The Duchess of Drury Lane

Nineteen




‘. . . but would never have invited the Duke of Clarence had I known whom he might choose to bring with him’

The comments in the press rumbled on for a while longer, although at least one paper, The Secret History of the Green Room, put up a spirited defence for me:

No Actress has been more harassed by them (the press) than Mrs Jordan. They did all in their power to drive her from the stage on account of her connection with the Duke of C, and now that she does not perform they accuse her of ingratitude, of refusing to amuse that public which a little month ago they pretended would never suffer her again to appear before them! Can anything be more insulting to common justice, or to common sense.

I was thankful to get back to work, but the disputes over the girls sadly continued, Mr Ford demanding at one point to have Dodee, his favourite, live with him and relinquish Lucy altogether. She was but four years old and I found this most upsetting, first that he would attempt to steal my child from me, and second that he cared so little for his other daughter. The Duke finally intervened in the quarrel, insisting that Somerset Street, where I still lived when I was working, was now her true home. He meant only to help, but this infuriated Hester who fiercely objected, since she considered Brompton to be Dodee’s home now.

‘Tell the Duke from me that I will not be considered as his nurse or housekeeper, nor will I continue in a house of which he is master.’

We had given up the house at Richmond, and I’d handed over all the furniture to Hester, and the lease at Brompton to Ford, so neither of them could accuse me of neglecting their needs. But she threatened to quit Brompton and disappear without telling me where she went, if she suffered any more interference. While admiring her fiery spirit and ability to stand up to royalty so stoutly, I found it all most distressing. She refused even to see me or speak to me on the matter, which made negotiations particularly difficult. But then Hester had always been quick to take offence, with an impulsive way of jumping to the wrong conclusions, not to mention overstating her case. It took some time but I calmed her down, Ford dropped his ridiculous claim over Dodee, and gradually the press lost interest. Life settled into some degree of normality.

Actors are not known for rising early and the mornings became our time to be alone together. The Duke’s gentle teasing and kind manner soon helped me to overcome the sense of shyness I at first felt in his company. He was sweet and loveable, but also a vigorous and passionate lover, such a contrast from the bland indifference of Mr Ford, and the crude violence of Daly. We would lie abed and make love, teasing and flirting, kissing and caressing; talk endlessly about anything and everything. He was not, he readily informed me, as sharp and witty as the Prince of Wales, but I found him utterly delightful, a man of enthusiasms and interests, and one who was always ready to listen to the views of others. In truth I had never been happier.

It had taken no more than a few days of living with him before I’d fallen headlong in love. It seemed like a miracle to find a love so rich and fulfilling after all I had been through. And that a prince of the blood should be the one to love me so devotedly and unselfishly, was utterly astounding.

At dinner he would take but a few glasses of wine, as I tactfully encouraged him not to over-imbibe. Afterwards he would walk for miles, and on occasion I would accompany him for a part of the way, though not the entire ten or twelve miles he liked to do. Then on the days I was home he would sit and read his seafaring yarns while I studied my lines. And each night before we retired he would be the one to lock up, insisting that the servants were not required to stay up late, which was so typical of his consideration for others.

We were fast becoming a most harmonious couple, if somewhat staid as we liked nothing better than spending our time quietly together at home. It felt as if we had found in each other what we had long sought.

But I was no Mrs Crouch, nor Mary Robinson. I had protected myself with the best settlement possible, which meant that even if it all came to an end, I would still receive an allowance.

And by the following March I was delighted to discover that I was pregnant.

My condition did not, of course, prevent me from working, which was in any case essential as there were many calls upon my purse, and my career was important to me. Although those mornings I was able to spend with my dear Billy at the Petersham house, and not be rushing to the theatre or staying at Somerset Street because of rehearsals, continued to be precious.

I would also call at Brompton most days to spend an hour or two with my three daughters and listen to Hester’s grumbles. She still helped me to prepare for a performance when she could, but rarely accompanied me to the theatre these days. She was utterly devoted to Fanny, Dodee and Lucy, and caring for them took up her entire time. Even so, I would have my girls come to stay with me in Petersham just as often as I could. Hester would protest that I didn’t have time.

‘They are my children, I will make time.’

These days too were precious with the Duke playing games with them, or marching them off on one of his long walks, just like a proper family.

I took my benefit on the sixteenth of April that year, 1792, in The Country Girl and a farce called The Village Coquette. It was met with general approval from an adoring public, far removed from those dreadful performances at the end of the previous year. Even the critics found a few kind words, saying ‘the new entertainment was received with loud and reiterated peals of applause.’

It was interesting to note that despite the recent furore my benefit raised £540, second only to Bannister at £545, and far more than Kemble, Mrs Siddons or the dreadful Crouch woman. There was some small satisfaction in that, certainly.

However, such success engendered no love between the Kembles and myself, and I was granted a part in a new play on only two occasions throughout the entire season. In the main I was confined to old favourites, including The Spoiled Child, The Romp and similar pieces, and given no new characters to learn. It was frustrating, even infuriating, as I was certainly not the first actress to take up with a prince. But the seeds of jealousy and moral disapproval still lingered, as if I had become a pariah overnight.

William never complained once about my working, save to remind me every now and then of my condition. ‘Put your feet up, my love. You do not take nearly enough rest. Let me bring you a chair and you can sit in the garden for a while, and later perhaps pay a call or take tea.’

I would think of the society ladies of Richmond who would spend their days paying calls and taking tea, and their evenings playing cards. I was not one of their number, never having touched a card in my life, and I rather thought that fitting in and being accepted by local society would not be easy. I tried to say as much to the Duke, but he pooh-poohed the idea.

‘Nonsense, they’ll be delighted to make the acquaintance of a famous actress such as yourself.’

I shook my head in despair. ‘You don’t think that you might be just a little prejudiced? The ladies of Richmond will be scandalized by my living here at Clarence House as your mistress.’

He frowned, not much caring for that comment. ‘Mrs Fitzherbert takes a full part in society, why shouldn’t you?’

I couldn’t help but wonder how true that was, since the lady insisted on being considered the Prince of Wales’s true wife.

When, at the end of May, William received an invitation from a neighbour to a rural breakfast, he politely requested if he might bring a lady.

‘There, you see, she has no objection,’ he assured me when his appeal was granted.

I very much doubted my darling Billy would actually have named me. Communicating detail of any sort was not one of his strengths, no doubt because he was accustomed to leaving such trivialities to his secretary, Barton. And some less trivial matters too. Barton it was who had arranged an annual payment of 100 guineas to the mother of a child whom William readily accepted to be his. Not that this was any concern of mine. We were both anxious to put the past behind us and concentrate upon our future together. There was a careless ease about him that I rather liked.

‘Who is this neighbour?’ I asked, feeling nervous at the thought of entering a room with all the moralistic society ladies of Richmond. Far worse even than Hull, I should think. They would be certain to turn their backs and snub me, no doubt consider me quite beyond the pale, a fallen woman no less.

‘She is a Mrs Hobart, dubbed by the gossips as Mrs Circumference as, not to put too fine a point on it, she is rather large.’

I couldn’t help but giggle. The Duke had a lovely way of appearing to be completely oblivious to gossip and yet being in full possession of it. ‘Ah yes, I’ve heard that she and her husband share a passion for all things connected with the theatre and acting.’

‘Indeed they do. The good lady is noted for her theatricals, as well as her faro parties when in town, and her garden parties when staying in the country. I am sure they will be most delighted to meet an actress in the flesh, as it were, if deliciously more slender than her own.’ Then he was kissing me again and we were falling into bed, eager for love.

However, on the morning of the event in question there was a downpour of rain which seemed set to last the entire day and the Duke changed his mind, adamant that we did not go. ‘Standing about in the rain all day will do you no good at all in your condition, my dear.’

With some relief I sent a polite note excusing ourselves on the grounds of a previous engagement. ‘Should Mrs Hobart’s fête be put off on account of the badness of the weather till Monday or any other day, His Royal Highness will be extremely happy to wait on her.’

The event did indeed take place, even though the heavens opened and it must surely have been spoiled. But we learned later that she had enjoyed herself at our expense, passing my letter among her guests and saying how relieved she was that she’d been spared from receiving me.

‘I am quite used to entertaining the royal princes at my functions, but would never have invited the Duke of Clarence had I known whom he might choose to bring with him.’

Her friends were naturally most eager to warn her of the impropriety of our situation and how inappropriate it would be for her ever to make the same mistake again. So it was that when Mrs Hobart held her second party in July, we were not invited. Even a prince, it seemed, could not bestow respectability upon a mistress, not if she was an actress.

Nevertheless, I continued to pursue my profession and acted at the Haymarket until the end of the season. I closed it on the seventh of June with my portrayal of Rosalind in As You Like It. Even then I was asked to perform in a benefit at the end of July. For once, my dear patient Billy did object. ‘Have you not done enough for one season, my love? It is surely time for you to put your feet up and rest.’

‘But it is only one night, and I should like to perform, for it is my old friend, Mrs Bannister. She has perhaps more sense than me as she is retiring to devote herself to her family, something I cannot quite bring myself to do.’

‘I should think not. You are far too talented to rusticate. It is not my place to stop you, and as you say, my love, it is but one night.’

So I performed with my dear friend, then just a few days later in early August, I suffered a miscarriage.

I have little recollection of the event beyond the pain, and the sad expression of the Duke as I faded in and out of consciousness. The royal physician was called and for a time I seriously feared that my life was in danger. I was devastated by the loss of this child, a girl, as I had so wanted to give the Duke the family he so longed for.

Yet as I slowly recovered in the days following, returning to the theatre in September for the new season, he uttered not one word of blame. All he said to me was, ‘The doctor says you are perfectly healthy and there will be other babies, so you are not to worry.’

Come the New Year of 1793, I was again complaining to Kemble that I was never allowed to act in any new plays, only revivals, while he and Sheridan continued at loggerheads over money as well as the programme.

‘Why may I not play in anything new? I am often given no part at all, yet you still pay me at the top rate.’

‘We will let you know when there is a suitable new part for you,’ came the predictably cool reply.

Perhaps out of desperation I wrote a play myself, albeit in collaboration with a Miss Cuthbertson, which we called Anna. Kemble and I quarrelled furiously over whether or not to put it on. In the end he agreed but sadly it was not a success. It would have been better had I not pressed him.

Meanwhile, in the real world, England and France were fast moving towards war. French émigrés were constantly arriving with tales of horror. More alarming still, the French King and his Queen had been taken prisoner and were on trial. The Duke naturally offered his services to the navy, but then fell on an icy step and broke his arm, which prevented him from doing anything.

‘Now it is you who must rest, my darling,’ I told him, enjoying fussing over him for a change.

Pitt, however, was firmly against the Duke taking part, even after he was fit, and despite the fact that several of his brothers were given roles. William was incensed.

‘The Prime Minister has objected to the criticisms I made about the war in the House of Lords, simply because I said we should negotiate peace at the earliest opportunity. I strongly believe that the war effort should be confined as far as possible to naval operations. In response Pitt said that he could not have a political admiral. Yet I wish to serve my country. What is so wrong in that?’

I looked at his outraged expression, thinking how well meaning he was, how passionate and caring, yet also perhaps a little naïve. ‘But as you don’t agree with the war, you can surely see Pitt’s point of view.’

‘I do see his point of view, but I distrust Pitt’s policy of military intervention on the Continent. Events will prove me right, I’m sure of it. I tell you, Dora, if ever, unfortunately for this country, I should by providence be commanded to wear the crown, my greatest desire would be to be considered a peaceful monarch, and to study the true interests of Great Britain by attending to the extension of its commerce and consequently to the increase of the navy.’

I made no response to this comment, for were that occasion ever to arise, it would be the end of our relationship. Mistresses did not become queens, even if they were not an actress with three children by two different fathers.

I was also pregnant again, but he gave no thought either to the implication of that outcome for his unborn child.

Events did, however, as William had predicted, prove him right when the British army under the leadership of the Duke of York were defeated at Hondschoote, and a few weeks later the allied army was beaten at Wattignies. Worse news came when we received word that the French King and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, had both been executed, their heads cut from their bodies.

I was quite beside myself with horror. ‘I never imagined such a thing could happen,’ I cried.

‘It is indeed a barbarous and inhuman murder, but it could not possibly happen here, my love.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘The British are not like the French, we are far too pragmatic to start a revolution. Fate, I am sorry to say, seems unfavourable to us on the Continent, and every day convinces me more and more of the propriety of my objections to the war in that quarter.’

Out of respect for the French royal family, Kemble closed the Haymarket for the day, but Sheridan reacted badly to the gesture. ‘Am I not struggling enough over financing the building of the new theatre at Drury Lane? It’s costing me a small fortune. I cannot afford to miss a single day’s trade, and certainly not for the French.’

Their disputes rumbled on, as always, but I was too busy with rehearsals, and taking extreme care over the child I was carrying, to concern myself too much with theatre politics. I was, however, aware that Sheridan was heavily involved in calls for parliamentary reform, determined to avoid a similar threat here to that in France. And, like William, hard-pressed as he was for cash, yet he could not resist putting on a bet that reform would pass into law within two years. I feared he would lose his money.

His long face with its downward sloping eyes and small pinched mouth looked more mournful than ever, and I did feel most dreadfully sorry for him as Elizabeth, his wife, had recently died of consumption. To everyone’s astonishment this much-betrayed and once innocent woman had given birth to a daughter that was not her husband’s, only shortly before her death. Nevertheless, the guilt-ridden, grief-stricken Sheridan had taken the child to his heart, only to lose her too within a twelvemonth. He did find himself a new love, but she flagrantly married his late wife’s ex-lover.

Poor Sheridan, finally being paid in kind for all his own adulterous betrayals in the past. A lesson to us all.

The war continued but William took no part in it. The King would not permit him to go to sea, and the government refused to give him a job at the Admiralty, for which I was deeply thankful, despite his very real sense of frustration. But I wept for those two lost souls. Whatever the French King and Queen’s faults and flaws, they surely did not deserve such an end.

And looking at my own royal prince, I silently prayed nothing of the sort would happen here, should he ever wear the crown, whether or not I was at his side.