The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 5

(59) Melusina Schulemberg, niece of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, created Countess of Walsingham and -,afterwards married to the famous Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.

(60) The following is the account of this introduction given in "Walpoliana:"-"I do remember something of George the First. My father took me to St. James's while I was a very little boy; after waiting some time in an anteroom, a gentleman came in all dressed in brown, even his stockings, and with a riband and star.

He took me up in his arms, kissed me, and chatted some time,"-E.

(61) The well-known Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, secretary of state to Queen Anne; on whose death he fled, and was attainted. ["We have the authority of Sir Robert Walpole himself," says c.o.xe, "that the restoration of Lord Bolingbroke was the work of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal. He gained the d.u.c.h.ess by a present of eleven thousand pounds, and obtained a promise to use her influence over the King, for the purpose of forwarding his complete restoration."]

(62) The d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal and Lady Suffolk.

(63) Sir Robert was frequently heard to say, that during the reign of the first George, he governed the kingdom by means of bad Latin: it is a matter of wonder that, under such disadvantages. the King should take pleasure in transacting business with him: a circ.u.mstance which was princ.i.p.ally owing to the method and perspicuity of his calculations, and to the extreme facility with which he arranged and explained the most abstruse and difficult combinations of finance." c.o.xe.-E.

(64) Prince William, afterwards Duke of c.u.mberland, then a child, being carried to big grandfather on his birthday, the King asked him at what hour he rose. The Prince replied, "when the chimney-sweepers went about." "Vat is de chimney-sweeper?" said the King. "Have you been so long in England," said the boy, "and do not know what a chimney-sweeper is? Why, they are like that man there;" pointing to Lord Finch, afterwards Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham, of a family uncommonly swarthy and dark-"the black funereal Finches"-Sir Charles Williams's Ode to a Number of Great Men, 1742.

(65) The Earl of Rochester, who succeeded to the t.i.tle of Clarendon on the extinction of the elder branch, had a villa close without the park; but it had been burnt down, and only one wing was left. W. Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, purchased the ruins, and built the house, since bought by Lord Camelford.

(66) It was afterwards enlarged by Princess Amelia; to whom her rather, George II. had granted the reversion of the rangership after Lord Walpole. Her Royal Highness sold it to George III.

for a pension on Ireland of twelve hundred pounds a-year, and his Majesty appointed Lord Bute ranger for life.

(67) The King Hated the parade of royalty. When he went to the opera, it was in no state; nor did he sit in the stage-box, nor forwards, but behind the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal and Lady Walsingham, in the second box, now allotted to the maids of honour.

(68) Bolingbroke at his return could not avoid waiting on Sir Robert to thank him, and was Invited to dine with him at Chelsea; but whether tortured at witnessing Walpole's serene frankness and felicity, or suffocated with indignation and confusion at being forced to be obliged to one whom be hated and envied, the first morsel he put into his mouth was near choking him, and he was reduced to rise from table and leave the room for some minutes.

I never heard of their meeting more.

(69) George II. parted with Lady Suffolk, on Princess Amelia informing Queen Caroline from Bath, that the mistress had interviews there with Lord Bolingbroke. Lady Suffolk, above twenty years after, protested to me that she had not once seen his lordship there; and I should believe she did not, for she was a woman of truth: but her great intimacy and connexion with Pope and Swift, the intimate friends of Bolingbroke, even before the death of George I. and her being the channel through whom that faction had flattered themselves they should gain the ear of the new King, can leave no doubt of Lady Suffolk's support of that party. Her dearest friend to her death was William, afterwards Lord Chetwynd, the known and most trusted confidant of Lord Bolingbroke. Of those political intrigues I shall say more in these Reminiscences.

CHAPTER II

Marriage of George the First, while Electoral Prince, to the Princess Sophia Dorothea-a.s.sa.s.sination of Count Konigsmark-Separation from the Princess-Left-handed Espousal-Piety of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal-Confinement and Death of Sophia Dorothea in the Castle of Alden-French Prophetess-The King's Superst.i.tion-Mademoiselle Schulemberg--Royal Inconstancy-Countess of Platen-Anne Brett--Sudden Death of George the First.

George the First, while Electoral Prince, had married his cousin, the Princess Dorothea (70) only child of the Duke of Zell; a match of convenience to reunite the dominions of the family.

Though she was very handsome, the Prince, who was extremely amorous, had several mistresses; which provocation, and his absence in the army of the confederates, probably disposed the Princess to indulge some degree of coquetry. At that moment arrived at Hanover the famous and beautiful Count Konigsmark, (71) the charms of whose person ought not to have obliterated the memory of his vile a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Thynne.(72)His vanity, the beauty of the Electoral Princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his presumption to make his addresses to her, not covertly; and she, though believed not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old Elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatized a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day.

The Princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her husband, and consequently enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the count to kiss her hand before his abrupt departure and he was actually introduced by them into her bedchamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared nor was it known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son the new King's first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Konigsmark was discovered under the floor of the Electoral Princess's dressing-room-the Count having probably been strangled there the instant he left her, and his body secreted.

The discovery was hushed up; George II. entrusted the secret to his wife, Queen Caroline, who told it to my father: but the King was too tender of the honour of his mother to utter it to his mistress; nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it, till I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the Count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circ.u.mstances. The second George loved his mother as much as he hated his father, and purposed, as was said, had the former survived, to have brought her over and declared her Queen Dowager. (73) Lady Suffolk has told me her surprise, on going to the new Queen the morning after the news arrived of the death of George I., at seeing hung up in the Queen's dressing-room a whole length of a lady in royal robes; and in the bedchamber a half length of the same person, neither of which Lady Suffolk had ever seen before. The Prince had kept them concealed, not daring to produce them during the life of his father. The whole length he probably sent to Hanover: (74) the half length I have frequently and frequently seen in the library of Princess Amelia, who told me it was the portrait of her grandmother. she bequeathed it, with other pictures of her family, to her nephew, the Landgrave of Hesse.

Of the circ.u.mstances that ensued on Konigsmark's disappearance I am ignorant; nor am I acquainted with the laws of Germany relative to divorce or separation: nor do I know or suppose that despotism and pride allow the law to insist on much formality when a sovereign has reason or mind to get rid of his wife.

Perhaps too much difficulty of untying the Gordian not of matrimony thrown in the way of an absolute prince would be no kindness to the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper weapon, like that butchering husband, our Henry VIII.

Sovereigns, who narrow or let out the law of G.o.d according to their prejudices and pa.s.sions, mould their own laws no doubt to the standard of their convenience. Genealogic purity of blood is the predominant folly of Germany; and the code of Malta seems to have more force in the empire than the ten commandments. Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the indissolubility of marriage, espousals with the left hand-as if the Almighty had restrained his ordinance to one half of a man's person, and allowed a greater lat.i.tude to his left side than to his right, or p.r.o.nounced the former more ign.o.ble than the latter. The consciences both of princely and n.o.ble persons in Germany are quieted, if the more plebeian side is married to one who would degrade the more ill.u.s.trious moiety-but, as if the laws of matrimony had no reference to the children to be thence propagated, the children of a left-handed alliance are not ent.i.tled to inherit. Shocking consequence of a senseless equivocation, that only satisfies pride, not justice; and calculated for an acquittal at the herald's Office, not at the last tribunal.

Separated the Princess Dorothea certainly was, and never admitted even to the nominal honours of her rank, being thenceforward always styled d.u.c.h.ess of Halle. Whether divorced (75) is problematic, at least to me; nor can I p.r.o.nounce, as, though it was generally believed, I am not certain that George espoused the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal with his left hand. As the Princess Dorothea died only some months before him, that ridiculous ceremony was scarcely deferred till then; and the extreme outward devotion of the d.u.c.h.ess, who every Sunday went seven times to Lutheran chapels, seemed to announce a realized wife. As the genuine wife was always detained in her husband's power, he seems not to have wholly dissolved their union; for, on the approach of the French army towards Hanover, during Queen Anne's reign, the d.u.c.h.ess of Halle was sent home to her father and mother, who doted on their only child, and did retain her for a whole year, and did implore, though in vain that she might continue to reside with them. As her son too, George II., had thoughts of bringing her over and declaring her Queen Dowager, one can hardly believe that a ceremonial divorce had pa.s.sed, the existence of which process would have glared in the face of her royalty. But though German casuistry might allow her husband to take another wife with his left hand, because his legal wife had suffered her right hand to be kissed in bed by a gallant, even Westphalian or Aulic counsellors could not have p.r.o.nounced that such a momentary adieu const.i.tuted adultery; and therefore of a formal divorce I must doubt-and there I must leave that case of conscience undecided, till future search into the Hanoverian chancery shall clear up a point of little real importance.

I have said that the disgraced Princess died but a short time before the King. (76) It is known that in Queen Anne's time there was much noise about French prophets. A female of that vocation (for we know from Scripture that the gift of prophecy is not limited to one gender) warned George I. to take care of his wife, as he would not survive her a year. That oracle was probably dictated to the French Deborah by the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Zell, 'who might be apprehensive lest the' d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal should be tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious union with their son-in-law. Most Germans are superst.i.tious, even such as have few other impressions of religion. George gave such credit to the denunciation, that on the eve of his last departure he took leave of his son and the Princess of Wales with tears, telling them he should never see them more. It was certainly his own approaching fate that melted him, not the thought of quitting for ever two persons he hated. He did sometimes so much justice to his son as to say, "Il est fougueux, mais il a de l'honneur."-For Queen Caroline, to his confidants he termed her "cette diablesse Madame la Princesse."

I do not know whether it was about the same period, that in a tender mood he promised the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The d.u.c.h.ess, on his death, so much expected the accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the windows of her villa at Isteworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till the royal bird or she took their last flight.

George II., no more addicted than his father to too much religious credulity, had yet implicit faith in the German notion of vampires, and has more than once been angry with my father for speaking irreverently of those imaginary bloodsuckers.

the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, of whom I have said so much, was when Mademoiselle Schulemberg, maid of honour to the Electress Sophia, mother of King George I. and destined by King William and the Act of Settlement to succeed Queen Anne. George fell in love with Mademoiselle Schulemberg, though by no means an inviting object-so little, that one evening when she was in waiting behind the Electress's chair at a ball, the Princess Sophia, who had made herself mistress of the language of her future subjects, said in English to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, then at her court, "Look at that mawkin, and think of her being my son's pa.s.sion!" Mrs. Howard, who told me the story, protested that she was terrified, forgetting that Mademoiselle Schulemberg did not understand English.

The younger Mademoiselle Schulemberg, who came over with her and was created Countess Walsingham, pa.s.sed for her niece; but was so like to the King that it is not very credible that the d.u.c.h.ess, who had affected to pa.s.s for cruel, had waited for the left-handed marriage.

The d.u.c.h.ess under whatever denomination, had attained and preserved to the last her ascendant over the king: but notwithstanding that influence, he was not more constant to her than he had been to his avowed wife; for another acknowledged mistress, whom he also brought over, was Madame Kilmansegge, Countess of Platen, who was created Countess of Darlington, and by whom he was indisputably father of Charlotte, married to Lord Viscount Howe, and mother of the present earl. (77) Lady Howe was never publicly acknowledged as the Kings daughter; but Princess Amelia, (78) treated her daughter, Mrs. Howe, (79) upon that foot, and one evening, when I was present, gave her a ring, with a small portrait of George I, with a crown of diamonds.

Lady Darlington, whom I saw at my mother's in my infancy, and whom I remember by being terrified at her enormous figure, was as corpulent and ample as the d.u.c.h.ess was long and emaciated. Two fierce black eyes, large and rolling beneath two lofty arched eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays 80) no wonder that a child dreaded such an ogress, and that the mob of London were highly diverted at the importation of so uncommon a seraglio! They were food from all the venom of the Jacobites; and, indeed nothing could be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court, and chaunted even in their hearing about the public streets. (81)

On the other hand, it was not till the last year or two of his reign that their foreign sovereign paid the nation the compliment of taking openly an English mistress. That personage was Anne Brett, eldest daughter by her second husband, (82) of the repudiated wife of the Earl Of Macclesfield, the unnatural mother of Savage the poet. Miss Brett was very handsome, but dark enough by her eyes, complexion, and hair, for a Spanish beauty.

Abis.h.a.g was lodged in the palace under the eyes of Bathsheba, who seemed to maintain her power, as other favourite sultanas have done, by suffering partners in the sovereign's affections. When his Majesty should return to England, a countess's coronet was to have rewarded the young lady's compliance, and marked her secondary rank. She might, however, have proved a troublesome rival, as she seemed SO confident of the power of her charms, that whatever predominant ascendant the d.u.c.h.ess might retain, her own authority in the palace she thought was to yield to no one else. George I., when his son the Prince of Wales and the Princess had quitted St. James's on their quarrel with him, had kept back their three eldest daughters, who lived with him to his death, even after there had outwardly been a reconciliation between the King and Prince. Miss Brett, when the King set out, ordered a door to be broken out of her apartment into the royal garden. Anne, the eldest of the Princesses, offended at that freedom, and not choosing such a companion in her walks, ordered the door to be walled up again. Miss Brett as imperiously reversed that command. The King died suddenly, and the empire of the new mistress and her promised coronet vanished. She afterwards married Sir William Leman, and was forgotten before her reign had transpired beyond the confines of Westminster!

(70) Her names were Sophia Dorothea ; but I call her by the latter, to distinguish her from the Princess Sophia, her mother-in-law, on whom the crown of Great Britain was settled.

(71) Konigsmark behaved with great intrepidity, and was wounded at a bull-feast in Spain. See Letters from Spain of the Contesse D'Anois, vol. ii. He was brother of the beautiful Comtesse de Konigsmark, mistress of Augustus the Second, King of Poland.

(72) It was not this Count Konigsmark, but an elder brother, who was accused of having suborned Colonel Vratz, Lieutenant Stern, and one George Boroskey, to murder Mr. Thynne in Pall-Mall, on the 12th of February, 1682, and for which they were executed in that street on the 10th of March. For the particulars, see Howell's State Trials, vol. ix. p. 1, and Sir John Reresby's Memoirs, p. 135. "This day," says Evelyn, in his Diary of the 10th of March, "was executed Colonel Vrats, for the execrable murder of Mr. Thynne, set on by the princ.i.p.al, Konigsmark: he went to execution like an undaunted hero, as one that had done a friendly office for that base coward, Count Konigsmark, who had hopes to marry his widow, the rich Lady Ogle, and was acquitted by a corrupt jury, and so got away: Vrats told a friend of mine, who accompanied him to the gallows, and gave him some advice, that he did not value dying of a rush, and hoped and believed G.o.d would deal with him like a gentleman." Mr. Thynne was buried in Westminster Abbey; the manner of his death being represented on his monument. He was the Issachar of Absalom and Achitophel; in which poem Dryden, describing the respect and favour with which Monmouth was received upon his progress in the year 1691, Says: "Hospitable hearts did most commend Wise Issachar, his wealthy, western friend."

Reresby states, that Lady Ogle, immediately after the marriage, "repenting herself of the match, fled from him into Holland, before they were bedded." This circ.u.mstance added to the fact, that Mr. Thynne had formerly seduced Miss Trevor, one of the maids of honour to Catherine of Portugal, wife of Charles II., gave birth to the following lines:

"Here lies Tom Thynne, of Longleat Hall, Who never would have miscarried, Had he married the woman he lay withal, Or lain with the woman he married."

On the 30th of May, in the same year, Lady Ogle was married to Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset.-E.

(73) Lady Suffolk thought he rather would have her regent of Hanover; and she also told me, that George I. had offered to live again with his wife, but she refused, unless her pardon were asked publicly. She said, what most affected her was the disgrace that would be brought on her children; and if she were only pardoned, that would not remove it. Lady Suffolk thought she was then divorced, though the divorce was never published; and that the old Elector consented to his son's marrying the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal with the left hand-but it seems strange, that George I.

should offer to live again with his wife, and yet be divorced front her. Perhaps George II. to vindicate his mother, supposed that offer and her spirited refusal.

(74) George II. was scrupulously exact in separating and keeping in each country whatever belonged to England or Hanover. Lady Suffolk told me, that on his accession he could not find a knife, fork, and spoon of gold which had belonged to Queen Ann(@, and which he remembered to have seen here at his first -arrival. He found them at Hanover on his first journey thither after he came to the crown, and brought them back to England. He could not recollect much of greater value; for, on Queen Anne's death, and in the interval before the arrival of the new family, such a clearance had been made of her Majesty's jewels, or the new King so instantly distributed what he found amongst his German favourites, that, as Lady S. told me, Queen Caroline never obtained of the late Queen's.jewels but one pearl necklace.

(75) George I., says c.o.xe, who never loved his wife, gave implicit credit to the account of her infidelity, as related by his father; consented to her imprisonment, and obtained from the ecclesiastical consistory a divorce, which was pa.s.sed on the 28th of December 1694." Memoirs of Walpole.-E.

(76) "the unfortunate Sophia was confined in the castle of Alden, situated on the small river Aller, in the duchy of Zell. She terminated her miserable existence, after a long captivity of thirty-two years, on the 13th of November 1726, only seven months before the death of George the First; and she was announced in the Gazette, under the t.i.tle of the Electress Dowager of Hanover.

During her whole confinement she behaved with no less mildness than dignity; and, on receiving the sacrament once every week, never omitted making the most solemn a.s.severations, that she was not guilty of the crime laid to her charge." c.o.xe, vol. i. p.

268.-E.

(77) Admiral Lord Howe, and also of sir William, afterwards Viscount Howe.-E.

(78) Second daughter of George the Second; born in 1711, died October the 31st, 1786.

(79) Caroline, the eldest of Lady Howe's children, had married a gentleman of her own name, John Howe, Esq, of Honslop, in the county of Bucks.

(80) According to c.o.xe, she was, when young, a woman of great beauty, but became extremely corpulent as she advanced in years.

"Her power over the King," he adds, "was not equal to that of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, but her character for rapacity was not inferior." On the death of her husband, in 1721, she was created Countess of Leinster in the kingdom of Ireland, Baroness of Brentford, and Countess of Darlington.-E.

(81) One of the German ladies, being abused by the mob, was said to have put her head out of the coach, and cried in bad English, "Good people, why you abuse us? We come for all your goods."

"Yes, d.a.m.n ye," answered a fellow in the crowd, "and for all our chattels too." I mention this because on the death of Princess Amelia the newspapers revived the story and told it of her, though I had heard it threescore years before of one of her grandfather's mistresses.

(82) Colonel Brett, the companion of Wycherley, Steele, Davenant, etc. and of whom the following particulars are recorded by Spence, on the authority of Dr. Young:-"The Colonel was a remarkably handsome man. The Countess looking out of her window on a great disturbance in the street, saw him a.s.saulted by some bailiffs, who were going to arrest him. She paid his debt, released him from their pursuit, and soon after married him.

When she died, she left him more than he expected; with which he bought an estate in the country, built a very handsome house upon it, and furnished it in the highest taste; went down to see the finishing of it, returned to London in hot weather and in too much hurry; got a fever by it, and died. n.o.body had a better taste of what would please the town, and his opinion was much regarded by the actors and dramatic poets." Anecdotes, p. 355.-E.

CHAPTER III.