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

by Tracy Borman

  Riding high on their success, Bolingbroke and his allies launched another attack on Walpole in 1734. Their cause this time was the repeal of the Septennial Act (whereby parliaments lasted for seven years) and the revival of triennial sessions. Thanks to Bolingbroke’s work behind the scenes, Walpole was greeted by a hostile Commons when the House convened to debate the issue. But he rose admirably to the challenge and used the full force of his political skill and articulation to swing opinion his way. Decrying his absent rival as an ‘anti-minister’, he succeeded in defending the Act and was triumphant in the general election that followed. Bolingbroke was now ostracised at court and forced to pursue his activities even more covertly.

  The disgrace of Bolingbroke, Chesterfield and others among Henrietta’s circle not only set her further apart from the court, but also demonstrated how far she had fallen from the King’s favour. Her subtle advocacy of such friends had, in the past, helped to protect their positions, even if it had not greatly enhanced them. As her own position at court became less and less important to her, however, she had grown more outspoken in defence of her political allies. That she was prompted by a strong ideological commitment to Toryism is uncertain. She was connected by birth and marriage to Whig families and had never openly expressed views either way. It is just as likely that she supported men such as Bolingbroke for the simple reason that she saw them as friends. Perhaps she also realised that their political stance presented her with an opportunity to break from the court. According to Hervey, she was ‘for ever thwarting his [the King’s] inclinations, reflecting on his conduct, and contradicting his opinions’, as well as criticising his ministers, in particular Walpole.36 The King met her entreaties with increasing impatience, and rather than furthering her friends’ cause, she began to hamper it.

  Not all Lady Suffolk’s acquaintances were so controversial, however, and as the years went by she gradually widened her circle of friends away from court. Principal among them was Lady Elizabeth (‘Betty’) Germain, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Berkeley. Lady Betty had been a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne before marrying John Germain, a Dutch soldier rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Prince William III of Orange (and hence a half-brother of King William III) in 1706. Although the couple had three children, none had survived beyond infancy and Lady Betty was left alone when her husband died in 1718. A spirited and intelligent woman, she had befriended Jonathan Swift as a child when her father had taken his family to Ireland upon being appointed a Lord Justice, and the two had remained close. Given Swift’s hostility towards Henrietta, it is doubtful that he was the cause of their introduction. More likely was either that they had met on one of Lady Betty’s visits to court, or that the Duchess of Dorset, at whose house in Knole Lady Betty lived after she became a widow, had introduced them.

  The first reference to Lady Betty in Henrietta’s correspondence was in the summer of 1730, although the affection that clearly already existed between them suggests that they had become acquainted earlier than that. As well as having a love of wits and the arts in common, the pair shared a passion for porcelain, and over the years would regularly buy each other gifts for their collections. They spent time together at Windsor in 1730 when the court adjourned there for the summer, and got on so well that Henrietta was quite bereft when her friend left for Tunbridge Wells. She wrote several times to Mary Chamber, Lady Betty’s niece, to enquire after her health. ‘The repeated messages I receive from you . . . occasions me much wonder,’ Miss Chamber replied from Tunbridge Wells. ‘Surely my last letter to you so fully and so particularly related the state of Lady Betty’s health, that I imagined you could not have required more information upon that subject.’37

  The sincerity of their attachment was proved when, two years later, Lady Betty vigorously defended Henrietta against her old friend Swift’s bitter attack. ‘Im sorry to find our tastes so different in the same Person,’ she wrote to him, ‘and as every body has a Natural Partiality to their own opinion, so tis surprising to me to find La: Suffolk dwindle in yours who rises infinitely the more and the longer I know her.’38

  Grateful though Henrietta was for this kind intervention, it was as nothing compared to what was arguably the greatest service that her new friend performed for her. Early on in their acquaintance, Lady Betty introduced her to her brother.

  George Berkeley was some three or four years younger than Henrietta. He was the youngest son of the 2nd Earl of Berkeley, and had become acquainted with the court from an early age because his elder brother, James, had been a Lord of the Bedchamber to George I. He had been raised at the family estate in Gloucestershire with his sister before receiving the traditional education of a young gentleman, attending Westminster School in 1708 and entering Cambridge three years later, aged eighteen. He had enrolled at Trinity College, where his keen intellect and irreverent humour had made him an instant hit with the most lively young lords there. Among them was Lord Chesterfield, with whom George had soon become close friends. When he graduated two years later and went travelling abroad, Chesterfield greatly lamented his absence. ‘Your departure, dear George, has been very unsuccessful to us,’ he assured him, ‘for as soon as you went away we immediately lost the name of the Witty Club, and I am afraid we shall soon dwindle into no club at all.’39

  Berkeley had an aptitude for politics, and in 1720 he became MP for Dover, representing the town in the following two parliaments. He did so on the side of the Whigs, for he was at that time a supporter of Walpole. It may have been thanks to the latter’s influence that he was appointed Master Keeper and Governor of St Katharine’s Hospital in London on 28 May 1723, a post he was to hold for life. However, he was to change allegiance when he became acquainted with William Pulteney, a staunch member of the Opposition, during the last year of George I’s reign. The pair shared a rather coarse sense of humour, and their letters were at times so indecent that large sections were edited out by the prudish nineteenth-century antiquary who later published them. Writing from the races at Newmarket in 1726, Pulteney described two horses that had particularly caught his eye, ‘Prick Louse’ and ‘Sweet Maidenhead’. He went on to complain about the inclement weather, which he said had affected his joints, but turned this into a jest by adding: ‘now I am cold I should find some soreness, or stiffness, about me, the last of which, I promise you, is no where but where it should be’.40

  Berkeley matched his friend pun for pun, and on one occasion wrote a poem that was so vulgar it has until now remained buried in the archives of the British Library. His inspiration was the story of a woman in Godalming who in 1726 had caused a stir by claiming to have given birth to a family of rabbits. The poem begins:

  A woman long thought barren

  Bears Rabbits – gad! so plentifull

  You’d take her for a warren.

  It then goes on to describe how a local landowner was brought in to examine the unfortunate woman:

  On tiptoe then this squire he stood

  But first he gave her money

  And reaching high as ere he could

  Said sure I feel a Coney

  Is it alive? St André cry’d

  It is, I feel it stir

  Is it full grown? the squire reply’d

  Yes sure, see here’s the furr.41

  Berkeley was rumoured to be as fond of Pulteney’s wife as he was of the man himself. Indeed, it was said that he so persistently laid siege to her affections that he eventually incurred his friend’s wrath and was ‘mortally hated’ by him henceforth. But the source of these rumours was unreliable, to say the least. It was Lord Hervey who put them about, and he was such a devout enemy of Lord Pulteney that the pair were later to fight a duel over an assumed slur in the press, even though this practice had been banned.

  Although his friendship with Pulteney brought out a vulgar side to his character, George Berkeley’s tastes and interests were on the whole as refined as any young gentleman’s. He took great pleasure in the society of cultured wits and men of lette
rs, and was a close friend of William Congreve, one of the greatest poets of the age. John Gay was also very fond of him, and he was among the pall-bearers at the latter’s funeral in 1732. Alexander Pope was another of his acquaintances, and George paid regular visits to his house in Twickenham. His affable manners and good humour rendered him a pleasant and popular member of Georgian society, although his increasingly recalcitrant political views kept him away from the more favoured circles at court.

  Berkeley’s character was reflected in his appearance. He was not handsome by any means, but had a mild and pleasing countenance and eyes that sparkled with gentle humour. He did not enjoy the best of health, having suffered with gout from a relatively young age. He bore this complaint with patience, though, and dismissed his friends’ earnest requests to take better care of his health.

  It is not certain when George first became acquainted with Mrs Howard. Their earliest surviving correspondence dates from 1734, but they already seemed to be close friends by then. The fact that it was at Henrietta’s request that he had agreed to be a pall-bearer at Gay’s funeral suggests that he had been part of her literary circle for some time. Furthermore, they both featured in a painting of an intimate social gathering commissioned in 1730. A Tea Party at Lord Harrington’s House, by the celebrated artist Charles Philips, shows Henrietta sitting in the centre of three groups playing cards. Standing by the fireplace to her right is Mr Berkeley, and she is inclining her head towards him, as if to suggest some intimacy between them. At the left-hand table is his sister, Lady Betty Germain, who seems to have been the hostess for the occasion.

  Lady Betty had been responsible for their introduction. As she herself became acquainted with Mrs Howard around 1730, this corresponds with the evidence from the portrait. She subsequently conveyed messages about him to Henrietta through her niece, Mary Chambers, who little understood the implications of what she was instructed to write. On one occasion, she sent Henrietta two pieces of china decorated with pictures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a clear reference to temptation. The bemused Miss Chambers, who had been asked to write a covering note to draw attention to the subject, added: ‘I am not to answer, nor to make any remarks upon what Lady Betty pleases to say, so you may easily imagine that what I have writ, is like what a Parrot says without understanding the meaning.’42

  Henrietta and Berkeley’s mutual friends and interests brought them ever closer together as time went on, and it was observed that they spent many long hours in conversation together during the former’s supper parties at court and at Marble Hill. Then, in 1733, an unexpected event changed the tenor of their relationship and hastened its progress towards intimacy.

  Chapter 13

  ‘Pleasing one not worth the pleasing’

  * * *

  JOHN GAY HAD ONCE predicted that Henrietta would never truly be happy while her husband was alive. Charles Howard had devoted his life to plaguing her, from the moment they exchanged vows at the church of St Benet Paul’s Wharf on 2 March 1706. Although they had been legally separated for the past five years, he had continued to remind her of his presence by periodic demands for money and, more recently, by the legal wranglings over his brother’s will. Nobody – not even Queen Caroline – had the ability to torment her as much as he did, and the fear that he had instilled in her during the miserable years of their violent marriage had never left her.

  When a messenger arrived at Lady Suffolk’s apartments in Hampton Court at the end of September 1733 with the news that her husband had died at Bath on the 28th of that month, her relief must have been overwhelming. The cause of his death is not certain. Years of heavy drinking may have finally taken their toll, or it may simply have been the deteriorating health associated with advancing years, for the Earl was then approaching sixty. His passing sparked little comment at court. It was afforded a mention in the obituaries of The Gentleman’s Magazine, as would that of any titled gentleman, but otherwise nobody seemed to notice. Neither Henrietta nor her friends referred to it in their correspondence, although it was no doubt the cause of discreet celebration in her apartments.

  Henrietta’s son now succeeded as 10th Earl of Suffolk. The estate that he inherited was riddled with the debts that his father had worsened by high living and protracted legal battles. Henry was a much shrewder man of business, however, and restored it to solvency two years later by marrying Sarah Inwen, the daughter of a wealthy brewer. He thus became the first Earl of Suffolk to live at Audley End without debt since the house had been built, well over a century before. Although Henrietta had by now given up all hope of a reconciliation with her son, she may have felt a little pride in hearing of his newfound wealth and prestige.

  Charles Howard’s death had finally rid his widow of her long-held fears and released her from any lingering notion of marital fidelity. She now openly encouraged George Berkeley’s advances. The informality of their correspondence betrays a growing intimacy. The earliest known letter is dated 19 June 1734, and was written almost immediately after George had left London for an excursion to Stowe. Lord Cobham’s exquisite gardens were a magnet for Georgian England’s most fashionable society, and Mr Berkeley was accompanied by a party of friends that included Alexander Pope. Together they followed a somewhat rambling route through Oxfordshire, calling at Rowsham, the seat of General Dormer, a close friend of the poet. Their first stop, however, was at Shotover, home of Augustus Schutz, a former member of the King’s household staff. It seems that this place carried some unpleasant associations for Henrietta from her life with Charles Howard, which she had confided to Berkeley. ‘I am not afraid of calling to your remembrance the distress you suffered when you corresponded most with this place,’ he wrote, ‘since that very suffering was the strongest proof imaginable how little you deserved it.’1

  Henrietta had clearly been just as eager to write as George was after his departure from London, for their letters crossed. When she received his letter, she wrote another straight away, assuring him that although his reference to Shotover had evoked some bad memories, ‘I don’t remember that I ever lik’d any of the letters from that Place, better than that I reciev’d last.’2

  The playful, teasing tone of their correspondence indicates how intimate they had become. Lady Suffolk chided Berkeley for his ‘ill breeding and forgetfulness’, and told him that if she had little news from Kensington which would amuse him, that was because ‘you are dull and want a tast [lack taste] and not that the place do’s not abondantly supply both the instructive and entertaining’. In another, she mocked the ‘Pride and Arrogancy’ which makes men reason that the ‘Actions of women are too inconsiderable, to draw any consequences from them’.3

  Berkeley met such jibes with good grace, and the more Henrietta teased him, the more devoted he professed himself to be. Acceding to her request for detailed descriptions of his travels, he told her that he preferred Rowsham to all the gardens he had visited because ‘there is at the bottom of a Sloping hill in the garden a most delightfull stream which runs from thence directly to Marble Hill, and is no small addition to the beautys of the place’. When he visited Stowe, Henrietta bade him pay his respects to the bust of her distinguished ancestor, John Hampden, which was in the Round Temple. He assured her: ‘I could not fail paying a due regard to Mr Hampdens memory, for I am sure no body can be more sensible of what England owes to him, than I am.’ He added that Lord Cobham was planning to erect a bust of Henrietta nearby, and that if this scheme fell through, he would ‘make the Venus of Medicis serve instead of it’.4

  George obviously missed his friend at court a great deal, for he confessed that he could find little joy in the magnificence of Stowe or the beauty of Rowsham as both were so far from London. ‘I can truly pity people who live in the Country,’ he declared, ‘I who can scarcely bear it a fortnight.’ He added that the only source of real pleasure there was the arrival of the post when it brought letters from Lady Suffolk. ‘If you wish to be enchanted and leave Stow, you are very unworth
y of being there,’ she scolded him, but her mock disapproval hid a genuine delight in his attentions.5

  Henrietta’s close friendship with Mr Berkeley set her even further apart from the established order at court. By now, he was in open opposition to Walpole, having been returned as MP for Hedon, Yorkshire, in the general election of May 1734, on the side of his old friend William Pulteney. The latter’s influence in government was rapidly increasing. As well as the members of his Tory contingent, he had also gathered a host of disaffected Whigs about him, along with a sizeable number of Jacobites. Such was his power that he was beginning to threaten the predominance that Walpole had so long enjoyed.

  Berkeley was one of Pulteney’s staunchest supporters, and he became increasingly vocal in his attacks on Walpole’s regime. He even published a ‘Political Memorandum’, in which he accused the ministry of acting against the King’s best interests. He claimed that the Jacobites were not responsible for the ‘present uncertainty of our affairs’, as Walpole had so often asserted, and that this was due to ‘those who are in the management of them rather than to those who are not’.6 This was a bold statement to make at a time of such unease and paranoia within the ministry, with Walpole and his supporters eager to make scapegoats of Jacobite sympathisers. Berkeley had no doubt been egged on by Lord Bolingbroke, who was now in political exile following his defeat by Walpole over the Septennial Act. The two had been friends for some time, and in late summer 1734, he went to join Bolingbroke at Bath. It was on this town that his lover at court now also set her sights.