PETERBOROUGH 



PETERHEAD 



91 



Peterborough, chief town of Peterborough 

 county, Ontario, on the Otanabee River (here 

 crossed by six bridges), 82 miles by rail NE. of 

 Toronto. It exports lumber and agricultural pro- 

 ducts, and manufactures flour, woollens, farming 

 implements, machinery, furniture, canoes, &c. 

 Pop. 8500. 



Peterborough, CHARLES MORDAUNT, EARL 

 OF, was born in or about the year 1658. All par- 

 ticulars of his boyhood, even to the place of his 

 education, seem to have been lost. The first 

 definitely recorded event in his life is his voyage 

 as a volunteer in Sir John Narborough's expedition 

 against the Algerine corsairs in 1674. From this 

 voyage, in which he saw actual service, lie returned 

 early in 1677, to find himself in his twentieth year 

 Viscount Mordaunt, his father, John, first peer of 

 that title, which he owed to his services in assist- 

 ing to bring about the Restoration, having died 

 in 1675. The new viscount shortly afterwards 

 married Carey, daughter of Sir Alexander Eraser, 

 and in 1678 started on another maritime expedi- 

 tion, this time apparently in the capacity of a 

 passenger. Returning after a year's absence, he 

 again volunteered for naval service, and sailed 

 with the fleet sent under Lord Plymouth for the 

 relief of Tangier. On his return to England he 

 began to take an active part in politics, identi- 

 fying himself with the extreme Whig part}' through- 

 out the whole of the three or four eventful years 

 which closed with the ruin and flight of Shaftes- 

 bury, and the final triumph of the indolent and 

 dissolute but shrewd and able monarch, against 

 whom that restless agitator had pitted himself. 

 At the accession of James II. Mordaunt became 

 a prominent parliamentary opponent of the first 

 unpopular measures of the new king, and one of 

 the earliest intriguers for his overthrow. Indeed he 

 went at once so fast ami so far as to press upon 

 William of Orange a premature scheme for the 

 invasion of England, which that prince with his 

 usual cool judgment rejected. After the Revolu- 

 tion, in the military operation* connected with 

 which Mordaunt exerted himself vigorously and 

 with success, he rose into high favour with the new 

 king. Honour ami emoluments of a varied descrip- 

 tion, from the post of a privy-councillor to that of 

 a water-bailiff, were heaped upon him, and he 

 was finally ap|x>inted First Commissioner of the 

 Treasury', and created Earl of Mon mouth. On 

 William'* departure for the campaign in Ireland 

 the new earl was nominated of tne committee of 

 nine who formed the Queen's Council of Regency. 

 In the House of Lords he was an extreme and 

 active Whig, but it was probably as much his 

 zealous anxietv to supplant William's ministers 

 suspected of Jacobitism as to combat Jacobite 

 designs themselves that led to his embroilment in 

 those intrigues arising out of the Assassination Plot, 

 and the Fenwick trial, which ultimately resulted 

 (January 1697) in his committal to the Tower. 

 He was liberated in less than three months, and for 

 several years thereafter he seems to have played no 

 prominent part in public affairs. 



In 1702 the war of the Spanish succession broke 

 out, and in 1705 Peterborough (for by his uncle's 

 death he had succeeded to that title shortly after 

 his release from imprisonment ) was appointed to the 

 command of an army of 4000 Dutch and English 

 soldiers, with which he proceeded to Barcelona, 

 there to begin the extraordinary campaign which 

 has made his name famous in history. After 

 successfully resisting the solicitations to attack the 

 city which were addressed to him by the Prince of 

 Herne- Darmstadt, fresh from the capture of (Gib- 

 raltar, and the Archduke Charles, the claimant 

 to the Spanish throne, for whom the allies were 

 fighting, Peterborough succeeded by a pretended 



retreat in surprising and capturing the strong fort 

 of Monjuich on the south side of Barcelona, from 

 which position of vantage he soon managed to 

 reduce the city. The Catalan towns one after 

 another now declared for Charles ; Gerpna, Tarra- 

 gona, Tolosa, and Lerida opened their gates to 

 Peterborough, who, marching southward in the 

 depth of winter and driving his foes before him, 

 reached Valencia early in February 1706. Mean- 

 while an army under the Duke of Anjou, the 

 Fr.ench claimant to the throne (afterwards Philip 

 IV.), and Marshal Tesse had entered Catalonia, and 

 was closely investing Barcelona, which was at the 

 same time blockaded by a fleet under the Count of 

 Toulouse. Hurrying back to the scene of his 

 former exploit, and seeing that it was from the 

 side of the sea that the town must be relieved, 

 Peterborough threw himself on board one of the 

 ships of the English squadron, took command in 

 virtue of his commission, which gave him supreme 

 control over the British forces at sea as well as on 

 land, sent his orders to the admiral, and drove 

 Toulouse and his fleet from before the port. This 

 success was followed by the raising of the siege, 

 and the retreat of Tesse's force. Encouraged uy 

 the splendid successes of Peterborough on the east 

 coast, Galway, the British commander on the 

 Portuguese frontier, advanced into the heart of 

 Spain, and in June entered Madrid. Peter- 

 borough wished to march from Valencia, whither 

 he had now returned, and to effect a junction with 

 Galway, but the archduke dallied irresolutely at 

 Barcelona. Precious time was lost, Berwick rallied 

 his forces, and compelled Galway to evacuate the 

 capital, and when at last Charles advanced and 

 summoned Peterborough to join him, it was too 

 late. A plan formed by him for the recovery of 

 Madrid was rejected, and in disgust he obtained 

 permission to depart for Genoa to raise a loan on 

 the Spanish revenues. Returning with success 

 from his mission, he acted for some time as a sort 

 of adviser to his military successors in Spain, but 

 his imperious temper seems to have unfitted him for 

 anything but supreme command, and his differences 

 with Lord Stanliope and others led to his recall in 

 March 1707. 



His career thenceforward till his death at Lisbon 

 on 25th October 1735 is interesting only to the 

 student of letters and not to the politician. He 

 was, as is well known, an intimate friend of Pope, 

 with whom he was in constant communication 

 almost up to the last day of his life, and whose 

 genuine esteem for him may satisfy us that under 

 the somewhat theatrical exterior which he pre- 

 sented to the world there lay qualities which 

 justly endeared him to his friends. In 1722 he 

 was, it is said, privately married to the famous 

 singer Anastasia Robinson, but the lady was not 

 publicly acknowledged as his countess till shortly 

 *>efore his death. Recent military criticism 

 has made an elaborate endeavour to show that 

 Peterborough's fame as a conqueror rests wholly 

 on a basis of imposture, and that the whole credit 

 of his conquest of Valencia must be distributed 

 among others. This extreme view, however, has 

 been shown by Mr Stebbing in his judicious and 

 impartial monograph to be untenable. His ver- 

 dict is that ' the figure of the hero remains much 

 where it was, though its pedestal may have been 

 somewhat lowered.' 



See the Memoir by Russell (2 vols. 1887), and Stebbing's 

 Peterfiorouf/h ('English Men of Action' series, 1890). 



Pot^rhcad, a seaport and burgh of barony of 

 Buchan, Aberdeenshire, on a peninsula, 32 miles 

 by road, but 44 by a branch-line (1862), NNE. of 

 Al>erdeen. Founded in 1593, it is somewhat irre- 

 gular in plan, but clean and largely built of the 

 celebrated ' Peterhead granite,' whose reddish 



