Lady Yarmouth lacked the political acumen of Queen Caroline, but she was an effective conduit to the king, sought after by politicians on all sides, including William Pitt. She proved to be adept at persuading the stubborn King George to change his mind.36 In sharp contrast to the late Queen Caroline, who had detested her own son Frederick, Lady Yarmouth urged conciliation with Leicester House.37 This made her doubly useful, as one who could influence the king and act as an intermediary between royal households that had become uncomfortably polarized.
Lady Howe’s foothold in the king’s Court of St. James’s went beyond her friendship with the royal mistress, for she had two sons in service to George II. In his military capacity, George Howe served the king’s favorite son—a man intensely disliked by Princess Augusta—Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, known to posterity as “Butcher Cumberland” for his part in the brutal repression of Scotland’s 1745 Jacobite rising. William Howe served as a page of honor to the king for more than two years, until he began his army career in 1746. With service at the Court of St. James’s and at Leicester House, the Howes risked alienating both branches of the dysfunctional royal family. But at the age of fifty-one, Lady Howe had learned her life lessons well. Unlike her neurotic mother, she managed to negotiate her way through the sinuous royal relationships with great aplomb. Her friendships in both camps of the divided court allowed her to have influence without the disadvantage of being compelled to take sides.
She would need to be discreet, of course, for her service at Leicester House placed her constantly in the company of others and within earshot of gossip and intrigue. A lady of the bedchamber was in attendance throughout the day, assisting her queen or princess when dressing and dining, accompanying her when she went out of doors, and performing formal introductions at court events. In essence, she was a species of high-ranking servant whose task was to see that her mistress wanted for nothing, was treated with proper ceremony always and everywhere, and looked every inch her rank. While at Leicester House, Lady Howe was engaged in a continuous round of cardplaying and dinners, walks in the royal gardens followed by supper and polite conversation with whomever the princess cared to invite, outings to shows and entertainments of Augusta’s choosing. She had to understand without being told when to keep quiet and when to withdraw from earshot during the frequent discussions of politics at the “young court” (as Leicester House was called).38
During the eighteenth century, there was a trend for the duties attached to these coveted posts to become merely ceremonial. Ladies of the bedchamber were supposed to oversee the emptying of the royal chamber pot; in practice, they merely observed while a bedchamber woman carried out the unpleasant task. A lady-in-waiting, when she assisted at the toilette of her royal mistress, typically did nothing more than hand over an article of clothing or two and a fan, while humble bedchamber women and personal maids dressed the royal hair and pulled on the ponderous items of clothing that were a feature of the era.39 In theory, more could be required; Queen Caroline, it was said, out of spite requested her husband’s mistress, Lady Suffolk, to kneel before her with a basin of water while Her Majesty washed.40
Charlotte’s pay was £400 a year, much of which went toward purchase of the formal court attire that was required of the position. Royal birthdays, drawing rooms, and other special court occasions required prescribed dress. Members of the aristocracy were expected to shine at these public displays. The cost of just the fabric for a gown—silk or velvet with gold or silver embroidery—could amount to hundreds of pounds, and the elaborate trimmings of buttons, lace, buckles, along with shoes, stockings, wigs, and jewelry, meant that a lady of the bedchamber could easily spend her entire annual salary on dress.41 The real value of the position was that it gave one the much-sought-after influence that was the key ingredient in the aristocratic jockeying for places and positions.
In her early years of service, Lady Howe lived at Leicester House when she was attending on the princess. She was in the royal bedchamber throughout the night that the infant Prince Frederick was born in 1750.42 But however easy or onerous the service—and the burden was largely determined by the character of the royal personage in question—ladies of the bedchamber served in turns, their schedules allowing a week or more off duty at a time.43 It was a life that called for tact, forbearance, and a substantial loss of privacy. In the diary of a courtier at Leicester House, Lady Howe comes across as reticent and courteous, in a setting where many were outspoken about their political views.44
Intriguingly, though, Lady Howe’s behavior while in service at Leicester House may not always have been impeccable. Her name is linked with the one scandal in the life of her employer, the famously upright Dowager Princess of Wales. In the late summer of 1755, while the threat of war rumbled across the land, rumors began circulating of an improper relationship between Augusta and John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, tutor and adviser to her son, the Prince of Wales—and a married man. There is no doubt that Bute was a confidant of the princess, and a father figure to her son George. But the stories that there was something more between the princess and her favorite took root, even outliving both of them. Georgian society relished a scandal, but it also dreaded political conspiracy, and the idea grew that Augusta and her adulterous lover might seek to control the prince and, in due course, the throne. This adultery-and-conspiracy narrative was so successfully promulgated by that most literate gossip Horace Walpole that it survived into the twentieth century, when most historians finally dismissed it.45
A curious and little-known version of the story has it that Bute was first the lover of Lady Howe, who was for a time his “protectress” in the princess’s household and passed him over to her mistress unwillingly.46 We could dismiss this as mere nonsense, but it is the sole instance of Lady Howe’s name being linked with gossip, let alone scandal. If it was a fabrication, Lady Howe was a strange choice as its subject, for Augusta was known to be closest to another of her ladies-in-waiting, Lady Middlesex, whose name was already linked with an adulterous affair.47
What is certain is that in the late summer of 1755, while Richard Howe chased French men-of-war in the North Atlantic and George fretted over the subsidy treaties, Lady Yarmouth was endorsing the rumor about the princess and Bute in high circles. Her source, however, has never been identified. Historians and contemporaries alike have presumed it was servants’ gossip, a suggestion that fits with the idea that the accusation was spurious.48 But the surviving kernel of gossip associating Lady Howe with this highly private business hints at a more credible authority. Perhaps it was she who first whispered it to Lady Yarmouth, and over time her connection with the rumor ensnared Lady Howe in the guilt.
If her source was Lady Howe, Lady Yarmouth had good reason to take the story seriously, and to be sure to make use of it. Gossip was valuable political currency in court circles, where outward behavior was closely watched. At any rate, it was a curious episode, a damaging smear on Augusta’s reputation that she must have found humiliating, and one that followed her to the grave. A recent historian has pointed out that she could have easily extinguished it by simply dismissing Bute from her household, ending with the ambiguous conclusion, “No one but Augusta and Bute will ever know the true nature of their friendship.”49 Perhaps the widowed dowager princess did have a brief affair. And in the same vein, perhaps Lady Howe allowed herself a fling in middle age; she was by now too old to bear children, a fact of life that, in an era without effective birth control, was often seen as an opportunity to enjoy a fuller sex life. Bute was ten years her junior, well educated, good-looking, and, though reserved in public, very engaging in private.50
The rumors about Bute coincided with Lady Howe’s release from the strictures of Scrope Lord Howe’s will, which stipulated that she would lose custody of her children if she remarried or returned to Hanover before the youngest had reached the age of majority. It was not uncommon for such a condition, designed to prevent a second marriage, to be included in wil
ls of the period.51 Since Lady Howe’s youngest child, Mary, had turned twenty-one in 1755, the mother of eight may have finally felt entitled to indulge her own inclinations in this most private sphere of her life. In any case, Lady Howe, after almost a decade of service under the Princess Augusta, was probably looking forward to scaling down her role as matriarch of the Howe dynasty. By the age of fifty, she was no longer residing at Leicester House, and her duties had been reduced to a token presence at court.52
THE HOWE MEN, by now in the midst of their careers, spent much of their time in exclusively male environments: the navy, the army, or the merchant marine; clubs and taverns; the House of Commons and the hurly-burly of electioneering. But this by no means severed their ties with the women of the family. None of the Howe men could afford to maintain independent establishments of their own. When the brothers were on leave from their professions, it was to a mother, an aunt, or a sister that they went. Lady Howe’s residence in Albemarle Street, Aunt Juliana Page’s country place at Battlesden, and Caroline’s Buckinghamshire manor at Hanslope were places to go to rest and relax, but they were also locales that replicated much of the same social and political maneuvering that the brothers were engaged in elsewhere.
At a time when dedicated government buildings were almost nonexistent—when the House of Commons met in a cramped, uncomfortable chamber that had once served as a chapel in the ancient Palace of Westminster, and politicking necessarily spilled out into London’s all-male clubs and coffeehouses—a great deal of public business was also transacted in private settings: dinners, house parties, afternoon visits. This gave women many informal levers of influence. Society gatherings, so frequently the venues for political networking and political business, were largely organized by women; high-profile hostesses were important connections for aspirational men during the Georgian era. Yet the “social politics” that took place under the auspices of private hospitality defies precise historical assessment or quantification.53
Reconstructing the private places and spaces occupied by the extended Howe family, both male and female, restores to the women the significant roles they played in the family fortunes. It also re-creates the world that the brothers actually lived in and knew, removing them from the narrow context of military camps and parliamentary politics that has served as a backdrop for their appearances in every previous history.
As we have seen, throughout the Seven Years’ War, Lady Howe remained the head of the dynasty for the purposes of exerting influence where it mattered and managing her sons’ careers. In training to replace her mother was eldest daughter Caroline. Although she lived in the country, Caroline was ideally situated to keep a finger on the pulse of political trends. Her husband John Howe’s seat of Stokes Manor was a small estate in Hanslope, Buckinghamshire, the house itself more than two centuries old. Stokes Manor was rather small and probably past its best days.54 “[F]rightful Hanslop,” Caroline once called it.55 But it was a comfortable life. John and Caroline joined in all the diversions of the neighborhood—assemblies, card parties, hunt balls, the excitement of races at Newport Pagnell.56 As at Langar, the society in the neighborhood of Hanslope was mixed, cutting across the ranks of the middle and upper classes. The Howes lived near enough to the Pages at Battlesden to visit regularly. Hanslope was also close to the magnificent Stowe House, where Pitt the Elder called upon his politically powerful in-laws, and Caroline was able to report on his comings and goings to her friends in town.57
It was not only over a tea table that Caroline kept pace with men’s news and men’s gossip; thirteen years into her marriage, she was still indulging her love of riding. Out of more than seventy riders of the Belvoir Hunt listed in 1758, she was the only woman. “Her Husband was a great sportsman,” a contemporary recalled of her at this period in her life, “& Hunted much with the Old Marquiss of Granby, & at the time she wd. follow him in the field & afterwards would enjoy the social parties at the table with the gentlemen.” The Belvoir Hunt included two dukes and two marquesses, clergymen, army officers and county gentry.58 Caroline and John Howe followed the life of the rural gentry and nobility, staying for long periods at Grantham, the estate of John Manners, the Marquess of Granby, or at the elegant country seats of the Duke of Grafton or Lord Spencer, all of whom were keen hunters. At any of these places, discussion of sport, cards, and society doings would be interspersed with a strong dose of politics, for these foxhunting noblemen were all leading Whig politicians.
But John Howe’s interests also took him where Caroline could not follow. He was a founding member of the famous Society of Dilettanti, a dining club created in the 1730s by young gentlemen who had taken the grand tour to Italy. The society’s nominal objective was to promote appreciation of classical art in Britain. They had a great deal of fun while doing it, the members deliberately courting the image of privileged men who defied conventional morality. Club accessories were laden with rather juvenile pornographic jests. Horace Walpole sneered that the real club activity was “being drunk.” The Dilettanti, however, did transform the study of archaeology during the eighteenth century, funding research expeditions to Italy and Greece.59 The notorious Francis Dashwood—best remembered for hosting the Monks of Medmenham Abbey, a club that reputedly staged orgies against a backdrop of obscene art and satanism—designed the apt motto of the Dilettanti, Seria Ludo (Serious Play). They drank as much as Horace Walpole thought they did, and the society included well-known womanizers, chief among them Dashwood, the Earl of Sandwich, and Lord Middlesex, who was known to have misused the funds of an opera company to pay for the “secret services” of his Italian mistress.60
Caroline had a reasonable idea of what went on at the Dilettanti proceedings, despite the “men-only” rule. Her life connected with that of the members in many ways. Her friend the Marquess of Granby was a Dilettanti, and the wife of the philandering Lord Middlesex served at court alongside Lady Howe. While John Howe met such men at the exclusive society meetings, Caroline’s correspondence reveals that she met their wives in drawing rooms and across card tables.61 In such a tight-knit set, the inevitable pillow-talk between husbands and wives did the rest, and the ladies could pool information on the secret activities of their Dilettanti spouses. Caroline was probably not shocked. Contemporary remarks make it clear that she was not one who affected ladylike delicacy.
Caroline Howe at Hanslope—whether in the field following the hunt or mixing with the Dilettanti members and their wives—was always certain to be in a position to be well informed. She became renowned as a letter-writer and a reliable purveyor of the latest social and political news, a reputation that gave her a purchase in the circles of the politically active. When her brothers George, Richard, William, or Thomas arrived to visit Caroline, they could easily blend in with the country society of Buckinghamshire.
It was while staying at his sister’s home that Captain Richard Howe experienced what was probably his first courtship, a hurried affair conducted as the nation moved toward war. The young lady who caught his eye was Elizabeth Raper, the niece of Matthew Raper, an astronomer and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Matthew Raper was a relative of the Pages, and a close friend of John Howe, who shared his interest in the latest scientific discoveries.62 The Raper house, Thorley Hall in Hertfordshire, where Caroline and her husband often stayed, was a showcase for intensive European exploration, a household full of curios, books, coins, and rare objects. The hall itself was topped by an astronomical observatory.63
Richard met Elizabeth Raper while on leave at Hanslope in early 1756. He barely had time to court her, for he was ashore only a few months before the Dunkirk sailed from Plymouth in March under Vice Admiral Hawke’s command, cruising the western approaches to the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay for French ships. By May, Richard was back for refurbishment, and by the time the Dunkirk left Portsmouth on June 16, war had been declared with France. For the next four months, he would be at sea protecting the Channel Islands and blockading the coasts of Brittany a
nd Normandy.64
Despite their brief encounters, Richard had clearly made an impression on Elizabeth Raper; by the autumn of that year, she confessed to her “dearest friend”—his sister Caroline—that she was in love with him. “Mrs Howe got the grand secret from me,” she confided to her diary. “Cried and was pitied.” A few days later, Caroline and John Howe accompanied Elizabeth on a visit to the Pages at Battlesden, where she nurtured her infatuation by going over Richard’s customary walk alone by moonlight. “[I]t was a favorite walk of Captain Howe’s,” she had been told, and “the last time he was there he used to walk for hours in the wood every night.”
Caroline, well informed as always on the movements of her brothers, was able to give notice to her young friend when Richard came ashore at Plymouth to refit for four days in October, but if they met, the diary is silent. In fact, it seemed that Richard had forgotten all about her. When next the Dunkirk put in at Portsmouth Dockyard, in early 1757, he did not even make an appearance. “Damned mad in my mind, and do not care 3 straws if I never see him again;—damn all the sex!” exclaimed Elizabeth to her diary at the end of March. She did not mean it, of course, but their courtship fizzled out. Like many servicemen on the eve of war, Richard may have resolved to get married. His flirtation with Elizabeth Raper was hot on the heels of his celebrity as the captor of the Alcide. Judging by the other affaires de coeur recorded in her diary, it was encouraged by a great deal of “kissing and squeezing,” favors she granted other gentlemen even while she still had hopes for Richard. But whatever went on in early 1756, Elizabeth Raper clearly expected him to make a formal declaration.65 Richard, however, as will be seen, would manage to get enough shore leave during the war to find a woman more to his liking.
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