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The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 5 March 1827
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Introduction
Vol. I. Contents
Ch. I: 1793-1804
Ch. II: 1805
Ch. III: 1805
Ch. IV: 1806-08
Ch. V: 1809
Ch. VI: 1810
Ch. VII: 1811
Ch. VIII: 1812
Ch. IX: 1813-14
Ch X: 1814-15
Ch XI: 1815-16
Ch XII: 1817-18
Ch XIII: 1819-20
Vol. II. Contents
Ch I: 1821
Ch. II: 1822
Ch. III: 1823-24
Ch. IV: 1825-26
Ch. V: 1827
Ch. VI: 1827-28
Ch. VII: 1828
Ch. VIII: 1829
Ch. IX: 1830-31
Ch. X: 1832-33
Ch. XI: 1833
Ch. XII: 1834
Ch XIII: 1835-36
Ch XIV: 1837-38
Index
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“March 5.

“. . . Yesterday about 3 p.m. Dandy Raikes, who is a member of Brooks’s, but was never seen there before, having watched Brougham go in there, followed him, and taking a position with his back to the fire, said aloud:—‘Mr. Brougham, I am very much obliged to you for the speech you made at my expence. I don’t know what latitude you gentlemen of the Bar consider yourselves entitled to, but I am come here purposely to insult you in the presence of your club.’ . . . Brougham was eating some soup, and merely replied with great composure:—‘Mr. Raikes, you have chosen a strange place and occasion for offering your insult,’ and shortly after walked away, there being present about 8 or 10 persons. I learnt this from Ferguson, who had just entered Brooks’s as Raikes was concluding. We both agreed that Brougham must call Raikes out, and that the latter must be expelled the club for the marvellous outrage. . . . In going into Brooks’s at 5, which you may suppose was pretty well

* H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence [William IV.].

1827.]CHALLENGE TO BROUGHAM.107
crammed with gossipers, no tidings were to be had of our Bruffam; but upon returning home* I found he had been here in pursuit of Fergy; and, having caught him, had begged him to carry a challenge for him to Raikes, which the General peremptorily declined to do upon the grounds of having been mixed up in so many such things. So Brougham went off after Wilson. I learnt this at six, and our Taylor and myself went off at seven to dine at Denison’s, where we had Lords Say and Seale and Reay, W. Pawlett, Ellice, Ferguson and Stephenson. Brougham was to have been; but as we all supposed he was otherwise engaged we sat down to dinner without him; tho’ in about ten minutes in he came, occupied a chair which was next to me, and having talked exclusively to myself the whole night upon every subject but the one, I never knew him more agreeable in my life. Upon coming away at eleven, we were to bring Fergy down here in our coach, but Brougham stopt him; and when he followed us, we found that Wilson had forwarded his challenge to Raikes, but that in the meantime Brougham had been taken into custody, carried to Bow Street, and bound over to keep the peace. This had been the handiwork of Jack the Painter, alias Spring Rice, who was present at the row at Brooks’s, and had taken himself off to Bow Street immediately to inform; his only object, I have no doubt, being not to lose Brougham’s vote to-night upon that most vital of all subjects—the Catholic question. . . . From the long time that has elapsed since Brougham made the offensive speech in question, and from the extraordinary mode adopted by Raikes to insult him, I cannot but believe that he has been worked up to this step by such chaps as Lowther, Glengall and Belfast, and that he was made to believe Brougham was a shy cock; for Lady Glengall has always been harping upon that tack of late, as how he was made to marry Mrs. Brougham by one of her brothers upon a certain event being known, and such stuff as this.† Lady Mary Butler has just been here,

* Mr. Creevey, on losing his seat in Parliament, had taken up permanent abode with his friends the Taylors, in Whitehall.

† Mrs. Brougham was a widow—Mrs. Spalding of the Holm in Galloway—when she married Brougham. She was a daughter of Sir William Eden of West Auckland, co. Durham.

108 THE CREEVEY PAPERS [Ch. V.
and said that Mr. Raikes was with them last night, and that Mr. Brougham had been arrested, which was thought very odd. So he has got into a rare mess with these devils. . . . Tankerville has just said to me it was quite right in Spring Rice to inform Sir Richard Birnie [?] of Brougham and Raikes. He you know is the first authority as a fighting man.”