The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home
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Chapter 7
FALL
FOLLOWING FREDERICK’S DEATH, Augusta allowed herself four hours to grieve, sitting in silent meditation by the body of her husband. At six o’clock in the morning she retired to her bedroom, only to reappear two hours later.1 ‘Mastering her shock’, Augusta summoned Lord Egmont and Dr George Lee. She gave Egmont keys for Carlton House and instructed him to retrieve the contents of ‘three solid trunks’ full of sensitive papers. In order that he could remove the papers to Leicester House discreetly, ‘she pulled off the silk covers of the pillow of a couch in the Prince’s dressing room’ and gave them to Egmont to use as bags. Some hours later Egmont returned in his sedan chair, bringing the papers through the back entrance into the prince’s dressing room, where Dr Lee burnt them in the fireplace.2 Augusta had for some time been privately involved with the Prince of Wales’s opposition party; now she was destroying the evidence.
Historians have long been divided over the motives for Augusta’s bold actions on that day. Because none of the princess’s personal letters or diaries survive, we will never have the story in her own words, and so any account of why she did what she did is necessarily provisional. But given the circumstances of her decision, some things can be said with certainty. Augusta was undoubtedly an astute woman who had a firm grasp on the political realities of her time. She knew that her collusion in the activities of the opposition would alienate George II. She also knew that without the backing of Frederick, she lacked any political clout of her own, and needed to find another royal patron in order to prevent herself and her son being sidelined; this might either have happened by statute before George II died, or by force afterwards. She was particularly worried that if arrangements for her son George’s regency were not fully established by the time George II died, the Duke of Cumberland would attempt a military coup. Clearly the only person who could provide the security that Augusta needed was George II himself. By incinerating all the evidence of her involvement with the opposition, Augusta recognised that her allegiance was now with the reigning monarch. In the months that followed, many other opposition politicians would follow her lead in returning to George’s court.
Frederick’s mother, the formidable Queen Caroline, born Caroline of Ansbach (1683–1737).
George II, who outlived his heir Frederick by several years, and was succeeded by his grandson George III.
The fact that Augusta was compelled to destroy the evidence of her political life in order to secure her future and that of her son has had an incalculable influence on her portrayal by historians, who have seen her as a less politically active figure than she was in reality. Though it is important to acknowledge this misrepresentation, there is little of detail that can be said against it, because the precise nature of this involvement was, of course, lost in the flames. Once again, the historically subordinate position of women – in this case, Augusta’s inability to continue to wield political influence without a strong male patron – has brought about a lacuna in the manuscript record.
At her audience with George, Augusta conducted herself adroitly, ‘flinging herself entirely into his hands’.3 She assumed the demeanour of the credulous girl with whom he had been so enamoured 15 years earlier.4 When her baby was born in July, Augusta named the new princess Caroline Matilda after her grandmother, Queen Caroline. Ostensibly, the king was won over by Augusta’s protestations of loyalty and servility, and he ‘embraced the Princess’, declaring that ‘nobody might come between him and her, and he would do everything for her’.5 He assured Augusta that he supported her custody of the young George as well as the prince’s eventual succession, and promised that he would not appoint Frederick’s brother, William, as his next in line. He even agreed that in the event of him dying before George came of age, Augusta herself should be regent. This was a remarkable concession for him to make and a significant achievement for Augusta. To cement this victory, Augusta commissioned George Knapton to paint her family. In the portrait Augusta is surrounded by her children. In the background to her right is a portrait of Frederick gesturing down at his progeny, while to her left a statue of Britannia stands guard. It was a powerful statement that despite Frederick’s death, the Hanoverian dynasty remained secure.
Augusta, Princess of Wales, depicted with her children. Her husband Frederick, who was dead by the time the group portrait was painted, stands watch over his family from a frame on the wall.
When George’s promise materialised in legislation, it transpired that her powers as regent would be heavily circumscribed. The Regency Act of 1751 established an advisory council, which, in the event of the death of George II, would have to approve any major decisions made by Augusta. The king and his prime minister, Henry Pelham, a Whig, refused to give Augusta any influence over the appointment of young George’s counsellors, among whom was the Duke of Cumberland. Not a single political ally of Frederick’s had been appointed. Augusta was left powerless, engaged in a battle for survival as a woman in a political world controlled by men.
From 1751 until Prince George came of age in 1756, Augusta’s mission was to groom her son for his future role. In order to protect George from William’s controlling tendencies, Augusta isolated her son as much as possible from court society. She also had moral reasons for doing this. In spite of Augusta’s formal conversion to Anglicanism, the outlook of her childhood religion appears to have stayed with her throughout her life and, in the wake of Frederick’s death, she came to judge the court with Lutheran severity, as a place of vice and licentiousness. While Augusta was keen to insulate her son from this corrosive influence, she did not think it prudent to isolate him entirely from the centres of political power, and increasingly they were based in London; two weeks after Frederick’s funeral, Augusta gave up the lease of Cliveden and had the furniture moved to Leicester House.6 Her excessive privacy gave the impression that she was using her influence to indoctrinate the future king with her own political agenda, and public opinion, which had previously been so sympathetic towards Augusta, now began to turn against her.
Augusta was aware that she lacked the experience to induct the young George into the intensely masculine world of kingship and politics, and that her son would require tuition from a male aristocrat. The man she chose for this role was, rather surprisingly, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, an obscure Scottish lord who had become close friends with Frederick after the pair met by chance in the early 1740s over a game of whist at the Egham races. Bute was married to a daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and was reputed to have the best legs in London – knee-breeches were currently fashionable, so male calves were constantly on display. Though maverick, Augusta’s choice turned out to be wise – Bute instantly won the young George’s confidence and became his trusted mentor.
Rumours soon began to circulate that Augusta’s interest in Bute was more than merely professional. Horace Walpole commented on the ‘swimmingness in her eyes’, the ‘mellowing in her German accent’ and her visible blushing when she was with Bute.7 Given Augusta’s circumspection about Bute’s tuition of George – she instructed him to enter Leicester House by the back stairs – the rumours appeared credible and, when the prince dropped the political bombshell that he intended to appoint Bute as his Groom of the Stole, speculation was granted the status of fact. Politicians, newspaper reporters and caricaturists came up with all sorts of inventive ways to imply that Bute owed his meteoric ascent to sleeping with Augusta – the writer George Selwyn acerbically observed that the political alliance based at Leicester House, which included Bute and also the powerful jurist the Earl of Mansfield, was not a faction so much as a ‘fuction’.8 In all likelihood Augusta did not have an affair with Bute; it seems uncharacteristic that she would have indulged in such risqué conduct. Bute, for his part, was a conscientious and happily married man.
The perceived affair, along with other accusations of political scheming and Machiavellian manoeuvring, exacerbated the shift in the popular perception of Augusta. S
he became an object of hatred, tormented by the public and vilified by the press, in particular by the Oxford Magazine, which declared: ‘her name is tyranny’. The relationship between Bute and Augusta was a gift to the new generation of mid-18th century satirists: a 1771 print, entitled ‘Vice Triumphant Over Virtue, or Britannia Hard Rode’ showed Augusta, whip in hand, riding a prostrate Britannia, who is suffering exquisite torture at the hands of a gang led by Mansfield and Bute.9 Another, called ‘The Excursion to Cain Wood’, depicts her as a witch, riding a broom with the Earl of Mansfield towards his country house, while in the background London – and, by association, its traditional liberties – is engulfed by flames. ‘Liberty to me is a joke’, says Mansfield; ‘My Lord is my sure counsellor’, Augusta replies, ‘what he dictates shall be a law’.10
Augusta’s few public appearances were marred by heckling and attacks from the crowds who had once championed her, and, once Prince George came of age in 1756, she ceased these outings altogether. So anxious was Augusta about her public profile that she started to make her charitable donations anonymously, lest they be refused.11 The accession of her son as George III to the throne in October 1760 did not do anything to restore her image in popular estimations, though it must have been a comfort to her that George finally acceded, and that the long-feared rebellion from William, Duke of Cumberland had not come to pass.
Augusta lived out the remainder of her life in a state of relative seclusion, away from the hostility of the public gaze. She occupied herself with projects at Kew, where she collaborated with the architect William Chambers to produce countless structures in the grounds. Some of these were whimsical and soon fell into disrepair, but others remained popular despite changing fashion. The pagoda she commissioned still stands today, although it is now painted in vermilion, rather than in the original green and white.
By the autumn of 1771 Augusta was terminally ill with throat cancer. On being informed that her death was imminent, George III reasoned that, given his mother’s condition, ‘it is almost cruel to wish to see her long continue’.12 She fought off death for several months and by her last week she could not eat or speak, and was wracked with severe pain. None of this diminished her unremitting sense of propriety, which had done so much to impress George II upon their first meeting in 1735 and catapulted her out of obscurity and into the glamorous and fast-paced life of the British royal court. But in the last moments of her life, this decorum was directed towards not her father-in-law, but her son. Sensing that the end was near, Augusta signalled that she should be formally dressed and seated in a chair, so that she could receive the king properly for the last time. This was to be her final request – on the morning of 8 February 1772, aged 52, she was found dead in her chamber by an attendant.
Augusta’s funeral was marred by widespread theft and disorder. The theft was opportunistic, as the Henry VII chapel was dark and the purses of wealthy mourners were easy pickings for thieves. The disorder, however, was targeted and personal – the crowd tore the black bunting from the scaffolding and the bier. The rage was in part directed at Augusta herself and in part at George III, who had imposed traditional mourning sanctions, to the detriment of the London textile trade, which depended on the sale of colourful clothes and fabrics. In her prime, Augusta had been the beloved champion of British manufacturers, but in death she had become a symbol of their discontent.
Despite her funeral being an occasion for protest rather than an outpouring of grief, she was remembered in some quarters for the good she had done as Princess of Wales. The Daily Advertiser of Tuesday 11 February 1772 printed a mournful poem that reminded the public of her kindness and compassion, and berated ‘misted Britons’ for maligning a ‘virtuous’ woman in the last years of her life. The poet appealed to the reputation Augusta shared with Frederick, of being comfortable in all sorts of company regardless of rank or class – ‘When the Mechanic or the Peer was seen, She met them equally with Brow serene’ – as well as recalling the couple’s generous patronage – ‘Where should the artist or the Tradesman now, Who never left her but with cheerful brow, Real patronage or kind protection find?’13
But this defence of the once-popular princess stood out against a widely held opinion that Augusta had been devious and controlling. In the 20 years since Frederick died, she had gone from darling of the media to arch-villain. Her precipitous fall from public affection, played out in a booming national press, serves as an early cautionary tale of just how fleeting the favour of the media can be. There is something peculiarly modern about the cycle of elevation and demotion, approbation and condemnation to which Augusta fell victim. A portrait of her and Frederick still hangs at Cliveden today, overlooking the great hall. Their expressions have been rendered with great warmth, showing something of the compassion and kindness that characterised their marriage. It is a constant reminder of the king and queen Britain was promised and then denied.
Chapter 8
‘A SITE OF RUIN’
AFTER AUGUSTA MOVED out of Cliveden, Elizabeth Villiers’s daughter, Anne, 2nd Countess of Orkney, and her husband, William, regained possession of the house, although the earl spent much of his time in Ireland, where he owned land. The couple had inherited the money woes of Anne’s parents and were unable to carry out essential maintenance work on the house. As a result, in the decades after Frederick and Augusta’s residence, Cliveden entered a period of neglect and deterioration. On 18 April 1762, the historian Edward Gibbon – a keen student of declining grandeur – recorded the lamentable state of the house. While acknowledging the ‘glorious prospect’ and ‘elegance’ of the site, he declared that the place was ‘very ill kept’.1
Nevertheless, the royal tenure at Cliveden had bestowed nationwide recognition on the house. Prints of the estate were advertised for sale and became highly sought-after collectors’ items;2 when two views of ‘Cliveden House and Gardens’ were part of a collection stolen from a house in Wandsworth in October 1765, a reward of five guineas was offered for the stolen goods.3 In the 1760s, rumours bubbled that a ‘great personage’ was about to purchase the house.4 It soon became clear that this ‘personage’ was Frederick and Augusta’s son, George III: the London Evening Post of 21 February 1778 reported that ‘the King is on the point of purchasing Cliefden House, near Maidenhead, for a summer residence’.5 George’s first ten years as monarch had been particularly turbulent, and although matters had stabilised in the 1770s under the ministry of Lord North, he had become disenchanted with his childhood mentor Lord Bute and suspicious of most other politicians. It is not surprising that he should have sought a summer retreat where he could escape the vagaries of court life. By 1778, the king had 12 children of his own and may also have wished to recreate for them elements of his own childhood summers by the Thames.
By this time, the house was in possession of Mary O’Brien, 3rd Countess of Orkney, who had succeeded her mother Anne in 1756. It seems that Mary clung to her childhood memories of Cliveden just as ferociously as George, because she refused to sell, even to a reigning monarch. News reports that George was on the verge of buying the house continued, but Mary stood firm. The British Evening Post of 16 May 1778 declared that ‘the Proprietor of Cliefden… refused to sell that seat’.6 In 1780 another report confirmed that the rumours of the king’s intentions to purchase the house were ‘not true; the present noble proprietor of that charming spot, “the bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love”, as Pope calls it, having lately laid out several thousand pounds in the further improvement of it’.7 It is telling that Elizabeth’s granddaughter maintained such an emotional attachment to the house.
Mary, like her four brothers, was born deaf and dumb. In a signed ceremony in 1753, she married her first cousin, Murrough O’Brien, 5th Earl of Inchiquin. Not much is known about Mary’s life, although one story has survived. On one occasion her nurse saw her approaching the cradle of her newborn baby, holding a large stone. She dropped it to the ground and the child immediately woke up, startled by the
sound. Fearful that her firstborn child had inherited her disability, Mary had been conducting a simple experiment; her child’s tears allayed her concerns.8 She also appeared fleetingly in the newspapers of her day, which reported that she was fitting out a ship ‘entirely at her own expense’ with 28 guns and 150 men, and naming it the Royal Charlotte, in honour of the queen.9
The 3rd Countess of Orkney died in 1790 and her daughter, also called Mary, succeeded her. This Mary was married to Thomas Fitzmaurice, whose brother, the 2nd Earl of Shelburne, had served a brief term as prime minister in 1782–3, and was in large part responsible for the negotiations that ended the American War of Independence. Mary and Thomas’s marriage, although initially happy, was beset by money problems and threatened by Thomas’s alcoholism and depression. From 1792, the couple were living separately, and a year later Thomas died.10
Mary’s tragic circumstances culminated in 1795, when, five years after she moved into the house, Cliveden burned to the ground. In three hours, the magnificent building conceived by the Duke of Buckingham and developed by the Orkneys was destroyed – only the outer walls and one wing were left standing. The cause of the fire was not certain, but according to newspaper reports, it was believed that ‘one of the chambermaids, turning down the beds in the evening, left a candle burning in one of the middle apartments, which set fire to the curtains’.11 The flames erupted at nine o’clock at night, and were so voracious that all the furniture was consumed and much of the artwork ruined. ‘So sudden and violent were the flames, that nothing was saved,’ the papers reported.12 Because of the elevated situation of the house, the blaze, which was ‘exceedingly tremendous and awful’, was seen ‘many miles round’.13 Mary lost all her jewellery, silver and clothes in the fire – one paper reported that ‘not so much of wearing-apparel was saved as to furnish a change of any article to the family for the next day’ – but fortunately there were no human casualties.14