Let us do the prince the justice to say, that, in asking that his

income might be doubled, he did not ask that the money should be drawn

from the public purse. When Bubb Dodington first advised him to apply

to parliament for a grant, his answer was spirited enough. ‘The people

have done quite enough for my family already, and I would rather beg

my bread from door to door than be a charge to them.’ What he asked

for was, that out of his father’s civil list of nearly a million

sterling per annum, he might be provided with a more decent revenue

than a beggarly fifty thousand a-year, paid at his father’s pleasure.

Pulteney’s motion was denounced by ministers as an infraction of the

King’s prerogative. Well, Frederick could not get the cash he coveted

from the King, and he would not take it from the public. Bubb Dodington

had advised him to apply to parliament, and he rewarded Bubb for the

hint by easing him occasionally of a few thousands at play. He exulted

in winning. ‘I have just nicked Dodington,’ said he on one occasion,

‘out of 5,000_l._, and Bubb has no chance of ever getting it again!’

The battle, however, was not yet concluded. The prince’s party

resolved to make the same motion in the Lords which had been made in

the Commons. The King and Queen meanwhile considered that they were

released from their engagement, whereby the prince’s revenue was to

be placed entirely in his own power. They were also anxious to eject

their son from St. James’s. Good counsel, nevertheless, prevailed over

them to some extent, and they did not proceed to any of the extremities

threatened by them. In the meantime, the scene within the palace was

one to make a very stoic sigh. The son had daily intercourse with one

or both of his parents. He led the Queen by the hand to dinner, and

she could have stabbed him on the way; for her wrath was more bitter

than ever against him, for the reason that he had introduced her name,

through his friends, in the parliamentary debate, in a way which she

considered must compromise her reputation with the people of England.

He had himself declared to the councillors who had brought him the

terms of the King’s offer, that he had frequently applied through the

Queen for an interview with the King, at which an amicable arrangement

of their differences might be made; but that she had prevented such

an interview, by neglecting to make the prince’s wishes known to his

father. This story was repeated by the prince’s friends in parliament,

and Caroline called heaven and earth to witness that her son had

grossly and deliberately lied. In this temper the two often sat down to

dinner at the same table. As for the King, although Frederick attended

the royal _levées_, and stood near his royal sire, the latter never

affected to behold or to consider him as present, and he invariably

spoke of him as a brainless, impertinent puppy and scoundrel.[28]

The motion for the address to the King, praying him to confer a

jointure on the princess, and to settle 100,000_l._ a-year out of the

civil list on the prince, was brought before the House of Peers by Lord

Carteret. That nobleman so well served his royal client that, before

bringing forward the motion, he made an apology to the Queen, declaring

that office had been forced on him. The exercise thereof was a decided

failure. The Lords rejected the motion, on a division of 103 to 40,

the minority making strong protest against the division of the House,

and in very remarkable language. The latter did not trouble their

Majesties, and this settling of the question helped to restore Walpole

to the royal favour, from which he had temporarily fallen.

There was another public affair which gave the Queen as much perplexity

as any of her domestic troubles. This was the investigation into the

matter of the Porteous riot at Edinburgh, with the object of punishing

those who were most to blame. It is not necessary to detail this

matter at any length, or indeed further than the Queen was personally

connected with it. She was exceedingly desirous that it should be

decided on its merits, and that it should not be made a national

matter of. On this account, she was especially angry with the Duke of

Newcastle, on whom she laid the blame of having very unnecessarily

dragged up to London such respectable men as the Scotch judges; and she

asked him ‘What the devil he meant by it?’ While the affair was still

pending, but after the judges had been permitted to go back again, the

Queen remarked to Lord Hervey, ‘she should be glad to know the truth,

but believed she should never come at it--whether the Scotch judges

had been really to blame or not in the trial of Captain Porteous: for,

between you and the Bishop of Salisbury’ (Sherlock), said she, ‘who

each of you convinced me by turns, I am as much in the dark as if I

knew nothing at all of the matter. He comes and tells me that they

are all as black as devils; you, that they are as white as snow; and

whoever speaks last, I believe. I am like that judge you talk of so

often in the play (Gripus,[29] I think you call him), who, after one

side had spoken, begged t’others might hold their tongue, for fear of

puzzling what was clear to him. I am Queen Gripus; and since the more I

hear the more I am puzzled, I am resolved I will hear no more about it;

but let them be in the right or the wrong, I own to you I am glad they

are gone.’

The city of Edinburgh was ultimately punished by the deposition of

its provost, Mr. Wilson, who was declared incapable of ever serving

his Majesty, and by the imposition of a fine of two thousand pounds

sterling. The ‘mulct’ was to go to the ‘cook-maid widow of Captain

Porteous, and make her, with most unconjugal joy, bless the hour in

which her husband was hanged.’[30]

The conduct of Caroline, when Sir John Bernard proposed to reduce the

interest on the National Debt from four to three per cent., again

presents her to us in a very unfavourable light. Not only the Queen,

but the King also was most energetically opposed to the passing of the

bill. People conjectured that their Majesties were large fundholders,

and were reluctant to lose a quarter of the income thence arising, for

the good of the nation. The bill was ultimately thrown out, chiefly

through the opposition of Walpole. By this decision, the House

stultified its own previously accorded permission (by 220 to 157)

for the introduction of the bill. Horace Walpole, the brother of Sir

Robert, was one of those who voted first for and then against the bill

--or first against and then for his brother. We must once more draw

from Lord Hervey’s graphic pages to show what followed at court upon

such a course:--‘Horace Walpole, though his brother made him vote

against the three per cent., did it with so ill a grace, and talked

against his own conduct so strongly and so frequently to the Queen,

that her Majesty held him at present in little more esteem or favour

than the Duke of Newcastle. She told him that because he had some

practice in treaties, and was employed in foreign affairs, he began to

think he understood everything better than anybody else; and that it

was really quite new his setting himself up to understand the revenue,

money matters, and the House of Commons better than his brother! “Oh,

what are you all but a rope of sand, that would crumble away in little

grains, one after another, if it was not for him?” And whenever Horace

had been with her, speaking on these subjects, besides telling Lord

Hervey, when he came to see her, how like an opinionative fool Horace

had talked before them, she used to complain of his silly laugh hurting

her ears, and his dirty body offending her nose, as if she had never

had the two senses of hearing and smelling, in all her acquaintance

with poor Horace, till he had talked for three per cent. Sometimes she

used to cough and pretend to retch with talking of his dirt; and would

often bid Lord Hervey open the window to purify the room of the stink

Horace had left behind him, and call the pages to burn sweets to get

it out of the hangings. She told Lord Hervey she believed Horace had a

hand in the “Craftsman,” for that once, warmed in disputing on this

three-per-cent. affair, he had more than hinted to her that he guessed

her reason for being so zealous against this scheme was her having

money in the stocks.’

When such coarseness was common at court, we need not be surprised

that dramatic authors, whose office it is to hold the mirror up to

nature, should have attempted to make some reflection thereon, or to

take license therefrom, and give additional coarseness to the stage.

Walpole’s virtuous indignation was excited at this liberty--a liberty

taken only because people in his station, and far above his station,

by their vices and coarseness, justified the license. It was this

vice, and not the vices of dramatic authors, which first fettered

the drama and established a censorship. The latter was set up, not

because the stage was wicked, but in order that it should not satirise

the wickedness of those in high station. The Queen was exceedingly

delighted to see a gag put upon both Thalia and Melpomene.

The vice was hideous. They who care to stir the offensive mass will

find proof enough of this hideousness in the account given by Lady

Deloraine, the wife of Mr. Windham, of the King’s courtship of her, and

his consequent temporary oblivion of Madame Walmoden. This new rival of

the Queen, a charming doll of thirty-five years of age, was wooed by

the King in a strain which the stage would hardly have reproduced; and

his suit was commented upon by the lady, in common conversation with

lords and ladies, with an unctuousness of phrase, a licentiousness of

manner, and a coolness of calculation such as would have disgraced the

most immodest of women. This coarseness of sentiment and expression

was equally common. When it was said that Lord Carteret was writing a

history of his times, and that noble author himself alleged that he

was engaged in ‘giving fame to the Queen,’ the latter, one morning,

noticed the alleged fact to Lord Hervey. The King was present, and his

Majesty remarked:--‘I dare say he will paint you in fine colours, the

dirty liar.’ ‘Why not?’ asked Caroline; ‘good things come out of dirt

sometimes. I have ate very good asparagus raised out of dung?’ When

it was said that not only Lord Carteret, but that Lords Bolingbroke

and Chesterfield were also engaged in writing the history of their

times, the Queen critically anticipated ‘that all the three histories

would be three heaps of lies; but lies of very different kinds: she

said Bolingbroke’s would be great lies; Chesterfield’s little lies;

and Carteret’s lies of both sorts.’[31] It may be added, that where

there were vice and coarseness there was little respect for justice

or for independence of conduct. The placeman who voted according to

his conscience, when he found his conscience in antagonism against the

court, was invariably removed from his place.

In concluding this chapter, it may be stated that when Frederick was

about to bring forward the question of his revenue, the Queen would

fain have had an interview with the son she alternately despised and

feared, to persuade him against pursuing this measure--the carrying out

of which she dreaded as prejudicial to the King’s health in his present

enfeebled state. Caroline, however, would not see her son, for the

reason, as the mother alleged, that he was such an incorrigible liar

that he was capable of making any mendacious report of the interview,

even of her designing to murder him. She had, in an interview with

him, at the time of the agitation connected with the Excise bill, been

compelled to place the Princess Caroline, concealed, within hearing,

that she might be a witness in case of the prince, her brother,

misrepresenting what had really taken place.

When the King learned the prince’s intentions, he took the matter much

more coolly than the Queen. Several messengers, however, passed between

the principal parties, but nothing was done in the way of turning the

prince from his purpose. It was an innocent purpose enough, indeed,

as he represented it. The parliament had entrusted to the King a

certain annual sum for the prince’s use. The King and Queen did not

so understand it, and he simply applied to parliament to solicit that

august body to put an interpretation on its own act.

The supposed debilitated condition of the King’s health gave increased

hopes to the prince’s party. The Queen, therefore, induced him to

hold _levées_ and appear more frequently in public. His improvement

in health and good humour was a matter of disappointment to those who

wished him dying, and feared to see him grow popular.

The animosity of the Queen and her daughter, Caroline, against the

Prince of Wales was ferocious.[32] The mother cursed the day on which

she had borne the son who was for ever destroying her peace, and

would end, she said, by destroying her life. There was no opprobrious

epithet which she did not cast at him; and they who surrounded the

Queen and princess had the honour of daily hearing them hope that

God would strike the son and brother dead with apoplexy. Such enmity

seems incredible. The gentle Princess Caroline’s gentlest name for her

brother was ‘that nauseous beast;’ and in running over the catalogue

of crimes of which she declared him capable, if not actually guilty,

she did not hesitate to say that he was capable of murdering even

those whom he caressed. Never was family circle so cursed by dissension

as this royal circle; in which the parents hated the son, the son

the parents; the parents deceived one another, the husband betrayed

the wife, the wife deluded the husband, the children were at mutual

antagonism, and truth was a stranger to all.

CHAPTER VII.

THE BIRTH OF AN HEIRESS.

Russian invasion of the Crimea--Announcement of an heir disbelieved

by the Queen--Princess of Wales conveyed to St. James’s by the

Prince in a state of labour--Birth of a Princess--Hampton Court

Palace on this night--The palace in an uproar--Indignation

of Caroline--Reception of the Queen by the Prince--Minute

particulars afforded her by him--Explanatory notes between

the royal family--Message of the King--His severity to the

Prince--The Princess Amelia double-sided--Message of Princess

Caroline to the Prince--Unseemly conduct of the Prince--The

Prince an agreeable ‘rattle’--The Queen’s anger never subsided--

The Prince ejected from the palace--The Queen and Lord Carteret

--Reconciliation of the royal family attempted--Popularity of

the Prince--The Queen’s outspoken opinion of the Prince--An

interview between the King, Queen, and Lord Hervey--Bishop

Sherlock and the Queen--The King a purchaser of lottery-tickets.

The parliament, having passed a Land-tax bill of two shillings in the

pound, exempted the Prince of Wales from contributing even the usual

sixpence in the pound on his civil-list revenue, and settled a dowry

on his wife of 50,000_l._ per annum, peremptorily rejected Sir John

Bernard’s motion for decreasing the taxation which weighed most heavily

on the poor.[33] The public found matter for much speculation in these

circumstances, and they alternately discussed them with the subject of

the aggressive ambition of Russia. The latter power was then invading

the Crimea with two armies under Munich and Lasci. The occupier of

the Muscovite throne stooped to mendacity to veil the real object of

the war; and there were Russian officers not ashamed to be assassins

--murdering the wounded foe whom they found lying helpless on their

path.[34]

The interest in all home and foreign matters, however, was speedily

lost in that which the public took in the matter, which soon presented

itself, of the accession of an heir in the direct hereditary line of

Brunswick.

The prospect of the birth of a lineal heir to the throne ought to

have been one of general joy in a family whose own possession of the

crown was contested by the disinherited heir of the Stuart line. The

prospect, however, brought no joy with it on the present occasion. It

was not till within a month of the time for the event that the Prince

of Wales officially announced to his father, on the best possible

authority, the probability of the event itself. Caroline appears at

once to have disbelieved the announcement. She was so desirous of

the succession falling to her second son, William, that she made no

scruple of expressing her disbelief of what, to most other observers,

was apparent enough. She questioned the princess herself, with more

closeness than even the position of a mother-in-law could justify; but

for every query the well-trained Augusta had one stereotyped reply--‘I

don’t know.’ Caroline, on her side, resolved to be better instructed.

‘I will positively be present,’ she exclaimed, ‘when the promised

event takes place;’ adding, with her usual broadness of illustration,

‘It can’t be got through as soon as one can blow one’s nose; and I am

resolved to be satisfied that the child is hers.’

These suspicions, of which the Queen made no secret, were of course

well known to her son. He was offended by them; offended, too, at a

peremptory order that the birth of the expected heir should take place

in Hampton Court Palace; and he was, moreover, stirred up by his

political friends to exhibit his own independence, and to oppose the

royal wish, in order to show that he had a proper spirit of freedom.

Accordingly, twice he brought the princess to London, and twice

returned with her to Hampton Court. Each time the journey had been

undertaken on symptoms of indisposition coming on, which, however,

passed away. At length one evening, the prince and princess, after

dining in public with the King and Queen, took leave of them for the

night, and withdrew to their apartments. Up to this hour the princess

had appeared to be in her ordinary health. Tokens of supervening

change came on, and the prince at once prepared for action. The night

(the 31st of July) was now considerably advanced, and the Princess of

Wales, who had been hitherto eager to obey her husband’s wishes in all

things, was now too ill to do anything but pray against them. He would

not listen to such petitions. He ordered his ‘coach’ to be got ready

and brought round to a side entrance of the palace. The lights in the

apartment were in the meantime extinguished. He consigned his wife to

the strong arms of Desnoyers, the dancing-master, and Bloodworth, an

attendant, who dragged, rather than carried, her down stairs. In the

meantime, the poor lady, whose life was in very present peril, and

sufferings extreme, prayed earnestly to be permitted to remain where

she was. Subsequently she protested to the Queen that all that had been

done had taken place at her own express desire! However this may be,

the prince answered her prayers and moans by calling on her to have

courage; upbraiding her for her folly; and assuring her, with a very

manly complacency, that it was nothing, and would soon be over! At

length the coach was reached. It was the usually capacious vehicle of

the time, and into it got not only the prince and princess, but Lady

Archibald Hamilton and two female attendants. Vriad, who was not only

a _valet-de-chambre_, but a surgeon and _accoucheur_, mounted the box.

Bloodworth, the dancing-master, and two or three more, got up behind.

The prince enjoined the strictest silence on such of his household

as remained at Hampton Court, and therewith the coach set off, at a

gallop, not for the prince’s own residence at Kew, but for St. James’s

Palace, which was at twice the distance.

At the palace nothing was prepared for them. There was not a couch

ready for the exhausted lady, who had more than once on the road been,

as it seemed, upon the point of expiring; not even a bed was ready for

her to lie down and repose upon. No sheets were to be found in the

whole palace--or at least in that part over which the prince had any

authority. For lack of them, Frederick and Lady Hamilton aired a couple

of tablecloths, and these did the service required of them.

In the meantime, notice had been sent to several officers of state,

and to the more necessary assistants required, to be present at the

imminent event. Most of the great officers were out of the way. In lieu

of them arrived the Lord President, Wilmington, and the Lord Privy

Seal, Godolphin. In their presence was born a daughter, whom Lord

Hervey designated as ‘a little rat’ and described as being ‘no bigger

than a tooth-pick case.’

Perhaps it was the confusion which reigned before and at her birth

which had some influence on her intellects in after life. She was an

extremely pretty child, not without some mental qualifications; but

she became remarkable for making observations which inflicted pain and

embarrassment on those to whom they were addressed. In after years, she

also became the mother of that Caroline of Brunswick who herself made

confusion worse confounded in the family into which she was received as

a member--that Caroline whom we recollect as the consort of George IV.

and the protectress of Baron Bergami.

At Hampton Court, the King and Queen, concluding that their dear son

and heir had, with his consort, relieved his illustrious parents of

his undesired presence for the night, thought of nothing so little as

of that son having taken it into his head to perform a trick which

might have been fittingly accompanied by the ‘Beggars’ Opera’ chorus of

‘Hurrah for the Road!’

No comedy has such a scene as that enacted at Hampton Court on this

night. While the prince was carrying off the princess, despite all

her agonising entreaties, the rest of the royal family were quietly

amusing themselves in another part of the palace, unconscious of what

was passing. The King and the Princess Amelia were at _commerce_

below-stairs; the Queen, in another apartment, was at quadrille; and

the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey were soberly playing at cribbage.

They separated at ten, and were all in bed by eleven, perfectly

ignorant of what had been going on so near them.

At a little before two o’clock in the morning, Mrs. Tichborne entered

the royal bedchamber, when the Queen, waking in alarm, asked her if the

palace was on fire. The faithful servant intimated that the prince had

just sent word that her royal highness was on the point of becoming a

mother. A courier had just arrived, in fact, with the intelligence.

The Queen leaped out of bed and called for her ‘morning gown,’ wherein

to hurry to the room of her daughter-in-law. When Tichborne intimated

that she would need a coach as well as a gown, for that her royal

highness had been carried off to St. James’s, the Queen’s astonishment

and indignation were equally great. On the news being communicated

to the King, his surprise and wrath were not less than the Queen’s,

but he did not fail to blame his consort as well as his son. She had

allowed herself to be outwitted, he said; a false child would despoil

her own offspring of their rights; and this was the end of all her

boasted care and management for the interests of her son William! He

hoped that Anne would come from Holland and scold her. ‘You deserve,’

he exclaimed, ‘anything she can say to you.’ The Queen answered little,

lest it should impede her in her haste to reach London. In half an hour

she had left the palace accompanied by her two daughters, and attended

by two ladies and three noblemen. The party reached St. James’s by four

o’clock.

As they ascended the staircase, Lord Hervey invited her Majesty to

take chocolate in his apartments after she had visited the princess.

The Queen replied to the invitation ‘with a wink,’ and a significant

intimation that she certainly would refuse to accept of any refreshment

at the hands of her son. One would almost suppose that she expected to

be poisoned by him.

The prince, attired, according to the hour, in nightgown and cap, met

his august mother as she approached his apartments, and kissed her hand

and cheek, according to the mode of his country and times. He then

entered garrulously into details that would have shocked the delicacy

of a monthly nurse; but, as Caroline remarked, she knew a good many of

them to be ‘lies.’ She was cold and reserved to the prince; but when

she approached the bedside of the princess, she spoke to her gently

and kindly--womanly, in short; and concluded by expressing a fear that

her royal highness had suffered extremely, and a hope that she was

doing well. The lady so sympathisingly addressed, answered, somewhat

flippantly, that she had scarcely suffered anything, and that the

matter in question was almost nothing at all. Caroline transferred her

sympathy from the young mother to her new-born child. The latter was

put into the Queen’s arms. She looked upon it silently for a moment,

and then exclaimed in French, her ordinary language, ‘May the good

God bless you, poor little creature! here you are arrived in a most

disagreeable world.’ The wish failed, but the assertion was true. The

‘poor little creature’ was cursed with a long tenure of life, during

which she saw her husband deprived of his inheritance, heard of his

violent death, and participated in family sorrow, heavy and undeserved.

After pitying the daughter thus born, and commiserating the mother who

bore her, Caroline was condemned to listen to the too minute details

of the journey and its incidents, made by her son. She turned from

these to shower her indignation upon those who had aided in the flight,

and without whose succour the flight itself could hardly have been

accomplished. She directed her indignation by turns upon all; but she

let it descend with peculiar heaviness upon Lady Archibald Hamilton,

and made it all the more pungent by the comment, that, considering Lady

Archibald’s mature age, and her having been the mother of ten children,

she had years enough, and experience enough, and offspring enough, to

have taught her better things and greater wisdom. To all these winged

words, the lady attacked answered no further than by turning to the

prince, and repeating, ‘You see, sir!’ as though she would intimate

that she had done all she could to turn him from the evil of his ways,

and had gained only unmerited reproach for the exercise of a virtue,

which, in this case, was likely to be its own and its only reward!

The prince was again inclined to become gossiping and offensive in

his details, but his royal mother cut him short by bidding him get to

bed; and with this message by way of farewell, she left the room,

descended the staircase, crossed the court on foot, and proceeded to

Lord Hervey’s apartments, where there awaited her gossip more welcome

and very superior chocolate.

Over their ‘cups,’ right merry were the Queen and her gallant

vice-chamberlain at the extreme folly of the royal son. They were too

merry for Caroline to be indignant, further than her indignation could

be shown by designating her son by the very rudest possible of names,

and showing her contempt for all who had helped him in the night’s

escapade. She acknowledged her belief that no foul play had taken

place, chiefly because the child was a daughter. This circumstance

was in itself no proof of the genuineness of the little lady, for if

Frederick had been desirous of setting aside his brother William, his

mother’s favourite, from all hope of succeeding to the throne, the

birth of a daughter was quite as sufficient for the purpose as that

of a son.[35] The Queen comforted herself by remarking that, at all

events, the trouble she had taken that night was not gratuitous. It

would at least, as she delicately remarked, be a ‘good grimace for

the public,’ who would contrast her parental anxiety with the marital

cruelty and the filial undutifulness of the Prince of Wales.

While this genial pair were thus enjoying their chocolate and gossip,

the two princesses, and two or three of the noblemen in attendance,

were doing the same in an adjoining apartment. Meanwhile Walpole

had arrived, and had been closeted with the prince, who again had

the supreme felicity of narrating to the unwilling listener all the

incidents of the journey, in telling which he, in fact, gave to the

minister the opportunity which Gyges was afforded by Candaules, or

something very like it, and for which Frederick merited, if not the

fate of the heathen husband, at least the next severe penalty short of

it.

The sun was up long before the royal and illustrious party dispersed.

The busy children of industry, who saw the Queen and her equipage sweep

by them along the Western Road, must have been perplexed with attempts

at guessing at the causes of her Majesty being so early abroad, in so

wayworn a guise. The last thing they could then have conjectured was

the adventure of the night--the scene at Hampton Court, the flight

of the son with his wife, the pursuit of the royal mother with her

two daughters, the occurrence at St. James’s--or, indeed, any of the

incidents of the stirring drama that had been played out.

From the hour when royalty had been suddenly aroused to that at which

the Queen arrived at Hampton Court Palace--eight in the morning, George

II. had troubled himself as little with conjecturing as his subjects.

When the Queen detailed to him all that had passed, he poured out the

usual amount of paternal wrath, and of the usual quality. He never was

nice of epithet, and least of all when he had any to bestow upon his

son. It was not spared now, and what was most liberally given was most

bitter of quality.

Meanwhile, both prince and princess addressed to their Majesties

explanatory notes in French, which explained nothing, and which, as far

as regards the prince’s notes, were in poor French and worse spelling.

Everything, of course, had been done for the best; and the sole regret

of the younger couple was, that they had somehow, they could not guess

how or wherefore, incurred the displeasure of the King and Queen. To

be restored to the good opinion of the latter was, of course, the one

object of the involuntary offenders’ lives. In short, they had had

their way; and, having enjoyed that exquisite felicity, they were not

reluctant to pretend that they were extremely penitent for what had

passed.

The displeasure of Caroline and her consort at the unfeeling conduct

of Frederick was made known to the latter neither in a sudden nor an

undignified way. It was not till the 10th of September that it may

be said to have been officially conveyed to the prince. On that day

the King and Queen sent a message to him from Hampton Court, by the

Dukes of Grafton and Richmond and the Earl of Pembroke, who faithfully

acquitted themselves of their unwelcome commission at St. James’s.

The message was to the effect, that ‘the whole tenor of the prince’s

conduct for a considerable time had been so entirely void of all real

duty, that their Majesties had long had reason to be highly offended

with him; and, until he withdrew his regard and confidence from those

by whose instigation and advice he was directed and encouraged in his

unwarrantable behaviour to his Majesty and the Queen, and until he

should return to his duty, he should not reside in a palace belonging

to the King, which his Majesty would not suffer to be made the resort

of those who, under the appearance of an attachment to the prince,

fomented the divisions which he had made in his family, and thereby

weakened the common interest of the whole.’ Their Majesties further

made known their pleasure that ‘the prince should leave St. James’s,

with all his family, when it could be done without prejudice or

inconvenience to the princess.’ His Majesty added, that ‘he should, for

the present, leave the care of his grand-daughter until a proper time

called upon him to consider of her education.’ In consequence of this

message, the prince removed to Kew on the 14th of September.

The King and Queen now not only treated their son with extraordinary

severity, and spoke of him in the coarsest possible language, but

they treated in like manner all who were suspected of aiding and

counselling him. Their wrath was especially directed against Lord

Carteret, who had at first deceived them. That noble lord censured, in

their hearing, a course of conduct in the prince which he had himself

suggested, and, in the hearing of the heir-apparent, never failed to

praise. When their Majesties discovered this double-dealing, and that

an attempt was being made to convince the people that in the matter

of the birth of the princess royal, the Queen alone was to blame for

all the disagreeable incidents attending it, their anger was extreme.

The feeling for Lord Carteret was shown when Lord Hervey one day spoke

of him with some commiseration--his son having run away from school,

and there being no intelligence of him, except that he had formed a

very improper marriage. ‘Why do you pity him?’ said the King to Lord

Hervey: ‘I think it is a very just punishment, that, while he is acting

the villainous part he does in debauching the minds of other people’s

children, he should feel a little what it is to have an undutiful puppy

of a son himself!’

Fierce, indeed, was the family feud, and undignified as fierce. The

Princess Amelia is said to have taken as double-sided a line of conduct

as Lord Carteret himself; for which she incurred the ill-will of both

parties. The prince declared not only that he never would trust her

again, but that, should he ever be reconciled with the King and Queen,

his first care should be to inform them that she had never said so much

harm of him to them as she had of them to him. The Princess Caroline

was the more fierce partisan of the mother whom she loved, from the

fact that she saw how her brother was endeavouring to direct the public

feeling against the Queen. She was, however, as little dignified in her

fierceness as the rest of her family. On one occasion, as Desnoyers,

the dancing-master, had concluded his lesson to the young princesses,

and was about to return to the prince, who made of him a constant

companion, the Princess Caroline bade him inform his patron, if the

latter should ever ask him what was thought of his conduct by her,

that it was her opinion that he and all who were with him, except the

Princess of Wales, deserved hanging. Desnoyers delivered the message,

with the assurances of respect given by one who acquits himself of a

disagreeable commission to one whom he regards. ‘How did the prince

take it?’ asked Caroline, when next Desnoyers appeared at Hampton

Court. ‘Well, madam,’ said the dancing-master, ‘he first spat in the

fire, and then observed, “Ah, ah! Desnoyers; you know the way of that

Caroline. That is just like her. She is always like that!”’ ‘Well, M.

Desnoyers,’ remarked the princess, ‘when next you see him again, tell

him that I think his observation is as foolish as his conduct.’

The exception made by the Princess Caroline of the Princess of Wales,

in the censure distributed by the former, was not undeserved. She was

the mere tool of her husband, who made no confidante of her, had not

yet appreciated her, but kept her in the most complete ignorance of all

that was happening around her, and much of which immediately concerned

her. He used to speak of the office of wife in the very coarsest terms;

and did not scruple to declare that he would not be such a fool as his

father was, who allowed himself to be ruled and deceived by his consort.

In the meantime, he treated his mother with mingled contempt and

hypocrisy. When, nine days after the birth of the little Princess

Augusta, the Queen and her two daughters again visited the Princess of

Wales, the prince, who met her at the door of the bedchamber, never

uttered a single word during the period his mother remained in the

room.

He was as silent to his sisters; but he was ‘the agreeable “rattle”’

with the members of the royal suite. The Queen remained an hour; and

when she remarked that she was afraid she was troublesome, no word

fell from the prince or princess to persuade her to the contrary. When

the royal carriage had arrived to conduct her away, her son led her

downstairs, and at the coach door, ‘to make the mob believe that he was

never wanting in any respect, he kneeled down in the dirty street, and

kissed her hand. As soon as this operation was over, he put her Majesty

into the coach, and then returned to the steps of his own door, leaving

his sisters to get through the dirt and the mob, by themselves, as they

could. Nor did there come to the Queen any message, either from the

prince or princess, to thank her afterwards for the trouble she had

taken, or for the honour she had done them in this visit.’ This was the

last time the mother and son met in this world. Horace Walpole well

observes of the scene that it must have caused the Queen’s indignation

to shrink into mere contempt.

The Queen’s wrath never subsided beyond a cold expression of

forgiveness to the prince when she was on her death-bed; but she

resolutely refused to see him when that solemn hour arrived, a few

months subsequently. She was blamed for this; but her contempt was too

deeply rooted to allow her to act otherwise to one who had done all he

could to embitter the peace of his father. She sent to him, it is said,

her blessing and pardon; ‘but conceiving the extreme distress it would

lay on the King, should he thus be forced to forgive so impenitent a

son, or to banish him if once recalled, she heroically preferred a

meritorious husband to a worthless child.’[36]

Had the prince been sincere in his expressions when addressing either

of his parents by letter after the delivery of his wife, it is not

impossible but that a reconciliation might have followed. His studied

disrespect towards the Queen was, however, too strongly marked to

allow of this conclusion to the quarrel. He invariably omitted to

speak of her as ‘your Majesty;’ _Madam_, and _you_, were the simple

and familiar terms employed by him. Indeed, he more than once told her

that he considered that the Prince of Wales took precedence of the

Queen-consort; at which Caroline would contemptuously laugh, and assure

her ‘dear Fritz’ that he need not press the point, for even if she were

to die, the King could not marry _him_!

It was for mere annoyance’ sake that he declared, at the end of August,

after the christening of his daughter, that she should not be called

the ‘Princess Augusta,’ but the ‘Lady Augusta,’ according to the old

English fashion. At the same time he declared that she should be styled

‘Your Royal Highness,’ although such style had never been used towards

his own sisters before their father’s accession to the crown.

It will hardly be thought necessary to go through the documentary

history of what passed between the Sovereigns and their son before he

was finally ejected from St. James’s Palace. Wrong as he was in his

quarrel, ‘Fritz’ kept a better temper, though with as bitter a spirit

as his parents. On the 13th of September, the day before that fixed

on for the prince’s departure, ‘the Queen, at breakfast, every now

and then repeated, _I hope in God I shall never see him again_; and

the King, among many other paternal _douceurs_ in his valediction to

his son, said: Thank God! to-morrow night the puppy will be out of my

house.’ The Queen thought her son would rather like, than otherwise,

to be made a martyr of; but it was represented to her, that however

much it might have suited him to be made one politically, there was

more disgrace to him personally in the present expulsion than he would

like to digest. The King maintained that his son had not sense of his

own to find this out; and that as he listened only to boobies, fools,

and madmen, he was not likely to have his case truly represented to

him. And then the King ran through the list of his son’s household; and

Lord Carnarvon was set down as being as coxcombical and irate a fool

as his master; Lord Townshend, for a proud, surly booby; Lord North,

as a poor creature; Lord Baltimore, as a trimmer; and ‘Johnny Lumley’

(the brother of Lord Scarborough), as, if nothing else, at least ‘a

stuttering puppy.’ Such, it is said, were the followers of a prince,

of whom his royal mother remarked, that he was ‘a mean fool’ and ‘a

poor-spirited beast.’

While this dissension was at its hottest, the Queen fell ill of the

gout. She was so unwell, so weary of being in bed, and so desirous

of chatting with Lord Hervey, that she now for the first time broke

through the court etiquette, which would not admit a man, save the

Sovereign, into the royal bed-chamber. The noble lord was with her

there during the whole day of each day that her confinement lasted. She

was too old, she said, to have the honour of being talked of for it;

and so, to suit her humour, the old ceremony was dispensed with. Lord

Hervey sate by her bed-side, gossiped the live-long day; and on one

occasion, when the Prince of Wales sent Lord North with a message of

enquiry after her health, he amused the Queen by turning the message

into very slipshod verse, the point of which is at once obscure and

ill-natured, but which seems to imply that the prince would have been

well content had the gout, instead of being in her foot, attacked her

stomach.

The prince had been guilty of no such indecency as this; but there was

no lack of provocation to make him commit himself. When he was turned

out of St. James’s, he was not permitted to take with him a single

article of furniture. The royal excuse was, that the furniture had

been purchased, on the prince’s marriage, at the King’s cost, and was

his Majesty’s property. It was suggested that sheets ought not to be

considered as furniture; and that the prince and princess could not be

expected to carry away their dirty linen in baskets. ‘Why not?’ asked

the King; ‘it is good enough for them!’

Such were the petty circumstances with which Caroline and her consort

troubled themselves at the period in question. They at once hurt their

own dignity and made their son look ridiculous. The great partisan of

the latter (Lord Baltimore) did not rescue his master from ridicule by

comparing his conduct to that of the heroic Charles XII. of Sweden.

But the comparison was one to be expected from a man whom the King had

declared to be, in a great degree, a booby, and, in a trifling degree,

mad.

As soon as the prince had established himself at Kew, he was waited on

by Lord Carteret, Sir William Wyndham, and Mr. Pulteney. The King could

not conceal his anger under an affected contempt of these persons or of

their master. He endeavoured to satisfy himself by abusing the latter,

and by remarking that ‘they would soon be tired of the puppy, who was,

moreover, a scoundrel and a fool; and who would talk more fiddle-faddle

to them in a day than any old woman talks in a week.’

The prince continued to address letters both to the King and Queen,

full of affected concern, expressed in rather impertinent phrases. The

princess addressed others, in which she sought to justify her husband’s

conduct; but as in all these notes there was a studied disrespect of

Caroline, the King would neither consent to grant an audience to the

offenders, nor would the Queen interfere to induce him to relent.

The Queen, indeed, did not scruple to visit with her displeasure

all those courtiers who showed themselves inclined to bring about

a reconciliation; and yet she manifested some leaning towards Lord

Carteret, the chief agent of her son. This disposition alarmed Walpole,

who took upon himself to remind her that _her_ minister could serve

her purpose better than her son’s, and that it was of the utmost

importance that she should conquer in this strife. ‘Is your son to be

bought?’ said Walpole. ‘If you will buy him, I will get him cheaper

than Carteret.’ Caroline answered only with ‘a flood of grace, good

words, favour, and professions’ of having full confidence in her own

minister--that is, Walpole himself--who had served her so long and so

faithfully.

A trait of Caroline’s character may here be mentioned, as indicative

of how she could help to build up her own reputation for shrewdness by

using the materials of others. Sir Robert Walpole, in conversation with

Lord Hervey, gave him some account of an interview he had had with the

Queen. The last-named gentleman believed all the great minister had

told him, because the Queen herself had, in speaking of the subject

to Lord Hervey, used the precise terms now employed by Walpole. The

subject was the lukewarmness of some of the noblemen about court to

serve the King: the expression used was--‘People who keep hounds must

not hang every one that runs a little slower than the rest, provided,

in the main, they will go with the pack; one must not expect them all

to run just alike and to be equally good.’ Hervey told Walpole of the

use made by the Queen of this phrase, and Sir Robert naturally enough

remarked, ‘He was always glad when he heard she repeated as her own

any notion he had endeavoured to infuse, because it was a sign what he

had laboured had taken place.’

Meanwhile the prince was of himself doing little that could tend to

anything else than widen the breach already existing between him and

his family. He spoke aloud of what he would do when he came to be

King. His intentions, as reported by Caroline, were that she, when

she was Queen-dowager, should be ‘fleeced, flayed, and minced.’ The

Princess Amelia was to be kept in strict confinement; the Princess

Caroline left to starve; of the little princesses, Mary and Louisa,

then about fourteen and thirteen years of age, he made no mention; and

of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, he always spoke ‘with great

affectation of kindness.’

Despite this imprudent conduct, endeavours continued to be made by the

prince and his friends, in order to bring about the reconciliation

which nobody seemed very sincere in desiring. The Duke of Newcastle had

implored the Princess Amelia, ‘For God’s sake!’ to do her utmost ‘to

persuade the Queen to make things up with the prince before this affair

was pushed to an extremity which might make the wound incurable.’ The

Queen is said to have been exceedingly displeased with the Duke of

Newcastle for thus interfering in the matter. The Princess of Wales,

however, continued to write hurried and apparently earnest notes

to the Queen, thanking her for her kindness in standing godmother

to her daughter, treating her with ‘Your Majesty,’ and especially

defending her own husband, while affecting to deplore that his conduct,

misrepresented, had incurred the displeasure of their Majesties. ‘I

am deeply afflicted,’ so runs a note of the 17th of September, ‘at

the manner in which the prince’s conduct has been represented to your

Majesties, especially with regard to the two journeys which we made

from Hampton Court to London the week previous to my confinement. I

dare assure your Majesties, that the medical man and midwife were then

of opinion that I should not be confined before the month of September,

and that the indisposition of which I complained was nothing more

than the cholic. And besides, madam, is it credible, that if I had

gone twice to London with the design and in the expectation of being

confined there, I should have returned to Hampton Court? I flatter

myself that time and the good offices of your Majesty will bring about

a happy change in a situation of affairs, the more deplorable for me

inasmuch as I am the innocent cause of it,’ &c.

This letter, delivered as the King and Queen were going to chapel,

was sent by the latter to Walpole, who repaired to the royal closet

in the chapel, where Caroline asked him what he thought of this last

performance? The answer was very much to the purpose. Sir Robert said,

he detected ‘you lie, you lie, you lie, from one end of it to the

other.’ Caroline agreed that the lie was flung at her by the writer.

There was as much discussion touching the reply which should be

sent to this grievously offending note as if it had been a protocol

of the very first importance. One was for having it smart, another

formal, another so shaped that it should kindly treat the princess as

blameless, and put an end to further correspondence, with some general

wishes as to the future conduct of ‘Fritz.’ This was done, and the

letter was despatched. What effect it had upon the conduct of the

person alluded to may be discerned in the fact that when, on Thursday,

the 22nd of September, the prince and princess received at Carlton

House the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London, with an address of

congratulation on the birth of the Princess Augusta, the lords of the

prince’s present council distributed to everybody in the room copies of

the King’s message to the prince, ordering him to quit St. James’s,

and containing reflections against all persons who might even visit

the prince. The lords, particularly the Duke of Marlborough and Lords

Chesterfield and Carteret, deplored the oppression under which the

Prince of Wales struggled. His highness also spoke to the citizens in

terms calculated--certainly intended--to win their favour.

He did not acquire all the popular favour he expected. Thus, when,

during the repairs of Carlton House, he occupied the residence of the

Duke of Norfolk, in St. James’s Square--a residence which the duke and

duchess refused to let to him, until they had obtained the sanction of

the King and Queen--‘he reduced the number of his inferior servants,

which made him many enemies among the lower sort of people.’ He also

diminished his stud, and ‘farmed all his tables, even that of the

princess and himself.’ In other words, his tables were supplied by a

cook at so much per head.

His position was one, however, which was sure to procure for him a

degree of popularity, irrespective of his real merits. The latter,

however, were not great nor numerous, and even his own officers

considered their interests far before those of him they served--or

deserted. At the theatre, however, he was the popular hero of the hour,

and when once, on being present at the representation of ‘Cato,’[37]

the words--

When vice prevails and impious men bear sway,

The post of honour is a private station--

were received with loud huzzas, the prince joined in the applause, to

show how he appreciated, and perhaps applied, the lines.

Although the King’s alleged oppression towards his son was publicly

canvassed by the latter, the prince and his followers invariably named

the Queen as the true author of it. The latter, in commenting on this

filial course, constantly sacrificed her dignity. ‘My dear lord,’ said

Caroline, once, to Lord Hervey, ‘I will give it you under my hand,

if you have any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born is the

greatest ass, and the greatest liar, and the greatest _canaille_, and

the greatest beast, in the whole world, and that I most heartily wish

he was out of it!’ The King continued to treat him in much the same

strain, adding, courteously, that he had often asked the Queen if the

beast were his son. ‘The Queen was a great while,’ said he, ‘before her

maternal affection would give him up for a fool, and yet I told her

so before he had been acting as if he had no common sense.’ While so

hard upon the conduct of their son, an entry from Lord Hervey’s diary

will show us what was their own: the King’s with regard to decency, the

Queen’s with respect to truth.

Whilst the Queen was talking one morning touching George I.’s will and

other family matters, with Lord Hervey, ‘the King opened her door at

the further end of the gallery; upon which the Queen chid Lord Hervey

for coming so late, saying, that she had several things to say to him,

and that he was always so long in coming, after he was sent for, that

she never had any time to talk with him. To which Lord Hervey replied,

that it was not his fault, for that he always came the moment he was

called; that he wished, with all his heart, the King had more love, or

Lady Deloraine more wit, that he might have more time with her Majesty;

but that he thought it very hard that he should be snubbed and reproved

because the King was old and Lady Deloraine a fool. This made the Queen

laugh; and the King asking, when he came up to her, what it was at, she

said it was at a conversation Lord Hervey was reporting between the

prince and Mr. Lyttelton, on his being made secretary. The King desired

him to repeat it. Lord Hervey got out of the difficulty as he best

could. When the Queen and my lord next met, she said: “I think I was

one with you for your impertinence.” To which Lord Hervey replied, “The

next time you serve me so, madam, perhaps I may be even with you, and

desire your Majesty to repeat as well as report.”’[38]

It may be noticed here, that both Frederick and the Queen’s party

published copies of the French correspondence which had passed between

the two branches of the family at feud, and that in the translations

appended to the letters, each party was equally unscrupulous in giving

such turns to the phrases as should serve only one side, and injure the

adverse faction. Bishop Sherlock, who set the good fashion of residing

much within his own diocese, once ventured to give an opinion upon the

prince’s conduct, which at least served to show that the prelate was

not a very finished courtier. Bishops who reside within their dioceses,

and trouble themselves little with what takes place beyond it, seldom

are. The bishop said that the prince had lacked able counsellors, had

weakly played his game into the King’s hands, and made a blunder which

he would never retrieve. This remark provoked Caroline to say--‘I hope,

my lord, this is not the way you intend to speak your disapprobation of

my son’s measures anywhere else; for your saying that, by his conduct

lately, he has played his game into the King’s hands, one would imagine

you thought the game had been before in his own; and though he has made

his game still worse than it was, I am far from thinking it ever was a

good one, or that he had ever much chance to win.’

Caroline, and indeed her consort also, conjectured that the public

voice and opinion were expressed in favour of the occupants of the

throne from the fact, that the birthday drawing-room of the 30th of

October was the most splendid and crowded which had ever been known

since the King’s accession. That King himself probably little cared

whether he were popular or not. He was at this time buying hundreds of

lottery-tickets, out of the secret-service money, and making presents

of them to Madame Walmoden. A few fell, perhaps, to the share of Lady

Deloraine: ‘He’ll give her a couple of tickets,’ said Walpole, ‘and

think her generously used.’ His Majesty would have rejoiced if he could

have divided so easily his double possession of England and Hanover.

He had long entertained a wish to give the Electorate to his second

son, William of Cumberland, and entertained a very erroneous idea

that the English parliament could assist him in altering the law of

succession in the Electorate. Caroline had, perhaps, not a much more

correctly formed idea. She had a conviction, however, touching her son,

which was probably better founded. ‘I knew,’ she said, ‘he would sell

not only his reversion in the Electorate, but even in this kingdom,

if the Pretender would give him five or six hundred thousand pounds

in present; but, thank God! he has neither right nor power to sell

his family--though his folly and his knavery may sometimes distress

them.’[39]

CHAPTER VIII.

DEATH OF CAROLINE.

Indisposition of the Queen--Her anxiety to conceal the

cause--Walpole closeted with her--Her illness assumes a grave

character--Obliged to retire from the Drawing-room--Affectionate

attentions of Princess Caroline--Continued bitter feeling towards

the Prince--Discussions of the physicians--Queen takes leave of

the Duke of Cumberland--Parting scene with the King--Interview

with Walpole--The Prince denied the palace--Great patience of

the Queen--The Archbishop summoned to the palace--Eulogy on the

Queen pronounced by the King--His oddities--The Queen’s exemplary

conduct--Her death--Terror of Dr. Hulse--Singular conduct of the

King--Opposition to Sir R. Walpole--Lord Chesterfield pays court

to the Prince’s favourite.

After the birth of the Princess Louisa, on the 12th of December, 1724,

Caroline, then Princess of Wales, was more than ordinarily indisposed.

Her indisposition was of such a nature that, though she had made no

allusion to it herself, her husband spoke to her on the subject. The

princess avoided entering upon a discussion, and sought to satisfy the

prince by remarking that her indisposition was nothing more than what

was common to her health, position, and circumstances. For some years,

although the symptoms were neglected, the disease was not aggravated.

At length more serious indications were so perceptible to George,

who was now King, that he did not conceal his opinion that she was

suffering from rupture. This opinion she combated with great energy,

for she had a rooted aversion to its being supposed that she was

afflicted with any complaint. She feared lest the fact, being known,

might lose her some of her husband’s regard, or lead people to think

that with personal infirmity her power over him had been weakened. The

King again and again urged her to acknowledge that she suffered from

the complaint he had named, and to have medical advice on the subject.

Again and again she refused, and each time with renewed expressions

of displeasure; until at last, the King, contenting himself with

expressing a hope that she would not have to repent of her obstinacy,

made her a promise never to allude to the subject again without her

consent. The secret, however, was necessarily known to others also;

and we can only wonder that, being so known, more active and effective

measures were not taken to remedy an evil which, in our days, at least,

formidable as it may appear in name, is so successfully treated as

almost to deserve no more serious appellation than a mere inconvenience.

Under an appearance of, at least, fair health, Queen Caroline may be

said to have been gradually decaying for years. Her pride and her

courage would not, however, allow of this being seen; and when she

rose, as was her custom, to curtsey to the King, not even George

himself was aware of the pain the effort cost her. Sir Robert Walpole

was long aware that she suffered greatly from some secret malady, and

it was not till after a long period of observation that he succeeded

in discovering her Majesty’s secret. He was often closeted with her,

arranging business that they were afterwards to nominally transact

in presence of the King, and to settle, as _he_ imagined, according

to _his_ will and pleasure. It was on some such occasion that Sir

Robert made the discovery in question. The minister’s wife had just

died; she was about the same age as Caroline, and the Queen put to the

minister such close, physical questions, and adverted so frequently

to the subject of rupture, of which Sir Robert’s wife did not die,

that the minister at once came to the conclusion that her Majesty

was herself suffering from that complaint.[40] This was the case: but

the fact was only known to the King himself, her German nurse (Mrs.

Mailborne), and one other person. A curious scene often occurred in her

dressing-room and the adjoining apartment. During the process of the

morning toilette, prayers were read in the outer room by her Majesty’s

chaplain, the latter kneeling the while beneath the painting of a nude

Venus--which, as Dr. Madox, a royal chaplain on service, once observed,

was a ‘very proper altar-piece.’ On these occasions, Walpole tells us

that, ‘to prevent all suspicion, her Majesty would frequently stand

some minutes in her shift, talking to her ladies, and, though labouring

with so dangerous a complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never

to refuse a desire of the King, that every morning, at Richmond, she

walked several miles with him; and more than once, when she had the

gout in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to

attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such

fits of perspiration as routed the gout; but those exertions hastened

the crisis of her distemper.’

In the summer of 1737 she suffered so seriously, that at length, on

the 26th of August, a report spread over the town that the Queen was

dead.[41] The whole city at once assumed a guise of mourning--gay

summer or cheerful autumn dresses were withdrawn from the shop windows,

and nothing was to be seen in their place but ‘sables.’ The report,

however, was unfounded. Her Majesty had been ill, but one of her

violent remedies had restored her for the moment. She was thereby

enabled to walk about Hampton Court with the King; but she was not

equal to the task of coming to London on the 29th of the same month,

when her grand-daughter Augusta was christened, and King, Queen, and

Duchess of Saxe Gotha stood sponsors, by their proxies, to the future

mother of a future Queen of England.

At length, in November 1737, the crisis above alluded to occurred, and

Caroline’s illness soon assumed a very grave character. Her danger,

of which she was well aware, did not cause her to lose her presence

of mind, nor her dignity, nor to sacrifice any characteristic of her

disposition or reigning passion.

It was on Wednesday morning, the 9th of November, that the Queen was

seized with the illness which ultimately proved fatal to her. She

was distressed with violent internal pains, which Daffy’s Elixir,

administered to her by Dr. Tessier, could not allay. The violence of

the attack compelled her to return to bed early in the morning; but

her courage was great and the King’s pity small, and consequently she

rose, after resting for some hours, in order to preside at the usual

Wednesday’s drawing-room. The King had great dislike to see her absent

from this ceremony; without her, he used to say, there was neither

grace, gaiety, nor dignity; and, accordingly, she went to this last

duty with the spirit of a wounded knight who returns to the field and

dies in harness. She was not able long to endure the fatigue. Lord

Hervey was so struck by her appearance of weakness and suffering, that

he urged her, with friendly peremptoriness, to retire from a scene for

which she was evidently unfitted. The Queen acknowledged her inability

to continue any longer in the room, but she could not well break up

the assembly without the King, who was in another part of the room,

discussing the mirth and merits of the last uproarious burlesque

extravaganza, ‘The Dragon of Wantley.’ All London was then flocking to

Covent Garden to hear Lampe’s music and Carey’s light nonsense; and

Ryan’s Hamlet was not half so much cared for as Reinhold’s Dragon, nor

Mrs. Vincent’s Ophelia so much esteemed as the Margery and Mauxalinda

of the two Misses Young.

At length, his Majesty having been informed of the Queen’s serious

indisposition, and her desire to withdraw, took her by the hand to lead

her away, roughly noticing, at the same time, that she had ‘passed

over’ the Duchess of Norfolk. Caroline immediately repaired her fault

by addressing a few condescending words to that old well-wisher of her

family. They were the last words she ever uttered on the public scene

of her grandeur. All that followed was the undressing after the great

drama was over.

In the evening Lord Hervey again saw her. He had been dining with the

French ambassador, and he returned _from_ the dinner at an hour at

which people now dress before they go _to_ such a ceremony. He was

again at the palace by seven o’clock. His duty authorised him, and his

inclination prompted him, to see the Queen. He found her suffering from

increase of internal pains, violent sickness, and progressive weakness.

Cordials and various calming remedies were prescribed, and while they

were being prepared, a little ‘usquebaugh’ was administered to her; but

neither whisky, nor cordials, nor calming draughts could be retained.

Her pains increased, and therewith her strength diminished. She was

throughout this day and night affectionately attended by the Princess

Caroline, who was herself in extremely weak health, but who would not

leave her mother’s bedside till two o’clock in the morning. The King

then relieved her, after his fashion, which brought relief to no one.

He did not sit up to watch the sufferer, but, in his morning gown,

lay outside the bed, by the Queen’s side. Her restlessness was very

great, but the King did not leave her space enough even to turn in bed;

and _he_ was so uncomfortable that he was kept awake and ill-tempered

throughout the night.

On the following day the Queen was bled, but without producing any

good effect. Her illness visibly increased, and George was as visibly

affected by it. Not so much so, however, as not to be concerned about

matters of dress. With the sight of the Queen’s suffering before his

eyes, he remembered that he had to meet the foreign ministers that day,

and he was exceedingly particular in directing the pages to see that

new ruffles were sewn to his old shirt-sleeves, whereby he might wear a

decent air in the eyes of the representatives of foreign majesty. The

Princess Caroline continued to exhibit unabated sympathy for the mother

who had perhaps loved her better than any other of her daughters. The

princess was in tears and suffering throughout the day, and almost

needed as much care as the royal patient herself; especially after

losing much blood by the sudden breaking of one of the small vessels in

the nose. It was on this day that, to aid Broxholm, who had hitherto

prescribed for the Queen, Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Hulse were called in.

They prescribed for an obstinate internal obstruction which could not

be overcome; and applied blisters to the legs--a remedy for which both

King and Queen had a sovereign and silly disgust.

On the 11th, the quiet of the palace was disturbed by a message

from the Prince of Wales, making enquiry after the condition of his

mother. His declared filial affection roused the King to a pitch of

almost ungovernable fury. The royal father flung at the son every

missile in his well-stored vocabulary of abuse. There really seemed

something devilish in this spirit at such a time. In truth, however,

the King had good ground for knowing that the assurances of the

prince were based upon the most patent hypocrisy. The spirit of the

dying Queen was nothing less fierce and bitter against the prince and

his adherents--that ‘Cartouche gang,’ as she was wont to designate

them. There was no touch of mercy in her, as regarded her feelings or

expressions towards him; and her epithets were not less degrading to

the utterer and to the object against whom they were directed, than

the King’s. She begged her husband to keep her son from her presence.

She had no faith, she said, in his assertions of concern, respect,

or sympathy. She knew he would approach her with an assumption of

grief; would listen dutifully, as it might seem, to her laments; would

‘blubber like a calf’ at her condition; and laugh at her outright as

soon as he had left her presence.

It seems infinitely strange that it was not until the 12th of the month

that the King hinted to the Queen the propriety of her physicians

knowing that she was suffering from rupture. Caroline listened to the

suggestion with aversion and displeasure; she earnestly entreated

that what had hitherto been kept secret should remain so. The King

apparently acquiesced, but there is little doubt of his having

communicated a knowledge of the fact to Ranby, the surgeon, who was

now in attendance. When the Queen next complained of violent internal

pain, Ranby approached her, and she directed his hand to the spot where

she said she suffered most. Like the skilful man that he was, Ranby

contrived at the same moment to satisfy himself as to the existence of

the more serious complaint; and having done so, went up to the King,

and spoke to him in a subdued tone of voice. The Queen immediately

suspected what had taken place, and, ill as she was, she railed at

Ranby for a ‘blockhead.’ The surgeon, however, made no mystery of

the matter; but declared, on the contrary, that there was no time to

be lost, and that active treatment must at once be resorted to. The

discovery of the real malady which was threatening the Queen’s life,

and which would not have been perilous had it not been so strangely

neglected, cost Caroline the only tears she shed throughout her trying

illness.

Shipton and the able and octogenarian Bussier were now called in to

confer with the other medical men. It was at first proposed to operate

with the knife; but ultimately it was agreed that an attempt should be

made to reduce the tumour by less extreme means. The Queen bore the

necessary treatment patiently. Her chief watcher and nurse was still

the gentle Princess Caroline. The latter, however, became so ill, that

the medical men insisted on bleeding her. She would not keep her room,

but lay dressed on a couch in an apartment next to that in which lay

her dying mother. Lord Hervey, when tired with watching--and his post

was one of extreme fatigue and anxiety--slept on a mattress, at the

foot of the couch of the Princess Caroline. The King retired to his own

bed, and on this night the Princess Amelia waited on her mother.

The following day, Sunday, the 13th, was a day of much solemnity. The

medical men announced that the wound from which the Queen suffered

had begun to mortify, and that death must speedily supervene. The

danger was made known to all; and of all, Caroline exhibited the least

concern. She took a solemn and dignified leave of her children, always

excepting the Prince of Wales. Her parting with her favourite son,

the young Duke of Cumberland, was touching, and showed the depth of

her love for him. Considering her avowed partiality, there was some

show of justice in her concluding counsel to him that, should his

brother Frederick ever be King, he should never seek to mortify him,

but simply try to manifest a superiority over him only by good actions

and merit. She spoke kindly to her daughter Amelia, but much more

than kindly to the gentle Caroline, to whose care she consigned her

two youngest daughters, Louisa and Mary. She appears to have felt as

little inclination to see her daughter Anne, as she had to see her son

Frederick. Indeed, intimation had been given to the Prince of Orange to

the effect that not only was the company of the princess not required,

but that should she feel disposed to leave Holland for St. James’s, he

was to restrain her, by power of his marital authority.

The parting scene with the King was one of mingled dignity and farce,

touching incident and crapulousness. Caroline took from her finger a

ruby ring, and put it on a finger of the King. She tenderly declared

that whatever greatness or happiness had fallen to her share, she had

owed it all to him; adding, with something very like profanity and

general unseemliness, that naked she had come to him and naked she

would depart from him; for that all she had was his, and she had so

disposed of her own that he should be her heir. The singular man to

whom she thus addressed herself acted singularly; and, for that matter,

so also did his dying consort. Among her last recommendations made

on this day, was one enjoining him to marry. The King, overcome, or

seemingly overcome, at the idea of being a widower, burst into a flood

of tears. The Queen renewed her injunctions that after her decease he

should take a second wife. He sobbed aloud; but amid his sobbing he

suggested an opinion that he thought that, rather than take another

wife, he would maintain a mistress or two. ‘Eh, mon Dieu!’ exclaimed

Caroline, ‘the one does not prevent the other! _Cela n’empêche pas!_’

A dying wife might have shown more decency, but she could hardly

have been more complaisant. Accordingly, when, after the above

dignified scene had been brought to a close, the Queen fell into a

profound sleep, George kissed her unconscious cheeks a hundred times

over, expressed an opinion that she would never wake to recognition

again, and gave evidence, by his words and actions, how deeply he

really regarded the dying woman before him. It happened, however,

that she _did_ wake to consciousness again; and then, with his usual

inconsistency of temper, he snubbed as much as he soothed her, yet

without any deliberate intention of being unkind. She expressed her

conviction that she should survive till the Wednesday. It was her

peculiar day, she said. She had been born on a Wednesday, was married

on a Wednesday, first became a mother on a Wednesday, was crowned on a

Wednesday, and she was convinced she should die on a Wednesday.

Her expressed indifference as to seeing Walpole is in strong contrast

with the serious way in which she _did_ hold converse with him on

his being admitted to a parting interview. Her feeling of mental

superiority over the King was exhibited in her dying recommendation

to the minister to be careful of the Sovereign. This recommendation

being made in the Sovereign’s presence was but little relished by

the minister, who feared that such a bequest, with the Queen no

longer alive to afford him protection, might ultimately work his own

downfall. George, however, was rather grateful than angry at the

Queen’s commission to Walpole, and subsequently reminded him with grave

good-humour, that _he_, the minister, required no protection, inasmuch

as the Queen had rather consigned the King to the protection of the

minister; and ‘his kindness to the minister seemed to increase for the

Queen’s sake.’

The day which opened with a sort of despair, closed with a faint

prospect of hope. The surgeons declared that the mortification had

not progressed; and Lord Hervey does not scruple to infer that it had

never begun, and that the medical men employed were, like most of their

colleagues, profoundly ignorant of that with which they professed to

be most deeply acquainted. The fairer prospect was made known to the

Queen, in order to encourage her, but Caroline was not to be deceived.

At twenty-five, she remarked, she might have dragged through it, but

at fifty-five it was not to be thought of. She still superstitiously

looked to the Wednesday as the term of her career.

All access to the palace had been denied alike to the Prince of

Wales and to those who frequented his court; but in the confusion

which reigned at St. James’s some members of the prince’s family, or

following, _did_ penetrate to the rooms adjacent to that in which

lay the royal sufferer, under pretence of an anxiety to learn the

condition of her health. Caroline knew of this vicinity, called them

‘ravens’ waiting to see the breath depart from her body, and insisted

that they should not be allowed to approach her nearer. Ample evidence

exists that the conduct of the Prince of Wales was most unseemly at

this solemn juncture. ‘We shall have good news soon,’ he was heard to

say, at Carlton House: ‘we shall have good news soon; she can’t hold

out much longer!’ There were people who were slow to believe that a

son could exult at the idea of the death of his mother. These persons

questioned his ‘favourite,’ Lady Archibald Hamilton, as to the actual

conduct and language adopted by him; and at such questions the mature

mistress would significantly smile, as she discreetly answered: ‘Oh, he

is very decent!’

The prospect of the Queen’s recovery was quite illusory and

short-lived. She grew so rapidly worse, that even the voices of those

around her appeared to disturb her; and a notice was pinned to the

curtain of her bed, enjoining all present to speak only in the lowest

possible tones. Her patience, however, was very great: she took all

that was offered to her, however strong her own distaste; and when

operations were proposed to her, she submitted at once, on assurance

from the King that he sanctioned what the medical men proposed. She

did not lose her sprightly humour even when under the knife; and she

once remarked to Ranby, when she was thus at his mercy, that she dared

say he was half sorry it was not his own old wife he was thus cutting

about. But the flesh will quiver where the pincers tear; and even from

Caroline terrible anguish would now and then extort a groan. She bade

the surgeons, nevertheless, not to heed her silly complaints, but to do

their duty irrespective of her grumbling.

All this time there does not appear to have been the slightest idea in

the mind either of the sufferer or of those about her that it would

be well were Caroline enabled to make her peace with God. The matter,

however, _did_ occupy the public thought; and public opinion pressed

so strongly, that, rather than offend it, Walpole himself recommended

that a priest should be sent for. The recommendation was made to the

Princess Amelia, and in the obese minister’s usual coarse fashion. ‘It

will be quite as well,’ he said, ‘that the farce should be played. The

Archbishop of Canterbury (Potter) would perform it decently; and the

princess might bid him to be as short as she liked. It would do the

Queen neither harm nor good; and it would satisfy all the fools who

called them atheists, if they affected to be as great fools as they who

called them so!’

Dr. Potter accordingly was summoned. He attended morning and evening.

The King, to show his estimation of the person and his sacred office,

invariably kept out of his wife’s apartment while the archbishop was

present. What passed is not known; but it is clear that the primate, if

he prayed with the Queen, never administered the sacrament to her. Was

this caused by her irreconcilable hatred against her son?

It is said that her Majesty’s mistress of the robes, Lady Sundon, had

influenced the Queen to countenance none but the heterodox clergy. Her

conduct in her last moments was consequently watched with mingled

anxiety and curiosity by more than those who surrounded her. The

public generally were desirous of being enlightened on the subject.

The public soon learned, indirectly at least, that the archbishop had

not administered to the Queen the solemn rite. On the last time of his

issuing from the royal bedchamber, he was assailed by the courtiers

with questions like this:--‘My lord, has the Queen received?’ All the

answer given by the primate was, ‘Gentlemen, her Majesty is in a most

heavenly frame of mind.’ This was an oracular sort of response; and

it may be said that if the Queen was in a heavenly frame of mind, she

must have been at peace with her son, as well as with all men, and

therefore in a condition to receive the administration of the rite

with profit and thankfulness. It was known, moreover, that the Queen

was _not_ at peace with her son, and that she had not ‘received;’ she,

therefore, could not have been, as the archbishop described her, ‘in a

most heavenly frame of mind.’ All that the public knew of her practical

piety was, that the Queen had been accustomed, or said she had been

accustomed, to read a portion of Butler’s ‘Analogy’ every morning at

breakfast. It was of this book that Bishop Hoadly remarked, that he

could never even look at it without getting a head-ache.

Meanwhile, the King, who kept close in the palace, not stirring abroad,

and assembling around him a circle of hearers, expatiated at immense

length upon the virtues and excellences of the companion who was on

the eve of departure from him. There was no known or discoverable good

quality which he did not acknowledge in her; not only the qualities

which dignify woman, but those which elevate men. With the courage and

intellectual strength of the latter, she had the beauty and virtue of

the former. He never tired of this theme, told it over again and again,

and ever at an interminable length. The most singular item in his

monster dissertation was his cool assurance to his children and friends

that she was the only woman in the world who suited him for a wife; and

that, if she had not been his wife, he would rather have had her for

his mistress than any other woman he had ever seen or heard of.

This was the highest possible praise _such_ a husband could bestow; and

he doubtless loved his wife as well as a husband, so trained, could

love a consort. His own sharp words to her, even in her illness, were

no proof to the contrary; and amid tokens of his uncouth tenderness,

observing her restless from pain, and yet desirous of sleep, he would

exclaim, ‘How the devil can you expect to sleep when you never lie

still a moment?’ This was meant for affection; so, too, was the remark

made to her one morning when, on entering her room, he saw her gazing,

as invalids are wont to gaze, idly on vacancy, ‘with lack-lustre eye.’

He roughly desired her to cease staring in that disagreeable way, which

made her look, he said, with refined gallantry, just like a calf with

its throat cut!

His praise of her, as Lord Hervey acutely suggested, had much of

self-eulogy in view; and when he lauded her excellent sense, it had

especial reference to that exemplification of it when she was wise

enough to accept _him_ for a husband. He wearied all hearers with

the long stories which he recounted both of Caroline and himself, as

he sat at night, with his feet on a stool, pouring out prosily his

never-ending narrative. The Princess Amelia used to endeavour to escape

from the tediousness of listening by pretending to be asleep, and to

avenge herself for being compelled to listen by gross abuse of her

royal father when he left the room--calling him old fool, liar, coward,

and a driveller, of whose stories she was most heartily sick.

And so matters went on, progressively worse, until Sunday the 20th

--the last day which Caroline was permitted to see upon earth. The

circumstances attending the Queen’s death were not without a certain

dignity. ‘How long can this last?’ said she to her physician, Tessier.

‘It will not be long,’ was the reply, ‘before your Majesty will be

relieved from this suffering.’ ‘The sooner the better,’ said Caroline.

And then she began to pray aloud: and her prayer was not a formal one,

fixed in her memory by repeating it from the Book of Common Prayer, but

a spontaneous and extemporary effusion, so eloquent, so appropriate,

and so touching, that all the listeners were struck with admiration at

this last effort of a mind ever remarkable for its vigour and ability.

She herself manifested great anxiety to depart in a manner becoming a

great Queen; and as her last moment approached, her anxiety in this

respect appeared to increase. She requested to be raised in bed, and

asked all present to kneel and offer up a prayer in her behalf. While

this was going on she grew gradually fainter; but, at her desire, water

was sprinkled upon her, so that she might revive, and listen to, or

join in, the petitions which her family (all but her eldest son, who

was not present) put up to Heaven in her behalf. ‘Louder!’ she murmured

more than once, as some one read or prayed, ‘Louder, that I may hear.’

Her request was complied with; and then one of her children repeated

audibly the Lord’s Prayer. In this Caroline joined, repeating the

words as distinctly as failing nature would allow her. The prayer was

just concluded when she looked fixedly for a moment at those who stood

weeping around her, and then uttered a long-drawn ‘So----!’ It was

her last word. As it fell from her lips the dial on the chimney-piece

struck eleven. She calmly waved her hand--a farewell to all present and

to the world; and then tranquilly composing herself upon her bed, she

breathed a sigh, and so expired. Thus died Caroline; and few Queens of

England have passed away to their account with more of mingled dignity

and indecorum.

On Thursday, the 15th of November 1757, Sir Robert Walpole wrote

as follows to his brother Horace: ‘The Queen was taken ill last

Wednesday.... It was explicitly declared and universally believed to be

gout in the stomach.... The case was thought so desperate that Sir Hans

Sloane and Dr. Hulse were on Friday sent for, who totally despaired.

Necessity at last discovered and revealed a secret which had been

totally concealed and unknown. The Queen had a rupture which is now

known not to have been a new accident.... But will it ever be believed

that a life of this importance should be lost, or run thus near, by

concealing human infirmities?’

To these accounts of the Queen’s illness it may be added that Nichols,

in his ‘Reminiscences,’ says that Dr. Sands suggested that a cure might

be effected by injecting warm water, and that Dr. Hulse approved of the

remedy and method. It was applied, with no one present but the medical

men just named; and though it signally failed, they pronounced it as

having succeeded. Their terror was great; and when they passed through

the outer apartments, where the Duke of Newcastle congratulatingly

hugged Hulse, on his having saved the Queen’s life, the doctor

struggled with all his might to get away, lest he should be questioned

upon a matter which involved, perhaps, more serious consequences than

he could, in his bewilderment, then accurately calculate.

The Princess Caroline, as soon as the Queen had apparently passed

away, put a looking-glass to her lips, and finding it unsullied by any

breath, calmly remarked, ‘’Tis over!’ and thenceforward ceased to weep

as she had done while her mother was dying. The King kissed the face

and hands of his departed consort with unaffected fervour. His conduct

continued to be as singular as ever. He was superstitious and afraid

of ghosts; and it was remarked on this occasion, that he would have

people with him in his bedroom, as if their presence could have saved

him from the visitation of a spirit. In private, the sole subject of

his conversation was ‘Caroline.’ He loved to narrate the whole history

of her early life and his own: their wooing and their wedding, their

joys and vexations. In these conversations he introduced something

about every person with whom he had ever been in anything like close

connection. It was observed, however, that he never once mentioned the

name of his mother, Sophia Dorothea, or in any way alluded to her. He

purposely avoided the subject; but he frequently named the father of

Sophia, the Duke of Zell, who, he said, was so desirous of seeing his

grandson grow up into an upright man, that the duke declared he would

shoot him if George Augustus should prove a dishonest one!

Amid all these anecdotes, and tales, and reminiscences, and praises,

there was a constant flow of tears shed for her who was gone. They

seemed, however, to come and go at pleasure; for in the very height of

his mourning and depth of his sorrow, he happened to see Horace, the

brother of Sir Robert Walpole, who was weeping for fashion’s sake, but

in so grotesque a manner, that when the King beheld it, he ceased to

cry, and burst into a roar of laughter.

Lord Hervey foretold that his grief would not be of a lasting quality;

and, in some degree, he was correct. It must be confessed, however,

that the King never ceased to respect the memory of his wife. Walpole

only thought of how George might be ruled now that the Queen was gone,

and he speedily fixed upon a plan. He had been accustomed, he said, to

side with the mother against the mistress. He would now, he added, side

with the mistress against the children. He it was, who proposed that

Madame Walmoden should now be brought to England; and, in a revoltingly

coarse observation to the Princess Caroline, he recommended her, if she

would have any influence with her father, to surround him with women,

and govern him through them!

But other parties had been on the watch to lay hold of the power which

had now fallen from the hand of the dead Caroline.

The dissension in the royal family, which was caused by the conduct of

the Prince of Wales at the period of the birth of his eldest daughter,

Augusta, was, of course, turned to political account. It was made even

of more account in that way when the condition of Caroline became

known. Lord Chesterfield, writing to Mr. Lyttelton from Bath, on the

12th of November 1737, says: ‘As I suppose the Queen will be dead or

out of danger before you receive this, my advice to his royal highness

(of Wales) will come full late; but in all events it is my opinion he

cannot take too many and too respectful measures towards the Queen,

if alive, and towards the King, if she is dead; but then that respect

should be absolutely personal, and care should be taken that the

ministers shall not have the least share of it.’

At the time when Caroline’s indignation had been aroused by the course

adopted by the prince, when his wife was brought from Hampton Court

to St. James’s for her confinement, his royal highness had made a

statement to Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Harrington, which they were

subsequently required to put down in writing as corroborative evidence

of what the prince had said to the Queen. In reference to the inditers

of these ‘minutes of conversation,’ Lord Chesterfield advises that

the disrespect which he recommends the prince to exhibit towards the

ministry shall be more marked ‘if in the course of these transactions

the _two evidences_ should be sent to, or of themselves presume to

approach the prince; in which case (says the writer) he ought to show

them personal resentment; and if they bring any message from the King

or Queen which he cannot refuse receiving, he should ask for it in

writing, and give his answer in writing; alleging publicly for his

reason, that he cannot venture anything with people who have grossly

both betrayed and misrepresented private conversation.’[42]

Through the anticipated natural death of the Queen, the opposition

hoped to effect the political death of Walpole. ‘In case the Queen

dies,’ writes Chesterfield, ‘I think Walpole should be looked upon as

gone too, whether he be really so or no, which will be the most likely

way to weaken him; for if he be supposed to inherit the Queen’s power

over the King it will in some degree give it him; and if the opposition

are wise, instead of treating with him, they should attack him most

vigorously and personally, as a person who has lost his chief support.

Which is indeed true; for though he may have more power with the King

than any other body, yet he will never have that kind of power which

he had by her means; and he will not even dare to mention many things

to the King which he could without difficulty have brought about by

her means. Pray present my most humble duty to his royal highness,’

concludes the writer, ‘and tell him that upon principles of personal

duty and respect to the King and Queen (if alive), he cannot go too

far; as, on the other hand, with relation to the ministers, after what

has passed he cannot carry his dignity too high.’ The same strain is

continued in a second letter, wherein it is stated with respect to the

anticipated death of the Queen: ‘It is most certain that Sir Robert

must be in the utmost distress, and can never hope to govern the King

as the Queen governed him;’ and he adds, in a postscript: ‘We have a

prospect of the Claude Lorraine kind before us, while Sir Robert’s has

all the horrors of Salvator Rosa. If the prince would play the rising

sun, he would gild it finely; if not, he will be under a cloud, which

he will never be able hereafter to shine through.’ Finally, exclaims

the eager writer: ‘Instil this into the _Woman_’--meaning by the latter

the Prince of Wales’s ‘favourite,’ Lady Archibald Hamilton, who ‘had

filled,’ says Lord Mahon, ‘the whole of his little court with her

kindred.’ According to Horace Walpole, ‘whenever Sir William Stanhope

met anybody at Carlton House whom he did not know, he always said,

“your humble servant, Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton.”’

A fortnight after Chesterfield contemptuously calls Lady Archibald

‘the _Woman_,’ he begins to see the possibility of her rising to the

possession of political influence, and he says to Mr. Lyttelton: ‘Pray,

when you see Lady Archibald, assure her of my respects, and tell her

that I would trouble her with a letter myself, to have acknowledged

her goodness to me, if I could have expressed those acknowledgments to

my own satisfaction; but not being able to do that, I only desire she

would be persuaded that my sentiments with regard to her are what they

ought to be.’[43] In such wise did great men counsel and intrigue for

the sake of a little pre-eminence, which never yet purchased or brought

with it the boon of happiness.

CHAPTER IX.

CAROLINE, HER TIMES AND CONTEMPORARIES.

Whiston patronised by Queen Caroline--His boldness and reproof

of the Queen--Vanity of the poet Young punished--Dr. Potter,

a high churchman--A benefice missed--Masquerades denounced

by the clergy--Anger of the Court--Warburton, a favourite of

the Queen--Butler’s ‘Analogy,’ her ordinary companion--Rise

of Secker--The Queen’s regard for Dr. Berkeley--Her fondness

for witnessing intellectual struggles between Clarke and

Leibnitz--Character of Queen Caroline by Lord Chesterfield--The

King encouraged in his wickedness by the Queen--General

grossness of manners--The King managed by the Queen--Feeling

exhibited by the King on sight of her portrait--The Duchess

of Brunswick’s daughters--Standard of morality low--

Ridicule of Marlborough by Peterborough--Morality of General

Cadogan--Anecdote of General Webb--Lord Cobham--Dishonourable

conduct of Lord Stair--General Hawley and his singular will--

Disgraceful state of the prisons, and cruelty to prisoners--Roads

bad and ill-lighted--Brutal punishment--Insolent treatment of

a British naval officer by the Sultan--Brutality of a mob--

Encroachment on Hyde Park by Queen Caroline--Ambitious projects

of Princess Anne--Eulogy on the Queen--The children of King

George and Queen Caroline--Verses on the Queen’s death.

Much has been said, and many opposite conclusions drawn, as to the

religious character of Caroline. In _our_ days, such a woman would not

be allowed to wear the reputation of being religious. In _her_ days,

she may with more justice have been considered so. And yet she was

far below a standard of much elevation. When we hear her boasting--or

rather asserting, as convinced of the fact--that ‘she had made it

the business of her life to discharge her duty to God and man in the

best manner she was able,’ we have no very favourable picture of her

humility; though at the same time we may acquit her of hypocrisy.

Her patronage of the well-meaning but mischievous, the learned but

unwise Whiston is quite sufficient to condemn her in the opinion of

many people. Here was a man who had not yet, indeed, left the Church

of England for the Baptist community, because the Athanasian creed was

an offence to him, but he had pronounced Prince Eugène to be the man

foretold in the Apocalypse as the destroyer of the Turkish Empire,

had declared that the children of Joseph and Mary were the natural

brothers and sisters of Christ, set up a heresy in his ‘Primitive

Christianity Revived,’ made open profession of Arianism, boldly made

religious prophecies which were falsified as soon as made, and, more

innocently, translated ‘Josephus,’ and tried to discover the longitude.

Caroline showed her admiration of heterodox Whiston by conferring on

him a pension of fifty pounds a-year; and as she had a regard for the

mad scholar, she paid him with her own hand, and had him as a frequent

visitor at the palace. The King was more guarded in his patronage of

Whiston, and one day said to him, as King, Queen, and preacher were

walking together in Hampton Court Gardens, that his opinions against

Athanasianism might certainly be true, but perhaps it would have been

better if he had kept them to himself. Now Whiston was remarkable for

his wit and his fearlessness, and looking straight in the face of the

man who was King by right of the Reformation, and who was the temporal

head of the Church and, _ex-officio_, Defender of the Faith, he said:

‘If Luther had followed such advice, I should like to know where your

Majesty would have been at the present moment.’ ‘Well, Mr. Whiston,’

said Caroline, ‘you are, as I have heard it said you were, a very free

speaker. Are you bold enough to tell me my faults?’ ‘Certainly,’

was Whiston’s reply. ‘There are many people who come every year from

the country to London upon business. Their chief, loyal, and natural

desire is to see their King and Queen. This desire they can nowhere so

conveniently gratify as at the Chapel Royal. But what they see there

does not edify them. They behold your Majesty talking, during nearly

the whole time of service, with the King--and talking loudly. This

scandalises them; they go into the country with false impressions,

spread false reports, and effect no little mischief.’ The Queen pleaded

that the King _would_ talk to her, acknowledged that it was wrong,

promised amendment, and asked what was the next fault he descried in

her. ‘Nay, madam,’ said he, ‘it will be time enough to go to the second

when your Majesty has corrected the first.’

What Caroline said of her consort was true enough. At chapel, the King,

when not sleeping, _would_ be talking. Dr. Young thought, by power of

his preaching, to keep him awake; but the King, on finding that the

new chaplain was not giving him what he loved, ‘a short, good sermon,’

soon began to exhibit signs of somnolency. Young exerted himself in

vain; and when his Majesty at length broke forth with a snore, the

poet-preacher felt his vanity so wounded that he burst into tears.

Where Kings and Queens so behaved, no wonder that young ensigns flirted

openly with maids of honour, and that Lady Wortley Montague should have

reason to write to the Countess of Bute: ‘I confess I remember to have

dressed for St. James’s Chapel with the same thoughts your daughters

will have at the opera.’

It is not likely that Archbishop Potter was sent for by Caroline

herself in her last illness, for she liked the prelate as little as

Whiston himself did. But Potter, the first of scholars, in spite of the

sneers of academical Parr, was, although a staunch Whig, and esteemed

by Caroline and her consort for his sermon preached before them at

their coronation, yet a very high churchman, one who put the throne

infinitely below the altar, and thought kings very far indeed below

priests. This last opinion, however, was very much modified when the

haughty prelate, son of a Wakefield linendraper, had to petition for a

favour. His practice, certainly, was not perfect, for he disinherited

one son, who married a dowerless maiden out of pure love, and he left

his fortune to the other, who was a profligate and squandered it.

But even Caroline could not but respect Potter for his jealousy with

regard to the worthily supplying of church benefices. Just after the

Queen had congratulated him on being elected to the highest position

in the Church of England, Potter called on a clerical relative, to

announce to him the intention of his kinsman to confer on him a

valuable living. The archbishop unfortunately found his reverend cousin

busily engaged at skittles, and the prelate came upon him just as the

apostolic player was aiming at the centre pin, with the remark, ‘Now

for a shy at the head of the Church!’ He missed his pin, and also

lost his preferment. Neither of their Majesties, however, thought

Potter justified in withholding a benefice on such slight grounds of

offence. Neither George nor Caroline approved of clergymen of any rank

inveighing against amusements. I may cite, as a case in point, the

anger with which the King, in his heart, visited Gibson, Bishop of

London, for denouncing masquerades, and for getting up an episcopal

address to the throne, praying ‘for the entire abolition of such

pernicious diversions.’ The son of Sophia Dorothea was especially fond

of masquerades, and his indignation was great at hearing them denounced

by Gibson. This boldness shut the latter out from all chance of

succeeding to Canterbury. Caroline looked with some favour, however,

on this zealous and upright prelate; and her minister, Walpole, did

nothing to obstruct the exercise of his great ecclesiastical power.

‘Gibson is a pope!’ once exclaimed one of the low church courtiers of

Caroline’s coterie. ‘True!’ was Walpole’s reply, ‘and a very good pope

too!’

It must be confessed, nevertheless, that the church and religion

were equally in a deplorable state just previous to the demise of

Caroline. That ingenious and learned Northumbrian, Edward Grey,

published anonymously, the year before the Queen’s death, a work upon

‘The Miserable and Distracted State of Religion in England upon the

Downfall of the Church Established.’ A work, however, published the

same year, and which much more interested the Queen, was Warburton’s

famous ‘Alliance between Church and State.’ This book brought again

into public notice its author, that William Warburton, the son of a

Newark attorney, who himself had been lawyer and usher, had denounced

Pope as an incapable poet, and had sunk into temporary oblivion in his

Lincolnshire rectory at Brant Broughton. But his ‘Alliance between

Church and State’ brought him to the notice of Queen Caroline, to

whom his book and his name were introduced by Dr. Hare, the Bishop of

Chichester. Caroline liked the book and desired to see the author; but

her last fatal illness was upon her before he could be introduced, and

Warburton had to write many books and wait many years before he found a

patron in Murray (Lord Mansfield) who could help him to preferment.

Queen Caroline made of Butler’s ‘Analogy of Religion, Natural

and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature’ a sort

of light-reading book, which was the ordinary companion of her

breakfast-table. Caroline may have liked to dip into such profound

fountains; but I doubt whether she often looked into the ‘Analogy,’ as

it was not published till 1736, when her malady was increasing, and

her power to study a work so abstruse must have been much diminished.

Still she admired the learned divine, who was the son of a Wantage

shopkeeper, and who was originally a Presbyterian Dissenter--a

community for which German Protestant princes and princesses have

always entertained a considerable regard. Caroline did not merely

admire Butler because high churchmen looked upon him, even after his

ordination, as half a dissenter; she had admired his Rolls Sermons,

and when Secker, another ex-Presbyterian whom Butler had induced to

enter the church, introduced and recommended him to Queen Caroline,

she immediately appointed him clerk of the closet. It could have

been very little before this, that Secker himself--who had been

a Presbyterian, a doctor, a sort of sentimental vagabond on the

Continent, and a free-thinker to boot--had been, after due probation

and regular progress, appointed rector of St. James’s. Walpole declares

that Secker owed this preferment to the favour of the Queen, and

Secker’s biographers cannot prove much to the contrary. At the period

of Caroline’s death he was Bishop of Bristol, and that high dignity

he is also said to have owed to the friendship of Caroline. I wish it

were only as true, that when the Prince of Wales was at enmity with

the King and Queen, and used to attend St. James’s Church, his place

of residence being at Norfolk House, in the adjacent square--I wish,

I say, it were true that Secker once preached to the prince on the

text, ‘Honour thy father and mother.’ The tale, however, is apocryphal;

but it _is_ true that the prince himself, at the period of the family

quarrel, was startled, on entering the church, at hearing Mr. Bonny,

the clerk in orders, rather pointedly beginning the service with, ‘I

will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have

sinned,’ &c.

But, perhaps, of all the members of the church, Caroline felt regard

for none more than for Berkeley. He had been an active divine long,

indeed, before the Queen visited him with her favour. His progress

had been checked by his sermons in favour of passive obedience and

non-resistance--sermons which were considered not so much inculcating

loyalty to Brunswick as denouncing the revolution which opened to that

house the way to the throne. Berkeley had also incurred no little

public wrath by destroying the letters which Swift’s Vanessa had

bequeathed to his care, with a sum of money for the express purpose of

their being published. But, on the other hand, he had manifested in

various ways the true spirit of a Christian and a philosopher, and had

earned immortal honour by his noble attempt to convert the American

savages to Christianity. But it was his ‘Minute Philosopher’--his

celebrated work, the object of which was to refute scepticism, that

gained for him the distinction of the approval of Caroline. The

expression of such approval is warrant for the Queen’s sincerity in the

cause of true religion. So delighted was the Queen with this work, that

she procured for its author his nomination to the Bishopric of Cloyne.

Never was reward more nobly earned, more worthily bestowed, or more

gracefully conferred. It did honour alike to the Queen and to Berkeley;

and it raised the hopes of those who were ready to almost despair of

Christianity itself, when they saw that Religion yet had its great

champions to uphold her cause, and that, however indifferent the King

might be to the merits of such champions, the Queen herself was ever

eager to acknowledge their services and to recompense them largely as

they merited.

In controversial works, however, Caroline always delighted. She

had no greater joy in this way than setting Clarke and Leibnitz at

intellectual struggle, watching the turns of the contest with interest,

suggesting, amending, adding, or diminishing, and advising every

well-laid blow, by whichever antagonist it was delivered. It may be

asked, Was there not in all this rather more love of intellectual than

of religious pursuits? The reader must judge.

Caroline loved the broad English comedy of her time, and saw no harm in

the very broadest. She was especially fond of the ‘Queen of Comedy,’

Mrs. Oldfield, but affected to be a little shocked at the way in which

she was living with General Churchill. One day, when Mrs. Oldfield had

been reading at Windsor, and was walking on the terrace with the court,

the Queen said to her, ‘I hear, Mrs. Oldfield, that you and the General

are married.’ ‘Madam,’ answered the actress, playing her very best,

‘the General keeps his own secrets.’ After Mrs. Oldfield’s death, the

Queen bought her collection of plays for a hundred and twenty guineas.

Lord Chesterfield says of Caroline, in his lively way, that ‘she was a

woman of lively, pretty parts.’ She merits, however, a better epitaph

and a more sagacious chronicler. ‘Her death,’ adds the noble _roué_,

‘was regretted by none but the King. She died meditating projects

which must have ended either in her own ruin or that of the country.’

Dismissing, for the present, the last part of this paragraph, we

will say that Caroline was mourned by more than by the King; but by

none so deeply, so deservedly, so naturally as by him. He had not,

out of affection for her, been less selfish or less vicious than his

inclinations induced him to be. He was faithless to her, but he never

ceased to respect her; and in those days a husband of whom nothing

worse could be said was rather exemplary of conduct than otherwise. It

was a sort of decorum by no means common. One could have almost thought

him uxorious; for he not only allowed himself to be directed in all

important matters requiring judgment and discretion by the guidance

of her more enlightened mind, but he never drew a picture of beauty

and propriety in woman but all the hearers felt that the original of

the picture was the Queen herself. It is strange, setting aside more

grave considerations for the rule of conduct, that, with such a wife,

he should have hampered himself with ‘favourites.’ These he neither

loved nor respected. A transitory liking and the evil fashion of the

day had something to do with it; and besides, he had a certain feeling

of attachment for women who were obsequious and serviceable. These he

could rule, but his wife ruled _him_. Nor could the women be compared.

Sir Robert Walpole, an unexceptionable witness in this case, asserts

that the King loved his wife’s little finger better than he did Lady

Suffolk’s whole body. For that reason it was that Walpole himself so

respectfully kissed the small, plump, and graceful hand of the Queen

rather than propitiate the good-will of the favourite.

Caroline shared the vices in which her husband indulged, by favouring

the indulgence. She was not the more excusable for this because

Archdeacon Blackburn and other churchmen praised her for encouraging

the King in his wickedness. Her ground of action was not founded on

virtuous principle. She sanctioned, nay promoted, the vicious way

of life followed by her consort merely that she might exercise more

power politically and personally. She depreciated her own worth and

attractions in order to heighten those of the favourites whom the King

most affected, and by way of apologising for his being attracted from

her to them. Actually, she had as little regard for married faith as

the King himself. The Queen regarded his doings with such complacency

as to give rise to a belief that she had never cared for the King, and

was therefore jealouslessly indifferent as to the disgraceful tenor of

his life. An allusion was once made in her presence, when the Duke

of Grafton was by, to her having in former times not been unaffected

by the suit of a German prince. ‘G--d, madam,’ said the duke, in the

fashionable blasphemous style of the period, ‘I should like to see the

man you could love!’ ‘See him?’ said the Queen, laughingly; ‘do you

not then think that I love the King?’ ‘G--d, madam,’ exclaimed the

ostentatious blasphemer, ‘I only wish I were King of France, and I

would soon be sure whether you did or did not.’

Caroline has been laughed at for her patronage of such a poet as Duck.

She had wit enough to see the merit of Gay. On her accession she

offered him the honourable post of gentleman-usher to the Princess

Louisa--a sinecure worth 200_l_. a-year, and a stepping-stone to

other preferment; Gay peremptorily and scornfully declined the offer.

Accordingly, Cibber was preferred to Gay for the post of laureate.

Caroline had always been kind to this ‘tetchy’ poet. In 1724, when

Gay’s play, ‘The Captives,’ had failed on the stage, she invited

him to read it at Leicester House. On being ushered into the august

company, Gay, nervous from long waiting, tragedy in hand, bashful and

blundering, fell over a stool, thereby threw down a screen, and set

his illustrious audience in a comical sort of confusion, amid which

the kind-hearted princess did her best to put Gay at ease in his

perplexities.