King George the Second has often, when Mrs. Howard, his mistress, was dressing the Queen, come into the room, and snatched the handkerchief off, and cried, “Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you love to hide the Queen’s!” Her Majesty (all the while calling her “My good Howard,”) took great joy in employing her in the most servile offices about her person. The King was so communicative to his wife, that one day Mrs. Selwyn, another of the Bedchamber Women, told him he should be the last man with whom she would have an intrigue, because he always told the Queen. Their letters, whenever he was at Hanover, were so long, that he has complained when she has written to him but nineteen pages; and in his, at the beginning of his amour with Lady Yarmouth, he frequently said, “I know you will love the Walmoden, because she loves me.” Old Blackbourn, the Archbishop of York, told her one day, “That he had been talking to her Minister Walpole about the new mistress, and was glad to find that her Majesty was so sensible a woman as to like her husband should divert himself.” Yet with the affectation of content, it made her most miserable: she dreaded Lady Yarmouth’s arrival, and repented not having been able to resist the temptation of driving away Lady Suffolk the first instant she had an opportunity, though a rival so powerless, and so little formidable. The King was the most regular man in his hours: his time of going down to Lady Suffolk’s apartment was seven in the evening: he would frequently walk up and down the gallery, looking at his watch, for a quarter of an hour before seven, but would not go till the clock struck.
The King had another passager amour (between the disgrace of Lady Suffolk and the arrival of Lady Yarmouth) with the Governess to the two youngest Princesses; a pretty idiot, with most of the vices of her own sex, and the additional one of ours, drinking. Yet this thing of convenience, on the arrival of Lady Yarmouth, put on all that dignity of passion, which even revolts real inclination.
F. G. H.
Extracts from Letters of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, during his Ministry at Berlin.
TO THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.
Berlin, July 11-22nd, 1750.