Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography | Page 2

father
answered, with modest pride--"It is a trial--the trial of my ancestor,
William, Lord Russell." "Good heavens! my dear fellow--an ancestor
of yours tried? What a shocking thing! I hope he got off."
So much for our Family Martyr.
In analysing one's nationality, it is natural to regard one's four
grand-parents as one's component parts. Tried by this test, I am half an
Englishman, one quarter a Highlander, and one quarter a Welshman,
for my father's father was wholly English; my father's mother wholly
Scotch; my mother's father wholly Welsh; and my mother's mother

wholly English. My grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was born
in 1766 and died in 1839. He married, as his second wife, Lady
Georgiana Gordon, sister of the last Duke of Gordon, and herself "the
last of the Gordons" of the senior line. She died just after I was born,
and from her and the "gay Gordons" who preceded her, I derive my
name of George. It has always been a comfort to me, when rebuked for
ritualistic tendencies, to recall that I am great-great-nephew of that
undeniable Protestant, Lord George Gordon, whose icon I daily revere.
My grandmother had a numerous family, of whom my father was the
third. He was born in Dublin Castle, his father being then
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the Ministry of "All the Talents." My
grandfather had been a political and personal friend of Charles James
Fox, and Fox had promised to be godfather to his next child. But Fox
died on the 13th of September, 1806, and my father did not appear till
the 10th of February, 1807. Fox's nephew, Henry Lord Holland, took
over the sponsorship, and bestowed the names of "Charles James Fox"
on the infant Whig, who, as became his father's viceregal state, was
christened by the Archbishop of Dublin, with water from a golden
bowl.
The life so impressively auspicated lasted till the 29th of June, 1894. So
my father, who remembered an old Highlander who had been out with
Prince Charlie in '45, lived to see the close of Mr. Gladstone's fourth
Premiership. He was educated at Rottingdean, at Westminster, where
my family had fagged and fought for many generations, and at the
University of Edinburgh, where he boarded with that "paltry Pillans,"
who, according to Byron, "traduced his friend." From Edinburgh he
passed into the Blues, then commanded by Ernest, Duke of
Cumberland, and thence into the 52nd Regiment. In 1832 he was
returned to the first Reformed Parliament as Whig Member for
Bedfordshire. He finally retired in 1847, and from that date till 1875
was Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House of Commons. He married in
1834, and had six children, of whom I was the youngest by eight years,
being born on the 3rd of February, 1853.[2]
My birthplace (not yet marked with a blue and white medallion) was 16,
Mansfield Street; but very soon afterwards the official residences at the

Palace of Westminster were finished, and my father took possession of
the excellent but rather gloomy house in the Speaker's Court, now
(1913) occupied by Sir David Erskine.
Here my clear memories begin. I have indeed some vague impressions
of a visit to the widow of my mother's grandfather--Lady Robert
Seymour--who died in her ninety-first year when I was two years old;
though, as those impressions are chiefly connected with a
jam-cupboard, I fancy that they must pertain less to Lady Robert than
to her housekeeper. But two memories of my fourth year are perfectly
defined. The first is the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre on
the 5th of March, 1856. "During the operatic recess, Mr. Gye, the
lessee of the Theatre, had sub-let it to one Anderson, a performer of
sleight-of-hand feats, and so-called 'Professor.' He brought his short
season to a close by an entertainment described as a 'Grand Carnival
Complimentary Benefit and Dramatic Gala, to commence on Monday
morning, and terminate with a bal masqué on Tuesday night.' At 3 on
the Wednesday morning, the Professor thought it time to close the
orgies. At this moment the gasfitter discovered the fire issuing from the
cracks of the ceiling, and, amid the wildest shrieking and confusion, the
drunken, panic-stricken masquers rushed to the street. The flames burst
through the roof, sending high up into the air columns of fire, which
threw into bright reflection every tower and spire within the circuit of
the metropolis, brilliantly illuminating the whole fabric of St. Paul's,
and throwing a flood of light across Waterloo Bridge, which set out in
bold relief the dark outline of the Surrey hills." That "flood of light"
was beheld by me, held up in my nurse's arms at a window under "Big
Ben," which looks on Westminster Bridge. When in later years I have
occasionally stated in a mixed