Frederick Wolseley

“ He was also able to quote Wolseley's statement to a Royal Commission, that "if a hostile force of, say, 100,000 men were to land upon our shores, there is no reason whatever, if that 100,000 were properly led, why they should not take possession of London.... We are not in the position we ought to be in, nor do I believe we are in the position we should be in if the English people were told the whole truth." ”

“ Mr Philip Walcheren was quite a different sort of character from his cousin. Married, and the father of a family, a staunch Catholic, steady and prosperous in his business as a solicitor, he was almost a pattern man, and Frederick’s goings-on were a marvel and a misery to him. He and his director, Father Tasker, were constantly talking over the other man, and wondering by what means they could dissuade him from his follies, and induce him to lead a more sober [Pg 49] life. But, as yet, their exhortations and entreaties had been of no avail. ”

“ He was a great refiner of sensual pleasures, had a passion for magnificence and display, and a real genius for court entertainments. He could eat and drink with the gayest courtiers, sing merry songs, and join in the dance. He was blunt and frank in his manners; but these only concealed craft and cunning. "It is art to conceal art," and Wolsey was a master of all the tricks of dissimulation. He rose rapidly after he had once gained the heart of the king. He became successively dean of York, papal legate, cardinal, bishop of Lincoln, archbishop of York, and lord chancellor. ”

“ For the present there is nothing for you to do, save perhaps to ascertain from the natives what is the present whereabouts of the Ashantis. When Sir Garnet Wolseley arrives he will no doubt have work for you. You look thin and pale. Take a rest, my boy. A white man cannot work for so long out here in the forest without feeling the effects of the climate.”
But Dick Stapleton was young and inclined at times to be foolhardy. He had the objection to remaining still common to every lad of his age. ”

“ The ascent of Wolsey was now rapid. From the very commencement of his career at Court no man had been able to stand before him. Bishop Fox had first recommended his introduction into the Privy Council because growing old himself, he perceived that the Earl of Surrey, afterwards conqueror of Flodden, and Duke of Norfolk, was winning higher favour with the king than the ancient bishop; because his martial tastes and more courtly character were more attractive to Henry. Wolsey soon showed himself so successful that he not only cast Surrey, but his own patron, into the shade. ”

“ There can be no doubt as to the "constant manual labour" mentioned by Lord Wolseley. The men arrived in a deplorable plight, many of them without either boots or trousers. A more ragged set of soldiers never arrived at the seat of war. According to one account there was literally not a sound garment in the whole column, and the men resembled Falstaff's ragged regiment rather than a body of British troops. ”

“ Throughout his life he was strongly opposed to looting, which he regarded as immoral and injurious to discipline, and on the first occasion when he had authority, at the capture of Kumassi (1874) , he insisted on King Koffee's treasure being regularly valued and systematically sold. The close of the China campaign, at the end of which he was awarded a substantive majority, marks the end of the first period of Wolseley's career. ”

“ They turned, however, as savage as wolves, and fought a bloody battle with their enemies, who were ten times their number; but the valour of Frederick was a host in itself, and he ever cheered on his men with enthusiastic shouts of liberty. Although his numbers were so great, the captain of the guard began to doubt the issue of the fight; and to put more spirit in his men, promised them each a piece of gold if they were conquerors. This did much, but Frederick and his fellows fought till every man lay stretched amongst the grass; most of them hacked to death, and but a few wounded. ”

“ While he was instructor at Sandhurst a prize of £100 was offered by the second Duke of Wellington for an essay upon the mode in which the British army could under modern conditions best meet a continental army in the open field. Nearly forty officers, including Wolseley, who was then a colonel, entered for the prize, and it was a great feather in Maurice's cap that, though only a subaltern, he should have carried off the prize with an essay which was at once recognized, by no one so cordially as by Wolseley himself, to be a really remarkable work. ”

“ The officer whom we. are now about to present to the reader’s notice, is a son of the late Robert Wolseley, Esq. (great grandson of Robert, who was created a Baronet Nov. 28, 1628; and great uncle of the present possessor of the title) , by Miss Warren, of Kilkenny in the kingdom of Ireland. He obtained the rank of Post-Captain Sept. 14, 1782 [1] , on which occasion he was appointed to the Alarm frigate; and soon after the commencement of the war with France, 1793, we find him commanding the Lowestoffe of 32 guns, under the orders of Lord Hood, on the Mediterranean station. ”

“ Lord Wolseley considers books and horses among the greatest comforts a man can have. He has every work written on the life or times of the great Duke of Marlborough—a man whom he considers far greater than Wellington. The early hours of the day—for Lord Wolseley is down at six every morning—find him at work adding something to the history of the Duke which he is writing. ”

“ Early in 1799 he was appointed to the 74-gun ship Terrible, one of the Channel fleet under Lord Bridport, and in 1800 under Lord St. Vincent. In December 1800 he was moved into the St. George, but on that ship being selected as the flagship of Lord Nelson, in February 1801, Wolseley was transferred to the San Josef, which was paid off on the signing of the peace of Amiens. He afterwards had command of the sea fencibles of the Shannon district till his promotion to the rank of rear-admiral on 23 April 1804. ”

“ The masked man ignored the impertinence.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“My cards are in my purse. Take one.”
The highwayman sprang into his car, the engine of which had hissed and whispered in gentle accompaniment to the interview. With a clash he threw back his side-brake, flung in his gears, twirled the wheel hard round, and cleared the motionless Wolseley. A minute later he was gliding swiftly, with all his lights’ gleaming, some half-mile southward on the road, while Mr. ”

“ I can see."
"What you can't see means a lot more than what you can. I've been in the same room when Hurley worked his gun once. It wasn't any killin', but it was the prettiest bit of cheatin' I ever seen. But even if Hurley wasn't enough, what about Carl Diaz?"
He glared his triumph at Pierre, but the latter was too puzzled to quail, and too stirred by the pale, gloomy face of Cochrane to turn toward the other.
"What of Diaz?"
"Look here, boy. You're a kid, all right, but you ain't that young. D'you mean to say that you ain't heard of Carlos Diaz?" ”

“ Both Catholics and Protestants may do many things which appear intolerant to [Pg 45] outsiders, and yet act in the most perfect faith and desire to serve God. This was how Philip Walcheren and Father Tasker acted with regard to Frederick. They wanted to help him save his soul—they thought they saw a way of doing it—and they brought all their arguments to bear upon that way.
And Frederick was as tinder in their hands. His whole mind was absorbed with the idea that his sins had, in a measure, brought this awful calamity upon him, and that the loss of Jenny was due to himself alone. ”

“ Every day men died of disease, or were killed or wounded. On 31st August 1855, Gordon wrote that "Captain Wolseley (90th Regiment) , an assistant engineer, has been wounded by a stone." In spite of stones and shells, Captain Wolseley fought many brave fights, and years afterwards became Lord Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, a gallant soldier and a brilliant leader of men. ”

“ Their eyes met, hers very wide, and his keen and steady. The she gripped at the butt of her gun, an habitual trick when she was very angry, and cried: "Do I have to sit here and let you call me—that? Pierre, pull a few more tricks like that and I'll call for a new deal. Get me?"
She rose, whirled, and threw herself sullenly on her bunk.
"Come back," said Pierre. "You're more scared than angry. Why are you afraid, Jack?"
"It's a lie—I'm not afraid!"
"Let me see that glove again." ”

“ Such was Wolsey at this moment; such he continued for a decade of remarkable years. His eye was constantly traversing Europe. In every court and country he had his secret, as well as his avowed, agents. The most hidden movements were quickly revealed to him, and all his machinery was instantly in motion to promote or counteract. In the pursuance of his objects he shamefully abused the confidence of his royal patron, and sacrificed the honour and the interests of the country, and of Europe, in the indulgence of his passions, and the prosecution of his private interests. ”

“ Whilst the great looked on all this grandeur in obsequious but resentful silence, the people settled it in their own minds that the wonderful power of the priest over the fiery nature of the monarch was the effect of sorcery. But Wolsey was no mean or ordinary man. His talents and his consummate address were what influenced the king, who was proud of the magnificence which was at once his creation and his representative; and Wolsey had a grasp, an expanse, and an elevation in his ambition, which had something sublime in them. ”

“ But his desire of personal distinction caused him many mortifications. 'If I call myself a strategist, I ought to behave as such,' he had remarked some years before; and in that spirit, as soon as Wolseley arrived at Alexandria, Hamley submitted a plan of operations based on a landing in Aboukir Bay. In spite of objections made to it at the time, he was led to believe that it was going to be acted upon when Wolseley put to sea with the first division on the 19th. ”

“ As the inn-keeper went on with his story of how one and another had been arrested and tortured, Sir Miles reflected with bitterness that his late master, the Cardinal, whose memory he revered, had first planted this seed. Wolsey had never ceased to teach other men, and, to the last, inculcate in his own acts, the doctrine that men only held their property at the will of the king, and that if he chose to recall it, he had a perfect right to do so. ”

“ After a long time, Red Wolf said, “White women like squaws. Never take one that has brain. Make trouble. Fool woman makes best wife.”
“Don’t dally with any of ’em, is my motto,” grunted Fred. “I hope she dies, the Jizebel. Hughie, let ’em all go to the devil. You come back to your work.”
“Yes, Fred,” replied Hugh slowly, “I’ve come back.”
This was all the reference made to Hugh’s trouble during his stay. The next morning the outfit was on its way soon after sun-up and a day later made camp at the foot of the low mesa on whose top rested the remains of Jimmie’s dinosaur. ”

“ Wolsey bound together the living and the dead, and with a swing of his powerful arms he flung them on his horse's back, securing them there with so many turns of rope that nothing could displace them. ”

“ He always kept his eye on Scotland, and now used the first signs of returning friendliness on the part of France to further his scheme of restoring English influence in that country. In June the Duke of Albany was recalled to France, and Wolsey set to work to win back Queen Margaret to her brother's cause. He seems to have despaired of blandishments, and contrived a way to have a more powerful weapon. Margaret's husband, the Earl of Angus, had been sent by Albany to France, where he was carefully guarded. ”

“ In at least one of his telegrams, Wolseley has expressed a very keen desire to get the British army out of the Soudan.326 He has now made very large demands for the autumn expedition, which, judging from previous experience and from general likelihood, are almost certain to grow larger, as he comes more closely to confront the very formidable task before him; while in his letter to Lord Hartington he describes this affair to be the greatest “since 1815,” and expresses his hope that all the members of the cabinet clearly understand this to be the case. ”

“ There is no sadder commentary upon American slavery than the life of Frederick Douglass. He put it under his feet and stood erect in the majesty of his intellect; but how many intellects as brilliant and as powerful as his it stamped upon and crushed, no mortal can tell until the secrets of its terrible despotism are fully revealed. Thanks to the conquering might of American freemen, such sad beginnings of such illustrious lives as that of Frederick Douglass are no longer possible ”

“ You will meet no one, unless it be the people of the house. You may take my word for that! Just put yourself in my hands and I will manage everything for us both.’
Frederick was only too thankful to be relieved of all responsibility, for he was utterly worn-out with grief, and incapable of thinking or acting for himself, so he clung to the arm of his cousin, who hurried him into the carriage and off to the railway station before he hardly knew where they were going. ”

“ Hugh obediently swung out of the saddle and stood with eyes on the afterglow while the Indian led Fossil to the rear of the wagon.
“Come inside, Hughie!” called Fred. “I’ll have grub in no time.”
“I’ll wait here, Fred. Don’t let me be a trouble. I’m just tired. Glad to get back to you fellows.”
“That’s good. You stay out here. Stars heap good for tired head,” said Red Wolf.
They left him alone then until supper was ready, though Red Wolf, seemingly engrossed in supplying Fred with fuel for the hungry little stove, did not permit the prowling figure to escape his vision for a moment. ”