Richard Savage
Richard Savage was an English poet and playwright whose tumultuous life was marked by a troubled childhood and struggles for recognition in the literary world. Born Richard Smith in 1697, he was the illegitimate son of Anne Mason and Richard Savage, the fourth Earl of Rivers. His early years were shrouded in secrecy and upheaval, as his mother attempted to hide their identities to avoid scandal. Throughout his life, Savage grappled with his claims of maternal neglect and tumultuous experiences, although these narratives lacked substantial evidence.
Savage gained some notoriety in the literary circles of 18th-century London, befriending notable figures like Alexander Pope. Despite his efforts, his works—especially his plays—failed to achieve lasting acclaim. His life took a dramatic turn when he killed a man in a quarrel in 1727, leading to a death sentence from which he was later pardoned. Despite receiving support from influential friends and a brief pension from Queen Caroline, Savage's fortunes waned after her death. He ultimately fell into poverty, spending his final days homeless and dying in Bristol in 1743. Though often seen as a figure of misfortune, Savage's life reflects the complexities of social status, literary ambition, and personal tragedy in his time.
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Subject Terms
Richard Savage
Poet
- Born: c. 1697
- Birthplace: England
- Died: August 1, 1743
- Place of death: Bristol, England
Biography
Throughout his often turbulent life, poet Richard Savage was plagued by questions about his birth and childhood. At the time he was born, Anne Mason, the woman he believed was his mother, was married to Charles Gerard, the Viscount Brandon and heir to the Earl of Macclesfield. The couple had an unhappy marriage, and Anne Mason had an affair with Richard Savage, the fourth earl of Rivers, with whom she had two children: a daughter, who died in her first year, and a son christened Richard Smith in Fox Court, London, on January 18, 1697.
While she was pregnant with Richard Smith, Anne Mason, now Countess of Macclesfield, wanted to divorce her husband, now Lord Macclesfield. She therefore assumed a false identity, primarily to keep Lord Macclesfield from charging her with adultery in court, hid out of sight, and wore a mask to hide her face. Shortly after his birth, Richard Smith was also sent into hiding. He moved from one foster family and nurse to another, until the secret of his existence was so successfully obliterated that he would spend the rest of his life attempting to uncover his childhood.
While the stories of his birth and childhood are questionable, so, too, are the accounts that Richard (Smith) Savage later told of his earliest years. He claimed to have been neglected by a mother who did not love or even like him, threatened with kidnap and exile to the West Indies, and made to work as a shoemaker’s apprentice, all before the age of nine. However, these claims were never substantiated. In November, 1715, a man arrested in London for having written allegedly seditious pro- Jacobite poetry identified himself as “Mr. Savage, natural son to the late Earl Rivers,” a claim Savage adamantly maintained all of his life.
Savage might have remained a shadowy figure, lost to history, if not for the efforts of Samuel Johnson, the reputable eighteenth century British biographer and chronicler. In 1744, Johnson published a short biography, Account of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage, which recounts the details of Savage’s life.
Savage wrote poetry and plays. His first stage play, Woman’s a Riddle, was accused of being plagiarized from another playwright. His second play, Love in a Veil, produced in 1718 and published in 1719, was unremarkable and the third, Sir Thomas Overbury, fell far short of the fame he sought as a writer. Savage fared better with his poems about a bastardized childhood and eventually made money and friends in the literary milieu of eighteenth century London, befriended by such well-respected writers as Alexander Pope.
On November 20, 1727, Savage was at Robinson’s Coffee House, arguing with a man named James Sinclair over a vacant room. With his reportedly quick temper, which escalated into uncontrollable rage, Savage shot Sinclair to death. Before he died, Sinclair named Savage as the murderer. Savage was arrested, found guilty, and condemned to death. However, his now close circle of friends rescued him, intervening and speaking on his behalf. He was pardoned by King George II in March, 1728.
Savage continued to press his claims of his parentage, and his poems attacked and exposed the woman he insisted was his mother, the former Countess of Macclesfield, now known as Mrs. Brett. One account of Savage said he “lived by his wits. . . as a sturdy literary beggar,” and seemed to be someone “who think[s] himself born to be supported by others,” reportedly “dispensed from all necessity of providing for himself.” Savage was eventually taken in by Mrs. Brett’s nephew, John, Lord Tyrconnel, and given a home and an allowance of two hundred pounds. However, this arrangement ended in 1735, when Savage and Lord Tyrconnel quarreled bitterly.
Savage was a candidate for the post of poet laureate but was passed over for another poet. In response, he wrote a birthday poem for the queen, The Volunteer Laureat, a Poem: Most Humbly Address’d to Her Majesty on Her Birthday (1732); in return for the poem, Queen Caroline gave Savage an annual fifty- pound pension. Savage, as presumptuous as ever, usurped some of the duties of the actual poet laureate. Savage’s pension was discontinued after Queen Caroline died in 1737, and her husband, King George II, refused to reinstate it. Savage’s relationship with Tyrconnel also was over.
Savage returned to the streets, homeless and penniless except for the occasional funds his friends provided him. Savage used some of these funds to enjoy a drinking binge in Bristol, where he was arrested and jailed for a debt he owed the king. He died there on August 1, 1743.