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

by Natalie Livingstone

  Frederick’s commitment to Augusta didn’t mean that Lady Archibald Hamilton was off the scene. She was made Lady of the Bedchamber, Privy Purse and Mistress of the Robes. Caroline protested that for a woman widely known to be her son’s mistress to be given these appointments would cause a scandal, but Augusta had taken the queen’s advice to heart – perhaps too much so. She insisted that she must have Lady Archibald. Subsequently, the two became close friends.10

  There was just one request that Augusta made of her husband on her wedding day. She asked for her governess, who had educated her as a child, to be brought to live with her. The prince replied that ‘there was nothing she desired but he would do’, and sent for the governess, Madame Rixleiven, immediately.11

  The day after the wedding, ‘the greatest appearance of the nobility, Quality and gentry that has been known in the memory of man’ converged at court to congratulate Frederick and Augusta.12 Women attending court traditionally wore the ‘Corps de Robe’ (a stiff-bodied gown), though during the reign of George II it also became acceptable to wear a mantua, which, in the 17th century, had been considered formal but not appropriate for the royal presence – later in the 18th century, the garment would fall out of fashion completely and by the 1770s was only ever seen at court.

  Another development in court fashion was the arrival, early in the 18th century, of the whalebone hoop. Jonathan Swift saw one in 1711 and was appalled by its sheer scale. ‘I hate them,’ he pronounced, writing to Stella and Rebecca. ‘A woman may hide a moderate gallant under them.’13 As the years went on, the hoops only got bigger and more cumbersome for the wearer. In 1786, Jane Austen’s sister-in-law complained at having to stand from two o’ clock until four o’clock in the afternoon ‘loaded with a great hoop of considerable weight’.14 It wasn’t only their weight that made these gowns uncomfortable. The ‘stomacher’, a decorative cloth worn over the chest and stomach, was held in place by an array of pins, and women were obliged to stand rigidly upright to avoid getting spiked. But despite all these discomforts, women in the British court could at least consider themselves more fortunate than their French counterparts, who were expected to wear heavy make-up that contained red and white lead, even after concerns had been raised that its ingredients were poisonous and potentially fatal.

  Many of the women who attended on the Prince and Princess of Wales the day after the wedding also donned elaborate headdresses, which around this time usually comprised sculpted lace worn over close-fitting stitched caps. Brussels lace became very popular in the court of George II, having previously been banned in order to protect British lace manufacturers. The fineness of the thread made this sort of lacework elaborate but also extortionately expensive, as the process for spinning it defied mechanisation, which elsewhere pushed prices down. Others decorated their hair with feathers, jewels, ribbons or coloured powders, the most popular hues being blue, yellow and burnt orange. No fashionable court lady would be seen without the key accessory of the day – a fan. These were often painted with landscapes or scenes from classical literature. The entire process of getting ready for court could take hours; on one occasion, the writer and courtier Fanny Burney attended on the queen from six o’clock in the morning, missing breakfast in order to prepare the consort for an afternoon function.15

  A newspaper report from the day after the wedding specified that ‘most of the rich Clothes were the manufacture of England, And it must be acknowledged, in honour of our own Artists, that the few which were French did not come up to these in Richness, Goodness, or Fancy’.16 Augusta immediately understood the importance of being seen to appreciate all things British, and the simplest way of accomplishing this, at a time when royal fashion was a national obsession from the lowest to the highest echelons of society, was through her dress. French clothing was then very fashionable among aristocrats, not only in England, but across Europe: every month, fashion dolls clothed in the most recent French dresses were sent from Paris to cities including London, St Petersburg, and Constantinople. But the preference for French designs had hurt native manufacturers, who, in England as elsewhere, frequently petitioned for protection against imports. Augusta cleverly eschewed the fanciful French designs favoured by Caroline and her court, and instead dressed exclusively in home-spun gowns. In the years following their wedding, Frederick and Augusta further reinforced their commitment to native industry by forbidding the wearing of ‘French stuffs’ in their presence, and by visiting textile workers – weavers in Spitalfields and wool-combers in Cirencester.17

  While Augusta became a fresh and modern fashion icon, Queen Caroline’s more traditional approach to dressing made her seem dated and out of touch with the nation. Their competing styles only served to widen the chasm between the two generations of royals. Where George II was austere, his son was munificent; where Caroline’s preferences were foreign, Augusta’s were quintessentially British; where the king and queen remained aloof from the crowd, Frederick and Augusta mingled with it. These tensions would soon reach a bitter climax, putting both Augusta and her unborn child in mortal danger.

  Chapter 4

  A HANOVERIAN SOAP OPERA

  IT WAS NOT long before the celebratory atmosphere of the wedding disintegrated into something more awkward. In May 1736, Frederick claimed that he was going to be delayed in joining his mother outside London because Augusta had the measles. When he was unable to persuade a physician to verify this diagnosis, Frederick downgraded his wife’s illness to a rash, and then to a cold. The queen ‘having a mind to be satisfied of the truth of the case… pretended to believe her ill, and with great civility and maternal kindness, went with her two eldest daughters to London to see her’.1 Upon her arrival, Caroline was unable to see much as Augusta’s room had been kept dark – on purpose the queen suspected, in order to disguise the true state of her daughter-in-law’s health. If it is unfair to blame Augusta for this first family dispute, in which she was clearly used as a pawn by Frederick, she was more directly responsible for the fracas that followed.

  Augusta had been brought up a Lutheran. In the mid-18th century, religious conformity was still a matter of great political importance – the Hanoverian succession itself had been carefully engineered to protect the Anglican ascendancy. The importance of piety in the role of the royal consort was represented in the coronation ceremony by the presentation of an English Bible to the new queen. This moment was of great significance and appeared on medals commemorating the coronation of 1727. When Augusta chose to take communion at a Lutheran chapel instead of an Anglican church, it inevitably raised eyebrows within aristocratic circles. Sir Robert Walpole requested that the queen speak to the prince about his wife’s behaviour, warning her how badly the news would be received, not only by the bishops and the clergy, but by the English public in general. In fact, the matter was even graver than this because, as Lord Hervey advised the queen, ‘the Act of Succession enjoined the heirs to the crown, on no less a penalty than the forfeiture of the crown, to receive the sacrament according to the manner of the Church of England’.2 Eventually, on these grounds, Frederick convinced Augusta to, in Hervey’s words, ‘lull her conscience’, and stop attending the Lutheran church. The woman who was thought ‘to have put this conscientious nonsense into the princess’ head’ was Madame Rixleiven, the same governess whom Augusta had requested from Saxe-Gotha. After a few further heated conversations with Rixleiven, the prince came to dislike her so much that he sent her back ‘from whence she came’.3

  On 5 July 1737, Frederick wrote to his mother informing her that Augusta was pregnant. Caroline had openly broadcast her opinion that Frederick was impotent, so the news came as a surprise and she was inclined to believe that her son was lying. On Augusta’s next visit to court, the queen interrogated her about when the baby was due. When the princess repeatedly replied she did not know the exact date, Caroline was confirmed in her suspicion that Augusta was, in fact, not with child, and concluded that the fraudulent pregnancy was a plot to introduc
e a suppositious claimant into the line of royal descent. She wrote to Robert Walpole asking him to formally request that the Princess of Wales give birth at Hampton Court, in the presence of her parents-in-law. ‘Sir Robert,’ Caroline said to the prime minister, ‘we shall be catched. At her labour I positively will be present, I will be sure it is her child’.4 Walpole, ever cautious about exacerbating the family rift, never sent the letter, but Frederick was undoubtedly aware of his mother’s suspicions and of her plans for the birth.

  Meanwhile, the battle over Frederick’s allowance had escalated. Furious that his funding had not been sufficiently increased after his marriage, Frederick was now canvassing for a parliamentary bill to grant him £100,000 a year, a sum he believed to be commensurate with his status. In order to achieve his goal, Frederick knew that he needed to build a parliamentary block that was large enough either to overturn Walpole’s ministerial majority, or to threaten it sufficiently that his bargaining position was strengthened. It was during Frederick’s attempt to form a parliamentary group in support of increasing his allowance that he began to patronise the opposition. But all his efforts came to nothing and the bill was defeated, by 30 votes in the Commons and 63 in the Lords.5 Despite continuing to live under the same roof at Hampton Court and St James’s Palace, Frederick and his parents ceased all communication.

  Augusta’s labour pains began on the evening of Sunday 31 July while the entire royal family was staying at Hampton Court. Frederick made an extraordinary, impulsive decision: he snatched his wife from Hampton Court and took her to St James’s Palace. The principal surviving source for these events is the memoir of Lord Hervey, whose dislike of the Prince of Wales has already been noted. This prejudice notwithstanding, it is clear that Frederick behaved recklessly on the night of his daughter’s birth.

  Augusta’s waters broke before Frederick could get her out of the house, leaving her in intense pain. With Monsieur Dunoyer, the dancing-master, on one arm, and Mr Bloodworth, one of the prince’s equerries, on the other, Augusta was lugged downstairs and into the palace yard. At this point, the 18-year-old was writhing in pain, ‘barely able to set one foot before the other, and was upon the rack when they moved her’. Lady Hamilton and Mrs Townshend, her ladies-in-waiting, warned against Frederick’s imprudence, while Augusta herself screamed in agony, imploring her husband to reconsider. Frederick urged her to have ‘courage’. Thereafter the party endured a wretched journey ‘full-gallop to London’, covering 15 miles on bumpy roads in little over an hour.6

  By the time they had reached St James’s, Augusta’s skirts were soaked with ‘the filthy inundations which attend these circumstances’ and Frederick commanded the candles be snuffed out so that no one should see the unsightly manifestation of ‘his folly and her distress’. Absolutely no preparations had been made for their arrival at the palace. The furniture was smothered in dust covers and the beds were stripped and damp. On Augusta’s arrival there was a call for sheets. None could be found. The princess was laid on a bed between two tablecloths. A messenger was sent to find Mrs Cannons, the midwife. Lady Archibald frantically went in search of ‘napkins, warming-pan, and all other necessary implements for this operation’.7 At a quarter to eleven, within an hour of the party’s arrival, the princess delivered a baby girl so tiny that Hervey described her as ‘a little rat… about the bigness of a large gold toothpick case’.8 It is likely that the child was premature, and nothing short of a miracle that mother and daughter survived the ordeal.

  Back at Hampton Court, the king and queen were woken up and given the news. According to Hervey, ‘the King flew into a violent passion’, while ‘the Queen said little, but got up, dressed as fast as she could.’ Soon after 2 a.m. the queen and a group of courtiers left Hampton Court, and by four o’clock they had reached St James’s. Upon their arrival Lady Archibald Hamilton presented the baby girl, wrapped in napkins. Caroline was horrified. ‘God bless you, you poor little creature,’ she cried, looking down at her wretched granddaughter, ‘you have come into a disagreeable world.’ The frailty of the ‘little creature’ did at least convince Caroline that the newborn was her son’s.9

  Disgusted by Frederick’s behaviour, Caroline called a conference with Robert Walpole and the king. The assembled company freely referred to Frederick as a ‘scoundrel and puppy, knave and fool, liar and coward’ according to Hervey, who no doubt would have contributed a few slurs of his own given half the chance.10 When the prince wrote to his parents at Hampton Court, it was made clear to him that he would not be admitted to their presence and, shortly afterwards, Walpole was persuaded that the prince and princess should also be evicted from St James’s Palace as soon as Augusta was well enough to travel. The Duke of Grafton was instructed to keep watch at the doors of the palace and prevent Frederick from removing any furniture or fittings, as the Duchess of Marlborough had famously done when thrown out of her Whitehall apartment. Not relishing the prospect of having to confiscate furniture from the prince, Grafton suggested that the couple should at least be allowed to take functional items such chests, as it would not be appropriate for the heir to the throne and his wife to transport their linen in baskets. ‘Why not?’ said George, ‘a basket is good enough for them.’11

  The shocking circumstances surrounding the birth of her first child did not leave Augusta unscathed and a less stoic woman would undoubtedly have been traumatised. But although the princess was visibly ‘uneasy’ in the ensuing weeks, she bore the turbulent events with maturity and equanimity far beyond her 18 years.12 Horace Walpole would later commend her for her ‘quiet good sense’ and aver that the princess ‘had never said a foolish thing nor done a disagreeable one since her arrival’.13 Indeed, Augusta had become one of Frederick’s principal assets. The shy, unassuming girl from Saxe-Gotha showed a remarkable ability to rise to every challenge. A fast learner, she had already mastered English by the time of her daughter’s birth and was able to ‘talk freely’ with courtiers and subjects; many remarked that her command of English was far superior to that of any member of the royal family, even though she had been in the country for less than a year.

  The couple’s ongoing popularity, and their uniquely informal relationship with the public, is illustrated by the celebrations that attended the birth of their daughter, who had been named Augusta like her mother. On the Tuesday night after the birth, Frederick ordered that a large bonfire be set up in front of Carlton House and provided four barrels of strong beer for the revellers. Unfortunately, the local gentry were not impressed by the quality of the alcohol and ‘threw great Part of it in one another’s faces’.14 A group of the prince’s tradesmen, who had assembled in a nearby tavern with trumpets and kettledrums, quickly purchased several more barrels of ale to placate the crowd. The next day, rather than scolding the rioters, Frederick ordered that the whole celebration be repeated, this time with better beer. While the second round of festivities commenced in Pall Mall, the area around St James’s was kept especially quiet for the benefit of Princess Augusta and her baby. Cleveland Row was closed to traffic and 40 bales of straw were put down in the surrounding streets to muffle any sound.

  Following their banishment from the royal residences, the couple and their tiny daughter relocated to Kew. Letters from the prince himself were no longer being accepted at Hampton Court, but Augusta continued to communicate with George and Caroline.15 Augusta’s letters to her in-laws exemplify her ability to combine deference with determination. She began the correspondence by begging the king and queen to understand the actions of her husband, presenting herself as the ‘innocent cause’ of the breach and suggesting that Frederick had been misrepresented by others. She continued: ‘I flatter my self if I had had leave to throw my self at your Majesty’s Feet, I could have explained the Prince’s Conduct in a Manner that would have softened your Majesty’s Resentment’, and signed off as ‘Your Majesty’s most humble and most obedient Daughter, Subject, and Servant, Augusta’.16 The letter served its purpose. In his reply, Geo
rge announced that despite his son’s ‘inexcusable conduct’, Caroline was willing to act as baby Augusta’s godmother.

  Augusta immediately wrote to the queen thanking her ‘most humbly for the honour you did me’.17 Once again she tried to explain rather than excuse Frederick’s actions, saying that both the doctors and midwife had advised her that the cramps she experienced at Hampton Court were not those of labour but in fact colic. The queen was sufficiently moved to respond: ‘I am very glad, my Dear Princess, to hear you are perfectly recovered of your Lying in; you may assure your self, as you have never offended either the King or me, I shall never fail to give you every Mark of my Regard and Affection.’18 However, she remained intransigent on the subject of her son. ‘I think it would be unbecoming either of us to enter into a Discussion of the unhappy Division between the King and my Son,’ she wrote. ‘I hope Time and due Consideration will bring my Son to a just Sense of his Duty to his Father; which will be the only Means of procuring that happy Change, which you cannot more sincerely wish than I do.’