where he avenged the Dutch massacre of British forces
at Amboyna; it was at this clash that he wrote his famed
message to one of his commanders: “Dear Forde, fight
them immediately; I will send you the order of council
tomorrow.” Clive remained in India until 1760, when
his health declined, after which he returned to England.
One writer at the time said of Clive’s departure, “It ap-
peared as if the soul was departing the Government of
Bengal.” In 1762, he was created Baron Clive.
Following a series of internal scandals and claims
of financial irregularities, the officers of the British East
India Company asked Clive to return to Caluctta to
serve as governor of the company. He arrived there in
1765 and proceeded to reform the enterprise’s finances,
end corruption, and repair the company’s administrative
foundations. However, he also had taken funds from the
nawab’s fortune, using them as the basis of the “Clive
Fund” for the invalided soldiers in his command and
their widows. Historians believe that he never benefited
personally from this fund, but following Clive’s return
to England in 1767, General John burgoyne, who
later served in the American Revolution, claimed in the
House of Commons that Clive should be impeached for
peculation, the crime of embezzlement. The House held
that while “Robert, Lord Clive, did... render great and
meritorious services to his country,” nonetheless he “did
obtain and possess [for] himself a total of £234,000 from
the Nawab’s fund.” Clive went to the Commons and, in
a reply to Lord North, the Prime Minister, stated, “My
situation, sir, has not been an easy one for these past
12 months past, and though my conscience could never
accuse me, yet I felt for my friends who were involved
in the same censure as myself.... I have been examined
by the select committee more like a sheep-stealer than a
member of this House.”
By this time, because of ill health, Clive was taking
laudanum, a form of opium, then used as a painkiller.
Although in 1773 the House of Commons ultimately
cleared him of all charges, the strain of the accusations
had taken too heavy of a toll. He died on 22 November
1774; his death is listed as a suicide from an overdose
of laudanum. Clive’s body was later taken by his fam-
ily from London, where it had been buried without
ceremony, to a small churchyard at his birth home of
Moreton Say. A plaque over his grave reads: “Sacred to
the Memory of Robert Lord Clive KB Buried within
the walls of this church Born Sep 29 1725 Died Nov 22
1774 Primus in Indis.” Ronald Colman played Clive in
the 1935 film Clive of India.
References: Edwardes, Michael, Clive: The Heaven-
Born General (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1977);
Caraccioli, Charles, The Life of Robert Lord Clive, Baron
Plassey.... , 4 vols. (London: T. Bell ca. 1775); Bruce,
George, “Arcot,” in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow,
Scotland: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 18; “Speech
by Lord Clive in the House of Commons in defence of his
conduct and that of the Company’s servants in Bengal, 30
March 1772,” English Historical Documents, 1714–1783,
edited by D. B. Horn and Mary Ransome (London: Eyre
and Spottiswoode, 1957), 808–811.Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, prince de (Great
Condé, duc d’Enghien) (1621–1686) French general
Louis, prince de Condé, known as the Great Condé, was
born on 8 September 1621 in Paris, the son of Henri de
Bourbon, prince de Condé, and Charlotte de Montmo-
rency. He was the great-grandson of the prince de Condé
who had led the French Protestant Huguenots in the
wars of religion that had torn France apart in the middle
of the 16th century. Educated by the Jesuits at Bourges
from 1630 to 1636, he entered the royal military school
in Paris, and in 1640, as the duc d’Enghien, he joined
the French army of Picardy. He saw action at the siege of
Arras in July of that year and fought again at Perpignan
in 1642. On his return, he married Claire-Clémence de
Maillé-Brézé, a niece of Cardinal Richelieu, but the mar-
riage was not a happy one.
At Rocroi (19 May 1643), d’Enghien led the
French army in their first decisive victory against Spain
in many years and followed up his success with further
victories at Thionville (10 August 1643) and Sierck (8
Sept 1643). With Henri de turenne, he won further
victories over the Bavarians at Freiburg (3–9 August
1644), Mainz (17 September 1644), and Nordlingen (3
August 1645), and in 1646 he led a successful campaign
in Flanders and took Dunkerque. On the death of his
father on 26 December 1646, d’Enghien became prince
de Condé and inherited vast wealth and estates that in-
cluded most of Burgundy. Sent to Catalonia in Spain, he
was defeated at Lérida (18 June 1647) but was recalled
to lead the French army fighting in the Netherlands. He
subsequently won an important victory at Lens (19–20
August 1648), which led to the Treaty of Munster that
ended the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48).
It was soon after this that the intermittent French
civil wars known as the Fronde broke out. The king,
Louis XIV, was an infant, and France was effectivelyconDé, louiS ii De bouRbon, pRince De