Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court

by Lucy Worsley

  Molly nevertheless went to the grave retaining something, still, of her intriguing air of mystery: ‘what her inside was my Lord only knew, and he I believe but partly’.20

  The last survivor of all, Peter the Wild Boy, lived on quietly in Berkhamsted until the 1780s. He was constantly visited by the curious, including the novelist Maria Edgeworth, who commented that he looked in old age just like busts of Socrates. When sightseers gave him money, Peter meekly handed it over to the wife of the farmer who looked after him.21 He paid a last visit to court in 1767, at the request of George III, who wanted his family to see his grandmother’s pet.22

  Then it was back to Berkhamsted. After his initial splashy arrival in London, he had lived a quiet and blameless life, largely forgotten, misunderstood but in some measure loved by the farming families who looked after him.

  And Peter ended up deeply attached to his carers, the last of whom was Farmer Brill of Berkhamsted. Discovering the aged Farmer Brill dead in his bed one day, Peter ‘tried to awaken him, but finding his efforts unavailing, refused food, pined away, and died in a few days, without apparently any illness’.23 It was 22 February 1785.

  Peter’s gravestone still lies by the south porch of the flinted church of St Mary at Northchurch, Berkhamsted, under a wild rose bush, surrounded by speedwell, wild parsley and marguerites. The lettering on his grave is painted and the plot is carefully tended. To this day a mysterious person regularly but discreetly places flowers on his grave, a person who has no connection with the church’s official Flower Guild.

  One of the Guild’s members guesses that the flowers must be left by ‘someone who thinks he should be remembered’.24

  *

  At George II’s abandoned palace, Kensington, life went quietly on. The palace was gradually filled up by minor members of the royal family requiring lodgings, including the Duchess of Kent and her daughter Princess Victoria.

  Victoria was the unlikely winner of the ‘baby race’ that took place between George III’s numerous sons to provide a legitimate heir to the throne. Although George III and his wife Charlotte churned out fifteen offspring, they had only one legitimate grandchild, named Charlotte. When she died in childbirth in 1817, the king’s younger sons were forced to abandon their various mistresses, marry princesses and set to work at the business of procreation.

  The satirical poet Peter Pindar described how ‘Hot and hard each Royal pair/ are at it hunting for the heir’. George III’s fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent, married a German princess and won the race by producing Victoria in 1819; he and his young family moved into the rooms which had formerly been George II’s private apartments at Kensington.

  After the Duke of Kent’s early death, his widow, her household and his daughter crept discreetly upwards and began to colonise the state apartments at the top of the King’s Grand Staircase (the duchess’s brother-in-law, King William IV, was extremely annoyed when he found out). It was in the grand but by now slightly ramshackle environment of William Kent’s rooms for George I that Princess Victoria grew up. It was at Kensington Palace that the sixteen-year-old Victoria first met Albert; it was there that she woke up on the morning in 1837 that she became queen.

  Although she promptly moved to Buckingham Palace upon her accession, Victoria retained a certain fondness for her childhood home. In 1897, she decided to open the palace to the public. There was a period of restoration and refurbishment, including a (misguided) application of varnish to William Kent’s King’s Grand Staircase. Then, in 1899, the doors were unlocked and the crowds surged in.

  Nineteenth-century visitors climb the King’s Grand Staircase at Kensington Palace. You can see William Kent’s portraits of Peter the Wild Boy and Doctor Arbuthnot on the landing just ahead of them

  In 1911, tourists climbing the King’s Grand Staircase found a novel sight in the State Apartments: the ‘London Museum’ was in residence, and the rooms were full of display cases. Throughout the twentieth century, Kent’s paintings continued to be tweaked and refreshed by professional conservators. Then, in the 1980s, the State Apartments were restored to the appearance that William Kent himself would have recognised. The project, the work of the Historic Royal Palaces Agency, employed historical detective work, conservation techniques and artefacts from the Royal Collection.

  After the death of the palace’s most celebrated resident, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, the State Apartments at Kensington became flooded with more curious visitors than ever before. Nevertheless, George II’s ghost is still said to haunt the tower in Clock Court, and can be seen on stormy nights ‘shaking his fist at cruel fate’.25

  And you too, if you like, can still visit Kensington Palace today and climb the King’s Grand Staircase, meeting the eyes of Peter the Wild Boy, Mustapha, Elizabeth Butler, Mohammed, Dr Arbuthnot, William Kent … You’ll almost hear them whispering about you and wondering who you are. They remain at their posts, watching over and welcoming the very latest arrivals to their lost world.

  Notes

  1. Walpole, Reminiscences (1818 edn), p. 9.

  2. Jesse (1843), Vol. 2, p. 327.

  3. Davies (1938); Owen (1973), pp. 113–34; Newman (1988); Black (2007).

  4. William Thackeray, The Four Georges (London, 1848), p. 48; Smith (2006), p. 7.

  5. Anon., George the Third (1820), p. 3.

  6. Burford (1988), p. 31.

  7. Home, Vol. 1 (1889), ‘Memoir by Lady Louisa Stuart’, p. lxxxvii.

  8. Princess Marie Louise, writing about her grandmother, in My Memories of Six Reigns (London, 1956), p. 142.

  9. Harcourt MSS, Princess Elizabeth to Elizabeth, Lady Harcourt (8 July 1793), quoted in Flora Fraser, Princesses, the Six Daughters of George III (London, 2004), p. 147.

  10. Brown (1700), p. 11.

  11. Matthews (1939), p. 76 (15 August 1715); Llanover (1861), Vol. 1, p. 556 (1736); Lord Berkeley of Stratton quoted in Aston (2008), p. 188.

  12. Brooke (1985), Vol. 1, p. 122.

  13. BL Egerton MS 1710, f. 7, Princess Amelia to Countess of Portland (4 October n.y.).

  14. Lewis (1937–83), Vol. 22, p. 544 (31 July 1767).

  15. Ibid., Vol. 35, p. 321 (29 July 1767).

  16. Quoted in Borman (2007), p. 285.

  17. SRO 941/48/1, p. 437, Mary Hervey to the Reverend Edmund Morris (22 June 1768).

  18. Lady Louisa Stuart quoted in Stuart (1936), p. 182.

  19. Lewis (1937–83), Vol. 23, p. 59 (22 September 1768).

  20. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, quoted in Hervey (1931), Vol. 1, p. xviii.

  21. Maria Edgeworth, Practical Education (London, 1798), p. 64.

  22. Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, issue 11, 808 (8 January 1767).

  23. Notes and Queries, sixth series (11 October 1884), p. 294; Anon., The annual register, or a view of the history, politics, and literature for the years 1784 and 1785 (London, 1787), p. 45, ‘a particular Account of Peter the Wild Boy; extracted from the Parish Register of North Church, in the County of Hertford’.

  24. Conversation with parishioners at St Mary, Northchurch (25 May 2007).

  25. Andrew Morton, Inside Kensington Palace (London, 1987), p. 8.

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, I would like to single out a group of eighteenth-century historians – Jeremy Black, Tracy Borman, John Brewer, Bob Bucholz, Clarissa Campbell Orr, Isobel Grundy, Joanna Marschner, Lucy Moore and Stella Tillyard – whose books have given me so much information and inspiration. Above all, Hannah Smith’s Georgian Monarchy seems to me to be the most rigorous and refreshing re-examination of early Georgian court life of recent years.

  Documents from the Royal Archives are quoted by the kind permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Miss Allison Derrett, Assistant Registrar, was exceptionally helpful, as was my friend Lucy Whitaker of the Royal Collection.

  My fellow curators at Historic Royal Palaces are inspiring, often infuriating, but incomparable colleagues. Many of them are named below. Additionally, I could not ha
ve completed this project without the support – both now and over the last ten years – of my director, John Barnes. I’d also like to say hurrah for Alison Heald, the cheerful and competent person who really runs Apartment 25 at Hampton Court. She makes going to work a pleasure.

  Other kind people who have provided me with encouragement or information include: Nigel Arch, Beatrice Behlen, Brett Dolman, Olivia Fryman, Esther Godfrey (whose research into slavery for Historic Royal Palaces was invaluable), John Harris, Maurice Howard, Alison Knowles (the present resident of Broadway Farm), Angelika Marks, Dr Randle McRoberts (my medical guru), Konrad Ottenheym, Julia Parker, David Pearce (editor of the Old Berkhamstedian), Lee Prosser (who first suggested that ‘The Mysterious Quaker’ could be Dr Arbuthnot), Robert Sackville-West, Jane Spooner, Tina Graham and the Georgian Group. I owe special thanks to Andrew Thompson, Stephen Taylor, Robin Eagles, Matthew Kilburn, Hannah Smith and the History of Parliament Trust for their seminar on Frederick and subsequent help. I have been honoured with stalwart draft readers including: David Adshead, Stephen Clarke, Clair Corbey, Lynne Darwood, Susanne Groom, Holger Hoock, Katherine Ibbett, Joanna Marschner, Harvey Murray Smith, Michael Turner, Kate Retford and Stephen Taylor. Sincere thanks to every single one of them.

  I owe a huge debt to the irrepressible Felicity Bryan in the UK, as well as to Zoe Pagnamenta in the US, to Rebecca Pearson, Susan Holmes, Anne Owen, Ian Bahrami and all the nice people at Faber, and to George Gibson and Margaret Maloney at Bloomsbury USA. Regarding my editor Julian Loose, I would gladly gnaw off my own foot to win a word of his praise.

  Lastly, I dedicate my work to Mark Hines, my very own kind and handsome prince

  A NOTE ON DATES

  In 1752, Britain’s calendar changed from the Julian to the Gregorian system and the start of the New Year was moved to 1 January, instead of 25 March. (Our tax years still follow the old system.) Unless otherwise stated, dates in this book have been silently corrected so that the months of January, February and March pre-1752 are given the year that we would use today.

  PICTURE CREDITS

  Plate Section

  Page 1: (top) The View of Kensington House from the South, c.1713–14 © The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Library Service; (bottom) Tea Party at Lord Harrington’s House, St James’s by Charles Phillips, Yale Center for British Art reference 147965 © Bridgeman/Yale Center for British Art. Pages 2–3: Chris Puddephatt. Page 4: (top left) King George I, studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller, NPG 544 © National Portrait Gallery, London; (top right) Self-Portrait of Sir James Thornhill, James Thornhill © The Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral; (bottom left) The Cupola Room, Kensington Palace, photographed by Chris Puddephatt; (bottom right) Chris Puddephatt. Page 5: (top left and right, bottom left) Lucy Worsley; (bottom right) Detail from The Royal Hunting Party at Göhrde, 1725 © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Page 6: (top left and right) King George II, when Prince of Wales and Caroline of Anspach, when Princess of Wales by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1716 © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; (bottom) Frederick Prince of Wales and His Sisters by Philip Mercier, NPG 1556 © The National Portrait Gallery, London. Page 7: (top) A Performance of ‘The Indian Emperor’ or ‘The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards’, William Hogarth, 1732–5, Private Collection; (bottom left) John, Lord Hervey, Holding Purse of Office as Lord Privy Seal, by J. B. Van Loo, 1741, Ickworth House (The National Trust) © NTPL/Angelo Hornak; (centre right) SRO 941/47/4, showing how the first thirteen pages have been removed. © Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmund’s; (bottom right) Berkhamsted School/photo Lucy Worsley. Page 8: (top left) Queen Caroline of Ansbach by Joseph Highmore, c.1735 © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; (top right) Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, c.1724, by Charles Jervas © English Heritage; (bottom left) George II by Robert Edge Pine, 1759 © English Heritage.

  Illustrations in the Text

  Pages xviii–xx, 9, 11, 14, 16, 28, 77, 79, 83, 88, 100, 107, 115, 148, 189, 284, 289: Mark Hines. Pages 18, 65, 156: Lucy Worsley. Pages 30, 95, 323: © All Rights Reserved. The British Library Board. Licence Number: PRIIND17 (shelfmarks: p. 30, Maps.*3518. (9); p. 95, 1201. a.30; p. 323, 10602 h.15). Pages 48, 73, 281: Historic Royal Palaces (p. 48, print of court occasion at St James’s Palace; p. 73, William Kent’s design for drawing room ceiling at Kensington Palace; p. 281, the Rockingham mantua from the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection). Pages 58, 250: Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees; photograph, the Courtauld Institute of Art (sketches of William Kent, p. 58, and Queen Caroline, p. 250, by Lady Burlington). Page 74: © www.CartoonStock.com (detail from William Hogarth, ‘The Bad Taste of the Town (‘Masquerades and Operas’) 1724’). Pages 96, 199, 333:private collection. Page 118: The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Libraries Service (print of Kensington Palace from the east, 1736). Pages 151, 153, 232, 264:copyright The British Museum (p. 151, British Museum reference number 1868,0808,3588; p. 153, Crace IX; p. 232, William Hunter, an unborn child (1750s); p. 264, satirical print of ‘Solomon in his Glory’). Page 157: © V& A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V& A item reference E.903-1928). Pages 223, 224:by courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum (William Kent’s design for Queen Caroline’s library at St James’s Palace, Sir John Soane’s Museum Vol. 147/197). Page 294: © National Portrait Gallery, London (George II sketched by George Townshend, NPG 4855(2)).

  Sources

  ARCHIVES

  The Bodleian Library, Oxford

  The British Library (referred to in the Notes as ‘BL’)

  Hertfordshire Archives

  Historic Royal Palaces, Kensington Palace, curators’ archives. (Especially useful was Peter Gaunt and Caroline Knight’s compendious unpublished history of the palace [1988–9].)

  Kensington Public Library. (Especially useful were the two ‘Extra illustrated’ editions of Thomas Faulkner, History and Antiquities of Kensington, 2 vols [London, 1820]. One is bound into two volumes and one in three. Each volume contains different pictures and documents.)

  The National Archives (referred to in the Notes as ‘TNA’)

  The Royal Archives (referred to in the Notes as ‘RA’)

  Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds (referred to in the Notes as ‘SRO’)

  BOOKS AND ARTICLES

  L’Abbé, Anthony, A New Collection of Dances, Ed. Carol Marsh (London, 1991).

  Anon., To a Thing They Call Prince of Wales (n.p., 1718?).

  – The Grand Exemplar Set forth, in an Impartial Character Of His Sacred Majesty King George (London, 1715).

  – Court tales: or, a History of the Amours of the Present Nobility (London, 1717).

  – The Criticks. Being papers upon the times (London, 1719).

  – The Present State of the British Court (London, 1720).

  – (attributed to Daniel Defoe), Mere Nature Delineated: or, a Body without a Soul. Being Observations upon the Young Forester Lately brought to Town from Germany (London, 1726).

  – The Most Wonderful Wonder That ever appear’d to the Wonder of the British Nation (London, 1726).

  – A New Guide to London (1726).

  – (attributed to Dr Arbuthnot or Jonathan Swift) It cannot Rain but it Pours: Or, London strow’d with Rarities, parts one and two (London, 1726).

  – An Enquiry How the Wild Youth, Lately taken in the Woods near Hanover, (and now brought over to England) could be there left, and by what Creature he could be suckled, nursed and brought up (London, 1726).

  – Some Memoirs of the life of Lewis Maximilian Mahomet, Gent. Late Servant to his Majesty (London, 1727).

  – The Ceremonial of the Coronation Of His most Sacred Majesty King George II And of His Royal Consort Queen Caroline (Dublin, 1727).

  – Plain Reasons for the Growth of Sodomy in England (London, 1728).

  – (attributed to William Pulteney) A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel (London, 1731).

  – The Contest: being poetical essays on the Queen’s gro
tto: wrote in consequence of an invitation in the Gentlemen’s Magazine for April, 1733 (London, 1734).

  – The Ladies Physical Directory (‘the eighth edition, with some very material additions’, London, 1742).

  – A representation of the Cloathing of His Majesty’s Household (London, 1742).

  – A Book to Help the Young and Gay (London, 1750).

  – By several hands, sketches and characters of the most Eminent and most Singular Persons Now Living (London, 1770).

  – The Character of George the First, Queen Caroline, Sir Robert Walpole … Reviewed. With Royal and Noble Anecdotes (London, 1777).

  – The New Foundling Hospital for Wit, Being a Collection of Fugitive Pieces, in Prose and Verse (London, 1784).

  – The annual register, or a view of the history, politics, and literature for the years 1784 and 1785 (London, 1787).

  – A collection of ordinances and regulations for the government of the Royal Household (Society of Antiquaries, London, 1790).

  – George the Third, His Court and Family (London, 1820).

  Appleby, John H., ‘Rowley, John (c.1668–1728)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

  Arbuthnot, John, Mr Maitland’s Account of Inoculating the Small Pox (London, 1722).

  – Miscellanies (Dublin, 1746).