The British squadron had first sighted four warships on June 2, but the French managed to evade their pursuers westward in dense fog, which persisted throughout the entire operation. Five days later, Richard sighted three French ships heading toward Quebec. He chased them until he realized these were merchantmen, not fighting ships. This was not yet war, and he could not interfere with the enemy’s trading vessels. The next morning, June 8, the four French adversaries were sighted again. It was the eager Richard who overtook the Alcide, the hindmost warship in the little fleet. There was a brief exchange of words, during which the French commander, Houquart, demanded to know “whether it were peace or war?” It was a question Richard could only answer by insisting that the Alcide shorten her sails, which Houquart quite reasonably refused to do. The parley was cut short when Richard received a signal from Boscawen’s flagship and opened fire into the French vessel, which surrendered in just fifteen minutes. A second French man-of-war, the Lays, was captured a few hours later by HMS Defiance and HMS Farqueur.3
The British had made only a token effort to negotiate with the French forces, and the newspapers back in Britain tried to give a veneer of legitimacy to the incident. One reported that before firing, Richard called a genteel warning to the French officers on the Alcide; others asserted that the French had fired first.4 But British opinion didn’t really care. The public was proud of Richard’s aggressive daring against the nation’s chief enemy. Different versions of his action against the Alcide rapidly proliferated, giving free rein to the imaginations of jingoistic journalists. The Leeds Intelligencer, in what was probably a pure flight of fancy, claimed gleefully that the French sailors were so terrified by the intensity of the British fire that they deserted their posts, and that poor Monsieur Houquart, upon boarding the Dunkirk as a prisoner, “told the brave Capt. Howe that it was cruel to engage so very close.”5
The episode brought Richard to public notice for the first time.6 Dark-complexioned like all the Howes (within the service, his nickname was “Black Dick”), at age twenty-nine he had the rugged good looks associated with a man of action. He was enthusiastically hailed as a hero. A decisive blow had been struck by a son of Britain against a creeping French threat.7 And yet the mission overall was a failure. The French reinforcements reached their goal; Boscawen’s warships searched for them fruitlessly for weeks in the Grand Banks and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Richard spent the summer blockading the French fortress at Louisbourg and hunting for enemy ships with their warlike cargoes.
Only at the end of August 1755 did the Admiralty issue explicit orders for taking all French vessels encountered on the high seas. Even this did not quite constitute a declaration of war. “The absurdity is inconceivable,” commented one frustrated courtier, and indeed it was.8 As usual in such cases, no one was satisfied. Despite Newcastle’s prevarications, Britain was seen within Europe as the aggressor in the action off Newfoundland, while the British public chafed under the indignity of what it saw as British submission to French arrogance.9 The very next month, news reached London of the bloody defeat by Indians and French soldiers of the British expedition under General Braddock, sent to capture Fort Duquesne. National humiliation was complete. The “weakness and worthlessness” of the Duke of Newcastle while the country drifted into war became the talk of the town.10
While Richard was winning laurels for heroics at sea, his elder brother George appeared perversely to be damaging the standing of the Howe family in Parliament. On November 13, 1755, during a debate in the House of Commons that lasted “til near five in the morning,” William Pitt, best known to posterity as Pitt the Elder, blasted the feeble foreign policy of the Newcastle administration. “[I]ncoherent, un-British measures,” shouted Pitt, famous for his stirring oratory. The young George Lord Howe was one of just a handful of Whig MPs who put their heads above the parapet that night to vote with Pitt against the government.11
Newcastle’s policy involved paying expensive subsidies to Russia and the German state of Hesse-Cassel in return for the pledge of their military assistance should Britain go to war on the European continent. Newcastle hoped this tactic would prevent war altogether, but it was unpopular within the British nation at large. There was widespread suspicion that its real purpose was to protect George II’s beloved native Hanover at the expense of the rest of the nation.
Pitt lost the vote on October 13, but George Lord Howe won the lasting admiration of his constituents in Nottingham for taking a bold stance against Newcastle’s government, even though it seemed certain to hurt his prospects for advancement. Twenty years later, on the eve of the American War of Independence, the voters of Nottingham still recalled how George had cast his vote against the unpopular subsidy treaties at that all-night session in the House of Commons. Young Lord Howe had “dared to act in opposition to a Court, when his judgment informed him his opposition was right.”12
George dared because he saw himself as obliged to no one in the government for his seat in the House of Commons, least of all the Duke of Newcastle. The Howe family had not forgotten that Newcastle had tried to block George’s candidacy in Nottingham in the election of 1747. Back then, it had required all of Lady Pembroke’s skillful management to secure a victory for her nephew while he was abroad serving his country in Flanders.
Lady Pembroke was dead by the time of the next general election in 1754, but George had been an able pupil of her methods of political management. He duly visited the Duke of Newcastle, asking the duke to support him as the candidate for the borough of Nottingham. The duke was charmed, and within a couple of weeks of their meeting, he agreed to back the young Lord Howe. In doing so, he brushed aside John Plumptre—son of the John Plumptre who had been outmaneuvered by Lady Pembroke in 1747.13
In the same vein as his father, the younger Plumptre was furious, refusing to give way a second time to the scheming clan of Howes. But George, beneath his charming exterior, had an iron resolve and a strong work ethic and canvassed far and wide in his quest for votes.14 He had already contributed £500 to a lawsuit by the Nottingham municipal corporation against the town’s burgesses, a sweetener to gain the support of the politically important corporation. When the burgesses reacted with hostility, he appeased them with a round of feasting at Langar Hall that reputedly was so excessive that it resulted in several fatalities. Threats of stoning from his opponents could not stop the veteran soldier from walking the town of Nottingham, and he took up a staff and led a mob during the final balloting. George won the election, alongside the Tory candidate Sir Willoughby Aston.15 The following year, George installed a “magnificent mansion” in Castle Gate, right in the shadow of the duke’s seat of Nottingham Castle. The new residence made it clear that George intended to represent Nottingham for keeps if he could.16
From the age of four, George had been groomed to be the heir to the dynasty, and he had learned the role well. Since his father’s death when he was barely eleven, he had been in training to revive the Howe family’s shattered fortunes. Oldest sons and heirs normally did not risk going to war, but George, like all the Howe boys, had to work for his living. It was during the War of the Austrian Succession that he embarked on an army career, joining the First Regiment of Foot Guards as an ensign in March 1745, at the age of twenty. Just six months later, he would make a name for himself in the British press in a most unexpected quarter, fighting alongside the Sardinian army at the Battle of Bassignano in Northern Italy against French and Spanish forces. Britain’s chief theater of operations in the war was the Low Countries (present-day Netherlands and Belgium); its involvement in Italy was restricted to financial and naval support for its Sardinian-Austrian allies. Not so for the ambitious Lord Howe, however.
A letter from George to his mother, dated September 30, 1745, and newly discovered among the Hardwicke Papers in the British Library, recounts his adventures at the Battle of Bassignano. George was almost certainly there in the role of a gentleman volunteer, probably as an aide-de-camp to Count Johann Mat
thias von der Schulenberg.17 At Bassignano, Britain’s Sardinian allies were defeated by the combined Bourbon armies of France and Spain. But for George, it was a great chance to distinguish himself, and he did. The London newspapers concluded their account of the battle with “My Lord Howe, an English Nobleman, who was present at the Whole, behaved with such Spirit and Courage, as has done him much Honour, and acquir’d him a very great Character in this whole Army.” Impervious to danger, always in the thick of the fight, George singlehandedly took two prisoners, receiving only “a slight Cut on the Thumb.”18 George sent a lengthy account of the battle to his mother, assuring her he had bandaged his thumbnail, “which is half cutt off.” It was a small price to pay for his first appearance on the national stage as a hero. “I am dear Madam yr most Dutiful Son Howe,” he finished happily, then scribbled at the bottom, as an afterthought to his brother, “pray my service to Dick I wrote to him a piece of a letter but had not time to finish it.”19
George rose quickly after his Italian exploits. Two years later, he was off to campaign in Flanders with the British service. There he served as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland. By 1749, a year into the peace, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Guards.20
In the years between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War, 1748–56, George spent much of his time in London, where his military duties often placed him.21 Members of his regiment were household troops, at the service of the sovereign. As such, they were stationed in Westminster or Windsor, leaving the officers with plenty of time to enjoy the metropolis. So George had a chance to shine, not only in politics and the military but also among the fashionable society of the capital. The Guards officers were seen in London’s clubs, coffeehouses, ballrooms, brothels, and assemblies more often than on the parade ground.22 In an age when there was no formal education for officers, and the upbringing of a gentleman was deemed sufficient preparation for an army command, Lord Howe stood out as officer material, intelligent and brave.
He soon caught the eye of one of London high society’s most desirable women, Elizabeth Chudleigh. The child of an impoverished gentry family, Elizabeth grew up determined to live as a woman of fashion. Her face proved to be her fortune; acknowledged by society as a beauty, she was somebody’s mistress by the age of fifteen. She had joined the royal household of Princess Augusta in 1743, the same year as Lady Howe, becoming a maid of honor through the influence of her “protector.”
It was not until after the war—by which time Elizabeth and George had undergone many separate adventures—that their affair began. While George had been in Europe building his military reputation, Elizabeth had secretly married a young naval officer, the Honorable Augustus John Hervey. Maids of honor were supposed to be maidens, and once married, Elizabeth would lose her post and £200 per annum. As a result, she kept her marriage such a close secret that when Hervey went to sea shortly afterward, she was rather openly unfaithful to him. His return in 1746 led to a painful reconciliation; a son was born and then died a year later. In 1749, they parted. Unable to terminate their union during a period when divorce was almost nonexistent, they agreed never to reveal the marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Hervey would be obliged to revisit their mistake much later in their lives, but at this point, Elizabeth reveled in her position as one of the most attractive young women at court, while baffling society gossips as she refused marriage offers from such eligible figures as the Dukes of Hamilton and Ancaster.
In May 1749, probably celebrating the departure of the husband she despised, Elizabeth Chudleigh committed the escapade for which she was to be best remembered. At a masquerade in Ranelagh, a famous pleasure garden, she appeared virtually naked in the presence of George II and the Duke of Cumberland, in a costume designed to represent Iphigenia, the tragic Greek princess. Supposedly ready to receive the sacrificial knife, she exposed a controversial amount of flesh, described by some as nothing more than transparent gauze and a strategically placed garland of leaves. The descriptions vary, but the outfit was enough to cause the scandalized Princess Augusta to throw her cloak over her maid of honor. George II and the Duke of Cumberland were dazzled; the story goes that the king asked to touch her breasts and rumors abounded afterward that she would become a royal mistress.23 She did not, but the notoriety occasioned by her audacity caused her to be bombarded by suitors and would-be lovers. George Howe, by now home from war, was among them. “[E]very butterfly of fashion” hovered around her, wrote one biographer, but Lord Howe “was the only person whom she did not repel.” According to rumor, George received “the last favour” from Miss Chudleigh, a coy reference to an affair.24
The affair with George Lord Howe has been omitted from Chudleigh’s most recent biography, but it bears the hallmarks of truth. The Howes knew the secret of Elizabeth’s marriage; years later, one of the Howe sisters testified to it in court.25 The newly liberated Mistress Chudleigh, however, wanted a lover, not a husband. This would have been no discouragement to George, who, at this stage of his life, with his fortune still to earn, certainly did not want to be encumbered with a wife. The two had little money between them and both were risk-takers. For as long as Elizabeth posed as a single woman, she and George could enjoy an intimate liaison with no ties and no commitments.
By the middle of 1752, Elizabeth Chudleigh was the acknowledged mistress of Evelyn Pierrepont, 2nd Duke of Kingston.26 This relationship would continue until the duke’s death in 1773. Older and much richer than George, he provided the security she sought. And as he was a neighbor of the Howes in Nottinghamshire, perhaps she did not have to entirely dispense with her intimate friendship with the rising young hero of the Guards.
Outwardly, George possessed the charismatic traits of a young English aristocrat: an easy self-assurance, a love of fun, a good-natured charm. But he had been destined from an early age to lift the burden of head of the family from his mother. Like many growing up under the weight of responsibility, there was something driven about him, and this sat poorly with his aristocratic exterior. During a summer game of cricket at Moulsey Hurst, in Surrey, where he played on the Duke of Cumberland’s side, his charm slipped. A spectator described his “brutal ill temper,” even to Cumberland, who as team captain was not aggressive enough for George. “I fancy he rather prefers the profit of a Woburn match [on which bets were placed] . . . to the honour he gains” playing for the duke, added the onlooker in disgust.27 Perhaps George’s display of temper was indeed directed at his royal captain, or perhaps he was simply frustrated at having the game called off because of rain. The spectator did not mistake George’s ungentlemanly urge to win. On the afternoon of the rematch a week later, after a victory for Cumberland’s side, George scheduled another game, this time as captain of his own team against the Earl of Sandwich. He won again.28
Eighteenth-century cricket matches were often played for high stakes, adding to the pressure and excitement. This was clearly to George’s taste. A total of £20,000 had been at stake in a match that took place in 1751 between Eton and “the Rest of England,” at which George had played for his old school. Over the summer, his Eton team played subsequent matches at Woburn and elsewhere, always for money.29 In autumn of the same year, he threw himself into the hunting season and was injured in a fall from his horse that kept him confined until December.30 The young war veteran was making a reputation for himself as one who was determined to succeed at whatever he did. George was bred to be an aristocrat, but the urge to excel that was born of his childhood circumstances was not characteristic of his class. It was, however, a key element of his personality, and one that would affect his destiny.
George had decisively entered into his legacy as the 3rd Viscount Howe, but his mother, the Dowager Lady Howe, continued actively to support him. Since becoming a Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess Augusta in 1743, Charlotte Howe had cultivated powerful connections at court, which was crucial for her sons, since the king controlled promotion in the armed forces. Charlotte, skillful as always at negoti
ating court life, was able to maintain good relations with both branches of a royal family that was deeply riven by conflict.
The Princess Augusta was the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the mother of the future George III. Her marriage had aligned her with the political opposition; in the tradition of the Hanoverian royal family, Crown Prince Frederick and his father, George II, had hated one another. Frederick’s royal household of Leicester House became a rival court for those who opposed his father’s government.31
Frederick’s death in 1751 did nothing to change his widow’s dislike of the king and his policies. Although a German princess, Augusta was not a Hanoverian. She was born in the principality of Saxe-Gotha. In 1755, she saw Newcastle’s attempt to postpone war with France as a contemptible display of weakness that would come back to haunt her son when he at last ascended the throne.32 Augusta had influence in Parliament, and William Pitt had visited Leicester House on a quest for support while preparing for his attack on Newcastle in the House of Commons on October 13.33 Pitt was a familiar figure in the household of the princess, having served earlier as a Groom of the Bedchamber to Prince Frederick. So Lady Howe and her son George were well acquainted with the man who made himself a thorn in the side of the administration.
But Lady Howe also had ties to a powerful woman in the opposite camp. The strong friendship between Lady Howe and Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth, has been overlooked by court biographers. Lady Yarmouth had arrived in London from Hanover in 1738, to be installed as the mistress of George II after the death of Queen Caroline. It is not surprising that Lady Yarmouth was drawn to the company of Charlotte Howe, for the two women had much in common. Close in age, both were German-speaking Hanoverians. Each was accustomed to life at court, and each had grandmothers who had been mistresses to the royal heads of the House of Hanover.34 Their friendship would remain strong even after the death of George II in 1760, when Lady Yarmouth became Charlotte Howe’s neighbor in Albemarle Street, and the two women dined together frequently.35 When she returned to Hanover in 1763, Lady Yarmouth would choose Lady Howe to be her sole traveling companion.
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