Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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(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 Coxe, "that the restoration of Lord Bolingbroke
was the work of the Duchess of Kendal. He gained the duchess 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 Duchess 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 circumstance which was principally 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." Coxe.-E.

(64) Prince William, afterwards Duke of Cumberland, 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 title 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 Duchess 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-Assassination of Count
Konigsmark-Separation from the Princess-Left-handed
Espousal-Piety of the Duchess of Kendal-Confinement and Death of
Sophia Dorothea in the Castle of Alden-French Prophetess-The
King's Superstition-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 assassination 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 circumstances. 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 circumstances 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 God according to
their prejudices and passions, 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 latitude to his left side than to his right, or
pronounced the former more ignoble than the latter. The
consciences both of princely and noble persons in Germany are
quieted, if the more plebeian side is married to one who would
degrade the more illustrious 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
entitled 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 Duchess of Halle. Whether divorced (75) is
problematic, at least to me; nor can I pronounce, as, though it
was generally believed, I am not certain that George espoused the
Duchess 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 Duchess, 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 Duchess 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 passed, 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 pronounced that such a momentary adieu
constituted 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 Duchess of Zell,
'who might be apprehensive lest the' Duchess of Kendal should be
tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious
union with their son-in-law. Most Germans are superstitious,
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 Duchess 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 Duchess, 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 Duchess 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 passion!" 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, passed for her niece; but was so
like to the King that it is not very credible that the Duchess,
who had affected to pass for cruel, had waited for the
left-handed marriage.

The Duchess 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 Duchess 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.
Abishag 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 Duchess 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 principal, 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 God
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 circumstance 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 Duchess
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 Coxe, 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 passed 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 title 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 asseverations, that she was
not guilty of the crime laid to her charge." Coxe, 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 Coxe, 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
Duchess 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, damn 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 assaulted 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. Nobody 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.

Quarrel between George the First and his Son-Earl of
Sunderland-Lord Stanhope-South Sea Scheme-Death of Craggs-Royal
Reconcilement-Peerage Bill defeated-Project for seizing the
Prince of Wales and conveying him to America-Duke of
Newcastle-Royal Christening-Open Rupture-Prince and Princess of
Wales ordered to leave the Palace.

One of the most remarkable occurrences in the reign of George I.
was the open quarrel between him and his son the Prince of Wales.
Whence the dissension originated; whether the prince's attachment
to his mother embittered his mind against his father, or whether
hatred of' his father occasioned his devotion to her, I do not
pretend to know. I do suspect front circumstances, that the
hereditary enmity in the House of Brunswick between the parents
and their eldest sons dated earlier than the divisions between
the first two Georges. The Princess Sophia was a woman of parts
and great vivacity: in the earlier part of her life she had
professed much zeal for the deposed House of Stuart, as appeared
by a letter of hers in print, addressed to the Chevalier de St.
George. It is natural enough for all princes,-who have no
prospect of being benefited by the deposition of a crowned head,
to choose to think royalty an indelible character. The Queen of
Prussia, daughter of George I. lived and died an avowed Jacobite.
The Princess Sophia, youngest child of the Queen of Bohemia, was
consequently the most remote from any pretensions to the British
crown; (83) but no sooner had King William procured a settlement
of it after Queen Anne on her Electoral Highness, than nobody
became a stancher Whig than the Princess Sophia, nor could be
more impatient to mount the throne of the expelled Stuarts. It
is certain, that during the reign of Anne, the Elector George was
inclined to the Tories, though-after his mother's death and his
own accession he gave himself to the opposite party. But if be
and his mother espoused different factions, Sophia found a ready
partisan in her grandson, the Electoral prince; (84) and it is
true, that the demand made by the Prince of his writ of summons
to the House of Lords as Duke of Cambridge, which no wonder was
so offensive to Queen Anne, was made in concert with his
grandmother, without the privity of the Elector his father. Were
it certain, as was believed, that Bolingbroke and the Jacobites
prevailed on the Queen *85) to consent to her brother coming
secretly to England, and to seeing him in her closet; she might
have been induced to that step, when provoked by an attempt to
force a distant and foreign heir upon her while still alive. The
Queen and her heiress being dead, the new King and his son came
over in apparent harmony; and on his Majesty's first visit to his
electoral dominions, the Prince of Wales was even left Regent;
but never being trusted afterwards with that dignity on like
occasions, it is probable that the son discovered too much
fondness for acting the king, or that the father conceived a
jealousy of his son having done so. Sure it is, that on the
King's return great divisions arose in the court; and the Whigs
were divided-some devoting themselves to the wearer of the crown,
and others to the expectant. I shall not enter into the detail
of those squabbles, of which I am but superficially informed.
The predominant ministers were the Earls of Sunderland and
Stanhope. The brothers-in-law, the Viscount Townshend and Mr.
Robert Walpole, adhered to the Prince. Lord Sunderland is said
to have too much resembled as a politician the earl his father,
who was so principal an actor in the reign of James II. and in
bringing about the Revolution. Between the earl in question and
the Prince of Wales grew mortal antipathy; of which -,in anecdote
told me by my father himself will leave no doubt. When a
reconciliation had been patched up between the two courts, and my
father became first lord of the treasury a second time, Lord
Sunderland in a t`ete-`a-t`ete with him said, "Well, Mr. Walpole,
we have settled matters for the present; but we must think whom
we shall have next" (meaning in case of the King's demise).
Walpole said, "Your lordship may think as you please, but my part
is taken;" meaning to support the established settlement.