Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And before we get
Speaker 1: into today's topic, we have a little housekeeping, which is
Speaker 1: to mention that we have our Stuff you Missed in
Speaker 1: History Class international trip ready to go. Yep. The dates
Speaker 1: for that trip are November two to the eighth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. You can sign up if you want and
Speaker 1: if you want to go to the wonderful and delightful
Speaker 1: country of Iceland. Very excited about Iceland. I love Iceland desperately.
Speaker 1: We are going to spend time in Rayyivic, but we
Speaker 1: are also going to vic which is where the beautiful
Speaker 1: black beaches are. We are going to do some fun activities.
Speaker 1: There will be glacier time. Yeah, there will be interesting
Speaker 1: fun things to eat. There will be visiting Blue Lagoon.
Speaker 1: There will be visiting a different lagoon that's an actual lagoon,
Speaker 1: lagoon with glaciers in it. Yes, we're gonna do walking tours,
Speaker 1: you know. We'll see the oldest parliament site in Europe,
Speaker 1: which is pretty fun. We have both been in recent
Speaker 1: years and I am obsessed with Iceland. I had the
Speaker 1: best time in raykievic Yeah, way more than I ever anticipated.
Speaker 1: I really fell in love with it. Yeah. We went
Speaker 1: for our honeymoon in twenty sixteen, and our intent had
Speaker 1: been to return for our five year anniversary, but instead
Speaker 1: that was COVID incredibly excited about returning in November of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four instead. Yeah. There will be waterfalls, There
Speaker 1: will be I mean probably rain There are a lot
Speaker 1: of rainbows in US. Yeah, and if if all things cooperate,
Speaker 1: we have a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights,
Speaker 1: which I did get to see completely at a random
Speaker 1: time of year. But it was quite My understanding is
Speaker 1: it was the Northern lights light like, it was not
Speaker 1: as intense as it normally would be. Yeah, So it
Speaker 1: was quite late in the season and a little surprising
Speaker 1: that we could see them at all. So I am
Speaker 1: very excited to go and spend time. All of these
Speaker 1: trips are always so incredibly fun and delightful, and the
Speaker 1: people that go with us are just as much a
Speaker 1: part of making the experience great as anything that we
Speaker 1: have planned for it. So if you think this sounds
Speaker 1: interesting to you as well, you can check it out
Speaker 1: with all the details at Defined Destinations dot com slash
Speaker 1: Iceland twenty twenty four. You can also just go to
Speaker 1: define Destinations dot com and they will have the Iceland
Speaker 1: Tour listed on their homepage that you can click into
Speaker 1: and get all of the details, including photos of some
Speaker 1: of the beautiful things we're going to see. We will
Speaker 1: mention it several more times, but if this sounds really
Speaker 1: interesting to you, you might want to jump on it.
Speaker 1: If you have any specific questions about what's going to
Speaker 1: be going on on the tour, you want to go
Speaker 1: through Defined Destinations. Our tour organizer, Michael, who has been
Speaker 1: with us on all of our trips, is really really
Speaker 1: wonderful and he does all of the planning. We kind
Speaker 1: of get the benefit of having Michael do all the
Speaker 1: legwork so that we can just go and have fun
Speaker 1: with all of you. So if you have questions or
Speaker 1: need clarification on anything, that is your place to go.
Speaker 1: And now we can hop right into today's episode. So
Speaker 1: perhaps exactly correctly, I don't know how I stumbled across
Speaker 1: this person. It's John Mitton. He is one of those
Speaker 1: figures who is pretty well known in some places. He
Speaker 1: is at times funny other times to me kind of insufferable.
Speaker 1: He's definitely the kind of person who is like a
Speaker 1: poster child for having more money than since Mitton is
Speaker 1: often called an eccentric that doesn't really capture his story.
Speaker 1: And despite his very wild stories of like incredibly bad
Speaker 1: behavior in some cases, he's also something of a local
Speaker 1: hero in the area where he lived, and I ran
Speaker 1: across several instances of people talking about his story in
Speaker 1: kind of a comedic way, and some of it is funny.
Speaker 1: It's so outlandish that I can understand that approach, but
Speaker 1: like in the bigger picture, if you look at his
Speaker 1: whole life, it's also really sad in some ways. So
Speaker 1: I also want to include a brief heads up here.
Speaker 1: This person kept a lot of animals, but some of
Speaker 1: his behavior towards and with those animals are things we
Speaker 1: would consider animal cruelty. Today, we're not going to linger
Speaker 1: on any of that, but just know if you're especially
Speaker 1: sensitive to it, it's yucky. I'm leaving out the worst parts.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sensitive to that stuff, and I think I
Speaker 1: think we have a pretty cleaned up version of it
Speaker 1: where you you're not going to get any any gory details.
Speaker 1: So but heads up just as we go in the
Speaker 1: best way to introduce John Mitton maybe to look at
Speaker 1: how he was talked about after he was gone and
Speaker 1: people were looking at his short life as a whole.
Speaker 1: A memoir of John Mitton that was published just after
Speaker 1: his death, written by a friend, opens this way after
Speaker 1: noting a similar effort by another writer, quote, as no
Speaker 1: subject is so interesting to man as man, I have
Speaker 1: a good theme for my pen inasmuch as there is
Speaker 1: one present to my mind who's equal as a private
Speaker 1: English gentleman the world never before saw. Neither is it,
Speaker 1: for some reasons desirable that the world should ever again see.
Speaker 1: My only fear is that I may be deficient in
Speaker 1: strength of pencil to draw the picture to the life
Speaker 1: and to represent the anomaly in human nature which the
Speaker 1: character of the late John Mitton presents, at one time
Speaker 1: an honor to his nature, at another a satire on humanity.
Speaker 1: What more can be done than to strike the balance
Speaker 1: with an even hand, And as the brightness of the
Speaker 1: sun hides its blemishes, let me hope the greater part
Speaker 1: of his faults will be lost amid the virtues with
Speaker 1: which they are mingled. At all events, my purpose is
Speaker 1: not to hold up the torch to the failings of
Speaker 1: my old and never forsaken friend, my chief object being
Speaker 1: to account for them, and leave his virtues to speak
Speaker 1: for themselves. I owe him pity on the score of
Speaker 1: human nature. He claims it by his own acts and deeds,
Speaker 1: and above all by one act of him, to whose
Speaker 1: will all men must bow, and by whom all men's
Speaker 1: deeds will be weighed. Let not the lash of censure
Speaker 1: then fall too heavy upon one who himself carried charity
Speaker 1: to excess. Let the greatness of his fall be unto
Speaker 1: him as a shield. Let it be remembered he died
Speaker 1: in a prison, an epitome of human misery. A glance
Speaker 1: over his history, however, may not be unprofitable. It will
Speaker 1: point a moral if it do not adorn a tale.
Speaker 1: So that friend who wrote that memoir titled Memoirs of
Speaker 1: the Life of the Late John Mitton, Esquire of Halston, Shropshire,
Speaker 1: formerly MP for Shrewsbury, hi Sheriff for the Counties of
Speaker 1: Celup and Marioneth and Major of the North Shropshire Yeoman Recavalry,
Speaker 1: with notices of his hunting, shooting, driving, racing, eccentric and
Speaker 1: extravagant exploits. So on one title that was The Writer
Speaker 1: who Goes by Nimrod. His actual name was Charles James Apperley.
Speaker 1: He was a sporting writer. He used the pen name Nimrod,
Speaker 1: presumably after the biblical king who commissioned the Tower of Babel,
Speaker 1: and as he noted, Apperly was a friend of John Mitton,
Speaker 1: who was also known as mad Jack because he was
Speaker 1: a lot. Minton is typically described as an eccentric and
Speaker 1: a rake. His life history plays out like a William
Speaker 1: Hogarth morality engraving on bad behavior, although Mitton was born
Speaker 1: about one hundred years after Hogarth. I note that because
Speaker 1: when I was first reading his stuff, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: did Hogarth base all of his work on him? No?
Speaker 1: Came wait before he seems to have learned absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: from that artist's works. When a new biography of Minton
Speaker 1: was written more than one hundred years after he was gone,
Speaker 1: a review of the book, which was titled mad CAP's Progress,
Speaker 1: said this quote, mad Cap is a kindly word to
Speaker 1: use for John Mitton. In his short life, he got
Speaker 1: through an immense amount of money, did many reckless and
Speaker 1: foolish things, and did as far as one can see
Speaker 1: very little good to anybody. It is true that he
Speaker 1: was popular for a time, but even in the idle
Speaker 1: and extravagant society in which he turned, John Mitton seems
Speaker 1: to have been regarded as a man who carried things
Speaker 1: too far. John Minton was born on September thirtieth, seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety six, two months premature, at Halston Hall in Shropshire,
Speaker 1: not far from the Welsh border. His father, who was
Speaker 1: also named John Mitton, died when his son was still
Speaker 1: a baby, and Nimrod and other friends and biographers have
Speaker 1: made the case over the years that his mother's inability
Speaker 1: to say no to the young child was to some
Speaker 1: degree the source of his eventual ruin parent blamey, but honestly,
Speaker 1: he clearly never learned boundaries. One writer and friend going
Speaker 1: by the name J. W. C, who published his version
Speaker 1: of Mitton's life after his death, wrote quote, is it
Speaker 1: a marvel that his career should be erratic whose infancy
Speaker 1: was never subjected to restraint? The death of John Mitton
Speaker 1: Senior left little John, who wasn't yet too incredibly wealthy.
Speaker 1: He was named inheritor of Halston Hall, and he got
Speaker 1: a cash bequeathment of three hundred thousand pounds and an
Speaker 1: annual allowance of one hundred thousand pounds. The family estate
Speaker 1: he inherited included land in England and Wales. He was
Speaker 1: not just given all of this as a child, of course,
Speaker 1: the Mitten family had solicitors who looked after the fortune
Speaker 1: until John came of age. As for schooling, he was
Speaker 1: expelled from both Westminster and Harrow for bad behavior. As
Speaker 1: an example of that bad behavior, he once wrote to
Speaker 1: the chancellor at Westminster to explain that he was about
Speaker 1: to be married and he was going to need to
Speaker 1: have his annual allowance increase to support his wife. This
Speaker 1: was before he was getting that huge sum. I have
Speaker 1: seen various amounts reported, but it was something like six
Speaker 1: thousand pounds a year, which was a lot. The chancellor
Speaker 1: replied to him, quote, sir, if you can't live on
Speaker 1: your allowance, you may starve, and if you marry, I'll
Speaker 1: commit you to prison. If that sounds like an extreme response,
Speaker 1: is because Minton was enjoying far more money than anyone
Speaker 1: else in his class. And also he was thirteen at
Speaker 1: this time, so marriage was preposterous. And while this was
Speaker 1: kind of a pretty benign prank to basically make the
Speaker 1: case to the Chancellor Westminster that he needed more money,
Speaker 1: and I guess he wanted him to intercede with his family.
Speaker 1: This was apparently the kind of thing he did constantly,
Speaker 1: which led to a lot of ongoing friction with the Chancellor.
Speaker 1: There is even a story that this kind of culminated
Speaker 1: in him putting a horse in the Chancellor's bed and
Speaker 1: that that was the final straw. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's a true story or not. He did move on
Speaker 1: to higher education though, and enrolled at Cambridge, but that
Speaker 1: didn't hold his attention and he decided to try a
Speaker 1: military career. He joined a local volunteer regiment in Oswistree
Speaker 1: when he was sixteen, then moved to the Shropshire Yeomanry
Speaker 1: Cavalry after a reorganization that folded in his prior unit.
Speaker 1: To be clear, this was a part time commitment and
Speaker 1: it did not stop Mitton from taking a grand tour
Speaker 1: of Europe, which was a custom for wealthy young men
Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah, he definitely had an attention issue
Speaker 1: and it was like I'm going to do this. Wait now,
Speaker 1: I want to go on a ground tour and then
Speaker 1: when he was nineteen, Mitton went to France to join
Speaker 1: the seventh Husser Cavalry in the Napoleonic Wars. The fighting
Speaker 1: was pretty much over by the time he got there,
Speaker 1: although he was reportedly, according to some accounts, writing with
Speaker 1: them when that regiment joined the Army of Occupation. And
Speaker 1: although this was a brief foray into a military career,
Speaker 1: Mitton apparently talked about it for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: According to an account written by a friend other than Nimrod, quote,
Speaker 1: he used to talk of those days with rapture. I
Speaker 1: remember while at breakfast in his drawing room he took
Speaker 1: from a wardrobe a uniform jacket of the seventh and
Speaker 1: holding it before me, he exclaimed, Ah, if this old
Speaker 1: skin could speak, as the Swan of Avon say, it
Speaker 1: could a tail unfold. We mentioned that John Mitton was
Speaker 1: in France after most of the actual action of the
Speaker 1: war was done, so he found other ways to amuse himself,
Speaker 1: which were mostly exactly the sorts of things that a
Speaker 1: spoiled rich kid would be expected to do. To give
Speaker 1: a sense of the reckless lifestyle that Mitton engaged in
Speaker 1: from a young age during his time in France, he
Speaker 1: lost a billiard's bet so extravagant that it was talked
Speaker 1: about in sporting circles for years. In one match of billiards,
Speaker 1: he lost ten thousand pounds. That is a lot. Today
Speaker 1: we always talk about how converting currency over such a
Speaker 1: stretch of time is really guesswork at bests, but the
Speaker 1: UK National Archives converter puts that at close to six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand pounds in modern value, So no wonder this
Speaker 1: became legendary. Yeah, on one billiard's match. He also got
Speaker 1: into a lot of fights, seemingly for fun. Mitton was,
Speaker 1: by all accounts naturally very strong and courageous to an
Speaker 1: almost stupid degree. He was not a skilled fighter, but
Speaker 1: he was powerful enough that he often won fights despite
Speaker 1: his own clumsiness, and was robust enough that he was
Speaker 1: able to easily shake off the ones he lost. His
Speaker 1: friend Nimrod wrote of his incredibly hearty nature quote, never
Speaker 1: was constitution so murdered as mister Mitten's was. For what
Speaker 1: but one of adamant could have withstood the shocks independent
Speaker 1: of wine, to which it was almost daily exposed. His
Speaker 1: dress alone would have caused the death of nine hundred
Speaker 1: of one thousand men who passed one part of the
Speaker 1: day and night in a state of luxury and warmth.
Speaker 1: He never wore any but the thinnest and finest silk stockings,
Speaker 1: with very thin boots or shoes, so that in winter
Speaker 1: he rarely had dry feet. To flannel, he was a
Speaker 1: stranger since he left off his petticoats. Even his hunting
Speaker 1: breeches were without lining. He wore one small waistcoat, all
Speaker 1: was open in the front from about the second of
Speaker 1: the lower buttons, and about home he was as often
Speaker 1: without his hat as with one. His winter shooting gear
Speaker 1: was a light jacket, white linen trousers without lining, our
Speaker 1: drawers of which he knew not the use, and in
Speaker 1: frost and snow he waded through all water that came
Speaker 1: in his way. Minton may not seem like the type
Speaker 1: to start a family based on these descriptions, but he did,
Speaker 1: and we will talk about that right after we pause
Speaker 1: or a sponsor break. After leaving the army and returning
Speaker 1: home to England, Minton got married to a young woman
Speaker 1: named Harriet Emma Jones on May twenty first, eighteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: at Saint George's Hanover Square. Harriet was, like John, from
Speaker 1: a family of means. Her father was Baronet Sir Thomas
Speaker 1: Cherwitt Jones. The couple had a daughter a year into
Speaker 1: the marriage, but Harriet died after an illness in eighteen twenty.
Speaker 1: During his marriage, Mitton ran for MP as a Tory
Speaker 1: and was elected to Parliament to represent Shrewsbury. He was
Speaker 1: twenty three at the time. This role got even less
Speaker 1: attention and discipline than his other endeavors. He reportedly spent
Speaker 1: exactly thirty minutes in the House of Commons before he
Speaker 1: got bored and left and never came back. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he may have purchased those votes, like he may have
Speaker 1: promised everyone who voted for him ten pounds. That's one
Speaker 1: version of how he got elected. The year after Harriet's death,
Speaker 1: Mitton became interested in Caroline Mallett Gifford, the seventeen year
Speaker 1: old sister of one of his friends, and he suggested
Speaker 1: a marriage to Caroline's mother, Lady Charlotte Gifford. This was
Speaker 1: something that was actually pretty difficult to decide for the
Speaker 1: Gifford family. John was good friends with the family and
Speaker 1: they adored him. A lot of people seem to really
Speaker 1: love him, but there had also been a lot of
Speaker 1: unsavory rumors about him mistreating Harriet during their short marriage,
Speaker 1: and he already had a reputation as a rake who
Speaker 1: had little regard for money. When his friend Charles Apperly
Speaker 1: was asked by Caroline's mother if he would marry off
Speaker 1: his own daughter to Mitton, his reply was quote, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, Lady Charlotte, mister Minton has no business with
Speaker 1: a wife at all. But should he marry your daughter, Caroline,
Speaker 1: there is a greater prospect of his making a good
Speaker 1: husband to her than any other woman in the whole world.
Speaker 1: The wedding went ahead and the couple were married in
Speaker 1: October of eighteen twenty one. In the beginning of the marriage,
Speaker 1: they do seem to have been doing all right. Caroline
Speaker 1: is described by Mitton's friends as being an incredibly good
Speaker 1: wife who did seem to love her husband. That eventually changed, though.
Speaker 1: The couple had five children together from eighteen twenty two
Speaker 1: to eighteen twenty seven. These were Barbara John, Charles Euphrates,
Speaker 1: and William John. Was Sheriff of Mariannath in Wales starting
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty one. You will also see him reported
Speaker 1: as high sheriff for shrupture, and he was, but that
Speaker 1: was after he served his first high sheriff role for
Speaker 1: two years. And to be clear, he was not really
Speaker 1: a lawman. This is a little bit, you know, one
Speaker 1: of those things where the words mean different things, because
Speaker 1: by this point that title was largely ceremonial, but it
Speaker 1: did lend an air of respectability to Mitton, at least
Speaker 1: for a time. After that, he seems to have thrown
Speaker 1: himself headlong into amusements. One of his very favorites was
Speaker 1: fox hunting. In that earlier quote we read about his clothes,
Speaker 1: it mentioned how he would completely disregard any kind of
Speaker 1: normal human needs for being out in the brush chasing
Speaker 1: down foxes or other prey. It seems as though hunting,
Speaker 1: like box was something that he did with more enthusiasm
Speaker 1: than skill. He had done it since he was a boy.
Speaker 1: But he seemed to actually love when things went wrong
Speaker 1: as much or even more maybe than when things went right.
Speaker 1: He got injured pretty frequently and did not seem to mind.
Speaker 1: Just about every account written by people who knew him
Speaker 1: notes that he never even complained when he had injuries,
Speaker 1: like broken ribs after being thrown from a horse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are. I don't even dozens, at least his stories
Speaker 1: about him like going out hunting and his clothes get
Speaker 1: torn in the brush, so he just keeps hunting naked,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't even care that it's cold or you know,
Speaker 1: getting swacked by something while he's out, and he just
Speaker 1: keeps going. He definitely had a high tolerance for discomfort.
Speaker 1: He also loved, loved, loved a bet. Horse racing was
Speaker 1: an especially engaging sport for him. It was one in
Speaker 1: which he loved to wager. We mentioned earlier than he
Speaker 1: had a son named Euphrates. That child was not named
Speaker 1: for the river. He was named after a race horse
Speaker 1: that Minton owned that won a lot of races and
Speaker 1: continued to compete until that horse was thirteen. Just as
Speaker 1: with his other enthusiasms, though Minton didn't really know a
Speaker 1: lot about horses, he was an excellent rider and he
Speaker 1: knew them really well in that way, and he would
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money to purchase a horse if
Speaker 1: someone he trusted recommended it. But he didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about breeding. So while he had a stable that was
Speaker 1: incredibly large and could have potentially produced a lineage of champions,
Speaker 1: he never managed it like he never got that part
Speaker 1: of it together, which a normal person would do if
Speaker 1: you were making those investments. He also apparently had a
Speaker 1: similar problem with the hounds that he used for fox hunting.
Speaker 1: At one point had said he had two thousand dogs,
Speaker 1: but he never put a breeding program together. That's so
Speaker 1: many dogs. It's so many dogs. He had so many
Speaker 1: of everything. As a young man, Mitton is said to
Speaker 1: have drunk six bottles of port every day. As he aged,
Speaker 1: he switched from drinking port to drinking brandy, but the
Speaker 1: volume that he consumed remained the same. And there are
Speaker 1: innumerable tales of Mitten's intense and careless behavior, some of
Speaker 1: which was surely the result of drinking all that alcohol.
Speaker 1: His friend Nimrod wrote to this behavior, quote that John
Speaker 1: Mitton saw his thirty eighth year must either be attributed
Speaker 1: to the good genius that accompanied him or to the
Speaker 1: signal interposition of providence. For scarcely a day passed over
Speaker 1: his head in which he did not put his life
Speaker 1: to the hazard. Some of his escapes indeed border closely
Speaker 1: on the miraculous, but it would fill a volume were
Speaker 1: I to enumerate them. How often has he been run
Speaker 1: away with by horses in gigs, how often struggling in
Speaker 1: deep water without being able to swim. How was it
Speaker 1: that he did not get torn into peace? Is in
Speaker 1: the countless street broils in which he was engaged. And lastly,
Speaker 1: how did he avoid being shot in a duel? The
Speaker 1: latter question is soon answered he never fought one. Nimrod
Speaker 1: goes on to say that while Mitton loved a brawl,
Speaker 1: he had a rather gentle spirit and never could have
Speaker 1: fired on a man if he was called to in
Speaker 1: one of these wild stories. This is like one of
Speaker 1: the most famous. He was riding with a friend in
Speaker 1: a gig, and he asked that friend if he had
Speaker 1: ever been hurt by a gig flipping over, And when
Speaker 1: the friend said he had not he had never been
Speaker 1: in such an accident, Minton suggested that he had not
Speaker 1: really lived unless he had had that experience, And then
Speaker 1: he purposely and violently wrecked the gig that they were
Speaker 1: in by running one of the wheels up a steep embankment,
Speaker 1: so it flipped. Luckily, both of the men walked away
Speaker 1: from that incident. On another occasion, Mitton was testing a
Speaker 1: horse he was considering buying by running him in tandem
Speaker 1: in front of an another horse that was attached to
Speaker 1: a gig. But as they were traveling, he started wondering
Speaker 1: if this new horse could jump, and gave him a
Speaker 1: whip on the flank as they approached a gate. This
Speaker 1: horse cleared the jump, but the second horse, Mitten, and
Speaker 1: the horse dealer were all left behind with the gig
Speaker 1: in the process. He also liked to do a trick
Speaker 1: with one of his horses that was basically the gig
Speaker 1: equivalent of popping a wheelie. So on command, the horse
Speaker 1: would rear up while attached to this gig. The cart
Speaker 1: would then tip back until the back touched the ground.
Speaker 1: When it came to money, he was not only cavalier
Speaker 1: about spending it, but also about handling it at all.
Speaker 1: This sounds completely bananas, so brace he has said to
Speaker 1: have put high denomination pound notes on sandwiches and eat them.
Speaker 1: Given how dirty money is, we always see these discussions
Speaker 1: about if you test a bill of money, that makes
Speaker 1: me completely nauseous. It's disgusting. Also left money lying everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1: Apparently he didn't like paper currency. People who visited Halston
Speaker 1: Hall would often find it just on the ground or
Speaker 1: in bushes. It's unclear nobody knows to this day whether
Speaker 1: he was dropping money accidentally because he was just so
Speaker 1: completely casual about handling things, or if he purposely was
Speaker 1: throwing it on the ground because of his disdain for it.
Speaker 1: And then there's the bear. Mitten had a pet bear,
Speaker 1: as much as one can have a pet bear. He
Speaker 1: purchased this bear, along with a monkey, for thirty five
Speaker 1: pounds when both of them were quite young, and raised
Speaker 1: them in the house. He also had a horse that
Speaker 1: routinely slept in the house, as well as innumerable dogs.
Speaker 1: We just mentioned the extraordinary number of dogs. He's said
Speaker 1: to have ridden this bear, using spurs to drive it
Speaker 1: into the middle of one of his parties while yelling
Speaker 1: tally hoe. His guests were panicked, and rightly so. This
Speaker 1: bear is described in this incident as pretty calm until
Speaker 1: Mitton got her with a spur, at which point the
Speaker 1: bear whipped around and bit Mitton right through his calf.
Speaker 1: Minton thought this was hilarious, even though he was seriously wounded.
Speaker 1: At one point, he also got a horse dealer drunk,
Speaker 1: and when the man passed out, Mitton put him to
Speaker 1: bed with the bear and two bulldogs, and he liked
Speaker 1: to have dogfights in the dining room to entertain guests
Speaker 1: while they ate. Yeah, he he had boundary issues. When
Speaker 1: a horse dealer named George Underhill visited Mitton in search
Speaker 1: of money that he was owed, Mitton gave him a
Speaker 1: sealed letter with instructions to take it to an address
Speaker 1: in Shrewsbury to see a banker who would give him
Speaker 1: the money. This is basically an order of payment, but
Speaker 1: that banker was also a governor in the Lunatic Assylum,
Speaker 1: as it was called, and the note was not in
Speaker 1: order for payment, but a letter which read quote admit
Speaker 1: the bearer, George Underhill, into the Lunatic Asylum, your obedient servant,
Speaker 1: John Minton. It appears that the banker knew this was
Speaker 1: a joke and George Underhill was not in any real danger.
Speaker 1: But oh Man and Minton also could be kind in
Speaker 1: his own way. He was lenient with the tenants on
Speaker 1: his land when they struggled financially. He gave away grain
Speaker 1: so people could eat. He would borrow money only to
Speaker 1: give it or lend it to someone else, and he
Speaker 1: often got in hot water because the recipient would vanish
Speaker 1: with no intention of repayment. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about how Minton's life shifted considerably to one far
Speaker 1: less grand. But first we will pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Minton's cavalier attitude about my me, both in spending it
Speaker 1: for his own amusements and in giving it to others,
Speaker 1: led to his great fortune dwindling away. And as this
Speaker 1: happened and his drinking became more and more problematic, his
Speaker 1: behavior with his wife Caroline became unkind. In the stilted
Speaker 1: writing of the day, it is never spelled out exactly
Speaker 1: what happened between them. The Nimrod biography we've been talking
Speaker 1: about includes the information that Caroline confided in the writer
Speaker 1: about it once quote recounting some of his acts which
Speaker 1: only a madman would have committed, But it doesn't state
Speaker 1: what any of those acts were, only that from the
Speaker 1: biographer and friend's point of view, quote, were my life
Speaker 1: to endure a thousand years? I could never lose my
Speaker 1: recollection unless I lost my reason. Of that distressing scene,
Speaker 1: Caroline left Mitton in eighteen thirty. She's often described as
Speaker 1: running away, and the two of them never reconciled. By
Speaker 1: this point, Mitton had accrued a massive debt, and he
Speaker 1: had started selling off property to meet his obligations. But
Speaker 1: in the wake of Caroline's exit, he decided he might
Speaker 1: once again like to attempt to run for parliament, this
Speaker 1: time representing Shropshire. His first address to the voters was
Speaker 1: as follows, quote, Gentlemen, domestic affliction of no slight or
Speaker 1: common nature has latterly limited my intercourse with you. My
Speaker 1: wishes for the prosperity of my native country have ever
Speaker 1: in absence held their usual sway, Having once had the
Speaker 1: honor of representing your county town in Parliament. Feeling that
Speaker 1: various avocations precluded the conscientious performance of my duty to
Speaker 1: my constituents, I declined the representation that the dissolution of
Speaker 1: that parliament. I have now no wife, no family, no hounds,
Speaker 1: no horses. Some will say no steadiness of purpose. But
Speaker 1: feeling that I can devote myself to your service, should
Speaker 1: you honor me with your support and confidence, I venture
Speaker 1: to offer myself to your notice as a candidate for
Speaker 1: the county, totally unshackled by prejudice or otherwise, and a
Speaker 1: strenuous advocate for reform, Relying upon the strength of the cause.
Speaker 1: I shall advocate, I throw myself upon your favor, and
Speaker 1: shall assuredly take the sense of the county. I shall
Speaker 1: look to the vote of every independent freeholder, without making
Speaker 1: further professions. Uh. He did not win the seat. It
Speaker 1: was not long after that Mitton fled his creditors, landing
Speaker 1: eventually in France and Calais, specifically where he had spent
Speaker 1: most of his brief military career. When his friend Apperly
Speaker 1: saw him there, he found Mitten to be a much
Speaker 1: changed man. He described him as quote a round shouldered, decrepit, tottering,
Speaker 1: old young man, if I may be allowed such a term.
Speaker 1: There was a mind as well as a body in ruins.
Speaker 1: The one had partaken of the injury done to the other,
Speaker 1: and it was and at once apparent that all was
Speaker 1: a wreck. In fact, he was a melancholy spectacle of
Speaker 1: fallen man, of one over whom all the storms of
Speaker 1: life seemed to be engendered in one dark cloud. But
Speaker 1: Minton didn't seem dejected or sad, and he seemed to
Speaker 1: think his finances were on the brink of turning around.
Speaker 1: But Apperley saw through all of this, and he noted
Speaker 1: to Mitton's valet and their mutual friends that he feared
Speaker 1: that John may quote either go mad or die, and
Speaker 1: very shortly too. Mitton's behavior was as erratic as ever
Speaker 1: in France, and sometimes even more so. In an infamous story,
Speaker 1: he set fire to his night shirt in an effort
Speaker 1: to scare his hiccups away. When Apperly asked him why
Speaker 1: he did such a thing, he said quote that he
Speaker 1: wished to show me how he could bear pain. According
Speaker 1: to Apperley's account, he drank even more heavily to medicate
Speaker 1: as he was badly burned. In this episode. His doctor
Speaker 1: thought he could die at any moment, but he somehow recovered,
Speaker 1: at least physically. But in the Nimrod biography, Applely described
Speaker 1: spending days with Mitten as he behaved in ways that
Speaker 1: were just inscrutable and sometimes terrifying. This included an incident
Speaker 1: where he took six knives into bed, believed to be
Speaker 1: with the intent of self harm. His mother and his
Speaker 1: friends went to great lengths to nurse him back to health.
Speaker 1: They eventually moved him to a chateau in the country,
Speaker 1: where he very much improved, both physically and mentally, until
Speaker 1: he escaped from his friends and managed to get his
Speaker 1: hands on a bottle of brandy. Eventually he was able
Speaker 1: to connect with some of the less noble characters he
Speaker 1: had been associating with in his Calaet circle, who thought
Speaker 1: they should take him back to England so they could
Speaker 1: sign over his remaining property to them. Yeah, he had
Speaker 1: clearly fallen in with people that wanted to take advantage
Speaker 1: of his not robust and healthy state of mind. Of course,
Speaker 1: once he was back in England, Mitton was arrested and
Speaker 1: he was taken first to Shrewsbury Jail and then to
Speaker 1: the King's Bench Prison, which was a debtor's prison in London.
Speaker 1: He was released after serving his sentence, and right after
Speaker 1: that he met up on Westminster Bridge with a young
Speaker 1: woman that he had never seen before named Susan, and
Speaker 1: right there, at the moment they met, he told her
Speaker 1: he would give her five hundred pounds a year if
Speaker 1: she stayed with him, and she did. This is a
Speaker 1: weird thing. Sometimes it's described as he fell in love
Speaker 1: with her at first sight, but it honestly reads as
Speaker 1: just something of like a lonely desperate person. But she
Speaker 1: is described by his friends as being incredibly kind to Mitton.
Speaker 1: She even kind of won the favor of his mother,
Speaker 1: who thanked her later on for having been so invested
Speaker 1: in caring for him. The two of them left for France.
Speaker 1: He was then arrested in France for his debts. Once
Speaker 1: he was released from his prison time there, he went
Speaker 1: back to England and then he was back in King's
Speaker 1: Bench prison almost immediately. John Mitton died in prison on
Speaker 1: March twenty ninth, eighteen thirty four, at the age of
Speaker 1: thirty seven. A coroner's inquest was called to determine his
Speaker 1: cause of death. According to the notice in the Gloucester Chronicle, quote,
Speaker 1: two medical attendants stated that the immediate cause of death
Speaker 1: was disease of the brain delirium tremens caused by the
Speaker 1: excessive use of spiritust liquors, verdict natural death. Mitton's mother
Speaker 1: was with him when he died and arranged for his
Speaker 1: remains to be buried at the Halston property. Three thousand
Speaker 1: people attended his burial at the family crypt, and the
Speaker 1: shops in Shrewsbury were closed that day in his honor.
Speaker 1: As a coda to John Mitton's story, in The Standard
Speaker 1: Newspaper of London in nineteen hundred, a reader wrote in
Speaker 1: regarding an encounter they had had with his son some
Speaker 1: years earlier. This letter to the editor included the setup
Speaker 1: that he'd the writer and a friend had dined one
Speaker 1: evening at the Bedford Hotel, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the meal they found that they were short on the bill,
Speaker 1: and the manager was kind enough to overlook the small gap.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a big a big short on the bill,
Speaker 1: but they did have to move out of the fancy
Speaker 1: or private dining room and into the coffee room, which
Speaker 1: was a little less fancy, and there they met John
Speaker 1: Minton junior. He, according to this account, bought them each
Speaker 1: oranges from the waiter, and then gave each of them
Speaker 1: half a sovereign for pocket money. And then he left.
Speaker 1: And the writer of this tale, identified as SFH, said
Speaker 1: they heard that he had just ridden a horse up
Speaker 1: a flight of hotel stairs on a wager, without injury
Speaker 1: to himself or the horse. This account summarizes this entire
Speaker 1: incident by saying, quote, though he had a kind heart,
Speaker 1: he was not free from his father's faults and follies,
Speaker 1: nor I fear did he escape from the ruinous results
Speaker 1: which were the natural consequence that story, incidentally about riding
Speaker 1: a horse up the hotel stairs is something that his
Speaker 1: father definitely did. It is a little unclear whether his
Speaker 1: son repeated that same act or if this was a
Speaker 1: confusion of local lore on the writer's part since they
Speaker 1: were both named John Mitton. But this does kind of
Speaker 1: explain why he has this strange hero status because everyone
Speaker 1: recognizes that he was completely out of control, that he
Speaker 1: also had this desire and proclivity to be kind to
Speaker 1: people when he could, and apparently his son was also
Speaker 1: similarly living his life. I have so many thoughts about
Speaker 1: him that we could talk about on the behind the scenes. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have a listener mail from our listener, Shanila. I
Speaker 1: hope that's how she pronounces it. I live next to
Speaker 1: someone with this name growing up who pronounced it that way,
Speaker 1: so if I got it wrong, I apologize. Schwritz Hi
Speaker 1: Alian Tracy. I discovered your podcast several years ago and
Speaker 1: have been intermittently listening to episodes in any quiet moment
Speaker 1: when my kids weren't around. Now that the youngest in
Speaker 1: full time non virtual school, I am starting at the
Speaker 1: beginning and working my way through all your old episodes.
Speaker 1: I recently listened to the one about how a war
Speaker 1: between Canada and the US was almost started over a pig,
Speaker 1: and was delighted to hear Holly mentioned she had lived
Speaker 1: in the pew wall Up, Tacoma area as a child.
Speaker 1: Qe all Up is my hometown, and it brings me
Speaker 1: so much joy to hear of someone else from here,
Speaker 1: especially someone I listened to and admire. Several years ago,
Speaker 1: I moved to my husband's hometown of Boise, Idaho, and
Speaker 1: I deeply missed the Pacific Northwest. Thank you for the
Speaker 1: unexpected smile you gave me. My husband and I are
Speaker 1: regular watchers of Jeopardy, and I feel compelled to suggest
Speaker 1: that you both should apply to be on the show.
Speaker 1: Hardly an episode goes by that I don't say, oh,
Speaker 1: I know that I just listened to this history podcast
Speaker 1: about it, regarding at least one clue if I am
Speaker 1: ever on Jeopardy and when it will be because of
Speaker 1: your podcast. She mentions another interesting story we might talk about,
Speaker 1: and then some sum mates by saying, thank you always
Speaker 1: for being so delightful. We don't have any pets because
Speaker 1: keeping four children alive is all I can handle. They
Speaker 1: are pretty cute, even if they're not free, so I
Speaker 1: attached a picture of them. Cheers. I'm so so delighted
Speaker 1: that you have this beautiful family. I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to say this to say I could never be on Jeopardy.
Speaker 1: I choke in the moment of being questioned. I have
Speaker 1: taken the Jeopardy test a couple times and didn't pass it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would be like, I don't know about that, but
Speaker 1: do you want to hear about this other weird thing
Speaker 1: I know? And then they'd be like, no, man, please
Speaker 1: go away. But you know, always good to hear someone
Speaker 1: from pewall Up. People in pewall Up don't tam they rest.
Speaker 1: That's one of the many slogans you can usually find
Speaker 1: on a T shirt there. I too miss the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: It's so beautiful and I love it so I hope
Speaker 1: you get to visit often and take your kids. If
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us, you can do
Speaker 1: so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find us on social media as Missed in History,
Speaker 1: and if you have not yet subscribed, that is easy
Speaker 1: as pie to do. Just do it on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app or anywhere else you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.