Court Beauties of Old Whitehall: Historiettes of the Restoration

by W. R. H. Trowbridge

This young man, who owed what prestige he enjoyed to his father, affected the beau of his period. He had plenty of wild, obscene wit, and early gained the reputation of being a swashbuckler. Pepys met him and some of his associates one night at Vauxhall, "as very rogues as any in the town, who were ready to take hold of every woman that came by them." They invited Pepys, who was apparently nothing loth, "to supper in an arbour, but Lord! their talk did make my heart ache! Here," continues the prurient gossip, whom we must thank for giving us many a sidelight on Restoration manners, "I first understood the meaning of the company that lately were called 'Ballers'; Harry telling me how it was by a meeting of some young blades, when he was among them, and my 'Lady' Bennet (a notorious procuress) and her ladies and their dancing naked, and all the roguish things in the world."

That the Countess of Shrewsbury should have admitted this man to her closest intimacy, without any pretence at concealment, is sufficient to show the free rein she had come to give to her passions. But though he had a preference for the lowest haunts of the town, a shadow of respectability still clung to him. Through the Killigrew interest at Court—besides the favour his father enjoyed with the King, one of his aunts, Lady Shannon, had been a mistress of Charles—he had secured the post of groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York, with whom he was somewhat of a favourite. His station in life had consequently brought him in contact with the cream of Restoration society, but owing to the insufferable airs and impertinences he allowed himself there were few whom he had not offended. Once, indeed, much to the general satisfaction, the Duke of Buckingham gave him a lesson he richly deserved. For having presumed to take some insolent liberty with this nobleman at Drury Lane, his Grace, in full view of the approving audience, "did soundly beat him, and take away his sword, and make a fool of him, till the fellow prayed him to spare his life." The salutary effect of this lesson was, however, only temporary, and when Harry Killigrew had the Countess of Shrewsbury for his mistress the memory of his public chastisement had quite ceased to have any effect on his volatile nature. Even the resentment he might naturally have been supposed to feel towards the Duke of Buckingham had disappeared. He was, says Hamilton, "a frequent guest at his Grace's table."

The Duke, who had, perhaps, the most brilliant wit of any person of the period and enjoyed that of others, was, in the cynical indifference with which he regarded both vice and virtue, amused by Killigrew. If, as was said of this foolish son of the Court Fool, "he would never leave off lying as long as his tongue would wag," it was equally true of this organ that it would never leave off wagging as long as there was a bottle to be drunk. Buckingham, who not only used him as a pimp but as a spy and mistrusted him, knowing Killigrew's weakness, delighted to intoxicate him as the surest means of pumping the truth from him. But Killigrew, whose self-love was enormously flattered by being the accepted lover of such a woman as the Countess of Shrewsbury, no sooner got drunk than his tongue would wag by the hour in praise of her ladyship's "most secret charms and least visible beauties, concerning which more than half the Court knew quite as much as he knew himself."

His Grace, into whose ears these glowing descriptions were being continually dinned, resolved at last to test the truth of them himself, with the result that Harry Killigrew lost his mistress and my Lady Shrewsbury gained a new lover. And now the foolish young libertine gave the crowning proof of his folly. For, being cut dead by Lady Shrewsbury, "he assailed her with invectives from head to foot. He painted a frightful picture of her conduct, and turned all her charms which he had previously extolled into defects."

Buckingham was not the person to be trifled with, still less Lady Shrewsbury, who had no more hesitation in removing an enemy from her path than Messalina. But as Killigrew's compromising indiscretions had after all only served to provide her with a fresh lover more to her taste, "he was privately warned of the inconvenience to which his declamations might subject him, but as he despised the advice, and persisted, he soon had reason to repent of it." His punishment was, however, deferred by an event and its consequence, that for some sixteen months engrossed the attention of his Grace and my Lady to the exclusion of all other considerations.

It is said that there comes a time when even the worm will turn, and that time had come to the colourless Earl of Shrewsbury—to his cost. For his wife, having ignored him as long as he was complaisant, promptly put her foot on him, so to speak, and crushed him the moment he dared to protest. This unfortunate man, who had silently endured being made a cuckold by infatuated chivalrous Arrans and Howards, and even by an impudent Killigrew, drew the line at a Duke of Buckingham. He accordingly challenged this latest lover of his wanton wife, and "his Grace," says Hamilton, "as a reparation for his honour, having killed him upon the spot, remained a peaceable possessor of this famous Helen."

This duel, or murder, for it was nothing less, in which the Earl and one of his seconds lost their lives, while the other was dangerously wounded, was particularly infamous from the active part Lady Shrewsbury herself took in it. For, like some "foul traitress lady" of the Morte d'Arthur, having accompanied her lover to the field of battle clad as a page, she held his horse during the combat, and when he was victorious embraced him all covered as he was with her husband's blood.

Unbridled as were the times even Whitehall could not stomach so shameless and outrageous a crime. Catherine of Braganza, on her own initiative, but powerfully supported by an indignant public, endeavoured to bring the Messalina and her paramour to justice. But the Duke of Buckingham was still more powerful at this time than the law, at which both he and Lady Shrewsbury snapped their fingers. As if to flaunt his defiance of all authority in the face of the angry nation, shortly after the death of Lord Shrewsbury—who did not, as Hamilton says, die on the spot, but lingered two months—his Grace actually installed his mistress in his own house. To the poor Duchess of Buckingham, who was as saintly as her husband was impious, this was the last straw. "It is impossible for both of us to live under the same roof," she protested, when the Shrewsbury arrived. "So I thought," retorted the Duke, "and therefore I have ordered your carriage to be got ready to carry you back to your father's."

The public, staggered by the contempt with which this brazen couple treated their laws and opinions, were reduced to the usual futile expedient with which virtue when baffled by vice seeks to console itself. Aware of the fickle characters of these two arch-evildoers, which presupposed their speedy falling-out, the righteously indignant public, agreeing with the Psalmist that the way of the wicked shall be turned upside down, prophetically awaited this dénouement. Nevertheless, even this satisfaction was denied the virtuous, for "never before had my Lady Shrewsbury's constancy been of such long duration; nor had his Grace ever been so solicitous a lover."