The Hellfire Club. Part One.
Greed, depravity, scandal, and immorality. Why is
it that certain individuals work behind the scenes manipulating the strings of
government, the church, and seats of power? Maybe we will never really know for
sure but one thing we can be sure of these shadows will always feel the need to
be drawn together and these are the origins of such places as The Hellfire
Club.
In the early 17th century Europe had
entered a new era, that of The Enlightenment. It was also known as the age of
reason and was a time when man began to use his reason to discover a new world
by casting off the superstition and fear of the medieval world. In his effort to discover the natural laws
which governed the universe he was to make huge scientific, political and
social advances. Rational thought and logic was the new belief and this led to
the rejection of the authority of both the church and the state. Immanuel Kant
expressed the motto of the Enlightenment when he said “Dare to think”. However The Hellfire Club had its own motto
over the entrance to their first building “Do what thou wilt”.
The first Hellfire Club was founded in London in
1719 by a drunkard, aristocrat Philip, Duke of Wharton but it’s his successor
Sir Frances Dashwood (Chancellor of the exchequer) who was to go on to gather
together what he termed “the most esteemed persons of quality” in Ireland and
Britain. Dashwood bought the grounds and subterranean caves of Medmenham Abbey
in 1746 and transformed them into a hedonistic playground of transgressions for
the wealthy; excesses of food, drink and women, not to mention rumoured
blaspheming, Black Masses, Satanic rituals and paganism, sacrificing publically
to Bacchus and Venus – gods of wine and sex. This was to become the clubs
pervading philosophy. In the years it was in existence it numbered many of the
famous within its ranks, people such as Benjamin Franklin and the then Prince
of Wales.
The Irish branch was founded in Dublin in 1735 by Richard
Parsons, the first Earl of Rosse, he was also the 1st Grand Master
of the Irish Freemasons a position he held twice. However, upon inheriting a
million pounds from his grandmother (a huge sum in those days) he resigned his
position. He then did what most well to do young men did at that time, the
Grand Tour. Europe and Egypt and all their mystery’s fell open to him and he
began to further his interest in the ‘dark arts’ quickly making a name for
himself as a ‘sorcerer and a practitioner of black magic’.
In 1735, he emerged on the Irish social scene and
founded the Hellfire Club, as president of the club he dressed as Satan
complete with horns, wings and cloven hoofs and called himself The King of Hell.
One custom was that of leaving the vice presidents chair unoccupied for the
devil, just in case he turned up and the first toast was always drunk in honour
of him. The exact nature of what the
members got up to is still open to conjecture but the rumours would make you
shiver. Black masses, mock crucifixions, homosexual orgies and prostitutes
dressed as nuns. It was even rumoured that servants were doused in brandy and
set alight, black cats and even dwarves were sacrificed on an altar.
Lord Rosse never lost his sense of
humour. In 1741, as he lay dying at his house on Molesworth Street, he received
a letter from Dean Madden, the Vicar of St. Anne's, lambasting him as a
blasphemer, scoundrel, gamester and such like, and imploring him to repent of
his sins without delay. Noting that the Dean has simply addressed the letter to
‘My Lord’, Rosse put the letter into a fresh envelope and instructed a footman
to deliver it to Lord Kildare who lived at nearby Leinster House. The ruse
worked a treat and Lord Kildare, one of Dean Madden’s most pious and generous
parishioners, was mortified to think the rebuke-filled letter was directed at
him. Lord Rosse died before anybody worked it out. He was probably laughing as
he went.
The Hell-Fire Club was disbanded
following his death.
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