Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/112

 FITZALWYN, HENRY. [See .]

FITZCHARLES, CHARLES, (1657?–1680), born in or about 1657, was the illegitimate son of Charles II, by Catherine, daughter of Thomas Pegge of Yeldersley, Derbyshire. 'In the time of his youth,' writes the courtly Dugdale, 'giving much testimony of his singular accomplishments,' he was elevated to the peerage, 28 July 1675, as Baron of Dartmouth, Viscount Totness, and Earl of Plymouth, 'to the end he might be the more encouraged to persist in the paths of virtue, and thereby be the better fitted for the managery of great affairs when he should attain to riper years' (Baronage, iii. 487). He married on 19 Sept. 1678 at Wimbledon, Surrey, Lady Bridget Osborne, third daughter of Thomas, first duke of Leeds, but died without issue at Tangier on 17 Oct. 1680, aged 23, and was buried on 18 Jan. 1680-1 in Westminster Abbey (, Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 201). His wife remarried, about August 1706, Philip Bisse, bishop of Hereford, and died on 9 May 1718 (Hist. Reg. 1718, Chron. Diary, p. 21; Political State, xv. 553). According to Wood (Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 270) he was commonly called 'Don Carlos.'



FITZCLARENCE, ADOLPHUS (1802–1856), rear-admiral, an illegitimate son of William IV, by Mrs. Jordan, entered the navy in 1814, on board the Impregnable, bearing the flag of his father, then Duke of Clarence. Afterwards he served in the Mediterranean, on the North American station, or the coast of Portugal, and was promoted to be lieutenant in April 1821. In May 1823 he was made commander, and captain in December 1824. In 1826 he commanded the Ariadne in the Mediterranean, in 1827 the Challenger, in 1828 the Pallas, and in July 1830 was appointed to the command of the royal yacht, which he retained till promoted to flag rank, 17 Sept. 1853. He died 17 May 1856. On his father's accession to the throne he was granted, 24 May 1831, the title and precedency of the younger son of a marquis, and 24 Feb. 1832 was nominated a G.C.H.



FITZCLARENCE, GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, first (1794–1842), major-general, president of the Royal Asiatic Society of London, the eldest of the numerous children of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV, by  (1762?-1816) [q. v.], was born in 1794. He was sent to a private school at Sunbury, and afterwards to the Royal Military College at Marlow, and on 5 Feb. 1807, before he was fourteen, was appointed cornet in the 10th hussars. He went with his regiment to Spain next year, and was aide-de-camp to General Slade at Corunna. He returned to the Peninsula the year after as galloper to Sir Charles Stewart, afterwards second marquis of Londonderry, then Lord Wellington's adjutant-general, and made the campaigns of 1809-11. He was wounded and taken prisoner at Fuentes d'Onoro, but effected his escape in the mêlée. He was promoted to a troop in the 10th hussars at home soon after. He accompanied his regiment to Spain in 1813, and made the campaigns of 1813-14 in Spain and the south of France, first as a deputy assistant adjutant-general (, Wellington Despatches, vi. 452), and afterwards with his regiment, while leading a squadron of which he was severely wounded at Toulouse. On the return of the regiment to England he was one of the chief witnesses against the commanding officer, Colonel Quentin, who was tried by a general court-martial at Whitehall, in October 1814, on charges of incapacity and misconduct in the field. The charges were partly proved; but as the officers were believed to have combined against their colonel, the whole of them were removed to other regiments, 'as a warning in support of subordination,' a proceeding which acquired for them the name of the 'elegant extracts.' Fitzclarence and his younger brother Henry, who died in India, were thus transferred to the since disbanded 24th light dragoons, then in India, where George became aide-de-camp to the Marquis of Hastings, governor-general and commander-in-chief, in which capacity he made the campaigns of 1816-17 against the Mahrattas. When peace was arranged with the Maharajah Scindiah the event was considered of sufficient importance to send the despatches in duplicate, and Fitzclarence was entrusted with the duplicates sent by overland route. He started from the western frontier of Bundelkund, the furthest point reached by the grand army, 7 Dec. 1817, and travelling through districts infested by the Pindarrees, witnessed the defeat of the latter by General Doveton at Jubbulpore, reached Bombay, and quitted it in the H.E.I.C. cruiser Mercury for Kosseir 7 Feb. 1818, crossed the desert, explored the pyramids with Salt and Belzoni, descended the Nile, and reached London, via Alexandria and Malta, 16 June 1818. He subsequently