Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court (66 page)

George I, George II and their courtiers favoured Kensington Palace, surrounded by its famous gardens, as a healthy summer holiday home.

 

Courtiers having tea at Lord Harrington’s house. Henrietta Howard (wearing a gold-coloured dress), the king’s mistress, is sitting at the card table in the centre. Her head is inclined towards the man near the fireplace: George Berkeley, the true love of her life. He was first her secret lover and then her second husband.

 

The King’s Grand Staircase, leading up to the state apartments at Kensington Palace. Everyone of influence in Georgian England came up these stairs, hoping to speak to the king. Forty-five members of the royal household observe the king’s visitors from the painted walls.

 

 

Peter the Wild Boy has curly hair and holds up a sprig of oak: a reminder of his feral life in the forest before he was found and brought to court as a pet. To the left, Dr Arbuthnot, satirist, medical doctor, and Peter’s tutor and friend, leans on the stout stick he always carried because of his limp.

Mohammed (left) has a blue cloak. His colleague is Mustapha (right), with white turban and beard. These two were among George I’s most trusted servants, and their intimacy with the king aroused much envy. Gossipy Londoners reported that the king ‘keeps two Turks for abominable uses’.

 

 

Is this Mrs Tempest? We know that Queen Caroline’s pretty milliner is shown somewhere on the staircase, and this lady has a hyperfashionable black hood as a milliner might. There’s a rumour that the page boy in blue worked for Henrietta Howard.

 

Robert and Franciscus: the assistants who helped the pushy painter William Kent to complete the staircase with its portraits of the servants at court.

The staircase still holds many secrets, such as the identities of these ladies. According to the secret language of the fan, William Kent jokingly depicted several of the women servants signalling a series of similar messages: ‘I am married’, ‘leave me alone’ and just plain ‘no’.

 

 

A shy and apparently grumpy man, King George I was widely misunderstood by the English courtiers. Only his servants and mistress saw him off duty, when he was relaxed and good company. But it is true that he could be exceedingly cruel: he imprisoned his wife for adultery, hated his son and kidnapped his grandchildren.

 

The Cupola Room at Kensington Palace: commissioned by George I in the hope of hosting parties even more lively and popular than his son’s. The job of painting the room was won by the cheeky upstart William Kent. This was an early project for the artist who went on to create the definitive look of the Georgian age.

 

Sir James Thornhill: the older, well-established painter who had fully expected to decorate Kensington Palace. His nemesis William Kent ousted him from the commission in the cut-throat battle of the painters which unfolds in Chapter Three.