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John Ruffels recently referred to some of my comments as "Mayerlings" or "Meyerlings", and I am willing to allow the use of my Board name for that purpose. And one of the longest held musings is one that I have not discussed. Pertaining possibly (and I underline that term "possibly") to Monty Druitt.
On the thread about Monty at Winchester it was pointed out that while there there was another person attending named Montague John Rendall, and the comment resulting was how uncommon that combination of names was. I don't know if it was that uncommon in the 19th Century, but I suspect it seems to us to be uncommon because of Druitt's very Victorian first name "Montague". There are few men today stuck with such a name.
Historically, aside from our Monty, the only real ones that I know of is Montague Porch (Jennie Jerome's third and last husband) and Sir Montague Norman, for years the leader of the Bank of England. Fictionally there is, of course, there is the name of the husband of Soames' sister Winnifred in THE FORSYTE SAGA, Montague Dartie, and the name of the troop of comedians "Monty Python's Flying Circus." But it is not a great name, even if it has a sporting quality to it when shortened (as when I think of Druitt the Cricketeer, and like to call him "Monty"). But oddly enough the name now also refers to another possible historical figure, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery. If one thinks of an historical "Monty" it is the victor of El Alemein who comes up.
The name of "Montague" is originally a last name, like my own name of "Jeffrey" (as in Baron George Jeffreys of Wem). The spelling of my name as a first name was originally "Geoffrey", but we began adopting the "J" version of it as Americans simplified English in the 19th Century. It helped us "Jeffreys" that General Wolfe's right hand man in conquering Quebec was
General Lord Jeffrey Amherst, who is the first historical person I know using
"Jeffrey" spelled that way as a first name. Similarly my father's name "Howard" is based on the English name which many centuries back originated as the last name of the Dukes of Norfolk, and of several members of the royal family (such as "Catherine Howard").
With "Montague" (subject to correction) the nobility that used it was the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time of American Revolution, only Lord Sandwich spelled his family name as "John Montagu" without the last "e".
I have not found any other historical figure with that name as a last or family name (again subject to future correction).
So I have to admit that while "Montague" was in more use back in the 19th
Century, it was still a rare sounding name. It possibly had some kind of a link to family or kin than we can imagine.
Somewhere around 1986 I was looking at a book about 19th Century Writers.
It was a reference book. I came across a biography of one Hubert Montague
Crackenthorpe (1870 to 1896). Now that is a really killer name to be saddled with. The Montague is actually the middle name, and the "Hubert" was more popular again in the 19th Century than now. Crackenthorpe belonged to that
generation of the Yellow Book, with Aubrey Beardsley and Ernest Dowson and
Charles Conder, who were in the center of the literary and illustrative arts into the 1890s, but all died prematurely (usually of tuberculosis or drink). Crackenthorpe was a short story writer, who tried to bring Zola's Naturalism
to English literature (much as Sickert tried to bring French impressionism to English painting). Some of Crackenthorpe's stories deal with prostitutes and their lives.
The interesting thing about Crackenthorpe as opposed to his other fellow
"Yellow Book" contributors, is that he died of drowning. He died in April 1896 (as best as can be established) when he fell into the Seine river in Paris.
Althought the river was cresting after floods (which would be the official reason posted for the death of Crackenthorpe) it appeared to be a suicide tied to the collapse of his marriage and to his affair with Richard Le Galliene's sister. That affair was also collapsing, and it is believed that Crackenthorpe killed himself in a state of despair.
Well if it was just that I suppose I could just say coincidence, but there is more involved.
Crackenthorpe's only modern biography was written by his great grand-nephew Darryll Crackenthorpe. It is a well researched biography, and even has some photographs in it. The present Darryl Crackenthorpe claims that his greath grandfather (and older brother) of Hubert Montague, also named Darryl Crackenthorpe, was loath to release any details of the suicide of Hubert Montague. Darryl I was in the diplomatic service, and it would ruin his chances for advancements for the scandal of a family suicide to come out. So the official explaniation was Hubert was drowned in a sudden flood of the Seine (or, he was possibly waylaid and murdered in Paris).
This would seem to explain everything, but the current Darryl Crackenthorpe forgot to consider another action of his great grandfather Darryl I. It seems
that in 1897 Darryl I married a Spanish - American lady named Ena Sickles.
Her mother was of old Spanish aristocratic stock, but Ena's father was well known too - perhaps too well known. Her father was General Daniel E. Sickles
(1820 - 1914), best recalled for his curious fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg's Peach Orchard, which cost him his leg. General Meade deeply resented Sickles waste of himself and his men in the hard fighting there in July 1863, but Sickles opponent General James Longstreet maintained that Sickles fighting delayes an attempt to envelop the North's flank in their "fishhook" position of the battle. One of Sickles' biographers (W. A. Swanberg) said that he was the only general who almost lost and possibly almost won the battle of Gettysburg).
Sickles had a long and colorful career. He won the Congressonal Medal of Honor for his service at Gettysburg (he also made it a purpose to visit the remaining bone from his severed leg that was preserved in the Smithsonian Institution until he died). He had been in the diplomatic corps in the 1850s in England, assisting our Minister to England James Buchanan. He had been a Congressman from New York. After the Civil War he was a military governor of one of the southern states during early Reconstruction. Than General Grant had appointed him Minister to Spain in the 1870s. Rumor said that General Sickles was very close to Queen Isabella II of Spain, and he was nicknamed "the Yankee King of Spain". But his bellacose views of an incident with Spain over Cuba ("the Virginius Affair") led to his resigning his mission post as the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, wanted to negotiate a settlement in that matter. It was while Minister to Spain that he met Ena's mother, and later married her. By 1897 he was living in the U.S., and involved with the New York State Monument's Commission regarding the monuments at Gettysburg. He had also served another term in Congress.
Bellicose and noisy, Sickles was one of those characters that could only appear in 19th Century America. Swanberg called him "Sickles the Incredible".
But he could have also been called "Sickles the incredibly lucky!" Because he got away with murder.
In 1859 Sickles and his first wife were living in Washington, D.C. He was a rising Democratic Congressman, and his pal James Buchanan was President.
Provided the country did not fall apart over the slavery issue, Sickles looked forward to a splendid political career. Then he got an anonymous letter from a "friend" (one of those "friends" who cannot resist stirring up trouble), that his wife was being seen around Washington (while Sickles was in the Capital
Building) in the company of Mr. Philip Francis Key. He was the son of Francis Scot Key, author of the "Star Spangled Banner". He was also the District Attorney of Washington, and a known letch.
Sickles was not a prude - like many men he was hypocritical about what he did with prostitutes as opposed to what he should be doing. But he was furious about his wife doing this behind his back. He started going out armed, and one day he saw Key across Jackson Square (in back of the White House). Shouting at Key (who figured what was about to happend and started fleeing) Sickles shot the D.A. down and pumped enough bullets into the man to kill him.
Sickles was put on trial, but he had many friends. His attorney was one of the sharpest minds of the American bar in 1859, Edward M. Stanton. The man who would shortly be Buchanan's last Attorney General, and Lincolns's Second Secretary of War, invented the "unwritten law" defense: that to protect a man's home one can kill the would-be adulterer. It worked for Sickles, who was acquitted. Ironically, after the trial Sickles was congradulated for defending hearth and home. But when he found his wife dying (she died by 1861) he forgave her and struggled to keep her alive. The fickle public was furious that Sickles did this good deed.
The point is, although Sickles had murdered Key in 1859, the story pursued him until his death in 1914. Usually it prevented people from getting too bellicose with the General, but it also cast him in a peculiar shade of limelight.
And his daughter was marrying Darryl Crackenthorpe I, whom we are told did his best to hide the death of his brother as a possible suicide because it could damage his future diplomatic career. I find this an odd situation.
To be fair, Darryl Crackenthorpe did have a good career in the British Diplomatic Service, ending up as the Ambassador to the Central American Republics. But that was a back water - wouldn't he have preferred the French embasy or the Washington embassy instead?
When I was studying the story of the death of Hubert Montague Crackenthorpe I wondered if the death of Hubert could have been concealed as a suicide for some other reason - possibly to hide an earlier suicide in the family.
For the photos I have seen of Hubert Montague Crackenthorpe and his brother Darryl I resemble (even down to the same ties) Montague John Druitt.
Interesting how ones fancies stir up some points - there may be nothing there. We actually do not know if Hubert and Darryl were related to Montague (I once asked a Ripperologist about it, but he could only recommend a geneologist to look into it).
I will only add one more point. That last name "Crackenthorpe" is an ancient Anglo-Saxon name. It is the name of the owner of a huge piece of the land
in northern England. But the entail for that land had to be held by someone
with the last name of Crackenthorpe. However, the family figured out a way to keep the property in the family far longer than one could imagine. If the last member of the old family died out the closest blood relation could inherit if they change their last name to "Crackenthorpe".
In January 1888 the Crackenthorpe line was coming to one of it's recurrent ends. The nearest relations were the Cooksons, led by Montague Cookson (the father of Darryl and Hubert Montague Cookson). Montague Cookson Sr.
was a well respected legal scholar of the period. In the Times in January 1888 he announced that his family had legally changed their last name to
Crackenthorpe. And as a result the family inherited an estate worth (conservatively in Victorian money) 15,000 pounds a year.
It was quite a piece of good fortune to occur in that year, which most people only recall for murder, horror, and a suicide.
I still wonder if the Cookson/Crackenthorpes were connected to the Druitts.
On the thread about Monty at Winchester it was pointed out that while there there was another person attending named Montague John Rendall, and the comment resulting was how uncommon that combination of names was. I don't know if it was that uncommon in the 19th Century, but I suspect it seems to us to be uncommon because of Druitt's very Victorian first name "Montague". There are few men today stuck with such a name.
Historically, aside from our Monty, the only real ones that I know of is Montague Porch (Jennie Jerome's third and last husband) and Sir Montague Norman, for years the leader of the Bank of England. Fictionally there is, of course, there is the name of the husband of Soames' sister Winnifred in THE FORSYTE SAGA, Montague Dartie, and the name of the troop of comedians "Monty Python's Flying Circus." But it is not a great name, even if it has a sporting quality to it when shortened (as when I think of Druitt the Cricketeer, and like to call him "Monty"). But oddly enough the name now also refers to another possible historical figure, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery. If one thinks of an historical "Monty" it is the victor of El Alemein who comes up.
The name of "Montague" is originally a last name, like my own name of "Jeffrey" (as in Baron George Jeffreys of Wem). The spelling of my name as a first name was originally "Geoffrey", but we began adopting the "J" version of it as Americans simplified English in the 19th Century. It helped us "Jeffreys" that General Wolfe's right hand man in conquering Quebec was
General Lord Jeffrey Amherst, who is the first historical person I know using
"Jeffrey" spelled that way as a first name. Similarly my father's name "Howard" is based on the English name which many centuries back originated as the last name of the Dukes of Norfolk, and of several members of the royal family (such as "Catherine Howard").
With "Montague" (subject to correction) the nobility that used it was the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time of American Revolution, only Lord Sandwich spelled his family name as "John Montagu" without the last "e".
I have not found any other historical figure with that name as a last or family name (again subject to future correction).
So I have to admit that while "Montague" was in more use back in the 19th
Century, it was still a rare sounding name. It possibly had some kind of a link to family or kin than we can imagine.
Somewhere around 1986 I was looking at a book about 19th Century Writers.
It was a reference book. I came across a biography of one Hubert Montague
Crackenthorpe (1870 to 1896). Now that is a really killer name to be saddled with. The Montague is actually the middle name, and the "Hubert" was more popular again in the 19th Century than now. Crackenthorpe belonged to that
generation of the Yellow Book, with Aubrey Beardsley and Ernest Dowson and
Charles Conder, who were in the center of the literary and illustrative arts into the 1890s, but all died prematurely (usually of tuberculosis or drink). Crackenthorpe was a short story writer, who tried to bring Zola's Naturalism
to English literature (much as Sickert tried to bring French impressionism to English painting). Some of Crackenthorpe's stories deal with prostitutes and their lives.
The interesting thing about Crackenthorpe as opposed to his other fellow
"Yellow Book" contributors, is that he died of drowning. He died in April 1896 (as best as can be established) when he fell into the Seine river in Paris.
Althought the river was cresting after floods (which would be the official reason posted for the death of Crackenthorpe) it appeared to be a suicide tied to the collapse of his marriage and to his affair with Richard Le Galliene's sister. That affair was also collapsing, and it is believed that Crackenthorpe killed himself in a state of despair.
Well if it was just that I suppose I could just say coincidence, but there is more involved.
Crackenthorpe's only modern biography was written by his great grand-nephew Darryll Crackenthorpe. It is a well researched biography, and even has some photographs in it. The present Darryl Crackenthorpe claims that his greath grandfather (and older brother) of Hubert Montague, also named Darryl Crackenthorpe, was loath to release any details of the suicide of Hubert Montague. Darryl I was in the diplomatic service, and it would ruin his chances for advancements for the scandal of a family suicide to come out. So the official explaniation was Hubert was drowned in a sudden flood of the Seine (or, he was possibly waylaid and murdered in Paris).
This would seem to explain everything, but the current Darryl Crackenthorpe forgot to consider another action of his great grandfather Darryl I. It seems
that in 1897 Darryl I married a Spanish - American lady named Ena Sickles.
Her mother was of old Spanish aristocratic stock, but Ena's father was well known too - perhaps too well known. Her father was General Daniel E. Sickles
(1820 - 1914), best recalled for his curious fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg's Peach Orchard, which cost him his leg. General Meade deeply resented Sickles waste of himself and his men in the hard fighting there in July 1863, but Sickles opponent General James Longstreet maintained that Sickles fighting delayes an attempt to envelop the North's flank in their "fishhook" position of the battle. One of Sickles' biographers (W. A. Swanberg) said that he was the only general who almost lost and possibly almost won the battle of Gettysburg).
Sickles had a long and colorful career. He won the Congressonal Medal of Honor for his service at Gettysburg (he also made it a purpose to visit the remaining bone from his severed leg that was preserved in the Smithsonian Institution until he died). He had been in the diplomatic corps in the 1850s in England, assisting our Minister to England James Buchanan. He had been a Congressman from New York. After the Civil War he was a military governor of one of the southern states during early Reconstruction. Than General Grant had appointed him Minister to Spain in the 1870s. Rumor said that General Sickles was very close to Queen Isabella II of Spain, and he was nicknamed "the Yankee King of Spain". But his bellacose views of an incident with Spain over Cuba ("the Virginius Affair") led to his resigning his mission post as the Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, wanted to negotiate a settlement in that matter. It was while Minister to Spain that he met Ena's mother, and later married her. By 1897 he was living in the U.S., and involved with the New York State Monument's Commission regarding the monuments at Gettysburg. He had also served another term in Congress.
Bellicose and noisy, Sickles was one of those characters that could only appear in 19th Century America. Swanberg called him "Sickles the Incredible".
But he could have also been called "Sickles the incredibly lucky!" Because he got away with murder.
In 1859 Sickles and his first wife were living in Washington, D.C. He was a rising Democratic Congressman, and his pal James Buchanan was President.
Provided the country did not fall apart over the slavery issue, Sickles looked forward to a splendid political career. Then he got an anonymous letter from a "friend" (one of those "friends" who cannot resist stirring up trouble), that his wife was being seen around Washington (while Sickles was in the Capital
Building) in the company of Mr. Philip Francis Key. He was the son of Francis Scot Key, author of the "Star Spangled Banner". He was also the District Attorney of Washington, and a known letch.
Sickles was not a prude - like many men he was hypocritical about what he did with prostitutes as opposed to what he should be doing. But he was furious about his wife doing this behind his back. He started going out armed, and one day he saw Key across Jackson Square (in back of the White House). Shouting at Key (who figured what was about to happend and started fleeing) Sickles shot the D.A. down and pumped enough bullets into the man to kill him.
Sickles was put on trial, but he had many friends. His attorney was one of the sharpest minds of the American bar in 1859, Edward M. Stanton. The man who would shortly be Buchanan's last Attorney General, and Lincolns's Second Secretary of War, invented the "unwritten law" defense: that to protect a man's home one can kill the would-be adulterer. It worked for Sickles, who was acquitted. Ironically, after the trial Sickles was congradulated for defending hearth and home. But when he found his wife dying (she died by 1861) he forgave her and struggled to keep her alive. The fickle public was furious that Sickles did this good deed.
The point is, although Sickles had murdered Key in 1859, the story pursued him until his death in 1914. Usually it prevented people from getting too bellicose with the General, but it also cast him in a peculiar shade of limelight.
And his daughter was marrying Darryl Crackenthorpe I, whom we are told did his best to hide the death of his brother as a possible suicide because it could damage his future diplomatic career. I find this an odd situation.
To be fair, Darryl Crackenthorpe did have a good career in the British Diplomatic Service, ending up as the Ambassador to the Central American Republics. But that was a back water - wouldn't he have preferred the French embasy or the Washington embassy instead?
When I was studying the story of the death of Hubert Montague Crackenthorpe I wondered if the death of Hubert could have been concealed as a suicide for some other reason - possibly to hide an earlier suicide in the family.
For the photos I have seen of Hubert Montague Crackenthorpe and his brother Darryl I resemble (even down to the same ties) Montague John Druitt.
Interesting how ones fancies stir up some points - there may be nothing there. We actually do not know if Hubert and Darryl were related to Montague (I once asked a Ripperologist about it, but he could only recommend a geneologist to look into it).
I will only add one more point. That last name "Crackenthorpe" is an ancient Anglo-Saxon name. It is the name of the owner of a huge piece of the land
in northern England. But the entail for that land had to be held by someone
with the last name of Crackenthorpe. However, the family figured out a way to keep the property in the family far longer than one could imagine. If the last member of the old family died out the closest blood relation could inherit if they change their last name to "Crackenthorpe".
In January 1888 the Crackenthorpe line was coming to one of it's recurrent ends. The nearest relations were the Cooksons, led by Montague Cookson (the father of Darryl and Hubert Montague Cookson). Montague Cookson Sr.
was a well respected legal scholar of the period. In the Times in January 1888 he announced that his family had legally changed their last name to
Crackenthorpe. And as a result the family inherited an estate worth (conservatively in Victorian money) 15,000 pounds a year.
It was quite a piece of good fortune to occur in that year, which most people only recall for murder, horror, and a suicide.
I still wonder if the Cookson/Crackenthorpes were connected to the Druitts.
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