by Tracy Borman
By the early eighteenth century, the village of Twickenham, lying some ten miles south-west of London, had become one of the most desirable places to live for those wishing to escape the noise and smells of the capital. Just two hours by barge from London, and within easy reach of Hampton Court and Richmond Lodge, it became a magnet for members of fashionable society who sought rural tranquillity combined with ready access to the court. Lord Ilay himself had built a mansion there, the handsome Whitton Place, and he was surrounded by a host of other noble residents. The politician and government official James Johnston, a younger son of Lord Wariston, had modelled the elegant Orléans House on his country seat in Lombardy. The portrait painter Thomas Hudson lived nearby, as did Lord Strafford, the Dowager Countess of Ferrers and Lady Fanny Shirley. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who spent every summer there with her husband at the elegant Savile House, wrote to a friend in 1722: ‘I am at Twickenham where there is at this time more company than in London.’ So rapidly was the village expanding that later the same year, she told her friend that it had ‘become so fashionable, and the neighbourhood so enlarged, that ’tis more like Tunbridge or Bath than a country retreat’.17
But perhaps the most important influence on Mrs Howard’s choice of location was the proximity of her friend Alexander Pope. He had moved to the village in 1719 and had built a new villa on the proceeds from his translation of Homer’s Iliad. Henrietta was captivated by his descriptions of the peace and tranquillity of the place compared to London. ‘At Twickenham the World goes otherwise,’ he wrote. ‘We have as little politicks here within a few miles of court . . . as at Southampton.’18
Delighted at the prospect of a new neighbour, Pope offered to help his friend with the design of her house and, in particular, its grounds. A keen gardener, he soon began to spend so much time at Marble Hill that he neglected his writing. ‘My head is still more upon Mrs Howard and her works than upon my own,’ he confessed to a friend in September 1724. He may well have drawn inspiration from the magnificent grounds of his friends the Digby family at Sherborne in Dorset, where he had stayed that summer. ‘I have spent many hours here in studying for hers, & in drawing new plans for her,’ he told his friend Martha Blount. His subsequent account of the parkland at Marble Hill showed that there was a direct correlation between the two. ‘The Valley is laid level and divided into two regular groves of horse chestnuts, and a bowling green in the middle of about 180 foot. This is bounded behind with a canal [the Thames].’ The elegant layout of Marble Hill’s gardens was to remain unchanged for the next forty or so years. An account of 1760 described the ‘fine green lawn, open to the river . . . adorned on each side, by a beautiful grove of chestnut trees’.19
Before long, Henrietta’s other male acquaintances at court were falling over themselves to help. The Earl of Peterborough seemed even more eager than she was to see it completed. ‘I was impatient to know the issue of the affaire, and what she intended for this autumn,’ he wrote to Pope, ‘for no time is to be Lost either if she intends to build out houses or prepare for planting.’ He promised to call on Pope as soon as possible so that they could go together to Marble Hill.20
An amusing rivalry developed between the men involved in Mrs Howard’s project, as each battled to outdo the others’ efforts. ‘Fair Lady, I dislike my Rivalls amongst the living, more then those amongst the dead,’ wrote a peevish Lord Peterborough, ‘must I yield to Lord Herbert, and Duke Ily, if I had built the castle of Blenheim, and filled the Land with Domes and Towers, I had deserved my fate for I hear I am to be Layed aside as an extravagant person fitt to build nothing but palaces . . . I can even wish well to the house, and garden under all these mortifications, may every Tree prosper planted by what ever hand, may you ever be pleased & happy, whatever happens to your unfortunate Gardiner, & architect degraded, & Turned of.’21
Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl of that name, was another rival for Peterborough to contend with. In common with an increasing number of Henrietta’s friends, he was an ardent Tory, and, having lost the political prestige he had enjoyed under Queen Anne, he was now in constant opposition to Walpole’s regime. Bathurst was renowned for his wit and counted some of the greatest literary figures of the day among his friends, including Congreve, Prior and Swift. He was also a close friend of Pope, who had recently introduced him to Mrs Howard. She was instantly captivated by his humour, and in particular his willingness to poke fun at the court. ‘I am convinced I shall make but an awkward Courtier,’ he told her in one letter, claiming that the last time he had been presented at Richmond, ‘the folks I met there . . . looked upon me as a wild Beast whose teeth and Claws had been lately pulled out’.22
Their friendship became close enough to cause a scandal at court. ‘I, who smell a rat at a considerable distance, do believe in private that Mrs Howard and his lordship have a friendship that borders upon “the tender”,’ wrote Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to her sister. Dismissing everything that Henrietta had pleaded to the contrary, she continued: ‘as there is never smoke without some fire, there is very rarely fire without some smoke. These smothered flames, tho’ admirably covered with whole heaps of politics laid over them, were at length seen, felt, heard, and understood.’23
Before long, news of the suspected affair had reached the Prince. According to Lady Mary, he told his mistress that if she ‘shewed under other colours’, he would withhold her salary. If her account is to be believed, Bathurst was subsequently ordered to stay away from Richmond, and the matter was never spoken of again. There is little other evidence to support this, however, and the Earl was in fact welcomed back to court on many subsequent occasions.
Tender or not, Henrietta’s friendship with Bathurst proved useful in the design of her new house. Like Pope, he was a keen gardener and had a magnificent park of his own near Cirencester. He was eager to assist in the layout of the grounds at Marble Hill, and told Pope that he planned to wait on their mutual friend there as soon as possible. He later sent some lime trees to be planted in her gardens.24
While Henrietta was grateful for her friends’ help with her new villa and its grounds, she was not about to leave such an important project to well-meaning amateurs, and instead enlisted the services of some of the greatest architects and gardeners of the day. For the grounds she engaged Charles Bridgeman, landscape gardener to the King himself. Bridgeman was already much in demand and Pope had recently seen his work for Viscount Cobham at the celebrated gardens of Stowe. He visited Marble Hill with Henrietta and Pope in the summer of 1724, but there followed a delay of some weeks before he gave his opinion. He wrote to the latter in September explaining that he had been very busy, but assuring him that he had ‘begun on the plan, and have not left from that time to this so long as I could see, nor shall [I] leave it till ’tis finished which I hope will be about tomorrow noon’.25
The laying out of the grounds at Marble Hill was to continue for some years. In the meantime, Henrietta commissioned Roger Morris, a little-known but talented architect, to build ‘the naked carcass of a house’. He was paid £200 on account and started work straight away. Henrietta was far from being a passive observer of all this activity. Her interests extended well beyond the ‘tea and scandal’ with which the poet Congreve identified her sex.26 She was passionately interested in, and had a sound knowledge of, the architectural styles that were prevalent in England at that time. As the ‘Honourable Mrs Howard’ she was included in the list of subscribers to the third volume of Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus in 1725. This included the designs for Marble Hill, although secrecy was still observed, for it was referred to simply as ‘A house in Twittenham’. Henrietta also subscribed to both volumes of William Kent’s The Designs of Inigo Jones in 1727.
Mrs Howard’s friends and family were well aware of her passion for architecture, and often sought her advice on the design of their own homes. Lord Chesterfield wrote to her from his ambassadorial residence in the Hague in 1728 complaining that, having commissioned a spacious ne
w apartment, he was ‘at present over head and ears, in mortar’. Fearing that he might have judged the dimensions incorrectly, he pledged to ‘submit to you and Lord Herbert; who I hope will both be so good as to give me your sentiments upon it’. Many years later, Henrietta’s nephew John appealed to her during his modernisation work at Blickling, which he claimed his wife and sister were ruining with ill-advised schemes of their own. ‘Your authority is necessary to silence them,’ he insisted.27
The influence that Henrietta had on her own house can be clearly traced. Its harmonic architectural proportions owed much to the Palladian style that she so loved. As such, it was at the very forefront of fashionable taste, for this style was only just beginning to take hold in England. Its origins lay in the ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe, which had become an essential component of a gentleman’s education. The Tour followed an established route which took in some of the greatest classical sites on the Continent, such as Rome and Pompeii. This in turn sparked an interest in the designs of the sixteenth century architect Andrea Palladio, whose villas were based on the strict numerical ratios and geometrical symmetry of his Greek and Roman forebears. The overall effect was one of elegant simplicity, and the Georgians loved it.
The period gave rise to some of the greatest Palladian creations of English architectural history: from the remodelling of Stowe and Woburn Abbey to the building of Prior Park in Somerset and Nostell Priory in Yorkshire. Marble Hill was on a much smaller scale, but was still regarded as one of the finest Palladian villas in England. ‘I long to see what I’m told is the prettiest thing of the size that can be seen,’ wrote Henrietta’s friend Lady Hervey.28 It was also one of the earliest, for it was not until after 1730 that the movement really started to take hold.
But Marble Hill was more than just a purely academic exercise; a slavish homage to the designs of Palladio. Not for Mrs Howard the rigid symmetry of Lord Burlington’s house at nearby Chiswick, which was devoid of such luxuries as bedrooms and kitchens, and was variously described by contemporaries as ‘rather curious than convenient’ and ‘too small to live in, but too large to hang on a watch chain’.29 For all its elegance, both inside and out, Marble Hill was a house designed for a lady to live in and receive company, and Henrietta ensured that it was practical as well as aesthetically pleasing.
The house had two main entrances, for guests would arrive either by the road to the north or the river to the south. Most would have chosen the latter, as this was by far the most comfortable way to travel and avoided the dust, discomfort and danger of the bumpy roads, which were also riddled with highwaymen. Pope had fallen foul of them while Marble Hill was being built. On his way home one evening, his coach had been overturned when it crossed a broken bridge. He had been thrown into the river and had been ‘up to the knots of his periwig in water’ before the coachman had broken the windows and dragged him out. Pope’s hand had been so badly cut that it was feared he would lose the use of his little finger ‘& the next to it’.30 A surgeon had been hastily summoned from London, and had confirmed that the hand would be permanently crippled.
The scene of sylvan calm that is presented to modern-day visitors as they gaze across the Thames towards the graceful house beyond is rather different to how it would have looked in the early eighteenth century. The river would have been bustling with traffic: from elegant courtiers flitting between St James’s or Hampton Court and their country retreats, to barges laden with goods pulled by dray horses plodding along the path. A contemporary engraving depicts the view that would have unfolded before them as the river wound westwards away from Richmond. A sweeping wide avenue of chestnut trees led the eye up the gently sloping bank towards the elegant villa – described as being ‘as white as snow’ – that sat in the centre of the view. It was, and remains, a perfect composition, an image of beauty, taste and simplicity. ‘Among all the Villas of this neighbourhood, Lady Suffolk’s, which we sail past, on the left, a little below Twickenham, makes the best appearance from the river,’ claimed a guide written for Georgian river tourists. ‘It stands in a woody recess, with a fine lawn descending to the water, & adorned with wood well-disposed.’31
After strolling through the avenue, guests would arrive in the elegant entrance hall. With its precise symmetrical proportions, including four carefully positioned columns, this imitated the central court of a Roman house. Pope told Henrietta that it was ‘the most delightful room in the world except where you are’.32 An intimate breakfast parlour had been built downstairs, overlooking the river, while a grand staircase, fashioned from the mahogany that the Prince had given her, allowed visitors to parade in style up to the stately Great Room. Favoured guests might ascend the inner stone staircase to retire in one of the three fine bedrooms on the third storey, or to view portraits in the long gallery that ran alongside. Eight garrets were squeezed under the eaves for the servants, who used the same concealed stairs to reach the service wing. On the outside of the house, meanwhile, Henrietta ordered that balconies be added to the south front so that she could admire the fine prospect towards the Thames, Ham House and Richmond Hill.
The clarity of Henrietta’s vision for the house suggests that she had filled many long hours at court planning every aspect of it in her mind, even though the need for secrecy had prevented her from committing these thoughts to paper. She made the most of the times when the court was at nearby Richmond to inspect the work in progress, and was so immersed in this task that she was no longer able to maintain a regular correspondence with her absent friends. ‘How does my good howard doe, me thinks I Long to [hear] from you,’ wrote Mary Campbell in August 1724. ‘I suppose you are up to the ears in bricks & mortar, & talk of freez & cornish Like any Little woman.’ She added that she was about to pay a visit to Colonel Fane’s new Palladian-style house at Mereworth in Kent, ‘where I intend to improve my self in the terms of art, in order to keep pace with you’.33
While she was heavily involved in the design, Henrietta’s duties at court allowed her only the occasional visit to Marble Hill. This was a source of great frustration, for the house was rapidly becoming her sole source of comfort. Instead she had to make do with the news that her friends sent back to her from there. Work certainly seemed to be progressing apace, for within just a few short months, Pope was able to report: ‘Marblehill waits only for its roof – the rest is finished.’34 He must have been referring to the ‘carcass’ only, for there was still a great deal to do on the rest of the house. Nevertheless, the speed at which Morris and his men were working was impressive.
Frustrated by her confinement at court and impatient with her now onerous duties for both the Prince and Princess, Mrs Howard received some welcome relief in the form of a new visitor to Leicester House. Jonathan Swift was Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, but was better known for his literary genius than his spiritual endeavours. A close friend of Pope, Gay and Arbuthnot, he had risen to prominence during the reign of Queen Anne, when he had put his considerable literary talents to good use on behalf of the Tories, and before long he had become their leading propagandist. Despite winning favour with the Queen, he had been unable to secure a position at court, and on her death he had returned to his native Dublin, where he soon afterwards took up his post at St Patrick’s.
Swift was not neglected by his friends back in England, who struck up a regular correspondence with him and continually begged him to return. As an incentive, Pope offered to introduce him to his friend Mrs Howard, whom he was confident Swift would admire as much as he did. ‘I can also help you to a Lady who is as deaf, tho’ not so old as your self,’ he told him. ‘You’ll be pleas’d with one another, I’ll engage, tho’ you don’t hear one another: you’ll converse like spirits by intuition.’35 Pope was right. When Swift finally gave in to his entreaties and paid a visit to England in the spring of 1726, he quickly forged a close friendship with Mrs Howard. It was fortunate that they conversed by word rather than intuition, for their good-humoured sparring kept their friends ente
rtained during many a long evening at Leicester House. Their lively exchanges continued by letter after Swift had left England, and read like a duel of wits.
Swift’s most famous work, Gulliver’s Travels, was published – anonymously – shortly after his departure. This satirical tale was based upon certain characters within the Georgian court, including the royal family themselves. Henrietta read it with delight, and her next letter to Swift was loaded with references to it. Copying the style of the inhabitants of Lilliput, she wrote diagonally down one side of the paper and up the other. She also wove in various characters and scenes within the book, such as the ‘Brobdignag Dwarf’ and the ‘Academy of Lagado’, and signed the letter ‘Sieve Yahoo’ – the name that Gulliver gives to ladies at court. Swift pretended to be bemused by the missive, claiming that it was ‘the most unaccountable one I ever saw in my life’, and that he had been unable to ‘comprehend three words of it together’. ‘The perverseness of your lines astonished me,’ he continued, and said that he had puzzled over its meaning for four full days before a bookseller had sent him a copy of Gulliver’s Travels. He added that he had rather resented being ‘forced to read a book of seven hundred pages in order to understand a letter of fifty lines’.36
For all their literary sparring, it seemed that Swift and Mrs Howard had a great deal of affection for each other. She gave him a ring as a token of her esteem, which he wore constantly to remind him of his new friend, and in return he presented her with a gift of luxurious Irish plaid ‘made in Imitation of the Indian wherein our Workmen here are grown so expert’. Henrietta was so delighted with this that she proudly showed it off to the Princess, who immediately seized it for her own use.37
Like Henrietta’s other male friends, Swift involved himself in the development of her new house. He was rather less serious in the task than Pope and Peterborough, however, and his chief preoccupation seemed to be with the wine cellar. He styled himself ‘chief butler and Keeper of the Ice House’, and told Henrietta: ‘I hope you will get your house and wine ready, to which Mr Gay and I are to have free access when you are safe at Court.’38 Swift did make a more practical contribution to the house by helping his new friend with the furnishings. He supplied more of the Irish plaid cloth, and this was used for bed hangings and curtains in the bedroom that subsequently become known as the ‘Plaid Room’.
