THE PRINCE’S EMBARRASSMENTS.
The Prince of Wales having for the few years immediately succeeding
his coming to England occupied his exalted position with a totally
inadequate income had, as might reasonably have been expected, become
exceedingly involved in debt.
Though possessing no separate establishment of his own (except as will
be seen later an illicit one), yet he was placed in a position of much
difficulty and temptation.
He appears to have received from his father a small and uncertain
allowance, and when pressed by his creditors was absolutely refused
assistance by the King.
The intervention of the Queen in favour of Frederick at this period
seems to have been quite useless, and from that time forth grew up that
sad state of affairs which eventually compassed the total estrangement
of the Prince from his father and mother.
It has been said that this treatment would have tried the best of sons,
but Frederick’s early training and environment had not been of a nature
to breed many of the filial virtues in him. It is quite certain that
he felt his humiliating position most acutely, and that the slights
and snubs he was subjected to by his father rankled considerably. Not
the least of these was the fact that his mother was constituted Regent
during the absences of his father in Hanover.
It is not surprising, therefore, that he began to look for at least
friendship and support in another direction and found it among the
opponents of his father’s Government.
Among the first of this faction to pay court to the Prince was the
polished St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, a Secretary of State of Queen
Anne, and one who, with the Duke of Ormond and the Earl of Oxford, had
been impeached at the accession of George the First at the instigation
of Sir Robert Walpole for a supposed plot to place Prince James Stuart
on the throne. He had fled the country, some say unwisely, at the time,
and had remained abroad for nine years. His pardon had been arranged
by his devoted French wife Madame de Vilette, whom he had married
whilst in exile, and who came to England and secured the services of
that rapacious mistress of George the First, Schulemburg--who had been
created Duchess of Kendal--at the price of £12,000.
Though pardoned, his attainder remained in force, his title was still
withheld, and he was precluded from inheriting estates and excluded
from the House of Lords.
Though deprived of any outward power, yet this brilliant statesman
simply ruled the Tory party and moved its principals like so many
puppets. It was this talented politician who offered his services to
the Prince of Wales, and their first meeting took place at the house
of a gentleman acquainted with both. It is said that Bolingbroke came
first, and amused himself by reading a book until the Prince’s arrival.
This took place somewhat unexpectedly, and before Bolingbroke could
replace his book, in the hurry to kneel to the Prince it fell to the
floor, and Bolingbroke was within an ace of following it as he slipped
in making his obeisance.
What followed gives an insight into the amiability and undoubted charm
of the Prince’s nature and his excellent tact. He caught Bolingbroke as
he fell, and restoring him to his feet said: “My lord, I trust this may
be an omen of my succeeding in raising your fortunes.”
It is said that the Prince inherited his charm of manner from his
mother; doubtless he was like her in this respect, and did receive from
her this gift. That he did not receive it from his father is certain,
as George the Second was uncouthness itself, and was commonly called
the “Gruff Gentleman.”
From the day of the meeting of the Prince and Bolingbroke their
acquaintance grew, until the statesman became the Prince’s guiding
spirit, not always urging him, as may be imagined, under the
circumstances, on the road of duty to his parents and his parents’
wishes. There is no doubt that through the Prince Bolingbroke paid back
many a wrong and slight received in the years past from Walpole and the
Whigs.
Of this influence of Bolingbroke--“the all-accomplished St. John,
the Muses friend,” as he was styled by the principal poets of the
time--upon the young Prince, Coxe makes the following comment:
“The Prince was fascinated by his conversation and manners. His
confident assertions and popular declarations, his affected zeal to
reconcile all ranks and conditions, the energy with which he decried
the baneful spirit of party, and his plausible theories of a perfect
Government without influence or corruption, acting by prerogative,
were calculated to dazzle and captivate a young Prince of high spirit
and sanguine disposition, and induce him to believe that the Minister
(_i.e._, Walpole) was forming a systematic plan to overthrow the
Constitution, and that the cause of opposition was that of honour and
liberty.”[25]
The first political matter in which these two were actively engaged
was the Excise Act, which was a strong measure of Walpole’s directed
against smuggling. In espousing the side of the Opposition, the Prince
was certainly making a strong bid for popular favour, for the increased
price of tobacco and wines, which would undoubtedly have followed its
passage through the two Houses of Parliament, would have been by no
means acceptable to the multitude at large.
The Prince’s amiability towards the people had already endeared him to
them. He was accustomed to walk abroad accompanied by only one servant,
and he was never known to neglect the salute of even the humblest of
his father’s subjects, but always had a smile, sometimes a kind word
for them.
Walpole introduced his new act into the House of Commons in a very
moderate manner on March 14th, 1733, the Prince of Wales sitting under
the gallery and listening to the debate. The arguments were heated and
prolonged, and adjournments were extended to April 9th, when the Bill
was eventually dropped, having regard to the storm of opposition it
provoked in the country and especially in the City of London.
During the speeches of the Leaders of the Opposition, which included
those of the well-known Pulteney, Wyndham and Barnard, the following
point was made by Wyndham against Walpole: he denounced corruption and
tyranny, and recalled the favourites of past monarchs.
“What was their fate?” he asked. “They had the misfortune to outlive
their master, and his son, as soon as he came to the throne, took off
their heads.”
This allusion was cheered to the echo by the Opposition, and was
subsequently a grave cause of offence to the King and Queen, whose
interests were greatly bound up in the passing of the Act by their
favourite minister, Walpole. It is said that if their being sent back
to Hanover had depended on the Bill they could not have shown more
agitation.
It was therefore not surprising that the failure of the Bill aroused
the King’s indignation, especially the support which his son, the
Prince of Wales, had given the Opposition _sub rosa_ it is true, but
still a sympathy which was very evident.
The Honourable William Townshend, son of the celebrated politician,
Viscount Townshend, and Groom of the Bedchamber, and Privy Purse to the
Prince of Wales, very nearly lost his appointment and that of A.D.C. to
the King through his temerity in voting against the measure.
The Townshend family seem always to have been sympathisers with the
Prince, and to have been his good friends, and this association led to
incidents which will be dealt with later.
Another of the Prince’s followers at this time, and one who was given
much credit for the failure of the Excise Act, was the celebrated Bubb
Doddington, a man of great wealth and a very large landowner, but the
real credit for this rebuff to the King and Walpole must be given to
the brilliant genius of Bolingbroke, which worked behind the Leaders
of the Opposition and moved them like so many chess-men on a board.
Bolingbroke’s hatred of Walpole was of that intense nature, that it is
related by the latter’s brother Horace that upon Bolingbroke’s return
to England after his exile an attempt was made to reconcile the two
enemies, and Bolingbroke so far mastered his pride as to accept an
invitation to dine with Sir Robert at Chelsea, but it is further stated
by the same authority that Bolingbroke rose from the table at the first
course and left the room; his detestation of the great Minister could
no longer be repressed.
Bolingbroke, therefore, was ever working against Walpole and the Court
Party (by whom he was intensely hated), and there can be little doubt
that he was responsible for the state of affairs between the Prince of
Wales and his father and mother which existed at this time, and by so
fanning their smouldering distrust and jealousy that it burst into the
subsequent flame, which became a visible scandal to the whole country.
The Prince, however, had many other friends among the Opposition beside
Bolingbroke and Doddington; his artistic temperament was gratified with
the society of the witty Chesterfield (who had recently celebrated his
marriage with Schulemburg’s daughter, the Countess of Walsingham, by
taking another mistress), Pulteney and the eloquent Wyndham.
It cannot, however, be said that the Prince chose his companions for
their virtues; it was rather for the absence of them; but possibly his
young mind received as much harm from the crafty and unscrupulous
Doddington as all the others put together, who, after all, were, most
of them, mere posers in their vices; but Doddington appears to have
been a kind of fat Mephistopheles, always pouring into the Prince’s ear
advice which on the surface had the appearance of being ingenuous and
good, but had ever for its aim the aggrandisement of the giver.
Such is the opinion of Doddington’s character written by one of his
connections who published his celebrated diary some years after his
death.
George Bubb Doddington was the nephew of a great landowner--one of
the wealthiest in England--whose sister had been picked up by an
Irish apothecary of the name of Bubb, who practised some say at
Carlisle, others at Weymouth, possibly at both places at different
times. He appears to have been excluded from the family circle of
the Doddington’s, but upon his death his widow seems to have been
forgiven and her son George adopted by her rich brother, who eventually
bequeathed to him the whole of his vast estates.
The young George Bubb added by royal licence to his own simple and
somewhat common designation his uncle’s name and arms, and apparently
from that time forth had but one object in life, viz., to obtain a
peerage.
He had commenced his career by entering Parliament for one of the two
boroughs which he owned, and attaching himself to Walpole. Being,
however, refused a peerage by that leader, he forsook him and deserted
to the Opposition.
In due course, on the arrival of the Prince in England, and the manner
of his reception by the King driving him to seek friends among his
father’s opponents, Doddington was very pleased to bend the knee
to him, and offer him not only his political support, which was
considerable, but later his purse also. This lending of money to the
Prince was the origin of the well-known unscrupulous remark, whether
truthfully related or otherwise, which has been recorded against
Frederick, and if made at all was probably a bit of boastfulness over
wine cups to his boon companions, and it must not be forgotten that
gentlemen were not at all above boasting in those days: “This is a
strange country this England,” the Prince is said to have remarked,
“I am told Doddington is reckoned a clever man, yet I got £5,000 out
of him this morning, and he has no chance of ever seeing it again.”
Another account, however, states that the Prince won it of him at play.
Doddington, however, got the full value of the money he lent the Prince
of Wales in the social distinction which the position of intimate
adviser of the Heir-apparent conferred upon him.
Horace Walpole states that he even allowed himself to be wrapped in
a blanket and rolled downstairs for the Prince’s amusement, when
that young man was apparently indulging in a drunken frolic with his
intimates. But even in his blanket bumping down the stairs it is very
probable that he had in his mind’s eye that peerage which he no doubt
considered certain when the Prince came to the throne. But much water
rolled under London Bridge before George Bubb Doddington’s head was
compassed by the golden circlet of a peer, and then only for a little
time.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Coxe’s Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole.