Catherine Douglas, Duchess of Queensberry

Catherine Hyde, afterwards Duchess of Queensberry (1701 – 17 June 1777), was an English socialite in London and a patron of the dramatist John Gay.[1]

Catherine Hyde
Duchess of Queensbury
Born1701
Died1777
Spouse(s)Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry
FatherHenry Hyde, 4th Earl of Clarendon
MotherJane Leveson-Gower

Biography

Catherine Hyde, often called "Kitty",[2] was the second daughter of Henry Hyde, 4th Earl of Clarendon, and his wife, the former Jane Leveson-Gower. She served as a Lady of the Bedchamber at the court of Queen Anne. [3]

Catherine married Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry, on 10 March 1720. The couple had two sons and lived much of the time at Douglas House, Petersham, now part of London and at Queensberry House in Edinburgh.

The duchess was known for her physical beauty and fashion sense.[4] She was a central figure in London high society and was known for her balls and masquerades. According to the standards of her era, she was considered eccentric. She never served meat at any of her suppers. On at least one occasion, she ordered half of her guests to leave her party because she disliked their company.[4]

In 1728, she was banished from court by King George II for being too forward, after petitioning the king and queen on behalf of John Gay, whose satirical play Polly had been refused a licence.[5] In response, she wrote, "The Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well pleased that the King hath given her so agreeable a command as to stay from Court."[6]

In her later years, she attracted attention for dressing in the same fashion as in her youth, which was considered eccentric, refusing 'to cut and curl my hair like a sheep's head, or wear one of their trolloping sacks'.[4] She was reportedly fond of wearing an apron, as shown in a portrait of her, painted by Charles Jervas in the 1720s. According to Oliver Goldsmith, Beau Nash, the master of ceremonies at Bath, once took the apron from her and threw it away, saying that only "Abigails" (maids) wore aprons. She was still reported to be wearing one when she met Horace Walpole in 1749.[5]

The duchess was a friend to many members of the English literary community, including Gay, William Congreve, James Thompson, Alexander Pope, Matthew Prior, and William Whitehead. Many of these literary friends placed references to her in their poems and other works.[4] Hyde was also said to have had influence over Prime Minister William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham.[4]

Print by William Austin, "The Duchess of Queensberry and Soubise"

In 1764, Julius Soubise, an Afro-Caribbean slave,[7] was given to the Duchess by Royal Navy Captain Stair Douglas, a relative of hers, and she manumitted (freed) him.[8] He was renamed after a French duke, Charles, Prince of Soubise, by the Duchess.[7] She gave Soubise a privileged life, treating him as if he were her own son – apparently with her husband the Duke's blessing.[9] Soubise became the riding and fencing master to the Duchess.[10] He became a popular acquaintance among young noblemen and rose as a figure in upper-class social circles, becoming the member of many fashionable clubs such as the Thatched House Club.[9][7]

The personal favour and patronage of the Duchess allowed Soubise a lifestyle of socializing and fashion. He would sometimes style himself as "Prince Ana-Ana-maboe"[11] or "The Black Prince", and claiming to be African royalty.[12] It was rumoured that his relationship with the Duchess developed into a sexual one.[13][14]

William Austin's well-known satirical print, The Duchess of Queensbury and Soubise (published May 1, 1773) shows the pair engaged in a fencing match.[15][9] Austin's engraving was based on illustrations of fencing compiled by the Angelo fencing dynasty, combined with accounts of Soubise from Henry Angelo’s memoir.[16] These accounts were satirized by Austin in a way which addresses Soubise and the duchess’ uncustomary relationship, depicting Soubise as Mungo the servant.[17] In the print, text shows Soubise saying, “Mungo here, Mungo dere, Mungo every where; Above and below. Hah! Vat your gracy tink of me now?,” direct lines from the Mungo character.[7][18] This work has reappeared historically under several titles, including  “The Eccentric Duchess of Queensbury fencing with her protégé the Creole Soubise (otherwise ‘Mungo’)” and “The Duchess of Queensberry playing at foils with her favorite Lap Dog Mungo after Expending near £10,000 to make him a—.”[18]

References
  1. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Broadview. 2006. p. 483. ISBN 1-55111-611-1.
  2. "Kitty Douglas, duchess of Queensberry and Dover". The Douglas Archive. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  3. "Warrant Books: April 1713, 1-15 Pages 169-184 Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 27, 1713. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1955". British History Online. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  4. "Hyde, Catherine". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  5. Elizabeth Spencer (1 May 2015). ""The Female Phaeton": Catherine Douglas, the Duchess who 'set the World on Fire'". Difficult Women Conference. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  6. Tracy Borman (15 December 2010). King's Mistress, Queen's Servant: The Life and Times of Henrietta Howard. Random House. pp. 189–. ISBN 978-1-4464-2018-8.
  7. 1970-, Miller, Monica L. (2009). Slaves to fashion : black dandyism and the styling of black diasporic identity. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822391517. OCLC 462914558.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. Carretta, Vincent (2003). "Naval records and eighteenth‐century black biography". Journal for Maritime Research. 5 (1): 143–158. doi:10.1080/21533369.2003.9668332. ISSN 2153-3369. S2CID 161062397.
  9. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (1995). Black London: Life Before Emancipation. Rutgers University Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-8135-2272-2.
  10. Lars Eckstein (2006). Re-Membering the Black Atlantic: On the Poetics and Politics of Literary Memory. Rodopi. p. 85. ISBN 978-90-420-1958-4.
  11. Vincent Carretta and Philip Gould (2001), Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic; University Press of Kentucky, p. 209. ISBN 0-8131-2203-1
  12. Carretta and Gould (2001). Genius in Bondage. p. 63.
  13. Markman Ellis (1996). The Politics of Sensibility (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism). Cambridge University Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-521-55221-9.
  14. Laura J. Rosenthal, Infamous Commerce: Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Culture, Cornell University Press, 2006, p. 161. ISBN 0-8014-4404-7.
  15. Henry Angelo (1972). The Reminiscences of Henry Angelo. Ayer Publishing. p. 350. ISBN 978-0-405-18118-4.
  16. Henry Charles W. Angelo, Angelo's Pic nic; or, Table Talk, p. 61.
  17. "satirical print / print". British Museum. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
  18. "The D------ of [...]-- playing at foils with her favorite lap dog Mungo after expending near £10000 to make him a----------* | Yale Center For British Art". interactive.britishart.yale.edu. Retrieved 3 November 2018.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Hyde, Catherine". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

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