In 1783, at the age of 9, he was given the sinecure of
Clerk of the Pipe for life. Bentinck joined the
Coldstream Guards on 28 January 1791 at the age of 16, purchasing an ensign's commission. He was promoted to captain-lieutenant (lieutenant) in the
2nd Regiment of Dragoons on 4 August 1792, and to captain in the
11th Regiment of Light Dragoons on 6 April 1793. He was promoted to major in the 28th Foot on 29 March 1794 and to lieutenant-colonel in the
24th Dragoons that July. On 9 January 1798, Bentinck was promoted to colonel. In 1803 he was, to some surprise, appointed
Governor of Madras, and was promoted to
major-general on 1 January 1805. Although his tenure was moderately successful, it was brought to an end by the
Vellore Mutiny in 1806, prompted by Bentinck's order that the native troops be forbidden to wear their traditional attire. Only after serious violence was order restored and the offending policy rescinded, and Bentinck was recalled in 1807. After service in the
Peninsular War, including as a brigade commander at the
Battle of Corunna, Bentinck was appointed commander of British troops in
Sicily. He was brevetted to
lieutenant-general on 3 March 1811. A
Whig, Bentinck used this position to meddle in internal Sicilian affairs, effecting the withdrawal from government of
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies in favour of his son,
Francis I of the Two Sicilies, the reactionary Queen's disgrace, and an attempt to devise a constitutional government for the troubled island, all of which ultimately ended in failure. As a result of his miscalculation, his Anglo-allied forces were defeated at the
Battle of Ordal (1813) in Northern Spain. In 1814, Bentinck landed with British and Sicilian troops at
Genoa, and commenced to make liberal proclamations of a new order in Italy which embarrassed the British government (which intended to give much of Italy to
Austria), and led, once again, to his recall in 1815.
Bentinck in Sicily As conditions in Sicily began to deteriorate at the beginning of the 19th century, England began worrying about its interests in the Mediterranean. Internal dissensions in the Sicilian government, and an ever-increasing suspicion that
Queen Maria Carolina was in correspondence with the French with the French Occupation of Sicily as its object, led to the appointment of Bentinck as British representative to the Court of Palermo in July 1811. At the beginning of his time at the head of Sicilian affairs, politicians in London opposed the
Bourbon rule and appealed for Sicilian annexation. Bentinck was sympathetic to the cause and plight of the Sicilians and "was quickly convinced of the need for Britain to intervene in Sicilian affairs, not so much for Britain's sake as for the well-being of the Sicilians." He was also one of the first of the dreamers to see a vision of a unified Italy. Having instructed the forces under his command in Sicily to make a landing at
Livorno, Bentinck then travelled north, with a day's stop in
Rome, to join them. The disembarkation at Livorno began on 9 March and took three days to complete, Murat's Neapolitans already having occupied the port beforehand. Murat, who had just joined the
Sixth Coalition, was married to Napoleon's sister
Caroline. Another sister,
Elisa, though having now abandoned her
Grand Duchy of Tuscany, had nevertheless not given up completely in attempting to salvage something from the collapse of Napoleon's
Empire; she had obtained from Murat the guarantee that he would obtain the consent of the Coalition to her retaining the
Principality of Lucca and Piombino in return for having rendered up
Tuscany without a fight. Elisa had, by the time of Bentinck's appearance at Livorno, retired to
Lucca. Upon hearing of his landing, she sent a delegation to gain assurances that Murat's pact would be respected. Bentinck replied that it would not, and that if she did not depart immediately, she would be arrested. With 2,000 British troops dispatched towards the city to carry out this threat, the heavily pregnant Elisa had no choice but to abandon the last of her territories and flee north, where she eventually fell into Allied hands at
Bologna. Elisa quit Lucca on 13 March. The next day, Bentinck issued a proclamation from Livorno calling on the Italian nation to rise in a movement of liberation. "
Italians!" he declared, "
Great Britain has landed her troops on your shores; she holds out her hand to you to free you from the iron yoke of Buonaparte...hesitate no longer...assert your rights and your liberty. Call us, and we will hasten to you, and then, our forces joined, will effect that Italy may become what in the best times she was". In thus attempting to bring about his long-nurtured dream of an independent Italian nation-state in the north and centre (he did not consider the Neapolitans and Sicilians 'Italians'), Bentinck was quite publicly repudiating the policy of his own
Government - which was intending to largely restore the
status quo ante bellum in Italy; with
Austria in possession of
Lombardy and the
King of Sardinia re-established in
Piedmont. For the next month, Bentinck was therefore operating as effectively an independent actor representative of Britain only, as Rosselli says, in the widest sense: in that he held himself to be furthering Britain's
true interests, regardless of whether the current Government recognised them or not. Ordering his troops north to besiege
Genoa, Bentinck himself now headed to
Reggio Emilia for a conference with Murat. At this conference on the 15th, he brazenly demanded that Tuscany be handed over to himself and evacuated by the
Neapolitan forces then in possession of it. It was necessary, he argued, that Tuscany be under British jurisdiction, for if not he would have no logistical base from which to conduct future operations – to which Murat replied that it was the same argument on his team which dictated his own necessary possession of it. Bentinck suddenly threatened to turn his forces against
Naples itself and restore the rightful
Ferdinand IV if Murat did not give way, but was quickly reprimanded in a firm note from
Castlereagh reminding him that he was instructed to co-operate in every way with Murat and
Austria – at which he reluctantly withdrew his bid for Tuscany (which he had likely been hoping to turn into the nucleus of a free Italian state under his own aegis) and left for
Genoa. There had, in any case, been no discernible response from the Tuscans to Bentinck's proclamation, while in Genoa he would find a welcoming audience at last. Bentinck had been ordered to take and occupy Genoa in the name of the
King of Sardinia. But when the city surrendered to him on 18 April 1814, he instead proclaimed – contrary to the intentions of the Coalition – the restoration of the
Republic of Genoa and the repeal of all laws passed since 1797, much to the enthusiasm of the Genoese. At the same time, he dispatched an expeditionary force to
Corsica to attempt to revive the
Anglo-Corsican Kingdom of 1794–1796 and gain for Britain another useful base in the
Mediterranean. In Genoa meanwhile, on 24 April, he received representations from the provisional government in
Milan beseeching Britain's support for the maintenance of an independent
Kingdom of Italy rather than the restoration of
Austria's rule over
Lombardy. With Napoleon's abdication of both the
French and
Italian thrones on 11 April, the government in Milan was in search of a new sovereign who would better bolster its chances of survival. In seeking to bind Britain to its cause, the suggestion was put to Bentinck that
Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, the seventh son of
George III, would be a welcome candidate; though Bentinck recommended they might look to
Archduke Francis of Este as a more realistic candidate, in order to mollify Austria. With Napoleon's double abdication on 11 April however - though the news took time to cross the
Alps - Bentinck's capacity to influence events on the ground while, with the war against the
Emperor still raging, all was still to a great extent up in the air, largely came to an end. As did his
Government's motive for toleration. His erratic behaviour over the recent months had led the
Prime Minister Lord Liverpool to brand him simply "mad", and his scope of authority was sharply reduced; though he was not finally dismissed from his grand post as Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean until April the following year. == Last Governor-General of Bengal==