Anecdotes of the Duchess of Marlborough and the Duchess of
Buckingham—Pope’s “Atossa”—Sir Robert Walpole—The Duchess’s enmity
towards that minister—Singular scene between them—The Duchess’s
causes of complaint enumerated.
Extraordinary as the displays of violent passion in the Duchess of
Marlborough may appear in modern days, when every exhibition of natural
feeling, whether good or bad, is carefully suppressed by the customs of
society, there were not wanting, in her own sphere, ladies of high rank,
equally arrogant though less gifted, between whom common report
hesitated on which to bestow the distinction of being the most absurd,
outrageous, and repulsive.
Among those ladies who, in the reigns of George the First and George the
Second, formed a link with the times of the Stuarts, was the Duchess of
Buckingham, natural daughter of James the Second by Catherine Sedley,
Countess of Dorchester—a parentage of which the Duchess was shamelessly
proud. Possessing the arrogance of her contemporary Duchess, without her
masculine sense, and exhibiting equally a love of display, pertinacity,
and violence of temper, the Duchess of Buckingham laboured with
unceasing pains to procure the restoration of her half-brother, the
Pretender. She frequently travelled to the Continent in hopes of
furthering that end; she stopped ever with filial devotion at the tomb
of James, shedding tears over the threadbare pall which covered his
remains; but her filial duty extended not to replace it by a newer and
more sumptuous decoration.
These two Duchesses both possessed, from the same cause, some influence
in the sphere of politics. Around them gathered the malcontents of the
two parties: both were in enmity to the court—both detested Sir Robert
Walpole. Tories and Jacobites thronged the saloons of the Duchess of
Buckingham; the malcontent Whigs, those of Marlborough-house. The
anecdotes related by Horace Walpole must always be adopted with much
caution. He states that the Duchess of Buckingham, passionately attached
to shows and pageants, made a funeral for her husband as splendid as
that of Marlborough. She wished afterwards to borrow for the procession
at her son’s interment the car which conveyed the remains of Marlborough
to the tomb. “It carried my Lord Marlborough,” was the Duchess of
Marlborough’s angry reply, “and it shall never carry any other.” “I have
consulted the undertaker,” retorted the Duchess of Buckingham, “and he
tells me I may have the same for twenty pounds.” The same authority
informs us, that when the illegitimate daughter of James the Second
received Lord Hervey as a suitor to her granddaughter, she appointed the
day of her royal grandfather’s martyrdom for the first interview, and
appeared, when he entered, seated in a chair of state, of deep mourning,
in weeds and weepers, with her attendants in similar suits.[317]
Her rival Duchess, Sarah of Marlborough, suffered from the satirical
castigation of Pope, in one of those epistles which Bolingbroke
pronounced to be his best.[318] The famous and certainly in their way
unequalled lines on Atossa were shown to the Duchess of Marlborough, as
if they were designed for her grace of Buckingham. But the shrewd Sarah
knew the faithful, though highly-coloured portrait. She checked the
person who was reading to her, and called out aloud, “I see what you
mean; I cannot be so imposed upon.” She abused Pope violently, but was
afterwards reconciled to the great satirist, and is said to have given
him a thousand pounds to suppress the character.[319] Such is the
statement; but it would have been more like the Duchess to have braved
the world, and to have permitted the inimitable satire to see the light.
She could scarcely be rendered more unpopular than she had hitherto
been.
The death of George the First produced no change in the station held as
first Lord of the Treasury by Sir Robert Walpole; a minister who seems
to have been, as a man, peculiarly obnoxious to the Duchess of
Marlborough, and with whom she was, at various periods of her life, at
variance.
Since the death of Lord Sunderland, Sir Robert Walpole had been making
rapid advances to the office of prime minister. He resumed that office,
on the accession of George the Second, with an accumulated national debt
amounting to fifty millions.[320] Although coinciding with Sir Robert in
what she termed her Whig principles, the Duchess could never assimilate
with a character so unlike the statesmen whom she had known and revered;
so opposite in his nature to the disinterested Godolphin, whom she had
seen placed upon a similar eminence, and whose fidelity and honour she
constantly extols. Even the popular qualities of this noted minister
were repulsive to her aristocratic notions; and with the Duchess
prejudice was ever more powerful than reason. Sir Robert was, in her
estimation, one of “the worst bred men she ever saw;” and coarse as the
Duchess has been represented, no one had more insight into character,
nor had greater experience of those manners which charm the fancy and
elevate the tone of social life. Sir Robert Walpole’s most popular
qualities were beneath her praise. His good-nature she might admire, but
it was accompanied by freedom of manners, vulgarity of language, and
profligacy in conduct. The dignity of station was never understood by
him. He had neither elevation of mind to compass great designs, nor
depravity to conceive schemes of wickedness. Yet he injured virtue
daily, by ridiculing that nice sense of her perfection which we call
honour. “When he found,” says Lord Chesterfield, “anybody proof against
pecuniary temptations—which was, alas! but seldom—he laughed at and
ridiculed all notions of public virtue, and the love of one’s country,
calling them the chimerical schoolboy flights of classical learning,
declaring himself, at the same time, no saint, no Spartan, no
reformer.”[321] His demeanour thoroughly corresponded with these
professions. Of very moderate acquirements, he entertained no value for
the higher branches of literature, a knowledge of which might have
redeemed his common-place mind from vulgarity. Higher tastes might have
rendered that flattery revolting, in which he found such delight, that
no society in which it was enjoyed could be too low, no characters too
reprobate for this minister’s familiar intercourse, whilst they
administered to his vanity. With assumed openness of manners, he kept,
nevertheless, a careful guard over his real sentiments, whilst he
possessed, beyond every other man, the art of diving into those of
others. He lowered the attributes of ministerial power, by converting
the degeneracy of the times to his own advantage, by his connexion with
the monied interests and with stock-jobbing, the only science to which
he seems to have applied his mind. His corrupt administration must ever
be remembered with disgust by those who wish to see the national
character continue on the high footing which it has generally, with some
melancholy interruptions, preserved.[322]
The Duchess of Marlborough, be it however remembered, could endure the
freedom and ill-breeding of Sir Robert Walpole until personal wrongs
roused her resentments. Sir Robert owed to her, if we may believe her
uncontradicted statement, the appointment of treasurer to the navy,
which she procured for him, not much to her credit, since he had at that
time been expelled the House of Commons for peculation.[323] She
prevailed with difficulty in his behalf, and received acknowledgments
from Sir Robert for this service. “Notwithstanding which,” she adds, “at
the beginning of his great power with the present family, he used me
with all the insolence and folly upon every occasion, as he has treated
several, since he has acted as if he were king, which it would be
tedious to relate.”[324]
The “folly” of which the Duchess complains might be a trait of Walpole’s
habitual manners; from the “insolence” which she attributes to him he
was generally free, except when irritated beyond endurance in the House
of Commons. No man was more liked and less respected. His disposition
was not vindictive. His raillery proceeded from a kindly temper, of
which refinement formed no feature. His conduct in the domestic
relations of life has been greatly extolled, but surely by those who
have forgotten his licentiousness of character, which tainted his
conjugal life, and the impure example which he gave to his children.
It was about a year before the death of George the First that the
Duchess and Sir Robert Walpole came to an open rupture. Her influence,
and the obligations which he had acknowledged to her grace, had hitherto
delayed the hostilities which now commenced.
The Duchess, it appears from the Private Correspondence lately
published, had lent the government a very considerable sum of money for
several years, on which account Sir Robert Walpole was particularly
desirous, as he told her grace’s friend, Dr. Hare, to serve and oblige
the Duchess.[325] Upon this, and other matters, a variance having arisen
between the Duchess and Sir Robert, Dr. Hare, afterwards Bishop of
Chichester, who appears to have been really attached to the Duchess, and
to have had more influence over her than any one else, perceiving a
great degree of bitterness and resentment to have been excited in her
grace’s mind, addressed her by letter on the subject. This excellent man
availed himself of the best privilege of friendship, that of speaking
the truth. He did not disguise from her grace that he perceived and
lamented the violence of her passions; but he began his mild and just
remonstrances by an appeal to her best feelings. “I hope and believe,
madam, that I need not tell your grace that I have the most affectionate
esteem for you, and not only esteem, but really admire you for your fine
understanding and good sense, and for the just and noble sentiments
which you express on all occasions in the best language, and in the most
agreeable manner, so that one cannot hear you without the greatest
pleasure; but the more I esteem and admire what is excellent in your
grace, the more concerned am I to see any blemishes in so great a
character.”
Dr. Hare understood well the person to whom he addressed his well-meant
remarks. “Ill-grounded suspicions,” he observes, “violent passions, and
a boundless liberty of expressing resentments without distinction from
the prince downwards, and that in the most public manner, and before
servants, are certainly blemishes, and not only so, but attended with
great inconveniences; they lessen exceedingly the influence and
interests persons of your grace’s fortune and endowments would otherwise
have, and unavoidably create enemies.”[326]
The Duchess’s reply to this admirable advice was worthy of a disposition
candid and upright beyond dispute. Far from resenting Dr. Hare’s good
counsels, she declared herself of Montaigne’s opinion, that a greater
proof of friendship could not be given than in venturing to disoblige a
friend in order to serve him. She entreated Dr. Hare to believe that she
regarded him the more for his sincerity. “I beg of you,” she added, in
her own natural way, “never to have the least scruple in telling me
anything you think, for I am not so partial to myself as not to know
that I have many imperfections, but a great fault I never will have,
that I know to be one.” Having thus premised, she proceeded to explain
how affairs stood between herself and Sir Robert Walpole, and to justify
herself in Dr. Hare’s opinion.
The Duchess had not, as she declared, sought an interview with Sir
Robert, but Sir Robert had sent to speak to her. She found it was the
old subject, the trust-money, and she listened to him patiently. Sir
Robert wanted to borrow two hundred thousand pounds, which he owned
would be of great service to him. But when he pretended that he
requested this loan from the Duchess and her family in preference to
others, for their advantage, the high-spirited lady was not to be
deceived. Her anger rose at the attempt to delude her. Lord Godolphin,
her son-in-law, had lost by lending to Sir Robert at such low interest,
and the Duchess was aware, how “impossible it was for Sir Robert to have
the appearance of sinking the public debt, if she had not consented to
lend him the trust-money.”[327]
It is scarcely necessary to recal to the reader’s recollection, that
before this period the formation of the sinking fund had taken place;
and, as of this treasure the nation was to be relieved from the national
debt, members of both houses were solicitous individually to raise large
sums upon the people, not only on account of the credit they acquired by
aiding a scheme then popular, but also because they exacted from
government a large share of the dividend.[328]
The Duchess despised and distrusted Sir Robert Walpole; and his anxiety
to obtain the sum, and his duplicity in pretending that it was for the
advantage of those for whom the Duchess held the money in trust that his
disinterested advice proceeded, irritated his shrewd, and irritable, and
experienced listener; and after much formality and great coldness, a
warm explanation between Sir Robert and the Duchess took place. The
interview might have ended with the ceremony in which it began, but for
one expression of the minister, namely, “that he should be always ready
to serve her.” This was the first time, since he had been a great man,
that Sir Robert had offended the Duchess by such condescension, and it
produced, what possibly he desired, a scornful enumeration of all the
favours which the Duchess had ever required from him, and of the manner
in which those demands had been received. Sir Robert laughed—laughed
either with anger or contempt, the Duchess knew not which; but she knew
that his laugh was expressive of one or other of those passions.
However, he would not allow that her grace had anything to complain of;
and said that she had enumerated trifles, and provoked, of course, a
burst of invective. “Great men,” retorted the Duchess, “seldom heard the
truth, because those who spoke to them generally wanted their favour;
and when anybody told them the truth, they always thought that person
mad. Whenever,” added the Duchess, “Sir Robert should wish to hear the
truth, she should be happy to see him again; that she had now vented her
anger, and she could talk to him easily on other subjects.” Sir Robert
proved to be patience itself; he had a little more discourse with his
fiery friend; they parted civilly, and she lent him the money he
desired, not so much in accordance with her own opinion, but in
compliance with the desire of her grandson, Lord Godolphin, for whom she
held it in trust, as the future Duke of Marlborough, and who
particularly wished that it should be so applied.
Eventually the Duchess extremely regretted that she had been enticed
into this compliance; and felt, perhaps, as enraged that Sir Robert had
outwitted her, as she was vexed that her heir should lose, as he
actually did, by so appropriating the sum; for Sir Robert, far from
being grateful to the Duchess, gave Lord Godolphin a lower interest than
he had done before, and saved the public money for once at the expense
of a friend. With the ready wit of an unprincipled man, he played the
Bank off against Godolphin, and Godolphin against the Bank. When his
lordship demurred, and stipulated, through his grandmother, it may be
presumed, for a larger interest, Sir Robert told him, if he hesitated,
he could have the money from the Bank. When the governors of the Bank of
England (established 1693) held back from granting the loan, demanding a
higher rate of interest, the minister assured them he could have the
money from Lord Godolphin.[329] Certainly one cannot pity the Duchess,
nor any individual who, comprehending, as she undoubtedly did, the
character of the minister with whom she dealt, could have any
transactions with such a man. We must compassionate a dupe; but that
title cannot be applied to one equally wary with the ensnarer, and
conscious that he with whom she negociated possessed not one honourable
sentiment, nor was capable of a single hour of remorse.
The “trifles” of which the Duchess also complained to Sir Robert, were
trifles indeed; but they were such affairs as generally move the minds
of women in no ordinary degree. It is observed, that women are much more
tenacious of their rights than men; those who have fortunes, generally
take better care of it than men, under the same circumstances, would
employ. It is seldom that, amid the changes and chances of the world,
one hears of a single lady of good fortune being ruined by her own
extravagance; and it is remarkable that widows, from the habit of
self-dependence, often become more careful after the decease of their
husbands, than before they were left to move alone in society. Hence the
opinion given by Dr. Johnson, that women of fortune, being accustomed to
the management of money, are usually more exact, even to penuriousness,
than those whose means are either very moderate, or who have no means at
all to depend upon.
The Duchess of Marlborough defended her rights, and guarded her
possessions, with the undaunted demeanour of an imperious, managing,
clever woman. She generally had reason, and sometimes law, on her side.
Litigation was not disagreeable to her.
One of the complaints which she addressed to Sir Robert was, that an
attempt was made to compel her to pay taxes upon her house in Windsor
Park, and that the officers were perpetually threatening to seize her
goods, which she believed could not be done, as the lodge stood in the
old park. Sir Robert had suggested her applying to the Treasury to be
repaid such charges, and had complained of her not submitting to do
business in the usual mode. But the Duchess resisted, and gained her
point. “I make,” she writes to Dr. Hare, “no advantage of the park, but
to eat sometimes a few little Welsh runts, and I have no more cows than
I allow the under-keepers, which are to each six, but I have laid out a
good deal of money, which is called being a great tenant, and I never
was so mean as to bring any bills, like _other_ great _men_ on such
occasions, for what I did for my own satisfaction.”[330] Subsequently
the matter was settled by a proposal of her grace, which was accepted;
this was, “that she should deposit such a sum of money as should be
thought reasonable, in proper hands, for the benefit of the poor of the
parish,” and so be exempted from all further claims for taxes.[331]
The more important of the “trifles” with which Sir Robert taunted the
Duchess, is yet to be described. The Duchess of Buckingham, or, as the
Duchess of Marlborough significantly calls her, “the Duke of
Buckingham’s widow,” assumed and maintained the privilege of driving
through St. James’s Park whenever and however she liked, whilst the Duke
of Marlborough’s widow was prohibited even “from taking the air for her
health,” though allowed, in former reigns, to drive through that
privileged enclosure. This refusal, which the Duke of Marlborough’s
widow traced, as she thought, to Walpole, was the more unjust, as the
arrogant daughter of Catherine Sedley had written a very impertinent
letter to the King, and ought to have been forbidden the park. The
Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, had proffered a request on
the part of the Duchess of Marlborough to the King, and it had been
refused. It was therefore urged by Sir Robert, that the Princess would
be offended, if the boon were subsequently granted to another
applicant.[332] How the matter ended, it does not appear; nor at what
period Marlborough’s widow was enabled to pass Buckingham’s widow in her
airings along the stately promenades.
Such were some of the altercations which disturbed the Duchess in her
widowhood. She was likewise generally on indifferent terms with the
court. Queen Caroline, though much commended by the Duchess as Princess
of Wales, became, in process of time, everything that was disagreeable
in the eyes of the Duchess; and as her grace “could not deny herself the
pleasure of speaking her mind upon any occasion,” to use her own words,
and as there are always a number of people who trade in retail upon the
speeches of others, Queen Caroline, that pattern of prudence and
forbearance, and her very uninteresting consort, were soon aware of the
animosity, for to that it at last amounted, that the Duchess bore to
them, and to their court and administration.
For this dislike there was, it must be allowed, considerable reason on
the part of the Duchess; and in her letters to Mr. Scrope, secretary to
the minister, Mr. Pelham, she unfolds her wrongs, and reflects great
discredit on the character of the Princess.
Years afterwards, when the Duchess was so aged and infirm that she had
forgotten the dates of the occurrence, she thus writes to her polite
correspondent, Mr. Scrope.
“You have not,” she says, “forgot the time that his Majesty’s name was
made use of to pay no more six hundred pounds a year: this was done by
Queen Caroline, who sent me word, if I would not let her buy something
of mine at Wimbledon, that would have been a great prejudice to my
family, and that was settled upon them, I was in her power, and she
would take away what I had for Windsor Lodge.”
This threat, equally ungracious and fruitless, roused all the Duchess’s
spirit of resistance. In the first place she did not believe that the
Queen had the power to do what she threatened, or if she had, she would,
as she declared, have valued a smaller thing of her own much more than
one which depended on the crown; and she sent her Majesty a respectful
refusal.[333]
The affairs of Windsor Park occupied much of her time. As ranger, she
could not but lament, as well as remonstrate against, the pitiful
economy, if such a word can be applied to Walpole, or the shameful
neglect of that source of pride to our country which was permitted
during his administration. She wrote, perhaps, as much for the purpose
of annoying Sir Robert, as of getting repairs done to the park; and, as
her custom was, as she said, “to tumble out the truth just as it came
out of her head,” her manner of stating her opinion was not the most
gracious that could be adopted.[334]
Another object of the Duchess’s wrath and aversion was Charles, second
Duke of St. Albans, who had been constituted, in 1730, governor of
Windsor Castle, and warden of Windsor Forest.[335] This nobleman was not
the greater favourite with the Duchess, from his being one of the lords
of the bedchamber at that time. He had the misfortune to come into very
frequent contact with her grace, in the discharge of his duties in
Windsor Park. No one is so offended by a vain show as the ostentatious;
it seems to harrow up all the pride in their nature. The Duchess was
outrageous when she saw the Duke of St. Albans coming into the park with
coaches and chaises whenever he pleased, under pretence of supervising
the fortifications, a term which she thought very ridiculous, unless he
meant by it “the ditch around the Castle.” No one, except the royal
family, or the ranger, had ever been allowed, during her experience of
fifty years, such a liberty before. But that was not all the offence.
The Duchess, in addressing her complaints to Pelham Holles, Duke of
Newcastle, who had married her granddaughter, Lady Harriot Godolphin,
assured his grace that the Duke of St. Albans had, to use a military
phrase, “besieged her in both parks, and been willing to forage in them
at pleasure.” Having got the better of him in some points, he had
pursued her to the little park; and her only resource was to address her
relative, then secretary of state, to intercede with the Queen that the
intrusive warden might not be permitted to have a key. Which of the
belligerent powers prevailed, does not appear.
Such were some of the Duchess of Marlborough’s annoyances, perhaps to
her spirit occupations only, in what may be called her official life. In
the next chapter we shall discuss the subject of her domestic and family
troubles, after the Duke had left her the charge of numerous and
important concerns; in discharging the care of which, the government of
her own temper was one of the most difficult and most material points.