Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
THE
QUEENS OF ENGLAND
OF THE
HOUSE OF HANOVER
_VOL. II._
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
LIVES
OF THE
QUEENS OF ENGLAND
OF THE
HOUSE OF HANOVER
BY
DR. DORAN, F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS’ ‘HABITS AND MEN’ ETC.
FOURTH EDITION
_CAREFULLY REVISED AND MUCH ENLARGED_
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
[Illustration]
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty
1875
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
_CHARLOTTE SOPHIA--Cont._
CHAPTER IV.
BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES.
PAGE
Death of the Duke of Cumberland--His military career--The
_soubriquet_ of the Butcher given him--Anecdotes of him
--Marriage of Caroline Matilda--Her married life unhappy
--Dr. Struensee--_Mésalliances_ of the Dukes of Gloucester
and Cumberland--The Duke of Cumberland and Lady Grosvenor
--The Royal Marriage Act--Olivia Serres--Lord Clive’s
present of diamonds to the Queen--Disgusting correspondence
of the Duchess of Orleans and Queen Caroline--The Prince
of Wales’s juvenile Drawing-room--Simple life of the Royal
Family at Kew--Prince Frederick and his cottage beauty--
Paton and his naval pictures--Royal births--The custom
of cake and caudle observed--Petty larcenists--Sarah
Wilson and her subsequent life--Death of Princess Mary; and
of Princess Augusta, the King’s mother--The Earl of Bute
--Neglected education of George III.--Petronilla, Countess
Delitz--The Countess of Chesterfield, her conversion by
Whitfield--Efforts of Lady Huntingdon to convert the
gay Earl of Chesterfield--Mr. Fitzroy--George III. at
Portsmouth--Jacob Bryant’s ‘golden rule’--Witty remark
of Queen Charlotte--Attendant bards on Royalty; Mark
Smeaton, Thomas Abel, David Rizzio--The Princess under
the guardianship of Lady Charlotte Finch--The Queen’s
benevolence--Satirists 1
CHAPTER V.
PERILS, PROGRESS, AND PASTIMES.
The American War--Dr. Dodd--The Duchess of Queensberry
and the ‘Beggar’s Opera’--Royal Progress--Royal Visit to
Bulstrode--Mrs. Delany and Queen Charlotte--Birth of
Prince Octavius--Strange, the Engraver--The Riots of
London--Lady Sarah Lennox--The Prince and his Sire--The
Prince’s Preceptors--Errors committed in the education of
the Princes--The Prince’s favourite, Perdita Robinson--
Marie Antoinette’s present to her--Separate establishment
granted to the Prince--Lord North’s facetious remark--
Parliamentary provision for the Prince--The Prince’s
presence in the House of Commons not acceptable--His
pursuit of pleasure--The Duke of Clarence described by
Walpole--The Prince of Wales overwhelmed with debts--
Dissension in the Royal Family--Marriage proposed to him
to extricate him from his debts--The Prince’s connection
with Mrs. Fitzherbert--The Prince’s marriage disclaimed by
Mr. Fox--The Prince’s behaviour to Mrs. Fitzherbert--The
Prince acknowledges his marriage to the Queen 31
CHAPTER VI.
COURT FORMS AND COURT FREEDOMS.
Loss of the American Colonies--Political Struggle--The
King’s health unsatisfactory--Life of the Royal Family at
Windsor--Mrs. Delany--The Queen and the Widow--Early
service in the Chapel Royal at Windsor--Rev. Tom Twining
and Miss Burney--Miss Burney’s Reception by the Queen--
Promenade of the Royal Family on the terrace--The Queen’s
‘dressing’--The Queen’s partiality for Snuff--Country
life of the Royal Family at Kew--Princess Amelia; the
King’s great affection for her--Scene on the birthday of
the Princess--Margaret Nicholson’s attempt to assassinate
the King--The Queen’s dread--Her fondness for Diamonds
--Mrs. Warren Hastings--The present from the Nizam of
the Deccan--Unpopularity of the King and Queen--Their
affection for each other--The Queen’s tenderness to Mrs.
Delany--Reconciliation of the King and the Prince--A
pleasant scene--Another Court Incident 54
CHAPTER VII.
SHADOWS IN THE SUNSHINE.
The Princess Amelia--Her connection with the Duke of Grafton
--Beau Nash and the Princess--Her despotism as Ranger
of Richmond Park--Checked by Mr. Bird--A scene at her
Loo-table--Her fondness for stables--Her eccentric
Costume--Inordinate love of Snuff--Her Death--Conduct
of the Princes--The King’s Illness--Graphic picture
of the state of affairs--Lord Thurlow’s treachery--
Heartlessness of the Prince--Deplorable condition of the
Queen--The King delirious--Particulars of his Illness--
Dr. Warren--Melancholy scene--The King wheedled away to
Kew--Placed under Dr. Willis--The Prince and Lord Lothian
eavesdroppers--The King’s Recovery--The King unexpectedly
encounters Miss Burney 72
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ‘FIRST GENTLEMAN’ AND HIS PRINCIPLES.
Inconsistency of the Whigs--The Tories become radical
reformers--Party spirit--A restricted Regency scorned
by the Prince--Compelled to accept it--The King’s rapid
recovery--Incredulity of the Princes in regard to the
King’s recovery--A family scene at Kew--Ball at White’s
Club on the King’s recovery, and unbecoming conduct of the
Princes--Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s--Indecent conduct
of the Princes--Grief of the King--Expectations of the
Prince disappointed--Caricatures and satires 92
CHAPTER IX.
ROYALTY UNDER VARIOUS PHASES.
Bishop Watson a partisan of the Prince--The bishop’s
reception by the Queen--The Prince’s patronage of the
bishop--Bishop Watson’s views on the Regency--Laid on the
shelf--The Prince and the bishop’s ‘Apology’--Ball given
on the King’s recovery by Brookes’s Club--Mrs. Siddons,
as Britannia--The Queen’s Drawing-room on the occasion--
Mrs. Siddons’s readings at Buckingham House--Gay life of
the Duke of York--Popularity of the Duke of Clarence--His
boundless hospitality at the Admiralty--Duel between the
Duke of York and Colonel Lennox--Littleness of spirit of
the Princes--Royal Visit to Lulworth Castle--Assault on
the King--Caricatures of the day--Marriage of the Duke
of York--Ceremonious royal visit to the young couple--
Caricatures of the Duchess of York--Unhappy in her marriage
--The Duchess and Monk Lewis--Alleged avarice of the King
and Queen--Dr. Johnson’s opinion of the King--Etiquette
at Court--The Sailor Prince ‘too far gone’ for a minuet--
The Royal Family at Cheltenham--The mayor and the master of
the ceremonies--Questionable taste of the Queen in regard
to the drama--Moral degradation of England during the reign
of the first two Georges--Mrs. Hannah More’s ideas on
morality; and Rev. Sydney Smith’s witty remark on it--A
delicate hint by the Queen to Lady Charlotte Campbell--The
Prince’s pecuniary difficulties--The Prince and affairs of
the heart--_Mésalliance_ of the Duke of Sussex 102
CHAPTER X.
LENGTHENING SHADOWS.
The Prince of Wales’s marriage to the Princess Caroline of
Brunswick--Her character--The Prince’s behaviour at
the marriage ceremony--Lord Holland’s two accounts of
the Princess irreconcileable--The Prince’s hatred of the
Princess--Propriety of the Queen’s Court--Unpopularity
of the King--Pelted by the mob--Birth of the Princess
Charlotte--Strict observance of Court etiquette--
Marriage of the Princess Royal to the Prince of Wurtemburg
--First book stereotyped in England--The Volunteer
mania--Attempted assassination of the King--Archbishop
Cornwallis’s drums, and Lady Huntingdon’s efforts to induce
him to discontinue--Her hot reception by Mrs. Cornwallis
--Lady Huntingdon induces the King to aid her--The King’s
letter to the archbishop--Conduct of the clergy--Incident
of the Drawing-room--The Prince a Radical--The King’s
illness--His excitement--Feeling exhibited by the Duke of
York--The Prince of Wales incredulous of the recovery of
the King--Conversation between the King and Dr. Willis--
The Queen’s anxiety--Particulars of the King’s Illness--
Recovery of the King--Home scene at Windsor Castle 128
CHAPTER XI.
THE END OF GREATNESS.
Queen as an author--Domestic life of the Royal Family--
Return of the King’s Illness--His continual agitation
--Dr. Symonds not the medical officer for the King--
Capricious changes made by the King in his household--
His humorous eccentricities--Contest between the King
and the Prince--The Queen’s conduct--Scant courtesy
to the royal invalid--Errors committed by the King--
Wellesley and Nelson--Gradual decay of the King--His
eccentricity at the installation of Knights of the Garter--
Picture of the daily life of the Royal Family--Position
of the Queen--The King’s resignation on his blindness--
Distress of his mind--Renewal of the Regency question--
Extraordinary assertion to Lord Eldon--The King’s person
confided to the Queen--The Queen’s letters to Lord Eldon
--Her merry letter to him--A touching incident--The
Queen’s unpopularity--Marriage of the Princess Charlotte--
Decline of the Queen’s health--Disgraceful reception of
her by the City--Her death--Considered as a parent--Her
political influence--The debts of Prince of Strelitz--The
Court on George III.’s ceasing to exercise authority--Regal
retinue about the old King dismissed--The Queen’s funeral
--Her will--Her diamonds--Death of the Duke of Kent--
Death of the King--Visit of the Emperor of the French to
the Duchess of Gloucester 151
_CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK_,
WIFE OF GEORGE IV.
CHAPTER I.
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
Marriage of Princess Augusta to the Prince of Brunswick--
His reception at Harwich--Wedding performed with maimed
rites--The Prince at the opera--A scene--Old mode
of travelling of the bride and bridegroom--Issue of
this marriage--Dashing replies of Princess Caroline--
Her mother the Duchess a weak and coarse-minded woman--
Education of German princesses--Infamous conduct of the
Duke of York--Lord Malmesbury sent to demand Princess
Caroline in marriage for the Prince of Wales--His account
of the Princess--Eloquence of the Duchess on the virtues of
the Princess--The Duke’s mistress, and picture of the Court
of Brunswick--The Duchess’s stories of bygone times--The
marriage by proxy--Celebration of the wedding-day--The
marriage treaty--Eccentricity of the Duke--Education of
the Princess neglected--The courtesan champion of morality
--The Duke’s fears for the Princess--Lady Jersey and the
Queen--Lord Malmesbury’s advice to the Princess--Madame
de Hertzfeldt’s portrait of the Princess--The Princess’s
exuberant spirits at a court masquerade--More admonitions
by Lord Malmesbury--Madame de Waggenheim’s taunt, and Lord
Malmesbury’s thrust _en carte_ 183
CHAPTER II.
THE NEW HOME.
The Princess desires to have Lord Malmesbury as her lord
chamberlain--The Duchess a coarse-minded woman--The
Duke of Clarence her bitter enemy--The Duke and Duchess’s
caution to Lord Malmesbury, and his dignified reply--The
Abbess of Gandersheim’s opinion of mankind--Difficult
question proposed by the Princess, and Lord Malmesbury’s
gallant reply--The Abbess without human sympathy--A
state dinner, and a mischievous anonymous letter--The
Princess’s departure for England--Her indifference to money
--Instances--Ignorance of the Duchess--Difficulties of
the journey--The Princess’s design to reform the Prince
of Wales--Indefatigable care of Lord Malmesbury--Story
of the Princess at Hanover--Care as to her toilette
recommended--Presents given by the Princess--Her
arrival in England--Ridiculed by Lady Jersey--Reproof
administered to her ladyship by Lord Malmesbury--The first
interview of the Prince and Princess--Cold reception of the
bride--Flippant conduct of the Princess--Lord Malmesbury
reproached by the Prince of Wales 209
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST YEAR OF MARRIED LIFE.
The Princess’s letters to her family intercepted--Unkindness
exhibited to her--The Prince seeks a separation--
Acceded to by the Princess--She removes to Blackheath--
Her income settled--Merry hours spent by the Princess
at Blackheath--Intercourse between the Princess and her
daughter--The Princess’s unfortunate acquaintance with Lady
Douglas--The boy Austin--Lady Douglas’s communication
to the Prince attacking the Princess--The _delicate
investigation_--Witnesses examined--The Princess hardly
dealt with--Her memorial to the King--Delay in doing her
justice--The Monarch’s decision--Exculpated from the
grave charges--Comparison of Caroline Queen of George II.
and Caroline of Brunswick--The Prince and Lady Hertford--
Miss Seymour, and the Prince’s subornation of witnesses--
Persecution of the Princess by her husband--Her appeal to
the King--Menace of publishing The Book--The Princess
received at the Queen’s Drawing-room--Meeting of the Prince
and Princess--Death of the Duke of Brunswick at the battle
of Jena--The Duchess a fugitive--The Princess’s debts 235
CHAPTER IV.
MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS.
Imbecility finally settled on the mind of George
III.--Intercourse between the Princess and her daughter
obstructed--The Whigs betrayed by the Prince--Sketch
of the Duchess of Brunswick--The Princess’s Court at
Kensington diminished--Her pleasant dinners there--
Lively outbreaks of the Princess--Her sketches of character
--Her indiscretion--An adventure--Description of the
Princess Charlotte--The Princess of Wales’s demeanour to
her mother--Thoughtlessness of the Duchess of Brunswick--
Popularity of the Princess on the wane--Her determination
to bring her wrongs before the public--She becomes more
melancholy--An incident--Continued agitation of the
Princess--She becomes querulous--The poet Campbell
presented to her--A humorous fault of orthography--The
Prince and John Kemble 263
CHAPTER V.
HARSH TRIALS AND PETTY TRIUMPHS.
The Princess again in public--Restricted intercourse
between the Princess and her daughter--Sealed letters
addressed by the Princess to the Prince--Published--The
Princess’s appeal to Parliament--Bitterness on both sides
--Meeting of the Princess and her daughter--The Princess
at Vauxhall--Death of the Duchess of Brunswick--Last
interview between the Duke of Brunswick and the Princess--
Her depressed spirits--Unnoticed during the festivities
of 1814--Sacrifice made by the Princess--Unnoticed by the
Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia--The Princess at
the opera--A scene--Not invited to the great City banquet
--Mr. Whitbread’s advice to the Princess--A freak--
Reception of the Regent in the City--The Princess excluded
from the Drawing-rooms--Correspondence between the Queen
and the Princess--Her letter to the Regent--Discussed in
the House of Commons 277
CHAPTER VI.
A DOUBLE FLIGHT.
The Prince of Orange proposes to the Princess Charlotte--His
suit declined--Dr. Parr--A new household appointed for
the Princess Charlotte--Her astonishment and immediate
flight--Alarm and pursuit--Princess Charlotte removed
to Cranbourne Lodge--The Princess of Wales determines to
leave England--Her departure from Worthing--The Regent’s
continued hatred of her 299
CHAPTER VII.
THE ERRANT ARIADNE.
The Princess arrives at Hamburgh--Assumes the title of
Countess of Wolfenbüttel--Travels in Switzerland--
Meeting of the Princess with the ex-Empress Maria Louisa
and the divorced wife of the Grand Duke Constantine--
The Princess at Milan--Her English attendants fall off
--Her reception by the Pope--At a masked ball at Naples
--Her imprudence--Her festivals at Como--The Princess
at Palermo--Bergami her chamberlain--The Princess at
Genoa--Corresponds with Murat--Personal vanity of Queen
Charlotte--The Pope visits the Princess--Surrounded by
Italians--Her roving life--Proceeds to Syracuse--At
Jericho--Lands at Tunis and visits the Bey--Liberates
European slaves--The Princess at Athens--At Troy--
At Constantinople--At Ephesus--At Acre--Stopped at
Jaffa--Enters Jerusalem--Her reception by the Capuchin
Friars--Institutes a new order of chivalry--Life on
board the polacca--The Princess and Countess Oldi at Como
--Private theatricals a favourite pastime--Agents and
spies--Innocent incidents converted into crimes--Bergami
divested of his knighthood--The Princess at Carlsruhe--
Contemptuously neglected at Vienna--The chamberlain her
only attendant--The Princess in public--Deeply affected
by the death of Princess Charlotte--As uncircumspect as
ever 313
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RETURN TO ENGLAND.
Report of the Milan Commissioners--The Princess’s
determination to return to England--Studied neglect of
her by Louis XVIII.--Lord Hutchinson’s proposal to her to
remain abroad--Her indignant refusal--Bergami’s anger
on the refusal of the proposition--Discourtesy of the
French authorities to the Princess--Her reception in
England--The Regent’s message to Parliament--The green
bag--Sympathy with the Queen--Desire for a compromise
evinced; meeting for the purpose at Lord Castlereagh’s--The
contending parties in Parliament--Mr. Wilberforce as Mr.
Harmony--Mr. Brougham the Queen’s especial advocate--The
Queen’s name in the Liturgy demanded--Mr. Denman’s argument
for it--Address of the House of Commons to the Queen--Her
reply, and appeal to the nation--A secret inquiry protested
against--The Queen at Waithman’s shop--Violence of party
spirit 334
CHAPTER IX.
QUEEN, PEERS, AND PEOPLE.
The secret committee on the Queen’s conduct--Encounter
between the Queen and Princess Sophia--Bill of Pains and
Penalties brought into the House of Lords--The Queen
demands to know the charges against her--Her demand refused
--The Queen again petitions--Lord Liverpool’s speech--
The Queen’s indignant message to the Lords--Money spent
to procure witnesses against her--Public feeling against
the Italian witnesses--Dr. Parr’s Advice to the Queen
--His zealous advocacy of her cause--Lord Erskine’s
efforts in her favour--Her hearty protest against legal
oppression--Gross attack on her in a provincial paper--
Cruel persecution of her--Her sharp philippic against
Ministers--Lord John Russell’s letter to Mr. Wilberforce,
and petition to the King--The Queen at Brandenburgh House
--Death of the Duchess of York--Her eccentricities--Her
character--Addresses to the Queen, and her replies 349
CHAPTER X.
THE QUEEN’S TRIAL.
The Queen’s reception by the House of Lords--Royal progress
to the House--The Queen’s enthusiastic reception by the
populace--Their treatment of the King’s party--Marquis
of Anglesea--The Duke of Wellington’s reply to them--
The Attorney-General’s opening speech--Examination of
Theodore Majocchi--The Queen overcome at the ingratitude
of this knowing rogue--Disgusting nature of the evidence
--Other witnesses examined--Mr. Brougham’s fearless
defence of the Queen--Mr. Denman’s advocacy not less bold
--His denunciation of the Duke of Clarence--Question of
throwing up the bill entertained by Ministers--Stormy
debates--Lords Grey and Grosvenor in favour of the Queen
--Duke of Montrose against her--Ministerial majority--
The Queen protests against the proceedings--The Ministers
in a minority--The bill surrendered by Lord Liverpool--
Reception of the news by the Queen--Her unspeakable grief 365
CHAPTER XI.
‘TRISTIS GLORIA.’
The result of the Queen’s trial advantageous to neither party
--The Queen’s application to Parliament for a residence--
Lord Liverpool’s reply--Royal message from the Queen to
Parliament, and its discourteous reception--The Queen goes
to St. Paul’s to return thanks--Uncharitable conduct of the
Cathedral authorities--Their unseemly behaviour rebuked by
the Lord Mayor--Revenue for the Queen recommended by the
King--Accepted by her--The Coronation of George IV.--The
Queen claims a right to take part in the ceremony--Her
right discussed--Not allowed--Determines to be present
--The Queen appears at the Abbey, and is refused admittance
--With a broken spirit retires--Her sense of degradation
--The King labours to give _éclat_ to his Coronation--
The Coronation-festival in Westminster Hall described--
Appearance of the Duke of Wellington--His banquet to the
King--The King’s speech on the occasion--True greatness
of the Duke--Anecdote of Louis XIV. and Lord Stair--Regal
banquet to the foreign ministers--The Duke of Wellington
appears as an Austrian general--Incident of the Coronation
--Lord Londonderry’s banquet to the minister of Louis
Napoleon 381
CHAPTER XII.
A CROWN LOST, AND A GRAVE WON.
The Queen’s agitation--Her illness--Her sufferings--
Desires her diary may be destroyed--Her death--Sketch
of her life--Her mother a foolish woman--Every sense of
justice outraged by the King--Inconsistency of the Whigs
--The Queen persecuted even after death--Disrespect
shown to her remains by the Government--Protest against
a disgraceful haste to remove her remains--Course of the
funeral procession interrupted by the people--Collision
between the military and the populace--Effort to force
a way through the people ineffectual--The procession
compelled to pass through the City--The plate on the
Queen’s coffin removed--The funeral reaches Harwich--The
Queen’s remains taken to Brunswick--Funeral oration--
Tombs of the illustrious dead there 401
_ADELAIDE OF SAXE-MEINENGEN_,
WIFE OF WILLIAM IV.
The pocket Duchy--Old customs--Early training--The Father
of the Princess Adelaide--Social life at the Ducal Court--
Training of the Princess Adelaide--Marriage Preliminaries
--English Parliament--The Duke of Clarence--Arrival in
London of the Princess--Quaint royal weddings--At home
and abroad--Duke and Duchess of Clarence at Bushey--‘State
and Dirt’ at St James’s--William IV. and Queen Adelaide--
Course of life of the new Queen-consort--King’s gallantry
to an old love--Royal simplicity--The Sovereigns and
the Sovereign people--Court anecdotes--Drawing-rooms
--Princess Victoria--The Coronation--Incidents of the
day--Coronation finery of George IV.--Princess Victoria
not present--Revolutionary period--Reform question--
Unpopularity of the Queen--Attacks against her on the part
of the press--Violence of party spirit--Friends and foes
--Bearing of the King and Queen--Duchess of Angoulême--
King a republican--His indiscretion--Want of temper--
Continental press adverse to the Queen--King’s declining
health--Conduct of Queen Adelaide--King William’s death
--Declining health of the Queen--Her travels in search
of health--Her last illness--Her will--Death--And
funeral 419
LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND.
_CHARLOTTE SOPHIA.--Cont._
CHAPTER IV.
BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES.
Death of the Duke of Cumberland--His military career--The
_soubriquet_ of the Butcher given him--Anecdotes of him--
Marriage of Caroline Matilda--Her married life unhappy--
Dr. Struensee--_Mésalliances_ of the Dukes of Gloucester and
Cumberland--The Duke of Cumberland and Lady Grosvenor--The
Royal Marriage Act--Olivia Serres--Lord Clive’s present
of diamonds to the Queen--Disgusting correspondence of the
Duchess of Orleans and Queen Caroline--The Prince of Wales’s
juvenile drawing-room--Simple life of the Royal Family at Kew
--Prince Frederick and his cottage beauty--Paton and his
naval pictures--Royal births--The custom of cake and caudle
observed--Petty larcenists--Sarah Wilson and her subsequent
life--Death of Princess Mary; and of Princess Augusta, the
King’s mother--The Earl of Bute--Neglected education of
George III.--Petronilla, Countess Delitz--The Countess of
Chesterfield, her conversion by Whitfield--Efforts of Lady
Huntingdon to convert the gay Earl of Chesterfield--Mr.
Fitzroy--George III. at Portsmouth--Jacob Bryant’s ‘golden
rule’--Witty remark of Queen Charlotte--Attendant bards on
Royalty; Mark Smeaton, Thomas Abel, David Rizzio--The Princes
under the guardianship of Lady Charlotte Finch--The Queen’s
benevolence--Satirists.
The favourite son of Caroline, and the favourite brother of the
Princess Amelia, died on the last day of October. His health had long
been precarious: he had, like his mother, grown extremely corpulent,
and his sight had nearly perished. Indeed, he could only see, and that
very imperfectly, with one eye--and yet he was comparatively but a
young man; not more than forty-four years of age. His course of life,
both in its duties, and its so-called pleasures, had made an old man of
him before his time. He had had a paralytic stroke, was much afflicted
with asthma, and suffered continually from a wound in the leg, which
he had received in his first great battle, at Dettingen, and which had
never healed.
He was born when his mother was yet Princess of Wales. She loved him
because he was daring and original; qualities which he evinced by his
replies to her when she was lecturing him as a wayward child. For the
same reasons was he liked by his grandfather, at whose awkward English
the graceless grandson laughed loudly, and mimicked it admirably.
It is not astonishing that his mother loved him, for as he grew in
years he (up to a certain time) grew in grace and dignity. In outward
bearing, as in mental endowments, he was very superior to his brother,
the Prince of Wales: he was gentlemanlike without affectation; and
accomplished without being vain of his accomplishments. Never was a
prince so popular, so winning in his ways, as William of Cumberland
during his minority.
He was but twenty-two years of age when he accompanied George II. to
the field and shared in the bloody honours of the day at Dettingen.
The honours he reaped here, however, were fatal to him. They led to
his being placed in chief command of an army before he was fitted
to do more than lead a brigade. In ’45, when the French invested
Tournay under Marshal Saxe, the son of Aurora Königsmark, the Duke of
Cumberland was placed in command of the English and Dutch forces,
numerically very inferior to the foe, and charged with leading them to
force the enemy to raise the siege. The attempt was made in the great
battle of Fontenoy, where we gained a victory, and yet were vanquished.
We beat the enemy, but, through want of caution, exposed ourselves to a
cross fire of batteries, against which valour was impotent. It cost us
ten thousand men and unmerited loss of reputation.
The rose which had fallen from his chaplet the duke replaced at
Culloden, where he fought one of the battles whereby the hopes of the
Stuarts were crushed in half an hour. The alleged severity of the young
general, after the battle, gave him the name of the ‘Butcher.’ The duke
was not ashamed of the name. He wore it with as much complacency as
though it had been a decoration. With regard to his severities, it may
be said that, terrible as they were, they had the effect of deterring
men from rushing into another rebellion, which would have cost more
blood than the duke ever caused to be shed by way of prevention.
But not from his contemporaries. For himself and his troops the
popular heart beat high with admiration and sympathy; and while the
public hand scattered rewards in profuse showers upon the army,
parliament increased the duke’s reward, and colleges offered him
their presidential chairs. He was familiarly called ‘the Duke,’ as
Marlborough had been before him, and as Wellington was after him.
As he grew in manhood his heart became hardened; he had no affection
for his family, nor fondness for the army, for which he had affected
attachment. When his brother died, pleasure, not pain, made his heart
throb, as he sarcastically exclaimed, ‘It is a great blow to the
country, but I hope it will recover in time.’ The death, if it did not
place him next to the throne, at least gave him hopes of being regent
should his sire die before the young heir was of age.
It was, however, the bloody Mutiny Act, of which he was really
the author, which brought upon him the universal execration. ‘The
penalty of death,’ says Walpole, ‘came over as often as the curses
of the commination on Ash Wednesday.’ He who despised popularity was
philosophically content when deprived of it. He was dissolute and a
gambler. He hated marriage, and escaped from being united with a Danish
princess by the adroit manœuvre of getting his friends to insist upon a
large settlement from the royal father, too avaricious to grant it.
If he was lashed into fury by his name being omitted from the Regency
Bill, he was more sensitively wounded still, by being made to feel that
English uncles had, before this, murdered the nephews who were heirs to
the throne. He was incapable of the crime, for it could have profited
him nothing. The knowledge, however, that popular opinion stigmatised
him as being capable of committing an offence so sanguinary was a
torture to him. One day, Prince George, his nephew, entered his room.
It was a soldier’s apartment, hung with arms. He took down a splendid
sword to exhibit it to the boy. The future husband of Charlotte
turned pale, evidently suspecting that his uncle was on sanguinary
thoughts intent. The duke was dreadfully shocked, and complained to the
Princess-dowager of Wales that scandalous prejudices had been instilled
into the child against him.
In 1757 he reluctantly assumed the command of the army commissioned to
rescue Hanover from the threatened invasion of the French. His opponent
was Marshal D’Estrées, from before whom he fell back at the Rhine,
and to whom he disgracefully surrendered Hanover, by the infamous
convention of Klosterseven. When the King saw him enter Kensington
Palace, after his peremptory recall, the monarch exclaimed, ‘Behold the
son who has ruined me and disgraced himself!’ That son, who declared he
had written orders for all he did, and who certainly was invested with
very full powers, resigned all his posts; and the hero of Dettingen
and pacificator of North Britain became a private gentleman, and took
to dice, racing, and other occupations natural then, or common at
least, to gentlemen with more money than sense or principle. There is
a good trait remembered of him at this period of his career. He had
dropped and lost his pocket-book at Newmarket; and declined to make
any more bets, saying that ‘he had lost money enough for that day.’
In the evening the book was brought to him by a half-pay officer who
had picked it up. ‘Pray keep it, sir,’ said the duke, ‘for if you had
not found it, the contents would, before this, have been in the hands
of the blacklegs.’ Another favourable trait was his desire to give
commissions to men who earned them on the field. He felt that while
any ‘fool’ might purchase a commission, it was hard to keep it back
from the man who had fought for it. He once promoted a sergeant to an
ensigncy, and, finding him very coolly treated by his brother officers,
the duke refused to dine with Lord Ligonier unless--pointing to
the ensign--he might bring his ‘friend’ with him. This recognition
settled the question.
The duke, cheated by his father’s will, and sneered at by Marshal Saxe;
with no reputation but for bravery, and no merit as a country gentleman
but that of treating his labourers with some liberality, lived on as
contentedly as though he were quietly enjoying all possible honour.
His good-humoured gallantry was of a hearty nature. When George III.,
in 1762, complimented Lady Albemarle, in full drawing-room, on the
victories achieved by her husband, the Duke of Cumberland stepped
across the room to her and enthusiastically exclaimed, ‘If it was not
in the drawing-room I would kiss you.’ He was a constant attendant at
these ceremonies. On the morning of the 31st of October he had been
to court, and had conversed cheerfully with Queen Charlotte. It was
the last time she ever beheld him. He subsequently dined in Arlington
Street with Lord Albemarle, and appeared in good health, although the
day before, when playing at picquet with General Hodgson, he had been
confused and mistook his cards. Early in the evening he was at his
town-house, 54, Upper Grosvenor Street, when the Duke of Newcastle
and Lord Northington called upon him. As they entered the room he
was seized with a suffocation. One of his valets, who was accustomed
to bleed him, was called, and prepared to tie up his arm; but the
duke exclaimed, ‘It is all over!’ and immediately expired in Lord
Albemarle’s arms.
Thus died the favourite son of Caroline of Anspach, to place a
crown on whose brow she would have sacrificed her own life. He was
an indifferent general, who outlived the reputation he acquired at
Culloden, where it was impossible that he should be beaten. Where to
be vanquished was possible he never had the good luck of being victor.
But he cared as little for fame as he did for money; and his neglect in
the latter case is testified by the fact that nearly eighteen hundred
pounds, in bank notes, were found in the pocket of one of his cast-off
suits, of which a present had been made, after the duke’s death, to one
of his hussars. The hussar had the honesty to return the money.
The King behaved with appropriate delicacy on this occasion. When Lord
Albemarle, the duke’s executor, presented to the King the key of his
uncle’s cabinet, George III. returned it, bidding Lord Albemarle use
his own discretion in examining all private papers, and in destroying
all such as the duke himself probably would not have wished to be made
public. On the 28th of December the death of his Majesty’s youngest
brother, Prince Frederick, at the early age of sixteen years, threw
additional gloom on the circle of the royal family. At least, so say
the journalists of the period.
At this time the King and Queen resided chiefly at Richmond, in very
modest state, and with very few servants. Their chief amusement,
amid the turmoil of politics and the crush of factions, consisted in
‘going about to see places,’ as Walpole describes their visits to
such localities as Oatlands and Wanstead; and the ‘call’ of the Queen
at Strawberry Hill, which the sovereign lady could not see, for the
sufficient reason that the sovereign lord was in bed and unable to
perform the necessary honours.
The youngest daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, was married by
proxy on the 1st of October 1766, in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, to
Christian VII., King of Denmark. Queen Charlotte was not present, she
having given birth, only two days previously, to Charlotte Augusta,
Princess Royal, and subsequently Duchess of Wurtemburg.
The King of Denmark was an exceedingly small, but not an ill-made, a
weakly, not an ill-favoured man. His character was, however, in every
respect detestable; and when poor Caroline Matilda passed on in tears,
amid the congratulations of the court of Queen Charlotte, her tears
were better founded than their smiles. She was speedily treated with
cruelty, and abandoned at home while her lord travelled in foreign
countries and indulged in profligacy. Queen Charlotte accorded him a
more hearty reception than he deserved when he came over to England,
two years subsequent to the marriage. At that time his absurdly
pompous airs were the ridicule of the circle at the Queen’s and at
Carlton House, the residence of the Princess-dowager of Wales.
After spending some years in travel, he returned, neither a wiser
nor a better man, to Denmark. In his suite was the German physician,
Struensee. This man enjoyed his master’s utmost confidence. He soon
gained that of the young Queen also, who sought by his means to be
reconciled to the King. He was, on the other hand, hated by the
Queen-mother and other branches of the royal family; particularly
in his character of reformer of political abuses. They contrived to
overthrow him, procured a warrant for his execution from the King, and
involved the young Queen in his ruin, on the ground of an improper
familiarity between them. The triumphant enemies of Struensee would
have put Caroline Matilda also to death but for the appearance in the
Baltic of a British fleet under Admiral Keith, by whom she was carried
off to Zell, where she died in 1775, neglected, unhappy, and under the
weight of accusation of a charge of which she has never been proved
guilty.
It may be stated here, that of all the children of Frederick, Prince
of Wales, George III. can be said to have been the only one happily
married. The second son, William Henry, the amiable, assiduous,
brave, but not over-accomplished Duke of Gloucester (born in 1743),
scandalised Queen Charlotte and the court by a _mésalliance_ which he
contracted, in 1766, with Maria, Countess-dowager of Waldegrave. This
marriage was not, indeed, especially unhappy to the contractors of it,
except inasmuch as they were embarrassed by being obliged for some time
to keep it secret, and that when discovered, the royal husband and his
noble wife were for a long period banished from court. They resided
during a portion of their time of exile in Italy; and at Rome, the
Pope himself had so much esteem for the Prince that his Holiness, on
one occasion, declined to take precedence of him when their carriages
encountered in the streets. The Holy Father drew on one side, and
courteously waited while the Prince, in obedience to the bidding of
the Universal Bishop, passed on. The children of this union were
subsequently acknowledged as the legal heirs of their parents. The duke
died in 1805.
The third son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Henry, Duke of Cumberland
(after the death of his uncle ‘_the_ Duke’), born in 1744, more
grievously offended Queen Charlotte by a _mésalliance_ than his
brother. He was fierce of temper, frivolous of character, and foppish
in his dress. In the year 1770 the attentions of the duke to Lady
Grosvenor were so marked, and so ridiculous, that everybody talked
about them, except her husband. The lady, when a Miss Vernon, had
been first seen by Lord Grosvenor as she and a companion were leaving
Kensington Gardens, flying under sudden and heavy rain. He looked at
and pitied the shower-bearing nymphs, as Aristophanes styles maidens so
molested, and he offered them an asylum in his carriage. Soon after,
Miss Vernon was the married mistress of his house; and the union would
have been happy had not the foolish prince appeared to disturb it. He
speedily contrived to seduce Lady Grosvenor from her duty. He followed
her about in disguises, often betraying himself by his fopperies and
imbecility, slept whole nights in woods like any Corydon not subject
to the infirmities of nature, and subsequently had 10,000_l._ to pay
for the ruin he brought to Lord Grosvenor’s hearth. But this guilt did
not so much flurry Queen Charlotte as the marriage of the duke in the
following year with Mrs. Horton, a widow, daughter of Lord Carhampton,
who was much older than the senseless and coarse-minded prince, her
husband.
This act of folly caused him to be permanently banished from court.
The Queen would never consent to a reconciliation; and the King, to
prevent such unions in future, brought in the Royal Marriage Act.
By this act no prince or princess of the blood could marry without
consent of the Sovereign before the age of twenty-five. After that age
the royal sanction was still to be applied for; but if withheld the
prince or princess had a resource in the privy council. To this body
the name of the individual to whom the English member of the royal
family desired to be married was to be given, and if parliament made
no objection within the year the enamoured parties were at liberty
to enter into the holy bond of matrimony. Queen Charlotte, who was
exceedingly ‘nice’ on such matters, thought that she at least prevented
all such alliances among her own children. She little thought how one
of her sons would twice offend.
The duke died childless and a widower in 1790, but a paternity derived
from him was claimed by ‘Olivia Serres,’ who professed to be the
daughter of a second marriage. Her claim was never heeded, but she used
to patronise the cheaper minor theatres, whose bills announced her
presence as that of ‘H.R.H. the Princess Olivia of Cumberland.’ She was
as much a princess as the counterfeits upon the stage, but not more so.
There are two more children of Frederick yet to be mentioned. These
are Edward, Duke of York, the second son, born in 1739, and the
Princess Louisa Anne, born ten years later. Neither of these was
married. A report, nevertheless, was long prevalent that the weak (he
voted against ministers on the American Stamp Act) but witty duke was
privately married to a lady at Monaco, where he died in 1767. The
Princess Louisa, his sister, was almost from her birth the victim of
slow consumption, which finally ended her life when she was in the
eighteenth year of her age.
A circumstance occurred in 1767 which was not advantageous to the
memory or reputation of Queen Caroline, and which did not raise her
in the opinion of Queen Charlotte. The latter, however, was too much
occupied in contemplating with delight the Indian presents brought over
to her by Lord Clive to trouble herself much about the character of
Caroline. These consisted of two diamond drops worth twelve thousand
pounds. In the year just named the Duchess of Brunswick’s repositories
were examined by her executors, and among other things discovered
therein were not less than eight hundred letters addressed by the
Duchess of Orleans, second wife of the brother of Louis XIV., to
Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea, Princess of Wales, and to Ulric, Duke of
Brunswick. From this correspondence selections have been published,
which have disgusted most persons who have read them. The portions
suppressed must have been edifying indeed. But even if no more had come
under the eyes of the wife of George Augustus than what publishers have
ventured to print, there would still be evidence enough to show that,
although Caroline conversed with philosophers, her mind could descend
to be dragged through the filthiest pollution. There was not much
refinement in the age, it is true; but, impure as it may have been, the
fact that Caroline could submit to have such letters addressed to her,
or to read a second, is proof that it was more radically rotten and
profoundly unclean than has been generally supposed.
The most interesting domestic event of the following year was the
juvenile drawing-room held by the Prince of Wales and the Princess
Royal. The boy heir-apparent was, perhaps, too early initiated into the
solemnities of festivals and gorgeous ceremonies. On this occasion he
was attired in a crimson suit, his brother of York in one of blue and
gold, while the Princess Royal and the younger branches of the family
were grouped together on a sofa in Roman togas. The happy mother looked
upon them with delight, and thought the scene worthy of a painter. The
public did not share the enthusiasm nor approve of the royal taste
for extensive displays; and when the youthful Prince of Wales gave a
ball and supper this year at the Queen’s House the mob broke into the
court-yard, drove a hearse round it, and saluted the revellers, old and
young, with anything but shouts of compliment or congratulation.
But if the town life of the royal family was one of considerable
display, private life at Kew was of the very simplest aspect. Their
Majesties were early risers, an example which, forcible as the fashion
is which royalty deigns to offer, was not followed very generally even
by their own household, except such persons whose services were needed.
A king and queen rising at six and spending the first two hours of
the day emphatically as their own, undisturbed by business of state,
afforded a singular spectacle to those who could remember the indolent
habits of the late court, for it was only on rare occasions that George
II. was an early riser. Caroline was never so by choice. At eight
o’clock there was a joyous family breakfast, at which the Sovereigns
were surrounded by the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburgh, as the
second son was called before he was created Duke of York, the Princes
William and Edward, and the Princess Royal. At this morning festival
the children were not bound to the silence which they always observed
in presence of their parents in public. After breakfast the younger
children were brought in, and with these the King and Queen spent an
hour of amusement, while the elder princes were away at exercise of
body or mind.
Queen Charlotte generally, and often in company with the King, presided
at the children’s early dinner. Such attendance was the forerunner
of the early dinners which the King subsequently took himself. A
weekly holiday was passed by the whole family in Richmond Gardens.
This was, in some sort, a continuation of a custom commenced by George
II. His custom, however, had not so pure a motive as that observed
by George III. and Queen Charlotte, who took innocent delight in
witnessing innocent enjoyment. In the cottage there, erected from her
own design, she would ply the needle (Queen Adelaide was not a more
indefatigable worker) while the King read aloud to her, generally from
Shakspeare. The Sovereign loved the poet as deeply as the great Duke
of Marlborough did, who knew nothing of English history, save what he
had gathered from the not altogether indisputable authority of the
great poet. ‘Whatever charms,’ says an ‘observer,’ with more enthusiasm
than elegance, ‘ambition or folly may conceive to surround so exalted
a station, it is neither on the throne nor in the drawing-room, in
the splendour or the joys of sovereignty, that the King and Queen
place their felicity. It is in social and domestic gratifications,
in breathing the free air, admiring the works of nature, tasting and
encouraging the elegances of art, and in living without dissipation.
In the evening all the children pay their duty at Kew House before
retiring to bed; after which the King reads to her Majesty; and having
closed the day with a joint act of devotion, they retire to rest.
This is the order of each revolving day, with such exceptions as are
unavoidable in their high stations.
‘The Sovereign is the father of the family; not a grievance reaches
his knowledge that remains unredressed, nor a character of merit or
ingenuity disregarded; his private conduct, therefore, is as exemplary
as it is amiable.’
Alexander Young, referring to the period when the Prince of Wales
was not above twelve years old, furnishes us with a picture that
represents the Queen’s sons as so many Cincinnati at the plough, or
rather like Diocletian cultivating cabbages; only that _he_ did not
take to the healthy pursuit until he had lost a throne, whereas the
English heir-apparent had not yet gained one. The young princes were,
perhaps, more like the royalty of Cathay, whose greatest glory was to
cultivate the soil, and delude itself into the idea that it was being
useful to mankind. Nevertheless the royal pursuits of the Prince of
Wales and his brother of York were harmless at least. ‘A spot of ground
in the garden at Kew was dug by his royal highness the Prince of Wales
and his brother the Duke of York, who sowed it with wheat, attended
the growth of their little crop, weeded, reaped, and harvested it,
solely by themselves. They thrashed out the corn and separated it from
the chaff; and at this period of their labour were brought to reflect
from their own experience upon the various labours and attention of
the husbandman and farmer. The princes not only raised their own crop,
but they also ground it; and, having parted the bran from the meal,
attended the whole process of making it into bread, which it may
well be imagined was eaten with no slight relish. The King and Queen
partook of the philosophical repast, and beheld with pleasure the very
amusements of their children rendered the source of useful knowledge.’
The second son of Charlotte was not very far advanced in his teens
when he carried his love of rustic pursuits to rustic persons. He so
especially admired one cottage beauty in the neighbourhood of Kew or
Windsor that his absences from home became rather too numerous and too
prolonged to escape notice. The royal truant was less narrowly watched
than strictly looked after upon being missed. On one of these occasions
something more powerful than conjecture took the enquirers to a certain
cottage door, and on looking into the room upon which it opened there
sat the second son of Queen Charlotte, Duke of York and Bishop of
Osnaburgh, upon a wooden stool shelling peas!
Reference has been made to the patronage which both Queen Charlotte
and King George extended to art. Their patronage of painters was not,
generally speaking, on a liberal scale. They requested Paton to bring
to the palace, for their inspection, the naval pictures intended for
Saint Petersburgh. The artist obeyed, but at a cost of fifty pounds
for carriage. He was repaid in thanks, but he received no pecuniary
compensation. On another occasion twenty-five pounds was given to an
artist for a picture worth four times the sum. The artist had a friend
in Dr. Wolcot, and the satires of Peter Pindar avenged the disappointed
painter.
It was the excuse of both King and Queen that their increasing family
prevented them from exercising all the liberality they could wish.
However the fact may or may not have influenced the plea, it could
not be denied that the circle round the royal hearth was annually
enlarging. In 1767 was born Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent; and in
the following year the Princess Augusta Sophia. At this period the
old custom was still observed of admitting the public to ‘cake and
caudle.’ Among the loyal young ladies who flocked to the palace to
see the infant princess were two who partook so plentifully of the
caudle as to lose their discretion, and to walk away with the cup in
their keeping. They were detected, and were pardoned after kneeling
to ask for forgiveness. The inequality in the application of the law
was as marked then as it is now. Petty larcenists of high birth, as
these young ladies were, were permitted to escape; not so a poor Sarah
Wilson, who, yielding to a strong temptation in the year 1771, filched
one or two of the Queen’s jewels, and was condemned to be executed. It
was considered almost a violation of justice that the thief should be
saved from the halter, and be transported instead of hanged. She was
sent to America, where she was allotted as slave or servant to a Mr.
Dwale, Bud Creek, Frederick County. Queen Charlotte would have thought
nothing more of her had her Majesty not heard, with some surprise,
that her own sister, Susannah Caroline Matilda, was keeping her court
in the plantations. Never was surprise more genuine than the Queen’s;
it was exceeded only by her hilarity when it was discovered that the
Princess Susannah was simply Sarah Wilson at large. That somewhat
clever girl, having stolen a queen’s jewels, thought nothing, after
escaping from the penal service to which she was condemned, of passing
herself off as a queen’s sister. The Americans--so in love were some
of them with the greatness they affected to despise--paid royal
honours to the clever impostor. She passed the most joyous of seasons
before she was consigned again to increase of penalty for daring to
pretend relationship with the consort of King George. The story of
the presuming girl, whose escapades, however, were not fully known in
England at the time, served, as far as knowledge of them had reached
the court, to amuse the ‘gossips’ who had assembled in 1770 about
the cradle of the young Elizabeth, and still more those who, in the
following year, greeted the new Prince Ernest, one of the three sons of
Charlotte destined to wear a crown.
The fourth daughter of Caroline and George II. died on the 14th of
June in this year, 1771. She was born on the 22nd of February, 48
years before. Before she had completed her eighteenth year she was
married to Frederick, Prince of Hesse, a man whose naturally brutal
temperament was rendered still more brutal after his passing over from
Protestantism to Romanism. This aggravation of a naturally bad temper
was not the immediate result of the change of religion, but of the
political restrictions to which such change subjected him. Never had
wife a more vicious and unfeeling husband than poor Mary; never had
husband a more submissive and uncomplaining wife than Frederick of
Hesse. His death relieved her of a most inhuman tyrant, and her last
days were spent in a happy tranquillity.
The person of Her Majesty at this period is described as having been
easy and graceful, rather than striking or majestic. They who could
not call her handsome, which she never was, compromised the matter
by describing the contour of her face as delicate and pleasing. Her
well-shaped forehead and her beautiful teeth, no inconsiderable items
in a face, were her chief beauties. Her bright chestnut-coloured hair
would have been an additional beauty to have been reckoned, but that
it was generally hidden under thick layers of powder--so long, at
least, as powder was in fashion. Of her hands and arms the royal lady
was proud to a very late period of her life; and amateurs, in the
early term of her reign, eulogised the beauties of a neck, which soon
very well bore the discreet veil with which it was wisely and modestly
covered. Her countenance was naturally benignant, except when flushed,
as it could sometimes be, by an offended feeling; and it was naturally
pallid, ‘except,’ says an anonymous writer ‘(which happened not
unfrequently), when a blush of diffidence suffused her modest cheek.’
The succeeding year to that last named brought mourning with it, for
the death of the mother of George III. On the death of her husband she
was appointed the chief guardian of her eldest son, in case of the
demise, before that son’s majority, of the king, his grandfather. In
the meantime she was really his guardian during that king’s lifetime.
This office, however, she shared with Lord Bute, who, according to the
scandal-mongers, was less attached to the pupil than to the pupil’s
mother. Of this attachment the Prince of Wales himself is said to have
had full knowledge, and did not object to Lord Bute taking solitary
walks with the Princess, while _he_ could do the same with Lady
Middlesex. However this may be, the Princess and Lord Bute kept the
Prince George in very strict seclusion after his father’s death. The
future husband of Charlotte had, however, abundance of teachers, but a
paucity of instruction. One taught him ‘_deportment_,’ another imbued
him with Jacobitism. Dr. Thomas did honestly his little ineffective
best. Lord Bute superintended Dr. Thomas, and the Princess said the boy
was slow, and the masters indifferent.
The boy would probably have been an accomplished scholar had his
preceptors been more careful in their training. There was the _stuff_
and also the taste in him; but he was neglected, and the lost ground
was never recovered. His affection for his mother was strong, and she
deserved it. She was not a favourite with the people, and she did _not_
deserve her unpopularity. George III. and Queen Charlotte visited her
regularly every evening at eight o’clock. After one of these filial
visits, in February 1772, when her health had been long declining,
she expressed a hope that she might pass a good night. The hope was
fulfilled, but death came in the morning. Never was woman more praised
or censured than she. Her merit lay, perhaps, between both. Her son
adored her, Queen Charlotte respected her, and a commercial country
should reverence the memory of a woman who, out of her own jointure,
paid off all the debts which her husband left at his decease. During
the illness of the Dowager-Princess of Wales, her daughter, the
Princess of Brunswick, arrived in England, on her mother’s invitation.
The Princess was coolly treated by her brother, George III., and by
Queen Charlotte. She was ill lodged in a furnished house in Pall
Mall, while the Prince of Mecklenburg had apartments in the royal
palace. Charlotte was jealous of Augusta, her sister-in-law, and could
not help showing it unbecomingly. At the Court held on the Queen’s
birthday Augusta was attended by Lady Gower, an old friend, and one of
her former ladies-in-waiting. Lady Gower followed the Princess into
the ball-room, and sat next to her--Lady Gower’s friend, the Duchess
of Argyle, courteously making way for her. The Queen was excessively
angry. A few days later, all her ladies being present, Her Majesty
said, crossly, to the Duchess of Argyle, ‘Duchess, I must reprimand
you for letting Lady Gower take place of you as lady to the Princess
of Brunswick. I had a mind to speak to you on the spot, but would not,
for fear of saying anything I should repent of, _though I should have
thought it_. The Princess of Brunswick has nothing to do here, and
I insist on your recovering the precedence you gave up. One day or
other my son will be married, and then I shall have his wife’s ladies
pretending to take place in my palace, which they shall not do.’ The
Princess of Brunswick left England in a naturally angry mood. The King,
reluctantly and tardily, paid both her journeys, and gave her 1,000_l._
besides. Her mother left her nothing.
The death of a woman of less note caused some conversation in Queen
Charlotte’s circle, soon after the demise of the Princess-dowager of
Wales, and it may be fittingly noticed here.
Petronilla Melusina was the illegitimate daughter of George I. and
Mdlle. von der Schulenburg (Duchess of Kendal). It was the discovery
of her birth (in 1693) that stirred Sophia Dorothea to the resolution
to leave Hanover. Petronilla came to England, passed as her mother’s
niece, and was created Countess of Walsingham. She became acquainted in
this country with Lady Huntingdon, and that good, active, eccentric,
but earnest apostle of the Gospel, Whitfield. With the latter
Petronilla maintained a long correspondence, and she is spoken of as
being a gem in the crown which metaphor placed upon the preacher’s brow.
In 1733, this lady married the Earl of Chesterfield, and in her name
her husband is said to have compelled George II. to pay him a very
large sum, which also, according to report, was bequeathed her by
George I. in the will which was destroyed. She led as gay and careless
a life as her lord, but not for so long a period as he. She was in the
very height of her enjoyment of the splendour of the great world, when,
attracted by curiosity to the obscurely lighted drawing-room of Lady
Huntingdon, where Whitfield was preaching, she learned, for the first
time, to heed as well as hear the story of the brighter splendour of a
greater, and the night and anguish of a more terrible, world than the
one in which she was the chief lady of the revels, and the fascinator,
not to be resisted, of every man in it except her husband. It was here
she first felt that all was not so well with her heart, nor so safe
for her soul, as should be. She was a woman of strong mind, and she at
once braved all the storm with which fools and fine gentlemen pelted
her, by boldly declaring the difference which had come over her views,
and that which should in future mark her practice. She would fain have
retired altogether from the world, but in obedience to her husband, who
exacted from her a service which he never repaid, she went occasionally
to court. At each visit it was remarked that her costume diminished
in finery, but increased in taste. At her last visit among the gay
and panting throng she appeared in a plain but elegant dress of sober
brown brocade, ‘powdered with silver flowers.’ A smile may mock this
humility of a court lady, but the costly and continental simplicity
was encountered by her half-brother the King (for it was in George
II.’s time that this occurred) with a frown. He had not yet learned to
honour pious men or women of any creed, and he had little respect for
Lady Huntingdon or Whitfield. He accordingly made two or three steps
in advance to the shrinking lady, and rather rudely remarked, ‘I know
who selected that gown for you; it must have been Mr. Whitfield. I
hear you have been a follower of his for this year and a half.’ Lady
Chesterfield mildly replied, ‘I have, and very well do I like him,’ and
withdrew; but she afterwards used to regret that she had not said more
when she had so excellent an opportunity for uttering a word in season
with effect.
Lady Huntingdon hoped, for some time, that a sense of religion might
soon touch the heart of the Earl, who continued to be polite and
impious to the last. He laughingly called death a leap in the dark,
and he obstinately refused the light which would have saved him from
leaping to his destruction. The nearest approach he ever made to being
converted by Lady Huntingdon was when he once sent her a subscription
towards building a chapel, and earnestly implored her not to expose him
to ridicule by revealing the fact!
His noble wife--for she _was_ a wife--true woman, rising above the
shame of her birth, and resolute to save even him who was resolute and
resigned to perish, was most assiduous at the death-bed of a husband
who was as anxious as Charles II. to be courteous and civil, even in
death. His last day on earth was the 24th of March, 1773; and his
courtesy had well-nigh failed him when he heard that his wife had
sent for Mr. Rowland Hill to attend him. ‘Dear Lady Chesterfield,’
says Lady Huntingdon, in one of her letters detailing ‘the blackness
of darkness’ which had thickened round his dying moments, ‘Dear
Lady Chesterfield could not be persuaded to leave his room for an
instant. What unmitigated anguish has she endured! But her confidential
communications I am not at liberty to disclose. The curtain has fallen;
his immortal part has passed to another state of existence. Oh, my
soul, come not thou unto _his_ end!’
This wife, the illegitimate daughter of George I., was not even
mentioned incidentally in a will which recognised the services of
menials, and rewarded them with ostentation. But after Chesterfield’s
death the mansion in May Fair, and its great room, and its dark,
mysterious boudoirs, curtained with blue and silver tissue, and
slightly echoing the rustle of silks that were not worn by the wife
of the lord of the house--over all these there came a change. The
stage remained, but the actors and audiences were different, and now
we see that once little girl who usurped in Hanover a love to which
she was not legitimately entitled, a sober woman grown, throwing open
her saloons to Rowland Hill and the eager multitude who thronged to
hear that hearty, honest, and uncompromising man. In March 1777,
Horace Walpole wrote: ‘Lady Chesterfield has had a stroke of palsy,
but may linger some time longer.’ In September of the following year,
the record is: ‘Lady Chesterfield is dead, at above fourscore. She
was not a girl when she came over with George I.’ ‘She was very like
him,’ Walpole writes, in the following month to Cole, ‘as her brother,
General Schulenburg, is, in black, to the late King.’
Such was the end of that lady whose birth in 1693 had so severely
wounded the pride and self-dignity of Sophia Dorothea. ‘I was with
her to the last,’ says Lady Huntingdon, ‘and never saw a soul more
humbled in the dust before God, on account of her own vileness and
nothingness, but having a sure and steadfast hope of the love and mercy
of God in Christ, constantly affirming that his blood cleanseth from
all sin. The last audible expressions which fell from her a few moments
before her final struggle were, “Oh, my friend, I have hope, a strong
hope--through grace.” Then, taking my hand, and clasping it earnestly
between hers, she exclaimed with much energy, “God be merciful to me, a
sinner!”’
Between the period of the birth of the last child of Queen Charlotte
and the date last named Her Majesty had presented other claimants upon
the love and liberality of the people. These were Augustus (Sussex),
born in 1773; Adolphus (Cambridge), in 1774; Mary, in 1776; and
Sophia, in 1777. Walpole compares a Mrs. Fitzroy with the Queen. ‘Mrs.
Fitzroy,’ he writes, ‘has got a seventh boy. Between her and the Queen,
London will be like the senate of old Rome, an assembly of princes. In
a few generations there will be no joke in saying, “_Their Highnesses
the Mob_.”’ Meanwhile a Queen, thus constantly occupied, performed
all household and matronly duties in a way that won respect even from
those who detected in her faults of temper or errors in politics. Of
her method and success in training some of her children we have this
evidence. The King took frequent excursions, while the Queen kept house
at home. Of one of these, a visit to the fleet at Portsmouth, Walpole
writes: ‘All England is gone to meet King George at Portsmouth. The
Duchess of Northumberland gives forty guineas for a bed, and must take
her chamber-maid into it. I did not think she would pay so dear for
such company. His Majesty, because the post-chaises of gods are as
immortal as their persons, would not suffer a second chaise to be sent
for him; and therefore, if his could and did break down, he would enter
Portsmouth in triumph in a hack.’
When the youngest of the daughters of Her Majesty was about six years
old, the well-known Jacob Bryant heard the Queen make a remark to the
child which he (the author of the ‘Treatise on the Authenticity of
the Scriptures and Truth of the Christian Religion’) considered and
cited as high authority for a mode of reasoning which he adopted when
speaking of the obstacles that encumber the way even of the seekers
after truth. He is alluding to those who are discouraged because
the truth they would fain seize is not yet obvious to them; and he
bids them wait with patience and not be discouraged. ‘I have high
authority,’ he says, ‘for this mode of reasoning, which I hope I may
take the liberty to produce. When a great personage some years ago
was visiting the royal nursery, a most amiable princess (the Princess
Mary, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester), then about six years old,
ran with a book in her hand, and tears in her eyes, and said, “Madam,
I cannot comprehend it! I cannot comprehend it!” Her Majesty, with
true parental affection, looked upon the princess, and bade her not
to be alarmed. “What you cannot comprehend to-day, you may comprehend
to-morrow; and what you cannot attain to this year, you may arrive at
the next. Do not therefore be frightened with little difficulties, but
attend to what you do know, and the rest will come in time.”’ This
was good common sense, and Mr. Bryant calls it ‘a golden rule, well
worthy our observation.’ Charlotte, too, could say a witty as well as
a wise thing. The year 1775 was unmarked by the birth of an heir or
heiress in Brunswick’s line. The Queen’s own birthday drawing-room was
all the more brilliant. ‘The crowd,’ says Walpole, ‘was excessive,
and had squeezed, and shoved, and pressed upon the Queen in the most
hoyden manner. As she went out of the drawing-room, somebody said, in
flattery, that “the crowd was very great.” “Yes,” said the Queen, “and
wherever one went, the Queen was in everybody’s way.”’
Her Majesty displayed even more readiness in patronising such men as
the author above named than she did in the patronage of musicians, fond
as she and her royal consort were of the really tuneful art. In old
days the honour of British queens was said to be most safe when it had
a bard for its attendant protector. At a comparatively early period
the Queen furnished the grateful Prince of Wales with a chaplain,
whose chief duty was comprised in daily reading prayers in the young
prince’s presence, and, if we may judge by the result, not very much
to the young prince’s profit. Among those who were candidates for the
office was the too celebrated Dr. Dodd; but though the Queen was in
some degree interested in him, on account of his reported ability,
she united heartily with the King in refusing to nominate him to the
responsible duty. The elder princes were, as early as 1773, located at
Carlton House, under the guardianship of Lady Charlotte Finch, almost
daily superintended by the Queen. The latter was, however, always glad
to escape from town to Kew, which had come into the King’s possession
on the death of his mother, and for which the residence at Old Richmond
had been abandoned. It was at Kew that she received Beattie, for whom
she had procured a pension of 200_l._ a-year, right royal reward, for
his indifferent work on the Immutability of Truth. The well-recompensed
author was in too good a humour with the royal lady to see any fault
in her. He even pronounced her English ‘fair,’ and herself as ‘most
agreeable.’ The portraits of her, he thought, hardly rendered her
justice, and the expression of her eye and of her smile was declared by
him to be most engaging.
She was not so favourably considered by some of her own court. Thus,
the wearers of the fashionable long feathers denounced her bad taste
when the Queen issued her decree against their being worn at court.
The decree, however, was not issued without great provocation, a
dowager-duchess having appeared at a drawing-room with a head-dress of
feathers a yard and a quarter in height. The sight was so ridiculous
that Charlotte would, for a long time, neither tolerate them in others
nor wear them herself. The maids of honour grumbled as heartily at this
as they did at the rule of the Queen’s household which did not provide
them with supper. The fair ladies’ remonstrance on this latter subject
almost amounted to a mutiny. The affair was ended by compromise. Their
salary was raised, and each maid received on her marriage a gift of
1,000_l._ from the Queen.
The latter frowned when the heavy bargain was concluded, but she
changed the frown for a smile on being told that the Prince of Wales
had corrected Lord Bruce for making a false quantity. Next to his being
a gentleman she hoped he would be a scholar, and here was a prospect of
her hopes being realised!
As a sample of the Queen’s benevolence we may cite the following
record. In the action off Brest, in which the adversaries fought with
a valour which did honour to both parties and enhanced the glory of
the victors, there was no ship more distinguished in the fray than the
gallant but luckless _Quebec_. This vessel blew up in the action, and
out of her numerous crew only seventeen persons escaped. Among the
latter was a master’s mate, named William Moore, afterwards Captain
Moore. He was desperately wounded in the shoulder and leg, and he
conceived little hopes of ever being, like the old commodore in the
song, fit for sea again. Meanwhile, however, he had a friend at court,
in the person of a kinsman named Ashburner, who was mercer to the
Queen. The kind-hearted tradesman was exhibiting his wares to Her
Majesty, when amid his commendations of them he contrived to introduce
his cousin’s name and condition, with some commiserating comment
upon his hard fate. The Queen was extremely judicious in her acts of
charity, and she simply told the mercer to send the master’s mate
down to Windsor, if he were well enough to bear the journey. The very
command was sovereign spermaceti to his wounds, and in a day or two the
sadly battered sailor was comfortably lodged at Windsor, the patient
of the Queen’s own surgeon and physician. He took some time to cure,
but the desired result was achieved at last, and the master’s mate now
stood in presence of the Queen to thank her, which the pale sailor
did with faltering expression of gratitude, for the royal benevolence
which had again made a man of him. To a query from the royal lady, he
protested that he felt perfectly equal for the performance of duty
again. ‘So I hear from the doctor,’ said Queen Charlotte. ‘And I have
spoken about you to the King, and there, Mr. Moore, is His Majesty’s
acknowledgments for your gallantry and sufferings when afloat.’ Mr.
Moore thought the Queen and King an exceedingly civil couple to say so
much about the performance of a matter of duty, and he was about to
retire from the presence, when the Queen said, smilingly, ‘Mr. Moore,
will not you see what His Majesty says?’ The master’s mate obeyed, and
was rewarded for his obedience by finding that he had been promoted to
a lieutenancy on board the _Mercury_. This was a good deed gracefully
enacted. Not less so was another of which the Queen was the author,
whereby she procured for the widow and large family of Captain Farmer,
who fell in the _Quebec_, an annuity which made really princely
provision for the widow and children of the slain commander.
The poets of 1779 were not addicted to satire, except in jest. Thus
one, in a rhymed dialogue, makes one of his interlocutors say to the
other--
I own your satire’s just and keen;
Proceed, and satirise the Queen.
To which the reply is--
With all my heart.--The Queen, they say,
Attends her nurs’ry every day;
And, like a common mother, shares
In all her infants’ little cares.
What vulgar, unamusing scene,
For George’s wife and Britain’s queen.
’Tis whispered also at the palace
(I hope ’tis but the voice of malice)
That (tell it not in foreign lands)
She works with her own royal hands;
And that our sovereign’s sometimes seen
In vest embroidered by his queen.
This might a courtly fashion be
In days of old Andromache;
But modern ladies, trust my words,
Seldom sew tunics for their lords.
What secret next must I unfold?
She hates, I’m confidently told--
She hates the manners of the times
And all our fashionable crimes,
And fondly wishes to restore
The golden age, and days of yore,
When silly, simple women thought
A breach of chastity a fault,
Esteem’d those modest things, divorces,
The very worst of human curses;
And deem’d assemblies, cards, and dice
The springs of every sort of vice.
Romantic notions! all the fair
At such absurdities must stare;
And, spite of all her pains, will still
Love routs, adultery, and quadrille.
Well, is that all you find to blame,
Sir Critic, in the royal dame?
All I could find to blame? no, truly!
The longest day in June and July
Would fail me ere I could express
The half of Charlotte’s blemishes.
Those foolish and old-fashioned ways
Of keeping holy Sabbath days,
That affectation to appear
At church, the Word of God to hear:
That poor-like plainness in her dress,
So void of noble tawdriness:
That affability and ease
That can her menial servants please,
But which incredibly demean
The state and grandeur of a queen:
These, and a thousand things beside,
I could discover and deride.
But here’s enough; another day
I may, perhaps, renew my lay.
Are you content?
Not quite, unless
You put your satire to the press.
For sure a satire in this mode
Is equal to a birthday ode.
No doubt of it! and much better written and applied than any of the
birthday odes of the period. The fact was, that if there were strong
prejudices, there were also simple virtues at court. The King would
have no ode sung to him, as his predecessors had, on New Year’s day;
and the Queen would not allow Twelfth Night to be celebrated by the
usually ruinous play at ‘hazard.’ No wonder the poets praised her.
The King loved Kew, and hated Hampton Court because George II. had once
struck him there. Of the royal domestic life at the former place a
contemporary observer has given a sketch, when the royal parents were
still young and their offspring still children:--
‘Their Majesties rise at 6 o’clock in the morning, and enjoy the two
succeeding hours in a manner which they call their own. At 8 o’clock
the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburg, the Princess Royal, and
the Princes William and Edward are brought from their respective
apartments to breakfast with their illustrious parents. At 9 o’clock
the younger children attend to lisp or smile their good-morrows; and
while the five eldest are closely applying to their tasks, the little
ones and their nurses pass the whole morning in Richmond Gardens.
The King and Queen frequently amuse themselves with sitting in the
room while the children dine, and once a week, attended by the whole
offspring in pairs, make the little delightful tour of Richmond
Gardens. In the afternoon, while the Queen works, the King reads to
her. In the evening all the children again pay their duty at Kew House
before they retire to bed, and the same order is observed through each
returning day. Exercise, air, and light diet are the grand fundamentals
in the King’s idea of health. His Majesty feeds chiefly on vegetables,
and drinks but little wine. The Queen is what many private gentlewomen
would call whimsically abstemious; for, at a table covered with dishes,
she prefers the plainest and simplest dish, and seldom eats of more
than two things at a meal. Her wardrobe is changed every three months;
and while the nobility are eager to supply themselves with foreign
trifles, her care is that nothing but what is English shall be provided
for her wear.’
CHAPTER V.
PERILS, PROGRESS, AND PASTIMES.
The American War--Dr. Dodd--The Duchess of Queensberry and the
‘Beggars’ Opera’--Royal Progress--Royal Visit to Bulstrode
--Mrs. Delany and Queen Charlotte--Birth of Prince Octavius
--Strange, the Engraver--The Riots of London--Lady Sarah
Lennox--The Prince and his Sire--The Prince’s Preceptors--
Errors committed in the education of the Princes--The Prince’s
favourite, Perdita Robinson--Marie Antoinette’s present to her
--Separate establishment granted to the Prince--Lord North’s
facetious remark--Parliamentary provision for the Prince--The
Prince’s presence in the House of Commons not acceptable--His
pursuit of pleasure--The Duke of Clarence described by Walpole
--The Prince of Wales overwhelmed with debts--Dissension in
the Royal Family--Marriage proposed to him to extricate him
from his debts--The Prince’s connection with Mrs. Fitzherbert
--The Prince’s Marriage disclaimed by Mr. Fox--The Prince’s
behaviour to Mrs. Fitzherbert--The Prince acknowledges his
Marriage to the Queen.
There had been, during the recent years of Charlotte’s married life, no
lack of either private or public trials and misfortunes. The struggles
of the government at home against the press had signally failed; and
that against the American colonies, wherein France, Spain, and Holland
were arrayed against England, ended in the acknowledgment, on our part,
of the independence of the United States. The unpopularity of the King,
who applied for and received 100,000_l._ per annum in addition to
the 400,000_l._ granted to him at his accession, was extended to the
Queen. The King was insulted by a female, said to be insane, as he was
proceeding in his chair to the Haymarket Theatre. This circumstance
rendered the Queen ill at ease for several days. Her sympathy could at
no time, however, induce the King to grant her a favour, if he thought
it was against his sense of right. Thus, few persons more interested
themselves to rescue the Reverend Dr. Dodd, the forger, from the hands
of the executioner, than Queen Charlotte. Her respect for the sacred
office was so great that it seemed to be something shocking that a
clergyman should be hanged. But George III. remarked that Dodd’s
offence was rendered the more grievous from the fact of his being a
clergyman, and that the law must take its course.
During the year 1778 many royal ‘progresses’ were made to the fleet,
to the fortified towns on the coast, to the various camps, and to the
mansions of the nobility. A general air of festivity was exhibited
about the Queen and court, but there was nothing in the condition of
the affairs of the kingdom to warrant the apparent joy. By sea and
land our flag, though not dishonoured, was not triumphant; and for the
moment the most unpopular man in the kingdom was the King himself--
obstinate in his determination to govern as well as reign, and daily
verging towards that disturbed state of mind which ended at last in
hopeless insanity.
Meanwhile, however, the home enjoyments of the court were placid and
unexciting. In her ‘progresses’ with the King, Charlotte was not
reluctant to maintain the state of a Queen. Her ideas on this subject
seem strange to us now. Thus, when she held a court in the old royal
city of Winchester, her costume consisted of a scarlet riding-habit,
faced with blue, and covered with rich gold embroidery. In the same
dress, with the addition of a black hat and a large cockade, she
accompanied the King on his visits to the various camps established
in the south. Nothing, however, could be more simple than the way
of life of this royal pair when really ‘at home.’ Its simplicity
extracted from a foreigner who witnessed it the remark that such
citizen-like plainness was injurious to royalty, and an encouragement
to republicanism.
Adopting as far as possible the descriptions of eye-witnesses of scenes
in which the sovereigns enacted the principal part, we will now turn
to the gossiping Mrs. Delany’s letters for the report of a visit made
in 1779 by the Queen and her royal consort and family to the Duke of
Portland’s, at Bulstrode. ‘The royal family,’ says the writer, ‘ten
in all, came to Bulstrode at twelve o’clock. The King drove the Queen
in an open chaise, with a pair of white horses. The Prince of Wales
and Prince Frederick rode on horseback; all with proper attendants,
but no guards. Princess Royal and Lady Weymouth in a post-chaise.
Princess Augusta, Princess Elizabeth, Prince Adolphus (about seven
years old), and Lady Charlotte Finch, in a coach. Prince William,
Prince Edward, Duke of Montague, and the Bishop of Lichfield, in a
coach; another coach full of attendant gentlemen; among others, Mr.
Smelt, whose character sets him above most men and does great honour
to the King, who calls him his friend, and has drawn him out of his
solitude (the life he had chosen), to enjoy his conversation every
leisure moment. These, with all their attendants in rank and file,
made a splendid figure as they drove through the park and round the
court, up to the house. The day was as brilliant as could be wished,
the 12th of August, the Prince of Wales’s birthday. The Queen was in
a hat, and in an Italian night-gown of purple lustring, trimmed with
silver gauze. She is graceful and genteel. The dignity and sweetness
of her manner, the perfect propriety of everything she says or does,
satisfies everybody she honours with her instructions so much that
beauty is by no means wanting to make her perfectly agreeable; and
though awe and long retirement from court made me feel timid on my
being called to make my appearance, I soon found myself perfectly at
ease; for the King’s conversation and good humour took off all awe but
what one must have for so respectable a character, severely tried by
his enemies at home as well as abroad. The three princesses were all
in frocks. The King and all the men were in uniform, blue and gold.
They walked through the great apartments, which are in a line, and
attentively observed everything, the pictures in particular. I kept
back in the drawing-room, and took that opportunity of sitting down,
when the Princess Royal returned to me and said the Queen missed me
in the train. I immediately obeyed the summons with my best alacrity.
Her Majesty met me half-way, and seeing me hasten my steps, called
out to me, “Though I desired you to come, I did not desire you to run
and fatigue yourself.” They all returned to the great drawing-room,
where there were only two arm-chairs, placed in the middle of the
room for the King and Queen. The King placed the Duchess Dowager of
Portland in his chair, and walked about, admiring the beauties of the
place. Breakfast was offered, all prepared in a long gallery that
runs the length of the great apartments (a suite of eight rooms and
three closets). The King and all his royal children and the rest of
the train chose to go to the gallery, where the well-furnished tables
were set, one with tea, coffee, and chocolate, another with their
proper accompaniments of eatables, rolls, cakes, &c. Another table with
fruits and ices in their utmost perfection, which with a magical touch
had succeeded a cold repast. The Queen remained in the drawing-room.
I stood at the back of her chair, which, happening to be one of my
working, gave the Queen an opportunity to say many obliging things.
The Duchess Dowager of Portland brought Her Majesty a dish of tea on a
waiter, with biscuits, which was what she chose. After she had drunk
her tea, she would not return her cup to the Duchess, but got up and
would carry it to the gallery herself; and was much pleased to see with
what elegance everything was prepared. No servants but those out of
livery made their appearance. The gay and pleasant appearance they all
made, and the satisfaction all expressed, rewarded the attention and
politeness of the Duchess of Portland, who is never so happy as when
she gratifies those she esteems worthy of her attentions and favours.
The young royals seemed quite happy, from the eldest to the youngest,
and to inherit the gracious manners of their parents. I cannot enter
upon their particular address to me, which not only did me honour,
but showed their humane and benevolent respect for old age. The King
desired me to show the Queen one of my books of plants. She seated
herself in the gallery, a table and a book laid before her. I kept my
distance till she called me to ask some questions about the mosaic
paper work; and as I stood before Her Majesty, the King set a chair
behind me. I turned with some confusion and hesitation on receiving
so great an honour, when the Queen said, “Mrs. Delany, sit down, sit
down; it is not every lady that has a chair brought her by a King.” So
I obeyed. Amongst many gracious things, the Queen asked me why I was
not with the Duchess when she came, for I might be sure she would ask
for me. I was flattered, though I knew to whom I was obliged for this
distinction, and doubly flattered by that. I acknowledged it in as few
words as possible, and said I was particularly happy at that moment to
pay my duty to Her Majesty, as it gave me an opportunity to see so many
of the royal family, which age and obscurity had deprived me of. “Oh,
but,” said Her Majesty, “you have not seen all my children yet.” Upon
which the King came up and asked what we were talking about, which
was repeated, and the King replied to the Queen, “You may put Mrs.
Delany in the way of doing that by naming a day for her to drink tea at
Windsor Castle.” The Duchess of Portland was consulted, and the next
day fixed upon, as the Duchess had appointed the end of the week for
going to Weymouth.’
In 1779 was born the short-lived Prince Octavius. Before the death of
this happy little Prince, Strange, the engraver, consented to engrave
his portrait. The Queen did not like the politics of the artist, for he
was the most determined Jacobite in the kingdom--except his wife. He
was so successful, however, with his ‘plate’ of Octavius, that George
III. knighted him; and even his wife thought the better of the ‘Elector
and Electress of Hanover’ for having made her what ‘the King over the
water’ had never thought of doing--Lady Strange.
The following year was that of the riots of London. While that popular
tumult was raging the King behaved with courage and common sense; and
the Queen, left almost entirely alone at Buckingham House with her
children, with equal calmness and intrepidity. The ‘ladies’ who _ought_
to have been in attendance had hurried homeward with their jewels. The
Queen did not lose heart at this desertion, but was amply comforted by
the frequent yet brief visits of the King, who spent two entire nights,
holding council with the heads of the army, in the Queen’s Riding House.
In the September of this year another prince, Alfred--who shared with
his brother Octavius the advantages of dying early--was added to the
family of George and Charlotte. This increase, perhaps, inspired her
with increase of sympathy for others. In the fall of this year she
very warmly seconded the project of Mr. Raikes for the foundation of
Sunday Schools. The project was sneered at, snubbed, and satirised by
a public who, however, were ultimately wise enough to be grateful.
In 1780, Walpole affords us a glimpse of the alleged rival of Queen
Charlotte in company with the Queen’s son. ‘The Prince of Wales has
lately made a visit to Lady Cecilia Johnstone, where Lady Sarah Napier
was.’ She was the Lady Sarah Lennox who had touched the heart of the
King some twenty years before. ‘She did not appear, but he insisted on
seeing her, and said, “She was to have been there,” pointing to Windsor
Castle. When she came down he said he did not wonder at his father’s
admiring her, and was persuaded she had not been more beautiful then.’
In 1781, at the age of nineteen, the Prince of Wales became ‘lord of
himself.’ His mother had been his first governess; and at eight years
of age he had been delivered by his father to Dr. Markham and Cyril
Jackson, with the injunction to treat him as they would any private
gentleman’s son, and to flog him whenever he deserved it. Markham acted
up to his instructions. The Prince never bore any ill-will to either
preceptor or sub-preceptor for their severity; but he took the earliest
opportunity of showing his antagonism against his father. In 1772, when
the struggle was going on between Wilkes and the crown--for such were
the real adversaries--the young Prince made his sire’s ears tingle
indignantly with the popular cry of ‘Wilkes and “forty-five” for ever!’
The young Prince’s preceptors were changed in 1776. Lord Bruce
became governor in place of Lord Holdernesse; but he retired almost
immediately, vexed, it is said, at the Prince having detected him
in the commission of a false quantity. Bishop Hurd and the Rev. Mr.
Arnold, under the superintendence of the oatmeal-porridge-loving Duke
of Montague, were now entrusted to impart what instruction they might
to the Prince and his next brother Frederick. They adopted the old
plan of severity; but on endeavouring to carry it into effect, when
the high-spirited boys were considerably advanced in their teens, one
or both of the royal pupils turned on their preceptor, Arnold, who
was about most grossly to castigate them, tore the weapon from his
hand, and roughly administered to him the punishment with which they
themselves had been threatened.
Excess of restraint marred the education of the two elder sons of
Charlotte. Even when the Prince was considered of age, and was allowed
his own establishment at Kew, the system of seclusion was still
maintained. Such a system had its natural consequences. The Prince, ill
at ease with his parents, sought sympathy elsewhere; and he was not
yet out of his teens when Charlotte was horrified at hearing his name
coupled with that of the most bewitching actress of the day.
Had the father of Miss Darby, the maiden name of Mrs. Robinson, been
a man of less philanthropic principles, his daughter, probably, would
have been a more virtuous and a more happy woman. She was born at
Bristol in 1758, and was looked upon as a little heiress, till her
father lost the whole of a not inconsiderable fortune by speculating in
an attempt to civilise the Esquimaux Indians!
Miss Darby was, for some time, a pupil of Miss Hannah More; but was
herself compelled to turn instructress as early as in her fourteenth
year. She was, however, a precocious beauty; and the year previous she
had received an offer of marriage, which she had declined. The young
teacher worked hard and cheerfully, in order that she might be the
better enabled to support her mother. The proceeds of this labour also
enabled her to increase the number of her own accomplishments; among
others, dancing. Her master was a Covent Garden ballet-master, who
introduced her to Garrick, and Roscius brought her out on the stage, in
the character of Cordelia with success.
Before she had terminated her sixteenth year she married Mr. Robinson,
an articled clerk in an attorney’s office, with a good fortune, upon
which the youthful couple lived in splendour till it was gone, and
the husband was arrested. His wife then spent fifteen months with him
in prison, and then misery drove her again to Garrick, who gave her
some instruction, rehearsed Romeo to her Juliet, and, bringing her out
in the latter character, gave to the stage one of the handsomest and
youngest and most captivating of actresses who had ever charmed the
town.
Her Juliet was admirable, but her Perdita, in the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ set
the town mad. On the 3rd of December 1779 she played the character in
presence of George III., Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, and
other members of the royal family, and a numerous audience. When she
entered the green-room, dressed for the part, she looked so bewitching
that Smith exclaimed, ‘By Jove! you will make a conquest of the Prince,
for you look handsomer than ever.’ Smith’s prediction was true; and
letters from the Prince, signed ‘Florizel,’ were delivered to Perdita
by no less noble a go-between than the Earl of Essex.
The position of Perdita Robinson at this time was peculiar: her
husband was living in profligacy upon the wages of her labour, and
she had refused the most brilliant offers made to her on condition of
separating from him. She refused them all; but lent too ready an ear to
the princely suitor, who now besieged her with indifferently-written
letters and promises of never-dying affection. An interview was
contrived, first in a boat moored off Kew, and afterwards in Kew
Gardens by moonlight, at which the Bishop of Osnaburgh was present--
by way of playing propriety, perhaps--and at which there appears to
have been little said, but much feared, lest the parties should be
found out.
The prince and Perdita became so attached to each other after a few
more interviews that _she_ declared she should never forget the
magic with which she was wooed, and _he_ presented her with a bond
for 20,000_l._, to be paid on his coming of age. When that period
arrived--it happened in a few months--‘Florizel’ would not pay the
money, and had grown weary of the lady. To modify her despair, he
granted a last interview, in which he declared that his affection
for her was as great as ever; and the poor lady, who trusted in the
declaration, was passed by on the following day, in the park, without
a sign of recognition on the part of her princely betrayer. The remark
which she made on this conduct was worthy of Talleyrand for its sting,
smartness, and application--but it is as well, perhaps, to leave it
unquoted.
She had quitted the stage to please him, and now, in her embarrassment,
sought refuge abroad, living in straitened circumstances in Paris,
till, by the intervention of Mr. Fox, an annuity was settled upon her
of 500_l._ a-year. With this she maintained some splendour, and she was
even noticed by Marie Antoinette as _La belle Anglaise_. The gift of a
purse netted by the royal hand of that unfortunate Queen, and conferred
by her on Perdita, showed at once the sovereign lady’s admiration and
lack of judgment and propriety.
For some time she resided alternately in England and France, but
ultimately, she settled at Brighton, about the time that Mrs.
Fitzherbert was there in the brightest of her beauty and the height
of her splendour. The ex-actress wrote pretty poetry, and was the
authoress of a dozen novels: poetry and romances are now forgotten;
but the former does not want for tenderness of sentiment and
expression, nor the latter for power and good sense. Finally, in 1799,
she undertook the poetical department of the _Morning Post_, retained
her office for a few months, and died in the year 1800.
Perdita was not without her grievous faults; but she had her virtues,
too. She was the loving and helping child of her mother, and she was
the loving and helping mother of her child. For her mother and her
daughter she worked at her literary occupations with unwearied fervour,
and even Hannah More may have refrained from casting reproach on her
erring and yet not worthless pupil.
In 1783 the Prince of Wales had allotted to him a separate
establishment. He could have none more appropriate than that old
Carlton House which had been the residence of his grandfather,
Frederick Prince of Wales--a man whom he resembled in many respects.
The old house was originally built on a part of the royal garden around
St. James’s Palace, a lease whereof was granted for that purpose by
Queen Anne to Henry Boyle, Lord Carlton. This was in 1709. Sixteen
years subsequently, on the death of Lord Carlton, the house was
occupied by his heir and nephew, Richard Boyle (Lord Burlington, the
architect), who seven years later (1732) gave it to his mother, the
Dowager Lady Burlington, by whom, in the same year, it was made over
to Frederick Prince of Wales, father of George III. The gardens, laid
out by Kent, like Pope’s grounds at Twickenham, extended westward as
far as Marlborough House. The first change that Frederick made was to
construct a bowling-green, the healthy exercise of bowls being then
fashionable; and he inaugurated his entry by a grand ball, given, as
the _Daily Post_ says, ‘to several persons of quality and distinction
of both sexes.’
George Prince of Wales found the old house rather antiquated as to
fashion and dilapidated as to condition, and he employed Holland, the
architect, to correct these defects. The artist did that, and more. He
added the Ionic screen, some of the pillars of which are now in Queen
Charlotte’s favourite gardens at Kew, and the Corinthian portico,
the columns of which, when the house was taken down in 1827, were
transferred to the National Gallery. On the two residences of the two
eldest sons of Queen Charlotte, Southey, in his ‘Espriella’s Letters,’
has a remark worth quoting. The Duke of York’s mansion (Melbourne
House, Whitehall), now known as Dover House, was distinguished by a
circular court, which served as a sort of entrance-hall. It still
remains, and may be seen from the street. The distinguishing feature
of Carlton House was the row of pillars in front. ‘These two buildings
being described to the late Lord North, who was blind in the latter
part of his life, he facetiously remarked, “Then the Duke of York, it
should seem, has been sent to the round-house, and the Prince of Wales
is put in the pillory.”’
Meanwhile, despite the Prince’s escapades, the least innocent of which
was his visiting a Quaker’s meeting disguised as a female Friend--
where he was betrayed by the appearance of his leather breeches,
seen through the pocket-hole of the gown--despite these and other
escapades, the Queen’s affection for her son was in no wise diminished.
In 1782 she had brought tambouring into fashion by embroidering for
him, with her own hands, a waistcoat, which he wore at the first ball
at which his sister, the princess royal, appeared in public. The Queen,
however, had more serious subjects for her consideration. She had
to mourn over the death of the infant Alfred, and for the loss of a
sister. We find also, this year, the first direct proof of her having
interfered in politics. It was in 1782 that Charlotte commissioned
Hutten, the Moravian, to enter into correspondence with Franklin, with
a view of conciliating matters with the United States.
The eldest son of Queen Charlotte began life very amply provided for;
Parliament gave him 100,000_l._ as an outfit, and 50,000_l._ annually
by way of income. Three months after the birth of his youngest sister,
Amelia, in November 1783, he took his seat in the House of Peers,
joined the opposition, gave himself up to the leading of the opposition
chiefs, whether in politics or vices, was praised by the people for his
spirit, and estranged from the King, who did not like the principles of
those who called themselves his son’s friends, and who held in horror
the vices and follies for which they were distinguished. He was as
often present under the gallery of the Commons as in his seat in the
Lords. Such a presence is never acceptable, in such a place, to the
representatives of the people. It perhaps influences the votes, and
certainly affects the liberty of debate. As much was hinted to the
Prince, when he used to watch the struggle in the Commons between the
Coalition and Pitt. He made the hint his excuse for being disgusted
with politics, and thereupon devoted himself to but one pursuit--the
love of pleasure. But if he had only one pursuit, it had many varieties
and objects. He hunted after what was called ‘pleasure’ in every form,
squandered fortunes in not finding it, and made what he called ‘love’
and extraordinary presents to two ladies at one and the same time. Mrs.
Crouch, the actress, and Mrs. Fitzherbert (whom he married), were the
Lucy and Polly to whom this light-of-heart prince gaily sang his ‘How
happy could I be with either!’
Walpole speaks very highly (in 1783) of the Prince’s brother, William
Henry, whom he met at Gunnersbury, the suburban seat of the old
Princess Amelia. ‘He had been with the Princess in the morning,’
writes Walpole, ‘and returned of his own accord to dinner. She
presented me to him, and I attempted, at the risk of tumbling on my
nose, to kiss his hand, but he would not let me. You may trust me,
madam, who am not apt to be intoxicated with royalty, that he is
charming. Lively, cheerful, talkative, manly, well-bred, sensible, and
exceedingly proper in all his replies. You may judge how good-humoured
he is, when I tell you that he was in great spirits all day, though
with us old women; perhaps he thought it preferable to Windsor.’
The Prince of Wales was already overwhelmed with debt. The domestic
comfort of the Queen was even more disturbed than that of her consort
by the solicitations made by the so-called friends of the Prince of
Wales to induce the King to pay the debts of his eldest son. Her
Majesty’s confidence is said to have been fully placed at this time
upon Mr Pitt. A conversation is spoken of as having passed between the
Queen and the minister, in which he is reported as having said, ‘I much
fear, your Majesty, that the Prince, in his wild moments, may allow
expressions to escape him that may be injurious to the crown.’ ‘There
is little fear of that,’ was the alleged reply of the Queen; ‘he is too
well aware of the consequences of such a course of conduct to himself.
As regards that point, therefore, I can rely upon him.’ Mr. Pitt
inquired if her Majesty was aware of the intimacy which then existed
between Mrs. Fitzherbert and the heir-apparent, and that reports of an
intended marriage were current? ‘He is now so much embarrassed,’ added
the minister, ‘that at the suggestion of his friend Sheridan he borrows
large amounts from a Jew who resides in town, and gives his bonds for
much larger amounts than he receives.’
In the family dissensions caused by this unhappy subject neither
sire nor son behaved with fairness and candour. In 1784, the Prince
had been required to send in an exact account of his debts, with a
view to their liquidation. The King had, at least, intimated that
he would discharge the Prince’s liabilities if this account was
rendered. The account _was_ rendered; but, after having been kept for
months, it was returned as not being exact. The inexactness of this
statement consisted of an item of 25,000_l._ being entered without
any explanation as to whom it was owing. The Prince refused to make
such explanation, on the ground that it was a secret of honour between
him and his noble creditor, in whom many persons affected to see the
famous, or infamous, Duke of Orleans. The King declared that, if the
Prince was ashamed to explain the nature of the debt, his father ought
not to be expected to pay it; and there the matter rested.
By the following year his debts amounted to 160,000_l._, and he could
see no chance of relief but by going abroad. His first idea was of
a residence in Holland, and he was ready to proceed thither as a
private individual, should the King refuse to consent to his leaving
England. All that he wished for, according to his own declarations,
was to economise, to live in retirement, and remain unknown, until
he could appear in a style suitable to his rank. He complained of
the unreasonableness of the King’s proposition, that he should lay
by 10,000_l._ a-year to pay his debts, at a time, he said, when his
expenses were twice as great as his income. Such complaint could
only come from a radically dishonest man; for it is only such a man
who, with an income on which he could very well afford to live--and
spare--could complacently talk of even allowing his expenses to exceed
his revenue.
The Prince affected to think that he might, perhaps, be able to live in
retirement at some of the small German courts, fancying that, under
the title of the Earl of Chester, his actions would not be judged of as
those of a Prince of Wales. At all events, he declared that to live in
England would be ruin and disgrace to him; for that the King hated him,
wished to set him at variance with his brothers, and would not even let
Parliament assist him till he should marry. The King’s hatred for his
son, according to the latter, had existed from the time he was seven
years old. Reconciliation was deemed by the Prince impossible; for
his father, he said, had not only deceived him, but made him deceive
others. The son could not trust the father, and the father had no
belief in the veracity of the son.
The ministry were not disinclined, at this time, to increase the
Prince’s allowance, provided only that he would appropriate some
portion of it to the payment of his debts, renounce his project of
going abroad, and consent to a reconciliation with the King, by ceasing
to be a man of political party in opposition to the government. The
sum proposed was 100,000_l._ per annum, the half of which was to be
reserved for the payment of his debts. The Prince describes the offer
as useless, inasmuch as that, though the ministry might sanction it,
the King would not hear of it, and Pitt could not carry such a measure
in Parliament. The Prince asserted his belief that so rooted was his
father’s hatred of him that he would turn out Pitt if he ventured to
propose such a measure. Further, the Prince refused to abandon Fox
and his other political friends. Lord Malmesbury was very anxious to
bring the Prince to terms; but the latter still dwelt upon the bitter
paternal hatred. In proof of this he exhibited to Lord Malmesbury
copies of the correspondence which had passed between himself and his
royal sire on the subject. Lord Malmesbury thus describes the letters,
and the spirit which animated the writers:--
‘The Prince’s letters were full of respect and deference, written with
great plainness of style and simplicity. Those of the King were also
well written, but hard and severe; constantly refusing every request
the Prince made, and reprobating in each of them his extravagance and
dissipated manner of living. They were void of every expression of
parental kindness or affection, and after both hearing them read and
perusing them myself, I was compelled to subscribe to the Prince’s
opinion, and to confess there was very little appearance of making any
impression upon His Majesty in favour of His Royal Highness.’
Lord Malmesbury suggested that, as the Queen must have much at heart
the bringing about a reconciliation between her son and his father,
such might surely be effected through her and his sisters. The Prince
thought it impracticable, and only wished that the public knew all
the truth and could judge between him and his sire, anticipating a
favourable verdict for himself, which, however, the public would not
have given even when in possession of all the facts.
Lord Malmesbury then suggested a means of escape from all difficulties
by a marriage which would at once reconcile the King and gratify the
nation. The Prince, however, emphatically declared that he would never
marry; that he had settled that subject with his brother Frederick;
and that his resolution was irrevocable. Lord Malmesbury combated such
a resolution, but the Prince remained unconvinced. He owed nothing,
he said, to the King. Frederick would marry, and his children would
inherit the crown. His adviser suggested that a bachelor King, as
he would be, would have less hold on the affections of the people
than a married heir and father of children, as his brother would
be. ‘The Prince was greatly struck with this observation. He walked
about the room apparently angry;’ but, after a few friendly words of
explanation, the interlocutors separated, and the scene was at an end.
At the time the Prince said he never would marry he had in his
mind that serious marriage which he already had formed with Mrs.
Fitzherbert. We may add, with respect to this union and the character
of the Prince as a lover, a few words on the authority of Lord Holland.
Never did swain make love so absurdly as the Prince of Wales. For the
‘first gentleman in Europe,’ he was the greatest simpleton, under the
influence of ‘passion,’ that ever existed. When he was not silly, he
was mean, and he sometimes was both, and heartless to boot, even when
he most prattled of the heart-anguish he endured. To Perdita Robinson
he was little better than a mere bilking knave. In presence of the
majestic Mrs. Fitzherbert he was an undignified coxcomb. He insulted
her virtue with proposals which even princes ought not to dare to make
without bringing personal chastisement upon themselves. Finding his
offers declined, and that the lady was going abroad, he acted, and
declared he felt, the utmost despair. But his despair was farcical.
He went down to his friends the Foxes, at St. Anne’s, where he ‘cried
by the hour, testified the sincerity and violence of his passion and
despair by the most extravagant expressions and actions, rolling on the
floor, striking his forehead, tearing his hair, falling into hysterics,
and swearing he would abandon the country, forego the crown, sell his
jewels and plate, and scrape together a competency, to fly with the
object of his affections to America.’
The lady proceeded to the continent, but returned in 1785. She came
more prepared to listen to the Prince’s wooing than when she left.
He now proposed a marriage, but she knew that, she being a Romanist,
such a marriage could not be legal. Indeed, it was illegal for any
prince of the blood to marry without the King’s consent, before he had
attained the age of twenty-five. After that time he was to notify his
intention to Parliament, and if that body did not move the King to
withhold his consent within a year, the marriage then might be entered
upon. Mrs. Fitzherbert, however, frankly enough said that the ceremony
would be all nonsense, and that she was ready to trust to his honour.
He insisted, however, and the ceremony was duly performed by an English
clergyman. After the solemnisation, the certificate was signed by the
clergyman and attested by two witnesses, said to have been Catholics.
Mrs. Fitzherbert retained the certificate; but out of a generous fear
that harm might come to the witnesses if they should become known she
tore off their names. The name of the clergyman (who died before George
IV. ascended the throne) remains affixed to the document.
Mr. Fox was _not_ present at this ceremony, but reports were so
current as to its being about to take place, or to its having taken
place, that he addressed to the Prince a very long, a very strong,
and a very sensible letter, of which a rough copy (from Fox’s MS.)
will be found in Lord Holland’s ‘Memoirs of the Whig Party.’ In this
manly letter the writer points out the madness of such a scheme,
the terrible consequences that might ensue, the illegality of the
manner, and the possibility, should the Prince enter subsequently
into a legal matrimonial union, and there being issue by both, of a
disputed succession. He advised, argued, did all that a bold man and
honest friend could do to warn the Prince against this union, which,
as we before mentioned, was currently reported to have taken place.
The Prince, in reply, declared that his ‘dear Charles’ might ‘make
himself easy, as there not only is, but never was, any grounds for
such reports.’ Armed with this authority, Fox denied in Parliament, on
the warrant of the Prince, the assertion of such a union having taken
place. The wretched liar who had driven him to assert unconsciously a
falsehood was now exposed to a double torment. Mrs. Fitzherbert was
angry at the public denial, supposing it to be unauthorised, and urged
the Prince to have it announced. The latter prevaricated and promised;
appealed to Grey, confessing his marriage, and, when Grey would have
nothing to do with it, appealing to Sheridan; the latter made a few
remarks in the House wide of the real object, and the marriage remained
denied, to the great annoyance of the lady, who continued to be
respectfully treated by the royal family. These, if they disbelieved
the existence of the connection, must have looked upon Mrs. Fitzherbert
as being less worthy of their respect than before. The truth, however,
is, that their respect was chiefly manifested when Mrs. Fitzherbert
separated herself from her most worthless husband. Documents proving
the marriage (long in the possession of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s family)
have been, since June 1833, actually deposited, by agreement between
the executors of George IV. (the Duke of Wellington and Sir William
Knighton) and the nominees of Mrs. Fitzherbert (Lord Albemarle
and Lord Stourton), at Coutts’s bank, in a sealed box, bearing a
superscription:--‘The property of the Earl of Albemarle; but not to be
opened by him without apprising the Duke of Wellington,’ or words to
that purport.[1]
The author of the Diary illustrative of the court of George IV.,
referring to the time when the eldest son of Queen Charlotte was
subdued by the fascinations of Mrs. Fitzherbert, says that the lady in
question ‘had a stronger hold over the Regent than any of the other
objects of his admiration, and that he always paid her the respect
which her conduct commanded.’ She was styled by those who knew her ‘the
most faultless and honourable mistress that ever a prince had the good
fortune to be attached to’--a judgment which abounds in a confusion
of terms, and exhibits mental perversion in him who pronounced it.
Of the Regent’s behaviour to the lady, it may be said that it was as
gallant and considerate at first as it was mean and censurable at last.
In the early days of their intimacy, when they appeared together at
the same parties and were on the point of leaving them, ‘the Prince
never forgot to go through the form of saying to Mrs. F., with a most
respectful bow, “Madam, may I be allowed the honour of seeing you
home in my carriage?”’ ‘It was impossible,’ says the same authority,
‘to be in his Royal Highness’s society and not be captivated by the
extreme fascination of his manners, which he inherits from his mother
the Queen; for his father has every virtue which can adorn a private
character as well as make a king respectable, but he does not excel in
courtly grace or refinement.’
It should be added, that the intelligence no sooner reached the ears of
the Queen than she commanded the attendance of her son, and insisted
on knowing the whole truth. The Prince is declared not only to have
acknowledged the fact of the marriage, but to have asserted that no
power on earth should separate him from his wife. He is reported to
have added, in reference to the King’s alleged marriage with Hannah
Lightfoot, that his father would have been a happier man had he
remained firm in standing by the legality of his own marriage. It would
be difficult to say who was at hand to take down the Prince’s speech
on this occasion; but, according to the author last named, it was
substantially as follows:--‘But I beg farther that my wife be received
at court, and proportionately as your Majesty receives her, and pays
her attention from this time, so shall I render my attentions to your
Majesty. The lady I have married is worthy of all homage, and my very
confidential friends, with some of my wife’s relations only, witnessed
our marriage. Have you not always taught me to consider myself heir to
the first sovereignty in the world? Where then will exist any risk of
obtaining a ready concurrence from the House in my marriage? I hope,
madam, a few hours’ reflection will satisfy you that I have done my
duty in following the impulse of my inclinations, and, therefore, I
await your Majesty’s commands, feeling assured you would not blast the
happiness of your favourite prince.’ The Queen is said to have been
softened by his rather illogical reasoning. It is certain that her
Majesty received Mrs. Fitzherbert at a drawing-room in the following
year with very marked courtesy.
Sixteen years later, and of course long after the marriage of the
Prince of Wales with Caroline of Brunswick, Mrs. Fitzherbert was still
so high in the Prince’s favour that we find the following record in
Lord Malmesbury’s Diary, under the date of May 25, 1803:--‘Duke of
York came to me at five, uneasy lest the Duchess should be forced to
sup at the same table as Mrs. Fitzherbert, at the ball to be given by
the Knights of the Bath, on the 1st of June. Talks it over with me--
says the King and Queen will not hear of it. On the other side, he
wishes to keep on terms with the Prince. I say, I will see Lord Henley,
who manages the _fête_, and try to manage it so that there shall be
two distinct tables, one for the Prince, to which _he_ is to invite,
another for the Duke and Duchess, to which _she_ is to invite her
company.’ The dislike of Mrs. Fitzherbert for the Duchess of York was
as determined as that entertained by the same lady against Fox, whom
she never forgave for denying the fact of her marriage with the Prince.
The Prince’s pecuniary embarrassments pressed more heavily upon
him than the troubles arising from his amours. The Prince, in his
difficulties, again had recourse to the Queen. He revealed to her the
amount of both his difficulties and debts, and reports credited him
with having uttered a menace to the effect that, if the King failed to
provide some means for the payment of those debts, there were State
secrets which he would certainly reveal, whatever the consequences
might be, as, suffering as he did from the treatment he met at his
father’s hands, he was an object of suspicion or contempt to half the
kingdom. The Queen would not engage herself by any promise, but she
sent for Mr. Pitt. After this last interview the minister repaired to
Carlton House, and the message he bore showed the amount of influence
possessed by the Queen. The Prince was assured that means would be
found for the discharge of his liabilities. The King promised an
additional 10,000_l._ a year out of the civil list, and Parliament
subsequently voted the sum of 161,000_l._ to discharge the debts of the
Prince, with an additional sum of 20,000_l._ to finish the repairs of
Carlton Palace. That mansion had been dull and silent, but it was soon
again brilliant, and gaily echoing with the most festive of sounds.
CHAPTER VI.
COURT FORMS AND COURT FREEDOMS.
Loss of the American Colonies--Political Struggle--The King’s
health unsatisfactory--Life of the Royal Family at Windsor--
Mrs. Delany--The Queen and the Widow--Early service in the
Chapel Royal at Windsor--Rev. Tom Twining and Miss Burney--
Miss Burney’s Reception by the Queen--Promenade of the Royal
Family on the terrace--The Queen’s ‘dressing’--The Queen’s
partiality for Snuff--Country life of the Royal Family at Kew
--Princess Amelia; the King’s great affection for her--Scene
on the birthday of the Princess--Margaret Nicholson’s attempt
to assassinate the King--The Queen’s dread--Her fondness for
Diamonds--Mrs. Warren Hastings--The present from the Nizam
of the Deccan--Unpopularity of the King and Queen--Their
affection for each other--The Queen’s tenderness to Mrs. Delany
--Reconciliation of the King and the Prince--A pleasant scene
--Another Court Incident.
The loss of the American Colonies, and the triumph of Lord North and
Fox, two men whom the King hated, and who forced an Administration upon
him, had, in various degrees, a serious effect upon his health. He
became dejected, but when Fox’s India Bill was thrown out by the Lords
he had the firmness--a firmness suggested by the Queen--to turn the
obnoxious Cabinet out. Pitt succeeded as prime minister, and no one saw
him in that post with greater pleasure than Charlotte.
She continued to support both King and Minister through the tremendous
political struggle which followed, and during which Pitt more than once
expressed his determination to resign. ‘In such case I must resign
too,’ said the King, adding that he would sooner retire with the
Queen to Hanover than submit to a ministry whose political principles
he detested. The public admired his firmness, and for a season he
was again popular--popular, but not safe. His health was in an
unsatisfactory state; and it was at a season when he required to be
kept in a state of composure that an attempt was made to stab him by an
insane woman named Nicholson, as he was leaving St. James’s Palace by
the garden entrance, on the 2nd of August, 1786. As he received a paper
which she presented, the woman stabbed at him, but with no worse result
than piercing his waistcoat.
Before we show how the news of this attempt was received at Windsor,
where the Queen was then sojourning, we may glance briefly at the
nature of the life passed there. It was generally of a pleasing aspect.
The benevolence of the Queen and her consort was well illustrated in
their conduct to Mrs. Delany. The lady in question was a Granville by
birth, and in the first flush of her youth and beauty had been married,
against her inclination, to a middle-aged squire, named Pendarves, who
was much like what middle-aged squires were in those not very refined
days. Mr. and Mrs. Pendarves passed much such a life as that described
by the young Widow Cheerly as having been that of herself and the
squire, her lord; and the lady, too, became a widow almost as early.
She was, however, of mature age when she married her old and esteemed
acquaintance, Dr. Delany, the friend of Swift. After being a second
time a widow, she found a home with the Dowager-duchess of Portland,
and when death deprived her of this friend also she found a new home
and new friends in Queen Charlotte and King George. They assigned to
her a house in Windsor Park, in the fitting-up of which both Queen and
King took great personal interest, and the former settled upon her an
annuity of 300_l._ When the good old lady went down to take possession
of her new habitation the King was there ready to receive her, like a
son establishing a mother in a new home. His courtesy was felt, and it
was of the right sort, for while it brought him there to welcome the
new guest, it would not allow him to stay there to embarrass her. With
similar delicacy, when the Queen came down to visit her new neighbour,
she put her at once at her ease by her own affability; and when, before
leaving, she placed in Mrs. Delany’s hands the paper signed by the
King, and authorising her to draw her first half-year of her little
revenue, it was done with a grace which prevented the object of it from
feeling that she was reduced to the condition of a pensioner.
These parties remained, as long as Mrs. Delany lived, on terms of as
much equality as could exist between persons so different in rank. In
Mrs. Delany’s little parlour the Queen would frequently take tea. It
was a social banquet in which she delighted; and years afterwards,
in her old age, she was as fond of going down to Datchet to take tea
with Lord James Murray (afterwards Lord Glenlyon, grandfather of the
present Duke of Athol) as she was at this early period of enjoying
the same ‘dish’ with the fine old ‘gentlewoman’ who was her most
grateful pensioner. Queen and widow corresponded with each other,
lived as ladies in the country who esteem each other are accustomed
to live; and when the doctor’s relict had not what was to her, good
old soul, the supreme bliss of entertaining the Queen, she enjoyed
the inexpressible felicity of receiving at tea the young princes and
princesses. A riotous, romping, good-natured group these made; and many
a sore headache they must have inflicted on the aged lady, who was too
loyal to be anything but proud of such an infliction incurred in such a
cause.
The letters of Queen Charlotte to her ‘dear friend’ are on small
subjects, expressed in a small way, and terminating with a mixture of
condescension and dignity, with good wishes from ‘your affectionate
Queen.’
Mrs. Delany speaks in her own letters with well-warranted praise of
one circumstance which marked the routine of royal life at Windsor.
Every morning throughout the year, at eight o’clock, the Queen, leaning
on the King’s arm, led her family procession to the Chapel Royal,
for the purpose of attending early morning prayer. One of the most
pleasing features in the Queen’s routine of daily life was to be found
in this exemplary practice of hers. The Queen never forced any one to
follow her example; she left it to the consciences of all. She was
independent, too, in her opinions, and though she joined fervently
with the King in the prayer, ‘Give peace in our time, O Lord!’ and
acknowledged (with more truth than the stereotyped expression itself
would seem to convey--so illogical is it with its impertinent
‘because’) that none other fought for us but God alone, yet would she
not remain silent, as the King invariably did, when the Athanasian
Creed was being repeated. That awful and overwhelming judicatory
denunciation at the close shocked the mind of the monarch whose own
penal laws, however, were the most sanguinary in Europe. The Queen, as
is the case with most ladies in church matters, had less mercy, and she
heartily joined in the sentence which so stringently winds up the creed
which, after all, was _not_ written by Athanasius.
When the Rev. Tom Twining heard that the celebrated Miss Burney was
about to be dresser and reader to the Queen, he exclaimed, ‘What a fine
opportunity you will have of studying the philosophy of human capacity
in the highest _sphere_ of life!’ ‘Goodness me! madam!’ he exclaims,
admiringly; ‘are you to take care of the robes yourself?’ Miss Burney
hardly knew what she would have to do or what her opportunities might
be, but she was not long in acquiring the knowledge in question.
Indeed, she picked up much acquaintance with court routine on the first
day of her arrival at the Queen’s lodge. She found a royal mistress
who was extremely anxious to calm the fluttering agitation of her
new attendant, and who received her, if not as a friend, yet in no
respect as a servant. Gracious as was the reception, the young lady was
not sorry to escape to the dinner-table of the ladies and gentlemen
in waiting. How graphically does she describe the German officer
there who was in waiting on the Queen’s brother, Prince Charles of
Mecklenburgh: ‘He could never finish a speech he had begun, if a new
dish made its appearance, without stopping to feast his eyes upon it,
exclaim something in German, and suck the inside of his mouth; but all
so openly, and with such perfect good-humour, that it was diverting
without being distasteful.’ The old ceremonious forms had not yet
become quite extinct at court. Men did not kneel on serving the Queen,
but they never sat down in her presence. How they contrived to dine
comfortably at the royal table defies conjecture, if the following
paragraph is to be taken literally: ‘I find it has always belonged
to Mrs. Swellenburgh and Mrs. Haggerdorn to receive at tea whatever
company the King or Queen invite to the lodge, as it is only a very
select few that can eat with their Majesties, and those few are only
ladies; no man, of what rank soever, being permitted to sit in the
Queen’s presence.’ The royal table must then have been the dullest
in the palace; and no wonder it is that bishops, peers, officers,
_and_ gentlemen enjoyed themselves so thoroughly, in less dignity and
more comfort, with the maids of honour and ladies of less official
greatness.
Nothing was, indeed, more homely and hearty than the promenades made
by the illustrious couple, their children all about them, on the
terrace, of an evening, or when they assembled in the concert-room,
where ‘nothing was played but Handel.’ The time was a transition
time; feudality was growing faint, and the best of kings were losing
their prestige of infallibility. Still there was much of ceremony
both at bed and board; that of the latter has been already mentioned.
That at bed-time was not so cumbersome as the ceremony observed at
the _coucher_ of Marie Antoinette, but it was still of a high and
ponderous, yet affectionate, formality. The Queen was handed into her
dressing-room by the King, followed by the Princess Royal and the
Princess Augusta. The King, on leaving the room, kissed his daughters,
who in their turn ceremoniously kissed their royal mother’s hand, and
bade her ‘good-night.’ This done, the Queen placed herself in the hands
of her ‘women,’ who, in as brief a time as was consistent with the
dignity of her whom they tended, fitted the royal lady for repose. The
Queen paid, with a formal curtsey, every sign of respect, by whomsoever
offered her, as she passed along.
It is said that Burnet introduced the fashion of high-partitioned
pews in the Chapel Royal to prevent the flirting that was constantly
going on between the officers and maids of honour. Upon some plea for
decorum, rather than because of offence, Queen Charlotte had appointed
separate tables for the ladies and gentlemen in waiting; but as she did
not forbid them to invite each other, or, as was very often the case
with the gentlemen, to invite themselves, the division of tables was
only nominally maintained.
The Queen’s ‘dressing,’ deprived as it was of some of the ceremonies
of an olden time, was nevertheless not without its formality. Her new
‘dresser,’ Miss Burney, was not always in time, disliked at first,
but wisely got over her dislike, being summoned by a bell, and was so
nervous as to mar her services. No maid was permitted to remain in the
apartment during the time the Queen was ‘tiring.’ One lady dresser
handed to the other the portions of dress required. ‘’Tis fortunate
for me,’ says Miss Burney, ‘I have not the handing of them. I should
never know which to take first, embarrassed as I am, and should run a
prodigious risk of giving the gown before the hoop, and the fan before
the neck-kerchief.’
The actual ‘dressing for the day’ took place at one o’clock, and
included the then elaborate matter of powdering. Till the hair-dresser
was admitted for the completion of this last matter, the Queen, while
being dressed, read the newspapers; but when the powderer came she
dismissed the attendants, who had previously covered her up in a
peignoir, and was then left alone with the artist, who must have looked
very ridiculous in casting, as the Queen must have looked in receiving,
the impenetrable clouds of powder which he continued to fling at and
about the royal head. But there was another sort of powder patronised
by the Queen--the mother of George IV. condescended to take snuff.
In the admixture and scent of this she was curiously learned; and Miss
Burney filled her boxes and damped the contents when they had got too
dry, to her great satisfaction.
There is a fashion in country-towns observed by ladies who go out in
chairs to parties, consisting in their carrying with them some portion
of their dress, to be adjusted at the locality where they are about to
spend the evening. This fashion, too, is a relic of the days of Queen
Charlotte. ‘On court days,’ says Miss Burney, ‘the Queen dresses her
head at Kew, and puts on her drawing-room apparel at St. James’s. Her
new attendant dresses all at Kew, except tippet and long ruffles,
which she carries in paper to save from dusty roads.’ It was the
etiquette at St. James’s that the finishing of the Queen’s dressing
there should be the work of the bedchamber-woman. It consisted of
little more than tying the necklace, handing the fan and gloves, and
bearing the Queen’s train as she left the room. This she did alone,
only as far as the anteroom; there the lady of the bedchamber became
the ‘first trainbearer,’ and the poor Queen had two annoyances to put
up with instead of one.
From the cumbrous ceremonies of St. James’s the Queen was glad enough
to escape to Kew. At the latter place, indeed, ceremony, as far as the
royal family was concerned, was left outside the gates. The sovereigns
were thoroughly ‘at home,’ and the Queen enjoyed a ‘country life,’ not
as Marie Antoinette did, a dairymaid in diamonds, at Trianon, but as a
simple English country lady. The foreigners who visited the court at
this time were disgusted by the republican look which it wore. It was
simple and plain enough, at Kew that is, to have pleased even Franklin.
The King was really there what he was popularly called everywhere,
‘Farmer George;’ the Queen was his true dame, the plainest of the
plain things around her. The children--that is, the younger portion
of them--were as unaffected as their parents, and the little Princess
Amelia was the fairy of the place, if one may speak of a fairy in
connection with farming. However grave the King might look, through
pressure of public events, the little hand of the Princess Amelia,
placed by the Queen in his, always touched his heart, and a look into
the child’s eyes ever brought a smile into his own. Never daughter more
closely nestled in a father’s heart than Amelia did in that of George
III. The Queen loved, but the King adored her. At Kew, father and child
appeared more unrestrained in the hearty demonstrations of their love
than elsewhere. Indeed, everything at Kew was free and unrestrained;
and it was no offence there if any of the attendants _did_ pass a room
the door of which was open and somebody royal within. In France, they
who desired to enter an apartment in which the Queen was, scratched,
but never knocked, at the door. In England, at least in Queen
Charlotte’s time, the etiquette was also not to knock at, but to shake
the handle of, the door. Another ceremony was observed in order to
_avoid_ ceremony. When royal birthdays occurred during the Queen’s stay
at Windsor the family walked on the terrace, which was crowded with
people of distinction, who took that mode of showing respect, to avoid
the trouble and fatigue of attending at the following drawing-room.
Here is a scene on the birthday of the Princess Amelia, drawn by one
who was present:--
‘It was really a mighty pretty procession. The little Princess, just
turned three years old, in a robe-coat covered with fine muslin, a
dressed closed cap, white gloves, and a fan, walked on alone and first,
highly delighted in the parade, and turning from side to side to see
everybody as she passed; for all the terracers stand up against the
walls to make a clear passage for the royal family the moment they come
in sight. Then follow the King and Queen, no less delighted themselves
with the joy of their little darling.’[2]
The Princess Royal, at this time, is said to have shown more respect
and humility to her parents than any of the other children of the
family. She passed on in this birthday procession, accompanied by
ladies, and her sisters, similarly accompanied, followed her. Happy
were they to whom Queen or King addressed a few words as they stopped
on their way; and astounded were the adorers of etiquette when they saw
the little Princess Amelia, on recognising Miss Burney, not only go up
to kiss her, but actually kissed by her. The Queen herself was probably
more surprised than pleased. But it was a birthday! At other seasons
etiquette was so rigidly observed (always excepting at Kew) that the
children of the royal family never spoke in the presence of the King
and Queen, except to answer observations made to them. The Queen, too,
as well as she was able, watched over the religious education of her
daughters, and always assembled them around her to listen to a course
of religious reading by herself. This she did with gravity and good
judgment, as became indeed a woman of ordinary good sense.
We have already, incidentally, noticed the attempt made upon the life
of the King by Margaret Nicholson. The attack was not known to the
Queen till it was announced to her by the King in person. As soon as
the poor mad woman had been arrested, the Spanish ambassador posted
down to Windsor, to be in readiness to inform her Majesty of the truth,
in case of any exaggerated reports reaching her ear. When the King
entered the Queen’s apartment at Windsor, on his return from London, he
wore a rather joyous air, and exclaimed, in a naturally joyous tone,
‘Well, here I am, safe and well, though I have had a very narrow escape
of being stabbed.’ The consternation in the family circle was great;
several of the ladies burst into tears, for every one was fond of
George III., albeit he was accused of Stuart fondness for the exercise
of kingly prerogative. The Queen alone did not at first weep, but pale
and agitated she turned round to those who did, and said that she
envied them. The relief of tears, however, soon comparatively restored
her, and she was enabled, with some outward show of calmness, to
listen to the King’s details of the occurrence. Into these he entered
with the hilarity of a man whose feelings are naturally not very finely
strung, but who is strongly persuaded that escape from assassination is
rather a matter to be jocund than solemn over. He did not want for a
sense of gratitude at his escape, but nothing could prevent his being
gay over it. He told the details, therefore, as though they partook
something of a joke. He noticed that the knife had slightly cut or
grazed his waistcoat; and said he, ‘It was great good luck that it did
not go further. There was nothing beneath it but some thin linen and a
good deal of fat.’
The matter, however, pressed heavily upon the spirits of the Queen. She
dreaded lest this attempt should be only a part of a great conspiracy,
and feared that the conspirators would not rest satisfied with the
mere attempt. The idea was natural at the time, for democracy then
was daily barking at, if not biting, kings; and so universally spread
was the feeling through one class throughout Europe that the King
of England had no cause to deem himself specially exempt from such
attempts. George III. had the courageous spirit common to most of the
princes of his house, and would not stand aloof from his people because
the princes of other houses were at issue with _their_ people. The
Queen felt greater distrust, but she was partially reassured by the
tone taken by the English papers. The pulpit and the press spoke out
in tones which showed that, however the country might be divided upon
questions connected with politics, it would not tolerate the idea of
regicide. These things were known to Queen Charlotte, and comforted the
poor lady, who, for a time, could not think of her husband being in
London without a spasmodic horror. She pored over the English papers,
in order to draw from them comfort and consolation; and it was when
reading one of the warmly loyal articles therein, beginning with the
words of the coronation anthem, ‘Long live the King! may the King live
for ever!’ that she shed the most copious tears that yet had fallen
from her, and drew comfort from what she read. Perhaps the words
brought back to her recollection the period, a quarter of a century
before, when she had listened to that anthem for the first time,
and, glancing back over the long period that had since then elapsed,
she perhaps dared to hope that the protection which had been so far
vouchsafed would be continued. Another quarter of a century indeed
was vouchsafed before the splendour of the reign began to wane in the
mental gloom which settled around the King; but already had begun those
domestic troubles which were inflicted upon her by the unfilial conduct
of her heartless eldest son.
At present, however, she could only think of, and be grateful for, the
escape of the King. Loyalty visited her somewhat oppressively in its
congratulations, and the next drawing-room was so crowded, and its
ceremonies so long, that the Queen was half dead with fatigue before
it was over. She found rest and welcome sympathy at ever-pleasant Kew.
There the inhabitants welcomed their royal patrons with a zeal, warmth,
beer-drinking, and fireworks such as had not been exceeded in any
part of the empire. But it was a sort of honour-festival in which the
Queen could partake without fatigue. She enjoyed it heartily; and more
emphatically than was her wont, even when most pleased, she exclaimed,
‘I shall love little Kew for this as long as I live!’
When Charlotte, on her first visit to the City, charmed even the eyes
of the fair Quakeresses who surrounded her at the Barclays’ by the
splendour of her diamonds, she already had the reputation of possessing
a desire for acquiring precious stones. Such desire was at one time a
mere fashion, like the mania which squandered thousands on a flower,
or the madness which at a later period prevailed to be possessed, at
whatever cost, of porcelain.
The people were reminded of the Queen’s fondness for diamonds at the
period when the name of Warren Hastings began to be unpleasantly
canvassed in England. The return of that remarkable personage from
India was preceded by that of his scarcely less remarkable wife.
Soon after her arrival Mrs. Hastings appeared at court, and nothing
could exceed the graciousness of the reception she met with from
Queen Charlotte. The popular tongue soon wagged audaciously, if
not veraciously, on this royal welcome to a lady who was commonly
said to have come to England with a lapful of diamonds. For such
glittering presents it was said that Queen Charlotte sold her favour
and protection. There was, no doubt, much exaggeration in the matter;
but the supposed protection of the court, and the alleged manner in
which it was said to have been purchased, were as injurious to Hastings
as any of the invectives thundered against him by Burke. At the time
that the monster impeachment was going on, a present from the Nizam of
the Deccan to the King arrived in England. It was a splendid diamond,
and was consigned, for presentation, to Warren Hastings, who handed
it over to Lord Sydney, but who was present himself at the time when
that nobleman duly offered the glittering gift to the King. Its ready
acceptance, at a time when Hastings was on his trial, was misconstrued;
and that popular voice which so often errs, notwithstanding the
assertion that when uttered it is divinely inspired, immediately
concluded that at least a bushelful of diamonds, presented to the
King and Queen, had bought impunity for the alleged great offender.
Ridicule, satire, caricature, violent prose, and execrable rhyme were
levelled at both their Majesties in consequence. According to those
who were about the person of the Queen, she had better jewels in her
virtues than in caskets of precious gems. Miss Burney, in her portrait
of the Queen, may be said to contemplate her through pink-coloured
spectacles. But, setting aside what predilection induces her to say,
enough remains to satisfy an unprejudiced person that there was much
amiability, penetration, and good sense in the character of Charlotte.
She was more dignified in her visits at the houses of subjects than any
of her predecessors had been. She preferred reading the ‘Spectator’ to
reading novels, and indeed had very little regard for novel-writers,
and none at all for Madame de Genlis, with whom she very wisely
counselled Miss Burney not to correspond.
Of the affection which existed between the Queen and her husband here
is a pretty incident:--‘The Queen had nobody but myself with her one
morning, when the King hastily entered the room with some letters in
his hand, and addressing her in German, which he spoke very fast, and
with much apparent interest in what he said, he brought the letters
up to her and put them into her hand. She received them with much
agitation, but evidently of a much pleased sort, and endeavoured to
kiss his hand as he held them. He would not let her, but made an
effort, with a countenance of the highest satisfaction, to kiss her.
I saw instantly in her eyes a forgetfulness at the moment that any
one was present, while, drawing away her hand, she presented him her
cheek. He accepted her kindness with the same frank affection that she
offered it, and the next moment they both spoke English, and talked
upon common and general subjects. What they said I am far enough from
knowing; but the whole was too rapid to give me time to quit the room,
and I could not but see with pleasure that the Queen had received some
favour with which she was sensibly delighted, and that the King, in
her acknowledgments, was happily and amply paid.’[3]
This sort of incident, it may be said, is of commonplace frequency in
private life, short of the hand-kissing; but it also serves to show
that there was an affection existing at this period which, happily,
is _not_ a rare one in common life. And Charlotte could condescend
to the level of that so-called common life, and to them who belonged
to it exhibit her natural goodness. Witness for her the directions
which she sent on a cold November morning to good old and parcel-blind
Mrs. Delany. ‘Tell her,’ said she, ‘that this morning is so very cold
and wet that I think she will suffer by going to church. Tell her,
therefore, that _Dr. Queen_ is of opinion she had better stay and say
her prayers at home.’ She showed her concern still more when, after
having lent to Miss Burney that abominable and absurd tragedy of Horace
Walpole’s, ‘The Mysterious Mother,’ she presented her with Ogden’s
Sermons, wherewith to sweeten her imagination. Perhaps Hurd, Bishop of
Worcester, on his visit to Windsor this year, rather underrated the
royal power to appreciate sermons. Mrs. Delany asked him for a copy of
one which he had preached before their Majesties. The prelate answered
that the sermon would not do at all for her. It was a mere plain
Christian sermon, he said, made for the King and Queen, but it wouldn’t
do for a _bel esprit_.
The royal household was sometimes disturbed by family dissensions; thus
in 1787 the Prince of Wales would not attend the birthday drawing-room
of the Queen, but he sent her written congratulations on the return
of the day. The coldness existing between mother and son kept the
latter from court. ‘I fear it was severely felt by his royal mother,’
says Miss Burney, ‘though she appeared composed and content.’ Of
party-spirit at this time, when party-spirit ran so high and was so
fierce and bitter in quality, the Diarist last named asserts that the
Queen had but little. She declares her Majesty to have been liberal
and nobly-minded, ‘beyond what I had conceived her rank and limited
connections could have left her, even with the fairest advancements
from her early nature; and many things dropped from her, in relation to
parties and their consequences, that showed a feeling so deep upon the
subject, joined to a lenity so noble towards the individuals composing
it, that she drew tears from my eyes in several instances.’
This year saw the reconciliation of the Prince with his parents, and a
public manifestation of this reconciliation of the heir-apparent with
his family took place on the terrace at Windsor Castle. The Prince
appeared there, chiefly that by his presence he might do honour to a
particular incident--the presentation of the Duchesse de Polignac
and her daughter, the Duchesse de Guiche, to the King and Queen. The
noble visitors themselves, to do honour to the occasion, repaired to
the terrace, attired, as they thought, in full English costume--‘plain
undress gowns, with close ordinary black silk bonnets.’ They were
startled at finding the Queen and the Princesses dressed with elaborate
splendour. For the spectators, however, the most interesting sight was
that of the heir-apparent conversing cordially with his illustrious
parents. The lookers-on fancied that all, henceforth, would be serene,
and that ‘Lovely Peace’ would reign undisturbedly.
But a pleasanter scene even than this was witnessed shortly after in
the Queen’s dressing-room. Her Majesty was under the hands of her
hair-dresser, and in the room, during the ceremony, were Mr. de Luc,
Mr. Turbulent (a pseudonym), and Miss Burney. The Queen conversed with
all three. But the sacrilegious and well-named Turbulent, instead of
fixing there his sole attention, contrived, ‘by standing behind her
chair and facing me, to address a language of signs to me the whole
time, casting up his eyes, clasping his hands, and placing himself
in various fine attitudes, and all with a humour so burlesque that
it was impossible to take it either ill or seriously.... How much
should I have been discountenanced had her Majesty turned about and
perceived him, yet by no means so much disconcerted as by a similar
Cerberic situation; since the Queen, who, when in spirits, is gay and
sportive herself, would be much farther removed from any hazard of
misconstruction.’[4] Nor was this the only ‘pleasant’ incident of the
year. It was not long after the above that Lady Effingham, at Windsor,
exclaimed to the Queen, ‘Oh, ma’am, I had the greatest fright this
morning. I saw a huge something on Sir George’s throat. “Why, Sir
George,” says I, “what’s that? a wen?” “Yes,” says he, “countess, I’ve
had it three-and-twenty years.” However, I hear it’s now going about--
so I hope your Majesty will be careful!’
One more court incident of this year will afford us a specimen of
playfulness as understood by the Prince of Wales. The latter was
at Windsor with the Duke of York, who had just returned from the
Continent, after an absence from England of seven years. His return
caused great joy both to the King and Queen; but it was not a joy of
long enduring.
‘At near one o’clock in the morning, while the wardrobe-woman was
pinning up the Queen’s hair, there was a sudden rap-tap at the
dressing-room door. Extremely surprised, I looked at the Queen, to
see what should be done; she did not speak. I had never heard such
a sound before, for at the royal doors there is always a particular
kind of scratch used, instead of tapping. I heard it, however, again,
and the Queen called out, “What is that?” I was really startled,
not conceiving who could take so strange a liberty as to come to the
Queen’s apartment without the announcing of a page; and no page, I was
very sure, would make such a noise. Again the sound was repeated, and
more smartly. I grew quite alarmed, imagining some serious evil at
hand, either regarding the King or some of the Princesses. The Queen,
however, bid me open the door. I did; and what was my surprise to see
there a large man, in an immense wrapping great-coat, buttoned up round
his chin, so that he was almost hid between cape and hat. I stood quite
motionless for a moment; but he, as if also surprised, drew back. I
felt quite sick with sudden terror--I really thought some ruffian had
broken into the house, or a madman. “Who is it?” cried the Queen. “I do
not know, ma’am,” I answered. “Who is it?” she called aloud; and then,
taking off his hat, entered the Prince of Wales. The Queen laughed
very much, and so did I too, happy in this unexpected explanation. He
told her eagerly that he only came to inform her there were the most
beautiful northern lights to be seen that could possibly be imagined,
and begged her to come to the gallery windows.’[5]
CHAPTER VII.
SHADOWS IN THE SUNSHINE.
The Princess Amelia--Her connection with the Duke of Grafton--
Beau Nash and the Princess--Her despotism as Ranger of Richmond
Park--Checked by Mr. Bird--A Scene at her Loo-table--Her
fondness for stables--Her eccentric Costume--Inordinate love
of Snuff--Her Death--Conduct of the Princes--The King’s
Illness--Graphic picture of the state of affairs--Lord
Thurlow’s treachery--Heartlessness of the Prince--Deplorable
condition of the Queen--The King delirious--Particulars
of his Illness--Dr. Warren--Melancholy scene--The King
wheedled away to Kew--Placed under Dr. Willis--The Prince and
Lord Lothian eavesdroppers--The King’s Recovery--The King
unexpectedly encounters Miss Burney.
One event of this year brings us back to the persons and memories of
the age of Caroline. Three-quarters of a century had passed away since
the day when the then little Princess Amelia Sophia, who was born in
Hanover, arrived in London, some three years old, at the period when
her parents ascended the throne of England. She was an accomplished
and a high-spirited girl, and grew into an attractive and ‘lovable’
woman. No prince, however, ever came to the feet of Amelia Sophia. She
did not, nevertheless, want for lovers of a lower dignity. Walpole, in
allusion to this, states of her that she was ‘as disposed to meddle’ in
State matters as her elder sister Anne; and that ‘she was confined to
receiving court from the Duke of Newcastle, who affected to be in love
with her; and from the Duke of Grafton, in whose connection with her
there was more reality.’
The latter connection is said to have been more romantic than platonic.
The Princess and the Duke were given to riding out in company,
conversing together in the recesses of windows, keeping together when
out hunting, and occasionally losing themselves together in Windsor
Forest and other places convenient for lovers to lose themselves in.
This last incident in the love passages of the Princess’s life afforded
great opportunity for good-natured gossips to indulge in joking, and
for ill-natured gossips to indulge in affectedly indignant reproof.
The Princess troubled herself very little with the remarks of others
on her conduct. It was only when Queen Caroline was worked upon by
the ill-natured gossips to notice and to censure the intimacy which
existed between the Princess and the Duke that Amelia took the matter
somewhat to heart, and wept as a young lady in such circumstances was
likely to do at finding a violent end put to her violent delights. The
Queen indeed threatened to lay the matter before the King, and it is
said that it was only through the good and urgent offices of Sir Robert
Walpole that so extreme a course was not taken.
Like her sister Anne, Amelia was rather imperious in disposition, and
she never found but one man who openly withstood her. That man was Beau
Nash. The Beau had fixed eleven o’clock at which dancing should cease
in the rooms at Bath, where he was despotic Master of the Ceremonies.
On one occasion, when the Princess was present, the hour had struck,
and Nash had raised his jewelled finger, in token that the music was
to stop, and the ladies were to ‘sit down and cool,’ as the Beau
delicately expressed it. The imperious daughter of Caroline was not
disposed to end the evening so early, and intimated to the _Master_
her gracious pleasure that there should be another country dance. Nash
looked at her with surprise. He laughed an agitated laugh, shook all
the powder out of his wig in signifying his decided refusal, and,
muttering something about the laws of the Medes and Persians, set down
the Princess as a rather ill-bred person.
In _her_ way she was as imperious as Nash; and as Ranger of Richmond
Park she was as despotic as the Beau within his more artificial
territory at Bath. She kept the park closed, sacred to the pleasure and
retirement of royalty and the favoured few. There were, however, some
dreadfully democratic persons at Richmond, who had a most obstinate
conviction that the public had a right of passage through the park,
and they demanded that the right should be allowed them. The royal
Ranger peremptorily refused. Democratic cobblers immediately went to
law with her, and proved that the right was with them. The Princess
yielded to the counsel of her own legal advisers, and, allowing the
right of passage, made a very notable concession; she planted rickety
ladders against the walls, and bade the ladies and gentlemen of the
vicinity pass through the park as they best could by such means. But
the persevering people maintained that if they had right of passage
the right must be construed in a common-sense way, and that passage
implied a _pass_ or gate by which such passage might be made. The royal
lady thought the world was coming to an end when the vulgar dared
thus to ‘keep standing on their rights’ in presence of a princess.
She was in some measure correct; for the age of feudal royalty was
coming to a close, and that great shaking-up of equality was beginning
from which royalty has never perfectly recovered. The troublesome
people, accordingly, kept most vexatiously to the point, and after a
fierce struggle they compelled their Ranger to set open a gate whereby
they might have free and constant access to their own park. Had this
daughter of Caroline been a wise woman, she would have cheerfully gone
through this gate with the people, and so, sharing in their triumph,
would have won their love. But ‘Emily,’ as she was often called, was of
quite another metal, and was so disgusted at the victory achieved by
the vulgar that she threw up her office in disgust, and declared that
the downfall of England commenced with the opening of Richmond Park.
The Princess offended more persons than the mere democracy by her
arrogance as Ranger. The evidence of Walpole is conclusive on this
subject, and is worth citing, often as I have had to quote from his
lively pages. In 1752, he writes: ‘Princess Emily, who succeeded my
brother in the Rangership of Richmond Park, has imitated her brother
William’s unpopularity, and disobliged the whole country, by refusal
of tickets and liberties that had always been allowed. They are at law
with her, and have printed in the ‘Evening Post’ a strong memorial,
which she had refused to receive. The high-sheriff of Surrey, to whom
she had denied a ticket, but on better thought had sent one, refused
it, and said he had taken his part. Lord Brooke, who had applied for
one, was told he couldn’t have one; and, to add to the affront, it was
signified that the Princess had refused one to my Lord Chancellor. Your
old nobility don’t understand such comparisons. But the most remarkable
event happened to her about three weeks ago. One Mr. Bird, a rich
gentleman near the palace, was applied to by the late Queen for a piece
of ground that lay convenient for a walk she was making. He replied
that it was not proper for him to pretend to make a queen a present,
but if she would do what she pleased with the ground he would be
content with the acknowledgment of a key and two bucks a year. This was
religiously observed till the era of her Royal Highness’s reign. The
bucks were denied, and he himself once shut out, on pretence it was
fence month (the breeding-time, when tickets used to be excluded, keys
never). The Princess was soon after going through his grounds to town.
She found a padlock on his gate. She ordered it to be broken open.
Mr. Shaw, her deputy, begged a respite till he could go for the key.
He found Mr. Bird at home. “Lord, sir, here is a strange mistake! The
Princess is at the gate, and it is padlocked.” “Mistake! no mistake at
all. I made the road; the ground is my own property. Her Royal Highness
has thought fit to break the agreement which her royal mother made
with me; nobody goes through my grounds but those I choose should.”
Translate this to your Florentines,’ adds Walpole to our legate in
Tuscany; ‘try if you can make them conceive how pleasant it is to treat
blood royal thus.’
George II., who was more liberal, in many respects, than any of his
children, save when these affected liberality for political purposes,
finally anticipated the award of law by ordering the park to be thrown
open to the public in the month of December 1752. But he could not have
kept it closed.
Walpole speaks of the Princess Amelia as if he had never forgotten
or forgiven this, or any other of her faults. According to his
description, she was for ever prying impertinently into the affairs
of other people; silly, garrulous, and importantly communicative of
trifles not worth the telling. He paints her as arrogant and insolent;
inexcusable, it would seem, in these last respects, simply because
she no longer possessed either power or beauty. But these were only
eccentricities; there was much of sterling goodness beneath them. She
was nobly generous and royally charitable. She was a steady friend and
an admirable mistress. In face of such virtues, mere human failings may
be forgiven.
Walpole graphically and dramatically describes a scene at her
loo-table. The year is 1762, the month December. ‘On Thursday,’ he
says, ‘I was summoned to the Princess Emily’s loo. _Loo_ she called
it; _politics_ it was. The second thing she said to me was: “How were
you the two long days?” “Madam, I was only there the first.” “And how
did you vote?” “Madam, I went away.” “Upon my word, that was carving
well!” Not a very pleasant apostrophe to one who certainly never was a
time-server. Well, we sat down. She said: “I hear Wilkinson is turned
out, and that Sir Edward Winnington is to have his place. Who is he?”
addressing herself to me, who sat over against her. “He is the late Mr.
Winnington’s heir, madam.” “Did you like that Winnington?” “I can’t
but say I did, madam.” She shrugged up her shoulders, and continued:
“Winnington was originally a great Tory. What do you think he was when
he died?” “Madam, I believe what all people are in place.” “Pray, Mr.
Montague, do you perceive anything rude or offensive in this?” Here
then she flew into the most outrageous passion, coloured like scarlet,
and said: “None of your wit. I don’t understand joking on these
subjects. What do you think your father would have said if he had heard
you say so? He would have murdered you, and you would have deserved
it.” I was quite confounded and amazed. It was impossible to explain
myself across a loo-table, as she is so deaf. There was no making a
reply to a woman and a princess, and particularly for me, who have made
it a rule, when I must converse with royalties, to treat them with
the greatest respect, since it is all the court they will ever have
from me. I said to those on each side of me: “What can I do? I cannot
explain myself now.” Well, I held my peace; and so did she, for a
quarter of an hour. Then she began with me again, examined me upon the
whole debate, and at last asked me directly which I thought the best
speaker, my father or Mr. Pitt? If possible, this was more distressing
than her anger. I replied, it was impossible to compare two men so
different; that I believed my father was more a man of business than
Mr. Pitt. “Well, but Mr. Pitt’s language?” “Madam, I have always been
remarkable for admiring Mr. Pitt’s language.” At last the unpleasant
scene ended; but as we were going away I went close to her and said:
“Madam, I must beg leave to explain myself. Your Royal Highness has
seemed to be very angry with me, and I am sure I did not mean to offend
you; all that I intended to say was, that I supposed Tories were Whigs
when they got places.” “Oh!” said she; “I am very much obliged to you.
Indeed, I was very angry.” Why she was angry, or what she thought I
meant, I do not know to this moment, unless she supposed that I would
have hinted that the Duke of Newcastle and the Opposition were not men
of consummate virtue, and had not lost their places out of principle.
The very reverse was at that time in my head, for I meant that the
Tories would be just as loyal as the Whigs when they got anything by
it.’
The Princess was not ladylike in her habits. She had a fondness for
loitering about her stables, and would spend hours there in attendance
upon her sick horses. She of course acquired the ways of those whose
lives pass in stables and stable matters. She was manly, too, in her
dress. Calamette would have liked to have painted her, as that artist
has painted the frock-coat portrait of Madame Dudevant (George Sand).
He would have picturesquely portrayed her in the round hat and German
riding-habit, ‘standing about’ at her breakfast, sipping her chocolate,
or taking spoonsful of snuff. Of this she was inordinately fond, but
she accounted her box sacred. A _Noli me tangere_ was engraven on it,
but the injunction was not always held sacred. Once, on one of the
card-tables in the Assembly Rooms at Bath, her box lay open, and an old
general officer standing near inconsiderately took a pinch from it.
The indignant Princess immediately called an attendant, who, by her
directions, flung the remainder of the contents of the box into the
fire.
In June 1786, Walpole, then nearly a septuagenarian, borrowed a
dress-coat and sword, in order to dine at Gunnersbury with the
Princess. The company comprised the Prince of Wales, the Prince of
Mecklenburgh, the Duke of Portland, Lord Clanbrassil, Lord and Lady
Clermont, Lord and Lady Southampton, Lord Pelham, and Mrs. Howe. Some
of the party retired early. Others, more dissipated, sat up playing
commerce till ten. ‘I am afraid I was tired,’ says Horace. The lively
old Princess asked him for some verses on Gunnersbury. ‘I pleaded being
superannuated. She would not excuse me. I promised she should have an
ode on her next birthday, which diverted the Prince; but all would not
do. So, as I came home, I made some stanzas not worth quoting, and sent
them to her by breakfast next morning.’
In the October following, the daughter of Caroline and George II. died
at her house in Cavendish Square, at the east corner of Harley Street.
Card-playing and charity were the beloved pursuits of her old age. Her
death took place on the last day of October 1786, in the 76th year of
her age. Her remains lie in Henry VII.’s chapel in Westminster Abbey.
But the decease of this aged princess appeared a minor calamity
compared with the illness which now threatened the King. In presence
of this the Queen forgot Mrs. Trimmer and her Sunday Schools;
Gainsborough, whom she patronised; public theatricals, and private
readings. The illness had been long threatening.
In the ‘Memoirs of the Court and Cabinet of George III.,’ by the Duke
of Buckingham and Chandos, the elder sons of Queen Charlotte are spoken
of, and particularly with reference to this period immediately previous
to the King’s illness, in a most unfavourable light. The Prince of
Wales, we are told, like his two predecessors in the same title, was
active in his opposition to the measures of the cabinet and crown. The
same spirit, with as little prudence to moderate and more ill-feeling
to embitter it, was as lively in the man as in the boy. The Prince was,
however, at least consistent in his opposition. ‘The Duke of York,’
says Lord Bulkeley, writing to the Marquis of Buckingham, ‘talks both
ways, and I think will end in opposition. His conduct is as bad as
possible. He plays very deep and loses, and his company is thought
_mauvais ton_. I am told that the King and Queen begin now to feel “how
much sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ingrate child.”
When the Duke of York is completely _done up_ in the public opinion, I
should not be surprised if the Prince of Wales assume a different style
of behaviour. Indeed, I am told, he already affects to see that his
brother’s style is too bad.’
Public business, as far as its transaction through ministers was
concerned, became greatly impeded through the illness which had
attacked the King. It had been brought on by his imprudence in
remaining a whole day in wet stockings, and it exhibited itself not
merely in spasmodic attacks of the stomach, but in an agitation and
flurry of spirits which caused great uneasiness to the Queen, and
which, both for domestic and political reasons, it was desirous should
not be known.
The very attempt at concealment gave rise to various alarming reports.
The best answer that could be devised for the latter was to allow the
King to appear at the levée at the end of October. The Queen suffered
much when this plan was resolved upon; and it had the result, which
she expected, of over-fatiguing the King and rendering him worse. At
the close of the levée, the King remarked to the Duke of Leeds and Lord
Thurlow, the latter of whom had advised him to take care of himself
and return to Windsor: ‘You then, too, my Lord Thurlow, forsake me,
and suppose me ill beyond recovery; but whatever you or Mr. Pitt may
think or feel, I, that am born a gentleman, shall never lay my head
on my last pillow in peace and quiet as long as I remember the loss
of my American Colonies.’ This loss appears to have weighed heavily
on his mind, and to have been one of the great causes by which it was
ultimately overthrown.
Early in November he became delirious, but the medical men, Warren,
Heberden, and Sir G. Baker, could not tell whether the malady would
turn, at a critical point, for life or death; or whether, if for the
former, the patient would be afflicted or not with permanent loss of
reason. The disease was now settled in the brain, with high fever. The
Princes of the Blood were all assembled at Windsor, in the room next to
that occupied by the sufferer, and a regency bestowing kingly power on
the Prince of Wales was already talked of.
When the fact of the King’s illness could no longer be with propriety
concealed, the alarm without the royal residence was great, and the
disorder scarcely less within. The most graphic picture of the state of
affairs is drawn by Lord Bulkeley. ‘The Queen,’ he says, ‘sees nobody
but Lady Constance, Lady Charlotte Finch, Miss Burney, and her two
sons, who, I am afraid, do not announce the state of the King’s health
with that caution and delicacy which should be observed to the wife and
the mother, and it is to them only that she looks up. I understand her
behaviour is very feeling, decent, and proper. The Prince has taken
the command at Windsor, in consequence of which there is no command
whatsoever; and it was not till yesterday that orders were given to
two grooms of the bedchamber to wait for the future, and receive the
inquiries of the numbers who inquire; nor would this have been done
if Pitt and Lord Sydney had not come down in person to beg that such
orders might be given. Unless it was done yesterday, no orders were
given for prayers in the churches, nor for the observance of other
forms, such as stopping the playhouses, &c., highly proper (?) at such
a juncture. What the consequence of this heavy misfortune will be to
government, you are more likely to know than I am; but I cannot help
thinking that the Prince will find a greater difficulty in making a
sweep of the present ministry in his character of Fiduciary Regent
than in that of King. The stocks are already fallen two per cent., and
the alarms of the people of London are very little flattering to the
Prince. I am told that message after message has been sent to Fox, who
is touring with Mrs. Armistead on the continent; but I have not heard
that the Prince has sent for him, or has given any orders to Fox’s
friends to that effect. The system of favouritism is much changed since
Lord Bute’s and the Princess Dowager’s time; for Jack Payne, Master
Leigh, an Eton schoolboy, and Master Barry, brother to Lord Barrymore,
and Mrs. Fitz, form the cabinet at Carlton House.’
The afflicted King, for a time, grew worse, then the Opposition
affected to believe that his case was by no means desperate. Their
insincerity was proved as symptoms of amelioration began to show
themselves. _Then_ they not only denied the fact of the King’s improved
health, but they detailed all the incidents they could pick up of
his period of imbecility, short madness, or longer delirium. But,
in justice to the Opposition, it must be remarked that the greatest
traitor was not on _that_ side, but on the King’s. The Lord Chancellor
Thurlow was intriguing with the Opposition when he was affecting to be
a faithful servant of the crown. His treachery, however, was well known
to both parties; but Pitt kept it from the knowledge of George III.,
lest it should too deeply pain or too dangerously excite him. When
Thurlow had, subsequently, the effrontery to exclaim in the House of
Lords, ‘When I forget my King, may my God forget me!’ a voice from one
behind him is said to have murmured, ‘Forget you! He will see you d--
d first.’
There was assuredly no decency in the conduct of the heir-apparent or
of his next brother. They were gaily flying from club to club, party to
party, and did not take the trouble even to assume the sentiment which
they could not feel. ‘If we were together,’ says Lord Grenville, in a
letter inserted in the ‘Memoirs,’ ‘I would tell you some particulars
of the Prince of Wales’s behaviour towards the King and Queen, within
these few days, that would make your blood run cold, but I dare not
admit them to paper because of my informant.’ It was said that if the
King could only recover sufficiently to learn and comprehend what had
been said and done during his illness, he would hear enough to drive
him again into insanity. The conduct of his elder sons was marked,
not only by its savage inhumanity, but by an indifference to public
and private opinion which distinguishes those fools who are not only
without wits, but who are also without hearts. When the Parliament was
divided by fierce party strife, as to whose hands should be confided
the power and responsibilities of the regency, the occasion should have
disposed those likely to be endowed with that supreme power to seek a
decent, if temporary, retirement from the gaze of the world. Not so the
Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. They kept open houses, and gaily
welcomed every new ally. They were constant guests at epicurean clubs
and convivial meetings. They both took to deep play, and both were as
fully plucked as they deserved. There was in them neither propriety of
feeling nor affectation of it.
The condition of the Queen was deplorable, and a succession of fits
almost prostrated her as low as her royal husband. The Prince of
Wales himself ‘seemed frightened,’ says Mr. Neville to the Marquis of
Buckingham, ‘and was blooded yesterday,’ November 6, the second day of
the King’s delirious condition; but as phlebotomy was a practice of
this princely person when in love, one cannot well determine whether
his pallor arose from filial or some less respectable affection.
Up to this time the King had grown worse, chiefly through total, or
nearly total, loss of sleep. He bewailed this with a hoarse, rapid, yet
kindly tone of voice; maintaining that he was well, or that to be so he
needed but the blessing of sleep. The Queen paced her apartment with a
painful demonstration of impatient despair in her manner; and if, by
way of solace, she attempted to read aloud to her children or ladies,
any passage that reminded her of her condition and prospects made her
burst into tears.
Previous to the first night of the King’s delirium he conducted, as
he had always been accustomed to do, the Queen to her dressing-room,
and there, a hundred times over, requested her not to disturb him if
she should find him asleep. The urgent repetition showed a mind nearly
overthrown, but the King calmly and affectionately remarked that he
needed not physicians, for the Queen was the best physician he could
have. ‘She is my best friend,’ said he; ‘where could I find a better?’
The alarm became greater when the fever left the King, after he had
three times taken James’s powders, but without producing any relief
to the brain. The Queen secluded herself from all persons save her
ladies and the two eldest Princes. These, as Lord Bulkeley said, did
not announce to her the state of the King’s health with the caution
and delicacy due to the wife and mother who now depended on them. This
dependence was so complete that the Prince of Wales, as before said,
took the command of everything at Windsor, one result of which was a
disappearance of everything like order. The Queen’s dependence on such
a son was rather compulsory than voluntary. When he first came down to
Windsor, from Brighton, the meeting was the very coldest possible, and
when he had stated whence he came her first question was when he meant
to return. However, it is said that when the King broke out, at dinner,
into his first fit of positive delirium, the Prince burst into tears.
The sufferer was occasionally better, but the relapses were frequent.
The Queen now slept in a bed-room adjoining that occupied by the King.
He once became possessed with the idea that she had been forcibly
removed from the bed, and in the middle of the night he came into the
Queen’s room with a candle in his hand, to satisfy himself that she
was still near him. He remained half-an-hour, talking incoherently,
hoarsely, but good-naturedly, and then went away. The Queen’s nights
were nights of sleeplessness and tears.
In the Queen’s room could be heard every expression uttered by the
King, and they were only such as could give pain to the listener. His
state was at length so bad that the Queen was counselled to change her
apartments, both for her sake and the King’s. She obeyed, reluctantly
and despairingly, and confined herself to a single and distant room.
In the meanwhile, Dr. Warren was sent for, but the King resolutely
refused to see him. He hated all physicians, declared that he himself
was only nervous, and that otherwise he was not ill. Dr. Warren,
however, contrived to be near enough to be able to give an opinion, and
the Queen waited impatiently in her apartment to hear what that opinion
might be. When she was told, after long waiting, that Dr. Warren had
left the castle, after communicating his opinion to the Prince of
Wales, she felt the full force of her altered position, and that she
was nor longer first in the castle next to the King.
The Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, some of the medical men, and
other gentlemen kept a sort of watch in the room adjacent to that
in which the King lay, and listened attentively to all he uttered.
He surprised them, one night, by suddenly appearing among them, and
roughly demanding what they were there for. They endeavoured to pacify
him, but in vain. He treated them all as enemies; but not happening
to see his second son, who had discreetly kept out of sight, but was
present, he said, touchingly, ‘Freddy is my friend; yes, _he_ is my
friend!’ Sir George Baker timidly persuaded the poor King to return
to his bed-room; but the latter forced the doctor into a corner, and
told him that he was an old woman, who could not distinguish between a
mere nervous malady and any other. The Prince, by sign and whispers,
endeavoured to induce the other gentlemen to lead his father away.
All were reluctant, and the King remained a considerable time, till
at last a ‘Mr. Fairly’ took him boldly by the arm, addressed him
respectfully but firmly, declaring that his life was in peril if he did
not go again to bed, and at length subdued the King, who gave himself
up like a wearied child. These details were eagerly made known to the
Queen by the Prince with ‘energetic violence.’ Her Majesty’s condition
was indeed melancholy, but at its worst she never forgot to perform
little acts of kindness to her daughters and others. The conduct of
the Princesses was such as became their situation. They, with their
mother, had fallen from their first greatness, and the Prince of Wales
was supreme master. Nothing was done but by his orders. The Queen
ceased to have any authority beyond the reach of her own ladies.
‘She spent the whole day,’ says Miss Burney, ‘in patient sorrow and
retirement with her daughters!’
The King expressed a very natural desire to see these daughters, but he
was not indulged. Indeed, the practice observed towards him appears,
if the accounts may be trusted, extremely injudicious. The public seem
to have thought so; for, on stopping Sir George Baker’s carriage,
and hearing from him that the King’s condition was very bad, they
exclaimed, ‘More shame for you!’
The Prince of Wales was extremely desirous to remove the King from
Windsor to Kew. The King was violently averse from such removal, and
the Queen opposed it until she was informed that it had the sanction
of the physicians. Kew was said to be quieter and more adapted for
an invalid. The difficulty was, how he was to get there. Of his own
will he would never go. The Prince and physicians contrived a plan.
The Queen and Princesses were to leave Windsor early, and, as soon
as the King should be told of their departure, his uneasiness would
be calmed by an assurance that he would find them at Kew. The Queen
yielded reluctantly, on being told that it would be for her consort’s
advantage; and she and her daughters proceeded, without state and in
profound grief, to Kew. Small accommodation did they find there; for
half the apartments were locked up, by the Prince’s orders, while on
the doors of the few allotted to the Queen and her slender retinue,
some illustrious groom of the chambers had scratched in chalk the
names of those by whom they were to be occupied! Night had set in
before the King arrived. He had been wheedled away from Windsor, on
promise of being allowed to see the Queen and their daughters at Kew.
He performed the journey in silent content; and, when he arrived--
the promise was broken! The Queen and children were again told that
it was all for the best; but a night, passed by the King in violence
and raving, showed how deeply he felt the cruel insult to which he had
been subjected. In the meantime, preparations to name the Prince regent
were going on, the King’s friends being extremely cautious that due
reserve should be made for their master’s rights, in case of what they
did not yet despair of--his recovery. His physicians were divided in
opinion upon the point; but they all agreed that the malady, which had
begun with a natural discharge of humour from the legs, had, by the
King’s imprudence, been driven to the bowels, and that thence it had
been repelled upon the brain. They endeavoured, without too sanguinely
hoping, to bring the malady again down to the legs.
Their efforts were fruitless. Addington and Sir Lucas Pepys were more
sanguine than their colleagues, of a recovery; but the condition of the
patient grew daily more serious, yet with intervals of calm lucidity.
It was at this juncture that Dr. Willis, of Lincoln, was called in.
This measure gave great relief to the Queen; for she knew that cases
of lunacy formed Dr. Willis’s _specialité_, and she entertained great
hopes from the treatment he should adopt. The doctor was accompanied
by his two sons. They were (and the father especially) fine men, full
of cheerfulness, firm in manner, entertaining respect for the personal
character of the King, but caring not a jot for his rank. They at once
took the royal patient into their care, and with such good success--
never unnecessarily opposing him, but winning, rather than compelling,
him to follow the course best suited for his health--that, on the
10th of December, the Queen had the gratification to see him, from the
window of her apartment, walking in the garden alone, the Willises
being in attendance at a little distance from him.
There was a party who desired least of all things the recovery of the
monarch. The Prince of Wales, during his father’s malady, took Lord
Lothian into a darkened room, adjacent to that of the King, in order
that the obsequious lord might hear the ravings of the sovereign, and
depose to the fact, if such deposition should be necessary!
The year 1789 opened propitiously. On its very first morning the poor
King was heard praying, aloud and fervently, for his own recovery.
A report of how he had passed the night was made to the Queen every
morning, and generally by Miss Burney. The state of the King varied so
much, and there was so much of painful detail that it was desirable
should be concealed, that the task allotted to Miss Burney was
sometimes one of great delicacy. On the worst occasions she appears to
have spared her royal mistress’s feelings with much tact and judgment,
and her face was the index of her message whenever she was the bearer
of favourable intelligence. The highest gratification experienced by
the Queen at the period when hopes revived of the King’s recovery, was
when she heard that her husband had remembered on the 18th of January
that it was her birthday, and had expressed a desire to see her. This
joy, however, was forbidden him for a time, and apparently not without
reason. A short period only had elapsed after the birthday when the
King suddenly encountered Miss Burney in Kew Gardens, where she had
ventured to take exercise, under the impression that the sick monarch
had been taken to Richmond. As it was the Queen’s desire, derived
from the physicians, that no one should attempt to come in the King’s
way, or address him if they did, Miss Burney no sooner became aware
of whom she had thus unexpectedly encountered, than she turned round
and fairly took to her heels. The King, calling to her by name, and
enraptured to see again the face of one whom he knew and esteemed,
pursued as swiftly as she fled. The Willises followed hard upon the
King, not without some alarm. Miss Burney kept the lead in breathless
affright. In vain was she called upon to stop: she ran on until a
peremptory order from Dr. Willis, and a brief assurance that the
agitation would be most injurious to the King, brought her at once to a
stand-still. She then turned and advanced to meet the King, as if she
had not before been aware of his presence. _He_ manifested his intense
delight by opening wide his arms, closing them around her, and kissing
her warmly on each cheek. Poor Miss Burney was overwhelmed, and the
Willises were delighted. They imagined that the King was doing nothing
unusual with him in the days of his ordinary health, and were pleased
to see him fulfilling, as they thought, an old observance.
The King would not relax his hold of his young friend. He entered
eagerly into conversation, if that may be deemed conversation in which
he alone spoke, or was only answered by words sparingly used and
soothingly intoned. He talked rapidly, hoarsely, but only occasionally
incoherently. His subjects of conversation took a wide range. Family
affairs, political business, Miss Burney’s domestic interests, foreign
matters, music,--these and many other topics made up the staple of
his discourse. He was at least rational on the subject of music,
for then he commenced singing from his favourite Handel, but with
voice so hoarse and ill-attuned that he frightened his audience. Dr.
Willis suggested that the interview should close; but this the King
energetically opposed, and his medical adviser thought it best to let
him have his way. He went on, then, wildly as before, but manifesting
much shrewdness; showed that he was aware of his condition, and
expressed more than suspicion of assaults made upon his authority
during his own incapacity. He talked of whom he would promote when
he was fully restored to health, and whom he would dismiss--made
allusion to a thousand projects which he intended to realise, and
attained a climax of threatening, with a serio-comic expression, that
when he should again be King he would rule with a rod of iron.
After various attempts at interruption, the Willises at length
succeeded in obtaining his consent to return to the house, and Miss
Burney hastened to the Queen’s apartment to inform her of all that had
passed. The Queen listened to her tale with breathless interest; made
her repeat every incident; and augured so well from all she heard, that
she readily forgave Miss Burney her involuntary infraction of a very
peremptory law. That the Queen’s augury was well founded may be seen
in the fact that, on the 12th of February following, King and Queen
together walked in Kew Gardens--he, happy and nervous; _she_, in
much the same condition; and both, as grateful as mortals could be for
inestimable blessings vouchsafed to them.
During the progress of the King’s illness, while all was sombre and
silent at Kew, political intrigue was loud and active elsewhere. The
voice of the Queen herself was not altogether mute in this intrigue.
She had rights to defend, she had spirit to assert them, and she had
friends to afford her aid in enabling her to establish them.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ‘FIRST GENTLEMAN’ AND HIS PRINCIPLES.
Inconsistency of the Whigs--The Tories become radical reformers
--Party spirit--A restricted Regency scorned by the Prince
--Compelled to accept it--The King’s rapid recovery--
Incredulity of the Princes in regard to the King’s recovery--
A family scene at Kew--Ball at White’s Club on the King’s
recovery, and unbecoming conduct of the Princes--Thanksgiving
at St. Paul’s--Indecent conduct of the Princes--Grief of the
King--Expectations of the Prince disappointed--Caricatures
and satires.
When the Queen first changed her apartments at Windsor, her
exclamation, as she entered her new abode, was an assertion of her
desolate helplessness, and a deploring hesitation as to what course she
was bound to take. She was soon stirred to action. Her eldest son was
active in the field against her, and her spirit was speedily aroused
to protect and further her own interests. The Parliament had been made
acquainted with the condition of the King, by a report from the privy
council. With this the legislature was not satisfied. Parliamentary
committees sat, before which bodies the King’s physicians made detailed
depositions, whereby the King’s existing incapacity to transact public
business was established beyond doubt. Upon this the Whigs, with Fox
at their head (he had hurried home from Italy, deplorably ill, to
perform this service for the Prince of Wales), declared that the royal
incapacity caused the government of the kingdom to fall, as a matter
of right, upon the heir-apparent. This assertion, which is a full
and complete embracing of the law of divine right, and a trampling
under foot of the authority of the parliament, was made in 1788, just
one hundred years after the grandfathers of these very Whigs had
established the authority of the people in parliament above that of the
crown, and made the King who reigned and did not govern, merely the
first magistrate of a free people.
On the other hand the Tories, with Pitt for their leader, declared
that thus to annihilate the sovereignty of the people in parliament
was treason against the constitution, which, in a juncture like the
present, bestowed on the people’s representatives the right of naming
by whom they would be governed. Thus the Tories were in truth radical
reformers; and, in truth, quite as serious, both parties being equally
insincere, fighting only for place, and caring little for aught beyond.
The whole country, upon this, became Tory in spirit--as Toryism had
now developed itself. Fox in vain explained that he meant that the
administration of the government belonged to the Prince of Wales, only
if Parliament sanctioned it. In vain the Prince of Wales, through his
brother the Duke of York, proclaimed in the House of Lords that he
made no claim whatever, but was, in fact, the very humble and obedient
servant of the people.
It was precisely because he did assert this claim that the Queen and
her friends were alarmed. Should the Prince be endowed with the powers
of regent, without restriction, the Queen would be reduced to a cypher,
Pitt would lose his place, the ministry would be overthrown with him,
and, should the King recover, difficulties might arise in the way of
the recovery also of his authority.
Party spirit ran high on this matter, but there was little patriotism
to give it dignity. Among the ministry, even, waverers were to be
found, who were on the Prince’s side when the King’s case seemed
desperate, and who veered round to the Sovereign’s party as soon as
there appeared a hope of his recovery.
A restricted regency the Prince of Wales affected to look upon with
ineffable scorn. His royal brothers manifested more fraternal sympathy
than filial affection, by pretending to think their brother’s scorn
well-founded. They all changed their minds as soon as they saw, by
Pitt’s parliamentary majorities, that they could not help themselves.
Ultimately, the Prince consented, with a very ill grace, to the terms
which Pitt and the Parliament were disposed to force upon him. Never
did man submit to terms which he loathed with such bitterness of
disappointed spirit as the Prince did to the following conditions;
namely:--
That the King’s person was to be entrusted to the Queen; her Majesty
was to be also invested with the control of the royal household,
and with the consequent patronage of the four hundred places
connected therewith, including the appointments of lord-steward,
lord-chamberlain, and master of the horse. The Prince, as regent, was
further to be debarred from granting any office, reversion, or pension,
except during the King’s pleasure; and the privilege of conferring the
peerage was not to be allowed to him at all.
With a fiercely savage heart did he accept these terms; and when the
Irish Parliament, in its eagerness to encourage dissension in England,
invited him to take upon himself the unrestricted administration of the
Irish government during the royal incapacity, the warmth and ardent
gratitude expressed by the Prince in his reply, showed how willingly he
would have accepted the invitation if he had only dared.
And now the day was appointed for bringing the Regency Bill regularly
before Parliament--the 3rd of February--and the clauses were
already under discussion when, a fortnight later, the lord chancellor
(Thurlow) announced to the house that the King was declared by his
medical attendants to be in a state of convalescence.
When Prince Henry was detected in taking the crown from the head of his
invalid and slumbering father, he met the reproof which ensued with
tender expressions of sorrow and respect. There was little of similar
depth of feeling when the Prince of Wales, with the Duke of York, saw
his father for the first time after his recovery. Queen Charlotte alone
was present with her husband and sons. The last entered the King’s
room, and issued therefrom, without a trace of emotion upon their faces
or in their bearing. The chagrin with which they saw the power which
they had coveted slip from them, might have taught them wisdom, but
it only drove them to wine, cards, masquerades, and the profligacy
which goes in company therewith. They were not as men rejoicing that
Heaven had been merciful to their father and King, but as men striving
to forget, amid a hurricane of vicious pleasures, that their sire
had really been the object of such mercy. The Prince had indeed some
misgivings as to what George III. might think of his conduct during
the King’s malady; but he affected to assert that it would meet with
approbation, while that of Mr. Pitt, he thought, would receive from the
monarch a strong reproof. The Duke of York was far less careful as to
the paternal, and as little to the public, opinion. He ran up scores in
open tennis-courts with well-known black-legs, and promised payment as
soon as he had received from his father certain arrears of revenue due
to him as Bishop of Osnaburg.
These princely sons were among the last to acquiesce in the opinion
that their father was sane, and competent again to exercise his
constitutional authority. Lord Grenville thus graphically describes a
family scene at Kew:--‘The two Princes were at Kew yesterday, and saw
the King in the Queen’s apartment. She was present the whole time,
a precaution for which, God knows, there was but too much reason.
They kept him waiting a considerable time before they arrived, and
after they left him drove immediately to Mrs. Armistead’s in Park
Street, in hopes of finding Fox there, to give him an account of what
had passed. He not being in town, they amused themselves yesterday
evening with spreading about a report that the King was still out of
his mind, and with quoting phrases of his to which they gave that
turn. It is certainly a decent and becoming thing, that when all the
King’s physicians, all his attendants, and his two principal ministers
agree in pronouncing him well, his two sons should deny it! And the
reflection that the Prince of Wales was to have had the government, and
the Duke of York the command of the army, during his illness, makes
this representation of his actual state, when coming from them, more
peculiarly proper and edifying! I bless God that it is some time before
these matured and ripened virtues will be visited upon us in the form
of a government.’[6]
In the meantime the monarch got so undeniably well and competent to
govern, that even his nearest and most expectant heirs could no longer
deny the, to them, most unwelcome truth. A ball was given by White’s
Club to celebrate this event, and the Princes of course were present
to show how they were gratified by it! The ball was announced to take
place at the Pantheon, and the Prince of Wales, who had engaged to
attend, previously did his wretched utmost to render the attendance of
others as thin as possible, by canvassing all his friends and admirers
to keep away. The club had transmitted to the Prince and the Duke of
York a large number of tickets for the accommodation of themselves and
the acquaintances to whom, it was presumed, they might be desirous to
pay the compliment of presenting them with admissions. The brothers
sent the whole of these tickets to Hookham’s in Bond Street for sale!
The club, on hearing of this insulting proceeding, and to prevent the
admission of improper persons at a _fête_ which had a private and
exclusive character, intimated by advertisement that no ticket would
entitle its holder to admittance which did not bear on it the signature
of a subscriber to the ball, or of the person to whom the committee had
sent such ticket. This did not teach the Duke decency. He affixed his
princely title to the tickets, to make them saleable and valid; and he
himself attended a ball given expressly in his honour, at the Horse
Guards.
The first, and graceful, feeling of the Monarch, that he was bound to
make a public expression of his thanks to Heaven for his recovery,
caused his ministers and friends, and particularly the Queen, much
embarrassment. They were afraid of the excitement and its probable
consequences. But George III. was now in the condition once noticed by
Hunter, the surgeon, in himself. ‘My mind,’ said the latter, ‘is still
inclined to odd thoughts, and I am tempted to talk foolishly; but I can
govern myself.’ The King was in better health than is here indicated,
and he bore himself throughout the day--the 25th of June, 1789--as
became a grateful man, abounding in piety, and not dispossessed of
wisdom. The disgraceful rivalry of his eldest son had almost marred
the day. The followers of the latter were posted along the first part
of the route between the palace and St. Paul’s, and their cheers,
associated with his name, put him in high good humour, which was
however converted into as high displeasure when the running fire of
cheers between Charing Cross and the cathedral was raised only in
honour of his father. His conduct, and indeed that of his brothers York
and Cumberland, as also of their cousin the Duke of Gloucester, in the
cathedral, during service, disgusted all who witnessed it. They talked
aloud to one another during the whole otherwise solemn proceeding; and
it is only to be regretted that no man was present, with courage equal
to his authority, to sternly reprove, or summarily remove, them.
The scene at St. Paul’s, as regarded the King himself, was at once
magnificent and touching. The internal arrangements were excellent,
and the King was composed and devout throughout the service; attentive
to the latter, and especially to the anthem, which he had himself
selected. His air of sincerity and gratitude was most marked. The Queen
was much affected at the solemnity of their first entrance; and the
King, who looked reduced, scarcely less so. Lady Uxbridge, who was in
attendance on the Queen, nearly fainted away. ‘As the King went out
of the church,’ writes Mr. Bernard to the Marquis of Rockingham, ‘he
seemed to be in good spirits, and talked much to the persons about
him; but he stared and laughed less than I ever knew him on a public
occasion.’ Mr. Fox and most of the Opposition party were there; and
while the Queen returned thanks for the King’s recovery, as she looked
upon the sons near her, who interrupted the solemnity of the scene by
their talking, she might have felt that she had other things to be
thankful for also. She must have known, by the conduct of the Prince
of Wales, that, had the King’s illness lasted much longer, he would
have accepted the invitation of the Irish Parliament, and assumed a
regency in Ireland, with sovereign power. He would have accomplished
then what O’Connell, so long after, failed in achieving--a government
altogether independent of, and in antagonism with, England.
After the return of the procession the Prince of Wales and Duke of
York entered Carlton House, where, having put on regimentals, they
proceeded to the ground in front of Buckingham House, at the windows
of which the royal family had stationed themselves, the King and
Queen being most prominent; and there, heading the whole brigade of
guards, fired a _feu-de-joie_ in honour of the occasion. The grave Lord
Bulkeley, a spectator of the scene, thus describes the remainder of the
proceedings: ‘The Prince, before the King got into his carriage--which
the whole line waited for before they filed off--went off on a sudden
with one hundred of the common people, with Mr. Weltje in the middle
of them, huzzaing him; and this was done evidently to lead if possible
a greater number and to make it penetrate into Buckingham House. The
breach,’ adds Lord Bulkeley, ‘is so very wide between the King and
Prince, that it seems to me to be a great weakness to allow him any
communication with him whatever; for, under the mask of attention to
their father and mother, the Prince and Duke of York commit every
possible outrage, and show every insult they can devise to them.... I
believe the King’s mind is torn to pieces by his sons,’ adds the noble
lord. And then, in allusion to the King’s expressed desire to visit
Hanover, the writer remarks thereon: ‘He expects to relieve himself by
a new scene, and by getting out of the way and hearing of the Prince
of Wales, with the hope of being able to detach the Duke of York, whom
he fondly and doatingly loves, and prevailing on him to marry on the
Continent; of which there is no chance, for in my opinion he is just
as bad as the Prince, and gives no hopes of any change or amendment
whatever in thought, word, or deed.’
A very short time after the King’s recovery the first remark made by
the sufferer, on growing convalescent, to Lord Thurlow, was--‘What
_has_ happened may happen again. For God’s sake! make some permanent
and immediate provision for such a regency as may prevent the country
from being involved in disputes and difficulties similar to those just
over.’ Thurlow and Pitt agreed on the expediency of the measure, but
were at issue relative to the details. When the measure _did_ come
before Parliament, Queen Charlotte was equally indignant against the
Prince of Wales and against those who advocated his claims. It may be
added here that the conduct of her three eldest sons continued to be of
the most insulting nature to the Queen. They could not forgive her for
allegedly standing between them and the power which they coveted. From
congratulatory balls, at which she had announced her intention to be
present, they kept away all persons over whom they had any influence;
and at a ball given by the French ambassador on the 30th of May the
Prince of Wales and the Dukes of York and Clarence would neither dance
nor remain to supper, lest they should have the appearance of paying
the smallest attention to her Majesty, who was present.
The assertion of the Prince of Wales that his royal father would
approve of what he had done, and censure Pitt, proved to be totally
unfounded. The King conveyed to the Parliament, through the lord
chancellor, his approval of the measures taken by ministers, and
expressed his gratitude that so much zeal had been manifested by them
and Parliament for the public good and for the honour and interest
of the crown. Following this came a sweep of all who held removeable
offices under the crown, and who had opposed the Queen’s interests
and the King’s cause by supporting the views of the Prince. Among the
ejected were the Duke of Queensberry, the Marquis of Lothian, Lord
Carteret, and Lord Malmesbury.
Mr. Wright, in his ‘History of England under the House of Hanover,
illustrated from the caricatures and satires of the day,’ states that
the popularity of the ministers did not increase in the same proportion
as that of the King; for the reason that though the people approved
of the constitutional measures they had adopted at the late crisis,
the same people very well knew that they were as little impelled
by patriotism as their adversaries. Mr. Wright notices ‘a rather
celebrated caricature,’ by Gillray, entitled ‘Minions of the Moon,’
published a little later. It is dated the 23rd of December 1791, but
is generally understood to refer to this affair. It is a parody on
Fuseli’s picture of ‘The Weird Sisters,’ who are represented with the
features of Dundas, Pitt, and Thurlow. They are contemplating the
disk of the moon, which represents, on the bright side, the face of
the Queen, and on the shrouded side that of the King, now overcast
with mental darkness. The three minions are evidently directing their
devotions to the brighter side.
CHAPTER IX.
ROYALTY UNDER VARIOUS PHASES.
Bishop Watson a partisan of the Prince--The bishop’s reception
by the Queen--The Prince’s patronage of the bishop--Bishop
Watson’s views on the Regency--Laid on the shelf--The Prince
and the bishop’s ‘Apology’--Ball given on the King’s recovery
by Brookes’s Club; Mrs. Siddons, as Britannia--The Queen’s
Drawing-room on the occasion--Mrs. Siddons’s readings at
Buckingham House--Gay life of the Duke of York--Popularity
of the Duke of Clarence--His boundless hospitality at the
Admiralty--Duel between the Duke of York and Colonel Lennox--
Littleness of spirit of the Princes--Royal visit to Lulworth
Castle--Assault on the King--Caricatures of the day--
Marriage of the Duke of York--Ceremonious royal visit to the
young couple--Caricatures of the Duchess of York--Unhappy in
her marriage--The Duchess and Monk Lewis--Alleged avarice
of the King and Queen--Dr. Johnson’s opinion of the King--
Etiquette at Court--The Sailor Prince ‘too far gone’ for a
minuet--The Royal family at Cheltenham--The mayor and the
master of the ceremonies--Questionable taste of the Queen
in regard to the drama--Moral degradation of England during
the reign of the first two Georges--Mrs. Hannah More’s ideas
on morality; and Rev. Sydney Smith’s witty remark on it--A
delicate hint by the Queen to Lady Charlotte Campbell--The
Prince’s pecuniary difficulties--The Prince and affairs of the
heart--_Mésalliance_ of the Duke of Sussex.
Among the few bishops who took the ‘unrestricted’ side on the Regency
Bill, Bishop Watson of Llandaff was the most active. No doubt his
activity was founded on conscientiousness, for many able men of the
period were to be found who were by no means violent partisans, yet
who were ready to maintain that, according to the constitutional law,
the right of exercising the power of regent in the case of incapacity
on the part of the reigning sovereign rested in the next heir, the
Prince of Wales. There is as little doubt as to the Queen’s having
looked with considerable disfavour on all who held such sentiments.
Among those who did was this Bishop of Llandaff. If Queen Charlotte
felt towards the prelate as Queen Caroline used to do towards those
who stood between her and her wishes, the fault, if fault there were,
was not attributable to _her_, but to the minister. _He_, right or
wrong--and most persons who knew what the conduct of the elder son
of Charlotte was will agree that he was at least morally right--_he_,
the minister, represented to her that all who supported the Prince and
opposed the ministerial measure which gave great power to the Queen
were enemies of the sovereign. Charlotte believed this, and perhaps the
Whig bishop is not wrong who says that the Queen lost, in the opinion
of many, the character she had hitherto maintained in this country by
falling in with the designs of the minister. These many were, however,
only the Whigs. It is nevertheless unfortunately true that the Queen
distinguished by different degrees of courtesy on the one hand, and by
meditated affronts on the other, those who had voted with and those who
had voted against the ministers, ‘inasmuch,’ says Bishop Watson, ‘that
the Duke of Northumberland one day said to me, “So, my lord, you and I
also are become traitors.”’
At the drawing-room held on the King’s recovery the Queen received
Bishop Watson with a degree of coldness which, he says, ‘would
have appeared to herself ridiculous and ill-placed could she have
imagined how little a mind such as mine regarded in its honourable
proceedings the displeasure of a woman, though that woman happened to
be a Queen.’ But it must not be forgotten that if the Queen had, as
it were, two faces for the two parties into which society at Court
was divided, her eldest son exhibited the same characteristic, and he
was accordingly eminently cordial with the prelate of Llandaff. When,
at the drawing-room above-named, the Queen looked displeased as the
bishop stood before her, the Prince of Wales, who was standing by her
side, immediately asked him to come and dine with him. A more unseemly
proceeding cannot well be imagined. ‘On my making some objection,’
says the bishop, ‘to dining at Carlton House, the Prince turned to
Sir Thomas Dundas and asked him to give us a dinner at his house on
the following Saturday.’ The party was arranged, the guests met, and,
while they were waiting for dinner, the Prince took the bishop by the
button-hole, and, says the prelate, ‘he explained to me the principle
on which he had acted during the whole of the King’s illness, and spoke
to me with an afflicted feeling of the manner in which the Queen had
treated himself. I must do him the justice to say that he spoke, _in
this conference_, in as sensible a manner as could possibly have been
expected from an heir-apparent to the throne and from a son of the best
principles towards both his parents.’
The especial words ‘in this conference’ would seem to imply that the
son of Charlotte did not always speak in so sensible a manner as could
have been expected from a royal heir-apparent. It would have been as
well, too, if the bishop had told his readers what the principle was
on which the Prince had grounded his conduct throughout the King’s
illness. When he simply talks of the Prince as a son imbued with the
best principles towards both his parents, he would have done well
if he had added whether he was considering that son politically or
morally. It must have been politically, for the right reverend prelate
did not impress upon his younger friend that a mother’s faults should
be invisible to the eyes of her children; but, on the other hand, he
rather emphatically charged her with ill-humour by advising the Prince
‘to persevere in dutifully bearing with his mother’s ill-humour till
time and her own good sense should disentangle her from the web which
ministerial cunning had thrown around her.’ Now to _persevere_ in a
line of conduct is to continue in that already entered upon, and the
line followed by the Prince was one of continual insult and provocation
against the Queen. The bishop confesses an inclination to think well of
her. ‘I was willing,’ he writes, ‘to attribute her conduct during the
agitation of the regency question to her apprehensions of the King’s
safety, to the misrepresentations of the King’s minister, to anything
rather than a fondness for power.’ There is something inexpressibly
ingenuous in the paragraph which follows:--‘Before we rose from table
at Sir Thomas Dundas’s, where the Duke of York and a large company
were assembled, the conversation turning on parties, I happened to say
I was sick of parties, and should retire from all public concerns.
“No,” said the Prince, “and mind _who it is that tells you so_, you
shall never retire--a man of your talents shall never be lost to
the public.”’ This testimony of himself was recorded by the bishop in
1814, and was published by his son in the Queen’s lifetime in 1817.
Like the passage touching the Queen, it gave offence to the principal
person concerned in it. The aged Queen was not pleased to have her
‘ill-humour’ registered before the world, nor was her son flattered by
the innuendo which was conveyed in the paragraph which chronicled his
promise of conferring preferment on the Bishop of Llandaff. Dr. Watson
died prelate of that small diocese.
The clergy of the diocese of Llandaff presented congratulatory
addresses to both their Majesties upon the King’s recovery. Those
addresses were written by Bishop Watson; and in that which he presented
to Queen Charlotte he inserted a paragraph which he avows, in his
memoirs, that he knew would be disagreeable to her. The address in
question, after expressing that the sympathy of every family had been
extended to the Queen in her late distress, complimenting her on the
sincerity of her piety, the amiableness and purity of her manners
as Queen, wife, and mother, and referring, in laudatory terms to
the concern which she had exhibited for the Monarch during his late
unhappy situation, thus proceeds:--‘We observed in the deliberations
of Parliament a great diversity of opinions as to the _constitutional
mode_ of protecting the rights of the Sovereign during the continuance
of his indisposition; but we observed no diversity whatever as to the
_necessity_ of protecting them in the most effectual manner. This
circumstance cannot fail of giving solid satisfaction to your Majesty;
for, next to the consolation of believing that in his recovery he has
been the especial object of God’s mercy, must be that of knowing that
during his illness he was the peculiar object of his people’s love;
that he rules over a free, a great, and an enlightened nation, not more
by the laws of the land than by the wishes of the people.’
Upon this text of his own constructing, the bishop makes the following
comment in his ‘Autobiography’:--‘The first part of this last paragraph
I _knew_ would be disagreeable to the Queen, as it contradicted the
principle she wished to be generally believed, and the truth of
which alone could justify her conduct--that the opposition to the
minister was an opposition to the King. Now, as there was not a word
of disaffection to the King in any of the debates in either House of
Parliament during the transaction of the regency, and as I verily
believe the hearts of the Opposition were as warm with the King, and
warmer with the constitution, than those of their competitors, I
thought fit to say what was, in my judgment, the plain truth.’ The
bishop, however, loses sight of the fact that Queen, ministers, and a
great majority of the people desired a restricted regency, in order
that the rights of the Sovereign should suffer nothing, in case of
recovery; and that Queen, ministers, and a great majority of the people
felt that the Prince of Wales had no divine right to the regency,
but had by his public and private conduct shown that he was entirely
unworthy of holding any powers but under constitutional limitation.
Previous to the King’s recovery, the Bishop of Llandaff had expressed
himself as having been miserably neglected by Mr. Pitt, and ‘I feel
the indignity as I ought.’ The bishop declares that he was overlooked,
for want of political pliancy. However, we have seen that, in the
allegedly offended Queen’s presence, the Prince of Wales ostentatiously
patronised the prelate, and subsequently made a post-prandial promise
touching preferment, which he never fulfilled. The bishop strongly
suspected that the Queen stood in his way. In 1805, the Duke of Grafton
wrote to him, to give him early intimation that the Archbishop of
Canterbury was not expected to live; but ‘I had no expectation of an
archbishopric,’ says Dr. Watson, ‘for the Duke of Clarence had once
said to me, (speaking in conversation no doubt the language of the
court), ‘they will never make _you_ an archbishop; they are afraid of
you.’ In the following year, the bishopric of St. Asaph became vacant,
and Dr. Watson applied for it to Lord Grenville, stating that it ‘would
be peculiarly acceptable to himself.’ ‘It was given to the Bishop of
Bangor; and the bishopric of Bangor was given to the Bishop of Oxford.’
Hereupon, the diocesan of Llandaff, suspecting that the Queen’s
influence was exercised against him over the King, addressed a letter
to the Duke of Clarence, begging him to lay the same, which contained
a statement of the writer’s wishes, before the Prince of Wales, whom
the bishop ‘most earnestly entreated to take some opportunity of doing
him justice with the King.’ Years, however, passed on; and, in 1810, we
find the right reverend prelate expressing himself in doubt ‘whether
it is by her or by his Majesty that I am laid on the shelf.’ In fact,
he was by far worse treated at the hands of the Prince of Wales, whose
cause he had supported against Queen, ministers, and a great majority
of the people, than he ever was by the Queen herself. The Prince had
intimated that such a champion should not go without his reward;
and that the Prince would not forget the prelate. His Highness did,
however, completely forget the right reverend father. We do him wrong:
he remembered him on one occasion. On the 3rd of May 1812 there was
a dinner party at Carlton House. At these parties it was no uncommon
thing for the Regent to tell stories which sent the Queen’s fan up
to her face, with a remonstrating ‘George! George!’ to induce him to
have some respect for decency. On the occasion in question, however,
the conversation turned on immorality and irreligion. Mr. Tyrrwhitt
thereupon told a story how he had been in society with a Sussex
baronet, who gave utterance to such profligate and atheistic opinions
that Mr. Tyrrwhitt was obliged to leave the room, after recommending
the blasphemer and libertine to look into Bishop Watson’s ‘Apology’ for
that Bible which the baronet so scoffed at. At the royal table ‘the
baronet’s answer was produced and read, expressive of the greatest
thankfulness for having had it put into his hands, as it not only had
decided and clearly proved the error and fallacy of every opinion he
had before entertained, but had afforded him a degree of secret comfort
and tranquillity that his mind had previously been a stranger to.’
The Regent thereupon bethought himself of his old friend of Llandaff,
and ordered Mr. Braddyll to communicate to him the highly gratifying
anecdote. Dr. Watson returned his best thanks for ‘this instance of
a Prince’s remembrance of a retired bishop;’ and therewith ended the
patronage of the Regent, which was not more profitable to the prelate
than the alleged opposition or indifference of the Queen.
The Prince’s party were somewhat ashamed, it would seem, at what
had taken place in connection with White’s Club ball; and the Club
at Brookes’s resolved to render themselves blameless in the eyes of
the Queen, who was supposed to be more indignant than her consort at
the measures of their elder sons and their followers. The club at
Brookes’s hired the Opera-house, and gave a festival to the ladies,
consisting of a concert, recitations, a ball, and a supper. At this
festival Mrs. Siddons was engaged to appear as Britannia, and recite
some silly verses, by silly Merry, in which laudation of the King was
qualified by political instructions to the people. ‘Long may he rule a
_willing_ land!’ was declaimed by the actress with solemn and melodious
dignity; and this line was followed by the hint to the people that
‘Oh, for ever may that land be free!’ A long roll of ‘infinite deal
of nothings’ followed, in which scant courtesy was paid to the Queen;
and Mrs. Siddons, having got to the end of her ‘lines,’ astonished
the spectators by an exhibition of the ‘pose plastique,’ assuming the
‘exact attitude of Britannia, as impressed upon our copper coin.’
Having noticed what took place at the King’s drawing-room, omission
must not be made of the Queen’s, held by her in March, especially to
receive congratulations upon the happy recovery of her consort. More
than usual splendour did honour to the occasion. The Queen sat on a
chair of state, under a canopy, and surrounded by the great officers of
her household. Eye-witnesses declare that the blaze of diamonds which
covered her Majesty was something more than the ordinary glory. Around
the Queen’s neck, too, was a double row of gold chain, supporting a
medallion. ‘Across her shoulders was another chain of pearls, in three
rows; but the portrait of the King was suspended from five rows of
diamonds, fastened loose upon the dress behind, and streaming over the
person with the most gorgeous effect. The tippet was of fine lace,
fastened with the letter G, in brilliants of immense value. In front of
her Majesty’s hair, in letters formed of diamonds, were easily legible
the words, “God save the King.” The Princesses were splendidly, but
not equally, adorned. The female nobility wore emblematical designs,
beautifully painted on the satin of their caps, and fancy teemed with
the inventions of loyalty and joy. At half-an-hour after six o’clock,
her Majesty quitted the drawing-room for duties still more interesting.’
What these duties were, after the long drawing-room, Mr. Boaden, from
whose ‘Life of Kemble’ the details are borrowed, does not inform us;
but he adds, in a burst of eloquence not unlike the tone of some of the
dramas of which he discourses so pleasantly, that he cannot forbear
from expressing the full conviction of his understanding and his heart,
that no more glorious being than the consort of George III. ever
existed. ‘I have lived,’ he says, ‘to see a miserable delusion withdraw
some part of the affection of the multitude for a time; but she was in
truth the idol of the people, and they paid to her that sort of homage
as if in her person they were reverencing the form of VIRTUE itself.’
The same unreserved panegyrist, describing her Majesty’s visit to
Covent Garden Theatre on the 15th of April 1789, states that she was
accompanied by three of the Princesses--the Princess Royal, most
unassuming of all Charlotte’s daughters; the Princess Augusta, so
careless as to what she was dressed in, provided only that she were
dressed; and the Princess Elizabeth, who was always anxious to be doing
little services for people about the court, as if she wished to forget
that she was burdened by being great, and by the formalities which
she must observe, to give greatness dignity. Mr. Boaden strikingly
describes the scene. ‘The Queen entered the royal box alone; the
Princesses not being, for a few minutes, ready. On the appearance
of the Queen, a shout arose, of transport, from the spectators; the
curtain ran up, and displayed a transparency which had the words, in
striking letters, _Long live the King!_ and _May the King live for
ever!_’ For all this no preparation could be sufficient; and tears
fortunately came to her relief. In this state she paid her compliments
to her people. On the entrance of the Princesses, the emotion somewhat
subsided--
It seemed she was a Queen
Over her passion, which, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her.
The entertainments of the evening had no allusion whatever to the
event. They consisted of ‘He would be a Soldier,’ and ‘Aladdin.’ The
simple introduction, by Edwin, of giving the King’s health, was the
only allusion made to passing events. But the house cheered, and the
Queen smiled and nodded her gratification.
Whilst on the subject of theatricals, it may be noticed that the King
and Queen not only patronised Mrs. Siddons, but that the patronage
which they showed to this lady was not confined to witnessing and
applauding her performances on the stage. She was a frequent visitor
at Buckingham House and Windsor; and she was among the first to
discover that the King’s mind was affected. On occasion of one of her
visits, after her task was done of reading a play, at a high desk,
before which she stood, the King went up to her, and presented her
with a blank paper--blank, with the exception that his signature
was at the bottom of it. Such a gift intimated that the giver bound
himself to make any amount of pecuniary provision which the will of
the actress might choose to name, above the royal signature. The paper
was doubtless received with a graceful and grateful dignity, but with
equal propriety it was, on the earliest opportunity, presented blank,
as it was received, to the Queen. Her Majesty was very pointed in the
expression of her approbation at conduct so delicate and dignified; but
the virtue of Mrs. Siddons was left to be its own reward.
While the Duke of York was leading a ‘gay’ life, running in debt, and
falling asleep over his cards (his constant habit), to find himself a
great loser when he awoke, his next brother, Clarence, with some lively
propensities, too, contrived to maintain considerable popularity. He
was of a popular profession. At the age of thirteen the King sent him
as midshipman on board a man-of-war, and told him to fight his way.
He obeyed the injunction by having a _set-to_ with another ‘middy,’
soon after he was afloat, and secured, in this way, the respect of his
fellow-officers. He served under Keith, Hood, and Nelson. His sole
remark on first seeing the last-named gallant ‘shadow,’ was, that his
tail seemed more than he had strength to carry. The little Duke was
present in several actions, and shared in several victories. When the
Spanish commander, Don Juan de Langera, was brought prisoner on board
the ‘Prince George,’ and was told that the smart and active midshipman
whom he had observed on duty at the gangway was a prince of the blood,
and son of the reigning King, the brave but unlucky captain exclaimed,
‘Well may England be queen of the seas, when the son of her sovereign
is engaged in such a duty!’ The companions of the young Prince were not
the most suitable for a youth of his condition and prospects, as far
as refinement is concerned; they were rude, but I question if their
principles of conduct were not as good as any by which modern middies
and lieutenants are influenced. In some respects they were better, for
I do not imagine that if any one of the lieutenants of Keith, Hood,
or Nelson, had fallen into such a scrape as befel Lieutenant Royer of
the ‘Tiger,’ he would have expressed ‘satisfaction’ at being permitted,
at the theatre, to use the identical glass through which a hostile
commander had watched the destruction of a British ship. The rough and
ready manner of old days is better than the refinement which takes such
form and expression as this; and William Henry was little the worse for
the former, although Beau Brummell _did_ say of him that he was never
good for anything but to walk about a quarterdeck and cry ‘luff.’
Walpole writes of him, in 1789: ‘The Duke of Clarence, no wonder, at
his age, is already weary of a house in the middle of a village, with
nothing but a green short apron to the river, a situation only fit for
an old gentlewoman, who has put out her knee-pans and loves cards.’ The
writer adds, that were the Duke a commoner and a candidate, Richmond,
if it were a borough, would return him unanimously. ‘He pays his bills
regularly himself, locks up his doors that his servants may not stay
out late, and never drinks but a few glasses of wine.’ Miss Burney’s
report would lead us to a different conclusion. Walpole adds: ‘Though
the value of crowns is mightily fallen of late at market, it looks as
if his Royal Highness thought they were still worth waiting for. Nay,
it is said, he tells his brothers he shall be King before either. This
is fair, at least.’
William Henry was not always so blameless in his economy as Queen
Charlotte loved to see him. His hospitality at the Admiralty was
unbounded; but when it is remembered that the exercise of it during
fifteen months ran him in debt to the amount of not less than
three-and-twenty thousand pounds, such hospitality is rather to be
censured than eulogised. He was as profuse when King, until his
treasurer, Sir F. Watson, confessed his inability to go on.
The second son of Queen Charlotte delivered his maiden speech in the
House of Lords at the close of 1788. A few months after he made another
speech, in private society, which might have had a very fatal issue.
He stated that Colonel Lennox (afterwards Duke of Richmond) had been
addressed at Daubigny’s club in language to which no gentleman would
have quietly listened as the colonel had done. The latter, on parade,
asked for an explanation. The Duke refused, ordered him to his post,
and offered him ‘satisfaction’ if he felt himself aggrieved. The
colonel appealed to the club as to whether the members adopted the
Duke’s statement. They remained silent; and the result was a duel on
Wimbledon Common, on the 26th of May 1789. Lord Rawdon accompanied the
Duke, and the Earl of Winchilsea attended on the colonel. The duel
ended with no bloodier finale than the loss of a curl on the part of
the Duke. The latter, it was found, had not fired; he refused to fire,
bade the colonel fire again if he were not satisfied, and rejected
every inducement held out to him to make some explanation. On this the
parties separated.
Some littleness of spirit was exhibited in what followed. The colonel
was present at a court ball, at which the Queen presided, and formed
part in a country dance of which the Prince of Wales and other
members of the royal family were also a portion. The Prince, who was
remarkable for his gallantry, did not exhibit that quality on the
present occasion. He passed over the colonel, and the lady his partner,
without ‘turning’ the latter, as the laws of _contre-danse_ required.
The Prince’s conduct was imitated by both his brothers and sisters,
and the colonel’s partner was thus subjected to most unwarrantable
insult. The Queen, who had marked her opinion of the colonel’s conduct
by graciously speaking to him, remarking the chafed look of her son,
and addressing some inquiry to him, was answered that he was heated,
because he disliked the company. Upon this hint the Queen rose, and the
festive scene was brought to a disturbed and sudden conclusion.
The fall of the year was passed in the south of England, with Weymouth
for head-quarters. The King and Queen were not without peculiar
annoyances here, chiefly in the threats of assassination conveyed in
private letters. The Queen indeed, like the King, disregarded them, but
she feared the evil effect they might have on his excitable mind. Among
the visits paid by them to private individuals was one to the Roman
Catholic proprietor of Lulworth Castle, Mr. Weld, a relation, by her
first marriage, of Mrs. Fitzherbert. They were present in the chapel
attached to the castle during the celebration of divine service, and
remained while the anthem was sung,--without any ill effects resulting
to Protestantism.
In January 1790 the fears of the Queen were again excited for her
consort, at whom a stone was thrown by a mad Lieutenant Frick, as his
Majesty was on his way to the House of Lords. The muse was hardly more
sane or loyal than the lieutenant, for Peter Pindar wrote of this
incident:
Folks say it was lucky the stone missed the head,
When lately at Cæsar ’twas thrown;
I think, very different from thousands indeed,
’Twas a lucky escape for the stone.
The Queen, at the time of the King’s illness, was assailed with
unmeasured vituperation by the Opposition papers. Even her interviews
with Pitt were made base account of, in order to raise the public
odium against her. In the present year the ‘Hopes of the Party,’ a
caricature so named, by Gillray, served to show the supposed wishes of
the Opposition. The caricature represents many revolutionary horrors.
Among them is what is termed ‘a pair of pendants,’ showing the Queen
and prime minister each hanging from a lamp iron. ‘It is commonly
believed,’ says Mr. Wright, in the History from which a passage has
been already quoted, ‘that Pitt and Queen Charlotte were closely
leagued together to pillage and oppress the nation; and she was far
less popular than the King, whose infirmity produced general sympathy,
and who had many good qualities that endeared him to those with whom
he came in contact. In another part of Gillray’s picture the King is
brought to the block, held down by Sheridan, while Fox, masked, acts
as executioner. Priestley, with pious exhortations, is encouraging
the fallen monarch to submit to his hard fate.’ Later in the year, in
September, the Queen’s second son, Frederick Duke of York, married
Frederica, eldest daughter of the King of Prussia. The marriage was
solemnised on Michaelmas Day, at Berlin. The bride was then in her
twenty-fourth year, her husband in his twenty-eighth. She was fair,
virtuous, accomplished, and kindly-hearted,--by far too good a wife
for the profligate Prince to whom she was allied. The newly-married
pair travelled to England through France, where they met with but rough
treatment from the republican mob, some of whom very unceremoniously
scratched the royal arms off their carriages. The ceremony of marriage
was reperformed in England on the 23rd of November by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, in presence of the entire royal family. By an addition of
18,000_l._ to the Duke’s income, his revenue amounted to 35,000_l._ a
year; and an annual 30,000_l._ was settled on the Duchess, in case of
her surviving him.
The Queen, accompanied by the King and the elder branches of her
family, paid a visit of welcome to the young couple, which was the
most formal and ceremonious matter that can well be conceived. The
visit took the form of a tea-party; it ought, therefore, to have been
social and chatty, but it was as stiff and silent as much ceremony and
formal etiquette could make it. The King’s tea was solemnly handed to
him by the Prince of Wales, while the Duchess of York, receiving a cup
from the Duke, presented it, with much reverence, to the Queen. But in
the cups which cheer and not inebriate, ceremony _was_ soon dissolved;
and the King getting loquacious, the family party, before the night was
far gone, became as mirthful and pleasant as if it had been made up of
more mirthful and pleasant materials.
Despite the great popularity of the excellent Duchess, the
caricaturists spared neither her nor her royal father and
mother-in-law. In one of the satirical prints by Gillray, the King and
Queen--the latter most outrageously caricatured--are represented
in ridiculous attitudes of joy: the King is fairly ‘kicking up his
heels’ in ecstasy, offering eager welcome to the Duchess. The Queen is
holding out her apron to receive some of the wealth and jewels which
her daughter-in-law was popularly supposed to have brought with her.
The latter has _her_ apron full of money, and the Duke is introducing
her to his parents.
The poor Duchess was soon one of the unhappiest of wives. The
profligacy and shameless infidelity of her husband, to whom she had
been fondly attached, disgusted her. His extravagance involved him in a
ruin from which he could never relieve himself, and which his creditors
never forgot. It made many a hearth cold, and it brought misery to
that of the Duchess. For six years she bore with treatment from the
‘commander-in-chief’ such as no trooper under him would have inflicted
on a wife equally deserving. At the end of that time the ill-matched
pair separated, and the Duchess withdrew from the world; but in her
retirement she forgot none of the duties which it could fairly demand
of her. She was beloved by all, and was popularly and affectionately
mentioned by the popular voice as ‘the poor soldier’s friend.’
She was indeed the friend of all who needed her service, and did not
refuse even to give to poor ‘Monk’ Lewis the meed of admiration which
his little vanity required. He was once met coming in tears from the
Duchess’s drawing-room; and on intimating to his questioner that they
had their source in the very kind and flattering things the Duchess had
said to him, the weeper was roughly consoled by his acquaintance, with
the soothing advice, to ‘Never mind, as perhaps she did not mean it!’
Never was the alleged avarice of the King and Queen more bitterly
satirised than during this year (1791). The King, however, was a
cheerful giver, and the amount of property which the Queen left
at her death proves that she was no hoarder. The caricaturists,
nevertheless, smote them mercilessly. Peter Pindar assailed them in
coarse and witless lines, that had in them a certain rough humour, but
as ill-natured as rough. Gillray exhibited them as cheapening wares in
the streets of Windsor. In another print, the King, in the commonest of
garbs, was seen toasting his own muffins; and the Queen, with a hideous
twist given to her now plain features, and with pockets bursting with
the national money, was depicted busily engaged in frying sprats for
supper. In another, the Queen is sourly commanding her highly-disgusted
daughters to take their tea without sugar, as a saving to papa. There
were many of a similar cast, and not a few which exposed the vices
to which the Princes of the family--young men of great hopes and
with much kindliness of feeling, but with little principle--had
unfortunately surrendered themselves.
The King himself was ever depicted as slovenly both in dress and
gait--the Queen as mean in attire and sharply sour of visage. The
latter always wears a far more acute, but a less inquiring, air than
her husband. This was a true reflection. After Dr. Johnson had his
celebrated interview with the monarch at Buckingham Palace, he is said
to have declared that ‘His Majesty seems to be possessed of some good
nature and much curiosity; as for his _nous_, it is not contemptible.
His Majesty, indeed, was multifarious in his questions; but, thank God,
he answered them all himself.’
The public discontent and the general distress increased greatly at
this time, and had their effect in throwing a gloom over the court
circle. The old formality and not a very diminished festivity were
still, however, maintained there, and the republican fashions of France
were held in abhorrence at Windsor.
The sons of Queen Charlotte were not so formal in their behaviour
towards her, before witnesses, as the daughters were. The Duke of York
was now the most observant of ceremony, but he exhibited therewith
a show, perhaps a reality, of very tender feeling. Even on common
occasions the household of the Queen was encumbered by much stiffness
of observance of etiquette. It was not an uncommon occurrence for the
Duke of York to attend at his mother’s toilette, conversing with her
during its closing progress. When this was the case, and the dresser’s
task was done, that lady could not leave the room if the Duke happened
to stand between her and the door; to cross the Duke would have been a
terrible breach of good manners. Nor could the Queen help the dresser;
all that the illustrious lady could do was to watch till the Duke
changed his position, and then with a smile, and a ‘_Now_, I will let
you go,’ give freedom to the dresser, longing for liberty.
The Prince William (Duke of Clarence) was the least courteous of
the sons of Charlotte. But it must be remembered that he not only
went early to sea, but it was at a time when roughness of manner
was considered as more becoming to a naval officer than refinement;
to support the character, the young Prince probably assumed more
coarseness of style and speech than was really natural to him. The
Queen’s birthday drawing-room, in 1791, was followed by a ball, at
which the pretty Princess Mary was to dance her first minuet in public,
and her brother, the sailor Prince, had promised to be her partner.
But previous to the ball there was a dinner, and at a birthday dinner
more champagne was drunk by the Prince than on ordinary days. Under
its inspiration, the Duke found his way to the table of some of the
ladies and gentlemen in waiting. There he ruled as king, insisted upon
more champagne, compelled the not-unwilling gentlemen to drink with
him glass after glass, laughed at its effects upon them and himself,
smacked the servants on the shoulder, abused them good humouredly,
praised his sister Mary, had more champagne, kissed the hand of old
Madam Schwellenberg with infinite mock heroics, was always going and
never went, and ended all he said with the common oath of gentlemen, a
loudly-uttered ‘By G--!’ With a morning so spent, he was not likely to
be steady enough for the minuet at night. In fact, he was incapable of
appearing at the ball at all; much to the chagrin of the Queen; still
more to that of the Princess Mary, to whom, however, the offender made
less apology the next morning than confession, that on the Queen’s
birthday he had been ‘too far gone’ to think of dancing.
The Prince of Wales was not more temperate even on ordinary occasions;
and he was less heartily courteous to ladies than his brothers,
while perhaps he was more formally polite. Miss Burney describes him
as staring at her when she was in attendance upon the Queen, not
haughtily or impertinently, she says, but in an ‘extremely curious
manner’--probably as Don Juan may have looked upon Zerlina.
With all the Queen’s respect for the formality of court, she enjoyed
herself most when she was least observant of it. Reading the letters
of Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, she liked to talk them over with Miss
Burney, who could explain so many circumstances connected with them
which would, otherwise, have been incomprehensible to the Queen. She
loved to hear her dresser’s graphic account of Warren Hastings’ trial,
whither she had sent her with a reticule stuffed full of cakes from
the Queen’s own table. At Cheltenham, when she accompanied the King
thither previous to his late illness, the royal residence was of such
contracted dimensions, and so scant of accommodation, that her Majesty
dressed and undressed in the drawing-room. Many of her ladies would not
have submitted half so cheerfully as _she_ did to such an arrangement.
In the rural expeditions of the royal pair, there was indeed a comic
sort of mixture of formality and fun. At Weymouth, for instance, when
the King went to take his ‘dip,’ the royal machine was followed by
another full of fiddlers and other musical persons, who, as the monarch
plunged into the ocean, saluted him and the bold deed with ‘God save
the King,’ horribly out of tune!
It was when the royal pair were at Weymouth that, on one occasion, the
mayor of the borough, after presenting an address, and receiving the
stereotyped answer, boldly walked up to the Queen to kiss her hand.
‘You must kneel,’ whispered the master of the ceremonies. Mr. Mayor,
not heeding the court guide, continued standing, and in that position
kissed the royal hand. As he retired, the highly offended master of the
ceremonies remarked, angrily, ‘Sir, you ought to have knelt.’ ‘Sir,’
said the Mayor, ‘I can’t; don’t you see I have got a wooden leg?’
It is upon record that the Queen _once_ attempted to write some verses;
and having got to the third line gave the matter up in despair--
leaving her ‘reader’ to finish and perfect the rhymes. The occasion
was on presenting a pair of old-fashioned gloves to Lord Harcourt,
who had an affection for ancient gear, and cared more for old gloves
than new verses. Miss Burney acquitted herself, however, very well
with her _impromptu_; indeed, she may be said to have been the Queen’s
laureate during the five years she served that Sovereign. Her royal
mistress employed her to compose some congratulatory verses on the
King’s recovery from his serious indisposition; and of these it may be
said that if Warton, over whom paralysis was then pending, might have
written better, Henry James Pye, the succeeding laureate, could hardly
have written worse.
The taste of the Queen was itself not unimpeachable. With regard to the
drama, she would rather have seen little Quick in Tony Lumpkin, than
Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth. So her ‘reader’ was not called upon to
exert her powers upon any great works. The first book she was required
to read aloud was Colman’s broad farce of ‘Polly Honeycomb.’ The young
lady must have had a difficult task with the novel-reading Polly,
whose heart beat for Mr. Scribble, and into whose head her sire could
not beat a favourable opinion for ‘the rich Jew’s wife’s nephew,’ Mr.
Ledger. The young Princesses were listeners, and it could hardly have
been edifying for them to hear the rollicking Polly say of her father,
‘Lord, lord! my stupid papa has no taste; he has no notion of humour
and character and the sensibility of delicate feeling.’ ‘A novel,’
says Miss Honeycomb, ‘is the only thing to teach a girl life;’ and she
adds, ‘Every girl elopes when her parents are obstinate and ill-natured
about marrying her.’ Her ridicule of the long-lived affection of her
parents is expressed in the coarsest manner; and she thinks it a good
joke that her father recommends her to read the ‘Practice of Piety;’
she runs away with a scamp, and her honest lover, rightly disenamoured,
declares of her that ‘he would not underwrite her for ninety per cent.’
What Miss Pope made of Polly and King of Scribble, when this farce
was first produced, in 1760, it is not worth inquiring. Miss Pope was
considered great in it; but it is worth noticing that when Miss Burney
was reading the piece to the Queen and her daughters, an actress whose
name can never be separated from that of the Queen’s third son was then
turning half the heads in town with her Polly. Mrs. Jordan was well
supported by Palmer in Scribble, and the piece seems to have found its
way to court, as the ‘Dragon of Wantley’ did in the preceding reign, on
the strength of its popularity.
The reader to the royal audience performed her vocation under great
disadvantages. She read on in mortal silence on the part of those
who listened; neither comment, applause, nor feeling of any sort was
ever exhibited; and when Miss Burney had to read other of the elder
Colman’s plays, and once ventured to relieve the voice, long fatigued
by reading, by making some remark on the construction of the piece, the
innovation was submitted to without being commended.
This scene of a Queen whose high moral character and purity of taste
have been long matters of eulogy, seated amid her daughters, listening
to a farce which would hardly now be tolerated, is not pleasant. But
society had not yet freed itself from the uncleanness with which it
had been overwhelmed during the two preceding reigns. The unspeakable
degradation into which the first two Georges dragged the country must
not be forgotten, though it may not be detailed. While detesting
the restrictions with which monarchy had been loaded in the great
revolution, they indulged unrestrainedly in the worst coarseness of
vice. Kept back from pressing despotically upon the people, they
yielded unbridled sway to their own passions, and their infamous
example corrupted three-fourths of society. Caroline herself would
listen to stories told her by Sir Robert Walpole, upon which the eye
of the student of history cannot rest without a blush of indignation
mantling in his cheek. If the Stuarts were vicious, they were, in a
certain degree, gentlemanlike in their vices. The first two Georges
were as vicious, but they had none of the refinement of the Stuarts,
and would have been to the full as tyrannical had the men of England
left them the power. Their conduct was enough to render monarchy
detested, and the name of Brunswick execrable. The domestic virtues
of George III. and Queen Charlotte insured respect for the first, and
surrounded the latter name with something like a halo of love. If there
be any yet among us who sing ‘Hail, Star of Brunswick!’ with any mental
reservation, the reason may probably be traced to impressions received
from the records of the first Georges. The tone of society had not yet
recovered itself fully when Queen Charlotte caused ‘Polly Honeycomb’
to be read aloud to herself and daughters. It is true that her Majesty
also listened in like company to the teaching of Mrs. Hannah More;
but even that high moralist hardly as yet understood how the work of
morality might best be sped. Even ten years later than the time when
Colman’s farces were deemed not unfitting to be read to an audience
of mother and children, Mrs. More, in ‘Cœlebs,’ was recommending the
observance of modesty on the part of ladies on very selfish grounds.
In allusion to the ‘naked style’ of dress which was then the fashion
with women, Mrs. More admonitorily and significantly exclaims: ‘Oh, if
women in general knew what was their real interest; if they could guess
with what a charm even the appearance of modesty invests its possessor,
they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from principle.
The designing would assume modesty as an artifice; the coquet would
adopt it as an allurement; the pure as her appropriate attraction;
and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction.’ When the
Reverend Sydney Smith read this passage, he remarked that if there were
any truth in it, ‘nudity becomes a virtue, and no decent woman for the
future can be seen in garments.’ This is, perhaps, more smartly than
truly said. Queen Charlotte certainly abhorred the style of dress which
is censured in ‘Cœlebs.’ When the Lady Charlotte Campbell, famous for
her beauty and for her subsequent connection with Queen Caroline, first
went to court, she was attired in the scant costume of the period.
She was, in fact, in the very highest of the fashion, and as she was
passing before Queen Charlotte, the latter recommended her to ‘let out
a tuck in her petticoat!’
While on the subject of fashion, it may here be noticed that when the
marriage of the Princess Royal with the head of the House of Wurtemburg
had been determined on, her Majesty made the bridal dress, and helped
to deck her daughter with it. As a King’s eldest daughter, she had
a right to be attired in a dress of white and silver. The Princess,
however, was about to marry a widower, and it appears that custom,
consequently, required the bride to wear white and gold. And so the
robe was fashioned accordingly, and the preference of the Princess was
made to yield to etiquette. This marriage, however, did not take place
till 1797.
In 1792, the Prince’s pecuniary affairs were in a worse condition
than ever. Several executions had been in his house, from one of
which he had been saved by the benevolence of Lord Rawdon. His debts
now amounted to 400,000_l._ The Queen advised him to press the King,
through the lord chancellor, to apply for an increase of income. What
the Prince required was 100,000_l._ yearly, and if that were granted
he proposed to set aside 35,000_l._ per annum for the liquidation of
his debts. He had now abandoned racing, a silly pursuit which had cost
him yearly not less than 30,000_l._; and having done that, he feigned
to be shocked at his equally embarrassed brother, York, remaining on
the turf. He added, that if his request were not acceded to, he should
shut up Carlton House, go abroad, and live upon 10,000_l._ a year. It
was very properly suggested to him that he would do much better, if
the Queen’s wishes and his own could not be carried out, by staying in
England and showing the people that he could adapt his circumstances to
his revenue. This was a course, however, which he had never seriously
determined to follow. He was made up of contradictions; and although
he was at this period more than ever attached to Mrs. Fitzherbert,
it did not prevent him from maintaining the well-known actress, Mrs.
Crouch, in the post of ‘favourite.’ Mrs. Fitzherbert met this course by
ridiculing it, and by coquetting on her side. This hurt the Prince’s
vanity, and brought him again under her influence. What his homage was
worth may be judged of by the fact that it was paid to many deities,
and while he was maintaining Mrs. Crouch, forgetting poor Perdita
Robinson, making love to the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire (who
was separated from her husband, but did not on that account in the
slightest degree regard the Prince), he had also opened an intercourse
with Lady Jersey, who was not half such a prude as the Duchess, and
who was the most shameless of those to whom the heartless Prince had
pretended to surrender his heart. With many loves, or what were called
such, Mrs. Fitzherbert continued the married sultana. He built for
her a residence at Brighton, where she kept up the establishment of a
queen--really looked like one, for she was a superb woman--had as
brilliant diamonds as Queen Charlotte herself, and was greeted by all
the bathing women with the respectful appellation of ‘Mrs. Prince.’
But the Queen had soon to deplore another _mésalliance_. Her son Prince
Augustus (Sussex), when travelling in Italy, had become attached to
the Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore; and, after
a courtship during which the Prince wrote love-letters to the lady
that, with respect to style were neither sublime nor beautiful, and
with regard to grammar were calculated to make Lindley Murray die of
despair, the parties were married privately by an English clergyman,
and were re-married, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, on their return
to England. Of this union two children were born, of whom the daughter
(once known as Mademoiselle d’Este) became the wife of Lord Truro, who,
when Mr. Serjeant Wilde, endeavoured to establish the validity of her
father’s marriage, and acquired the lady’s hand by way of _honorarium_.
The moment the marriage of the Duke with Lady Augusta Murray was first
declared invalid by the ecclesiastical court, Lady Augusta separated
from her husband. The latter appears to have borne the separation very
philosophically, but he did not marry again during Lady Augusta’s life.
In his later days, when his brother, William IV., was King, he married
the lady who long survived him under the title of Duchess of Inverness.
But a marriage of more importance remains to be noticed.
CHAPTER X.
LENGTHENING SHADOWS.
The Prince of Wales’s marriage to the Princess Caroline of
Brunswick--Her character--The Prince’s behaviour at the
marriage ceremony--Lord Holland’s two accounts of the Princess
irreconcileable--The Prince’s hatred of the Princess--
Propriety of the Queen’s Court--Unpopularity of the King--
Pelted by the mob--Birth of the Princess Charlotte--Strict
observance of Court etiquette--Marriage of the Princess Royal
to the Prince of Wurtemburg--First book stereotyped in England
--The volunteer mania--Attempted assassination of the King--
Archbishop Cornwallis’s drums, and Lady Huntingdon’s efforts to
induce him to discontinue--Her hot reception by Mrs. Cornwallis
--Lady Huntingdon induces the King to aid her--The King’s
letter to the archbishop--Conduct of the clergy--Incident of
the Drawing-room--The Prince a Radical--The King’s illness
--His excitement--Feeling exhibited by the Duke of York--
The Prince of Wales incredulous of the recovery of the King--
Conversation between the King and Dr. Willis--The Queen’s
anxiety--Particulars of the King’s illness--Recovery of the
King--Home scene at Windsor Castle.
The subject of the marriage of the Prince of Wales will come more fully
under our notice in the Life of Caroline of Brunswick. Here it may be
mentioned that the period at which the question of the marriage of
the Prince was first moved, is not known with certainty. It was soon,
however, publicly ascertained that whenever that much-desired event
should take place the Prince’s debts were to be paid, on the condition
that after such settlement and the fixing of his establishment as a
married man, he was never to incur such liabilities again. The agreeing
to this condition debarred him from ever again applying to Parliament
for pecuniary relief.
There is little doubt as to the wish of Queen Charlotte that her
son should marry a Princess of Mecklenburg. It was sufficient for
the Prince that his mother had such desire that he should oppose it.
According to Lord Liverpool, the intimation of the Prince’s wish to
marry was abruptly made to the King, who received the information with
a cheerful complacency, and simply required that the lady chosen should
be a Protestant and a Princess. Mrs. Fitzherbert was neither.
The King offered to send a commissioner to the German courts on the
pleasant mission of reviewing the daughters of the sovereign dukes
there, and reporting on their eligibility. The Prince’s choice,
however, appears to have been made, if that can be called choice which
fixes on an object utterly unknown. He named his cousin, the daughter
of the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick. Her mother was Augusta, sister
of the King, whose birth had taken place at St. James’s Palace under
circumstances which gave such offence to Caroline and George II. The
King made no objection: and yet he must have known that if the object
selected was pretty, she was far less fair than the lady of Mecklenburg
whom Charlotte would fain have had for a daughter-in-law; and that
her reputation, even in Germany, where the best people then construed
liberally of female conduct, was none of the best. She was known as
a bold, dashing, careless girl, whose tongue was ever in advance of
reflection; who called the coarsest things by the coarsest names,
and who only needed temptation and opportunity to fall into any sin
which had a pleasant side to it. She was not worse than many of her
contemporaries with whose doings fame was less busy. Her great defect
was a want of self-control, if that be a great defect compared with a
want of cleanliness. But in this latter respect Caroline’s neglect was
not singular. In _her_ young days dirtiness had not yet quite gone out
of fashion.
It is credibly asserted that the Prince’s favourite, Lady Jersey, led
him to select the Princess of Brunswick for his wife. It was Lady
Jersey’s object that he should have a legal consort who must draw him
away from his (illegal) wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert; but it was also Lady
Jersey’s object that the wife should not possess attractions that
should prove more powerful than her own.
It will suffice to record here that the marriage took place on the 8th
of April, 1795, under unseemly auspices. The behaviour of the Prince
at the ceremony undoubtedly may be received as confirming the accounts
of his aversion to the bride. He confessed to the Duke of Bedford (one
of the two unmarried dukes who supported him at the marriage) that he
had taken several glasses of brandy before proceeding to it. He must
have taken many, for he was so drunk that the two dukes could scarcely
keep him from falling. The conduct of the Prince was, of course, the
subject of much remark, and it was set down, at the time, not to brandy
but remorse--remorse at the idea of that other marriage which he had
contracted with the woman whom he undoubtedly did love, if he ever
entertained for woman at all a sentiment worthy of that name. Very
few days passed after the solemnisation of the ceremony before ‘many
coarse and indelicate strictures on the bride’s person and behaviour
were currently reported as coming directly from the Prince in every
society in London.’ So says Lord Holland; and that noble writer, who
pronounces to be a bad and worthless woman--mad, at least, if not
bad--a princess whom his party, if not he himself, held up, in the
days of her persecution, as a martyr of virtue, goes on to say, that
the ill-usage to which the Princess of Wales was exposed at Brighton
and elsewhere from the Prince and his mistress, Lady Jersey, was
notorious, unpardonable, and so utterly disgraceful, ‘that persons
of rank (afterwards indebted to him for advancement in it) have
plumed themselves upon refusing to meet him at dinner at my house
[Holland House, Kensington], observing that he was not fit company for
gentlemen.’
The marriage began miserably, continued miserably, and ended miserably.
As Lord Holland observes, neither the Prince’s reconciliation with Mrs.
Fitzherbert nor his subsequent intimacies with Lady Hertford and others
(although such returns and changes of love were usually accompanied
by similar changes and returns of a train of favourites, friends, and
dependents), ever softened his hatred to the Princess. When, in 1820,
on the death of Napoleon, some officious courtier ran up to him to
apprise him of the news which he supposed would be welcome to him, in
these words, ‘Sir, your greatest enemy is dead!’--‘Is _she_, by G--?’
was the royal husband’s dignified and pious ejaculation.
‘Many seeds of discontent,’ says Lord Holland, ‘were imperceptibly
sown during the year 1795, among the supporters of the ministry, which
time brought to maturity. Among these may be reckoned the influence of
Carlton House. The Prince of Wales thought himself duped by Mr. Pitt
about the payment of his debts at the time of his marriage. He had been
treated superciliously, more than once, by Mr. Pitt, and he had never
liked him, though his own dread of revolutionary principles, quickened
by a recent quarrel with the Duke of Orleans, had rendered him eager,
and even vociferous, for the war. The last injury, real or supposed,
which he had received from Mr. Pitt, by the latter’s acquiescing in
devoting, on his marriage, the whole increase of his revenue to the
payment of his debts, sank into his weak and fretful mind deeper than
usual, because he was continually reminded of it by his connection with
a woman whom he loathed.’
Meanwhile, the Queen maintained the long-standing reputation of her
court with undiminished strictness. ‘The Queen’s public receptions,’
says Sir Jonah Barrington, ‘were the most gracious in the world. There
could not be a more engaging, kind, and condescending address than that
of the Queen of England. An illustration of her strictness is afforded
us by an anecdote told of her Majesty and an English duchess, who was
aunt to a niece of rather blemished reputation, but to which it was
hoped some lustre might be restored if she could only be made to pass
through a court atmosphere. The duchess, on asking the Queen to receive
her niece at the drawing-room, of course insisted that the young lady’s
fame had been unfairly attacked, and that she trusted to her Majesty’s
clemency and generosity to set it fair again with the world. The
Queen remained silent; whereupon the duchess, previous to retiring,
beseechingly inquired what she might be permitted to say to her niece.
‘Tell her,’ said Queen Charlotte, ‘that you did not dare to make such
a request to the Queen.’ The duchess, who held some post in the royal
household, felt that such a speech involved her own dismissal.
Never was the court so unpopular as at this time. In October 1795 the
King, on proceeding to the House of Lords, was not only assailed by
seditious cries, but was fired at by some assassin among the mob. On
his return from the House he was pelted with stones, and, later in the
day, when driving to the Queen’s House, in a private carriage, without
guards, the excited mob, with cries of ‘Bread--cheap bread!’ ‘No
war!’ and ‘No king!’ made an attempt to force open the door of the
vehicle in which he was riding. The same spirit was shown in 1796. On
the 1st of February the King and Queen went to Drury Lane to see ‘The
Fugitive.’ On their return a stone was thrown at the carriage, which
passed through one of the glass panels and struck the Queen in the
face. Soon after a female maniac was discovered in the palace, making
no secret of sanguinary designs against ‘Mrs. Guelph,’ her alleged
‘mother.’ Added to these private vexations, the negotiation entered
into, at the King’s express desire, to establish a peace with France,
entirely failed, and the difficulties of the situation were further
increased by Spain uniting with our other enemies against us in war.
In the month previous to that last mentioned the birth of the Princess
Charlotte, daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wales, was speedily
followed by the separation of the parents. We may cite here an incident
of the christening, as the Queen Charlotte is rather the heroine
thereof than the infant Princess.
Lady Townshend held the little Princess at the font. Some time elapsed
before the officiating prelate took her from Lady Townshend, whose
state of health at the time was such as to make her incapable of
standing long without some peril to her own future hopes. The Princess
of Wales pitied her, and asked the Queen, in a low voice, if she would
not command poor Lady Townshend to be seated. But Queen Charlotte
liked nothing so little as an interruption of established ceremony;
and, blowing the snuff from her fingers, she exclaimed, ‘No, no! she
may stand--she may stand!’ The Queen was nearly as strict in public
with her own children. They, on such occasions, never sat down in her
presence unless commanded; never spoke, unless first spoken to; and
once, it is said, when the Queen was playing at whist, one of the
Princesses, standing behind her chair, fell fast asleep from sheer
fatigue.
The domestic troubles of the Queen were now in great part connected
with the affairs of her eldest son and her daughter-in-law. They will
be found alluded to in the Life of the latter. Another marriage,
scarcely more promising, soon occupied her attention. The widowed
Prince of Wurtemburg proposed for the hand of the Princess Royal. His
first wife was the daughter of Augusta, and sister of the Caroline of
Brunswick for whom the Queen, her mother-in-law, had such small measure
of affection. This first marriage had been an unhappy one. The Prince
had taken his wife to Russia, where she is said to have become so
thoroughly corrupted as to have shocked the unclean Czarina, Catherine,
herself. From Russia she never returned; but how, when, or where she
died, no writer seems to be able to state with certainty. That she died
there in confinement cannot be doubted; and yet her sister Caroline
used to express her belief that she had been seen in Italy long after
the reported period of her death. Queen Charlotte had an especial
dislike to the projected match of this Prince with her daughter, nor
would the King consent until he had been satisfied that the Prince had
not been a cruel husband to his first wife, and that he had not become
a widower by unfair means. What the nature of this satisfaction was no
one knows. The marriage took place on the 18th of May. After a thirty
years’ residence in Wurtemburg, during which time that locality was
raised to the rank of a kingdom, and the daughter of our own Charlotte
was visited more than once by the first Napoleon, of whom her husband
was a very active ally, Charlotte Augusta, the ‘good Queen-dowager,’
and a childless widow, visited England once more, in order to obtain
medical relief for a dropsical complaint. On her voyage back, in worse
health than when she came hither, the vessel had nearly perished in
a storm. To her terrified attendants she calmly remarked, ‘We are as
surely under the protection of God here as upon the dry land--be not
afraid!’ She survived her mother ten years, dying in October, 1828. Her
letters addressed to the lady who superintended the education of the
Princess Charlotte of Wales are creditable alike to her head and her
heart.
The Princess Royal was married in 1797. Soon after she had set out
from St. James’s, early on a morning in June, in tears, and without a
relation to bid her adieu, all having gone through that ceremony the
night before, in order to be saved the trouble of early rising, the
mutiny in the navy broke out--a circumstance which hardly annoyed the
King more than the agitation for Parliamentary reform; for it was more
easily suppressed. There was some compensation for these vexations in
the visit to Duncan’s victorious North Sea fleet, and in the triumphs
of our other naval squadrons. The year ended appropriately with the
royal procession to St. Paul’s to render fervent thanksgiving for the
success of the arms of England.
It was early in 1798 that the first book was stereotyped in England,
and the Queen was the origin of this innovation--not that she had
any idea of innovation. The facts are simply these:--The press had
been teeming with productions offensive alike to virtue and religion.
To protect both was an anxious object with the Queen. According to
contemporary report, she procured from a German Lutheran divine
(Freylighausen) his ‘Abstract of the whole Doctrine of the Christian
Religion,’ and this she submitted to the judgment of Dr. Porteus,
Bishop of London. The prelate, well pleased to see the State thus
submissive or suggestive to the Church, read the pamphlet--not only
read it, but approved of, and (as it was said, erroneously) translated
it into English. He caused it to be printed in stereotype, and this
translated book was the first volume that was ever so printed in
England. With stereotyping, the name of Queen Charlotte should always
be mentioned in honourable connection.
The year 1798 was marked by the Irish rebellion, the national
subscription for the exigencies of the state, and for the uneasiness
felt at court at the standing toast of the Whigs--‘The sovereignty
of the people!’ That and the following year were _the_ years of the
Volunteer mania. The King and Queen were too happy to encourage this
sort of enthusiasm; and, even in their retirement at Weymouth, the
Volunteer reviews were among the most cherished of their amusements.
They hoped they had reconquered the love of a people on whom the burden
of war pressed heavily. They were at least not safe from popular
fanaticism. On the 15th of May, 1800, the royal family attended Drury
Lane Theatre, after a review in the morning. As the King entered the
box, and was in the act of bowing to the audience, he was fired at
from the pit. The Queen and her daughters were entering as the shot
was fired; and the King kept them back with his hand, lest, as he
said, ‘there might be another.’ After Hatfield, the assassin, had been
secured and carried off, the King and his family sat calmly down,
and witnessed the whole representation. This coolness was deservedly
admired. On the return to the palace the King replied to a sympathising
observation of the Queen, ‘I am going to bed with a confidence that I
shall sleep soundly; and my prayer is that the poor unhappy prisoner
who aimed at my life may rest as quietly as I shall.’
The other domestic incidents in the life of the Queen or King are not
of sufficient interest to be worth the detail. We may make exception
of one, however, which introduces us once more to the earnest and
indefatigable Lady Huntingdon.
Early in the present century we again meet with this lady, busy at,
with, and in defiance of courts. In her zeal as a reformer of manners
and morals, she was bold without being indiscreet; and she was never
more bold than when she attacked, courteously and courageously, no
less a person than Dr. Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury. This right
reverend lord primate had given several grand routs at his palace. The
archbishop was an old-fashioned man; and what had been tolerated in
his father and mother must also be permitted to himself and wife, the
magnificent Mrs. Cornwallis--leader and slave of _ton_. Let the world
have justice done to it, the majority therein were sorely scandalised
at these irreverend proceedings. But Lady Huntingdon was the only
one bold enough to give expression to what she felt. With the energy
and tact natural to such a woman she contrived to obtain the grant
of an audience with the primate and his lady, and thither she went,
accompanied by the Marquis of Townshend.
The priests of the sacred cities of Anahuac were not more
horror-stricken when Cortez asked them to burn their gods, than
the primate of all England was when the good lady pressed upon him
sacrifices which would entail the necessity of spending very dull
evenings. As for Mrs. Cornwallis, she tarred and feathered Lady
Huntingdon, metaphorically, by flinging missiles which soiled her who
flung them, and by scattering light ridicule which was blown back upon
the face and reputation of the scatterer. Lady Huntingdon again and
again assaulted the archi-episcopal fortress, but she was driven back
by repeated discharges of ‘Methodist!’ and ‘Hypocrite!’
She could do nothing at Lambeth, and accordingly she turned her face
towards Kew. Nor had she long to wait before Queen Charlotte and her
royal consort admitted her to an interview, to which she was conducted
by Lord Dartmouth and the Duchess of Ancaster.
The sovereigns listened to the simple yet earnest story. The King was
especially warm in expressing his indignation, and the Queen took her
full share in such expression. ‘I had heard something of this before,’
said George III., ‘but I knew not if all was as bad as Lady Huntingdon
has detailed it. The archbishop has behaved very ill to the lady. I
will see if he dare refuse to listen to a King.’ The gay and orthodox
courtiers present began to think that the world was at an end. Here
was the State placing itself above the Church! Mentally, they no doubt
denied the royal supremacy.
In an after-conversation the honest King confessed that Lady Huntingdon
herself had been painted to him in very odd colours, and, in admitting
her to an interview, he was partly influenced by his curiosity to see
whether she was so strange a creature as she had been described by her
enemies. To his expressions of admiration for herself and her work the
Queen added similar assurances; and could the archbishop have seen two
sovereigns thus complimenting a ‘Methodist’ and a ‘Hypocrite,’ no doubt
the primate, zealous for nightly ‘drums,’ would have burst into tears,
and have declared that the sun of England was set for ever!
‘His Majesty,’ said Queen Charlotte, ‘had complaints made against
yourself, in part, Lady Huntingdon, but chiefly against your students
and ministers, whose preaching annoys one or two of our bishops who are
careless.’ The King nodded assent, adding, it was a pity that these
students and ministers could not be made bishops of, as then they would
cease to annoy anyone by preaching. It was objected that even the Lady
Huntingdon could not be made a bishop of, and so the evil would be as
rife as ever. ‘I wish we could make her one,’ said the Queen, with a
smile at the idea; ‘I am sure her ladyship would shame more than one
upon the bench!’
The King then conversed with Lady Huntingdon, chiefly upon old times
and persons of his father’s court, at which she had for a while been a
frequent visitor. ‘We discussed a great many subjects,’ says the lady
herself, in her account of the interview, ‘for the conversation lasted
upwards of an hour, without intermission. The Queen,’ she adds, ‘spoke
a good deal, asked many questions, and, before I retired, insisted on
my taking some refreshments. On parting, I was permitted to kiss their
Majesties’ hands; and when I returned my humble and most grateful
acknowledgments for their very great condescension, their Majesties
immediately assured me they both felt gratified and pleased with the
interview, which they were so obliging as to wish might be renewed.’
The Queen repeatedly expressed her admiration of Lady Huntingdon’s
conduct on this occasion, one result of which was a stringent letter
addressed by the King to the primate. In this royal remonstrance and
reproof, the writer told the archbishop that he ‘held such levities
and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pass
in a residence for many centuries devoted to divine studies, religious
retirement, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence ...
where so many have led their lives in such sanctity as has thrown
lustre on the pure religion they professed and adorned. From the
dissatisfaction,’ adds the King, ‘with which you must perceive I hold
these improprieties, not to speak in harsher terms, and on still more
pious principles, I trust that you will suppress them immediately,
so that I may not have occasion to show any further marks of my
displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner.’
When it was necessary to administer such a reproof as this to an
archbishop, we may readily believe that only a sorry sort of reputation
attached itself to the clergy generally. This had been the case for
many years. Speaking of the Queen’s drawing-room, held in January,
1777, Cumberland, who was present, says: ‘Sir George Warren had his
order snatched off his ribbon, encircled with diamonds to the value of
700_l._ Foote was there and lays it upon the parsons, having secured,
as he says, his gold snuff-box in his waistcoat pocket upon seeing so
many black gowns in the room.’
Foote’s remark was only in jest, but it shows the estimation in which
the clergy were held. They were for the most part, and yet with some
noble exceptions, but wretched teachers both by precept and example.
Where clerical instruction was thus doubly defective, lay practice
was not of a very pure character. Only two or three years before
Lady Huntingdon waited on Queen Charlotte and the King at Kew, an
incident illustrative of my remark occurred at one of her Majesty’s
drawing-rooms. A great crowd had assembled, and amid the throng--
while the Prince of Wales was conversing with the King--he felt a
sudden pull made at the hilt of his sword. He looked down and perceived
that the diamond guard of the weapon was broken off, but it remained
suspended by a small piece of wire, the elasticity of which had
prevented it from breaking, and so preserved the diamond-studded guard.
No discovery was made as to the author of this felonious attempt, and
the Prince did wisely in refusing to fix on the gentleman who stood
nearest to his side as the offender.
In 1801 the Prince of Wales was in full opposition against the crown
and Pitt. The opposition had a Jacobinical character, and affected
Jacobinical opinion without any reserve. Lord Malmesbury remarks of the
Prince that even ‘his language in the streets is such as would better
become a member of Opposition than the heir to these kingdoms.’ This
conduct was followed at a time when the state of the King’s health
began again to cause some anxiety. He had contracted a chill and severe
cramps by remaining too long in a cold church, on the 13th of February.
We find Lord Malmesbury recording on the 17th of February: ‘King got
a bad cold. Takes James’s powders. God forbid he-should be ill!’ And
the next day he writes: ‘King-better. Lord Radnor saw him yesterday
morning, and he clearly had _only_ a bad cold.’ One day later, on
occasion of an audience of the King being sought by Mr. Pelham, the
same writer says: ‘Pelham came back to me from court; he had seen and
consulted the Duke of Portland, who approved his seeing the King,
but said it would not be _to-day_, as the King was unwell, and on
such occasions it was not usual to disturb him but on great public
business.’ On the 21st matters appeared worse. ‘Bad accounts from
Queen’s House; the answer at the door is, the King is better: but it is
not so. He took a strong emetic on Thursday, and was requested to take
another to-day, which he resisted.’ It would seem that the progressive
seriousness of the symptoms produced no corresponding effects in the
heir-apparent. On Sunday, the 22nd of February, the diarist writes:
‘His Majesty still bilious; not getting better; apprehensions of
getting worse. Fatal consequence of Pitt’s hasty resignation. Princess
Amelia unwell. Queen not well. At Carlton House they dance and sing.’
As the King grew worse, the intrigues of the husband of Caroline
became more active. The regency was the object of these intrigues.
In the meantime the condition of the Sovereign grew daily more
unsatisfactory. On the 29th of February the King’s pulse was at 130
during the night. ‘This makes,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘in favour of the
mental derangement, and proves it to be only the effect of delirium in
consequence of fever, but it puts his life in very great danger.’
His mind had been extraordinarily excited at this period by an
agitation which was being carried on against the Church, and in favour
of the emancipation of the Romanists. The King had strong views of
what he was bound to by the coronation oath, and the idea became
the rooted torment of his mind. ‘The King, on Monday,’ writes Lord
Malmesbury, ‘after having remained many hours without speaking, at
last, towards the evening, came to himself, and said, “I am better
now, but will remain true to the Church.” This leaves little doubt as
to the idea uppermost in his mind. And the physicians do not scruple
to say that, although his Majesty certainly had a bad cold, and would
under all circumstances have been ill, yet that the hurry and vexation
of all that has past was the cause of his mental illness, which, if it
had shown itself at all, would certainly not have declared itself so
violently, or been of a nature to cause any alarm, had not these events
taken place.’ They were events which were weighing on the mind of
George III., just as the loss of the American colonies had done in the
preceding century.
The Duke of York at this juncture is said to have behaved with great
propriety towards Queen Charlotte and the Princesses. How his elder
brother behaved is thus recorded: ‘The Prince of Wales, on Sunday,
the 22nd of February, the second day of the King’s illness, and
when he was at his worst, went in the evening to a concert at Lady
Hamilton’s, and there told Calonne, the rascally French ex-minister,
“Savez vous, M. de Calonne, que mon père est aussi fou que jamais?”’
Later we have it recorded, that ‘the King at Windsor, about 6th or
7th instant (March), read his coronation oath to his family;--asked
them whether they understood it? and added, If I violate it I am no
longer legal sovereign of this country, but it falls to the house of
Savoy.’ Subsequently, Lord Malmesbury writes: ‘Lady Salisbury said the
King was quite well enough to have the Queen and Princesses at dinner.
_Qui prouve trop ne prouve rien._ Any degree of fever could render
this improper in anybody, and if you take away the fever, you have the
intellectual derangement without a cause or hopes of recovery. I fear
there is so much fever that his life is in imminent peril. The Duke of
York deeply affected, and worn out with his assiduous attentions at the
Queen’s House.’
Lord Vincent, the first lord of the admiralty, declared on the 2nd of
March that not only was his Majesty much better, but that, throughout
the present attack, he had never been so ill as he was at the moment
when, in his previous illness, he had been pronounced by Warren to
be convalescent. The King’s fever increased alarmingly that very
night. On Tuesday, the 3rd of March, Lord Malmesbury thus graphically
describes the crisis: ‘King so much worse last night that his life was
despaired of. About ten he fell into a profound sleep; and awoke in
about six hours quite refreshed and quite himself. His Majesty said he
was thirsty, and, on being asked what he wished to drink, said, “if
_allowed_, a glass of cold water.” This was given him. It put him into
a perspiration. He fell asleep again, and awoke in the morning with the
fever abated, and better in every respect. The crisis of his disorder.
Crowds of people round Queen’s House, and their expressions of joy very
great.’
The cure, however, was not yet complete. Much care was required. The
King was disposed to talk on that very subject which had temporarily
threatened to overthrow his intellect. And his anxiety for the Church,
joined to seeing and conversing with two of his daughters before he
was strong enough to argue the question connected with one, or to bear
the pleasant excitement of intercourse with his family, produced a
disagreeable, although not an enduring, relapse.
The Prince of Wales was the most reluctant of his family to believe
in the recovery of his father, whom he openly declared as being more
deranged than ever, although he might possibly be improving in bodily
health. He affected to complain of being kept in ignorance of what was
going on at the Queen’s House; but his ignorance arose from the little
care he gave himself to become wiser.
The recovery, however, was considered genuine. The illness itself had
been marked by one circumstance which distinguishes it from that under
which the King suffered so severely in 1788. In the earlier attack
sleep never relieved him. Not that he did not sleep well, but that it
did not compose his nervous system. He would sleep indeed, soundly,
but awake from it, like a giant refreshed by wine, more turbulent
than ever. In the illness from which he had just recovered his sleep
was healthy and refreshing, and he invariably woke from it quiet and
composed.
The first persons whom he saw after his recovery were the Queen and
Princesses and the Dukes of Kent and Cumberland. To the Duke of York,
whom he saw alone on the 7th of March, he said, after thanking him
for his kindness to his mother and sisters, ‘I saw them yesterday,
because I could send _them_ away at any time; but I wish to see you
_alone_, and for a long time, and therefore I put it off till to-day.’
In inquiring about the Queen’s health of the Duke of York, the King
expressed great solicitude for them; and the Duke acknowledged that
they had suffered greatly, but added, that their chief anxiety was lest
now, in getting well, he should be less careful about his health than
prudence would warrant. The King confessed to having presumed too much
on the strength of his constitution, but promised to be less neglectful
for the future. And the conversation turned to political affairs, to
the ministry, to what had been done during his malady, and at last to
that question of Romanist emancipation which had so shaken his mind,
as being connected with that ruin of the Church of England which he
thought must follow, and which church he had sworn he would protect.
Some weeks before his illness he had said to the Duke of Portland
that, ‘were he to agree to it, he should betray his trust and forfeit
his crown, that it might bring the framers of it the gibbet.’ He was
beginning to use language almost as strong to the Duke of York, at the
first introduction between father and son, after the recovery of the
former. The Duke of York, however, very judiciously stopped him, with
the assurance that Pitt had abandoned all idea of pressing the Catholic
question, that therefore it were wise to let the discussion of it
drop also; and that all political parties, who had behaved with great
propriety during his illness, had now but one common anxiety--that
to see him well again. ‘I am now _quite_ well; QUITE recovered from my
illness,’ remarked the King to Mr. Willis, on the occasion of directing
him to write to Pitt, ‘but what has _he_ not to answer for who has
been the cause of my having been ill at all?’ Pitt was much affected
by this reproach, and it is said to have influenced him to surrender
the question rather than press it to the peril of the King’s health.
Indeed, the King had so determinedly expressed himself on the subject
that the Duke of Portland had declared that his Majesty had rather
suffer martyrdom than submit to this measure.
The interview between the King and the Duke of York was followed by one
between the Sovereign and the Prince of Wales. Lord Malmesbury says of
the latter, that ‘his behaviour was right and proper. How unfortunate
that it is not sincere, or rather that he has so effeminate a mind as
to counteract all his own good qualities by having no control over his
weaknesses!’
The Queen continued in a great state of anxiety touching the King’s
health, notwithstanding his complete recovery having been declared.
He was at times very nervous and depressed--at others, still more
nervous and excited. There was less a fear of mental derangement
than that his faculties might never recover their former tone. He
occasionally behaved strangely in public; was too familiar with the
members of the cabinet which succeeded that of which Pitt had been at
the head; and, again, was too readily and profoundly affected--too
soon elated or cast down--by trifles. On Thursday, the 26th of March,
1801, Lord Malmesbury writes: ‘Drawing-room to-day very crowded. Queen
looking pale. Princesses as if they had been weeping. They insinuate
that the King is too ill for the Queen to appear in public, and to
censure her for it. Dukes of York and Cumberland there. The Prince of
Wales _was_ at the drawing-room, but behaved very rudely to the Queen.’
And yet just previously he had made an ostentatious manifestation of
his delicacy. Lords Carlisle, Lansdowne, and Fitzwilliam, with Mr. Fox,
informed his royal highness that they had formed a coalition, offered
him their services, and proposed to hold a conference at Carlton
House. The Prince is said to have pleaded, in excuse for declining all
they offered, the state of the King’s health; but out of respect to
his sire, he said that he should consider it his duty to inform Mr.
Addington, the minister, of the nature of their proposals. This he did;
and it was perhaps because he regretted the step he had taken that he
behaved rudely to his royal mother in her own public drawing-room!
The King’s condition still required care and watchfulness. Thus, on
the 25th of May, Dr. Thomas Willis writes to Lord Eldon:--‘The general
impression yesterday, from the King’s composure and quietness, was
that he was very well. There was an exception to this in the Duke of
Clarence, who dined here. “He pitied the family, for he saw something
in the King that convinced him he must soon be confined again.”
‘This morning I walked with his Majesty, who was in a perfectly
composed and quiet state. He told me, with great seeming satisfaction,
that he had had a most charming night, “he could sleep from eleven to
half after four,” when, alas! he had but three hours’ sleep in the
night, which upon the whole was passed in restlessness--in getting
out of bed, opening the shutters, in praying violently, and in making
such remarks as betray a consciousness of his own situation, but which
are evidently made for the purpose of concealing it from the Queen. He
frequently called out, “I am now perfectly well, and my Queen--my
Queen has saved me!” While I write these particulars to your lordship I
must beg to remind you how much afraid the Queen is lest she should be
committed to him; for the King has sworn he will never forgive her if
she relates anything that passes in the night.’
The Princess Elizabeth subsequently addressed a letter to Dr. Thomas
Willis, in which she states that she has the Queen’s commands to inform
him that ‘the subject of the Princess of Wales is still in the King’s
mind, to a degree that is distressing, from the unfortunate situation
of the family.’ The writer adds: ‘The Queen commands me to say, that
if you could see her heart, you would see that she is guided by every
principle of justice, and with a most fervent wish that the dear King
may do nothing to form a breach between him and the Prince. For she
really lives in dread of it; for, from the moment my brother comes
into the room till the instant he quits it, there is nothing that is
not kind that the King does not do by him. This is so different to his
manner when _well_, and his ideas concerning the child (the Princess
Charlotte) so extraordinary, that I am not astonished at mamma’s
uneasiness. She took courage, and told the King that now my brother was
quiet he had better leave him, as he (the Prince) had never forbid the
Princess seeing the child when she pleased. To which he answered, “That
doesn’t signify. The Princess shall have her child; and I will speak
to Mr. Wyatt about the building of the wing to her present house.” You
know full well how speedily every thing _is now ordered_ and done.’
‘The Princess spoke to me on the conversation the King had had with
her--expressed her distress; and I told her how right she was in
not answering, as I feared the King’s intentions, though most rightly
meant, might serve to hurt and injure her in the world.’ For a few days
the symptoms ameliorated; then, on the 12th of June, Dr. Thomas Willis
wrote to Lord Chancellor Eldon: ‘His Majesty still talks much of his
prudence, but shows none. His body, mind, and tongue are all upon the
stretch every minute; and the manner in which he is now expending money
in various ways, which is so unlike him when well, all evince that he
is not so right as he should be.’ The Queen, to use her own words,
built her faith upon the Chancellor, and doubted not of his succeeding
in everything with his Majesty. ‘He failed in some nevertheless. He
urgently requested the King to allow Dr. Robert Willis to remain in
attendance on him. The King hated all the Willises, and Dr. Robert not
less than any of them. He concludes a note to Lord Eldon on the 21st of
June by saying: ‘No person that has ever had a nervous disease can bear
to continue the physician employed on the occasion. This holds much
more so in the calamitous one which has so long confined the King, but
of which he is now completely recovered.’
The health of the Sovereign prevented him from attending the concerts
and other entertainments which he was accustomed to honour with his
patronage. He was, however, sufficiently recovered to enjoy a sojourn
at Weymouth, and, on his return to Kew, to ride over occasionally to
visit the Princess of Wales at Blackheath. The daughter of the latter,
the Princess Charlotte, was now four years of age, and the question of
her separation from her mother was a frequent subject of discussion.
In the meantime, the little Princess was very often a visitor at
St. James’s or Windsor, by command of the Queen, and, of course,
unaccompanied by her mother.
On the 29th of October, the King opened Parliament in person. The
pleasant announcement was made in the royal speech that the eight
years’ war had come to a conclusion. The gratification of the public
was, however, somewhat marred by finding that the cost of carrying it
on had doubled the national debt, and that the supplies required for
the year amounted to forty millions.
The royal family now repaired to Windsor; and for the description of a
home scene there we will again have recourse to one who describes what
he saw and of which he was a part. Lord Malmesbury was a guest at the
castle during the 26th, 27th, and 28th of November. ‘I went there,’ he
says, ‘to present to the King and Queen copies of the new edition of
my father’s works. I saw them both alone on the evening of the 26th,
and was with them that and the next evening at their card party at the
Lodge. Each evening the Queen named me of her party, and played at
cribbage with me. I was with the King alone near two hours. I had not
seen him since the end of October, 1800--of course, not since his last
illness. He appeared rather more of an old man, but not older than men
of his age commonly appear. He stoops rather more, and was apparently
less firm on his legs; but he did not look thinner, nor were there
any marks of sickness or decline in his countenance or manner. These
last were much as usual--somewhat less hurried and more conversable:
that is to say, allowing the person to whom he addressed himself more
time to answer and talk than he used to do when discussing on common
subjects, on public and grave ones. I at all times, for thirty years,
have found him very attentive, and full as ready to hear as to give an
opinion, though perhaps not always disposed to adopt it and forsake
his own. He was gracious even to kindness. He asked how I continued to
keep well; and on my saying, amongst other reasons, that I endeavoured
to _keep my mind quiet_, and dismiss all unpleasant subjects from
intruding themselves upon it, the King said, “’Tis a very wise maxim,
and one I am determined to follow; but how, at this particular moment,
can you avoid it?” And without waiting he went on, saying, “Do you know
what I call the peace? _An experimental peace_, for it is nothing else.
I am sure you think so, and perhaps do not give it so _gentle_ a name;
but it was _unavoidable_. I was abandoned by everybody--allies and
all. I have done, I conscientiously believe, for the best, because I
could not do otherwise: but had I found more opinions like mine, better
might have been done.”’
His Majesty continued, at greater length than it is necessary to
follow, to give his opinions upon the men and questions of the day; and
this he did with great calmness, discrimination, and foresight. He was
not one that believed Jacobinism was dead merely because it was quiet;
and he spoke of the policy of Prussia of that day, and of the King who
adopted it, as men speak of both in the present day--a mixture of
atrocity, treachery, and meanness. Lord Malmesbury says little of the
Queen, but enough to give an idea of her manner. ‘The Queen,’ he says,
‘kept me only a quarter of an hour. She said she should see me again
in the evening, as I must be tired of standing so long with the King.
Spoke kindly of my father and my dear children. Princess Mary was all
good-humour and pleasantness: her manners are perfect, and I never saw
or conversed with any princess so exactly what she ought to be.’
CHAPTER XI.
THE END OF GREATNESS.
Queen as an author--Domestic life of the Royal Family--Return
of the King’s illness--His continual agitation--Dr. Symonds
not the medical officer for the King--Capricious changes made
by the King in his household--His humorous eccentricities--
Contest between the King and the Prince--The Queen’s conduct
--Scant courtesy to the royal invalid--Errors committed by
the King--Wellesley and Nelson--Gradual decay of the King--
His eccentricity at the installation of Knights of the Garter
--Picture of the daily life of the Royal Family--Position of
the Queen--The King’s resignation on his blindness--Distress
of his mind--Renewal of the Regency question--Extraordinary
assertion by Lord Eldon--The King’s person confided to the
Queen--The Queen’s letters to Lord Eldon--Her merry letter
to him--A touching incident--The Queen’s unpopularity--
Marriage of the Princess Charlotte--Decline of the Queen’s
health--Disgraceful reception of her by the City--Her death
--Considered as a parent--Her political influence--The debts
of Prince of Strelitz--The Court on George III.’s ceasing to
exercise authority--Regal retinue about the old King dismissed
--The Queen’s funeral--Her will--Her diamonds--Death of
the Duke of Kent--Death of the King--Visit of the Emperor of
the French to the Duchess of Gloucester.
In the year 1804 Queen Charlotte became entitled to be enrolled among
royal and noble authors or translators. It was now discovered that
she, and not Bishop Porteus, had translated Freylighausen’s ‘Abstract
of the whole Doctrine of the Christian Religion.’ The Queen translated
it, for the use of her daughters, from a German manuscript in her
library. This book was the first that was stereotyped in England
according to the Stanhope process. It was familiarly known as ‘the
Queen’s book.’ ‘The Queen’s book has come out, with an introduction
by the Bishop of London;’ thus writes the Rev. Thomas Belsham to Mr.
Aspland, in September, 1804. The letter is printed in the ‘Memoirs of
the Rev. Thomas Aspland.’ The writer adds: ‘I have just dipped into
it. I presume it was the Catechism which she learned when she was a
child, and which she still faithfully adheres to. I have just glanced
over it as it lies in Johnson’s shop. It is a mass of absurdity.’ This
testimony, it must be remembered, is given by a disciple of the eminent
Dr. Priestley and by an Unitarian minister--the most illustrious of
the church which claimed to be Christian as well as Unitarian.
The utmost regularity marked the course of the royal life during the
short time which elapsed between the King’s last illness and that of
1804. It was the period when anecdotes were being constantly told, and
perhaps sometimes made, of his simplicity and gentle nature. The Queen,
with a great love for display, could readily adapt herself to the
circumstances required by the exigencies of the time; and she as much
enjoyed the quietness of their domestic life as she had done the most
brilliant days and episodes of her reign. Her eldest son, who, in spite
of his conduct, loved his mother as well as he could love anybody,
caused her continual anxiety; but this was little compared with the
trials which awaited her from another source.
The mental maladies of the King usually occurred after taking cold; but
this fact did not seem to render him in any way cautious and prudent.
Thus, early in the present year he caught a violent cold, followed
by gout, in consequence of remaining in wet clothes after returning
from a walk in the rain. The malady speedily assumed the appearance of
something more formidable than a mere attack on his bodily health. At
the evening assembly at the Queen’s House, held in celebration of her
Majesty’s birthday, the King was unusually incoherent in his style of
speaking. The Queen played at cards, as was her custom; but her anxiety
was very manifest, and she never kept her eyes off the King during the
entire time the assembly lasted.
In the course of a few weeks the King grew worse; and, in addition
to his ordinary physicians, the attendance was required of persons
accustomed to these peculiar cases. The royal dislike to the Willises
(father and son) was the cause of Dr. Symonds being called in. The
august patient was in extreme danger during the 12th and 13th of
January. He partially recovered; but the mania, in a modified form,
still continued. He remained in this condition till May--fanciful,
suspicious, and unsteady in his manners and conversation, particularly
with the Queen and royal family and his usual society. ‘He was
apparently quite himself,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘when talking on
business and to his ministers. He then collected and re-collected
himself.’ Dr. Symonds was by no means so efficient a man in these cases
as the Willises, against whom the monarch had taken a rooted antipathy.
In the King’s first illness, as Willis, the clergyman, once entered the
room to visit the patient, the latter asked him if he, a clergyman, was
not ashamed of himself for exercising such a profession. Willis gently
hinted that the Saviour himself went about healing the sick. ‘Ay, ay!’
said the King, ‘but he hadn’t 700_l._ a-year for it.’
The King’s illness proved temporary; but he had troubles enough to
keep his mind in a continual agitation. On the 26th of May, 1804, Lord
Malmesbury thus writes:--
‘The King calls the Grenvilles “the brotherhood;” says “they _must_
always either govern despotically or oppose government violently.” Duke
of Portland has little doubts of the King’s doing well; quiet will set
him right and nothing else; he has been fatigued by being too much
talked to on the new arrangements.... Lady Uxbridge, at half-past
two, very uneasy about the King; said his family were quite unhappy,
that his temper was altered. He had just dismissed his faithful and
favourite page (Brown), who had served him during his illness with the
greatest attention. Quiet and repose were the only chance. She said
the Chancellor was to go to Windsor with him, which she was glad of.
King has stipulated, before he went to Windsor, that he would not go to
chapel, nor on the terrace, nor take long rides. Lady Uxbridge thinks
Dr. Symonds an unfit man; that the Willises, and particularly the
clergyman Willis, was a more proper person to be about the King when he
was getting well; so thinks Mrs. Harcourt.’
The next day we find the following entry in the diary:--‘Sunday, May
27. Mrs. Harcourt confirms all that Lady Uxbridge had told me; that
the King was apparently quite well when speaking to his ministers or
those who kept him a little in awe, but that towards his family and
dependents his language was incoherent and harsh, quite unlike his
usual character. She said that Symonds did not possess in any degree
the talents required to lead the mind from wandering to steadiness;
that in the King’s two former illnesses this had been most ably managed
by the Willises, who had this faculty in a wonderful degree, and were
men of the world who saw ministers and knew what the King ought to
do; that the not suffering them to be called in was an unpardonable
proof of folly (not to say worse) in Addington, and that now it was
impossible, since the King’s aversion was rooted; that Pitt judged ill
in leaving the sole disposal of the household to the King; that this
sort of power in his present weak (and, of course, suspicious) state
of mind had been exercised by him most improperly; he had dismissed
and turned away and made capricious changes everywhere, from the
lord-chamberlain to the groom and footman; he had turned away the
Queen’s favourite coachman, made footmen grooms, and _vice versâ_, and
what was still worse, because more notorious, had removed lords of the
bedchamber without a shadow of reason; that all this afflicted the
royal family without measure; that the Queen was ill and _cross_; the
princesses low, depressed, and quite sinking under it; and that unless
means could be found to place some very strong-minded and temperate
persons about the King he would either commit some extravagance or he
would, by violent carelessness and exercise, injure his health and
bring on a deadly illness. I asked where such a man did exist or had
existed. She said none she knew of; that Smart, when alive, had some
authority over him; that John Willis, the clergyman, also had acquired
it, but in a very different way; the first obtained it from regard
and high opinion, the other from fear; that, as was always the case,
cunning and art kept pace in the King’s character with his suspicions
and misgivings, and that he was become so very acute that nothing
escaped him. Mrs. Harcourt ended her recital by great recommendations
of secrecy, and submitting it to me whether I would or would not state
it to Mr. Pitt. I asked her if the Chancellor knew it. She said _all_:
he is the only person who can in any degree control the King: he is
the best man possible, and when he is near, things go on well. I said
in that case Mr. Pitt _must_ know it; and if he knew it, would, if he
could, apply a remedy; and that if he did not I must suppose he was at
a loss what to do, and that the hearing what he already knew from me
would be useless to him and look like a pushing intrusion on my part.
After her Lord Pembroke came into my room, and asked me whether I was
aware of what was passing at the Queen’s House; and he then repeated,
but in a still stronger manner and with additional circumstances,
what I had before heard. We then both dwelt on the very serious and
dangerous consequences to which it might lead, and in vain sought
about for a remedy.’
And again, on the 1st of June, we find Lord Malmesbury recording as
follows:--‘General Harcourt, who came to me in the evening from the
Queen’s House, gave me a most comfortable account of the King. He had
seen him often and for a long time, and that he was, in looks, manner,
conduct, and conversation, quite different from what he had been since
his illness--very different indeed from what he was at Windsor; and
General Harcourt, who is not a sanguine man, really seemed to think
most favourably of the King.’
Some of the King’s acts smacked rather of a humorous eccentricity than
anything worse. Thus, early in this month, when Lord Pelham carried his
seals of office to the Queen’s House to deliver them up to the King,
the latter said, ‘Before I can allow you to empty _your_ hands you must
empty mine;’ and therewith he thrust upon him the _stick_ of captain of
the yeomen of the guard. Lord Pelham looked as much horrified as if his
Majesty had offered to knight him, and the poor sovereign, remarking
this, observed to him encouragingly, ‘It will be less a sinecure than
formerly, as I intend living more with my great officers.’ The noble
lord was too awkwardly placed and had too much respect for the King to
return the unwelcome stick. There was something additionally comical
in the circumstance in this: Pitt was hurt at his Majesty thinking
of conferring an office without previous communication with him; and
Pelham was hurt at Pitt’s having entrapped _him_, as he supposed, into
the not very exalted office of captain of the yeomen.
The poor monarch had in reality enough provocation at home, to say
nothing of the anxieties caused him by the aspect of foreign affairs,
to render irritable, if not to throw off its balance, a mind so
unhinged and ill at ease as his own. It was at this period that a
contest was going on between him and the Prince of Wales relative to
the residence and education of the Princess Charlotte. The Monarch,
with much reason, wished her to reside at Windsor, there to be educated
in the character of ‘a queen that is to be.’ The Prince opposed the
proposition for the opposition’s sake, being also moved thereto by
advisers who belonged to the party in Parliament adverse to the crown.
It was very much feared that if his wishes were really disregarded the
consequences to his health would be serious. The Prince himself hardly
knew his own mind, and perhaps had no well-grounded opinion upon the
matter at all.
‘The two factions,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘pulled different ways.
Ladies Moira, Hutchinson, and Mrs. Fitzherbert were for his ceding
the child to the King; the Duke of Clarence and Devonshire House most
violent against it, and the Prince was inclined to the faction he
saw last. In the Devonshire House cabal Lady Melbourne and Mrs. Fox
act conspicuous parts, so that the alternative for our future Queen
seems to be whether _Mrs. Fox_ or _Mrs. Fitzherbert_ shall have the
ascendancy.’
Father and son had an interview. After a whole year’s estrangement,
for _one day_ child and parent agreed tolerably well; but they did
not long continue to be of one mind. The conduct of the Prince was
insulting to the authority of the King and to his office as father. To
some extremely sensible remarks on the educational plan best calculated
to promote the welfare and happiness of the Princess, her father, the
Prince of Wales, returned an answer so improperly worded that the
Chancellor declined to present it to the King. The latter was made
irritable and ill at no answer having reached him from the Prince, and
he was only beguiled into patience by being misinformed that the Prince
had misconceived the King’s letter, and that it was necessary to set
him right on the misconceived points before a reply could be expected.
The Queen was rendered more anxious than any other member of the royal
family, of whom Lord Malmesbury simply records that ‘the sons behave
tolerably, the princesses most perfectly.’ At this time the Queen,
with all her natural anxiety, exhibited some strangeness of conduct.
‘She will never receive the King,’ says the noble diarist just quoted,
‘without one of the princesses being present; piques herself on this
discreet silence, and, when in London, locks the door of her _white
room_ (her _boudoir_) against him. The behaviour of the Queen alarms me
more than all the other of Mrs. Harcourt’s stories; for if the Queen
did not think the King likely to relapse she would not alter in her
manners towards him, and her having altered her manners proves that she
thinks he _may_ relapse.’
If the royal invalid thus met with scant courtesy at the hands even
of his consort, whose fears made her unkind, he received still less
at the hands of some of his servants. For instance, when Addington,
Lord Sidmouth, broke with Pitt, and repaired to the King to surrender
the key of the council-box (he had been president of the council), the
King told him, somewhat angrily, ‘You must not give it to me, but to
Lord Hawkesbury.’ The retiring statesman excused himself on the ground
that he and Lord Hawkesbury were not on speaking terms; to which George
wisely enough rejoined that _that_ was no affair of _his_. He would
thereupon have ended the audience, but Addington remained talking to
and at him for an hour, and so fatigued and displeased him, that when
the King returned to his family (the scene passed at Windsor), he said,
‘That ---- has been plaguing me to death!’ It was soon after this
occurrence that Pitt’s administration was broken up by the death of the
great statesman, and Lord Grenville and Fox came in as chiefs of the
cabinet of ‘All the Talents.’ The Prince of Wales is recorded as having
gone most heartily and unbecomingly with them; lowering his dignity
by soliciting offices and places for his dependents, and by degrading
himself to the ‘size of a common party-leader.’
The King himself occasionally committed errors that must have
considerably annoyed those of his family and cabinet who entertained
more correct views and opinions. Thus, it is pretty well known that
George III. was very reluctant to admit Sir Arthur Wellesley to act as
commander-in-chief. It is mentioned by Lord Holland, in his ‘Memoirs of
the Whig Party,’ that Nelson himself was looked coldly upon at court,
even when he made his first appearance there after the glorious victory
of the Nile. Incompetent and unsuccessful officers were there conversed
with, while scarcely a word of recognition was vouchsafed to the
diminutive conqueror. He had doubly offended. His connection with Lady
Hamilton was an offence to both King and Queen. He had besides accepted
an ‘order’ from the King of Naples, without first asking permission.
He had been told not to wear it _above_ the order of the Bath, but his
reply was that the latter order was in its right place; and as the King
of Naples had affixed his own on the spot which it then occupied on the
admiral’s coat, he would let it remain where the Neapolitan king had
graciously condescended to put it. This independent line of conduct was
not likely to gain favour either with the King or Queen; and though
they submitted to have victories gained for them by his head and hand,
they had very little esteem for him who won their battles. The King is
known to have been very averse to the public funeral with which honour,
poor enough, was done to the remains of the hero. He was nevertheless
sensitive touching the honour of the country, and fierce in his
remarks against the public men who seemed to disregard it.
The remaining years of the King’s life were years of gradual decay
on his part, and of watchfulness over him on the part of the Queen.
Apart from state occasions, the royal couple lived in a retired
manner, but with all the elegancies of refinement around them. The
most marked incident of 1805 was the visit of the Princess of Wales,
with the Princess Charlotte, to Windsor Castle, where the Queen paid
her daughter-in-law less attention than the King, who treated her
with a distinction that was offensive alike to Queen and Prince. With
something of like distaste the Queen acquiesced in the King’s wish to
make a permanent residence of Windsor, for which purpose nearly the
whole of the splendid library was removed from the Queen’s House to the
castle.
Queen Charlotte preserved her quiet dignity and self-possession on
all public occasions. Her bearing, according to Sir Jonah Barrington,
‘was not that of a heroine of romance, but she was the best bred and
most graceful lady of her age and figure I ever saw; so kind and
conciliating that one could scarcely believe her capable of anything
but benevolence. She appeared plain, old, and of dark complexion; but
she was unaffected, and commanded that respect which private virtues
ever will obtain for public character.’
The King, too, still enjoyed all occasions on which he could display
any magnificence. The retirement was rather a sanitary than a
voluntarily adopted measure; and exciting scenes injured himself and
alarmed his consort. Thus, at the gorgeous installation of the Knights
of the Order of the Garter, on St. George’s day, 1805, his conduct was
marked by the petulant vivacity of a boy rather than by the gravity of
a monarch who had occupied the throne for nearly half a century. The
Queen witnessed it with amazement. He was ostentatiously patronising
with the Princess of Wales, joking with some of the lords, solemnly
trifling with others; and he spoke of the spectacle with the sentiment
of a stage-manager who had ‘got up’ a showy piece with unqualified
success.
The following picture of the ‘economy of the royal family at Windsor,’
at this time, is quoted as interesting from its faithfulness, showing
the position of the Queen in her household, and being generally
‘germane to the matter.’
‘Our Sovereign’s sight is so much improved since last spring that he
can now clearly distinguish objects at the extent of twenty yards. The
King, in consequence of this favourable change, has discontinued the
use of the large flapped hat which he usually wore, and likewise the
silk shade.
‘His Majesty’s mode of living is now not quite so abstemious. He
now sleeps on the north side of the castle, next the terrace, in a
roomy apartment not carpeted, on the ground floor. The room is neatly
furnished, partly in a modern style, under the tasteful direction
of the Princess Elizabeth. The King’s private dining-room, and the
apartments _en suite_ appropriated to his Majesty’s use, are all on the
same side of the castle.
‘The Queen and the princesses occupy the eastern wing. When the King
rises, which is generally about half-past seven o’clock, he proceeds
immediately to the Queen’s saloon, where his Majesty is met by one of
the princesses--generally either Augusta, Sophia, or Amelia; for each
in turn attend their revered parent. From thence, the Sovereign and his
daughter, attended by the lady in waiting, proceed to the chapel in
the castle, where divine service is performed by the dean or sub-dean;
the ceremony occupies about an hour. Thus the time passes until nine
o’clock, when the King, instead of proceeding to his own apartment
and breakfasting alone, now takes that meal with the Queen and the
five princesses. The table is always set out in the Queen’s noble
breakfast-room, which has been recently decorated with very elegant
modern hangings; and, since the late improvement by Mr. Wyatt, commands
a most delightful and extensive prospect of the Little Park. The
breakfast does not occupy half-an-hour. The King and Queen sit at the
head of the table, and the princesses according to seniority. Etiquette
in every other respect is strictly adhered to. On entering the room the
usual forms are observed agreeably to rank.
‘After breakfast the King generally rides out, attended by his
equerries; three of the princesses, namely, Augusta, Sophia, and
Amelia, are usually of the party. Instead of only walking his
horse, his Majesty now generally proceeds at a good round trot.
When the weather is unfavourable, the King retires to his favourite
sitting-room, and sends for Generals Fitzroy or Manners, to play at
chess with him. His Majesty, who knows the game well, is highly pleased
when he beats the former, that gentleman being an excellent player.
The King dines regularly at two o’clock; the Queen and princesses at
four. His Majesty visits and takes a glass of wine and water with them
at five. After this period, public business is frequently transacted
by the King in his own study, where he is attended by his private
secretary, Colonel Taylor. The evening is, as usual, passed at cards
in the King’s drawing-room, where three tables are set out. To these
parties many of the principal nobility residing in the neighbourhood
are invited. When the castle clock strikes ten the visitors retire. The
supper is set out, but that is merely a matter of form, and of which
none of the family partake. These illustrious personages retire to rest
for the night at eleven o’clock. The journal of one day is the history
of a whole year.’ The history is not a lively one, perhaps, but it
shows agreeably the domestic simplicity of the court. He who was at the
head of the latter did not want for a certain religious heroism under
affliction. On his growing blindness being compassionately alluded to
by some one in his hearing the King remarked: ‘I am quite resigned, for
what have we in this world to do but to suffer and perform the will of
the Almighty!’ He was resigned, however, partly because he was not yet
deprived of hope. In 1809, the jubilee year of his reign, he was unable
to attend the grand _fête_ given by Queen Charlotte at Frogmore in
honour of the event; and though he rode out, his horse was now led by
a servant. On foot, he felt his way along the terrace by the help of a
stick. Stricken with such an infliction as rapidly advancing blindness,
his predilection for the ‘Total Eclipse’ of Handel was, at least,
singular. It affected him to tears, and the Queen could not listen to
the performance of this composition without being similarly affected.
And yet the King himself seemed mournfully attached to both the music
and the words. One morning, we are told, the Queen, or the Prince of
Wales--for each has been mentioned--but probably the former, on
entering the King’s apartment, found him pathetically reciting the
well-known lines from Milton--
Oh dark! dark! dark! amid the blaze of noon
Irrevocably dark! Total eclipse
Without all hope of day!
Oh first created beam, and thou great word,
Let there be light, and light was over all;
Why am I thus deprived thy prime decree!
Indeed, although a royal, it was a troubled household. Circumstances
in the lives of two of the sons of the King--York and Cumberland--
caused him great anxiety; but the death of his youngest, and perhaps
best-loved daughter, Amelia, in 1810, finished the ravage which care
and other causes had inflicted on his intellect. Walcheren and Amelia
were said to be ever in his thoughts, as long, at least, as he had
the power to think and the privilege to weep. The idea of the loss of
his royal authority, too, pressed heavily upon him. The time came, in
1811, when such deprivation was necessary, and that year commenced the
unbroken period of what may be termed his gentle insanity.
When the unquestionable presence of this calamity necessarily
introduced into Parliament the Regency question, ‘Scott (Eldon)
made one of the most extraordinary assertions that Parliament was
ever called upon to listen to.’ He affirmed that, when the King was
incapable, the sovereignty, for the time being, resided in the Great
Seal. He added that Parliament had a right to elect the Regent, the
principle of hereditary right not being here applicable. The right of
the Queen was spoken of; but it was intimated, as if from authority,
that the Queen was not likely to oppose the government of her son.
That government was established; but the care of the King’s person
remained with the Queen, who was assisted by a council. This rendered
an almost constant attendance at Windsor necessary; but the restraint
was compensated for by an additional ten thousand a-year.
The Queen’s letters to Lord Chancellor Eldon are all expressive of the
utmost gratitude for services rendered, and of suggestions touching
offices expected. She is anxious that at ‘_her_ council’ the great
officers of state should be present, to receive the reports of his
Majesty’s health made by the physicians who are in daily attendance
upon him. When a gleam of improvement manifests itself in the King’s
gloomy condition, she is anxious that too much should not be made of
nor expected from it. Of these promises of amelioration no one was
more readily sensible than the King himself; and his inclination to
believe that he was well, or on the point of becoming perfectly so, was
an inclination which she thought was by no means to be encouraged. Her
urgency on this point is remarkable, and is singularly at variance with
common sense; for a quiet acquiescence in the King’s often-expressed
conviction that he was convalescent would seem to have been less likely
to agitate him than as often a repeated assurance that he was entirely
mistaken. The Queen’s letters on this melancholy matter do not exhibit
much dignity, either of sentiment or expression; nor, indeed, was she
a woman to affect either. She cared as little for sentiment as she did
for grammar, and she is said at this time to have exhibited a disregard
for a consistent use of pronouns. In ‘Lord Eldon’s Life,’ by Horace
Twiss, is a note of hers, addressed to the Lord Chancellor, which
commences with ‘The _Queen_ feels,’ passes into an allusion touching
how severe ‘_our_’ trials have been, and ends with an ‘_I_ hope
Providence will bring _us_ through.’
But she could write merry little notes too, and to the same august
person. With the establishment of the Regency it seemed as if a great
burthen had been taken from her, and her sprightliness at and about
her son’s festivals was quite remarkable in an aged and so naturally
‘staid’ a lady. On occasion of the Regent’s birthday, in 1812, she
despatched a letter to the Lord Chancellor, in court. It commences
merrily with a sort of written laugh at the surprise the grand
dignitary will doubtless feel at seeing a lady’s letter penetrate into
his solemn court; and thus sportively it runs on with a gay invitation
to come down to Frogmore, to spend the Regent’s birthday. ‘You will
not be _learnedly_ occupied, perhaps,’ suggests the mirthful old lady,
‘but you will be, at least, legally engaged, in the lawful occupation
of dining.’ In 1814, the old monarch’s first love, Lady Sarah Lennox,
afterwards Lady Sarah Bunbury, and, lastly, Lady Sarah Napier, had
become a charming old lady; but she had not passed through life without
affliction. In the above year, the Dean of Canterbury preached at
St. James’s Church, for the benefit of the infirmary for the cure of
diseases of the eye. The Dean alluded to the miserable condition of
the monarch. George Tierney was present, and he wrote in a letter
now extant: ‘On the seat immediately before me was an elderly lady,
who appeared to be deeply affected by the whole of this part of the
discourse. She wept much, and I observed that she herself was quite
helpless from the entire loss of sight, and was obliged to be led out
of church. The tears which I saw thus shed in commiseration to the
sufferings of the King fell from the eyes of ----’, the once young and
beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox, the innocent rival of Queen Charlotte
herself.
The office held by the Queen was not a pleasant one, but she contrived
to reconcile it with a considerable amount of enjoyment. The events
of her life, which brought her in collision with her daughter-in-law,
will be found detailed in the story of the latter. Those of her office
as guardian of the King sometimes brought her in connection with
touching incidents. Thus, she one day found him singing a hymn to the
accompaniment of a harpsichord, played by himself. On concluding it,
he knelt down, prayed for his family, the nation, and finally that God
would restore to him the reason which he felt he had lost! At other
times he might be heard invoking death, and he even imagined himself
dead, and asked for a suit of black that he might go into mourning
for the old King! These incidents were great trials to the Queen, who
witnessed them, or had them reported to her. But she had trials also
from another source.
In 1816, the public distress was very great, and those in high places
were unpopular, often for no better reason than that they _were_ in
high places, and were supposed to be indifferent to the sufferings
of the more lowly and harder tried. The Queen came in for some share
of the popular ill-will, but she met the first expression of it with
uncommon spirit; a spirit indeed which gained for her the silent
respect of the mob, who had begun by insulting her. As her Majesty was
proceeding to hold her last drawing-room, in the year 1815, she was
sharply hissed, loudly reviled, and insultingly asked what she had
done with the Princess Charlotte. She was so poorly protected that the
mob actually stopped her chair. Whereupon, it is reported, she quietly
let down the glass, and calmly said to those nearest to her: ‘I am
above seventy years of age; I have been more than half a century Queen
of England; and I never was hissed by a mob before.’ The mob admired
the spirit of the undaunted old lady, and they allowed her to pass on
without further molestation.
Her son, the Prince Regent, sent several aides-de-camp to escort his
mother from St. James’s to Buckingham House, but she declined their
attendance. They told her that, having had the orders of the Regent
to escort her safely to her residence, they felt bound to perform the
office entrusted to them by the Prince. ‘You have left Carlton House
by his Royal Highness’s orders,’ said Queen Charlotte; ‘return there
by mine, or I will leave my chair and go home on foot.’ She was, of
course, carefully watched, in spite of her commands, but the cool
magnanimity she displayed was quite sufficient to procure respect for
her from the crowd.
Although the King had some lucid intervals, he never again became
perfectly conscious of the bearing of public events, and if he was
deprived of some enjoyment thereby, he was also spared much pain. He
was as little aware of what passed in his own family; and although he
could make pertinent questions, and sometimes argue correctly enough
from wrong premises, he was unable to comprehend the meaning of much
that was told to him. Thus the marriage of his grand-daughter, a
circumstance to which he used to allude playfully, was now to him a
perfect blank. This ceremony took place on the 2nd of May 1816. It will
be more fully alluded to hereafter. In this place it may, however, be
stated that the drawing-room in honour of the marriage of the Princess
Charlotte to Prince Leopold was held at Buckingham House. It was
brilliant, the Queen was gracious, and only the Regent exhibited a want
of his usual urbanity, by turning his back on a lady who was about to
enter the service of the Princess of Wales. The bride did not look her
best on this public occasion. She stood apart from the royal circle,
in a recess formed by a window, with her back to the light, and was
‘deadly pale.’ There was an expression of pleasure on her countenance,
but it was thought to be forced. ‘Prince Leopold,’ says a contemporary
writer, ‘was looking about him with a keen glance of inquiry, as if
he would like to know in what light people regarded him.’ The Queen
either was, or pretended to be, in the highest possible spirits, and
was very gracious to everybody. All the time I was in this courtly
scene, and especially as I looked at the Princess Charlotte, I could
not help thinking of the Princess of Wales, and feeling very sorry and
very angry at her cruel fate.... I dare say the Princess Charlotte was
thinking of the Princess of Wales when she stood in the gay scene of
to-day’s drawing-room, and that the remembrance of her mother, excluded
from all her rights and privileges in a foreign country, and left
almost without any attendants, made her feel very melancholy. I never
can understand how Queen Charlotte could dare refuse to receive the
Princess of Wales at the public drawing-room, any more than she would
any other lady of whom nothing has been publicly proved against her
character. Of one thing there can be no doubt--the Queen is the slave
of the Regent.’
Of this assertion, however, very grave doubt may be entertained. The
Regent, at this time, certainly loved the ‘old Queen,’ as she was
familiarly called, if a service of tender respect, deference, courtesy,
and apparent good-will may be taken as proofs of such a love existing.
Her own health was now beginning to give way, and she sought to restore
it by trying the efficacy of the Bath waters; but with only temporary
relief. She was at Bath when the news of the death of the Princess
Charlotte reached her, in November 1817, and her health grew visibly
worse under the shock. Her absence from the side of the young Princess
at this period, which was followed by such fatal consequences, was
at the request of the Princess herself, who knew that the Queen’s
good-will in this case was stronger than her ability. The popular
voice, however, blamed her, and it was unmistakably expressed on her
return to London.
The last visit paid by the Queen to the City differed in every respect
from that which she had paid it when a bride. Her first visit had
been one of form and ceremony; mingled, however, with a hearty lack
of formality in some of the occurrences of the day. She went amid the
citizens surrounded by guards; and this attendance was not as doubting
the loyalty of the Londoners, but that royalty might look respectable
in their eyes. On the occasion of the last visit her Majesty intimated
to the Lord Mayor, Alderman Christopher Smith, that she wished to
be received without ceremony; and this wish the corporate magnates
construed as meaning without protection; there was as little of that as
of civil politeness. The High Constable of Westminster attended near
her Majesty’s carriage as far as Temple Bar, the eastward limit of his
jurisdiction. On arriving there, however, he found no one in authority
to receive the Queen, and accordingly he continued to ride by the side
of the royal carriage until it reached the Mansion House. The mob was
a-foot, active, numerous, and rudely-tongued that day. As the Queen
passed through she was assailed by the most hideous yells, and many of
the populace thrust their heads into the carriage, and gave expression
to the most diabolical menaces. If it be true, as has been reported,
that the Queen minutely detailed in writing the memoirs of her own
life, the events of this day must have been penned by a trembling
but indignant hand. At the Mansion House, so little protection was
afforded her that the foremost of the people were almost thrust upon
her, their violence of speech shocked her ears, and they attempted,
but unsuccessfully, to disarm one of her footmen of his sword. In the
evening of this melancholy last visit she dined with the Duke of York,
and it was there that she first suffered from a violent spasmodic
attack, from the effects of which she never perfectly recovered. The
Lord Mayor stoutly maintained that the visit had very much improved
her Majesty’s health. He thought, perhaps, that excitement was a tonic
to age and infirmity. The Queen’s health really suffered materially
from the excitement; and it was not with her wonted calmness that she
could even listen, on the following Sunday, to the usual weekly sermon,
always read aloud to her by one of the princesses.
It is certain that from the early part of the year 1818 the aged Queen
may be said to have been in a rapidly declining state. Her condition,
however, was not highly dangerous till the autumn, when her spasmodic
attacks became more frequent and the progress of dropsical symptoms
more alarming. Her sufferings were very great, and if she experienced
temporary ease the slightest variation of position renewed her pain.
She continued in this condition until the 14th of November, when, by
a slight rupture in the skin of both ankles, from which there took
place a considerable effusion of water, the venerable lady experienced
some relief. Her condition, however, was not bettered thereby, for
mortification soon set in, and that portion of her family which was in
attendance upon her soon learned that all hope was abandoned; after
an interval of more than eighty years England was again about to lose
a Queen-consort; but no Queen-consort had for so long a period shared
the throne of the empire as Charlotte. For fifty-seven years she had
occupied the high place from which she was now about to descend. On
Tuesday, the 16th of November 1818, at one o’clock P.M., the Queen
calmly departed, at her suburban palace at Kew. Her last breath was
drawn in a low arm-chair, that cannot be called an _easy_ chair, and
which is still preserved at Kew. The Regent, the Duke of York, the
Princess Augusta, and the Duchess of Gloucester were present. The
Princess Elizabeth of Hesse Homburg was said to have been absent, on
account of some difference between herself and her royal mother, but
it was afterwards ascertained that a reconciliation had taken place
between mother and child before the Princess left the kingdom for her
own home. How far the Queen had acquitted herself as a parent towards
her children was made a ‘vexed question’ at the time of her death;
and an endeavour was made to connect the fact of the dispersion of
several of the princes and princesses in foreign countries with the
mother as an irritating cause thereof. The ‘Times,’ at the period of
which we are treating, entered largely upon this subject; and that
organ was evidently inclined to conclude that her Majesty had not
succeeded in attaching to her the hearts of her children. ‘The Duke of
Cumberland,’ said the ‘Times,’ ‘is out of the question. The inflexible,
but well-meant determination of the Queen to stigmatise her niece, by
shutting the doors of the royal palace against her, may excuse strong
feelings of estrangement or resentment on the part of the Duchess and
her kindred. But that the Dukes of Clarence, Kent, and Cambridge at
the same time should have quitted, as if by signal, their parent’s
death-bed, is a circumstance which, in lower life, would have at least
astonished the community.’ The ‘Times’ adds, that ‘the departure of the
Princess Elizabeth, the Queen’s favourite daughter, who married and
took leave of her in the midst of that illness which was pronounced
must shortly bring her to the grave, may, perhaps, have been owing to
the express injunctions of her Majesty. The Duke of Gloucester stands
in a more remote degree of relationship; Prince Leopold more distant
still; but they all quitted the scene of suffering at a period when its
fatal termination could not be doubted; and, as these have departed, it
is no less apparent to common observers that the Queen of Wurtemburg
might have approached the bed of a dying mother, from whom, by the
usual lot of princes, she has been so long separated, as that her royal
parent has not accepted from her the performance of that painful duty.’
The same authority, however, confesses that the leading members of the
royal family who remained in England were unwearied in their attendance
on their dying parent, and so far set an example to the people of
England, over whom they had been placed by Providence.
The influence of Queen Charlotte in political affairs, even had she
been as much inclined to exercise it as her enemies charged her with,
was but small. It could not be otherwise in a country with such a
constitution as ours--a limited monarchy, the ministers of which
are sure to be made responsible for grave consequences arising from
the surrender of their authority to a power unrecognised by the
constitution. That the influence, however, was not quite dormant was
seen in the fact of the government paying the debts of her Majesty’s
brother, the Prince of Strelitz, with 30,000_l._ of the public money;
and the same influence was suspected when the Queen’s friend, the Earl
of Suffolk, who had undertaken to arrange the embarrassed affairs of
the Prince of Strelitz, was appointed to the office of Secretary of
State.
If the Queen was not always a liberal recompenser, she, at least, was a
punctual payer. In this respect she excelled the King himself. On the
other hand, when the latter was at issue with his brothers or children,
because of objectionable marriages entered into by them, the Queen did
not aggravate the quarrel, although she felt keenly on the subject. She
was in many respects a ‘homely’ woman, but in matters of homeliness
the King set the example. He watched incessantly over the mental and
physical education of his children; ‘and the daily discipline of the
nursery itself did not escape his paternal solicitudes.’ But, says the
‘Times,’ ‘that her Majesty’s voluntary tastes were not exactly those
which had been inferred from the habits of her matrimonial life, may
be conjectured from the revolution which they seemed to undergo soon
after the period when her royal husband ceased to exercise the supreme
authority in this realm. At that period a transition was observed “from
grave to gay.” The sober dignity, the chastened grandeur, the national
character of the English court seemed to vanish with the afflicted
sovereign. A new species of grandeur now succeeded, in which there was
more of the exterior of royalty and less of its becoming spirit. A
long series of what was meant to be festivities--crowded balls and
elaborate suppers, glittering pomp, gaudy and gorgeous, yet fluttering
decoration--reckless, capricious, yet never-ending profusion--all
the apparatus of commonplace magnificence were introduced with the
Regency and countenanced, or apparently not discountenanced, by the
Queen.’ It must be remembered, however, that in these matters she
had no control over the Regent; indeed we have, in a former page,
seen her called his ‘slave.’ During her life she, at all events, had
influence enough to maintain a regal retinue about the person of her
afflicted husband. She had no sooner expired, however, when her son
dismissed immediately nearly the whole of this retinue, on the ground
of its uselessness to the unconscious King, and the very great expense
it was to the country. The country was not unwilling to see a few
thousands a-year economised by stripping the fine old monarch of some
of the superfluous grandeur by which he was surrounded. The country,
nevertheless, was sorely perplexed and bitterly indignant when it saw
that the thousands which had been paid to numerous officers in daily
service on the King were now to be paid to the Duke of York, who, for
ten thousand a-year, constrained his filial affection to the severe
labour of inquiring after his sick sire once a week.
The Queen’s funeral took place on the 2nd of December, at Windsor.
It was a public funeral, in the accepted sense of that term, but the
arrangements were inappropriate. The procession mainly consisted of
military, horse and foot, as if they had been escorting a warrior,
and not a woman, to the tomb. The members of the peerage did scant
honour to the Queen whom they had professed to reverence when alive.
Few, and those not of note, were present. The absence of peeresses
was especially noted. Indeed the public funeral of Charlotte was more
private than the private funeral of her predecessor Caroline.
The will of Queen Charlotte was that of a woman of foresight and
good memory rather than of feeling and affection. The document was
proved by Lord Arden and General Taylor, the executors. It was in the
General’s handwriting, and was witnessed by Sir Francis Millman and
Sir Henry Halford. The personal property was sworn to as being under
140,000_l._
The substance of the will was as follows:--The royal testatrix directed
that her debts and the legacies and annuities noticed in her will
should be paid out of the personalty, or sale of personals, if there
should not be wherewith in her Majesty’s treasury to provide for those
payments. The personal property was of various descriptions; part of it
comprised the real estate in New Windsor, which she had purchased of
the Duke of St. Albans, and which was known as the Lower Lodge (left
to the Princess Sophia); but the personalty of the greatest value may
be said to have been those splendid jewels which she cherished so
dearly, and for which she affected to have such little care. These
the systematic Sovereign divided into three parts--those presented
to her by the King on her marriage, worth 50,000_l._; those presented
to her by the Nabob of Arcot, for the acquisition of which she paid
by a temporary forfeiture of what she very little regarded--popular
favour; and those purchased by herself, or which she had received
as presents on birthday occasions. Such _souvenirs_ were to her the
most welcome gifts that could be made to her on that or any other
anniversary. Of these jewels she made the following disposal: She
directed that the diamonds given to her by the King on her marriage
should revert to him only on condition that with survivorship there
should be recovery of his mental faculties. If he were not restored to
reason, she then directed--what he never would have consented to had
his reason been restored to him--that they should be made over to the
Crown of Hanover, as an heir-loom. Such a disposal of property which
should have remained in England transferred the diamonds to Hanover
whenever that kingdom should be divided from England by the accession,
in the latter country, of a Queen--who, according to the law of
Hanover, could not reign in that continental kingdom.
The splendid tribute which the Nabob of Arcot had deposited at her feet
she divided among four of her daughters. The excepted daughter was the
Queen of Wurtemburg, whom she looked upon as exceedingly well provided
for. To the remaining four the careful mother did not bequeath the
glittering gems, but the value of them after they were sold, and after
certain debts were discharged from the produce of the sale. The four
princesses divided between them what remained. The jewels which she had
bought, or had received as birthday presents, were also to be divided
among the same four daughters, according to a valuation to be made of
them. The diamonds were valued at nearly a million. In ready money the
Queen left behind her only 4,000_l._
Frogmore was bequeathed to the Princess Augusta; and the plate,
linen, pictures, china, books, furniture, &c., were left to the four
princesses already named. Of her sons the testatrix made no mention,
nor to them left any legacy. There were other persons mentioned, but
who came off as badly as though they had never been named. Her Majesty
directed that certain bequests as set down in certain lists annexed to
her will, and to which due reference was made, should be paid to them;
but not only were no such lists so annexed, but it was ascertained that
her Majesty had never drawn any out herself nor directed any to be
drawn by others.
There _was_, however, another list, touching which the aged Queen had
been by no means so forgetful. This list contained a detail of property
which the testatrix declared she had brought with her, more than half
a century before, from Mecklenburgh Strelitz. Thither she ordered it
to be sent back--to the senior branch of her illustrious house. After
millions received from this country during her residence in it, she
would not testify her gratitude for such munificence by permitting it
or her family in England to profit by the handful of small valuables
she had brought with her from Strelitz. To the head of the house of
Mecklenburgh Strelitz reverted the few old-fashioned things brought
over here in the trunks of the bride; and, if they have been worth
preserving, the old-world finery of Sophia Charlotte of Strelitz and
England is now possessed by the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburgh, the
daughter of Charlotte’s son, Adolphus of Cambridge.
The will was dated only the day previous to her Majesty’s demise.
It had been put together at various periods since the 2nd of the
previous May, by an officer of her Majesty’s establishment--General
Taylor. About a fortnight previous to her Majesty’s decease she was
for the first time made acquainted with her dangerous condition by a
communication delicately conveyed to her by order of the Prince Regent,
and to the effect, ‘that if her Majesty had any affairs to settle it
would be advisable to do so while she had health and spirits to bear
the fatigue.’ The royal sufferer well comprehended what was meant
by such a message, and was very seriously affected by it. She had
entertained strong hopes, amounting almost to confidence, that by the
skill of her medical attendants she would be again restored to health.
This recommendation to set her ‘house in order’ was an announcement
that her case was hopeless. Affected as she was, she did not lose her
dignity or self-possession, but resigned herself to death, even while
regretting she was about to depart from life. This was natural; and
as there had never been any false sentiment about Queen Charlotte, so
was she above exhibiting any in her last moments. Her patience was
extreme, and in the acutest of her agony she never once suffered a
murmur of complaint to escape her.
It has been said that the Queen left no diamonds to her daughter, the
Dowager Queen of Wurtemburg. She left her, however, a superb set of
_garnets_. The reason assigned was, that garnets were the only precious
stones that could be worn with mourning, which the Dowager Queen had
announced her intention of wearing for life. Queen Charlotte had,
as ladies averred who spoke with _connaissance du fait_, the finest
wardrobe in Europe, the highly-consoled legatee of which was Madame
Beckendorff, the Queen’s chief-dresser. It may be noticed here that
the Queen’s debts--chiefly contracted, it was said, by allowing her
contributions to charitable objects to exceed her available income,
which is no excuse whatever for any one incurring debt--amounted to
9,000_l._ The debt was acquitted out of the produce of the sale of the
diamonds.
While on the subject of the will and the jewels, it may not be amiss
to mention that the Queen, after wearing her diamonds and other gems
on public occasions invariably consigned them to the care of Messrs.
Rundell, Bridge & Co., the well-known goldsmiths of Ludgate Hill. The
Queen herself put her diamonds into the hands of one of the partners of
that house, by whom they were conveyed to the Bank. The only exception
to this rule was after the last drawing-room was held by her, when her
Majesty was too ill to make her usual consignment, and retired rather
hurriedly to Kew. A few days subsequently, the diamonds were placed in
the ordinary London guardianship by the Princess Augusta, who carried
them up expressly from Kew. The Queen, however, held in her own keeping
the ‘George’ and the diamond-hilted sword worn on public occasions
by her consort. These were kept in a cabinet at Windsor Castle.
Immediately after the Queen’s death this cabinet was examined by the
Prince Regent, but neither ‘George’ nor diamond-hilted sword was to be
found therein; and the heir was not more astonished than perplexed,
for the Queen had left no intimation as to where the valuables were
deposited.
The inquiry set on foot was not at first encouraging. Suggestions
could only be made that the coveted property might have been deposited
by the late Queen in some of the cabinets, which would remain locked
until after the royal funeral. Some surmised that George III. himself
had stowed them away, and that his heirs might be extremely puzzled to
discover the place of deposit. This was considered the more likely,
as her Majesty had, on one occasion, missed from her room a gold ewer
and basin of exquisite workmanship, enriched with gems. They were
missed previous to the last mental indisposition of the King, who
professed that he knew nothing whatever about them, but greatly feared
that they had been stolen by a confidential servant. His Majesty was
strongly suspected of having been himself the thief. Many months after
his malady had set in, the ewer and basin were discovered behind some
books in his study, to which he alone had access. It is supposed that,
having concealed them by excess of caution, he totally forgot the
circumstance, through growing infirmity of intellect.
In a few days it was announced that all that was ‘now missing of the
late King’s jewels were his star and garter,’ valued at about seven
thousand pounds. How the diamond-hilted sword was discovered is not
stated in the current news of the day; but while that was recovered the
garter appears to have been lost, for no mention of such loss had been
previously made.
The consort of Queen Charlotte survived until January 1820. Her son,
Edward Duke of Kent, died a week previously. During the last years of
the old King--who seemed to grow in majesty as his end approached--
he lived in a world of his own, conversed with imaginary individuals,
ran his fingers ramblingly over his harpsichord, and was in every other
respect dead to all around him. He passed out of the world calmly and
unconsciously after a long reign--and perhaps a more troubled reign
than that of any other King of England. Of the children of Charlotte
four ascended thrones. George and William became successive Kings
of England, Ernest King of Hanover, and Charlotte Augusta Queen of
Wurtemburg. The married daughters, Charlotte, Elizabeth, and Mary, died
childless. Of her married sons only the King of Hanover and the Dukes
of Kent and Cambridge left heirs behind them--the first a son, the
second a daughter, our present Queen, the last a son and two daughters.
With the old royal family Kew is inseparably connected. Mr. Jesse, in
his ‘Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III.,’ says that when,
many years since, ‘he wandered through the forsaken apartments at
the old palace at Kew, he found it apparently in precisely the same
condition as when George III. had made it his summer residence, and
when Queen Charlotte had expired within its walls. There were still to
be seen, distinguished by their simple furniture and bed-curtains of
white dimity, the different sleeping-rooms of the unmarried princesses,
with their several names inscribed on the doors of each. There were
still pointed out to him the easy chair in which Queen Charlotte had
breathed her last; the old harpsichord which had once belonged to
Handel, and on which George III. occasionally amused himself with
playing; his walking-stick, his accustomed chair, the backgammon board
on which he used to play with his equerries; and, lastly, the small
apartment in which the pious monarch used to offer up his prayers and
thanksgivings. In that apartment was formerly to be seen a relic of no
small interest, the private prayer-book of George III. In the prayer
which is used during the session of Parliament the King, with his
own hand, had obliterated the words “our most religious and gracious
King,” and had substituted for them “a most miserable sinner.”’ The old
‘palace’ still retains many interesting memorials of King George, Queen
Charlotte, and the princes and princesses during their happy days at
Kew.
_CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK_,
WIFE OF GEORGE IV.
CHAPTER I.
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
Marriage of Princess Augusta to the Prince of Brunswick--His
reception at Harwich--Wedding performed with maimed rites--
The Prince at the opera--A scene--Odd mode of travelling of
the bride and bridegroom--Issue of this marriage--Dashing
replies of Princess Caroline--Her mother the Duchess a weak
and coarse-minded woman--Education of German princesses--
Infamous conduct of the Duke of York--Lord Malmesbury sent to
demand Princess Caroline in marriage for the Prince of Wales--
His account of the Princess--Eloquence of the Duchess on the
virtues of the Princess--The Duke’s mistress, and picture of
the Court of Brunswick--The Duchess’s stories of bygone times
--The marriage by proxy--Celebration of the wedding-day--
The marriage treaty--Eccentricity of the Duke--Education of
the Princess neglected--The courtesan champion of morality
--The Duke’s fears for the Princess--Lady Jersey and the
Queen--Lord Malmesbury’s advice to the Princess--Madame
do Hertzfeldt’s portraits of the Princess--The Princess’s
exuberant spirits at a court masquerade--More admonitions
by Lord Malmesbury--Madame de Waggenheim’s taunt, and Lord
Malmesbury’s thrust _en carte_.
On the 12th of January 1764, Charles William Frederick, the hereditary
Prince of Brunswick, landed at Harwich (then the portal by which royal
brides and bridegrooms had ingress to and egress from England), to take
the hand which had been already asked and not over-graciously granted
of the Princess Augusta, the sister of George III. This half-reluctance
was on the part of the King and Queen, but especially of the latter.
There was none on the part of the bride.
The young Prince was a knightly man, lacking a knightly aspect.
His manner was better than his looks. His reputation as a hero was,
however, so great that the people of Harwich, expecting to see an
Adonis, nearly pulled down the house in which he temporarily sojourned,
in order to obtain a better view of the illustrious stranger. When
the Prince did show himself they were rather disappointed. His renown
for courage, however, made amends for all shortcomings, and even the
Quakers of Harwich warmed into enthusiasm. One, more eager than the
rest, not only forced his way into the Prince’s apartment, but took
off his hat to him, called him ‘Noble friend!’ kissed his hand, and
protested that, though not a fighting man himself, he loved those who
_could_ fight well. ‘Thou art a valiant Prince,’ said he, ‘and art to
be married to a lovely Princess. Love her, make her a good husband, and
the Lord bless you both!’
The bridegroom got no such warm greeting from any other quarter as he
did from the Quaker, and it is to be regretted that he did not follow
the counsel which was offered him by his humble and hearty friend. He
loved his wife and made her such a husband as heroes are too wont to
do--who are accustomed to love their neighbours’ wives better than
their own.
The marriage took place on the 16th with something, if not of maimed
rites, at least of diminished ceremony. The ‘Lady Augusta’ was wedded
with as little formality as was observed--under the same roof too--at
her birth. The latter vexed Queen Caroline because so little etiquette
was followed at it. The wedding troubled Queen Charlotte lest there
should be too much and of too costly a sort. Not a gun was fired by
way of congratulatory salute, as had been done when Anne, the daughter
of Caroline, married the Prince of Orange. More trifling testimonies
of respect were denied on this occasion, even when the bride had
petitioned for them, on the ground that there was no precedent for
them in the ‘Orange marriage.’ The bride, fairly enough, complained at
quotation of precedent in one case which had been followed in no other.
The servants of the King and Queen were not even permitted to put on
their new attire, either for the wedding ceremony or the drawing-room
next day. They were ordered to keep their new suits for the Queen’s
birthday. The ceremony performed, the bridal pair betook themselves to
Leicester House, where they presided at a right royal supper; and this
was the last time that Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses, and half the
peerage met together in Leicester Square to hold high festival.
Political party spirit ran very high in the early years of King
George’s reign; and such especial care was taken to keep the Prince
from encountering any of the Opposition that, as Walpole remarks, he
did nothing but take notice of them. He wrote to fidgety Newcastle, and
called on fiery Pitt, and dined twice with ‘_the_ Duke’--of Cumberland.
On the evening of the second dinner he was engaged to attend a concert
given in honour of himself and wife by the Queen. As he did not appear
inclined to leave the table when the hour was growing late, Fironce,
his secretary, pulled out his watch. The ducal host took the hint, and
expressed a fear, which sounded like a hope, that the hour had come
when his guest must leave him. ‘_N’importe!_’ said the Prince; and he
sat on, sipped his coffee, and did not get to the Queen’s concert until
after eight o’clock, at which hour, in those days, concerts were half
concluded.
Fironce, the Duke’s secretary, who sought to influence his master thus
early, long continued to aim at exercising the same power. In 1794
Fironce was the Duke of Brunswick’s prime minister, when the command of
the Austrian army against France was offered to the Duke. The latter
was inclined to accept, and Fironce had nothing to say against it; but
Fironce’s wife (who was a democrat) had, and she forbade her husband
furthering the object of Austria.
During the short sojourn between the bridal and the departure, the
whole of the royal family went to Covent Garden Theatre to see Murphy’s
decidedly dull and deservedly damned comedy, ‘No One’s Enemy but his
Own’--a comedy which even Woodward could not make endurable. The
feature of the night, however, was the difference which the public
made between their reception of the King and Queen and that given to
the newly-married pair. For the latter there was an ebullition of
enthusiasm; for the former, who were suspected of being more cold to
the bridegroom than his deserts warranted, little fervour was shown;
and the then young Queen Charlotte was not a woman to love either bride
or bridegroom the better for _that_.
On the following night the same august party appeared at the Opera
House. The multitude which endeavoured to gain access to the interior
would have filled three such houses as that in the Haymarket. Ladies,
hopeless of reaching the doors in their carriages, left them in
Piccadilly, and, gathering up their hoops, attempted to make their way
on foot or in sedans. So great were the concourse and confusion in the
Haymarket that the gentlemen, to force a passage for these adventurous
ladies and themselves, drew their swords and threatened direful things
to all who stood between them and their boxes!
In the meantime the house was overflowing; and Horace Walpole, who has
faithfully painted the scene--except, perhaps, where he presumes
to construe the politeness of the Prince into contempt for his royal
brother and sister-in-law--tells us: ‘The crowd could not be
described. The Duchess of Leeds, Lady Denbigh, Lady Scarborough, and
others, sat in chairs between the scenes; the doors of the front boxes
were thrown open, and the passages were all filled to the back of the
stoves. Nay, women of fashion stood in the very stairs till eight at
night. In the middle of the second act, the hereditary Prince, who sat
with his wife and her brothers in their box, got up, _turned his back_
to King and Queen, pretending to offer his place to Lady Tankerville,
and then to Lady Susan. You know enough of Germans and their stiffness
to etiquette to be sure this could not be done inadvertently,
especially as he repeated this, only without standing up, with one of
his own gentlemen in the third act.’
After a brief sojourn, the slender young Prince, who looked older
than his years (twenty-nine), left town with his bride for Harwich.
Bride and bridegroom travelled in different coaches, with three or
four silent and solemn attendants in each. Never did newly-married
couple travel so sillily unsociable. The farewell speech, too, of the
bridegroom, before he went on board, rang more of war than of love. He
had already, he said, bled in the cause of England, and would again.
In this he kept his word, for _he_ was the Duke of Brunswick who
fell gloriously at Jena, at the age of threescore years and eleven,
subsidised by Great Britain, and unthanked by ever-ungrateful Prussia,
so deservedly punished for her habitual double-dealing on that terrible
day.
As bride and bridegroom travelled from the court to the coast in two
coaches, so now did they traverse the seas in two separate yachts. No
wonder they were storm-tost. Their passage from Holland, where they
landed, to their home in Brunswick was quite an ovation. The little
courts in their route did them ample honour; there were splendid
receptions, and showy reviews, and monster _battues_ at which ten
thousand hares, and winged game in proportion, were slaughtered in one
morning; after which, in the evening, the slayers all appeared at the
opera in their hunting-dresses! Finally, the ‘happy couple’ arrived at
Brunswick, where the various members of the ducal family greeted their
arrival, and--no less a person than the Countess of Yarmouth, the
Walmoden of George II., the mistress of the bride’s grandfather, bade
them welcome!
Of this marriage were born two most unhappy women; Charlotte, in
December 1764, and Caroline, in May 1768. There were also four sons:
Charles, born in 1767; George in 1769; William in 1771; and Leopold in
the following year. Of these, two died gloriously; the first fell in
battle at the head of the Black Brunswickers, on the bloody field of
Quatre Bras; the last perished not less gloriously in an attempt to
save the lives of several persons, when the river Oder burst its banks,
in 1785. Of this family we have only especially to do with the second
daughter, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, ultimately Queen-consort of our
George IV.
‘In what country is the lion to be found?’ asked her governess,
after a lesson in natural history. ‘Well,’ answered the little
Princess Caroline, ‘I should say, you may find him in the heart of a
Brunswicker!’ In these sort of dashing replies the girl delighted. She
was as much charmed with dashing games. In the sport of the ‘ring,’
in which the aimers at that small object are mounted on wooden horses
fixed on a circular frame, she was remarkably expert. On one occasion,
when she was flying round with something more than common rapidity,
one of her attendants expressed fear of the possible consequences.
‘A Brunswicker dares do anything,’ exclaimed the undaunted Caroline;
adding, ‘A Brunswicker does not know that thing fear.’
Accustomed to enjoy a place, even when very young, at her father’s
table, she early acquired a habit of self-possession, became as pert
as young Cyrus, and as forward as the juvenile Wharton. ‘How would you
define time and space?’ said her father once to Mirabeau. The Princess
Caroline, then twelve years old, anticipated the witty Frenchman’s
answer, by replying, ‘Space is in the mouth of Madame von L----, and
time is in her face.’ When told that it was not fitting for so young
a lady to have an opinion of her own, she observed, correctly enough,
‘People without opinions of their own are like barren tracts which
will not bear grass.’ As her mother seldom asked any other question
than ‘What is the news?’ and loved the small gossip which arises out
of such a query, the Princess was more frequently engaged in serious
discussions with her instructress than with the Duchess. The Countess
von Bade having remarked that she herself was wicked because an evil
spirit impelled her, and that she was by nature too feeble to resist,
‘If that be the case,’ observed the young lady, ‘you are simply a piece
of clay moulded by another’s will.’ The orthodox Lutheran lady was
about to explain, but the daughter of a mother who had brought ‘her
girls’ up to membership with no church in particular cut short the
controversy with an infallible air which would have done credit to Pope
Joan, ‘My dear, we are all bad--very bad; but we were all created
so, and it’s no fault of ours.’ The utterer of this speech was doubly
unfortunate: her intellect was fine, but it was ill-trained; she was
the daughter of a kind-hearted woman, incapable of fulfilling with
propriety the duty of a mother; and she became the wife of a prince who
was, as Sheridan remarked, ‘too much a lady’s man ever to become the
man of one lady.’
The Princess, at a very early period, discovered how to be mistress of
her weak mother. Therewith, however, she had a heart that readily felt
for the poor. She was terribly self-willed, and played the harpsichord
like St. Cecilia.
Her thoughtlessness was on a par with her sensibility; and it is said
that a very early seclusion from court, to which she was condemned by
parental command, was caused by a double want of discretion. She was
too fond, it was reported, of relieving young peasants in distress,
and of listening to young aides-de-camp who affected to be miserable.
She was taught that princesses were never their own almoners, and that
it did not become them to converse with officers of low degree. On
her return to court, an aged lady, whose years were warrant for her
boldness, recommended an exercise, in future, of more judgment than
had marked the past. ‘Gone is gone and will never return,’ was the
remark of the pretty, sententious, young lady; ‘and what is to come
will come of itself.’ It was the remark of a girl brought up like that
very Polly Honeycomb whose story Colman wrote and Miss Burney read
to Queen Charlotte. Like that heroine, the Princess Caroline had not
the wisest of parents. Like her, she was addicted to romance, and was
too ready to put in practice all that romances teach, and to enter
into correspondence at once pleasant and dangerous. Again and again
was forced seclusion adopted as the parental remedy to cure a wayward
daughter of too much warmth of heart and too little gravity of head.
Her heart, however, would not beat warmly at the bidding of every new
suitor. An offer was made to her, when very young, by a scion of the
house of Mecklenburgh, whose offer was supported by both the parents
of Caroline. That Princess ridiculed her lover, and flatly refused the
honour presented for her acceptance. She similarly declined the offers
of the Prince of Orange and the Prince George of Darmstadt. Her father
was now reigning Duke of Brunswick, burning with desire to destroy
the French Republic, and eager to obtain a consort for his daughter.
He cannot be said to have succeeded much more happily in the latter
than in the former. As for this daughter, she would herself have been
happier, in those days when her education--or no education--was
scrambled through, had she possessed any religious principles. But she
was like other German princesses, who, as it was not known into what
royal families they might have the good-luck to marry--Russo-Greek,
Roman Catholic, or Protestant--were taught morality (and that but
indifferently) in place of faith and a reason for holding it. One
consequence was, that they deferred believing anything convincedly
until they were espoused--and then they joined their husband’s
church, and remained precisely what they were before.
The Princess was in something like this state of suspense, and her sire
was in a state not very dissimilar with regard to the part he should
take in the war of Germany against France, when the Duke of York,
commander of the English force in Holland, destined to act bravely
inefficient against the French, visited the ducal court of Brunswick.
He is said to have been very favourably impressed with the person and
attainments of the Princess Caroline; and it has been supposed that his
favourable report of her first led the King, his father, to think of
the daughter of ‘the Lady Augusta’ as a wife for his son George.
If, however, Mrs. M. A. Clarke may be believed, the Princess had been
thought of as a wife for the Duke of York, who, on seeing her, did not
like her. In one respect he behaved infamously to her. The King had
entrusted to the Duke a splendid set of diamonds, intended as a present
for the Princess. The Duke, meanwhile, lent them to his favourite, Mrs.
Clarke, who appeared in them at the opera, and enjoyed the splendid
infamy.
The King was more than ordinarily anxious for the marriage of his son,
and the latter was made to perceive that, however his affections may
have been engaged, it was his interest to marry in obedience to the
King’s wishes. He was overwhelmed with debts, and the payment of these
was promised as the price of his consent. The wildest stories have
been told with regard to the share which the Prince took in furthering
his own marriage. Some say that he especially selected the Princess
Caroline of Brunswick as the lady he had resolved to marry; others
affirm that, while coldly consenting to espouse her, he wrote her a
letter expressive of his real feelings, and not at all flattering to
those of his proposed wife. The latter is said to have replied to this
apocryphal letter with spirit, and to have declared her readiness to
incur all risks, and her resolution to win the heart which now affected
to be careless of her. Due notice was given to Parliament of the coming
event, and a dutiful and congratulatory reply was made by that august
assembly.
The King knew nothing of his niece but by report; but he was resolved
that the union, upon which he had now determined, and to which he
was engaged by his message to Parliament, should take place, be the
Princess of what quality she might. He had himself married under
similar circumstances, and nothing had come of it but considerable
felicity and a very numerous family.
The able and renowned diplomatist, Lord Malmesbury, having received the
instructions of the King to demand the hand of the Princess Caroline of
Brunswick for the Prince of Wales, proceeded to the duchy--a lover by
proxy--to perform his mission. He had no discretionary powers allowed
him. That is, although little was known of the Princess at the English
court, he was not commissioned to give any information to that court
which might have ultimately saved two persons from being supremely
miserable. He was commissioned to fetch the Princess. The fitness of
the Princess was the last thing thought of. The bride herself used
often to say, in after life, to the attendants--who, while they
served, sneered at her--that, had she only been allowed to have paid
a visit to England, to have first made the acquaintance of the Prince,
what a world of misery they might both have been spared! The fact was,
no time was to be lost. All the marriageable princesses in Germany were
learning English, for the express purpose of bettering their chances
of becoming Princess of Wales. They all waited for an offer; and that
offer, after all, was made to a Princess who had not made the English
language her particular study.
The hymeneal envoy reached Brunswick on the 28th of November 1794. Nine
years before, namely, on the 21st of December 1785, the Prince whom
he represented was married to Mrs. Fitzherbert (a Roman Catholic, and
twice a widow) in her own drawing-room, by a Protestant clergyman, and
in presence of two of her relatives. The court of Brunswick thought
nothing of this matter. Lord Malmesbury was received with as hilarious
a welcome as that which was given to the Earl of Macclesfield at
Hanover, when he appeared there with the Act of Settlement which opened
the throne of England to the Electoral Family. There was the same
hospitality, the same offer of service; and the business was opened,
as so much earthly business is, with a grand banquet at court, on the
same night, at which Lord Malmesbury saw the future Queen of England
for the first time. She was embarrassed on being presented to him, but
the experienced diplomatist was not so. He looked at and studied the
appearance of the Princess, and saw ‘a pretty face--not expressive
of softness; her figure not graceful; fine eyes; good hair; tolerable
teeth, but going; fair hair, and light eyebrows; good bust; short; with
what the French call “des épaules impertinentes.” _Vastly happy with
her future expectations._’ She had got over an omission on the part
of the Prince which had for a moment pained her. With the offer or
demand in marriage there came no greeting from the suitor. The Princess
naturally felt disappointed, and she said in a plaintive little voice:
‘le Prince n’a donc rien écrit!’ She was at the time a pretty woman;
she had delicately-formed features, and her complexion was good. Those
who can only remember her as she appeared when on her last visit to
England, in the House of Peers, at Alderman Wood’s window, or at the
balcony of Brandenburgh House, with features swollen and disfigured by
sorrow and an irregular life, can have no idea of how she looked in her
youth. Her eyes were described then as being quick, penetrating, and
glancing; they were shaped _en amande_; and they were, moreover, not
merely beautiful, but expressive. Her mouth was delicately formed; she
could be noble and dignified when she chose, or occasion required it.
It might be said that her only defect, personally, consisted in her
head being rather too large and her neck too short. But, setting this
aside, there was a greater defect still, though it was one not uncommon
to the ladies of the time. There was, in fact, to use a Turkish phrase,
‘garlic amid the flowers.’ The pretty creature was not superfluously
clean. To say that she was so superficially would, perhaps, be even
more than truth would warrant. As for her mother, that Princess Augusta
at whose birth, at St. James’s Palace, such confusion occurred, and who
had been in her time so ‘parlous’ a child, Lord Malmesbury found her
full of nothing but her daughter’s marriage, and talking incessantly.
Her talk was not of the wisest, particularly if she indulged in it in
presence of her daughter, for part of it consisted in abuse of Queen
Charlotte, the future mother-in-law of Augusta’s child. The Duchess
spoke of Queen Charlotte as an envious and intriguing spirit; alleged
that she had exhibited that spirit as soon as she arrived in England,
and that she was an enemy of her mother, the Princess of Wales, as
well as of herself, Augusta. She added that the Queen had so little
feeling that while the Princess of Wales was dying her Majesty took
advantage of the moment to alter the rank of her Highness’s ladies of
the bedchamber. The Duchess’s judgment of King George, her brother,
was, that he was more kind-hearted than wise-headed, which was not far
from the truth.
But the Duchess was most eloquent upon the projected marriage, the
virtues of her daughter, and the care which had been taken, by precept
and example, to establish such virtues in Caroline. The Duchess had
very excellent ideas as to the duties of a mother-in-law, as appears
from her expressed resolution never to interfere in the household of
the newly-married royal couple. Indeed the idea of visiting England at
all was odious to her. If she were to repair thither, she was sure,
she said, that her visit would result in discomfort to herself, and
a jealousy and vexation excited against her in the hearts of others.
Poor lady, she did not foresee that a dozen years later she would be
a fugitive from Brunswick, seeking an asylum in England, after forty
years’ absence.
The Duchess affected to treat the marriage of her daughter with the
Prince of Wales as perfectly unexpected by her, but as she added that
‘she never could give the idea to Caroline’ we may fairly suppose that
the thought of such a thing being possible had really entered for a
moment into her own mind. George III., however, had been accustomed to
speak disapprovingly of the marriage of cousins-german, and with good
reason. It is only to be regretted that he did not act in accordance
with his own expressed opinions on this point. It may be noted as a
strange fact that the prelate who performed the marriage ceremony which
made of the two cousins, so closely akin by blood, man and wife, would
have been very much shocked had he been asked to do the same office for
a man about to marry the sister of his deceased wife, and with whom he
had not the slightest blood relationship.
The Duchess, as has already been remarked, spoke of her brother, George
III., as having more amiability than intellect. If amiability mean the
power of loving others, she very much qualified the remark by observing
that ‘he loved her very much, _as well as he could love anybody_;’
an equivocal phrase, which is made clear enough by the context; for
the Duchess added, that her long absence, and his thirty years of
intercourse with Queen Charlotte, had caused him to forget the sister
whom he loved as much as he could love anybody.
The court of this Duchess, who had been so anxious to make of virtue
a fixed possession for her daughter, was not a court where virtue
itself was a fixed resident. The mistress of the Duke was quite as
important a lady there as the Duchess; and yet the lady herself, or one
of those who held the post which was shared by many, had the sense to
be a trifle ashamed of her position. Her name was Hertzfeldt. She had
ennobled the name by putting a _de_ before it, but she had not dared
upon the prefix of the Teutonic _von_. Lord Malmesbury thus notices
her. ‘In the evening with Mademoiselle de Hertzfeldt--old Berlin
acquaintance, Duke’s mistress--much altered, but still clear and
agreeable; full of lamentations and fears; her apartments elegantly
furnished, and she herself with all the _appareil_ of her situation;
she was at first rather ashamed to see me, but she soon got over it.’
Mademoiselle de Hertzfeldt, too, was among those who were anxious
that the Princess Caroline should be worthy of the position now open
to her. This was a strange _entourage_ for the bride; and there were
both strange people and strange things at this ducal court. Some of
the names of the officials and residents call up memories of the past.
There was a Count von Schulemberg among the former. We hear also of a
Herr von Walmoden, the son of that ‘Master Louis’ whose mother was the
‘Walmoden’ of whom George II. made a Countess of Yarmouth, and whose
father was that royal sovereign himself. There was also an exemplary
couple in the court circle, Herr and Frau von Waggenheim, of whom
indeed little is said, save that the gentleman drank, and that the
lady thought the example worth following. This was but an indifferent
place from which to select a future Queen of England; but, depraved as
the court was, there were others more so, from which, nevertheless,
princesses had gone to be honoured wives and virtuous matrons in other
circles.
The ducal family were never so well pleased as when they could get
the envoy from the bridegroom in one of their own little _coteries_,
and there it was the delight of the Duchess to make much of him, and
inundate him with stories of bygone times. She was particularly pleased
to tell anything disparaging of Queen Charlotte. That her brother, King
George, had, on her marriage, presented her with a handsome diamond
ring as a wedding gift. This generosity rendered the Queen peevish
and jealous, and her Majesty is said to have actually wished that the
gift should be recalled and conferred upon herself. In such tales the
Duchess delighted, and she had an attentive listener.
To him she further told that the King had proposed to many one of his
daughters to her favourite son, Charles; requiring only that he should
first pay a visit to England, a course to which she strongly objected,
and apparently for very efficient reasons--‘she was quite sure, if he
was to show himself, none of the Princesses would have him.’
On the 3rd of December these very small matters were varied by the
arrival of Major Hislop, who brought with him the portrait of the royal
bridegroom, and a private letter to Lord Malmesbury, urging him ‘most
_vehemently_ to set out with the Princess Caroline _immediately_’.
And thereupon, on the 8th of December 1794, followed the marriage,
whereat the vehement lover appeared only by proxy. All parties behaved
with due decorum. The paternal and warrior Duke, a man infirm of
purpose, was rather embarrassed, but performed his office with dignity.
The Duchess was of course overcome, and shed tears. The bride herself
was affected, as maiden well might be, at a rite which took her from a
home where she had, latterly, enjoyed the highest freedom, and which
flung her on the bosom of a husband whose arms were scarcely opened to
receive than they were raised to reject her.
The wedding-day was spent in a remarkably comfortable style of
celebration. First, after the ceremony, there was an early and an
‘immense’ dinner. Then a grand court was held, at which felicitations
were made to the new Princess of Wales. This was followed by grave
whist for the older aristocrats, and gayer games for the younger
people, addicted to more liveliness. Last of all came a great supper,
but how the terrible meal was got through the court historians do
not say. We only learn that during the progress of the banquet Lord
Malmesbury informed the Duke of Brunswick of the nature of the contents
of the Prince’s letter, and the wish therein expressed so vehemently
for his instant departure with the impatiently-expected bride. He of
course supposed that the Duke would at once appoint a day for the
solemn departure. But the sovereign of Brunswick was not a man who
liked to compromise himself. He accordingly answered oracularly: ‘We
depend entirely on you, my lord; you cannot possibly decide in a wrong
way.’ It was leaving Lord Malmesbury ample powers, of which he was
anxious to avail himself; but he had much to do with and for the bride
before he led her safely to the asylum of her husband’s cold hearth.
The bride was, meantime, herself anxious to depart to her new home; her
mother, fussy, fond, and agitated, was desirous to accompany her a part
of the way; and Lord Malmesbury, who had been honoured with the gift
of a ‘snuff-box’ from the Duke and a diamond watch from the Princess,
was quite as willing to get to the end of his mission. There was the
impatient Prince, too, in London; but the diplomatist held his powers
from the King, and rather obeyed the precise and deliberate order of
the monarch than the urgently gallant appeals of his princely son.
In due form, therefore, the marriage treaty, drawn up in English
and Latin--French was prohibited, by royal order--was signed by
all the high contracting parties on the 4th of December. After the
pleasant labour a sumptuous banquet followed, and the envoy and Duchess
announced to the bridegroom at home that his bride would set out on the
11th, provided by that time intelligence was received of the sailing
from England of the fleet which was to serve for a wedding escort
across the sea.
The Duke of Brunswick was a man who, whenever he asserted that he
was going to speak to you with perfect frankness, was really about
to treat you with anything but candour. Even in his breast, however,
the feelings of the father were not always dormant; and occasionally
he manifested considerable perception with regard to the true nature
of his daughter’s position. ‘He was perfectly aware,’ says Lord
Malmesbury, ‘of the character of the Prince, and of the inconveniences
that would result with almost equal ill effect either from his liking
the Princess too much or too little.’ The Duke was as thoroughly
cognisant of the peculiar disposition of Queen Charlotte, and,
curiously enough, ‘he never mentioned the King.’ The paternal comment
on his own daughter was thoroughly impartial: ‘She is not a fool,’ said
he, ‘but she has no judgment; and she has been severely brought up, as
was very necessary with her.’ He knew well where peril lay, and, to
do him justice, he did his little best to save his daughter from the
danger.
The severity of the education of the Princess was only imaginary, or,
if it had existed, it had been entirely ineffective. We may judge of
this by remarking what the Duke begged of the envoy--to recommend
to the Princess discretion; to pray of her not to be curious, nor
free in giving her opinions aloud upon individuals and things--
a fault which this severely-trained young lady inherited from her
mother, who, throughout her life, had been given to ‘appeler un chat,
_un chat_!’ and who was excessively free, easy, and loud-tongued in
her dissertations upon both men and manners. The poor Duke probably
thought of the mother, too, when he asked Lord Malmesbury to advise
his daughter never to be jealous of her husband, and ‘if he had any
_gouts_, not to notice them.’ The Duke added that he had written all
this down _in German_ for his daughter’s benefit, but he thought it
would be none the worse for being repeated orally by Lord Malmesbury.
These audiences and consultations of the morning were succeeded by
dinners and operas in the evening, and the Princess Caroline was of
course the heroine of every festival.
A cynic might have laughed, a more religious philosopher would have
sighed, at the further illustration of the severity of manners at
the ducal court, and the ‘serene’ anxiety for the proper conduct of
the newly-married Princess. The Duke actually sent his mistress to
engage Lord Malmesbury to set the bride in a right path. Mademoiselle
de Hertzfeldt represented to the envoy the necessity of being very
_strict_ with the Princess. The courtesan champion of morality
represented the Duke’s daughter as not clever, neither was she
ill-disposed, ‘but of a temper easily wrought on, and had no _tact_.’
The good lady thought that the envoy’s advice would have more effect
than the paternal counsel, as, ‘although the Princess respected him,
she also feared him as a severe rather than an affectionate father;
that she had no respect for her mother, and was inattentive to her
when she dared.’ No more terrible testimony could be rendered against
a daughter than this. For if a girl love not her mother, whom shall
she ever love? and if she hide not her disregard from the mother whom
she cannot in her heart honour, whom will she ever truly regard? The
Princess was as anxious in imploring guidance and direction from Lord
Malmesbury as any of her relatives, and she was probably quite as
sincere in asking for counsel.
At dinner and supper, concert and opera, there was the same diet
and the same song. For hours of a morning the paternal admonitions
were poured into the bride’s ear, and for hours of an evening Lord
Malmesbury had to listen to what the Princess had been told. The
advice was good of its sort, but its constant repetition shows that
the Duke had great fears touching his daughter’s character. The Duke
wished to make her feel ‘that the high situation in which she was
going to be placed was not simply one of amusement and enjoyment; that
it had its duties, and those perhaps hard and difficult to fulfil.’
Lord Malmesbury was especially invoked not to desert the Princess in
England. The Duke was quite right in foreseeing that future peril,
and _what_ future peril for his daughter, lay in that direction. ‘He
dreaded the Prince’s habits.’ Well he might. They were not dissimilar
from his own. On the very evening that the Duke told the envoy that
he dreaded the Prince’s habits, Lady Eden, who had just arrived at
Brunswick from London, told Lord Malmesbury that ‘Lady ----,’ meaning,
doubtless, Lady Jersey, ‘was very well with the Queen; that she went
frequently to Windsor, and appeared as a sort of favourite.’ ‘This, if
true,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘is most strange, and bodes no good.’ The
intelligence seems to have strongly impressed the envoy; and when, in
the evening, he sat next the Princess Caroline at supper, he counselled
her ‘to avoid familiarity, to have no _confidants_, to avoid giving
any opinion, to approve but not to admire excessively, to be perfectly
silent on politics and party, to be very attentive and respectful to
the Queen--to endeavour, at all events, to be well with her.’ He was
evidently thinking of the rival that was already well with the Queen,
and still better with the Prince. This condition of things boded no
good. The Princess, whose eyes were red with tears--the consequence
of taking leave of some of the dear young friends of her heart--had
good cause to weep on. Never was bridal attended by prospect more
forlorn. The bride, however, was as variable as an April day. On the
evening following that just noticed, Lord Malmesbury records that he
sat ‘next to Princess Caroline at table; she improves very much on
closer acquaintance--cheerful, and loves laughing.’
The penalty of her new position came before her, too, in another
shape. She was beset with applications for her patronage, and she was
induced to seek for Lord Malmesbury’s aid to realise the expectations
of the petitioners. He at once counselled her to have nothing to do
with such matters, and to check or stop solicitation at once, by
intimating that she could not interfere in any way in England by asking
political or personal favours for others. Lord Malmesbury added that,
if she were sincerely desirous to further the fortunes of a really
deserving person, he would find means to enable her to accomplish what
she wished. But even then it were far better, he said, not to engage
herself by any promise. He added much more of excellent admonitory
advice, in all of which the Princess readily acquiesced. He especially
counselled her to be discreet in all her questions. She promised
solemnly that she would, and forthwith she began to put some queries
to him touching the Prince’s ‘favourite.’ Not that she knew Lady
Jersey to be the occupier of so bad an eminence. Still the question
was indiscreet. ‘She appeared to suppose her an _intriguante_, but not
to know of any partiality or connection between her and the Prince. I
said that, with regard to Lady ----, she and all her other ladies would
frame their conduct towards her by hers towards them; that I humbly
advised her this should not be too familiar or too easy; and that it
might be affable without forgetting she was Princess of Wales; that
she should never listen to them when they attempted anything like a
_commerage_, and never allow them to appear to influence her opinion by
theirs. She said she wished to be popular, and was afraid I recommended
her too much reserve; that probably I thought her too _proné à se
livrer_. I said I did; that it was an amiable quality, but one that in
her situation could not be given way to without great risk; that, as
to popularity, it never was retained by _familiarity_; that it could
only belong to respect, and was only to be acquired by a just mixture
of dignity and affability. I quoted the Queen as a model in this
respect.’[7]
Lord Malmesbury thoroughly understood the characters both of the
Princess Caroline and the Queen Charlotte. Of the latter the Princess
expressed great fear, and added a conviction that the Queen would
be jealous of her and do her harm. On that very account she was
advised to be scrupulously attentive in rendering to this terrible
mother-in-law, as she seemed, every mark of respect due to her; and
the Princess was further counselled to set a guard upon her too
prompt tongue in the Queen’s presence, and to be especially careful
not to drop any light remarks. The bride promised all she was asked,
and then observed, by way of illustration of her watchfulness, that
she was quite aware that the Prince was _leger_; that she had been
prepared on that point, and was determined never to appear jealous,
however much she might be provoked. Her monitor commended the wisdom
of a resolution which he said he believed (but it must have been in a
diplomatic sense) she would never be called upon to put in force. Still
more diplomatically, he added that if she ever _did_ ‘see any symptoms
of a _gout_ in the Prince, or if any of the women about her should,
under the love of fishing in troubled waters, endeavour to excite a
jealousy in her mind,’ he entreated her, ‘on no account to allow it to
manifest itself.’ Sourness and reproaches on the part of even a young
neglected wife, it was suggested, not only would not reclaim a husband
whose ‘tottering affections’ might be won back by patient endurance
and softness, but reproof and vexation would only survive to give
additional value to her rival and that rival’s charms. In short, my
Lord as good as intimated that, if she would only re-enact the part of
Griselda, she would please her husband; whereas, if she ran counter to
his wishes, ‘it would probably make him disagreeable and peevish, and
certainly force him to be false and dissembling.’
But if the English envoy enlightened the bride upon the character of
the Prince, her father’s mistress, Mdlle. de Hertzfeldt, was not less
liberal in affording to Lord Malmesbury portraits of the Princess,
drawn in all lights and with no lack of shadow. One lecture from
the ‘favourite,’ which the envoy set down in French, deserves to be
quoted, in spite of its length. ‘I conjure you’--thus began the anxious
lady--‘I conjure you to induce the Prince, from the very commencement,
to make the Princess lead a retired life. She has always been kept in
much constraint and narrowly watched, and not without cause. If she
suddenly finds herself in the world, unchecked by any restraint, she
will not walk steadily. She has not a depraved heart--has never done
anything wrong--but her words are ever preceding her thoughts. She
gives herself up unreservedly to whomsoever she happens to be speaking
with; and thence it follows, even in this little court, that a meaning
and an intention are given to her words which never belonged to them.
How then will it be in England, where she will be surrounded, so it
is said, by cunning and intriguing women, to whom she will deliver
herself body and soul, if the Prince allows her to lead a dissipated
life in London, and who will make her say just what they please, and
that the more easily as she will speak of her own accord, without being
conscious of what she has uttered? Besides, she has much vanity, and,
though not void of wit, she has but little principle. Her very head
will be turned if she be too much flattered or caressed, or if the
Prince spoil her; and it is quite as essential that she should fear
as that she should love him. It is of the utmost importance that he
should keep her closely curbed; that he should also compel her respect
for him. Without this, she will assuredly go astray! I know,’ added
she to the noble envoy, who wrote down her speech in his Diary as soon
as it was delivered, ‘I know that you will not compromise me, for I
speak as to an old friend. I am attached heart and soul to the Duke.
I have devoted myself to and lost myself for him. I have the welfare
of his family at heart. He will be the most wretched of men if his
daughter does not succeed better than her elder sister. I repeat, she
has never done anything that is bad; but she is without judgment, and
she has been judged of accordingly. I fear the Queen. The Duchess here,
who passes her entire life in thinking aloud or in never thinking at
all, does not like the Queen; and she has talked too much about her
to her daughter. Nevertheless, the happiness of the Princess depends
upon being well with the Queen; and for God’s sake,’ exclaimed the
Duke’s devoted mistress, who so airily satirised the Duke’s lawful
wife, ‘say as much to her as indeed you have done already. She heeds
you; she finds that you speak reason cheerfully; and you will make more
impression on her than her father, of whom she is too much afraid, or
than her mother, of whom she is not afraid at all.’
That night there was a masquerade at the court opera-house. Amid the
gay and festive throng the envoy never left the side of the bride, over
whom it was his mission to watch. He talked with her in a strain which
became so gay a scene, but on every jest hung counsel. _She_ was for
giving way to the temper of the entertainment; but as the Princess grew
more hilarious and ‘more mixing,’ he checked the rising spirit of fun,
and prevented its becoming ‘fast and furious,’ by treating her with a
vast outlay of increased seriousness and respect.
If there was something strange in this scene, what followed was
stranger still. Mentor and maiden retired to a box on the _Balcon_,
and there they discussed anew the chances of domestic happiness,
and the rules by which it might be accomplished. As minuets were
being statelily walked below, the envoy categorically laid down the
regulations observation of which might purchase connubial felicity.
He gave expression to an urgent wish that she would never miss going
to church on Sundays, as the King and Queen never failed being
present--although it must be added that, severe as Queen Charlotte
was in strictly and formally attending divine worship on the Sabbath,
the service itself was no sooner over than (at _that_ period of her
life) she proceeded to hold a drawing-room. It was one generally more
brilliantly attended than that held on the Thursdays.
The prospect of being compelled to attend church every Sunday was but a
gloomy view, it would seem, thus presented at the very gayest portion
of the masquerade. The Princess probably thought she saw a way of
escape, for she inquired if the Prince was thus strict in his weekly
attendance. Lord Malmesbury dexterously replied that if he were not
she would bring him to it; and if he would not go with her, she would
do well to set a good example and go without him. ‘You must, in such
case,’ added the bride-trainer, ‘tell him that the fulfilling regularly
and exactly this duty can alone enable you to perform exactly and
regularly those you owe him. This cannot but please him, and will in
the end induce him also to go to church.’
The Princess evidently liked this part of her prospect less and less.
We may fairly judge so by her observation, that my Lord had ‘made a
very serious remark for a masquerade.’
The envoy defended himself from the attack made under cover of this
insinuation, and he defended himself with gaiety and success. The
Princess herself acknowledged as much, and Lord Malmesbury rather
naïvely observes that, after descanting to the bride upon the necessity
of regular church-going when she got to England, he was glad he had
set her thinking on the _drawbacks_ as well as of the _agrémens_ of
her situation. The attendance at church was, in _his_ eyes, a rather
severe discipline; but, as he so forcibly impressed on the mind of
his charge, ‘in the order of society, those of a very high rank
have a price to pay for it. The life of a Princess of Wales is not
to be one of pleasure, dissipation, and enjoyment. The great and
conspicuous advantages belonging to it must necessarily be purchased
by considerable sacrifices, and can only be preserved and kept up by a
continual repetition of those sacrifices.’ The Princess probably sighed
as she weighed the pomp of her position against the piety by which she
was to formally illustrate it.
Lord Malmesbury could not play the mentor without the godless wits of
the court treating him to a little raillery. On the evening when he had
been expatiating on the uses of attendance at church, during the noise
and revelry of a masquerade, he encountered Madame de Waggenheim She
was the lady who ‘drank,’ and whom the noble diarist sets down upon
his tablets as ‘absurd, ridiculous, ill-mannered, and _méchante_.’
‘How did you find the little one?’ said she, alluding thereby to the
Princess. ‘Rather old as she is, her education is not yet _finished_.’
Lord Malmesbury felt the taunt, but parried it with the remark that ‘at
an age far beyond that of her Royal Highness persons might be found in
whom the education of which she spoke had not even begun.’