The Duchess of Hamilton’s claims are more serious. If they were true, they show Melusine as uncharacteristically desperate, and may explain why she was amenable to ever-increasing presents of money for favours and access, as with her involvement in the catastrophic South Sea Bubble, and why she took an £11,000 bribe from Bolingbroke in 1725 for aiding his return to England.
Meanwhile it was imperative that the royal children be well cared for with as little disruption as possible. Melusine’s hand can be seen here. They were entrusted to her great friend Joanne Sophie zu Schaumburg-Lippe, and it is possible that familial links were maintained with the presence of Trudchen, their aunt, now sixteen years old. At least one historian believes that Melusine’s youngest daughter, who was renowned for her kindness and her gentle nature, was involved in the day-to-day care of the children. The German historian Mijndert Bertram claims that Trudchen received custody of the children, but it may be that he has confused her with her future mother-in-law; in 1722 Trudchen married Joanne Sophie’s son, Albrecht Wolfgang zu Schaumburg-Lippe. But it is entirely feasible that Trudchen, not much older than the eldest princess, had a hand in caring for her young nieces and nephew. In 1717 Anne was twelve, Amalie ten, and Caroline only four years old; George William, of course, was only a baby.
Melusine ensured that she was physically close to the princesses in order to supervise their upbringing. In May 1719 Kensington Palace became their main home. Melusine and George had great plans for Kensington, as witnessed by the extensive rebuilding that took place between 1718 and 1726. Even after the reconciliation between father and son, the princesses’ main home remained the palace best beloved of their grandfather and his mistress.
Two specific entries relating to Melusine’s accommodation at Kensington occur in the minutes of the Board of Works. The first, from January 1724, tells us: ‘The young Princesses’ Gallery to be paneled. For making a colonnaded way from the Duchess of Kendall’s to the young Princesses’ lodging.’ This entrance was not in the architect’s original plans, and shows how much interaction there was between the two households. Although Joanne Sophie zu Schaumburg-Lippe was officially in charge of the young princesses, the fact that she and Melusine were close friends, and that Melusine’s apartments were linked to the princesses’, makes it likely that Melusine had overall responsibility for the children.
The second entry, dating from May 1725, gives the commission ‘to build two rooms over the new arcade in Green Cloth Court for the Duchess of Kendall and two closets for the young princesses, and one for the Countess of Portland’. Jane, Countess of Portland, was governess to the princesses from 1718, and both entries show how imperative Melusine was to the girls’ lives, living on such intimate terms with them and their governess.
The Countess of Portland had been carefully chosen for her intelligence and the fact that she had already raised a large family. In December 1714 Mary Cowper wrote of the princesses: ‘After dinner, I went to wait upon the little princesses, who are miracles of their ages, especially princess Anne, who at five years old speaks, reads, and writes both German and French to perfection, knows a great deal of history and geography, speaks English very prettily, and dances very well.’28
Melusine and Joanne Sophie were keen to continue the development of their education, particularly dancing, which they loved. The girls enjoyed showing off their skills, to the delight of family and court at George’s elaborate birthday parties, where they would dance ‘till 11’. All was certainly not doom and gloom without their parents. They saw their mother nearly every day – Caroline was in the habit of coming to Kensington to bathe them and put them to bed – and their father often, and Melusine did her best to create a warm family home. Continuity was ensured with their music master, Handel. With Melusine, the Countess of Portland, Joanne Sophie and their grandfather visiting often, they perhaps did not suffer as much as George and Melusine’s detractors claimed.
William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, was in love with the German governess to the princesses, Madame Gemmingen. He called her Pallas for her intelligence and her inquisitiveness – he was impressed that she read the Spectator – and records her delight in Melusine’s and George’s kindness. His diary entry for 28 January 1718 reads: ‘[Jan] 28. M[adame] Gem[mingen]’s grateful account of the K[ing]’s goodness to her; and the D[uchess] of M[unster]’s, etc’, and the entry for 4 February 1718 reports: ‘G[emmingen] in new joy on the king’s repeated goodness to her and the children. Esto!’29 Her chatter to the bishop shows a household full of warmth, and the central role of Melusine.30
But despite George and Melusine’s best efforts, the princesses naturally missed their parents, particularly as they grew older. They were often rude to Lady Portland, their governess. Liselotte, who always seemed particularly animated whenever she reported on her dysfunctional cousins in England, happily wrote that ‘the poor little things sent a basket of cherries to their father, with a message that though they were not allowed to go to him, their hearts, souls and thoughts were with their dear parents always’.
The family’s tragedy was compounded when the young prince died in February 1718. He was only four months old and had been deprived of a mother’s constant care for most of his life. Liselotte wrote to Frederick von Harling, the Hanoverian Master of the Horse – she had known him well during her days in Osnabrück and Hanover – in great distress:
I pity the princess [Caroline] with all my heart; on the seventeenth of this month her newborn little prince died of convulsions and cough at Kensington. The princess is said to be dreadfully distressed about this loss. In her last letter her Grace tells me that she and her husband have begged the king’s forgiveness three times, but to no avail. I do not understand anything about this matter, but I am afraid that the prince shares in his mother’s misfortune and therefore cannot ever be loved, and that is a hopeless situation. However, it seems to me that since the king has acknowledged this prince as his son, he should also treat him as his son; nor should he be so severe with the princess, who has never done anything against him and has always honoured, respected and indeed loved him as if he were her own father. As I see it, I do not think anything good will ever come of this, the bitterness has grown too great; yet the king would be well advised to put an end to this matter, for it only gives rise to a lot of impertinent talk and brings up ugly old stories that had much better be entirely forgotten.31
But despite the horror of their baby’s death, Caroline and Georg August were still unable to claim back their daughters. They remained the Crown’s responsibility. George allowed Caroline secret but regular visits and Joanne Sophie zu Schaumburg-Lippe went to Leicester House every day to report on the children’s progress. This countess, so trusted by George and Melusine, had cared for the baby prince ‘day and night’ during his illness at Kensington, to make it easier for his parents to visit him. When George and Melusine went to Hanover in 1719 the king was very specific that the Prince and Princess of Wales could see the girls as often as they liked, but only in the princesses’ apartments. But generous visiting rights did not make up for the fact that Georg August and Caroline had no say in their daughter’s upbringing. George was very clear that the Prince and Princess of Wales could not use St James’s in his absence, and that any official functions should be hosted by his granddaughters, and not by his son and daughter-in-law.
Meanwhile the political rift amongst the Whigs worsened, with Walpole and Townshend hindering the king’s business, and George’s Whig ministers (chief amongst them Sunderland and Stanhope, with the young and ambitious James Craggs as Secretary of the South from April 1717) frustrated. And the division within the party was not only ideological; it had much to do with personal enmity, particularly between Walpole and Stanhope. The king’s ministers sought to shore up their positions with George. Naturally, given her importance to the king, the competing ministers strove to court Melusine, and evidence of this can be found in her brother Frederick William’s letters of April 1717, whe
re he claims that Sunderland hoped to marry one of her daughters.32 He did not say which one, but it was probably young Melusine. Louise, now divorced, enjoyed her independent lifestyle and her lovers, while George did his best to shield Melusine from the rumours that surrounded her. Trudchen was still very young and she may have already told her parents of her preference for Joanne Sophie’s handsome son. Sunderland’s hopes however went unrealized. Young Melusine remained unmarried until 1733, despite reports of her beauty and charm, and when she did eventually marry the Earl of Chesterfield, she lived next door to her mother.
By early 1718 Melusine was in a unique position, probably the only person who had a full picture of the schemes of both the English and the German cabals, across all factions. In the spring of 1718 her brother Schulenburg observed how George’s English ministers were deliberately excluding Bernstorff and Bothmer from ‘secret matters’, whereupon the Germans found comfort in ‘seeking refuge’ with Melusine, who was naturally aware of all developments through both George and his ministers.33 Throughout the crisis Melusine kept open a channel of communication between George, Walpole and Townshend. In one instance she arranged for one of her intimates – we do not know their name – to approach Walpole on George’s behalf. On another occasion she used the services of the Hanoverian major-general Alexander von Hammerstein, a member of the inner circle and a trusted confidant of George’s, not least because he had saved his life at the Battle of Neerwinden in 1693. For that reason alone, together with his devoted friendship, Melusine had reason to trust him.
The reunion came about not through any inclination on the part of Georg August or his father, but through the machinations and singular might of Robert Walpole’s personality. As Hatton so aptly puts it: ‘Robert Walpole opposed the king and his ministry in order to demonstrate his political power in the House of Commons and force George to restore him to office and the inner cabinet.’ By 1720 a rift within the royal family was no longer convenient, and he determined to bring the row to a close.
Walpole completely dominated the House of Commons. A contemporary noted that his speeches had ‘as much of natural eloquence and of genius . . . as had been heard by any of the audience within those walls . . . whatever he proposes seldom fails to being pass’d’.34 Mary Cowper recorded in her diary how Walpole courted Melusine with a view to ending the rift. He used a pragmatic and willing Melusine and a reluctant Caroline to bring pressure to bear on the king and the prince – Caroline, deeply upset, felt Georg August had been bribed. In April 1720 Walpole effectively forced a reluctant Georg August to go down on his knees before his father.
A reconciliation within the family and an end, at least formally, to the split within the Whigs was equally beneficial to the ministry. In December 1719 Walpole had almost single-handedly ensured that George’s Peerage Bill (an attempt to restrict the power of the king to increase the size of the House of Lords), engineered by Stanhope and Sunderland, was thrown out, to the fury of the king’s English ministers. In what was widely reputed to be the most brilliant speech of his parliamentary career, he argued that the bill would ‘subvert the whole constitution’ by destroying the ‘due balance between the three branches of the legislature’.35 The longer Walpole stayed in opposition, the harder George would find it to pass any kind of legislation.
Walpole was tempted back to office, chiefly because he needed the money. In turn, the return to power of Walpole and Townsend was sweetened for George and his ministers by an undertaking to pay off the debt of the civil list, which stood at an astounding £600,000 at the beginning of 1720. Walpole drafted the prince’s letter of apology to his father, and as arranged, George immediately agreed to see him. In his father’s private closet he declared that:
it had been a great grief to him to have been in his displeasure so long; that he was infinitely obliged to His Majesty for this permission of waiting upon him, and that he hoped the rest of his life would be such as the king would never have cause to complain of.
A visibly distressed George ‘was much dismayed, pale, and could not speak to be heard but by broken sentences, and said several times, “Votre conduite, votre conduite [Your conduct, your conduct],” but the Prince said he could not hear distinctly anything but those words. The prince went after he had stayed about five minutes in the closet.’36 Following the uncomfortable meeting, father and son, bowing to the demands of public relations, attended the premiere of Handel’s Radamisto a week later.
It was a reconciliation of sorts, but emotionally stunted as it was, it was more than enough for Walpole. The courtiers, almost as one, breathed a deep sigh of relief. The days of attempting to please two rival courts were finally over. Mary Cowper recorded the reaction at Leicester House. She ‘found the guards before the door, and the square full of coaches; the rooms full of company, everything gay and laughing; nothing but kissing and wishing of joy’.
But Caroline could not share the joy, for George refused to relinquish her children. She blamed Walpole, and spat at him: ‘Mr Walpole . . . this be no jesting matter for me; you will hear of me and my complaints every day and hour, in every place, if I have not my children again.’37 Caroline was forced to endure a life without her children’s daily presence for seven years. Only after George’s death was she reunited with them.
13.
A Bubble
As fishes on each other prey,
The great ones swallowing up the small,
So fares it in the Southern Sea,
The whale directors eat up all.
– Jonathan Swift, The South Sea Project, 1721
Although 1720 marked the year when all was harmony once more in the family – at least superficially – it was also a year of devastating loss for Melusine. In January her youngest brother, Frederick William, died, possibly of a stroke. The newspapers reported that he went to bed well, yet died in his sleep of an ‘apoplexie’. He was buried, because of his high standing with Melusine and George, at Westminster Abbey.
He was only forty years old. He and Melusine were extraordinarily close, not least because he was the only one of her siblings to live with her in London. We know from his letters to Görtz that he was clever, intuitive and observant, and one of the few the discerning George trusted implicitly. Melusine relished his company amidst the often viperous court. They even took holidays together – a newsletter of November 1718 reported that ‘Baron Schulemburg with the Duchess of Munster, his sisters and his niece is returned from drinking the waters beyond the sea [probably at Bad Pyrmont] . . .’
It was also the year that Melusine’s actions did much to tarnish the image of the monarchy. The summer of 1720 saw thousands impoverished and many taking their lives in despair as England suffered the greatest financial crisis in its history – the South Sea Bubble. Melusine was at its heart.
Two other figures who would play a central part in the dramatic events that would soon unfold were Robert Walpole and Charles Townshend. They had re-entered government very much the junior partners to their adversaries Stanhope and Sunderland, despite the camaraderie that seemed to prevail. In a show of political hypocrisy the old enemies were often seen laughing and joking with their arms around one another. Mary Cowper recorded that there was ‘great hugging and kissing between the two old & two new Ministers’ and they were observed walking ‘all four with their Arms round each other to show they are now all one’.
Walpole had the post of Paymaster General, with a promise of the Treasury when a position next arose, and Townshend became Lord President of the Council. They might have continued in these secondary positions had it not been for some timely deaths and a financial catastrophe that many believed brought England to the brink of revolution. It was in large part the madness of the fever of speculation – the South Sea Bubble – that gripped England in 1720 that cemented Walpole’s political dominance for the next two decades. He appeared – not entirely correctly – as the country’s saviour from financial ruin, and in saving England and George’s monarchy,
he also saved Melusine.
We know from our own times how intoxicating financial bubbles can be, irresistible ‘get rich quick’ schemes that promise fabled riches. Entire populations seem to succumb to lunacy in the single-minded pursuit of wealth. As Charles Mackay puts it: ‘We find whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it . . .’1 Tulip Mania in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, where a single bulb could sell for lunatic amounts, was one such madness, and John Law’s Mississippi Scheme in France in 1720 was another. England’s own peculiar brand of collective insanity was the South Sea Bubble. We have seen how addicted eighteenth-century Englishmen were to betting – on anything from horse racing and cockfights, to the date of resolution of conflicts and the tamer games of cards. The South Sea Scheme was just another form of gambling, but one – so its dupes were persuaded – with far better odds. Greed sucked in many, high- and low-born, men and women, politicians, clergymen, courtiers, the royal family, including the king – and Melusine.
Alexander Pope was hardly unique amongst contemporary commentators in writing about it, lamenting that:
At length corruption, like a general flood,
Did deluge all; and avarice creeping on,
Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun.
Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks,
Peeress and butler shared alike the box;
And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town.
And mighty dukes packed cards for half-a-crown:
Britain was sunk in lucre’s sordid charms.2
It was the country’s first – and, to date, largest – stock-market crash. Melusine was so integral to the events that brought so many to ruin and suicide, that it is hard to believe that she survived them.
The King's Mistress: The True & Scandalous Story of the Woman Who Stole the Heart of George I Page 18