History of Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk-Miss
Bellenden-Her Marriage with Colonel John Campbell, afterwards
fourth Duke of Argyle-Anecdotes of Queen Caroline-her last
Illness and Death-Anecdote of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough-Last
Years of George the Second-Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady
Sundon-Lady Diana Spencer-Frederick, Prince of Wales-Sudden
Removal of the Prince and Princess from Hampton Court to St.
James's -Birth of a Princess-Rupture with the King-Anecdotes of
Lady Yarmouth.
I will now resume the story of Lady Suffolk whose history, though
she had none of that influence on the transactions of the cabinet
that was expected, will still probably be more entertaining to
two young ladies than a magisterial detail of political events,
the traces of which at least may be found in journals and brief
chronicles of the times. The interior of courts, and the lesser
features of history, are precisely those with which we are least
acquainted,-I mean of the age preceding our own. Such anecdotes
are forgotten in the multiplicity of those that ensue, or reside
only in the memory of idle old persons, or have not yet emerged
into publicity from the portefeuilles of such garrulous
Brant`omes as myself. Trifling I will not call myself; for,
while I have such charming disciples as you two to inform; and
though acute or plodding politicians, for whom they are not
meant, may condemn these pages; which is preferable, the labour
of an historian who toils for fame and for applause from he knows
not whom; or my careless commission to paper of perhaps
insignificant passages that I remember, but penned for the
amusement of a pair of such sensible and cultivated minds as I
never met at so early an age, and whose fine eyes I do know will
read me With candour, and allow me that mite of fame to which I
aspire, their approbation of my endeavours to divert their
evenings in the country? O Guicciardin! is posthumous renown so
valuable as the satisfaction of reading these court-tales to the
lovely Berrys?
Henrietta Hobart was daughter of Sir Henry, and sister of Sir
John Hobart, Knight of the Bath on the revival of the order, and
afterwards by her interest made a baron; and since created Earl
of Buckinghamshire.
She was first married to Mr. Howard, the younger brother of more
than one Earl of Suffolk; to which title he at last succeeded
himself, and left a son by her, who was the last earl of that
branch. She had but the slender fortune of an ancient baronet's
daughter; and Mr. Howard's circumstances were the reverse of
opulent. It was the close of Queen Anne's reign: the young
couple saw no step more prudent than to resort to Hanover, and
endeavour to ingratiate themselves with the future sovereigns of
England. Still so narrow was their fortune, that Mr. Howard
finding it expedient to give a dinner to the Hanoverian
ministers, Mrs. Howard is said to have sacrificed her beautiful
head of hair to pay for the expense. It must be recollected,
that at that period were in fashion those enormous full-bottomed
wigs, which often cost twenty and thirty guineas. Mrs. Howard
was extremely acceptable to the intelligent Princess Sophia; but
did not at that time make farther impression on the Electoral
Prince, than, on his father's succession to the crown, to be
appointed one of the bedchamber-women to the new Princess of
Wales.
The elder Whig politicians became ministers to the King. The
most promising of the young lords and gentleman of that party,
and the prettiest and liveliest of the young ladies, formed the
new court of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The apartment of
the bedchamber-woman in waiting became the fashionable evening
rendez-vous of the most distinguished wits and beauties. Lord
Chesterfield, then Lord Stanhope, Lord Scarborough, Carr Lord
Hervey, elder brother of the more known John Lord Hervey, and
reckoned to have superior parts, General (at that time only
Colonel) Charles Churchill, and others not necessary to rehearse,
were constant attendants: Miss Lepelle, afterwards Lady Hervey,
my mother, Lady Walpole, Mrs. Selwyn, mother of the famous
George, and herself of much vivacity and pretty, Mrs. Howard, and
above all for universal admiration, Miss Bellenden, one of the
maids of honour. Her face and person were charming; lively she
was almost to `etourderie; (105) and so agreeable she was, that I
never heard her mentioned afterwards by one of her contemporaries
who did not prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever
knew. The Prince frequented the waiting-room, and soon felt a
stronger inclination for her than he ever entertained but for his
Princess. Miss Bellenden by no means felt a reciprocal passion.
The Prince's gallantry was by no means delicate; and his avarice
disgusted her. One evening sitting by her, he took out his purse
and counted his money. He repeated the numeration: the giddy
Bellenden lost her patience, and cried out, "Sir, I cannot bear
it! if you count your money any more, I will go out of the room."
The chink of the gold did not tempt her more than the person of
his Royal Highness. In fact, her heart was engaged; and so the
Prince, finding his love fruitless, suspected. He was even so
generous as to promise her, that if she would discover the object
of her Choice, and would engage not to marry without his privity,
he would consent to the match, and would be kind to her husband.
She gave him the promise he exacted, but without acknowledging
the person; and then, lest his Highness should throw any obstacle
in the way, married, without his knowledge, Colonel Campbell, one
of the grooms of his bedchamber, and who long afterwards
succeeded to the title of Argyle at the death of Duke Archibald.
(106) The Prince never forgave the breach of her word; and
whenever she went to the drawing-room, as from her husband's
situation she was sometimes obliged to do, though trembling at
what she knew she was to undergo, the Prince always stepped up to
her, and whispered some very harsh reproach in her ear. Mrs.
Howard was the intimate friend of Miss Bellenden; had been the
confidante of the Prince's passion; and, on Mrs. Campbell's
eclipse, succeeded to her friend's post of favourite, but not to
her resistance.
>From the steady decorum of Mrs. Howard, I should conclude that
she would have preferred the advantages of her situation to the
ostentatious `eclat of it: but many obstacles stood in the way of
total concealment; nor do I suppose that love had any share in
the sacrifice she made of her virtue. She had felt poverty, and
was far from disliking power. Mr. Howard was probably as little
agreeable to her as he proved worthless. The King, though very
amorous, was certainly more attracted by a silly idea he had
entertained of gallantry being becoming, than by a love of
variety; and he added the more egregious folly of fancying that
inconstancy proved he was not governed; but so awkwardly did he
manage that artifice, that it but demonstrated more clearly the
influence of the Queen. With such a disposition, secrecy would
by no means have answered his Majesty's views; yet the publicity
of the intrigue was especially owing to Mr. Howard, who, far from
ceding his wife quietly, went one night into the quadrangle of
St. James's, and vociferously demanded her to be restored to him
before the guards and other audience. Being thrust out, he sent
a letter to her by the Archbishop of Canterbury, reclaiming her,
and the Archbishop by his instructions consigned the summons to
the Queen, who had the malicious pleasure of delivering the
letter to her rival. (107)
Such intemperate proceedings by no means invited the new mistress
to leave the asylum of St. James's. She was safe while under the
royal roof: even after the rupture between the King and Prince
(for the affair commenced in the reign of the first George), and
though the Prince, on quitting St. James's, resided in a private
house, it was too serious an enterprise to attempt to take his
wife by force out of the palace of the Prince of Wales. The case
was altered, when, on the arrival of summer, their Royal
Highnesses were to remove to Richmond. Being only woman of the
bedchamber, etiquette did not allow Mrs. Howard the entr`ee of
the coach with the Princess. She apprehended that Mr. Howard
might seize her on the road. To baffle such an attempt, her
friends, John, Duke of Argyle, and his brother, the Earl of
Islay, called for her in the coach of one of them by eight
o'clock in the morning of the day, at noon of which the Prince
and Princess were to remove, and lodged her safely in their house
at Richmond. During the summer a negotiation was commenced with
the obstreperous husband, and he sold his own noisy honour and
the possession of his wife for a pension of twelve hundred
a-year. (108)
These now little-known anecdotes of Mr. Howard's behaviour I
received between twenty and thirty years afterwards, from the
mouth of Lady Suffolk herself. She had left the court about the
year 1735, and passed her summers at her villa of Marble Hill, at
Twickenham, living very retired both there and in London. I
purchased Strawberry Hill in 1747; and being much acquainted with
the houses of Dorset, Vere, and others of Lady Suffolk's
intimates, was become known to her; though she and my father had
been at the head of two such hostile factions at court. Becoming
neighbours, and both, after her second husband's death, living
single and alone, our acquaintance turned to intimacy. She was
extremely deaf, (109) and consequently had more satisfaction in
narrating than in listening; her memory both of remote and of the
most recent facts was correct beyond belief. I, like you, 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, (110) before unknown to both. Those evenings, and
I had many of them in autumnal nights, were extremely agreeable;
and if this chain of minutiae proves so to you, you owe perhaps
to those conversations the fidelity of my memory, which those
repetitions recalled and stamped so lastingly.
In this narrative will it be unwelcome to you, if I subjoin a
faithful portrait of the heroine of this part? lady Suffolk was
of a just height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest
light brown hair; was remarkably genteel, and always well dressed
with taste and simplicity. Those were her personal charms, for
her face was regular and agreeable rather than beautiful and
those charms she retained with little diminution to her death at
the age of seventy-nine. (111) Her mental qualifications were by
no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character,
which was grave and mild. Her strict love of truth and her
accurate memory were always in unison, and made her too
circumstantial on trifles. She was discreet without being
reserved; and having no bad qualities, and being constant to her
connexions, she preserved uncommon respect to the end of her
life; and from the propriety and decency of her behaviour was
always treated as if her virtue had never been questioned; her
friends even affecting to suppose, that her connexion with the
King had been confined to pure friendship. Unfortunately, his
Majesty's passions were too indelicate to have been confined to
Platonic love for a woman who was deaf, (112)-sentiments he had
expressed in a letter to the Queen, who, however jealous of Lady
Suffolk, had latterly dreaded the King's contracting a new
attachment to a younger rival, and had prevented Lady Suffolk
from leaving the court as early as she had wished to do. "I
don't know," said his Majesty, "why you will not let me part with
an old deaf woman, of whom I am weary."
Her credit had always been extremely limited by the Queen's
superior influence, and by the devotion of the minister to her
Majesty. Except a barony, a red riband, and a good place for her
brother, Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate
recommendations. Her own acquisitions were so moderate, that,
besides Marble Hill, which cost the King ten or twelve thousand
pounds, her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She
left the court with an income so little to be envied, that,
though an economist and not expensive, by the lapse of some
annuities on lives not so prolonged as her own she found herself
straitened; and, besides Marble Hill, did not at most leave
twenty thousand pounds to her family. On quitting court, she
married Mr. George Berkeley, and outlived him. (113)
No established mistress of a sovereign ever enjoyed less of the
brilliancy of the situation than Lady Suffolk. Watched and
thwarted by the Queen, disclaimed by the minister, she owed to
the dignity of her own behaviour, and to the contradiction of
their enemies, the chief respect that was paid to her, and which
but ill compensated for the slavery of her attendance, and the
mortifications she endured. She was elegant; her lover the
reverse, and most unentertaining, and void of confidence in her.
His motions too were measured by etiquette and the clock. He
visited her every evening at nine; but with such dull
punctuality, that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten
minutes with his watch in his hand, if the stated minute was not
arrived.
But from the Queen she tasted yet more positive vexations. Till
she became Countess of Suffolk, she constantly dressed the
Queen's bead, who delighted in subjecting her to such servile
offices, though always apologizing to her good Howard. Often her
Majesty had more complete triumph. It happened more than once,
that the King, coming into the room while the Queen was dressing,
has snatched off the handkerchief, and, turning rudely to Mrs.
Howard, has cried, "Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you
hide the Queen's."
It is certain that the King always preferred the Queen's person
to that of any other woman; nor ever described his idea of
beauty, but he drew the picture of his wife.
Queen Caroline is said to have been very handsome at her
marriage, soon after which she had the small-pox; but was little
marked by it, and retained a most pleasing countenance. It was
full of majesty or mildness as she pleased, and her penetrating
eyes expressed whatever she had a mind they should. Her voice
too was captivating, and her hands beautifully small, plump, and
graceful. Her understanding was uncommonly strong; and so was
her resolution. From their earliest connexion she had determined
to govern the King, and deserved to do so; for her submission to
his will was unbounded, her sense much superior, and his honour
and interest always took place of her own: so that her love of
power that was predominant, was dearly bought, and rarely ill
employed. She was ambitious too of fame; but, shackled by her
devotion to the King, she seldom could pursue that object. She
wished to be a patroness of learned men but George had no respect
for them or their works; and her Majesty's own taste was not very
exquisite, nor did he allow her time to cultivate any studies.
Her Generosity would have displayed itself, for she valued money
but as the instrument of her good purposes: but he stinted her
alike in almost all her passions; and though she wished for
nothing more than to be liberal, she bore the imputation of his
avarice, as she did of others of his faults. Often, when she had
made prudent and proper promises of preferment, and could not
persuade the King to comply, she suffered the breach of word to
fall on her, rather than reflect on him. Though his affection
and confidence in her were implicit, he lived in dread of being
supposed to be governed by her; and that silly parade was
extended even to the most private moments of business with my
father. Whenever he entered, the Queen rose, courtesied, and
retired or offered to retire. Sometimes the King condescended to
bid her stay-on both occasions she and Sir Robert. had previously
settled the business to be discussed. Sometimes the King would
quash the proposal in question, and yield after retalking it over
with her-but then he boasted to Sir Robert that he himself had
better considered it.
One of the Queen's delights was the improvement of the garden at
Richmond; and the King believed she paid for all with her own
money-nor would he ever look at her intended plans, saying he did
not care how she flung away her own revenue. He little suspected
the aids Sir Robert furnished to her from the treasury. When she
died, she was indebted twenty thousand pounds to the King.
Her learning I have said was superficial; her knowledge of
languages as little accurate. The King, with a bluff Westphalian
accent, spoke English correctly. The Queen's chief study was
divinity, and she had rather weakened her faith than enlightened
it. She was at least not orthodox; and her confidante, Lady
Sundon, an absurd and pompous simpleton, swayed her countenance
towards the less-believing clergy. The Queen, however, was so
sincere at her death, that when Archbishop Potter was to
administer the sacrament to her, she declined taking it, very few
persons being in the room. When the prelate retired, the
courtiers in the ante-room crowded round him, crying, "My lord,
has the queen received?" His grace artfully eluded the question,
only saying most devoutly , "Her Majesty was in a heavenly
disposition"-and the truth escaped the public.
She suffered more unjustly by declining to see her son, the
Prince of Wales, to whom she sent her blessing and forgiveness;
but conceiving the extreme distress it would lay on the King,
should he thus be forced to forgive so impenitent a son, or to
banish him again if once recalled, she heroically preferred a
meritorious husband to a worthless child.
The Queen's greatest error was too high an opinion of her own
address and art; she imagined that all who did not dare to
contradict her were imposed upon; and she had the additional
weakness of thinking that she could play off @any persons without
being discovered. That mistaken humour, and at other times her
hazarding very offensive truths, made her many enemies; and her
duplicity in fomenting jealousies between the ministers, that
each might be more dependent on herself, was no sound wisdom. It
was the Queen who blew into a flame the ill-blood between Sir
Robert Walpole and his brother-in-law, Lord Townshend. Yet
though she disliked some of the cabinet, she never let her own
prejudices disturb the King's affairs, provided the obnoxious
paid no court to the mistress. Lord Islay was the only man, who,
by managing Scotland for Sir Robert Walpole, was maintained by
him in spite of his attachment to Lady Suffolk.
The Queen's great secret was her own rupture, which, till her
last illness, nobody knew but the King, her German nurse, Mrs.
Mailborne, and one other person. To prevent all suspicion, her
Majesty would frequently stand some minutes in her shift talking
to her ladies (114) and though labouring with so dangerous a
complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a
desire of the King, that every morning at Richmond she walked
several miles with him; and more than once, when she had the gout
in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready
to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her
into such fits of perspiration as vented the gout; but those
exertions hastened the crisis of her distemper. It was great
shrewdness in Sir Robert Walpole, who, before her distemper broke
out, discovered her secret. On my mother's death, who was of the
Queen's age, her Majesty asked Sir Robert many physical
questions; but he remarked that she oftenest reverted to a
rupture, which had not been the illness of his wife. When he
came home, he said to me, "Now, Horace, I know by possession of
what secret Lady Sundon (115)has preserved such an ascendant over
the Queen." He was in the right. How Lady Sundon had wormed
herself into that mystery was never known. As Sir Robert
maintained his influence over the clergy by Gibson, Bishop of
London, he often met with troublesome obstructions from Lady
Sundon, who espoused, as I have said, the heterodox clergy; and
Sir Robert could never shake her credit.
Yet the Queen was constant in her protection of Sir Robert, and
the day before she died gave a strong mark of her conviction that
he was the firmest supporter the King had. As they two alone
were standing by the Queen's bed, she pathetically recommended,
not the minister to the sovereign, but the master to the servant.
Sir Robert was alarmed, and feared the recommendation would leave
a fatal impression; but a short time after, the King reading with
Sir Robert some intercepted letters from Germany, which said that
now the Queen was 'gone, Sir Robert would have no protection: "On
the contrary," said the King, "you know she recommended me to
you." This marked the notice he had taken of the expression; and
it was the only notice he ever took of it: nay, his Majesty's
grief was so excessive and so sincere, that his kindness to his
minister seemed to increase for the Queen's sake.
The Queen's dread of a rival was a feminine weakness; the
behaviour of her elder son was a real thorn. He early displayed
his aversion to his mother, who perhaps assumed too much at
first; yet it is certain that her good sense, and the interest of
her family, would have prevented, if possible, the mutual dislike
of the father and son, and their reciprocal contempt. As the
Opposition gave into all adulation towards the Prince, his
ill-poised head and vanity swallowed all their incense. He even
early after his arrival had listened to a high act of
disobedience. Money he soon wanted: old Sarah, Duchess of
Marlborough, (116) e ever proud and ever malignant, was persuaded
to offer her favourite Granddaughter, Lady Diana Spencer,
afterwards Duchess of Bedford, to the Prince of' Wales, with a
fortune of a hundred thousand pounds. He accepted the proposal,
and the day was fixed for their being secretly married at the
Duchess's lodge in the Great park at Windsor. Sir Robert Walpole
got intelligence of the project, prevented it, and the secret was
buried in silence.
Youth, folly, and indiscretion, the beauty of the young lady, and
a large sum of ready money, might have offered something like a
plea for so rash a marriage, had it taken place; but what could
excuse, what indeed could provoke, the senseless and barbarous
insult offered to the King and Queen, by Frederick's taking his
wife out of the palace of Hampton Court in the middle of the
night, when she was in actual labour, and carrying her, at the
imminent risk of the lives of her and the child, to the unaired
palace and bed at St. James's? Had he no way of affronting his
parents but by venturing to kill his wife and the heir of the
crown? A baby that wounds itself to vex its nurse is no more void
of reflection. The scene which commenced by unfeeling idiotism
closed with paltry hypocrisy. The Queen on the first notice of
her son's exploits, set out for St. James's to visit the Princess
by seven in the morning. The gracious Prince, so far from
attempting an apology, spoke not a word to his mother; but on her
retreat gave her his hand, led her into the street to her
coach-still dumb!-but a crowd being assembled at the gate, he
kneeled down in the dirt, and humbly kissed her Majesty's hand.
Her indignation must have shrunk into contempt.
After the death of the Queen, Lady Yarmouth (117) came over, who
had been the King's mistress at Hanover during his latter
journeys-and with the Queen's privity, for he always made her the
of his amours; which made Mrs. Selwyn once tell him, he should be
the last man with whom she would have an intrigue, for she knew
he would tell the Queen. In his letters to the latter from
Hanover, he said, "You must love the Walmoden, for she loves me."
She was created a countess, and had much weight with him; but
never employed her credit but to assist his ministers, or to
convert some honours and favours to her own advantage. She had
two sons, who both bore her husband's name; but the younger,
though never acknowledged, was supposed the King's, and
consequently did not miss additional homage from the courtiers.
That incense being one of the recommendations to the countenance
of Lady Yarmouth, drew Lord Chesterfield into a ridiculous
distress. On his being made secretary of state, be found a fair
young lad in the antechamber at St. James's, -who seeming much at
home, the earl, concluding it was the mistress's son, was profuse
of attentions to the boy, and more prodigal still of his
prodigious regard for his mamma. The shrewd boy received all his
lordship's vows with indulgence, and without betraying himself:
at last he said, "I suppose your lordship takes me for Master
Louis; but I am only Sir William Russel, one of the pages."
The King's last years passed as regularly as clockwork. At nine
at night he had cards in the apartment of his daughters, the
Princesses Amelia and Caroline, with Lady Yarmouth, two or three
of the late Queen's ladies, and as many of the most favoured
officers of his own household. Every Saturday in summer he
carried that uniform party, but without his daughters, to dine at
Richmond: they went in coaches and six in the middle of the day ,
with the heavy horse-guards kicking up the dust before
them-dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in the same
dusty parade; and his Majesty fancied himself the most gallant
and lively prince in Europe.
His last year was glorious and triumphant beyond example; and his
death was most felicitous to himself, being without a Pang,
without tasting a reverse, and when his sight and hearing were so
nearly extinguished that any prolongation could but have swelled
to calamities. (118)
(105) She is thus described in a ballad, made upon the quarrel
between George the First and the Prince of Wales, at the
christening recorded at p. 83 when the Prince and all his
household were ordered to quit St. James's:-
"But Bellenden we needs must praise,
Who, as down the stairs she jumps,
Sings over the hills and far away,
Despising doleful dumps."-E.
(106) Colonel John Campbell succeeded to the dukedom in 1761:
Mrs. Campbell died in 1736. She was the mother of the fifth Duke
of Argyle and three other sons, and of Lady Caroline, who
married, first, the Earl of Aylesbury, and, secondly, Walpole's
bosom friend, Marshal Conway.-E.
(107) "The letter which Walpole alludes to," says Mr. Croker, "is
in existence. It is not a letter from Mr. Howard to his lady,
but from the Archbishop to the Princess; and although his grace
urges a compliance with Mr. Howard's demand of the restoration of
his wife, he treats it not as a matter between them, but as an
attack on the Princess herself, whom the Archbishop considers as
the direct protectress of Mrs. Howard, and the immediate cause of
her resistance. So that in this letter at least there is no
ground for imputing to Mrs. Howard any rivalry with the Princess,
or to the Princess any malicious jealousy of Mrs. Howard." Vol.
i. p. xiv.-E.
(108) Mr. Croker asserts, that "neither in Mrs. Howard's
correspondence with the King, nor in the notes of her
conversation with the Queen, nor in any of her most confidential
papers, has he found a single trace of the feeling which Walpole
so confidently imputes." Upon this assertion, Sir Walter Scott,
in a review of the Suffolk Correspondence, pleasantly
remarks,-"We regret that the editor's researches have not enabled
him to state, whether it is true that the restive husband sold
his own noisy honour and the possession of his lady for a pension
of twelve hundred a-year. For our own parts, without believing
all Walpole's details, we substantially agree in his opinion,
that the King's friendship was by no means Platonic or refined;
but that the Queen and Mrs. Howard, by mutual forbearance, good
sense, and decency, contrived to diminish the scandal: after all,
the question has no great interest for the present generation,
since scandal is only valued when fresh, and the public have
generally enough of that poignant fare, without ripping up the
frailties of their grandmothers." Sir Walter sums up his notice
of the inaccuracies occurring in these Reminiscences, with the
following just and considerate reflection: "When it is
recollected that the noble owner of Strawberry Hill was speaking
of very remote events, which he reported on hearsay, and that
hearsay of old standing, such errors are scarcely to be wondered
at, particularly when they are found to correspond with the
partialities and prejudices of the narrator. These,
strengthening as we grow older, gradually pervert or at least
alter, the accuracy of our recollections, until they assimilate
them to our feelings, while,
"As beams of warm imagination play,
The memory's faint traces melt away.
See Prose Works, vol. xix. p. 201.-E.
(109) Pope alludes to this personal defect in his lines "On a
certain Lady at court:"
"I know a thing that's most uncommon;
(Envy be silent, and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
handsome and witty, yet a friend.
Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour;
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly--
An equal mixture of good humour
And sensible, soft melancholy.
'Has she no faults then,' (Envy says,) 'Sir?'
'Yes, she has one, I must aver;
When all the world conspires to praise her--
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.'"-E.
(110) The same thing has happened to me by books. A passage
lately read has recalled some other formerly perused; and both
together have opened to me, or cleared up some third fact, which
neither separately would have expounded.
(111) Lady Suffolk died in July, 1767.-E.
(112) Lady Suffolk was early affected with deafness. Cheselden,
the surgeon, then in favour at court, persuaded her that he had
hopes of being able to cure deafness by some operation on the
drum of the ear, and offered to try the experiment on a condemned
convict then in Newgate, who was deaf. If the man could be
pardoned, he would try it; and, if he succeeded, would practise
the same cure on her ladyship. She obtained the man's pardon,
who was cousin to Cheselden, who had feigned that pretended
discovery to save his relation-and no more was heard of the
experiment. The man saved his ear too-but Cheselden was
disgraced at court.
(113) Lady Suffolk formally retired from court in 1734, and in
the following year married the Honourable George Berkeley,
youngest son of the second Earl of Berkeley. He was Master of
St. Catherine's, in the Tower, and had served in two parliaments
as member for Dover. He died in 1746.-E.
(114) While the Queen dressed, prayers used to be read in the
outward room, where hung a naked Venus. Mrs. Selwyn,
bedchamber-woman in waiting, was one day ordered to bid the
chaplain, Dr. Maddox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, begin the
service. He said archly, "And a very proper altar-piece is here,
Madam!" Queen Anne had the same custom; and once ordering the
door to be shut while she shifted, the chaplain stopped. The
Queen sent to ask why he did not proceed. He replied, "he would
not whistle the word of God through the keyhole."
(115) Mrs. Clayton, wife of Robert Clayton, Esq. of the Treasury,
bedchamber-woman to the Queen. This lady, who had the art to
procure her husband to be created Lord Sundon, possessed over her
royal mistress an influence of which even Sir Robert Walpole was
jealous.-E.
(116) That woman, who had risen to greatness and independent
wealth by the weakness of another Queen, forgot, like Duc
d'Epernon, her own unmerited exultation, and affected to brave
successive courts, though sprung from the dregs of one. When the
Prince of Orange came over to marry the Princess Royal, Anne, a
boarded gallery with a penthouse roof was erected for the
procession from the windows of the great drawing-room at St.
James's cross the garden to the Lutheran chapel in the friary.
The Prince being indisposed, and going to Bath, the marriage was
deferred for some weeks, and the boarded gallery remained,
darkening the windows of Marlborough House. The Duchess cried,
"I wonder when my neighbour George will take away his
orange-chest!"--which it did resemble. She did not want that
sort of wit,* which ill-temper, long knowledge of the world, and
insolence can sharpen-and envying the favour which she no longer
possessed, Sir R. Walpole was often the object of her satire.
Yet her great friend, Lord Godolphin, the treasurer, had enjoined
her to preserve very different sentiments. The Duchess and my
father and mother were standing by the Earl's bed at St. Albans
as he was dying. Taking Sir Robert by the hand, Lord Godolphin
turned to the Duchess, and said, "Madam, should 'you ever desert
this young man, and there should be a possibility of returning
from the grave, I shall certainly appear to you." Her grace did
not believe in spirits.
* Baron Gleicken, minister from Denmark to France, being at Paris
soon after the King his master had been there, and a French lady
being so ill-bred as to begin censuring the King to him, saying,
"Ah! Monsieur, c'est une t`ete!"-"Couronn`ee," replied he
instantly, stopping her by so gentle a hint.
(117) Amelia Sophia, wife of the Baron de Walmoden, Created
Countess of Yarmouth in 1739.
(118) For an interesting account of the death of George the
Second, on the 24th of October, 1760, and also of his funeral in
Westminster Abbey, see Walpole's letters to Mr. Montagu on the
25th of that month, and of the 13th of November.-E.