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

by Tracy Borman

  That Henrietta’s marriage to George Berkeley should have caused such a stir was perhaps understandable. Her struggle for freedom from the burdens of court service, a violent husband, a protracted and tedious affair with the King, and the persistent solicitations of ambitious place-seekers was well known, and most people had expected her to now sit back and enjoy her newly won independence. But those who knew her best realised that one simple and unforeseen factor had overcome all these considerations: she had fallen in love.

  George was an ideal match for Henrietta. He was cultured, witty and sincere, and was as good-natured and mild-mannered as her first husband had been unstable and hot-headed. Here, at last, was her chance to find the happiness in her personal life that had so long eluded her, and she was not about to let it slip away. It was, as one commentator rather aptly put it, her ‘Indian summer of love’.11

  The couple’s friends were overjoyed for them, and none more so than the woman who had brought them together, Lady Betty Germain. She declared herself to be ‘extreamly delight’d’ at the match, and told Swift: ‘The Countess of Suffolk . . . has been so good and gracious as to take my Brother George Berkeley for better, for worse, tho I hope in God the last wont happen, because I think he is an honest good natured man.’ Referring to the longevity of their acquaintance, she said that her brother ‘has appeard to all the world as well as to me, to have long had . . . a most violent passion for her as well as esteem & value for her Numberless good qualities’, quickly adding that his ‘violent passion’ had only dated from the time that Lady Suffolk had become a widow, ‘so pray don’t mistake me’.12

  Lady Hervey, meanwhile, who was still a close friend of Henrietta and had also become acquainted with Mr Berkeley, wished them ‘all the joy imaginable’, and said that if they did not find it, ‘’twould be very difficult for one to decide on which to lay the blame; tho one of ye wou’d be most excessively in the wrong’. George’s friends were similarly delighted, and letters of congratulation came pouring in from all parts of the country. They too could see that he and his new bride were well matched. ‘In the choice you have made, where the most agreable beautys of the mind are join’d to those of the body, wishing joy (where it already is & must last) is at any time a meer ceremony,’ wrote Lord Lovell from his estate in Norfolk. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, joined him in congratulating their friend on having married ‘the most agreable lady in Europe’, and insisted that these were not mere words said for form’s sake, but ‘the real dictates of a sincere heart of one who has long known you’. The couple’s mutual friend, Lord Bolingbroke, was also overjoyed when he heard the news in France, and wrote at once to wish them ‘a long and uninterrupted scene of felicety’.13

  The only sour note was sounded by Theresa Blount, who had been put out by Lady Suffolk’s neglect of her and her sister Patty during her courtship with Mr Berkeley. Eager to make amends, Henrietta had invited Patty to stay with them at Marble Hill shortly after the wedding, and Theresa had visited them there. ‘To behold ye happy Pair; & at night, to see her deaf-Ear, & his Lame-leg: put into Bed on Purpose baught, for ye unexpectid Nuptialls,’ she scoffed in a letter to Pope, although she grudgingly admitted that they both seemed to be very happy in their marriage.14

  Theresa’s bitter comments aside, all Henrietta and George’s other friends wished them well and confidently predicted a long and blissful marriage. ‘I dont think they have above 10 to 1 against their being very happy,’ wrote Lady Betty Germain to Swift after the wedding, ‘& if they should not I shall heartily wish him hang’d because I’m sure twill be wholly his fault.’ She was just as assured a few months later, and told her friend: ‘I hope whenever you ask me about the Countess & George I shall be able to answer you as I can safely do now, that as yet theres no sort of appearance that they like one another the worse for wearing.’15

  The couple fulfilled – and even exceeded – their friends’ confident expectations. They were clearly very deeply in love. This was not the passing fancy typical of so many marriages – indeed, typical of Henrietta’s first marriage. It was founded upon mutual affection, esteem and respect. Once the secret of their marriage was out, Henrietta and George took every opportunity to share their happiness with the world. They commissioned a pair of portraits to mark the occasion, and proudly displayed them in the long gallery at Marble Hill, alongside those of King George and Queen Caroline. The portraits show a couple who are at once at ease and joyful in their union. Mr Berkeley stands in front of a picturesque landscape, as if interrupted from a pleasant walk, a gentle smile playing about his lips. His wife, meanwhile, is dressed in an informal soft pink gown, worn loose around her breasts, and looks considerably younger than her forty-six years. In her left hand is a shell, perhaps a reference to the Goddess of Love, and her enigmatic smile matches that of her new husband.16

  The couple were quick to open up their house to the wide circle of friends they had cultivated over the years, and before long it was one of the most vibrant centres of society away from London. ‘There is a greater court now at Marble hill than at Kensington,’ wrote Pope to a friend in August 1735, ‘and God knows when it will end.’17 Mrs Berkeley delighted in playing host with her new husband, and had the added satisfaction of knowing that, in contrast to her days at court, the people who now crowded into her rooms were all there for reasons of friendship rather than ambition. But nothing rivalled her joy at being able to complete this happy domestic scene by once again playing the role of mother.

  Soon after her marriage, her brother John’s only surviving children, John and Dorothy, came to live with the newlyweds. Henrietta’s love for Dorothy has already been documented. She was also very fond of the boy, John, who was twelve years old when they came to live at Marble Hill. George shared his wife’s affection for them, and together they raised their young charges in a home filled with love and laughter. Henrietta always favoured Dorothy in arguments, which prompted George to scold her for overindulgence, claiming that it was high time she assumed the ‘office of Rebuker’ with the girl. He, meanwhile, took John’s side, and a light-hearted battle developed between the sexes. ‘You have a high opinion of my understanding, which is sufficient proof to me yt you have a good one,’ John wrote to his ally, adding: ‘I once thought yt silly woman, who has ye honour to call you Husband had been free, at least, from ye glaring foibles of her sex.’18

  It was agreed that the children would stay at Marble Hill until John was of an age to be sent away to school, and Dorothy reached adulthood. In the meantime, they would be visited often by John Hobart senior when business brought him to London, and would also make regular trips to see him at their childhood home of Blickling.

  Henrietta was overjoyed at being given this unexpected chance to experience the contented family life for which she had so long yearned, but which she had resigned herself never to have. She immediately set about transforming Marble Hill into a family home, furnishing the guest bedrooms with all the comforts necessary for a young gentleman and his sister, as well as purchasing a new bed for herself and her husband. She also engaged an extra servant to help run what was suddenly a busy household. These frenzied activities were all related in a letter she wrote, somewhat hurriedly, to her friend Anne Pitt. So often in the past, Henrietta had read wistfully of her friends’ ordinary family lives away from court, but now the roles had been reversed, and it was she who was apologising for giving a ‘tedious account of my domestic affairs’. For all her panic in trying to arrange everything to the satisfaction of her husband and young charges, she was clearly deeply contented with her new life, and it was with barely disguised pride that she spoke of ‘my family’.19

  The happy domestic scene at Marble Hill was temporarily broken up when Henrietta accepted an invitation to visit her friend Lord Cobham’s celebrated gardens at Stowe, towards the end of August 1735. She was reluctant to leave her new family, but her recent poor health proved an incentive. The headaches that had plagued her so often at court had
returned, perhaps brought on by the exertion of disrupting her formerly tranquil life in Twickenham, no matter how pleasant the cause had been. George urged her to go, assuring her that he would manage the house and its young occupants in her absence. She duly set off, taking her old friend Patty Blount along for company.

  Although the trip only lasted a few days, the Berkeleys obviously found the separation unbearable and wrote to each other every day. The affectionate sentiments expressed in their letters might have been expected from a pair of lovesick newlyweds, but they were no less sincere for that. Indeed, even many years into their marriage, there was no discernible decline in their mutual adoration. ‘The moment your Ladyship was gone I went to bed lay half an hour, disliked it extremely, gott up again,’ wrote George to his wife the day after her departure, adding that he had ‘never found Marble Hill so disagreeable’. Evidently hoping that Lord Cobham’s gardens would soon have the desired effect upon her health so that she might return, he ended: ‘I begg of you for my sake take more than usual care of your self.’

  Henrietta wrote back by return of post and said that she was ‘not sorry’ he disliked being at home without her, but assured him that she would soon return because her health was greatly improved. Indeed, all the party at Stowe had commented upon how well marriage suited her, for although she was now in her mid-forties, she appeared more radiant than in the bloom of her youth. ‘Baron Sparr affirms I look better than I did seventeen years ago, and Lord Cobham says the best looking woman of thirty that he ever saw,’ she told him, claiming that all these compliments had quite cured her headaches. She could not resist adding, as a playful afterthought: ‘I will follow your advice strictly and expect as I have now told you the method that is proper to keep me in health, that you will repeat the doses as often as is necessary.’ The letter ends with a final mark of her affection. ‘God bless you,’ she wrote, ‘I do with all my heart and soul nor do I yet repent that I am H. Berkeley.’

  Perhaps this expression of tenderness provoked a sudden impatience to be back with her husband, for she added a hurried postscript urging him to order horses to be ready at Winslow, Buckinghamshire, some fifty miles north-west of London. She proposed setting out very early from Lord Cobham’s on the day appointed for her departure so that she might make it back to Marble Hill before nightfall – a journey that would usually take two days.

  ‘My Life! My Soul! My joy!’ George replied excitedly. He hastily arranged for the horses to be at Winslow a night earlier than she had instructed, to be on the safe side, and hoped ‘to be blessed with your company’ the following day. His wife wrote to thank him immediately, and also expressed mock anxiety about his fidelity during her absence. ‘I have not heard one word how Madam Pitt and you meet . . . I don’t like the silence’, she wrote, adding the warning: ‘But at your Peril, she has a Brother; I say no more.’

  This irrepressibly high-spirited, youthful-looking woman was barely recognisable from the downtrodden royal mistress whose heavy cares had threatened to crush her altogether. Her marriage to George Berkeley, coupled with her freedom from court, had given Henrietta a new lust for life, and she seemed to take joy in everything she experienced. She even learned the theory of cricket during her visit to Stowe, telling her husband that she had ‘some thoughts of Practicing this afternoon’.

  Mrs Berkeley was up at dawn on the day of her departure and set off before the rest of the household was awake. But for all her efforts, the horses that George had ordered proved frustratingly slow and she was forced to break her journey with an overnight stay. When he heard of this, her husband sent her a hurried note, offering to hire some fresh horses to bring her back from any place that she might wish. ‘I miss you even more than I thought I should,’ he added as a postscript, ‘I cant express it stronger. Heaven preserve you.’20

  When Henrietta and George were at last reunited, such was their joy that they vowed never to be apart again if it was at all in their power to prevent it. They were true to their word, and during the years that followed, they were almost always in each other’s company. Their time was divided between their two homes, as well as visits to friends or fashionable retreats, and even the occasional foreign venture.

  The couple spent most of the year at Marble Hill. Henrietta obviously relished her new role as a loving – and much-loved – wife, and George, who had been a city dweller for most of his life, adapted smoothly and delightedly to the slower pace of country living. All this was a far cry from the scandal, intrigue and backbiting of the court, and Henrietta could not have been happier at the transformation. ‘We live very innocently, and very regular, both new scenes of life to me,’ she told Miss Pitt, going on to describe ‘the joys of solitude, and our happiness in it’. She could not suppress the pride she felt in her new husband, who was as different from her first as it was possible to be. ‘He rides, walks, and reads; for smoking drinking and hunting I take to be the life of a country brute.’21

  But for all their simple domestic pleasures, Mr and Mrs Berkeley’s new life together was hardly one of complete isolation. The vibrant social scene that they had established at Marble Hill during the first few weeks of their marriage continued to flourish. Many of their visitors were connected in some way to the court. Anne Pitt often called when the royal household was at nearby Richmond, as did Anne Knight, the daughter of James Craggs, former Secretary of State. William Pulteney, who was still at the heart of the opposition to Walpole, was frequently of the party, his long friendship with Henrietta and George deepening as the years went by. He and his wife were grateful to the couple when they offered to take care of their son during a bout of illness. By now adept at looking after young children, they performed the task so well that the boy was soon back to full health. ‘If I would take the liberty of carrying a sick Child to any bodys house,’ Pulteney vowed afterwards, ‘it should be to you & Lady Suffolk.’22

  Other guests included the Duchess of Queensberry, along with Henrietta’s old companion at court, Lady Hervey, and Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Alexander Pope continued to be one of the most frequent visitors, and despite living only a short distance upstream, he often stayed over rather than risk his fragile health by setting out late at night. Although he had had Henrietta to himself before her marriage, he seemed to grow accustomed to her husband and was always solicitous in enquiring after his health. Pope’s only complaint was the lateness of the hour at which the Berkeleys chose to dine. During the early part of the eighteenth century, most of society, including the court, had tended to take dinner at around midday, but this became gradually later as the century progressed. Ever at the forefront of fashionable taste, within a year or so of their marriage, Henrietta and her husband were serving dinner at four o’clock in the afternoon. This was far too late for the stubbornly traditional Pope, who was a slave to a constitution that would brook no interruption to its accustomed digestive habits. ‘I find I must never attempt to dine so late as a fashionable hour,’ he complained to an acquaintance, adding: ‘I really dread the consequence of doing it at Marble-Hill.’23

  Everyone who called on Mr and Mrs Berkeley at Marble Hill found a warm welcome and generous hospitality. Henrietta had ordered an ice-house to be built in the grounds, where ice and snow would be packed in the winter for preserving food and cooling drinks. Guests were also treated to home-grown fruit and vegetables, as well as fresh milk, butter and cream from the Marble Hill dairy. A team of household staff and gardeners was employed to keep everything ticking over, and to ensure that their masters’ table was always one of the finest to be had for miles around.

  The constant stream of visitors took its toll on the house and the guest rooms were frequently redecorated or repaired. This was not enough to satisfy Henrietta, who decided that more space was needed to cope with the unremitting round of social calls and receptions. She therefore commissioned her faithful architect, Roger Morris, to build a cottage in the grounds. Once completed, this not only created more space within the main house,
but also served as a perfect repository for Mrs Berkeley’s ever-expanding collection of china. She ordered elaborate shelves to be constructed along every wall in order to show this off to best effect, and also chose a rather garish colour scheme which included a ‘gaily painted ceiling’. ‘My Cheney room will make you stare if not swear,’ she told Lord Pembroke, who for once she had not consulted. ‘I must tell you ’tis the admiration of the Vulgar, but my vanity would be intirely gratified if it shou’d meet your approbation.’24 It is doubtful whether the Earl, whose tastes were more inclined towards classical simplicity, would have given the stamp of approval that she hoped for.

  While Marble Hill remained Mr and Mrs Berkeley’s main home, they made regular visits to their town house in Savile Street and spent most winters there. They also chose to celebrate their first Christmas together there in 1735, although it was evidently quite a wrench to leave Marble Hill. A week before their departure, Henrietta had written to let Anne Pitt know that they would be in town, and to invite her to supper at Savile Street. She confided that she and her husband were both sorry to be leaving their life of solitude in order to ‘try again how we like noise, scandal and all the other pleasures your great world abounds in’.25 She may have said this half in jest, but it is remarkable how quickly she had moved from being at the very centre of fashionable London life to being a passive observer of it. It was a transformation that suited her well.

  Nevertheless, when they were up in town, the Berkeleys entertained in style. No.15 Savile Street soon became as lively a social centre as their villa in Twickenham, and also provided a base from which to sample the capital’s playhouses, assemblies and other fashionable diversions. But Marble Hill was never far from their thoughts, and they even ordered fresh fruit, vegetables and dairy produce to be sent from there to sustain them and their guests in London.