King's Mistress, Queen's Servant: The Life and Times of Henrietta Howard

by Tracy Borman

  But by far the most significant new arrival was Horace Walpole, son of the former Prime Minister. In May 1747, he acquired a small estate with a cottage attached, in nearby Strawberry Hill. ‘It is a little plaything house . . . and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw,’ he wrote to a friend a few weeks after the purchase.4 It was to become his private dream world; the place where he could observe the contemporary social and political scene at a cautious distance.

  Horace was a young man of thirty when he moved to Strawberry Hill. The third son of Robert Walpole by his first wife, Catherine Shorter, he was devoted to his mother and resented the indifference that his father had shown towards her in the later years of their marriage. He had had a privileged upbringing, having been educated at Eton and Cambridge before embarking upon a Grand Tour of Europe. Enjoying the advantages of being the son of Britain’s most powerful minister, he had been elected an MP during his travels.

  But Horace never shared his father’s dedication to politics, and upon moving to Twickenham, he declared that he had ‘lost all taste for courts & Princes & power, as was natural for one who never felt an ambitious thought for himself’. He preferred instead to pursue his interests in architecture and the literary arts. He was a keen writer and poet, although not a great one. His published works included Anecdotes of Painting, The Mysterious Mother, and the romantic novel, Castle of Otranto, which was set in Strawberry Hill. Shortly after moving there, he started to keep a detailed journal of political events, which was later published as Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II and ran to twenty-one volumes.

  Walpole was of a slight and feeble stature, having been born prematurely, and in both his appearance and mannerisms he was rather effeminate. One of his female acquaintances described him as ‘long and slender to excess; his complexion, and particularly his hands, of a most unhealthy paleness’. His style of dress was similarly dandified, and he was often to be seen in a lavender-coloured suit embroidered with silver, together with silk stockings, gold-buckled shoes, and ruffled collars and cuffs made of lace. He preferred delicate food such as chicken or fruit to the roasted meats, pies and other robust dishes favoured by most of his contemporaries. He would share his breakfast with his pampered little pet dog and a squirrel that he had tamed in the gardens at Strawberry Hill.

  The epitome of Horace Walpole’s effeminate, rather eccentric, nature was the way in which he would always enter a room on tiptoe with his knees bent, ‘in that style of affected delicacy which fashion has made almost natural’, but which to sniggering onlookers made him seem as if he was ‘afraid of a wet floor’. He did not cut an entirely ridiculous figure, however. His eyes were described as ‘remarkably bright and penetrating, very dark and lively’, and although his voice was ‘not strong’, it was ‘extraordinarily pleasant’.5 Furthermore, those mannerisms that appeared to some as effeminate, to others seemed rather elegant, and he was undeniably cultured and well bred. His weakness was a love of melodrama and gossip, and he would regularly sit up until one or two o’clock in the morning exchanging tittle-tattle with his acquaintances.

  Walpole never married and is not known to have had any mistresses, preferring instead the company of older women. He had a particular liking for wise and spirited dowagers who could satisfy his love of scandal with tales from their younger days. ‘The preceding age always appears respectable to us (I mean as one advances in years), one’s own age interesting, the coming age neither one nor t’other,’ he once observed. Twickenham, with its many ageing widows and distinguished literary associations, was therefore perfect for him. ‘Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around, and Pope’s ghost is just now skimming under my window by a most poetical moonlight,’ he wrote to a friend soon after moving there.6

  The woman who, above all others, excited his interest was the Dowager Countess of Suffolk. The two were introduced by mutual acquaintances, of whom they had several, including Lady Hervey and Lady Betty Germain, and Horace soon became a regular fixture at Marble Hill. The irony of their friendship, given Horace’s parentage, was not lost on either. ‘I was become known to her, though she and my father had been at the head of two such hostile factions at court,’ he later wrote.7 He usually pursued his father’s old adversaries with venomous scorn, but any hostility that he might have harboured towards Lady Suffolk dissolved as soon as he met her. His esteem for her was obvious to everyone, for he was unstinting in his praise, describing her as ‘a sincere and unalterable friend, very calm, judicious, and zealous’.8

  For Walpole, Henrietta had about her that ‘peculiar glamour’ associated with one who has been the mistress of a king. Like Pope and Gay before him, he was soon inspired to write verses in her honour. His poem, ‘The Parish Register of Twickenham’, referred to the spot

  Where Suffolk sought the peaceful scene,

  Resigning Richmond to the queen,

  And all the glory, all the teasing

  Of pleasing one not worth the pleasing.

  Henrietta was flattered and delighted by the earnest attentions of this cultured and witty young man, while he was astounded at her remarkable memory and sharp intellect, and showed an unstinting enthusiasm for her tales of life at the Georgian court. The pair would spend many a long evening sitting by the fire in Lady Suffolk’s elegant Great Room as she regaled her new friend with everything from accounts of major events to the minutest of details about everyday life in the Queen’s service, such as the petticoats that Caroline had worn at her coronation, or the mushrooms that had grown in her own damp apartments at Kensington. By now almost completely deaf, she would use a tortoiseshell ear trumpet to help capture Walpole’s questions, while he listened intently to her quiet, almost whispered replies.

  For his part, Walpole provided a patient and enthusiastic audience. ‘She had seen, known, and remembered so much,’ he later told a friend, ‘that I was seldom not eager to hear.’9 He was fascinated by the way that she could bring to life a vanished world. Some of the anecdotes he heard from Lady Suffolk were enhanced by the knowledge of court life that he had gained from his father. His description of their conversations proves what a perfect combination they made as orator and listener. ‘She was extremely deaf and consequently had more satisfaction in narrating than in listening; her memory both of remote and of the more recent facts was correct beyond belief. I was indulgent to, and fond of, old anecdotes. Each of us knew different parts of many court stories, and each was eager to learn what either could relate more; and thus, by comparing notes, we sometimes could make out discoveries of a third circumstance, before unknown to both.’10

  Eager to capture his friend’s memories for posterity and pursue his own ambition to be a chronicler of the age, Horace began to record their conversations in a series of notebooks, dating from 1759 to 1766. He subsequently compiled these, along with his own observations, and bequeathed them to his favourite nieces, Mary and Agnes Bell, ‘for their amusement’. They were later published under the title of Reminiscences, and have become one of the richest sources of political history, gossip and scandal for the early Georgian era. Such was their content, particularly about the nature of Lady Suffolk’s affair with the King, that Walpole tactfully waited until after her death to bring them to the attention of the world.

  Lady Suffolk’s friendship with Horace Walpole was strengthened by a number of other common interests, besides her recollections of court life. The most notable of these was architecture. As soon as he had purchased Strawberry Hill, Walpole set about transforming it into an extraordinary Gothic-style villa, complete with lofty towers and pinnacles, pointed arches, cloisters and richly decorated fireplaces. He stuffed the house full of a myriad of curiosities, paintings, china, statues, books and relics. He also loved to be surrounded by portraits of his close friends. The likeness of Henrietta that Pope had commissioned twenty-five years earlier hung in the Round Bedroom, which was in the main tower of the house.

  Once he had completed work on the main house (or ‘cast
le’, as he called it), he turned his attention to the grounds and erected several weird and wonderful structures, including a Gothic bridge and a chapel in the woods that bordered the property. He also established his own printing press, which churned out a wide variety of books – both his own and other people’s – during his time at Strawberry Hill.

  Although Lady Suffolk’s tastes leaned towards the more understated elegance of the Palladian style, Walpole managed to persuade her to indulge in a little Gothic fantasy of her own. One of her farm buildings was converted into ‘The Priory of St Hubert’, complete with octagonal spire, buttresses, nave and cloisters. ‘My Lady Suffolk,’ wrote Walpole in triumph to an architect friend, ‘has at last entirely submitted her barn to our ordination.’11 The Priory must have appeared somewhat at odds with the simple, classical lines of her Palladian villa, and it was pulled down a decade or so later.

  As well as providing Henrietta with much-needed companionship, Horace Walpole also helped to widen her circle of friends by introducing her to members of his own. Among them was Isabella Le Neve, with whom he spent a great deal of time, both at Strawberry Hill and at his town house on Arlington Street. That Isabella should also become friendly with Lady Suffolk was remarkable, for she was the eldest daughter of Oliver Le Neve, the man who had killed Henrietta’s father in a duel. It is ironic to think of the peaceful meetings, at the tea table or the card table, between these two elderly ladies, whose fathers had fought to the death on Cawston Heath more than half a century before.

  Horace’s fondness for Lady Suffolk grew ever deeper as the years went by, and his lively company did much to alleviate the sadness that she felt at the loss of Mr Berkeley. He also became close friends with Lady Betty Germain, who often visited Henrietta at Marble Hill and Savile Street. His acerbic wit and overindulgence in gossip won him many enemies, however, and they sneered at his fondness for women who were old enough to be his grandmother. ‘Is it not surprising how he moves from old Suffolk on the Thames to another old goody on the Tyne, and does not see the ridicule which he would so strongly paint in any other character?’ asked one.12 But neither Walpole nor Lady Suffolk was overly troubled by such comments. They had both seen enough of courts and society to know that what was ridiculed one week would be lauded the next.

  That was not always the case, however. One evening, shortly after her husband’s death, Henrietta and Lady Betty attended an assembly hosted by Selina Shirley, Countess of Huntingdon. The Countess was renowned for her devout religious beliefs, and was constantly trying to induce her friends and acquaintances to accept what she held to be the Divine Truth. Her evening assemblies had gained quite a reputation, drawing men and women from both fashionable and intellectual circles.

  On the occasion that Henrietta and Lady Betty attended, the hostess had invited her evangelical Methodist preacher, Mr Whitefield, to address the party. The subject of his sermon was the wickedness of marital infidelity, and although he did not know that Lady Suffolk was in the audience, she was convinced that his every word was directed against her. Furious at such an insult, she barely managed to contain herself as his self-righteous sermon rambled on. When at last it was over, the assembled guests looked on in astonishment as she ‘flew into a violent passion, abused Lady Huntingdon to her face, and denounced the service as a deliberate attack upon herself’.

  In vain her sister-in-law tried to appease her, saying that it had been an unfortunate misunderstanding. Nor would she be silenced by the Duchess of Ancaster or Lady Ellinor Bertie, both of whom commanded her to stop this shameful display. In the end, she calmed down sufficiently to apologise (albeit with very bad grace), but then promptly flounced out of the house, never to return again.13

  The affair was not soon forgotten. Lady Suffolk was clearly still very sensitive to matters concerning her reputation, having spent so many years covering up the shame of her first marriage and the nature of her affair with the King. Her resentment continued long after the incident at the assembly. Some years later, during her last illness, she refused Lady Huntingdon’s request to visit her at Marble Hill, and went to the grave hating her.

  Henrietta’s anxiety to protect her reputation was demonstrated again a few years later. This time it did not involve her own virtue directly, but that of one very close to her. Dorothy Hobart had lived with her for many years, and had grown into a vivacious and attractive young woman. Her presence at Marble Hill had drawn various sons and daughters of local gentry families to the house. The number of male suitors increased after her father, John Hobart, was created 1st Earl of Buckinghamshire, in 1746. Some of these were clearly more interested in her dowry than her physical or intellectual charms. ‘I have lately seen the person who enquired for another what Lady Dorothy’s fortune was to be,’ wrote Lady Betty Germain to Henrietta two years later, ‘and on expressing my wonder, that I had never heard of them since I was told point blank that nothing less than twenty thousand pounds would do for the gentleman. I could not help thinking if so, the gentleman either had a small cumbered estate, or was not much in love with one I thought very desirable.’14 In fact, her father’s new title had added little to the Hobart family’s fortune, and the maintenance of their crumbling Jacobean mansion at Blickling was still eating up most of their resources.

  The discovery of this fact put paid to Dorothy’s more mercenary suitors, but there was one who seemed genuine in his admiration for her. Colonel Charles Hotham was the eldest son and heir of Sir Beaumont Hotham, and had been raised in a village near Edinburgh, where his father had been appointed Commissioner of the Customs shortly after his marriage. Charles had been sent to London for his education and had afterwards lived with his widowed aunt, Lady Gertrude Hotham (née Stanhope), sister of Lord Chesterfield, whom he had become close to. He had enjoyed a distinguished military career, rising to the rank of captain in his early twenties.

  His father was an old friend of Lady Suffolk, and many years earlier had brought his five young sons to play with Dorothy and her brother John at Marble Hill. Charles and Dorothy became reacquainted in 1752, when he was twenty-three and she some four or five years his senior, and he soon became a regular visitor to Marble Hill. The pair conducted their courtship with as much secrecy as possible, both at Marble Hill and in London, when Miss Hobart accompanied her aunt to her town house in Savile Street. Perhaps recalling her own disastrous courtship with a soldier of the same Christian name many years before, Henrietta strongly disapproved of Hotham and did everything she could to persuade her niece to find a more suitable match. But Dorothy was a spirited young woman, and was so besotted with Charles that she set aside the love and respect she felt towards the aunt who had been more like a mother for most of her life, and instead stubbornly continued on what Henrietta feared was a path to ruin.

  Knowing that she would never agree to let them marry, Dorothy took a step that was to shock polite society, and eloped with her lover. Lady Suffolk was aghast when she found out, and at once set about tracking down the couple before the marriage could take place – and before the news sparked a public scandal. She succeeded in the first of these. Dorothy and Charles were discovered at Tunbridge Wells a few days later, still unwed, but their indiscretion had ensured that by now the whole town was abuzz with the news.

  Henrietta was mortified. As Miss Hobart’s principal guardian, she held herself entirely responsible for the disgrace, and was wretched at the thought of what the news would do to her brother. She was also acutely embarrassed at having been unable to prevent such a scandal unfolding before her very eyes. But above all, she was distraught that her beloved girl looked set to destroy her life through an unsuitable match in the same way that she herself had done almost half a century before.

  Lady Suffolk’s friends rallied around to support her. ‘What can I say or think of, to give You any relief in this your great Distress,’ asked Lady Mary Vere upon hearing the news. ‘Tis impossible to reflect upon your care, your Affection, and your Indulgence, to this unthinking (and
too surely hereafter miserable) Creature, without finding that there is nothing to Plead in her Favour . . . whether you forgive, or forget you certainly have nothing to Answer to your Conscience.’ Another acquaintance, Lady Mary Coke, assured Henrietta that she was not at all to blame, and that her niece’s shocking behaviour could only be due to ‘her being under the influence of an ungovernable passion which has hardly left her reason enough to know what she says, or does’.

  But their words could offer little comfort to Henrietta as the days dragged on and she waited anxiously for her niece’s return. Meanwhile, every lurid detail that could be gleaned about the affair was pored over in coffee houses, tea rooms and assemblies across London. It soon became clear that the couple’s courtship had been rather less discreet than Lady Suffolk believed. ‘Tis Certainly no secret to most People,’ admitted Lady Mary Vere, ‘as many has seen Her often Walk with him alone in the Bird-Cage Walk.’ It was equally well known that they had also conducted their liaison at Marble Hill, under Lady Suffolk’s very roof, and many sniggered at the disgrace that had thus befallen a lady so renowned for her discretion. Before long, the gossip had spread as far as Norfolk, where people seized upon scraps of information relating to one of the county’s most notable families. ‘The affair its self is I find generally known,’ conceded Lady Mary Coke, though she assured her friend that nobody would hear it from her own lips.