at this critical juncture two new and potent allies. Dressed in
garter-blue and buff, in compliment to Fox and his principles, forth
came the young Duchess of Devonshire and her sister, now Lady Duncannon,
and solicited votes for their candidate. The mob were gratified by the
aspect of so much rank, so great beauty, cringing for their support.
Never, it was said, had two "such lovely portraits appeared before on
a canvas."
It required, indeed, no ordinary courage to undertake collecting votes,
for a strong disposition to rioting now manifested itself. Nevertheless,
being provided with lists of the outlying voters, these two young women
drove to their dwellings. In their enterprise they had to face butchers,
tailors, every craft, low or high, and to pass through the lowest, the
dirtiest, and the most degraded parts of London. But Fox was a hundred
votes below Wray, and his fair friends were indefatigable; they forgot
their dignity, their womanhood, and "party" was their watchword. They
were opposed by the Marchioness of Salisbury, whom the Tories brought
forward. She was beautiful, but haughty; and her age, for she was
thirty-four, whereas the Duchess of Devonshire was only twenty-six,
deteriorated from the effect of her appearance.
Forgetting her rank, which Lady Salisbury always remembered, and
throwing all her powers of fascination into the scale, the young duchess
alighted during one of her canvassing days at a butcher's shop. The
owner, in his apron and sleeves, stoutly refused his vote, except on one
condition,--"Would her Grace give him a kiss?" The request was granted.
This was one of the votes which swelled the number of two hundred and
thirty-five above Sir Cecil Wray, and Fox stood second on the poll. Of
course much stupid poetry was written on the occasion.
"Condemn not, prudes, fair Devon's plan,
In giving _Steel_ a kiss
In such a cause, for such a man,
She could not do amiss."
Even the Prince of Wales took an active interest in this memorable
election; and George III. is said to have also interfered. Never was
political rancour so high, nor conscience so low, as at that period. The
hustings resembled the stand at Newmarket. "An even bet that he comes in
second," cried one; "five to four on this day's poll," screamed another.
Amid all these shouts, gazed at by the lowest of all human beings, the
low not only in rank but in feeling, the drunken, paid-for voters, stood
the duchess and a band of fair titled friends supporting Fox, who was
called the "Man of the People."
It was the 17th of May when Fox, over whose head a scrutiny hung on the
part of Sir Cecil Wray, and who was not thought even then returned as
member, was chaired. This procession took place as the poll closed. Fox
was carried through the streets on a chair decorated with laurel, the
ladies in blue and buff forming part of the _cortege_. Before him was
displayed the prince's plume: those three ostrich feathers, the sight of
which might bring back to our minds the field of Cressy, where they were
won, and henceforth worn for four successive centuries. A flag, on which
was inscribed, "Sacred to Female Patriotism," was waved by a horseman in
the triumphant cavalcade. The carriages of the Duke of Devonshire and
the Duke of Portland attracted even less attention than that of Fox, on
the box of which were Colonel North and other friends, partisans of Lord
North's, who now mingled with their former opponents. As the procession
turned into Pall Mall, it was observed that the gates of Carlton House
were open; it passed in, therefore, and saluted, in veering round, the
Prince of Wales, who, with a number of ladies and gentlemen, stood in
the balustrade in front. Fox then addressed the crowd, and attempted to
disperse them; but at night the mob broke out into acts of fury,
illuminated and attacked those houses which were in sullen darkness.
The next day the prince invited all the rank, beauty, and fashion of the
coalition party to a fête on his lawn. It wad a bright day that 18th of
May; and under the delicious shade of the trees the young and gay
forgot, perhaps, in the enchantments of the scene, politics and
elections. Lord North, dressed in blue and buff,--his new
livery,--strutted about amid those who only fifteen months before had
execrated and denounced him, until, by the coalition with Fox, he had
made himself their idol. Every one, on this occasion, crowded around the
minister, whose wit was as inexhaustible as his _sang-froid_, and whose
conversation in its playfulness resembled that of our great premier of
1859. Blue and buff pervaded the garden. Colonel North (afterward Lord
Guildford) and George Byng, hitherto bitter enemies, were seen, dressed
alike, walking together familiarly. The prince was irresistibly
fascinating, and nothing could be more splendid than the fête given by
royalty overwhelmed by debt.
As the party were thus enjoying themselves, by a strange coincidence,
the famous cream-coloured horses of George III. were beheld proceeding
in solemn state down St. James's Park. His Majesty was going to
Westminster to open Parliament. Nothing but a low wall separated Canton
Gardens from the park, so that the king could not forbear seeing his
former minister, his son, and the successful candidate disporting
themselves in all the elation of success.
In the evening Lower Grosvenor Street was blocked up with carriages, out
of which gentlemen and ladies, all in blue and buff, descended to visit
the famous Mrs. Crewe, whose husband, then member for Chester, was
created, in 1806, Lord Crewe. This lady was as remarkable for her
accomplishments and her worth as for her beauty; nevertheless, she
permitted the admiration of Fox, who was in the rank of her admirers.
The lines he wrote on her were not exaggerated. They began thus:
"Where the loveliest expression to features is joined,
By Nature's most delicate pencil design'd;
Where blushes unbidden, and smiles without art,
Speak the softness and feeling that dwell in the heart;
Where in manners enchanting, no blemish we trace,
But the soul keeps the promise we had from the face;
Sure philosophy, reason, and coldness must prove
Defences unequal to shield us from love."
Nearly eight years after the famous election at Westminster, Mrs. Crewe
was still in perfection, with a son of one and twenty, who looked like
her brother. The form of her face was exquisitely lovely, her complexion
radiant. "I know not," Miss Burney writes, "any female in her first
youth who could bear the comparison. She uglifies every one near her."
This charming partisan of Fox had been active in his cause; and her
originality of character, her good humour, her recklessness of
consequences, made her a capital canvasser.
The same company that had assembled in the morning at Carlton House now
crowded into Grosvenor Street. Blue and buff were the order of the
evening, the Prince of Wales wearing those colours. After supper he gave
a toast,--"True blue and Mrs. Crewe." The room rang with applause. The
hostess rose to return thanks. "True blue, and all of you," was her
toast. Nor did the festivities end here. Canton House some days
afterward received all the great world, the "true blues" of London. The
fête, which was of the most varied kind, and of the most magnificent
description, began at noon, went on all night, and was not ended till
the next day. Nothing could exceed its splendour. A costly banquet was
prepared for the ladies, on whom his Royal Highness and the gentlemen
waited whilst they were seated at table. Nothing could exceed the grace,
the courtesy, the tact of the prince on these occasions, when he forgot
his two hundred thousand pounds of debt, and added to them. Louis XIV.,
said an eye-witness, could not have eclipsed him. This was probably the
brightest era in the life of the Duchess of Devonshire. She was the lady
paramount of the aristocratic Whig circles, in which rank and literature
were blended with political characters. Slander soon coupled her name
with that of Fox; and that name, though never wholly blighted, was
sullied. Miss Burney, meeting her at Bath, some years afterward,
describes her as no longer beautiful, but with manners exquisitely
polite, and "with a gentle quiet" of demeanour. Yet there was an
expression of melancholy. "I thought she looked oppressed within," was
Miss Burney's remark. On another occasion she found her more lively, and
consequently more lovely, vivacity being so much her characteristic that
her style of beauty required it. "She was quite gay, easy, and charming;
indeed, that last word might have been coined for her;" and Miss Burney
soon perceived that it was the sweetness of her smile, her open,
ingenuous countenance, that had won her the celebrity which had attended
her career of fashion.
But even then there was a canker in the duchess's felicity. Lady
Elizabeth Foster, the daughter of the Earl of Bristol, and a contrast to
her in person,--large, dark, and handsome,--had attracted the duke, her
husband, and the coldest of men had become, deeply enamoured of this
woman, whom he eventually married. Gibbon said of Lady Elizabeth that
she was the most alluring of women. Strange to say, a sort of friendship
existed between the duchess and Lady Elizabeth, who was with her at
Bath, when Miss Burney saw them together. Even then a cloud hung
over--these two ladies of rank; and Mrs. Ord, Miss Gurney's cautious
friend, reproved her for making their acquaintance.
Three children of rare promise were given to occupy the affections which
were so little reciprocated by the duke. The elder of the three,
Georgiana Dorothy, afterward married to the Earl of Carlisle, and the
mother of the present Duchess of Sutherland, is described by Miss
Gurney, at eight years of age, as having a fine, sweet, and handsome
countenance, and with the form and figure of a girl of twelve. She, as
well as her sister, was at that time under the care of Miss Trimmer, the
daughter of Mrs. Trimmer, one of the most admirable writers for children
that has ever delighted our infancy. Miss Trimmer is described as a
"pleasing, not pretty" young lady, with great serenity of manner.
Lady Henrietta Elizabeth, married to the Earl of Granville, so long
ambassador at Paris, was, at six years of age, by "no means handsome,
but had an open and pleasing countenance, and a Look of the most happy
disposition;" a tribute borne out by the many virtues of that admirable
lady in after life. The Marquis of Hartington, afterward Duke of
Devonshire, then only fourteen months old (this was in 1791), had
already a house, and a carriage to himself, almost in the style of
royalty. He lived near his father, whilst the duchess was staying with
her mother, Lady Spencer. To persons of domestic notions this seems a
singular arrangement.
This apparently happy family party had, however, some trials to obscure
their supposed felicity. Scandal not only pointed at Lady Elizabeth
Foster as possessing an undue influence over the duke, but attacked the
duchess in the most sacred relations of her life. The little marquis was
reputed to be illegitimate; the report assumed several shapes; of course
rancorous political partisans pointed to the intimacy with Fox; others
to the intimacy at Carlton House. Another story also obtained credit,
and never died away. This was that at the time when the duchess was
confined, Lady Elizabeth gave birth to a son, the duchess to a daughter,
and that the children were changed; that the late duke entered into a
contract with his uncle, the late Lord George Cavendish, never to marry,
in order that his lordship's children might have an undisputed
succession at his Grace's death.
There was another source of disquiet to Lady Spencer and the duchess at
this time, in the deep depression of Lady Duncannon. This lady, the
mother of Lady Caroline Lamb, so conspicuous for her eccentricity in our
own time, seems to have been affectionately beloved by her brother, the
Lord Spencer, the grandfather of the present earl. "He made up to her,"
says Miss Burney, "with every mark of pitying affection, she receiving
him with the most expressive pleasure, though nearly silent." This
afflicted woman lived, nevertheless, to a great age, and survived her
gay, spirited sister, the Duchess of Devonshire.
Lady Spencer belonged to that class whom we now call evangelical; a
class earnest in feeling, originating in a sincere desire to renovate
the almost dead faith of the period; to set an example of piety and
decorum; and also "to let their light shine before men." Miss Burney
describes her as too desirous of a reputation for charity and devotion.
Nevertheless, Lady Spencer could not detach her daughter from the
gay world.
The duchess continued to take an active part in politics, and to mingle
with the tumult of elections, faro, and party triumphs, Love, poetry,
end the fine arts. Her son was born in the dawn of that Revolution in
France which shook the foundations of all social life. At this very
period a serious calamity befell their country in the first fit of
insanity that attacked George III. Up to the very time when France was
plunged into commotion, his Majesty, apparently in perfect health, had
held his weekly levees at St. James's until the last week of October,
1788. Early in November the first paroxysms of his disordered intellect
occurred at the Queen's Lodge, after dinner, her Majesty and the
princesses being present. The gates of the Lodge were closed that night;
no answers were given to persons making inquiries; and it was rumoured
that his Majesty was dead.
The state of the public mind may readily be conceived. The capital
exhibited a scene of confusion and excitement only exceeded by that
displayed four years afterward, when the decapitation of Louis XVI. was
announced in London.
A regency was proposed; and six physicians were called in to act in
consultation. Doctor Warren was considered to hold the first place in
this learned junto. Doctor Addington, the father of the late Lord
Sidmouth, Sir Lucas Pepys, and Doctor Willis were amongst the rest.
Warren was disposed to Whiggism, and thought the king's recovery
doubtful. Willis was a Tory, and pronounced it possible, and indeed
probable. His dictum was believed at St. James's and at Kew Palace;
Warren was credited at Carlton House and Devonshire House. If the first
was the oracle of White's, the second was trusted at Brookes's. The
famous Duchess of Gordon, the partisan of Pitt and Dundas, supported
Willis and his views, and was the whipper-in of the Tory party. The
Duchess of Devonshire was the firm and powerful supporter of the prince,
in his claims to the regency. The Tories were for the power not only
over the royal household, but over the council, being vested in Queen
Charlotte. A caricature was circulated representing the Lord Chancellor,
Pitt, and Dundas, as the three "weird sisters" gazing at the full moon.
Her orb was half enlightened, half eclipsed. The part in darkness
contained the king's profile; on the other side was a head, resplendent
in light, graciously gazing at the weird sisters; that was the queen. In
the February of the ensuing year, nevertheless, to the great joy of the
nation, the king showed signs of amendment. One day, Mr. Greville,
brother to the Earl of Warwick, was standing near the king's bed, and
relating to Doctor Willis that Lord North had made inquiries after the
king's health. "Has he?" said the king. "Where did he make them, at St.
James's, or here?" An answer being given, "Lord North," said his
Majesty, "is a good man, unlike the others. He is a good man." The party
at Carlton House, amongst whom the Duchess of Devonshire must ever be
ranked, were disappointed at this timely recovery, whilst the
honest-hearted middle and lower classes of England were unfeignedly
rejoiced; but there was too much party rancour existing for any better
spirit to arise and show itself. Even in society, the venom of party was
suffered to intrude. Lord Mountnorris, being one evening at a ball given
by the French ambassador, canvassed the whole room for a partner, but in
vain. He begged Miss Vernon to interfere, and to procure him a partner
for a country dance. She complied, and presented him to a very elegant
young lady, with whom his lordship danced, and conversed some time. Soon
afterward a gentleman said to him, "Pray, my lord, do you know with whom
you have been dancing?" "No," he replied; "pray who is she?"
"Coalitions," said the gentleman, "will never end; why, it is Miss Fox,
the niece of Charles, and sister of Lord Holland." The noble lord was
thunderstruck. Had Pitt seen him? If so, he was undone. He ran up to
reproach Miss Vernon. "True," was the reply; "she is the niece of Fox,
but since she has twenty thousand pounds to her fortune, I thought I had
not acted improperly in introducing you."
In the famous quarrel between Burke and Fox, the Duchess of Devonshire
took the office of mediator. Burke thus attacked Fox in the House
of Commons.
"Mr. Fox," he said, "has treated me with harshness and malignity. After
harassing with his light troops in the skirmishes of 'order,' he has
brought the heavy artillery of his own great abilities to bear on me.
There have," he added, "been many differences between Mr. Fox and
myself, but there has been no loss of friendship between us. There is
something in this cursed French constitution which envenoms everything."
Fox whispered, "There is no loss of friendship between us." Burke
replied, "There is. I know the price of my conduct: our friendship is
at an end."
Fox was overwhelmed with grief at these words. He rose to reply, but his
feelings deprived him of utterance. Relieved by a burst of tears, whilst
a deep silence pervaded the house, he at last spoke.
"However events," he said, in deep emotion, "may have altered the mind
of my honourable friend,--for so I must still call him,--I cannot so
easily consent to relinquish and dissolve that intimate connection which
has for twenty-five years subsisted between us. I hope that Mr. Burke
will think on past times, and whatever conduct of mine has caused the
offence, he will at least believe that I did not intend to offend." But
the quarrel was never reconciled, notwithstanding the good offices of
the Duchess of Devonshire, the friend of both parties.
Soon after the commencement of the eighteenth century, this party spirit
was, as it were, rebuked, first by the death of Pitt, and afterward by
that of Fox, who was long in a declining state. When he heard that Pitt
had expired, he said, "Pitt has died in January, perhaps I may go off in
June. I feel my constitution dissolving." When asked by a friend, during
the month of August, to make one of a party in the country at Christmas,
he declined.
"It will be a new scene," said his friend. "I shall indeed be in a new
scene by Christmas next," Mr. Fox replied. On that occasion he expressed
his belief in the immortality of the soul; "but how," he added, "it acts
as separated from the body, is beyond my capacity of judgment." Mr. Fox
took his hand and wept. "I am happy," he added, "full of confidence; I
may say of certainty."
One of his greatest desires was to be removed to St. Ann's Hill, near
Chertsey, the scene of his later, his reformed, his happier life. His
physicians hesitated, and recommended his being carried first to the
Duke of Devonshire's house at Chiswick. Here, for a time, he seemed to
recover health and spirits. Mrs. Fox, Lady Holland, his niece, and Lady
Elizabeth Foster were around his death-bed. Many times did he take leave
of those dearest to him; many times did death hover over him; yet we
find no record that the Duchess of Devonshire was amongst those who
received his last sigh. His last words to Mrs. Fox and Lord Holland
were, "God bless you, bless you, and you all! I die happy--I pity you!"
"Oh! my country!" were Pitt's last words; those of Fox were equally
characteristic. His nature was tender and sympathetic, and had he lived
in other times he would have been probably as good as he was great.
His remains were removed from Chiswick to his own apartments in St.
James's, and conveyed under a splendid canopy to Westminster Abbey. As
the gorgeous procession passed Carlton House, a band of music,
consisting of thirty, played the "Dead March in Saul." The Prince of
Wales had wished to follow his friend on foot to the grave, but such a
tribute was forbidden by etiquette.
It is to be regretted that princes must be exempted from so many of the
scenes in this sublunary life calculated to touch the heart, to chasten
and elevate the spirit. As the funeral entered the abbey, and those
solemn words, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," were chanted, the
deepest emotion affected those who had known and loved him whose pall
they bore.
Among other tributes to the memory of Fox were the following lines from
the pen of the Duchess of Devonshire. The visitor to Woburn Abbey will
find them underneath the bust of the great statesman in a temple
dedicated to Liberty by the late Duke of Bedford.
"Here, near the friends he lov'd, the man behold,
In truth unshaken, and in virtue bold,
Whose patriot zeal and uncorrupted mind
Dared to assert the freedom of mankind;
And, whilst extending desolation far,
Ambition spread the hateful flames of war
Fearless of blame, and eloquent to save,
'Twas he--'twas Fox--the warning counsel gave,
Midst jarring conflicts stemm'd the tide of blood,
And to the menac'd world a sea-mark stood!
Oh! had his voice in mercy's cause prevailed,
What grateful millions had the statesman hail'd:
Whose wisdom made the broils of nations cease,
And taught the world humanity and peace!
But, though he fail'd, succeeding ages here
The vain, yet pious efforts shall revere;
Boast in their annals his illustrious name,
Uphold his greatness, and confirm his fame."
The duchess only survived Fox a year; she died in 1806, beloved,
charitable, penitent. Her disease was an abscess of the liver, which was
detected rather suddenly, and which proved fatal some months after it
was first suspected. When the Prince of Wales heard of her death, he
remarked: "Then the best-natured and best-bred woman in England is
gone." Her remains were conveyed to the family vault of the Cavendish
family in All Saints' Church, Derby; and over that sepulchre one fond
heart, at all events, sorrowed. Her sister, Lady Duncannon, though far
inferior to the duchess in elegance both of mind and person, had the
same warm heart and strong affection for her family. During the month of
July, 1811, a short time before the death of the Duke of Devonshire (the
husband of the duchess), Sir Nathaniel Wraxall visited the vault of All
Saints' Church. As he stood admiring the coffin in which the remains of
the once lovely Georgiana lay mouldering, the woman who had accompanied
him showed him the shreds of a bouquet which lay on the coffin. Like the
mortal coil of that frame within, the bouquet was now reduced almost to
dust. "That nosegay," said the woman, "was brought here by the Countess
of Besborough, who had intended to place it herself upon the coffin of
her sister; but as she approached the steps of the vault, her agony
became too great to permit her to proceed. She knelt down on the stones
of the church, as nearly over the place where the coffin stood in the
vault below as I could direct, and there deposited the flowers,
enjoining me to perform an office to which she was unequal. I fulfilled
her wishes."
By others the poor duchess was not so faithfully remembered. Her friend
Lady Elizabeth Foster had long since become her rival, yet one common
secret, it was believed, kept them from a rupture. Both had, it was
understood, much to conceal. The story of the late Duke of Devonshire's
supposed birth has been referred to: he is supposed to have been the son
of the duke, but not of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, but of her who
afterward bore that title, Lady Elizabeth Foster. The inflexible
determination of the late duke to remain single, according, it is said,
to an agreement between him and his uncle, then Lord George Cavendish,
always seemed to imply, in a man of such pure and domestic tastes, so
affectionate a disposition, and so princely a fortune, some dire
impediment.