" COURTENAY " 175 



Street, soon attracted attention by his manner and the 

 Eastern style of dress he affected. That he was 

 fabulously rich, and that his name was Baron 

 Rothschild were the common reports of the then 

 somewhat dull Cathedral city, eager to dwell upon any 

 subject that made for gossip ; but it presently appeared, 

 by his own accounts, that he was " Sir William Percy 

 Honey wood Courtenay," Knight of Malta and King of 

 Jerusalem. This extraordinary man, besides possessing 

 the advantages of a handsome face and a fine presence, 

 was gifted with a singularly persuasive eloquence ; and 

 professing himself to be the friend of the people, 

 oppressed by a selfish aristocracy and a stupid Govern- 

 ment, he aroused the wildest enthusiasm in a political 

 campaign upon which he presently embarked, with the 

 object of standing as Parliamentary candidate for the 

 City of Canterbury. His charm of manner ; the 

 affability with which he would converse with the 

 meanest peasant ; and the really clever political 

 discourses he wrote for a periodical leaflet called the 

 Lion which he had printed and published, created a 

 number of partisans who flocked round him as he rode 

 through Canterbury and the surrounding villages ; or 

 crowded the High Street in a state of the ^vildest 

 enthusiasm when he harangued them from the balcony 

 of the " Rose." He polled over nine hundred votes 

 in the Conservative interest at the election, and thus 

 came within an easy distance of becoming a member 

 of Parliament. His indiscreet championship of some 

 fishermen, who were being prosecuted by the Revenue 

 officials for smuggling, gave political and social enemies 

 the looked-for opportunity to injure a man who was 

 so dangerous to the squires of Kent. He was prosecuted 

 in turn, on a charge of perjury, and sentenced to a 

 term of imprisonment. From the County Gaol he was 

 transferred to a lunatic asylum, and only liberated in 

 the spring of 1838, on the assurances of friends in the 

 vicinity of Canterbury that they would take charge 

 of him. 



