TRACY BORMAN can tell a good story.Admittedly, her subject is a gift. But Henrietta Howard, mistress to George II,lived in the midst of a large cast of characters, many of them entangled in the complicated politics of 18th-century court life, and Ms Borman handles them and their world with aplomb.
特蕾西•博尔曼（
TracyBorman
）是一位讲故事的能手，这一主题对她而言也的确是小菜一碟。然而，亨丽埃塔•霍华德（
Henrietta Howard
）毕竟是乔治二世的情妇，生活周遭的人形形色色，很多人都陷于
18
世纪英国宫廷的明争暗斗之中，对这些人和他们的生活，博尔曼竟也拿捏得泰然自若。
Though the 18th century is called the Age of Reason, it was anything but. Henrietta was born in 1689, a year after the balance of power in Britain shifted from monarch to Parliament. But this did nothing to shift the tyranny of men over women, and Henrietta's life was largely shaped by violent and unreasonable men.
有人说
18
世纪是理性时代（
the Age of Reason
），但事实绝非如此。亨丽埃塔生于
1689
年。此前一年，英国权力重心由君主过渡至国会，然而这并不能改变男人对女人的专横跋扈，暴虐蛮横的男人几乎左右了亨丽埃塔的一生。
When she was eight, her father, the profligate and choleric squire of Blickling Hall in Norfolk, challenged a neighbour to a duel for impugning his valour. He was killed for his pains,leaving a wife, eight children and a pile of debts. Eight years later, perhaps hoping to help her now motherless siblings, Henrietta released her dowry money by marrying a cousin, Charles Howard, 14 years her senior.
她的父亲曾是诺福克郡布里克林庄园的乡绅，放荡不羁，脾气暴躁。在她八岁那年，自以为勇猛不容置疑的父亲向一位邻居提出决斗，结果尽管使尽了浑身解数，他还是丢下了妻子、
8
个孩子和一屁股的债，一命呜呼。
8
年后，母亲也去世了，或许是出于帮助无依无靠的兄弟姐妹，亨丽埃塔什么嫁妆都没要，便嫁给了比她年长
14
岁的表兄查尔斯•霍华德（
Charles Howard
）。
It was a disaster. Charles turned out to be a compulsive gambler and wife-beater, and their lives descended intolodging-house flits and near-starvation. Then, aged 25, Henrietta made her own astonishing gamble. In 1714, when Queen Anne lay dying, she took herself and Charles off to Hanover, where George Louis, heir presumptive to the English throne, held court. There she joined throngs of other hopefuls, all jockeying for the notice either of George Louis, or his son, George Augustus, or his daughter-in-law, Caroline.
灾难降临了。查尔斯生性好赌，动辄对她拳脚相加。他们的生活每况愈下，终至居无定所、忍饥挨饿的境地。时年
25
岁的亨丽埃塔作出了令人惊讶的冒险之举。
1714
年，安妮女王（
Queen Anne
）与世长辞，亨丽埃塔与查尔斯离开了英国，来到了英国王室选帝侯（译注：又译“假定继承人”，指除非有更具继承权资格的人出生，否则即由其继承王位）乔治•路易斯（
George Louis
）主政的汉诺威。在那儿，她像其他雄心勃勃的人一样，千方百计吸引乔治•路易斯、他的儿子乔治•奥古斯都（
George Augustus
）或者他的儿媳妇卡罗琳的注意。
Henrietta's gamble paid off, though fryingpans and fires come to mind. Her appointment as Woman of the Bed chamber toPrincess Caroline meant long days of tedious and exacting ceremony, such as holding her mistress's wash basin on bended knee, a point that Carolinespite fully insisted on when Henrietta became her husband's mistress. Not that that was much comfort either. The man was a boor, and dull with it. In any case, Henrietta never really supplanted Caroline. Being a royal mistress was, in this case, more a post than a romance. But it suited Henrietta in that it protected her from her husband—something the law denied her.
虽然平民生活的琐碎依旧如影随形，但亨丽埃塔毕竟是赌赢了，她被任命为卡罗琳公主的“卧房女仆”（
Woman of the Bedchamber
），开始终日与乏味而严格的礼节打交道，比如屈膝为女主人端盥洗盆。即便在她成了卡罗琳丈夫的情妇之后，卡罗琳也仍然不怀好意地要求她恪守这些礼节。这样的生活未必有多舒适，那个男人（指乔治二世）也是个粗人，对卡罗琳为难亨丽埃塔并不在意。事实上，亨丽埃塔也从未真正地取代卡罗琳。所以说，做王室的情妇，大抵不过是一种职位而已，谈不上所谓的浪漫。但是，这让想要保护自己不受丈夫伤害的亨丽埃塔感到心满意足——因为法律并不能为她提供这种保护。
Henrietta was known for her discreet and even temper, but she must also have had sharp elbows. As Ms Borman vividly shows, the court was a scandal-mongering, fickle place, riven by political factionalism and held at fever pitch by the royal family's own very public quarrels. This was the atmosphere Henrietta breathed. And yet she somehow managed to be liked. Even acid-tongued poet, Alexander Pope, described her as reasonable, good-humoured, witty and, above all, a friend.
