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

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  Published by Jonathan Cape 2007

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  Copyright © Tracy Borman 2007

  Tracy Borman has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs

  and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by

  Jonathan Cape

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-0-224-07606-7

  To Alison, with love and thanks

  Acknowledgements

  My research has taken me to a wide range of archives, libraries and historic sites, and I have been fortunate to encounter many helpful and supportive people along the way. As well as the staff in the manuscripts room of the British Library and the Norfolk Record Office, I would also like to thank Karen Horn, formerly of the English Heritage Library, whose assiduous hunting down of books from across the country saved me many long hours and contributed enormously to my understanding of the period. Of the various historic sites that I have visited, Marble Hill has featured most prominently; I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the English Heritage staff there, in particular Jacqui Degnan, Pauline France and Rheme Handhal, for all their help and enthusiasm. Additionally, I would like to thank Cathy Power for sharing her expertise and for organising a display of artefacts at Marble Hill to coincide with publication. Also Wendy Davidson and Lisa Hampton for arranging events and promotion, and my manager, Mark Pemberton. Thanks are due to the staff of Blickling Hall in Norfolk, and to those at Historic Royal Palaces, notably Susanne Groom, Joanna Marschner and David Souden for sharing their expertise on Henrietta’s apartments and her companions at court.

  The Marble Hill Society has, from the very beginning, been incredibly supportive and enthusiastic about the this book. In particular, I am very grateful to Mary Wackerbarth for so generously sharing her wealth of knowledge and research with me. It is thanks to Mary that the date of Henrietta’s birth, for many years uncertain, was at last discovered. I am also indebted to the Chairman, John Anderson, for so actively garnering support from among the Society’s members, and to Keith Hathaway and Janet Clarke for promoting it through guided tours and events.

  I wish to thank my publishers, in particular Will Sulkin for having faith in the book and Ellah Allfrey for her insightful and sensitive editorship, and Hannah Ross for her excellent work on publicity. I am also extremely grateful to my agent, Julian Alexander, for his guidance, encouragement and impeccable sense of timing.

  I have been very fortunate in having the unstinting support of my family and friends throughout. My biggest thanks go to Alison Weir, without whose generosity and encouragement this book would have remained an idea to be followed up at some undefined point in the future. I would like to thank my parents for their unfailing kindness, patience and support, my sister Jayne and her family, my friends Maura and Howard for being the first to read the manuscript through in its entirety, for coming up with the title, and for promoting the book so energetically. I am also greatly indebted to my dear friend Honor Gay for her boundless enthusiasm and interest in the subject and for her belief in me as an author, to Julian Humphrys for his inspirational finds in second-hand bookshops, to Doreen Cullen for her kindness, wisdom and patience, and to Tony Giardina and all the staff of Il Chicco in New Malden, whose incomparable cappuccinos have sustained me through many a difficult chapter.

  Thanks are also due to all of the other kind and generous people who have given their support to this book in various ways, including Sam Hearn and the John Hampden Society, the endlessly creative Richard Knight and Mission 21, my website designer, Ian Robinson, Lucinda and Stuart Eggleton, Philippa Treavett, Richard Foreman, Kathleen Carroll and Len Clark.

  Finally to Pete, for his love and support, and for making Twickenham as special to me as it was to Henrietta.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: ‘A Backwater in Time’

  Chapter 2: ‘Man’s Tyrannick Power’

  Chapter 3: Hanover

  Chapter 4: St James’s

  Chapter 5: In Waiting

  Chapter 6: The Swiss Cantons

  Chapter 7: ‘These fools may ne’er agree’

  Chapter 8: ‘J’aurai des maîtresses’

  Chapter 9: ‘A house in Twittenham’

  Chapter 10: ‘Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first’

  Chapter 11: ‘The Indissolvable Knot’

  Chapter 12: ‘Comforting the King’s Enemies’

  Chapter 13: ‘Pleasing one not worth the pleasing’

  Chapter 14: Mrs Berkeley

  Chapter 15: ‘The Melancholy Shades of Privacy’

  Chapter 16: ‘Where Suffolk sought the peaceful scene’

  Chapter 17: ‘An essential loss’

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Select Bibliography

  Prologue

  * * *

  HIDDEN AWAY AMONG THE archives of Lambeth Palace, the ancient residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, is a collection of letters from the eighteenth century. The volume itself is relatively nondescript, but inside the front cover is a lock of hair. This is dark brown, almost chestnut in colour, and the years have not faded its lustre. It has apparently no connection with the letters contained within; the only clue to its provenance is given in the inscription beneath, which reads: ‘Lady Suffolks hair’.

  Henrietta Howard, later Countess of Suffolk, was the mistress of King George II. Described variously as ‘the Swiss’ (because of her apparent neutrality), the ‘Cloe’ of Pope’s poem who was ‘so very reasonable, so unmov’d’, and by Swift as a consummate courtier who packed away her ‘private virtues . . . like cloaths in a chest’, she remains as much an enigma today as she was for her contemporaries. The impression of passivity and mildness that she conveyed belied a complex and fascinating character.

  Henrietta was in fact far more than the mistress of a king. She was a dedicated patron of the arts; a lively and talented intellectual in her own right; a victim of violence and adultery; and a passionate advocate for the rights of women before the dawn of feminism. Her wit and intelligence shone through in a society that still viewed any evidence of ‘learning’ in women as unseemly. Her attacks on the injustice of marriage found expression in the letters she left behind, but more importantly in the actions that shocked her contemporaries and echoed the views that only started to gain ground with the ‘Bluestocking’ movement a generation later. Henrietta was a woman of reason in an Age of Reason. The mark that she left on the society and culture of early Georgian England was to resonate well beyond the confines of the court, and is still in evidence today.

  Traces of Henrietta’s remarkable life can be found in a host of different places: from the archives at
Lambeth to her exquisite Thames-side villa, and from the verses and works of art that she inspired to – above all – the lively, witty and often scandalous letters of her voluminous correspondence. The latter lay neglected among the Hobart family papers until the nineteenth century, when they were discovered by a Victorian antiquary and passed to the British Library as being of sufficient interest for the nation to enjoy. It is these letters, more than any of the other historical sources, that provided the inspiration for my book. They give a fascinating insight into the glittering world of Georgian high society – its poets, playwrights, intellectuals and princes. They capture a forgotten age; an age of cultural enlightenment, high society, immorality and excess, and the gradual demise of monarchical – and male – predominance. They tell the story of a nation through the lens of a remarkable woman.

  When all of these traces of Henrietta’s past – the letters, memoirs, poetry and buildings – are pieced together, they reveal a life that was captivating as much for the dramatic events that it contained as for the character of the woman who lived it.

  Chapter 1

  ‘A Backwater in Time’

  * * *

  THE ROAD THAT RUNS from Norwich to Holt intersects a bleak and featureless tract of the north Norfolk countryside. Fields stretch out on either side, interrupted by the occasional cluster of houses or woodland. When the road reaches the scattered village of Cawston, it passes a small enclosure on the east side, set back from the verge and obscured from view by the overgrown copse beside it. In the middle of this enclosure, bounded by railings, is a large stone urn mounted upon an imposing square pedestal. Years of exposure to the elements have taken their toll, but amidst the rust and moss that cover the decaying structure, it is just possible to make out the letters ‘HH’ chiselled into the crumbling façade.

  Sir Henry Hobart of Blickling Hall was one of the most truculent squires in Norfolk. Active military service had provided a useful outlet for his aggression during his younger days, but now, aged almost forty, he expended most of his energy in politics and was a fierce proponent of the Whig party. From the start, this had brought him into conflict with a number of his fellow noblemen, and he now had a reputation as a troublemaker. ‘I wish Sir Henry, instead of prosecuting his neighbours, would think of paying his debts,’ complained Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, adding: ‘It may be his turn, sometime or other, to bear as much as he now acts.’ His words were to prove prophetic

  In 1698, a county election brought about the downfall of many individual Whig members – Sir Henry included. His defeat was decisive and humiliating: he only achieved a miserable third place in the voting. Mortified by the result and the accompanying loss of status, and angry at the wasted expenditure that it had entailed, Hobart retired to Blickling to lick his wounds. Introspection and remorse were not qualities that he had in abundance, however, and he soon began casting about for someone to blame. He did not have to wait long to find the perfect scapegoat.

  A report reached Hobart’s ears that Oliver Le Neve of Great Witchingham, his neighbour and Tory rival, had been spreading rumours that he had committed an act of cowardice at the Battle of the Boyne, and that this had led to his election defeat. Given that the Boyne had been fought some nine years earlier, the report was probably scurrilous and put about by a mischief-maker. But, as one commentator observed, ‘Sir Henry would not be satisfied without fighting’, and he therefore seized upon the unlikely rumour as sufficient grounds. All of the fury and resentment that he had been harbouring since the election defeat now found full expression, and he immediately challenged Le Neve to a duel.1

  Le Neve had no desire to quarrel with his formidable neighbour. He was by no means an aggressive man, and challenges and duels did not enter into his scheme of existence at all. Convivial and sociable, he had a wide circle of friends and devoted a large amount of his time to reading, gardening and hunting. Having been left a widower in 1696, he had recently married his second wife, Jane, and was looking forward to a life of uneventful domesticity at Great Witchingham. The arrival of Hobart’s challenge shattered this tranquil prospect.

  The strict rules of conduct governing late seventeenth-century society allowed Le Neve little choice but to accept the challenge. Hobart would brook no delay. He assigned the very next day for the duel and named the place as Cawston Heath, which was within easy reach of both men’s estates. In contrast to his opponent, he relished the prospect of what looked set to be an easy contest. He was an exquisite swordsman; Le Neve was an amateur – and a left-handed one at that. Hobart also had the advantage of height and presented a tall and formidable figure against his opponent’s much smaller and slighter frame. The outcome seemed all but assured.

  Sir Henry was already at Cawston when Le Neve arrived at dawn the following day. The heath was a bleak expanse of grassland, flanked on either side by copses and hedgerows. The sultry August weather, which had threatened to break for some days past, must have added to the sense of foreboding as the pair faced each other. There is no record of either man having brought along a second, and the only known witness to the ensuing fight was a local serving girl who had hidden in some nearby bushes.

  Within minutes, the duel began. Hobart drew first blood, wounding his opponent in the arm. In the confused mêlée that followed, Le Neve – whether by skill or chance – ran his sword deep into Sir Henry’s belly. As his opponent fell to the ground, Le Neve swiftly mounted his horse and galloped off to Yarmouth, the nearest port, from where he intended to make his escape to the Continent.2

  Whether the girl who had witnessed the duel raised the alarm, or Hobart had been accompanied by a second is not known, but he was shortly afterwards carried home to Blickling. His arrival caused great consternation amongst the household, and he was immediately conveyed to the principal bedroom of the house. By now he was bleeding profusely and in excruciating pain. It was said that his agonised screams could be heard throughout the grounds.3 A surgeon was hastily summoned to the house, but his endeavours were in vain and Sir Henry died the following day.

  Hobart’s death caused a sensation across Norfolk and beyond. One of the first to record it was Narcissus Luttrell, who wrote in his diary on 25 August: ‘Letters yesterday from Norfolk brought advice, that Sir Henry Hobart was killed in a duel by justice Le’neve: they fought on Saturday, and Sir Henry being run into the belly, dyed next day; Captain Le’neve was also wounded in the arm.’ Within a few days, the news had reached as far as Bath, from where a local notable, Roger Townshend, wrote to his brother: ‘Ye news of Sir Harry’s having lost ye Election & yt of his death were equally surprising to me.’4

  The almost gleeful way in which Sir Henry’s peers exchanged reports of his death threw the genuine grief of his wife and eight young children into sharp relief. Among the latter was Henrietta, the middle daughter, who, aged nine, was the image of her late father. This tragic episode provided a foretaste of the drama and upheaval that lay ahead in what was to be a truly remarkable life. Henrietta’s fate lay well beyond the safe confines of Blickling and would take her right to the heart of the royal court.

  Henrietta Hobart was born on 11 May 1689, and baptised nine days later at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. It was common for noble ladies from remote country estates to travel to London for their ‘lying in’ because of the superior medical care that was readily available in the capital – although even that was primitive by modern-day standards. As soon as her mother was well enough to travel, she was taken back to the family estate at Blickling.

  Blickling had been in the hands of the Hobarts since 1616, when the first Sir Henry Hobart, with customary shrewdness, had acquired it at a knock-down price from the impoverished incumbents.5 The Hobarts had made their name and fortune in law during Tudor times, and Sir Henry had risen to the esteemed position of Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was acknowledged by his peers as a ‘leading light’ of that profession and ‘renowned for his Learning’.6

  Sir Henry had been keen
to perpetuate his achievements and enhance the Hobarts’ standing by investing in a country estate. He had had his eye on Blickling for some time. It was ideally situated, being some twenty miles north of the county’s principal city, Norwich, and the same distance again from the picturesque coastline beyond. The surrounding countryside was characterised by wooded valleys, gently undulating fields and pastures.

  But for all that, the house itself – a decaying, inconvenient medieval structure – hardly befitted a man of his stature, and many puzzled that he had gone to so much trouble to acquire it when he could have easily afforded to build a sumptuous new estate in the latest Jacobean style. But Blickling was associated with some of the most prominent figures in England’s history. Harold Godwinson, Earl of the East Saxons and later King of England, owned it in the eleventh century, and it was then seized by William the Conqueror after his victory at Hastings. It was also the birthplace of Henry VIII’s disgraced queen, Anne Boleyn, whose family owned it for eighty years.

  Blickling Hall’s distinguished past, and in particular its association with Anne Boleyn, was well known at the time, and would undoubtedly have been one of the main attractions for Sir Henry. He could not have imagined that two centuries later, the fate of one of his own descendants would also be dictated by a king’s desire.

  Having acquired the estate, Sir Henry immediately set about extending and updating it. He enlisted the services of one of the most celebrated architects of the day, Robert Lyminge, who had built the sumptuous Hatfield House for Robert Cecil. Sir Henry hoped to establish a dynasty at Blickling, and his ambitions were reflected in the new building. He ordered initials to be carved prominently in the stonework: H for himself and D for his wife, Dorothy. His son John and daughter-in-law Philippa were represented in the same way. Keen to preserve the links with the estate’s illustrious past, Sir Henry also decided to incorporate some of the existing medieval and Tudor fabric into his new Jacobean mansion.