When Mrs. Howard had won what was called the ‘regard’ of the prince, she separated from her husband. He, it is true, had little regard for, and merited no regard from, his wife; but he was resolved that she should attain not even a bad eminence unless he profited by it. He was a wretched, heartless, drunken, gambling profligate; too coarse, even, for the coarse fine gentlemen of the day. When he found himself deserted by his wife, therefore, and discovered that she had established her residence in the household of the prince, he went down to the palace, raised an uproar in the courtyard, before the guards and other persons present, and made vociferous demands for the restoration to him of a wife whom he really did not want. He was thrust out of the quadrangle without much ceremony, but he was not to be silenced. He even appears to have interested the Archbishop of Canterbury in the matter. The prelate affected to look upon the princess as the protectress of her bedchamber-woman and the cause of the latter living separate from her husband, to whom he recommended, by letter, that she should be restored. Walpole says, further, that the archbishop delivered an epistle from Mr. Howard himself, addressed through the Princess Caroline to his wife, and that the princess ‘had the malicious pleasure of delivering the letter to her rival.’
Mrs. Howard continued to reside under the roof of this strangely-assorted household. There was no scandal excited thereby at the period, and she was safe from conjugal importunity, whether at St. James’s Palace or Leicester House. ‘The case was altered,’ says Walpole, ‘when, on the arrival of summer, their royal highnesses were to remove to Richmond. Being only woman of the bedchamber, etiquette did not allow Mrs. Howard the entrée of the coach with the princess. She apprehended that Mr. Howard might seize her upon the road. To baffle such an attempt, her friends, John, Duke of Argyle, and his brother, the Earl of Islay, called for her in the coach of one of them, by eight o’clock in the morning of the day by noon of which the prince and princess were to remove, and lodged her safely in their house at Richmond.’ It would appear, that after this period the servant of Caroline and the favourite of George Augustus ceased to be molested by her husband; and, although there be no proof of that gentleman having been ‘bought off,’ he was of such character, tastes, and principles, that he cannot be thought to have been of too nice an honour to allow of his agreeing to terms of peace for pecuniary ‘consideration.’
George thought his show of regard for Mrs. Howard would stand for proof that he was not ‘led’ by his wife. The regard wore an outwardly Platonic aspect, and daily at the same hour the royal admirer resorted to the apartment of the lady, where an hour or two was spent in ‘small talk’ and conversation of a generally uninteresting character.
It is very illustrative of the peculiar character of George Augustus, that his periodical visits, every evening at nine, were regulated with such dull punctuality ‘that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten minutes, with his watch in his hand, if the stated minute was not arrived.’
Walpole also notices the more positive vexations Mrs. Howard received when Caroline became Queen, whose head she used to dress, until she acquired the title of Countess of Suffolk. The Queen, it is said, delighted in subjecting her to such servile offices, though always apologising to her good Howard. ‘Often,’ says Walpole, ‘her Majesty had more complete triumph. It happened more than once that the King, coming into the room while the Queen was dressing, has snatched off the handkerchief, and turning rudely to Mrs. Howard, has cried, ‘Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the Queen’s.’
One other instance may be cited here of Caroline’s dislike of her good Howard. ‘The Queen had an obscure window at St. James’s that looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at night, which looked upon Mrs. Howard’s apartment. Lord Chesterfield, one Twelfth Night at court, had won so large a sum of money that he thought it not prudent to carry it home in the dark, and deposited it with the mistress. Thence the Queen inferred great intimacy, and thenceforwards Lord Chesterfield could obtain no favour from court; and, finding himself desperate, went into opposition.’ But this is anticipating events. Let us speak of the other bedchamber-woman of the Princess of Wales and subsequently of Queen Caroline, also a woman of considerable note in the quiet and princely circle at Leicester House, and the more brilliant réunions at St. James’s and Kensington. She was a woman of fairer reputation, of greater ability, and of worse temper than Mrs. Howard. Her maiden name was Dyves, her condition was of a humble character, but her marriage with Sir Robert Clayton, a clerk in the Treasury, gave her importance and position, and opportunity to improve both. Her husband, in addition to his Treasury clerkship, was one of the managers of the Marlborough estates in the duke’s absence, and this brought his wife to the knowledge and patronage of the duchess. The only favour ever asked by the latter of the House of Hanover was a post for her friend Mrs. Clayton, who soon afterwards was appointed one of the bedchamber-women to Caroline, Princess of Wales.
Mrs. Clayton has been as diversely painted by Lord Hervey and Horace Walpole as Chesterfield himself. It is not to be disputed, however, that she was a woman of many accomplishments; of not so many as her flatterers ascribe to her, but of more than were conceded to her by her enemies. The same may be said of her alleged virtues. Walpole describes her as a corrupt, pompous simpleton, and Lord Hervey as a woman of great intelligence and rather ill-regulated temper, the latter preventing her from concealing her thoughts, let them be what they might. The noble lord intimates, rather than asserts, that she was more resigned than desirous to live at court, for the dirty company of which she was too good, but whom she had the honesty to hate but not the hypocrisy to tell them they were good. Hervey adds, that she did good, for the mere luxury which the exercise of the virtue had in itself. Others describe her as corrupt as the meanest courtier that ever lived by bribes. She would take jewels with both hands, and wear them without shame, though they were the fees of offices performed to serve others and enrich herself. The Duchess of Marlborough was ashamed of her protegée in this respect, if there be truth in the story of her grace being indignant at seeing Mrs. Clayton wearing gems which she knew were the price of services rendered by her. Lady Wortley Montague apologises for her by the smart remark, that people would not know where wine was sold if the vendor did not hang out a bush.
Of another fact there is no dispute—the intense hatred with which Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Clayton regarded each other. The former was calm, cool, cutting, and contemptuous, but never unlady-like, always self-possessed and severe. The latter was hot, eager, and for ever rendering her position untenable for want of temper, and therefore lack of argument to maintain it. Mrs. Clayton, doubtless, possessed more influence with the Queen than her opponent with the King, but the influence has been vastly overrated. Caroline only allowed it in small matters, and exercised in small ways. Mrs. Clayton was, in some respects, only her authorised representative, or the medium between her and the objects whom she delighted to relieve or to honour. The lady had some influence in bringing about introductions, in directing the Queen’s notice to works of merit, or to petitions for relief; but on subjects of much higher importance Caroline would not submit to influence from the same quarter. On serious questions she had a better judgment of her own than she could be supplied with by the women of the bedchamber. The great power held by Mrs. Clayton was, that with her rested to decide whether the prayer of a petitioner should or should not reach the eye of Caroline. No wonder, then, that she was flattered, and that her good offices were asked for with showers of praise and compliment to herself, by favour-seekers of every conceivable class. Peers of every degree, and their wives, bishops and poor curates, philosophers well-to-do, and authors in shreds and patches; sages and sciolists; inventors, speculators, and a mob of ‘beggars’ which cannot be classed, sought to approach Caroline through Mrs. Clayton’s office, and humbly waited Mrs. Clayton’s leisure, while they profusely flattered her in order to tempt her to be active in their behalf.
Caroline not only ruled her husband without his being aware of it, but could laugh at him heartily, without hurting his feelings by allowing him to be conscious of it. Hereafter mention may be made of the sensitiveness of the court to satire; but before the death of George I., it seems to have been enjoyed—at least by Caroline, Princess of Wales—more than it was subsequently by the same illustrious lady when Queen of England. Dr. Arbuthnot, at the period alluded to, had occasion to write to Swift. The doctor had been publishing, by subscription, his ‘Tables of Ancient Coins,’ and was gaining very few modern specimens by his work. The dean, on the other hand, was then reaping a harvest of profit and popularity by his ‘Gulliver’s Travels’—that book of which the puzzled Bishop of Ferns said, on coming to the last page, that, all things considered, he did not believe a word of it!
Arbuthnot, writing to Swift on the subject of the two works, says (November 8, 1726) that his book had been out about a month, but that he had not yet got his subscribers’ names. ‘I will make over,’ he says, ‘all my profits to you for the property of “Gulliver’s Travels,” which, I believe, will have as great a run as John Bunyan. Gulliver is a happy man, that, at his age, can write such a book.’ Arbuthnot subsequently relates, that when he last saw the Princess of Wales ‘she was reading Gulliver, and was just come to the passage of the hobbling prince, which she laughed at.’ The laugh was at the cost of her husband, whom Swift represented in the satire as walking with one high and low heel, in allusion to the prince’s supposed vacillation between the Whigs and Tories.