The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home

by Natalie Livingstone

  Though clever, Mary did not possess great charm, and the rumours of her likely union with Buckingham only reinforced the general opinion that the Fairfax women were relentless social climbers. Yet Mary was not an entirely unattractive prospect for Buckingham: she was pleasant, intelligent and sensible, in addition to being a means by which the duke could regain his lost estates.

  Although banns had already been published for Mary’s marriage to the Earl of Chesterfield, Buckingham quickly won over both Mary and her parents. Dressed in the Continental fashion, tall, athletic and well-built, he was ‘extremely handsome’ and well aware of it. He also went to great lengths to endear himself to Mary, writing to Lady Fairfax of the ‘excess of that respect and devotion I shall ever bear Mistress [Mary] Fairfax whom if my fortune were in any way proportionable to my affections I should have the impudence to pretend to deserve at least as much as any other body whatsoever, since I am sure it is impossible to love or honour anything more than I truly do her.’8 In another letter to one of Mary’s servants, the duke claimed that just ‘one minutes conversation’ with ‘that deare Mistresse of yours’ would ‘settle me in a condition not to envy the happiest man living’.9 Genuine or contrived in sentiment, Buckingham’s letters had the desired effect. Mary always, even at the height of the duke’s affair with Anna Maria, adored her husband. Mary’s cousin Brian Fairfax wryly observed:

  The young lady could not resist his charms…

  All his trouble in wooing was,

  He came, he saw and conquered.10

  The marriage took place on 15 September 1657 at Bolton Percy Church in Yorkshire. The poet Abraham Cowley was Buckingham’s best man, also composing the epithalamium to celebrate the match. The service was presided over by Mr Vere Harcourt, who, overawed by the duke, claimed that he ‘saw God’ in Buckingham’s face.11 But not everyone was supportive of the marriage. Buckingham’s transparent attempts to seize back his assets incurred the wrath of Cromwell’s government. Lord Fairfax pleaded in person against the incarceration of his son-in-law, but the Council resolved to send him to the Tower. He was finally released in February 1659, on a £20,000 security from his father-in-law.

  Although the marriage had been prompted by necessity, it was a more affectionate and understanding union than that of Anna Maria and Shrewsbury. Buckingham developed a deep regard for Mary over the course of the courtship. In a poem he composed to her he wrote, ‘That till my Eyes first gaz’d on you, I ne’er beheld that thing I could adore’.12 He also became fond of Mary’s father, Thomas Fairfax, and would write an epitaph on his death in 1671. Mutual affection, unevenly distributed though it was, explains much of Mary’s behaviour towards her husband and his lover in the ensuing years.

  With his marriage secure and his childhood friend Charles II restored to the throne, Buckingham’s fortunes soared. His estates were returned, he was appointed a Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber, admitted to the Privy Council, and was chosen to carry the orb at the coronation. From entertaining street crowds at Charing Cross, Buckingham was now one of the biggest landowners in the kingdom. The strength of his childhood bond with the king gave him a special licence to act provocatively at court, safe in the knowledge that even if he temporarily fell from favour, their friendship was resilient. Buckingham became one of Charles’s most dissolute and charismatic courtiers.

  The Restoration court spawned its own flamboyant culture. This was both a reaction to the puritanical austerity of the Commonwealth and Protectorate periods, and an imitation of the hedonistic practices of Continental courts where many Royalists had spent their exile. Among the features of this culture was a new approach to sex and gender, epitomised by the sexually licentious figure of the rake. It was a commonplace of biblical, medieval and Renaissance thought that lust was the result of intellectual weakness and frailty. Women had been viewed as particularly susceptible to this weakness – perhaps the archetype of this was Milton’s ‘credulous’ Eve, who in succumbing to the advances of Satan introduced sin to the world. During the 17th century there was a growing recognition that men were equally susceptible. Rakes at the court of Charles II self-consciously inverted the notion of lust as weakness, instead embracing sexual libertinism as a mark of masculine identity.

  Even among this libertine culture, however, Buckingham’s behaviour was remarkable. His habits attracted wonder and criticism in equal measure. Samuel Butler, a poet and satirist, wrote:

  The Duke of Bucks is one that has studied the whole body of vice. His parts are disproportionate to the whole, and, like a monster, he has more of some and less of others, than he should have… His appetite to his pleasures is diseased and crazy … Perpetual surfeits of pleasure have filled his mind with bad and vicious humours, (as well as his body with a nursery of diseases)… He is as inconstant as the moon which he lives under.13

  Butler may have described Buckingham as a monster, but the duke did have many redeeming and beguiling qualities. Another trait held to be desirable among Restoration courtiers was ‘wit’, a profoundly masculine virtue, which encompassed not only humour, but also originality and charisma. Among other factors, wit was the hallmark of being an accomplished writer, something to which many courtiers aspired. Inevitably, not everyone achieved literary distinction, and the court – not to mention the country as a whole – was full of would-be writers penning dismal verses that attempted rakish style. This contest between ‘truewits’ and ‘witwoulds’ became itself a subject for raillery and amusement.

  Buckingham expressed his wit in his plays, as well as in his repertoire of anecdotes, sketches and impersonations. He could not help mimicking powerful and pompous figures at court, and it was often said that he would rather lose a friend than a jest. His skit on Lord Chancellor Clarendon was particularly popular: hanging from his belt a pair of bellows that represented the Great Seal in its case of woven silk, Buckingham puffed out his belly and limped forward with pursed lip and withering eye, venting high-pitched lamentations on the declining standards of government. He entertained friends and lovers with stories and songs, many of which he had memorised during his time as a ballad-monger. During his seduction of court beauty Frances Stuart, who famously resisted the advances of Charles II, he often visited her apartment and built high castles out of cards for her amusement.

  Buckingham undoubtedly had a voracious appetite for pleasure and comedy, but he was not simply a court jester. The glassworks he owned in London used the latest technology to produce looking glasses ‘far larger and better than any that come from Venice’, as well as ‘huge vases of metal as cleare, ponderous and thick as chrystal’.14 He also nurtured an enthusiasm for the experimental philosophy known as the ‘new science’ and was an original Fellow of the Royal Society, which was established to encourage knowledge of the natural world through observation and experiment, and to provide a forum for scientific discussion. During the early years of the Society, the king had wanted to examine every mathematical invention submitted for patenting, and had sent messages enquiring why, for instance, some plants contracted to the touch, and some ant eggs were larger than the ant that produced them. Many subjects now considered fantastical or occult were considered fit for scientific investigation: Buckingham researched alchemy and contributed a ‘unicorn’s horn’ to the Society for verification. He was also fascinated by astrology, a fixation that would later be exploited by his political opponents to damage his relationship with the king.

  But no astrologer could have foretold the profound impact that meeting Anna Maria in 1666 would have on Buckingham. ‘’Tis you alone, that can my heart subdue / To you alone it shall always be true!’ he wrote to her.15 Poor, devoted Mary was sidelined. Buckingham wrote in his commonplace book: ‘Wives we choose for our posterity, mistresses for ourselves, marriage is the greatest solitude, for it makes two but one and prohibits us from all others’.16 But the duke was determined not to be ‘prohibited’ by marriage from ‘all others’ – and one above all. He ordered clothes from Paris for himse
lf and his new paramour. He also employed a Parisian musician to serenade her. The diarist John Evelyn recorded seeing Buckingham with his crowd of fiddlers at the races, and Samuel Butler said of him that ‘his ears are perpetually drilled with a fiddlestick’.17

  The affair with Anna Maria also brought out Buckingham’s belligerent streak. Friends and courtiers noticed that he drew his sword at the slightest provocation, over political as well as romantic disputes. One instance of this was his quarrel with the Marquis of Dorchester, which occasioned one of his several duelling challenges of the 1660s. The two had long been political enemies and their rivalry flared up at the Canary Conference, a trade meeting between the Lords and the Commons in the Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster. Buckingham deliberately provoked the marquis by rudely elbowing him during a debate. ‘Are you uneasy, Dorchester?’ Buckingham taunted. Dorchester rose to the bait and launched into an angry tirade against the duke. ‘I am a better man than you,’ Buckingham retorted, and with this, he lurched across the table, ripped off Dorchester’s hat, grabbed his periwig, and held him in a throttle position. The Lord Chamberlain was forced to intervene, and both men were ordered to the Tower. The incident was debated in the House of Lords, where Buckingham was branded a ‘delinquent’.18

  On 20 July 1667, Buckingham took a box at the Duke of York’s Theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and decided to bring along both Anna Maria and Mary. At the time of its construction, the theatre was the most technologically advanced in London, boasting state-of-the-art machinery to facilitate scene changes.19 The stage and auditorium were illuminated by candles, as well as innovative oil-lamp footlights, and refreshments were provided by ‘orange women’, some of whom were attractions in their own right. But on the night of the theatre trip, it seems that all eyes were on Anna Maria. A letter written by the Countess Dowager of Roscommon, who was present at the theatre, reported that Anna Maria was ‘with child’.20 It is impossible to verify whether or not this is true, but there are no records of her giving birth at any point that year, so if she was pregnant with either Shrewsbury or Buckingham’s child, she must have suffered a miscarriage.

  Unfortunately, Henry Killigrew, an old flame of Anna Maria’s, was sitting in the adjacent box. Unable to contain his anger, Killigrew hurled abuse at the duke. Buckingham made a valiant effort to contain his temper, but Killigrew continued his goadings. Eventually, Killigrew climbed into Buckingham’s box, struck him with a sheathed sword, and clambered away around the dress circle, disrupting the entire performance. Theatregoers were accustomed to disturbances in the stalls of the theatre, but a fracas in the boxes, which were largely occupied by aristocrats, was more unusual. Incensed by Killigrew’s conduct, Buckingham pursued his rival through the boxes. By the time he caught up with him in the foyer, Buckingham’s periwig had fallen off, and his cropped hair was shockingly exposed. Buckingham snatched Killigrew’s sword and furiously kicked him, until he begged for his life.21

  Buckingham was publicly praised for his conduct. The Countess Dowager of Roscommon thought he had carried himself ‘as became a man of honour’ and Pepys agreed that ‘he did carry himself very innocently and well’.22 Anna Maria’s position was more problematic. It was widely assumed that Shrewsbury would now finally fight for his wife’s honour but he still held back.

  The power of a high-society mistress was derived from the lust and favour of men and they were vulnerable to scorn and ridicule when private passions turned into public scandal. In the dead of night the mortified Anna Maria summoned her trusted maid Mrs Daliston, left letters to her parents and husband, and fled court society for an English Catholic convent at Pontoise, north-west of Paris.23 The journey was long and gruelling – a day-long crossing from Dover to Calais, overnight in an insalubrious French inn and then a long and bumpy coach journey.24 Anna Maria arrived at the convent exhausted yet still burning with anger.

  Anna Maria would spend six months in seclusion at Pontoise. She was unaware that her flight had finally pushed the timid Shrewsbury to challenge her lover to a duel, and ignorant of the encounter they had arranged for Barns Elms. Ignorant, that is, until a letter arrived informing her of the death of her husband.

  Chapter 4

  A LONDON LOVE TRIANGLE

  ANNA MARIA RETURNED to England in May 1668, two months after Shrewsbury’s death. But her future had in part been determined before she arrived.

  In his will of 10 March, Anna Maria’s husband had placed their three children under the guardianship of four men: the Earl of Cardigan, Anna Maria’s father; Mervyn Tuchett, the children’s uncle; William Talbot of Wittington, a kinsman of the Talbot family; and Gilbert Crouch, the family lawyer.1 Relations between the guardians and Anna Maria were strained from the outset, and they were intent on denying her access to her sons. The children had spent their early childhood at the Talbot family seat of Grafton in Worcestershire, but following their father’s death were moved to the house of their uncle Tuchett in Southcote, Berkshire.2 Even though Anna Maria’s father was among the guardians of her children, the Talbot faction dominated, and Tuchett was determined to prevent Charles, as heir to his father’s earldom, from seeing any members of the Brudenell family. As Charles matured into a young man and grew in self-awareness, he would become cognisant of this dynamic and seek to challenge it.

  Perhaps if Anna Maria had chosen to end her affair with Buckingham, there might have been some hope of a rapprochement with the Talbots, but she chose amorous passion over maternal responsibility and did nothing to contest the arrangements. By modern standards, her failure to fight for her children seems callous, but our judgement should be tempered by late 17th-century aristocratic conventions, which encouraged emotional distance between mother and child. Babies were frequently sent out to wet nurses for the first 12 to 18 months of their lives, and were then cared for mainly by nurses, governesses and tutors, before leaving home to attend boarding school some time between the ages of 7 and 14. But even in this cultural context, Anna Maria’s absence from her children’s lives was remarkable: her sons felt abandoned and later she herself would mourn her choice. Anna Maria was a woman of extremes. She threw herself wholeheartedly into her life with Buckingham – a life in which her children were to have no part.

  Yet life with Buckingham was not simple either. The months prior to Anna Maria’s return had been challenging for Buckingham because of public comment on the duel. His immediate anxieties were short-lived – on 27 January Charles II issued a pardon, allowing Buckingham to reappear at court.3 Four days later, he was back at the Duke of York’s Theatre, where the original scuffle with Killigrew had taken place, for the first night of his friend George Etherege’s comedy She Would If She Could.4 The heavy rain forced audience members to remain in the auditorium after the performance, and Pepys observed Buckingham in high spirits, speaking animatedly with the playwright.5 But Shrewsbury’s death re-ignited public controversy over duelling, and lobbyists exerted pressure on the king to act more forcefully against the practice. Charles responded with a statement that henceforth, ‘on no pretence whatsoever any pardon shall… be granted to any person whatsoever for killing of any man in a duel… but that the course of law shall wholly take place in all such cases’.6 It was a half-hearted attempt to placate critics of duelling while ensuring that Buckingham would be exempt from prosecution.

  The City of London was just beginning to be rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666. During the three days the fire raged, Charles II, fearing a full-scale riot or rebellion, arranged for bread to be brought to the city, and established ‘safe markets’ around the edge of the city, guarded by militia. Buckingham was involved in raising troops for this purpose, and wrote to his deputy lieutenants requesting that they ‘immediately summon all the militia under my command to be in arms with all speed imaginable’.7 The Great Fire incinerated 13,200 houses, and consumed an area a mile and a half in length and half a mile in breadth, rendering the city unrecognisable.8 Evelyn recalled ‘clambering over heaps of ye
t smoking rubbish, and frequently mistaking where I was’.9 The conflagration became so hot that it melted iron gates and bars in the prisons, and left water boiling in the fountains. Throughout this wasted landscape, dark clouds of smoke emerged from subterranean cellars, wells and dungeons. Many Londoners who had lost their homes moved elsewhere in the country, or emigrated to America, though some continued to live in the ruins of their old properties.

  One of the most noticeable changes wrought by the fire on the skyline of the city was the gutting of the old medieval cathedral of St Paul’s, which, although not entirely destroyed, was reduced to a skeleton. The ruins were unstable, and Pepys recalled how ‘the very sight of the stones falling from the top of the steeple do make me seasick’.10 The rebuilding of the city proceeded intermittently and well into the 1670s large areas of the city remained in ruins. The resurrection of St Paul’s was not assigned to Christopher Wren until June 1669 and the old edifice was still standing as late as 1674. Without a doubt, in the eight months between Anna Maria’s departure to Pontoise and her return to London in May 1668, no significant reconstruction would have taken place.

  Before outrage had died down over the duel, Buckingham provoked further controversy by inviting Anna Maria to live with him. Buckingham’s two main London residences – Wallingford House and York House – were upriver in Westminster, on Whitehall and the Strand respectively, and both were untouched by the fire. The first duke of Buckingham bought Wallingford House in the early 1620s, and George himself had been born there in 1627. The first duke held the post of Lord High Admiral and hosted many meetings at the house, giving his son early exposure to political life. Seven years after the first duke’s assassination his widow, Catherine Manners, married the prominent Catholic, Lord Dunluce, and the couple made Wallingford their home. The house had also played a small part in the political upheavals of the mid-17th century: it was the meeting place of the Wallingford House Party, an army faction that eventually overthrew the short-lived protectorate of Oliver Cromwell’s son, Richard, paving the way for Charles II’s return to power.