Amanda Foreman - The Duchess

Public Days were a feudal relic from the era of vassals and private armies. Because of the expense only the grandest of families continued the tradition. Such lavish entertainment was now a means of cultivating good relations with the tenantry and of safeguarding local political influence. In the eighteenth century the maintenance of an electoral borough was a family matter; it was part of the estate, as tangible and valuable as land. The Cavendish influence in parliament depended on the number of MPs who sat in the family’s ‘interest’. At its height, thirteen MPs owed allegiance to the Duke, the second largest grouping within the Whig party after the Marquess of Rockingham, who had eighteen. 13 Since the Duke’s brother-in-law the Duke of Portland controlled ten, when the Cavendishes collaborated they presented a formidable faction.

That year the Public Days had a particular purpose; a general election was scheduled in October and the Cavendishes were defending their electoral interests in Derbyshire. Since peers were barred from personally campaigning in parliamentary elections, their wives and relatives had to look after their interests for them. On 8 October Georgiana went to her first election ball in Derby, dressed in fashionable London clothes for the benefit of the locals. The Duke’s brothers were already drunk by the time she arrived and Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Duke’s uncle, almost fell on her as she climbed the stairs to the assembly room. An open-door policy operated, and the heat and sweat of so many bodies crammed together made the room suffocating. The musicians – the usual country players – made an appalling noise, each following a different measure. 14 Nevertheless Georgiana kept her poise and danced to the tunes from memory, smiling graciously at her partners and at any townspeople who caught her eye. The next ball she attended revealed the Derbyshire voters’ opinion of the new Duchess: ‘we were received there by a great huzza,’ she recorded. ‘The room was very much crowded but they were so good as to split in 2 to make room for us.’ 15 Although the Whigs did not do well as a party in the election, the Duke’s candidates were voted in without any trouble. His bill came to £554, which was low compared to the average £5,000 spent on a contested election. 16

The Spencers had to pay considerably more. Lady Spencer went to the borough of Northampton Town because Lord Spencer’s nominee Mr Tollemache was facing a challenge from a newcomer, Sir James Langham. ‘I have dined each day during the Poll at the George with all the gentlemen and am extremely popular among them,’ she wrote contentedly to Georgiana. 17 She not only courted the gentlemen voters but bravely went out to rally the whole town:

I set out on Thursday morning with Mrs Tollemache in my Cabriolet and four, in hopes of putting a little spirit into our people who were sadly discompos’d at having neither money or drink offer’d them [she informed her daughter on 9 October 1774]. I succeeded beyond my expectations, for I no sooner got to the George than a little mob surrounded us and insisted on taking off our horses and drawing us around the town … in a very few minutes we had a mob of several hundred people screaming Spencer for ever – Tollemache and Robinson – No Langham. In this manner did they drag us about thro’ every street in the town, and were so delighted with my talking to them and shewing no signs of fear at going wherever they chose, that it was with the utmost difficulty I could in the evening … prevent their drawing me quite home to Althorp. I went thro’ the same ceremony again on Friday, when very luckily my chaise was broke … it has ensur’d Mr Tollemache a great majority, by putting such numbers of people in spirits and good humour who before were cross and sulky and would not vote because there was nothing to enliven them. 18

Despite the fact that people responded favourably to her youth and enthusiasm, Georgiana was constantly terrified of forgetting herself and committing some faux pas. This worry was exacerbated by the Cavendishes, who sternly demanded that she conform to their ways. A century of political leadership and proud public service had made them self-conscious and introverted in their dealings with the outside world. The Cavendish way of doing things stamped itself on all members of the family, from the relentless self-control they exerted on their emotions to the peculiar drawl which marred their speech – they pronounced her name ‘George-ayna’. In her eagerness to be accepted Georgiana adopted all their mannerisms, even vigorously applying the Cavendish drawl.

By now, three months into her marriage, Georgiana could not help but suspect the true nature of the Duke’s feelings towards her. He was kind in a distant sort of way, but he was naturally reticent and she soon realized that they had little in common. Her innocence bored him and Georgiana was too acute not to notice his lack of interest in her. She told her mother that she was secretly making an effort to be more attractive to him. Since he was so much more worldly than her, she read Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son; and knowing of his interest in history and the classics she began several books on ancient Greece and on the reign of Louis XIV, ‘for as those two periods are so distant there will be no danger of their interfering so as to puzzle me’. 19

At first Lady Spencer tried to reassure her that the Duke ‘was no less happy than herself’. 20 She also supplied her daughter with advice on how to please him, suggesting that she should curb any thoughts of independence and show her submission by anticipating his desires:

But where a husband’s delicacy and indulgence is so great that he will not say what he likes, the task becomes more difficult, and a wife must use all possible delicacy and ingenuity in trying to find out his inclinations, and the utmost readiness in conforming to them. You have this difficult task to perform, my dearest Georgiana, for the Duke of D., from a mistaken tenderness, persists in not dictating to you the things he wishes you to do, and not contradicting you in anything however disagreeable to him. This should engage you by a thousand additional motives of duty and gratitude to try to know his sentiments upon even the most trifling subjects, and especially not to enter into any engagements or form any plans without consulting him … 21

Unwilling to disappoint her mother, Georgiana made sincere efforts to appear cheerful, sending her carefully composed accounts of her life. Lady Spencer was particularly delighted when Georgiana wrote her letters in French and interspersed her news with little poems or religious reflections. Since she had been told that she ought to be content, Georgiana asserted that she was: ‘I have been so happy in marrying a Man I so sincerely lov’d, and experience Dayly so much of his goodness to me, that it is impossible I should not feel to the greatest degree that mutual happyness you speak of.’ But she could not help adding anxiously, ‘My only wish is to deserve it and my greatest pleasure the thought of being in any manner able to add to His Happyness.’ 22 She was quite sure that she did not add to his happiness in the slightest degree.

Georgiana had entered into marriage thinking that, like her mother, she would be a wife and companion. She soon discovered that her chief role was to produce children and carry out her social obligations. The Duke was used to his bachelor life: love he received from his mistress, companionship from his friends; from his wife he expected loyalty, support and commitment to the family’s interests. His was an old-fashioned view, greatly out of step with an age which celebrated romantic sentiment and openly shed tears over Clarissa. The Duke did not know how to be romantic; never having experienced tenderness himself he was incapable of showing it to Georgiana. He did not mean to hurt her, but there was a nine-year age difference between them and a gulf of misunderstanding and misplaced expectations.