ARLINGTON STREET, _Aug._ 12, 1762.
A Prince of Wales [George IV.] was born this morning; the prospect of
your old neighbour [the Pretender] at Rome does not improve; the House
of Hanover will have numbers in its own family sufficient to defend
their crown--unless they marry a Princess of Anhalt Zerbst. What a
shocking tragedy that has proved already! There is a manifesto arrived
to-day that makes one shudder! This northern Athaliah, who has the
modesty not to name her murdered _husband_ in that light, calls him _her
neighbour_; and, as if all the world were savages, like Russians,
pretends that he died suddenly of a distemper that never was
expeditious; mocks Heaven with pretensions to charity and piety; and
heaps the additional inhumanity on the man she has dethroned and
assassinated, of imputing his death to a judgment from Providence. In
short, it is the language of usurpation and blood, counselled and
apologised for by clergymen! It is Brunehault[1] and an archbishop!
[Footnote 1: Brunehault (in modern English histories called Brunhild)
was the wife of Sigebert, King of Austrasia (that district of France
which lies between the Meuse and the Rhine) and son of Clotaire I. The
"Biographie Universelle" says of her: "This Princess, attractive by her
beauty, her wit, and her carriage, had the misfortune to possess a great
ascendency over her husband, and to have lost sight of the fact that
even sovereigns cannot always avenge themselves with impunity." Her
sister, Galswith, the wife of Chilperic, King of Neustria, between the
Loire and the Meuse, had been assassinated by Fredegonde, and
Brunehault, determined to avenge her, induced Sigebert to make war on
Chilperic, who had married Fredegonde. He gained a victory; but
Fredegonde contrived to have him also assassinated, and Brunehault
became Fredegonde's prisoner. But Murovée, son of Chilperic, fell in
love with her, and married her, and escaping from Rouen, fled into
Austrasia. At last, in 595, Fredegonde died, and Brunehault subdued the
greater part of Neustria, and ruled with great but unscrupulous energy.
She encouraged St. Augustine in his mission to England; she built
hospitals and churches, earning by her zeal in such works a letter of
panegyric from Pope Gregory the Great. But, old as she was, she at the
same time gave herself up to a life of outrageous license. It was not,
however, her dissolute life which proved fatal to her, but the design
which she showed to erect a firm monarchy in Austrasia and Neustria, by
putting down the overgrown power of the nobles. They raised an army to
attack her; she was defeated, and with four of her great-grandchildren,
the sons of her grandson, King Theodoric, who had been left to her
guardianship, fell into the hands of the nobles, who put her to death
with every circumstance of cruelty and indignity. (See Kitchin's
"History of France," i. 91.)]
I have seen Mr. Keith's first despatch; in general, my account was
tolerably correct; but he does not mention Ivan. The conspiracy advanced
by one of the gang being seized, though for another crime; they thought
themselves discovered. Orloff, one of them, hurried to the Czarina, and
told her she had no time to lose. She was ready for anything; nay,
marched herself at the head of fourteen thousand men and a train of
artillery against her husband, but not being the only Alecto in Muscovy,
she had been aided by a Princess Daschkaw, a nymph under twenty, and
sister to the Czar's mistress. It was not the latter, as I told you, but
the Chancellor's wife, who offered up the order of St. Catherine. I do
not know how my Lord Buckingham [the English Minister at St. Petersburg]
feels, but unless to conjure up a tempest against this fury of the
north, nothing could bribe me to set my foot in her dominions. Had she
been priestess of the Scythian Diana, she would have sacrificed her
brother by choice. It seems she does not degenerate; her mother was
ambitious and passionate for intrigues; she went to Paris, and dabbled
in politics with all her might.
The world had been civilising itself till one began to doubt whether
ancient histories were not ancient legends. Voltaire had unpoisoned half
the victims to the Church and to ambition. Oh! there never was such a
man as Borgia[1]; the league seemed a romance. For the honour of poor
historians, the assassinations of the Kings of France and Portugal,
majesties still living in spite of Damien and the Jesuits, and the
dethronement and murder of the Czar, have restored some credibility to
the annals of former ages. Tacitus recovers his character by the edition
of Petersburg.
[Footnote 1: Borgia, the father, was Pope Sextus VI.; Caesar Borgia was
the son--both equally infamous for their crimes, and especially their
murders by poison.]
We expect the definitive courier from Paris every day. Now it is said
that they ask time to send to Spain. What? to ask leave to desert them!
The Spaniards, not so expeditious in usurpation as the Muscovites, have
made no progress in Portugal. Their absurd manifestoes appeared too
soon. The Czarina and Princess Daschkaw stay till the stroke is struck.
Really, my dear Sir, your Italy is growing unfashionably innocent,--if
you don't take care, the Archbishop of Novgorod will deserve, by his
crimes, to be at the head of the _Christian_ Church.[1] I fear my
friend, good Benedict, infected you all with his virtues.
[Footnote 1: That is, Pope Benedict XIV.]
You see how this Russian revolution has seized every cell in my head--a
Prince of Wales is passed over in a line, the peace in another line. I
have not even told you that the treasure of the _Hermione_,[1] reckoned
eight hundred thousand pounds, passed the end of my street this morning
in one-and-twenty waggons. Of the Havannah I could tell you nothing if I
would; people grow impatient at not hearing from thence. Adieu!
[Footnote 1: In August, 1761, Sir G. Pocock took Havannah, the capital
of Cuba. In September Commodore Cornish and Colonel Draper took Manilla,
the principal of the Philippine Islands; and the treasures found in
Manilla alone exceeded the sum here mentioned by Walpole, and yet did
not equal those brought home from the Havannah, as Walpole mentions in a
subsequent letter.]
You see I am a punctual correspondent when Empresses commit murders.
_NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE--CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCE OF WALES._