Longman first edition - 1817
This is the second of Miss Jane Porter's 'blockbuster' novels I have read. At least this time it is a mere four-decker, as opposed to her five-decker, and more famous, The Scottish Chiefs, published in 1810 (see my Blog of 30th September 2023). As with her previous book, I found parts of the narrative slightly hard-going, occasionally bewildered by yet more (foreign-sounding) characters, but almost in awe of Miss Porter's depth of research and knowledge of the European rivalries and histories of the early 18th century. Given its title, I really though the story would be based in Britain again, in this case the coast of Northumberland, with a touch of Jacobite scheming ahead. For much of Volume I, this is what occurred. We are introduced, in quick succession to the venerable pastor of Lindisfarne, Mr. Richard Atherstone, his dear niece, Mrs Coningsby and her two daughters Cornelia and Alice. It is 1726, and two travellers have arrived from the continent. They are the Marquis Santa Cruz (a Roman Catholic in the severist sense of the term) and his son, Ferdinand. They had arrived from Holland at Berwick that morning, delivering a package entrusted to them by the Grand Pensionary Hensius.
Mr Atherstone fills them in on his links to Holland and informs them of Mrs Coningsby's nephew, Louis de Montemar - son of her late elder sister and Don Juan de Montemar, Duke de Ripperda. Although the Coningsbys and the Pastor are to play a part in the ensuing tale, and Santa Cruz and his son to reappear in the final volume (not before Ferdinand and Alice have fallen madly in love with each other!), the two mainsprings of the novel are Ripperda and Louis. The latter is presently at Bamborough [sic] Castle, the homestead of the Atherstones and now under the ownership of Sir Anthony Athelstone the Pastor's nephew. Sir Anthony is a bit of a rake and the Lindisfarne group are worried he will infect young Louis. Particularly, as they learn an absolute bounder is also staying there. This man, contemporaries says was modelled on the mad, bad and dangerous to know Lord Byron, is the Duke of Wharton. He is the third man who is to play a major, and usually malignant, role in the development of the story. He is well-known for being a Jacobite. He also captures the intense admiration of Louis. So, all was set - I thought - for this Northumbrian tale.
However, the hero, Louis de Montelmar, leaves England on page 276 of Volume I - after one of the various 'purple passages' the authoress was prone to (shades of G.P.R. James!): "Majestic England!" said he, as he turned towards them [the embattled cliffs of Northumberland];"How do thy lofty rocks declare thy noble nature! There liberty has stationed her throne; there, virtue builds her altar; and there peace has planted her groves!" He does not return until Chapter XVI and page 295 of Volume IV - he drew nearer to the coast where he had imbibed the first aliments of all that was greatly emulous in his mind; where his heart had first known the glows of dear domestic tenderness; where, in short, he first knew a home. Although we hear of the Northumbrian clique, usually through letters, they are firmly in the background for the majority of the novel.
Instead, the action takes place in Austria, Spain and, even, Morocco/Gibraltar. And convoluted it is, too. Louis travels, by his long-absent father's command, to Vienna. He is given a letter, telling him to obey 'a stranger', whom he must revere and obey that person in word and deed'. The stranger, when met, is almost too prepossessing: a future tyrant rather than a guardian? Louis is subjected to almost tyrannical labour, writing and transcribing for this Sieur Ignatius, seemingly an unbending Jesuit. After Ignatius is stabbed, Louis is ordered to take over the former's involvement with the Empress Elizabeth of Austria. Their plot is to draw Austria and Spain together by the marriage of Maria Theresa, the Empress' daughter, to the King of Spain's son, Don Carlos. Louis also meets the woman who nearly caused his total downfall: who had bloom of youth, and splendour of beauty. It transpires she is the young widowed Countess Altheim. Jane Porter brilliantly captures the scheming side of this woman who, hearing that Louis is far more important (and probably wealthier) than the mere secretary he seems, tries to ensnare him in a marriage. The politics of the Austrian court, and subsequently that of Madrid, is painstakingly and skilfully described by the author. Ignatius turns out to be Ripperda himself who, after being eminently successful for a while in tying the Austro-Spanish knot. falls like Icarus and is imprisoned but escapes to the Barbary coast to wage war against his erstwhile Spanish employers. All this takes up well over two volumes and, every so often, is quite hard to follow. Suffice it to say, Ripperda finally dies of wounds after attacking the Spanish north African outpost of Ceuta; Louis meets up with his father on his death-bed; Wharton, after being mainly responsible for Ripperda's downfall, has a last-minute conversion after falling to rogues whilst engaging in Jacobite treason back in England, and wins the hand of Cornelia; Ferdinand marries Alice, but so does Louis wed Marcella, the Duke of Santa Cruz's daughter and Ferdinand's sister! All's well that ends well at the Pastor's Fire-side.
The purple passages do jar rather, particularly when compared with the author's excellent rendering of battle scenes, court intrigue and life-like dialogue. here are two examples:
The high and abrupt outline cut the horizon between sea and sky, like a superb citadel of mountains, guarding its rich Hesperian vales. When he saw the golden clouds rolling from the sides of those stupendous natural bulwarks, as the descending car of day plunged into the refulgent main, he thought of his father's setting sun; of the last beams gilding the country he love; of the fair country, opening before himself, as he had anticipated, luminous in glory, like the unfolding gates of paradise!
and:
his carriage turned into a cleft of the hills, overhung with every species of umbrageous trees; and out of whose verdant sides innumerable rills poured themselves over the refreshened earth, from the urns of sculptured nymphs and river-gods reposing in the shade.
And now a large FOOTNOTE!
I realised that the author had done her research on the entangled political and dynastic relationship between Spain and Austria (and France) and that the Pastor and his immediate brood were likely to be fictional. However, I had not twigged, until well into the volumes, that Ripperda and Wharton were real people.
Baron de Ripperda
Juan Guillermo, Baron de Ripperda, 1st Duke of Ripperda (1684-1737) was a political adventurer who served as de facto prime minister of Spain from December 1725 to April 1726 as favourite of Philip V. There are elements of fact in Jane Porter's story of her Ripperda. However, he only escaped from Spain in 1728 and made his way to Holland. It is said that he reverted to Protestantism, and then went to Morocco, where he became a Muslim and commanded the Moors on an unsuccessful attack on Ceuta. This story, however, is found in his wholly unreliable Memoirs! He did go to Morocca and died at Tetuan in 1737. So Jane Porter is only a decade out in her 'facts'! Moreover, he certainly didn't have a son called Louis who married a Spanish girl.
1st Duke of Wharton
Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton (1698-1731) was an English peer and Jacobite politician who played a major role in the politics of early Georgian England, so much so that he has a considerable piece to himself in Wikipedia! He got hugely into debt and when his wife died in 1726, he married again. By this time his behaviour was getting increasingly offensive and neither the Georgian government nor Jacobite leaders trusted him. At the reception for his wedding to Henrietta O'Neill, he drunkenly exposed himself to the wedding party (and bride) to show her "what she was to have that night in her Gutts". I wonder if Miss Jane Porter knew that, or even the fictional Cornelia?!
It is somewhat strange that Jane Porter's tale is packed with thoroughly researched material about the European political scene, yet falsifies so much of two of the main characters' lives.
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