The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home

by Natalie Livingstone

Johan de Witt’s rule was brought to a bloody end in 1672. This was Holland’s rampjaar or ‘disaster year’, in which England and France, recently allied by the Secret Treaty of Dover, mounted a vicious onslaught against Holland by land and sea. The crisis increased public support for the House of Orange, who were associated with the successful defence of the Republic against the Habsburg Crown during the Eighty Years War. De Witt was butchered by an Orangist militia, and his body torn up by a mob on the flagstones of the Buitenhof, a public square in the Hague. William took the opportunity to seize power as stadtholder, styling himself as the defender of the liberties of the nation. Despite such domestic upheavals, the power and prosperity of the Dutch Republic continued to increase. While other states such as Britain, France, and Spain had been weakened by their own bouts of civil strife, the Dutch Republic had boomed, becoming the centre of a global empire.

  If Elizabeth Villiers found the transition to life in a new country challenging, the prospect of becoming first lady of this Republic was frankly overwhelming for Mary. Her fear and anxiety would have undoubtedly been exacerbated by English prejudice against the Dutch. The typical Dutchman of English popular imagination was an uncouth, obese slob, drunk on gin and lighting the next pipe with the smouldering remains of the last. The Dutch practice of building polders to defend and reclaim land from the sea was the source of another commonplace insult: that the Dutch were amphibian creatures, inhabitants of a watery land of infirm structure. The Andrew Marvell poem The Character of Holland, which was written for Cromwell in 1651 and republished during subsequent Dutch wars, featured a classic expression of this slur: ‘Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land/As but th’off-scouring of the British sand …/ This indigested vomit of the sea / Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.’14

  Mary spent her first few months in Holland living in the Palace of Honselaarsdijk, only a short journey from The Hague, which was the location of the Orangist Court and the States General. Honselaersdyck was an austere grey stone building constructed around a central courtyard and surrounded by a formal garden. It was isolated, with ornamental water separating the garden from the village beyond. The interior of the house was imposing – the upstairs gallery had windows reaching to the ground, pilastered walls, a gilded ceiling and a chimney piece by Rubens of Diana with a hound, a lion and a tiger. In the great gallery, the coving was decorated with groups of figures on balconies, playing music or occupying themselves with domestic tasks.15 The formality and seclusion of Honselaersdyck made Mary yearn for the cosy informality of Richmond. Early in her marriage, she suffered a succession of miscarriages, which only intensified her misery. The wives of rulers were under extreme pressure to produce an heir and the distress of a miscarriage must have been made even worse by the weight of expectation.

  William’s new wife was introduced to the people of The Hague on 14 December 1677. Church bells rang and guns were fired as they drove towards the city in a gilded coach drawn by six piebald horses, and in the evening, fireworks were let off. The day finished with feasting, and a commemorative medal was struck with a portrait of William on one side and Mary on the other. But despite all the festivities, William of Orange was also already suffering under the strain of the marriage. Not only was he frustrated by his wife’s inability to produce an heir, but he quickly realised that their union would not provide him with the emotional and intellectual sustenance he needed. William was a serious man, whose temperament and health did not sit easily with his position as stadtholder. He suffered from chronic attacks of asthma and a hacking cough, which flared up in crowded rooms, especially when they were candlelit as was then the norm. He disliked the pomp and ceremony associated with court life. The 12-year age gap between the couple made conversation difficult and highlighted Mary’s immaturity and emotional volatility. This was particularly difficult for William, who seems to have sought out an almost motherly attention from his lovers. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that he was drawn into an extramarital dalliance with a mature, emotionally balanced grown-up: Elizabeth Villiers.

  The Villiers sisters had prospered at the Dutch court. The pious and sensitive Anne had married William Bentinck and become a close confidante of Mary. Catherine had become the wife of the Marquis de Puissars, an exiled Huguenot, and was established in a suite of rooms at the Binnenhof, the meeting place for the States General. Elizabeth, meanwhile, had carved out a reputation for herself as a witty conversationalist and practical, clear-headed thinker: William expected the maids of honour to act as unofficial intelligence agents, and with her engaging manner, Elizabeth excelled at picking up nuggets of information from visiting envoys. Already there were complaints that the Villiers family wielded too much influence at court, which intensified, during the visit of the Duke of Monmouth in January 1685, when it became evident that William and Elizabeth were having an affair.

  Though the Whigs had been defeated on the issue of exclusion, Monmouth remained an icon of the alternative Protestant succession. He was forced to leave England, and arrived in Brabant in May 1684. Charles immediately asked William not to receive Monmouth or allow him any military honours, but William and Mary liked their cousin, and believed his assurance that he had no ambition to be King of England.16 The Orange court welcomed him whole-heartedly, throwing lavish entertainments in his honour. Despite his disdain for festivities, William attended several evening parties with his wife and her ladies.

  It was during celebrations in The Hague in 1685 that courtiers observed the frisson between William and the maid of honour, whose strabismus had earned her the cruel nickname ‘Squinting Betty’. Indeed, the Prince of Orange was so captivated by Betty that he barely noticed the intimacy of his wife’s relationship with Monmouth, which was becoming a scandal. William usually did not allow Mary any private visits from either men or women, but the French ambassador reported that the Prince of Orange, ‘the most jealous of men living’, seemed unperturbed by ‘all those airs of gallantry’ between Monmouth and Mary.17 Rumours began to circulate that William was more relaxed than usual because his own attentions were occupied by Elizabeth Villiers.

  Mary’s suspicions about the nature of her husband’s relationship with Elizabeth were encouraged by her nurse Mrs Langford, and her childhood friend Anne Trelawney. William had been staying up late in recent months, claiming to be working at his correspondence; one evening, after pretending to go to bed, Mary waited on the back stairs that led to the apartments of the maids of honour. At two o’clock in the morning, William emerged from the ladies’ quarters to be ambushed by his wife. Enraged and shamed by the indignity of being outsmarted, he embarked on a witch-hunt to hold accountable those who had incited Mary. Mrs Langford and Anne Trelawney were soon discovered, and in the course of the investigation it also transpired that Mary’s chaplain Dr Covell had been reporting Elizabeth’s movements to Bevil Skelton, James II’s ambassador at The Hague. When William ordered Covell’s letters to be intercepted and deciphered, they turned out to contain stories about William, Mary and Elizabeth.18 The affair had become the subject of international gossip. For a private, introspective man like William this was mortifying.

  Confirmation of her husband’s infidelity was one thing, but for Mary to discover that William had been cavorting with Elizabeth, her old childhood friend and maid of honour, was a devastating blow. The girl who had once casually remarked that men were programmed to grow weary of their wives and ‘look for misses as soon as they can get them’ was now forced to confront the harsh reality of having a husband who had done just that.19 ‘I do not now mourn a dead lover, but a false one,’ she wrote to Frances Apsley, adding that she had ‘never known sorrow until now.’20 Burning with the fury of betrayal, Mary ordered Elizabeth back to England.

  Elizabeth arrived back home to a hostile reception from her father, who was enraged that she had tarnished her reputation and ruined her marriage prospects. He insisted she return to Holland immediately and beg forgiveness, and Elizabeth had little choice but to
comply with his wishes. Back in the Dutch Republic, her first port of call was The Hague, where she implored her sister Anne to take her in. But Anne, appalled by the affair, remained staunchly loyal to Mary and refused to speak to her sister.21 It was a crushing snub to Elizabeth; she eventually took refuge with her other sister, Catherine de Puissars.22

  Disgraced, spurned by her family, and forced out of court society, Elizabeth appeared to have little chance of recovering her position. However, events in England would conspire to reverse her fortunes. Charles II died in February 1685, and in April James II was crowned. The cataclysmic events of his reign would place ‘Squinting Betty’ at the centre of political negotiations that would lead her to wealth, status and, ultimately, Cliveden.

  Chapter 2

  THE END OF THE AFFAIR

  TWO MONTHS AFTER the coronation of James II, the Duke of Monmouth landed in Lyme Regis in Dorset with the intention of seizing power from the new Catholic monarch. The insurrection failed to rally the necessary public support and swiftly collapsed. Monmouth was beheaded on Tower Hill by the executioner Jack Ketch, who was infamous for his botched jobs, and took five hacks to remove the rebel duke’s head from his body. It appeared that there was no popular appetite for regime change in the months after James’s coronation. The king had come to the throne at the age of 52, which was elderly by the standards of the time. His two heirs, Anne and Mary, were veritable poster children of Protestantism, and it seemed inevitable that once James’s reign had come to an end, England would again be presided over by a Protestant monarch.

  But initially there was no reason to suppose that such a transition was imminent. At first it seemed that despite his own religious convictions, James would be a moderate ruler. One of his early acts was to promise the Archbishop of Canterbury that he ‘would undertake nothing against the religion which is established by law’. In the first two years of his reign, Catholicism was informally tolerated – people were no longer prosecuted for recusancy (failure to attend Anglican worship) and were allowed to take Mass within their own homes – but in April 1687, this arrangement was formalised in the Declaration of Indulgence, which also abolished religious oaths for those taking government office. For the Church of England, which had long enjoyed protected status, toleration of this kind was seen as an act of aggression. Soon, symbols of Catholic practice – monks and nuns walking in the streets in their habits, bell-ringing for Mass and public processions on high holy days – were once again visible in the streets of England. Catholic officers were able to return to the army and navy, and rumours that formal relations with Rome were to be reopened gathered pace. The visible Catholicisation of England aroused parliamentary concern and popular hysteria. Fears took hold that James’s real ambition was to establish ‘himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law’ so that he could ‘subvert the established Religion, and set up Popery’.1

  The situation was made worse by the news, on 23 December 1687, that the queen was ‘with issue’. If the child were a boy he would become heir apparent ahead of Mary or Anne, and would guarantee a Catholic succession. On the day appointed for celebration of the pregnancy, only two of the Oxford colleges rang their bells; libels circulated, alleging that the pregnancy was fabricated, and that someone else’s child would be smuggled into the royal household in a bedpan. The king was ‘extreamly displeased’ to find one such libel lodged behind the mirror in his bedchamber.2

  James failed to listen to the voices of dissent and reissued the Indulgence, this time requiring clergy to read it out to their congregations. When seven bishops objected, he responded furiously and indicted them in Westminster on charges of seditious libel and diminishing regal authority. On 30 June when the jury returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’, James did not take heed of the applause inside and outside the courtroom. That night bonfires were lit across London, especially outside the doors of known Catholics, who were later forced to pay for the damage. Anti-Catholic sentiment was reaching boiling point and yet the king, apparently unaware of the potential consequences, refused to modify his policies.

  James’s heir, a healthy baby boy, was born on 10 June 1688 and later baptised with Roman rites as James Francis Edward Stuart. When news of the birth reached the Dutch Republic, it was met with anger and dismay. A stable Catholic succession in England via James and his son would bypass Mary and her consort William, the erstwhile heirs to the throne. In Amsterdam, crowds threw stones at the English consulate. For William, the notion of an English Catholic state, which would inevitably ally with France, evoked memories of the rampjaar when the Republic had nearly been obliterated. He could not risk such a crippling union forming again, especially when he had married Mary partly to militate against a repetition of the Treaty of Dover.

  The prospect of an uninterrupted Catholic succession spurred seven noblemen, whom Whig historians would later mythologise as ‘The Seven’, into action. In an unprecedented move, they invited William of Orange to intervene in England in order to uphold the Church of England against Catholic tyranny. Among the famous ‘Seven’ who issued the invitation to William was none other than Anna Maria’s son, Charles Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury.

  Charles Talbot’s life had taken an unpredictable turn since his rapprochement with his mother Anna Maria in Paris. At the Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, on 4 May 1679, he had attended Anglican service, thereby making public his conversion to Protestantism. Although his decision was expedient – the 1678 Test Act required peers to take an oath of loyalty to the Church of England and if Shrewsbury had remained a Catholic he would not have been able to take his seat in the Lords – he handled the transition with characteristic sincerity, discussing the theological implications with his Talbot relatives and with Dr John Tillotson, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. Talbot embraced his new faith with the fervour of a convert. When James II was crowned and Anglicanism suddenly became an impediment to a military or political career, Talbot stuck resolutely to his new religious convictions. By 1687 he was in contact with William of Orange, and hosting meetings of the opposition to James II at his house in London. A year later, he showed the strength of his principles by mortgaging his estates to raise money for William of Orange, and joining the prince in the Republic.

  On 1 November 1688, a Dutch armada comprising 500 ships, 15,000 highly trained troops, and a further 9,000 crew sailed from Hellevoetsluis. William organised the ships in a flotilla 25 deep, ‘stretching the whole fleet in a line, from Dover to Calais.’3 Despite their meticulous planning and sheer force of numbers, the Dutch remained at the mercy of the mercurial winds, and on previous attempts to sail had blown back into harbour; this time, the wind had more Protestant sympathies. On 5 November 1688, William made landfall at Torbay. The banner of his frigate Den Briel was emblazoned with the slogan ‘For liberty and the Protestant religion’, and beneath these words was the motto of the House of Orange: ‘I will persevere’.4

  William’s landing may have looked impressive, but his first experience on English soil could not have been less regal. He disembarked at Braxton, a run-down village on the coast of Devon. In his diary, William’s secretary Constantijn Huygens described the ‘poorly constructed houses, built of that inferior stone which this entire coast and the land adjacent to it are made of’. Huygens passed his first night in England at the Crowned Rose Tavern where he drank a glass of cider, ate ‘an exceptionally leathery fricassee of mutton’ and slept on a mattress on the floor of a bedroom occupied by Lord Coote. The soldiers in the bar downstairs raged and fought all night.5 It was a humble introduction to the land his master would soon rule.

  Most of William’s troops were mercenaries: there were regiments from the Dutch Republic, England, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Lapland, as well as 200 black soldiers from the colony of Surinam in South America.6 As the army marched towards London, its numbers were increased by English volunteers. Well-wishers gathered along the streets shouting ‘God bless you’, and giving the Orange army fruit and mead.7 Un
derstanding that his success depended on winning English hearts and minds, William went to great lengths to present himself as a great liberator who had delivered the nation from the clutches of Catholicism. He processed into Exeter riding a white horse, a plume of white feathers on his head, 42 footmen running alongside him. One hundred gentlemen and pages followed, some of them supporting a banner that read ‘God and the Protestant religion’. The trappings of his cavalcade were cannily symbolic; the white horse was an allusion to one of John the Apostle’s visions recorded in the Book of Revelation: ‘I saw, and behold, a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; And a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.’8

  The march wasn’t all pomp and ceremony. William also took the opportunity to do some sightseeing. As the army progressed from Henley to Windsor, William and Huygens took a slight detour along the south bank of the Thames. The weather was glorious and Huygens recorded seeing ‘the world’s most beautiful views’ along the way.9 Riding beneath Cliveden, they were enamoured by the same vista that had captured the imagination of the Duke of Buckingham 20 years previously. In the afternoon, William stayed behind in Maidenhead to remove a pebble from the shoe of his horse, and Huygens continued by himself. He ended up lost and riding through water that came up to his horse’s belly. ‘I could find no one to ask directions,’ he recalled in his diary, ‘because all the people had gone to the street where His Highness was scheduled to make his procession.’10 While William was taking in the English landscape, King James, unprepared, disorientated and lacking in any viable strategy, finally realised that the crown was slipping from his grasp. His support base was growing smaller by the day – even members of his own family and commanders at the head of his troops were defecting. He was devastated when his younger daughter Lady Anne switched her allegiance to the House of Orange, and dumbfounded to learn that his most trusted general, John Churchill, had betrayed him to join the conquering Dutchman. Desperate and disheartened, James resolved to flee the capital, but before he left he demanded that the Great Seal – the stamp used by the king to authorise government business – be brought to him. As he fled by boat from Whitehall Palace to Vauxhall, he dropped the Seal into the Thames. It was a final gesture of defiance. Eventually he made an ignominious escape to France. On 18 December, William entered London in a blaze of glory. Some supporters festooned themselves in orange ribbons, while others proudly held up oranges on sticks. One onlooker recounted that ‘an orange woman without Ludgate gave diverse baskets full of oranges to the Prince’s officers and soldiers as they marched by’.11 The favourite fruit of Restoration theatregoers was having a political moment.