The duchess was always frightful; so much so that one night the
electress, who had acquired a little English, said to Mrs. Howard,
afterwards Lady Suffolk,--glancing at Mademoiselle Schulemberg--'Look at
that _mawkin_, and think of her being my son's passion!'
The duchess, however, like all the Hanoverians, knew how to profit by
royal preference. She took bribes:--she had a settlement of L3,000 a
year. But her daughter was eventually disappointed of the expected
bequest from her father, the king.[24]
In the apartments at St. James's Lord Chesterfield for some time lived,
when he was not engaged in office abroad; and there he dissipated large
sums in play. It was here, too, that Queen Caroline, the wife of George
II., detected the intimacy that existed between Chesterfield and Lady
Suffolk. There was an obscure window in Queen Caroline's apartments,
which looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at
night. One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield, having won a large sum at
cards, deposited it with Lady Suffolk, thinking it not safe to carry it
home at night. He was watched, and his intimacy with the mistress of
George II. thereupon inferred. Thenceforth he could obtain no court
influence; and, in desperation, he went into the opposition.
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