Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

a year of its opening, he 'was so crouded with apprentices that took the Whitson holidays to
see the same shew', that an argument developed, during which, having been struck by one of
them in the face, the fiery Gerard 'drew his sword' and ran the apprentice through222. 'This
bred so great a tumult' that Gerard had to be 'hurry'd. ..away to the Counter' for his own
safety. Fortunate in his close connections with the King, Gerard was ordered released by royal
command on the same day. Despite the King's order for a strict enquiry into the matter by
the Lord Mayor and Recorder of London, no action regarding the hospital itself seems to have
been taken. Saville plainly regarded the young lord's conduct as quite justified 2". At other
popular resorts, like Vauxhall Gardens, genteel parties even hired pugilists and disguised them
as footmen, in order to protect themselves from such impertinencies224.
As the period progressed the elite increasingly distinguished between their own and popular
culture, condemned the conduct of the crowd with increasing passion, wherever it was encoun-
222 William Durrant Cooper (ed.), Saville Correspondence. Letter, to and from Henry Seville E,q., Envoy at
Paris, and V,ce-Chamberlain to Charles II and James II, (London, Camden Society, 1858), ltr xlvii from Henry
to Sir George Saville, dated 5 June 1677, 58. Gerard's visit was the day before.
223 This episode presents a graphic illustration of the interpretative problems posed by the fiction-factory
that has surrounded the history of Bethiem. Saville's is not the only existing account of Gerard's visit and is
only selected here because it appears to be the closest available testimony to the event, written by a generally
reliable contemporary, thoroughly in the know about city gossip; and seems to be the least sensational and most
authoritative of a number of variants. According to the Verneys, it is 'the drunken porter and his wife' who 'are
insolent to (Gerard]', and the porter who is 'run...into the groin' by Gerard's sword. This is probably apocryphal,
for there is no evidence whatsoever in the hospital'. minutes that Joseph Matthews (Porter 1663-87) sustained,
was treated for, or was incapacitated by, any injury. The Verneys rather melodramatically allege that 'the rabble
fall upon Lord Gerard and nearly pull him to pieces, thrust him into prison, and then break the windows to come
at him again', and that 'the Lord Mayor rescues him and shelters him in his house all night'. They also add
details concerning an assault upon the Countes, of Bath, who, when 'driving past "has her coach broke to bits
& her footman knocked down, being taken for Lord Gerard's Mother" '. (Compare the Countess of Manchester's
account of Lady Gerard's own assault, in 1679, when 'taken (in a chaire) to bee ye Dutthess of Portsmouth').
The Verney's dating of the incident to c24 Oct. 1683 i. clearly erroneous, as is that of Cokayne's The Corn p?eie
Peerage, which accepts the Verneys' version, but dates the event c1673/4. Elite 'sympathy' for 'the plucky
boy' no doubt misrepresents the affair, and although itself a measure of the virulence of class tensions, Gerard's
,uibequent violent history indicates that it was his short temper which was much to blame. Whatever the real
facts of the event, the riotous atmosphere of the Bethlem crowd is beyond doubt. See Lady Margaret Maria
Verney Memoir, of the Verney Family (London, The Woburn Press, 1971; 1st edn, 1892), 4 vol., vol iv, 230-31;
G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage (London, Catherine Press, 1932), 8 vols, ii, 328-30; DNB, & Edward
Maude Thompson (ed.), Correspondence of the Fam&ly of HaUon...1601-1 704 (London, Camden Society, 1878),
ltrs dated c1675, 18 & 23 May, & 2 July 1676, 11 Feb. 1679, 119-20, 126-8, 134-6 & 174-5.
224 See Warwidc Wroth and Arthur Edgar Wroth, The London Plea,.re Garden, of the Eighteenth Cent.ry
(abridged, Hamden, Archon Books, 1979; 1.t edn, 1896); James Granville Southworth, Va-grhall Gardens. A
Chapter in the Social History of England (New York, Columbia University Press, 1941), esp. chaps 5 & 6, &
Altide, Shows, 94-6 & passim. By the lime Richardson wrote his Famil,ar Letters, a guard was stationed 'at the
termination of every walk' at Vauxhall; 204.
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