All that was known of him was, that his name was Edward Wilson, and that he was the fifth son of Thomas Wilson, Esq., of Keythorpe, Leicestershire, an impoverished gentleman. Beau Wilson, as he was called, is described by Evelyn as a very young gentleman, ‘civil and good-natured, but of no great force of understanding,’ and ‘very sober and of good fame.’ He redeemed his father’s estate, and portioned off his sisters. When advised by a friend to invest some of his money while he could, he replied, that however long his life might last, he should always be able to maintain himself in the same manner, and therefore had no need to take care for the future.
All attempts to discover his secret were vain; in his most careless hours of amusement he kept a strict guard over his tongue, and left the scandalous world to conjecture what it pleased. Some good-natured people said he had robbed the Holland mail of a quantity of jewelry, an exploit for which another man had suffered death. Others said he was supplied by the Jews, for what purpose they did not care to say. It was plain he did not depend upon the gaming-table, for he never played but for small sums , and he was to be found at all times, so it was not to be wondered at that it came to be believed that he had discovered the philosopher’s stone.
How long he might have pursued his mysterious career, it is impossible to say: it was cut short by another remarkable man on the 9th of April 1694. On that day, Wilson and a friend, one Captain Wightman, were at the ‘Fountain Inn,’ in the Strand, in company with the celebrated John Law (see preceding article), who was then a man about town. Law left them, and the captain and Wilson took coach to Bloomsbury Square. Here Wilson alighted, and Law reappeared on the scene; as soon as they met, both drew their swords, and after one pass the Beau fell wounded in the stomach, and died without speaking a single word. Law was arrested, and tried at the Old Bailey for murder. The cause of the quarrel did not come out, but there is little doubt that a woman was in the case. Evelyn says: ‘The quarrel arose from his (Wilson’s) taking away his own sister from lodging in a house where this Law had a mistress, which the mistress of the house thinking a disparagement to it, and losing by it, instigated Law to this duel.” Law declared the meeting was accidental, but some threatening letters from him to Wilson were produced on the trial, and the jury believing that the duel was unfairly conducted, found him guilty of murder, and he was condemned to death. The sentence was commuted to a fine, on the ground of the offence amounting only to manslaughter; but Wilson’s brother appealed against this, and while the case was pending a hearing, Law contrived to escape from the King’s Bench, and reached the continent in safety, notwithstanding a reward offered for his apprehension. He ultimately received a pardon in 1719.
Those who expected Wilson’s death would clear up the mystery attached to his life, were disappointed. He left only a few pounds behind him, and not a scrap of evidence to enlighten public curiosity as to the origin of his mysterious resources.
While Law was in exile, an anonymous work appeared which professed to solve the riddle. This was The Unknown Lady’s Pacquet of Letters, published with the Countess of Dunois’ Memoirs of the Court of England (1708), the author, or authoress of which, pretends to have derived her information from an elderly gentlewoman, ‘who had been a favourite in a late reign of the then she-favourite, but since abandoned by her.’ According to her account, the Duchess of Orkney (William III.’s mistress) accidentally met Wilson in St James’s Park, incontinently fell in love with him, and took him under her protection. The royal favourite was no niggard to her lover, but supplied him with funds to enable him to shine in the best society, he undertaking to keep faithful to her, and promising not to attempt to discover her identity. After a time, she grew weary of her expensive toy, and alarmed lest his curiosity should overpower his discretion, and bring her to ruin. This fear was not lessened by his accidental discovery of her secret. She broke off the connection, but assured him that he should never want for money, and with this arrangement he was forced to be content. The ‘elderly gentlewoman,’ however, does not leave matters here, but brings a terrible charge against her quondam patroness. She says, that having one evening, by her mistress’ orders, conducted a stranger to her apartment, she took the liberty of playing eaves-dropper, and heard the duchess open her strong-box and say to the visitor: ‘Take this, and your work done, depend upon another thousand and my favour for ever!’ Soon afterwards poor Wilson met his death. The confidante went to Law’s trial, and was horrified to recognise in the prisoner at the bar the very man to whom her mistress addressed those mysterious words. Law’s pardon she attributes to the lady’s influence with the king, and his escape to the free use of her gold with his jailers. Whether this story was a pure invention, or whether it was founded upon fact, it is impossible to determine. Beau Wilson’s life and death must remain among unsolved mysteries.
Quoted from: R. Chambers: The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities. Vol. II. London, 1832.
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Wilson followed. He was a personage who first established the fashion of living by one’s wits. Returning from the army in Flanders with forty shillings in his pocket, he suddenly started into high life in the most dashing style, eclipsed every body by his equipage, stud, table, and dress. As he was not known at the gaming-table, conjecture was busy on the subject of his finances; and he was charitably supposed to have commenced his career by robbing a Dutch mail of a package of diamonds. Still he glittered, until involved in a duel with Mississippi Law; the latter financier, probably jealous of so eminent a rival, ran a rapier through his body.
Source: BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No CCCXLIV. JUNE, 1844. VOL. LV.
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BEAU WILSON.
THE preceding memoir of Beau Fielding throws so curious a light on the manners and customs of the last century, that we are tempted to introduce the portrait of another individual of the same stamp, who, though he figured a few years previously to his brother in dissipation, yet resembles him not a little in the ephemeral splendour of his existence, and the precarious sources from which his magnificence was derived.
The person known as Beau Wilson, whose mysterious rise from extreme poverty to the greatest affluence, afforded our ancestors so wide a field for curiosity and conjecture, – was a younger brother, for whom his friends had purchased a commission in the army. He served a campaign with the army in Flanders, but having been early broken for cowardice, – as some have asserted, – set out on his return to England with the small sum of forty shillings, which some charitable friend had lent him to pay the expenses of his passage.
This obscure, and apparently degraded, individual, had hardly made his appearance in the metropolis more than a few weeks, when, according to a contemporary, “he appeared the brightest star in the hemisphere; his coaches, saddle, hunting, race-horses, equipage, dress, and table, being the admiration of the world.” Curiosity was eagerly at work to discover the secret
source of this magnificence. It was questioned whether such extraordinary wealth could be derived from any of the fair sex, for there were few able to sustain him in such lavish expenditure.
The manner in which he spent each day could always be accounted for, and, even when intoxicated, he was invariably on his guard against impertinent inquiries. Some believed that he had discovered the philosopher’s stone; others affirmed that he had robbed a mail from Holland of a large quantity of rough diamonds ; while another report was prevalent, that he was supported by the Jews, though the motive of their liberality does not appear.
Madame Dunois says in her Memoirs; – “He never played, or but inconsiderably; entertained with profuseness all who visited him; himself drank liberally; but in all hours, as well sober as otherwise, he kept a strict guard upon his words, though several were either employed, by the curiosity of others or their own, to take him at his looser moments, and persuade him to reveal his secret; but he so inviolably preserved it, that even their guesses were but at random, and without probability or foundation. He was not known to be an admirer of ladies, though he might doubtless have had the good fortune to have pleased, his person being no ways despicable.
What adds to our surprise is, that he was at all times to be found, and ever with some of his people, seemingly open in conversation, free from spleen or chagrin; in a word, he had that settled air, as if he was assured his good fortune would for ever continue. One of his friends advised him to purchase an estate whilst he had money. Mr. Wilson thanked him, and said that he did not forget the future in the present: he was obliged to him for his counsel; but whilst he lived it would be ever thus, for he was always certain to be master of such a sum of money.”
Such is the well-known history of Beau Wilson. Madame Dunois, however, informs us that he unquestionably owed his good fortune to the weakness of a certain great lady, by which insinuation the Duchess of Cleveland is evidently meant. The Duchess, it would seem, seeing him stretched on the grass in some public gardens, conceived a predilection for his handsome person, and took pains to ascertain his history and name. She afterwards received him in private, though their interviews, in order that he might remain ignorant to whom he owed his good fortune, invariably took place in the dark.
We learn from the same authority, that Wilson, instead of contenting himself with his unexpected good fortune, persisted in teazing the Duchess to acquaint him to whom he was obliged. This fact he is said to have eventually discovered, by hearing the voice of the Duchess as he passed her in Hyde Park, and subsequently perceiving a particular diamond ring on her finger. The Duchess was naturally exasperated at the discovery, and sent him word, that if he disclosed her secret to any human being, she would adopt the promptest measures to have him dispatched ; while, on the other hand, if he consulted his own interests and security, he might depend upon receiving her bounty as before.
Whether Wilson was imprudent enough to neglect the hint does not appear. Madame Dunois, however, informs us, that Law, the celebrated financier, received a sum of money from the Duchess for putting him out of the way, and that he effectually fulfilled his engagement. That Wilson fell by the hands of Law there is no doubt. The former challenged him on some pretence about his sister, and in the encounter Wilson was killed. The duel took place at the close of 1694, and in the Gazette of the 3rd of January, 1695, a reward is offered for Law’s apprehension. The proclamation describes him as a ” black, lean man, six feet high, with large pock-marks in his face, big high nose, and speech broad and loud.”
Evelyn, in his Diary, gives a somewhat fuller account of the cause of the duel. Wilson’s singular career, and the mysterious means by which he supported his magnificence, were sufficient to excite the curiosity of even the sober-minded philosopher. ” April 22, 1694: – A young man, named Wilson, the younger son of one who had not above two hundred pounds a year estate,
lived in the garb and equipage of the richest nobleman, for house, furniture, coaches, saddle-horses, and kept a table and all things accordingly, redeemed his father’s estate, and gave portions to his sisters, being challenged by one Law, a Scotchman, was killed in a duel, not fairly.
The quarrel arose from his taking away his own sister from lodging in a house where this Law had a mistress; which the mistress of the house thinking a disparagement to it, and losing by it, instigated Law to this duel. He was taken and condemned for murder. The mystery is, how this so young a gentleman, very sober and of good fame, could live in such an expensive manner; it could not be discovered by all possible industry, or entreaty of his friends to make him reveal it. It did not appear that he was kept by women, play, coining, padding, or dealing in chemistry; but he would sometimes say, that, if he should live ever so long, he had wherewith to maintain himself in the same manner. This was a subject of much discourse.” With Wilson died his extraordinary secret.
Law was apprehended, and subsequently tried and condemned; but having the good fortune to break out of prison, he escaped to the Low Countries, where his expensive manner of living so far exceeded his ostensible means of subsistence, as to afford grounds for curiosity and surmise. Law, it may be remarked, who mingled a life of pleasure with an application to more
methodical pursuits, died at Venice in 1729, at the age of fifty-eight.
Source: Memoirs of the Court of England, from the Revolution in 1688 to the Death of George the Second.Vol. II. 1846.