THE BATTLE OF BRISTOL - The Fight for Democracy

 

I can’t imagine anyone was surprised that Sir Charles Wetherell (above) eventually inspired a riot. Sir Charles (above) was “…half mad, eccentric, ingenious…a coarse, vulgar mind, delighting in ribaldry and abuse …”  He was also rich and a bigot.  Remind you of anyone?  Donald Trump, maybe?

Sir Charles was fired from his cabinet post in the Duke of Wellington’s government because he made a vicious anti-Catholic speech, exactly when the government was trying to decriminalization Catholicism. And when the government moved to reform the stifling limitations on the right to vote in Britain, Sir Charles opposed that, too. A colleague noted, “…no one spoke more than Sir Charles Wetherell; often to no good purpose.” 

The man who invented the London Bobby's,  Sir Robert Peel, watched his performance in the House of Commons and was not impressed. “This Wetherell unbuttoned his braces (suspenders) when he began to speak, and put his hands into the waistband of his breeches…Horace Twiss said he was very mad, and had but one brief lucid interval, which was between his breeches and his waistcoat.”

Sir Charles represented the tiny market town of Boroughbridge (above), 13 miles northwest of York and 187 miles northeast of London.  It was the very epitome of “a rotten borough”. 

The election districts of Parliament had not been redrawn in two hundred years, and fishing villages that had been washed out to sea, and hamlets long abandoned still had sent representatives to London. Meanwhile, newly industrialized population centers were underrepresented, In 1831, only 6,000 of the 104,000 citizens of the town of Bristol could vote,

Boroughbridge (above) was a typical rotten borough.  There were only 947 people in the village, and only 65 of the 154 households were recognized as “entitlements”, meaning ownership or occupancy brought with it the right to vote. 

Yet this village with just 65 legal voters still qualified for two representatives in Parliament, Sir Matthias Attwood, and Sir Charles Wetherell (far left on the teter-totter above). The public was desperate for reform of this system, and despite (or because) of Sir Charles’ opposition the Reform Bill carried the House of Commons by 345 to 239 votes. 

But Sir Charles was also a member of the cloistered red robed House of Lords (above), and as such was able to vote against the bill,  twice. He helped to kill it "in the Lords” by 41 votes and became the public face of the opposition to democracy.

There were riots and threats that fall in Manchester and Birmingham, and a half dozen other industrialized towns. But things came to head on Friday, 29 October, 1831, when the Courts were set to open in the west coast port city of Bristol. 

The Official Recorder for those courts  was none other than Sir Charles Wetherell,  He came parading into town in a carriage pulled by four magnificent matching grey horses, and it is hard to see how he could have chosen a worse time for a display of ostentation and privilege. Shops and markets had closed so no one would be dissuaded from joining the crowds gathering to “welcome” Sir Charles.

Expecting trouble three troops of Dragoons were stationed on the outskirts of Bristol. Sir Charles’ carriage was met by 300 “marshals”, especially hired for the occasion. The crowd called them Sir Charles' Bludgeon Men. Some 2,000 people packed the route, hissing and booing as Sir Charles passed. And when the carriage crossed the bridge over the River Bath, stones were thrown.

The procession reached the Guildhall at noon. There the town clerk, Mr. Ludlow, tried to make a speech praising the reform movement. But the crowded courtroom would not be placated, and the hissing drove poor Mr. Ludlow into retreat. From atop the bench Sir Charles (above) imperiously threatened to arrest anyone interfering with the court, and the catcalling became even louder. Eventually Sir Charles had to withdraw. Once he was gone, the crowd gave three cheers for the King.

A carriage took Sir Charles through the thick crowds to the Mansion-house on Queen Square (above), where he was to spend the night. But once he was safely inside several of the “Marshals”,  sallied into the crowd to arrest individuals they deemed troublemakers. This increased the anger of the crowd, who attacked the house with rocks. The shower of missiles drove the mayor and the town council up the staircase to the second floor. 

This attack was stopped by the timely arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Brereton, with a single troop of dragoons. Despite Sir Charles’ demand that the troops open fire on the crowd, Brereton spoke to them instead and they dispersed willingly. At about three o’clock Col. Brereton returned with his troopers to their barracks. He immediately requested reinforcements, but he might have been more cautious had he known that while transporting their prisoners to jail, the Bludgeon Men were waylaid and the “troublemakers” were freed.

The Mayor and council spent the night boarding up the broken windows and doors, but all their work was for nought. Saturday afternoon some six hundred angry men and women smashed through the front door, driving the mayor to clamber over the back garden wall (above), while Sir Charles escaped out the roof, jumping into a neighboring house. 

Sir Charles was then spirited out of town dressed as a groom. The city council spread the news, in the hope his retreat would calm the mob. But Sir Charles Wetherell's work in Bristol was done.

The Mansion-house was trashed and burned, and its wine cellar looted. Several other buildings surrounding Queen Square were ransacked as well. 

Then the New jail was attacked, followed by the Gloucester Prison. The gates were rushed, the jailers beaten, and some 200 prisoners released.

The Custom’s House, the Excise Office, and some fifty private houses and warehouses were looted and burned. But it was a very selective riot. All the lost property belonged to those who had opposed the reform bill. And no one was killed or even seriously injured by the rioters.

The city was finally 'brought under control' when reinforcements arrived Monday afternoon and the dragoons were turned loose on the crowd. 

Several hundred were now killed. Total damages were estimated at between four and eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.

Sir Charles (above) was at first confused by what had happened. The night of his escape he confessed to an inn keeper, “I am not aware that I ever injured any individual in the city.” But by the time Parliament convened in December he was sure again.

He denounced the London press for laying for the blame for the riot on him. He also demanded that he be allowed to sit as judge of the rioters. That request was denied. However a statue of Sir Charles was erected in Queen Square, to remind the citizens who had won the battle for Bristol.

In January of 1832 eighty-two people went on trial for crimes committed during the riot. Despite a petition for clemency signed by 10,000 citizens of Bristol, four men were hung over the gates of the new jail. The punishment drove the hangman to sob uncontrollably so that he almost fell off the scaffold. But the four were hung, nevertheless. 

A fifth man, James Ives, was judged insane and his death sentence was commuted to transportation to Australia for life. Seventy-four others were also exiled to Australia, while forty-three were sentenced to hard labor in England. Of those forty-three, one old woman, convicted of receiving silver plate looted from the Mansion-house, hung herself in prison. 

Colonel Brereton was court-martialed for refusing to fire on the crowds, and after a week of testimony at his court-martial (above), he shot him self in the heart. He left behind two small motherless children. His second in command was allowed to resign and sell his commission. 

Meanwhile, seven of those sentenced to transportation to Australia died of cholera before their ship even set sail. Another, Matthew Warry, jumped ship. While swimming to shore he was shot and killed by a sentry, as was James Ives, the man too insane to hang for his crimes against property. And that was the fate of the victims of Sir Charles Wetherell’s “…coarse and vulgar mind…”, all save one.

No one tried to defend any of these victims. Instead the champions of reform concentrated their efforts on passing the Reform bill in 1832.  One of the last to speak against the bill, again, was Sir Charles, who knew he had done much to ensure the elimination of his own “rotten borough.” He concluded his remarks by saying, “This is the last dying speech and confession of the member for Boroughbridge.” And it was. 

The new reforms did not not increase the size of Parlement, but based the districts on the most recent  census. When Sir Charles stood for election that fall for one of the “new” seats from Oxford University he received so few votes he withdrew his name as a candidate.  He died of a “concussion of the brain” caused by a carriage accident, on Monday, 17 August, 1846. He left behind no heirs, except for those members of the American Republican Party, determined to hold onto power by any means, including murder. 

And in 1983 his statue was removed from Queens Square in Bristol, because, in the words of the City Council Engineer, “We are redesigning the garden for the 17th century period and Sir Charles will not blend in”. They hid it under an alcove behind the Red Lion Inn.  And that cleaned up for democracy in Great Britain forever.  Except, of course,  for those who continue to seek power for its own sake. 

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THE PETER PAN PRINCIPLE - swamped in the Estrogen Sea.

I assume you have heard of the most famous work by Dr. Laurence Peter, “The Peter Principle.” It states that in any hierarchy “every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. Well, I have observed a related behavior in human males which I call “The Peter Pan Principle”. Peter Pan was the theatrical boy who never grew up, and my theory postulates that some males achieve only that level of maturity they achieve by the age of 12 – after which time they will mature no further. The prime example of such a life long adolescence is Arthur Brown , second cousin to Calvin Coolidge, and a man whose dramatic life reached its pinnacle on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and its nadir ten years later and a block away, on the floor of a hotel bedroom. To put it another way - Arthur Brown slept his way to the bottom.

Arthur  (above) grew in up in the 1840's on a Michigan farm, with two older sisters - he was a baby Moses navigating in an estrogen sea. Family friends generously described him as possessing a “keen intellect” but less perceptive on “moral issues”.  When he was 13 his progressive minded parents dragged him to the center of Ohio so that his older sisters could attend the Unitarian funded Antioch College.  And Arthur eventually entered that institution as well. As was to be expected given its provenance, the academic standards at this institute of higher learning were high, while the standards of discipline were a bit fuzzy. The students did not pass or fail, they instead received a “narrative evaluation” for each class. It was the perfect environment for Arthur, altho he seems to have been confused as to the advice of the school's first President, Horace Mann; “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

After graduating from Antioch, Arthur earned a law degree and spent the Civil War years back in Kalamazoo Michigan, building a successful criminal law practice, marrying, and fathering a daughter. And when his mid-life crises came, Arthur's response was almost per-ordained. 

He fell in love with a younger woman - Ms. Isabel Cameron (above), daughter of the powerful Republican State Senator, David “The Don” Cameron, and wife of a clerk.  Arthur bought his new mistress a new horse and buggy, and rented her a house. 

Now, no rational person would have expected to keep such a high profile romance secret in a town of just 20,000. And one night in 1876 Arthur's offended spouse surprised the loving couple in his law offices. Mrs. Brown was armed with a loaded revolver, but luckily she proved a poor marks-woman. The entire town sided with the wife, who threw Arthur out. The man-child Casanova now moved to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, evidently under the mistaken impression that Mormons were open to open marriages. 

Arthur was expecting to be appointed the U.S. District Attorney for Utah, but the pall of smoke from the bridges he had burned in Kalamazoo obscured his prospects. So he opened a law office at 212 South Main Street in Salt Lake City (above), where he quickly duplicated his Michigan success. The local newspaper judged Arthur to be “a good hater,.” and described him as “Gentile in faith, but a Mormon in practice.” Little did they know. 

By 1879, when he was rejoined by the still smitten Isabel, Arthur was a millionaire. And the instant his Michigan divorce was finalized, Isabel became the second Mrs. Brown. The happy couple bought a fine house in the fashionable section of South Temple Street, and, in time produced a son , whom they named Max.  

In 1894 Arthur was sent to Washington as one of Utah state's first two senators. The New York Times described him as “an intense, bitter partisan...Always pugnacious...”  His honorary post ended after only one year, and he did not run for re-election. He returned to his law practice and his family, in that order.  In 1896 Arthur was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in St. Louis. 

And it was there he met his next mistress, a secretary for the local Republican party, Mrs. Anne Maddison Bradley. He was 53, and she was 23.  It became apparent that Arthur had a type - younger.

Annie was the editor of the Salt Lake City Woman's Club magazine, a member of the Woman’s Press Club and the Poet's Roundtable. She was also a charter member of the Salt Lake City Unitarian Church. She was everything a rich Unitarian might seek in a mistress, if you overlooked her clerk husband, Clearance A. "Ned" Bradley and their two children.  But wouldn't that just make her more likely to be discreet? The convention nominated William McKinley on the first ballot, allowing Arthur and Anne to consummated their affair so quickly that Arthur overlooked yet another impediment to his new mistress - a vine of insanity intertwining around several branches of Annie's family tree.

Back in booming Salt Lake City (above), Annie separated from her husband, Clarence. He started drinking to excess, and then gambling to excess. A couple of years later Clarence conveniently ended up in jail. Anne testified later that Arthur then “...began coming to my house at very unseemly hours, and I told him it must stop, but he answered. 'Darling, we will go through life together. I want you to have a son' and after several months we did.”  Arthur Brown Bradley was born 7 February, 1902. Shortly thereafter Arthur took a suite at the Independence Hotel. He informed Isabel - remember wife number 2? -  he was going to file for divorce. He even took Annie on a trip to Washington, D.C,  with him, staying in adjoining rooms at the Raleigh Hotel, just behind the Capital, at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12^th street.

When the divorce papers arrived, Isabel was finally spurred to action. And when hitting Arthur with a horse whip did not dissuade him from seeing his mistress, Isabel had both Arthur and Annie arrested and charged with adultery - four times in six months. The Salt Lake City “Desert News" was present at the last arraignment. Said the News, “Arthur Brown On the Rampage...Says He Was Knocked Down By an Officer.” Arthur accused the police of notifying the newspapers, and denounced the arrest of Annie, in a very loud voice. “They dragged her through the streets", he shouted, "one on each side of her. Armed to the teeth. Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!” Judge Christopher Diehl asked Arthur, “How do you expect to keep such things out of the papers when you yell so you can be heard for two blocks?” Eventually the headlines would read, “Arthur Brown Goes Scot Free.”  But all the dramatics took a toll on poor Arthur.

His last arrest forced some reflection and re-evaluation upon Arthur. He moved back into the house on South Temple (above) with Isabel. Annie was offered a house of her own and $100 a month to stay a way from Arthur. She turned it down. 

And a few months later Arthur slipped away to meet Annie in room 11 of the Pacific hotel in Pocatello, Idaho.  Their passionate reunion was interrupted by Isabel banging on the door. Arthur admitted his wife, at the same time asking his law partner to please, “Come in, I don't want to be left alone here with them.”

Annie, the mistress,  began civilly enough. “How do you do, Mrs. Bradley? I have wanted to talk to you.” But Isabel's first instinct was not for conversation. She clamped her hands around Annie's throat and began throttling her. The men separated the combatants, and the women spent the next several hours screaming accusations at each other, while Arthur cringed in the corner, the center of attention. Come the dawn, Isabel returned home and Arthur stupidly gave Annie a .32 caliber revolver, should Isabel seek a second confrontation. It seemed Annie had won.

But upon Annie's return to Salt Lake City, Arthur's law partner informed her that Isabel and Arthur had “reconciled”.  The offer of a house and weekly stipend was renewed, and Arthur now pointedly denied his paternity of Annie's son, Arthur Brown Bradley.  And being three months pregnant, Annie reluctantly agreed to cease and desist.  She gave birth to her second child by Arthur, Martin Montgomery Brown Bradly, on 24 November, 1903. Despite promises to his wife, Arthur maintained a discreet contact with Annie, at least until August of 1905, when Isabel died of cancer. Abruptly the path seemed cleared for Annie and Arthur to marry. But they did not... that is, Arthur did not.

He was 63 years old now, and already had another mistress, someone closer to his own age for a change, Annie Adams Kiskadden (above, left). She was the mother of Utah's famed actress and original creator of the role of Peter Pan, Maude Adams (above, right). If she did not know about the new mistress, Annie Bradley must have suspected it. She was now 33 years old herself, divorced, the mother of four, and had no income. Swallowing a little more pride she asked her millionaire boyfriend for $2,000 to start a new life.  Arthur Bradly ignored that request, but did present her with a one way train ticket to California. Then he left for Washington, D.C. This slap in the face snapped something in Annie, just the way something had snapped in the two Mrs. Browns. Annie traded in her ticket to California for one to Washington, D.C

Annie arrived in town on Saturday, 8 December, 1906. As she expected, Arthur was registered again at the Raleigh Hotel (above). She registered as Mrs. A. Brown, and took the room next to Arthur's. Conning the maid into opening the connecting door, Annie searched Arthur's room until she found letters from Annie Kiskadden, which discussed marriage plans. No one should be surprised that after waiting for Arthur's return, Annie shot him with the gun he had given her for self defense.

What can you say about a man who keeps inspiring the women in his life to shoot at him? Once might be an accident,. twice might be an unlikely coincidence - but three times? And the last time, he supplied the gun!  When the hotel manager bent down over Arthur (above), he said only, “She shot me.” As if he was surprised. Indeed, she had.   Judging by the powder burns on his hands Arthur was reaching for the gun when Annie pulled the trigger. The recently Unitarian gigolo, or the Gentile Polygamist,  died six days later – 13 December, 1906. His obituary in the New York Times noted with faint praise, that Arthur had been “intensely loyal to his male friends.” As proof of his lack of moral character, Arthur's will renounced both of his sons by Annie. “I expressly provide that neither or any of them shall receive anything from my estate.” It almost makes you wish he had lived, so somebody could have shot him a fourth time.

The jury agreed. Annie had entered a plea of “temporary insanity” but almost on the first anniversary of the shooting, and after nine hours of deliberations, the jury instead found Annie simply not guilty. The misdirected Juliet walked out of the court room a free woman. 

Annie returned to Salt Lake City (above) and opened an antique store called “My Shop” And she made a success of it, running her own business, raising her sons on her own, until her death on `11 November, 1950 .

Thus the life of Arthur Brown, who never seemed to get any older than he was at the age of twelve. And don't we all know at least one like guy like that? 

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The Pixie Tramp in the Iron Mask

 

I have some shocking news for you. The man in the Iron Mask was not Leonardo DiCaprio. And anyway, he didn’t wear an iron mask. I mean, just think this thing through. Wearing an iron mask, all the time,  eventually you will drool in your sleep, and end up rusted shut.

It was a cloth  mask. And he was not the twin of King Louis XIV or any other Louie. Who he was seems to have been mixed up in what is called “The Affair of the Poisons” which is a morality tale of a cute little love-sick tramp with the affinity for “inheritance powders”, and her amoral boyfriend.

Throw in the King’s mistress for a little spice, and you have a recipe for what Alexis de Tocqueville called “L’Ancien Regime”, and what in modern terms we would call a soap opera of the rich and infamous. It leaves me wondering why the French waited so long to start chopping off heads.

We begin in 1659, with a little tramp named Marie Madeleine Margherite D’Aubray Brinvillers. We’ll call her Maire for short. I don’t think she’ll mind. Marie was a tiny pixie-doll of a woman with sparkling blue eyes who seems to have committed no major public sins until she was about thirty.

That was when her husband (above) introduced her to a handsome cavalryman named Godin de Sainte-Croix, to whom the husband owed a whole bunch of gambling debts. Hubby had to move out of the country to avoid his other creditors, but he left Marie behind,  as a sort of payment on account for Sainte-Croix. Marie didn’t seem to mind the arrangement, and neither did Sainte-Croix. Except, as much fun as Sainte-Croix had with little Marie, she wasn’t making him any richer. Where, oh, where was Sainte-Croix going to find enough money to live in the style to which he wanted to grow accustomed to?

Sainte-Croix then developed a multi-step plan. Step one was to encourage Marie to do some charity work. Step two was for Sainte-Croix to make the acquaintance of a man with a knowledge of chemistry, a man known only to history by the name of “Auguer”.

Now, in the days before CSI the only way to prove poisoning - as opposed to just an unhygienic cook - was to catch the suspect pouring poison on the food, or to get him or her to confess.

This is why torture was so popular for so long. It never failed. No matter whom you arrested, ten minutes with the prisoner's testicles caught in a vice, and you could get them to admit anything.

Of course, if your suspect was too connected to be tortured, the only alternative was to lock him up while you slowly collected evidence. That might take decades. And during that time witnesses could be bought off, killed off, or just die of natural causes. Politicians could retire. Investigators could get promoted, or fired, or die of old age. Or be poisoned. People dropped dead all the time in 17th century France. The staggering death toll made for the convoluted plots of some very popular French novels and plays.

So when poor people started dropping dead at the hospital where Marie had volunteered as a nurse, nobody took notice. They were poor people. In 17th century France the streets were littered with dead poor people. It was the perfect time and place for a serial killer, such as cute little Marie.

When Marie had perfected the formula she had gotten from Sainte-Croix, which she had by 1666, she had no compunction about slipping the poison into her father’s lunch. He died suddenly. And his little darling inherited a little money, which she and Saint-Croix burned through in four short years.

Then in 1670 Marie shed more tears when her two brothers suddenly dropped dead. Marie inherited a little more money. By now, all the heirs in the Brinvillers family were getting nervous. But still nobody suspected the little elf, the little pixie, Marie Brinvillers. She was too cute. Cute people can’t be serial murderers.

And just when the homicidal little pixie was about to knock off her own mother for yet another load of cash, Gordin Sainte-Croix, the greedy mastermind of the entire slaughter, unexpectedly fell ill and dropped dead himself. Mon Dieu! Cele semble suspecte?!

The cops were brought in. They uncovered a hand written confession by Sainte-Croix  Why do upper crust murderers always seem to feel the need to become authors?  And it seems Sainte- Croix even left a list of names of his satisfied customers, everyone he had directed to the mysterious chemist, Msr. Auger.

The list of lucky orphans included Madame de Montespan, who was Louis XIV’s mistress – which in pre-revolutionary France was almost a cabinet position - and the Duchesse of Orleans, Louis’s sister-in-law (above), and...Marie Brinville.  Marie panicked. The cops were not going to torture the King’s mistress, or his sister-in-law, but they would have no hesitation about putting a lower level nobility like cutie like Marie on the rack. She ran off to seek protection with her husband in exile. But she was now infamous and hubby decided it was better if he had nothing to do with her. So Marie signed herself into a convent in Liege, Belgium.

This placed the pious nuns running the convent in a moral bind. They were sworn to provide sanctuary to all who asked for it and who sought forgiveness by confessing their sins, but...on the other hand, once you know what a homicidal lunatic little Marie was, how do you solve a problem like Marie? How do you catch a serial killer and pin her down? How do you keep your convent running when you are short of money? The good sisters consulted scripture and their account books and after due deliberations decided to rat out their diminutive guest.

The nuns allowed a cop disguised as a priest to enter the convent, and while offering solace to the troubled little lady, he escorted Marie on a walk, right out the front gate and off church property, where she was immediately arrested.

It is not a happy ending for our little heroine. Marie was brought back to Paris in chains, tortured for a confession (i.e. waterboarded), tried in secret, and on 16 July, 1676 she was forced to drink eight pints of water (more waterboarding)… and then mercifully she was beheaded. And just to be sure, they burned her corpse. And that is how you solve a problem like Marie.

It looked like all hell was about to break loose in France. The cops now had Marie's confession and Sainte-Croix's list, both naming lots and lots of well known and well connected nobility. But just before the case broke wide open...Louis XIV (above) ordered all further investigations to be closed. And being the King, his orders were obeyed. He shut it all down. Can't imagine an American President behaving like that. Can you?  Nobody ever asked Madame Montespan or the Duchesse of Orleans how their names came to be on a list of people who had bought “inheritance powders”. Or if they had ever used them.

And shutting down the investigation also left unanswered another set of unpleasant questions: who was Msr. Auger, really? And what did he know? And more importantly, did he have any plans to write his biography or maybe a 'how to' book?  Was he the man in the Iron Mask? And what does any of this have to do with Leonardo DiCaprio?

Nothing: like I said, the “Man in the Iron Mask” was really the “Man in the cloth  Mask” and cloth  just sounds too fey for a novel plot. And in any case, the Auger was not the guy in the mask - I don't think. But if you are of a novel mind set you might ask yourself a few additional questions.

Like, why would the King of France keep someone locked up in one prison after another -for decades? Why not just kill him and get it over with? And what secret could be so big that the prisoner was required to wear a mask at all times in front of strangers? What secret could be kept secure by ordering a prisoner to never speak to anyone, not even with his jailers? Could such a convoluted plan even hope to work? James Bond villains have simpler plans than that.  If you ask me this story is mostly a fantasy invented by Alexander Dumas.  But was not the truth just as entertaining as the myth?  Not to Marie's relatives, of course, but it was for me. Was it good for you?

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