"EXMOUTH. - On Monday, the King of Saxony attended by the Duc de Staacpoole, aide-de-camp, the Baron de Gersendorff, Saxon Minister, and Dr Canes, the celebrated botanist, his Majesty's physician, arrived at this agreeable watering-place in two carriages and four, and dined and slept at Bastin's Marine Hotel. His Majesty expressed himself much pleased with the Hotel, and was engaged from an early hour in taking sketches from the drawing-room window.
"After breakfasting at half-past eight o' clock, the distinguished party were rowed to the Saltworks on the Warren and proceeded to Dawlish and Teignmouth, en route to Plymouth."
This routine notice of a middle-aged, all-male, royal party touring Britain is of more interest than it appears. The King of Saxony whose party arrived in style at Bastin's Hotel was Friedrich August ll. He had just come from Lyme Regis where he had purchased an ichyosaurus from Mary Anning. He was remembered as an intelligent and benevolent monarch.
Richard, Duc de Stackpoole, was a French aristocrat but more British than French and must therefore have made an excellent ADC for the tour. He is remembered because his ghost, so men say, still haunts his old mansion of Glasshayes in the New Forest.
Carl Gustav Carus (not Canes!), acting as the King's physician, was the most interesting of the party. He made a name for himself not only as a botanist but as a physiologist and as a painter who studied under Caspar David Friedrich.
I like the idea of the King of the Saxons making sketches of (?) Exmouth Bay and I like to imagine this distiguished party being rowed across the Exe to the Warren.
I read here of the Saltworks on the Warren for the first time but I'm sure the Exmothian local historians know all about them. The Works must have offered a superior landing place, one fit for a king.
Dr Carus wrote a book The King of Saxony's Journey through England and Scotland, 1844. which I have not yet seen.
Source:The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 6th July 1844.
No comments:
Post a Comment