WHICH CONTAINS A GREAT DEAL OF FUSSING AND FUMING AND A LITTLE POETRY.
This act of the Prince and Princess of Wales was construed into such
a flagrant violation of the Royal Will, that the enraged little King
at once took steps to assert his authority. Fortunately in these days
Princesses of Wales are not peremptorily ordered to arrange their
_accouchements_ in places agreeable to the Royal Will.
They arrange them just wherever they like.
A brisk interchange of letters took place between the King and his
eldest son, which ended in a somewhat abrupt command from the King to
the Prince to remove himself and his family out of St. James’s Palace,
which possibly was an order which the Prince and his wife were not at
all sorry to obey; it gave them the opportunity of setting up their own
home.
(From the King at Hampton Court Palace to the Prince of Wales at St.
James’s, by Lord Dunmore, August 20th, 1737).
“It being now near three weeks since the Princess was brought to bed,
his Majesty hopes that there can be no inconvenience to the Princess
if Monday, the twenty-ninth, be appointed for baptising the Princess,
his grand-daughter; and having determined that His Majesty the King,
the Queen and the Duchess-Dowager of Saxe-Gotha shall be godfather and
godmothers, will send his Lord Chamberlain to represent himself and the
Queen’s Lady of the Bedchamber to represent the Queen, and desires that
the Princess will order one of the Ladies of her Bedchamber to stand
for the Duchess-Dowager of Saxe-Gotha, and the King will send to the
Archbishop of Canterbury to attend and perform the ceremony.” (p. 225,
Hervey.)
To which the Prince dutifully replied:
“The Prince to the King,
“August 20th, 1737.
“Sire,
“La Princesse et moi prenons la liberté de remercier très humblement
votre Majesté de l’honneur qu’elle veut bien faire à notre fille d’en
etre parrain. Les ordres que my Lord Dunmore m’a apporté sur ce sujet
seront exécutés point à point. Je me conterois bien heureux si à cette
occasion j’osois venir moi même me mettre à vos pieds; rien ne m’em
pourroit empêcher que la seule defense de votre Majesté. D’être privé
de vos bonnes graces est la chose du monde la plus affligeante pour
moi, qui non seulement vous respect, mais, si j’ose me servir de ce
terme, vous aime très-tendrement. Me permettez vous encore une fois de
vous supplier très-humblement de me pardonner une faute dans laquelle
du moins l’intention n’avoit pas de part, et de me permettre de vous
refaire ma cour à votre levée. J’ose vous en conjurer instamment,
comme d’une chose qui me rendra le répos.
“Je suis, avec toute la soumission possible.
“Sire, de votre Majesté
“Le très-humble et très-obeissant fils,
“Sujet et serviteur,
“FREDERICK.”
Which does not read much like the letter of a disobedient and
contumacious son, but rather that of one who owns a fault which he
never intended to commit and asks for pardon.
These are some of the letters which passed between the King and Queen
and the Prince of Wales; the two first the Queen found at Hampton Court
Palace on her return from her night journey to St. James’s.
“To the Queen.
“St. James’s,
“de Juillet 31, 1737.
“Madame,
“La Princesse s’etant trouvie fort mal à Hampton Court cette
aprèdinné, et n’ayant persone là pour l’assister je l’ai amené
directment en ville pour sauver le temps que j’aurois perdu en faisant
chercher Mrs. Cannon. Elle a été délivrée une heure après, fort
heureusement, d’une fille, et tou deux se portent, Dieu merci, aussi
bien qu’on peut attendre à cette peur.
“La Princesse m’a charge de la mettre avec son enfant aux pieds de
votre Majesté, et de la supplier de nous honneur tous trois de ses
bontées maternelles, etant, avec beuacoup de soumission.
“Madame,
“Votre très humble, et très obeissant fils et serviteur,
“FREDERICK.”
“To the King.
“Sire,
“C’est avec tout le respect possible que je prends la liberté de
mander à votre Majesté que la Princesse est Dieu merci, aussi bien
qu’on peut être, depuis qu’elle a été délivrée d’une fille, qui se
port bien aussi. Elle me charge de la mettre avec son enfant aux pieds
de votre Majesté, et de la supplier de nous honorer tous les trois de
ses bontez paternelles étant, avec tout la soumission possible.
“Sire, De votre Majesté,
“Le très humble, très obéissant fils, et serviteur et sujet.
“FREDERICK.
“De St. James’s,
“le 31 Juillet 1737.”
These letters are written, as the Prince wrote them in bad French badly
spelt.
Lord Hervey states that the morning after these two epistles were
received, was occupied with conversation between the King and Queen and
Sir Robert Walpole, which on the part of His Majesty consisted largely
of the following epithets which he applied to his son the Prince
of Wales: “_Scoundrel and Puppy!_” “_Knave and Fool!_” “_Liar and
coward!_” and no doubt many choice German expletives thrown in where
English failed.
The King, eventually, however, commanded the following answer to be
sent by the hands of Lord Essex, to his son’s happy announcement of the
birth of his daughter. This is what Lord Essex read out to the Prince:
“The King has commanded me to acquaint your Royal Highness that His
Majesty most heartily rejoices at the safe delivery of the Princess;
but that your carrying away her Royal Highness from Hampton Court,
the then residence of the King, the Queen and the Royal Family, under
the pains--and certain indication of immediate labour to the imminent
danger, and hazard both of the Princess and her child, and after
sufficient warnings for a week before to have made the necessary
preparations for the happy event without acquainting his Majesty or the
Queen with the circumstances the Princess was in, or giving them the
least notice of your departure, is looked upon by the King to be such
a deliberate indignity offered to himself and the Queen, that he has
commanded me to acquaint your Royal Highness that he resents it to the
highest degree, and _will not see you_.”
But this time the worry proved too much for the Queen, whose health was
fast failing, and she was seized with a violent attack of the gout.
However, she had her comforter in her close attendant, Lord Hervey;
and this time she broke through all rules of etiquette and admitted
him to the sick room to sit by her bed. Here he made himself agreeable
and amusing as usual, and did not forget to keep alive the Queen’s
resentment against her son.
The Prince of Wales very dutifully sent Lord North to inquire after
his mother’s health. This message seemed to annoy Lord Hervey, who, in
his petty way, was probably jealous. He offered to write a much more
sincere message--from his point of view--than the Prince had really
sent.
He went into the next room with the Princess Caroline and wrote the
following abominable doggerel rhymes.
The Griff[46] to the Queen:
“From myself and my cub and eke from my wife
I send my Lord North notwithstanding our strife,
To your Majesty’s residence called Hampton Court
Pour savoir au vrai, comment on se porte.
For ’tis rumoured in town--I hope ’tis not true
Your foot is too big for your slipper or shoe.
If I had the placing your gout, I am sure
Your Majesty’s toe less pain should endure;
For whil’st I’ve so many curs’d things in my head
And some stick in my stomach as in Proverbs ’tis said.
So just a good reason your good son can see
Why, when mine are so plagued,
Yours from plague should be free
Much more I’ve to say, but respect bids be brief
And so I remain your undutiful Griff.”
And yet Lord Hervey considered himself a poet!
Of course the gentle insinuation intended in his lines was that the
Prince hoped that the gout would fly to the Queen’s head or stomach and
kill her.
Poor soul! she had a much more fatal malady, which she bore in secret,
and which even Lord Hervey, her constant companion, knew nothing of.
It is said that the Queen was greatly entertained by these verses!
Lord Hervey and Pope the Poet were by no means good friends.
Pope very savagely attacked both his verses and his character. The
former he refers to in speaking of a supposed charge of weakness
against his own verses. He says:
“The Lines are weak another’s pleased to say
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.”[47]
and
“Like gentle Fanny’s was my flow’ry theme
A painted mistress or a purling stream.”
These allusions stung Lord Hervey’s shallow feelings. This was his idea
of a refined and witty rejoinder.
“To the imitator of the Satires of the Second Book of Horace.”
“Thus whilst with coward hand you stab a name
And try at least t’ assassinate our fame;
Like the first bold assassins be thy lot;
And ne’er be thy guilt forgiven or forgot;
But as thou hat’st, be hated by mankind
And with the emblems of thy crooked mind
Marked on thy back, like Cain, by God’s own hand,
Wander like him accursed through the land.”
Which reminds one, somehow, of the lines one used to hear in the
old-fashioned Christmas pantomimes given out by the Demon. But these
were very cruel and in bad taste considering Pope was a cripple.
But in the same poem, Lord Hervey refers to the poet’s affliction again:
“None thy crabbed numbers can endure
Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure.”
Pope, as will be seen was, however, quite equal to a rejoinder in the
same strain.
It is stated by Lord Hailes that Lord Hervey having suffered some
attacks of epilepsy dieted himself--or rather starved himself--after
in the following extraordinary manner; his daily food consisted of a
small quantity of asses’ milk and a flour biscuit. This stayed the
progress of the terrible disease, but it gave him a very ghastly
complexion. He is also stated to have used emetics daily, which, under
the circumstances, appeared hardly necessary. Once a week he took the
indulgence of an apple.
To hide his cadaverous appearance, he painted his face as it has been
already stated.
None of these weaknesses seem to have been overlooked by Pope in his
reply to Hervey whom he satirized as “Sporus”:
“Let Sporus tremble! what! that thing of silk!
Sporus that mere white curd of asses’ milk!
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys
Yet wit ne’er tastes and beauty ne’er enjoys;
So well bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite,
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way
Whether in florid impotence he speaks
And as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad.
In puns or politics, in tales or lies
Or spite, or smut or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all see-saw between that and this
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss.
And he, himself, one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part
The trifling head or the corrupted heart
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the Board
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve’s tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed
A cherub’s face and reptile all the rest
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust
Wit that can creep and pride that licks the dust.”
To this apparently Lord Hervey vouchsafed no retort, so Pope was
adjudged to have been the victor in the affair. But not content with
this, he wrote an open letter in prose to Lord Hervey. But this was
suppressed, as Queen Caroline got hold of a copy of it, and desired
Pope not to publish it, as it held her dear friend and companion up to
the most cutting ridicule. She hated Pope for this, but concealed her
rage lest worse should come of it. But Lord Hervey’s duels were not all
confined to poetry; he had one with Pulteney, and the weapons were not
words but swords. This occurred in 1730. It was a squabble over the
authorship of a pamphlet called “Sedition and Defamation Displayed,”
which attacked both Pulteney and Bolingbroke very severely, and with
the writing of which Hervey was credited, and unjustly as it turned out
eventually.
The heated Pulteney, however, rushed into print, and published another
pamphlet “A Proper Reply to a late Scurrilous Libel” in which he
abused Walpole and Hervey, referring to the latter by his nickname of
“Lord Fanny,” and depicted him half man and half woman, dragging in,
as was usual, in those days with execrable taste, certain of Hervey’s
infirmities.
This pamphlet created a perfect fury of anger at Court, and very
naturally aroused the resentment of Hervey peculiarly susceptible, like
many who indulge in cruel satire about others. He wrote to Pulteney and
demanded to know whether he had written the pamphlet, and upon Pulteney
replying that he would tell him, when he admitted the authorship of
“Sedition and Defamation Displayed,” Hervey worked himself up into
such a fury, and was so egged on by the other courtiers--he was not a
fighting man--that he got at last entangled in a duel with Pulteney.
They met on a fine June afternoon between three and four o’clock in
Upper St. James’s Park, just behind Arlington Street, Hervey being
accompanied by Fox, and Pulteney by Sir J. Rushout.
There appears to have been some pretty sword play, and both got
slightly wounded--which shows that Hervey had some pluck--“but,”
writes Mr. Thomas Pelham, a witness of the affray, “Mr. Pulteney had
once so much the advantage of Lord Hervey that he would have infallibly
run my Lord through the body if his foot had not slipped, and then the
seconds took the occasion to part them.”
Pulteney, then, in a very magnanimous manner, appears to have embraced
Hervey, and expressed sorrow at “the accident of their quarrel.”
At the same time he very unnecessarily added that he would never attack
Lord Hervey again either with his pen or his lips.
Hervey, however, showed his quality by not reciprocating his kindly
feeling, but merely bowed and sulked.
“And to use a common expression,” concludes Mr. Pelham, “thus they
parted.”
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams wrote some lines on this duel addressed to
Pulteney.
“Lord Fanny once did play the dunce
And challenged you to fight
And he so stood to lose his blood
But had a dreadful fright.”
Which effusion stamps Sir C. Hanbury Williams as a poet at once!
But Lord Hervey soon had something more agreeable to do than even
writing poetry or fighting duels.
There had been a series of letters from the Prince, already published
above, craving his father’s pardon, and these had, in no way, abated
the King’s wrath. Neither was the Queen touched. But the King’s
message still remained to be agreed upon. It was at last settled and
arranged--in fact a notice to quit--the Queen being the prime mover and
prompter of Sir Robert Walpole, who, of course, acted for the King in
the matter.
Concerning the final interview between the King and the Minister, the
Queen had stipulated that she should have the last word with Sir Robert
before he went in to the King, so it may be taken for granted that the
terms of the message to be sent to the Prince were practically her
terms.
Upon leaving the King, Sir Robert Walpole encountered Lord Hervey whom
he told that the resolution of his Majesty was to leave the child with
the Princess, and not to take it away as George the First had taken the
children of his son, when he quarrelled with him and turned him out of
St. James’s Palace. The reason given was this:
“_Lest any accident might happen to this little Royal animal, and the
world in that case accuse the King and Queen of having murdered it, for
the sake of the Duke of Cumberland._”[48] Sir Robert continued that he
liked to hear other people’s opinions as well as his own, and then and
there desired Lord Hervey to sit down and write exactly what _he_ would
advise the King to say if he stood in his--Sir Robert’s--position. This
Lord Hervey was overjoyed to do as it gave him an opportunity to show
his resentment against the Prince.
It was drawn up in the form of a letter to be signed by the King as
follows, in Lord Hervey’s words:
“It is in vain for you to hope that I can be so far deceived by your
empty professions, wholly inconsistent with all your actions, as to
think that they in any manner palliate or excuse a series of the most
insolent and premeditated indignities offered to me and the Queen, your
Mother.
“You never gave the least notice to me or the Queen of the Princess’s
being breeding or with child till about three weeks before the time
when you yourself have owned you expected her to be brought to bed, and
removed her from the place of my residence for that purpose. You twice
in one week carried her away from Hampton Court with an avowed design
of having her lie-in in town, without consulting me or the Queen, or so
much as communicating your intention to either of us. At your return
you industriously concealed everything relating to this important
affair from our knowledge; and last of all, you clandestinely hurried
the Princess to St. James’s in circumstances not fit to be named, and
less fit for such an expedition.
“This extravagant and undutiful behaviour in a matter of such great
consequence as the birth of an heir to my crown, to the manifest peril
of the Princess and her child (whilst you pretend your regard for her
was your motive) inconsistent with the natural right of all parents,
and in violation of your double duty to me, as your father and as your
King, is what cannot be excused by any false plea, so repugnant to the
whole tenor of your conduct, of the innocence of your intentions, or
atoned for by specious pretences or plausible expressions.
“Your behaviour for a long time has been so devoid of duty and regard
to me, even before this last open proof you have given to all the
world of your contempt for me and my authority, that I have long been
justly offended at it; nor will I suffer any part of any of my palaces
to be any longer the resort and refuge of all those whom discontent,
disappointment or disaffection have made the avowed opposers of all my
measures; who espouse you only to distress me, and who call you the
head, whilst they make you the instrument of a faction that acts with
no other view than to weaken my authority in every particular, and can
have no other end in their success but weakening the common interest of
my whole family.
“My pleasure therefore is, that you and all your family remove from St.
James’s as soon as ever the safety and convenience of the Princess will
permit.
“I will leave the case of my grand-daughter to the Princess till the
time comes when I shall think it proper to give directions for her
education.
“To this I will receive no reply. When you shall, by a consistency in
your words and actions, show that you repent of your past conduct, and
are resolved to return to your duty, parental affection may then and
not till then, induce me to forgive what parental justice now obliges
me to resent.”
So much for Lord Hervey’s idea of what he considered a just punishment
for his enemy the Prince of Wales.
Coxe, in his “Walpole,” refers to the expressions in this draft as
“harsh, improper and indecorous.” The Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, was
the chief reviser of this abominable letter of Hervey’s, and even when
several amendments had been made, considered it in its completed form
too strong, but it was practically that letter of Lord Hervey’s, though
some of the words were softened, which was eventually delivered to the
Prince of Wales, and upon which he and his family had to turn out of
St. James’s Palace.
But there is one incident which occurred at this time and which has
been much used by Lord Hervey, Horace Walpole, and other enemies of the
Prince.
On the ninth day after the confinement of the Princess of Wales, the
Queen, with her two eldest daughters, drove from Hampton Court to St.
James’s to pay another visit to the mother and child.
It is said that this visit was a very painful one, because the Queen
and her son--who met her only at the door of his wife’s bedchamber,
whether by accident or design it is not stated--did not speak. It is
very evident that from this time forward, the Prince, whether rightly
or wrongly, regarded his mother as the cause of the King’s anger
against him, and did not conceal his feelings on the point.
During the hour which his mother spent with the Princess and the Royal
baby, not a word passed between mother and son, and exception is
taken to the fact that when the Queen observed that “she feared she
was troublesome,” nobody had the politeness to say she was not. At
the conclusion of the visit, the Prince very properly led his mother
down to her coach, and arriving at it, did something which greatly
exasperated Lord Hervey and Horace Walpole; he knelt down in the dirty
street and kissed his mother’s hand!
What a terrible thing for a son to do! What an outrage!
Both Hervey and Horace Walpole try to make out that he did it for
effect, and to inspire the people who were looking on; but is it not
much more likely that both Hervey and Walpole--and perhaps the people
in the street, too, would have had a great deal more to say if he
had _not_ done it, for it was the common etiquette of the Court, and
remains very much the same to the present day. But there was another
interest about this parting, too. It was the last time that mother and
son ever met on earth.
In such fashion were the sayings and doings of this Prince, _who was
not wanted_, continually distorted by those around the King and Queen,
and yet they never succeeded in shaking his popularity with the people.
Lord Hardwicke, the Lord Chancellor, has left an account behind him of
an interview with the Prince about this time, which throws some light
on the reason for the secret removal of the Princess from Hampton Court.
“On the fourth day of August,” writes Lord Hardwicke, “the day
of proroguing the Parliament, I went to St. James’s in my way to
Westminster in order to inquire after the health of the Princess of
Wales and the new-born Princess. After I had performed that ceremony, I
went away, and was overtaken at the further end of Pall Mall by one of
the Prince’s footmen, with a message that His Royal Highness desired to
speak with me. Being returned, I was carried into the nursery, whither
the Prince came immediately, out of the Princess’s bedchamber, and
turned all the ladies out of the room.”
Shade of Earl Cairns! what should we think in these days if we heard
of the Lord High Chancellor of England being shown into the nursery
at Marlborough House when on a visit of ceremony, and “all the ladies
being turned out,” and apparently the baby too, to give the Prince of
Wales an opportunity of talking serious State matters with his lordship?
The room, however, being at last clear, the Prince took Lord Hardwicke
into his confidence, evidently with the object of persuading him to
soften the hearts of the King and Queen and _inter alia_ referring to
the removal of the Princess from Hampton Court in much the same terms
used in his first letter to his father, but with this significant
addition: “What if the King, who was apt sometimes to be pretty quick,
should have objected to her going to London, and an altercation should
have arisen, what a condition would the poor Princess have been in!”
The two sat and discoursed for some time, and the old Chancellor gave
Frederick just the sort of advice an old lawyer would naturally give
a young man under the circumstances, urging submission and dutiful
behaviour to bring about a union of the family, and adding that it
would be the “zealous endeavour of himself with the other servants of
the King,” to bring about this end.
“He answered,” continued Hardwicke, “‘My Lord, I don’t doubt you in the
least, for I believe you to be a very honest man,’ and as I was rising
up embraced me, offering to kiss me. I instantly kneeled down and
kissed his hand, whereupon he raised me up and kissed my cheek.
“The scene had something in it moving, and my heart was full of the
melancholy prospect that I thought lay before me, which made me almost
burst into tears. The Prince observed this, and appeared moved himself,
and said: ‘Let us sit down, my Lord, a little, and recollect ourselves,
that we may not go out thus.’
“Soon after which I took my leave, and went directly to the House of
Lords.”
_Minutes of Lord Harrington and Sir Robert Walpole’s conversation with
the Prince by his bedside, August 1st, about five in the morning, and
taken down in writing about three hours after._
“August 1, 1737.
“The Prince of Wales this morning about five o’clock, when Lord
Harrington and Sir Robert Walpole waited upon him at St. James’s,
among other things said: he did not know whether the Princess was
come before her time or not. That she had felt great pain the Monday
before, which it being apprehended might prove her labour, of which
opinion Lady Archibald Hamilton and Mrs. Payne declared themselves to
be, but the physicians were then of another opinion, he brought her
from Hampton Court again. That on the following Friday the Princess’s
pains returning, the Prince carried her again to St. James’s, when
the physicians, Dr. Hollings and Dr. Broxolme, and Mrs. Cannons, were
of opinion it might prove her labour, but those pains likewise going
off, they returned again to Hampton Court on Saturday; that he should
not have been at Hampton Court on Sunday, but it being public day, he
feared it might be liable to some constructions; that the Princess,
growing ill again on Sunday, he brought her away immediately, that she
might be where proper help and assistance could be had.”
The opinion of that remarkably sensible woman of the time, Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, on this event, can but be read with interest.
“There has been an extraordinary quarrel at Court. The 31st of last
month, July, 1737, the Princess fell in labour. The King and Queen
both knew she was to lie in at St. James’s, where everything was
prepared. It was her first child, and so little a way to London that
she thought it less hazard to go immediately away from Hampton Court to
London, where she had all the assistance that could be, and everything
prepared, than to stay at Hampton Court, where she had nothing, and
might be forced to make use of a country midwife. There was not a
minute’s time to be lost in debating this matter, nor in ceremonials,
the Princess begging earnestly of the Prince to carry her to St.
James’s in such a hurry that gentlemen went behind the coach like
footmen. They got to St. James’s safe; and she was brought to bed in
one hour after. Her Majesty followed them as soon as she could, but
did not come until it was all over. However, she expressed a great
deal of anger to the Prince for having carried her away, though she
and the child were very well. I should have thought it would have been
most natural for a grandmother to have said, she had been mightily
frighted, but she was so glad it was so well over. The Prince said all
the respectful and dutiful things imaginable to her and to the King,
desiring her Majesty to support the reasons which made him go away
as he did, without acquainting his Majesty with it. And I believe that
all human creatures will allow, that this was natural for a man not to
debate a thing of this kind, nor to lose a minute’s time for ceremony;
which was very useless, considering that it is a great while since the
King has spoken to him, or taken the least notice of him. The Prince
told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty to the
King; but she advised him not. This was Monday morning, and she said
Wednesday was time enough. And, indeed, I think in that her Majesty was
in the right. The Prince submitted to her counsel, and only writ a very
submissive and respectful letter to his Majesty, giving his reasons for
what he had done; and this conversation ended, that he hoped that his
Majesty would do him the honour to be godfather to his daughter, and
that he would be pleased to name who the godmothers would be; and that
he left all the directions of the christening entirely to his Majesty’s
pleasure. The Queen answered that it would be thought the asking the
King to be Godfather was too great a liberty, and advised him not to do
it.
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Emery Walker._
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.]
“When the Prince led the Queen to her coach, which she would not
have had him have done, there was a great concourse of people; and
notwithstanding all that had passed before, she expressed so much
kindness, that she hugged and kissed him with great passion. The King
after this sent a message in writing by my Lord Essex in the following
words:
“‘That his Majesty looks upon what the Prince had done in carrying the
Princess to London in such a manner, as a deliberate indignity offered
to himself and to the Queen, and resented it in the highest degree and
forbid him the court.’
“All the sycophants and agents of the Court spread millions of
falsities on this occasion, and all the language there was that this
was so great a crime that even those that went with the Prince ought to
be prosecuted. How this will end nobody yet knows, at least I am sure I
don’t.”
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough to Lord Stair, August, 1737.
A pretty satire written before August 29th, 1737, by Dr. Hollings,
who attended the Princess of Wales, concerning the baby Princess, but
really directed against the Queen.
It is by comparison, not difficult to see on which side Dr. Hollings’s
sympathies were. This writing was found among the papers of Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough.
“I am sensible how difficult it really is to be impartial, and how much
more difficult it is to seem so, in drawing the characters of persons
of the highest path and rank. The praise or the blame which they may
justly deserve, is severally ascribed to the interested views or the
private resentment of the author. I should therefore not have attempted
the character of this most excellent Princess, could there have been
the least room for suspicions of that nature. But having no obligation
or disobligation whatsoever to her, I shall speak the truth in the
sincerity of my heart, and I likewise call upon all and everyone of
those who have the honour to know her as well as I do, to contradict me
if they can in any one particular. I have observed her with attention
almost from the hour of her birth, and have carefully marked the
progressive steps of nature. I have seen her in her most unguarded
moments, and have seriously and critically considered whatever fell
from her; so that I may, without vanity, assert that nobody is better
qualified to tell the truth than myself, though others might be much
more capable of adorning it.
“I shall say nothing of the beauty of this incomparable Princess,
it is her mind, and not her person, which we intend to delineate.
Neither shall I dwell upon her high birth and station any longer than
to observe that she seems to be the only person ignorant of that
superiority. She has never been heard to give the most remote hint of
it, much less has she ever been observed to assume even that degree of
state which others, much inferior to her in birth, are so foolishly
fond of.
“It would be saying but little in praise of this excellent lady to
observe, that she had early acquired many friends; for _who_ in that
high station has not, where the power of obliging and doing good is
so extensive, it must be the weakest head, as well as the worst heart,
that does not exert it, and make many happy friends. But, what is much
more rare in her station, she has not one enemy.
“Equally humane to all who approach her, she neither stoops to
meannesses, nor insolently insults, in proportion as she imagines the
persons may be useful or useless; for having nothing to fear, ask, or
conceal, from any, she behaves herself with unconcern to all.
“She was never known to tell a lie, or even to disguise a truth;
uncorrupted nature appears in every motion, and honestly declares the
present sentiment. Her smiles are the immediate results of a contented
and innocent heart. They are never prostituted to disguise inward
rancour and malice, nor insidiously displayed to betray the unwary into
a fatal confidence.
“The tears she sometimes sheds are not less sincere; they flow only
from justifiable causes, and not from disappointed avarice, ambition
or revenge. Nor are they the forced tears of simulated compassion, but
real harshness of heart. Moreover she never cries for joy.
“She is a rare instance of liberality and economy; for though her
income be but small, she retains no more of it than is absolutely
necessary for her subsistence, and properly and privately disposes of
the rest; free from the ostentation of little or sordid minds, who
by profusion in trifles, hope to conceal the insatiate avarice and
corruption of their hearts.
“Though born and bred in Court, she never engages in the intrigues
and whispers of it, nor concerns herself in public matters. Far from
retailing or inventing lies, promoting scandal and defamation, and
encouraging breach of faith and violation of friendship, one would
think of her behaviour that she had never heard of such things.
“Her silence, considering her sex, is not the least admirable of her
many qualifications. She never speaks when she has nothing to say, nor
graciously tires her company with frivolous, improper and unnecessary
tattle.
“She is entirely free from another weakness of her sex, attention to
dress. And it is observable, that if she is ever out of humour, it
is in those moments when she is obliged to conform to custom in that
particular.
“Having thus finished this imperfect sketch of this inimitable
character, I shall only add for the information of the curious, that
this most incomparable Princess was given to us on the 31st July, 1737.
Name indeed she has none. But had ever such a Princess a name? Or can
any man name me such a Princess?”
“This paper,” comments the Duchess of Marlborough, “made me laugh,
for I think there is a good deal of humour in it, and two very exact
characters.”
Lord Hailes, who published the Duchess’s papers, comments as follows on
this essay of Dr. Hollings:
“It is curious to see the various shapes which party resentment can
assume. We have already met with a satire on Queen Caroline, in the
form of an inscription to the honour of Queen Anne. And here more
virulent satire appears under a quibbling character of the infant
daughter of the Prince of Wales.”
FOOTNOTES:
[46] “The Griff” was one of the contemptuous titles bestowed at an
early date on the Prince of Wales by his father.
[47] Lord Fanny was the nick-name given to Hervey.
[48] Hervey’s Memoirs Vol. iii., p. 231. This gives a very fair idea
of public opinion on the subject.