Chapter 16
AS HENRIETTA CONTEMPLATED THE prospect of a solitary life after the death of her beloved husband, so George II was reflecting upon a political scene that had changed dramatically over the past few years. Sir Robert Walpole, who had dominated government for over twenty years, had finally been defeated by his political opponents in 1742. His regime, while it lasted, had been extraordinarily powerful. The King, and more particularly his late wife, Caroline, had given their chief minister a virtually free rein in government, and had put all the household resources at his disposal so that he could further his political ends. Walpole had, in many respects, proved equal to the trust that they had placed in him. He had achieved comparative stability and peace for the Hanoverians after almost half a century of revolution, war and political upheaval. He had managed the public finances with shrewdness and skill, furthering Britain’s prosperity by promoting trade, industry and agriculture. Above all, he had been a leader of exceptional strength: his eloquence as a speaker in Parliament and his keen sense of what mattered to the public keeping many faithful to his cause.
But all this had come at a price. The greatest charge levelled against Walpole was that he had governed through corruption, using the Crown’s extensive patronage to buy support across government. He had also neglected the affairs of Scotland, which, given the strength of the Jacobite cause there, was a dangerous and short-sighted strategy. His policies had bred widespread distrust and resentment against the government, and the Opposition’s ranks grew steadily throughout the 1730s. An alliance of Jacobites, Tories and disaffected Whigs had begun to form under William Pulteney, and the general election of 1734 had been a clear indication that the tide of popular support was turning against the Prime Minister. The death of Queen Caroline in 1737 had further undermined his power, for she had been his most loyal ally for many years and had provided the surest route to the King’s favour. Many had expected his fall would come then, but Walpole had won enough of George II’s trust and esteem to continue in office for another five years. After the disastrous general election of 1741, however, which reduced his majority from 42 to 19, the Opposition had moved in for the kill. Walpole had known he was beaten, and had tendered his resignation on 2 February 1742. Never again would George II’s government be so dominated by one man.
Walpole’s collapse was followed by years of political instability as the government lurched from one crisis to another, both at home and abroad. In 1743, war broke out between Britain and France, and a series of costly (and ultimately futile) military campaigns followed. This played straight into the hands of the Jacobites, who exploited the weakness of the government and the growing resentment among the British people to seize the initiative. With support from France, they launched a major uprising in 1745, spearheaded by the charismatic Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart – ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. The Jacobite forces outmanoeuvred the British in Scotland, whose ranks had been depleted by the war on the Continent, and succeeded in capturing Perth and Edinburgh before routing the government army at nearby Prestopans on 21 September. From there, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army advanced southwards and invaded England via Carlisle, which fell after a short siege. They progressed, unopposed, through Penrith, Lancaster, Preston and Manchester, reaching as far south as Derby, which they took on 4 December.
The Hanoverian regime now faced the greatest threat it had ever known. Everything depended upon the loyalty of a people who were already resentful towards a foreign King who had wasted their country’s resources for years in pursuit of Hanoverian interests. Their resentment was not matched by action, however, and the general feeling of apathy towards the regime was just enough to sustain it. Furthermore, the Jacobite forces had been fatally weakened by internal divisions and the failure to coordinate with French troops, which had still not arrived as promised in the south of England. Just two days after taking Derby, they were forced to retreat northwards.
Although the Jacobites succeeded in taking Falkirk in January 1746, the British forces, led by George II’s younger son, William, Duke of Cumberland, were steadily gaining the initiative, and won a crushing victory at Culloden on 16 April 1746. The Hanoverian dynasty was now finally accepted by the people of Great Britain, and the foundations were laid for the kingdom’s emergence as a European and world power.1
The events that were unfolding at the centre of Britain’s political life carried no greater importance for the Dowager Countess of Suffolk than as an occasional topic for conversation with her acquaintances. Court politics had long since ceased to be of any real relevance for her, and although she had taken an interest in her late husband’s parliamentary career, and shared his satisfaction at their friend Pulteney’s triumph, after his death they mattered less and less.
The pattern of Henrietta’s social life had also changed dramatically. Visits to the country, spa towns or other gentrified retreats had lost much of their appeal now that she could not share them with George. She spent most of her time at Marble Hill and lived vicariously through those friends who continued to enjoy the traditional social round. The Duchess of Queensberry, Lady Betty Germain and Lord Chesterfield regaled her with the latest news and gossip from Bath or Tunbridge Wells, and while many of the names had changed, the scandal remained much the same. Stories of flirtations, betrayals, elopements and ‘ravishings’ filled the pump rooms and coffee houses as much as they had in Lady Suffolk’s heyday.
A new generation of heiresses and beaux were now playing out the familiar scenes in the assembly rooms and on the promenades, while their ageing parents, aunts and guardians looked on. Only very occasionally did the two sides mix. Lady Vere, her late husband’s niece, wrote to Henrietta in 1751 with news that Lord Chesterfield’s son, a lively young man of nineteen, had been playing court to Lady Betty Germain, who had just turned seventy. ‘He invited her to his Ball yesterday, and gave her his Place at the Play the day before,’ she related, adding that all eyes were now on the pair and that an engagement was expected daily. Another letter told of how the Earl of Bath, who was the same age as Lady Betty, had started up a flirtation with a young Maid of Honour.2There was something faintly ridiculous about these encounters, however, and Lady Suffolk was content to reflect on former glories and leave the rest to her successors. Failing health added to her desire for a quieter, more retired life at Marble Hill, punctuated by occasional visits to her town house in Savile Street.
Her social circle was also quite different to what it had been during the early years of her life away from court. It still included a number of old friends, such as Lady Vere and Miss Pitt. William Chetwynd, a great friend of her late husband, transferred his affection to her and proved ‘unalterably kind and zealous’.3 He was a frequent guest at Marble Hill, and she also visited him from time to time at his estate in Staffordshire. But many more of her former companions had passed away, and Lady Suffolk therefore relied upon new arrivals in Twickenham to bolster her acquaintances. Among them was Richard Owen Cambridge, who settled at an estate nearby in 1751. A witty and amiable man, he was the author of a political journal, The Scribleriad. Lady Dalkeith, daughter of the late Duke of Argyll, and Lady Denbigh, wife of the 5th Earl, also moved to Twickenham in the 1750s.
But by far the most significant new arrival was Horace Walpole, son of the former Prime Minister. In May 1747, he acquired a small estate with a cottage attached, in nearby Strawberry Hill. ‘It is a little plaything house . . . and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw,’ he wrote to a friend a few weeks after the purchase.4 It was to become his private dream world; the place where he could observe the contemporary social and political scene at a cautious distance.
Horace was a young man of thirty when he moved to Strawberry Hill. The third son of Robert Walpole by his first wife, Catherine Shorter, he was devoted to his mother and resented the indifference that his father had shown towards her in the later years of their marriage. He had had a privileged upbringing, having been educated at Eton and Cambridge before embarking upon a Grand Tour of Europe. Enjoying the advantages of being the son of Britain’s most powerful minister, he had been elected an MP during his travels.
But Horace never shared his father’s dedication to politics, and upon moving to Twickenham, he declared that he had ‘lost all taste for courts & Princes & power, as was natural for one who never felt an ambitious thought for himself’. He preferred instead to pursue his interests in architecture and the literary arts. He was a keen writer and poet, although not a great one. His published works included Anecdotes of Painting, The Mysterious Mother, and the romantic novel, Castle of Otranto, which was set in Strawberry Hill. Shortly after moving there, he started to keep a detailed journal of political events, which was later published as Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II and ran to twenty-one volumes.
Walpole was of a slight and feeble stature, having been born prematurely, and in both his appearance and mannerisms he was rather effeminate. One of his female acquaintances described him as ‘long and slender to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most unhealthy paleness’. His style of dress was similarly dandified, and he was often to be seen in a lavender-coloured suit embroidered with silver, together with silk stockings, gold-buckled shoes, and ruffled collars and cuffs made of lace. He preferred delicate food such as chicken or fruit to the roasted meats, pies and other robust dishes favoured by most of his contemporaries. He would share his breakfast with his pampered little pet dog and a squirrel that he had tamed in the gardens at Strawberry Hill.
The epitome of Horace Walpole’s effeminate, rather eccentric, nature was the way in which he would always enter a room on tiptoe with his knees bent, ‘in that style of affected delicacy which fashion has made almost natural’, but which to sniggering onlookers made him seem as if he was ‘afraid of a wet floor’. He did not cut an entirely ridiculous figure, however. His eyes were described as ‘remarkably bright and penetrating, very dark and lively’, and although his voice was ‘not strong’, it was ‘extraordinarily pleasant’.5Furthermore, those mannerisms that appeared to some as effeminate, to others seemed rather elegant, and he was undeniably cultured and well bred. His weakness was a love of melodrama and gossip, and he would regularly sit up until one or two o’clock in the morning exchanging tittle-tattle with his acquaintances.
Walpole never married and is not known to have had any mistresses, preferring instead the company of older women. He had a particular liking for wise and spirited dowagers who could satisfy his love of scandal with tales from their younger days. ‘The preceding age always appears respectable to us (I mean as one advances in years), one’s own age interesting, the coming age neither one nor t’other,’ he once observed. Twickenham, with its many ageing widows and distinguished literary associations, was therefore perfect for him. ‘Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around, and Pope’s ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight,’ he wrote to a friend soon after moving there.6
The woman who, above all others, excited his interest was the Dowager Countess of Suffolk. The two were introduced by mutual acquaintances, of whom they had several, including Lady Hervey and Lady Betty Germain, and Horace soon became a regular fixture at Marble Hill. The irony of their friendship, given Horace’s parentage, was not lost on either. ‘I was become known to her, though she and my father had been at the head of two such hostile factions at court,’ he later wrote.7 He usually pursued his father’s old adversaries with venomous scorn, but any hostility that he might have harboured towards Lady Suffolk dissolved as soon as he met her. His esteem for her was obvious to everyone, for he was unstinting in his praise, describing her as ‘a sincere and unalterable friend, very calm, judicious, and zealous’.8
For Walpole, Henrietta had about her that ‘peculiar glamour’ associated with one who has been the mistress of a king. Like Pope and Gay before him, he was soon inspired to write verses in her honour. His poem, ‘The Parish Register of Twickenham’, referred to the spot
Where Suffolk sought the peaceful scene,
Resigning Richmond to the queen,
And all the glory, all the teasing
Of pleasing one not worth the pleasing.
Henrietta was flattered and delighted by the earnest attentions of this cultured and witty young man, while he was astounded at her remarkable memory and sharp intellect, and showed an unstinting enthusiasm for her tales of life at the Georgian court. The pair would spend many a long evening sitting by the fire in Lady Suffolk’s elegant Great Room as she regaled her new friend with everything from accounts of major events to the minutest of details about everyday life in the Queen’s service, such as the petticoats that Caroline had worn at her coronation, or the mushrooms that had grown in her own damp apartments at Kensington. By now almost completely deaf, she would use a tortoiseshell ear trumpet to help capture Walpole’s questions, while he listened intently to her quiet, almost whispered replies.
For his part, Walpole provided a patient and enthusiastic audience. ‘She had seen, known, and remembered so much,’ he later told a friend, ‘that I was seldom not eager to hear.’9 He was fascinated by the way that she could bring to life a vanished world. Some of the anecdotes he heard from Lady Suffolk were enhanced by the knowledge of court life that he had gained from his father. His description of their conversations proves what a perfect combination they made as orator and listener. ‘She was extremely deaf and consequently had more satisfaction in narrating than in listening; her memory both of remote and of the more recent facts was correct beyond belief. I was indulgent to, and fond of, old anecdotes. Each of us knew different parts of many court stories, and each was eager to learn what either could relate more; and thus, by comparing notes, we sometimes could make out discoveries of a third circumstance, before unknown to both.’10
Eager to capture his friend’s memories for posterity and pursue his own ambition to be a chronicler of the age, Horace began to record their conversations in a series of notebooks, dating from 1759 to 1766. He subsequently compiled these, along with his own observations, and bequeathed them to his favourite nieces, Mary and Agnes Bell, ‘for their amusement’. They were later published under the title of Reminiscences, and have become one of the richest sources of political history, gossip and scandal for the early Georgian era. Such was their content, particularly about the nature of Lady Suffolk’s affair with the King, that Walpole tactfully waited until after her death to bring them to the attention of the world.
Lady Suffolk’s friendship with Horace Walpole was strengthened by a number of other common interests, besides her recollections of court life. The most notable of these was architecture. As soon as he had purchased Strawberry Hill, Walpole set about transforming it into an extraordinary Gothic-style villa, complete with lofty towers and pinnacles, pointed arches, cloisters and richly decorated fireplaces. He stuffed the house full of a myriad of curiosities, paintings, china, statues, books and relics. He also loved to be surrounded by portraits of his close friends. The likeness of Henrietta that Pope had commissioned twenty-five years earlier hung in the Round Bedroom, which was in the main tower of the house.
Once he had completed work on the main house (or ‘castle’, as he called it), he turned his attention to the grounds and erected several weird and wonderful structures, including a Gothic bridge and a chapel in the woods that bordered the property. He also established his own printing press, which churned out a wide variety of books – both his own and other people’s – during his time at Strawberry Hill.
Although Lady Suffolk’s tastes leaned towards the more understated elegance of the Palladian style, Walpole managed to persuade her to indulge in a little Gothic fantasy of her own. One of her farm buildings was converted into ‘The Priory of St Hubert’, complete with octagonal spire, buttresses, nave and cloisters. ‘My Lady Suffolk,’ wrote Walpole in triumph to an architect friend, ‘has at last entirely submitted her barn to our ordination.’11 The Priory must have appeared somewhat at odds with the simple, classical lines of her Palladian villa, and it was pulled down a decade or so later.
As well as providing Henrietta with much-needed companionship, Horace Walpole also helped to widen her circle of friends by introducing her to members of his own. Among them was Isabella Le Neve, with whom he spent a great deal of time, both at Strawberry Hill and at his town house on Arlington Street. That Isabella should also become friendly with Lady Suffolk was remarkable, for she was the eldest daughter of Oliver Le Neve, the man who had killed Henrietta’s father in a duel. It is ironic to think of the peaceful meetings, at the tea table or the card table, between these two elderly ladies, whose fathers had fought to the death on Cawston Heath more than half a century before.
Horace’s fondness for Lady Suffolk grew ever deeper as the years went by, and his lively company did much to alleviate the sadness that she felt at the loss of Mr Berkeley. He also became close friends with Lady Betty Germain, who often visited Henrietta at Marble Hill and Savile Street. His acerbic wit and overindulgence in gossip won him many enemies, however, and they sneered at his fondness for women who were old enough to be his grandmother. ‘Is it not surprising how he moves from old Suffolk on the Thames to another old goody on the Tyne, and does not see the ridicule which he would so strongly paint in any other character?’ asked one.12 But neither Walpole nor Lady Suffolk was overly troubled by such comments. They had both seen enough of courts and society to know that what was ridiculed one week would be lauded the next.
That was not always the case, however. One evening, shortly after her husband’s death, Henrietta and Lady Betty attended an assembly hosted by Selina Shirley, Countess of Huntingdon. The Countess was renowned for her devout religious beliefs, and was constantly trying to induce her friends and acquaintances to accept what she held to be the Divine Truth. Her evening assemblies had gained quite a reputation, drawing men and women from both fashionable and intellectual circles.
On the occasion that Henrietta and Lady Betty attended, the hostess had invited her evangelical Methodist preacher, Mr Whitefield, to address the party. The subject of his sermon was the wickedness of marital infidelity, and although he did not know that Lady Suffolk was in the audience, she was convinced that his every word was directed against her. Furious at such an insult, she barely managed to contain herself as his self-righteous sermon rambled on. When at last it was over, the assembled guests looked on in astonishment as she ‘flew into a violent passion, abused Lady Huntingdon to her face, and denounced the service as a deliberate attack upon herself’.
In vain her sister-in-law tried to appease her, saying that it had been an unfortunate misunderstanding. Nor would she be silenced by the Duchess of Ancaster or Lady Ellinor Bertie, both of whom commanded her to stop this shameful display. In the end, she calmed down sufficiently to apologise (albeit with very bad grace), but then promptly flounced out of the house, never to return again.13
The affair was not soon forgotten. Lady Suffolk was clearly still very sensitive to matters concerning her reputation, having spent so many years covering up the shame of her first marriage and the nature of her affair with the King. Her resentment continued long after the incident at the assembly. Some years later, during her last illness, she refused Lady Huntingdon’s request to visit her at Marble Hill, and went to the grave hating her.
Henrietta’s anxiety to protect her reputation was demonstrated again a few years later. This time it did not involve her own virtue directly, but that of one very close to her. Dorothy Hobart had lived with her for many years, and had grown into a vivacious and attractive young woman. Her presence at Marble Hill had drawn various sons and daughters of local gentry families to the house. The number of male suitors increased after her father, John Hobart, was created 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire, in 1746. Some of these were clearly more interested in her dowry than her physical or intellectual charms. ‘I have lately seen the person who enquired for another what Lady Dorothy’s fortune was to be,’ wrote Lady Betty Germain to Henrietta two years later, ‘and on expressing my wonder, that I had never heard of them since I was told point blank that nothing less than twenty thousand pounds would do for the gentleman. I could not help thinking if so, the gentleman either had a small cumbered estate, or was not much in love with one I thought very desirable.’14 In fact, her father’s new title had added little to the Hobart family’s fortune, and the maintenance of their crumbling Jacobean mansion at Blickling was still eating up most of their resources.
The discovery of this fact put paid to Dorothy’s more mercenary suitors, but there was one who seemed genuine in his admiration for her. Colonel Charles Hotham was the eldest son and heir of Sir Beaumont Hotham, and had been raised in a village near Edinburgh, where his father had been appointed Commissioner of the Customs shortly after his marriage. Charles had been sent to London for his education and had afterwards lived with his widowed aunt, Lady Gertrude Hotham (née Stanhope), sister of Lord Chesterfield, whom he had become close to. He had enjoyed a distinguished military career, rising to the rank of captain in his early twenties.
His father was an old friend of Lady Suffolk, and many years earlier had brought his five young sons to play with Dorothy and her brother John at Marble Hill. Charles and Dorothy became reacquainted in 1752, when he was twenty-three and she some four or five years his senior, and he soon became a regular visitor to Marble Hill. The pair conducted their courtship with as much secrecy as possible, both at Marble Hill and in London, when Miss Hobart accompanied her aunt to her town house in Savile Street. Perhaps recalling her own disastrous courtship with a soldier of the same Christian name many years before, Henrietta strongly disapproved of Hotham and did everything she could to persuade her niece to find a more suitable match. But Dorothy was a spirited young woman, and was so besotted with Charles that she set aside the love and respect she felt towards the aunt who had been more like a mother for most of her life, and instead stubbornly continued on what Henrietta feared was a path to ruin.
Knowing that she would never agree to let them marry, Dorothy took a step that was to shock polite society, and eloped with her lover. Lady Suffolk was aghast when she found out, and at once set about tracking down the couple before the marriage could take place – and before the news sparked a public scandal. She succeeded in the first of these. Dorothy and Charles were discovered at Tunbridge Wells a few days later, still unwed, but their indiscretion had ensured that by now the whole town was abuzz with the news.
Henrietta was mortified. As Miss Hobart’s principal guardian, she held herself entirely responsible for the disgrace, and was wretched at the thought of what the news would do to her brother. She was also acutely embarrassed at having been unable to prevent such a scandal unfolding before her very eyes. But above all, she was distraught that her beloved girl looked set to destroy her life through an unsuitable match in the same way that she herself had done almost half a century before.
Lady Suffolk’s friends rallied around to support her. ‘What can I say or think of, to give You any relief in this your great Distress,’ asked Lady Mary Vere upon hearing the news. ‘Tis impossible to reflect upon your care, your Affection, and your Indulgence, to this unthinking (and too surely hereafter miserable) Creature, without finding that there is nothing to Plead in her Favour . . . whether you forgive, or forget you certainly have nothing to Answer to your Conscience.’ Another acquaintance, Lady Mary Coke, assured Henrietta that she was not at all to blame, and that her niece’s shocking behaviour could only be due to ‘her being under the influence of an ungovernable passion which has hardly left her reason enough to know what she says, or does’.
But their words could offer little comfort to Henrietta as the days dragged on and she waited anxiously for her niece’s return. Meanwhile, every lurid detail that could be gleaned about the affair was pored over in coffee houses, tea rooms and assemblies across London. It soon became clear that the couple’s courtship had been rather less discreet than Lady Suffolk believed. ‘Tis Certainly no secret to most People,’ admitted Lady Mary Vere, ‘as many has seen Her often Walk with him alone in the Bird-Cage Walk.’ It was equally well known that they had also conducted their liaison at Marble Hill, under Lady Suffolk’s very roof, and many sniggered at the disgrace that had thus befallen a lady so renowned for her discretion. Before long, the gossip had spread as far as Norfolk, where people seized upon scraps of information relating to one of the county’s most notable families. ‘The affair its self is I find generally known,’ conceded Lady Mary Coke, though she assured her friend that nobody would hear it from her own lips.
At length, Miss Hobart arrived back at Marble Hill with her lover in tow. But if her aunt had hoped to find her chastened by the whole unfortunate affair, she was to be bitterly disappointed. Dorothy was as steadfast as ever in her determination to marry Colonel Hotham, and not even her aunt’s famed powers of reason could work any effect upon her. After a series of bitter rows, Henrietta wrote miserably to her brother, pleading with him to advise her what to do next. He replied at once that she should send Dorothy to Blickling, where he and his son John would force her to her senses. She was to go alone, for the Earl was confident that, once separated, the young lovers’ passion would soon fade away.
Dorothy knew her father’s intentions all too well, however, and told a friend that she had complied with his request ‘to give them a tryal whether time or absence cou’d operate any change in an attachment they so much disapproved’. The Hobarts’ friends were confident of success. ‘I had some reason to think this unhappy affair wou’d intirely blow over,’ Lady Mary Coke assured Henrietta. ‘A few Months reflection must I think convince her that the step she was going to take wou’d as infallibly have brought ruin on herself as distress on her Family.’
Like his sister, John Hobart underestimated Dorothy’s strength of feeling. She arrived at Blickling as unrepentant as ever, her passion for Hotham ‘too deeply rooted to be erased’. But there was another, more compelling, factor that bound her to him: she was with child. Provoked by her father’s continued insistence that she must abandon the match, she retorted that it was now far too late, even if she wished to. Horrified by this shocking new twist to her shameful behaviour, Lord Hobart demanded to know how long she had been in this miserable condition. The conception had probably happened during the couple’s elopement at Tunbridge Wells almost three months earlier, so if the family was to salvage any respectability from the affair, the need for a wedding was now of the utmost urgency. This was arranged with all due haste, and the couple were married at Duke Street Chapel in Westminster on 21 October 1752.
Henrietta was shocked and distressed when she heard the news of Dorothy’s pregnancy and hasty marriage. In vain her friends tried to comfort her with the fact that, apart from his reprehensible behaviour with Lady Dorothy, Charles Hotham’s character was otherwise sound. ‘Mr Hotham is well spoke of by all his Men acquaintance,’ wrote Lady Mary Coke, adding (rather unconvincingly) that she believed Dorothy ‘may I think be happy’. Lord Chesterfield, by contrast, was genuinely delighted when he heard of the match, for he had gained a good opinion of Charles when he had met him as a youth. ‘I do not wish you and Lady Dorothy Joy, for I am sure that you both have it,’ he wrote to ‘My Dear Captain’. He had evidently not heard about the pregnancy, for he added that he hoped they might one day be blessed with children.15 His friend Lady Suffolk was, however, convinced that she would now have to stand by and watch as a very painful history repeated itself before her very eyes.
Happily, her fears were never realised. Dorothy and Charles Hotham’s love proved to be more than a passing fancy, and their marriage stood the test of time. Their child – a daughter – was born in the spring of 1753 and, as a conciliatory gesture, was christened Henrietta. Her great-aunt and namesake could not remain angry with the young couple for long, particularly when she saw how happy they were, and they were reunited soon after the birth. So far was Dorothy restored to Henrietta’s affection, indeed, that her daughter became as regular a visitor at Marble Hill as she herself had been as a young girl. Lord Hobart, in contrast, could not bring himself to forgive the wayward young lady, and any hope of a reconciliation was extinguished by his death three years later.16
The scandal of Dorothy Hobart’s elopement has remained hidden in the family archives until now. The editor of Lady Suffolk’s published correspondence removed all references to it, and even Louis Melville, who otherwise relished the more colourful details of her life, omitted it from his study on Lady Suffolk and her Circle. As almost every historian since has relied upon their accounts, this episode – and several others like it – has hitherto been forgotten. In exploring Henrietta’s original letters and papers, a new portrait of her emerges which is at once more human and more compelling than the idealised Woman of Reason.
The more fickle of Lady Suffolk’s acquaintances had been quick to disassociate themselves from her during the scandal of Dorothy’s elopement. Her true friends, however, had proved the loyalty and sincerity of their attachment, and none more so than Lady Mary Coke, niece of her old friend John, Duke of Argyll. Lady Mary’s fierce loyalty towards Henrietta was born out of gratitude, for the latter had come to her aid during a crisis in her own personal life a few years before. The source of this crisis had been all too familiar to Lady Suffolk.
Lady Mary was married to a dissolute and disreputable man whose violent temper was fuelled by excessive drinking. Edward, Viscount Coke, was the son of the Earl of Leicester. It seems that Mary had married him somewhat against her will, his reputation being widely known in Norfolk, and her apprehension proved fully justified. She led a miserable life at Holkham, often falling foul of his violent rages. On one occasion, fuelled by drink, Coke burst into his wife’s room and began searching it for proof that she was plotting to have him murdered. Lady Mary pleaded with him to see sense, but he turned on her, and she later described the terrifying scene that followed: ‘Lord Coke abused me in the most cruel manner but not content with that, he struck me on my Arm! tore my ruffle all to pieces & told me I deserved to be assassinated.’ She was only saved from a further beating by the arrival of a local clergyman, who had come to pay his respects to the couple. Upon hearing the disturbance, he set aside propriety and rushed to Lady Mary’s aid, restraining her half-crazed husband until the worst of his temper had subsided.
Although she was humiliated by her husband’s treatment, Lady Mary could not suffer in silence and pleaded with her family to help. Her uncle, the Duke of Argyll, at once told Lady Suffolk of her plight, knowing that she would provide a sympathetic ear and, he hoped, some guidance for the young lady. She did not disappoint him, and promised to do all she could to help his wretched niece. Lady Mary was overjoyed to have such a wise confidante, knowing how well Lady Suffolk was qualified to help her, and she soon came to rely heavily upon her guidance. ‘Lady Mary wishes extremely to see you & that soon,’ her sister Elizabeth wrote to Henrietta. ‘She wants your advice about several things.’
Lady Mary used the opportunity of a visit with her husband to London to meet with her new acquaintance. Henrietta braved foul weather to travel up to town so that she might console the girl and devise a plan of escape. Their meeting was conducted in the greatest secrecy. Rumours were already circulating about Lady Mary’s marital troubles, and if she had been seen conversing with a woman who had used the law to escape from her own violent husband, then speculation would have been rife. Henrietta counselled her to begin collecting all the evidence she could of Lord Coke’s ill treatment, and to keep a detailed diary – well hidden, of course, from his already paranoid gaze. She also urged her to keep her spirits up and her mind alert, no matter what abuses he might inflict upon her body.
Lady Mary was overwhelmed by Henrietta’s kindness and assiduity, especially given the shortness of their acquaintance. ‘I now find fresh reason to wonder at your goodness,’ she wrote upon her arrival back at Holkham. ‘The great attention you seem to have for me, and the anxiety you express for my happiness are greatly beyond my expectations.’ She added that she had followed her friend’s advice to the letter, keeping a record of everything that occurred and sending a copy to her brother-in-law, James McKenzie, the member of the family whom she trusted most.
She had, alas, much to record. Her husband was more violent than ever, and Lady Mary began to fear for her life. ‘If my friends shou’d think of acting any thing in my favour for God’s sake let it be done soon,’ she implored her sister, ‘for I am now so ill delays wou’d be dangerous.’ But Elizabeth offered her little comfort. Anxious to avoid a scandal in the family, she urged her to show greater fortitude and remember her wifely duties to Lord Coke. Mary received no more sympathy from the friends she consulted, most of whom echoed her sister’s sentiments. Only Lady Suffolk proved to be a true and constant supporter. ‘The unkindness of friends is infinitely more terrible, then all the injurious usage that can be inflicted on one by Enemies,’ Mary lamented in a letter to her. ‘I assure your Ladyship that tis you alone that shall ever learn from me this instance of their cruelty.’ In reply, Henrietta urged her young protégée not to become paranoid in the face of her distress: ‘I must insist that you suspend all hard thoughts and reflections and not add imaginary to real distresses,’ she counselled. ‘Take comfort my Dear Child be assured you have friends.’
For all Lady Suffolk’s calm reflections, she was working earnestly behind the scenes to secure Mary’s release from her violent marriage. She begged James McKenzie to visit her in secret at Marble Hill so that they might discuss the matter. Together they agreed that the only course of action left to them was to enlist the services of a lawyer and begin proceedings for a separation. James subsequently instructed his wife, Elizabeth, to go to her sister and tell her of the plan. But Lady Mary was terrified by such an extreme course of action, and one that she thought was bound to fail. Her nerves in tatters, she ‘fell into a rage’ and was so loud in her objections to the plan that her sister was afraid they would be overheard. James was exasperated when he learned of this, and told Henrietta: ‘I shall wash my hands of the affair; for I can be of no farther service to her.’
Meanwhile, Lady Mary’s intemperate reaction to her sister’s message had indeed been overheard and was soon relayed back to Lord Coke. Furious at his wife’s betrayal, he placed her under virtual house arrest at Holkham, taking away her keys and forbidding her to write to family or friends. Only months later did he relent sufficiently to allow her to exchange letters with her sisters, but even then under ‘severe restrictions’. She had some time to regret her indiscretion. Cut off from any hope of assistance, she was forced to resign herself to a marriage that would bring her nothing but misery and humiliation. Only death – either her own or her husband’s – could now release her.17
In the event, Lady Mary only had to suffer her husband’s behaviour for a few more years, because he died in 1753. She made the most of her freedom by embarking upon a vibrant social life, travelling regularly in Europe and frequenting the most fashionable gatherings back in England. She never remarried. As with Dorothy Hobart’s elopement, Henrietta’s involvement in Lady Mary Coke’s marital difficulties was omitted by both J.W. Croker and Louis Melville. They were clearly anxious to disassociate their heroine from any more scandal than had already been visited upon her by her liaison with George II. The result was a rather more sanitised version of Henrietta’s character than emerges from studying her original letters and papers.
Controversies such as Lady Mary Coke’s marital difficulties and Lady Dorothy Hobart’s elopement preoccupied much of Lady Suffolk’s time during the 1750s, along with the more routine course of her relationships with friends and family. Her attention was also absorbed by some improvements that she was planning to make at Marble Hill. She had managed to secure more land surrounding the property in the late 1740s, and at the turn of the decade she commissioned a number of alterations to the house itself. With Lord Pembroke and Roger Morris both dead, she had to find a new architect to carry out these works. Her brother John recommended Matthew Brettingham, who had recently completed a commission at Blickling, and he began work at Marble Hill in 1750. This included both repairs to the original fabric and some new touches to bring the house up to date. The dining room was fitted with a new floor and ceiling, and was decorated with Chinese wallpaper, which was then high in fashion.18 Mahogany shelves were installed in the library to house Lady Suffolk’s ever-expanding collection of books, and improvements were also carried out to the servants’ quarters.
Henrietta was glad of the diversion that these works created. Unfortunately, however, her attention was soon absorbed by a rather less agreeable domestic matter. Marble Hill had been a source of great comfort since her husband’s death, and she was fiercely protective of the privacy and tranquillity that it offered. In 1748, Mrs Elizabeth Gray, who lived on Montpellier Row, a smart line of houses adjoining Lady Suffolk’s estate, had written to ask her agreement to the removal of some walnut trees which shielded Marble Hill from the avenue. She had claimed that they were ‘not only a very great obstruction, to ye Prospect, but a continual annoyence’ because passers-by would throw stones at the walnuts to dislodge them, ‘by which some of ye neighbours have had their Windows broke, as indeed wee are all liable to, by yt constant Pernicious Practice’. Henrietta, though, had been more concerned by the prospect of losing the privacy that the offending trees afforded than by the likely damage to her neighbours’ windows, and had therefore refused the request.19
The loss of some walnut trees seemed a minor inconvenience compared with the intrusion on her privacy that was caused by the arrival of a new, troublesome neighbour a few years later. John Fridenberg, a wealthy merchant, had rented two cottages close to the Thames on the east side of Marble Hill. The only means of access to these cottages was an old right of way that cut across Henrietta’s estate. Fridenberg did not just traverse this on foot, but drove carriages and loaded carts across it – an action that contravened the law and infuriated Lady Suffolk. When he showed no repentance for such acts ‘Committed with an unparalleled Insolence’, she decided to retaliate. With her brother’s assistance, she brought a suit of law against Fridenberg, and a protracted legal battle followed.
This caused Henrietta a good deal more stress and anxiety than her new neighbour’s original transgression had done, and it was only the constant support of John Hobart, ‘the best of Brothers’, that kept her spirits up. ‘Nothing can give me more uneasiness than to be sensible of what you must feel upon account of the dilatory proceedings against that rascal Fredenberg,’ he wrote to her in May 1755, ‘and of the uncertainty of what may, after all this plague and expence, be the consequence.’ The dispute was to drag on for seven long years, after which time Fridenberg was finally defeated, but the victory had cost Lady Suffolk dear.20
Lord Hobart did not live to see the conclusion of the affair. He died in September 1756, aged sixty-two, leaving his sister as the only surviving sibling. His son John inherited the title and estate at Blickling. John had remained close to his aunt. From an early age, it was apparent that he had inherited her keen intellect and wit – although the latter was rather more irreverent than hers. Henrietta had scolded him for being a ‘Saucy whelp’ as a teenager, to which he had promptly replied: ‘I am sorry to say yt your behaviour has convinc’d me yt when people have once got ye Character of being wellbred (by eating with their fingers, never drinking to any body, never taking leave when they go out of an Assembly . . .) they think they have a patent for being impertinent with impunity, & yt every thing they doe is polite because they are esteem’d so, by yt insignificant sect of people who stile themselves fashionable.’ For all his jesting, though, it was clear that he adored his ageing aunt. ‘You are the only person to whom I fully open my heart & the only one who loves me in the manner I most wish to be lov’d,’ he once told her.21
John was anxious to ensure Lady Suffolk’s wellbeing after the death of his father, and a short time later invited her to stay with him at Blickling. She enjoyed the visit to her childhood home, and was delighted by her nephew’s continuing attentions when she returned to Marble Hill. Shortly afterwards, he sent a partridge pie made by the cook at Blickling as a reminder of her stay, and enclosed a note chiding her that although she had told him of her safe arrival, she had made no mention of her health. He comforted himself with the fact that ‘there is a cheerfulness in the stile of it which induces me to flatter myself that you are very well’.22
Henrietta’s nephew provided one of the few links that now remained between her and the court. His rank and status gained him admittance to the formal receptions there, and his ready wit and charming manners provided a further recommendation. He attended his first levée at Kensington Palace in 1756, before which he had sought his aunt’s guidance on the proper codes of etiquette and behaviour. The occasion proved a success. He wrote to tell Lady Suffolk that he had done exactly as she had advised, and that as a result the King had been pleased to notice him. Upon hearing that the 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire was due to attend his levée, George II had enquired into his affairs, aware that he was related to his former mistress. This connection evidently did nothing to prejudice him, though, for both he and Madame Walmoden (now Countess of Yarmouth) treated the Earl with ‘the greatest politeness’.23
Lady Suffolk also counselled Miss Power, a more distant relative, on the behaviours and duties expected at court. She had helped to secure her the place of lady-in-waiting to Princess Augusta, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales.24 ‘May the Fair Flower that you have Carefully and Prudently planted at Leicester House Live & Bloom,’ wrote Lady Vere to her friend, ‘ever Remembring that ’tis to you she owes the every thing she enjoys in this Life of Happyness, and it will be her own Fault if she does not take care to secure Happyness in the next.’ Miss Power’s accounts of life at Leicester House must have brought back memories for Henrietta. The daily round of duties, receptions and scandal that she described (and that allowed her barely a moment’s peace) was reminiscent of the life that George II’s former mistress had led there more than thirty years before.25
A few members of Lady Suffolk’s old acquaintance, such as Lord Chesterfield and Anne Pitt, continued to attend court, but she herself chose to experience it through the accounts she received from others. It was not incapacity that prevented her. Although she was now approaching sixty and still suffered from bouts of ill health, she was remarkably alert in both mind and body, and continued to make the trip up to Savile Street every winter. Her vitality was such, indeed, that Horace Walpole declared: ‘Tis very wholesome to be a sovereign’s mistress!’26 In fact, it was a lack of inclination that kept her from court. She had been overjoyed to quit the onerous life that she had led there, and even the curiosity she may have felt about her old lover and the woman who had succeeded her as mistress was not sufficient to make her undergo what would surely have been an awkward and embarrassing experience.
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.