Rivalry between the parties spread to the streets, aided in many instances by agents provocateurs. Pitt rode down the Strand accompanied by a great mob which stopped outside Carlton House and shouted abuse at the Prince. It moved on to St. James’s, where with difficulty he prevented them from smashing Fox’s windows. Later Lord Chatham, Pitt’s elder brother, spotted James Hare exhorting a crowd of chairmen armed with broken carriage poles to attack Pitt’s carriage.
They succeeded in making their way to the carriage and forced open the door. Several desperate blows were aimed at Mr Pitt, and I recollect endeavouring to cover him as well as I could, in his getting out of the Carriage. Fortunately however . . . by ye timely assistance of a [rival] Party of Chairmen, and many Gentlemen from Whites, who saw his danger, we were extricated from a most unpleasant situation, and with considerable difficulty, got into some adjacent houses.8
A public debate at Westminster Hall degenerated into a riot and Fox was pelted with “filth” while his supporters hustled him out into a waiting carriage.
The threat of insults or worse did not deter Georgiana from venturing into this turbulent world to aid Fox. She spent a few days canvassing for her brother’s constituency and then returned to London for the Westminster election.* There were three candidates standing for two places: Fox for the Whigs, and Sir Cecil Wray (a Whig deserter) and Lord Admiral Hood for Pitt. Since Admiral Hood was a popular hero from the American war, it was really a contest between Fox and Wray. Because of its large franchise of 18,000 voters and its proximity to Parliament, Westminster was one of the few constituencies where public opinion really mattered. Pitt would gladly have exchanged a dozen ordinary boroughs to oust Fox from this, the “people’s constituency.” The King cared less about public opinion and simply wanted Fox out. Do whatever is necessary, he ordered Pitt, “rather than let him be Returned for Westminster.”9
Criticisms of political corruption and coercion levelled by later Whig historians against eighteenth-century elections would have puzzled Georgiana. As Frank O’Gorman has shown, although the total number of voters may have been small—roughly 300,000 in a population of 10 million—the public was not necessarily excluded from electoral politics; nor were elections simply a case of ratification. “While committees met to plot and plan,” he writes, “while agents swarmed all over the constituency, and while the formal canvass proceeded, a veritable torrent of rival publicity—squibs, poems, songs, cartoons, handbills, letters, and advertisements—deluged the constituency. . . . Daily speeches, celebrations, parades, displays, treats, and dinners fostered and maintained the excitement, enthusiasm of the public.”10 Local issues predominated, but national ones were also important and could be used to discredit rivals. Westminster’s large franchise spanned a broad range of occupations. They could be wooed, flattered, and flooded with inducements, but not controlled.
As at previous elections, the speaker platforms were erected in Covent Garden beside the polling booths, through which the voters had to shuffle, one at a time, to record their vote in front of the clerk. On the first day of the polls, which remained open for six weeks, the Whigs assembled for a mass canvass. Their helpers had strung up banners and coloured bunting along the main thoroughfares in an uneven zigzag from one supporter’s house to another. Fox and a few friends stayed on the platform to harangue the crowd, while the men and women divided into three teams led by Georgiana, Mrs. Crewe, and Mrs. Damer. Most of the party members were busy fighting their own seats and the women were needed to make up the shortfall in numbers. Georgiana and Harriet, accompanied by several male escorts, walked through the cobbled streets, handing out specially struck medals to Foxites. The Whigs enjoyed themselves in spite of the pushing and shoving of the crowd. However, many observers were shocked to see women so cavalierly exposed to the dangers of a metropolitan election. A German tourist at the hustings watched the previously tranquil mob turn violent after the poll closed:
In a very few minutes, the whole scaffolding, benches, and chairs, and everything were completely destroyed, and the mat with which it had been covered torn into ten thousand long strips or pieces, with which they encircled multitudes of peoples of all ranks. These they hurried along with them, and everything else that came in their way, as trophies of joy: and thus in the midst of exaltation and triumph, they paraded through many of the most populous streets of London.11
The London Chronicle reported that at the end of the first day Fox had polled 302, Lord Hood 264, and Wray 238.12 But on the second and third, Hood and Wray surged ahead. The Whigs frantically urged everyone to join the canvass. By April 5 the Duchess of Portland, Lady Jersey, Lady Carlisle, Mrs. Bouverie, and the three Ladies Waldegrave were among those parading through Westminster, dressed in blue and buff with foxtails in their hats, soliciting votes from bemused shopkeepers. According to Nathaniel Wraxall, their activities soon got out of hand: “These ladies, being previously furnished with lists of outlying voters, drove to their respective dwellings. Neither entreaties nor promises were spared. In some instances even personal caresses were said to have been permitted, in order to prevail upon the surly or inflexible, and there can be no doubt of common mechanics having been conveyed to the hustings on more than one occasion by the Duchess in her own coach.”13
Horace Walpole was ashamed by the way in which some of the voters took advantage of Georgiana: “During her canvass, the Duchess made no scruple of visiting some of the humblest of electors, dazzling and enchanting them by the fascination of her manner, the power of her beauty and the influence of her high rank.” But others shouted abuse at her and on more than one occasion she was physically threatened. One account claimed that Georgiana thoughtlessly entered a house alone to confront seven drunken Hood supporters. They would not let her leave until they had all kissed her, by which time there was a noisy mob outside, fighting to get in.14 Whether or not this particular story is true, there were other, similar incidents. “She is in the street, they tell me almost every day,” wrote Mrs. Boscawen to Lady Chatham. “And this is her sole employment from morning till night. She gets out of her carriage and walks into alleys—many feathers and fox tails in her hat—many blackguards in her suit.”15
By the end of the first week Georgiana was exhausted and demoralized. Her voice was hoarse and her feet were sore and blistered from walking on the broken cobbles of Henrietta Street—incidentally home to some famous brothels and therefore a source of much coarse humour in the press. Despite all their efforts Fox was still trailing in the polls. “I give the Election quite up,” Georgiana wrote to her mother, “and must lament all that has happened—however, the circumstances I was in will justify me to those it is most essential for me to please and I must pocket the opinions of the rest.”16 The government was jubilant. “Westminster is indeed a cruel blow upon the party,” Pitt’s cousin told the Duke of Rutland. “Their exertions have been incredible, particularly upon the part of her Grace of Devon, who in the course of her canvass has heard more plain English of the grossest sort than ever fell to the share of any lady of her rank. . . . Fox is now clearly defeated.”17
Pittite newspapers concentrated their attacks on Georgiana and ignored the other women. Lady Salisbury and Mrs. Hobart, who were canvassing for Pitt, received far less attention. “It is very hard,” she complained, “they should single me out when all the women of my side do as much.”18 She denied exchanging kisses for votes: it had been Harriet’s idea, not hers. The men did that sort of thing at every election—candidates had to do a great deal of kissing and handshaking. Lord Palmerston heard that one butcher had made Fox kiss his wife and all his daughters in turn before shoving him out of the shop, telling him, “he might kiss his arse if he liked into the bargain; but he’d see him damned before he voted for him.”19 Georgiana was easy to attack because she was already a celebrity. The Morning Post was the first to run the story about her kissing voters on March 31: “We hear the D——s of D——grants favours to those who promise their votes and interest
to Mr Fox.” Thereafter it ran vicious stories almost every day. It concentrated on three themes: she was selling her body for votes, she was Fox’s mistress, and she was betraying her rank and sex by her undignified behaviour. On April 8 it sneered, “She wore as usual the insignia of the order in her hat, and by her extraordinary beauty attracted the eyes of the gaping multitude. A band of greasy musicians struck up with marrow-bones and cleavers in honour of her Grace, and she was followed down the whole of Southampton Street, with the acclamations of her new admirers.” By the twelfth Georgiana could no longer endure it and informed the Duke that she was leaving London to stay with her mother in St. Albans.
Lady Spencer was relieved when her daughter finally listened to her plea to stop canvassing. In October 1774 she herself had come in for some teasing from the press for her successful canvass in Northampton, provoking great amusement among the family: Lord Spencer thought it was a great joke. “Have you seen all the compliments, abuse and satire in the London newspapers upon her and Mrs Tollemache canvassing?” he asked Georgiana.20 But he had belonged to a generation which still regarded the daily reporting of events as something of a novelty. When he was a young man editors faced the risk of arrest if they reported parliamentary debates. This had not been the case since 1774. Now, the mass circulation of newspapers and political cartoons which together reached several hundred thousand readers each week ensured that the views, appearance, and debating style of all the major political figures were familiar around the country. When Baron Archenholtz visited England he was surprised by the silence which reigned in clubs, inns, and coffee houses while men read the papers. Like other foreign visitors, he was also deeply impressed by the political knowledge shown by ordinary people; such free and informal debates were not common on the Continent.
“The Two Patriotic Duchess’s on Their Canvass,” April 3, 1784. Georgiana is shown kissing a butcher while slipping him money. Another butcher rejects the Duchess of Portland’s advances. Rowlandson. BM Cat 6494.
“The Chairing of Fox,” April 12, 1784. A Whig cartoon depicting Georgiana, Harriet, and either the Duchess of Portland or Lady Archer chairing Fox through Westminster. BM Cat. 6524.
The surge in newspaper reporting since the 1770s had been accompanied by a greater boldness when it came to ridiculing public figures. This was partly because both the government and opposition were prepared to pay newspaper editors handsomely for attacking their opponents. (Lord Shelburne’s ministry lasted less than a year, but still managed to spend almost £2,000 on bribes to pamphleteers and editors.)21 The government poured money into anti-Fox and anti-Georgiana propaganda. Its tame editors on newspapers such as the Morning Herald printed as many nasty stories about her as possible, and print sellers who were close to the government sold thousands of cartoons attacking her campaign. On April 3 print shops were displaying a new and particularly offensive set of cartoons depicting Georgiana in a lewd embrace with a Westminster trades-man. Those who balked at paying a shilling could see the drawings in coffee houses, gentlemen’s clubs, barber shops, taverns, and ale houses. Some print sellers had crossed the line between satire and pornography and were simply using Georgiana as an excuse for titillation.
In a world which prized female modesty Georgiana’s drubbing by the press shamed her family. It was not the fact of her canvassing but her method, which was too free and easy, too masculine. Lady Spencer had not objected when her daughters trooped off to Northampton to campaign for George: there they had conducted themselves in a seemly manner.22 “There is a dignity and delicacy which a woman should never depart from,” Lady Spencer told Harriet. “I know it has been from the best intention you have both been led to take the part you have done, but let this be a lesson to you . . . never to go in any matter beyond the strictest rules of propriety.”23 Even Mrs. Montagu, a champion of women’s education as well as a member of the Blue Stocking Circle, thought Georgiana had gone too far: “The Duchess of Devonshire has been canvassing in a most masculine manner, and has met with much abuse.” But her disapproval of Georgiana did not affect her own activities on behalf of Pitt: “I hope we shall succeed at York and in the country. I have done my endeavours where I had the smallest interest and my men will all be Pittite.”24 Mary Hamilton recorded in her diary that she had “met the Dss of Devonshire in her Coach with a mob round her, canvassing in the Strand for Mr Fox. What a pity that any of our sex should ever forget what is due to female delicacy. The Scenes the Dss has been in lately, were they noted down, would not gain credit by those not in London at the time of the Election.”25
St. Albans was a safe haven where Georgiana could forget the recent scenes at Covent Garden. The scent of pot pourri and wood fires replaced the odour of urine and rotting food which pervaded the backstreets of Westminster. However, shortly after her arrival she received a summons from the party. They wanted her to return immediately. As it turned out, she had left just as votes were shifting away from Wray and in favour of Fox. The Duchess of Portland wrote, “I am happy to tell you of our success today for Westminster—we beat them by forty-five, which has put us into great spirits, you may believe. Everybody is so anxious for your return that I do hope you will come to town at the latest tomorrow evening; for if we should lose this at last, they will think it is owing to your absence.”26
Lady Spencer could scarcely believe the effrontery of the Cavendishes, or their willingness to sacrifice Georgiana’s health and reputation for political ends. She wrote a sharp reply, her bitterness heightened by the knowledge that if her husband were alive they would not treat the Spencer name in so cavalier a fashion. Georgiana did not wish to return; she was not convinced that her efforts had been the cause of Fox’s change in fortune. Her refusal horrified the Whig grandees; as far as they were concerned, the success of the election depended upon her presence. The Duke of Portland humbled himself to make a personal plea:
The state of the Polls for these last two days is a better argument than any other I can give you for refusing to concur in your opinion of yourself. Every one is convinced that your Exertions have produced the very material alteration which has happened in Fox’s favour, and will continue to preserve and improve it into a decisive victory, but be assured that if . . . a suspicion should arise of your having withdrawn yourself from the Election, a general languor would prevail, Despondency would succeed, and the Triumph of the Court would be the inevitable consequence. However it may seem, depend upon it, that this Representation is not exaggerated.27
Lord John Cavendish wrote directly to Lady Spencer on behalf of the Cavendishes to apologize for the treatment of her daughters. “It was entirely to be imputed to some injudicious advisers who conducted them in an absurd and improper manner.” But he was also blunt in claiming that “the censure and abuse has already been incurred; and that if any votes are lost for want of similar application” Georgiana would be blamed. He promised her that they had changed their methods: “the Ladies go early in the mornings to such persons as they are told are likely to be influenced by them, and talk to them at their coach doors, after which they go to a shop that over looks the polling place and look out of the window and encourage their friends.”28 He also promised that the party would mount a better defence of Georgiana; henceforth no libel would go unchallenged.
Reluctantly, Lady Spencer allowed her daughter to set off in her coach back to London. Lord John Cavendish’s assurances had not convinced either of them. “You cannot conceive how vexed I am at the newspaper abuse,” Georgiana told her brother. She begged him not to read the lurid stories they printed about her or, if he did, not to believe them. She blamed the Portlands for forcing her to canvass in the first place, and cited their letters as justification for her return.29 But even though she hated to be a figure of ridicule, she longed for the theatre and excitement of mass canvassing. St. Albans had been a welcome rest for a few days but the election made ordinary life seem insipid.
In Westminster Georgiana ignored orders to remain in her carriage.
She not only chatted with voters and argued cheerfully with them, she also took an interest in their businesses and families. She met their wives and children, became godmother to tens of infants, and impressed the women with her knowledge of such homely matters as nursing and discipline. Her success lay in her ability to empathize with strangers. “I delight myself with the Idea that your unaffected good humour, civility and attention to everyone will draw all hearts towards you,” Lady Spencer acknowledged. She recognized her daughter’s talent and pitied those who “have not that Vivyfying spark of benevolence about them, nor know what it is to love their fellow creatures abstracted.”30 Georgiana also understood the power of money and she went with her friends from shop to shop making enormous purchases, deliberately overpaying while hinting at the promise of more if the proprietors voted for Fox. A visit to the milliners’ shops in Tavistock Street with Harriet and the Ladies Waldegrave turned into a street party, with the shopkeepers hoisting foxskin muffs over their doors as a sign of their support.
The Duchess Page 19
