DANEBURY AND LORD GEORGE BENTINCK 



a parenthesis. He had accepted the leadership 

 of a poHtical Party with great reluctance and after 

 more than one refusal ; but he did it at the call 

 of a man who stood alone in ability among a 

 beggarly array of mediocrities and who had to 

 wait for his command until reason slowly entered 

 the minds of a distracted and factious remnant. 

 In less than two years he retired from his Parlia- 

 mentary post, rejoicing, as he told a colleague, 

 " like a caged wild bird escaped from his wired 

 prison." Had his life been spared he would have 

 returned to the Turf : at least that was the opinion 

 entertained by many of his friends, and it is strongly 

 supported by a passage in Greville's diary written 

 two months after the tragedy in Welbeck Park. 

 He died on September 21, 1848, but only the 

 week before he was standing by the jockey who 

 was unsaddling Surplice after the St. Leger victory 

 of that horse. " Nat," said Bentinck, " from this 

 time I engage you should I ever have a stud of 

 horses," and turning to a friend who was with 

 him, he continued : " Nat has, I know, four 

 masters ; if I could be Nat's sole master I would 

 give him £1,000 a year." ^ 



The death of Bentinck is a familiar tragedy. He 

 set out to walk in the afternoon from Welbeck 

 to Thoresby. About a mile from the Abbey, 

 near the edge of the deer park, he was found dead. 

 In the half-hour after leaving his home, it may be 



^ The famous jockey Elnathan Flatman, always known as Nat, 

 though he had for some years more winning mounts than any 

 jockey in the racing season, was never first past the post in either 

 the Derby or the Oaks. He, however, won the St. Leger on three 

 occasions. The suggested retainer is, of course, much less than 

 that paid to a jockey of eminence in these days. 



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