Beckford's father, twice Lord Mayor of London, was the richest man in
England, with extensive holdings in the cloth industry, property, government
bonds, and sugar plantations. As a result, Beckford received a brilliant
education, and was widely learned in French, Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, philosophy, law, literature and physics by the age of 17. His
private piano teacher was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — at least that is the
legend, too romantic to be discouraged. He was being brought up as an empire
builder, but his father died when Beckford was only ten, leaving him with no
political ambition, and a millionaire's taste for pleasure.
Greville wrote to Sir William Hamilton in Naples to say that Beckford "probably
will be obliged to vacate his seat, and retire to Italy to make up the loss
which Italy has sustained by Lord Tilney's death." Most men would have fled
immediately to the Continent, but for nearly a year Beckford braved out the
storm of abuse and secluded himself at Fonthill. No criminal charges were filed,
but King George III, who personally wished that Beckford could have been hanged,
dismissed Beckford's application for a peerage. Beckford and Courtenay were
forced to separate to avoid further reprisal. Beckford finally went abroad,
where he remained for the next ten years, living mainly in Portugal, followed by
an entourage so magnificent that during his travels he was often mistaken for
the Emperor of Austria — and charged accordingly. Courtenay, now Lord
Devon, secluded himself at Powderham, which he inherited after his father's
death.
Beckford found solace in his exile by writing additional Episodes for his
thinly veiled fantasy-autobiography, The History of the Caliph
Vathek, published in 1786. Beckford portrayed himself in his most
wicked colours as the villainous Vathek, the caliph who is satiated with sensual
pleasures and builds a tower so he can penetrate the forbidden secrets of heaven
itself. Prince Gulchenrouz is modelled upon Courtenay, "the most delicate
and lovely creature in the world" who occasionally puts on the dresses of
Princess Nouronihar (modelled upon Courtenay's aunt Lady Loughborough). Princess
Carathis, based upon Beckford's mother, is a witch who is always mixing the
powder of Egyptian mummies with frogs' warts, and running up and down the palace
casting evil spells, much as she did in real life. Vathek becomes insanely
jealous and murders both Nouronihar and Gulchenrouz, but Gulchenrouz ascends
straight to heaven and lives in a perpetual childhood surrounded by a bevy of
beautiful boy-houris. Vathek sacrifices fifty lovely lads, who "stripped
and presented to the admiration of the spectators the suppleness and grace of
their delicate limbs. . . . At intervals they nimbly started from each other for
the sake of being caught again and mutually imparting a thousand caresses."
They are thrown over a cliff one by one, but are rescued by a magic genie and
taken to join Gulchenrouz in his merry sports. Vathek finally ends up in hell, "wandering
in an eternity of anguish" for his venture into eighteenth century
sadomasochism.
The deliberately decadent style of the novel — an elaborate
construction of refined sensnbility, eroticism, moralism, satire, irony, fantasy
and Gothic horror — directly influenced the novels of Ronald Firbank and
Joris-Karl Huysmans (particularly
Against the Grain) and the poetry of Mallarme and
Swinburne.
Beckford's sardonic humour has been much more difficult to imitate. Its
greatest influence was upon French literature, for it was originally written in
French, then translated into English with the collaboration of his agent Samuel
Henley. Its curious literary history resembles that of Oscar Wilde's
Salome, which Wilde also wrote in French, then had
translated into English by Lord Douglas.
The scandal of 1784 was partly fabricated or at least exaggerated by
Courtenay's vindictive uncle Lord Loughborough, and we cannot be sure that
specific sexual acts took place; but the general charge was almost certainly
true. Beckford, though he would marry and have two daughters (his wife died in
childbirth), was primarily homosexual: by 1807 he was caricaturing himself as
Barzaba, from bar saba, Syriac for "voluptuary," but used in
the specific sense of "boy-fancier," in his letters to his agent and
general factotum Gregorio Franchi, whom he brought back with him from Portugal.
Upon his eventual return to England, Beckford shielded himself behind an eight
mile long, twelve foot high wall topped by iron spikes, surrounding his estate
(it was also built because he loved animals, and wanted to keep out hunters),
and began to act out some of the dreams of Vathek. He imported a dwarf to be his
doorkeeper (and with whom he shared the pornography occasionally sent by Franchi
from London), an abbé from France as spiritual advisor (and also as
tolerant confidant concerning boy-troubles), a physician from Italy, and a harem
of boy-servants for diversion, some picked up in England.
His household of young male servants were all given revealing gay nicknames:
"there is pale Ambrose, infamous Poupee, horrid Ghoul, insipid Mme Bion,
cadaverous Nicobuse, the portentous dwarf, frigid Silence," Miss Long, Miss
Butterfly (slang for catamite), Countess Pox, Mr Prudent Well-Sealed-up, The
Monkey, The Turk (Ali-dru, an Albanian with whom Beckford travelled and bathed),
and others: "we have enough ragamuffins here." As for the stableboys, "none
of them are in the least promising." Not all of them were willing partners:
"It's not worth talking about Bijou — he's not of the right kind and
never will be; we'll need other angels if we go to another paradise." There
are some problems with Mademoiselle Bion, his valet Richardson, who seems to
grant all favours except one, in which respect he is berated as frigid: "What
most confounds and disgusts me is a certain kind of frigidity and insipidity
like Mme Bion's (the devil take you, you blond beast)"; and yet, "Bion
always counts for something."
Very few people gained entrance to the cathedral Beckford called home, and
naturally rumours arose concerning wild orgies of the caliph and his male harem.
These rumours are exaggerated — as is everything connected with Beckford —
but they cannot be dismissed altogether. Where there was so much smoke there
were bound to be a few flames flickering. Beckford was a collector and builder
on a mammoth scale, and he was probably more interested in acquiring objets
d'art than fawn-youths. But the two manias were aligned: "it's cruel
to hear talk of fair boys and dark Jade vases and not to buy them."
His exclusion from society was compensated for by the transformation of
Fonthill Abbey into a Gothic cathedral to rival nearby Salisbury Cathedral. With
the help of the leading architect of the day, James Wyatt, he raised a tower
that was nearly 300 feet high. The main enfilade had an uninterrupted vista of
300 feet from the north through the south transepts, and four of the bedrooms
were perched 120 feet above ground. (All that remains of Fonthill Abbey today is
less than half of the north wing, containing the Lancaster Tower, Sanctuary, and
Oratory, which used to house an alabaster statue of Beckford's patron saint, St
Anthony, flanked by 36 lighted tapers in silver- gilt candelabras, as the focal
point of the vista.) A grand opening was arranged in 1800, though even the
exterior was hardly near completion, and his guests of honour were Admiral Lord
Nelson and his mistress Emma Hamilton, the kind of people who dared to defy the
conventions. But for the rest, his visitors were limited to painters such as
Benjamin West, writers, artists, artisans and art dealers, and tradesmen, and
his dinners were patched up from social odds and ends. Even in Portugal the
English colony had refused to pay visits, and did all they could to prevent
Beckford from being presented at court. Beckford had no hope of ever again
moving in polite society, and we should not underestimate the pervasive
ostracism to which he was subjected. The liberal Sir Richard Hoare of nearby
Stourhead asked to see the famed Abbey, and was conducted around by Beckford in
1806. But when the Wiltshire neighbours heard of this, they demanded an
explanation from Sir Richard, lest he be shunned by them as well; he made
excuses for this gaffe, and never again saw Beckford.
During the completion and furnishing of the Abbey, Beckford was
simultaneously engaged with Franchi in the pursuit of youths. For example,
throughout September and October 1807, Beckford wrote directions to Franchi to
do some pimping for him: "If it is at all possible, go to see an angel
called Saunders who is a tight- rope walker at the Circus Royal and the certain
captivator of every bugger's soul. Ah!" Saunders and his troupe disappear
but are caught sight of again: "find out what you can about the site of the
Earthly Paradise. Many have sought it in vain: some in Syria or Mesopotamia,
some in Abyssinia, others in Ceylon, but I (according to the latest information)
in Bristol." His home was discovered to be in Duke Street, London, and
Franchi was advised to visit his father, and to make "a proposition for a
journey to foreign parts, and even a life-annuity — all this is possible."
Letters urging Franchi to make arrangements flowed furiously throughout October.
By the end of that month Beckford himself had been to "the Leg household"
(a pun upon tights), and was lodging in Brunets' Hotel, Leicester Square, an
area frequented by theatrical people and foreigners, waiting to see Saunders in
his room. Years later, in 1811, Beckford was still following the travels of
Saunders, this time to York, as well as those of a young horseman who was part
of the troupe: "I would not fly from a nice York patapouf [catamite] if
Providence sent him to me."
Master Saunders was born in 1789, so he was 18 (though made up to look
younger, as he was billed as "the celebrated Equestrian Infant-Phenomenon")
when Beckford saw him, and Beckford was not literally a pederast; it would be
more accurate to read "youths" or "lads" whenever he writes
of "boys." The Turk stayed with Beckford a good many years, and their
relationship did not fade with the passing youth of the former. Beckford's
interest was not limited to ephebes: "I'd like to run away, Heaven knows
where, with some great Jock" (18 September 1813). He was also attracted to
a soldier in Bath, hoping to "take some lessons in drilling from him"
(12 October 1819).
Beckford never again mingled with high society, but he was not permanently
sequestered at Fonthill, and his letters to Franchi suggest that he sometimes
ventured into the homosexual subculture of London. From 1811 to 1817 he rented
No 6 Upper Harley Street (now 100 Harley Street), where Franchi often stayed. He
also stayed at "Brunets' bagnio," sometimes in company with The Turk.
The apartments cost 11 or 12 guineas a week, which "isn't very cheap."
And occasionally he stayed in Louis Jacquier's Clarendon Hotel, New Bond Street:
"late last night, coming out of Jacquier's, I went in search of a little
amusement in an accustomed quarter. I knock. They've gone away" (19 January
1819). The Seven Dials neighbourhood in St Giles' Parish he called "the
Holy Land," his term for the gay cruising area, where he hoped to "kiss
the relics" (1 July 1812). And, further out, in August-September 1810 he
found a "little rogue" on Hounslow heath, a "Paradise" where
a barracks was conveniently sited; he may well have shared the pleasures of the
Vere Street Coterie in that year.
Few men attained greater celebrity during the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries than William Beckford (1760—1844), the wealthiest man
in England. With enormous wealth as his Aladdin's lamp, he decided to make his
Arabian dreams come true. By the time he died at the venerable age of 84, he had
built the loftiest domestic residence in the world, had assembled a virtual
harem of boys, had his own militia to protect his Fonthill estate of 6,000
acres, had written the first Oriental-Gothic horror novel in English literature,
and had become the most scandalous connoisseur of hedonism in the modern world.
His society bemusedly tolerated most eccentrics — even nouveau riche
ones — but they chose to ostracize this remarkable personality, dubbing him
"The Fool of Fonthill."
But even money cannot stop the mouths of gossip-mongers. When this
self-styled Caliph was 19, he fell in love with the Hon William Courtenay, later
3rd Viscount and 9th Earl of Devon, then ten years old and regarded as one of
the most beautiful boys in England, borne out by paintings of him. Beckford and
Courtenay saw each other frequently either at Fonthill or at Powderham Castle in
Devon, Courtenay's home, for nearly six peaceful years. But then, in 1784, a
visitor to Powderham claimed to have heard some "strange goings on" in
Courtenay's bedroom, with Beckford apparently in bed with the lad. Soon the
newspapers started circulating rumours about the country squire and his "Kitty,"
as the beautiful Courtenay was effeminately dubbed.
As for the youth for whom Beckford's reputation had been ruined, William Courtenay seems to have been more actively and exclusively homosexual than his supposed seducer; he never married, and was not very cautious. According to the diarist Joseph Farington, by 1810 few of the gentlemen of Exeter would visit their scandalous neighbour, and the people of Torquay so reviled his servants that Lord Courtenay had to give up plans to build a summer residence there. By 1811 an Essex magistrate had gathered enough evidence to convict Courtenay of unnatural crimes; on hearing that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, he fled to France, where he lived in obscurity for the next twenty-four years. But the lower classes missed their benefactor, even as late as 1823, for Courtenay "was so humane and charitable, that to this day all the poor in the neighbourhood of Exeter lament his absence" [William Benbow, The Crimes of the Clergy, or The Pillars of Priest- Craft Shakes (London, 1823), p. 230]. A distant cousin with a passion for genealogy in 1831 helped to revive the earldom of Devon in his favour (a title which the cousin would inherit upon Courtenay's death), and the newspapers taunted the new Earl of Devon for not returning to England to claim his seat in the House of Lords. But the laws of England were not so tolerant as the Code Napoleon, and Courtenay preferred to spend his remaining years in his Paris house in the Place Vendôme to being imprisoned or hanged in his native country. And who can blame him?
By the 1820s, Beckford had spent so much money on Fonthill that he was forced to mortgage it. In 1823 he sold it to a gunpowder maker for nearly five million dollars. He then bought an estate near Bath and built what he called Lansdown Baghdad, with a much shorter tower. Now in his late sixties, he became respectably eccentric, rather than scandalously debauched, until his death.
Beckford's personality still remains enigmatic, even for his modern biographers. "He was," in the opinion of Alistair Sutherland, "as much a martyr as Wilde, and almost certainly a more interesting and civilised man." He was immensely intelligent as well as a hedonist, a serious artist as well as a social rebel, and more honest than eccentric.
CITATION: If you cite this Web page, please use the following form of citation:
Rictor Norton, "William Beckford: The Fool of Fonthill", Gay History and Literature, updated 16 Nov. 1999 <http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/beckfor1.htm>.