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Title: A forgotten Prince of Wales
Author: Henry Curties
Release Date: May 19, 2023 [eBook #70795]
Language: English
Produced by: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FORGOTTEN PRINCE OF
WALES ***
A FORGOTTEN
PRINCE OF WALES.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Emery Walker._
FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES, AND HIS SISTERS AT KEW.]
A FORGOTTEN
PRINCE OF WALES
BY
CAPTAIN HENRY CURTIES
Author of “When England Slept,”
etc., etc.
LONDON
EVERETT & CO., LTD.
42 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C.
Dedicated by permission
to
His Grace the Duke of Argyll, K.G.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Which Seizes upon the Prince as he comes into the World 1
CHAPTER II.
The Falling in of a Great Legacy 12
CHAPTER III.
The Prince at the Age of Nine 18
CHAPTER IV.
In which England gets a new King and Queen 25
CHAPTER V.
A Double Event which did not come off 41
CHAPTER VI.
The Prince and the London of 1728 50
CHAPTER VII.
Peter Wentworth’s Letters on the Prince’s Life 60
CHAPTER VIII.
The Prince’s Embarrassments 73
CHAPTER IX.
The Duchess of Marlborough Throws for a Big Stake 83
CHAPTER X.
The Beautiful Vanilla 92
CHAPTER XI.
The Prince Asserts Himself 104
CHAPTER XII.
A Child Bride 121
CHAPTER XIII.
The Nuptials 141
CHAPTER XIV.
Lady Archibald 147
CHAPTER XV.
A Rope Ladder and Some Storms 153
CHAPTER XVI.
Parliament and the Prince’s Income 178
CHAPTER XVII.
A New Favourite and a Settlement 198
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Most Extraordinary Event 203
CHAPTER XIX.
Which Contains a Great Deal of Fussing and Fuming and a little
Poetry 221
CHAPTER XX.
The Prince is Cast Forth with His Family 247
CHAPTER XXI.
The Death of the Queen 261
CHAPTER XXII.
The Year of Mourning 282
CHAPTER XXIII.
A Husband and a Lover 294
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Reconciliation 306
CHAPTER XXV.
The Battle of Dettingen 312
CHAPTER XXVI.
Bonnie Prince Charlie 321
CHAPTER XXVII.
Summer Days 344
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Finis 354
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Final Scene 362
CHAPTER XXX.
The Residuum 378
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES, AND HIS SISTERS FRONTISPIECE
LEINE PALACE, HANOVER Facing page 10
MARY BELLENDEN 28
GEORGE II. 40
LORD HERVEY 96
MARY LEPEL 108
PRINCESS AUGUSTA 136
MARY BELLENDEN, DUCHESS OF ARGYLL 146
THE PALACE OF HERRENHAUSEN, HANOVER 156
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE 192
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH 240
QUEEN CAROLINE, AND THE YOUNG DUKE OF CUMBERLAND 262
PRINCE GEORGE AND PRINCE EDWARD 346
BUBB DODDINGTON 368
A FORGOTTEN PRINCE OF WALES.
CHAPTER I.
WHICH SEIZES UPON THE PRINCE AS HE COMES INTO THE WORLD.
On the fourth day of cold February in that cold town of Hanover, in
the year 1707, of a brilliant and beautiful young mother, in the great
palace on the little river Leine, was born--perhaps it would be more
correct to say crept into the world, for there was so little noise
about it--a Prince of whom in after years his father remarked: “My dear
first-born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar and the greatest
_canaille_ and the greatest beast in the whole world, and I heartily
wish he was out of it.”[1] If this worthy parent--who by-the-bye was
no less a personage than King George the Second of England at the time
of speaking--had any reason or truth in this most fatherly comment
with its charitable tail-piece by way of benediction, then must this
little German potentate--by accident King of England--have been gifted
in addition to his other fine and gentlemanly qualities of perception,
with the power of divining the future, for his dislike, nay, his
inveterate hatred, of this little vaunted first-born son commenced
at his earliest years. Why, the good God alone knows, for certainly
none of His creatures have ever up to the present time succeeded in
discovering the cause.
The beautiful young mother then, Caroline, a Princess of
Brandenburg-Ansbach, commonly called “Caroline of Ansbach,” married but
a year to her George Augustus--only the Electoral Prince[2] at that
time--lay happy in her bed in the palace, with her baby beside her,
whilst the cold river ran without and the winter winds blew among the
dear orange trees in the gardens she was so fond of two miles away at
Herrenhausen, and very few people in Hanover and still fewer in England
knew that a possible future Prince of Wales had been born into the
world, for perhaps after all, very few people very much cared. Anne of
England was still on the throne.
So quiet had this matter been kept and so great a surprise was the
event that Howe, the English Envoy, wrote home in the following
strain:--
“This Court having for some time past almost despaired of the Princess
Electoral being brought to bed, and most people apprehensive that her
bigness, which has continued for so long, was rather an effect of a
distemper than that she was with child, her Highness was taken ill last
Friday at dinner, and last night, about seven o’clock, the Countess
d’Eke, her lady of the bedchamber, sent me word that the Princess was
delivered of a son.”[3]
On the 25th February Howe writes again complaining bitterly like a
wicked fairy in a children’s tale, that he has not been invited to
the christening which had taken place a few days after the birth in
the young mother’s bedroom, when the child had received the names
of Frederick Louis. Furthermore, he had not been allowed to see the
baby--and presumably to kiss it--until ten days later! This visit,
however, appears to have mollified him, for he bursts forth into
description: “I found the women,” he says, “all admiring the largeness
and strength of the child.”
One can see them doing it, and the dry old Envoy--it is presumed he was
a bachelor as he makes no mention of his wife--looking on, and as much
at sea with regard to the “points” of a fine baby as a midwife would be
at a horse show.
But this unusual secrecy about the birth--which was attributed to
the child’s grandfather the Elector, afterwards George the First of
England, who was not on the best of terms with Anne our reigning
Queen--had another aspect. It was an age of suspicion, suspicion
especially of substituted heirs, and the foolishness of not inviting
the English Envoy to the birth according to custom, revolting as
it would have been to a young modest wife, might have seriously
prejudiced the child’s future had he not been born with, and had
to struggle against, so many of those distinctive bad qualities so
carefully nurtured and indulged by his father and grandfather. On a
later occasion his father remarked to his mother _a propos_ of these:
“_Mais vous voyez mes passions ma chère Caroline. Vous connaissez mes
foiblesses._” Yes, that affectionate and long-suffering lady _did_ know
his “foiblesses” before she had been his wife very long. Thoroughly to
appreciate the nest into which this unfortunate little Prince was born
and christened, it is necessary to turn for a moment to the habits and
customs of his father and grandfather.
Taking the latter first, the Elector and future King of England was
in the habit of retaining without any concealment whatever a minimum
of three mistresses. These ladies, this considerate old father-in-law
expected his son’s wife to receive and treat with civility, and strange
to say Caroline the Princess Electoral did it. Poor soul! She had much
more than that to wink at on her own account before long owing to the
before-mentioned “foiblesses” of her little husband.
The chief of her father-in-law the Elector’s little harem was a lady
of the name of Schulemburg, of an ancient but poor family, who had
occupied her exalted position almost from a very plain girlhood, and
whose name became subsequently very well known in England.
The first George never distinguished himself as a seeker after beauty.
The Schulemburg is described as a tall, thin person, quite bald,
wearing a very ugly red wig, and with an uncomely face much marked with
the smallpox. This disfigurement she endeavoured to cover with paint
with shocking results.
The lady occupying the second position in the seraglio who bore the
euphonic name of Kielmansegge, and was the separated wife of a Hamburg
merchant, was of exactly opposite dimensions, bulking large with great
unwieldiness, she, however, had no need to redden her cheeks, being
gifted by Nature with a plenteous colour which she vainly endeavoured
to assuage with layers of white powder.
The advent of this Ruler in public with either or both of these
fascinating ladies under his immediate protection must have added
considerably to his Electoral dignity.
The third of this honourable trio was, strange to say, a beautiful
young woman, the Countess Platen, married to a man whose family seems
to have provided courtesans for princes for generations, but it was
so far to the Count Platen’s credit that when his wife openly became
the Elector’s mistress he separated from her. This lady seems to have
simply thrust herself into the old Elector’s arms, and appears for
a time, at least, to have absorbed most of his superfluous elderly
affection.
But about the time that little Prince Frederick Louis, the subject
of these Memoirs, was about two years old, a little sister--Anne,
named apparently after the Queen of England--having joined him in
the nursery, a certain couple of adventurers--for they were nothing
better--Henry Howard, third son of the Earl of Suffolk, with his pretty
but unscrupulous wife Henrietta, made their appearance at the Court
of Hanover. They had come, like many others from England, to throw in
their lot with the Elector and his chances of becoming King of England,
which at that time were none too sure, but still a good sporting chance.
Henry Howard and his wife had come like the others to better their
fortunes, which apparently in their case had arrived at that stage when
they could not well be much worse.
It is reported that so short of money were they on their arrival
that Mrs. Howard had to cut off her beautiful hair and sell it--her
glory!--to provide a conciliatory banquet for some powerful Hanoverian
acquaintances. One can almost add a tear to those she surely shed
over the shorn locks in private. But the loss of her hair does not
appear to have handicapped her in any way from the point of view of
fascination. She quickly ingratiated herself with the Elector’s aged
mother, Sophia, granddaughter of James the First of England, and
Protestant heiress of England by Act of Parliament, talked English with
her, and became one of her intimate friends. From this, it was but a
step to the favour of Caroline, the wife of the Elector’s son, and
Mrs. Hettie Howard was by no means the kind of lady to let grass grow
under her feet. She was said to be a great adept at flattery, knowing
just how much to tickle the ears of Royalty with Electoral Royalty.
She tickled to such effect that she soon became one of the Princess’s
ladies-in-waiting, and as such no doubt had the privilege of dandling
our Prince Frederick as an infant in her arms.
But apparently she had not as yet hit her mark; it was at the heart of
the little Prince’s father that her darts were aimed, and certainly
never was a target more ready to receive them. George Augustus had
ever posed as a lady’s man, yet this incident was possibly the first
which opened the eyes of his young wife to his subsequently deplored
“foiblesses.” The Electoral Prince followed in the exemplary footsteps
of his father, the Elector; he started the nucleus of a harem, and Mrs.
Hettie Howard obligingly became the nucleus! One more good example to
set before the little Prince when his eyes--and ears--should open to
understand the wicked things of this world!
The comment of George Augustus’s aged grandmother the Electress on
this arrangement--with which, by-the-bye, she was rather pleased--was
quite German and appropriate. “Ah!” she remarked, “it will improve his
English.”
Though the position of the House of Hanover at this time with regard to
the throne of England was considered to be good, yet it was by no means
sure. The two following letters will, perhaps, throw some light on the
period.
The first is from Leibnitz, a _savant_ attached to the Court of
Hanover, but at that time in Vienna, and is addressed to Caroline, the
Electoral Princess, whom he had known as a brilliant girl under the
wing of her aunt Sophia Charlotte, sister of George, at the Court of
Berlin.
“Vienna,
“December 16th, 1713.
“I have not troubled your Highness with letters since I left Hanover,
as I had nothing of interest to tell you, but I must not neglect the
opportunity which this season gives me of assuring your Highness of my
perpetual devotion, and I pray God to grant you the same measure of
years as the Electress enjoys, and the same good health. And I pray
also that you may one day enjoy the title of Queen of England so well
worn by Queen Elizabeth which you so highly merit.
“Consequently, I wish the same good things to his Highness, your
Consort, since you can only occupy the throne of that great Queen with
him. Whenever the gazettes publish favourable rumours concerning you
and affairs in England, I devoutly pray that they may become true;
sometimes it is rumoured here that a fleet is about to escort you both
to England, and a powerful alliance is being formed to support your
claims. I have even read that the Tsar is only strengthening his navy
in order to supply you with Knights of the Round Table. It is time
to translate all these rumours into action, as our enemies do not
sleep. Count Gallas, who is leaving for Rome in a few days, tells me
that well-informed people in England think that the first act of the
present Tory Ministry will be to put down the Whigs, the second to
confirm the peace, and the third to change the law of succession. I
hear that in Hanover there is strong opposition to all this. I hope it
may be so with all my heart.”
The Princess Caroline’s reply.
“Hanover,
“December 27th, 1713.
“I assure you that of all the letters this season has brought me,
yours has been the most welcome. You do well to send me your good
wishes for the throne of England, which are sorely needed just now,
for in spite of all the favourable rumours you mention, affairs there
seem to be going from bad to worse. For my part (and I am a woman and
like to delude myself) I cling to the hope that, however bad things
may be now, they will ultimately turn to the advantage of our House.
I accept the comparison which you draw, though all too flattering,
between me and Queen Elizabeth as a good omen. Like Elizabeth, the
Electress’s rights are denied her by a jealous sister with a bad
temper[4], and she will never be sure of the English crown until
her accession to the throne. God be praised that our Princess of
Wales[5] is better than ever, and by her good health confounds all the
machinations of her enemies.”
Poor young Princess Caroline, “the Pure, the Great, the Illustrious,”
as Mr. Wilkins calls her. She must, but for her children, have found
it none too cheerful in that dreary old Leine Schloss by the river,
about which clung the then unsolved mystery of the disappearance of
Königsmarck, the lover of the Princess Sophie Dorothea--her husband’s
mother--as he left that lady’s chamber and was seen no more. A mystery
which remained a mystery until years after when, the floor of an
adjoining room being taken up, his body was found beneath.
But apart from this it must have been a dreary life for a young girl,
a life of looking on at much over-eating, and over-drinking perhaps,
too. A life of low sordid immorality going on under her very nose in
which her husband and his father played leading parts; a life in which
the higher side of her nature was never called upon, except for the
almost habitual display of charity and forbearance to others.
[Illustration: LEINE PALACE, HANOVER.
Birthplace of Frederick, Prince of Wales.]
Yet the higher nature was there despite her faults which were many; she
possessed the pure gold of a good heart, which saw her through many
trials and temptations, and left her, but for her conduct to her eldest
son--and some of her correspondence--a clean name in history.
But other more stirring thoughts soon filled the young mother’s head
than the frailties of her husband’s family, for when the sum of her
nursery reached four and the little Prince Frederick was in his eighth
year, the fruit of her hopes ripened, Queen Anne of England died, and
a lucky turn of politics in favour of the Whigs, laid open to her the
road to a throne.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. XX., p. 235. This remark is
attributed to both his father and mother.
[2] The Electoral Prince was the eldest son of the elector.
[3] Howe’s Despatch. Hanover, 5th Feb., 1707. From this it must be seen
clearly that the Prince was born on February 4th, not on February 5th,
as it has been stated.
[4] Queen Anne.
[5] The Electress Sophia, her husband’s grandmother.
CHAPTER II.
THE FALLING IN OF A GREAT LEGACY.
On the 18th of June, 1714, the Heiress of England, the Electress Sophia
of Hanover, the aged mother of that Prince Elector, who afterwards
became George the First of England, and granddaughter of James the
First having dined in public with her son, that is to say having taken
her big German mid-day meal in the presence of the Court, went forth on
the arm of her granddaughter-in-law, the Electoral Princess Caroline,
to take the summer air in the beautiful gardens of the Palace of
Herrenhausen.
Much had occurred during the previous twenty-four hours to upset the
“Heiress of Britain” as she was proud to be called, far too much worry
for an old lady in her eighty-fourth year. Even at that advanced age
the glamour of the English crown fascinated her. Perhaps it was the
long drawn out hope of many years, the hope that possibly had been ever
before her eyes since the flight of James the Second.
She had received a letter on the previous day written by the hand of
Queen Anne herself in which that royal lady had distinctly told her in
the most peremptory manner in answer to a supplication to that effect,
that she objected to have any member of the Electoral family in her
dominions during her lifetime.
This had been a crushing blow. The old Electress had schemed, and
schemed as she imagined successfully, to establish her grandson George
Augustus, the Electoral Prince, with his wife in England. This would
have been a masterly stroke worthy of the universal reputation for
policy of so grand an old lady, and would have been as it were the
planting of one foot on the land she looked upon as her rightful
heritage, but fate and Queen Anne decided differently. The latter had
left no room for doubt about her intentions. Writing to her confidant
Leibnitz, on the 17th June, the Electoral Princess Caroline said on the
subject of this letter and others:
“We were in a state of uncertainty here until yesterday, when a courier
arrived from the Queen with letters for the Electress, the Elector,
and the Electoral Prince, of which I can only say that they are of a
violence worthy of my Lord Bolingbroke.”[6]
It is perfectly certain that Queen Anne had made herself exceedingly
objectionable as even a Queen can at times, and had not possibly stayed
to choose her words. Be that as it may, she had succeeded in entirely
upsetting the equanimity of her “good cousin” the Electress.
The old lady issuing from the Palace, where possibly she had dined
more amply than was judicious--for she was a great eater--leant on the
arm of her beloved Catherine and harped as ladies of her age will do
on the string of her treatment by her kinswoman Anne. It is said that
she became greatly excited and walked very fast, as she spoke of her
imagined wrongs. They bent their steps towards the celebrated orangery,
where the Princess and the attendants with them noticed the Electress
turn very white; then the next moment she fell forward in a swoon.
The cries of the attendants quickly brought to her aid her son
the Elector who was not far off, and he placed some _poudre
d’or_--evidently a restorative--in her mouth. But she was beyond the
power of earthly restoratives; she was carried into the Palace and in
the barbarous custom of the time bled, but very little blood came[7];
she was dead! as the doctors said, from apoplexy.
Thus did this great Princess, to whom our own late Queen, Victoria,
her descendant, has been so often likened, miss by a little over six
weeks the great goal of all her long years of ambition, the throne of
England, for Queen Anne died on the 1st of August following.
It is extraordinary that after the lapse of six generations a
descendant so like her should fill that throne after which she had
striven so long and so wisely for her family.
Her son George was now the “Heir of Britain” in her place; an heirship
which was to very soon resolve itself into possession, for within a
few weeks began that celebrated crisis in England between Oxford and
Bolingbroke which from the virulence of the discussions at the Councils
absolutely broke down Queen Anne’s health and killed her.
She departed this life on the 1st of August, 1714, almost her last
intelligible words being of her brother, the Pretender: “My brother!
Oh! my poor brother. What will become of you?”
On July 31st, Craggs, a creature of the Whig Government, had been
despatched to Hanover to convey the news that the Queen of England was
dying.
Craggs reached Hanover on August 5th--a journey then apparently of six
days--but his performance, though accomplished, one can imagine, with
all haste, was entirely eclipsed by that of one Godike, secretary to
Bothmar, the Hanoverian Envoy to England, who, despatched by his master
on August 1st, the day of the Queen’s death, arrived at Hanover on the
5th, the same day as Craggs, and proceeding direct to the Palace of
Herrenhausen, conveyed the news to the Elector before any of the other
messengers from England arrived.
It was this enterprising Bothmar who really decided George in
accepting the British Crown, for had not his reports from London been
satisfactory as to the feeling of the people, or at any rate as to the
absence of hostility to the Elector on their part, it is very unlikely
that George would have left his beloved Herrenhausen at all, and
England might to-day have been ruled by a Stuart King.
“The late King,” wrote Dean Lockier after the death of George the
First, “would never have stirred a step if there had been any strong
opposition.”[8]
But there was no disturbance, the people of London at any rate were
quiet, probably in a state of expectancy, and the preparations of the
Elector and his family for a move to England commenced forthwith.
Nevertheless, the new King of England did not hurry himself to take
possession of his dominions; he had been there thirty-four years before
on a matrimonial venture, of which the late Queen Anne, then Princess
of York, was the object, and he apparently cherished no pleasant
recollections of the visit, which had proved a dismal failure.
However, he started a month after the death of Queen Anne for the
Hague, there to embark for England, and he took with him a numerous
following of Hanoverians in which was Bernstorff, his Prime Minister,
and two-thirds of his seraglio, _i.e._, the Ladies Schulemburg and
Kielmansegge. It is not surprising that with his Eastern proclivities
he took also a couple of Turks by name Mustapha and Mahomet, but
whether these two last were eunuchs, in attendance on the two ladies of
the harem or not is not mentioned in history.
To his son, the Electoral Prince, George gave the command to travel
with him, the Princess Caroline was to follow in a month with all her
children except one. Little Prince Frederick Louis, the subject of
these Memoirs, by his grandfather’s command, was to remain behind in
Hanover, a child of seven, alone and separated from the rest of his
kindred.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The Electoral Princess Caroline to Leibnitz, Hanover, 17th June,
1714. From Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
[7] D’Alais’s Despatch. Hanover, 22nd June, 1714. Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
[8] Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
CHAPTER III.
THE PRINCE AT THE AGE OF NINE.
The new King, George the First of England, having departed with his
train, and a month after the Princess Caroline--soon to become Princess
of Wales--following with all the other children, little Frederick
Louis, then in his eighth year, was left alone at Herrenhausen under
the guardianship of his great-uncle Ernest Augustus and controlled by
various governors and tutors.
One can imagine the little lonely boy wandering through the deserted
corridors of the Palace of Herrenhausen and picturing the figures
of those dearest to him, those who had left him and whose faces he
was not to see again for many a long year. In the early days of that
separation one can picture the child in the orange walks of the
beautiful grounds in the warm autumn time and looking and longing for
his mother--she was a good and affectionate mother to him then--whose
face he was not to see again for nearly fourteen years. During the next
two years while the excitement of the Pretender’s invasion was passing
in England, the little Prince lived the ordinary life of a child, but
with the difference from ordinary children that he must have been an
exceedingly lonely child. That he was without companions of his own
age is quite certain from what followed. From his great-uncle it is
unlikely that he received much sympathy, if that Prince partook of the
nature of his brother the King-Elector George. But there was one left
behind there who possibly showed him some kindness--although there
is not a vestige of evidence to show that she did--and that was the
beautiful Countess Platen, the mistress of the King who was left behind
on account of the religion she professed, and because Bernstorff, the
Hanoverian Prime Minister, was jealous of her influence over the King.
So for two years the little Prince lived his child’s life and nothing
was recorded of him. Then we hear of him from two sources: from Lady
Mary Wortley-Montagu, who visited Hanover in 1716, like many other
English in the train of the King, and from his governor who reported
upon his conduct to his mother about this time.
The former of these who could be trusted--for Lady Mary was no Court
sycophant and lied to no one--writes as follows of Frederick:--
“Our young Prince, the Duke of Gloucester”--he had just received that
title from his grandfather, but the patent never passed the Seal--“has
all the accomplishments which it is possible to have at his age, with
an air of sprightliness and understanding, and something so very
engaging and easy in his behaviour that he needs not the advantage of
his rank to appear charming. I had the honour of a long conversation
with him last night before the King came in. His governor retired on
purpose, as he told me afterwards that I might make some judgment of
his genius by hearing him speak without constraint, and I was surprised
by the quickness and politeness that appeared in everything that he
said, joined to a person perfectly agreeable, and the fine fair hair of
the Princess.”
So much for little Prince Frederick at the age of nine. It may be here
explained that his mother Caroline, Princess of Wales, had beautiful
fair hair and a lovely skin; she was said also to possess the finest
bust in Europe.
But from the very favourable account of Lady Mary we have to turn to
the other, that of his governor, and that is far from flattering.
Indeed, in this record we shall be continually turning from good
report to evil report, and from evil report back again to the good. It
will be necessary later to draw a line and divide the makers of these
reports into two distinct parties, the prejudiced and interested, the
unprejudiced, those who had nothing to gain by vilifying him.
But on the occasion we refer to, the governor of the young Prince had a
good deal to say; he spoke with feeling, as one who had suffered, and
most probably he had: he reveals a very pitiable state of affairs.
His complaints were embodied in a letter to Prince Frederick’s mother,
and were as follows; he was a precocious youth--it must be remembered
he was only nine years old--he already _gambled_ and _drank_.
The Princess of Wales, however, made light of the matter.
“Ah,” she answered, “I perceive that these are the tricks of a page.”
To which his irate governor responded:
“Plût à Dieu, madame,” he virtuously answered, “these are not the
tricks of a page; these are the tricks of a lacquey and a rascal!”
It is pretty certain that young as the boy was his life was developing
on the same lines as his father and grandfather, for which their
bad example and the lonely state in which he lived was undoubtedly
accountable.
George the First, however, when he visited Hanover in 1716 found no
fault with his grandson. He appears to have been one of the few friends
the boy had. He evidently approved of him in every way whether he knew
of the child’s growing bad habits or not. He was especially pleased
that he held courts and levees at Herrenhausen in his absence and as a
mark of his general approval created the boy Duke of Gloucester, but as
it has been already stated the patent never passed the Seal, probably
because the title chosen had proved a very unlucky one in former cases.
_A propos_ of this visit of King George to Hanover--the first since
his accession to the English throne two years before--Lady Mary
Wortley-Montagu writes:--
“This town is neither large nor handsome, but the palace capable of
holding a greater Court than that of St. James’s. The King has had the
kindness to appoint us a lodging in one part, without which we should
be very ill-accommodated, for the vast number of English crowds the
town so much it is very good luck to get one sorry room in a miserable
tavern.... The King’s company of French comedians play here every
night; they are very well dressed, and some of them not ill actors.
His Majesty dines and sups constantly in public. The Court is very
numerous, and its affability and goodness make it one of the most
agreeable places in the world.”[9]
Lady Mary writes again to another friend:
“I have now got into the region of beauty. All the women have literally
rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and bosoms; jet eyebrows and scarlet
lips, to which they generally add coal black hair. These perfections
never leave them until the hour of their deaths, and have a very fine
effect by candlelight. But I could wish them handsome with a little
more variety. They resemble one of the beauties of Mrs. Salmon’s Court
of Great Britain,[10] and are in as much danger of melting away
by approaching too close to the fire, which they for that reason,
carefully avoid, though it is now such excessive cold weather that I
believe they suffer extremely by that piece of self-denial.”
This bit of satire apparently was directed at the Hanoverian ladies’
excessive fat.
But Lady Mary was charmed with Herrenhausen.
“I was very sorry,” she writes, “that the ill weather did not permit me
to see Herrenhausen in all its beauty, but in spite of the snow I think
the gardens very fine. I was particularly surprised at the vast number
of orange trees, much larger than any I have ever seen in England,
though this climate is certainly colder.”[11]
It appears from the account in Mr. Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious,”
that King George enjoyed himself immensely during this 1716 visit
to Hanover, and that he found much pleasure in the society of the
beautiful but unscrupulous Countess Platen, from whom he had been
separated for two years. Lady Mary Montagu herself, too, was not
without favour in His Majesty’s eyes. The King-Elector, however, had
also brought with him the remainder of the harem, viz., Schulemburg and
Kielmansegge, with the two Turks presumably to look after them.
Yet with all this trouble around him King George found life
pleasurable. In the above account Lord Peterborough, who was in his
suite, is represented as remarking of him that “he believed he had
forgotten the accident which happened to him and his family on the 1st
August, 1714.”
But time passed on, and the King returned once more to England, leaving
his little nine-year-old grandson to the tender care, officially, of
his brother Ernest Augustus and his governors, but unofficially to the
society of such grooms and hangers-on of the palace who could throw
themselves, to the boy’s ruin, in his way.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu to the Countess of Bristol, 25th
November, 1716. Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
[10] A celebrated waxwork show in London at that time.
[11] Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu to the Lady Rich, Hanover, 1st
December, 1716. From Wilkins’ “Caroline.”
CHAPTER IV.
IN WHICH ENGLAND GETS A NEW KING AND QUEEN.
George the First died on the 10th of June, 1727, while in a travelling
carriage ascending a hill near Ippenburen on the road to Hanover,
of a fit brought on by a too-free indulgence in melons. These he
unfortunately ate on the previous night while supping at the house of a
local nobleman, the Count de Twittel.
He was succeeded by his son George, Prince of Wales, who was born at
Hanover the 30th October, 1683, of Sophia, Princess of Luneberg Zell,
his father’s uncrowned Queen. Thus Caroline, the mother of our Prince
Frederick, exchanged her position of Princess of Wales for that of
Queen of England.
The Princess of Wales had been a success in England from the very
first; a success which was not to be wondered at if the following
description of her is correct:--
“She still retained her beauty. She was more than common tall, of
majestic presence, she had an exquisitely-modelled neck and bust, and
her hand was the delight of the sculptor. Her smile was distinguished
by its sweetness and her voice was rich and low. Her lofty brow, and
clear, thoughtful gaze showed that she was a woman of no ordinary
mould. She had the royal memory, and, what must have been a very useful
attribute to her, the power of self-command; she was an adept in the
art of concealing her feelings, of suiting herself to her company,
and of occasionally appearing to be what she was not. Her love of
art, letters and science, her lively spirits, quick apprehension of
character, and affability were all points in her favour. She had,
too, a love of state, and appeared magnificently arrayed at Court
ceremonials, evidently delighting in her exalted position and fully
alive to its dignity.”[12]
To the Princess’s attractions were added those of her maids of honour:
all “Well-born, witty and beautiful, and not out of their teens.”
First of these, _par excellence_, was Mary Bellenden, daughter of John
second Lord Bellenden. To the fascinating charms of her person which
were undeniable was added an exceedingly lively disposition. She is
thus referred to in an old ballad dealing with the quarrel between
George the First and the Prince of Wales, when the Prince and all his
household received notice to quit St. James’s:
“But Bellenden we needs must praise
Who as down the stairs she jumps;
Sings over the hills and far away,
Despising doleful dumps.”
She did not escape the unwelcome attentions of the Prince of Wales to
whom sprightly fresh young English girls were a novelty after the heavy
Fraus of Hanover, though his wife Caroline was certainly an exception.
It is stated by Coxe in his “Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole” that he
sent his abominable propositions to Mary Bellenden by Mrs. Howard, the
before-mentioned “nucleus” of his harem who had accompanied him to
England, and that the pure-minded Mary very properly snubbed both him
and his messenger--who was nothing more than a procuress if she really
carried the message--for their pains.
Coxe then states that the Prince being rejected by Miss Bellenden fell
in love with Mrs. Howard, but he could not, of course, have been aware
that the liaison between the Prince and this lady began in Hanover.
This seduction or attempted seduction of the maids of honour appears,
as will be seen later, to have been quite a recognised pastime at
Court, in which the Prince of Wales of the moment took an active part;
but all honour be to sweet Mary Bellenden who preserved her good name,
became Duchess of Argyle, and handed a pure record down to posterity.
This young lady appears to have possessed a particular charm and
fascination, both from her beauty and her sparkling wit and high
spirits. Horace Walpole states that the palm was awarded “above all
for universal admiration to Miss Bellenden. Her face and person were
charming, lively she was even to _étourderie_, and so agreeable that
she was never afterwards mentioned by her contemporaries but as the
most perfect creature they had ever seen.”
Gay, the poet, refers to _la belle Bellenden_ more than once.
So well I’m known at Court
None asks where Cupid dwells:
But readily resort
To Bellendens or Lepels.
--Gay’s Ballad of “Damon and Cupid.”
It has been said that this young lady was the subject of improper
advances from the Prince of Wales, which were rejected. Snubbing,
however, seemed to have but little effect on the Heir-Apparent;
he pressed his attentions upon her in the following elegant and
gentlemanly manner.
Mary Bellenden, like many others who live in the atmosphere of Courts,
suffered almost chronically from what is called “Living in Short
Street”; she was always hard up.
The refined George being well aware of this, in common, probably, with
most of the household, took upon himself one evening to sit beside the
beautiful Bellenden, and taking out his purse--one of those long silk
net affairs, no doubt--commenced to count out his guineas as a gentle
hint that he was prepared to settle Mary’s outstanding bills--which
may have been particularly pressing at the time--a _quid pro quo_ being
understood.
[Illustration: MARY BELLENDEN,
4th Duchess of Argyll.
Copied for this book by the kindness of the present Duke from the
Gallery at Inveraray.]
Miss Bellenden bore the telling of his guineas once, but when he began
to count them again she remonstrated.
“Sir,” she cried, “I cannot bear it; if you count your money any more,
I will go out of the room.”
The delicate-minded George, fresh from the mercenary and accommodating
ladies of Herrenhausen, was not abashed at this rejoinder; he jingled
his guineas against Mary’s pretty little ear. The result was exactly
what it should have been. Mary rose with sparkling eyes and cheeks
aflame, and with one well-directed blow, sent his purse and his guineas
flying across the room; then Mary, probably aghast at her act, ran away.
Another way of showing her contempt of her royal admirer was to stand
with crossed arms in his presence. Later she wrote on this subject to
Mrs. Howard, with whom she appeared to have formed a close intimacy;
she was recommending a new maid-of-honour to her care:
“I hope you will put her a little in the way of behaving before the
Princess, such as not turning her back; and one thing runs mightily in
my head, which is, crossing her arms, _as I did to the Prince_, and
told him I was not cold but liked to stand so.”[13]
But Miss Bellenden was in love, which is the greatest safeguard against
such persons as the little German Prince of Wales. She loved a certain
groom of the bedchamber to the Prince, Colonel John Campbell, some
years later Duke of Argyle. But here George showed a little of the
_noblesse_ which one expects from a descendant of Edward the Third.
Finding that Mary Bellenden was in love, though he did not know the
object of her affections, he showed no ill-feeling, but asked a pledge
from her that she would not marry without informing him, and in return
he would give her and her future husband his favour. But Mary had lived
much at Court, and mistrusted princes.
A year or two later she secretly married Colonel Campbell, and was
no doubt very happy, but certainly impecunious in that long interval
before she became a Duchess. In 1720 she writes to her friend Mrs.
Howard, from Bath, and good and pure woman and loving wife though she
was, her letter is a fair sample of the free and easy, not to say
broad, style of even virtuous ladies of the period.
“Oh! God,” she writes, “I am so sick of bills; for my part I believe
I shall never be able to hear them mentioned without casting up my
accounts--bills are _accounts_ you know. I do not know how your bills
go in London, but I am sure mine are not dropped, for I paid one this
morning as long as my arm and as broad as my....
“I intend to send you a letter of attorney, to enable you to dispose of
my goods before I may leave this place--such is my condition.”
But there were other maids-of-honour only a little less charming.
There was Margaret Bellenden, of whom Gay wrote.[14] Mary’s sister or
cousin, almost as beautiful, and Mary Lepel who was raved about by
such excellent critics as Gay, Pope and Voltaire, not to mention the
courtiers Chesterfield and Bath.
She appears to have been of a more stately style of beauty than Mary
Bellenden, and of a more staid disposition.
Then there was Bridget Carteret, niece of Lord Carteret, who was fair
and _petite_. The oldest of them all was “prim, pale Margaret Meadows,”
who seems to have done her best to keep them all in order, but had
terrible difficulty with giddy Sophia Howe, who was the daughter of
John Howe by Ruperta, a natural daughter of Prince Rupert, brother of
the old Electress Sophia, which fact was probably the reason of her
appointment as maid-of-honour to the Princess of Wales. She was up to
all sorts of mischief, and among other enormities was given to laughing
in church, which is not to be wondered at when we consider that the
King and the other Royalties were accustomed to talk all the time.
Sophia Howe was, however, reproached for her laughing by the Duchess of
St. Albans, who told her “she could not do a worse thing.” To this she
pertly answered--and one can almost hear her saying it--“I beg your
Grace’s pardon, I can do a great many worse things.”
This conduct of the maids-of-honour--accompanied by much ogling and
smiling at gallants, however, at last aroused the ire of Bishop Burnet,
who complained to the Princess of Wales, and requested that their pew
should be _boarded up_ so that they could not see over. This from the
Bishops importunity being at last done, provoked the following verses
in retaliation from one of the young ladies’ admirers, supposed to be
Lord Peterborough:
Bishop Burnet perceived that the beautiful dames
Who flocked to the Chapel of hilly St. James
On their lovers alone their kind looks did bestow,
And smiled not on him while he bellowed below.
To the Princess he went with pious intent,
This dangerous ill to the Church to prevent;
“Oh, Madam,” he said, “our religion is lost,
If the ladies thus ogle the knights of the toast.
These practices, Madam, my teaching disgrace,
Shall laymen enjoy the first rights of my place?
Then all may lament my condition so hard,
Who thrash in the pulpit without a reward.
Then, pray, condescend such disorders to end,
And to the ripe vineyard the labourers send
To build up the seats that the beauties may see
The face of no bawling pretender but me.”
The Princess by rude importunity press’d,
Though she laughed at his reasons, allowed his request;
And now Britain’s nymphs in a Protestant reign
Are box’d up at prayers, like the virgins of Spain.
It is not surprising to find that during the reign of George the First
his mistresses Schulemburg and Kielmansegge were much in evidence. They
were particularly hated by the populace, also the Turks Mustapha and
Mahomet, possibly on account of their association with them; but these
latter infidels also appear to have had the honour of dressing and
undressing their master the King.
The Court of George the First had not by any means been a refined one;
the old King greatly loved the society of ladies who were not over
particular in their conversation.
The following, taken from Mr. Wilkins’ “Caroline,” will illustrate
this. Lady Cowper, who was extremely proper, writes of an entertainment
at Court:
“Though I was greatly diverted and there was a good deal of music,
yet I could not avoid being uneasy at the repetition of some words in
French which the Duchess of Bolton said by mistake, which convinced me
that the two foreign ladies” (presumably Schulemburg and Kielmansegge)
“were no better than they should be.”
It appears that the Court of this King was graced or disgraced by the
presence of many such ladies. One night three mistresses of former
Kings met there: the Duchess of Portsmouth, the particular lady of
Charles the Second; Lady Orkney, who occupied a similar position with
regard to William the Third; and old Lady Dorchester, the favourite of
James the Second. The latter was evidently a lady to her finger tips.
“Who!” she exclaimed, “would have thought that we three w...s should
have met here?”
Of the Duchess of Bolton, who was a lady also rather free of speech,
the following anecdote is related.
She was very fond of the play, and recommending anything especially
good to the old King. On this occasion she was telling him of Colley
Cibber’s “Love’s Last Shift,” the title of which conveyed nothing to
His Majesty. He asked her to put it into French. The Duchess, who was
fond of a joke, replied gravely: “_La dernière chemise de l’ amour_,”
whereat the King laughed heartily.
The lovely Duchess of Shrewsbury was another of the King’s favourite
companions, of whom the prim Lady Cowper--herself much admired by His
Majesty, who did not always express his admiration in the most refined
terms--said as follows:
“Though she had a wonderful art of entertaining and diverting people,
would sometimes exceed the bounds of decency.”
But as it has been before stated, the favourites of the King who
excited the most resentment of the populace--who were very free in
expressing their opinion--were Schulemburg and Kielmansegge.
On one occasion Schulemburg was so beset by the crowd that she ventured
to argue with them, and thrust her red wig and painted face out of her
coach to address them in the best English she had.
“Goot pipple,” she exclaimed, “what for you abuse us, we come for all
your goots?”
“Yes, d..n ye,” added a man in the mob, “and for all our chattels, too.”
When the Duke of Somerset, in 1715, resigned the Mastership of the
Horse as a protest against the arrest of his son-in-law, Sir William
Wyndham, Schulemburg, who was nothing if not a daughter of the
horse-leech, suggested that the office should be left vacant and the
salary, £7,500 per annum, paid to her. To the disgust of the nation the
King complied with her wish.
It does not say much for the dignity of the Court in those days that
some of the leading Whig nobility and even their wives and daughters
filled the rooms of these two old harridans at St James’s, which
apartments were placed respectively at opposite ends of the Palace,
with those of the King conveniently between them to keep peace, for
they hated each other as much as their friend the Devil detests holy
water.
The lives of the Prince and Princess of Wales had been exceedingly gay,
especially during the absence of George the First in Hanover.
They extended a liberal hospitality, keeping almost open house, with
the object no doubt of securing popularity against the time when they
should be King and Queen.
Hampton Court appears to have been a very favourite summer residence
of theirs, the river offering a convenient mode of progression. In the
summer of 1716 they proceeded to Hampton Court in state barges hung
with crimson and gold, and preceded by a band of music.
Here at this riverside Palace they collected a brilliant throng of the
wittiest, the most learned, and most important of all from the point of
view of a Court, the most beautiful.
At the death of George the First the kingdom was ruled by his minister,
Sir Robert Walpole, son of a Norfolk squire, Walpole of Houghton,
to which estate they had in comparatively recent years removed from
Walpole in the Marshland of Norfolk, from which latter place they
evidently had originally derived their name.
George the First being able to speak little or no English, and Sir
Robert Walpole being innocent of French, Latin proved to be the only
tongue in which they could converse, so that Walpole was in the habit
of remarking that he governed the kingdom by means of bad Latin, the
bad Latin possibly of his Eton days, though he certainly completed his
education at King’s College, Cambridge.
At about the age of twenty-five Walpole had married a beautiful
girl, Catherine, daughter of John Shorter, Esquire, of Bybrook,
Kent, and very soon after succeeding his father, old hard-drinking
Squire Walpole, in the family estate he entered Parliament for the
rotten borough of Castle Rising, which used to return two members to
Parliament to half-a-dozen electors.
He soon made a name in the House of Commons, and from that time forward
it was indelibly stamped upon the politics of England.
Unfortunately, Walpole was much given to wine and women, despite his
beautiful wife; in fact, she was not far behind him on her part in
receiving the attentions of the opposite sex. She is said to have had
liaisons with Lord Hervey, and also with the little Prince of Wales,
adding one more to his long list of “_foiblesses_.” It is almost
incredible to believe, as it has been stated, that Robert Walpole lent
himself to this intrigue of his wife’s to curry favour with the Prince.
Be this as it may, it stood him in poor stead on the death of George
the First, for when he presented himself to the new King, who was at
the time at the Palace of Richmond, and having broken the news of
the old King’s death and kissed hands, asked who should draw up the
declaration to the Privy Council, he was abruptly told by the new
monarch to go to Sir Spencer Compton, who was his treasurer as Prince
of Wales.
It was not until after some days of very painful suspense that Walpole,
through the good offices of the new Queen, Caroline, who had a great
belief in his talents as a financier, was sent for and reappointed
First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer. As a matter of fact of course they could not do without him.
But in all the years that passed from the accession of the Hanoverian
dynasty in 1714 to the death of George the First, in 1727, it is almost
incredible to believe that Caroline could have forgotten her first-born
son in Hanover, whom at this time she had not seen for thirteen years.
Whatever the origin of the dislike--nay hatred--was which unnaturally
grew up between this son and his parents, it must have begun at an
early period. Its nature will now be never known in all probability,
but it must have been a most extraordinary revulsion of feeling which
caused such a woman as Caroline, kind-hearted, intellectual, in every
other respect a perfect mother, to turn against the first child she had
held to her bosom.
Some say that Caroline’s affection had been absorbed by her younger
son William, Duke of Cumberland, who was born in England, and who
extraordinarily resembled her, and this theory takes colour when
considering the fact that the Prince and Princess up to the time of his
birth had continually urged George the First to allow Prince Frederick
to come to England, but after the arrival of the new Prince no further
requests were made in this direction, but all their hopes and ambitions
for the future seemed centred in Prince William, for whom it is said
they would gladly have secured the throne of England if they had been
able, leaving the Electorate of Hanover for Frederick.
It was very unnatural, but such freaks do occur, though they do not
reflect any honour upon those by whom they are affected, but even this
answer would be no solution to the question of the reason for the
deep-seated hatred for their eldest son which took possession of King
George the Second and his Queen at a later period. It will ever remain
a mystery.
Lord Hervey, with a great deal of parade, affected to be in possession
of the secret, and left certain directions to those who came after him
about its disclosure in his papers, but it is very difficult to believe
that this nobleman was cognizant of the reason which caused a father
and mother--the latter certainly of an affectionate nature--to turn
against a child of nine.
The reason probably lies far deeper.
But if Prince Frederick was forgotten by his father and mother, he was
certainly not overlooked by the English people.
“Clamours,” it was said soon after the accession of George the Second,
“were justly raised in England that the Heir-Apparent had received
a foreign education and was detained abroad as if to keep alive an
attachment to Hanover in preference to Great Britain.
“The Ministers at length ventured to remonstrate with the King on the
subject, and the Privy Council formally represented the propriety of
his residence in England.”[15]
George the Second, however, and his Queen--who with Walpole really
ruled the kingdom--stuck out as long as they possibly could against
bringing Prince Frederick over, and in the King’s case there was an
additional reason for obstinacy. He had been a most undutiful son
himself, and realised what an exceedingly sharp thorn in his side
Frederick might become if he took that same line also.
But while the King and Queen were trying to make up their minds to
send for their first-born, certain events occurred in Hanover which
materially hastened their decision.
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Spooner & Co._
GEORGE II.]
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious.”
[13] Suffolk Letters. Wilkins.
[14] “Madge Bellenden, the tallest of the land, and smiling Mary soft
and fair as down.”
[15] Coxe’s “Walpole.”
CHAPTER V.
A DOUBLE EVENT WHICH DID NOT COME OFF.
In the reign of George the First there had commenced an important
negotiation between that King and Frederick William, King of Prussia,
having for its object the union of the two royal houses by a double
marriage, Prince Frederick Louis, King George’s grandson, was to wed
with Wilhelmina, the Princess Royal of Prussia; the Prince Royal of
Prussia was to marry the Princess Amelia, sister of Prince Frederick,
afterwards Frederick the Great.
This arrangement had been most eagerly fostered by Sophia Dorothy,
daughter of George the First, who had espoused the King of Prussia; the
negotiations had reached such a successful stage that King George had
promised that the nuptials of his grandson with the Princess Wilhelmina
should be celebrated at his next visit to Hanover, but his death had
prevented the fulfilment of his promise.
There had also been another reason which had tended to delay the
marriage, and this had been the sudden secession of King Frederick
William of Prussia from the Treaty of Hanover, and this had greatly
offended his father-in-law, King George of England.
Other obstacles cropped up, too, at the accession of George the Second,
who had, from his earliest years, conceived an intense dislike for
his cousin, the Prussian King. This was the subject of a most intense
regret on Queen Sophia Dorothy’s part, who had schemed for the union of
her daughter Wilhelmina with Prince Frederick for years.
As for Prince Frederick himself, there is little doubt that although he
had never seen her, yet he had in a romantic way fallen in love with
his cousin Wilhelmina. This was quite a natural phase of his sanguine,
artistic character. One can quite understand that his aunt, the Queen
of Prussia, had not neglected any of those little manœuvres by which
the hearts of young men are moved. She was simply a match-making
mother, and was quite cognizant of the fact that Frederick would, if he
lived, inherit the Crown of England.
In addition, there was another very strong reason why she should use
every endeavour to get her two children settled and away, and that was
the extreme brutality of their father, the Prussian King, towards them,
who even did not scruple to beat them severely.
If, however, Prince Frederick had fallen in love with the Princess
Wilhelmina’s miniature--no doubt the Prussian Queen saw that he had
a good one--the Princess, if her Memoirs are to be believed, had
conceived no passion for him, but against this she certainly showed
feeling when the _dénouement_ came, as women will when they lose a
lover.
Her mother had argued with her as to the advantages of the match, as no
doubt royal mothers will:
“He is a good-natured Prince,” she urged, “kind-hearted, but very
foolish; if you have sense enough to tolerate his mistresses, you will
be able to do what you like with him.”
This art of “tolerating mistresses” seems to be an accomplishment which
has been much sought after both by ancient and modern Queens. But this
was hardly the kind of argument to foster a romantic passion; yet,
on the other hand, Frederick had not exactly constituted himself by
reputation the perfect lover.
Left alone in Hanover, almost in regal state, as it was understood
there, for he held all the Levees and Courts in the absence of his
grandfather, he had run very wild, which was no more than could have
been expected under the circumstances.
But for the periodical visits of his grandfather from England,
Frederick seems to have been left very much to himself, and with such
brilliant examples before him as his father and grandfather, it is not
at all to be wondered at that he had mistresses and made a fool of
himself generally.
He appears, however, to have been very good friends with his
grandfather, King George, and to have taken his part against his
father and mother in the quarrels which arose between them and which
formed one of the principal scandals of the Court of St. James’s. This
conduct on his part did not tend to endear him to his parents, but no
doubt he felt himself aggrieved at being left so long neglected in
Hanover, and, in addition, he only heard his grandfather’s version of
the quarrels.
Prince Frederick then being turned twenty-one, and imagining himself to
be passionately in love with his cousin Wilhelmina, could ill brook the
diplomatic delays of his father and grandfather.
It must have been a heavy blow to his hopes when the latter died on
his way to Hanover, and his promise to have the nuptials of Frederick
and Wilhelmina celebrated on his arrival of course fell to the ground.
Neither did his successor, George the Second, seem at all in a hurry
to have the marriage solemnized, and the delay to a young man of
Frederick’s temperament must have been very galling.
It is not at all surprising, therefore, that after waiting more than
a year after the death of George the First, he took the matter into
his own hands. He determined to get married to his cousin without
consulting anyone. For this purpose he contrived an elaborate scheme,
and eventually despatched to Berlin a certain trusty Hanoverian officer
named La Motte or La Mothe.
This man was charged with a mission to a certain Sastot, a chamberlain
of the Queen of Prussia, and probably one who had acted as an agent for
her in this matter before. The story cannot be better given than in the
very words of the young lady herself, Princess Wilhelmina, as recorded
in her diary. La Motte made his appearance at the house of Sastot, and
communicated to him the following intelligence:
“I am the bearer of a most important confidential message. You must
hide me somewhere in your house that my arrival may remain unknown, and
you must manage that one of my letters reaches the King.”
Sastot promised, but asked if his business were good or evil.
“It will be good if people can hold their tongues,” replied La Motte,
“but if they gossip it will be evil. However, as I know you are
discreet, and as I require your help in obtaining an interview with the
Queen, I must confide all to you.
“The Prince Frederick Louis intends being here in three weeks at the
latest. He means to escape secretly from Hanover, brave his father’s
anger, and marry the Princess.”
Surely this was a most romantic proposal for the good Sastot to listen
to!
“He has entrusted me,” proceeded La Motte, “with the whole affair, and
has sent me here to find out if his arrival would be agreeable to the
King and Queen, and if they are still anxious for this marriage. If
she is capable of keeping a secret, and has no suspicious people about
her, will you undertake to speak to the Queen on the subject?”
That very night the Chamberlain Sastot went to the Queen and confided
the weighty secret to her as he had promised La Motte.
To the Queen, who had been scheming for years for this very object,
Sastot could not well have brought better news.
“I shall at length see you happy and my wishes realized at the same
time; how much joy at once.”
Such are the words which the Princess Wilhelmina records of her mother
when breaking the news to her.
But the Princess, according to her own account, was by no means
overjoyed at the intelligence:
“I kissed her hands,” says Wilhelmina, “which I covered with tears!”
“You are crying!” my mother exclaimed, “what is the matter?”
Here Wilhelmina becomes a little double-faced.
“I would not disturb her happiness,” she writes, “so I answered:
“The thought of leaving you distresses me more than all the crowns of
the world could delight me.
“The Queen was only the more tender towards me in consequence, and then
left me. I loved this dear mother truly, and had only spoken the truth
to her,” she continues, “she left me in a terrible state of mind. I
was cruelly torn between my affection for her and my repugnance for
the Prince, but I determined to leave all to Providence, which should
direct my ways.” Very pious of the Princess indeed!
The Queen, however, went on her way rejoicing, knowing, perhaps, rather
more of her daughter’s disposition and therefore troubling less about
her tears.
She was evidently brimming over with high spirits at the Reception
which she held that very evening, a most unlucky Reception for her
schemes as it turned out. This excellent match-making aunt of Prince
Frederick was fated to suffer a terrible disappointment that evening.
In a burst of almost incredible confidence she told Bourguait, the
English Envoy, the whole plan of Prince Frederick!
The Envoy was astounded at the communication, and asked if it were true.
“Certainly,” replied the Queen, “and to show you how true it is, he has
sent La Motte here, who has already informed the King of everything.”
“Oh, why does Your Majesty tell me this? I am wretched, for I must
prevent it!” exclaimed Bourguait.
“Why?” asked the dismayed Queen.
“Because I am my Sovereign’s Envoy; because my office requires of me
that I should inform him of so important a matter. I shall send off
a messenger to England this very evening. Would to God I had known
nothing of all this!”
He was as good as his word, and the messenger went off that night
despite the Queen’s tears.
A good strong man this Bourguait; one not to be moved from his duty by
even a Queen, for she no doubt left no stone unturned to divert him
from a purpose which would render abortive her years of scheming.
The effects of the message to England were startling.
King George the Second and his Queen Caroline, who had kept their
eldest son away from England for fourteen years, and had resisted every
persuasion of their Ministers to bring him over, hesitated no longer;
a Colonel Lorne was despatched at once to Herrenhausen to bring the
Prince to London. He lost no time on the journey, and appeared at
Herrenhausen while a ball given by Prince Frederick was in progress.
This function, however, interfered in no way with Colonel Lorne’s
commands; he induced the Prince to leave Herrenhausen that very night
with but one attendant, and Frederick turned his back upon a home which
had sheltered him for many years, although it was in a sense no home at
all, and in this life saw it no more.
But when the news of the King of England’s coup and the departure of
the Prince reached Berlin, the Royal Palace became no fit place for
Christians to live in.
The Queen took to her bed, and the Princess Wilhelmina, like other
young ladies when they lose their lovers, fainted away, only to come
to, apparently and write in her diary “the whole thing was a plot of
George the Second,” which sounds very much like the remark of an angry
and disappointed young lady, instead of one who wished us to believe
that she was inspired with repugnance for Prince Frederick.
Her father, the King, however, who was in a towering rage at the course
events had taken, was evidently not in the habit of wasting a good fit
of temper on mere fuming. He appeared on the scene and soundly thrashed
both Wilhelmina and her brother Frederick, Mr. Wilkins says, “in a
shocking manner.”
And the double marriage scheme ended thus ignominiously!
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRINCE AND THE LONDON OF 1728.
Prince Frederick, accompanied by Colonel Lorne and a single servant,
traversed Germany and Holland as a private gentleman, and embarked at
Helvetsluis for England in the first days of December, 1728.
Never has a tamer arrival of an Heir-apparent been chronicled in
history than this coming of the Prince to London. Here is the brief
notice of it in the _Daily Post_ of the 8th December, 1728:
“Yesterday His Royal Highness Prince Frederick came to Whitechapel
about seven in the evening, and proceeded thence privately in a hackney
coach to St. James’s. His Royal Highness alighted at the Friary, and
walked down to the Queen’s backstairs, and was there conducted to Her
Majesty’s apartment.”
There! no reception of any sort, no guards turning out, no escort, no
tap of drum! It was more like the coming of the Court hairdresser to
curl Her Majesty’s wig!
It is said, however, that his mother received him amiably,--after
fourteen years’ separation! His father, however, treated him with
great harshness. “George,” says Mr. Wilkins, “had an unnatural and
deep-rooted aversion to his eldest son, whom he regarded as necessarily
his enemy.”
Certainly the boy--for he was little more--had come home in a sort of
disgrace, he had been detected in scheming to run away with a young
lady, but he had been checkmated, and the matter was ended. Certainly
if there grew up in the after time a feeling of resentment against his
parents in the Prince’s heart, he had some reason for it. It is agreed
on all hands that he never had a chance, and that which might have
proved a loving nature--and it _was_ a loving nature as will be shown
later on--was warped by ill-treatment and neglect into callousness and
depravity.
To a Prince naturally of a nervous and shy disposition this reception
in a strange land must have been most painful, especially when one
remembers that most of the slights were received from those who ought
to have shown him the most affection and consideration.
Lord Hervey gives an insight into the kind of life he led when he first
arrived. He says:
“Whenever the Prince was in the room with him (_i.e._, the King) it
put one in mind of stories that one has heard of ghosts that appear to
part of the company but are invisible to the rest; and in this manner,
wherever the Prince stood, though the King passed him ever so often,
or ever so near, it always seemed as if the King thought the Prince
filled a void of space.”
According to Mr. Wilkins, “the Prince did not dine in public at St.
James’s the Sunday after his arrival, but the Queen _suffered him_
to hand her into her pew at the Chapel Royal, and this was his first
appearance at the English Court.”
One can imagine those naughty maids-of-honour in their boarded-up pew
in the gallery--perhaps poor Anne Vane there with them--saying anything
but their prayers at their enclosed condition, which prevented them
having a good look at the Prince. But if they did happen to catch a
glimpse of him this is what they saw according to a contemporary letter
of Lady Bristol, who describes him as “the most agreeable young man it
is possible to imagine, without being the least handsome, his person
little, but very well made and genteel, a loveliness in his eyes which
is indescribable, and the most obliging address that can be conceived.”
Her account of him, however, falls far short of that which is generally
accepted as being a description of his appearance in Smollett’s
“Peregrine Pickle,” which depicts him at a Court ball; but as this was
evidently some time after his arrival--as it is an event connected with
his intrigue with Miss Vane--it is quite likely that he may have had
time to add to his stature by natural growth. At a later period he was
distinctly and creditably described as being tall. This is Smollett’s
version:
“He was dressed in a coat of white cloth, faced with blue satin
embroidered with silver, of the same piece with his waistcoat; his
fine hair hung down his back in ringlets below his waist; his hat was
laced with silver and garnished with a white feather; but his person
beggared all description: he was tall and graceful, neither corpulent
nor meagre, his limbs finely proportioned, his countenance open and
majestic, his eyes full of sweetness and vivacity, his teeth regular,
and his pouting lips of the complexion of the damask rose. In short, he
was formed for love and inspired it wherever he appeared; nor was he a
niggard of his talents, but liberally returned it, at least what passed
for such; for he had a flow of gallantry for which many ladies of this
land can vouch from their own experience.”
It must be remembered in reading above description of him, that he
inherited his mother’s beautiful fair hair and complexion.
The Court poets were not behindhand with their fulsome verses
concerning him, of which this is a sample:
“Fresh as a rosebud newly blown and fair
As opening lilies: on whom every eye
With joy and admiration dwells. See, see,
He rides his docile barb with manly grace.
Is it Adonis for the chase arrayed?
Or Britain’s second hope?”
Britain’s first hope apparently was George II.
But probably as regards his appearance when he first came to England,
Lady Bristol was nearest the mark, though there is no doubt that
from this time forward he steadily improved both in stature and in
handsomeness of person. Another description of him which will appear in
due course will give an idea of the dignity and stateliness to which he
attained in his maturer years.
Prince Frederick came from the obscure old town of Hanover with its
narrow streets and tall gabled houses to what was then, as it is
now, one of the great capitals of the world, London. But yet a very
different London to that of our own time. A London of streets narrow
and paved with cobbles, unlit save for a few dim swinging oil lamps
held across the streets by ropes, leaving the intervening spaces in
darkness, so that in winter time a man with a link or torch was an
absolute necessity.
The busy London, the shopping London lay principally between Fleet
Street and the end of Cheapside. Ludgate Hill was an especially
favourite place for dress-buying ladies. As for what we call the “West
End” it did not exist, Westminster being a separate town, and between
it and London City large expanses of waste land.
Mr. Wilkins gives a good account of the Court and its environs. He says:
“The political and fashionable life of London collected round St.
James’s and the Mall. St. James’s Park was the fashionable promenade;
it was lined with avenues of trees, and ornamented with a long canal
and a duck pond. St. James’s Palace was much as it is now, and old
Marlborough House (the residence at that time of Sarah, Duchess of
Marlborough) occupied the site of the present one; but on the site of
Buckingham Palace stood Buckingham House, the seat of the powerful Duke
of Buckingham, a stately mansion which the Duke had built in a ‘little
wilderness full of blackbirds and nightingales.’ In St. James’s Street
were the most frequented and fashionable coffee and chocolate houses,
and also a few select ‘mug houses.’ Quaint signs, elaborately painted,
carved and gilded, overhung the streets and largely took the place of
numbers; houses were known as ‘The Blue Boar,’ ‘The Pig and Whistle,’
‘The Merry Maidens,’ ‘The Red Bodice,’ and so forth.”
Piccadilly was practically a country road with a few mansions here and
there. It ended in Hyde Park, then a wild heath.
Marylebone on the west, and Stepney on the east, were distinct villages
some distance away; while as for the south, London appears to have
ended at London Bridge, although the “Old Tabard” Inn in the Borough
must certainly have existed at that time.
Bloomsbury, Soho and Seven Dials were fashionable suburbs, occupying,
perhaps, much the same position as Kensington did fifty years ago.
Grosvenor Square had been begun some twelve years, and was probably
fairly covered by houses.
The most popular and agreeable mode of communication between London and
the Court was by the Thames, and a stately barge with liveried rowers
was as much a part of a nobleman’s equipment as his carriage or his
“chair.” Very pretty must have been the appearance of the Thames at
that time, although there was no Thames Embankment to view it from.
The streets at night were manifestly unsafe, being infested by a
description of drunken young blackguards known as “Mohocks,” who
apparently “squared” the equally drunken watchmen, and insulted women
with impunity.
The public conveyance seems to have been of much the same description
as that which one recollects in one’s youth in the shape of the
ancient growler, musty and full of damp straw to keep the feet warm,
but represented then by a rumbling old disused coach, very mouldy,
with straw as above, and in which it must have been a great treat to
traverse the irregular cobbles of the metropolitan streets. But with
all its drawbacks London of 1728 rose immeasurably superior to London
of the twentieth century in one respect, and one respect only. It had
no fogs.
The streets apparently rang with more or less agreeable cries
of itinerant traders, among which the still familiar cry of the
milkman--or perhaps milk-girl--and the tinkle of the muffin bell must
even then have been well established. There were, however, other
street cries which are unknown to us in the present day, those of
the professional rat-catcher and the street gambler, which latter
apparently stood in the gutter and rattled a dice-box as an invitation
to passers by to come and have a throw, an invitation which, in all
probability, ended in disaster to the unwary who accepted it.
Drunkenness, too, was very rife among all classes, the following
inscription on a public-house being a fair sample of the tastes of the
people:
“Drunk for one penny.
Dead drunk for two pence.
Clean straw for nothing.”[16]
As regards the time for meals in fashionable circles in those days,
there was really little difference between those times and our own
except that the meals were called by different names.
Dinner was taken in the middle of the day or a little later, which
would very well correspond to our luncheon. As for the afternoon, why
ladies of quality did very much the same then as they do now; they
were trotted about in their sedan-chairs or coaches from one friend’s
house to another drinking “dishes” of tea at each and destroying their
nervous systems just as they do in 1911. Supper was the most pleasant
meal of the day, and might well be set down to correspond with the very
late dinner hour of the fashionable world at the present time.
So the world--the _beau monde_ at any rate--has gone on for nearly two
hundred years with but very little variation in its feeding time at any
rate.
Very much the same might be said of the life in St. James’s Street as
it is lived at the present time. There was no electric light, but the
scene must have been very much more brilliant especially at night. The
men-about-town of those days dressed in silks, satins, and velvets of
varied colours, heavily laced with gold. Their sword hilts were either
of gold or silver and very often jewelled. They carried in their hands
long canes frequently jewelled too, and to add to the stateliness of
their appearance they either wore white wigs or had their own hair
powdered. The coffee and chocolate houses of St. James’s Street of
those days, when full of their patrons, must have presented scenes
worth looking upon. White’s Chocolate House was the principal, and the
Cocoa Tree its rival, both represented at the present time by clubs
of almost identical names. Of clubs, as we understand them, there
were none in the year 1728, if we except such as the “October Club”
and the “Hell Fire Club,” the former composed of old Jacobite squires
who probably met at an inn, and the latter the drunken desecrators of
Medmenhain Abbey on the Thames, neither of which societies had a club
house as we understand it.
As for the ladies, they outrivalled the sterner sex, as they should
do, in the splendour of their attire. They wore powder, patches and
hoops--the latter a revival apparently of Elizabeth’s day--which grew
in size with the progression of the Georges, until fashion took a
sudden revulsion in the days of the last, and left them off altogether,
which was considered at the time highly indelicate.
In the earlier period referred to ladies did not scruple to walk abroad
with their dresses even more than _decolletée_, a custom which possibly
was not long persevered in on account of the climate. Ladies of the
present day will rejoice to hear that enormous muffs were carried.
To sum up this topic so interesting to the softer sex, ladies at that
time wore just as many furs and feathers, silks and satins, jewels and
fine laces, as they do at the present day, and the craving after them,
the debts incurred in their procuring, wrought them, possibly, quite
as much harm, and were the cause, no doubt, of just as many broken
marriage vows.
The world is very much the same at all times, except that now and then
we take on a little extra enamel, which we call civilization, to hide
our natural barbarism for a time, as the Greeks and the Romans and the
Egyptians before them did--these latter even to having their hollow
teeth gold-crowned as we do--until some upheaval from within, or a
crushing blow from without, breaks the thin crust, and leaves us just
the natural savages we were at first.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] From the “Old Whig” newspaper 26 Feb., 1736. This inscription was
afterwards introduced by Hogarth in his caricature of Gin Lane. Wilkins.
CHAPTER VII.
PETER WENTWORTH’S LETTERS ON THE PRINCE’S LIFE.
Floating in and out of English history of this period are the letters
of a person who apparently was furnished by Providence to write
tittle-tattle of his times for the information of posterity. These
are the letters of the Honourable Peter Wentworth, mostly addressed
to his brother, Lord Strafford, but others to his sister-in-law, Lady
Strafford. To these we have to look for the first little insights into
the Prince’s life in England.
Through the insistence of the Privy Council, not of the King’s own
freewill, Frederick had been created Prince of Wales soon after his
arrival in England, but the King had made no provision for him,
although £100,000 per annum of the King’s income--he received no less
than £900,000 a year from the country--had been earmarked for the
Prince’s use, subject to his father’s pleasure. He preferred to keep
him in the Palace like his other younger children, and under very much
the same restrictions. The young Prince of Wales appears at this time
to have had a good friend in his mother, even if she had forgotten
her natural love for him. It was she who urged the King to provide
a separate establishment for him becoming his rank, even going as
far as to look at a house for him in George Street, Hanover Square,
but her solicitations produced no effect whatever upon the King, who
would not make him any sufficient allowance. So Frederick, though over
twenty-two, and Prince of Wales, had to remain at his mother’s apron
strings.
He appears, however, at this time to have lived on very pleasant terms
with the Queen, and to have steadily grown in the public favour. He had
learned English in Hanover, and spoke it fairly well on his arrival in
this country.
In a letter dated July 28th, 1729--a few months after the Prince’s
coming--written by Mr. Peter Wentworth to Lord Strafford, his brother,
we get a little glimpse of what the Prince’s life was like at this time.
“Kensington.
“I have been at Richmond again with the Queen and the Royal Family,
and I thank God they are all very well. We are going there to-day,
and the Queen walks about there all day long. I shall be no longer
her jest as a lover of drink at free cost, not only from her own
observation of one whom she sees every morning at eight o’clock and
in the evening again at seven, walking in the gardens, and in the
drawing-room until after ten, but because she has, my Lord Lifford[17]
to play upon, who this day sen’night got drunk at Richmond. His
manner of getting so was pleasant enough, he dined with my good Lord
Grantham, who is well served at his table with meat, but very stingy
and sparing in his drink, for as soon as his dinner is done, he and
his company rise, and no round of toasts. So my lord made good use
of his time whilst at dinner, and before they rose the Prince (of
Wales) came to them and drunk a _bonpère_ to my Lord Lifford, which he
pledged, and began another to him, and so a third.
“The Duke of Grafton, to show the Prince he had done his business,
gave him (Lord Lifford) a little shove and threw him off his chair
upon the ground, and then took him up and carried him to the Queen.
“Sunday morning she railed at him before all the Court upon getting
drunk in her company, and upon his gallantry and coquetry with
Princess Amelia, running up and down the steps with her. When somebody
told him the Queen was there and saw him, his answer was: ‘What do I
care for the Queen?’
“He stood all her jokes not only with French impudence, but with Irish
assurance. For all you say I don’t wonder I blushed for him, and
wished for half his stock. I wonder at her making it so public.
“Nobody has made a song; if Mr. Hambleton will make one that shall
praise the Queen and the Royal Family’s good humour, and expose as
much as he pleases the folly of Lord Grantham and Lord Lifford,
I will show it to the Prince, and I know he won’t tell whom he
had it from, for I have lately obliged him with a sight of _Mrs.
Fitzwilliam’s Litany_; and he has promised he will not say he had it
from me. So I must beg you to say nothing of this to Lady Strafford,
for she will write it for news to Lady Charlotte Roussie, and then I
shall have Mrs. Fitz. angry with me, and the Prince laughing at me for
not being able to be my own counsellor, as I fear you laugh now. But
if you betray me, I make a solemn vow I will never tell you anything
again.
“The Queen continues very kind and obliging in her sayings to me, and
gave me t’other day an opportunity to tell her of my circumstances.
As we were driving by Chelsea, she asked me what that walled place
was called. I told her Chelsea Park, and in the time of the Bubbles
’twas designed for the Silkworms.[18] She asked me if I was not in
the Bubbles. With a sigh I answered: ‘Yes; that and my fire had made
me worse than nothing.’ Some time after, when I did not think she saw
me, I was biting my nails. She called to me and said: ‘Oh, fie! Mr.
Wentworth, you bite your nails very prettily.’ I begged her pardon
for doing so in her presence, but I said I did it for vexation of my
circumstances, and to save a crown from Dr. Lamb for cutting them.
She said she was sorry I had anything to vex me, and I did well to
save my money. The Prince told her I was one of the most diligent
servants he ever saw. I bowed and smiled as if I thought he bantered
me. He understood me, and therefore repeated again that he meant it
seriously, and upon his word he thought that the Queen was happy in
having so good a servant. I told him it was a great satisfaction to me
to meet with His Royal Highness’s approbation. He clapped his hand on
my shoulder, and assured me that I had it.
“As we went to Richmond last Wednesday our grooms had a battle with a
carter that would not go out of the way. The good Queen had compassion
for the rascal, and ordered me to ride after him and give him a crown.
I desired Her Majesty to recall that order, for the fellow was a very
saucy fellow, and I saw him strike the Prince’s groom first, and if
we gave him anything for his beating ’twould be an example for others
to stop the way a-purpose to provoke a beating. The Prince approved
what I said, for he said much the same to her in _Dutch_, and I got
immortal fame among the liverymen, who are no small fools at this
Court. I told her if she would give the crown to anybody it should
be to the Prince’s groom, who had the carter’s long whip over his
shoulders. She laughed, but saved her crown.”
“Kensington,
“Aug. 14th, 1729.
“The Queen has done me the honour to refer me for my orders to
Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, and what is agreed by her will
please Her Majesty; the height of my ambition is to please them all.
I flatter myself I have done so hitherto, for Princess Anne has
distinguished me with a singular mark of her favour, for she has made
me a present of a hunting suit of clothes, which is blue, trimmed with
gold, and lined and faced with red. The Prince of Wales, Princess
Anne, the Duke of Cumberland, Princess Mary and Princess Louisa wear
the same, and look charmingly pretty in them. Thursday sen’night
Windsor Forest will be blessed with their presence again, and since
the forest was a forest it never had such a fine set of hunters,
for a world of gentlemen have had the ambition to follow His Royal
Highness’s fashion....”
“Kensington,
“Aug. 21st, 1729.
“Yesterday the Queen and all the Royal Family dined at Claremont,[19]
and I dined with the Duke (of Newcastle) and Sir Robert (Walpole),
etc. The Prince of Wales came to us as soon as his and our dinner
was over, and drank a bumper of sack punch to the Queen’s health,
which you may be sure I devoutly pledged, and he was going on with
another, but Her Majesty sent us word that she was going ‘to walk in
the garden,’ so that broke up the company. We walked till candlelight,
being entertained with very fine French horns, then returned to the
great hall, and everybody agreed never was anything finer lit.
“Her Majesty and Princess Caroline, Lady Charlotte Roussie and Mr.
Schiltz played their quadrille. In the next room the Prince had the
fiddles and danced, and he did me the honour to ask me if I would
dance a country dance. I told him ‘Yes,’ and if there had been a
partner for me, I should have made one in that glorious company--the
Prince with the Duchess of Newcastle, the Duke of Newcastle with the
Princess Anne, the Duke of Grafton with Princess Amelia,[20] Sir
Robert Walpole with Lady Catherine Pelham--who is with child--so they
danced but two dances. The Queen came from her cards to see that
sight, and before she said it, I thought he (Sir Robert Walpole) moved
surprisingly genteelly, and his dancing really became him, which I
would not have believed had I not seen, and, if you please, you may
suspend your belief until you see the same. Lord Lifford danced with
Lady Fanny Manners; when they came to an easy dance my dear Duke took
her from my lord, and I must confess it became him better than the man
I wish to be my friend, Sir Robert, which you will easily believe. Mr.
Henry Pelham[21] danced with Lady Albemarle, Lord James Cavendish with
Lady Middleton, and Mr. Lumley with Betty Spence.
“I paid my court sometimes to the carders, and sometimes to the
dancers. The Queen told Lord Lifford that he had not drunk enough
to make him gay, ‘and there is honest Mr. Wentworth has not drunk
enough.’ I told her I had drunk Her Majesty’s health. ‘And my
children’s, too, I hope?’ I answered ‘Yes.’ But she told me there
was one health I had forgot, which was the Duke and Duchess of
Newcastle’s, who had entertained us so well. I told her I had been
down among the coach-men to see they had obeyed my orders to keep
themselves sober, and I had had them all by the hand, and could
witness for them that they were so, and it would not have been decent
for me to examine them about it without I had kept myself sober, but
now that grand duty was over, I was at leisure to obey Her Majesty’s
commands....
“The Queen and the Prince have invited themselves to the Duke of
Grafton’s hunting seat which lies near Richmond, Saturday. He fended
off for a great while, saying his home was not fit to receive them,
and ’twas so old he was afraid ’twould fall upon their heads. But His
Royal Highness, who is very quick at good inventions, told him he
would bring tents and pitch them in his garden, so his grace’s excuse
did not come off; the thing must be Saturday.
“I have sent you enclosed a copy of my letter I wrote to Lord Pomfret,
which will explain to you how I am made Secretary to the Queen,[22]
and before dinner, under pretence to know if I had taken Her
Majesty’s sense aright, Her Royal Highness (the Princess Royal) being
by when I received the orders I desired leave to show it her. She
smiled and said: ‘By all means let me see it.’ She kept it till she
had dined, read it to the Queen, her brothers and sisters, and then
sent for me from the gentlemen ushers’ table, and gave it to me, again
thanked me, and said it was very well writ, and she saw, too, that I
could dine at that table without being drunk at free cost.”
“Kensington,
“September 22nd, 1729.
“Yesterday, when the Queen was just got into her chaise, there came
a messenger who brought her a packet of letters from the King, with
the good news that His Majesty was very well. He had left him at the
play this day sen’night. It also said the guards of Hanover were not
to march, for all differences were accommodated between the King and
the King of Prussia, so that I hope now the match[23] will go forward,
and that we shall soon have the King here. The Queen opened the letter
and read it as she went along; the Princess (Anne) and the Duke (of
Cumberland) were riding on before, and neither saw nor heard anything
of this. Therefore I scoured away from the Queen to tell them the good
news, and then I rode back and told the Queen what I had done, and
that I had pleasure to be the messenger of good news. She and they
thanked me and commended what I had done. I have sent you a copy of
the orders I have been given to-day, that you may see we go in for a
continual round of pleasure.”
“Kensington,
“Sept. 16th, 1729.
“There was one Mr. W(entworth) who had a very agreeable present
from the Queen. As he went over with her in the ferry boat Saturday
sen’night she gave a purse to Princess Anne, and bade her give it to
Mr. W(entworth). Then she told him she wished him good luck, and in
order that she might bring it to him, she had given him silver and
gold, a sixpence, a shilling and a half-guinea.
“He took the purse and gave Her Majesty a great many thanks.
“‘What,’ said she, ‘will you not look into ’t!’ His answer was:
‘Whatever comes from Your Majesty is agreeable to him’; though had he
not felt in the purse some _paper_, he could not have taken the royal
jest with so good a grace. There was a bank bill in ’t, which raised
such a contention between him and his wife that in a manner he had
better never have had it. He was willing to give her half, but the
good wife called in worthy Madam Percade to her assistance, and she
determined to give a third to her.
“All this was told the Queen the next day, and caused a great laugh,
but poor Mr. W(entworth) upon the thought of soliciting the great Lord
L(ifford) for a sum of £15 he had forgotten to pay him in the South
Sea. When the chase was over, the Prince clapped Mr. W(entworth) upon
the back and wished him joy of his present, and told him now he would
never be without money in his pocket. He replied that if His Highness
had not told him so publicly of it, it might have been so, but now his
creditors would tease every farthing from him.”
From above it will be seen that these letters of Mr. Wentworth were
written during the period of Queen Caroline’s first Regency, when
George the Second was abroad, and consequently the Prince of Wales had
more freedom of action. From what little can be gathered from them the
Prince seems to have been leading a harmless and happy life with his
mother, but unfortunately there is another of Mr. Wentworth’s letters
which tells a different tale.
It has been said that the position imposed on him by his father, the
King, would have tried the most dutiful and virtuous of sons, but then
unfortunately Frederick was neither, certainly not the latter. Mr.
Wentworth’s letter throws a strong light on this part of the Prince’s
life:
“Thursday morning, as the King and Queen were going to their chaise
through the garden, I told them the Prince had got his watch again.
Our farrier’s man had found it at the end of the Mall with the two
seals to ’t. The Queen laughed, and said: ‘I told you before ’twas you
who stole it, and now it is very plain you got it from the woman who
took it from the Prince and you gave it to the farrier’s man, to say
he had found it to get the reward.’ (This was twenty guineas, which
was advertised with the promise of no questions being asked). I took
Her Majesty’s words for a very great compliment, for it looked as if
she thought I could please a woman better than His Highness. Really
his losing his watch and its being brought back in the manner it has
been is very mysterious, and a knotty point to be unravelled at Court,
for the Prince protests he was not out of his coach in the Park on
the Sunday night it was lost. But by accident I think I can give some
account of this affair, though it is not my business to say a word of
it at Court, not even to the Queen, who desired me to tell her all I
knew of it, with a promise that she would not tell the Prince (and I
desire, also, the story may never go out of Wentworth Castle again).
“My man, John Cooper, saw the Prince that night let into the Park
through St. James’s Mews alone, and the next morning a Grenadier told
him the Prince was robbed last night of his watch and twenty-two
guineas, and a gold medal, by a woman who had run away from him. The
Prince bid the Grenadier run after her, and take the watch from her,
which, with the seals were the only things he valued; the money she was
welcome to, he said, and he ordered him when he had got the watch to
let the woman go. But the Grenadier could not find her, so I suppose
in her haste she dropped it at the end of the Mall, or laid it down
there for fear of being discovered by the watch and seals, if they
should be advertised.”[24]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] A French refugee, named Roussie, who was given an Irish peerage.
[18] One of the South Sea Bubble Schemes.
[19] Claremont was one of the Duke of Newcastle’s seats.
[20] These two were much attached to one another. The Duke was a
grandson of Charles II., but hardly an Adonis, as he weighed 20 stone.
[21] The Right Hon. Henry Pelham, son of Lord Pelham, and brother of
Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, whose title had been revived in his
favour by George the First.
[22] He never was made Secretary to the Queen. This was probably one of
Her Majesty’s jokes.
[23] The double marriage scheme which had come up again for a little
time.
[24] The Hon. Peter Wentworth to Lord Strafford, London, 1734.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PRINCE’S EMBARRASSMENTS.
The Prince of Wales having for the few years immediately succeeding
his coming to England occupied his exalted position with a totally
inadequate income had, as might reasonably have been expected, become
exceedingly involved in debt.
Though possessing no separate establishment of his own (except as will
be seen later an illicit one), yet he was placed in a position of much
difficulty and temptation.
He appears to have received from his father a small and uncertain
allowance, and when pressed by his creditors was absolutely refused
assistance by the King.
The intervention of the Queen in favour of Frederick at this period
seems to have been quite useless, and from that time forth grew up that
sad state of affairs which eventually compassed the total estrangement
of the Prince from his father and mother.
It has been said that this treatment would have tried the best of sons,
but Frederick’s early training and environment had not been of a nature
to breed many of the filial virtues in him. It is quite certain that
he felt his humiliating position most acutely, and that the slights
and snubs he was subjected to by his father rankled considerably. Not
the least of these was the fact that his mother was constituted Regent
during the absences of his father in Hanover.
It is not surprising, therefore, that he began to look for at least
friendship and support in another direction and found it among the
opponents of his father’s Government.
Among the first of this faction to pay court to the Prince was the
polished St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, a Secretary of State of Queen
Anne, and one who, with the Duke of Ormond and the Earl of Oxford, had
been impeached at the accession of George the First at the instigation
of Sir Robert Walpole for a supposed plot to place Prince James Stuart
on the throne. He had fled the country, some say unwisely, at the time,
and had remained abroad for nine years. His pardon had been arranged
by his devoted French wife Madame de Vilette, whom he had married
whilst in exile, and who came to England and secured the services of
that rapacious mistress of George the First, Schulemburg--who had been
created Duchess of Kendal--at the price of £12,000.
Though pardoned, his attainder remained in force, his title was still
withheld, and he was precluded from inheriting estates and excluded
from the House of Lords.
Though deprived of any outward power, yet this brilliant statesman
simply ruled the Tory party and moved its principals like so many
puppets. It was this talented politician who offered his services to
the Prince of Wales, and their first meeting took place at the house
of a gentleman acquainted with both. It is said that Bolingbroke came
first, and amused himself by reading a book until the Prince’s arrival.
This took place somewhat unexpectedly, and before Bolingbroke could
replace his book, in the hurry to kneel to the Prince it fell to the
floor, and Bolingbroke was within an ace of following it as he slipped
in making his obeisance.
What followed gives an insight into the amiability and undoubted charm
of the Prince’s nature and his excellent tact. He caught Bolingbroke as
he fell, and restoring him to his feet said: “My lord, I trust this may
be an omen of my succeeding in raising your fortunes.”
It is said that the Prince inherited his charm of manner from his
mother; doubtless he was like her in this respect, and did receive from
her this gift. That he did not receive it from his father is certain,
as George the Second was uncouthness itself, and was commonly called
the “Gruff Gentleman.”
From the day of the meeting of the Prince and Bolingbroke their
acquaintance grew, until the statesman became the Prince’s guiding
spirit, not always urging him, as may be imagined, under the
circumstances, on the road of duty to his parents and his parents’
wishes. There is no doubt that through the Prince Bolingbroke paid back
many a wrong and slight received in the years past from Walpole and the
Whigs.
Of this influence of Bolingbroke--“the all-accomplished St. John,
the Muses friend,” as he was styled by the principal poets of the
time--upon the young Prince, Coxe makes the following comment:
“The Prince was fascinated by his conversation and manners. His
confident assertions and popular declarations, his affected zeal to
reconcile all ranks and conditions, the energy with which he decried
the baneful spirit of party, and his plausible theories of a perfect
Government without influence or corruption, acting by prerogative,
were calculated to dazzle and captivate a young Prince of high spirit
and sanguine disposition, and induce him to believe that the Minister
(_i.e._, Walpole) was forming a systematic plan to overthrow the
Constitution, and that the cause of opposition was that of honour and
liberty.”[25]
The first political matter in which these two were actively engaged
was the Excise Act, which was a strong measure of Walpole’s directed
against smuggling. In espousing the side of the Opposition, the Prince
was certainly making a strong bid for popular favour, for the increased
price of tobacco and wines, which would undoubtedly have followed its
passage through the two Houses of Parliament, would have been by no
means acceptable to the multitude at large.
The Prince’s amiability towards the people had already endeared him to
them. He was accustomed to walk abroad accompanied by only one servant,
and he was never known to neglect the salute of even the humblest of
his father’s subjects, but always had a smile, sometimes a kind word
for them.
Walpole introduced his new act into the House of Commons in a very
moderate manner on March 14th, 1733, the Prince of Wales sitting under
the gallery and listening to the debate. The arguments were heated and
prolonged, and adjournments were extended to April 9th, when the Bill
was eventually dropped, having regard to the storm of opposition it
provoked in the country and especially in the City of London.
During the speeches of the Leaders of the Opposition, which included
those of the well-known Pulteney, Wyndham and Barnard, the following
point was made by Wyndham against Walpole: he denounced corruption and
tyranny, and recalled the favourites of past monarchs.
“What was their fate?” he asked. “They had the misfortune to outlive
their master, and his son, as soon as he came to the throne, took off
their heads.”
This allusion was cheered to the echo by the Opposition, and was
subsequently a grave cause of offence to the King and Queen, whose
interests were greatly bound up in the passing of the Act by their
favourite minister, Walpole. It is said that if their being sent back
to Hanover had depended on the Bill they could not have shown more
agitation.
It was therefore not surprising that the failure of the Bill aroused
the King’s indignation, especially the support which his son, the
Prince of Wales, had given the Opposition _sub rosa_ it is true, but
still a sympathy which was very evident.
The Honourable William Townshend, son of the celebrated politician,
Viscount Townshend, and Groom of the Bedchamber, and Privy Purse to the
Prince of Wales, very nearly lost his appointment and that of A.D.C. to
the King through his temerity in voting against the measure.
The Townshend family seem always to have been sympathisers with the
Prince, and to have been his good friends, and this association led to
incidents which will be dealt with later.
Another of the Prince’s followers at this time, and one who was given
much credit for the failure of the Excise Act, was the celebrated Bubb
Doddington, a man of great wealth and a very large landowner, but the
real credit for this rebuff to the King and Walpole must be given to
the brilliant genius of Bolingbroke, which worked behind the Leaders
of the Opposition and moved them like so many chess-men on a board.
Bolingbroke’s hatred of Walpole was of that intense nature, that it is
related by the latter’s brother Horace that upon Bolingbroke’s return
to England after his exile an attempt was made to reconcile the two
enemies, and Bolingbroke so far mastered his pride as to accept an
invitation to dine with Sir Robert at Chelsea, but it is further stated
by the same authority that Bolingbroke rose from the table at the first
course and left the room; his detestation of the great Minister could
no longer be repressed.
Bolingbroke, therefore, was ever working against Walpole and the Court
Party (by whom he was intensely hated), and there can be little doubt
that he was responsible for the state of affairs between the Prince of
Wales and his father and mother which existed at this time, and by so
fanning their smouldering distrust and jealousy that it burst into the
subsequent flame, which became a visible scandal to the whole country.
The Prince, however, had many other friends among the Opposition beside
Bolingbroke and Doddington; his artistic temperament was gratified with
the society of the witty Chesterfield (who had recently celebrated his
marriage with Schulemburg’s daughter, the Countess of Walsingham, by
taking another mistress), Pulteney and the eloquent Wyndham.
It cannot, however, be said that the Prince chose his companions for
their virtues; it was rather for the absence of them; but possibly his
young mind received as much harm from the crafty and unscrupulous
Doddington as all the others put together, who, after all, were, most
of them, mere posers in their vices; but Doddington appears to have
been a kind of fat Mephistopheles, always pouring into the Prince’s ear
advice which on the surface had the appearance of being ingenuous and
good, but had ever for its aim the aggrandisement of the giver.
Such is the opinion of Doddington’s character written by one of his
connections who published his celebrated diary some years after his
death.
George Bubb Doddington was the nephew of a great landowner--one of
the wealthiest in England--whose sister had been picked up by an
Irish apothecary of the name of Bubb, who practised some say at
Carlisle, others at Weymouth, possibly at both places at different
times. He appears to have been excluded from the family circle of
the Doddington’s, but upon his death his widow seems to have been
forgiven and her son George adopted by her rich brother, who eventually
bequeathed to him the whole of his vast estates.
The young George Bubb added by royal licence to his own simple and
somewhat common designation his uncle’s name and arms, and apparently
from that time forth had but one object in life, viz., to obtain a
peerage.
He had commenced his career by entering Parliament for one of the two
boroughs which he owned, and attaching himself to Walpole. Being,
however, refused a peerage by that leader, he forsook him and deserted
to the Opposition.
In due course, on the arrival of the Prince in England, and the manner
of his reception by the King driving him to seek friends among his
father’s opponents, Doddington was very pleased to bend the knee
to him, and offer him not only his political support, which was
considerable, but later his purse also. This lending of money to the
Prince was the origin of the well-known unscrupulous remark, whether
truthfully related or otherwise, which has been recorded against
Frederick, and if made at all was probably a bit of boastfulness over
wine cups to his boon companions, and it must not be forgotten that
gentlemen were not at all above boasting in those days: “This is a
strange country this England,” the Prince is said to have remarked,
“I am told Doddington is reckoned a clever man, yet I got £5,000 out
of him this morning, and he has no chance of ever seeing it again.”
Another account, however, states that the Prince won it of him at play.
Doddington, however, got the full value of the money he lent the Prince
of Wales in the social distinction which the position of intimate
adviser of the Heir-apparent conferred upon him.
Horace Walpole states that he even allowed himself to be wrapped in
a blanket and rolled downstairs for the Prince’s amusement, when
that young man was apparently indulging in a drunken frolic with his
intimates. But even in his blanket bumping down the stairs it is very
probable that he had in his mind’s eye that peerage which he no doubt
considered certain when the Prince came to the throne. But much water
rolled under London Bridge before George Bubb Doddington’s head was
compassed by the golden circlet of a peer, and then only for a little
time.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Coxe’s Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole.
CHAPTER IX.
THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH THROWS FOR A BIG STAKE.
We now pass from the Prince’s political and financial entanglements to
the softer theme of his love, or rather _loves_, for alas! there were
several of them!
This subject, however, cannot be entered upon without a reference to
one of two great ladies whose personalities overshadowed St. James’s at
the time of Frederick’s coming to England. These were the Duchesses of
Marlborough and Buckingham, near neighbours and rivals, one living at
Buckingham House, which, as before stated, had been built amid a grove
of trees celebrated for its singing birds--the site of the present
Buckingham Palace--the other occupying a house bearing her name on the
other side of the Park, which was pulled down to make room for the
present Marlborough House, up till recently the residence of the Prince
of Wales.
These two great ladies lived in fair amity, but had their little
differences like the rest of womankind, of which the following incident
is a fair sample.
The Duchess of Buckingham had had the misfortune to lose her son, who
had died in Rome, and whose body she caused to be brought to England
for sepulture in Westminster Abbey.
She sent across the Park to the widowed Duchess of Marlborough to
borrow the hearse or funeral car on which the body of the great Duke
had been borne to the grave some years before.
Sarah of Marlborough, in her none too refined manner, refused her
request in the following terms:
“It carried my Lord Marlborough,” she replied, “and it shall never be
used for any meaner mortal.”
This was hardly a consoling message to send to a sorrowing mother, but
her Grace of Buckingham rose to the occasion even in her grief:
“I have consulted the undertaker,” she rejoined, “and he tells me I can
have a finer for twenty pounds.”
The two seem to have outrivalled one another in pride and arrogance,
and both affected to despise the House of Hanover, though they at times
dissembled and attended the drawing-rooms “over the way,” which they
considered doing the King and Queen an exceeding honour, and perhaps it
was.
Both were enormously wealthy, she of Buckingham posing as an adherent
of the House of Stuart, and no doubt using some of her wealth to
support it, although it is said that she was mean enough to allow the
pall covering the unburied coffin of James the Second in Paris to fall
into rags, though she was in the habit of going there to weep over it.
“I believe I may sometime or other have complained of Sir Robert
Walpole’s treatment of me,” observed Sarah Duchess of Marlborough to
her friend and dependent Dr. Hare in one of her letters, “but I never
went through with it, believing that it was not easy to him.”
If the Duchess had reason to complain of that distinguished statesman
in that month of August, 1726, in which she wrote, she had considerably
more reason to do so a few years later, when he wrecked one of her
pet schemes as completely as he had that of Her Majesty the Queen
of Prussia concerning Prince Frederick, which latter endeavour had,
perhaps, set the brains of the astute Sarah working on the very same
subject.
The Duchess was, as it has been said, enormously rich, powerful, and,
in addition, exceedingly ambitious, so enterprising, indeed, in this
latter respect that she made a bold bid to make her grand-daughter,
Lady Diana Spencer, Queen Consort of England. It came about in this
wise:
Though the Prince of Wales had established himself as a kind of power
by his alliance with Bolingbroke and his party, yet he had gained
nothing by it financially.
The King remained perfectly obdurate on the subject of increasing his
allowance, and meanwhile the sum of the Prince’s debts mounted higher
and higher.
The story of the Prince’s embarrassments very soon travelled across
that little space of thoroughfare dividing St. James’s Palace from
Marlborough House, and reached the ever open ears of the Duchess Sarah,
always ready to hear any news from “over the way” the residence of
“neighbour George” as she was in the habit of calling him.
The wily old Duchess must have brooded long before she took her next
step; old diplomatiste as she was, it was a matter that could not have
been entered upon without the deepest thought. It was about the boldest
step “Sarah Jennings” had ever taken. When she had settled the matter
in her mind, she sent a message to the Prince of Wales and asked him to
favour her with an interview.
No record of this most interesting meeting has, unfortunately, been
preserved; one would have liked to have seen a detailed account of it
in Doddington’s diary, but there is nothing of it there.
There is no doubt, however, what was the nature of the interview;
the wonderful old stateswoman there and then offered the Prince her
favourite grand-daughter Lady Diana Spencer in marriage, and with her
the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, which she no doubt calculated
would come in very handy to the Prince in his involved condition.
It is necessary to make a comparison between the status of Lady Diana
and that of the lady--the daughter of a petty German Prince--whom the
Prince eventually married to understand that the Duchess’s offer was
not by any means so outrageous as one would imagine. Indeed, there are
those who think that Lady Diana’s birth and position, combined with
her wit and beauty, were far superior to those of the German Princess.
Lady Diana was the youngest daughter of Charles, Earl of Sunderland, by
Anne, daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough and Sarah his wife, and
was undoubtedly a young lady of exceptional wit and beauty.
Although there is strong evidence to prove that the Prince had not
forgotten his love for his cousin, the Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia,
yet he accepted the Duchess of Marlborough’s offer. Some say it was
to annoy his royal father and mother--things had reached that stage
by then--others said as they naturally would say, Lord Hervey, the
Queen’s confidant and really a bitter enemy of her son the Prince, no
doubt among the number, that the hundred thousand pounds put into the
scale against the Prince’s debts decided the matter, but possibly the
young lady’s bright eyes--she was evidently a consenting party--and
the persuasions and arguments of the experienced Duchess had something
to do with it, at any rate the marriage was arranged to take place
secretly in the Duchess’s lodge in Windsor Park, and was to be
celebrated by her private chaplain. The very day was fixed.
If the old Duchess had acquired the vulgar habit of rubbing her hands,
there is no doubt she did so over this matter, for it promised a
repayment of old debts and slights which had been heaping up interest
for years.
No Royal Marriage Act existed or had been thought of at that time, and
Lady Diana would have been the Prince’s lawful wife in the face of all
England beyond question if the ceremony had taken place, but this time
the Duchess Sarah had counted without her host, she had either left out
of her calculations or ignored a very important personage indeed, viz.,
Sir Robert Walpole.
It is not at all surprising, when we consider the extraordinary little
space which divided the residences of the two young people, that the
fact that there was marriage in the air, and that a Royal one to boot,
should creep out. Perhaps a confidential maid let the secret out--for
there must have been a great question of dresses going on--or the
young Prince betrayed it in a burst of confidence over a bowl--he was
very good at drinking _bon pères_ as we know--to some boon companion,
but at any rate it reached the ears of Sir Robert Walpole, and Sir
Robert stretched out his hand--and the arm belonging to it was a long
one and could reach all over England and even across the Channel to
foreign parts--and behold! the Royal Marriage Scheme of the great Sarah
crumbled and was no more. “Sir Robert Walpole was able to prevent the
marriage,” history records.
It must have been a dangerous act to have approached Her Grace of
Marlborough during the few days following upon her disappointment.
History gives us no information as to what she remarked upon the
frustration of her hopes at the time, neither is it recorded what
course Lady Diana’s grief took at the disappointment. It is safe to
assert that both ladies had a “good cry” in private; but how the old
Duchess of Buckingham must have chuckled over it!
Lady Diana evidently soon dried her tears, and apparently took the
matter as lightly as the Prince did, for very shortly after she
became the Duchess of Bedford, viz., on October 12th, 1731, but,
unfortunately, died young (on the 27th of September, 1735). But
the great Duchess Sarah was not of the nature to forget Sir Robert
Walpole’s part in this affair, and it is interesting to read her
opinion of him written to Lord Stair in her old age; this opinion was
written by the Duchess avowedly for the use of future historians.
“In another book,” she writes, “are a great many particulars which the
historian may like to look into; but I have omitted these to relate
something of Sir Robert Walpole, which shows that he betrayed the Duke
of Marlborough, even at a time when he made the greatest professions to
him.
“The Duke of Marlborough was made so uneasy at the end of the Queen’s
reign, by turning men of service out of the Army to put in Mr. Hill and
Mr. Masham over the heads of people improperly, that Mr. Walpole was
employed to show the Queen how detrimental to her service such steps
must be. He had many opportunities of doing it. The Duke of Marlborough
having obtained of the Queen that Cardonnel should be Secretary of War
as a reward for his services, when the war was ended, which he hoped
would be soon, and the Queen having allowed Mr. Cardonnel to kiss
her hand upon that promise, but to let him go over with the Duke of
Marlborough, that campaign or another, if the war happened to be not
concluded. Mr. Walpole was so low then that he executed this place for
Mr. Cardonnel, and attended the Duke of Marlborough when he was in
England with a bag of writings like Mr. Cardonnel. He managed it so
that to make the Duke of Marlborough believe that he had done all he
could with the Queen, and at the same time gained all the points Mrs.
Masham had desired for her husband and brother; and I had incontestable
proofs afterwards that Mr. Walpole had acted this double part to oblige
Mrs. Masham, and the Duke of Marlborough at that time had no reason to
believe he could be so false.
“Sir Robert also had a great obligation to me; for by my interest
wholly he was made Treasurer of the Navy when Sir T. Lyttleton died,
though there were solicitations from many people for that employment,
whom they thought it of more consequence to oblige. But I prevailed,
and he had then only a small estate, and that much encumbered. And I
have letters of acknowledgment to me, in which he says ‘he is very
sensible that he was entirely obliged to me for it.’
“Notwithstanding which at the commencement of his great power with the
present family, he used me with all the folly and insolence upon every
occasion, as he has treated several since he has acted as if he were
King, which would be too tedious to relate.
“I am not sure that some account of this has not been given before.
But if it has the truth is always the same. And it is no great matter,
since what I write is only information of the historian to give
character.
“For being perpetually interrupted, it is impossible to remember what I
may have formally written on these subjects.”
All of which above tends to show that in her old age Duchess Sarah had
grown testy, and not forgetful of her old enemies.
CHAPTER X.
THE BEAUTIFUL VANILLA.
An early marriage with a beautiful girl such as Lady Diana Spencer
would probably have been the best thing which could have happened to
the young Prince of Wales; it would possibly have obliterated the scars
of his old love for his cousin Wilhelmina, which wounds certainly
broke out again at a later period, and it might have kept him from
disgraceful liaisons; at any rate it would have left him without excuse
for them. The first of these _affaires du cœur_, began in a flirtation
and ended in a tragedy as so many of these unfortunate attachments do.
Who knows its beginning? Perhaps a kiss in the dark corridors of St.
James’s Palace!
The object of it was Miss Anne Vane (the “beautiful Vanilla”), daughter
of Gilbert, 2nd Lord Barnard, a maid-of-honour to the Queen, and sister
to the 1st Lord Darlington.
This young lady was possessed of much beauty, but is not credited with
cleverness as we understand it, which was all the worse for her, as
she found herself among a set of unscrupulous courtiers, such as Lords
Harrington and Hervey, the latter of whom was not at all above boasting
of conquests over the opposite sex which he had not achieved, if such
a word can be used in connection with the meanest act on earth.
Miss Vane is said to have been full of levity which was the result of
her want of cleverness, perhaps, and possessed, no doubt, the usual
quantity of vanity which is allotted to a pretty girl with plenty of
admirers, but on the whole it cannot be doubted that she was fond of
the Prince, and, as a result of it, paid that penalty for a love which
many young ladies do who place their affections on a man who is unable
to marry them--she became a mother. The Prince of Wales, however, did a
man’s duty, and at once acknowledged the child.
The whole matter appears to have been very deplorable. The birth of the
child--a boy--took place in her apartments as maid-of-honour in the
palace of St. James’s, and the baby was baptized in the Chapel Royal,
and given the name of Fitz Frederick Vane, evidently with the Prince’s
full concurrence. (1732). He made no denial of his blame in the matter
either in public or in private, but took the whole responsibility upon
his own shoulders. In addition, as will be seen, he loved children.
The Queen, of course, lost very little time in turning her unfortunate
maid-of-honour out of the Palace as soon as she was fit to go, and her
family accentuated the Queen’s action by at once turning their backs
upon her. The Prince did what little he was able to do to atone in a
way for the great injury he had done her. He took a house for her and
her child in Grosvenor Street, and provided her with an income out of
the uncertain allowance he received from the King. This affair, there
is no doubt, laid the foundation of those debts which grew to be such a
weight round his neck later on.
This state of affairs having continued for some time, there however
appeared on the scene a remarkable person in the shape of Lady
Archibald Hamilton, who from that time forth exerted a strong--and
baneful--influence on the Prince’s life.[26]
Lady Archibald was five-and-thirty, the mother of ten children, and
is said not to have possessed any special good looks, but she must,
however, have been possessed of a strong will and a subtle power of
fascination--which many plain women have--for she in a very short time
subjugated the Prince of Wales and tied him, in the public gaze, at any
rate, to her chariot wheels.
The very first act of this woman as is so often the case, was to turn
the power she had gained against the poor girl, her rival, whose
reputation the Prince had ruined. She urged him to get rid of her.
There is no question whatever that the Prince was at this time
thoroughly fascinated by Lady Archibald. Lord Hervey, who plays a
wretched part in this episode, comments on his infatuation as follows:
“He,” the Prince, “saw her often at her own house, where he seemed
as welcome to the master as the mistress; he met her often at
her sister’s; walked with her day after day for hours together
_tête-à-tête_ in a morning in St. James’s Park; and whenever she was
at the Drawing Room (which was pretty frequent) his behaviour was so
remarkable that his nose and her ear were inseparable.”
Lord Hervey, it has been said, played a despicable part in this affair,
more despicable perhaps because he had been the Prince’s friend--a very
false one.
John, Lord Hervey, was the eldest son of the first Earl of Bristol, had
been Gentleman of the Bedchamber to George the Second when Prince of
Wales, and was a great favourite with Caroline the Queen.
It is difficult to estimate the amount of mischief this wretched man
made between the Queen and her son, the Prince of Wales; one thing is
quite certain, and that is, that from the time a coolness sprang up
between the Prince and Lord Hervey--and there was good reason for it as
will be seen--things began to take a much worse turn between the former
and his royal parents.
Hervey was the Queen’s devoted companion, and bearer of tittle tattle.
She did not scruple to even allow him to sit by her bed when she was
ill and amuse her with gossip, and to this arrangement the King seems
to have offered no objection, though he was devoted to Caroline. The
Prince of Wales, however, expressed himself strongly on the subject of
Hervey’s association with his mother and sisters.
The Queen appears to have selected a strange companion. The following
is a description of his appearance and character:
“He was considered an exquisite beau and wit, and showed himself in
after life to be possessed of considerable ability both as writer
and orator.” (He was the author of the well-known “Memoirs of the
Reign of George the Second”). “He was an accomplished courtier, and
possessed some of the worst vices of courtiers; he was double-faced,
untrustworthy, and ungrateful. He had a frivolous and effeminate
character; he was full of petty spite and meannesses, and given to
painting his face and other abominations, which earned for him the
nickname of ‘Lord Fanny.’”
He is described by some of the poets of the time as being possessed of
great personal beauty; the Duchess of Marlborough was of an opposite
opinion:
“He has certainly parts and wit,” she writes, “but is the most wretched
profligate man that ever was born, besides ridiculous; a painted face
and not a tooth in his head.”[27]
He appears, however, to have been a favourite with the fair sex,
even to marrying the beautiful Mary Lepel, maid-of-honour to the Queen
when Princess of Wales.
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Emery Walker._
LORD HERVEY.]
Poor Mary!
Lord Hervey had been a married man over ten years when the first
rumours of the Vane scandal began to permeate St. James’s about the end
of 1731. It was then that the estrangement between the Prince of Wales
and Lord Hervey began, and the reason for it is not far to seek.
Lord Hervey had been talking of Miss Vane, and his remarks had reached
the ears of Frederick.
Horace Walpole gives the key to the whole matter in his
“Reminiscences”; he states that the Prince of Wales, Lord Hervey and
the 1st Lord Harrington _each_ came to his brother, Sir Robert, and
confided the fact of being the father of Miss Vane’s child!
As far as the Prince of Wales was concerned, it is to be understood; he
had committed a grave fault, he had incurred a grave responsibility,
he had no wish to shirk it, although as we know he was kept very short
of money by his father. He knew that as a man he was bound to see this
poor girl through her trouble at any cost, and he did it.
But how about the cur Hervey with the painted face, and his finicking
woman’s tittle-tattle? How about Lord Harrington, who was little better?
Either these two were lying, or they were playing the most despicable
parts that men could play, viz., boasting of their prowess in ruining a
young girl, deserting her in her trouble, and shifting the public blame
on to some one else.
But as far as Lord Hervey is concerned, it is more probable that he
was lying; the circumstances look very much like it. He had evidently
been an admirer of the beautiful Miss Vane before the Prince devoted
himself to her; it is more than probable that the Prince cut him out,
and that the reason of their quarrel was simply jealousy, accentuated
by Hervey’s spiteful tongue. Certainly hereafter the Prince had no
more bitter enemy than Lord Hervey, and, unfortunately, the latter
was placed in a position about the Queen which enabled him to fan the
embers of their quarrel, and to do the Prince’s cause an infinity of
harm. Certainly no one can read the history of that period without
coming to this conclusion.
It has been seen that the Prince of Wales, however, had formed an
attachment to another lady, much older than himself, a woman of the
world, the mother of ten children, Lady Archibald Hamilton, and this
lady had availed herself of her ascendancy over him to urge him to
break with Miss Vane. It may be very fairly surmised that the boastings
of Hervey and Hamilton were pretty well dinned into his ears; at any
rate Lady Archibald succeeded in persuading him, probably in a fit of
jealous anger, to send one of his lords in waiting, Lord Baltimore, to
Miss Vane with an insulting message.
This message, as it is recorded in history, does not read like a man’s
message at all; it savours far more of the composition of a spiteful
woman. In it the Prince is represented as desiring her to go abroad for
two or three years, and to leave her son to be educated in England. If
she agreed, she was to receive from the Prince her usual allowance of
£1,600 a year for life. The message is said to have concluded in the
following words: “If she would not live abroad, she might starve for
him in England.”
A most unlikely ending to have come from the Prince, having regard to
his known habits of kind-heartedness and courtesy.
It is needless to say that Miss Vane was deeply hurt at this message,
and declined to answer it by Lord Baltimore.
It is here that Lord Hervey comes again upon the scene.
He states that Miss Vane sent for him and telling him of the Prince’s
message asked his advice as a friend; the result was the following
letter, which, if Miss Vane wrote it, certainly Lord Hervey composed
it, with a view, as it can easily be seen, to its future publication;
it ran as follows:
“Your Royal Highness need not be put in mind who I am, nor whence you
took me; that I acted not like what I was born, others may reproach
me, but you took me from happiness and brought me to misery, that I
might reproach you. That I have long lost your heart I have long seen,
and long mourned; to gain it, or rather to reward the gift you made
me of it, I sacrificed my time, my youth, my character, the world, my
family, and everything that a woman can sacrifice to a man she loves;
how little I considered my interest you must know by my never naming
my interest to you, when I made this sacrifice, and by my trusting to
your honour, when I showed so little regard, when put in balance with
my love to my own. I have resigned everything for your sake but my
life; and had you loved me still, I would have risked even that, too,
to please you; but as it is I cannot think in my state of health[28]
of going out of England, far from all friends and all physicians I
can trust, and of whom I stand so much in need. My child is the only
consolation I have left, I cannot leave him, nor shall anything but
death ever make me quit the country he is in.”
When the Prince received this letter, strangely enough, he did not
dissolve into tears at its pathos; he was on the contrary exceedingly
angry. He said at once that Miss Vane--or “the minx” as it is
reported--“was incapable of writing such a letter, and that he would
punish the ‘rascal’ who had dictated it to her.”
He was probably well acquainted with her capabilities in this respect,
and possibly knew her modes of expression very well; as a rule the
ladies of the Court of that time were nothing like so refined in their
correspondence; this was evidently the composition of a man and one
indeed skilled in letters. All this would be extremely strange if one
element which prevailed at the time were not well known, viz., that
the clever, diplomatic, Queen Caroline was exceedingly anxious that
the Prince, her son, should break with Miss Vane, as she had a strong
wish that he should marry, and this well-known liaison might form an
obstacle, though apparently she had no particular Princess in view.
There is another point, also, which must not be lost sight of, and that
is that during the three years and more that the Prince had been in
England, he had grown year by year in popular favour, and had entirely
eclipsed the Queen’s favourite son, the Duke of Cumberland, whom as
we know the King and Queen would gladly have seen in his brother
Frederick’s place as heir to the English throne.
It is impossible to say how far the crafty Hervey with his great
influence over the Queen may have worked upon this feeling of jealousy
at her eldest son’s popularity.
Unnatural as it seems, unless we read it in the light of later events,
the Queen may have been induced to take a hidden part in this affair of
Miss Vane to decrease the Prince of Wales’s growing popularity with the
people.
For what followed? Very soon the details of this affair began to leak
out among the public, a series of scurrilous songs and pamphlets began
to make their appearance: “Vanilla, or the Amours of the Court”;
“Vanessi, or the Humours of the Court of Modern Gallantry”; and a
particularly offensive one “Vanilla on the Straw.”
Knowing as we do that Lord Hervey composed Miss Vane’s answer to the
Prince’s message, that the copy of it was soon made public, and the
Prince’s cruel message widely disseminated by Miss Vane, who apparently
was at this time entirely under Lord Hervey’s influence, it is
impossible to doubt for a moment that Hervey was striking a very heavy
blow at the Prince’s popularity.
At this juncture, however, the mature judgment of Pulteney, the leader
of the Opposition, came to the Prince’s aid, as it did at a later time
also, and under his advice Miss Vane received the provision which the
Prince had originally intended for her, viz., a settlement of £1,600 a
year for life, a gift of the house in Grosvenor Street in which she had
resided since her dismissal from Court, and that which she doubtless
prized more than all, the custody of her child. All this without any
request to her to leave the country.
And so the matter faded away, out of the public eye, and out of the
public knowledge, for Miss Vane, with her child, went away to Bath,
where very soon after both died; the child first, the mother after.
Perhaps, as it is said, this poor girl had a true affection for the
Prince, and the separation broke her heart; certainly after the death
of the child she could have very little left to live for; forsaken by
the man who had wronged her, robbed by death of the little one on whom
possibly all her hopes and love were then centred.
But it was not the poor broken-hearted mother who bore the whole of
the sorrow at this little child’s death, the Queen, and the Princess
Caroline, her daughter, both bear testimony “that they never believed
it possible that the Prince of Wales could show such grief as he did
at the death of the boy.” Perhaps a fitting conclusion to this chapter
will be an Extract from the Register of Westminster Abbey, 26th
February, 1735-6:
“Fitz Frederick, natural child of the Prince of Wales by Anne Vane,
daughter of Gilbert, Lord Barnard, buried, aged four.”
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Jane, daughter of Lord Abercorn, and wife of Lord Archibald
Hamilton, was Mistress of the Robes to the Princess of Wales, and for
some years governed absolutely at the Prince’s Court, and had planted
so many of her relations about her that one day at Carlton House, Sir
William Stanhope called everybody there whom he did not know “Mr. or
Mrs. Hamilton.” Lady Archibald quitted that Court soon after Mr. Pitt
accepted a place in the administration. Walpole’s Memoirs, vol. I., p.
75.
[27] Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious,” vol. I.
[28] She was undoubtedly very ill at this time.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PRINCE ASSERTS HIMSELF.
The Court life of the reign of George the Second was far from being
gay; it was very different from what his life had been during the reign
of his father when he was Prince of Wales. About the time of the Vane
scandal Lord Hervey writes to his friend Mrs. Clayton and complains of
the dulness of the routine.
“I will not trouble you,” he says, “with any account of our occupations
at Hampton Court. No mill horse ever went in a more constant track,
or a more unchanging circle, so that by the assistance of an almanac
for the day of the week, and a watch for the hour of the day, you
may inform yourself fully, without any other intelligence but your
memory, of every transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking,
chaises, levees, and audiences fill the morning; at night the King
plays commerce and backgammon, and the Queen at quadrille, where poor
Lady Charlotte (de Roussie) runs her usual nightly gauntlet--the Queen
pulling her hood, Mr. Schütz sputtering in her face, and the Princess
Royal rapping her knuckles, all at a time. It was in vain she fled
from persecution for her religion; she suffers for her pride what she
escaped for her faith, undergoes in a drawing-room what she dreaded
from the Inquisition, and will die a martyr to a Court though not to
a Church. The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery and
sleeps, as usual, between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline; Lord
Grantham strolls from one room to another (as Dryden says) _like some
discontented ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak_, and stirs
himself about, as people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes
to make it burn brisker, which his lordship constantly does to no
purpose, and yet tries as constantly as if he had ever once succeeded.
“At last the King comes up, the pool finishes, and everybody has their
dismission; their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and my Lord
Lifford; the Princesses to Bilderbec and Lorry; my Lord Grantham to
Lady Francis and Mr. Clark; some to supper, and some to bed, and thus
(to speak in the Scripture phrase) the evening and the morning make the
day.”
Things had been very different in the former days referred to. Mrs.
Howard, the King’s mistress, to whom reference has been made, was a
shining light at that time. She had been complacently made Woman of
the Bedchamber by Queen Caroline, with a view apparently to please the
King, and keep her about the palace; but she must have been a woman of
great tact as she seems to have got on very well with the Queen, except
that at one time there was some little difficulty about getting her to
kneel down and hold the Queen’s basin while she washed her hands, which
under the circumstances is not to be wondered at.
Mrs. Howard, however, despite her immorality--which was looked upon
apparently as a fashionable weakness--was a great favourite with the
other ladies of the Court. A companion of sweet Mary Bellenden and her
friend Mary Lepel, both maids-of-honour.
Here is a description of the celebrated Henrietta Howard by Horace
Walpole who knew her intimately in her widowhood when she lived at
Marble Hill, Twickenham, and he at Strawberry Hill: he says of her
appearance that she was “ladylike.” She was of good height, well made,
extremely fair, with the finest light brown hair, was remarkably
“genteel,” and--a great recommendation and interesting to ladies--was
always dressed with taste and simplicity. He concludes his description:
“For her face was regular and agreeable, rather than beautiful, and
those charms she retained with little diminution to her death, at the
age of seventy-nine” (in July, 1767). He states that she was “grave and
mild of character, a lover of truth, and circumstantial about small
things. She lived in a decent and dignified manner after her retirement
from Court, and was considered and respected by those around her in her
old age.”
King George the Second has often, when Mrs. Howard, his mistress, was
dressing the Queen, come into the room, and snatched the handkerchief
off, and cried, “Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you like to
hide the Queen’s.” Her Majesty (all the while calling her “My good
Howard”) took great joy in employing her in the most servile offices
about her person. The King was so communicative to his wife, that one
day Mrs. Selwyn, another of the bedchamber women, told him he should be
the last man with whom she would have an intrigue, because he always
told the Queen.
Mrs. Howard was celebrated for her agreeable supper parties, which were
often attended by the King. At Hampton Court the maids-of-honour used
to call her rooms the “Swiss Cantons,” because they were neutral ground
on which all could meet. Henrietta Howard wisely mixed herself up with
no factions, and was a woman naturally, without spite or jealousy, and
though slightly deaf, a wonderful hostess.
On account of the name given to her rooms, she was known as the “Swiss.”
Many years after Mary Bellenden, when a married woman, looked back with
pleasure to the pleasant time spent with Mrs. Howard. “I wish we were
all in the ‘Swiss Cantons’ again,” she writes.
And later still Molly Lepel, then Lady Hervey, writes in the same
strain to Mrs. Howard:
“The place your letter was dated from (Hampton Court) recalls a
thousand agreeable things to my remembrance, which I flatter myself
I do not quite forget. I wish that I could persuade myself that you
regret them, or that you could think the tea-table more welcome in
the morning if attended, as formerly by the ‘Schatz’ (a pet name for
herself). I really believe frizelation (flirtation) would be a surer
means of restoring my spirits than the exercise and hartshorn I now
make use of. I do not suppose that name still subsists; but pray let
me know if the thing itself does, or if they meet in the same cheerful
manner to sup as formerly. Are ballads and epigrams the consequence of
these meetings? Is good sense in the morning and wit in the evening
the subject, or, rather, the foundation, of the conversation? That is
an unnecessary question; I can answer it myself, since I know you are
of the party, but in short, do you not want poor Tom, and Bellenden,
as much as I want ‘Swiss’ in the first place, and them?” But all that
was now changed, and the state of affairs, as depicted by Lord Hervey,
prevailed.
Mrs. Howard also writes herself on the subject to Lady Hervey as far
back as September, 1728 (the year of the Prince’s coming to England).
“Hampton is very different from the place you knew; and to say we
wished _Tom Lepel_, _Schatz_ and _Bella-dine_ at the tea-table is too
interested to be doubted. _Frizelation_, _flirtation_ and _dangleation_
are now no more, and nothing less than a Lepel can restore them to
life; but to tell you my opinion freely, the people you now converse
with” (books) “are much more alive than any of your old acquaintances.”
[Illustration: MARY LEPEL,
Lady Hervey,
In middle life.]
These letters from dainty hands long since of the earth, seem to
bring vividly before one’s eyes the trio of fair women, “The Swiss,”
“Bella-dine”; and the scarcely less beautiful Mollie Lepel, “The
Schatz,” their tea-table, their “frizelation” and “dangleation,” and
other pet names for love-making, and it seems hard to believe it was
nearly two hundred years ago!
Mrs. Howard appears to have separated from her husband in 1718, and
devoted herself entirely to the service of the Queen--and the King.
Some may be curious to know what was her recompense for this position
of degradation. It was not very great.
Queen Caroline stated that she received twelve hundred pounds a
year from the King while he was Prince of Wales, and three thousand
two hundred pounds a year when he became King. He gave her also
twelve thousand pounds towards building her villa at Marble Hill,
near Twickenham, in addition to several “little dabs” (the Queen’s
expression) before and after he came to the throne. She had expected
much more when the King came to the throne, and so had her friends, but
they were disappointed. She obtained a peerage for her brother, Sir
Henry Hobart, but Horace Walpole says of her:
“No established mistress of a sovereign ever enjoyed less brilliancy
of the situation than Lady Suffolk.”
This state of affairs appears to have prevailed until the year 1731,
when Mrs. Howard’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Suffolk, died, and her
husband succeeded to the title. Becoming a Countess, she could no
longer hold the place of bedchamber woman to the Queen; she resigned
her post at Court.
Despite her position, however, with regard to the King, Queen Caroline
seems to have had some sort of affection for her, and wished to retain
her about her person. Caroline could not have been much troubled with
jealousy of her spouse, but possibly her intense passion for politics
and all belonging to the world of diplomacy, had long since wiped out
the other passion. Indeed, at times, she seems to have taken a keen and
appreciative interest in the recitation of her husband’s infidelities,
which facts little George appears to have had a mania for communicating
to her.
The Queen, however, offered the new Countess of Suffolk the position of
Mistress of the Robes, which post she held in conjunction with that of
Mistress to the King until the year 1734.
She was delighted with her change of office, and wrote to the poet Gay
in June, 1731, anent it:
“To prevent all future quarrels and disputes, I shall let you know that
I have kissed hands for the place of Mistress of the Robes. Her Majesty
did me the honour to give me the choice of Lady of the Bedchamber, or
that which I find so much more agreeable to me that I did not take one
moment to consider it. The Duchess of Dorset resigned it for me; and
everything as yet promises for more happiness for the latter part of
my life than I have yet had the prospect of (she was then forty-five).
Seven nights quiet sleep, and seven easy days, have almost worked a
miracle in me.”
Lady Suffolk, however, was not content to live the placid life which
her letter indicates, she appears to have forsaken her old wise course
of holding aloof from politics.
In 1733 her husband, the Earl of Suffolk died, and she found herself a
free woman with a moderate competence. She wished to resign her office
of Mistress of the Robes, and retire from Court, but this the Queen
would not hear of, fearing, perhaps, to get a younger woman in her
place who would not understand her ways, nor the King’s.
This feeling, however, the King by no means shared; he had long since
tired of the Countess and wanted to get rid of her. He expressed
himself to the Queen in the following refined and gentlemanly terms:--
“I do not know,” he reasoned, “why you will not let me part with the
deaf old woman of whom I am weary.”
The Countess, however, who was by this time forty-eight, and thoroughly
weary also, it is stated, of her degrading position, very soon gave the
King the opportunity he wanted by meddling in politics. She appears
to have entered into some sort of a job in obtaining a favour for Lord
Chesterfield, in which she slighted the Queen by getting the favour
granted by the King over the Queen’s head.
This gave George the opportunity he required to be very rude to his
former favourite, and to Lord Chesterfield too, as a result of which
Lady Suffolk retired to Bath, and Lord Chesterfield shortly after was
dismissed from Court, when of course he became a partisan of the Prince
of Wales, as might be expected.
The mode of Lord Chesterfield’s dismissal was rather amusing. He had
grievously offended Walpole and the King by his opposition to the
Excise Scheme. Of all those who had done likewise, Lord Chesterfield,
who held the office of Lord Steward of the Household, was the first
to suffer. Two days after the extinction of the Excise Bill, he was
going up the great staircase of St. James’s Palace--which is _not_ so
very great--when an attendant stopped him from entering the presence
chamber, and handed him a summons requesting him to surrender his white
staff. In this was the hand of the Queen, who had never forgiven him
for his little deal with Mrs. Howard. There was also another reason.
The Queen had a little window of observation overlooking the entrance
to Mrs. Howard’s rooms. One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield had won
a large sum of money at play, some say fifteen thousand pounds,
and being afraid of being robbed of it in the none too safe streets
of London, determined to deposit it with Mrs. Howard. The Queen,
through her little window of observation, saw him enter the apartments
of the fair Howard, and drew her own conclusions. Thenceforward
Lord Chesterfield obtained no more favours at Court, for the Queen
controlled them.
Lady Suffolk went to Bath, but was not content, however, with drinking
the waters in the kingdom of Beau Nash, she met there Bolingbroke,
and is credited with a political intrigue with him, the person most
detested by the Court. Whether this political intrigue existed or not,
King George availed himself of the rumour of it, and upon her return
to Court ignored her. He was an adept at ignoring people, especially
his own son and heir, the Prince of Wales. This not being deemed
sufficient, the King publicly insulted the Countess of Suffolk, and
this had the desired effect; she resigned her post, and finally retired
from the Court.
There is a curious memorandum in the Manuscript Department of the
British Museum of an interview which took place between Queen Caroline
and the Countess, written apparently by the latter, from which it seems
that the Queen was even then very loth to lose her services. But not so
the King.
Lady Suffolk shortly afterwards married the Honourable George
Berkeley,[29] fourth son of the second Earl of Berkeley, and found a
good husband, only to lose him soon by death; but this was the comment
of the King to the Queen upon hearing of the union, the news of which
reached him in Hanover:
“J’étais extrément surpris de la disposition que vous m’avez mandé que
ma vielle maitresse a fait de son corps en mariage à ce vieux goutteaux
George Berkeley, et je m’en réjouis fort. Je ne voudrois pas faire de
tels présents à mes amis; et quand mes ennemis me volent, plut à Dieu
que ce soit toujours de cette façon.”
Which, though rather witty, shows that the little man’s pride was hurt,
even when an old mistress was made an honest woman.
It may be imagined that in the differences which had arisen between the
Prince of Wales and his parents, the rest of his family had not played
a neutral part. His brother William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland,
born April 25th, 1721, was of course but a boy at his first coming to
England, but old enough to resent such an eclipse of his own importance
by the elder brother whom he had never before seen, and whom, perhaps,
he may have been taught to regard as a rival.
The fact has already been referred to, that George the Second and his
Queen are credited with the intention of endeavouring to make their
second son, the Duke of Cumberland--the idol of his mother--heir to the
English throne, without giving any consideration to the fact that the
throne was not theirs to give.
Such a determination which could not but have become known to the
brothers was not likely to foster much fraternal love. As regards the
Prince of Wales’s sisters, the two elder Princesses Anne and Amelia,
cannot be said to have ever been his friends. Amelia exhibited some
signs of affection at first, but when the Prince discovered that she
was betraying his confidences to his father, he very naturally would
have no more to do with her, as a result of which perfidy she became
despised both by her brother and the King.
Anne, the elder Princess, had apparently never exhibited anything but
dislike for her elder brother, whom neither she nor her sister could
have had any distinct recollection of in their infancy when they left
Hanover, and whom they both regarded as a stranger and interloper.
This state of unfortunate enmity which existed between the Prince and
his sisters took an active form in a peculiar way. Anne, the Princess
Royal, was devoted to music, and had had the advantage of the great
Handel as her instructor, to whom she was much attached.
Handel at one time became the manager of the Opera House at the
Haymarket,--one can imagine it with its hundreds of wax candles, its
powder, patches, and orange girls--this undertaking the Princess Royal
aided by every means in her power, inducing the King and Queen to not
only subscribe to a box, but to frequently visit the theatre. This must
have been an infliction upon King George, whose dislike for “bainting
and boetry,” together with the other arts is proverbial.
It cannot be denied that Frederick, Prince of Wales, had the attribute
of combativeness, and a natural power of enraging others by his mode of
opposition. No sooner had his sister’s _protégé_ established his opera
at the Haymarket theatre than he forthwith started an opposition opera
at the theatre in Lincolns Inn Fields, possibly not very far from the
present Gaiety.
Then commenced a state of affairs which can only be regarded as
extremely comical. All the adherents of the Prince--and he was very
popular among the nobility as well as the people--ceased their
patronage of Handel’s theatre, and transferred it to the Prince’s
undertaking in Lincolns Inn Fields. Excitement between the two parties
was high at the time, and the Prince’s theatre was crowded.
Lord Chesterfield, who by this time was becoming a strong partisan of
Frederick’s, wittily commented on the state of affairs one evening at
the Lincolns Inn Fields establishment. He had, he informed the Prince,
just looked in at the Haymarket theatre on his way down, and found
nobody there but the King and Queen, “and as I thought they might be
talking business,” he concluded, airily, “I came away.”
Much as this joke pleased the Prince it cannot be expected that its
repetition gave much satisfaction to the King and Queen, and the
Princess Royal, the latter of whom spoke bitterly of the whole affair.
She commented with a sneer that “she expected in a little while to
see half the House of Lords playing in the orchestra at the Prince’s
Theatre in their robes and coronets,” which was a remark truly worthy
of a spiteful young lady, and the anger of the King, her father, can be
understood when it is considered that he had been dragged to witness a
performance he did not care a bit about, to be snubbed by his nobility
and made a public spectacle of.
The King’s appreciation of a theatrical performance was not of a very
high order; of an opera it was probably much worse. The following
anecdote is related of one of his visits to a theatre when the play was
Richard the Third, and Garrick sustained the title rôle.
Notwithstanding the talent of the great actor, King George’s fancy was
captured by the man who played the part of Lord Mayor.
During the remainder of the performance the little monarch continually
worried his attendants with the following questions: “Will not that
lor-mayor come again? I like dat lor-mayor. When will he come again?”
But the resentment engendered by the slights and ill-treatment the
Prince had received from his family--what a family to live in the
same house with!--which resentment was shared and fostered by his
party, especially Bolingbroke, the moving spirit of it, began to assume
a definite form about this time, till at last the Prince, no doubt
inspired by Bolingbroke, determined to address his father personally on
the subject of his wrongs. He took a step against which Bubb Doddington
in his diary says he did his best to dissuade him.
One morning in the early summer of 1734, the Prince of Wales presented
himself without previous notice at the King’s ante-chamber and
requested an immediate audience. The King, upon whom this presumptuous
request no doubt produced an instant fit of fuming, delayed admitting
him until he had sent for Sir Robert Walpole, a very wise proceeding as
it turned out. The King no doubt scented danger in the air.
On the arrival of Sir Robert, the King boiling with rage, expressed
his indignation at the Prince’s audacity, but the Minister counselled
moderation and at last persuaded the King to receive his son reasonably.
On his admittance the Prince made three requests:
The first to serve a campaign on the Rhine in the Imperial army; the
second related to an augmentation of his revenue, with a broad hint
that he was in debt; and the third, a very reasonable suggestion, that
he should be settled by a suitable marriage. He was then twenty-seven.
To the first and last of these three propositions the King made no
answer, to the second he seemed inclined to agree. Here the interview
appears to have ended.
But although under the cool advice of his Minister Walpole the King had
controlled himself, his anger broke out with redoubled fury when he
heard for the first time, and it must have been a blow, that the Prince
of Wales intended bringing the matter of his income before Parliament.
This was particularly inopportune to the King, as it was a well-known
fact that out of his immense income of £900,000 per annum, £100,000
was intended by Parliament for the Prince of Wales, though the King’s
discretion in dealing with his children was not hampered in any way.
But here the Queen stepped in; despite Lord Hervey’s weak but spiteful
satire, the Queen and her son were still on the terms of mother and
child; she used her best endeavours to make peace between the father
and son, and had her ears not been systematically poisoned against
Frederick by Hervey and others, and had not the Prince on the other
hand been controlled by the strong hand of Bolingbroke, she might have
continued her natural office of peacemaker between these two.
On the present occasion, however, she succeeded in at least patching
up a truce; her influence over the weaker nature of the King was at
this time, as it always had been and in fact continued to the day of
her death, boundless. She could mould him in those soft white hands
of hers, of which she was no doubt naturally proud, into any form
she chose, and with the Prince she took the business line of telling
him he would gain nothing by trying to force the King’s hand through
Parliament.
But at the same time she induced George to advance his son a sum of
money with which to liquidate his most pressing debts, and so with this
little sacrifice on the King’s part, the matter ended,--for the time.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] He was Master of St. Catherine in the Tower, and had stood in two
Parliaments as member for Dover.
CHAPTER XII.
A CHILD BRIDE.
Just about this time (1735), a very important event indeed occurred;
the King took a new mistress!
He made his triennial visit to Hanover this year, and became smitten
with the charms of a young German lady named Walmoden. This middle-aged
Don Juan--he was getting on, he was fifty-two--induced this estimable
lady to leave her husband for the trifling consideration of a thousand
ducats.
Madame Walmoden was a great niece of the Countess von Platen who had
been one of the mistresses of George the First, and consequently had
a good strain of the courtesan in her blood before she disposed of
herself for the aforesaid thousand ducats.
Little George at once wrote off to his wife in England and told her all
about it, just as if he had bought a new horse; he did not scruple to
describe the person of his new purchase to his wife, minutely. He even
solicited his wife’s affection for her! A curious race these Hanoverian
Kings!
Further, George did not scamp the details of his amour in his letters
to his wife, which were immensely long and always written in French,
which he apparently considered a language more fitted for descriptions
of love affairs; _his_ sort of love affairs at any rate. This is a
sample of one of his letters written concerning the inviting to England
by the Queen (which he besought her to contrive) of a certain Princess
of Modena, a daughter of a late Regent of France, to whom he had the
greatest possible inclination to pay his addresses, particularly
because he understood she was not at all particular from whom she
received such marks of favour. “Un plaisir,” he wrote, “que je suis
sûr, ma chère Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand je
vous dis combien je le souhaite!”
According to Lord Hervey, the Queen’s confidant, the general opinion
was that Madame Walmoden, the King’s new mistress, would oust the Queen
from her influence, but the diplomatic Caroline rose to the occasion.
She, to retain her power, expressed the utmost interest in the King’s
new mistress, and awaited further details with impatience. She got
them.[30] Not in such a manner as a profligate husband would write in
our days, even to a mistress debased enough to read such letters, but
hot and strong in the terms of Shakespeare expressed in French.
So far from being offended, the Queen replied in the same strain,
equalling in every respect her husband’s flights of fancy in the
regions of Venus.
It is this correspondence between Caroline and the King, coupled with
her very objectionable letters to the Duchess of Orleans, which have
caused many writers to take exception to the remark of Lord Mahon,
which described this Queen’s character as “without a blemish.” At any
rate it gives us an insight into the private life of the mother of
our Prince Frederick, and accounts perhaps for some of her unnatural
conduct towards him, for where there is not purity of mind, how can
there be purity of motherly affection?
Again, a mind which could take pleasure daily in the conversation of
such a man as Lord Hervey--epigrammatic though that conversation might
be--could not be expected to contain the natural solicitude which a
loving parent would have for her first-born son.
The little King, however, was having a particularly effulgent time
in Hanover with his new light o’ love, a time which he kept up, not
exactly religiously, until the very night before he left for England,
when standing glass in hand at a supper party on that eventful evening
he pledged himself to Madame Walmoden and the other demireps forming
the company to return without fail on the following 29th May.
Upon hearing of which promise some short time after, Sir Robert
Walpole, his sturdy Prime Minister, remarked: “He wants to go to
Hanover, does he”? he asked, when Lord Hervey told him of it, “and to
be there by the 29th May? Well, he shan’t go for all that.”
So much did the King enjoy his revels in Hanover that he had paintings
made of them, each containing portraits, sent them to England and had
them hung up in his wife’s dressing room! She must have enjoyed the
privilege!
So George returned to England and made himself exceedingly disagreeable
to his wife when he got there, as a testy love-sick gentleman of
fifty-two might be expected to do who had recently left a new and
youngish lady-love hundreds of miles behind. For the time being
Caroline and the English bored him; with regard to the latter he
expressed himself as follows: “No English, or French cook could dress
a dinner; no English confectioner set out a dessert; no English player
could act; no English coachman could drive, no English jockey ride,
nor were any English horses fit to be drove or fit to be ridden; no
Englishman knew how to come into a room, nor any English woman how to
dress herself.”[31]
How this particular strain of English King must have degenerated since
James the First’s daughter made a _mésalliance_ and married the King of
Bohemia!
But the little King had not wasted all his time in Hanover, he had seen
a Princess--the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha--whom he thought would
do for a daughter-in-law, and had straightway communicated this fact to
his Queen, mixed up with accounts of his own prowess on the field of
love, in a less innocent direction.
No sooner, however, had the King set foot in England, than the Prince
of Wales, urged to this filial act of duty by Doddington, put in an
appearance at one of his father’s first Levees, from which functions
he had absented himself for a considerable time. His father, however,
once more scented mischief in the air, and once more his olfactory
nerves had not led him astray. Frederick at once renewed his demands,
this time asking for his full allowance of £100,000 a year, a separate
establishment, and--a wife. The Prince was insistent.
There can be little doubt from an incident which followed that in this
demand for a wife, the Prince had in his mind his old love, his cousin
Wilhelmina, still unmarried.
The King, his father, however, had no intention whatever of uniting his
son with that Princess; he and the King of Prussia had been quarrelling
for years, even going the length of challenging one another to single
combat, an encounter which would have been exceedingly grotesque but
for the redeeming point that though George the Second was very little,
yet he was undoubtedly plucky for his size, and would have given a
good account of himself in any case. But, “unfortunately,” as some
historians put it, no mortal combat came off, and Europe had to put
up with the two sovereigns for some years longer. The King, as usual,
talked the matter of his son’s request over with his Queen, especially
the part about the £100,000 a year, which her Majesty was dead against,
she had all along resisted the demand of the Prince of Wales for a
regular income, and this opposition being persevered in on her part had
undoubtedly made matters worse between them.
The King and Queen’s talk resulted in the conclusion that it would be
cheaper to marry him off and make him an allowance than to keep on
paying some of his debts, therefore having put their heads together for
the last time on the subject, they sent a message by five of the Privy
Council, proposing to the Prince of Wales a marriage with the Princess
Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the young lady whom the King had seen when
abroad. But this was evidently not what the Prince expected, for this
is what happened.
In the first place more than a year after his coming to England, when
there had been a spark of revival in the double marriage scheme,
Frederick had written to Hotham, the Special Envoy in Berlin, on the
subject of Wilhelmina:
“Please, dear Hotham, get my marriage settled, my impatience increases
daily for I am quite foolishly in love!”[32]
There is something plaintive in this message, for whatever were his
faults, and they were numerous, yet this constancy to the girl he
wished to make his wife was honest and admirable, and had he been given
her, he might have become a different man. But Wilhelmina was a strange
girl, and in her diary, written long after, affects to think it was
only his characteristic obstinacy which caused the Prince to evince
such affection. Perhaps it was the old tale of the sourness of the
fruit which had not come her way.
When therefore the deputation of the five Privy Councillors from the
King waited upon the Prince of Wales and proposed to him a marriage
with the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, they evidently threw him into
a state of consternation. It was not Augusta he wanted, but Wilhelmina,
his cousin.
He appears to have remonstrated with some heat[33] and then to have
sent for Baron Borck, the Prussian Minister.
To him he complained that his father, the King, was forcing him to
marry a lady he had never seen and to renounce all hopes of “a Prussian
Princess”--there could not be much doubt about the identity of this
Princess.
He requested him to lay this statement before the King of Prussia. He
expressed his heartfelt grief at not being allowed to take a wife from
a family which he loved more than his own, and to which, from infancy,
all his desires had been directed. He begged for the King of Prussia’s
favour and friendship notwithstanding, and deplored that he should
be denied his support. He complained, too, that he should still be
under the control of his father and mother, for it was a part of King
George’s scheme that the young married couple should live with him,
presumably to save expense.
All this and much more the excited young Prince appears to have
said, and he seems to have deplored the fact of the King of England
disdaining the friendship of such a great monarch as the King of
Prussia, which could only lead to the ruin of his, Prince Frederick’s,
house.
This impassioned appeal to his feelings affected even that astute
old diplomatist, Baron Borck, who with Lord Townshend, had gained
notoriety, by preventing the comic duel between the King of Prussia and
King George.
It is more than probable that Baron Borck gave the distressed young
Prince some fatherly advice and impressed upon him the hopelessness
of thinking any more of his cousin Wilhelmina. None knew better than
the Baron that such a marriage could never take place. In addition the
Queen informed her son--they still had some confidence in each other
left--that the King of Prussia had definitely refused to give him the
hand of his daughter.
Soon after, the Prince gave in, and accepted the marriage his father
had arranged for him, apparently in sheer desperation, and no doubt in
consequence of a little pressure being put upon him financially, for
his father gave him no fixed allowance then as it has been said, but
simply as much or as little as he chose.
The young man’s pleadings to Baron Borck, however, were not without
effect; the Baron wrote off at once to his master the King of Prussia,
and reported all the Prince of Wales’ messages, but as luck would
have it the letter fell into the hands of Walpole, who was not at all
above tampering with the Ambassador’s post bags, and the whole of the
Prince’s love ravings were communicated to the King, his father, whose
anger passed comprehension, especially about that part which referred
to his “disdaining the support of such a great monarch as the King of
Prussia” whom he hated, and his own ruin speedily following.
All this was no doubt stored up by the Royal couple against their
troublesome son, who seemed to be in ill-luck’s way. His parents were
determined. They had married off their daughter Anne, the Princess
Royal, in 1733 to the Prince of Orange, an amiable but deformed
gentleman who apparently married his royal wife--he was only Serene
himself--on the traditions of another Prince William of Orange who had
preceded him. A marriage the English King and Queen would have now.
Frederick was to marry the Princess Augusta, or go short, and it is not
at all surprising, considering all things, that he gave in.
With regard to the above-mentioned marriage of Frederick’s eldest
sister with the Prince of Orange, the way in which this unfortunate
man was treated could not have been a better testimony to the bad
breeding of King George and his wife. The poor Dutchman fell ill when
he landed in England, and lay in that state for months, during which
time the whole of the Royal Family were forbidden to go near him,
lest they should make him proud by having such an attention from a
“Royal” House as a sick visit. He was to be taught by little George
to understand that if he ever should receive any dignity at all, it
was not to be his own but a reflection from his marriage with a Royal
Princess of England. In addition, to make things more pleasant all
round--especially for the bride--he was given the name of “the Baboon”
by the King in the family circle, and the Queen generally graciously
referred to him as “that Animal.” All this was calculated to establish
the future happiness of the young couple on a firm and sound basis.
But to return to Frederick, it is very evident that he hesitated long
before he accepted the marriage his father proposed for him, until
in fact it was demonstrated to him that the desire of his heart was
unattainable; then he agreed in the following words: “whoever His
Majesty thought a proper match for his son would be agreeable to him,”
and the negotiations went forward forthwith.
The King, after an unusual struggle, had intimated--undoubtedly on
the initiative of the Queen, for she suggested everything, or at any
rate sanctioned everything before it passed through her hands--that he
intended to allow the Prince £50,000 per annum, which seems a large
sum to us considering the fact that the young couple were to live
with “his people,” but when the sum is dissected, and the huge taxes
deducted, the amount, as will be seen later, was not by any means too
great an income for a Prince of Wales at that time. The sum that the
young princess was to receive from her father’s grateful subjects of
Saxe-Gotha by way of income, did not transpire.
The Prince having given his reluctant consent to the marriage--and
there was something pitiable about it--little time was lost. Walpole
was most anxious to get the Prince married, perhaps he was glad to put
a final stop on the double marriage scheme which had worried him at
intervals for years. Lord Delaware was selected, principally on account
of his ugliness, to demand the hand of the Princess of Saxe-Gotha.
King George had recollections, perhaps, of a certain handsome Count
Königsmarck, who had played havoc in his father’s family, and was
taking no risks in that respect in the present instance. This long,
lank, unpolished nobleman shambled off to fetch the Princess Augusta,
leaving no jealous feeling in anybody’s heart, that he would play the
part of Paolo to the Princess’s Francesca.
There is no doubt whatever that the Princess Augusta was handsome;
certainly she was only seventeen, but gave promise of great beauty, she
was tall, slender, but naturally unformed and fresh from the schoolroom.
Now commenced a somewhat humorous episode. The little King George was
due to meet his dear Walmoden in Hanover on the 29th of the following
May according to promise--how he had endured the intervening months in
his state of middle-aged infatuation it is difficult to conceive--and
the staid, leisurely formalities of the marriage contract over which
the ungainly Delaware presided on behalf of the Prince in Saxe-Gotha,
were one long drawn out agony to the amorous little King of England,
whose deep-drawn sighs of love for his far-away German courtesan must
have been exceedingly gratifying to his wife, the Queen, to listen to,
she being perfectly informed from his own lips how matters stood. At
last King George sent word to Lord Delaware that if the Princess could
not arrive in England by the end of April, the marriage would either
have to be put off till the winter or take place without his presence.
This had the desired effect of hurrying the Princess, who was at the
time saying good-bye to her numerous girl friends, and of course having
her trousseau made. She forthwith set out alone, under the care of that
plain-featured nobleman who had been sent for her.
Poor child! It was a cheerless beginning to the festivities of a
marriage, coming alone without father or mother or relative of any sort
to a strange land to wed with a man she had never seen, and who did not
love her.
The etiquette of King George’s Court did not admit of a Prince of Wales
going to woo a Princess of such an inferior state as Saxe-Gotha; on
the contrary, she had to come to him, but it is said that the young
Princess came joyfully, dazzled by the prospect of becoming Queen of
England.
She arrived at Greenwich in the royal yacht, “William and Mary,” on
Sunday, April 25th, 1736, and was duly handed ashore by Lord Delaware,
who not being a lady’s man was no doubt glad to be rid of his charge.
There was, however, nobody there to meet her. King George did not
believe in, as the Irish say, “cocking up” these small “Serenities”
with too much attention, so she spent the night at Greenwich Palace
alone.
One is confused at this time with the number of royal palaces; St.
James’s, Richmond, Kew, Hampton Court, Leicester House, Kensington,
Greenwich, and Windsor Castle, which latter seemed to be very little
used.
The young Princess created a very favourable impression on the people
on landing; she was exceedingly amiable and engaging, and possessed all
the charm of youth. She showed herself to the people on the balcony of
the Palace and was very warmly received.
The poets were ready with plenty of verses for the young couple, of the
description following:
That pair in Eden ne’er reposed
Where groves more lovely grew;
Those groves in Eden ne’er enclosed
A lovelier pair than you.
Which somehow reminds one of the verses of Mr. Feeder, B.A., in “Dombey
and Son.”
Walpole made the following amusing remark upon it:--“I believe the
Princess will have more beauties bestowed upon her by the occasional
poets than even a painter would afford her. They will cook up a new
Pandora, and in the bottom of the box enclose Hope--that all they
have said is true. A great many, out of excess of good breeding, who
have heard that it was rude to talk Latin before women, proposed
complimenting her in English; which she will be much the better
for.[34] I doubt most of them instead of fearing their compositions
should not be understood, should fear they should; they wish they don’t
know what, to be read by they don’t know who.”
The next day after the landing of the Princess Augusta came the Prince,
and the meeting must have been an exceedingly interesting one to those
about them, especially to the populace who loved them both for their
amiability, and who cheered themselves hoarse in consequence whenever
they caught sight of the pair.
It is said that the Prince was very pleased with her, as indeed he
might well have been, for there is no doubt that she was a very
charming young girl, and what man--especially one of the Prince’s
temperament--would not have been pleased under the circumstances?
But after his impassioned appeal to Baron Borck, which occurred only
a few days before, it is impossible to believe that this child from
abroad--who by the bye brought a doll with her, poor dear--could have
effaced from Frederick’s heart the passion for his cousin Wilhelmina,
which had burned there for so many years, almost from his childhood.
And now the hour had come when she was to lose him for ever; perhaps
there were some tears shed in the private chamber of Wilhelmina in
far-away Berlin, for what girl likes to lose a devoted lover?
Meanwhile, the young Princess waited patiently at Greenwich Palace for
something to occur; she remained there it is said for forty-eight hours
without anyone coming near her, except the Prince, this being a result,
without doubt, of the King’s orders.
His Majesty, however, came down so far from his great altitude as to
send the poor little Princess a message from himself and his family:
“Their compliments, and they hoped she was well.”
This was being taken to the warm bosom of a loving family with a
vengeance! And yet the little Princess seemed to put up with it
without a murmur. Perhaps she confided all her disappointments to her
doll, and wept over them in secret with it, or what was still more
probable, they did things differently in Germany and it was no surprise
to her. Certainly the Royal Family could not have sent a barer message
if the Prince had been going to marry Cinderella.
The Prince, however, was a gentleman and certainly did his best to make
up for the coldness of his relatives whose excuse was that they were
so bound up with etiquette that until Augusta became Princess of Wales
they did not know upon what footing to treat her.
Frederick came down to Greenwich the next day after his first visit in
his state barge and dined with his bride elect; then he did the exact
thing to please a girl. He took her out for a row in his flag-bedecked
barge on the Thames, with a band playing sweet music before them, guns
firing from the river craft, and the people cheering them on the bank;
these seeing their bright young faces, thought how happy the Prince
of Wales must be, not knowing of course anything about his cousin
Wilhelmina over in Berlin.
It is not a far-fetched idea to imagine that the Prince thought of his
lost-love on that journey on the river--they went as far as the Tower
and back again--and wondered how she would have looked in the same
place beside him. It is just what a lover under such circumstances
could not well help doing.
[Illustration: _From “Caroline the Illustrious,” by permission of
Messrs, Longmans, Green & Co._
PRINCESS AUGUSTA.
Wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales.]
The account in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for April, 1736, concludes
by saying that the happy couple returned to Greenwich together, and
“supped in public,” which meant that the young people took their meal
near an open window for the people to see them.
Certainly this must have been an enjoyable day for the young Princess,
during which probably she did not miss the presence of the King and
Queen, whose personality was pretty well known on the Continent.
The next day after this excursion, one of the Royal coaches was sent
down to Greenwich to bring the Princess up to Lambeth, where she
embarked in a royal barge and was rowed across the river to Whitehall.
Thence she was carried in one of Queen Caroline’s sedan chairs to the
garden entrance of St. James’s Palace, by a couple of stout carriers,
to the great content no doubt of the inhabitants of Westminster, who
were assembled there to see her.
Her reception at the palace is said to have been magnificent and
tasteful. Certainly the meeting itself of Frederick and Augusta was
very pretty and likely to impress the public and increase the young
people’s popularity with them.
On the arrival of the bride, Frederick was there to meet her and
gallantly assisted her from her chair. Then when she attempted to kneel
and kiss his hand, he prevented her, but instead drew her to him and
kissed her twice upon the lips before everybody, a proceeding no doubt
which gave satisfaction to all, including the Princess.
The picture of confusion and happiness, it is said the young couple
ascended the broad staircase of the Palace together hand in hand. Thus
they proceeded into the Presence Chamber crowded with courtiers of both
sexes.
Here, according to Lord Hervey, the Princess “threw herself all along
the floor, first at the King’s, then at the Queen’s feet,” and by
so doing greatly pleased little George, whose kingly brow had been
disfigured by wrinkles when she arrived, for she was a little late.
This act was considered by the Court as being so exceedingly tactful
that she was given the credit at once of being a girl of “propriety and
sense.”
But the King graciously raised her up and kissed her on both cheeks
with his royal arm round her. The Queen embraced her too, and the
remainder of the family did their best to make up for their neglect of
her at Greenwich.
This must have been a trying ordeal for the young Princess considering
that her wedding was to take place that very night at nine o’clock!
To avoid the question of precedence before Augusta became Princess of
Wales, the King and Queen decided that she should dine with the younger
members of the family, and this incident gave rise to a scene which
can only be regarded as exceedingly comic, and which gave the bride an
idea of what sort of a family she was marrying into.
Of course it must be remembered that the actors in this absurd scene
were all young, though the Prince was the eldest and certainly
twenty-nine.
For some reason, possibly by way of a joke, for he was extremely fond
of joking, _vide_ the Bubb Doddington incident, the Prince decreed that
at this meal, his brother and all his sisters should sit on stools
without any backs, whilst he and his bride luxuriated in arm-chairs
at the head of the table. Upon this the Duke of Cumberland, who was
fifteen, and the Princesses, refused to go into the Dining Chamber
until the stools were all removed--there ought to have been one for the
Princess Augusta’s doll--and chairs substituted in their place.
This formality being complied with, exception was taken by these young
royalties to the fact that the Prince of Wales and the bride were being
served on bended knee and they were not. This difficulty was got over
by their being allowed to be waited on by their own servants, who it is
presumed served them also on bended knee or in any other position in
which it pleased them to have their food handed to them.
But these young sticklers remained firm on one point, they would _not_
receive coffee from the Prince’s servants for fear they should “pass
some indignity upon them with the cups.” Altogether it was a scene
which was well fitted for a nursery, and no doubt heartily enjoyed by
Augusta who had just come away from one.
It is notable that the King, perhaps having an idea what this dinner
party of his children was likely to be, commanded that they were to
dine “undressed,” that is in their ordinary clothes, and not in the
grand paraphernalia of the wedding. This was probably a wise precaution.
The dinner and the various objections and counter-objections concerning
the etiquette to be observed at the meal occupied nearly all the
afternoon, so that when the time came for uprising, Augusta had barely
time to withdraw to her rooms, and commence that most important
dressing of a girl’s life, whether she be a princess or a ’prentice,
her wedding toilette.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] “Old Blackbourn, the Archbishop of York, told her,” _i.e._, the
Queen, “one day, that he had been talking to her Minister, Walpole,
about the new mistress, and was glad to find that Her Majesty was
so sensible a woman as to like her husband should divert himself.”
Walpole’s Memoirs, App., p. 446.
[31] Hervey’s Memoirs.
[32] End of 1729.
[33] Coxe’s Walpole.
[34] She could not understand a word of English.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE NUPTIALS.
How the Prince and his friends passed the interval between dinner and
the ceremony is not stated in history, but if they spent it over their
wine certainly the Prince came up to time looking his best when the
procession was formed in the great drawing-room of St. James’s Palace
at eight o’clock; then, the great crowd of peers and peeresses were
marshalled into order of precedence.
The ceremony took place in the Chapel of the Palace and was performed
by the Bishop of London to a running accompaniment of artillery in the
neighbouring park. Here is an account of it all from the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ for April, 1736, which must also have been a _Ladies’
Magazine_ in the reading at any rate, from the elaborate descriptions
of the dresses worn; no doubt this accurate journal issued a double
wedding number to give room for the information, and greatly increased
its circulation thereby.
The account:
“Her Highness was in her hair, wearing a crown with one bar, as
Princess of Wales, set all over with diamonds; her robe, likewise, as
Princess of Wales, being of crimson velvet, turned back with several
rows of ermine, and having her train supported by four ladies, all of
whom were in virgin habits of silver, like the Princess, and adorned
with diamonds not less in value than from twenty to thirty thousand
pounds each. Her Highness was led by His Royal Highness the Duke of
Cumberland, and conducted by His Grace the Duke of Grafton, Lord
Chamberlain of the Household, and the Lord Hervey, Vice-Chamberlain,
and attended by the Countess of Effingham, and the other ladies of her
household.
“The marriage service was read by the Lord Bishop of London, Dean of
the Chapel; and after the same was over, a fine anthem was performed by
a great number of voices and instruments.
“When the procession returned his Royal Highness led his bride; and
coming into the drawing-room, their Royal Highnesses kneeled down and
received their Majesties’ blessing.
“At half-an-hour after ten their Majesties sat down to supper in
_ambigu_, the Prince and the Duke being on the King’s right hand, and
the Princess of Wales and the four Princesses on the Queen’s left.
“Their Majesties retiring to the apartments of the Prince of Wales,
the bride was conducted to her bedchamber, the bridegroom to his
dressing-room, where the Duke undressed him, and his Majesty did his
Royal Highness the honour to put on his shirt.
“The bride was undressed by the Princesses, and being in bed in a rich
undress, his Majesty came into the room, the Prince following soon
after in a night-gown of silver stuff, and cap of the finest lace.
“The quality were admitted to see the bride and bridegroom sitting up
in bed surrounded by all the Royal Family.”
That must have been an engaging sight which the little King came upon,
when due intimation had been conveyed to his royal ears that the bride
had been undressed, and re-dressed by her royal maids; the spectacle
of a pretty Princess, in very becoming night attire, sitting up in bed
and blushingly awaiting her bridegroom, must have been a taking sight
indeed.
It seems to have been the custom in those days for a Royal bride and
bridegroom to have held a formal reception in their bedroom, while
sitting up in bed, before finally saying good-night. As a matter of
fact, this was not an English tradition at all, but a ceremony borrowed
from Versailles, where it might have been better understood.
On the occasion of the previous marriage in the family when the
Princess Royal had wedded the Prince of Orange, the latter, never a
favourite with the Queen--as has been stated already--did not make
much of a show sitting up in bed without his peruke and gorgeous
wedding-clothes, which had certainly toned down his deformities and
want of good looks.
Commenting on the following day upon the sight of this royal couple,
the Queen cried:--
“Ah! mon Dieu! quand je voiois entrer ce monstre pour coucher avec ma
fille, j’ai pensé m’évanouir. Je chancelois auparavant mais ce coup là
m’a assommée.”
The Princess, however, did not share this view, and in her way really
appeared to be fond of her husband, and was dutiful to him according to
her lights.
It may be well to mention that the four bridesmaids referred to in the
foregoing account were: Lady Caroline Lennox, daughter of the Duke of
Richmond; Lady Caroline Fitzroy, daughter of the Duke of Grafton; Lady
Caroline Cavendish, daughter of the Duke of Devonshire.
It will be seen that all these ladies bore the name of the Queen, the
fourth, Lady Sophia Fermor, daughter of the Earl of Pomfret, bore the
name of the King’s mother, whom he had always regarded as Queen of
England.
It is said that the King had grumbled at the scarcity of new clothes
at his birthday drawing-room, certainly he could not with reason have
complained of the display at his son’s wedding.
This is a description of some of them from that excellent journal
the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and which seems to have fulfilled, and
fulfilled well, the double functions of the _Queen_ newspaper and the
_Court Circular_ of our day:
“His Majesty was dressed in a gold brocade turned up with silk,
embroidered with large flowers in silver and colours, as was the
waistcoat; the buttons and stars were diamonds.
“Her Majesty was in plain yellow silk, robed and faced with pearls,
diamonds, and other jewels of immense value.
“The Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle and St. Albans, the Earl of Albemarle,
Lord Hervey, Colonel Pelham, and many other noblemen were in gold
brocades of from three to five hundred pounds a suit. The Duke of
Marlborough was in a white velvet and gold brocade, upon which was an
exceedingly rich _point d’Espagne_. The Earl of Euston and many others
were in clothes flowered or sprigged with gold; the Duke of Montagu in
a gold brocaded tissue.
“The waistcoats were universally brocades with large flowers.
“’Twas observed most of the fine clothes were the manufactures of
England, and in honour of our own artists. The few which were French
did not come up to these in richness or goodness or fancy, as was seen
by the clothes worn by the Royal Family, which were all of British
manufacture. The cuffs of the sleeves were universally deep and open,
the waists long, and the plaits more sticking out than ever. The ladies
were principally in brocades of gold and silver, and wore their sleeves
much lower than hath been done for some time.”[35]
One account states that the Prince in his night attire of “silver
stuff”--which must have been most uncomfortable--passed gaily among the
guests at his bedroom reception, whilst his pretty young wife sat bolt
upright in the heavily-draped four-poster. That he exchanged quips and
retorts with the ladies and gentlemen of the Court, in the broad style
which then was fashionable, and that a general air of levity and frolic
prevailed over all without restraint.
One could have wished that those two joyous maids-of-honour, Mary
Bellenden and Mollie Lepel, could have been there, with their bosom
friend, Mrs. Howard, to add their witty congratulations to the crowd
of compliments which floated round the fair young girl wife sitting up
in bed; if those good-humoured jokes were perhaps a little stronger
than they ought to have been, we may rest assured that judging from
their letters which are still extant, that beautiful merry trio,
“Bella-dine,” “the Swiss” and “the Schatz” would have been quite equal
to the occasion.[36]
And so the stiff brocades and the powdered heads having made due
obeisance to the four-poster and its sacred contents, someone
discreetly pulled the curtains, and the crowd withdrew.
[Illustration: MARY BELLENDEN,
4th Duchess of Argyll.
Copied for this book from the Gallery at Inverary by the kindness of
the present Duke.]
FOOTNOTES:
[35] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, April, 1736.
[36] Alas! Poor Mary Bellenden, then fourth Duchess of Argyle, died on
the 18th September, that year, still young.
Lightly rest, thy native Scottish soil upon thee, Mary,
Sweet be thy soul’s eternal rest!
CHAPTER XIV.
LADY ARCHIBALD.
After the marriage nobody seems to have been able to find sufficiently
superlative expressions in which to convey their appreciation of the
Princess’s conduct at the wedding. Lord Waldegrave stated that she
distinguished herself “by a most decent and prudent behaviour, and
the King, notwithstanding his aversion to his son, behaved to her not
only with great politeness, but with the appearance of cordiality
and affection.” The aged Duchess of Marlborough, who was by no means
in love with the Royal Family, said of her “that she always appeared
good-natured and civil to everybody.”
While Sir Robert Walpole paid her a greater compliment than all when
he observed how she had conquered the gruff old King and attracted her
husband’s esteem, he declared that there were “circumstances which
spoke strongly in favour of brains which had but seventeen years to
ripen.” It may be said here that the Princess’s future conduct fully
justified these favourable comments. She had indeed a most difficult
and painful part to play, considering the state of affairs which
existed between the Prince of Wales, her husband, and his father, and
this at the very threshold of her married life was greatly complicated
by a most disagreeable episode which ought never to have occurred.
This was a dispute between the Queen and Frederick as to whether Lady
Archibald Hamilton, the lady of thirty-five with ten children, who had
obtained a strong ascendency over the Prince, should be appointed one
of the ladies-in-waiting upon the Princess.
The Queen very properly argued that scandal had linked the Prince’s
name with this lady’s, and it was invidious to appoint her to
his household, but to this, of course, the Prince retorted very
improperly--but _que voulez-vous_ with such a father?--that “Lady
Suffolk had been appointed to his mother’s household under similar
circumstances.” Lady Archibald Hamilton, however, had her way in the
end. It was arranged by the astute Queen Caroline that only three
ladies-in-waiting on the Princess of Wales should be appointed,
leaving Lady Archibald out, and that the fourth should be left to the
Princess’s choice. The Queen, no doubt, had a pretty shrewd idea who
the fourth lady-in-waiting would be, but was anxious to avoid the
responsibility of her appointment; as a matter of fact, later events
point to Lady Archibald really being a creature of Queen Caroline’s.
Frederick’s influence over his girl-wife very soon became apparent
and was very natural. Lady Archibald’s influence over the Prince
also soon became a patent fact, with the result that may be easily
imagined, “the Hamilton woman,” as she was called, filled the vacant
fourth place among the ladies-in-waiting. Not only was this piece of
_finesse_ easily accomplished by her, but she at once began to exert a
strong influence over the seventeen-year-old Princess of Wales, which
was not to be wondered at. This influence was not exerted for the
young Princess’s benefit by any means; it would almost seem that Lady
Archibald set herself to work to make this pretty young girl ridiculous
in the eyes of the people. Augusta was wholly ignorant of the customs
of the country, and of course very easily led by such a person of
experience as Lady Archibald.
Under the advice of this lady she was persuaded to walk abroad in
Kensington Gardens, preceded by two gentlemen ushers, a chamberlain
leading her by the hand, a page in attendance on her train, and the
rear brought up by ladies-in-waiting, among whom it is pretty certain
the instigator of this absurdity was _not_ present.
The Queen is said to have met this pageant in Kensington Gardens and
to have burst into peals of laughter, which very naturally surprised
the child Princess. Queen Caroline, however, enlightened her there and
then, and compared her to a tragedy queen.
To whose interest was it that this pretty young Princess should be made
ridiculous in the eyes of the English people, upon whom she had made a
favourable first impression?
Had there not also been another Princess of Wales who had made an
equally favourable impression upon the English people and who now was
Queen? Had not this lady reigned unrivalled from 1714 to that year
1736, for her daughters were never attractive enough to become popular
favourites, and they knew that fact very well and resented it.
Is it not a very plain conclusion to draw, that in this making Augusta
absurd in the people’s eyes, Lady Archibald was simply acting under
orders from the Queen, who feared her own fading attractions--she
was very fat--were likely to suffer by comparison with the youthful
radiance of the new Princess of Wales?
In addition, Lady Archibald introduced into the Prince’s household as
many of her husband’s relatives as she possibly could, so that his
apartments were said to be peopled by Hamiltons. But despite the evil
influence of this woman, the Prince and Princess of Wales greatly
gained in popularity after their marriage, and very uncomplimentary
comparisons were drawn by the public between the affability and
courtesy of the young Prince and his bride, and the distinctly
phlegmatic German manners of the King. The Queen had always made
herself agreeable to the people; she was far too wise to do anything
else.
Within a few weeks of her marriage the Princess was witness of a
fight in a theatre for the first time, when the celebrated riot of
the footmen in Drury Lane took place, these brothers of the shoulder
knot and long cane objecting to be shut out of the gallery to which
they claimed to be admitted free, and emphasizing their objections by
storming the doors of the theatre and starting a free fight within, in
which several persons were injured. In the sequel, many of the footmen
were marched off to Newgate.
At this time, too, the great William Pitt--“Cornet Pitt,” and
afterwards Earl of Chatham--made his first speech in the House of
Commons, in seconding the Address of Congratulation to the King on
the marriage of his son, which address was moved by Lyttleton. So
laudatory was Pitt of the virtues of the son that he mortally offended
the father, who never forgave him, and as an instalment of future spite
deprived him of his commissions of Cornet.
But little George the King had other fish to fry; he was due at Hanover
on the 29th May, and whether Sir Robert Walpole approved or not he
intended to go, and keep his tryst with Madame Walmoden and the other
members of her select circle. From the King’s point of view it was high
time he went to look after his interests in this direction, as there
was a certain Captain von der Schulemburg about in connexion with whom
a rope ladder was discovered dangling from Madame Walmoden’s bedroom
window during the King’s visit. But George had made up his mind to go,
and go he would, and did.
Sir Robert Walpole, however, by way of asserting his authority in some
shape or form, got him to take his brother Horace with him as Minister
in Attendance.
But before departing the King appointed the Queen as his Regent, as
usual ignoring his eldest son; at the same time he sent a message
to Frederick intimating that wherever the Queen was, there would be
provided apartments for him and the Princess. The Prince of Wales very
naturally resented this order, which practically constituted him and
his wife prisoners in whichever of the Royal palaces the Queen happened
to be living. The fact of the Queen being appointed Regent was also a
subject of bitter discord between the mother and son, creating a gap
which widened day by day.
CHAPTER XV.
A ROPE LADDER AND SOME STORMS.
It has been already stated that there was at Hanover a certain Captain
von der Schulemberg, whose name became very much coupled with that of
the King’s mistress, Madame Walmoden, and it came about in this wise.
Madame Walmoden inhabited certain grand apartments in the old Leine
Schloss in the town of Hanover--in which palace it will be remembered
that Prince Frederick was born.
The King lived at Herrenhausen Schloss two miles away, and thither the
Walmoden was accustomed to drive every morning and spend the day with
the King. The King, too, would sometimes return with her to the Leine
Palace.
Another important fact must also be mentioned and that is that Madame
Walmoden had presented the King with a fine boy, which she, of course,
declared to be his. The King was fifty-three, fatuous and ready to
believe anything she told him; the birth of this child attached him
more to the Walmoden than ever, a consummation she had no doubt
calculated upon. Now it came about that one night, when the King was
away at Herrenhausen, a muddle-headed gardener with no knowledge of
the courtly world and its pretty little ways, stumbled over a ladder
in the small hours placed immediately under Madame Walmoden’s window,
which looked upon the gardens of the old Leine Schloss, those gardens
through which it is said Sophie Dorothea, the mother of George the
Second, stole disguised to meet her lover Königsmarck at his lodgings
hard by.
The obtuse gardener, instead of leaving the ladder where it was
and going his way, officiously thrust his nose into other people’s
business, and having carefully examined the ladder--some say it was
a rope ladder and fixed to the Walmoden’s window-sill--proceeded to
search the gardens, believing as subsequently stated that a robber
was planning the removal of the mistress’s jewels. As might have been
expected by one less dense he presently discovered a man hiding in
some bushes near. This man he seized, and at the same time alarmed the
palace guard. This man being placed in the guard room and examined
proved as it is stated in one account, “to everyone’s astonishment,”
to be a certain officer in the Austrian service named Schulemberg;
Captain von der Schulemberg, and certainly not a robber in the ordinary
sense of the word. In addition, he was a relative of the Duchess of
Kendal--old Melusine von der Schulemberg--the mistress of George the
First. How these Hanoverian courtesans and their belongings got mixed
up!
Von Schulemberg protested vigorously against his treatment, which
he, perhaps, rightly considered a violation of his dignity as a
diplomatic envoy from the Court of Vienna, but he did not explain how
his diplomatic mission had brought him to the foot of the rope ladder
in the Leine Schloss gardens, which ladder led into the bedroom of
Madame Walmoden. He, however, made so great a noise in the guard room,
striking terror into the heart of the captain of the guard by referring
to the vengeance his master, the Austrian Emperor, would exact for this
insult to his envoy, that the officer let him go, and he departed into
the night, no doubt cursing the gardener.
The story, as may be imagined, was very soon in everybody’s mouth, and
Madame Walmoden was thoroughly alarmed; she knew there were plenty to
carry the story to the King. But she took her courage in both hands,
and did what every woman has done in similar circumstances and will
no doubt continue to do as long as women exist on this earth, beloved
by natures weaker than their own. She ordered her coach soon after
daylight, and by six o’clock was on the road to Herrenhausen to be the
first to tell her version of the story to her elderly royal lover.
At Herrenhausen she passed the royal guards who knew her, and went
straight to the King’s bedroom. Here she cast herself on her knees by
the bed in which little George lay half awakened rubbing his eyes.
She besought him to protect her from insult or allow her to retire from
his Court; in a torrent of tears she declared that she loved him, not
as a king, but as a man and for himself alone. He must have looked far
from loveable at the moment, unshaven and in his nightcap, but these
things are never remembered when a pretty and designing woman is making
love to a man the wrong side of fifty. George the King rubbed his eyes,
and asked for an explanation.
She told him amid her sobs that she was the subject of a dastardly
plot, that a certain Madame d’Elitz had caused a ladder to be placed
beneath her window, with a view to ruining her with the King.
Now Madame d’Elitz was herself a von der Schulemburg, and was credited
by scandal with having been the mistress successively of George the
First, George the Second, and Prince Frederick before he came over to
England. These achievements, however, are doubted by historians as far
as the Prince was concerned, but it is pretty certain she had been the
mistress of the two first Georges, father and son. This bringing in of
Madame d’Elitz was a stroke of genius, as it opened the door for the
Walmoden to tell the King of the arrest of Captain von Schulemberg in
the Leine Schloss gardens. It need hardly be said that her story was
accepted by King George, who ordered the captain of the Leine Palace
Guard to be placed in arrest, and search to be made for von der
Schulemberg, that he might be again made prisoner.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF HERRENHAUSEN, HANOVER.]
But here Horace Walpole, the English minister in attendance, secretly
interposed; he sent word privately to Schulemberg to be off across the
frontier as quickly as he could, and he took care that no obstacles
should be put in the way of his doing so, for the last thing, he knew
very well, that his brother, Sir Robert, wanted, was trouble with the
Austrian Emperor.
And so Madame Walmoden triumphed; but the story spread, even to
England, and in Hanover the infantine features of Madame Walmoden’s
fine boy were scanned more eagerly than ever for traces of his
paternity.
And now, for Queen Caroline in England, a very painful period had
commenced. In the first place the Prince of Wales and his wife had
taken very unkindly to the restrictions put upon them most unreasonably
like two children by the absent King, and not even the influence of
Lady Archibald Hamilton could prevent them from showing it.
The commands concerning moving about with the Queen from palace
to palace were not complied with, and a very ingeniously arranged
succession of illnesses of the Princess utterly defeated the King’s
intention. So keenly had the Prince felt the humiliations put upon
him by his father in appointing the Queen as Regent instead of
himself, that he did not attend the opening of the Commission--which
was invariably held when news arrived of the King’s landing on the
Continent--but came designedly when the proceedings were over. In
this and in many other ways the breach between the Prince and his
mother widened, though it must be said that at this time the Queen
showed both to him and his wife the utmost patience under very trying
circumstances. This was no doubt owing to Walpole, who was, as Prime
Minister, very naturally her constant attendant at this time; the
patience and good sense of Walpole no doubt kept peace in the Royal
Family for a much longer period than it would have been maintained
under the counsels of a less sagacious minister, and it is much to be
wondered at, that Sir Robert did not use his influence to persuade the
King to give the Prince of Wales the full allowance of £100,000 a year
to which he was so clearly entitled by the vote of Parliament.
But there was another matter, which was the subject of much discussion
at Court and of much pain to the Queen, and this was the hopeless
infatuation of the King for Madame Walmoden. It was well known to all
the Court that the King had hastened back to Hanover after an interval
of only eight months, instead of three years, and that, moreover, he
showed no signs of coming back again. But now the Queen was not taking
his infidelity with the same calmness which she had shown in former
cases; there were signs that her patience was giving out, and that
she was losing heart. Her letters were abridged, from the usual four
dozen pages to seven or eight; it was this circumstance particularly
which alarmed Walpole and others, till at last the rough, uncouth Sir
Robert spoke out to her on the subject in perhaps the plainest language
in which a subject has ever addressed a King’s wife. He naturally
feared with the rest of the Court that her power over the King might
die out altogether, especially if she showed any resentment to the
infamous conduct of her husband which strangely enough she had never
done before. Walpole did not spare her feelings; he reminded her of her
age and the beauty of her rival, the Walmoden; he did not scruple to
say that the Queen’s attractions had faded, and that she could never
expect to regain the ascendency over the King which she had for so long
enjoyed. He urged her to resume her long letters to her husband, and
to write them in a spirit of humility and submission. Finally, he made
the most extraordinary request that has ever been made to a wronged and
angry wife; he advised her to write and invite the King to bring back
his new mistress to England with him.
No wonder the tears sprang to the Queen’s eyes; but it is said she at
once suppressed them, and attracted by the bait of fresh power over her
husband temptingly held out by the wily Sir Robert--who wished to get
this new mistress of the King into his own power, and under his own
eye--the Queen consented to follow his advice.
Then came a time of doubt and apprehension; it was questioned whether
the woman in the Queen’s nature would not get the ascendency, and that
she would revolt from this vile thing. But she did nothing of the
sort; in a few days Walpole had the satisfaction of knowing that the
very letter he desired had been sent off to the King. Still Walpole
had some distrust of the Queen; she was too calm and too compliant to
satisfy him, and he confided to a friend that he could stand the Queen’s
anger and reproof, but he was afraid of her when she “daubed” (_i.e._,
flattered).
But the Queen spoke quite calmly of her rival, and actually allotted
her rooms in the palace. Moreover, to Walpole’s amazement, she proposed
to take her into her own service, no doubt with a view to keeping
an eye upon her, as she had done in the case of the King’s former
mistress, Lady Suffolk.
But this arrangement Walpole opposed, and she in reply quoted the
case of Lady Suffolk; to this Sir Robert rejoined that “there was a
difference between the King making a mistress of the Queen’s servant,
and making a Queen’s servant of his mistress!”
“The people,” he continued, “might reasonably look upon the first as a
very natural condition of things, whilst popular feelings of morality
might be outraged by the second.”
The King’s reply to his wife’s letter was just what the old minister
had calculated upon; it was full of admiration at his wife’s
amiability, and he forthwith proceeded to give her by way of reward
glowing descriptions of her rival’s attractions, both of the mind and
body. Principally the latter, and he finished up with a fervent tribute
to his wife’s virtue, which he longed to imitate, but he excused
himself pitifully: “You know my passions, my dear Caroline”--he prided
himself on his passions--“you know my weaknesses,” and he finished up
with a semi-blasphemous appeal to God that Caroline might cure him
of them. But as the Queen had failed to do this as a beautiful young
woman, it was rather hopeless to look for a cure that way now that she
was fat, getting wrinkled, and nearly fifty-four.
The King about this time also took an opportunity of consulting the
Queen on the subject of that very convincing rope ladder which had been
discovered dangling from Madame Walmoden’s bedroom window with Captain
von der Schulemberg hiding in very close proximity to its earthly end,
by which it is supposed that he intended to mount to a very carnal
Elysium. Little George was anxious to hear what his wife thought of the
matter, which looks very much as if he had not entirely swallowed that
very ingenious story sobbed out by the implicated fair one that early
morning at Herrenhausen. But much as he valued her opinion, still
he advised her to take further advice on the point, as if it were a
subject of State importance. He asked her to consult Walpole--who must
have been intensely amused, and probably had a good laugh over it with
the Queen. Walpole “_le gros homme_” as he called him, “who,” continued
the simple little King, “has more experience in these sort of matters,
my dear Caroline, than yourself, and who, in the present affair, must
necessarily be less prejudiced than I am.” How they must have _roared_!
But while the King was wasting his time in Hanover, the Prince and
Princess of Wales were growing in popular favour at home, and it must
be said that the young couple did their best to further this feeling of
the people.
There was slowly and surely growing among the public a feeling of
disgust at the King, and it was said by some that it would be better
if he remained away in Hanover with his German mistress altogether.
Another matter which brought George the Second into disrepute was that
it was said he kept several important commissions in the Army vacant,
and pocketed the pay attached to them.[37] This was the kind of thing
very popular with his late father’s mistresses, Schulemburg and others.
The Queen was greatly commiserated, and indeed was to be pitied under
the circumstances, although she had to a great extent brought the
trouble on herself by her abominable pandering to her husband’s vices.
Insulting pasquinades now began to make their appearance directed
against the King. A lame, blind and aged horse with a saddle and a
pillion behind it was sent to wander loose through the streets--in
which, of course, there were no police--with a placard tied to its head
asking that no one should stop him as he was “the King’s Hanoverian
equipage going to fetch His Majesty and his w---- to England.”
But the most insulting of these public notices was that affixed to St.
James’s Palace itself and which read as follows:
“Lost or strayed out of this house a man who has left a wife and six
children on the Parish. Whoever will give any tidings of him to the
Churchwardens of St. James’s Parish so as he may be got again, shall
receive four shillings and sixpence reward. N.B.--This reward will not
be increased, nobody judging him to deserve a crown.”
Strangely enough the little King was not exasperated with these public
satires on his immorality and neglect of his wife. He liked to be
considered a Don Juan and a bit of a rake; the only jokes which angered
him were those in which he was referred to as a senile libertine, past
the age for gallantry.
Meanwhile the friction between Frederick and his mother increased, and
was much added to by the conduct of the Princess in arriving late
for church on several Sundays, and causing Her Majesty to cease her
devotions, rise from her knees, and permit the Princess to squeeze by
her--the Queen was very stout and the pew small--to her seat.
This conduct was attributed by those about the Queen to the Prince of
Wales, who had designed a studied insult by it, to make his mother look
ridiculous, but it is much more likely to have been the thoughtless act
of a young girl. However, after two or three Sundays of it, the Queen
made arrangements for the Princess to come in at another door. Lord
Hervey appears to have been very active in fomenting the disagreement
between Queen Caroline and the Prince and Princess of Wales at this
time, particularly during a squabble which occurred concerning the
removal of Frederick and his wife from Kensington to St. James’s, when
they found the dulness of the former place intolerable. The Queen was
greatly upset by this, as it is pretty certain that she had received
definite orders from her husband not to let the Prince of Wales live in
any other palace but that which she inhabited, for the very good reason
that he did not want him to set up a separate Court, which would have
been in opposition to his own, and in addition, an exceedingly popular
one.
The Prince’s letter in reply--written in French--seems to have been
a very dutiful one, but was thought to have been written for him by
Lord Chesterfield. Lord Hervey unintentionally paid a great compliment
to Lord Chesterfield’s accomplishments by saying that the letter might
have been written by “Young Pitt,” but was certainly not sufficiently
elegant for Lord Chesterfield. It was about this time that the Prince
began to sink deeper and deeper into debt, a consequence no doubt of
his marriage, and very foolishly began to raise money at enormous
interest to be repaid on the death of his father.
This, of course, very soon reached the ears of the Queen, and Lord
Hervey appears to have made himself particularly active about the
matter. During a discussion which ensued between them the Queen
seems to have remarked that she considered the Prince of Wales far
too unambitious to wish for the death of his father, to which Hervey
replied that if that were so, certainly the feeling did not extend to
the Prince’s creditors, who would be immensely benefited by the King’s
death. He went so far as to point out that the Sovereign’s life was in
jeopardy as a result of the _post obits_ of the Prince of Wales, and
suggested that a Bill should be brought into Parliament making it a
capital offence for any man to lend money for a premium at the King’s
death, and so worked upon the Queen’s feelings that she replied:
“To be sure it ought to be so, and pray talk a little with Sir Robert
Walpole about it.”
But Walpole very wisely ignored the suggestion, being, no doubt well
aware of the source from which it came; he was far too sagacious to
bring the private disputes of the Royal Family before the public.
The Queen then approached the Princess of Wales with a view to
engaging her influence to prevent the Prince borrowing money, but the
Princess showed her wisdom by declining to take sides against her
husband, for which dutiful decision she gained but small thanks from
her mother-in-law. But now the King at last decided to tear himself
away from Hanover, and at the same time to accept the Queen’s very
kindly offer that he should bring his lady love, Madame de Walmoden,
to England with him. What an offer from a wife! What a married state
for any unfortunate woman to have lived in! King George was in deadly
earnest about bringing over his paramour with him, and ordered the
apartments lately occupied by Lady Suffolk to be prepared for her, and
this it appears, under the Queen’s directions, was done.
This letter of the King was shown to Walpole by Caroline:
“Well now, Sir Robert,” she said, “I hope you are satisfied. You see
this minion is coming to England.”
Walpole, however, had evidently received private information from his
brother who was Minister in Attendance on the King in Hanover; he
shook his head in answer to the Queen’s remark, and said he did not
believe that the Walmoden would come, and that, in his opinion, she was
afraid of the Queen.
He was quite right; at the last moment, Madame de Walmoden changed her
mind--if she really had had any intention of coming--and decided to
remain in Hanover; she had no fancy for crossing swords with Caroline.
So King George set off in a huff by himself for Helvetsluis _en route_
for home.
The Prince of Wales, meanwhile, had been steadily gaining in popular
favour, while it was known that the King had been squandering large
sums of money--English money for the most part--in Hanover on German
women, a fact which greatly disgusted his English subjects. Frederick
very judiciously gave £500 to the Lord Mayor for the purpose of
releasing poor freemen of the city from debtors’ prisons. This was
particularly exasperating to the Queen, Hervey and other members of the
Court party, who knew that this £500 was probably borrowed at usurious
interest on a _post obit_ of the King. Frederick and his wife, however,
went placidly on their way, leaving their suite at Kensington, where
the Queen was, and themselves coming into town and holding a little
Court of their own, which was the very thing the little King had tried
to prevent.
It may have been reports of these matters, and the growing discontent
at his absence which caused the King to hasten to Helvetsluis--he
left Hanover on December 7th after a ball and farewell supper at
Herrenhausen, without even stopping at the Hague to see his daughter
Anne, Princess of Orange, who was at that time at death’s door after
the death of a still-born daughter, and had sent him an urgent message
to come to her. But George was not a feeling parent, and, above all,
disliked anything to do with children.
And now occurred an event which caused in England both consternation
and satisfaction; consternation to the Queen and the Court
party--Hervey and his like particularly felt it--and satisfaction to
the bulk of the English people, who had had quite sufficient of George
the Second and his doings and who ardently desired the accession to the
throne of their favourite the Prince of Wales.
The wind being fair, and the King being reported arrived at Helvetsluis
and about to embark, a terrific hurricane arose in the channel in
which it was considered impossible that the Royal Yacht could have
lived. Wagers were freely laid in London against the King ever setting
foot in his kingdom of England again. The possibilities of the future
began to be very freely discussed, even in the Royal Family, and the
Queen’s confidant showed decided signs of trimming. The Queen was
greatly alarmed, and even imagined that she saw in Frederick signs of
satisfaction; she now roundly abused her son to Hervey, saying: “Mon
Dieu! Popularity always makes me feel sick, but Fritz’s popularity
makes me vomit.”
The Prince, however, appears to have conducted himself very moderately
during this period, and to have had every consideration for his mother.
Not one infilial remark is recorded of him at this crisis, and if he
had made one it is pretty certain to have been noted by his enemy
Hervey in his letters, which did not omit much, true or false, which
was to the Prince’s discredit.
The Princesses, his sisters, who had been his enemies also, were
appalled at the prospect of his becoming King, and one of them declared
that it was her intention to depart “_au grand galop_.” The state of
uncertainty as to the King’s safety continued for over a week, during
which the fears of the Queen and her party were increased by the news
that the sound of guns booming far away in the channel as if fired by
ships in distress had been heard from Harwich.
Things began to look very black indeed, and it was thought necessary
for the Prince to prepare his mother for the worst, and Lord Hervey
also hinted that he thought the King’s case was hopeless.
But the citizens of London who idolized the Prince and Princess of
Wales were secretly delighted, and would not have been averse to
hearing that the Walmoden was on Board the Royal Yacht with the King.
But at the gloomiest moment, a courier who had risked his life in the
awful tempest with the crew of the vessel in which he sailed especially
to carry a letter to the Queen was “miraculously,” as it was excitedly
stated, flung ashore at Yarmouth, and came post haste to London with
the news that the King had not embarked at all, but was waiting for
fine weather at Helvetsluis. This courageous messenger and the still
more courageous crew of the vessel had been three days at sea with
the wind in their teeth and their opportune landing was spoken of by
mariners in the terms mentioned above.
The Queen showed great joy at hearing everybody cry “The King is safe!
the King is safe!” when the courier in his muddy boots arrived, but it
was a terrible shock to the partisans of the Prince, and his friends in
the City could with difficulty muster up the necessary congratulations.
The Queen who had shown an outward calm during the crisis now expressed
herself joyously in characteristic terms:--
“_J’ai toujours dit que le Roi n’était pas embarque_;” she exclaimed.
“_On a beau voulu m’effraier cet après-diner avec leur letters, et leur
sots, gens de Harwich; j’ai continue à lire mon Rollin, et me moquois
de tout cela._”
This was a hit at Frederick who had brought her the news from Harwich
in a letter. Rollin was one of her favourite books. But strange to
say the matter by no means ended here. Fine weather came with an
easterly wind which was just what the King wanted, and matters looked
perfectly settled for his return, but it was not so. Scarcely had this
fine spell lasted long enough to allow the King time to embark when
the wind veered to the north-west and blew again an awful hurricane,
worse if possible than the former one which had caused such grave
anxiety at the Court. This was on the 20th of December, 1736, and no
doubt whatever was now held that the King had embarked as indeed he
had. From the 20th to the 24th there was no news of him at all, but
on the latter date tidings arrived which were far from reassuring. A
shattered mastless sloop was thrown up on the coast, having on board
a party of clerks from the Secretary’s office of the King, and these
stated that they had sailed with His Majesty from Helvetsluis on the
previous Monday, and that they had remained with the rest of the fleet
until the storm arose when the Admiral, Sir Charles Wager, had made the
signal for each ship to look after itself. When the passengers of the
sloop last saw the Royal Yacht, she was “tacking about” with a view
apparently to make an endeavour to return to Helvetsluis. So grave was
this news considered, that Sir Robert Walpole prevented the Queen from
interviewing these shipwrecked clerks. Once more were the hopes and
exultations of the Court Party ruthlessly shattered; once more did the
partisans of the Prince with his stout friends in the city rub their
hands in dark corners. This time the Queen was thoroughly alarmed, and
showed it in her countenance. The next day, Christmas Day, was perhaps
the gloomiest in men’s knowledge at that time. On this day, probably in
the early morning, four ships of the King’s convoy were thrown up in a
mastless condition on the coast, and the only account of the King which
they could give, was that about six o’clock on the Monday night, the
20th December, a gun was fired by Sir Charles Wager’s order as a signal
for the fleet to separate; a kind of _sauve qui peut_. That the wind
continued in its full violence for forty-eight hours after this. One of
the letters containing this intelligence was brought by Lord Augustus
Fitzroy, second son of the Duke of Grafton, who, though only twenty
years of age, was Captain of a man-of-war, “The Eltham,” which had
succeeded with great difficulty in getting into Margate that Christmas
morning.
This further news was kept from the Queen altogether, and that evening
a sad party sat down in the Palace of St. James’s to pretend to play
cards, while every ear was strained to catch the least sound which
might be the precursor of the news of the King’s death. In basset and
cribbage was that Christmas night passed by the Queen, while Sir Robert
Walpole, the Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle, Montagu, Devonshire and
Richmond, with Lord Hervey, talked of everything they could think of,
but the King’s danger, or walked moodily up and down in the shadows.
But the next morning, the 26th, Sir Robert Walpole came to the Queen
at nine o’clock and told her all. Then her fortitude gave way and she
wept, but not for long. She dried her tears and expressed her intention
of going to church--it was a Sunday. This resolve Sir Robert considered
most injudicious as it would make the Queen an object of curiosity in
public, which in her disturbed state was not desirable. It did not seem
to strike this old heathen that she went there to pray, and even if
it had, he would have been quite wrong, as the Queen’s own expressed
reason was that she would not give up hope, and believe her husband
drowned until it became a certainty. That her stopping away from Church
would have been construed into an admission of the King’s death.
However, all her doubts were ended during the service, as once more an
express arrived from the King to tell her he was safe and sound, but
had been terribly sea-sick. That after setting sail from Helvetsluis on
the previous Monday morning at eight o’clock, he had with difficulty
regained that port at three on the following afternoon.
The King blamed Sir Charles Wager for the whole business, and said
the Admiral had hurried him on board against his will, whereas, in
truth it was the King who was impatient, and who had said that unless
the Admiral would sail, he would go over in a packet boat rather than
endure Helvetsluis any longer.
“Be the weather what it may,” concluded the irascible little King, “I
am not afraid.”
“_I am_,” laconically responded the Admiral.
George persisted.
“I want to see a storm,” continued the King, “and would rather be
twelve hours in one than shut up twenty-four in Helvetsluis.”
“Twelve hours in a storm,” replied the rough and ready Admiral, “four
hours would do your business for you.”
The Admiral refused to sail until the wind was fair, clinching the
argument by remarking that though the King might make him go, “I,”
concluded Sir Charles with satisfaction, “can make you come back again.”
And he did bring him back again, for which the King ought to have been
eternally grateful to him, for it was only the splendid seamanship of
the Admiral which saved him.
“Sir,” remarked Sir Charles, when they did get back, “you wished to see
a storm, how did your Majesty like it?”
“So well,” answered the King, no doubt with a most rueful countenance,
for he had been fearfully sick, “that I never wish to see another!”
The Admiral remarked in a letter to a friend at the time: “His Majesty
was at present as _tame_ as any about him.”
“An epithet,” comments Lord Hervey who had read the letter, “that his
Majesty, had he known it, would, I fancy, have liked, next to the
storm, the least of anything that happened to him.”
But there were many of these letters came to the Court by the same ship
which brought the King’s, and the above passage of words between George
and the Admiral was well known in the King’s suite at Helvetsluis,
therefore when the Queen walked about with the King’s letter in her
hand praising her husband’s patience, and condemning Admiral Wager as
the cause of all their apprehension, it was somewhat difficult for
the couriers to keep their countenances when they realized the King’s
wilful mendacity to his wife.
All the hopes of the Prince’s party were now crushed, but it is not
recorded by Lord Hervey that Frederick gave vent to any other remark
but that of thankfulness for his father’s return.
His followers, and especially those in the city, while expressing their
thankfulness, qualified it; the common expression in referring to the
King’s escape was--“It’s the mercy of God, but a thousand pities!”
It is to be feared that had they heard that the Royal Yacht with
the King and Madame Walmoden on board, had sunk in mid-Channel, the
expression of their thanks might have been the same without the
concluding sentence.
The catch query at the time of this voyage was:
“How’s the wind for the King?”
And the popular answer was:--“Like the nation, against him.”
The danger over, the Queen confided her feelings to her almost
inseparable companion the Vice-Chamberlain, Lord Hervey; after telling
him of her affection for him--it was a motherly affection, she was
fifty-three,--and the pleasure his society gave her she added:
“You and yours should have gone with me to Somerset House[38] and
though I have neither so good an apartment there for you as you have
here, nor an employment worth your taking, I should have lodged you as
well as I could, and given you at least as much as you have now from
the King.”
The Queen, however, wrote a very dutiful and tender letter to the King,
full of art and flattery, but it seems to have touched George’s heart
deeply; perhaps in those twelve hours of tossing in the storms of
the Channel, the little man had thought seriously of the foolishness
of leaving so good a wife, that in the search after happiness,
he was leaving the substance in Caroline--and she was certainly
substantial--for the elusive shadow in the Walmoden; anyhow he wrote
his Queen a most remarkable letter of thirty pages, more the effusion
of an eager lover than an old man for his wife.
“In spite of all the danger I have incurred in this tempest, my dear
Caroline,” he wrote, “and notwithstanding all I have suffered, having
been ill to an excess which I thought the human body could not bear, I
assure you that I would expose myself to it again and again to have the
pleasure of hearing the testimonies of your affection, with which my
position inspired you. This affection which you testify for me, this
friendship, this fidelity, the inexhaustible goodness which you show
for me, and the indulgence which you have for all my weaknesses, are so
many obligations, which I can never sufficiently recompense, can never
sufficiently merit, but which I also can never forget.”[39]
Certainly the storm had shaken the little man very much and left him
in a condition which would have proved weak in the crisis which arose
after his return, had he not been supported on the one hand by Walpole
and on the other by his ever scheming Queen.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] This has been denied.
[38] Her jointure House.
[39] _This is the pretty original French_:--
“Malgré tout le danger que j’ai essuie dans cette tempête ma chère
Caroline, et malgré tout ce que j’ai souffert en etant malade à un
point que je ne croisois, pas quel le corps humain pourroit souffrir,
je vour jure que je m’éxposorois encore et encore pour avoir le
plaisir d’entendre les marques de votre tendresse que cette situation
m’a procuré. Cette affection que vous temoignez, cette amitié, cette
fidelité, cette bonté inépuisable que vous avez pour moi, et cette
indulgence pour toutes mes foiblesses sont des obligations que je ne
sçaurai, jamais récompenser, que je ne sçaurai mériter, mais que je ne
sçaurai jamais oublier non plus.”
CHAPTER XVI.
PARLIAMENT AND THE PRINCE’S INCOME.
It has been stated that the Prince of Wales’s popularity had been
steadily growing ever since his marriage. It was much increased about
this time, just before the King’s return, by his determined action
at a fire which occurred near the Temple, the latter cluster of old
buildings being said to have been saved by his timely intervention,
which limited the loss to five or six houses.
He appears to have worked among the crowd, and to have excited its
admiration to a remarkable degree. Some unwise persons raised a cry of
“Crown him! Crown him!!” and this being duly reported to his mother,
the Queen, caused her the gravest anxiety, and the most unreasonable
anger.
Hervey, as usual, poured oil, not upon the troubled waters, but upon
the fire of her wrath; he suggested that owing to the King being so
much hated and the Prince so popular, the latter believed that his
favour with the people helped to keep his father on the throne.
To this the Queen replied bitterly that owing to the reports of the
Prince’s popularity--brought to her principally by Lord Hervey, who
was her news-carrier-in-chief--that popularity, instead of keeping
the King upon the throne, was likely to depose him. But a far greater
cause of dissension between the Prince of Wales and his parents was now
looming very near. It cannot be doubted that when Lord Bolingbroke, to
use his own words, “left the stage,” he gave to the Prince detailed
instructions for a move to be made in Parliament for an increase of his
income; that increase which he, together with the bulk of the nation,
considered he was fully entitled to under the settlement of the Civil
List on his father ascending the throne of England. The subtle talent
of the great diplomatist had mapped all this out long before he left
these shores, possibly as a Parthian shaft at his enemies whom he left
behind triumphant. Be this as it may, a glance at the Prince’s position
will, however, fully justify the course he took.
Before his marriage, it appears that he received from his father
£24,000 a year, not in any fixed or settled income, but as the King
chose to give it to him. It must be remembered that the cost of living
for royal personages was then much more than it is at present, the
expenses for dress and the _personnel_ of the Household were far in
excess of anything we know of in our day. In those times as much as
five hundred pounds were given for one court suit, and the ladies’
dresses were in proportion as regards cost.
On the Prince’s marriage, no jointure was settled on his wife, who
brought him a paltry dowry of five thousand pounds, but the King
increased his allowance to £50,000 a year.
This on the face of it appeared a wonderful addition, but it must be
remembered that the Prince was very much in debt, and that the expenses
of the marriage itself were enormous; they could not possibly have been
otherwise in the case of a Prince of Wales.
As regards the increase in his household, the expenses were at once
doubled, as the Princess had practically a new household of her own,
with ladies-in-waiting, gentlemen-in-waiting, women of the bedchamber,
gentlemen ushers, and a host of others required by the Court etiquette
of the time. What would have been a large income for a nobleman
was totally inadequate for the Prince of Wales, and as a result he
commenced at once to fall deeper and deeper into debt. It is not
surprising with these facts facing him, and with the knowledge that
his father--who most of this time was engaged in squandering enormous
sums of good English gold on German women--received from George the
First, the full sum of £100,000 per annum allotted by Parliament as
the income of the Prince of Wales. These thoughts, together with the
prospect of greatly increased expenses in the future must have been
very galling--for the probability of a child being born to them
must have been known to the Prince and Princess at this time, though
not disclosed until later. It is not to be wondered at then that the
Prince thought over Bolingbroke’s counsels, and eventually decided to
take a strong step to obtain that increase in his income to which he
was evidently fully entitled by Act of Parliament, and which he would
have received in the ordinary way but for the fact of the hatred and
meanness of his parents towards him. For the hatred at least a good
reason will be shown in its proper place.
The Prince then having consulted with his advisers--and the principal
of these were the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Carteret and Mr.
Pulteney--decided to appeal to Parliament to petition the King to grant
him that same income as Prince of Wales, which he himself received from
George the First.
* * * * *
The first sign of the King’s return home was a letter received on the
early morning of Saturday, January 14th, by express from his Majesty
stating that after a delay of five weeks at Helvetsluis, he had at last
embarked, and after encountering a contrary wind all the way, they had
tacked until at last they made Lowestoft, at which port the King had
landed about noon on the previous day.
The news seems to have been held back in the ante-room while the Queen
slept, and here Sir Robert Walpole and the Prince of Wales appear to
have met and had a two hours’ chat, whilst they waited for the Queen to
wake.
According to Hervey, most of the talking appears to have been carried
on by Sir Robert, who seems to have grasped the opportunity to lecture
the Prince in that fatherly manner adopted by old men towards young
ones when their pockets are not affected. As reported by Hervey,
Walpole’s discourse was a string of sleepy platitudes--he had been
roused out of his bed--peculiarly irritating to the Prince under the
circumstances, which he seems to have listened to with exemplary
patience, but the vital subject of the increase in his income does not
appear to have been touched upon at all. The next day the King arrived
at St. James’s Palace, and the Queen and the whole of the Royal Family
went down into the Colonnade to receive him.
Contrary to all expectation he was in an excellent humour, but
suffering from a terrible cold.
He kissed everybody, including the Prince of Wales, and was at once
marched off to bed by his solicitous spouse, to be doctored for his
cold, which by this time, from long neglect, required careful nursing.
Here in his bedroom he was kept a close prisoner by the Queen, and very
few people were allowed to see him; those that did, did not come away
with any great opinion either of his health or his temper, which had
not improved by confinement. Any allusion to his royal health irritated
him beyond measure. Lord Dunmore, one of his Lords of the Chamber,
offended in this respect, and was ordered out. To Lord Pembroke, whom
he called to take his place, he spoke of the erring nobleman as a
troublesome inquisitive “puppy,” a designation very much in the royal
favour at that time; he added that he and others were always plagueing
him about his health like a parcel of old nurses.
Sir Robert Walpole and others got very anxious about the King at this
time, mainly on account of the seclusion in which he was kept by the
Queen. He was certainly unwell, suffering undoubtedly from the reaction
after the excitement of his escape from shipwreck, and perhaps his
excesses in Hanover, for he was getting old; but his indisposition was
but a slight one, and when he came out from his apartments, which he
did just at the time it suited the Queen to let him, it was found that
his recovery was very rapid indeed.
It is more than probable that the Queen had a strong reason for keeping
up at this time the idea of his ill-health, and a reason may be easily
found for it, in the following incident.
There can be no doubt whatever, although, according to Hervey, she
strenuously denied it, that during the summer of 1736, the Prince of
Wales soon after his marriage appealed to his mother on the subject
of his financial position, and that at the same time he informed her
of his intention to seek the aid of Parliament to obtain his full
allowance of £100,000 a year as Prince of Wales, and a jointure for
the Princess. The circumstance is recorded both by Lord Hardwicke, the
Lord Chancellor, in his papers, and by Doddington in his diary.
The Queen affected to receive the announcement airily, and to laugh
it off, according to the Prince’s description of the interview, but
nevertheless she may have taken the matter to heart more seriously
than she pretended, and knowing that Parliament was to meet almost
immediately after the King’s return; it is quite possible that she
made the most of the King’s indisposition to keep the Prince and his
Party from bringing the matter of the income forward. If she did, she
made a miscalculation, for many votes probably went the Prince’s side
on account of this supposed uncertainty of the King’s life, and the
probable accession of the Prince to the throne.
It was, however, only a few days before the motion was made in the
House of Commons that definite information reached the Court, through
Lord Hervey, as usual, that the Prince intended to lay the dispute
between himself and his father concerning his income before Parliament.
Lord Hervey begged the Queen not to tell the King that night as it
might disturb his rest and set him fuming, but to break it gently to
him in the morning; this she did, when the King took the news much more
calmly than was expected, and in fact showed much less concern than the
Queen all through.
Then began a state of excitement which divided the country into two
great parties, those for the King, and those for the Prince, which
latter was by far the larger party.
But as in the present day, but still a great deal more so then, the
House of Commons was divided by many interests, principally the
interests of the individuals who sat there.
For a King to be sending about in the House, bribing members with
actual hard cash to vote for him, seems a very shocking thing in our
eyes, but it was not uncommon then. In addition there was a strong
party among the Tories--at whose head was Sir William Wyndham--who
regarded the Prince’s application to Parliament as a motion injurious
to the constitution, and who, while sympathizing with him and
determined not to vote against him, yet hesitated to commit themselves
by voting for him. But the Prince and his Party lost no opportunity
to secure votes; Mr. Pulteney, the leader of the Opposition was with
them hand and glove, and it certainly appeared, if the Tory party could
be counted upon, that the Prince would gain the victory, which would
have been a crushing blow to the Court and Walpole. So serious did
matters begin to look that Sir Robert counselled a compromise, and with
great difficulty persuaded the King--and Queen--to send a message to
the Prince offering to settle Fifty Thousand a year upon him certain,
instead of the present voluntary allowance and to give the Princess a
jointure--amount not stated. The following is the text of this document
with which the Lord Chancellor (Lord Hardwicke, who had only received
the Great Seal that morning, and who did not relish this message to the
Prince as the first act of his Chancellorship), Lord President, Lord
Steward, Lord Chamberlain, Dukes of Richmond, Argyll[40] and Newcastle,
Earls of Pembroke and Scarborough and Lord Harrington, were sent to the
Prince of Wales:
“His Majesty has commanded us to acquaint your Royal Highness, in his
name, that upon your Royal Highness’s marriage, he immediately took
into his Royal consideration the settling a proper jointure upon the
Princess of Wales; but his sudden going abroad and his indisposition
since his return had hitherto retarded the execution of these his
gracious intentions; from which short delay His Majesty did not
apprehend any serious inconvenience could arise[41]; especially since
no application had in any manner been made to him upon this subject by
your Royal Highness; and that His Majesty hath now given orders for
settling a jointure upon the Princess of Wales, as far as he is enabled
by law, suitable to her rank and dignity; which he will in proper time
lay before his Parliament in order to be made certain and effectual
for the benefit of Her Royal Highness. The King has further commanded
us to acquaint your Royal Highness that though your Royal Highness has
not thought fit, by any application to His Majesty, to desire that your
allowance of fifty thousand pounds per annum, which is now paid you by
monthly payments, at the choice of your Royal Highness, preferably to
quarterly payments, might by His Majesty’s further grace and favour be
rendered less precarious. His Majesty, to prevent the bad consequences
which he apprehends may follow from the _undutiful measures_, which His
Majesty is informed your Royal Highness has been advised to pursue,
will grant to your Royal Highness for His Majesty’s life, the said
fifty thousand pounds per annum, to be issuing out of His Majesty’s
Civil List Revenues, over and above your Royal Highness’s revenues
arising from _the Duchy of Cornwall_, which His Majesty considers a
very competent allowance, considering his numerous issue and the great
expenses which do and must necessarily attend an honourable provision
for his whole family.”
Such was the message which the Lord Chancellor, by command of King
George, read over to his son, in the presence of the nine other
noblemen who accompanied him.
According to the circumstantial account of the interview given by Lord
Hervey, the Prince stepped up to Lord Hardwicke, who had kissed hands
and been congratulated by him on his appointment as Chancellor, and
made the following communication in a “sort of whisper”:
“That he wondered it should be said in the message that he had made no
sort of communication to the King on this business, when the Queen knew
he had often applied to him through her, and that he had been forbidden
by the King ever since the audience he asked of his Majesty two years
ago at Kensington, relating to his marriage, ever to apply to him again
any way but by the Queen.”
Upon this communication being repeated to the Queen, she flew into a
violent rage, and called the Prince a liar!
To this she added, according to Lord Hervey’s account--which looks
very much like his own cooking--a great deal of special pleading to
endeavour to show that there were no witnesses to prove the Prince’s
assertion. But the plain answer to this is that it was hardly the
sort of communication, especially passing between mother and son, at
which the Prince would have been likely to have provided himself with
witnesses. Against the Queen’s denial, we have the record of such a
communication having taken place in the papers of Lord Hardwicke,
the Lord Chancellor, who gives circumstances and the nature of the
interview, and we have also the same fact mentioned in Doddington’s
Diary (Appendix). In the celebrated interview which took place between
Doddington and the Prince there recorded, it is clearly shown that the
Prince made this statement concerning the communication to his mother,
to Doddington on February 8th, 1737, long before the deputation of
his father’s noblemen waited on him, and that to Doddington he stated
that the interview with the Queen had taken place during the previous
summer. This seems to be a very strong piece of evidence that the
Prince was speaking the truth and his mother the reverse. In fact from
this time forth her hatred of him seemed to grow stronger day by day.
But to return to the deputation to the Prince with the King’s terms of
settlement.
If these had not been communicated privately to him before, Frederick
must have known that the King’s offer really meant very little, and
he seemed quite prepared with his reply. It was at once taken down as
he spoke it, and was as follows:--“That His Royal Highness desired
the Lords to lay him with all humility at his Majesty’s feet, and to
assure his Majesty that he had, and ever should retain, the utmost
duty for his Royal person; that His Royal Highness was very thankful
for any instance of his Majesty’s goodness to him or the Princess, and
particularly for his Majesty’s intention of settling a jointure upon
Her Royal Highness; but that as to the message, the affair was now out
of his hands, and therefore he could give no answer to it.” After which
His Royal Highness used many dutiful expressions towards his Majesty;
and then added: “Indeed, my Lords, it is in other hands--I am sorry
for it,” or to that effect. His Royal Highness concluded with earnestly
desiring the Lords to represent his answer to His Majesty in the most
respectful and dutiful manner.
There does not seem much in this answer to find fault with in the
direction of respect at any rate, under the circumstances. The
interview, however, ended there, and the Lords withdrew to convey the
Prince’s answer back to his Royal Father in another part of the same
Palace of St. James’s.
Both the King and Queen were enraged at the reply, and the former
commenced at once to abuse rather roughly Sir Robert Walpole for
persuading him to send it, but the minister sagely answered that he
expected the good result of it not that day but on the morrow--the day
of the Motion in the House of Commons. He was not wrong for he made the
utmost use of it himself on that occasion in his speech.
So the agreement between father and son having fallen through, and
everybody being worked up to the required pitch of excitement, the
matter went forward, and on the next day, February 22nd, Pulteney made
his motion before the House of Commons, for an address to be presented
to the King, humbly asking for a settlement of £100,000 a year on the
Prince of Wales and the same jointure on the Princess, as the Queen had
when she was Princess of Wales, giving the King the assurance that the
House would support him in this measure.
The strong points of Pulteney’s speech were, the claim the Prince had
to the increase of income, which he said was founded on equity and good
policy, and a legal right founded on law and precedent.
He contended that the revenue of the Civil List had been granted to
George the First, and afterwards added to in the case of George the
Second, on the express--or at any rate implied condition--that out
of the revenue a sum of £100,000 a year should be set aside for the
Prince of Wales. Pulteney is said to have spoken on the subject with
great ability for an hour and a half, Lord Hervey adding in his account
that in the speech there was “a great deal of matter and a great deal
of knowledge, as well as art and wit, and yet I cannot but say I have
often heard him speak infinitely better than he did that day. There was
a languor in it, that one almost always perceives in the speeches that
have been so long preparing and compiling.”
Sir Robert Walpole at once answered and, as might have been expected
almost at the commencement of his speech, conveyed to the House the
orders he had received from His Majesty to communicate to them the
message he had sent his son on the previous day. This of course was the
reason of his advising the King to send the message at all.
Sir Robert read aloud the whole of the King’s message to his son, this
magnanimous offer of something he could not get out of giving, and
after it the Minister made all he could of the Prince’s answer:
“Indeed, my Lords, it is in other hands; I am sorry for it.”
Walpole’s speech was an able one, and for the most part went to show
that the King could really not afford--out of an income of nearly a
million--to give his son the extra £50,000 per annum, and if he could,
he was not bound to give it by the Settlement made by Parliament of his
Civil List.
But of all the speeches that were made that evening, by far the most
telling was one by a supporter of the Prince, of which the following is
a summary:
“By the regulation and Settlement of the Prince’s Household, as made
sometime since by His Majesty himself[42] the yearly expense comes to
£63,000 without allowing one shilling to His Royal Highness for acts of
charity and generosity.
“By the message now before us, it is proposed to settle upon him only
£50,000 a year, and yet from this sum we must deduct the Land Tax,
which, at two shillings in the pound, amounts to £5,000 a year, we must
likewise deduct the sixpenny duty to the Civil List Lottery, which
amounts to £1,250 a year, and we must also deduct the fees paid at the
Exchequer, which amount to about £750 a year more. All these deductions
amount to £7,000 a year, and reduce the £50,000, proposed to be
settled upon him by the message to £43,000 a year.
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Spooner & Co._
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.]
“Now, as His Royal Highness has no other estate but the Duchy of
Cornwall, which cannot be reckoned, at the most, above £9,000, his
whole yearly revenue can amount but to £52,000, and yet the yearly
expense of his Household, according to His Majesty’s own regulations,
is to amount to £63,000, without allowing His Royal Highness one
shilling for the indulgence of that generous and charitable disposition
with which he is known to be endued in a very eminent degree. Suppose
then we allow him but £10,000 a year for the indulgence of that
laudable disposition, his whole yearly expense, by His Majesty’s own
acknowledgment, must then amount to £73,000, and his yearly income,
according to this message, can amount to no more than £52,000. Is
this, sir, showing any respect to his merit? Is this providing for his
generosity? Is it not reducing him to real want, even with respect to
his necessities, and consequently to an unavoidable dependence too upon
his father’s Ministers and servants.
“I confess, sir, when I first heard this motion made, I was wavering a
good deal in my opinion; but this message has confirmed me. I now see,
that without the interposition of Parliament, His Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales, the Heir Apparent to our Crown, must be reduced to the
greatest straits, the most insufferable hardships.”
However, despite this statement, after a few more speeches from Lord
Baltimore, Mr. Hedges--both of the Prince’s Household, and the Master
of the Rolls, who was neither one way nor the other, the House divided
at eleven o’clock, with the result that the motion in favour of the
Prince was negatived by 234 votes to 204. A very close majority
considering, and that was entirely owing to forty-five Tories rising
and leaving the House in a body without voting.
But the King and Queen were delighted and heaped renewed abuse
upon their son, the very mildest terms of which were “Puppy” and
“scoundrel.” Congratulations _poured_ in upon the Royal Parents from
the Court Party, not only upon the rejection of the motion, but upon
the small amount of money it had cost the King in bribes to the Members
of the House of Commons--the matter seemed to be quite public property,
for it was known that the King had only disbursed £900 in all; £500
to one man, and £400 to another, and this in any case would have had
to have been given them at the end of the Session--for selling their
constituents’ interests apparently--but they clamoured for it then. One
would have liked to have seen these two clamouring members of the House.
But the Prince nothing daunted, consented to the wishes of his friends,
and had the same motion made two days after (February 23rd) in the
House of Lords by Lord Carteret--who was a double-faced man, and
apologized to the Queen before he made it, urging that he was _forced_
to make it, which was not the truth. In the Upper House, however, the
Prince was even less fortunate, and the motion was lost there by a
majority of 103 against 40. But in all the excitement which prevailed
at this time we may be certain of one thing, and that is that the
victorious little King, with his strong German accent always spoke of
the sum asked for by his son as “dat Puppy’s fifty sousand pound.”
The Prince, on his part, however the adverse vote of the House of
Commons may have affected him, certainly did not desire the increase
in his income to come out of the pockets of the British Taxpayer, for
when a suggestion of that nature was made to him by Doddington at his
interview already referred to on February 8th, that the Fifty Thousand
Pounds should be voted by Parliament apart from the King’s income,
Frederick made the following fine answer:
“I think the nation has done enough, if not too much, for the family
already; I would rather beg my bread from door to door than be a
further charge on them.”
The following is the comment of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough on this
affair, written to Lord Stair at the time:
“1736. A great battle in the Houses of Parliament concerning the
revenue which the public pays to the King to support the Prince of
Wales. The Court carried it by a majority of thirty, not without the
expense of a great deal of money, and a most shameful proceeding to
threaten and fetch sick men out of their beds to vote, for fear of
losing their bread. But notwithstanding this, the minority for the
Prince was two hundred and four; and a great many other members who
would have been in it if they had been in town. A great many charming
truths were said on that side; no justice or common sense was expressed
on the other. The speakers on the majority were Sir Robert, Horace, Sir
W. Yonge, Pelham, and somebody of the Admiralty that I have never heard
of before. I am confident that though the Prince lost the question, the
ministers were mightily frighted, and not without reason, for it is
a heavy-weight two hundred and four, who were certainly on the right
side of the question--and I am apt to think, that men who have been so
base with estates and so mean as to act against the interests of their
country, will grow very weary of voting to starve the next heir to the
crown; since the generality of the majority has a view only to their
own interest, and it is apprehended that the King is in so bad a state
of health, that though he has got over his illness so far as sometimes
to appear in public, yet we shall not be so happy as to have him live
long; and everybody that sees him tells me that he looks at this time
extremely ill. The Prince in all this affair has shown a great deal of
spirit and sense, and the intolerable treatment which he has had for so
many years will no doubt continue him to be very firm, and to act right.
“House of Lords:--Proxies and all but forty for the Prince, and a
majority of near three to one on the other side. Nobody surprised
at that. I really think that they might pass an Act there, if they
pleased, to take away Magna Charta. ’Tis said they don’t intend to turn
out anybody in the King’s service who voted in this question for the
Prince in either House. If they don’t, I think _that_ shows some fear.
“I am never very sanguine, and for a long time could not imagine which
way the liberties of England could be saved. But I really do think now
there is a little glimmering of daylight.”
FOOTNOTES:
[40] Commander-in-Chief, husband of Mary Bellenden, who had died the
previous autumn.
[41] He was well aware the Prince was hard pressed for money, and he
was away from England eight months.
[42] This was denied afterwards, but it was probably the Household of
George the Second when Prince of Wales.
CHAPTER XVII.
A NEW FAVOURITE AND A SETTLEMENT.
The King and Queen in the jubilation of their victory over the Prince
of Wales had a mind to celebrate it by turning him and his young wife
out of St. James’s Palace, but they were dissuaded from this benevolent
intention by the judicious Sir Robert Walpole. Instead the Prince
retained his position--though no doubt he would have much preferred a
house of his own--but the state of affairs under these circumstances
must have reached the limit of painfulness to the young Princess and
her husband.
Each night “he led the Queen by the hand to dinner,” says Doran, “and
she could have stabbed him on the way; for her wrath was more bitter
than ever against him, for the reason that he had introduced her name,
through his friends, in the Parliamentary debate.”
This referred presumably to his mention of the fact that he had told
his mother of his embarrassments.
The Prince still attended his father’s levees occasionally, but the
King never acknowledged his presence in any way whatever. Very soon,
however, at the conclusion of the session of Parliament, the Court
moved to Richmond, and there the little King, now quite restored to
health, distinguished this year 1737 by another gracious act; he took
still another mistress. This time the object of his Royal selection was
the children’s governess, Lady Deloraine.
The lady in question was Mary Howard--the King seemed to favour the
name of Howard in his amours--of the Suffolk family, who had married
Henry Scott, first Earl of Deloraine; but at this period he was dead
and she had remarried William Wyndham, Esq., of Cassham.
She was an extremely pretty woman, but celebrated for the looseness of
her talk in that age of looseness. She was not a woman of much brain
power, and a fair estimate of her character may be formed from the
following incident.
Sir Robert Walpole came across her one day in the Hall at Richmond
while she was dangling her little boy of about twelve months in her
arms, and made the following characteristic remark--“That’s a very
pretty boy, Lady Deloraine, whose is it?” Her ladyship, nothing
abashed, took the enquiry in the spirit in which it was offered, and
replied before a group of people--“Mr. Wyndham’s, upon honour;” and
then laughingly continued, “but I will not promise whose the next shall
be!”
Continuing the discourse later in private with Sir Robert Walpole, she
pretended that she had not yet yielded to the King’s importunities,
and remarked that “she was not of an age to act like a vain or a
loving fool, but if she did consent she would be well paid.” She added
naively to Sir Robert--who himself had a mistress, the well known Miss
Skerrett, whom he adored and afterwards married--“nothing but interest
should bribe her; for as to love she had enough of that, as well as
a younger man at home; and that she thought old men and Kings ought
always to be made to pay well!” Her empty head and want of morals led
her to boast freely at this time; she confided in the well known Lady
Sundon, with whom she had a very slight acquaintance, that the King
had been very importunate these two years, and had often told her how
unkind she was to refuse him, that it was mere crossness, for that he
was sure her husband (Mr. Wyndham, who was sub-governor to the Duke of
Cumberland) would not take it at all ill.
She made a similar communication to Lord Hervey, abruptly one day at
Richmond, at this time before a room full of people: “Do you know the
King has been in love with me these two years?” she queried.
At which Lord Hervey, rather taken aback, answered, to turn the
conversation, “Who is not in love with you?”
He himself certainly was not, for this is how he sums her up in his
Memoirs:
“Her Ladyship was one of the vainest as well as one of the simplest
women that ever lived; but to this wretched head there was certainly
joined one of the prettiest faces that ever was formed, which, though
she was now five and thirty,[43] had a bloom upon it too, that not
one woman in ten thousand has at fifteen.” This was Horace Walpole’s
opinion of Lady Deloraine: “A pretty idiot, with most of the vices of
her own sex, and the additional one of ours--drinking.
“Yet this thing of convenience on the arrival of Lady Yarmouth, Madame
Walmoden, put on all that dignity of passion, which even revolts real
inclination.”
Lady Deloraine, however, went on her way rejoicing at this time, and as
the summer wore on and the King showed no signs of returning to Hanover
and Madame de Walmoden, openly boasted that she was keeping him in
England.
She did not, however, appear to derive much substantial profit from her
position, as the following incident, related by Sir Robert Walpole to
the Queen, will show; neither had the King forgotten Madame de Walmoden.
George had ordered Walpole one day to buy one hundred lottery tickets,
and to charge the amount, £1,000, to the Secret Service Fund, an
atrocious robbery of the public!
Walpole, having carried out his commission without a murmur, confided
the transaction to Lord Hervey, mentioning that it was for the King’s
favourite.
Hervey, thinking he meant Lady Deloraine, commented: “I did not think
he went so deep there,” referring to the amount.
“No,” Walpole corrected, “I mean the Hanover woman. You are right to
imagine that he does not go so deep to his lying fool here. He will
give her a couple of the tickets and think her generously used.”
By which it seems that the King’s German women had by far the better
knack of getting money out of him than the English favourites.
But Walpole’s sagacity had, just previous to this, at the end of the
Parliamentary Session, brought the question of the Prince of Wales’s
income adroitly into something of a settlement. He had with the
greatest difficulty induced the King and Queen to agree to a settlement
of the £50,000 a year mentioned in the King’s celebrated message to
the Prince, and the difficulty of the other £50,000 a year claimed by
Frederick was got over by Parliament being persuaded to settle an extra
large jointure on the Princess of Wales, £50,000 a year in fact. So the
parsimonious little King got out of paying it after all.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] She was thirty-seven at this time, having been born in 1700.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MOST EXTRAORDINARY EVENT.
We now approach some of the most extraordinary events of the Prince’s
life, those circumstances surrounding the birth of his first child.
There had been a great deal of speculation, which was very natural
under the circumstances, as to the probability of the Princess of Wales
bearing a child, and the Queen and the Princess Caroline are said to
have formed an opinion, for reasons unknown, that she never would. In
all probability the wish in this case was father to the thought, for
the coming of a lineal heir to the crown through the Prince of Wales,
was an event not desired by the King or Queen, who it was well known
desired the crown for the Duke of Cumberland, now a handsome boy of
sixteen.
It was therefore no doubt owing to this reason that neither the Prince
or Princess of Wales appeared to be in any hurry to publicly announce
this event. As a matter of fact the first formal intimation of it was
conveyed in the following letter from the Prince to his royal mother,
sent by Lord North, his Lord of the Bedchamber then in waiting.
De Kew ce 5 de juillet.
Madame,
Le Dr. Hollings et Mrs. Cannons vient de me dire qu’il n’y a plus
à douter de la grossesse de la Princesse d’abord que j’ai eu leur
autorité, je n’ai pas voulu manquer d’en faire part à votre Majesté,
et de la supplier d’en informer le Roi en même tems.
Je suis avec tout le respect possible, Madame,
De Votre Majesté
Le très humble et très obeissant fils et serviteur
FREDERICK.
Lord Hervey relates in his Memoirs that on the occasion of the next
visit of the Princess to the Court, she was subjected by the Queen to a
series of questions, perhaps quite natural under the circumstances. To
these questions she received from the Princess of Wales but one answer
throughout:--“I don’t know.”
Being at last wearied with this continual repetition of the same
response, she changed the subject. But in the light of other events
it is perfectly clear that the Princess had her answer prepared
beforehand, and was determined she would give the Queen as little
information on the subject as possible. There cannot be a doubt that
the Prince and Princess had made their minds up together on this point,
and that they had some very good reason for it.
What was that reason?
A study of the events that followed will probably disclose the answer.
The most circumstantial record of these events is undoubtedly that
given by Lord Hervey, though written with great bias, and his usual
endeavour to blacken the Prince’s character as much as possible.
There appears to have been a strong desire on the part of the King and
Queen that the Princess’s lying-in should take place at Hampton Court,
and an equally strong determination on the part of the Prince and
Princess that it should not. This intense desire of the King and Queen
that the young Princess should lie-in at Hampton Court seems to have
exceeded all bounds.
So much did the Queen work upon the feelings of the King and Sir Robert
Walpole--she seems to have been the Prime mover--that it was decided to
send a message to the Prince of Wales _commanding_ that the Princess
should lie-in at Hampton Court. They seem to have had some insane idea
that there would be a supposititious child, though why this should be
needed, in the case of a healthy young man and woman, never transpired.
The message, however, was never sent, according to Lord Hervey, though
some writers say it was. If it was not it was certainly owing to the
wisdom of Walpole.
“At her labour I will positively be,” remarked the Queen, “for she
cannot be brought to bed as quick as one can blow one’s nose, and I
will be sure it is her child.”
What was the reason of this absurd anxiety?
It is impossible to say with certainty what was passing in the minds
of these young people at this time; the girl wife of eighteen, and her
husband who, among all his many relatives, could not rely upon one as
a friend. There must, however, have been some very strong motive--a
feeling which they held in sympathy, to have caused them to have acted
as they did.
The Court in the meantime had removed from Richmond--the old palace
down by the river near Kew[44] to Hampton Court, and with it the Prince
and Princess of Wales with their household as usual. The Court had gone
on its usual humdrum way, one long summer’s day being, in its regular
routine of walks, drives, bowls and cards in the evening, as much like
another as possible, in the manner so bitterly complained of by Lady
Suffolk in her last days at Court.
Everything went on as usual, and the accouchement of the Princess was
looked upon by everyone as being a yet far off event.
So matters stood until Sunday, the 31st of July, 1737. This is the
account given by Lord Hervey of the amusements on the evening of that
day:
“The King played at commerce below stairs, the Queen above at
quadrille, the Princess Emily at her commerce table, and the Princess
Caroline and Lord Hervey at cribbage, just as usual, and separated all
at ten o’clock; and what is incredible to relate, went to bed all at
eleven, without hearing one single syllable of the Princess’s being
ill, or even of her not being in the house.”
So the whole household retired to rest and peace reigned over the
ancient mansion of Cardinal Wolsey. But not for long. At half-past one
a courier arrived at the Palace, and eventually succeeded in arousing
one of the Queen’s Women of the Bedchamber, a certain Mrs. Tichborne,
who forthwith, on hearing what the courier had to say, went straight
off to their Majesties’ sacred bedroom, and awakened them.
The Queen, on her entering the chamber, started up, and very naturally
enquired whether the house was on fire.
Mrs. Tichborne, having eased the Royal mind on this point, proceeded
to give the Queen, as best she could, information on a very delicate
subject. She said the Prince had sent to let their Majesties know the
Princess was in labour.
The suddenness of this communication produced the effect upon the Queen
which might have been expected.
“My God!” she cried, starting up, “my night gown, I’ll go to her this
moment.”
“Your night gown, Madam?” repeated Mrs. Tichborne, thinking it about
time she should know all, “and your coaches too; the Princess is at St.
James’s.”
“Are you mad,” interrupted the Queen, “or are you asleep, my good
Tichborne? You dream!”
Mrs. Tichborne, however, confirmed her first assertion, and an excited
little nightcap popped up from the King’s side of the bed, and there
came from beneath it a torrent of very guttural German, of which the
following is a translation:
“You see now, with all your wisdom, how they have outwitted you. This
is all your fault. _There is a false child which will be upon you_, and
how will you answer it to all your children? This has been fine care
and fine management for your son William--he is mightily obliged to
you. And for Ann I hope she will come over and scold you herself. I am
sure you deserve anything she can say to you.”
This allusion to the Princess Royal referred to an idea she had that
she might succeed to the throne of England if neither of her brothers
married. But the poor Queen was far too anxious and excited to pay
any attention to her wrathful little royal spouse; apparently during
most of the tirade she was getting into her clothes the best way she
could, with the assistance of Mrs. Tichborne. While dressing as fast
as possible, she ordered her coaches and sent messages to the Duke of
Grafton and Lord Hervey to go with her. For to St. James’s she was
going as fast as she could.
At half-past two, the great coaches containing the Queen, the two
eldest Princesses with their ladies, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Hervey
and Lord Essex, who was to be sent back with news to the King, rumbled
out of the gateway of Hampton Court Palace and drove off through the
summer night towards London.
* * * * *
An account is now desirable of what took place earlier in the evening
in the Princess’s apartments at Hampton Court.
It appears that the Princess of Wales, having decorously dined in
public--in presence of the household--that Sunday evening, was, on her
return to her own rooms, taken very ill; it soon became apparent that
the pains she was suffering from were those of labour.
Despite the strong endeavour of Lord Hervey in his account of this
affair to make it appear that the Prince was forcing his wife to go
in the state she was to St. James’s Palace, it must be distinctly
remembered that the Princess herself stated that the removal to St.
James’s Palace was made at her own request, and her reason for taking
this course will be shown later.
When it became apparent beyond all doubt that the Princess was enduring
the pains of labour, the Prince ordered a coach to be secretly got
ready; there is no doubt whatever that provision for this had been made
beforehand.
It appears that by the time the coach was ready the Princess was
suffering a good deal, and had to be supported by the Prince, a Mr.
Bloodworth, one of the Prince’s equerries, and by a Monsieur Desnoyer,
a dancing master above all people, who appears to have been a sort of
privileged person, allowed to roam free over the Palaces.
The whole proceeding was highly indelicate, and what followed more
so; Lady Archibald Hamilton, and Mr. Townshend, one of the Prince’s
Grooms-in-Waiting, are both said to have protested against the
proceeding, and to have done so very properly. But why were these young
people so anxious to get away from Hampton Court Palace, that their
child might be born elsewhere? It is perfectly plain that they had a
very strong motive indeed. What was that motive?
The poor young Princess seems to have been got down stairs and
into the waiting coach with the greatest difficulty, and was in
a terrible plight when she arrived there, as one might very well
expect, considering her age and the novelty of her condition. There
entered into the coach with her, Lady Archibald Hamilton and two
of her dressers, Mrs. Clavering and Mrs. Paine. Reid, the Prince’s
Valet-de-Chambre, who also appears to have been a surgeon, and a man
midwife, mounted upon the box, and Bloodworth the Equerry, and two or
three more mounted behind the coach.
After enjoining secrecy on all his household concerning his
removal--which injunction seems to have been faithfully heeded--the
Prince entered the coach and gave the order to drive at a gallop to
St. James’s Palace.
There must have been a pretty scene inside the coach, considering the
Princess’s state, and the condition of mind, under the circumstances,
of the three ladies in attendance. The Prince seems to have been in a
high state of excitement, and to have divided his time between trying
to comfort his young wife and using strong language.
About ten o’clock “this cargo,” as Lord Hervey elegantly describes it,
arrived at St. James’s Palace, where, of course, nothing whatever was
ready for the Princess’s accouchement. The only attendant there, and
that a very necessary one, was the midwife, and she appeared in a few
minutes, having evidently been warned beforehand. There were not even
sheets ready for the Princess, and it is said that the Prince and one
of the ladies aired two tablecloths, between which the Princess was put
to bed.
There should, of course, have been present at this, the birth of
a direct heir to the Crown, some of the Lords of the Council, but
Lord Wilmington, and Lord Godolphin, Privy Seal, somehow appeared
mysteriously upon the scene. It seems, however, that Lord Wilmington
had received a message from the Prince at his house at Chiswick, and
came at once. At a quarter before eleven, within three quarters of an
hour of her arrival, the Princess was delivered of what Lord Hervey
delicately describes as “a little rat of a girl, about the bigness of
a good large tooth-pick case.”
Mark the hearty welcome extended to this little stranger by the King
and Queen’s confidant!
It may be here mentioned that the “little rat” grew into an exceedingly
pretty girl, but with a peculiar gift of unintentionally upsetting
people, which was supposed to be a result of her mother’s trials at her
birth. She became Duchess of Brunswick, and died in 1813.
* * * * *
It was four o’clock before the Queen’s Party reached St. James’s
Palace, and then being told, in answer to an enquiry, that the Princess
was very well, concluded that nothing had happened. However, the
Queen, to whom this whole affair must have been a great trial--for
she was in very bad health--ascended the stairs to the Prince’s
apartments, and Lord Hervey considerately promised to get her a fire
and some chocolate in his own room. As she parted from him she made
this most extraordinary remark, which can be taken as a sample of the
unreasonable fear and hatred towards their son which had obsessed the
minds of the King and Queen.
“To be sure,” replied the Queen, referring to the chocolate and the
fire, “I shall not stay long; I shall be mightily obliged to you”; then
winked and added: “nor you need not fear my tasting anything in this
side of the house.”
The Prince received his mother and sisters in what is described by
Lord Hervey as his night gown and night cap, but what we should more
correctly describe as a dressing gown perhaps; he kissed the Queen’s
hand and cheek in German fashion, and then broke the news to her of the
birth of his daughter.
Then there appears to have ensued a passage of words between mother and
son as to why a messenger had not been sent to Hampton Court before to
acquaint the King and herself of the happy event, as she had not left
until more than three hours after the birth of the child.
To this the Prince replied that he _had_ sent a messenger as soon as
he could write the news, and this may very well have happened, as the
journey took the Queen an hour and a half, with no doubt four horses to
each coach.
The Queen went into the Princess’s bedchamber, and seems to have
greeted her kindly and congratulated her.
“Apparrement, Madame,” she observed, “vous avez horriblement souffert.”
“Point de tout,” answered the Princess; “ce n’est rien.” Then the
“little rat” was brought in by Lady Hamilton and duly kissed by the
royal grandmother:
“Le bon Dieu,” she remarked, piously, “vous benisse pauvre petite
creature! Vous voila arrivée dans un disagrèable monde!”
The little one had not then been dressed, and was wrapped up in a red
mantle.
The Prince appears to have excitedly but perfectly openly narrated to
his mother the circumstances of the journey, freely admitting that on
the previous Monday and Friday he had also carried the Princess to
London, thinking then that the event was imminent.
The birth having taken place he seems to have made no secret of their
desire that the accouchement of the Princess should take place in
London.
Lord Hervey, in his account, goes very fully into details, too much
so, perhaps, to suit modern ideas of delicacy, but the Prince made no
secret to his mother that at one time he thought that he should have
had to take his wife into some house on the road, so imminent did the
event seem.
To his long account the Queen answered not a word, but turned the
shafts of her wrath upon Lady Hamilton, who was standing by with the
baby.
“At the indiscretion of young fools who knew nothing of the dangers to
which this poor child and its mother were exposed, I am less surprised;
but for you, my Lady Archibald, who have had ten children, that with
your experience, and at your age, you should suffer these people to act
such a madness, I am astonished, and wonder how you could, for your own
sake as well as theirs, venture to be concerned in such an expedition.”
Lady Archibald made the Queen no answer to this address, which sounded
rather like a rebuke to one of her own dependents, which Lady Archibald
probably really was. The latter turned to the Prince and simply
remarked:
“You see, sir.”
Lord Hervey appears to have received an account of this interview
direct from the Queen and Princesses when they were partaking of the
chocolate he had had prepared for them in his room, and we may take it
that any conversation unfavourable to them was discreetly left out.
The Duke of Grafton, Lord Essex and Lord Hervey, were then admitted to
see the baby, and the Queen withdrew with this very considerate remark
to the Princess of Wales after embracing her:
“My good Princess, is there anything you want, anything you wish or
anything you would have me do? Here I am, you have but to speak and
ask, and whatever is in my power that you would have me do, I promise
you I will do it.”
The Prince accompanied her to the foot of the stairs where he parted
from his mother, who walked across the courtyard to Lord Hervey’s
lodgings. Arrived there she made the following characteristic and
elegant observation to the two Princesses and the Duke of Grafton, and
Lord Hervey who accompanied her:
“Well, upon my honour, I no more doubt this poor little bit of a thing
is the Princess’s child than I doubt of either of these two being mine;
though I own to you I had my doubts upon the road that there would be
some juggle, and if instead of this poor little ugly she-mouse there
had been a brave, large, fat, jolly boy, I should not have been cured
of my suspicions.”
And now comes the great question which has puzzled everybody from that
day to this, and to which only the feeblest and most unsatisfying
answers have been given.
Why did the Prince and Princess take all this trouble in removing from
Hampton Court in order that their child might be born in London?
That they had made their preparations beforehand in providing the nurse
who appeared at a few minutes’ notice cannot be doubted, and that, like
the careless young people that they were, they left out many of the
essentials--such as the sheets--is also evident. Why did they take all
this trouble?
Some historians state that it was simply a studied act of disobedience
to the King and Queen.
If that were so, then it was a most inconvenient mode of showing it,
and the same end might have been achieved at much less trouble to
themselves.
Others--and Lord Hervey amongst them--describe it as a pure act of
bravado and arrogance to show the Prince’s independence. If this were
the true reason then the Prince must have been an inhuman brute, and
we know from a great many instances of his kindness and undoubted
affection for his young wife, that he was _not_.
No, to venture an opinion of the real reason for this most
extraordinary proceeding, we must review a few simple facts. In the
first place the true position of the Prince of Wales with regard to his
parents and the rest of the Royal Family, must have been well known
to the Princess Augusta before she came to England at all. She knew
full well, in common with most continental Princesses, that the heir
to the throne of England was by no means a favourite with his parents
and that he was only brought over from Hanover because the English
people demanded it. He was not _wanted_ by the Royal Family, they
wanted the crown of England for the handsome second son, William Duke
of Cumberland, afterwards adorned with the additional title of “The
Butcher of Culloden.”
Frederick was not handsome though he had a charm of manner, chiefly
owing to his amiability and kind-heartedness which endeared him to the
people. William had none of these attributes, he was handsome, and
very like his mother--a glance at their portraits will show that--and
he also had an exceedingly cruel nature, which perhaps the people soon
found out.
Any doubt which may exist in a reader’s mind as to the preference of
King George the Second and his Queen for their second son, may be set
at rest by a glance at the following account of certain events which
took place in the reign of George the First:
“George I. in his enmity to George II. entertained some idea of
separating the sovereignty of England and Hanover (Coxe’s Walpole, p.
132) and we find from Lord Chancellor King’s _Diary_, under the date
of June, 1725, ‘a negotiation had been lately on foot in relation to
the two young Princes, Frederick and William. The Prince (George II.)
and his wife were for excluding Prince Frederick, but that after the
King and the Prince, he would be Elector of Hanover and Prince William,
King of Great Britain; but that the King said it would be unjust to do
it without Prince Frederick’s consent, who was now of an age to judge
for himself, and so the matter now stood.’ (Campbell’s Chancellors IV.
318). Sir Robert Walpole, who communicated this to the Chancellor,
added that he had told George I. that ‘if _he_ did not bring Prince
Frederick over in his lifetime, he would never set his foot on English
ground.’”[45]
This early enmity of his parents to Frederick, Lord Campbell cannot
explain.
So that it is quite clear that but for the intervention of his
grandfather, George the First (about the only disinterested friend he
ever had) Frederick would have been left to the tender mercies of his
father and mother who would very certainly have deprived him of his
birthright in favour of their handsome second boy. The Princess of
Wales’s reception in England had not been of that warm description to
convey to her the idea that her coming had been particularly desired.
It will be remembered that she remained at Gravesend for forty-eight
hours without any of the Royal Family coming near her at all except
Frederick. She very soon realized the state of affairs, and there is
something pitiable about the young girl of seventeen, casting herself
at the feet of George the Second and his wife as if to propitiate them,
in spite of their disinclination to receive her.
No, it was very soon made plain to the young Princess of Wales that her
husband was not wanted here at all, nay that he was hated for standing
in the way of his handsome brother, and that she, too, this despised
Prince’s wife, was not wanted either.
To a girl of her keen perception, for it was shown by her conduct on
her arrival that she was exceedingly intelligent, it cannot be for a
moment doubted that as those anxious moments of imminent motherhood
drew near she painfully realized too, that her baby was _not wanted
either_, to be another stumbling block in the way of the favourite son.
It is not at all an uncommon thing for young married people to have
this overstrung sense of anxiety for their coming little one, and to
conjure up in their minds fears for which, perhaps, there is no reason.
It cannot be said for a moment that the King and Queen had any designs
on the life of the coming grandchild, although it was a barbarous age,
when life was held much cheaper than it is now, and the life of a
little baby--especially a “little rat”--did not count for much. Even
King George himself used to say there were not half enough hangings,
and that if they came into his hands he would not spare them, although
God knows at that time men and women were strung up in rows outside the
gaols in numbers sufficient to satisfy the most bloodthirsty advocate
of capital punishment.
No, there cannot be a reasonable doubt that this night journey of the
Prince and Princess was undertaken in an unreasoning panic maybe, but
in an honest fear that the life of their coming little one was not safe
at Hampton Court Palace, and that at any risk to themselves they would
have the birth of the child take place in surroundings over which they
had entire control, even though, as it happened, the royal child should
be born between two tablecloths instead of sheets.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Demolished in 1772.
[45] Footnote to page 216. Hervey’s Memoirs. Cunningham Edition.
CHAPTER XIX.
WHICH CONTAINS A GREAT DEAL OF FUSSING AND FUMING AND A LITTLE POETRY.
This act of the Prince and Princess of Wales was construed into such
a flagrant violation of the Royal Will, that the enraged little King
at once took steps to assert his authority. Fortunately in these days
Princesses of Wales are not peremptorily ordered to arrange their
_accouchements_ in places agreeable to the Royal Will.
They arrange them just wherever they like.
A brisk interchange of letters took place between the King and his
eldest son, which ended in a somewhat abrupt command from the King to
the Prince to remove himself and his family out of St. James’s Palace,
which possibly was an order which the Prince and his wife were not at
all sorry to obey; it gave them the opportunity of setting up their own
home.
(From the King at Hampton Court Palace to the Prince of Wales at St.
James’s, by Lord Dunmore, August 20th, 1737).
“It being now near three weeks since the Princess was brought to bed,
his Majesty hopes that there can be no inconvenience to the Princess
if Monday, the twenty-ninth, be appointed for baptising the Princess,
his grand-daughter; and having determined that His Majesty the King,
the Queen and the Duchess-Dowager of Saxe-Gotha shall be godfather and
godmothers, will send his Lord Chamberlain to represent himself and the
Queen’s Lady of the Bedchamber to represent the Queen, and desires that
the Princess will order one of the Ladies of her Bedchamber to stand
for the Duchess-Dowager of Saxe-Gotha, and the King will send to the
Archbishop of Canterbury to attend and perform the ceremony.” (p. 225,
Hervey.)
To which the Prince dutifully replied:
“The Prince to the King,
“August 20th, 1737.
“Sire,
“La Princesse et moi prenons la liberté de remercier très humblement
votre Majesté de l’honneur qu’elle veut bien faire à notre fille d’en
etre parrain. Les ordres que my Lord Dunmore m’a apporté sur ce sujet
seront exécutés point à point. Je me conterois bien heureux si à cette
occasion j’osois venir moi même me mettre à vos pieds; rien ne m’em
pourroit empêcher que la seule defense de votre Majesté. D’être privé
de vos bonnes graces est la chose du monde la plus affligeante pour
moi, qui non seulement vous respect, mais, si j’ose me servir de ce
terme, vous aime très-tendrement. Me permettez vous encore une fois de
vous supplier très-humblement de me pardonner une faute dans laquelle
du moins l’intention n’avoit pas de part, et de me permettre de vous
refaire ma cour à votre levée. J’ose vous en conjurer instamment,
comme d’une chose qui me rendra le répos.
“Je suis, avec toute la soumission possible.
“Sire, de votre Majesté
“Le très-humble et très-obeissant fils,
“Sujet et serviteur,
“FREDERICK.”
Which does not read much like the letter of a disobedient and
contumacious son, but rather that of one who owns a fault which he
never intended to commit and asks for pardon.
These are some of the letters which passed between the King and Queen
and the Prince of Wales; the two first the Queen found at Hampton Court
Palace on her return from her night journey to St. James’s.
“To the Queen.
“St. James’s,
“de Juillet 31, 1737.
“Madame,
“La Princesse s’etant trouvie fort mal à Hampton Court cette
aprèdinné, et n’ayant persone là pour l’assister je l’ai amené
directment en ville pour sauver le temps que j’aurois perdu en faisant
chercher Mrs. Cannon. Elle a été délivrée une heure après, fort
heureusement, d’une fille, et tou deux se portent, Dieu merci, aussi
bien qu’on peut attendre à cette peur.
“La Princesse m’a charge de la mettre avec son enfant aux pieds de
votre Majesté, et de la supplier de nous honneur tous trois de ses
bontées maternelles, etant, avec beuacoup de soumission.
“Madame,
“Votre très humble, et très obeissant fils et serviteur,
“FREDERICK.”
“To the King.
“Sire,
“C’est avec tout le respect possible que je prends la liberté de
mander à votre Majesté que la Princesse est Dieu merci, aussi bien
qu’on peut être, depuis qu’elle a été délivrée d’une fille, qui se
port bien aussi. Elle me charge de la mettre avec son enfant aux pieds
de votre Majesté, et de la supplier de nous honorer tous les trois de
ses bontez paternelles étant, avec tout la soumission possible.
“Sire, De votre Majesté,
“Le très humble, très obéissant fils, et serviteur et sujet.
“FREDERICK.
“De St. James’s,
“le 31 Juillet 1737.”
These letters are written, as the Prince wrote them in bad French badly
spelt.
Lord Hervey states that the morning after these two epistles were
received, was occupied with conversation between the King and Queen and
Sir Robert Walpole, which on the part of His Majesty consisted largely
of the following epithets which he applied to his son the Prince
of Wales: “_Scoundrel and Puppy!_” “_Knave and Fool!_” “_Liar and
coward!_” and no doubt many choice German expletives thrown in where
English failed.
The King, eventually, however, commanded the following answer to be
sent by the hands of Lord Essex, to his son’s happy announcement of the
birth of his daughter. This is what Lord Essex read out to the Prince:
“The King has commanded me to acquaint your Royal Highness that His
Majesty most heartily rejoices at the safe delivery of the Princess;
but that your carrying away her Royal Highness from Hampton Court,
the then residence of the King, the Queen and the Royal Family, under
the pains--and certain indication of immediate labour to the imminent
danger, and hazard both of the Princess and her child, and after
sufficient warnings for a week before to have made the necessary
preparations for the happy event without acquainting his Majesty or the
Queen with the circumstances the Princess was in, or giving them the
least notice of your departure, is looked upon by the King to be such
a deliberate indignity offered to himself and the Queen, that he has
commanded me to acquaint your Royal Highness that he resents it to the
highest degree, and _will not see you_.”
But this time the worry proved too much for the Queen, whose health was
fast failing, and she was seized with a violent attack of the gout.
However, she had her comforter in her close attendant, Lord Hervey;
and this time she broke through all rules of etiquette and admitted
him to the sick room to sit by her bed. Here he made himself agreeable
and amusing as usual, and did not forget to keep alive the Queen’s
resentment against her son.
The Prince of Wales very dutifully sent Lord North to inquire after
his mother’s health. This message seemed to annoy Lord Hervey, who, in
his petty way, was probably jealous. He offered to write a much more
sincere message--from his point of view--than the Prince had really
sent.
He went into the next room with the Princess Caroline and wrote the
following abominable doggerel rhymes.
The Griff[46] to the Queen:
“From myself and my cub and eke from my wife
I send my Lord North notwithstanding our strife,
To your Majesty’s residence called Hampton Court
Pour savoir au vrai, comment on se porte.
For ’tis rumoured in town--I hope ’tis not true
Your foot is too big for your slipper or shoe.
If I had the placing your gout, I am sure
Your Majesty’s toe less pain should endure;
For whil’st I’ve so many curs’d things in my head
And some stick in my stomach as in Proverbs ’tis said.
So just a good reason your good son can see
Why, when mine are so plagued,
Yours from plague should be free
Much more I’ve to say, but respect bids be brief
And so I remain your undutiful Griff.”
And yet Lord Hervey considered himself a poet!
Of course the gentle insinuation intended in his lines was that the
Prince hoped that the gout would fly to the Queen’s head or stomach and
kill her.
Poor soul! she had a much more fatal malady, which she bore in secret,
and which even Lord Hervey, her constant companion, knew nothing of.
It is said that the Queen was greatly entertained by these verses!
Lord Hervey and Pope the Poet were by no means good friends.
Pope very savagely attacked both his verses and his character. The
former he refers to in speaking of a supposed charge of weakness
against his own verses. He says:
“The Lines are weak another’s pleased to say
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.”[47]
and
“Like gentle Fanny’s was my flow’ry theme
A painted mistress or a purling stream.”
These allusions stung Lord Hervey’s shallow feelings. This was his idea
of a refined and witty rejoinder.
“To the imitator of the Satires of the Second Book of Horace.”
“Thus whilst with coward hand you stab a name
And try at least t’ assassinate our fame;
Like the first bold assassins be thy lot;
And ne’er be thy guilt forgiven or forgot;
But as thou hat’st, be hated by mankind
And with the emblems of thy crooked mind
Marked on thy back, like Cain, by God’s own hand,
Wander like him accursed through the land.”
Which reminds one, somehow, of the lines one used to hear in the
old-fashioned Christmas pantomimes given out by the Demon. But these
were very cruel and in bad taste considering Pope was a cripple.
But in the same poem, Lord Hervey refers to the poet’s affliction again:
“None thy crabbed numbers can endure
Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure.”
Pope, as will be seen was, however, quite equal to a rejoinder in the
same strain.
It is stated by Lord Hailes that Lord Hervey having suffered some
attacks of epilepsy dieted himself--or rather starved himself--after
in the following extraordinary manner; his daily food consisted of a
small quantity of asses’ milk and a flour biscuit. This stayed the
progress of the terrible disease, but it gave him a very ghastly
complexion. He is also stated to have used emetics daily, which, under
the circumstances, appeared hardly necessary. Once a week he took the
indulgence of an apple.
To hide his cadaverous appearance, he painted his face as it has been
already stated.
None of these weaknesses seem to have been overlooked by Pope in his
reply to Hervey whom he satirized as “Sporus”:
“Let Sporus tremble! what! that thing of silk!
Sporus that mere white curd of asses’ milk!
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys
Yet wit ne’er tastes and beauty ne’er enjoys;
So well bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite,
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way
Whether in florid impotence he speaks
And as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad.
In puns or politics, in tales or lies
Or spite, or smut or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all see-saw between that and this
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss.
And he, himself, one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part
The trifling head or the corrupted heart
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the Board
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve’s tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed
A cherub’s face and reptile all the rest
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust
Wit that can creep and pride that licks the dust.”
To this apparently Lord Hervey vouchsafed no retort, so Pope was
adjudged to have been the victor in the affair. But not content with
this, he wrote an open letter in prose to Lord Hervey. But this was
suppressed, as Queen Caroline got hold of a copy of it, and desired
Pope not to publish it, as it held her dear friend and companion up to
the most cutting ridicule. She hated Pope for this, but concealed her
rage lest worse should come of it. But Lord Hervey’s duels were not all
confined to poetry; he had one with Pulteney, and the weapons were not
words but swords. This occurred in 1730. It was a squabble over the
authorship of a pamphlet called “Sedition and Defamation Displayed,”
which attacked both Pulteney and Bolingbroke very severely, and with
the writing of which Hervey was credited, and unjustly as it turned out
eventually.
The heated Pulteney, however, rushed into print, and published another
pamphlet “A Proper Reply to a late Scurrilous Libel” in which he
abused Walpole and Hervey, referring to the latter by his nickname of
“Lord Fanny,” and depicted him half man and half woman, dragging in,
as was usual, in those days with execrable taste, certain of Hervey’s
infirmities.
This pamphlet created a perfect fury of anger at Court, and very
naturally aroused the resentment of Hervey peculiarly susceptible, like
many who indulge in cruel satire about others. He wrote to Pulteney and
demanded to know whether he had written the pamphlet, and upon Pulteney
replying that he would tell him, when he admitted the authorship of
“Sedition and Defamation Displayed,” Hervey worked himself up into
such a fury, and was so egged on by the other courtiers--he was not a
fighting man--that he got at last entangled in a duel with Pulteney.
They met on a fine June afternoon between three and four o’clock in
Upper St. James’s Park, just behind Arlington Street, Hervey being
accompanied by Fox, and Pulteney by Sir J. Rushout.
There appears to have been some pretty sword play, and both got
slightly wounded--which shows that Hervey had some pluck--“but,”
writes Mr. Thomas Pelham, a witness of the affray, “Mr. Pulteney had
once so much the advantage of Lord Hervey that he would have infallibly
run my Lord through the body if his foot had not slipped, and then the
seconds took the occasion to part them.”
Pulteney, then, in a very magnanimous manner, appears to have embraced
Hervey, and expressed sorrow at “the accident of their quarrel.”
At the same time he very unnecessarily added that he would never attack
Lord Hervey again either with his pen or his lips.
Hervey, however, showed his quality by not reciprocating his kindly
feeling, but merely bowed and sulked.
“And to use a common expression,” concludes Mr. Pelham, “thus they
parted.”
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams wrote some lines on this duel addressed to
Pulteney.
“Lord Fanny once did play the dunce
And challenged you to fight
And he so stood to lose his blood
But had a dreadful fright.”
Which effusion stamps Sir C. Hanbury Williams as a poet at once!
But Lord Hervey soon had something more agreeable to do than even
writing poetry or fighting duels.
There had been a series of letters from the Prince, already published
above, craving his father’s pardon, and these had, in no way, abated
the King’s wrath. Neither was the Queen touched. But the King’s
message still remained to be agreed upon. It was at last settled and
arranged--in fact a notice to quit--the Queen being the prime mover and
prompter of Sir Robert Walpole, who, of course, acted for the King in
the matter.
Concerning the final interview between the King and the Minister, the
Queen had stipulated that she should have the last word with Sir Robert
before he went in to the King, so it may be taken for granted that the
terms of the message to be sent to the Prince were practically her
terms.
Upon leaving the King, Sir Robert Walpole encountered Lord Hervey whom
he told that the resolution of his Majesty was to leave the child with
the Princess, and not to take it away as George the First had taken the
children of his son, when he quarrelled with him and turned him out of
St. James’s Palace. The reason given was this:
“_Lest any accident might happen to this little Royal animal, and the
world in that case accuse the King and Queen of having murdered it, for
the sake of the Duke of Cumberland._”[48] Sir Robert continued that he
liked to hear other people’s opinions as well as his own, and then and
there desired Lord Hervey to sit down and write exactly what _he_ would
advise the King to say if he stood in his--Sir Robert’s--position. This
Lord Hervey was overjoyed to do as it gave him an opportunity to show
his resentment against the Prince.
It was drawn up in the form of a letter to be signed by the King as
follows, in Lord Hervey’s words:
“It is in vain for you to hope that I can be so far deceived by your
empty professions, wholly inconsistent with all your actions, as to
think that they in any manner palliate or excuse a series of the most
insolent and premeditated indignities offered to me and the Queen, your
Mother.
“You never gave the least notice to me or the Queen of the Princess’s
being breeding or with child till about three weeks before the time
when you yourself have owned you expected her to be brought to bed, and
removed her from the place of my residence for that purpose. You twice
in one week carried her away from Hampton Court with an avowed design
of having her lie-in in town, without consulting me or the Queen, or so
much as communicating your intention to either of us. At your return
you industriously concealed everything relating to this important
affair from our knowledge; and last of all, you clandestinely hurried
the Princess to St. James’s in circumstances not fit to be named, and
less fit for such an expedition.
“This extravagant and undutiful behaviour in a matter of such great
consequence as the birth of an heir to my crown, to the manifest peril
of the Princess and her child (whilst you pretend your regard for her
was your motive) inconsistent with the natural right of all parents,
and in violation of your double duty to me, as your father and as your
King, is what cannot be excused by any false plea, so repugnant to the
whole tenor of your conduct, of the innocence of your intentions, or
atoned for by specious pretences or plausible expressions.
“Your behaviour for a long time has been so devoid of duty and regard
to me, even before this last open proof you have given to all the
world of your contempt for me and my authority, that I have long been
justly offended at it; nor will I suffer any part of any of my palaces
to be any longer the resort and refuge of all those whom discontent,
disappointment or disaffection have made the avowed opposers of all my
measures; who espouse you only to distress me, and who call you the
head, whilst they make you the instrument of a faction that acts with
no other view than to weaken my authority in every particular, and can
have no other end in their success but weakening the common interest of
my whole family.
“My pleasure therefore is, that you and all your family remove from St.
James’s as soon as ever the safety and convenience of the Princess will
permit.
“I will leave the case of my grand-daughter to the Princess till the
time comes when I shall think it proper to give directions for her
education.
“To this I will receive no reply. When you shall, by a consistency in
your words and actions, show that you repent of your past conduct, and
are resolved to return to your duty, parental affection may then and
not till then, induce me to forgive what parental justice now obliges
me to resent.”
So much for Lord Hervey’s idea of what he considered a just punishment
for his enemy the Prince of Wales.
Coxe, in his “Walpole,” refers to the expressions in this draft as
“harsh, improper and indecorous.” The Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, was
the chief reviser of this abominable letter of Hervey’s, and even when
several amendments had been made, considered it in its completed form
too strong, but it was practically that letter of Lord Hervey’s, though
some of the words were softened, which was eventually delivered to the
Prince of Wales, and upon which he and his family had to turn out of
St. James’s Palace.
But there is one incident which occurred at this time and which has
been much used by Lord Hervey, Horace Walpole, and other enemies of the
Prince.
On the ninth day after the confinement of the Princess of Wales, the
Queen, with her two eldest daughters, drove from Hampton Court to St.
James’s to pay another visit to the mother and child.
It is said that this visit was a very painful one, because the Queen
and her son--who met her only at the door of his wife’s bedchamber,
whether by accident or design it is not stated--did not speak. It is
very evident that from this time forward, the Prince, whether rightly
or wrongly, regarded his mother as the cause of the King’s anger
against him, and did not conceal his feelings on the point.
During the hour which his mother spent with the Princess and the Royal
baby, not a word passed between mother and son, and exception is
taken to the fact that when the Queen observed that “she feared she
was troublesome,” nobody had the politeness to say she was not. At
the conclusion of the visit, the Prince very properly led his mother
down to her coach, and arriving at it, did something which greatly
exasperated Lord Hervey and Horace Walpole; he knelt down in the dirty
street and kissed his mother’s hand!
What a terrible thing for a son to do! What an outrage!
Both Hervey and Horace Walpole try to make out that he did it for
effect, and to inspire the people who were looking on; but is it not
much more likely that both Hervey and Walpole--and perhaps the people
in the street, too, would have had a great deal more to say if he
had _not_ done it, for it was the common etiquette of the Court, and
remains very much the same to the present day. But there was another
interest about this parting, too. It was the last time that mother and
son ever met on earth.
In such fashion were the sayings and doings of this Prince, _who was
not wanted_, continually distorted by those around the King and Queen,
and yet they never succeeded in shaking his popularity with the people.
Lord Hardwicke, the Lord Chancellor, has left an account behind him of
an interview with the Prince about this time, which throws some light
on the reason for the secret removal of the Princess from Hampton Court.
“On the fourth day of August,” writes Lord Hardwicke, “the day
of proroguing the Parliament, I went to St. James’s in my way to
Westminster in order to inquire after the health of the Princess of
Wales and the new-born Princess. After I had performed that ceremony, I
went away, and was overtaken at the further end of Pall Mall by one of
the Prince’s footmen, with a message that His Royal Highness desired to
speak with me. Being returned, I was carried into the nursery, whither
the Prince came immediately, out of the Princess’s bedchamber, and
turned all the ladies out of the room.”
Shade of Earl Cairns! what should we think in these days if we heard
of the Lord High Chancellor of England being shown into the nursery
at Marlborough House when on a visit of ceremony, and “all the ladies
being turned out,” and apparently the baby too, to give the Prince of
Wales an opportunity of talking serious State matters with his lordship?
The room, however, being at last clear, the Prince took Lord Hardwicke
into his confidence, evidently with the object of persuading him to
soften the hearts of the King and Queen and _inter alia_ referring to
the removal of the Princess from Hampton Court in much the same terms
used in his first letter to his father, but with this significant
addition: “What if the King, who was apt sometimes to be pretty quick,
should have objected to her going to London, and an altercation should
have arisen, what a condition would the poor Princess have been in!”
The two sat and discoursed for some time, and the old Chancellor gave
Frederick just the sort of advice an old lawyer would naturally give
a young man under the circumstances, urging submission and dutiful
behaviour to bring about a union of the family, and adding that it
would be the “zealous endeavour of himself with the other servants of
the King,” to bring about this end.
“He answered,” continued Hardwicke, “‘My Lord, I don’t doubt you in the
least, for I believe you to be a very honest man,’ and as I was rising
up embraced me, offering to kiss me. I instantly kneeled down and
kissed his hand, whereupon he raised me up and kissed my cheek.
“The scene had something in it moving, and my heart was full of the
melancholy prospect that I thought lay before me, which made me almost
burst into tears. The Prince observed this, and appeared moved himself,
and said: ‘Let us sit down, my Lord, a little, and recollect ourselves,
that we may not go out thus.’
“Soon after which I took my leave, and went directly to the House of
Lords.”
_Minutes of Lord Harrington and Sir Robert Walpole’s conversation with
the Prince by his bedside, August 1st, about five in the morning, and
taken down in writing about three hours after._
“August 1, 1737.
“The Prince of Wales this morning about five o’clock, when Lord
Harrington and Sir Robert Walpole waited upon him at St. James’s,
among other things said: he did not know whether the Princess was
come before her time or not. That she had felt great pain the Monday
before, which it being apprehended might prove her labour, of which
opinion Lady Archibald Hamilton and Mrs. Payne declared themselves to
be, but the physicians were then of another opinion, he brought her
from Hampton Court again. That on the following Friday the Princess’s
pains returning, the Prince carried her again to St. James’s, when
the physicians, Dr. Hollings and Dr. Broxolme, and Mrs. Cannons, were
of opinion it might prove her labour, but those pains likewise going
off, they returned again to Hampton Court on Saturday; that he should
not have been at Hampton Court on Sunday, but it being public day, he
feared it might be liable to some constructions; that the Princess,
growing ill again on Sunday, he brought her away immediately, that she
might be where proper help and assistance could be had.”
The opinion of that remarkably sensible woman of the time, Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, on this event, can but be read with interest.
“There has been an extraordinary quarrel at Court. The 31st of last
month, July, 1737, the Princess fell in labour. The King and Queen
both knew she was to lie in at St. James’s, where everything was
prepared. It was her first child, and so little a way to London that
she thought it less hazard to go immediately away from Hampton Court to
London, where she had all the assistance that could be, and everything
prepared, than to stay at Hampton Court, where she had nothing, and
might be forced to make use of a country midwife. There was not a
minute’s time to be lost in debating this matter, nor in ceremonials,
the Princess begging earnestly of the Prince to carry her to St.
James’s in such a hurry that gentlemen went behind the coach like
footmen. They got to St. James’s safe; and she was brought to bed in
one hour after. Her Majesty followed them as soon as she could, but
did not come until it was all over. However, she expressed a great
deal of anger to the Prince for having carried her away, though she
and the child were very well. I should have thought it would have been
most natural for a grandmother to have said, she had been mightily
frighted, but she was so glad it was so well over. The Prince said all
the respectful and dutiful things imaginable to her and to the King,
desiring her Majesty to support the reasons which made him go away
as he did, without acquainting his Majesty with it. And I believe that
all human creatures will allow, that this was natural for a man not to
debate a thing of this kind, nor to lose a minute’s time for ceremony;
which was very useless, considering that it is a great while since the
King has spoken to him, or taken the least notice of him. The Prince
told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty to the
King; but she advised him not. This was Monday morning, and she said
Wednesday was time enough. And, indeed, I think in that her Majesty was
in the right. The Prince submitted to her counsel, and only writ a very
submissive and respectful letter to his Majesty, giving his reasons for
what he had done; and this conversation ended, that he hoped that his
Majesty would do him the honour to be godfather to his daughter, and
that he would be pleased to name who the godmothers would be; and that
he left all the directions of the christening entirely to his Majesty’s
pleasure. The Queen answered that it would be thought the asking the
King to be Godfather was too great a liberty, and advised him not to do
it.
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Emery Walker._
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.]
“When the Prince led the Queen to her coach, which she would not
have had him have done, there was a great concourse of people; and
notwithstanding all that had passed before, she expressed so much
kindness, that she hugged and kissed him with great passion. The King
after this sent a message in writing by my Lord Essex in the following
words:
“‘That his Majesty looks upon what the Prince had done in carrying the
Princess to London in such a manner, as a deliberate indignity offered
to himself and to the Queen, and resented it in the highest degree and
forbid him the court.’
“All the sycophants and agents of the Court spread millions of
falsities on this occasion, and all the language there was that this
was so great a crime that even those that went with the Prince ought to
be prosecuted. How this will end nobody yet knows, at least I am sure I
don’t.”
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough to Lord Stair, August, 1737.
A pretty satire written before August 29th, 1737, by Dr. Hollings,
who attended the Princess of Wales, concerning the baby Princess, but
really directed against the Queen.
It is by comparison, not difficult to see on which side Dr. Hollings’s
sympathies were. This writing was found among the papers of Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough.
“I am sensible how difficult it really is to be impartial, and how much
more difficult it is to seem so, in drawing the characters of persons
of the highest path and rank. The praise or the blame which they may
justly deserve, is severally ascribed to the interested views or the
private resentment of the author. I should therefore not have attempted
the character of this most excellent Princess, could there have been
the least room for suspicions of that nature. But having no obligation
or disobligation whatsoever to her, I shall speak the truth in the
sincerity of my heart, and I likewise call upon all and everyone of
those who have the honour to know her as well as I do, to contradict me
if they can in any one particular. I have observed her with attention
almost from the hour of her birth, and have carefully marked the
progressive steps of nature. I have seen her in her most unguarded
moments, and have seriously and critically considered whatever fell
from her; so that I may, without vanity, assert that nobody is better
qualified to tell the truth than myself, though others might be much
more capable of adorning it.
“I shall say nothing of the beauty of this incomparable Princess,
it is her mind, and not her person, which we intend to delineate.
Neither shall I dwell upon her high birth and station any longer than
to observe that she seems to be the only person ignorant of that
superiority. She has never been heard to give the most remote hint of
it, much less has she ever been observed to assume even that degree of
state which others, much inferior to her in birth, are so foolishly
fond of.
“It would be saying but little in praise of this excellent lady to
observe, that she had early acquired many friends; for _who_ in that
high station has not, where the power of obliging and doing good is
so extensive, it must be the weakest head, as well as the worst heart,
that does not exert it, and make many happy friends. But, what is much
more rare in her station, she has not one enemy.
“Equally humane to all who approach her, she neither stoops to
meannesses, nor insolently insults, in proportion as she imagines the
persons may be useful or useless; for having nothing to fear, ask, or
conceal, from any, she behaves herself with unconcern to all.
“She was never known to tell a lie, or even to disguise a truth;
uncorrupted nature appears in every motion, and honestly declares the
present sentiment. Her smiles are the immediate results of a contented
and innocent heart. They are never prostituted to disguise inward
rancour and malice, nor insidiously displayed to betray the unwary into
a fatal confidence.
“The tears she sometimes sheds are not less sincere; they flow only
from justifiable causes, and not from disappointed avarice, ambition
or revenge. Nor are they the forced tears of simulated compassion, but
real harshness of heart. Moreover she never cries for joy.
“She is a rare instance of liberality and economy; for though her
income be but small, she retains no more of it than is absolutely
necessary for her subsistence, and properly and privately disposes of
the rest; free from the ostentation of little or sordid minds, who
by profusion in trifles, hope to conceal the insatiate avarice and
corruption of their hearts.
“Though born and bred in Court, she never engages in the intrigues
and whispers of it, nor concerns herself in public matters. Far from
retailing or inventing lies, promoting scandal and defamation, and
encouraging breach of faith and violation of friendship, one would
think of her behaviour that she had never heard of such things.
“Her silence, considering her sex, is not the least admirable of her
many qualifications. She never speaks when she has nothing to say, nor
graciously tires her company with frivolous, improper and unnecessary
tattle.
“She is entirely free from another weakness of her sex, attention to
dress. And it is observable, that if she is ever out of humour, it
is in those moments when she is obliged to conform to custom in that
particular.
“Having thus finished this imperfect sketch of this inimitable
character, I shall only add for the information of the curious, that
this most incomparable Princess was given to us on the 31st July, 1737.
Name indeed she has none. But had ever such a Princess a name? Or can
any man name me such a Princess?”
“This paper,” comments the Duchess of Marlborough, “made me laugh,
for I think there is a good deal of humour in it, and two very exact
characters.”
Lord Hailes, who published the Duchess’s papers, comments as follows on
this essay of Dr. Hollings:
“It is curious to see the various shapes which party resentment can
assume. We have already met with a satire on Queen Caroline, in the
form of an inscription to the honour of Queen Anne. And here more
virulent satire appears under a quibbling character of the infant
daughter of the Prince of Wales.”
FOOTNOTES:
[46] “The Griff” was one of the contemptuous titles bestowed at an
early date on the Prince of Wales by his father.
[47] Lord Fanny was the nick-name given to Hervey.
[48] Hervey’s Memoirs Vol. iii., p. 231. This gives a very fair idea
of public opinion on the subject.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PRINCE IS CAST FORTH WITH HIS FAMILY.[49]
If that phenomenon, the soft-hearted old lawyer, Lord Hardwicke, was
moved to tears at the Prince’s position, that feeling did not extend
to the King and Queen. On the morning of the 13th of September, the
day before the Prince was to leave their roof, the following edifying
remarks were made by them as they sat at breakfast:
“I hope in God,” piously repeated the Queen several times as she
proceeded with her meal, “I shall never see him again.”
“Thank God!” responded the King in the same pious strain--no doubt with
his mouth full and talking very quickly, “to-morrow night the Puppy
will be out of my house!”
The Queen replied that she thought the Prince would rather like to be
made a martyr of; but it was pointed out to her that the ignominy of
being turned out of doors obscured any martyr-like attributes in the
Prince’s opinion.
This beautiful scene appears to have been a lively one, for the King,
getting excited, gave the company his opinion on the companions of his
eldest son whom he referred to as “boobies, fools and madmen,” and
their unlikelihood to represent anything to him in its proper light.
The King enumerated a few of the Prince’s household with what he
considered appropriate remarks concerning each of them:
“There is my Lord Carnarvon,[50] a hot-headed, passionate, half-witted
coxcomb, with no more sense than his master; there is Townshend,[51] a
silent, proud, surly, wrong-headed booby; there is my Lord North,[52]
a very good poor creature, but a very weak man; there is my Lord
Baltimore, who thinks he understands everything and understands
nothing, who wants to be well with both Courts and is well at neither,
and _entre nous_ is a little mad, and who else of his servants can you
name that he listens to, unless it is the stuttering puppy, Johnny
Lumley?”[53]
The ejection of the Prince and his family from St. James’s Palace had
not been viewed without remonstrance; the Duke of Newcastle had begged
the Princess Emily “for God’s sake”; that she would use her influence
with her mother to prevent the last message going to the Prince.
But this request being conveyed to the Queen, by the Princess, did the
Duke more harm with her than “all the stories his enemies could put
together.”
So the message went, and the Prince and his family had to turn out on
the 14th of September.
But even in this turning out, the little King, with his million a
year[54] income, could not behave like a gentleman.
Not only were all foreign Ambassadors notified that it would be
agreeable to the King if they kept away from the Prince’s house, but
a written message was sent round to all peers, peeresses and privy
councillors, stating that whoever waited on the Prince by way of
attending his levées should not be received at Court.
The Guard was taken away from the Prince’s house, and, meanest of
all, when Sir Robert Walpole, prompted by the Dukes of Newcastle and
Grafton, tried to persuade the King and Queen to give the Prince and
his wife the furniture of their apartments, the very reasonable request
was refused.
The excuse the King made was that he had given the Prince Five thousand
pounds out of his own pocket when he married to “set out” with, and, in
addition, he had his wife’s fortune, another Five thousand pounds. (It
does not seem clear, however, what this had to do with the King.)
“The wedding of the Prince of Wales,” the King added, “had cost him,
one way and another, Fifty thousand pounds, and therefore he positively
declined to let his son and his wife take any of their furniture away
from their apartments, and he instructed the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke
of Grafton, to see that none was removed.”
Lord Hervey, who was standing by at the time these orders were given,
appears to have remonstrated and to have pointed out that chests and
things of that nature could not be regarded as furniture, but were
conveniences in which to pack the Prince and Princess’s clothes,
otherwise they would have to carry them away in baskets like dirty
linen.
“Why not?” broke in the large-minded little King, “a basket is good
enough for them.”
Which was a piece of meanness, which would have disgraced a cobbler.
The Queen seems to have aided and abetted the King in this mean conduct.
But the Prince and Princess with their Household and the baby, went
their way, and in the first place took up their quarters at Kew,
the Prince had despatched messengers to the heads of his party, the
“Patriots.” Lord Chesterfield was ill of a fever at the time, and
Pulteney was shooting in Norfolk; but there appears to have been a
meeting of these two eventually with Carteret at Kew, and all three
plainly told the Prince that they considered he had made a false step,
and that his best course would be to endeavour to patch up a peace with
his father and mother, and this he appears to have earnestly tried to
do as the two following letters will show.
Copy of a letter from Lord Baltimore to Lord Grantham.
“London, September 13th, 1737.
“My Lord,
“I have in my hands a letter from his Royal Highness to the Queen,
which I am commanded to give or transmit to your Lordship; and as I am
afraid it might be improper for me to wait upon you at Hampton Court,
I must beg you will be so good as to let me know how and in what
manner I may deliver or send it to you.
“If I may presume to judge of my Royal Master’s sentiments, he does
not conceive himself precluded by the King’s message from taking this,
the only means of endeavouring as far as he is able to remove his
Majesty’s displeasure.
“I am,
“Your Lordship’s very humble Servant,
“BALTIMORE.”
This letter caused a considerable flutter at Hampton Court, and a
consultation was held as to what was to be done. It was said the Queen
was anxious to refuse her son’s letter, but Sir Robert Walpole finished
the matter by forbidding her to receive it, or to become mediatrix
between the Prince and his father, in which there is no doubt he was
simply doing the Queen’s will and taking the blame on his own shoulders.
The following letter was sent in reply to Lord Baltimore’s, and was
dictated to Lord Grantham by Sir Robert Walpole. The Queen was on this
occasion most anxious that Lord Grantham, who was a notoriously bad
writer, should be carefully watched lest he made mistakes, and she was
most desirous that the Prince should quite understand her intentions.
This is the letter:
“Lord Grantham to Lord Baltimore.
“Hampton Court.
“Sept. 15th, 1737.
“My Lord,
“I have laid your Lordship’s letter before the Queen, who has
commanded me to return your Lordship the following answer:--
“‘The Queen is very sorry that the Prince’s behaviour has given the
King such just cause of offence, but thinks herself restrained by the
King’s last message to the Prince from receiving any application from
the Prince on that subject.’
“I am, my Lord,
“Your Lordship’s, etc.,
“GRANTHAM.”
So thus ended the Prince’s further attempt at reconciliation by means
of his mother.
He was, however, soon busy in finding a town house for himself and his
family, whilst Carlton House--which stood near where the Duke of York’s
Column now is--was being decorated and altered.
Carlton House had been purchased by him in 1732, through Lord
Chesterfield, from the Countess of Burlington.
The house derived its name from Henry Boyle, Lord Carlton who probably
built it, and who dying unmarried in 1725, it passed to his nephew,
Lord Burlington, who gave it to his mother, from whom the Prince bought
it. The Prince must at this time have had some idea of making a home
for himself, and again in 1735 when he altered and much enlarged it.
But while Carlton House was being repaired he looked around for a
temporary residence, and at first thought of Southampton House, which
stood in a court and garden between what are now Bloomsbury and Russell
Squares: the site is at the present time covered with houses. This
residence was refused him by the owner, the Duke of Bedford, who was
afraid to offend the King and Queen.
He then turned his attention to Norfolk House in St. James’s Square,
but here again the owner, the Duke of Norfolk, had fears of getting
into hot water, and sent the Duchess to Hampton Court to interview the
Queen on the subject.
Finding there were no difficulties in the way, the Duke of Norfolk
placed his house at the Prince’s disposal, and the latter shortly
moved into it with his family. It may here be mentioned that it was in
Norfolk House, in an old very ordinary looking bed with green hangings,
that George the Third of England was born on the 4th June following,
less than eleven months after the birth of his sister.
At Norfolk House the Prince, though he materially reduced his expenses
and “farmed his tables”--_i.e._, was catered for at so much a head--yet
soon gathered around him a Court, small, but brilliant. The Prince’s
wit and great amiability, and the beauty and youth of his Princess,
very naturally formed an attraction to many, and those principally of
the most refined circle of the aristocracy, and their followers, the
men of letters.
The King had previously expressed his opinion of his son’s supporters
when they had gathered round him at Kew after his expulsion, and had
added in anger and some jealousy: “They will soon be tired of the
puppy.”
But still the Prince drew around him all the rising young men of the
Tory Party and many of the wits of the day.
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, thus speaks of him at this time:--
“There is a great deal of very good company goes to Norfolk House, but
if I were to advise, I would have more play, to make more people easy
by sitting down, as it used to be in all the Courts, that ever I knew,
either by a basset-table, or at other games, letting people of quality
go halves. But they begin, to my thinking, with the same forms the late
Queen did, only to leave room to entertain a few of the town ladies,
and I think it don’t lessen one’s greatness, but the contrary, to make
everybody, one can, easy.”
There was an incident one night at a theatre which caused the King and
Queen much chagrin.
The play was “Cato,” and the Prince of Wales and his party were
present; and the lines:
“When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.”
The audience, noting the application, broke out into cheers for the
Prince, which he suitably acknowledged and joined in the applause for
the actor.
But the most exasperating incident for the King and Queen was when the
Prince and Princess of Wales received their good friends the Lord Mayor
and Aldermen of London at Carlton House, to which mansion they went for
the occasion.
The Lord Mayor and Aldermen had, very soon after the birth of the
Princess, expressed a hope to the Prince that he would receive them to
express their congratulations, and the Prince had characteristically
replied that as soon as the Princess was well enough, he would
communicate a date to them, when they could both receive them. The
date eventually fixed upon was Thursday, the 22nd September, and the
place Carlton House, the Duke of Norfolk’s house probably not being
sufficiently large to contain such a deputation.
The Prince and Princess were attended on this occasion by Lord
Carteret, Lord Chesterfield, the Duke of Marlborough and many others of
the Household and Council.
_To every member of the City deputation_ was given a printed copy of
the King’s last message to his son--that originally written by Lord
Hervey--turning the Prince and his family out of St. James’s.
The noblemen and gentlemen standing by the Prince, added their comments
to the copies of the letter, especially Lord Carteret.
“You see, gentlemen,” he said, “how the Prince is threatened if he does
not dismiss us; but we are here still for all that. He is a rock. You
may depend upon him, gentlemen. He is sincere. He is firm.”
The Prince was a wordy man, and perhaps more beloved by the City on
that account. The citizens had come out to enjoy themselves, and would
have gone away disappointed if the Prince had not addressed them at
length; besides it was an honour thus to be taken into his confidence
over such a private affair.
The Prince did not disappoint them as regards the speech. He explained
his great interest in the affairs of the City of London, and gave them
a great idea of their importance, which was very acceptable to the
Lord Mayor and Aldermen. He claimed their friendship, and told them he
should never look upon them as _beggars_.
This last was a terrible blow at Sir Robert Walpole, who in the Excise
year had given the greatest offence to the City of London by having
been reported to have said “that the citizens were a party of sturdy
beggars.”
Even Sir Robert Walpole was angered when the report of these
proceedings reached the Court. The condition of the irate little King
and his Queen can best be imagined.
“The Prince is firm, he is a rock,” sneered Sir Robert, “the Prince can
never be more firm in maintaining Carteret than I am in my resolution
never to have anything to do with him. _I am a rock_,” he raved, “I am
determined in no shape will I ever act with _that_ man.”
But there appeared to be a considerable mystery about the printing
of the King’s letter of expulsion, as Lord Hervey states that Sir
Robert Walpole had told him fully a week before that he intended to
let this message “slip into print.” So that it is possible that Lord
Carteret was only carrying out his intentions--for it was Carteret who
had the letter printed--but not quite in the way which he intended or
wished. About this time there was an amusing little passage between the
Princess Caroline and her brother, the Prince of Wales. The two had
never been friends.
It was by way of a message delivered by the Princess through the medium
of Monsieur Desnoyer, that ubiquitous and much favoured dancing-master,
who is continually hopping in and out of the history of this period.
The Princess instructed Desnoyer that when the Prince, who kept the
dancing-master in his household, asked what they were saying about
him at Hampton Court, concerning his adventure on the night of his
daughter’s birth, Desnoyer was to reply that the Princess Caroline
declared that all of them, excepting the Princess, deserved to be
hanged.
“I know,” concluded the Princess, “you would tell this again, Monsieur
Desnoyer, though I did not give you leave; but I say it with no other
design than that you should repeat it.” Monsieur Desnoyer bowed and
departed; but the next time he came to give his dancing lesson at
Hampton Court the Princess Caroline hastened to ask him like a woman,
full of curiosity, if he had delivered her message to the Prince of
Wales.
“Yes, Madame,” responded the man of figures.
“And in the same words?” demanded the Princess.
“Yes, Madame, I have said: Monseigneur, do you know what Madame la
Princesse Caroline has charged me to tell you? She said, Monseigneur,
saving the respect that I bear you, that your Royal Highness ought to
be hanged.”
“And what did he answer?” gasped the Princess, in an agony of
expectation.
“Madame,” replied the dancing-master, “he spat in the fire, and then
presently replied. ‘Ah! you know what Caroline is, she is always like
that.’”
“When you see him again,” replied the Princess, bridling, “tell him
that his answer is as foolish as his conduct.”
Just like a loving brother and sister!
Thus writes Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, of events at this time,
1737:
“They have printed all the letters and messages that have passed
between the King, Queen, Prince and Princess. This shows that the
Minister thinks he has been in the right; but I don’t find any
reasonable body of that opinion. And I observe that they have left out
in this printed paper a message from his Majesty to the Prince, which
was brought in writing by my Lord Dunmore; in which they judged very
well, for it was certainly a very odd one, as I think it is, my Lord
Harrington’s and Sir Robert Walpole’s evidence concerning the Prince,
some part of which is certainly untrue.
“But upon the whole matter nobody can think that the Prince designed
to hurt the Princess or the child, which was of much more consequence
to him than it can be to her Majesty, who has so many children of her
own. If the Prince had not had good success in what he ventured to
do; and if it had been a real crime, the submissions the Prince has
made, one would think ought to have been accepted, for the omission
of a ceremony that was not natural for the Prince to think of at the
time; and especially as he was treated at Court. But I suppose that Sir
Robert did not think it a proper thing to say that the true cause of
the quarrel was the Prince’s seeming to have a desire to have the whole
of the allowance which the public pays for his support; and, indeed, I
do think it would not have been becoming to have given that reason for
what has been done. But if I may presume to give my opinion against
Sir Robert’s, I should rather in his place have chose to have sent the
message to the Prince, that he must leave St. James’s, because the King
was dissatisfied with his behaviour in general; and not have given such
strange reasons for the quarrel, and then publish a printed account
with so many reflections upon the Prince, which no man that has any
notion of honour can ever forgive.”
With regard to the publication of these letters, which was a kind of
set-off against the Prince’s address to the Lord Mayor, Lord Hervey was
employed to translate the Prince’s, and in the midst of his task went
off to London. On his return he was greeted by the Queen, who was most
anxious about the letters, in the following terms:--
“Where the devil are you, and what have you been doing? You are a
pretty man to have the justification of your friends committed to your
hands! There are the letters which you have had this week to translate,
and they are not yet ready to be dispersed, and only that you must go
to London to divert yourself with some of your nasty _guenipes_[55]
instead of doing what you have undertaken.”
Hervey made her a quotation from Shakespeare in reply:--
“Go tell your slaves how choleric you are, and make your bondmen
tremble. Your anger passes by me like the idle wind which I regard
not.”
FOOTNOTES:
[49] George the Second was himself kicked out of St. James’s Palace by
his father, George the First, with all his family in 1717.
[50] Lord of the Prince’s Bedchamber.
[51] Colonel Willm. Townshend, Groom of the Bedchamber.
[52] Lord of the Bedchamber.
[53] The “stuttering puppy” was Groom of the Bedchamber and brother of
Lord Scarborough.
[54] The original £700,000 a year had been much augmented.
[55] Trulls.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.
But now over the squabblings and disagreements of this Royal Family,
with their enormous wealth and power, was gathering a dark cloud from
which presently descended a greater Power than theirs, the Power which
one day touches all, and which the riches of a Palace are as impotent
to resist as the poverty of a poor man’s dwelling--the Power of Death.
For some time past the Queen’s health had been steadily failing;
possibly the excitement of the last few months, Madame de Walmoden,
the King’s danger in the storm, the affair of the Prince’s income, and
lastly the _émeute_ at the birth of his child, had been all too much
for her, yet her death as will be seen was mainly the result of her own
fault, the foolish concealment of a malady.
On Wednesday, the 9th of November, 1737, the Queen was taken ill while
superintending the arrangements of her new library attached to St.
James’s Palace--the library is now pulled down. She described her
complaint as the cholic and suffered great pain, Doctor Tesier, the
German Physician to the Household, gave her some of a concoction called
“Daffy’s Elixir,” and ordered her to bed.
Nevertheless, that being a Drawing Room day, and fearing to disappoint
the King, and the company, she rose, dressed and attended the function.
Lord Hervey describes the following conversation with her when he
entered the rooms:
“Is it not intolerable,” she said, “at my age to be plagued with a new
distemper? Here is that nasty cholic I had at Hampton Court come again.”
She looked extremely ill, and telling him the incidents of the morning
Lord Hervey became alarmed.
“For God’s sake, Madam,” he said, “go to your room, what have you to do
here?”
She went and talked a little to the people and then came back again to
Hervey.
“I am not able to entertain people,” she said.
“Would to God,” he replied, impatiently, “the King would have done
talking of the ‘Dragon of Wantley,’ and release you!”
This was a new silly farce, which no doubt just suited the King who was
for ever talking about it. It was a burlesque on the Italian Opera, by
Henry Carey, and first played at Covent Garden the 26th October, 1737.
At last the King had said his last word on this entertaining subject
and left, giving the Queen the chance which both she and Lord Hervey
desired, for her to get away.
[Illustration: CAROLINE, QUEEN OF GEORGE II, AND THE YOUNG DUKE OF
CUMBERLAND]
The King, however, as he passed her, reminded her that she had not
spoken to the Duchess of Norfolk, and she went back and said a few
words to her. This was the last person she ever spoke to in public. She
retired, went at once to bed, and grew steadily worse.
The King, however, was not at all alarmed, indeed his courageous wife
did all she could to reassure him, and he went off in the evening to
play cards with Lady Deloraine. When, however, he returned late, the
condition of the Queen so alarmed him that he sent off for another
physician, Doctor Broxholme, Ranby, the King’s house surgeon, being
already there, principally for bleeding purposes apparently.
These learned doctors, who all along regarded her symptoms as those
of cholic, could think of nothing better to give her than usquebaugh,
_i.e._, whiskey--which seemed to do her as much good as the many
nostrums which were afterwards administered. Having tried such things
as Daffy’s Elixir, mint water, usquebaugh, snake root, and “Sir Walter
Raleigh’s Cordial”--which appears to have been some remedy of the great
explorer’s which had survived to that time--the doctors, in the fashion
of the day, decided to bleed the Queen, and the ever-ready Ranby was
ordered to draw off twelve ounces of blood.
The King, now thoroughly alarmed, commenced to show great anxiety, and
insisted on lying in his night-gown, _i.e._, dressing gown, outside the
Queen’s bed all night, so that he greatly inconvenienced both her and
himself, as he could not sleep, and the poor sufferer could not turn in
bed.
The diary of the Queen’s illness may be summarised as follows:
Thursday, November 18th.
The Queen was bled again early in the morning, and lost twelve ounces,
which abated her fever. As the King left her to go to his own side of
the Palace, she grew very despondent, and told her daughter Caroline
that no matter what they did she would die. “Poor Caroline,” she added
to her daughter, who was ailing, “you are very ill, too; we shall soon
meet again in another place.”
Growing better in the morning the King determined to hold a Levee, and
was very particular about having his new lace cuffs sewn on his shirt,
as the Foreign Ministers were coming. Sir Robert Walpole was at his
country seat, Houghton, in Norfolk, and knew nothing of the Queen’s
illness. This day there was some talk of sending for him, and the Duke
of Newcastle and Lord Hervey both wrote.
This evening the Queen said to her daughter Caroline and Lord Hervey,
who was with her--he seems to have hardly left her--“I have an ill
which nobody knows of.” No particular significance was however attached
to this remark.
This night, two more physicians were called in, Sir Hans Sloan, and Dr.
Hulst, who, still treating her for cholic and an internal stoppage,
ordered her blisters and aperients; the latter, like everything else
she took, she brought up.
Friday, November 11th.
Early in the morning the Queen was again “blooded” for fever. Her bad
symptoms remained the same. This day the Prince of Wales, hearing of
his mother’s illness, came to Carlton House in Pall Mall from Kew, and
Lord Hervey, hearing of this, became much alarmed lest he should call
at the Palace and ask for his mother. He flew to the King to ask for
instructions--he was the only Lord of the Court allowed near the King
and Queen. These were instructions which no doubt gladdened the heart
of Lord Hervey:
The King said:
“If the puppy should, in one of his impertinent, affected, airs of duty
and affection, dare to come to St. James’s, I order you to go to the
scoundrel and tell him I wonder at his impudence to come here; that he
has my orders already and knows my pleasure, and bid him to go about
his business.”
Very fatherly conduct under the circumstances!
Shortly afterwards while Lord Hervey was sitting with the Duke of
Cumberland drinking tea in the Queen’s outer apartment, Lady Pembroke
approached and informed them that Lord North had just been there from
the Prince of Wales, who had desired her in the Prince’s name to let
the King and Queen know that his Royal Highness was greatly distressed
to hear of the Queen’s illness and had come to London to be near her.
The only thing which could alleviate his concern was the favour of
being allowed to see her.
The Duke, then seventeen, made the following formal answer:
“I am not a proper person, Madam, to take the charge of this message,
but there is Lord Hervey, who is the only one of papa’s servants that
sees him at present, and is just going to him; if you will deliver it
to him, he will certainly let the King know.”
Accordingly, Lady Pembroke repeated the message to Lord Hervey, who
took it to the King.
“This,” raved his Majesty, when he received it, “is like one of the
scoundrel’s tricks,” and he forthwith sent the following kind answer
to his son’s message--written at the suggestion of Lord Hervey, and
probably at his dictation also--per Lord North, to whom Lord Hervey
read it from the paper, to prevent any of “_Cartouche’s Gang_,” as the
Queen called her son’s party, from garbling it. The message was as
follows:--
“I have acquainted the King with the message sent to Lady Pembroke, and
his Majesty has ordered me to say that in the present situation and
circumstances his Majesty does not think fit that the Prince should
see the Queen, and therefore expects that he should not come to St.
James’s.”
This was considered far too mild by the King.
But the state of the Queen’s mind towards her son, even at this
unfortunate time, may be gauged by the following incident:
On this Friday afternoon she asked the King whether “The Griff” had
sent to ask to see her. “But sooner or later,” she continued, “I am
sure we shall be plagued with some message of that kind, because he
will think it will have a good air in the world to ask to see me; and
perhaps hopes I shall be fool enough to let him come, and give him the
pleasure to see the last breath go out of my body, by which means he
would have the joy of knowing I was dead five minutes sooner than he
could know it in Pall Mall.”
Fine sentiments these, for a mother on her death bed to hold towards
her eldest son!
But the whole of this Friday the Queen grew worse hour by hour. But it
was on Saturday that the true nature of her illness was discovered,
and this by a hint given to Ranby, the Court Surgeon by the King,
who then, for the first time, stated that he believed the Queen was
suffering from an umbilical rupture, incurred at the birth of Princess
Louisa thirteen years before. Incredible as it appears, there is not
a question of a doubt but that the Queen had concealed this rupture
for all those years simply and solely because if the knowledge of this
ailment was bruited about, it would tend to render her objectionable to
the King--though it appears he was aware of it--and that she would have
died rather than disclose it.
Her motive was plainly jealousy of his mistresses.
However, once the hint was given, Ranby, the Surgeon, would not be
denied, and insisted on an examination, which she strove by every means
in her power to avoid.
When this had been conducted and Ranby was whispering to the King in a
corner, she started up in bed:
“I am sure now, you blockhead,” she cried, “you are telling the King I
have a rupture.”
“I am so,” answered Ranby, “and there is no more time to be lost, your
Majesty has concealed it too long already, and I beg another surgeon
may be called in immediately.”
The Queen did not answer, but, lying down, turned her face to the wall
and wept. The only time she shed a tear, as the King stated, during her
illness.
As Dr. Ranby stated there was little time to be lost; the King sent at
once for Dr. Busier,[56] a French surgeon, eighty years old, in whom
they all had great confidence, but he not being found, Ranby
was sent out to bring in the first surgeon of note he could find. The
celebrated Cheselden, Surgeon to the Queen, appears to have been absent.
Ranby returned however with Shipton, an eminent City surgeon, and
shortly after, Busier, the French surgeon, arrived, who advised an
immediate operation. This was objected to by the other two, and thus
probably the Queen’s last chance went.
The following may be taken as an example of the hatred which had grown
up in the King’s heart against his eldest son. The ever-ready Hervey
whispered a suggestion to him on this day which enraged him.
He told him “that he had heard it mentioned among some lawyers” that
Richmond Gardens--the Queen’s private estate--would go to the Prince of
Wales if his mother died.
So furious did the King become at this suggestion, that he was not
satisfied until the Lord Chancellor had been fetched off the Bench to
give an opinion on it, which being against the Prince, he communicated
it to the Queen to comfort her.
This Saturday evening an operation of a minor character was performed
upon the Queen.
The next day, Sunday, the 13th, was a black day; the Queen’s wound
began to mortify and all hope was abandoned.
This day she practically took leave of her favourite son:
“As for you, William,” she said, “you know I have always loved you
tenderly and placed my chief hope in you.”
She bade him be a support to the King, and not go against his brother.
But it was on this Sunday afternoon that the celebrated interview
took place between the King and Queen, which perhaps was the most
extraordinary, valedictory conversation between man and wife the world
has ever heard of.
The Queen had been taking leave of her family; she turned sadly to her
husband and drew from her finger a fine ruby ring he had given her at
her coronation, and gave it to him back again.
“This is the last thing I have to give you.” she said. “Naked I came to
you, naked I go from you. I had everything I ever possessed from you,
and to you whatever I have I return. My will you will find a very short
one; I give all I have to you.”
She then very solemnly repeated to him advice which she had often given
him before; that he should marry again.
The King had been sobbing before; this advice brought on a passion of
weeping, amidst which he made this remarkable and most characteristic
response:
“Non, j’aurai des maîtresses.”
One would have thought that, King as he was, some one would have hushed
him down, but the Queen seems to have very calmly answered:
“Mon Dieu! cela n’empêche pas.”
What can one say of a man and wife who talked thus over a death bed?
The Queen was thought to be dying that day, but she lingered on. On
Monday morning, Sir Robert Walpole arrived post haste from Houghton; he
had only heard of the Queen’s illness on the previous day owing to the
Duke of Newcastle’s neglect in sending the messenger round to the Duke
of Grafton first.
All Sir Robert’s enemies seemed to have concluded that his power would
wane, when the Queen, his patroness and friend, was dead; they did
their best to keep him from her at the last. But he arrived long before
the Queen died, and one of his first remarks on the situation to Lord
Hervey was the following: “Oh, my Lord!” cried Sir Robert, greatly
distressed, “if this woman should die what a scene of confusion will
here be! Who can tell into what hands the King will fall? or who will
have the management of him? I defy the ablest person in this kingdom to
foresee what will be the consequence of this great event.”
There was a particularly scandalous rumour prevalent at the Court
during this sad time concerning the Prince, which emanated, as usual,
from Lord Hervey, who said he heard it from the Duke of Marlborough
through one of his--Lord Hervey’s--particular friends, Harry Fox.
The rumour was that the Prince used to sit up half the night at
Carlton House, sending messengers continually to the Palace to make
enquiries, and eagerly awaiting his mother’s death with remarks like
the following:--
“Well, sure, we shall soon have good news; she cannot hold out much
longer!”
It may be said at once that Mr. Hamilton, one of the Prince’s
Household, contradicted these reports immediately he heard them, and
added that the Prince was in the greatest concern for his mother,
which seems by far the more natural and likely state for him to be in.
He was irritated, there can be no doubt, and no wonder at it; the very
fact of his being excluded, not only from his mother’s death bed,
but from the Palace itself, and every one belonging to his household
as well, was calculated to fill him with the bitterest thoughts. The
contemplation of the fact that all her other children were _there_, and
that Lord Hervey, his bitterest enemy, was occupying his place by his
mother’s pillow, was not likely to bring much calm to his feelings. The
only wonder is that he did not insist upon forcing himself into her
room.
When Lady Archibald Hamilton was consulted as to the above rumours
concerning the Prince’s behaviour, her answer was, “he is very decent.”
But a question was raised--by Lord Hervey again--about the members of
the Prince’s Household coming even to the Palace to inquire and remain
in the general ante-room in which all inquirers waited for news. The
King was at last moved to send a message, by Lord Hervey, to Sir Robert
Walpole to ask what was to be done about these messages from the Prince.
Lord Hervey, eager for an additional insult to those the Prince had
recently received, was strongly in favour of their being excluded from
the Palace. He maintained that they were evading the King’s order not
to come into his presence.
Sir Robert, however, was far too wise to interfere with them, and
sagely advised that they should be left alone.
All through that Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Queen grew
worse and worse, until, among the people, questions were continually
being asked as to whether she had seen a clergyman.
The echoes of these questions reached the Palace, and those about the
Queen’s bed began to consider what was to be done. The King in his
character of head of the church, had deputed his duties in regard to
the appointment of the Bishops to the Queen; he took no interest in
such things. Indeed his opinion of Bishops in general, which he freely
expressed, was not a high one. He strongly objected to their incomes,
which he stated were inconsistent with their preaching.
It appears therefore that the Queen, Sir Robert Walpole--who had no
religious convictions whatever--and Mrs. Clayton--Lady Sundon--did
most of the appointing of the Spiritual Peers. The Queen herself is
described as a Protestant of very broad views.
When then the question began to be canvassed between the King, Sir
Robert Walpole, and Lord Hervey as to what was to be done to provide
the Queen with a spiritual adviser to see her comfortably out of the
world, neither seemed very well prepared to give an opinion on the
point, though all three clearly saw that something must be done to
satisfy public opinion and prejudice.
Sir Robert Walpole, however, summed up the matter in the following
directions to Princess Amelia:--
“Pray, Madam, let this farce be played: the Archbishop will act it very
well. You may bid him be as short as you will. It will do the Queen no
hurt, no more than any good; and it will satisfy all the wise and good
fools, who will call us all atheists if we don’t pretend to be as great
fools as they are.”
So much for Sir Robert’s opinion of the consolations of religion. As
for the King, he never waited to see Archbishop Potter, the Primate,
but fled hastily from the Queen’s chamber when he heard he was
approaching. The observances for which the Bishop was responsible,
conveyed nothing to his mind whatever. Potter attended the Queen, night
and morning after this Wednesday, but what passed between them is not
known.
There was a great deal of inquiry as to whether the Queen would receive
the sacrament, “some fools,” according to Lord Hervey, “said the Queen
had not religion enough to ask to receive the sacrament.”
The Archbishop maintained a discreet silence on the point, when asked
as he came from the sick chamber:
“Has the Queen received?” he parried the question by replying:
“Gentlemen, Her Majesty is in a most heavenly frame of mind.”
But that the visit of the Archbishop had resulted in any reconciliation
between the Queen and the Prince of Wales, there is not a trace of
evidence, indeed the testimony is all the other way. She could not bear
at this time to think that even the gentlemen of his household were in
her ante-room, and at last had it cleared of all strangers.
“Will nobody turn these ravens out of the house!” she cried, “who are
only there to watch my death, and would gladly tear me to pieces whilst
I am alive!”
No, there was, unhappily, no forgiveness nor wish for reconciliation
there.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday passed in much the same way as the preceding
sad days except that the Queen grew steadily weaker. The King
distinguished himself by a mixture of brutality and tenderness towards
the dying woman. He scarcely ever left her room, night or day, except
when the Archbishop came to offer spiritual consolation.
“How the devil should you sleep when you will never lie still a
moment!” he exclaimed on one occasion, when her continual shifting
in bed, owing to her ailment and her wound, worried him. But he was
equally annoyed when she would lie quite still; looking straight
before her as sick persons will at nothing: “_Mon Dieu!_” he exclaimed
irritably, exasperated at her quietness. “What are you looking at?
What makes you fix your eyes like that? Your eyes look like a calf’s
when it is going to have its throat cut!”
All this, of course, was very suitable to the decorum of the death-bed
of a Queen, but perhaps after all the little man was worn out with the
continuous watching.
Then came Sunday, and each hour the Queen grew weaker, so that it came
to be a wonder that she had survived the last; but she lingered on
until the evening, and then asked Dr. Tesier, her physician:
“How long can this last?”
“I think,” he replied, “that your Majesty will soon be relieved from
suffering.”
“The sooner the better,” she answered.
Lord Hervey thus describes the last scene:
“About ten o’clock on Sunday night--the King being in bed and asleep
on the floor at the foot of the Queen’s bed, and the Princess Emily in
a couch-bed in a corner of the room--the Queen began to rattle in her
throat; and Mrs. Purcel, giving the alarm that she was expiring, all in
the room started up, Princess Caroline was sent for and Lord Hervey,
but before the last arrived the Queen was just dead. All she said
before she died was:
“I have now got an asthma. Open the window.” Then she added:
“_Pray._”
Upon which the Princess Emily began to read some prayers, of which
she scarcely repeated ten words when the Queen expired. The Princess
Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips, and, finding there was not
the least damp upon it, cried: “’Tis over!”
The King kissed the face and hands of the lifeless body several times,
but in a few minutes left the Queen’s apartment.
Thus died Caroline, by some called “The Illustrious,” by some even “The
Great,” but whose character was such a mixture of great and little
things that it is most difficult to give an accurate estimate of its
virtues or vices.
That she began well as a young girl cannot be doubted; she was
beautiful and brilliant, and entered life with the very best
intentions. Indeed, not one word has ever been said against her
character as a wife.
Perhaps the very greatest misfortune which ever happened to her was
to have married George Augustus, Electorial Prince of Hanover, and
therefore in due course to have become Queen of England.
Perhaps as the consort of the Prince of some petty German State she
might have shone as a wife and mother, and brought up her children with
good honest affection.
As it was, she early fell under the influence of such men as Sir Robert
Walpole--soulless, godless. No, not godless, because their God was
Ambition, before which no sacrifice was too great, Honour, Truth, or
even the lives of men.
Surely poor Caroline must have fallen far, when she adopted as her
constant companion, such a man as Lord Hervey.
But whatever good there was in her--and there was much--seems to have
been choked and hidden by her greed for Power, which even led her to
pander to her little contemptible husband’s vices.
Her conduct to her eldest son was without excuse, unless her separation
of fourteen years from him can be regarded in that light; but it is
much more likely that the arrival of the handsome boy, Prince William,
had more to do with her forgetfulness.
Unhappily, there is very little doubt that she died unreconciled to
Frederick, and that moreover she desired no reconciliation. Had there
been any such reconciliation, it would have been made public at the
time when such verses as the following were floating about.
Lord Chesterfield wrote an epitaph to the Queen in these words:--
“Here lies unpitied both by Church and State,
The subject of their flattery and hate;
Flattered by those on whom her favours flow’d,
Hated for favours impiously bestow’d;
Who aimed the Church by Churchmen to betray,
And hoped to share in arbitrary sway.
In Tindal’s and in Hoadley’s path she trod,
An hypocrite in all but disbelief in God.
Promoted Luxury, encouraged vice--
Herself a sordid slave to avarice.
True friendship’s love ne’er touched her heart,
Falsehood appeared in vice disguised by art
Fawning and haughty; when familiar, rude
And never civil, seem’d but to delude.
Inquisitive in trifling, mean affairs,
Heedless of public good or orphan’s tears.
_To her own offspring mercy she denied_,
And, unforgiving, unforgiven, died.”
The above bitter lines, in exceedingly bad taste, are only valuable as
regards the two last, which clearly state--and Lord Chesterfield was in
a position to know--that she did not forgive her son at the last.
Pope, too, who seems, like the majority, to have been on the side of
the Prince, concludes another poem on the subject in the following
ironical words:
“Hang the sad verse on Carolina’s urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest.
All parts performed _and all her children blest_.”
These are sage Sarah of Marlborough’s reflexions, none too charitable,
on the Queen’s death:
“1737. Our Bishops are now about to employ hands to write the finest
character that ever was heard of--Queen Caroline; who, as it is no
treason, I freely own that I am glad she is dead. For to get money,
that has proved of no manner of use to her, and to support Sir Robert
in all his arbitrary injustice, she brought this nation on the very
brink of ruin, and has endangered the succession of her own family, by
raising so high a dissatisfaction in the whole nation, as there is to
them all, and by giving so much power to France, whenever they think
fit to make use of it, who will have no mercy upon England.
“1737. His Majesty thinks he has lost the greatest politician that ever
was born, and one that did him the greatest service that was possible.
Though everybody else that knows the truth must acknowledge that it
was quite the contrary. For my own part it is demonstration to me,
that nothing could have put this nation and family in danger but the
measures of the Queen and Sir Robert. To my knowledge, most of the
weeping ladies that went to the King, have expressed the same opinion
of the Queen formerly that I have described.
“1737-8. Upon her great understanding and goodness there comes out
nauseous panegyrics every day, that make one sick, so full of nonsense
and lies, that there is one very remarkable from a Dr. Clarke, in order
to have the first bishoprick that falls, and I daresay he will have it,
though there is something extremely ridiculous in the panegyric; for
after he has given her the most perfect character that ever any woman
had or can have, he allows that:
“‘She had sacrificed her reputation to the great and the many, to show
her duty to the King, and her love to her country.’ These are the
clergyman’s words exactly, which allows she did wrong things, but it
was to please the King; which is condemning him. I suppose he must mean
some good she did to her own country, for I know of none she did in
England, unless raking from the public deserves a panegyric.
“1737-8. It seems to me as if her ghost did everything by their
saying, whatever is to be done, was the Queen’s opinion should be so;
and everything is compassed by that means by Sir Robert, without any
trouble at all; but if ----[57] should happen to have an opinion of any
person that is living, perhaps they may get the better of the ghost.”
FOOTNOTES:
[56] F.R.S. The first lecturer on Surgery in England.
[57] The King no doubt.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE YEAR OF MOURNING.
Caroline was buried with great pomp in a new vault in Henry the
Seventh’s Chapel, in Westminster Abbey, on Saturday, the 17th of
December, 1737. By her side when his time came was also laid George the
Second. An interesting incident in this connection was related to the
Right Honourable J. Wilson, compiler of “Hervey’s Memoirs,” by a Mr.
Milman, Prebendary of Westminster.
“George the Second, as the last proof of his attachment,” he said,
“gave directions that his remains and those of Queen Caroline should
be mingled together. Accordingly the two coffins were placed in a
large stone sarcophagus, and one side of each of the wooden coffins
withdrawn. This was a tradition at Westminster Abbey, of which I myself
have seen the confirmation, in my opinion conclusive; and as the Royal
vault in Westminster Abbey may never be again opened, it may be curious
to preserve the record.
“On the occasion of the removal, in 1837, of a stillborn child of the
Duke of Cumberland (King of Hanover) to Windsor, a Secretary of State’s
Warrant (which is necessary) arrived empowering the Dean and Chapter
to open the vault. I was requested by the Dean to superintend the
business, which took place by night.
“In the middle of the vault, towards the farther end, stands the large
stone sarcophagus, and against the wall _are still standing the two
sides of the coffins which were withdrawn_. I saw and examined them
closely, and have no doubt of the fact. The vault contains only the
family of George the Second.” _H. H. Milman._
The King seems to have shown the utmost grief for his wife, and at
first to a great extent to have secluded himself. A weird incident in
connection with this period is related by Wentworth in a letter to Lord
Strafford after the Queen’s funeral.
“Saturday night, between one and two o’clock, the King waked out of a
dream, very uneasy, and ordered the vault, where the Queen is, to be
broken open immediately, and have the coffin also opened; and went in
a hackney chair through the Horse Guards to Westminster Abbey and back
again to bed. I think it is the strangest thing that could be.”
He speaks of it again in another letter.
“The story about the King was true, for Mr. Wallop heard of one who saw
him go through the Horse Guards on Saturday night, with ten footmen
before the chair. They went afterwards to Westminster Abbey.”
There is no doubt whatever from the above account that the King was
suffering from that awful visitation which comes so often to persons
who have recently lost a dear one by death; the terrible fear that the
beloved _has been buried alive_. Only those who have been victims to
this haunting fear--which is far more common than is imagined--can give
an adequate description of its terrors.
Morbid as the thought is, the outcome no doubt of an exhausted nervous
system, where deep grief has followed perhaps the wearing anxiety of
watching a long illness, still it is not by any means restricted to
those of an imaginative tendency, but comes to all temperaments alike.
It would be perhaps quite safe to say that this was what made King
George undertake his midnight journey, and give the order for the
opening of the Queen’s tomb.
But deep as his sorrow was for his wife, it did not keep him from his
old ways. In a very short time Walmoden was brought over, and pending
her arrival Lady Deloraine acted the part of understudy. “People must
wear old gloves until they can get new ones,” was Sir Robert Walpole’s
comment _to the Princesses_ on this arrangement, to which he had not
only given his hearty approval, but as far as Madame Walmoden was
concerned, strongly urged upon the King, as a duty he owed to his
people to save his health breaking down under his grief, to bring her
over.
To Lord Hervey Sir Robert expressed himself more fully on this subject.
“I’ll bring Madame Walmoden over,” he said, “and I’ll have nothing
to do with your girls,” _i.e._, the Princesses. “I was for the
wife against the mistress, but I’ll be for the mistress against the
daughters.”
It is needless to say that after this remark Lord Hervey and Sir Robert
Walpole fell out.
Meanwhile the Prince of Wales appears to have remained in his position
of ostracism, and apparently took no part in his mother’s funeral
ceremonies. The Princess Amelia acted as chief mourner, and the King
did not appear at all.
With the Princess, Frederick seems to have lived at Norfolk House very
comfortably, coming over to Carlton House for any occasion of ceremony.
The popularity of the Prince seemed to grow, as he lost favour with
his father, and it is not at all to be wondered at, as he possessed a
natural geniality which endeared him to all. A story is related of him
in connection with a Lord Mayor’s Show, which is very typical.
Waiting to see the pageant--which was the occasion probably which
occurred during the year of mourning--the Prince of Wales went among
the crowd in Cheapside to see the procession return to the Guildhall.
Being recognised by some members of the Saddlers’ Company, he was
invited into their stand hard by, and there made himself so agreeable
that he was, there and then, elected their Master for the year; an
honour which he accepted with much pleasure.
This period of mourning was, however, after a time relieved of much of
its tristness as far as the King was concerned, by the lively society
of his mistresses, with whom the Princesses appeared to have associated
in perfect harmony.
One night at Kensington Palace, just as Lady Deloraine was about to sit
down to cards with the King, one of the Princesses pulled her chair
away and she came down with a bump on the floor.
It was bad enough to be laughed at by the Princesses, but far worse to
have little George guffawing at her with the knowledge in her mind that
she was only playing second fiddle to the Walmoden.
Lady Deloraine waited her opportunity, and later, when the King was
about to sit down, pulled _his_ chair away, with the view of getting
her own back again. The result, however, was not at all what she
expected; the sacred person of his Majesty is said to have been much
bruised, and so far from regarding the performance as a joke, he
excluded Lady Deloraine from his Court from that time forth, and the
Walmoden, now created Countess of Yarmouth, reigned henceforth supreme
till the King’s death many years after. Many will recollect a similar
anecdote in similar circumstances in our own day.
The next event, however, in the life of the Prince of Wales, following
quickly on the death of his mother, was the birth of his eldest son,
afterwards to fill the throne of England as George the Third. This took
place at Norfolk House, St. James’s, on the 4th of June (new style),
1738, while Carlton House was still under repair.
The birth was premature, and the child very frail, so much so that he
was baptized on the day of his birth.
The Poet Laureate seized this opportunity of the birth of a Prince in
the direct line of succession to the throne to become drivelling. He
congratulated Nature that she had first amused herself by sketching
a girl--Princess Augusta--by which bit of practice she had enabled
herself to produce the wonderful baby George!
Truly this Laureate was a person of some imagination!
The Corporation of London appear to have gone to the King direct and in
a talented address pointed out to him the fact--which perhaps otherwise
might have been overlooked--that this joyful occasion was the result of
the alliance of the baby’s parents!
The Bath Municipality seem to have also done something in this way to
distinguish themselves, by congratulating the Prince of Wales on his
own birth, to which they owed the sight of the royal presence in which
they stood.
It may be mentioned here that on his first birthday little Prince
George was the object of a curious attention.
Sixty of the children of the aristocracy, dressed as little soldiers
with drums beating and colours flying, entered the Palace and “elected
their little Prince as their Colonel.” This important event concluded,
they kissed the baby’s hand and departed.
The Prince and his wife--to whom he was devoted--seem to have had a
variety of residences. Norfolk House, Leicester House--formerly the
residence of his father when Prince of Wales--situated in Leicester
Square on a site very near where the Empire Theatre now stands; Carlton
House in Pall Mall, a house at Kew, and a Palace at Cliefden, built by
Villiers, situated on a terrace overlooking the River Thames.
Here at this latter house the Prince seems to have lived the life of
a country squire, and a lover of the river. He distributed prizes at
rowing matches, and mixed freely with the people of the part. His
dignity did not prevent him stopping to chat with a labourer at his
cottage door, or even to enter in, and do what few Princes would
condescend to do, sit down and share the cottager’s plain meal with him.
He would play cricket on the lawn at Cliefden with his children, when
they were old enough, or stroll along the banks of the river of which
he was very fond, and his companions were not always of the exalted
order one would expect.
He was devoted to art, and loved talent wherever he found it.
“Lord Sir,” exclaimed a simple country servant to his master one day
at Maidenhead, “I have seen the Prince of Wales accompanied by his
nobles.”
The “nobles” in question were two Scottish authors, Thompson and
Mallett, neither of them distinguished by the neatness of their attire.
It was alas! on the lawn at Cliefden, that Frederick received a blow,
some say from a cricket ball, others while at a game of tennis, which
was the indirect cause of his death some years after.
Here at Cliefden, and at his other residences, were to be seen his boon
companions; the Earl of Chesterfield, courtier, politician, satirist
and mimic. Lady Huntingdon, who left his world for Whitfield’s, and
whose name may be seen in almost every town in England on Dissenting
Chapels to the present day; Bathurst, Queensberry, the clever
Pulteney, Cobham, Pitt, the Granvilles, Lyttleton, the prig Bubb
Doddington, whose one aim in life was to be a lord. There were the
two Hedges--(Charles, who wrote epigrams)--erratic Lord Baltimore and
peevish Lord Carnarvon, Townshend, whom George the Second much objected
to, and his wife as well--the Townshends seem to have been very staunch
to the Prince--chatty Lord North, the Earl of Middlesex, who allowed
his wife’s name to be coupled with the Prince’s, although the lady’s
descriptions “short and dark, like a winter’s day,” and “as yellow as a
November’s morning,” were hardly those to fascinate an artistic nature
such as Frederick’s. Yet she certainly took part in the “Judgment of
Paris” in 1745 as one of the Graces. Last of all to be mentioned, there
was that “stuttering puppy,” as George the Second called him, Johnny
Lumley, brother of the Earl of Scarborough.
The maids of honour in attendance on the Princess of Wales, however,
must have been very different to that charming trio, “the Swiss,”
“Belladine,” and the “Schatz,” who waited upon Queen Caroline when
Princess of Wales.
They do not appear to have been popular in the Prince’s household at
any rate, for his head coachman made a most curious will concerning
them, in which he left his considerable savings to his son, on
condition that he never married a maid of honour! A compliment to those
ladies which they no doubt appreciated.
Among the many amusements with which the Prince and Princess delighted
their friends, private theatricals had their place, _Cato_ being played
on one occasion at Leicester House, when the young Prince George
Frederick had grown sufficiently into boyhood to take the part of
Portius, in which he was coached by Quin, who boasted he “had taught
the boy to speak”; the boy who was afterwards to be George the Third.
For the little theatre at Cliefden, Thompson, a pensioner of
Frederick’s--and he had many--wrote his play “Alfred.”
The Prince’s children came quickly, and Frederick showed himself to be
a tender father. There had been that sad episode years before, when
he had grieved so deeply--so deeply that his mother and sisters had
said they had not believed him capable of such sorrow--over the death
of that little child who had no right to have been there at all, Anne
Vane’s and his son.
That sad note had struck the one most tender chord in the despised
Prince’s nature, the depths of which his mother and sisters could not
sound; the love of little children. When his own grew up around him,
that great fount of love welled up and covered many of his sins, as we
know that love will do.
This is what is said of him at that time:
“Notwithstanding this, he played the father and husband well. He loved
to have his children with him, always appeared most happy when in the
bosom of his family, left them with regret, and met them again with
smiles, kisses and tears.”
And this was the nature which Queen Caroline could not understand; was
it not one full of love to shower on _some one_? Had he but had the
chance of a mother’s full love in those cold years of his childhood
spent in Hanover, is it not reasonable to think that his whole nature
would have been altered, and that he might have so wound himself around
Caroline’s heart that even her handsome younger son could never have
loosened those tendrils of affection.
But alas! there were those fourteen years of separation, when the
boy was left practically to his own resources to grow up without the
tenderness of a mother’s love to guide him.
How different was his conduct as a father to that of his own father,
who candidly admitted that he could not bear to have his children
playing about in the same room with him.
But in this happy time of a young father’s life, there were black
clouds gathering over the Prince’s household and this is how the old
Duchess of Marlborough speaks of them in her matter of fact way:
“They have found a way in the City to borrow thirty thousand pounds
for the Prince at ten per cent. interest to pay his crying debts to
trades-people. But I doubt that sum won’t go very far. But they have
got it though great pains was taken to hinder it.
“The salaries in the Prince’s family are twenty-five thousand pounds
a year, besides a good deal of expense at Cliefden in building and
furniture. And the Prince and Princess’s allowance for their clothes is
six thousand pounds a year each. I wish his Royal Highness so well that
I am sorry there is such an increase of expense more than in former
times, where there was more money a great deal, and really I think it
would have been more for the Prince’s interest, if his counsellers had
thought it proper to have advised him to live only like a great man,
and to give the reasons for it; and in doing so he would have made a
better figure, and have been safer; for nobody that does not get by it
themselves can possibly think the contrary method a right one.” _The
Duchess of Marlborough to Lord Stair_, 1738.
But though the pall of debt hung heavy over the Prince, yet there was
hope ahead, for even as far back as 1737--it must have been the very
end of the year--Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, writes to Lord Stair:--
“The courtiers talk much of a reconciliation. If there is any design to
compass that, surely it was as ill-judged as everything else to publish
such a character of the King’s son all over England.”[58]
* * * * *
From a wall of an alcove in the Prince of Wales’s garden at Cliefden,
Bucks.
“Say, Frederick, fixed in a retreat like this,
Can ought be wanting to complete thy bliss?
Here, where the charms of Art with Nature join
Each social, each domestic bliss is thine.
Despising here the borrowed blaze of state
Thou shin’st in thy own virtues truly great,
By them exalted, with contempt look down
On all earth’s pomps, except Britannia’s crown.”
M.L.
Nov. 2nd, 1749.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] She alludes to the correspondence printed and published by
Walpole, after the Prince’s expulsion from England.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A HUSBAND AND A LOVER.
It has been said that Frederick possessed artistic tastes and loved to
gather round him men of talent and wit. He was also devoted to music,
and gave frequent private concerts at Leicester House in which he
himself took part.
One of Frederick’s favourites, a man devoted to music like himself, was
Horace Walpole’s brother, Edward--afterwards Sir Edward--who frequently
performed with him at these concerts. The Prince, however, made the
mistake of introducing politics at these meetings, and on one occasion
while walking about the room with his arm round Edward Walpole’s
shoulder, he endeavoured to persuade him to keep from the House of
Commons when a certain Army Bill was under discussion, this being a
measure the Prince’s party wished to defeat. Walpole, however, declined
to give the required promise, and when the Prince pressed him for his
motive answered:--
“You will forgive me, sir, if I give you my reasons?”
“I will,” replied the Prince with an oath, according to the prevailing
fashion.
“Sir, you will not,” replied Walpole with another oath, “yet I will
tell you. I will not stay away because your father and mine are for the
question.”
This was just the answer the Prince might have expected from a son of
the man who, perhaps, was one of his greatest enemies. Nevertheless,
he flung away from Walpole, while one of the Princesses who was at the
harpsichord cried out: “Bravo, Mr. Walpole.”
This made matters worse, and the Prince was thoroughly incensed.
Nevertheless, Mr. Edward Walpole duly appeared at the next concert with
his violoncello, but the Prince had not apparently forgiven him. At any
rate, no doubt, by way of a joke, he affected to regard him as one of
the hired musicians at the concert.
Edward Walpole, however, did not take the matter as a joke, but rushed
to the bell and ordered his servants to be called to take away his
violoncello. He would be slighted, he remarked, by no man.
The Prince, seeing that he had gone too far, tried to pacify him, but
Walpole would listen neither to him nor to the peers and commoners who
tried to bring him back.
As might be expected, the Prince apologised, and Walpole was at last
persuaded to bring his violoncello to the concerts.
But the house, of course, reeked with the politics of the Opposition,
and in a very short time Edward Walpole was again solicited by some
follower of the Prince to join his party. Edward Walpole then wrote
his well-known letter to the Prince in which he asks him, how he would
wish him to behave when he himself was King? In the same manner would
he behave while George the Second reigned.
“He is an honest man,” the Prince commented as he read it, “I will keep
this letter.”
He did keep it, and it was given many years after to George the Third
by his mother.
The Princess of Wales, it cannot be doubted, was very much beloved by
her husband. He had quite forgotten that early love affair with his
cousin, Wilhelmina, and it is said was never tired of appearing in
public with Augusta, that the people might frequently see and admire
her; and admire her they certainly did.
Even sharp-tongued old Sarah of Marlborough had a kind word for her.
“The Princess speaks English much better than any of the family that
have been here so long,” she wrote to her confidant, Lord Stair,
“appears good-natured and civil to everybody: never saying anything to
offend, as the late Queen did perpetually, notwithstanding her great
understanding and goodness.”[59]
Among other artistic accomplishments Frederick wrote poetry, and the
following verses addressed to his wife under the name of “Sylvia” could
only have been written by a very devoted husband and lover:--
SONG.
THE CHARMS OF SYLVIA.[60]
By the Prince of Wales on the Princess.
’Tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes
That swim with pleasure and delight,
Nor those heavenly arches which arise
O’er each of them to shade their light.
’Tis not that hair which plays with every wind
And loves to wanton round thy face,
Now straying round thy forehead, now behind,
Retiring with insidious grace.
’Tis not that lovely range of teeth so white,
As new-shorn sheep, equal and fair;
Nor e’en that gentle smile, the heart’s delight,
With which no smile could e’er compare.
’Tis not that chin so round, that neck so fine,
Those breasts which swell to meet my love,
That easy-sloping waist, that form divine,
Nor ought below, nor ought above.
’Tis not the living colours over each
By Nature’s finest pencil wrought
To shame the full-blown rose, and blooming peach,
And mock the happy painter’s thought.
No--’tis that gentleness of mind, that love
So kindly answering my desire;
That grace with which you look and speak and move,
That thus has set my soul on fire.
The following song, according to Horace Walpole, was written
immediately after the Battle of Fontenoy, and was addressed to Lady
Catherine Hanmer, Lady Falconberg, and Lady Middlesex, who were to act
the three goddesses with Frederick, Prince of Wales, in Congreve’s
mask “The Judgment of Paris,” whom he was to represent, and Prince
Lobkowitz, Mercury.
SONG.
By Frederick, Prince of Wales.
1.
Venez, mes chères Dèesses,
Venez, calmer mon chagrin;
Aidez, mes belles Princesses
A le noyer dans le vin
Poussons cette douce ivresse
Jusqu’ au milieu de la nuit
Et n’ecoutons que la tendresse
D’un charmant vis-à-vis.
2.
Quand le chagrin me devore,
Vite à table je me mets,
Loin des objets que j’abhorre,
Avec joie j’y trouve la paix.
Peu d’amis, restes d’un naufrage
Je rassemble autour de moi
Et je me ris de l’etalage,
Qu’a chez-lui toujours un Roi.
3.
Que m’ importe que l’ Europe
Ait un ou plusieurs tyrans?
Prions seulement Calliope
Qu’elle inspire nos vers, nos chants.
Laissons Mars et toute la gloire
Livrons nous tous à l’amour
Que Bacchus nous donne à boire;
A ces deux faisons la cour.
4.
Passons ainsi notre vie,
Sans rêver à ce qui suit;
Avec ma chère Sylvie,[61]
Le tems trop vite me fuit.
Mais si par un malheur extreme
Je perdois cette objêt charmante;
Oui, cette compagnie même
Ne me tiendroit un moment.
5.
Me livrant à ma tristesse,
Toujours plein de mon chagrin,
Ne n’aurois plus d’allegresse
Pour mettre Bathurst[62] en train
Ainsi pour vous tenir en joie
Invoquez toujours les Dieux,
Qu’elle vive et qu’elle soit
Avec nous toujours heureux.
It may here be stated that in the year 1735 there appeared in Paris a
silly book which was attributed--by his enemies--to Prince Frederick,
or said to be “inspired” by him, if that term could be applied to a
children’s fairy tale, for so it was regarded for many years in France.
It was translated into English and published under the title of “The
Adventures of Prince Titi,” and was supposed to be a travestie of the
King and Queen.
As, however, no evidence exists to connect it with the Prince of Wales,
it deserves no further comment.
As an example of the way in which Prince Frederick has been
misrepresented in history, Dr. Doran’s comment on the latter of the
two above songs in his “Queens of the House of Hanover” will be
instructive; he says with reference to the French song addressed by the
Prince to the ladies with whom he was going to act in “The Judgment of
Paris”:
“It was full of praise of late and deep drinking, of intercourse with
the fair,” an expression liable to be misunderstood, “of stoical
contempt for misfortune, of expressed indifference, whether Europe had
one or many tyrants, and of a pococurantism for all things and forms,
except his _chère Sylvie_, by whom he was good-naturedly supposed to
mean his wife.”
Now Horace Walpole records the fact that “Sylvie” was the Princess
of Wales, and he certainly cannot be credited with an abundance of
good-natured feeling towards the Prince.
If Dr. Doran thought all he wrote, then--Dr. Doran’s knowledge of
French--at least the Prince’s French--could not have been perfect.
The English verses are not good; he was bred abroad; but it is quite
clear that the object of the Prince’s love-rhapsodies in the French
song is his wife, though those rhapsodies are expressed in the language
of the time, none too delicately. Still for a Prince to fall into
passionate verse over the delightful attractions of his wife is not a
matter to be jeered at; as far as we are permitted to search into the
private doings of such exalted personages, history certainly conveys
the impressions in divers places, that their habit was usually to fall
into passionate rhapsodies over somebody else’s wife, a custom which
has not been without honour in our own time.
As regards our unfortunate Prince, nobody appears to have thought him
of sufficient importance to write any sort of connected history about
him. When he had to be mentioned, the faithful historian appears to
have dived either into Hervey’s “Memoirs” or those of Horace Walpole,
and to have taken all he found there as Gospel truth without waiting
to consider that both those gentlemen were reckoned among the Prince’s
enemies; enemies who were not sufficiently gentlemen to treat him with
common fairness.
We have but to read the satires and pamphlets of the time, many of them
written or inspired by at any rate one of the above staunch adherents
of the Prince’s parents, to see how much of fairness and “_noblesse_”
was meted out to a political enemy in those days even by men of
education and supposed refinement.
Under the date of 1748-9, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough writes as
follows to Lord Stair:--
“The Prince of Wales has done, I think, a very right thing, for he has
declared to everybody that though he did design to bring the business
of his revenue into the House, he is now resolved not to do it, it
being but a trifle, and what could not succeed after losing a question
of so much consequence for the preservation of the nation.[63]
“But I think all this prudence will be of no use to prevent France
settling this country as that King pleases, after we are still made
poorer by what Sir Robert has done, and will do further.”
It is much more likely that the Prince gave up the idea of appealing to
Parliament concerning his income, because he had come to, or was about
to come to, some agreement with his father on this much worried subject.
The Duchess writes again to Lord Stair in 1739 about the Prince: “I
hear some people find fault with the Prince’s having voted in the
House of Lords with the minority; but I can see no reason for that.
For surely he was as much at liberty to do it as any other Peer; and I
can’t comprehend why he should not give his vote in anything that so
manifestly was for the good of England.”
This apparently concerned the Convention with Spain.
The following is a word picture of the Prince at the period of 1740,
which appears a very vivid one. It was contributed anonymously about
the year 1830 to the _New European Magazine_, and was evidently culled
from some older publication. It depicts the Prince during a visit to
old “Bartlemy Fair” in Smithfield.
“The multitude behind was impelled violently forwards, and a broad
blaze of red light, issuing from a score of flambeaux, streamed into
the air. Several voices were loudly shouting “Room there for Prince
Frederick! make way for the Prince!” And there was that long sweep
heard to pass over the ground which indicates the approach of a grand
and ceremonious train. Presently the pressure became much greater, the
voices louder, the light stronger, and as the train came onward, it
might be seen that it consisted firstly of a party of the Yeomen of the
Guard, clearing the way; then several more of them bearing flambeaux,
and flanking the procession; while in the midst of all appeared a tall,
fair, and handsome young man, having something of a plump foreign
visage, seemingly about four and thirty years of age, dressed in a
ruby-coloured frock coat, very richly guarded with gold lace, and
having his long flowing hair curiously curled over his forehead and
at the sides, and finished with a very large bag and courtly queue
behind. The air of dignity with which he walked; the blue ribbon and
Star and Garter with which he was decorated; the small, three cornered,
silk court-hat which he wore while all around him were uncovered; the
numerous suite as well of gentlemen as of guards, which marshalled
him along; the obsequious attention of a short stout person who, by
his flourishing manner, seemed to be a player; all these particulars
indicated that the amiable Frederick, Prince of Wales, was visiting
Bartholomew Fair by torchlight, and that Manager Rich was introducing
his royal guest to all the amusements of the place.”
To turn to another subject, it will be interesting at the present time
to note the strength of the British Navy in this year 1740. Also those
of France and Spain. The information is contained in “Minutes of the
Cabinet” volume 4 of Lord Hervey’s Memoirs, page 552 (Edition 1848).
An Account of the present Naval Strength of England.
With Mr. Haddock[64] in the Mediterranean thirty-two ships--twenty-two
of the line, five twenty-gun ships, three fire ships, two bomb vessels.
All these are at present with Haddock to defend Minorca except four
left at Gibraltar with Captain William Hervey, brother to Lord Hervey,
which properly belong to (Sir Challoner) Ogle’s squadron of ten, who
went with the other six to join Haddock. Balchen and Maine had ten to
cruise on the north-west of Spain, near Cape Finisterre and Ferrol; but
Maine’s five are returning home to refit.
At home there are thirty ships for the Channel, to guard our own coasts
and protect this country; but twenty only being manned, one third of
the nominal strength is absolutely useless.
In the West Indies there are now with Vernon nine ships of the line,
five fire ships, and two bomb vessels; and dispersed in the West Indies
about sixteen ships more of different sizes.
SPANISH STRENGTH IN EUROPE.
At Carthagena five ships of the line, commanded by Clavijo, who
commanded the Cales (Cadiz) squadron last year. The Cales squadron,
nine ships of the line, three frigates, commanded by Pintada.
The Ferrol Squadron, six ships of the line, and the three Assogne ships
refitting, and sixteen thousand men in Galicia.[65]
On the Catalonia side of Spain several transport ships, three men
of war, seven thousand men in Majorca; and another body of troops,
commanded by Count Celemis, in Catalonia, ready for an embarcation at
Barcelona, which Spain dare not hazard for fear of Haddock’s Squadron
ready in those seas to intercept them. Their strength, or rather their
weakness in Spain, uncertain.
FRENCH STRENGTH IN EUROPE.
France has at Brest, ready to sail, commanded by Monsieur D’Antin, a
squadron of twenty-two ships; the lowest accounts say eighteen; and at
Toulon twelve, all great ships from fifty-four to seventy-four guns.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Opinions of the Duchess of Marlborough, 1737-8.
[60] Sylvia was the well-known name by which he designated his wife in
verse. _Vide_ Walpole’s “Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second.”
Vol. I., p. 434.
[61] The Princess.
[62] Allen, Lord Bathurst.
[63] Respecting the Convention with Spain.
[64] A distinguished officer: he had been many years a Lord of the
Admiralty, was now Admiral of the Fleet, and was appointed in the
summer to the command of the Channel Fleet.
[65] The _Azogne_ (quicksilver) ships, which plied annually between
Vera Cruz and Cadiz, and the interception of which had been an early
object of the British Government, but having heard of the hostilities,
they left their usual track, made for the coast of Ireland, and thence
ran down the coast of France, and got safe into Santander.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE RECONCILIATION.
In 1741 the antagonism between the Prince and his father had not
subsided and party spirit was strong, the followers of the King, such
as Hervey and others, did not scruple, as they had never scrupled, to
malign the Prince. There were, in theory, two Courts, the King’s and
the Prince’s, the followers of both using the term “going to Court” in
speaking of their visits to their respective masters. Walpole tells a
story which bears upon the point.
“Somebody who belonged to the Prince of Wales said he was going to
Court. It was objected, that he ought to say ‘going to Carlton House’:
that the only Court is where the King resides. Lady Pomfret, with her
paltry air of learning and absurdity, said: ‘Oh, Lord! is there no
Court in England but the King’s? sure there are many more! There is the
Court of Chancery, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of King’s Bench,
etc.’ ‘Don’t you love her? Lord Lincoln does her daughter.’”
He refers to Lord Lincoln, one of the King’s party, and a nephew of the
Duke of Newcastle, one of the Ministers.
“Not only his uncle-duke,” continues Horace Walpole, speaking of Lord
Lincoln, “but even his Majesty is fallen in love with him. He talked
to the King at his _levée_ without being spoken to. That was always
thought high treason, but I don’t know how the gruff gentleman liked
it.”
The “gruff” gentleman was of course the King.
The faction fever between the King’s party and that of his son reached
its height, however, in the year 1742, when the Prince’s party combined
with other opponents of the Government and overthrew the great Sir
Robert Walpole after his many years of office. So Queen Caroline’s
trusted minister and adviser fell at last.
He was succeeded by Lord Wilmington, who practically carried on the
same policy as his predecessor.
In this year died Lady Sundon, who had been Mistress of the Robes to
Queen Caroline and one of her confidantes.
“Lord Sundon is in great grief,” writes Horace Walpole. “I am
surprised, for she has had fits of madness ever since her ambition met
such a check by the death of the Queen. She had great power with her,
though the Queen affected to despise her, but had unluckily told her,
or fallen into her power, by some secret. I was saying to Lady Pomfret
‘to be sure she is dead very rich,’ she replied with some warmth, ‘She
never took money.’ When I came home I mentioned this to Sir Robert.
‘No,’ said he, ‘but she took jewels. Lord Pomfret’s place of Master
of the Horse to the Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond
earrings, of fourteen hundred pounds value.’
“One day she wore them at a visit at old Marlboro’s; as soon as she was
gone, the duchess said to Lady Mary Wortley, ‘How can that woman have
the impudence to go about in that bribe?’
“‘Madam,’ said Lady Mary, ‘how would you have people know where wine is
to be sold unless there is a sign hung out?’
“Sir Robert told me that in the enthusiasm of her vanity, Lady Sundon
had proposed to him to unite with her and govern the kingdom together;
he bowed, begged her patronage, but, he said, he thought nobody fit to
govern the kingdom but the King and Queen.”
About the period of 1742 rumours of a fresh Stuart rebellion began to
permeate the country, and it was probably this fact, together with
the Prince of Wales’s popularity with the public, which decided the
King to come to a reconciliation with him. There was, however, now no
Sir Robert to apply his wonderful statesmanship in bringing about the
matter with the finesse and forethought he always displayed in cases
of this sort, though it must be admitted that his arts had always been
directed against the Prince.
However, the matter was done, though clumsily. It was commenced by a
gentle hint given to the Prince that a letter from him to his father
would be acceptable.
This proposition does not appear to have met at first with the Prince’s
favour, he, possibly, thinking that the King owed him some reparation,
and that the first step should come from him. But he eventually put his
feelings in his pocket and wrote his father the desired letter.
This letter reached the King late at night, and he lost no time in
responding to it; he expressed his wish to receive the Prince on the
following day.
Frederick repaired to St. James’s as desired, attended by five of his
suite. He was received by his father in one of the drawing-rooms, and
the interview must have been an exceedingly interesting one for the
onlookers from its importance, but its duration was bound within the
limits of the strictest formality.
“How does the Princess do? I hope she is well,” was the sole scrap of
conversation which passed King George’s lips, if chroniclers of the
time can be credited. The Prince kissed his father’s hand, answered the
question concerning his wife’s health, and--withdrew.
There appears, however, to have been a little burying of the hatchet on
both sides. The King spoke to one or two of the Prince’s followers. The
Prince unbent, and addressed a few courtesies to his father’s attending
Ministers, and the thing was over.
The reconciliation, however, appears to have been universally regarded
as an accomplished fact, and the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, in its next
issue, thus records it:--
Wednesday, February 17th, 1742.
“Several messages having passed yesterday between his Majesty and
the Prince of Wales, his Royal Highness waited on his Majesty at St.
James’s about one o’clock this day, and met with a most gracious
reception. Great joy was shown in all parts of the kingdom upon this
happy reconciliation.”
This reconciliation is said to have been worth an additional fifty
thousand pounds a year to the Prince, and Horace Walpole remarks on it.
“He will have money now to tune Glover and Thompson and Dodsley again,
_et spes et ratio studiorum in Cæsare tantum_.”
The whole of the Royal Family went after this together to the Duchess
of Norfolk’s--the old house by the river, no doubt--the streets
being “illuminated and bonfired.” There were pageants and reviews to
celebrate the reconciliation, and the Prince and Princess made a sort
of triumphal progress through the city to show themselves to their
good friends the Corporation; then entering their barges at the Tower
steps they finished up the day in a very sensible manner by dining at
Greenwich, where they no doubt partook of whitebait and turtle.
Those processions of gilded barges on the Thames, accompanied as
they generally were by music, must have been stately sights for the
citizens to view, and much missed when the river became too crowded and
dirty to be used as a royal highway.
In 1743 died Schulemberg, the mistress of George the First, whom he
created Duchess of Kendal. The Emperor of Germany had also for some
unstated reason conferred on her the dignity of Princess of Eberstein.
She died at the age of eighty-five, possessed of great wealth, which
she bequeathed to Lady Walsingham, generally supposed to be her
daughter by George the First.
Lady Walsingham had previously married Lord Chesterfield.
“But, I believe,” remarks Horace Walpole, “that he will get nothing
by the Duchess’s death but his wife. She lived in the house with the
Duchess”--next door in Grosvenor Square, “where he had played away all
his credit.”
But at this time war clouds were hanging over Europe, and King George
had espoused the cause of Queen Maria Theresa of Hungary. Very soon his
attention was drawn from his eldest son to be centred in this cause, in
which his favourite son William took a part.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE BATTLE OF DETTINGEN.
On the 21st of April, 1743, King George prorogued Parliament, and
almost immediately hastened over to Hanover accompanied by his son,
William, Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Carteret as Secretary of State,
in attendance. The object of this departure was to aid Queen Maria
Theresa of Hungary in her struggle against the French and Bavarians,
and in so doing to gratify an ambition long cherished by King George
to place himself at the head of an allied army. For whatever failings
the little King is credited with, and we know he had many--those
_foiblesses_ of which we have been so frequently reminded--he was
certainly a soldier, and a brave one.
Probably also he had a great desire to establish a reputation as a
soldier for his favourite son William, also, that young man having at
a very early period displayed a considerable penchant for the military
art.
This preference for his brother was very far from gratifying to the
Prince of Wales, who would have much liked to have gone to the wars
himself, although his training had never been in that direction.
But to give him a command was about the last thing that King George
would have thought of doing. Such an act would have given his eldest
son fresh popularity, which he was far from desiring.
Not only was Frederick denied a command, but he was also excluded
from the regency which his father left behind him. Sir Robert Walpole
remarked as follows upon it:
“I think the Prince might have been of it, when Lord Gower is. I don’t
think the latter more Jacobite than his Royal Highness.” So once more,
as far as any active participation in the affairs of the state were
concerned, the Prince of Wales was left in the galling position of
being on the shelf.
Meanwhile the British troops under the Earl of Stair, had commenced
their march towards the end of February into Germany, but appear to
have moved with incredible slowness as it was the middle of May before
they crossed the Rhine.
Lord Stair--the celebrated correspondent of Sarah Duchess of
Marlborough,--appears to have been a very poor sort of a general, and
in addition was hampered for want of a proper commissariat, which was
not understood in those days.
There appeared to be the same happy-go-lucky state of affairs--which
seems to be national and chronic--to which the great Marlborough
referred in 1702, by calling his native country: “England that is
famous for negligence.”[66] Lord Stair’s army, however, struggled
onward, and was joined on the way by some sixteen thousand Hanoverians
in British pay, who had been in winter quarters in Liège, and by a few
Austrian regiments. Eventually they all arrived at Hochst, between
Mayence and Frankfort, and here Lord Stair’s command numbered about
forty thousand men.
Meanwhile, the French commander-in-chief, the Maréchal de Noailles,
with sixty-thousand men, crossed the Rhine and approached the Southern
bank of the River Maine, the northern bank of which was occupied by the
British.
It is an extraordinary thing that although these two armies stood
facing one another, prepared for battle--a battle which came off
very soon--their respective countries had not broken off diplomatic
relations with one another.
Horace Walpole refers to it as follows:
“A ridiculous situation! we have the name of War with Spain without the
thing, and War with France without the name.”
Lord Stair appears to have entirely lost his head under these
circumstances and to have made a series of imbecile marches and
countermarches, which thoroughly tired out his horses and men and left
him and his army at their conclusion in a worse position than they were
before, with the addition that they were exceeding short of food and
forage. The French General had entirely out-manœuvred Stair.
At this juncture--19th July, 1743--King George and his son, the Duke
of Cumberland, joined the English army, which was at that time hemmed
in in a narrow valley extending from Aschaffenberg to the considerable
village of Dettingen on the north bank of the River Maine.
Here, after several counsels of War, it was decided to fall back on
Hanau, a town where a magazine of provisions had been established. At
this period the horses had but two days’ rations of forage left, all
other supplies being cut off by the French.
The difficult retreat was commenced in face of the enemy--on the other
bank of the River Maine--who immediately, as might have been expected
from such a celebrated General as de Noailles, pontooned the river,
and sent twenty-three thousand men across, under his nephew the Duc
de Grammont to stop the retreat of the British and their allies at
the defile of Dettingen, through which they must pass to reach their
supplies at Hanau, sixteen miles further on.
So that the battle of Dettingen may be referred to as a
“bread-and-butter” fight on the part of the British, who fought
possibly all the better on that account.
The march of the English on Dettingen began before daylight on the
27th of June, the King at first commanding the rear guard, which was
considered through ignorance of the movements of the French, to be the
point of danger.
When, however, the advance guard was driven in at Dettingen and French
troops came pouring across the river, King George and his son rode
along the column to the front, where they appear to have taken supreme
command at once.
Now the British Army was in a very tight corner indeed; no sooner had
they marched than the Marquis de Noailles, perfectly alive to the
situation, sent twelve thousand men to occupy Aschaffenberg in their
rear; thus with twenty-three thousand men in a strong entrenched
position in their front between them and their stores of food, the
river on their left, and a force of twelve thousand in their rear, the
position of the British looked pretty hopeless, hemmed in as they were
in addition by hills on the right. Across the river a strong force of
artillery was posted, which commenced a heavy fire into the left flank
of our regiments, mowing down whole ranks. It was a position which
at any moment might have been turned into a panic. That it was _not_
turned into a panic and a rout is entirely owing to the courage and
military skill of George the Second.
As far as courage was concerned, he was ably seconded by his son the
Duke of Cumberland, but as this was his first fight, his military
knowledge was _nil_, and it never shone particularly at any time after.
With all his faults and frailties and “_foiblesses_,” little King
George on this day showed himself to be a skilled soldier, and a
brave man. His previous reputation gained at Oudenarde had not been
forgotten by our own poets when he came to England and became Prince of
Wales; one of them had thus addressed him on a birthday:--
“Let Oudenarde’s field your courage tell
Who looked so martial, or who fought so well?
Who charg’d the foe with greater fire or force?
Who felt unmoved the trembling falling horse?
Sound, sound, O Fame, the trumpet loud and true,
All, all, this blaze to my Prince George is due.
In early life such deeds in arms were done
As prove you able to defend the throne.”
He had then a well-established reputation for courage, which was no
doubt well known to the men he commanded.
The King and his son rode from their station in the rear to the front,
and there the former at once deployed the columns into line with the
left resting on the river and the right on the slopes of the hills
at the other side of the valley. The infantry were in front with the
half-starved cavalry in reserve.
The British Army was in presence of perhaps the most accomplished
general of his time, Maréchal Noailles, and he had selected his
position before Dettingen--an old post village--with consummate
judgment.
It had a ravine, the course of a small rivulet running across its
front, while its right flank rested on a morass and the river. The only
mistake the Maréchal had made was in placing his hot-headed nephew the
Duc de Grammont in command of it. This circumstance led to a big stroke
of luck in King George’s favour at the very commencement of the action.
The Duc de Grammont committed the common and deadly error of despising
his enemy; believing the advancing force to be but a part of the
British Army, he left his entrenchments with the object apparently,
of crushing it before its main body came up, but it was in fact the
main body, which he had to engage. This advance had a double effect
in favour of King George; the French guns across the river, which had
been making fearful play on the English ranks, had to cease fire, as
the French very soon came in close proximity to their foes, and were
as likely to be hit by their own gunners as the English. Therefore our
men were relieved from this demoralizing flank fire. This movement of
the Duc de Grammont rendered the excellent dispositions of his uncle
valueless.
But an untoward incident, at the very commencement, delayed for a time
the fruits of this error being gathered and very nearly deprived the
British Army of its royal commander; King George’s horse ran away with
him in the direction of the enemy.
This was a paralysing spectacle for our own men!
Fortunately, however, the King succeeded in pulling him round before he
got close enough for the French to grab him, and he returned in safety
if not in triumph to his own lines. This incident, however, determined
the brave little man to take a certain course; he got off his horse.
“I vill go on my legs,” he remarked cheerfully, “dey cannot run away
with me!”
But the enemy’s cavalry, composed of the _élite_ of the French Army,
were now advancing; the King drew his sword and placed himself at the
head of his Grenadiers. Waving his sword, he cheered them on, the last
King of England who led his soldiers into battle.
“Now boys,” he cried, “now for the honour of England; fire and behave
bravely, and the French will soon run!”
All this was very fine, but the French did _not_ run, at first; they
came on in a wild charge and considerably shook our infantry, so much
so, that it required all the energy of the King and his son--who, with
the rank of Major-General, led the left wing--to get them steady again.
The father and son certainly did not spare themselves on this day; even
when the Duke was wounded in the leg he refused to leave the field. No
wonder that poor Frederick at home was boiling with jealousy.
Maréchal Noailles from the other side of the river, where he was
organizing a supporting movement, saw his nephew’s error, and hastened
back to Dettingen; but he arrived too late.
King George, at the head of a brigade of infantry, had swept the
French from their position and cleared the road to Hanau and the much
needed food and stores. The French loss in the retreat was frightfully
heavy, and the French Maréchal very wisely drew off the remainder of
his troops to the other side of the river, with a list of killed and
wounded which totalled up to six thousand men.
Thus ended the Battle of Dettingen, concerning King George’s part in
which, Justin McCarthy in his “Four Georges,” makes the following
comment:--
“George behaved with a great courage and spirit. If the poor, stupid,
puffy, plucky little man did but know what a strange, picturesque,
memorable figure he was as he stood up against the enemy at the Battle
of Dettingen! The last King of England who ever appeared with his
army in the battlefield. There, as he gets down off his unruly horse,
determined to trust to his own stout legs--because as he says, they
will not run away--there is the last successor of the Williams, and
the Edwards, and the Henrys; the last successor of the Conqueror, and
Edward the First, and the Black Prince, and Henry the Fourth, and Henry
of Agincourt, and William of Nassau; the last English King who faces a
foe in battle.”
FOOTNOTES:
[66] Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, September, 1702. To Sir H. Mann,
July 19th, 1743.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE.
King George returned to England covered with glory in September, 1743,
and finding himself popular took that opportunity of snubbing once more
the Prince of Wales, and ignoring his presence as heretofore. This was
particularly ungracious, as the Princess was at the time lying ill.
The King must have sadly missed his Minister, and trusty adviser of
twenty-one years, Sir Robert Walpole, now created Earl of Orford,
Viscount Walpole and Baron of Houghton, but none the less “Sir Robert
Walpole” to the people and posterity. Though the great statesman--the
peaceful statesman, despite his other faults--had retired immediately
on his fall in February, 1742, to his estate at Houghton, yet it is
perfectly clear that his old master frequently consulted him, on
the many points of trouble which were now arising around him, and
that meetings took place between them, notwithstanding the fact that
determined efforts were being made to impeach the Earl; attempts
which signally failed. There is no doubt that in responding to a call
from the King to come and advise him on some knotty point--the coming
Scottish rebellion it may be--Walpole met his death. The house of
a Mr. Fowler, a Commissioner of Excise, in Golden Square, was the
rendezvous where Walpole received the King’s messages.
For there had long been unrest in the North, and rumours of the coming
of the Pretender’s son.
It was in answer to such a summons from King George that Walpole left
Houghton for London, though suffering from a painful malady, and
greatly increased it by the journey. So great was his pain that he had
to be kept under the influence of opium for the greater part of the
day, but it is said that during the few hours that his mind was clear,
his conversation had all the life and brilliancy of former times, which
during his retirement to Norfolk, a lonely old man, had entirely left
him. However, these moments were but the last expiring flashes of his
great intellect. He died on the 18th March, 1745, just at the time when
he was most needed by the King, at the commencement of that fateful
year for England, when Bonnie Prince Charlie came over the water,
raised an army in Scotland, and made a victorious march on air, almost
to London itself.
Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir, son of the Old Pretender,
James Stuart, and his wife Clementine Sobieski--granddaughter of
John Sobieski, King of Poland--and grandson of James the Second of
England, was born in Rome in 1720, consequently when he started on his
expedition to Scotland he was about twenty-five.
Lord Mahon describes him as follows:--
“The person of Charles (I begin with this for the sake of female
readers) was tall and well formed; his limbs athletic and active. He
excelled in all manly exercises, and was inured to every kind of toil,
especially long marches on foot, having applied himself to field sports
in Italy, and become an excellent walker.
“His face was strikingly handsome, of a perfect oval and a fair
complexion; his eyes light blue; his features high and noble. Contrary
to the custom of the time which prescribed perukes, his own fair hair
usually fell in long ringlets on his neck.[67] This goodly person was
enhanced by his graceful manners; frequently condescending to the most
familiar kindness, yet always shielded by a regal dignity; he had a
peculiar talent to please and to persuade, and never failed to adapt
his conversation to the taste, or to the station of those whom he
addressed.”
(At the age of thirteen, Pope Innocent the XII pronounced Prince
Charlie, dressed in a little bright cuirass and a rich point lace
cravat, “truly an angel.”)
Such was the man who came secretly from France in August, 1745, with
but two ships, to challenge Frederick’s right to the title of Prince of
Wales.
The two aforesaid vessels of Prince Charlie being chased by men-of-war
and somewhat roughly handled, they had to separate, so that it was
simply an unconvoyed little merchant ship which at last brought the
Stuart to the western isles. There at first he passed as a young
English clergyman come to see the Highlands; but on the 19th of that
month of August, he threw off his clerical garb and raising his
standard at Glenfinnan called the clans to assemble round it.
Here he was joined by six hundred of the Camerons under their chief
Lochiel, Keppoch with three hundred of his men, and many other smaller
parties.
With a war chest of but four thousand louis d’or, which he had brought
with him, and a very varied collection of arms, Prince Charlie the next
morning commenced a march which ended only at Derby, one hundred and
twenty miles from London, and which, if persevered in, would have led
him in all probability, to the steps of the English throne.
At this time King George the Second was in Hanover, but so alarming
were the reports which reached him of the Stuart Prince’s doings, that
he set out at once, and on the 31st of August reached London.
This absence of the King in Hanover, is pretty strong evidence that the
movements of the young invader had been conducted in absolute secrecy.
The King on his arrival found, however, that the Regency--which
apparently did not include the Prince of Wales--had not been idle.
Warrants had been issued against the Duke of Perth and Sir Hector
Maclean, but the former escaped.
The Dutch had also been called upon to supply six thousand auxiliaries
according to contract, a decision had been come to to recall some of
the regiments from Flanders, the nucleus of an army was being formed at
Newcastle under Marshal Wade, and some of the militia had been called
out.
The spirit of the people, however, remained perfectly passive;
probably they looked upon the incursion of Prince Charlie as a sort of
filibustering expedition similar to that of his father in 1715, which
would soon fizzle out.
Henry Fox, who was at the time a member of the Government, thus records
this apathy on the part of the public in confidential letters to Sir C.
H. Williams. He writes on September 5th, 1745:
“England, Wade says, and I believe, is for the first comer; and if
you can tell whether the six thousand Dutch and the ten battalions of
English, or five thousand French or Spaniards will be there first, you
will know our fate....”
He continues on September 19th:
“God be thanked! But had five thousand landed on any part of this
island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest would not have
cost them a battle.”
The King, however, was persuaded that the affair was of no importance,
and promptly snubbed the Prince of Wales when he asked for a command.
Even a regiment was denied him, while his younger brother was given a
brigade straight away in Flanders two years before!
Frederick upon this stood apart as it were, with his arms folded, and
contemplated the preparations cynically.
Matters stood in this wise until well on into September, when news
arrived of the total defeat of Sir John Cope’s army at Preston Pans on
September 20th.
What was more surprising than this, however, was the news of the
Prince’s exceeding moderation and kindness to the vanquished.
He showed himself on this occasion of victory, as indeed he did at all
times in the campaign, a kind-hearted and honourable gentleman, who
could have taken his place among the knights in the days of chivalry.
Had Charles been able to pursue his victory, and to have made a forced
march into England, he might soon have ended the matter, but most of
his Highlanders disappeared for the time to put their share of the
spoil of the battle in safe places in the mountains.
However, within six weeks he had an army of six thousand men again
round his standard at Holyrood, and with these he presently set forth
again towards England.
To his credit be it said that his army was an orderly one; all
irregularities he repressed with a firm hand. True it might have
happened sometimes that his Highlanders would stop some prosperous
looking traveller on the road and level their firelocks at him,
but when the trembling victim inquired what they wanted the answer
generally was “a baubee,” _i.e._, a halfpenny.[68]
But the march to England was an exceedingly unpopular one with the
Highlanders, and many of them deserted during the first few days and
went home; the remainder were difficult to deal with, and it is said
that one morning Prince Charles had to argue with them for an hour and
a half before he could get them to march at all.
However, they reached Kelso and there halted for two days. In the
accounts of this extraordinary march what strikes one particularly is
the wonderfully good generalship displayed by Lord George Murray, who
commanded the first division, and who, time after time, out-manœuvred
the best of King George’s generals, evading and misleading them with
the greatest ease, until he finally placed the mobile little army which
he commanded between the King’s forces and London.
From Kelso Lord George made the first of his excellent feints. He sent
forward messengers to prepare quarters for his troops at Wooler; this
was to deceive Marshal Wade, and draw off his attention from Carlisle,
which was really the object of Murray’s attack.
Wade fell into the trap, while the Prince’s forces made a forced march
down Liddisdale and entered Cumberland and laid siege to Carlisle.
This important frontier fortress was in a bad state. The garrison of
the Castle consisted of about a company of invalid soldiers, while the
defences of the town itself were old and mouldering. Nevertheless there
was here a large body of Cumberland militia raised for King George,
while the attacking force had only a few four-pounder cannon to bring
against it. But in five days, though the Mayor began by a good show
of resistance, the town and Castle surrendered to Prince Charles,
providing him with an abundance of arms and ammunition.
With regard to this siege of Carlisle, a great deal has been made
by the enemies of Frederick, Prince of Wales, of an incident which
occurred concerning it at this time.
It so happened that a representation of the Castle of Carlisle--in
pastry--was served up at the Prince’s table--it must be remembered that
his table was supplied by a caterer--no doubt it was intended by the
cook as a surprise, such as cooks are very fond of preparing for their
masters.
Great exception has been taken to the fact that the Prince _and_ the
Maids of Honour--these Maids of Honour seemed prone to evil--bombarded
the sham castle with sugar plums! What else could be expected from a
parcel of Maids of Honour and a lighthearted Prince who rolled Bubb
Doddington, in all his priggish solemnity, down a flight of stairs in
a blanket? Yet the Prince’s traducers endeavoured to give the incident
a political significance as a sign of the Prince’s indifference to the
sufferings of the besieged!
As a matter of fact it was a most bloodless siege, and only lasted five
days, the garrison marching out and going home unmolested.
From Carlisle, with four thousand five hundred men, Prince Charlie
marched by Shaw, Kendal and Lancaster to Preston, where he arrived on
November 27th. Very different marching this to the progress of our army
under Lord Stair, when moving from Flanders to the banks of the Maine
in 1743, which progress took, as we have seen, four months!
Preston was regarded by the Highlanders as a fatal barrier, beyond
which they could not pass, as the Duke of Hamilton had been defeated
there in the Civil Wars, and Brigadier Macintosh surrendered at the
same spot in 1715.
To break this tradition Lord George Murray marched across and beyond
the Ribble bridge.
From Preston, Prince Charlie pushed on to Wigan and Manchester, still
unopposed, for the aged Marshal Wade had withdrawn to Newcastle on
finding the mountain roads around him blocked with snow.
The following is a description of Charles’s entry into Manchester,
given in the letter of a spy stationed there and sent to the Duke of
Cumberland:
“28th November.
“Just now are come in two of the Pretender’s men, a sergeant, a
drummer, and a woman with them. I have seen them; the sergeant is a
Scotchman, the drummer is a Halifax man, and they are now going to beat
up. These two men and the woman, without any others, came into the
town amidst thousands of spectators. I doubt not we shall have more
to-night. They say we’re to have the Pretender to-morrow. They are
dressed in plaids and bonnets. The sergeant has a target.”
“29th November.
“The two Highlanders who came in yesterday and beat up for volunteers
for him they called His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales,
offered five guineas advance; many took on; each received one shilling
to have the rest when the Prince came.
“They do not appear to be such terrible fellows as has been
represented. Many of the foot are diminutive creatures, but many clever
men among them. The Guards and officers are all in a Highland dress, a
long sword and stuck with pistols; their horses all sizes and colours.
“The bellman went to order all persons charged with excise, and
innkeepers forthwith to appear, and bring their last acquittance, and
as much ready cash as that contains on pain of military execution. It
is my opinion they will make all haste possible through Derbyshire to
evade fighting Ligonier. I do not see that we have any person in town
to give intelligence to the King’s forces as all our men of fashion
are fled, and all officers under the government. A party came in at ten
this morning, and have been examining the best houses, and have fixed
upon Mr. Dicconson’s for the Prince’s quarters. Several thousands came
in at two o’clock; they ordered the bells to ring, and the bellman
has been ordering us to illuminate our houses to-night, which must be
done. The Chevalier marched by my door in a Highland dress, on foot, at
three o’clock, surrounded by a Highland guard; no music but a pair of
bagpipes.
“Those that came in last night demanded quarters for ten thousand men
to-day.”[69]
Prince Charlie, however, did not beat up many recruits in Manchester,
and altogether the military outlook began to appear very ominous.
This was the position in which the invading Army found itself. On their
rear, Marshal Wade was slowly crawling after them through Yorkshire.
In front was the Duke of Cumberland with eight thousand men, his
head-quarters at Lichfield. Outside London, at Finchley, was another
army, which although it contained the Royal Guards, was composed
chiefly of newly raised troops. This, it was said, was to be commanded
by the King in person. Chester was held by Lord Cholmondeley, its
neighbour Liverpool by the citizens for King George; and the bridges
over the Mersey were broken down. Admiral Vernon cruised with a
strong Fleet in the Channel to prevent a French invasion or landing of
supplies, whilst Admiral Byng was off the East coast of Scotland with a
squadron with the like intention.
Despite, however, all these obstacles to his success, Prince Charlie
was for going on to London, and in this intention he was to a certain
extent supported by Lord George Murray, who in his usual consummate
way, hoodwinked the enemy and picked his way through them with the
greatest ease to Derby, where he was joined by the Prince with his
division on the 4th of December. Here the advance into England came to
a dead stop, even Lord George Murray advised a retreat into Scotland
again, whence news had just arrived that Lord John Drummond had landed
at Montrose with the Regiment of the Royal Scots and other supports and
supplies.
It is a moot question still whether, if Prince Charlie had had his own
way--which he insisted pretty strongly upon for some time, and marched
straight on London where he had mostly new levies of militia to deal
with, he might not have attained his object.
He was but one hundred and twenty-seven miles from London, and the
state of affairs in the capital can best be judged by the following
account of a loyal writer who was in London at the time:
“When the Highlanders, by a most incredible march, got between the
Duke’s army and the metropolis, they struck a terror into it scarcely
to be credited.”[70]
An immediate rush was made upon the Bank of England which only escaped
bankruptcy by paying in sixpences to gain time. Shops were shut and
business suspended. The Duke of Newcastle, the Minister who occupied
Sir Robert Walpole’s place, “stood trembling and amazed.” It is also
stated that King George had some of his “most precious effects--did
these include the Walmoden?”--removed on board his yachts, which
were ordered to remain at the Tower Quay ready to sail at a moment’s
notice. It is not thought likely that he offered the Prince of Wales a
passage in either of these, neither is Frederick mentioned at this time
although no doubt he was with the troops at Finchley.
But all these fears in London were groundless. Prince Charles’s
officers had determined among themselves to retreat from Derby back to
Scotland, and the broken-hearted Prince at last reluctantly consented.
By the same road they returned, hotly pursued a part of the way by
the Duke of Cumberland with some thousands of horse; but after a
rear-guard action at the village of Clifton, near Penrith, in which he
lost a hundred men, killed and wounded, the Duke drew off leaving the
Chevalier to retreat in peace to Glasgow, which he reached on the 26th
of December, concluding this marvellous winter’s march of eight hundred
and eighty-two miles in fifty-six days, some of which were of course
resting days.
From this time forward the struggle was really one between the Prince
and the Duke of Cumberland as the aged Marshal Wade was superseded, and
Henry Hawley, one of the Duke of Cumberland’s generals, took his place.
Prince Charles, however, having been reinforced by Lord Strathallan and
Lord John Drummond, easily defeated General Hawley at Falkirk, on the
17th January, 1746, taking many prisoners, one of whom, probably an
Irishman, is recorded to have remarked:
“By my soul, if Charlie goes on in this way, Prince Frederick will
never be King George.”
The authorities in London were soon thoroughly aroused by this victory
of the Highlanders, and determined upon sending the Duke of Cumberland
to take supreme command in Scotland, all danger of an invasion of
England being over. Thus began that memorable campaign of Cumberland’s,
which culminated in Culloden, and--from his savage cruelty to the
wounded at that place--covered his name for evermore with infamy.
William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland at this time, was only in his
twenty-fifth year, having been born on April 15th, 1721, and was just
four months younger than Prince Charlie.
He possessed, however, none of the graces of person of his Stuart
cousin. Though not yet twenty-five, he was exceedingly corpulent and
unwieldy, and had a rough uncouth manner and a savage temper; in fact
he looked exactly what he was afterwards called, “The Butcher.” It was
into such a man as this, that the handsome idolized son of Caroline had
grown.
There could not possibly have been a greater contrast between any two
persons than between these two young men who were destined to fight to
a finish this contest for the throne of England.
Despite the fact that Cumberland had lost the battle of Fontenoy, the
military authorities seemed to feel sufficient confidence in him to
send him to Scotland to take the supreme command at such a critical
period. Certainly his father believed in his military talents such as
they were.
He received his appointment very soon after the arrival in London of
the news of the defeat of Falkirk, and left, as he was requested to do,
without delay, and travelled night and day, arriving unexpectedly at
Holyrood on the 31st of January; here he chose the very bed in which
Prince Charlie had slept.
In Edinburgh he found his favourite, General Hawley, busily engaged
in hanging his own men, right and left, for having run away from the
Highlanders at Falkirk. He had prepared the gallows for the Prince’s
followers, and was using it for his own.
These executions Cumberland at once stopped.
An incident, which occurred in Flanders, will give an idea of the
nature of this brute Hawley, a very fit second-in-command, for such a
man as Cumberland afterwards proved himself to be. During the campaign
in the Low Countries when Hawley commanded a regiment, one of his own
men, a deserter, had been hanged before his windows. So pleasant a
sight did he find it, that when the surgeons came to beg the body for
dissection he was very loth to part with it.
“At least,” he said at last, “you shall give me the skeleton to hang up
in the guard-room!”
Fancy a spruce Colonel of a line-battalion of our own day ordering a
guard-room to be decorated in this fashion! Cumberland remained little
more than twenty-four hours in Edinburgh, then moved out to find the
Prince’s army, which he understood lay at Falkirk; his men appeared to
have advanced with every confidence in him.
Charles had, however, much against his will, commenced a retreat
towards the Highlands, where his generals had persuaded him with much
difficulty to pass the remainder of the winter.
This retreat appears to have been conducted with carelessness and
disorder, and much baggage was lost to the pursuing English troops.
However, Crieff was reached, and here the two divisions marched by
different roads towards Inverness.
It seems pitiable to contrast the position of the Prince’s army from
this time forth, sown with dissension, wandering about in the cold
northern winter and spring among barren mountains from which it was
impossible to break forth, without food or money.
Charles at this period was reduced to his last five hundred louis d’or
and had to pay his troops in meal, which course ended as might have
been expected, in many desertions.
Meanwhile, the Duke of Cumberland’s army was well fed and clothed
and reinforced by five thousand Hessians, who had been hired by the
government. These troops, however, did not take part in the subsequent
battle, but held the line of communications.
But the end came at last. Cumberland having fixed his Headquarters at
Aberdeen, moved out of that place on the 8th of April, 1746, with about
eight thousand infantry, and nine hundred cavalry and marched _via_
Banff and the river Spey on Nairn, which town he entered on the 14th
April.
That night, Charles, who had come up with his Guards, slept at Culloden
House, the seat of President Forbes, one of his principal enemies, his
men to the number of about five thousand bivouacing on the moor using
the heath during the bitter night both for bed and fuel.
There seems to have been an excellent project formed in the Prince’s
Council, by Lord George Murray, to make a night attack upon
Cumberland, which would have stood a good chance of success as the
15th April, being the Duke’s birthday, his soldiers had spent it in
drink and carousing, supplies being plentiful, as a fleet laden with
provisions followed them along the coast.
The night march, however, from a proper want of direction, proved a
lamentable failure, and only served to further exhaust the half-starved
Highlanders, who returned worn out, to Drummossie or Culloden Moor.
There, on the 16th, with the ration of one biscuit per man, they stood
up to meet the well-fed, well-equipped army of Cumberland twice their
number. The result is not to be wondered at.
Their ranks, ploughed by the superior artillery of the English, with
a storm of snow and hail blowing full in their faces, the starved
Highland men endured their position without a murmur, until the order
was given by Lord George Murray to charge.
The Clan of the Macdonalds refused the order; but the right and centre
in one wild rush, swept down on Cumberland’s men and broke through the
first line, capturing two guns.
But there were two lines beyond, and these closing up, and standing
three deep, poured such a volley into the Highlanders that their charge
was shattered by it. That ended the matter; the Prince’s army, which
had never before suffered defeat, broke and fled.
Had the Macdonalds taken part in the charge, the battle might have
ended differently; but after one volley, they remained spectators of
the action, sulking because they were not placed on the right wing.
No sooner was the charge of the Highlanders broken than the English
regiments closed in upon them with the bayonet. Cumberland had with
some skill, instructed his men not to use their bayonets on the
adversaries immediately in front of them in a melée, who were protected
by their small shields, but to stab sideways at the assailants of
their right hand men; what was to become of the unfortunate man on the
extreme left of the line apparently was not stated in the Duke’s order.
Against the solid press of the well-fed English soldiers, at least
two to one, the broken half-starved Highlanders could make no way,
and for the first time in the whole campaign fell back before them;
the Macdonalds on the left wing being the only part of the line which
retreated in anything like order. So far the battle had been fairly
fought, and the Scots fairly beaten; had the Duke of Cumberland treated
them with the ordinary humanity of civilized war, even as civilized war
was understood in those brutal days, not one word would have been said
against him, and he might have handed a clean name down to posterity.
As it was, he preferred to give full play to the most brutal instincts
that a man was ever cursed with.
The chief charge against the Duke of Cumberland, and the charge is
fully substantiated by undeniable testimony--is that in cold blood he
ordered the enemy’s wounded to be butchered.
Nay that a barn into which twenty poor wounded Highland men had crept
was deliberately set on fire, adding to the agony of their wounds the
intolerable pain of death by fire.
That he allowed no sort of attention to be given to the wounded Scots,
but, returning to the field two days after from the pursuit, and
finding still some poor wounded wretches lying where they had fallen,
he fiendishly ordered them to be put to death, some by the bullet, some
by the bayonet, some by the clubbed musket.
It is said that he ordered General Wolfe, then a young officer, to kill
a wounded man, but that Wolfe told him, to his credit, that he would
sooner resign his commission.
And this was the man for whom King George and his Queen, Caroline,
wished to put aside their first-born son, Frederick, Prince of Wales,
whose greatest fault in their eyes perhaps was his gentleness of
nature; his kindness to the poor and needy!
For this great bloated Butcher, Frederick was exiled from his family,
insulted in public and in private, and his character assailed in such a
way that his name has been handed down in history as one to be scoffed
at; though this latter injustice is mainly the work of one man, Lord
Hervey, perhaps after all his bitterest enemy; certainly the meanest
and most contemptible.
But the details of Cumberland’s inhuman cruelty did not come out
for years after, and meanwhile on his return to London, he was
fêted, received the thanks of Parliament, and was given a pension of
twenty-five thousand pounds per annum for himself and his heirs, but
fortunately he had none. Truly the wicked flourish in this world like
the bay tree!
But truth will out, _magna est veritas et prevalebit_; little by little
came to England the evidence of eye witnesses, to the savage cruelty of
this royal Prince of five-and-twenty to the poor, half-starved, maimed
Scots; bit by bit the reputation of the “Butcher” was built up, and it
will stand while the memory of Culloden lasts.
As for Prince Charlie, he was forced from the field, whilst trying to
charge with the remnant of his men, by an Irish officer in the French
service, named O’Sullivan; he fled to Gortuleg, where that ancient
sinner, Lord Lovat, was residing at the time, and who gave him but
a cold welcome so that they parted in anger, the Prince not even
receiving a meal.
On to Glengarry’s Castle of Invergarry, rode Charles through the night
with the last few of his followers, arriving before dawn, only after a
brief rest, to go on and on, with the shadow of the axe ever hanging
over him, till, five months after, he was taken off by a French ship at
Lochnenuagh, the very same spot where he had landed over a year before.
But it would not be possible to conclude even this imperfect sketch of
the Prince’s campaign without paying a tribute to Flora Macdonald, “a
name,” says Dr. Johnson, “which will ever live in history.” The “little
woman of genteel appearance, and uncommonly well bred.”[71]
When Charles was being run down on Long Island with a price of thirty
thousand pounds upon his head, did not this noble young lady, at the
risk of her life, obtain a pass from her stepfather, a captain in
King George’s militia, for herself, a manservant and a maid, and did
she not smuggle away the Prince under the very eyes of his pursuers
in the character of the latter, dressed in petticoats? An achievement
on Charles’s part which called forth from old Macdonald of Kingsburgh
the following dry remark when he saw him crossing a brook and in
difficulties with his petticoats:
“Your enemies call you a Pretender, but if you be, you are the worst of
your trade I ever saw!”
It is a pleasure to know that when Flora Macdonald paid the penalty
of her heroic act, and was brought a prisoner to London, our Prince
Frederick obtained her release.[72]
What a different disposition to his brother, the Butcher’s!
“And would not you, Madam,” asked Frederick of his wife, who had spoken
against Flora in the fashion of the time, “would not you in like
circumstances have done the same? I hope--I am sure you would.”
It is pleasant to think that Flora Macdonald went home from London with
a present of fifteen hundred pounds from the Jacobite ladies of that
place in her pocket.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] This was also a custom adopted by Prince Frederick.
[68] Mahon’s History of England.
[69] State Paper Office, Scotland, 1745, vol. i., VII.
[70] Chevalier Johnstone’s Memoirs, p. 73, 8vo ed.
[71] “Tales of a Grandfather.”
[72] Mahon, vol. 2, p. 203.
CHAPTER XXVII.
SUMMER DAYS.
All fear of the Pretender being dispelled, the Court turned to gaiety
again, and the principal social event of the year 1746 was the marriage
of the Princess Mary, the King’s second daughter, to the Prince of
Hesse.
To celebrate this event there were a series of Royal entertainments,
concerning one of which Horace Walpole relates a humorous incident. “A
most ridiculous tumble t’other night at the Opera. They had not pegged
up his,”--the Prince of Hesse’s, “box tight after the Ridotto, and
down he came on all fours. George Selwyn says he carried it off with
unembarrassed countenance.”
The marriage, however, proved a sad one for poor Princess Mary. She was
back again in England in a year, under the excuse of having to drink
the Bath waters, but really to escape from the cruelty of her husband.
She was glad enough to get back to her favourite brother and sister,
the Duke of Cumberland and the Princess Caroline; the former just in
the full enjoyment of his new title, “the Butcher.” So common had this
sobriquet become among the public, that when the Duke lost his sword
one night at the opera, the people remarked: “The Butcher has lost his
knife!”
However, the troubles of his newly-married daughter did not much affect
the King. He was particularly annoyed about this time--1747--by a new
opposition created by the Prince of Wales, which it was declared was to
last until he ascended the throne. Father and son, despite their fussy
reconciliation, were as far apart as ever, and the reception given
by the King to the Duke of Cumberland after his bloody errand in the
North, had not tended to mend matters.
Horace Walpole thus comments on the Prince’s new opposition:--
“He began it pretty handsomely the other day,” he remarks, “with one
hundred and forty-three to one hundred and eighty-four, which has
frightened the Ministry like a bomb. This new Party wants nothing but
heads,” he continues, “though not having any, to be sure, the struggle
is fairer.”
The Party was led by Lord Baltimore, “a man with a good deal of fumbled
knowledge.”
An anecdote is related of the Prince of Wales’s second son, Edward
Duke of York, whom Horace Walpole describes as “a very plain boy with
strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He is a sayer of
things.”
This is one of the “things” recorded of him:--
Baron Steinberg, one of the King’s Hanoverians, was sent by His Majesty
to inform him of the progress of the Princes George and Edward in
their studies.
Prince Edward showed considerable knowledge of his Latin Grammar, but
Steinberg told him that it would please the King if he made himself
more proficient in German.
“German, German,” repeated Edward, “any dull child can learn that.”
Saying which he squinted with his “loose” eyes at the German Baron, who
no doubt went back to the grandfather with a very unfavourable report.
But the old man was fond of his grandchildren--as far as it was in his
nature to be--and determined to distinguish his heir at an early age,
by conferring upon him the Order of the Garter; this was done in 1749,
privately in the Palace.
The fact of the Prince of Wales having united his Party with that
of the Jacobites in opposition to the Government did not interfere
with King George bestowing this honour on his son. Perhaps the old
man was softening a little, and becoming kinder at any rate to his
grandchildren.
The relations existing between the King and the Prince of Wales at
this time are very clearly shown by the manner in which the Order
of the Garter was conferred on Prince George. The Prince of Wales
carried the child, he was then eleven, in his arms to the door of the
King’s Chamber; there he was taken in the arms of the Duke of Dorset
and carried within the chamber to the King, the Prince of Wales
remaining where he was, outside the door, which was half open.
[Illustration:
_National Portrait Gallery._ _Emery Walker._
PRINCE GEORGE (afterwards George III) AND PRINCE EDWARD, HIS BROTHER,
SONS OF PRINCE FREDERICK, WITH THEIR TUTOR, DR. AYSCOUGH.]
The child Prince, arriving in the presence of the King, commenced to
repeat a speech which had been taught him by his tutor. Dr. Ayscough,
Dean of Bristol. No sooner did the Prince of Wales hear his son
commence his oration than he called out loudly, “No! No!”
The boy stumbled and stopped and then after an effort went on again,
but his father for some reason would have none of it, and this time a
more determined “No” stopped little Prince George altogether, and his
fine speech was wasted.
But nevertheless he was duly invested with the Garter, an honour the
magnitude of which it is doubtful whether he appreciated at that age.
Here is an extract from the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ recording an event
about the same time.
Thursday, 25th May, 1749 (O.S.).
“Being the birthday of H.R.H. Prince George, who entered into his
twelfth year, the nobility and gentry paid their compliments at
Leicester House. About seven in the evening the silver cup, value
twenty-five guineas, given by the Prince, was rowed for by seven
pairs of oars, from Whitehall to Putney. Their Royal Highnesses the
Prince and Princess of Wales, with the nobility, were rowed in their
barges ahead of the wager-men, followed by Prince George, the young
Princesses, etc., in a magnificent new barge, after the Venetian
manner, and the watermen dressed in Chinese habits, which, with the
number of galleys attending, rowed by young gentlemen in neat uniforms,
made a splendid appearance.
“The Prince has also given a plate to be sailed for by six or seven
yachts, or pleasure boats, to the Nore, and back again.”
This last prize was sailed for on Tuesday, 1st August, 1749, and was
won by the “Princess Augusta” belonging to George Bellas, Esq., a
“register” of Doctor’s Commons.
The Prince of Wales attended in his Venetian-Chinese barge (the rowers
in Chinese habits) being greatly cheered by the people, “at which he
pulled off his hat.”
Turning to other matters, there was an accident at Kensington Palace
which occurred when Lady Yarmouth--our old acquaintance Madame
Walmoden--took up her quarters there, very nearly causing the
demolition of the building, which would have been an event much to be
regretted from the point of view of picturesqueness.
The Walmoden was installed in the same rooms which the King’s former
mistress the Countess of Suffolk occupied, and they were exceedingly
damp, a drawback which apparently was not heeded by Lady Suffolk. The
Walmoden, however, was a chilly person, and contracted ague, which was
rather to be wondered at on such a well-known gravel soil.
However, to counteract this complaint, she made up such huge fires
that the woodwork of the building caught and the palace was nearly
burnt down.
There were plenty of other less damp rooms, but the King would not
allow them to be used, and commenting on this Horace Walpole remarks:
“The King hoards all he can, and has locked up half the Palace since
the Queen’s death, so he does at St. James’s, and I believe would put
the rooms out at interest if he could get a closet a year for them.”
But as the King grew older, there were no further signs of a
_rapprochement_ between himself and his eldest son, and no doubt the
latter’s lavish expenditure--on such things as Venetian barges with
Chinese crews--tended to set the father as he grew more avaricious,
more against the son. But the riches hoarded by King George did not
endure, but were swallowed up in that disastrous Hanoverian campaign,
which also swallowed up the military reputation of the Duke of
Cumberland, and put a final period to his war experiences.
The following extracts from the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, for the year
1750, are pathetic when read by the light of an event which followed
but too quickly.
They represent the Prince, in fine summer weather, with his wife and
children, happily making a “Progress” and visiting certain English
country towns. There is a holiday air of peace and relaxation about
them all, and the Prince is shown in those circumstances in which he
loved best to live, with a devoted and beautiful wife, for whom without
doubt he had a tender affection, by his side, and a bevy of loving
children surrounding them both.
So in the balmy summer air, rent by the plaudits of the people who
loved him also, it is better to leave him so depicted in the last
public scene in which he appears in these pages, for that happy summer
of 1750 was the last he spent on earth.
_Wednesday, July 11th, 1750._
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Lady
Augusta, eldest daughter of their Royal Highnesses, arrived at Bath,
attended by the Lords Bathurst, Middlesex, Bute and Inchiquin, and four
or five gentlemen and ladies. The Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council of
Bath waited on their Royal Highnesses, to congratulate them on their
arrival; when Mr. Clutterbuck, Deputy Town Clerk, made the following
speech:
“May it please your Royal Highnesses to permit us the Mayor, aldermen
and citizens of this city to approach your Royal Highnesses with hearts
full of joy on your safe arrival here, an addition of your many favours
to us, of which we retain the most grateful sense. It gives us the
greater satisfaction when we consider that this indulgent visit is not
on the occasion of your Royal Highnesses’ health, and that it affords
us this happy opportunity of congratulating you on the birth of another
Prince, an increase of his Majesty’s family. We beg leave to assure
your Royal Highnesses that the power we enjoy as magistrates shall,
on this and all other occasions, be exercised in strict loyalty and
obedience to his Majesty and his family.”
To which his Royal Highness returned the following answer:
“I and the Princess thank you for this mark of duty to the King and
regard to us; the city of Bath may always depend on my good wishes.”
_Friday, July 13th._
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, with the
Princess Augusta and some of the nobility, went on wherries about
four miles down the river from Bath to Salford, and dined in publick
under two tents in a large mead, where abundance of the country people
resorted, and to whom his Highness gave several hogsheads of beer. A
band of musicians attended the whole time.
_Letter from Gosport, August 17th, 1750._
On the 15th, in the afternoon, their Royal Highnesses the Prince and
Princess of Wales, with the Princes William and Henry and Princess
Augusta, arrived in the harbour in the Commissioner’s yacht. Before
they went on shore they did Sir Edward Hawke the honour of a visit on
board the “Monarch” man-of-war; from thence they went on shore to the
Commissioner’s house, where they lodged that night.
Next morning his Royal Highness surveyed the dock and yard, then went
on board the guard-ships, which were all made clear to receive him;
there the exercise of the great guns was performed in his presence, at
which he expressed much satisfaction.
His Highness afterwards landed at the Sally Port of Portsmouth, and
walked round the fortifications, attended by one of the engineers
with a plan of them. From whence he went in the Commissioner’s coach,
attended by Sir Edward Hawke, the Commissioner and engineer, to see
Cumberland Fort, and about three o’clock he embarked on board the yacht
at Southsea Castle. Words cannot express the joy and pleasure all ranks
and degrees of people expressed at his presence amongst us.
_Saturday, 18th August, 1750._
The Prince and Princess of Wales arrived in the Isle of Wight, and
after viewing Carisbrooke Castle, came to Newport, and were met by
the Mayor and Corporation in their formalities, and conducted with
great acclamations to the Guildhall, where his Royal Highness did the
Corporation the honour to accept the freedom of the town, and at five
in the evening departed for Southampton.
_Southampton, August 18th._
About nine in the evening their Royal Highnesses the Prince and
Princess landed at our Key. Our Mayor being confined to his bed by
sickness, they were met by his deputy, Robert Sadlier, Esquire, and
the rest of the Corporation, in their scarlet robes, and by Mrs.
Mayoress, and several ladies of the town, and conducted to the
Council Chamber, where a collation of sweetmeats and wines of divers
kinds were prepared, preceded by the town trumpets, and the sergeants
bearing the maces and silver oar, attended with flambeaux and torches,
in the midst of loud acclamations of the populace, the bells in every
church ringing, and the houses being illuminated all the time of their
continuing in the town.
On their Royal Highnesses’ arrival in the Council Chamber the Prince
saluted the ladies present, and the Corporation and gentlemen had the
honour of kissing their hands (_sic_); and afterwards, their Royal
Highnesses having taken their seats, Mr. Godfrey, the Town Clerk, in
the name of the Corporation, made a speech to them, concluding with a
humble request that his Royal Highness would accept the freedom of the
town; with which he complied, assuring them that he should be always
ready to promote the happiness of the town. His Royal Highness also
upon his being solicited that the Princes present should be made free,
not only consented thereto, but also directed his two eldest sons,
the Princes George and Edward, to be enrolled with them. Their Royal
Highnesses then set out for the seat of William Midford, Esquire; where
the two Princes reside for the benefit of the salt water.
The Duke of Queensberry was also presented with his freedom and took
the usual oath.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FINIS.
Under the date of March 6th, 1751, Bubb Doddington--who had entered the
Prince’s household in July, 1749--writes in his Diary:
“Went to Leicester House where the Prince told me he had catched cold
the day before at Kew, and had been blooded.”[73]
The full history of the catching of the cold was as follows:--
It seems that at the commencement of this year the Prince had had
an attack of pleurisy from which he had not entirely recovered.
Nevertheless he was most careless of his health, a habit he had derived
from his father, who on one occasion, when he refused to nurse himself
was asked by Walpole:
“Sir, do you know what your father died of? Thinking he could not die!”
Frederick in this way certainly partook of this attribute of George the
Second.
In addition to the attack of pleurisy, the Prince had during the
previous year had a severe fall from his horse, which had left him
ailing. It cannot be doubted that his constitution had been showing
signs of breaking down for some months before the attack of pleurisy in
the winter.
However, on the 5th of March, 1751, he attended at the House of Lords
to hear his father give his sanction to some Acts of Parliament.
This ceremony concluded, the Prince left the hot Chamber, no doubt
overcrowded and stuffy, and came out into the cold March wind,
proceeding to Carlton House in his chair with the windows down. In
other words sitting in a thorough draught. This was not sufficient;
at Carlton House he took off his heavy ceremonial suit, and replaced
it by light unaired clothing. He appears then to have hurried off to
Kew, and there walked about the Gardens in a cold wind for three hours.
Returning to Carlton House he lay upon a couch in a room without a
fire, with the windows open.
It appears that the Earl of Egmont, who was a member of his household,
came into the room, and finding him there reasoned with him on the risk
he was running, no doubt knowing full well that the Prince was in a
weak state of health.
Frederick simply laughed at the idea of danger, and finally went over
to Leicester House.
It is not surprising that when Mr. Doddington called there the next
day, he found him very ill.
But not so ill as to warrant him calling there again the day following.
He went, however, on March 8th, and this is the entry he made of the
visit in his diary:
“March 8th. The Prince not recovered. Our passing the next week at Kew
put off.”
Doddington did not consider the Prince ill enough for a visit on the
9th, but he went there again on the 10th.
“At Leicester House. The Prince was better and saw company.”
Incredible as it may appear, the Prince seems to have gone out to
supper at Carlton House on the 12th, and relapsed of course.
Doddington did not go again until the 13th, and then he recorded the
following:--
“At Leicester House. The Prince did not appear, having a return of a
pain in his side.” And no wonder!
This pain in his side was the worst symptom of the Prince’s illness,
had the doctors but known it; but the diagnosis of a case in those days
must have been a very rough and ready affair.
It has been mentioned that some years before Frederick had received a
blow on the chest from a cricket ball--some say a tennis ball--while
playing on the lawn at Cliefden. It had caused him some pain, but, as
usual, he had neglected it, and some trouble had formed there; trouble
perhaps, fostered by the abundance of the _bons-pères_ the Prince was
in the habit of drinking in the custom of the time. Now on the 13th of
March Doddington records that the Prince had a return of a pain in his
side. This was doubtless the old spot injured by the cricket ball.
Doddington was evidently now getting alarmed--and he had reason for it,
for all his hopes and many ambitions were centred in the Prince--he
went to Leicester House the next day and writes down carefully the
result of his visit.
“14. At Leicester House. The Prince asleep--twice blooded, and with a
blister on his back, as also on both legs, that night.”
He was there again on the 15th.
“The Prince ... and was out of all danger.”
“16. The Prince without pain or fever.”
It is told that in this painless interval, Frederick did that, which
perhaps he had been longing to do in those weary days and nights of
suffering. He sent for his eldest son George. Then when the boy came,
in his state of weakness, his mind seemed to revert to the unkindness
of his own father and the bitterness that unkindness had mingled with
his life. With his arms round the child he dearly loved, and with the
boy’s fair head drawn down to his own, he said these touching words:--
“Come, George, let us be good friends while we are permitted to be so.”
He had evidently, in his mind, the fear that his father would sooner or
later come between him and his boy.
The Prince is said to have had three physicians in attendance on him,
of whom Dr. Lee was one, and two surgeons, Wilmot and Hawkins, to do
the copious blood letting, which doubtless drained away his strength.
But of these five doctors not one saw the imminent danger he was in.
Doddington, however, was still anxious, and was at the Prince’s again
on the 17th.
“Went twice to Leicester House. The Prince had a bad night, till one
this morning, then was better, and continued so.”
He was there again on the 18th.
“The Prince better and sat up half an hour.”
The general impression then was that Frederick was recovering, and
Doddington did not call again the next day at all. Cards were indulged
in by the members of the Prince’s family and some of the household in
an adjacent room, and Frederick’s faithful follower Desnoyers, the
French dancing-master and violinist, was admitted to soothe the invalid
with his beautiful music. He sat by the bed and played to him with that
wonderful touch for which he was celebrated.
It is not difficult to reconstruct that scene on the evening of the
20th of March. Doddington had called at Leicester House at three
o’clock in the afternoon, and had been told that the Prince was much
better and had slept eight hours the night before. Doddington had gone
off quite satisfied to the House of Commons.
But now it is evening, late evening, past nine o’clock, the Prince is
lying thoughtful in his high four-post bedstead. The room is lighted
by wax candles, their glare shaded from his eyes by the curtains of the
bed; by his bedside is the old French dancing-master, violin in hand
playing some soft melody which Frederick loves; this soft strain is
broken occasionally by the voices of the card players in an adjoining
room.
Stealing about the large room with soft tread are the pompous doctors,
the _ignorant_ doctors, who declared their patient to be getting well.
Stately bewigged powdered men these, with silver topped canes
carried almost as wands of office; ready at a moment’s notice to
draw the lifeblood from their patient, or to order their dispensers
in attendance on them in a room hard by to pound up a nauseous drug,
in a great mortar, to be administered crude in a revolting draught
without any attempt to conceal its horrid taste, for medicine was
not administered in those days, in attractive tinctures, with every
bitterness covered by some subtle flavouring; it was taken usually in
the form of a gritty, stringy draught which turned the stomach of the
patient.
But around the sick chamber flitted the young wife of Frederick; she
was only thirty-two then, and the mother of eight children, which
number was very soon to be increased to nine. She was a most devoted
wife and scarcely left him, it is said, during his illness.
There Frederick lay thinking, with the soft notes of the violin
floating around him, and the jarring laughter of the card players
breaking in upon him at times. Perhaps he was thinking of his boy
George as the music moved him, as it will an artistic nature.
“Come, George, let us be good friends while we are permitted to be so!”
A clock has just struck the half hour after nine; perhaps the last
thought in Frederick’s mind, as he is lying there listening to
Desnoyer’s music, is of the God he is so soon to meet. The hand of the
clock creeps on to the quarter; it is nearly a quarter to ten.
Suddenly the music stops. Frederick is taken with a violent fit of
coughing; when it ceases, Dr. Wilmot comes to the bedside.
“I trust Your Royal Highness will be better now, and pass a quiet
night.”
The Princess comes to the foot of the bed and leans over it; Dr.
Hawkins approaches the Prince with a candle and gazes anxiously at him;
at last he sees something which alarms him, the cough breaks out again
with increased violence, Desnoyer places his arms round the Prince and
raises him in the bed to relieve him, as he does so the Prince shivers
and cries out:--
“Je sens la mort!” (I feel death.)
Desnoyers alarmed, cries out to the Princess at the foot of the bed:--
“Madame, the Prince is going.” She rushes round to the head of the bed
and bends over her husband.
It is over; he is dead.
And from the next room comes a burst of laughter from the card players.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] Just previous to this visit, Doddington had been much engaged
in a Motion made in the House of Commons by Townshend, the Prince’s
Groom of the Bedchamber, and seconded by a Colonel Haldane concerning a
military scandal, which shows that the name of Haldane was not unknown
in military debates then.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE FINAL SCENE.
Under this date of March 20th, Doddington continues his entry in his
diary:--
“I suppose the mortification was forming, for he died this evening a
quarter before ten o’clock, as I found by a letter from Mr. Breton at
six o’clock the following morning.”
Doddington continues on the 21st:--
“I came immediately to town,” he lived at Hammersmith, “and learned
from Mr. Breton, who was at Leicester House when the Prince died, that
for half an hour before he was very cheerful, asked to see some of his
friends, ate some bread and butter, and drank coffee; he had spit for
some days, and was at once seized with a fit of coughing and spitting,
which last was so violent that it suffocated him. Lord North was sent
to the King. This morning the King ordered the body to be opened--an
abscess was found in his side, the breaking of which destroyed him.
“His physicians, Wilmot and Lee, knew nothing of his distemper, as
they declared half an hour before he died ‘that his pulse was like a
man’s in perfect health.’ They either would not see or did not know
the consequences of the black thrush which appeared in his mouth and
quite down into his throat. Their ignorance, or their knowledge of his
disorder, renders them equally inexcusable for not calling in other
assistance.”
* * * * *
Augusta, his wife, remained by his corpse for four hours, steadfastly
refusing to believe that he was dead. Her position was pitiable, as she
was about to become the mother of her ninth child, and felt all the
desolation of a woman in her condition at being left to battle with her
trouble alone.
“It was six in the morning before her ladies could persuade her to go
to bed, and even then she remained there but two hours. Some long ago
exacted promise given to her dead husband seems to have disturbed her
mind; she rose and went back into Frederick’s chamber, and there burnt
the whole of the Prince’s papers.
“So it was given out, but it is possible that she retained some, and
that they had a bearing upon certain events which occurred later, and
which will be spoken of in their place.”
Doran comments on this fact as follows:--
“By this action the world lost some rare supplementary chapters to a
_Chronique Scandaleuse_.”
That might have been so, or not.
* * * * *
“When Lord North arrived at Kensington Palace with the news of the
death of the Prince, he found the King looking over a card table at
which sat his daughter, the Princess Amelia, the Duchess of Dorset,
the Duke of Grafton, and the Countess of Yarmouth--the Walmoden;
the Georges seemed fond of giving Norfolk titles to their improper
belongings--_vide_ Walsingham. Lord North entered quietly and stood
beside the King; in a whisper he told him of his son’s death.
“‘Dead, is he?’ he remarked turning to the messenger, ‘why, they told
me he was better.’ Then he went round and leant over his mistress’s
shoulder:
“‘Countess,’ he said very casually, ‘Fred is gone.’
That was all!
* * * * *
“Father of Mercy! Thy hand that wounds alone can save!” wails poor
Doddington in his diary, on the 21st; and he appears to have been
genuinely grief-stricken at the death of his patron.
“I went to Leicester House,” he continues on the 22nd. “The Princess
afflicted, but well. Went to Council at night, which was very full.
The common prayer altered, but Prince George left as he now stands.
The physicians made a report and delivered a paper, being an account
of the body when opened--I have a copy of it--ordered the bowels to
be put into a box covered with red velvet, and carried in one of the
Prince’s coaches by such attendants as his Groom of the Stole should
appoint, and buried in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel. Ordered a Committee
to settle the ceremonies of the funeral.”
On the 27th he made another entry concerning his dead master:--
“Went to Council. Orders to the Lord Steward and Chamberlain to issue
orders for black cloth, wax lights, etc., for the rooms at Westminster
where the body is to be laid, etc. To the Groom of the Stole and master
of the horse to his late Royal Highness to regulate the march of the
servants, etc. Orders to the Earl Marshal to direct the Heralds to
prepare, for the consideration of the Council, a ceremonial for the
funeral of his Royal Highness, upon the plan of those of the Duke of
Gloucester and of Prince George of Denmark, which were formed upon the
plan of the funeral of Charles the Second.”
April 3rd:--
“At Council about the funeral, ceremonial from the Heralds read--their
orders were to form it on the plan of the Duke of Gloucester’s and
Prince George’s of Denmark. But they had different orders privately,
which then I did not know. I thought there was very little ceremony,
and therefore said that I supposed that they had complied with the
orders which their lordships gave about the plans on which the funeral
was to be formed. The lords said: ‘To be sure’; and none seemed to have
any doubts, or concerned themselves about it; so I said no more, though
I am satisfied that it is far short of any funeral of any son of a
King. After the Council was up, I asked the Lord Chancellor about it,
who said that he supposed the Heralds had complied with their orders,
but he knew nothing of it, and had never seen any of the plans. I told
him that I mentioned it, because if it should appear that any mark of
respect to the deceased should be wanting in this funeral, it would
certainly give great distaste. I think the plan must be altered.”
Doddington was not aware of the meanness of the King and Court party
towards the Prince’s memory, but he had a good opportunity of realising
it a little later on.
April 4th:
“The King was at Leicester House”
George seems to have shown some kindness to the widowed Princess,
and to have done what he could to comfort her as far as it was in
his nature, but no doubt her greatest comfort was in her children,
especially the eldest boy.
When George heard of the death of his father--to whom he was
devoted--he very naturally turned white and sick.
“I am afraid, sir, you are not well,” pompously remarked his tutor,
Ayscough, who was present when the news was broken, instead of
comforting the boy.
“I feel,” answered George, with his hand on his heart, “I feel
something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the
scaffold at Kew.”
And no doubt the poor fellow did feel a pain at his heartstrings, for
he loved his father.
Doddington’s diary is almost a chronicle of the events which followed:
April 13th. “Lord Limerick consulted with me about walking at the
funeral. By the Earl Marshal’s order, published in the common newspaper
of the day (which with the ceremonial not published till ten o’clock I
keep by me), neither he as an Irish peer nor I as a Privy Councillor,
could walk. He expressed a strong resolution to pay his last duty to
his royal friend, if practicable. I begged him to stay till I could
get the ceremonial; he did, and we there found in a note that we
might walk. Which note, published seven or eight hours before, the
attendance required was all the notice that lords, their sons, and
Privy Councillors had (except those appointed to particular functions)
that they would be admitted to walk.”
April 13th. “At seven o’clock I went, according to the order, to the
House of Lords. The many slights that the poor remains of a much-loved
master and friend had met with, and was now preparing the last trouble
he could give his enemies, sunk me so low, that for the first hour I
was incapable of making any observation.
“The procession began, and (except the lords appointed to hold the pall
and attend the chief mourner, and those of his own domestics) when
the attendants were called in their ranks, there was not one English
lord, not _one_ bishop, and only one Irish lord (Limerick), two sons of
dukes (Earl of Drumlanrig and Lord Robert Bertie), one Baron’s son (Mr.
Edgecumbe), and two Privy Councillors (Sir John Rushout and myself),
out of these great bodies to make a show of duty to a prince, so great
in rank and expectation.
“While we were in the House of Lords it rained very hard, as it has
done all the season; when we came into Palace Yard, the way to the
Abbey was lined with soldiers, but the managers had not afforded the
slightest covering over our heads; but, by good fortune, while we were
from under cover, it held up. We went into the south-east door, and
turned short into Henry the Seventh’s Chapel. The service was performed
without either anthem or organ. So ended the sad day. _Quem semper
acerbum--semper honoratum._
“The corpse and bowels were removed last night to the Prince’s
lodgings at the House of Lords; the whole Bedchamber were ordered to
attend them from ten in the morning till the _enterrement_. There
was not the attention to order the Green-Cloth to provide them a bit
of bread; and these gentlemen, of the first rank and distinction, in
discharge of their last sad duty to a loved and a loving master, were
forced to bespeak a great cold dinner from a common tavern in the
neighbourhood. At three o’clock, indeed, they vouchsafed to think of
a dinner, and ordered one--but the disgrace was complete; the tavern
dinner was paid for and given to the poor.
[Illustration: BUBB DODDINGTON.
Lord Melcombe.]
“N.B.--The Duke of Somerset was Chief Mourner, notwithstanding the
flourishing state of the Royal Family.”
So ends Bubb Doddington’s account of the Prince’s illness, death and
burial, and it will be seen from his description of the latter that
King George the Second’s hatred for his eldest son did not cease with
death, but that his petty animosity went beyond it to the grave, and
touched those who stood around it.
On such a nature it would be vain to waste good English words, his
own reflections on the events of this year are the best comment and
explanation of it, and it is a sort of pleasure to think that these
words suggest some ring of sorrow in them for his actions past.
Touched by the death of his daughter, the Queen of Denmark, George the
Second made the following soliloquy.
“This (1751) has been a fatal year to my family,” he said “I have lost
my eldest son, _but I was glad of it_. Then the Prince of Orange died
and left everything in confusion. Poor little Edward has been cut open
for an imposthume in his side, and now the Queen of Denmark is gone!
I know I did not love my children when they were young. I hated to
have them coming into the room. But now I love them as well as most
fathers.”[74]
After a long description of the sepulture of the _viscera_ of the
Prince, which appears to have been attended with almost as much
ceremony as his funeral, and seems to have attracted a ghoulish
interest, the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for April, 1751, proceeds as
follows, with an account of the latter function.
* * * * *
The procession began half-an-hour after eight at night, and passed
through the old Palace Yard to the south-west door of Westminster
Abbey, and so directly to the steps leading to Henry the Seventh’s
Chapel.
The Ceremonial was as follows:
Knight Marshals, men, with black staves, two and two.
Gentlemen Servants to his Royal Highness.
two and two, viz.:--
Pages of the Preference.
Gentlemen ushers, quarter waiters, two and two.
Pages of Honour.
Gentlemen ushers, daily waiters.
Physicians: Dr. Wilmot and Dr. Lee.
Household Chaplains.
Clerk of the Closet: Rev. Dr. Ayscough.
Equerries, two and two.
Clerk of the Household or Green Cloth:
James Douglas, Esq., and Sir John Cust, Bart.
Master of the Household: Lord Gage.
Solicitor-General: Auditor: and Attorney General:
Paul Joddrel, Esq., Charles Montague, Esq.,
the Hon. Henry Bathurst.
Secretary: Henry Drax, Esq.
Comptroller and Treasurer to his Royal Highness:
Robert Nugent, Esq., and the Earl of Scarborough,
with their white staves.
Steward and Chamberlain to his Royal Highness
with their white staves.
Chancellor to H.R.H. Sir Thomas Bootle:
An Officer of Arms.
The Master of the Horse to his Royal Highness:
The Earl of Middlesex.
Clarencieux King-at-Arms:
Gentleman Stephen Martin Leake, Esq. Gentleman
Usher. Usher.
bearing the coronet on a
black velvet cushion.
Four Supporters Supporters Four
of the Pall. of the Pall.
supporters supporters
Earl of Earl of
Portmore. Macclesfield.
of ~THE BODY~ of
covered with black velvet,
the Earl pall adorned with Eight Earl of the
Fitzwilliam. escutcheons and under Stanhope.
Canopy. a canopy of black velvet, Canopy.
Earl of borne by Eight of his Earl of
Bristol. Royal Highness’s Gentlemen. Jersey.
Gentleman Garter King-at-Arms: Gentleman
Usher John Anstis, Esq. Usher
Supporter to Supporter to
the Chief The Chief Mourner: the Chief
Mourner. Mourner.
DUKE OF SOMERSET,
DUKE OF his train borne by DUKE OF
RUTLAND. a baronet, DEVONSHIRE.
Sir Thomas Robinson.
Assistants to the Chief Mourner.
Marquis of Tweeddale, Marquis of Lothian, Earls of
Berkeley, Peterborough, Northampton, Cardigan,
Winchester, Carlisle, Murray and Norton.
The Gentleman Usher of his Royal Highness’s
Private Chamber: Edmund Bramston, Esquire.
The Groom of the Stole to His Royal Highness:
Duke of Chandos.
The Lords of the Bedchamber to His Royal Highness:
Lord North and Guildford, Duke of Queensberry, Earl of
Inchiquin, Earl of Egmont, Lord Robert Sutton,
Earl of Bute, two and two.
The Master of the Robes to His Royal Highness:
John Schütz, Esq.
The Grooms of the Bedchamber to His Royal Highness:
John Evelyn, Esq., Samuel Masham, Esq., Thomas
Bludworth, Esq., Sir Edmund Thomas, Bart., Daniel
Boone, Esq., William Bretton, Esq., Martin Madden,
Esq., William Trevanion, Esq., Colonel Powlet,
two and two.
Yeomen of the Guard to close the Procession.
The corpse of His Royal Highness was met at the Church door by the Dean
and Prebendaries attended by the gentlemen of the Choir and King’s
Scholars, who fell into the Procession immediately before the Officer
of Arms, with wax tapers in their hands and properly habited, and began
the Common Burial Service (no Anthem being composed on this occasion)
two drums beating a Dead March during the service.
Upon entering the Chapel, the Royal body was placed on trestles, the
crown and cushion at the head, and the canopy held over, the supporters
of the pall standing by; the chief mourner and his two supporters
seated in chairs at the head of the corpse; the Lords Assistants,
Master of the Horse, Groom of the Stole, and Lords of the Bedchamber
on both sides; the four white staff officers at the feet, the others
seating themselves in the stalls on each side the chapel.
The Bishop of Rochester, Dean of Westminster, then read the first
part of the Burial Service, after which the corpse was carried to the
vault, preceded by the white staff Officers, the Master of the Horse,
Chief Mourner, his supporters and Assistants, Garter King of Arms going
before them.
When they had placed themselves near the vault, the corpse being laid
upon a machine even with the pavement of the Chapel, was by degrees
let down into the vault when the Bishop of Rochester went on with the
service; which being ended, Garter proclaimed his late Royal Highness’s
titles in the following:--
“Thus it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory life
to His Divine Mercy, the illustrious Frederick, Prince of Wales,” etc.,
etc.
The nobility and attendants returned in the same order as they
proceeded, at half-an-hour after nine; so that the whole ceremony
lasted an hour.
There was the utmost decorum observed, and, what is remarkable,
though the populace were extremely noisy before the procession began,
there was during the whole a silence that, if possible, added to the
solemnity of so awful a sight.
The Guards, who each of them held two lighted flambeaux during the
whole time, behaved so well, that we do not hear of any accident
happening among the spectators that are remarkable. As soon as the
procession began to move, two rockets were fired off in Old Palace
Yard, as a signal to the guns in the Park to fire, which was followed
by those of the Tower, during which time the great bells of Westminster
and St. Paul’s Cathedral tolled, as did those of most of the churches
in London.
The soldiers were kept on guard all Saturday night, and on Sunday, at
the South Door of the Abbey, and on the scaffolding in Palace Yard. And
yesterday the workmen began to take down the scaffolding.
The following inscription was engraved on a silver plate, and affixed
to the coffin of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Depositum.
Illustrissimi Principis Frederici Indovici Principes Walliæ,
Principis Electoralis Hereditarii Brunvici et Lunenbergi,
Ducis Cornubiæ Rothsaye et Edinburgu, Marchionis Insulæ
de Ely, Comitis Cestriæ Carrick et Eltham Voce Comitis
Launceston, Baronis Renfrew et Snowdon, Domini Insularum,
Senechalli Scotiæ, Nobillimini Ordinis Pericelidis Equites,
et a Sanctoribus Conciliis Majistati Regiæ, Academiæ
Dubliencis Cancellarii Filii primogeniti Cessissimi Polentissimi
et Excellentissimi Monarchæ Georgii Secundi, Dei Gratia
Magnii Britanniæ Franciæ et Hiberniæ Britanniæ Regis
Fidei Defensoris obiit Vicessimod ie Martu Anno. MDCCL.
Eatatis suæ XLV.
So was poor Frederick borne into that Church in which his little son by
Anne Vane already lay.
The following rough sketch of the arrangements for the Prince’s funeral
was found in the State Paper Office and differs somewhat from the
actual ceremony.
It was probably curtailed by George the Second.
_State Papers--1751. Bundle 116. No. 34._
Thus it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory
life unto His Divine mercy, the Most High, Most Mighty and Most
Illustrious Prince Frederick Louis Prince of Wales, Prince Electoral
and Hereditary Prince of Brunswick and Lunenberg, Duke of Cornwall,
Rothsay and Edingburg, Marquis of the Isle of Ely, Earl of Chester,
Carrick and Eltham, Viscount Launceston, Baron Renfrew and Snaudon,
Lord of the Isles, Steward of Scotland, Knight of the Most Noble Order
of the Garter, one of His Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council,
Chancellor of the University of Dublin, Eldest Son of the Most High,
Most Mighty and Most Excellent Monarch George the Second, by the grace
of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the
Faith, whom God bless and preserve with long life, health and honour
and all worldly happiness.
Supporters of the Pall:
Right side--to carry the Canopy,
Mr. Scott, Mr. Ridley, Mr. Pennant, Hon. Mr. Cornwallis,
Mr. Hawley.
Left Side--to carry the Canopy,
Mr. Palmer, Mr. Legrand, Mr. Durell, Mr. Philpot.
Supporters of the Pall:
Earl Fitzwilliam. Earl of Macclesfield.
Earl Stanhope. BODY. Earl of Bristol.
Earl of Portmore. Early of Moray.
Mr. Wentworth. Garter.
Supporter: Chief Mourner: Supporter:
Duke of Rutland. Duke of Somerset. Duke of Devonshire.
Bart. to support the Train.
Ten Assistants:
Marquis of Lothian. Marquis of Tweeddale.
Earl of Peterborough. Earl of Northampton.
Earl of Cardigan. Earl of Winchelsea.
Earl of Berkeley. Earl of Carlisle.
Earl of Moretown. Earl of Jersey.
Gent. Usher of the Privy Chamber:
Mr. Bramston.
Groom of the Stole:
Duke of Chandos.
Lords of the Bedchamber:
Duke of Queensberry. Lord North and Guildford.
Earl of Egmont. Earl of Inchiquin.
Earl of Bute. Lord Robert Sutton.
Master of the Robes:
Coll. Schütz.
Grooms of the Bedchamber:
Mr. Evelyn (alone).
Mr. Bludworth. Mr. Masham.
Mr. Boone. Mr. Edmund Thomas.
Mr. Madden. Mr. Bretton.
Coll. Powlett. Mr. Trevanion.
Yeomen of the Guard to close the Ceremony.
Knights of the Bath:
Sir John Savill. Sir John Mordaunt.
Sir Charles Powlett. Sir Charles Howard.
Sir Ed. Hawke. Sir Peter Warren.
Sir Chas. Williams. Sir Wm. Morden Harbord
Sir H. Calthorpe. Sir Thomas Whitmore.
Lord Fitzwilliam. Sir John Ligonier, P.C.
Sir John Cape. Sir Ph. Honywood.
P.C. Sir Tho. Robinson.
Visc. Tyrconnell.
P.C. Sir Wm. Younge.
Sir R. Clifton.
P.C. Sir P. Methuen.
P.C. Sir Conyers Darcy are to go before.
Privy Councillors not Peers:
Arthur Onslow, Esq. Henry Legg.
Sir Conyers Darcy. Sir Tho. Robinson.
Wm. Finch.
Hen. Pelham, Esq.
Sir Wm. Lee, Chief Justice. Judges before.
Sir John Strange, M. of R. Knights of the Bath.
Sir John Willia, Ch. J.C.P.C.
Sir Paul Methuen.
Horatio Walpole.
Sir Wm. Younge.
Sir John Rushout.
George Doddington.
Wm. Pitt, Esq., Paymaster-General.
Henry Fox, Secretary of War.
Sir John Ligonier. General of Companie (?).
FOOTNOTES:
[74] Doran’s Queens of the House of Hanover.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE RESIDUUM.
And for the rest, what remains? What flotsam did this apparently wasted
existence leave upon the surface of the tide of life as it sank beneath
it?
Indeed, it is little; little that is reliable, little that can be
trusted as unbiased testimony of his virtues or his vices.
Horace Walpole and Lord Hervey are the leaders of his vilifiers, both
King’s men, both hating him.
What does Walpole say?
“Thus died Frederick, Prince of Wales, having resembled his pattern the
Black Prince in nothing but in dying before his father.”
“His chief passion was women....”
“He was really childish, affectedly a protector of arts and sciences,
fond of displaying what he knew; a mimic, the Lord knows what a
mimic--of the celebrated Duke of Orleans, in imitation of whom he wrote
two or three silly French songs. His best quality was generosity; his
worst, insincerity and indifference to truth, which appeared so early
that Earl Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland from Hanover, what I shall
conclude his character with, ‘He has his father’s head and his mother’s
heart.’”
No great compliment either to his father or mother if this latter
assertion be true!
Lord Hervey, in summing up the Prince’s character, goes much farther
than this, so much farther indeed that his assertions take the colour
of a very bitter display of personal animosity and spite. These are his
words:
“And when I have mentioned his (the Prince’s) temper, it is the single
ray of light I can throw on his character to gild the otherwise
universal blackness that belongs to it, and it is surprising how any
character made up of so many contradictions should never have the good
fortune to have stumbled (_par contre-coup_ at least) upon any one
virtue; but as every vice has its opposite vice as well as its opposite
virtue, so this heap of iniquity to complete at once its uniformity in
vice in general, as well as its contradiction in particular vices like
variety of poisons--whether hot or cold, sweet or bitter--was still
poison, and had never an antidote.”
These stilted passages of Lord Hervey seem to have been put together
with a double object; first to show his hatred for Prince Frederick;
secondly to display his own learning. Though succeeding admirably in
one, he seems to have failed in the other. No man of learning would
ever commit himself to assertions which he was not in a position to
substantiate, and Lord Hervey was certainly never in a position to
prove any of the assertions he put forward against the Prince, or he
most assuredly would have done so.
He was no more able to prove these vague charges--they were always
vague, even to the cowardly hints which he gave in his Memoirs that
he knew _something_; something very detrimental to the Prince’s
character--than he was able to prove his boastful assertion to Sir
Robert Walpole that he was the father of Anne Vane’s child, the child
which had been acknowledged by the Prince as his own.
He stated in his Memoirs that he was aware of certain facts very
damaging to the Prince of Wales, which accounted for the King and
Queen’s hatred of him. If so then he must have been acquainted with
some crime committed in Frederick’s childhood, say at the age of seven,
for that was about the time when his father and mother began to hate
him.
But what are Lord Hervey’s and Horace Walpole’s charges against the
Prince?
Hervey says he was vicious; Hervey of whom Sarah of Marlborough
remarked:--
“He has certainly parts and wit, but is the most wretched profligate
man that ever was born....”
If Frederick possessed vices, where is there any record of them in
history?
Lord Hervey’s are very thinly veiled, _vide_ Pope’s verses on him.
It is acknowledged that Frederick made a fool of himself with women
when he was a young unmarried man, and that this foolishness began over
in Hanover, where he was left a mere boy to his own resources in an
atmosphere permeated with the vices of his father and grandfather.
There was the Vane episode; true, and he behaved as honourably as a man
could under such circumstances.
Then there was the affair of Lady Archibald Hamilton, and that is
exceedingly doubtful; doubtful in the extreme whether there was any
guilt between this young man of seven and twenty and the plain lady of
thirty-five, mother of ten children. The more one reads of his inner
life, the more one doubts it.
He was certainly vain, and fond of having women about him, clever women
especially, but there cannot be a scintilla of a doubt that he loved
his wife devotedly, and, moreover, that she possessed the feminine
attribute of attracting him through his senses, and holding him. The
surest way of holding a husband.
If, therefore, he was devotedly in love with his pretty wife, and she
satisfied him in every way, as he admits in his verses to her, that she
did, what attraction would two plain women--Lady Archibald Hamilton and
Lady Middlesex have for him, one eight years older than himself and the
mother of ten children; the other “short and dark like a winter’s day,”
and as “yellow as a November morning?”
“Ah, yes,” remarks one of his enemies, “beauty in the case of
mistresses was never a necessity in the Prince’s family!”
This assertion is quite wrong; George the Second’s mistresses, Mrs.
Howard, Lady Deloraine, the Walmoden, were all exceedingly pretty, the
little man, though coarse and vulgar, had a great eye for beauty, and
if he could have got her--but he could not, she was a pure woman--he
would have had one of the most beautiful girls in England, Mary
Bellenden.
In the Prince’s case, Miss Vane, the only mistress he was known to
have had, was described as a very pretty girl, therefore he was not
unacquainted with beauty.
That Lady Archibald, and Lady Middlesex were bright, clever, witty
women, useful to have in the Household can be understood; but to say
that the Prince had turned his house into a seraglio as his grandfather
George the First had done, is absurd.
He was not the same kind of person; his tastes, his disposition, his
feelings were utterly different.
He lived in loose immoral times, and in all probability was not
immaculate, but to say that he kept two plain mistresses in the same
house as the pretty wife to whom he was absolutely devoted, and among
the children he adored, is a vile calumny which emanated from persons
who hated him for other reasons, and either could not, or _would_ not,
understand his nature.
Walpole accuses him of lying, but as usual gives no proof. Where are
the lies? We know his father lied; it can be traced in history, but
where are Frederick’s lies?
In the numerous letters he wrote and which have appeared in these
pages, especially those excusing the removal of his wife from Hampton
Court, surely there would have been traceable some of these gross
falsehoods of which he is accused.
But there are none. Excuses, fencing apologies--and we can guess the
reason--yes; but lies; no.
Let us now turn to the other side, and hear what the impartial
witnesses of his life say about him:
Here is an extract from a letter written by the Duchess of Somerset to
Dr. Doddridge:
“Providence seems to have directed the blow where we thought ourselves
the most secure; for among the many schemes of hopes and fears which
people were laying down to themselves, this was never mentioned as a
supposable event. The harmony which appears to subsist between His
Majesty and the Princess of Wales, is the best support for the spirits
of the nation under their present concern and astonishment. He died in
the forty-fifth year of his age, and is generally allowed to have been
a prince of amiable and generous disposition, of elegant manners and
considerable talent.”
“When the Rambler appeared, he so enjoyed its stately wisdom,” says
Dr. Doran, “that he sought after the author in order to serve him if
he needed service. His method of serving an author was not mere lip
compliment. Pope indeed might be satisfied with receiving from him a
complimentary visit at Twickenham. The poet there was on equal terms
with the Prince; and when the latter asked him how it was that the
author who hurled his shafts against kings could be so friendly towards
the son of a King, Pope somewhat pertly answered, that he who dreaded
the lion, might safely enough fondle the cub. But Frederick could
really be princely to authors, and what is even more, he could do a
good action gracefully, an immense point where there is a good action
to be done.
“Thus to Tindal he sent a gold medal worth forty guineas; and to dry
and dusty Glover, for whose ‘Leonidas’ he had much respect, he sent a
note for five hundred pounds, when the poet was in difficulties. This
handsome gift, too, was sent unasked. The son of song was honoured, and
not humiliated, by the gift.
“It does not matter whether Lyttelton or any one else taught him to be
the patron of literature and literary men; it is to his credit that
he recognised them, acknowledged their services, and saw them with
pleasure at his little court, often giving them precedence over those
whose greatness was the mere result of accident of birth.”
And this little anecdote of Lady Huntingdon.
He missed her from his circle one day, and asked Lady Charlotte Edwin
where she was.
“Oh! I dare say,” exclaimed Lady Charlotte, who was not pious then, but
became so after, “I dare say she is praying with her beggars!”
Frederick the “childish,” “whose passion was women,” turned and looked
at her.
“Lady Charlotte,” he answered, “when I am dying I think I shall be
happy to seize the skirt of Lady Huntingdon’s mantle to lift me up to
Heaven!”
Finally, listen to what Dr. Doran says of him a hundred years after,
summing up his character.
“He walked the streets unattended to the great delight of the
people;[75] was the presiding Apollo at great festivals, conferred
the prizes at rowings and racings, and talked familiarly with Thames
fishermen on the mysteries of their craft. He would enter the cottages
of the poor, listen with patience to their twice-told tales, and
partake with relish of the humble fare presented to him. So did the
old soldier find in him a ready listener to the story of his campaigns
and the subject of his petitions; and never did the illustrous maimed
appeal to him in vain. He was a man to be loved in spite of all his
vices. He would have been adored had his virtues been more, or more
real.”
And had he any other quality which perhaps has been forgotten? Some
memory of a kindly, tender feeling, which, maybe, has covered many of
his sins? Let us think, who have read these pages. Yes; there was one
quality; one which can come only from the heart of a good man or woman,
and which he possessed in great fulness; a quality much despised in
those days and in these,
HE LOVED LITTLE CHILDREN.
“Not all unhappy, having loved God’s best.”--_Tennyson._
FOOTNOTES:
[75] At his death the popular cry was: “Oh! that it was but his
brother! Oh! that it was but the butcher!”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation errors have been fixed.
Page 95: “Prince or Wales” changed to “Prince of Wales”
Page 133: “favourable imimpression” changed to “favourable impression”
Page 206: “the accouchment” changed to “the accouchement”
Page 215: “who acccompanied” changed to “who accompanied”
Page 268: “he not being to be found” changed to “he not being found”
Page 378: “What flotsum” changed to “What flotsam”
Page 382: “not unacqainted” changed to “not unacquainted”
Page 384: “humilated” changed to “not humiliated”
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