THE PRINCE AND THE PATRIOTS.
1737.
The King’s narrow escape from drowning really seemed to have given him
a lesson, for he behaved much better on his return to England than he
had done before he went to Hanover. He treated the Queen with great
affection and respect, and praised her frequently before all the court.
He no longer abused England and extolled Hanover, and he did not so
much as mention Madame Walmoden. Perhaps the state of his health had
something to do with his change of conduct; he had contracted a chill
on his journey home, which soon after his return developed into a low
fever. For some time the King was very unwell; he kept to his own
apartments and saw no one but the Queen and, when it was absolutely
necessary, Walpole. Exaggerated rumours soon spread abroad concerning
his condition, though the King himself, the Queen and the Princesses
made light of it. Still the King grew no better, and at last the
Ministers became anxious, and Walpole taxed the Queen with concealing
the King’s true state of health, an imputation which she indignantly
denied. The Prince of Wales and his friends declared that the King’s
constitution had quite broken up, and, even if he recovered from this
illness, it was unlikely that he would long survive. This was a little
too much for the King, and by way of showing that he was not dead yet,
he roused himself from his lethargy, quitted his chamber and resumed
his levées. It was noticed that he looked pale and thin, and it was
generally thought he would not live long, though, as a matter of fact,
he grew better every day after he quitted his chamber.
The King’s ill-health had the result of bringing the Prince of Wales
more prominently before the public. It was felt by many courtiers and
politicians that his coming to the throne was only a question of a
little time, and they were anxious to stand well with him. The alliance
between the Prince and the Patriots now became closer, and the Prince
gave the Opposition his open support in return for their championing
his grievances, which he was determined to have redressed by fair
means or foul. He had written, or caused to be written, _l’Histoire
du Prince Titi_, in which his wrongs were set forth in detail, and
the King and Queen abused under transparent pseudonyms. Translations
of this work were circulated about this time, and gave great offence
at the court, but they influenced to some extent popular feeling in
his favour. The Prince took the leaders of the Opposition into his
confidence, especially rising men like Pitt and Lyttelton. Perhaps
it was these younger and more fiery spirits who urged him to act upon
the advice of Bolingbroke, and set the King at defiance, though it was
generally supposed that Chesterfield prompted him. Certain it was that
the Prince saw in his father’s illness an opportunity of bringing his
claims before Parliament, and determined to delay no longer. The Prince
requested the leaders of the Opposition to raise the question in the
House of Commons. Some were at first reluctant, but influenced no doubt
by the King’s ill-health, Pulteney at last consented to bring forward
the question, and Wyndham and Barnard agreed to support him.
When the King and Queen heard the news they were thrown into an
extraordinary state of agitation. The King was beside himself with
rage; the Queen declared that all these disputes would kill her. The
Government, too, were in a difficult position. The Prince’s demand
that he should have his,£100,000 a year, and a dowry for the Princess
was, on the face of it, reasonable, and, what was more important,
popular; Ministers could not be sure of their majority, and might
suffer defeat. Walpole endeavoured to effect a compromise, and after
great difficulty induced the King to send a message to the Prince the
day before the motion came on in the House, saying that he was prepared
to settle,£50,000 a year on him absolutely, and to give the Princess
a dowry. The Prince declined to consider the message, saying that the
matter was in other hands.
The next day, February 22nd (1737), Pulteney brought forward his
motion in a moderate speech, basing his main argument on precedent,
and the right of the heir-apparent to the Crown to enjoy a sufficient
and settled income. Walpole in his reply laid stress upon the King’s
message to the Prince the previous day, as showing how far the King
was anxious to meet his son’s wishes. He held that Parliamentary
interference between father and son would be highly indecorous. In
the end the Prince’s claims were rejected by a majority of thirty.
This small majority would really have been reduced to a minority if
forty-five Tories with Jacobite leanings had not left the House in a
body, unwilling to give any vote in favour of the heir of Hanover, even
though by doing so they would defeat the Government.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESSES MARY AND LOUISA.
(DAUGHTERS OF GEORGE II.)]
The King and the Queen were overjoyed at the Prince’s defeat, and, in
the first flush of victory, the King was inclined to follow up his
advantage by turning his son immediately out of St. James’s Palace in
the same way as (he might have remembered, but did not) his father had
turned him out. Walpole dissuaded the King from taking so extreme a
step, and then proceeded to urge him to make good his promise to settle
a jointure on the Princess, and make over, £50,000 a year to his son
absolutely. To this the King now demurred, though Walpole pointed out
to him that the victory in the House of Commons had only been gained
on the understanding that the King would carry out his pledges. The
difficulty was complicated by the Prince continuing impenitent.
So far from being downcast by his defeat in the House of Commons, he
called a council of all his friends, and it was resolved to raise the
question anew in the House of Lords, Lord Carteret undertaking to
bring forward the motion, and Chesterfield to support it. Here, too,
he lost, but public sympathy was undoubtedly with him, and to prevent
the scandal from growing, Walpole, Newcastle, and indeed all the King’s
Ministers, urged the necessity of a settlement. One was eventually
made, though not until much later, by the King settling £50,000 a year
on the Prince absolutely, together with £10,000 a year from the Duchy
of Cornwall, and Parliament making up the rest by giving an unusually
large jointure to the Princess of Wales.
The King and Queen were much disgusted at what they considered the
Government’s half-heartedness, and included in their displeasure the
Whigs generally, who had certainly wavered in their devotion to the
court when they heard that the King’s health was so bad. “If the Whigs
can be so little depended upon in the King’s interest,” said the Queen,
“we might as well send for the Tories, who are only too willing to
come; the King has only to beckon to them.” She did not mean what she
said, but Walpole became alarmed. His majority was not so large that
he could pose any longer as a dictator, or afford to dispense with the
Queen’s favour and support. He knew that Lady Sundon was intriguing
against him, and that she had had several interviews with Lord
Carteret. Carteret now expressed his great regret at having championed
the Prince’s cause; he said he was driven into it against his better
judgment; he was full of the Queen’s praises, and vowed that he would
do anything to serve her. He declared that he had great influence over
the Opposition leaders, especially Pulteney and Wyndham, and could
bring them to the Queen’s side if she would only make the sign. All
this was duly repeated by Lady Sundon to the Queen, who listened but
did nothing. She never intended to do anything, but she thought it well
to bring Walpole to his bearings, and in this she quickly succeeded.
Walpole came to her, and told her that he had heard of Carteret’s
overtures, and warned her not to trust him. The Whigs he urged were
the natural support of the Hanoverian family, which was certainly
true, since they had brought them over to England, and the Tories were
but a broken reed. Caroline agreed with all he said, but fell back
upon the lukewarm support which the Whigs had given the King. Even
Walpole, she said, had regarded the Prince’s conduct in too favourable
a light. Walpole told her that he had only striven to bring the Prince
to reason, but he now owned that he had made a mistake. The Queen, he
said, should never again have cause to complain of him on that score,
he saw that the Prince must be overcome. The Queen said she only wanted
him to assure her on that point, and she dismissed him with many
assurances that she would never cease to support him. The immediate
result of this reconciliation was to strengthen the alliance between
the Prince and the Patriots, who now saw in Frederick their only hope
of ever gaining office.
These events took place quite early in the Session, but when Parliament
rose the King said nothing about going to Hanover as Ministers had
feared. In truth he was afraid to go, for he knew that Frederick would
seize upon it as a pretext for some fresh intrigue, and the country was
hardly in a humour to brook another prolonged absence. So he rarely
mentioned the name of Hanover and never that of Walmoden. Most people
about the court thought that the King had forgotten her for Lady
Deloraine, to whom he showed great attention, paying her visits in her
apartments for a long time together, as he had done to Lady Suffolk in
the old days. He also insisted on her sitting next him at the commerce
table, and often walked with her _tête-à-tête_ in the gardens. Lady
Deloraine, who had great beauty but little discretion, was inclined to
boast of her triumphs, for she said to Lord Hervey: “Do you know the
King has been in love with me these two years?” Lord Hervey, who was
afraid to invite dangerous confidences, merely smiled and said: “Who
is not in love with you?” Walpole came across her one day, standing in
the hall at Richmond with a baby in her arms, and said to her: “That
is a very pretty boy, Lady Deloraine; whose is it?” She replied: “Mr.
Windham’s (her husband’s) upon my honour. But,” she added with a
significant laugh, “I will not promise whose the next shall be.” She
moreover told several people that the King had been importunate a long
time, but that she had held out from motives of virtue, which were not
at all appreciated, as her husband, she was sure, did not care.
Whether there was anything between Lady Deloraine and the King or not,
the Queen followed her usual policy of ignoring the intrigue. She knew
what her husband was, and made allowances. Perhaps, too, she was glad
that he should seek distraction from Madame Walmoden, though she knew
that he had not forgotten her. Walpole had told her of an incident
which showed how the King still esteemed his Hanoverian mistress above
Lady Deloraine. He ordered Walpole one day to buy a hundred lottery
tickets, and to charge the amount, £1,000, to the secret service fund
instead of his civil list. Walpole did as he was bid and told Hervey of
this iniquitous transaction, which he said was for the benefit of the
King’s favourite. Hervey thought he meant Lady Deloraine and expressed
his surprise at the largeness of the sum, saying he “did not think his
Majesty went so deep there”. Walpole replied: “No, I mean the Hanover
woman. You are right to imagine he does not go so deep to his lying
fool here. He will give her a couple of the tickets and think her
generously used.”
The relations between the Prince of Wales and his parents went from bad
to worse as the months wore on, but they were not even yet strained
to breaking point. Acting on the advice of his supporters the Prince
still occasionally attended levées and drawing-rooms. The King treated
him as though he were not in the room; the Queen, though she recognised
his presence, did not speak to him more than was absolutely necessary,
and in private she declared that she was afraid to do so lest he should
distort her words. The Prince still resided in his father’s house,
making his headquarters at St. James’s Palace. But when the King and
Queen moved to Hampton Court for the summer he had perforce to go there
too, but much against his will. Though he and the Princess lived under
the same roof as the King and Queen they saw little of them, and only
met them in public.
In July the Prince wrote a letter to the Queen announcing that the
Princess was with child. The Queen congratulated him and the Princess
on the auspicious event, and asked the latter some maternal questions
about her condition. To all these the Princess made the same answer--“I
do not know”. The Queen had doubts, which were shared by her daughters,
as to whether the Princess was really pregnant. Both she and the King
considered the Prince quite capable of palming off a spurious child on
them, and their prejudices against him were so strong that they half
believed he was plotting to do so. They had no wish that the Princess
of Wales should bear children; it was generally thought that she would
not. If she did it would destroy the remaining chance that their
beloved younger son, William, might one day succeed to the crown. The
Prince, who resented these suspicions, wished that his wife should be
confined at St. James’s, but the King determined that the event should
take place at Hampton Court. The Queen declared that “at her labour I
positively will be, let her lie in where she will,” but again expressed
herself sceptical about the Princess being confined at all, as she
could see no signs of it. The Prince, on the other hand, who knew and
resented these suspicions, vowed that his mother should not be present
at the birth, and that the child should be born at St. James’s. He kept
his word.
The court was then at Hampton Court for the summer, and the Prince and
Princess of Wales were there occupying their own suite of apartments.
On Sunday, July 31st, the Princess dined in public with the King and
Queen, but on retiring to her apartments she was seized with pain, and
symptoms of premature confinement became manifest. Notwithstanding the
danger, which perhaps the Prince did not realise, as the Princess’s
confinement was not expected for two months, he determined that she
should at once be secretly removed to St. James’s. He ordered his coach
to be brought round quickly. It was nearly dark, and the Prince’s
apartments were in another wing of the palace to those of the King and
Queen, so they were able to make their exit without being seen. The
poor Princess was carried downstairs, though she begged her husband
to let her remain where she was, and Lady Archibald Hamilton added
her entreaties, but to no effect. The Prince obstinately insisted on
his wife getting into the coach with Lady Archibald and one of her
women. The Prince got in after them, and gave the order to drive with
all speed to St. James’s, and once outside the gates of Hampton Court
they went at full gallop towards London. The Princess moaned in agony,
but the Prince kept saying: “Courage, courage,” telling her by way of
consolation that it would all be over in a minute. They arrived at St.
James’s Palace about ten o’clock: there was nothing ready for them, as
they were not expected. The Princess, shrieking with pain, was carried
upstairs and put to bed, and, there being no sheets in the palace, a
pair of table-cloths had to make shift instead. Within half-an-hour she
was prematurely delivered of a girl child.[119]
Meanwhile at Hampton Court, the King and Queen, all unsuspecting,
passed their evening as usual: the King played commerce below stairs
with Lady Deloraine and the maids of honour; the Queen and the Princess
Amelia played quadrille above; the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey
had their nightly game of cribbage. The party broke up, and all retired
at eleven, without having heard a whisper of what had been going on in
the Prince of Wales’s apartments. The King and Queen had gone to bed
and to sleep, when about half-past one they were aroused by the arrival
of a courier from St. James’s Palace with a message that brooked no
delay. The Queen, startled at being aroused at so unusual an hour,
asked whether the palace was on fire, but Mrs. Tichburne, her dresser,
in fear and trembling explained that the Prince of Wales had sent to
let their Majesties know that the Princess was in labour. The Queen
jumped up immediately and cried out: “My God! My night-gown, I’ll go to
her this moment.” “Your night-gown, madam,” said the worthy Tichburne,
“aye, and your coaches too; the Princess is at St. James’s.” “Are you
mad?” exclaimed the Queen, “or are you asleep, my good Tichburne? you
dream.” Then Mrs. Tichburne told the whole tale of the Princess’s
flight, so far as she understood it. The King raged and swore, and
began to abuse the Queen, saying: “You see, now, with all your wisdom,
how they have outwitted you. This is all your fault. There will be a
false child put upon you, and how will you answer for it to all your
children? This has been fine care and fine management for your son,
William; he is mightily obliged to you; and as for Anne, I hope she
will come over and scold you herself; I am sure you deserve anything
she can say to you.”
The Queen made no answer, but dressed quickly, ordered her coach, and
set out for London at once, accompanied by the Princesses Amelia and
Caroline, and attended by some of the lords in waiting. She arrived at
St. James’s Palace about four o’clock, left her coach, and those who
came with her, at the outer gate, walked alone across the courtyard
and made her way upstairs as fast as she could. At the top of the
stairs she met the Prince in his night-gown. He dutifully kissed her
hand and cheek, and then with scarcely concealed malice told her that
she was too late, the Princess had given birth to a daughter. The
Queen expressed neither surprise nor annoyance, but asked why the
news of the child’s birth had not been sent to her before she started
from Hampton Court. The Prince said that he had written letters to
the King and Queen directly he could; the messenger was already on
the road and she would doubtless find them on her return. The Queen
made no further remark, but asked to see the mother and child. The
Prince then conducted her into the Princess’s chamber. The Queen kissed
the Princess and wished her joy, but expressed her fear that she had
suffered greatly. The Princess dutifully replied: “Not at all; it is
nothing”. Lady Archibald Hamilton brought the child, which was wrapped
up in an old red mantle and some napkins, no proper clothes having yet
been found for it, nor any nurse. The Queen kissed the babe and said:
“The good God bless you, poor little creature; you have come into a
troublesome world”.
The Prince then began a long account of what had happened. The Queen
listened to him without interruption, but when he had quite finished,
she said that it was a miracle the Princess and the child had not been
killed. She added that he and his wife were a couple of young fools
who could not have been aware of the danger they ran, and then she
turned to Lady Archibald and said: “But for you, my Lady Archibald, who
have had ten children, that with your experience, and at your age, you
should suffer these people to act with such a madness, I am astonished;
and wonder how you could, for your own sake as well as theirs, venture
to be concerned in such an expedition”. To this Lady Archibald made
no reply, except to turn to the Prince and say: “You see, sir”. The
Queen then embraced the Princess, wished her good-bye, and told her
that if there was anything she wanted she had only to name it and it
would be done. The Princess, who had evidently been coached in her
part, from between her table-cloths thanked her Majesty, but said she
wanted nothing. The Prince waited on his mother down the stairs, still
in his night-gown, and would have escorted her to her coach, had she
not insisted that he should not accompany her out of doors in such a
plight. The Queen walked across the courts by herself to where the
coaches were waiting. She told the Princesses that she had no doubt the
child was genuine, but she added: “If instead of this poor, little,
ugly she-mouse there had been a brave, large, fat, jolly boy, I should
not have been cured of my suspicions”.
As soon as the Queen had set out from Hampton Court the King sent
express messengers to Walpole and Lord Harrington, requesting them
to hasten to St. James’s to be present at the birth of the Prince’s
child. They went thither with all speed, but like the Queen arrived
too late. Walpole returned to Hampton Court in the course of the
morning, and had a conference with the King and Queen. He agreed
that the insult was intolerable, and must be punished. Walpole had
learnt his lesson, and was now wholly against the Prince. So far from
attempting to moderate the King’s ire he rather sought to inflame it,
and declared that if the King and Queen did not conquer him he would
conquer them. After much discussion and much strong language, the King
sent the Prince a written message, complaining of the “deliberate
indignity” offered to him and the Queen, which he “resented in the
highest degree”. The King was for taking more drastic measures at once,
but Walpole persuaded him to defer them until the Princess was out
of danger, and then strike. The King would gain by waiting a little
he said, for as soon as it was known that the Prince had been guilty
of this grievous act of folly his popularity would wane. In this he
was right, for no sooner did the news get abroad than the public, to
a man, condemned the Prince’s conduct in risking his wife’s life and
that of his unborn child, in order to insult his father and mother. His
friends who had supported him through thick and thin in his endeavour
to get a separate grant from Parliament were unable to find an excuse
for this rash and inconsiderate step, though they urged in palliation
the Prince’s natural pique at the surveillance to which he had been
subjected, and his ignorance of the danger the Princess had run.
The Prince, who soon became aware that he had made a false step, called
a council of his chief supporters, including Carteret, Chesterfield and
Pulteney, who frankly told him that he had put himself in the wrong,
and the best thing he could do would be to patch up a reconciliation
with the King and Queen. In view of this the Prince, a few days later,
thought he would go to Hampton Court to pay his respects to the King
and Queen, but the King, having got ear that he was coming, sent him
a message saying he would not see him. Thereupon ensued a lengthy
correspondence, in which the Prince would not own himself in the wrong.
He expressed himself deeply grieved at having aroused the King’s anger,
but insinuated that the Queen was really responsible for the strained
relations between himself and his father. He thus struck a note which
was taken up by the Prince’s court, and afterwards by the great body of
his supporters. Afraid to strike at the King directly, they threw all
the blame upon the Queen, who they declared had first artfully inflamed
the King’s anger against his son, and now tried to keep him inflexible.
It was a cowardly thing to do, as well as unjust, for the Queen had
always been on the side of peace; but the Prince hated his mother
because the King had appointed her Regent instead of him, and the
Opposition hated the Queen because she had shown herself, through storm
and shine, the firm supporter of Walpole. In pursuance of this policy,
when the Queen, nine days after her daughter-in-law’s confinement,
paid her another visit at St. James’s, the Prince treated his mother
with marked discourtesy; he avoided meeting her at the main entrance,
and only received her at the door of the Princess’s bedchamber; he
refused to speak a word to her during the whole visit, though the Queen
was in the room with him and her daughter-in-law more than an hour.
He could not help escorting her to her coach when she left, but did
it all in dumb show; yet when they reached the coach door, and he saw
that a considerable crowd had assembled, he knelt down in the muddy
street and kissed her hand with every demonstration of respect. At
this hyprocrisy, as Horace Walpole says, “her indignation must have
shrunk into contempt.”[120] The Queen was deeply wounded by her son’s
treatment, and after that she paid no more visits to St. James’s.
These acts irritated the King beyond endurance, and even the Queen was
stung out of her usual calm by the attacks made upon her. But anger and
strong language availed nothing. The Prince was heir to the throne, and
an heir to a throne is never without friends. In Frederick’s case his
friends were all the Patriots; even Carteret, finding his overtures
to the Queen led to nothing, had gone back to him. The triumph of the
Prince would mean the triumph of the Opposition too, the defeat of
the King and Queen, the defeat of the Government. Walpole knew this,
and realised that if any reconciliation were brought about he would
probably have to go. It was obviously to the advantage of the Royal
Family that these quarrels should end, and Lord Hardwicke, the Lord
Chancellor, earnestly strove to bring about a reconciliation. But
Walpole advised the King against it, an easy task, for the King’s
inclination was all for revenge. Another message, an ultimatum, was
therefore composed and sent by the King, denouncing the Prince’s
conduct in the strongest terms, and ending, “It is my pleasure that you
leave St. James’s with all your family”.[121] This was equivalent to a
total separation.
The Prince received the King’s message without comment, and, as the
orders were peremptory, two days later he and the Princess removed
from St. James’s Palace to Kew. All communications between the two
courts were now broken off, and shortly afterwards the Prince took up
his residence at Norfolk House, St. James’s Square, which immediately
became a rival court and the centre of the Opposition, much as
Leicester House had been in the reign of George the First.[122] The
court of Norfolk House, though small in numbers, was not without
brilliancy. The Prince had wit and pleasing manners and was ably
seconded by his young and beautiful consort. His love of letters
attracted many of the ablest writers, and his political views drew
around him the rising men among the Tories. The Prince of Wales’s
court became a focus of all the talents and a rallying place of the
younger Tories, and as time went on, it influenced considerably the
course of English politics. A generation was growing up in the Tory
party which knew not the Stuarts, and saw a way of overthrowing the
Whig ascendency, not by the forcible restoration of James, but in the
peaceable accession of Frederick. They were doomed to wander many years
in the wilderness of opposition before their dreams came true; and
the Whig domination was at last beaten down, not by Frederick, but by
his son. But at this time Frederick’s accession to the throne seemed
comparatively near at hand. It was in view of his future reign, and as
a satire on his father’s, that Bolingbroke composed his magnificent
essay, _The Ideal of a Patriot King_, a sublime conception of
government, but impossible to be acted upon, because it presupposed the
existence of a monarch of almost superhuman wisdom and virtues. Such an
ideal could not be realised in Frederick, nor was it realised in his
son, George the Third.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XIV:
[119] The Princess thus born was afterwards Duchess of Brunswick, and
died in London, March, 1813.
[120] Walpole’s _Reminiscences_, vol. iv. He repeats the same story
in his _Memoirs_, vol. i. Horace Walpole confuses the Queen’s second
visit with her first, otherwise his account tallies with that of Lord
Hervey--_Memoirs_, vol. ii.
[121] Message of the King to the Prince of Wales, 10th September, 1737.
[122] The parallel became closer when Frederick Prince of Wales removed
to Leicester House.