THE QUEEN AND THE NATION.
1729–1732.
Soon after the King’s return from Hanover, matters came to a crisis
between Townshend and Walpole. Ill-feeling had existed for some time,
and the Treaty of Seville served to irritate it. The King, who had a
great regard for a minister who had served him long and faithfully,
was reluctant to let Townshend go, but the Queen, who saw in him an
obstacle to her plans, was anxious to be quit of him, and when once she
made up her mind, it was not long before she got what she wanted. She
suspected that Townshend was in league with Mrs. Howard, and she could
not forgive his having endeavoured to curtail her powers as Regent.
Moreover, Townshend, who had always treated her with scant respect, had
so far forgotten himself as to make a scene in her presence.
One evening, when the court was at Windsor, the Queen asked Townshend
where he had dined that day, and he told her with Lord and Lady
Trevor. Walpole, who was standing by, said with his usual coarse
pleasantry: “My Lord, madam, I think is grown _coquet_ from a long
widowhood, and has some design upon my Lady Trevor’s virtue, for his
assiduity of late in that family is grown to be so much more than
common civility, that, without this solution, I know not how to account
for it.” That Walpole was only joking was evident from the fact that
Lady Trevor, besides being a most virtuous matron, was very old, and
exceedingly ugly. But Townshend, who was eager to take offence, flew
into a passion, and replied with great warmth: “No, sir, I am not one
of those fine gentlemen who find no time of life, nor any station in
the world, preservatives against follies and immoralities that are
hardly excusable when youth and idleness make us most liable to such
temptations. They are liberties, sir, which I can assure you I am as
far from taking, as from approving; nor have I either a constitution
that requires such practices, a purse that can support them, or a
conscience that can digest them.” He went white to the lips as he said
this, his voice shook, and he trembled with rage, and was ready to
spring at Walpole. His answer was intended to be offensive. Walpole
led a notoriously immoral life, and had lately made himself the talk
of the town by his amour with Maria, or Moll, Skerrett, and the
caricatures and ballads of the day teemed with the coarsest allusions
to this intrigue. But Walpole kept his temper, and, with a shrug of his
shoulders, answered Townshend quietly: “What, my Lord, all this for my
Lady Trevor!” Townshend would have retorted with heat, but the Queen,
who was exceedingly uneasy at the scene, turned the subject with a
laugh, and began to talk very fast about something else.
A variety of causes conspired to aggravate Townshend’s jealousy of
his brother-in-law and former friend. Walpole put the case bluntly
by saying that “so long as the firm was Townshend and Walpole things
went all right, but the moment it became Walpole and Townshend
things went all wrong;” but this was not all the truth. Walpole had
built a magnificent house at Houghton in Norfolk, which completely
overshadowed Townshend’s at Rainham, in the same county. At Houghton he
gave frequent entertainments, to which politicians and place-hunters
flocked in great numbers, turning their backs on Townshend. Walpole
kept a sort of public table, which was much frequented by the country
gentlemen, and the house was always full. Scenes of the wildest
revelry were enacted at Houghton, and Walpole’s hospitality often
degenerated into drunken orgies disfigured by licence of conduct
and coarseness of speech. His annual parties in the shooting season
were said to cost as much as £3,000. “The noise and uproar,” says
Coxe, his panegyrist, “the waste and confusion were prodigious. The
best friends of Sir Robert Walpole in vain remonstrated against the
scene of riot and misrule. As the Minister himself was fond of mirth
and jollity, the conviviality of their meetings was too frequently
carried to excess, and Lord Townshend, whose dignity of deportment and
decorum of character revolted against these scenes, which he called
the bacchanalian orgies of Houghton, not infrequently quitted Rainham
during their continuance.”[53]
To Houghton Walpole often brought his mistress, Maria Skerrett, whom
he maintained openly, notwithstanding that his wife was still alive.
He had one daughter by her.[54] Maria Skerrett’s origin was uncertain,
though it was not so obscure as her enemies made out; she was a friend
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and her contemporaries have testified to
her good heart. But she was an immoral woman of great licence of speech
and behaviour, and it is doubtful whether Walpole was her first lover.
He gave her £5,000 down, and a large allowance. The Prime Minister’s
conduct in this matter gave great disgust to Townshend and the stricter
of his supporters. The Queen, however, made light of it, saying that
she “was glad if he had any amusement for his leisure hours,” but she
couldn’t understand how he could care for a woman who evidently loved
him only for his money. While of Skerrett, she said: “She must be a
clever woman to have made him believe she cares for him on any other
score; and to show you what fools we all are in some point or other,
she certainly has told him some fine story or other of her love and her
passion, and that poor man _avec ce gros corps, ces jambes enflées, et
ce vilain ventre_ believes her. Ah! what is human nature!”
As the differences between Walpole and Townshend extended not only
to their political relations but to their private life, it was not
long before matters came to a crisis. They were dining one night with
Colonel Selwyn and his lady in Cleveland Row, opposite St. James’s
Palace, and after dinner, when Walpole, as usual, had drunk too much
wine, a dispute arose in which the Prime Minister so far lost his
usual good humour as to reply to a taunt of Townshend’s by shouting:
“My Lord, for once there is no man’s sincerity whom I so much doubt as
your Lordship’s”. Townshend, who was of a hasty temperament, sprang at
Walpole and seized him by the throat; the Prime Minister laid hold of
his antagonist in turn, they struggled together and clapped hands on
their swords. The whole party was in an uproar; Mrs. Selwyn shrieked
and ran out of the house to summon the palace guard, but she was
stopped by Henry Pelham, who entreated her not to make a scandal, and
used the same argument with the two Ministers. After a time they were
pacified a little, and a duel was prevented; but the quarrel was too
serious to be patched up.
Townshend shortly after resigned his office in the Government and
withdrew to Rainham; he embarked no more in politics, but spent the
rest of his days in improving agriculture. His retirement meant more
than appeared on the surface, for he had considerable influence with
the King. It involved also the ascendency of the Queen and the defeat
of Mrs. Howard, whose friend he was. Henceforward there was no one to
thwart the influence of the Queen and Walpole. William Stanhope, who
had been created Lord Harrington for his services in connexion with the
Treaty of Seville, was now made Secretary of State. He was an admirable
diplomatist but a poor speaker, and though he made but an indifferent
figure in Parliament, his moderation, prudence and sagacity made him a
very useful minister. Lord Harrington and the Duke of Newcastle were
now the only persons of any importance in the Government except its
chief.
Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, was one of the greatest noblemen of
his time by sheer force of his wealth. He had an enormous rent roll,
he maintained princely establishments, he spent freely on display,
yet he was unable to attach to himself a single friend. “The Duke of
Newcastle,” writes one who knew him, “hath spent half a million and
made the fortunes of five hundred men, and yet is not allowed to have
one real friend.”[55] But the fact that he scattered lavish sums at
elections to support the Hanoverian succession, owned a large number
of boroughs and had vast patronage, sufficed to give him many apparent
friends, from the King downwards. He was a poor speaker, he was weak
and mean-spirited, and his ignorance of matters connected with his
office was almost incredible. On one occasion the defence of Annapolis
was recommended to him. “Ah!” he said after some reflection, “to be
sure, Annapolis ought to be defended; of course, Annapolis must be
defended. By the by, where is Annapolis?” As we have seen, the King
when Prince of Wales had the strongest aversion to him, but now the
duke stood high in office. Yet the King does not seem to have loved
him. “You see,” he said to one of his friends, “I am compelled to take
the Duke of Newcastle to be my minister, though he is not fit to be a
chamberlain in the smallest court of Germany.” But, however poor the
duke’s capacity might be, he had great wealth and influence, and then,
as now, men of his type were foisted on the public service to the
detriment of the nation.
For the first time since the accession of the House of Hanover to the
throne, the Government had respite from Jacobite intrigues. The Treaty
of Seville (1729) and the second Treaty of Vienna (1731) established
friendly relations between the English Government and all the European
powers, so that none of them, not even Roman Catholic countries like
Spain and Austria, could any longer lend outward support to James.
Moreover the Jacobite party lost, almost at the same time, all their
greatest men. Lord Mar died at Aix-la-Chapelle. The Duke of Wharton,
who, while pretending loyalty to his master, had been negotiating for
a return to England, died in Spain in comparative poverty, and so
closed his career of splendid infamy. Bishop Atterbury, the ablest of
all, had fallen out of favour with James, chiefly because of his wish
to bring up the young Prince Charles Edward in the faith of the Church
of England. When James saw the folly of alienating him it was too late.
Atterbury died a few weeks after he had sent to James a copy of his
vindication of the charges brought against him by Lord Inverness, and
the Jacobite cause lost its wisest friend.
James was so unpopular in England at this time, even among his own
supporters, that societies were formed to discuss the propriety of
transferring their allegiance to his son, Prince Charles Edward, and
reports were persistently circulated that the young Prince was to be
taken from his father’s guardianship and brought up in the religion of
the Church of England. This plan was at first supported by Bolingbroke,
who did his utmost to bring it about, and it gained so much credence
that in 1733 Sir Archer Croft declared in the House of Commons that
“The Pretender was the more to be feared because they did not know but
that he was then breeding his son a Protestant”.[56] Had this been
true it would have been the severest possible blow for the Hanoverian
family. It would have done away with their reason for occupying the
throne, and though they could not have been expected to abdicate of
their own free will, yet the personal unpopularity of the King after
the Queen’s death was so great that the rising of ’45 would probably
have had a different ending. But it was not true, for in matters of
religion James was as great a bigot as his father, and Atterbury’s
death put an end to all such plans.
The Duchess of Buckingham often went to Paris to have conferences with
Atterbury on this question, and the Bishop used his influence with her
to prevent the Duke of Berwick from giving a Roman Catholic tutor to
her son, the young duke. The duchess pretended that her interviews with
Atterbury were wholly connected with her son’s education, but Walpole
knew that was only a pretext to hide her Jacobite intrigues. The
duchess had a great position in England as head of the Jacobite ladies;
she was in fact a sort of Jacobite Duchess of Marlborough, and a rival
of that illustrious dowager, whom in arrogance and pride she strongly
resembled. Like her she possessed enormous wealth, and Buckingham House
vied in magnificence with Marlborough House across the park. Both the
duchesses disliked and despised the Hanoverian family, though from
different reasons, and both masked their dislike, and occasionally did
the King and Queen the honour, as they considered it, of attending
their drawing-rooms. The two duchesses were on friendly terms, but
occasionally had their differences. The Duchess of Buckingham lost
her son, and his remains were brought from Rome to be interred in
Westminster Abbey with great pomp. She sent to her neighbour across the
park, the Duchess Sarah, to ask the loan of the funeral car which had
borne the body of the great Duke of Marlborough to St. Paul’s. Sarah
spurned this request with contumely: “It carried my Lord Marlborough,”
she sent word to say, “and it shall never be used for any meaner
mortal.” “I have consulted the undertaker,” wrote back the other
duchess, “and he tells me I can have a finer for twenty pounds.”
The Duchess of Buckingham made frequent journeys to Paris and Rome to
intrigue in favour of the Stuarts, of whom she considered herself one;
she paid visits to Cardinal Fleury at Versailles, but according to a
contemporary[57] she got nothing from the cardinal but compliments
and civil excuses, and was laughed at both in Paris and Rome for her
pompous manner of travelling, in which she affected the state of a
princess of the blood royal. On her visits to Paris she always made
a pilgrimage to the church in which the unburied body of James the
Second lay, and prayed and wept over it. Horace Walpole says, with
a characteristic touch of malice, that despite this outward show of
grief she allowed the royal pall to rot itself threadbare through her
parsimony. It is more likely that sentiment prevented her from having
it repaired. To Sir Robert Walpole, who knew all her intrigues almost
before she embarked upon them, and who treated her as a person of no
importance, she made extraordinary overtures to induce him to join
with her in effecting the restoration of the Stuarts. She knew that
Walpole was very fond of his daughter by Maria Skerrett, and she hinted
to him that it might be possible to wed her to Prince Charles Edward
if he would embrace the Stuart cause. She asked him if he remembered
what Lord Clarendon’s reward had been for helping to restore the royal
family; Sir Robert affected not to understand, and she said: “Was he
not allowed to match his daughter to the Duke of York?” Walpole smiled
and changed the subject. The King had not the same patience with the
Duchess of Buckingham’s eccentricities as his Prime Minister, and would
probably have taken some action against her had not Caroline counselled
the wiser policy of ignoring her Grace’s quixotic proceedings; but on
one occasion the duchess was really frightened lest the King should
discover her little plots. She had quitted England without having
obtained the requisite permission, and she wrote to Walpole from
Boulogne: “I know there is a usual form, as I take it only to be
esteemed, of any peer’s asking permission of the King (or Queen in the
present circumstance) to go out of the kingdom, but even that ceremony
I thought reached not to women, whose being in and out of their country
seemed never to be of the least consequence”. In the same letter she
alludes to her intrigues, and speaks of them as “nonsensical stories”
not worthy of credence. Walpole took her letter to the Queen, who was
then Regent, and they laughed over it together, but they let “Princess”
Buckingham, as they called her, alone.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS CLEMENTINA (CONSORT OF PRINCE JAMES FRANCIS
EDWARD STUART).
_From the Painting in the National Portrait Gallery_]
While the Stuarts were losing ground Caroline was working hard and
incessantly to make the Hanoverian family acceptable to the English
nation. By birth a foreign princess, one who did not arrive upon these
shores until well into middle life, she could not boast that she was
“entirely English” like Queen Anne, but it is remarkable, considering
the great and obvious disadvantages under which she laboured, how well
she succeeded in impressing her personality upon the English people.
She was careful to express herself in public in warm admiration of the
laws, customs and constitution of this country; she often declared
that England owed everything to its liberties. Yet sometimes when the
King abused England, as he invariably did after a visit to Hanover,
speaking of the English people as “king-killers” and “republicans,”
and grumbling at their riches as well as their rights, she would fall
into his vein, and rail against the limited powers of the Crown,
which rendered the King “a puppet of sovereignty” and a servant of
Parliament. It is probable that she chafed against the limitations to
the power of the Sovereign, for she was a woman who loved to rule;
but in theory she was all for liberty and tolerance. But whatever her
predilections, she clearly understood, and acquiesced in, the only
possible terms by which the Hanoverian family were allowed to reign in
England. As she could not increase the limited power of the Crown in
political matters, she determined to increase its unlimited influence
in other directions, and to this end she encouraged everything
which helped to promote the well-being and prosperity of the people,
especially those movements which had a national origin. This was
especially the case with home industries. For example, we read:--
“On Saturday last a considerable body of dealers in bone-lace from
the counties of Bucks, Northampton and Bedford, waited upon her
Majesty with a petition on behalf of their manufacture, and carried
with them a parcel of lace to show the perfection they had brought it
to, and when her Majesty showed her royal intention to encourage the
British manufacturer by receiving them very graciously, and bought a
considerable quantity of lace for the use of the Royal Family, and
several ladies followed her example, the said dealers in lace had the
honour to kiss her Majesty’s hand.”[58] And again: “On Wednesday last
some of the Trustees for Georgia and Sir Thomas Loombe waited upon her
Majesty with the Georgia silk, which is to be wove into a piece for her
Majesty’s wear, from a beautiful pattern which her Majesty chose, and
she, in a most gracious manner, expressed satisfaction at the British
Colonies having produced so fine a silk.”[59]
She was quick to encourage English inventions and enterprise. For
instance: “On Monday Mr. Clay, the inventor of the machine watches in
the Strand, had the honour of exhibiting to her Majesty at Kensington
his surprising musical clock, which gave uncommon satisfaction to all
the Royal Family present, at which time her Majesty, to encourage so
great an artist, was pleased to order fifty guineas to be expended
for numbers in the intended raffle, by which we hear Mr. Clay
intends to dispose of this said beautiful and most complete piece of
machinery.”[60] And again: “On Tuesday a most beautiful hat, curiously
made of feathers in imitation of a fine Brussels lace, was shown to
her Majesty, who, for the encouragement of ingenuity, being the first
of the kind ever made in England, was so good as to purchase it, and
afterwards presented it to the Princess of Wales.”[61]
There was very little social legislation during Walpole’s tenure of
power, the great Minister going on the principle of letting things
alone; but a few useful reforms were passed from time to time, and
in all of them the Queen took a warm interest. One was effected at
the instance of the Duke of Argyll, who brought in a bill that all
proceedings of the courts of justice should be conducted in English
instead of Latin as heretofore. “Our prayers,” said the Duke of Argyll,
“are in our native tongue, so that they are intelligible; and why
should not the laws wherein our lives and properties are concerned be
so, for the same reason?” The measure was carried, notwithstanding
the fact that most of the lawyers strongly opposed the change;
Lord Raymond, for instance, declared that if the bill were passed
the law must likewise be translated into Welsh, since in Wales many
understood no English. Another reform was the purging of the Charitable
Corporation from gross abuses. This corporation had been formed for
the relief of the industrious poor by lending them small sums of money
at legal interest, but had drifted into malpractices and extortionate
usury; penalties were now inflicted upon the malefactors, and the whole
system was reformed.
The Queen’s private charities were very numerous. She would never
refuse a supplicant who sought her aid, in whatever rank of life he
might be, and though her income was large, she spent all of it, chiefly
upon others. She had no sense of the value of money, and with her to
have was to spend, or to give away, not always very wisely perhaps,
but always cheerfully. The journals of the period teem with notices of
her liberality; but, even so, they did not represent a tithe of her
charities, for she gave away much in secret, of which the public never
knew. The following extracts from newspapers, taken almost at random,
will serve to show how wide was her sympathy, and how generous her
impulses:--
“Twelve French Protestants, who were made slaves on account of their
religion, having lately been released from the jails of France on the
representation of their Britannic Majesties, and having arrived here,
a charitable collection is making for them, towards which the Queen has
given £1,000.”[62]
“Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to give and bestow the sum of
£500, as a mark of her royal bounty and charity, towards the relief of
the sufferers in the late dreadful fire at Gravesend in Kent.”[63]
“We hear that her Majesty has ordered a sum of money to relieve poor
housekeepers and other families in necessity.”[64]
“Thursday last week, the wife of the drummer at Woolwich, lately
brought to bed of three children, waited on the Queen, and her Majesty
ordered her fifty guineas.”[65]
“Mr. James Brown, one of the pages of the presence to her Majesty,
having been ill of the palsy this year, and now lying incapable of
doing his duty, her Majesty has been pleased to order that he should be
paid his salary of £40 per annum during his life.”[66]
“On Tuesday last, her Majesty, together with the Duke and the three
Princesses, paid a visit to Mrs. Simpson, whose husband is one of the
keepers of Bushey Park. She is 106 years old, being born in the town
of Cardigan in the year 1625, is now in good health, and has all her
senses, except hearing, perfect. Her Majesty after expressing herself
pleased with the manner of life by which she had preserved herself to
this good old age, made her a present of a purse of gold.”[67]
“As soon as her Majesty heard of the misfortune of the country girl’s
breaking both her thigh bones by the overturning of a cart near Hampton
Court, she sent some ladies to enquire the truth of it, and being
satisfied thereof, her Majesty was graciously pleased to order one
guinea a week to be paid for her lodging, nurse and diet, and directed
the surgeon to take particular care of the girl, and her Majesty would
pay him.”[68]
“Her Majesty being informed of the great benefit the inhabitants of
the city and liberties of Westminster received from the infirmaries
established there for the relief of such of their poor as are sick and
lame, has been graciously pleased to send to each such infirmary a
bounty of £100 to promote so useful a charity.”[69]
“We hear that her Majesty has lately given to the hospital near Hyde
Park Corner, the sum of £100.”[70]
“Last Saturday when the Royal Family returned from hunting, her Majesty
was told by Lady Deloraine that the Princess Louisa had been pleased to
stand godmother to the twins of Mrs. Palairet, wife of her Highness’s
writing master. Whereupon her Majesty ordered the mother and children
to be brought to her, when her Majesty, finding that Mrs. Palairet
intended to suckle them both herself, was graciously pleased with the
courage and tenderness of the mother in undertaking the hard task, and
ordered her a purse of guineas.”[71]
“Last Sunday a great number of the widows of the Navy, whose husbands
died before August, 1732, and were unprovided, waited on the Queen at
Kensington with their humble address of thanks for the provision they
lately received upon their humble petition presented to her Majesty on
Sunday, 29th April.”[72]
“Her Majesty going through Hammersmith was pleased to order ten guineas
for the poor haymakers, who were very numerous on the road.”[73]
“Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to send fifty guineas towards
the relief of the unhappy sufferers by the late fire in Cecil’s Court
in St. Martin’s Lane.”[74]
“Her Majesty has been pleased to declare her royal intention of
bestowing £5,000 towards building and endowing a hospital for foundling
children.”[75]
“Her Majesty has been pleased to order the royal gardens at Richmond
to be free to all in the same manner as those at Kensington are when
the Royal Family does not reside there, so that the walks are full
of company every evening to the great advantage of the town and the
neighbourhood.”[76]
“Her Majesty has been pleased to grant a charter and to give a donation
to the governors of the infirmary at Hyde Park Corner, to establish
themselves into a corporation, the same to be called St. George’s
Hospital.”[77]
Queen Caroline was a constant and generous patron of learning; she
twice gave donations of £1,000 to Queen’s College, Oxford, and she
tried in many ways to advance the interests of education. Science,
especially medical science, found in her a warm supporter. Under the
guidance of Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Royal Society, she lent
her aid to any movement to promote the health of the people, and
any doctor or man of science who distinguished himself was sure of
receiving notice and encouragement from her. Perhaps her most notable
achievement in the advancement of science was the support which she
gave to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who, on her return from the East,
introduced inoculation as a safeguard against smallpox into England.
This beneficent discovery was opposed with great clamour by the clergy,
the more ignorant of the doctors, and the middle and lower classes,
and Lady Mary would certainly have failed had not Caroline stood by
her side from first to last. She and her husband and children were
inoculated, and by her example and determination she prevailed on the
higher classes and the more enlightened people to be inoculated also,
and so make the practice general.
Queen Caroline held firmly to the principle that the welfare of the
people should be the first care of princes, and she strove in every way
to ameliorate their lot. Parliament did little for them in Caroline’s
day, the era of social legislation had scarcely begun to dawn. The
wars of nations, the conflicts of dynasties, the strife of creeds
absorbed all energies, and in the noise and heat thus engendered the
needs of the people were thrust aside and forgotten. The condition of
the poor not only in the large towns, but in the country districts,
was deplorable in the extreme. Many of them were sunk in ignorance and
vice, and treated like beasts of burden. There was much talk about
the liberties of the nation, but the lower classes of the people were
little better than serfs. Neither Whig nor Tory did anything for
them; they had no votes and the politician passed them by. Under such
conditions the influence of one woman, however highly placed, could do
little. Let it be recorded that in an epoch when the duty of man to
his fellow-man was least understood, when the national selfishness was
greatest and the national ideals were lowest, Queen Caroline did what
she could.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER VI:
[53] Coxe’s _Life of Walpole_.
[54] This daughter was eventually given the rank of earl’s daughter,
and married Mr. Churchill, a son of General Churchill. Walpole married
Maria Skerrett after his wife’s death, but she died soon after her
marriage.
[55] Dr. King’s _Anecdotes of My Own Time_.
[56] _Parliamentary History_, vol. viii., p. 1,185.
[57] Dr. King’s _Anecdotes of My Own Time_.
[58] _Daily Courant_, 2nd February, 1730.
[59] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 6th August, 1735.
[60] _Daily Post_, 1st September, 1736.
[61] _Weekly Journal_, 8th May, 1736.
[62] _Stamford Mercury_, 11th January, 1728.
[63] _Daily Post_, 30th January, 1728.
[64] _Fog’s Weekly Journal_, 7th December, 1728.
[65] _Weekly Journal_, 20th July, 1728.
[66] _London Journal_, 24th April, 1731.
[67] _Daily Post_, 23rd September, 1731.
[68] _Daily Courant_, 1st October, 1733.
[69] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 20th April, 1734.
[70] _Reed’s Weekly Journal_, 15th June, 1734.
[71] _Daily Journal_, 26th October, 1734.
[72] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 17th June, 1735.
[73] _General Evening Post_, 17th June, 1735.
[74] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 12th July, 1736.
[75] _Reed’s Weekly Journal_, 31st July, 1736.
[76] _Universal Spectator_, 11th September, 1736.
[77] _Reed’s Weekly Journal_, 18th September, 1736.