Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N., A Memoir | Page 8

required a double portion of it. Every precaution was taken by me to prepare him for the offer, and to persuade him to form some previous plan of conduct, but all in vain. He would never explain himself clearly, and left everything to chance, till we were all overborne, perplexed and confounded in that fatal interval which opened and closed the negotiation with my brother. With him the Somers line of the law seems to be at an end, I mean of that set in the profession who, mixing principles of liberty with those proper to monarchy, have conducted and guided that great body of men ever since the Revolution.'
Fever, complicated by colic and the rupture of a blood-vessel, caused Charles Yorke's death, the consequence of the extreme nervous tension which he had undergone, of which his widow has left a most touching and graphic description. I wish I could have found room for the whole of her account of those days. The circumstances of his physical constitution and the mental struggle he had suffered are quite sufficient to account for his death without the gratuitous assumption of suicide, which there is nothing in the family papers to support. There is no doubt that this idea was prevalent at the time, and allusions to it are to be found in many subsequent accounts, down to that in Sir George Trevelyan's 'Life of Fox.' Perhaps it is not too much to hope that this allegation may be at last disposed of in the light of the papers by his brother and his wife. We have two clear and positive declarations in these papers: first, that in the beginning of his illness he declined his physic, and afterwards took an opiate; second, that there followed the rupture of a blood-vessel. When Lord Hardwicke saw him for the last time on the 19th he was 'extremely ill'; 'there was a glimmering of hope on the 20th in the morning, but he died that day about five in the evening.'
This is the summary of the evidence, which to my mind is conclusive. Unless one assumes a conspiracy of silence between Lord Hardwicke and Mrs. Yorke, I do not see that I can reasonably admit any other hypothesis. I therefore claim that phrase of his brother's as a solution of the supposed mystery of Charles Yorke's death.
If hereafter the vague rumours which have so long been current should be supported by any real evidence, my judgment will be disputed, but I am glad to have this opportunity of asserting my own firm conviction that the version of the unhappy affair given in the family papers is correct, and that Charles Yorke's death was due to natural causes.
Charles Yorke was twice married. His first wife was a daughter of Williams Freeman, Esq., of Aspeden, Hertfordshire, by whom he had a son Philip. This son succeeded his uncle as third Earl of Hardwicke, he inherited the Tittenhanger and other estates (which passed away to his daughters on his death in 1834) from his mother, and he is still remembered for his wise and liberal administration as the first Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland after the Union (from 1801 to 1806), the irritation and unrest caused by which measure he did much to allay. [Footnote: A recent publication, _The Viceroy's Post Bag_, by Mr. MacDonagh, gives some curious details of his correspondence from the Hardwicke Papers at the British Museum.] As a Whig he had always been in favour of Catholic Emancipation in Ireland, and though he agreed to postpone it on joining Addington's Administration, he adhered to the cause till its triumph in 1829; and he gave a qualified support to the Parliamentary Reform Bill in 1831. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1803, [Footnote: Lord Hardwicke married in 1782 Elizabeth, daughter of James, fifth Earl of Balcarres, the sister of Lady Anne Barnard, the authoress of Auld Robin Gray.] and had the misfortune to lose the only son who survived infancy in a storm at sea off L��beck in 1808 at the age of twenty-four. The succession to the peerage was thus opened up to his half-brothers, the sons of Charles Yorke's second wife, Agneta, daughter of Henry Johnston of Great Berkhampsted: Charles Philip (1764- 1834) who left no heir, and Joseph Sydney (1768-1831), father of the subject of this memoir. I have already alluded to the public career of their half-brother, the third Lord Hardwicke; and it is interesting to see how the tradition of political and public work was maintained by the two younger brothers, who both, and especially the younger of the two, added fresh laurels to the distinguished record held by so many of the descendants of the great Chancellor. The Right Honourable Charles Yorke represented the county of Cambridge