King's Mistress, Queen's Servant: The Life and Times of Henrietta Howard

by Tracy Borman

  Henrietta’s features mirrored her passive demeanour. William Warburton, a leading theologian at court, described her as ‘singularly young looking; she is incapable of the keen feeling and passionate sorrow which might mark the brow with lines and fade the cheek. The only expression of her face is a sweet and gentle repose.’ Lord Chesterfield echoed his observations, and referred to her countenance as ‘an undecided one’ which ‘announced neither good nor ill nature, neither sense nor the want of it, neither vivacity nor dullness’.37

  Mrs Howard had a number of admirers at court, including the members of her literary circle, all of whom sought to immortalise her attractions in poetry and prose. She was Pope’s ‘handsome’ woman of ‘A Certain Lady at Court’, the ‘angel . . . so fair’ of Peterborough’s ‘Song’, and a ‘shadow like an angel with bright hair’ to John Gay. William Byrd, a pious American traveller and frequent visitor to Leicester House, met ‘pretty Mrs Howard’ soon after her affair with the Prince began, and was instantly smitten. His diary is full of references to conversations they had engaged in, and on one occasion he enjoyed her company so much that after leaving court he felt compelled to take a woman into his coach and ‘commit uncleanness’, before returning home to say his prayers.38

  While Henrietta was not a conventional beauty, she certainly had something in her appearance or character that drew men to her. The Prince had singled her out from a host of – arguably prettier – ladies in his wife’s household. There is also some indication that, at least in the early days of their liaison, he felt some affection for her. A gossip at court noted that she once received a ‘billet doux’ from her royal master, and when the Princess summoned her to attend, she hastily stuffed this down her bosom. In curtseying before her mistress, however, unbeknown to her the note fell out. When Caroline found it she called Henrietta back and thrust the offending note at her, coldly bidding her to take more care of her secrets in future.39

  If Prince George harboured a little more affection for his mistress, however fleeting, than her enemies at court have claimed, then their assertion that she had no influence over him should also be qualified. Henrietta was certainly never a mistress of the calibre of Louise de Keroualle or Anne Boleyn in terms of political power or social prestige. No landmark events of state can be credited to her influence. Neither was she able to secure great riches through her position. George was notoriously mean, and although he had increased her annual allowance when she became his mistress, this paled into insignificance when compared to the bounty received by other royal favourites. William III had given Elizabeth Villiers all of King James II’s private estates in Ireland, the income from which was valued at £26,000 per year. The Duchess of Portsmouth, meanwhile, had received in excess of £100,000 in gifts and bribes from Charles II and his ministers, not to mention the priceless jewels and other ‘trinkets’ that her royal master gave her. The Venetian ambassador was astonished by ‘the quantity of gold which the King has given and which he lavishes daily upon his most favoured lady’.40

  Henrietta may not have been in the same league as these women when it came to being rewarded for sacrificing her virtue, but she was at least able to win favour for a number of her friends and family. John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, who was among her close associates, rose considerably in power and prestige in the Prince’s court at this time. He was appointed Lord Steward of the Household, and in 1719 was created Duke of Greenwich. His younger brother Archibald, Lord Ilay, also a friend of Mrs Howard, experienced a similar upturn in fortune. While she resisted most applications from those seeking a particular place at court or in government, she did secure some prestigious appointments for her brother, John Hobart. He was made a Knight of the Bath in 1725, Treasurer of the Chamber in 1727, and Baron Hobart of Blickling in 1728.

  As well as furthering the cause of those close to her, Henrietta was occasionally able to thwart the designs of her enemies at court. She lent her support to Sir Spencer Compton, Speaker of the House of Commons, in his battle for supremacy over Walpole, and was so successful in persuading the Prince of his merits that he later raised him to one of the highest offices in the land. In so doing, she set herself in opposition to the Princess, who was Walpole’s greatest ally at court. Lord Hervey, who was also in their camp, observed with barely concealed resentment that the mistress was able to work on the ‘susceptible passions’ of the Prince, and thus ‘had just influence enough, by watching her opportunities, to distress those sometimes whom she wished ill’.41

  However great Henrietta’s influence over her royal lover, it was the perception of power, rather than the reality of it, that mattered. When she became the mistress of the heir to the throne, her position at court was immediately transformed. In the social and political hierarchy of the royal court, not just in England but across Europe, the position of mistress to the King or Prince was one of considerable prestige. In counselling his son on the best means to gain favour, Lord Chesterfield wrote: ‘There is at all courts a chain which connects the Prince or Minister with the page of the back-stairs or the chambermaid. The King’s wife or mistress has an influence over him; a lover has an influence over her; the chambermaid or valet-de-chambre has an influence over both; and so ad infinitum. You must, therefore, not break a link of that chain by which you climb up to the Prince.’42

  The theory that the perception of power alone was enough to enhance Henrietta’s position at court was borne out by events. No sooner had she become the Prince’s mistress than a host of officials, ministers, disaffected politicians and ambitious place-seekers flocked to her apartments. ‘These quotidian visits which His Majesty when Prince was known to bestow upon her, of so many hours in the four-and-twenty, and for so many years together, had made many superficial courtiers conclude that one who possessed so large a portion of his time must have some share of his heart,’ wrote Lord Hervey. ‘This way of reasoning induced many to make their court to her, and choose that channel to recommend themselves to the Prince.’43

  Among the most notable were the Duke of Argyll, who was in opposition to Robert Walpole, and his brother Lord Ilay, along with the Duke of Dorset, chief officer of the King’s household, and Sir Spencer Compton. It seemed inconceivable to such men that the Prince would ‘give all his leisure hours to a pretty and agreeable woman who had no weight in his counsels and perhaps as small portion of his person’.44

  Lord Chesterfield realised what Lord Hervey chose not to: however much these place-seekers and politicians exaggerated Mrs Howard’s influence, it was the perception that she had the means to grant their request that augmented it. His account proves that she was well aware of this fact too, and used it to her advantage: ‘Her lodgings grew more and more frequented by busy faces, both of men and women. Solicitations surrounded her, which she did not reject, knowing that the opinion of having power often procures power. Nor did she promise to support them, conscious that she had not the power to do it.’45

  As the mistress of the Prince of Wales, Henrietta therefore had to perform a rather delicate balancing act. She had to maintain her influential position by listening patiently to the many supplicants for her favour without actually consenting to their requests, and she had to ensure the security of her own appointment in the Princess’s household by serving both master and mistress. If she alienated either, her position at court would be untenable and she would have no choice but to return to her abusive husband. The stakes had never been higher.

  However, there was also the added complication of having to ensure that the Prince never suspected she was using her position as mistress to gain influence over him. The necessity of this had already been proved by an incident concerning her friend Lord Chesterfield, who had sought Caroline’s intervention in order to secure a ‘trifling favour’ from the Prince. The Princess had agreed to help him, but subsequently forgot about it. When, a few days later, she remembered her promise, she summoned the Earl and apologised for her oversight, assuring him that she would speak to her husband that
very day. But Chesterfield replied that she should not trouble herself because Mrs Howard had already performed the task. Indignant at this slight, Caroline promptly told the Prince that he had been unwittingly manipulated by his mistress, knowing that he would be ‘very unwilling to have it supposed that the favourite interfered’. George reacted just as she had hoped, flying into a rage and refusing to see Henrietta for several days. Chesterfield, meanwhile, was obliged to stay away from court until the Prince’s anger had subsided.46

  The difficult and volatile circumstances that had to be navigated in order to retain her position at court would have defeated a less careful and astute mistress. But Henrietta proved herself equal to the task. By 1720, two years after her affair with the Prince had begun, she was still referred to as ‘a great favoret of Pluto’s [the Prince], & consequently of our Queens [Princess]’.47 Furthermore, even though she had failed to progress the vast majority of applications for the Prince’s favour, she was still besieged by persons of influence – and those who aspired to be so.

  Despite her success, Henrietta was growing increasingly restless at court. The skilful manipulation and deception that was required to maintain her position did not come naturally to one who preferred neutrality to faction and intellectual pursuits to political power games. She had also recently lost two of her closest companions at court. Molly Lepel had succumbed to the charms of Lord Hervey and had moved to his country estate in Suffolk after their marriage. Mary Bellenden had also left court to get married, and although both women corresponded frequently with Henrietta, it was a poor substitute for having them close at hand. Indeed, if anything their letters made her even more wistful, as they told of the domestic bliss and tranquillity of their new lives in the country.

  Above all, though, Henrietta missed her son. Almost three years had passed since she had seen him, and despite enquiring after him on numerous occasions, she had been able to glean precious little news. Her cousin, Margaret Bradshaw, found out that he had spent some time at a school near Salisbury, and applied to the master there to see the young boy. She told Henrietta: ‘I have sent ten times to Doctor Dunsters to inquire after your Child & could never be inform’d tell this minute yt he was gon from thence’, and assured her that if she had managed to see him, she would have ‘fill’d his bely sum times with frute & tea’.48

  It must have been a torment for Henrietta to know that her husband was in all probability raising their son to despise his absent mother. Urged on by her friends, she even contemplated snatching him from his school. But she was painfully aware that her position at court remained tenuous and that she could offer none of the security that the boy needed. As mistress to the Prince of Wales, she also had to be careful not to risk what would inevitably be a very public scandal, given Charles Howard’s temperament. She therefore clung to the hope that Henry would one day return to her of his own free will. She confided this to Mary Bellenden, now Mrs Campbell: ‘nor will I have any sinister methods made use of, but leave all to his Natural Inclinations forbidding all arbitrary Proceeding’.49

  The desire to see her son drove Henrietta to risk the Prince’s wrath by trying to persuade him to make peace with his father. At least then she might be permitted to visit Henry at St James’s, whereas since the royal feud, that palace had been strictly off limits for members of the Prince’s court. For once, she and the Princess were of one accord. Caroline also missed her children, and although the King had allowed her to visit them at Kensington, he was clearly determined to exercise strict control over their upbringing. He even referred the matter to the King’s Bench, proposing that he should be responsible for the children’s education and that they should be ‘entirely under his command’.52

  The chances of the King and Prince making peace seemed remote. ‘Any persons that are turned out of doors at St James’s are sure to find entertainment at Leicester Fields, so that the happy reconciliation is as near as ever,’ wrote the Earl of Oxford to his wife in May 1718. The King’s resentment towards his son was not to be dispelled so easily. It had been growing in intensity ever since the quarrel at the christening, fuelled by reports that reached him of the brilliance and popularity of the Prince’s court, which to George I was a clear demonstration of impenitent rebellion. It was rumoured that at one stage he even contemplated seizing his son and conveying him to South America, ‘whence he should never be heard of more’.51

  Eventually, worn down by the pleadings of his wife and mistress, and grudgingly accepting the logic of Walpole’s arguments about the damage that the ongoing feud was doing to the Hanoverians’ public image, the Prince reluctantly agreed to offer an olive branch. On St George’s Day, 23 April 1720, he wrote a conciliatory letter to the King. Upon receipt of this, his father sent word that he would receive him at St James’s. Mrs Wake, wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, encountered the Prince on his way to the palace and was so shocked by his grim countenance that she stopped him and asked if he had heard some terrible news about one of his children. ‘No,’ he sourly replied, ‘I am going to wait upon my Father.’52

  The pair met in the King’s closet at St James’s. The Prince managed to put on a reasonable show of contrition, but as he knelt before his father and vowed that he hoped never again to invoke his displeasure, the words must have all but choked him. The King turned pale and was ‘much dismayed’ at the sight of his son’s apparent humility. Onlookers noted that he ‘could not speak to be heard but by broken sentences, and said several times, “Votre conduite, votre conduite”’. The Prince promptly turned on his heel and hastened back to Leicester House. The whole encounter had not lasted above five minutes.53

  The reconciliation, however fragile, sparked great celebrations throughout both courts. All those who had been obliged to resign their places because their spouse was in the opposing camp now faced the prospect of a return to service. Lady Cowper recalled that the square in front of Leicester House was ‘full of coaches’ and ‘the Rooms full of Company; everything was gay and laughing; nothing but kissing and wishing of joy; and, in short, so different a face of things, nobody could conceive that so much joy should be after so many resolutions never come to this’.54

  Elizabeth Molesworth, an acquaintance of Henrietta, congratulated her upon the part she had played in all this. ‘I suppose you have had no small share in the joy this happy reconciliation has occasioned,’ she wrote. The rejoicing spread throughout the country, although most used it merely as an excuse for overindulgence. Mrs Molesworth admitted that her husband had ‘celebrated the news in a manner that allarmed the country people’, adding that he was ‘att present a little Disordered with that nights work’.55

  The reconciliation was ‘so little cordial’, however, that it made precious little difference to relations between the King and Prince.56 The former would not hear of the royal couple returning to live at St James’s – not that his son had any intention of doing so. When the pair met at formal court occasions, as they were now regularly obliged to do, the atmosphere between them chilled the temperature in the room by several degrees. At the first drawing room to be held after the ceasefire, the King and his son stayed at opposite ends of the room with their respective entourages, ‘which made the whole thing look like two armies drawn up in battle Array’, observed one courtier present. They exchanged angry glances all evening, each ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. The same courtier noted: ‘one could not help thinking it was like a little Dog and a Cat – whenever the dog stirs a foot, the cat sets up her back, and is ready to fly at him’.57

  Relations were no better a few weeks later. A court newsletter described an encounter between George and his son at another reception. The King ‘spoke not one word to him, good, bad, or indifferent’. The Prince, meanwhile, deliberately slighted the Duke of Newcastle by standing in his way and refusing to speak to him.58

  Celebrations among the royal household staff and government officials therefore proved short-lived. If anything, the atmosphere at court was e
ven worse than it had been before the split, and many wished for a return to the days when the two households had been completely separate. Those who had tried to curry favour with both sides during the breach now found themselves out in the cold.

  Neither did the reconciliation bring happier times for Henrietta. Charles continued to refuse her access to their son, on which point he had the King’s backing. Furthermore, she found herself the mistress of an increasingly bad-tempered and petulant Prince. The restlessness that she had begun to feel a few months before now turned into a desperate yearning to be free from the shackles of court.

  Chapter 9

  ‘A house in Twittenham’

  * * *

  THE SOCIAL PRESTIGE OF Leicester House and Richmond Lodge waned considerably after the reconciliation. The Prince and Princess of Wales wisely recognised that it would no longer be appropriate to entertain in such a lavish manner as to outshine the formal ceremonials at St James’s. Besides, they were able to preside over the latter from June 1720 when the King set sail for Hanover once more. However, another, more unexpected, factor was about to hasten the decline not just of the couple’s two main residences, but of London’s social life generally.

  The South Sea Company had been established by the Earl of Oxford in 1711 to trade with South America, but also as an alternative source of government funds to the Whig-dominated Bank of England and East India Company. Eight years later, there was a scheme to use it to take over part of the government debt. Even though the company had no trade, this immediately prompted wild speculation, and it seemed that the whole of London was scrambling to buy subscriptions.