Editing Hellfire Club (section)

==Sir Francis Dashwood's clubs==
Sir [[Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer|Francis Dashwood]] and the Earl of Sandwich are alleged to have been members of a Hellfire Club that met at the [[George and Vulture]] Inn throughout the 1730s.<ref name=Ashe65>{{cite book | first=Geoffrey | last=Ashe | year=2000 | title=The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality | url=https://archive.org/details/hellfireclubshis0000ashe | url-access=registration | publisher=Sutton Publishing | location=Gloucestershire | pages=[https://archive.org/details/hellfireclubshis0000ashe/page/65 65] | isbn=9780750924023 }}</ref> Dashwood founded the Order of the Knights of St Francis in 1746, originally meeting at the George & Vulture.<ref>{{cite web |author=Mike Howard |title=The Hellfire Club |url=http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~rebis/ts-artic4.htm |access-date=10 January 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091010045146/http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~rebis/ts-artic4.htm |archive-date=10 October 2009 }}</ref>

The club motto was ''Fais ce que tu voudras'' ([[Do what thou wilt]]), a philosophy of life associated with [[François Rabelais]]'s fictional abbey at ''Thélème''<ref name="Ashe">Ashe.</ref><ref>Alamantra</ref> and later used by [[Aleister Crowley]].

Francis Dashwood was well known for his pranks: for example, while in the imperial court in [[St Petersburg]], he dressed up as the king of Sweden, a great enemy of [[Russian Empire|Russia]]. The membership of Sir Francis's club was initially limited to twelve but soon increased. Of the original twelve, some are regularly identified: Dashwood, [[Robert Vansittart (jurist)|Robert Vansittart]], [[Thomas Potter (died 1759)|Thomas Potter]], Francis Duffield, Edward Thompson, [[Paul Whitehead (satirist)|Paul Whitehead]] and [[John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich]].<ref>Ashe p. 115</ref> The list of supposed members is immense; among the more probable candidates are [[Benjamin Bates II]], [[George Bubb Dodington]], a fabulously corpulent man in his 60s;<ref>Ashe p. 113</ref> [[William Hogarth]], although hardly a gentleman, has been associated with the club after painting Dashwood as a Franciscan Friar<ref name="Simon">{{cite web |first=Robin |last=Simon |url=http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/high-politics-and-hellfire-william-hogarth|title= High politics and Hellfire: William Hogarth's portrait of Francis Dashwood |date=3 November 2008 |publisher=[[Gresham College]] |quote=Infamous rake (and Chancellor of the Exchequer), Sir Francis Dashwood was the founder of the Hellfire Club |access-date=11 January 2010}}</ref><ref>Coppens</ref> and [[John Wilkes]], though much later, under the pseudonym John of Aylesbury.<ref>Ashe p. 120</ref> As there are no records left (these having been burned in 1774),<ref>''City of Blood, Cities of the Underworld'' – History Channel 2 (H2), 2008</ref> many of these members are just assumed or linked by letters sent to each other.<ref>Ashe p. 121</ref>

===Meetings and club activities===
Sir Francis's club was never originally known as a Hellfire Club; it was given this name much later.<ref name="Blackett-Ord p. 46"/><ref name="Ashe p. 111"/> His club in fact used a number of other names, such as the ''Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wy'',<ref>Ashe p.111</ref> ''Order of Knights of West Wycombe'', ''The Order of the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe'',<ref name="Simon"/> and later, after moving their meetings to [[Medmenham#Abbey|Medmenham Abbey]], they became the ''Monks'' or ''Friars of Medmenham''.<ref>Ashe p. 112</ref> The first meeting at Sir Francis's family home in [[West Wycombe Park|West Wycombe]] was held on ''[[Walpurgis Night]]'', 1752; a much larger meeting, it was something of a failure and no large-scale meetings were held there again. In 1751, Dashwood, leased Medmenham Abbey<ref name="Simon"/> on the [[Thames]] from a friend, Francis Duffield.<ref>Ashe p.118</ref>

On moving into Medmenham Abbey, Dashwood had numerous expensive works done on the building. It was rebuilt by the architect [[Nicholas Revett]] in the style of the 18th-century [[Gothic revival]]. At this time, the motto ''Fais ce que tu voudras'' was placed above a doorway in stained glass.<ref name="Ashe"/> It is thought that William Hogarth may have executed murals for this building; none, however, survive. Eventually, the meetings were moved out of the abbey into a [[Hellfire Caves|series of tunnels and caves in West Wycombe Hill]].<ref>[https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/05/11/medmenham-abbey/ Medmenham Abbey – Home of the Notorious Secret Society ‘Hellfire Club’]</ref>
They were decorated again with mythological themes, phallic symbols and other items of a sexual nature.

Records indicate that the members performed "obscene parodies of religious rites" according to one source.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=E5AtDAAAQBAJ&dq=A+Cistercian+++Medmenham&pg=PT99 The Thames Path: National Trail from London to the river's source]</ref> According to [[Horace Walpole]], the members' "practice was rigorously pagan: [[Dionysus|Bacchus]] and [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed; and the nymphs and the [[hogshead]]s that were laid in against the festivals of this new church, sufficiently informed the neighbourhood of the complexion of those hermits." Dashwood's garden at West Wycombe contained numerous statues and shrines to different gods; [[Daphne]] and [[Flora (mythology)|Flora]], [[Priapus]] and the previously mentioned Venus and [[Dionysus]].<ref>Ashe p. 114</ref>

A parish history from 1925 stated that members included "[[Frederick, Prince of Wales]], the Duke of Queensberry, the Earl of Bute, Lord Melcombe, Sir William Stanhope, K.B, Sir John Dashwood-King, bart., Sir Francis Delaval, K.B., Sir John Vanluttan, kt., Henry Vansittart, afterwards Governor of Bengal, (fn. 13) and Paul Whitehead the poet".<ref>[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol3/pp84-89 Parishes: Medmenham Pages 84–89 A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3]</ref> Meetings occurred twice a month, with an [[Annual general meeting|AGM]] lasting a week or more in June or September.<ref>Ashe p. 125</ref> The members addressed each other as "Brothers" and the leader, which changed regularly, as "Abbot". During meetings members supposedly wore ritual clothing: white trousers, jacket and cap, while the "Abbot" wore a red ensemble of the same style.<ref>Ashe p 125</ref> Legends of [[Black Mass]]es and Satan or demon worship have subsequently become attached to the club, beginning in the late Nineteenth Century. Rumours saw female "guests" (a [[euphemism]] for prostitutes) referred to as "Nuns". Dashwood's Club meetings often included mock rituals, items of a pornographic nature, much drinking, wenching and banqueting.<ref>Ashe p. 133</ref>

===Decline of Dashwood's Club===
The downfall of Dashwood's Club was more drawn-out and complicated. In 1762, the [[John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute|Earl of Bute]] appointed Dashwood his [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]], despite Dashwood being widely held to be incapable of understanding "a bar bill of five figures". (Dashwood resigned the post the next year, having raised a [[Cider Bill of 1763|tax on cider]] which caused near-riots).<ref>Ashe p. 155</ref> Dashwood now sat in the [[House of Lords]] after taking up the title of [[Baron Le Despencer]] after the [[John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland|previous holder]] died.<ref name="Ashe p. 157">Ashe p. 157</ref> Then there was the attempted arrest of [[John Wilkes]] for [[seditious libel]] against the King in the notorious issue No. 45 of his ''[[The North Briton]]'' in early 1763.<ref name="Ashe p. 157"/> During a search authorised by a [[General warrant]] (possibly set up by Sandwich, who wanted to get rid of Wilkes),<ref>Ashe p. 158</ref> a version of ''The Essay on Woman'' was discovered set up on the press of a printer whom Wilkes had almost certainly used. The work was almost certainly principally written by Thomas Potter, and from internal evidence can be dated to around 1755. It was scurrilous, blasphemous, libellous, and bawdy, though not pornographic – still unquestionably illegal under the laws of the time, and the Government subsequently used it to drive Wilkes into exile. Between 1760 and 1765 ''Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea'' by the Irish author [[Charles Johnstone]] was published.<ref>Ashe p. 177</ref> It contained stories easily identified with Medmenham, one in which Lord Sandwich was ridiculed as having mistaken a monkey for the Devil. This book sparked the association between the Medmenham Monks and the Hellfire Club. By this time, many of the Friars were either dead or too far away for the club to continue as it did before.<ref>Ashe p. 167</ref> Medmenham was finished by 1766.

Paul Whitehead had been the Secretary and Steward of the Order at Medmenham. When he died in 1774, as his will specified, his heart was placed in an urn at West Wycombe. It was sometimes taken out to show to visitors, but was stolen in 1829.<ref name="Twickenham"/><ref name="Simon"/>

The [[Hellfire Caves|West Wycombe Caves]] in which the Friars met are now a tourist site<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://thetempletrail.com/hell-fire-caves/|title = Hell-fire Caves United Kingdom &#124; the Temple Trail| date=7 August 2013 }}</ref> known as the "Hellfire Caves".

In [[Anstruther]], [[Scotland]], a likeminded sex and drinking club called [[The Beggar's Benison]] was formed in the 1730s, which survived for a century and spawned additional branches in [[Glasgow]] and [[Edinburgh]]. Honorary membership was extended to the Prince of Wales in 1783. Thirty-nine years later, while the Prince (by now King [[George IV]]) was paying a royal visit to Scotland, he gifted the club a snuff box filled with his mistresses' pubic hair.<ref>Gatrell, Vic, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London, Walker and Company, 2006, pg 313</ref>