The Duchess

by Amanda Foreman

  Oh my beloved, my adored departed mother, are you indeed forever parted from me—Shall I see no more that angelic countenance or that blessed voice—You whom I loved with such tenderness, you who were the . . . best of mothers, Adieu—I wanted to strew violets over her dying bed as she strewed sweets over my life but they would not let me.49

  EPILOGUE

  For no less than 33 years have we seen [the Duchess of Devonshire] regarded as the glass and model of fashion, and amidst the homage which was paid to her, she moved with a simplicity that proved her to be unconscious of the charm which bound the world to her attraction.

  Morning Chronicle, March 31, 1806

  Wednesday morning, the remains of the Duchess of Devonshire were interred with great funeral pomp in the Family Vault, at St. Stephen’s Church, Derby. The hearse was met 3 miles from Derby by the whole of the County Nobility and the Duke’s tenantry residing there, who conducted the remains to the place of interment.

  The Times, April 10, 1806

  The recollection alone remains, and regrets, never ceasing regrets,” Bess wrote to her son Augustus six weeks after Georgiana’s death. “Regrets only to be equalled by the angelic, the unequalled qualities of the friend of my heart, my dear, my loved, my adored friend. . . . I am and ought to be grateful for the friend that is preserved to me, and for such affectionate sons, but she was the only female friend I ever had. . . .”1

  Bess was alone and unprotected without Georgiana. The day after her death, she wrote in her diary, “we are a family of sufferers.”2 But she was not part of the family and even though she referred to “we” and “our loss,” she was frightened that Georgiana’s children and Lady Spencer would insist on her leaving Devonshire House. Georgiana’s body lay in state for five days beneath the gaze of an unending file of mourners. On April 5 the lid was hammered into place and the coffin removed from the Great Hall. “I am no longer calm,” Bess wrote in her diary, “no longer soothed. I cannot describe my own feelings.” A few hours later, she scribbled:

  We have seen the coffin pass—we have heard the deep sound of the hearse—we saw the long procession leave the Court and pass through the gates of Devonshire House. . . . It is done. It is over. And we have scarcely wept. Involuntarily we kneeled as it passed.

  Never shall I forget Hartington’s look and figure as I saw him in the Great Hall as if to attend on his poor Mother there and then on the steps—fixed without his hat—his innocent, interesting countenance and looks bent to the last on the coffin as it was carried slowly down the steps, and on the Hearse as it was placed within. He did not appear to weep but his whole soul seemed absorbed by what was passing.

  The morning just began to dawn—all was reviving to light and life but her—her who was our light and life.

  Lady Bessborough and I hurried back to my room—our maids brought us something and we parted for the night, but scarcely to sleep, but to think and wonder how we had borne what we have witnessed.3

  The Duke remained in his room, except for one night when, Bess claims, “he was hysterical. I stayed late, very late with him. I then went feebly to my room—when I got there I saw in his anxiety he had followed me.”4 The family abandoned Devonshire House after the departure of Georgiana’s coffin; the children and the Duke went to Chiswick House, Bess to Roehampton with Harriet. In her diary Bess wrote that she had had an “interesting conversation” with Little G and Harryo. Georgiana’s children were undecided as to how to treat her. Hart wrote to Little G after an inconclusive discussion: “Perhaps you understood more than I meant today about the person we talked of. I only think that as she has been calumniated, some little care ought to be taken and difference made at a time when her enemies would talk more. If she does that I shall be the first to pay her every respect and attention.”5

  Georgiana had anticipated that her death would jeopardize Bess’s situation at Devonshire House, not to mention that of Clifford and Caroline St. Jules. To safeguard her friend, she had made Bess the sole guardian of her papers, ensuring that Bess would remain indispensable to the family—at least for a while. “Lady Elizabeth has you know the care of all papers and letters entrusted to her—it was her particular wish,” Little G wrote in bewilderment to her mother-in-law, Lady Carlisle. Georgiana had left behind thousands of letters: it would take weeks, if not months, to sort through them, and Bess had absolute discretion to do as she pleased with every one. The importance of Georgiana’s gift did not escape her, nor did it leave the family in any doubt as to Georgiana’s wishes concerning Bess. For perhaps the only time in their acquaintance, Bess made a special attempt to be sensitive to Lady Spencer and refrained from making the most of this last victory. On May 8 she sent Lady Spencer a lock of Georgiana’s hair curled inside a piece of paper which read: “Dear Madam, The enclosed paper is the only thing that I can take the liberty of asking you to accept.” Lady Spencer’s reply has not survived.

  There is no doubt that Bess arranged Georgiana’s papers to suit herself, selectively destroying or preserving letters to leave a record that was detrimental to Georgiana’s reputation and beneficial to hers. She was not being deliberately unfaithful to Georgiana; she was simply incapable of behaving in any other manner. Her grief was real. In July she wrote to Augustus, who was in America: she felt numb, she said, although Dr. Farquhar had told her “it was always so” after terrible shock. “She is so present to me,” she continued, “and I am so constantly occupied by her that I feel as if she was absent on a journey and I catch myself saying, ‘I’ll tell her this.’ ”6 Georgiana was “the constant charm of my life. She doubled every joy, lessened every grief. Her society had an attraction I never met with in any other being. Her love for me was really ‘passing the love of woman.’ ”7 But now that Georgiana was gone there were no further impediments to Bess taking her place.

  Events overtook the children’s desire for Bess to leave Devonshire House. First Clifford came home on leave from the navy, then Hart fell ill and Bess offered to nurse him. The Duke naturally found that he could not do without Bess to look after him. Then Charles Fox developed dropsy in August and his condition became so serious that the Duke offered him Chiswick House as a quiet refuge from London. Bess made all the arrangements concerning the servants, and took it upon herself to issue bulletins to the public about his health. “She is a disgusting beast,” raged Lavinia, who was furious at the way Bess had succeeded in taking centre stage.8 Bess was also among those present when Fox died on September 13, 1806, just six months after Georgiana’s death: (“It don’t signify, my dearest, dearest Liz,” were his last words, addressed to his wife.) She also attended Fox’s funeral and sat with Georgiana’s children while the Duke performed his duty as one of the eight pall-bearers. The cabinet and over a hundred MPs followed the coffin from St. James’s to Westminster Abbey. Thousands lined the streets and, unlike that at Pitt’s state funeral, the crowd was silent and well behaved.9 Four months later the King dismissed the coalition after it attempted to grant Irish Catholics the right to hold officer rank in the army. The Whigs did not form another government until Grey became Prime Minister in 1830.

  Bess remained at Devonshire House after Fox’s death; her manner subtly changed, as if Georgiana had bequeathed to her not only all her papers but her position too. In November Harryo informed Little G that Bess was shameless in her “laying down the law when Lord M. and you are away.”10 It also annoyed her to watch Bess exact her petty revenge on Selina, “forcing her to say things that she may dispute them.” Worst of all, she had to watch Bess usurping her mother’s place: by rights Harryo should have sat at the head of the table. “Lady E. F. is very disagreeable in doing the honours instead of me,” she told Little G; “which for every reason in the world is painful to me.”11 Harryo feared a confrontation with Bess; Caroline, Harriet’s daughter, however, had no compunction in goading her when the opportunity arose. According to Harryo’s letter of November 19,

  Caroline began last night, before the Bessboroughs and a
ll of us assembled, reading out loud a letter of Madame de Maintenon, in which she excuses her conduct towards Louis and says, “si je ne vais dans sa chambre, à qui pourrait il confier ses secrets.”* or words to that effect, and describing in short scenes too like what we are so often witnessing. This was to lead to every sort of question to Lady E., whether Madame de Maintenon was right in her conduct, whether she was ambitious or only making generous sacrifices, etc. I fancied Lady E. was embarrassed.12

  Bess was not so embarrassed by Caroline that she altered her behaviour. Sheridan, who had always been able to see through her, told people that “Bess had cried to him because she ‘felt it her severe duty to be the Duchess of Devonshire.’ ”13 She indignantly denied the story; however, his comments made her more careful. A year later Little G felt obliged to write to Hart, asking him not to avoid his father because of Bess’s presence. “She behaves better than I expected and does not assume so much as I feared, tho’ too much a great deal, but that must be in the situation in which she has chosen to place herself. . . . I feel all her conduct and hate it as you do, but I wish you to behave towards and concerning her as Harryo does, never giving her a handle against you or a just cause of complaint to my father.”14

  The only person who took Bess’s side was Harriet. But even she hoped that Bess would not try to marry the Duke and usurp Georgiana’s place as the Duchess of Devonshire. “Tho’ we have no right to expect it,” she admitted. Georgiana’s death had destroyed something vital in Harriet: “no one knows, G,” she told Leveson Gower, “not even you—how I suffer.” One night she stayed up late reading Georgiana’s letters; the painful recollection of her voice made Harriet realize “it will be long, long before that wound would heal. . . . I take this bitter misfortune as a punishment to me and a release to [Georgiana]. The latter miserable years of her life and her agonising death were, I hope and trust, the retribution and full atonement of her errors . . . but while I acknowledge the justice of the blow that kills me, I sink under its severity.”15 The worst part was having her memory of her sister’s last years sullied by Hecca Sheridan’s revelation that Grey had been her lover.16

  Grey shamefacedly visited Harriet on August 19, 1807. “I could not resist reproaching him bitterly for what I think from first to last abominable conduct,” Harriet wrote after the interview. “I never saw such violence; he beat his head, call’d himself by a thousand harsh names, cried and threw himself at my feet. It was impossible not to be agitated by such a scene. . . .” She blamed herself for having been deceived by Grey’s manner. “I admired too much one, who, whatever he is among Men, is anything but honourable among women, or classes them low indeed in society.” Harriet was almost prepared to forgive him, but he ruined his tearful apology by grasping her knees, “and then when I least dreamt of it clasp’d me in his Arms,” and tried to kiss her. “I am asham’d of it for him, and for myself. I cannot account for it: was it resentment at my just indignation for his conduct to her, and did he take this strange way of marking? It is impossible a man of common decency should not know . . .”17

  Two years after Harriet learned how Grey had betrayed Georgiana, she heard more distressing news. In Autumn 1809 Bess and the Duke announced their engagement. Harriet tried hard to forgive her, telling Leveson Gower:

  I really love Bess, and think she has many more good and generous qualities than are allowed her, but I think she has the worst judgement of any body I ever met with; and I begin to think she has more Calcul, and more power of concentrating her wishes and intentions, than I ever before believ’d. In the midst of all this I have a distressing letter from my Mother, who from something W. Spencer said has taken alarm, and is coming up to Town with the intention of consulting my Brother upon laying down some plan for our whole family to follow in case of such an event having taken place and having to be declar’d. If my Mother trusted to herself alone she would do as I do, grieve over what renews so painfully former recollections, but no more; but I know my Brother’s opinion, sway’d by Ly Spencer, and Ly Morpeth too, and seems to intimate that on such an event all connection should cease between Devonshire House and us, and Harriet quit her Father. This I highly disapprove of. Yes, Dear G., I shall stand alone against my whole family and her [Georgiana’s] children as favouring an event which God knows pains me more than any I believe, and taking part against them and against the Memory of what I lov’d best on earth. . . .18

  The Duke informed the children and Lady Spencer of the marriage a few days after the event. “I wish you, my Dear Lady Spencer, not to answer this letter,” he wrote on October 17, 1809, “as it must be disagreeable to you to do it, and I shall know by other means whether you approve or disapprove of my conduct.”19 Hart wrote a cold acknowledgement to his father which made no mention of Bess, and a heated letter of complaint to his cousin Lady Caroline Lamb: “Hardly till I see it can I believe that the woman could have the assurance to take that name always so sacred to us, and hence forward to be so polluted.”20 Harryo did not know how she would bear living at Devonshire House with Bess as her stepmother. Fortunately, a suitor stepped forward to ask for her hand. Harryo had been in love with him for some time, but the connection was nevertheless surprising—the suitor was Granville Leveson Gower, Harriet’s lover and father of her two illegitimate children. He was thirty-six and anxious to have a legitimate family of his own. Harriet had accepted that she could not hold him and had given him her blessing to woo Harryo. Her love for him, however, had not diminished and his marriage to her niece caused her intense anguish. “I must put down what I dare tell nobody,” she wrote in 1812. “I have heard or spoke that language [of love] and for 17 years of it lov’d almost to idolatry the only man from whom I could have wish’d to hear it, the man who has probably lov’d me least of all those who have profess’d to do so—tho’ once I thought otherwise.”21

  The Duke made it clear which daughter he preferred—the illegitimate Caroline or the legitimate Harryo—when he decided their marriage portions. In 1809, when Caroline St. Jules married George Lamb, the younger brother of the future Lord Melbourne, the Duke gave them £30,000. A few months later, when Harryo married Leveson Gower, he gave them only £10,000. Bess made no effort to rectify the Duke’s unfairness.

  Although Bess had finally taken Georgiana’s title, she never possessed her popularity or her influence, and the Cavendishes and Spencers were never more than civil to her. Shortly after her marriage she wrote a polite note to Lady Spencer requesting leave to visit, but was refused. “It is needless to say that many very bitter reflections will occur when we meet, which has made me rather wish it might not be just yet,” Lady Spencer replied on December 9, 1809. “But believe me when I assure you that I sincerely hope the latter part of your life may be happier—much happier than the former part of it has been.”22 Eight months later she expressed her feelings more honestly to Harriet: “Pray that this wretched woman may feel and repent, before it is too late, of all the mischief she has done, and among other things that you, my dear Harriet, may no longer be deceived by her.”

  Bess may have indeed repented some of her “mischief ” since the Duke gave her a taste of what Georgiana had experienced for so many years. Shortly before their marriage, he and Bess made friends with a Mrs. Spencer, a young woman who had lived in Germany for most of her life before marrying William Spencer, an impecunious rake on the Churchill side of the Spencer family. Extraordinarily, considering that there had already been two Spencers in the Duke’s life, the couple adopted her as a new companion. As she had no money to speak of, and few relatives living in England, the widow was excessively grateful for any show of friendship. She soon became so attached to the Devonshires that she was one of the few witnesses at their wedding. But afterwards Harryo remarked that her father’s phaeton was seen outside Mrs. Spencer’s door every day, “sometimes till past 8.” “Can the Duchess like this?” she asked. “Especially after having made Mrs. S. her Cat’s Paw and therefore put herself under obligations to her.”23<
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  The Duke did not live long enough for Mrs. Spencer to become a serious threat to Bess. He died on July 29, 1811. Bess, however, was not ready to relinquish the fruits of her campaign. She demanded money and jewels from Hart, and even insisted that the Duke had written a secret codicil which gave her Chiswick for life. To support her claims, Bess announced the true paternity of Caroline and Clifford—a shocking act in eighteenth-century society—and tried to insist that Clifford had the right to use the Cavendish arms. There were ugly rows between herself and the Cavendishes which, to her embarrassment, somehow found their way to the public. Finally, at the end of the year Hart bribed Bess to leave in “a single week” with a generous ex gratia settlement on herself and his two half-siblings. Bess moved out of Chiswick and built a small house in Richmond. She divided her time between there and a house in London, 13 Piccadilly Terrace, where she entertained with great formality as Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire. But she was restless and dissatisfied with her new life. After five years of respectable widowhood she packed up her belongings and moved to Rome. An old acquaintance of Georgiana’s, Sir William Gell, visited her there:

  There is an instance for example, where charm of countenance and of manner fascinate, and make one like her, despite all that has been reported of her character. Her room is filled with books, and literature is now the pursuit in which she takes, or pretends to take, an interest. I suspect, she is come to that time when nothing of this world’s amusements can charm; she has tasted pleasure in all its varieties; she has drunk it to the very dregs; and the lees are bitter. If there be a source of interest to her, it is the Cardinal.24