The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
his assessment of her character, seem both authentic and fair. His enthusiasm for her looks and personality were generally shared (even by his old Indian acquaintance, the Hon. Emily Eden); there is ample evidence of her promiscuity, her optimistic cheerfulness, her sudden furious rages, and her tendency to physical violence—the men she horsewhipped included a Berlin policeman, the boots of a Munich hotel, and the editor of the Ballarat Times, Australia. But none of her contemporaries has left such an intimate portrait of her as Flashman has, or come closer to explaining the magnetism she exerted. And in spite of his conduct towards her, he obviously respected her deeply.
| 1. | The Minor St James Club may have been new to Flashman in 1842, but it was notorious to fashionable London. Its proprietor, a Mr Bond, was successfully sued in that year by a disgruntled punter who received £3500 in respect of his losses. (See L. J. Ludovici’s The Itch for Play.) |
| 2. | Mr Wilson’s performances were a great success all over England, especially with exiled Scots like Mrs Flashman. His repertoire included “A Nicht wi’ Burns”, and a lecture on the ’45 Rebellion, as well as popular songs. He died during a tour of the United States. |
| 3. | Horse-drawn omnibuses had been running in London since Flashman was a small boy; possibly he is referring to a new service. Their conductors, or “cads”, had a reputation for violence and obscenity which lingers in the word to this day. |
| 4. | Raiding of gambling-hells was common after the Police Act of 1839, which permitted forced entry. Flashman’s observations on the proprietors’ precautions and their right to sue the police are accurate. (See Ludovici.) |
| 5. | Hughes’ passing reference to Speedicut certainly brackets him with Flashman, and can therefore be taken to be highly uncomplimentary. Flashman shows him in a new light, which prompts the thought that Speedicut may have been one (or both) of the anonymous companions in “Tom Brown” who spared the fags in the blanket-tossing episode and was later in favour of only partially roasting Tom before the fire. |
| 6. | The “barbed wire” comparison must have occurred to Flashman at some later date; it was not in common use before the 1870’s. |
| 7. | Nick Ward claimed the championship of England after beating Deaf James Burke in September, 1840, and Ben Caunt in February, 1841. He lost a return bout with Caunt three months later. |
| 8. | The second Marquis of Conyngham was among the victims fleeced at Mr Bond’s Minor Club; he lost at least £500 on two occasions in 1842. |
| 9. | Flashman’s description of Bismarck evokes a different picture from the popular impression of the Iron Chancellor, but it tallies with those details of his early life which biographers seldom dwell on at length. Bismarck’s taste for playful violence, his boorish conduct in public places, his whoring, carousing, and riotous behaviour (the habit of firing a pistol into the ceiling to announce his arrival to friends, for example), and his 25 duels in his first term at Göttingen, all testify to a nature not invariably statesmanlike. He appears, in fact, to have been an unpleasant young man, brilliant beyond his years but given to cynicism and arrogance. He was as tall, strong, and handsome as Flashman remembers him, with blond-red hair and aristocratic bearing. |
| As to his presence in London in 1842, he did indeed travel extensively in Britain that year, and was rebuked for whistling in the streets of Leith on a Sunday. He is said to have liked the British; his affection encompassed at least one beautiful English girl, Laura Russell, with whom he had been infatuated some years earlier, but who had broken their engagement to marry an older man. Possibly this prejudiced him in later life. | |
| 10. | Peel’s introduction in 1842 of an income tax of 7d in the pound on all incomes above £150 was regarded as iniquitous. Lord Brougham argued (with what effect we all know) that “such a tax ought on no account to form a part of the ordinary revenue … but should cease with the necessity which alone could justify its imposition”. |
| 11. | Bismarck was accounted something of a wit, and like most wits he seems to have had a habit of repeating himself. His remark that a gift for languages was a fine talent for a head-waiter is also recorded in Prince von Bülow’s “Memoirs”, where it is suggested that Bismarck was in the habit of using it on linguistically-gifted young diplomats. |
| 12. | John Gully, M.P. (1783–1863) was one of the most popular and respected champions of the bare-knuckle ring. The son of a Bath butcher, he conducted his father’s business so unsuccessfully that he was imprisoned for debt, but while in the King’s Bench in 1805 he was visited by an acquaintance, Henry “Game Chicken” Pearce, then champion of England. In a friendly spar with the champion in the jail, Gully was so impressive that sporting patrons paid his debts, and he met Pearce for the title at Hailsham, Sussex, a fortnight before Trafalgar. Before a huge crowd which included Beau Brummel and the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), Pearce narrowly beat Gully over 64 rounds; it has since been suggested that Gully outfought the champion, but was reluctant to knock out his benefactor. This seems unlikely. However, Gully won the title two years later with decisive victories over Bob Gregson, “the Lancashire Giant”, and then retired, aged only 24. He made a fortune on the turf, where he owned several Classic winners, and by investments in coal and land. He was M.P. for Pontefract from 1832 to 1837, was twice married, and had 24 children. |
| Flashman’s portrait of Gully accords with other contemporary accounts of the gentle, quiet six-footer who, when roused, was one of the most savage and scientific fighters of boxing’s golden age. “At heart,” says Nat Fleischer, “his ambition was to belong to the gentry. He had little use for the professional ring and its shady followers.” Fleischer is probably right when he suggests that, but for chance, Gully would never have become a pugilist at all. | |
| 13. |
Flashman’s reference to a horse called “Running Reins” is most interesting. In May, 1844, a year and a half after the party at Perceval’s place, the Derby was won by a horse entered as “Running Rein”; it proved, upon inquiry, to be a four-year-old named Maccabeus, and was disqualified, but not before the scandal had developed into a court case (Wood v. Peel) and become the talk of the sporting world. The principal villain in the case, Abraham Levi Goodman, fled the country; the horse Maccabeus disappeared. But there certainly was a genuine Running Rein, whose performances in the 1843 season had given rise to suspicion. |