James Wolfe - Character

Character

Wolfe was renowned by his troops for being demanding on himself and on them. Although he was prone to illness, Wolfe was an active and restless figure. Amherst reported that Wolfe seemed to be everywhere at once. There was a story that when someone in the British Court branded the young Brigadier mad, King George II retorted, "Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals." Some biographers, including Richard Garrett have suggested Wolfe may have been a repressed homosexual, although his behavioral patterns were fairly typical of the noblemen of the time. He was once reprimanded by his father for an incident involving a very handsome young lieutenant (around early 1750s), after which he seems to have abstained from sexual activity. In a letter to his mother in 1751 he admitted he would probably never marry, and stated that he believed people could easily live without marrying. A cultured man, in 1759 during the Seven Years War, before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham Wolfe is said to have recited Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard to his officers, adding: "Gentlemen, I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec tomorrow". After his death a miniature of Katherine Lowther, daughter of Robert Lowther (1681–1745), was given to Wolfe's mother and later returned to Katherine Lowther Duchess of Bolton.