Defoe and the Expiring Peerage

Along parenthesis in the first volume of Daniel Defoe's Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-26) helps to illuminate some of the ideological underpinnings of this work, as well as providing clues as to the way the book was composed and the nature of Defoe's information-gathering. Most immediately, it enables us to ascertain what Defoe knew and when he knew it. From omissions, we can deduce what he either did not know or chose not to communicate. When set alongside other references in the text and external evidence, this section throws into relief both the author's view of contemporary British history and the historicity of this view. More widely, its dense coverage sheds light on his ambiguous attitude towards the nobility, an issue which has troubled some readers, caught unawares by his self-gentrification and adoption of a (probably bogus) coat of arms.

I

The passage occurs in the second letter, when the narrative has reached Goodwood, seat of the dukes of Richmond:

(This Family also is in tears, at the writing these Sheets, for the Death of Her Grace the Dutchess, who dyed the beginning of the Month of December, and is bury'd in Westminster Abbey; and here the Year closing, I think 'tis very remarkable, that this Year 1722, no less than Five Dukes and Two Dutchesses are Dead (viz.) The Dukes of Bucks, Bolton, Rutland, Manchester, and Marlborough, and the Dutchesses of Somerset and Richmond; besides Earls, (viz.) the Earl of Sunderland, of Stamford, Exeter, and others; and since the above was written, and sent to the Press, the Duke of Richmond himself is also Dead.)¹

Three points must be made at the outset. First, the word also in the opening sentence goes back to something Defoe had written on the previous page, in the coverage of nearby Petworth, where he refers to a "Disaster to the Family . . . which has happen'd to it, even while these Sheets were writing; Namely, the Death of the Dutchess, who dy'd in November 1722, and lies buried in the burying Place of the Family of Seymor, Dukes of Somerset, in the Cathedral Church of Salisbury" (Writings, 1:169). With a sure writerly touch, Defoe fixes here on a genuinely significant passing. The duchess was perhaps the best known peeress in the nation, excepting only the Duchess of Marlborough, whom she had succeeded as groom of the stole and mistress of the robes to Queen Anne. She had played a key role in the turbulent affairs at court in the last reign, many of which were chronicled at the time by Defoe, and earned the cordial hatred of Jonathan Swift: she also served as chief mourner at the queen's funeral. Besides, as Defoe does not fail to observe, she was the heiress of the vast Percy estates and married to the "proud" duke, a wealthy and influential figure in the royal household.² In the following letter, on reaching Salisbury, Defoe records the fact that the Seymour family vault "has been now lately open'd again to receive the Body of the late Dutchess of Somerset." Sensing a kind of collective bereavement, the writer proceeds:

With her was bury'd at the same time her Graces Daughter the Marchioness of Caermarthen, being married to the Marquess of Caermarthen, Son and Heir apparent to the Lord of Leeds, who dy'd for Grief at the loss of the Dutchess her Mother, and was buried with her; also her Second Son the Duke Piercy Somerset, who dyed a few Months before, and had been buryed in the Abby-Church of Westminster, but was order'd to be remov'd and laid here with the Ancestors of his House.

(Writings, 1:223)³

At such moments the Tour functions as a monument in its own right, textualizing the vital statistics of the great families of the nation. The funeral of the duchess and her daughter Anne (who had actually died in childbirth on 27 November, four days after her mother succumbed to breast cancer) took place at Salisbury on 13...