English courtier and political writer
John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey
,
PC
(13 October 1696 – 5 August 1743) was an English courtier and political writer. Heir to the
Earl of Bristol
, he obtained the key patronage of
Walpole
, and was involved in many court intrigues and literary quarrels, being apparently caricatured by
Pope
and
Fielding
. His memoirs of the early reign of
George II
were too revealing to be published in his time and did not appear for more than a century.
Family background
[
edit
]
Hervey was the eldest son of
John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol
, by his second wife,
[1]
Elizabeth. He was known as Lord Hervey from 1723, upon the death of his elder half-brother, Carr, the only son of his father's first wife, Isabella, but Lord Hervey never became
Earl of Bristol
, as he predeceased his father.
Life
[
edit
]
Hervey was educated at
Westminster School
and at
Clare College, Cambridge
, where he took his M.A. degree in 1715.
[2]
His father then sent him to Paris in 1716, and thence to
Hanover
to pay court to
George I
.
[1]
He was a frequent visitor at the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales at
Richmond
, and in 1720 he married
Mary Lepell
, daughter of Nicholas Lepell, who was one of the Princess's ladies-in-waiting, and a great court beauty. In 1723 John's elder half-brother Carr died, whereby he became heir apparent to the Earldom of Bristol with the courtesy title of
Lord Hervey
. In 1725 he was elected M.P. for
Bury St Edmunds
.
[1]
Hervey had been at one time on very friendly terms with
Frederick, Prince of Wales
, but in about 1732 they quarrelled, apparently because they were rivals for the affection of
Anne Vane
. These differences probably account for the scathing picture he draws of the Prince's callous conduct. Hervey had been hesitating between
William Pulteney
(afterwards earl of Bath) and
Robert Walpole
, but in 1730 he definitely took sides with Walpole, of whom he was thenceforward a faithful adherent. He was assumed by Pulteney to be the author of
Sedition and Defamation display'd, with a Dedication to the patrons of The Craftsman
(1731). Pulteney, who, up to this time, had been a firm friend of Hervey, replied with
A Proper Reply to a late Scurrilous Libel
, and the quarrel resulted in a
duel
from which Hervey narrowly escaped with his life.
[1]
Hervey is said to have denied the authorship of both the pamphlet and its dedication, but a note on the manuscript at
Ickworth
, apparently in his own hand, states that he wrote the latter. He was able to render valuable service to Walpole from his influence with the Queen. Through him the minister governed
Queen Caroline
and indirectly
George II
. Hervey was vice-chamberlain in the royal household and a member of the Privy Council. In 1733 he was called to the House of Lords by
writ of acceleration
in his father's Barony. He was then elected a governor of the
Foundling Hospital
prior to its foundation in 1739.
[3]
In spite of repeated requests he received no further preferment until after 1740, when he became
Lord Privy Seal
.
[1]
After the fall of Sir Robert Walpole, he was dismissed (July 1742) from his office. An excellent political pamphlet,
Miscellaneous Thoughts on the present Posture of Foreign and Domestic Affairs
, shows that he still retained his mental vigour, but he was liable to epilepsy, and his weak appearance and rigid diet were a constant source of ridicule for his enemies. He predeceased his father, but three of his sons became successively Earls of Bristol.
[1]
Memoirs and literary quarrels
[
edit
]
Hervey wrote detailed and brutally frank memoirs of the court of
George II of Great Britain
from 1727 to 1737. He gave a most unflattering account of the King, and of
Frederick, Prince of Wales
, and their family squabbles. For the Queen
Caroline of Ansbach
and her daughter,
Princess Caroline of Great Britain
, he had genuine respect and attachment. The Princess's affection for him was commonly said to be the reason for the close retirement in which she lived after his death. The manuscript of Hervey's memoirs was preserved by the family, but his son,
Augustus John, 3rd Earl of Bristol
, left strict injunctions that they should not be published until after the death of
George III
. In 1848 they were published under the editorship of
J. W. Croker
, but the manuscript had been subjected to a certain amount of mutilation before it came into his hands. Croker also softened in some cases the plainspokenness of the original. Hervey's account of court life and intrigues resembles in many points the memoirs of
Horace Walpole
, and the two books corroborate one another in many statements that might otherwise have been received with suspicion.
[1]
Until the publication of the
Memoirs
Hervey was chiefly known as the object of savage satire on the part of
Alexander Pope
, in whose works he figured as Lord Fanny,
Sporus
,
Adonis
and
Narcissus
. The quarrel is generally put down to the Pope's jealousy of Hervey's friendship with
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
. In the first of the
Imitations of
Horace
, addressed to William Fortescue, Lord Fanny and Sappho were generally identified with Hervey and Lady Mary, although Pope denied the personal intention. Hervey had already been attacked in the
Dunciad
and the
Peribathous
, and he now retaliated. There is no doubt that he had a share in the
Verses to the Imitator of Horace
(1732) and it is possible that he was the sole author. In the
Letter from a nobleman at Hampton Court to a Doctor of Divinity
(1733), he scoffed at Pope's deformity and humble birth.
[1]
Pope's reply was a
Letter to a Noble Lord
, dated November 1733, and the portrait of Sporus in the
Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot
(1743), which forms the prologue to the satires. Many of the insinuations and insults contained in it are borrowed from Pulteney's
A Proper Reply to a late Scurrilous Libel
.
[1]
Some literary critics, such as Martin C. Battestin,
[4]
suggest that Pope's friend and fellow-satirist
Henry Fielding
intended the character of Beau Didapper in
Joseph Andrews
to be read as Hervey. Beau Didapper is described as obedient to the commands of a "Great Man" (presumably Walpole) "which he implicitly submitted to, at the Expence of his Conscience, his Honour, and of his Country." Didapper is also compared to
Hylas
, and is mistaken for a woman in the dark on account of his soft skin.
The malicious caricature of Sporus does Hervey great injustice, and he is not much better treated by Horace Walpole, who in reporting his death in a letter (14 August 1743) to Horace Mann, said he had outlived his last inch of character. Nevertheless, his writings prove him to have been a man of real ability, condemned by Walpole's tactics and distrust of able men to spend his life in court intrigue, the weapons of which, it must be owned, he used with the utmost adroitness. His wife Lady Hervey (1700?1768), of whom an account is to be found in
Lady Louisa Stuart
's
Anecdotes
, was a warm partisan of the
Stuarts
. She retained her wit and charm throughout her life, and has the distinction of being the recipient of English verses by
Voltaire
.
[1]
Marriages, affairs, and sexuality
[
edit
]
Hervey married
Mary Lepell
(1700?1768) on 21 April 1720. They had eight children:
1.
George William Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol
(1721?1775), unmarried
2. Lepell Hervey (15 April 1723 ? 11 May 1780), married in 1743
Constantine John Phipps, 1st Baron Mulgrave
, leaving issue
3.
Augustus John Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol
(1724?1779), died without legitimate issue
4. Mary Hervey (1725?1815),
[5]
married 1747
[6]
George FitzGerald, of
Turlough, County Mayo
, and was the mother of the notoriously eccentric duellist
George Robert FitzGerald
, hanged for
conspiracy to murder
in 1786
5.
Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol
(1730?1803), married 1752 Elizabeth Davers, had issue
6. General William Hervey (13 May 1732 ? 1815), unmarried
7. Amelia Caroline Nassau Hervey (1734?1814), unmarried
8. Caroline Hervey (1736?1819), unmarried
Hervey was
bisexual
.
[7]
He had an affair with Anne Vane, and possibly with
Lady Townshend
,
[8]
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
and
Princess Caroline
. He lived with
Stephen Fox
often during the decade after he followed him to Italy in 1728. He wrote passionate love letters to
Francesco Algarotti
, whom he first met in 1736. He may have had a sexual affair with
Prince Frederick
before their friendship dissolved. He was in fact denounced as a sexually ambiguous figure in his time most notably by
William Pulteney
, then leader of the Opposition and as cited above, by Alexander Pope in his "
Sporus
" portrait: "Let Sporus tremble/What that thing of silk...His wit all seesaw between that and this/Now high, now low, now master up, now miss/And he himself one vile antithesis...". He was also attracted to
Henry Fox
before his affair with Stephen Fox.
[9]
[10]
Ancestry
[
edit
]
Ancestors of John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey
|
---|
|
Writings
[
edit
]
See Hervey's
Memoirs of the Court of George II
, edited by
John Wilson Croker
(1848); and an article by G. F. Russell Barker in the
Dictionary of National Biography
.
[11]
Besides the
Memoirs
he wrote numerous political pamphlets, and some
occasional verses
.
Modern portrayals
[
edit
]
Hervey appears as a character in the 1999 British television series
Aristocrats
, where he is portrayed by
Anthony Finigan
. He is shown acting as a patron to the younger
Henry Fox
.
Hervey appears as a character in the historical novel
Peter: The Untold True Story
(2013) by Christopher Mechling, a tale of 18th-century feral child
Peter the Wild Boy
, whom the author believes to have been the inspiration for
Peter Pan
.
[12]
[13]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
Hervey of Ickworth, John Hervey, Baron
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 404?405.
- ^
"Hervey, John (HRVY713J)"
.
A Cambridge Alumni Database
. University of Cambridge.
- ^
R.H. Nichols and F A. Wray,
The History of the Foundling Hospital
(London: Oxford University Press, 1935)
- ^
Battestin, Martin C. "General Introduction" in Henry Fielding,
Joseph Andrews
. Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1967.
- ^
Westminster, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1558-1812
- ^
Dublin, Ireland, Probate Record and Marriage License Index, 1270-1858
- ^
Lucy Moore,
Amphibious Thing: the Life of Lord Hervey
(Viking, 2000)
- ^
Sherson, Errol (1926).
The Lively Lady Townshend and her Friends
. London: William Heinemann Ltd. pp. 283?285.
- ^
James Dubro
? "The Third Sex: Lord Hervey and his Coterie", Eighteenth Century Life", Summer 1976 and see also "John Lord Hervey,"
Body Politic
, Toronto. summer 1975.
- ^
Reed Browning,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004
- ^
Stephen, Leslie
;
Lee, Sidney
, eds. (1891).
"Hervey, John (1696-1743)"
.
Dictionary of National Biography
. Vol. 26. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^
http://www.peterpantruestory.com
Archived
23 March 2014 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
http://www.christophermechling.com
Archived
23 March 2014 at the
Wayback Machine
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Moore, Lucy,
Amphibious Thing: The Life of Lord Hervey
(pub. Viking, 2000)
For a recent account of Hervey and Caroline, see Janice Hadlow,
The Strangest Family.The Private Lives of George III, Queen Charlotte and the Hanoverians
. London 2014.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
People
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|