THE ROYAL FAMILY
The troubles of George III were not exclusively the result of his
incursions into politics, for he had much worry in connexion with most
of his brothers and sisters, sometimes through their fault and sometimes
through the circumstances in which they were placed. Exclusive of his
heir, Frederick, Prince of Wales, left behind him six children. His
youngest son, Frederick William, died in 1765 at the age of fifteen; "an
amiable youth and the most promising, it was thought, of the family. The
hereditary disorder in his blood had fallen on his lungs and turned to a
consumption."[122] A daughter, Louisa Anne, fell a victim to the same
disease three years later; but this was a happy release, for, afflicted
with bodily disease from her infancy, she was so remarkably small for
her age that though she had completed her nineteenth year, she looked
like a child of about thirteen.[123] There remained the Dukes of York,
Gloucester, and Cumberland, and the Princesses Augusta and Caroline
Matilda.
[122] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.
[123] _Ibid._
The Princes probably inherited from their father a love of pleasure, and
this had doubtless been quickened by the restrictions imposed upon them
when they were in the custody of the Princess Dowager. She kept them in
such rigid durance that when Prince Henry, a lively lad, was asked if he
had been confined with the epidemic cold, he replied: "Confined, that I
am, but without any cold." It was, therefore, only to be expected that
as soon as the boys could escape from leading-strings, they would kick
over the traces, and plunge gaily and unthinkingly into all the
pleasures that await princes in this world.
Edward Augustus, afterwards Duke of York, as the eldest of the brothers,
was the first to secure his liberty. "Sir Charles [Hanbury Williams]'s
daughter, Lady Essex,[124] has engaged the attention of Prince Edward,
who has got his liberty, seems extremely disposed to use it, and has
great life and good-humour; she has already made a ball for him,"
Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann in January, 1757, when the Prince was
eighteen; and soon William Henry, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, and
Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, made their bow to society, and
became much in evidence. "Every place is like one of Shakespeare's
plays: Enter the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and attendants."
[124] Charlotte, Countess of Essex.
The Duke of York was of an amorous disposition and at an early age had
love passages with the Duchess of Richmond,[125] with Lady
Stanhope,[126] and with the Countess of Tyrconnel, of the last of whom
Wraxall has left a description: "my particular acquaintance, feminine
and delicate as her figure, very fair, with a profusion of light
hair."[127] The Duke was further said to be engaged to that Lady Mary
Coke of whom Lady Temple wrote:
"She sometimes laughs, but never loud,
She's handsome, too, but sometimes proud.
At court she bears away the bell,
She dresses fine and figures well;
With decency she's gay and airy;
Who can this be but Lady Mary?"
And Lady Mary was said to have taken his intentions so seriously that
now and then, in the belief that she was married to him, she signed her
name like a royal personage.[128] "The Duke of York has L3,000 a year
added to his income, which makes it L15,000," said Lady Sarah Lennox in
December, 1764. "He is in great spirits and has begun giving balls." He
drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs, but found death in the
pleasant draught. He went abroad in 1767, caught cold at a ball given by
the Duc de Villars at his country seat, and, refusing to take care of
himself, became ill, and died at Monaco on September 17.
[125] Wife of Charles, third Duke of Richmond.
[126] Wife of Sir William Stanhope.
[127] _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times._ "Her husband, the Earl of
Tyrconnel, might be said to contribute about this time more than any
nobleman about the court to the recreation of the reigning family, for,
while his wife formed the object of the homage of one prince of the
blood, his sister, had long presided in the affections of another. Lady
Almeria Carpenter, one of the most beautiful women of her time, but to
whom Nature had been sparing of intellectual gifts, was the person that
attracted the Duke of Gloucester, who soon forgot all he had gone
through for his wife."
[128] _Letters of Lady Jane Coke._
"His immoderate pursuit of pleasure and unremitted fatigues in
travelling beyond his strength, succeeded without interruption by balls
and entertainments, had thrown his blood, naturally distempered and full
of humours, into a state that brought on a putrid and irresistible
fever," Walpole wrote. "He suffered considerably, but with a heroism
becoming a great Prince. Before he died he wrote a penitential letter to
the King (though, in truth, he had no faults but what his youth made
pardonable), and tenderly recommended his servants to him. The Prince of
Monaco, though his favourite child was then under inoculation at Paris,
remained with and waited on him to his last breath, omitting nothing
that tenderness could supply or his royal birth demand. The Duke of York
had lately passed some time in the French Court, and by the quickness of
his replies, by his easy frankness, and (in him) unusual propriety of
conduct, had won much on the affection of the King of France, and on the
rest of the Court, though his loose and perpetually rolling eyes, his
short sight, and the singular whiteness of his hair, which, the French
said, resembled feathers, by no means bespoke prejudice in his favour.
His temper was good, his generosity royal, and his parts not defective:
but his inarticulate loquacity and the levity of his conduct,
unsupported by any countenance from the King, his brother, had conspired
to place him but low in the estimation of his countrymen. As he could
obtain no credit from the King's unfeeling nature, he was in a situation
to do little good; as he had been gained by the Opposition, he might
have done hurt--at least so much to the King that his death was little
lamented. Nor can we judge whether more years and experience would have
corrected his understanding or corrupted his heart, nor whether, which
is most probable, they would not have done both."[129]
[129] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.
[Illustration: _From a portrait by L. F. Liolard_
HENRY FREDERICK, DUKE OF CUMBERLAND]
[Illustration: _From a portrait by H. D. Hamilton_
WILLIAM HENRY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER
_To face p. 102, Vol. II_]
The Duke of York was foolish and dissipated, and though Mr. Cole says,
"I have been told that his private conversation was as weak and low as
his person was contemptible," he was not without good qualities, and it
is difficult to quarrel with Sir George Trevelyan, who, speaking of the
sons of Frederick, Prince of Wales, says, "Death gradually thinned the
illustrious group, carrying off princes whom the world pronounced
hopeful and promising in exact proportion as they died young."[130]
Certainly the Duke of York compares favourably with the two brothers who
survived him.
[130] _Early Life of C. J. Fox._
"The Duke of Gloucester is following his [the Duke of York's] steps, and
has supped at Lady Harrington's and trots about like anything," Lady
Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on December 16, 1764; and, in
due course, the Duke of Cumberland, emancipated from maternal control,
entered upon his unedifying career as a man about town. There was,
however, a marked difference between the brothers. The elder was,
according to Walpole, who did not usually present an agreeable picture
of a member of the royal family, "reserved, serious, pious, of the most
decent and sober deportment, and possessing a plain understanding,
though of no brilliance," and the same authority adds that "an honorable
_amour_ which totally engrossed him preserved him from the
irregularities into which his brothers Edward and Henry fell."[131]
[131] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.
The honourable _amour_ to which Walpole alludes was the Duke's
attachment to Maria, the widow of James, second Earl of Waldegrave. Lady
Waldegrave was a natural daughter of Sir Edward Walpole by Mrs.
Clements, a milliner, and so was a niece of the famous letter-writer,
who took the greatest interest in her welfare. After the death of her
first husband in 1763, she was still a reigning beauty, and was besieged
with offers of marriage including one from "the greatest match of the
day," the Duke of Portland. She refused all her suitors, and her name
began to be coupled with that of the Duke of Gloucester.[132] "The
report of this week is that the King has forbid the Duke of Gloucester
to speak to his pretty widow; the truth is that she is gone out of town,
but more 'tis difficult to know," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote on March
8, 1766. "He has given her five pearl bracelets that cost L500--that's
not for nothing surely?"[133]
[132] "The Duke of Gloucester has professed a passion for the Dowager
Waldegrave. He is never from her elbow. This flatters Harry Walpole not
a little, though he pretends to dislike it."--Gilly Williams to George
Selwyn, December, 1764.
[133] _Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox._
[Illustration: MARIA, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
_To face p. 104, Vol. II_]
Perturbed by the scandal that was being circulated, Lady Waldegrave
consulted her uncle, who advised her not to see the Duke again,
whereupon she wrote to the latter a touching letter, in which she stated
that while she was too inconsiderable a person to aspire to his hand,
she was of too much consequence to become his mistress, and that
therefore the intercourse between them must cease. After the lapse of a
fortnight the intimacy was renewed, and Walpole, who knew his niece's
character, felt confident that a marriage took place. This, indeed, was
the case, for the Duke and Lady Waldegrave were secretly married on
September 6, 1766, although it was not publicly announced until June,
1772, and not even Sir Edward Walpole was informed until May 19.
"My dear and ever honoured sir," the Duchess wrote to her father on May
19, 1772, "you cannot easily imagine how much every past affliction has
been increased to me by my not being at liberty to make you quite easy.
The duty to a husband being superior to that we owe a father, I hope
will plead my pardon, and that instead of blaming my past reserve, you
will think it commendable. When the Duke of Gloucester married me (which
was in September, 1766), I promised him upon no consideration in the
world to own it, _even to you_, without his permission, which I never
had till yesterday, when he arrived here in much better health and
looks, better than ever I saw him, yet, as you may suppose much hurt at
all that passed in his absence; so much so that I had the greatest
difficulty to prevail on him to let things as much as possible remain as
they are. To secure my character, without injuring his, is the utmost of
my wishes, and I daresay that you and all my relations will agree with
me that I shall be much happier to be called Lady Waldegrave and
respected as Duchess of Gloucester than to feel myself the cause of his
leading such a life as his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, does, in
order to be called your royal highness. I am prepared for the sort of
abuse the newspapers will be full of. Very few people will believe that
a woman will refuse to be called princess if it is in her power. _To
have the power is my pride_, and not using it in some measure pays the
debt I owe the Duke for the honour he has done me. All that I wish of my
relations is that they will show the world that they are satisfied with
my conduct, yet _seem_ to disguise the reason. If ever I am unfortunate
enough to be called the Duchess of Gloucester, there is an end of
_almost_ all the comforts which I now enjoy, which, if things go on as
they are now, are _many_." It was this letter that drew from Horace
Walpole the most sincere commendation, perhaps, that he ever bestowed:
"I have always thought that feeling bestows the most sublime eloquence,
and that women write better letters than men. I, a writer in some
esteem, and all my life a letter-writer, never penned anything like this
letter of my niece. How mean did my prudence appear, compared with hers,
which was void of all personal considerations but her honour."
While the Duke of Gloucester was engaged in the courtship and marriage
of Lady Waldegrave, the Duke of Cumberland was spending the years in
riotous living. Scandals clustered thick around his name, and his
pursuit and conquest of Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor, resulted in an action
by her husband for _crim. con._, in which he was awarded L10,000
damages. The Duke, unable to pay this sum which with law-costs amounted
to L13,000, was obliged to seek aid from his brother, the King, who was
horrified at least as much by the attack upon his purse as at the affair
itself. He had, however, no choice but to find means to settle the
claim.
RICHMOND LODGE, _November 5, 1770_.
LORD NORTH,--A subject of a most private and delicate kind obliges
me to lose no time in acquainting you that my two brothers have
this day applied to me on the difficulty that the folly of the
younger has drawn him into; the affair is too public for you to
doubt but that it regards the lawsuit; the time will expire this
day seven-night, when he must pay the damages and the other
expenses attending it. He has taken no one step to raise the money,
and now has applied to me as the only means by which he can obtain
it, promising to repay it in a year and a half; I therefore
promised to write to you, though I saw great difficulty in you
finding so large a sum as thirteen thousand pounds in so short a
time; but their pointing out to me that the prosecutor would
certainly force the House, which would at this licentious time
occasion disagreeable reflections on the rest of his family as well
as on him. I shall speak more fully to you on this subject on
Wednesday, but the time is so short that I did not choose to delay
opening this affair till then; besides, I am not fond of taking
persons on delicate affairs unprepared; whatever can be done ought
to be done; and I ought as little as possible to appear in so very
improper a business.
GEORGE R.
[Illustration: _From an engraving by V. Green_
ANNE, DUCHESS OF CUMBERLAND
_To face p. 109, Vol. II_]
"I cannot enough express how much I feel at being in the least concerned
in an affair that my way of thinking has ever taught me to behold as
highly improper; but I flatter myself the truths I have thought it
incumbent to utter may be of some use in his future conduct," George III
had written after the Grosvenor episode became known to him; but he
placed too much reliance upon his powers of persuasion, for, the Duke's
connexion with Lady Grosvenor not enduring, he was soon engaged in other
intrigues,[134] the most notable and enduring of which was that with
Lady Anne Horton,[135] a woman of great beauty. "This lady, like every
member of her family, by no means wanted talents; but they were more
specious than solid--better calculated for show than for use, for
captivating admiration than for exciting esteem," Wraxall has written.
"Her personal charms, allowance being made for the injury they had
sustained from time--for in 1786 she was no longer young--fully
justified the Duke's passion. No woman of her time performed the honours
of her drawing-room with more affability, ease, and dignity." Horace
Walpole, too, has left a description of her charms. "There was something
so bewitching in her languishing eyes, which she could animate to
enchantment if she pleased, and her coquetry was so active, so varied,
and yet so habitual, that it was difficult not to see through it, and
yet as difficult to resist it. She danced divinely, and had a great deal
of wit, but of the satiric kind; and as she had haughtiness before her
rise, no wonder she claimed all the observances due to her rank, after
she became Duchess of Cumberland."[136]
[134] For years there was a rumour that the Duke of Cumberland had
married Olive Wilmot in 1767, and Miss Wilmot's daughter (afterwards
Mrs. Serres) called herself Princess Olive of Cumberland. An attempt to
prove the authenticity of the alleged marriage was brought before the
courts in 1866 by Mrs. Ryves, a daughter of "Princess Olive," but the
documents shown in support of the claim were proved to be spurious, and
it was dismissed. However, according to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, the Duke
of Kent thought there was "something" in Mrs. Serres's story, "and tried
to get some attention paid to her claims. Not having any money of his
own, he was said to have asked Robert Owen to make her some advances,
whilst he guaranteed." (_The Family of George III._) A probable solution
is that Olive Wilmot was the Duke's mistress.
[135] Lady Anne Luttrell, daughter of Simon, Earl of Carhampton, and
wife of Christopher Horton, of Catton Hall, Derby.
An amusing story is told _a propos_ of Lord Carhampton and the Prince
Regent. The Earl was seriously ill in 1812, and the rumour came to
Carlton House that he was dead, whereupon the Prince, without waiting to
authenticate the news, immediately gave away the colonelcy of the
regiment of carabineers which Lord Carhampton held. The report reached
the sick man, who instantly sent a friend to Pall Mall to tell his Royal
Highness that he hoped to recover, and therefore begged him to dispose
of any other regiment in the service except the carabineers. His Royal
Highness might rest assured, the Earl added, that he would give special
directions to his attendants not to lose a moment, after it was
ascertained that he was _really dead_, in conveying the news to Carlton
House.
[136] _Memoirs of George III._
The Duke of Cumberland did not attempt to conceal his marriage, and
according to some accounts, he informed the King in a curt note from
abroad during his honeymoon, though another, and more probable, version
declares that he went to the King, and walking with him in the garden
gave him a letter. "The King took it, saying he supposed he need not
read it now. 'Yes, sir,' said the Duke, 'you must read it directly.' On
doing so his Majesty broke out into the most violent language,
addressing his brother as 'You fool! You blockhead!' and declaring that
'this woman could be nothing and never should be anything to him.' He
then told the Duke to go abroad. This led to an open breach."[137]
[137] Percy Fitzgerald: _The Family of George III_.
The King was so angry that he determined forthwith to put a stop to
these clandestine marriages, and in February, 1772, sent a message to
Parliament, introducing the Royal Marriage Act, the main object of which
was to prohibit the marriage of any descendant of George II, unless a
foreigner, marrying without the consent of the sovereign. "I am much
pleased with the draft of the message, and with that of the Bill for
preventing marriages in the royal family without the previous consent of
the Crown, except the issue of princesses that have or may be married
into foreign families," George wrote to Lord North on February 4, 1772;
but just about this time came terrible news from Denmark about the
English princess who had married the king of that country.
"The most hardened men of the world confessed to being shocked when,
with such news barely three weeks old, the wretched Caroline's brother
invited his Parliament to consider a scheme of legislation, under which
British princesses might have to choose between a lifetime of celibacy,
and an ill-assorted union like that which just then was dissolving
amidst a scene of blood and misery such as could be paralleled only in
the imagination of the dramatist."[138] Though the Bill was introduced
by the express direction of the King, not one of the ministers wished to
identify himself with it. "One thing remarkable is that the King has
not a servant in the line of business in either House, except the Chief
Justice of the King's Bench [Mansfield] can be called so, who will own
the Bill, or who has refrained from every public insinuation against it,
as much as can come from those who vote for it, from considerations
declared to be of another nature,"[139] wrote the Earl of Shelburne on
March 15, 1772, to Chatham, who pronounced the measure "newfangled and
impudent." Still the Royal Marriage Act passed the Lords without serious
opposition, and it was brought to the Commons on March 4. There it had
to contend against a strong feeling.
[138] Trevelyan: _Early Life of Charles James Fox_.
[139] _Chatham Correspondence._
"I think it is the wickedest Act in the Statute Book. It was brought
forward to gratify the late Queen's pride, to protect her from the
mortification of having the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave and Mrs.
Horton raised to the rank of her sisters-in-law," Nicholls said. "It was
well said of some persons, while this Bill was depending in Parliament,
that the title of the Bill should be 'An Act to encourage Fornications
and Adultery in the descendants of George II.'"[140]
[140] _Recollections and Reflections._
The original bill stipulated that the sovereign's consent must be
obtained whatever the age of the prince or princess, but in the Lower
House this clause was altered so as to make the consent of the sovereign
necessary until the royal personage desirous to marry should have
reached the age of twenty-six, after which the union might take place
unless objected to by Parliament, to which one year's notice of the
proposed alliance must be given. Even with this modification, there was
much opposition, but the King was resolved that the bill should become
law. "I do expect every nerve to be strained to carry the bill through
both Houses with a becoming firmness, for it is not a question that
immediately relates to administration, but personally to myself, and
therefore I have a right to expect a hearty support from every one in my
service, and shall remember defaulters,"[141] George wrote to Lord
North; but in spite of this expression of opinion, while the second
reading passed by 268 to 140, the figures on the third reading showed
only a majority of eighteen, the exact number of votes that had
negatived an amendment to limit the operation of the bill to the reign
of George III and three years longer. Burke denounced the measure, and
Fox resigned his office so as to be free to oppose it; and their
attitude was shared by the public at large.
[141] _Correspondence between George III and Lord North._
"Should wedded beauty Glo'ster's choice approve,
And honour kindle at the call of Love,
Oh! let forgiveness ne'er abuse the throne,
Unmov'd, and sullen, hear a brother groan!
_Gomorrah's_ crime alone shall pardon find,
Or _Blood's_ offence, for _blood_.
Should a mad brother in the June of life
Debauch a virgin or seduce a wife,
Risk his good name on _Whistle-jacket's_ speed,
Or run the race of Folly, and succeed;
That brother to the royal _bosom take_,
And love the offender for;
But should that brother wisdom's voice obey,
And Hymen's torch to virtue light the way;
That brother from the royal bosom thrust,
Disgrace his honest offspring, and be _just_
Thus shall the genuine German line succeed,
And the same lead run sterling through the breed."[142]
[142] "Peregrine the Elder": _An Heroic Epistle to an Unfortunate
Monarch_. 1778.
Other squibs will be found in the present writer's _The First Gentleman
of Europe_, where the text of the Royal Marriage Act is given, _a
propos_ of the union of the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert.
As soon as an intimation of the Royal Marriage Act reached the Duke of
Gloucester, he informed the King of his marriage, and further acquainted
him with an impending interesting event at which he desired the great
officers of state should attend. The news was a great blow to George,
who at first took no notice of his brother's communication; but upon
receipt of a second letter deigned to state that after the birth of a
child he would send and have "the marriage, as well as the birth
enquired into, in order that both may be authenticated." This was most
unsatisfactory to the Duke and his wife, and the former, to the general
astonishment, rose to the occasion, and sent a dignified reply, in which
he demanded an immediate inquiry, otherwise he would state his case in
person in the House of Lords. The threat produced the desired result,
inquiries were made, and as the marriage was informal, though not
actually illegal, it was only after the Duke's avowed intention to go
through the ceremony again that the King accepted the marriage. His
consent was given on May 27, and two days later a child was born.[143]
[143] William Frederick succeeded his father as Duke of Gloucester,
1805; married Princess Mary, fourth daughter of George III, 1816.
Though the King could not refuse to recognize the marriage of his
brothers, he could and did decline to receive the parties to them, and
for some years the two Dukes and their wives were in disgrace. The Duke
and Duchess of Gloucester bore their exile with equanimity, for the Duke
was passionately fond of travelling and perhaps never so happy as when
roaming over the continent.
He was the King's favourite brother,[144] and was eventually received
into favour, when the King could not well refrain from pardoning the
other transgressor. "You have heard, I suppose, of the conduct of the
two duchesses about their husbands' reconciliation with the King," Lady
Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien, in the summer of 1780. "The
Duchess of Cumberland sent her husband to Court, and said that she would
be no hindrance to his going, 'that her house was her palace, and her
husband her guard, and she wanted no others.' _Voyez un peu comme elle
s'y prend bien pour arriver a sa fin._ The Duke of Gloucester goes only
in private, but yet the King is so fond of him, he seems to approve of
everything he does, so that it's hard to tell who is in the right, but I
would bet my money on the head of a Luttrell being in the right road to
preferment, and it's no bad sign of it when a Luttrell adopts _les beaux
sentiments_ and is scrupulous of family duties among relations, for it
is not in that line they have hitherto shone."
[144] "In their boyhood each had manifested that serious, reserved and
pious disposition which happily preserved them from plunging into those
youthful irregularities which subsequently disgraced the careers of
their brothers, the Dukes of York and Cumberland. Each had suffered from
the effects of a faulty education; each, on reaching manhood, had
happily had the sagacity to appreciate the grievous disadvantage which
it imposed upon them, and each, by diligent study, had endeavoured to
make up for the faults and deficiencies of the past."--Jesse: _Memoirs
of George III_.
The Duke of Gloucester was no more able than his brothers to be faithful
to one woman, and he soon devoted himself to Lady Almeria Carpenter,
when his wife, a high-spirited woman, for whom he had fought so well,
demanded, and in 1787 obtained, an informal separation. The Duke was,
indeed, scarcely worth securing except for his title, for he was almost
entirely destitute of intelligence, as two anecdotes related by Walpole
prove. On one occasion he came into a room where his wife was sitting to
Reynolds, of whom he took no notice until the Duchess whispered to him
to address the painter. "So," said he, willing to be agreeable, "so you
always begin with the head, do you?" This was only to be equalled by his
remark to Gibbon: "What, scribble, scribble, scribble?" Feeble in
health, the Duke's life was frequently despaired of, but he survived
until 1803. "We are in hourly expectation of the news of the poor Duke
of Gloucester's death," the Queen wrote to Lady Harcourt on August 29,
1803. "His sufferings must have been dreadfully painful; but his good
temper and cheerfulness never left him. I understand that he was not
quite open with his physician, and that some complaint he kept a secret
for three days, to which the medicines which they administered were
fatal. How unfortunate to deceive oneself, and much more when one wishes
to deceive others. This the King is not to know; but the physicians
stand justified to the world.... The poor Duke has left a will, and
desires to be buried at Windsor; which is granted. He left the Duchess
sole executrix; but with a proviso to pay his debts, which the world
says are very few."
The reconciliation of the Duke of Cumberland with the King was hollow
indeed, for these brothers had nothing in common, and the monarch hated
his sister-in-law. "The King held her [the Duchess] in great alienation,
because he believed she lent herself to facilitate or to gratify the
Prince of Wales's inclinations on some points beyond the limits of
propriety--Carlton House and Cumberland House communicating behind by
the gardens."[145] The reasons for George III's dislike were
well-founded, and, in addition, the Duke committed the unpardonable sin
in allying himself with the Opposition, and was further the prime factor
in inducing his nephew, the Prince of Wales, to set himself against the
Court. During the American troubles in 1775, ministerial Earl told the
Duke that his Majesty hoped his brother would support the measures of
the Government. "God forbid," said his Royal Highness, "that a prince
of the House of Hanover should violate those rights in America, which
they were raised to the throne of England for asserting," and he voted
in favour of Chatham's plan of conciliation. That fine speech stands
alone in the records of his libertine career.
[145] Wraxall: _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times_.
The King's eldest sister, Princess Augusta, was, according to Horace
Walpole, "not handsome, but tall enough and not ill-made, with the
German whiteness of hair and complexion, so remarkable in the royal
family, and with their precipitate yet thick Westphalian accent."[146]
At an early age she interested herself in politics, and soon showed a
desire to meddle in matters of state, which desire was particularly
annoying to her mother, for, unlike the Princess Dowager, she was
attached to Pitt and with the Duke of York "inveighed openly and boldly
against the policy of the Court." Such a firebrand was an active danger
in the royal family, and it was feared lest she might infect her
brothers and sisters and even the young Queen with her obnoxious
opinions. It was, therefore, thought advisable to remove her from
England, and this was achieved by marrying her in 1764 to Charles
William Ferdinand, Hereditary-Prince of Brunswick Wolfenbuettel.
[146] _Memoirs of George III._
[Illustration: _From a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds_
AUGUSTA, DUCHESS OF BRUNSWICK]
[Illustration: _Portrait by Cotes_
CAROLINA MATILDA, QUEEN OF DENMARK
_To face p. 120, Vol. II_]
The bridegroom of the Princess Royal was treated by the Court with great
coldness, for it was known that he had been discussing English politics
with more freedom than discretion: all the ceremonials not absolutely
essential were omitted, the servants were not given the customary new
liveries for the marriage, and though Charles was perforce lodged at
Somerset House, no sentinel was placed at the door of his apartment.
Indeed had he been an uninvited guest his reception could not have been
more marked by stinging slights. The Prince, a high-spirited, not
overwise young man of nine-and-twenty, was very angry at the treatment
accorded him by the family of his bride, and since the Court ignored him
so far as possible, he accepted the attentions of the leaders of the
Opposition, dined with the Duke of Cumberland and the Duke of Newcastle,
and visited Pitt at Hayes.
Very different was the conduct of the public, which was delighted to
welcome the gallant young soldier, who had distinguished himself in war
under Frederick the Great, and cheered him to the echo whenever he
appeared in public. One day, he kissed his hand to a soldier of Elliot's
Light Horse, who was at once surrounded by a crowd, and asked if he knew
the Prince. "Yes," said the man, "he once led me into a scrape, which
nobody but himself could have brought me out of again." "You may guess,"
wrote Walpole, "how much this added to the Prince's popularity, which
was at high-water mark before." The Prince had arrived in England on
January 12, and was married on the 16th. Two days later the whole royal
family went to Covent Garden Theatre, and the public took this occasion
to show their opinion of the manner in which the visitor had been
received. The King and Queen took their seats in a profound silence, and
deafening cheers greeted the appearance of the bridal pair. "The shouts,
claps, and huzzas were immoderate," Walpole informed Sir Horace Mann.
"He sat behind his Princess and her brothers. The galleries called him
to come forward. In the middle of the play he went to be elected a
member of the Royal Society, and returned to the theatre when the
applause was renewed."
The subsequent life of the Prince and Princess of Brunswick was
conventional--conventional, that is, according to the standard of
royalty in those days. "The Duchess of Brunswick is brought to bed of a
brat, and they say she has not been taken care of, and that the Prince
is not good to her," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on
December 16, 1764; "but I don't believe a word of it." Certainly the
Duke was not faithful to his wife, and had many intrigues, the most
enduring of which was with Madame de Herzfeldt. "There were some unlucky
things in our Court, which made my position difficult," subsequently
said Princess Charlotte of Brunswick, who married the Prince of Wales.
"My father was most entirely attached to a lady for thirty years who, in
fact, was his mistress. She was the beautifullest creature and the
cleverest; but though my father continued to pay my poor mother all
possible respect, my poor mother could not suffer this attachment. The
consequence was that I did not know what to do between them: when I was
civil to the one I was scolded by the other; and I was very tired of
being shuttlecock between them."
After the death of the Duke at the battle of Jena, his principality fell
into the hands of the French, and the Duchess fled to England, where,
owing to the difference between her daughter and the Prince of Wales,
she lived in semi-retirement until her death on March 23, 1813.
Far more tragic was the fate of the Princess Caroline Amelia, who was
married at the age of fifteen to Christian VII, King of Denmark. "The
poor Queen of Denmark is gone out alone into the wide world; not a
creature she knows to attend her any further than Altona," Miss Talbot
wrote to Mrs. Carter on October 4, 1766. "It is worse than dying; for
die she must to all she has ever seen or known; but then it is only
dying out of one bad world into another just like it, and where she is
to have cares and fears, and dangers and sorrows, that will all yet be
new to her.... They have just been telling me how bitterly she cried in
the coach, as far as anybody saw her." The girl's feelings at this time
proved only too truly prophetic of the rest of her brief life. Her
husband was an abandoned _roue_, and, it was said, ill-treated her.
After two years, King Christian, without his wife, came to pay a
prolonged visit to England, where he was received by George III with
great coldness, although, of course, the necessary ceremonials could not
be avoided. "As to-morrow is the day you receive foreign ministers, you
will acquaint M. de Dieden that I desire he will assure the King, his
master, that I am desirous of making his stay in this country as
agreeable as possible," George wrote to Lord Weymouth on June 8, 1768.
"That I therefore wish to be thoroughly apprised of the mode in which he
chooses to be treated, that I may exactly conform to it. This will throw
whatever may displease the King of Denmark, during his stay there, on
his shoulders, and consequently free me from that _desagrement_; but
you know very well the whole of it is very disagreeable to me."
After Christian's return the relations between him and his Queen were
strained to the uttermost. He was now, as a consequence of his
dissipations, a physical wreck; and his wife, taking a leaf from his
book, committed all sorts of rash and foolish actions. She carried on an
intrigue with Stuensee, the Prime Minister, and made no attempt whatever
to hide their intimacy. Owing to the intervention of the Queen Dowager,
who desired to secure the throne for her younger son Frederick, it was
determined to end the scandal. Stuensee was arrested and executed in
1772, and the Queen was sent to Cronenborg, where she was kept in strict
confinement. It was suspected that she would meet the same fate as her
lover, but this was averted by the action of the British Government, who
sent a fleet into the Baltic, when the Queen was released. She went to
Stade in Hanover, and afterwards to Zell, where she died on May 10,
1775. Whether her intrigue with the minister was innocent or guilty need
not now be argued. "I am going to appear before God," the unhappy woman
said on her deathbed. "I now protest I am innocent of the guilt imputed
to me, and that I was never unfaithful to my husband."