Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, Anna Maria’s son, who played a key role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and in Whig politics of the early eighteenth century.
In late January a Convention Parliament was called, and arguments put forward on how to settle the future of the kingdom. Radical Whigs argued for a limited monarchy, while Tories favoured either restoring James upon certain terms, or a regency. After lengthy debates the Convention determined that James II had abdicated, and passed a resolution in favour of crowning William and Mary jointly. On 13 February the pair were proclaimed king and queen ‘in front of Whitehall with trumpets and drums’.12 At their coronation, before the crowns were set on their heads, a reading of the Declaration of Rights passed by the Convention took place. So this was to be constitutional monarchy, learning the lessons that Charles I and James II had failed to heed. It was a momentous occasion for the Whigs, the advocates of a balance of power between Crown and Parliament. Charles Talbot was among those who had argued for the co-regency, and was subsequently appointed to William’s first privy council, as secretary of state for the southern department.
Elizabeth returned to England in January 1689, at the same time as Mary, and took up residence near Kensington Palace. A tragic event had brought the shamed maid of honour and the petulant princess to a mutual understanding. Shortly before William set sail for England, Elizabeth’s sister Anne had become gravely ill. On the day before the landing, her condition deteriorated and Mary was summoned to her deathbed. Severely distressed by the thought of leaving her five children, the youngest of whom was nine years old, Anne asked the princess to step in as guardian. Mary obliged and promised not to leave Anne’s side. At about ten o’clock in the evening of 20 November, Anne was barely breathing; her two sisters, her children and many of her husband’s relations were keeping vigil in anticipation of the end. For some time now, Anne and Elizabeth had been estranged. Conscious of this, Elizabeth was standing apart from the rest, trying to remain inconspicuous. Then Mary, who had been bending over the dying woman, turned to Elizabeth and told her to come and make peace with Anne. Elizabeth knelt by her bedside and begged forgiveness. Barely had the sisters been reconciled when Anne passed away.13
The Jacobite pamphlet, ‘A Dialogue between King William and Bentinck’. In the dialogue, King William tells Bentinck to fetch him his mistress, ‘the witty slut’ Elizabeth Villiers. Elizabeth refuses, and suggests that Bentinck perform the services himself. The pamphlet was one contribution to a large body of prurient literature about William.
Elizabeth was grateful to Mary for this kind gesture. Mary had matured during her years in the Dutch Republic: her bitterness towards her husband and his mistress had subsided and her feelings were no longer so raw. Once the pair were settled in England, relations between William and Mary were aided by their role as co-regents. Despite a rocky start to the marriage, they established a warm working partnership grounded in mutual respect, understanding and a shared interest in the future of England and the Dutch Republic.
Unfortunately for Mary, her more tolerant disposition did not induce any remorse in William and Elizabeth – rather they took the opportunity to continue their affair with renewed enthusiasm. Soon after the coronation of the new monarchs, the affair was once again the subject of speculation and hearsay. It was rumoured that Sarah Jennings had secured her husband’s appointment by cancelling a large gambling debt owed to her by Elizabeth, and pamphlet writers produced scurrilous accounts of the royal tryst.14
In the Jacobite pamphlet A Dialogue between K.W. and Benting, Elizabeth appears as a foul-mouthed, contemptuous shrew. The dialogue imagines a bawdy interaction between King William, Elizabeth Villiers and Bentinck (whom William ennobled in 1689 as Earl of Portland). It begins with William asking Bentinck to fetch him his mistress, ‘the witty slut’ Elizabeth Villiers, ‘for diversion’. Elizabeth is unwilling to oblige and suggests that Bentinck perform the service himself: ‘Go, te[ll] that shameless Buggering, Sodomitical Rascal your King, that I scorn to come near such a Beast; nor ought any Woman to come at him, unless it were to scratch out his Eyes, or serve him,’ she says. The pamphlet was one contribution to a large body of prurient literature about William. The idea that the king slept with men was a commonplace of both pamphlets and general court gossip and Bentinck was frequently cited as a sexual partner. When Swift read much later in a history book that William ‘had no vice, but of one sort, in which he was very cautious and secret’, he commented in the margin, ‘It was of two sorts – male and female – in the former he was neither cautious nor secret.’15 Although William undoubtedly felt more at ease in the company of men, there is no conclusive evidence that this preference was sexual. The Prince of Orange was a different animal entirely from Charles and James. While the Stuart brothers, Charles in particular, were guided by passion, William was measured and logical. Even his relationship with Elizabeth was grounded in a meeting of the minds and mutual companionship, not simply pleasures of the flesh.
The culture of the Orange court likewise reflected William’s restrained, sometimes ascetic personality, a counterpoint to Charles’s flamboyance and sexual permissiveness. While it remained common practice to indulge in extramarital affairs, the nature of the man-mistress relationship underwent a seismic shift. Instead of being openly paraded at court like an ornamental decoration, Elizabeth was expected to conduct her relationship with William discreetly, away from public view. This culture trickled down from the top and resulted in other court mistresses maintaining a lower public profile: when the Dutch nobleman Johan van Dorp and the officer Seger van Zoutelande brought their mistresses to dine at Hampton Court, Huygens recorded it in his diary with a scandalised tone, writing that they ‘sat in public with their whores at the general dining table’.16
Another factor influencing this cultural shift was the co-regency. Whereas the protests of Charles’s wife Catherine of Braganza could be overlooked by courtiers because she was merely queen consort, it was important that Mary’s dignity be upheld. A pious and morally anxious figure, Mary was a strong advocate of restraint in every sphere of life. She severely reprimanded her lady-in-waiting Eleanor Franklin for calling her lover ‘husband’ before their actual marriage, and when Mary Villiers – Elizabeth’s sister – gave birth just two months into her marriage to William O’Brien, the queen closely interrogated her.17 As her reign progressed, Mary became even more committed to promoting what she perceived to be ‘moral improvement’. During William’s absence in the summer of 1692, she issued proclamations ‘for the more reverent observation of the Sabbath and against swearing and profanity’, and sent directives to magistrates urging severity against drunkenness.18 In this environment of moral fastidiousness, it would have been improper and insulting for William to flaunt his mistress.
William III. who conducted a 15-year affair with Elizabeth Villiers, before arranging a match that would restore her to respectability and lead her to Cliveden.
Queen Mary II’s dying wish was that her husband terminate his long affair with Elizabeth Villiers.
In 1694, the queen, who had taken great care of her heath – she was famed for her daily walks between her palaces at Whitehall and Kensington – caught smallpox. By December that year she was dying. She summoned Archbishop Tenison and with her final breath entreated him to persuade William to end his affair with Elizabeth. The queen died shortly after midnight on 28 December and the bereaved William collapsed at her bedside, begging forgiveness. He resolved to break off all contact with his lover. William Whiston recorded the episode in his memoirs:
There was a Court Lady, the Lady Villers, with whom it was well known King William had been too familiar. Upon the Queen’s Death, the new Archbishop, whether as desired by the Queen before her death, or of his own voluntary Motion, I do not know; took the freedom after his Loss of so excellent a Wife, to represent to him, the great Injury he had done that excellent Wife by his Adultery with the Lady Villers. The King took it well, and did not
deny his Crime, but faithfully promised the Archbishop he would have no more to do with her. Which resolution I believe he kept.19
An alternative story suggests that Mary left William a letter admonishing him for ‘some irregularity in his conduct’ and pleading with him for the ‘sake of her immortal soul’ to part with Elizabeth.20 No such letter survives, but the story is not entirely implausible. Whatever the specifics, William did indeed break all contact with Elizabeth. But he had no intention of leaving his mistress of fifteen years destitute. He set about fixing a deal that would guarantee her wealth and status beyond her wildest dreams.
Chapter 3
FAVOURS
ON 25 APRIL 1695, Elizabeth Villiers became one of the wealthiest women in England. In recognition of ‘the favours she had conferred on him’, William granted his former lover a 135-acre estate in Knockingen, Ireland, and all the Irish castles, manors and towns that had previously belonged to King James.1 Ireland had been the last stronghold of the deposed king, but following William’s decisive victory in the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, James had once again fled to the Continent, this time for good; William had marched into Dublin unopposed and arrogated the former king’s estates for his own use. Elizabeth’s endowment was worth £26,000 per year – around the same amount that the Duke of Buckingham’s rent roll had been in the 1660s. At a time when the public purse was severely in debt, for William to dispense these valuable lands to court favourites rather than apply them to the public interest was bound to cause national outrage. Public and Parliament alike were furious, and the grants were derided mercilessly in the popular press.
After the 1691 Treaty of Limerick brought peace to Ireland, William redeployed the English army to the Continent to support the Dutch against their perennially aggressive neighbour, the Spanish Netherlands. The decision engendered a serious political divide in William’s first ministry, which was a coalition of Whigs and Tories. Both parties had regarded the war in Ireland as a strategic imperative, but while interventionist Whigs saw it as a crusade in defence of European liberty, many Tories had reservations about sending troops abroad, advocating a defensive ‘blue water’ policy that would rely on the strength of the English navy. As the war dragged on, the Tory line gathered support both in Parliament and within William’s ministry. The king returned from the 1693 campaign season feeling betrayed by domestic politics, and determined to reestablish his government on a more firmly Whiggish footing.
To facilitate this, he turned to his old friend Charles Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury’s initial stint as secretary of state had been brief – after several failed attempts to return his seals of office, he had eventually managed to resign in June 1690, little more than a year after his appointment. Nevertheless, he was still influential within the Whig ‘Junto’ – the group of four nobles who effectively managed the Whig party in Parliament. This made him the ideal candidate to replace the Tory secretary of state, the Earl of Nottingham. William was aware that Shrewsbury would be reluctant to return to political office. During a protracted correspondence over his resignation in 1689–90, Shrewsbury had written to the king explaining that he ‘never solicited for, but rather accepted [the position of secretary of state] with fear and trembling, being all my life sensible to my own inabilities’.2
Determined to persuade the timid earl, William unleashed one of the most powerful weapons in his political arsenal – he asked Elizabeth to intervene. The king relied on Elizabeth’s counsel in virtually all areas of his life, habitually consulting her on political matters as well engaging her services as a shrewd negotiator. The letter she wrote to convince Shrewsbury offers an insight into her powers of persuasion. Elizabeth built a compelling case for Shrewsbury to accept the job, deftly balancing veiled threats with intense flattery. ‘I found the king in a temper I wish you could have seen’, she said ominously, before laying out William’s reasons for wanting Shrewsbury to accept the role. She then switched gear to address him on a more personal level: ‘I said I believed you so sincere, that it could be no other but your not being convinced, that he wished you to serve with the esteem that the world has of you. He assured me that he valued anybody as he did you.’ One of her main tactics was to express certainty that Shrewsbury would indeed take the role: ‘I cannot think you can refuse him. I said I thought it was impossible…’; ‘I have a great satisfaction with the expectation of your answer, for I am persuaded you cannot fail in your judgement of this.’ On top of all these blandishments, she added a dose of emotional blackmail, explaining that if Shrewsbury did not accept the post, the king would never forgive her.3
Shrewsbury was deeply affected by Elizabeth’s letter, confessing that ‘there is a word or two in your letter that makes me tremble when I think of it.’ In his initial refusal of the king’s offer, the earl praised Elizabeth’s ‘sincere and generous proceeding in this business’ and expressed his admiration for her skilfully woven arguments. ‘When you Madame have attempted to persuade, and failed, you may conclude the thing is impossible for better arguments no lady can find nor use them to agreeable manner,’ he wrote, ‘but the main objection still remains which is my own temper.’ In fact, his refusal was probably due to political differences with the king, but either these were resolved, or something in Elizabeth’s letter struck a chord, because in March 1694 he accepted the seals of office for a second time.
William was obviously intensely grateful for this sort of assistance. In November 1695, a few months after he had provided her with a source of income, he took the final step to restoring his former mistress to respectability. A match was arranged with George, fifth son of the Scottish Duke and Duchess of Hamilton, soon to be ennobled with the Scottish title of Earl of Orkney. Ten years Elizabeth’s junior, George was a serious-minded man of few words – a severe stammer in his youth left him with a lifelong taciturnity, or as Swift put it: ‘by reason of hesitation in his speech, [he] wants expression.’ Contemporary depictions show a dark-haired, well-built man with a strong, aquiline nose and eyes fixed with a steady gaze. ‘He is a well shaped man; is brave,’ wrote Swift.4 As a child he had been placed under the tutelage of his uncle Lord Dunbarton, and by the age of 18 had attained a commission as captain in the Royal Scots, the army’s premier infantry regiment. By the mid-1690s George had become a distinguished soldier – he had fought in the Battle of the Boyne, and had been promoted to brigadier general after suffering a wound at the Siege of Namur in 1695. But such bravery failed to make him much money and he was still dependent on his mother’s generosity to supplement his income: his mother, Anne, was Duchess of Hamilton in her own right, and remained in possession of the family estates despite the death of her husband.
Elizabeth’s loyal husband, the distinguished soldier and gardening aficionado Field Marshal George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney.
The marriage was a straightforward trade: Elizabeth could offer George financial stability, while George could provide her with respectability. It was a standard arrangement for a time when the absence of love was not a bar to marriage. Nevertheless, some members of the Hamilton family were appalled by George’s decision to marry a woman with Elizabeth’s scandalous biography; his sister and mother would never speak to his new wife. Others, such as Sarah Jennings, detected greed in George’s decision. ‘Lord Orkney is the most covetous wretch in nature,’ she wrote to her friend Arthur Maynwaring. ‘And I think there does not need to be a greater instance of it than for a man of quality, who has a good post, to marry that woman for mere money.’5
Despite the unromantic nature of the deal, Elizabeth did, in fact, find contentment with George. Her new husband was in some ways profoundly familiar. Like William, George was a man of few words, and was uncomfortable with courtly banter. He was more at ease on the Continental battlefield than in the whispering rooms of political power. It was natural, given this disposition and Elizabeth’s own increasing discomfort with court society, that the couple would look for a home outside London.
; Shortly after their marriage, the couple visited Cliveden. Legal papers show that the Dowager Duchess of Buckingham, Mary Fairfax, was still living at the house as late as the mid-1690s.6 When the Orkneys came to visit in 1696, Mary was 58 years old and had been widowed for nearly a decade. Having defended the house against the Manfields’ attempts to reclaim it after Buckingham’s death, she now found that it was far too big for her, and too costly to maintain. It is not clear whether she actually met Elizabeth, but it is tempting to imagine that there was contact, if only for one afternoon, between two generations of the house’s mistresses.
Like Buckingham and Anna Maria in their time, Elizabeth was entranced by the unrivalled views of the Thames Valley and the elegant stretch of water meandering towards Windsor Castle. On 28 October 1696, Lord Orkney acquired the deeds to the house and Elizabeth became the next mistress of Cliveden.7 The house that had once been a monument to Anna Maria’s affair, and the melancholy site of Mary’s fractured marriage, was now to become Elizabeth Villiers’s shelter. After almost 15 years as a ‘royal whore’, Elizabeth had been provided with a fresh start and a chance to forge a new destiny.
The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home Page 11