Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court (10 page)
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Authors: Lucy Worsley
Tags: #England, #History, #Royalty
Nor did the court as a whole see much cause for scandal: the prince’s grandmother thought Henrietta would at the very least improve his English.
When the Hanoverians came to London, Henrietta’s husband, Charles Howard, also managed to get a job at court. His position, though, was in the rival household of the king. Although it had been Henrietta’s foresight and initiative that had improved their material circumstances so vastly, her greedy husband had continued to think up new ways to exploit his wife.
In fact, by 1720 Henrietta had plucked up the courage to leave him, an act much riskier and more shameful then than now. She remained under constant, grinding pressure to go back to him. Threats had been made, blackmail used and letters had even been written by the Archbishop of Canterbury commanding her to return to her lawful spouse.
Another, even worse aspect of her situation perhaps aroused Princess Caroline’s particular pity, allowing her to tolerate rather than despise her rival. Henrietta, too, had had a son stolen. Eighteenth-century law and custom always favoured the father when couples separated, and her only child was in her husband’s custody.
While Henrietta failed to enjoy life in the household of the Prince and Princess of Wales, she was at least protected there from Charles Howard’s violent, alcohol-fuelled rages. She feared nothing more than being near him, and for her the antipathy they all felt towards the king’s household was intensely strong.
On the evening of 25 April 1725, she scanned the drawing room nervously, looking out for trouble. But even Mr Howard dared not make any move upon his wife in such a crowd.
For now Henrietta remained safe. Yet her bizarre position at court, poised to please both prince and princess, involved endless effort. It would only take one moment’s inattention for it all to come crashing down.
*
Last among Princess Caroline’s wing women came the unruly Maids of Honour. These well-born, unmarried young ladies, earning £200 a year, were unlikely to remain single for long. Among the current crop, Mary Meadows was the steadiest, and Sophy Howe the flightiest. Then there was the elegant Molly Lepell, of course, and the broad-minded Mary Bellenden.
The Maids of Honour were all well known to the bawdy balladeers and gossip columnists of London. When the king had ordered them all to leave St James’s Palace, the characteristic reactions of the individual maids were trumpeted abroad:
Up leapt Lepell and frisk’d away
As though she ran on wheels;
Miss Meadows made a woeful face,
Miss Howe be-pissed her heels.
97
The poet John Gay placed Molly Lepell and Mary Bellenden at the very acme of desirability among the maids. Unsuccessfully touting for a sinecure at court, he offered flattery around the royal household as if it were snuff. ‘So well I’m known at Court’, he joked,
None asks where
Cupid
dwells;But readily resort
To
Bellenden
’s or
Lepell’
s.
98
On the night of the reconciliation, many eyes followed the wand-like Molly Lepell, including those of the old king himself. Despite the presence of his long-time mistress Melusine, his faithful May Pole, and the provocation of having to receive his son, he was enthralled by Molly’s effervescence.
Molly, though, was searching the room for the man to whom she was secretly married.
Molly’s cloak-and-dagger wedding, altogether unsuspected by the courtiers, had taken place a mere four days previously. Despite the tension and confusion of the christening quarrel, a covert romance had bloomed at Leicester House. Her love was none other than the life and soul of the chic clique at court, the droll, amusing young butterfly John Hervey.
Hervey was a real court insider. His elder brother, Carr, was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince George Augustus, while the card-fanatic Lady Bristol was his mother. ‘I came very early into the world’, he told a friend, ‘and had a satiating swing in the showish part of its pleasures.’ Besieged by socialites and suitors on all sides, living in the very ‘midst of a crowded court’, he nevertheless felt that he spent ‘many, many hours alone’.
99
He was ripe for a relationship more meaningful than the usual courtly intrigues.
Recently, having spied out Molly’s hidden streak of vulnerability, he felt he had surely found the companion he sought. Together they could laugh at the world. He’d come to rely upon her and to love her in a manner most surprising at court: ‘above himself’.
100
Yet his mother’s gambling had put the Hervey family’s finances into a very sorry state. For the moment at least Molly could not admit to her marriage, because to do so would mean sacrificing her job and salary as a Maid of Honour. She and her clandestine husband had nothing else upon which to live.
By risking her career for a love match, Molly had shown herself to be deeply unconventional among the courtiers. More surprises would surely follow from this mysterious Maid of Honour who was secretly a maid no more.
*
On 25 April 1720, it became clear that the particular battle between the two courts sparked off by the ‘christening quarrel’ had reached a stalemate. Each protagonist was bruised but not broken, and Henrietta Howard and Molly Lepell (or Hervey) had yet to find out if they had chosen wisely in hitching their fortunes to the party of the passionate but petulant prince.
George I, meanwhile, had triumphed in the matter of the apology. He still retained the little princesses in his possession, and he’d saved face by having his son once again publicly compliant. He was now resolved to beat his son and daughter-in-law at their own game of popularity. He’d lost much ground with his recent bullying tactics, so he decided instead to use the splendour of his own court as a weapon to win back public favour.
He needed to build a new battlefield: a new and more splendid palace in which to carry forward the campaign.####160
###
1
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2
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3
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17
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Ibid
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18
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19
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22
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23
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24
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25
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28
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29
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30
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31
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32
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34
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36
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.
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39
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40
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41
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, Vol. 13.2 (December 2008), p. 183.
42
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.
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44
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46
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47
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,
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the First, Queen Caroline, Sir Robert Walpole […] Reviewed. With Royal and
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48
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49
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50
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51
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52
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53
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54
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55
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The letters and works of
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
(London, 1887), Vol. 1, p. 394, note.
56
. Quoted in Wolfgang Michael,
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, trans. Annemarie MacGregor and George E. MacGregor (London, 1939), p. 28.
57
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58
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59
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63
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, f. 53.
64
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65
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66
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A Life of Frederick
,
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, Ed. Roger White (Lewiston, 2006), p. 10
.
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68
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69
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(1818 edn), p. 32.
70
.
Weekly
Journal
or Saturday
’
s Post
, issue 130 (27 May 1721).
71
. ‘An Account of the Court of George I’, in Wharncliffe (1861), Vol. 1, p. 127; Walpole,
Reminiscences
(1818 edn) p. 31.
72
. Franklin (1993), p. 92.
73
. TNA LS 13/176, p. 57 (31 August 1716).
74
. ‘An Account of the Court of George I’, in Wharncliffe (1861), Vol. 1, p. 132
.
75
.
The Criticks: Being papers upon the times
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76
. Pöllnitz (1739), Vol. 2, p. 451.
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. Stephen Taylor, ‘Walpole, Robert, first earl of Orford (1676–1745)’,
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(Oxford, 2004).
78
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79
. Cowper (1864), pp. 133, 130, 141.
80
.
Ibid
., p. 142.
81
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, p. 918.
82
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83
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England
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86
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87
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88
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Ibid
., p. 161.
89
.
Ibid
., pp. 135–9.
90
. George Louis and R. L. Arkell, ‘George I’s letters to his daughter’,
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91
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92
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97
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98
. John Gay,
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Several Occasions
(London, 1775), p. 142.
99
. SRO 941/47/4, p. 346, John Hervey to the Dean of Norwich (14 November 1732).
100
. John Hervey, first Earl of Bristol,
Letter-Books of John Hervey, first Earl of
Bristol, 1651–1750
(Wells, 1894), Vol. 2, p. 143, Lord Bristol to Molly Lepell (2 October 1720).