These two Duchesses both possessed, from the same cause, some influence in the sphere of politics. Around them gathered the malcontents of the two parties: both were in enmity to the court—both detested Sir Robert Walpole. Tories and Jacobites thronged the saloons of the Duchess of Buckingham; the malcontent Whigs, those of Marlborough-house. The anecdotes related by Horace Walpole must always be adopted with much caution. He states that the Duchess of Buckingham, passionately attached to shows and pageants, made a funeral for her husband as splendid as that of Marlborough. She wished afterwards to borrow for the procession at her son’s interment the car which conveyed the remains of Marlborough to the tomb. “It carried my Lord Marlborough,” was the Duchess of Marlborough’s angry reply, “and it shall never carry any other.” “I have consulted the undertaker,” retorted the Duchess of Buckingham, “and he tells me I may have the same for twenty pounds.” The same authority informs us, that when the illegitimate daughter of James the Second received Lord Hervey as a suitor to her granddaughter, she appointed the day of her royal grandfather’s martyrdom for the first interview, and appeared, when he entered, seated in a chair of state, of deep mourning, in weeds and weepers, with her attendants in similar suits.[[317]]
Her rival Duchess, Sarah of Marlborough, suffered from the satirical castigation of Pope, in one of those epistles which Bolingbroke pronounced to be his best.[[318]] The famous and certainly in their way unequalled lines on Atossa were shown to the Duchess of Marlborough, as if they were designed for her grace of Buckingham. But the shrewd Sarah knew the faithful, though highly-coloured portrait. She checked the person who was reading to her, and called out aloud, “I see what you mean; I cannot be so imposed upon.” She abused Pope violently, but was afterwards reconciled to the great satirist, and is said to have given him a thousand pounds to suppress the character.[[319]] Such is the statement; but it would have been more like the Duchess to have braved the world, and to have permitted the inimitable satire to see the light. She could scarcely be rendered more unpopular than she had hitherto been.
The death of George the First produced no change in the station held as first Lord of the Treasury by Sir Robert Walpole; a minister who seems to have been, as a man, peculiarly obnoxious to the Duchess of Marlborough, and with whom she was, at various periods of her life, at variance.
Since the death of Lord Sunderland, Sir Robert Walpole had been making rapid advances to the office of prime minister. He resumed that office, on the accession of George the Second, with an accumulated national debt amounting to fifty millions.[[320]] Although coinciding with Sir Robert in what she termed her Whig principles, the Duchess could never assimilate with a character so unlike the statesmen whom she had known and revered; so opposite in his nature to the disinterested Godolphin, whom she had seen placed upon a similar eminence, and whose fidelity and honour she constantly extols. Even the popular qualities of this noted minister were repulsive to her aristocratic notions; and with the Duchess prejudice was ever more powerful than reason. Sir Robert was, in her estimation, one of “the worst bred men she ever saw;” and coarse as the Duchess has been represented, no one had more insight into character, nor had greater experience of those manners which charm the fancy and elevate the tone of social life. Sir Robert Walpole’s most popular qualities were beneath her praise. His good-nature she might admire, but it was accompanied by freedom of manners, vulgarity of language, and profligacy in conduct. The dignity of station was never understood by him. He had neither elevation of mind to compass great designs, nor depravity to conceive schemes of wickedness. Yet he injured virtue daily, by ridiculing that nice sense of her perfection which we call honour. “When he found,” says Lord Chesterfield, “anybody proof against pecuniary temptations—which was, alas! but seldom—he laughed at and ridiculed all notions of public virtue, and the love of one’s country, calling them the chimerical schoolboy flights of classical learning, declaring himself, at the same time, no saint, no Spartan, no reformer.”[[321]] His demeanour thoroughly corresponded with these professions. Of very moderate acquirements, he entertained no value for the higher branches of literature, a knowledge of which might have redeemed his common-place mind from vulgarity. Higher tastes might have rendered that flattery revolting, in which he found such delight, that no society in which it was enjoyed could be too low, no characters too reprobate for this minister’s familiar intercourse, whilst they administered to his vanity. With assumed openness of manners, he kept, nevertheless, a careful guard over his real sentiments, whilst he possessed, beyond every other man, the art of diving into those of others. He lowered the attributes of ministerial power, by converting the degeneracy of the times to his own advantage, by his connexion with the monied interests and with stock-jobbing, the only science to which he seems to have applied his mind. His corrupt administration must ever be remembered with disgust by those who wish to see the national character continue on the high footing which it has generally, with some melancholy interruptions, preserved.[[322]]
The Duchess of Marlborough, be it however remembered, could endure the freedom and ill-breeding of Sir Robert Walpole until personal wrongs roused her resentments. Sir Robert owed to her, if we may believe her uncontradicted statement, the appointment of treasurer to the navy, which she procured for him, not much to her credit, since he had at that time been expelled the House of Commons for peculation.[[323]] She prevailed with difficulty in his behalf, and received acknowledgments from Sir Robert for this service. “Notwithstanding which,” she adds, “at the beginning of his great power with the present family, he used me with all the insolence and folly upon every occasion, as he has treated several, since he has acted as if he were king, which it would be tedious to relate.”[[324]]
The “folly” of which the Duchess complains might be a trait of Walpole’s habitual manners; from the “insolence” which she attributes to him he was generally free, except when irritated beyond endurance in the House of Commons. No man was more liked and less respected. His disposition was not vindictive. His raillery proceeded from a kindly temper, of which refinement formed no feature. His conduct in the domestic relations of life has been greatly extolled, but surely by those who have forgotten his licentiousness of character, which tainted his conjugal life, and the impure example which he gave to his children.
It was about a year before the death of George the First that the Duchess and Sir Robert Walpole came to an open rupture. Her influence, and the obligations which he had acknowledged to her grace, had hitherto delayed the hostilities which now commenced.
The Duchess, it appears from the Private Correspondence lately published, had lent the government a very considerable sum of money for several years, on which account Sir Robert Walpole was particularly desirous, as he told her grace’s friend, Dr. Hare, to serve and oblige the Duchess.[[325]] Upon this, and other matters, a variance having arisen between the Duchess and Sir Robert, Dr. Hare, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, who appears to have been really attached to the Duchess, and to have had more influence over her than any one else, perceiving a great degree of bitterness and resentment to have been excited in her grace’s mind, addressed her by letter on the subject. This excellent man availed himself of the best privilege of friendship, that of speaking the truth. He did not disguise from her grace that he perceived and lamented the violence of her passions; but he began his mild and just remonstrances by an appeal to her best feelings. “I hope and believe, madam, that I need not tell your grace that I have the most affectionate esteem for you, and not only esteem, but really admire you for your fine understanding and good sense, and for the just and noble sentiments which you express on all occasions in the best language, and in the most agreeable manner, so that one cannot hear you without the greatest pleasure; but the more I esteem and admire what is excellent in your grace, the more concerned am I to see any blemishes in so great a character.”
Dr. Hare understood well the person to whom he addressed his well-meant remarks. “Ill-grounded suspicions,” he observes, “violent passions, and a boundless liberty of expressing resentments without distinction from the prince downwards, and that in the most public manner, and before servants, are certainly blemishes, and not only so, but attended with great inconveniences; they lessen exceedingly the influence and interests persons of your grace’s fortune and endowments would otherwise have, and unavoidably create enemies.”[[326]]
The Duchess’s reply to this admirable advice was worthy of a disposition candid and upright beyond dispute. Far from resenting Dr. Hare’s good counsels, she declared herself of Montaigne’s opinion, that a greater proof of friendship could not be given than in venturing to disoblige a friend in order to serve him. She entreated Dr. Hare to believe that she regarded him the more for his sincerity. “I beg of you,” she added, in her own natural way, “never to have the least scruple in telling me anything you think, for I am not so partial to myself as not to know that I have many imperfections, but a great fault I never will have, that I know to be one.” Having thus premised, she proceeded to explain how affairs stood between herself and Sir Robert Walpole, and to justify herself in Dr. Hare’s opinion.