High Admiral, had been accustomed, on her visits to Chatham, to be
received and entertained by the daughters of the then Commissioner,
Cunningham. As soon as the Duchess became Queen, among her first
invited visitors to Bushey were these ladies. At the meeting they
offered to kiss her Majesty’s hand, but ‘No, no,’ said Queen Adelaide,
‘that is not the way I receive my friends. I am not changed;’ and
therewith ensued a greeting less dignified, but not less sincere.
Queen Adelaide and King William kept a ‘state’ at Brighton which had a
burlesque element in it. They were the last sovereigns who held a court
or entertained friends at the Pavilion--that place of big and little
domes, which made Lord Alvanley say of it that it looked ‘as if St.
Paul’s had come down to the sea-side and pupped.’ It was not etiquette
for any guest (of an evening) to stir till Queen and King retired,
which was at midnight. On one occasion, when Captain and Mrs. Marryat
were present, and anxious to go to a second party, the King remarked
that the lady often looked at the clock. Being asked the reason, she
frankly told him. ‘Why don’t you go then?’ said his Majesty. ‘Sir,’
answered the lady, ‘we cannot move till her Majesty and yourself have
departed.’ ‘Oh, d--n it!’ rejoined the royal sailor, ‘take my arm;
I’ll smuggle you out.’ At the Pavilion balls, after the ladies had
kissed the Queen’s hand, the King kissed the ladies, who then passed
into the ball-room, where one of the Fitzclarences used to greet them
with: ‘Well, has Dad bussed you yet?’
There are other stories told of incidents at Windsor which indicate the
difference of the court going out from that of the court coming in.
This change required the removal from the palace of a little household,
the head lady of which reluctantly gave way to the new Queen. People
generally rejoiced in seeing a ‘wife’ installed where ‘queans’ used to
rule it; and, when William IV. was seen walking arm-in-arm with Watson
Taylor or some other happy courtier, they added one incident to the
other, and, comparing the new court with the old, exclaimed, ‘Here is
a change indeed!’ No one ever dreamed at that moment that the time
would come when party-spirit would stir up the ‘mobile’ against the
sovereigns; that the Queen would be accused of plotting with the Duke
of Wellington against reform; that stones would be cast at the royal
carriage as it bore the King and his Consort from the theatre; and
that, when matters went adversely to the humour of the ultra-chiefs of
the popular movement, the first lady in the land should be marked out
for vengeance by the famous cry in the _Times_, ‘The Queen has done it
all!’
The drawing-room at which good Mrs. Blomfield appeared in ‘immortal
velvet’ was remarkable for another incident, related in ‘Frazer’s
Magazine,’ by John Wilkes, ex-M.P. for Sudbury, in his ‘Regina’s
Regina’:--‘The drawing-room of her Majesty Queen Adelaide, held in
February, 1831, was the most magnificent which had been seen since that
which had taken place on the presentation of the Princess Charlotte
of Wales, upon the occasion of her marriage. No drawing-room excited
such an interest when compared with that as the one held by Queen
Adelaide, at which the Princess Victoria was presented on attaining her
twelfth year. It was on this occasion that the Duchess of Kent and
her illustrious daughter arrived in state, attended by the Duchess of
Northumberland, Lady Charlotte St. Maur, Lady Catherine Parkinson, the
Hon. Mrs. Cust, Lady Conroy, La Baronne Letzen, Sir John Conroy, and
General Wetheral. This was the first public appearance of the Princess
Victoria at court. Her dress was made entirely of articles manufactured
in the United Kingdom. Victoria wore a frock of English blonde, simple,
modest, and becoming. She was the object of interest and admiration on
the part of all assembled, as she stood on the left of her Majesty on
the throne. The scene was one of the most splendid ever remembered,
and the future Queen of England contemplated all that passed with much
dignity, but with evident interest.’
Nearly three-quarters of a century had elapsed since a Queen-consort
had been crowned in Great Britain. On the present occasion, such small
pomp as there was was confined to the religious part of the ceremony.
The procession to and from Westminster Hall, the banquet there, and
the dramatic episode of the entry of the Champion were all dispensed
with. There was an idea prevalent that the cost would be too great,
and that the popular voice would be given to grumble--others thought
that money spent in the country, and made to circulate rapidly through
many hands, would be a public benefit rather than a public injury.
The ministry, however, would only sanction the maimed rites which
were actually observed; the privileged people were deprived of many
a coveted perquisite which might have dipped deeply into the public
purse, and the heir of Marmion and the owner of Scrivelsby kept his
horse and his defiance at home in the domain of the Dymokes. The
public, cheated of their show, called it a ‘half-crownation.’
There was only one incident at this ceremony which is worth narrating.
The Queen-consort’s crown was a rich little toy, sparkling but
small. It would hardly fit a baby’s head, and, accordingly, Queen
Adelaide’s hair was turned up in a knot, in order that on this knot
the little crown might safely rest. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in
place of fitting the crown down upon this knot of hair, only lightly
placed the glittering toy on the top of it. Had the Queen moved
she would have been discrowned in an instant, and all the foolish
people whose footsteps go wandering on the borders of another world,
instead of going honestly straightforward in this, would have had a
fine opportunity of discussing the value of omens. But, in a case
of adornment, the ladies had their wits about them, and were worth
the whole episcopal bench when the matter at issue was surmounting a
head of hair with its supreme adornment of a crown. Some of those in
attendance stepped forward, saved their embarrassed mistress from an
annoyance, and Queen Adelaide was crowned in Westminster Abbey by a
couple of ladies-in-waiting!
It may be that the Archbishop was not so much to blame on this
occasion. The little crown was made up at the Queen’s expense for the
occasion, by Rundell, out of her own jewels, and it may not have fitted
easily. She had a dread of unnecessary outlay, and, perhaps, remembered
that at George the Fourth’s coronation the sum charged by Rundell
merely for the hire of jewels by the King amounted to 16,000_l._, as
interest on their value. The whole expense of the double coronation of
William and Adelaide did not amount to much more than twice that sum.
The Queen herself was not ill-dressed on this occasion, as will be seen
by the record made by those who have registered the millinery portion
of the ceremony:--‘Her Majesty wore a gold gauze over a white satin
petticoat, with a diamond stomacher, and a purple velvet train, lined
with white satin, and a rich border of gold and ermine. The coronet
worn by Her Majesty, both to and from the Abbey, was most beautiful. It
was composed entirely of diamonds and pearls, and in shape very similar
to a mural crown.’
When the modest coronation of William and Adelaide was yet a subject
of general conversation, the expensive finery of that which preceded
it was actually in the market, and was subsequently sold by public
auction. Out of the hundred and twenty lots ‘submitted’ by Mr.
Phillips, the new King and Queen might have been tempted to secure a
_souvenir_ of their predecessor; but they had no taste for ‘bargains,’
perhaps small regard for their defunct kinsman. Nevertheless, so
thrifty a lady as the Queen may have sighed at the thought of the
coronation ruff of Mechlin lace going ‘dirt cheap’ at two pounds; and
she may have regretted the crimson velvet coronation mantle, with
its star and gold embroidery, which, originally costing five hundred
pounds, fetched, when yet as good as new, only a poor seven-and-forty
guineas. There was the same depreciation in other articles of
originally costly value. The second coronation mantle of purple velvet
fell from three hundred to fifty-five pounds; and the green velvet
mantle, lined with ermine, which had cost the Czar, who presented it
to the late King, a thousand guineas, was ‘knocked down’ at a trifle
over a hundred pounds. Sashes, highland-dresses, aigrette-plumes--
rich gifts received, or purchases dearly acquired--went for nothing;
and, after all, seeing into what base hands coronation bravery is apt
to fall, the economical King and Queen were not without justification
in setting an example of prudence, which was followed at the next great
crowning.
Perhaps not the least remarkable incident in connection with this
coronation was the absence of the heiress-presumptive to the crown,
the Princess Victoria. No place had been assigned to her, nor any
preparation made in expectation of her gracing or witnessing the
ceremony. It has been said that Earl Grey, the prime minister,
obstinately opposed all idea of inviting the Princess to be present.
But the grounds for such opposition are so unapparent that it is
difficult to give credit to them at all. By others it has been asserted
that the Duchess of Northumberland, the governess of the Princess,
in the exercise of a superior and enlightened judgment, and in
consideration of the then alleged delicate health of her young charge,
advised that her pupil should not be present at the coronation of King
William and Queen Adelaide. This reason seems hardly to account for the
fact. In the absence of a better, it was accepted by those at least who
did not throw the blame of that ‘conspicuous absence’ on Queen Adelaide
herself and her royal consort; but, as an anonymous writer remarked,
‘Who that knew the good King William and his incomparable Queen would
believe that any slight was put by them on their well-beloved niece and
the heiress-presumptive to the throne?’ The same enemies also stated
that ‘the Duchess of Northumberland was seeking to give a political
bias to the education of the Princess, and some uneasiness was
therefore created in the palace.’ The ‘Times’ asserted, with iteration,
that the Duchess of Kent had ‘refused to attend, yes, refused to
attend,’ and reproved Her Royal Highness, in the harsh terms which
illustrated many of the controversies of the day, for the impertinence
of the widow of a mediatized German Prince, in withholding her daughter
from a ceremony at which she could never, at one time, have expected to
see daughter of hers, as heiress-presumptive to the crown of England!
Other papers made this alleged refusal rest on the course taken by
Lord A. Fitzclarence, who, in marshalling the coronation procession on
paper, had assigned a place to the Princess Victoria after the other
members of the royal family, instead of next to the King and Queen.
Finally, the ‘Globe,’ on authority, declared that the Duchess, having
pleaded the delicate state of her daughter’s health, had obtained the
King’s sanction to her absence--a version of the end of a story which
began, nevertheless, more like the current report of it than would
seem here to be indicated. As marked an instance of absence as that of
the Princess was that of the whole of such members of the preceding
administration as happened to be members of the House of Commons. This,
however, little affected the King, who, at the subsequent dinner at St.
James’s Palace, gave, as a toast, ‘the land we live in,’ and declared
that, except as a formality and memorial, the coronation was a useless
affair, as far as he was concerned, for no oath he had there taken
could bind him more stringently to fulfil his duty towards the people
than he felt himself to be bound by as soon as the responsibility of
his position had fallen upon him.
The land he now lived in speedily became agitated by that wave of
revolution which was shaking many of the monarchies of Europe. England
endured as great revolution as any of them, but with this difference,
that here it was effected according to law, and, albeit not exempt from
very vast perils, was carried through to its natural consequences, to
the mutual advantage of the government and the governed.
When the first rumours began to spread of an opposition establishing
itself at court against the progress of reform, the press manifested
particular desire to exonerate the Queen from the charge of
participating in or heading such a course. The ‘Times’ at first
interfered to protect that lady from similar aspersions. Papers of
less influence, but of like principles, had openly named Queen
Adelaide, the two daughters of George III., Elizabeth (Princess of
Hesse Homburg), and Mary (Duchess of Gloucester) as mischievously
active in impeding the popular will. In answer to such accusations,
the ‘Times’ (April 9, 1831), in a brief but spirited and courteous
leader, denounced the falsehood, and showed the improbability and
the unfairness of such allegations. On a like occasion, that paper
fairly urged that, whatever opinions might be expressed by members
of the household, they were not to be attributed to the mistress of
that household. At the same time, on these members and on the fair
frequenters of drawing-rooms who there gave utterance to sentiments
which they carried into action elsewhere against the great consummation
sought by the people, the pro-reform paper thundered its bolts and
showered its sarcasm with unsparing hands. On most occasions, however,
so much was made of the apparent heartiness of the King, that excess of
praise in that direction took the form of censure on the lukewarmness,
if not the hostility, of the Queen. Contrasts rather than parallels
were the favourite medium for turning the public attention to the two
sovereigns. The Ex-Chancellor Eldon was said to have assured Queen
Adelaide that, if reform was carried, the days of her drawing-rooms
were numbered, and that royalty would do well to follow a counsel
which was given by Earl Grey to the bishops--namely, set its house
in order. On the other hand, we hear of the new Chancellor Brougham
attending the court with his huge official purse so full of petitions
in favour of parliamentary reform that, as he continued to extract and
present them, he apologized to King William for troubling him with such
piles of the public prayers or demands. Whereupon the King is said to
have remarked, in the hearing of the Queen, ‘My Lord Chancellor, I am
willing to receive anything from that purse, except the seals!’ The
wit was small, but the suggestiveness was considered important, and
gossips, on both sides, jumped to conclusions which had questionable
affinity with the premises.
While the Queen was thus treated with a certain degree of moderation by
the press, she is said to have been seriously coerced by the liberal
ministry of the day. The charge was distinctly made, after the Queen’s
death, in a funeral sermon, preached by the Rev. Mr. Browne, Vicar
of Atwick. The occasion was so solemn that an honest man was not
likely to be led even into exaggeration, much less into deliberate
misrepresentation. These are the preacher’s own words:--
‘The Queen-consort had witnessed in her father-land some of the
dreadful effects of the French revolutionary movements; and she was
known to disapprove, out of womanly feeling and fear for her husband’s
safety, of popular tumults and agitations. With the narrow-minded and
impure suspicion is proof, and is followed by resentment. This pure
being was a sufferer by the machinations and exactions of the ephemeral
favourites of the misguided populace. Her influence over her royal
husband was too great to be trusted, and she was forbidden--I speak
advisedly, and mean nothing less than “forbidden”--to have a kindred
spirit near her during the agitation and intimidation by which the
measure called the Reform Bill was supported and carried.’
It was when that bill was in jeopardy, when the King--who had made
so many knights that the very pages called them the ‘Arabians,’ the
‘Thousand and One’--hesitated to create a sufficient number of new
lords to secure the passing of the bill in the Upper House; it was then
that the press began to admonish the King and to menace the Queen. On
one occasion, when they attended at the opening of the new Staines
Bridge, where, by the way, they were so closely pressed upon by the
mob that maids of honour and gentlemen-in-waiting had their pockets
picked, the Conservative wits remarked that the King might make new
bridges, but that he must leave the _peers_ alone. The Whig party at
once assumed that Queen Adelaide was at the head of a faction whose
object was to give reality to such jokes, and thenceforward the Queen
was little spared. The ‘Times’ asserted that it was by ‘domestic
importunity’ alone that the free action of the King’s mind was impeded.
The Queen was compared to Queen Amata, in the ‘Æneid,’ cajoling or
raging at her older consort, Latinus, because the latter preferred
Æneas to Turnus as a husband for their daughter Lavinia. There was not
much alike in the two cases, for Amata was a staunch Conservative,
who detested the idea of a foreign prince obtaining the hand of her
daughter, and exercising influence within the limits of Latium. But
there were strong terms in the original which suited the purpose of the
hour, and the Queen was pelted with them most unmercifully.
Occasionally, there was a truth mixed up with the harder words, which
even ultra-Tories could not gainsay, as when the ‘Times’ remarked that
‘a foreigner was no very competent judge of English liberties, and
politics are not the proper field for female enterprise or exertion.’
When this strong hint was taken to have failed, and Queen Adelaide was
still supposed to be conspiring with the daughters of George III. to
turn King William from his liberal views, this was the tone with which
the royal lady was lectured by the press:--‘There is a lady of high
rank who must be taught a salutary, though a very painful, lesson. She
may be bold as an amazon, be troublesome, importunate, or overbearing,
but her present course is one from which can follow naught but final
wretchedness. Why has she so eagerly, within these few hours, bidden
her gossips _not to despair_? Why such haste to tell them, _all will be
well? The King will do without the Whigs._ Yes, madam, but England will
not. Still less will England do without the unmutilated Bill.’
At another time Queen Adelaide was reminded that if a female influence
drove Necker from the court of Louis XVI., one of the consequences was
the destruction of the most influential lady; another, the ruin of
the country. The influence being assumed to be still active, allusion
was made to the ‘foreign woman whom the nation may have too easily
adopted.’ Reports were rife that intrigues were on foot, the object of
which was to induce liberal peers to betray their party, and then the
public censor showered imprecations on ‘blandishments and entreaties,
urged with a force and pertinacity which, coming from a monarch, are
difficult to be refused.’
On the other hand, the Conservative press drew its own inferences
and made its own accusations. When the cholera was raging, during
the reform fever, Queen Adelaide’s drawing-room happened to be very
thinly attended. The real cause was lost sight of, and her Majesty was
respectfully assured that the scanty attendance was entirely owing to
Lord Grey’s revolutionary government, beneath which all old English
energy, vitality, and spirit had become so extinct that it was unequal
to the exertion of even manifesting respect for an English Queen. As
much injury was inflicted on Queen Adelaide by the Tories who blazoned
her name on their banners and boasted of having her on their side
as by the Whigs and Radicals who, by their calumny, exposed her to
popular insult. When Lord Chancellor Brougham coerced the King to go
and dismiss the unreformed and unreforming Parliament, one part of the
royal remonstrance took the form of: ‘What! Would you have me dismiss
in this summary manner, a Parliament which has granted me so splendid
a Civil List, and given my Queen so liberal an annuity, in case she
survives me?’ Lord Brougham answered that he would, and that he had
taken upon himself to order out the Horse Guards to escort the King
down to the House.
Old English qualities manifested themselves at a Conservative festival
in Gloucestershire, where the health of ‘the Queen’ was ‘received with
great applause.’ Upon which announcement the ‘Times’ significantly
asked, ‘Is that meant as a compliment to her Majesty, or will it sound
as such in the ears of the unanimous people?’ Then, when reiteration
was made of the alleged co-operation of the sisters of William IV. with
Queen Adelaide in efforts to overthrow the Reform Bill, the ‘Times’
stepped forward with the following testimony in favour of those ladies
and their mother, with the accompanying admonition to the Queen:--‘No
one will be persuaded that any daughter of George III. could so mistake
her position in this country or so disregard her duty. Queen Charlotte
was advised by her mother, before she ever touched the shores of
England, to make entire and religious abstinence from politics the
rule of her life as a British Princess; and for twenty-eight years,
till the question of the first Regency forced Queen Charlotte upon the
stage as a reluctant actress, she had satisfied herself with being a
modest spectatress, living in strict observance of maternal counsel;
and what was the consequence? Down to the above-mentioned period of
her wedded life, her Majesty enjoyed, in a degree not experienced by
any Queen-consort for centuries past, the respect and good-will of the
whole community. Is it then to be supposed that the leading maxim of
her own mother was not impressed by that judicious and estimable woman
upon the minds of her daughters, the six Princesses, two of whom still
adorn the court of England with their constant presence? The Princess
Augusta and the Duchess of Gloucester owe little to the gossips who
thus abuse the delicacy of their illustrious names.’
Party-spirit was, doubtless, aggravated on either side by the tone of
the press. Influential cities announced their refusal to pay taxes,
and tavern-clubs possessing pictures of King and Queen turned them
heels uppermost, with an intimation that they should be righted as
soon as the originals had made themselves right with the people. If
Tories of eminence talked of coercing the King, Whigs equally exalted
hinted at the possibility of sending his Consort to Germany, and of
rousing the men of the provinces in order to make an impression upon
people in high places. One well-known ‘man about town,’ presiding at
a public dinner, refused to propose the Queen’s health, and among the
lower caricature-shops she might be seen pictured wending her way, the
ejected of England, to a dull, dreary, and unwelcoming Germany.
Publicly, however, she had her champions too. Mr. Baring, from his
place in parliament, protested against the language of the Whig papers
generally. His own description of it, as applicable to the Queen, was,
that it comprised foul slander against the highest personage of a
sex, from insulting which every manly mind would recoil. The gallant
champion added, with less discretion, perhaps, that the full measure of
scornful indifference and silent contempt with which the Queen repaid
all the insults heaped upon her had elevated her in the hearts of those
whose homage was a worthy tribute. Mr. Hume, ultra-reformer as he was,
exhibited very excellent taste on this occasion, and pointed out in a
few words marked by good common sense that the name of the exalted lady
in question should never be dragged into the debates, the discussions,
and the dissensions of that house.
Less, perhaps, by way of championship than in the character of
consolers, did the bishops, or a certain number of them, with the
Archbishop of Canterbury at their head, address Queen Adelaide. They
had, previously, ‘been up’ to the King, who was just then being
counselled in various ways by everybody, from wary old politicians to
the ’prentice-boys of Derry. They brought to his Consort the usual
complimentary phrases--but, in the present instance, they carried
weight with the Queen, for amid the din of abuse with which she
was assailed a few words of assurance and encouragement, of trust,
counsel, and consolation, must have fallen pleasantly upon her ear. She
said as much, at least, in a brief phrase or two, indicative of the
satisfaction she experienced at hearing such words from such men, at a
period when she was the object of so much undeserved calumny and insult.
The scene was, undoubtedly, made the most of by those who rejoiced most
in its occurrence; perhaps too much was made of it; and this induced
the ridicule of the opposite side. The ‘Times’ courageously denied
its existence. The presentation of the prelates was admitted, but the
Queen’s speech was defined as a hoax. There was nobody by, it was said,
but the knot of diocesans and a body of maids of honour--and, of
course, any report emanating from such a source was to be received with
more than ordinary suspicion.
Long before the press had commenced directing an undesired notice upon
the Queen private circles were canvassing her conduct with regard,
especially, to this matter of reform. ‘By-the-bye,’ says Moore in his
diary, ‘the Queen being, as is well known, adverse to the measure which
is giving such popularity to her royal husband, reminds me a little
of the story of the King of Sparta, who first gave his assent to the
establishment of the Ephori. His wife, it is said, reproached him with
this step, and told him that he was delivering down the royal power to
his children _less_ than he had received it. “Greater,” he answered,
“because more durable.” This is just such an answer as William IV.
would be likely to give to _his_ wife. But the event proved the Spartan
Queen to have been right, for the Ephori extinguished the royal power;
and if Queen Adelaide’s bodings are of the same description, they are
but too likely to be _in the same manner realized_’--a curious avowal
from Lord Lansdowne’s Whig friend.
There are few things which more forcibly strike a student of the
political literature of this period than its wide difference from that
which now generally prevails. It seemed, in those days, as if no public
writer could command or control his temper. The worst things were
expressed in the worst forms, and writers had not reached, or did not
care to practise, the better style by which a man may censure sharply
without doing undue wrong to the object of his censure, without losing
his own self-respect or forfeiting that of his readers.
Taken altogether, the year 1832 may be said to have been the most
eventful and the least felicitous in the life of Queen Adelaide. It
was a year which opened gloomily for the court, both politically and
personally. At one of the small festivities held at the Pavilion, the
King’s old friend, Mr. Greenwood, of the firm of Cox and Greenwood,
Army Agents, was playing whist, after dinner, with the Queen for a
partner, and the King and Sir Herbert Taylor for adversaries. During
the progress of the game he was taken ill, became insensible, and, on
being removed from the room by Sir Herbert and Lord Erroll, died in
an adjoining apartment, within a quarter of an hour. The Queen was
very much shocked at this incident, and the elder ladies about court,
who thought it ominous of a fatal year--for already were movements
hostile to monarchy becoming active--considered the next month’s omen
of unpleasant significance too, when the fog in London, on the night
of the anniversary of the Queen’s birthday, was so dense that not a
lamp of illuminations was visible through the mist. Then ensued, in the
subsequent spring, the unpleasant feud with the Sefton family, in which
Queen Adelaide’s name was so prominent.
Soon after the temporary resignation of the Grey ministry, King William
invited the Jockey Club to dinner at St. James’s Palace. Among the
invited was old Lord Sefton, who was a Whig _and something more_,
and who was resolved to avenge on the King the wrongs inflicted, as
he assumed, by that dissembling monarch on his friends of the late
administration. Lord Sefton accordingly withdrew from the club. The
unsuspicious King at once invited him as a friend, but Lord Sefton was
ungracious enough to absent himself, and did not condescend to restore
the sovereign to favour till Lord Grey was once more at the helm of the
national ship--steersman and captain too. His lordship and family
appeared at the ball given by the Queen in May, to which, of course,
they had been all invited. Meanwhile, however, the King had learned how
he stood in the estimation of the Earl, meeting whom in the Queen’s
ball-room, he turned his royal back upon him, publicly. Thence arose
embittered feelings on the part of the offended peer. _Vivere sat,
vincere_, ‘to conquer is to live enough,’ is the Sefton motto, and the
bearers of it seem to have been determined to have this taste of life,
by putting down the royal offenders, and appearing before them to enjoy
their humiliation. ‘Lord Molyneux’ (Lord Sefton’s son, says Mr. Raikes,
in his _Diary_) ‘has attended a public meeting at Liverpool, where he
made a speech, and, actuated by his father’s feelings, alluded very
bitterly to the conduct of both the King and Queen. He afterwards came
to town, and appeared, with his family, at the ball. On the following
day, the King commanded Mr. W. Ashley, as vice-chamberlain to the
Queen, to write to Lord Molyneux, and request he would not appear
at court again. Nothing could be more just. This is only a slight
instance,’ adds the Tory Diarist, ‘of Whig insolence and ingratitude.
Sefton has been made a peer, and treated with the most marked courtesy
and attention by the present King.’
In the following June, Lord Lichfield, master of the buckhounds,
prepared a list of guests invited by him to meet the King, at the
conclusion of Ascot races, at dinner, at Lord Lichfield’s house,
Fern Hill. The King expressly ordered that Lord Sefton should not
be invited. Considering the offence, it was singular that any one
should have thought of winning the Queen over to use her interest
in influencing her husband to withdraw the command. Lady Lichfield,
however, did so, intimating to her Majesty that, if the King had been
moved by what was reported to have passed at the Jockey Club, she was
enabled to say how that matter had been much misrepresented. The Queen
confined all reply and comment to the words, coldly uttered, that she
hoped it was so.
It certainly was not a period when Queens could expect to be cordial
with people who insulted them, and whose speeches in public were
exercising a very unwholesome influence on the more ignorant of the
lower orders. At the above very Ascot races the King was grievously
assaulted, in the Queen’s presence, by a ruffian in the crowd. Their
Majesties had just taken their seats in the grand stand, and the
King had then risen to salute the people in view, when the ruffian
in question flung a stone at him, which struck the King on the
forehead, but did not inflict any serious mischief. The assailant was
let cheaply off; but Queen Adelaide was much distressed by his act,
and the impression it made upon her was only increased, a week later,
when she appeared with the King at the review in Hyde Park. There she
was treated with such incivility and rudeness that at the fête at the
Duke of Wellington’s, in the evening, where they held a little court,
the Queen wore a spiritless and sorrowing aspect, while King William,
his buoyant spirits all quenched, looked aged and infirm, weary of his
vocation and vexations.
The season, certainly, was not one for monarchs to be abroad in with
joyous exterior. In the summer of this year there passed through London
a princess whose story bore with it a great moral to the wearers of
crowns--the Duchess of Angoulême, the daughter of Louis XVI. She had
experienced the widest extremes of fortune, but had been longest and
most intimately acquainted with misfortune. She was again a fugitive
and an exile--one never destined to behold her country again.
The Queen visited her at her modest apartments in Charles Street,
Grosvenor Square, and she took leave of that illustrious victim of
many revolutions with evil forebodings of the issue of the spirit of
the then present time. Her Majesty did not, indeed, lack a certain
spirit of her own wherewith to meet the other and revolutionary spirit.
Thus, when her friend and faithful servant, Lord Howe, was compelled
to give up his office of chamberlain to the Queen, his mistress would
never accept the nomination of any other person to the same post. Lord
Howe remained in attendance upon his mistress unofficially; but he
positively refused to be reinstated by Lord Grey, to whom his reply
was, ‘That he had been wantonly dismissed by him, and would receive no
favour at his hands.’ The act of Lord Grey was, probably, far more
keenly felt at court than that of the two new radical members (Messrs.
Wigney and Faithful) returned for the royal borough of Brighton, and
who, ‘under the very nose of the court,’ as it was said, ‘talked
openly of reducing the allowance made to the King and Queen.’ This
was a foolish speech; but there was an even more indiscreet tongue
within the Pavilion than those of the new radical senators without.
In 1833, the King himself declared in favour of a republican form of
government! What must the feelings of Queen Adelaide have been--she
who had a horror of revolutions and a hatred for republicanism--on
that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday evening, the 6th of January, 1833?
The American Minister was a guest at the dinner table that evening. At
the _dessert_, the King, instead of wisely going to sleep, as he was
accustomed to do after his second glass of wine, _would_ be lively and
talkative. When he was in this vein he was addicted to make speeches,
and on this occasion, before the ladies had retired, he delivered
himself of a very notable one, considering the times and the speaker,
in which he expressed his great regret that he had not been born a
free, independent American, seeing that he entertained deep respect for
the United States, and considered Washington to be the greatest man
that ever lived. Queen Adelaide must have been astounded when listening
to this profession of political faith, and to this eulogy of a man who
had struck the brightest jewel out of the crown of his panegyrist’s
royal father!
To old royalists such a speech as the above savoured of that period
which is called ‘the end of the world.’ Speculative individuals who
heard of it were amazed. ‘The aristocracy are hourly going down in the
scale; royalty is become a mere cypher.’ Well might Mr. Raikes make
this entry in his journal, when a King of England manifested a liking
for ‘rowdyism.’ The influences of these passing events, even on men of
intellect, are well marked by a contemporary passage in the diary of
the merchant, whose commercial affairs were going the way he fancied
the monarchy was tending. ‘I was walking the other day,’ he writes, in
February 1833, ‘round the Royal Exchange, the _enceinte_ of which is
adorned with the statues of all our Kings. Only two niches now remain
vacant; one is destined to our present ruler, and that reserved for
his successor is the _last_. Some people might say it was ominous.’
So, indeed, it proved to be; half-a-year after the accession of Queen
Victoria, when there were as many niches as there had been sovereigns,
and room for no more, destruction ensued, but it was the Royal Exchange
that fell (by fire), and not the monarchy. _That_ has grown stronger.
May it ever so flourish!
Meanwhile, it is to be observed that Queen Adelaide after this time
began to re-conquer the popular esteem. When, in July 1834, she
embarked at Woolwich as Countess of Lancaster, on board the royal
yacht, for Rotterdam, in order to visit her relations in Germany, the
spectators of the scene received her with demonstrations of great
respect, and on her return, in the following month, she landed at the
same place amid acclamations of loyalty and welcome.
It was after her return that the King began to bear symptoms of
restlessness and fatigue, which betokened that decay which gradually
made progress, and was ultimately accelerated in 1837, when his
daughter, Lady de Lisle, died, to the grief of many, but especially to
the heart of her father.
As the King’s health began to give way, so also did his temper more
easily yield before such provocations, and more freely did he indulge
in that early acquired habit of using strong expletives which has
been noted, in her diary, by Fanny Burney. William the Conqueror, it
is said, used to ungallantly beat his wife, Matilda, of whom he was
otherwise so fond. William the Fourth was guilty of an offence only
next to it in criminality--by swearing in presence of his consort,
Adelaide. There is a well-known instance of this told in connection
with a visit to the Royal Academy, in 1834. The occasion was that of a
private view, with a very large public attendance at Somerset House.
The President of the Royal Academy received the illustrious visitors,
and accompanied them through the rooms. In the course of their progress
he pointed out to the King the portrait of Admiral Napier, who had
recently been in command of the Portuguese fleet for Don Pedro. The
King’s political wrath was too strong for his infirmity, and, without
forgetting the presence of his wife, nay, making such presence an
excuse for not breaking forth into greater unseemliness, he exclaimed:
‘Captain Napier may be d----d, sir! and _you_ may be d----d, sir! and
if the Queen was not here, sir, I would kick you down stairs, sir.’
Such a scene indicated as much infirmity as bad taste on the part of
the chief actor, and must have sorely tried the patience and shaken
the dignity of the Queen. She now, perhaps, as much or more than ever,
required the support of those nearest to her. The old prejudices of the
reform time against her had not yet died out, and to these was to be
added certain malignity in foreign papers; a malignity which culminated
in 1835 in the ‘Gazette de France,’ which paper seriously asserted
that England was endeavouring to revolutionize Spain and Portugal,
with ulterior purposes of pursuing the same course in Germany and
Italy as she had done in Belgium and in Greece; and that at the head
of this conspiracy for reconstructing Europe were William the Fourth,
the Duke of Wellington, and _Queen Adelaide_! Thus, the lady who had
seldom during her life desired more than to be permitted to enjoy it
tranquilly, and who had but little perplexed herself touching the
ways of others, was held up, after being accused of being a political
meddler at home, as being a political conspirator abroad.
When her royal consort’s indisposition assumed an appearance of
increased gravity, Queen Adelaide at once took her place by his couch,
and never left but when compelled by gentle restraint put upon her by
those who loved her, and who feared for her own health. ‘Les reines’
(says a French writer) ‘ont été vues pleurantes comme de simples
femmes,’ and she was one of them. Her constancy only gave way, and
she broke into profuse but silent tears, on the eve of the old King’s
death, as the Archbishop of Canterbury concluded the service of the
sick, by pronouncing the solemn words of the benediction as contained
in the Liturgy of the Church. The good old monarch looked with
affection upon his sorrowing Queen, and with as cheerful a voice as he
could put on, and almost in nautical phrase, begged her to be of good
heart and to ‘bear up! bear up!’
The Rev. Mr. Browne, Vicar of Atwick, rendering testimony to her
conduct on this occasion, said in a funeral sermon: ‘She was by the
King’s bedside, a being so full of devoted love and pious resignation,
of such meekness, gentleness, and goodness, and sweetness, that an
angel might have beheld her with satisfaction and delight, and _almost
with advantage_.’ She did her duty like a true wife and tender woman;
and Mr. Browne thought that, altogether, Queen Adelaide might have
afforded an useful hint or two even to angels! It is more than the good
Queen ever dreamed of.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was in close attendance upon the King
during the last days of his life, in 1837, and in the course of his
ministrations saw more of Queen Adelaide than any other individual
there present had the opportunity of doing. At a meeting of the
Metropolitan Churches’ Fund Society, the primate went fully, but
tenderly and sensibly, into this solemn matter; and after rendering
due, but not over-piled, measure of justice to the King, spoke in
these words of his consort:--‘For three weeks prior to his dissolution
the Queen sat by his bedside, performing for him every office which a
sick man could require, and depriving herself of all manner of rest
and refection. She underwent labours which I thought no ordinary woman
could endure. No language can do justice to the meekness and to the
calmness of mind which she sought to keep up before the King, while
sorrow was preying on her heart. Such constancy of affection, I think,
was one of the most interesting spectacles that could be presented to a
mind desirous of being gratified with the sight of human excellence.’
The spectacle at the close was one most touching of all, for old King
William, threescore and twelve, died at last in a gentle sleep, as he
sat up on his couch, his hand resting, where it had lain undisturbed
for hours, on the shoulder of the Queen. Such had been her office at
various times, daily, for the preceding fortnight; and when it shall
have been a little more hallowed by time, it will be a fitting subject
to be limned by some future artist competent to treat it.
Since the death of Charles II. no King of England had died under the
same roof with his wife; and _then_ there was no such touching scene
as the above, but only a few words of decent reconciliation before the
royal pair parted for ever, and the wife (leaving the husband to die at
leisure and commend worthless women to his brother’s protection) went
to her chamber to receive the formal news of his death, and finally
to receive the condolence of visitors, lying the while on a state
bed of mourning, in a chamber lighted with tapers, the walls, floor,
and ceiling covered with black cloth. Queen Adelaide stayed by _her_
husband to the last, then laid his unconscious head upon the pillow,
and, quietly withdrawing to her chamber, looked for consolation to
other sources than the visits of courtiers shaping their faces to the
humour of the hour.
The respect of the royal widow for the deceased King did not cease
here. On Saturday night, the 8th of July, she attended the funeral
ceremony, at Windsor, being present in the royal closet during the
whole ceremony. She is the only Queen of England who saw a King, her
consort, deposited in the tomb.
In the following month the Dowager Queen left Windsor Castle, to which
the shouts of a joyous people welcomed her successor. From that time
she may be said to have commenced her own course of dying. Her story is
really, henceforward, but the diary of an invalid. The nation, through
the legislature, condoled with her upon her bereavement, and as she
descended the steps of the throne to resume her old unostentatious
privacy there was not a man in the realm who failed, in some wise, to
greet her, or who did not acknowledge that she had borne greatness with
honour, and had won the hearts of a people who had been once forward to
censure her.
From this period her life was one of suffering, but it was a suffering
that never rendered her selfish. In her worst hours of anguish her ear
was open, her heart touched, her hand ready to relieve her sisters in
affliction, and to remedy the distresses of all who really stood in
need of the royal succour. For nearly twelve years she may be said to
have been dying. The sunniest and most sheltered spots in this country
were visited by her, but without resulting in permanent relief. The
winter of 1837–8 was spent at St. Leonard’s. An attack of bronchitis,
in the autumn of the latter year, drove her for refuge and remedy to
Malta, where the church raised by her at Valetta--the cathedral
church of the diocese of Gibraltar--at an expense of 10,000_l._, will
long serve to perpetuate her memory. On her return in May 1839, she
became, for a time, the guest of various noble hosts in England. In
1840 she visited the lakes, and established her home, subsequently and
for a brief period, at Sudbury. Her next homes--the frequent changes
indicating increased virulence of disease--were at Canford Hall,
Dorset; Witley Court, Worcester; and Cashiobury, near Watford: thence
she departed on one short and last visit to her native home, from which
she returned so ill that, in 1847, she repaired, as a last resource, to
Madeira, whither she was conveyed in a royal frigate.
The progress of the sick Queen over water was not without its
stateliness and solemnity, mixed with a certain joyousness, acceptable
to, though not to be shared in by, the royal invalid. Before the
squadron departed from Spithead, on Sunday, the 10th of October, full
divine service was celebrated on board the _Howe_, the ship’s chaplain
reading the prayers, the Queen Dowager’s preaching the sermon, on a
text altogether foreign to so rare and interesting an occasion:--‘But
now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets’ (Rom. iii. 21). After service,
the squadron stood forth to sea, no incident marking its way till
the following Tuesday. On that day, a bird winging from the Bay of
Biscay fluttered on to the _Howe_, perched on the yards, and then flew
from one point to another and back again, as if he had made of the
gallant steamer a home. A sailor named Ward attempted to capture the
little guest, in pursuing which into the chains, being more eager than
considerate, he fell headlong over into the waves, while the _Howe_
pursued her forward way. In an instant after alarm was given, however,
the life-buoy was floating on the waters, a boat was pulling lustily
towards the seaman, and the _Howe_ slipped her tow ropes, and made a
circuit astern to pick up rescued and rescuers. Ward, meanwhile, had
by skilful swimming gained fast hold of the buoy, and was brought on
board little the worse for his plunge and his temporary peril. Queen
Adelaide was more moved by this accident than the man was himself. On
the following Sunday, the Queen was better able than she had previously
been to turn the accident to some account for Ward’s own benefit. Her
Majesty had attended the usual service on board, and had listened to
another sermon from the ship’s chaplain, this time on a subject as
unappropriate as that of the preceding Sunday:--‘And almost all things
are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is
no remission’ (Heb. ix. 22)--the ship’s company were repairing to
their respective quarters, when Ward was told that the Queen Dowager
requested to see him. If this message disconcerted him more than his
fall into the Bay of Biscay, he soon recovered that self-possession
which no man loses long who has a proper feeling of self-respect.
Besides, the widowed Queen, in her intercourse with persons of humble
station, wore habitually that air--
---- which sets you at your ease,
Without implying your perplexities.
She spoke to the listening sailor kindly on his late peril, and the
position in which it suddenly placed him near to impending death. A few
words like these, wisely and tenderly offered, were likely to be more
beneficial to a man like Ward than a whole course of the chaplain’s
sermons on doctrinal points in the Epistle to the Hebrews; and I cannot
but hope that the artists of the next generation, when Time shall
have poetized the _costume_ of the incident, will not forget this
picturesque passage in the life of the Queen and the man-of-war’s-man.
And now, as they glided by the coast of Portugal, on the evening of
Monday, the 18th of October, there was dancing on board, and again on
the Wednesday evening. Princesses waltzed with commanders, the Grand
Duchess tripped it on the poop with a knight, and the midshipmen went
dashingly at it with the maids of honour, while the gun-room officers
stood by awaiting their turn. On the fore part of the quarterdeck as
many of the ship’s company as were so minded got up a dance among
themselves; and the suffering Queen below heard the echoes of the
general gladness, and was content.
On the following Friday, the _Howe_ was close to Belem Castle, and was
towed into the Tagus by the steam-frigate _Terrible_. The King Consort
of Portugal came down in a state barge to receive the Queen, whom he
escorted to the palace of the Necessidades, landing amid a roar of
artillery, and welcomed by loyal demonstrations as the illustrious
traveller passed on her way to the Queen regnant, Donna Maria.
By such progress did Queen Adelaide make her way towards Madeira, the
climate of which could not arrest the progress of her malady, and she
returned to England--for a time to Bushey, finally to Bentley Priory,
near Stanmore, where she occupied herself in preparation for the
inevitable end. There, on the 8th of May, 1849, the Queen Dowager may
be said to have ‘done a foolish thing,’ in altering her will without
legal assistance in the method of alteration. On that day, alone and
unadvised, her Majesty took out her old and duly attested will of the
14th August, 1837, and inscribed on the back thereof this remarkable
endorsement:--‘This will is cancelled, 8th May, 1849. My heirs are my
brother and sister, and their heirs after them. My executors, Lord
Howe and the Hon. W. A. Cooper, are requested to pay off all that I
directed in my codicil, and then to divide my property equally between
my brother and sister. This is my last will and request.’
It was the will of a Queen, but it stood for nothing in the eye of the
law. The endorsement was brought under notice of the Prerogative Court;
the Judge, Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, declared it to be of no effect.
It was a mere unattested memorandum, and he pronounced, as the legal
phrase is, for the original will. Of greater interest is the subjoined
document, which pleasantly contrasts with the wills of many of her lady
predecessors, whose minds were engaged on the disposal of their state
beds, their mantles, and their jewellery, to the exclusion of all other
subjects. Thus wrote the dying Queen Adelaide:--
‘I die in all humility, knowing well that we are all alike before the
throne of God; and I request, therefore, that my mortal remains be
conveyed to the grave without any pomp or state. They are to be removed
to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where I request to have as private and
quiet a funeral as possible. I particularly desire not to be laid out
in state, and the funeral to take place by daylight; no procession; the
coffin to be carried by sailors to the chapel. All those of my friends
and relations, to a limited number, who wish to attend may do so. My
nephew, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, Lords Howe and Denbigh, the Hon.
William Ashley, Mr. Wood, Sir Andrew Barnard, and Sir D. Davies, with
my dressers, and those of my ladies who may wish to attend. I die in
peace, and wish to be carried to the tomb in peace, and far from the
vanities and pomp of this world. I request not to be dissected nor
embalmed, and desire to give as little trouble as possible.
‘ADELAIDE R.’
The end soon came, and it was met with dignity. On the 22nd of November
1849, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the Dowager Queen for
the last time. On the last day of the month she calmly passed away.
The above document was then produced, and it rendered kings-of-arms,
heralds, gold sticks, and upholsterers powerless to exercise their
absurd dignity in connection with death when so intelligible and
sensible a protest as the above was in existence. Accordingly, on a
fine December morning of 1849, there issued from the gates of Bentley
Priory an ordinary hearse with a pall emblazoned with the Queen’s
arms, preceded by three mourning coaches. A scanty escort of cavalry
accompanied them, more for use than show, their office being to see
that no obstruction impeded the funeral march from Stanmore to Windsor.
On its way the attitude of the spectators exhibited more of sympathy
than curiosity.
The Harrow boys turned out in testimony of respect, and the country
people at large _looked_ like mourners, wearing more or less, but
wearing _some_, outward manifestation of sorrow.
The Queen’s body reached the Chapel at Windsor at one o’clock. In the
south aisle, close to the porch, there had been standing, grouped
together, silent and motionless, a group of seamen,--grave, bronzed,
athletic sailors. Their demeanour showed them worthy of the office
which the now dead Queen had asked at their hands. When all the royal,
and great, and noble personages were in their respective places--while
some indispensable officials effected a little more of their foolish
calling in the presence of death than Queen Adelaide herself would have
sanctioned--while princes, peers, and prelates, ladies-in-waiting,
clergy, and choristers, proceeded passively or actively with their
parts in the ceremony of the day--then those ten sailors advanced to
accomplish the duty assigned them, and, standing by the platform on
which the body was placed, gently propelled it to a position over
the subterranean passage into which it was lowered, after one of the
simplest services that was ever said or sung for departed Queen had
been accomplished--most simple, save when Garter stepped forward to
announce, what all men knew, that it ‘had pleased Almighty God to
take out of this life to His divine mercy’ the departed Queen; and to
assert, what that royal lady would assuredly have gainsaid, that she
was a ‘Most High, Most Mighty, and Most Excellent Princess.’ With this,
and one or two other formalities of that pomp and state from which
she had asked to be spared, Queen Adelaide passed to the tomb--a tomb
capacious enough to contain whole generations of kings and queens,
princes and princesses yet unborn.
This event was followed by an unusual amount of execrable elegiac
verse, which was powerless, however, to throw ridicule on what it
affected to solemnize. It was painful to read an inconceivable amount
of this trash, which, intended to be serious, was often irresistibly
comic. Out of the reams written in professed honour of a most exemplary
Queen there was not an appropriate line worth citing. One sample of the
solemnly absurd Pegasuses set restive on this occasion will assuredly
satisfy curiosity. The writer affects to see at the royal funeral the
ghosts of departed great ones, who assemble to do visionary homage to
their new sister in death. Among them is the incautious Bishop who died
from the effects of a cold caught at the funeral of the Duke of York:--
Lo! see the shade of a prelate pass by
Who came to a night-burial to die;
Standing too long expos’d to the chill air,
Death aim’d his dart, and struck the mitre there.
Poor Queen Adelaide! A wish could save her from some of the empty pomps
and vanities that linger about the open grave, but nothing could save
her from the villainous poetasters. All the rhymers who rung metrical
knells at her death deserved the fate, and for like reasons, invoked in
Julius Cæsar on the so-called poet who made ‘bad verses.’
The preachers, if honest chronicling is to be observed, did not on
this occasion very much excel the poets. Very ‘tolerable’ indeed, and
not at all to be endured, were most of the funeral sermons which have
come under my notice. One clergyman, who had been the Queen’s chaplain
too, and who had composed a funeral sermon on William IV. reproduced
not merely the substance, but in many parts, identical passages from
the discourse on the dead King, and made them do duty in illustrating
the demise of that sovereign’s royal widow. Others were illogical, or
were painfully simple or amusingly trite. In one I find an intimation
that, ‘after deducting the more needful expenses of her household, she
gave away _all_ she had, and died _poor_;’ which seems an inevitable
consequence of such liberality. None of these who took a dead Queen for
the subject of a lesson on vanity, or for an example to be followed,
wore the mantle of a Bossuet--grand and instructive when consigning
La Vallière to the cloister, or Henrietta of Orleans to a tomb. They
might at least have found something suggestive in the sermon on the
latter occasion, by the ‘Eagle of Meaux,’ where he exclaims, after
apt reflection on birth, rank, and their responsibilities: ‘No! after
what we have just seen, we must feel that health exists only in name,
life is a dream, glory a deception, favours and pleasures dangerous
amusements, everything about us vanity. She was as gentle towards death
as she had been to all the world.... She will sleep with the great
ones of the earth, with princes and kings, whose power is at an end,
amongst whom there is hardly room to be found, so closely do they lie
together, and so prompt is death to fill the vacant places. _Can we
build our hopes on ruins such as these?_’
From beyond sea there did come echoes something like these, and fitting
homage to the virtues of the deceased lady was rendered from many a
church pulpit among a foreign people. In another hemisphere, at the
Cape of Good Hope, a funeral sermon was preached in St. George’s
Cathedral, Cape Town, on the 24th February, 1850, by the Rev. W. A.
Newman, at that time Senior Colonial Chaplain and Rural Dean, in which
that learned and eloquent divine rendered a graceful tribute to the
memory of the deceased Queen, of which the following paragraph is a
portion:--‘Of this excellent lady’s large charities I can speak from
evidence, and can, therefore, speak with a full heart. I have lived
near to the neighbourhood where her less public bounty diffused itself.
I know that the sick-room of the poor has been visited by her in
person; I know that from her own table a portion has been sent, to call
forth the coy appetite of disease; and I know that wherever she went
many a heartfelt _God bless her_ would follow.’
Such was Queen Adelaide, some seven years Queen Consort of Great
Britain; a lady who will be remembered, if not as a great Queen, yet
as one of the truly good women who have shared with a King regnant the
throne of these islands--one who lived down calumny, and who, being
dead, is remembered with respect and affection.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Lord Holland’s ‘Memoirs of the Whig Party.’
[2] Miss Burney’s Diary.
[3] Miss Burney’s Diary.
[4] Miss Burney’s Diary.
[5] Miss Burney’s Diary.
[6] ‘Memoirs,’ &c., by the Duke of Buckingham.
[7] Lord Malmesbury’s Diary.
[8] ‘Brief Memoir of the Princes Charlotte of Wales.’
[9] Lord Holland.
[10] ‘Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert.’
[11] ‘Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV.’
[12] ‘Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV.’
[13] ‘Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV.’
[14] ‘Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV.’
[15] ‘Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV.’
[16] Letter in ‘Diary illustrative of the Court, &c., of George IV.’
[17] ‘Diary,’ &c.
[18] The ‘Diary,’ &c.
[19] ‘Diary of Court, &c., of George IV.’
THE END.
_Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, New-street Square, London._
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them,
have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed at the end of
the book.