The Duchess

The seventh of June was Georgiana’s twenty-fifth birthday and Lady Spencer used the occasion to denounce her daughter’s mode of living. ‘In your dangerous path of life you have almost unavoidably amassed a great deal of useless trash – gathered weeds instead of flowers,’ she wrote sternly. ‘You live so constantly in public you cannot live for your own soul.’16 The harshness of the letter stunned Georgiana, who replied that on her ‘nervous days’ she cried whenever she thought about it: ‘When the 7th of June gave you a Daughter, wild, unworthy, careless as she is, and of course, a cause of many fears, many troubles to you, yet it gave her to you, with a heart that longs and dares too, to think it shall make it up to you.’17 The following week she repeated her promise, pleading, ‘I could write it in my blood Dearest M.’18

Feeling hurt and rejected, Georgiana turned to the sympathetic and understanding Bess for comfort. She could confide in her new friend as she had done with Mary Graham, and without any of the inconvenience – Bess had no husband or home to call her away; there was no question of them being parted. The news that Bess had accompanied Georgiana and the Duke to Plympton camp for the annual military review alarmed Lady Spencer. She had no illusions about Bess, but she was astonished that both Georgiana and the Duke had fallen under her spell. She gathered from her daughter’s letters that the three were inseparable, sharing Plympton House together, passing their evenings reading Shakespeare aloud. Bess never seemed to leave Georgiana alone, nor was there any facet of Georgiana’s life closed off to her. Little realizing its bad effect, Bess wrote on Georgiana’s letters to Lady Spencer, addressing her as if she were an old friend and adding postscripts about her daughter’s health and good behaviour. Sometimes she wrote almost the whole body of the letter on the excuse that her friend was too tired to write. She was always deferential, but her familiarity with Georgiana grated on Lady Spencer. Her tone revealed a person desperate to make a permanent home for herself.

The harmonious threesome remained at Plympton until the end of September, when Bess developed a bad cough. Georgiana complained she was being very annoying, loudly insisting one minute that she was perfectly all right, and the next admitting to a troublesome cough for the past two years, ‘tho’ she considers all this very ridiculous, and says she is only a little nervous’.19 Georgiana became anxious and full of self-doubt. On 30 September she wrote, ‘I did not go out as I was sulky and uneasy and locked myself up all morning.’20 She admitted she was taking sedatives again which made her groggy and prevented her from receiving friends.21

Georgiana blamed her unhappiness on her infertility.

You accepted Zyllia [she wrote to Lady Spencer, referring to a play she had written about a girl who discovers that her best friend is her mother], and therefore I am going to open the foolish nonsense of my heart, to my friend – I am discontented with myself – I feel a sentiment something like uneasiness and envy at the accounts I receive of Lady George [Cavendish] and her grossesse. I did not mind it at all at first, but now that it draws near its event I feel a sensation at it that I hate myself for, and yet nobody can form more sincere and heartfelt vows than I do for her well-being – I should not feel this if it did not appear to me that there was a possibility of my being so, I am convinc’d could I master the lying in bed, could I lead a strengthening kind of life, and have a calm heart and mind for some time together that it would succeed – and strong as my wishes and persuasions are, so weak am I that I yield to things that hurt me, with my eyes open – you must direct and save me Dst M, for you only can.22

There were other worries: her debts for one. On 19 October Lady Spencer told her that she had paid some money on her behalf to a Mr Hicks, who had seemed quite shifty.

In short [she wrote, somewhat alarmed by the meeting], I suspect some mischief or other - that you have bespoke more things than you can possibly pay for and have given him things of value in exchange. If this is the case I wish you would let me enquire into the particulars, for I am afraid you are often much impos’d upon – at all events I beg you will never part with Jewells. I have often told you they are not your own and should be look’d upon as things only entrusted to your care – do not pass over this article without answering.23

Georgiana was, as usual, mired in debt, but it was not the only reason for her distress. The envy she felt towards Lady George had a much closer object.

The ease with which Bess had made herself the centre of attention during her illness had been a revelation to Georgiana. She deeply resented the Duke’s behaviour over her and had suffered pangs of jealousy when he earnestly discussed Bess’s health with the doctors. Conveniently, Georgiana then fell ill herself. It had the desired effect of turning Bess’s attention back to her and she wrote contentedly, ‘I was bad with my head but as I have already told you, I was so well nursed by the Duke and Ly Eliz that there was quite a comfort in being ill.’24 The crisis was over, and Bess was once more her special friend. Yet she was unable to rid herself of the suspicion that Bess was not quite all that she seemed. She tried to explain her feelings to Lady Spencer in a long letter on 29 October:

You will not suspect me of overdeep penetration, but I very often have, more than you would imagine, amus’d myself with observing the characters of those around me. I do not know if this is a good occupation, it is not least a negative one for it does neither good nor harm to myself or anybody else. It has happened to me with people who have influence over me, to have perfectly seized the reason of their wishing me to do some one thing or other which I did not like to do, and that tho’ they did not disclose their real motive, I have been saying to myself all the time they have been persuading me, ‘I know what you are at and why you wish me to do so and so,’ and yet with this full conviction, instead of owning it and inspite of disliking the thing, I have done it because I was desired and have pretended to believe every word that was said to me, so that I actually have taken more pains to appear a Dupe than most people do, to show they cannot be outwitted. In things of consequence I hope I should be stronger, but in common events I have so great an antipathy to the word no that I expose myself to many inconveniences not to pronounce it. It seems almost as if the activity of my nature spent itself in my mind, and gave me force to feel and reason, but that tir’d with the effort it yielded to indolence the moment I was to perform.25

Lady Spencer gave no sign that she understood Georgiana’s cry, and in her reply merely agreed, ‘your stopping short of acting so, must be an effect of Indolence and will I hope with a little time be got the better of’.26 It was only many years later, when suffering forced her to acknowledge things she would ordinarily have buried, that Lady Spencer accepted she might have been responsible for fostering a certain weakness in Georgiana’s character. ‘I cannot deceive myself,’ she wrote sadly, ‘that to that easiness of temper and fear of giving pain which they both (the Duchess especially) inherit from me they owe the want of that persevering resolution which would have led them into much good and away from much evil.’27 All Lady Spencer could see in 1782, however, was an interloper who was stealing her own rightful place in Georgiana’s heart. She complained about Bess’s influence:

Those were happy days, my dearest child, when every thought of your innocent heart came rushing out without a wish to disguise it, when my eternal rummages were born with perfect composure without any previous precautions and no little drawers or portefeuille were reserved … I see you on the edge of a thousand precipices, in danger of losing the confidence of those who are dearest to you … I see you running with eagerness to those – must I miscall them friends? – Who tho’ their intentions may not be wrong, are by constantly talking to you on subjects which are always better avoided becoming imperceptibly your most hurtful enemies, all these and more keep me on the rack.28

Lady Spencer spent much of her time thinking up ways to get rid of her rival. She asked Georgiana and the Duke to visit them at Hotwells in Bristol, politely adding that Bess would not be welcome since Lord Spencer was ‘too ill to see a stranger with any comfort’.29 Bess was bitterly disappointed to be called a stranger after all her carefully composed postscripts. ‘Poor little Bess’, as she styled herself, went into hysterics at the thought of being left alone and whipped up the Devonshires into an equally distraught state. Georgiana hurriedly wrote to her mother, ‘Lady Eliz. comes with us, Dst Mama, and poor little soul, it is impossible it should be otherwise.’ She tried to soften the blow by pointing to Bess’s obedient nature: ‘My father need not mind her in the least, she is the quietest little thing and will sit and draw in a corner of the room, or be sent out of the room, or do whatever you please.’30 She ended the letter with the only sentence that brought comfort to Lady Spencer: ‘I hope to see her set out for Nice within the month.’

The two weeks in Bristol were strained and awkward for everyone except Bess. If she was aware of the tensions around her, she gave no sign of it: her smile never dropped and her eagerness to oblige never flagged. Lady Spencer, however, noticed that she ate very little; it almost appeared as if she were deliberately starving herself. Nearly every morning the Duke and Bess left Georgiana with her to go riding together; they returned before supper and joined the group, playing cards or reading, without looking or glancing at each other again. Their behaviour was suspicious enough for anyone to question their relationship, but Georgiana chose to remain ignorant. In only a short space of time she had become so dependent on Bess that the possibility of losing her devotion was too painful to contemplate.

The Duke left after ten days and Bess remained in Bristol with Georgiana and Lady Spencer. His departure enabled Lady Spencer to examine Bess’s relationship with her daughter. When the Duke was not present she appeared to think of nothing but Georgiana’s comfort. She displayed a combination of servility and bossiness, taking a great delight in fussing round her. She hardly ever used ‘I’, Lady Spencer noticed; it was always ‘we’. Her voice, hair and clothes were all arranged in a faithful, if not disconcerting, imitation of Georgiana’s – Lady Spencer was sure that most of her clothes had once belonged to her daughter. Yet Georgiana not only didn’t seem to mind Bess’s behaviour; she encouraged it. They used code words and nicknames for each other which made Lady Spencer feel excluded. The Duke was called Canis, which was obviously a reference to his fondness for dogs. But for reasons which have never been clear Georgiana was Mrs Rat, and Bess, Racky. Lady Spencer feared that Harriet would also become infected by Bess’s charm. ‘I do beg you will comply with my earnest request of letting me know at the very first moment of anything that distresses, vexes, or ails you,’ she wrote anxiously, ‘unless you think any body else has a sincerer affection for you and is from that more worthy of your confidence.’31

Shortly after their return to London Georgiana announced that she was pregnant again. She was healthier than she had been for many years, but her mental state seemed precarious: she was beset by ‘feels’ which made her cry constantly and prevented her from sleeping. ‘I wrote you a letter in very bad spirits this morning,’ Georgiana confessed to her mother on 1 December. ‘It is but justice to tell you how much I am mended now and not all uncomfortable, the feels [are] abated and am not near so nervous.’ But the spectre of Bess loomed: ‘Lady Eliz. desires me to express to you,’ she added, ‘how much she is touch’d and flatter’d by your goodness to her … and how sensible she is of any interest you take in her.’32 Lady Spencer’s response to Bess’s overtures was curt: ‘I hope Lady Eliz does not lose sight of going abroad.’33

Georgiana’s emotional state disturbed Lady Spencer, who feared it might induce a miscarriage. She told Harriet she was sure the ones she herself had suffered as a young woman had been caused by an ‘agitation of spirits’.34 But she had neither the sensitivity nor the imagination to understand that Bess might be the cause of her daughter’s torment, and her advice to Georgiana was limited to the practical. Firstly she suggested that Georgiana should stay at home; otherwise she would be accused of loving parties ‘better than a child’.35 Secondly she recommended laudanum; ‘take a few drops (5 or 6) … if you feel any violent [attacks] or agitation … be assured whatever may happen this time, your health is much improved in the main, that if you can but contrive by any means this winter, to keep your mind and body in a calm and quiet state, I have no doubt of your soon obtaining all you wish … do not make yourself unhappy.’36 Finally, as usual, disturbed by Georgiana’s fear that she was too sinful to take the Sacrament, she urged her to put her trust in God. She enlisted Harriet’s help in persuading Georgiana that it was ‘not necessary to be too scrupulous about what is past – the merits of the Saviour are more than sufficient to atone for the blackest of crimes, of which she certainly has none to reproach herself with’.37

Bess was due to pack her bags and leave for France on 25 December. The Devonshires had officially engaged her to be Charlotte Williams’s governess at £300 a year and she was to take her pupil abroad for the winter. The plan had a neatness to it which pleased everyone. It solved the problem of Charlotte, who had not thrived with Mrs Gardner, offered hope for Bess’s health, and provided her with an income. The Duke was firmly convinced that only the warm conditions of the south of France would cure Bess’s terrible cough. There may have been other reasons for Bess going away.* She begged Georgiana and the Duke to keep her informed of ‘the stories you hear of me, pray communicate to me that at least I may be justified to you, and that you may know truth from falsehood’. The threat of some scandal would explain why she was sent abroad for so long when the friendship was in its early stages.

Georgiana was distraught at her departure. ‘I am to lose my dear little Bess and my dear Little Charlotte tomorrow,’ she wrote. ‘It will do them so much good that I don’t allow myself to be much vex’d. But I shall miss them both very much.’38 Lady Spencer hoped, as much as Bess feared, that the separation would mean the end of her reign over the Devonshires. But neither reckoned on the strength of Georgiana’s attachment. ‘My dearest, dearest, dearest Bess, my lovely friend,’ she wrote in a letter accompanying a box stuffed with gifts. ‘If I am mistaken and that you are grown “Ah te voilà ma petite” to your G. throw this into the sea. Mais non c’est impossible, pardonnez moi, mon ange, Je crois que je vous dis quelquefois des brutalités pour avoir le bonheur de m’entendre contredire.’†39 Bess’s mother, Lady Bristol, informed her daughter that Georgiana had written and visited several times just to talk to her. ‘You have done well, most certainly,’ she congratulated, ‘to leave your interest in her hands.’40

* She was referring to Bess’s grandfather Lord Hervey, who died before he could become the second Earl of Bristol. Despite suffering from severe epilepsy and general ill-health, Lord Hervey was, for a time, a brilliantly successful courtier. He recorded his career in the witty and scabrous Memoirs of George II, which was published after his death. Although he married the clever and beautiful Molly Lepel, his real love was for Stephen Fox, Charles Fox’s uncle. The poet Alexander Pope wrote a vicious poem about him: ‘Amphibious thing! that acting either part,/ The Trifling head, or the corrupted heart/ Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board,/ Now trips a lady, now struts a lord …’

†George, the eldest son of Lord Hervey, died unmarried. His second son, Augustus, who became the third Earl of Bristol, did so in a blaze of scandal. Many years before he had secretly married Elizabeth Chudleigh, a rambunctious lady-in-waiting at court with ambition and a reputation to match. The alliance was short-lived and both of them agreed to maintain the pretence of there never having been a marriage. Elizabeth then married the Duke of Kingston, who knew nothing of her previous life, but after the Duke died her past was exposed in a court case over the will. The Countess-Duchess – as Horace Walpole called her – was tried for bigamy in the House of Lords in 1776 in front of 6,000 spectators. One of the many peeresses who crammed into the gallery during the lengthy trial was Georgiana. Because of her age and status, the Duchess of Kingston escaped branding on the hand, the usual punishment, and was allowed to retire abroad. Augustus was condemned for conniving in the deception and his punishment was severe: the Lords insisted the original marriage was indissoluble, thus depriving him of legitimate heirs.

* There is also a vague hint in surviving letters that Bess had become, or contemplated becoming, the mistress of that great seducer the Duke of Dorset. The clues come from gossip repeated by Lady George Cavendish, who baldly stated that Bess had an affair with Dorset, but also from some little admissions in Bess’s own letters. In one fragment she refers to her separation from Mr Foster and that she told him, ‘I never would quit him in any misfortune – it was after all that, that he went down to Ickworth and my mother would not see him. Yet I think I should not have answered at all, but to deny the thing.’ She does not say what she should have denied to Mr Foster, except that they were ‘imprudencies, which though no cause of my separation were subjects of blame’. Chatsworth 532.4: Bess to GD, circa Sept. 1783.

†But that is not possible. Forgive me, my angel. I believe I say these terrible things merely in order to hear them contradicted.

7An Unstable Coalition1783

Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire has determined not to appear in public till after her lying-in; as she had long been leader of the fashion, we hope the ladies will follow her example, and get into the straw as fast as possible.

Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser, 8 February 1783

ONCE BESS had set sail on the packet to France, enriched with money, new clothes and a letter of introduction to the Polignacs, Georgiana was free to resume her former activities. Her long absence from London during 1782 had reduced her to the role of spectator of most of the developments affecting the Whigs. Defying reports by the Morning Herald and other newspapers that she would withdraw from public life until the end of her pregnancy, Georgiana now re-established herself as Fox’s ally and political confidante. He frequently stopped by Devonshire House to discuss his worries. The strain he was under showed in his bloodshot eyes and in the weight he had put on since the previous summer. ‘He says ev’ry body is grown fat even Mr Hare,’ Georgiana replied to her mother’s enquiry; ‘and that the people who are said to be thin are only call’d so because they have not increas’d with the rest of the world.’1

The Rockingham – Shelburne Coalition had been in trouble from the beginning. George III would only talk to Lord Shelburne and pointedly ignored all the Whigs’ requests for patronage. As early as June 1782 some Whigs were already condemning the Coalition as unworkable. Then Lord Rockingham came down with the flu; within two weeks he was dead. He had been in office for just three months, after almost two decades in opposition. The Duke of Portland took over as the official head of the party, while Fox remained the heir apparent. Rockingham’s death further exposed the deep fissures in the cabinet between his supporters and those of Lord Shelburne. Fox had been on the point of resigning his post as Foreign Secretary when Rockingham died. On 4 July he surrendered his seal of office. Lord John Cavendish, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, followed – along with most of the Whigs. But many thought that Fox was wrong to give up so quickly. It took a nine-hour meeting at Lord Fitzwilliam’s before he was able to persuade his supporters that he had not made a terrible mistake.

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