The Duchess

by Amanda Foreman

  Bath was no less painful for the Duke. He missed his Bess, he wrote:

  I have been ill for some time of a complaint in my stomach, but am better for having drank the waters for about a fortnight. This place has been very unpleasant for me compared to what it was a year and a half ago, for then I had the Rat and Bess and good health and fine weather. . . . There are many places in Bath that put me so much in mind of you that when I walk about the town I cannot help expecting upon turning the corner of a street, to see you walking along it, holding your cane at each end, and bending it over your knee. But I have never met you yet, and what surprises me likewise very much is, that somebody or other has the impudence to live in your house in Bennet Street.39

  Bess, however, had found other attractions and was no longer in a hurry to return to England. “I have received your blessed letter about my return,” she wrote in February; “what can I have force to say, my angelic friend, but that if I am well enough that I will return to you.”40 Since making her promise to Georgiana and the Duke to avoid any more flirtations, she had visited Rome with Charlotte and made a conquest of the bon viveur Cardinal Bernis. They appeared constantly in each other’s company until the Cardinal’s public affection for her became a dangerous liability. Bess hurriedly returned to Naples, where she promptly fell in love with a handsome Swedish diplomat, Count Fersen. The Count had recently come from Versailles, where his departure had caused Marie Antoinette to cry in front of her attendants. The Duc de Lévis described him in his memoirs as having a “face and manner . . . perfectly suited to the hero of a novel.”41

  Fersen was thought to reciprocate Marie Antoinette’s feelings, but it did not prevent him from falling for the “tragic” and beautiful young Englishwoman in exile. According to Bess, he cried when she told him the story of her two sons, hidden away from her in Ireland. One evening, she claimed, he kissed her before she knew what was happening—by chance they were alone—but she reluctantly halted his advances. “Pray forgive me,” she hurriedly wrote to Georgiana in case she had heard about Fersen from someone else. “I think better of him than anybody I have seen, but your claims and Canis’s on me can never lessen. . . . I do not pretend that I shall not regret him, he is in every respect amiable and estimable, but you live in my heart and to it I confess my weakness. . . . Oh G., are you angry with me?”42

  Georgiana begged her to return immediately. Two years later, when she finally met Count Fersen, her resentment towards her rival was just as strong. She did not think him as good looking as Bess’s description, and told her: “He is reckoned ugly here, because from the idea of Mrs B’s [Marie Antoinette] liking him, a great beauty was expected. He has delightful eyes, the finest countenance that can be, and the most gentleman-like air. Thank God, I an’t in love with him. I was quite agitated when I first saw him, but now we are well acquainted and have talked of you. Canis has peeped at him and he peeped through the jalousie to see Canis riding.”43

  Georgiana had detailed plans for Bess and Charlotte. Bess would no longer be in charge of the girl: her life would be with them at Devonshire House. She conceded that Bess would have to live in her own little house from time to time to avoid gossip, but the three of them would never again be parted. However, the prize no longer seemed so attractive to Bess. Her replies were evasive: she wondered whether Charlotte might not benefit from another year abroad. “She does not in any respect improve as I hope she would have done—she has a quickness but no application.”44 In a moment of candour Bess let slip that she dreaded her return because it “will renew all remarks, and observations and conjectures” about her past behaviour. She reminded Georgiana that their “tender friendship makes me an object of envy, and of course of the malice of others.” But it was neither malice nor envy which prompted Lady Clermont to write to Lady Spencer on February 26, 1783: “I hope you have talked to Lady Duncannon about the lady in Italy. I hear there never was anything so much admired, and that she sees a great deal of company. I wish to God she would run off with somebody. I am afraid it is a wicked wish; but it is to prevent worse.”45

  By early 1784, the prospect of Bess remaining abroad horrified Georgiana. She was pregnant again, but this time the pregnancy was proving to be difficult and painful. The physical signs were not good, and added to her many anxieties was the fear that she might miscarry. For the past few months she had been nerving herself to make a confession to the Duke, but Heaton’s allegations and Lady George’s troublemaking had made her keep quiet. By February, however, her debts could no longer remain hidden. “I have somehow or other lately begun an opening to the Duke about the state of my affairs,” she wrote to her mother, “as I find from Heaton’s letters it is necessary. He has been very kind about it, but as I wish to keep my mind free from agitation at this crucial period, I own I have been more idle than I ought to be.”46 Georgiana agonized for three more weeks until finally, at the beginning of March, she went to see the Duke.

  “Before I say a word more, you must promise, my dearest dearest, dearest angelic love, never to let Canis know I have told this secret to you,” she wrote to Bess after the meeting: she had incurred

  a very, very large debt. I never had courage to own it, and try’d to win it at play, by which means it became immense and was grown (I have not the courage to write the sum, but will tell you when I see you) many, many, many thousands. I would not tell Canis, (tho’ I have kept absolute ruin to myself scarcely off) whilst I was with child and suckling, because I thought it ungenerous to be protected by my situation. . . . It must distress him, for besides the alterations at Chatsworth, and the buildings at Buxton, he has with a generosity unparalleled engag’d to buy the Duke of Portland’s great Cumberland estate, which saves the D of P from raising the money. . . . I should feel myself a monster if I did not propose the strictest care and economy. Would to God that Canis would consent to come abroad next summer and to stay a year with you, Charlotte, and Georgiana—in which time everything would come right, but he minds so much the idea of the World, and what would be said that I fear he will not retrench.

  What had I to offer for the kind of ruin I brought on him (for every year of my life I have cost him immense sums)—a mind he could not trust in, a person faded, and 26 years of folly and indiscretion. And how do you think he has received the avowal—with the utmost generosity, goodness and kindness. His whole care has been that I may not vex myself, and you would think he was the offender not me. . . . My angel Bess, write to me, tell me you don’t hate me for this confession, Oh, love, love me ever.47

  Georgiana lost the baby shortly after her confession. She wanted Lady Spencer to come to her, but her mother could not leave London while the executors were unravelling Lord Spencer’s estate. Not only was it less than a quarter of what they had expected; his affairs were in a terrible muddle. The money had simply vanished: some of the fortune had gone on Spencer House and the art collection, but it appeared that the Spencers had lost most of it at the gaming table. Lady Spencer was no longer rich; her income would be a mere £3,000 a year, with the promise of an extra £1,000 from George, once he had paid off the outstanding creditors. Her change of status to widowhood was all the more difficult for the loss of the Spencer wealth. She blamed herself for having wasted her son’s inheritance—and worse, for having corrupted her children by her example. Georgiana tried unsuccessfully to excuse her: “You talk of the bad example you have set me, you can mean but one thing—gaming, and there, I do assure you it is innate, for I remember playing from seven in the morning till 8 at night at Lansquenet with old Mrs Newton when I was nine years old and was sent to King’s Road for the measles.”48 Lady Spencer would never face the world with the same self-confidence again. Georgiana was distressed at the blow to her mother’s pride; and she felt ashamed to hear her situation discussed in public. “Have you any guile or anger in your dear heart,” she wrote to her mother. “If you have, call it forth. . . . against the Duchess of Beaufort, who was brutal enough to dispute with Miss Fielding,
insisting upon it you would play again.”49

  Although she was lonely and miserable, Georgiana preferred to remain at Chatsworth rather than go to Devonshire House, where she would be surrounded by her friends. “When as now I feel nervous and shy,” she wrote, “I had much rather converse with people I know but little of, than with those I know very much better. I feel a dread of going to London, tho’ Ly Melbourne, whom I love, and Ly Jersey, whose society is so remarkably amusing, would certainly do their best to entertain and dissipate me.” For the moment, if she had to see anyone, she preferred the company of strangers because “their conversation [is] certain of not touching any string, that has any connection with those various irritable nerves” that plagued her.50 She confessed to George that her health, purse, and inclination all contributed to her strong desire to avoid London. Often she fantasized about escaping to a different life. “The kind of castles I build,” she explained to her mother, “and which I chiefly build when I have an uneasy thought I want to get rid of—is fancying myself in a thousand different situations but almost always different from what I really could be in.”51 The papers announced that she would be residing in Bath until the summer, but events taking place in Westminster meant that she would have no respite from her worries.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE WESTMINSTER ELECTION

  1784

  If Mr Fox is no longer the Man of the People, he must be allowed from the number of females who attend to give him their support, to be at least, the Man for the Ladies. The Duchess of Devonshire’s attendance at Covent Garden, perhaps, will not secure Mr Fox’s election; but it will at least establish her pre-eminence above all other beauties of that place, and make her a standing toast in all the ale-houses and gin-shops of Westminster. . . . Ladies who interest themselves so much in the case of elections, are perhaps too ignorant to know that they meddle with what does not concern them, but they ought at least to know, that it is usual, even in these days of degeneracy, to expect common decency in a married woman.

  Morning Post, April 8, 1784

  Every liberal mind revolts at the wretched abuse now levelled at the most amiable of our country women! The base and burring hand of calumny, however, is raised in vain against the lovely Devon and her sister patriots, who at this juncture, so much resemble those fair celestials of the Grecian bard, whose attributes of divinity never appeared so brilliant as when forming a shield for the heroic leader of an oppressed people!

  Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser, April 24, 1784

  The coalition had struggled to remain in power since driving out Lord Shelburne in April 1783. George III’s hostility to Fox and his former Prime Minister, Lord North, was so marked that no one thought the coalition could survive for long. Self-doubt and internal divisions continually undermined the new ministry. The danger of the government appearing weak formed the chief topic of Georgiana’s conversations with Fox before her confinement. They both knew that without the King’s support the coalition was vulnerable to challengers.

  When Parliament resumed after the summer recess, the cabinet was cautiously optimistic. The ministry announced its programme of reform for the session while Georgiana was at Chatsworth. The most controversial plan was Fox’s Bill to overhaul the East India Company’s rights and charters. There was cross-party agreement that something had to be done. Company employees went to India with nothing and returned with vast wealth, giving rise not only to resentment but also to suspicions that fortunes were being obtained in a less than gentleman-like manner. There were stories of unbridled corruption, exploitation—even violence against the native population. But successive governments had always been wary of meddling with private business, and many MPs regarded the East India Bill as outrageous political interference. The coalition’s enemies claimed that the Whigs were planning to take control of the East India Company.

  Fox was jubilant when he defeated his critics: the East India Bill passed through the House of Commons in November with a comfortable majority. However, this easy victory was a smokescreen: there were secret moves afoot to break the coalition. William Pitt held meetings with the King in early December and together they formed a plot to oust Fox. When the Bill reached the House of Lords for ratification by the peers, Pitt’s cousin, Lord Temple, quietly circulated an open letter from the King. It stated clearly that anyone who voted for the Bill would henceforth be the King’s enemy. Lord Frederick Cavendish told Georgiana that the Duke of Portland had confronted the King in his closet about rumours of a conspiracy; the King had fixed his glassy stare on him and ignored the question.1 Fox refused to believe the rumours until the sight of the Lords voting down the Bill made him realize, in a dreadful moment of clarity, that he had been outwitted. George III so loathed the Whigs that when he heard the results at 10 p.m. he immediately sent his officers to Piccadilly to collect the Seals of State from Fox and North. The next morning, December 19, William Pitt kissed the King’s hand and, at twenty-four, became the youngest Prime Minister in parliamentary history.

  Paradoxically, the mood among the Whigs was one of exultation. Now that the King had declared open war on his ex-ministers they had proof of his despotic intentions. For the past two decades their allegations about the increasing influence of the crown had cited its “secret” patronage through the awarding of pensions and places. By issuing an order to the Lords to override the House of Commons the King had at last provided evidence of his anti-constitutional activities. Fox saw the political crisis in personal terms—as a duel between himself, George III, and William Pitt.

  Georgiana had no doubt that Fox would win. As long as the House of Commons supported the coalition there was nothing either the King or Pitt could do. No bills could be passed, taxes raised, nor foreign policy enacted. “We have the majority still in the H. of C.,” she wrote, “which, it is supposed, must rout them.”2 The coalition spent the Christmas break preparing for battle. No one thought Pitt could last to the New Year: “Depend on it,” joked Mrs. Crewe, “it will be a mincepie administration.” But they misjudged public opinion. Between Hyde Park and Piccadilly the Whigs strutted in righteous indignation with the approval of their friends, but everywhere else they were reviled for having forced their way into power in spite of the King’s objections—“storming the closet” as it was known. Fox, in particular, was cast in the role of the villain for his supposed attempt to turn the East India Company into a cash cow for the Whigs. His perorations on English liberty looked spurious next to his notorious lifestyle. Of all the political cartoons which emerged during these weeks the most effective were those directed against him. James Gillray depicted him as “Carlo Khan” striding down Leadenhall Street on an elephant to take possession of the East India Company. This, and another cartoon depicting him as a latter-day Oliver Cromwell, did him more damage than all the other cartoons put together. His motives had become suspect.

  The coalition held regular meetings at Devonshire House; its palatial drawing room was the only place that could comfortably accommodate all its supporters. They were depressing affairs: complaints and criticism drowned out constructive suggestions and fewer and fewer people turned out for each meeting. Their Commons majority remained substantial for the first week, but by the end of the second it had begun to slip. Pitt pressed on, showing no emotion at the cat-calls and hooting from the opposition benches as his measures were voted down. The combination of the King’s support and Pitt’s cool determination won over increasing numbers of MPs every week. It was a slow, humiliating torture for Fox, but he refused to accept defeat. Pitt relentlessly eroded the coalition’s majority until by the first week of March it was down to nine votes. On March 8 Fox moved that the House of Commons delay discussing the Mutiny Bill until Pitt resigned: it was carried by only one vote. This was the end. Pitt had won.

  By mid-March the Devonshires were re-established in London and Georgiana was trying to make sense of her debts to Heaton. She regarded the coalition’s defeat as a disaster not only for the party but
for the whole country: “If Mr Pitt succeeds, he will have brought about an event that he himself, as well as every Englishman will repent ever after,” she wrote.3 She was in complete agreement with Fox that the King’s interference with the will of the Commons had to be stopped. She drew on her contacts at the French court to urge their government not to recognize Pitt.4 She also forced the reluctant d’Adhémar to hold a grand dinner in honour of the coalition at his official residence. He was humble to her face, but she knew he was disparaging them all over London. “He says nothing can equal le despotisme de M. Fox que la bassesse de ses amis.”*

  On March 17 Georgiana went to the opera to hear La Reine de Golconde, which included a little piece she had composed herself. That night, however, the theatre was taking place not on the stage but in the stalls. Political rivalry divided the audience and there was much booing and hissing at the arrival of prominent politicians. Georgiana loved this kind of public participation. She went again on the twentieth: “It was very full and I had several good political fights.”5 The Duchess of Rutland jumped to her feet and shouted, “Damn Fox!” at the boisterous crowd below. Lady Maria Waldegrave retaliated from the opposite box, “Damn Pitt!” “We had quite an opposition dinner [afterwards],” recorded Georgiana at d’Adhémar’s, “much against the grain with him. There was Mr Fox Grenville, Ld Malden, Cl St. Leger, all our men in short. . . .”6 Her unconscious use of the word “our” reveals how closely she identified with the Whigs. She was not following the struggle, she was one of the contestants. Indeed, one cartoon depicted the coalition leaders—Sheridan, Burke, North, and Fox—drumming up support by invoking not just the Cavendish wealth but Georgiana herself. “Join the Coalition and you shall be cloathed,” cries Burke. “All Gentlemen Voluntiers who will serve his Majesty Carlo Khan repair to the Portland Block,” shouts North. “Present Pay, good Quarters, and a handsome Landlady,” adds Fox.7