King's Mistress, Queen's Servant: The Life and Times of Henrietta Howard
Page 21
For a long time Henrietta remained patient and forgiving towards Swift, despite his unjust treatment and false friendship. She continued to press his cause with the Queen and to enquire after him through their mutual friends. However, when after four years he was still making bitter accusations and trying to incite her friends to desert her, she at last retaliated. ‘You seem to think that you have a Natural Right to Abuse me because I am a Woman and a Courtier,’ she wrote in September 1731. ‘I have taken it as a Woman and as a Courtier might, with great resentment; and a determined resolution of Revenge.’ Referring to a recent controversy at court in which Swift had been falsely accused of disloyalty to the Queen, she continued sardonically: ‘Think of my Joy to hear you suspected of Folly, think of my Pleasure when I enter’d the list for your justification. Indeed I was a little disconcerted to find Mr Pope took the same side; for I wou’d have had the Man of Wit, the Dignified Divine, the Irish Drapier have found no friend but the Silly Woman, and the Courtier.’ She concluded with one last attempt at reconciliation. ‘Am I to send back the Crown and Plad, well pack’d up in my Character? Or am I to follow my own inclination, and continue very truely and very much your humble Servant.’19
But Swift could neither forgive nor forget what he saw as Mrs Howard’s callous disregard for her friends’ advancement, and he went to the grave hating her. This is in stark contrast to Gay, who soon got over his disappointment and did not in any case blame her for it. He was, indeed, to prove the most loyal of friends, and the two maintained an affectionate correspondence for the rest of his days.
These were tense times for Henrietta. She knew that if she was retained as both royal mistress and Woman of the Bedchamber after the Coronation (which was traditionally the time when most people were either reappointed or dismissed from their places), her position would be a good deal more secure.
While Mrs Howard’s future hung in the balance, work on her beloved Marble Hill was called to an abrupt halt. Swift wrote a satirical ‘dialogue’ between Marble Hill and Richmond Lodge, in which the former lamented:
My House was built but for a Show
My Lady’s empty Pockets know:
And now she will not have a Shilling
To raise the Stairs, or build the Ceiling;
. . . No more the Dean [Swift], that grave Divine,
Shall keep the Key of my No-Wine;
My Ice-House rob, as heretofore,
And steal my Artichokes no more;
Poor Patty Blount no more be seen
Bedraggled in my Walks so green;
Plump Johnny Gay will now elope;
And here no more will dangle Pope.
Plans were already well underway for the Coronation, and the new King was determined that it should eclipse his late father’s in every respect. He and Caroline ordered robes fashioned from purple velvet trimmed with ermine and wide gold braiding. The Queen Consort gathered together as many jewels as she could lay her hands on: not just her own, but those belonging to ladies of quality across London. Henrietta was closely involved in the preparations, along with the other Women of the Bedchamber, and as the Coronation drew closer, her hopes grew that she was now too indispensable to her mistress to be dismissed.
On the morning before the Coronation, the Queen’s robes and jewels were carried to the Black Rod’s Room at the House of Lords, which had been appointed for her dressing. All of her servants except the Women of the Bedchamber were dispatched there in the evening so that they could be ready to receive her. At last the day itself arrived. The eleventh of October 1727 dawned clear and bright, and extraordinarily warm for the time of year, which surely augured well for the new reign. Caroline rose early and, being in a state of ‘undress’, was conveyed in secret to the House of Lords. Mrs Howard, who followed in a hackney chair, noted that particular care was taken that ‘it should not be suspected when her Majesty passed the Park’. Once there, she and the other Women of the Bedchamber busied themselves with dressing their mistress in her state robes. The Queen’s magnificent gown was so weighed down with jewels that she later complained it had fatigued her greatly to walk about in it.20
The elaborate ceremony of the dressing over, Caroline was escorted to Westminster Hall to join her husband. The procession to the Abbey began at noon, and the crowds that had been gathering since dawn were overawed by the spectacle. ‘No words (at least that I can command), can describe the magnificence my eyes beheld,’ wrote Mrs Pendarves, who had managed to position herself by the doors of Westminster Hall.21 The procession included everyone from the young women appointed to scatter sweet-smelling herbs and flowers at their majesties’ feet, to kettle-drummers, choir boys, heralds, sheriffs, peers and peeresses, bishops, earls and dukes.
Beneath a glittering canopy made from gold cloth adorned with tiny gold and silver balls and bells walked the Queen in her jewel-encrusted gown, which ‘threw out a surprising radiance’, literally dazzling the spectators. Her train was borne by the three royal princesses, who were dressed in gowns of purple velvet and ermine, trimmed with silver. They were followed by four ladies of the Queen’s household, including Mrs Howard and her fellow Woman of the Bedchamber Mary Herbert. Their gowns were so splendid that one onlooker claimed they were ‘the two finest figures of all the procession’.22 Henrietta was dressed in scarlet, which was perhaps intended to single her out as the King’s official mistress, for it was not a colour that she usually chose to wear. Her gown was lined with richly embossed silver, and her long hair was worn loose about her shoulders.
At the end of the procession came the King himself. Drawing his rather squat frame up to its fullest possible height, he strutted out in the magnificent robes of state that had been made for the occasion. But for all his efforts, he could not escape the vague hint of ridiculousness that so often marked his public appearances. After the cool shelter of Westminster Hall, the unseasonably warm October sunshine came as something of a shock, and he soon became uncomfortably hot in the heavy velvet and thick ermine of his robes. He therefore retreated ever further under the canopy above him as the procession went on – so much so that the crowds complained they could not see him. To make matters worse, his crimson velvet cap, which was also lined with ermine, was too large for him and kept falling over his eyes. By the time the procession finally reached the Abbey, his notoriously short temper was on the verge of boiling over.23
Fortunately, the coronation ceremony itself passed without incident. After all the customary prayers, oaths and sermons, the King was presented with the royal orb and sceptre and, as he knelt before the Archbishop, the crown of state was lowered on to his head. ‘A visible satisfaction was diffused over every countenance as soon as the coronet was clapped on the head,’ observed Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was among the congregation. The shouts of the guests and the sounding of trumpets within the Abbey provided the signal for the great guns in St James’s Park and the Tower of London to be fired. After the Te Deum had been sung, the Queen advanced for her coronation, flanked by Mrs Howard and three other women of her household. Together they removed her velvet cap and stood ready to pin the crown into place once it had been set there by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This done, the royal couple made their way to the nearby thrones and received Holy Communion.
It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon when the ceremonies ended and the procession was ready to return to the great hall of Westminster. Here a sumptuous banquet had been prepared for the King and Queen and their three hundred or so guests. The galleries up above were open to the public, and thousands had queued for hours to secure a place. Mrs Pendarves was among them, having been at the hall since half past four that morning. Despite making such an early start, she had found herself amongst ‘so violent a crowd that for some minutes I lost my breath, (and my cloak I doubt for ever)’, and claimed: ‘I verily believe I should have been squeezed as flat as a pancake if providence had not sent Mr Edward Stanley to my relief.’ After a great struggle, she eventually managed to
secure a good vantage point ‘without any damage than a few bruises in my arms and the loss of my cloak’.24
Mrs Pendarves, and the hundreds of others who crowded into the galleries, were richly rewarded for their endeavours. The hall had been lavishly decorated for the occasion. It was illuminated by more than 1,800 candles, their effect made even more dazzling by the gilded branches on which they were suspended. Thanks to the expert organisation of the Master of Ceremonies, Master Heidegger, within three minutes of the King arriving at the hall, all of these were lit and everyone in the room was filled with astonishment at this ‘wonderful and unexpected illumination’.25
At the top of the room was a raised dais on which sat the newly crowned King, his Queen Consort, and their family. Beneath them were the nobility and other persons of quality, all dressed in rich and brightly coloured gowns and suits, who sat along tables arranged in neat rows stretching the length of the hall. As the aroma of the roasted meats, spiced game and other delectable dishes from the sumptuous feast floated up to the galleries above, many spectators, who had been on their feet for twelve hours or more, almost fainted away with hunger. Taking pity on them, some of the noble guests seated below filled their napkins with food and hoisted them up on ropes made from knotted garters.
When the feast and ceremonies were over, the royal family retired, followed by their attendants and guests, and were carried back to St James’s ‘very fatigued and weary’. As soon as all the guests had departed, the great doors of the hall were thrown open, and the huge crowds that had gathered outside were allowed to take possession of the remains of the banquet – including not just the food, but the table linen, plates, dishes, cutlery and anything else they could lay their hands on. Watching from the galleries above, Charles de Saussure described what followed. ‘The pillage was most diverting; the people threw themselves with extraordinary avidity on everything the hall contained; blows were given and returned, and I cannot give you any idea of the noise and confusion that reigned. In less than half an hour everything had disappeared, even the boards of which the tables and seats had been made.’26
It was as if the celebrations and festivities, the cheers and emotion with which the people of England had greeted their new Hanoverian King had been but a dream.
Chapter 11
‘The Indissolvable Knot’
* * *
THE CORONATION OVER, GEORGE II and his consort soon settled back into the routine of court life that they had established as Prince and Princess of Wales. The euphoria with which the people of London had greeted their new King and Queen soon disappeared, however, and in the cold light of day their appraisal of them was rather less favourable than it had been in the warm October sunshine outside Westminster Abbey. Ironically, for all the bitter hatred that he had felt towards his father, George was coming to resemble him more and more in both opinions and behaviour. ‘Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first,’ sneered Pope in a poem published soon after the Coronation. The lofty professions of admiration for the English people and their country that he had aired so often as Prince were now shown to be false, and he began to demonstrate a bias towards Hanover that even his father would have been proud of.
As George’s eyes were cast in the direction of his homeland, his English subjects began to resent the enormous allowance that had been bestowed on their avaricious King from the Civil List, and the heavy burden of taxation that had come with it. There were mutterings that all he cared about was ‘money and Hanover’, and their respect for him was further diminished by the fact that he seemed to be unwittingly dominated by his wife. Rumours of her manipulation had been circulating around the court for some time, and now spilled out into the coffee houses and taverns of London. The subject proved excellent fodder for the pamphleteers and poets. A particularly popular verse ran:
You may strut, dapper George, but ’twill all be in vain:
We know ’tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign –
You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.
Then if you would have us fall down and adore you,
Lock up your fat spouse, as your Dad did before you.
This was soon picked up by the staff at St James’s, and before long the whole court was sniggering about it. When at last it reached the King’s own ears, he was so furious that he stamped up and down, his face ablaze, and spluttered a series of oaths, half German, half English, making himself even more ridiculous than he appeared in the verse. He demanded that the traitorous author be brought before him. Information was surprisingly unforthcoming, however, and the culprit remained at large.
There was more of a grain of truth in the lines that had caused such hilarity. Caroline’s ascendancy, cultivated by Walpole while she was Princess, was greatly strengthened now that she was Queen. ‘The whole world began to find out that her will was the sole spring on which every movement in the Court turned,’ observed Lord Hervey. ‘Her power was unrivalled and unabounded.’1 Meanwhile, The Craftsman, the most prominent opposition newspaper, likened Caroline’s machinations to a game of chess, with Walpole as the knight: ‘see him jump over the heads of the nobles . . . when he is guarded by the Queen, he makes dreadful havoc, and very often checkmates the King’.2
Caroline knew that the only way to govern her husband was to give every appearance of being utterly subservient to his will. ‘Tho his affection and confidence in her were implicit, he lived in dread of being supposed to be governed by Her,’ observed Horace Walpole. He went on to describe the ‘silly parade’ which she and his father, Sir Robert, would orchestrate in order to hide their collaboration from the King. Whenever the latter found them together in conversation, the Queen would immediately rise and curtsey, and meekly offer to leave the room so that the men could continue their business without the distraction of a silly woman. Sometimes George was content for her to retire, but more often than not he condescendingly bade her to stay. Either way, she invariably succeeded in persuading him of the wisdom of their chief minister’s advice, but in such a way that he believed he had arrived at that opinion of his own accord.3
The King may have been duped by his wife’s clever manipulation, but it was all too obvious to the rest of the court. ‘She managed this deified image,’ observed Lord Hervey with some admiration, ‘as the heathen priests used to do the oracles of old, when, kneeling and prostrate before the altars of a pagan god, they received with the greatest devotion and reverence those directions in public which they had before instilled and regulated in private.’ Her husband was so blissfully unaware that he was being hoodwinked by his wife and minister that he made himself increasingly ridiculous to those who knew better by boasting that he reigned supreme. On one occasion, he treated an assembly of courtiers to a proud speech about the superiority of his power compared with that of his predecessors. Charles I had been governed by his wife, he claimed, Charles II by his mistresses, James II by his priests and William III by his men. Worst of all, his father had been governed by ‘anyone who could get at him’. At the end of this address, he turned to his smirking audience and, with a self-satisfied and triumphant air, demanded: ‘And who do they say governs now?’ They remained politely silent.4
Jealous of her power and alive to anything that threatened it, Caroline seemed bent on ensuring that her will held sway throughout the court. But the wily courtiers were not to be so easily fooled as the King, and Caroline lacked the subtlety to bring them all under her influence. They were careful enough to flatter her vanity, however, and make her think that they obeyed her. Thus she was played at her own game. ‘The Queen’s greatest error was too high an opinion of her own address and art,’ observed Horace Walpole. ‘She imagined that all who did not dare to contradict her, were imposed upon; & She had the additional weakness of thinking that she could play off many persons without being discovered.’5
Henrietta knew the Queen’s tactics all too well. Wary of the enhancement of the mistress’s prestige after George’s accession, Caroline did everythi
ng she could to restrict her influence. Not content with preventing Mrs Howard’s close friends from gaining their sought-after positions at court, she undermined those who already had places in the household and implied that her husband’s mistress was unfaithful to him politically as well as sexually. Caroline was particularly vindictive towards Lord Chesterfield, one of her husband’s Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, who she knew made fun of her in his poems and puns. Chesterfield was fond of gambling, and one night at court he won such a large sum of money that he asked Henrietta if she could keep it safe in her apartments. The door to these was visible to the Queen from her own rooms, courtesy of an ‘obscure window . . . that looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at night’. Having witnessed Chesterfield’s furtive entry into her Woman of the Bedchamber’s apartments, Caroline went at once to tell the King that the pair were conducting an illicit affair. Enraged by such an underhand betrayal, George ensured that the Earl would henceforth receive no favour at court. Chesterfield was subsequently dispatched to the Hague, where he languished in virtual exile for five years as ambassador.
Caroline was aware that an increasing number of dissident Whigs and Tories were flocking to Mrs Howard’s evening supper parties, among them the powerful Lord Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, and she was anxious to ensure that Henrietta did not succeed in winning favour for them with the King. The advantage that her Woman of the Bedchamber had secured in helping Compton to triumph over Walpole in the early days of George II’s reign may have been short-lived, but it had served as a warning to Caroline, and she was anxious to avoid any such disruption to her plans in future. Lord Chesterfield recorded how she would therefore make the mistress feel her inferiority by preventing the King from visiting her room for three or four days at a time, ‘representing it as the seat of a political faction’.6