The lady on whom this eulogy was uttered was Charlotte Sophia,

the younger of the two daughters of Charles Louis, Duke of Mirow,

by Albertina Elizabeth, a princess of the ducal house of Saxe

Hilburghausen. The Duke of Mirow was the second son of the Duke of

Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and was a lieutenant-general in the service of

the Emperor of Germany when Charlotte Sophia was born, at Mirow, on the

16th of May 1744. Four sons and one other daughter were the issue of

this marriage. The eldest son ultimately became Duke of Mecklenburgh

Strelitz, and to the last-named place the Princess Charlotte Sophia (or

Charlotte, as she was commonly called) and her family removed in 1751,

on the death of the Duke Charles Louis.

At seven years of age she had for her instructress that verse-writing

Madame de Grabow, whom the Germans fondly and foolishly compared with

Sappho. The post of instructress was shared by many partners; but,

finally, to the poetess succeeded a philosopher, Dr. Gentzner, who,

from the time of his undertaking the office of tutor to that of the

marriage of his ‘serene’ pupil, imparted to the latter a varied wisdom

and knowledge, made up of Lutheran divinity, natural history, and

mineralogy, Charlotte not only cultivated these branches of education

with success, but others also. She was a very fair linguist, spoke

French perhaps better than German, as was the fashion of her time and

country, could converse in Italian, and knew something of English.

Other accounts say that she did not begin to learn French till she knew

she was to leave Mecklenburgh. Her style of drawing was above that

of an ordinary amateur; she danced like a lady, and played like an

artist. Better than all, she was a woman of good sense, she had the

good fortune to be early taught the great truths of religion, and she

had the good taste to shape her course by their requirements. She was

not without faults, and she had a will of her own. In short, she was a

woman; a woman of sense and spirit, but occasionally making mistakes

like any of her sisters.

The letter which she is said to have addressed to the King of Prussia,

and the alleged writing of which is said to have won for her a crown,

has been often printed; but, well known as it is, it cannot well be

omitted from pages professing to give, however imperfectly, as in

the present case, some record of the supposed writer’s life: no one,

however, will readily believe that a girl of sixteen was the actual

author of such a document as the following: ‘May it please your Majesty

... I am at a loss whether I should congratulate or condole with

you on your late victory over Marshal Daun, Nov. 3, 1760, since the

same success which has covered you with laurels has overspread the

country of Mecklenburgh with desolation. I know, Sire, that it seems

unbecoming my sex, in this age of vicious refinement, to feel for

one’s country, to lament the horrors of war, or wish for the return of

peace. I know you may think it more properly my province to study the

arts of pleasing, or to inspect subjects of a more domestic nature;

but, however unbecoming it may be in me, I cannot resist the desire of

interceding for this unhappy people.

‘It was but a very few years ago that this territory wore the most

pleasing appearance; the country was cultivated, the peasants looked

cheerful, and the towns abounded with riches and festivity. What an

alteration at present from such a charming scene! I am not expert at

description, nor can my fancy add any horrors to the picture; but,

sure, even conquerors themselves would weep at the hideous prospects

now before me. The whole country, my dear country, lies one frightful

waste, presenting only objects to excite terror, pity, and despair. The

business of the husbandman and the shepherd are quite discontinued. The

husbandman and the shepherd are become soldiers themselves, and help

to ravage the soil they formerly cultivated. The towns are inhabited

only by old men, old women, and children; perhaps here and there a

warrior, by wounds or loss of limbs rendered unfit for service, left at

his door; his little children hang round him, ask a history of every

wound, and grow themselves soldiers before they find strength for the

field. But this were nothing, did we not feel the alternate insolence

of either army, as it happens to advance or retreat in pursuing the

operations of the campaign. It is impossible to express the confusion

even those who call themselves our friends create; even those from whom

we might expect redress oppress with new calamities. From your justice,

therefore, it is we hope relief. To you even women and children may

complain, whose humanity stoops to the meanest petition, and whose

power is capable of repressing the greatest injustice.’

The very reputation of having written this letter won for its supposed

author the crown of a Queen-consort. The members of the privy council,

to whom the royal intention was first communicated, thought it almost

a misalliance for a King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland to wed

with a lady of such poor estate as the younger daughter of a very poor

German prince. Had they been ethnologists, they might have augured well

of a union between Saxon King and Sclavonic lady. The Sclave blood runs

pure in Mecklenburgh.

It was on the 8th of July 1761 that the King announced to his council,

in due and ordinary form, that having nothing so much at heart as the

welfare and happiness of his people, and that to render the same

stable and permanent to posterity being the first object of his reign,

he had ever since his accession to the throne turned his thoughts

to the choice of a princess with whom he might find the solace of

matrimony and the comforts of domestic life; he had to announce to

them, therefore, with great satisfaction, that, after the most mature

reflection and fullest information, he had come to a resolution to

demand in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, a

princess distinguished by every amiable virtue and elegant endowment,

whose illustrious line had continually shown the firmest zeal for the

Protestant religion, and a particular attachment to his Majesty’s

family. Lord Hardwicke, who had been fixed upon by the King as his

representative commissioned to go to Strelitz, and ask the hand of the

Princess Charlotte Sophia in marriage, owed his appointment and his

subsequent nomination as master of the buckhounds to his Majesty, to

the circumstance that at the King’s accession he had been almost the

only nobleman who had not solicited some favour from the Crown. He was

so charmed with his mission that everything appeared to him _couleur

de rose_, and not only was he enraptured with ‘the most amiable young

princess he ever saw,’ but, as he adds in a letter to his friend,

Mr. Mitchel, gratified at the reception he had met with at the court

of Strelitz, appearing as he did ‘upon such an errand,’ and happy to

find that ‘the great honour the King has done this family is seen in

its proper light.’ The business, as he remarks, was not a difficult

one. There were no thorns in his rosy path. The little court, he

tells us, exerted its utmost abilities to make a figure suitable for

this occasion, and, in the envoy’s opinion, they acquitted themselves

not only with magnificence and splendour, but with great taste and

propriety. His lordship completed the treaty of marriage on the 15th

of August. His testimony touching the bride runs as follows:--‘Our

Queen that is to be has seen very little of the world; but her very

good sense, vivacity, and cheerfulness, I dare say, will recommend her

to the King, and make her the darling of the British nation. She is

no regular beauty; but she is of a very pretty size, has a charming

complexion, very pretty eyes, and finely made. In short, she is a very

fine girl.’

Mrs. Stuart, daughter-in-law of Lord Bute, left the following note of

the early life of the princess, and of the marriage-by-proxy ceremony,

derived from the Queen herself:--

‘Her Majesty described her life at Mecklenburgh as one of extreme

retirement. She dressed only _en robe de chambre_, except on Sundays,

on which day she put on her best gown, and after service, which was

very long, took an airing in a coach-and-six, attended by guards and

all the state she could muster. She had not “dined” at table at the

period I am speaking of. One morning her eldest brother, of whom she

seems to have stood in great awe, came to her room in company with

the duchess, her mother.... In a few minutes the folding doors flew

open to the saloon, which she saw splendidly illuminated; and then

appeared a table, two cushions, and everything prepared for a wedding.

Her brother then gave her his hand, and, leading her in, used his

favourite expression--“_Allons, ne faites pas l’enfant, tu vas être

Reine d’Angleterre._” Mr. Drummond then advanced. They knelt down. The

ceremony, whatever it was, proceeded. She was laid on the sofa, upon

which he laid his foot; and they all embraced her, calling her “La

Reine.”’

‘La Reine’ was not such ‘a very fine girl’ as not to be startled by the

superior beauty of the two principal ladies who were sent to escort her

to London. When the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh first looked

upon the brilliant Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, she could not

help exclaiming, with a sentiment apparently of self-humility, ‘Are all

the women in England as beautiful as you are?’

The convoying fleet sent to conduct the princess to England was

commanded by the great Lord Anson. The Tripoline ambassador could

not but admire the honour paid by his Majesty in sending so high an

officer--‘the first eunuch,’ as the Mahometan called him--to escort the

bride to her new home.’

When the marriage treaty had been formally concluded, after some

delay caused by the death of the mother of the princess, the little

city of Strelitz became briefly mad with joy and exultation. There

were illuminations, balls, fireworks, and artillery; and for two days

stupendous state banquets followed each other, and said much for the

digestion of those who enjoyed them. On the 17th of August the princess

left Strelitz, accompanied by her brother, the grand duke, and in four

days arrived at Stade amid demonstrations of great delight on the part

of the population, ever grateful for an excitement and especially so

for one afforded them by a young Queen--as the bride elect was already

considered. On the 22nd she embarked at Cuxhaven amid a salute from the

whole fleet. For more than a week she was as disrespectfully tossed and

tumbled about by the rough sea, over which her path lay, as the Hero

of New Zealand buffeting the waves to meet her dusky Leander. During

the voyage a wave washed a sailor from the deck, and he perished in

the surging waters. At the end of the voyage the bride was, rather

unnecessarily informed of the calamity. She had been undisturbed by any

cry of ‘Man overboard!’

The royal yacht which bore the youthful bride was surrounded by the

squadron forming the convoy; and across as boisterous a sea as ever

tried a ship or perplexed a sailor the bride was carried in discomfort

but safety, till, on the evening of Sunday, the 6th of September, the

fleet and its precious freight arrived off Harwich. It was Sunday

evening, and the fact was not known in London till Monday morning.

The report of the ‘Queen’ having been seen off the coast of Sussex on

Saturday was current, but there was great uncertainty as to where she

was, whether she had landed, or when she would be in town. ‘Last night,

at ten o’clock,’ says Walpole on Tuesday morning, ‘it was neither

certain where she landed nor when she would be in town. I forgive

history for knowing nothing, when so public an event as the arrival

of a new Queen is a mystery even at this very moment in St. James’s

Street. This messenger who brought the letter yesterday morning,

said she _arrived_ at half an hour after four, at Harwich. This was

immediately translated into landing, and notified in those words to

the ministers. Six hours afterwards it proved no such thing, and that

she was only in Harwich Road; and they recollected that half an hour

after four happens twice in twenty-four hours, and the letter did not

specify which of the twices it was. Well, the bride’s-maids whipped on

their virginity; the New Road and the parks were thronged; the guns

were choking with impatience to go off; and Sir James Lowther, who was

to pledge his Majesty, was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart. Five,

six, seven, eight o’clock came, and no Queen.’

The lady so impatiently looked for remained on board the yacht

throughout the Sunday night. Storm-tost as she had been, she had borne

the voyage well, and had ‘been sick but half an hour, singing and

playing on the harpsichord all the voyage, and been cheerful the whole

time.’

On Monday she landed, but not till after dinner, and then was received

in the ancient town by the authorities, and with all the usual

ceremonies which it is the curse of very great people to be fated to

encounter. Had the young King been a really gallant monarch he would

have met his bride on the sea-shore; but etiquette does not allow of

sovereigns being gallant, and the princess was welcomed by no higher

dignitary than a mayor. In the afternoon she journeyed leisurely on to

Colchester, where she was entertained at the house of a loyal private

individual, Mr. Enew. Here Captain Birt served her with coffee, and

Lieutenant John Seaber waited on her with tea; this service being

concluded, an inhabitant of the town presented her with a box of

candied eringo-root. This presentation is always made, it would seem,

to royalty when the latter honours Colchester with a passing visit.

The old town is, or was, proud of its peculiar production, ‘candied

eringo-root.’ On the occasion in question the presenter learnedly

detailed the qualities of the root; and the young princess looked as

interested as she could while she was told that the eringium was of the

_Pentandria Digynia_ class, that it had general and partial corollæ,

and that its root was attenuant and deobstruent, and was therefore

esteemed a good hepatic, uterine, and nephritic. Its whole virtue, it

was added, consists in its external or cortical part. There was a good

opportunity to draw a comparison between the root and the bride, to

the advantage of the latter, had the exhibitor been so minded; but the

opportunity was allowed to pass, and the owner of the eringo failed to

allude to the fact that the beauty in the royal features was surpassed

by the virtue indwelling in her heart.

The royal visitor learned all that could well be told her, during her

brief stay, of the historical incidents connected with the place, and

having taken tea and coffee from the hands of veteran warriors, and

candied eringo from Mr. Green, and information touching the visits

of Queen Mary and Elizabeth from the clergy and others, the Princess

Charlotte, or Queen Charlotte, as she was already called, continued

her journey, and by gentle stages arrived at Lord Abercorn’s house at

Witham, ‘’twixt the gloaming and the murk,’ at a quarter past seven.

The host himself was ‘most tranquilly in town;’ and the mansion was

described as ‘the palace of silence.’ The new arrivals, however, soon

raised noise enough within its walls; for notwithstanding the dinner

before landing, some refreshment taken at Harwich, and the tea, coffee,

and candied eringo-root at Colchester, there was still supper to be

provided for the tired Queen and her escort. The first course of the

supper consisted of a mixture of fowl and fish, ‘leverets, partridges,

carp, and soles, brought by express from Colchester, just time enough

for supper.’ There were besides many made dishes, and an abundance of

the choicest fruits that could be procured. The Queen supped in public,

one of the penalties which royalty used to pay to the people. That is,

she sat at table with open doors, at which all comers were allowed to

congregate to witness the not too edifying spectacle of a young bride

feeding. This exploit was accomplished by her Majesty, while Lord

Hardwicke and the gallant Lord Anson stood on either side of the royal

chair, and to the satisfaction of both actress and spectators.

The Queen slept that night at Witham, and the next day went slowly and

satisfiedly on as far as ancient Romford, where she alighted at the

house of a Mr. Dalton, a wine-merchant. In this asylum she remained

about an hour, until the arrival of the royal servants and carriages

from London which were to meet her. The servants having commenced

their office with their new mistress by serving her with coffee, the

Queen entered the royal carriage, in which she was accompanied by the

Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton. As it is stated by the recorders

of the incidents of that day that her Majesty was attired ‘entirely in

the English taste,’ it may be worth adding, to show what that taste

was, that ‘she wore a fly-cap with rich lace lappets, a stomacher

ornamented with diamonds, and a gold brocade suit of clothes with a

white ground.’ Thus decked out, the Queen, preceded by three carriages

containing ladies from Mecklenburgh and lords from St. James’s, was

conveyed through lines of people, militia, and horse and foot guards

to London. ‘She was much amused,’ says Mrs. Stuart, ‘at the crowds of

people assembled to see her, and bowed as she passed. She was hideously

dressed in a blue satin quilted jesuit, which came up to her chin

and down to her waist, her hair twisted up into knots called a _tête

de mouton_, and the strangest little blue coif at the top. She had a

great jewel like a Sevigné, and earrings like those now worn, with many

drops, a present from the Empress of Russia, who knew of her marriage

before she did herself.’ She entered the capital by the suburb of Mile

End, which for dirt and misery could hardly be equalled by anything at

Mirow and Strelitz. Having passed through Whitechapel, which must have

given her no very high idea of the civilisation of the British people,

she passed on westward, and proceeding by the longest route, continued

along Oxford Street to Hyde Park, and finally reached the garden-gate

of St. James’s at three in the afternoon. Before she left Romford,

one of the English ladies in attendance recommended her to ‘curl her

_toupée_; she said she thought it looked as well as that of any of the

ladies sent to fetch her; if the King bid her she would wear a periwig;

otherwise she would remain as she was.’

‘Just as they entered Constitution Hill one of the ladies said to

the other, looking at her watch, “We shall hardly have time to dress

for the wedding.” “Wedding!” said the Queen. “Yes, Madam, it is to be

at twelve.” Upon this she fainted. Lady Effingham, who had a bottle

of lavender water in her hand, threw it in her face.’ The travelling

bride had, up to this time, exhibited much self-possession and gaiety

of spirit throughout the journey, and it was not till she came in sight

of the palace that her courage seemed to fail her. _Then_, for the

first time, ‘she grew frightened and grew pale. The Duchess of Hamilton

smiled; the princess said, “My dear duchess, you may laugh, you have

been married twice; but it’s no joke to me.”’

Walpole, writing at ‘twenty minutes past three in the afternoon, not

in the middle of the night,’ says: ‘Madam Charlotte is this instant

arrived; the noise of the coaches, chaise, horsemen, mob, that have

been to see her pass through the parks, is so prodigious that I cannot

distinguish the guns.’

When the royal carriage stopped at the garden-gate the bride’s lips

trembled, and she looked paler than ever, but she stepped out with

spirit, assisted by the Duke of Devonshire, lord-chamberlain. Before

her stood the King surrounded by his court. A crimson cushion was laid

for her to kneel upon, and (Mrs. Stuart tells us) mistaking the hideous

old Duke of Grafton for him, as the cushion inclined that way, she was

very near prostrating herself before the duke; but the King caught her

in his arms first, and all but carried her upstairs, forbidding any one

to enter.

Walpole says of her that she looked sensible, cheerful, and remarkably

genteel. He does not say she was pretty, and it must be confessed that

she was rather plain; too plain to create a favourable impression upon

a youthful monarch, whose heart, even if the story of the Quakeress

be a fiction, was certainly pre-occupied by the image of a lady, who,

nevertheless, figured that night among the bride’s-maids--namely, Lady

Sarah Lennox. ‘An involuntary expression of the King’s countenance,’

says Mr. Galt, ‘revealed what was passing within, but it was a passing

cloud--the generous feelings of the monarch were interested; and

the tenderness with which he thenceforward treated Queen Charlotte

was uninterrupted until the moment of their final separation.’ This

probably comes much nearer to the truth than the assertion of Lady Anne

Hamilton, who says: ‘At the first sight of the German princess, the

King actually shrunk from her gaze, for her countenance was of that

cast that too plainly told of the nature of the spirit working within.’

Lord Hardwicke is said to have sent to his wife an unfavourable

description of the Queen’s features, which Lady Hardwicke read aloud

to her friends. It is added that George III., on hearing of it, was

greatly offended.

The King, as before mentioned, led his bride into the palace, where

she dined with him, his mother the princess-dowager, and that Princess

Augusta who was to give a future queen to England, in the person of

Caroline of Brunswick. After dinner, when the bride’s-maids and the

court were introduced to her, she said, ‘Mon Dieu, il y en a tant, il

y en a tant!’ She kissed the princesses with manifest pleasure, but

was so prettily reluctant to offer her own hand to _be_ kissed, that

the Princess Augusta, for once doing a graceful thing gracefully,

was forced to take her hand and give it to those who were to kiss

it, which was prettily humble and good. This act set the Queen

talking and laughing, at which some severe critics declared that the

illustrious lady’s face seemed all mouth. Northcote subsequently

declared that Queen Charlotte’s plainness was not a vulgar, but an

elegant, plainness. The artist saw another grace in her. As he looked

at Reynolds’s portrait of her, fan in hand, Northcote, remembering the

sitting, exclaimed, ‘Lord, how she held that fan!’

It is singular that although the question touching precedency, in the

proper position of Irish peers on English state occasions, had been

settled in the reign of George II., it was renewed on the occasion of

the marriage of Queen Charlotte with increased vigour. The question,

indeed, now rather regarded the peeresses than the peers. The Irish

ladies of that rank claimed a right to walk in the marriage procession

immediately after English peeresses of their own degree. The impudent

wits of the day declared that the Irish ladies would be out of their

vocation at weddings, and that their proper place was at funerals,

where they might professionally _howl_. The rude taunt was made in mere

thoughtlessness, but it stirred the high-spirited Hibernian ladies to

action. They deputed Lord Charlemont to proceed to the court of St.

James’s, and not only prefer but establish their claim. The gallant

champion of dames fulfilled his office with alacrity, and crowned it

with success. The royal bride herself was written to, but she, of

course, could only express her willingness to see as many fair and

friendly faces about her as possible; and she referred the applicants

to custom and the lord-chamberlain. The reference was not favourable

to the claimants, and Lord Charlemont boldly went to the King himself.

The good-natured young monarch was as warm in praise of Irish beauty

as if he was about to marry one, but he protested that he had no

authority, and that Lord Charlemont must address his claim to the

privy council. When that august body received the ladies’ advocate,

they required of him to set down his specific claim in writing, so

that the heralds, those learned and useful gentlemen, might comprehend

what was asked, and do solemn justice to rank and precedency on this

exceedingly solemn occasion. Lord Charlemont knew nothing of the

heralds’ shibboleth, but he found a friend who could and did help him

in his need, in Lord Egmont. By the two a paper was hurriedly drawn up

in proper form, and submitted to the council. The collective wisdom of

the latter pronounced the claim to be good, and that Irish peeresses

might walk in the royal marriage procession immediately after English

peeresses of their own rank, if invited to do so. The verdict was

not worth much, but it satisfied the claimants. If the whole Irish

peerage, the female portion of it at least, was not at the wedding, it

was fairly represented, and when Lord Charlemont returned to Dublin,

the ladies welcomed him as cordially as the nymphs in the bridal of

Triermain did the wandering Arthur. They showered on him flowers of

gratitude, and their dignity was well content to feel assured that they

might all have gone to the wedding if they had only been invited.

At seven o’clock the nobility began to flock down to the scene of the

marriage in the royal chapel. The night was sultry, but fine. At nine,

and not at twelve, the ceremony was performed by the Lord Archbishop of

Canterbury; and perhaps the most beautiful portion of the spectacle was

that afforded by the bride’s-maids, among whom Lady Sarah Lennox, Lady

Caroline Russel, and Lady Elizabeth Keppel were distinguished for their

pre-eminent attractions. During the whole ceremony, it is said that the

royal bridegroom’s eyes were kept fixed on Lady Sarah especially. That

the Queen could not have been so perfectly unpossessed of attractive

features as some writers have declared her, may be gathered from a

remark of Walpole’s, who was present, and who, after praising the

beauty of the bride’s-maids, and that of a couple of duchesses, says:

‘Except a pretty Lady Sunderland, and a most perfect beauty, an Irish

Miss Smith, I don’t think the Queen saw much else to discourage her.’

The general impression was different. What this was may be understood

by a passage in a letter addressed to Mrs. Montagu’s brother, the Rev.

William Robertson, by a friend, in October 1761: ‘The Queen seems to me

to behave with equal propriety and civility; though the common people

are quite exasperated at her not being handsome, and the people at

court laugh at her courtesies.’

All the royal family were present at the nuptials. The King’s brother,

Edward, Duke of York, was at his side; and this alleged witness of the

King’s alleged previous marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, says Lady Anne

Hamilton, ‘used every endeavour to support his royal brother through

the trying ordeal, not only by first meeting the princess in her

entrance into the garden, but also at the altar.’

The Queen was in white and silver. ‘An endless mantle of

violet-coloured velvet,’ says Walpole, ‘lined with crimson, and which,

attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls,

dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes half-way down her

waist.’

After the ceremony their Majesties occupied two state chairs on the

same side of the altar, under a canopy. The mother of the monarch

occupied a similar chair of state on the opposite side; the other

members of the royal family were seated on stools, while benches were

given to the foreign ministers to rest upon. At half-past ten the

proceedings came to a close, and the return of the marriage procession

from the chapel was announced by thundering salutes from the artillery

of the park and the Tower. ‘Can it be possible,’ said the humble bride,

‘that I am worthy of such honours?’

Walpole says of the royal bride that she did nothing but with good

humour and cheerfulness. ‘She talks a good deal,’ says the same writer,

‘is easy, civil, and not disconcerted.’ While the august company waited

for supper, she sat down, sung, and played; conversed with the King,

Duke of Cumberland, and Duke of York, in German and French. She was

reported to have been as conversant with the last as any native, but

Walpole only says of it that ‘her French is tolerable.’ The supper was

in fact a banquet of great splendour and corresponding weariness. ‘They

did not get to bed till two;’ by which time the bride, who had made a

weary journey through the heat and dust, and had been awake since the

dawn, must have been sadly jaded. ‘Nothing but a German constitution,’

said Mrs. Scott, ‘could have undergone it.’ The same lady says:--‘She

did not arrive in London till three o’clock, and besides the fatigue

of the journey, with the consequences of the flutter she could not

avoid being in, she was to dress for her wedding, be married, have a

drawing-room, and undergo the ceremony of receiving company after she

and the King were in bed, and _all_ the night after her journey and so

long a voyage.’ There are no old fashioned nuptial ceremonies to record

and to smile at. Walpole alludes to a civil war and campaign on the

question of the bedchamber. ‘Everybody is excluded but the minister;

even the lords of the bedchamber, cabinet councillors, and foreign

ministers; but it has given such offence that I don’t know whether Lord

Huntingdon must not be the scapegoat.’

On the 9th of September the Queen held her first drawing-room.

‘Everybody was presented to her, but she spoke to nobody, as she

could not know a soul. The crowd was much less than at a birthday;

the magnificence very little more. The King looked very handsome, and

talked to her with great good humour. It does not promise as if these

two would be the two most unhappy persons in England from this event.’

In contrast with this account of an eye-witness stands the deposition

of Lady Anne Hamilton, a passage from whose suppressed book may be

cited rather than credited. It reflects, however, much of the popular

opinion of that and a far later period. ‘In the meantime,’ writes the

lady just named, ‘the Earl of Abercorn informed the princess of the

previous marriage of the King, and of the existence of his Majesty’s

wife; and Lord Hardwicke advised the princess to well inform herself

of the policy of the kingdom, as a measure for preventing much future

disturbance in the country, as well as securing an uninterrupted

possession of the throne to her issue. Presuming, therefore, that the

German princess had hitherto been an open and ingenuous character,

such expositions, intimations, and dark mysteries were ill-calculated

to nourish honourable feelings, but would rather operate as a check to

their further existence. To the public eye the newly married pair were

contented with each other; alas! it was because each feared an exposure

to the nation. The King reproached himself that he had not fearlessly

avowed the only wife of his affections; the Queen, because she feared

an explanation that the King was guilty of _bigamy_, and thereby her

claim, as also that of her progeny (if she should have any), would

be known to be illegitimate. It appears as if the result of those

reflections formed a basis for the misery of millions, and added to

that number millions yet unborn.’

This probably is solemn nonsense, as it is certainly indifferent

English. We get back to comic truth, at least, in an anecdote told by

Cumberland, of Bubb Dodington, who, ‘when he paid his court at St.

James’s to her Majesty, upon her nuptials, approached to kiss her

hand, decked in an embroidered suit of silk, with lilac waistcoat and

breeches, the latter of which, in the act of kneeling down, forgot

their duty, and broke loose from their moorings in a very indecorous

and uncourtly manner.’ As for the forsaken Ariadne, Lady Sarah Lennox

was very soon united to Sir Charles Bunbury; and subsequently to

Colonel George Napier, by whom she became mother of ‘the Napiers’, one

of whom used to speak sneeringly of George IV. as his ‘cousin.’ Lady

Sarah’s old royal lover never made any secret of his admiration of her.

The last time he was ever at the play with Queen Charlotte, he remarked

to her, of one of the most accomplished of actresses, ‘Miss Pope is

still like Lady Sarah!’

Between the wedding drawing-room and the coronation the King and

Queen appeared twice in public, once at their devotions and once

at the play. On both occasions there were crowds of followers, and

some disappointment. At the chapel-royal, the preacher, the Rev. Mr.

Schultz, made no allusion to the august couple, but simply confined

himself to a practical illustration of his text, ‘Provide things

honest in the sight of all men.’ It was a text from the application

of which a young sovereign couple might learn much that was valuable,

without being preached _at_. But the crowd, who went to stare, and not

to pray, would have been better pleased to have heard them lectured,

and to have seen how they looked under the infliction. The King had

expressly forbidden all laudation of himself from the pulpit, but

the Rev. Dr. Wilson, and Mason the poet, disobeyed the injunction,

and, getting nothing by their praise, joined the _patriotic_ side in

politics immediately. At the play, to which the King and Queen went on

the day after attending church, to witness Garrick, who was advertised

to play Bayes, in the ‘Rehearsal,’ the King was in roars of laughter

at Garrick’s comic acting; which even made the Queen smile, to whom,

however, such a play as the ‘Rehearsal’ and such a part as Bayes must

have been totally incomprehensible, and defying explanation. No royal

state was displayed on this occasion, but there were the penalties

which are sometimes paid by a too eager curiosity. The way from the

palace to the theatre was so beset by a violently loyal mob that there

was difficulty in getting the royal chairs through the unwelcome

pressure. The accidents were many, and some were fatal. The young

married couple did not accomplish their first party of pleasure, shared

with the public, but at the expense of three or four lives of persons

trampled to death among the crowd that had assembled to view _their_

portion of the sight.

The St. ‘James’s Chronicle’ thus reports the scene which took place

on the occasion of the royal visit to Drury Lane, on Friday, the

11th of September: ‘Last night, about a quarter after six, their

Majesties the King and Queen, with most of the royal family, went to

Drury Lane playhouse to see the “Rehearsal.” Their Majesties went in

chairs, and the rest of the royal family in coaches, attended by the

horse-guards. His Majesty was preceded by the Duke of Devonshire, his

lord-chamberlain, and the Honourable Mr. Finch, his vice-chamberlain;

and her Majesty was preceded by the Duke of Manchester, her

lord-chamberlain, and Lord Cantalupe, her vice-chamberlain, the Earl

of Harcourt, her master of the horse, and by the Duchess of Ancaster

and the Countess of Effingham. It is almost inconceivable, the crowds

of people that waited in the streets, quite from St. James’s to the

playhouse, to see their Majesties. Never was seen so brilliant a train,

the ladies being mostly dressed in the clothes and jewels they wore

at the royal marriage. The house was quite full before the doors were

open, so that out of the vast multitude that waited the opening of the

doors, not a hundred got in; the house being previously filled, to the

great disappointment and fatigue of many thousands; and we may venture

to say that there were people enough to have filled fifty such houses.

There was a prodigious deal of mischief done at the doors of the house;

several genteel women, who were imprudent enough to attempt to get in,

had their clothes, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs, all torn off them. It

is said a girl was killed, and a man so trampled on that there are no

hopes of his recovery.’

Among the congratulatory addresses presented to the Queen, on the

occasion of her marriage, there was none which caused so much remark

as that presented by the ladies of St. Albans. They complained that

_custom_ had deprived them of the pleasure of joining in the address

presented by the gentlemen of the borough, and that they were therefore

compelled to act independently. They profited by the occasion to

express a hope that the example set by the King and Queen would be

speedily and widely followed. The holy state of matrimony, the St.

Albans ladies assured her Majesty, had fallen so low as to be sneered

at and disregarded by gentlemen. They further declared that if the best

riches of a nation consisted in the amount of population, they were

the best citizens who did their utmost to increase that amount: to

further which end the ladies of St. Albans expressed a loyal degree of

willingness, with sundry logical reasonings which made even the grave

Charlotte smile.

It is unnecessary perhaps to enter detailedly upon the programme of

the royal coronation. All coronations very much resemble each other;

they only vary in some of their incidents. That of George and Charlotte

had well-nigh been delayed by the sudden and unexpected strike of the

workmen at Westminster Hall. These handicraftsmen had been accustomed

to take toll of the public admitted to see the preparations; but

soldiers on guard, perceiving the profit to be derived from such

a course, allowed no one to enter at all but after payment of an

admission fee sufficiently large to gratify their cupidity. The

plunderers of the public thereupon fell out, and the workmen struck

because they had been deprived of an opportunity of robbing curious

citizens. The dispute was settled by a compromise; an increase of wages

was made to the workmen, and the military continued to levy with great

success upon the purses of civilians, as before.

Nothing further remained to impede the completion of the preparations

for the spectacle; but by another strike, a portion, at least, of the

public ran the risk of not seeing the spectacle at all. The chairmen

and drivers of hired vehicles had talked so largely of their scale

of prices for the Coronation Day, that the authorities threatened to

interfere and establish a tariff; whereupon the chairmen and their

brethren solemnly announced that not a hired vehicle of any description

should ply in the streets at all on the day in question; and that if

there _were_ a sight worth seeing, the full-dressed public might get

to it how they could: they should not ride to it. Thereupon, great

was the despair of a very large and interested class. Appeals, almost

affectionate in expression, were made to the offended chairmen who led

the revolt, and they were entreated to trust to the generous feelings

of their patrons, willing to be their very humble servants, for one

day. The amiable creatures at last yielded, when it was perfectly

understood that the liberal sentiment of riders was to be computed at

the rate of a guinea for a ride from the West-end to the point nearest

the Abbey which the chairmen could reach. Not many could penetrate

beyond Charing Cross, where the bewildered fares were set down amid the

mob and the mud, to work their way through both as best they might.

One class of extortionate robbers only succeeded in making

unwarrantable gain without interference on the part of the authorities,

or appeal on that of the public. The class in question consisted of the

Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who exacted five guineas a foot as the

rent or hire of the space for the erection of scaffolding for seats.

This caused the tariff of places to be of so costly a nature, that,

willing as the public were to pay liberally for a great show, the seats

were but scantily occupied.

The popular eagerness which existed, especially to see the young Queen,

was well illustrated in the person of a married lady, for whom not

only was a front room taken, from the window of which she might see

the procession pass, but a bedroom also engaged, and a medical man in

attendance; the lady’s condition of health rendering it probable that

both might be required before the spectacle had concluded.

Much had been said of the Queen’s beauty, but to that her Majesty had

really little pretension. The public near enough to distinguish her

features were the more disappointed, from the fact that the portrait of

a very pretty woman had been in all the print-shops as a likeness of

the young Queen. The publisher, however, had selected an old engraving

of a young beauty, and erasing the name on the plate, issued the

portrait as that of the royal consort of his Majesty George III. Many

were indignant at the trick, but few were more amused by it than her

Majesty herself.

As illustrative of the crowds assembled, even on places whence but

little could be seen, it may be mentioned that the assemblage on

Westminster Bridge (which was no ‘coign of vantage,’ for the platform

on which the procession passed could hardly be discovered from it) was

so immense as to give rise to a report, which long prevailed, that the

structure of the bridge itself had been injured by this superincumbent

dead weight.

The multitude was enthusiastic enough, but it was not a kindly

endowed multitude. The mob was ferocious in its joys in those days.

Of the lives lost, one at least was so lost by a murderous act of the

populace. A respectable man in the throng dropped some papers, and he

stooped to recover them from the ground. The contemporary recorders of

the events of the day detail, without comment, how the mob held this

unfortunate man forcibly down till they had trampled him to death! The

people must have their little amusements.

It was, perhaps, hardly the fault of the people that these amusements

were so savage in character. The people themselves were treated as

savages. Even on this day of universal jubilee they were treated as if

the great occasion were foreign to them and to their feelings; and a

press-gang, strong enough to defy attack, was not the least remarkable

group which appeared this day among the free Britons over whom George

and Charlotte expressed themselves proud to reign. Such a ‘gang’ did

not do its work in a delicate way, and a score or two of loyal and

tipsy people, who had joyously left their homes to make a day of it,

found themselves at night, battered and bleeding, on board a ‘Tender,’

torn from their families, and condemned to ‘serve the King’ upon the

high seas.

The interior of the Abbey displayed, so says the ‘St. James’s

Chronicle,’ the finest exhibition of genteel people that the world ever

saw. That was satisfactory. The Countess of Northampton carried three

hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds upon her, and other ladies

dropped rubies and other precious stones from their dresses in quantity

sufficient to have made the fortune of any single finder. The day, too,

did not pass without its ominous aspect. As the King was moving with

the crown on his head, the great diamond in the upper portion of it

fell to the ground, and was not found again without some trouble.

Perhaps the prettiest, though not the most gorgeous portion of the

show, was the procession of the Princess-dowager of Wales from the

House of Lords to the Abbey. The King’s mother was led by the hand of

her young son, William Henry. These and all the other persons in this

picturesque group were attired in dresses of white and silver; and the

spectators had the good sense to admire the corresponding good taste.

The princess wore a short silk train, and was consequently relieved

from the nuisance of being pulled back by train-bearers. Her long hair

flowed over her shoulders in hanging curls, and the only ornament upon

her head was a simple wreath of diamonds. She was the best dressed and

perhaps not the least happy of the persons present.

The usual ceremonies followed. The Westminster boys sang ‘_Vivat

Regina_’ on the entry of the Queen into the Abbey, and ‘_Vivat Rex_’ as

soon as the King appeared. The illustrious couple engaged for a time

in private devotions, were presented to the people, and the divine

blessing having been invoked upon them, they sat to hear a sermon

of just a quarter of an hour in length, from Drummond, Bishop of

Salisbury. The text was sermon in itself. It was from I Kings, x. 9:

‘Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king,

to do judgment _and justice_.’ The episcopal comment was not a bad

one; but when the prelate talked, as he did, of our constitution being

founded upon the principles of purity and freedom, and justly poised

between the extremes of power and liberty, his sentiment was but poorly

illustrated by the presence of that press-gang without, with whom was

much power over a people who, in such a presence, enjoyed no liberty.

Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, placed the crowns on the heads of

the Sovereigns, and did not get kissed in return, as was formerly the

custom, at least on the part of a newly crowned king. But perhaps the

prettiest incident took place when the King was about to partake,

with the Queen, of the Sacrament. He desired that he might first put

aside his crown, and appear humbly at the table of the Lord. There

was no precedent for such a case, and all the prelates present were

somewhat puzzled, lest they might commit themselves. Ultimately, and

wisely, they expressed an opinion that, despite the lack of authorising

precedent, the King’s wishes might be complied with. A similar wish

was expressed by Queen Charlotte; but this could not so readily be

fulfilled. It was found that the little crown fixed on the Queen’s

head was so fastened, to keep it from falling, that there would be

some trouble in getting it off without the assistance of the Queen’s

dressers. This was dispensed with, and the crown was worn by the Queen;

but the King declared that in this case it was to be considered simply

as part of her dress, and not as indicating any power or greatness

residing in a person humbly kneeling in the presence of God.

The remainder of the ceremonial was long and tedious, and it was quite

dusk before the procession returned to the Hall. In the meantime, the

champion’s horse was champing his bit with great impatience, as became

a horse of his dignity. This gallant grey charger was no other than

that which bore the sacred majesty of George II. through the dangers of

the great and bloody day at Dettingen. The veteran steed was now to be

the leader in the equestrian spectacle at the banquet of that monarch’s

successor.

Although there was ample time for the completion of everything

necessary to the coronation of George and Charlotte, the earl-marshal

forgot some very indispensable items; among others, the sword of state,

the state-banquet chairs for the King and Queen, and the canopy. It was

lucky that the crown had not been forgotten too. As it was, they had

to borrow the ceremonial sword of the Lord Mayor, and workmen built a

canopy amid the scenic splendours of Westminster Hall. These mistakes

delayed the procession till noon.

It was dark when the procession returned to the Hall; and as the

illuminating of the latter was deferred till the King and Queen had

taken their places, the _cortège_ had very much the appearance of a

funeral procession, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the

Knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse. There were less dignified

incidents than these in the course of the day’s proceedings; the least

dignified was an awkward rencounter between the Queen herself and the

Duke of Newcastle, behind the scenes. Walpole says that ‘some of the

procession were dressed over night, slept in arm chairs, and were waked

if they tumbled on their heads.’ Noticing some of the ladies present,

the same writer adds: ‘I carried my Lady Townshend, Lady Hertford,

Lady Anne Conolly, my Lady Hervey, and Mrs. Clive to my deputy’s house

at the gate of Westminster Hall. My Lady Townshend said she should be

very glad to see a coronation, as she never had seen one. “Why,” said

I, “madam, you walked at the last.” “Yes, child,” said she, “but I saw

nothing of it. I only looked to see who looked at me.” The Duchess

of Queensberry walked; her affectation that day was to do nothing

preposterous. Lord Chesterfield was not present either in Abbey or

Hall; for, as he said of the ceremony, he was “not alive enough to

march, nor dead enough to walk at it.”’

The scene in the banqueting-hall is further described by Grey and also

by Walpole. Grey says of the scene in Westminster Hall: ‘The instant

the Queen’s canopy entered fire was given to all the lustres at once

by trains of prepared flax that reached from one to the other. To me

it seemed an interval of not half a minute before the whole was in a

blaze of splendour ... and the most magnificent spectacle ever beheld

remained. The King, bowing to the lords as he passed, with his crown

on his head and the sceptre and orb in his hands, took his place with

great majesty and grace. So did the Queen, with her crown, sceptre, and

rod. Then supper was served on gold plate. The Earl Talbot, Duke of

Bedford, and Earl of Effingham, in their robes, all three on horseback,

prancing and curvetting like the hobby-horses in the “Rehearsal,”

ushered in the courses to the foot of the _hautpas_. Between the

courses the champion performed his part with applause.’ ‘All the wines

of Bordeaux,’ Walpole writes to George Montagu, ‘and all the fumes

of Irish brains cannot make a town so drunk as a royal wedding and a

coronation. I am going to let London cool, and will not venture into

it again this fortnight. Oh, the buzz, the prattle, the crowds, the

noise, the hurry! Nay, people are so little come to their senses,

that, though the coronation was but the day before yesterday, the Duke

of Devonshire had forty messages yesterday, desiring admissions for

a ball that they fancied was to be at court last night. People had

sat up a night and a day, and yet wanted to see a dance! If I was to

entitle ages, I would call this “the _century of crowds_.” For the

coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million, that is. The

multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions made Palace Yard the

liveliest spectacle in the world: the ball was most glorious. The blaze

of lights, the richness and variety of habits, the ceremonial, the

bunches of peers and peeresses, frequent and full, were as awful as a

pageant can be; and yet, for the King’s sake and my own, I never wish

to see another; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effingham’s promise

fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept of

their proceedings. Lord Effingham vowed the earl-marshal’s office had

been strangely neglected, but he had taken such care for the future

that the _next coronation_ would be regulated in the most exact manner

imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very

great; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in

Lord Lincoln’s gallery, and even walked about the hall indecently in

the intervals of the procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with

all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air

of Roxana, was the finest figure at a distance. She complained to

George Selwyn that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would

have a wig and a stick. “Pho!” said he, “you will only look as if you

were taken up by the constable.” She told this everywhere, thinking

that the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth! Lady Pembroke alone,

at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty.

The Duchess of Richmond as pretty as nature and dress, with no pains

of her own, could make her. Lady Spencer, Lady Sutherland, and Lady

Northampton, very pretty figures. Lady Kildare, still beauty itself,

if not a little too large. The ancient peeresses were by no means the

worst party. Lady Westmoreland still handsome, and with more dignity

than all. The Duchess of Queensberry looked well, though her locks

are milk-white. Lady Albemarle very genteel; nay, the middle age had

some good representatives in Lady Holdernesse, Lady Rochford, and Lady

Strafford, the perfectest little figure of all. My Lady Suffolk ordered

her robes, and I dressed part of her head, as I made some of my Lord

Hertford’s dress, for you know no profession comes amiss to me, from

a tribune of the people to a habit-maker. Do not imagine that there

were not figures as excellent on the other side. Old Exeter, who told

the King he was the handsomest man she ever saw; old Effingham, and

Lady Say and Sele, with her hair powdered and her tresses black, were

an excellent contrast to the handsome. Lord B. put on rouge upon his

wife and the Duchess of Bedford in the Painted Chamber; the Duchess

of Queensberry told me of the latter, that she looked like an orange

peach, half red and half yellow. The coronets of the peers and their

robes disguised them strangely. It required all the beauty of the

Dukes of Richmond and Marlborough to make them noticed. One there was,

though of another species, the noblest figure I ever saw, the high

constable of Scotland, Lord Errol: as one saw him in a space capable of

containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he

looked like one of the giants at Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the

energy of his person that one considered him as acting so considerable

a part in that very hall where a few years ago one saw his father,

Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block. The champion acted his part

admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His

associates, Lord Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the Duke of Bedford, were

woeful. Lord Talbot piqued himself on backing his horse down the Hall,

and not turning its rump towards the King; but he had taken such pains

to dress it to that duty that it entered backwards; and at his retreat,

the spectators clapped--a terrible indecorum, but suitable to such

Bartholomew Fair doings. He had twenty _démêlés_, and came off none

creditably. He had taken away the table of the Knights of the Bath, and

was forced to admit two in their old place, and dine the other at the

Court of Requests. Sir William Stanhope said, “We are ill-treated, for

_some of us are gentlemen_.” Beckford told the earl it was hard to

refuse a table to the City of London, whom it would cost ten thousand

pounds to banquet the King, and that his lordship would repent it

if they had not a table in the hall; they had. To the barons of the

Cinque Ports, who made the same complaint, he said, “If you come to me

as lord-steward, I tell you it is impossible; if as Lord Talbot, I am

a match for any of you;” and then he said to Lord Bute, “If I were a

minister, thus would I talk to France, to Spain, to the Dutch; none of

your half-measures.”’

With all the solemnity, there was some riot. A passage from a letter

written by one James Heming (quoted in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 2nd S.,

V. II., p. 109) says: ‘Our friend Harry, who was upon the scaffold

at the return of the procession, closed in with the rear; at the

expense of half a guinea was admitted into the Hall; got brimful of

his Majesty’s claret, and in the universal plunder, brought off the

glass her Majesty drank in, which is placed in the _beaufet_ as a

valuable curiosity.’ There was long a tradition current, that among the

spectators at the great ceremony in the Hall was no less a person than

the Young Pretender, who was said to have been there _incognito_, and

not without some hope of seeing the gauntlet, defiantly thrown down by

the champion, taken up by some bold adherent of his cause. Indeed, it

is further reported that preparation had been made for such an attempt,

but that (fortunately) it accidentally failed. The Pretender, so runs

the legend, was recognised by a nobleman, who, standing near him,

whispered in his ear that he was the last person anybody would expect

to find there. ‘I am here simply out of curiosity,’ was the answer of

the wanderer; ‘but I assure you that the man who is the object of all

this pomp and magnificence is the person in the world whom I least

envy.’ To complete the chain of reports, it may be further noticed that

Charles Edward was said to have abjured Romanism, in the new church in

the Strand, in the year 1754.

The night after the coronation there was an unusually grand ball at

court. The Queen’s bride’s-maids danced in the white bodiced coats

they had worn at the wedding. The Duke of Ancaster was resplendent in

the dress which the King had worn the whole of the day before at the

coronation, and which he had graciously ordered to be presented to the

duke, whose wife was the Queen’s mistress of the robes! The King and

Queen retired at eleven o’clock; not an early hour for the period.

There was great gaiety in town generally at this period. The young

Queen announced that she would attend the opera once a week--_that_

seemed dissipation enough for her, who had been educated with some

strictness in the quietest and smallest of German courts. The weekly

attendance of royalty is thus commented upon by Walpole: ‘It is a fresh

disaster to our box, where we have lived so harmoniously for three

years. We can get no alternative but that over Miss Chudleigh’s; and

Lord Strafford and Lady Mary Coke will not subscribe unless we can.

The Duke of Devonshire and I are negotiating with all our art to keep

our party together. The crowds at the opera and play when the King and

Queen go are a little greater than what I remember. The late royalties

went to the Haymarket when it was the fashion to frequent the other

opera in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields. Lord Chesterfield one night came into

the latter, and was asked if he had been at the other house? “Yes,”

said he, “but there was nobody but the King and Queen; and as I thought

they might be talking business, I came away.”’

The theatres, of course, adopted the usual fashion of reproducing the

ceremony of the coronation on the stage. Garrick, considering that

he was a man of taste, displayed great tastelessness in his conduct

on this occasion. After ‘Henry VIII.,’ in which Bensley played the

King, Havard acted Wolsey, and Yates--what was so long played as a

comic part--Gardiner, and in which Mrs. Pritchard played the Queen,

and Mrs. Yates Anne Boleyn, a strange representation of the ceremonial

was presented to the public. Garrick, it is said, knowing that Rich

would spare no expense in producing the spectacle at the other house,

and fearing the cost of competition with a man than whom the stage

never again saw one so clever in getting up scenic effects till it

possessed Farley, contented himself with the old, mean, and dirty

dresses which had figured in the stage coronation of George II. and

Caroline. The most curious incident of Garrick’s show was, that by

throwing down the wall behind the stage, he really opened the latter

into Drury Lane itself, where a monster bonfire was burning and a mob

huzzaing about it. The police authorities did not interfere, and the

absurd representation was continued for six or seven weeks, ‘till the

indignation of the public,’ says Davis, ‘put a stop to it, to the great

comfort of the performers, who walked in the procession, and who were

seized with colds, rheumatism, and swelled faces, from the suffocation

of the smoke and the raw air from the open street.’ Their Majesties did

not witness the representation of the coronation at either house. Their

first visit was paid to Drury Lane, when the Queen commanded the piece

to be played, and her selection was one that had some wit in it. The

young bride chose, ‘Rule a Wife and have a Wife.’ The royal visit took

place on the 26th of November.

At Covent Garden ‘Henry the Fifth,’ with the coronation, was acted

twenty-six times; and ‘Richard the Third,’ with the same pageant, was

played fourteen times. That exquisite hussey, Mrs. Bellamy, walked in

the procession as the representative of the Queen. Their Majesties

paid their first visit in state, on the 7th of January 1762. The

King, with some recollection, probably, of his consort’s ‘bespeak’ at

Drury Lane, commanded the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor.’ So that in this

respect the new reign commenced merrily enough. It had its _bons mots_.

When some persons expressed surprise at the Queen having named Lady

Northumberland one of the ladies of her bedchamber, Lady Townshend

said, ‘Quite right! the Queen knows no English. Lady Northumberland

will teach her the vulgar tongue!’

CHAPTER II.

COURT AND CITY.

The _levée_--The King goes to parliament--The first night of the

opera--Garrick grievously offended--The King and Queen present

on the Lord Mayor’s Day--Entertained by Robert Barclay, the

Quaker--Banquet at Guildhall to the King and Queen--Popular

enthusiasm for Mr. Pitt--Buckingham House purchased by the

King for Queen Charlotte--Defoe’s account of it--The Duke of

Buckingham’s description of it--West and his pictures--The house

demolished by George IV.--First illness of the King--Domestic

life of the King and Queen--Royal carriage--Selwyn’s joke on the

royal frugality--Prince Charles of Strelitz--Costume--Graceful

action of the Queen--Birth of Prince George.

The entire population seemed surprised at having got a young Queen and

King to reign over them; and, except an occasional placard or two,

denouncing ‘petticoat government,’ and pronouncing against Scotch

ministers and Lord George Sackville, there seemed no dissatisfied

voice in the whole metropolis. The graces of the young Sovereign were

sung by pseudo-poets, and Walpole, in graceful prose, told of his

surprise at seeing how completely the whole _levée_-room had lost its

air of a lion’s den. ‘The Sovereign don’t stand in one spot, with his

eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of German news:

he walks about and speaks to everybody. I saw him afterwards on the

throne, where he is graceful and genteel; sits with dignity, and reads

his answers to addresses well. It was the Cambridge address, carried

by the Duke of Newcastle, in his doctor’s gown, and looking like the

_Médecin malgré lui_. He had been vehemently solicitous for attendance,

for fear my Lord Westmoreland, who vouchsafes himself to bring the

address from Oxford, should out-number him. Lord Litchfield and several

other Jacobites have kissed hands. George Selwyn says, “They go to St.

James’s because now there are so many STUARTS there.”’

In allusion to the crowds of nobles, gentle and simple, going up to

congratulate the King, or to view the processions flocking to the foot

of the throne, or surrounding the King, as it were, when he went to

the first parliament, Walpole remarks: ‘The day the King went to the

house I was three quarters of an hour getting through Whitehall. There

were subjects enough to set up half a dozen petty kings: the Pretender

would be proud to reign over the footmen only; and, indeed, unless

he acquires some of them, he will have no subjects left; all their

masters flock to St. James’s.’ In a few words he describes the scene

at the theatre on the King’s first visit, alone. ‘The first night the

King went to the play, which was civilly on a Friday, not on the opera

night, as he used to do, the whole audience sang _God save the King_ in

chorus. For the first act the press was so great at the door that no

ladies could go to the boxes, and only the servants appeared there, who

kept places. At the end of the second act the whole mob broke in and

seated themselves.’ The play was ‘Richard the Third,’ in which Garrick

represented the king. George III. repeated his visit on the 23rd of

December to see ‘King John.’

His Majesty grievously offended Garrick on this night, by a

manifestation of what the latter considered very bad taste. The King

preferred Sheridan in Faulconbridge to Garrick in King John; and when

this reached the ears of Garrick, he was excessively hurt; and, though

the boxes were taken for ‘King John,’ for several nights, the offended

‘Roscius’ would not allow the play to have its proper run.

But there were other stages, on which more solemn pageants had to be

performed. The Sovereigns had yet to make their first appearance within

the city liberties.

The Queen was introduced to the citizens of London on Lord Mayor’s

Day; on which occasion they may be said emphatically to have ‘made a

day of it.’ They left St. James’s Palace at noon, and in great state,

accompanied by all the royal family, escorted by guards, and cheered

by the people, whose particular holiday was thus shared in common.

There was the usual ceremony at Temple Bar of opening the gates to

royalty and giving it welcome; and there was the once usual address

made at the east end of St. Paul’s Churchyard, by the senior scholar

of Christ’s Hospital School. Having survived the cumbrous formalities

of the first, and smiled at the flowery figures of the second, the

royal party proceeded on their way, not to Guildhall, but to the house

of Mr. Barclay, the patent-medicine-vendor, an honest Quaker whom the

King respected, and ancestor to the head of the firm whose name is not

unmusical to Volscian ears--Barclay, Perkins, and Co.

Robert Barclay, the only surviving son of the author of the same

name, who wrote the celebrated ‘Apology for the Quakers,’ was an

octogenarian, who had entertained, in the same house, two Georges

before he had given welcome to the third George and his Queen

Charlotte. The hearty old man, without abandoning Quaker simplicity,

went a little beyond it, in order to do honour to the young Queen; and

he hung his balcony and rooms with a brilliant crimson damask, that

must have scattered blushes on all who stood near--particularly on the

cheeks of the crowds of ‘Friends’ who had assembled within the house

to do honour to their Sovereigns. How the King--and he was at the

time a very handsome young monarch--fluttered all the female Friends

present, and set their tuckers in agitation, may be guessed from the

fact that he kissed them all round, and right happy were they to be so

greeted. The Queen smiled with dignity, her consort laughed and clapped

his hands, and when they had passed into another room, the King’s

young brothers followed the example, and in a minute had all the young

Quakeresses in their arms--nothing loath. Those were unceremonious

days, and ‘a kiss all round’ was a pleasant solemnity, which was

undergone with alacrity even by a Quakeress.

In the apartment to which the King and Queen had retired the latter was

waited on by a youthful grand-daughter of Mr. Barclay, who kissed the

royal hand with much grace, but would not kneel to do so, a resolute

observance of consistent principle which made the young Queen smile.

Later in the day, when Mr. Barclay’s daughters served the Queen with

tea, they handed it to the ladies-in-waiting, who presented it kneeling

to their Sovereign--a form which Rachel and Rebecca would never have

submitted to. From the windows of this house, which was exactly

opposite Bow Church, the Queen and consort witnessed the Lord Mayor’s

procession pass on its way to Westminster, and had the patience to wait

for its return.

The Princess of Wales was a spectator of the show on this occasion,

with her son, King George, and her daughter-in-law, Queen Charlotte.

Her husband, Frederick, Prince of Wales, once stood among the crowd in

Cheapside to view the return of the Mayor’s procession to Guildhall. He

was recognised by some members of the Saddlers Company, by whom he was

invited into their ‘stand,’ erected in the street. He accepted their

invitation, and made himself so agreeable that the company unanimously

elected him their ‘Master,’ an office which he accepted with great

readiness.

Queen Charlotte and George III. were the last of our sovereigns who

thus honoured a Lord Mayor’s Show. And as it _was_ the last occasion,

and that the young Queen Charlotte was _the_ heroine of the day, the

opportunity may be profited by, to show how that royal lady looked

and bore herself in the estimation of one of the Miss Barclays,

whose letter descriptive of the scene appeared forty-seven years

subsequently, in 1808. ‘About one o’clock papa and mamma, with sister

Western to attend them, took their stand at the street-door, where

my two brothers had long been to receive the nobility, more than a

hundred of whom were then waiting in the warehouse. As the royal

family came, they were conducted into one of the counting-houses,

which was transformed into a very pretty parlour. At half-past two

their Majesties came, which was two hours later than they intended. On

the second pair of stairs was placed our own company, about forty in

number, the chief of whom were of the Puritan order, and all in their

orthodox habits. Next to the drawing-room doors were placed our own

selves--I mean papa’s children, none else, to the great mortification

of visitors, being allowed to enter; for, as kissing the King’s hand

without kneeling was an unexampled honour, the King confined that

privilege to our own family, as a return for the trouble we had been

at. After the royal pair had shown themselves at the balcony, we were

all introduced, and you may believe, at that juncture, we felt no small

palpitations. The King met us at the door (a condescension I did not

expect), at which place he saluted us with great politeness. Advancing

to the upper end of the room, we kissed the Queen’s hand, at the sight

of whom we were all in raptures, not only from the brilliancy of her

appearance, which was pleasing beyond description, but being throughout

her whole person possessed of that inexpressible something that is

beyond a set of features, and equally claims our attention. To be

sure she has not a fine face, but a most agreeable countenance, and is

vastly genteel, with an air, notwithstanding her being a little woman,

truly majestic; and I really think, by her manner is expressed that

complacency of disposition which is truly amiable; and though I could

never perceive that she deviated from that dignity which belongs to

a crowned head, yet on the most trifling occasions she displayed all

that easy behaviour that negligence can bestow. Her hair, which is of

a light colour, hung in what is called coronation-ringlets, encircled

in a band of diamonds, so beautiful in themselves, and so prettily

disposed, as will admit of no description. Her clothes, which were

as rich as gold, silver, and silk could make them, was a suit from

which fell a train supported by a little page in scarlet and silver.

The lustre of her stomacher was inconceivable. The King I think a

very personable man. All the princes followed the King’s example in

complimenting each of us with a kiss. The Queen was upstairs three

times, and my little darling, with Patty Barclay and Priscilla Ball,

were introduced to her. I was present and not a little anxious on

account of my girl, who kissed the Queen’s hand with so much grace that

I thought the princess-dowager would have smothered her with kisses.

Such a report was made of her to the King, that Miss was sent for,

and afforded him great amusement, by saying ‘that she loved the King,

though she must not love fine things, and her grandpapa would not allow

her to make a curtsy.’ Her sweet face made such an impression on the

Duke of York, that I rejoiced she was only five instead of fifteen.

When he first met her, he tried to persuade Miss to let him introduce

her to the Queen; but she would by no means consent till I informed her

he was a prince, upon which her little female heart relented, and she

gave him her hand--a true copy of the sex. The King never sat down,

nor did he taste anything during the whole time. Her Majesty drank tea,

which was brought her on a silver waiter by brother John, who delivered

it to the lady-in-waiting, and she presented it kneeling. The leave

they took of us was such as we might expect from our equals; full of

apologies for our trouble for their entertainment--which they were so

anxious to have explained, that the Queen came up to us, as we stood

on one side of the door, and had every word interpreted. My brothers

had the honour of assisting the Queen into her coach. Some of us sat up

to see them return, and the King and Queen took especial notice of us

as they passed. The King ordered twenty-four of his guard to be placed

opposite our door all night, lest any of the canopy should be pulled

down by the mob, in which there were one hundred yards of silk damask.’

Gog and Magog have never looked down on so glorious a scene and so

splendid a banquet as enlivened Guildhall, at which the Queen and her

consort were royally entertained, at a cost approaching 8000_l._ Both

Sovereigns united in remarking that ‘for elegance of entertainment

the city beat the court end of the town.’ A foreign minister present

described it as a banquet such only as one king could give another. And

it _was_ precisely so. The King of the City exhibited his boundless

hospitality to the King of England. The majesty of the people had the

chief magistrate for a guest.

The majesty of the people, however, if we may credit the Earl of

Albemarle, the author of the ‘Memoir of the Marquis of Rockingham and

his Contemporaries,’ was by no means so civil to the royal guests as

the occasion warranted.

On the 9th of November, George III., who had been married only two

months, went in state with his youthful Queen, to dine with the Lord

Mayor. It was their Majesties’ first visit to the city. Mr. Pitt,

yielding to Lord Temple’s persuasions, and, as he afterwards declared,

‘against his better judgment,’ went with him in his carriage, and

joined the procession. Pitt, the ‘great commoner,’ the terrible ‘Cornet

of Horse,’ hated and dreaded by Sir Robert Walpole, had only just

resigned office, because he could not get his colleagues to agree with

him in an aggressive policy against Spain, to be at war with which

power was then a passion with the people. For this reason Pitt was

their idol and the court party their abomination. Hence, the result

of Pitt’s joining the procession might partly have been anticipated.

The royal bride and bridegroom were received by the populace with

indifference, and Pitt’s late colleague with cries of ‘No Newcastle

salmon!’ As for Lord Bute, he was everywhere assailed with hisses and

execrations, and would probably have been torn in pieces by the mob,

but for the interference of a band of butchers and prize-fighters,

whom he had armed as a body-guard. All the enthusiasm of the populace

was centred in Mr. Pitt, who was ‘honoured[45] with the most hearty

acclamations of people of all ranks; and so great was the feeling in

his favour, that the mob clung about every part of the vehicle, hung

upon the wheels, hugged his footman, and even kissed his horses.’

The royal bride must have been astonished, and the bridegroom was

indignant at what, a few days after the banquet, he called ‘the

abominable conduct of Mr. Pitt.’ The court members of parliament were

directed to be personally offensive to him in the house, and all the

fashionable ladies in town went to see the noble animal baited.

The year of pageants ended with matters of money. Parliament settled

on Queen Charlotte 40,000_l._ per annum, to enable her the better

to support the royal dignity; with a dowry of 100,000_l._ per annum,

and Richmond Old Park and Somerset House annexed, in case she should

survive his Majesty. On the 2nd of December the King went in state to

the House to give the royal assent to the bill. The Queen accompanied

him; and when the royal assent had been given, her Majesty rose from

her seat and curtsied to him the grateful acknowledgments which were

really due to the representatives of the people who gave the money.

Somerset House was but an indifferent town residence for either Queen

or queen-dowager, and the King showed his taste and gratified Queen

Charlotte when, in lieu of the above-named residence, he purchased

for her that red-brick mansion which stood on the site of the present

Buckingham Palace, and was then known as ‘Buckingham House.’ It was

subsequently called the ‘Queen’s House.’ The King bought it of Sir

Charles Sheffield for 21,000_l._, and settled it on his consort by an

act of parliament obtained some years afterwards. Therein were all the

children born, with the exception of their eldest son, George, Prince

of Wales, who was born at St. James’s Palace; who demolished the old

house in 1825, and erected on its site one of the ugliest palaces

by which the sight was ever offended. Queen Victoria has had some

difficulty to make it a comfortable residence; to render it beautiful

was out of the power even of her Majesty’s architect, Mr. Blore. The

edifice of his predecessor, Nash, defied all his efforts.

In Queen Charlotte’s time Mr. Wyatt erected a grand staircase. West’s

pictures soon filled the great gallery, and _that_ artist at least

would not complain, as so many others did, that the Queen and King were

mean patrons of art, seeing that the latter, to gratify his consort,

paid West no less than 40,000_l._ for his labours. The principal of

these pictures are now at Hampton Court. The ‘Regulus’ brought West

a very liberal pension. The dining-room was adorned with pictures by

Zucchero, Vandyke, Lely, Zoffani, Mytens, and Houseman. The Queen’s

house, although intended as a simple asylum for its royal owners from

the oppressive gorgeousness and ceremony of St. James’s, did not

lack a splendour of its own. The crimson drawing-room, the second

drawing-room, and the blue-velvet room, were magnificent apartments,

adapted for the most showy of royal pageants, and adorned with valuable

pictures. Queen Charlotte had hardly been installed in this her own

‘House,’ when her husband commenced the formation of that invaluable

library which her son, on demolishing her house, made over to the

nation, and is now in the British Museum.

The son just alluded to was George IV. Under the pretence of being

about to repair Buckingham House, he applied to the Commons to

afford the necessary supplies. These were granted under the special

stipulation that repairs (and not rebuilding) were intended. The

King and his architect, Nash, however, went on demolishing and

reconstructing until the fine old mansion disappeared, and a hideous

palace took its place, at a tremendous cost to the public. Neither of

the children of Charlotte who lived to ascend the throne resided in

this palace. The old building was the property of a queen-consort,

the new one was first occupied by a Queen-regnant, the daughter

of Charlotte’s third son, Edward. The first great event in Queen

Charlotte’s life, after she became mistress of Buckingham House, was

her becoming the mother of him who destroyed it--George Augustus

Frederick, Prince of Wales.

In 1762 Horace Walpole says: ‘The King and Queen are settled for good

and all at Buckingham House, and are stripping the other palaces

to furnish it. In short, they have already fetched pictures from

Hampton Court, which indicates their never living there; consequently

Strawberry Hill will remain in possession of its own tranquillity, and

not become a cheese-cake house to the palace. All I ask,’ says the

cynic in lace ruffles, ‘all I ask of princes is not to live within

five miles of me.’ Even thus early in the reign, the King’s health

gave rise to some disquietude. ‘The King,’ writes Walpole to Mann,

‘had one of the last of those strong and universally epidemic colds,

which, however, have seldom been fatal. He had a violent cough, and

oppression on his breast, which he concealed, just as I had; but _my_

life was of no consequence, and having no physicians in ordinary, I

was cured in four nights by James’s powder, without bleeding. The

King was blooded seven times and had three blisters. Thank God, he is

safe, and we have escaped a confusion beyond what was ever known on

the accession of the Queen of Scots. Nay, we have not even a successor

born. Fazakerly, who has lived long enough to remember nothing but the

nonsense of the law, maintained, according to its wise tenets, that, as

the King never dies, the Duke of York must have been proclaimed King;

and then be unproclaimed again on the Queen’s delivery. We have not

even any standing law for the regency; but I need not paint you all the

difficulties there would have been in our situation.’

The difficulty was overcome; the King recovered, the royal couple

lived quietly, and when they were disposed to be gay and in company,

they already exhibited a spirit of economy which may illustrate the

saying, that any virtue carried to excess becomes a vice. On the

26th of November the Queen and the King saw ‘a few friends’; the

invitations only included half a dozen strangers, and the entire

company consisted of not more than twelve or thirteen couple. The six

strangers were Lady Caroline Russell, Lady Jane Stewart, Lord Suffolk,

Lord Northampton, Lord Mandeville, and Lord Grey. Besides these were

the court _habitués_, namely the Duchess of Ancaster and her Grace of

Hamilton, who accompanied the Queen on her first arrival. These ladies

danced little: but on the other hand, Lady Effingham and Lady Egremont

danced much. Then there were the six maids of honour, Lady Bolingbroke

--who could not dance because she was in black gloves, and Lady Susan

Stewart in attendance upon ‘Lady Augusta.’ The latter was that eldest

daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at whose birth there had been

such a commotion, and who was commonly called the _Lady_ Augusta, in

obedience to her father’s wishes, who was fond of this old-fashioned

English style of naming our princesses. The noblemen in waiting were

Lords March, Eglintoun, Cantilupe, and Huntingdon. There were ‘no

sitters-by,’ except the King’s mother, the Duchess of Bedford, and

Lady Bute. At this select party, which commenced between half-past six

and seven, the King danced the whole time with the Queen; and the Lady

Augusta, future mother of the next Queen of England, with her four

younger brothers. The dancing went on uninterruptedly till one in the

morning: the hungry guests separated without supper; and so ended the

young couple’s first and not very hilarious party.

That young couple certainly began life in a prosaically business-like

way. To suit the King’s convenience, one opera night was changed

from Tuesdays to Mondays, because the former was ‘post-day’ and his

Majesty too much engaged to attend; and the Queen would not have

gone on Tuesdays without him. There was more questionable taste

exhibited on other occasions. Eight thousand pounds were expended

on a new state-coach, which was ‘a beautiful object crowded with

improprieties.’ The mixture of palm-trees and Tritons was laughed at;

the latter as not being adapted to a land-carriage; the former as being

as little aquatic as the Tritons were terrestrial.

It was, perhaps, with reference to the Queen’s first supperless party

that Lord Chesterfield uttered a _bon mot_, when an addition to the

peerage was contemplated. When this was mentioned in his presence, some

one remarked: ‘I suppose there will be no dukes made.’ ‘Oh, yes, there

will!’ exclaimed Chesterfield, ‘there is to be _one_’ ‘Is? who?’ ‘Lord

Talbot; he is to be created Duke Humphrey, and there is to be no table

kept at court but his.’

The young nobility, who had formed great expectations of the splendour

and gaiety that were to result, as they thought, from the establishment

of a new court, with a young couple at the head of it, were miserably

disappointed that pleasure alone was not the deity enshrined in the

royal dwelling. To the Queen’s palace they gave the name of Holyrood

House, intending to denote thereby that it was the mere abode of chill,

gloom, and meanness. But, be this as it may, the English court was

now the only court in Europe at which vice was discountenanced, and

virtue set as an example and insisted on in others. With respect to

the routine followed there, it certainly lacked excitement, but was

hardly the worse for that. The Queen passed most of her mornings in

receiving instruction from Dr. Majendie in the English tongue. She was

an apt scholar, improved rapidly, and though she never spoke or wrote

with elegance, yet she learned to appreciate our best authors justly,

and was remarkable for the perfection of taste and manner with which

she read aloud. Needle-work followed study, and exercise followed

needle-work. The Queen usually rode or walked in company with the King

till dinner-time; and in the evening she played on the harpsichord,

or sang aloud--and this she could do almost _en artiste_; or she took

share in a homely game of cribbage, and closed the innocently spent day

with a dance. ‘And so to bed,’ as Mr. Pepys would say--without supper.

The routine was something changed when her Majesty’s brother, Prince

Charles of Strelitz, became a visitor at the English court in February

1762. He was a prince short of stature, but well-made, had fine eyes

and teeth, and a very persuasive way with him. So persuasive, indeed,

that he at one time contrived to express from the King 30,000_l._ out

of the civil-list revenue, to pay the debts the prince had contracted

with German creditors.

In the meantime, matters of costume, as connected with court etiquette,

were not considered beneath her Majesty’s notice. Her birth-day was

kept on the 18th of January, to make it as distinct as possible from

the King’s, kept in June, and to encourage both winter and summer

fashions. For the latter anniversary a dress was instituted of

‘stiff-bodied gowns and bare shoulders;’ and invented, it was said,

‘to thin the drawing-room.’ ‘It will be warmer, I hope,’ says Walpole,

in March, ‘by the King’s birth-day, or the old ladies will catch their

deaths. What dreadful discoveries will be made both on fat and lean!

I recommend to you the idea of Mrs. Cavendish when half stark!’ The

Queen’s drawing-rooms, however, were generally crowded by the ladies;

and no wonder, when seventeen English and Scotch unmarried dukes

might be counted at them. The especial birthday drawing-room on the

anniversary of the King’s natal day was, however, ill attended, less on

the King’s account than on that of his minister, Lord Bute. Meanwhile,

court was made to the Queen by civilities shown to a second brother

who had come over to visit her, allured by affection and the success

which had attended the elder brother. _Lady Northumberland’s fête_ to

this wandering prince was a ‘pompous festine;’ ‘not only the whole

house, but the garden was illuminated, and was quite a fairy scene.

Arches and pyramids of lights alternately surrounded the enclosure; a

diamond necklace of lamps edged the rails and descent, with a spiral

obelisk of candles on each hand; and dispersed over the lawn with

little bands of kettle-drums, clarinets, fifes, &c., and the lovely

moon who came without a card.’ Queen Charlotte knew how to perform a

graceful action gracefully as well as any queen who ever shared the

throne. Thus, Lady Bolingbroke having been trusted by the Duchess of

Bedford with a superb enamelled watch to exhibit to her Majesty, the

latter desired her to put it on, that she might the better judge of its

ornamental effect. She was obeyed, and thereupon she made a present of

it to the happy lady, remarking, that the watch looked so well upon her

‘it ought to remain by Lady Bolingbroke’s side.’

But the great event of the year was the birth of the heir-apparent.

It occurred at St. James’s Palace, on the 12th of August. In previous

reigns such events generally took place in the presence of many

witnesses; but on the present occasion the Archbishop of Canterbury and

the Lord Chancellor alone were present in that capacity.

‘Many rejoiced,’ writes Mrs. Scott, the sister of Elizabeth Montagu,

‘but none more than those who have been detained all this hot weather

in town to be present at the ceremony. Among them, no one was more

impatient than the chancellor, who, not considering any part of the

affair as a point of law, thought his presence very unnecessary. His

lordship and the archbishop must have had a fatiguing office; for, as

she was brought to bed at seven in the morning, they must have attended

all night, for fear they should be absent at the critical moment. I

wish they were not too much out of humour before the prince was born to

be able to welcome it properly.’

The royal christening will be, however, of more interest than details

of the birth of the prince. The ceremony was performed in the grand

council chamber, the Archbishop of Canterbury--‘the right rev. midwife,

Thomas Secker,’ as Walpole calls him--officiating. Walpole, describing

the scene, on the day after, says: ‘Our next monarch was christened,

last night, George Augustus Frederick. The Princess (Dowager of Wales),

the Duke of Cumberland, and the Duke of Mecklenburgh, sponsors. The

Queen’s bed, magnificent and, they say, in taste, was placed in the

drawing-room; though she is not to see company in form, yet it looks

as if they had intended people should have been there, as all who

presented themselves were admitted, which were very few, for it had not

been notified; I suppose to prevent too great a crowd. All I have heard

named, besides those in waiting, were the Duchess of Queensberry, Lady

Dalkeith, Mrs. Grenville, and about four other ladies.’

It was precisely at the period of the christening of this royal babe

that the marriage of her who was to be the mother of his future wife

was first publicly spoken of. In September Walpole expresses a hope

to his friend Conway that the hereditary Prince of Brunswick is

‘recovering of the wound in his loins, for they say he is to marry the

Princess Augusta.’ Walpole, however, would have nothing to do with the

new Prince of Wales. ‘With _him_,’ he says, ‘I am positive never to

occupy myself. I kissed the hand of his great-great-grandfather; would

it not be preposterous to tap a volume of future history, of which I

can never see but the first pages?’

Poor Queen Charlotte did not escape scandal. Less than twenty years

after her death a M. Gailliardet published, in 1836, a memoir of the

celebrated Chevalier d’Eon, founded, it is said, on family papers.

In this book, the young Queen Charlotte was described, in the year

1763, as giving interviews by night to the chevalier, and the

Prince of Wales, just named, was said to be their son. Many years

after Gailliardet’s book had appeared a M. Jourdan published ‘Un

Hermaphrodite,’ which was a wholesale plagiarism from Gailliardet.

Jourdan denied this fact; when Gailliardet declared that the whole

story about the Queen and the chevalier was pure fiction! Jourdan then

affirmed that he had nothing to do with ‘Un Hermaphrodite,’ and had

only put his name to it. In this way is calumny propagated. If we may

judge from a letter written about this time, by Mrs. Scott, the Queen

was not a person to attract chevaliers. The Queen’s ‘person,’ she

says, ‘is not the only thing that displeases. There is a coarseness

and vulgarity of manners that disgust much more. She does not seem to

choose to fashion herself at all.’

CHAPTER III.

ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS.

Scenes, and personal sketches of Queen Charlotte--Her fondness for

diamonds--Visit to Mrs. Garrick--Orphan establishment at Bedford

founded by the Queen--Her benevolence on the breaking of the

Windsor bank--Marriage of Princess Caroline Matilda--Unfounded

rumours about the Queen--Hannah Lightfoot--The King’s illness--A

regency recommended by the King--Discussions relative to

it--Birth of Prince Frederick--Failing health of the Duke of

Cumberland.

In 1761 not a more gorgeously attired queen, in presence of the public,

was to be found than ours. But we learn that, in 1762, the first thing

of which the Queen got positively weary was her jewels. At first,

seeing herself endowed with them, her joy was girlish, natural, and

unfeigned. But the gladness was soon over. It was the ecstacy of a

week, as she herself said a quarter of a century later; and there was

indifference at the end of a fortnight. ‘I thought at first,’ said she,

‘I should always choose to wear them; but the fatigue, and trouble of

putting them on, and the care they required, and the fear of losing

them; why, believe me, madam, in a fortnight’s time I longed for my own

earlier dress and wished never to see them more.’

This was said to Miss Burney, subsequently her dresser and reader, who

adds that the Queen informed her that dress and shows had never been

things she cared for, even in the bloom of her youth; and that neatness

and comfort alone gave her pleasure in herself as in others. The Queen

confessed that ‘the first week or fortnight of being a Queen, when only

in her seventeenth year, she thought splendour sufficiently becoming

her station to believe she should choose thenceforth constantly to

support it. But it was not her mind,’ says Miss Burney, ‘but only

her eyes that were dazzled, and therefore her delusion speedily

vanished, and her understanding was too strong to give it any chance of

returning.’

This is pretty, but it has the disadvantage of not being exactly true.

The Queen may have been indifferent for a while to the wearing or the

value of diamonds, but later in life, if she did nurse a cherished

passion, it was for these glittering gewgaws. The popular voice, at

least, accused her of this passion, and before many years elapsed it

was commonly said that no money was so sure to buy her favour as a

present of diamonds. That she _could_, however, condescend to very

simple tasks is well known. This is illustrated by her visit to Mrs.

Garrick, at Hampton. The Queen found the ex-actress engaged in peeling

onions, and Charlotte sat down, and, by helping her in her employment,

saved her from the annoyance of being ashamed of it.

In 1763 the country hailed the advent of peace and the retirement of

Lord Bute from office. The Queen’s popularity was greater than that of

the King, and even men of extremely liberal politics greeted her ‘mild

and tender virtues.’ She now encouraged trade by her splendid _fêtes_,

and was one of those persons who, by enjoying festive grandeurs calmly,

acquire a reputation for calmly despising them. In August 1763 she

became the mother of a second prince, Frederick, afterwards Duke of

York.

One of the first acts of the Queen, this same year, was a graceful act

of benevolence. The young mother had thought and a heart for young

orphans--of gentility. For parentless children of gentle blood she

established a home in Bedfordshire. At the head of the house was

placed a lady who, with many comforts, enjoyed the liberal salary of

500_l._ per annum. In return for this she superintended the instruction

of the young ladies (who were not admitted till they had attained the

age of fifteen--age of folly and of fermentation, as some one has

called it) in embroidery. The first produce of their taste and toil was

the property of their patroness, the young Queen, and was converted

into ornaments for window curtains, chairs, sofas, and bed furniture

for Windsor Castle and the ‘Queen’s House’ in St. James’s Park.

This was, perhaps, rather a calculating benevolence; but the Queen paid

500_l._ a year for fifty years for it, and her Majesty was not wanting

in true charity. In a later period of her reign the middle classes of

Windsor were thrown into much misery by the breaking of the bank there.

Many individuals of the class alluded to held the 1_l._ notes of this

bank; and the paper had now no more value than _as_ paper. The Queen,

on hearing the case, ordered her treasurer to give cash for these notes

on their being presented, and this was done to the extent of 400_l._

Her daughters acted as clerks, and never was there so hilarious a run

upon the bank as on this royal house at Windsor.

The year 1765 opened in some sense auspiciously--with a royal marriage.

Caroline Matilda was the posthumous daughter of Frederick, Prince

of Wales, and was born in July 1751. The terms of her marriage with

Christian, Crown Prince of Denmark, were settled in January of this

year; but, on account of the extreme youth of the contracting parties,

they were not carried into effect until two years had elapsed.

Meanwhile, the young bride, who had been remarkable for her beauty,

grace, and elegance--and above all for her vivacity--seemed almost to

fade away, so nervously anxious did she become as to the obligation

by which she was bound and its possible results. Before the espousals

were completed her affianced husband had become King of Denmark, and

when Queen Charlotte congratulated her sister-in-law she little thought

of the hard fate that was to follow upon the ceremony. As for the

following year, it was a time of much anxiety and distress, and the

people were scarcely good-humoured enough in 1765 to welcome the birth

of a third prince, in the person of William Henry, afterwards Duke of

Clarence.

The reports circulated at this time, to the effect that the Queen

interfered in state affairs, were discredited by those who certainly

did not lack the means of getting at the truth. The rumour appears to

have been believed by Mr. Stanhope; but Lord Chesterfield, in writing

to his son, and noticing his belief in the good foundation of such

a rumour, says: ‘You seem not to know the character of the Queen;

here it is. She is a good woman, a good wife, a tender mother, and an

unmeddling queen. The King loves her as a woman, but I verily believe

has never yet spoken one word to her about business.’

The reports regarding her were at once atrocious and absurd. They were

the falser because they spoke of her having insisted on a repetition of

her marriage ceremony with the King, and that the same was performed

by Dr. Wilmot, at Kew Palace. The motive for this proceeding was

ascribed to the alleged fact of the death of Hannah Lightfoot, with

whom rumour was resolved that the King had been wedded, and that now a

legal marriage might be solemnised between the Queen and himself. The

atrocity of rumour was illustrated by a report that in consequence of

an attack of illness which had affected, for a short time, the King’s

mental faculties, the Queen, armed with a law which, in the case of an

interruption in the exercise of the royal authority, gave a power of

regency to her Majesty, or other members of the royal family, assisted

by a council, had exercised the most unlimited sway over the national

affairs, to the injury of the nation.

The only part of this which is true is where the King’s illness is

referred to. That he had been mentally affected was not known beyond

the palace, and to but a very few within it. He went with the Queen to

Richmond in the month of April, announcing an intention to spend a week

there; but, on the third day, he appeared unexpectedly at the _levée_

held by the Queen. This was so contrived in order to prevent a crowd.

He was at the drawing-room on the following day, and at chapel on Good

Friday. He looked pale, but it was the fixed plan to call him well, and

far-seeing people hoped that he was so. His health was considered as

very precarious, but what was chiefly dreaded was--consumption.

He acted with promptitude in this matter, by going down to the House,

and in an affecting and dignified spirit, urging the necessity of

appointing a regency, in case of some accident happening to himself

before the heir-apparent should become of age. The struggle on this

bill was one of the most violent which had ever been carried on by

two adverse factions. By a mere juggle practised on the King, the

clauses of the bill passed by the Lords, after some absurd discussion

as to what was meant by the ‘royal family,’ excluded his mother, the

Princess-dowager of Wales, as though she were not a member of it. The

struggle was as fierce in the Commons; for ministers dreaded lest, with

the Princess-dowager, they might get her _protégé_, Lord Bute, for

‘King!’ The political antagonists professed a super-excellence of what

they did not possess--patriotism; and after a battle of personalities,

the name of the Princess-dowager was inserted next after that of the

Queen (whom some were desirous to exclude altogether), as capable, with

certain assistance named, of exercising the power of regency, and the

Lords adopted the bill which came to them thus amended.

The Queen, it is hardly necessary to observe, had no opportunity under

this bill to exercise any present power, had she been ever so inclined.

It was only in after years that her enemies made the accusation

against her, when they wanted the memory which mendacious persons are

said to chiefly require. With respect to the desired omission of the

name of the King’s mother from the regency, it was fixing on her a

most unmerited stigma. The attempt to prove that she was not of the

royal family was to say, in other words, that she was not akin to

her own son. It is not known whether the Queen herself thought so,

nor did people care what a fiction of law might say thereupon. The

Princess-dowager’s name was placed next to that of Queen Charlotte in

the new Regency bill.

There is little more of personal detail connected with the Queen this

year that is of much interest. Her eldest son already wore a long

list of titles, had been honoured with the Order of the Garter, and

returned brief answers to loyal deputations. He was born twice a duke,

once an earl and baron, and Lord High Steward of Scotland. He was Duke

of Cornwall and Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, and Baron of Renfrew; and a

few days after his birth his mother smilingly laid upon his lap the

patent whereby he was created Prince of Wales. His brother Frederick

had been, ere he could speak, named Bishop of Osnaburgh; and Queen

and King were equally hurt by the ‘Chapter,’ who acknowledged their

diocesan, but refused to entrust to him the irresponsible guardianship

of the episcopal funds. The Queen’s thoughts were drawn away from this

matter, for a moment, by the birth (already noticed) of William Henry,

on the 21st of August--the second of her children destined to ascend

the throne. This was the little prince who so delighted the good Mrs.

Chapone, and by his engaging ways won the heart of Dr. Thomas, Bishop

of Winchester.

But while some princes were flourishing, others were fading. The

health of the Duke of Cumberland, the dearly loved son of Caroline,

had long been precarious. As early as April in this year his favourite

sister, Amelia, residing at Gunnersbury, had felt much alarm on his

account. ‘The Duke of Cumberland is actually set out for Newmarket

to-day; he, too, is called much better, but it is often as true of

the health of princes as of their prisoners, that there is little

distance between each and their graves. There has been lately a fire

at Gunnersbury which burned four rooms; her servants announced it

to Princess Amelia with that wise precaution of “Madam, do not be

frightened!”--accordingly, she was terrified. When they told her the

truth, she said, “I am very glad; I had expectation my brother was

dead.”’[46] The expectation seemed natural. A few months more only were

to elapse before he who was so over-praised for his generalship at

Culloden, and so over-censured for his severity after it, was summoned

to depart.

FOOTNOTES

[1] It is even alleged that he had been, through his representative,

M. de Gourville, at the Court of Hanover, the first to suggest the

expediency of a marriage between his daughter and George Louis. The

suggestion was made as coming, not only from himself, but from the

Duchess of Zell also, who certainly was no party to such a proposition.

[2] Letter to the Duke of Marlborough.

[3] De Roney.

[4] Lord Hervey’s ‘Memoirs, &c., of the Court of Queen Caroline.’

[5] Lord Hervey.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Chesterfield’s ‘Life and Letters; edited by Lord Mahon.’

[8] Lord Hervey.

[9] Lord Hervey.

[10] Lord Hervey.

[11] Lord Hervey.

[12] Walpole.

[13] Lord Hervey.

[14] Lord Hervey.

[15] Lord Hervey.

[16] Now Earl Stanhope.

[17] Lord Hervey.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Lord Hervey.

[20] Lord Hervey.

[21] Lord Hervey.

[22] Lord Hervey.

[23] Lord Hervey.

[24] Lord Hervey.

[25] Lord Hervey.

[26] Lord Hervey.

[27] Copies of the original letters, in French, will be found in Lord

Hervey’s volumes.

[28] These matters will be found detailed at great length, in Lord

Hervey’s Memoirs.

[29] In ‘Amphitryon.’

[30] Lord Hervey.

[31] Lord Hervey.

[32] To what extent it was so can only be understood by those who

peruse the Memoirs of this court by Lord Hervey.

[33] Salmon’s ‘Chronological Historian.’

[34] Suwarrow’s ‘Military Catechism’ contains the atrocious hint, that

a wounded foeman may become a dangerous enemy.

[35] Hervey makes this remark, but it was originally made by Walpole.

[36] Lord Hervey.

[37] Quin played the hero.

[38] Lord Hervey’s ‘Memoirs.’

[39] This matter, only alluded to by Lord Chesterfield, is treated at

very great length by Lord Hervey.

[40] Horace Walpole.

[41] Salmon’s ‘Chronological Historian.’

[42] ‘Lord Chesterfield’s Life and Letters. Edited by Lord Mahon.’

[43] ‘Lord Chesterfield’s Life and Letters;’ _ut supra_.

[44] Walpole.

[45] ‘Gentleman’s Magazine.’

[46] ‘Walpole’s Letters.’

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

LONDON: PRINTED BY

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AND PARLIAMENT STREET

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a

predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they

were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation

marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left

unbalanced.

Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them,

have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed at the end of

the book.