King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. There was no ambiguity about it. As he told the King, "I am accused of the same crime as the Bishop of Clogher . . . Police officers are searching for me to arrest me."

The name of Clogher had been on the lips of all of London in the summer of 1822, and it is still associated with one of England's most notorious "cases." On the night of July 19, 1822, the Right Reverend Percy Jocelyn, Bishop of Clogher and the son of an Earl, was caught right "in the act" with his episcopal breeches down as it were, with a private in the Guard named John Moverley. After his arrest, the Bishop posted bail and fled to Scotland where he survived another 20 years under the name of Thomas Wilson, supposedly working as a butler. The Duke of Wellington was amongst those favoring the sternest treatment for the remaining culprit Moverley.

H. Montgomery Hyde, known for his The Trials of Oscar Wilde, has produced a capably researched study of all the evidence of Castlereagh's strange suicide. While Hyde makes clear that there can be no doubt that Castlereagh's suicide was triggered by the blackmail letter he had received and his conviction that he was about to be arrested at any moment with his name forever coupled with Clogher's, the author also provides ample evidence in support of the official explanation of the death, i.e., suicide in a fit of general depression and temporary insanity from overwork. As Hyde sees it, the homosexual blackmail might have been dealt with effectively had not Castlereagh's mind started to become unbalanced the summer of 1822, just when the Clogher scandal was on everybody's lips.

This brings Mr. Hyde to the big question: Can a man become so distraught at the threat of homosexual

one

blackmail if he is not really a homosexual? Hyde has found no evidence that Castlereagh was a homosexual. But can there be all that smoke without any fire? In the course of his diligent research, Hyde found that which he is sure provides the real answer.

According to the account of an intimate friend of Castlereagh's, published in a privately printed work of 1855, Castlereagh's homosexual involvement was as follows: a gang of blackmailers, taking advantage of his propensity for getting himself picked up by prostitutes during late evening walks, pulled a remarkable "frameup." One night he went home with an attractive young thing who, upon undressing, possibly with some assistance from His Lordship, turned out to be a young male hustler. At the crucial moment, the blackmailers burst into the room.

Not too strangely, when you think of the absurdity of it, Castlereagh never seems to have told this story to any of his friends in whose memoirs and papers are found references to the blackmail letter. Nor did he

ever

come out with any statement like "of course, it's all a complete lie." In fact, Castlereagh's personal doctor, into whose arms he fell dying, subsequently claimed that Castlereagh had made a confession of guilt to him. However, Hyde attributes the doctor's statement to the vengeful falsehoods of an embittered man, illtreated by Castlereagh's widow and friends.

The question remains: why would a normally cool and self-possessed man such as Castlereagh react as he did to such a relatively simple frame up? Hyde believes that the concurrent mental collapse, not to mention the coincidence of the Clogher scandal, provides a satisfactory answer. Does it?

Noel I. Garde