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anteros_lmcContinuing the story of Captain George Cadogan and his involvement with the influential Wellesley and Paget families. This section and all quotes are summarised from Robert Pearman’s account of the lives of George and Henry Cadogan The Cadogans at War 1783 – 1864. The Third Earl Cadogan and His Family.
George Cadogan returned to England in July 1807 nine months after the Ferret mutiny and court martial however his family life was scarcely more tranquil that his West Indies command.
Earlier in 1794, when George was eleven, his parents had separated after 16 years of marriage, following the revelation that Mary Churchill, Lady Cadogan had been conducting an affair with a family friend the Reverand William Cooper. Lord Cadogan publicly sued Cooper for Criminal Conversation at the Court of the Kings bench. The Court found in Lord Cadogan’s favour, awarded him substantial damages and Cooper was forced to resign from his post at Rochester Cathedral. In 1796, by which time George was aboard the Indefatigable, Lord and Lady Cadogan divorced publicly and acrimoniously suing and countersuing each other through the Consistory Court and Court of Arches and culminating in a Private Act of Parliament which dissolved the marriage.
This was just the first of several high profile divorce cases the Cadogan family went through.
In April 1802 two of George’s sisters married brothers of Arthur Wellesley; Emily married the Honourable Gerald Valerian Wellesley, a cleric, and Charlotte married Henry Wellesley following a whirlwind romance and very much against wishes of his family.
Of the latter engagement Lady Wellesley wrote to her husband:
The Dowager Lady Mornington, the Wellesleys' mother, was even more vehement in her disapproval. Writing to her eldest son Lord Wellesley she complained:
Despite the reservations of the Wellesley’s it appears that Charlotte did indeed render Henry Wellesley happy and two children were born to the couple.
In 1807 Lord Cadogan died and George returned to England where he was promoted to the rank of post captain and took command of the sloop Crocodile, 22. A ship that was scarcely better disciplined than the Ferret.
At the same time George’s elder brother Henry, a Colonel with the 71st Highlanders, was employed as aid de camp to Arthur Wellesley in the Peninsula. Henry had started his military career with the18th Foot and was involved in the 1805 military campaign led by Commodore Sir Hume Popham and Major General William Beresford, to take Buenos Aires. The campaign was a dismal failure with a large number of men killed, wounded and captured. Henry was one of those captured but his captivity was short lived.
In 1808 Charlotte and Henry Wellesley’s marriage was abruptly interrupted when Charlotte met the dashing cavalry officer Lord Paget at a musical gathering and the two fell in love. Paget who was married to the daughter of the Earl of Jersey had eight children and at the age of 40 still had a reputation as a bit of a dandy. He started to accompany Charlotte on her daily rides and the two soon became lovers. It wasn’t long before the affair came to light and the couple eloped later in 1808.
Paget wrote to his brother Charles at the time describing Charlotte in glowing terms and explaining that:
Charles Paget was horrified and wrote to their brother Arthur:
Charlotte shouldered much of the blame for elopement and in a letter to a friend stressed that her husband Henry Wellesley was blameless and that he had “ever been kind to me in the greatest degree.”
The Pagets and the Wellesleys were equally outraged by the elopement. Charles Paget continued to vent his spleen, castigating Charlotte as “the most wicked profligate whore and liar that ever hell itself could or ever will produce”. Arthur Wellesley was more prosaic, concluding simply that Lord Paget had “gone mad” and noting that his letters showed “evident symptoms of derangement.”
The elopement caused a public scandal; Charlotte was derided as a fool, “a strapping lass one would not hire as a kitchen maid” and Lord Paget as inexcusable and detestable. With the Cadogan name being publicly dragged through the mud, Charlotte’s brothers responded by ordering her to return home and threatening to call Paget out.
Henry offered to retire his army commission and devote himself entirely to Charlotte’s protection. When this failed to move his sister he twice attempted to call Paget out. In the first instance notice of duel was leaked to police and in the second Paget refused as he wrote to Henry that it was now his responsibility to alleviate Charlotte’s suffering and therefore “my life is hers not my own”. With rumours of a duel flying around Paget’s brother in law wrote:
With his attempts to intervene coming to naught Henry Cadogan gave up and requested permission to accompany Arthur Wellesley to the Peninsula to serve with his regiment in the war.
With Henry’s departure George took up the challenge of restoring the family name and on the 30th May 1809 he met Paget on Wimbledon Common to settle the matter. As was usual at the time, the duellist’s seconds published an account of the engagement which stated that while both men fired their pistols they did not believe that Paget had actually aimed at George. The seconds unanimously agreed to stop the duel on the grounds that one antagonist had refused to fire on the other. Paget admitted the charge stating; “nothing could ever have induced me to add to the injuries I have already done to the family by firing at the brother of Lady Charlotte Wellesley.” George agreed to the decision and both parties left the field.
Eventually in 1811 after protracted wrangling through the courts Charlotte and Henry Wellesley divorced, as did Paget and his wife, enabling the lovers to marry, three years after they first met. Despite the turbulent start to their relationship Charlotte and Paget had a long and happy marriage and had one daughter Lady Adelaide Paget. Paget calculated that the divorces had cost him over £30,000 and added that “I must admit I find Lady Paget a good and cheap bargain notwithstanding.” Lord Paget’s military career was seriously damaged by the affair and he was unable to serve in the Peninsular War as a consequence. However he went on to serve with distinction at Arthur Wellesley’s side when he led the charge of the heavy cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo.
Henry Cadogan was killed during the Battle of Vittoria in 1813, leading the 71st Highlander’s in a brutal hand-to-hand counterattack on the Heights of Puebla. Henry’s death was deeply mourned and several eulogies were written to commemorate his heroic demise.
Following his duel with Lord Paget in 1809, George returned to his ship the Crocodile where he continued his close involvement with the Wellesley family and where his life became yet more complicated and unsettled.
References
Pearman, R., (1990), The Cadogans at War, Haggerston Press.
"Disputes Between Gentlemen on points of honour &c &c Capt Cadogan Vs Lord Paget", Sporting Magazine, Vol, 34, 1809, Rogerson & Tuxford.
George Cadogan returned to England in July 1807 nine months after the Ferret mutiny and court martial however his family life was scarcely more tranquil that his West Indies command.
Earlier in 1794, when George was eleven, his parents had separated after 16 years of marriage, following the revelation that Mary Churchill, Lady Cadogan had been conducting an affair with a family friend the Reverand William Cooper. Lord Cadogan publicly sued Cooper for Criminal Conversation at the Court of the Kings bench. The Court found in Lord Cadogan’s favour, awarded him substantial damages and Cooper was forced to resign from his post at Rochester Cathedral. In 1796, by which time George was aboard the Indefatigable, Lord and Lady Cadogan divorced publicly and acrimoniously suing and countersuing each other through the Consistory Court and Court of Arches and culminating in a Private Act of Parliament which dissolved the marriage.
This was just the first of several high profile divorce cases the Cadogan family went through.
 |
| Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley |
Of the latter engagement Lady Wellesley wrote to her husband:
“…you will be very surprised to hear that Henry is to be married to Lady Emily Wellesley’s sister, who is neither wealthy nor pretty. Poor Henry is so idle, so lazy that I am sure that it is only the fact that he met this young lady in Gerald’s house, where he was staying and where she was staying, that made him fall in love with her rather than her beauty or her virtue. It has been said that no Wellesley will have a fine marriage and if yours is not the best, at least you were wise enough to wait before getting engaged. Gerald and Henry would have been better advised to have done so as both ladies are very high spirited and very gay.”
The Dowager Lady Mornington, the Wellesleys' mother, was even more vehement in her disapproval. Writing to her eldest son Lord Wellesley she complained:
“The surprise, and I must confess vexation, of dearest Henry’s sudden determination to marry and form the same odious connection that Gerald has done affected my spirits beyond all description….I believe Lady Charolotte is a good natured sort of person. It is impossible but she must love Henry and feel that she is in a situation infinitely beyond what she might expect. Therefore I hope she will render him happy, but I can see no charm of either person or manner….”
Despite the reservations of the Wellesley’s it appears that Charlotte did indeed render Henry Wellesley happy and two children were born to the couple.
In 1807 Lord Cadogan died and George returned to England where he was promoted to the rank of post captain and took command of the sloop Crocodile, 22. A ship that was scarcely better disciplined than the Ferret.
At the same time George’s elder brother Henry, a Colonel with the 71st Highlanders, was employed as aid de camp to Arthur Wellesley in the Peninsula. Henry had started his military career with the18th Foot and was involved in the 1805 military campaign led by Commodore Sir Hume Popham and Major General William Beresford, to take Buenos Aires. The campaign was a dismal failure with a large number of men killed, wounded and captured. Henry was one of those captured but his captivity was short lived.
 |
| Henry Lord Paget, Earl of Uxbridge |
Paget wrote to his brother Charles at the time describing Charlotte in glowing terms and explaining that:
“an attachment is unfortunately formed between us. It is formed against for a long time. Alas, not long enough – passion gets the better of reason and finally we are driven to the necessity of the present step.”
Charles Paget was horrified and wrote to their brother Arthur:
“Oh! That that nefarious damned Hellhound should have so entrapped that before noble creature.”
Charlotte shouldered much of the blame for elopement and in a letter to a friend stressed that her husband Henry Wellesley was blameless and that he had “ever been kind to me in the greatest degree.”
The Pagets and the Wellesleys were equally outraged by the elopement. Charles Paget continued to vent his spleen, castigating Charlotte as “the most wicked profligate whore and liar that ever hell itself could or ever will produce”. Arthur Wellesley was more prosaic, concluding simply that Lord Paget had “gone mad” and noting that his letters showed “evident symptoms of derangement.”
The elopement caused a public scandal; Charlotte was derided as a fool, “a strapping lass one would not hire as a kitchen maid” and Lord Paget as inexcusable and detestable. With the Cadogan name being publicly dragged through the mud, Charlotte’s brothers responded by ordering her to return home and threatening to call Paget out.
Henry offered to retire his army commission and devote himself entirely to Charlotte’s protection. When this failed to move his sister he twice attempted to call Paget out. In the first instance notice of duel was leaked to police and in the second Paget refused as he wrote to Henry that it was now his responsibility to alleviate Charlotte’s suffering and therefore “my life is hers not my own”. With rumours of a duel flying around Paget’s brother in law wrote:
“ both Mr Henry Wellesley and Cadogan vote that stinking polecat not worth the shedding of blood. Damn her! How Paget’s stomach will heave in the course of six months when she seizes him in her hot libidinous arms”
With his attempts to intervene coming to naught Henry Cadogan gave up and requested permission to accompany Arthur Wellesley to the Peninsula to serve with his regiment in the war.
With Henry’s departure George took up the challenge of restoring the family name and on the 30th May 1809 he met Paget on Wimbledon Common to settle the matter. As was usual at the time, the duellist’s seconds published an account of the engagement which stated that while both men fired their pistols they did not believe that Paget had actually aimed at George. The seconds unanimously agreed to stop the duel on the grounds that one antagonist had refused to fire on the other. Paget admitted the charge stating; “nothing could ever have induced me to add to the injuries I have already done to the family by firing at the brother of Lady Charlotte Wellesley.” George agreed to the decision and both parties left the field.
Eventually in 1811 after protracted wrangling through the courts Charlotte and Henry Wellesley divorced, as did Paget and his wife, enabling the lovers to marry, three years after they first met. Despite the turbulent start to their relationship Charlotte and Paget had a long and happy marriage and had one daughter Lady Adelaide Paget. Paget calculated that the divorces had cost him over £30,000 and added that “I must admit I find Lady Paget a good and cheap bargain notwithstanding.” Lord Paget’s military career was seriously damaged by the affair and he was unable to serve in the Peninsular War as a consequence. However he went on to serve with distinction at Arthur Wellesley’s side when he led the charge of the heavy cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo.
Henry Cadogan was killed during the Battle of Vittoria in 1813, leading the 71st Highlander’s in a brutal hand-to-hand counterattack on the Heights of Puebla. Henry’s death was deeply mourned and several eulogies were written to commemorate his heroic demise.
Following his duel with Lord Paget in 1809, George returned to his ship the Crocodile where he continued his close involvement with the Wellesley family and where his life became yet more complicated and unsettled.
References
Pearman, R., (1990), The Cadogans at War, Haggerston Press.
"Disputes Between Gentlemen on points of honour &c &c Capt Cadogan Vs Lord Paget", Sporting Magazine, Vol, 34, 1809, Rogerson & Tuxford.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-25 10:41 pm (UTC)Poor Cadogans seem very troubled with family worries.I have a sense of everyone trying to do the best they can, and having very human failures.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-25 10:55 pm (UTC)I'm sure it's typical of the period, but i was quite shocked by the vitriol levelled at Charlotte. Paget was obviously not a man to be cowed by public approbation though and he and Charlotte do seem to have genuinely adored each other.
Poor George I suspect this is not at all what he needed in the wake of the Ferret mutiny.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-25 11:29 pm (UTC)At 11, not yet at sea, it must have seemed that the world was coming apart. And he may have been the only one he knew going though it.
(Also, having his family reduced by death, which, while not uncommon, was horrible, I'm sure.)
No wonder he felt sort of insecure in later life. The Ferret thing must have been like a punch on a bruise.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 04:15 pm (UTC)As always thanks for posting this and for the continued amazing story that is tracing the whole George Cadogan history
no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 08:59 pm (UTC)He should have commanded the 'Cuddly Kitten' and the 'Fluffy Baby Chick.'
Silly George Cadogan!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 09:50 pm (UTC)Being bitten by a ferret sounds very unpleasant! Dare I ask what you were doing with the ferret in the first place?!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 10:09 pm (UTC)I asked to hold the ferret. It looked so soft! The pet store guy was saying how sweet ferrets were, and what great pets they made. At this moment, the creature ran up my sleeve, under my shirt, down to the opposite wrist, and sank its fangs into me.
During the subsequent bleeding, and washing, the ferret-buyer sidled away.
Since I ended up being publicly bandaged in the pet store, I was just glad the ferret had not bit me through the bra.
I have since found out, that sometimes they don't let go right away. In case of this, you can get a bucket and immerse them in water.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 12:41 am (UTC)Do they have snapping turtles in Scotland? I tried to rescue one once. She was in the road, and I tried to prod her gently with a stout stick. She charged me, hissing and trying to bite.Very ungrateful.
My husband, who knew all about them, sat in the car giggling. No help there!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 09:12 am (UTC)However due to holiday and other commitments the next segment may not see the light till after the remix outing certainly !
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:12 pm (UTC)