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

the whole of his behaviour to an able, faithful, and despairing subject,
to have expressed that concern in a more particular manner, and to
those who were so deeply affected by the melancholy event.
'A worthier and better man there never was, no more learned and
accomplished in his own profession, as well as out of it. What he
wanted was the calm, firm judgment of his father, and he had the
misfortune to live in times which 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 Lübeck 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),