Whenever I think about a medieval abbey, Medmenham Abbey is exactly what pops up in my mind, The walls, the architecture, the colours. Even the courtyard, I could swear I’ve been there in an earlier life. Or at least dreamed about it. In any case this place has been host to some rather unholy blasphemous events. It’s not very appropriate at all that’s for sure, especially not in an abbey
A solitude place devoted to… Devotion
And trust me, the monks who originally built this place back in 1204 would have had absolutely no idea what was coming.
They built it as a Cistercian abbey. A quiet solitude place devoted to..well.. Devotion. This abbey was on of those places where the loudest thing you would hear during the day was probably the morning prayer.
well besides the bell , but… you get the idea.
And this peace was perfect, for centuries, that’s exactly how daily life in the abbey was.
But as we all know, all good things come to and end, and boy did they.
King Henry the 8th.. was a bit…uhm… well he was Henry thats for sure.
Because in 1536 King Henry executed what is known today as “The Dissolution of the Monasteries”.
King Henry’s Hostile Takeover
“They what now?” – long story short,, King Henry hated his wife, but in catholic faith, marriage means marriage. you cant just get a divorce. So naturally King Henry needed a solution.
“Wait a minute, im the King!,how about I just shut down all that catholic stuff, and start my own church?”
Which is exactly what he did. Henry created what is called The English Church.
A religion that is still very much christian. We call it Anglicanism today.
And the result was that now England is in a place where the king is in charge, as head of the religion in England and he completely removed the power of the pope in the vatican.
Very clever.
Now he had a new problem though, All the churches and abbeys etc etc. Owned about 25% of the land in England at this time.
25%,, that’s..a Lot! And King Henry knew about the enormous wealth that was tied to this land. They were owned by the catholic church you see and they were now in Henry’s eyes , a sort of enemy of they state, since they were loyal to the catholic faith. Loyal to the Pope.
So the King basically orders a hostile takeover. He takes over all the abbeys, churches , monasteries etc. Kicked out all the nuns and monks and what else.
And the buildings were either torn down. or sold.
Thus results in little Medmenham abbey standing empty. for around 200 years.
Until a certain someone gets his nasty little hands on it.
The Man of the Hour
The man of the hour in this story is Sir Francis Dashwood.
And where do you even begin with this guy.
Francis was obscenely rich. The kind of wealthy where you never have to think about money, which means your brain is completely free to think about other things entirely. This is not always a good thing.
And what Francis Dashwood thought about was to have as much fun as absolutely possible, and how to make sure nobody could stop him from doing so.
As a young man Francis went on the socalled “Grand tour”. This is a thing where rich English boys would travel all over Europe to get both cultured and educated. And you bet your behind that Francis got cultured alright.
But it didn’t happen as his parents expected it to.
Francis went to Rome where he found something that really intrigued him
Pagan rituals no less. He loved everything about the philosophy that says that rules are there only to be broken.
More on this later.
A Dark Secret Side
Francis was also a politician. And not just a politician no, the man was a member of Parliament. He even secured himself a seat as Chancellor of the Exchequer, basically the man in charge of all of England’s finances.
So in many aspects, in the eyes of the public Sir Francis was a very respected man and competent politician.
18th century England was something else though., because it turns out that this minister of finance held a dark secret side that people would have never suspected of a man of his stature.
So who was he really?
Dashwood really wanted to explore these pagan philosophies that we spoke of earlier.
Since society didn’t exactly approve of pagan culture he needed a place to explore it.
But this wasn’t all that easy to find. It had to be completely private. Far enough from London that nobody would come knocking. A certain atmosphere was also important. A regular pub in the city wasn’t going to cut it. The mood had to be just right.
The hellfire club
So Francis began his search. And as it tends to happen when you are obscenely wealthy and well connected, the answer came through his large network of friends.
Francis Duffield, yes another Francis. Had inherited Medmenham Abbey and he had absolutely no idea what to do with it. Duffield had quite the expensive lifestyle. Gambling, horses, women. And a problem because Duffield had a lot of difficulty finding enough wealth to cover these expenses.
So in 1751 Duffield leased the whole thing to Dashwood. A complete win-win scenario for both men.
And thus one of the most infamous clubs in English history found its home.
This club would later become known as The Hellfire Club.
Do What Thou Wilt
After so many years without proper care, the abbey wasn’t exactly move-in ready.
Water damage due to holes in the roof. Nature had nearly overgrown the place and the walls were crumbling just waiting to give in.
So Dashwood did what any reasonably obscenely wealthy man would do.
He immediately began renovating the entire property. Completely. He brought in a proper architect and had the whole place restored from top to bottom. The ruined tower, the cloister, the chapel. All of it rebuilt to almost its old glory.
But soon it began to take a different shape
He had the walls covered in pornographic frescoes. Several statues of pagan gods were placed throughout the grounds. Obscene Latin inscriptions carved into the stonework. And above the entrance, written in stained glass where a bible quote really ought to have been. One could look up and read :
Fais ce que tu voudras.
Do What Thou Wilt.
Just a tad different than what the catholics believed in. This signalled the complete opposite.
Sir Francis elected to call his group The Monks of Medmenham. And the idea was to take inspiration from the very people who used to live here.
So naturally the guest dress code consisted of white robes. Symbolising the monks. And Francis would be the abbot dressed in a deep red robe. This was his party after all. Only reasonable that Francis would be. The Abbot.
Nuns, Wine and Holy Ghost Pie
And what an abbot he turned out to be. Because the entertainment arranged for these evenings wasn’t your standard Friday night out.Who were these monks in the white robes though? just random bored people.
No….they certainly weren’t random people. The members of this club were powerful and influential men from all over England. Politicians, Members of Parliament. etc etc. Men that during daylight hours made decisions that affected the entire country.
But on club nights, they were ferried by boat from London via the river Thames, to the abbey that very conveniently lies at the river bank. Arriving already dressed in white to drink an obscene amount of wine and to commit acts that would most certainly lose them their career if anyone ever found out.
There were women present too, the “Nun’s” were not nuns at all. These were pleasure girls from London that earned more than a fair wage during such an evening. And on occasion you would see a bored upper class woman attend as well. Seeking the thrill of adventure.
These women weren’t there for the whine. Sir Francis designed the place in such a way that it was full of hints and they were anything but subtle hints. The abbey had a Temple of Venus, a Parlour of Venus. statues of rather explicit pagan gods placed in strategic locations. He even designed an entire section of the garden to be shaped as a woman’s body. So as you probably figured out by now.
These women weren’t here to dance.
Mockery and Banquets
But what about that pagan culture we talked about earlier?
Well this was the real reason the members attended in the first place.
The rituals that Frances had planned were a bizarre cocktail of 2 things that never should have been mixed, ever. Mock catholic ceremonies and ancient pagan worship.. all stirred into the same pot, and then lots and lots of wine to.. enhance ..the experience.
Think of a church service. But designed by someone who found the church ridiculous and laughable.
Bacchus, the roman god of wine was one of the central figures at these events, almost like Francis was trying to get people drunk. It’s a rather clever little party Francis put together.
And the goddess of Venus was represented as well naturally. and you already know why she was there.
Not the wine and the church ceremony that’s for sure.
And a party would be very dull if there was no food, so naturally every evening had a banquet.
Dishes of all kinds were served here, and among them were names like. “Holy Ghost Pie”, “Breast of Venus”,”Devil’s Loin” just to name a few. Washed down with “Hellfire Punch” of course.
The Secretary’s Dark Secret
Now before we wrap this up I have to be dead honest with you.
Writing historic articles is completely dependent on the source material.
A man named Paul Whitehead was the club’s secretary. His entire job was to keep thorough records of everything that happened at the Hellfire club. And everything means, Everything!
from who drank wine and conversed, to who had sex and who left the party early.
Everything was meticulously put into writing. But then Paul did something that annoys the historians to this day. On his deathbed he burned it all, Every page, all the notes, the names …everything ..gone.
So what we know about what actually happened inside the walls of Medmenham Abbey comes from a couple of things.
Rumours and gossip that we know was going through London at that time.
The place itself, the decorations and the gardens, statues and all were still standing when people searched the abbey at a later date. The inscriptions were still there.
Letters, there are several letters found from members/guests, letters that should never have been written. But a few were careless enough, and we found some tidbits in there.
The Escapee was a Baboon
There was one evening however, They couldn’t keep a secret.
One of the attendees literally escaped the walls of Medmenham
One of the drunk members? one of the nuns was violated? what?
Very good guesses but no. The escapee was in fact, a Baboon.
“i thought you said the members were high ranking officials and nobles and such?”
Yes, yes I did, but let me explain.
In 1764, one of the members , John Wilkes, who had a reputation for being quite the prankster.
Wanted to lay one over on someone you may have heard of before.
The Earl of Sandwich , John Montagu was also a member. The Naval Minister , he was a senior politician and he had a high attendance rate at the Hellfire Club. The earl took the rituals Very seriously!
But John Wilkes was going to make sure that this was going to be an epic evening.
Candles lit, smokey atmosphere. Robes. Wine had been flowing for a while.
And there was the Earl of Sandwich, in the middle of the room, dramatically chanting and invoking satan.
John Wilkes decided to grant the Earl what he wished for.
In front of the Earl was a chest. and when the time was just right. Wilkes pulled the string that rapidly opened the lid. And out flung a screaming Baboon, straight into the arms and face of the Earl. They Baboon and the earl went to the ground in complete panic, The earl screaming from the top of his lungs “Spare me Lord Devil! You know I never meant any of it!”
Honestly it must have been a sight to behold.
The Messy Fall
And remember, these were the men that were running the country.
As it usually happens, all fun things usually come to an end.
And the Earl and John Wilkes are key players in this.
You see these 2 men weren’t just club rivals, in their daily lives they were political enemies as well.
And when powerful men had a falling out it tended to be a messy affair. And the Earl was in a Rage after that baboon event!.
As part of Wilkes’ work, he had been writing a somewhat radical political publication that was causing enormous problems for the government. The Earl of Sandwich had, without Wilkes knowledge, gained access to Wilkes’ more private writings. specifically a pornographic poem that Wilkes had written himself called “Essay on Women”. The Earl decided to weaponize this against Wilkes.
This was a brutal move, even by 18th century standards.
Sandwich stood up in parliament and read the poem out loud, The Lords declared the poem obscene! Blasphemous! And just like that, Wilkes was expelled from parliament.
Hanging Out the Dirty Laundry
Like I said earlier, powerful men= messy.
Naturally Wilkes wasn’t going to stand for this. He was furious, wanted revenge and it’s hard to blame him after such a scolding. But Wilkes in his anger and hurt wasn’t thinking straight.
He retaliated immediately very loudly by telling the Parliament about The Earls activities in the hellfire club. It did not have the effect Wilkes wanted however, miraculously the Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, survived and remained in his political career, but a partial victory for Wilkes, since the earl’s reputation as a serious and moral man was completely destroyed.
What Wilkes did in anger was catastrophic to The Hellfire Club and its members however.
In his rage he took all the dirty laundry and hung it out for all to see.
Many of the names were now out in public and these weren’t just any people, like i mentioned earlier these were some of the most respected men in England. Men with huge careers, families and reputations that were vital to protect. Men who had very carefully been living double lives. This had massive consequences for these men.
THe Hellfire Club was shut down immediately. No final dramatic farewell rituals even though a man like Sir Francis probably would have loved that.
Wilkes and Liberty!
Wilkes was basically an outlaw of the country and had to flee the country, he fled to Paris where youd think he remains, but his story is kind of wild , because it doesn’t end there.
Wilkes actually dared to return in 1767 and not only thrived in England but managed to get re-elected into parliament to the public’s chants “Wilkes and Liberty!” , and it gets better.
Wilkes eventually became the Mayor of London. Not too shabby John, not too shabby.
The Hellfire Club however, was finished and by 1766 the Abbey again fell completely silent.
So. Even though the sources are incomplete and the records were burned and the historians still argue about the details to this day. But a story this good, involving men this powerful, doesn’t need to be perfect to be worth telling.
