The hellfire club, p.3
The Hellfire Club, page 3
The woods around the abbey were filled with statuary, marble pillars engraved with Latin inscriptions, little temples in the Grecian style, and artificially designed “cozy nooks” generally equipped with transplanted beds of soft moss or stone couches covered with fine cushions. The inscriptions were written in what was sarcastically called “macaroni Latin,” macaroni being the slang name for an elegant young gentleman (“Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni”). Macaroni Latin was a sort of bastard language in which the Latin words were twisted to make puns in English or combined in such a way as to create a ridiculous effect. There was a statue of Hermes, who among his other attributes was the god of lust, holding a staff carved as a phallic symbol with the tip painted red. Under it was engraved “Peni Tento non Penitenti” which can be roughly translated as “A penis tense rather than penitence.” Over one of the couches was written “A lover dies on the breast of his mistress.” Carved on the side of a great oak was the inscription “Here a nymph fled from the arms of a satyr after having been ravished.” A nude statue ofVenus bending over to take a thorn from her foot was set upat a sharpbend in a woodland path so that anyone turning the corner would run into the bare buttocks of the goddess. Wilkes wrote, “Just over the two nether hills of snow were these lines: [English translation] ‘This is where the path divides… between lies the road to Paradise. But to indulge in such perversions condemns one to hell.’ ” There was even a marble outhouse, beautifully designed, called “The Temple of Cloacina” (the goddess of the sewer or of the intestinal tract). This shrine was also known to the brotherhood as “The Temple of Ease.”
Dashwood even went to the lengths of having an artificial cave hollowed out in a little hill, which he called the Cave of Trophonius. In classical lore, Trophonius’ Cave was a mysterious grotto “from whence all creatures came out melancholy.” This was a pretty elaborate pun, explained by a fresco and Latin inscription over the entrance. The fresco showed a collection of livestock, including a crowing cock and a laughing nun. The inscription read: “All animals after sexual intercourse feel melancholy except the barnyard cock or a priestess, who love to give it away.” Inside the cave was a more elaborate inscription on the wall. A very free translation would be: “Sweat and exchange sweat until the marrow of your bones runs out.”
These inscriptions give a good idea of the mental capacities of the Friars of St. Francis. The brotherhood wasable not only to translate the tortuous Latin-English puns but also to appreciate the allusion to Trophonius’ Cave, which implies a considerable classical knowledge. But imagine the cost and trouble involved in having sculptors make such statues and hiring stone-cutters to engrave these inscriptions! English schoolboys still like to scribble pornographic puns in Latin on lavatory walls, but the obscenities at the abbey were the product of some of the most outstanding men of the time. Several contemporary connoisseurs of art who saw the “Garden of Lust” considered it a terrific waste of time, but all agree that the landscaping was beautifully conceived and that the statues were magnificently executed. It was as if a potentially great poet had devoted his time to writing obscene poems rather than composing first class verse—although some obscene poems are very clever.
The arrival of the monks at the abbey must have been an impressive sight. It always took place at night. There was a special large gondola, painted bright red, which belonged to the club and was used to ferry the monks and their girls from London to the abbey, although some of the brotherhood preferred to come in their own boats. After arriving at the landing, the monks donned white robes with hoods lined with scarlet and marched towards the abbey holding lighted tapers. Meanwhile, a bell tolled from the tower of the abbey and ghostly music was played by an organ hidden in a wing.Boatmen on the river and travelers who had lost their way occasionally witnessed this awesome spectacle. Most of them thought that the spirits of the dead monks were returning to their abbey and promptly fled—which was exactly what the Friars wanted them to do. As the procession approached the abbey the statues of Harpocrates and the Volupian Angerona on either side of the door were illuminated by lanterns hidden in the shrubbery. At the entrance stood Sir Francis, also in a white robe but wearing a Cardinal’s red hat. He cried out, “What is the password?”
The monks responded together: “Do what thou wilt!”
The procession then entered the abbey, led by the Abbot of the Day. The monks took turns for this honor. The Abbot arranged the menu, selected the wines, and organized the entertainment for the evening. He also had first pick of the women.
Inside the abbey, the lights burned behind panes of red glass which filled the Roman Room with a subdued, rosy twilight. From a silver chalice, probably engraved with pornographic designs (Hogarth has an engraving showing it, but most of the chalice was decorously covered by cloth), Sir Francis poured brandy laced with brimstone into glasses shaped like horns. A solemn toast was drunk to the powers of darkness. A deep-toned gong was struck and the procession marched into the chapel.
Some time before, Dashwood had obtained a book onblack magic from the bookseller Edmund Curll, who had a publishing house in Covent Gardens where he published pornographic works for a select coterie. Dashwood was one of his best customers. At his patron’s request, Curll obtained for him a treatise on occultism, probably a copy ofThe Key of Solomonor theKabala. At that time, books on occultism were illegal and considered in the same class as pornography, and only illicit publishers handled them. This book, whatever it was, was the basis for the club’s magical ceremonies.
There are two theories behind Satanism. One is that in view of all the evil there is in the world, Satan is really God and should be worshipped as such, since no merciful God would permit wars, disease, famines, floods, earthquakes, and all the miseries around us. The other theory is that Satan is the natural leader of all rebels who rise against the injustices of king, church, and society. Satan is a heroic figure who refuses to be pushed around. The theologian Martensen claimed that Satan was Christ’s younger brother who refused to take second place. Milton reflects this attitude inParadise Lost, when Satan, after being defeated and condemned to eternal punishment, says proudly, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” The monks of St. Francis probably took this position, as they themselves were rebels against convention. At that time, the conception of church and state as one unit, as typified by the “divine right ofkings,” was so prevalent that to be cynical about one automatically meant being cynical of the other. These men were nearly all closely connected with the government and knew it was a seething mass of corruption. They were on intimate terms with the royal family and knew that the king, George II, was a fool, and that the crown prince, Frederick, was, if anything, even worse. Several members of the club were clergymen and knew that the English High Church was as corrupt as the government. By contrast, Satan seemed a strong, determined figure—gay, imaginative, dashing, and cheerfully immoral. As one writer put it, “They made the Prince of Darkness over in the shape of an 18th Century gentleman.”
It’s hard to tell how seriously the club took their Satanism; in fact, it’s hard to tell how seriously they took anything. It was the fashion to be cynical about love, honor, patriotism, and religion. At the same time, the rakes were capable of fighting to the death for a moral issue, ruining themselves to helpothers, and even dying of a broken heart over the death of a friend. The Earl of Sandwich, the most notorious rake of the whole lot, who boasted that he specialized in seducing virgins because he enjoyed “the corruption of innocence, for its own sake,” went into retirement after the death of one of his innumerable mistresses.Dashwood nearly ruined himself trying to helpBenjamin Franklin obtain support for the American colonists. It was a timewhen the old values were being destroyed and men were desperately trying to find new standards—but always in a sneering, superior fashion.
Although the brothers wrote about their amorous adventures at the abbey in considerable detail, they didn’t say much about their celebration of the Black Mass, since that was considered even by 18th Century standards a terrible sin. We do know that the chapel was draped in black and there were missals on exhibition containing obscene parodies of the scriptures, probably along the lines of the Latin inscriptions in the garden. For the rest, the ceremony probably followed the general lines of the traditional Black Mass still occasionally practiced today by screwball groups. The Mass was celebrated on the body of a naked woman laid out on the altar and the congregation drank the sacrificial wine from her navel. The crucifix was inverted and black candles were burned. Lamps of lewd design were used. (One in the shape of a monster bat with an erect penis is still preserved in the Witchcraft Museum on the Isle of Man.) Sir Francis probably conducted the service, although, according to the statement of a contemporary writer who had talked to the monks, the Abbot of the Day had this privilege. This bogus priest seems to have worn a robe fastened with gold buttons on which were engraved the Sign of the Cross and the letters IHS. In braziers around the room magical herbs were burned: belladonna, hemlock, henbane, verbena, andmandrake—all powerful narcotics. The Host was “Holy Ghost Pye,” made, according to one authority, from the angelica root, which, from its name, is popularly referred to in England as the Holy Ghost Root. It was a standing joke of the brotherhood to call for a slice of Holy Ghost Pye when in taverns and then exchange knowing winks when the puzzled landlord asked what they meant.
Although except for the bat lamp it is not known what sort of paraphernalia was used, Sir Francis had apparently been able to purchase a large hanging lamp of Rosicrucian design from the proprietor of the George and Vulture. The proprietor had kept this lamp as a novelty, together with his pet vulture, and the Friars had used it to light their meetings in the cellar. The brotherhood would probably have bought the vulture too, but unfortunately it died. The lamphad a design depicting intertwined snakes pursuing doves, and it was seemingly used as a sort of totem by the club. What other occult furnishings were used is not known, but unquestionably they were of the best. Satanists went to great lengths to dress uptheir altars. King Henry III of France had a Black Mass altar with a section of the True Cross mounted in gold laid into a crucifix with two devils made of solid silver rubbing their behinds on it. Other famous Black Mass services include a silver chalice with a golden devil urinating into the bowl, and a hand-embroidered stole showing victorious demons subjecting the heavenly hosts to obscene humiliations.
The ceremony itself was generally merely a parody of the Catholic Mass; in the case of the Franciscans probably delivered in Macaroni Latin with double meanings. The use of the Mass by magicians was so common that our term “hocus-pocus” derived from“hic est corpus,”the words the priest utters when he elevates the Host. The brothers amused themselves writing dirty rhymes set to the tunes of wellknown hymns which were sung during the ceremony. A collection of these hymns coming to light years later caused the exile of John Wilkes.
The famous artist William Hogarth was a member of the society and he made a print showing Sir Francis at his devotions. Sir Francis in the habit of a Franciscan monk kneels before a naked woman—probably the goddess whom the brothers call the “Bona Dea.” She was also worshipped as Venus, Aphrodite, and Ishtar. Sir Francis is holding a piece of the Holy Ghost Pye, marked with a cross, and with a bite taken out of it. Over “Saint Francis” head is a halo from which peers the grinning, evil face of Lord Sandwich. On the ground beside him lies a split chalice, a rosary, and a missal. This print is in the British Museum.
The usual intent of a Black Mass ceremony is to invoke the devil for magical purposes. The Franciscans probably had no real hope of being able to invoke Satan (although they certainly got a surprise at one of their ceremonies, as will be explained later), and the whole procedure was intendedmore to ridicule Catholicism than as an actual incantation. In fact, their ceremonies so closely followed the Roman Catholic mass that the monks were denounced by one zealous defender of Protestantism as “ devil-worshippers, republicans, sodomists, and Roman Catholics.” When an apologist for the club pointed out that the members were merely devil-worshippers and didn’t go in for republicanism, sodomy, and Catholicism, the indignant defender of the faith retorted, “Well, if they’re devilworshippers, they must be a kind of Catholic and so they probably do the other things too.” The hatred of Catholicism at the time was so intense that this passed as a reasonable argument. The Franciscans did seem to take their Satanism seriously—at least as seriously as modern undergraduates take the oaths and secret rites of their fraternities.
After the chapel ceremony, the brothers entered the Roman Room. Here were waiting a line of girls, dressed as nuns, and masked. Although most of the girls were professional prostitutes, many were the wives and daughters of local merchants and tradesmen who were thrilled at the idea of having a fling with members of the nobility. These women preferred to keep their identity secret. There were even some noted ladies of fashion, but, most surprising of all, a few of the “nuns” were the wives, sisters, or even mothers of the “monks.” A contemporary writer said bitterly, “They attempt all females of their own species promiscuously—grandmothersand mothers as well as their own daughters. Even their sisters fear their violence.”
There would seem to be some justification for this charge, at least in the case of Sir Francis. He had four half-sisters, daughters of his father’s other wives, and there would seem to be good evidence that these girls sometimes attended the parties at the abbey. One of Sir Francis’ stepmothers was still alive and she may also have gone, masked, to the orgies. John Hall Stevenson, although not a member of the club, attended some of the meetings and claimed that the former Lady Mary Dashwood did occasionally appear as a “nun” and that Sir Francis enjoyed picking her out of the lineup. The idea of incest fascinated many of the rakes, especially as it bore on the theory of occultism. In magical circles, incestuous relations between a brother and a sister or a father and his daughter were often required. The idea was apparently to bind the members of a family more closely together by forcing them to share a guilt secret so terrible that it would put them beyond the pale of humanity. [The Mau Mau in Kenya also featured obscene rites whose only purpose was to convince the initiate that he was completely divorced from all tribal or religious connections.] I doubt if the Franciscans regarded it as anything more than an exciting way of defying conventions, but like many of their acts it also had a symbolic significance.
John Hall Stevenson wrote a poem about Dashwood’sincestuous relationships. The poem is supposedly written by one of the “nuns” who was picked up as a young girl by a madam supplying the club with virgins. Many of these madams were Lesbians who used the girls themselves before turning them over to men. Some of the references in the poem can no longer be traced. Here’s the poem, which is entitled: “The Confessions of Sir F—of Medmenham and of the Lady Mary, his wife”:
I was taught at sixteen by a masculine gun
Til I learnt from a pistol to handle a gun,
And then I encountered a friar from Furnes‘
That used to serve her and the abbot by turns.
Thus my nun watched the signals and had for her pains
Both the abbot’s leavings and other small gains,
For the abbot to balance and make accounts fair
Put all the young novices under her care.
Now whether in Sappho ‘twas passion or whim
She amused herself better with me than with him,
So we struck upa bargain that pleased us all three
And I stuck to the friar and she stuck to me.
Jen played on the flute with her fingers so white
And twinkled her eyes and kept time very right,
Then he served uphis cousin, a delicate blade,
And old Bridget his aunt for the sake of her maid.
And lastly, he ravished his lady so meek
When she had not lain-in much more than a week,
Although she declared she would give her consent
But had vowed the last week to lie fallow in Lent.
Like a hotspur young cock, he began with his mother,
Cheer’d three of his sisters one after the other,
And oft tried little Jen, but gain’d so little ground
Little Jen lost her patience and made him compound.
Between friar and knight, my Lesbian’s brother,
I was like to become an unfortunate mother,
But by her assistance and skill I miscarried
And at last, through her means, to Sir Francis was“married.”
“After all,” said the Friar, “in all kinds of sport,
A keen sportsman is apt to believe the time’s short,
So your sins I’ll absolve but to wipe them out quite
I enjoin you to lie with old Bridget all night.”
Sir Francis’ wife was not named “Lady Mary,” but was Sarah Gould. Sir Francis married her in 1745. She was a highly respectable woman and she and her half-mad husband lived together very happily all their lives. Why Stevenson speaks of “The Lady Mary, his wife,” isn’t known. One of his stepmothers was called Mary, and this may be a crack at their supposed incestuous relationship, or it may have been one of the nuns who adopted the “magical name”
“Lady Mary.” Both the monks and the nuns gave themselves elaborate magical names. No one seems to know who “Little Jen” or “Bridget” were. After two hundred years, many references become obscured.
