Reporting the Grand Tour: the correspondence of Henry Bentinck, Viscount Woodstock, and Paul Rapin-Thoyras with the Earl of Portland, 1701-1703

Abstract

This article examines the correspondence written before and during the Grand Tour by Henry Bentinck, Viscount Woodstock, and his head tutor, the famous Huguenot historian Paul Rapin-Thoyras, to Bentinck’s father Hans Willem Bentinck, the Earl of Portland, in the years 1701–1703. The numerous letters shed light on the preparation of the voyage, the problematic relationship between the teenage pupil and his teacher and their reflections on political events, cultural impressions and educational ideas of the early eighteenth century.

Keywords:

• Grand Tour
• Huguenot education
• tutor–pupil relationship
• nobility
• Huguenots

Acknowledgements

This article is an elaboration of papers given at the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland and at the Boarders and Crossings conference, Hope University, Liverpool. The author is currently preparing an edited volume of the correspondence for publication.

Notes

¹ For general discussions of the Grand Tour, see for example Michèle Cohen, “The Grand Tour. Language, National Identity and Masculinity,” Changing English: Studies in Reading & Culture 8, No. 2 (2001): 129–41; Roger Hudson, The Grand Tour, 1592-1796 (London: Folio Society, 1993); Jeremy Black, France and the Grand Tour (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Michael G. Brennan, The Origins of the Grand Tour: The Travels of Robert Montagu, Lord Mandeville, 1649–1654, William Hammond, 1655–1658, Banister Maynard, 1660-1663 (London: Hakluyt Society, 2004); E.M. Grabowsky and P.J. Verkruijsse (eds.), Een naekt beeldt op een marmore matras seer schoon: Het dagboek van een ‘Grand Tour’ (1649–1651) door Arnhout Hellemans Hooft (Hilversum: Verloren, 2001).

² Gerrit Verhoeven, “Calvinist Pilgrimages and Popish Encounters: Religious Identity and Sacred Space on the Dutch Grand Tour (1598–1685),” Journal of Social History 43, no. 3 (2010): 615–34, see in particular 617–8.

³ Jean Boutier, “Compétence internationale, émergence d'une "profession" et circulation des savoirs: le tuteur aristocratique dans l'Angleterre du XVIIe siècle,” in Saperi in Movimento, ed. M.-P. Paoli (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2006), 149–77, 150.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Michael Green, The Huguenot Jean Rou (1638–1711): Scholar, Educator, Civil Servant (PhD diss., University of Groningen, 2013), 306–8.

⁶ Jacob Presser, “Memoires als geschiedbron,” in Uit het werk van dr. J. Presser, (Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 1969), 277–83.

⁷ Special Collections Department, Library of the University of Nottingham, under the shelf-mark Pw A (different references to different letters, for example, Pw A 1048); British Library, EG 1706, Letters from Paul Rapin-Thoyras and Viscount Woodstock to Hans William Bentinck, Earl of Portland (copies).

⁸ For easier access, All of the letters in this article will be referred to their location in the British Library and transcribed from the copies held there.

⁹ Woodstock to Portland, Venice, March 10, 1702, f. 8–84.

¹⁰ Woodstock to Portland, Rome, May 6, 1702, f. 101–2.

¹¹ On William III, see Wouter Troost, William III the Stadholder-King: A Political Biography, trans. J.C. Grayson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).

¹² The biographical information in this section is based on: Green, The Huguenot Jean Rou, 317; For more information see: David Onnekink, The Anglo-Dutch Favourite: The Career of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1^st Earl of Portland (1649–1709) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Marion E. Grew, William Bentinck and William III (Prince of Orange): The Life of Bentinck Earl of Portland from the Welbeck Correspondence (London: John Murray, 1924); Paul. E. Schazmann, The Bentincks: The History of a European Family (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976).

¹³ For additional information on the selection process of the tutors, criteria employed in their selection and various types of educational staff, see Green, The Huguenot Jean Rou, 301–12; M. Green, “A Huguenot Education for Early Modern Nobility”, in The Huguenot Society Journal, 30, No. 1 (2013): 73–91.

¹⁴ Much literature was written on Pierre Bayle. See for example Wiep van Bunge and Hubert Bots (eds.), Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), le philosophe de Rotterdam: Philosophy, Religion and Reception. Selected Papers of the Tercentenary Conference Held at Rotterdam, 7-8 December 2006 (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Hubert Bost, Pierre Bayle (Paris: Fayard, 2006); Elisabeth Labrousse, Notes sur Bayle (Paris: Vrin, 1987); Elisabeth Labrousse, Une foi, une loi, un roi?’: Essai sur la Révocation de l’Édit de Nantes (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1985); Elisabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle et l'instrument critique (Paris: Seghers, 1965).

¹⁵ Green, The Huguenot Jean Rou, 143–145; N. Girard d’Albissin, Un précurseur de Montesqieu: Rapin-Thoyras. Premier historien français des institutions anglaises, (Paris, 1969); M. G. Sullivan, “Rapin de Thoyras, Paul de”, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). Online edition, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23145 (Accessed on August 17, 2012).

¹⁶ See “James Waller,” in A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain for 1852 vol. 2, ed. John Bernard Burke (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), 1498. See also Ronald Ludwig, Die Rezeption der Englischen Revolution im Deutschen Politischen Denken und in der Deutschen Historigraphie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2003), 22.

¹⁷ Boutier writes that often a separate tutor was employed for the Grand Tour, and he would not be the same one who took care of the child’s upbringing at home. This however was not the case with Rapin, who was both head tutor at home and accompanying tutor for the Grand Tour. Boutier, “Compétence internationale”.

¹⁸ Henry Bentinck, Viscount Woodstock, then 1^st Duke of Portland. For biographical information, see “Biography of [William] Henry Bentinck, 1^st Duke of Portland (1682-1726)”, in University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections Website, online edition, http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/collectionsindepth/family/portland/biographies/biographyof%5Bwilliam%5Dhenrybentinck,1stdukeofportland%281682-1726%29.aspx; Hugh Dunthorne and David Onnekink, “Bentinck, Hans Willem, First Earl of Portland (1649–1709),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2160.

¹⁹ On one occasion Woodstock actually mentions the house, in a letter to his father who was staying there at the time. See Woodstock to Portland, Florence, July 1, 1702, f. 114–5.

²⁰ Letter from Rapin to Portland, The Hague, March 2, 1701, f. 1–4.

²¹ Paul Rapin-Thoyras, “Programme du voyage,” f. 5–6.

²² Verhoeven, “Calvinist Pilgrimages,” 618–9.

²³ Rosemary Sweet, Cities and the Grand Tour: The British in Italy, c.1690-1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 2.

²⁴ Woodstock to Earl of Portland, The Hague, March 29, 1701, f. 7–8.

²⁵ Verhoeven, “Calvinist Pilgrimages,” 618.

²⁶ Woodstock to Earl of Portland, The Hague, March 29, 1701, f. 7–8.

²⁷ Rapin to Portland, The Hague, April 1, 1701, f. 9–12.

²⁸ Diaphaurus in Woodstock’s spelling. Woodstock to Portland, Dusseldorf, October 31, 1701, f. 26–7. In Moliere’s Hypochondriac, Argan tells Thomas Diafoirus, who was talking to the daughter Angelique instead of the mother: “Ce n’est pas ma femme, c’est ma fille à qui vous parlez.” See Moliere, Le malade imaginaire: comédie en trois actes en prose (Paris: Chez la Veuve Duchesne, 1774): 35.

²⁹ Rapin to Portland, Cologne, November 3, 1701, f. 28–9.

³⁰ Verhoeven, “Calvinist Pilgrimages,” 620.

³¹ Ibid.

³² Rapin to Portland, Munich, December 1, 1701, f. 37–40.

³³ Woodstock to Portland, Ratisbonne, December 12, 1701, f. 44–8.

³⁴ Rapin to Portland, Ratisbonne, December 11, 1701, f. 41–3.

³⁵ Woodstock to Portland, Ratisbonne, December 12, 1701, f. 44–8; Woodstock to Portland, Vienna, December 24, 1701, f. 49–50.

³⁶ Vienna was rapidly developing at the end of the seventeenth century. See Jeremy Black, “Warfare, Crisis and Absolutism,” in Early Modern Europe History, ed. Euan Cameron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), http://books.google.com/books?id=kZhTrAFPVP0C.

³⁷ Rapin to Portland, Vienna, January 7, 1702, f. 53–5.

³⁸ Woodstock to Portland, Venice, March 10, 1702, f. 82–4; Woodstock to Portland, Venice, March 17, 1702, f. 85–7.

³⁹ Woodstock to Portland, Rome, May 6, 1702, f. 101–2.

⁴⁰ Woodstock to Portland, Venice, September 1, 1702, 122–3.

⁴¹ Woodstock to Portland, Venice, September 8, 1702, f. 124–5.

⁴² Woodstock to Portland, Nuremberg, October 5, 1702, 128–30.

⁴³ Count von Wartenberg to Portland, Berlin, November 11, 1702, f. 136.

⁴⁴ Woodstock to Portland, Oranjebaum, January 4, 1703, f. 148.

⁴⁵ Woodstock to Portland, Berlin, January 16, 1703, f. 151.

⁴⁶ Woodstock to Portland, Hannover, January 30, 1703, f. 154–5; February 27, 1703, f. 163; Celle, March 9, 1703, f. 169–70.

⁴⁷ Woodstock to Portland, Nienhuis, April 24, 1703, f. 178–9; The Hague, May 1, 1703, f. 180–1.

⁴⁸ Woodstock to Portland, Berlin, November 25, 1702, f. 139–41.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Woodstock to Portland, Hannover, February 16, 1703, f. 157–60.

⁵¹ Woodstock to Portland, Celle, March 17, 1703, f. 171–2.

⁵² Woodstock to Portland, Hannover, February 16, 1703, f. 157–60.

⁵³ Woodstock to Portland, Celle, March 9, 1703, f. 169–70.

⁵⁴ Woodstock to Portland, Celle, March 17, 1703, f. 171–2.

⁵⁵ Woodstock to Portland, Celle, March 27, 1703, f. 175–6.

⁵⁶ See for example Woodstock to Portland, Vienna, February 4, 1702, f. 72. At the time, Woodstock had five sisters by his mother, who died in 1688. See “Biography of [William] Henry Bentinck,” online.

⁵⁷ For example, letter from Woodstock to Portland, Rome, June 10, 1702, f. 109–11.