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.
Among the refugees of exalted rank whom revolution and the fortunes of
war had driven to seek an asylum in England, the members of the family
of the Stadtholder of Holland were the most conspicuous. The eldest
son of this noble family became almost an Englishman by education and
habit, and Oxford yet reckons him with pride among the honoured of her
_alumni_.
As revolution and the fortunes of war had brought the family hither,
so a happy turn in the same took them home, and restored them to a
country which had now become for them a kingdom. At the peace of 1814
the Prince of Orange once more came to England, not as a refugee,
but a visitor and suitor. The heir to a Dutch throne came to sue for
the hand of the heiress to the Crown of Great Britain, and his suit
was powerfully backed by the sanction of the heiress’s father. Her
mother gave no such sanction, nor was she, indeed, asked for any. Most
important of all, the young lady thus wooed did not at all sanction
the proceeding. Of all the episodes of the season there was none more
stirring than this.
It was said that the Regent himself had procured the previous admission
of the suitor into Warwick House, under the feigned name of the
Chevalier de St. George, but that the Princess would not receive him.
In this refusal she was supposed to be supported by her mother, and to
act under the advice of the Duchess of Oldenburgh, who already had in
view a humbler and, as it turned out, a luckier aspirant for the hand
of the heiress. Meanwhile, all England agreed to approve of the match,
and chose to look upon the union as a thing settled. The ballad-singers
made the streets re-echo with singing ‘Orange Boven,’ and Irish wits
accused her Royal Highness of holding an Orange Lodge.
The Regent had hated and thwarted the Princess from her birth. Her
death would have been no grief to him, if he could have divorced her
mother. The next best thing was to be rid of the daughter. Accordingly
her father had this match at heart, and longed to see it concluded.
The Princess allowed herself to be handed to her carriage by the
princely wooer from the dykes, and granted him more than one interview.
It soon became evident that they were not agreed. The Princess
pleaded her youth, her love of her country, and her desire to be more
intimately acquainted with the latter and with its laws, history, and
constitution, before she should surrender herself to the cares and
duties of the married state. The Prince of Orange insisted, as far as
lover dared, that his wife must necessarily reside with him in Holland.
The prospect made the Princess shudder; but it remarkably suited the
wishes of her sire, whose most ardent desire was to place as wide a
distance as possible between the daughter and her mother. The Prince
of Orange had made no secret of his desire that, in the event of his
marriage with the Princess, her mother should take up no permanent
residence in Holland. This desire--not over mildly expressed--
had, perhaps, the most to do with rendering the union impossible. The
Princess, indeed, was not inclined towards the Prince, and would not
willingly have left the country of her birth; but to her warm friends,
at least, she declared that, in the present critical situation of
the Princess of Wales, she would not abandon her mother. The latter
was touched; but it was just the moment when she was most strongly
possessed by a desire to go abroad, and she thought that this desire
might be more speedily realised if her daughter were married than if
she remained single. She was on the whole rather disappointed than
otherwise--except that the breaking off of the match was an annoyance
to the Regent, and _that_ was some consolation, at all events. How the
match was broken off is thus told in the ‘Brief Memoirs of the Princess
Charlotte’:--
‘The Princess Charlotte resented as a great mark of neglect that she
was not invited to any of the entertainments given to the Allied
Sovereigns, and was the more sore because the Prince of Orange went
everywhere and would make no effort to vindicate her claims. The Regent
had lost none of his anxiety to keep her out of sight, and the Prince
did not choose to provoke the displeasure of the father by fighting
the battles of the daughter. The same divergence in their views broke
out when she spoke of her mother, and said that on her account it
would be inexpedient that she should leave England for some time after
her marriage, that when she had a house of her own it must be open
equally to both her parents, and that as the child of both she must
ignore all differences between them. The Prince of Orange feared the
Regent and cared nothing for the Princess of Wales, who had always
been hostile to the marriage, and the reasons urged by the Princess
Charlotte for stopping in England were arguments to him for getting
away from disagreeable complications. He combated her resolution,
and said that he had been willing to stand by her in getting the
article which secured her freedom inserted in the marriage treaty, but
did not suppose that she would refuse altogether to go abroad with
him, and that if this was her intention their respective duties were
irreconcilable and their marriage impossible. A discussion ensued, and
common every-day squabbles occurred to exasperate the dispute. The
Princess Charlotte wanted the Prince of Orange to ride with her in the
riding-house. He started objections, and she reproached him, till,
annoyed at her vehemence and pertinacity, he left her to recover her
temper. The climax had come, and in the evening she wrote peremptorily
to say that their engagement must cease. Her first note was dashed off
in a fit of temper, and a friend who was with her, and whom she asked
to light the candle for her to seal it, said, ‘I will not hold the
candle to any such thing.’ The Princess consented to pause before she
despatched her note, and the result of her reflection was the following
decisive dismissal:--
‘_Princess Charlotte to the Prince of Orange._
‘June 16, 1814: Warwick House.
‘After reconsidering, according to your wishes, the conversation
that passed between us this morning, I am still of opinion the
duties and affection that naturally bind us to our respective
countries render our marriage incompatible, not only from motives
of policy but domestic happiness. From recent circumstances that
have occurred, I am fully convinced that my interest is materially
connected with that of my mother, and that my residence out of this
kingdom would be equally prejudicial to her interest as to my own.
As I can never forget the maternal claims she has upon my duty and
attachment, I am equally aware of the claims your country has
on you. It was this consideration, added to the design I had of
complying with your wishes, that induced me some time ago to agree
to accompany you to Holland, if I obtained satisfactory securities
of having it in my power to return. Since that time the many
unforeseen events that have occurred, particularly those regarding
the Princess, make me feel it impossible to quit England at
present, or to enter into any engagements leading to it at a future
time. After what has passed upon this subject this morning between
us (which was much too conclusive to require further explanation),
I must consider our engagement from this moment to be _totally and
for ever at an end_. I leave the explanation of this affair to be
made by you to the Prince in whatever manner is most agreeable to
you, trusting it entirely to your honour, of which I have never for
a moment doubted. I cannot conclude without expressing the sincere
concern I feel in being the cause of giving you pain, which feeling
is, however, lessened in a degree by the hope I stand acquitted in
your eyes of having acted dishonourably by you in the case of this
business, or of having ever raised false hopes in your mind with
respect to my consenting to a residence abroad. You must recollect
in a letter from me, in answer to yours of May 3, that I told you
it was impossible for me to give any promise on that subject, as
it must totally depend upon circumstances. It only remains for me
to entreat you to accept my sincerest and best wishes for your
happiness, and to express the kindness and interest I shall always
feel towards you.
‘CHARLOTTE.’
Meanwhile, the dinners at Connaught House and the little parties
at Blackheath continued as usual. If a great deal of frivolity
were present at them, it cannot be said that grave wisdom was
always lacking; for by the side of a public singer would sometimes
be seated no less a person than Dr. Parr. Of personal intercourse
between the mother and daughter there was now scarcely any, but their
correspondence was still kept up; and it was not the less sincere
on the poor mother’s side from the circumstance of her occasionally
forgetting orthography in the ardour of her affection.
The Regent, soured by his defeat with respect to the union of his
daughter and the Prince of Orange, was more than commonly irritated
by the knowledge that his wife and child were engaged in a frequent
epistolary correspondence, and that he had, hitherto, been unable to
prevent it. He was satisfied that such correspondence could not be
maintained without the connivance of the ladies of his daughter’s
household, and he determined to meet the evil by dissolving the
establishment.
Before this resolution had been arrived at the Princess Charlotte was
subjected to much petty persecution, rendered the more annoying by
being continual, and which made up in enduring length what it wanted
in intensity. It was said at the time that even the letters in her
writing-desk found their way into her father’s hands; and there was so
much done at this time that was degrading to the doers that the report
is recommended at least by its probability. At all events, ‘wearied
out by a series of acts all proceeding from the spirit of petty
tyranny, and each more vexatious than another, though none of them very
important in itself,’ the Princess was driven to a very extreme measure
by the uncalled-for and undignified severity of her irritated sire.
Lord Stourton (referring indeed to an earlier time) states, in his
‘Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert’:--‘On one occasion Mrs. Fitzherbert told
me she was much affected by the Princess Charlotte throwing her arms
round her neck and beseeching her to speak to her father that he would
receive her with greater marks of his affection; and she told me that
she could not help weeping with this interesting child.’
On the 16th of July, 1814, the Prince Regent, who had previously
secured Cranbourne Lodge, in Windsor Forest, as a residence for his
daughter, and had even, equally unknown to her, but in concert with
Queen Charlotte, nominated the new ladies of the Princess’s household,
repaired to Warwick House, accompanied by the ladies so named. The
party had only to traverse the gardens of Carlton House to arrive at
their destination. The ladies were the Duchess-dowager of Rosslyn and
the Countess of Ilchester, the two Misses Coates, and Miss Campbell,
formerly sub-governess to the Princess. They were placed in an
apartment adjacent to that into which the Regent entered, as soon as he
knew that it was occupied by the Princess.
Without ceremony he announced to the astonished Princess that her
establishment in that house was from that moment dismissed; that she
must instantly repair to the seclusion of Cranbourne Lodge; and that
the newly-appointed ladies of her household were in the next apartment,
ready to wait upon and accompany her.
The Princess was astonished, but she was wonderfully self-possessed,
and her presence of mind, helped by her love for a little romantic
adventure, admirably served her on this occasion. She requested a
few minutes’ respite, that she might retire, take leave of her now
dismissed ladies, and superintend some preparations for departure.
The Prince acquiesced, and leaving the new ladies in charge of the
Princess, returned to Carlton House to dress for a dinner _en ville_.
He was hardly gone when the Princess was gone too. Silently and swiftly
descending the stairs, she issued from the doors, and in half a minute
stood alone upon the pavement of Cockspur Street. Lord Brougham says:
‘It was a fine evening in July, about the hour of seven, when’--he
adds with a sort of contempt for people of the lower order, and indeed
with much inaccuracy to boot--‘when the streets were deserted by
_all persons of condition_.’ From the old stand at the bottom of the
Haymarket she called a coach, whose lucky driver (Higgins) obeyed the
summons, and having handed the heiress of England into the damp straw
of his dirty and rickety vehicle, listened to the order to drive to the
Princess of Wales’s in Connaught Place--to be quick, and he should
not have to regret it. The guileless Higgins concluded that he was
taking a lady’s lady out to tea, and that the maid of one establishment
was going to make an evening of it with the maids of another.
Unconscious that he was contributing in his own person to the history
of England on that eventful summer’s evening, Higgins in due course of
time reached Connaught Place, and when he heard, to the inquiry of his
‘fare’ whether her mother was at home, that the page answered, ‘No,
your Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales is at Blackheath,’ he became
proudly sagacious of _largesse_ to come, and was convinced that he had
been a right royal coachman that night, by token that he received three
guineas for his honorarium.
A messenger was despatched to Blackheath with a request to the Princess
to return immediately to her. She was met by the bearer of the
message on her way, and with ready good sense drove to either house
of parliament, in search first of Mr. Whitbread, then of Lord Grey,
but without success in either case. Meanwhile, another messenger had
been despatched for Mr. Brougham, the law-adviser of the Princess of
Wales, and a third for Miss Mercer Elphinstone, the young bosom friend
of the Princess Charlotte. Mr. Brougham arrived first, and soon after
Miss Elphinstone had reached the house the Princess of Wales also
arrived, accompanied by Lady Charlotte Lindsey. ‘It was found,’ said
Mr. Brougham, ‘that the Princess Charlotte’s fixed resolution was
to leave her father’s house and that which he had appointed for her
residence, and thenceforward to live with her mother.’ But Mr. Brougham
is understood to have placed himself under the painful necessity of
explaining to her that by the law, as all the twelve judges but one
had laid it down in George I.’s reign, and as it was now admitted to
be settled, the King or the Regent had the absolute power to dispose
of all the royal family while under age. Another account states that
the Princess met this announcement by the declaration, made amid many
tears and much sobbing, that she would rather toil for her daily bread
at five shillings a week than continue to endure the persecution to
which she had of late been subjected. The Princess of Wales was very
much affected by this demonstration of her daughter’s affection and
confidence, but she united with Mr. Brougham in urging her to submit
to her father’s will. The Princess Charlotte continued to show fixed
reluctance to adopt such a course, and was expressing her determination
not to follow it when the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived; but the
page refused to give him admission, and he remained at the door seated
in a hackney coach. The first great official from the Regent’s side who
was admitted into the house was Lord Eldon. He had been despatched from
the Duke of York’s, where the Regent was dining, when the intelligence
of his daughter’s flight had been conveyed to him by the ladies to
whose care he had committed her. ‘The Lord Chancellor Eldon,’ says
Lord Brougham, ‘first arrived, but not in any particular imposing
state, regard being had to his eminent station, for indeed he came
in a hackney coach. Whether it was that the example of the Princess
Charlotte herself had for the day brought this simple and economical
mode of conveyance into fashion, or that concealment was much studied,
or that despatch was deemed more essential than ceremony and pomp,
certain it is, that all who came, including the Duke of York, arrived
in similar vehicles, and that some remained enclosed in them, without
entering the royal mansion.’ Lord Eldon appears to have treated the
Princess with some roughness, adding threats to the entreaties of
others, and menacing her with being closely shut up if she did not
obey. In his own account of this evening and its incidents he says that
the Princess, in answer to his observations, only ‘kicked and bounced,’
and protested that she positively would not go back. The chancellor
declared as positively that he would not leave the house without her.
‘At length,’ Lord Brougham concludes his narrative, ‘after much pains
and many entreaties used by the Duke of Sussex and the Princess of
Wales herself, as well as Miss Mercer Elphinstone and Lady Charlotte
Lindsey (whom she always honoured with a just regard), to enforce the
advice given by Mr. Brougham, that she should return without delay
to her own residence and submit to the Regent, the young Princess,
accompanied by the Duke of York and her governess, who had now been
sent for and arrived in a royal carriage, returned to Warwick House
between four and five o’clock in the morning.’
Soon after this occurrence the Princess was removed to Cranbourne
Lodge, where she bore the secluded life she was constrained to lead
with more of a calm than a cheerful resignation. She was not, however,
there forgotten by her friends. The Duke of Sussex rose in his place in
parliament to inquire if his royal niece was or was not in a sort of
‘durance,’ and whether she were permitted to see her friends. Ministers
replied to these queries in that official way which answers without
enlightening, and further measures were spoken of; but the Duke of
Sussex was seized with an attack of asthma, which popular report
attributed to a sharp communication made to him by the Regent, and
therewith no further mention was made of the royal recluse in Windsor
Forest.
But there was another recluse anxious to emancipate herself and fly
from the restrictions and conventionalities of English living to
the greater liberty allowed on the Continent. There were very few
persons who thought the Princess of Wales well advised in this desire
except Mr. Canning. Into his hands the wife of the Regent committed a
letter, which Lord Liverpool was requested to submit to the Prince. It
contained a brief description of her unmerited condition, expressed a
wish of being allowed to withdraw to the Continent, chiefly for the
purpose of visiting her brother, and finally made offer of resigning
the Rangership of Greenwich Park in favour of her daughter, and also to
make over to her the residence (Montague House) which her mother had
occupied at Blackheath. The principal reason assigned for her wishing
to withdraw was that she had nothing now to bind her to England but her
daughter, and from _her_ society she was now entirely and most unjustly
excluded.
Through Lord Liverpool the Regent returned for answer that she was
entirely free to go or stay; that no restraint whatever would be put
upon her in that respect; that, as regarded the Rangership, on her
resignation of that office, the Regent would see to its being filled
up by a properly qualified person; with respect to Montague House, the
daughter of the Prince Regent could never be permitted by him to reside
in a house which had ever been the dwelling-place of the Princess of
Wales.
This reply--the Princess’s comment on which was ‘end well, all
well’--reached her at Worthing, whither, after a brief interview
with her daughter, she had already repaired. She remained in the
neighbourhood but a few days after she received the desired missive,
and the ‘Jason’ frigate, commanded by Captain King, lay in the offing,
waiting her pleasure and convenience to embark. She lingered during
those few days as if reluctant, after all, to leave the land where she
had not known an hour’s happiness since she had first set her foot
upon its shore. She would linger on the beach at night, regardless of
the admonitions of her attendants, sitting dreamily and despondingly,
gazing over the waters or at the moon by which they were illumined, and
once breaking from her reverie with the ejaculation: ‘Well, grief is
unavailing when fate impels me.’
On the 9th of August, she for the last time appeared on Worthing
beach, with Lady Charlotte Lindsey and Lady Elizabeth Forbes. It was
her intention to embark from thence, but fearful of the crowd that
was then collecting, she quietly withdrew to South Lancing, about two
miles off, whither the captain’s barge proceeded to meet her. She was
followed, however, by nearly all the persons, in carriages, mounted
or on foot, whose curiosity, it may be added, was especially aroused
by the appearance of a large tin-case among the luggage, on which was
painted in white letters, ‘Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales,
to be always with her.’ It seemed as if she for ever wished to have
some mystery attached to her, or that she desired the mystification of
others. Her domestics had gone on board at Worthing. On South Lancing
beach she appeared dressed in ‘a dark cloth pelisse with large gold
clasps, and a cap of velvet and green satin, of the Prussian hussar
costume, with a green feather.’ She was, with her ladies, driven down
to the beach, in a pony chaise, by her own coachman.
On taking her seat in the barge she turned round and kissed her hand
to the assembled people, by way of farewell. To the mute greeting the
people returned as mute reply. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs,
the men uncovered. She probably construed this silent _adieu_ as
intended to denote respect and regret, and she was so overcome that she
fainted on her way to the ship. On the deck she was received by Captain
King, to whom one of the Regent’s brothers had previously remarked:
‘You are going to convey the Princess of Wales to the Continent. You
are a great fool if you don’t make love to her.’
Greatly as her spirits were depressed at starting, their natural
elasticity soon brought her round again to her ordinary condition of
cheerfulness. On the 12th of August, the Regent’s birthday, as the ship
was passing the Texel, a royal salute was fired, by her order, it is
said, in honour of the day. The salute would, probably, have been fired
without any such command. What were, without doubt, her own spontaneous
acts were the birthday banquet at which she presided; the health of
her husband, which she gave with a spirit that might have been taken
for sincerity; and the ball at which she danced as joyously as though
she had been a youthful bride being borne to the bridegroom she loved,
and not a mature and child-deprived matron cast out by her husband,
between whom and herself there reigned as bitter a hatred as ever raged
in the bosom of any pair of mortal beings. The hatred on his part is
illustrated by an anecdote which was in circulation at this unhappy
period. According to this story, ‘On the evening previous to the
Princess of Wales’s departure from England, the Regent had a party and
made merry on the joyful occasion. It is even said that he proposed a
toast: “To the Princess of Wales’s d----n, and may she never return to
England!” It seems scarcely possible that any one should have allowed
his tongue to utter such a horrible imprecation; but it may be believed
the Regent did, so great was his aversion to his wife. Besides, he was
not, probably, very well aware what he was saying at that moment.’