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Abstract
Following the Second French Revolution of July 1830, the incoming government of King Louis-Philippe arranged for the deposed King Charles X and his court to be taken across the Channel to exile in Britain. Charles remained on board to avoid encountering his creditors. His nine-year-old grandson the duc de Bordeaux and several other exiles landed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, where they were invited to lunch by General Sir James Willoughby Gordon. Anxious to be on good terms with the new regime in Paris, the duke of Wellington was preoccupied with finding a resting place for the former king and his court from which they would be unable to stir up counter-revolutionary activities. After a brief stay at Lulworth Castle in Dorset, Charles was moved to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, where Scottish law provided some protection from his creditors. This article makes use of rarely examined Gordon and Wellington family papers and a variety of local press reports to reveal the colourful story of the rather strange reception of an exiled monarch and his court on the coast of England in the midst of a tense diplomatic environment and a general election.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Montague Guest and William B. Butler, Memorials of the Royal Yacht Squadron (London, 1903), p. 117.
2 Smuggling was then — and possibly still is — one of the Isle of Wight’s principal industries.
3 Equivalent to over £20 million in today’s money.
4 David Cannadine, Victorious Century (London, 2017), p. 155.
5 This article is dedicated to the memory of Robert Shackleton (1919–1986), Fellow of Brasenose College and Bodley’s Librarian, Oxford University.
6 See Philip Mansel, Paris Between Empires (New York, 2001), pp. 238ff.
7 University of Southampton, Hartley Library, Wellington Papers [hereafter WP], 1/1131/51.
8 WP, 1/1132/2.
9 WP, 1/1137/33.
10 WP, 1/1137/4, 1/137/53.
11 WP, 1/1134/21.
12 Trades Union Library Collections, London Metropolitan University.
13 Antonia Fraser, Perilous Question. Reform of Revolution? Britain on the Brink, 1832 (London, 2014), p. 26.
14 The Times, 19 August 1830.
15 Roland Quinault, ‘The French Revolution of 1830 and Parliamentary Reform’, History 79, 257 (1994), pp. 377-94.
16 WP, 1/1133/39. At the time, Admiral Sir George Cockburn (1772–1853) was First Naval Lord.
17 WP, 1/1137/33.
18 WP, 1/1134/35.
19 WP, 1/1134/31.
20 WP, 1/1134/46, 1/1138/11, 1/1138/15.
21 WP, 1/1134/43.
22 Portsmouth Herald, 18 August 1830.
23 WP, 1/1143/26.
24 Portsmouth Herald, 18 August 1830.
25 The Globe, cited in The Times, 19 August 1830.
26 Portsmouth Herald, 18 August 1830.
27 Ibid., 18 August 1830.
28 Jean Berkeley, Lulworth and the Welds (Shaftesbury, 1971).
29 S. G. Ward, ‘General Sir Willoughby Gordon’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 31, 126 (1953), pp. 57-63.
30 Terry Jenkins, ‘Sir James Willoughby Gordon’, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1820–1832, ed. D. R. Fisher (Cambridge, 2009): online https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/gordon-sir-james-1772-1851 [accessed 9 Januaryy 2024].
31 Julia Emily Gordon, Unpublished manuscript diary 1830: Gordon Family Papers, Isle of Wight County Record Office, Accession 75 [hereafter Gordon Diary].
32 Gordon Diary, 21 August 1830 (unpaginated).
33 Janet Powney and Jeremy Mitchell, ‘A Royal Upstairs Downstairs on the Isle of Wight: Queen Victoria’s Visit to “The Orchard”, Niton Undercliffe’, Hampshire Studies 69 (2014), pp. 175-83.
34 Gordon Diary, 22 August 1830 (unpaginated).
35 Gordon Diary, 22 August 1830.
36 Dorset County Chronicle, 23 August 1830.
37 WP, 1/1135/17, 1/1138/21.
38 Dorset County Chronicle, 25 August 1830.
39 The Times, 7 and 11 September 1830.
40 Duchesse de Gontaut (Marie Joséphine Louise de Montaut-Navailles), Memoirs (London, 1894), vol. II, pp. 215-16.
41 WP, 1/1140/25, 1/1141/33, 1/1143/25, 1/1143/29.
42 WP, 1/1136/30, 1/1143/22.
43 The Times, 24 September 1830.
44 WP, 1/1135/14, 1/1135/13, 1/1143/3.
45 A. J. Mackenzie-Stuart, A French King at Holyrood (Edinburgh, 1995), pp. 43-8.
46 The Times, 25 October 1830.
47 Mackenzie-Stuart, A French King at Holyrood, p. 1.
48 Caledonian Mercury, cited in The Times, 25 October 1830.
49 The Times, 27 October 1830.
50 Léo McCormack, ‘The French Royals’ Last Return to Edinburgh’, Scottish Local History 88 (2014), pp. 25-31.
51 Mackenzie-Stuart, A French King at Holyrood, p. 112.
52 WP, 1/1156/17.
53 Mackenzie-Stuart, A French King at Holyrood, pp. 114-15.
54 McCormack, ‘The French Royals’ Last Return to Edinburgh’, p. 30.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jeremy Mitchell
Jeremy Mitchell
After reading PPE at Oxford, Jeremy Mitchell’s appointments included the first research director at Which?, director of the National Consumer Council and chief executive of the Social Science Research Council. Recently his publications have focused on the life and writings of Charlotte Mary Julia Gordon (Mrs Disney Leith), General Sir James Willoughby Gordon’s grand-daughter, who was the poet A. C. Swinburne’s cousin and soul-mate.