We can go on very pleasantly like this, thought Walpole. Let His Majesty find diversion in Hanover.
The Queen was certainly diverting herself. One day in the great drawing room at Kensington she, with Lord Hervey and the Princess Caroline, were discussing art and Lord Hervey looking at the pictures adorning the walls gave his candid opinion of them.
‘They are very bad,’ he said. ‘I cannot understand how Your Majesty can endure them.’
‘I’ve never liked them,’ the Queen admitted.
‘That fat Venus is quite revolting.’
The Queen admitted that she was. ‘There are some excellent Vandycks in this Palace,’ she said, ‘where they are not shown to advantage.’
‘Perhaps Your Majesty would like them brought into this drawing room and these ... horrors ... taken away.’
‘I think it would be amusing to make the change.’
‘Do let us do it, Mamma,’ cried the Princess Caroline, who always thought everything Lord Hervey suggested was absolutely right. ‘Shall I order it to be done?’
‘Pray do, my dear,’ said the Queen.
The next day when the trio assembled in the great drawing room they agreed that the aspect was decidedly improved. One of the Vandyck pictures was that of Charles I’s children which the Queen said she liked particularly. The children were so charming and it was so sad to remember what happened to their father.
Being rested she felt better and she decided to put into action a plan which she had in her mind for a long time. The King, as she explained to Hervey, hated spending money except on show for what he considered his own state.
‘Henrietta Howard never had very much, poor soul, although she was his mistress all those years—in a position which normally a woman might have made a fortune to comfort her old age.’
‘Poor Henrietta. I hear George Berkeley is courting her.’
‘How is it you hear all the news, mon enfant?’
‘I feel it my duty to gather it for the sole purpose of diverting Your Majesty.’
‘Well, I have a diversion for you. You are going to help me plan Merlin’s cave.’
He had heard of this project which she had long cherished. It was to be a combined library and waxwork show in Richmond Park. Secretly he believed she wanted to give employment to a poet, a certain Stephen Duck. He was the son of a peasant in Wiltshire and worked as a thresher on a farm. But he had written some poems which had come to the Queen’s notice and, because they had been written by this humble man, she was much impressed and sought to help him. To mention poetry to the King was to ask for snorts of derision, so the only way to award such a man was to do so in George’s absence.
Stephen Duck was to be the Librarian in this small thatched building with its romantic Gothic windows; and, among lifesize waxwork figures which Caroline had added to the place, were effigies of Merlin and his secretary, Queen Elizabeth and Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII. There were several busts of philosophers and meta- physicians whose works had interested Caroline when she lived at the Court of the Queen of Prussia and which she had had little chance of studying since her marriage.
The building of Merlin’s Cave provided a great deal of interest during those days and the people flocked into Richmond Park to see and admire it.
Both the Queen and Walpole had hoped that the King would find Hanover diverting so that he would not make his visit too short.
They did not guess how diverting this would be. The first indication of this came from the King himself. He was a great letter-writer and whenever he was absent from the Queen he made a habit of writing regularly to her. These were no mere notes but epistles which ran to forty or even sixty pages. His passion for detail had always been strong; in these letters he gave it full expression. Caroline knew how he passed every minute of his days. He would describe the food, the weather, the behaviour of his servants. So it was only natural that he should tell her of his excitement over a lady he had met in Hanover.
‘My dear Caroline, she is young and beautiful. She is of the first fashion and I shall not rest until I have made her my mistress. I think of nothing but this charming creature. How different from these English women! Her name is Amelia Sophia de Walmoden and she is married to a Hanoverian Baron, but I do not expect much opposition from him. This, of course, makes no difference to my love for you, my dear Caroline, and I know that you will wish me every success when I tell you how greatly I desire to be the lover of this beautiful enchanting creature....’
When Caroline read this she let the letter flutter to the table in dismay and anger. Oh, my God, she thought, was there ever such a man! Why is it that other men keep their amours secret from their wives and this husband of mine seems to imagine that I have pleasure in sharing them!
Even so at that stage she was not unduly alarmed. He was writing and telling her how his courtship progressed step by step. She was too delicious a creature it seemed to be unduly hurried, but his dear Caroline, knowing the man he was, would guess at his impatience. Perhaps she, being a woman of the same sex as his delightful enchantress, would be able to help him understand the dear creature. Did she think he should feign slightly less interest? Or should he declare himself wholeheartedly?
Caroline showed the letters to Walpole who read them with shocked amusement.
‘At least, Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘we get our information at the fountain head. If this is a passing affair no harm done, but I should not like him to become too enamoured of one particular woman.’
Later he returned to say that he had discovered that Madame de Walmoden was related to Ermengarda Schulemburg and the Countess von Platen. The Platens had supplied many mistresses to the royal house of Hanover including Ermengarda Schulemburg; therefore the lady might be of a clinging disposition. Walpole thought the situation should be carefully watched.
‘And your advice as to how I should answer this letter?’
‘I am sure Your Majesty has already made up your mind that the only way to deal with this matter is to sympathize. In that way we shall be made aware of every detail of the affair as it progresses.’
It was a painful way. Each week the letters were growing longer and longer and more and more space was devoted to his affair with Madame de Walmoden.
It was not progressing quite as speedily as he, the ardent lover, could wish. Perhaps his methods were not as acceptable to the dear creature as they might be. The Queen should show this to le gros homme whose affairs with women had been so numerous that he must be most experienced. Ask his advice. Ask what he would do in similar circumstances. The King would be eager to hear.
When Walpole saw the letter he asked if this was a new departure of the King’s, for the Queen seemed dismayed by these revelations.
‘He has always talked of his love affairs with women ... most intimately. He believes that I am so devoted to his interests, and that means his pleasure, that I can only rejoice in whatever way he achieves it. When he has been away on other occasions he has written of his brief adventures but never in quite the same way, never so exuberantly. And of course he talked freely of the women he made love to here at home. But I sense something different about this.’
‘That’s what I feared,’ said Walpole.
Lord Hervey came in while they were talking together and would have left with an apology, but the Queen called him to her and told him what they were discussing.