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The Sharpe Fan Fictions of A Lady.

Bernard Cornwell’s

William Lawford Home from Spain

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

William Lawford Home from Spain. Copyright © 2025 by A Lady

DEDICATIONS William Lawford Home from Spain is for Sable Crow who supports our fanfiction with her website SharpeTales.net.

And

Bernard Cornwell who brought Richard Sharpe into our world.





William Lawford Home from Spain

A Novel by “A Lady” Based on Characters created by Bernard Cornwell Chapter 1





March, 1812

Durford, England


BR>One morning I received a letter from Jessica, couched in terms which were stiff and formal but at least civil, which gave me grounds for hope, if not for a reconciliation, at least for a resumption of something like the friendly relations which she and I had enjoyed in the years before our marriage. She and Eloisa were well. She had learned of what had befallen me at Ciudad Rodrigo. She was very sorry for it. She was glad that I had lived. She understood that I was now settled at Durford.1

It must seem a very empty and lonely house now that the Countess, my mother, long departed to Cannock2 in Staffordshire ere this in any case, was no more.

Did I think that I might benefit from a visit? I replied, thanking her for her concern but explaining that I was at present very uncongenial company and should not wish to inflict myself upon her in my current state of poor health and low spirits. Perhaps when I was feeling stronger, in April, it might be, or in May, I might hope to be permitted to visit Jessica and our daughter in London.3

FOOTNOTES

1 Durford Park is based on Uppark at South Harting, not far from Petersfield. The name means the place where the deer cross the river (which is called the Rother). The small watercolour illustration is of Uppark, which was the seat of a family called Fetherstonehaugh (pronounced Fanshaw). They were a disreputable lot who used to hold wild sex parties. The young Emma Hamilton (Amy Lyon or Amy Hart, at first) began her career there, aged 15. Uppark now belongs to the National Trust. Durford Wood exists, as do the vestiges of the ruined Durford Abbey, but there is no great house there. I chose that location as BC mentioned that Lawford’s family lived in Hampshire. My late inlaws lived at Chithurst, which lies just over the county border in West Sussex, but not far from Petersfield (the Rother formed the southern and eastern border of their small landholding; their remains are in the churchyard at Petersfield) and it is an area I used to know quite well, which is why I decided upon it for fictional purposes. Petersfield is on the main road between London and Portsmouth and so would have been very convenient for the to-ings and fro-ings such a family would have had regularly to undertake. Ed.

2 Cannock House in Staffordshire is, for the purposes of fiction, the seat of the Earls of Winchester (the Earldom of Winchester was created three times, but there has not been an Earl of Winchester since about 1500 – there is now a Marquess, but he lives in South Africa), the thinking being that the Duke of Devonshire has his pile at Chatsworth in Derbyshire, so why not. For purposes of fiction, WL’s ‘grandfather’ is the third Earl of the fourth creation (Queen Anne, 1704, for great-grandfather’s valour at Blenheim – previously he was just Sir Charles Lawford, baronet – baronets are nothing to get excited about really – King James I, or VI of Scotland, began the practice of selling baronetcies in 1611 for about £1,500 a pop – quite a lot of money back then - in order to raise funds for settling Ireland – Sir Charles bought his in 1623). There is a great house at Shugborough on Cannock Chase, which was the seat of the Earls of Lichfield until 1960. It now belongs to the National Trust. Ed.

3 I did at length go to London to see Jessica. It had been arranged that we should meet at a certain place in St James’ Park, near the lake, as it was guaranteed thereby that proceedings would remain civil if our first encounter since the rupture took place in public. I arrived early, and, after I had dismissed Stephen to feed the ducks, alone. He seemed at first reluctant to leave me by myself, for I had leaned on him all the way from Lawford House in Brook Street, and I suppose he must have feared that I might fall were I to face the coming ordeal unsupported, but when I told him he might even see a pelican or two whilst he stood at the water’s edge flinging stale bread to the mallards he took himself off cheerfully enough. This encounter took place during Stephen’s first true visit to London (the overnight stay at the inn on his way from Cannock to Durford in April, had hardly counted) and I think that he was secretly pleased to be set at leisure, for a little, for it was a fine summer’s day of warm sunshine and there were many elegantly-dressed people strolling in the park, the sight of which I hoped would cause him to begin to adjust his ideas and to reconcile his taste as to what was considered stylish and fashionable in the Capital. It was the 22nd of July, I recall: as I later discovered, it was the day on which was fought the famous Battle of Salamanca, and I saw much in the engagements of that day which echoed what had happened upon the fields of Spain, at Garcia Hernandez, for example; for after a little, Jessica, in company with her mother and sister and a female friend appeared, and then began to advance in a phalanx, and I must confess that my courage all but forsook me at the sight of them. ‘Prepare to receive cavalry,’ I said to myself, as I bowed and they curtseyed, and I had barely managed to form myself into a rally-square, as it were, when it began, the berating. It was a daunting and humiliating experience but as I knew well that I had earned it I stood firm as the charge came at me. Once Jessica, a Marmont in petticoats, had delivered her prepared speech, which was excoriating, as I had deserved, she relented, and said that she had intended to be far more severe and harsh towards me, but that now she had seen me and had seen how I had suffered she had no wish to heap upon my head any more coals of fire by way of revenge; and after that we were at least on polite speaking terms again, even though relations were to remain frosty for some time. I prayed I might see Eloisa, but Jessica deemed it too early; so I signalled to Stephen to return to my side so that he could take me back to Lawford House, and Jessica and her hen-party went away, presumably to the house of Lord Robert Ovalton. [Ovalton is Jessica’s long-term lover – Ed.]



Then one morning shortly after this exchange, Wilson, the second footman, entered the room with a letter on the inevitable silver tray (all that silver, tarnishing as soon as ever one looked it: at least it made work, I supposed, although I did wish I could have provided proper satisfying work for the young able-bodied men upon the staff, currently languishing about the house, under-employed and preposterously uniformed in powdered wigs and coats which were sixty years out of date, which did not necessarily involve enlisting in the Army); it was from one Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Windham, who meant to arrive later that very same day: it seemed that he had just been appointed to command the South Essex in my place, and Horse Guards, who of course knew that I was now back in England and recuperating in Hampshire, had advised him to break his journey at Durford on his way from London to Portsmouth, in order to see me and pick my brains concerning that Battalion.

“Devil take his damned liver and all his cursed lights!” I exclaimed then, to Wilson’s consternation. Wilson had never before been around military men, and my outburst came to him as a great almost enfilading shock, or at least he had made a convincing pretence that it had, it occurred to me later: however, my first feeling was that I was heartily glad to see him put to confusion, for I had never liked the fellow from the first time I had encountered him on my arrival at the beginning of March, and I could not comprehend why Mrs Milland had engaged him: the thought occurred to me that old Joseph Wright would have seen through him at once; but Wright was long-gone, and with Durford half-shut-up after I departed to the Peninsula in April of the Year Nine, and the deaths first of the old Earl, and then that of my mother, his Countess, and with my brother Henry, the new Earl, now installed in splendour at Cannock House, and his son, the new Viscount, Young Henry, yet a minor who would not need Durford until he attained his majority (an event still some fifteen or sixteen years distant), it had not been deemed to be necessary to employ another to take his place as the chief servant: the day-to-day running of the house being left in the capable hands of the housekeeper and the small but reliable band of housemaids. It was plain to me that Wilson was not a man whom one could trust as far as one could throw him, but perhaps it had been out of necessity, there being a dearth of experienced indoor servants at that time, as the ones we had unfortunately had to let go as part of the programme of retrenchment and economy which we had settled upon at the Council of Cannock three years earlier had discovered the existence of better wages and finer prospects in the new towns which were then springing up, where the coming men of Industry were raising their mills and manufactories. (I was particularly annoyed because until that moment I had been deeply engrossed in the sixth and final volume of David Hughes’ History of London, which had come out in the Year Nine when I had been far from England, and I had been with child4 to read it ever since I had been informed by Mama that it had been ordered for the library at Durford, having read with great interest the five preceeding volumes.) “Wilson, get Hoskins to make ready my toilet: for I must meet with this exemplary paladin, it seems, whether I like it or not - and tell him all concerning the command of which this bugger – “striking my banyan’d stump and instantly regretting it – “Christ Almighty! has deprived me!”

“Yes, sir; at once, sir.”

“In double time – “(I must admit I had felt a damn your eyes! coming on at that juncture, but I managed nonetheless to contain myself -)“ - for I suspect he is even now bowling up the drive like a demon out of Hades, so eager is he to get to Spain and take my place.”

“Yes; yes, sir, as fast as may be.”

Hoskins duly came. He made me ready. For the first time in two weeks I was washed, shaved, anointed with oil of bergamot (a scent which never failed to make me feel more human when I had been slouching about in a frowst, whether caused by sickness or excess of wine the night before), crimped and in my least unfashionable suit of civilian clothes (yes; two weeks, as difficult as that might be to believe for the people who know me, for I had quite forgot myself!).

Belatedly I told Wilson to open up the lesser drawing-room, light the fire which no doubt had been laid there, fling up the sashes, throw wide the shutters, all of that, for I could not receive Windham in the fug of the library, which had been part sick-room, part dining-parlour, part bed-chamber, since my return from the Peninsula, and in which the commode had, at least at first, occupied a central place at the far end, giving the room the appearance of a pretended throne-room in a mad-house where the inmates believe themselves to be Emperors, Kings and Princes.

(There follows a lengthy interlude in which WL back-tracks and describes at length the ‘Council of Cannock’, which was the occasion upon which the clerk Stephen Murdogh,5 whom he was shortly to send for and employ as his secretary for the remainder of his life, first came to his notice. WL began to work on the MS in around 1826, when he was 49 and in declining health – he apologises for his tendency to ramble, but he is writing this unaided, without Stephen’s help, for he must treat of some things which he fears Stephen would find distressing.)

FOOTNOTES

4 A phrase which meant impatient, eager, etc. Ed.

5 Stephen Murdogh quickly became more to WL than merely his secretary. This is why WL did not want to involve him with the composition of this very private memoir, although he had done sterling work assisting him with the preparation of his accounts of the Fourth Anglo-Mysorean War and his three years in the Peninsula. There were things which WL needed to express about his association with Stephen which he feared would distress him. Ed.



I must now jump forward in time again three years to the occasion of Colonel Brian Windham’s visit to me at Durford early in March of the Year Twelve, an account of which I was about to begin when I allowed my thoughts to wander to the subject of our family Conference, or Council, which took place at the Cannock estate in the spring of the Year Nine, and what flowed from that. This was not long at all after my return to England.

My physical wounds had healed – barely – but I could not have said that I had recovered, for I continued weak on account of the great loss of blood which I had suffered, which had been so extreme that that in itself could easily have done for me, never mind the fever – it occurred to me that if I had been a shorter, slighter man, the same height and build as Stephen, say, with less of that substance to begin with, it would indeed have been my death – I must have lost a good deal more than I had at first thought – and although I followed religiously Dr Fazackerley’s regime of fluids and his own patent horrid little blue pills and black draughts, and a prescribed roborative diet of oysters, beef, liver, eggs served in every manner known to culinary art, and spinach by the bushel, it struck me that I was not picking up as I ought.

I suspected that was as much due to my age as to anything else (I was now five-and-thirty, although I did not look it, or at least, I had not, until recent events had sunk my eyes and lined my face, and had even, to my dismay, introduced a few grey hairs – now, that was an unpleasant surprise, the morning when I looked into my glass and first noticed two or three of them which had, I do not know when, insinuated themselves there like the first skirmishers to show themselves in a corn-field, so that I knew it would be to no avail simply to pluck them out, for the main column was surely coming on behind, and what, would I pluck myself bald?), although the shame of the failure of my marriage, the causes of which were widely known and discussed in the public sphere, did not assist, and my spirits remained stubbornly at a low ebb.

However, to return to Brian Windham’s visit. Unfortunately, he had not chosen a propitious day. My dietary regime had rendered my digestive processes somewhat sluggish, and I was peevish as a result; indeed, I had for some time been labouring effortfully at the necessary office when Wilson came knocking at the door to say that the fellow had arrived and was waiting for me in the lesser drawing-room.

Now, I cannot say that I knew Windham – I knew of him; indeed, I had glimpsed him perhaps in a waiting-room at Horse Guards, on, say, two or three occasions, and I had seen him in society – at a distance – perhaps at the theatre in London, or across the Assembly Rooms at Bath, at a concert, where I had accompanied my wife once or twice – I certainly recall seeing him at divine service in the Abbey one Sunday morning, where he had sung the hymns with an air of good-natured simplicity of heart in a voice seemingly calibrated to be heard at the distance of half a mile or more away on a hunting-field, and in a gale at that. I also vaguely recollected that I had been surprised to hear that he was called Brian, which implied some Irish association, but I do not think that his family had any connections of that sort (the reader will recall that I had good reason to be forever alert to any hint of an Hibernian connection in the people with whom I must have to do).6

FOOTNOTES

6 In this version of events, it is an open secret that WL, although officially regarded by society as the fourth son of the Viscount Petersfield for reasons of discretion and politeness , is actually known to be the bastard of Gerald Fitz-Simons, Marquess of Ardara, a seraphically handsome but louche member of the Irish Peerage who seduced Harriet Lawford, neé McCandless, Viscountess Petersfield, in Bath at Easter in 1776, whilst her husband, the Viscount Petersfield and heir to the Earldom of Winchester, was attending to business at the Lawford plantation in Barbados. (It turns out that a William Lawford really did go to Barbados in 1671 to found a plantation. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I read that!) The Marquess died three days after being shot by the Viscount Petersfield in a duel which took place in Hyde Park at first light on 11th February 1777 when WL was one month old. Petersfield called this achievement his St Valentine’s gift to his wife. Ed.

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