CAROLINE’S LAST REGENCY.
1736.
The Prince of Wales’s marriage over, the King became very impatient
to return to Hanover. The pledge he had given to Madame Walmoden last
year, that he would be with her on May 29th, had become known to
Walpole, who swore to the Queen that the King should not go if he could
prevent it. The Quakers’ Bill was just then before Parliament and the
bishops were giving a great deal of trouble to the Government in the
House of Lords; the King’s departure for Hanover again so soon would
be another source of embarrassment. But neither Walpole’s protests nor
the Queen’s more diplomatic representations were of any avail with
the King. “I am sick to death of all this foolish stuff,” said the
Defender of the Faith to the Queen one day when she was speaking to him
about the bishops’ action in the House of Lords, “and wish with all my
heart that the devil may take all your bishops and the devil take your
minister, and the devil take the parliament, and the devil take the
whole island, provided I can get out of it and go to Hanover.”
After this there was clearly nothing more to be said, and in the middle
of May the King set out for Hanover, this time taking Horace Walpole
with him as minister in attendance instead of Harrington, whom the
Queen and Walpole determined should never go with the King to Hanover
again. He again appointed the Queen Regent, and sent a message to the
Prince of Wales telling him that wherever the Queen-Regent resided,
there would be apartments provided for himself and the Princess. The
Prince resented this message, which forced him, he said, to move his
household at the Queen’s pleasure, and made him practically a prisoner
in her palace. That was perhaps an exaggeration, but the order was
evidently designed to prevent the Prince and Princess setting up a
court of their own in the King’s absence. The Prince considered that
his marriage gave him an additional claim to be appointed Regent
instead of the Queen. He therefore tried in many small ways to set
her authority as Regent at defiance, and he trumped up the excuse of
the Princess’s indisposition to hinder him from occupying the same
house as the Queen according to the King’s command. The Queen, who
suspected that this was only an evasion, came up from Richmond, where
she had removed after the King left, to London to find out if the
Princess of Wales were really ill. But her intention was baffled, for
when she arrived she was told that the Princess was in bed and could
not receive her, and when the Queen insisted on being shown to her
daughter-in-law’s chamber, she found the room so dark that she could
scarcely see her, and had to return to Richmond no better informed
than when she set out. Shortly afterwards the Queen removed to Hampton
Court, and with some little delay the Prince and Princess followed, and
had their suite of apartments allotted them there.
The Prince of Wales did not attend the Council when the Queen broke
the seals of the King’s commission making her Regent; he pretended
that he had mistaken the hour. He tried by every possible means to
discredit the Queen-Regent’s authority, and to cultivate popularity at
the expense of his parents. It was fairly easy for him to pit himself
against his father, for the King’s conduct in going to Hanover two
years running, his _affaire_ with the Walmoden, and the fact that he
had left unfilled several commissions in the army because, people
said, he wished to pocket the pay himself, had made him more unpopular
than ever. Some measure of this unpopularity reflected itself upon
the Queen, though she, poor woman, was the greatest sufferer by the
King’s intrigue with the Walmoden. The Princess of Wales also suddenly
discovered that she had scruples about receiving the Sacrament
according to the rites of the Church of England, and declared that she
was a Protestant and a Lutheran. This move, which was probably made by
command of the Prince in order to gain the goodwill of the Dissenters,
gave a great deal of annoyance to the Queen, for the bishops and clergy
were up in arms about it, talked loudly of the Act of Succession, and
declared that if the Princess would not conform to the rites of the
Church of England she would have to be sent back again to Saxe-Gotha.
The Queen spoke to the Prince on the subject, but he declared that he
could do nothing, for when he reasoned to his wife she only wept and
talked of her conscience. However, the threat of being sent back to
Saxe-Gotha effectually abolished the Princess’s scruples; she dried her
tears and attended the services at the chapel at Hampton Court like the
rest of the Royal Family. Yet even when they came to church the Prince
and Princess of Wales managed to show disrespect to the Queen’s office
as Regent. They arranged always to come late, so that the Princess had
to push past the Queen in the royal pew, an uncomfortable proceeding
so far as the Queen was concerned, for she was stout and the pew was
narrow. Moreover, the arrival of the Prince and Princess and a numerous
suite half-way through the service was exceedingly disturbing, so,
after bearing with it two or three Sundays, the Queen sent word that
if the Princess came late she must make her entry by another door. The
Princess, however, persisting, the Queen ordered a servant to stand at
the main entrance of the chapel after she had gone in and not permit
any one to pass until the service was over, which would have the effect
of sending the Princess round to another door, or of keeping her out of
the chapel altogether. The Prince, however, was equal even to this, for
he told the Princess that if she was not ready to go into chapel with
the Queen she was not to go at all, and so neatly avoided yielding the
point.
The Queen, notwithstanding all these studied slights and petty insults,
was determined not to quarrel with her son, and regularly asked
the Prince and Princess to dine with her once or twice a week, and
sometimes invited them to music and cards in the gallery at Hampton
Court in the evening. The Princess came now and then to these latter
functions, the Prince never, though they both were obliged to come
to dinner when the Queen asked them. These dinners could not have
been pleasant to either side; they certainly were not to the Queen,
who, after they were over, used to declare that the dulness of her
daughter-in-law and the silly jokes of her son gave her the vapours,
and she felt more tired than “if she had carried them round the garden
on her back”.
Meanwhile the King at Hanover was enjoying himself with his
enchantress, who had presented him with a fine boy, which it suited her
purpose to declare was his son.[116] The King, who was now fifty-three
years of age, firmly believed her, and his affections became riveted
to Madame Walmoden more firmly than ever. Yet he might well have
doubted, for the lady had many friends to console her in his absence,
and a suspicious incident occurred this summer even while George
was at Hanover. The King was staying, according to his custom, at
Herrenhausen, and Madame Walmoden was living in the apartments set
apart for her by the King in the Leine Schloss. She spent most of her
time with the King at Herrenhausen, returning to the Leine Schloss
at night, where she was sometimes visited by the King. The Leine
Schloss was very different then to what it is now, for it was fronted
by extensive gardens on both banks of the Leine, the gardens through
which poor Sophie Dorothea used to steal, disguised, to Königsmarck’s
lodgings. The Walmoden’s bedchamber was on the garden side of the
palace, and one night a gardener chancing to walk round the palace
in the small hours found a ladder placed immediately under Madame
Walmoden’s window. The man thought this must be the attempt of a
burglar, who had come to steal the lady’s jewels, and made a careful
search round the garden. He presently discovered a man hiding behind
a bush, whom he immediately seized, and, shouting for the guard, had
him placed under arrest. To every one’s astonishment, the prisoner
proved to be no thief, but an officer in the Austrian service, named
Schulemburg, a relative of the Duchess of Kendal’s, who was on a visit
to Hanover in connection with some diplomatic mission. Schulemburg
protested against the indignity put upon him, which he said would be
resented not only by himself, but by his master, the Emperor, and made
such a fuss that the captain of the guard released him at once.
Before the morning the story was all over the palace, and Madame
Walmoden, who had been aroused in the night, was in a great state of
agitation. But her woman’s wit came to her aid. As early as six o’clock
the next morning she ordered her coach and drove off to Herrenhausen
to give her version of the affair to the King before any one else
could tell him. George was still a-bed when the lady arrived, but
being a privileged personage she passed the guards and made her way
to his bedside. She threw herself upon her knees, and besought the
King, between her tears and sobs, to protect her from gross insult,
or allow her to retire from his court for ever; she declared that she
loved him not as a king but as a man, and for his own sake alone, but
wicked envious people, who were jealous of the favour he had shown her,
were plotting to ruin her. The King, astonished at this early visit,
rubbed his eyes, and asked what it all meant. She then told him about
the ladder, and declared that it must have been placed there by design
of a certain Madame d’Elitz with intent to ruin her with the King.
This Madame d’Elitz was also a Schulemburg, a niece of the old Duchess
of Kendal. She was credited with having had intrigues with three
generations of the Hanoverian family, the old King, George the First,
the present King, George the Second, and Frederick, Prince of Wales,
before he came over to England. This was probably an exaggeration, but
it is certain that she was the mistress of George the Second before he
deserted her for the superior charms of the Walmoden. So the story had
at least the element of plausibility. At any rate the King accepted
it, and ordered the captain of the guard to be put under arrest for
having released Schulemburg, and sent word that he should again be
apprehended. But Horace Walpole, the English Minister in attendance,
fearing that this might involve the King in a quarrel with the Emperor,
sent Schulemburg word privately to make speed out of Hanover, which he
did forthwith.
All sorts of versions were given of this ladder incident, which quickly
became known in London, and was much discussed by Queen Caroline and
her court. The King wrote long letters to the Queen in England, telling
her all about the affair, and asking her to judge it impartially for
him, as he was so fond of the Walmoden that he could not judge it
otherwise than partially, and if she were in doubt he asked her to
consult _le gros homme_, Sir Robert Walpole, “who,” he said, “is much
more experienced, my dear Caroline, in these affairs than you, and less
prejudiced than myself in it”. But whatever was the Queen’s opinion
the King remained devoted to his Walmoden, and refused to believe any
evil of her. Whether Caroline really consulted Walpole or not it is
impossible to say; but though she laughed about the incident in public
she wept many bitter tears in private, and her patience was well-nigh
exhausted.
Caroline had no easy part to play in this, her fourth and most
eventful, regency. Her health had been failing for some time, and now
was an ever-present trouble. The knowledge of the King’s infatuation,
and the fear that her influence over him was waning, preyed upon her
mind, and she was further harassed by the covert rebellion against her
authority carried on by the Prince of Wales. All these were troubles
from within, but those from without were also serious. The King was
never so unpopular as now, and his unpopularity reflected itself upon
the Government. There were discontents and disorders in different
parts of the country; a riot broke out in the west of England because
of the exportation of corn, and so violent were the farmers that in
many districts the military had to be called out to quell the tumult.
Another disturbance took place at Spitalfields among the weavers, who
objected to Irishmen working there because they were willing to accept
lower wages and could accustom themselves to a lower standard of living
than Englishmen. A riot broke out and many Irish were killed and others
wounded. Huge mobs assembled, and again the Queen-Regent had to command
that soldiers should be called out, which had the effect of diverting
the rage of the weavers from the Irish to the court. They now began to
curse the Germans even more loudly than they execrated the Irish, and
from cursing the Germans they proceeded to cursing the King and Queen,
and shouting for James the Third. Eventually the soldiers quelled the
riots, but not without bloodshed, and the discontent was all the more
active for being driven below the surface.
Another source of dissatisfaction with the people was the Gin
Act, which had been passed with the object of abating the vice of
drunkenness, and especially the drinking of gin by the lower classes.
Gin drinking at that time was the popular habit, and was carried to
such a degree that the drunkenness of the mob and the depraved and
debased condition of public morals became a crying scandal. The sale
of gin was carried to such an extent in the taverns that a newspaper
of the time informs us: “We hear that a strong-water shop was lately
opened in Southwark with this inscription on the sign:--
Drunk for one penny,
Dead drunk for two pence,
Clean straw for nothing.”[117]
The Gin Act was passed with a view to putting a stop to this sale, but
without success, and the truth that people cannot be made sober by
Act of Parliament was proved up to the hilt. The only result was to
encourage a gang of informers who became the pest of the country. The
Act came into force on September 29th, 1736, and as the date approached
ballads and lamentations of “Mother Gin” were sung about the streets,
the signs of the liquor shops were everywhere put into mourning, and
mock ceremonies on the funeral of “Madam Gin” were carried out by the
mob. To quote from the journals: “Last Wednesday, September 29th,
several people made themselves very merry with the death of ‘Madam
Gin,’ and some of both sexes got soundly drunk at her funeral, of which
the mob made a formal procession with torches.”[118]
All over the country it was the same, and the Act was practically
abortive. The selling of gin was carried on just the same, sometimes
publicly in the shops, more often by hawkers who sold it about the
streets in flasks and bottles under fictitious names. Some of these
names were odd enough, such as “Cuckold’s Comfort,” “Make-Shift,” “The
Ladies’ Delight,” “Colic and Gripe water,” and so forth. Sometimes the
gin was coloured with a drop or two of pink fluid, and sold in bottles,
labelled: “Take two or three spoonfuls of this four or five times a
day, or as often as the fit takes you”. The Act was repealed seven
years later; but the whole of its unpopularity now fell upon Walpole
and the Queen-Regent, especially on the latter, who certainly had urged
its passing, as she wished to abate the crying scandal of drunkenness.
The Prince of Wales, in his quest for popularity, sided with the
people, and was said to have been seen drinking gin publicly in one of
the taverns the very day the Act came into force.
The most serious riot of all took place, not in London or the
provinces, but in Edinburgh. Scotland, though quelled for a time after
the abortive rising of 1715, was still restless under Hanoverian rule,
and it needed but a spark to set the discontent in a blaze. Scotland
had never been reconciled to the Act of Union, and the jealousy of any
interference from England was strongly resented, even by many of those
who refused to acknowledge James as their King. The Porteous Riots
served to bring matters to a climax. These riots had their origin in a
small matter. Two smugglers, named Robertson and Wilson, were arrested
by the officers of the Crown for robbing a collector of customs, and
lay in the Tolbooth, or city gaol of Edinburgh, under sentence of
death. Hanging was the punishment for smuggling in those days, but
practically the severity of the sentence rendered the Act inoperative,
and smuggling was winked at by many honest Scots who regarded these
imposts as an unjust aggression upon their ancient liberties. But in
this case the Government determined to make an example. Great sympathy
was felt for the prisoners by the people, and files were secretly
conveyed to them from outside to aid their escape. The prisoners freed
themselves from their manacles, and cut through a bar of the window.
Wilson insisted on going first, but as he was a stout man he got
fixed in the opening, and there remained, unable to move backwards or
forwards. In this plight he was found in the morning, and the escape of
the prisoners was defeated. Wilson was seized with self-reproach at the
thought that, if it had not been for his wilfulness, Robertson, who was
a younger and slimmer man, would have been saved, and he determined to
do something to help him.
It was the custom in those days for condemned prisoners to be taken to
the Tolbooth church the Sunday before their execution, and be preached
at. Robertson and Wilson went as was customary, escorted by guards,
but as they were coming out Wilson attacked the guards unexpectedly,
and cried to Robertson to escape. In the confusion the latter managed
to do so; he jumped over the pews, and was aided by the sympathetic
congregation. The generous conduct of Wilson excited great popular
sympathy, but Captain John Porteous, who was in command of the city
guard, a rough and brutal man, especially resented the saving of one
prisoner by the other, and determined that Wilson’s execution should
take place the next day. In this decision he was hastened by a rumour
that Wilson would be rescued from the gallows by the mob. He ordered
a double guard around the scaffold, and was said to have forced the
unfortunate victim to wear handcuffs much too small for him as he went
to the place of execution, though the latter showed him his bruised and
bleeding wrists, and protested against this barbarity. “It signifies
little,” said Porteous brutally, “your pain will soon be at an end.”
Wilson answered him in words that were afterwards remembered: “You know
not how soon you yourself may have occasion to ask the mercy which you
are now refusing to a fellow-creature. May God forgive you!”
[Illustration: THE OLD TOLBOOTH, EDINBURGH, TEMP. 1736.
_From an old Print_]
Wilson was hanged by the neck on the gibbet erected in the Grassmarket,
and the execution passed off quietly enough, though an enormous and
threatening crowd had assembled. But when the body had hung on the
gibbet for some time, some of the mob began to throw stones at the
guards and a rush was made for the scaffold to cut down the body,
either to give it decent burial or to see if it could be resuscitated.
Porteous, who was a violent-tempered man and was said to be half-drunk,
ordered the soldiers to fire upon the crowd and even stimulated them
by snatching a musket from a soldier and firing it himself. Several
persons were wounded, and six or seven killed on the spot. The firing
was the signal for a general tumult; Porteous and his soldiers withdrew
with difficulty to the guard-house, pursued by execrations and volleys
of stones. Local feeling was wholly against Porteous; he was arrested
for ordering the soldiers to fire upon the citizens, several of whom
had taken no part in the tumult. His trial took place before the High
Court of Justice in Edinburgh, and he was found guilty and condemned to
death. He was to be hanged on September 8th, 1736, and meanwhile lay in
the Tolbooth. He appealed to London, and the Queen-Regent in Council,
taking into consideration the provocation which Porteous had received,
ordered his reprieve.
When this reprieve arrived at Edinburgh from the Secretary of State’s
Office, under the hand of the Duke of Newcastle, the agitation that
arose was almost beyond belief. The people, who had been thirsting for
the death of Porteous, were like tigers baulked of their prey, and
determined to take the law into their own hands. There is little doubt
that the Lord Provost and city authorities were aware of what was going
to take place, and also the General in command of the troops at the
Castle. They did nothing to prevent it, for their sympathies were with
the people. The night after the Queen’s reprieve arrived in Edinburgh,
a fierce mob arose as if by magic, armed with pikes, bayonets, Lochaber
axes, and any arms they could find, and headed by a man dressed in
woman’s clothes. The rioters made themselves masters of the gates of
the city, disarmed the guard, and marched to the Tolbooth, with shouts
of “Porteous! Porteous!” The unhappy man within, who was entertaining a
party of boon companions on the cheerful news of his reprieve, saw the
glare of the torches, heard the cries, and recognised in them the shout
of his doom. His friends made off as fast as they could, the turnkeys
were seized with panic and ran away, and many prisoners escaped.
Porteous concealed himself in the chimney of his cell. For some time
the old door of the Tolbooth, which was of stout oak, heavily clamped
with iron, resisted the onslaughts of the rioters, but at last they
burned it down, and leaping over the embers rushed into the prison in
search of their prey. The miserable man was soon discovered, dragged
from the chimney, carried outside and hanged in the sight of the mob
from an improvised gibbet made of a barber’s pole. The crowd then
dispersed as suddenly and mysteriously as it had assembled; the method
and precision with which the ringleaders carried out their work, and
the celerity with which they dispersed, showed there was method in
this rough justice, and that it was rather the result of a conspiracy
than an ordinary riot. The next morning not a sign remained of the
night’s dread work except the body of Porteous hanging from the pole.
When the news reached London the Queen was furious at the insult which
she conceived had been especially aimed at her authority as Regent,
and gave vent to language which for vigour would have done credit to
her exemplar, Queen Elizabeth. For the only time on record Caroline
thoroughly lost her temper. She hastily summoned a council and proposed
the wildest measures. The charter of Edinburgh, she said, must be
withdrawn, the Provost must be incapacitated from ever holding office
again, the commander of the garrison must be cashiered, and fines
and imprisonment were to be the order of the day. The Duke of Argyll
endeavoured to put in a moderating word on behalf of his countrymen.
The Queen turned on him with fury, and said that sooner than brook such
an insult she would make Scotland a hunting ground. “In that case,
madam,” said the duke with a bow, “I will take leave of your Majesty,
and go down to my own country to get my hounds ready.” Caroline
recognised the covert threat in the duke’s words, and adjourned the
council. Fortunately her anger was not of a kind to last long, and
wiser counsels prevailed. The Scottish peers defended their countrymen
in the House of Lords, and in the end a compromise was arrived at, by
which the City of Edinburgh had to pay a nominal fine of £2,000, and
the Provost was disgraced.
It was on the Porteous Riots that Sir Walter Scott wrote his celebrated
novel, _The Heart of Midlothian_. He introduces Queen Caroline in
connection with Jeannie Deans, who walked all the way from Edinburgh
to London to plead the cause of her sister, Effie Deans, who was
sentenced to death according to Scottish law for concealing the birth
of her illegitimate child. The father of this child, according to
Scott’s romance, was Robertson, the prisoner who had escaped, and who
was supposed to have headed the mob against Porteous. Of course, in a
novel a good deal of fiction is reared on a slender basis of fact, and
Scott makes some little mistakes. For example, in the Queen’s interview
with Jeannie Deans he makes Lady Suffolk be in attendance, instead of
Lady Sundon (Mrs. Clayton), whereas Lady Suffolk had left the court
two years before; he also places the Queen’s palace at Richmond, where
the interview took place, in Richmond Park, whereas it was in Richmond
Gardens. But this much at least is true, and may be quoted as one of
the many instances of the Queen’s kindness of heart. A certain Scottish
peasant woman named Helen Walker actually did walk from Edinburgh to
London, to plead with the Queen-Regent on behalf of her sister, then
lying under sentence of death in the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. The sister,
who was called Isabella, or Tibbie Walker, had secretly given birth
to an illegitimate child, which shortly afterwards died, and by the
Scottish law of those days she was adjudged, by wilfully concealing
her condition, to have been guilty of its death. At the trial of this
wretched girl, her sister Helen, a rigid Presbyterian, was unwillingly
the principal witness against her sister. When she was asked whether
Tibbie, whom she dearly loved, had ever made known to her the fact of
her condition, she refused to perjure herself by saying that she had,
saying: “It is impossible for me to swear a falsehood”; and thus gave
away her sister’s sole chance of release. According to the Scottish
law, six weeks had to elapse between the sentence and the execution,
and in that time Helen Walker got up a petition praying the Queen for
her sister’s reprieve, signed by some of the principal residents in
Edinburgh, and armed with this she made her way to London on foot.
Arrived there she presented herself, clad in tartan plaid and country
attire, before John, the great Duke of Argyll, who was regarded in
Scotland as a protector of the poor. To him she made appeal. The Duke
of Argyll told the whole story to the Queen, who was so much touched
at the girl’s honesty in refusing to perjure herself, and her sisterly
devotion in making this long pilgrimage, that she granted the pardon at
once, and Helen Walker returned with it to Edinburgh in time to save
her sister. She had trusted “in the Almighty’s strength,” she said.
Whether the Queen gave audience to Helen Walker or not is uncertain
(it would have been characteristic of her if she had done so), but the
other facts of the case are well authenticated.
These exciting public events kept the Queen-Regent busy throughout the
summer and early autumn, and gave her less time to think about her
private troubles. But when the time drew near for the King to return to
England, and he still lingered at Hanover, she became anxious; and when
he wrote to say that he could not be back in England for his birthday,
October 30th, as he had always done before, her tolerance and endurance
began to give way. She took his absence on his birthday as a personal
slight to herself, a sign to all the world that her influence over
him had waned, owing to his passion for another. Her letters to the
King, which were usually of great length, giving him full details of
everything which took place, now became fewer and shorter, and no doubt
abated proportionately in warmth.
Walpole and the Queen had hitherto affected to treat the King’s affair
with Madame Walmoden as a joke, but now they recognised that it was
beyond a joke and might become a public danger as it already was a
public scandal. They therefore put affectation aside and looked the
matter in the face. Walpole repeated, with even greater frankness,
the views he had expressed on the subject some time before, and he
told the Queen that she could no longer keep the King to her side by
the arts and charms she had employed when she was a younger woman.
He therefore recommended that she should maintain her influence by
accepting the situation and making the best of it. Since the King would
not live anywhere long without his Walmoden, the Queen must go so far
as to ask him to bring her to England. The Queen wept bitterly when
the Prime Minister gave her this advice, but at last declared that she
would do as he suggested. Walpole, profligate and cynical though he
was, had his doubts at first whether the Queen, as a wife and a woman,
would carry her complaisance thus far. Two or three days after, when
he met her walking in the gardens at Richmond, she taxed him with not
believing that she would keep her promise. Walpole replied: “Madam,
your Majesty in asking if I disbelieved you, would put a word into my
mouth so coarse that I could not give it place even in my thoughts,
but if you oblige me to answer this question I confess _I feared_”.
“Well,” replied the Queen, “I understand what ‘I feared’ means on
this occasion. To show you that your fears were ill-founded I have
considered what you said to me, and am determined this very day to
write to the King just as you would have me, and on Monday when we meet
at Kensington you shall see the letter.” Accordingly Caroline wrote the
letter and despatched it to her faithless husband, assuring him that
she had nothing but his happiness at heart, and urging him to bring the
Walmoden to England if such a step would conduce to it. Heaven knows
what mortification and anguish the Queen suffered before she brought
herself to write that letter. She has been greatly blamed by the
moralists for writing it, but the great excuse that can be urged for
her is that her action was strongly dictated by political expediency,
for the King’s prolonged absence at Hanover was bringing his throne
into peril.
The Queen went further in her abasement, and even considered the
possibility of taking Madame Walmoden into her personal service in the
same position that Lady Suffolk had occupied, and so throwing an air of
respectability over the arrangement. But from this Walpole dissuaded
her, pointing out that it would deceive no one, and defeat its object,
for the world would be scandalised if the Queen made the King’s
mistress one of her servants, which he said was a different thing from
the King’s making one of the Queen’s servants his mistress, as had been
done in the case of Lady Suffolk--a nice distinction. The King was
delighted with his Queen’s complaisance, and soon sent her an answer
many pages long, in which he praised her to the skies. He said that he
wished to be everything that she would have him to be, but she knew his
nature, and must make allowances for it. “_Mais vous voyez mes passions
ma chère Caroline! Vous connaissez mes foiblesses, il n’y a rien de
caché dans mon cœur pour vous, et plût à Dieu que vous pourriez me
corriger avec la même facilité que vous m’approfondissez! Plût à Dieu
que je pourrais vous imiter autant que je sais vous admirer, et que je
pourrais apprendre de vous toutes les vertus que vous me faites voir,
sentir, et aimer!_” The King then gave for the Queen’s delectation a
detailed description of the Walmoden’s personal charms, over which
Caroline must have made a wry face. He desired that Lady Suffolk’s
lodgings should be made ready for her, as she would avail herself of
the Queen’s kind permission to make her home in England. The Queen
showed the King’s letter to Walpole, and said: “Well now, Sir Robert,
I hope you are satisfied. You see this minion is coming to England.”
But Walpole shook his head, and said that he did not believe she would
come, for she was afraid of the Queen. He had probably received advices
from his brother Horace at Hanover telling him that Madame Walmoden
was not such a fool as they thought her. His surmise proved correct,
for, though the Queen made ready the lodgings, the Walmoden thought
discretion the better part of valour, and remembering the fate of Lady
Suffolk, wisely elected to stay at Hanover.
The question whether Madame Walmoden would come or not agitated the
court, especially the Queen’s household. Some declared that it would
be an outrage and do infinite harm; others inclined to the opinion
that it would be better to bring her over, for if she kept the King
so long in Hanover, thus exasperating the English people, he would go
there once too often, and the nation would never let him come back. The
scandal gradually filtered down through the court to the people. They
did not understand why the King’s absence should be so prolonged, and
sought a cause. No one wanted him back for his own sake, but it was
said that trade suffered because the King was not in London, and the
disaffected seized upon his predilection for Hanover as a pretext for
their disaffection. Many honest people pitied the Queen, a virtuous
matron, they declared, who should not be used so ill, and they thought
it was ridiculous for the King at his age, close on sixty, with a wife
and family, to be playing the gallant, when he ought to be setting an
example to the nation. The most extraordinary bills and satires were
printed and posted up in different parts of the town; one ran to this
effect:--
“It is reported that his Hanoverian Majesty designs to visit his
British dominions for three months in the spring.”
On the gate of St. James’s Palace a more daring bill was posted:--
“Lost or strayed out of this house a man who has left a wife and six
children on the parish; whoever will give any tidings of him to the
church-wardens of St. James’s parish, so that he may be got again,
shall receive four shillings and sixpence reward. N.B.--This reward
will not be increased, nobody judging him to deserve a crown.”
One day in the City an old broken-down horse was turned out with a
ragged saddle on its back, and a woman’s pillion stuck up behind it. On
the horse’s forehead was fastened this inscription: “Let nobody stop
me, I am the King’s Hanoverian equipage going to fetch his Majesty and
his w----to England.”
In the autumn the Queen removed her court from Hampton Court to
Kensington. The King sent her word from Hanover that she could go
to St. James’s if she liked, but as she was afraid of arousing his
jealousy by keeping too much state, or perhaps because she did not
care to show herself much in public under present circumstances,
she declined, and only went to St. James’s to celebrate the King’s
birthday. The displeasure at his absence was very marked at the
birthday drawing-room; the attendance was meagre, and the clothes
positively shabby. The Queen affected to notice nothing unusual, but
the Prince of Wales openly expressed his approval of these signs of
dissatisfaction, and deliberately played on his sire’s unpopularity to
make himself more popular. But though the Queen was outwardly calm she
was inwardly much concerned, and she made representations so urgent to
the King that at last he gave the long-deferred orders for the royal
yacht to set out for Holland.
On December 7th (1736), after giving a ball and a farewell supper
at Herrenhausen, the King tore himself away from Hanover and his
Walmoden. He arrived four days later at Helvoetsluys, where the yacht
was awaiting him. His daughter, the Princess of Orange, lay in a very
perilous child-bed at the Hague, and had urgently asked her father to
come and see her on his way home, but the King would not leave his
mistress a few hours sooner so as to give himself time to visit his
daughter.
It was soon known in London that the King had set out from Hanover,
and the Queen anxiously awaited his return, she being the only person
in England who really cared whether he came back or not. But a great
storm arose at sea, which lasted for many days, and the King came not,
nor any tidings of him, though a hundred messages a day passed between
St. James’s Palace, where the Queen was, and the Admiralty. No one
knew whether the King had embarked at Helvoetsluys or not; but it was
thought certain that, if he had embarked, his vessel must go down, as
no ship could withstand the tremendous seas then running. As the days
went by and no news came, the suspense at court became great. Wagers
were freely laid on whether the King was drowned or not; many people
opined that he was, and the wish was often father to the thought. The
Prince of Wales went about everywhere, showing himself freely to the
people. When the Queen’s anxiety was at its worst he gave a dinner to
the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and made them a speech, which was loudly
praised. The Queen, who was greatly incensed that the Prince should
give this dinner at such a time, asked particulars about it the next
morning, and when she was told how well it had passed off, and how
popular the Prince was becoming, she exclaimed: “My God, popularity
always makes me sick, but Fritz’s popularity makes me vomit. I hear
that yesterday, on his side of the house, they talked of the King’s
being cast away with the same _sang-froid_ as you would talk of a coach
being overturned, and that my good son strutted about as if he had been
already King.”
Walpole and his friends about the court were much exercised as to what
would happen to the Queen if the King were really drowned, and the
Prince ascended the throne. Walpole declared that “he (the Prince)
would tear the flesh off her bones with hot irons,” so much did he
hate his mother. Lord Hervey, on the other hand, thought that he would
probably make use of the Queen’s great knowledge and experience in the
management of affairs, and her position would not become so intolerable
as some imagined. The Princess Caroline differed from him. “My good
lord,” she said, “you must know very little of him if you believe that,
for in the first place, he hates mamma, in the next, he has so good
an opinion of himself that he thinks he wants no advice, and of all
advice, no woman’s.” She said also that the moment he was King “she
would run out of the house, _au grand galop_”. But the Queen declared
that she would not budge an inch before she was compelled to go.
This uncertainty continued for more than a week, and one morning the
Prince of Wales, with a satisfaction he could ill conceal, came to the
Queen with the news that he had received a letter from a correspondent
near Harwich saying that the night before guns had been heard at sea,
signals of distress, and part of the fleet that escorted the King’s
yacht had been dispersed. The poor Queen passed a day of the greatest
anxiety and depression, but at night a King’s messenger, who had been
three days at sea, and had landed by a miracle at Yarmouth, arrived at
the palace with a letter from the King, telling the Queen that he had
not yet stirred out of Helvoetsluys. Directly the Queen read the letter
she cried out to the whole court: “The King is safe! the King is safe!”
with a joy that showed how greatly she had feared.
The Queen’s satisfaction did not last long. A few days later, the wind
having calmed, it was understood that the King had embarked. Suddenly
the gales arose fiercer than before, and everybody thought that he
was at sea and in great danger. No word of the King reached the court
for ten days more, and then a vessel that had set out with the King
from Helvoetsluys, and continued with the fleet until the storm arose,
brought news that the royal yacht had been seen to tack about, but
whether to return to the harbour or not it was impossible to say. The
tempests continued to rage with unabated violence, and from accounts
that reached the court of guns of distress and shipwrecks, there seemed
little doubt that the King by now was at the bottom of the sea. The
Queen lost all hope and broke down and wept bitterly. In the Prince’s
apartments everything wore a subdued air of excitement; messengers ran
to and fro, and it was said that the Prince already considered himself
King of England. The Queen, hearing this, roused herself and determined
to put a bold face on the matter, and on Sunday December 26th, she went
to the Chapel Royal as usual. She had not been in chapel more than half
an hour when a letter arrived from the King telling her that it was
true he had set out from Helvoetsluys, but owing to the violence of the
tempest he had put back again, with great difficulty, into port, where
he still was detained by contrary winds. It afterwards transpired that
the King had insisted on going forward, and only the good sense of the
admiral in command of the fleet, who flatly refused to obey orders,
saved his life.
The Queen now wrote to the King, telling him all her hopes and fears
and sufferings. She also told him of the Prince’s conduct when it
was thought that he was drowned, and how the different courtiers and
Ministers behaved. The King wrote a letter of great length in answer,
full of the most passionate tenderness. He no longer dilated on the
charms of the Walmoden, but on those of the Queen, expressing his
impatience to rejoin her, and depicting her as “a perfect Venus”.
The Queen could not forbear showing this letter to Walpole, who had
told her so frankly that her beauty had gone, and said: “Do not think
because I show you this that I am an old fool and vain of my person and
charms of this time of day”. But it was evident that she was very much
pleased.
There was no popular enthusiasm about the King’s safety, and one of
the topical jests was “How is the wind with the King? Like the nation
against him.” While the King was still away, waiting at Helvoetsluys
for the wind to change, a great fire broke out at the Temple and the
Prince of Wales went at midnight to help extinguish it. He was hailed
by the crowd with shouts of “Crown him! Crown him!!” and the same cry
was heard when he appeared at the theatre. However, any immediate
question of crowning him was put at rest by the return of the King,
who arrived at St. James’s on January 15th, 1737, after a detention at
Helvoetsluys of five weeks and an absence from England of more than
eight months. The Queen, accompanied by all her children, including the
Prince of Wales, went down to the courtyard of the palace to receive
him as he alighted from his coach. The King embraced her with great
affection, and then gave her his arm to conduct her upstairs. A council
was held the same day and the Queen surrendered into the King’s hands
her office of Regent.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XIII:
[116] This son, according to some authorities, came over to England
with Madame Walmoden, afterwards Countess of Yarmouth, after the
Queen’s death, and was generally known at court as “Master Louis”. But
according to Lord Hervey the child died within a year of its birth.
[117] _Old Whig_, 26th February, 1736. This inscription was afterwards
introduced by Hogarth in his caricature of Gin Lane.
[118] _The Daily Gazetteer_, 2nd October, 1736.