IN WHICH ENGLAND GETS A NEW KING AND QUEEN.
George the First died on the 10th of June, 1727, while in a travelling
carriage ascending a hill near Ippenburen on the road to Hanover,
of a fit brought on by a too-free indulgence in melons. These he
unfortunately ate on the previous night while supping at the house of a
local nobleman, the Count de Twittel.
He was succeeded by his son George, Prince of Wales, who was born at
Hanover the 30th October, 1683, of Sophia, Princess of Luneberg Zell,
his father’s uncrowned Queen. Thus Caroline, the mother of our Prince
Frederick, exchanged her position of Princess of Wales for that of
Queen of England.
The Princess of Wales had been a success in England from the very
first; a success which was not to be wondered at if the following
description of her is correct:--
“She still retained her beauty. She was more than common tall, of
majestic presence, she had an exquisitely-modelled neck and bust, and
her hand was the delight of the sculptor. Her smile was distinguished
by its sweetness and her voice was rich and low. Her lofty brow, and
clear, thoughtful gaze showed that she was a woman of no ordinary
mould. She had the royal memory, and, what must have been a very useful
attribute to her, the power of self-command; she was an adept in the
art of concealing her feelings, of suiting herself to her company,
and of occasionally appearing to be what she was not. Her love of
art, letters and science, her lively spirits, quick apprehension of
character, and affability were all points in her favour. She had,
too, a love of state, and appeared magnificently arrayed at Court
ceremonials, evidently delighting in her exalted position and fully
alive to its dignity.”[12]
To the Princess’s attractions were added those of her maids of honour:
all “Well-born, witty and beautiful, and not out of their teens.”
First of these, _par excellence_, was Mary Bellenden, daughter of John
second Lord Bellenden. To the fascinating charms of her person which
were undeniable was added an exceedingly lively disposition. She is
thus referred to in an old ballad dealing with the quarrel between
George the First and the Prince of Wales, when the Prince and all his
household received notice to quit St. James’s:
“But Bellenden we needs must praise
Who as down the stairs she jumps;
Sings over the hills and far away,
Despising doleful dumps.”
She did not escape the unwelcome attentions of the Prince of Wales to
whom sprightly fresh young English girls were a novelty after the heavy
Fraus of Hanover, though his wife Caroline was certainly an exception.
It is stated by Coxe in his “Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole” that he
sent his abominable propositions to Mary Bellenden by Mrs. Howard, the
before-mentioned “nucleus” of his harem who had accompanied him to
England, and that the pure-minded Mary very properly snubbed both him
and his messenger--who was nothing more than a procuress if she really
carried the message--for their pains.
Coxe then states that the Prince being rejected by Miss Bellenden fell
in love with Mrs. Howard, but he could not, of course, have been aware
that the liaison between the Prince and this lady began in Hanover.
This seduction or attempted seduction of the maids of honour appears,
as will be seen later, to have been quite a recognised pastime at
Court, in which the Prince of Wales of the moment took an active part;
but all honour be to sweet Mary Bellenden who preserved her good name,
became Duchess of Argyle, and handed a pure record down to posterity.
This young lady appears to have possessed a particular charm and
fascination, both from her beauty and her sparkling wit and high
spirits. Horace Walpole states that the palm was awarded “above all
for universal admiration to Miss Bellenden. Her face and person were
charming, lively she was even to _étourderie_, and so agreeable that
she was never afterwards mentioned by her contemporaries but as the
most perfect creature they had ever seen.”
Gay, the poet, refers to _la belle Bellenden_ more than once.
So well I’m known at Court
None asks where Cupid dwells:
But readily resort
To Bellendens or Lepels.
--Gay’s Ballad of “Damon and Cupid.”
It has been said that this young lady was the subject of improper
advances from the Prince of Wales, which were rejected. Snubbing,
however, seemed to have but little effect on the Heir-Apparent;
he pressed his attentions upon her in the following elegant and
gentlemanly manner.
Mary Bellenden, like many others who live in the atmosphere of Courts,
suffered almost chronically from what is called “Living in Short
Street”; she was always hard up.
The refined George being well aware of this, in common, probably, with
most of the household, took upon himself one evening to sit beside the
beautiful Bellenden, and taking out his purse--one of those long silk
net affairs, no doubt--commenced to count out his guineas as a gentle
hint that he was prepared to settle Mary’s outstanding bills--which
may have been particularly pressing at the time--a _quid pro quo_ being
understood.
[Illustration: MARY BELLENDEN,
4th Duchess of Argyll.
Copied for this book by the kindness of the present Duke from the
Gallery at Inveraray.]
Miss Bellenden bore the telling of his guineas once, but when he began
to count them again she remonstrated.
“Sir,” she cried, “I cannot bear it; if you count your money any more,
I will go out of the room.”
The delicate-minded George, fresh from the mercenary and accommodating
ladies of Herrenhausen, was not abashed at this rejoinder; he jingled
his guineas against Mary’s pretty little ear. The result was exactly
what it should have been. Mary rose with sparkling eyes and cheeks
aflame, and with one well-directed blow, sent his purse and his guineas
flying across the room; then Mary, probably aghast at her act, ran away.
Another way of showing her contempt of her royal admirer was to stand
with crossed arms in his presence. Later she wrote on this subject to
Mrs. Howard, with whom she appeared to have formed a close intimacy;
she was recommending a new maid-of-honour to her care:
“I hope you will put her a little in the way of behaving before the
Princess, such as not turning her back; and one thing runs mightily in
my head, which is, crossing her arms, _as I did to the Prince_, and
told him I was not cold but liked to stand so.”[13]
But Miss Bellenden was in love, which is the greatest safeguard against
such persons as the little German Prince of Wales. She loved a certain
groom of the bedchamber to the Prince, Colonel John Campbell, some
years later Duke of Argyle. But here George showed a little of the
_noblesse_ which one expects from a descendant of Edward the Third.
Finding that Mary Bellenden was in love, though he did not know the
object of her affections, he showed no ill-feeling, but asked a pledge
from her that she would not marry without informing him, and in return
he would give her and her future husband his favour. But Mary had lived
much at Court, and mistrusted princes.
A year or two later she secretly married Colonel Campbell, and was
no doubt very happy, but certainly impecunious in that long interval
before she became a Duchess. In 1720 she writes to her friend Mrs.
Howard, from Bath, and good and pure woman and loving wife though she
was, her letter is a fair sample of the free and easy, not to say
broad, style of even virtuous ladies of the period.
“Oh! God,” she writes, “I am so sick of bills; for my part I believe
I shall never be able to hear them mentioned without casting up my
accounts--bills are _accounts_ you know. I do not know how your bills
go in London, but I am sure mine are not dropped, for I paid one this
morning as long as my arm and as broad as my....
“I intend to send you a letter of attorney, to enable you to dispose of
my goods before I may leave this place--such is my condition.”
But there were other maids-of-honour only a little less charming.
There was Margaret Bellenden, of whom Gay wrote.[14] Mary’s sister or
cousin, almost as beautiful, and Mary Lepel who was raved about by
such excellent critics as Gay, Pope and Voltaire, not to mention the
courtiers Chesterfield and Bath.
She appears to have been of a more stately style of beauty than Mary
Bellenden, and of a more staid disposition.
Then there was Bridget Carteret, niece of Lord Carteret, who was fair
and _petite_. The oldest of them all was “prim, pale Margaret Meadows,”
who seems to have done her best to keep them all in order, but had
terrible difficulty with giddy Sophia Howe, who was the daughter of
John Howe by Ruperta, a natural daughter of Prince Rupert, brother of
the old Electress Sophia, which fact was probably the reason of her
appointment as maid-of-honour to the Princess of Wales. She was up to
all sorts of mischief, and among other enormities was given to laughing
in church, which is not to be wondered at when we consider that the
King and the other Royalties were accustomed to talk all the time.
Sophia Howe was, however, reproached for her laughing by the Duchess of
St. Albans, who told her “she could not do a worse thing.” To this she
pertly answered--and one can almost hear her saying it--“I beg your
Grace’s pardon, I can do a great many worse things.”
This conduct of the maids-of-honour--accompanied by much ogling and
smiling at gallants, however, at last aroused the ire of Bishop Burnet,
who complained to the Princess of Wales, and requested that their pew
should be _boarded up_ so that they could not see over. This from the
Bishops importunity being at last done, provoked the following verses
in retaliation from one of the young ladies’ admirers, supposed to be
Lord Peterborough:
Bishop Burnet perceived that the beautiful dames
Who flocked to the Chapel of hilly St. James
On their lovers alone their kind looks did bestow,
And smiled not on him while he bellowed below.
To the Princess he went with pious intent,
This dangerous ill to the Church to prevent;
“Oh, Madam,” he said, “our religion is lost,
If the ladies thus ogle the knights of the toast.
These practices, Madam, my teaching disgrace,
Shall laymen enjoy the first rights of my place?
Then all may lament my condition so hard,
Who thrash in the pulpit without a reward.
Then, pray, condescend such disorders to end,
And to the ripe vineyard the labourers send
To build up the seats that the beauties may see
The face of no bawling pretender but me.”
The Princess by rude importunity press’d,
Though she laughed at his reasons, allowed his request;
And now Britain’s nymphs in a Protestant reign
Are box’d up at prayers, like the virgins of Spain.
It is not surprising to find that during the reign of George the First
his mistresses Schulemburg and Kielmansegge were much in evidence. They
were particularly hated by the populace, also the Turks Mustapha and
Mahomet, possibly on account of their association with them; but these
latter infidels also appear to have had the honour of dressing and
undressing their master the King.
The Court of George the First had not by any means been a refined one;
the old King greatly loved the society of ladies who were not over
particular in their conversation.
The following, taken from Mr. Wilkins’ “Caroline,” will illustrate
this. Lady Cowper, who was extremely proper, writes of an entertainment
at Court:
“Though I was greatly diverted and there was a good deal of music,
yet I could not avoid being uneasy at the repetition of some words in
French which the Duchess of Bolton said by mistake, which convinced me
that the two foreign ladies” (presumably Schulemburg and Kielmansegge)
“were no better than they should be.”
It appears that the Court of this King was graced or disgraced by the
presence of many such ladies. One night three mistresses of former
Kings met there: the Duchess of Portsmouth, the particular lady of
Charles the Second; Lady Orkney, who occupied a similar position with
regard to William the Third; and old Lady Dorchester, the favourite of
James the Second. The latter was evidently a lady to her finger tips.
“Who!” she exclaimed, “would have thought that we three w...s should
have met here?”
Of the Duchess of Bolton, who was a lady also rather free of speech,
the following anecdote is related.
She was very fond of the play, and recommending anything especially
good to the old King. On this occasion she was telling him of Colley
Cibber’s “Love’s Last Shift,” the title of which conveyed nothing to
His Majesty. He asked her to put it into French. The Duchess, who was
fond of a joke, replied gravely: “_La dernière chemise de l’ amour_,”
whereat the King laughed heartily.
The lovely Duchess of Shrewsbury was another of the King’s favourite
companions, of whom the prim Lady Cowper--herself much admired by His
Majesty, who did not always express his admiration in the most refined
terms--said as follows:
“Though she had a wonderful art of entertaining and diverting people,
would sometimes exceed the bounds of decency.”
But as it has been before stated, the favourites of the King who
excited the most resentment of the populace--who were very free in
expressing their opinion--were Schulemburg and Kielmansegge.
On one occasion Schulemburg was so beset by the crowd that she ventured
to argue with them, and thrust her red wig and painted face out of her
coach to address them in the best English she had.
“Goot pipple,” she exclaimed, “what for you abuse us, we come for all
your goots?”
“Yes, d..n ye,” added a man in the mob, “and for all our chattels, too.”
When the Duke of Somerset, in 1715, resigned the Mastership of the
Horse as a protest against the arrest of his son-in-law, Sir William
Wyndham, Schulemburg, who was nothing if not a daughter of the
horse-leech, suggested that the office should be left vacant and the
salary, £7,500 per annum, paid to her. To the disgust of the nation the
King complied with her wish.
It does not say much for the dignity of the Court in those days that
some of the leading Whig nobility and even their wives and daughters
filled the rooms of these two old harridans at St James’s, which
apartments were placed respectively at opposite ends of the Palace,
with those of the King conveniently between them to keep peace, for
they hated each other as much as their friend the Devil detests holy
water.
The lives of the Prince and Princess of Wales had been exceedingly gay,
especially during the absence of George the First in Hanover.
They extended a liberal hospitality, keeping almost open house, with
the object no doubt of securing popularity against the time when they
should be King and Queen.
Hampton Court appears to have been a very favourite summer residence
of theirs, the river offering a convenient mode of progression. In the
summer of 1716 they proceeded to Hampton Court in state barges hung
with crimson and gold, and preceded by a band of music.
Here at this riverside Palace they collected a brilliant throng of the
wittiest, the most learned, and most important of all from the point of
view of a Court, the most beautiful.
At the death of George the First the kingdom was ruled by his minister,
Sir Robert Walpole, son of a Norfolk squire, Walpole of Houghton,
to which estate they had in comparatively recent years removed from
Walpole in the Marshland of Norfolk, from which latter place they
evidently had originally derived their name.
George the First being able to speak little or no English, and Sir
Robert Walpole being innocent of French, Latin proved to be the only
tongue in which they could converse, so that Walpole was in the habit
of remarking that he governed the kingdom by means of bad Latin, the
bad Latin possibly of his Eton days, though he certainly completed his
education at King’s College, Cambridge.
At about the age of twenty-five Walpole had married a beautiful
girl, Catherine, daughter of John Shorter, Esquire, of Bybrook,
Kent, and very soon after succeeding his father, old hard-drinking
Squire Walpole, in the family estate he entered Parliament for the
rotten borough of Castle Rising, which used to return two members to
Parliament to half-a-dozen electors.
He soon made a name in the House of Commons, and from that time forward
it was indelibly stamped upon the politics of England.
Unfortunately, Walpole was much given to wine and women, despite his
beautiful wife; in fact, she was not far behind him on her part in
receiving the attentions of the opposite sex. She is said to have had
liaisons with Lord Hervey, and also with the little Prince of Wales,
adding one more to his long list of “_foiblesses_.” It is almost
incredible to believe, as it has been stated, that Robert Walpole lent
himself to this intrigue of his wife’s to curry favour with the Prince.
Be this as it may, it stood him in poor stead on the death of George
the First, for when he presented himself to the new King, who was at
the time at the Palace of Richmond, and having broken the news of
the old King’s death and kissed hands, asked who should draw up the
declaration to the Privy Council, he was abruptly told by the new
monarch to go to Sir Spencer Compton, who was his treasurer as Prince
of Wales.
It was not until after some days of very painful suspense that Walpole,
through the good offices of the new Queen, Caroline, who had a great
belief in his talents as a financier, was sent for and reappointed
First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer. As a matter of fact of course they could not do without him.
But in all the years that passed from the accession of the Hanoverian
dynasty in 1714 to the death of George the First, in 1727, it is almost
incredible to believe that Caroline could have forgotten her first-born
son in Hanover, whom at this time she had not seen for thirteen years.
Whatever the origin of the dislike--nay hatred--was which unnaturally
grew up between this son and his parents, it must have begun at an
early period. Its nature will now be never known in all probability,
but it must have been a most extraordinary revulsion of feeling which
caused such a woman as Caroline, kind-hearted, intellectual, in every
other respect a perfect mother, to turn against the first child she had
held to her bosom.
Some say that Caroline’s affection had been absorbed by her younger
son William, Duke of Cumberland, who was born in England, and who
extraordinarily resembled her, and this theory takes colour when
considering the fact that the Prince and Princess up to the time of his
birth had continually urged George the First to allow Prince Frederick
to come to England, but after the arrival of the new Prince no further
requests were made in this direction, but all their hopes and ambitions
for the future seemed centred in Prince William, for whom it is said
they would gladly have secured the throne of England if they had been
able, leaving the Electorate of Hanover for Frederick.
It was very unnatural, but such freaks do occur, though they do not
reflect any honour upon those by whom they are affected, but even this
answer would be no solution to the question of the reason for the
deep-seated hatred for their eldest son which took possession of King
George the Second and his Queen at a later period. It will ever remain
a mystery.
Lord Hervey, with a great deal of parade, affected to be in possession
of the secret, and left certain directions to those who came after him
about its disclosure in his papers, but it is very difficult to believe
that this nobleman was cognizant of the reason which caused a father
and mother--the latter certainly of an affectionate nature--to turn
against a child of nine.
The reason probably lies far deeper.
But if Prince Frederick was forgotten by his father and mother, he was
certainly not overlooked by the English people.
“Clamours,” it was said soon after the accession of George the Second,
“were justly raised in England that the Heir-Apparent had received
a foreign education and was detained abroad as if to keep alive an
attachment to Hanover in preference to Great Britain.
“The Ministers at length ventured to remonstrate with the King on the
subject, and the Privy Council formally represented the propriety of
his residence in England.”[15]
George the Second, however, and his Queen--who with Walpole really
ruled the kingdom--stuck out as long as they possibly could against
bringing Prince Frederick over, and in the King’s case there was an
additional reason for obstinacy. He had been a most undutiful son
himself, and realised what an exceedingly sharp thorn in his side
Frederick might become if he took that same line also.
But while the King and Queen were trying to make up their minds to
send for their first-born, certain events occurred in Hanover which
materially hastened their decision.
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Spooner & Co._
GEORGE II.]
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious.”
[13] Suffolk Letters. Wilkins.
[14] “Madge Bellenden, the tallest of the land, and smiling Mary soft
and fair as down.”
[15] Coxe’s “Walpole.”