William Wickham, Master Spy

The Secret War Against the French Revolution

Michael Durey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317313984
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A biography of William Wickham (1761-1840), Britain's master spy on the Continent for more than five years during the French Revolutionary wars. It follows Wickham's career to narrate the rise and fall of his secret service community.

1 Entering the Maze

Family and Schooling

The imperative demands of secrecy that constituted a notable feature of William Wickham's extraordinary public-service career - hiding in the shadows, destroying compromising documents, using the duplicitous phrases of the diplomat or the cryptic words of the spy - seemingly extended into his private life. Despite the survival of a huge archive of correspondence relating to his public life, almost nothing is left to throw light on Wickham's early years. In the 1860s even his grandson, as editor of Wickham's Continental correspondence, was bemused by the complete absence of personal letters addressed to Wickham before the age of thirty-three, that is, before the time Wickham first travelled to the Continent as a secret agent under diplomatic cover. It is possible that these early papers may have been lost by mischance, either by their being entrusted to someone who subsequently mislaid them, or by an accident of war in Europe (if he took them with him).¹ Such an explanation, however, is weakened by the fact that Wickham also appears to have kept very little personal correspondence dated between 1794 and 1804. At some point, probably during his long retirement, Wickham must have systematically purged his pre-retirement archive of almost everything remotely personal, either to keep it separate from his public work, in which case it has mostly disappeared, or with the intention of destroying it.

Such drastic action as burning one's papers is by no means unknown among the prominent, even in Wickham's own age. John Horne Tooke, the celebrated radical and probable traitor, burnt his papers before his death in 1812.² Cyril Jackson, the Dean of Christ Church, who was the friend and confidant of so many public figures, including Wickham himself, instructed in his will that all his papers should be destroyed.³ Tooke's purpose was clearly to ensure no compromising documents remained and Jackson's, too, no doubt was to eradicate all evidence of the many confidences he had received, both political and personal.⁴ No such justifications, however, can explain Wickham's mysterious decision to obliterate much evidence of his personal life, yet to catalogue most, if not all, of his public correspondence, in which the truly secret remained available for examination. It was as if Wickham had decided to erase his private self entirely, leaving only the husk of his public life for the probings of posterity

The loss of these papers left Wickham's grandson with almost no private materials from which to work. He could state little more than that his grandfather had been born in October 1761 on the family estate of Cottingley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.⁵ The registers of Winchester College, however, add the further information that Wickham was baptized on 11 November 1761 in the parish church at Bingley.⁶ In the absence of family recollections or memories of his eponymous subject, William Wickham petit-fits disguised the biographical gaps by focusing on his subject's account of the eventful early life of his father, Henry (1731-1804). But here a thin patina of dissimulation is apparent, spread by Wickham's filial and loyal recollections. Descended from a long line of clergymen, Henry Wickham was, according to his son, an adventurous, obstinate young man, determined on a military rather than a clerical life. During the '45 he absconded from school, lied about his age and enlisted in a marching regiment. Brought back home by his father, he was sent to Germany to finish his education, but enlisted as a common soldier in a Swiss regiment then in the pay of Piedmont. Two years later, he was recognized by a former schoolfellow while on guard at the gates of Alexandria. Acknowledging defeat, in 1751 Henry's father purchased a commission for him as ensign in the First Regiment of Foot Guards.⁷ There, Henry's physical prowess and 'manly beauty' made a strong impression, not least on George III, who was overheard to say that he 'was the handsomest man in his three regiments of guards'.⁸

Henry stayed in the Guards until, in 1768 or 1769, a few months after promotion to Captain (equivalent to Lieutenant-Colonel in a line regiment), he sold out, becoming a country gentleman and Justice of the Peace in Cottingley. He retired with his wife Elizabeth, née Lamplugh, the daughter of a Yorkshire clergyman, whom he had married on 16 February 1761.⁹ They were to have seven children: three sons, William (the eldest), Henry, who died in infancy, and Lamplugh; and four daughters, one of whom died in infancy and one in 1800.¹⁰ The others, Anne and Harriet, were to remain unmarried and thus, following their father's death in 1804, were to be a financial burden on, if also a source of familial support for, their brother William.

The daughters' marital fate suggests the inability to compile dowries, yet the economic circumstances of the Wickham family ought to have been extremely comfortable. Henry came from a long line of wealthy clergymen; Elizabeth's mother was the daughter of Sir William Dobson, lord mayor of York and bank owner. They lived in Cottingley Hall, an old Yorkshire-stone manor house given, on his marriage, to Henry by his father-in-law, Revd William Lamplugh, and which the Wickhams extended in the 1770s.¹¹ Financially, the Wickhams were at first very well-off; the sale of Henry's commission would have raised at least £3,500 and his income from rents and investments brought in 'full £3000 a year' in the early 1770s.¹² This would have been enough to place the family comfortably in the top 500 gentry families on annual income.¹³ Unfortunately, however, Henry's adventurous streak extended into his business dealings. Using money borrowed on personal credit to build up his landed estates, he soon fell into difficulties. His socially competitive nature, no doubt heightened by his life in the exclusive Guards regiment, also drained his patrimony. In a deleted section of a draft set of notes written in 1830, William Wickham alluded to his father 'living in very high society in London and vying with county neighbours'. Financial difficulties began during the American War, but the real crisis came in 1793, at the same time as Wickham sought employment with the government. "I need not add', he wrote, 'that I went poor into the publick service'.¹⁴

None of this was known to Henry's eldest son and heir when in his twelfth year he was sent to Winchester College. Again, Wickhams grandson could not discover this basic piece of information from the family papers.¹⁵ At first glance, Winchester may appear to have been an obvious choice, for it was founded by Wickhams namesake in the late fourteenth century and kinship would have given him priority of claim on a scholarship. In fact, however, Wickhams family was not founder's kin, although his line did descend from yet another William Wickham (c. 1539-95), who had become Bishop of Winchester.¹⁶

It is easy, from the lofty heights of educational excellence achieved in the early twenty-first century, to criticize the public schools of two hundred years ago. Winchester certainly would not have met with the approval of a modern inspector of schools. To be elected a Winchester scholar required little evidence of academic merit: success in translating a simple Latin sentence into English; and, in conformity with school statutes, the ability to 'sing', that is, to show evidence of proficiency in plain chant by reciting the first line of the hymn, 'All people that on earth do dwell'.¹⁷ Pupils lived a Spartan existence, aimed at toughening both body and spirit. The seventy scholars lived together in seven rooms, separated from the commoners, sleeping in sixteenth-century beds with oak boards for springs. They rose at 5.30 a.m., washed in cold water drawn from a conduit in the courtyard and attended morning chapel at 6.30. Lessons began at 7.30; breakfast - bread and butter, a request for cheese having been rejected in 1766 - was at 10.00. For four days a week lunch included the boiled remains of Sunday's roast beef. Dinner was always roasted or boiled mutton and potatoes; the boys shared a sheep and a half per day, no more, no less. Juniors cut the meat with their own penknives and ate off infrequently-cleaned square wooden platters.

Yet life at Winchester had its compensations. An enlightened recognition of the value of exercise and outdoor life ensured that daily opportunities were given to pupils to wander in the surrounding meadows or to play, in more organized fashion, on St Catherine's Hill. Whether this was appreciated by the young Wickham is moot, for his views on his school life remain unknown. Two factors, however, suggest that he was unhappy at Winchester. First, there is no evidence that he forged, and retained, friendships while at school. Wickham certainly had the capacity for making lasting friendships; his circle of companions at university was large and he was to keep in close and familiar contact with more than half a dozen fellow undergraduates throughout their lives. Second, Wickham did not stay at Winchester throughout his school days; in 1776 he transferred to Harrow school. Why he did so can only be conjectured. Possibly it was owing to the onset of his father's financial difficulties, possibly to the frequency of bullying at Winchester, which reached its height in the 1770s and 1780s. His move probably had nothing to do with his future choice of college at Oxford, for although Winchester was closely associated with New College rather than Christ Church, the latter's main feeder school was Westminster, not Harrow.

Christ Church, Oxford: The Making of a Whig

A few months before Wickham went up to Oxford, he injured his knee in a fall; as a consequence, he was permanently, if partially, disabled. It appears, from his later description of the injury, that he damaged either a cartilage or, more likely, a cruciate ligament, the remedy for which was 'quite out of the reach of medicine or of art", The result was that

it remains quiet and permits the full use of my limb until by any slight hurt I injure the knee so as to produce swelling or inflammation, in which case nothing does me any good, as nothing would prevent the evil from becoming excessive but rest proportioned to the degree of swelling or inflammation that exists.¹⁸

The complaint was to have a marked impact on Wickham's career at various crucial points, for it made hard travelling, especially in badly-sprung coaches on poor roads, particularly hazardous. As Wickham, in emergencies, often had to travel long distances, both in Europe and to and from Ireland, a recurrence of the injury usually coincided with periods of greatest stress.

The injury did not prevent Wickham from taking his place as a seventeen-year-old commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, in January 1779.¹⁹ "The House', as Christ Church was known, was the wealthiest, the most popular and the most socially prestigious of the Oxford colleges in the late eighteenth century.²⁰ Founded as a combined college and cathedral, it was governed by the dean and chapter, rather than, as other colleges, by a master and fellows. The primary aims of the foundation were to supply educated clergymen to the established Church and to offer a classical curriculum suitable for the training of the sons of the governing class.²¹

At the time of Wickham's matriculation Christ Church was undergoing educational reforms, which included the replacement of the traditional large classes with smaller tutorial groups; the encouragement of elite students - noblemen and gentlemen commoners - to study more seriously; and the promotion of Collections, the college's own examination system. Pushing these reforms through was a succession of capable deans, William Markham, Lewis Bagot and Cyril Jackson. Under their guidance of Christ Church, wrote Edward Gibbon, 'learning has been made a duty, a pleasure, and even a fashion'.²²

Bagot was dean while Wickham was an undergraduate, but it was the remarkable Jackson (1746-1819) who was to have the greatest influence on his subsequent career. Himself a graduate of Christ Church, where he gained the reputation as 'a great beau', in 1771 Jackson, through the influence of his mentor, William Markham, had been appointed sub-preceptor (assistant tutor) to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York.²³ Despite being dismissed in 1776, he retained the approval and confidence of the royal family throughout his life. In 1779 he was created a canon of his old college and in 1783, following Bagot's elevation to the bishopric of Norwich, Jackson became Dean of "The House' with the unassailable patronage of both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Portland, then Prime Minister in the short-lived 'Fox-North coalition'²⁴ He set about selecting as many of his undergraduates as possible on merit.²⁵

Dean Jackson possessed an invaluable quality in a teacher: the ability to inspire privileged young men to take their studies seriously and to prepare for a life of public duty. He also had a genius for retaining the lifelong friendship of a remarkable number of talented students who passed through the college from the 1770s: William Wyndham Grenville (later Lord Grenville), Charles Abbot (the future Baron Colchester), John King, George Canning, Robert Peel and Wickham himself, among others. Devoting himself to the education and advancement of talented young men was perhaps Jackson's way of remaining youthful in mind and spirit, for Wickham, long in retirement himself, informed Grenville in 1818 that Jackson had once told him that he had always worked on the principle 'almost necessary to happiness, in the decline of age', of forming successful friendships 'among younger and younger men'.²⁶

Repeated reference to 'our friend the Dean' in the private correspondence of government members and officials in the 1790s reflects the continued influence of Jackson on his former students.²⁷ Not that he sought preferment for himself or seriously endeavoured to modify government policy, even in the area of ecclesiastical appointments.²⁸ Rather, Jackson took a benign interest in promoting the careers of his erstwhile students, happily acting as either a sympathetic sounding-board or a discreet go-between, a trusted but relatively innocuous spider in the centre of a Christ Church web of social and political connections. If, as the most recent historian of 'The House' claims, there was a freemasonry of Christ Church men in public lif...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction
• 1 Entering the Maze
• 2 Defending the Constitution, 1792-4
• 3 'Save France, Monsieur, and Immortalize England': The First Great Plan, 1795
• 4 'Exaggerated Dimensions and an Unnatural Appearance': Plotting Regime Change in France, 1796-7
• 5 The Green Great Game, January 1798-June 1799
• 6 'Going Full Gallop, with our Swords Drawn': Wickham's Second European Mission, 1799-1801
• 7 'When Great Men Fall Out': Ireland, 1802-4
• 8 Out in the Cold, 1804-40
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index