Trigger warning for a rather egregious sexual assault joke.
Ah, Francis, Lord Rawdon. The through-line of the entire Omegaverse History of the Revolution.
Why did we choose him? Mostly because he had experience across quite a few theaters of the War. Plus, he was a very verbose writer, and his letters are, for the most part, very entertaining to read. They’re often funny in a clever sort of way, sarcastic, and prone to emphasizing DramaTM. Despite clearly being a man of nobility in the 18th century, he often sounds a bit like a modern well-meaning-but-somewhat-oblivious edgelord.
For better and for worse, mind you, Rawdon seems to have had a flair for irreverent jokes, including commenting in a letter that he wished for Admiral Graves to be shot–something that probably wouldn’t have gone over well had the letter fallen into the wrong hands.
But he was a person, and like all people, he was far from perfect. Some of his flaws will be covered in depth here and in the novels.
Let’s work backwards.
The Ugly
We still bear a grudge against Rawdon for this, but it’s best to just address it upfront. In New York, Rawdon wrote the following “joke” to his uncle:
The fair nymphs of this isle are in wonderful tribulation, as the fresh meat that our men have got here has made them as riotous as satyrs. A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don’t bear them with the proper resignation, and of consequence we have most entertaining courts-martial every day.
The only thing that provides any relief here is that the evidence strongly indicates this was made up for a joke and thus not mocking real people’s pain, for whatever that’s worth (not much). Don Hagist delves deep into the idea of whether Rawdon was edgelording or reporting facts here.
Though, it is worth noting that sexual assault has accompanied every war throughout history and there’s no reason to think the Revolution was any different on either side. Still, we also deliberately took the above quote out of context. Here’s what immediately follows it:
To the southward, they behaved much better in these cases, and if I may judge from a women who, having been forced by seven of our men, made a complaint to me,’not of their usage,’ she said, but of their having taken an old prayer book for which she has an affection.
The part about the prayer book being far more of a priority than an assault is likely a jest about the Puritan-esque ethics of Americans (we’ll get into why further below).
A girl on this island made a complaint the other day to Lord Percy of her being deflowered, as she said, by some grenadiers. Lord Percy asked how she knew them to be grenadiers, as it happened in the dark. ‘Oh, God,’ she cried, ‘They could be nothing else, and if your Lordship will examine, I am sure you will find it so!’
As for the comment about grenadiers… well, grenadiers were, on average, quite tall? Basically Rawdon is making a dick joke like a frat boy who thinks he’s hilarious when he’s really just being, well, a dick. Sigh.
Returning to the prayer book as a means of mocking prudish Americans: directly after this paragraph, Rawdon describes a battle in which he describes the colonists’ religious fervor for singing hymns, joking that his grandmother (his uncle’s mother) would probably switch sides and join the colonists if she heard said fervor. You see, Rawdon’s grandmother was Selina Hastings, one of the chief founders of evangelicalism (also the patron of Phillis Wheatley’s poetry, actually). Methinks she would not have liked her grandson’s sense of humor.
All the English troops are encamped, or in cantonment, upon this island, as healthy and spirited a body of men as ever took the field. Several transports with Highlanders have been taken by the rebel privateers; the rest are all arrived, and are so enraged against the Yankees for some insults offered to their captive comrades that I think the first corps of psalm-singers who come in the way of their broad swords will be in a very awkward situation. Should my grandmother want any cherubins to adorn a new chapel, I dare say the Highlander would supply her with heads of the elect for that purpose at a cheap rate; but my grandmother will probably change sides when she hears that the Hessians sing hymns as loud as the Yankees, though it must be owned they have not the godly twang through the nose which distinguishes the faithful.
Apparently Selina Hastings also had strong opinions about just how to sing. Church ladies keep being church ladies.
The Bad
We mentioned Rawdon also had a propensity towards theatrical jokes. That extended to threats as well. Such as when he wrote his mother on Christmas Eve, 1780, to explain himself after a letter he’d written wound up in American hands. In this letter, he suggests his men behead deserters (to which the Americans promptly and understandably said “thanks for the free negative press” and spread word of how grotesque the British were):
You must expect to hear me talked of as a monster of cruelty: For the Rebels who have in this Country been guilty of the most atrocious barbarities, never fail to raise the most violent outcries when we punish the treachery of their partisans with the severity due to it. I esteem it highly dishonest to let the fear of vulgar obloquy intimidate one from the performance of what one knows to be one’s duty: Therefore, under any circumstances that require stepping beyond the line of precedent, I must always be very liable to incur misrepresentation. Washington, with a view of sowing dissention, sent to Sir H. Clinton a letter of mine which was intercepted by Gates; with a grievous complaint against it’s severity; It was a Lettre Fulminante, calculated to terrify our pretended friends in the Country, from enticing the troops to desert; & it will give a mighty pretty idea of my character, if it appears in a London news-paper.
Can only imagine his grandmother thought of these words from her grandson. The British Army wasn’t impressed either.
Presumably Rawdon’s conversation with his superiors when asked why he wrote about decapitating people:
Towards the end of the war, Rawdon also reportedly did a war crime: hanging Isaac Hayne. This will get its own post at some point, because there’s a lot of tragic context involved (namely, the Americans hanging Rawdon’s close friend Major John André, which also happened just before he wrote that letter about decapitations) and reflects the same condition that plagued pretty much every person who spent years in the war: a slow eroding of respect for human life even as the closest losses of loved ones never stopped bleeding.
Hayne’s hanging put a target on Rawdon’s back. American General Nathanael Greene even remarked that he would like to encounter no one more so than Rawdon (presumably, to hang him too). Rawdon fell seriously ill soon after and boarded a ship back to England. Unfortunately for Rawdon, that ship was captured. Fortunately for Rawdon, the capture was by the French instead of the Americans, and they reportedly declined the Americans’ request to turn Rawdon over.
After returning to England, Rawdon faced an inquiry over Hayne’s death and was justified legally, albeit not so much in the court of public opinion on both sides of the pond (yes, the British had a problem with Rawdon’s actions here too). It continued to plague him years afterwards. It was the reason why Rawdon challenged a member of the House of Lords to either apologize for publicly calling him a murderer or face a duel (the member apologized). It was also the subject of an exceedingly long letter Rawdon wrote American General Henry Lee three decades after the war, trying to explain why he’d done what he’d done… and indeed the letter becomes more or less Rawdon arguing that what he’d done was no different than what they did to Major André.
Later in life Rawdon went to India, where he was appointed Commander-in-Chief for a time. And this is where Mercy’s twin, who lived in India for years, gets angry with him for his role in India’s colonization and for some rather racist comments about Hindus.
For this he was deservedly satirized in William Combe’s mock epic The Grand Master; or, Adventures of Qui Hi? in Hindostan. Qui Hi is an attempt to say “is anyone there?” in Hindi, by the way. Basically he’s calling Rawdon an idiot. At the time, “qui hi” also was frequently used to summon a servant, so he’s insulting Rawdon in terms of thinking he’s great when in reality he’s a servant, too.
The Good
Rawdon had three elder sisters and two younger brothers. Both brothers followed him into the army, and Rawdon helped them both in their careers. He arranged for George, his youngest brother by around seven years, took over Rawdon’s captaincy of the 63rd Regiment of Foot when Rawdon resigned to join the Southern campaign. Rawdon was also immensely proud of their middle brother, John, writing “he is every thing I could wish him” and at another time, “his behaviour gives me infinite satisfaction: it is equally becoming the soldier and the gentleman.”
John and George would both survive the war, but John lost a leg in Pennsylvania. (Aside: John went on to have a daughter named Elizabeth, who was herself immensely well-educated and influential. Lord Byron, namesake of the Byronic Hero, wrote poetry about Elizabeth.)
Back to Francis Rawdon. He was incredibly loyal to those he cared about, to the point of routinely going into debt to bail out his friends and the men who worked under him.
During the war, he created the Volunteers of Ireland (many of whom were actually deserters from the Continental Army). He was immensely protective over them when the British in general didn’t have a super high opinion of these men. Rawdon went into debt again and again to provide for them, gave pardons when he perhaps should not have, and defended them to others (despite apparently dangling decapitations as a threat). Clinton even remarked that:
Rawdon is wedded to his Irish Volunteers. [He] thinks they are perfect. I am willing to acknowledge their merit and that of their officers on some occasions, but on others I have disapproved.
He reportedly quit working for General Clinton and joined the Southern Campaign under Cornwallis because he was not willing to abandon his Irishmen, and because of Clinton’s mercurial temperament. He would continue this advocacy for Irish rights later in life when he was in Parliament.
Rather importantly, Rawdon was also opposed to the slave trade and while in Parliament, voted to end it in 1806. When both sides were presenting arguments prior to the vote, Rawdon drew upon his grandmother’s religious roots and mic-dropped Jesus’ “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The vote passed, and Britain ended the slave trade before America did.
This uncle he wrote all those horrid jokes to was his maternal uncle Francis Hastings, who never married but did have an illegitimate son, Charles, with whom Rawdon was reportedly close. This would have been somewhat unusual for the time, as despite being two years younger than Charles, Rawdon was actually his uncle’s heir because legitimacy. Yet they were raised together and apparently stayed close, according to his official biographers, for the remainder of their lives.
Prior to the War, the uncle had taken Rawdon on the Grand Tour of Europe. Essentially the Grand Tour was the gap year spent backpacking around Europe for rich kids in the 18th century. (The more things change the more things stay the same.) When Hastings eventually died, in accordance with his uncle’s will, Rawdon adopted the man’s surname and became Francis Rawdon-Hastings.
He eventually married one Flora Campbell, who was 24 to his 49, but they appear to have actually had an affectionate relationship despite the age-gap. Rawdon reportedly rushed home when Flora fell dangerously ill after the birth to their first daughter (also named Flora), despite having other obligations. His descriptions in a letter certainly sound like he was very much worried about her:
“Lady Loudoun was so much reduced in strength from the violence of the fever that I had the most formidable apprehensions in case of a relapse.”
Fortunately, Flora recovered and they went on to have several more children, including another daughter named Selina (after the grandmother) and a first son who died at only a few months. Their above-mentioned daughter Flora singlehandedly almost destroyed Queen Victoria’s reign due to no fault of Flora’s own (Victoria made her own bed there), but that’ll get its own post eventually.
Rawdon was by all accounts a devoted father, perhaps unsurprisingly. He took his family with him to India and called them his “only comfort.” Flora and the children eventually had to return to England without Rawdon because their eldest surviving son, George Augustus, fell dangerously ill, and their leaving brought Rawdon into a period of depression. He wrote them many (lengthy) letters, and fortunately, he did reunite with his family after a few years.
Rawdon died at sea off the coast of Naples, while attempting to return to England for what he knew would be his death. He had written his son a letter telling him not to mourn the death of his “old companion” too much, but to instead remember his grandmother’s Christian faith and believe that they would someday meet again.
As he was dying, he asked his wife Flora to cut off his hand and bury it with her to hold hands even in death. She agreed and did so. Once an edgelord, always an edgelord.
Next week, we’ll continue to look at Rawdon, and specifically his life-defining “romantic friendship.”
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