THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
1720.
In June, soon after the reconciliation, the King, attended by Stanhope,
set out for Hanover. He had intended to make a longer stay than
usual, for everything appeared prosperous and peaceful when he left
England. The Ministry was in the plenitude of its power, the Whigs
were reconciled, the wound in the Royal Family was healed, or at least
skinned over, and the Jacobites were in despair. But this proved to be
merely the calm before the storm. In a few months the storm burst with
unprecedented violence, and the King’s visit was cut short by an urgent
summons from the Government, who, like the nation, were plunged into
panic and dismay by the collapse of the South Sea Bubble.
The South Sea Bubble was one of the most glittering bubbles that
ever dazzled the eyes of speculators. The South Sea Company had been
established by Harley, Lord Oxford, in 1711, to relieve taxation. The
floating debts at that time amounted to nearly ten millions, and the
Lord Treasurer wished to establish a fund to pay off that sum. The
interest was secured by making permanent the duties on wine, vinegar,
tobacco, and certain other commodities; and creditors were attracted by
the promise of a monopoly of trade with the Spanish coasts of America.
This scheme was regarded by friends of the Government as a masterpiece
of finance, and it was sanctioned both by Royal Charter and Act of
Parliament. The leading merchants thought highly of the scheme, and
the nation saw in it an El Dorado. People recalled the discoveries of
Drake and Raleigh, and spoke of the Spanish coasts of America as though
they were strewn with gold and gems. The Peace of Utrecht ought to
have done something to destroy these illusions, for instead of England
being granted free trade with the Spanish colonies in America, Spain
only gave England the Asiento treaty, or contract for supplying negro
slaves, the privilege of annually sending one ship of less than five
hundred tons to the South Sea, and establishing certain factories. The
first ship of the South Sea Company, the _Royal Prince_, did not sail
until 1717, and the next year war broke out with Spain, and all British
goods and vessels in Spanish ports were seized. Nevertheless, the South
Sea Company flourished; its funds were high, and it was regarded as a
sort of rival to the Bank of England.
At the close of 1719 Stanhope’s Administration was anxious to buy up
and diminish the irredeemable annuities granted in the last two reigns,
and amounting to £800,000 per annum. Competing schemes to effect this
were sent in by the South Sea Company and the Bank of England, and the
two corporations tried to outbid one another; they went on increasing
their offers until at last the South Sea Company offered the enormous
sum of £7,500,000, which the Government accepted. The South Sea Company
had the right of paying off the annuitants, who accepted South Sea
stock in lieu of Government stock, and two-thirds of them agreed to the
offer of eight and a quarter years’ purchase. There seemed no shadow of
doubt in any quarter that this was a most satisfactory solution of the
difficulty. The South Sea Company was everywhere regarded as prosperous.
Throughout the summer of this year, 1720, speculation was in the air.
The example of John Law’s Mississippi scheme in Paris had created a
rage for it. Law was a Scottish adventurer, who had some years before
established a bank in Paris, and afterwards proceeded to form a West
Indian company, which was to have the sole privilege of trading with
the Mississippi. It was at first an enormous success, and Law was one
of the most courted men in Europe. “I have seen him come to court,”
says Voltaire, “followed humbly by dukes, by marshals and by bishops.”
He became so arrogant that he quarrelled with Lord Stair, the English
ambassador, and the fact that Lord Stair was recalled shows how great
was the financier’s power. A great number of Frenchmen amassed large
fortunes, and Law’s office in the Rue Quincampoix was thronged from
daybreak to night with enormous crowds. One little hunchback in the
street was said to have earned no less than 50,000 francs by allowing
eager speculators to use his hump as their desk!
As soon as the South Sea Bill had received the royal assent in
Parliament, the South Sea Company opened large subscriptions, which
were filled up directly. For no reason whatever, its trade, which
did not exist, was regarded as a certain road to fortune. The whole
of London went mad on the South Sea, and in August the stock, which
had been quoted at 130 in the winter, rose to 1,000. Third and fourth
subscriptions were opened, the directors pledging themselves that,
after Christmas, their dividends should not be less than 50 per
cent. Nothing was talked of but the South Sea, and it was gratefully
remembered that Oxford, the fallen Minister, had started it. “You will
remember when the South Sea was said to be Lord Oxford’s bride,” wrote
the Duchess of Ormonde to Swift. “Now the King has adopted it and calls
it his beloved child, though perhaps you may say, that if he loves it
no better than his son, it may not be saying much.”[110]
If operations had been confined to the South Sea Company ruin might
have been averted, or at least postponed, but the town was seized
with the lust for speculation. A variety of other bubbles were
started simultaneously, and so great was the infatuation that they
were seized upon by an eager public. To give the Government its due,
it had striven to prohibit such undertakings, describing them in a
proclamation as “mischievous and dangerous”. But the proclamation was
not worth the paper it was written on, and immediately after the King’s
departure for Hanover, the Prince of Wales himself lent his name as
governor of a Welsh copper company. “It is no use trying to persuade
him,” declared Walpole, whose own hands were far from clean, “that he
will be attacked in Parliament, and the ‘Prince of Wales’s Bubble’ will
be cried in ’Change Alley.” The Prince eventually withdrew, but not
until the company was threatened with prosecution, and he had netted
a profit of £40,000. The Duchess of Kendal and Lady Darlington were
also deeply pledged, and with the examples of such exalted personages
before them, the greed of the people at large cannot be wondered at.
’Change Alley repeated the scene in the Rue Quincampoix; it was crowded
from morning to night, and so great was the throng that the clerks had
to set up tables in the streets. The whole town seemed to turn into
’Change Alley. In the mad eagerness for speculation all barriers were
broken down; Tories, Whigs and Jacobites, Roman Catholics, Churchmen
and Dissenters, nobility, squires from the country, clergymen, ladies
of quality and ladies of no quality at all, all turned gamblers, and
rushed to ’Change Alley. The news-sheets of the day were full of
nothing else, and the theatres reflected the popular craze. To quote a
topical ballad:--
Here stars and garters do appear,
Among our lords the rabble;
To buy and sell, to see and hear,
The Jews and Gentiles squabble.
Here crafty courtiers are too wise
For those who trust to fortune;
They see the cheat with clearer eyes,
Who peep behind the curtain.
Our greatest ladies hither come,
And ply in chariots daily;
Oft pawn their jewels for a sum
To venture in the Alley.
Young harlots, too, from Drury Lane,
Approach the ’Change in coaches
To fool away the gold they gain
By their impure debauches.
At Leicester House, and in all the great houses, lords and ladies
talked of nothing but reports, subscriptions and transfers, and every
day saw new companies born, almost every hour. Fortunes were made in a
night, and people who had been indigent rose suddenly to great wealth.
Stock-jobbers and their wives, Hebrew and Gentile, were suddenly
admitted to the most exclusive circles, and aped the manners and the
vices of the aristocracy who courted them for what they could get. They
drove in gorgeous coaches, decked with brand-new coats of arms, which
afforded much opportunity for ridicule. Only the mob, who hooted them
in the streets, was not complaisant.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
_From an old Cartoon._]
Some of the companies hawked about were for the most preposterous
objects, such as companies “To make salt water fresh,” “To build
hospitals for bastard children,” “For making oil from sunflower
seeds,” “For fattening of hogs,” for “Trading in human hair,” for
“Extracting silver from lead,” for “Building of ships against pirates,”
for “Importing a number of large jackasses from Spain,” for “A wheel
with a perpetual motion,” and, strangest of all, for “An undertaking
which shall in due time be revealed”.[111] For this last scheme the
trusting subscribers were to pay down two guineas, “and hereafter to
receive a share of one hundred, with the disclosure of the object”. So
gullible was the public, that one thousand subscriptions were paid in
the course of the morning. The projector levanted in the evening, and
the object of the undertaking was revealed.
The disenchantment was not long in coming. The South Sea directors,
jealous of all who came in opposition to their schemes, began legal
proceedings against several bogus companies, and obtained orders
and writs of _scire facias_ against them. These companies speedily
collapsed, but in their fall they dragged down the fabric of
speculation on which the South Sea Company itself was reared. The
spirit of distrust was excited, and holders became anxious to convert
their bonds into money. By the end of September South Sea stock had
fallen from 1,000 to 150. The panic was general. Money was called up
from the distant counties to London, goldsmiths were applied to, and
Walpole used his influence with the Bank of England--but all to no
purpose, so great was the disproportion between paper promises and the
coin wherewith to pay. Public confidence had been shaken, and could
not be restored. The news of the crash in Paris, caused by the failure
of Law’s Mississippi scheme, completed the general ruin. Everywhere
were heard lamentations and execrations. The Hebrew stock-jobbers and
their wives made their exit from English society as suddenly as they
had entered it, and for at least a century were no more seen in noble
mansions.
Though a few persons had managed to amass large fortunes by selling
out in time--Walpole was one of them, selling out at 1,000--thousands
of families were reduced to utter beggary, and thousands more within
measurable distance of it. A great cry of rage and resentment went up
all over the country, and this cry was raised not only against the
South Sea directors, but against the Government, the Prince of Wales,
and even the King himself. There was a very general feeling that some
one ought to be hanged, and public indignation was directed chiefly
against the heads of the Treasury, the South Sea directors, and the
German Ministers and mistresses, who were suspected of having been
bribed with large sums to recommend the project. So threatening was
the outlook against them that the Hanoverian following, at least that
part of it which the King had left behind in England, were in a great
panic, and in their fright gave utterance to the wildest schemes. One
suggested to the Prince of Wales the resignation of the Royal Family,
and flight to Hanover; another that it would be well to bribe the army,
and proclaim an absolute power; and yet another advised the Government
to apply to the Emperor for foreign troops. But such mad plans, though
proposed, were never seriously considered by the English Ministers,
who, at their wits’ end what to do next, sent to the King at Hanover
urging his immediate return. George landed at Margate on November 9th,
but so far from his presence having any effect on the falling credit of
the South Sea funds, they dropped to 135 soon after.
Parliament met on December 8th thirsting for vengeance. It was thought
that the South Sea directors could not be reached by any known laws,
but “extraordinary crimes,” one member of Parliament declared, “called
for extraordinary remedies,” and this was the temper of the House of
Commons. A Secret Committee was appointed to inquire into the affairs
of the South Sea Company, and while this committee was sitting a
violent debate took place in the House of Lords, when the Duke of
Wharton, the ex-president of the Hell-Fire Club, vehemently denounced
the Ministry, and hinted that Lord Stanhope, the Prime Minister, was
the origin of all this trouble, and had fomented the dissension between
the King and the Prince of Wales. He drew a parallel between him and
Sejanus, who made a division in the Imperial family, and rendered the
reign of Tiberius hateful to the Romans. Stanhope rose in a passion
of anger to reply, but after he had spoken a little time he became so
excited that he fell down in a fit. He was relieved by bleeding, and
carried home, but he died the next day. He was the first victim, and
the greatest, of the South Sea disclosures.
The Prime Minister was happy, perhaps, in the moment of his death,
for when the committee reported, a tale of infamous corruption was
disclosed. It was found that no less than £500,000 fictitious South Sea
stock had been created, in order that the profits might be used by the
directors to facilitate the passing of the Bill through Parliament.
The Duchess of Kendal, it was discovered, had received £10,000, Madame
Platen another £10,000, and two “nieces,” who were really illegitimate
daughters of the King, had also received substantial sums. Against
them no steps could be taken. But among the members of the Government
who were accused of similar peculations were the younger Craggs,
Secretary of State, his father, the Postmaster-General, Charles
Stanhope, Aislabie and Sunderland. The very day this report was read
to Parliament the younger Craggs died; he was ill with small-pox,
but his illness was no doubt aggravated by the anxiety of his mind.
A few weeks later his father poisoned himself, unable to face the
accusations hurled against him. Charles Stanhope was acquitted by the
narrow majority of three. Aislabie was convicted; he was expelled
from Parliament, and sent to the Tower, and the greater part of his
property forfeited. There were bonfires in the city to celebrate
the event. Sunderland was declared to be innocent, but the popular
ferment against him was so strong that he was unable to continue at
the head of the Treasury, and resigned. Some months later he died
so suddenly that poison was rumoured, but the surgeons, after a
post-mortem examination, declared that it was heart disease. The South
Sea directors were condemned in a body, disabled from ever holding any
place in Parliament, and their combined estates, amounting to above
£2,000,000, were confiscated for the relief of the South Sea sufferers.
They were certainly punished with great severity; some of them at any
rate were innocent of the grosser charges brought against them, but
public opinion thought that they were treated far too leniently. The
“Cannibals of ’Change Alley,” as they were called, were, if we may
believe the pamphlets of the day, fit only for the common hangman.
In the Ministry now reconstituted the chief power was placed in the
hands of Robert Walpole, who became, and remained for the next twenty
years, the first Minister of State. The hour had brought the man. It
was felt by everyone, even by his enemies, that there was only one man
who could restore the public credit, and he was Walpole. Nevertheless,
when he brought forward his scheme, into the details of which it is
unnecessary to enter, many were dissatisfied. It was, of course,
impossible to satisfy everybody, though Walpole’s scheme was the best
that could be devised, and as far as possible did justice to all
parties. The proprietors of the irredeemable annuities were especially
dissatisfied, and roundly accused Walpole of having made a collusive
arrangement with the Bank of England, and concerted his public measures
with a view to his personal enrichment. The accusation may have been
true, but whether it was so or not, the fact remains that he was the
only man who stood between the people and bankruptcy, and carried the
nation through this perilous crisis.
The general election of the following year, 1722, gave the Government
an overwhelming majority, and made Walpole master of the situation,
with almost unlimited power.
A great man, as great as or greater than Walpole, died at this
time--John, Duke of Marlborough. His career lies outside the scope of
this book, it belongs to an earlier period, but this at least may be
said: whatever his faults, his name will always remain as that of one
of the greatest of Englishmen. He had had a paralytic stroke in 1716,
so that he had retired from active politics for some time, and his
death made no difference to the state of affairs. He left an enormous
fortune to his widow, Duchess Sarah, who survived him more than twenty
years. So great was her wealth that she was able in some degree to
control the public loans, and affect the rate of interest. She was a
proud, imperious, bitter woman, but devoted to her lord, and though she
had many offers of marriage, especially from the Duke of Somerset and
Lord Coningsby, she declared that she would not permit the “Emperor
of the World” to succeed to the place in her heart, which was ever
devoted to the memory of John Churchill. Marlborough was buried with
great magnificence at Westminster Abbey, but none of the Royal Family
attended the funeral, though the Prince and Princess of Wales and the
little princesses viewed the procession from a window along the line
of route. The King did not even show this mark of respect to the dead
hero, who, at one time, had he been so minded, could have effectually
prevented the Elector of Hanover from occupying the throne of England.
The confusion and discontent which followed the South Sea crash were
favourable to the Jacobites, and the unpopularity of the King was
increased by the recent revelations of the rapacity of his mistresses.
“We are being ruined by trulls, and what is more vexatious, by old,
ugly trulls, such as could not find entertainment in the hospitable
hundreds of old Drury,”[112] wrote a scribbler, who for this effusion
was sentenced to fine and imprisonment by the House of Commons.
Moreover, at this time the Jacobites were further elated by the news
that James’s Consort had given birth to a son and heir at Rome in 1722,
who was baptised with the names of Charles Edward Lewis Casimir, and
became in after years the hero of the rising in 1745. A second son,
Henry Benedict, Duke of York, and afterwards cardinal, was born in
1725. James’s little court seemed to be living in a fool’s paradise,
for this year (1722) James issued an extraordinary manifesto in which
he gravely proposed that George should restore to him the crown of
England, and he in return would make him King of Hanover, and give him
a safe escort back to his German dominions.
A new plot was set afoot by the Jacobites for the landing of five
thousand foreign troops under Ormonde, and to this end they opened
negotiations with nearly every court in Europe. The Regent of France
revealed this to the English ambassador.
Walpole, being now in the fulness of his power, determined to make
the plot a pretext for striking at his old foe Atterbury, who was by
far the ablest and most powerful of the Jacobites left in England.
Atterbury was seated in his dressing-gown in the Deanery of Westminster
one morning when an Under-Secretary of State suddenly entered and
arrested him for high treason. His papers were seized, and the aged
prelate was hurried before the Privy Council, who proceeded to examine
him. He, however, would say nothing, answering a question put to him
in the words of the Saviour: “_If I tell you, ye will not believe,
and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go_”.[113]
At the conclusion of the investigation he was committed to the Tower,
a measure which excited the strongest commiseration; his age, his
talents, his long service in the Church, and his blameless life, all
being remembered in his favour. On the ground of ill-health, and he was
really very ill at the time, he was publicly prayed for by most of the
clergy in the churches of London and Westminster. His usage while in
the Tower was disgraceful to the Minister who prompted it.
Atterbury himself said, when summoned many months later before the
House of Lords to stand his trial: “I have been under a very long and
close confinement, and have been treated with such severity, and so
great indignity, as I believe no prisoner in the Tower, of my age and
function and rank, ever was; by which means, what strength and use of
my limbs which I had when I was first committed in August last, is now
so far declined, that I am very unfit to make my defence against a
Bill of such an extraordinary nature. The great weakness of body and
mind under which I labour; such usage, such hardships, such insults
as I have undergone might have broken a more resolute spirit, and
much stronger constitution than falls to my share.” Notwithstanding
his bodily infirmities, Atterbury made a most able and eloquent
defence, which lasted more than two hours, in which he referred to
his well-known contempt of ambition or money, and his dislike of the
Roman Catholic religion. Atterbury was found guilty of high treason,
deprived of all his benefices, and sentenced to be exiled for life. The
aged bishop was taken back to the Tower, where he bade farewell to his
friends, including Pope, whom he presented with his Bible. The poet
was a Roman Catholic, but he kept it as a cherished treasure until the
last day of his life. Two weeks later Atterbury was taken under guard
to Dover, and sent across the Channel. A great crowd of sympathisers
attended his embarkation, and a vast number of boats followed him to
the ship’s side. The first news which greeted the venerable exile at
Calais was that Bolingbroke had received the King’s pardon, and had
just arrived at Calais on his return to England. “Then I am exchanged,”
exclaimed Atterbury, with a smile. “Surely,” wrote Pope of this irony
of events, “this nation is afraid of being overrun with too much
politeness, and cannot regain one great genius but at the expense of
another.”[114]
Bolingbroke’s exile had lasted nine years. Ever since he had broken
with James he had lived only for one thing--to get back to England.
His first wife died in 1718, and soon after he privately married the
Marquise de Villette, a niece of Madame de Maintenon. The lady, who was
rich, talented and handsome, was entirely devoted to Bolingbroke; her
wealth was at his disposal, she entered into his literary tastes, and
sought to further his political ambitions. She even went so far as to
change her religion lest her being a Roman Catholic should prejudice
him further with the Court of England. The marriage was kept a secret
for a long time, and Lady Bolingbroke, as Madame de Villette, came
over to England to see what she could do to bring her lord back again.
She was received by George the First and at Leicester House. It was
thought very likely that she would gain the goodwill of the Princess of
Wales, whose views of philosophy, religion and literature had much in
sympathy with those of Bolingbroke; and in Voltaire they had a friend
in common. But in some way Madame de Villette failed at Leicester
House; perhaps she overdid her part, perhaps Walpole had effectually
prejudiced the Princess against his rival. Caroline believed that
Bolingbroke had betrayed James, and said later that Madame de Villette
had told her that Bolingbroke had only entered James’s service to be
of use to the English Government and so earn his pardon. “That was, in
short,” said Caroline, “to _betray_ the Pretender; for though Madame
de Villette softened the word, she could not soften the thing; which I
owned was a speech that had so much villainy and impudence mixed in it,
that I could never bear him nor her from that hour; and could hardly
hinder myself from saying to her: ‘And pray, Madam, what security can
the King have that my Lord Bolingbroke does not desire to come here
with the same honest intent that he went to Rome?[115] Or that he
swears he is no longer a Jacobite with more truth than you have sworn
you are not his wife?’”
Having failed with the Princess of Wales, Madame de Villette next
addressed herself to the Duchess of Kendal through her “niece,” the
Countess of Walsingham, with such good effect that for a bribe of
£12,000 the duchess persuaded the King to let Bolingbroke return to
England. The duchess hated Walpole for having thwarted her on more
than one occasion in some favourite scheme, and her hatred gave her
zest to urge the King to grant a pardon to the Minister’s great rival
and bitterest foe. It says much for the duchess’s influence over the
King that she was able to obtain it at a time when Walpole was in the
zenith of his power. The pardon, however, at first amounted to little
more than a bare permission for Bolingbroke to return to England. His
attainder remained in force, his title was still withheld, and he was
incapable of inheriting estates, and precluded from sitting in the
House of Lords, or holding any office. But Walpole had to acquiesce in
his return, and no sooner had the pardon passed the great seal than
Bolingbroke came back to England, and at once set to work to get his
remaining disabilities removed.
[Illustration: HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE.]
He was unfortunate in the moment of his return, for the King and
Bolingbroke’s friend at court, the Duchess of Kendal, had already set
out for Hanover with Townshend and Carteret, and Walpole was carrying
on the Government alone. Bolingbroke at first made overtures to Walpole
for peace between them, and, if we may believe Horace Walpole (the
younger), even went to dine with him at Chelsea. But this effort was
too much for the fallen statesman; he choked over the first morsel at
dinner, and was obliged to retire from the room. After remaining in
England some months, during which he renewed his political friendships,
especially with Sir William Wyndham and Lord Harcourt, Bolingbroke
went to Aix-la-Chapelle, hoping to obtain permission to pay his
respects to the King at Hanover. Failing in this, he returned to Paris,
where, on the sudden death of the Regent, he gave valuable information
against the Jacobites to the elder Horace Walpole, then ambassador,
by way of showing his devotion to the House of Hanover, but though
Horace Walpole made use of Bolingbroke’s information, he treated him
ungraciously.
The King remained in Hanover some time, and later in the year, 1723,
went to Berlin on a visit to his son-in-law, King Frederick William of
Prussia, and his daughter, Queen Sophie Dorothea.
The Court of Berlin was very different to what it had been in the days
of the splendour-loving King Frederick and his brilliant consort,
Sophie Charlotte. The penurious habits which Sophie Charlotte had
lamented in her son when he was a youth had now developed into sordid
avarice, and his boorish manners into a harsh and brutal despotism. At
the Prussian Court economy was the order of the day, and in the State
everything was subservient to militarism. The misery and squalor of
the King of Prussia’s household are graphically told in the Memoirs of
his daughter Wilhelmina.[116] The half-mad King was subject to fits
of ungovernable fury, in which he sometimes kicked and cuffed his
children, starved them, spat in their food, locked them up, and cursed
and swore at them. His Queen, except for the beatings, was subject
to much the same treatment, and the home life was made wretched by
perpetual quarrels.
Queen Sophie Dorothea had much beauty and considerable ability, and
despite her frequent disputes with her husband, she was, after her
fashion, much attached to him, and he to her. But she had a love of
intrigue and double-dealing, and she was incapable of going in the
straight way if there was a crooked one. She was a woman of one idea,
and this idea she clung to with an obstinacy and tenacity which nothing
could weaken. For years--almost from the moment of the birth of her
children--she had become enamoured of what was afterwards known as
the “Double Marriage Scheme,” a scheme to unite her eldest daughter
Wilhelmina, to Frederick, Duke of Gloucester (afterwards Prince of
Wales), and her son, Frederick William (afterwards Frederick the
Great), to the Princess Amelia, second daughter of the Prince and
Princess of Wales. By continual arguments, and perpetual intrigues, she
had brought her husband round to her way of thinking, and she had also
worked upon her father, George the First, to the extent of gaining his
consent to the marriage of the Princess Amelia, when she should be old
enough, to the Crown Prince Frederick.
But King George did not approve of the idea of marrying his grandson
Frederick to Wilhelmina; Lady Darlington had given him a bad account
of her. “She said that I was _laide à faire peur_ and deformed,” writes
Wilhelmina indignantly, “that I was as bad as I was ugly, and that
I was so violent that my violence often caused me to have epileptic
fits.” Wilhelmina declared that Lady Darlington maliciously spread
these falsehoods because she knew the young princess was exceedingly
clever, and she did not want any more clever women about the English
Court; Caroline was more than enough for her. But Lady Darlington was
not the only opponent: the Princess of Wales also did not favour the
double marriage scheme so far as Wilhelmina was concerned, and the
Prince of Wales did not favour it at all. He hated his cousin and
brother-in-law, the King of Prussia; he had hated him as a boy, and
he hated him more when he was a rival for the hand of Caroline. He
also disliked his sister, for whom he had never a good word. But at
this time, what the Prince and Princess of Wales might think about
the marriage of their children was of no importance to the Queen of
Prussia. What King George thought was a different matter, and, acting
on the advice of the Duchess of Kendal, who had been brought round to
favour the scheme by a judicious expenditure of money, she implored her
father to come to Berlin and see Wilhelmina for himself, as the best
way of answering Lady Darlington’s malicious fabrications.
To Berlin accordingly George the First came. He arrived at
Charlottenburg on the evening of October 7th, where the King and Queen
and the whole court were assembled to welcome him. Wilhelmina was
presented to her grandfather from England. “He embraced me,” she says,
“and said nothing further than ‘She is very tall; how old is she?’ Then
he gave his hand to the Queen, who led him to her room, all the princes
following. No sooner had he reached her room than he took a candle,
which he held under my nose, and looked at me from top to toe. I can
never describe the state of agitation I was in. I turned red and pale
by turns; and all the time he had never uttered one word.” Presently
the King left the room to confer with his daughter, and Wilhelmina was
left alone with the English suite, including my Lords Carteret and
Townshend, who at once began their inspection by talking to her in
English. She spoke English fluently, and after she had talked to them
for more than an hour, the Queen came and took her away. “The English
gentlemen,” said Wilhelmina, “said I had the manners and bearing of
an English woman; and, as this nation considers itself far above any
other, this was great praise.”
King George, however, remained undemonstrative. Wilhelmina calls him
“cold-blooded,” and so “serious and melancholy” that she could never
muster up courage to speak to him all the time he was at Berlin. There
was a great banquet in the evening, though King Frederick William
must have sorely grudged the expense. “The Queen,” says Wilhelmina,
“kept the conversation going. We had already sat for two hours at
table when Lord Townshend asked me to beg my mother to get up from the
dinner-table as the King was not feeling well. She thereupon made some
excuse, saying he must be tired and suggested to him that dinner was
over. He, however, several times declared that he was not the least
tired, and to prevent further argument on the subject, she laid down
her napkin and got up from her chair. She had no sooner done so than
the King began to stagger. My father rushed forward to help him, and
several persons came to his aid, and held him up for a while, when he
suddenly gave way altogether, and had he not been supported, he would
have had a dreadful fall. His wig lay on one side, and his hat on the
other, and they had to lay him down on the floor, where he remained a
whole hour before regaining consciousness. Every one thought he had had
a paralytic stroke. The remedies used had the desired effect, and by
degrees he recovered. He was entreated to go to bed, but would not hear
of it till he had accompanied my mother back to her apartments.”
The rest of the visit was spent in _fêtes_, balls and so forth, but a
good deal of business was transacted also, and the preliminaries for
the double marriage were settled before King George left Berlin for
Göhr, a hunting-place near Hanover.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK II, CHAPTER X:
[110] The Duchess of Ormonde to Swift, 18th August, 1720.
[111] _The Political State of Great Britain_ gives a list of these
bubbles, in July, 1720, amounting to 104.
[112] Letter of Decius in _Mist’s Journal_.
[113] St. Luke xxii. 67, 68.
[114] Pope to Swift, 1723.
[115] This was a mistake, as Bolingbroke never went to Rome. He entered
James’s service at Barr and quitted it at Versailles.
[116] _The Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth._ Carlyle
drew largely on these Memoirs for the first two volumes of his
_Frederick the Great_. But the book has since been admirably translated
into English by H.R.H. the Princess Christian, and the quotations which
follow are taken from her translation.