BY JANUARY 1808, Grace Portsmouth had had enough. Approaching her fifty-sixth birthday, she was thoroughly disillusioned with marriage, and the demands of her husband were becoming too much for her to bear. Their social life was still good, but the strain of trying to hide her husband’s faults, and the need to keep a constant watch over him was beginning to show. She was living a double life; in public presenting the dignified appearance of a wife married to a Peer of the Realm, while in private dealing with the daily consequences of being married to a man who was far from normal.
The events that made up the social calendar, characterized by formal exchanges of hospitality and expectations of good manners, ground on. At each occasion, Grace worried that Portsmouth would commit some social faux pas. Her husband could not be trusted to manage the simplest of tasks. Grace planned a party at her home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for the night of 27 January. ‘Numerous persons of distinction’ were on the guest list. But as Portsmouth was dressing he carelessly got too close to the fire, and his clothes caught alight. Grace heard his screams, came rushing into his chamber, and as she attempted to extinguish the flames, also set fire to her clothes. Grace and Portsmouth were both ‘severely burnt’, and were left suffering from shock. The unusual and dramatic reason for the party’s cancellation was reported in the newspapers the next day.1
Grace was aware of her husband’s meetings with women on his estate, and she heard about his attendance at funerals. She saw him rush off at the end of church services to ring the bells, and she knew he loved to ride his phaeton. It was easier for her to accommodate some of her husband’s obsessions than dispute them, so she joined her husband in the fields with his men, and took an interest as he talked about his horses. But so often she had to pick up the pieces when things went wrong. She was left to apologize, and to try to make amends when his servants or labourers got hurt. They knew that she was the person to listen to their complaints, and to offer compensation in return for their continued patience and silence.
There was no way for Grace to escape this marriage. Divorce was only granted on the grounds of adultery. A legal separation with the right to live apart was only possible if she could prove cruelty or adultery. For all of Portsmouth’s faults, he was never violent to Grace, and his sexual habits included nothing so ordinary as an extra-marital affair. Even if Grace could demonstrate that Portsmouth was insane, this would not get her a divorce. A marriage could be annulled, or declared legally void, on the grounds of insanity. But that insanity had to exist at the point the marriage vows were exchanged. It was irrelevant if Portsmouth had become insane since his marriage day. Grace had promised Portsmouth to remain his wife ‘in sickness and in health’ and ‘till death do us part’. Never had those vows been so sorely tested.
With so much pressure upon her to cope and with little apparent affection in return from her husband, Grace may have felt desperately lonely. Her dear mother had died in October 1803, and her brothers were busy with their political and military careers. Her mother-in-law, Urania, was the one other woman who knew Portsmouth best. But in recent years Urania had been distracted by troubles caused by her other children. Coulson, Portsmouth’s youngest brother, had turned into a scoundrel. Jane Austen knew him as a cad, who was notorious for his indelicate language and drunken habits. Marriage in 1802 had not sobered him up or made him more respectable, and for years he played hide and seek with his creditors. Facing imprisonment for debt, he was finally forced to flee to France, where he died in August 1807. Faced with a son who had so openly defied her authority, and rebelled against his strict upbringing, Urania was also confronted with worries about her daughter, Henrietta Dorothea. Newton Fellowes received numerous letters from his mother who had an ‘anxious time’ trying to find a cure for Henrietta Dorothea’s deafness. She was sent to spend time at the seaside, saw physicians in Bath and then Exeter while she stayed with Newton at Eggesford, and experimented with hearing aids. Whether this amount of trouble and expense ever led to a permanent cure is not known, but at least her deafness did not prevent Henrietta Dorothea from making a good marriage to Reverend John Churchill in June 1815.2
Given Urania’s critical stance towards her daughter-in-law, especially in the early years of her marriage, she was probably the last person Grace would have invited to come and help at Hurstbourne. Urania was a prolific letter writer, but no letters survive between the two women. Grace had remained silent about what she thought of her husband when she first married him, but, by the time of the January party in 1808, she was voicing concern that her husband’s condition had worsened. With no family confidante or friend, the nearest person she could talk to was Godden, the longstanding park keeper at Hurstbourne. Grace found marriage to Portsmouth ‘more than she was equal to’, believed Godden; ‘she was pretty well tired out with his Lordship’. ‘Poor man,’ said Grace to Godden about her husband, ‘what a misfortune it is for him to be in this way.’
Grace remained the sympathetic wife, but, according to Godden, she described Portsmouth as being ‘ruled by the moon’. Her language, if remembered correctly by Godden, was significant. For it meant that, even if she thought she had married a weak-minded man, she believed that he had become a lunatic, since ‘lunatic’ derives from the Latin term for moon. Had Portsmouth changed, or had Grace just got to know him?3
Grace thought Portsmouth had become more violent, and one incident in 1808 confirmed this to everyone. George, a coachman, broke his leg in an accident, and Grace with her typical kindness allowed him to stay within the house at Hurstbourne to recover. He was tended to by her family doctor, Dr Ludlow. John Baverstock, a servant who had worked for the 2nd earl as well as the 3rd, attended George during the day, and a female servant was employed to care for him at night. If Urania and Newton had any justification for their criticism of how Grace provided for the Hurstbourne servants in the early days of her marriage, there could be none now.
But about a month after his accident, and without any warning, Portsmouth entered the room where George lay, and ordered him out of bed. ‘George, get up and go to work,’ he demanded. When George said he could not, Portsmouth threw himself across the bed and landed upon George with such force that he broke his leg for a second time. ‘I heard the bone crack,’ said Baverstock in his chilling recollection of events. The sound of the bone cracking and a ‘terrible scream’ from George were heard by Baverstock and another servant in the next room. They rushed in, Baverstock pulled Portsmouth off George, and asked him ‘how he could do such a thing’? When Baverstock said he was sure he had broken George’s leg again, Portsmouth remarked, ‘I’m glad on’t, serve him right’, and, in response to Baverstock declaring that ‘you’ve ruined the man’, Portsmouth said, ‘I don’t care for that.’
Baverstock led Portsmouth out of the room, leaving George with an injury from which he would take another six weeks to recover. As he lay defenceless on his bed, George felt so terrified that he asked Baverstock for something that he could use to ‘guard himself’ against his master. He was provided with ‘an old broom handle’. The other servant who had been with Baverstock, and had witnessed these events found Portsmouth’s conduct so ‘inhuman and unfeeling’ that it made him ‘sick’. When Portsmouth met Dr Ludlow a while later he made no attempt to deny that he had broken George’s leg, but said it ‘served him very right’.
What became of George we do not know. He may not have been alive by the time Portsmouth’s trials began as he never appeared as a witness. Despite solicitor enquiries, nobody even seemed to be able to find out or remember his surname. But the memory of his treatment by Portsmouth lived long in the minds of his fellow servants. There was something undeniably shocking about this event, and Portsmouth’s response to it. Initially, lawyers argued that if George had been seriously injured then he would have brought an assault case against Portsmouth, but none was lodged. Yet by the time of the 1823 Lunacy Commission there was sufficient evidence that the injury could not be denied, and lawyers for Portsmouth represented it as a one-off incident that was cruel, but was not evidence of madness. Many masters were violent to their servants, and this was wrong, but it did not prove insanity.4
To Grace, this event marked a new level of violence from Portsmouth that might be repeated, but more worryingly signalled how little her husband understood about the consequences of his behaviour. His reaction to both Baverstock and Dr Ludlow seemed to indicate that he was unable to comprehend why his actions were wrong. He was showing a callous disregard for others. Here was a man who had no moral boundaries. He had overstepped the mark, and even Grace’s endurance.
Grace knew that she had lost control, and that she needed to take urgent action. In the summer of that year, she invited John Draper Coombe to live with her and Portsmouth. For the three years that followed Coombe’s arrival, there was relative peace and harmony at Hurstbourne. No further occasions of Portsmouth’s violence were recorded, and there were no dramatic incidents that anyone could remember. Grace had her confidence restored, and she could even dare to feel happy again.
The man who achieved this miracle of domestic transformation was in his early thirties, originally from Hampshire, and was a distant relative of Grace’s family, the Grantleys. Trained in the medical profession, it was said that he had served as an assistant surgeon in the regiment of General Chapple Norton, Grace’s brother. He was certainly known to Grace’s brothers, and she may have been advised by them, as well as their family friend Justice Best, to take him into her household.
Just what role Coombe was expected to assume later became a matter for debate. He was more than a family visitor, because he was paid a handsome salary. Coombe was a crucial witness in Portsmouth’s Lunacy Commission (he was the first to be called), but was evasive about why he had first come to Hurstbourne. He was with Portsmouth ‘to direct his mind, and to regulate his conduct in general,’ he said. He had no experience or special training for treating patients with mental problems. He was there, it was claimed, to assist Grace with her general domestic concerns, and to attend the whole household, not just Portsmouth.
Yet for all who saw Coombe at Hurstbourne he appeared, as one former Whitchurch surgeon put it, ‘very much of the same description as that of a keeper over a lunatic’. When Coombe first arrived at Hurstbourne, servants were told that he was a ‘visitor’, the bailiff Mark Swait explained, but, when he stayed, they were informed that he was to be ‘a company keeper for my Lord’.5
If Grace had recruited Coombe as a ‘keeper’ for her husband, then that was evidence that she thought her husband was insane. Employing individuals to live alongside and control their unruly relatives within their homes was a popular choice for wealthy families who had an insane member. It avoided the stigma of confinement in a private madhouse (the fate that befell Portsmouth’s aunt and cousins), while it allowed for maximum discretion and secrecy. If Portsmouth’s behaviour was going to get physical and more violent, having a strong man beside him might limit its effects.
But Coombe’s arrival in 1808 was not absolute proof that Portsmouth was irrevocably insane. When Coombe left in 1811 to get married, he was not replaced; surely evidence that the position of ‘keeper’ for Portsmouth was not regarded as a permanent necessity. Grace was the type of woman who never gave up hope. She may well have believed that with Coombe’s help she could restore her husband to his former self. Her faith in Coombe was not misplaced.
When he first arrived at Hurstbourne, Coombe wondered why he was there, for Portsmouth received Coombe ‘with great politeness’. Indeed, like others who were socially acquainted with Portsmouth, Coombe found that Portsmouth ‘could at times conduct himself with perfect propriety’. He watched Portsmouth ‘not only enter a room with the manner and apparently conscious dignity of a nobleman: but also for hours together behave with as much propriety as any man could have done’.
It was necessary to see a great deal of Portsmouth ‘to form a round and satisfactory opinion respecting him’, Coombe discovered. He watched Portsmouth far more than he was aware, and learned about his many ‘eccentricities’. Within days, Portsmouth ‘betrayed great peculiarity of manners’, and Coombe’s job had begun.
Coombe described himself as ‘managing’ Portsmouth. Others in the household observed, and usually admired his methods. Coombe had a commanding presence, and soon had authority over Portsmouth. He could stop any inappropriate behaviour with just a look. The cook at Lincoln’s Inn observed that Portsmouth ‘was very bad before Mr Coombe came: he was too much for her Ladyship at times’. But after Coombe’s arrival his behaviour improved. He stopped fooling around if the cook or other servants threatened to fetch Coombe. Servants at Hurstbourne also noticed a change, coachman Webb remarking that, ‘when Mr Coombe was in sight’, Portsmouth stopped playing pranks. Coombe came to the slaughterhouse twice when Portsmouth was there. Coombe said not a word, but Portsmouth immediately left, ‘just as a school boy would with his Master who had found him where he was forbidden to be’.
How this younger man could have achieved such a measure of control over Portsmouth was a subject of speculation. He had been hired by Grace, but he was critical of her treatment of Portsmouth. Asked by the 1823 Commission if she was kind to her husband, he responded, ‘Certainly; I might say to a fault’, her ‘kindness and attention to him were beyond anything’. He insisted that nobody told him how to manage Portsmouth, but that he devised his own plan after he had observed his charge. He decided that by being firm and by demanding respect he would gain results. In Coombe’s view, Portsmouth ‘had the mind of a child with the passions of a man’. Just like a child, Portsmouth could be controlled and restrained through fear; ‘I managed him by terror sometimes, and sometimes by kindness,’ Coombe told the Commission. He might threaten force, but he was seen exercising it only once by a servant, when Portsmouth refused to leave Lincoln’s Inn to go to Lord Grantley’s seat, and Coombe seized him by the collar. Usually his control was more subtle. William Pitman, an Andover surgeon who saw Portsmouth several times for minor injuries, was full of praise. Coombe’s methods were ‘the best mode’ of control for Portsmouth, he thought. Coombe was ‘cool, collected, determined: he had a commanding eye and Lord Portsmouth plainly felt and … by his conduct acknowledged the ascendancy and control which Mr Coombe … quietly exercised over his Lordship’.6
Portsmouth did not like Coombe, and, given that he was told that Coombe was a prize fighter and a very strong man who could kill with his bare hands, he was unsurprisingly afraid of him. ‘Lord Portsmouth was seldom in good humour when Mr Coombe was with him,’ remembered one Hurstbourne bailiff. Coombe stopped Portsmouth having fun. His tough ‘bad cop’ approach was diametrically opposed to the kindness of Grace, and left Portsmouth feeling frustrated and unhappy.
Just like a boy who had been too tightly controlled at home, as soon as Portsmouth could sense freedom, he ran wild. Much to Coombe’s irritation, his authority was confined to Portsmouth’s stays at Hurstbourne Park, and when Portsmouth was in London he ‘mixed in society and he went about London alone’. Trouble was bound to follow.
Thomas Davis was a trustee and inspector of the charity schools of St Giles in the Fields and St George’s, Bloomsbury, where Portsmouth was a governor. He already knew about Portsmouth’s mental limitations, and had watched astonished as he voted both ways during a governors’ meeting. But a number of times during 1809 and 1810, Portsmouth turned up at the school unannounced and struck fear into all the pupils.
If he saw any child laugh at him, he insisted that the teachers flog the child. If a child who saw Portsmouth in the street did not raise their hat, Portsmouth ordered that they be given twelve stripes with a cane, six on each hand. The children appealed to Portsmouth for mercy, ‘but without effect’. ‘His Lordship was insensible to it,’ remembered a music teacher, ‘and was evidently gratified by seeing the punishment inflicted.’ Portsmouth went ‘round the school and if he could find a boy that had a hole in his coat or a dirty face’ he ordered punishment ‘far exceeding the fault’. Hundreds of lashes were commanded, and, if a teacher remonstrated with Portsmouth, he grew furious. The teachers refused to mete out such extreme discipline, and at least one complaint was made to the Board of Trustees about Portsmouth’s behaviour. The mere mention of Lord Portsmouth’s name ‘was a terror to the school’. Any child who attended one of Portsmouth’s conspicuous displays of charity in 1811, when he offered them a meal, was filled with a mix of fear and dread. Even for a hungry child, the presence of Portsmouth at these events was a sure impediment to healthy appetite and digestion.
At some point in 1811, Coombe left Hurstbourne and the employ of Grace to get married. He had done his job well, but he may have been relieved to quit. His position in the household was never an easy one. He was not a servant, and he was described as a gentleman, but his salary meant that he was in a position of dependence. He was given so much power and authority that Portsmouth regarded Coombe as his master. A distant relation he may have been, but he was not treated as a family member. Much like a tutor or governess who resided in a family’s home, he was put in a position of considerable trust, but in return all he could expect was a salary. Getting married gave him the chance to be the boss of his own household and family.
Grace was devastated when Coombe left. She had come to rely on him as Urania had on Reverend Garnett. To Grace, Coombe’s qualities and skills were unique, and it is entirely possible that there was no new ‘company keeper’ because she believed he was irreplaceable. Grace did not see Coombe again, but Portsmouth and his family turned to Coombe for help in the future. He had not escaped this family’s problems for good.
Without Coombe, Grace was left alone to control her husband. She begged park keeper Godden ‘to look to Lord Portsmouth as much as he could’. For, as she explained, ‘there was no one now but myself’.7