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Document number: 02090
Date: Wed 01 Dec 1830
Postmark: 2 Dec 1830
Recipient:
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA(H)30-10
Last updated: 5th June 2010

Lacock
Wednesday 1st December

My dear Mother

Methuen <1> called today: he is in high glee, at having dispersed an assemblage at Christian Malford by the mere force of his eloquence, one of the mob <2> having interrupted his harangue, What! he exclaimed, will you suffer such a fellow as that, to snatch out of my hands the Olive Branch of Peace! . . . . which highsounding words had such an effect on the multitude that they actually took the disturber into custody – Methuen patrols Corsham every evening, & at 11 o’clock supper is laid for forty in his hall so that the whole neighbourhood has become anxious to enlist themselves as “his men.” Bowles, he says, has decamped … could stand it no longer … I wonder whether that is true, for he is very fond of having a fling at Bowles. The masons here have done some mischief to the tomb of Ela; <3> I was very angry with them for not covering it as before with sawdust and planks; had I had the least idea they were going to work in that part of the cloisters, I would have written work about it long ago.

The Poachers <4> from Chippenham come in such gangs that Cattle<5> can’t resist them. The other day they gave his two assistants a beating – The magistrates are too much occupied this winter to try poachers, even if arrested; – I have directed Cattle to kill a great many Pheasants, preferring to have them myself, to letting the Poachers have them: particularly as I expect no shooting party this winter – I sent you 2 and a woodcock yesterday – Wright sent the plate off by the waggon this evening: he booked it, & you will have it on Saturday morning.

Your affte Son
Henry Talbot

Ask my sisters <6> to write and amuse me.

Lady E. Feilding
31 Sackville St
London


Notes:

1. Paul Methuen, Baron Methuen (1779–1849), MP.

2. This refers to the ‘Swing Riots’ due to the signature of a mythical Captain Swing which appeared at the bottom of a number of threatening letters written at the time and were prompted by a decline in the prices of agricultural produce and wages. Hundred of rioters destroyed new threshing machines, which they felt were taking away their winter work and they put pressure on the church to reduce the amount in tithes it took from the farmers. [See Doc. No: 02083, and Doc. No: 02088].

3. Ela (d. 1261), Countess of Salisbury, who founded the abbey of Lacock in 1232.

4. See Doc. No: 01781.

5. Charles Cattle. [See Doc. No: 01588].

6. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.