CHAPTER VII

AFTER WATERLOO 247

_The originals of most of the letters now published are, with the drawings that illustrate them, at Llanfawr, Holyhead._

_Some extracts from these letters have already appeared in the "Early Married Life of Maria Josepha, Lady Stanley," but are here inserted again by kind permission of Messrs. Longman, and complete Bishop Stanley's correspondence._

_Portions of letters quoted in Dean Stanley's volume, "Edward and Catherine Stanley," have also been used with Messrs. Murray's consent._

_In addition to the MSS. at Llanfawr, Lord Stanley of Alderley has kindly contributed some original letters in his possession._

_J.H.A._

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"LE COURIER DU RHIN" _Frontispiece_

_Sketch brought to England 1814 by General Scott of Thorpe, one of the detenus in France for ten years after the rupture of the Peache of Amiens, mentioned page 73._

BISHOP STANLEY _To face page_ 2

_By John Linnell. From a drawing in the possession of Canon J. Hugh Way, Henbury._

MARGARET OWEN, LADY STANLEY " 10

_From a miniature in the possession of Lady Reade-Carreglwyd, Anglesey._

"FLIGHT OF INTELLECT" " 17

_Humorous sketch by E. Stanley._

EDWARD STANLEY, 1800 " 25

_By P. Green. The original in the possession of Lord Stanley of Alderley, at Penrhos, Anglesey._

THE PRISON OF THE TEMPLE " 31

_Sketch by E. Stanley, 1802._

THE GUILLOTINE AT CHALON-SUR-SAÔNE " 43

_Sketch by E. Stanley,_

LORD SHEFFIELD " 73

_By Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. From an engraving in the possession of J.H. Adeane, Lanfavar, Holyhead._

KITTY LEYCESTER, MRS. EDWARD STANLEY " 82

_From a drawing by H. Edridge, A.R.A., at Alderley Park, Cheshire._

PARIS, 1814. OLD BRIDGE AND CHÂTELET " 108

_E. Stanley._

PARIS, LA POMPE, NOTRE DAME " 115

_E. S._

PARISIAN AMUSEMENTS " 141

_E. S._

THE CATACOMBS, PARIS " 143

_E. S._

LAON. HOUSES AND TOWER, 1814 " 161

_E. S._

BERRY AU BAC " 164

_E. S._

VERDUN. BRIDGE " 168

_E. Stanley._

FRENCH DILIGENCE " 193

_E. S._

DUTCH SHIPS " 199

_E. S._

DUTCH DILIGENCE ON BOARD A BOAT " 219

_E. S._

GOAT CARRIAGE FOR THE LITTLE KING OF ROME " 223

_E. S._

DUTCH TABLE D'HOTE " 226

_E. S._

OLD HOUSES, SAARDAM " 228

_E. S._

PETER THE GREAT'S HOUSE, SAARDAM " 230

_E. S._

DUTCH FISHERMEN " 233

_E. S._

DUTCH CARRIAGE " 234

_E. S._

CORN MILLS AT VERNON " 247

_E. S._

FRENCH CABRIOLET " 260

_E. S._

HOUGOUMONT " 263

_E. S._

INTERIOR OF HOUGOUMONT " 265

_E. S._

LA BELLE ALLIANCE " 267

_E. S._

WATERLOO " 270

_E. S._

GHENT. ST. NICHOLAS " 274

_E. S._

PORTE DE HALLE, BRUSSELS, LEADING TO WATERLOO " 276

_E. S._

PARISIAN RAT-CATCHER AND ITINERANT VENDORS " 300

_E. S._

THE GREAT GREEN COACH " 306

_E. S._

ALDERLEY RECTORY _page_ 308

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF EDWARD STANLEY

The letters which are collected in this volume were written from abroad during the opening years of the nineteenth century, at three different periods: after the Peace of Amiens in 1802 and 1803, after the Peace of Paris in 1814, and in the year following Waterloo, June, 1816.

The writer, Edward Stanley, was for thirty-three years an active country clergyman, and for twelve years more a no less active bishop, at a time when such activity was uncommon, though not so rare as is sometimes now supposed.

Although a member of one of the oldest Cheshire families, he did not share the opinions of his county neighbours on public questions, and his voice was fearlessly raised on behalf of causes which are now triumphant, and against abuses which are now forgotten, but which acutely needed champions and reformers a hundred years ago.

His foreign journeys, and more especially the first of them, had a large share in determining the opinions which he afterwards maintained against great opposition from many of his own class and profession. The sight of France still smarting under the effects of the Reign of Terror, and of other countries still sunk in Mediævalism, helped to make him a Liberal with "a passion for reform and improvement, but without a passion for destruction."

He was born in 1779, the second son and youngest child of Sir John Stanley, the Squire of Alderley in Cheshire, and of his wife Margaret Owen (the Welsh heiress of Penrhos in Holyhead Island), who was one of the "seven lovely Peggies," well known in Anglesey society in the middle of the eighteenth century.

The pictures of Edward Stanley and his mother, which still hang on the walls of her Anglesey home, show that he inherited the brilliant Welsh colouring, marked eyebrows and flashing dark eyes that gave force as well as beauty to her face. From her, too, came the romantic Celtic imagination and fiery energy which enabled him to find interests everywhere, and to make his mark in a career which was not the one he would have chosen.

"In early years" (so his son the Dean of Westminster records) "he had acquired a passion for the sea, which he cherished down to the time of his entrance at college, and which never left him through life. It first originated, as he believed, in the delight which he experienced, when between three and four years of age, on a visit to the seaport of Weymouth; and long afterwards he retained a vivid recollection of the point where he caught the first sight of a ship, and shed tears because he was not allowed to go on board. So strongly was he possessed by the feeling thus acquired, that as a child he used to leave his bed and sleep on the shelf of a wardrobe, for the pleasure of imagining himself in a berth on board a man-of-war.... The passion was overruled by circumstances beyond his control, but it gave a colour to his whole after-life. He never ceased to retain a keen interest in everything relating to the navy.... He seemed instinctively to know the history, character, and state of every ship and every officer in the service. Old naval captains were often astonished at finding in him a more accurate knowledge than their own of when, where, how, and under whom, such and such vessels had been employed. The stories of begging impostors professing to be shipwrecked seamen were detected at once by his cross-examinations. The sight of a ship, the society of sailors, the embarkation on a voyage, were always sufficient to inspirit and delight him wherever he might be."

His life, when at his mother's home on the Welsh coast, only increased this liking, and till he went to Cambridge in 1798 his education had not been calculated to prepare him for a clerical life. He never received any instruction in classics; of Greek and Latin and mathematics he knew nothing, and owing to his schools and tutors being constantly changed, his general knowledge was of a desultory sort.

His force of character, great perseverance and ambition to excel are shown in the strenuous manner in which he overcame all these obstacles, and at the close of his college career at St. John's, Cambridge, became a wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1802.

After a year passed in foreign travel Edward Stanley returned home at his brother's request, and took command of the Alderley Volunteers--a corps of defence raised by him on the family estate in expectation of a French invasion.

In 1803 he was ordained and became curate of Windlesham, in Surrey. There he remained until he was presented by his father in 1805 to the living of Alderley, where he threw himself enthusiastically into his work.

Alderley parish had long been neglected, and there was plenty of scope for the young Rector.

Before he came, the clerk used to go to the churchyard stile to see whether there were any more coming to church, for there were seldom enough to make a congregation, but before Edward Stanley left, his parish was one of the best organised of the day. He set on foot schemes of education throughout the county as well as at Alderley, and was foremost in all reforms.

The Chancellor of the diocese wrote of him: "He inherited from his family strong Whig principles, which he always retained, and he never shrank from advocating those maxims of toleration which at that time formed the chief watchwords of the Whig party."

He was the first who distinctly saw and boldly advocated the advantages of general education for the people, and set the example of the extent to which general knowledge might be communicated in a parochial school.

"To analyse the actual effects of his ministrations on the people would be difficult, ... but the general result was what might have been expected. Dissent was all but extinguished. The church was filled, the communicants many."

He helped to found a Clerical Society, which promoted friendly intercourse with clergy holding various views, and was never afraid of avowing his opinions on subjects he thought vital, lest he should in consequence become unpopular.

He grudged no trouble about anything he undertook, and the people rejoiced when they heard "the short, quick tramp of his horse's feet as he went galloping up their lanes." The sick were visited and cheered, and the children kindly cared for in and out of school.

It was said of him that "whenever there was a drunken fight in the village and he knew of it, he would always come out to stop it--there was such a spirit in him."

Tidings were once brought to him of a riotous crowd, which had assembled to witness a desperate prize fight, adjourned to the outskirts of his parish, and which the respectable inhabitants were unable to disperse. "The whole field" (so one of the humbler neighbours represented it) "was filled and all the trees round about, when in about a quarter of an hour I saw the Rector coming up the road on his little black horse as quick as lightning, and I trembled for fear they should harm him. He rode into the field and just looked round as if he thought the same, to see who there was that would be on his side. But it was not needed; he rode into the midst of the crowd and in one moment it was all over. There was a great calm; the blows stopped; it was as if they would all have wished to cover themselves up in the earth. All from the trees they dropped down directly. No one said a word and all went away humbled."

The next day the Rector sent for the two men, not to scold them, but to speak to them, and sent them each away with a Bible. The effect on the neighbourhood was very great, and put a stop to the practice which had been for some time prevalent in the adjacent districts.

His influence was increased by his early knowledge of the people, and by the long connection of his family with the place.

Two years after Edward had accepted the incumbency, his father died in London, but he had long before given up living in Cheshire, and Alderley Park had been occupied at his desire by his eldest son, afterwards Sir John, who had made his home there since his marriage in 1796.

Both the Stanley brothers married remarkable women. Lady Maria Josepha Holroyd, Sir John's wife, was the elder daughter of the first Lord Sheffield, the friend and biographer of Gibbon, and her strong personality impressed every one who met her.

Catherine, wife of the Rector, was the daughter of the Rev. Oswald Leycester, of Stoke Rectory, in Shropshire. Her father was one of the Leycesters of Toft House, only a few miles from Alderley, and at Toft most of Catherine's early years were spent. She was engaged to Edward Stanley before she was seventeen, but did not marry him till nearly two years later, in 1810.

During the interval she spent some time in London with Sir John and Lady Maria Stanley, and in the literary society of the opening years of the nineteenth century she was much sought after for her charm and appreciativeness, and for what Sydney Smith called her "porcelain understanding." The wits and lions of the Miss Berrys' parties vied with each other in making much of her; Rogers and Scott delighted in her conversation--in short, every one agreed, as her sister-in-law Maria wrote, that "in Kitty Leycester Edward will indeed have a treasure."

After her marriage she kept up with her friends by active correspondence and by annual visits to London. Still, "to the outside world she was comparatively unknown; but there was a quiet wisdom, a rare unselfishness, a calm discrimination, a firm decision which made her judgment and her influence felt through the whole circle in which she lived." Her power and charm, coupled with her husband's, made Alderley Rectory an inspiring home to their children, several of whom inherited talent to a remarkable degree.

Her sister Maria[1] writes from Hodnet, the home of the poet Heber: "I want to know all you have been doing since the day that bore me away from happy Alderley. Oh! the charm of a rectory inhabited by a Reginald Heber or an Edward Stanley!"

That Rectory and its surroundings have been perfectly described in the words of the author of "Memorials of a Quiet Life"[2]: "A low house, with a verandah forming a wide balcony for the upper storey, where bird-cages hung among the roses; its rooms and passages filled with pictures, books, and old carved oak furniture. In a country where the flat pasture lands of Cheshire rise suddenly to the rocky ridge of Alderley Edge, with the Holy Well under an overhanging cliff; its gnarled pine-trees, its storm-beaten beacon tower ready to give notice of an invasion, and looking far over the green plain to the smoke which indicates in the horizon the presence of the great manufacturing towns."

There was constant intercourse between the Park and the Rectory, and the two families with a large circle of friends led most interesting and busy lives. The Rector took delight in helping his seven nieces with their Italian and Spanish studies, in fostering their love of poetry and natural history, and in developing the minds of his own young children. He wrote plays for them to act and birthday odes for them to recite.

Legends of the countryside, domestic tragedies and comedies were turned into verse, whether it were the Cheshire legend of the Iron Gates or the fall of Sir John Stanley and his spectacles into the Alderley mere, the discovery of a butterfly or the loss of "a superfine piece of Bala flannel."

His caricatures illustrated his droll ideas, as in his sketches of the six "Ologies from Entomology to Apology." His witty and graceful "Bustle's Banquet" or the "Dinner of the Dogs" made a trio with the popular poems then recently published of the "Butterfly's Ball" and "The Peacock at Home."

"And since Insects give Balls and Birds are so gay, 'Tis high time to prove that we Dogs have our day."

He wrote a "Familiar History of Birds," illustrated by many personal observations, for throughout his life he never lost a chance of watching wild bird life. In his early days he had had special opportunities of doing so among the rocks and caverns of Holyhead Island. He tells of the myriads of sea-birds who used to haunt the South Stack Rock there, in the days when it was almost inaccessible; and of their dispersal by the building of the first lighthouse there in 1808, when for a time they deserted it and never returned in such numbers.

His own family at Alderley Rectory consisted of three sons and two daughters.

The eldest son, Owen, had his father's passion for the sea, and was allowed to follow his bent. His scientific tastes led him to adopt the surveying branch of his profession, and in 1836, when appointed to the _Terror_ on her expedition to the North Seas, he had charge of the astronomical and magnetic operations.

When in command of the _Britomart_, in 1840, he secured the North Island of New Zealand to the English by landing and hoisting the British flag, having heard that a party of French emigrants intended to land that day. They did so, but under the protection of the Union Jack.

In 1846 Owen Stanley commanded the _Rattlesnake_ in an important and responsible expedition to survey the unknown coast of New Guinea; this lasted four years and was very successful, but the great strain and the shock of his brother Charles' death at Hobart Town, at this time, were too much for him. He died suddenly on board his ship at Sydney in 1850, "after thirty-three years' arduous service in every clime."

Professor Huxley, in whose arms he breathed his last, was surgeon to this expedition, and his first published composition was an article describing it. He speaks of Owen Stanley thus: "Of all those who were actively engaged upon the survey, the young commander alone was destined to be robbed of his just rewards; he has raised an enduring monument in his works, and his epitaph shall be the grateful thanks of many a mariner threading his way among the mazes of the Coral Seas."

The second and most distinguished of the three sons was Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, of whom it was said "that in the wideness of his sympathies, the broadness of his toleration, and the generosity of his temperament the brilliant Dean of Westminster was a true son of his father, the Bishop of Norwich."

The third son, Charles Edward, a young officer in the Royal Engineers, who had done good work in the Ordnance Survey of Wales, and was already high in his profession, was suddenly cut off by fever at his official post in Tasmania in 1849.

The eldest daughter, Mary, had great powers of organisation, was a keen philanthropist and her father's right hand at Norwich. In 1854 she took charge of a detachment of nurses who followed Miss Nightingale's pioneer band to the East, and worked devotedly for the Crimean sick and wounded at the hospital at Koulalee.

Katherine, the youngest daughter, a most original character, married Dr. Vaughan, headmaster of Harrow, Master of the Temple, and Dean of Llandaff. She survived her whole family and lived till 1899.

The home at Alderley lasted for thirty-three years, during which Edward Stanley had changed the whole face of the parish and successfully organised many schemes of improvement in the conditions of the working classes in his neighbourhood. He could now leave his work to other hands, and felt that his energies required a wider field, so that when in 1838 Lord Melbourne offered him the See of Norwich he was induced to accept the offer, though only "after much hesitation and after a severe struggle, which for a time almost broke down his usual health and sanguine spirit."

"It would be vain and useless," he said, "to speak to others of what it cost me to leave Alderley"; but to his new sphere he carried the same zeal and indomitable energy which had ever characterised him, and gained the affection of many who had shuddered at the appointment of a "Liberal Bishop."

At Norwich his work was very arduous and often discouraging. He came in the dawn of the Victorian age to attack a wall of customs and abuses which had arisen far back in the early Georgian era, with no hereditary connection or influence in the diocese to counteract the odium that he incurred as a new-comer by the institution of changes which he deemed necessary.

It was no wonder that for three or four years he had to stem a steady torrent of prejudice and more or less opposition; but though his broadminded views were often the subject of criticism, his bitterest opponents could not withstand the genial, kindly spirit in which he met their objections.

"At the time of his entrance upon his office party feeling was much more intense than it has been in later years, and of this the county of Norfolk presented, perhaps, as strong examples as could be found in any part of the kingdom."

The bishop was "a Whig in politics and a staunch supporter of a Whig ministry," but in all the various questions where politics and theology cross one another he took the free and comprehensive instead of the precise and exclusive views, and to impress them on others was one chief interest of his new position.

The indifference to party which he displayed, both in social matters and in his dealings with his clergy, tended to alienate extreme partisans of whatever section, and at one time caused him even to be unpopular with the lower classes of Norwich in spite of his sympathies.

The courage with which the Rector had quelled the prize fight at Alderley shone out again in the Bishop. "I remember," says an eye-witness, "seeing Bishop Stanley, on a memorable occasion, come out of the Great Hall of St. Andrew's, Norwich. The Chartist mob, who lined the street, saluted the active, spare little Bishop with hooting and groans. He came out alone and unattended till he was followed by me and my brother, determined, as the saying is, 'to see him safe home,' for the mob was highly excited and brutal. Bishop Stanley marched along ten yards, then turned sharp round and fixed his eagle eyes on the mob, and then marched ten yards more and turned round again rapidly and gave the same hawk-like look."

His words and actions must often have been startling to his contemporaries; when temperance was a new cause he publicly spoke in support of the Roman Catholic Father Mathew, who had promoted it in Ireland; when the idea of any education for the masses was not universally accepted he advocated admitting the children of Dissenters to the National Schools; and when the stage had not the position it now holds, he dared to offer hospitality to one of the most distinguished of its representatives, Jenny Lind, to mark his respect for her life and influence.

For all this he was bitterly censured, but his kindly spirit and friendly intercourse with his clergy smoothed the way through apparently insurmountable difficulties, and his powerful aid was ever at hand in any benevolent movement to advise and organise means of help.

In his home at Norwich the Bishop and Mrs. Stanley delighted to welcome guests of every shade of opinion, and one of them, a member of a well-known Quaker family, has recorded her impression of her host's conversation. "The Bishop talks, darting from one subject to another, like one impatient of delay, amusing and pleasant," and he is described on coming to Norwich as having "a step as quick, a voice as firm, a power of enduring fatigue almost as unbroken as when he traversed his parish in earlier days or climbed the precipices of the Alps."

In his public life the liveliness of his own interest in scientific pursuits, the ardour with which he would hail any new discovery, the vividness of his own observation of Nature would illustrate with an unexpected brilliancy the worn-out topics of a formal speech. Few who were present at the meeting when the Borneo Mission was first proposed to the London public in 1847 can forget the strain of naval ardour with which the Bishop offered his heartfelt tribute of moral respect and admiration to the heroic exertions of Sir James Brooke.

It was his highest pleasure to bear witness to the merits or to contribute to the welfare of British seamen. He seized every opportunity of addressing them on their moral and religious duties, and many were the rough sailors whose eyes were dimmed with tears among the congregations of the crews of the _Queen_ and the _Rattlesnake_, when he preached on board those vessels at Plymouth, whither he had accompanied his eldest son, Captain Owen Stanley, to witness his embarkation on his last voyage.

"The sermon," so the Admiral told Dean Stanley twenty years afterwards, "was never forgotten. The men were so crowded that they almost sat on one another's shoulders, with such attention and admiration that they could scarcely restrain a cheer."

For twelve years his presence was felt as a power for good through the length and breadth of his diocese; and after his death, in September, 1849, his memory was long loved and revered.

"I felt as if a sunbeam had passed through my parish," wrote a clergyman from a remote corner of his diocese, after a visit from him, "and had left me to rejoice in its genial and cheerful warmth. From that day I would have died to serve him; and I believe that not a few of my humble flock were animated by the same kind of feeling."

His yearly visits to his former parish of Alderley were looked forward to by those he had known and loved during his long parochial ministrations as the greatest pleasure of their lives.

"I have been," he writes (in the last year of his life), "in various directions over the parish, visiting many welcome faces, laughing with the living, weeping over the dying. It is gratifying to see the cordial familiarity with which they receive me, and Norwich clergy would scarcely know me by cottage fires, talking over old times with their hands clasped in mine as an old and dear friend."

Under the light which streams through the stained glass of his own cathedral the remains of Bishop Stanley rest in the thoroughfare of the great congregation.

"When we were children," said a grey-haired Norfolk rector this very year, "our mother never allowed us to walk upon the stone covering Bishop Stanley's grave. I have never forgotten it, and would not walk upon it even now."

"We pass; the path that each man trod Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: What fame is left for human deeds In endless age? It rests with God."