Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court

The Secret History of Kensington Palace

Lucy Worsley

‘Those who have a curiosity to see courts and courtiers dissected must bear with the dirt they find.’
¹

JOHN HERVEY

1
. John Hervey,
Some Materials towards Memoirs of the Reign of King George I
I
, Ed. Romney Sedgwick, Vol. 2 (London, 1931), p. 347.

Title Page

Epigraph

List of Illustrations

Map

Family Trees

Cast List

Preface

ONE
To the Palace

TWO
The Petulant Prince

THREE
The Pushy Painter

FOUR
The Wild Boy

FIVE
The Neglected Equerry

SIX
The Woman of the Bedchamber
 

SEVEN
The Favourite and his Foe

EIGHT
The Queen’s Secret

NINE
The Rival Mistresses

TEN
The Circle Breaks

ELEVEN
The Survivors

Acknowledgements

Sources

Index

Plates

About the Author

 
By the Same Author

Copyright
 

Kensington Palace, set in the middle of its famous gardens.

Courtiers having tea at Lord Harrington’s house.

The King’s Grand Staircase, leading up to the state apartments  at Kensington Palace.

Peter the Wild Boy and Dr Arbuthnot.

Mohammed and his colleague Mustapha, two of George I’s most  trusted servants.

A woman thought to be Queen Caroline’s milliner, Mrs  Tempest.

Robert and Franciscus, assistants to painter William Kent.

Unknown ladies with fan and child.

King George I.

Sir James Thornhill: the older, well-established painter who had  fully expected to decorate Kensington Palace.

The Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.

The talented and bumptious William Kent, with his actress-mistress, Elizabeth Butler.

Herrenhausen: the beautiful garden palace outside Hanover  where George I invested much money and effort.

George I’s mausoleum, overlooking his beloved gardens at  Herrenhausen.

The spot in the River Leine, Hanover, where legend tells that  the murdered body of George I’s adulterous wife’s lover was  thrown by members of the Hanoverian court.

Mustapha and Mohammed in the garden of a German hunting  lodge.

George II and Queen Caroline.

Frederick, Prince of Wales and his sisters.

William Hogarth’s painting of a theatrical performance, with  Lady Deloraine in the audience.

John Hervey, holding his ceremonial purse of office as Lord  Privy Seal.

John Hervey’s letter book, with certain pages mysteriously  missing.

The iron collar worn by Peter the Wild Boy.

Queen Caroline.

Henrietta Howard at the age of thirty-five.

George II in old age.

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court bowling pavilions

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court, east front

Prince George Augustus

Princess Caroline

Henrietta Howard

London’s royal residences in the 1720s

St James’s Palace

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court, east gardens

George I

A bird’s-eye view of St James’s Palace

The crowded drawing room at St James’s Palace

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court, east front

William Kent at work with his pen

The main rooms rebuilt in the 1720s

William Kent’s sketch for the drawing-room ceiling, Kensington  Palace

In this print William Hogarth calls Kent by the shortest word  for the female genitalia

Ulrich Jorry, the loud-mouthed dwarf

Mohammed and Mustapha

William Kent and Elizabeth Butler

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court, east front

Poor Peter, the wild child found in the woods

One of many newspaper cuttings showing the ‘Wild Youth’

How to bow, an art you learnt from your dancing master

The brilliant Dr John Arbuthnot

Molly Lepell

Detail from sketch of Kensington Palace’s gardens

John Gay

Courtiers enjoying themselves by the Round Pond to the east of  Kensington Palace in 1736

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court bowling pavilions

John Hervey

A satirical print called
The Festival of the Golden Rump

The south view of Kensington Palace

The king’s, the queen’s and the mistress’s apartments at  Kensington Palace

A cook, sketched by William Kent

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court, south front

Frederick, Prince of Wales

Augusta’s refuge from the in-laws: the house that William Kent  created for the Prince and Princess of Wales at Kew

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court, east front

Caroline’s ‘room of her own’: the library William Kent designed  for her at St James’s Palace

William Kent’s portrait of the mature Queen Caroline

William Hunter’s engraving of an unborn baby, 1752

The obese Queen Caroline, sketched on her deathbed by one of  her ladies

Detail from sketch of the south view of Kensington Palace

George II with his late-life mistress, Amalie

A court mantua

William Kent

Princess Amelia

Detail from sketch of Kensington Palace
The aged King George II

Peter the Wild Boy in his later years

Detail from sketch of the south view of Kensington Palace

The King’s Grand Staircase at Kensington Palace

Detail from sketch of Hampton Court, east front