JOHN CECIL, 1st DUKE AND VISCOUNT

Cecil Arthur,


The 1st Duke was a child prodigy, starting to read Latin at the age of three, Greek at four, and Hebrew at five. At seven, he could play six musical instruments and composed, at eight, a number of musical pieces, including a concerto grosso which puzzled many critics but which Bach was to declare a work of genius which he predicted would not be fully appreciated until the 20th century. (Unfortunately, this work has since been lost.) At fifteen, the precocious 1st Duke went on the Grand Tour and met Hilda Rubinroth, a famous singer, 30 years old, served a year in the Luthan army as a Lieutenant, and then resigned, eloping with Hilda.

Upon returning to England, after a visit to Egypt and the Holy Land, His Grace seemed to lose all desire to further his musical and classical genius. His Grace had access to an immense fortune, his father being one of the few who had profited by the South Sea Bubble of 1720, escaping the general ruin.

Becoming intimate with his Majesty, George II, who shared his interest in opera and was a patron of Handel, His Grace lent His Majesty vast sums. Little of this was repaid, but His Grace could afford it, deriving his fortune from the very profitable trade in slaves and goods in Africa, the West Indies, and the North American colonies. Though he never held public office, he nevertheless had great influence on the king, and this despite a long absence from England during the French-Indian War. Also sharing George II's keen interest in military life and affairs, His Grace purchased a commission and went to the Colonies. There he was wounded in the battle in which General Braddock was killed. He served in Lord Loudon's unsuccessful amphibious expedition against Louisbourg, but was with Lord Amherst in the capture of Louisbourg and the victories of Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point.

His Grace derived much fame from the publication of his journal, An Odyessey in the American Wilderness (1754), in which he described his capture, torture, and escape from the Cayugas. While being tormented, His Grace lost an eye and, after his successful flight, his right leg from an infection resulting from a dispute with a bear over a rabbit. Returning to England, his lordship saved His Majesty from a Jacobite assassin and was for this and his other services created Duke and Viscount of Greystoke (not to be confused with the extinct Barony of Greystoke, Cumberland). His Grace d. 1765 of a fall from a horse while hunting, and was succeeded by his son,