Ed Helms

No matter how hard he tried, regaining control of Virginia was off the table.

He packed it up, left the colonies, back to Great Britain, joined Parliament, and threw himself into supporting the loyalist cause for the rest of the war, but now from across the pond.

You would think leaving the colonies and getting all the way back to England would be the end of Dunmore's drama.

Well, not quite.

In the 1790s, scandal found him again, this time through his daughter Augusta, who secretly married Prince Augustus Frederick, was actually the king's son, so the king of England's son, in defiance of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772.

This marriage was declared void, but the couple stayed together for years anyway.

Even off the colonial stage, the Dunmores just kept things messy.

Dunmore himself died in 1809 at the ripe old age of 79, leaving behind a legacy that is as chaotic as it is fascinating.

He freed slaves long before Lincoln, but let's be real, mostly for strategic reasons, and inadvertently sparked revolution in Virginia.

All in all, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, was the kind of historical figure you'd love to watch on reality TV, dramatic, scheming, and always one step away from disaster.

Yeah, or survivor or something.

Final interesting note, many of the black men and women who joined Dunmore's Ethiopian regiment were later transferred north with the 1783 British evacuation of New York.

Fearing re-enslavement, they escaped to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, forming enduring communities whose descendants remain today.

That's our story.

Can you—

Wrap up today's snafu in three words, Bob Crawford.

I think that works.

Yeah.

I mean that could apply to a lot of things, but yeah, it certainly applies to today.

Yeah.