“I do not know,” he reasoned, “why you will not let me part with the deaf old woman of whom I am weary.”
The Countess, however, who was by this time forty-eight, and thoroughly weary also, it is stated, of her degrading position, very soon gave the King the opportunity he wanted by meddling in politics. She appears to have entered into some sort of a job in obtaining a favour for Lord Chesterfield, in which she slighted the Queen by getting the favour granted by the King over the Queen’s head.
This gave George the opportunity he required to be very rude to his former favourite, and to Lord Chesterfield too, as a result of which Lady Suffolk retired to Bath, and Lord Chesterfield shortly after was dismissed from Court, when of course he became a partisan of the Prince of Wales, as might be expected.
The mode of Lord Chesterfield’s dismissal was rather amusing. He had grievously offended Walpole and the King by his opposition to the Excise Scheme. Of all those who had done likewise, Lord Chesterfield, who held the office of Lord Steward of the Household, was the first to suffer. Two days after the extinction of the Excise Bill, he was going up the great staircase of St. James’s Palace—which is not so very great—when an attendant stopped him from entering the presence chamber, and handed him a summons requesting him to surrender his white staff. In this was the hand of the Queen, who had never forgiven him for his little deal with Mrs. Howard. There was also another reason. The Queen had a little window of observation overlooking the entrance to Mrs. Howard’s rooms. One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield had won a large sum of money at play, some say fifteen thousand pounds, and being afraid of being robbed of it in the none too safe streets of London, determined to deposit it with Mrs. Howard. The Queen, through her little window of observation, saw him enter the apartments of the fair Howard, and drew her own conclusions. Thenceforward Lord Chesterfield obtained no more favours at Court, for the Queen controlled them.
Lady Suffolk went to Bath, but was not content, however, with drinking the waters in the kingdom of Beau Nash, she met there Bolingbroke, and is credited with a political intrigue with him, the person most detested by the Court. Whether this political intrigue existed or not, King George availed himself of the rumour of it, and upon her return to Court ignored her. He was an adept at ignoring people, especially his own son and heir, the Prince of Wales. This not being deemed sufficient, the King publicly insulted the Countess of Suffolk, and this had the desired effect; she resigned her post, and finally retired from the Court.
There is a curious memorandum in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum of an interview which took place between Queen Caroline and the Countess, written apparently by the latter, from which it seems that the Queen was even then very loth to lose her services. But not so the King.
Lady Suffolk shortly afterwards married the Honourable George Berkeley,[29] fourth son of the second Earl of Berkeley, and found a good husband, only to lose him soon by death; but this was the comment of the King to the Queen upon hearing of the union, the news of which reached him in Hanover:
“J’étais extrément surpris de la disposition que vous m’avez mandé que ma vielle maitresse a fait de son corps en mariage à ce vieux goutteaux George Berkeley, et je m’en réjouis fort. Je ne voudrois pas faire de tels présents à mes amis; et quand mes ennemis me volent, plut à Dieu que ce soit toujours de cette façon.”
Which, though rather witty, shows that the little man’s pride was hurt, even when an old mistress was made an honest woman.
It may be imagined that in the differences which had arisen between the Prince of Wales and his parents, the rest of his family had not played a neutral part. His brother William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, born April 25th, 1721, was of course but a boy at his first coming to England, but old enough to resent such an eclipse of his own importance by the elder brother whom he had never before seen, and whom, perhaps, he may have been taught to regard as a rival.