Gen Thomas Gage, Margaret Gage and the 18th-century gold box
Posted on 01/20/2006 3:40:15 AM PST by Pharmboy
Behind the sale of an 18th-century gold box in New York today lies one of the saddest love stories of the American Revolution.
When the box, embossed with the arms of New York, was presented with the freedom of the city in 1773 to Thomas Gage he was the commander-in-chief of the British Army in North America and was deeply in love with his American-born wife.
Gen Thomas Gage, Margaret Gage and the 18th-century gold box
Two years later, the general was a broken man, his career was in tatters and he was estranged from Margaret Gage for ever after she put the land of her birth before her husband and handed his military secrets to Paul Revere, the most famous of all the revolutionaries.
Gage and Margaret Kemble, from Brunswick, New Jersey, had been devoted, with 11 children and large estates in America and England.
Their marriage fell apart on April 18, 1775, the day Gage sent 800 men to Concord, Massachussetts, to destroy arms caches and to seize the leading revolutionaries Samuel Adams and John Hancock.
But Revere rode through Lexington, Massachusetts, warning of Gage's plans to attack, with the cry, "The British are coming, the British are coming".
Gage was convinced his wife had leaked the details to Revere. "My confidence has been betrayed," he wrote to a fellow officer, Lord Percy, "for I had communicated my design to one person only [apart from you]."
Humiliated, Gage turned over his command to Gen William Howe and banished his wife to England. He followed six months later, but the couple, who were once painted by John Singleton Copley, a leading artist of the period, never spoke again.
The box, valued at £285,000 by Sotheby's, is being sold by the family of the Earl of Rosebery. A previous Lord Rosebery, prime minister from 1894-95, bought the box for £50 from an antique dealer who got it from Gage's descendant, Viscount Gage.
The document from the mayor of New York granting the freedom of the city, originally kept in the box, is at Firle Place, East Sussex, the seat of the present Viscount Gage.
"The box has been kept in a safe for 100 years," said Lord Rosebery's heir, Lord Dalmeny. "I hope it will end up in a New York museum, or bought and given back to the Gages and reunited with the original document."
Excellent links..........btw there are some who believe the Boston Tea Party was nothing of the such......the belief is that there was a demonstration by the locals but they were actually dumping drugs such as opium that were being delivered for distribution into the colonies by the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. The company had used such drugs to keep local populations subdued has they were building their empire around the world. Don't know if this is true or not but it would be an interesting twist to the story.
I heard they were shipping magic spears, leprechauns, and cod-liver oil that could turn a man into a newt. Not sure if it's true, but it's an intriguing theory.
banished his wife to EnglandThat'll teach her. ;')
And I heard you were some kind of limpwristed schmuck......an intriguing theory also.
No it is not true. The tea belonged to the East India Company and the tax was imposed for it.
Opium was not much used for another couple of decades.
hahaha. With the views you hold, I'm surprised you haven't got a thick skin from being ridiculed.
if she were to pass info to the terrorists?
OK, you do have this in a different perspective... The Country was Britain, all of us at that time were Englishmen, there wasn't a American country and to speak of it would be treason, punishable by hanging...
Have you seen a painting of Jemima? She was beautiful!! (during a time when all women in paintings seemed ugly--LOL) Thanks. It's always good to talk to an American Revolution buff!
Oh......that's what is was? I guess you weren't smart enough to figure out that what I posted was a belief or theory and I wasn't even close to intimating I believed it.......course we can't all be a superior intellect like you that can extract so much from one post.
lol, good one.
Thanks Pharmboy for the "new to me" information. I don't remember reading about this in ALL the history books I've read.
Yes, I guess I do. I just can't get my head around equating our founding fathers with Howard Dean, Murtha, Kerry, and the rest of the liberal crowd.
I had the same reaction...I have read several on the RevWar, but never heard of this one. It is interesting that it is the Brits who are writing about it now.
Most of the Loyalists later moved to British North America (today's Canada) and gave birth to the first English Canadians. They have shaped the politics and culture of Canada along with French Canadian federalists ever since the nation's federation in 1867. It can be said that the seeds of Canada's anti-Americanism were sowed in 1776.
Even in the Canada of Paul Martin, which their descendents may not be significant in number, their legacy remain extensive. For instance, they can still use the title "United Empire Loyalists" formally in everyday communications.
Dead Old Guy ping
Ditto.
I don't know how true it is but I did find this:
http://www.shardalow.com/Maud_Milgate/Chapter_18/chapter_18.html
Excerpt:
They had two children, Mary and Charles but before the little boy was 2 years old was broke out with America and Cornwallis was given Command of a Division of the British Army. So upset was his wife at his going that she sought permission of the King to allow Cornwallis to return home. This was granted, but Cornwallis refused to comply. He was a man of strong principles, a soldier from his youth, and it was anathema to him to think of giving up his position. His wife and 2 children saw him off at Portsmouth and returned sorrowfully to Culford. It was spring time and the Park was beautiful but she saw no consolation in it or in her children. Her sadness turned to illness and towards the end ot the year her doctors realized her condition was dangerous and sent for her husband. He arrived home at the end of January 1779, but it was too late to save her and she died on 13th Febuary. She confided to her maid that she was dying of a broken heart and requested that no stone be carver to her memory, but a thorn tree be planted on her grave. The inscription on her coffin read "Jemimer, Countess Cornwallis, died 13th Febuary, 1779 aged 31½ years." A thorn tree still grows near the vault on the north side of the church, significant not only of Lady Jemimer's sorrow but of her husbands anguish in losing her. He never married again. Lord Cornwallis returned to America and commanded his Division until the disastrous defeat at York Town in 1781 when he surrendered with all his men to General Washington.
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