so pray excuse it.’
Writing was a great pleasure to Emily and she never went anywhere without her writing case. She once wrote to Fox, ‘I believe I explain myself sadly but I have scribbled this in a minute while in the coach waiting for Lord K.… I had no intention of writing to you but having nothing else to do took up my pen and you know how I go on once I begin.’ Exuberant letters of two or three sheets of paper regularly arrived for Kildare when he was away. Emily grumbled about servants, reported on progress from the nursery, flattered, cajoled and begged for money. She wrote out the story of her life with the panache of a born story-teller and sprinkled her letters liberally with terms of endearment. ‘Believe me ever your tender, affectionate and dutiful wife,’ she wrote, ‘yours sick or well’ or ‘God bless you, my sweetest, dear Jemmy.’ Kildare replied in kind. ‘I am, my dear Emily, yours most tenderly,’ or ‘Adieu, my dearest Emily, till we meet. Yours ever, K.’ Once he went so far as to write her a poem:
Careless am I let who will reign
O’er Britain’s Isle.
Nothing on earth shall give me pain
So Emily smile.
It was not a success but Kildare was not interested in poetry or literature and never indulged in the versifying that went on at Holland House. He sat through a play willingly enough but he disliked reading. Political pamphlets, even when they concerned himself, he turned over to Emily. Reading was her province and, when she had her portrait painted by Reynolds in 1753, she chose to be seen with a book. At the centre of the picture lies a book. Emily marks her place in it with her index finger. She leans on her right hand and gazes out of the picture, lost in dreams. The viewer is shut out from her world and thoughts. Kildare, in the companion painting, looksStraight at the viewer and, with a gesture of his right hand, invites him into the picture and to a tour of the Carton estate that nestles in the background. Kildare posed himself for Reynolds as a man of action, outdoors and in his military uniform, his hair brushed back and curled in a matter-of-fact manner. Where Emily is secluded and indoors he is engaged with the outside world, brisk, direct and beady eyed.
Conventional as these poses were, they showed the differences in temperament and occupation between Kildare and his wife. Politics and the care of his estates did indeed fill Kildare’s days. He was proud of what he called his ‘busy temper’, and bustled about his estates, concerned for his reputation, rent-roll and, perhaps to a lesser extent, his tenants’ welfare. None the less he relied heavily on Emily to guide him through the storms of political life. Under the guise of offering casual opinions, Emily often steered Kildare towards decisions or actions which he then adopted as his own. She was very careful, none the less, to disavow any influence in Kildare’s politics, even to Fox. In 1757 she wrote to Fox, ‘Lord K. is not governed by anybody in politics I assure you. In everything else he is as all good husbands ought [to be] by me.’ To Kildare she was less behind-hand. ‘I am glad to hear you say our affairs look well,’ she wrote in 1757, casually assuming that politics was shared business. ‘I hope you mean by that that the heads of our party are likely to be reasonable, which is all you can judge of as yet, and what I own I had my doubts about. Don’t let them work upon you to expect too many concessions from these people. Nobody could be more inclined to peaceable measures than you are, and I hope you will continue so.’ Then, moving swiftly to accommodate the well aired view that women had no part to play in public affairs, Emily concluded disingenuously, ‘my dear Jemmy has always used me to talk to him upon this subject and tell my mind freely so I hope he don’t think I have said too much.’
Emily liked the drama and the cut-and-thrust of political life. ‘I long for a good fight,’
Writing was a great pleasure to Emily and she never went anywhere without her writing case. She once wrote to Fox, ‘I believe I explain myself sadly but I have scribbled this in a minute while in the coach waiting for Lord K.… I had no intention of writing to you but having nothing else to do took up my pen and you know how I go on once I begin.’ Exuberant letters of two or three sheets of paper regularly arrived for Kildare when he was away. Emily grumbled about servants, reported on progress from the nursery, flattered, cajoled and begged for money. She wrote out the story of her life with the panache of a born story-teller and sprinkled her letters liberally with terms of endearment. ‘Believe me ever your tender, affectionate and dutiful wife,’ she wrote, ‘yours sick or well’ or ‘God bless you, my sweetest, dear Jemmy.’ Kildare replied in kind. ‘I am, my dear Emily, yours most tenderly,’ or ‘Adieu, my dearest Emily, till we meet. Yours ever, K.’ Once he went so far as to write her a poem:
Careless am I let who will reign
O’er Britain’s Isle.
Nothing on earth shall give me pain
So Emily smile.
It was not a success but Kildare was not interested in poetry or literature and never indulged in the versifying that went on at Holland House. He sat through a play willingly enough but he disliked reading. Political pamphlets, even when they concerned himself, he turned over to Emily. Reading was her province and, when she had her portrait painted by Reynolds in 1753, she chose to be seen with a book. At the centre of the picture lies a book. Emily marks her place in it with her index finger. She leans on her right hand and gazes out of the picture, lost in dreams. The viewer is shut out from her world and thoughts. Kildare, in the companion painting, looksStraight at the viewer and, with a gesture of his right hand, invites him into the picture and to a tour of the Carton estate that nestles in the background. Kildare posed himself for Reynolds as a man of action, outdoors and in his military uniform, his hair brushed back and curled in a matter-of-fact manner. Where Emily is secluded and indoors he is engaged with the outside world, brisk, direct and beady eyed.
Conventional as these poses were, they showed the differences in temperament and occupation between Kildare and his wife. Politics and the care of his estates did indeed fill Kildare’s days. He was proud of what he called his ‘busy temper’, and bustled about his estates, concerned for his reputation, rent-roll and, perhaps to a lesser extent, his tenants’ welfare. None the less he relied heavily on Emily to guide him through the storms of political life. Under the guise of offering casual opinions, Emily often steered Kildare towards decisions or actions which he then adopted as his own. She was very careful, none the less, to disavow any influence in Kildare’s politics, even to Fox. In 1757 she wrote to Fox, ‘Lord K. is not governed by anybody in politics I assure you. In everything else he is as all good husbands ought [to be] by me.’ To Kildare she was less behind-hand. ‘I am glad to hear you say our affairs look well,’ she wrote in 1757, casually assuming that politics was shared business. ‘I hope you mean by that that the heads of our party are likely to be reasonable, which is all you can judge of as yet, and what I own I had my doubts about. Don’t let them work upon you to expect too many concessions from these people. Nobody could be more inclined to peaceable measures than you are, and I hope you will continue so.’ Then, moving swiftly to accommodate the well aired view that women had no part to play in public affairs, Emily concluded disingenuously, ‘my dear Jemmy has always used me to talk to him upon this subject and tell my mind freely so I hope he don’t think I have said too much.’
Emily liked the drama and the cut-and-thrust of political life. ‘I long for a good fight,’
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