadogan Place, 7 o'clock, August 3. 
 " MY DEAR SlR, 
 
 " I some time since wrote to you inclosing a 
 letter from Col. Coffin, and requesting you to procure 
 from the Duke of Clarence an answer bearing a fair 
 testimony to my assertion that H.R.H. had nothing 
 to do with the money transaction that took place 
 between the Col. and me when he was detained in a 
 sponging-house in London. I am now the more 
 anxious for the Duke's answer, having received a very 
 insolent and ungrateful letter from the Col., insinuat- 
 ing that I had received the money from the Duke and 
 took advantage of Col. Coffin in applying to him for 
 a second payment this is an injustice that I will not 
 sit down quietly under. 
 
 " I have been very ill indeed, and am at this moment 
 so weak that I can scarcely guide my pen ; before I go 
 from town I hope I shall be able to see Jane, to whom, 
 and Mrs. Lloyd, I beg to be kindly remembered, and 
 now believe me, my dear friend, yours sincerely, 
 
 " D. JORDAN." 
 
 It was August 3 that Dorothy wrote the letter to 
 Mr. Lloyd about Col. Coffin, and when she left town 
 it was to go to Margate to appear for the last time on 
 any stage.
 
 374 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 A statement was made from memory many years 
 later by Edward March saying that she left England 
 in August, but John Barton asserts that he went to see 
 her in September of that year, and as he could fortify 
 himself with documents this was more likely to be 
 correct. 
 
 She must have returned home sometime before the 
 end of August, returned to endure that further dis- 
 astrous blow which was to exile her from England. 
 
 There has been much mystery made of this, because 
 no one dared at the time to tell the truth about it; 
 March, Barton and the Duke being the chief people 
 implicated. The first from weakness, the second from 
 misplaced astuteness, and the third from callousness. 
 Each one of these three could have cleared the matter 
 up, and each one was too much to blame ever to do 
 more than deal vaguely with the fringe of the trouble 
 and endeavour to persuade those who wanted to know 
 that the only real fault lay in Dorothy's hysterical 
 misconception. 
 
 As a matter of fact Dorothy came home to find 
 Edward March in despair, asserting that difficulties 
 had so crowded upon him that he was ruined. 
 Dorothy had heard this story from others, from Alsop, 
 from George and Henry, from Clarence and from 
 Frances Alsop, and had suffered so cruelly at each 
 calamity, that she was past bearing it over again with 
 anything like philosophic calm. 
 
 She was overwhelmed, and when she asked March 
 how far she was implicated, she was seized with a 
 terror which was great enough almost to upset her 
 reason. For this man to whom she had always given 
 trust and affection had repaid her magnanimity by 
 filling in the notes she had sent him with sums quite
 
 Those Dorothy Loved 375 
 
 different from those he had named to her! He 
 appears reluctantly to have brought out one note of 
 hand after another, each signed by her name and 
 promising payment of a comparatively large sum, until 
 she at last she, the indomitable, the succourer of 
 others succumbed, herself ruined with the rest of 
 them !
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 DEATH THE RELEASER 
 
 "As a mother Mrs. Jordan will behold her children anxiously and 
 attentively watching over her declining powers, blessing herself as she 
 surveys their fondness and affection, that fortune and her prudence 
 have rendered them thus cheerful, happy and independent. The noble 
 sentiments flowing from a liberal education will teach them to reverence 
 the mother, without sprinkling the tender nomination with any unworthy 
 reflections on the father" Written in 1798. ANON. 
 
 " We have never seen anything more interesting than the gentlemanly 
 propriety of his regret." 
 
 IT is impossible to convey the tragic effect of this 
 calamity upon Dorothy. March had failed her; the 
 one man upon whom she thought she could rest her 
 trust, and to whom she had given an affection springing 
 from esteem. From her girlhood she had been sur- 
 rounded by people who asked support from her; she 
 had had to keep mother, brothers, sisters, children, 
 and the man usually called her protector who 
 begged the most gracious and public protection from 
 the effects of his sins. In March she thought she had 
 found a comprehending, sympathizing comrade; she 
 now proved him as weak as the others and as dis- 
 honest; she had given him all she could, and now he 
 stood confessed another parasite. His creditors were 
 around him, demanding satisfaction and payment of 
 the bills that Dorothy had given him. 
 
 Who would help her? to whom could she turn ? Not 
 General Hawker; he stood aloof in the Court circle, 
 though his wife lived in Dorothy's house. There was 
 but one person, and that was the Duke; yet she could 
 not approach him directly, it must be through his agent 
 
 376
 
 Death the Releaser 377 
 
 the man whose interest lay in keeping his master 
 free from all care on her account. So she wrote to 
 him and he went to see her, finding her I quote his 
 words " in tears and under much embarrassment, 
 from a circumstance that had burst upon her, as she 
 said, ' like a thunderstorm.' She found herself in- 
 volved to a considerable amount by securities, which 
 all at once appeared against her, in the form of bonds 
 and promissory notes, given incautiously by herself to 
 relieve, as she thought, from trifling difficulties, a near 
 relation, in whom she had placed the greatest con- 
 fidence. Acceptances had been given by her in blank, 
 upon stamped paper, which she supposed were for 
 small amounts, but which afterwards appear to have 
 been laid before her capable of carrying larger sums." 
 
 Dorothy put herself into Barton's hands, perhaps 
 hoping that the " forbearance " which she had shown 
 to the Duke four years earlier would now be extended 
 to her. This, however, was not Barton's plan for his 
 master; he was a man of business, and he regarded 
 this simply as a matter of business. So he went 
 through the statement of debts, finding them paltry 
 enough, the total amount being under ^2000. Yet for 
 so long had Dorothy staggered under the accumula- 
 tions pinned upon her by her " friend " and relatives, 
 so horribly had she suffered recently, and so certain was 
 she that she could no longer act, that this unexpected 
 calamity was the last crushing defeat. Being told that 
 the holders of the bonds were demanding satisfaction, 
 she saw before her nothing but that terror from which 
 she had rescued Coffin, a sponging-house. 
 
 Barton uttered no word to reassure her. She had 
 accepted the princely Duke's method of repaying 
 what he owed her, and the Duke demanded the full
 
 378 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 pound of flesh from her. When Dorothy showed her 
 terror of immediate arrest to this man, declaring that 
 she wished to act honourably to all, and even to save 
 March's wife and children from utter ruin, Barton 
 listened and explained that she could not possibly 
 treat with the creditors unless she kept her liberty. 
 He deliberately turned her mind to France, and when 
 she betrayed that she had thought of going there he 
 caught at and fostered the idea. At once he set to 
 work to make it easy for her ; drew up a list of creditors 
 and promised to settle with them all on her behalf, but 
 on what conditions that glibly explanatory gentleman 
 does not reveal. In any case he assured her that ten 
 days would see things put right, and that after a little 
 stay on the other side of the Channel she could return 
 in comfort. Whether March was to join with him in 
 putting matters straight he does not say ; March's own 
 explanation seems to throw the blame on Barton, 
 whom, however, he does not mention by name. Each 
 of these two conspirators, in fact if not in intention, 
 blames the other for Dorothy's enforced and tragic 
 banishment. Barton says that March but he, too, 
 avoids mention by name refused to give her an 
 assurance that she knew the worst and that no further 
 debts were hidden from her; and March asserts that 
 Barton never made the slightest attempt to pay off any 
 fraction of those debts for 2000. Thus, these two 
 people and Clarence, who knew all that was done 
 and let it be done played into each other's hands, 
 sent Dorothy abroad under false pretences, and kept 
 her exiled there. 
 
 In his explanation, given in 1824, March says : " I 
 can positively assert that never during her lifetime was 
 one shilling paid towards liquidating the securities in
 
 Death the Releaser 379 
 
 question; nor was it urgent that it should be done, 
 because the creditors for the most part personal 
 friends well knew the upright principles they had to 
 depend upon." This was a very different story from 
 that which he had told her in 1815, when he was 
 thoroughly frightened and knew that there was danger. 
 It was not true either, for Dorothy herself said that 
 the greater number of these creditors were "utter 
 strangers " to her. 
 
 But Barton coldly and cruelly thought it as well to 
 clear Dorothy out of his master's path ; for there is no 
 doubt that her continued public presence kept memory 
 alive concerning Clarence's past, and not only did 
 much to prevent his matrimonial schemes from coming 
 to realization but kept him continually unpopular. In 
 addition to this, Dorothy was during these years endur- 
 ing much sorrow, which disturbed the Duke's kind 
 heart and made ineffectual tugs at his purse-strings, so 
 it was best to get rid of her. Thus Barton made it 
 easy for her to go to France, and made it impossible 
 for her to return. He asserted years afterwards that 
 to the day of her death Dorothy received 2000 a year 
 from the Duke, leaving it to be inferred that she had 
 that amount to spend. He knew, however, that the 
 daughters' allowances were deducted from that sum, 
 being paid directly through the bank, and he knew that 
 the greater part of the residue was mortgaged. In 
 addition, he was not the man to arrange any payment 
 without first handling the money, but he is careful not 
 to say what arrangements about that he made with 
 Dorothy. It is safe to assume that this would mean 
 a further reduction from her income. When we con- 
 sider these things, how much can have been left? 
 Probably not even the 200 a year mentioned by
 
 380 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Townsend. At the interview at Cadogan Place it is 
 probable that Dorothy insisted that the sums promised 
 her daughters or some sum, at all events should be 
 for the future regularly remitted, for in 1816 we find 
 Frances, for whom Dorothy had intended with great 
 difficulty to spend 90 a year, again drawing an income 
 from Coutts's Bank. 
 
 There was the house to consider, the lease of which 
 had not run out, while the furniture was hers. Both 
 sons-in-law had refused to buy it, and March could 
 not afford to live in it. So she sent to a man named 
 Charles Wigley, who kept some exhibition rooms in 
 Spring Gatdens, to ask if he would purchase the 
 furniture. He, needing the advice of an expert, took 
 with him a Mr. Fisher, auctioneer and father of the 
 actress Clara Fisher, to see what was in the house. 
 Fisher said that if a purchaser wanted the things with 
 the house, carpets fitted, etc., they were worth .300; 
 but if they were to be removed he would say a hundred 
 less, though he might go as far as 220. The friendly 
 Wigley here saw the chance of a bargain ; he discussed 
 the matter privately with Dorothy, assuring her that 
 she could not get more than a hundred guineas for her 
 things, and that he was ready to give that amount. In 
 her worry and ignorance of business she agreed, and 
 he got the remainder of the lease of the -premises 
 thrown in! Fisher, on hearing of the matter later, 
 assured the writer of The Great Illegitimates that the 
 whole was well worth five hundred pounds. 
 
 This was Dorothy's last act before hastily leaving 
 the country. Her terror of prison had been shown 
 thirty-three years earlier when the villain Daly had 
 threatened her with it and caused her to fly in poverty 
 from Dublin, and now her mind was so racked with
 
 Death the Releaser 381 
 
 anxiety and sorrow that when a man of Barton's know- 
 ledge and position urged her to save herself from that 
 dreaded penalty, how could she do aught but take his 
 advice, believing it to be most honourably well meant ? 
 
 Harrington, writing a dozen years later, and repeat- 
 ing the lesson he had been taught, would have us 
 believe that the Duke was solicitous for Dorothy's 
 comfort, and insisted upon her taking Miss Sketchley 
 with her, and being escorted by Colonel Hawker, a 
 brother of the general. This may have been true, but 
 Miss Sketchley had been Dorothy's companion for 
 years, and was in no way responsible to the Duke, who, 
 if he did thus far interest himself, shows that he had 
 taken an active part in the affair, and let her go 
 unnecessarily, rather than relieve her trouble. 
 
 Dorothy went to Boulogne, and took a small cottage 
 at Marquetra, in a quiet lane opening to the sweet 
 Vallee du Denacre, where the trees were green and 
 shady, and whence, after three minutes' walk through 
 the cornfields, she might look over the tumbling waves 
 of the Channel. About twenty-five years later Douglas 
 Jerrold lived for a time in " Mrs. Jordan's old house," 
 and in the little room where her listless fingers had so 
 sadly pulled the strings of her guitar, and where she 
 waited with slowly dying hope for Barton's letter which 
 never came, the dramatist wrote his play, The Prisoner 
 of War. By that time the two little cottages had per- 
 haps been converted into one and the garden terraced, 
 for when Barrington saw it shortly after Dorothy's 
 death he pronounced it very small and semi-detached. 
 Madame Ducamp, her landlady, a gardener's widow, 
 dwelt in the adjoining cottage. She, being old, had a 
 girl who worked for her. This girl, named Agnes, fell 
 in love with Dorothy and was ready to do anything for
 
 her, telling Barrington that she waited upon that 
 charming lady as if she had been a princess ; also how 
 " that dear unfortunate English lady " passed her time 
 in nervous expectation of letters from England, and 
 that on the days when the post came in she was utterly 
 miserable; that her one consolation was music, and 
 Agnes added that sometimes she sang Madame to 
 sleep. Dorothy's poverty made a great impression 
 upon the young cottage girl, " the economy of that 
 charming lady was very strict " ; once she had been rich 
 and magnificent, but then she was very poor indeed, 
 and, though so very poor, she "paid her rent like a 
 goddess." 
 
 The futile Barrington, hearing all this, glibly asserts 
 that this only meant that she had become careless of 
 money and affected poverty for a whim. He pub- 
 lished his memories of Dorothy between 1826 and 
 1830, after a public furore had been created concerning 
 Dorothy's last days, and his aim was to clear the Duke 
 of the well-deserved stigma which his unimaginative 
 and stupid business man, Barton, had caused publicly 
 to be fixed upon his character. Barrington would have 
 believed all he was told by the Prince's man, but if the 
 Prince was his informant he believed on his knees, 
 devoutly and abjectly. 
 
 Poor Dorothy, waiting, waiting in that little cottage 
 for the letter from Barton telling her that it was safe 
 for her to return, while he was happily conscious that 
 she was safely away ! The days passed : ten, twenty, 
 thirty days, ten weeks, nearly ten months and Barton 
 made no stroke of the pen to release her. And the 
 Duke permitted this refinement of cruelty, yet he was 
 solicitous for her comfort ! He knew that her life was 
 bound up in her children ; that never to see them would
 
 Death the Releaser 383 
 
 be a prolonged anguish; he knew all her circum- 
 stances, but he raised no finger to bring her back into 
 the warmth of love and friendship. For 2000 he 
 sold her to sorrow nay, for less; had he but caused 
 Barton to write and reassure her she would have come 
 back. Is it to be wondered at that when things were 
 known people who had admired the great actress were 
 hot with indignation against him; that even men like 
 Creevey could speak of him in 1820 as " that Prince of 
 Blackguards, brother William ; " that her very creditors 
 cried shame upon him? That nothing that Barton 
 could write or say afterwards could wipe the Duke 
 clean of this stain. 
 
 From Marquetra Dorothy wrote a tender letter of 
 forgiveness to March, promising that when she 
 returned to England Dora and her children might 
 always rely upon her to find a home. But March, 
 without being a bad man, was cursed with littleness of 
 mind, and, from sheer petty annoyance, helped to grind 
 her into the dust. 
 
 While Dorothy was at Marquetra, her boy Frederick 
 and her girl Sophia were in Paris, and she received 
 the following boyish, generous letter from Frederick, 
 who had just learned of the Marchs' calamity. It was 
 probably their presence in the French capital which 
 caused her to leave Marquetra for Versailles. From 
 the time of going abroad Dorothy borrowed her Welsh 
 sister-in-law's name and called herself James, and her 
 son's letter is directed " To Mrs. James, Post Office, 
 Boulogne, France." 
 
 " MY DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 " My dear Sophia has been very low-spirited 
 since she received my ever-dear Dora's letter, and she
 
 384 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 took the earliest opportunity to speak to Mrs. Arbuth- 
 not, who would speak to her husband about it. I am 
 afraid we shall not come home for this long time. I 
 long to see dear Lucy. The Arbuthnots are very kind 
 to me. I have got a room in Paris. Hale is better 
 behaved. I have had a horse shot. Tell all about the 
 [Marchjs. If you want money for them, don't ask me 
 for it, but take my allowance for them; because, with 
 a little care, I could live on my father's till their 
 business is a little settled. Now do as I ask you 
 mind you do, for they have always been so kind to us 
 ALL, and if I can make any return I should be a devil 
 if I did not ; so take my next quarter, and, as you may 
 want to give them some, do that for my sake. I am 
 very well. God bless you. 
 
 " FRED. FITZCLARENCE. 
 
 " P.S. Sophia will write to you on Thursday. 
 
 "Paris." 
 
 How long she stayed at Versailles is not known, 
 perhaps until the end of the year ; then she went on to 
 St. Cloud, where she certainly had the companionship 
 of Miss Sketchley. At St. Cloud she engaged rooms 
 in the Maison du Sieur Mongis, a house in the square 
 which was " large, gloomy, cold and inconvenient " ; 
 probably a typical French place, which even to-day 
 seems bare and chill to the English visitor. The 
 garden was overgrown with weeds and shadowed by 
 two mournful cypresses. As for her rooms, they were 
 shabby and comfortless " a small old sofa being the 
 best-looking piece of furniture." Here again she 
 waited, and waited vainly, for that letter which was to 
 call her home.
 
 Death the Releaser 385 
 
 That she did receive letters is undoubted, but the one 
 upon which her life was staked never came that one 
 which would tell her that it was safe to return and to 
 see again the children, the loss of whom was break- 
 ing her heart. One dunning letter she answered on 
 February 22, 1816, being careful, it may be noted, to 
 put no address but Paris on it. 1 It is addressed to 
 W. Vickery, a hairdresser of Tavistock Street, Covent 
 Garden. 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 ' The date of this will, I hope, explain what 
 might appear neglect. I am very sorry that my bill 
 should have so long remained unpaid; it was not my 
 intention to have remained here so long, but a most 
 painful and distressing illness for these three months 
 past has left me in a very weak state, and I fear I shall 
 not be able to undertake so long a journey till the 
 spring, at which time you may rest assured of receiving 
 the amount. I am very grateful for your friendly 
 forbearance, and indeed will always consider myself 
 obliged to you for your gentlemanly conduct towards 
 me on every occasion. 
 
 " I remain, sir, your obliged frd., 
 
 " DORA JORDAN." 
 
 At St. Cloud, as at Marquetra, Dorothy again lived 
 for the post, and also lived with extreme economy; 
 indeed, the proprietor of the house thought her so 
 badly off that on one occasion he offered her a loan, 
 while wondering at the beautiful diamond ring she 
 wore. Waiting hopelessly for that which never came, 
 
 1 The original of this is one of the many in the collection of Mr. A. M. 
 Broadley. 
 BB
 
 386 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 her brooding mind started a new alarm. Perhaps 
 March had not disclosed all her liabilities, and the 
 reason she was kept so long abroad was that there were 
 other large sums which had been hidden from her and 
 which could not Be met. So she wrote to March, 
 imploring him to set her mind at rest on this point. 
 His only answer seems to have been in the nature of, 
 11 1 have told you once ; there is nothing more to say." 
 She could not be sure he spoke the truth, and she 
 asked him to assure her on oath that there were no 
 more. This he refused, and his refusal made her think 
 that all she feared was true. 
 
 Years later, when, as has been said, Barton had to 
 make his public defence of his master, he threw the 
 whole blame of her continuance abroad upon March, 
 saying that all she " required in order to set her mind 
 at ease on the extent of the demands that might be out 
 against her was that the person who had plunged her 
 into all these difficulties should declare on oath that 
 the list he had given to her included the whole. This 
 the party from time to time refused to do." 
 
 In January 1816 Dorothy sent Miss Sketchley to 
 England to receive her quarterly income or the 
 remnant of it and to get from Edward March the 
 required assurance. Miss Sketchley had seen her 
 employer's sufferings, either all or part of the time she 
 was in France, and was naturally indignant that such 
 anguish should be allowed to continue, and perhaps 
 she showed her indignation too keenly, for March and 
 his wife self-absorbed resented it. They allowed 
 their jealousy of her to weigh against the happiness of 
 their mother, and March absolutely refused to comply. 
 Certain, then, that Dorothy's suspicions were true, 
 Miss Sketchley told them that Mrs. Jordan intended
 
 Death the Releaser 387 
 
 to keep her address secret, and that their letters must 
 be sent through the post office at Paris. March pre- 
 tended in his explanations that he then heard for the 
 first time that she was going to call herself Mrs. James, 
 yet he must have known that she had done so from 
 the time she went to Marquetra, as Frederick's letter 
 proves. He also pretended that this was the first he 
 had heard of any idea that Dorothy doubted his state- 
 ment, but Barton's words quoted above, and this letter, 
 written by Dorothy on the return of Miss Sketchley to 
 St. Cloud, to Barton, do not confirm this. The date 
 is January 16, 1816. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I have forborne writing to you that I might occupy 
 as little of your time as possible. My spirits are in 
 so disturbed a state that my weak hand is scarcely able 
 to trace the still more feeble effort of my mind. . . . 
 He [March] assures you that I am in possession of the 
 names of my creditors, to whom he has made me 
 answerable by filling up those blank acceptances that 
 I so unguardedly gave him, and yet declines making 
 an oath to that -purpose; this has caused me much 
 uneasiness, for it appears to me vague, if not equivocal. 
 
 " I can solemnly declare that the names I sent to you 
 are the only ones I know of, and the greater part utter 
 strangers to me. 
 
 " I was in hopes that, not only out of humanity and 
 justice to me but for his own sake, he would have done 
 it voluntarily, as it would have been the means of 
 removing in a great degree the unpleasant impressions 
 such a determination might cause in the minds of those 
 who still remain anxious for his future well doing. I 
 do not command or enforce it, but entreat it as the only
 
 388 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 relief he can give to a being he has almost destroyed. 
 . . . What interpretation can be put on his refusal? 
 If he says he will not take the oath it is cruel; and if 
 he adds that he cannot, what is to become of me ? Is 
 it in nature possible for me to return to an uncertain 
 home, with all the horrors I have suffered there fresh 
 in my mind, with the constant dread of what may be 
 hanging over me ? I really think, under those circum- 
 stances, that when my presence would be absolutely 
 necessary, that it would not remain in my own power 
 to be able to encounter such misery. It is not, believe 
 me, the feelings of pride, avarice, or the absence of 
 those comforts I have all my life been accustomed to, 
 that is killing me by inches; it is the loss of my only 
 remaining comfort the hope I used to live on of from 
 time to time seeing my children. The above asser- 
 tion I can convince the world of, if driven to it, by 
 leaving the bond (all I have) to the creditors, and the 
 Duke's generous allowance to the decision of the law. 
 
 " It is now, and ever has been, my wish to save 
 Edward March, for even now I feel a regard for him 
 I cannot conquer ; but surely I may expect some return 
 of gratitude from a man who, by a single act, could 
 relieve those fears that are nearly insupportable. The 
 idea is shocking. 
 
 " Excuse this long letter ; but I am sure you will see 
 and feel the motives of the urgency. Once more, dear 
 sir, forgive and excuse, 
 
 "Yours, 
 
 "DORA JORDAN." 
 
 Barton uses this letter as a means to fasten the cause 
 of her lingering agony for another six months upon 
 March. But what did Barton do to help her? He did
 
 Death the Releaser 389 
 
 absolutely nothing ! He seems not even to have 
 written to March on this painful matter; for March 
 declared that he knew nothing of this letter until eight 
 years later when he saw its accusing words in the 
 columns of the daily papers. He was childishly, 
 weakly cruel to a woman to whom he owed much; 
 Barton was intentionally cruel with the method of a 
 man who regarded the woman as of no more import- 
 ance than a piece of broken furniture, a thing to be 
 thrown away and forgotten. 
 
 In his defence March states that he did repent and 
 wrote to Dorothy, but that as her letters were directed 
 to Mrs. James, and as her place of residence was kept 
 a secret, she never received the letter. It seems easier 
 to believe that that letter was never written, as March 
 certainly lied concerning his knowledge of the assumed 
 name. 
 
 So, by the callousness of those to whom she had 
 given her life, Dorothy was left alone with Miss 
 Sketchley until she died, with no word from the Duke 
 to cheer her solitude, no sight of her younger children 
 to warm her heart, no comforting visit from those 
 daughters who had always been glad partly to live 
 upon her exertions. 
 
 It was during the spring days of 1816 that Helen 
 Maria Williams, translator of HumboldCs Travels and 
 writer of many books, learned what a distinguished 
 neighbour she had, and went four times to see Dorothy 
 in her rooms at St. Cloud, holding a long conversation 
 with her on each occasion. So impressed was she with 
 the privilege that she wrote an account of each meeting 
 immediately after, and later, upon Miss Williams' 
 death, these accounts were lent to the writer of The 
 Great Illegitimates for reproduction.
 
 390 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 In these conversations we find anything but a 
 diseased or even a relaxed mind. They are full of 
 memories of the stage and of people tending to verify 
 and amplify facts mentioned in other books ; they show 
 clear criticisms upon current and past events, and a 
 great interest in French theatricals and dramatists, 
 and sometimes Dorothy alluded to her own past, and 
 gave much information about her brother George's 
 widow, Maria Bland. She also presented Miss 
 Williams with a copy of some verses which she had 
 written, under the name of Anthony Acerbus, upon 
 All the Talents Greedy Rout. At the fourth meeting 
 arrangements were made for another, but the day 
 before it should have taken place Miss Williams 
 received the following letter 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, 
 
 " I am not unmindful of the appointment made 
 for to-morrow, but circumstances have intervened 
 which will preclude me the pleasure of a meeting; in 
 addition to which, my spirits are so depressed that I 
 should prove but a melancholy companion for one so 
 full of energy as yourself. With every sentiment that 
 can be dictated by warmth of friendly attachment, 
 believe me, I remain, dear madam, 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " D. J." 
 
 A fortnight later Miss Williams went to St. Cloud, 
 and was told at the hotel that the health and spirits of 
 Mrs. Jordan threatened the worst results, and that 
 orders were given for the admission of only two people. 
 So she returned to Paris, feeling that she would never 
 see her more. A little later she heard that Mrs. Jordan 
 was dead and buried.
 
 Death the Releaser 391 
 
 Thus it may be seen that Dorothy's death was not 
 sudden, that those around her knew her to be seriously 
 ill, and yet no child, Fitzclarence or other, went to 
 see her or soften the last moments. 
 
 About the circumstances surrounding her death there 
 are many stories, which cannot all be credited, though 
 which are true and which false it is hard to decide. 
 Sir Jonah Harrington's account is the one generally 
 followed, and as he paid a special visit to St. Cloud 
 to gather information there at first hand it must be 
 reliable. The irritating thing is that he names the 
 master of the house where Dorothy lodged simply 
 
 " Mr. C ." But as the master of the house was 
 
 Jean Jacques Mongis there is at once some doubt 
 thrown upon the agreement between the tragedy as he 
 heard of it and as it really happened. 
 
 An unknown gentleman who was in Paris at the time 
 gave another account, and a London confectioner, who 
 had removed to Paris and by chance found that she 
 was at St. Cloud, adds another and sensational story 
 to that of the last few weeks of her life. This person's 
 narrative is discounted, however, by the fact that, being 
 in difficulties some years later, he, returning to Eng- 
 land, demanded of the Duke of Clarence the repay- 
 ment of twenty pounds which he said he had advanced 
 to Mrs. Jordan at St. Cloud, which payment though 
 he produced letters supplicating the loan in question 
 was refused, as he could not produce a receipt. 
 
 This man's story of the end was that on going to see 
 her he was put off with evasive answers, and retired; 
 that shortly after he received a letter from Dorothy, 
 begging him to come at night and stand beneath a 
 certain window of her rooms; that from this window 
 she talked with him for two hours, telling him that she
 
 392 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 stood in want of the necessities of life, that she was in 
 a state of complete captivity and surrounded by spies. 
 She took the loan of eighteen or twenty francs which 
 he offered her, making him promise to return the fol- 
 lowing day, and naming a place where they might meet 
 without interruption. The second night he went he 
 gave her twenty pounds, promising to help her to 
 escape to England in ten days' time. Keeping the 
 appointment, he learned that she had died the pre- 
 ceding day. To this story he added that when he 
 applied for the repayment of the loan he saw two or 
 three individuals enjoying posts in a great establish- 
 ment, whom he recognized as having held the situation 
 of spies or keepers over Mrs. Jordan. 
 
 I am inclined to regard the whole of this story as a 
 blackmailing fiction, though it is true that Miss 
 Williams was put off by Dorothy "owing to circum- 
 stances which had intervened," and was refused admis- 
 sion a fortnight later. However, no suspicion was 
 raised in her mind, and Harrington heard nothing of 
 the sort. 
 
 The story of her death, as told by him, and of her 
 burial, related by an English resident in Paris, are in 
 substance as follows 
 
 While in the Hotel Mongis Dorothy showed the 
 most restless anxiety for intelligence from England; 
 her hopes rose as every post was due, and when she did 
 receive letters they raised many emotions in her mind. 
 At last she became more anxious and miserable than 
 usual, being physically ill, so that her skin was dis- 
 coloured, and from morning to night she lay sighing 
 upon the sofa. Then came an interval during which 
 she received no letters, and her trouble seemed too 
 great for mortal strength to bear.
 
 Death the Releaser 393 
 
 One morning she looked very ill, and eagerly asked 
 
 Mr. C before the hour of delivery to go to the 
 
 post office. On his return she started up and held out 
 her hand to receive the missives. He told her there 
 was none. She remained a moment motionless, 
 looked towards him with a vacant stare, held out her 
 hand again as by an involuntary movement, instantly 
 withdrew it and sank back upon the sofa from which 
 
 she had risen. Mr. C ran downstairs to find Miss 
 
 Sketchley, but she had gone out, so he returned to 
 Dorothy's apartment. He then saw a change that 
 alarmed him, for she gazed at him steadfastly, but 
 neither spoke nor wept ; her face flushed darkly, then 
 grew livid, and she sighed as though her heart were 
 breaking. The frightened man knew not what to do, 
 but in a minute he heard her breath drawn hardly, even 
 sobbingly. Thoroughly terrified, he leaned over her 
 and discovered that she was dead. 
 
 This man was perhaps a subordinate in the house, 
 who told Barrington what he saw but not what trans- 
 pired after. Miss Sketchley returned to find Mrs. 
 Jordan dead as she believed, and wrote to Mrs. 
 Hawker who was just recovering from a confinement 
 at her daughter-in-law's house at Woodchester that 
 her mother had died after a few days' illness. Mrs. 
 Hawker was very shocked, but felt unable to go on 
 a long journey. However, Miss Sketchley found that 
 her friend was not dead but in a prolonged faint, and 
 three days later she wrote again to the effect that Mrs. 
 Jordan was still alive but very very ill. Now Mrs. 
 Hawker prepared to go to St. Cloud, but before her 
 preparations were complete dear, deliberate daugh- 
 ter ! a third letter arrived announcing that Mrs. 
 Jordan was really dead.
 
 394 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 A Sunday paper made an announcement, which was 
 copied by The Times on M onday, J uly i , 1 8 1 6, regretting 
 to state that the favourite representative of the Comic 
 Muse died at St. Cloud ; that she had been seized with 
 an inflammation of the lungs, which in all probability 
 would have proved fatal, but that the immediate cause 
 of death was a ruptured blood vessel, caused by a 
 violent fit of coughing. The next day The Times 
 contradicted this, saying that the lady who was with 
 Mrs. Jordan had despaired of her life, but that severe 
 blisters had been applied, and hopes were entertained 
 of her recovery. 
 
 The next absolute fact, and one which effectually 
 "disposes of Boaden's suggestion that Dorothy did not 
 die at this time at all, is that her death was registered 
 at the Mairie at St. Cloud. As early as nine o'clock 
 on the morning of July 5, 1816, two gentlemen pre- 
 sented themselves before the Maire, declaring that 
 Dorothee Bland, Veuve Jordan, had died at the Maison 
 du Sieur Mongis at two o'clock in the morning of that 
 day : these were Jean Jacques Mongis, aged fifty-three 
 years, proprietor of the Maison du Sieur Mongis, and 
 Louis Amable Sciard, Capitaine d'infanterie, Chevalier 
 de 1'Ordre Royal de la Legion d'Honour, aged twenty- 
 six, both living in St. Cloud. They registered her as 
 forty-eight years of age. 
 
 This document is still in existence, and can be seen 
 through the proper authorities. 
 
 The accounts of her burial range from refusal of 
 Christian ground in which to lay the body, to a proces- 
 sion of two hundred of the most respectable parish- 
 ioners of St. Cloud, headed by the Mayor in official 
 robes, and a French minister pronouncing an oration 
 over the grave. Between these comes the sensible and
 
 Death the Releaser 395 
 
 convincing report given by a gentleman who was still 
 living in Paris in 1830, and who attended the funeral. 
 He declares that none of the few who knew her while 
 near Paris ever heard her make the slightest allusion 
 to the cause of her mental anguish, or utter one syllable 
 in the shape of a complaint or reproach that would in 
 the remotest degree assign blame; that she would 
 rather pine in silence than breathe her wrongs and 
 sufferings to the world. To this he added that the 
 acuteness of her malady was considerably alleviated 
 by the unvarying assiduity and watchful care of Miss 
 Sketchley, who had been her companion for a long 
 series of years. 
 
 With this preliminary, he tells how a Mr. Greatorex, 
 the owner of a hotel in the Rue Pelletier, Paris, went 
 often to St. Cloud, and as he knew that the supposed 
 Mrs. James was in reality the renowned Mrs. Jordan, 
 he was in the habit of calling upon her, being received 
 with the amiable manner and " unaffected condescen- 
 sion that were universally allowed to be peculiarly her 
 own." 
 
 The last time he saw her he noticed that she seemed 
 to be ill, but did not imagine her to be near death. 
 Two days later he went again to inquire after her 
 health, and was told, to his surprise, that she was dead, 
 and that already arrangements were being made for her 
 funeral. 
 
 The interval of two days only seems too small, for 
 Dorothy must have been extremely ill for some days, 
 if the newspapers and Harrington's account are to be 
 believed. However, this account was not written at 
 the time, or by Greatorex himself. 
 
 Horrified, and finding that, in addition to her sorrow 
 at the loss of Dorothy, Miss Sketchley, "surrounded
 
 396 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 by strangers and unassisted by any compatriot," had 
 to carry out all the business details of a foreign burial, 
 Greatorex hurried back to Paris to find a Protestant 
 clergyman. The haste of the French over interment 
 would undoubtedly have led to the commitment of the 
 body to earth without the rites of Christian sepulture 
 had it not been for this friend's prompt action ; and it 
 was probably this expressed opinion which, later, gave 
 rise to the popular belief that Dorothy had been buried 
 with as little ceremony as a dog in the corner of a 
 garden. 
 
 The English Chaplain to the Embassy was unable 
 to attend, so Greatorex found a Rev. Mr. Marron, 
 officiating pastor at the French Protestant Church of 
 the Oratoire, and also collected as many as eight other 
 Englishmen (including a William Henshaw, statuary, 
 of Mortimer Street, London, and some one named 
 Keith), with all of whom he returned to St. Cloud. 
 Then he approached the Maire and impressed upon 
 him the fame of the dead woman, upon which that 
 gentleman attended " in his official costume." Thus, 
 " the ceremony attending Mrs. Jordan's interment, 
 although plain, was in every respect decorous, the 
 coffin being covered with light blue cloth, lined and 
 embellished with white furniture. After the office had 
 been performed, a cold collation, consisting of fruits 
 and various wines, was prepared by order of Miss 
 Sketchley for the pastor and gentlemen who had 
 officiated," 
 
 So says one who was present, and who had no reason 
 to praise or blame any one concerned, and this seems 
 the most trustworthy account of the end of a woman 
 who, in her life, spent herself upon those she loved, and 
 in her death was left by those loved ones entirely alone.
 
 Death the Releaser 397 
 
 Upon the greater number of her children no blame 
 could fall. Two were in India, five were under fifteen, 
 others may have been purposely kept in ignorance con- 
 cerning the anxiety which enwrapped her when abroad. 
 Yet she must have written often to them. But no 
 excuse can be raised for the inaction of the Marchs, 
 the Hawkers, the flighty Frances, and especially the 
 Duke and his agent Barton. These knew everything 
 these people who, by their joint or separate actions, 
 had conspired to play on her fears of arrest and to 
 encourage her idea of going abroad, and then had one 
 and all refused to do the things they had promised, 
 which would have enabled her to return with happiness 
 of mind. They had got all they could hope for from 
 her, and when they had carelessly reduced her to such 
 a position of debt that she could by no possibility add 
 further to their incomes, they seemingly washed their 
 hands of her. 
 
 Sophia Fitzclarence, entirely dominated by her 
 father, had been more or less estranged from her 
 mother, and cannot be absolved from blame ; Mary, the 
 next girl, was not eighteen, an age when she would 
 not have been allowed indeed would not have had 
 sufficient knowledge to travel alone to see her mother, 
 and would certainly not have been given any help in 
 doing so. 
 
 General Hawker went over to St. Cloud, says 
 Boaden, " and I believe arrived there about three days 
 after the funeral." If he really went, what did he do? 
 Did he make himself known to the authorities? make 
 an examination of the events? take possession of the 
 effects? pay up all outstanding expenses? settle with 
 Miss Sketchley? arrange for a stone to be put over 
 Dorothy's grave that future generations might know
 
 398 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 where she lay and show the world that her family at 
 least respected her memory if it neglected her when 
 alive ? 
 
 No ; the gentleman of " punctilious honour and 
 integrity," as Harrington describes him, did none of 
 these things. If he went it must have been secretly, 
 simply to satisfy himself that Dorothy was dead, cer- 
 tainly not to interfere in any of her affairs or to help 
 Miss Sketchley. Would he have done differently had 
 he known that all the story of bitter neglect would 
 dribble through bit by bit to the public for a period of 
 ten years, and again and again raise anger against the 
 Duke of Clarence, and lay him open, when he became 
 King, to intermittent and bitter reproaches as to the 
 way in which he had treated " the hapless Jordan " ?
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE DEAD AND THE LIVING 
 
 " Thalia, them ! I guess thy cause of woe, 
 
 Thy comic mask lies there thy feet beneath ; 
 The rivers of thine eye their banks o'erflow, 
 
 The favourite child of smiles thy Dora, lies in death. 
 
 Her smile was by a thousand smiles repaid ; 
 
 Her art was nature, govern'd by thy laws, 
 To acts of good, full oft she lent her aid ; 
 
 Her talents gained her thus, with hands, the heart's applause. 
 
 Such virtues not in vain for mercy plead, 
 
 Though fate the roseate crown with cypress twine ; 
 
 Yes, gentle shade ! thy kind benignant deeds. 
 
 Before the throne of grace, in golden letters shine." 
 
 JOHN O'KEEFE on Dorothy Jordan. 
 
 ** Nay, then I'll be gone, for fear of being bail, and paying her debts, 
 without being her husband." WYCHERLEY: The Plain Dealer. 
 
 IN her burial as in her death Dorothy Jordan was 
 dependent upon strangers. The ground in which her 
 body lay was chosen by Greatorex, and strangers, 
 more important for kindliness of heart than for rank, 
 paid for the stone which marks the spot. A gentle- 
 man, named Henry Woodgate, of Dedham, Essex, 
 had with his wife seen Dorothy shortly before her 
 death, and he ordered a dark granite slab, writing to 
 Genest, the great theatrical authority, to send him an 
 inscription for it. This inscription, both in Latin and 
 in English, is as follows 
 
 " Sacred to the memory of DOROTHY JORDAN, who, 
 for a series of years, in London as well as other cities 
 of Britain pre-eminently adorned the Stage. For 
 Comic Wit, sweetness of voice, and imitating the 
 
 399
 
 400 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 manners and customs of laughing maidens, as well as 
 the opposite sex, she ranked second to none in the 
 display of that Art, wherein she was so pre-eminently 
 skilled. Neither was any one more prompt in relieving 
 the necessitous. She departed this life the 5th of July, 
 1816, aged fifty. Remember and weep for her ! " 
 
 The prejudice was so great against a Protestant and 
 an actress that .Greatorex had to choose a corner in a 
 low, unused part of the cemetery, so low and damp 
 that the authorities intended to raise that portion six 
 feet. Thus a mound six feet high was heaped over 
 the grave and the stone laid upon it under the idea 
 that it would eventually be level with the surrounding 
 ground. But the alteration was never made, and the 
 heavy granite sank, until its head remained about three 
 feet above the level and the foot one. Iron railings 
 have since been put around the spot. 
 
 Five years ago this part of the cemetery was 
 reported as being depressing in the last degree ; damp, 
 mouldy and neglected, the ground grown over with 
 brambles and bushes, and strewn with crosses, cracked 
 headstones and broken railings. In 1903 Aubrey, 
 fourth Earl of Munster, visited and restored the grave, 
 as a tablet attached to the railings records; yet now 
 dark lichen is again growing over the stone and filling 
 in the letter spaces, while the friendly ivy has crept up 
 the hard railings, twined about two marble tablets 
 attached to them, and is fast throwing thick tendrils 
 over the whole grave. The tablets announce that in 
 1847 ner affectionate daughter Lucy Hawker visited 
 the spot, and that in 1842 her daughter Mary Fox was 
 there. It took the daughters long to remember her; 
 they did not think of it until his Most Gracious
 
 The Dead and the Living 401 
 
 Majesty King William IV had been dead for years, 
 and until, age creeping upon them, they better realized 
 a mother's sorrows. 
 
 After the funeral and the general settling up of 
 things Miss Sketchley disappears from the story; she, 
 like a loyal friend, had hotly resented the treatment 
 given to Dorothy by her children, and was in return 
 distrusted and hated by them. Lucy Hawker later 
 became much disturbed as to what had happened to 
 her mother's jewels, which had naturally been taken 
 abroad. Had General Hawker gone in a dignified 
 way to help settle Dorothy's affairs, this he would have 
 learned ; but when the question arose it was too late. 
 So Mrs. Hawker wrote to her aunt, Hester Bland, 
 at Trelethyn, asking if she could throw any light on 
 the matter, and as Miss Bland knew nothing of their 
 whereabouts, Lucy concluded that Miss Sketchley had 
 stolen them. 1 
 
 Well, Miss Sketchley may have been unable to 
 resist the temptation, seeing how little was owing to 
 Dorothy's daughters; Dorothy may have given them 
 to her at the last, or the police may have sold them 
 with the other things. These respectable people in 
 England could not put themselves to trouble until 
 swayed by personal loss. 
 
 On Mrs. Jordan's death the police put seals upon 
 all her personal effects, and eventually sold them at 
 public auction, " even her body linen was sold amid 
 coarse remarks of low French women," said Mr. 
 Woodgate, who was present. The money brought 
 by the sale was probably sent over to England, for 
 the King's solicitor collected Dorothy's effects, she 
 being illegitimate and dying intestate; and letters of 
 
 1 Information from private letters. 
 CC
 
 4O2 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 administration were taken out at Doctors' Commons, 
 May 24, 1817, the total amount from all sources being 
 sworn at under 300. For nearly seven years after 
 that date nothing more was heard of this little sum, 
 which naturally raised some heartburnings among her 
 eldest daughters, who seem to have cherished a belief 
 that their mother had, secretly, money in the funds. 
 They thought that the Duke had taken possession of 
 the 3, for he and his agent had been guilty of 
 extreme sharp practice with them. 
 
 Their allowance had been paid regularly through 
 Coutts's bank, and as Dorothy died on the 5th of July 
 a further quarterly portion was due at the end of June. 
 But before the 3Oth of June Barton had heard of Mrs. 
 Jordan's supposed death, and he at once stopped all 
 payments. Mrs. Hawker knew what had happened at 
 St. Cloud, but Frances was then acting at Bath, and 
 she and Mrs. March remained in ignorance. These 
 daughters were in Cadogan Place in January when 
 Miss Sketchley so much. .annoyed them, but by June 
 the house had probably been turned over to the dis- 
 honest Wigley, for Mrs. March, whose affairs were 
 still in a painful condition, had, with her children, 
 migrated to the rooms rented by Frances. The latter 
 then owed her landlord, Withers, 170, and had pro- 
 mised him something at the receipt of her allowance; 
 so at the beginning of July Mrs. March went to the 
 bank to draw the two allowances, and was informed 
 that her mother was dead, and all further remittances 
 were stopped. Which must have been a great shock 
 to her, on both accounts. 
 
 When Frances returned from Bath, her first action 
 was to go to Englefield Green and gather together 
 various things that were stored there belonging to her
 
 The Dead and the Living 403 
 
 mother, to the value of 100, including some chimney 
 ornaments, a pendule, an original oil portrait of 
 Dorothy, a mirror once the property of David Garrick, 
 and the little half-finished rug which had had its share 
 in the quarrel with Clarence. It would be interesting 
 to know which of the portraits Mrs. Alsop then secured 
 and sold. 
 
 Her next step was to write to the Duke, and 
 this having no effect she followed Mrs. Clarke's his- 
 toric action and began to write her memoirs, which 
 would have included a long correspondence between 
 Clarence and her mother but chiefly letters from 
 Clarence from the beginning of their connection, for 
 she was in possession of "sufficient letters and MSS. 
 to fill a moderate sack." This volume Frances tried 
 to get Withers to publish, saying that she feared no 
 results, for if she were imprisoned for libel she would 
 gain public pity. But he, not having the same incen- 
 tive, prudently refused. During these negotiations 
 she read part of her production to him, showing that 
 " her mother's nightly salaries at Drury Lane were con- 
 stantly paid in advance on the night of the perform- 
 ance, ere she made her appearance on the boards." 
 
 Later biographers have always tried to save the 
 royal honour by throwing scorn upon this and the 
 many other statements to this effect, but not one of 
 them has brought any evidence to disprove such state- 
 ments, and Dorothy's later letters show that Clarence 
 was always glad to receive contributions. 
 
 A less sensitive publisher, Colburn, arranged to 
 bring out Mrs. Alsop's book, and advertised it in June 
 1817 as Authentic Memoirs of Mrs. [ordan, but suc- 
 cessful steps were taken to prevent its issue. 
 
 When the rest of the family knew what evidence
 
 404 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 was hidden among those papers and letters, and also 
 realized that their mother had nothing to leave any of 
 them, they made an ineffectual attempt to secure 
 something from the wreck. Now for the first time did 
 the knowledge of the various " loans " become public, 
 and such paragraphs as this from The Theatrical In- 
 quisitor appeared in different papers, following upon 
 the granting of letters of administration 
 
 " It has since been asserted that the narrowness of 
 this sum excited inquiry as to the disposal of her 
 known accumulations; in consequence of which a 
 memorandum has been traced in the writing of Mrs. 
 Jordan which refers to various sums, amounting in 
 the whole to 30,000, lent to a distinguished friend in 
 trust for the children of a period previous to their 
 connection. To this friend an application, it is said, 
 has been made by the heirs for payment, with an 
 assurance that the adjustment of their claims would 
 not unwillingly be referred to the Court of Chancery." 
 
 This threat levelled against the Duke had no result ; 
 it was idle, of course, if Dorothy had given a receipt 
 in full ; so Frances continued to harry him while 
 struggling against her ineffectiveness on the stage. 
 Sympathy and her mother's memory gained her good 
 engagements, but she never was anything but a copy 
 of Mrs. Jordan, " a copy in water-colours." Her very 
 tones were borrowed, and there is doubt that she 
 possessed any real comic talent of her own. She 
 quarrelled with her managers, and at times suffered 
 great poverty. 
 
 Then the usual course with an undesirable was 
 followed. The Duke's agent paid a small premium 
 on her debts of 3000, and gave her a chance of going 
 to America in comfort. She took the chance, and
 
 The Dead and the Living 405 
 
 landed in New York in September 1820, where she 
 was announced on theatrical bills as " The Grand- 
 daughter of the Late King of Great Britain." Six 
 months later she died of an overdose of laudanum, 
 whether unintentional or in a determination of taking 
 her own life no one could tell. 
 
 The year before this happened public interest over 
 Mrs. Jordan was raised again to a white heat of scorn 
 for the Duke, because at the end of June 1819 a state- 
 ment appeared in The Messenger, an English paper 
 published by Galignani in Paris. This was followed 
 on July 4 by another, part of which ran 
 
 " We some days since inserted a letter on the sub- 
 ject of an unliquidated debt of sixty francs, due to 
 the municipality of St. Cloud, for the space of ground 
 appropriated as the last resting-place of the late Mrs. 
 Jordan. We feel called upon to state, that imme- 
 diately after the publication of the above-mentioned 
 letter, we received repeated applications, both personal 
 and in writing, from various British residents, all 
 expressing an anxious desire to be permitted to take 
 the debt upon themselves, both from a national feel- 
 ing of what was due to the character of our country, 
 and an individual sentiment of respect for the amiable 
 deceased; and although, as we have authority to 
 mention, the sum in question has been paid by a 
 particularly active competitor in the honourable race 
 of generosity, we nevertheless continue each day to 
 receive letters of the same import from the depart- 
 ments." 
 
 Between 1816 and this date the Duke of Clarence, 
 his agent and friends, had been disseminating the idea 
 that Dorothy was in possession of wealth to the day 
 of her death, and whenever opportunity arose, as when
 
 406 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Barrington wrote, the same course was pursued; but 
 no protestations can contradict such plain facts as 
 those of the administration of her money and this 
 article from Paris. 
 
 The little sum which was all that remained of the 
 fortune Dorothy had earned was the property of the 
 Crown because of her birth ; but the existence of debts 
 caused it to be handed over to lawyers for use on a 
 more auspicious occasion; and as in 1816 the debts of 
 the Duke of Clarence, which he was trying hard to 
 make the country pay, were a source of much gossip, 
 Barton may have thought it wiser not to bring 
 Dorothy's name again before the public. So it was not 
 until more than seven years had passed, in December 
 1823, that anything was done, and then this announce- 
 ment appeared in the papers 
 
 " DOROTHEA JORDAN, DECEASED. The creditors of 
 Dorothea Jordan, late of Englefield-green and Cado- 
 gan-place, Sloane-street, in the county of Middlesex, 
 spinster, deceased, who have proved their debts may 
 receive a dividend of five shillings in the pound, by 
 applying at the office of the Solicitor to the Treasury, 
 No. 5, Stone-buildings, Lincoln's-inn. And those 
 creditors who have not yet proved their debts, are 
 requested forthwith to furnish the Solicitor of the 
 Treasury with proofs thereof." 
 
 This was an incredibly stupid thing to have done 
 even at that distance of time ; far better would it have 
 been to have paid the trifle which was still owing than 
 to stir up all the old scandal. However, the Duke 
 had not been endowed with brains, and to his man 
 had been denied the gift of imagination, so they 
 deliberately walked into a mud heap of their own 
 making.
 
 The Dead and the Living 407 
 
 It is as well to examine the sum which remained to 
 be paid. The amount in hand was less than 300, and 
 out of it five shillings in the pound was offered, which 
 means that the proved debts were then less than the 
 value of 1200! And for 900 the royal Duke put 
 Dorothy again into the position of a martyr with the 
 public, and caused his own name to become the target 
 once more of violent popular scorn and contumely. 
 
 So by his own deed the Duke's reputation was torn 
 to rags in the press, and there was no one to speak one 
 word for him, save Barton, who at last responded with 
 an anonymous defence which did nothing beyond add- 
 ing fuel to the fire. Here is a specimen of the letters, 
 this being addressed to The News 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 " I observed a few days ago (with what senti- 
 ments of great indignation) an advertisement in the 
 daily papers, announcing a dividend of five shillings in 
 the pound as now in course of payment to the bona fide 
 creditors of the late Mrs. Dorothea Jordan, formerly 
 of Cadogan Terrace (sic) and lastly of St. Cloud in 
 France. 
 
 ' To those, Sir, who have witnessed, as I have often 
 done, the honourable and liberal feelings of the 
 lamented lady in pecuniary matters, the generosity and 
 self-denial with which she permitted her theatrical 
 salary to be taken weekly and devoted to expenses of 
 a domestic nature, which expenses in any similar case 
 would have been defrayed from other funds, it must 
 be a source of pain to see her name held up to the 
 world as that of an insolvent who had lived beyond 
 her income, and defrauded the honest tradesman of 
 his due. I am persuaded that there are enough of her
 
 408 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 admirers still living, who, by a public subscription 
 would have rescued her memory from this degrading 
 but undeserved reproach. Though poor, my mite 
 should cheerfully have been contributed to such a 
 purpose, and hundreds would, I am assured, have been 
 eager to do the same. If strangers to her domestic 
 hospitality, and persons who never partook of her 
 bounty, so feel, what may I be allowed to ask must 
 have been the sensations of her high-bred children 
 when they see their noble-minded parent thus held 
 forth to public animadversion ! 
 
 "To have been spared their feelings, had I, Mr. 
 Editor, possessed no other resources, the privations 
 of nature should have furnished the means to have 
 rescued a beloved mother's name from such foul and 
 lamented obloquy. 
 
 " I am, Sir, 
 
 " AN ADMIRER OF FILIAL PIETY." 
 
 Paragraphs from this letter were reproduced over 
 the country and thus widely circulated, then on 
 January 4, 1824, the anonymous defence appeared; 
 but as it contains the same sentiments, information and 
 phrases as the longer statement which was later forced 
 from Barton's pen over his signature, there can be 
 little doubt as to who was the author of this. It is but 
 justice to reproduce this defence. 
 
 " A paragraph is now in progress through the news- 
 papers, stating that the debts of this lamented and 
 interesting lady have been compounded for five shil- 
 lings in the pound, which is now in course of payment. 
 This statement is not correct : Mrs. Jordan died 
 intestate in France; the consequence of which is, her
 
 The Dead and the Living 409 
 
 property vests in the Crown, and it has become the 
 duty of the King's solicitor to collect her effects and 
 apply them in the first instance to the payment of her 
 debts. He has done this, and announced a payment 
 to the extent stated. This is the fact, but it is not 
 a composition of the lady's debts; the same course 
 would be adopted in the case of any other British 
 subject dying abroad intestate. But perhaps it would 
 not have been necessary to notice the misrepresenta- 
 tion, were it not for the use to which it is applied by 
 some of the public prints, in which it is made the 
 ground of a bitter invective against a royal personage, 
 formerly connected with that interesting female, by 
 many dear and intimate ties. Nothing can be more 
 unfounded than the charge, in which it is stated that 
 she was left totally unprovided to pine and die in 
 want in a foreign land. Mrs. Jordan enjoyed an 
 income of 2000 a year, settled upon her by the royal 
 Duke. It was paid quarterly at Coutts's bank in the 
 Strand; and the last quarter, which did not become 
 due until after her death, was received by a lady, 
 formerly a governess at Bushy, and afterwards 
 resident with her as a companion in France, who came 
 over to London for the purpose. But the report of 
 the total abandonment and destitution of Mrs. Jordan 
 is not new; it has been so long and frequently reported, 
 and suffered to pass without contradiction, it is now 
 received as truth in every circle; that it has not been 
 noticed by some of the friends of the royal person 
 aspersed, may excite surprise. We feel it our duty, 
 however, to expose the misrepresentation, without 
 regard to wishes of the friends of his Royal Highness. 
 The exposure is due to the cause of truth, it is due to 
 the country which has an interest in the character of
 
 4io The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 the illustrious individual so near to the throne, which 
 could not belong to the case of a subject, however 
 important, of inferior rank." 
 
 An interesting point in this matter is that when 
 Dorothy was induced to flee from England the debts 
 were said to be 2000, but after her death nine months 
 later they were only under 1200. How had the sum 
 of 800 been cleared off ? Was that why Dorothy was 
 so desperately poor when in France, or had March 
 subsequently developed grit in his character, and paid 
 off some himself? Barton also says that 500 was 
 collected by Miss Sketchley after Mrs. Jordan's death, 
 but March asserts that the last payment to her was 
 made in the preceding April. Who was telling the 
 truth ? or was that 500 used to clear some part of the 
 debt? Barton of course was not likely to divulge 
 the enormous claims that there were upon Dorothy's 
 allowance, her daughters, the Alsop debts and her own 
 private ones. 
 
 As Barton's longer and acknowledged statement has 
 been practically reproduced in various parts of this 
 book^.only some few assertions need be added. By 
 slightly altering the statement above reproduced he 
 begins his explanation, then proceeds to acquaint the 
 public " in the first place that it was through my hands 
 that the whole transaction upon the separation of the 
 Duke and Mrs. Jordan passed ; that it was at my sug- 
 gestion Mrs. Jordan adopted the resolution of leaving 
 this country for France, to enable her the more readily 
 and honourably to extricate herself from troubles into 
 which she had fallen through a misplaced confidence." 
 
 The italics are not Mr. Barton's, but that sentence 
 shows that he was responsible for that unnecessary
 
 The Dead and the Living 411 
 
 and sad exile; he must have been aware at the time 
 that there was no need for it, even though she felt 
 herself past taking theatrical engagements. 
 
 He then adds that up to " the day of their separation 
 Mrs. Jordan had received a large annual allowance 
 from his Royal Highness." And so again he stands 
 convicted, for Dorothy's own letters prove that so far 
 from the bond being honoured she had been spoon- 
 feeding the Duke for years from her earnings. 
 
 It was probably through Barton that Edward March 
 wrote an "Authentic Statement," already quoted, to 
 vindicate himself and incidentally the Duke from blame 
 in the business; he speaks of himself under the title 
 of "a near relative," details somewhat vaguely the 
 story of the sudden discovery of her liability, says that 
 no penny towards the liquidation of the debts was 
 paid during her life, that she knew that no impediment 
 to the arrangement of these debts existed, and conse- 
 quently, when she found that month after month 
 elapsed without anything being finally settled, her 
 mind became troubled. He then detailed the dis- 
 agreement with Miss Sketchley and the refusal 
 through irritation to grant Mrs. Jordan's request to be 
 assured on oath that no further claims existed ; stated 
 that he knew nothing of the letter Dorothy had written 
 to Barton, and that it was only in January 1816 that 
 "the lady alluded to (Miss Sketchley) informed two 
 of Mrs. Jordan's daughters, that Mrs. Jordan's future 
 place of residence in France was to be kept a pro- 
 found secret from them, and that all letters from them 
 to their mother must be sent through a third person 
 and directed to Mrs. James, instead of Mrs. Jordan." 
 
 As has been said, Dorothy called herself James, and 
 had her letters sent to a post-office from her first arrival
 
 414 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 in such a case; but being pinned down by it he 
 gave her exactly what the bond decreed. Later he 
 demanded a total termination of all intercourse with 
 him even on the subject of their children, and left 
 her in the hands of a lawyer, who was hired to exact 
 the last farthing possible from all sources for his 
 master, an arrangement which well suited him until 
 this servant, unable to weigh causes and effects, to 
 distinguish between an unknown woman and a public 
 favourite, so bungled matters as to drag his employer's 
 name publicly through the mud again and again. 
 
 Happily she herself knew nothing of this later dis- 
 grace ; she was dead, the light-hearted, gay spirit, who 
 loved laughter better than tears ; the strong spirit, who 
 bore in her youth the heavy burdens of others, and in 
 later life expended herself upon her children and their 
 father; the generous spirit, who gave royally and to 
 whom so little was given; fortunately she was dead, 
 while all these lesser people quarrelled and lied over 
 her life and memory.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 GATHERED ENDS 
 
 "Judgment, which every little fault could spy; 
 But Candour, that would pass a thousand by : 
 Judgment and Candour used together can 
 Unravel secrets in the life of man." 
 
 ANON. 
 
 "Admiral Tarry-Breeks, a Royal Duke, 
 The moral brother of a moral King, 
 Is anxious 'mongst the Lords to look 
 A sapient, nautical, and righteous thing. 
 
 " But ere he points at Britain's Queen a shaft, 
 
 Or steps, the ship that chases her, a-board on, 
 He should remember memory looks abaft, 
 And reads his morals in the hapless Jordan." 
 
 "BEN BACKSTAY": The Black Dwarf. 
 
 YET later arose the idea that Mrs. Jordan was not 
 dead, Boaden started it in his " life " of her, so it took 
 fifteen years to bring this fancy to birth. His story 
 is that stopping one day to look in a bookseller's 
 window in Piccadilly he saw a lady stop also, whom he 
 became convinced was his old friend. However, she 
 immediately dropped a long white veil over her face, 
 so, concluding that she did not wish to be recognized, 
 he " yielded to her pleasure on this occasion." The 
 chief evidence he shows is that as Dorothy was near- 
 sighted she used eye-glasses suspended from a gold 
 chain round her neck, which she used in a very pecu- 
 liar manner, a peculiarity which this unknown seems 
 to have reproduced. 
 
 Mrs. Alsop, too, said that she had met her mother 
 in the Strand after her death, and was so certain of it 
 
 415
 
 412 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 in France, and he must have known it. Indeed, the 
 whole authentic statement is so garbled, so contra- 
 dictory in almost every particular that nothing is to 
 be made of it. His last assertion is that " there can 
 be no question that the mind of this great woman had 
 been long and grievously oppressed. . . . Can there 
 be a severer censure upon her memory than to think 
 that pecuniary difficulties, even weighty (which hers 
 were not), could for any length of time have depressed 
 a mind such as hers in its perfect state ? " 
 
 Well, she had surely had enough, if ever any woman 
 had, to unhinge her mind, certainly to deprive it of 
 courage and tranquillity; but those who saw her in 
 France give no hint that she was mad, or even 
 unbalanced. 
 
 The newspaper controversy was in effect closed by 
 a letter signed " Humanus," addressed to John Barton, 
 which, though exaggerated in respect to Dorothy's 
 life and condition in France, shows with satiric force 
 the attitude generally adopted by the public on the 
 matter. I quote only a part of it. 
 
 "With your approbation she fled to France, and 
 there lived in want and misery. Your amiable and 
 illustrious master was not ignorant of her embarrass- 
 ments; yet they were unheeded. How they affected 
 her, the letter she wrote from St. Cloud is too 
 melancholy an evidence. 
 
 " It is well known she sunk under the pressure of 
 her situation; foreigners supplied her with rags to 
 cover her squalid and emaciated frame, and the 
 benevolence of foreigners was taxed to lay her ashes 
 in the tomb. Why did not you, sir, communicate these 
 circumstances to your master ? Why did you not say 
 that the annuity was a sealed book that she was
 
 The Dead and the Living 413 
 
 wretched and forlorn in a foreign land? Had your 
 amiable and illustrious master heard this tale of woe 
 he must have flown to her relief, repaid the large sums 
 which he had drawn from her theatrical talents \ or at 
 least taken some steps to withdraw the arrest upon the 
 annuity. Surely you must have known that a slander- 
 ous world would have interpreted your apathy into the 
 apathy of your patron, and that there was risk, how- 
 ever pure and spotless the House of Brunswick is, of 
 a shadow passing across the lustre of one of its 
 brightest ornaments. And busy tongues, too, might 
 have said that the bond had a careful provision, which 
 by legal or voluntary assignees were to annul its 
 efficacy, and that the prospect of these had swayed the 
 noble-hearted and munificent granter in amplifying its 
 contents. 
 
 " Unjustifiable and malicious as these allusions 
 were, the credulous public might have given them ear, 
 and it was your duty to have prevented them. You 
 are not entitled, in exculpation, to plead the profuse 
 allowance of two hundred pounds sterling afterwards 
 granted to Mrs. Jordan's daughters. Is it any excuse 
 to an ungrateful country that monuments are reared 
 and paeans are sung to one whose lamp has expired 
 from want of the oil of subsistence ? 
 
 ' The Athenians honoured their Socrates after 
 compelling him to drink the hemlock juice." 
 
 Dorothy was beyond love and beyond suffering, so 
 this quarrel mattered nothing to her. The Duke's love 
 went as she lost her youthfulness and grace, and for 
 several years he was trying to sever the connection. 
 When at last the strain had reached breaking-point 
 he did his best to be relieved from the promise he had 
 given her in legal form as to the provision to be made
 
 that it " threw her into fits at the time ; and to her own 
 death she believed that she had not been deceived." 
 
 Because of the above gossip a further veil fell over 
 Dorothy's fate, and later biographers cast doubt over 
 the account of the last sad days; mystery is so much 
 more romantic than plain fact. Why did not Boaden 
 go the whole way, and say that he had seen her shade 
 which had appeared to him to prove that she was really 
 dead ? But it may safely be assumed that the Mayor of 
 St. Cloud could not have registered as dead, a woman 
 who had simply left the neighbourhood, nor would the 
 various and independent accounts of her illness and 
 death have provided such conclusive evidence. 
 
 It would have been well if this book could have 
 closed with the last chapter, but there are so many 
 references to her in later years, and so many small 
 points to clear up, that a few more pages are necessary. 
 
 There is, for instance, the attitude of William, Duke 
 of Clarence, who may have been greatly relieved at 
 the removal of this incubus upon his mind. On the 
 other hand, he may have been more worthy of the love 
 with which Dorothy Jordan lavished upon him than 
 history tells. He certainly became very ill in July 
 1816, an illness which lasted so long that on August 
 22 his birthday was celebrated at Frogmore without 
 his presence. It is somewhat damping to sentiment, 
 however, to find that the illness was ascribed to severe 
 stomachic trouble. Though he was not at his birthday 
 party, one may wonder whether his thoughts harked 
 back to that birthday party ten years earlier when 
 Dorothy took the head of the Royal table, the Prince 
 of Wales on her right ; their children being brought in 
 for the admiration of the guests. 
 
 It has been said that he eventually continued his
 
 Gathered Ends 417 
 
 allowance to Mrs. March and Mrs. later Lady Hawker; 
 he also continued to Hester Bland at Trelethyn the 
 annuity of 50 a year, and when he became King he 
 doubled this amount, and the kind little Queen Victoria 
 continued this sum until Hester died at the ripe age of 
 eighty-nine, in 1848. It may also have been through 
 the same source that the nonogenarian, Miss Thim- 
 bleby lived free from want in Manfredonia. 
 
 When William, in his fatuity joined in trying to 
 destroy Queen Caroline, some papers became almost 
 terrible in their wrath, and Jordan, Jordan, was the 
 cry : " What, is the age so lost to dignity that avowed 
 guilt can sit in judgment on persecuted innocence? 
 One would think the spectre of the unfortunate Jordan 
 would push him from his stool (in the House of Lords). 
 . . . The people have seen open and notorious 
 adulterers audaciously sitting in judgment upon a 
 brave and virtuous Queen ; they have witnessed a man 
 who has inundated his country with bastards, and 
 deserted the deserving but helpless mother of his off- 
 spring, and finally left her to perish like a dog in the 
 streets, and to be buried as a pauper at the public 
 charge when she ceased to maintain him by her own 
 exertions, going about and slandering his sovereign, 
 etc." (The Black Dwarf.) 
 
 A caricature of this period actually did show 
 Dorothy appearing to him from her coffin, to denounce 
 him, though denunciation was the very last weapon she 
 would have used. 
 
 When Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen took the Duke 
 in hand he was coarse, neglectful, almost brutal, 
 looking upon her as just a medium for providing an 
 heir to the throne. She, however, at once began the 
 tutoring which he needed, and before long he began to 
 DD
 
 4i 8 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 modify his most obvious sins of manner and life, an 
 improvement which was soon communicated to the 
 public in the usual pictures and verses. In one of the 
 former the Duke and Duchess sit side by side on a sofa 
 beneath a picture of the River Jordan with many tribu- 
 taries, and with admonitory finger raised, Adelaide 
 sternly says, " Mind ! I will not have it ! " to her 
 gaping lord. 
 
 It is probably due to Adelaide's fine sense of justice 
 that at last Clarence came to realize Dorothy's worth, 
 and would speak of her with tears in his eyes. Some 
 time after becoming King he sent for Chantrey, the 
 sculptor, and offered him the commission of making 
 a marble monument to Dorothy, discussing at some 
 length the proposed statue and the place in which it 
 should stand. He then, says Miss Berry in her diary, 
 " went into a thousand particulars of their private life, 
 always ending that she had been an excellent mother 
 to her children." 
 
 Chantrey accepted the commission and produced the 
 most beautiful emblem of maternal love that his mind 
 could conceive. The face and figure are those of 
 Dorothy, and the ineffable tenderness which curves 
 the lips as she gazes down upon her child, reveals her 
 mother-soul, strong with love and protectiveness. 
 
 It was soon after his accession that he ordered this 
 statue to be made, but in 1839 it was still in Chantrey's 
 studio, and seemingly also after the sculptor's death, 
 for the Earl of Munster, her child, had objected to the 
 spot chosen for it. Thomas Moore mentions seeing it 
 there, and a Mr. Cornish wrote of it in Notes and 
 Queries in 1851 as having been there "some years 
 since." It is curious, however, that the statue he saw 
 does not tally with the known group. He says : " I
 
 DOROTHY JORDAN 
 
 FROM THE STATUK BY CHANTRKY IN THE POSSESSION OF THE 
 EARL OF MUNSTER, BY WHOSE KIND PERMISSION IT IS REPRODUCED
 
 Gathered Ends 419 
 
 was singularly impressed with the gracefulness and 
 beauty of a female figure, with three children ; one was 
 at her breast, and in the curled head of another at her 
 feet was the mother's hand enfolded. On the pedestal 
 was this inscription : * Sacred to the memory of Norah 
 Bland.' ' 
 
 The statue which now holds an honoured place in 
 the house of the present Earl of Munster, has but two 
 children, a babe sleeping in the mother's lap, while 
 she with her disengaged hand is softly drawing up 
 some drapery to cover it, the curly-headed boy standing 
 at his mother's knee and looking with childish wonder 
 at his little sister. There also is no inscription other 
 than the name of the sculptor. So what Mr. Cornish 
 saw was perhaps a first suggestion for the statue, 
 which had been retained in the studio. 
 
 This beautiful work of art was for a considerable 
 time at Mapledurham in the possession of her son 
 Augustus, who, though longing to be a sailor, was 
 thrust into the Church, that he might be provided for 
 at the expense of the souls he could hardly hope to 
 save. If this statue had to go begging for a resting- 
 place in earlier days, there can be few of Dorothy's 
 descendants now who would not welcome such a 
 treasure into their homes with pride, for time brings 
 its revenge, strips history of feeling and allows judg- 
 ment to have its value. To-day we would seek a 
 portrait of Dorothy Jordan with keen interest, while 
 one of William IV would not, for its subject, draw the 
 connoisseur into the next room. 
 
 As for Dorothy's children we find stray evidences 
 here and there that some of them remembered her with 
 love and reverence. The poet Bunn gives a long entry 
 in his diary of the date April 24, 1834, proving this.
 
 420 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 ; 
 
 " Captain Lord Frederick Fitzclarence, who was 
 present on this occasion (a command performance at 
 Drury Lane), called me out of the Green Room, and 
 with a considerable degree of excitement, said, ' Bunn, 
 I have never been behind the scenes of this theatre 
 since the last evening my dear mother performed here, 
 and [here his Lordship took me by the arm, walked 
 down the long passage on that side of the house, and 
 kicked open the dressing-room door at the end of it] 
 that is the room in which she used to dress. I came 
 with her almost every night, long, long before I wore 
 any of these gew-gaws [pointing to his uniform and its 
 decorations]. Excuse my emotion [passing his hand 
 over his eyes] I could not help, and to tell you the 
 truth, I could not resist being here to-night, but I 
 never mean to come again. I was happier then than, 
 with all the enjoyments of life, I have ever been 
 since.' 
 
 ' The temporary astonishment of the performers 
 thus suddenly broken in upon at their labours of the 
 toilet were lost sight of in the admiration of those to 
 whom this charming touch of nature was communi- 
 cated." 
 
 How far Bunn's pride at being taken by the arm by 
 one of William's children coloured this narrative 
 cannot be said, but the Drury Lane in which Dorothy 
 acted was burnt down in 1809, and rebuilt on a new 
 plan, and only once at a charitable performance in 
 1813 could she have been in the dressing-room which 
 Frederick Fitzclarence so affectingly kicked open. 
 
 Of Adolphus, the fourth son, Bunn wrote, on April 
 28, 1838: "Favoured with a long chat by Lord 
 Adolphus Fitzclarence, who is one of the very best 
 hearted gentlemen of England to be found in her
 
 Gathered Ends 421 
 
 broad and free land, and full of all good qualities. 
 His habitual respect for the good old King, his ex- 
 cellent father, and the fondness with which he clings 
 to the minutest recollection of his gifted mother, 
 would serve as a bright example to most of the 
 aristocracy amongst whom he daily breathes." 
 
 In conclusion, a list with some particulars, of 
 Dorothy's children may be interesting. It can only 
 be as exact as evidence allows, for much knowledge 
 is wanting. 
 
 Frances Daly, born 1782, married Thomas Alsop, 
 1808, died in America, 1821. 
 
 Hester Bettesworth, born (?). This daughter may be 
 regarded as unproven, though she took the name of 
 Bettesworth in 1806 because, as one journal said, "her 
 father, having recently died, had left her considerable 
 property." There are other indications of her 
 existence however. 
 
 Dorothea Maria Ford, born (?i787), married Ed- 
 ward March, of the Ordnance Office, at the Tower of 
 London, 1809, had several children, one Leopold, 
 being educated for a time at Haverfordwest Grammar 
 School, with young James, the adopted son of 
 Nathaniel Bland. 
 
 Lucy Ford, born 1788 or 1789, married General Sir 
 Samuel Hawker, being his second wife, 1810, had ten 
 children, one, Olivia, being baptized in Trelethyn. 
 
 There were ten Fitzclarences, all of whom, with the 
 exception of Henry, who died, and Elizabeth and 
 Amelia, who already had higher rank, were given the 
 position of the younger children of a Marquis in 1831. 
 These were 
 
 Sophia, born 1792 or 1797, married 1825, Mr.
 
 422 The Story of Dorothy Jordan 
 
 Sydney, who was created a baronet, and then Lord 
 de Lile and Dudley in 1835. Died at Kensington 
 Palace 1837, had six children. 
 
 George Augustus, Earl of Munster, born January 
 2 3> J 794> married Mary, daughter of the Earl of 
 Egremont. Died March 30, 1842, buried in Hampton 
 Church. 
 
 Henry, born March 27, 1795, died, Captain in 27th 
 Foot, India, 1817. 
 
 Mary, born November 18, 1798, married 1824, 
 Charles Richard Fox, son of Lord and Lady Holland. 
 
 Frederick, born December 9, 1799, married Lady 
 Augusta Boyle. 
 
 Elizabeth, born January 18, 1801, married Decem- 
 ber 1820, William George, Earl of Errol, son of Earl 
 of Glasgow. 
 
 Adolphus, born February 18, 1802, made Admiral 
 
 Augusta, born November 20, 1803, married 1827, 
 Hon. John Kennedy Erskine, widowed 1831, married 
 again 1836, Lord Frederick Gordon, son of the 
 Marquis of Huntly. 
 
 Augustus, born March i, 1805, Rector of Maple- 
 durham and Chaplain to William IV. Married Sarah, 
 daughter of Lord Gordon. 
 
 Amelia, born, it is believed, March 20, 1807, married 
 1830, Lucius, gth Earl Falkland. There was some 
 confusion about the birth of Amelia, it being variously 
 given as March 20, 1807, and November 5, 1803, the 
 latter probably a misprint for 1806.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ADELAIDE, Queen, 185, 285, 311. 
 
 339 
 
 Adolphus, John, 118 
 Advertiser and Oracle, 218, 254 
 Alsop, Frances, 81, 197, 214, 242, 
 
 2 5 2 2 53. 2 55. 263, 2 7 2 i 2 75, 
 
 2 97, 304, 358, 359-368, 400-4. 
 
 414, 421 
 , Thomas, 272, 274, 283, 315, 
 
 341, 362, 363, 421 
 
 , William, 272 
 
 Amelia, Princess, 226, 289, 307 
 Angelo, Henry, 83 
 Astley, Philip, 55, 201 
 Athlone, Earl and Countess, 257 
 
 Bannister, Charles, 243 
 
 , John, 121, 199, 200, 209, 
 
 241, 243, 247, 249, 368 
 Barnes, Miss, no 
 Barrington, Sir Jonah, v, vi, 13, 
 
 18, 44, 45-8, in, 284, 291-6, 
 
 297, 298, 370, 381, 391, 406 
 Barrymore, actor, 103, 209 
 Barton, John, 322, 329, 349, 359, 
 
 367, 374, 377-So. 382, 386-9, 
 
 397. 402, 408, 412 
 
 , Venus, 337 
 
 Bate, " Parson," 83 
 
 Bayley, Capt. William, 108 
 
 Bedford, Duke of, 276 
 
 Bell's Weekly, 349 
 
 Belsance, Count, 175 
 
 Benson, actor, 209 
 
 Bentinck, Lord William, 372 
 
 Berkeley, Grantley, 151 
 
 Berry, Miss, 269, 418 
 
 Bettesworth (? Hester), 115, 197. 
 
 214, 243, 252-5, 421 
 
 (? W. M.), 90, 105, 252, 254 
 
 Betty, Henry West, 244-6 
 Bignall, William, 274, 275 
 Black Dwarf , 417 
 
 Blake, Mrs. Warenne, 267, 321. 
 
 339 
 Bland, Adam, 24 
 
 , Dean, 25 
 
 , Mrs. (Elizabeth Heaton), 25 
 
 , Capt. Francis, 17, 20, 23, 
 
 28-36. 78 
 , Capt. Francis, jun.. 33, 37, 
 
 114. 1 66, 231-5 
 , Mrs. Francis. See Grace 
 
 Philipps 
 
 , Francis Christopher, 165-7 
 
 , George, 33, 37, 81, 95, 114-6. 
 
 124, 132-6, 178, 231-5 
 , Mrs. George (Maria Teresa 
 
 Romanzini), 132-7, 390 
 
 , Hester, 29, 35, 36, 38-40. 
 
 74, 81, in, 214,235,401 
 
 , Sir Humphry, 26 
 
 , Rev. James, 25, 36 
 
 , John, M.A., martyr, 24 
 
 , John, barrister-at-law and 
 
 actor, 25-8, 31, 32, 95, 129, 215 
 
 , Mrs. John (Nancy), 28, 32 
 
 , Lucy, 32, 33, 37 
 
 , Nathaniel, Judge, 20, 24, 
 
 2 5~30, 35. 37. 215. 216 
 , Nathaniel, son of Judge 
 
 Bland, 37, 157, 165 
 , Nathaniel Philipps, 33, 36, 
 
 81,114, "5.235,362 
 , Mrs. N. P. (Phoebe James), 
 
 "4. 2 35 
 
 , Patricius de, 24 
 
 Blane, Sir Gilbert, 265, 369 
 Bleackley, Mr. Horace, viii, 18 
 Boaden, James, v, vi, 12, 17, 18, 
 
 63. 65, 85, loo, in, 123, 134. 
 
 1 60, 176, 193, 199, 202, 205, 
 
 2O7, 2IO, 2I, 222, 224, 226, 
 237, 2SI, 254, 276, 28l, 283, 
 
 284, 286, 290, 316, 343, 358. 
 394. 415 
 
 423
 
 4 2 4 
 
 Index 
 
 Bon Ton Magazine, 17, 135, 155, 
 
 177, 189, igo, 202, 203, 260 
 
 Booth, Maryanne (Lady Ford), 
 
 162 
 
 Boswell, James, 205 
 Bouverie, Mrs., 172 
 Brewster, Lucy, wife of Judge 
 
 Bland, 25 
 Broadley, Mr. A. M., vii, 18, 19, 
 
 285, 385 
 
 Brown, Mrs., 78, 86 
 Brunton, Miss, 86, 121 
 Buckingham, Duke of, 322 337 
 Buckinghamshire, Countess of. 
 
 See Mrs. Hobart 
 Bunn, Alfred, 419 
 
 Cady of the Royal Circus, 132 
 Calvert, Hon. Mrs., 267, 321, 339 
 Cambridge, Duke of, 257, 258, 
 279 
 
 , Richard Owen, 153 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 101, 103, 245 
 Carey, George Saville, 121, 186 
 Carlisle, Nicholas, 27 
 Caulfield, comedian, 136, 137 
 Chalmers, W. A., 183, 186 
 Chantrey, Sir Francis, 418 
 Charlotte, Queen, 180 181, 226, 
 
 277. 307, 3ii, 338, 35i 
 
 , Princess, 338 
 
 Charlton, actor, 368 
 
 Cherry, Andrew, 229 
 
 Christian, Admiral Sir Charles, 
 192, 203 
 
 Clarence, William Duke of, v, vii, 
 11-16, 65, 104, 121, 146, 158, 
 159, 161, 167, 171, 175, 180, 
 184, 187-9, 200, 203-5, 211, 
 216, 218, 220, 230, 234-6, 242, 
 245, 248, 251, 253, 256-61, 
 265-7, 269, 271-2, 274, 278-9, 
 284, 289, 293, 297, 299, 302, 
 305, 319-39, 345-9, 352, 358, 
 365, 371, 373. 377^9, 391, 397. 
 401, 403, 405, 413 
 
 Clarke, Mary Anne, 277, 403 
 
 Cleveland, Duchess of, 193 
 
 Clive, Kitty, 86 
 
 Cobbett, William, 12, 256-61, 267 
 
 Coffin, Col. John Pyne, 372-3, 
 377 
 
 Colburn, Henry, 403 
 
 Collier, Lady, 108 
 
 Collingwood, Admiral, 267 
 
 Colman, George, jun., 197 
 
 Copeland, Robert, 261 
 
 Corri, 295, 297 
 
 Crampton, Dublin manager, 296 
 
 Creevey, Thoma^, 383 
 
 Crosby, " Balloon," 47 
 
 Crouch, Mrs. Anna Maria, 109, 
 
 118, 120, 124, 163, 169, 181, 
 
 193, 241 
 Cumberland, Ernest Duke of, 150, 
 
 248, 323, 226 
 
 , Richard, 200, 221 
 
 Cuthbertson, Miss, 195 
 
 Daily Advertiser and Oracle, 254 
 Daly, Richard, 16, 42, 43, 46-55, 
 
 65, 132, 200, 271 
 
 , Frances. See Alsop 
 
 Dalrymple, Miss, 108 
 
 De Camp, Miss, 223 
 
 De Lisle and Dudley, Lord, 421 
 
 Denmark, Princess of, 338 
 
 Derby, Countess of. See Miss 
 
 Farren 
 
 , Earl of, 211 
 
 Dictionary of National Biography, 
 
 21, 44, 206 
 
 Digges, West, 26, 32, 95 
 Dowton, William, 185 
 Doyne, Cornet Charles Powlett, 
 
 45 
 Dramatic Magazine, 84, 123, 219 
 
 Dublin Evening Post, 55 
 Dublin Satirist, 295 
 Ducamp, Madame, 381 
 Dwyer, actor, 291, 292, 295-7 
 
 Eden, Baron, 257 
 
 Edinburgh Herald, 129 
 
 Edwin, John, 125 
 
 Egan, Pierce, 261 
 
 Elizabeth, Princess, 226 
 
 Elliot, Mrs., 217, 218 
 
 Elphinston, Margaret, Baroness 
 
 Nairn, 337 
 
 Errol, William, Earl of, 229, 422 
 Erskine, Hon. John Kennedy, 422 
 Esten, Mrs., 54, 139
 
 Index 
 
 425 
 
 Falkland, Earl of, 422 
 
 Farren, Miss (Countess of Derby), 
 
 81, 101, 109, 120, 123, 197, 199, 
 
 211 
 
 Fashionable Cypriad, in, 204, 257 
 Fife, Duke of, 15, 229 
 Finch, Polly, 153 
 Fisher, 380 
 
 , Clara, 246 
 
 Fitzclarence, Admiral Adolphus, 
 
 229, 268, 420, 422 
 , Amelia, Viscountess Falkland, 
 
 184, 263, 422 
 , Augusta, Lady Frederick 
 
 Gordon, 247, 422 
 , Augustus, Rev., Rector of 
 
 Mapledurham, 247, 267, 419, 
 
 422 
 , Elizabeth, Countess Errol, 
 
 229, 422 
 , Frederick, 225, 285, 366, 371, 
 
 , GeorgeTEarl of Munster, 184, 
 
 192, 218, 219, 260, 267-8, 289, 
 
 * 293. 319. 355. 363-5> 4i8-9, 422 
 
 , Henry, Lieutenant, 201, 202, 
 
 267, 303. 340, 355. 364. 366, 422 
 , Mary, Lady Mary Fox, 397, 
 
 400, 422 
 , Sophia, Lady De Lisle and 
 
 Dudley, 213, 267, 303, 319, 351, 
 
 383. 397. 42i 
 
 Fitzgerald, Lord Henry, 201, 273 
 Fitzherbert, Mrs., 150, 179, 187, 
 
 278 
 Ford, Dorothea Maria. See March, 
 
 Mrs. 
 
 , James, Dr., 105, 113 
 
 , Lucy. See Hawker, Lady 
 
 Samuel 
 , Richard, Sir, 16, 105-7, no, 
 
 H2, 116, 134, 137-40,154, 156- 
 
 62, 167, 176, 1 80, 241, 251, 274 
 
 , Richard, junior, 162 
 
 Fortescue, Hon. Julia, 148 
 Fox, Charles Richard, 422 
 Freeman 's Journal, 292 
 Fuller, Mr. J. Franklin, vii, 18, 20, 
 
 55. 165 
 
 Gainsborough, Thomas, 183, 186 
 Gazetteer, The, 153, 166,168-9, 171 
 
 Genest, John, 103, 121, 198, 
 
 399 
 Gentleman's Magazine, The, 129, 
 
 136, 192, 213, 273 
 George III, M7-55, 180-2, 225-7. 
 
 277 
 IV, 146, 148, 150, 163. 175, 
 
 180, 257, 279, 302, 317 
 Gillray, James, 179 
 Gloucester, Duchess of, 175 
 Glover, William Howard, 28 
 Goodall, Mrs., 170, 199 
 Gordon, Duchess of, 276 
 , Lord Frederick, 422 
 
 , Pryse Lockhart, 43-4 
 Gould, barrister, 295 
 Great Illegitimates, The, 18, 52, 94, 
 
 105, 107-8, in, 140, 157, 159, 
 
 161-2, 164, 176, 202, 249, 251, 
 
 254, 3M, 38o 
 Greatorex, Englishman living in 
 
 Paris, 395. 399 
 Greenwich, Lady, 153 
 Gunning, General, 252 
 
 Hanger, Major, 175 
 
 Harris, Thomas, 83, 86, 120, 124 
 
 Haslewood, Joseph, 17 
 
 Hastings, Warren, 125 
 
 Hawker, Lady, Lucy Ford, 197, 
 214, 242, 252, 286, 290, 293, 
 298, 302, 303-4, 340, 361, 366, 
 393, 400, 401, 421 
 
 , General Sir Samuel, 298, 303, 
 
 37 6 . 397. 4!. 421 
 
 , Colonel, 381 
 
 Hayes, Sir John, 241 
 
 Hazlitt, William, 86 
 
 Henshaw, William, 396 
 
 Herbert, Joseph Dowling, 37~4 O 
 
 44. 49. 53 
 
 Hewson, Major L., viii 
 Hill, Lady Anne, 108 
 
 , John Foster, 108 
 
 Hitchcock, Robert, 21, 23, 30 
 Hobart, Henry, 153 
 
 , Mrs., 190-2, 254 
 
 Honeywood, General, 26 
 Hoppner, John, 183, 185 
 Hotham, Baron and Lady, 257 
 Huish, Robert, 19, 326 
 Hunt, Leigh, 183
 
 426 
 
 Index 
 
 Inchbald, George, 74, 90 
 
 , Mrs., 85, 121 
 
 Ireland, Samuel, 205 
 , William Henry, 205 
 
 ackson, of Edinburgh, 127, 130 
 errold, Douglas, 355, 381 
 ohnson, General James, 21 
 ones, Frederick, 271, 291, 295 
 ordan, Dorothy, her birth, 31 ; her 
 baptism, 32 ; first appearance on 
 stage, 39; in The Virgin Un- 
 masked, 40; in As You Like It, 40; 
 in The Governess, 40-1 ; in The 
 Romp, 41; visit to Cork, 44; 
 first offer of marriage, 45 ; in The 
 Count of Narbonne, 50, 53 ; and 
 Daly, 50; in The Gamester, Tamer- 
 lane, Richard III, The Bellas 
 Stratagem, The Discovery, The 
 School for Scandal, The Taming 
 of the Shrew, and The Maid of 
 the Oaks, 53 ; in Leeds, 57 ; and 
 Wilkinson, 58 ; in The Fair 
 Penitent, 61 ; in Leeds, 61, 91 ; 
 takes name of Jordan, 62 ; and 
 Mr. Swan, 66 ; salary doubled, 
 67 ; in The Fair American, 68 ; 
 jealousy of fellow actresses, 68 ; 
 in danger of her life, 68 et seq. ; 
 gives birth to Frances Daly, 70 ; 
 the " Scandal Club," 70; at Shef- 
 field, 71 ; kindness to young 
 actress, 73 ; in love with George 
 Inchbald, 74, 90; in The Poor 
 Soldier, 75; refusal to act, 75; 
 London offer, 77; and Mrs. 
 Brown, 78 ; in The Country Girl, 
 77, 82; in Cymbeline, 80 ; criti- 
 cisms upon, 83 ; two increases 
 of salary, 87 ; in Trip to Scar- 
 borough, 88 ; in The Irish Widow, 
 and She Would and She Would 
 Not, 89 ; her triumph, 89 ; her 
 first tour, 90 ; and Mrs. Robin- 
 son, 91 et seq. ; first visit to Scot- 
 land, 97 ; epilogue written by, 
 97 ; Glasgow tribute to, 98 ; dis- 
 appointment at Hull, 98 ; in 
 RichardC&urdeLion, 99 ; failure 
 in Cymbeline, 101 ; in Love for 
 Love and The Pilgrim, 103 ; her 
 
 amours, 105 ; calls herself Mrs. 
 Ford, 106 ; birth of daughter in 
 Edinburgh, no; trouble with 
 Drury Lane manager, 113 ; in 
 The Constant Couple, 117; at 
 Cheltenham, 119; birth of 
 daughter, 121 ; in The Panel, 
 Impostors, and The Confederacy, 
 122 ; as Child of Nature, 122 ; 
 quarrel with Kemble, 124, 193 ; 
 in Know Your Own Mind, 123 ; 
 threatens to leave Drury Lane, 
 125 ; and Tate Wilkinson, 126 ; 
 death of her mother, 128 ; trouble 
 with Jackson, 130 ; in Belle's 
 Stratagem, The Spoiled Child, 
 etc., 134 ; again goes to York- 
 shire, 137 ; in The Greek Slave, 
 Better Late Than Never, and The 
 Intriguing Chambermaid, 137; 
 final quarrel with Wilkinson, 138 ; 
 said to have joined the Duke of 
 Clarence in 1789, 153 ; carica- 
 ture, 154; scandal about, 154; 
 epilogue to Greek Slave, 155; 
 parts with Ford, 156-62 ; exoner- 
 ating letters from Ford, 161 ; 
 theatrical jealousy of, 163; agree- 
 ment with Clarence, 164 ; in dis- 
 tress, 166; legacy, 167; takes 
 house at Brompton, 168 ; absent 
 from theatre, public excitement, 
 169-76; salary taken by Duke, 
 176; caricatures of, 178-80; in 
 Cheap Living, 1 78 ; her portraits, 
 183; sits to Romney, 184; in 
 The Fugitive, 189 ; letter to Mrs. 
 Hobart, 190 ; miscarriage, 192 ; 
 letter to Sheridan, 194 ; in Anna, 
 195 ; in All in the Wrong, and 
 The Female Duellist, 196; trouble 
 about playbills, 196; birth of 
 George Fitzclarence, 197; in The 
 Wedding Day and Nobody, 198 ; 
 in First Love and The Old Maid, 
 200; at Richmond, 200; offer 
 from Daly, 200; in The Plain 
 Dealer, 202 ; birth of Henry, 202 ; 
 breakfasts at St. James's, 204 ; 
 in Vortigern and Rowena, 204 ; 
 and the Irelands, 204-7 ; trouble 
 with Kemble over Hamlet, 207 ;
 
 Index 
 
 427 
 
 gives her services, 209 ; at Rich- 
 mond, 210 ; at Bushy House, 
 2i2; introduced to Boaden, 218 ; 
 Macklin, 220 ; in The Will and 
 The Last of the Family, 221 ; 
 the Irishman and, 222; in The 
 Prize and The Castle Spectre, 
 222 ; in She's Eloped, and The 
 Stranger, 223 ; in The East 
 Indian and Pizarro, 224 ; com- 
 mand performances, 226 ; in The 
 School for Scandal, 227 ; as com- 
 poser, 228 ; her children, 230 ; 
 want of money, 230; her rela- 
 tions, 231 ; accident by fire, 239 ; 
 in The Busybody, 241 ; in The 
 Marriage Promise, 242 ; in The 
 Soldier's Daughter, Delaval, 
 Clara, and The Land We Live 
 In, 243; and Betty, 245; birth 
 of Augustus and Augusta, 247; 
 in Thalia's Tears, 250; fte at 
 Gyfford Lodge, 252; Clarence's 
 birthday party, 256-61 ; and 
 Pierce Egan, 261 ; birth of 
 Amelia, 263 ; illness, 264, 271 ; at 
 Bath, 270; in The Chance, 271 ; 
 in Man and Wife, 272 ; marriage 
 settlement of Dorothea, 274 ; her 
 letters, 275, 278, 285, 287, 309, 
 314 ; savings, 275 ; quarrels with 
 Clarence, 275, 281, 314; scandal, 
 276; leaves Drury Lane, 280; 
 loss by fire, 280 ; sends money 
 to Clarence, 286 ; returns to 
 Dublin, 290 ; the Battle of Tala- 
 vera, 294; at Liverpool, etc., 
 297 ; liberality at Chester, 300 ; 
 marriage of Lucy, 303 ; proposed 
 epitaph on, 304 ; and the Method- 
 ists, 305 ; rush from Glasgow, 
 305 ; to leave the stage, 306 ; at 
 Covent Garden, 312, 347; sum- 
 moned from Cheltenham, 318; 
 negotiations for separation, 322 ; 
 the settlement, 329-31 ; leaves 
 Bushy Park, 339 ; pays Alsop's 
 debts and returns to stage, 342 ; 
 at Leicester, 345; attacked by 
 The Times, 347 ; in Debtor and 
 Creditor, 352 ; goes to Brussels, 
 354; income, 370-1 ; and Colonel 
 
 Coffin, 373; last appearance, 
 373 ; ruined by March, 374 ; asks 
 Barton's help, 376 ; sells her 
 furniture, 380; at Marquetra, 
 381 ; at Versailles, at St. Cloud, 
 384; her poverty, 385 ; her fears, 
 386 ; last illness, 391 ; story of 
 her death, 392 ; her burial, 394 ; 
 grave and inscription, 399 ; her 
 jewels, 401 ; sale of her effects, 
 401 ; her savings, 404 ; debt on 
 her grave, 405 ; debts advertised, 
 406 
 
 Jordan, Dorothy, an earlier bap- 
 tismal entry, 64 
 
 Jordan's Elixir of Life, 17, 19, 21, 
 
 Keate, Dr., 171 
 Keates, Admiral, 267 
 Keith, Lord, 337 
 Kelly, Michael, 163, 225 
 Kemble, Charles, 240, 241 
 
 , John Philip, 40, 5. 53. "X, 
 
 114, 119, 124, 134-5, 141, 193. 
 
 198, 205-9, 218, 224, 237, 240, 
 
 244-5, 290 
 
 - , Stephen, 141, 144, 197 
 Kemeys, Diana, 25 
 
 Kent, Edward, Duke of, 248, 257, 
 
 259, 339 
 King, Tom, 82, 86-7, 108, in 
 
 114, 119,120, 239 
 Knight, Joseph, 21, 
 Kotzebue, dramatist, 224 
 
 Lawrence, Mr. W. J., viii, 44, 
 
 1 86 
 
 Lefanu, Mrs., 42 
 Leicester, Lord, 257 
 Leslie, C. R., 264 
 Lewis, Charles Lee, 197, 240 
 
 - , " Monk," 222 
 Linsingen, Caroline von, 150-1 
 
 - , Ernst von, 150 
 
 - , General Wilhelm, 150 
 Litchfield, Mrs., 187, 240 
 Lloyd, Jane, 34<>, 353, 3^5, 37'-2 
 
 - , Mrs., 214, 217,370 
 
 - , Rev. Thomas, 214, 251, 373 
 Londonderry, Marquis of, 268 
 Long, Lady Catherine Tylney, 316
 
 428 
 
 Index 
 
 Long, Catherine Tylney, 311, 316 
 
 319-323, 328, 333-7 
 Lumm, Sir Francis, 21, 32, 34, 
 
 107, 1 66 
 , Lady, 107, 157, 166 
 
 Macklin, Charles, 220 
 
 M'Mahon, Colonel, 257, 342, 356, 
 
 364 
 
 Mahoney, Catherine, 33, 34, 35 
 March, Dorothea Maria (Ford), 
 
 197, 214, 242, 252, 273-5, 281, 
 
 361, 402, 421 
 , Frederick Edward, 275, 283, 
 
 304, 357. 363-7, 374-9, 383, 
 
 389, 410-1, 421 
 
 , Leopold, 421 
 
 Marron, Rev. Mr., 396 
 Marshall, Serjeant, 257 
 Massereene, Earl of, 254 
 Mathews, Charles, 264 
 Mellon, Harriot, Duchess of St. 
 
 Albans, 128, 247 
 Messenger, 405 
 " Miso Puff," 208 
 Moira, Lord, 342, 364 
 Mongis, Jean Jacques, 391, 394 
 Monthly Mirror, 210, 227, 238, 
 
 248, 266, 296, 304 
 Moore, Sir John, 289 
 
 , Thomas, 418 
 
 Morland, George, 183, 186 
 Morning Chronicle, 164, 171, 175 
 Morning Herald, 84 
 Morning Post, 82, no, 121, 124, 
 
 251, 253, 284, 349 
 Mountain, Mrs. See Wilkinson, 
 
 Miss 
 
 Munster, Aubrey, Earl of, 400 
 , Earl of, viii. 
 
 News, 349, 407 
 Nixon, Andrew, 303 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 68, 109 
 North, Lady, 212 
 Northcote, James, 245 
 Notes and Queries, 228, 418 
 
 Ogborne, John, 184 
 O'Keefe, John, 40, 223 
 Oldenburg, Duchess of, 337 
 Oliphant, Laurence, 233 
 
 Orange, Prince of, 200, 352 
 Oxberry, William, 49, 50, 78, 317 
 
 Paget, Colonel, 257 
 Palmer, John, 120, 224 
 
 , Mrs., 205 
 
 Parsons, William, 120 
 Pasquin, Anthony, 146 
 Philipps, Blanch Scuddamore. See 
 
 Williams 
 , Grace (Mrs. Francis Bland), 
 
 17, 20-4, 28-45, 54. 56-60, 
 
 78-80, 129 
 
 , Miss M., 23-4, 63-5 
 
 , Rev. (? Richard), 20, 22 
 
 , Rev. Scuddamore, 22 
 
 Pindar, Peter, Jun., 163, 177, 334, 
 
 338 
 
 Pitt, William, 248 
 Pole, Wellesley, 321, 328, 337-7 
 Political Register, 256-261 
 Pope, Mrs., 199, 209 
 
 , Jane, 269 
 
 Public Advertiser, 89, no, 115, 
 
 170 
 Punch, 177, 185 
 
 Quentin, Colonel, 355 
 
 Rambler, 123 
 Reynolds, Frederick, 221 
 Richardson, Rev. William, 114 
 Richmond, Duke and Duchess, 
 
 291 
 
 Roberts, Mr. W., viii., 183 
 Robinson, Mrs. ("Perdita"), 198 
 , Mrs. (later Mrs. Taylor), 
 
 79, 90, 112 
 Romanzini, Maria Teresa. See 
 
 Bland, Mrs. George 
 
 , Mrs., 51 
 
 Romney, George, 183 
 Roos, Lady de, 298 
 Russell, actor, 261 
 
 , Sir Henry, 183 
 
 Ryder, Thomas, 38, 40, 42, 46 
 
 , Miss, 138 
 
 Ryley, Samuel, 299 
 
 St. Leger, Colonel, 175 
 
 Satirist, The, 264 
 
 Sciard, Louis Amable, 394
 
 Index 
 
 429 
 
 Secret History of the Green Room, 
 17, 52, 133, 135, 167, 187, 190 
 
 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 82, 
 84, 106, in, 125, 181, 193,207, 
 218, 224, 225, 279, 280 
 
 , Thomas, 23 
 
 , Tom, 271 
 
 Siddons, Mrs., 77, 79, 81, 88, 99, 
 101-4, 108, 118, 1 20, 123-4, 
 128, 135, 141, 197-8, 205, 208, 
 222, 224, 236, 241, 244-5, 2 5> 
 
 35i 
 Sinclair, Mrs., 214-5 
 
 , Robert, 215 
 
 Sketchley, Miss, 341, 366, 381-2, 
 
 384, 386, 389, 393. 4 OI ~2. 4" 
 Smith, "Gentleman," 67, 77, 83, 
 
 119 120 
 
 , Mrs., 69 
 
 Southey, Robert, 338 
 Stewart, General, 289 
 Stirling, Miss A. M. W., 269 
 Strange, Alexander, 216 
 
 , General Thomas Bland, 215 
 
 Sun, The, 253, 349 
 Sussex, Duke of, 248, 257 
 Swan, Cornelius, 66 
 Sydney, Viscount Henry, 25 
 
 Taylor, Mrs. See Mrs. Robinson 
 Tennant, Sir Charles, 184 
 Theatrical Inquisitor, 269, 349, 
 
 353 
 
 Thimbleby, Miss, 233, 417 
 Tickell, Mrs., 84 
 Times, 347, 394 
 Town and Country Magazine, 17, 
 
 105, 251, 260 
 Traherne, H. M. A., 193 
 Troubridge, Admiral Sir Thomas, 
 
 267 
 
 Turner, Miss, 213, 216 
 Tweeddale, Marchioness of, 252 
 
 Usher, actor, 24 
 
 Vicars, Miss, 45 
 Vickery, W., 385 
 Victoria, Queen, 15, 417 
 
 Walker's Hibernian Magazine, 42, 
 
 54 
 Walpole, Horace, 86, 152-3, 156, 
 
 158, 191 
 Ward, Mr. Humphry, 183 
 
 , Mrs., actress, 71 
 
 Ware, Charles H., 275 
 Watkins, Rev. John, 160, 172 
 Wellington, Duke of, 337 
 Wenman, Lord, 338 
 Westmeath, Lord, 271 
 White, Mrs., viii 
 Whyte, Mr. Frederick, 26 
 Wigley, Charles, 380, 402 
 Wilkinson, Miss (Mrs. Mountain), 
 
 72,78 
 , Tate, 56 et seq., 91, 109, 
 
 115, 125, 128, 138, 145, 196 
 William, Prince, 175 
 Williams, Helen Maria, 99, 100, 
 
 221, 389, 392 
 
 , Mrs., 22, 33, 37, 81, 167 
 
 , Thomas, 22 
 
 Withers, , 402-3 
 
 Woffington, Peg, 86 
 
 Wolcot, Dr. ("Peter Pindar"). 
 
 87 
 
 Woodfall, William, 79 
 Woodgate, Henry, 399, 401 
 World, The, 151 
 Wowski, 151 
 
 Wright, Rev. William, 172 
 Wroughton, Richard, 178, 211, 
 
 271 
 
 Wykeham, Miss, Baroness Wen- 
 man, 338-9 
 
 York, Frederick, Duke of, 149, 
 180-1, 232, 234, 257-9, 277-8, 
 
 356 
 Young, Dr. Townsend, 13, 343
 
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