South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 797
Current title: "Robert Haldane of Gleneagles (1705-67)"
Location: Private Collection
Captain Robert Haldane of the East India Company was the youngest son of John Haldane, MP, and his second wife Helen Erskine. Similar to "Portrait of Lord Richard Cavendish" (No. 6), the coastal rocks and ocean spray in the background suggest his travel by sea.
Gleneagles Castle, in Scotland, belonged to the Haldanes since the sixteenth century. In 1759, Captain Haldane also bought the lands of the Airthrey estate in Stirlingshire. Later in the century, the Haldanes sculpted this large estate into fashionable grounds, complete with man-made loch. In 1791, Robert Haldane (1764-1842), theological writer and evangelical patron, commissioned eminent architect Robert Adam to design a suitable new family home—which became Airthrey Castle.
In 1797, however, the Haldane family radically altered the course of their lives and put Airthrey up for sale, intending with the proceeds to mount a Christian mission to Benares, India. When the East India Company directorate objected and the scheme foundered, the family focused their evangelical philanthropy upon the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home, which trained young ministers in Scotland.
Jane Austen was familiar with the evangelical movement. On 26 August 1813, she donated 10s. 6d. towards the formation of a District Committee in Hampshire of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle of 13 September 1813, reported that Mrs. Austen donated a guinea, while both "Miss [Cassandra] Austen" and "Miss Jane Austen" contributed 10s. 6d.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Haldane, Robert (1764-1842), theological writer and evangelical patron," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004; online edn, 2007).
Jocelyn Harris, "Jane Austen and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," Persuasions 34 (2012).
Brian Southam, Jane Austen and the Navy (Hambledon and London, 2000).
Michael Wheeler, "Religion," in Jane Austen in Context, ed. Janet Todd (Cambridge UP, 2005), 406-414.
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 2179
Current title: "Venus chiding Cupid for Learning to Cast Accompts"
Location: Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight
The numbers on Cupid's scroll, Mannings explains, may have comically corresponded to Reynolds' owning pricing strategy.
The entry in the 1813 Catalogue is unusually lengthy: "Venus chiding Cupid; painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds for Sir Brook Boothby, in 1776, and purchased of him by Sir Thomas Bernard in 1794." This awkward mini-provenance is out of keeping with the rest of the catalogue entries and suggests that the curators acquiesced to a special request from the owner to explain how the painting was acquired.
Was Sir Thomas Bernard, who had a reputation as a staunch defender of the Sabbath and a strong opponent of lewd entertainments, perhaps slightly embarrassed by the nudity in his own painting? The Catalogue explains how the picture transferred from baronet-poet to baronet-philanthropist, justifying Bernard's ownership through Boothby's original aesthetic choice.
Although this painting bears no direct relationship to the previous, both belonged to philanthropic families (see notes at No. 86). Bernard similarly supported a great variety of charitable Christian initiatives: friendly societies for the betterment of the poor, schools of industry, Sunday societies, medical charities, penny clubs, and vaccination schemes.
For other images of Venus or her son Cupid in the show, see No. 29, No. 51, No. 75, and No. 77.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Bernard, Sir Thomas, second baronet (1750-1818), philanthropist," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
Entry for "Boothby, Sir Brooke, seventh baronet (1744-1824), poet and writer," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004; online edn, 2010).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 2131
Current title: "Old Man's Head"
Location: Private Collection
This model appears in several of Reynolds' paintings. An 1877 catalog gives some idea of the original color of this painting, for which we could locate only a black and white photo: "dense and long masses of yellowish white hair and beard." Considered a mere study, this was likely painted by Reynolds to demonstrate an aspect of technique to a pupil.
Although Austen herself died at the young age of 41, her father reached the age of 74, her sister 72, while her mother—who gave birth to 8 children—celebrated an 88th birthday. Austen's fictional characters often privilege the perspective of youth, exaggerating the onset of old age in their elders. Harriet Smith judges the recently married Mr. Weston as "almost an old man" because he "must be between forty and fifty." Marianne Dashwood is even more severe: "I know very well that Colonel Brandon is not old enough to make his friends yet apprehensive of losing him in the course of nature. He may live twenty years longer. But thirty-five has nothing to do with matrimony."
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1508
Current title: "Mrs. Rainsford"
Location: Untraced
In Mannings, this picture from the 1813 exhibit (the only recorded public showing) remains "untraced." He is unable to offer any illustration. He does, however, confirm that Reynolds had three appointments with a "Mrs Raynsford" in 1784 and that the Thomond sale described this painting as "in a hat and white feather."
The engraving shown on the left is held by the British Museum, where it is catalogued as bearing an ink inscription "Mrs. Rainsforth, wife of Genl Rainsforth." Allowing for spelling variation, this may well be a print of the untraced portrait—especially since it also matches the description in the Thomond sale.
The engraving shows the sitter in a pose and costume generally associated with a still different portrait by Reynolds, namely that of the famous actress Mary Robinson (Mannings # 1529 and not in the 1813 show). That well-known portrait, modeled in turn upon the work of Rubens, was painted in 1782, two years before Mrs. Rainsforth sat for Reynolds. It was not at all unusual for women to pose for their own portraits in imitation of an iconic actress or celebrity.
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 2035
Current title: "A Child Asleep"
Location: Earl of Aylesford, Packington Hall
Mannings describes the colors in the original canvas: "a study of a sleeping child, with white, crimson and mauve draperies." The official engraving of this painting reversed its composition.
This is one of four paintings of sleeping children in the show (see No. 4 "Sleeping girl," No. 17 "Children in the wood," and No. 141 "A child asleep"), not counting the sleeping god in "Cupid and Psyche" (No. 51).
Even sleep itself may have been experienced differently in Reynolds' time. Historian A. Roger Ekirch argues that prior to the Industrial Revolution and the era of electric lights, segmented sleep was the dominant form of slumber. This has given rise to thinking of natural human sleep as more like the shorter segments associated with the napping patterns of very young children.
Further Reading:
A. Roger Ekirch, At Day's Close: Night In Times Past (2005).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 3
Current title: "Sir Joshua Reynolds, PRA (1723-92)"
Location: Private Collection
It is thought that Reynolds painted this self-portrait while visiting Rome in the early 1750s, making this a portrait of the artist at, roughly, age thirty. The hat and shadows around the face invoke the style of Rembrandt.
Mannings tentatively mentions a further Reynolds self-portrait owned in 1813 by the Marchioness of Thomond (namely Mannings # 9) as yet another possible candidate for the canvas exhibited in the British Institution show as No. 91. That alternative is not pictured here.
There are three self-portraits of Reynolds in the 1813 exhibit (see also No. 71 and No. 76).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 859
Current title: "George Augustus Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira and 1st Marquess of Hastings (1754-1826)"
Location: The Royal Collection
The uniform is reflective of the rank of colonel and aide-de-camp to George III, which Moira held from 1782 to 1793. Mannings points out that this is one of the last portraits Reynolds ever painted with a sitter in front of him since, as Reynolds observes in his own Pocket Book, his eye "began to be obscured."
Born Francis Rawdon Hastings, Moira was the eldest son of John Hastings, first Earl of Moira and his third wife Elizabeth, daughter of the ninth Earl of Huntingdon. He was both a soldier and statesman, cultivating a close acquaintance with the Duke of York (opposite at No. 123) and the Prince of Wales (to the right at No. 95). In public life, Moira was a great supporter of the Prince of Wales.
As early as 1788, Moira had championed the Prince of Wales' sole regency bid, for which he was rebuked by the Lord Chancellor as deserting the government. Moira was persistent and even objected to the Queen's sole control of the royal household. "This conduct attached him for life to the prince" (ODNB). Moira also befriended the younger royal princes, defending their interests in parliament. In May 1789, Moira was the Duke of York's second in a duel with the Duke of Richmond's nephew.
As Regent, the prince relied upon the Earl of Moira in complex negotiations with the opposition. In 1812, their relationship came under strain over differences of opinion about Ireland. They patched things up before Moira, appointed Governor-General of Bengal, left for India in April of 1813—just prior to the Reynolds retrospective.
In the physical placement of Moira's portrait, positioned to the left of the Prince of Wales so that the two uniformed men might appear to look at one another, the 1813 curators apparently took their political friendship into account, stressing the recent reconciliation.
Extravagant and generous, Moira habitually outspent his income and, bit by bit, lost his Irish lands and estates. Utterly insolvent by 1813, he sold his London residence before the move to India.
Portraits were exchanged as marks of friendship. The Duke of York is listed in the catalogue as the owner of this portrait, which remains in the Royal Collection.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Hastings, Francis Rawdon, first marquess of Hastings and second earl of Moira (1754-1826), army officer and politician," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004; online edn, 2008).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 352
Current title: "Nathaniel Chauncey (1717-90)"
Location: Untraced
The son of Charles Chauncey and Martha Brown of New Buckenham, Chauncey was an antiquarian, collector, and virtuoso. He married Mary Justice, with whom he had two daughters, Charlotte Maria and Amelia.
When this painting was originally exhibited in 1784, it was copied in pencil by artist Edward Burney, nephew to music historian Charles Burney (No. 118) and cousin to novelist Frances Burney.
Further Reading:
Entry for his brother "Chauncey, Charles (1709-1777), physician and antiquary," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1670
Current title: "Lord Henry Spencer and Lady Charlotte" or "The Young Fortune-Teller"
Location: Huntington Art Gallery
This portrait depicts the younger children of the fourth Duke of Marlborough. Both children are costumed in the manner of Van Dyck. As in the "Portrait of Master John Crewe" (at No. 74), the historical dress highlights their innocence and adds to the painting's humor and sense of make-believe. Mannings quotes a 1775 newspaper description: "Two historical portraits of a nobleman and his sister; the latter seems to be in the character of a young gipsy, telling the former his fortune; the archness of the one and the simplicity of the other are admirably expressed and happily contrasted."
Lord Henry John and Lady Charlotte were the younger children of George Spencer, fourth Duke of Marlborough, and his wife Caroline. At age twenty, Lord Henry (1770-1795) became secretary to Lord Auckland, then ambassador at The Hague, and so impressed his superiors that he was promoted as minister-plenipotentiary to the Netherlands in 1793. Lord Henry died abroad, of a fever in Berlin, at age twenty-five. Lady Charlotte (1769-1802) married Reverend Edward Nares, the librarian at Blenheim and later a professor at Oxford. She died in January 1802 in the city of Bath—where the Austens then resided.
Lady Charlotte Spencer, aunt to the children in this picture, hangs nearby at No. 97.
Further Reading:
Entry for father "Spencer, George, fourth duke of Marlborough (1739-1817)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 719
Current title: "George IV (1762-1830)"
Location: Lord Lloyd Webber
This royal portrait was reproduced as a colored stipple engraving in 1793, which is the image shown in the e-gallery. This portrait is described by Mannings as one of Reynolds' "most richly Baroque pictures." The wildly flowing mane and tail of the horse accentuate the romance of the young prince's own windblown hairstyle. There is even a touch of the exotic in the leopard-skin of the shabraque that drapes over his horse.
By 1813, however, the Prince Regent had grown fat, lampooned in the press as a rotund and aging rake. As befits the Regent's ruling status, however, this painting is the largest included in the show.
George, Prince of Wales, was the eldest son of George III and Queen Charlotte's fifteen children. He would not be crowned George IV until 1820 but became Regent in 1811, due to his father's illness. While he was intelligent and well educated, he took to extravagant living despite his parents' philosophy of domestic simplicity, accruing massive debts furnishing and remodeling his mansion Carlton House (see notes at No. 43 and No. 48). He entertained a succession of mistresses (see also No. 14, "Portrait of Lady Melbourne") and ran with a fast set that included many high-flying Whig politicians.
In 1785, he had illegally married Maria Fitzherbert, a twenty-eight-year-old Roman Catholic widow with whom he claimed to be passionately in love. In 1795, to alleviate his debts and allay public disapproval, he agreed to marry his cousin Caroline of Brunswick. The marriage was fraught with discord that became the subject of public talk, particularly after the Prince accused his wife of infidelity and restricted her access to their daughter, Princess Charlotte.
By 1813 most of the public sympathized with Caroline, including Jane Austen, who wrote of her in a letter to Marta Lloyd on 16 February 1813: "Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband."
Further Reading:
Entry for "George IV (1762-1830)" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 2092
Current title: "Infant Academy" or "Children"
Location: Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House
Reynolds completed this painting after his return from Flanders in 1781. The flesh tones and color palette pay homage to the Flemish School. The playful subject also borrows from the Rococo and, Mannings suggests, specifically resembles Carle Van Loo's Allegory of Painting.
The scene shows a cherubic infant patiently modeling an age-inappropriate feathered cap while being painted by a classmate. The comic scene seems to nod at the short-lived fashions and bonnet fads that painters like Reynolds were often asked to include in their portraits.
This painting is part of a cluster of images of children (see also No. 94 and No. 98) that surround the large portrait of the Prince Regent. This may be a deliberate curatorial strategy to mitigate the prince's reputation for lewdness and expensive frivolity with a veritable halo of innocents at play.
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1665
Current title: "Lady Charles Spencer (1743-1812)"
Location: Private Collection
In 1762, Mary Beauclerk, daughter of Lord Vere, married Lord Charles Spencer, second son of the third Duke of Marlborough, who was heavily involved in politics as a Lord of the Admiralty under Lord North and part of the Fox-North coalition.
Unusual for a portrait of a woman, Mary is painted with her horse. She wears a striking, red, riding habit cut in the manner of a man's frock coat—with a waistcoat fastened in the masculine way from left to right. While the costume, which includes a long skirt, stops well short of androgyny, the portrait's unconventional masculine flair conveys a woman with a daring sense of style and forceful personality.
The placement of this canvas on the same wall as the portraits of two men in similarly-styled red riding jackets (one of them is the Prince Regent, also with a horse), contributes to the boldness of Lady Charles Spencer's portrait.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Spencer, Charles, third Duke of Marlborough (1706-1758)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
Antje Blank, "Dress," in Jane Austen in Context, ed. Janet Todd (Cambridge UP, 2005), 334-251.
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1081
Current title: "Peniston (1770-1805), William (1779-1848) and Frederick James Lamb (1782-1853)"
Location: Trustees of the Firle Estate Settlement
According to historian Aileen Ribeiro, the sitters wear the three types of costumes worn at different stages of childhood by boys between the 1780s and 1830s: Peniston in a black silk suit, William in a tan "skeleton suit," and baby Frederick in a frock (just like a girl's). The skeleton suit was then a relatively new phase between the frock of babyhood and a boy's first breaches. These "carefully dressed," happy and confident children of the rich are a stark contrast to the beggar children of Reynolds' fancy pictures (see, for example, No. 5).
These are the children of socialite Lady Melbourne, whose own portrait (with Peniston as an infant) hangs in the North Room at No. 14. Lady Melbourne was so close a friend of the Prince Regent's that she was rumored to have borne him at least one son (see notes at No. 14). Since either or both of the younger boys pictured here was thought to have been fathered by the Regent, the curatorial choice to hang this picture besides that of the prince is provocative, to say the least.
Royal connections helped the younger boys to prosper. After early scrapes as a member of the Whig party, William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne, became Prime Minister in 1834. Frederick James Lamb, Baron Beauvale and third Viscount Melbourne, was a diplomat who set a conservative foreign policy and often warned his brother William, as Home Secretary and Prime Minister, about Whig radicals. Despite political tensions and long stretches of separation, William and Frederick remained close; little is know about their eldest brother Peniston Lamb.
Further Reading:
Entries for "Lamb, William, second Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)," and "Lamb, Frederick James, Baron Beauvale and third Viscount Melbourne (1782-1853)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
Antje Blank, "Dress," in Jane Austen in Context, ed. Janet Todd (Cambridge UP, 2005), 334-251.
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1711
Current title: "Laurence Sterne (1713-68)"
Location: National Portrait Gallery, London
Laurence Sterne was the second of seven children of Roger Sterne, an army ensign stationed in Ireland, and Agnes Nuttall. In 1737, he entered the church, received a degree from Cambridge, and for the next twenty-two years dedicated himself to his rural parish in Sutton of the Forest, 8 miles north of York.
Although Sterne published the first volumes of Tristram Shandy anonymously, knowledge of his authorship leaked, allowing him to enjoy wide-reaching fame in the final years of his life. Critics found Sterne's work as a devoted clergyman in a rural parish surprising in view of the sexual innuendo and bawdy comedy of his fiction.
In Mansfield Park, Maria Bertram quotes a well-known passage from Sterne's novel Sentimental Journey, just as she is about to dangerously bypass the locked gate of Mr. Rushworth's ha-ha with the rakish Henry Crawford.
This portrait by Reynolds circulated widely as an individual print and was also adapted as a frontispiece for a number of reprintings of Sterne's works.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768), writer and Church of England clergyman," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004; online edn, 2010).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1544b
Current title: "George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron (1719-92)"
Location: Unlocated; version at Petworth House, Sussex
Rodney, second son of Harry Rodney and Mary Newton, was a naval officer and politician. His early career began as Captain of the Plymouth in 1743 and included action in the Seven Years' War. He married Jane Compton in 1753 and then, after her death in 1757, Henrietta Clies. He was named Admiral of the White and first Baron Rodney in 1782, after he famously defeated the French off Domenica.
The sitter is dressed in the uniform of Rear-Admiral, a position which Rodney held in 1759, just as he turned 40. This likely dates the painting's composition to just after that early promotion. The engraving on the left, dated 1762, identifies him as "Rear-Admiral of the Blue, and Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Ships." The painting shown on the left is a later version—as even Mannings cannot locate the original. The face in this version is not a perfect match for the one shown in the engraving.
This is the smaller of two portraits of Lord Rodney in the 1813 exhibit; his whole-length portrait hangs just adjacent at No. 106. The curatorial decision to place the two portraits, painted 30 years apart, so near one another, allows the viewer to see Rodney age before their eyes (see notes at No. 106).
Further Reading:
Entry for "Rodney, George Bridges, first Baron Rodney (bap. 1718, d. 1792)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
Brian Southam, Jane Austen and the Navy (Hambledon and London, 2000).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1614
Current title: "Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1754-92)"
Location: Waddesdon Manor, National Trust
Elizabeth Ann Sheridan was a renowned singer and great beauty. She was the eldest daughter of Bath musician Thomas Linley, who is known to have exploited his children's talents. Elizabeth began her performing career as a mere child, reaching the height of her fame in 1773. David Garrick affectionately referred to her as "the Saint" while novelist Frances Burney praised both her voice and beauty as exceptional.
After her rich, elderly fiancée Walter Long abruptly resigned their engagement in 1771, Elizabeth ran away to France, apparently intending to enter a convent. She was escorted abroad by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who persuaded her to marry him instead, citing the appearance of impropriety.
The marriage eventually fell apart when Sheridan flaunted his dalliances with other women. Around 1790, Elizabeth began an affair of her own with handsome Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-98), a radical nobleman with whom she had a daughter, Mary, just before her death. Her dying wish was that Sheridan should legally recognize Mary as his own. These circumstances make the loan of this portrait from Sheridan (listed as owner in the 1813 Catalogue) all the more poignant.
When Frances Burney saw this picture in Reynolds' studio in 1775, she approved of the choice to depict Elizabeth as St. Cecilia and observed "My Father is to supply Sir Joshua with some Greek music to place before her" (quoted in Mannings).
Reynolds is said to have again used Elizabeth Sheridan as a model in the image of "Charity" for the New College window designs (see notes at No. 66).
Further Reading:
Entry for "Linley [Sheridan], Elizabeth Ann (1754-1792), singer and writer," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004; online edn. 2009).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1904
Current title: "Princess Sophia Matilda of Glouchester (1773-1844)"
Location: The Royal Collection
Sophia Matilda was the only surviving daughter of William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Maria Walpole. Her mother's portrait hangs at No. 60 (see the notes there for the story of the mother's forced separation from her royal children). She never married.
The portrait of her brother, Prince William Frederick, hangs at No. 78. According to the Catalogue, brother and sister each lent the other's portrait to the British Institution for the 1813 show.
Further Reading:
Entry for her father, "William Henry, Prince, first Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1743-1805)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 29
Current title: "Mrs. Abington (c. 1737-1815)"
Location: Yale Center for British Art
The sitter is painted as Miss Prue in Congreve's Love for Love, a famous comic part that Abington played as early as 1769. The vulgar pose, which shows Abington leaning on the back of a chair with her thumb in her mouth, is meant to reflect the coy flirtations of Congreve's country ingénue.
In this context, even the lapdog adds to the sexual innuendo of Abington's character portrait as Miss Prue. By hanging this canvas so near the portrait of the Princess Sophia (No. 102)—where a royal infant is innocently paired with a similar toy breed—the curators of the 1813 show neatly dampen the risqué symbolism in the Abington portrait.
Born Frances Barton, the actress grew up in the slums of Drury Lane. As a child, she sold flowers and sang in Convent Garden, earning the nickname "Nosegay Fan." Her first stage performance was in 1755, when she played the role of Miranda in The Busy Body. In 1759, she married James Abington, one of the king's trumpeters and her music master, with whom she spent five years in Ireland. Upon her return, she rejoined the Drury Lane company and established herself as "one of the leading comedy actresses of her generation."
Further Reading:
Entry for "Abington, Frances (1737-1815), actress," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford UP, 2004.
Sally B. Palmer, "Slipping the Leash: Lady Bertram's Lapdog," Persuasions On-Line 25.1 (2004).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 1874
Current title: "Samuel Whitbread II (1764-1815)"
Location: Private Collection
Samuel II was the son of Samuel Whitbread, brewer and politician, and Harriet Hayton. His father's portrait hangs directly opposite this picture, on the South Room's western wall (No. 115).
After returning from his European grand tour in 1788, he married Elizabeth Grey, daughter of the first Earl Grey, and became a member of the Whig Club in 1793. Like his father, he argued for the abolition of the slave trade. He also advocated, alongside his brother-in-law Charles Grey, for religious tolerance, taking a leading role in the Society of the Friends of the People.
In 1806, when the Foxites came to power, Whitbread was passed over for a political position, marking the turning point of his career. His family's history in trade and the brewing business may have added to his feelings of inadequacy and quibbles with aristocrats such as Fox and Grey.
In the wake of his political disappointment, Whitbread embarked upon "a course of erratic extremism," officially parting company with the Whigs in 1812. By the time of the 1813 retrospective, Whitbread had "established himself as the most frequent and powerful speaker on the opposition side" (ODNB). In other words, when Whitbread loans his own child portrait and that of his brewer father to the British Institution, he was a political outcast. He would commit suicide in 1815.
Further Reading:
Entry for "Whitbread, Samuel (1764-1815), politician," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004).
South Room.—East Side.
Mannings # 945
Current title: "Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825)"
Location: Private Collection
Frederick Howard was the youngest and only surviving son of Henry Howard, fourth Earl of Carlisle, and his second wife Isabella Byron. In 1770, he married sixteen-year-old Lady Margaret Caroline Leveson-Gower (1753-1824), who provided her husband with key political connections.
Through early indulgences in grandeur and impulsivity, Howard developed the reputation of a proud and irritable rake. He accumulated enormous debts until, just as he turned 30, he abandoned his extravagant lifestyle and committed himself in earnest to politics. He was appointed Treasurer of the Household in 1777 and, in 1778, named the head of a peace mission to America to negotiate with the colonists. Although that mission was not a great success, in 1780 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant for Ireland. He joined Fox in opposition to Pitt's ministry and took a prominent stand against the government during the regency crisis of 1788-9.
He also dabbled in writing for and about the theater. Literary prominence for the Earl of Carlisle, however, did not come from his own pen. In 1799 he became the guardian of the eleven-year-old Lord Byron, who dedicated many of his works to him.
Mannings describes the nineteen-year old in this portrait as wearing "a dark green satin doublet with small gold buttons." In our image, the color is closer to blue.
Further Reading:
Entry "Howard, Frederick, fifth earl of Carlisle (1748-1825)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004)