Lord North, of course, would find that he could not divide the brothers. Richard set out four conditions for accepting the honor, one of which was that some mark of approval should be bestowed upon William. North and the king briefly considered what might be given to Sir William—a military promotion or a lieutenant governorship in Minorca? It might not be “right to do so,” fretted North, but the House of Commons was “very indisposed” to the North administration, and something had to be done to strengthen support.57 In the end, the negotiations came to nothing. The whole episode brought Richard as close as he ever would come to incurring royal displeasure. The king concluded, with some reason, that Richard wished to avoid service.58
Nevertheless, one final effort would be made to bring Richard into the government. In late February 1779, Admiral Augustus Keppel, who commanded the Channel Fleet, was threatening to resign unless Lord Sandwich were removed as First Lord of the Admiralty. Keppel and Sandwich had been embroiled in a high-profile controversy over the Battle of Ushant, which occurred on July 27, 1778. Fought against a French fleet at the mouth of the English Channel, it had ended inconclusively, and Keppel and his second-in-command, Sir Hugh Palliser, had descended into mutual recriminations.
The feud made waves far beyond the navy. Palliser was the protégé of Lord Sandwich, and Keppel was a supporter of Lord Rockingham. The political world quickly took sides. Caroline and her brothers were allies of Admiral Keppel. In terms reminiscent of the attacks on the Howes, Keppel was accused in the press of having done less than his duty against the enemy at Ushant, influenced, it was hinted, by his American sympathies. Caroline wrote with approval to Lady Spencer that the London mob was out making a show of support for Keppel, “[keeping] up my poor Servants” with its noise as it attacked windows and buildings. A court-martial in February 1779 cleared Keppel, but then he wanted Sandwich out. In exasperation, Lord North turned once again to Lord Howe. Would he accept command of the Channel Fleet in Keppel’s place? But once again, Richard’s loyalty to his brother proved an obstacle, and the Channel Fleet command went to Sir Charles Hardy.59
Richard’s maneuvers to get the government to exonerate his brother had come to nothing. It was now inevitable that the Howes would join the opposition. On March 8, the foremost opposition speaker, Charles James Fox, stated in the House of Commons that the navy had been shamefully unprepared at the outbreak of war with France, pointing the finger at Lord Sandwich as the most responsible. He was seconded by Richard Howe, who declaimed in his supporting speech that he “was deceived into his command; that he was deceived while he retained it,” stating emphatically that he would not serve again under the present ministers.60 The usually silent admiral had made himself clear enough. “Lord Howe may now be ranked in Opposition, and therefore I shall not say more on that head,” wrote the king the very next day.61
The position of the Howes had decisively shifted in the political world; as their dynasty lost influence, the effect was felt in their households as well. When Caroline received an appeal from a woman who sought a minor government post for her husband, she wrote back, explaining “how very much it was out of my power to be of any service to [you].”62 No longer would she be courted as a woman who had the ear of government ministers.
But William was finally going to have a chance to defend himself. Before the 1779 Easter recess, a motion was agreed in Parliament that the correspondence of General Howe and Lord George Germain between August 1775 and May 1778 should be laid before the house, and a day was appointed to consider the papers and examine witnesses.63 William spent the Easter recess working on his speech with Henry Strachey and Nisbet Balfour.64
On April 22, William Howe went to the House of Commons to give what was surely the longest speech of his life. He went over all his controversial actions in America as commander in chief: the halt of his troops in their charge on Long Island; the failure to attack the rebel position in White Plains; the fiasco at Trenton, when the Hessian troops were overwhelmed; the complex exchanges between himself and Germain as the campaign for 1777 took shape; the decision to land his forces at the Chesapeake Bay instead of the Delaware River; the wearisome campaigning around Philadelphia; his protestations that the role of peace commissioner had not conflicted with his performance as commander in chief.
The original manuscript of this speech has survived in Strachey’s papers. Fascinatingly, it reveals what William did not say. Deleted sections give the king himself a share of the blame for the damagingly slow response to William’s campaign suggestions in January 1777; other sections that were removed include the point that General Burgoyne might simply have joined General Howe by sea instead of struggling through the dense New England forests. These were omitted because William wanted to focus the blame directly upon Germain and his subordinates.65
The speech was well received in the newspapers. Sir William had defended his conduct of the war “in a firm and spirited manner,” said one.66 Caroline was happy. A friend called upon her in Grafton Street and found her pleased with her brother’s speech, which she said had “fully justified his conduct of the war.”67 Caroline believed—or professed to believe—that the matter was settled.
The government had much to lose from prolonged public scrutiny into its conduct of the war. A few days after William’s speech, Lord North attempted to give the Howes the exoneration they sought by declaring in the House of Commons that General Howe had done his duty in America and there was no need to look further into his conduct. There was no charge, he stressed, to be made against the brothers.68 Balfour, who was present, wrote, “Every civility and every compliment passed to Sir Wm. Howe from Lord North.” Germain, he noted, remained silent, despite William’s attacks on his management of the war. North’s motion to drop the inquiry passed by a narrow margin.69
But with the inquiry now safely out of the picture, Lord George Germain could not resist taking a stab at the Howes. On May 3, he rose in Parliament and cast aspersions upon the brothers’ conduct of the Philadelphia campaign. The response from the House was strong and immediate; members were disgusted that Germain was attacking the Howes now, after a formal inquiry had been ruled out.70 Germain had been indiscreet “beyond description,” lamented a ministerial observer, and had created an opening for the opposition to once again demand a formal inquiry.71
Now John Burgoyne seized his opportunity to defend publicly his own conduct in America. On May 20, 1779, General Burgoyne stood before the House of Commons and delivered his own account of his wilderness expedition. Historians often compare it favorably to William’s speech. Burgoyne, a writer and an amateur actor, was quicker on his feet than William Howe.72 Nevertheless, his professional career would be forever tarnished by the debacle in America.
Nor would William Howe ever receive the full public exoneration he sought. Unlike Burgoyne and Keppel, the Howes were not disputing a single campaign or battle; rather, they were contesting two and a half years of warfare, with claims, counterclaims, and convoluted transatlantic messages. The testimony that was heard in Parliament during May and June only complicated the picture. Captain Andrew Hamond, who appeared as one of William’s witnesses, concluded privately that the inquiry “. . . turned out the same as things of that sort generally do, where People have made up their Minds upon the Subject.” The nation was more interested in the war with France, he noted; no one was in the mood to sift through the details of the quagmire surrounding the previous two years of war in America.73 And further diverting attention away from the Howes was the threat from Spain, which was about to enter the fight as an ally of France.
The second wave of the inquiry eventually petered out at the end of June 1779. In a final session, the Howe brothers demanded that if ministers had any reason to think them unfit to serve their country, it had to be declared. The government front bench replied that no charges had been brought against the Howes, and no confidence was withdrawn from them in terms of future service. This time, Germain remained silent. “[A]nd thus the E
nquiry was put an end to, without coming to a single Resolution upon any part of the business,” concluded a report on the debate.74
WITH THE CLOSE of the inquiry, Caroline declared, with a distinct note of relief, “The American arguing is to be over for this year.”75 It was indeed over in Parliament, but the pamphlet war against the brothers that had begun in 1778 now escalated and continued until the close of the war. It became part of the media-based canon that established the narrative of how Sir William Howe had lost the war in America. Chief among the pamphleteers were Israel Mauduit, whom the Howes had always believed to be in the pay of Germain, and American loyalist Joseph Galloway. Once a patriot and a friend of Benjamin Franklin, Galloway had defected to the British cause after the Declaration of Independence. He had gone to New York, and then to Philadelphia with the Howes and the British army in 1777, where he held municipal offices. He was convinced that Britain could still win the war, and, like many loyalists, he blamed the Howes. Galloway was in London by the end of 1778, closeted with Germain and eager to testify against William and in favor of continuing the war.76
The pamphlet war waged by Galloway, Mauduit, and other loyalists in London made the usual claims: Most Americans were loyal subjects of King George; the war could still be won. Previous campaigns had failed because of poor leadership, professional incompetence, personal greed, sympathy for the rebellion that bordered on treason, or loyalty to the opposition party in England.77
The Howes remained largely silent in the face of this verbal offensive. Aside from a single laugh at Galloway’s expense, Caroline made no mention of him or Mauduit in her letters. In 1780—possibly because it was an election year—William published one pamphlet in response to his detractors, a reprint of his April 1779 speech before Parliament, to which he added some personal commentary and testimonies.78 Richard went so far as to prepare a reply to a Galloway pamphlet of 1779 that had called him “a secret Friend to the Rebellion.” “To attempt a serious refutation of such Absurdities, would be ridiculous,” he pronounced.79 In the end, he took his own advice, and the manuscript remained unpublished until 1958.
But Galloway did force the Howes out in the open when he pointed the finger at Caroline as a facilitator of the secret negotiations with Benjamin Franklin before the war. In late 1780, a newspaper column, signed “Cicero,” announced that it would reveal the origins of the supposedly treasonous Howe intrigue in the War of Independence. Cicero knew “the whole secret of the invitation to a game of chess, given to the Doctor [Franklin] through a third person [Matthew Raper], by a Lady, an utter stranger to the Doctor, and his consequent introduction to her noble brother the Admiral.”
The Howes, charged Cicero, had conspired with the arch-rebel Franklin, under cover of the chess matches, and had subsequently procured their appointments to command in America. “Cicero” was Galloway, who did indeed know about the secret meetings in Grafton Street, because Benjamin Franklin had shared his journal with his erstwhile friend and ally in 1775.80 Now, four years later, Galloway did not scruple to reveal what he had been told in private. It was a vindication of Richard’s assertion in Parliament that Galloway was not “a man of honour” because he divulged things that were told to him in confidence. By repeating confidential information in order to point the finger at Lord Howe’s sister as a conspirator, Galloway was proving Richard’s point with a vengeance.
This could not pass in silence. Richard declared to the House that “A person, who had assumed the character of Cicero,” had accused him of engaging in treason with Dr. Franklin under the cover of a game of chess. Richard now made a clean breast of it. “The matter did occur, and the game of chess was played,” he confessed. “[I]f it was treason, however,” he continued, “it was right the public should know all the traitors.”81 His fellow traitor, he pronounced, was none other than the prime minister. Lord North said nothing; how could he, when it was true? Although historians have disagreed over whether the prime minister was privy to the secret talks in Grafton Street in 1774–75, Lord North’s silent consent during the scene that occurred on February 1, 1781, reveals that he was.82
Lord North would not have blamed Richard for making use of him in order to shield his sister from Galloway’s shabby behavior. He liked Caroline and thought her very clever. Caroline recalled the good humor of the prime minister on an occasion when, partnering him at a game of whist, she was obliged to rescue him from his own maladroit play. After someone pointed out that he and his partner had achieved a great score from the previous deal, he replied, “Mrs. Howe has; your saying we have, puts me in mind of the Cobbler who lived next door to the Lord Mayor & was bragging, that he & his neighbour should lend the King 100 thousand pounds that year.”83 Whatever their politics, there was a general consensus within British high society that Lord North was genial and likable.
CAROLINE HERSELF WAS at last beginning to move on from her brothers’ American travails. She wrote to Lady Spencer in July, summing up the Howe inquiry in positive terms: “[U]pon the whole, I fancy all who judge fairly are thoroughly satisfied with their conduct.” William and Richard were home and safe, their ordeal was over. Her usual August stay at Battlesden was almost a full family reunion, with William and Fanny, Mary and General Pitt, Charlotte Fettiplace and Julie all converging on their Aunt Juliana.84
Caroline, at fifty-seven, was entering a new phase of her life. Sometime in 1779, she began a relationship with Richard Rigby. The two were of the same age, and they had probably known each other all of their lives. The Rigbys were established members of the landed gentry with a seat at Mistley in Essex. Many years earlier, the young Richard Rigby had crossed metaphorical swords with George Lord Howe over cricket.85 Like the Howes, Rigby had a hot temper, and he could be intimidating.
Horace Walpole wrote that Rigby had rugged good looks and good breeding, “though sometimes roughened into brutality.” Walpole did not exaggerate; Rigby had a history of physical assaults and even a duel. On one occasion, after boldly rescuing the Duke of Bedford from a mob at the races, he acquired a lifelong friend who ensured him a seat in Parliament that he retained until his death. In the House of Commons, he became chief political manager of the duke’s group, the Bedfordites. The duke arranged Rigby’s appointment as Paymaster General of the Forces, with the authority to handle vast sums of public money. Rigby lent generously to friends and threw legendary parties at his office after the House of Commons had adjourned for the night.86 In the process, he also made enemies, critics who saw him as corrupt and self-serving.
Richard Rigby never married, but during his lifetime he took two mistresses, both of them local women to whom he bequeathed small legacies.87 Like many aristocratic figures of his day, he was open about his lifestyle. His daughter by one of his mistresses, Sarah Lucas, lived at Mistley Hall. He had close ties to the royal family, albeit not blood ties, and a contemporary belief that Rigby was close to royalty gave him additional sway in the House of Commons.88
Caroline saw Rigby regularly during her summer stays at Battlesden, for the Duke of Bedford’s seat at Woburn Abbey was only ten miles away.89 In May 1779, when Lord George Germain attacked William Howe in the House of Commons, there was astonishment when government supporter Mr. Rigby leapt to the defense of the general.90 This was perhaps the first outward sign of a stirring of interest in the Howes, and one Howe in particular. Two months later, the friendship deepened when Caroline went to Rigby’s country retreat with a number of other guests. Rigby had been at great pains to improve his estate, redecorating the interiors of Mistley Hall in luxury wall coverings and elegant furnishings. On the grounds, he cultivated exotic plants and trees, shady bowers, and garden beds, offset by distant views of woodlands.91 “I never passed eleven days pleasanter than those I spent at Mistley,” Caroline enthused to Lady Spencer.92
By the autumn of 1779, Mr. Rigby was a regular caller in Grafton Street, and he began to use Caroline’s nickname, “Howey,” a sure sign of intimacy in this era of prescribed formality.93 A
casual relationship grew between the two. They indulged in late-night confidential chats; she was a frequent guest at his dinners in town, sometimes the only lady present; and she came to be someone who knew his whereabouts, which he had made a practice of keeping to himself.94
What ensued for Caroline was a season of being teased about her admirer. Over a game of cards, Lady Mary Coke listened to Princess Amelia rib Caroline on the subject of matrimony. Caroline’s discomfiture was obvious. Mrs. Howe, said Lady Mary, “appears displeased perhaps because there is no truth in it for I think she wou’d marry [Mr. Rigby] if he wou’d have her.”95 Lady Mary was trying to stick the knife in, as the saying goes, but Princess Amelia was simply high-spirited and tactless. For months to come, Caroline would have to endure the “old sisterly jokes,” as she put it, from the princess. Even Lord and Lady Spencer good-humoredly quizzed their friend on the subject, especially after her second stay at Mistley Hall, where she wrote effusively about listening to nightingales with Mr. Rigby in his garden. Caroline’s patience with the continuous banter finally wore thin, and anger boiled over. “I think at my age I may live with men as well as with women without scandal,” she was provoked to write.96 The teasing stopped, but the friendship between Caroline and Richard Rigby lasted until Rigby’s death eight years later.
The holiday season of 1779 was in sharp contrast to the previous Christmas, when the Howes had been anxiously awaiting the parliamentary inquiry. Instead of going to Althorp, Caroline stayed in Grafton Street, enjoying the London festivities. Devonshire House hosted a pre-Christmas dinner, and after the duke and duchess had departed for Althorp, Caroline turned to Gloucester House, where the Duke of Gloucester held lively evening card parties.97 Visiting Gloucester House risked incurring royal displeasure, as the Duke of Gloucester was the estranged brother of George III. He was excluded from court for his secret marriage in 1766 to Maria Waldegrave, the illegitimate daughter of one of the Walpoles and a milliner’s apprentice. Caroline Howe had barely missed becoming stepmother to Maria back in 1741, when she had almost married her father, the eccentric Edward Walpole.98 Princess Amelia disliked the Gloucesters intensely, but Caroline deftly continued to play cards with both parties that holiday season without arousing hostility in either quarter.99 Yet the war still intruded. On a visit to a friend, Caroline sat down to dinner with the five-year-old son of Lord Cornwallis, who was serving in America. The little boy was obviously enjoying the gathering, and he burst out with, “[M]y mama is dead, & my papa is as good as dead; it is well we meet with some other good friends”—a “most melancholy observation” from a child, wrote Caroline sadly.100
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