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

by Tracy Borman

  Lady Yarmouth had now exceeded Henrietta’s own length of service to the King, as she had been his official mistress for some twenty-four years. George had had the occasional dalliance with Lady Deloraine during that time, but an incident that had occurred at Kensington in 1742 had put paid to that source of gratification for good. At a drawing room one evening, a mischievous lady of the court had pulled away Lady Deloraine’s chair as she had been sitting down. Greatly flustered and annoyed to see that the King had found this prank amusing, she had decided to visit the same upon him. Unfortunately, he had not found it as funny the second time. ‘Alas, the monarch, like Louis XIV is mortal in that part that touched the ground and was so hurt and so angry that the Countess is disgraced and her German rival [Lady Yarmouth] remains in sole and quite possession,’ recounted Horace Walpole with barely concealed amusement.27

  Madame Walmoden had proved a rather less faithful and discreet mistress than her predecessor. The transgressions she had committed during the early days of her courtship with George II had been repeated on numerous occasions. A particularly notorious one involved a billet-doux that she had written to her lover in France, who was married to a lady at court. The note had, unfortunately, been misdirected and returned to his wife by mistake. Although Lady Yarmouth had had the good sense not to sign it, she had added a postscript that her lover should direct his reply to her apartments at Kensington, thus placing her very firmly in the frame. When the scandal broke, the King’s mistress brazened it out as she had so many times in the past, insisting that she had been entirely innocent in the matter, and that this ‘disagreeable mistake’ had made people jump to the most ‘absurd’ conclusions. George was entirely satisfied with her explanation, but those who heard of the tale were more sceptical. The poor lady whose husband had been at the centre of the allegations, meanwhile, was obliged to keep silent in order to retain her position at court.28

  Although Lady Suffolk stayed away from court, fate ensured that she would once more encounter her former royal lover. In October 1760, during her customary winter sojourn in London, she paid a visit to the gardens at Kensington. This was a popular spot for members of society to promenade and meet their acquaintance, but Henrietta was not aware that on this particular day there was to be a review of the royal guard by the King. As soon as she realised her mistake, she attempted to flee the gardens before George’s arrival, but found herself hemmed in by coaches. As she looked about her for a means of escape, she found that the King and Lady Yarmouth were almost upon her, and she therefore had no choice but to steel herself for what looked set to be a very awkward encounter. But George failed to recognise her, and he and his mistress walked straight past without so much as a nod. This proved even more humiliating for Henrietta than a forced greeting would have been. Her friend Horace Walpole noted that she was greatly ‘struck’ by the incident and remained despondent for some days afterwards.29

  In fact, this encounter would be the last time that Henrietta would ever see her royal lover. Two days later, George II, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover, was dead.

  Chapter 17

  ‘An essential loss’

  * * *

  ON THE MORNING OF 25 October 1760, George II rose, as usual, at six o’clock. He called for his hot chocolate, as he had done on every other morning since his accession, and drank it down. He then walked over to the window overlooking the gardens at Kensington, opened it, and declared that as it was a fine day, he would walk in the gardens. A little after seven o’clock, he retreated into the water closet, methodical as ever in his habits. His valet de chambre, waiting patiently outside while His Majesty completed his evacuations, just as he did every morning, was surprised by ‘a noise louder than the royal wind’, followed by a thud ‘like the falling of a billet of wood from the fire’. He rushed in and found the King lying on the floor. There was a gash on his right temple caused by a heavy fall against the corner of a bureau, and his hand was stretched towards the bell that he had tried to ring for assistance. He whispered, ‘Call Amelia,’ then spoke no more.

  The valet tore off to find help, and arrived back with several doctors in tow, as well as Princess Amelia, the King’s second eldest daughter. Together they laid him on the bed and the doctors attempted to bleed him, but ‘not a drop followed’. Princess Amelia, who was rather deaf, put her face close to her father’s to catch any whispered commands, but finding his cheek cold, she leapt back in horror, realising he was dead. A post-mortem later revealed that he had died from a ruptured ventricle of the heart, the origin of which was probably syphilitic.1

  As with so much of his life, death had come to George II accompanied by an element of farce. As he lay dying on the floor of his water closet, it was most probably his mistress, not his daughter, whom he had called for. They shared the same Christian name, but the Princess was more commonly known as Emily. It made little difference, however, for by the time his daughter arrived at his side, George was already dead. If he could have chosen the moment of his passing, he might well have preferred something more suited to his royal stature. As it was, this proud warrior king, who had led his troops to glory at Oudenarde and Dettingen, had breathed his last on the toilet.

  George II was seventy-seven years of age when he died. He had enjoyed rude health for most of his life, and only in recent years had he been troubled by fading eyesight and poor hearing. He had reigned for thirty-three years, during which time the Jacobite threat had been extinguished for good, the Hanoverian succession had been securely established, and the political regime had been stabilised by the long ministries of Walpole, Pelham, Pitt and Newcastle. At the same time, Britain had been transformed into a great world power. The foundations of the Industrial Revolution had been laid, with new levels of production in industries such as coal and shipbuilding as well as in agriculture, and there had been a rapid rise in population. Overseas trade had been boosted by successes in India, which placed Madras and Bengal under British control, and by the capture of French-held Quebec. George had played a personal role in some of his country’s military successes, notably at Dettingen in 1743 when he had become the last British sovereign to lead his troops into battle.

  The tributes paid to the King upon his death were perhaps more flattering than might have been expected for such a cantankerous monarch. The London Chronicle proclaimed that he was ‘beloved honoured and regretted by his subjects, for his eminent and royal virtues’. His former minister, Lord Carteret, told his daughter that he had ‘lost in common with the public an excellent King but also I can say with great truth a most gracious and good friend in particular’. The Duke of Newcastle, meanwhile, lamented that he had ‘lost the best King, the best master, and the best friend that ever subject had. God knows what consequences it may have.’ Even Lord Chesterfield, who had long since fallen foul of the King, admitted that he had departed this life unloved ‘but not unpraised since he was dead’.

  Such accolades were short-lived, however. A little over a month after George II’s death, one contemporary observed: ‘I can’t help still regretting our late Sovereign, if he had some defects, he had certainly many virtues, and he had experience, which nothing but time can give; yet he seems already to be almost forgotten.’2 Most of his subjects were now looking to his successor with the renewed hope and optimism that so often characterises the beginning of a new reign.

  George III was the grandson of the late King, and had become the heir to the throne after the death of his father Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1751. He was the first of the Hanoverian kings to be born in England, and although he could speak German, he showed little interest in his Hanoverian dominions, and in fact was never to visit them. His popularity was further enhanced by his youth (he was twenty-two on his accession) and enthusiasm, coupled with the fact that he was the first unmarried monarch to ascend the throne since Charles II in 1660. Before long, he had swept away the vestiges of his grandfather’s court, including its tedious customs, dreary entertainments, and most o
f its officials. George II’s mistress, Lady Yarmouth, was expelled from her apartments clutching the strongbox he had left her, which was said to contain £10,000. She remained in Britain for a few months before returning to Hanover, where she died of ‘a cancer in her breast’ in October 1765.3

  The German mistress’s predecessor, Lady Suffolk, profited rather less from the King’s death. All that it brought her was the cessation of the pension that she had enjoyed since leaving court twenty-six years earlier. She now faced the prospect of living in straitened circumstances. This in itself was sufficient cause for anxiety, but she also seemed to be genuinely saddened by the King’s passing. Horace Walpole observed that she was ‘very sensible to his death’ and remained rather melancholy for some time afterwards.

  The passing of her old royal lover no doubt heightened Lady Suffolk’s growing sense of nostalgia and reflection as she looked back over the events of her life. ‘We do extremely rejoyce to hear that you are at least left so to yourself, as to be able to think of what is past, so as to be able to judge what is to come,’ wrote her friend Lady Mary Vere. At seventy-one years of age, Henrietta was now an old woman. Although she was still plagued by deafness, her health was tolerable and her mind was still sharp. ‘She has all her senses as perfect as ever,’ marvelled her constant companion, Horace Walpole, ‘is clean, gentle upright; and has her eyes, teeth, and memory, in wonderful conversation, especially the last, which unlike the aged, is as minutely retentive of what happened two years ago, as of the events of her youth.’4

  Henrietta continued to keep abreast of the lives of her friends, and as these now included the statesmen William Pitt and George Grenville, her interest in politics was reignited. ‘Don’t Mr Walpole think Lady Suffolk gave great proofs of her knowledge and wisdom last Saturday night?’ she wrote to her friend in 1761, after accurately predicting that Grenville would be offered the post of Secretary of State in succession to Pitt. The same year, she played an active role in the election to the influential post of Master of the Charterhouse in London, canvassing votes on behalf of Dr Morton, Librarian of the British Museum. She called in some of her connections to help her, including the Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice of England, and her old court acquaintance, the Duke of Newcastle.5

  Henrietta also retained some contact with the court. Her advice was sought about the proper ceremonies to be observed at the coronation of George III’s new wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, in September 1761. Even though it had been almost thirty-four years since she had attended the late Queen’s coronation, she recalled all the ceremonies, precedents and codes of etiquette in remarkable detail – from the guarding of the robes and jewels at Westminster to the handkerchief used to wipe the Queen’s face after she had been anointed.6

  Lady Suffolk herself attended the coronation. Although an expert on the protocols involved and the clothes that were appropriate, she called upon the assistance of her friend Walpole in dressing her hair. She was later able to return the favour by helping him out of an awkward and embarrassing situation when Queen Charlotte paid an unexpected visit to Strawberry Hill. Unaware who the caller was, Walpole’s servant had announced that his master was in bed and could not be disturbed. Greatly flustered upon learning the truth, Horace ran at once to seek his friend’s advice, and she helped him write a letter of apology to the palace.

  Henrietta was also consulted by William Chetwynd about the extent of his daughter’s privileges as Sempstress to the Queen. Miss Chetwynd was eager to attend a drawing room, but her comparatively humble position in the household would not allow her to do so, no matter how well born she might be. Henrietta cautioned that if she ignored the rules, it would be ‘a very mortifying circumstance and distress to her’, and that she should therefore ‘obey them without a murmer’.7

  Although she dabbled in matters of court and politics from time to time, Lady Suffolk’s main preoccupations were closer to home. She did take a trip to Cheltenham in 1762, but otherwise preferred to stay at Marble Hill. She continued to entertain friends both here and at Savile Street, and would also visit Horace Walpole at his Strawberry Hill villa. The latter was with her when a fire broke out near her town house in April 1761. After making sure that she had suffered no ill effects, he persuaded her to remove her most valuable possessions in case the fire should spread. Although Lady Suffolk behaved ‘with great composure’, she was clearly shaken by the experience and afterwards admitted ‘how much worse her deafness grew with the alarm’.8

  Henrietta came to rely on Walpole more and more as the years passed. When business in town detained him, he would write to her often from his house on Arlington Street. ‘I could not help scrawling out a few lines to ask how your Ladyship does, to tell you how I am, and to lament the roses, strawberries, & banks of the River,’ he wrote on one such occasion, adding: ‘pray keep a little summer for me. I will give you a bushel of politics, when I come to Marblehill, for a teacup of strawberries & cream.’9 She was therefore distraught when, in the autumn of 1765, he announced that he was taking a trip to France and would probably not return until the following year.

  This was the longest period that Henrietta had been deprived of her friend’s company, and she felt his absence keenly. She complained that her ‘head, eyes, stomach, feet and spirits’ had all been adversely affected by his departure, and begged him to comfort her with frequent letters. This Walpole promised to do, and he proved as good as his word. He sent a series of entertaining descriptions of his life in Paris, the company he kept and the sights he encountered. ‘All my hours are turned topsy-turvy,’ he complained soon after his arrival. ‘Indeed Breakfast and Dinner now and then jostle one another.’ Very little in France seemed to meet with his approval. ‘Their gardens are like Desserts, with no more verdure or shade,’ he wrote. ‘What trees they have, are stripped up, & cut strait at top; it is quite the massacre of the Innocents.’

  Lady Suffolk delighted in his irreverent letters and urged him to write more often. Walpole accused her of being a ‘tyrant, who does not allow me many holiday-minutes’, but he was clearly glad to obey her request. For all his criticism of France, the longer he stayed there, the more he seemed to like it. By the beginning of December, he was reporting that he had ‘seen several people I like’, and had become ‘established in two or three societies, where I sup every night’. Among his acquaintance there was a family very dear to Henrietta’s heart: the Berkeleys. Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, widow of the 4th Earl (George Berkeley’s nephew), was a star of the gaming tables, and her son, Frederick, the 5th Earl, was also noted as being among the party. The mention of such a tender connection to her past must have evoked fond memories for Henrietta, who had enjoyed the society of Paris with her late husband George almost thirty years earlier.

  Another overseas correspondent to enliven Lady Suffolk’s retirement at Marble Hill was her nephew, John, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire. John had been rising steadily through the political ranks during the previous few years. In common with many of his contemporaries, he had cut his teeth on elections in his native county, and had been returned as a Whig MP for the city of Norwich in 1747. At the end of 1755, he had secured his first office in government as Comptroller of the Household to George II, and a little over a year later, he had been elected to the Privy Council. To this honour had been added the sinecure of Lord of the Bedchamber to the King, who had apparently taken a shine to his former mistress’s lively young nephew.

  The Earl had devoted so much of his younger life to politics and the court that it was not until 1761, shortly before his thirty-eighth birthday, that he turned his attentions to more domestic matters and took a wife – Mary Anne Drury, daughter of a Northamptonshire baronet. Perhaps married life was not to his taste, for barely a year into it, he accepted the apparently prestigious commission of concluding a new treaty with Russia. This was something of a poisoned chalice, however, for while the British government’s motivation was commerce, the Russians were seeking a political alliance. Su
ch an impasse would have challenged the most seasoned of diplomats, but Buckinghamshire had precious little experience of such matters, and was therefore ill equipped for the situation that greeted him upon his arrival in St Petersburg in the autumn of 1762.

  Nevertheless, the Earl’s engaging manner made him an instant hit at the Russian court, and he also succeeded in charming its formidable matriarch, Catherine the Great. Before long, she was so fond of him that she habitually requested his attendance, both at court and on more private occasions, such as when she indulged her passion for riding. ‘I had the honour of seeing her ride,’ he told his aunt a few months after his arrival. ‘She was dresst in man’s cloaths and it really is not flattery to say that few men ride better.’ Riding was a passion that the Earl shared with the Empress, and so highly did she favour him that the year after his arrival, she ordered two horses to be sent over from England so that they might ride them together. During the course of his ambassadorship, she showered him with more gifts, including a magnificent tapestry of Peter the Great, which now hangs at Blickling.

  Their mutual affection was obvious to everyone who saw them together, and it was not long before rumours began to circulate that relations between Her Imperial Majesty and the English envoy had deepened into intimacy. They were in each other’s company almost all the time, both at the court in St Petersburg and in Catherine’s beautiful Summer Palace nearby. When matters of state took her away from there in the summer of 1764, the Earl greatly missed her company and confessed to his aunt: ‘The Empress is expected this evening at Peterhoff, about twenty miles from hence, which I equally rejoice at both in my publick and private capacity, as I have sensibly felt in both the difference of her absence.’10