“As she is not quite so charming as she was,” says Walpole, “I do not know whether it is not better to change her title than to retain that which puts one in mind of her beauty.”

But what she may have lost in physical charms she had gained in social prestige.  She was appointed Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte; and was one of the three ladies who acted as escort to the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to the arms of her reluctant husband, George III.  It is said that when the young German bride came in sight of the palace of her future husband, she turned pale and showed such signs of terror as to force a smile from the Duchess who sat by her side.  Upon which the frightened young Princess remarked, “My dear Duchess, you may laugh, for you have been married twice; but it is no joke for me.”  Her life as Lady of the Bedchamber appears to have been by no means a bed of roses, for Charlotte proved so jealous of the attentions paid to the beautiful Duchess by her husband, the King, that at one time she contemplated resigning her post.  The letter of resignation was actually written and despatched; but Her Grace, who did not approve altogether of its language, added this naive postscript before sending it, “Though I wrote the letter, it was the Duke who dictated it.”

Boswell, when describing a visit he paid to Inverary Castle, in Johnson’s company, gives us no very favourable impression of the Duchess’s courtesy as hostess.  When the Duke conducted him to the drawing-room and announced his name,

“the Duchess,” he says, “who was sitting with her daughter and some other ladies, took not the least notice of me.  I should have been mortified at being thus coldly received by a lady of whom I, with the rest of the world, have always entertained a very high admiration, had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of the Duke.”

During dinner, when Boswell ventured to drink Her Grace’s good health, she seems equally to have ignored him.  And while paying the utmost deference and attention to Johnson, the only remark she deigned to make to his fellow-guest was a contemptuous “I fancy you must be a Methodist.”  In fairness to the Duchess it should be said that Boswell had incurred her grave displeasure by taking part against her in the famous Douglas Case in which she was deeply interested; and this was no doubt the reason why for once she forgot the elementary demands of hospitality as well as the courtesy due to her rank; and why, when Johnson mentioned his companion by name, she answered coldly, “I know nothing of Mr Boswell.”

The Duchess saw her daughter, Lady Betty Hamilton, wedded to Lord Stanley, the future Earl of Derby, a union in which she paid by a life of misery for her mother’s scheming ambition; and died in 1790, thirty years after her sister Maria drew the last breath of her short life behind drawn bed-curtains in her darkened room.