For the first time in her life Georgiana disagreed with Fox. He saw no threat in the revolution; she did. He thought England should make peace with France; she didn’t. “I by no means am an advocate for peace for I don’t see how it could be made,” she told Lady Spencer on October 22.18 “I am said to see people of all partys but to be a great Royalist,” she wrote a few weeks later. “Another report is that I am making a coalition and this is founded, I suppose, on my having seen a good deal of Lady Chatham.” The bickering within the party so disillusioned her that she toyed with the idea of retiring from politics altogether. In early November she made a dramatic announcement to her mother: “I promise you from this day, November 2, 1793, I never will say one word of politics in any way whatsoever.”19 Georgiana did not, of course, keep her promise, and embarked on a campaign to reconcile Grey and Sheridan with Fox.
Fox continued to dither throughout the winter and the whole of the spring. By the summer, however, he was leaning more towards the Association than the conservative faction. The Portlands fell out with Georgiana and the Duke over their continued support for Fox. “You can have no conception how despised and abused both the D and Dss are by every creature,” Lavinia told George with relish in February. “Indeed their conduct well deserves it—Montagu tells me that the Dss of Portland is quite outrageous—so much as to speak to him of them both in the bitterest terms which she never did before.”20 The Duchess of Portland died a short time later of cancer on June 3; her death seemed to be the catalyst for Portland, enabling him to cut his ties with the Cavendishes. The following month he went over to Pitt, taking more than half the party with him. Among the defectors was George, whom Pitt appointed as First Lord of the Admiralty. Georgiana was devastated by her brother’s decision. However, realizing that she would not change his mind, she wrote him a generous letter in which she absolved him of treachery to the party. “I have often told you, that I (as well as you) would have prefer’d seeing you out of place,” she wrote in July. “But I think your reasons for coming in are the noblest and most upright.”21
Devonshire House became a refuge for the eighty or so Foxites who remained—so much so that they were sometimes referred to as the “Devonshire House party.” Many of Georgiana’s closest friends, including Thomas Grenville and the Prince of Wales, stopped coming at all.*22 The Duke of Devonshire was not a supporter of the Association, nor did he agree with Fox’s position that Britain should make peace with France; nevertheless his allegiance to the party remained firm. His adherence to Whiggery was based on a sense of noblesse oblige, history, and on the certain belief that the Cavendishes had a divinely ordained role in government. Robert Adair wrote a posthumous sketch of him which had this to say about his political courage:
In his political principles, the Duke of Devonshire was a thorough Whig. With all due respect for the Crown, he felt that the foundation of the Whig Character is laid in a love for the liberties of the People. To support the Crown in its lawful authority he considered at all times to be proper and decorous, but he felt that his more immediate duty was to defend the People, and the popular part of the Constitution. . . . He saw, therefore, the necessity of keeping the [royal] prerogative strictly within its limitations.23
It was some comfort to Georgiana that the Duke shared her loyalty to the party, and to Fox. But the Whig split of 1794 was a personal disaster for her.
Georgiana’s skill and experience in party organization and political strategy belonged to the golden era of opposition. There was little or nothing for her to do now that the party had almost ceased to exist. The swift change to her status and reputation dented her self-confidence; she found it almost impossible to do things which only a few years ago would never have given her a moment’s thought. Prodded by Richard Fitzpatrick to help poor Lafayette, still imprisoned in Austria, Georgiana finally wrote a humble letter to George in August 1794, begging him to intercede on the Frenchman’s behalf. Her justification for writing took up as many lines as her request for help. “You will think it odd I should interfere on a political subject,” she wrote—rather absurdly considering her previous experiences—“but as I am actuated by motives of gratitude and as the Duke agrees with me in wishing it I am sure you will forgive me.”24
Georgiana’s embarrassment at putting herself forward was also a reaction to the conservative backlash of the 1790s against women who crossed over into “masculine” areas. Until the French Revolution aristocratic women with a taste and aptitude for politics could carve out a role for themselves, and many did.25 However, the opportunity was not theirs by right and, as Georgiana discovered, access was conditional on having a compliant husband, sufficient wealth, and a regiment of male supporters. Having enjoyed a prominent and successful part in politics, Georgiana had difficulty in accepting its premature end when the Whig party dissolved. She was not the first woman, nor the last, to resent watching men with considerably less talent than herself enjoy far greater and challenging opportunities. Ten years earlier the widow of the Marquess of Rockingham had struggled in vain to maintain her position within the Whig hierarchy and was condemned for it because she seemed to be exhibiting the “male” attribute of personal ambition. Lady Mary Coke said nastily of her, “it seems as if politics was her first passion and that even her great misfortune in losing Lord Rockingham is insufficient to make her forget her favourite amusement.”26
The 1780s had been a decade of extraordinary freedom for women, and not only in the political sphere. During the American War of Independence newspaper reports of British women who disguised themselves as men in order to fight were not uncommon, and their patriotism was applauded as much as their actions were derided. In contrast, during the present war with France women concentrated their sartorial efforts on making warm clothes for volunteers. The Oracle trumpeted that the “brightest ornament of exalted life,” the Duchess of Devonshire, “is literally employed in making FLANNEL SHIRTS for the brave fellows in Flanders.”*27 Social commentators urged the return to a traditional society in which women knew their place. The Whigs’ unashamed use of their female supporters during the 1780s tainted the notion of publicly active women with the slur of radicalism. A later critic of Fox thought his habit of treating women such as Georgiana on the same terms as his male friends a gross character flaw.28
Georgiana could not reconcile her desire for a career with eighteenth-century notions of female propriety. It was not in her nature to act outside the established political boundaries of the time. There is no evidence that she ever read Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman or that she knew of the writings of such early feminists as Mary Hays and Catherine Macaulay.†29 Georgiana was more interested in practical political issues than with philosophical debates about women’s rights and social equality. This enabled her to hold seemingly contradictory views, supporting the Polignacs in France and the patriots in Belgium. It also made it difficult for her to decide what to do. Georgiana became increasingly defensive about her own contribution: once shut out of politics she decided that women did not belong there anyway. Their role in life was to act as facilitators in the works of great men—but only when requested. She stated unequivocally: “If women would only meddle as moderators they wd do good instead of mischief.”30 In effect she was denying that a woman had the right to personal ambition. A woman’s mission was not to bring out the best in herself but to inspire others. Such opinions were a far cry from the confidence—even arrogance—that she had exuded before the Regency crisis. Lavinia had hated her then for the careless way in which she talked of “we” and “us” when discussing the party.
Georgiana’s interest in mineralogy prevented her from sinking into inactivity. She exchanged political meetings for scientific lectures and, with the help of Sir Charles Blagden, continued to enlarge her mineral collection. On August 22, 1794, an excited Blagden informed the president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, that Georgiana had managed to acquire a piece of “elastic marble” from Italy.3
1 Her progress gave Lady Spencer the opportunity to boast about her: “[she has] a genius for it,” she wrote in September; “Padre Patrini, one of the first men in that line in Italy, and Sir Ch. Blagden here have both assured me . . . that the degree of knowledge the Dss has acquired and her observations were very extraordinary. Mr Cavendish* too I find is delighted with her. He calls upon her frequently.”32 Georgiana became a patron of promising scientists just as in the old days she had been a patron of young actors. One of her notable successes was Dr. Thomas Beddoes, whose Pneumatic Institute she helped to establish in 1798, resulting in the discovery of “laughing gas.” Beddoes almost ruined his chances of finding favour with the government through his vociferous support for French republicanism. Georgiana struggled to help him to achieve recognition:
It is these three years since I have known him [she wrote to her brother in 1795], and followed his discoveries in pneumatical chemistry and his application of them to health, and in my own mind I have not the least doubt that in many cases they would cure disorders and in almost all give great relief. His proposals are very fair and candid, and he is full of genius and good sense in everything but the one subject of politics, in which he has neither judgement, taste or temper.33
Harriet, now the Countess of Bessborough, joined Georgiana in her scientific studies. She had returned in September 1794 with her health almost restored, except for a lingering weakness in her legs, which necessitated the use of walking sticks. When Georgiana last saw her sister she had been thin and wan; now her face glowed with a light Mediterranean tan and she radiated good spirits. Harriet had fallen in love while in Naples. The man in question was Lord Granville Leveson Gower, a twenty-year-old, who was travelling through Italy before embarking on a career in the diplomatic corps.34 He was clever, self-centred, and extraordinarily attractive. His looks conformed to the late eighteenth-century romantic ideal of manhood: his soft curly brown hair flopped over large dark eyes (“those eyes where I have looked my life away,” Harriet later wrote) above a full, sensitive mouth. He was politically ambitious, but also hedonistic: he gambled too much, drank too much, and was constantly falling in love. It had never been Harriet’s intention to fall in love with him; “I trust and hope I am grown old and wise enough to be certain of never again involving myself in the misery of feeling more than the common Interest of friendship for any one,” she told him on June 1, 1794.*35 He was unabashed by her rebuffs and they were lovers before she departed for home.
Harriet had returned just in time to comfort Georgiana. Grey had become engaged to Mary Ponsonby, a cousin of Lord Bessborough’s. Too cowardly to inform Georgiana himself, Grey allowed her to hear of his engagement through the newspapers. The marriage followed quickly afterwards in November. For a while Georgiana was rendered almost speechless with grief. The news arrived while she was taking the sea air at Teignmouth with Harriet, Bess, and the children. Both women did their best to distract her, as did Lady Melbourne, who sent frequent letters from London.
I read most of your letter to the Dss [Bess informed Lady Melbourne on January 8], I thought it a favourable moment, and that it would sink deep and do good; she has been very low upon the whole, nor can I wonder at it, and it is the knowledge of what she suffers and has suffer’d that made me give way on some things in London, perhaps foolishly, but it was not where he was concerned, only in what alone can never change for her. He is a brute, a beast and I have no patience with him—there is a want of feeling and consideration for her that makes me quite mad with him. I think she does all she can to arm herself against the present and the future, but it is a difficult task and requires time to succeed in. I wish I could blot four years out from my memory—we shall not probably return till April, and then I hope she will have acquired strength enough to mind him less—I promise you on my part to be as prudent for her and little weak as possible.36
Georgiana waited until she was calmer before replying to Lady Melbourne. “You are wrong in your fears,” she insisted. “I had one kind letter from him and that is all and I have wrote to him twice such letters as the universe might see, and I think our correspondence is likely to end there.”37 They were brave words, although Lady Melbourne did not believe them, and nor, probably, did Georgiana herself.
Grey’s marriage increased Georgiana’s sense of isolation. She had devoted the past seventeen years of her life to the Whig party; its ideology had become a religion for her, its leaders she had obeyed and venerated. The disintegration of the party, followed by Fox’s retreat to St. Anne’s Hill, and now Grey’s rejection, robbed Georgiana of her all-important role of political confidante. Without these props she had no means of expressing her own suppressed political ambition. Yet she could not imagine a life where she was not in a position to influence a powerful man. In desperation she turned all her attention to George.
My only comfort is my brother [she wrote to Lady Spencer in April 1795]. Thinking so ill of the war as I do and being disgusted with politics and lamenting the ruin and downfall of that glorious phalanx . . . of probity and property which so long had stood between the people and the crown The Rockinghams; . . . for I see him amidst the wreck sacrificing everything to the prosperity of our only stay and Hope, our Navy—and I see his evident endeavours crown’d with merited success.38
Georgiana began to send him unsolicited advice and information. She could not help herself; her need to be involved—to do something important—was sometimes overwhelming, especially when she was unhappy. Writing from Teignmouth in February 1795, she described to him the condition of the fleet in nearby Torbay.
I went to Torbay to see the fleet yesterday, and on board the Queen Charlotte—it was the finest sight and finest fleet I ever saw;—but they seem to think it very difficult for the W[est] I[ndian] fleet to get out of Portsmouth—as there are such numbers and it is so difficult in [the] harbour.—I had just got a letter from Pelham with the plan for the increase of men; and I told it to Ld Howe; he made an observation which I will mention to you—he said the only objection to the men raised in Parishes, is what happened [in] the last war: their send[ing] to the service of the navy, their poachers and troublesome people whom they want to get rid of—and that these men were both useless and dangerous on board. . . . Bless you Dr Br., how provoking that the winds were against us; I think we should have caught their fleet; Don’t teaze yourself to write to me.
Georgiana justified the breaching of her promise never to take part in anything political by saying that she was only passing on information, which did not count. “Sometimes, people may say to me what they would not venture to you and a hint may be of use.”39
She stayed in the country as much as she could for the rest of 1795, occupying herself with her mineral collection and writing to George whenever she had information she thought might be useful. The Duchess of Gordon had taken Georgiana’s place as the leading political hostess in society, although the press still made fun of her attempts to set the fashion.40 Georgiana lived much more quietly than in previous years, which lost her none of her old friends and earned her many more. “She dined with me yesterday and we sat talking all the evening,” wrote Lady Stafford; “had a most [illeg.] and interesting conversation, & talked ourselves almost out of our senses before we concluded.”41 She was pleased to see Georgiana “living in a pleasanter way this year than usual, with a good society, & less of the nonsence that was formerly.”42
Lady Spencer thought it would be no bad thing if Georgiana withdrew a little while social and political disputes continued to divide the ton. The behaviour of the Prince of Wales had once more drawn society into opposing camps. He was flagrantly unfaithful to his new wife, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, whom he married on April 8, 1795, and humiliated her by parading Lady Jersey in public as his consort. He also bullied Caroline in a manner which did him no credit and elevated her in the eyes of the public. Nor did Lady Jersey help her own cause by seizing every opportunity to insult the young princess deliberately. Harriet commented d
ryly that she was the sort of woman who could not be happy “without a rival to trouble and torment.” Lady Jersey had even contrived to have herself appointed one of Caroline’s Ladies of the Bedchamber. “Lady J. is in everything, and by everybody most thoroughly disapproved. What a prospect of wretchedness seems gathering round for every individual of that sad group,” wrote Lady Spencer. “I feel happy that you and your sister are unconnected with them all.”43
Lady Jersey’s malice towards Caroline became the chief topic of conversation, as did her greedy insistence that the Prince place all the patronage at his disposal in her hands. “It is very odd,” mused Georgiana, “that clever as she is she should not have guessed that the extent of patronage she took would be unpopular.”44 People were amazed by her effrontery when she drove about in a carriage accompanied by servants wearing the Prince’s livery. However, by January 1796 there were whispers of a revolt. “She has reigned with too much despotism to last long,” was Lady Spencer’s opinion. “I would wish you both to remember that she has fairly dropt you, and that there is no necessity when others drop her that you should take her up. In a good cause such a conduct is highly laudable, but surely not in a bad one.”45
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