The King's Mistress: The True & Scandalous Story of the Woman Who Stole the Heart of George I by Claudia Gold
Authors: Claudia Gold
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London and it is still the palace to which ambassadors are formally called.
It was universally loathed for its small, labyrinthine rooms. Daniel Defoe called its apartments ‘mean’. In 1734 James Ralph, in his publication on the buildings of London and Westminster, declared that: ‘so far from having one single beauty to recommend it . . . ’tis at once the contempt of foreign nations, and the disgrace of our own.’ 1 St James’s did not impress either the family or their visitors. J. Gwynn, the author of London & Westminster Improved of 1766 lamented that the royal family should ‘reside in a house so ill-becoming the state and grandeur of the most powerful and respectable monarch in the universe’. 2
It was difficult to house the entire family and their staff under its roof, and many of George’s English and Hanoverian servants were lodged instead around Whitehall and in Somerset House. Most of the Hanoverians who had come over with Melusine and George were found rooms in surrounding houses. St James’s saw a frenzy of building as kitchens, cellars and sculleries were put in to feed the new royal family.
Despite the inadequacy of the palace, Melusine’s apartments were ‘lavishly furnished’ and her rooms the best St James’s could offer. 3 The palace was dark and dank, but its location near the river was wonderful and Melusine and the girls used their early days in London well, exploring the parks, which were the envy of Europe. St James’s Park in particular was a magnet for those wanting to be seen:
[It] contains several avenues of elm and lime trees, two large ponds, and a pretty little island; in a word, this is an enchanting spot in summer time. Society comes to walk here on fine, warm days, from seven to ten in the evening, and in winter from one to three o’clock. English men and women are fond of walking, and the park is so crowded at times that you cannot help touching your neighbour. Some people come to see, some to be seen, and others to seek their fortunes; for many priestesses of Venus are abroad, some of them magnificently attired, and all on the look-out for adventures, and many young men are not long in repenting that they have become acquainted with such beautiful and amiable nymphs . . . 4
Court was a round of public and private parties, of jostling for power between the Hanoverian and the English courtiers, of familial rivalry, corruption and bribery.
The English had high hopes of a social renaissance with a new monarch. The latter years of Queen Anne’s court had been so dreary that many had stayed away. In 1711 Swift wrote to Stella, after one particularly dull afternoon:
There was a drawing room today at Court; but so few company, that the Queen sent for us into her bed-chamber, where we made our bows, and stood about twenty of us around the room, while she looked at us round with her fan in her mouth, and once a minute said about three words to some that were nearest her, and then she was told dinner was ready, and went out. 5
The queen was so bloated and ill with dropsy that she could barely move, and every movement achieved was at the expense of great pain. She was steeped in grief for her dead children and her dead husband. There were none of the glamorous parties or intrigues that had marked the beginning of her reign at the height of her relationship with her magnetic favourite, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. After the death of Anne’s husband, Prince George of Denmark, even Sarah stayed away, sparking a shattering fall from grace and the installation of Sarah’s cousin, the Tory Abigail Masham, later wife of Robert Harley (the Earl of Oxford), as Anne’s new favourite. The historian G. M. Trevelyan wrote of Anne’s tedious life: ‘for a dozen weary years the invalid daily faced heroffice work . . . In order to do what she thought right in church and state, she slaved at many details of government . . .’
The reporting of early eighteenth-century court life is
It was universally loathed for its small, labyrinthine rooms. Daniel Defoe called its apartments ‘mean’. In 1734 James Ralph, in his publication on the buildings of London and Westminster, declared that: ‘so far from having one single beauty to recommend it . . . ’tis at once the contempt of foreign nations, and the disgrace of our own.’ 1 St James’s did not impress either the family or their visitors. J. Gwynn, the author of London & Westminster Improved of 1766 lamented that the royal family should ‘reside in a house so ill-becoming the state and grandeur of the most powerful and respectable monarch in the universe’. 2
It was difficult to house the entire family and their staff under its roof, and many of George’s English and Hanoverian servants were lodged instead around Whitehall and in Somerset House. Most of the Hanoverians who had come over with Melusine and George were found rooms in surrounding houses. St James’s saw a frenzy of building as kitchens, cellars and sculleries were put in to feed the new royal family.
Despite the inadequacy of the palace, Melusine’s apartments were ‘lavishly furnished’ and her rooms the best St James’s could offer. 3 The palace was dark and dank, but its location near the river was wonderful and Melusine and the girls used their early days in London well, exploring the parks, which were the envy of Europe. St James’s Park in particular was a magnet for those wanting to be seen:
[It] contains several avenues of elm and lime trees, two large ponds, and a pretty little island; in a word, this is an enchanting spot in summer time. Society comes to walk here on fine, warm days, from seven to ten in the evening, and in winter from one to three o’clock. English men and women are fond of walking, and the park is so crowded at times that you cannot help touching your neighbour. Some people come to see, some to be seen, and others to seek their fortunes; for many priestesses of Venus are abroad, some of them magnificently attired, and all on the look-out for adventures, and many young men are not long in repenting that they have become acquainted with such beautiful and amiable nymphs . . . 4
Court was a round of public and private parties, of jostling for power between the Hanoverian and the English courtiers, of familial rivalry, corruption and bribery.
The English had high hopes of a social renaissance with a new monarch. The latter years of Queen Anne’s court had been so dreary that many had stayed away. In 1711 Swift wrote to Stella, after one particularly dull afternoon:
There was a drawing room today at Court; but so few company, that the Queen sent for us into her bed-chamber, where we made our bows, and stood about twenty of us around the room, while she looked at us round with her fan in her mouth, and once a minute said about three words to some that were nearest her, and then she was told dinner was ready, and went out. 5
The queen was so bloated and ill with dropsy that she could barely move, and every movement achieved was at the expense of great pain. She was steeped in grief for her dead children and her dead husband. There were none of the glamorous parties or intrigues that had marked the beginning of her reign at the height of her relationship with her magnetic favourite, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. After the death of Anne’s husband, Prince George of Denmark, even Sarah stayed away, sparking a shattering fall from grace and the installation of Sarah’s cousin, the Tory Abigail Masham, later wife of Robert Harley (the Earl of Oxford), as Anne’s new favourite. The historian G. M. Trevelyan wrote of Anne’s tedious life: ‘for a dozen weary years the invalid daily faced heroffice work . . . In order to do what she thought right in church and state, she slaved at many details of government . . .’
The reporting of early eighteenth-century court life is
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