January 28, 2025 • 43 mins
Henrietta Howard was saddled with an abusive embarrassment of a husband and no money. She took matters into her own hands, ingratiating herself with the court of the Princess and Princess of Wales.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised Queen Anne
didn't have any living heirs, and because England would need
a Protestant monarch when she died, the throne would be
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going over to the Hanover branch of the family in Germany.
With that in mind, a woman named Henrietta Howard and
her husband Charles boarded a boat from England to Germany
with one simple goal to go from penniless nobodies to
official members of the new incoming royal court. Henrietta and
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Charles had gotten married six and a half years earlier.
They had originally met under dire circumstances. Although Henrietta came
from a noble family, it had fallen apart with the
death of her mother, her father, and four of her siblings.
At just sixteen, Henrietta had become the oldest surviving representative
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of the family. Medical bills were piling up and her
fortune was in danger, so she sought out the help
of the Hobart's family friends. Taking pity on Henrietta, the
Hobarts invited her to stay with them in their Jacobean
mansion near saffron Walden. There she met Charles, the family's
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youngest son, who was fourteen years older than she was.
Charles was a high up military official at the time,
nicknamed Salamander because he fought in the hottest parts of
the battlefield. Other than that, Charles didn't have a lot
going for him. Someone described him as quote wrongheaded, ill tempered, obstinate, drunken, extravagant,
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and brutal on account of his profligate drinking, spending, and
sleeping around. We don't know what attracted them to each other.
One of Henrietta's friends later wrote, quote how she came
to love him or how he came to love anybody
is unaccountable unless from a certain fatality, which often makes
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hasty marriages. Whether or not there was a timely motivating factor,
it's undeniable that both Henrietta and Charles did have financial
motives to get hitched. Even though Henrietta's family was in
dire financial straits, her father had made sure that her
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large dowry would be protected before his death, which led
to a potentially large payday for Charles. What's more, the
terms of Henrietta's father's and great grandfather's wills stated that
Henrietta would receive a significant inheritance and a hoddest income
paid twice a year only if she got married. Shortly
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after the wedding, the marriage fell apart, with Charles frittering
away their modest fortune with gambling and shopping. The couple's
financial circumstances became quote the reverse of opulent. According to
one contemporary, Charles fled to London to continue to party,
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abandoning Henrietta in Berkshire with their young son, who was
born a year after the wedding. Henrietta insisted that she
and Charles move in together in London, and once they did,
things only worsened. As historian Tracy Borman put it, quote,
her respectable life as a gentleman's daughter had been transformed
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into one of misery and humiliation as the wife of
a notorious drunk and philanderer. The shame of her situation
compelled her to live in crely apart from society, concealing
herself and her misery from the world end quote. Any
good will keeping their marriage together evaporated almost as quickly
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as they had fallen in love. As one friend at
the time put it, quote, thus they loved, Thus they married,
and thus they hated each other for the rest of
their lives. Trapped in a loveless, brutal marriage, out of
money and with her husband on the run from various creditors,
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Henrietta needed to find a way out. Luckily, political circumstances
gave them the perfect opportunity. After the Glorious Revolution in
sixteen eighty eight sparked a succession crisis, Parliament passed an
Act of Settlement in seventeen o one, which allowed the
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Electoral House of Hanover to take over England once Queen
Anne died. Henrietta planned to go to Germany and win
the favor of the Hanover family to secure herself and
her husband positions in the royal court. When the Hanovers
eventually came to rule over England, it would be a
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long shot. Henrietta and Charles were from relatively small time
aristocratic families that the Hanovers wouldn't have been familiar with.
Henrietta didn't have the fancy clothes to woo the new
royal family, and she had sold all of her furniture
and jewelry in order to afford the voyage over to Germany.
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Worse yet, she had to bring Charles over to Germany
with her, since a noble woman traveling alone would not
have been a respectable look. Given Charles's bad temper and
cold reserved personality, he could hurt their chances, but Henrietta
didn't have any other options. Winning over the Hannover was
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her last resort. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood.
After traveling, as Henrietta put it, in the meanest and
most fatiguing manner, Henrietta and Charles found themselves in Hanover
in early seventeen fourteen. It was up to them to
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endear themselves to the electoral family so they could eventually
secure themselves spots in the royal court, or they could
return to England in disgrace. Henrietta started at the task,
immediately applying for an introduction. She quickly made an impression.
She was an excellent courtier, both lively and demure. She
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quickly embedded herself within the royal household, spending nearly all
of her free hours at the court in Herrenhausen trying
to prove her worth. Soon she noticed that the electoral
Princess Caredine of Ansbach took a particular liking to her.
Caroline was known for her intellect and patronage of the arts.
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She rubbed shoulders with philosophers like Voltaire and the composer Handel.
But Caroline's husband, Prince George the second of Hanover, couldn't
have been less interested. He had once declared I hate
poets and painters both, and called reading and learning something
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mean and below him. Henrietta expressed to Caroline a fondness
for the mathematician Gottfried Liebnitz, whom Caroline had been studying
under since she was a child. This so endeared Henrietta
to Caroline that Henrietta was made an official Dame Dupillai.
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Despite George's distaste for anything intellectual, he was taken with
Henrietta as well. Not only was she attractive, modest, and obedient,
she was also a great listener. George was known to
be extremely boring. One courtier described his tedious conversations about
military victories or European royal genealogy as always the same thing,
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over and over again. But if Henrietta was bored to tears,
she didn't show it. She always appeared genuinely wrapped. Caroline
was relieved to have someone else listening to her husband's
monotonous stories for a change. Even though Henrietta was making
her name in the Hanover family, it wasn't enough. She
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also needed to make sure her husband, Charles could win
over the Prince and Princess. Somehow, Charles managed to put
his temper aside and charm the male members of the
Hanover household, winning his spot in the Royal Court as well.
After just six months in the Hanover household, Henrietta and
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Charles faced a turning point in their career. In August
seventeen fourteen, the Electress George the Second Grandmother passed away,
and a few weeks later, Queen Anne of England died
as well. This made George the First the King of
England and Caroline and George the Second the new Princess
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and Prince of Wales. After the coronation, Caroline and George
the Second began to determine who would get spots in
their new English Royal Court. All of the good will
Charles and Henrietta had generated had to pay out. While
Caroline and George had promised them positions that was no guarantee.
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Competition was fierce because George the First and his wife
were estranged. There was no real queen consort, leaving Caroline
as the best way for a woman to embed herself
within the court. Other ladies of aristocratic heritage were bribing
royal officials or using their family connections to secure their spots,
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which Henrietta, whose family was mostly dead or destitute, had
no hope of doing. But luckily, the Princess appointed Henrietta
a Woman of the Bedchamber on October twenty sixth, seventeen fourteen.
Charles also landed a position in court, becoming a Groom
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of the Bedchamber to the new King, George the First,
Caroline's father in law. Although Henrietta and Charles were technically
employed in separate households, they got to live together in
an apartment at Saint James's Palace rent free, a huge
upgrade from the dismal flat that they had stayed in
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before they left for Hanover. They were also paid a
significant salary, five hundred pounds a year for Charles and
three hundred for Henrietta. Although the couple's financial standing improved,
their marriage was still in shambles as Charles continued to
berate and mistreat his wife. Even though Henrietta was still
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suffering in her marriage, at least she had her new
position to distract her. As a woman of the bedchamber,
she took turns with seven other women to be quote
in waiting. When it was her turn, Henrietta got up
before the princess, filled up her bath with hot water,
said her morning prayers with her, and dressed her in
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her undergarments. Throughout the day, Henrietta would run whatever errands
Caroline needed or attended to her appearance, before retiring to
the princess's private apartments in the evenings to read, chat
and play cards, or to accompany the princess to the
drawing room if there were any formal gatherings. Afterwards, Henrietta
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would undress the princess and get her ready for bed,
finishing her work as late as two in the morning.
Being a woman of the ben chamber required putting in
long hours and was often unpredictable, given that you would
be attending to Caroline's every whim. The hardest part of
the job for Henrietta, at least at the beginning, wasn't
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dealing with the princess, but rather dealing with the dramas
of the rest of the court. Rivalries abounded, and quarrels
among the ladies in waiting could start up over matters
as small as who kissed the lady on the cheek.
Henrietta tried to stay out of these squabbles and became
known as the Swiss because of her neutrality. But Henrietta's
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neutrality would be put to the test. George the Second
and his father, the King, had always had a fraught relationship,
but their animosity was kept at bay until the christening
of George the Second's son, George William. After a dispute
over who should be the godfather of the child came
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to a head. The Prince went up to his father's
chosen candidate and said, you are a rascal, but I
shall find you. Unfortunately, his heavy German accent meant that
everyone thought he had said I'll fight you. In response,
George the First put his own son, the Prince of Wales,
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under house arrest. This left Henrietta out of work. She
couldn't go to the Princess's apartment without a guardsman pointing
a halbert at her breast, preventing her from entering. Prince
and princess were under arrest at Saint James's for four
days until the King expelled the royal couple from court.
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The chaos sent the palace into a tizzy, putting Henrietta's
previously secure position at risk. Because Charles and Henriettetta now
worked for households that were at war with each other,
they were barred from living together at Saint James. Henrietta
had to pick between staying with her abusive husband, potentially
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jeopardizing her position at court, or living separately from Charles
and risking her reputation worse. It was now that Henrietta's
health started to fail. She had suffered from horrible headaches
throughout her twenties, and around this time she started losing
her hearing. This was a huge blow, As Tracy Borman
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put it, quote, to be hard of hearing in a
world that fed on gossip, intrigue, and scandal was clearly
a great disadvantage. But still, the prospect of losing her
hearing and staying with an abusive man seemed unbearable. After
much deliberation, Henrietta approached Charles about a potential compromise. Charles
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immediately flew into a rage. That Henrietta would even consider
choosing the princess over him. Steely with resolve, Henrietta left
the apartments without taking any of her belongings. Charles sent
a message that he no longer considered her his wife,
and she made it clear that she was equally done
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with the marriage. Siding with Caroline and George the second
over the King and her own husband was a startling
show of loyalty. Henrietta threw herself into life at court,
hosting dinner parties at Hampton Court and winning over all
who attended. In spite of her difficult circumstances. She had
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as much good nature as if she had never seen
any ill nature and had been bred among lambs and
turtle doves instead of princes and court ladies. One dinner
party attendee remarked among Henrietta's admirers, but as the Prince
of Wales himself, not only was he attending all of
Henrietta's dinner parties, he found himself visiting Henrietta's apartments more often,
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spending three or four hours at a time regaling her
with his probably boring stories of his military achievements. It
seemed he was on the hunt for a mistress. He
had recently been rejected by another courtier. This left Henrietta
with another difficult choice. The Prince was, despite his title,
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not exactly prince charming. He was dull, ugly, and, like
her husband, prone to rages. If she pursued an affair
with him, she would have a target on her back
from the rest of the court, including potentially his wife Caroline,
who was still her boss. Worse yet, Henrietta's marriage was
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not technically over, even though she was a strange from
her husband, and cheating on him could put her reputation
further at risk. On the other hand, pursuing an affair
with the Prince of Wales could provide her with more money, power,
and prestige at court, which Henrietta desperately needed to avoid
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a life of poverty with her husband. For better or
for worse, an affair with the Prince could change her
life forever. The affair probably began during the Prince and
Princess's stay at Richmond from June to September seventeen eighteen.
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George and Caroline's summers away had a more casual atmosphere,
as quote formal occasions tended to be replaced by intimate
supper parties or evening strolls around the gardens. While the
summertime atmosphere was romantic, George the Second's reasons for pursuing
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an affair with Henrietta were less so. George dutifully flirted
with various courtiers, but he always reserved his true passion
for his wife, even after thirteen years. Every evening after dinner,
George spent hours in Caroline's chambers and said that no
other woman could even buckle her shoe, but his wife
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guy energy bucked standards for royal masculinity. There was a
rumor that Caroline truly wore the pants in the relationship.
A contemporary said that George seemed to look upon a
mistress rather as a necessary appertinence to his grandeur as
a prince, than in addition to his pleasures as a man.
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Henrietta was an ideal choice. Not only was she a
great listener to his boring stories, but she was also discreet, appeasing,
and well liked, unlikely to spread rooms about how he
was in bed or use her new power to sow
discord among the rest of the court. It was an
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affair of convenience, in every sense a highly regimented person
with a strict daily routine. George went to Henrietta's apartments
every night at exactly seven o'clock, with quote such dull
punctuality that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten
minutes with his watch in his hand if the stated
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minute was not arrived. He did this while also visiting
his wife at her bedchambers for two hours every night
after dinner. If there was any interruption in this routine,
he would fly into a rage. Despite the regimented new schedule,
Henrietta's new role did have some perks. For one, George
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paid her an annual salary of two thousand pounds, which
would be more than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds today.
As the mistress to the heir to the throne, she
was treated with more deference and respect by the rest
of the court. George's wife, Caroline, had a remarkably lax
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stance on the affair, at least initially. One courtier said
that she was so devoted to George's pleasures, which she
often told him were the rule of all her thoughts
and actions, that whenever he thought proper to find them
with other women she even loved, whoever was instrumental to
his entertainment. But Caroline did not tolerate the prospect of
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competing with another woman for political influence over the Prince.
She worried that Henrietta would use her three or four
hours a day with George to sway him politically. Henrietta's
closest friends were powerful Tory politicians and sympathizers, who discussed
their political opinions during her dinner soirese. Henrietta's own aspirations
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were modest. She was more interested in her own safety
and security than any broader political gains. But Caroline, as
a supporter of the opposing Whig Party, wanted to minimize
Henrietta's threat to the status quo. Caroline began condescending to Henrietta,
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calling her my dear Howard, while giving her increasingly lowly tasks.
She ordered Henrietta to kneel while she held her waist
basin a subtle indignity. Henrietta did so, but as Caroline
continued to undermine her, Henrietta snapped. One day she told
off Caroline, refusing to kneel. Caroline responded, yes, my dear Howard,
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I am sure you will. Indeed you will go go
fie for shame, Go my good Howard. We will talk
of this another time. Caroline also exploited Henrietta's fear of
returning to her abusive husband. She told another courtier she
knew I had held her up at a time when
it was in my power if I had pleased any
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hour of the day, to let her drop through my fingers.
Thus humiliated, Henrietta knew that from that moment on she
had no choice but to submit to Caroline's every whin
having to negotiate between the desires of Caroline and George
began to take a toll on Henrietta. One of her
friends said that she was forced to live in the
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constant subjugation of a wife with all the reproach of
a mistress, and to flatter and manage a man whom
she must see and feel had as little inclination to
her person as regard to her advice. Henrietta began to
suffer more acute headaches and was at times bedridden, unable
to attend to Caroline as she was supposed to. Henrietta
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was growing increasingly frustrated with her life at court and
wanted to plot and escape. Shockingly, the Prince was amenable
to helping her, fairly bored with her at this point,
he gifted her some diamond jewelry, a ruby cross, a
gold watch, and all of the furniture in her and
her servant's rooms. He also gave her a stock worth
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eleven thousand, five hundred pounds in the south Sea Company.
Better Yet, in the settlement, the Prince wrote that the
gifts were for quote Henrietta Howard alone, and not for
the use or benefit of the said Charles Howard. Her husband. Thrilled,
Henrietta started building a house that would be hers alone
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for her to escape to, but she had to keep
this a secret from her husband, who, again, even though
they were estranged, would still try and rest control of
her new fortune. Henrietta also had to hide her plans
from Caroline, who, despite tormenting Henriett, preferred having her as
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her husband's mistress as opposed to somebody more ambitious and
threatening to her power. One worthwhile thing to briefly point
out here is even as Henrietta's new fortune would be
allowing her to build her tenuous independence, she would be
directly profiting from the oppression of others. The South Sea
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Company was involved in the transatlantic slave trade, and the
materials that Henrietta was using to build her new house
were sourced from the then British colony of Jamaica. This
is one of the challenges when it comes to understanding
historical figures, being able to put them in the context
of when they lived, but also to try to understand
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that context and all of its complexities more fully. Anyway,
it wasn't long before Charles found out about his wife's
change in fortune. Immediately he started to blackmail her for
the mo He petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury to help him,
knowing that if he brought the issue to trial in
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the ecclesiastical courts, he would have a bulletproof case. There's
no chance that a judge would side with an unfaithful
wife over her long suffering husband. The case would also
be a public scandal, putting Henrietta's reputation at further risk.
Charles also threatened her by preventing her from ever seeing
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her son again, a son she missed dearly, given that
she hadn't seen him since she arrived in Hanover so
many years ago. Caroline also learned of Henrietta's attempt to
escape court, and she told her that she would happily
let Henrietta quit if she returned to her husband, which
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Henrietta did not want to do under any circumstances. So
Henrietta was biding her time at court while she continued
to build a country home at Marble Hill with her
new gifted fortune. Charles decided on a new tactic to
try to rest control of the fortune from his wife.
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He got a warrant from the Lord Chief Justice to
seize his wife wherever he found her. She was so
afraid of her husband that Henrietta hid at Leicester House
for weeks, knowing that Charles wasn't going to try and
forcibly remove her from a palace. When June rolled around,
the royal household was preparing for their annual summer retreat
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to Richmond, and Henrietta was terrified. She was worried that
Charles would ambush her carriage on the way there and
finally seize her for good. A duke told her that
she could ride with him early in the morning before
the rest of the coaches and stay in his more
secure house to avoid her scheming husband. The plan worked.
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She made it to the Duke's house unscathed, but the
experience terrified her. She wrote to one of her friends,
I have not been abroad since I left London, nor
have I courage yet to venture out. Her life would
only get more complicated that summer. On June fifteenth, while
the Prince and princess were taking an afternoon rest, they
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heard a knock at the door. The king had died.
The Prince, of course, was furious, not because of his
sudden promotion, but because the message had interrupted his precious
daily routine. When he heard the news, he said, that
is one big lie and left the room. From her
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isolation at the Duke's house, Henrietta weighed her options. The
death of the king meant that her husband, who was
installed in his court, was now out of a job,
and he would probably be using everything in his power
to try to steal her fortune and bring her back
under his thumb. Even though Henrietta was trying to leave
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royal life altogether, the prince's promotion gave her an opportunity
for even greater fortune, prestige, and security. She could become
mistress to a king. After George the second became king.
Politicians and courtiers alike began flooding Henrietta's apartments, trying to
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get her to put in a good word with the King.
The busy and speculative politicians of the ante chamber, who
knew everything but knew everything wrong, naturally concluded that a
lady with whom the King passed so many hours every
day must necessarily have some interest with him, and consequently
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applied to her, said one of her friends. Henrietta was
apprehensive about all of these new requests and about her
position in general. After the coronation, the royal family typically
restructured their courts, Henrietta could easily be dismissed from her position.
Henrietta's relationship with the new King, George, had been decaying.
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Even though he followed his routine of visiting her every
day at seven, he was pretty much tiring of her. Once,
a year after the coronation, she offended him by accident
while they were walking together in the gardens at Saint James.
He responded with such outrage that she worried she was
going to be fired immediately. It's worth noting that perhaps
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this outburst was part of George's personality He had kept
Henrietta around for almost ten years, longer than any of
his other mistresses. After spending three or four hours a
day with Henrietta for nearly a decade, the relationship had
long lost whatever initial spark it had once had. Besides,
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at times, George burst intoge even at his own wife,
who he was unquestioningly devoted to, in front of the
entire court. Luckily, both the King and Queen kept Henrietta
on as both a woman of the bedchamber and a
royal mistress once George became king, but George's growing annoyance
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with Henrietta worried her. She still needed her position at
court to avoid the wrath of her husband, who was
preparing yet another strategy to steal her fortune. Late one night,
Charles snuck into the inner courtyard of the palace and
shouted his demands for Henrietta to return to him, waking
up the whole of Saint James. He broke into the
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Queen's apartments, insisting on a position in the King's court
and custody over his wife, before the royal guards carried
him out by force. With her husband getting increasingly brazen
and embarrassing, Henrietta was in a catch twenty two. As
one of her friends put it, Henrietta simultaneously had a
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husband who ordered her home, who did not desire to
have her there, and a lover who was to retain her,
who seemed already tired of keeping her. With all of
this stress around her, Henrietta's headaches worsened and she was
bedridden for days. Miserable, she took a drastic and unprecedented step.
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She applied for a legal separation from her husband. Given
that it was incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for a
woman to legally divorce her husband at that time, Henrietta's
best option was to seek out an informal divorce or
a private deed of separation. It was still risky for
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a woman to seek out a deed of separation, as
historian Tracy Borman explained, quote, in most cases, the wife
would forfeit an any income she might have from real estate,
as well as any future earnings or legacies, all of
her personal property, and worst of all, custody of any children. Still,
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Henrietta found witnesses attesting to Charles's violence, cruelty, profligacy, and drunkenness,
and with her lawyers, she managed to create a deed
of separation that mandated that he could no longer claim, seize, retrain,
or detain her, nor could he access any of her
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fortune aside from a twelve hundred pound yearly allowance. Charles
agreed to the document, except he insisted on one edition
that Henrietta could not pursue a legal divorce. Even though
this was a major concession, they signed the deed and
their separation was finally agreed to on February twenty ninth,
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seventeen twenty eight, after twenty two years of misery. Four
years later, Charles was dead. Things were finally looking up
for Henrietta. She is happier than I have ever seen her,
said one of her friends. Not only was she free
from her husband for good, her country house was finally completed,
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giving her a place to escape to Once her court
life was officially over once more, she got a promotion.
Charles's brother Edward had died and Charles had succeeded him
as the ninth Earl of Suffolk, which made Henrietta a countess,
even though she and her husband were separated. Her new
title meant that she was too high status to hold
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her previous position as woman of the bedchamber, so she
was promoted to Mistress of the Robes, the most senior
member of the household. No longer did she have to
kneel while holding Caroline's wash basin or attend to Caroline's
every impulse. She even met a new romantic interest, George Berkeley,
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an affable gentleman with a good sense of humor. He
couldn't have been more different from either George or Charles.
Henrietta had been introduced to him through his sister, a friend,
in seventeen thirty. While the two maintained a flirty friendship
for a few years. After Charles's death, their relationship grew
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more passionate and openly romantic. In their letters, Henrietta flirtingly
teased George about his ill breeding and forgetfulness, and called
him dull and want of taste. Now that she had
a lover, a posh country house, and a fortune to
live off of, she felt more ready than ever to
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actually leave court. As one friend observed, she was tired
of acting the mistress while she had in reality all
the slights of a wife. She took a six week
vacation in Bath to test the waters, making sure to
return in time for King George's birthday on October thirtieth,
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but the King was not particularly happy to see her return.
Angry that she had interrupted his routines and that she
had entertained some of his political enemies in Bath, he
avoided Henrietta at all costs. He did not go to
her apartments as he had done once every day, nor
did he even say hello during his birthday festivities. The
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snub shocked Henrietta. Even though she was ready to leave
court for good, she wanted to do so on good terms.
She met with the Queen, planning to seek her advice
and offer her resignation. Knowing that the Queen might not
grant her request to quit, Henrietta painstakingly prepared her case.
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She told Caroline that she wanted to quit her job
at court, saying that she had taken to heart the
public marks that the King had given me of his displeasure.
But as she predicted, the Queen would not let her quit.
She said that the ordeal at George's birthday festivities was
just a minor spat, nothing worth quitting over. When Henrietta
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refused to budge, the Queen said, child, you do not
know how differently. When you are out, people will behave
suggesting that her friends may abandon her if she no
longer occupied a position of political power. Henrietta replied, some
people may show me it was the courtier and not
me that was light. I cannot say that keeping of
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such acquaintance will be an inducement to keep me at court.
After some deliberation, the Queen proposed a compromise that Henrietta
could quit after taking a week to consider it. Henrietta
took that week to try to get herself back into
the King's good graces. George refused to see her in private,
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so she found him walking in the gardens at Kensington
and tried to plead her case. He ignored her. She
wrote him two letters that defended her conduct, begging for
his understanding after an over twenty year affair, but he
refused to respond. When the Queen told him that she
was trying to get Henrietta to renege on her request
(37:24):
to quit, the king told his wife, what the devil
did you mean by trying to make an old, dull, deaf,
peevish beast stay and plague me when I had so
good an opportunity of getting rid of her. Henrietta failed
to endear herself again to the King, and on November
twenty second, seventeen thirty four, she finally resigned. Although Henrietta
(37:50):
had left court on a sour note, her new life
was now finally ready to unfold. She moved into her estate,
marble Hill, which she had painstakingly constructed over so many years.
Even though the Queen Caroline had warned her that she
would lose her friends after leaving court, she hosted plenty
(38:10):
of them at marble Hill at her many lavish dinner
parties and salons. She maintained her relationship with George Berkeley,
and on June twenty sixth, seventeen thirty five, the two
got married at a small ceremony on the Berkeley family estate.
Henrietta's life had become unrecognizable from the day she boarded
(38:33):
the cheapest boat to Hanover in seventeen fourteen. Penniless and
stuck with a cruel, abusive husband, she weathered her ex
husband's attempts to tie her down and steal her money, power,
and play at court. She weathered a decades long affair
with a king who barely tolerated her, and a rivalry
(38:54):
with the queen who controlled her future. In May seventeen
thirty six, Henrietta set sail for Germany with her husband,
once again, going overseas for only the second time in
her life. This time it was a vacation. That's the
(39:16):
story of Henrietta Howard, but stick around to hear about
Henrietta's relationship with her Frenemi, Jonathan Swift. In seventeen twenty six,
a new visitor began attending henrietta salons at Lesterhouse, Jonathan Swift,
(39:38):
the author of Gulliver's Travels. They had mutual friends in
the literary world, and one friend set the two up.
He wrote to Swift in a letter, I can help
you to a lady who is as deaf, though not
as old as yourself. You'll be pleased with one another.
You'll converse like spirits by intuition. When the two finally met,
(39:59):
the friend right, they became close almost immediately. When Gulliver's
Travels came out later that year, Henrietta was delighted, including
references to the book in her letters. Swift pretended not
to understand them because he published the book anonymously. The
perverseness of your lines astonished me. He wrote, he was
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such a frequent visitor that he called himself the chief
butler and keeper of the ice House of Marble Hill,
which was still under construction at this time. But their
convivial and close relationship came to an abrupt halt when
George the Second took over the throne as King. Swift
was hoping that Henrietta would put in a good word
(40:44):
with him about making Swift the chancellor of Dublin University.
He also wanted to secure a position for his friend
John Gay, but Caroline, wanting to put Henrietta in her place,
denied Gaze and Swift's requests. She put Gay in one
of the lowest paid and least prestigious positions at court,
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and Gay turned it down. Even though Gay was sympathetic
to Henrietta's difficult decision, noting that she had done what
she could, Swift was incensed. I have long hated her
on your account, more because you are so forgiving as
to not hate her. Swift wrote to Gay, missus Howard
was good for nothing but to be a rank courtier.
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He wrote, on another occasion, I care not whether she
ever writes to me or no. She has cheated us
all and may go hang herself. For the next six years,
he continued to denigrate Henrietta in letters to his friends,
and even published a poem about it. Many of the
recipients of these letters were friends with Henrietta too, and
(41:51):
tried to encourage Swift to bury the hatchet to no avail.
In seventeen thirty one, Henrietta dent Swift a remarkably restrained
letter imploring him to stop going after her so intensely.
Quote you seem to think you have a natural right
to abuse me because I am a woman and a courtier,
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she wrote. She ended her letter with a plea for
forgiveness and that she wanted to follow her own inclination
and continue very truly and very much his humble servant,
polite until the end. Noble Blood is a production of
(42:36):
iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood
is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and
research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and
Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk,
with supervising producer rima il KLi and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
(43:00):
Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised Queen Anne
didn't have any living heirs, and because England would need
a Protestant monarch when she died, the throne would be
(00:20):
going over to the Hanover branch of the family in Germany.
With that in mind, a woman named Henrietta Howard and
her husband Charles boarded a boat from England to Germany
with one simple goal to go from penniless nobodies to
official members of the new incoming royal court. Henrietta and
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Charles had gotten married six and a half years earlier.
They had originally met under dire circumstances. Although Henrietta came
from a noble family, it had fallen apart with the
death of her mother, her father, and four of her siblings.
At just sixteen, Henrietta had become the oldest surviving representative
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of the family. Medical bills were piling up and her
fortune was in danger, so she sought out the help
of the Hobart's family friends. Taking pity on Henrietta, the
Hobarts invited her to stay with them in their Jacobean
mansion near saffron Walden. There she met Charles, the family's
(01:32):
youngest son, who was fourteen years older than she was.
Charles was a high up military official at the time,
nicknamed Salamander because he fought in the hottest parts of
the battlefield. Other than that, Charles didn't have a lot
going for him. Someone described him as quote wrongheaded, ill tempered, obstinate, drunken, extravagant,
(01:58):
and brutal on account of his profligate drinking, spending, and
sleeping around. We don't know what attracted them to each other.
One of Henrietta's friends later wrote, quote how she came
to love him or how he came to love anybody
is unaccountable unless from a certain fatality, which often makes
(02:21):
hasty marriages. Whether or not there was a timely motivating factor,
it's undeniable that both Henrietta and Charles did have financial
motives to get hitched. Even though Henrietta's family was in
dire financial straits, her father had made sure that her
(02:41):
large dowry would be protected before his death, which led
to a potentially large payday for Charles. What's more, the
terms of Henrietta's father's and great grandfather's wills stated that
Henrietta would receive a significant inheritance and a hoddest income
paid twice a year only if she got married. Shortly
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after the wedding, the marriage fell apart, with Charles frittering
away their modest fortune with gambling and shopping. The couple's
financial circumstances became quote the reverse of opulent. According to
one contemporary, Charles fled to London to continue to party,
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abandoning Henrietta in Berkshire with their young son, who was
born a year after the wedding. Henrietta insisted that she
and Charles move in together in London, and once they did,
things only worsened. As historian Tracy Borman put it, quote,
her respectable life as a gentleman's daughter had been transformed
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into one of misery and humiliation as the wife of
a notorious drunk and philanderer. The shame of her situation
compelled her to live in crely apart from society, concealing
herself and her misery from the world end quote. Any
good will keeping their marriage together evaporated almost as quickly
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as they had fallen in love. As one friend at
the time put it, quote, thus they loved, Thus they married,
and thus they hated each other for the rest of
their lives. Trapped in a loveless, brutal marriage, out of
money and with her husband on the run from various creditors,
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Henrietta needed to find a way out. Luckily, political circumstances
gave them the perfect opportunity. After the Glorious Revolution in
sixteen eighty eight sparked a succession crisis, Parliament passed an
Act of Settlement in seventeen o one, which allowed the
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Electoral House of Hanover to take over England once Queen
Anne died. Henrietta planned to go to Germany and win
the favor of the Hanover family to secure herself and
her husband positions in the royal court. When the Hanovers
eventually came to rule over England, it would be a
(05:15):
long shot. Henrietta and Charles were from relatively small time
aristocratic families that the Hanovers wouldn't have been familiar with.
Henrietta didn't have the fancy clothes to woo the new
royal family, and she had sold all of her furniture
and jewelry in order to afford the voyage over to Germany.
(05:37):
Worse yet, she had to bring Charles over to Germany
with her, since a noble woman traveling alone would not
have been a respectable look. Given Charles's bad temper and
cold reserved personality, he could hurt their chances, but Henrietta
didn't have any other options. Winning over the Hannover was
(06:00):
her last resort. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood.
After traveling, as Henrietta put it, in the meanest and
most fatiguing manner, Henrietta and Charles found themselves in Hanover
in early seventeen fourteen. It was up to them to
(06:23):
endear themselves to the electoral family so they could eventually
secure themselves spots in the royal court, or they could
return to England in disgrace. Henrietta started at the task,
immediately applying for an introduction. She quickly made an impression.
She was an excellent courtier, both lively and demure. She
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quickly embedded herself within the royal household, spending nearly all
of her free hours at the court in Herrenhausen trying
to prove her worth. Soon she noticed that the electoral
Princess Caredine of Ansbach took a particular liking to her.
Caroline was known for her intellect and patronage of the arts.
(07:09):
She rubbed shoulders with philosophers like Voltaire and the composer Handel.
But Caroline's husband, Prince George the second of Hanover, couldn't
have been less interested. He had once declared I hate
poets and painters both, and called reading and learning something
(07:29):
mean and below him. Henrietta expressed to Caroline a fondness
for the mathematician Gottfried Liebnitz, whom Caroline had been studying
under since she was a child. This so endeared Henrietta
to Caroline that Henrietta was made an official Dame Dupillai.
(07:51):
Despite George's distaste for anything intellectual, he was taken with
Henrietta as well. Not only was she attractive, modest, and obedient,
she was also a great listener. George was known to
be extremely boring. One courtier described his tedious conversations about
military victories or European royal genealogy as always the same thing,
(08:16):
over and over again. But if Henrietta was bored to tears,
she didn't show it. She always appeared genuinely wrapped. Caroline
was relieved to have someone else listening to her husband's
monotonous stories for a change. Even though Henrietta was making
her name in the Hanover family, it wasn't enough. She
(08:37):
also needed to make sure her husband, Charles could win
over the Prince and Princess. Somehow, Charles managed to put
his temper aside and charm the male members of the
Hanover household, winning his spot in the Royal Court as well.
After just six months in the Hanover household, Henrietta and
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Charles faced a turning point in their career. In August
seventeen fourteen, the Electress George the Second Grandmother passed away,
and a few weeks later, Queen Anne of England died
as well. This made George the First the King of
England and Caroline and George the Second the new Princess
(09:19):
and Prince of Wales. After the coronation, Caroline and George
the Second began to determine who would get spots in
their new English Royal Court. All of the good will
Charles and Henrietta had generated had to pay out. While
Caroline and George had promised them positions that was no guarantee.
(09:43):
Competition was fierce because George the First and his wife
were estranged. There was no real queen consort, leaving Caroline
as the best way for a woman to embed herself
within the court. Other ladies of aristocratic heritage were bribing
royal officials or using their family connections to secure their spots,
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which Henrietta, whose family was mostly dead or destitute, had
no hope of doing. But luckily, the Princess appointed Henrietta
a Woman of the Bedchamber on October twenty sixth, seventeen fourteen.
Charles also landed a position in court, becoming a Groom
(10:26):
of the Bedchamber to the new King, George the First,
Caroline's father in law. Although Henrietta and Charles were technically
employed in separate households, they got to live together in
an apartment at Saint James's Palace rent free, a huge
upgrade from the dismal flat that they had stayed in
(10:46):
before they left for Hanover. They were also paid a
significant salary, five hundred pounds a year for Charles and
three hundred for Henrietta. Although the couple's financial standing improved,
their marriage was still in shambles as Charles continued to
berate and mistreat his wife. Even though Henrietta was still
(11:11):
suffering in her marriage, at least she had her new
position to distract her. As a woman of the bedchamber,
she took turns with seven other women to be quote
in waiting. When it was her turn, Henrietta got up
before the princess, filled up her bath with hot water,
said her morning prayers with her, and dressed her in
(11:33):
her undergarments. Throughout the day, Henrietta would run whatever errands
Caroline needed or attended to her appearance, before retiring to
the princess's private apartments in the evenings to read, chat
and play cards, or to accompany the princess to the
drawing room if there were any formal gatherings. Afterwards, Henrietta
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would undress the princess and get her ready for bed,
finishing her work as late as two in the morning.
Being a woman of the ben chamber required putting in
long hours and was often unpredictable, given that you would
be attending to Caroline's every whim. The hardest part of
the job for Henrietta, at least at the beginning, wasn't
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dealing with the princess, but rather dealing with the dramas
of the rest of the court. Rivalries abounded, and quarrels
among the ladies in waiting could start up over matters
as small as who kissed the lady on the cheek.
Henrietta tried to stay out of these squabbles and became
known as the Swiss because of her neutrality. But Henrietta's
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neutrality would be put to the test. George the Second
and his father, the King, had always had a fraught relationship,
but their animosity was kept at bay until the christening
of George the Second's son, George William. After a dispute
over who should be the godfather of the child came
(13:04):
to a head. The Prince went up to his father's
chosen candidate and said, you are a rascal, but I
shall find you. Unfortunately, his heavy German accent meant that
everyone thought he had said I'll fight you. In response,
George the First put his own son, the Prince of Wales,
(13:25):
under house arrest. This left Henrietta out of work. She
couldn't go to the Princess's apartment without a guardsman pointing
a halbert at her breast, preventing her from entering. Prince
and princess were under arrest at Saint James's for four
days until the King expelled the royal couple from court.
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The chaos sent the palace into a tizzy, putting Henrietta's
previously secure position at risk. Because Charles and Henriettetta now
worked for households that were at war with each other,
they were barred from living together at Saint James. Henrietta
had to pick between staying with her abusive husband, potentially
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jeopardizing her position at court, or living separately from Charles
and risking her reputation worse. It was now that Henrietta's
health started to fail. She had suffered from horrible headaches
throughout her twenties, and around this time she started losing
her hearing. This was a huge blow, As Tracy Borman
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put it, quote, to be hard of hearing in a
world that fed on gossip, intrigue, and scandal was clearly
a great disadvantage. But still, the prospect of losing her
hearing and staying with an abusive man seemed unbearable. After
much deliberation, Henrietta approached Charles about a potential compromise. Charles
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immediately flew into a rage. That Henrietta would even consider
choosing the princess over him. Steely with resolve, Henrietta left
the apartments without taking any of her belongings. Charles sent
a message that he no longer considered her his wife,
and she made it clear that she was equally done
(15:21):
with the marriage. Siding with Caroline and George the second
over the King and her own husband was a startling
show of loyalty. Henrietta threw herself into life at court,
hosting dinner parties at Hampton Court and winning over all
who attended. In spite of her difficult circumstances. She had
(15:44):
as much good nature as if she had never seen
any ill nature and had been bred among lambs and
turtle doves instead of princes and court ladies. One dinner
party attendee remarked among Henrietta's admirers, but as the Prince
of Wales himself, not only was he attending all of
Henrietta's dinner parties, he found himself visiting Henrietta's apartments more often,
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spending three or four hours at a time regaling her
with his probably boring stories of his military achievements. It
seemed he was on the hunt for a mistress. He
had recently been rejected by another courtier. This left Henrietta
with another difficult choice. The Prince was, despite his title,
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not exactly prince charming. He was dull, ugly, and, like
her husband, prone to rages. If she pursued an affair
with him, she would have a target on her back
from the rest of the court, including potentially his wife Caroline,
who was still her boss. Worse yet, Henrietta's marriage was
(16:56):
not technically over, even though she was a strange from
her husband, and cheating on him could put her reputation
further at risk. On the other hand, pursuing an affair
with the Prince of Wales could provide her with more money, power,
and prestige at court, which Henrietta desperately needed to avoid
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a life of poverty with her husband. For better or
for worse, an affair with the Prince could change her
life forever. The affair probably began during the Prince and
Princess's stay at Richmond from June to September seventeen eighteen.
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George and Caroline's summers away had a more casual atmosphere,
as quote formal occasions tended to be replaced by intimate
supper parties or evening strolls around the gardens. While the
summertime atmosphere was romantic, George the Second's reasons for pursuing
(18:00):
an affair with Henrietta were less so. George dutifully flirted
with various courtiers, but he always reserved his true passion
for his wife, even after thirteen years. Every evening after dinner,
George spent hours in Caroline's chambers and said that no
other woman could even buckle her shoe, but his wife
(18:23):
guy energy bucked standards for royal masculinity. There was a
rumor that Caroline truly wore the pants in the relationship.
A contemporary said that George seemed to look upon a
mistress rather as a necessary appertinence to his grandeur as
a prince, than in addition to his pleasures as a man.
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Henrietta was an ideal choice. Not only was she a
great listener to his boring stories, but she was also discreet, appeasing,
and well liked, unlikely to spread rooms about how he
was in bed or use her new power to sow
discord among the rest of the court. It was an
(19:08):
affair of convenience, in every sense a highly regimented person
with a strict daily routine. George went to Henrietta's apartments
every night at exactly seven o'clock, with quote such dull
punctuality that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten
minutes with his watch in his hand if the stated
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minute was not arrived. He did this while also visiting
his wife at her bedchambers for two hours every night
after dinner. If there was any interruption in this routine,
he would fly into a rage. Despite the regimented new schedule,
Henrietta's new role did have some perks. For one, George
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paid her an annual salary of two thousand pounds, which
would be more than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds today.
As the mistress to the heir to the throne, she
was treated with more deference and respect by the rest
of the court. George's wife, Caroline, had a remarkably lax
(20:13):
stance on the affair, at least initially. One courtier said
that she was so devoted to George's pleasures, which she
often told him were the rule of all her thoughts
and actions, that whenever he thought proper to find them
with other women she even loved, whoever was instrumental to
his entertainment. But Caroline did not tolerate the prospect of
(20:38):
competing with another woman for political influence over the Prince.
She worried that Henrietta would use her three or four
hours a day with George to sway him politically. Henrietta's
closest friends were powerful Tory politicians and sympathizers, who discussed
their political opinions during her dinner soirese. Henrietta's own aspirations
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were modest. She was more interested in her own safety
and security than any broader political gains. But Caroline, as
a supporter of the opposing Whig Party, wanted to minimize
Henrietta's threat to the status quo. Caroline began condescending to Henrietta,
(21:25):
calling her my dear Howard, while giving her increasingly lowly tasks.
She ordered Henrietta to kneel while she held her waist
basin a subtle indignity. Henrietta did so, but as Caroline
continued to undermine her, Henrietta snapped. One day she told
off Caroline, refusing to kneel. Caroline responded, yes, my dear Howard,
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I am sure you will. Indeed you will go go
fie for shame, Go my good Howard. We will talk
of this another time. Caroline also exploited Henrietta's fear of
returning to her abusive husband. She told another courtier she
knew I had held her up at a time when
it was in my power if I had pleased any
(22:10):
hour of the day, to let her drop through my fingers.
Thus humiliated, Henrietta knew that from that moment on she
had no choice but to submit to Caroline's every whin
having to negotiate between the desires of Caroline and George
began to take a toll on Henrietta. One of her
friends said that she was forced to live in the
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constant subjugation of a wife with all the reproach of
a mistress, and to flatter and manage a man whom
she must see and feel had as little inclination to
her person as regard to her advice. Henrietta began to
suffer more acute headaches and was at times bedridden, unable
to attend to Caroline as she was supposed to. Henrietta
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was growing increasingly frustrated with her life at court and
wanted to plot and escape. Shockingly, the Prince was amenable
to helping her, fairly bored with her at this point,
he gifted her some diamond jewelry, a ruby cross, a
gold watch, and all of the furniture in her and
her servant's rooms. He also gave her a stock worth
(23:19):
eleven thousand, five hundred pounds in the south Sea Company.
Better Yet, in the settlement, the Prince wrote that the
gifts were for quote Henrietta Howard alone, and not for
the use or benefit of the said Charles Howard. Her husband. Thrilled,
Henrietta started building a house that would be hers alone
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for her to escape to, but she had to keep
this a secret from her husband, who, again, even though
they were estranged, would still try and rest control of
her new fortune. Henrietta also had to hide her plans
from Caroline, who, despite tormenting Henriett, preferred having her as
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her husband's mistress as opposed to somebody more ambitious and
threatening to her power. One worthwhile thing to briefly point
out here is even as Henrietta's new fortune would be
allowing her to build her tenuous independence, she would be
directly profiting from the oppression of others. The South Sea
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Company was involved in the transatlantic slave trade, and the
materials that Henrietta was using to build her new house
were sourced from the then British colony of Jamaica. This
is one of the challenges when it comes to understanding
historical figures, being able to put them in the context
of when they lived, but also to try to understand
(24:46):
that context and all of its complexities more fully. Anyway,
it wasn't long before Charles found out about his wife's
change in fortune. Immediately he started to blackmail her for
the mo He petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury to help him,
knowing that if he brought the issue to trial in
(25:06):
the ecclesiastical courts, he would have a bulletproof case. There's
no chance that a judge would side with an unfaithful
wife over her long suffering husband. The case would also
be a public scandal, putting Henrietta's reputation at further risk.
Charles also threatened her by preventing her from ever seeing
(25:28):
her son again, a son she missed dearly, given that
she hadn't seen him since she arrived in Hanover so
many years ago. Caroline also learned of Henrietta's attempt to
escape court, and she told her that she would happily
let Henrietta quit if she returned to her husband, which
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Henrietta did not want to do under any circumstances. So
Henrietta was biding her time at court while she continued
to build a country home at Marble Hill with her
new gifted fortune. Charles decided on a new tactic to
try to rest control of the fortune from his wife.
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He got a warrant from the Lord Chief Justice to
seize his wife wherever he found her. She was so
afraid of her husband that Henrietta hid at Leicester House
for weeks, knowing that Charles wasn't going to try and
forcibly remove her from a palace. When June rolled around,
the royal household was preparing for their annual summer retreat
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to Richmond, and Henrietta was terrified. She was worried that
Charles would ambush her carriage on the way there and
finally seize her for good. A duke told her that
she could ride with him early in the morning before
the rest of the coaches and stay in his more
secure house to avoid her scheming husband. The plan worked.
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She made it to the Duke's house unscathed, but the
experience terrified her. She wrote to one of her friends,
I have not been abroad since I left London, nor
have I courage yet to venture out. Her life would
only get more complicated that summer. On June fifteenth, while
the Prince and princess were taking an afternoon rest, they
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heard a knock at the door. The king had died.
The Prince, of course, was furious, not because of his
sudden promotion, but because the message had interrupted his precious
daily routine. When he heard the news, he said, that
is one big lie and left the room. From her
(27:41):
isolation at the Duke's house, Henrietta weighed her options. The
death of the king meant that her husband, who was
installed in his court, was now out of a job,
and he would probably be using everything in his power
to try to steal her fortune and bring her back
under his thumb. Even though Henrietta was trying to leave
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royal life altogether, the prince's promotion gave her an opportunity
for even greater fortune, prestige, and security. She could become
mistress to a king. After George the second became king.
Politicians and courtiers alike began flooding Henrietta's apartments, trying to
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get her to put in a good word with the King.
The busy and speculative politicians of the ante chamber, who
knew everything but knew everything wrong, naturally concluded that a
lady with whom the King passed so many hours every
day must necessarily have some interest with him, and consequently
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applied to her, said one of her friends. Henrietta was
apprehensive about all of these new requests and about her
position in general. After the coronation, the royal family typically
restructured their courts, Henrietta could easily be dismissed from her position.
Henrietta's relationship with the new King, George, had been decaying.
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Even though he followed his routine of visiting her every
day at seven, he was pretty much tiring of her. Once,
a year after the coronation, she offended him by accident
while they were walking together in the gardens at Saint James.
He responded with such outrage that she worried she was
going to be fired immediately. It's worth noting that perhaps
(29:35):
this outburst was part of George's personality He had kept
Henrietta around for almost ten years, longer than any of
his other mistresses. After spending three or four hours a
day with Henrietta for nearly a decade, the relationship had
long lost whatever initial spark it had once had. Besides,
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at times, George burst intoge even at his own wife,
who he was unquestioningly devoted to, in front of the
entire court. Luckily, both the King and Queen kept Henrietta
on as both a woman of the bedchamber and a
royal mistress once George became king, but George's growing annoyance
(30:21):
with Henrietta worried her. She still needed her position at
court to avoid the wrath of her husband, who was
preparing yet another strategy to steal her fortune. Late one night,
Charles snuck into the inner courtyard of the palace and
shouted his demands for Henrietta to return to him, waking
up the whole of Saint James. He broke into the
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Queen's apartments, insisting on a position in the King's court
and custody over his wife, before the royal guards carried
him out by force. With her husband getting increasingly brazen
and embarrassing, Henrietta was in a catch twenty two. As
one of her friends put it, Henrietta simultaneously had a
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husband who ordered her home, who did not desire to
have her there, and a lover who was to retain her,
who seemed already tired of keeping her. With all of
this stress around her, Henrietta's headaches worsened and she was
bedridden for days. Miserable, she took a drastic and unprecedented step.
(31:28):
She applied for a legal separation from her husband. Given
that it was incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for a
woman to legally divorce her husband at that time, Henrietta's
best option was to seek out an informal divorce or
a private deed of separation. It was still risky for
(31:51):
a woman to seek out a deed of separation, as
historian Tracy Borman explained, quote, in most cases, the wife
would forfeit an any income she might have from real estate,
as well as any future earnings or legacies, all of
her personal property, and worst of all, custody of any children. Still,
(32:12):
Henrietta found witnesses attesting to Charles's violence, cruelty, profligacy, and drunkenness,
and with her lawyers, she managed to create a deed
of separation that mandated that he could no longer claim, seize, retrain,
or detain her, nor could he access any of her
(32:33):
fortune aside from a twelve hundred pound yearly allowance. Charles
agreed to the document, except he insisted on one edition
that Henrietta could not pursue a legal divorce. Even though
this was a major concession, they signed the deed and
their separation was finally agreed to on February twenty ninth,
(32:56):
seventeen twenty eight, after twenty two years of misery. Four
years later, Charles was dead. Things were finally looking up
for Henrietta. She is happier than I have ever seen her,
said one of her friends. Not only was she free
from her husband for good, her country house was finally completed,
(33:18):
giving her a place to escape to Once her court
life was officially over once more, she got a promotion.
Charles's brother Edward had died and Charles had succeeded him
as the ninth Earl of Suffolk, which made Henrietta a countess,
even though she and her husband were separated. Her new
title meant that she was too high status to hold
(33:41):
her previous position as woman of the bedchamber, so she
was promoted to Mistress of the Robes, the most senior
member of the household. No longer did she have to
kneel while holding Caroline's wash basin or attend to Caroline's
every impulse. She even met a new romantic interest, George Berkeley,
(34:05):
an affable gentleman with a good sense of humor. He
couldn't have been more different from either George or Charles.
Henrietta had been introduced to him through his sister, a friend,
in seventeen thirty. While the two maintained a flirty friendship
for a few years. After Charles's death, their relationship grew
(34:26):
more passionate and openly romantic. In their letters, Henrietta flirtingly
teased George about his ill breeding and forgetfulness, and called
him dull and want of taste. Now that she had
a lover, a posh country house, and a fortune to
live off of, she felt more ready than ever to
(34:46):
actually leave court. As one friend observed, she was tired
of acting the mistress while she had in reality all
the slights of a wife. She took a six week
vacation in Bath to test the waters, making sure to
return in time for King George's birthday on October thirtieth,
(35:09):
but the King was not particularly happy to see her return.
Angry that she had interrupted his routines and that she
had entertained some of his political enemies in Bath, he
avoided Henrietta at all costs. He did not go to
her apartments as he had done once every day, nor
did he even say hello during his birthday festivities. The
(35:32):
snub shocked Henrietta. Even though she was ready to leave
court for good, she wanted to do so on good terms.
She met with the Queen, planning to seek her advice
and offer her resignation. Knowing that the Queen might not
grant her request to quit, Henrietta painstakingly prepared her case.
(35:55):
She told Caroline that she wanted to quit her job
at court, saying that she had taken to heart the
public marks that the King had given me of his displeasure.
But as she predicted, the Queen would not let her quit.
She said that the ordeal at George's birthday festivities was
just a minor spat, nothing worth quitting over. When Henrietta
(36:17):
refused to budge, the Queen said, child, you do not
know how differently. When you are out, people will behave
suggesting that her friends may abandon her if she no
longer occupied a position of political power. Henrietta replied, some
people may show me it was the courtier and not
me that was light. I cannot say that keeping of
(36:40):
such acquaintance will be an inducement to keep me at court.
After some deliberation, the Queen proposed a compromise that Henrietta
could quit after taking a week to consider it. Henrietta
took that week to try to get herself back into
the King's good graces. George refused to see her in private,
(37:02):
so she found him walking in the gardens at Kensington
and tried to plead her case. He ignored her. She
wrote him two letters that defended her conduct, begging for
his understanding after an over twenty year affair, but he
refused to respond. When the Queen told him that she
was trying to get Henrietta to renege on her request
(37:24):
to quit, the king told his wife, what the devil
did you mean by trying to make an old, dull, deaf,
peevish beast stay and plague me when I had so
good an opportunity of getting rid of her. Henrietta failed
to endear herself again to the King, and on November
twenty second, seventeen thirty four, she finally resigned. Although Henrietta
(37:50):
had left court on a sour note, her new life
was now finally ready to unfold. She moved into her estate,
marble Hill, which she had painstakingly constructed over so many years.
Even though the Queen Caroline had warned her that she
would lose her friends after leaving court, she hosted plenty
(38:10):
of them at marble Hill at her many lavish dinner
parties and salons. She maintained her relationship with George Berkeley,
and on June twenty sixth, seventeen thirty five, the two
got married at a small ceremony on the Berkeley family estate.
Henrietta's life had become unrecognizable from the day she boarded
(38:33):
the cheapest boat to Hanover in seventeen fourteen. Penniless and
stuck with a cruel, abusive husband, she weathered her ex
husband's attempts to tie her down and steal her money, power,
and play at court. She weathered a decades long affair
with a king who barely tolerated her, and a rivalry
(38:54):
with the queen who controlled her future. In May seventeen
thirty six, Henrietta set sail for Germany with her husband,
once again, going overseas for only the second time in
her life. This time it was a vacation. That's the
(39:16):
story of Henrietta Howard, but stick around to hear about
Henrietta's relationship with her Frenemi, Jonathan Swift. In seventeen twenty six,
a new visitor began attending henrietta salons at Lesterhouse, Jonathan Swift,
(39:38):
the author of Gulliver's Travels. They had mutual friends in
the literary world, and one friend set the two up.
He wrote to Swift in a letter, I can help
you to a lady who is as deaf, though not
as old as yourself. You'll be pleased with one another.
You'll converse like spirits by intuition. When the two finally met,
(39:59):
the friend right, they became close almost immediately. When Gulliver's
Travels came out later that year, Henrietta was delighted, including
references to the book in her letters. Swift pretended not
to understand them because he published the book anonymously. The
perverseness of your lines astonished me. He wrote, he was
(40:21):
such a frequent visitor that he called himself the chief
butler and keeper of the ice House of Marble Hill,
which was still under construction at this time. But their
convivial and close relationship came to an abrupt halt when
George the Second took over the throne as King. Swift
was hoping that Henrietta would put in a good word
(40:44):
with him about making Swift the chancellor of Dublin University.
He also wanted to secure a position for his friend
John Gay, but Caroline, wanting to put Henrietta in her place,
denied Gaze and Swift's requests. She put Gay in one
of the lowest paid and least prestigious positions at court,
(41:07):
and Gay turned it down. Even though Gay was sympathetic
to Henrietta's difficult decision, noting that she had done what
she could, Swift was incensed. I have long hated her
on your account, more because you are so forgiving as
to not hate her. Swift wrote to Gay, missus Howard
was good for nothing but to be a rank courtier.
(41:28):
He wrote, on another occasion, I care not whether she
ever writes to me or no. She has cheated us
all and may go hang herself. For the next six years,
he continued to denigrate Henrietta in letters to his friends,
and even published a poem about it. Many of the
recipients of these letters were friends with Henrietta too, and
(41:51):
tried to encourage Swift to bury the hatchet to no avail.
In seventeen thirty one, Henrietta dent Swift a remarkably restrained
letter imploring him to stop going after her so intensely.
Quote you seem to think you have a natural right
to abuse me because I am a woman and a courtier,
(42:13):
she wrote. She ended her letter with a plea for
forgiveness and that she wanted to follow her own inclination
and continue very truly and very much his humble servant,
polite until the end. Noble Blood is a production of
(42:36):
iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood
is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and
research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and
Julia Milaney. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk,
with supervising producer rima il KLi and executive producers Aaron Mankey,
(43:00):
Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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