Queen's House (10 page)

The other was Charlotte Papendiek, the daughter of Frederick Albert, the German page whom the Queen had persuaded to come with her from Mecklenburg-Strelitz, where originally he had served as hairdresser/barber. Charlotte married Christopher Papendiek, a German page in the King's entourage, and in the late 1830s, wrote her autobiography under her married name. It covers the period from before her birth in July 1765 to 1792. Her father, a fine, cultured man, and a competent musician, had sent her at the age of six to be educated at Streatham, south London, where she was well taught by two ladies, friends of Mrs Thrale and Dr Johnson. She, too, like Fanny Burney, had been flattered by Johnson. Her father, who had hoped that her training would qualify her to become one of the Queen's household, unwillingly allowed her to become the wife of a courtier, knowing what a difficult life that was, as generations of courtiers' wives have discovered. Mrs Papendiek flourished in the cultural life of the Court and eventually took Fanny Burney's place, remaining with the Queen until her death.

Unlike Mrs Papendiek, Fanny Burney withered at Court and retired, broken in health. She had lived, she recorded, ‘in the service of Her Majesty five years within ten days from July 17 1786 to July 1791'. She had counted the days.

During her term of office, she spent most of her time with the Queen in the country, though she had a room in St James's Palace and another
in Buckingham House, where she slept when the royal family were in London. Unfortunately she gives little description of the Queen's House in her journals – in any case Miss Burney was extremely short-sighted and Court etiquette did not allow her to wear glasses; but she is an admirable witness of life among the courtiers, which was much the same in all the palaces. Unlike Mrs Papendiek, who was bred to Court life and accepted the discomforts with cheerful resignation, Miss Burney could never rid herself of the sense of the indignity of her position. To be summoned by a bell, like a servant, was a ‘mortifying mark of servitude. I always felt myself blush, though alone, with conscious shame at my own strange degradation.' Though she was charmed by the tact and gentleness of the ‘sweet queen', she was uncomfortable in the ritual of dressing her. The Queen's maid ‘hands the things to me and I put them on. 'Tis fortunate that I have not the handling of them … embarrassed as I am, and should run a prodigious risk of giving the gown before the hoop, and the fan before the neck-kerchief.' She was affronted, too, by the ferocious Mrs Elizabeth Schwellenberg, who had also come with the Queen from Germany and dominated the Queen's household, and bullied and patronized Fanny Burney. But her pride was most hurt when Mrs Schwellenberg came to her in great secrecy, saying, ‘“The Queen will give you a gown! The Queen says you are not rich.” … There was something … quite intolerable to me & I hastily interrupted her with saying: “I have two new gowns by me, & therefore do not require another.”'

Such ingratitude was incomprehensible to Madame–but Miss Burney was adamant. ‘To accept even such a shadow of an obligation upon such terms I should think mean & unworthy; and therefore I mean always, in a Court as I would elsewhere to be open & fearless in declining such subjection.' The Queen was ‘all sweetness, encouragement & gracious goodness to me, & I cannot endure to complain of her old servant … I could not give up all my own notions of what I think everyone owes to themselves.'

Nevertheless she continued to suffer the bullying, as when, on long coach journeys, Madame insisted on keeping the windows open, so giving Fanny a swollen face. Miss Burney endured the ‘slavery' for the
same reason that she had accepted the honour. Her father, Dr Burney, a distinguished musicologist who had observed royal patronage of musicians in his travels through German courts, was writing a history of music. She hoped he might, through her influence, gain some preferment at the English Court.

No one has caught better than Miss Burney the atmosphere of life among the courtiers, its longueurs and miseries. Generations of equerries have sympathized with her friend, Colonel Goldsworthy.

‘What a life it is? Well! it's honour, that's one comfort; it's all honour, royal honour! One has the honour to stand till one has not a foot left; & to ride until one's stiff, & to walk till one's ready to drop – & then one makes one's lowest bow, d'ye see, and blesses one's self with joy for the honour.'

‘After all the labours,' cried he, ‘of the chase, all the riding, the trotting, the galloping, the leaping, the – with your favour, ladies, I beg pardon, I was going to say a strange word, but the – perspiration, – and – and all that – after being wet through over head, and soused through under feet, and popped into ditches, and jerked over gates, what lives we do lead: Well, it's all honour! that's my only comfort! Well, after all this, fagging away like mad from eight in the morning to five or six in the afternoon, home we come, looking like so many drowned rats, with not a dry thread about us, nor a morsel within us – sore to the very bone, and forced to smile all the time! and then after all this what do you think follows?'

To his horror the King offered him

‘Barley water in such a plight as that! Fine compensation for a wet jacket, truly! – barley water! I never heard of such a thing in my life! barley water after a whole day's hard hunting!'

‘And pray did you drink it?'

‘I drink it? – Drink barley water? no, no; not come to that neither! But there it was, sure enough! – in a jug fit for a sick-room; just such a thing as you put upon a hob in a chimney, for some poor miserable soul that keeps his bed! just such a thing as that! – And, “Here, Goldsworthy,” says His Majesty, “here's the barley water!”'

‘And did the King drink it himself?'

‘Yes, God bless His Majesty! But I was too humble a subject to do the same as the King!'

Fanny Burney's ‘directions for coughing, sneezing or moving before the King and Queen' were sent to her mother Mrs Burney – a wry commentary on the miseries of Court life.

In the first place, you must not cough … you must choke … but not cough. In the second place you must not sneeze … you must hold your breath – … if the violence … breaks some blood vessel, you must break the blood vessel – but not sneeze … If a black pin runs into your head you must not take it out … if the blood should gush from your head … you must let it gush. If however the agony is very great … you may bite the inside of your cheek … if you even gnaw a piece out, it will not be minded, only be sure to swallow it, or commit it to a corner of your mouth until they are gone – for you must not spit.

Protocol remained the same at Buckingham House, Windsor and Kew, though life was more relaxed in the country. Clothes were plainer at Windsor and even simpler at Kew. Later the royal family could be even more relaxed on their holiday expeditions. They could stroll down the promenade at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, or sit and sew in the bathing machines at Weymouth, Dorset, although even there the King might be surprised by a loyal band, in a nearby bathing machine, playing ‘God Save The King' as he popped his head out of the water.

Fanny Burney watched Court protocol with the curious eye of one observing strange customs in a foreign land. You did not knock at royal doors, you rattled the keys; you did not pass the open door of a room where royals were; you did not sit in the royal presence, unless especially invited; and you never turned your back on the royal family. Fanny Burney learned with difficulty the art of walking backwards, without ‘treading on my own heels, or feeling my head giddy'. In an Oxford college she watched with admiration a wonderful example of the ‘true court retrograde action'. Lady Charlotte Bertie, a Lady-in-Waiting, trapped with the King at the head of a long room, had to retreat.

She therefore faced the King, and began a march backwards – her ankle already sprained, and to walk forward, even leaning upon an arm, was painful to her: nevertheless back she went, perfectly upright, without one stumble, without
ever once looking behind … and with as graceful a motion, and as easy an air, as I ever saw …

It was a feat worthy of a skilled circus performer.

It was on this very tiring visit to Oxford that Miss Burney observed the discreet camaraderie among courtiers. Not allowed to eat in the King's presence, and famished, the ‘untitled attendants' watched in an envious semi-circle while the Princess Royal sat down to a splendid collation.

Major Price & Colonel Fairly seeing a very large table close to the wainscot behind us, desired our refreshments might be privately conveyed there … while all the group backed very near it, one at a time might feed, screened by all the rest.
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But through all the pains and longueurs of Court life Miss Burney retained her affection for the King and Queen – she, ‘full of sense & graciousness … speaks English perfectly well … though now & then with a foreign idiom & frequently a foreign accent'. She had not only read Miss Burney's books but was generally well read, delighting in finding old books on bookstalls. As for the King, ‘he speaks his opinion without reserve … His countenance is full of inquiry, to gain information without asking it … All I saw of both was the most perfect good humour, good spirits, ease & pleasantness.' Yet at the end, Miss Burney was to discover the insensitive side of the ‘sweet Queen'. When, broken by stress and ill-health, she wanted to retire, she found the Queen unsympathetic and unwilling to let her go. Even then she excused her – it was not unkindness but lack of experience.

Mrs Papendiek's view of Court life was different. It was she, not Miss Burney, who was in a foreign country: though born in England, her father, mother and husband and many of their friends were German. But she was bred to Court life, and the Queen was at ease with her old Mecklenburg-Strelitz acquaintances. Her father, Frederick Albert, and husband, Mr Papendiek, both cultivated, intelligent men, could count as friends some of the most distinguished artists, scientists and musicians of the time. Educated as she was to hold her own, Mrs Papendiek
flourished. ‘Art & science hovering round us … attracted others & we became the centre of a charming coterie.'
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In the pages of her memoirs the hierarchy of George Ill's Court is seen with German eyes. She accepts with cheerful resignation their position. ‘People in our rank do not travel with servants,' she writes. ‘Nor do they serve ices or have fine china.'

But in their circle at George Ill's Court, there was a cultural richness rarely met at other courts and to which she had an access. Through her words the famous names become human. Here are painters Reynolds and Gainsborough eyeing each other's work warily; ‘Pretty little' Angelica Kauffmann and the eccentric Henry Fuseli were guests at her hospitable table; the painter of exquisite miniatures, Jeremiah Meyer, and his wife were close friends; Benjamin West, the President of the Royal Academy, often dropped in, and his handsome son was a particular close friend. Mrs Papendiek tried in vain to help Sir Thomas Lawrence in his early unsuccessful attempts to gain royal favour. The wives of the famous told their life stories to her sympathetic ear: Mrs Zoffany, the artist's wife, confessed how she had been his mistress at the age of fourteen. She admired the long-suffering Mrs Meyer, whose difficult husband sent their children away to a miserable school, and who generously gave his exquisite miniatures to the sitters after his death.

She was equally popular with scientists such as Sir Joseph Banks and Sir William Herschel, who became the King's Astronomer. She heard the history of his life from the time when he came to England, a deserter from the Hanoverian army, with a shilling in his pocket, before making his way to fame through his music and his skill in making telescopes. He, his brilliant sister and his wife were welcome visitors at her own home.

Fanny Burney's encounter with Herschel confirms the generosity of the King and the breadth of his patronage. Herschel came to Windsor to show ‘His Majesty and the royal family the new comet lately discovered by his sister, Miss Herschel'. Miss Burney went into the garden where Herschel ‘showed her “the first lady's comet”, and some of his new discovered universes, with all the good humour with which he would have taken the same trouble for a brother or sister'.

His success, she observed,

He owes wholly to his majesty … he was in danger of ruin, when his … great & uncommon genius attracted the king's patronage. He has now not only his pension … but … licence from the king to make a telescope according to his new ideas … that is to have no cost spared in its construction, and is wholly to be paid for by his majesty.
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There was much at Court to excite Miss Burney's intellectual interest, but she was never at ease, unsure of her place in the social hierarchy.

But no one enjoyed the cultural life of the Court more than the daughter of the Queen's page. Though she might listen to the grand concerts at the Queen's House from the next room, she never felt, as Miss Burney did, uncertain of her place or outside the pale. She, her husband and her father were part of the royal family, secure in their position among ‘people of our rank'.

Mrs Papendiek took advantage of free tickets to theatres and operas, and was the friend of singers such as the great Mara, and actors and actresses including Mrs Siddons, Miss Farren, David Garrick and Roger Kemble. But it was among the musicians that she was most at home. Her father, Frederick Albert, played many instruments, and Mr Papendiek was an accomplished flute player. We must have Papendiek on his flute,' George III exclaimed when they were discussing a forthcoming concert at Westminster Abbey. The Prince of Wales, no mean performer himself, often sent for him to accompany him in his musical evenings, but both her husband and father firmly refused to take part in the Prince of Wales's wild evenings. As for Johann Christian Bach, he and his wife were for many years an important part of their lives. He taught her to sing and she never forgot the enchantment of his musical parties on the river at Richmond. She mourned his sad later years when he was neglected and wept with his wife at his death. Mrs Papendiek was a competent pianist herself, playing with great pleasure Bach's compositions on the new grand piano – which they acquired when the King rejected it for Windsor. She gave balls in her kitchen and concerts in her sitting room to which some of the most talented men and women of the time were delighted to come. The German impresario, Johann Peter Salomon, was a frequent guest at her musical evenings. He gave
her tickets to the concerts he organized for Franz Joseph Haydn's ‘London' symphonies.