Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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The beauty of the Duchess of Marlborough had always been of the
scornful and imperious kind, and her features and air announced
nothing that her temper did not confirm; both together, her
beauty and temper, enslaved her heroic lord. One of her
principal charms was a prodigious abundance of fine fair hair.
One day at her toilet, in anger to him, she cut off those
commanding tresses, and flung them in his face. Nor did her
insolence stop there, nor stop till it had totally estranged and
worn out the patience of the poor Queen, her mistress. The
Duchess was often seen to give her Majesty her fan and gloves,
and turn away her own head, as if the Queen had offensive smells.

Incapable of due respect to superiors, it was no wonder she
treated her children and inferiors with supercilious contempt.
Her eldest daughter (121) and she were long at variance, and
never reconciled. When the young Duchess exposed herself by
placing a monument and silly epitaph, of her own composition and
bad spelling, to Congreve, in Westminster Abbey, her mother,
quoting the words, said, "I know not what pleasure she might have
in his company, but I am sure it was no honour."(122) With her
youngest daughter, the Duchess of Montagu, old Sarah agreed as
ill. "I wonder," said the Duke of Marlborough to them, "that you
cannot agree, you are so alike!" Of her granddaughter, the
Duchess of Manchester, daughter of the Duchess of Montagu, she
affected to be fond. One day she said to her, "Duchess of
Manchester, you are a good creature, and I love you mightily-but
you have a mother!"-"And she has a mother!" answered the Duchess
of Manchester, who was all spirit, justice, and honour, and could
not suppress sudden truth.

One of old Marlborough's capital mortifications sprang from a
granddaughter. The most beautiful of her four charming
daughters, Lady Sunderland,(123) left two sons,(124) the second
Duke of Marlborough, and John Spencer, who became her heir, and
Anne Lady Bateman, and Lady Diana Spencer, whom I have mentioned,
and who became Duchess of Bedford. The Duke and his brother, to
humour their grandmother, were in opposition, though the eldest
she never loved. He had good sense, infinite generosity, and not
more economy than was to be expected from a young man of warm
passions and such vast expectations. He was modest and diffident
too, but could not digest total dependence on a capricious and
avaricious grandmother. HIS sister, Lady Bateman, had the
intriguing spirit of her father and grandfather, Earls of
Sunderland. She was connected with Henry Fox, the first Lord
Holland, and both had great influence over the Duke of
Marlborough. What an object would it be to Fox to convert to the
court so great a subject as the Duke! Nor was it much less
important to his sister to give him a wife, who, with no reasons
for expectation of such shining fortune, should owe the
obligation to her. Lady Bateman struck the first stroke, and
persuaded her brother to marry a handsome young lady, who,
unluckily, was daughter of Lord Trevor, who had been a bitter
enemy to his grandfather, the victorious Duke. The grandam's
rage exceeded all bounds. Having a portrait of Lady Bateman, she
blackened the face, and wrote on it, "Now her outside is as black
as her inside." The duke she turned out of the little lodge in
Windsor Park; and then pretending that the new Duchess and her
female cousins (eight Trevors) had stripped the house and
gardens, she had a puppet-show made with waxen figures,
representing the Trevors tearing up the shrubs, and the Duchess
carrying off the chicken-coop under her arm.

Her fury did but increase when Mr. Fox prevailed on the Duke to
go over to the court. With her coarse intemperate humour, she
said, "that was the Fox that had stolen her goose." Repeated
injuries at last drove the Duke to go to law with her. Fearing
that even no lawyer would come up to the Billingsgate with which
she was animated herself, she appeared in the court of justice,
and with some wit and infinite abuse, treated the laughing public
with the spectacle of a woman who had held the reigns of empire,
metamorphosed into the widow Black-acre. Her grandson, in his
suit, demanded a sword set with diamonds, given to his grandsire
by the Emperor. "I retained it," said the beldam, " lest he
should pick out the diamonds and pawn them."

I will repeat but one more instance of her insolent asperity,
which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary
-Wortley Montague. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond
ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen
Caroline's family for a certain peer; and, decked with those
jewels, paid a visit to the old Duchess; who, as soon as she was
gone, said, "What an impudent creature, to come hither with her
bribe in her ear!" "Madam," replied Lady Mary Wortley, who was
present, "how should people know where wine' is sold, unless a
bush is hung out?"

The Duchess of Buckingham was as much elated by owing her birth
to James II.(125) as the Marlborough was by the favour of his
daughter. Lady Dorchester,(126) the mother of the former,
endeavoured to curb that pride, and, one should have thought,
took an effectual method, though one few mothers would have
practised. "You need not be so vain," said the old profligate,
"for you are not the King's daughter, but Colonel Graham's."
Graham was a fashionable man of those days and noted for dry
humour. His legitimate daughter, the Countess of Berkshire, was
extremely like to the Duchess of Buckingham: "Well! well!" said
Graham, "Kings are all powerful, and one must not complain; but
certainly the same man begot those two women." To discredit the
wit of both parents, the Duchess never ceased labouring to
restore the House of Stuart, and to mark her filial devotion to
it. Frequent were her journeys to the Continent for that
purpose. She always stopped at Paris, visited the church where
lay the unburied body of James, and wept over it. A poor
Benedictine of the convent, observing her filial piety, took
notice to her grace that the velvet pall that covered the coffin
was become threadbare-and so it remained.

Finding all her efforts fruitless, and perhaps aware that her
plots were not undiscovered by Sir Robert Walpole, who was
remarkable for his intelligence, she made an artful double, and
resolved to try what might be done through him himself. I forget
how she contracted an acquaintance with him: I do remember that
more than once he received letters from the Pretender himself,
which probably were transmitted through her. Sir Robert always
carried them to George II. who endorsed and returned them. That
negotiation not succeeding. the Duchess made a more home push.
Learning his extreme fondness for his daughter, (afterwards Lady
Mary Churchill,) she sent for Sir Robert, and asked him if he
recollected what had not been thought too great a reward to Lord
Clarendon for restoring the royal family? He affected not to
understand her. "Was not he allowed," urged the zealous Duchess,
"to match his daughter to the Duke of York?" Sir Robert smiled,
and left her.

Sir Robert being forced from court, the Duchess thought the
moment (127) favourable, and took a new journey to Rome; but
conscious of the danger she might run of discovery, she made over
her estate to the famous Mr. Pulteney (afterwards Earl of Bath),
and left the deed in his custody. What was her astonishment,
when on her return she redemanded the instrument!-It was
mislaid-he could not find it-he never could find it! The Duchess
grew clamorous. At last his friend Lord Mansfield told him
plainly,- he could never show his face unless he satisfied the
Duchess. Lord Bath did then sign a release to her of her estate.
The transaction was recorded in print by Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams, in a pamphlet that had great vogue, called a
Congratulatory Letter, with many other anecdotes of the same
personage, and was not less acute than Sir Charles's Odes on the
same here. The Duchess dying not long after Sir Robert's
entrance into the House of Lords, Lord Oxford, one of her
executors, told him there, that the Duchess had struck Lord Bath
out of her will, and made him, Sir Robert, one of her trustees in
his room. "Then," said Sir Robert, laughing, @ I see, my lord,
that I have got Lord Bath's place before he has got mine." Sir
Robert had artfully prevented the last. Before he quitted the
King, he persuaded his Majesty to insist, as a preliminary to the
change, that Mr. Pulteney should go into the House of Peers, his
great credit lying in the other house; and I remember my father's
action when he returned from court and told me what he had
done-,, I have turned the key of the closet on him,"-making that
motion with his hand. Pulteney had jumped at the proffered
earldom, but saw his error when too late; and was so enraged at
his own oversight, that, when he went to take the oaths in the
House of Lords, he dashed his patent on the floor, and vowed he
would never take it up-but he had kissed the King's hand for it,
and it was too late to recede.

But though Madam of Buckingham could not effect a coronation to
her will, she indulged her pompous mind with such puppet-shows as
were appropriate to her rank. She had made a funeral for her
husband as splendid as that of the great Marlborough: she renewed
that pageant for her only son, a weak lad, who died under age;
and for herself; and prepared and decorated -waxen dolls of him
and of herself to be exhibited in glass-cases in Westminster
Abbey. It was for the
procession at her son's burial that she wrote to old Sarah of
Marlborough to borrow the triumphal car that had transported the
corpse of the Duke. "It carried my Lord Marlborough," replied the
other, and shall never be used for any body else." "I have
consulted the undertaker," replied the Buckingham, and he tells
me I may have a finer for twenty pounds."

One of the last acts of Buckingham's life was marrying a grandson
she had to a daughter of Lord Hervey. That intriguing man, sore,
as I have said, at his disgrace, cast his eyes every where to
revenge or exalt himself. Professions or recantations of any
principles cost him nothing: at least the consecrated day which
was appointed for his first interview with the Duchess made it
presumed, that to obtain her wealth, with her grandson for his
daughter, he must have
sworn fealty to the House of Stuart. It was on the martyrdom of
her grandfather: she received him in the great drawing-room of
Buckingham House, seated in a chair of state, in deep mourning,
attended by her women in like weeds, in memory of the royal
martyr.

It will be a proper close to the history of those curious ladies
to mention the anecdote of Pope relative to them. Having drawn
his famous character of Atossa, he communicated it to each
Duchess, pretending it was levelled at the other. The Buckingham
believed him: the Marlborough had more sense, and knew herself,
and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress it;-and yet he left
the copy behind him!(128)

Bishop Burnet, from absence of mind, had drawn as strong a
picture of herself to the Duchess of Marlborough, as Pope did
under covert of another lady. Dining with the Duchess after the
Duke's disgrace, Burnet was comparing him to Belisarius: "But
how," said she, "could so great a general be so abandoned?" "Oh!
Madam," said the Bishop, "do not you know what a brimstone of a
wife he had'!"

Perhaps you know this anecdote, and perhaps several others that I
have been relating. No matter; they will go under the article of
my dotage-and very properly-I began with tales of my nursery, and
prove that I have been writing in my second childhood.

H. W. January 13th, 1789.

(121) The Lady Henrietta, married to Lord Godolphin, who, by act
of Parliament, succeeded as Duchess of Marlborough. She died in
1738, childless; and the issue of her next sister, Lady
Sunderland, succeeded to the duchy of Marlborough.-E.

(122) "For reasons," says Dr. Johnson, "either not known, or not
mentioned, Congreve bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand
pounds to the Duchess; the accumulation of attentive parsimony,
which, though to her superfluous and useless, might have given
great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended,
at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to
difficulties and distress."-E.

(123) Lady Sunderland was a great politician; and having, like
her mother, a most beautiful head of hair, used, while combing it
at her toilet, to receive men whose votes or interests she wished
to influence.

(124) She had an elder son, who died young, while only Earl of
Sunderland. He had parts, and all the ambition of his parents
and of his family (which his younger brother had not); but George
II. had conceived such an aversion to his father, that he would
not employ him. The young Earl at last asked Sir Robert Walpole
for an ensigncy in the Guards. The minister, astonished at so
humble a request from a man of such consequence, expressed his
surprise. "I ask it," said the young lord, "to ascertain whether
it is determined that I shall never have any thing." He died soon
after at Paris.

(125) By Catherine Sedley, created by her royal lover Countess of
Dorchester for life.-E.

(126) Lady Dorchester is well known for her wit, and for saying
that she wondered for what James chose his mistresses: "We are
none of us handsome," said she; "and if we have wit, he has not
enough to find it out." But I do not know whether it is as
public, that her style was gross and shameless. Meeting the
Duchess of Portsmouth and Lady Orkney, the favourite of King
William, at the drawing-room of George the First, "God!" said
she, "who would have thought that we three whores should have met
here?" Having, after the King's abdication, married Sir David
Collyer, by whom she had two sons, she said to them, " If any
body should call you sons of a whore, you must bear it; for you
are so: but if they call you bastards, fight till you die; for
you are an honest man's sons." Susan, Lady Bellasis, another of
King James's mistresses, had wit too, and no beauty. Mrs.
Godfrey had neither. Grammont has recorded why she was chosen.

(127) I am not quite certain that, writing by memory at the
distance of fifty years, I place that journey exactly at the
right period, nor whether it did not take place before Sir
Robert's fall. Nothing material depends on the precise period.

(128) The story is thus told by Dr. Warton:-" These lines were
shown to her grace, as if they were intended for the portrait of
the Duchess of Buckingham; but she soon stopped the person who
was reading them to her, as the Duchess of Portland informed me,
and called out aloud, "I cannot be so imposed upon; I see plainly
enough for whom they are designed;" and abused Pope most
plentifully on the subject: though she was afterwards reconciled
to him, and courted him, and gave him a thousand pounds to
suppress this portrait, which he a accepted, it is said, by the
persuasion of Mrs. M. Blount; and, after the Duchess's death, it
was printed in a folio sheet, 1746, and afterwards inserted in
his Moral Essays. This is the greatest blemish on our poet's
moral character."-E.

The following extracts from Letters of Sarah, Duchess of
Marlborough, were copied by me from the original letters
addressed to the Earl of Stair, left by him to Sir David
Dalrymple, his near relative, and lent to me by Sir David's
brother, Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, long employed as Geographer in
the service of the East India company. They formed part of a
large volume of ms. letters, chiefly from the same person.

The Duchess of Marlborough's virulence, her prejudices, her style
of writing, are already well known, and every line of these
extracts will only serve to confirm the same opinion of all
three. But it will, probably, be thought curious thus to be able
to compare the notes of the opposite political parties, and their
different account of the same trifling facts, magnified by the
prejudices of both into affairs of importance.

January, 1840

EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF
MARLBOROUGH,
TO THE EARL OF STAIR,
ILLUSTRATIVE OF "THE REMINISCENCES."
(NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.)

(See Reminiscences, p. 97.)

London, Feb. 24th, 1738.
. . . . As to Norfolk House, (129) I have heard there is a great
deal of company, and that the Princess of Wales, tho' so very
young, behaves so as to please every body; and I think her
conversation is much more proper and decent for a drawing-room
than the wise queen Caroline's was, who never was half an hour
without saying something shocking to some body or other, even
when she intended to oblige, and generally very improper
discourse for a public room.

[See p. 98. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii]

London, December 24th, 1737.
My Lord,
I received the favour of yours of the 17th December yesterday. I
have nothing material to say to you since my last. His Majesty
saw the Queen's women servants first, which was a very mournful
sight, for they all cried extremely; and his Majesty was so
affected that he began to speak, but went out of the room to
recover himself. And yesterday he saw the foreign ministers and
his horses, which I remember Dean Swift gives a great character
of; and was very sorry to leave them for the conversation of his
countrymen in England.; and I think he was much in the right.

[See P. 98. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii)

Marlborough House, Nov. 15, 1737.
It is not many days since I wrote to your lordship by post, but
one can't be sure those letters are sent. However, I have a mind
to give you an account of what, perhaps, you may not have so
particularly from any other hand. This day, se'nnight the Queen
was taken extremely ill; the physicians were sent for, and from
the account that was given, they treated her as if she had the
gout in her stomach: but, upon a thorough investigation of the
matter, a surgeon desired that she would put her hand where the
pain was that she complained of, which she did; and the surgeon,
following her hand with his, found it was a very large rupture,
which had been long Concealed. Upon this, immediately they cut
it, and some little part of the gut, which was discoloured. Few
of the knowing people have had any hopes for many days; for they
still apprehend a mortification, and she can't escape it unless
the physicians can make something pass thro' her, which they have
not yet been able to do in so many days. The King and the Royal
Family have taken leave of her more than once; and his Majesty
has given her leave to make her will, which she has done; but I
fancy it will be in such a manner that few, if any, will know
what her money amounts to. Sir Robert Walpole was in Norfolk,
and came to -London but last night. I can't but think he must be
extremely uneasy at this misfortune; for I have a notion that
many of his troops will slacken very much, if not quite leave
him, when they see he has lost his sure support. But there is so
much folly, and mean corruption, etc.

London, December 1st, 1737.
. . . . As to what has passed in the Queen's illness, and since
her death, one can't depend on much one hears; and they are
things that it is no great matter whether they are true or false.
But one thing was odd: whether out of folly, or any thing else, I
can't say, but the Duke of Newcastle did not send Sir Robert
Walpole news of her illness, nor of her danger, as soon as he
might have done; and after he came to town, which was but a few
days before she died, and when she could no more live than she
can now come out of her coffin, the physicians, and all that
attended her, were ordered to say she was better, and that they
had some hopes. What the use of that was I cannot conceive. And
the occasion of her death is still pretended to be a secret: yet
it is known that she had a rupture, and had it for many years;
that she had imposthumes that broke, and that some of the guts
were mortified. This is another mystery which I don't
comprehend; for what does it signify what one dies of, except the
pain it gives more than common dissolutions? etc.

[See p. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii)

I AM Of the opinion, from woful experience, that, from flattery
and want of understanding, most princes are alike; and,
therefore, it is to no purpose to argue against their passions,
but to defend ourselves, at all events, against them.

[See P. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter VII]

Wimbledon, 17th Aug. 1737.
There has been a very extraordinary quarrel at court, which, I
believe, nobody will give you so exact an account of as myself.
The 31st of last month the Princess fell in labour. The King and
Queen both knew that she was to lie in -,it St. James's, where
every thing was prepared. It was her first child, and so little
a way to London, that she thought it less hazard to go
immediately away from Hampton Court to London, where she had all
the assistance that could be, and every thing prepared, than to
stay at Hampton Court, where she had nothing, and might be forced
to make use of a country midwife. There was not a minute's time
to be lost in debating this matter, nor in ceremonials; the
Princess begging earnestly of the Prince to carry her to St.
James's, in such a hurry that gentlemen went behind the coach
like footmen. They got to St. James's safe, and she was brought
to bed in one hour after. Her Majesty followed them as soon as
she could, but did not come till it was all over. However, she
expressed a great deal of anger to the Prince for having carried
her away, tho' she and the child were very well. I should have
thought it had been most natural for a grandmother to have said
she had been mightily frightened, but was glad it was so well
over. The Prince said all the respectful and dutiful things
imaginable to her and the King, desiring her Majesty to support
the reasons which made him go away as he did without acquainting
his Majesty with it: and, I believe, all human creatures will
allow that this was natural, for a man not to debate a thing of
this kind, nor to lose a minute's time in ceremony, which was
very useless, considering that it is a great while since the King
has spoke to him, or taken the least notice of him. The Prince
told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty
to the King, but she advised him not. This was Monday morning,
and she said Wednesday was time enough; and, indeed, in that I
think her Majesty was in the right. the Prince submitted to her
counsel, and only writ a most submissive and respectful letter to
his Majesty, giving his reasons for what he had done. And this
conversation ended, that he hoped his Majesty would do him the
honour to be godfather to his daughter, and that he would be
pleased to name who the godmothers should be; and that he left
all the directions of the christening to his Majesty's pleasure.
The queen answered that it would be thought the asking the King
to be godfather was too great a liberty, and advised him not to
do it. When the Prince led the Queen to her coach, which she
would not have had him done, there was a great concourse of
people; and, notwithstanding all that had passed before, she
expressed so much kindness that she hugged and kissed him with
great passion. the King, after this, sent a message in writing,
by my Lord Essex, in the following words:-that his Majesty looked
upon what the Prince had done, in carrying the Princess to London
in such a manner, as a deliberate indignity offered to himself
and to the Queen, and resented it in the highest degree, and
forbid him the Court. I must own I cleared Sir Robert in my own
mind of this counsel, thinking he was not in town: but it has
proved otherwise, for he was in town; and the message is drawn up
in such a manner that nobody doubts of its being done by sir
Robert. All the sycophants and agents of the court spread
millions of falsities on this occasion; and all the language
there was, that this was so great a crime that even those who
went with the Prince ought to be proscribed. How this will end
nobody yet knows; at least I am sure I don't; but I know there
was a council today held at Hampton court. I have not heard yet
of any christening being directed, but for that I am in no manner
of pain: for, if it be never christened, I think 'tis in a better
state than a great many devout people that I know. Some talk as
if they designed to take the child away from the Princess, to be
under the care of her Majesty, who professes vast kindness to the
Princess; and all the anger is at the Prince. Among common
subjects I think the law is, that nobody that has any interest in
an estate is to have any thing to do with the person who is heir
to it. What prejudice this sucking child can do to the crown I
don't see; but, to be sure, her Majesty will be very careful of
it. What I apprehend most. is, that the crown will be lost long
before this little Princess can possibly enjoy it; and, if what I
have heard to-day be true, I think the scheme of France is going
to open; for I was told there was an ambassador to come from
France whose goods had been landed in England, and that they have
been sent back. But I won't answer for the truth of that, as I
will upon every thing else in this letter.