London
Wedne Thursday
My dear Henry
I have got les diables bleus <1> to day, owing to the gloomy state of the atmosphere & the Nation. <2> Last night I was at Lady Aberdeen’s, <3> it was a good party but not so brilliant as before, many people having left town to look after their Penates. <4> Lord Carnarvon <5> says if they burn High Clere he shall only wish they had done so before he laid out the last 20 thousand upon it. He says People are beginning to find out that Country Houses are great bores, & only want an excuse for living always in London, and then quoth He what agreeable society we shall make!
Isabella <6> is better, but still very ill. This vile mixture of smoke & fog which we daily breathe keeps Kit <7> very hoarse & he looks ill, but what he wants is change of air, but cannot get away from the H. of Commons. He has heard that disturbances are beginning in Glamorgan which is very perverse as the poor are extremely well off owing to the cheapness of coals.
There is much romore [sic] among the Tories on account of the partial way in which the Calne Election has been disposed of in the Committee. I think it much better we should have the pheasants than the Poachers. I conclude even Paul relaxes in his pursuit of those in these times. Heaven avert that Cattes’s Guns <8> should be employed in defending the Premises but if they were he would prove a good marksman I have no doubt. That affair near Fordingbridge has never been detailed in the newspapers but 3 Gamekeepers of Mr Coote’s <9> were of the utmost use. He is son of Sir Eyre Coote & nephew to Lord Listowel
[I am] <10> in a proper rage with Mr Strong <11> for his neglect of Ela <12> I should not have imagined it because he seemed always to have so much respect for antiquities. Pray continue to write every day
London <13> December two 1830 C. R. M. Talbot
W. H. F. Talbot Esqe
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. The blue devils, meaning the blues.
2. This refers to the Swing Riots of 1830. By the end of December 1830 nearly two thousand people had been arrested and were awaiting trial, of which nineteen people were executed. [See Doc. No: 02083, and Doc. No: 02088].
3. Harriet Gordon, née Douglas, Lady Aberdeen (d. 1833).
4. Household gods.
5. Henry George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon (1772–1833).
6. Isabella Catherine Franklen, née Talbot (1804–1874).
7. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
8. See Doc. No: 02090.
9. Sir Eyre Coote (1762–1823). [See Doc. No: 02083].
10. Text obscured by seal.
11. Strong's identity has yet to be established. However, Awdry met Mr. Strong at Box [see Doc. No: 02006], the Wiltshire hamlet whose quarry originally provided Lacock Abbey with its stone. It is possible that Strong was there temporarily to select stone for the renovations at Lacock Abbey, but given the expansion of the area in the 19th c., perhaps Strong was resident there. The 1841 census for Box (the earliest one available) points to two possibilities. The first, James Strong (b. 1796), was a mason, but the Lacock mason, Charles Selman Banks (1805-1881) did most of the masonry at Lacock at this time. Thomas Strong (b. 1781) was a builder, and seems the more likely candidate.
12. Ela (d. 1261), Countess of Salisbury, who founded the abbey of Lacock in 1232. Careless masons working under Strong had damaged her tomb - see Doc. No: 02090.
13. Address panel in CRM Talbot’s hand.