Lady Cowper was apparently overpowered not only with solicitations to procure places for friends and acquaintances, but sometimes intrusted by her husband with messages of public importance to the Prince and Princess, or that still greater personage, Baron Bernstorff; and she seems to have carried out her mission with much discretion on more than one occasion, as we before remarked. The fair lady and her friend, the German baron, came to high words. He told her sharply one day, ‘“My Lord est beaucoup trop vif, et vous êtes beaucoup trop vive de votre côté. Les ministres se plaignent beaucoup de my Lord Cowper. Ils disent qu’il leur reproche trop souvent, les fautes qu’ils ont pu commettre.” The wife replied, “Notre seul but est de bien servir de roi.” He repeated his words, and then said with great violence, “Croyez moi, vous êtes trop vifs, tous les deux, cela ne vaut rien, cela tourne en ruine.” I believe it was the first time that an English lady, who had bread to put into her mouth, had been so treated. I knew whence all this storm came; and plainly saw our enemies had got the better.’
This was the time to which we have alluded in the notice of the Lord Chancellor. Now, although more especially at this time Lady Cowper was very desirous that her husband should retain office, for she ‘would rather live with him in a garret up three pair of stairs, than see him suffer,’ yet she always answered with spirit when the subject of his resignation was discussed. ‘Mrs. Clayton came in and told me it was reported that Lord Cowper was going to lay down. I answered, They say he is to be turned out, and they need not have given themselves the trouble; if they had but hinted to my Lord they were weary of him, he would have laid down. They know he has done it already, which is more than ever will be said of them.’ Though a courtier in the literal sense of the word, Lady Cowper disdained to trim and truckle, as most of her colleagues did.
She had carried herself towards the mighty baron with distant dignity, since the passage of arms to which we have alluded. He made his niece, Mademoiselle Schütz, his ambassador, to complain of having been treated distantly and coldly, never being allowed to see Lady Cowper alone of late, and so forth. When permitted to renew his visit, he expostulated with her on her believing that he was willing to oust her husband; and upon her saying she understood it was so destined by the Ministry, the baron made a world of asseverations of how he was incapable of injuring the Lord Chancellor, that the King had the greatest possible kindness for him, and that none could take his place from him but God alone, and so forth. Upon which Lady Cowper tossed her head and observed, ‘One must be fond of a place before you fear to lose it, and it was too painful a place to be fond of.’ Then the baron retorted that Lord Cowper was peevish and difficult, and so thought the King, and he begged her ladyship would use her best arguments to soften and make him more compliable;—which she certainly did, though she did not let Bernstorff into the secret, for, at least at this time of day, she was most unwilling to see her husband vacate the Woolsack.
The Mademoiselle Schütz to whom an allusion has been made, is thus described: ‘She was a pretty woman, and had good qualities, but was withal so assuming that she was mightily hated at Court. The Prince disliked her most especially, but I saw her very often.’ Too often, as it proved in the sequel, for the Fraülein made herself most obnoxious after a bit, coming at all hours, when not wanted, to the Cowpers’ house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and ‘writing at every turn, which is very troublesome. I wish she had as many occupations as I have. I had a letter from her to offer to come and stay with me; I thank her for nothing. I had enough of her impertinence last night.’ Another time she insists on the loan of a costly pearl necklace, which the Lady-in-Waiting wanted to wear herself (not being overstocked with jewels), at the birthday; now it is a ‘lace head’ to go to Court in; now she wishes for a set of gold ribbons as a gift. ‘Commend me to a modest assurance. It lifts one out of many a pinch, I find. Lady William Powlett complained of her too, “she is very importunate, and always on the spunge.” I fell a-laughing, and said, “I was very glad it had come to anybody’s share besides mine.”
On the 5th of December in this year (1715), the Diary records the entrance into London of the Jacobite prisoners who had been taken at the battle of Preston,—their arms tied, and their horses led by soldiers. The mob insulted them, carrying a warming-pan before them in ridicule of the Pretender, and saying many spiteful things, which some of the prisoners returned with spirit. ‘The chief of my father’s family was among them, Clavering of Callalee, who is above seventy years old. I did not see them come into town, nor let any of my children do so. I thought it would be insulting to several relations I had there, though almost everybody else went to see them. I forgot to say M. Bernstorff made me a strange offer, through his niece, to let my cousin Tom Forster escape on the road, if I had a mind to it.’ This gentleman was knight of the shire for Northumberland, and was a general in the Jacobites’ army; he had proclaimed the Pretender at Warkworth. He was imprisoned in Newgate, but eventually escaped.
Lord Widdrington, who was impeached at the same time as Lord Derwentwater, was also a connection of hers; and she gives this as a reason she could not go to the State trials, although her Lord presided as Lord High Steward, an appointment which vexed her much. She gives the order of procession, with many servants, and coaches, one with six horses, Garter King at Arms, Usher of the Black Rod, etc. etc. Lady Cowper did not seem to take the same delight in the melancholy pageant as most of the fine world did, for she says, ‘I was told it was customary to have fine liveries on such an occasion, but had them all plain. I think it very wrong to make a parade on such an occasion as putting to death one’s fellow-creatures. The Princess came home much touched with compassion. What a pity that such cruelties should be necessary! My Lord’s speech on pronouncing sentence was commended by every one, but I esteem no one’s commendation like Dr. Clarke’s, who says, “’tis superlatively good, and that it is not possible to add or diminish one letter without hurting it.”’
Many entries in the Diary now speak of Lord Cowper’s continued illness, and how he had again a mind to quit office. His wife, who in spite of all the squabbles and ‘unpleasantness’ she describes, was still in high favour with the Prince and Princess, and was not insensible to the splendour and amusements of a Court life, loved her Lord above all such considerations, and told him she ‘would never oppose anything he had a mind to do,’ and, ‘after arguing calmly on the matter, I offered, if it would be any pleasure done him, to retire with him into the country, and what was more, never to repine at doing so, though it was the greatest sacrifice that could be made him. I believe he will accept.’ But a little while after she says, ‘My Lord is better, and not so much talk of retiring, though I laid it fairly in his way.’
The troublesome Fraülein Schütz seemed to have chosen this time of anxiety to be more importunate than ever about loans of jewels and finery: ‘When she asked me for my diamonds, saying she had less scruple in doing so because I look best in a state of nature, and jewels do not become me! Commend me to the assurance of these foreigners!’
On a similar occasion Lady Cowper makes some very moral reflections, slightly tempered by a dash of pardonable vanity. After an excuse for wearing an emerald necklace, which had been lent her lest she should disoblige her friend, she meant also to wear her own pearls in her hair, though she don’t care one brass farthing for making herself fine, and hopes always to make it her study rather to adorn her mind than to set off a vile body of dust and ashes!
The advice given to Mrs. Collingwood, the wife of one of the Jacobite prisoners, must have shocked the feelings of so loving a wife as Mary Cowper. Mr. Collingwood, a Northumberland gentleman, was under sentence of death, when his wife wrote to an influential friend to intercede in his behalf. Here is the answer: ‘I think you are mad when you talk of saving your husband’s life. Don’t you know you will have £500 a year jointure if he’s hanged, and not a groat if he’s saved? Consider, and let me know. I shall do nothing till then.’ There was no answer to the letter, and Collingwood was executed.