“Last Monday died, and not before, at his Seat near Saffron Walden in Essex, the Right Hon. The Earl of Suffolk. His Lordship married a Daughter of Thomas Inwin, Esq; late of the Borough of Southwark, by whom he has no issue.”170
When Henry Howard died, he had been a stranger to his mother for years. Though his marriage had been financially astute it had not resulted in any children, so at his death the title passed to the great-grandson of the very 1st Earl of Suffolk. Henry was just 39 when he died in the Spring of 1745 and with his death, the last shred of hope that there might be a reconciliation also went to the grave. Yet it had been decades since mother and son had seen one another and perhaps, in some strange way, Henrietta had already grieved for his loss. Though the blow was still hard, the fact that she had a loving husband and a sanctuary to call her own was no doubt a great tonic to Henrietta. The same could not be said for the second tragedy to hit her in the space of eighteen short months.
“On Wednesday last died at Bath the Hon. George Berkeley, Esq; Member of Parliament for Heydon in Yorkshire, Master of St. Katherine’s near the Tower, and Brother to the late Earl of Berkeley. He married the Dowager Countess of Suffolk, but has left no issue.”171
George Berkeley, Henrietta’s best friend and loving husband of 11 years, died on 29 October 1746. He left everything he possessed to his adored, distraught wife. In George, Henrietta had found the companionship and love that she had never known before. She would not marry again.
As Henrietta approached her sixtieth year, she retired to her beloved home of Marble Hill. The glittering social life she and George had enjoyed together held less appeal without him, but Henrietta was not the sort of woman who would ever become a recluse. Instead she continued to host her friends and to visit them too. Home was hardly quiet anyway, especially with Dorothy for company. The young lady’s father, John, was created Earl of Buckinghamshire in 1746 and with his promotion, Dorothy became a tempting prospect for fortune hunting suitors. It was Henrietta who steered her through the choppy waters of romance, but one man who came calling at Marble Hill was more interested in Henrietta than her adopted daughter.
Horace Walpole, Robert’s son, moved to the picturesque estate of Strawberry Hill at the age of 30 and set about transforming it into a fairy tale landscape of Gothic delights. Walpole was an eminently sociable fellow and he soon called on the Dowager Countess of Suffolk, intrigued by the woman who had never been a favourite of his father. Walpole’s writings provide us with a wealth of marvellous court gossip and he revelled in the company of courtly ladies, rejoicing in their stories of the kings and consorts they’d known. In Henrietta and Betty he found his perfect friends and soon he was virtually part of the family. The trio took tea together as Henrietta listened to Walpole’s questions through her ear trumpet and regaled him with stories of her life in the royal household.
Once Dorothy married and set out on her own life, Henrietta became the grande dame of Marble Hill. She was constantly welcoming visitors, from old friends to her ever-loyal neighbour and chronicler, Horace Walpole. When her health began to decline she came to rely on Walpole to take down her dictated letters and he fretted endlessly whenever she suffered any ailment, which happened with all too increasing regularity as the years passed.
With the death of her brother John in 1756, Henrietta alone remained of the eight children who had begun their journey so many years earlier at Blickling Hall. In the decades that had passed from those bleak early days, their lives had changed immeasurably. Though her nephew was one of the new generation of courtiers who now bowed to the elderly George II, Henrietta never felt the urge to return to her old haunts at Kensington Palace and St James’s. She did, however, see her former patron one final time before they parted forever.
During a trip to London in late 1760, Henrietta visited Kensington to view the gardens. Unbeknownst to her, the king was also making a visit and by the time she discovered his approach, it was too late to flee. Caught in the melee of coaches, Henrietta prepared herself to face George Augustus and his companion, Amalie, Countess of Yarmouth, for the first time in more than a quarter of a century. She related the rueful story to Horace Walpole.
“Two days before [King George II] died, [Henrietta] went to make a visit at Kensington, not knowing of the review; she found herself hemmed in by coaches, and was close to him, whom she had not seen for so many years, and to my lady Yarmouth; but they did not know her; it struck her.”172
How painful it must have been for Henrietta not to have been recognised by the very man who used to pace the floor in agitation as he waited to be admitted to her chambers. It saved them both an awkward encounter but there must have been a sting of humiliation in being passed by. Henrietta had become invisible. Just two days later the old king died, collapsing on the floor of his toilet as his valet waited outside. George Augustus, once the glittering centre of a fashionable young court, had followed his father into grumpy old age. Bad-tempered, miserly, and given to tantrums to the end, he was 76 when he died.
Though George Augustus and Henrietta had long since ceased to be even acquaintances, she had continued to receive a pension from the royal household ever since her departure. With George II’s death, that ceased. Though Henrietta’s funding was cut off, the new king was keen not only to acknowledge her existence but to draw on her knowledge as a former and exemplary Mistress of the Robes. Not long after he succeeded to the throne, King George III called upon Henrietta to advise his new wife, Queen Charlotte, on her role at the forthcoming coronation. Henrietta memorialised the occasion in answer to an official request from the palace.
“At the late queen’s coronation the Duchess of Dorset was mistress of the robes; but Mrs. Howard, bedchamber-woman, having had all things belonging to that office for many years under her care, received her majesty’s commands to provide every thing proper for her majesty’s dress for the coronation, and to inquire into all particulars necessary for the queen to know.
[…]
The night before the coronation the queen’s order to all her servants, except the bedchamber-woman, was to be at Westminster in the places assigned them, at the hour appointed for their summons; and at a little after seven o’clock the next morning her majesty, being in an undress, but every thing new, went into her chair (not a state one) with the curtains drawn; her lord chamberlain in a hackney chair before, her majesty and Mrs. Howard in hers behind.
[…]
As soon as her majesty got to Westminster, Mrs. Howard dressed her, assisted only by those who belonged to the office. Mrs. Herbert, the other bedchamber-woman, came in, but being in her full dress, could not assist. As soon as the queen came into the room where the peeresses were assembled, from that time the Duchess of Dorset assisted as mistress of the robes.”173
Henrietta was present at the coronation dressed in the fine robes of a countess, her hair styled by Horace Walpole, but it was a rare ceremonial outing for the lady of Marble Hill. She preferred to remain at home with her friends, hosting little gatherings and delighting in the company of her latest houseguest. Just as she had once brought Dorothy and John to Marble Hill, now she shared her house with Henrietta, the only child of Dorothy and her husband, Colonel Charles Hotham. She adored the little girl, lavishing her with affection as young Henrietta filled the house with joy; there was never any chance that Marble Hill would lose its sparkle.
Henrietta was as close as ever to her nephew, John, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire, too. He had followed the family tradition and entered the world of politics, eventually pursuing a career in the diplomatic service. He regaled his aunt with news from Russia, where he was serving in the often thankless role of the United Kingdom’s ambassador, and shared with her his thoughts on the sometimes perplexing and challenging St Petersburg court. John missed home and hearth dreadfully and admitted, “I try to make the most of what is; regret only one year […] of all that is past; and have no very sanguine hopes of the future.”174
Whenever Henrietta referred to her advancing years, John dismissed her worries with charm and good humour, assuring his aunt that she was as keen, healthy, and witty as ever. She and her old correspondent, Lord Chesterfield, still wrote to one another as playfully as ever too, adopting the guises of a maid in the Suffolk household and a footman in the Chesterfield residence. Elderly they might be, but it’s rather cheering to realise that in their own respectable way, the courtiers of Kensington Palace had never quite grown up.
Though Henrietta had lost her hearing, her wits remained pin sharp even as her body grew more frail than ever. In 1764 Horace Walpole sent an account of Henrietta’s agonising state of health to his friend, George Montagu. That she lived for a further three years seems little short of a miracle.
“[She is] past seventy six; and, what is more, much worse than I was for added to her deafness, she has been confined these three weeks with the gout in her eyes, and was actually then in misery, and had been without sleep. What spirits, and cleverness, and imagination, at that age, and under those afflicting circumstances! You reconnoitre her old court knowledge, how charmingly she has applied it! Do you wonder I pass so many hours and evenings with her? Alas I had like to have lost her this morning! They had poulticed her feet to draw the gout downwards, and began to succeed yesterday, but to-day it flew up into her head, and she was almost in convulsions with the agony, and screamed dreadfully; proof enough how ill she was for her patience and good-breeding make her for ever sink and conceal what she feels. This evening the gout has been driven back to her foot, and I trust she is out of danger. Her loss would be irreparable to me at Twickenham, where she is by far the most rational and agreeable company I have.”175
Henrietta’s health was in terminal decline. She was confined to her bed for long periods with gout in her joints and eyes and was forced to put her Marble Hill gatherings on hold. If nothing else can be taken as evidence of how ill she had become, that is surely proof.