Perdita

by Paula Byrne

  In Mary’s account, these meetings always take place in the romantic outdoors. According to a local tradition they also caroused in a house occupied by some of the royal family’s servants: ‘It was quite the usual thing to see the lights all over the house, and to hear sounds of revelry until three and four in the morning.’ The place was nicknamed ‘Hell House’ – as in hell-raising – and was said to have had a private entrance at the back that allowed access from Kew Gardens.37 The affair was almost certainly consummated either in this house or at the inn on Eel Pie Island. The Prince was approaching his eighteenth birthday, when he would receive a greater deal of freedom and independence (though nothing like the fortune that would be his when he turned 21): ‘the apprehension that his attachment to a married woman might injure his Royal Highness in the opinion of the world, rendered the caution which we invariably observed of the utmost importance’.38

  These meetings were in June and July 1780. Having received the assurance of the bond, Mary took the risk of retiring from the stage. She had told Sheridan that she would be giving up her acting career at the end of the season. He offered a ‘considerable advance to her salary’ in the event of her staying on, but she would not return a decisive answer. Sheridan was losing interest in the theatre himself, turning his mind towards a political career. On 24 May she played both leads in a double bill: Perdita and the cross-dressed role of Eliza Camply/Sir Harry Revel in a new comedy, The Miniature Picture by Lady Elizabeth Craven. There must have been palpable electricity in the house when Perdita spoke of splitting a son from his father – ‘I have betray’d, / Unwittingly divorced a noble Prince / From a dear father’s love’ – and when Florizel swore undying loyalty to the prettiest low-born lass that ever walked upon the greensward.

  The Miniature Picture was no doubt chosen not only to show off Mary’s legs in breeches but also because she wore her own miniature of the Prince around her neck. The comedy revolved around the miniature portrait of Eliza Camply who, disguised as Sir Harry Revel, procures it from Miss Loveless who has been given the picture by Eliza’s estranged lover, Belvil. At the climax there is a duel between the cross-dressed Eliza and Belvil – a kind of romantic variant on the comic duel between Viola/Cesario and Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night.

  Mary earned great accolades for this performance, even from the usually lukewarm Morning Chronicle: ‘Mrs Robinson’s Eliza does her infinite credit: she displays a degree of acting merit in the breeches scenes of the character, infinitely superior to any sample of professional talent she has before shown, and stands eminently distinguished from the other performers.’39 Horace Walpole, in private correspondence, was less complimentary: ‘Mrs Robinson (who is thought to be the favourite of the Prince of Wales) thought on nothing but her own charms and him.’40

  On Wednesday, 31 May, the evening that Drury Lane closed for the summer, she performed for the last time.41 She played Eliza/Sir Harry Revel and Widow Brady in The Irish Widow. On entering the green room, she told her stage partner Mr Moody that this was to be her last night on the stage, and – trying to smile – she sang what she knew would be her last words in the theatre, the closing lines of her epilogue song, ‘Oh joy to you all in full measure, / So wishes and prays Widow Brady!’ But when she walked on stage, her feelings overwhelmed her and she burst into tears:

  My regret at recollecting that I was treading for the last time the boards where I had so often received the most gratifying testimonies of public approbation; where mental exertion had been emboldened by private worth; that I was flying from a happy certainty, perhaps to pursue the phantom disappointment, nearly overwhelmed my faculties, and for some time deprived me of the powers of articulation. Fortunately, the person on the stage with me had to begin the scene, which allowed me time to collect myself. I went, however, mechanically dull through the business of the evening, and, notwithstanding the cheering expressions and applause of the audience, I was several times near fainting.42

  CHAPTER 9

  A Very Public Affair

  The Prince’s attachment seemed to increase daily, and I considered myself as the most blest of human beings.

  Memoirs of the Late Mrs Robinson, Written by Herself

  Early June 1780 was a time of high tension in London. The fanatical Protestant Lord George Gordon was stirring up protests against legal rights for Catholics and so-called popish influence in public life. On 2 June, he led a mob to Westminster to demand the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act. After attacking Members of Parliament, they moved into the streets and began six days of plunder and arson. A mob burned down the King’s Bench Prison, and stormed Newgate, releasing prisoners. Houses belonging to prominent Catholics were razed to the ground. The rioters, incited by drink and the fanaticism of their leader, targeted the houses of prominent Whigs, as they were well known for their support of religious tolerance. The Duchess of Devonshire feared an attack on Devonshire House and made plans to escape to Chiswick. For days she stood on her balcony and watched the orange skies of Piccadilly as buildings burned and gunfire filled the air. The violence lasted until the Army was called out, at the King’s command. The dead and injured stood at more than four hundred. Gordon was imprisoned in the Tower and tried for high treason. He was finally acquitted, though twenty-one of his followers were executed. The riot constituted the most violent uprising of the Hanoverian period.

  The King’s birthday celebrations took place on 4 June despite the rioting, although some stayed away. The Duchess of Devonshire was sorry to have missed the ball and the chance to wear her beautiful new blue gown made for the occasion. She was comforted by the fact that the Prince wrote to say he was sorry not to have danced with her – they had met recently and struck up a friendship, no doubt intensified by her support of Mary when she was penniless and friendless in the Fleet Prison. Now it was Georgiana who stayed at home, whilst Mary attended the birthday celebrations.

  Although the Prince dared to invite Mary to the King’s birthday ball, he was not so bold as to dance with her. He ensconced her in the Chamberlain’s box, along with Lord Lyttelton’s mistress, and she watched as he opened the dancing with Lady Augusta Campbell. Mary was amazed by the ‘fashionable coquetry’ of Lady Augusta, who handed the Prince two rosebuds from her bouquet, ‘emblematical of herself and him’. In response, the Prince beckoned the young Earl of Cholmondeley and gave him the flowers to deliver to Mary. She placed them in her bosom, proud of the power by which she had ‘thus publicly mortified an exalted rival’.1

  Sooner or later the affair was bound to attract comment in the press. The story broke in the Morning Post on 18 July:

  Mr Editor,

  And so the Theatrical Perdita of Drury-Lane is labouring night and day to insinuate to the world, that an amour has taken, or is to take place, between her and a certain young illustrious character. If such a report may, in the smallest degree contribute to the fair lady, in her other pursuits and designs, it would be a pity to contradict the report; but, otherwise, Mr Editor, it may be friendly in you to whisper into her ear, that if the young gentleman had really any penchant for her, which, however, is not the case, her present system of vain boasting must give his heart a very speedy quietus.

  Yours, Ovid. Windsor, July 14

  Another article, published the same day, alluded to the incident at the oratorio back in February, and in so doing became the first published source to call the lovers Florizel and Perdita:

  Anecdote. – In the last solemn season of Lent, whenever Florizel was present at the Oratorio, Perdita never failed to testify her taste for sacred music, or something else, by being there also. It was her custom to seat herself as nearly opposite to Florizel as she could contrive. They were apt to exchange looks; and they were remarked. Florizel, in consequence, was admonished; and measures were taken, though ineffectual, to prevent Perdita’s future admittance. When Perdita next presented herself at the door, she was given to understand, that a certain liberty, which, in common with some others, she had long
enjoyed, was now denied her. Perdita, without the least discomposure, and with that bewitching indifference for which she is admired – turned to her husband, who always accompanies her to public places, and said – pay your guinea. Perdita ascended to her box; she did the usual execution; and when the entertainment was over, she placed herself at the back of the stage, in a situation where Florizel must view her as he passed to his chair. Florizel gazed, and he departed, in all the grandeur of regal pomp. Perdita calmly retired to the carriage of a late American Plenipo; to which she was carefully handed by the most obliging, the most convenient of husbands.2

  Two days later the paper returned to the scandal: ‘A certain young actress who leads the Ton [fashionable world] appeared in the side-box at the Haymarket theatre a few evenings since with all the grace and splendour of a Duchess, to the no small mortification of the female world, and astonishment of every spectator.’ And two days after that: ‘A correspondent who read the anecdote of Florizel and Perdita in this paper of Tuesday last, observes, that the writer has paid the highest compliment to the young lady in question, who could make a conquest in the heart of a young and illustrious personage, at the very moment when he was surrounded by all the beauties of the British Court, vieing [sic] with each other to captivate and ensnare him.’3

  Mary was soon to become the most talked about woman of the day, vilified as the older woman who had seduced the innocent young Prince, aided and abetted by her pimping husband. In reality, as George himself admitted, he was already fond of women and had affairs at court before he set eyes on Mary Robinson. Though she protested, there were many who thought that she cultivated the publicity. People wanted to know what she was buying, what clothes she was wearing. Whenever she appeared in public, she was ‘overwhelmed by the gazing of the multitude’.4 She was sometimes forced to leave Ranelagh because the crowd pressing round her box had become a safety hazard. Frequently, when she went into a shop she had to stay there in a state of siege until the dispersal of the crowd that surrounded her carriage, waiting for a glimpse of her as she came out.

  She described her own celebrity as a ‘national absurdity’: ‘I am well assured, that were a being possessed of more than human endowments to visit this country, it would experience indifference, if not total neglect, while a less worthy mortal might be worshipped as the idol of its day, if whispered into notoriety by the comments of the multitude.’5 It always irked her that she achieved her greatest fame not as an actress or woman of letters, but – the word was current then as well as now – as a celebrity. At the same time, she relished the idea of being consulted as ‘the very oracle of fashion’. She had moved seamlessly from the boards of Drury Lane to the broader stage of London itself. In a magazine essay written many years later, she celebrated the city as a ‘focus of dazzling light’ and ‘the centre of attraction for the full exercise of talents’.6

  Mary herself was now a public spectacle: ‘you shall see the famous Perdita of Drury-Lane, sitting at the play-house in the side box opposite the P—of W—. Look how wantonly she looks, thinking, Gracious Sir! please to bestow one——upon a poor woman! Ho! ho! fine raree show!’7 The Prince was no longer afraid to be seen with her. He appeared in her company not only at the theatre, the oratorio and other places of entertainment, but also at the King’s hunt at Windsor and at military reviews in Hyde Park.

  The King hated all the bad publicity. He read the papers and was familiar with the stories of Florizel and Perdita. On 14 August, two days after his son’s eighteenth birthday, he wrote, ‘your foibles have been less perceived than I could have expected; yet your love of dissipation has for some months been with enough ill nature trumpeted in the public papers, and there are those ready enough to wound me in the severest place by ripping up every error they may be able to find in you’.8 The Prince wrote back to assure his father that ‘it will be my principal object thro’ life to merit … the parental attachment and kindness you profess towards me’.9 In private, however, he had no intention of changing his ways.

  With this new-found confidence in publicly acknowledging Mary came an even greater rebellion against his father. Realizing the King’s worst fears, the Prince was beginning to be ‘driven into Opposition’. He was being drawn into Whig circles partly through his disreputable uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, but also through his acquaintance with the Devonshire House faction, who had close links with both Sheridan at Drury Lane and Charles James Fox, the leading politician on the radical edge of the Whig alliance. Georgiana, hostess to the Devonshire set, recorded her impressions of the Prince as he was at this time:

  The Prince of Wales is rather tall and has a figure which though striking is not perfect. He is inclined to be too fat and looks too much like a woman in men’s cloaths, but the gracefulness of his manner and his height certainly make him a pleasing figure. His face is very handsome and he is fond of dress even to a tawdry degree, which, young as he is, will soon wear off … He is goodnatur’d and rather extravagant … But he certainly does not want for understanding, and his jokes sometimes have an appearance of wit. He appears to have an inclination to meddle with politicks, he loves being of consequence, and whether it is in intrigues of state or of gallantry he often thinks more is intended than really is.10

  His ‘inclination to meddle with politicks’ was welcomed by the Whigs, who were well aware that when he reached his majority he would enter the House of Lords. They were keen to have his support, as it could absolve them of the charge of disloyalty towards the crown. But when the King heard that his son was keeping an actress, he blamed the Whigs for leading him astray.

  The Countess of Derby, who had caused a scandal by deserting her husband and children for her lover the Duke of Dorset, wanted to sell her house in wealthy Cork Street. The Prince ensconced Mary there, living up to his promise to look after her once she renounced the theatre. It was furnished lavishly, and Mary was given the funds to buy paintings and books. It is unlikely that her mother and daughter would have lived with her here – they probably remained in the Robinsons’ former apartments in Covent Garden. Mary’s move to Cork Street, just off Piccadilly and close to St James’s, marked a decisive transition from the theatre district to the fashionable west end.

  The Prince gave a grand ball for Mary at Weltje’s, though in order to avoid an offence against aristocratic precedence he opened the dancing with the Duchess of Devonshire. Her sister, Lady Harriet Spencer, wrote to a friend, ‘The thing which is most talk’d of at present is the Prince of Wales, who keeps Mrs Robinson en maîtresse décloseé, c’est toute à fait un établissement;* she wears his picture about her neck, and drives about with four nag tailed horses and two servants behind her.’11 The biggest talking point of all was the cipher on her carriage, a basket of five rosebuds, surmounting a rose wreath around the initials MR. From a distance and when in motion, the design gave the illusion of a royal coronet. It was created for her by the artist John Keyes Sherwin, whose pupil, the Italian engraver Albanesi, had been a friend of the Robinsons in their prison days. Sherwin, the son of a Sussex carpenter who cut pegs for ships, had risen to become a popular society artist. He became very intimate with Mary.

  On one occasion, she swept into his handsome apartments in St James’s Street, singing and accompanied by her mother. She asked to see a drawing of herself that Sherwin had made. He was not at home, but his apprentice offered to fetch it. The teenage boy went upstairs, humming a line from a popular song, ‘I’ll reward you with a kiss’. ‘There, you little rogue,’ said Mary, when he came down with the drawing – and she kissed him.12 The drawing was probably the original of an ‘engraving from the life’ by Sherwin, in which she has beautiful, half-exposed breasts and is holding a letter that we are to imagine is from the Prince. Mary’s earliest surviving manuscript letter is a brief note to Sherwin regarding one of her sittings for the portrait.13

  Laetitia Hawkins, daughter of one of Dr Johnson’s early biographers, records that Mary frequented Sherwin’s painting room a
t irregular hours and ‘consulted him, not only on a portrait of herself, but on circumstances still less connected with the art of engraving’.14 Hawkins also remembered that Sherwin dined out on a story about how he and Mary discussed the possibility of including her in one of his biblical subjects. He had aspirations to become a large-scale history painter – a genre in which it was customary to include representations of real people (thus, Pharaoh’s daughter in his Finding of Moses was the Princess Royal). After consideration, Mary asked to be Solomon’s concubine ‘kneeling at the feet of her master’. But who should be Solomon? Sherwin saw her drift, but realized that the idea of engaging the Prince to sit with her was inappropriate, so he suggested Malden. ‘Kneel to him?’ she said indignantly. ‘I will die first.’15

  Miss Hawkins also penned a lively sketch of Mary’s appearance at this time: ‘She was unquestionably very beautiful, but more so in face than figure; and as she proceeded in her course, she acquired a remarkable facility in adapting her deportment to her dress. When she was to be seen daily in St James’s Street and Pall Mall, even in her chariot this variation was striking.’ She entertained lavishly, particularly the male friends of the Prince – her status as a courtesan meant that ladies would not visit her. She bought the latest Parisian fashions and ran into debt with her home furnishings. She took a side box at the Opera House, an unheard-of presumption for a woman of her background. She could be seen driving round St James’s and Hyde Park in a succession of coloured phaetons. At the theatre, she appeared ‘with all the splendour of a Duchess’. Many people made the obvious comparison with King Charles II and his mistresses such as the actress Nell Gwynne. Was Perdita angling for a title? The Duchess of Devonshire thought so: ‘Mrs Robinson depended on being a Duchess of Cleveland at least.’16

  Though she was living dangerously, Mary was enjoying every minute of her celebrity. Her energy and generosity are revealed by an encounter with Sophia Baddeley, an actress and courtesan who had fallen into illness and pecuniary embarrassment. One day, probably in October 1780, there was a loud rap on Mrs Baddeley’s door. Her companion, Miss Steele, went to the window and saw a lady in an elegant phaeton with four beautiful ponies and two small post-boys in blue and silver jackets. The servant announced a lady whose name was Robinson. She paid her respects and said that she came bearing ten guineas from the Duke of Cumberland, who had begged her to enquire into Mrs Baddeley’s situation and to assure her that more money would be forthcoming if it were needed. ‘She begged Mrs Baddeley’s pardon for not waiting on her the day before, as she meant to do; had not the Prince of Wales, who was then at her house, prevented her.’17