A ROPE LADDER AND SOME STORMS.
It has been already stated that there was at Hanover a certain Captain
von der Schulemberg, whose name became very much coupled with that of
the King’s mistress, Madame Walmoden, and it came about in this wise.
Madame Walmoden inhabited certain grand apartments in the old Leine
Schloss in the town of Hanover--in which palace it will be remembered
that Prince Frederick was born.
The King lived at Herrenhausen Schloss two miles away, and thither the
Walmoden was accustomed to drive every morning and spend the day with
the King. The King, too, would sometimes return with her to the Leine
Palace.
Another important fact must also be mentioned and that is that Madame
Walmoden had presented the King with a fine boy, which she, of course,
declared to be his. The King was fifty-three, fatuous and ready to
believe anything she told him; the birth of this child attached him
more to the Walmoden than ever, a consummation she had no doubt
calculated upon. Now it came about that one night, when the King was
away at Herrenhausen, a muddle-headed gardener with no knowledge of
the courtly world and its pretty little ways, stumbled over a ladder
in the small hours placed immediately under Madame Walmoden’s window,
which looked upon the gardens of the old Leine Schloss, those gardens
through which it is said Sophie Dorothea, the mother of George the
Second, stole disguised to meet her lover Königsmarck at his lodgings
hard by.
The obtuse gardener, instead of leaving the ladder where it was
and going his way, officiously thrust his nose into other people’s
business, and having carefully examined the ladder--some say it was
a rope ladder and fixed to the Walmoden’s window-sill--proceeded to
search the gardens, believing as subsequently stated that a robber
was planning the removal of the mistress’s jewels. As might have been
expected by one less dense he presently discovered a man hiding in
some bushes near. This man he seized, and at the same time alarmed the
palace guard. This man being placed in the guard room and examined
proved as it is stated in one account, “to everyone’s astonishment,”
to be a certain officer in the Austrian service named Schulemberg;
Captain von der Schulemberg, and certainly not a robber in the ordinary
sense of the word. In addition, he was a relative of the Duchess of
Kendal--old Melusine von der Schulemberg--the mistress of George the
First. How these Hanoverian courtesans and their belongings got mixed
up!
Von Schulemberg protested vigorously against his treatment, which
he, perhaps, rightly considered a violation of his dignity as a
diplomatic envoy from the Court of Vienna, but he did not explain how
his diplomatic mission had brought him to the foot of the rope ladder
in the Leine Schloss gardens, which ladder led into the bedroom of
Madame Walmoden. He, however, made so great a noise in the guard room,
striking terror into the heart of the captain of the guard by referring
to the vengeance his master, the Austrian Emperor, would exact for this
insult to his envoy, that the officer let him go, and he departed into
the night, no doubt cursing the gardener.
The story, as may be imagined, was very soon in everybody’s mouth, and
Madame Walmoden was thoroughly alarmed; she knew there were plenty to
carry the story to the King. But she took her courage in both hands,
and did what every woman has done in similar circumstances and will
no doubt continue to do as long as women exist on this earth, beloved
by natures weaker than their own. She ordered her coach soon after
daylight, and by six o’clock was on the road to Herrenhausen to be the
first to tell her version of the story to her elderly royal lover.
At Herrenhausen she passed the royal guards who knew her, and went
straight to the King’s bedroom. Here she cast herself on her knees by
the bed in which little George lay half awakened rubbing his eyes.
She besought him to protect her from insult or allow her to retire from
his Court; in a torrent of tears she declared that she loved him, not
as a king, but as a man and for himself alone. He must have looked far
from loveable at the moment, unshaven and in his nightcap, but these
things are never remembered when a pretty and designing woman is making
love to a man the wrong side of fifty. George the King rubbed his eyes,
and asked for an explanation.
She told him amid her sobs that she was the subject of a dastardly
plot, that a certain Madame d’Elitz had caused a ladder to be placed
beneath her window, with a view to ruining her with the King.
Now Madame d’Elitz was herself a von der Schulemburg, and was credited
by scandal with having been the mistress successively of George the
First, George the Second, and Prince Frederick before he came over to
England. These achievements, however, are doubted by historians as far
as the Prince was concerned, but it is pretty certain she had been the
mistress of the two first Georges, father and son. This bringing in of
Madame d’Elitz was a stroke of genius, as it opened the door for the
Walmoden to tell the King of the arrest of Captain von Schulemberg in
the Leine Schloss gardens. It need hardly be said that her story was
accepted by King George, who ordered the captain of the Leine Palace
Guard to be placed in arrest, and search to be made for von der
Schulemberg, that he might be again made prisoner.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF HERRENHAUSEN, HANOVER.]
But here Horace Walpole, the English minister in attendance, secretly
interposed; he sent word privately to Schulemberg to be off across the
frontier as quickly as he could, and he took care that no obstacles
should be put in the way of his doing so, for the last thing, he knew
very well, that his brother, Sir Robert, wanted, was trouble with the
Austrian Emperor.
And so Madame Walmoden triumphed; but the story spread, even to
England, and in Hanover the infantine features of Madame Walmoden’s
fine boy were scanned more eagerly than ever for traces of his
paternity.
And now, for Queen Caroline in England, a very painful period had
commenced. In the first place the Prince of Wales and his wife had
taken very unkindly to the restrictions put upon them most unreasonably
like two children by the absent King, and not even the influence of
Lady Archibald Hamilton could prevent them from showing it.
The commands concerning moving about with the Queen from palace
to palace were not complied with, and a very ingeniously arranged
succession of illnesses of the Princess utterly defeated the King’s
intention. So keenly had the Prince felt the humiliations put upon
him by his father in appointing the Queen as Regent instead of
himself, that he did not attend the opening of the Commission--which
was invariably held when news arrived of the King’s landing on the
Continent--but came designedly when the proceedings were over. In
this and in many other ways the breach between the Prince and his
mother widened, though it must be said that at this time the Queen
showed both to him and his wife the utmost patience under very trying
circumstances. This was no doubt owing to Walpole, who was, as Prime
Minister, very naturally her constant attendant at this time; the
patience and good sense of Walpole no doubt kept peace in the Royal
Family for a much longer period than it would have been maintained
under the counsels of a less sagacious minister, and it is much to be
wondered at, that Sir Robert did not use his influence to persuade the
King to give the Prince of Wales the full allowance of £100,000 a year
to which he was so clearly entitled by the vote of Parliament.
But there was another matter, which was the subject of much discussion
at Court and of much pain to the Queen, and this was the hopeless
infatuation of the King for Madame Walmoden. It was well known to all
the Court that the King had hastened back to Hanover after an interval
of only eight months, instead of three years, and that, moreover, he
showed no signs of coming back again. But now the Queen was not taking
his infidelity with the same calmness which she had shown in former
cases; there were signs that her patience was giving out, and that
she was losing heart. Her letters were abridged, from the usual four
dozen pages to seven or eight; it was this circumstance particularly
which alarmed Walpole and others, till at last the rough, uncouth Sir
Robert spoke out to her on the subject in perhaps the plainest language
in which a subject has ever addressed a King’s wife. He naturally
feared with the rest of the Court that her power over the King might
die out altogether, especially if she showed any resentment to the
infamous conduct of her husband which strangely enough she had never
done before. Walpole did not spare her feelings; he reminded her of her
age and the beauty of her rival, the Walmoden; he did not scruple to
say that the Queen’s attractions had faded, and that she could never
expect to regain the ascendency over the King which she had for so long
enjoyed. He urged her to resume her long letters to her husband, and
to write them in a spirit of humility and submission. Finally, he made
the most extraordinary request that has ever been made to a wronged and
angry wife; he advised her to write and invite the King to bring back
his new mistress to England with him.
No wonder the tears sprang to the Queen’s eyes; but it is said she at
once suppressed them, and attracted by the bait of fresh power over her
husband temptingly held out by the wily Sir Robert--who wished to get
this new mistress of the King into his own power, and under his own
eye--the Queen consented to follow his advice.
Then came a time of doubt and apprehension; it was questioned whether
the woman in the Queen’s nature would not get the ascendency, and that
she would revolt from this vile thing. But she did nothing of the
sort; in a few days Walpole had the satisfaction of knowing that the
very letter he desired had been sent off to the King. Still Walpole
had some distrust of the Queen; she was too calm and too compliant to
satisfy him, and he confided to a friend that he could stand the Queen’s
anger and reproof, but he was afraid of her when she “daubed” (_i.e._,
flattered).
But the Queen spoke quite calmly of her rival, and actually allotted
her rooms in the palace. Moreover, to Walpole’s amazement, she proposed
to take her into her own service, no doubt with a view to keeping
an eye upon her, as she had done in the case of the King’s former
mistress, Lady Suffolk.
But this arrangement Walpole opposed, and she in reply quoted the
case of Lady Suffolk; to this Sir Robert rejoined that “there was a
difference between the King making a mistress of the Queen’s servant,
and making a Queen’s servant of his mistress!”
“The people,” he continued, “might reasonably look upon the first as a
very natural condition of things, whilst popular feelings of morality
might be outraged by the second.”
The King’s reply to his wife’s letter was just what the old minister
had calculated upon; it was full of admiration at his wife’s
amiability, and he forthwith proceeded to give her by way of reward
glowing descriptions of her rival’s attractions, both of the mind and
body. Principally the latter, and he finished up with a fervent tribute
to his wife’s virtue, which he longed to imitate, but he excused
himself pitifully: “You know my passions, my dear Caroline”--he prided
himself on his passions--“you know my weaknesses,” and he finished up
with a semi-blasphemous appeal to God that Caroline might cure him
of them. But as the Queen had failed to do this as a beautiful young
woman, it was rather hopeless to look for a cure that way now that she
was fat, getting wrinkled, and nearly fifty-four.
The King about this time also took an opportunity of consulting the
Queen on the subject of that very convincing rope ladder which had been
discovered dangling from Madame Walmoden’s bedroom window with Captain
von der Schulemberg hiding in very close proximity to its earthly end,
by which it is supposed that he intended to mount to a very carnal
Elysium. Little George was anxious to hear what his wife thought of the
matter, which looks very much as if he had not entirely swallowed that
very ingenious story sobbed out by the implicated fair one that early
morning at Herrenhausen. But much as he valued her opinion, still
he advised her to take further advice on the point, as if it were a
subject of State importance. He asked her to consult Walpole--who must
have been intensely amused, and probably had a good laugh over it with
the Queen. Walpole “_le gros homme_” as he called him, “who,” continued
the simple little King, “has more experience in these sort of matters,
my dear Caroline, than yourself, and who, in the present affair, must
necessarily be less prejudiced than I am.” How they must have _roared_!
But while the King was wasting his time in Hanover, the Prince and
Princess of Wales were growing in popular favour at home, and it must
be said that the young couple did their best to further this feeling of
the people.
There was slowly and surely growing among the public a feeling of
disgust at the King, and it was said by some that it would be better
if he remained away in Hanover with his German mistress altogether.
Another matter which brought George the Second into disrepute was that
it was said he kept several important commissions in the Army vacant,
and pocketed the pay attached to them.[37] This was the kind of thing
very popular with his late father’s mistresses, Schulemburg and others.
The Queen was greatly commiserated, and indeed was to be pitied under
the circumstances, although she had to a great extent brought the
trouble on herself by her abominable pandering to her husband’s vices.
Insulting pasquinades now began to make their appearance directed
against the King. A lame, blind and aged horse with a saddle and a
pillion behind it was sent to wander loose through the streets--in
which, of course, there were no police--with a placard tied to its head
asking that no one should stop him as he was “the King’s Hanoverian
equipage going to fetch His Majesty and his w---- to England.”
But the most insulting of these public notices was that affixed to St.
James’s Palace itself and which read as follows:
“Lost or strayed out of this house a man who has left a wife and six
children on the Parish. Whoever will give any tidings of him to the
Churchwardens of St. James’s Parish so as he may be got again, shall
receive four shillings and sixpence reward. N.B.--This reward will not
be increased, nobody judging him to deserve a crown.”
Strangely enough the little King was not exasperated with these public
satires on his immorality and neglect of his wife. He liked to be
considered a Don Juan and a bit of a rake; the only jokes which angered
him were those in which he was referred to as a senile libertine, past
the age for gallantry.
Meanwhile the friction between Frederick and his mother increased, and
was much added to by the conduct of the Princess in arriving late
for church on several Sundays, and causing Her Majesty to cease her
devotions, rise from her knees, and permit the Princess to squeeze by
her--the Queen was very stout and the pew small--to her seat.
This conduct was attributed by those about the Queen to the Prince of
Wales, who had designed a studied insult by it, to make his mother look
ridiculous, but it is much more likely to have been the thoughtless act
of a young girl. However, after two or three Sundays of it, the Queen
made arrangements for the Princess to come in at another door. Lord
Hervey appears to have been very active in fomenting the disagreement
between Queen Caroline and the Prince and Princess of Wales at this
time, particularly during a squabble which occurred concerning the
removal of Frederick and his wife from Kensington to St. James’s, when
they found the dulness of the former place intolerable. The Queen was
greatly upset by this, as it is pretty certain that she had received
definite orders from her husband not to let the Prince of Wales live in
any other palace but that which she inhabited, for the very good reason
that he did not want him to set up a separate Court, which would have
been in opposition to his own, and in addition, an exceedingly popular
one.
The Prince’s letter in reply--written in French--seems to have been
a very dutiful one, but was thought to have been written for him by
Lord Chesterfield. Lord Hervey unintentionally paid a great compliment
to Lord Chesterfield’s accomplishments by saying that the letter might
have been written by “Young Pitt,” but was certainly not sufficiently
elegant for Lord Chesterfield. It was about this time that the Prince
began to sink deeper and deeper into debt, a consequence no doubt of
his marriage, and very foolishly began to raise money at enormous
interest to be repaid on the death of his father.
This, of course, very soon reached the ears of the Queen, and Lord
Hervey appears to have made himself particularly active about the
matter. During a discussion which ensued between them the Queen
seems to have remarked that she considered the Prince of Wales far
too unambitious to wish for the death of his father, to which Hervey
replied that if that were so, certainly the feeling did not extend to
the Prince’s creditors, who would be immensely benefited by the King’s
death. He went so far as to point out that the Sovereign’s life was in
jeopardy as a result of the _post obits_ of the Prince of Wales, and
suggested that a Bill should be brought into Parliament making it a
capital offence for any man to lend money for a premium at the King’s
death, and so worked upon the Queen’s feelings that she replied:
“To be sure it ought to be so, and pray talk a little with Sir Robert
Walpole about it.”
But Walpole very wisely ignored the suggestion, being, no doubt well
aware of the source from which it came; he was far too sagacious to
bring the private disputes of the Royal Family before the public.
The Queen then approached the Princess of Wales with a view to
engaging her influence to prevent the Prince borrowing money, but the
Princess showed her wisdom by declining to take sides against her
husband, for which dutiful decision she gained but small thanks from
her mother-in-law. But now the King at last decided to tear himself
away from Hanover, and at the same time to accept the Queen’s very
kindly offer that he should bring his lady love, Madame de Walmoden,
to England with him. What an offer from a wife! What a married state
for any unfortunate woman to have lived in! King George was in deadly
earnest about bringing over his paramour with him, and ordered the
apartments lately occupied by Lady Suffolk to be prepared for her, and
this it appears, under the Queen’s directions, was done.
This letter of the King was shown to Walpole by Caroline:
“Well now, Sir Robert,” she said, “I hope you are satisfied. You see
this minion is coming to England.”
Walpole, however, had evidently received private information from his
brother who was Minister in Attendance on the King in Hanover; he
shook his head in answer to the Queen’s remark, and said he did not
believe that the Walmoden would come, and that, in his opinion, she was
afraid of the Queen.
He was quite right; at the last moment, Madame de Walmoden changed her
mind--if she really had had any intention of coming--and decided to
remain in Hanover; she had no fancy for crossing swords with Caroline.
So King George set off in a huff by himself for Helvetsluis _en route_
for home.
The Prince of Wales, meanwhile, had been steadily gaining in popular
favour, while it was known that the King had been squandering large
sums of money--English money for the most part--in Hanover on German
women, a fact which greatly disgusted his English subjects. Frederick
very judiciously gave £500 to the Lord Mayor for the purpose of
releasing poor freemen of the city from debtors’ prisons. This was
particularly exasperating to the Queen, Hervey and other members of the
Court party, who knew that this £500 was probably borrowed at usurious
interest on a _post obit_ of the King. Frederick and his wife, however,
went placidly on their way, leaving their suite at Kensington, where
the Queen was, and themselves coming into town and holding a little
Court of their own, which was the very thing the little King had tried
to prevent.
It may have been reports of these matters, and the growing discontent
at his absence which caused the King to hasten to Helvetsluis--he
left Hanover on December 7th after a ball and farewell supper at
Herrenhausen, without even stopping at the Hague to see his daughter
Anne, Princess of Orange, who was at that time at death’s door after
the death of a still-born daughter, and had sent him an urgent message
to come to her. But George was not a feeling parent, and, above all,
disliked anything to do with children.
And now occurred an event which caused in England both consternation
and satisfaction; consternation to the Queen and the Court
party--Hervey and his like particularly felt it--and satisfaction to
the bulk of the English people, who had had quite sufficient of George
the Second and his doings and who ardently desired the accession to the
throne of their favourite the Prince of Wales.
The wind being fair, and the King being reported arrived at Helvetsluis
and about to embark, a terrific hurricane arose in the channel in
which it was considered impossible that the Royal Yacht could have
lived. Wagers were freely laid in London against the King ever setting
foot in his kingdom of England again. The possibilities of the future
began to be very freely discussed, even in the Royal Family, and the
Queen’s confidant showed decided signs of trimming. The Queen was
greatly alarmed, and even imagined that she saw in Frederick signs of
satisfaction; she now roundly abused her son to Hervey, saying: “Mon
Dieu! Popularity always makes me feel sick, but Fritz’s popularity
makes me vomit.”
The Prince, however, appears to have conducted himself very moderately
during this period, and to have had every consideration for his mother.
Not one infilial remark is recorded of him at this crisis, and if he
had made one it is pretty certain to have been noted by his enemy
Hervey in his letters, which did not omit much, true or false, which
was to the Prince’s discredit.
The Princesses, his sisters, who had been his enemies also, were
appalled at the prospect of his becoming King, and one of them declared
that it was her intention to depart “_au grand galop_.” The state of
uncertainty as to the King’s safety continued for over a week, during
which the fears of the Queen and her party were increased by the news
that the sound of guns booming far away in the channel as if fired by
ships in distress had been heard from Harwich.
Things began to look very black indeed, and it was thought necessary
for the Prince to prepare his mother for the worst, and Lord Hervey
also hinted that he thought the King’s case was hopeless.
But the citizens of London who idolized the Prince and Princess of
Wales were secretly delighted, and would not have been averse to
hearing that the Walmoden was on Board the Royal Yacht with the King.
But at the gloomiest moment, a courier who had risked his life in the
awful tempest with the crew of the vessel in which he sailed especially
to carry a letter to the Queen was “miraculously,” as it was excitedly
stated, flung ashore at Yarmouth, and came post haste to London with
the news that the King had not embarked at all, but was waiting for
fine weather at Helvetsluis. This courageous messenger and the still
more courageous crew of the vessel had been three days at sea with
the wind in their teeth and their opportune landing was spoken of by
mariners in the terms mentioned above.
The Queen showed great joy at hearing everybody cry “The King is safe!
the King is safe!” when the courier in his muddy boots arrived, but it
was a terrible shock to the partisans of the Prince, and his friends in
the City could with difficulty muster up the necessary congratulations.
The Queen who had shown an outward calm during the crisis now expressed
herself joyously in characteristic terms:--
“_J’ai toujours dit que le Roi n’était pas embarque_;” she exclaimed.
“_On a beau voulu m’effraier cet après-diner avec leur letters, et leur
sots, gens de Harwich; j’ai continue à lire mon Rollin, et me moquois
de tout cela._”
This was a hit at Frederick who had brought her the news from Harwich
in a letter. Rollin was one of her favourite books. But strange to
say the matter by no means ended here. Fine weather came with an
easterly wind which was just what the King wanted, and matters looked
perfectly settled for his return, but it was not so. Scarcely had this
fine spell lasted long enough to allow the King time to embark when
the wind veered to the north-west and blew again an awful hurricane,
worse if possible than the former one which had caused such grave
anxiety at the Court. This was on the 20th of December, 1736, and no
doubt whatever was now held that the King had embarked as indeed he
had. From the 20th to the 24th there was no news of him at all, but
on the latter date tidings arrived which were far from reassuring. A
shattered mastless sloop was thrown up on the coast, having on board
a party of clerks from the Secretary’s office of the King, and these
stated that they had sailed with His Majesty from Helvetsluis on the
previous Monday, and that they had remained with the rest of the fleet
until the storm arose when the Admiral, Sir Charles Wager, had made the
signal for each ship to look after itself. When the passengers of the
sloop last saw the Royal Yacht, she was “tacking about” with a view
apparently to make an endeavour to return to Helvetsluis. So grave was
this news considered, that Sir Robert Walpole prevented the Queen from
interviewing these shipwrecked clerks. Once more were the hopes and
exultations of the Court Party ruthlessly shattered; once more did the
partisans of the Prince with his stout friends in the city rub their
hands in dark corners. This time the Queen was thoroughly alarmed, and
showed it in her countenance. The next day, Christmas Day, was perhaps
the gloomiest in men’s knowledge at that time. On this day, probably in
the early morning, four ships of the King’s convoy were thrown up in a
mastless condition on the coast, and the only account of the King which
they could give, was that about six o’clock on the Monday night, the
20th December, a gun was fired by Sir Charles Wager’s order as a signal
for the fleet to separate; a kind of _sauve qui peut_. That the wind
continued in its full violence for forty-eight hours after this. One of
the letters containing this intelligence was brought by Lord Augustus
Fitzroy, second son of the Duke of Grafton, who, though only twenty
years of age, was Captain of a man-of-war, “The Eltham,” which had
succeeded with great difficulty in getting into Margate that Christmas
morning.
This further news was kept from the Queen altogether, and that evening
a sad party sat down in the Palace of St. James’s to pretend to play
cards, while every ear was strained to catch the least sound which
might be the precursor of the news of the King’s death. In basset and
cribbage was that Christmas night passed by the Queen, while Sir Robert
Walpole, the Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle, Montagu, Devonshire and
Richmond, with Lord Hervey, talked of everything they could think of,
but the King’s danger, or walked moodily up and down in the shadows.
But the next morning, the 26th, Sir Robert Walpole came to the Queen
at nine o’clock and told her all. Then her fortitude gave way and she
wept, but not for long. She dried her tears and expressed her intention
of going to church--it was a Sunday. This resolve Sir Robert considered
most injudicious as it would make the Queen an object of curiosity in
public, which in her disturbed state was not desirable. It did not seem
to strike this old heathen that she went there to pray, and even if
it had, he would have been quite wrong, as the Queen’s own expressed
reason was that she would not give up hope, and believe her husband
drowned until it became a certainty. That her stopping away from Church
would have been construed into an admission of the King’s death.
However, all her doubts were ended during the service, as once more an
express arrived from the King to tell her he was safe and sound, but
had been terribly sea-sick. That after setting sail from Helvetsluis on
the previous Monday morning at eight o’clock, he had with difficulty
regained that port at three on the following afternoon.
The King blamed Sir Charles Wager for the whole business, and said
the Admiral had hurried him on board against his will, whereas, in
truth it was the King who was impatient, and who had said that unless
the Admiral would sail, he would go over in a packet boat rather than
endure Helvetsluis any longer.
“Be the weather what it may,” concluded the irascible little King, “I
am not afraid.”
“_I am_,” laconically responded the Admiral.
George persisted.
“I want to see a storm,” continued the King, “and would rather be
twelve hours in one than shut up twenty-four in Helvetsluis.”
“Twelve hours in a storm,” replied the rough and ready Admiral, “four
hours would do your business for you.”
The Admiral refused to sail until the wind was fair, clinching the
argument by remarking that though the King might make him go, “I,”
concluded Sir Charles with satisfaction, “can make you come back again.”
And he did bring him back again, for which the King ought to have been
eternally grateful to him, for it was only the splendid seamanship of
the Admiral which saved him.
“Sir,” remarked Sir Charles, when they did get back, “you wished to see
a storm, how did your Majesty like it?”
“So well,” answered the King, no doubt with a most rueful countenance,
for he had been fearfully sick, “that I never wish to see another!”
The Admiral remarked in a letter to a friend at the time: “His Majesty
was at present as _tame_ as any about him.”
“An epithet,” comments Lord Hervey who had read the letter, “that his
Majesty, had he known it, would, I fancy, have liked, next to the
storm, the least of anything that happened to him.”
But there were many of these letters came to the Court by the same ship
which brought the King’s, and the above passage of words between George
and the Admiral was well known in the King’s suite at Helvetsluis,
therefore when the Queen walked about with the King’s letter in her
hand praising her husband’s patience, and condemning Admiral Wager as
the cause of all their apprehension, it was somewhat difficult for
the couriers to keep their countenances when they realized the King’s
wilful mendacity to his wife.
All the hopes of the Prince’s party were now crushed, but it is not
recorded by Lord Hervey that Frederick gave vent to any other remark
but that of thankfulness for his father’s return.
His followers, and especially those in the city, while expressing their
thankfulness, qualified it; the common expression in referring to the
King’s escape was--“It’s the mercy of God, but a thousand pities!”
It is to be feared that had they heard that the Royal Yacht with
the King and Madame Walmoden on board, had sunk in mid-Channel, the
expression of their thanks might have been the same without the
concluding sentence.
The catch query at the time of this voyage was:
“How’s the wind for the King?”
And the popular answer was:--“Like the nation, against him.”
The danger over, the Queen confided her feelings to her almost
inseparable companion the Vice-Chamberlain, Lord Hervey; after telling
him of her affection for him--it was a motherly affection, she was
fifty-three,--and the pleasure his society gave her she added:
“You and yours should have gone with me to Somerset House[38] and
though I have neither so good an apartment there for you as you have
here, nor an employment worth your taking, I should have lodged you as
well as I could, and given you at least as much as you have now from
the King.”
The Queen, however, wrote a very dutiful and tender letter to the King,
full of art and flattery, but it seems to have touched George’s heart
deeply; perhaps in those twelve hours of tossing in the storms of
the Channel, the little man had thought seriously of the foolishness
of leaving so good a wife, that in the search after happiness,
he was leaving the substance in Caroline--and she was certainly
substantial--for the elusive shadow in the Walmoden; anyhow he wrote
his Queen a most remarkable letter of thirty pages, more the effusion
of an eager lover than an old man for his wife.
“In spite of all the danger I have incurred in this tempest, my dear
Caroline,” he wrote, “and notwithstanding all I have suffered, having
been ill to an excess which I thought the human body could not bear, I
assure you that I would expose myself to it again and again to have the
pleasure of hearing the testimonies of your affection, with which my
position inspired you. This affection which you testify for me, this
friendship, this fidelity, the inexhaustible goodness which you show
for me, and the indulgence which you have for all my weaknesses, are so
many obligations, which I can never sufficiently recompense, can never
sufficiently merit, but which I also can never forget.”[39]
Certainly the storm had shaken the little man very much and left him
in a condition which would have proved weak in the crisis which arose
after his return, had he not been supported on the one hand by Walpole
and on the other by his ever scheming Queen.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] This has been denied.
[38] Her jointure House.
[39] _This is the pretty original French_:--
“Malgré tout le danger que j’ai essuie dans cette tempête ma chère
Caroline, et malgré tout ce que j’ai souffert en etant malade à un
point que je ne croisois, pas quel le corps humain pourroit souffrir,
je vour jure que je m’éxposorois encore et encore pour avoir le
plaisir d’entendre les marques de votre tendresse que cette situation
m’a procuré. Cette affection que vous temoignez, cette amitié, cette
fidelité, cette bonté inépuisable que vous avez pour moi, et cette
indulgence pour toutes mes foiblesses sont des obligations que je ne
sçaurai, jamais récompenser, que je ne sçaurai mériter, mais que je ne
sçaurai jamais oublier non plus.”