CHAPTER XI.The Prince Asserts Himself.
The Court life of the reign of George the Second was far from being gay; it was very different from what his life had been during the reign of his father when he was Prince of Wales. About the time of the Vane scandal Lord Hervey writes to his friend Mrs. Clayton and complains of the dulness of the routine.
“I will not trouble you,” he says, “with any account of our occupations at Hampton Court. No mill horse ever went in a more constant track, or a more unchanging circle, so that by the assistance of an almanac for the day of the week, and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform yourself fully, without any other intelligence but your memory, of every transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiences fill the morning; at night the King plays commerce and backgammon, and the Queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte (de Roussie) runs her usual nightly gauntlet—the Queen pulling her hood, Mr. Schütz sputtering in her face, and the Princess Royal rapping her knuckles, all at a time. It was in vain she fled from persecution for her religion; she suffers for her pride what she escaped for herfaith, undergoes in a drawing-room what she dreaded from the Inquisition, and will die a martyr to a Court though not to a Church. The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery and sleeps, as usual, between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline; Lord Grantham strolls from one room to another (as Dryden says)like some discontented ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak, and stirs himself about, as people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn brisker, which his lordship constantly does to no purpose, and yet tries as constantly as if he had ever once succeeded.
“At last the King comes up, the pool finishes, and everybody has their dismission; their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and my Lord Lifford; the Princesses to Bilderbec and Lorry; my Lord Grantham to Lady Francis and Mr. Clark; some to supper, and some to bed, and thus (to speak in the Scripture phrase) the evening and the morning make the day.”
Things had been very different in the former days referred to. Mrs. Howard, the King’s mistress, to whom reference has been made, was a shining light at that time. She had been complacently made Woman of the Bedchamber by Queen Caroline, with a view apparently to please the King, and keep her about the palace; but she must have been a woman of great tact as she seems to have got on very well with the Queen, except that at one time there wassome little difficulty about getting her to kneel down and hold the Queen’s basin while she washed her hands, which under the circumstances is not to be wondered at.
Mrs. Howard, however, despite her immorality—which was looked upon apparently as a fashionable weakness—was a great favourite with the other ladies of the Court. A companion of sweet Mary Bellenden and her friend Mary Lepel, both maids-of-honour.
Here is a description of the celebrated Henrietta Howard by Horace Walpole who knew her intimately in her widowhood when she lived at Marble Hill, Twickenham, and he at Strawberry Hill: he says of her appearance that she was “ladylike.” She was of good height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light brown hair, was remarkably “genteel,” and—a great recommendation and interesting to ladies—was always dressed with taste and simplicity. He concludes his description: “For her face was regular and agreeable, rather than beautiful, and those charms she retained with little diminution to her death, at the age of seventy-nine” (in July, 1767). He states that she was “grave and mild of character, a lover of truth, and circumstantial about small things. She lived in a decent and dignified manner after her retirement from Court, and was considered and respected by those around her in her old age.”
King George the Second has often, when Mrs.Howard, his mistress, was dressing the Queen, come into the room, and snatched the handkerchief off, and cried, “Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you like to hide the Queen’s.” Her Majesty (all the while calling her “My good Howard”) took great joy in employing her in the most servile offices about her person. The King was so communicative to his wife, that one day Mrs. Selwyn, another of the bedchamber women, told him he should be the last man with whom she would have an intrigue, because he always told the Queen.
Mrs. Howard was celebrated for her agreeable supper parties, which were often attended by the King. At Hampton Court the maids-of-honour used to call her rooms the “Swiss Cantons,” because they were neutral ground on which all could meet. Henrietta Howard wisely mixed herself up with no factions, and was a woman naturally, without spite or jealousy, and though slightly deaf, a wonderful hostess.
On account of the name given to her rooms, she was known as the “Swiss.”
Many years after Mary Bellenden, when a married woman, looked back with pleasure to the pleasant time spent with Mrs. Howard. “I wish we were all in the ‘Swiss Cantons’ again,” she writes.
And later still Molly Lepel, then Lady Hervey, writes in the same strain to Mrs. Howard:
“The place your letter was dated from (Hampton Court) recalls a thousand agreeable things to myremembrance, which I flatter myself I do not quite forget. I wish that I could persuade myself that you regret them, or that you could think the tea-table more welcome in the morning if attended, as formerly by the ‘Schatz’ (a pet name for herself). I really believe frizelation (flirtation) would be a surer means of restoring my spirits than the exercise and hartshorn I now make use of. I do not suppose that name still subsists; but pray let me know if the thing itself does, or if they meet in the same cheerful manner to sup as formerly. Are ballads and epigrams the consequence of these meetings? Is good sense in the morning and wit in the evening the subject, or, rather, the foundation, of the conversation? That is an unnecessary question; I can answer it myself, since I know you are of the party, but in short, do you not want poor Tom, and Bellenden, as much as I want ‘Swiss’ in the first place, and them?” But all that was now changed, and the state of affairs, as depicted by Lord Hervey, prevailed.
Mrs. Howard also writes herself on the subject to Lady Hervey as far back as September, 1728 (the year of the Prince’s coming to England).
“Hampton is very different from the place you knew; and to say we wishedTom Lepel,SchatzandBella-dineat the tea-table is too interested to be doubted.Frizelation,flirtationanddangleationare now no more, and nothing less than a Lepel can restore them to life; but to tell you my opinionfreely, the people you now converse with” (books) “are much more alive than any of your old acquaintances.”
MARY LEPEL
MARY LEPEL,Lady Hervey,In middle life.
These letters from dainty hands long since of the earth, seem to bring vividly before one’s eyes the trio of fair women, “The Swiss,” “Bella-dine”; and the scarcely less beautiful Mollie Lepel, “The Schatz,” their tea-table, their “frizelation” and “dangleation,” and other pet names for love-making, and it seems hard to believe it was nearly two hundred years ago!
Mrs. Howard appears to have separated from her husband in 1718, and devoted herself entirely to the service of the Queen—and the King.
Some may be curious to know what was her recompense for this position of degradation. It was not very great.
Queen Caroline stated that she received twelve hundred pounds a year from the King while he was Prince of Wales, and three thousand two hundred pounds a year when he became King. He gave her also twelve thousand pounds towards building her villa at Marble Hill, near Twickenham, in addition to several “little dabs” (the Queen’s expression) before and after he came to the throne. She had expected much more when the King came to the throne, and so had her friends, but they were disappointed. She obtained a peerage for her brother, Sir Henry Hobart, but Horace Walpole says of her:
“No established mistress of a sovereign everenjoyed less brilliancy of the situation than Lady Suffolk.”
This state of affairs appears to have prevailed until the year 1731, when Mrs. Howard’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Suffolk, died, and her husband succeeded to the title. Becoming a Countess, she could no longer hold the place of bedchamber woman to the Queen; she resigned her post at Court.
Despite her position, however, with regard to the King, Queen Caroline seems to have had some sort of affection for her, and wished to retain her about her person. Caroline could not have been much troubled with jealousy of her spouse, but possibly her intense passion for politics and all belonging to the world of diplomacy, had long since wiped out the other passion. Indeed, at times, she seems to have taken a keen and appreciative interest in the recitation of her husband’s infidelities, which facts little George appears to have had a mania for communicating to her.
The Queen, however, offered the new Countess of Suffolk the position of Mistress of the Robes, which post she held in conjunction with that of Mistress to the King until the year 1734.
She was delighted with her change of office, and wrote to the poet Gay in June, 1731, anent it:
“To prevent all future quarrels and disputes, I shall let you know that I have kissed hands for the place of Mistress of the Robes. Her Majesty did me the honour to give me the choice of Lady of theBedchamber, or that which I find so much more agreeable to me that I did not take one moment to consider it. The Duchess of Dorset resigned it for me; and everything as yet promises for more happiness for the latter part of my life than I have yet had the prospect of (she was then forty-five). Seven nights quiet sleep, and seven easy days, have almost worked a miracle in me.”
Lady Suffolk, however, was not content to live the placid life which her letter indicates, she appears to have forsaken her old wise course of holding aloof from politics.
In 1733 her husband, the Earl of Suffolk died, and she found herself a free woman with a moderate competence. She wished to resign her office of Mistress of the Robes, and retire from Court, but this the Queen would not hear of, fearing, perhaps, to get a younger woman in her place who would not understand her ways, nor the King’s.
This feeling, however, the King by no means shared; he had long since tired of the Countess and wanted to get rid of her. He expressed himself to the Queen in the following refined and gentlemanly terms:—
“I do not know,” he reasoned, “why you will not let me part with the deaf old woman of whom I am weary.”
The Countess, however, who was by this time forty-eight, and thoroughly weary also, it is stated, of her degrading position, very soon gave the King theopportunity he wanted by meddling in politics. She appears to have entered into some sort of a job in obtaining a favour for Lord Chesterfield, in which she slighted the Queen by getting the favour granted by the King over the Queen’s head.
This gave George the opportunity he required to be very rude to his former favourite, and to Lord Chesterfield too, as a result of which Lady Suffolk retired to Bath, and Lord Chesterfield shortly after was dismissed from Court, when of course he became a partisan of the Prince of Wales, as might be expected.
The mode of Lord Chesterfield’s dismissal was rather amusing. He had grievously offended Walpole and the King by his opposition to the Excise Scheme. Of all those who had done likewise, Lord Chesterfield, who held the office of Lord Steward of the Household, was the first to suffer. Two days after the extinction of the Excise Bill, he was going up the great staircase of St. James’s Palace—which isnotso very great—when an attendant stopped him from entering the presence chamber, and handed him a summons requesting him to surrender his white staff. In this was the hand of the Queen, who had never forgiven him for his little deal with Mrs. Howard. There was also another reason. The Queen had a little window of observation overlooking the entrance to Mrs. Howard’s rooms. One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield had won a large sum of money at play, somesay fifteen thousand pounds, and being afraid of being robbed of it in the none too safe streets of London, determined to deposit it with Mrs. Howard. The Queen, through her little window of observation, saw him enter the apartments of the fair Howard, and drew her own conclusions. Thenceforward Lord Chesterfield obtained no more favours at Court, for the Queen controlled them.
Lady Suffolk went to Bath, but was not content, however, with drinking the waters in the kingdom of Beau Nash, she met there Bolingbroke, and is credited with a political intrigue with him, the person most detested by the Court. Whether this political intrigue existed or not, King George availed himself of the rumour of it, and upon her return to Court ignored her. He was an adept at ignoring people, especially his own son and heir, the Prince of Wales. This not being deemed sufficient, the King publicly insulted the Countess of Suffolk, and this had the desired effect; she resigned her post, and finally retired from the Court.
There is a curious memorandum in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum of an interview which took place between Queen Caroline and the Countess, written apparently by the latter, from which it seems that the Queen was even then very loth to lose her services. But not so the King.
Lady Suffolk shortly afterwards married the Honourable George Berkeley,[29]fourth son of thesecond Earl of Berkeley, and found a good husband, only to lose him soon by death; but this was the comment of the King to the Queen upon hearing of the union, the news of which reached him in Hanover:
“J’étais extrément surpris de la disposition que vous m’avez mandé que ma vielle maitresse a fait de son corps en mariage à ce vieux goutteaux George Berkeley, et je m’en réjouis fort. Je ne voudrois pas faire de tels présents à mes amis; et quand mes ennemis me volent, plut à Dieu que ce soit toujours de cette façon.”
Which, though rather witty, shows that the little man’s pride was hurt, even when an old mistress was made an honest woman.
It may be imagined that in the differences which had arisen between the Prince of Wales and his parents, the rest of his family had not played a neutral part. His brother William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, born April 25th, 1721, was of course but a boy at his first coming to England, but old enough to resent such an eclipse of his own importance by the elder brother whom he had never before seen, and whom, perhaps, he may have been taught to regard as a rival.
The fact has already been referred to, that George the Second and his Queen are credited with the intention of endeavouring to make their second son, the Duke of Cumberland—the idol of his mother—heir to the English throne, without giving anyconsideration to the fact that the throne was not theirs to give.
Such a determination which could not but have become known to the brothers was not likely to foster much fraternal love. As regards the Prince of Wales’s sisters, the two elder Princesses Anne and Amelia, cannot be said to have ever been his friends. Amelia exhibited some signs of affection at first, but when the Prince discovered that she was betraying his confidences to his father, he very naturally would have no more to do with her, as a result of which perfidy she became despised both by her brother and the King.
Anne, the elder Princess, had apparently never exhibited anything but dislike for her elder brother, whom neither she nor her sister could have had any distinct recollection of in their infancy when they left Hanover, and whom they both regarded as a stranger and interloper.
This state of unfortunate enmity which existed between the Prince and his sisters took an active form in a peculiar way. Anne, the Princess Royal, was devoted to music, and had had the advantage of the great Handel as her instructor, to whom she was much attached.
Handel at one time became the manager of the Opera House at the Haymarket,—one can imagine it with its hundreds of wax candles, its powder, patches, and orange girls—this undertaking the Princess Royal aided by every means in her power,inducing the King and Queen to not only subscribe to a box, but to frequently visit the theatre. This must have been an infliction upon King George, whose dislike for “bainting and boetry,” together with the other arts is proverbial.
It cannot be denied that Frederick, Prince of Wales, had the attribute of combativeness, and a natural power of enraging others by his mode of opposition. No sooner had his sister’sprotégéestablished his opera at the Haymarket theatre than he forthwith started an opposition opera at the theatre in Lincolns Inn Fields, possibly not very far from the present Gaiety.
Then commenced a state of affairs which can only be regarded as extremely comical. All the adherents of the Prince—and he was very popular among the nobility as well as the people—ceased their patronage of Handel’s theatre, and transferred it to the Prince’s undertaking in Lincolns Inn Fields. Excitement between the two parties was high at the time, and the Prince’s theatre was crowded.
Lord Chesterfield, who by this time was becoming a strong partisan of Frederick’s, wittily commented on the state of affairs one evening at the Lincolns Inn Fields establishment. He had, he informed the Prince, just looked in at the Haymarket theatre on his way down, and found nobody there but the King and Queen, “and as I thought they might be talking business,” he concluded, airily, “I came away.”
Much as this joke pleased the Prince it cannot be expected that its repetition gave much satisfaction to the King and Queen, and the Princess Royal, the latter of whom spoke bitterly of the whole affair. She commented with a sneer that “she expected in a little while to see half the House of Lords playing in the orchestra at the Prince’s Theatre in their robes and coronets,” which was a remark truly worthy of a spiteful young lady, and the anger of the King, her father, can be understood when it is considered that he had been dragged to witness a performance he did not care a bit about, to be snubbed by his nobility and made a public spectacle of.
The King’s appreciation of a theatrical performance was not of a very high order; of an opera it was probably much worse. The following anecdote is related of one of his visits to a theatre when the play was Richard the Third, and Garrick sustained the title rôle.
Notwithstanding the talent of the great actor, King George’s fancy was captured by the man who played the part of Lord Mayor.
During the remainder of the performance the little monarch continually worried his attendants with the following questions: “Will not that lor-mayor come again? I like dat lor-mayor. When will he come again?”
But the resentment engendered by the slights and ill-treatment the Prince had received from hisfamily—what a family to live in the same house with!—which resentment was shared and fostered by his party, especially Bolingbroke, the moving spirit of it, began to assume a definite form about this time, till at last the Prince, no doubt inspired by Bolingbroke, determined to address his father personally on the subject of his wrongs. He took a step against which Bubb Doddington in his diary says he did his best to dissuade him.
One morning in the early summer of 1734, the Prince of Wales presented himself without previous notice at the King’s ante-chamber and requested an immediate audience. The King, upon whom this presumptuous request no doubt produced an instant fit of fuming, delayed admitting him until he had sent for Sir Robert Walpole, a very wise proceeding as it turned out. The King no doubt scented danger in the air.
On the arrival of Sir Robert, the King boiling with rage, expressed his indignation at the Prince’s audacity, but the Minister counselled moderation and at last persuaded the King to receive his son reasonably.
On his admittance the Prince made three requests:
The first to serve a campaign on the Rhine in the Imperial army; the second related to an augmentation of his revenue, with a broad hint that he was in debt; and the third, a very reasonable suggestion, that he should be settled by a suitable marriage. He was then twenty-seven.
To the first and last of these three propositions the King made no answer, to the second he seemed inclined to agree. Here the interview appears to have ended.
But although under the cool advice of his Minister Walpole the King had controlled himself, his anger broke out with redoubled fury when he heard for the first time, and it must have been a blow, that the Prince of Wales intended bringing the matter of his income before Parliament. This was particularly inopportune to the King, as it was a well-known fact that out of his immense income of £900,000 per annum, £100,000 was intended by Parliament for the Prince of Wales, though the King’s discretion in dealing with his children was not hampered in any way. But here the Queen stepped in; despite Lord Hervey’s weak but spiteful satire, the Queen and her son were still on the terms of mother and child; she used her best endeavours to make peace between the father and son, and had her ears not been systematically poisoned against Frederick by Hervey and others, and had not the Prince on the other hand been controlled by the strong hand of Bolingbroke, she might have continued her natural office of peacemaker between these two.
On the present occasion, however, she succeeded in at least patching up a truce; her influence over the weaker nature of the King was at this time, as it always had been and in fact continued to the dayof her death, boundless. She could mould him in those soft white hands of hers, of which she was no doubt naturally proud, into any form she chose, and with the Prince she took the business line of telling him he would gain nothing by trying to force the King’s hand through Parliament.
But at the same time she induced George to advance his son a sum of money with which to liquidate his most pressing debts, and so with this little sacrifice on the King’s part, the matter ended,—for the time.
FOOTNOTES:[29]He was Master of St. Catherine in the Tower, and had stood in two Parliaments as member for Dover.
[29]He was Master of St. Catherine in the Tower, and had stood in two Parliaments as member for Dover.
[29]He was Master of St. Catherine in the Tower, and had stood in two Parliaments as member for Dover.