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

by Tracy Borman

  Welwood could not have wished for more compelling testimonies than these. The two women had simultaneously upheld his client’s character while damning that of her husband, and, crucially, their accounts tallied exactly with Henrietta’s own. But he was not to enjoy the satisfaction of reading them, for no sooner had he dispatched his clerk to take their statements than he was struck down by a sudden illness and died. Henrietta was distraught. Not only was her legal separation now thrown into jeopardy, but she had lost a dear and trusted friend who had served her faithfully for many years.

  In her grief, she cast about for allies at court. Thomas, 1st Baron Trevor, was Lord Privy Seal and a distinguished jurist. He was distantly related to Henrietta, for his grandfather, John Hampden, ‘The Patriot’, was her great-grandfather. At what stage Mrs Howard sought his intervention in her marital dispute is not clear, but he was certainly assiduous on her behalf. Without the formidable legal brain of James Welwood, she felt much less confident in pursuing her case through the law alone. She therefore resorted to the one thing that she knew her husband valued above all others: money. Having precious little of this herself, she urged Lord Trevor to seek her royal mistress’s help in the matter. He duly secured an audience with the Queen and humbly requested that she pay Charles Howard the £1,200 in order to retain his wife in her service. His request was given short shrift. Caroline began by pleading poverty, saying that although she would do anything to ‘keep so good a servant as Mrs Howard about me’, she really could not afford such a sum. She later confessed to Lord Hervey that she had greatly resented this application, considering that it was ‘a little too much not only to keep the King’s guenipes . . . under my roof, but to pay them too’.21

  The Queen’s outright refusal to help, coupled with the fact that Henrietta had not applied to her in person, shows how hostile relations now were between the two women. Whether this prompted Henrietta to dispense with intermediaries and apply directly to her royal master is not certain. But against all the odds, the notoriously frugal King came to her rescue. On his orders, her annual allowance was increased by £1,200, thereby enabling her to pay her husband the exact sum that he demanded. An agreement was subsequently drawn up that provided Charles with an annuity during the lifetime of his brother, the 8th Earl of Suffolk. Thus, as Lord Hervey gleefully observed, ‘this affair ended, the King paying the £1,200 a year for the possession of what he did not enjoy, and Mr Howard receiving them, for relinquishing what he would have been sorry to keep’.22

  Bitter experience had taught Henrietta that money alone could not keep Charles at bay for long, however, and that he would soon fritter it away in the taverns and whorehouses of London. She therefore resumed the proceedings for a legal separation, confident in the knowledge that this time she had the means to make her husband agree to it. Her old friend the Duke of Argyll took up the case that Dr Welwood had so ably prepared, and instructed his lawyers to draft a deed of separation. They more than earned their fee, for the resulting document was so carefully worded and impenetrable that in signing it Charles Howard would have to relinquish all future claims to his wife and her money.

  The deed opened with a declaration that ‘henceforth during their joint Lives there shall be a Totall and Absolute Separation between them’. The pages that followed were filled with precise instructions and strictures that Mr Howard was to abide by in relation to his wife, notably that he must not ‘by any means or on any pretence whatsoever claime seize Restrain or detain’ her. Furthermore, he was to be as cut off from her purse as he was from her person, and every possible income, property or possession that Henrietta owned or might own in the future (apart from the £1,200 allowance) was to be kept well beyond his reach. Such resources were to be employed by Mrs Howard as she chose, and in return she was to forfeit any claim to her husband’s fortune, such as it was. Above all, though, she was to be at liberty to ‘Reside and Inhabit at her free will and pleasure in such place or places as she will see fitt in the same manner as if she was sole’.23

  Thus drafted, the deed was passed to Charles’s lawyers for their consideration. Their client objected to just one clause, but it was a significant one: that neither Henrietta nor her representatives could execute any further deeds or acts to consolidate the separation. Taken to their ultimate conclusion, these acts could have enabled the instigation of divorce proceedings, and this he was determined to thwart. Undoubtedly it was a desire to keep one final thread, however fine, in place so that his wife could never feel completely free of him, rather than any more sentimental feelings, that drove him to do so. Anxious to bring the matter to a swift conclusion, Henrietta agreed to his demand, and the words ‘except his consenting or agreeing to a Divorce’ were added to the clause, interlined between the original text.

  The deed of separation was signed by Charles and Henrietta Howard on 29 February 1728, almost twenty-two years to the day since they had exchanged their wedding vows at St Benet’s Church. Their miserable, destructive marriage was at last at an end.

  Henrietta’s relief was overwhelming. She could hardly believe that the heavy burden of fear under which she had laboured for so many years had finally been lifted. Her friends were overjoyed to witness the transformation in her. ‘She is happier than I have ever seen her,’ John Gay wrote to Swift a few days later, ‘for she is free as to her conjugal affairs by articles of agreement.’ Martha Blount concurred. ‘Mrs Howard is well, and happier than ever you saw her,’ she told Pope, ‘for her whole affair with her husband is ended to her satisfaction.’24

  Her joy was compounded the following year when work on her beloved Thames-side villa was finally completed. The King’s additional allowance, coupled with the separation, had freed her from her husband’s debts and given her a much greater measure of financial security. She was therefore able to instruct her architect, Roger Morris, to resume his work at Marble Hill. Substantial progress had been made by the end of 1728, and the ‘Principall Story, two sweepe Wall and 4 Buildings in the Garden’ had all been finished. Henrietta was now able to turn her attention to the interior furnishings, and was delighted when her friend Lord Chesterfield wrote to her from the Hague to say that he had spied ‘an extream fine Chinese bed, window Curtains, Chairs, & c.’ for sale at a very reasonable price. He assured her: ‘If you should have a mind to it for Marble Hill, and can find any way of getting it over; I will with a great deal of pleasure obey your commands.’ A few months later, the finishing touches to the exterior were made, and on 24 June 1729 Henrietta settled the final account of £763 for ‘the finnishing all workes . . . and all Demands’.25

  Mrs Howard’s satisfaction at the completion of Marble Hill, a project that had taken more than six years and overcome many obstacles along the way, must have been great indeed. But it must also have been tempered by the frustration that she was not at liberty to enjoy her new retreat. The Queen showed no inclination to release her from service; indeed, she seemed to derive great satisfaction from the knowledge that her husband was tiring of his ageing mistress. If anything, this made her more determined than ever to ensure that she remained at the palace so that he would not be able to find a more alluring replacement.

  Thus, even though the past year had given Henrietta much greater independence than ever before, she was still tied to a life that had ceased to bring her any joy. Moreover, she could no longer comfort herself with the knowledge that it was necessary for her survival: with Charles Howard being as good as out of the picture, she did not need her position at court to protect her.

  The letters she wrote to her friends betray her growing restlessness and frustration, and the entertaining accounts of their own lives away from court made her even more wistful. ‘I am glad you have past your time so agreeably,’ she wrote to Gay during one of his jaunts to Bath, adding: ‘I need not tell you how mine has been employ’d.’ To Swift, she lamented: ‘I have been a Slave 20 years without ever receiving a reason for any one thing I ever was oblig’d to do,’ and concluded: ‘I wo
u’d take your giddiness, your head-ake or any other complaint you have, to resemble you in one circumstance in life.’26

  It was to be some considerable time before Mrs Howard was finally granted her wish.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Comforting the King’s Enemies’

  * * *

  IN 1729, WHEN HENRIETTA reached the age of forty, she should have been enjoying the fruits of her long struggle for independence. She had finally succeeded in ridding herself of her violent husband, who had been a thorn in her side for more than twenty years. She had also built a splendid home for herself away from court. But life at St James’s had long since lost its appeal.

  ‘No mill-horses ever went in a more constant, true or a more unchanging circle’, complained Lord Hervey, ‘so that by the assistance of an almanack for the day of the week and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform yourself fully, without any other intelligence but your memory, of every transaction within the verge of the Court.’1 George II’s love of routine had set the tenor of life at his court ever since his residence at Leicester House, and while the round of receptions, balls and other formal occasions that he had established as Prince of Wales were diverting enough at first, after more than twelve years they were driving virtually everyone at court to distraction.

  The days were filled with levees, walks or formal audiences, while the evenings were taken up with drawing rooms, balls, assemblies, or more low-key entertainments such as cards. While the public drawing rooms and assemblies afforded the opportunity of conversing with one’s friends or making new acquaintances, the crowds that thronged into the palace often made these stiflingly hot and (eighteenth-century hygiene not being particularly advanced) malodorous affairs. ‘There was dice, dancing, crowding, sweating and stinking in abundance as usual,’ complained Lord Hervey after returning from one such gathering.

  For the privileged few who were also required to attend the private evenings, these occasions were purgatory. They could set their watches by the time that the King sat down to quadrille or commerce, and would look on in almost mournful silence as he continued to play for the requisite number of hours, oblivious to the boredom of his guests and attendants. The Duke of Grafton would routinely doze off after an hour or so, remaining in that condition for the rest of the evening. Lord Grantham, meanwhile, would try to stave off tedium by wandering from room to room ‘like some discontented ghost, that oft appears, and is forbid to talk’, and moved about ‘as people stir a fire not with any design in the placing, but in hopes to make it burn a little brighter’.2 At last the King would lay down his cards and stand up, giving the signal that the assembled company was dismissed. Those who still had enough energy and spirit would go to supper, but most would retire to bed, greatly fatigued by another interminably long and dreary evening.

  When the court moved from St James’s to Hampton Court or Kensington, the change of scene prompted no alteration to the accustomed routine. Henrietta now knew every royal residence intimately, and any interest or appeal that they may once have held had long since faded. She complained to friends about the tedium of her life. Chesterfield, who was still enjoying a lively time of it in the Hague, sympathised with his old friend back at court. ‘I find by your account that Kensington is not at present the seat of diversions,’ he wrote. He added that he hoped his letters would provide a welcome, albeit brief, distraction for her, and urged her to fill her ‘idle time’ by writing back to him.3

  Mrs Howard did indeed rely more and more on letters to and from her friends outside court to relieve the boredom of her life within it. One of her most frequent correspondents was Lady Hervey. Following the gentle pursuits of a country lady at her Ickworth estate, surrounded by her children, she had the life for which Henrietta yearned. For her part, though, Lady Hervey was restless and longed for the days when they had been giddy young maids together at court. ‘I pass my mornings at present as much like those at Hampton Court as I can,’ she told her friend, ‘for I divide them between walking and the people of the best sence of their time, but the difference is, my present companions [books] are dead, and the others were quite alive.’ Henrietta soon dispelled such pleasant illusions of what she was missing out on at court, and assured her that it was ‘very different from the Place you knew’. The ‘frizelation, flurtation and dangleation’ that had preoccupied the young ladies in earlier times were no more, she said, and added: ‘to tell you freely my opinion the people you now converse with are much more alive than any of your old acquaintance’. The wry humour of Henrietta’s letter betrayed a deep longing to escape her life at court, and she ended by confiding ‘[I] do envy what I cannot posses.’4

  Lady Hervey, Mary Bellenden, Sophia Howe and the other lively beauties who had graced the court during Mrs Howard’s heyday had been supplanted by a new generation of young maids, even more giddy and wild than their predecessors. Chief among them was Anne Vane, who had been appointed a Maid of Honour in 1725. A clever young woman with a propensity for intrigue and deceit, Miss Vane’s morals were dubious, to say the least. Horace Walpole described her as ‘a maid-of-honour who was willing to cease to be so – at the first opportunity’.5 At one stage, she was rumoured to be pregnant, having taken a rather hasty vacation to Bath on the grounds of ill health. She wrote to Henrietta from there, complaining of the ‘aspersions I labour under, for I am inform’d that tis whisper’d about the court that I am with Child’. She claimed that this had done ‘infinite hurt’ to her health, but clung to the rather vain hope that it had not done the same to her reputation.6

  Miss Vane was as indecent in her speech as in her actions. In her analogy of the ladies at court being like volumes in a library, Lady Hervey had described her as ‘very diverting & may be read by people of the meanest as well as by those of the best understanding being writ in the Vulgar Tongue’.7 She had good reason to be snide, for it was rumoured that her husband was one of a string of men at court who had fallen for Miss Vane’s ample charms.

  The lady’s most famous lover, though, was Frederick (‘Fritz’), Prince of Wales, who had finally been allowed to come over to England in 1728 after being detained in Hanover at his father’s orders for fourteen years. He was smitten with Miss Vane from their first meeting and trailed after her like a lovesick puppy. When she at last succumbed to his advances (which in truth did not take long), she used all her feminine wiles and cunning to ensnare him even more than he had been at the beginning. Her hints about fine clothes and rich jewels were quickly taken, and she even persuaded Frederick to set her up in a home of her own. He duly purchased a house for her in London’s fashionable Soho Square, where she lived in some style, receiving company and holding receptions as if she were the Prince’s wife rather than his mistress. Anne rewarded her royal lover by giving him a son, whom he doted upon. It was rumoured, however, that Lord Hervey was the real father. Anxious not to lose the Prince’s favour, Miss Vane publicly insisted that the child was his and, as if to prove the point, had him christened Cornwell fitzFrederick.

  Mrs Howard had neither the energy nor the inclination to keep up with all the scandals created by Miss Vane and her fellow Maids of Honour. Their ‘merry pranks’ disturbed her sleep, as they scurried around the palace at night, giggling and committing all kinds of mischief. On one occasion they stole out into the gardens at Kensington and ran around flinging open and rattling people’s windows until soon the whole palace was awake. Henrietta complained about this incident in a letter to Lady Hervey, who wrote back in sympathy: ‘I think people who are of such very hot constitutions as to want to be refresh’d by night-walking, need not disturb others who are not altogether so warm as they are.’8

  The daytime activities offered little respite for Henrietta. When the court was at Hampton or Windsor, the ladies were expected to join in the hunting, as they had in former years. This was a far greater challenge to the King’s middle-aged mistress than it was to the giddy teenagers in his wife’s household. Henrietta bore it stoically, but he
r increasingly fragile constitution soon rebelled, and the headaches that had plagued her in the past returned with a vengeance. ‘As your Physician I warn you against such violent exercise,’ scolded Lady Hervey. ‘All extreams are I believe equally detrimental to the health of a human body, and especially to yours, whose strength like Sampson’s lyes chiefly in your head.’9

  Mrs Howard’s growing loneliness at court was partly eased by the contact she had with John Hobart, ‘the best of brothers’. Thanks to her, he had been appointed a Treasurer of the Chamber on George II’s accession, and owned a house close to court on Pall Mall. Although the management of his estate at Blickling kept him away from London for long periods at a time, his daughter, Dorothy, often came to stay with Henrietta in her apartments at court. She delighted in these visits, for she had always doted on the child and a close bond had developed between them. Mrs Howard’s friends referred to her as an ‘indulgent mother’, and to Dorothy as ‘your child’. Whether their expressions were meant literally is uncertain.

  Apart from John and Dorothy, Henrietta had no close family left. The two sisters who had survived with Henrietta into adulthood, Dorothy and Catherine, were both now dead. The elder of them, Dorothy, had died unmarried at Bath in 1723. Catherine had married General Charles Churchill, a Groom of the Bedchamber, which suggests that she had been a visitor to her sister at court, but death had robbed the latter of her company in 1726.