Mercy Leroux

Despite Francis Rawdon’s portrayal in a certain young adult novel as a rake, and despite his truly offensive bawdy jokes, rumors of love affairs are generally absent from his life. In fact, in some of the American notes about the British occupation of Philadelphia, one lady wrote that Rawdon was too haughty and spurned any lady who expressed interest: “I well remember what we thought of the haughty looks of Lord Rawdon.” (This could have been because he wasn’t a huge fan of Americans.) Until he married Lady Flora Campbell at the age of 49, the relationship that’s most discussed when it comes to him is that of his relationship with the Prince of Wales.

With the Prince of Wales, the future George IV, he’s said to have had a “romantic friendship.” The prince even carried around a miniature of Rawdon.

Unfortunately for Rawdon, the miniature was about all the respect he got from George, who was widely and justifiably despised.

Indeed, Rawdon’s relationship with the Prince was enmeshed and ultimately disastrous. Rawdon dug into his pockets and went into deep debt to support his friend, who was a royal. Meanwhile George alienated almost everyone around him, including his own family and many members of Parliament, by behaving like an entitled jackass.

For the record, George was so abhorrent to his wife Caroline, including keeping their daughter from her and hiring people to try to find dirt on her in hopes that he could divorce her, that Jane Austen–yes, that Jane Austen–wrote that she had to support Caroline not for anything related to Caroline, but because “I hate her husband.” In a country where their history includes the serial-wife-murdering Henry VIII, the beheaded-for-treason Charles I, and the probably-child-nephews-murdering Richard III, George IV is actually, today, considered one of the worst and most loathed kings. Truly a feat.

Modern biographers rather universally share the sentiment of Rawdon and the Prince of Wales’ contemporaries: that George was using Rawdon, who was known to spend too generously on those he cared about. Rawdon received no gratitude from George, and his attempts to use his relationship with the prince to benefit his other friends never paid off: for example, he suggested to Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, that Percy’s son be received at court, and Percy promptly responded sure, but the invite never came.

The Prince of Wales even tried to get Rawdon appointed Prime Minister, knowing that Rawdon would advance his interests. This was not to be, mostly because the other politicians could see right through this scheme and refused to even entertain such tomfoolery. Even Cornwallis, Rawdon’s wartime commander, was appalled by the obvious skullduggery and commented that “an excess of vanity and self-importance must have extinguished every spark” of Rawdon’s self-awareness, “and I am sure there was a time when he had sense.” 

Rawdon was never to be prime minister, but he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of India. However, this was not an honor so much as an insult. He was older by then and had a family, and Georgie, then Regent, pretty much just wanted him out of his hair because Rawdon was deeply in debt and had other priorities besides George now and was thus of no further use. Of this, Lady Charlotte Bury, a lady-in-waiting to George’s estranged wife Caroline, wrote:

“I see many other reasons for the ruin of the country… Lord Moira is sent off to India; — I call it being sent off, for it is evident the Regent cannot bear to have him near his person. How few people, in any rank of life, have sufficient nobility of soul to love those to whom they stand indebted! Would you lose a friend, oblige him — not in the minor circumstances of life; but let the obligation be vast, and it crushes friendship to death. Lord Moira has accepted this honourable banishment, because he cannot help himself, and is ruined. But who ruined him? He lent uncounted sums of money in former years, of which no note whatever was taken, and of which he never will see one farthing in return. Yet no one pities or feels for this man. Why? — because he is of nobler stuff than the common herd. Vanity and ambition were his only flaws, if flaws they be; but his attachment, or rather devotion; to the Regent was sincere, chivalric; and of a romantic kind, such as the world neither believes in nor understands; it was a kind of affection which amounted even to a passion of the mind, and, like all passions, led him into one or two acts beneath the ‘chevalier sans peur et sans reproche‘” [a knight without fear and without reproach].

The notion of “romantic friendships” seems rather anathema to us now. It does not necessarily mean “romantic” as we would define romantic (i.e. between two men as gay). Yet, while it’s true that in past centuries people of the same gender were generally freer with their emotional closeness, it’s also true that people of the same gender during those centuries were a lot less free to consider whether said closeness was romantic in nature in how modern people understand romance.

It’s very much impossible to apply modern understandings of sexuality and romantic attraction to the past. Likely not all so-called “romantic” friendships could be considered queer by today’s standards, and likely not all of them couldn’t be. Still, it is a fair question to ask, even as we accept the impossibility of a clear answer.

For Rawdon in particular, besides his bawdy jokes, there’s absolutely no reports that we know of concerning any potential actual romantic or sexual relationships with anyone other than his wife, Lady Flora. Which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, of course, but there’s no direct evidence for his feelings or orientation besides that he does appear to have loved his wife, and we cannot know for certain. However, I firmly do not believe it is disrespectful to ask.

Next week we’ll discuss a famously queer individual whom Rawdon, despite having no other known ties to this person, commissioned a portrait of.