About this time great exertions were made to induce the King to reprieve some (at least) of the prisoners, and Lady Cowper was evidently instrumental in gaining that of Lord Carnwath, who would otherwise have suffered with Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater. She gave a letter from the imprisoned nobleman to the Princess, who wept on reading it, and sent word in answer that if Lord Carnwath would confess, she would give him her honour he should be saved, but that was the only way. Now, though the King was not over partial to ‘cette Diablesse de Princesse,’ as he often called her, yet the violent language and opinions she sometimes held were not altogether without their influence on the Royal mind. Lord Nithisdale escaped by the connivance of his devoted wife, and Lord Carnwath was reprieved. ‘God grant us peace to heal all our divisions, and to take away the rancour that is among us.’ ‘Lord Nithisdale’s escape confirmed; I hope he’ll get clear off; I never was better pleased at anything in my life, and I believe everybody is the same.’
March 1.—The Princess of Wales’s birthday. ‘I am ill, but must go to wish her many years of health and happiness, which I unfeignedly do, for she’s a most charming delightful friend as well as mistress.’ Her Royal Highness said M. Bernstorff had been urging the Prince to agree to Lord Cowper being made President of the Council, which the Prince refused to do, unless assured that Lord Cowper wished it. ‘I said Lord Cowper was ready to quit, if they found anybody better to put in his room, but would never change that of which he could acquit himself with honour, for that he could not perform at all.’
Party ran so high in this year (1716), that even a meteorological phenomenon—‘a light so great that from my windows I could see people walk across Lincoln’s Inn Fields though there was no moon’—was pressed by Whigs and Tories into their interests,—the former saying it was God’s judgment on the horrid rebellion, the latter that it was a mark of vengeance on the Whigs for the late executions. Mr. Gibson, the antiquary, says it has ever since been spoken of as ‘Lord Derwentwater’s lights.’ Lady Cowper was coming home in her chair on the night in question, and her bearers were so frightened that she was forced to let her glass down and preach to them all the way to comfort them. She observes that if anybody had overheard the dialogue they could not have helped laughing.
Lady Cowper’s chairmen were apparently not very efficient altogether; she twice complains of the shifts she was put to in consequence of their drunkenness, and her having to come home in the first hackney she could find. Another time she lost her servants altogether, and had to borrow the Duchess of Shrewsbury’s chair. The bickerings and altercations between the Court ladies were interminable, more especially between the German and English; and no wonder, when the Germans talked as one of their great ladies did, saying that ‘English ladies did not look like women of quality, but pitiful and sneaking, holding their heads down, and always seeming in a fright, whereas foreigners hold up their heads and hold out their bosoms, and look grand and stately;’ upon which Lady Deloraine replies, ‘We show our quality, madam, by our birth and titles, not by sticking out our bosoms.’
The Diary tells us that on May the 29th, those who disliked the reigning family wore green boughs, and on June the 10th (the Pretender’s birthday) white roses. Nothing now but cabal and intrigue, petty Court jealousies, bitter hatred and enmity among the political parties, the ins and the outs, and unseemly quarrels between the two highest in rank in the country.
It was settled that the King was to go to Hanover for at least six months, the question of the Regency during his absence being the worst bone of contention of all. But we have treated this subject more at large in the notice of Lord Cowper, who was constantly peacemaking and pouring good counsel into the ears of the Prince of Wales.
Diary.—‘For my part, I thought it so absolute a necessity to the public good to keep all things quiet, that I did heartily and successfully endeavour to conceal everything that tended to disunion, little thinking at the time it could ever be called a crime to keep things quiet.’
It was finally settled that the King was to go to Hanover, to which His Majesty looked forward with pleasure, greatly alloyed by the necessity of making his son Regent. Always jealous of him, he could not bear the idea of the Prince of Wales playing at King. When it was arranged that the Prince should be appointed to the Regency during His Majesty’s absence, there were as many restrictions put upon him as possible. In this summer (1716) the Court went to reside, with much splendour, at Hampton Court Palace, and the Diary leads us to believe there was some little enjoyment to be derived from that comparative retirement. But even here the spirit of unrest followed them: Lord Townshend, who came down frequently on public business, treated the Princess with so little respect, and paid such court to Mrs. Howard (to curry favour with the Prince) that both Lord and Lady Cowper expostulated with him, so effectually indeed as to prevail on the Minister to change his demeanour, ‘which brought the Princess into perfect tranquillity.’ Not for long, however, for when Lord Sunderland arrived to take leave, before joining the King at Hanover, he fell out with the Princess walking in the long gallery which looks on the gardens; and he talked so loud that Her Royal Highness desired him to speak lower, for the people in the garden would overhear him. ‘Let them hear,’ cries my Lord. The Princess answered, ‘Well, if you have a mind, let ‘em, only you shall walk next to the window, for in the humour we are both in, one of us must jump out, and I am resolved it sha’n’t be me.’ But for such stormy interludes, and the constant disquietude which the presence of Mrs. Howard (nor of her alone), must have occasioned the Princess, the time passed pleasantly enough, in Wolsey’s picturesque old palace, so lately increased in magnitude by the additions of Sir Christopher Wren. The gardens and pleasances too had been much improved and enlarged, for Queen Mary’s delectation, and the Princess, who was a great walker, spent many hours under the leafy shades of the lime grove, and wandering among the dark yews and evergreens.
Diary.—‘The Prince and Princess dined every day in public in Her Royal Highness’s apartments. The Lady-in-Waiting served at table, but my ill-health prevented me doing that service. In the afternoon my Royal mistress saw company, and read or writ till evening, when she walked in the garden for two or three hours together, and would go to the pavilion at the end of the bowling-green (which runs parallel with the river) to play there, but after the Countess of Buckenburgh fell and put her foot out, the Princess went there no more, but played in the green gallery. The Duchess of Monmouth was often with us, and the Princess loved her mightily, and, certainly, no woman of her years ever deserved it so well. She had all the fire and life of youth, and it was marvellous to see that the many afflictions she had suffered had not touched her wit and good-nature, but at upwards of threescore she had both in their full perfection.’ We cannot resist inserting this generous testimony to one who was distinguished by Royal favour at a time when petty jealousies and intense rivalry were at their height. Their Royal Highnesses left Hampton Court with part of their retinue by water, and as they glided along in a Royal barge, Lady Cowper thought ‘nothing in the world could be pleasanter than the passage, or give one a better idea of the richness and happiness of the kingdom.’ A break now occurs in the Diary, which began 1714, and which we have followed up to October 1716. That portion which concerned the next four years is not forthcoming, and the editor gives us a clue to the reason. In a memorandum by the Chancellor’s daughter, Lady Sarah, she copies a letter written to the postmaster at Hertford: ‘It is reported that at the time of the trial of the Bishop of Rochester Lord Cowper offered to be bail for him, which was so resented by a certain person of distinction that he moved for a warrant to search his Lordship’s house. News of this was sent to Lady Cowper, and though the report was to be despised, yet my mother had so many hints and intimations sent her by different people of a design to attack my father and try to involve his character in the examination then on foot, relating to Layer’s plot, that she took fright for some papers she had drawn up by way of diary, also some letters belonging to the Prince and Princess, which she had in her hands, relating to the quarrel in the Royal Family, that, not being able to place them in safety, in a hurry she burned such as she thought likely to do most harm.’ This is a reasonable explanation of the disappearance of the records of 1717, 1718,and 1719. In 1718 Lord Cowper resigned office, to the great regret of all well-thinking persons of whatever party, the details of which will be found in the Chancellor’s life. The feuds in the Royal Family had augmented in frequency and violence during these four years, and Lady Cowper resumes her narrative at a time when the scandal of these quarrels was so great as to render a reconciliation imperative on public grounds. Lord Cowper himself had lost much of the King’s favour by his adherence to the Prince, and the fair Lady-in-Waiting herself had to undergo many cold looks, and, what must have been more trying to such a steadfast nature as hers, the caprice and wayward moods of the mistress she still loved and served most loyally. New influences were at work, and new favourites on the scene. As to the reconciliation, though made a subject of public rejoicing, it was hollow enough. The King lost few opportunities of slighting his son and daughter-in-law, and he plagued her much, particularly on the vexed question of the custody of her children, who had been removed from her care. But we are anticipating. The Diary re-opens with a visit from Mr. Secretary Walpole (afterwards Sir Robert) to the Princess of Wales, with offers of reconciliation from the King, April 9, 1720. The Princess referred him to Lord Cowper, who lost no time in hastening to the Royal presence to discuss the matter.
The conditions were most unpalatable to the Prince and Princess, who were ‘in great anguish.’ They both asked the advice of Lord and Lady Cowper, and took that of Mr. Secretary Walpole. Among many leading men of the day, whom the Lady-in-Waiting had no reason to love, were that Minister and Lord Townshend in particular, and she did not approve of Walpole’s confession to my Lord, that he did almost everything through the medium of the Duchess of Kendal, who was ‘virtually Queen of England.’ Lady Cowper also complains that her mistress has been taught to suspect her all the winter, and that the Prince scarcely looks at her, and she marvels how Walpole has got such a hold of them that they only see through his eyes, and no longer recognise their real friends. Would not the leafy shades of Cole Green form a pleasant contrast to this vortex of antagonism?—so at least thought Lord Cowper, ‘who is sick of the whole affair, and goes out of town to hear no more of it, and it is more than odds, if he is not pleased with his treatment, that he will carry me with him.’