THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS
It was an ill fate that brought Caroline, Princess of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel to England to be the bride of George, Prince of
Wales, one April day in the year 1795; although probably no woman has
ever set forth on her bridal journey with a lighter or prouder heart,
for, as she said, "Am I not going to be the wife of the handsomest
Prince in the world?" If she had any momentary doubt of this, a glance
at the miniature she carried in her bosom reassured her; for the
pictured face that smiled at her was handsome as that of an Apollo.
No wonder the Princess's heart beat high with pride and pleasure during
that last triumphal stage of her journey to her husband's arms; for he
was not only the handsomest man, with "the best shaped leg in Europe,"
he was by common consent the "greatest gentleman" any Court could show.
Picture him as he made his first appearance at a Court ball. "His coat,"
we are told, "was of pink silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat of white
silk, embroidered with various-coloured foil and adorned with a
profusion of French paste. And his hat was ornamented with two rows of
steel beads, five thousand in number, with a button and a loop of the
same metal, and cocked in a new military style." See young "Florizel" as
he makes his smiling and gracious progress through the avenues of
courtiers; note the winsomeness of his smiles, the inimitable grace of
his bows, his pleasant, courtly words of recognition, and say if ever
Royalty assumed a form more agreeable to the eye and captivating to the
senses.
"Florizel" was indeed the most splendid Prince in the world, and the
most "perfect gentleman." He was also, though his bride-to-be little
knew it, the most dissolute man in Europe, the greatest gambler and
voluptuary--a man who was as false to his friends as he was traitor to
every woman who crossed his path, a man whom no appeal of honour or
mercy could check in his selfish pursuit of pleasure.
"I look through all his life," Thackeray says, "and recognise but a bow
and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings,
padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue
ribbon, a pocket handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's
best nutty brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black
stock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then--nothing.
French ballet-dancers, French cooks, horse-jockeys, buffoons,
procuresses, tailors, boxers, fencing-masters, china, jewel and
gimcrack-merchants--these were his real companions."
Such was the husband Princess Caroline came so light-heartedly, with
laughter on her lips, from Brunswick to wed, little dreaming of the
disillusion and tears that were to await her on the very threshold of
the life to which she had looked forward with such high hopes.
We get the first glimpse of Caroline some twelve years earlier, when Sir
John Stanley, who was making the grand tour, spent a few weeks at her
father's Court. He speaks of her as a "beautiful girl of fourteen," and
adds, "I did think and dream of her day and night at Brunswick, and for
a year afterwards I saw her for hours three or fours times a week, but
as a star out of my reach." Years later he met her again under sadly
changed conditions. "One day only," he writes, "when dining with her and
her mother at Blackheath, she smiled at something which had pleased her,
and for an instant only I could have fancied she had been the Caroline
of fourteen years old--the lovely, pretty Caroline, the girl my eyes had
so often rested on, with light and powdered hair hanging in curls on her
neck, the lips from which only sweet words seemed as if they would flow,
with looks animated, and always simply and modestly dressed."
Lady Charlotte Campbell, too, gives us a glimpse of her in these early
and happier years, before sorrow had laid its defacing hand on her. "The
Princess was in her early youth a pretty girl," Lady Charlotte says,
"with fine light hair--very delicately formed features, and a fine
complexion--quick, glancing, penetrating eyes, long cut and rather small
in the head, which gave them much expression; and a remarkably
delicately formed mouth."
It was in no happy home that the Princess had been cradled one May day
in 1768. Her father, Charles William, Duke of Brunswick, was an austere
soldier, too much absorbed in his military life and his mistress, to
give much thought to his daughters. Her mother, the Duchess Augusta,
sister of our own George III., was weak and small-minded, too much
occupied in self-indulgence and scandal-talking to trouble about the
training of her children.
Princess Caroline herself draws an unattractive picture of her
home-life, in answer to Lady Charlotte Campbell's question, "Were you
sorry to leave Brunswick?" "Not at all," was the answer; "I was sick
tired of it, though I was sorry to leave my fader. I loved my fader
dearly, better than any oder person. But dere were some unlucky tings in
our Court which made my position difficult. My fader was most entirely
attached to a lady for thirty years, who was in fact his mistress. She
was the beautifullest creature and the cleverest, but, though my fader
continued to pay my moder all possible respect, my poor moder could not
suffer this attachment. And de consequence was, I did not know what to
do between them; when I was civil to one, I was scolded by the other,
and was very tired of being shuttlecock between them."
But in spite of these unfortunate home conditions Caroline appears to
have spent a fairly happy girlhood, thanks to her exuberant spirits; and
such faults as she developed were largely due to the lack of parental
care, which left her training to servants. Thus she grew up with quite a
shocking disregard of conventions, running wild like a young filly, and
finding her pleasure and her companions in undesirable directions.
Strange stories are told of her girlish love affairs, which seem to have
been indiscreet if nothing worse, while her beauty drew to her many a
high-placed wooer, including the Prince of Orange and Prince George of
Darmstadt, to all of whom she seems to have turned a cold shoulder.
But the wilful Princess was not to be left mistress of her own destiny.
One November day, in 1794, Lord Malmesbury arrived at the Brunswick
Court to demand her hand for the Prince of Wales, whom his burden of
debts and the necessity of providing an heir to the throne of England
were at last driving reluctantly to the altar. And thus a new and
dazzling future opened for her. To her parents nothing could have been
more welcome than this prospect of a crown for their daughter; while to
her it offered a release from a life that had become odious.
"The Princess Caroline much embarrassed on my first being presented to
her," Malmesbury enters in his diary--"pretty face, not expressive of
softness--her figure not graceful, fine eyes, good hands, tolerable
teeth, fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust, short, with what the
French call 'des épaules impertinentes,' vastly happy with her future
expectations."
Such were Malmesbury's first impressions of the future Queen of England,
whom it was his duty to prepare for her exalted station--a duty which he
seems to have taken very seriously, even to the regulating of her
toilette and her manners. Thus, a few days after setting eyes on her,
his diary records: "She _will_ call ladies whom she meets for the first
time 'Mon coeur, ma chère, ma petite,' and I am obliged to rebuke and
correct her." He lectures her on her undignified habit of whispering and
giggling, and impresses on her the necessity of greater care in her
attire, on more constant and thorough ablution, more frequent changes of
linen, the care of her teeth, and so on--all of which admonitions she
seems to have taken in excellent part, with demure promises of
amendment, until he is impelled to write, "Princess Caroline improves
very much on a closer acquaintance--cheerful and loves laughing. If she
can get rid of her gossiping habit she will do very well."
Thus a few months passed at the Brunswick Court. The ceremonial of
betrothal took place in December--"Princess Caroline much affected, but
replies distinctly and well"; the marriage-contract was signed, and
finally on 28th March the Princess embarked for England on her journey
to the unseen husband whose good-looks and splendour have filled her
with such high expectations. That she had not yet learnt discretion, in
spite of all Malmesbury's homilies, is proved by the fact that she spent
the night on board in walking up and down the deck in the company of a
handsome young naval officer, conduct which naturally gave cause for
observation and suspicion in the affianced bride of the future King of
England.
It was well, perhaps, that she had snatched these few hours of innocent
pleasure: for her first meeting with her future husband was well
calculated to scatter all her rosy dreams. Arrived at last at St James's
Palace, "I immediately notified the arrival to the King and Prince of
Wales," says Malmesbury; "the last came immediately. I accordingly
introduced the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly attempted to
kneel to him. He raised her gracefully enough, and embraced her, said
barely one word, turned round and retired to a distant part of the
apartment, and calling to me said: 'Harris, I am not well; pray get me a
glass of brandy.' I said, 'Sir, had you not better have a glass of
water?' Upon which he, much out of humour, said with an oath: 'No; I
will go directly to the Queen,' and away he went. The Princess, left
during this short moment alone, was in a state of astonishment; and, on
my joining her, said, '_Mon Dieu_, is the Prince always like that? I
find him very fat, and not at all as handsome as his portrait.'"
Such was the Princess's welcome to the arms of her handsome husband and
to the Court over which she hoped to reign as Queen; nor did she receive
much warmer hospitality from the Prince's family. The Queen, who had
designed a very different bride for her eldest son, received her with
scarcely disguised enmity, while the King, although, as he afterwards
proved, kindly disposed towards her, treated her at first with an
amiable indifference. And certainly her attitude seems to have been
calculated to create an unfavourable impression on her new relatives and
on the Court generally.
At the banquet which followed her reception, Malmesbury says, "I was far
from satisfied with the Princess's behaviour. It was flippant, rattling,
affecting raillery and wit, and throwing out coarse, vulgar hints about
Lady----, who was present. The Prince was evidently disgusted, and this
unfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when left to herself, the
Princess had not the talent to remove; but by still observing the same
giddy manners and attempts at cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increased
it till it became positive hatred."
"What," as Thackeray asks, "could be expected from a wedding which had
such a beginning--from such a bridegroom and such a bride? Malmesbury
tells us how the Prince reeled into the Chapel Royal to be married on
the evening of Wednesday, the 8th of April; and how he hiccuped out his
vows of fidelity." "My brother," John, Duke of Bedford, records, "was
one of the two unmarried dukes who supported the Prince at the ceremony,
and he had need of his support; for my brother told me the Prince was so
drunk that he could scarcely support himself from falling. He told my
brother that he had drunk several glasses of brandy to enable him to go
through the ceremony. There is no doubt that it was a _compulsory_
marriage."
With such an overture, we are not surprised to learn that the Royal
bridegroom spent his wedding-night in a state of stupor on the floor of
his bedroom; or that at dawn, when he had slept off the effects of his
debauch, "pages heard cries proceeding from the nuptial chamber, and
shortly afterwards saw the bridegroom rush out violently."
Nor, we may be sure, was the Prince's undisguised hatred of his bride in
any way mitigated by the stories which Lady Jersey and others of hex
rivals poured into his willing ears--stories of her attachment to a
young German Prince whom she was not allowed to marry; of a mysterious
illness, followed by a few weeks' retreat; of that midnight promenade
with the young naval officer; of assignations with Major Toebingen, the
handsomest soldier in Europe, who so proudly wore the amethyst tie-pin
she had presented to him--these and many another story which reflected
none too well on her reputation before he had set eyes on her. But it
needed no such whispered scandal to strengthen his hatred of a bride who
personally repelled him, and who had been forced on him at a time when
his heart was fully engaged with his lawful wedded wife, Mrs
Fitzherbert, when it was not straying to Lady Jersey, to "Perdita" or
others of his legion of lights-o'-love.
From the first day the ill-fated union was doomed. One violent scene
succeeded another, until, before she had been two months a wife, the
Prince declared that he would no longer live with her. He would only
wait until her child was born; then he would formally and finally leave
her. Thus, three months after the birth of the Princess Charlotte, the
deed of separation was signed, and Caroline was at last free to escape
from a Court which she had grown to detest, with good reason, and from a
husband whose brutalities and infidelities filled her with loathing.
She carried with her, however, this consolation, that the "great, hearty
people of England loved and pitied her." "God bless you! we will bring
your husband back to you," was among the many cries that greeted her as
she left the palace on her way to exile. But, to quote Thackeray again,
"they could not bring that husband back; they could not cleanse that
selfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped in
selfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly enduring
love--had it not survived remorse, was it not accustomed to desertion?"
For a time the outcast Princess, with her infant daughter, led a retired
life amid the peace and beauty of Blackheath, where she lived as simply
as any bourgeoise, playing the "lady bountiful" to the poor among her
neighbours. Her chief pleasure seems to have been to surround herself
with cottage babies, converting Montague House into a "positive nursery,
littered up with cradles, swaddling-bands, feeding bottles, and other
things of the kind."
But even to this rustic retirement watchful eyes and slanderous tongues
followed her; and it was not long before stories were passing from mouth
to mouth in the Court of strange doings at Blackheath. The Princess, it
was said, had become very intimate with Sir John Douglas and his lady,
her near neighbours, and more especially with Sydney Smith, a
good-looking naval captain, who shared the Douglas home, a man,
moreover, with whom she had had suspicious relations at her father's
Court many years earlier. It was rumoured that Captain Smith was a
frequent and too welcome guest at Montague House, at hours when discreet
ladies are not in the habit of receiving their male friends. Nor was the
handsome captain the only friend thus unconventionally entertained.
There was another good-looking naval officer, a Captain Manby, and also
Sir Thomas Lawrence, the famous painter, both of whom were admitted to a
suspicious intimacy with the Princess of Wales.
These rumours, sufficiently disquieting in themselves, were followed by
stories of the concealed birth of a child, who had come mysteriously to
swell the numbers of the Princess's protégés of the crèche. Even King
George, whose sympathy with his heir's ill-used wife was a matter of
common knowledge, could not overlook a charge so grave as this. It must
be investigated in the interests of the State, as well as of his
family's honour; and, by his orders, a Commission of Peers was appointed
to examine into the matter and ascertain the truth.
The inquiry--the "Delicate Investigation" as it was appropriately
called--opened in June, 1806, and witness after witness, from the
Douglases to Robert Bidgood, a groom, gave evidence which more or less
supported the charges of infidelity and concealment. The result of the
investigation, however, was a verdict of acquittal, the Commissioners
reporting that the Princess, although innocent, had been guilty of very
indiscreet conduct--and this verdict the Privy Council confirmed.
For the Princess it was a triumphant vindication, which was hailed with
acclamation throughout the country. Even the Royal family showed their
satisfaction by formal visits of congratulation to the Princess, from
the King himself to the Duke of Cumberland who conducted his
sister-in-law on a visit to the Court.
But the days of Blackheath and the amateur nursery were at an end. The
Princess returned to London, and found a more suitable home in
Kensington Palace for some years, where she held her Court in rivalry of
that of her husband at Carlton House. Here she was subjected to every
affront and slight by the Prince and his set that the ingenuity of
hatred could devise, and to crown her humiliation and isolation, her
daughter Charlotte was taken from her and forbidden even to recognise
her when their carriages passed in the street or park.
Can we wonder that, under such remorseless persecutions, the Princess
became more and more defiant; that she gave herself up to a life of
recklessness and extravagance; that, more and more isolated from her own
world, she sought her pleasure and her companions in undesirable
quarters, finding her chief intimates in a family of Italian musicians;
or that finally, heart-broken and despairing, she determined once for
all to shake off the dust of a land that had treated her so cruelly?
In August, 1814, with the approval of King and Parliament, the Princess
left England to begin a career of amazing adventures and indiscrétions,
the story of which is one of the most remarkable in history.