Page 1 -
Page 2
Peninsula War Hero dies in India
Sir Dudley St Leger Hill died from a stroke1
at Ambala on the 21st
February 1851 while still in command of the
Sirhind Division of the Bengal Army in the
Punjab province. Ambala is also known as Umballa
and is now in India’s northern Haryana State.
The Overland Mail reported that “the gallant
officer was walking in his garden when he
suddenly fell ill, staggered against a tree,
and, in very short time, was no more.” He was
buried2
at Ambala on the 22nd
February 1851 aged about 60 years.
Sir Dudley was a career soldier who was actively
involved in the Peninsula War against the forces
of Napoleon from 1808 until the end of the war
in 1814. His career was documented in
Phillipart’s The Royal Military Calendar of 1820
and the Dictionary of National Biography, and
his obituary was published in the Gentleman’s
Magazine of May 1851. This history has used
these documents to provide the outline of his
celebrated life.
A drunken murder
Sir Dudley’s great grandfather was Captain
Richard Hill who was the first to settle in Co
Carlow. A letter from the Duke of Marlborough,
dated the 29th
October 17043,
states that Captain Richard Hill “was the son of
the Dean of Kilkenny”; perhaps providing
evidence that the Dean Thomas Hill’s son became
the infamous murderer of William Mountfort, the
actor. A contribution to Notes and Queries on
July 4th
1896 by Charles Dalton of London, outlined
Richard’s notoriety in his article “The Murder
of Mountfort, the Actor”.
“Lord MacAulay tells us that Captain Richard
Hill, the murderer of Wm. Mountfort, the actor,
was "a profligate captain in the army"; and
Mountfort's biographer in the Dict. of Nat.
Biog. describes Hill as "a known ruffler and
cutthroat." Both these sweeping assertions are,
to say the least of them, somewhat hyperbolical.
Hill was only sixteen years of age when he ran
the unfortunate actor through with his sword, in
Howard Street, Strand, on 9 Dec. 1692. Lord
Mohun, who was Hill's accomplice and an
accessory after the fact, was seventeen, and
this point went in his favour when he was tried
by his peers for murder. But no one has,
heretofore, ever made any excuse for Hill, who
lived to repent and to amend his ways, which
cannot be said for Lord Mohun, who, five years
subsequent to the above murder, was again
arraigned for manslaughter. Curious to say,
Mohun's victim on this latter occasion was Capt.
William Hill, of the Coldstream Guards, who was
stabbed in a drunken brawl, at a tavern near
Charing Cross, in September, 1697.”
Dalton observes that Richard’s military
responsibilities were “a little trying for a
youth of his age, and the society of an unlicked
cub like young Lord Mohun had a bad effect on
Hill's character. He also had the misfortune to
have money at his disposal; and it came out in
evidence, at Lord Mohun's trial, that Hill's
scheme for carrying off Anne Bracegirdle, the
well-known actress, was to cost him £50. The
fair actress was rescued as she was being
forcibly hurried into the coach by the soldiers
whom Hill had hired for the occasion. Frustrated
in his villainy, young Hill dismissed his
military hirelings. "Begone! I have done with
you" cried this veteran centurion, in a tone
which Jonathan Wild might have adopted when he
dismissed his myrmidons. Unfortunately, Hill
stayed behind with Lord Mohun, and their brains,
over- heated by wine, to which in the case of
the former was added mad jealousy against
Mountfort, a supposed favoured rival in the fair
actress's affections, devised the scheme of
murder which Hill carried into effect the same
night. Hill escaped after committing the crime
and nothing further is recorded of him by the
historian.”
A very young soldier
Charles Dalton summarises Richard’s reported
introduction to military service. “At the age of
twelve, Richard Hill was appointed a subaltern
in Viscount Lisburne's newly raised regiment of
foot. He served in the Irish campaign and owing
to the mortality in his regiment from fever and
losses in action; he obtained command of a
company when he was only fifteen. We may
conclude that Lord Lisburne's regiment was
rather a fast corps, and a bad school, as
regards morals, for a very young officer, for we
find the inspecting officer at Dundalk Camp, in
December, 1689, sending the following
confidential report to William III relative to
Lord Lisburne's regiment: ‘Le Colonel s'en mette
fort peu et avec cela d'un humeur extravagant;
qui aussi prend tous les jours plus de vin qu'il
ne peust [sic] porter.’ On 21 March, 1692, Hill
exchanged with Capt. Vincent Googene, of Col.
Thos. Erle's Regiment of Foot (Military Entry
Book Vol. II, H. 0. series). By this exchange
Hill found himself in command of the grenadier
company in a crack infantry regiment.”
Richard’s first commanding officer, Adam Loftus,
was created Viscount Lisburne in January 1685
and Lisburne raised his Regiment of Foot in
January 1687. The Regiment served throughout the
war in Ireland from 1689 to 1691 between the
Catholic James II and his son-in law the
Protestant William of Orange. James had landed
in Ireland with French soldiers in an attempt to
divert William from the war against the French
on the continent.
His Jacobite army besieged Londonderry from the
18th
April until the siege was lifted on the 31st
July 1689. The army then retreated and was
soundly defeated by William at the Battle of the
Boyne on the 1st
July 1690.
William’s army unsuccessfully besieged Limerick
in August of 1690 but William’s forces won the
decisive battle of the war fought at Aughrim on
12th
July 1691. It meant the effective end of the war
in Ireland, although the city of Limerick held
out until the autumn of 1691where Viscount
Lisburne was killed in action on the 15th
September 1691.
King William then commenced a long war against
Louis XIV of France. In March 1692, Richard
joined Thomas Erle’s Regiment, which had also
fought throughout the Irish wars. The regiment
went on King William’s expedition to Flanders in
1692 and on 3rd
August was involved at the Battle of Steenkirk
when William disastrously attacked the French
encampment.
After Richard escaped from the scene of the
murder of Mountfort, he disappears from the
record for some time and seems to have eluded
capture. It was reported4,
however, that he escaped to the Isle of Wight,
then Scotland and returned to military service
in 1697.
Richard seeks a pardon
In about 1704, Richard sought a pardon from
Queen Anne for the murder of William Mountfort.
The petition and other supporting letters are
reproduced in a number of documents, which also
provide some insights into Richard’s activities.
Charles Dalton claimed that the Public Record
Office contained the MS petition to Queen Anne,
which runs as follows:
To the Queen's most Excellent Majestic. The
humble petition of Captain Richard Hill. Showeth
that your Petitioner at the age of sixteen,
after four years service in Ireland and
Flanders, under the command of Lieut-General
Earle, was unhappily drawn into a quarrel with
Mr. Montford wherein he had the misfortune to
give him a mortal wound; for which unadvised act
your Petitioner has humbled himself before God
these eleven years past, and since his
misfortune went volunteer with Col. Gibson to
Newfoundland, who has given a character of your
Petitioner's behaviour there, as Lieut.-General
Earle has of his carriage and conduct in Ireland
and Flanders, as appears by the certificates
herewith annexed.
May it therefore please your most Sacred
Majestic, in consideration of your Petitioner's
past services, and in compassion to his youth,
to extend your Royal mercy to your Petitioner
for a crime to which he was betrayed by the heat
and folly of youth, that he may thereby be
enabled to serve your Majestic and his Country,
and his earnest desire is, to the last drop of
his blood." And your Petitioner shall ever pray,
&c.
The reference to Colonel Gibson relates to the
destruction of the settlements of Newfoundland
by the French and their Indian allies in 1696
during the long war against the French. King
William despatched an invasion force in 1697 to
recapture the area from the French. Colonel John
Gibson commanded the invasion force which
included an Irish regiment. In 1698, the
soldiers built Fort William at St John harbour
before leaving a detachment of 100 men under
Colonel Handaside to garrison the fort.
The “Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of
Portland: preserved at Welbeck Abbey” Vol. VIII,
1907 contain further evidence of Captain Hill’s
efforts at redemption. Under Petitions and
Memorials to the Queen the following was
recorded:
Annexed is the case of Captain Richard Hill,
setting forth that he was the son of the Dean of
Kilkenny, and had colours given him at the age
of thirteen in Lord Lisborne's regiment through
the interest of his father-in-law, Captain
Edward Carey, father of the present Lord
Falkland. In a short time he was promoted to the
command of a foot company in that regiment. At
the end of the Irish war he left the company he
then had in Brigadier Earle's regiment, and
served two campaigns as a volunteer in Flanders,
and returning to England had the misfortune at
the age of sixteen to quarrel with Mr. Montford,
and in a quarrel to wound him, of which wound he
died. This happened in 1692, since which time
Hill had endeavoured to merit a pardon by going
as a volunteer to Newfoundland with Colonel
Gibson.
General Thomas Earle (or Erle) provided a
character reference for Richard for his petition
to the Queen and observed that “Captain Richard
Hill was under my command during the late Irish
war, and a volunteer with me in Flanders, I must
needs give him this character that he behaved
himself on all occasions as a man of honour and
really with more courage and conduct than from
one of his years could have been expected, for
he was but twelve years old when he came into
the army, and but sixteen when his misfortune
happened, which is eleven years since.”
After the war against France concluded in 1697,
King William became embroiled in the War of the
Spanish Succession and this was continued by
Queen Anne when William died in 1702. The Duke
of Marlborough prosecuted the war for the
English from 1701. After he won the decisive
battle of Blenheim on the 13th
August 1704, the English fought much of the rest
of the war in the Low Countries.
Also contained in the Manuscripts is a letter
from the Duke of Marlborough from his camp at
Eppingen, dated the 3rd
September, 1704, forwarding a memorial of his
General Officers on behalf of Captain Hill,
representing his good behaviour in the two late
actions and recommending him as a fit object of
her Majesty's mercy. The memorial shows that
Captain Hill “served this campaign in Germany as
a volunteer, and being wounded in the last
glorious victory (Blenheim), had leave to return
to throw himself at her Majesty's feet to pray
for pardon – in compassion to his youth, in pity
to his wife and five small children, and in
regard to his services - for a crime committed
at sixteen years of age and eleven years since.”
It was signed by Lords Cutts and Orkney, R.
Ingoldsby, H. Withers, Ch. Rosse, and Wm.
Cadogan.
Charles Dalton believed Hill was pardoned. “In
‘Recommendations for Commissions in the New
Levies in 1706’ (War Office MS.), the name of
Capt. Richard Hill appears in a list of officers
recommended by the Duke of Ormonde.”
Could Richard have been 16 when he murdered
Mountfort?
The petition to Queen Anne to pardon him makes
the case that he was only 16 when he murdered
Mountfort.
Promoting such a young given age may have been
useful to support his case for a pardon but this
would have made him only 13 at the siege of
Londonderry in 1689.
In a Notes and Queries
article by E. E. Hill of Maycliff, St. Luke’s
Road North, Torquay in the 15th
August 1914 edition headed “Capt Richard Hill
and the Siege of Derry”. “In a letter written by
my great-grandfather John Hill dated Barnhill
(Co. Carlow), 1 Nov. 1821 there occurs the
following:
This medal, struck in commemoration of the joint
crossing of King William the 3rd and his consort
Queen Mary, was given me, being eldest son, by
my father Edward Hill, Esq., long a resident in
the County of Carlow. He got it from his father
Richard Hill, who died in Carlow a half-pay
Captain of horse by commission under the King
the medal records, at whose coronation he had
the honour of receiving it. In addition to his
half pay, Captain Hill had a pension of three
hundred a year from King William, a singular
instance of Royal bounty, but I have heard my
father say it was in consequence of some display
of merit at the siege of Derry.”
An act of bravery which received a medal and
pension at such a young age seems somewhat
implausible.
At least one reference says that he
was 205,
and Borgman in his “the Life and Death of
William Mountfort” thought that he must have
been at least twenty years of age. He also
details an advertisement in the London Gazette
which states that “the said Capt. Hill is of a
fair complexion, then wore his own hair, and is
about 18 years of
age”. Borgman was “inclined to believe that Hill
did not tell the truth about his age, feeling
that the younger he appeared at the time of the
killing, the more likely he would be to receive
clemency”.
However, if he was 16 in 1692 then he
could not be the son of Thomas Hill, the Dean of
Kilkenny, as Thomas died in 1673.
Source:
Rodney Kerr c.2010
Page 1 -
Page 2
-
Please report any images
or links which do not open to
mjbrennan30@gmail.com
- The
information contained in these pages is provided solely for the
purpose of sharing with others researching their ancestors in
Ireland.
- © 2001 Ireland Genealogy Projects,
IGP TM
By Pre-emptive Copyright
Back to the top