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

by Tracy Borman

  Lord Townshend, who had accompanied the King on his journey to Hanover, dispatched a messenger with all speed to England. Four days later, the servants at Sir Robert Walpole’s London residence on Arlington Street were disturbed by a frantic knocking at the door. They opened it to find a messenger, greatly agitated, telling them that he had an urgent dispatch for their master. On hearing that Sir Robert was not at home, the man set off for Richmond, where the Prince and Princess were enjoying their traditional summer retreat. He had got as far as the outskirts of Chelsea when he encountered the very object of his mission, who stopped him and asked what business caused him such haste. When the breathless messenger told him that he carried news of the King’s death, Sir Robert made him hand over the dispatch so that he could take it in person to the Prince.

  It was a sultry June day, and the Prince and Princess were taking their customary afternoon rest when their chief minister arrived, sweating and agitated. He at once applied to the Duchess of Dorset to be admitted to the royal presence, but was informed that they were sleeping and could not be disturbed. Sir Robert urged that his business would brook no delay, and the Duchess, with many misgivings, eventually agreed to wake them.

  Furious at this interruption to his accustomed routine, the Prince immediately sent back word that he ‘considered the minister very bad and impertinent at daring to come into his house and disturb him, and that he might go away again, for he would not see him’. Walpole continued pressing, however, which put his master into ‘such a state of fury that he was on the point of rising to throw Sir Robert out of the room’.3 Eventually, the Princess managed to calm her husband by persuading him that Walpole would never dare to risk his wrath in such a manner unless the news was of the greatest importance.

  Flustered and cursing, Prince George emerged from the royal bedchamber, half dressed and still muttering oaths against his chief minister. Walpole promptly lowered his great bulk down on one knee and kissed the Prince’s hand, before imparting the news that his father was dead and he was therefore the new King of England.

  Throughout history, heirs to the throne have been awestruck and humbled upon hearing that they have at last come into their inheritance. When Elizabeth I received the news that she was Queen of England, she sank to her knees in the gardens at Hatfield Palace and proclaimed in Latin: ‘This is the Lord’s doing: it is marvellous in our eyes.’ If the chroniclers had been close at hand that hot June day in Richmond to capture George II’s first words on hearing that he was now King, they might have been somewhat disappointed. There was no declaration of humility at God’s greatness, nor was there a vow to serve his country with all his energy and passion. Instead, England’s new King appeared first perplexed, then enraged, and at last spluttered: ‘Dat is von big lie!’ before prancing out of the room.

  The rather bewildered Walpole was left struggling to haul himself back to his feet, having received scant reward for his eagerness to be the first to tell the royal couple these momentous tidings. Once he had recovered his senses, George told his minister to take his instructions from Sir Spencer Compton, speaker of the House of Commons and Treasurer of the Prince’s household. As it was the chief minister’s responsibility to make arrangements for the new government, the implication was that Walpole could consider himself dismissed from this office. His enemies were triumphant. William Pulteney was rumoured to have poisoned the Prince against his minister by blaming him for the humiliating terms of the reconciliation with the late King. Henrietta, a supporter of Compton, used her influence with the Prince to blacken Walpole’s character still further. It was an easy task: George was minded to dislike any whom his late father had favoured. As he made his way back to London, filled with dismay at this sudden loss of power, Walpole could only hope that Caroline would use her accustomed wiles to persuade her husband of his folly.

  George and Caroline now made hasty preparations to leave Richmond that afternoon. By the time they arrived at Leicester House, the courtyard was crowded with people, all anxious to pay homage to the new King and his consort. Lord Hervey, who had travelled with the royal party, described the scene. ‘The square was thronged with multitudes of the meaner sort and resounded with huzzas and acclamations, whilst every room in the house was filled with people of the higher rank, crowding to kiss their hands and to make the earliest and warmest professions of zeal for their service.’4

  For the ensuing four days, during which the royal couple were at their old residence, the crowds grew even greater, everyone present anxious to win favour and position. The contrast with the previous few years, when the house had been well and truly eclipsed by St James’s, could not have been greater. ‘Leicester House, that used to be a desert, was thronged from morning to night,’ observed one courtier. It was with some amusement that Pope noted ‘the strange spirit and life, with which men broken resume their hopes, their sollicitations, their ambitions’, and urged a friend to join him in watching ‘the fury and bustle of the Bees this hot season, without coming so near as to be stung by them’.5

  Sir Spencer Compton basked in his newfound influence and popularity as eager politicians and courtiers beat a path to his door. He held receptions and supper parties that rivalled the new King’s for splendour and elegance, and was gracious and charming to everyone he met. By contrast, Sir Robert Walpole, once so powerful at court, was treated like a social pariah. His ally, Lord Hervey, described how he walked through the public rooms at Leicester House ‘as if they had still been empty’, and observed: ‘His presence, that used to make a crowd wherever he appeared, now emptied every corner he turned to, and the same people who were officiously a week ago clearing the way to flatter his prosperity, were now getting out of it to avoid sharing his disgrace.’6 But Walpole was shrewd enough to know that the fickleness of a court that had been so quick to reject him could just as easily turn in his favour. Aware that his rival Compton, for all his charm, had not the ability to manage government effectively, he resolved to wait patiently for the tide to turn.

  He did not have to wait for long. Compton’s first official task was to draft the new King’s speech for his Accession Council. It was a task to which he found himself unequal, and he begged Walpole to help him. Spying an opportunity to undermine his rival, Sir Robert readily agreed. Compton subsequently presented the finished speech to George as his own, but was dismayed when the King asked that part of it be revised. Knowing that he could not undertake this himself, he had to again summon Walpole to do it for him. His incompetence thus discovered, and the Queen having worked on her husband in the meantime, Compton’s short-lived ascendancy in government was soon afterwards brought to an end. Walpole pushed home his advantage by offering to secure the King a vastly increased income from the Civil List. Appealing to George’s greed was a sure way back to favour, but the minister now faced the considerable challenge of persuading Parliament to agree to the increase. Thanks to his oratory and manipulative skills, Walpole eventually succeeded, and the new sovereign was granted a staggering sum in excess of £900,000 per year. With Walpole thus restored to favour, the courtiers who had spurned him just a few days earlier now declared undying allegiance.

  The collapse of Compton’s brief ascendancy was the cause of some disappointment for the more loyal of his supporters, chief among whom were Henrietta and her friends Pulteney and Bolingbroke. According to Hervey, their own status at court declined as a result. ‘His reputed mistress, Mrs Howard, and the speaker his reputed minister, were perceived to be nothing, and Mr Pulteney and Lord Bolingbroke . . . less than nothing,’ he wrote. ‘It appeared very plain that His Majesty had no political regard for the first, no opinion of the capacity of the second, a dislike for the conduct of the third, and an abhorrence for the character of the last.’7 This acerbic courtier was, however, very firmly in Caroline and Walpole’s camp and was therefore apt to underplay the influence of their enemies at court.

  In fact, George II’s accession brought his mistress into much greater prominence than
before and significantly enhanced her prestige. Although the extent of her influence was more ambiguous, this did little to dissuade the many who dismissed the Queen as a ‘mere cypher’, believing that ‘the whole power and influence over the King was supposed to be lodged in the hands of Mrs Howard’. Her apartments were suddenly thronging with ambitious place-seekers, convinced that winning her favour was the surest means of securing advancement from the King. ‘The busy and speculative politicians of the antechamber, who knew everything, but knew everything wrong, naturally concluded that a lady with whom the King passed so many hours every day must necessarily have some interest with him, and consequently applied to her,’ observed her friend Lord Chesterfield.8

  Applications came from every direction. Those who could not make it to court wrote to plead for Henrietta’s favourable intervention. Lady Chetwynd expressed her profound regret at not being able to pay her respects to the Queen in person, especially as the posts that her husband had held during the late King’s reign were now at risk. ‘Unless their Majesty’s by your kind intercession, shall shew us some mark of their Royall favour,’ she wrote plaintively, ‘we shall be obliged by necessity to find some other corner of the world to pass the remainder of our day’s in.’ Mrs Howard’s distant kinsman, the Right Honourable Richard Hampden, complained of the persecution that he had suffered at Walpole’s hands in the previous reign, which he claimed had left him heavily in debt. ‘I humbly intreat to know if I am to expect wherewith to bye bread from this Royal Family,’ he wrote, ‘otherwise I must very soon take some service in some other family, to prevent my starving.’ Another correspondent was the celebrated writer and poet Dr Edward Young, whose witty satires had kept Henrietta amused during many a long day at court, and who now sought something from her in return. ‘If my case deserves some consideration, & you can serve me in it, I humbly hope, & believe you will,’ he pleaded.

  Others resorted to bribery in an attempt to win Mrs Howard’s favour. This was a rather unwise policy, given the obvious contempt that she had shown for such base practices in the past – which was, admittedly, rare for a courtier. Some five years earlier, the Honourable Mrs Pitt, mother of the future Lord Chancellor, had offered her 1,000 guineas to secure her brother a post in the Prince of Wales’s household. Her request had met with such a sharp rebuke that she had hastily written to beg forgiveness ‘for ye freedom I have taken’, adding that she had intended the money as a present rather than a bribe.

  Henrietta gave similarly short shrift to any hint of financial reward made by her many petitioners upon George II’s accession. One such offender was the Honourable Walter Molesworth, who wrote: ‘I conceive that the late incident [George II’s accession] has given you an increase of power, which may bear some proportion to the benevolence of your mind.’ If she agreed to further his application for a Groom of the Bedchamber post, he promised ‘whatever conditions or provisions you may annex to this favour’. His letter went unanswered, but its contents had so offended Henrietta that she made her displeasure known to Molesworth’s sister-in-law when she came to court. Chastened by the harsh words that he had heard second-hand, he wrote to beg forgiveness, assuring her that ‘to shock your delicacy, as in common prudence it was not my business, could not consequently be my meaning’.9

  Henrietta found all this attention overwhelming. It seemed that the sudden enhancement of her position at court had brought her anxiety rather than glory, for she feared that she would be unable to fulfil all – indeed, any – of the requests with which she was now besieged. The pressure sparked a recurrence of the severe headaches that she had begun to suffer during the previous few years. Her friend Martha Blount, to whom Pope had introduced her, wrote anxiously: ‘I thought the kindest thing I could do was not to trouble you with any visits or letters, and I wish others had been as considerate of you, for the contrary (I hear) has had the effect I apprehend’d it would, of making you ill.’10

  While Henrietta found the burden of her new prestige intolerable, her friends predicted that it would bring her great fortune and influence. Martha tried to lift her spirits by assuring her: ‘I have rejoyced, and shall always, at every thing, that happens to your advantage.’11 Others shared her optimism, if not her consideration. Jonathan Swift, who had hastened back to London upon hearing news of George II’s accession, wrote to ask if Henrietta might approach the King to see whom he intended for the chancellorship of Dublin University. He assured his new friend that such was her current standing at court, that even the most tenuous association with her was sure to bring him favour. ‘There are, madam, thousands in the world, who, if they saw your dog Fop use me kindly, would the next day in a letter tell me of the delight they heard I had in doing good; and, being assured that a word of mine to you would do anything, desire my interest to speak to you to speak to the Speaker [Sir Spencer Compton], to speak to Sir R. Walpole to speak to the King, etc.’12 In the event, Henrietta was able to do little for him, and he returned to Ireland later that year, bitter in his disappointment.

  As well as hoping for a position himself, Swift was also eager to see his friend John Gay in gainful employment. Gay had haunted the court for more than thirteen years, but while the royal family had delighted in his lively company, witty plays and irreverent satires, they had given him no material reward for his attendance. Now, though, with his friend Mrs Howard in such an influential position, there seemed a greater prospect of this than ever before. A post such as Lord of the Bedchamber to the King would have provided Gay with a regular income and only the lightest of duties. Indeed, he could have afforded to employ a servant to do most of these for him if he had wished. Instead, however, he was offered one of the lowest-paid and least prestigious posts in the royal household: Gentleman Usher to Princess Louisa, then a child of two years old. This was a studied insult on the part of the Queen, who resented all the attention that her husband’s mistress was receiving and was determined to show the world where the power really lay. She may also have been behind the King’s refusal to grant Swift his much-sought-after position.

  Gay declined the post and withdrew from court. He told Pope and Swift: ‘now all my expectations are vanish’d; and I have no prospect, but in depending wholly upon my self, and my own conduct’, but added: ‘As I am us’d to disappointments I can bear them, but as I can have no more hopes, I can be no more disappointed, so that I am in a blessed condition.’13 Swift was rather less philosophical. In his disappointment for himself and his friend, he railed against Henrietta for failing them both. ‘I always told you Mrs Howard was good for nothing but to be a rank Courtier,’ he wrote to Gay. ‘I care not whether She ever writes to me or no, She had Cheated us all, and may go hang her Self.’14

  Gay, to his credit, begged Swift to treat their friend with more justice and to realise that she had done everything in her power to help them. But the Dean would have none of it. In vain, Henrietta’s other friends pleaded with him to see sense. Pope urged: ‘that Lady means to do good, and does no harm, which is a vast deal for a Courtier’. His words met with a sharp rebuke from Swift, who declared: ‘I take Mr Pope and Mr Gay, who judge more favourably, to be a couple of simpletons.’15 Time did not lessen his resentment. In December 1731, he told Gay: ‘I have long hated her on your account, more because you are So forgiving as not to hate her.’16 As late as 1733, six years after the event, he was still writing lengthy letters on the subject to his friends back in England. One of these, Lady Betty Germain, was also a close acquaintance of Henrietta, and the two were dining together when a letter from Swift arrived. Upon scanning its contents, Lady Betty was so shocked that she immediately hid it away in her pocket. She subsequently chastised him and reasoned: ‘were it in people’s power that live in a Court with the appearance of favour to do all they desire for their friends they might deserve their Anger & be blamed when it does not happen right to their minds, but I believe never was the case with any one’.17

  Swift’s cruelty towards Henrietta was not restricted to pr
ivate correspondence. He also wrote a damning epistle and ‘Character’ of her, which were later published. The first was addressed to Gay, and ran thus:

  How could you, Gay, disgrace the muse’s train,

  To serve a tasteless Court twelve years in vain!

  Fain would I think our female friend [Henrietta] sincere,

  ’Till Bob [Sir Robert Walpole], the poet’s foe, possess’d her ear.

  Did female virtue e’er so high ascend,

  To lose an inch of favour for a friend?

  Say, had the Court no better place to choose

  For thee, than make a dry-nurse of thy Muse?

  How cheaply had thy liberty been sold,

  To squire a royal girl of two years old:

  In leading strings her infant steps to guide,

  Or with her go-cart amble by her side!

  The ‘Character’, meanwhile, was written before the Gentleman Usher post had been offered to Gay, and was therefore prompted solely by Swift’s own disappointment. ‘She abounds in good words and good wishes, and will conduct a hundred scheams with those whom she favours, in order to their advancement,’ he wrote, ‘although at the same time she very well knows, that both are without the least probability to succeed.’ He concluded: ‘her talents as a Courtier will spread, enlarge, and multiply to such a degree, that her private virtues, for want of room and time to operate, must be folded and layd up clean like cloaths in a chest . . . it will be her prudence to take care that they may not be tarnished or moth-eaten, for want of opening and airing and turning at least once a year’.18