The King's Mistress: The True & Scandalous Story of the Woman Who Stole the Heart of George I

by Gold, Claudia

  She recovered, and by May 1725 was able to intercede for Bolingbroke again. His situation changed and the king was persuaded that he could own and inherit property in England once more, although he remained without his seat in the House of Lords and his title. Contemporaries were convinced that George had arrived at this decision because Bolingbroke had bribed Melusine with the incredible sum of £11,000 – roughly one and a half million pounds in today’s money.

  Bolingbroke rightly blamed Walpole for his only partial restitution; Walpole was concerned that Bolingbroke would stir up trouble and advised George against giving him all he asked. What, then, of the bribe? Did Melusine really receive it, or was the speculation and gossip-mongering unfounded?

  Fabrice, although he mentions other money presents to Melusine, does not mention Bolingbroke’s gift. This does not mean that it was not made, only that no sources have been found. Coxe was convinced of it and quotes Reverend Henry Etough, Robert Walpole’s chaplain and the author of an early biography of the minister. Etough’s minutes of a conversation with Walpole record:

  [Bolingbroke] gained the duchess of Kendal by a present of £11,000 and obtained a promise to use her influence over the king for the purpose of forwarding his complete restoration. Harcourt, with her co-operation, seems principally to have managed this delicate business; and as at this period Townshend was reconciled to Melusine, it was probably owing to her interest that he was induced to move the king to grant a pardon to Bolingbroke . . .9

  Others thought that young Melusine was involved, and handled the gift on her mother’s behalf. A nineteenth-century historian, Thomas Macknight, argued: ‘The money was paid through William Chetwynd to Lady Walsingham, the niece of the duchess, who had assuredly an itching palm.’ He cited Coxe’s examination of the Walpole correspondence.10

  Another strange rumour persisted after George’s death, told by Horace Walpole. He reported that Bolingbroke was convinced George meant to replace Walpole, whom he trusted implicitly, with Bolingbroke, who had served the Pretender so closely. It was Melusine, he argued, who brought about the private meeting between rehabilitated traitor and monarch.

  According to Coxe: ‘Not long before his [Walpole’s] death he said to his son, “Horace, when I am gone, you will find many curious papers in the drawer of this table,” and mentioned, among others, the memorial which had been drawn up by Bolingbroke, and presented by the duchess of Kendal to the king . . .’11

  Bolingbroke was erroneously convinced that George was ready to sack Walpole and make him prime minister. He believed he had such influence with Melusine that she would move heaven and earth to make it happen. Coxe reproduced Etough’s intriguing report of a conversation with Walpole where he totally dismissed Bolingbroke’s claims. It makes for fascinating reading:

  I had an opportunity for full conversation with Sir Robert Walpole. I mentioned then to him, Bolingbroke’s reports, of his often attending the late king at supper, and of his interest being so prevailing, that it was with the utmost importunity and address, he persuaded the king to defer the making him prime minister, till he returned from Hanover. He condescended to give me this explanation. He said lying was so natural to St. John [Bolingbroke], that it was impossible for him to keep within the bounds of truth. He might truly boast of his prospects, for they were very great; though things were not so fixed and near as he pretended. He had the entire interest of the duchess of Kendal, and having this, what consequences time would probably have produced, required no explanation. St. John, he averred, had only been once with the king, which was owing to his importunity.

  The king had given Sir Robert a memorial [memo] of St. John’s [Bolingbroke], consisting of three sheets of paper. He observed the cover was not sealed, and therefore the deliverer of it must certainly know from whence it came, and perhaps the contents. On the two Turks disclaiming all knowledge of the affair, he went to the duchess of Kendal, who owned the part she had acted . . . St. John, in this address, had desired an audience, and undertook, if admitted, to demonstrate the kingdom must shortly be ruined, if Sir Robert Walpole continued prime minister. Sir Robert Walpole himself, humbly and earnestly desired he might be admitted; he told the king, if this was not done, the clamour would be, that he kept him to himself, and would allow none to come near him, to tell the truth. This was repeated to the duchess, who promised her interest with the king.

  When Sir Robert next attended her grace, she said the king was averse to seeing St. John, taking for granted, it must make you uneasy. He replied, he could not be easy till St. John was admitted. This was so much pressed, that he was soon after gratified with an audience. Lord Lechmere happened to come upon business at the same time, he enquired who was in the closet; he heard Walpole was also at court: he then imagined him to be sole director. Fully possessed with this conceit, he went in to the king. He began with reviling Walpole, as not being contented with doing mischief himself, but introducing one who was, if possible, much worse; and thus he departed, without offering the papers to be signed, which he brought as chancellor of the duchy. This diverted the king extremely, who made it the subject of conversation, when sir Robert waited on him; he slightly mentioned St. John’s demonstrations, and called them bagatelles.

  I have been thus minute and exact, because St. John and his friends have made the thing surer and more immediate, than can be justified from reality. On the other side, some of the great man’s nearest relations and friends have deemed it as groundless, and have thought fit to represent him as under no sort of apprehension from his rival. I will therefore repeat what he said several times, and particularly at the end of the conversation, which was nearly in these words. ‘As he had the duchess entirely on his side, I need not add, what must or might in time have been the consequence. He informed me the same day, that the bill in favour of St. John, is wholly to be ascribed to the influence of the duchess. Either the present Viscount Chetwind, or his brother William, conveyed eleven thousand pounds from St. John’s lady to lady Walsingham, the duchess’s niece.’12

  It is highly unlikely that George would ever have admitted Bolingbroke into his ministry, and certainly not as his chief minister. George never forgot a misdemeanour and he could not forgive Bolingbroke, however talented and useful he might have been to him, for having made contact with the Pretender in 1714, despite his subsequent rehabilitation. George would have been unable to trust him. Furthermore he and Walpole worked well together; despite their differences, George had admired him as a politician since he came to the throne in 1714. He was well aware of Walpole’s command of the House of Commons and the expediency of working with him.

  Moreover Bolingbroke was a fantasist, although in his defence he may have been misled by Melusine. It is quite conceivable that when the bribe was offered, she accepted it with the intention of doing only a minimal amount for him. She may have felt that she had done her duty by Bolingbroke by arranging a meeting for him with George, and knowing George’s favourable feelings towards Walpole, which she shared, did not push it further.

  Bolingbroke was bitter for the rest of his life, and directed his animosity towards Walpole in the opposition newspaper, The Craftsman. But he continued to believe that had it not been for Walpole’s intercession, he would have been George’s chief adviser because of Melusine’s good offices. In a rather unhinged letter of vitriol directed towards Walpole, he wrote to Sir William Wyndham in 1736:

  . . . Though the late king durst not support me openly against his ministers, he would have plotted with me against them, and we should have served him, our country, and ourselves, by demolishing that power that is become tyranny in the paws of the greatest bear, and the greatest jackanapes upon earth . . . I know not whether you may judge as despondingly as I do, concerning the present state of our constitution. But be pleased to dwell in your thoughts one moment on these short and obvious reflexions. The corruption now employed is at least as dangerous as the prerogative formerly employed . . .13

  15.

&nbs
p; Diplomacy

  The good duchess . . . [our] fast friend

  – Townshend to Walpole on their friendship with Melusine

  With the crisis of the South Sea Bubble behind her and the familial breach healed, Melusine was at the height of her influence. She had become the main conduit to George, and she would remain so from 1722 until his death in 1727. As Beattie explains:

  After the establishment of the Walpole ministry she looms large in the correspondence of Townshend, Newcastle [Secretary for the South from 1724] and Walpole. She became an invaluable intermediary for them with the king, and though her assistance does not of course explain Walpole’s success, her management of George I and her help in securing the closet undoubtedly helped to establish and maintain Walpole’s strong and stable administration . . .1

  The French ambassador, Count Broglio, acknowledged her huge importance in his missives to Louis XV:

  As the duchess of Kendal seemed to express a desire to see me often, I have been very attentive to her; being convinced that it is highly essential to the advantage of your majesty’s service to be on good terms with her, for she is closely united with the three ministers who now govern [Walpole, Townshend and Newcastle]; and these ministers are in strict union together, and are as far as I can judge, well inclined . . .2

  Broglio also gives us fascinating information regarding Georg August’s position after the family split:

  The Prince of Wales endeavours to obtain information of what passes, from persons who are attached to him; but he learns nothing either from the king, the duchess [Melusine], or the ministers. The king goes every afternoon at five o’clock to the duchess, the ministers occasionally attend; and it is there that affairs which require secrecy are treated . . .3

  Later in the month, Broglio continued, intriguingly: ‘I am convinced that she [Melusine] may be advantageously employed in promoting your majesty’s service, and that it will be necessary to employ her; though I will not trust her further than is absolutely necessary . . .’4 Melusine’s first loyalty, he noted, would always be to George.

  Melusine enjoyed George’s complete confidence, and for the last five years of his reign we see him entrusting her with diplomacy and his most private affairs to an extent that he never had before. She figured regularly in the correspondence of foreign diplomats in London, not only that of Count Broglio, but also in the letters of Pozobueno, the Spanish ambassador, and Karl Josef von Palm, the Imperial resident to his master the Emperor. It is Palm’s letters that show us Melusine’s high standing with the Empress, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel: Melusine frequently corresponded with her as a way of enabling the Emperor and George to exchange views through discreet diplomatic back channels. In an interesting twist, Elisabeth Christine was the granddaughter of Anton Ulrich, who had fought so hard to undermine George’s family’s claim to the electoral cap. Had he succeeded, Melusine would have simply been the mistress of a minor German prince, and in no position to correspond with the Empress.

  Here Melusine can be seen acting in a traditional queenly role as she pursued gentle, ‘feminine’, diplomacy. It was Melusine, for instance, who handled much of the correspondence with Charles Whitworth, the British envoy to Prussia – logical perhaps, as she was young Sophia Dorothea’s regular correspondent. In May 1721 she wrote to Whitworth regarding the dismissal of George’s Prussian granddaughter Wilhelmine’s governess, Miss Letti, a very intimate family matter:

  I have not omitted to mention to the king the subject of your letter . . . He agrees with the reasons to dismiss Mme Letti and his Majesty is totally in agreement with the queen [Sophia Dorothea, queen of Prussia]. To tell you sir that I have never regarded Miss Letti as a person well qualified especially to raise a princess and I am ecstatic that in her place you have chosen Mme Sonsfeld . . . I have the honour to know her and I have always regarded her with good feeling and I am persuaded that the court will never regret the choice.5

  According to Wilhelmine’s memoirs, Miss Letti was something of a sadist and would regularly beat her, either on her own initiative or acting on Sophia Dorothea’s orders. Miss Letti was also a protégée of Sophia Charlotte’s, which may have had something to do with Melusine’s approving her dismissal. After leaving the Prussian court, however, Miss Letti turned up in England, where Sophia Charlotte gave her a pension.

  Melusine wrote to Whitworth later in the month, assuring him of George’s high regard for him: ‘that one could not be more in his majesty’s favour than you are now and the full confidence that the king has in you . . .’6

  And such was George’s confidence in Melusine that in 1722 he persuaded the Emperor to honour her with the position of Princess of the Holy Roman Empire. The Daily Journal reported: ‘The Duchess of Kendal, Countess of Schulenburg, is, of the Emperor’s free inclination, advanced to the Dignity of a Princess of the Empire, without any charge.’7

  But the relationship was not always entirely harmonious. We have at least one example of George losing his temper with Melusine. Worried for his health, she objected to his excessive drinking with Robert Walpole in Richmond Park:

  where the king after shooting . . . passed the afternoon drinking punch, of which he was excessively fond, in an easy and convivial manner. The duchess [Melusine], alarmed at this familiar intercourse, and anxious to render these visits less frequent, attempted, by means of some of her German friends, who were generally of the party, to break up the meeting sooner than the usual time of retiring; but their attempts having no effect . . .8

  George was furious.

  It was during the visit to Hanover in 1723 that Melusine’s mutually rewarding relationship with the ministerial triumvirate – Walpole, Townshend and Newcastle – really came to fruition and worked in her favour to save her relationship with George.

  Sophia Charlotte’s sister-in-law, Sophie Karoline von Platen (she had married Sophia Charlotte’s brother, Ernst August von Platen in 1697), had remained in Hanover, despite her husband’s departure with George for England in 1714. They had separated some time before, and the countess preferred to stay in Hanover. As we have seen, contemporaries and later gossips such as Horace Walpole believed that when George came to England he had Sophie Karoline von Platen as one of his three mistresses, along with Melusine and Sophia Charlotte. They speculated that Sophie Karoline had only stayed behind in Hanover because she was Catholic, and was concerned that the ‘militant’ Protestant English might treat her badly.

  George’s payment of Sophie Karoline’s daughter Amalie’s dowry added fuel to the rumours that she was one of the king’s mistresses, although as Hatton points out, George may have paid it because her husband was a trusted servant. It is more likely, however, that George paid the sum because he believed von Platen to be his half-brother, and Amalie his niece. The fact that von Platen was christened Ernst August makes it probable that he was another of the old Elector’s children with his mistress, Klara.

  George was very fond of Sophie Karoline. She was the niece of his old governess, Katharine von Harling, and as such George had known her for much of his life. Katharine was one of the Electress Sophia’s dearest friends, and young Sophie Karoline must have been a part of the family’s intimate circle. Clavering’s letter to his sister Mary Cowper illustrates how Sophie Karoline disliked Melusine and was extremely jealous of her status at court. She was two years younger than Melusine and probably felt usurped by her lightning establishment as George’s mâitresse en titre so soon after her arrival at the Hanoverian court in 1690.

  1723 saw one of the longest sojourns of the reign in Germany, partly because George took the opportunity to make his only visit to Prussia to see his daughter and son-in-law. The party began at Bad Pyrmont to rest and revitalize, then moved to Herrenhausen, followed by Göhrde, then Hanover. Melusine entertained lavishly at all of their homes, particularly at Göhrde, where the hunting made it a favourite because George was at his most relaxed.

  George and Melusine were accompanied by Geor
ge’s secretaries of state, Townshend and Carteret. After the deaths of Stanhope and Sunderland, Carteret had become the nominal leader of their Whig followers, and this faction was often at odds with Walpole and Townshend’s group within the party. In Hanover events came to a head as Melusine championed Walpole and Townshend against Carteret. Sophie Karoline was the catalyst.

  Carteret, mistakenly perceiving Sophie Karoline’s influence with George to be such that if cultivated, it could rival Melusine’s, sought to bring her to England. The plan prompted a flurry of letters between Walpole and Townshend, determined to keep her out.

  At the end of August 1723, Walpole wrote to Townshend from London:

  Another report that has obtained very much is, that lord Carteret had endeavoured or procured the bringing over the countesse of Platen into England. ’Tis great pity, my lord, that some check cannot be given to these proceedings, which although they may seem trivial have their ill effects . . . And I find these reports are not confined to England; but my son [Horace Walpole], who returned hither last night from Paris, tells me . . . the lady’s journey is received there as a settled point . . .9

  Townshend however was able to reassure him at the beginning of September that: ‘Count Lippe’s story of the countess of Platen is certainly a lie. I am informed from very good hands, that she has not the least thought of going for England . . .’10

  To gain Sophie Karoline’s favour, Carteret attempted to raise the rank of Amalie’s prospective in-laws. Amalie’s fiancé was Henri Philippeaux, comte St Florentin, son of the marquis de la Vrillière. Now Carteret lobbied hard to have the de la Vrillières raised to the rank of duc et pair, or ‘Peer of France’. This was the highest honour below that of the king and it was bestowed on only a very few of the nobility. Carteret’s attempts however failed. (He was aided by Sir Luke Schaub, one of George’s diplomats.) Louis XV evidently felt too much pressure, and George found himself embarrassed;11 whereupon Carteret’s standing with George fell somewhat, to the delight of a gleeful Walpole and Townshend.