WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I want to start 00:00:02.379 --> 00:00:06.259 today by asking you to picture a specific kind 00:00:06.259 --> 00:00:08.439 of person. We all know them. Okay. They're the 00:00:08.439 --> 00:00:10.560 ones who are just absolutely obsessed with the 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:12.619 aesthetic of the past. Maybe a little too much. 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:15.419 They love old castles. They love gloomy weather. 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:18.019 Ah, I know who you're talking about. Right. They 00:00:18.019 --> 00:00:20.039 probably have a very curated Instagram feed full 00:00:20.039 --> 00:00:23.089 of... you know, dark academia vibes. And they're 00:00:23.089 --> 00:00:26.489 constantly documenting every little irony of 00:00:26.489 --> 00:00:29.390 their daily life. It sounds like half the people 00:00:29.390 --> 00:00:32.030 on social media right now. Exactly. But the person 00:00:32.030 --> 00:00:34.770 we are unpacking today isn't a modern influencer. 00:00:35.149 --> 00:00:36.829 He was doing all of this in the middle of the 00:00:36.829 --> 00:00:40.189 18th century. We are talking about Horace Walpole. 00:00:40.310 --> 00:00:42.729 Horace Walpole, yeah. Honestly, the more I looked 00:00:42.729 --> 00:00:44.469 into the stack of research for this episode, 00:00:44.649 --> 00:00:46.829 the more it felt like he was a time traveler. 00:00:47.270 --> 00:00:51.000 He basically invented the Gothic. So if you like 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:53.640 haunted houses or vampires or just moody lighting, 00:00:53.820 --> 00:00:56.299 you have him to thank. You really do. But he 00:00:56.299 --> 00:00:58.539 was also the son of the most powerful prime minister 00:00:58.539 --> 00:01:00.880 in British history. It's a jarring contrast, 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:03.240 isn't it? On one hand, you have this incredibly 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:07.120 delicate, artistic innovator who coins words 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:10.579 like serendipity and builds these like fairytale 00:01:10.579 --> 00:01:13.079 castles. And on the other hand, his last name 00:01:13.079 --> 00:01:16.959 is Walpole. In the 1700s, that name was synonymous 00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:20.200 with raw, hard nosed political power. That's 00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:22.040 a great way to put it. It's like finding out 00:01:22.040 --> 00:01:24.200 that the person who invented goth culture was 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:27.959 also, I don't know, the son of a pragmatic cigar 00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:30.730 chomping president. It just doesn't seem to fit. 00:01:30.829 --> 00:01:33.349 That is the perfect setup. And we have a massive 00:01:33.349 --> 00:01:35.810 stack of sources today, biographies, political 00:01:35.810 --> 00:01:38.150 histories, architectural critiques, and of course, 00:01:38.150 --> 00:01:40.049 his own letters. A lot of letters. And there 00:01:40.049 --> 00:01:42.450 are a lot of letters. 48 volumes of them in the 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:45.569 Yale edition. It's a monumental record of a life. 00:01:45.650 --> 00:01:47.569 So our mission today is to figure out who this 00:01:47.569 --> 00:01:51.329 guy actually was. Was he a genius, a dilettante, 00:01:51.530 --> 00:01:55.730 a gossip? Or was he, as some sources suggest, 00:01:56.030 --> 00:01:59.180 the patient zero? for the anxieties of the modern 00:01:59.180 --> 00:02:01.400 world? A fascinating question. Let's start at 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:04.700 the beginning. 1717. He's born into the Walpole 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:08.319 family. But to understand Horace, we really have 00:02:08.319 --> 00:02:11.900 to understand the dad, Sir Robert Walpole. You 00:02:11.900 --> 00:02:14.780 cannot overstate Sir Robert Walpole's shadow. 00:02:15.020 --> 00:02:17.039 I mean, he is generally considered the first 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:19.039 prime minister of Great Britain, though the title 00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:21.060 wasn't official in the same way back then. Right. 00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:24.180 He held power for over 20 years. He was a Whig. 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:27.460 But more importantly, he was just... A force 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:29.719 of nature. Okay, when you say force of nature, 00:02:29.900 --> 00:02:31.639 what does that look like in the 18th century? 00:02:31.780 --> 00:02:34.539 It looks like a tank. Sir Robert was a coarse, 00:02:34.659 --> 00:02:38.639 heavyset, robust man. He was famous for his drinking, 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:41.020 his hunting, and his ability to manage the House 00:02:41.020 --> 00:02:44.439 of Commons through a mix of, well, bribery, bullying, 00:02:44.620 --> 00:02:46.800 and sheer personality. The ultimate insider. 00:02:47.060 --> 00:02:49.060 The ultimate insider. He made the system work 00:02:49.060 --> 00:02:51.900 by sheer will. He was masculine in that very 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:54.419 traditional, aggressive, country squire sort 00:02:54.419 --> 00:02:57.039 of way. Okay, so you have this tank of a father. 00:02:57.240 --> 00:02:59.500 And then comes Horace. He's the youngest son. 00:02:59.740 --> 00:03:02.340 And looking at the descriptions of him as a child. 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:05.069 He doesn't seem to fit the mold. Doesn't fit, 00:03:05.189 --> 00:03:07.870 is putting it mildly. Horace was born on September 00:03:07.870 --> 00:03:11.949 24th, 1717. But the timing is the first red flag 00:03:11.949 --> 00:03:14.030 that historians, you know, they really pick up 00:03:14.030 --> 00:03:17.310 on. He was born 11 years after his mother's previous 00:03:17.310 --> 00:03:20.610 child. 11 years. Yeah. That's a lifetime in terms 00:03:20.610 --> 00:03:22.810 of family dynamics, especially back then. It 00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:25.330 is. It effectively meant he was raised almost 00:03:25.330 --> 00:03:27.629 as an only child in some respects, or at least 00:03:27.629 --> 00:03:30.030 a distinct generation from his siblings. But 00:03:30.030 --> 00:03:32.810 the whispers began almost immediately. Oh. You 00:03:32.810 --> 00:03:35.849 see, his mother. Catherine Shorter, was a fascinating 00:03:35.849 --> 00:03:40.009 woman, cultured, intelligent. But by 1717, her 00:03:40.009 --> 00:03:42.229 marriage to the prime minister was, well, let's 00:03:42.229 --> 00:03:44.030 call it polite estrangement. They were living 00:03:44.030 --> 00:03:46.849 separate lives. Effectively. Sir Robert had his 00:03:46.849 --> 00:03:49.430 mistresses and Catherine had her own social circle. 00:03:49.669 --> 00:03:51.949 And this is where the gossip gets very specific. 00:03:52.330 --> 00:03:54.569 There was a rumor that Dog Horace his entire 00:03:54.569 --> 00:03:56.669 life, one that he never publicly acknowledged, 00:03:56.930 --> 00:03:59.750 but, you know, likely knew about. The rumor was 00:03:59.750 --> 00:04:02.030 that Sir Robert Walpole was not his biological 00:04:02.030 --> 00:04:05.449 father. the suspect? A man named Carr, Lord Hervey. 00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:08.469 He was an aristocrat, the elder brother of the 00:04:08.469 --> 00:04:11.389 more famous John Hervey. And the reason this 00:04:11.389 --> 00:04:13.289 rumor stuck wasn't just because of the timeline. 00:04:13.689 --> 00:04:16.569 It was physical. Because Horace didn't look like 00:04:16.569 --> 00:04:19.149 a Walpole. Not even a little bit. The Walpoles 00:04:19.149 --> 00:04:22.069 were, as we said, robust, heavy, earthy people. 00:04:22.430 --> 00:04:25.189 Horace was frail. He was slender. He had a pale 00:04:25.189 --> 00:04:28.209 complexion and these bright, darting eyes. He 00:04:28.209 --> 00:04:30.470 had a nervous energy that was completely alien 00:04:30.470 --> 00:04:32.829 to his father's temperament, but according to 00:04:32.829 --> 00:04:34.970 the gossips of the time, he looked exactly like 00:04:34.970 --> 00:04:37.209 a Hervey. And the Herveys had a reputation, didn't 00:04:37.209 --> 00:04:39.490 they? I remember seeing a quote in the research 00:04:39.490 --> 00:04:43.230 from Lady Mary Wortley Montague. She was a writer 00:04:43.230 --> 00:04:46.149 who, she did not pull any punches. Oh, Lady Mary 00:04:46.149 --> 00:04:48.250 was lethal. She wrote a line that became famous 00:04:48.250 --> 00:04:51.269 in London society. She said that mankind is divided 00:04:51.269 --> 00:04:54.689 into three species, men, women, and Herveys. 00:04:54.769 --> 00:04:57.639 That is brutal. What does she even mean by that? 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:00.019 She was implying that the Hervey family was so 00:05:00.019 --> 00:05:03.000 eccentric, so effeminate, perhaps so, you know, 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.339 fluid in their gender presentation or just so 00:05:05.339 --> 00:05:07.860 culturally distinct that they didn't fit into 00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:10.139 the normal categories of male and female. They 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:11.759 were their own thing. They were something else. 00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:14.500 Intelligent, witty, perhaps a bit hysterical 00:05:14.500 --> 00:05:18.160 and physically delicate. And here's Horace, the 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:20.639 son of the most masculine man in England, and 00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:22.480 everyone is whispering that he actually belongs 00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:26.149 to this... Third species. Exactly. Now, we have 00:05:26.149 --> 00:05:28.550 to be careful. There's no DNA test. We'll never 00:05:28.550 --> 00:05:32.490 know for sure. But in history, the truth often 00:05:32.490 --> 00:05:34.709 matters less than the perception. Right. It's 00:05:34.709 --> 00:05:37.029 about the psychological impact. Think about the 00:05:37.029 --> 00:05:39.129 psychological weight of that. You're living in 00:05:39.129 --> 00:05:40.689 the prime minister's house. You're enjoying the 00:05:40.689 --> 00:05:42.230 prime minister's wealth. But you look in the 00:05:42.230 --> 00:05:44.990 mirror and you see a stranger. You see a Hervey. 00:05:45.089 --> 00:05:47.610 It creates immediate imposter syndrome. It creates 00:05:47.610 --> 00:05:50.189 an outsider status within the ultimate insider 00:05:50.189 --> 00:05:53.399 family. Lady Louisa Stewart, who wrote a memoir 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:56.660 much later, noted that Horace was unlike a Walpole 00:05:56.660 --> 00:05:59.279 in figure and in mind. And that would explain 00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:01.060 his relationship with his mother. Absolutely. 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:03.660 Horace himself practically worshipped his mother. 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:06.579 The sources describe his attachment to her as 00:06:06.579 --> 00:06:08.779 the most powerful emotion of his entire life. 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:11.939 That makes sense. If he feels alienated from 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:14.360 the father figure, he clings to the mother. It 00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:18.259 was an intense, intense devotion. And when she 00:06:18.259 --> 00:06:21.579 died in 1737, when Horace was just 20 years old, 00:06:21.699 --> 00:06:24.040 he was shattered. He wrote about it in a way 00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:26.560 that suggests he never really got over it. It 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:29.560 left him alone in a world of wolves, the political 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:32.379 wolves his father commanded. So he's a sensitive 00:06:32.379 --> 00:06:35.399 kid. He's smart. He's a bit of a loner in his 00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:37.959 own home. He goes to school, Eaton, and then 00:06:37.959 --> 00:06:40.839 King's College, Cambridge. And this is where 00:06:40.839 --> 00:06:43.379 we see him trying to find his own tribe. He doesn't 00:06:43.379 --> 00:06:47.680 join the rugby team, so to speak. No, he does 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:49.939 something very characteristic. He forms a clique, 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:52.339 but not just the social clique, an intellectual 00:06:52.339 --> 00:06:55.480 alliance. At Eaton, he creates the Triumvirate. 00:06:55.689 --> 00:06:57.910 With Charles Littleton and George Montague. Okay. 00:06:58.029 --> 00:06:59.810 But the really important one happens a bit later, 00:06:59.870 --> 00:07:02.230 the Quadruple Alliance. It sounds like a geopolitical 00:07:02.230 --> 00:07:04.550 treaty. The Quadruple Alliance. Who was in it? 00:07:04.629 --> 00:07:07.189 It was Horace Walpole, Thomas Ashton, Richard 00:07:07.189 --> 00:07:09.769 West, and a young man named Thomas Gray. Thomas 00:07:09.769 --> 00:07:12.790 Gray, the poet. The very same. The man who would 00:07:12.790 --> 00:07:15.550 go on to write Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 00:07:15.649 --> 00:07:17.810 one of the most famous poems in the English language. 00:07:18.009 --> 00:07:20.050 But at this point, they're just students. And 00:07:20.050 --> 00:07:22.819 the dynamic of this group is... Fascinating. 00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:26.360 They were united by a sense of superiority, frankly. 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:30.540 They were the sensitive, literary, witty boys 00:07:30.540 --> 00:07:33.139 who looked down on the rough -and -tumble hardies 00:07:33.139 --> 00:07:35.740 of the school. It's the classic theater kid defense 00:07:35.740 --> 00:07:38.120 mechanism. You might be better at sports, but 00:07:38.120 --> 00:07:40.540 we read Virgil and have inside jokes. Precisely. 00:07:40.889 --> 00:07:42.949 They gave themselves nicknames from antiquity. 00:07:42.990 --> 00:07:45.410 They wrote long, flowery letters to each other. 00:07:45.569 --> 00:07:48.550 For Walpole, this was the family he chose. It 00:07:48.550 --> 00:07:51.529 was based on sympathy of soul, not blood. But 00:07:51.529 --> 00:07:53.449 there was a class dynamic there, too, which I'm 00:07:53.449 --> 00:07:55.089 guessing is important for what happens next. 00:07:55.350 --> 00:07:57.389 Crucial. Right, because Walpole is the prime 00:07:57.389 --> 00:08:01.050 minister's son. He's wildly rich. Gray is not. 00:08:01.269 --> 00:08:03.870 Gray is the son of a scrivener. He's middle class. 00:08:04.129 --> 00:08:05.670 He's at Eaton and Cambridge on scholarships. 00:08:06.069 --> 00:08:08.610 He is brilliant, perhaps more brilliant than 00:08:08.610 --> 00:08:10.509 Walpole, but he doesn't have the safety net. 00:08:10.839 --> 00:08:13.199 So Walpole's the patron and Gray is the talent. 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:16.680 In a way, yeah. That inequality was always simmering 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:19.279 beneath the surface. Which brings us to the ultimate 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.639 post -grad trip, the Grand Tour. The rite of 00:08:22.639 --> 00:08:26.740 passage. In 1739, Horace leaves Cambridge without 00:08:26.740 --> 00:08:29.379 a degree, which he could afford to do, and decides 00:08:29.379 --> 00:08:31.959 to tour the continent. And he invites Thomas 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:34.519 Gray to come with him. Walpole pays for everything. 00:08:34.899 --> 00:08:38.559 On paper, this sounds like the dream. You or 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:41.240 your best friend? Unlimited budget traveling 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:43.279 through France and Italy. It should have been 00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:45.580 the dream. And for a while it was. They land 00:08:45.580 --> 00:08:47.519 in Calais. They go to Paris. They're seeing the 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:50.679 world. But imagine the reality of travel in 1739. 00:08:51.419 --> 00:08:53.879 It's exhausting. You're in a carriage for days. 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:56.179 And you were stuck with the same person 247. 00:08:56.299 --> 00:08:58.539 Exactly. And they have very different ideas of 00:08:58.539 --> 00:09:01.379 fun. Right. That was my next question. Starkly 00:09:01.379 --> 00:09:04.120 different. Walpole is 22. He's the son of the 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:06.769 most powerful man in Europe. essentially he wants 00:09:06.769 --> 00:09:09.029 to go to the masquerade balls he wants to play 00:09:09.029 --> 00:09:11.669 cards with duchesses until 4 a .m he wants to 00:09:11.669 --> 00:09:14.210 be seen he wants to live the life he's embracing 00:09:14.210 --> 00:09:16.710 the fashionable life absolutely and gray gray 00:09:16.710 --> 00:09:19.490 is a scholar he's serious melancholic and introverted 00:09:19.490 --> 00:09:22.350 he wants to go to the ruins he wants to transcribe 00:09:22.350 --> 00:09:24.809 latin inscriptions he wants to study the architecture 00:09:24.809 --> 00:09:28.200 so he's there for work almost He is, and he doesn't 00:09:28.200 --> 00:09:30.259 fit in at the high society parties, and he probably 00:09:30.259 --> 00:09:32.919 resents that Walpole fits in so easily. It's 00:09:32.919 --> 00:09:35.200 a slow motion car crash. Yeah. You have the party 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:37.659 boy and the nerd trapped in a carriage crossing 00:09:37.659 --> 00:09:39.740 the Alps. And don't forget the power dynamic. 00:09:40.299 --> 00:09:43.179 Walpole is paying. Every time Gray wants to do 00:09:43.179 --> 00:09:44.980 something, he effectively has to ask permission, 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:47.320 or at least defer to the man holding the purse 00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:50.659 strings. That breeds resentment. So where does 00:09:50.659 --> 00:09:54.480 it finally blow up? Reggio, Italy. May 1741. 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:57.000 We don't know the exact words that were exchanged, 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.840 but it was a furious argument. Some sources suggest 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:01.840 Walpole might have opened one of Gray's letters 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:04.039 to check if Gray was gossiping about him. Oof. 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:07.259 That is a massive breach of trust. A huge one. 00:10:07.500 --> 00:10:10.100 Whatever the spark, the powder keg exploded. 00:10:10.220 --> 00:10:12.940 They split up. Gray went on to Venice alone, 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:16.059 probably humiliated and terrifyingly short on 00:10:16.059 --> 00:10:18.620 funds. And Walpole. Walpole stayed behind, fell 00:10:18.620 --> 00:10:21.259 ill with Quincy, which is a severe throat abscess, 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:24.090 and nearly died. It's a tragic end to the friendship. 00:10:24.529 --> 00:10:26.210 But this is one of the moments where I actually 00:10:26.210 --> 00:10:30.049 started to like Walpole because he doesn't spin 00:10:30.049 --> 00:10:32.049 this to make himself look good later on. No, 00:10:32.210 --> 00:10:34.330 he doesn't. And that's really telling. Years 00:10:34.330 --> 00:10:36.710 later, after they had reconciled somewhat, Walpole 00:10:36.710 --> 00:10:39.529 took full responsibility. He wrote a letter where 00:10:39.529 --> 00:10:41.549 he essentially flayed himself. What did he say? 00:10:41.710 --> 00:10:44.220 He said, I was too young. Too fond of my own 00:10:44.220 --> 00:10:47.379 diversions. Intoxicated by indulgence, vanity, 00:10:47.519 --> 00:10:50.299 and the insolence of my situation. The insolence 00:10:50.299 --> 00:10:53.620 of my situation? That is such a perceptive phrase. 00:10:53.860 --> 00:10:56.100 He realized that being the prime minister's son 00:10:56.100 --> 00:10:58.639 had made him a jerk. He did. He admitted that 00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:01.379 he treated Gray, who was his superior in intellect, 00:11:01.460 --> 00:11:04.600 as an inferior in rank. He wrote, I treated him 00:11:04.600 --> 00:11:07.240 insolently. He loved me and I did not think he 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:09.460 did. Wow. It is a moment of profound maturity. 00:11:09.580 --> 00:11:11.980 He realized that his privilege had blinded him 00:11:11.980 --> 00:11:14.379 to his friend's humanity. So he comes back to 00:11:14.379 --> 00:11:17.240 England in late 1741. He's alone. He's recovering 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:19.279 from illness. His best friendship is in tatters. 00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:22.320 And to top it all off, he returns to a political 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:24.980 crisis. He lands right as his father's empire 00:11:24.980 --> 00:11:27.600 is crumbling. Sir Robert Walpole had been in 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:30.919 power for decades, but by 1742, he was forced 00:11:30.919 --> 00:11:34.059 to resign. The great man fell. So Horace enters 00:11:34.059 --> 00:11:36.659 adulthood just as the source of his family's 00:11:36.659 --> 00:11:39.580 power vanishes. But he doesn't, you know, get 00:11:39.580 --> 00:11:41.279 a job at a coffee shop. He goes into the family 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:44.700 business. He enters Parliament. In 1741, he was 00:11:44.700 --> 00:11:46.700 elected as a member of Parliament for Collington 00:11:46.700 --> 00:11:49.399 in Cornwall. Now, when we say elected, we need 00:11:49.399 --> 00:11:51.299 to clarify what that means in the 18th century. 00:11:51.850 --> 00:11:54.830 Did he campaign? Did he kiss babies? Not even 00:11:54.830 --> 00:11:57.870 close. He never set foot in Collington. He likely 00:11:57.870 --> 00:11:59.850 couldn't even find it on a map without help. 00:12:00.009 --> 00:12:03.289 This was a rotten borough. Explain that concept 00:12:03.289 --> 00:12:06.649 for us. Imagine a district that has, say, 10 00:12:06.649 --> 00:12:10.049 voters. And all 10 of those voters live on land 00:12:10.049 --> 00:12:12.389 owned by your family or they work for your family. 00:12:12.629 --> 00:12:15.049 So their vote isn't exactly a free choice. It's 00:12:15.049 --> 00:12:17.289 no choice at all. If they don't vote for you, 00:12:17.350 --> 00:12:19.769 they lose their homes. That's a rotten borough. 00:12:20.169 --> 00:12:22.230 It was a seat in parliament that could be bought 00:12:22.230 --> 00:12:25.509 and sold like furniture. The Walpole family controlled 00:12:25.509 --> 00:12:29.009 several of them. Collington, Castle Rising, Kingsland. 00:12:29.389 --> 00:12:31.830 So he sat in parliament for years without even 00:12:31.830 --> 00:12:33.909 visiting the places he represented. For nearly 00:12:33.909 --> 00:12:37.009 30 years, yes. Essentially as a placeholder for 00:12:37.009 --> 00:12:39.929 his family's influence. So he's an MP. But he 00:12:39.929 --> 00:12:42.090 also had these other titles. I saw them in the 00:12:42.090 --> 00:12:45.889 notes. Usher of the Exchequer. Clerk of the Estreets. 00:12:45.990 --> 00:12:48.070 What are these? These are what were known as 00:12:48.070 --> 00:12:51.330 sinecures. This is a crucial concept to understand 00:12:51.330 --> 00:12:54.809 the Georgian era. A sinecure is an office that 00:12:54.809 --> 00:12:57.789 carries a salary but requires absolutely no work. 00:12:57.970 --> 00:13:00.509 That sounds like a scam. To modern ears, it is 00:13:00.509 --> 00:13:03.970 corruption, pure and simple. But in the 18th 00:13:03.970 --> 00:13:06.169 century, it was how the government patronage 00:13:06.169 --> 00:13:08.970 system worked. If you were a placement, you were 00:13:08.970 --> 00:13:11.070 loyal to the government, and in exchange, you 00:13:11.070 --> 00:13:14.129 got a title and an income. So as usher of the 00:13:14.129 --> 00:13:16.399 exchequer. He didn't actually have to usher anyone 00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:18.679 anywhere. He just collected the checks. How much 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:21.799 money are we talking about? By 1745, his various 00:13:21.799 --> 00:13:24.340 sinecures were bringing in about 3 ,400 pounds 00:13:24.340 --> 00:13:26.519 a year. Give us a frame of reference. What is 00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:28.899 3 ,400 pounds worth back then? It's a massive 00:13:28.899 --> 00:13:31.480 fortune. A skilled laborer might earn 30 pounds 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:33.980 or 40 pounds a year. A gentleman could live very 00:13:33.980 --> 00:13:36.539 comfortably on 500 pounds. So he's pulling in 00:13:36.539 --> 00:13:39.019 nearly seven times a comfortable gentleman's 00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:40.919 income for doing nothing. For doing officially 00:13:40.919 --> 00:13:44.110 nothing, yes. It feels hypocritical. Because 00:13:44.110 --> 00:13:47.490 later on, we see him writing about liberty and 00:13:47.490 --> 00:13:50.429 virtue. It is a paradox. But there's a scholar, 00:13:50.590 --> 00:13:52.850 W .H. Smith, who makes a really interesting argument 00:13:52.850 --> 00:13:55.909 about this. He suggests that while Walpole took 00:13:55.909 --> 00:13:58.269 the money, he actually did perform a service 00:13:58.269 --> 00:14:00.570 for the nation. He just didn't do it in the Exchequer. 00:14:00.690 --> 00:14:03.929 How so? Smith argues that Walpole used that financial 00:14:03.929 --> 00:14:06.210 independence to become the chronicler of his 00:14:06.210 --> 00:14:09.059 age. Because he didn't have to work a real job, 00:14:09.259 --> 00:14:11.779 he had the time to write thousands of detailed 00:14:11.779 --> 00:14:14.919 letters. He had the time to preserve the history 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:18.500 of the 18th century. So, in a weird way, the 00:14:18.500 --> 00:14:21.799 taxpayers of 1750 paid for the history books 00:14:21.799 --> 00:14:25.080 we read in 2024. That's the argument. A generous 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:27.259 one, but it holds some water. That's a generous 00:14:27.259 --> 00:14:29.389 reading, but I like it. It frames him as a state 00:14:29.389 --> 00:14:31.289 -sponsored historian, just without the official 00:14:31.289 --> 00:14:33.850 mandate. But let's talk about his actual politics. 00:14:33.970 --> 00:14:35.809 Because for a guy living off the government, 00:14:35.970 --> 00:14:38.490 he had some weirdly radical stuff in his bedroom. 00:14:38.750 --> 00:14:42.250 Ah, yes. Major Charta. Tell us about Major Charta. 00:14:42.429 --> 00:14:46.049 So on one side of his bed, he had the Magna Carta, 00:14:46.169 --> 00:14:48.409 the Great Charter of Liberties. On the other 00:14:48.409 --> 00:14:50.990 side, he hung a framed copy of the execution 00:14:50.990 --> 00:14:54.110 warrant of King Charles III. The document that 00:14:54.110 --> 00:14:56.690 authorized the beheading of a king. Yes, and 00:14:56.690 --> 00:14:59.429 he called it Major Charter, the Greater Charter. 00:14:59.690 --> 00:15:03.870 That is edgy. That is 18th century punk rock. 00:15:04.230 --> 00:15:07.210 He's basically saying the only thing better than 00:15:07.210 --> 00:15:09.370 limiting the king's power is cutting his head 00:15:09.370 --> 00:15:11.889 off. It was a shocking thing for an aristocrat 00:15:11.889 --> 00:15:14.750 to display. He called himself a quiet Republican. 00:15:15.740 --> 00:15:17.700 But we have to nuance this. He wasn't a Republican 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:20.539 in the modern American sense, nor was he, you 00:15:20.539 --> 00:15:22.919 know, a Jacobin revolutionary. He was an old 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:25.860 wig. What's the distinction there? He hated absolute 00:15:25.860 --> 00:15:28.480 power. He believed that the king should be a 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:31.399 figurehead. He used a fantastic image from Shakespeare's 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:33.240 Macbeth to explain it. Oh, this I want to hear. 00:15:33.399 --> 00:15:35.320 He said he approved of a king only if he was 00:15:35.320 --> 00:15:38.120 like Banquo's ghost filling the empty chair of 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:40.720 state. Just a spooky image to keep the seat warm 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:43.639 so nobody else sits in it. Exactly. He wanted 00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:46.019 the shadow of a king to prevent a dictator like 00:15:46.019 --> 00:15:48.360 Cromwell from taking over. But he wanted that 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:51.460 king to have zero actual ability to govern. He 00:15:51.460 --> 00:15:54.500 was terrified of prerogative power. So he hangs 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:56.460 the death warrant on his wall as a reminder. 00:15:56.820 --> 00:15:59.659 We cut off one head. We can do it again if you 00:15:59.659 --> 00:16:02.659 get too bossy. That's the message. It's so theatrical. 00:16:03.019 --> 00:16:05.360 It is, which is the perfect transition to his 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:07.820 biggest project, the theater he built for himself 00:16:07.820 --> 00:16:10.500 to live in, Strawberry Hill. Now we are getting 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:13.399 to the heart of the Walpole legacy. In 1747, 00:16:13.539 --> 00:16:16.240 he got a small, nondescript house in Twickenham, 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:19.000 just outside London, overlooking the River Thames. 00:16:19.179 --> 00:16:21.120 And most people in his position would have built 00:16:21.120 --> 00:16:23.899 a nice, symmetrical, classical villa. You know, 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:26.620 white columns, Roman statues, very rational. 00:16:26.820 --> 00:16:29.159 That was the style, Palladianism. It was all 00:16:29.159 --> 00:16:31.720 about order, reason, and logic. The enlightenment 00:16:31.720 --> 00:16:34.419 in architectural form. Walpole looked at that 00:16:34.419 --> 00:16:37.259 and said, boring. Give me gloom. Give me the 00:16:37.259 --> 00:16:39.799 Middle Ages. He decided to remodel the house 00:16:39.799 --> 00:16:41.679 in the Gothic style. Now, you have to understand, 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:43.519 in the mid -18th century, Gothic was a dirty 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:46.039 word. It meant barbaric. Right. It was associated 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:49.000 with the Dark Ages, with superstition, with bad 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.740 taste. Completely. It would be like a billionaire 00:16:51.740 --> 00:16:55.500 today deciding to build their mansion to look 00:16:55.500 --> 00:16:59.090 like a, I don't know, a brutalist Soviet... bunker 00:16:59.090 --> 00:17:02.210 mixed with a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon. That 00:17:02.210 --> 00:17:05.109 is a surprisingly accurate analogy. He started 00:17:05.109 --> 00:17:08.150 adding battlements, towers, arched windows, and 00:17:08.150 --> 00:17:10.730 stained glass. But it wasn't an accurate historical 00:17:10.730 --> 00:17:13.730 recreation. It was a pastiche. It was a fantasy. 00:17:14.130 --> 00:17:16.630 Describe the vibe inside. If I walked into Strawberry 00:17:16.630 --> 00:17:19.930 Hill in 1760, what am I seeing? You're entering 00:17:19.930 --> 00:17:22.269 a world of deliberate atmosphere. He coined a 00:17:22.269 --> 00:17:25.609 word for it. Gloom. Gloom. Like gleam and warmth. 00:17:25.789 --> 00:17:28.650 Exactly. He wanted the gloom of an ancient cathedral 00:17:28.650 --> 00:17:31.490 but the comfort of a modern home. You'd walk 00:17:31.490 --> 00:17:33.569 into the hall and it's painted to look like stone 00:17:33.569 --> 00:17:36.470 but it's actually wood and plaster. It's dark. 00:17:36.549 --> 00:17:38.869 There are suits of armor. Then you go into the 00:17:38.869 --> 00:17:41.069 library and the bookshelves are modeled after 00:17:41.069 --> 00:17:44.349 the doors of old St. Paul's Cathedral. The ceilings 00:17:44.349 --> 00:17:46.490 are covered in intricate fan vaulting but it's 00:17:46.490 --> 00:17:49.130 made of papier -mâché. paper mache you're kidding 00:17:49.130 --> 00:17:52.609 no it was stage scenery he wasn't building a 00:17:52.609 --> 00:17:55.509 fortress he was building a set he filled it with 00:17:55.509 --> 00:17:59.930 curiosities wolsey's hat star charts historical 00:17:59.930 --> 00:18:03.509 relics it was a museum of his own mind and his 00:18:03.509 --> 00:18:05.869 friends made fun of her right relentlessly they 00:18:05.869 --> 00:18:08.289 called it a gingerbread castle they called him 00:18:08.289 --> 00:18:10.529 the abbot of strawberry they thought it was a 00:18:10.529 --> 00:18:13.450 toy house a folly but they were wrong because 00:18:13.450 --> 00:18:16.980 this toy house changed the world it did it sparked 00:18:16.980 --> 00:18:20.279 the gothic revival decades later when the victorians 00:18:20.279 --> 00:18:22.119 started building everything in gothic style the 00:18:22.119 --> 00:18:24.720 houses of parliament universities churches they 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:27.799 were all echoing strawberry hill walpole made 00:18:27.799 --> 00:18:30.279 the irrational cool again he proved that architecture 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:33.119 could be emotional not just rational and he didn't 00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:35.380 just build the set he wrote the script he set 00:18:35.380 --> 00:18:38.269 up a printing press inside the house The Strawberry 00:18:38.269 --> 00:18:40.269 Hill Press. This was another act of independence. 00:18:40.730 --> 00:18:42.970 By owning the press, he controlled the means 00:18:42.970 --> 00:18:44.930 of production. He could print his friends' poetry. 00:18:45.230 --> 00:18:47.750 He printed Gray's Odes. And he could print his 00:18:47.750 --> 00:18:50.069 own work without answering to a publisher. And 00:18:50.069 --> 00:18:53.450 one night, he has a dream. A nightmare, really. 00:18:53.849 --> 00:18:56.349 And he wakes up and writes a story that changes 00:18:56.349 --> 00:18:59.589 literature forever. The Castle of Otranto. Published 00:18:59.589 --> 00:19:03.859 in 1764. And yes, this is widely considered the 00:19:03.859 --> 00:19:06.200 first gothic novel. I read the plot summary of 00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:09.339 this book, and I have to be honest, it sounds 00:19:09.339 --> 00:19:11.960 absolutely bonkers. It is fever dream logic. 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:14.319 It's meant to be. Walk us through the opening 00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:16.799 scene. Okay. So you have the villain, Prince 00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:19.660 Manfred. He's a tyrant. He's arranging a marriage 00:19:19.660 --> 00:19:22.279 for his sickly son, Conrad, to a beautiful princess, 00:19:22.500 --> 00:19:25.619 Isabella. The wedding is about to start. Everyone 00:19:25.619 --> 00:19:28.539 is waiting. Suddenly, a servant runs in, screaming. 00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:31.359 Okay, I'm with you. Manfred goes out to the courtyard. 00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:33.900 And what does he find? Tell me. He finds his 00:19:33.900 --> 00:19:37.799 son, Conrad, crushed to death. But not by a falling 00:19:37.799 --> 00:19:40.440 rock or a weapon. He has been crushed flat by 00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:43.119 a gigantic black feathered helmet. Like a suit 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:45.480 of armor helmet. Yes. But the size of a house. 00:19:45.660 --> 00:19:48.140 It fell from the sky. That is hilarious. It's 00:19:48.140 --> 00:19:50.480 surreal. It is surreal. And that's just the start. 00:19:50.619 --> 00:19:52.940 The portrait of his grandfather steps out of 00:19:52.940 --> 00:19:56.160 the frame and walks around. A giant foot appears 00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:59.490 in a gallery. A statue bleeds from the nose. 00:19:59.650 --> 00:20:02.950 A nosebleed statue. Yes, it creates a new genre. 00:20:03.430 --> 00:20:06.349 Walpole was mixing the ancient romance, which 00:20:06.349 --> 00:20:09.029 allowed for magic and miracles, with the modern 00:20:09.029 --> 00:20:11.410 novel, which focused on realistic psychology. 00:20:12.250 --> 00:20:14.569 He wanted the characters to react realistically 00:20:14.569 --> 00:20:17.049 to impossible events. But he was scared to put 00:20:17.049 --> 00:20:19.490 his name on it at first. He was terrified. He 00:20:19.490 --> 00:20:21.650 was a member of parliament. He was nearly 50 00:20:21.650 --> 00:20:24.430 years old. If he published a book about giant 00:20:24.430 --> 00:20:26.410 helmets and bleeding statues, he thought he would 00:20:26.410 --> 00:20:28.549 be laughed out of London, so he pulled a hoax. 00:20:28.869 --> 00:20:31.349 The classic translation trick. Right. The first 00:20:31.349 --> 00:20:33.670 edition claimed to be a translation of an Italian 00:20:33.670 --> 00:20:36.869 manuscript from 1529 written by a priest named 00:20:36.869 --> 00:20:39.950 Onufrio Meralto, found in the library of an ancient 00:20:39.950 --> 00:20:42.289 Catholic family. Onufrio Meralto. Amaralto is 00:20:42.289 --> 00:20:45.049 clearly an anagram or some kind of play on Horace 00:20:45.049 --> 00:20:49.170 Walpole. It's a distinct alter ego. But the book 00:20:49.170 --> 00:20:51.569 was a sensation. People were terrified. They 00:20:51.569 --> 00:20:54.450 were thrilled. The poet Thomas Gray, his old 00:20:54.450 --> 00:20:56.589 friend, wrote to him saying that at Cambridge, 00:20:56.789 --> 00:20:59.250 it makes some of us cry a little and all in general 00:20:59.250 --> 00:21:01.450 afraid to go to bed at nights. So once it was 00:21:01.450 --> 00:21:03.970 a hit, Walpole came clean. He did. In the second 00:21:03.970 --> 00:21:06.089 edition, he dropped the mask. He admitted it 00:21:06.089 --> 00:21:08.509 was him. And in doing so, he legitimized the 00:21:08.509 --> 00:21:11.769 genre of horror. He said effectively, It is okay 00:21:11.769 --> 00:21:15.690 to be scared. It is okay to enjoy the irrational. 00:21:16.130 --> 00:21:18.250 So without the Castle of Otranto, you don't get 00:21:18.250 --> 00:21:20.069 Frankenstein. You don't get Edgar Allan Poe. 00:21:20.130 --> 00:21:22.089 You don't get Stephen King. You really don't. 00:21:22.089 --> 00:21:24.210 He's the Wellspring. It's amazing. He's the grandfather 00:21:24.210 --> 00:21:27.670 of the horror movie. Yeah. But while he's inventing 00:21:27.670 --> 00:21:30.890 genres, he's also keeping up that massive correspondence. 00:21:31.609 --> 00:21:33.829 We touched on the letters earlier, but I want 00:21:33.829 --> 00:21:36.130 to dive into the content. Because he wasn't just 00:21:36.130 --> 00:21:38.869 writing, hope you are well. He was reporting. 00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:42.019 He considered himself a journalist for posterity. 00:21:42.039 --> 00:21:44.079 He wrote with specific themes for a specific 00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:46.960 people. To Horace Mann, the British envoy in 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:49.140 Florence, he wrote about politics and the royal 00:21:49.140 --> 00:21:51.619 court. To George Montague, he wrote about society 00:21:51.619 --> 00:21:54.380 gossip. To others, he wrote about antiquities. 00:21:54.559 --> 00:21:56.920 He tailored the content. And in one of those 00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:00.720 letters to Horace Mann in 1754, he drops a word 00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:04.099 that enters the dictionary, serendipity. This 00:22:04.099 --> 00:22:06.759 is one of my favorite etymologies. He was explaining 00:22:06.759 --> 00:22:09.380 a Persian fairy tale he had read as a boy called 00:22:09.380 --> 00:22:12.559 The Three Princes of Serendip. Serendip was an 00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:14.920 old name for Sri Lanka. What was the deal with 00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:17.339 the princes? Walpole explained that these princes 00:22:17.339 --> 00:22:20.019 were always making discoveries by accidents and 00:22:20.019 --> 00:22:22.500 sagacity of things they were not in quest of. 00:22:22.599 --> 00:22:25.460 By accidents and sagacity. That's the crucial 00:22:25.460 --> 00:22:28.240 part, right? It's not just luck. It is. We often 00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:30.880 use serendipity today to mean just happy luck. 00:22:31.079 --> 00:22:34.220 But Walpole meant something deeper. He meant 00:22:34.220 --> 00:22:36.380 the ability to recognize the value of something 00:22:36.380 --> 00:22:38.940 you weren't looking for. So Fleming discovering 00:22:38.940 --> 00:22:42.240 penicillin is serendipity. Perfect example. He 00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:44.680 wasn't looking for mold, but he had the sagacity, 00:22:44.740 --> 00:22:47.200 the wisdom to realize the mold was important. 00:22:47.500 --> 00:22:49.619 It's a scientific mindset. It's openness to the 00:22:49.619 --> 00:22:52.319 unexpected. Exactly. It captures the transition 00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:55.299 from a world of rigid dogma to a world of observation. 00:22:56.029 --> 00:22:58.369 He also had this philosophy about life that he 00:22:58.369 --> 00:23:01.529 repeated in his letters. This world is a comedy 00:23:01.529 --> 00:23:04.130 to those that think, a tragedy to those that 00:23:04.130 --> 00:23:07.250 feel. It's his most famous maxim, and it really 00:23:07.250 --> 00:23:10.369 serves as a shield. Walpole was a man who felt 00:23:10.369 --> 00:23:13.109 things very deeply. Remember his mother, remember 00:23:13.109 --> 00:23:15.690 the breakup with Gray, but he found that feeling 00:23:15.690 --> 00:23:17.789 was painful. So he tried to retreat into thinking. 00:23:18.049 --> 00:23:20.849 He tried to view the world as a detached, ironic 00:23:20.849 --> 00:23:24.059 comedy. It's a defense mechanism. If I laugh 00:23:24.059 --> 00:23:26.160 at the absurdity of politics, it won't hurt me. 00:23:26.339 --> 00:23:28.799 Precisely. He became the spectator. The man in 00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:31.160 the box seat eating popcorn while the world burned. 00:23:31.339 --> 00:23:33.339 Let's talk about the man in the box seat. We've 00:23:33.339 --> 00:23:35.700 hinted at his personality, the effeminacy, the 00:23:35.700 --> 00:23:38.759 Hervey rumors. But as an adult, how did he present 00:23:38.759 --> 00:23:41.420 himself? He was a singular figure. In an age 00:23:41.420 --> 00:23:43.980 of heavy drinking and heavy eating, Walpole was 00:23:43.980 --> 00:23:46.680 an esthete. He didn't hunt. He didn't gamble, 00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:49.240 which was huge for an aristocrat. He disliked 00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:51.579 pastry. Disliked pastry. That's suspicious. He 00:23:51.579 --> 00:23:53.960 preferred chicken and pheasant. And he drank 00:23:53.960 --> 00:23:57.099 iced water. So he's the first hydra homie. Sorry, 00:23:57.200 --> 00:23:59.279 I mean, he's a hydration enthusiast in an era 00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:01.960 of wine and gin. He was. And people thought it 00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:03.880 was bizarre he would treat his water with almost 00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:06.940 religious ceremony. And then there was his walk. 00:24:07.299 --> 00:24:10.019 The novelist Letitia Matilda Hawkins left us 00:24:10.019 --> 00:24:12.519 a vivid description. Wow. She said he always 00:24:12.519 --> 00:24:15.500 entered a room with his knees bent and on tiptoe, 00:24:15.500 --> 00:24:17.740 as if he were afraid of stepping on a wet floor. 00:24:18.560 --> 00:24:22.299 Knees bent, tiptoe. That is so specific. It's 00:24:22.299 --> 00:24:24.299 almost like a cartoon character. It suggests 00:24:24.299 --> 00:24:27.279 a physical delicacy or perhaps a performative 00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:30.579 elegance. He wore lavender suits. He had a collection 00:24:30.579 --> 00:24:33.059 of waistcoats embroidered with silver. And in 00:24:33.059 --> 00:24:35.160 his later years, he was always accompanied by 00:24:35.160 --> 00:24:37.599 a fat and favorite little dog named Taunton, 00:24:37.700 --> 00:24:40.519 which he had inherited from a famous French salonier, 00:24:40.680 --> 00:24:43.720 Madame du Defant. A lavender suit tiptoeing into 00:24:43.720 --> 00:24:46.619 the room. holding a fat little dog. He's a style 00:24:46.619 --> 00:24:50.059 icon. But he never married. No, he was a natural 00:24:50.059 --> 00:24:52.339 celibate, according to his biographer, W .S. 00:24:52.339 --> 00:24:55.720 Lewis. He had intense emotional intimacies, but 00:24:55.720 --> 00:24:57.980 they were almost always safe. What do you mean 00:24:57.980 --> 00:25:00.660 by safe? He loved older women, like Madame du 00:25:00.660 --> 00:25:03.680 Dauphin, who was blind and decades his senior. 00:25:04.059 --> 00:25:07.460 He loved women who were arguably lesbians or 00:25:07.460 --> 00:25:10.259 uninterested in men, like Mary Berry and Anne 00:25:10.259 --> 00:25:12.769 Seymour Dahmer. It seems like he wanted the connection 00:25:12.769 --> 00:25:15.630 without the physical expectation. Or he wanted 00:25:15.630 --> 00:25:17.750 the soul connection he talked about at Eaton. 00:25:17.910 --> 00:25:20.269 He was queer in the broad sense of the word. 00:25:20.369 --> 00:25:23.829 He sat at a distinct angle to the normative world. 00:25:24.269 --> 00:25:27.730 And his enemies used it. How so? They called 00:25:27.730 --> 00:25:30.490 him a hermaphrodite horse. That is a confusing 00:25:30.490 --> 00:25:33.470 insult. It's nasty. It's meant to be. It attacks 00:25:33.470 --> 00:25:36.970 his gender, his productivity, his nature. But 00:25:36.970 --> 00:25:39.609 Walpole just kept... tiptoeing, writing his letters 00:25:39.609 --> 00:25:41.869 and building his castle. But then the comedy 00:25:41.869 --> 00:25:45.069 stops. We get to 1789, the French Revolution. 00:25:45.250 --> 00:25:48.029 This is the final act. And it is the tragic one. 00:25:48.069 --> 00:25:50.029 You have to remember, Walpole considered himself 00:25:50.029 --> 00:25:52.349 a liberal. He had a portrait of George Washington. 00:25:52.549 --> 00:25:54.869 He supported the American colonies. He cheered 00:25:54.869 --> 00:25:56.950 for liberty. So you'd think you would be thrilled 00:25:56.950 --> 00:25:59.009 when the French stormed the Bastille. You would 00:25:59.009 --> 00:26:01.549 think. But he wasn't. He was horrified. Why the 00:26:01.549 --> 00:26:04.980 switch? What changed? Because for Walpole, liberty 00:26:04.980 --> 00:26:07.779 meant ordered liberty. It meant the Magna Carta. 00:26:07.900 --> 00:26:10.680 It meant gentlemen debating in parliament. It 00:26:10.680 --> 00:26:12.599 did not mean the mob in the streets. When he 00:26:12.599 --> 00:26:14.779 saw the violence in France, the beheadings, the 00:26:14.779 --> 00:26:17.839 chaos, he recoiled. He called them savages, didn't 00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:22.000 he? Savages, barbarians, monsters. He wrote that 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:24.400 they had destroyed God as well as their king. 00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:27.240 But what really broke him, it seems, was the 00:26:27.240 --> 00:26:29.859 treatment of the women, specifically Marie Antoinette. 00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:32.220 The queen. He had met her. He had seen her at 00:26:32.220 --> 00:26:34.779 Versailles. And when Edmund Burke, the famous 00:26:34.779 --> 00:26:37.819 conservative philosopher, wrote his Reflections 00:26:37.819 --> 00:26:40.180 on the Revolution in France, Walpole read it 00:26:40.180 --> 00:26:44.049 and wept. Burke described the queen as an aerial 00:26:44.049 --> 00:26:47.150 being, all brightness and grace. And that image 00:26:47.150 --> 00:26:49.410 just stuck with him. He latched onto that. It's 00:26:49.410 --> 00:26:52.049 fascinating. The man who hung the death warrant 00:26:52.049 --> 00:26:54.950 of a king in his bedroom is now crying over the 00:26:54.950 --> 00:26:57.650 fall of a queen. It shows the limits of his comedy. 00:26:57.809 --> 00:27:00.190 When the violence became real, when it wasn't 00:27:00.190 --> 00:27:02.109 just a historical abstraction like Charles I, 00:27:02.289 --> 00:27:04.950 but real blood flowing in Paris, he couldn't 00:27:04.950 --> 00:27:07.670 laugh anymore. He couldn't. He wrote to Lady 00:27:07.670 --> 00:27:11.730 Ossory in 1793 after Louis VI was executed, saying 00:27:11.730 --> 00:27:14.529 he was stunned. He called the revolutionaries 00:27:14.529 --> 00:27:17.890 monsters who professed assassination and practiced 00:27:17.890 --> 00:27:20.309 massacres. The world became a tragedy because 00:27:20.309 --> 00:27:22.190 he couldn't stop himself from feeling. Exactly. 00:27:22.190 --> 00:27:25.269 His intellectual shield shattered. And his final 00:27:25.269 --> 00:27:27.849 years were physically painful, too, I read. Couch. 00:27:28.700 --> 00:27:31.640 The aristocratic disease. He had chalk stones 00:27:31.640 --> 00:27:33.819 in his fingers. It was agonizing for him to even 00:27:33.819 --> 00:27:36.359 hold a pen, yet he kept writing. He was compelled 00:27:36.359 --> 00:27:39.400 to. And then the final irony, the outsider becomes 00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:42.059 the head of the family. In 1791, his nephew, 00:27:42.299 --> 00:27:45.920 the third Earl of Orford, died. The nephew was, 00:27:46.099 --> 00:27:49.420 he was mad, tragically. So the title fell to 00:27:49.420 --> 00:27:53.500 Horace. At age 74, the hervy outsider, the gossip, 00:27:53.740 --> 00:27:56.099 the goth, becomes the fourth Earl of Orford. 00:27:56.410 --> 00:27:58.369 Did he enjoy it? He hated it. He called it the 00:27:58.369 --> 00:28:00.930 most empty of all titles. He was an old man. 00:28:00.950 --> 00:28:02.950 He had no heirs. He knew the line was ending 00:28:02.950 --> 00:28:05.630 with him. That's incredibly sad, in a way. He 00:28:05.630 --> 00:28:07.569 signed his letters the uncle of the late Earl 00:28:07.569 --> 00:28:09.990 of Orford for a while, mocking the absurdity 00:28:09.990 --> 00:28:12.410 of it all. And when he died in 1797, the title 00:28:12.410 --> 00:28:15.430 went extinct. It did. The Walpole dynasty, which 00:28:15.430 --> 00:28:17.950 had dominated the century, flickered out with 00:28:17.950 --> 00:28:21.230 him. So we've covered the life. The rumors, the 00:28:21.230 --> 00:28:24.150 castle, the giant helmet, the letters. If we 00:28:24.150 --> 00:28:27.430 have to sum up Horace Walpole, if we have to 00:28:27.430 --> 00:28:30.450 answer the so what, where do we land? I think 00:28:30.450 --> 00:28:33.029 Horace Walpole is the bridge. He stands with 00:28:33.029 --> 00:28:35.250 one foot in the Enlightenment, the world of his 00:28:35.250 --> 00:28:38.609 father, of reason, of science, of thinking. Okay. 00:28:38.670 --> 00:28:41.069 And he puts his other foot into the Romantic 00:28:41.069 --> 00:28:43.150 era, the world of emotion, of the irrational, 00:28:43.589 --> 00:28:45.869 of feeling. He's the missing link between Newton 00:28:45.869 --> 00:28:48.309 and Dracula. That is a fantastic way to put it. 00:28:48.569 --> 00:28:51.029 He showed us that you can be rational and irrational 00:28:51.029 --> 00:28:54.049 at the same time. He taught us that history isn't 00:28:54.049 --> 00:28:56.089 just about treaties and battles. It's about the 00:28:56.089 --> 00:28:58.849 texture of life. It's about gossip. It's about 00:28:58.849 --> 00:29:01.369 what people are afraid of in the dark. He democratized 00:29:01.369 --> 00:29:04.130 history by making it personal. Yes. He proved 00:29:04.130 --> 00:29:06.170 that a letter about a bad dinner party is just 00:29:06.170 --> 00:29:08.089 as historically significant as a letter about 00:29:08.089 --> 00:29:10.410 a war because it tells us who we were. I want 00:29:10.410 --> 00:29:12.470 to leave everyone with one final thought to mull 00:29:12.470 --> 00:29:16.440 over. We talked about his famous quote. The world 00:29:16.440 --> 00:29:18.700 is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to 00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:22.039 those that feel. Walpole spent 80 years trying 00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:24.700 to be the thinker. He built a fortress of irony 00:29:24.700 --> 00:29:27.960 and wit to protect himself. But looking at his 00:29:27.960 --> 00:29:30.940 life, his obsession with his mother, his heartbreak 00:29:30.940 --> 00:29:34.559 over Grey, his horror at the revolution, I wonder 00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:36.720 if he was ever really a thinker at all. You think 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:38.980 he was a feeler in disguise? I think he was a 00:29:38.980 --> 00:29:41.019 feeler who was terrified of his own feelings. 00:29:41.220 --> 00:29:43.019 And maybe that's why he invented the Gothic. 00:29:43.640 --> 00:29:45.519 Because in a haunted house, you're allowed to 00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:48.440 scream. You're allowed to be terrified. It was 00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:50.440 the one place where he could let the mask slip. 00:29:50.700 --> 00:29:53.400 That is a very provocative thought. Maybe Strawberry 00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:55.319 Hill wasn't a fortress. It was a release valve. 00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:58.019 Something to think about next time you're watching 00:29:58.019 --> 00:30:00.700 a horror movie or scrolling through Zillow looking 00:30:00.700 --> 00:30:03.299 for castles. Thanks for listening to The Deep 00:30:03.299 --> 00:30:03.680 Dive.