Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/148

 Caroline spent by both in the house of Lord Grantham, the princess's great chamberlain (see the account, based upon a contemporary official narrative, in Memoirs, iii. 279-282; also  Reminiscences, 290). Ten years afterwards, on the death of George I, it was Queen Caroline herself who, if Walpole is to be believed, discovered in the late king's cabinet Lord Berkeley's atrocious proposal to transport the Prince of Wales to America (Reminiscences, 289).

After his quarrel with the king, the Prince of Wales in 1718 hired, and in 1719 bought, as a summer residence, Richmond Lodge in Richmond Gardens, on the riverside near Kew. The villa had formerly been the Duke of Ormonde's (Suffolk Letters, i. 23 note;, iii. 118). Ultimately both Richmond Lodge and Gardens became Queen Caroline's separate property (, iii. 312 note); and it was here that in 1735 she caused to be constructed, in the absurd fashion of the times, the famous 'Merlin's Cave,' a grotto adorned with figures of Merlin and others, and supplied with a collection of books, of which Stephen Duck was librarian (ib. ii. 222 and note). As a town residence the prince and princess took Leicester House in Leicester Fields (Reminiscences, 295 and note). But Richmond was associated with Caroline's Court more than any other place—more even than Kensington Gardens, whence was derived the title of the poem in which Tickell paid a tribute to 'England's daughter' and her virgin band.' Even after her accession to the throne her and her husband's life here was 'so much in private that they saw nobody but their servants' (, i. 249); but this household and its immediate intimates included, besides a bevy of fair ladies, the most accomplished of the younger whig nobility, and not a few of such great wits of the day as were within reach. Pope himself, in 1717, celebrated the princess's 'maids' in his 'court ballad' entitled 'The Challenge;' but a more complete picture of 'Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin,' and of the lively ways of these and other ladies around the princess, will be found in their own contributions to the 'Suffolk Letters' (see also Reminiscences, 300 seqq., for a general survey of this court). Among the ladies attached to the court were Mrs. Selwyn and Lady Walpole; but the most influential personage there after the princess was her bedchamber-woman, Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk and mistress of the robes, and mistress en titre to George II both before and after his accession. With her the princess prudently established a modus vivendi, and though a species of party inevitably formed round the mistress, the controlling influence over her husband remained with the wife. According to Lord Hervey (Memoirs, ii. 89-93), when in 1734 a rupture between the king and Lady Suffolk at last took place, Queen Caroline was 'both glad and sorry;' indeed, at one time she had been rather desirous to keep Lady Suffolk about the king than to leave a chance for a successor. Mrs. Clayton (afterwards Lady Sundon), another of the bedchamber-women, acquired great influence over the queen in later days, and was thought in especial to be the agent who introduced low church or 'heterodox' divines to her favour (Suffolk Letters, i. 62-3; Reminiscences, 307). Among the male members of the young court the most prominent were Lord Stanhope, from 1726 Lord Chesterfield, whose opposition to Walpole, coupled, it was said, with the discovery of his trust in Mrs. Howard by the queen, entailed upon him her lasting resentment (ib. 297: Walpoliana, i. 83-4;, i. 322—4; and see refutation of  in a note to Suffolk Letters); Lords Bathurst and Scarborough; Colonel, afterwards General, Charles Churchill; Carr, lord Hervey, and above all his younger brother John, who succeeded to the title in 1723. Lord Hervey was the most devoted of Queen Caroline's servants and friends; he says (ii. 46) that she called him always 'her child, her pupil, and her charge;' he was of the utmost use to her in her dealings with the king and with Walpole; he reported the debates to her; his society was the relief of her life; and he was even allowed to laugh at her without offence being taken (see his jeux d'esprit, ii. 323-46). After her death he wrote her epitaph (ib. iii. 334 note). Among the neighbours of the court at Richmond Lodge who at different times came into contact with it were Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Pope; Bolingbroke too was from 1725 intriguing close at hand. Gay had the entrée, though he thought it beneath him to accept the office of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa and Arbuthnot. Swift in his exile flattered himself with hopes founded on the interest shown in him and in Irish affairs by the princess on his visits to England in 1726 and 1727, but more especially on the supposed influence of Mrs. Howard (Suffolk Letters). Finally, it may be presumed that even in the earlier years of Caroline's English life the literary representatives of those opinions on religious matters which chiefly found favour there were occasionally admitted to her society.

The hopes of the 'Howard party,' which had thought that the ascendency of the mistress would be firmly established on