Robert Walpole,
Horace Walpole's father, Horace
Walpole's father, was instrumental in the disbanding of Wharton's
Hellfire Club. His interest in the case was personal as well as political.
Not only had Wharton and his allies ended Walpole's career as
prime minister, Walpole's sister Dorothy (Dolly) was seduced
by Wharton before her marriage. After her husband found out, he denied
her access to their children and had her imprisoned in her own home for the
rest of her life. Dolly's death following a fall down the central staircase
was considered suspicious, and there are reports that she still haunts
Raynham Hall searching for her children in the form of a woman dressed in
brown. For a photograph believed to be of Dolly's ghost see Walpole.
Philip,
Lord Wharton
has become notorious
as the rakish founder of the original Hellfire Club. The former printer
of his True Britain newspaper,
Samuel Richardson,
is said to have used Wharton as the model for Lovelace
in Clarissa Harlow. Wharton's
mistress was the poet Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Wharton
also employed the poet Edward Young who modelled his character Lorenzo
in Night Thoughts on Wharton.
Philip's
father, Thomas, Marquis of Wharton, wrote the words to the political
ballad Lilibolero so beloved of
Sterne's Uncle Toby in Tristram
Shandy.
