I can tell you thus much, Kitty: the Walpoles are main frightened. It may be a cast-back to the principles of the milliner mother. And there was never the difference between her and Sir Edward Walpole that there is between Maria and a Prince of the Blood. Her birth is impossible. My Lady Mary Coke asking me if the mother were not a washerwoman, says I, "I really cannot determine the lady's profession."
Poor Lady Mary is run clean mad with jealousy and spite, for 't is not so long since she believed herself on the way to be a Royal Duchess, imagining the late Duke of York to be her lover--a gentleman so passionately in love with himself as to leave no room for another. She wore her blacks when he died, like a widow. But, spitfire as Lady Mary is, 't is too true Maria is playing with fire, and there should be nothing between him and her mother's daughter. She is indeed more indiscreet than becomes her. His chaise is eternally at her door; and, as my Lady Mary says, she is lucky that anyone else countenances her at all. If they do, 't is as much from curiosity as any nobler emotion. Indeed, I fear her reputation's cracked past repair. Meeting Horry Walpole last night at the French Embassador's, he was plagued with staring crowds, and he made off after braving it a while. I hear the King is highly offended and the Queen yet more. She has a great notion of birth; and though poor, the Mecklenburg family has as good quarterings as any Royals in Europe. For my part, Kitty, I know not. Yet, if we seek for pedigree in horse and dog, 't is to be supposed worth something in Adam's breed also. And this ill-behaviour in Maria confirms me.
Yet I have visited the fair sinner, for I love her well. She can't help neither her birth nor her beauty, but sure her kind heart is all her own. She wept and would reveal nothing, but asked me to be so much her friend as to think the best of her. 'T is pity her tears were wasted on a mere woman. The drops beaded on her lashes like rain on a rose. Well, God mend all! say I. Sure none of us have a clear conscience and if anyone was to come up behind us and whisper, "I know when, how, and who!" 't is certain there are few women but would die of terror. Yet I did not think Maria a rake--though a Prince's.
'T is pity Lady Mary, the Great Wortley Montagu, is dead, that would have relished all this talk to the full. Can I forget when I visited her two years since just before she died--her vivacity and the tales she told of the junketings of Queen Anne's Court and George the First's! Gracious powers, Kitty, to think of our grandmothers' conduct and our own excellence in comparison! I have not heard a scandal since, but I have vied it with theirs and found it a mere caprice. 'T was almost affrighting to see that old lady, propped up in her chair, and croaking out tales of the grandparents of every person known to me, not forgetting my own, and laughing with a horrid glee and a fire in her ancient eye, till I expected to see her fly off like a witch on a broomstick. Sure, thinks I, no respectable young woman will be seen conversing with her grandmother after this! Mrs Montagu carried me to see her, and I could scarce thank her for it. Lord help us! does the world grow better or worse? I must take Mr Walpole's opinion.
1772.
Kitty, Kitty, 't is all come out! But I may say the town knew it after the masquerade in Soho, when His Royal Highness appeared as Edward the Fourth and Maria as Elizabeth Woodville, the pretty widow he made his Queen. You'll allow 't was a delicate way to let the cat out of the bag. It could not longer be kept within it, for the lady's sake and more. For there's to be a little new claimant one day to the Crown, if all the elder stem should fail.
They were married, Kitty, in 1766! Sure never was an amazing secret better kept! And I will say she hath borne much for the Prince's sake, and with good sense--let my Lady Mary Coke and all the Furies say what they will. But think of it--think of it! for indeed 't is scarce credible. Here's Maria No-name--the milliner's base-born daughter--to be Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester, Princess of Great Britain! Was ever human fate so surprising? 'Twas a secret even from her father and uncle, by the Duke's command; but she has now writ her father so pretty a letter that 'tis the town's talk, Horry Walpole having shewed it about. But Horry--have you forgot his pride, hid always under a nonchalance as if't was nothing? I was at Gloucester House, where she received en princesse, two nights ago; and to see Horry kiss her hand and hear him address her with, "Madam, your Royal Highness," at every word--sure no wit of Congreve's could ever equal the comedy! But if looks were all, she should be Queen of England--a shining beauty indeed! She wore a robe in the French taste, of gold tissue, her hair lightly powdered, with a bandeau of diamonds and the Duke's miniature in diamonds on her breast. He, looking very ill at ease, as I must own, stood beside her.
The King and our little Mecklenburger Queen are distracted; the royal ire withers all before it; but it can't be undone, though they will pass a Marriage Act to make such escapades impossible in the future.
But the Walpole triumph! 'Tis now proved in the face of all the world that a Walpole illegitimate is better than a German Royalty; for he might have married where he would. No doubt but Horry Walpole always thought so, yet 'tis not always we see our family pride so bolstered.
Meagre as a skeleton, he looked the genteelest phantom you can conceive, in puce velvet and steel embroideries. For my part, I am well content, and wish Her Royal Highness joy without grimace. 'Tis true I laugh at Horry Walpole, for in this town we laugh at everything, from the Almighty to Kitty Fisher; but I have a kindness for him and for Maria, and had sooner they triumphed than another. 'Tis not so with the town. O Kitty, the jealousy and malice! 'Twould take fifty letters to tell you the talk, from the Court down.