Two fortuitous events in 1806 or 1807 overturned Harriot's life. She won £10,000 (or a portion of it) in a raffle, and was able to buy a house in Highgate called Holly Lodge, which was later famous for her extravagant parties. The second stroke of fortune came when Thomas Coutts, the banker and the richest man of his day, fell hopelessly in love with her. He lavished expensive gifts upon her, and lifted her and her mother to the dizzy heights of sumptuous living. It was common knowledge that they were soon living together.101 Two circumstances made the liaison particularly distasteful: Mr Coutts was still married, and he was nearly eighty years old. Harriot was in her early thirties. Her reputation never recovered from the malicious gossip which began to circulate. "Society", which consisted of about 300 people in London in those days, looked down its nose at this cheap adventure, and would never, but never, accept Harriot into their hallowed circles, however much money she might have. It has since become clear that the raffle she won was a discreet fiction; the money for Holly Lodge was put up by Coutts.
Mr Coutts's first wife died in 1815, and a few months later he secretly married Harriot. When the news became known, "decent" people felt outraged, though she cared little, for life was pleasant, money was abundant, and she had servants, style, and sequins. Mr Coutts was not a lascivious old man, but a kindly gentleman infatuated with Harriot's theatrical presence; he may even have been stage-struck. One day a jeweller called Mr Hamlet happened to show him a beautiful diamond cross. "How happy I should be with such a splendid specimen of jewellery," said Harriot, now Mrs Coutts, with as much subtlety as she could muster. Mr Coutts asked the jeweller how much it was worth. "I could not part with it for under £15,000," he said. "Bring me pen and ink," said Coutts, who simply wrote out a cheque.102
Thomas Coutts was over ninety when he finally died in 1822 (perhaps later than Harriot might reasonably have expected). His will left the whole of his fortune, about £900,000, to Harriot "for her sole use and benefit, and at her absolute disposal, without the deduction of a single legacy to any other person", although he had three daughters by his first marriage. Again, tongues wagged, but this was not so heartless as it seemed; all three daughters married well, and were comfortable, whereas Harriot had only what he could give her; besides, he trusted her not to forget them, and his trust was proven to be justified.
Three years later the romance with the Duke of St Albans began. To her credit, she did everything to discourage the young man, whose father had been courting her as well. She was a portly middle-aged woman, but with the high spirits and vivacity which in our own day has turned the head of many a young man beguiled by the theatrical manner. Besides, St Albans, who had only recently succeeded to the title, had not much money, and she now had plenty. He proposed in 1826, and she refused him, telling him to ask her again in twelve months' time if he still wanted her. When the year was up, he proposed a second time. She refused, sending her letter with a messenger on horseback. Then she thought better of it, and sent another messenger to catch up with the first and get the letter back.103 The engagement was duly announced.
"The Duke of St Albans is to be married to Mother Coutts on Saturday", wrote Creevey, sardonically.104 In another place he referred to her as "the old Dowager Coutts" and said "a more disgusting, frowsy, hairy old B. could not have been found in the Seven Dials".185 Nevertheless, London society nodded knowingly and looked askance. Broughton said, "There are all sorts of ridiculous stories about the Duke and his marriage, but the baseness is more prominent than the folly of such a transaction",100 and Sir Walter Scott wrote: "If the Duke marries her, he ensures an immense fortune; if she marries him, she has the first rank. The disparity of ages concerns no one but themselves; so they have my consent to marry, if they can get each other's."107 Her stepson-in-law, Sir Francis Burdett, sat up all night before the wedding trying to persuade her not to go through with it.108
Before the ceremony, Harriot's servants wore the Coutts livery. Immediately afterwards they appeared in the St Albans yellow and black stockings.109 He received, as a result of the union, £30,000, plus an estate in Essex valued at £26,000; all his unsettled property was answerable to the Coutts bank for any claims upon it. Lady Holland reflected on the appearance of the couple. The Duke, she wrote, "is rather melancholy ... a handsome face with features quite immoveable, no sort of expression. A large, handsome, dark, fixed, glazed eye. She affected to be very joyous, but I think her gaiety all assumed. It is a strange alliance."110
Strange indeed. The new Duchess took into the marriage the pillow on which old Mr Coutts had expired. She travelled with it everywhere. The pillow and her favourite bible (which had belonged to Coutts) were always in a plain case by her side wherever she went.111 Still she was not accepted in society. She gave marvellous parties in Highgate, at which she hired all the birds from all the bird-dealers in London, and hung them in the grounds of her house, in keeping with her husband's office as Grand Falconer;112 there were similarly extrovert parties at St Albans House in Brighton. But Lady Holland noticed that she was treated with spite. "The ladies did not behave prettily or at all like grandes dames to the Duchess of St Albans. They really shouldered her on their bench. How can women behave so to one another!"113 Creevey professed to be appalled at her squandering of wealth while poor people were starving, and called her "a prodigal fool and devil", but again he was unjust. She was well known to be profusely generous and benevolent, and her kindness to the poor in Highgate is legendary. She never forgot her origins. She once heard that a woman was living in poverty in Brighton, disguised herself and visited her, leaving behind an envelope containing £300.114 If she was cold-shouldered by the nobility, she remained vastly popular with the people. She felt her isolation. "All is coldness, reserve, and universal ennui", she wrote.115 The Queen pointedly omitted her from an invitation to a ball at the Brighton Pavilion at which 830 persons were present; there was hardly anyone of substance left in Brighton who was not invited.116When she fell ill she subsisted for the last two months on arrowroot and a little brandy, and nothing more. She clutched Mr Coutts' pillow to her, and expired on 6th August 1837.117 The English nobility lost a colourful and unlikely member of their ranks. When her will was published those who had scorned and mocked had cause to show remorse. She left to the Duke of St Albans an annuity of £10,000, and two houses (including Holly Lodge). The rest of her vast fortune, now £1,800,000, she left to Miss Angela Burdett, Mr Coutt's grand-daughter. The newspapers gleefully pointed out that this fortune in gold weighed more than thirteen tons, that it would require 107 men to carry it, if each one carried 298 lb. equivalent to a sack of flour, or in sovereigns it would cover more than twenty-four miles and take more than ten weeks to count.118 Angela grew into the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the philanthropist.
The 9th Duke of St Albans, having first seduced a servant-girl, took as his second wife an Irishwoman called Elizabeth Gubbins. The marriage was a disaster as far as the descendants were (and are) concerned, for it is Miss Gubbins who is suspected of having brought insanity into the family. Her brother Charles Gubbins was mad.
For the time being, however, nothing was untoward. They had a son and heir, who succeeded as 10th Duke in 1849, and married Sybil Grey. With the next generation, the wayward seed was apparent. The nth Duke of St Albans (1870-1934) went irretrievably mad, spending the last thirty years of his life locked up in a Sussex clinic. His brother William set fire to a building at Eton and then succumbed to total insanity. It is difficult to say whether this weakness must be traced only to Elizabeth Gubbins; after all, her husband the 9th Duke himself died of an epileptic fit at the age of forty-eight, and, further back, the 6th Duke died of apoplexy of the brain in 1815.
The next Duke was 'Obby', Osborne de Vere Beauclerk, 12th Duke of St Albans, half brother to the nth, and grandson of Elizabeth Gubbins. Though he was always said to be "mad as a hatter" by nearly ever/one who knew him, Obby's eccentricities did not make him certifiable. He never lost sight of the madness which aff
licted both his brothers and was apt to be melancholy at times. Those who remember him (he died in 1964, nearly ninety years old) have a clearer impression of his colourful nonconformity. He proposed appearing at the coronation of 1953, for example, with a live falcon to remind everyone that he was Hereditary Grand Falconer, and when permission was not granted he elected not to go at all. He was a familiar sight in the church near where he lived in Ireland, snoring with a handkerchief over his face, only waking up to contradict the preacher with shouts of "Rubbish!" On a visit to Lord Dunraven, he arrived with a brown paper bag containing pyjamas and a toothbrush.119 And he was known to ask the hall porter at his club to wind his watch for him. There was one occasion when he sat impassively in a hotel restaurant when a fire alarm disturbed him. He refused to move. As waiters tried to get him to escape, he said "Nonsense! Bring me some more toast." "But your Grace's clothes!" exclaimed the manager. "Throw them out of the window," said Obby.
The Duke married but had no children, which was a relief to him, for he feared passing on the hereditary madness. The fear did not extend to illegitimate offspring, of which he mischievously claimed a far greater number than could have been true. He had no time for his successor, the present Duke, whom he invited only once. He used to ask other members of the family to "do something about the heir". When he died it was realised that he had done precious little to protect what remained of the St Albans inheritance, and so passed on to the next duke nothing but death duties. "Bury me where I drop," he used to say.120
The man who succeeded as 13th Duke of St Albans in 1964 was Mr Charles de Vere Beauclerk, a descendant of the 8th Duke who died in 1825, before Miss Gubbins came into the picture. He had a Cambridge M.A. degree, and was decorated for his work in the Intelligence Division during the war with the O.B.E. After that he had a distinguished career in the Civil Service, in the Central Office of Information. He was still there when he became Duke, and did not in fact resign until six months later. He presented the unusual spectacle of a middle-class duke, descended from the coupling of King and Cockney girl, without a landed estate and dependent on a salaried position. He then went into the City, with a variety of companies whose interests include property, travel, advertising and finance. He had the acumen to make himself a millionaire, though he has not escaped some criticism.
The Duke had been married twice, has four sons and a daughter. His duchess is a slightly bohemian figure, born in Malaya and brought up in France, who for many years ran the Upper Grosvenor Art Galleries. The couple lived in a leasehold house in Chelsea, overlooking the Albert Bridge, with four bedrooms. They built on to it an art gallery, which housed the Duke's fine collection of family pictures, assembled mostly by his own efforts, and beautifully lit. They now live in an apartment in Monte Carlo.
What of the St Albans heirlooms? There is the Bishop Juxon ring, given by Charles I just before his execution; some miniatures and jewellery belonging to Nell Gwynn; and an exquisite seal of ivory, in the shape of a falcon, which most probably belonged to the 9th Duke.
The property has all disappeared. Bestwood Park, which had been given to Nell Gwynn and on which had been constructed a house resembling St Pancras Station, was sold in 1940. Holly Lodge, scene of Harriot's parties, was sold by auction in 1906 after the death of Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and since demolished. At one time the Duke tried to buy from Richmond Borough Council the house at Hampton Court which had associations with Nell Gwynn and which was popularly thought to be haunted by her ghost. But the Council demolished it. There is perhaps injustice in all this, as Nell was, after all, the most loyal of Charles's mistresses. She was far too sensible a girl ever to expect justice; she would not have been surprised.
St Albans has inherited from Charles II a jovial nature, easy to laugh and anxious for life to proceed smoothly and happily. If it does not, he is bewildered rather than bitter. He is discomfited by strangers, only at ease when they show they do not expect any special kind of behaviour. He does not take his seat in the Lords, nor possess the coronet and robes to which his rank entitles him. Embarrassment prevents him more than anything else. "I don't enjoy dressing up," he says, and one must agree that the ducal robes would sit uncomfortably on his shoulders. He has a passionate interest in his family and an inalienable fondness for Charles II. The Duke also believes that one of his ancestors, the de Vere Earl of Oxford, was Shakespeare, or part of him. He says that Shakespeare must have been a composite man, a team of lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and men of letters, and that Oxford was part of the team. A portrait of the Earl has pride of place in the Chelsea home.
This genial man is still Grand Falconer of England. But the right to drive down Birdcage Walk,[5] previously shared by the monarch and the Duke, has gone. The rootlessness of the dukedom, deprived of any inherited lands, is a sadness for which the Duke once made symbolic compensation: above the front door of his house in Chelsea, in thick
black letters, was the word st albans.
* * *
It is splendidly apt that the descendants of Louise de Kerouaille - the Dukes of Richmond — should be more closely involved with the political life of the country than any of the other offspring of Charles II, for Louise was the most politically minded of his mistresses, and the very affair which gave birth to the 1st Duke was a successful exercise in political strategy. Not only that, but it is refreshing to find a line which has been universally popular, instead of a clutch of historical references which are derogatory or contemptuous. One welcomes the opportunity to celebrate an exceptional family.
Hervey, whose pen was usually dipped in poison, said of the 2nd Duke that he was "friendly, benevolent, generous, honourable, and thoroughly noble in his way of acting, talking, and thinking".121 Praise from such a quarter is not to be taken for granted.
The story of the 2nd Duke's marriage is one of the strangest recorded. The Duke (1701-11750) was eighteen years old when he married Lady Sarah Cadogan, daughter of the 1st Earl of Cadogan; she was thirteen. The marriage had been arranged to settle a gambling debt between their parents. Immediately after the ceremony the girl was sent back to school and the young man was packed off to the continent with his tutor; he did not set foot in England again for three years. When he did return, he had such an unpleasant memory of his wife that, to avoid her, he spent his first evening at the theatre. There he was captivated on sight by a beautiful girl whom he determined to get to know. He asked who she was, and could he be introduced. "The reigning toast," he was told, "the beautiful Lady March" — his wife. One might say they fell in love at second sight.
From that moment they had an idyllic marriage, sustaining the comfort and excitement of first love all their lives. Long after their children were grown, Walpole saw them at a ball, and wrote: "The Duke sat by his wife all night, kissing her hand."122 She bore him twelve children, most of whom enjoyed the famous Richmond good looks, and was pregnant twenty-seven times. "She has a belly up to her chin", wrote Hervey, "and looks mighty well. His Grace is in great anxiety for her welfare, and a boy."123 At the same ball as that referred to above, "the two beauties were the Duke of Richmond's two daughters, and their mother, still handsomer than they". The daughters continued the romantic traditions of their parents; Lady Caroline Lennox eloped with Henry Fox (later Lord Holland), and Lady Emily married, against advice, the future 1st Duke of Leinster. George III was in love with a third daughter, Lady Sarah, and used to blush whenever he saw her.
The Duke was a member of Parliament (as Lord March), a Knight of the Garter, and a soldier, a fellow of the Royal Society, and President of the Society of Antiquaries. As much as 250 years before the safari park obsession took hold of some noble houses, Richmond established a private zoo at Goodwood, which contained five wolves, two tigers, one lion, two leopards, three bears, monkeys, eagles, and "a woman Tyger" and a "new animal he is very fond of which he calls a mangoose".124 He was free of any snobbery about rank and status which, while not worthy of comment nowadays, was rare enough in the eighteenth
century and was carried almost to revolutionary pitch by his son the 3rd Duke.
When he died he was genuinely lamented. Fielding called him "the late excellent Duke of Richmond". His wife died of grief not long afterwards.
The 3rd Duke of Richmond (1735-1806) was, like his father, of "an amorous disposition" and "a charming fine boy". He was deeply affectionate, and impetuously generous. "His person, manners, and address were full of dignity, and the personal beauty which distinguished Mile de Kerouaille was not become extinct in him." He was "easy and accommodating in his manners and society".125 Yet he is chiefly remembered for his effect on public life. One might almost call him a Socialist, so far in advance of his time were his extremely radical views. He introduced a Bill for Parliamentary Reform which even at the beginning of the twentieth century would have been considered intemperate. In 1730 only one person in six was entitled to vote, and most of the important seats in the House of Commons were within the gift of private landowners. Richmond's Bill proposed that there should be universal suffrage above the age of eighteen (which did not happen until the election of 1970), that elections should be held every June, and that the country should be divided into 558 equally populous districts. The Bill was rejected without a division.
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