walking with Lord Alvanley in the Park being cut by the Prince Regent
and enquiring in an audible voice, “Who is your fat friend?” There
is very little point in the remark except its offensiveness. But the
biographer of Brummell, Captain Jesse, got the true version from a
friend who witnessed the incident. It was not in the Park, but at a
ball given by Brummell, Lord Alvanley, and two others. The Prince was
not invited, because of his quarrel with Brummell; but, as everybody
was going, he signified his pleasure to be present. When he arrived
he greeted Lord Alvanley and his other two hosts, cutting Brummell
pointedly, thereby insulting one of his entertainers. The Prince had by
a gross breach of good taste placed himself in an impossible position.
If he did not know his host, his host had a right to regard him as an
uninvited intruder; therefore the question was a snub, unanswerable
even by the Regent. The life of Brummell is the record of much folly
and frivolity, ending with a long exile in Calais, which terminated in
imbecility and death in an almshouse. Nevertheless this famous dandy,
fop though he was, is one of those butterflies whose useless lives
at least add to the beauty of the scene. Nor is it for the recorder
of his time to point the finger of scorn at him. Absurd as his ideal
was, it was not wholly contemptible. His vanity was not malicious,
he was at least no sycophant, he held his own among aristocrats, who
were as vulgar as they were arrogant. He shamed his associates into
decent manners, at a period when social polish was hardly skin deep.
He insisted on personal cleanliness in days when it was disregarded by
the highest in the land. He had the art of making friends who stood by
him in his hours of poverty and distress. The Duke of York, with all
his faults the best liked son of George III, the Duchess, one of the
most amiable ladies of the day, the Duke of Beaufort, and many others
remained staunch to him as long as he lived. He was a sharer in the
follies of his day, but so far as I know he was not so heartless in his
vices as many a greater man; nor did he pander to the vices of others.
We can laugh at his absurdities, without having that feeling of disgust
with which we regard many of the faults of his august rival, the Prince
Regent. How delightful, for example, is his criticism of the Duke of
Bedford’s coat! On one occasion his Grace asked the Beau his opinion of
his new clothes. “Turn round,” said Brummell, “now stand still.” Then
taking the garment by the lapel, he exclaimed, “Oh, Bedford, do you
call this a coat?”
The thing which strikes us most in connection with the halcyon period
of the dandies, with its follies and lavish expenditure, is that it
coincided with some of the most anxious days through which England ever
passed, and with the age when distress and poverty were most keenly
felt. Fashionable life was indeed fast and furious and characterised
by its reckless extravagance. Everybody gambled: every possible event
was made the subject of a bet. The turf was, as it is to-day, crowded
with blacklegs; and the issue of a great fight in the prize ring was
watched with more trembling anxiety than that of a battle in Spain or
Flanders. The prevalence of drunkenness was universal; every memoir
of the time records drinking-bouts innumerable. The fine gentleman
garnished every sentence with an oath and even used bad language in
his letters to his friends. Duelling was universal. Pitt, the Duke
of Wellington, Castlereagh, nearly all the leading statesmen, had to
fight. Even the Duke of York, though very near the throne, ‘met’ the
Duke of Richmond. But with all its failings the men of fashion had one
merit: though they were almost incredibly coarse, brutal, and selfish,
no one could reproach them with softness. They may have been bad, but
they were men. If they went to see prize-fighters beat each other into
a jelly, they were ready enough to use their fists themselves. If they
gambled the cards and the dice, they did so at the risk of ending
their days in a debtor’s prison. Many of them died ruined in purse and
bankrupt even of honour. If they pursued their amours unscrupulously,
there was always the risk of facing an outraged relative’s pistol. The
spice of danger was never absent from their lives. One alone could
share in all their pursuits, and be exempt from peril. He could drink
himself drunk without danger of his words being called in question; he
could ruin wives and daughters and no one would raise a hand against
him; he could engage in shady transactions on the turf, and men made it
a point of honour to shield his fair fame. If others were extravagant,
they dissipated their own patrimony; and when that was gone, there was
nothing for it but to starve. But he had only to fall back on national
resources, and the taxpayer extricated him from his difficulties. It is
because of its immunity, that the profligacy of George, as Prince, as
Regent, and as King is so detestable.
It has been customary, I think, to underrate his abilities. Thackeray
has a most misleading passage about his relation with the Whigs. “At
first he made a pretence of having Burke and Fox and Sheridan for
his friends. But how could such men be serious before such an empty
scapegrace as this lad...; what had these men of genius in common
with their tawdry young host of Carlton House? That fribble the
leader of such men as Fox and Burke! That man’s opinions about the
constitution--about any question graver than the button of a waistcoat
or the sauce of a partridge worth anything! The friendship between the
Prince and the Whig Chiefs was impossible. They were hypocrites in
pretending to respect him, and if he broke the hollow compact between
them, who shall blame him?” But if we turn to Creevey, we shall see
that George played the game with the Whigs with consummate skill. Not
that he cared a straw for the constitution or political matters. He
wanted leisure, comfort, influence,--above all, money. He used the
Whigs for his purposes in the question of the Regency, and in order to
extort money from the nation. They were ready enough to serve him in
defeating Pitt and their other opponents; but he, once he was Regent
in 1812, with his father, the old King, hopelessly insane, flung them
aside as no longer useful and made the Tory government uphold the two
things now to his interest to conserve,--the _status quo_ and the power
of the Crown.
No one has ever doubted the power of fascination exercised by George,
which was due not less to his clever adaptability, than to his high
position. What reader of Lockhart’s “Life of Scott” can forget the
dinner party when the King and Sir Walter exchanged mutual badinage in
the freest manner? We find the same in Creevey regarding the extreme
affability with which he treated him and the Whig leaders at Brighton,
when Prince Regent. George’s charm of manner and the ease with which
he could adapt himself to his company and forget to all appearance
his royal dignity in social intercourse was one of his most powerful
political assets which he used to the fullest advantage.
The influence exercised by him was almost wholly evil. Head of the
state in the days of its greatest military glory, when the moral and
political influence of England was paramount in Europe; living in the
days of great industrial and mechanical triumph, in which his country
had the fullest share; confronted as King with some of the gravest
social problems, which its poets and philosophers were taxing their
utmost to expose and remove,--the marvel is that any man could have
occupied such a position, and yet interested himself almost exclusively
in frivolous pleasures and sensual amours.
I do not think that it is too harsh a verdict to say that George IV’s
example acted like a poison to the social life of several generations.
Vice was rampant enough in English society before he came to manhood;
but his father had done much to set an example to his nobility of a
pure domestic life, and to encourage simple tastes and pleasures.
Gambling and profligacy went on despite the King; but his son led
the orgies of extravagance. His taste was atrocious. What can be more
monstrous than the Pavilion at Brighton? Read Thackeray’s description
of his coming of age fête at Carlton House, quoted from the _European
Magazine_, 1784: “The saloon may be styled the _chef-d’œuvre_, and
in every ornament discovers great invention. It is hung with a
figured plush.... The window curtains, sofas, and chairs are of the
same colour. The ceiling is ornamented with emblematical paintings,
representing the Graces and Muses, together with Jupiter, Mercury,
and Apollo and Paris. Two ormolu chandeliers are placed here, etc.,
etc.”[26] The coronation was a monstrous exhibition of extravagance.
For the feast in Westminster Hall, where the Champion of England,
“mounted on a horse, borrowed from Astley’s theatre, rode into the
Hall,” more than eight hundred dozen of wine and one hundred gallons
of punch were provided. Vulgarity distinguished the period of the
‘First Gentleman in Europe.’ Countless families were brought to ruin by
association with him, and at no time that I can call did more eminent
people die by their own hands. As Thackeray says: “There is no greater
satire on that proud society ... than that it admired George!”
One episode which perhaps throws as much light as anything upon the
manners and morals of the time is the trial of Caroline of Brunswick,
the unhappy, if indiscreet, consort of George IV. Before making the
attempt I am afraid I must go back to 1795, when the Prince of Wales,
on the report of his not too refined sailor brother, decided to offer
his hand to that princess. He got very well paid by the country for the
sacrifice. His income was raised from £60,000 ($300,000) to £125,000
($625,000); for the preparations for the wedding he got £27,000
($135,000); a further grant of jewels and plate, or cash to buy them,
£28,000 ($140,000). Then came £15,000 ($130,000) to complete Carlton
House; and the Princess, his wife, was in addition offered an allowance
of £50,000 ($250,000) a year. For some reason--I should say she was the
only princess who ever did so--Caroline accepted less than was offered
as income; namely, £35,000 ($175,000).
It is true George also wanted his debts, amounting to a trifle
of £600,000 ($3,000,000) odd, paid, and failed to get it; still,
considering the value of money in those days, and that times in England
were worse than had been known,--wars, taxes, bad seasons, the poor in
abject distress, Pitt distracted how to raise money, sedition rampant,
and no very glorious period for the British arms,--he certainly did not
sell himself cheap. Of the miserable marriage which ensued little need
be said. From the time the Prince raised his bride, when she tried to
kneel, and said to Lord Malmesbury, “Harris, I am not well; get me a
glass of brandy,” to her death twenty-six years later, it is one long
discreditable story. But I allude to it for a personal reason. I have
myself seen two of the counsels of the Queen in the celebrated trial.
Dr. Lushington was a friend of my family’s, and I was at a school in
Brighton which Lord Brougham used to visit; and--I believe I am correct
in saying this--I actually received one of the prizes when he gave
them away. I certainly have a book on my shelves which, I fancy, I got
on that occasion. It assuredly does not make a man feel young when he
realises that he has seen and can remember men who not only witnessed
but took a very prominent part in a trial which was held ninety-six
years ago.
Let me, however, recapitulate the events which led up to the great
scene in the House of Lords. George as Prince of Wales hated his wife
from the first, and after the birth of the Princess Charlotte refused
to have anything to do with her. On April 30, 1796, the Prince wrote
a letter to the Princess in which he said: “Our inclinations are not
in our power, nor should either of us be held answerable to the other,
because nature has not made us suitable to each other.... I shall now
finally close this disagreeable correspondence, trusting that, as we
have completely explained ourselves to each other, the rest of our
lives will be passed in uninterrupted tranquillity.”
To do George justice, his wife does not seem to have been attractive.
He had excellent taste in dress and deportment; and Caroline was far
from being a model of refinement in appearance or manners, whilst her
choice of company was never discreet. The old King always treated
her with kindness and even affection, but he found it necessary to
warn her to be more careful in the selection of her society. In 1804
the Prince of Wales instituted a “Delicate Enquiry,” which four
Lords were appointed to conduct, with the result that the behaviour
of the Princess was pronounced not _un_satisfactory. In the years
which followed there were constant quarrels and recriminations about
the education of their daughter, the Princess Charlotte of Wales,
a high-spirited girl who stood up boldly to the ill treatment she
received at her father’s hands, and defended her mother. In 1814 the
Princess of Wales left England for her famous travels. Two years later
the Princess Charlotte married Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and settled down
at Claremont, a beautiful place purchased for her by the nation. The
young couple were thoroughly happy, the people looked forward to being
one day ruled over by a beloved and virtuous queen. The incredible
scandals of the family of George III were being forgotten, when the
news came that the Princess was dead.
I shall _never_ get to the trial! I must digress once more. What ensued
was almost farcical. Despite the fact that George III had an immense
family, he had no grandchildren. All his elderly sons hastened to get
married. The Prince Regent was very little married to his wife, and
very much so to various other ladies; the Duke of York had married
happily, and was, if not always faithful, a kindly husband; but he had
no family. The Duke of Cumberland had married a princess of whom the
royal family disapproved, and perhaps he was more hated by the nation
than any member of the house of Hanover. Among other things, many
firmly believed that he was really guilty of the murder of his servant,
Sellis. The idea of his coming to the throne was dreaded on all sides.
But there was no lack of _nominally_ unmarried Royal Dukes,--Clarence,
Sussex, Kent, and Cambridge. The nearest persons to the succession,
who had families, were the King of Würtemburg, his brother, and their
sister the Princess Frederica Buonaparte. It became necessary for the
Royal Dukes to take wives in accordance with the Royal Marriage Act of
1772;[27] and, though they had not only themselves but other ladies and
their children to consider, these noble princes presented themselves
at the altar of Hymen. Not, however, without some forethought, as the
following remarks of the Duke of Kent to his friend Mr. Creevey testify:
The Duke thought that his brother Clarence would marry, but that
his price would be too high for the ministers to accept, viz., “a
settlement such as is proper for a prince who marries expressly for
a succession to the Throne,” and in addition the payment of all his
debts, and a handsome provision for each of his ten natural children.
Kent, being next in the succession, was ready to do it cheaper. “It
is now twenty-seven years that Madame St. Laurent and I have lived
together, ... and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will
occasion me to part with her.” She need not have very much; but a
certain number of servants and a carriage are essentials. Being a “man
of no ambition,” the Duke of Kent wanted only £25,000 ($100,000) a year
in addition to his present income if he took a wife--the same sum as
York had when he married in 1792,--and Kent was generously prepared to
make no further demands because of the decreased value of money since
his brother’s allowance was made. “As to the payment of my debts,” he
concluded, “I don’t call them great. The nation, on the contrary, is
greatly my debtor.” So it is; for he married, and became the father of
Queen Victoria.
The Princess Caroline had left England in 1814 and had been touring in
the Mediterranean ever since. At first she was attended by some English
in her suite; but these gradually dropped off, leaving Her Royal
Highness without any of her husband’s subjects about her. We need not
follow her in her travels or adventures. It is enough to say that she
visited very out-of-the-way places and mixed with the sort of people no
ordinary lady, not to say a royal Princess, could be expected to meet.
She loaded her courier, Bergami, with honours and favours, she founded
an order of knighthood when she visited Jerusalem and made him Grand
Master. She had procured for him the title of Baron. Her conduct and
the familiarities she permitted were, to say the least, indiscreet.
Undoubtedly she had laid herself open to a serious charge of misconduct.
The Prince Regent resolved to do his best to get rid of his hated wife
by trying to obtain a divorce. But not only law but also public opinion
was against this. He had driven his wife away with every possible
insult, he had kept her apart from her daughter, the Queen, his mother,
had refused to receive her as Princess of Wales at court. And if, in
desperation, Caroline had failed in her duty, Europe rang with stories
of the immorality of the Regent, and the common people were heart and
soul on the side of his wife. As a divorce seemed hopeless, attempts
were made to bribe Caroline to renounce her titles and live on a large
income out of England. Matters came to a climax when George III died.
If George IV was King, his wife was Queen of England; and she was
resolved to return to the country and maintain her rights.
This miserable matrimonial squabble with all its sordid details rapidly
assumed the dimensions of a political struggle which rent the country
in twain. The Whigs had never forgiven George for using them as long
as he was Prince of Wales and throwing them over when he became Regent
in 1812. They therefore espoused the cause of the Queen; and as far
as possible--for they had little admiration of her conduct--defended
her. The Whig lawyers rallied to her cause, notably Henry Brougham,
who, despite his great talents, had suffered from the exclusiveness
of the great Whig families. As a parvenu, high political office was
closed to Brougham, but the case of the Queen gave him an unrivalled
chance as a lawyer. More honest and unselfish and almost as useful to
Queen Caroline was Alderman Wood, a prominent citizen of London, who
more than once filled the office of Lord Mayor. Despised by the polite
society of the time, called by the King, with his usual delicacy, “that
beast Wood,” the alderman understood better than anyone the effect of
the Queen’s return to the country. He knew that, however great her
indiscretions, her wrongs would win her popular sympathy, and that
her courage in facing her accusers would be sure to range the nation
on her side. That he was no vulgar demagogue is attested by the facts
that the royal family often sought his counsel; that it is due to his
advice that Queen Victoria was born in England; and that he was the
first baronet she created shortly after her accession to the throne.
But of all the Queen’s friends there is no one who was more honest
and faithful than that gaunt Scotch spinster, the Lady Ann Hamilton,
whose memoirs were published when she was very old, without her consent
and greatly to her distress. The daughter of the Duke of Hamilton
and sister to the radical Lord Archibald Hamilton, she was six foot
high, awkward and ungainly, and an object of ridicule to Caroline
and her friends. They called her Joan of Arc, and shewed her no
consideration and little courtesy. Yet in her hours of trial Caroline
had no truer or stauncher friend. Her “Secret History of the Court of
England,” published under the circumstances to which I have alluded,
is extraordinarily scurrilous, but it reflects the fierceness of party
spirit which animated the Whig faction; and I may have to recur to it.
George III died on January 29, 1820. The first act of his successor was
to refuse to allow the new Queen’s name to appear in the prayer for the
Royal family. But on the 7th of June Her Majesty entered London. The
road from Westminster Bridge to Greenwich was thronged with spectators.
“She travelled,” says Grenville, “in an open landau, Alderman Wood by
her side and Lady Ann Hamilton and another woman opposite. Everybody
was disgusted at the vulgarity of Wood sitting in the place of honour,
whilst the Duke of Hamilton’s sister was sitting backwards in the
carriage.” ... “It is impossible,” he adds, “to conceive the sensation
created by this event. Nobody either blames or approves of this sudden
return, but all ask, What will be done next? How is it to end?”
Events moved rapidly. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, produced the
famous green bag, full of incriminating documents, in the House of
Lords, but the Queen did not flinch. It was even proposed to bring her
to trial under the fourteenth century act of treasons, 23 Edw. III.
Finally, however, the King’s advisers determined, not to try the
Queen, but to introduce a bill into the House of Lords depriving her
of all royal titles and dignities and divorcing her from her husband.
But in order to carry the bill an investigation into her conduct was
necessary, so that she was practically, if not actually, tried.
I propose to ask you to follow the Queen’s case in Creevey’s notes,
and I think we shall gather from them something of the interest with
which people watched it.
The trial began on Aug. 17; and Creevey thus describes the entry of
the Queen. “To describe to you her appearance and manner is far beyond
my powers. I had been taught to believe she was as much improved in
looks as in dignity of manners; it is therefore with much pain I am
obliged to observe that the nearest resemblance I can recollect to this
much injured lady is a toy which you used to call Fanny Royde. There
is another toy of a rabbit or a cat, whose tail you squeeze under its
body, and then out it jumps in half a minute off the ground into the
air. The first of these toys you must suppose to represent the person
of the Queen; the latter the manner by which she popped all at once
into the House, made a _duck_ at the throne, another to the Peers, and
a concluding jump into the chair which was placed for her. Lady Ann
Hamilton was behind the Queen, leaning on her brother Archy’s arm....
She is full six feet high and bears a striking resemblance to one of
Lord Derby’s great deer.”