Lord Chatham, His Early Life and ConnectionsRosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of
History
Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections
Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778
In June 1751 she was appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse to the
Princess of Wales, and superintendent of the education of the Princess
Augusta, afterwards Duchess of Brunswick. She obtained this appointment,
we are told, through the interest of Mr. Cresset, the confidential
servant and Treasurer of the Princess of Wales, whose authority in the
Court soon afterwards gave way to the ascendancy of Lord Bute; though
Pitt imagined that here again he could trace the hand of Bolingbroke.
'However,' says Lord Camelford, 'thinking she could be useful to him in
so important a post, he sought a reconciliation--he flattered, he
menaced, he insulted, but was rejected.'
Of these proceedings two records remain in letters which have already
been published, but cannot be omitted here, as they are instinct with
passion and light. Whether they answer to Lord Camelford's description
must be left to the judgment of those who read them. That they are
powerful, tender, and unaffected all must allow. They also contain
quotations from the quarrels which are not devoid of interest. Ann had
declared that William expected absolute deference and a blind submission
to his will; and that he had in several conversations directly explained
to her that, to satisfy him, she must live with him as his slave. On
this point William admits that he did expect some measure of deference
to his views, and that, living together, he thought she might shape her
life in some degree to his. This seems to have been the real ground of
separation. William wished to be master in his own house. Ann could
brook no control. Perhaps the brother may have asked the sister to
discontinue or relax her intimacy with the Bolingbrokes, as injurious
and inconvenient to him, and Ann, we may guess, would curtly bid him
mind his own business. But these are only probabilities.
In the course of these proceedings we learn that William lost his
temper, declaring that she had a bad head and a worse heart; for this he
humbly begs her pardon.
Another complaint of Ann's is easily explained. She says that William
had been talking of the 200_l._ a year that he allowed her. William's
answer makes it perfectly clear that he had been reproached with the
fact of his sister's destitute condition, and that he had had to
explain, in his own defence, that he gave her this income.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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