THE
QUEENS OF ENGLAND
OF THE
HOUSE OF HANOVER

LIVES
OF THE
QUEENS OF ENGLAND
OF THE
HOUSE OF HANOVER

BY
DR. DORAN, F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS’ ‘HABITS AND MEN’ ETC.

FOURTH EDITION

CAREFULLY REVISED AND MUCH ENLARGED

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty
1875

SOPHIA DOROTHEA, OF ZELL,
WIFE OF GEORGE I.

CHAPTER I.
GEORGE OF BRUNSWICK-ZELL AND ELEANORE D’OLBREUSE.

When George I. ascended the throne of England, the heralds provided him with an ancestry. They pretended that his Majesty, who had few god-like virtues of his own, was descended from that deified hero Woden, whose virtues, according to the bards, were all of a god-like quality. The two had little in common, save lack of true-heartedness toward their wives.

The more modest builders of ancestral pride, who ventured to water genealogical trees for all the branches2 of Brunswick to bud upon, did not dig deeper for a root, or go farther for a fountain head, than into the Italian soil of the year 1028. Even then, they found nothing more or less noble than a certain Azon d’Este, Marquis of Tuscany, who having little of sovereign about him, except his will, joined the banner of the Emperor Conrad, and hoped to make a fortune in Germany, either by cutting throats, or by subduing hearts whose owners were heiresses of unencumbered lands.

Azon espoused Cunegunda of Guelph, a lady who was not only wealthy, but who was the last of her race. The household was a happy one; and when an heir to its honours appeared in the person of Guelph d’Este the Robust, the court-poet who foretold brilliant fortunes for his house failed to see the culminating brilliancy which awaited it in Britain.

This same Prince ‘Robust,’ when he had come to man’s estate, wooed no maiden heiress as his father had done, but won the widowed sister-in-law of our great Harold, Judith, daughter of Baldwin de Lisle, Count of Flanders, and widow of Tostic, Earl of Kent. He took her by the hand while she was yet seated under the shadow of her great sorrow, and, looking up at Guelph the Robust, she smiled and was comforted.

Guelph was less satisfactorily provided with wealth than the comely Judith; but Guelph and Judith found favour in the eyes of the Emperor Henry IV., who forthwith ejected Otho of Saxony from his possessions in Bavaria, and conferred the same, with a long list of rights and appurtenances, on the newly-married couple.

These possessions were lost to the family by the rebellion of Guelph’s great-grandson against Frederick Barbarossa. The disinherited prince, however, found fortune again, by help of a marriage and an English king. He had been previously united to Maud, the daughter of3 Henry II., and his royal father-in-law took unwearied pains to find some one who could afford him material assistance. He succeeded, and Guelph received, from another emperor, the gift of the countships of Brunswick and Luneburg. Otho IV. raised them to duchies, and William (Guelph) was the first duke of the united possessions, about the year 1200.

The early dukes were for the most part warlike, but their bravery was rather of a rash and excitable character than heroically, yet calmly firm. Some of them were remarkable for their unhappy tempers, and they acquired names which unpleasantly distinguish them in this respect. Henry was not only called the ‘young,’ from his years, and ‘the black,’ from his swarthiness, but ‘the dog,’ because of his snarling propensities. So Magnus, who was surnamed ‘the collared,’ in allusion to the gold chain which hung from his bull neck, was also known as the ‘insolent’ and the ‘violent,’ from the circumstance that he was ever either insufferably haughty or insanely passionate.

The House of Brunswick has, at various times, been divided into the branches of Brunswick-Luneburg, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Brunswick-Zell, Brunswick-Danneberg, &c. These divisions have arisen from marriages, transfers, and interchanges. The first duke who created a division was Duke Bernard, who, early in the fifteenth century, exchanged with a kinsman his duchy of Brunswick for that of Luneburg, and so founded the branch which bears, or bore, that double name.

The sixteenth duke, Otho, was the first who is supposed to have brought a blot upon the ducal scutcheon, by honestly marrying rather according to his heart than his interests. His wife was a simple lady of Brunswick, named Matilda de Campen. It became the common object of all the dukes of the various Brunswick branches to increase4 the importance of a house which had contributed something to the imperial greatness of Germany. They endeavoured to accomplish this common object by intermarriages; but the desired consummation was not achieved until a comparatively recent period, when the branch of Brunswick-Luneburg became Electors, and subsequently Kings of Hanover, and that of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Sovereign Dukes of Brunswick.

The grandfather of our George I., William, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, had seven sons, and all these were dukes, like their father. On the decease of the latter, they affected to discover that if the seven heirs, each with his little dukedom, were to marry, the greatness of the house would suffer alarming diminution. They accordingly determined that one alone of the brothers should form a legal matrimonial connection, and that the naming of the lucky re-founder of the dignity of Brunswick should be left to chance!

The seven brothers met in the hall of state in their deceased father’s mansion, and there threw dice as to who should live on in single blessedness, and which should gain the prize, not of a wife, but of permission to find one. ‘Double sixes’ were thrown by George, the sixth son. The lady whom he cavalierly wooed and readily won, was Anne Eleanore, daughter of the Landgraf of Hesse-Darmstadt.

The heir-apparent of this marriage was Frederick Ernest Augustus, who, in 1659, married Sophia, the daughter of Frederick and Elizabeth, the short-lived King and Queen of Bohemia; the latter the daughter of James I. The eldest child of this last marriage was George Louis, who ultimately became King of Great Britain.

When Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, the French Protestants who refused to be converted were5 executed or imprisoned. Some found safety, with suffering, in exile; and confiscation made beggars of thousands. When towns, where the Protestants were in the majority, exhibited tardiness in coming over to the king’s way of thinking, dragoons were ordered thither, and this order was of such significance, that when it was made known, the population, to escape massacre, usually professed recantation of error in a mass. This daily accession of thousands who made abjuration under the sword, and walked thence to confession and reception of the Sacrament under an implied form in which they had no faith, was described to the willingly duped king by the ultra-montane bishops as a miracle as astounding as any in Scripture.

Of some few individuals, places at court for themselves, commissions for their sons, or honours which sometimes little deserved the name, for their daughters, made, if not converts, hypocrites. Far greater was the number of the good and faithful servants who left all and followed their Master. Alexander D’Esmiers, Seigneur D’Olbreuse, a gallant Protestant gentleman of Poitou, preferred exile and loss of estate to apostacy. When he crossed the frontier, a banished man, he brought small worldly wealth with him, but therewith one child, a daughter, who was to him above all wealth; and, to uphold his dignity, the memory of being descended from the gallant Fulques D’Esmiers, the valiant and courteous Lord of Lolbroire.

Father and daughter sojourned for a time beyond the northern frontier of the kingdom, having their native country within sight. There they tabernacled in much sorrow, perplexity, and poverty, but friends ultimately supplied them with funds; and M. D’Esmiers, Seigneur D’Olbreuse, found himself in a condition to appear in Brussels without sacrifice of dignity. Into the gay circles6 of that gay city he led his daughter Eleanora, who was met by warm homage from the gallants, and much criticism at the hands of her intimate friends—the ladies.

The sharpest criticism could not deny her beauty; and her wit and accomplishments won for her the respect and homage of those whose allegiance was better worth having than that of mere petits maîtres with their stereotyped flattery. Eleanora, like the lady in Göthe’s tragedy, loved the society and the good opinion of wise men, while she hardly thought herself worthy of either. She was a Frenchwoman, and consequently she was not out of love with gaiety. She was the fairest and the liveliest in the train of the brilliant Duchess of Tarento, and she was following and eclipsing her noble patroness at a ball, when she was first seen by George William, second son of George, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, and heir to the pocket but sovereign dukedom of Zell.

The heir of Zell became an honest wooer. He whose gallantry had been hitherto remarkable for its dragooning tone, was now more subdued than Cymon in the subduing presence of Iphigenia. He had hated conversation, because he was incapable of sustaining it; but now love made him eloquent. He had abhorred study, and knew little of any other language than his own; but now he took to French vocabularies and dictionaries, and long before he had got so far as to ask Eleanora to hear him conjugate the verb aimer ‘to love,’ he applied to her to interpret the difficult passages he met with in books; and throughout long summer days the graceful pair might have been seen sitting together, book in hand, fully as happy and twice as hopeful as Paolo and Francesca.

George William was sorely puzzled as to his proceedings. To marriage he could have condescended with alacrity, but unfortunately there was ‘a promise in bar.’ With the view common to many co-heirs of the family,7 he had entered into an engagement with his brother Ernest Augustus, of Brunswick-Luneburg, and Bishop of Osnaburgh, never to marry. This concession had been purchased at a certain cost, and the end in view was the further enlargement of the dominions and influence of the House of Brunswick. If George William should not only succeed to Zell, but should leave the same to a legitimate heir, that was a case which Ernest Augustus would be disposed to look upon as a grievous wrong. A price was paid, therefore, for the promised celibacy of his brother, and that brother was now actively engaged in meditating as to how he might, without disgrace, break a promise, and yet retain the money by which it had been purchased. His heart leaped within him as he thought how easily the whole matter might be arranged by a morganatic marriage—a marriage, in other words, with the left hand; an union sanctioned by the church but so far disallowed by the law that the children of such wedlock were, in technical terms, infantes nullius, ‘children of nobody,’ and could of course succeed to nobody’s inheritance.

George William waited on the Seigneur d’Olbreuse with his morganatic offer; the poor refugee noble entertained the terms with much complacency, but left his child to determine on a point which involved such serious considerations for herself. They were accordingly placed with much respect at Eleanora’s feet, but she mused angrily thereon. She would not listen to the offer.

In the meantime, these love-passages of young George William were productive of much unseemly mirth at Hanover, where the Bishop of Osnaburgh was keeping a not very decorous court. He was much more of a dragoon than a bishop, and indeed his flock were more to be pitied than his soldiers. The diocese of Osnaburgh was supplied with bishops by the most curious of rules; the rule was fixed8 at the period of the peace which followed the religious wars of Germany, and this rule was, that as Osnaburgh was very nearly divided as to the number of those who followed either church, it should have alternately a Protestant and a Romanist bishop. The result has been that Osnaburgh has had sad scapegraces for her prelates, but yet, in spite thereof, has maintained a religious respectability which might be envied by dioceses blessed with two diverse bishops at once, for ever anathematising the flocks of each other and their shepherds.

The Protestant Prince-Bishop of Osnaburgh made merry with his ladies at the wooing of his honest and single-minded brother, whom he wounded to the uttermost by scornfully speaking of Eleanora d’Olbreuse as the duke’s ‘Madame.’ It was a sorry and unmanly joke, for it lacked wit, and insulted a true-hearted woman. But it had the effect also of arousing a true-hearted man.

George William had now succeeded to the little dukedom of Zell, not indeed without difficulty, for as the ducal chair had become vacant while the next heir was absent, paying homage at Brussels to a lady rather than receiving it from his lieges in Zell, his younger brother, John Frederick, had played his lord-suzeraine a shabby trick, by seating himself in that chair, and fixing the ducal parcel-gilt coronet on his own brows.

George William having toppled down the usurper from his ill-earned elevation, and having bought off further treason by pensioning the traitor, returned to Brussels with a renewal of his former offer. He added weight thereto by the intimation, that if a morganatic marriage were consented to now, he had hopes, by the favour of the emperor, to consolidate it at a subsequent period by a legal public union, whereat Eleanora d’Olbreuse should be recognised Duchess of Zell, without chance of that proud title ever being disputed.

9

Thereupon a family council was holden. The poor father thought a morganatic marriage might be entered upon without ‘derogation;’ au reste, he left all to his daughter’s love, filial and otherwise. Eleanora did not disappoint either sire or suitor by her decision. She made the first happy by her obedience, her lover by her gentle concession; and she espoused the ardent duke, with the left hand, because her father advised it, her lover urged it, and the council and the suit were agreeable to the lady, who professed to be influenced by them to do that for which her own heart was guide and warrant.

The marriage was solemnised in the month of September, 1665, the bride being then in the twenty-sixth year of her age. With her new position, she assumed the name and style of Lady von Harburg, from an estate of the duke’s so called. The Bishop of Osnaburgh was merrier than ever at what he styled the mock marriage, and more unmanly than ever in the coarse jokes he flung at the Lady of Harburg. But even this marriage was not concluded without fresh concessions made by the duke to the bishop, in order to secure to the latter an undivided inheritance of Brunswick, Hanover, and Zell. His mirth was founded on the idea that he had provided for himself and his heirs, and left the children of his brother, should any be born, and these survive him, to nourish their left-handed dignity on the smallest possible means. The first heiress to such dignity, and to much heart-crushing and undeserved sorrow, soon appeared to gladden for a brief season, to sadden for long and weary years, the hearts of her parents. Sophia Dorothea was born on the 15th of September, 1666. Her birth was hailed with more than ordinary joy in the little court of her parents: at that of the bishop it was productive of some mirth and a few bad epigrams. The bishop had taken provident care that neither heir nor heiress should affect his succession to what should have10 been their own inheritance, and, simply looking upon Sophia Dorothea as a child whose existence did not menace a diminution of the prospective greatness of his house, he tolerated the same with an ineffable, gracious condescension.

Such a household as the one maintained in sober happiness and freedom from anxiety by the duke and his wife was a rare sight in German courts. The duke was broadly ridiculed because of his faithful affection for one who was worthy of all the truth and esteem which a true-hearted wife could claim. The only fault ever brought by the bitterest of the enemies of the wife of the Duke of Zell against that unexceptionable lady was, that she was over-fond of nominating natives of France to little places in her husband’s little court. Considering that the Germans, who looked upon her as an intruder, would not recognise her as having become naturalised by marriage, it is hardly to be wondered at that she gathered as much of France around her as she could assemble in another land.

Three other children were the fruit of this marriage, whose early deaths were deplored as so many calamities. Their mother lived long enough to deplore that Sophia Dorothea had survived them. The merits of the mother won, as they deserved to do, increase of esteem and affection on the part of the duke. His most natural wish was to raise her to a rank equal to his own, as far as a mere name could make assertion of such equality. It was12 thought a wonderful act of condescension on the part of the emperor, that he gave his imperial sanction to the elevation of the Lady of Harburg to the rank and title of Countess of Wilhelmsburg.

The Bishop of Osnaburgh was harder to treat with than the emperor. He bound down his brother by stringent engagements, solemnly engrossed in lengthy phrases, guarding against all mistake by horribly technical tautology, to agree that the encircling his wife with the coronet of a countess bestowed upon her no legal rights, and conferred no shadow of legitimacy, in the eye of the law, on the children of the marriage, actual or prospective. For such children, modest yet sufficient provision was secured; but they were never to dream of claiming cousinship with the alleged better-born descendants of Henry the Dog, or Magnus the Irascible.

Duke George William, however, was resolved not to rest until his wife should also be his duchess. He appealed to the Estates of Germany. The Estates thought long and adjourned often before they came to a tardy and reluctant conclusion, by which the boon sought was at length conceded. The emperor added his consent. The concession made by the Estates, and the sanction superadded by the emperor, were, however, only obtained upon the military bishop withholding all opposition.

The princely prelate was, in fact, bought off. Again his muniment-box was unlocked; once more he and his staff of lawyers were deep in parchments, and curious in the geography of territorial maps and plans. The result of much dry labour and heavy speculation was an agreement entered into by the two brothers. The Duke of Zell contracted that the children of his marriage with the daughter of the Poitevin seigneur should inherit only his private property, and the empty title of Counts, or Countesses, of Wilhelmsburg. The territory of Zell13 with other estates added to the sovereign dukedom were to pass to the prince-bishop or his heirs. On these terms Eleanora of Olbreuse, Lady of Harburg, and Countess of Wilhelmsburg, became Duchess of Zell.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed the very apostolic bishop to the dissolute disciples at his court, on the night that the family compact was made an accomplished fact, ‘my brother’s French Madame is not a jot the more his wife for being duchess’—which was true, for married is married, and there is no comparative degree of intensity which can be applied to the circumstance. ‘But she has a dignity the more, and therewith may Madame rest content’—which was not true, for no new title could add dignity to a woman like the wife of Duke George William.

When Sophia Dorothea was but seven years old, she had for an occasional playfellow in the galleries and gardens of Zell and Calenberg, a handsome lad, Swedish by birth, but German by descent, whose name was Philip Christopher von Königsmark. He was a few years older than Sophia Dorothea (some accounts say ten years older), and he was in Zell for the purpose of education, and he fulfilled the office of page. Many of his vacation hours were spent with the child of George William, who was his father’s friend. When gossips saw the two handsome children, buoyant of spirit, beaming with health, and ignorant of care, playing hand in hand at sports natural to their age, those gossips prophesied of future marriage. But their speculation had soon no food whereon to live, for the young Königsmark was speedily withdrawn from Zell, and Sophia bloomed on alone, or with other companions, good, graceful, fair, accomplished, and supremely happy.

But, even daughter as she was of a left-handed marriage, there was hanging to her name a dower sufficiently14 costly to dazzle and allure even princely suitors. To one of these she was betrothed before she was ten years old. The suitor was a soldier and a prince. Augustus Frederick, Crown Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was allured by the ‘beaux yeux de la casette’ of the little heiress, which contained, after all, only one hundred thousand thalers, fifteen thousand pounds sterling; but an humble dower for a duke’s only daughter. In the meantime the affianced lover had to prove himself, by force of arms, worthy of his lady and her fortune. To the siege of Philipsburg, in the year 1676, repaired the chivalrous Augustus of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. He bore himself with a dignity and daring which entitled him to respect, but a fatal bullet slew him suddenly: a brief notice in a despatch was his soldierly requiem, and when the affianced child-bride was solemnly informed by circumstance of Hof-Marshal that her lord was slain and her heart was free, she was too young to be sorry, and too unconscious to be glad.

Meanwhile, the two courts of the Bishop of Osnaburgh and the Duke of Zell continued to present a striking contrast. The bishop was one of those men who think themselves nothing unless they are imitating some greater man, not in his virtues but his vices. There was one man in Europe whom Ernest Augustus described as a ‘paragon,’ and that distinguished personage was Louis XIV. The vices, extravagance, the pomposity of the great king, were the dear delights of the little prince. As Louis neglected his wife, so Ernest Augustus disregarded his. Fortunately, Sophia, the wife of the latter, had resources in her mind, which made her consider with exemplary indifference the faithlessness of her lord.

At this court of Hanover, two sisters, Catherine and Elizabeth von Meisenbuch, had, for some time, set the15 fashion of a witchery of costume, remarkable for its taste, and sometimes for outraging it. They possessed, too, the great talent of Madame de Sillery Genlis, and were inimitable in their ability and success in getting up little fêtes, at home or abroad, in the salon or al fresco—formal and full-dressed, or rustic and easy—where major-generals were costumed as agricultural swains, and ladies of honour as nymphs or dairymaids, with costumes rural of fashioning, but as resplendent and costly as silkman and jeweller could make them. At a sort of Masque, invented by the sisters von Meisenbuch, one appeared as Diana, the other as Bellona, and they captivated all hearts, from those of the prince-bishop and his son to that of the humblest aspirant in the court circle.

These young ladies came to court to push their fortunes. They hoped in some way to serve the sovereign bishop; or, failing him, to be agreeable to his heir, George Louis (afterwards George I. of England). But even this prince, a little and not an attractive person, to say nothing of the bishop, seemed for a time a flight above them. They could wait a new opportunity; for as for defeat in their aspirations, they would not think of it. They had the immense power of those persons who are possessed by one single idea, and who are under irresistible compulsion to carry it out to reality. They could not all at once reach the prince-bishop or his heir, and accordingly they directed the full force of their enchantments at two very unromantic-looking personages, the private tutors of the young princes of Hanover. The ladies were soon mighty at Greek particles, learned in the aorists, fluent on the digamma, and familiar with the mysteries of the differential calculus.

Catherine and Elizabeth von Meisenbuch opened a new grammar before their learned pundits, the Herrn von Busche and von Platen (the latter was of a noble16 and ancient house); and truth to tell, the philosophers were nothing loth to pursue the new study taught by such professors. When this educational course had come to a close, the public recognised at once its aim, quality, and effects, by learning that the sage preceptors had actually married two of the liveliest and lightest-footed of girls who had ever danced a branle at the balls in Brunswick. The wives, on first appearing in public after their marriage, looked radiant with joy. The tutors wore about them an air of constraint, as if they thought the world needed an apology, by way of explaining how two Elders had permitted themselves to be vanquished by a brace of Susannas. Their ideas were evidently confused, but they took courage as people cheerfully laughed, though they may have lost it again on discovering that they had been drawn into matrimony by two gracefully-graceless nymphs, whose sole object was to use their spouses as stepping-stones to a higher greatness.

There must have been many attendant advantages in connection with such an object, or the two married philosophers would hardly have worn the air of content which they put on as soon as they saw the aim of their estimable wives, and felt the gain thence accruing.

Elizabeth von Meisenbuch, the wife of von Platen, was the true mistress of the situation. Von Platen, principally through her intrigues, had been appointed prime-minister of the sovereign bishop. The time passed by von Platen with his sovereign master afforded him ample leisure to talk of his wife, praise her political abilities, and over-eulogise her. The prince-bishop felt his curiosity excited to study more nearly this phœnix of a woman. It was, therefore, the most natural of consequences that von Platen should lead his lady to his master’s feet, though it perhaps was not so natural that he should leave her there to ‘improve’ the position thus reached.

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The lady lost no time in justifying all that her husband had advanced in warranty of her talent, skill, and willingness to use them for the advantage of the bishop and his dominions; the powerful prelate was enchanted with her—enchanted with her in every sense. To sum up all, Madame von Platen became the mistress of her husband’s master; and her sister, who had given her hand to von Busche, gave herself body and soul to the bishop’s son, George Louis. This arrangement seemed in no way to disturb the equanimity of the bishop’s wife, the prince’s mother.

While all was loose and lively at the court of the bishop, the daily routine of simple pleasures and duties alone marked the course of events at the modest court of the Duke of Zell. The monotony of the latter locality was, however, agreeably interrupted by the arrival there of his Serene Highness Prince Augustus William of Wolfenbüttel. He had just been edified by what he had witnessed during his brief sojourn in the episcopal circle of Osnaburgh, where he had seen two ladies exercising a double influence, Madame von Platen ruling her husband and his master, while her sister Caroline von Busche was equally obeyed by her consort and his Highness George Louis, the bishop’s son.

Prince Augustus of Wolfenbüttel was the brother of that early suitor of the little Sophia Dorothea who had met a soldier’s death at the siege of Philipsburg. He was, like his brother, not so rich in gold pieces as in good qualities, and was more wealthy in virtues than in acres.19 He was a bachelor prince, with a strong inclination to lay down his bachelorship at the feet of a lady who would, by addition of her dowry, increase the greatness and material comforts of both. Not that Augustus of Wolfenbüttel was mercenary; he was simply prudent. A little princely state in Germany costs a great deal to maintain, and when the errant prince went forth in search of a lady with a dower, his last thought was to offer himself to one who had no heart or could have no place in his own. If there was some system, a little method, and an air of business about the passion and principle of the puissant Prince Augustus, something thereof must be laid to the charge of the times, and a little to the princely matter-of-fact good sense: he is a wise and merciful man who, before he comes to conclusions with a lady on the chapter of matrimony, first weighs prospects, and establishes, as far as in him lies, a security of sunshine.

Augustus Wolfenbüttel had long suspected that the sun of his future home was to be found at Zell, and in the person of his young cousin Sophia Dorothea. Even yet, tradition exists among Brunswick maidens as to the love-passages of this accomplished and handsome young couple. Those passages have been enlarged for the purposes of romance writers, but divested of all exaggeration there remains enough to prove, as touching this pair, that they were well assorted both as to mind and person; that their inclinations were towards each other; and that they were worthy of a better fate than that which fell upon the honest and warm affection which reigned in the hearts of both.

The love of these cousins was not the less ardent for the fact of its being partially discouraged. The Duke of Zell looked upon the purpose of Prince Augustus with an unfavourable eye. The simple-minded duke had an unfeigned superstitious awe of the new lover; and the idea20 of consenting to a match under the circumstances as they presented themselves, seemed to him tantamount to a species of sacrilege, outraging the manes and memory of the defunct brother. The duke loved his daughter, and the daughter assuredly loved Augustus of Wolfenbüttel; and, added thereto, the good Duchess Eleanora was quite disposed to see the cherished union accomplished, and to bestow her benediction upon the well-favoured pair. The father was influenced, however, by his extensive reading in old legendary ballad-lore, metrical and melancholy German romances, the commonest incident in which is the interruption of a marriage ceremony by a spiritual personage professing priority of right.

The opposition to the marriage was not, however, all surmounted when the antagonism of the duke had been successfully overcome. Madame von Platen has the credit of having carried out her opposition to the match to a very successful issue.

It is asserted of this clever lady, that she was the first who caused the Bishop of Osnaburgh thoroughly to comprehend that Sophia Dorothea would form a very desirable match for his son George Louis. The young lady had lands settled on her which might as well be added to the territory of that electoral Hanover of which the prince-bishop was soon to be the head. Every acre added to the possessions of the chief of the family would be by so much an increase of dignity, and little sacrifices were worth making to effect great and profitable results. The worthy pair, bishop and female prime-minister, immediately proceeded to employ every conceivable engine whereby they might destroy the fortress of the hopes of Sophia Dorothea and Augustus of Wolfenbüttel. They cared for nothing, save that the hand of the former should be conferred upon the bishop’s eldest son, George Louis, who had as little desire to be matched with his cousin, or his cousin21 with him, as kinsfolk can have who cordially detest each other.

George Louis was not shaped for a lover. He was mean in person and in character. George was brave indeed; to none of the princes of the House of Brunswick can be denied the possession of bravery. In all the bloody and useless wars of the period, he had distinguished himself by his dauntless courage and his cool self-possession. He was not heroic, but he really looked heroic at the head of his squadron, charging across the battle-field, and carrying his sword and his fringed and feathered hat into the very thickest of the fray. He did not fail, it may be added, in one of the characteristics of bravery, humanity on the field. For a wounded foe he had a thorough respect. Out of the field of battle George Louis was an extremely ordinary personage, except in his vices. He was coarsely minded and coarsely spoken, and his profligacy was so extreme of character—it bore about it so little of what Lord Chesterfield recommended when he said a man might be gentlemanlike even in his vices—that the bishop, easy as he was both as parent and prelate, and rich as he was himself in evil example to a son who needed no such warrant to plunge headlong into sin—even the bishop felt uncomfortable for awhile. He thought, however, that marriage would cure profligacy.

George Louis was now in his twenty-second year. He was born in 1660, and he had recently acquired increase of importance from the tact of his sire having succeeded to the estates, grandeur, and expectations of his predecessor, Duke John Frederick. The latter was on his way to Rome, in 1679, a city which he much loved, holding in respect a good portion of what is taught there. He was proceeding thither with a view of a little more of pleasure and something therewith of instruction, when a sudden attack of illness carried him off; and his death excited as22 much grief in the bishop as it possibly could in one who had little reverence for the duke, by whose death he profited largely.

When the bishop (now Duke Ernest Augustus, of Hanover), as a natural consequence of this death, established a gayer court at Hanover than had ever yet been seen there, and had raised George Louis to the rank of a ‘Crown Prince’—a title given to many heirs who could inherit nothing but coronets—the last-named individual began to consider speculatively as to what royal lady he might, with greatest prospect of advantage to himself, make offer of his hand.

At this time Charles II. was King in England. The King’s brother, James, Duke of York, had a daughter, ‘Lady Anne,’ who is better known to us all by her after-title of ‘good Queen Anne.’ In the year 1680, George of Hanover came over to England with matrimonial views respecting that young princess. He had on his way visited William of Orange, at the Hague; and when that calculating prince was made the confidential depository of the views of George Louis respecting the Princess Anne of England, he listened with much complacency, but is suspected of having forthwith set on foot the series of intrigues which, helped forward by Madame von Platen, ended in the recall of George from England, and in his hapless marriage with the more hapless Sophia Dorothea.

George of Hanover left the Hague with the conviction that he had a friend in William; but William was no abettor of marriages with the Princess Anne, and least of all could he wish success to the hereditary prince of Hanover, whose union with one of the heiresses of the British throne might, under certain contingencies, miserably mar his own prospects. The Sidney Diary fixes the arrival of George Louis at Greenwich on the 6th of December, 1680. On the 29th of the month, Viscount23 Stafford was beheaded on Tower Hill, and at this lively spectacle George of Hanover was probably present, for on the 30th of the month he sends a long letter to her Serene Highness, his mother, stating that ‘they cut off the head of Lord Stafford yesterday, and made no more ado about it than if they had chopped off the head of a pullet.’ In this letter, the writer enters into details of the incidents of his reception in England. The tenor of his epistle is, that he remained one whole day at anchor at ‘Grunnwitsch’ (which is his reading of Greenwich) while his secretary, Mr. Beck, went ashore to look for a house for him, and find out his uncle Prince Rupert. Scant ceremony was displayed, it would appear, to render hospitable welcome to such a visitor. Hospitality, however, was not altogether lacking. The zealous Beck found out ‘Uncle Robert,’ as the prince ungermanises Rupert, and the uncle, having little of his own to offer to his nephew, straightway announced to Charles II. the circumstance that the princely lover of his niece was lying in the mud off Grunnwitsch. ‘His Majesty,’ says George Louis, ‘immediately ordered them apartments at Writhall’—and he then proceeds to state that he had not been there above two hours when Lord Hamilton arrived to conduct him to the King, who received him most obligingly. He then adds, ‘Prince Robert had preceded me, and was at Court when I saluted King Charles. In making my obeisance to the King, I did not omit to give him the letter of your Serene Highness; after which he spoke of your Highness, and said that he “remembered you very well.” When he had talked with me some time, he went to the Queen, and as soon as I arrived, he made me kiss the hem of her Majesty’s petticoat. The next day I saw the Princess of York (the Lady Anne), and I saluted her by kissing her, with the consent of the King. The day after I went to visit Prince24 Robert, who received me in bed, for he has a malady in his leg, which makes him very often keep his bed. It appears that it is so, without any pretext, and he has to take care of himself. He had not failed of coming to see me one day. All the lords come to see me, sans prétendre la main chez moi’ (probably, rather meaning without ceremony, without kissing hands, than, as has been suggested, that ‘they came without venturing to shake hands with him’).

Cold and deaf did the Princess Anne remain to the suit of the Hanoverian wooer. The suit, indeed, was not pressed by any sanction of the lady’s father, who, during the three months’ sojourn of George Louis in England, remained in rather secluded state at Holyrood. Neither was the suit opposed by James. James was troubled but little touching the suitor of his daughter. He had personal troubles enough of his own wherewith to be concerned, and therewith sundry annoyances.

Among the ‘celebrations’ of the visit of George Louis to this country, was the pomp of the ceremony which welcomed him to Cambridge. Never had the groves or stream of Cam been made vocal by the echoes of such laudation as was given and taken on this solemnly hilarious occasion. There was much feasting, which included very much drinking, and much expenditure of heavy compliment in very light Latin. George and his trio of followers were made doctors of law by the scholastic authorities. The honour, however, was hardly more appropriate than when a similar one was conferred, in after years, upon Blucher and the celebrated artillery officer, Gneisenau. ‘Ah!’ exclaimed the veteran leader, ‘they are going to make me a doctor; but it was Gneisenau that furnished all the pills.’

That parliament was convened at Oxford whereby there was, as Evelyn remarks, ‘great expectation of his Royal Highness’s cause, as to the succession against which25 the house was set,’ and therewith there was, according to the same diarist, ‘an extraordinary sharp, cold spring, not yet a leaf upon the trees, frost and snow lying while the whole nation was in the greatest ferment.’ Such was the parliament, and such the spring, when George Louis was suddenly called home. He was highly interested in the bill, which was read a first time at that parliament, as also in the ‘expedients’ which were proposed in lieu of such bill, and rejected. The expedients proposed instead of the Bill of Exclusion in this parliament, were that the whole government, upon the death of Charles II., should be vested in a regent, the Princess of Orange, and if she died without issue, then the Princess Anne should be regent. But if James, Duke of York, should have a son educated a Protestant, then the regency should last no longer than his minority, and that the regent should govern in the name of the father while he lived; but that the father should be obliged to reside five hundred miles from the British dominions; and if the duke should return to these kingdoms, the crown should immediately devolve on the regent, and the duke and his adherents be deemed guilty of high treason.

Here was matter in which the Hanoverian suitor was doubly interested both as man and as lover. Nor was there anything unnatural or unbecoming in such concern. The possible inheritance of such a throne as that of England was not to be contemplated without emotion. An exclusive Protestant succession made such a heritage possible to the House of Brunswick, and if ever the heads of that house, before the object of their hopes was realised, ceased to be active for its realisation, it was when assurance was made doubly sure, and action was unnecessary.

It is not easy to determine what part William of Orange had in the recall of George Louis from England, but the suddenness of that recall was an object of some admiring perplexity to a lover, who left a lady who was26 by no means inconsolable, and who, two years afterwards, was gaily married at St. James’s to the Prince of Denmark, on the first leisure day between the executions of Russell and of Sidney.

George Louis, however, obeyed the summons of his sovereign and father, but it was not until his arrival in Hanover that he found himself called upon to transfer the prosecution of his matrimonial suit from one object to another. The riding idea in the mind of Ernest Augustus was, that however he might have provided to secure his succession to the dominion of Zell, the marriage of his son with the duke’s only child would add many broad acres to his possessions in Hanover.

Sophia Dorothea was still little more than a child; but that very circumstance was made use of in order to procure the postponement of her marriage with Augustus of Wolfenbüttel. The Duke of Zell did not stand in need of much argument from his brother to understand that the union of the young lovers might more properly be celebrated when the bride was sixteen than a year earlier. The duke was ready to accept any reasoning, the object of which was to enable him to retain his daughter another year at his side.

The sixteenth birthday of Sophia Dorothea had arrived, and George Louis had made no impression on her heart—the image of the absent Augustus still lived there; and the whole plot would have failed, but for the sudden, and active, and efficient energy of one who seemed as if she had allowed matters to proceed to extremity, in order to exhibit the better her own powers when she condescended to interfere personally and remedy the ill-success of others by a triumph of her own. That person was Sophia, the wife of Ernest, a lady who rivalled Griselda in one point of her patience—that which she felt for her husband’s infidelities. In other respects27 she was crafty, philosophical, and free-thinking; but she was as ambitious as any of her family, and as she had resolved on the marriage of her son, George Louis, with Sophia Dorothea, she at once proceeded to accomplish that upon which she had resolved.

It had suddenly come to her knowledge that Augustus of Wolfenbüttel had made his reappearance at the Court of Zell. Coupling the knowledge of this fact with the remembrance that Sophia Dorothea was now sixteen years of age, and that at such a period her marriage had been fixed, the mother of George Louis addressed herself at once to the task of putting her son in the place of the favoured lover. She ordered out the heavy coach and heavier Mecklenburg horses, by which German potentates were wont to travel stately and leisurely by post some two centuries ago. It was night when she left Hanover; and although she had not further to travel than an ordinary train could now accomplish in an hour, it was broad daylight before this match-making and match-breaking lady reached the portals of the ducal palace of Zell.

There was something delightfully primitive in the method of her proceeding. She did not despise state, except on occasions when serious business was on hand. The present was such an occasion, and she therefore waited for no usher to marshal her way and announce her coming to the duke. She descended from her ponderous coach, pushed aside the sleepy sentinel, who appeared disposed to question her before he made way, and, entering the hall of the mansion, loudly demanded of the few servants who came hurrying to meet her, to be conducted to the duke. It was intimated to her that he was then dressing, but that his Highness would soon be in a condition to descend and wait upon her.

Too impatient to tarry, and too eager to care for28 ceremony, she mounted the stairs, bade a groom of the chamber point out to her the door of the duke’s room; and, her order having been obeyed, she forthwith pushed open the door, entered the apartment, and discovered the dismayed duke in the most negligé of déshabilles. She neither made apology nor would receive any; but, intimating that she came upon business, at once asked, ‘Where is your wife?’ The flurried Duke of Zell pointed through an open door to a capacious bed in the adjacent room, wherein lay the wondering duchess, lost in eider-down and deep amazement.

The ‘old Sophia’ could have wished, it would seem, that she had been further off. She was not quite rude enough to close the door, and so cut off all communication and listening; but, remembering that the Duchess of Zell was but very indifferently acquainted with German, she ceased to speak in the language then common to the German courts—French—and immediately addressed the duke in hard Teutonic phrase, which was unintelligible to the vexed and suspecting duchess.

Half undressed, the duke occupied a chair close to his toilet-table, while the astute wife of Ernest Augustus, seated near him, unfolded a narrative to which he listened with every moment an increase of complacency and conviction. The Duchess Eleanora, from her bed in the adjacent room, could see the actors, but could not comprehend the dialogue. But, if the narrative was unintelligible to her, she could understand the drift of the argument, as the names of her daughter and lover were being constantly pronounced with that of George Louis.

The case was forcibly put by the mother of George. She showed how union makes strength, how little profit could arise from a match between Sophia Dorothea and Augustus of Wolfenbüttel, and how advantageous must be an union between the heir of Hanover and the heiress29 of the domains which her provident father had added to Zell, and had bequeathed to his daughter. She spoke of the certainty of Ernest Augustus being created arch-standard-bearer of the empire of Germany, and therewith Elector of Hanover. She hinted at the possibility even of Sophia Dorothea one day sharing with her son the throne of Great Britain. The hint was something premature, but the astute lady may have strengthened her case by reminding her hearer that the crown of England would most probably be reserved only for a Protestant succession, and that her son was, if a distant, yet not a very distant, and certainly a possible heir.

The obsequious Duke of Zell was bewildered by the visions of greatness presented to his mind by his clever sister-in-law. With ready lack of honesty he consented to break off the match between Sophia Dorothea and her lover, and to bestow her hand upon the careless prince for whom it was now demanded by his mother. The latter returned to Hanover perfectly satisfied with the work of that night and morning.

The same satisfaction was not experienced by the Duchess Eleanora. When she came to learn the facts, she burst forth in expressions of grief and indignation. The marriage which had now been definitely broken, had been with her an affair of a mother’s heart. It had not been less an affair of a young girl’s heart with Sophia Dorothea. Duke Anton Ulrich of Wolfenbüttel came in person to Zell, to ask the fulfilment of the promise of her hand to his son. On learning that the alleged promise had been broken, he left Zell with the utmost indignation; and romance, at least, says of Königsmark, that he too, had left it with a feeling of sorrow that Sophia Dorothea was to be sacrificed to such an unworthy person as George Louis. It was a pitiable case! There were three persons who were to be rendered irretrievably30 wretched, in order, not that any one might be rendered happy, but that a man without a heart might be made a little more rich in the possession of dirt. The acres of Zell were to bring misery on their heiress, and every acre was to purchase its season of sorrow.

No entreaty could move the duke.1 In his dignity he forgot the father: and the prayers and tears of his child failed to touch the parent, who really loved her well, but whose affection was dissolved beneath the fiery heat of his ambition. He was singularly ambitious; for the possible effect of a marriage with George Louis was merely to add his own independent duchy of Luneburg to the dominions of Hanover. His daughter, moreover, detested her cousin, and his wife detested her sister-in-law; above all, the newly accepted bridegroom, if he did not detest, had no shadow, nor affected to have any shadow of respect, regard, or affection for the poor young victim who was to be flung to him with indecent and unnatural disregard of all her feelings as daughter and maiden. Sophia Dorothea’s especial distaste for George Louis was grounded not only in her knowledge of his character, but also of his want of respect for her mother, of whom he always spoke in contemptuous terms. Sophia Dorothea’s inclinations, her father said, he would never constrain; but when this seemed to give her some hope of release, her father observed that a good daughter’s inclinations were always identical with those of her parents. She had a heart to listen to, she thought. She had a father whom she was bound to obey, he said—and said it with terrible iteration. Her aversion is reported to have been so determined that, when31 the portrait of her future lord was presented to her, she flung it against the wall with such violence that the glass was smashed, and the dismounted diamonds were scattered over the room.

The matter, however, was urged onward by Sophia of Hanover; and in formal testimony of the freedom of inclination with which Sophia Dorothea acted, she was brought to address a formal letter to the mother of her proposed husband, expressive of her obedience to the will of her father, and promissory of the same obedience to the requirements of her future mother-in-law. It is a mere formal document, proving nothing but that it was penned for the assumed writer by a cold-hearted inventor, and that the heart of the copier, subdued by sickness, was far away from her words. This document is in the British Museum. During the time that intervened before George Louis arrived at Zell to take his bride to Hanover, Sophia Dorothea seemed to have passed years instead of weeks. It was only when her mother looked sadly at her that she contrived painfully to smile. She even professed a sort of joyful obedience; but when the bridegroom dismounted at her father’s gate, Sophia Dorothea fainted in her mother’s arms.

After a world of misery and mock wooing, crowded into a few months, the hateful and ill-omened marriage took place at Zell on the 21st of November, 1682. The bride was sixteen, the bridegroom twenty-two. Of the splendour which attended the ceremony court historiographers wrote in loyal ecstasy and large folios, describing every character and dress, every incident and dish, every tableau and trait, with a minuteness almost inconceivable, and a weariness saddening even to think of. They thought of everything but the heart of the principal personage in the ceremony—that of the bride. They could describe the superb lace which veiled it, and prate of its value32 and workmanship; but of the worth and woe of the heart which beat beneath it, these courtly historians knew no more than they did of honesty. Their flattery was of the grossest, but they had no comprehension of ‘the situation.’ To them all mortals were but as ballet-dancers and pantomimists; and if they were but bravely dressed and picturesquely grouped, the describers thereof thought of nothing beyond. The bride preserved her mournful dignity on that dark and fierce November day. Tradition says that there was a storm without as well as sorrow within; and that the moaning of the wind and strange noises in the old castle seemed as if the elements and the very home of the bride’s youth sympathised with her present and her future destiny.

It is said that a certain becomingness of compliment was paid to the bride in an order given to Katharine von Busche to absent herself from the palace when the bride was brought home. The mistress, it is alleged, deferred her departure till it was too late, and from a window of Madame von Platen’s bedchamber the sisters witnessed the sight of George Louis dismounting from his horse, and hastening to help his wife to descend from the carriage.

Madame von Platen, as she gazed, may have thought that her sister’s influence was over. If she did, Madame von Busche felt convinced of the contrary. The latter took her departure, for a season. The other prepared herself to join in the splendid court festivities held in honour of the event by the command of Ernest Augustus. Sophia Dorothea, subdued by past suffering, was so gentle that even Madame von Platen would have found it difficult to have felt offended with her sister’s rival.

For a few months after Sophia Dorothea’s husband had taken her to Hanover, she experienced, perhaps, a34 less degree of unhappiness than was ever her lot subsequently. Her open and gentle nature won the regard even of Ernest Augustus. That is, he paid her as much regard as a man so coarsely minded as he was could feel for one of such true womanly dignity as his daughter-in-law.

His respect for her, however, may be best appreciated by the companionship to which he sometimes subjected her. He more frequently saw her in society with the immoral Madame von Platen than in the society of his own wife. Ernest looked gratefully upon her as the pledge of the future union of the two duchies under one duke. On this account, even if she had possessed less attractive qualities, he would have held Sophia Dorothea in great esteem. A certain measure of esteem Ernest experienced for all who had in any way furthered his scheme. His mistress, Madame von Platen, had always pretended to think favourably of the scheme, and admiringly of the wisdom of the schemer; in return for which, Ernest made his mistress’s husband a baron, and afterwards a count. Let us employ the higher dignity. In the beginning, George Louis seemed fairly in love with his wife; there appeared a promise of increased felicity when the first child of this marriage was born at Hanover, on the 30th of October 1683; his father conferred on him the names of George Augustus, he expressed pleasure at having an heir, and he even added some words of regard for the mother. The second child of this marriage was a daughter, born in 1687. She was that Sophia Dorothea who subsequently married the King of Prussia. In tending these two children the mother found all the happiness she ever experienced during her married life. Soon after the birth of the daughter, George Louis openly neglected and openly exhibited his hatred of his wife. He lost no opportunity of irritating and outraging her,35 and she could not even walk through the rooms of the palace which she called her home without encountering the abandoned female favourites of her husband, whose presence beneath such a roof was the most flagrant of outrages. Her very sense of helplessness was a great grief to her. All that her own mother could do when her daughter complained to her of the presence near her of her husband’s mistress, was to advise her to imitate, on this point, the indifference of her mother-in-law, and make the best of it!

The Countess von Platen kept greater state in Hanover than Sophia Dorothea herself. In her own palatial mansion two dozen servants helped her helplessness. Every morning she had ‘a circle,’ as if she were a royal lady holding a court. Her dinners were costly banquets; her ‘evenings’ were renowned for the brilliancy of her fêtes and the reckless fury of gambling. Sophia Dorothea, whose talent for listening and for putting apt and sympathetic questions when the conversation required it, gave considerable satisfaction to her clever, but somewhat pedantic mother-in-law, failed to at all satisfy the Countess von Platen. This lady had tried to bring the princess into something like sympathy with herself, but she found only antipathy. She detested Sophia Dorothea accordingly, and she obtained permission to invite her sister, Madame von Busche, to return to Hanover.

The prime mover of the hatred of George Louis for his consort was the Countess von Platen, and this fact was hardly known to George Louis himself. There was one thing in which that individual had a fixed belief: his own sagacity and, it may be added, his own imaginary independence of outward influences. He was profound in some things; but, as frequently happens with persons who fancy themselves deep in all, he was very shallow in many. It was often impossible to guess his purpose, but36 quite as often his thoughts were as clearly discernible as the pebbles in the bed of a transparent brook. The Countess von Platen saw through him thoroughly, and she employed her discernment for the furtherance of her own detestable objects.

Sophia Dorothea had, however, contrived to win the good opinion of her mother-in-law, and also the warm favour of Ernest Augustus. The latter took her with him on a journey he made to Switzerland and Italy. It was on this journey that her portrait was taken, at Venice, by Gascar, who, when in England, had painted, among others, that of Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This portrait of Sophia Dorothea is still in existence in Germany. The beauty of the lady represented is so remarkable, it is said, as to justify the admiration she generally excited. This admiration sometimes went beyond decent bounds. One French adorer, the celebrated and eccentric Marquis de Lassay, was impudent enough, not only to address declarations of love to her, but subsequently, in his ‘Memoirs,’ to publish his letters. It has not yet occurred to the ever-busy autograph fabricators on the continent to forge the supposed replies of the princess.

After the return of Ernest Augustus and his daughter-in-law to Hanover, the praise of Sophia Dorothea was ever the theme which hung on the lips of the former, and such eulogy was as poison poured in the ears of Madame von Platen. She dreaded the loss of her own influence over the father of George Louis, and she fancied she might preserve it by destroying the happiness of the wife of his son. Her hatred of that poor lady had been increased by a circumstance with which she could not be connected, but which nearly concerned the Duchess of Zell.

Ernest Augustus used occasionally to visit Madame37 von Platen at her own residence, with more than enough of publicity. He was more inclined to conversation with her than with his prime-minister, her husband; and she had wit enough, if not worth, to give warrant for such preference. Now and then, however, the ducal sovereign would repair to pay his homage to the lady without previous notice being forwarded of his coming; and it was on one of these occasions that, on arriving at the mansion, or in the gardens of the mansion of his minister’s spouse, he found, not the lady of the house, who was absent, but her bright-eyed, ordinary-featured, and quick-witted handmaid, who bore a name which might have been given to such an official in Elizabethan plays by Ford or Fletcher. Her name was ‘Use.’

Ernest Augustus found the wit of Use much to his taste; and the delighted abigail was perfectly self-possessed, and more brilliant than common in the converse which she sustained for the pleasure of the sovereign, and her own expected profit. She had just, it is supposed, come to the point of some exquisitely epigrammatic tale, for the prince was laughing with his full heart, and her hand in his, and the ’tiring maiden was as radiant as successful wit and endeavour could make her, when Madame von Platen interrupted the sparkling colloquy by her more fiery presence. She affected to be overcome with indignation at the boldness of a menial who dared to make merry with a sovereign duke; and when poor Use had been rudely dismissed from the two presences—the one august and the other angry—the Countess von Platen probably remonstrated with Ernest Augustus, respectfully or otherwise, upon his deplorable want of dignity and good taste.

Revenge certainly followed, whether remonstrance may or may not have been offered. Ernest Augustus went to sojourn for a time at one of his rural palaces, and he had no sooner left his capital than the countess committed the38 terrified Use to close imprisonment in the common gaol. The history of little German courts assures us that this exercise and abuse of power were not at all uncommon with the ‘favourites’ of German princes. Their word was ‘all potential as the duke’s,’ and doubtless the Countess von Platen’s authority was as good warrant for a Hanoverian gaoler to hold Use in custody as if he had shut up that maid, who offended by her wit, under the sign manual of Ernest Augustus himself.

Use was kept captive, and very shabbily treated, until the Countess von Platen had resolved as to the further course which should be ultimately adopted towards her. She could bring no charge against her, save a pretended accusation of lightness of conduct and immorality scandalous to Hanoverian decorum. Under this charge she had her old handmaid drummed out of the town; and if the elder Sophia heard the tap of the drums which accompanied the alleged culprit to the gates, we can only suppose that she would have expelled the countess to the same music. But, in the first place, the wives of princes were by no means so powerful as their favourites; and secondly, the friend of the philosophical Leibnitz was too much occupied with the sage to trouble herself with the affairs which gave concern to the Countess von Platen.

Use found herself outside the city walls, friendless, penniless, with a damaged character, and nothing to cover it but the light costume which she had worn in the process of her march of expulsion to the roll of ‘dry drums.’ When she had found a refuge, her first course was to apply to Ernest Augustus for redress. The prince, however, was at once oblivious, ungrateful, and powerless; and, confining himself to sending to the poor petitioner a paltry eleemosynary half-dozen of gold pieces, he forbade her return to Hanover, counselled her to settle elsewhere, and congratulated her that she had not received even rougher treatment.

39

Use next made full statement of her case to the Duchess of Zell; and that lady, deeming the case one of peculiar hardship, and the penalty inflicted on a giddy girl too unmeasured for the pardonable offence of amusing an old prince who encouraged her to the task, after much consideration, due weighing of the statement, and befitting inquiry, took the offender into her own service, and gave to the exiled Hanoverian a refuge, asylum, and employment in Zell.

These are but small politics, but they illustrate the nature of things as they then existed at little German courts. They had, moreover, no small influence on the happiness of Sophia Dorothea. The Countess von Platen was enraged that the mother of that princess should have dared to give a home to one whom she had condemned to be homeless; and she in consequence is suspected of having been fired with the more satanic zeal to make desolate the home of the young wife. She adopted the most efficient means to arrive at such an end. Her wicked zeal was stimulated by the undisguised contempt with which Sophia Dorothea treated her on all public occasions. She urged her sister, Madame von Busche, to recover her power over George Louis. Madame von Busche embraced with alacrity the mission with which she was charged, again to throw such meshes of fascination as she was possessed of around the heart of the not over-susceptible prince. But George Louis stolidly refused to be charmed, and Madame von Busche gave up the attempt in a sort of offended despair. Her sister, like a true genius, fertile in expedients, and prepared for every emergency, bethought herself of a simple circumstance, whereby she hoped to attain her ends. She remembered that George Louis, though short himself of stature, had a predilection for tall women. At the next fête at which he was present at the mansion of Madame von Platen, he was enchanted by a majestic young40 lady, with a name almost as long as her person—it was Ermengarda Melusina von der Schulenburg.

She was more shrewd than witty, this ‘tall mawkin,’ as the Electress Sophia once called the lofty Ermengarda; and, as George Louis was neither witty himself, nor much cared for wit in others, she was the better enabled to establish herself in the most worthless of hearts. This was the work of the countess, who saw in the tender blue eyes, the really fine features, the imposing figure, and the nineteen years of Ermengarda, means to an end. When the countess hinted at the distinction that was within reach of her, the tall beauty is said to have blushed and hesitated, and then to have yielded herself with alacrity to the glittering circumstance. She and the prince first met on his return from a campaign in Hungary. He was at once subjected to her magic influences. She was an inimitable flatterer, and in this way she fooled her victim to ‘the very top of his bent.’ She exquisitely cajoled him, and with exquisite carelessness did he surrender himself to be cajoled. Gradually, by watching his inclinations, anticipating his wishes, admiring even his coarseness, and lauding it as candour, she so won upon the lazily excited feelings of George Louis that he began to think her presence indispensable to his well-being. If he hunted, she was in the field, the nearest to his saddle-bow. If he went out to walk alone, he invariably fell in with Ermengarda. At the court theatre, when he was present, the next conspicuous object was the towering von der Schulenburg, ‘in all her diamonds,’ beneath the glare of which, and the blazing impudence of their wearer, the modest Sophia Dorothea was almost extinguished. Ermengarda was speedily established at Hanover, as hof-dame, or lady-in-waiting.

Madame von Platen had announced a festival, to be celebrated at her mansion, which was to surpass in splendour anything that had ever been witnessed by the existing41 generation. The occasion was the second marriage of her sister, Madame von Busche, who had worried the poor ex-tutor of George Louis into the grave, with General Weyhe, a gallant soldier, equal, it would seem, to any feat of daring. Whenever the Countess von Platen designed to appear with more than ordinary brilliancy in her own person, she was accustomed to indulge in the extravagant luxury of a milk bath; and it was added by the satirical or the scandalous, that the milk which had just lent softness to her skin was charitably distributed among the poor of the district wherein she occasionally affected to play the character of Dorcas.

The fête and the giver of it were not only to be of a splendour that had never been equalled, but George Louis had promised to grace it with his presence, and had even pledged himself to ‘walk a measure’ with the irresistible Ermengarda Melusina von der Schulenburg. Madame von Platen thought that her cup of joy and pride and revenge would be complete and full to the brim if she could succeed in bringing Sophia Dorothea to the misery of witnessing a spectacle, the only true significance of which was, that the faithless George Louis publicly acknowledged the gigantic Ermengarda for his ‘favourite.’

More activity was employed to encompass the desired end than if the aim in view had been one of good purpose. It so far succeeded that Sophia Dorothea intimated her intention of being present at the festival given by the Countess von Platen; and when the latter lady received the desired and welcome intelligence she was conscious of an enjoyment that seemed to her an antepast of Paradise.

The eventful night at length arrived. The bride had exchanged rings with the bridegroom, congratulations had been duly paid, the floor was ready for the dancers,42 and nothing lacked but the presence of Sophia Dorothea. There walked the proudly eminent von der Schulenburg, looking blandly down upon George Louis, who held her by the hand; and there stood the impatient von Platen, eager that the wife of that light-o’-love cavalier should arrive and be crushed by the spectacle. Still she came not; and finally her lady of honour, Fräulein von Knesebeck, arrived, not as her attendant but her representative, with excuses for the non-appearance of her mistress, whom unfeigned indisposition detained at her own hearth.

The course of the festival was no longer delayed; in it the bride and bridegroom were forgotten, and George and Ermengarda were the hero and heroine of the hour. After that hour no one doubted as to the bad eminence achieved by that lady—unworthy daughter of an ancient and honourable race. So narrowly and sharply observant was the lynx-eyed von Knesebeck of all that passed between her mistress’s husband and that husband’s mistress, that when she returned to her duties of dame d’atours, she unfolded a narrative that inflicted a stab in every phrase and tore the heart of the despairing listener.

While Sophia Dorothea was daily growing more unhappy, her father-in-law was growing more ambitious and the prospects of her husband more brilliant. The younger branch of Brunswick was outstripping the elder in dignity, and not merely an electoral but a kingly crown seemed the prize it was destined to attain.

When Ernest’s elder brother, John Frederick, died childless, and left him the principalities of Calemberg and Grubenberg, with Hanover or a ‘residenz,’ he hailed an increase of influence which he hoped to see heightened by securing the Duchy of Zell also to his family. He had determined that George Louis should succeed to Hanover and Zell united. In other words, he established primogeniture, recognised his eldest son as heir to all his land, and only awarded to his other sons moderate appanages whereby to support a dignity which he considered sufficiently splendid by the glory which it would receive, by reflection, from the head of the house.

This arrangement by no means suited the views of one of Ernest’s sons, Maximilian. He had no inclination whatever to borrow glory from the better fortune of his brother, and was resolved, if it might be, to achieve splendour by his own. He protested loudly against the44 accumulation of the family territorial estates upon the eldest heir; claimed his own share; and even raised a species of domestic rebellion against his sire, to which weight, without peril, was given by the alleged adhesion of a couple of confederates, Count von Moltke and a conspirator of burgher degree.

Ernest Augustus treated ‘Max’ like a rude child. He put him under arrest in the paternal palace, and confined the filial rebel to the mild imprisonment of his own room. Maximilian was as obstinate as either Henry the Dog or Magnus the Violent, and he not only opposed his sire’s wishes with respect to the aggrandisement of the family by the enriching of the heir-apparent, but went counter to him in matters of religion. In after-years he was not only a good Jacobite, but he also conformed to the faith of the Stuarts, and Maximilian ultimately died, a tolerable Roman Catholic, in the service of the Emperor.

In the meanwhile, his domestic antagonism against his father was not productive of much inconvenience to himself. His arrest was soon raised, and he was restored to freedom, though not to favour or affection. It went harder, however, with his friend and confederate Count von Moltke, against whom, as nothing could be proved, much was invented. An absurd story was coined to the effect, that at the time when Maximilian was opposing his father’s projects, Count von Moltke, at a court entertainment, had presented his snuff-box to Ernest Augustus. This illustrious individual having taken therefrom the pungent tribute respectfully offered, presented the same to an Italian greyhound which lay at his feet, who thereon suddenly sneezed and swiftly died. The count was sent into close arrest, and the courtly gossips forged the story to account for the result. The unfortunate von Moltke was, indeed, as severely punished as though he had been a murderer. He was judged in something of the old45 Jedburgh fashion, whereby execution preceded judgment; and the head of Count von Moltke had fallen before men could well guess why he had forfeited it. The fact was that this penalty had been enacted as a vicarious infliction on Prince Maximilian. The more ignoble plotter was only banished, and in the death of a friend and the exile of a follower, Maximilian, it was hoped, would see a double suggestion from which he would draw a healthy conclusion. This course had its desired effect. The disinherited heir accepted his ill-fortune with a humour of the same quality, and, openly at least, he ceased to be a trouble to his more ambitious than affectionate father.

The next important public circumstance was the raising Hanover to an Electorate; and this was not effected without much bribery and intrigue. In those warlike times, when France and the German empire were in antagonism, the attitude assumed by such a state as Hanover was matter of interest to the adverse powers. It is said that the last argument which decided the Emperor’s course was a hint from De Groot, the Hanoverian minister, that Ernest Augustus might cast in his lot with France. A prince who had so often well served the empire was not to be allowed to assist France for lack of flinging to him the title of Elector. This title was granted, but under heavy stipulations. The two Dukes of Hanover and Zell bound themselves, as long as the war lasted, on the side of the Emperor against the French and against the Turks, to pay annually 500,000 thalers, to furnish a contingent amounting to 9,000 men, to uphold the claim of the Arch-Duke Charles on the Spanish throne, and at any election of a new Emperor to vote invariably for the eldest heir of the House of Hapsburg. The 19th of December 1692 was the joyful day on which Ernest Augustus was nominated Elector of Hanover.

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The day, however, was anything but one of joy to the branch of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. That elder branch felt itself dishonoured by the august dignity which had been conferred upon the younger scion of the family. The elder branch, and the Sacred College with it, affirmed that the Emperor was invested with no prerogative by which he could, of his own spontaneous act, add a ninth Elector to the eight already existing. Originally there were but seven, and the accession of one more to that time-honoured number was pronounced to be an innovation by which ill-fortune must ensue. Something still more deplorable was vaticinated as the terrible consequence of a step so peremptorily taken by the Emperor, in despite of the other Electors.

It was said by the supporters of the Emperor and Hanover that the addition of a ninth and Protestant Elector was the more necessary, that there were only two Electors on the sacred roll who now followed the faith of the Reformed Church, and that the sincerity of one, at least, of these was very questionable. The reformed states of Germany had a right to be properly represented, and the Emperor was worthy of all praise for respecting this right. With regard to the nomination, it was stated that, though it had been made spontaneously by the Emperor, it had been confirmed by the Electoral College—a majority of the number of which had carried the election of the Emperor’s candidate.

Now, this last point was the weak point of the Hanoverians; for it was asserted by many adversaries, and not denied by many supporters, that in such a case as this no vote of the Electoral College was good unless it were an unanimous vote. To this objection, strongly urged by the elder branch of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, no answer was made, except, indeed, by praising the new Elector, of whom it was correctly stated that he had47 introduced into his states such a taste for masquerades, operas, and ballets as had never been known before; and that he had made a merry and a prosperous people of what had been previously but a dull nation, as regarded both manners and commerce. The Emperor only thought of the good service which Ernest Augustus had rendered him in the field, and he stood by the ‘accomplished fact’ of which he was the chief author.

The College was to the full as obstinate, and would not recognise any vote tendered by the Elector of Hanover, or of Brunswick, as he was at first called. For nearly sixteen years was this opposition carried on. At length, on the 30th of June 1708, this affair of the ninth electorate was adjusted, and the three colleges of the empire resolved to admit the Elector of Hanover to sit and vote in the Electoral College. In the same month, he was made general of the imperial troops, then assembled in the vicinity of the Upper Rhine.

His original selection by the Emperor had much reference to his military services. The efforts of Louis XIV. to get possession of the Palatinate, after the death of the Palatine Louis, had caused the formation of the German Confederacy to resist the aggression of France—an aggression not checked till the day when Marlborough defeated Tallard, at Blenheim. Louis was hurried into the war by his minister, Louvois, who was annoyed by his interference at home in matters connected with Louvois’s department. It was to make the confederation more firm and united that Ernest Augustus was created, rather than elected, a ninth Elector. The three Protestant Electors were those of Saxony, Brandenburg, and Hanover; the three Roman Catholic, Bohemia, Bavaria, and the Palatinate; and the three spiritual Electors, the Prince-Archbishops of Metz, Trèves, and Cologne.

The history of the creation of the ninth Electorate48 would not be complete without citing what is said in respect thereof by the author of a pamphlet suppressed by the Hanoverian government, and entitled ‘Impeachment of the Ministry of Count Munster.’ It is to this effect: ‘During the war between Leopold I. and France, at the close of the 17th century, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, and administrator of Osnabrück, father of George I., had been paid a considerable sum of money on condition of aiding the French monarch with ten thousand troops. The Emperor, aware of the engagement, and anxious to prevent the junction of these forces with the enemy, proposed to create a ninth electorate, in favour of the Duke, provided he brought his levies to the imperial banner. The degrading offer was accepted, and the envoys of Brunswick-Luneberg received the electoral cap, the symbol of their master’s dishonour, at Vienna, on the 19th of December 1692. From the opposition of the college and princes, Ernest was never more than nominally an Elector, and even his son’s nomination was with difficulty accomplished in 1710. It was in connection with this new dignity that Hanover, a name till then applied only to a principal and almost independent city of the Dukedom of Brunswick, became known in the list of European sovereignties.’

But while the Court of Hanover was engaged in the important or trivial circumstances which have been already narrated, a notable individual had been pursuing fortune in various countries of Europe, and had made his appearance on the scene at Hanover, to play a part in a drama which had a tragical catastrophe—namely, Count Königsmark.

The circumstance of the sojourn of a Count Königsmark at Zell, during the childhood of Sophia Dorothea, has been before noticed. Originally the family of the Königsmarks was of the Mark of Brandenburgh, but a chief of the family settled in Sweden, and the name carried lustre with it into more than one country. In the army, the cabinet, and the church, the Königsmarks had representatives of whom they might be proud; and generals, statesmen, and prince-bishops, all labouring with glory in their respective departments, sustained the high reputation of this once celebrated name. From the period, early in the seventeenth century, that the first Königsmark (Count John Christopher) withdrew from the imperial service and joined that of Sweden, the men of that house devoted themselves, almost exclusively, to the profession of arms. This Count John is famous as the subduer of Prague, in 1648, at the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Of all the costly booty which he carried with him from that city, none has continued to be so well cared for by the Swedes as the silver book containing the Mœso-Gothic Gospels of Bishop Ulphilas, still preserved with pride at learned Upsal.

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John Christopher was the father of two sons. Otho William, a marshal of France, a valued friend of Charles XII., and a gallant servant of the state of Venice, whose government honoured his tomb with an inscription, Semper Victori, was the younger. He was pious as well as brave, and he enriched German literature with a collection of very fervid and spiritual hymns. The elder son, Conrad Christopher, was killed in the year 1673, when fighting on the Dutch and imperial side, at the siege of Bonn. He left four children, three of whom became famous. His sons were Charles John, and Philip Christopher. His daughters were Maria Aurora (mother of the famous Maurice of Saxony) and Amelia Wilhelmina. The latter was fortunate enough to achieve happiness without being celebrated. If she has not been talked of beyond her own Swedish fireside, she passed there a life of as calm felicity as she and her husband, Charles von Loewenhaupt, could enjoy when they had relations so celebrated, and so troublesome, as Counts Charles John and Philip Christopher, and the Countess Maria Aurora, the ‘favourite’ of Augustus of Poland, and the only royal concubine, perhaps, who almost deserved as much respect as though she had won greatness by a legitimate process.

It was this Philip Christopher who was for a brief season the playfellow or companion of Sophia Dorothea, in the young days of both, in the quiet gardens and galleries of Zell. It is only told of him that, after his departure from Zell, he sojourned with various members of his family, travelled with them, and returned at intervals to reside with his mother, Maria Christina, of the German family of Wrangel, who unhappily survived long enough to be acquainted with the crimes as well as misfortunes of three of her children.

In the year 1682, Philip Christopher was in England.51 The elder brother, who had more than once been a visitor to this country, and a welcome, because a witty, one at the Court of Charles II., had brought his younger brother hither, in order (so it was said) to have him instructed more completely in the tenets of the Protestant religion, and ultimately to place him at Oxford. In the meantime Charles John lodged Philip with a ‘governor,’ at the riding academy, near the Haymarket, of that Major Foubert, whose second establishment (where he taught ‘noble horsemanship’) is still commemorated by the passage out of Regent Street, which bears the name of the French Protestant refugee and professor of equestrianism.

The elder brother of these two Königsmarks was a superb scoundrel. He had led a roving and adventurous life, and was in England when not more that fifteen years of age, in the year 1674. During the next half-dozen years he had rendered the ladies of the Court of France ecstatic at his impudence, and had won golden opinions from the ‘marine knights’ of Malta, whom he had accompanied on a ‘caravane,’ or cruise, against the Turks, wherein he took hard blows cheerfully, and had well-nigh been drowned by his impetuous gallantry. At some of the courts of southern Europe he appeared with an éclat which made the men hate and envy him; but nowhere did he produce more effect than at Madrid, where he appeared at the period of the festivities held to celebrate the marriage of Charles II. with Maria Louisa of Orleans. The marriage of the last-named august pair was followed by the fiercest and the finest bull-fights which had ever been witnessed in Spain. At one of these Charles John made himself the champion of a lady, fought in her honour in the arena, with the wildest bull of the company, and got dreadfully mauled for his pains. His horse was slain, and he himself, staggering and faint, and blind with loss52 of blood, and with deep wounds, had finally only strength enough left to pass his sword into the neck of the other brute, his antagonist, and to be carried half-dead and quite senseless out of the arena, amid the approbation of the gentle ladies, who purred applause upon the unconscious hero, like satisfied tigresses.

In 1681, at the age of twenty-two, master of all manly vices, and ready for any adventure, he was once more in England, where he seized the opportunity afforded him by the times and their events, and hastened to join the expedition against Tangier. On the conclusion of the warm affair at Tangier, he went as an amateur against the Algerines, and without commission inflicted on them and their ‘uncle’ (as the word dey implies) as much injury as though he had been chartered general at the head of a destroying host. When he returned to England, he was received with enthusiasm. His handsome face, his long flaxen hair, his stupendous periwig for state occasions, and his ineffable impudence, made him the delight of the impudent people of those impudent times.

Now, of all those people, the supercilious Charles John cared but for one, and she, there is reason to believe, knew little and cared less for this presuming scion of the House of Königsmark.

Joscelyn, eleventh Earl of Northumberland, who died in the year 1670—the last of the male line of his house—left an only daughter, four years of age, named Elizabeth. Her father’s death made her the possessor—awaiting her majority—of vast wealth, to which increase was made by succession to other inheritances. Her widowed mother married Ralph Montague, English ambassador in Paris. When the widow of Joscelyn espoused Montague, her daughter Elizabeth went to reside with the mother of Joscelyn, Dowager Countess of Northumberland, and co-heiress to the Suffolk estate, destined to be added to53 the possessions of the little Elizabeth. She was an intriguing, indelicate, self-willed, and worthless old woman; and with respect to the poor little girl of whom she was the unworthy guardian, she made her the subject of constant intrigues with men of power who wished for wealth, and with rich men who wished for rank and power. Before the unhappy little heiress had attained the age of thirteen, her grandmother had bound her in marriage with Henry Cavendish, Earl Ogle. Though the ceremony was performed, the parties did not, of course, reside together. The dowager countess and the earl were satisfied that the fortune of the heiress was secured, and they were further content to wait for what might follow.

That which followed was what they least expected—death; the bridegroom died within a year of his union with Elizabeth Percy; and this child, wife, and widow was again at the disposal of her wretched grandmother. The heiress of countless thousands was anything but the mistress of herself.

At this period the proprietor of the house and domain of Longleat, in Wiltshire, was that Thomas Thynne, whom Dryden has celebrated as the Issachar of his ‘Absalom and Achitophel.’ He was the friend of the Duke of Monmouth, was spoken of as ‘Tom of Ten Thousand,’ and was a very unworthy fellow, although the member of a worthy house. Tom’s Ten Thousand virtues were of that metal which the Dowager Countess of Northumberland most approved; and her grand-daughter had not been many months the widow of Lord Ogle, when her precious guardian united her by private marriage to Thynne. The newly-married couple were at once separated. The marriage was the result of an infamous intrigue between infamous people, some of whom, subsequently to Thynne’s death, sued his executors for money which he had bound himself to pay for services rendered to further the marriage.

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When Charles John Königsmark returned to England, in January 1682, all England was talking of the match wherein a poor child had been sold, although the purchaser had not yet possession of either his victim or her fortune. The common talk must have had deep influence on the count, who appears to have been impressed with the idea that if Thynne were dead, Count Charles John Königsmark might succeed to his place and expectations.

On the evening of Sunday, the 12th of February 1682, Thynne was in his coach, from which the Duke of Monmouth had only just previously alighted, and was riding along that part of Pall-Mall which abuts upon Cockspur Street, when the carriage was stopped by three men on horseback, one of whom discharged a carbine into it, whereby Tom of Ten Thousand was so desperately wounded that he died in a few hours.

The persons charged with this murder were chiefly discovered by means of individuals of ill repute with whom they associated. By such means were arrested a German, Captain Vratz, Borosky a Pole, and a fellow, half knave, half enthusiast, described as Lieutenant Stern. Vratz had accompanied Königsmark to England. They lodged together, first in the Haymarket, next in Rupert Street, and finally in St. Martin’s Lane. Borosky had been clothed and armed at the count’s expense; and Stern was employed as a likely tool to help them in this enterprise. It was proved on the trial, that, after the deed was committed, these men were at the count’s lodgings, that a sudden separation took place, and that the count himself, upon some sudden fear, took flight to the water-side; there he lay hid for a while, and then dodged about the river, in various disguises, in order to elude pursuit, until he finally landed at Gravesend, where he was pounced upon by two expert thief-catchers.

The confession of the accomplices, save Vratz, did not55 affect the count. His defence took a high Protestant turn—made allusion to his Protestant ancestors and their deeds in behalf of Protestantism, lauded Protestant England, alluded to his younger brother, brought expressly here to be educated in Protestant principles, and altogether was exceedingly clever, but in no wise convincing. It was known that the King would learn with pleasure that the count had been acquitted. As this knowledge was possessed by judges who were removable at the King’s pleasure, it had a strong influence; and the arch-murderer, the most cowardly of the infamous company, was acquitted accordingly. In his case, the verdict, as regarded him, was given in, last. The other three persons were indicted for the actual commission of the fact, Königsmark as accessory before the fact, hiring them, and instigating them to the crime. Thrice he had heard the word ‘Guilty’ pronounced, and, despite his recklessness, was somewhat moved when the jury were asked as to their verdict respecting him. ‘Not Guilty,’ murmured the foreman; and then the noble count, mindful only of himself, and forgetful of the three unhappy men whom he had dragged to death, exclaimed in his unmanly joy, ‘God bless the King, and this honourable bench!’ The meaner assassins were flung to the gallows. Vratz went to his fate, like Pierre; declared that the murder was the result of a mistake, that he had no hand in it, and that as he was a gentleman, God would assuredly deal with him as such! This ‘gentleman’ accounted for his presence at the murder as having arisen by his entertaining a quarrel with Mr. Thynne, whom he was about to challenge, when the Pole, mistaking his orders and inclinations, discharged his carbine into the carriage, and slew the occupant. The other two confessed to the murder, as the hired instruments of Vratz. Count Charles John repaired to the Court of France, where he was received in that sort of56 gentlemanly fashion which Vratz looked for in Paradise. His sword gleamed in many an action fought in various battle-fields of Europe during the next few years, at the head of a French regiment, of which he was colonel. Finally, in 1686, he was in the service of the Venetians in the Morea. On the 29th of August he was before Argos, when a sortie was made by the garrison, and in the bloody struggle which ensued he was mortally wounded. For Thynne’s monument in Westminster Abbey a Latin inscription was prepared, which more than merely hinted that Königsmark was the murderer of Tom of Ten Thousand. ‘Small, servile, Spratt,’ then Dean of Westminster, would not allow the inscription to be set up; and his apologists, who advance in his behalf that he would have done wrong had he allowed a man, cleared by a jury from the charge of murder, to be permanently set down in hard record of marble as an assassin, have much reason in what they advance.

The youthful maid, wife, and widow, Lady Ogle, remained at Amsterdam (whither she had gone, some persons said fled), after her marriage with Thynne, until the three of his murderers, who had been executed, had expiated their crime, as far as human justice was concerned, upon the scaffold. She then returned to England; but the young lady did not ‘appear public,’ as the phrase went, for six or seven weeks, and when she did so, it was found that she had just married Charles Seymour, third Duke of Somerset—a match which made one of two silly persons and a couple of colossal fortunes.

This red-haired lady died in the fifty-sixth year of her age, A.D. 1722; and the duke, then sixty-four, found speedy consolation for his loss in a marriage with the youthful Lady Charlotte Finch, who was at once his wife, nurse, and secretary. It is said of her, that she one day,57 in the course of conversation, tapped her husband familiarly on the shoulder with her fan; whereupon that amiable gentleman indignantly cried out: ‘Madam, my first wife was a Percy, and she never took such a liberty!’

Königsmark, whose fate was so bound up with that of Sophia Dorothea, left England with his brother, and like his brother, he led an adventurous and roving life, never betraying any symptom of the Christian spirit of the religion of the Church of England, of which he first tasted what little could be found in Major Foubert’s riding-school. A portion of his time was spent at Hamburg with his mother and two sisters. His renown was sufficient for a cavalier who loved to live splendidly; and when he appeared at the Court of Hanover, in search of military employment, he was welcomed as cavaliers are who are so comfortably endowed. In 1688 we first hear of him in the electoral capital, bearing arms under the Elector and a guest at the table of George Louis and Sophia Dorothea. This was a year after the birth of the second and last child of that ill-matched couple.

The estimation in which Count Philip Christopher von Königsmark was held at the Court of Hanover was soon manifested, by his elevation to the post of Colonel of the Guards. He was the handsomest colonel in the small electoral army, and passed for the richest. His household, when thoroughly established, in 1690, consisted of nine-and-twenty servants; and about half a hundred horses and mules were stalled in his stables. His way of life was warrant for the opinion entertained of his wealth, but more flimsy warrant could hardly have existed, for the depth of a purse is not to be discovered by the manner of life of him who owns it. He continued withal to enchant every one with whom he came in contact. The spendthrifts reverenced him, for he was royally extravagant; the few people of taste spoke of him encouragingly, for at an era when little taste was shown, he exhibited much both in his dress and his equipages. These were splendid59 without being gaudy. The scholars even could speak with and of him without a sneer expressed or reserved, for Philip Christopher was intellectually endowed, had read more than most of the mere cavaliers of his day, and had a good memory, with an understanding whose digestive powers a philosopher might have envied. He spelt, however, and he wrote little better than his grooms. He was not less welcome to the soldier than the scholar, for he had had experience in ‘the tented field,’ and had earned in the ‘imminently deadly breach’ much reputation, without having been himself, in the slightest degree, ‘illustriously maimed.’ Königsmark was as daring in speech as in arms. It is said of him that when George Louis in crowded court once asked him why he had quitted the Saxon service, Königsmark replied, ‘It moved me to anger to see a prince poison the life and happiness of his lovable young wife, by his connection with an impudent and worthless mistress!’ The whole audience gaped with astonishment, and the speech was reported in many a ball-room. But ball-rooms also re-echoed with the ringing eulogiums of his gracefulness, and his witty sayings are reported as having been in general circulation; but they have not been strong enough to travel by the rough paths of time down to these later days. He is praised, too, as having been satirical, without any samples of his satire having been offered for our opinion. He was daringly irreligious, for which free-thinkers applauded him as a man of liberal sentiments, believing little, and fearing less. He was pre-eminently gay, which, in modern and honest English, means that he was terribly licentious; and such was the temper of the times, that probably he was as popular for this characteristic as for all the other qualities by which he was distinguished, put together.

There was nothing remarkable in the fact that he60 speedily attracted the notice of Sophia Dorothea. She may, without fault, have remembered with pleasure the companion of her romping youth; and have ‘wished him well and no harm done,’ as Pierre says. He was not a mere stranger; and the two met, just as the husband of Sophia Dorothea had publicly insulted her by ostentatiously parading his attachment and his bad taste for women, no more to be compared with her in worth and virtue than Lais with Lucretia. Up to this time, the only confidantes of her secret sorrows were her mother and her faithful von Knesebeck. She had repulsed the affected sympathy of the Countess von Platen; and had concealed her feelings, when her jealousy was stirred by allusions to the countess’s sister and to Ermengarda von der Schulenburg. The Countess von Platen, mature of age, cast admiring eyes on Königsmark. It is asserted, that the count had scarcely been made Colonel of the Guards when the Countess von Platen fixed upon him as one of the instruments by which she would ruin Sophia Dorothea, and relieve George Louis of a wife whose virtues were a continual reproach to him.

The princess had been taking some exercise in the gardens of the palace, returning from which she met her little son, George Augustus, whom she took from his attendant, and with him in her arms began to ascend the stairs which led to her apartments. Her good will was greater than her strength, and Count Königsmark happened to see her at the moment when she was exhibiting symptoms of weakness and irresolution, embarrassed by her burthen, and not knowing how to proceed with it. The count at once, with ready gallantry, not merely proffered, but gave his aid. He took the young prince from his mother, ascended the stairs, holding the future King of England in his arms, and at the door of the apartment of Sophia Dorothea again consigned him to61 maternal keeping. They tarried for a few brief moments at the door, exchanging a few conventional terms of thanks and civility, when they were seen by the ubiquitous von Platen, and out of this simple fact she is supposed to have gradually worked the subsequent terrible calamity which may be said to have slain both victims, for Sophia Dorothea was only for years slowly accomplishing death, which fell upon the cavalier so surely and so swiftly.

This incident was reported to Ernest Augustus (Mon Sieur, as the countess used to call him) with much exaggeration of detail, and liberal suggestion not warranted by the facts. The conduct of the princess was mildly censured as indiscretion, that of the count as disloyal impertinence; and, thereto, a mountain of comment seems to have been added, and a misty world of hints, which annoyed the duke without convincing him.

Foiled in her first attempt to ruin Sophia Dorothea, von Platen addressed herself to the task of cementing strict friendship with the count; and he, a gallant cavalier, was nothing loth, nought suspecting. Of the terms of this friendly alliance little is known. They were only to be judged of by the conduct of the parties whom that alliance bound. A perfect understanding appeared to have been established between them; and the Countess von Platen was often heard to rally the count upon the love-passages in his life, and even upon his alleged admiration of Sophia Dorothea. What was said jokingly, or was intended to seem as if said jokingly, was soon accepted by casual hearers as a sober, and a sad as sober, truth. The countess referred often to his visits paid to Sophia Dorothea as ‘rendezvous’; but at these, Fräulein von Knesebeck was (as she subsequently affirmed) present from first to last; and two other ladies-in-waiting, pages,62 women, and George Louis’ own servant, Soliman (a Turk), had free and frequent ingress and egress.

This first step having been made, no time was lost in pursuing the object for which it had been accomplished. At one of those splendid masquerades, in which Ernest Augustus especially delighted, Königsmark distinguished himself above all the other guests by the variety, as well as richness, of his costume, and by the sparkling talent with which he supported each assumed character. He excited a universal admiration, and—so it was said by the Countess von Platen—in none more than in Sophia Dorothea. This may have been true, and the poor princess may possibly have found some oblivion for her domestic trials in allowing herself to be amused with the exercise of the count’s dramatic talent. She honestly complimented him on his ability, and on the advantages which the fête derived from his presence, his talent, and his good-nature. Out of this compliment the countess forged another link of the chain whereby she intended to bind the princess to a ruin from which she should not escape. At this time the countess is said to have hated the handsome Königsmark as much as she had previously admired him. He had met her liberal advances with disregard, or had disregarded her after reciprocating them. In either case, the offence was deadly.

The next incident told is more dramatic of character, perhaps, than any of the others. The countess had engaged the count in conversation in a pavilion of the gardens in the Electoral Palace, when, making the approach of two gentlemen an excuse for retiring, they withdrew together. The gentlemen alluded to were George Louis and the Count von Platen; and these entering the pavilion which had just been vacated, the former picked up a glove which had been dropped by the countess. The prince recognised it by the63 embroidery, and perhaps by a crest, or some mark impressed upon it, as being a glove belonging to his consort. He was musingly examining it, when a servant entered the place, professedly in search of a glove which the princess had lost. On some explanation ensuing, it was subsequently discovered that Madame von Weyhe, the sister of the Countess von Platen, had succeeded in persuading Prince Maximilian to procure for her this glove, on pretext that she wished to copy the pattern of the embroidery upon it, and that the prince had thoughtlessly done so, leaving the glove of Madame von Weyhe in its place. But this, which might have accounted for its appearance in the pavilion, was not known to George Louis, who would probably in such case have ceased to think more of the matter, but that he was obligingly informed that Count Königsmark had been before him in the pavilion where the glove was found; been there, indeed, with the excellent Countess von Platen, who acknowledged the fact, adding, that no glove was on the ground when she was there, and that the one found could not have been hers, inasmuch as she never wore Netherland gloves—as the one in question was—but gloves altogether of different make and quality. Königsmark had been there, and the glove of the Princess Sophia Dorothea had been found there, and this German specimen of Mrs. Candour knew nothing beyond.

Thenceforth, George Louis was not merely rude and faithless to his wife, but cruel in the extreme—the degrading blow, so it was alleged, following the harsh word. The Elector of Hanover was more just than his rash and worthless son: he disbelieved the insinuations made against his daughter-in-law. The Electress was less reasonable, less merciful, less just, to her son’s wife. She treated her with a coolness which interpreted a belief in the slander uttered against her; and when64 Sophia Dorothea expressed a wish to visit her mother, the electoral permission was given with an alacrity which testified to the pleasure with which the Electress of Hanover would witness the departure of Sophia Dorothea from her court.

Sophia Dorothea, as soon as she descended at the gates of her father’s residence, found a mother there, indeed, ready to receive her with the arms of a mother’s love, and to feel that the love was showered upon a daughter worthy of it. Not of like quality were the old duke’s feelings. Communications had been made to him from Hanover, to the effect that his daughter was obstinate, disobedient, disrespectful to the Elector and Electress, neglectful of her children, and faithless in heart, if not in fact, to their father. The Duke of Zell had been, as he thought, slow to believe the charges brought against his child’s good name, and had applied to the Elector for some further explanation. But poor Ernest Augustus was just then perplexed by another domestic quarrel. His son, the ever troublesome Prince Maximilian, having long entertained a suspicion that the Countess von Platen’s denial of the light offence laid to her charge, of wearing rouge, was also a playful denial, mischievously proved the fact one day, by not very gallantly ‘flicking’ from his finger a little water in which peas had been boiled, and which was then a popularly mischievous test to try the presence of rouge, as, if the latter were there, the pea-water left an indelible fleck or stain upon it. At this indignity, the Countess von Platen was the more enraged as her denial had been disproved. She rushed to the feet of the Elector, and told her complaint with an energy as if the whole state were in peril. The Elector listened, threatened Prince Maximilian with arrest, and wished his family were as easy to govern as his electoral dominions. He had65 scarcely relieved himself of this particular source of trouble, by binding Prince Maximilian to his good behaviour, when he was applied to by the Duke of Zell on the subject of his daughter. He angrily referred the duke to three of his ministers, who, he said, were acquainted with the facts. Now these ministers were the men who had expressly distorted them.

These worthy persons, if report may be trusted, performed their wicked office with as wicked an alacrity. However the result was reached, its existence cannot be denied, and its consequences were fatal to Sophia Dorothea. The Electress Sophia is said to have at last so thoroughly hated her daughter-in-law, as to have entered partly into these misrepresentations, which acquired for her the temporary wrath of her father. But of this enmity of her mother-in-law the younger Sophia does not appear to have suspected anything. Sophia Dorothea, at all events, bore her father’s temporary aversion with a wondering patience, satisfied that ‘time and the hour’ would at length do her justice.

The duke’s prejudice, however, was rather stubborn of character, and he was guilty of many absurdities to show, as he thought, that his obstinacy of ill-merited feeling against his own child was not ill-founded. He refused to listen to her own statement of her wrongs, in order to show how he guarded himself against being unduly biassed. The mother of the princess remained her firmest friend and truest champion. If misrepresentations had shaken her confidence for a moment, it was only for a moment. She knew the disposition of Sophia Dorothea too well to lend credit to false representations which depicted her as a wife, compared with whom Petruchio’s Katherine would have been the gentlest of Griseldas. As little did she believe—and to66 the expression of her disbelief she gave much indignant force of phrase—as little did she believe in the suggestions of the ministers of the Elector that the familiar terms which, as they alleged, existed between the Electoral Princess and Count Königsmark were such as did wrong to her husband George Louis. Those judges of morality had jumped to the conclusion that youth and good looks were incompatible with propriety of conduct.

The worst that could have been alleged against Sophia Dorothea at this period was, that some letters had passed between her and Count Königsmark, and that the latter had once or twice had private audience of the Electoral Princess. Whatever may be thought of such things here in England, and in the present age, they have never been accounted of in Germany but as common-place circumstances, involving neither blame nor injury. A correspondence between two persons of the respective ranks of the Electoral Princess and the count was not an uncommon occurrence; save that it was not often that two such persons had either the taste or capacity to maintain such intercourse. As to an occasional interview, such a favour, granted by ladies of rank to clever conversational men, was as common an event as any throughout the empire; and as harmless as the interviews of Leonora and that very selfish personage, the poet Tasso. The simple fact appears to have been that, out of a very small imprudence—if imprudence it may be called—the enemies of Sophia Dorothea contrived to rear a structure which should threaten her with ruin. Her exemplary husband, who affected to hold himself wronged by the alleged course adopted by his consort, had abandoned her, in the worst sense of that word. He had never, in absence, made her hours glad by letters, whose every word is dew to a soul athirst for assurances of even simple esteem. In his own household67 his conversation was seldom or never addressed to his wife; and, when it was, never to enlighten, raise, or cheer her. She may have conversed and corresponded with Königsmark, but no society then construed such conversation and correspondence as crimes; and even had they approached in this case to a limit which would have merited censure, the last man who should have stooped to pick up a stone to cast at the reputation of his consort was that George Louis, whose affected indignation was expressed from a couch with Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg at his side, and their very old-fashioned (as to look, but not less illegitimate as to fact) baby, playing, in much unconsciousness of her future distinction, between them.

It was because Sophia Dorothea had not been altogether tamely silent touching her own wrongs, that she had found enemies trumpet-tongued publishing a forged record of her transgressions. When Count von Moltke had become implicated in the little domestic rebellion of Prince Maximilian, some intimation was conveyed to him that, if he would contrive, in his defence, to mingle the name of Sophia Dorothea in the details of the trumpery conspiracy, so as to attach suspicion to such name, his own acquittal would be secured. The count was a gallant man, refused to injure an unoffending lady, and was beheaded; as though he had conspired to overthrow a state, instead of having tried to help a discontented heir in the disputed settlement of some family accounts.

The contempt of Sophia Dorothea, on discovering to what lengths the intimacy of George Louis and Ermengarda von der Schulenburg had gone, found bitter and eloquent expression. Where an angry contest was to be maintained, George Louis could be eloquent too; and in these domestic quarrels, not only is he said to have been as coarse as any of his own grooms, but, at least on one68 occasion, to have proceeded to blows. His hand was on her throat, and the wife and mother of a King of England would have been strangled by her exasperated lord, had it not been for the intervention of the courtiers, who rushed in, and, presumedly, prevented murder. To such a story wide currency was given; and, if not exact to the letter, neither can it be said to be without foundation.

The circumstances which led Sophia Dorothea to formally complain of the treatment she experienced at her husband’s hands were these. One evening, after being one of a group in the open air, witnessing an eclipse of the moon, and listening to Leibnitz’s explanations, Sophia Dorothea (attended by Fräulein Knesebeck and Madame Sassdorf) returned towards the castle. The ladies missed their way in the dark, but they found themselves at last at the door of a newly-erected building, which Sophia Dorothea entered, despite Frau Sassdorf’s entreaties to the contrary. She equally disregarded the same lady’s urgent entreaties not to enter a room at the end of the ante-chamber where the ladies were standing together. Sophia Dorothea opened the door of the room, and there beheld Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg on a couch; one hand in that of George Louis, who with the other was rocking a sleeping baby (the future Countess of Chesterfield) in a cradle.

After the scene of unseemly violence which followed, and after Sophia Dorothea’s recovery from a consequent illness, she made her indignant complaint to her husband’s parents. ‘Old Sophia’ censured her son, and found fault with Sophia Dorothea’s rashness. Ernest Augustus intimated that all princes had their little weaknesses, and that it was her duty to condone her husband’s.

This treatment drove Sophia Dorothea to Zell; but the wrath of her husband and the intrigues of von Platen made of that residence anything but a refuge. The duke69 refused to give permission to his daughter to remain longer in his palace than was consistent with the limit of an ordinary visit. She petitioned most urgently, and her mother seconded her prayer with energy as warm, that for the present she might make of Zell a temporary home. Her angry father would not listen to the request of either petitioner; on the contrary, he intimated to his daughter, that if she did not return to Hanover by a stated period, she would be permanently separated from her children. On the expression of this threat, she ceased to press for leave to remain longer absent from Hanover; and when the day named for her departure arrived, she set out once more for the scene of her old miseries, anticipation of misery yet greater in her heart, and with nothing to strengthen her but a mother’s love, and to guide her but a mother’s counsel. Neither was able to save her from the ruin under which she was so soon overwhelmed.

Her return had been duly announced to the Court of Hanover, and so much show of outward respect was vouchsafed her as consisted in a portion of the Electoral family repairing to the country residence of Herrnhausen to meet her on her way, and accompany her to the capital. Of this attention, however, she was unaware, or was scornfully unappreciative, and she passed Herrnhausen at as much speed as could then be shown by Electoral post-horses. It is said that her first intention was to have stopped at the country mansion, where the Electoral party was waiting to do her honour; that she was aware of the latter fact, but that she hurried on her way for the reason that she saw the Countess von Platen seated at one of the windows looking on to the road, and that, rather than encounter her, she offended nearly a whole family, who were more nice touching matters of etiquette than they were touching matters of morality. The members of this family, in waiting to receive a young70 lady, against whom they considered that they were not without grounds of complaint, were lost in a sense of horror which was farcical, and of indignation at violated proprieties which must have been as comical to look at as it no doubt was intense. The farcical nature of the scene is to be found in the fact, that these good people, by piling their agony beyond measure, made it ridiculous. There was no warrant for their horror, no cause for their indignation; and when they all returned to Hanover, following on the track of a young princess, whose contempt of ceremony tended to give them strange suspicions as to whether she possessed any remnant of virtue at all, these very serene princes and princesses were as supremely ridiculous as any of the smaller people worshipping ceremony in that never-to-be-forgotten city of Kotzebue’s painting, called Krähwinkel.

When Sophia Dorothea passed by Herrnhausen, regardless of the company who awaited her there, she left the persons of a complicated drama standing in utter amazement on one of the prettiest of theatres. Herrnhausen was a name given to trim gardens, as well as to the edifice surrounded by them. At the period of which we are treating the grounds were a scene of delight; the fountains tasteful, the basins large, and the water abundant. The maze, or wilderness, was the wonder of Germany, and the orangery the pride of Europe. There was also, what may still be seen in some of the pleasure-grounds of German princes, a perfectly rustic theatre, complete in itself, with but little help from any hand but that of nature. The seats were cut out of the turf, the verdure resembled green velvet, and the chances of rheumatism must have been many. There was no roof but the sky, and the dressing-rooms of the actors were lofty bowers constructed near the stage; the whole was adorned with a profusion of gilded statues, and kept continually damp71 by an incessant play of spray-scattering water-works. The grand tableau of rage in this locality, as Sophia Dorothea passed unheedingly by, must have been a spectacle worth the contemplating. Perhaps she had passed the more scornfully as George Louis was there, who, of all men, must at this time have been to her the most hateful.

With the return of Sophia Dorothea to Hanover, her enemies appear to have commenced more actively their operations against her. George Louis was languidly amusing himself with Ermengarda von der Schulenburg and their little daughter Petronilla Melusina. The Countess von Platen was in a state of irritability at the presence of Sophia Dorothea and the absence of Königsmark. The last-mentioned person had, in his wide-spread adoration, offered a portion of his homage to both the countess and her daughter. The elder lady, while accepting as much of the incense for herself as was safe to inhale, endeavoured to secure the count as a husband for her daughter. Her failure only increased her bitterness against the count, and by no means lent less asperity to the sentiment with which she viewed Sophia Dorothea. She was, no doubt,73 the chief cause, primarily and approximate, of the ruin which fell upon both.

It was not merely the absence of Königsmark, who was on a visit to the riotous court of Augustus of Saxony, which had scared her spirit; the reports which were made to her of his conversation there gave fierceness to her resentment, and called into existence that desire of vengeance which she accomplished, but without profiting by the wickedness.

There was no more welcome guest at Dresden than Königsmark. An individual, so gallant of bearing, handsome of feature, easy of principle, and lively of speech, was sure to be warmly welcomed at that dissolute court. He played deeply, and whatever sums he might lose, he never lost his temper. He drank as deeply as he played, and he then became as loquacious as Cassio, but more given to slander. He spoke ill of others out of mere thoughtlessness, or at times out of mere vanity. He possessed not what Swift calls the ‘lower prudence’ of discretion. His vanity, and the stories to which it prompted him, seemed to amuse and interest the idle and scandalous court where he was so welcome a guest.

He kept the illustriously wicked company there in an uninterrupted ecstacy by the tales he told, and the point he gave to them, of the chief personages of the Court of Hanover. He retailed anecdotes of the Elector and his son, George Louis, and warmly-tinted stories of the shameless mistresses of that exemplary parent, and no less exemplary child. He did not spare even the Electress Sophia; but she was, after all, too respectable for Königsmark to be able to make of her a subject of ridicule. This subject he found in ladies of smaller virtue and less merit generally. But every word he uttered, in sarcastic description of the life, character, and behaviour of the favourites of the Elector of Hanover and his son, found74 its way, with no loss of pungency on the road, to the ears of those persons whom the report was most likely to offend. His warm advocacy of Sophia Dorothea, expressed at the table of Augustus of Saxony, was only an additional offence; and George Louis was taught to think that Count Königsmark had no right to ask, with Pierre, ‘May not a man wish his friend’s wife well, and no harm done?’

The count returned to Hanover soon after Sophia Dorothea had arrived there, subsequent to her painful visit to the little court of her ducal parents at Zell. Königsmark, who had entered the Saxon service, returned to Hanover to complete the form of withdrawal from service in the Hanoverian army. It is alleged that Sophia Dorothea, otherwise friendless, entreated him to procure her an asylum, or to protect her in her flight to the court of her kinsman, Duke Anton Ulrich, at Wolfenbüttel. The duke is reported to have been willing to receive her. Other reports state that the princess was more than willing to fly with Königsmark to Paris! Out of all such rumours there is this certainty, that on Sunday, the 1st of July 1694 (George Louis being then in Berlin), Königsmark found a letter in pencil on a table in the sitting-room of his house in Hanover. It was to this effect: ‘To-night, after ten o’clock, the Princess Sophia Dorothea will expect Count Königsmark.’ He recognised the hand of the princess. All that afternoon he was busy writing. His secretary and servants thought his manner strange. He went out soon after ten, unattended. He was in a light, simple, summer-dress. He went on his way to the palace, crossed the threshold, and never was seen outside it again.

The note was a forged document, confessedly by the Countess von Platen, when confession came too late for the repair of evil which could not be undone. Nevertheless,75 the count, on presenting himself to Mademoiselle Knesebeck, the lady of honour to the princess, was admitted to the presence of the latter. This indiscreet step was productive of terrible consequences to all the three who were present. The count, on being asked to explain the reason of his seeking an interview with the princess at an advanced hour of the evening, produced the note of invitation, which Sophia Dorothea at once pronounced to be a forgery. Had they then separated little of ill consequence might have followed. The most discreet of the three, and the most perplexed at the ‘situation,’ was the lady of honour. The ‘Memoirs’ which bear her name, and which describe this scene, present to us a woman of some weakness, yet one not wanting in discernment.

Sophia Dorothea, it would seem, could dwell upon no subject but that of her domestic troubles, the cruel neglect of her husband, and her desire to find somewhere the refuge from persecution which had been denied to her in her old home at Zell. More dangerous topics could not have been treated by two such persons. The count, it is affirmed, was the first to suggest that Paris would afford her such a refuge, and that he should be but too happy to be permitted to give her such protection as she could derive from his escort thither. This was probably rather hinted than suggested; but however that may be, only one course should have followed even a distant hint leading to so unwarrantable an end. The interview should have been brought to a close. It was still continued, nevertheless, to the annoyance, if not scandal, of the faithful Knesebeck, whose fears may have received some little solace on hearing her mistress reiterate her desire to find at least a temporary home at the court of her cousin, Duke Anton Ulrich of Wolfenbüttel.

While this discussion was proceeding, the Countess76 von Platen was by no means idle. She had watched the count to the bower into which she had sent him by the employment of a false lure, and she thereupon hastened to the Elector to communicate what she termed her discovery. Ernest Augustus, albeit waxing old, was by no means infirm of judgment. If Königsmark was then in the chamber of his daughter-in-law, he refused to see in the fact anything more serious than its own impropriety. That, however, was crime enough to warrant the arrest which the countess solicited. The old Elector yielded to all she asked, except credence of her assurance that Sophia Dorothea must be as guilty as Königsmark was presuming. He would consent to nothing further than the arrest of him who was guilty of the presumption; and the method of this arrest he left to the conduct of the countess, who urgently solicited it as a favour, and with solicitation of such earnestness that the old Elector affected to be jealous of the interest she took in such a case, and added playfully the expression of his opinion, that, angry as she seemed to be with the count, he was too handsome a man to be likely to meet with ill-treatment at her hands.

Armed with this permission, she proceeded to the body of soldiers or watch for the night, and exhibiting her written warrant for what she demanded, requested that a guard might be given to her, for a purpose which she would explain to them. Some four or five men of this household body were told off, and these were conducted by her to a large apartment, called the Hall of Knights, through which Königsmark must pass, as he had not yet quitted the princess’s chamber.

They were then informed that their office was to arrest a criminal, whose person was described to them, of whose safe custody the Elector was so desirous that he would rather that such criminal should be slain than that he should escape. They were accordingly instructed to use their77 weapons if he should resist; and as their courage had been heightened by the double bribe of much wine and a shower of gold pieces, they expressed their willingness to execute her bidding, and only too well showed by their subsequent act the sincerity of their expression.

At length Königsmark appeared, coming from the princess’s apartment. It was now midnight. He entered the Ritter Hall, unsuspecting the fate before him. In this hall was a huge, square, ponderous stove, looking like a mausoleum, silent and cold. It reached from floor to roof, and, hidden by one of its sides, the guard awaited the coming of the count. He approached the spot, passed it, was seized from behind, and he immediately drew his sword to defend himself from attack. His enemies gave him but scant opportunity to assail them in his own defence, and after a few wild passes with his weapon, he was struck down by the spear, or old-fashioned battle-axe, of one of the guards, and when he fell there were three wounds in him, out of any one of which life might find passage.

On feeling himself grow faint, he—and in this case, like a true and gallant man—thought of the lady and her reputation. The last words he uttered were, ‘Spare the innocent princess!’ soon after which he expired; but not before, as is reported by those who love to dwell minutely on subjects of horror, not before the Countess von Platen had set her foot triumphantly upon his bloody face.

Such is the German detail of this assassination. It is added, that it gave extreme annoyance to the Elector, to whom it was immediately communicated; that the body was forthwith consigned to a secure resting-place, and covered with lime; and that the whole bloody drama was enacted without any one being aware of what was going on, save the actors themselves.

In Cramer’s ‘Memoirs of the Countess of Königsmark,’ the fate of the count is told upon the alleged evidence of78 a so-called eye-witness. It differs in several respects from other accounts, but is clear and simple in its details. It is to the following effect:—

‘Bernhard Zayer, a native of Heidelberg, in the Palatinate, a wax-image maker and artist in lacquer-work, was engaged by the Electoral Princess to teach her his art. Being, on this account, continually in the princess’s apartment, he had frequently seen Count Königsmark there, who looked on while the princess worked. He once learned in confidence, from the Electoral Princess’s groom of the chambers, that the Electoral Prince was displeased about the count, and had sworn to break his neck, which Bernhard revealed to the princess, who answered:—“Let them attack Königsmark: he knows how to defend himself.” Some time afterwards there was an opera, but the princess was unwell and kept her bed. The opera began, and as the count was absent as well as the princess, first a page and then the hoff-fourier were sent out for intelligence. The hoff-fourier came back running, and whispered to the Electoral Prince, and then to his highness the Elector. But the Electoral Prince went away from the opera with the hoff-fourier. Now Bernhard saw all this and knew what it meant, and as he knew the count was with the princess, he left the opera secretly, to warn her; and as he went in at the door, the other door was opened, and two masked persons rushed in, one exclaiming, “So! then I find you!” The count, who was sitting on the bed, with his back to the door by which the two entered, started up, and whipped out his sword, saying, “Who can say anything unbecoming of me?” The princess, clasping her hands, said “I, a princess, am I not allowed to converse with a gentleman?” But the masks, without listening to reason, slashed and stabbed away at the count. But he pressed so upon both, that the Electoral Prince unmasked, and begged for his life, while the hoff-fourier79 came behind the count, and run him through between the ribs with his sword, so that he fell, saying, “You are murderers, before God and man, who do me wrong!” But they both of them gave him more wounds, so that he lay as dead. Bernhard, seeing all this, hid himself behind the door of the other room.’

Bernhard was subsequently sent by the princess to spy out what they would do with Königsmark.

‘When the count was in the vault, he came a little to himself, and spoke:—“You take a guiltless man’s life. On that I’ll die, but do not let me perish like a dog, in my blood and my sins. Grant me a priest, for my soul’s sake.” Then the Electoral Prince went out, and the fourier remained alone with him. Then was a strange parson fetched, and a strange executioner, and the fourier fetched a great chair. And when the count had confessed, he was so weak that three or four of them lifted him into the chair; and there in the prince’s presence was his head laid at his feet. And they had tools with them, and they dug a hole in the right corner of the vault, and there they laid him, and there he must be to be found. When all was over, this Bernhard slipped away from the castle; and indeed Counsellor Lucius, who was a friend of the princess’s, sent him some of his livery to save him; for they sought him in all corners, because they had seen him in the room during the affray.... And what Bernhard Zayer saw in the vault, he saw through a crack.’

Clear as this narrative is in its details, it is contradictory and rests on small basis of truth. The Electoral Prince was undoubtedly absent on the night Königsmark was murdered.

The Countess Aurora of Königsmark has left a statement of her brother’s intimacy with the princess, in which the innocence of the latter is maintained, but his imprudence acknowledged. The statement referred to80 explains the guilty nature of the intercourse kept up between Königsmark and the Countess von Platen. It is written in terms of extreme indelicacy. We may add that the faithful von Knesebeck, on whose character no one ever cast an imputation, in her examination before the judges, argued the innocence of her accused mistress upon grounds the nature of which cannot even be alluded to. The princess, it is clear, had urged Königsmark to renew his interrupted intrigue with von Platen, out of dread that the latter, taking the princess as the cause of the intercourse having been broken off, should work a revenge, which she did not hesitate to menace, upon the princess herself.

The details of all the stories are marked by great improbability, and they have not been substantiated by the alleged death-bed confessions of the Countess von Platen, and Baumain, one of the guards—the two criminals having, without so intending it, confessed to the same clergyman, a minister named Kramer! Though these confessions are spoken of, and are even cited by German authors, their authenticity cannot be warranted. At all events, there is an English version of the details of this murder given by Horace Walpole; and as that lively writer founded his lugubrious details upon authority which he deemed could not be gainsaid, they may fairly find a place, by way of supplement to the foreign version.

‘Königsmark’s vanity,’ says Walpole, ‘the beauty of the Electoral Princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his presumptions to make his addresses to her, not covertly, and she, though believed not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old Elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatised a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. This princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her husband and consequently81 enemies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the count to kiss her hand, before his abrupt departure; and he was actually introduced by them into her bedchamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared, nor was it known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son, the new King’s first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Königsmark was discovered under the floor of the Electoral Princess’s dressing-room—the count having probably been strangled there, the instant he left her, and his body secreted. The discovery was hushed up. George II. (the son of Sophia Dorothea) entrusted the secret to his wife, Queen Caroline, who told it to my father; but the King was too tender of the honour of his mother to utter it to his mistress; nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it, till I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circumstances.’

To turn to the German sources of information: we are told by these, that after the departure of Königsmark from the chamber of the princess, she was engaged in arranging her papers, and in securing her jewels, preparatory, as she hoped, to her anticipated removal to the Court of Wolfenbüttel. Königsmark must have been murdered and the body made away with silently and swiftly, for not a dweller in the palace was disturbed by the doing of this bloody deed. All signs of its having been done had been so effaced that no trace of it was left to attract notice in the early morning. On that next morning the count’s servants were not troubled at his absence; such an occurrence was not unusual. When it was prolonged and enquiry became necessary, nothing could be learnt of him. Every soul82 in the palace was silent, designedly or through ignorance. Rumour, of course, was busy and full of confidence in what it put forth. George Louis himself said that the gay count would reappear, perhaps, when least expected. The tremendous secret was faithfully kept by the few who knew the truth; and when speculation was busiest as to the count’s whereabout, there was probably no atom of his body left, if it be true that it had been cast into a drain and had been consumed in slack-lime.

The princess was, for a time, kept in ignorance of the count’s assassination; but she was perplexed by his disappearance, and alarmed when she heard that all his papers had been seized and conveyed to the Elector for his examination. Some notes had passed between them: and, innocent as they were, she felt annoyed at the thought that their existence should be known, still more that they should be perused. To their most innocent expressions the Countess von Platen, who examined them with the Elector, gave a most guilty interpretation; and she so wrought upon Ernest Augustus, that he commissioned no less a person than the Count von Platen to interrogate the princess on the subject. She did not lack spirit; and when the coarse-minded count began to put coarse questions to her, as to the degree of intercourse which had existed between herself and the count, she spiritedly remarked that he appeared to imagine that he was examining into the conduct of his own wife; a thrust which he repaid by bluntly informing her that whatever intercourse may have existed, it would never be renewed, seeing that sure intelligence had been received of Königsmark’s death.

Sophia Dorothea, shocked at this information, and at the manner in which it was conveyed, had no friend in whom she could repose confidence but her faithful lady-in-waiting, Fräulein von Knesebeck. The princess could have had no more ardent defender than this worthy83 attendant. But the assertions made by the latter, in favour of the mistress whom she loved, were not at all to the taste of the enemies of that mistress, and the speedy result was, that Fräulein von Knesebeck was arrested and carried away to the castle of Schartzfeld in the Hartz. She was there kept in confinement many years; but she ultimately escaped so cleverly through the roof, by the help of a tiler, or a friend in the likeness of a tiler, that the credit of the success of the attempt was given by the governor of the gaol to the demons of the adjacent mountains. She subsequently became lady-in-waiting to Sophia Dorothea’s daughter.

Sophia Dorothea had now but one immediate earnest wish, namely, to retire from Hanover. Already the subject of a divorce had been mooted, but the Elector being somewhat fearful that a divorce might affect his son’s succession to his wife’s inheritance, and even obstruct the union of Zell with Hanover, an endeavour was made to reconcile the antagonistic spouses, and to bury past dissensions in oblivion.

It was previous to this attempt being entered upon, and perhaps because it was contemplated, that the princess voluntarily underwent a very solemn ordeal. The ceremony was as public as it could be rendered by the presence of part of the Electoral family and the great official dignitaries of the church and government. Before them Sophia Dorothea partook of the sacrament, and then made solemn protestation of her innocence, and of her unspotted faith towards the Electoral Prince, her husband. At the termination of this ceremony she was insulted by an incredulous smile which she saw upon the face of Count von Platen; whereat the natural woman was moved within her to ask him if his own excellent wife could take the same oath, in attestation of her unbroken faithfulness to him!

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The strange essay at reconciliation was marred by an attempt made to induce the Electoral Princess to confess that she had been guilty of sins of disobedience towards the expressed will of her consort. All endeavour in this direction was fruitless; and though grave men made it, it shows how very little they comprehended their delicate mission. The princess remained fixed in her desire to withdraw from Hanover; but when she was informed of the wound this would be to the feelings of the Elector and Electress, and that George Louis himself was heartily averse to it, she began to waver, and applied to her friends at Zell, among others to Bernstorf, the Hanoverian minister there, asking for counsel in this her great need.

Bernstorf, an ally of the von Platens, secretly advised her to insist upon leaving Hanover. He assured her, pledging his word for what he said, that she would find a happy asylum at Zell; that even her father, so long estranged from her, would receive her with open arms; and that in the adoption of such a step alone could she hope for happiness and peace during the remainder of her life.

She was as untruthfully served by some of the ladies of her circle, who, while professing friendship and fidelity, were really the spies of her husband and her husband’s mistress. They were of that class of women who were especially bred for courts and court intrigues, and whose hopes of fortune rested upon their doing credit to their education.

As the princess not merely insisted upon quitting Hanover, but firmly refused to acknowledge that she had been guilty of any wrong to her most guilty husband, a course was adopted by her enemies which, they considered, would not merely punish her, but would transfer her possessions to her consort, without affecting the long projected union of Zell, after the duke’s death, with the85 territory of Hanover. An accusation of adultery, even if it could be sustained, of which there was not the shadow of a chance, might, if carried out and followed by a divorce, in some way affect the transfer of a dominion to Hanover, which transfer rested partly on the rights of the wife of the Electoral Prince. A divorce might destroy the ex-husband’s claims; but he was well-provided with lawyers to watch and guard the case to an ultimate conclusion in his favour.

A Consistorial Court was formed, of a strangely mixed character, for it consisted of four ecclesiastical lawyers and four civil authorities of Hanover and Zell. It had no other authority to warrant its proceedings than the command or sanction of the Elector, and the consent of the Duke of Zell, whose ill-feeling towards his child seemed to increase daily. The only charge laid against the princess before this anomalous court was one of incompatibility of temper, added to some little failings of character; not the most distant allusion to serious guilt with Königsmark, or any one else, was made. His name was never once mentioned. Her consent to live again in Hanover and let by-gones be by-gones was indignantly refused by her. She would never, she protested, live again among people who had murdered the only man in the world who loved her well enough to be a friend to her who was otherwise friendless. Her passionate tears flowed abundantly; Fräulein von Knesebeck states that whenever the mysterious fate of Königsmark was referred to, the princess’s grief was so violent that it might almost lead those who witnessed it to suspect that she took too great an interest in the man made away with almost at her chamber-door.

The court affected to attempt an adjustment of the matter; but as the attempt was always based on another to drag from the princess a confession of her having,86 wittingly or unwittingly, given cause of offence to her husband, she continued firmly to refuse to place her consort in the right by doing herself and her cause extremest wrong.

In the meantime, during an adjournment of the court, she withdrew to Lauenau. She was prohibited from repairing to Zell, but there was no longer any opposition made to her leaving the capital of the Electorate. She was, however, strictly prohibited from taking her children with her. Her parting from these was as painful a scene as can well be imagined, for she is said to have felt that she would never again be united with them. Her son, George Augustus, was then ten years of age; her daughter, Sophia, was still younger. The homage of these children was rendered to their mother long after their hearts had ceased to pay any to their father beyond a mere conventional respect.

In her temporary retirement at Lauenau, she was permitted to enjoy very little repose. The friends of the Electoral Prince seem to have been anxious lest she should publish more than was yet known of the details of his private life. This fear alone can account for their anxiety, or professed anxiety, for a reconciliation. The lawyers, singly or in couples, and now and then a leash of them together, went down to Lauenau to hold conference with her. They assailed her socially, scripturally, legally; they pointed out how salubrious was the discipline which subjected a wife to confess her faults. They read to her whole chapters from Corinthians, on the duties of married ladies, and asked her if she could be so obstinate and unorthodox as to disregard the injunctions of St. Paul. Finally, they quoted codes and pandects, to prove that a sentence might be pronounced against her under contumacy, and concluded by recommending her to trust to the mercy of the Crown Prince, if she would but cast herself upon his honour.

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They were grave men; sage, learned, experienced men; crafty, cunning, far-seeing men; in all the circles of the empire men were not to be found more skilled in surmounting difficulties than these indefatigable men, who were all foiled by the simplicity and firmness of a mere child. ‘If I am guilty,’ said she, ‘I am unworthy of the prince: if I am innocent, he is unworthy of me!’

Here was a conclusion with which she utterly confounded the sages. They could not gainsay it, nor refute the logic by which it was arrived at, and which gave it force. They were ‘perplexed in the extreme,’ but neither social experience, nor scriptural reading, nor legal knowledge afforded them weapons wherewith to beat down the simple defences behind which the princess had entrenched herself. They tried repeatedly, but tried in vain. At the end of every trial she slowly and calmly enunciated the same reply:—‘If I am guilty I am unworthy of him: if I am innocent, he is unworthy of me!’

From this text she would not depart; nor could all the chicanery of all the courts of Germany move her. ‘At least,’ said the luminaries of the law, as they took their way homewards, re infecta, ‘at least this woman may, of a surety, be convicted of obstinacy.’ We always stigmatise as obstinate those whom we cannot convince. It is the only, and the poor, triumph of the vanquished.

This triumph was achieved by the Consistory Court, the members of which, unable to prove the princess guilty of crime, were angry because she would not even confess to the commission of a fault; that is, of such a fault as should authorise her husband, covered with guilt triple-piled, to separate from her person, yet maintain present and future property over her estates.

In point of fact, George Louis did not wish to be separated from his wife. His counsel, Rath Livius, accused88 her, in her husband’s name, of lack of both love and obedience towards him; of having falsely charged him with infidelity, to his parents and her own; and of having repeatedly refused to again live with him; for this act of disobedience, and for no other reason, he asked the judgment of the court. Sophia Dorothea’s own counsellors, Rudolph Thies and Joachin von Bulow, put it to her whether she would return to her husband or abide judgment for disobeying his repeated desire. Nothing could move her. She despised her husband, and would never again live under the same roof with him. Her own desire was to live, henceforward, in seclusion—to pass the remainder of her unhappy life in peace and humiliation.

The court came to a decision on the 28th of December, 1694. Their judgment was, that as she refused to live with her husband, she was guilty of desertion, and on that ground alone a decree of separation, or divorce, was recorded. When told that she had a right to appeal, she contemptuously refused to avail herself of it. The terms of the sentence were extraordinary, for they amounted to a decree of divorce without expressly mentioning the fact. The judgment, wherein nothing was judged, conferred on the prince, George Louis, the right of marrying again, if he should be so minded and could find a lady willing to be won. It, however, explicitly debarred his wife from entering into a second union. Not a word was written down against her, alleging that she was criminal. The name of Königsmark was not even alluded to. Notwithstanding these facts, and that the husband was the really guilty party, while the utmost which can be said against the princess was that she may have been indiscreet—notwithstanding this, not only was he declared to be an exceedingly injured individual, but the poor lady, whom he held in his heart’s89 hottest hate, was deprived of her property, possession of which was transferred to George Louis, in trust for the children; and the princess, endowed with an annual pension of some eight or ten thousand thalers, was condemned to close captivity in the castle of Ahlden, near Zell, with a retinue of domestics, whose office was to watch her actions, and a body of armed gaolers, whose only duty was to keep the captive secure in her bonds.

Sophia Dorothea entered on her imprisonment with a calm, if not with a cheerful heart: certainly with more placidity and true joy than George Louis felt, surrounded by his mistresses and all the pomp of the Electoral State. All Germany is said to have been scandalised by the judgment delivered by the court. The illegality and the incompetency of the court from which it emanated, were so manifest, that the sentence was looked upon as a mere wanton cruelty, carrying with it neither conviction nor lawful consequence. So satisfied was the princess’s advocate on this point that he requested her to give him a letter declaring him non-responsible for having so far recognised the authority of the court as to have pleaded her cause before it! What is perhaps more singular still is the doubt which long existed whether this court ever sat at all; and whether decree of separation or divorce was ever pronounced in the cause of Sophia Dorothea of Zell and George Louis, Electoral Prince of Hanover.

Horace Walpole says, on this subject: ‘I am not acquainted with the laws of Germany relative to divorce or separation, nor do I know or suppose that despotism and pride allow the law to insist on much formality when a sovereign has reason or mind to get rid of his wife. Perhaps too much difficulty in untying the Gordian knot of matrimony, thrown in the way of an absolute prince, would be no kindness to the ladies, but might prompt him to use a sharper weapon, like that butchering husband,90 our Henry VIII. Sovereigns who narrow or let out the law of God according to their prejudices and passions mould their own laws, no doubt, to the standard of their convenience. Genealogic purity of blood is the predominant folly of Germany; and the Code of Malta seems to have more force in the empire than the Ten Commandments. Thence was introduced that most absurd evasion of the indissolubility of marriage, espousals with the left hand, as if the Almighty had restrained his ordinance to one half of a man’s person, and allowed a greater latitude to his left side than to his right, or pronounced the former more ignoble than the latter. The consciences both of princely and noble persons in Germany are quieted if the more plebeian side is married to one who would degrade the more illustrious moiety; but, as if the laws of matrimony had no reference to the children to be thence propagated, the children of a left-handed alliance are not entitled to inherit. Shocking consequence of a senseless equivocation, which only satisfies pride, not justice, and is calculated for an acquittal at the herald’s office, not at the last tribunal.

‘Separated the Princess (Sophia) Dorothea certainly was, and never admitted even to the nominal honours of her rank, being thenceforward always styled the Duchess of Halle (Ahlden). Whether divorced is problematic, at least to me; nor can I pronounce—as, though it was generally believed, I am not certain—that George espoused the Duchess of Kendal (Mdlle. von der Schulenburg) with his left hand. But though German casuistry might allow a husband to take another wife with his left hand because his legal wife had suffered her right hand to be kissed by a gallant, even Westphalian or Aulic counsellors could not have pronounced that such a momentary adieu constituted adultery; and, therefore, of a formal divorce I must doubt; and there I must leave that case of conscience91 undecided until future search into the Hanoverian Chancery shall clear up a point of little real importance.’ Coxe, in his Memoirs of Walpole, says, on the other hand, very decidedly:—‘George I., who never loved his wife, gave implicit credit to the account of her infidelity, as related by his father; consented to her imprisonment, and obtained from the ecclesiastical consistory a divorce, which was passed on the 20th of December 1694.’

The researches into the Chancery of Hanover, which Walpole left to posterity, appear to have been made, and the decree of the Consistorial Court which condemned Sophia Dorothea has been copied and published. It is quoted in the ‘Life of the Princess,’ published anonymously in 1845, and it is inserted below for the benefit of those who like to read history by the light of documents.

It has been said that such a decree could only have been purchased by rank bribery, which is likely enough; for the courts of Germany were so utterly corrupt that nothing could equal them in infamy—except the corruption which prevailed in England.

‘In the matrimonial suit of the illustrious Prince George Louis, Crown Prince of Hanover, against his consort, the illustrious Princess Sophia Dorothea, we, constituted president and judges of the Matrimonial Court of the Electorate and Duchy of Brunswick-Lunenberg, declare and pronounce judgment, after attempts have been tried and have failed, to settle the matter amicably, and, in accordance with the documents and verbal declarations of the Princess, and other detailed circumstances, we agree that her continued denial of matrimonial duty and cohabitation is well founded, and consequently that it is to be considered as an intentional desertion. In consequence whereof, we consider, sentence, and declare the ties of matrimony to be entirely dissolved and annulled. Since, in similar cases of desertion,92 it has been permitted to the innocent party to re-marry, which the other is forbidden, the same judicial power will be exercised in the present instance in favour of his Serene Highness the Crown Prince.

‘Published in the Consistorial Court at Hanover, December 28th, 1694.

The work from which the above document is extracted furnishes also the following, as a copy of the letter written by the princess at the request of the legal conductor of her case, as ‘security from proceedings in relation to his connexion with her affairs:’—

‘As we have now, after being made acquainted with the sentence, given it proper consideration, and resolved not to offer any opposition to it, our solicitor must act accordingly, and is not to act or proceed any further in this matter. For the rest, we hereby declare that we are gratefully content with the conduct of our aforesaid solicitor of the Court, Thies, and that by this we free him from all responsibility regarding these transactions.

(Signed)  ‘Sophia Dorothea.

‘Lauenau, December 31, 1694.’

By this last document it would seem that the Hof-Rath Thies would have denied the competency of the court had he been permitted to do so; and that he was so convinced of its illegality as to require a written93 prohibition from asserting the same, and acknowledgment of exemption from all responsibility, before he would feel satisfied that he had accomplished his duty towards his illustrious client.

Long before the case was heard, and four months previous to the publication of the sentence of the Consistorial Court, the two brothers, the Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Zell, had actually agreed by an enactment that the unhappy marriage between the cousins should be dissolved. The enactment provided for the means whereby this end was to be achieved, and for the disposal of the princess during the progress of the case. The anonymous author of the biography of 1845 then proceeds to state that ‘It was therein specified that her domestics should take a particular oath, and that the princess should enjoy an annual income of eight thousand thalers (exclusive of the wages of her household), to be increased one-half on the death of her father, with a further increase of six thousand thalers on her attaining the age of forty years. It was provided that the castle of Ahlden should be her permanent residence, where she was to remain well guarded. The domain of Wilhelmsburg, near Hamburg, was, at the death of the Duke of Zell, to descend to the prince, son of the Princess Sophia Dorothea—the Crown Prince, however, during his own life retaining the revenues; but should the grandson die before his father, the property would then, on payment of a stipulated sum, be inherited by the successor in the government of the son of the Elector. By a further arrangement, the mother of the princess was to possess Wienhausen, with an annual income of twelve thousand thalers, secured on the estates of Schernebeck, Garze, and Bluettingen; the castle at Lunenburg to be allowed as her residence from the commencement of her widowhood.’

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Never was so much care taken to secure property on one side, and the person on the other. The contracting parties appear to have been afraid lest the prisoner should ever have an opportunity of appealing against the wrong of which she was made the victim; and her strait imprisonment was but the effect of that fear. That nothing might be neglected to make assurance doubly sure, and to deprive her of any help she might hope hereafter to receive at the hands of a father, whose heart might possibly be made to feel his own injustice and his daughter’s sorrows, the Duke of Zell was induced to promise that he would neither see nor hold communication with the daughter he had repudiated.

During the so-called trial, at Lauenau, the princess resided in the chief official residence in that place. At the close of the inquiry she took a really final leave of her children—George Augustus and Sophia Dorothea—with bitter tears, which would have been more bitter still if she had thought that she was never again to look upon them. She had concluded that she would have liberty to live with her mother in Zell. She had no idea that her father had already agreed to his brother the Elector’s desire that she should be shut up in the castle of Ahlden. She found herself a state prisoner.

The oath to be taken by her appointed household, or rather by the personal attendants—counts and countesses in waiting and persons of similar rank—was stringent and illustrative of the importance attached to the safe-keeping of the prisoner. It was to the effect ‘that nothing should be wanting to prevent anticipated intrigues; or for the perfect security of the place fixed as a residence for the Princess Sophia Dorothea, in order to maintain tranquility, and to prevent any opportunity occurring to an enemy for undertaking or imagining anything which might cause a division in the illustrious family.’

The castle of Ahlden is situated on the small and sluggish stream, the Aller; and seems to guard, as it once oppressed, the little village sloping at its feet. This edifice was appointed as the prison-place of Sophia Dorothea; and from the territory she acquired a title, that of Duchess of Ahlden. She was mockingly called sovereign lady of a locality where all were free but herself!

On looking over the list of the household which was formed for the service, if the phrase be one that may be admitted, of her captivity, the first thing which strikes us as singular is the presence of ‘three cooks’—a triad of ‘ministers of the mouth’ for one poor imprisoned lady!

The singularity vanishes when we find that around this encaged duchess there circled a really extensive household, and there lived a world of ceremony, of which no one was so much the slave as she was. Her captivity in its commencement was decked with a certain sort of splendour, about which she, who was its object, cared96 by far the least. There was a military governor of the castle, gentlemen and ladies in waiting—spies all. Among the honester servants of the house were a brace of pages and as many valets, a dozen female domestics, and fourteen footmen, who had to undergo the intense labour of doing very little in a very lengthened space of time. To supply the material wants of these, the three cooks, one confectioner, a baker, and a butler, were provided. There was, besides, a military force, consisting of infantry and artillery. Altogether, there must have been work enough for the three cooks.

The forms of a court were long maintained, although only on a small scale. The duchess held her little levées, and the local authorities, clergy, and neighbouring nobility and gentry offered her such respect as could be manifested by paying her visits on certain appointed days. These visits, however, were always narrowly watched by the officials, whose office lay in such service and was hid beneath a show of duty.

The successive governors of the castle were men of note, and their presence betokened the importance attached to the person and safe keeping of the captive. During the first three years of her imprisonment, the post of governor was held by the Hof Grand-Marshal von Bothmar. He was succeeded by the Count Bergest, who enjoyed his equivocal dignity of gaoler-governor about a quarter of a century. During the concluding years of the imprisonment of Sophia, her seneschal was a relative of one of her judges, Georg von Busche.

These men behaved to their prisoner with as much courtesy as they dared to show; nor was her captivity severe in anything but the actual deprivation of liberty, and of all intercourse with those she best loved, until after the first few years. The escape of Fräulein Knesebeck from her place of confinement appears to have given the97 husband of Sophia Dorothea an affectionate uneasiness, which he evidenced by giving orders that his wife’s safe-keeping should be maintained with greater stringency.

From the day of the issuing of that order, she was never allowed to walk, even in the garden of the castle, without a guard. She never rode out, or drove through the neighbouring woods, without a strong escort. Even parts of the castle were prohibited from being intruded upon by her; and so much severity was shown in this respect, that when, on one occasion, a fire broke out in the edifice, to escape from which she must have traversed a gallery which she was forbidden to pass, she stood short of the proscribed limit, her jewel-box in her arms, and herself in almost speechless terror, but refusing to advance beyond the prohibited line until permission reached her from the proper authority.

On such a prisoner time must have hung especially heavy. She had, however, many resources, and every hour, with her, had its occupation. She was the land-steward of her little ducal estate, and performed all the duties of that office. She kept a diary of her thoughts as well as actions; and if this be extant it would be well worthy of being published. The one which has been put forth as hers is a poor work of fancy by some writer unknown, set in dramatic scenes, and altogether to be rejected. Her correspondence, during the period she was permitted to write, was extensive. Every day she had interviews with, and gave instructions to, each of her servants, from the chief of the three cooks downwards. With this, she was personally active in charity. Finally, she was the Lady Bountiful of the district, laying out half her income in charitable uses for the good of her neighbours, and, as Boniface said of the good lady of Lichfield, ‘curing more people in and about the place within ten98 years, than the doctors had killed in twenty; and that’s a bold word.’

There was a church in the village, which was in rather ruinous condition when her captivity commenced; but this she put in thorough repair, decorated it handsomely, presented it with an organ, and was refused permission to attend there after it had been reopened for public service. For her religious consolation a chaplain had been provided, and she was never trusted, even under guard, to join with the villagers in common worship in the church of the village below. In this respect a somewhat royal etiquette was observed. The chaplain read prayers to the garrison and household in one room, to which the princess and her ladies listened rather than therewith joined, placed as they were in an adjacent room, where they could hear without being seen.

With no relative was she allowed to hold never so brief an interview; and at last even her mother was not permitted to soften by her presence for an hour the rigid and ceremonious captivity of her luckless daughter. Mother and child were allowed to correspond at stated periods, their letters passing open. The princess herself was as much cut off from her own children as if these had been dead and entombed. The little prince and princess were expressly ordered to utterly forget that they had a mother—her very name on their lips would have been condemned as a grievous fault. The boy, George Augustus, was in many points of character similar to his father, and, accordingly, being commanded to forget his mother, he obstinately bore her in memory; and when he was told that he would never have an opportunity afforded him to see her, mentally resolved to make one for himself.

It is but justice to the old Elector to say that in his advanced years, when pleasant sins were no longer profitable to him, he gave them up; and when the youngest99 of his mistresses had ceased to be attractive, he began to think such appendages little worth the hanging on to his Electoral dignity. For, ceasing to love and live with his ‘favourites,’ he did not the more respect, or hold closer intercourse with, his wife—a course about which the Electress Sophia troubled herself very little.

Ernest Augustus, when he ceased to be under the influence of the disgraced Countess von Platen, began to be sensible of some sympathy for his daughter-in-law, Sophia. He softened in some degree the rigour of her imprisonment and corresponded with her by letter; a correspondence which inspired her with hope that her freedom might result from it. This hope was, however, frustrated by the death of Ernest Augustus, on the 20th of January 1698. From that time the rigour of her imprisonment was increased fourfold.

If the heart of her old father-in-law began to incline towards her as he increased in years, it is not to be wondered at that the heart of her aged father melted towards her as time began to press heavily upon him. But it was the weakest of hearts allied to the weakest of minds. In the comfortlessness of his great age he sought to be comforted by loving her whom he had insanely and unnaturally oppressed—the sole child of his heart and house. In his weakness he addressed himself to that tool of Hanover at Zell, the minister Bernstorf; and that individual so terrified the poor old man by details of the ill consequences which might ensue if the wrath of the new Elector, George Louis, were aroused by the interference of the Duke of Zell in matters which concerned the Elector and his wife, that the old man, feeble in mind and body, yielded, and for a time at least left his daughter to her fate. He thought to compensate for the wrong which he inflicted on her under the impulse of his evil genius, Bernstorf, by adding a codicil to his will.

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By this codicil he bequeathed to the daughter whom he had wronged all that it was in his power to leave, in jewels, moneys, and lands; but liberty he could not give her, and so his love could do little more than try to lighten the fetters which he had aided to put on. But there was a short-lived joy in store, both for child and parents. The fetters were to be cast aside for a brief season, and the poor captive was to enjoy an hour of home, of love, and of liberty.

The last year of the seventeenth century (1700) brought with it an accession of greatness to the Electoral family of Hanover, inasmuch as in that year a bill was introduced into parliament, and accepted by that body, which fixed the succession to the crown of England after the Princess Anne, and in default of such princess dying without heirs of her own body, in the person of Sophia of Hanover. William III. had been very desirous for the introduction of this bill; but under various pretexts it had been deferred, the commonest business being allowed to take precedence of it, until the century had nearly expired. The limitations to the royal action, which formed a part of the bill as recommended in the report of the committee, were little to the King’s taste; for they not only affected his employment of foreign troops in England, but shackled his own free and frequent departures from the kingdom. It was imagined by many that these limitations were designed by the leaders in the cabinet, in order to raise disputes between the two houses, by which the bill might be lost. Such is Burnet’s report; and he sarcastically adds thereto, that when much time had been spent in preliminaries, and it was necessary to come to the nomination of the person who should be named presumptive heir next to Queen Anne, the office of doing so was confided to ‘Sir John Bowles, who was then disordered in his senses, and soon after quite lost them.’101 ‘He was,’ says Burnet, ‘set on by the party to be the first that should name the Electress-dowager of Brunswick, which seemed done to make it less serious when moved by such a person.’ So that the solemn question of naming the heir to a throne was entrusted to an idiot, who, by the forms of the house, was appointed chairman of the committee for the conduct of the bill. Burnet adds, that the ‘thing,’ as he calls it, was ‘still put off for many weeks at every time that it was called for; the motion was entertained with coldness, which served to heighten the jealousy; the committee once or twice sat upon it, but all the members ran out of the house with so much indecency that the contrivers seemed ashamed of this management; there were seldom fifty or sixty at the committee, yet in conclusion it passed, and was sent up to the Lords.’ Great opposition was expected from the peers, and many of their lordships designedly absented themselves from the discussion. The opposition was slight, and confined to the Marquis of Normanby, who spoke, and the Lords Huntingdon, Plymouth, Guildford, and Jefferies, who protested, against the bill. Burnet affirms, that those who wished well to the Act were glad to have it passed any way, and so would not examine the limitations that were in it, and which they thought might be considered afterwards. ‘We reckoned it,’ says Burnet, ‘a great point carried that we had now a law on our side for a Protestant successor.’ The law was stoutly protested against by the Duchess of Savoy, grand-daughter of Charles I. The protest did not trouble the King, who despatched the Act to the Electress-dowager, and the Garter to her son, by the hands of the Earl of Macclesfield.

The earl was a fitting bearer of so costly and significant a present. He had been attached to the service of the mother of Sophia, and was highly esteemed by the Electress-dowager herself. The earl had no especial commission102 beyond that which enjoined him to deliver the Act, nor was he dignified by any official appellation. He was neither ambassador, legate, plenipotentiary, nor envoy. He had with him, however, a most splendid suite; which was in some respects strangely constituted, for among its members was the famous Toland, whose book in support of rationality as applied to religion had been publicly burnt by the hangman, in Ireland.

The welcome to this body of gentlemen was right royal. It may be said that the Electoral family had neither cared for the dignity now rendered probable for them, nor in any way toiled or intrigued to bring it within their grasp; but it is certain that their joy was great when the Earl of Macclesfield appeared on the frontier of the Electorate with the Act in one hand and the Garter in the other. He and his suite were met there with a welcome of extraordinary magnificence, betokening ample appreciation of the double gift he brought with him. He himself seemed elevated by his mission, for he was in his general deportment little distinguished by courtly manners or by ceremonious bearing; but it was observed that, on this occasion, nothing could have been more becoming than the way in which he acquitted himself of an office which brought a whole family within view of succession to a royal and powerful throne.

On reaching the confines of the Electorate, the members of the deputation from England were received by personages of the highest official rank, who not only escorted them to the capital, but treated them on the way with a liberality so profuse as to be the wonder of all beholders. They were not allowed to disburse a farthing from their own purses; all they thought fit to order was paid for by the Electoral government, by whose orders they were lodged in the most commodious palace in Hanover, where as much homage was paid them as if103 each man had been a Kaiser in his own person. The Hanoverian gratitude went so far, that not only were the ambassador and suite treated as favoured guests, and those not alone of the princess but of the people—the latter being commanded to refrain from taking payment from any of them for any article of refreshment they required—but for many days all English travellers visiting the city were made equally free of its caravansaries, and were permitted to enjoy all that the inns could afford without being required to pay for the enjoyment.

The delicate treatment of the Electoral government extended even to the servants of the earl and his suite. It was thought that to require them to dine upon the fragments of their master’s banquets would be derogatory to the splendour of the hospitality of the House of Hanover and an insult to the domestics who followed in the train of the earl. The government accordingly disbursed half-a-crown a day to each liveried follower, and considered such a ‘composition’ as glorious to the reputation of the Electoral house. The menials were even emancipated from service during the sojourn of the deputation in Hanover, and the Elector’s numerous servants waited upon the English visitors zealously throughout the day, but with most splendour in the morning; then, they were to be seen hurrying to the bed-rooms of the different members of the suite, bearing with them silver coffee and tea pots, and other requisites for breakfast, which meal appears to have been lazily indulged in—as if the legation had been habitually wont to ‘make a night of it’—in bed. And there was a good deal of hard drinking on these occasions, but all at the expense of the husband of Sophia Dorothea, who, in her castle of Ahlden, was not even aware of that increase of honour which had fallen upon her consort, and in which she had a right to share.

For those who were, the next day, ill or indolent,104 there were the ponderous state coaches to carry them whithersoever they would go. The most gorgeous of the fêtes given on this occasion was on the evening of the day on which the Act was solemnly presented to the Electress-dowager. Hanover, famous as it was for its balls, had never seen so glorious a Terpsichorean festival as marked this particular night. At the balls in the old Elector’s time Sophia Dorothea used to shine, first in beauty and in grace; but now her place was ill supplied by the not fair and quite graceless Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg. The supper which followed was Olympian in its profusion, wit, and magnificence. This was at a time when to be sober was to be respectable, but when to be drunk was not to be ungentlemanly. Consequently we find Toland, who wrote an account of the achievements of the day, congratulating himself and readers by stating that, although it was to be expected that in so large and so jovial a party some would be found even more ecstatic than the occasion and the company warranted, yet that, in truth, the number of those who were guilty of excess was but small. Even Lord Mohun kept himself sober, and to the end was able to converse as clearly and intelligibly as Lord Saye and Sele, and his friend ‘my Lord Tunbridge.’

This day of presentation of the Act, and of the festival in honour of it, was one of the greatest days which Hanover had ever seen. Speaking of the mother-in-law of Sophia Dorothea, Toland says:—‘The Electress is three-and-seventy years old, which she bears so wonderfully well, that, had I not many vouchers, I should scarce dare venture to relate it. She has ever enjoyed extraordinary health, which keeps her still very vigorous, of a cheerful countenance, and a merry disposition. She steps as firm and erect as any young lady, has not one wrinkle in her face, which is still very agreeable, nor one tooth out of105 her head, and reads without spectacles, as I have often seen her do, letters of a small character, in the dusk of the evening. She is as great a writer as our late queen (Mary), and you cannot turn yourself in the palace without meeting some monument of her industry, all the chairs of the presence-chamber being wrought with her own hands. The ornaments of the altar in the electoral chapel are all of her work. She bestowed the same favour on the Protestant abbey, or college, of Lockurn, with a thousand other instances, fitter for your lady to know than for yourself. She is the most constant and greatest walker I ever knew, never missing a day, if it proves fair, for one or two hours, and often more, in the fine garden at Herrnhausen. She perfectly tires all those of her court who attend her in that exercise but such as have the honour to be entertained by her in discourse. She has been long admired by all the learned world as a woman of incomparable knowledge in divinity, philosophy, history, and the subjects of all sorts of books, of which she has read a prodigious quantity. She speaks five languages so well, that by her accent it might be a dispute which of them was her first. They are Low Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English, which last she speaks as truly and easily as any native; which to me is a matter of amazement, whatever advantages she might have in her youth by the conversation of her mother; for though the late king’s (William’s) mother was likewise an Englishwoman, of the same royal family; though he had been more than once in England before the Revolution; though he was married there, and his court continually full of many of that nation, yet he could never conquer his foreign accent. But, indeed, the Electress is so entirely English in her person, in her behaviour, in her humour, and in all her inclinations, that naturally she could not miss of anything that106 peculiarly belongs to our land. She was ever glad to see Englishmen, long before the Act of Succession. She professes to admire our form of government, and understands it mighty well, yet she asks so many questions about families, customs, laws, and the like, as sufficiently demonstrate her profound wisdom and experience. She has a deep veneration for the Church of England, without losing affection or charity for any other sort of Protestants, and appears charmed with the moderate temper of our present bishops and other of our learned clergy, especially for their approbation of the liberty allowed by law to Protestant Dissenters. She is adored for her goodness among the inhabitants of the country, and gains the hearts of all strangers by her unparalleled affability. No distinction is ever made in her court concerning the parties into which Englishmen are divided, and whereof they carry the effects and impressions with them whithersoever they go, which makes others sometimes uneasy as well as themselves. There it is enough that you are an Englishman; nor can you ever discover by your treatment which are better liked, the Whigs or the Tories. These are the instructions given to all the servants, and they take care to execute them with the utmost exactness. I was the first who had the honour of kneeling and kissing her hand on account of the Act of Succession; and she said, among other discourse, that she was afraid the nation had already repented their choice of an old woman, but that she hoped none of her posterity would give her any reasons to grow weary of their dominion. I answered, that the English had too well considered what they did to change their minds so soon, and they still remembered they were never so happy as when they were last under a woman’s government. Since that time, sir,’ adds the courtly but unorthodox Toland to the ‘Minister of State in Holland,’107 to whom his letter is addressed, ‘we have a further confirmation of this truth by the glorious administration of Queen Anne.’

The record would be imperfect if it were not accompanied by another ‘counterfeit presentment,’ that of her son, Prince George Louis, the husband of Sophia Dorothea. Toland describes him as ‘a proper, middle-sized, well-proportioned man, of a genteel address, and good appearance;’ but he adds, that his Highness ‘is reserved, and therefore speaks little, but judiciously.’ ‘He is not to be exceeded,’ says Toland, ‘in his zeal against the intended universal monarchy of France, and so is most hearty for the common cause of Europe,’ for the very good reason, that therein ‘his own is so necessarily involved.’ Toland adds, that George Louis understood the constitution of England better than any ‘foreigner’ he had ever met with; a very safe remark, for our constitution was ill understood abroad; and even had the theoretical knowledge of George Louis been ever so correct, his practice with our constitution betrayed such ignorance that Toland’s assertion may be taken only for what it is worth. ‘Though,’ says the writer just named, ‘though he be well versed in the art of war, and of invincible courage, having often exposed his person to great dangers in Hungary, in the Morea, on the Rhine, and in Flanders, yet he is naturally of peaceable inclination; which mixture of qualities is agreed, by the experience of all ages, to make the best and most glorious princes. He is a perfect man of business, exactly regular in the economy of his revenues’ (which he never was of those of England, seeing that he outran his liberal allowance, and coolly asked the parliament to pay his debts), ‘reads all despatches himself at first hand, writes most of his own letters, and spends a considerable part of his time about such occupations, in his closet, and with his108 ministers.’ ‘I hope,’ Toland says, ‘that none of our countrymen will be so injudicious as to think his reservedness the effect of sullenness or pride; nor mistake that for state which really proceeds from modesty, caution, and deliberation; for he is very affable to such as accost him, and expects that others should speak to him first, which is the best information I could have from all about him, and I partly know to be true by experience.’... ‘As to what I said of his frugality in laying out the public money, I need not give a more particular proof than that all the expenses of his court, as to eating, drinking, fire, candles, and the like, are duly paid every Saturday night; the officers of his army receive their pay every month, so likewise his envoys in every part of Europe; and all the officers of his household, with the rest that are on the civil list, are cleared off every half-year.’ We are then assured that his administration was equable, mild, and prudent—a triple assertion which his own life and that of his hardly-used wife flatly denied. Toland, however, will have it that there never existed a prince who was so ardently beloved by his subjects. Hanover itself is said to be without division or faction, and all Hanoverians as being in a condition of ecstasy at the Solomon-like rectitude and jurisdiction of his very Serene Highness. He describes Madame Kielmansegge as a woman of sense and wit; and of ‘Mademoiselle Schulemberg,’ he says that she is especially worthy of the rank she enjoys, and that ‘in the opinion of others, as well as mine, she is a lady of extraordinary merit!’ Of Sophia Dorothea, Toland makes no note whatever.

There only remains to be added, that the legation left Hanover loaded with presents. The earl received the portrait of the Electress, with an Electoral crown in diamonds by way of mounting to the frame. George Louis bestowed upon him a gold basin and ewer. Gold109 medals and snuffboxes were showered among the other members. The chaplain, Dr. Sandys, was especially honoured by rich gifts in medals and books. He was the first who ever read the service of our Church in the presence of the Electress. She joined in it with apparent fervour, and admired it generally; but when a hint was conveyed to her that it might be well were she to introduce it in place of the Calvinistic form used in her chapel, as of the Lutheran in that of the Elector, she shook her head, with a smile; said that there was no difference between the three forms, in essentials, and that episcopacy was merely the established form in England. She thought for the present she would ‘let well alone.’ And it was done accordingly!

In the year 1705 the war was raging which France was carrying on for the purpose of extending her limits and influence, and which England and her allies had entered into in order to resist such aggression and restore that terribly oscillating matter—the balance of European power. The Duke of Marlborough had, at the prayer of the Dutch States, left the banks of the Moselle, in order to help Holland, menaced on the side of Liège by a strong French force. Our great duke left General D’Aubach at Trèves to secure the magazines which the English and Dutch had laid up there; but upon the approach of Marshal Villars, D’Aubach destroyed the magazines and abandoned Trèves, of which the French immediately took possession. This put an end to all the schemes which had been laid for attacking France on the side of the Moselle, where her frontiers were but weak, and carried her confederates back to Flanders, where, as the old-fashioned chronicler, Salmon, remarks, ‘they yearly threw away thousands of brave fellows against stone walls.’ Thereupon, Hanover became menaced. On this, Horace Walpole has something in point:

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‘As the genuine wife was always detained in her husband’s power, he seems not to have wholly dissolved their union; for on the approach of the French army towards Hanover, during Queen Anne’s reign, the Duchess of Halle (Ahlden) was sent home to her father and mother, who doted on their only child, and did retain her for a whole year, and did implore, though in vain, that she might continue to reside with them.’ On the return of ‘the genuine wife’ to captivity some of the old restrictions were taken off. There was no prohibition of intercourse with the parents; for the Duke of Zell had resolved on proceeding to visit his daughter, but only deferred his visit until the conclusion of a grand hunt in which he was anxious to take part. He went; and between fatigue, exposure to inclement weather, and neglect on his return, he became seriously ill, rapidly grew worse, died on the 28th of August 1705, and by his death gave the domains of a dukedom to Hanover and deprived his daughter of a newly-acquired friend.

The death of the Duke of Zell was followed by honour to Bernstorf. George Louis appointed him to the post of prime-minister of Hanover, and at the same time made him a count. The death of the father of Sophia Dorothea was, however, followed by consequences more fatal than those just named. The severity of the imprisonment of the princess was much aggravated; and though she was permitted to have an occasional interview with her mother, all application to be allowed to see her two children was sternly refused—and this refusal, as the poor prisoner used to remark, was the bitterest portion of her misery.

It was of her son that George Louis used to say, in later years, ‘Il est fougueux, mais il a du cœur’—hot-headed but not heartless. George Augustus manifested this disposition very early in life. He was on one occasion hunting in the neighbourhood of Luisberg, not111 many miles from the scene of his mother’s imprisonment, when he made a sudden resolution to visit her, regardless of the strict prohibition against such a course laid on him by his father and the Hanoverian government. Laying spurs to his horse, he galloped at full speed from the field, and in the direction of Ahlden. His astonished suite, seeing the direction which he was following at so furious a rate, immediately suspected his design and became legally determined to frustrate it. They left pursuing the stag and took to chasing the prince. The heir-apparent led them far away over field and furrow, to the great detriment of the wind and persons of his pursuers; and he would have distanced the whole body of flying huntsmen, but that his steed was less fleet than those of two officers of the Electoral household, who kept close to the fugitive, and at last came up with him on the skirts of a wood adjacent to Ahlden. With mingled courtesy and firmness they represented to him that he could not be permitted to go further in a direction which was forbidden, as by so doing he would not only be treating the paternal command with contempt, but would be making them accomplices in his crime of disobedience. George Augustus, vexed and chafed, argued the matter with them, appealed to their affections and feelings, and endeavoured to convince them both as men and as ministers, as human beings and as mere official red-tapists, that he was authorised to continue his route to Ahlden by every law, earthly or divine.

The red-tapists, however, acknowledged no law under such circumstances but that of their Electoral lord and master, and that law they would not permit to be broken. Laying hold of the bridle of the prince’s steed, they turned its head homewards and rode away with George Augustus in a state of full discontent and strict arrest.

The Elector, meditating on this sudden development of the domestic affections of his son, resolved to aid such development, not by giving him access to his mother, but by bestowing on him the hand of a consort. Caroline of Anspach was a very accomplished young lady, owing to the careful education which she received at the hands of the best-loved child of Sophia Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg, and the first, but short-lived, Queen of Prussia. If the instructress was able, the pupil was apt. She was quick, enquiring, intelligent, and studious. Her application was great, her perseverance unwearied, and her memory excellent. She learned quickly and retained largely, seldom forgetting anything worth remembrance; and was an equally good judge of books and individuals. Her perception of character has, perhaps, never been surpassed. She had no inclination for trivial subjects, nor affection for trivial people. She had a heart and mind only for philosophers and philosophy;113 but she was not the less a lively girl, or the more a pedant on that account. She delighted in lively conversation, and could admirably lead or direct it. Her knowledge of languages was equal to that of Sophia of Hanover, of whom she was also the equal in wit and in repartee. But therewith she was more tender, more gentle, more generous.

The marriage of George Augustus, Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Hanover, with Caroline, daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Anspach, was solemnised in the year 1705. The wife of George Augustus was of the same age as her husband. She had had the misfortune to lose her father when she was yet extremely young, and had been brought up at the Court of Berlin under the guardianship of Sophia Charlotte, the consort of Frederick of Prussia.

The sister of George Augustus, the only daughter of Sophia Dorothea, and bearing the same baptismal names as her mother, was also married during the captivity of the latter. Three remarkable Englishmen were present at the marriage of the daughter of Sophia Dorothea with the Prince Royal of Prussia. These were Lord Halifax, Sir John Vanbrugh, and Joseph Addison. Queen Anne, who had restored Halifax to a favour from which he had fallen, entrusted him to carry the bill for the naturalisation of the Electoral family and for the better security of the Protestant line of succession, and also the Order of the Garter for the Electoral Prince. On this mission, Addison was the invited companion of the patron whom he so choicely flattered. Vanbrugh was present in his official character of Clarencieux King-at-Arms, and performed the ceremony of investiture. The little Court of Hanover was joyfully splendid on this doubly festive occasion. The nuptials were celebrated with more accompanying gladness than ever followed them. The114 pomp was something uncommon in its way, and the bride must have been wearied of being married long before the stupendous solemnity had at length reached its slowly-arrived-at conclusion. She became Queen of Prussia in 1712.

Honours now fell thick upon the Electoral family, but Sophia Dorothea was not permitted to have any share therein. In 1706, Queen Anne created her son, George Augustus, Baron of Tewkesbury, Viscount Northallerton, Earl of Milford Haven, Marquis and Duke of Cambridge. With these honours it was also decreed that he should enjoy full precedence over the entire peerage.

There was a strong party in England whose most earnest desire it was that the Electress Sophia, in whose person the succession to the crown of Great Britain was settled, should repair to London—not permanently to reside there, but in order that during a brief visit she might receive the homage of the Protestant party. She was, however, reluctant to move from her books, philosophy, and cards, until she could be summoned as Queen. Failing here, an attempt was made to bring over George Louis, who was nothing loth to come; but the idea of a visit from him was to poor Queen Anne the uttermost abomination. Her Majesty had some grounds for her dislike to a visit from her old wooer. She was nervously in terror of a monster popular demonstration. Such a demonstration was publicly talked of; and the enemies of the house of Stuart, by way of instruction and warning to the Queen, whose Jacobite bearing towards her brother was matter of notoriety, had determined, in the event of George Louis visiting England, to give him an escort into London that should amount to the very significant number of some forty or fifty thousand men.

The journal of the lord-keeper, Cowper, states the official answer of the princess to all the invitations which115 had been agitated by the Hanoverian Tories during the year 1704 and the succeeding summer. ‘At the Queen’s Cabinet Council, Sunday, the 11th of November 1705, foreign letters read in her Majesty’s presence, the substance remarkable, that at Hanover was a person, agent to the discontented party here, to invite over the Princess Sophia and the Electoral Prince (afterwards George II.) into England, assuring them that a party here was ready to propose it. That the Princess Sophia had caused the same person to be acquainted, “that she judged the message came from such as were enemies to her family; that she would never hearken to such a proposal but when it came from the Queen of England herself;” and withal she had discouraged the attempt so much that it was believed nothing more could be said in it.’

Sophia, who was naturally reluctant to come to England upon a mere popular or partisan invitation, would gladly have come on the bidding of the Queen. This was never given. In one year the Queen sent a request to the Electress to aid her in promoting the peace of Europe, and a present to her god-daughter Anne, the first child of George Augustus and Caroline of Anspach. Earl Rivers carried both letter and present. The letter was acknowledged with cold courtesy by the Electress, in a communication to the Earl of Strafford, secretary of state. The communication bears date the 11th of November 1711; and, after saying that the gift is infinitely esteemed, the Electress adds—‘I would not, however, give my parchment for it, since that will be an everlasting monument in the archives of Hanover, and the present for the little princess will go, when she is grown up, into another family.’

Early in 1714 Anne addressed a powerful remonstrance to the aged Electress, complaining that ever since the Act of Succession had been settled, there had been a constant agitation, the object of which was to bring over116 a prince of the Hanoverian house to reside in England, even during the writer’s life. She accuses the Electress of having come, though perhaps tardily, into this sentiment, which had its origin in political pretensions, and she adds, that if persevered in, it may end in consequences dangerous to the succession itself, ‘which is not secure any other ways than as the princess who actually wears the crown maintains her authority and prerogative.’

Her Majesty addressed a second letter to George Augustus, as Duke of Cambridge, expressing her thoughts with respect to the design he had of coming into her kingdom. ‘I should tell you,’ she says, ‘nothing can be more dangerous to the tranquillity of my dominions, and the right of succession in your line, and consequently most disagreeable to me.’

The proud Dowager-Electress had declared that ‘she cared not when she died, if on her tomb could be recorded that she was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.’ These words are said to have given great offence to Queen Anne.

There is evidence that the last letters of Anne had something to do with the death of the Electress. They had hardly been received and read, when her health, which had been for some time failing, grew worse. She rallied, however, for a time, and was able to take exercise, but the blow had been given from which she never recovered.

Molyneux, an agent of the Duke of Marlborough at Hanover, says he was on his way to the country palace of the Electress, when he was suddenly informed that she had been seized with mortal illness in one of the garden-walks.

‘I ran up there, and found her fast expiring in the arms of the poor Electoral Princess (Caroline, afterwards Queen of George II.) and amidst the tears of a great many of her servants, who endeavoured in vain to help117 her. I can give you no account of her illness, but that I believe the chagrin of those villainous letters I sent you last post has been in a great measure the cause of it. The Rheingravine who has been with her these fifteen years has told me she never knew anything make so deep an impression on her as the affair of the prince’s journey, which I am sure she had to the last degree at heart, and she has done me the honour to tell me so twenty times. In the midst of this, however, these letters arrived, and these, I verily believe, have broken her heart and brought her with sorrow to the grave. The letters were delivered on Wednesday, at seven.

‘When I came to court she was at cards, but was so full of these letters that she got up and ordered me to follow her into the garden, where she gave them to me to read, and walked, and spoke a great deal in relation to them. I believe she walked three hours that night. The next morning, which was Thursday, I heard that she was out of order, and on going immediately to court, she ordered me to be called into her bed-chamber. She gave me the letters I sent you to copy; she bade me send them next post, and bring them afterwards to her to court. This was on Friday. In the morning, on Friday, they told me she was very well, but seemed much chagrined. She was dressed, and dined with the Elector as usual. At four, she did me the honour to send to town for some other copies of the same letters; and then she was still perfectly well. She walked and talked very heartily in the orangery. After that, about six, she went out to walk in the garden, and was still very well. A shower of rain came, and as she was walking pretty fast to get to shelter, they told her she was walking a little too fast. She answered, “I believe I do,” and dropped down on saying these words, which were her last. They raised her up,118 chafed her with spirits, tried to bleed her; but it was all in vain, and when I came up, she was as dead as if she had been four days so.’2 Such was the end, on the 10th of June 1714, of a very remarkable woman.

During marriage festivals and court fêtes held to celebrate some step in greatness, Sophia Dorothea continued to vegetate in Ahlden. She was politically dead; and even in the domestic occurrences of her family, events in which a mother might be gracefully allowed to have a part, she enjoyed no share. The marriages of her children and the births of their children were not officially communicated to her. She was left to learn them through chance or the courtesy of individuals.

Her daughter was now the second Queen of Prussia, but the King cared not to exercise his influence in behalf of his unfortunate mother-in-law. Not that he was unconcerned with respect to her. His consort was heiress to property over which her mother had control, and Frederick was not tranquil of mind until this property had been secured as the indisputable inheritance of his120 wife. He was earnest enough in his correspondence with Sophia Dorothea until this consummation was arrived at; and when he held the writings which secured the succession of certain portions of the property of the duchess on his consort, he ceased to trouble himself further with any question connected with the unfortunate prisoner; except, indeed, that he forbade his wife to hold any further intercourse with her mother, by letter or otherwise.

Few and trivial are the incidents told of her long captivity. The latter had been embittered, in 1703, by the knowledge that Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg was the mother of another daughter, Margaret Gertrude, of whom the Elector was the father. This child was ten years younger than her sister, Petronilla Melusina, who subsequently figured at the Court of George II. as Countess of Walsingham, and who was the uncared-for wife of Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.

Previous to the prohibition laid on his wife by the King of Prussia, an epistolary intercourse had been privately maintained between Sophia Dorothea and her daughter. Such intercourse had never received the King’s sanction; and when it came to his knowledge, at the period of the settlement of part of the maternal property on the daughter, he peremptorily ordered its cessation. It had been maintained chiefly by means of a Chevalier de Bar; Ludwig, a privy-councillor at Berlin; Frederick, a page of the Queen’s; and a bailiff of the castle of Ahlden. There were too many confederates in a matter so simple, and the whole of them betrayed the poor lady, for whom they professed to act. The most important agent was the chevalier: in him the duchess confided longest, and in his want of faith she was the last to believe. He had introduced himself to her by sending her presents of snuff, no unusual present to a lady in those days—though it is pretended that these121 gifts bore a peculiar signification, known only to the donor and the recipient. They probably had less meaning than the presents forwarded to the prisoner by her daughter, consisting now of her portrait, another time of a watch, or some other trinket, which served to pass a letter with it, in which were filial injunctions to the poor mother to be patient and resigned, and to put no trust in the Count de Bar.

The prisoner did not heed the counsel, but continued to confide in a man who was prodigal of promise, and traitorous of performance. Her hopes were fixed upon escaping, but they were foiled by the watchfulness of noble spies, who exultingly told her that her husband was a king. And it is asserted that she might have been a recognised queen if she would but have confessed that she had failed in obedience towards her husband. It is certain that a renewed, but it may not have been an honest, attempt at reconciliation was made just previous to the accession of George I., but the old reply fell from the prisoner’s lips:—‘If I am guilty, I am not worthy of him: if I am innocent, he is not worthy of me.’

The death of the Electress Sophia, in 1714, was followed very shortly after by the demise of Queen Anne. This event had taken all parties somewhat by surprise. They stood face to face, as it were, over the dying Queen. The Jacobites were longing for her to name her brother as her successor, whom they would have proclaimed at once at the head of the army. The Hanoverian party were feverish with fears and anticipations; but they had the regency dressed up and ready in the back ground, and Secretary Craggs, booted and spurred, was making such haste as could then be made on his road to Hanover, to summon King George. The Jacobite portion of the cabinet was individually bold in resolving what ought to be done, but they were, bodily, afraid of the responsibility122 of doing it. Each man of each faction had his king’s name ready upon his lips, awaiting only that the lethargy of the Queen should be succeeded by irretrievable death to give it joyful utterance. Anne died on the 1st of August 1714; the Jacobites drew a breath of hesitation; and in the meantime the active Whigs instantly proclaimed King George, gave Addison the mission of announcing the demise of one sovereign to another, who was that sovereign’s successor, and left the Jacobites to their vexation and their threatened redress.

Lord Berkley was sent with the fleet to Orange Polder, in Holland, there to bring over the new King; but Craggs had not only taken a very long time to carry his invitation to the monarch, but the husband of Sophia, when he received it, showed no hot haste to take advantage thereof. The Earl of Dorset was despatched over to press his immediate coming, on the ground of the affectionate impatience of his new subjects. The King was no more moved thereby than he was by the first announcement of Lord Clarendon, the English ambassador, at Hanover. On the night of the 5th of August that envoy had received an express, announcing the demise of the Queen. At two o’clock in the morning he hastened with what he supposed the joyful intelligence to Herrnhausen, and caused George Louis to be aroused, that he might be the first to salute him as King. The new monarch yawned, expressed himself vexed, and went to sleep again as calmly as any serene highness. In the morning some one delicately hinted, as if to encourage the husband of Sophia Dorothea in staying where he was, that the presbyterian party in England was a dangerous regicidal party. ‘Not so,’ said George, who seemed to be satisfied that there was no peril in the new greatness; ‘not so; I have nothing to fear from the king-killers; they are all on my side.’ But still he tarried;123 one day decreeing the abolition of the excise, the next ordering, like King Arthur in Fielding’s tragedy, all the insolvent debtors to be released from prison. While thus engaged, London was busy with various pleasant occupations.

On the 3rd of August the late Queen was opened; and on the following day her bowels were buried, with as much ceremony as they deserved, in Westminster Abbey. The day subsequent to this ceremony, the Duke of Marlborough, who had been in voluntary exile abroad, and whose office in command of the imperial armies had been held for a short time, and not discreditably, by George Louis, made a triumphant entry into London. The triumph, however, was marred by the sudden breaking down of his coach at Temple-Bar—an accident ominous of his not again rising to power. The Lords and Commons then sent renewed assurances of loyalty to Hanover, and renewed prayers that the lord there would doff his electoral cap, and come and try his kingly crown. To quicken this, the lower house, on the 10th, voted him the same revenues the late Queen had enjoyed—excepting those arising from the Duchy of Cornwall, which were, by law, invested in the Prince of Wales. On the 13th Craggs arrived in town to herald the King’s coming; and on the 14th the Hanoverian party were delighted to hear that on the Pretender repairing from Lorraine to Versailles, to implore of Louis to acknowledge him publicly as king, the French monarch had pleaded, in bar, his engagements with the House of Hanover, and that thereon the Pretender had returned dispirited to Lorraine. On the 24th of the month the late Queen’s body was privately buried in Westminster Abbey, by order of her successor, who appeared to have a dread of finding the old lady of his young love yet upon the earth. This order was followed by another, which ejected from their124 places many officials who had hoped to retain them—and chief of these was Bolingbroke. London then became excited at hearing that the King had arrived at the Hague on the 5th of September. It was calculated that the nearer he got to his kingdom the more accelerated would be his speed; but George was not to be hurried. Madame Kielmansegge, who shared what was called his regard with Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg, had been retarded in her departure from Hanover by the heaviness of her debts. The daughter of the Countess von Platen would not have been worthy of her mother had she suffered herself to be long detained by such a trifle. She, accordingly, gave her creditors the slip, set off to Holland, and was received with a heavy sort of delight by the King. The exemplary couple tarried above a week at the Hague; and, on the 16th of September George and his retinue set sail for England. Between that day and the day of his arrival at Greenwich, the heads of the Regency were busy in issuing decrees:—now it was for the prohibition of fireworks on the day of his Majesty’s entry; next against the admission of unprivileged carriages into Greenwich Park on the King’s arrival; and, lastly, one promising one hundred thousand pounds to any loyal subject who might be lucky enough to catch the Pretender in England, and who would bring him a prisoner to London.

On the 18th of September the King landed at Greenwich; and on the two following days, while he sojourned there, he was waited on by various officials, who went smiling to the foot of the throne, and came away frowning at the cold treatment they received there. They who thought themselves the most secure endured the most disgraceful falls, especially the Duke of Ormond, who, as captain-general, had been three parts inclined to proclaim the Pretender. He repaired in gorgeous array to do homage to King George; but the King would only receive his staff of office,125 and would not see the ex-bearer of it; who returned home with one dignity the less, and for George one enemy the more.

The public entry into London on the 20th was splendid, and so was the court holden at St. James’s on the following day. A lively incident, however, marked the proceedings of this first court. Colonel Chudleigh, in the crowd, branded Mr. Allworth, M.P. for New Windsor, as a Jacobite; whereupon they both left the palace, went in a coach to Marylebone Fields, and there fought a duel, in which Mr. Allworth was killed on the spot. This was the first libation of blood offered to the King.

No poet affected to deplore the decease of Anne with such profundity of jingling grief as Young. He had not then achieved a name, and he was eagerly desirous to build up a fortune. His threnodia on the death of Queen Anne is a fine piece of measured maudlin; but the author appears to have bethought himself, before he had expended half his stock of sorrows, that there would be more profit in welcoming a living than bewailing a defunct monarch. Accordingly, wiping up his tears, and arraying his face in the blandest of smiles, he addressed himself to the double task of recording the reception of George and registering his merits. He first, however, apologetically states, as his warrant for turning from weeping for Anne to cheering for George, that all the sorrow in the world cannot reverse doom, that groans cannot ‘unlock th’ inexorable tomb’; that a fond indulgence of woe is sad folly, for, from such a course, he exclaims, with a fine eye to a poet’s profit—

So, turning his face from the tomb of Anne to the throne of George, he grandiosely waves his hat, and thus he sings:—

126

This sneer at the Pretender is as contemptible as the flattery of George is gross; and the picture of an entire nation on its knees, blessing Olympus, and bidding the gods to restrain all further gifts, is as magnificent a mixture of bombast and blasphemy as ever was made up by venal poet. But here is more of it:—

Such is the record of a rhymer: Walpole, in plain and truthful prose, tells a very different story. He informs us that the London mob were highly diverted at the importation by the King of his uncommon seraglio of ugly women. ‘They were food,’ he says, ‘for all the venom of the Jacobites,’ and so far from Britain thanking him for coming himself, or for bringing with him these numerous tokens of his princely grace, ‘nothing could be grosser127 than the ribaldry vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court, and chanted even in their hearing about the public streets.’ Mademoiselle von Schulemberg (sic) was created Duchess of Kendal. ‘The younger Mademoiselle von Schulemberg, who came over with her, and was created Countess of Walsingham, passed for her niece, but was so like the King, that it is not very credible that the duchess, who had affected to pass for cruel, had waited for the left-handed marriage.’ Lady Walsingham, as previously said, was afterwards married to the celebrated Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.

To the Duchess of Kendal—George (who was so shocked at the infidelity of which his wife was alleged to be guilty) was to the mistress as inconstant as to the wife he had been untrue. He set aside the former, to put in her place Madame Kielmansegge, called, like her mother, Countess von Platen. On the death of her husband, in 1721, he raised her to the rank of Countess of Leinster in Ireland, Countess of Darlington and Baroness of Brentford in England. Coxe says of her, that her power over the King was not equal to that of the Duchess of Kendal, but her character for rapacity was not inferior. Horace Walpole has graphically portrayed Lady Darlington in the following passage:—

‘Lady Darlington, whom I saw at my mother’s in my infancy, and whom I remember by being terrified at her enormous figure, was as corpulent and ample as the duchess was long and emaciated. The fierce black eyes, large, and rolling beneath two lofty arched eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed, and was not distinguished from, the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays—no wonder that a child dreaded such an ogress.’

The mob had a strong Tory leaven at this time, and128 among the multitude circulated a mass of broadsides and ballads, of so openly a seditious character that the power of the law was stringently applied to suppress the evil. Before the year was out half the provincial towns in England were infected with seditious sentiments against the Whig government, which had brought in a King whose way of life was a scandal to them. This feeling of contempt for both King and government was wide as well as deep; and it was so craftily made use of by the leaders of public opinion, that, before George had been three months upon the throne, the ‘High-church rabble,’ as the Tory party was called, in various country towns were violent in their proceedings against the government; and at Axminster, in Devonshire, shouted for the Pretender, and drank his health as King of England. The conduct of George to his wife, Sophia Dorothea, was as satirically dealt with, in the way of censure, as any of his delinquencies, and his character as a husband was not forgotten in the yearly tumults of his time, which broke out on every recurring anniversary of Queen Anne’s birthday (April the 23rd) to the end of his reign.

If the new King was dissatisfied with his new subjects, he liked as little the manners of England. ‘This is a strange country,’ said his Majesty; ‘the first morning after my arrival at St. James’s, I looked out of the window, and saw a park, with walks, a canal, and so forth, which they told me were mine. The next day, Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my canal, and I was told that I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd’s servant, for bringing me my own carp, out of my own canal, in my own park!’

The monarch’s mistresses loved as much to receive money as the King himself loved little to part from it. The Duchess of Kendal’s rapacity has been mentioned:129 one instance of it is mentioned by Coxe, on the authority of Sir Robert Walpole, to the effect that ‘the restoration of Lord Bolingbroke was the work of the Duchess of Kendal. He gained the duchess by a present of eleven thousand pounds, and obtained a promise to use her influence over the King for the purpose of forwarding his complete restoration.’ Horace Walpole states that the duchess was no friend of Sir Robert, and wished to make Lord Bolingbroke minister in his room. The rapacious mistress was jealous of Sir Robert’s credit with the monarch. Monarch and minister transacted business through the medium of indifferent Latin; the King not being able to speak English, and Sir Robert, like a country gentleman of England, knowing nothing of either German or French. ‘It was much talked of,’ says the lively writer of the ‘Reminiscences of the Courts of the first two Georges,’ ‘that Sir Robert, detecting one of the Hanoverian ministers in some trick or falsehood before the King’s face, had the firmness to say to the German, “Mentiris impudentissime!” The good-humoured monarch only laughed, as he often did when Sir Robert complained to him of his Hanoverians selling places, nor would be persuaded that it was not the practice of the English court.’ The singularity of this complaint is, that it was made by a minister who was notorious for complacently saying, that ‘Every man in the House of Commons had his price.’

While Sophia Dorothea continued to linger in her prison, her husband and son, with the mistresses of the former and the wife of the latter, were enjoying the advantages and anxieties which surround a throne. The wife of the Prince of Wales, Caroline, arrived at Margate on the 13th of October. She was accompanied by her two eldest daughters, Anne and Amelia. Mother and children rested during one day in the town where they had landed, slept one night at Rochester, and arrived at St. James’s on the 15th. The royal coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on the 20th of the same month. Amid the pomp of the occasion, no one appears to have thought of her who should have been Queen-consort. There was much splendour and some calamity, for as the procession was sweeping by, several people were killed by the fall of scaffolding in the Palace Yard. The new King entered131 the Abbey amid the cheers and screams of an excited multitude.

Three days after, the monarch, with the Prince and Princess of Wales, dined with the Lord Mayor and corporation in the Guildhall, London, and there George performed the first grateful service to his people, by placing a thousand guineas in the hands of the sheriffs, for the relief of the wretched debtors then immured in the neighbouring horrible prisons of Newgate and the Fleet.

Within a month, the general festivities were a little marred by the proclamation of the Pretender, dated from Lorraine, wherein he laid claim to the throne which George was declared to have usurped. At this period the Duke of Lorraine was a sovereign prince, maintaining an envoy at our court; but the latter was ordered to withdraw from the country immediately after the arrival of the ‘Lorraine proclamation’ by the French mail. Already George I. began to feel that on the throne he was destined to enjoy less quiet than his consort in her prison.

The counter-proclamations made in this country, chiefly on account of the Jacobite riots at Oxford and some other places, were made up of nonsense and malignity, and were well calculated to make a good cause wear the semblance of a bad one. They decreed, or announced, thanksgiving on the 20th of January, for the accession of the House of Hanover; and, to show what a portion of the people had to be thankful for, they ordered a rigorous execution of the laws against papists, non-jurors, and dissenters generally, who were assumed to be, as a matter of course, disaffected to the reigning house.

After some of the first troubles of his reign had been got over, the King visited Hanover, where he invested his brother, the Duke of York, and Prince Frederick with the Order of the Garter. He even partook of the pleasures of132 the chase in the woods around Ahlden; but except ordering a more stringent rule for the safe-keeping of his consort, he took no further notice of Sophia Dorothea. He returned to London on the 18th of January 1716–17, and on that day week, hearing that the episcopal clergy of Scotland continued to refuse to pray for him, he issued a decree, which compelled many to fly the country or otherwise abscond. The English clergy experienced even harsher treatment for less offence. I may mention, as an instance, the case of the Rev. Laurence Howell, who, for writing a pamphlet called ‘The State of Schism in the Church of England truly stated,’ was stripped of his gown by the executioner, fined 500l., imprisoned three years, and was sentenced to be twice publicly whipped by the hangman!

On the first absence of the King from England, the Prince of Wales was appointed regent, but he was never entrusted with that high office a second time. ‘It is probable,’ says Walpole, ‘that the son discovered too much fondness for acting the king, as that the father conceived a jealousy of his having done so. Sure it is, that on the King’s return, great divisions arose in the court, and the Whigs were divided—some devoting themselves to the wearer of the crown and others to the expectant.’ So that, in the second year of his reign, the King not only held his wife in prison, but his son and heir was banished from his presence.

Passing over the record of public events, the next interesting fact connected with the private life of the faithless husband of Sophia Dorothea was the marriage of his illegitimate daughter Charlotte with Lord Viscount Howe. The bride’s mother was Charlotte Sophia, daughter of the Countess von Platen; and Charlotte Sophia was decently married to Baron Kielmansegge, Master of the Horse to George I. In 1719, at the time of the above marriage, the baroness was a widow. George I. himself133 gave away the bride as the baroness’s niece. ‘The King,’ says Walpole, ‘was indisputably her father; and the first child born of this union was named George, after the King.’ The Princess Amelia, daughter of George II., ‘treated Lady Howe’s daughter, “Mistress Howe,” as a princess of the blood-royal, and presented her with a ring, containing a small portrait of George I., with a crown in diamonds.’ The best result of this marriage was, that the famous Admiral Howe was one of the sons born of it, and that was the only benefit which the country derived from the vicious conduct of George I. If the marriage of the child of one mistress tended to mortify the vanity of another, as is said to have been the case with Von der Schulenburg, King George found a way to pacify her. That lady was already Duchess of Munster, in Ireland, and the King, in April 1719, created her a baroness, countess, and duchess of Great Britain, by the name, style, and title of Baroness of Glastonbury, Countess of Feversham, and Duchess of Kendal; and this done, the King soon after embarked at Gravesend for Hanover.

The year 1720 saw King George more upon the Continent than at home, where indeed universal misery reigned, in consequence of the bursting of the great South Sea Bubble, which had promised such golden solidity—which ended in such disappointment and ruin, and for furthering which the Duchess of Kendal and her daughter received bribes of 10,000l. each. In April of the following year, William Augustus was born at Leicester House. The daughter of Sophia Dorothea was his godmother; her husband and the Duke of York were the godfathers. This son of George Augustus and Caroline of Anspach, Prince and Princess of Wales, was afterwards famous as the Duke of Cumberland.

On the 17th of January 1721, the royal family went into mourning, and this was the only domestic incident of the134 reign in which Sophia Dorothea was allowed to participate. With her, the mourning was not a mere formality; it was not assumed, but was a testimony offered, in sign of her sorrow, for the death of her mother, Eleanora, Duchess of Zell. The Duchess had seen little of her daughter for some time previous to her death, but she bequeathed to her as much of her private property as she had power to dispose of by will.

Sophia Dorothea had now a considerable amount of funds placed to her credit in the bank of Amsterdam. Of the incidents of her captivity nothing whatever is known, save that it was most rigidly maintained. She was forgotten by the world, because unseen, and they who kept her in prison were as silent about her as the keepers of the Man in the Iron Mask were about that mysterious object of their solicitude. Where little is known there is little to be told. The captive bore her restraint with a patience which even her daughter must have admired; but she was not without hopes of escaping from a thraldom from which it was clear she could never be released by the voluntary act of those who kept her in an undeserved custody. It is believed that her funds at Amsterdam were intended by her to be disposed of in the purchase of aid to secure her escape; but it is added that her agents betrayed her, embezzled her property, and by revealing for what purpose they were her agents, brought upon her a closer arrest than any under which she had hitherto suffered. Romance has made some additions to these items of intelligence—items, great portions of which rest only on conjecture. The undoubted fact that much of the property which she inherited was to pass to her children rendered the death of a mother a consummation to be desired by (it was said) so indifferent a son and daughter as the Prince of Wales and the Queen of Prussia. The interest held by her husband was of a similar description, and the fatal consequences135 that might follow were not unprovided for by the friends of the prisoner. ‘It is known,’ says Walpole, ‘that in Queen Anne’s time there was much noise about French prophets. A female of that vocation (for we know from Scripture that the gift of prophecy is not limited to one gender) warned George I. to take care of his wife, as he would not survive her a year. That oracle was probably dictated to the French Deborah by the Duke and Duchess of Zell, who might be apprehensive that the Duchess of Kendal might be tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious union with their son-in-law. Most Germans are superstitious, even such as have few other impressions of religion. George gave such credit to the denunciation, that, on the eve of his last departure, he took leave of his son and the Princess of Wales with tears, telling them he should never see them more. It was certainly his own approaching end that melted him, not the thought of quitting for ever two persons that he hated.’

The poor princess, ‘Queen of Great Britain,’ as those who loved her were wont to call her, had been long in declining health, born of declining hopes; and yet she endured all things with patience, contenting herself in her last moments with reasserting her innocence, commending herself to God, naming her children, and pardoning her oppressors. On the 2nd of November 1726, after much hope, not only deferred but crushed out; after much disappointment of expectations, built on the promises of false friends; and after marked but gradual decrease of health, Sophia Dorothea became suddenly and dangerously ill. She lost all consciousness, and on the 13th of the month she lay dead on her bed in the castle of Ahlden.

The news soon reached Hanover, where the authorities, with a feeling of becomingness, ordered a general mourning as for the death of a queen in the land. As136 soon as this decent step was known in England, the King was vulgar in his wrath. He sent peremptory orders to Hanover to do away immediately with all signs of mourning, and the officials, if not the public, went into ordinary, or holiday, gear.

At the Court of Berlin, the daughter of Sophia Dorothea, the King, and consequently all the Prussian fashionable world, assumed the deepest mourning, as for a Queen of England so nearly allied to the Queen of Prussia. The King of Great Britain took this natural circumstance for an insult; but he was obliged to bear, albeit with blaspheming impatience, what he could not resent. The simple royal order for the funeral was that the Duchess of Ahlden should be buried in a grave dug for her on the banks of the Aller. The soil was dug into, over and over again, but the water rushed in and mocked the attempts of the workmen. Meanwhile, the body of Sophia Dorothea lay in a plain leaden coffin in the castle and no one knew what to do with it, for fear of offending the King. After several weeks had passed, a few strong men carried it down to a cellar, and, covering it over with a cart-load or two of sand, left it till further gracious orders should arrive from over the water.

At the end of six months there was a stir in the royal stud stables at Zell. Four of the King’s horses were taken thence and were ridden over to Ahlden. The chief of the men in charge there showed the royal order by which he was commissioned to take up the body from beneath the heap of sand and carry it back to Zell. And this was to be done without any ceremony whatever.

Accordingly, at midnight the coffin was dragged from under the sand, hoisted into a suitable vehicle, and it was unceremoniously jolted over the rough roads till it reached the chief church in the old ducal city of Zell.137 The necessary workpeople were ready. They carried the plain leaden coffin down to the vault below, and without any circumstance of prayer or outward respect, they cast it into a corner; and there it still lies, without even a name on the rough lead to indicate whose sad burthen of life is deposited within.

Her royal husband in England simply notified in the London Gazette that a Duchess of Ahlden had died at her residence on the date above named; but he did not add that he had thereby lost a wife, or his children lost a mother. No intimation was given of the relationship she held towards him or them. The quality of his affection was illustrated by his explosion of rage when he heard that his daughter, with the Court of Prussia, had gone into mourning for the death of her mother. The husband of Sophia Dorothea became of gayer humour than usual after her death. After receiving intelligence of that event, the royal widower went to see the Italian comedians in the Haymarket act ‘Il Mercante Prodigo,’ or ‘Harlequin Prodigal Merchant.’ He liked this sort of entertainment so well, that, a few nights later, he commanded the performance of ‘Pantalone, Barone di Sloffenburgo,’ at the King’s Theatre. On Christmas Eve, the newspapers recorded the fact that Prince Waldeck (who had come over with despatches in November) had taken leave of his Majesty and had returned to Hanover. Therewith seemed to have come the end of a long, and dark, and mournful history.

In the list of the persons of note and distinction in Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Foreign Princes who died in the year 1726—published in the Daily Post in January 1727, no record was made of the demise of Sophia Dorothea. On the other hand, there is an entry of a bereavement by which her husband, the King, had138 been afflicted, in the same mouth of November, namely, in the death of ‘Mr. Mahomet, valet de chambre to his Majesty.’

A story was current that Sophia Dorothea, on her death-bed, had summoned her husband, the King, to meet her at the great judgment seat of Heaven within a year. This summons was conveyed in a letter addressed by her to him, but it was not delivered to the King till after he had, in nervous restlessness, set out for Hanover.

On the night of the 2nd of June 1727, little Horace Walpole, then ten years old, was conducted by the King’s illegitimate daughter, Petronilla Melusina (Lady Walsingham) to the King himself, to kiss the royal hand as his Majesty passed on his way to sup (for the last time, as it proved) with Petronilla’s mother (the former von der Schulenburg, now Duchess of Kendal) the King’s old mistress. This presentation had been accorded to the prayer of the first minister’s wife, Horace Walpole’s mother.

On the following day, the 3rd of June, the King left England. On the night of that day week he died at Osnaburgh, aged sixty-seven years and thirteen days. The King had landed at Vaer, in Holland, on the 7th, and he travelled thence to Utrecht, by land, escorted by the Guards to the frontiers of Holland. On Friday, the 9th, he reached Dalden, at twelve at night, when he was apparently in excellent health. He partook of supper largely, and with appetite, eating, among other things, part of a melon, a fruit which has killed more than one emperor of Germany. At three the next morning he resumed his journey. According to the story to which allusion has just been made, the letter of Sophia Dorothea was then given to him. He read it, appeared shocked, and became ill. He was probably moved by something more than mere sentiment, for he had not travelled two hours when he was attacked by violent abdominal pains. He hurried139 on to Linden, where dinner awaited him; but, being able to eat nothing, he was immediately bled, and other remedies made use of. Anxious to reach Hanover, he ordered the journey to be continued with all speed. He fell into a lethargic doze in the carriage, and so continued, leaning on a gentleman in waiting who was with him in the carriage. To this attendant he feebly announced in French, ‘I am a dead man.’ He reached the episcopal palace at Osnaburgh at ten that night; was again bled in the arm and foot, but ineffectually; his lethargy increased, and he died about midnight.

The King’s mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, who had gone thither to meet him, tore her hair, beat her breast, and uttered loud cries of despair at this bereavement. She repaired to Brunswick and shut herself up, for three months, as the most afflicted of widows. Subsequently, she returned to her house near Isleworth. A raven was the last pet of this lady; and the familiarity of the two gave rise to the popular legend that George had promised to visit his old mistress, after death, if such circumstance were allowed, and that he was keeping his word in the shape of the much caressed bird in sables.

Even in her estrangement from her husband, Sophia Dorothea never uttered a word of complaint against him. She never failed to exhibit either mildness or dignity in her captivity: on the contrary, she manifested both; and Coxe says of her, in his ‘Memoirs of Walpole,’ that, ‘on receiving the sacrament once every week, she never omitted making the most solemn asseverations that she was not guilty of the crime laid to her charge.’ Her son (George II.) had a double fault in his father’s eyes, namely, his popularity, and, at one time, his love for his mother—whom he loved, we are told, as much as he hated his father. A pleasant household, a sorry hearth; mistresses resting their rouged cheeks on the monarch’s140 bosom, a wife in prison, and a son hating her oppressor, and loving, but not redressing, the oppressed. Had Sophia Dorothea survived her consort, her son, it is said, had determined to bring her over to England and proclaim her Queen-dowager. Lady Suffolk, the snubbed mistress of that son, expressed to Horace Walpole her surprise on going (in the morning after the intelligence of the death of George I. had reached England) to the new Queen, ‘at seeing, hung up in the Queen’s dressing-room, a whole-length of a lady in royal robes; and, in the bed-chamber, a half-length of the same person, neither of which Lady Suffolk had ever seen before. The prince had kept them concealed, not daring to produce them during the life of his father. The whole-length he probably sent to Hanover. The half-length I have frequently seen in the library of the Princess Amelia, who told me it was the property of her grandmother. She bequeathed it, with other pictures of her family, to her nephew, the Landgrave of Hesse.’

If George II. never in his later days named his mother, it was because the enemies of the dynasty pretended to trace in the features of the second George a likeness to Count Königsmark, his mother’s gallant cavalier! The Whigs had denied the legitimacy of the son of James II., and the Tories embraced with eagerness an opportunity to deny that of the heir of Brunswick.

The son of Sophia Dorothea was the pupil of his grandmother, Sophia of Hanover; and his boyhood did little credit to the system, or the acknowledged good sense of his instructress.

When the Earl of Macclesfield was at Hanover, in the year 1700, bearing with him that Act of Succession which secured a throne for the husband and son of Sophia Dorothea, that son, George Augustus, was not yet out of his ‘teens.’ He was of that age at which a prince is141 considered wise enough to rule kingdoms, but is yet incapable of governing himself. At that time he was said to ‘give the greatest hopes of himself that we, or any people on earth, could desire.’ He was not of proud stature, indeed—and Alexander was not six feet high; but Toland asserts, what is very hard to believe, that George possessed a winning countenance, and a manly aspect and deportment. In later years, he was rigid of feature, and walked as a man does who is stiff in the joints. He was, in the days of his youth, a graceful and easy speaker; that is, his phrases were well constructed, and he expressed them with facility. His complexion was fair, and his hair a light brown. Like his father, he spoke Latin fluently; and English much better than his father, but with a decided foreign accent, like William of Orange. As the utmost care was taken, according to Toland, to furnish him with such other accomplishments as are fit for a gentleman and a prince, it is a pity that he made so unprofitable a use of so desirable a provision. He was tolerably well-versed in history, but history to him was not philosophy teaching by example; for though, in his earlier years, panegyrists said of him, not only that his inclinations were virtuous, but that he was ‘wholly free from all vice,’ his life, subsequently, could not be so characterised, and the later practice marred the fair precedent. But let Toland limn the object of his love.

‘These acquired parts,’ he says, ‘with a generous disposition and a virtuous inclination, will deservedly render him the darling of our people, and probably grace the English throne with a most knowing prince.’ In the popular sense of the term, the last words cannot be denied; and yet he never knew how to obtain, or cared how to merit, his people’s love. ‘He learns English with inexpressible facility, and has not only learned of his grandmother to have a real esteem for Englishmen, but142 he likewise entertains a high notion of the wisdom, goodness, and power of the English government, concerning which I heard him, to my great satisfaction, ask several pertinent questions, and such as betokened no mean or common observation. I was surprised to find he understood so much of our affairs already; but his great vivacity will not let him be ignorant of anything. There is nothing more to be wished,’ says Toland, ‘but that he be proof against the temptations which accompany greatness, and defended from the poisonous infection of flatterers, who are the greatest bane of society, and commonly occasion the ruin of princes, if not in their lives, yet, at least, in their fame and reputation.’ It was under the temptations alluded to that George Augustus made shipwreck of his fame. His history, however, will be traced more fully hereafter. At present we will only consider the career and character of his sister.

The daughter of Sophia Dorothea, some years younger than her brother, was a promising girl when the Act of Succession opened a throne to her father, but not to her mother. She had in her youth sweetness of manners, fairness of features, and a soft and winning voice. Her fair brown hair, as in her mother’s case, heightened the grace and charms of a fair complexion; and her blue eyes were the admiration of the poets, and the inspiration even of those whom the gods had not made poetical. Her features, taken singly, were not without defect; but the expression which pervaded them was a good substitute for purely unintellectual beauty. The Electress Sophia was, if not her governess, the superintendent of her governesses; and the training, rigid and formal, failed in the development that was most to be desired. ‘In minding her discourse to others,’ says Toland, ‘and by what she was pleased to say to myself, she appears to have a more than ordinary share of good sense and wit. The whole143 town and court commend the easiness of her manners, and the evenness of her disposition; but, above all her other qualities, they highly extol her good humour, which is the most valuable endowment of either sex, and the foundation of most other virtues. Upon the whole, considering her personal merit and the dignity of her family, I heartily wish and hope to see her some day Queen of Sweden.’ This hearty wish was not to be realised. The younger Sophia Dorothea became the wife of a brute and the mother of a hero. The old paternal Seigneurie of ‘D’Olbreuse, dans le pays D’Aulnis,’ was raised to the dignity of a Countship in 1729. It became the property of Sophia Dorothea’s children, George II., King of England, and Sophia, Queen of Prussia. They, with some propriety—but probably under constraint of the law of France—made it over to the nearest French relative of Eleanora D’Olbreuse, Sophia Dorothea’s mother—Alexandre Prevost de Gayemont.

This would seem to be the end of a sad history. But the persecution of Sophia Dorothea did not terminate with her life.

A hundred and seven years after Sophia Dorothea had ended that unhappy life, her unhappy story was revived, and her memory was now made to suffer under calumny that had not been thought of in her life-time.

In the year 1833 a Swede, named Propst Wisselgren, contributed to No. 33 of the ‘Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes’ the copy of an alleged love-letter, the original of which existed, it was said, in Sophia Dorothea’s hand-writing, in the archives of the Count de la Gardie.

In the year 1836 Cramer, in his ‘Denkwürdigkeiten der Gräfin Maria Aurora von Königsmark,’ referred to this letter, and expressed his disbelief in its genuineness and authenticity.

Until 1847 the memory of Sophia Dorothea was left144 unassailed by any further attempt against it. In that year, however, further alleged autograph letters, not only of hers, but also others said to be written by Königsmark, appeared in the ‘Literarische Blätter für Unterhaltung.’ They were preceded by an introduction and explanations by the Swedish writer Palmblad, who had selected them, it was stated, from more than a hundred which were then in the possession of Count Stephen de la Gardie, of Löberod, in Schonen.

How did these alleged autograph letters find their way into Sweden?

They had previously been kept, we are gravely told, in a drawer in Oefiwedskloster, by the widowed Countess Amelia Ramel (a Löwenhaupt by birth), at whose death, in 1810, they came into the possession of her son, a Count de la Gardie. Löberod was acquired by a Count Jacob Gustus de la Gardie in 1817.

But how did the Lady Amelia Ramel become the holder of these extraordinary documents?

The answer is: As the descendant of General Karl von Löwenhaupt, who had married Amelia, one of the two sisters of Königsmark. This lady is stated to have made over this mass of letters to her children, with this observation: Here are the letters captured again (wiedererobert) at great peril, which cost a brother his life and a king’s mother her freedom.

Captured, seized, recovered at great peril! When? where? by whom? from whom?

No reply; not the smallest particle of evidence is given on these important points. If they were obtained under circumstances of great danger, it must have been from some one who considered them of great importance, but who must have allowed himself to be plundered of them with great indifference. No one ever heard of the145 robbery or capture, nor of the means by which it was effected.

In 1838 one letter saw the light. In 1847 several were published in Germany and Sweden. To all enquiry, no other answer has been made than that the letters had existed since 1810 in the keeping of the persons above named; that they had come down from Amelia Königsmark, who had wedded with a Löwenhaupt; that they were genuine letters, and that they conclusively proved the guilt of Sophia Dorothea and Count Königsmark.

Sophia Dorothea, it must be remembered, never had the guilt implied laid to her charge. The name of Königsmark was never once uttered at her trial—if it may so be called. She was punished for alleged disobedience to, and desertion of, her husband. She retained so much of the character of a wife that she was not allowed to marry again. She remained till her death the wife of a King of England, with whom she would hold no association. Her husband kept her for more than thirty years a state prisoner. How could this cruelty be better justified than by blasting her character and memory for ever—long after all parties were far beyond questioning? How could this dire penalty be inflicted, after death, more easily than by preparing a correspondence between the two personages, which might be kept in a cloister drawer till it could be produced to serve its infamous purpose?

The persons who held these papers in later years may have conscientiously believed in their genuineness. Of the contemporaries of Sophia Dorothea, the Countess von Platen and even Bernstorf are said to have been able to imitate the handwriting of Sophia Dorothea. We do not insinuate that they were willing to forge these letters. But some one probably did so. Königsmark’s letters may indeed be genuine; but it does not follow that they146 were addressed to the wife of him who was afterwards George I. Without name, date, or address, they might serve to calumniate any other lady of Sophia Dorothea’s time.

Of the letters themselves, Palmblad, who inspected the precious collection, states in his ‘Aurora Königsmark,’ or rather in an appendix to the first part of that historical romance, that they consist of several hundreds, of which two-thirds are by Königsmark, the other third by Sophia Dorothea, and that in print they would fill a stout volume.

Those of the princess are in an elegant, somewhat flowing hand, and, with rare exception, correct in expression. They are on fine, gilt-edged paper. Königsmark’s letters are, we are told, on coarse, thick paper, which hardly agreed with his fine gentlemanly style in everything. They are legibly written, but the spelling is that of an ignorant school-boy.

In some portions, cyphers, numbers, or disguised names were used, the interpretation of which was easily got at, as would be the case if the letters were forged and were intended to be easily understood a century after the events had happened to which they referred.

Very few of the letters—none of importance—have any address on them. They have strayed from their envelopes, says Palmblad; but envelopes were not then in use. Letters were folded and the address written on the blank outside folding. Some few, according to Palmblad, have external directions and are sealed with Königsmark’s private seal—a heart within the motto, ‘Cosi fosse il vostro dentre il mio’ (so may be yours within mine!). The post-mark is on some. One of them is directed, ‘Pour la personne connue.’ Palmblad suggests that it was originally enclosed within one ‘to the Confidant.’ Several are addressed to ‘Mademoiselle La147 Frole de Knesebeck.’ The latter name is occasionally spelt ‘Qnesbegk.’ A nearly complete (and very convenient) absence of dates defies all attempts to place this correspondence in anything like chronological order. Conjecturally, the experts suggest that the dates extend from 1688 to 1693, inclusive—six years.

When it is remembered that the princess and Königsmark were closely watched, in order, if possible, to make a case out against them, and that the two friends knew they were surrounded by spies, the idea of their sending letters through the post, and of such letters being preserved instead of destroyed, seems folly too absurd for serious belief.

‘The contents of these letters,’ Palmblad informs us, ‘consist, for the most part, of mutual assurances of love and everlasting fidelity; of complaints over separation and of the constraint put on them by the secret relations existing between them; of plans for privately meeting, or expressed hopes of a coming uninterrupted life together; of accounts of their occupations, pleasures, and their conversational intercourse with others; mixed up with jealous reproaches, and subsequent apologies for making them. When both pass an evening at court festivals, where the princess is unable to bestow a tender glance or a stolen word on her beloved, or has spoken or walked with another cavalier, then Königsmark addresses to her an epistle full of complaints at her coquetry, and her ‘airs connus.’ With the same mistrust does the princess notice every step of her (supposed) adorer. Nevertheless, no two persons so tenderly loved one another as Königsmark his Leonisse—the fond pseudonym of the princess.’

As far as the above description goes, any fairly practised hand might have invented the whole series of letters.

Even Professor Palmblad does not venture to guess when the correspondence began. His assertion that148 Königsmark was at Hanover, in the military service of that state, in 1685, is disproved by the painstaking author of ‘Die Herzogin von Ahlden,’ who finds Königsmark settled there not till 1688. Palmblad, with his earlier date, points laughingly to the birth of Sophia Dorothea’s daughter, in 1687; and asks if the Prussian royal family, into which that daughter married, has in its veins the blood of Guelph or of Königsmark. In like easy manner, regardless of chronology, the Jacobites in England used to speak of the son of George I. as ‘Young Königsmark!’

When Königsmark was absent campaigning, the princess, says Palmblad, sent him her portrait, and he returned a gift of his own portrait, painted expressly for her in Brussels. Whereupon, Palmblad says, ‘the princess forwarded to him her diary.’ This has not yet been found or forged, but Palmblad has no doubt as to the nature of its contents. The whole story is founded on letters which the least scrupulous of autograph dealers would hesitate to warrant.

What follows is to be read with the remembrance that the plotters against Sophia Dorothea never lost sight of her or of the count. They could not make a step without being observed by spies, employed by principals who wished to destroy both the princess and Königsmark. Through the very eye-holes of the tapestried figures in the palace human eyes peered, in search of evidence to work the ruin of those two friends. Not finding it, Königsmark was secretly murdered, and Sophia Dorothea shut up for the remainder of her life, on no other charge than that of deserting her husband’s society and refusing to return to it.

This is Palmblad’s story: ‘During Königsmark’s presence at court, he was generally admitted to the princess by her confidant, after midnight, and he sometimes remained four-and-twenty hours with her. He had149 previously declared himself indisposed and under medical regimen as an excuse for appearing to keep within doors. Aye,’ adds Palmblad, bolder grown, ‘the princess herself glided secretly at night into Königsmark’s quarters’ (which were at some distance from the palace). ‘She speaks in the most fervid expressions of her love, her ‘ardeur,’ and declares herself ready to sacrifice for him her reputation, and to accompany him to the remotest corner of the world! Königsmark hesitates; his fortune is not secure, his position uncertain, and he must first seek glory and riches in war: but her prayers detain him in Hanover.’

These two persons could have said this and more to one another in complete or comparative safety. To write such things down, and to preserve what was written, was madness, fatal to life and honour if discovered. But if these, and much worse, were not written down by some one, how could Sophia Dorothea be made infamous for ever in the eyes of posterity?

One can only judge of the bushel by the sample; and of the whole correspondence, which is now in the library of the University of Lund, by the fragmentary extracts which have been made public. If two persons, knowing they were watched, and their letters detained, could write such fiercely ardent assurances of mutual love, express such utter contempt for the consequences of discovery, and explain to one another how they were tracked and betrayed, they must have been hopelessly insane. An enemy would bend invention to such course as the one best calculated to destroy those against whom it was directed. But there is one point which seems conclusive against the genuineness of this correspondence. There are passages in the alleged letters of Königsmark to the princess which no man, however devoid of every manly quality, would write to a woman whom he loved—would write to any woman at all. These passages150 not even the most utterly and irretrievably abandoned of women would be able to read without sense of insult and outrage even to such soiled and shattered womanhood as hers. A man writing such things, supposing they were intelligible to the person addressed, would in that person’s eyes be loathsome and execrable for ever.

Of course it is a horrible thought that any one could be sufficiently wicked and cruel to forge letters with the idea of slaying reputations by the forgery. But this wickedness and this cruelty were not uncommon. Scores upon scores of letters have been forged in France alone in order to destroy the reputation of Sir Isaac Newton. As a mere matter of profitable business, the manufactory of forged letters, simply for the market, is in the greatest possible activity. A letter by any one, written at any time, eagerly demanded, is sure to be supplied after a while. Letters, with other purpose in view than mere profit—intended to turn up in long after years, in order to fasten a calumny on some victim—are also not uncommon. One instance may be cited in the case of the multitudinous forged letters of Shelley. The late Mr. Moxon published a volume of Shelley letters; and soon after he withdrew the volume, on discovery that every one of these letters was a forgery. Stray letters of Shelley, however, continued to come into the market. Letters to his wife of the most confidential nature, containing vile aspersions against his father, were bought as genuine by Sir Percy Shelley, the poet’s son. These, too, were discovered to be forgeries and were destroyed. One of these precious epistles, addressed to Byron, and bearing Shelley’s signature, contained an assertion against the fidelity of ‘Harriet.’ Whoever bought it paid six guineas for a calumny against a dead and defenceless woman, to which was appended the forged signature of her dead and defenceless husband. Till something more151 is known of the history of the alleged correspondence between Sophia Dorothea and Königsmark—of which correspondence nothing was known to the world till more than a century after her death—let us put against it her own assertions of her innocence. It is only a woman’s word; but it was asserted on solemn occasions, and it may surely be accepted against the letters which were not put forth till long after she, too, was dead and defenceless, who, when living, was not charged with the guilt which this mysterious correspondence would cast heavily upon her.

Sophia Dorothea, from the time her husband ascended the throne of Great Britain, was, in a sort of loving sorrow, called by the few left to love her—the Queen. She was indeed an uncrowned Queen of England. As little really of a queen as Caroline of Brunswick in after years. But her true place, nevertheless, is among them. Her blood—the blood of the French Protestant, Seigneur D’Olbreuse—has doubly asserted itself. Through the son of Sophia Dorothea and his descendants, it flows in the veins of that honoured lady, the Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. Through the daughter of Sophia Dorothea, it is inherited by the Emperor of Germany; and the inheritance was enriched and strengthened when the Princess Royal of England became the wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, the heir of the German Empire.

CHAPTER I.
BEFORE THE ACCESSION.

Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea was the daughter of John Frederick, Marquis of Brandenburg Anspach, and of Eleanor Erdmuth Louisa, his second wife, daughter of John George, Duke of Saxe Eisenach. She was born in 1683, and married the Electoral Prince of Hanover, afterwards George II., in the year 1705. Her mother having re-married, after her father’s death, when Caroline was very young, the latter left the court of her step-father, George IV., Elector of Saxony, for that of her154 guardian, Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, afterwards King of Prussia. The Electress of Brandenburg was the daughter of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and sister of George I. The young Caroline was considered fortunate in being placed under the care of a lady, who, it was said at the time, would assuredly give her a ‘tincture of her own politeness.’

Notice has already been taken of the suitors who early offered themselves for the hand of the youthful princess; and for what excellent reason she selected the son of Sophia Dorothea. It was said, when she came to share the throne of England with her husband, that Heaven had especially reserved her in order to make Great Britain happy. Her early married life was one of some gaiety, if not of felicity; and Baron Pilnitz says in his Memoir, that when the Electoral family of Hanover was called to the throne of this country, she showed more cool carelessness for the additional grandeur than any of the family, whose outward indifference was a matter of admiration, in the old sense of that word, to all who beheld it. The Princess Caroline, according to the baron, particularly demonstrated that she was thoroughly satisfied in her mind that she could be happy without a crown, and that ‘both her father-in-law and her husband were already kings in her eyes, because they highly deserved that title.’ Of her conduct during the period she was Princess of Wales, the same writer says that she favoured neither political party, and was equally esteemed by each. This, however, is somewhat beside the truth.

The poets were as much concerned with the Princess of Wales as the politicians. Some abused, and some adored her. Addison, in 1714, assured her that the Muse waited on her person, and that she herself was

155

The same writer could not contemplate the daughter of Caroline, but that his prophetic eye professed to—

Frederick (Duke of Gloucester), the elder and less loved son of Caroline, was not yet in England, but her favourite boy, William, was at her side; and of him Addison said, that he had ‘the mother’s sweetness and the father’s fire.’ The poet went on, less to prophesy than to speculate with a ‘perhaps’ on the future destiny of William of Cumberland; and it was well he put in the saving word, for nothing could be less like fact than the ‘fortune’ alluded to in the following lines:—

Of the princess herself, he says more truly, that she—

And he adds, that the stage, growing refined, will draw its finished heroines from her, who was herself known to be ‘skill’d in the labours of the deathless muse.’ In short, Parnassus was made to echo with eulogies of or epigrams upon this royal lady. George I., for years together, never addressed a word to the Prince of Wales, but the princess would compel him, as Count Broglie, the French ambassador writes, to answer the remarks which she addressed to him when she encountered him ‘in public.’ ‘But even then,’ says the count, ‘he only speaks to her on these occasions for the sake of decorum.’ She-devil was the appellation commonly employed by156 the amiable King to designate his high-spirited daughter-in-law.

The Prince and Princess of Wales, on withdrawing from St. James’s, established their court in ‘Leicester Fields.’ Of this court, Walpole draws a pleasant picture. It must have been a far livelier locality than that of the King, whose ministers were the older Whig politicians. ‘The most promising,’ says Walpole, ‘of the young lords and gentlemen of that party, and the prettiest and liveliest of the young ladies, formed the new court of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The apartment of the bedchamber-women in waiting became the fashionable evening rendezvous of the most distinguished wits and beauties: Lord Chesterfield, Lord Stanhope, Lord Scarborough, Carr (Lord Hervey), elder brother of the more known John Lord Hervey, and reckoned to have superior parts; General (at that time only Colonel) Charles Churchill, and others, not necessary to mention, were constant attendants; Miss Lepell, afterwards Lady Hervey, my mother, Lady Walpole, Mrs. Selwyn, mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity, and pretty; Mrs. Howard, and, above all, for universal admiration, Miss Bellenden, one of the maids of honour. Her face and person were charming; lively she was almost to étourderie; and so agreeable she was, that I never heard her mentioned afterwards by one of her contemporaries who did not prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever knew.’

To this pleasant party in this pleasant resort, the Prince of Wales often came—his chief attraction being, not the wit or worth of the party, but the mere beauty of one of the party forming it. This was Miss Bellenden, who, on the other hand, saw nothing in the fair-haired and little prince that could attract her admiration. The157 prince was never famous for much delicacy either of expression or sentiment, but he could exhibit a species of wit in its way. He had probably been contemplating the engraving of the visit of Jupiter to the nymph Danae in a shower of gold, when he took to pouring the guineas from his purse in Miss Bellenden’s presence. He seemed to her, if we may judge by the comment she made upon his conduct, much more like a villainous little bashaw offering to purchase a Circassian slave; and on one occasion, as he went on counting the glittering coin, she exclaimed, ‘Sir, I cannot bear it; if you count your money any more I will go out of the room.’ She did even better, by marrying the man of her heart, Colonel John Campbell—a step at which the prince, when it came to his knowledge, affected to be extremely indignant; and never forgave her for an offence, which indeed was no offence and required no forgiveness. The prince, like that young Duke of Orleans who thought he would suffer in reputation if he had not a ‘favourite’ in his train, let his regard stop at Mrs. Howard, another of his wife’s bedchamber-women, who was but too happy to receive such regard, and to return it with all required attachment and service.

The Princess of Wales, during the reign of her father-in-law, maintained a brilliant court, and presided over a gay round of pleasures. In this career she gained that which she sought after—popularity. What she did from policy, her husband the prince did from taste; and the encouragement and promotion of pleasure were followed by the one as a means to an end, by the other for the sake of the pleasure itself. Every morning there was a drawing-room at the princess’s, and twice a week the same splendid reunion in her apartments, at night. This gave the fashion to a very wide circle; crowded158 assemblies, balls, masquerades, and ridottos became the ‘rage;’ and from the fatigues incident thereto, the votaries of fashion found relaxation in plays and operas.

Quiet people were struck by the change which had come over court circles since the days of ‘Queen Anne, who had always been decent, chaste, and formal.’ The change indeed was great, but diverse of aspect. Thus the court of pleasure at which Caroline reigned supreme was a court where decency was respected; respected, at least, as much as it well could be at a time when no superabundance of respect for decency was exhibited in any quarter. Still, there was not the intolerable grossness in the house of the prince which was to be met with in the very presence of his sire. Lord Chesterfield said of that sire that ‘he had nothing bad in him as a man,’ and yet he records of him that he had no respect for women—but some liking, it may be added, for those who had little principle and much fat. ‘He brought over with him,’ says Chesterfield, ‘two considerable samples of his bad taste and good stomach—the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Darlington; leaving at Hanover, because she happened to be a Papist, the Countess von Platen, whose weight and circumference was little inferior to theirs. These standards of his Majesty’s tastes made all those ladies who aspired to his favour, and who were near the statutable size, strain and swell themselves, like the frogs in the fable, to rival the bulk and dignity of the ox. Some succeeded and others burst.’ If the house of the son was not the abode of all the virtues, it at least was not the stye wherein wallowed his father. Upon the change of fashion, Chesterfield writes to Bubb Dodington, in 1716, the year when Caroline began to be looked up to as the arbitress of fashion:—‘As for the gay part of the town, you would find it much more flourishing than when you left it. Balls, assemblies, and masquerades have159 taken the place of dull, formal, visiting days, and the women are much more agreeable trifles than they were designed. Puns are extremely in vogue, and the license very great. The variation of three or four letters in a word breaks no squares, insomuch that an indifferent punster may make a very good figure in the best companies.’ The gaiety at the town residence of the prince and princess did not, however, accompany them to Richmond Lodge. There Caroline enjoyed the quiet beauties of her pretty retreat, which was, however, shared with her husband’s favourite, ‘Mrs. Howard.’

‘Leicester Fields’ was, nevertheless, not always such a bower of bliss as Walpole has described it, from hearsay. If the prince and ladies were on very pleasant terms, the princess and the ladies were sometimes at loggerheads, with as little regard for bienséance as if they had been very vulgar people; indeed, they often were exceedingly vulgar people themselves.

It was with Lord Chesterfield that Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea was most frequently at very disgraceful issue. Lord Chesterfield was one of the prince’s court, and he was possessed of an uncontrollable inclination to turn the princess into ridicule. Of course she was made acquainted with this propensity of the refined Chesterfield by some amiable friend, who had the regard which friends, with less judgment than what they call amiability, generally have for one’s failings.

Caroline, perhaps half afraid of the peer, whom she held to be a more annoying joker than a genuine wit, took a middle course by way of correcting Chesterfield. It was not the course which a woman of dignity and refinement would have adopted; but it must be remembered that, at the period in question, the princess was anxious to keep as many friends around her husband as she could muster. She consequently told Lord160 Chesterfield, half in jest and half in earnest, that he had better not provoke her, for though he had a wittier, he had not so bitter a tongue as she had, and any outlay of his wit, at her cost, she was determined to pay, in her way, with an exorbitant addition of interest upon the debt he made her incur.

The noble lord had, among the other qualifications of the fine gentleman of the period, an alacrity in lying. He would gravely assure the princess that her royal highness was in error; that he could never presume to mimic her; and thereupon he would only watch for a turn of her head to find an opportunity for repeating the offence which he had protested could not possibly be laid to his charge.

Caroline was correct in asserting that she had a bitter tongue. It was under control, indeed; but when she gave it unrestricted freedom, its eloquence was not well savoured. Indeed her mind was far less refined than has been generally imagined. Many circumstances might be cited in proof of this assertion; but perhaps none is more satisfactory, or conclusive rather, than the fact that she was the correspondent of the Duchess of Orleans, whose gross epistles can be patiently read only by grossly inclined persons; but which, nevertheless, tell so much that is really worth knowing that students of history read, blush, and are delighted.

The Prince of Wales, dissatisfied with his residences, entered into negotiations for the purchase of Buckingham House. That mansion was then occupied by the Dowager-duchess of Buckingham, she whose mother was Catherine Sedley, and whose father was James II. She was the mad duchess, who always went into mourning and shut up Buckingham House on the anniversary of the death of her grandfather, Charles I. The duchess thus writes of the negotiation, in a letter to Mrs. Howard:—

‘If their royal highnesses will have everything stand161 as it is, furniture and pictures, I will have 3,000l. per annum. Both run hazard of being spoiled; and the last, to be sure, will be all to be new bought, whenever my son is of age. The quantity the rooms take cannot be well furnished under 10,000l. But if their highnesses will permit all the pictures to be removed, and buy the furniture as it will be valued by different people, the house shall go at 2,000l. If the prince or princess prefer much the buying outright, under 60,000l. it will not be parted with as it now stands; and all his Majesty’s revenue cannot purchase a place so fit for them, nor for less a sum. The princess asked me at the drawing-room if I would not sell my fine house. I answered her, smiling, that I was under no necessity to part with it; yet, when what I thought was the value of it should be offered, perhaps my prudence might overcome my inclination.’

At the period when Caroline expressed some inclination to possess this residence, on the site of the old mulberry garden, there was a mulberry garden at Chelsea, the owner of which was a Mrs. Gale. In these gardens some very rich and beautiful satin was made, from English silkworms, for the Princess of Wales, who took an extraordinary interest in the success of ‘the native worm.’ The experiments, however, patronised as they were by Caroline, did not promise a realisation of sufficient profit to warrant their being pursued any further.

The town residence of the prince and princess lacked, of course, the real charms, the quieter pleasures, of the lodge at Richmond. The estate on which the latter was built formed part of the forfeited property of the Jacobite Duke of Ormond.

The prince and princess kept a court at Richmond, which must have been one of the most pleasant resorts at which royalty has ever presided over fashion, wit, and talent. At this court the young (John) Lord Hervey was162 a frequent visitor, at a time when his mother, Lady Bristol, was in waiting on the princess, and his brother, Lord Carr Hervey, held the post of groom of the bedchamber to the prince. Of the personages at this ‘young court,’ the right honourable John Wilson Croker thus speaks:—

‘At this period Pope and his literary friends were in great favour at this “young court,” of which, in addition to the handsome and clever princess herself, Mrs. Howard, Mrs. Selwyn, Miss Howe, Miss Bellenden, and Miss Lepell, with Lords Chesterfield, Bathurst, Scarborough, and Hervey, were the chief ornaments. Above all, for beauty and wit, were Miss Bellenden and Miss Lepell, who seem to have treated Pope, and been in return treated by him, with a familiarity that appears strange in our more decorous days. These young ladies probably considered him as no more than what Aaron Hill described him—

Mr. Croker notices that Miss Lepell was called Mrs. according to the fashion of the time. It was the custom so to designate every single lady who was old enough to be married.

Upon Richmond Lodge Swift showered some of his most pungent verses. He was there more than once when it was the scene of the ‘young court.’ Of these occasions he sang, after the princess had become Queen, to the following tune:—

Other poets were occasionally more audacious than Swift in appropriating domestic incidents in the princess’s family for their subjects. Early in 1723 one of them thus addresses an expected member of that family:—

The gentle Princess Mary (subsequently the unhappy Princess of Hesse) cannot be said to have kept the linnets or the primroses waiting, the birth of this fourth daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wales having taken place on the 22nd of February 1723.

During a large portion of the married life of George Augustus and Caroline, each was supposed to be under the influence of a woman, whose real influence was, however, overrated, and whose importance, if great, was solely so because of the undue value attached to her imaginary influence. Both those persons were of the ‘young court,’ at Leicester House and Richmond Lodge.

The women in question were Mrs. Howard, the prince’s ‘favourite,’ and Mrs. Clayton, bedchamber-woman, like Mrs. Howard, to Caroline. The first lady was the daughter164 of a Knight of the Bath, Sir Henry Hobart. Early in life she married Mr. Howard, ‘the younger brother of more than one Earl of Suffolk, to which title he at last succeeded himself, and left a son by her, who was the last earl of that branch.’ The young couple were but slenderly dowered; the lady had little, and her husband less. The court of Queen Anne did not hold out to them any promise of improving their fortune, and accordingly they looked around for a locality where they might not only discern the promise, but hope for its realisation. Their views rested upon Hanover and ‘the rising sun’ there; and thither, accordingly, they took their way; and there they found a welcome at the hands of the old Electress Sophia, with scanty civility at those of her grandson, the Electoral Prince.

At this time, the fortunes of the young adventurers were so low, and their aspirations so high, that they were unable to give a dinner to the Hanoverian minister, till Mrs. Howard found the means by cutting off a very beautiful head of hair and selling it. If she did this in order that she might not incur a debt, she deserves some degree of praise, for a habit of prompt payment was not a fashion of the time. The sacrifice probably sufficed; for it was the era of full-bottomed wigs, which cost twenty or thirty guineas, and Mrs. Howard’s hair, to be applied to the purpose named, may have brought her a dozen pounds, with which a very recherché dinner might have been given, at the period, to even the most gastronomic of Hanoverian ministers, and half-a-dozen secretaries of legation to boot.

The fortune sought for was seized, although it came but in a questionable shape. After the lapse of some little time, the lady had made sufficient impression on the hitherto cold Prince George Augustus to induce him, on the accession of his father to the crown of England, to165 appoint her one of the bedchamber-women to his wife, Caroline, Princess of Wales.

When Mrs. Howard had won what was called the ‘regard’ of the prince, she separated from her husband. He, it is true, had little regard for, and merited no regard from, his wife; but he was resolved that she should attain not even a bad eminence unless he profited by it. He was a wretched, heartless, drunken, gambling profligate; too coarse, even, for the coarse fine gentlemen of the day. When he found himself deserted by his wife, therefore, and discovered that she had established her residence in the household of the prince, he went down to the palace, raised an uproar in the courtyard, before the guards and other persons present, and made vociferous demands for the restoration to him of a wife whom he really did not want. He was thrust out of the quadrangle without much ceremony, but he was not to be silenced. He even appears to have interested the Archbishop of Canterbury in the matter. The prelate affected to look upon the princess as the protectress of her bedchamber-woman and the cause of the latter living separate from her husband, to whom he recommended, by letter, that she should be restored. Walpole says, further, that the archbishop delivered an epistle from Mr. Howard himself, addressed through the Princess Caroline to his wife, and that the princess ‘had the malicious pleasure of delivering the letter to her rival.’

Mrs. Howard continued to reside under the roof of this strangely-assorted household. There was no scandal excited thereby at the period, and she was safe from conjugal importunity, whether at St. James’s Palace or Leicester House. ‘The case was altered,’ says Walpole, ‘when, on the arrival of summer, their royal highnesses were to remove to Richmond. Being only woman of the bedchamber, etiquette did not allow Mrs. Howard the166 entrée of the coach with the princess. She apprehended that Mr. Howard might seize her upon the road. To baffle such an attempt, her friends, John, Duke of Argyle, and his brother, the Earl of Islay, called for her in the coach of one of them, by eight o’clock in the morning of the day by noon of which the prince and princess were to remove, and lodged her safely in their house at Richmond.’ It would appear, that after this period the servant of Caroline and the favourite of George Augustus ceased to be molested by her husband; and, although there be no proof of that gentleman having been ‘bought off,’ he was of such character, tastes, and principles, that he cannot be thought to have been of too nice an honour to allow of his agreeing to terms of peace for pecuniary ‘consideration.’

George thought his show of regard for Mrs. Howard would stand for proof that he was not ‘led’ by his wife. The regard wore an outwardly Platonic aspect, and daily at the same hour the royal admirer resorted to the apartment of the lady, where an hour or two was spent in ‘small talk’ and conversation of a generally uninteresting character.

It is very illustrative of the peculiar character of George Augustus, that his periodical visits, every evening at nine, were regulated with such dull punctuality ‘that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten minutes, with his watch in his hand, if the stated minute was not arrived.’

Walpole also notices the more positive vexations Mrs. Howard received when Caroline became Queen, whose head she used to dress, until she acquired the title of Countess of Suffolk. The Queen, it is said, delighted in subjecting her to such servile offices, though always apologising to her good Howard. ‘Often,’ says Walpole, ‘her Majesty had more complete triumph. It happened167 more than once that the King, coming into the room while the Queen was dressing, has snatched off the handkerchief, and turning rudely to Mrs. Howard, has cried, ‘Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the Queen’s.’

One other instance may be cited here of Caroline’s dislike of her good Howard. ‘The Queen had an obscure window at St. James’s that looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at night, which looked upon Mrs. Howard’s apartment. Lord Chesterfield, one Twelfth Night at court, had won so large a sum of money that he thought it not prudent to carry it home in the dark, and deposited it with the mistress. Thence the Queen inferred great intimacy, and thenceforwards Lord Chesterfield could obtain no favour from court; and, finding himself desperate, went into opposition.’ But this is anticipating events. Let us speak of the other bedchamber-woman of the Princess of Wales and subsequently of Queen Caroline, also a woman of considerable note in the quiet and princely circle at Leicester House, and the more brilliant réunions at St. James’s and Kensington. She was a woman of fairer reputation, of greater ability, and of worse temper than Mrs. Howard. Her maiden name was Dyves, her condition was of a humble character, but her marriage with Sir Robert Clayton, a clerk in the Treasury, gave her importance and position, and opportunity to improve both. Her husband, in addition to his Treasury clerkship, was one of the managers of the Marlborough estates in the duke’s absence, and this brought his wife to the knowledge and patronage of the duchess. The only favour ever asked by the latter of the House of Hanover was a post for her friend Mrs. Clayton, who soon afterwards was appointed one of the bedchamber-women to Caroline, Princess of Wales.

Mrs. Clayton has been as diversely painted by Lord168 Hervey and Horace Walpole as Chesterfield himself. It is not to be disputed, however, that she was a woman of many accomplishments; of not so many as her flatterers ascribe to her, but of more than were conceded to her by her enemies. The same may be said of her alleged virtues. Walpole describes her as a corrupt, pompous simpleton, and Lord Hervey as a woman of great intelligence and rather ill-regulated temper, the latter preventing her from concealing her thoughts, let them be what they might. The noble lord intimates, rather than asserts, that she was more resigned than desirous to live at court, for the dirty company of which she was too good, but whom she had the honesty to hate but not the hypocrisy to tell them they were good. Hervey adds, that she did good, for the mere luxury which the exercise of the virtue had in itself. Others describe her as corrupt as the meanest courtier that ever lived by bribes. She would take jewels with both hands, and wear them without shame, though they were the fees of offices performed to serve others and enrich herself. The Duchess of Marlborough was ashamed of her protegée in this respect, if there be truth in the story of her grace being indignant at seeing Mrs. Clayton wearing gems which she knew were the price of services rendered by her. Lady Wortley Montague apologises for her by the smart remark, that people would not know where wine was sold if the vendor did not hang out a bush.

Of another fact there is no dispute—the intense hatred with which Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Clayton regarded each other. The former was calm, cool, cutting, and contemptuous, but never unlady-like, always self-possessed and severe. The latter was hot, eager, and for ever rendering her position untenable for want of temper, and therefore lack of argument to maintain it. Mrs. Clayton, doubtless, possessed more influence with the Queen than her opponent169 with the King, but the influence has been vastly overrated. Caroline only allowed it in small matters, and exercised in small ways. Mrs. Clayton was, in some respects, only her authorised representative, or the medium between her and the objects whom she delighted to relieve or to honour. The lady had some influence in bringing about introductions, in directing the Queen’s notice to works of merit, or to petitions for relief; but on subjects of much higher importance Caroline would not submit to influence from the same quarter. On serious questions she had a better judgment of her own than she could be supplied with by the women of the bedchamber. The great power held by Mrs. Clayton was, that with her rested to decide whether the prayer of a petitioner should or should not reach the eye of Caroline. No wonder, then, that she was flattered, and that her good offices were asked for with showers of praise and compliment to herself, by favour-seekers of every conceivable class. Peers of every degree, and their wives, bishops and poor curates, philosophers well-to-do, and authors in shreds and patches; sages and sciolists; inventors, speculators, and a mob of ‘beggars’ which cannot be classed, sought to approach Caroline through Mrs. Clayton’s office, and humbly waited Mrs. Clayton’s leisure, while they profusely flattered her in order to tempt her to be active in their behalf.

Caroline not only ruled her husband without his being aware of it, but could laugh at him heartily, without hurting his feelings by allowing him to be conscious of it. Hereafter mention may be made of the sensitiveness of the court to satire; but before the death of George I., it seems to have been enjoyed—at least by Caroline, Princess of Wales—more than it was subsequently by the same illustrious lady when Queen of England. Dr. Arbuthnot, at the period alluded to, had occasion to write to Swift. The doctor had been publishing, by subscription,170 his ‘Tables of Ancient Coins,’ and was gaining very few modern specimens by his work. The dean, on the other hand, was then reaping a harvest of profit and popularity by his ‘Gulliver’s Travels’—that book of which the puzzled Bishop of Ferns said, on coming to the last page, that, all things considered, he did not believe a word of it!

Arbuthnot, writing to Swift on the subject of the two works, says (November 8, 1726) that his book had been out about a month, but that he had not yet got his subscribers’ names. ‘I will make over,’ he says, ‘all my profits to you for the property of “Gulliver’s Travels,” which, I believe, will have as great a run as John Bunyan. Gulliver is a happy man, that, at his age, can write such a book.’ Arbuthnot subsequently relates, that when he last saw the Princess of Wales ‘she was reading Gulliver, and was just come to the passage of the hobbling prince, which she laughed at.’ The laugh was at the cost of her husband, whom Swift represented in the satire as walking with one high and low heel, in allusion to the prince’s supposed vacillation between the Whigs and Tories.

The princess, however, had more regard, at all times, for sages than she had for satirists. It was at the request of Caroline that Newton drew up an abstract of a treatise on Ancient Chronology, first published in France, and subsequently in England. Her regard for Halley dates from an earlier period than Newton’s death or Caroline’s accession. She had, in 1721, pressed Halley to become the tutor of her favourite son, the Duke of Cumberland; but the great perfector of the theory of the moon’s motion was then too busy with his syzygies to be troubled with teaching the humanities to little princes. It was for the same reason that Halley resigned his post of secretary to the Royal Society.

171

This question of the education of the children of the Prince and Princess of Wales was one much discussed, and not without bitterness, by the disputants on both sides. In the same year that the Princess of Wales desired to secure Halley as the instructor of William of Cumberland (1721) George I. made an earl of that Thomas Parker who, from an attorney’s office, had steadily risen through the various grades of the law, had been entrusted with high commissions, and finally became Lord Chancellor. George I., on his accession, made him Baron of Macclesfield, and in 1721 raised him to the rank of earl. He paid for the honour by supporting the King against the Prince and Princess of Wales. The latter claimed an exclusive right of direction in the education of their children. Lord Macclesfield declared that, by law, they had no right at all to control the education of their offspring. Neither prince nor princess ever forgave him for this. They waited for the hour of repaying it; and the time soon came. The first ‘Brunswick Chancellor’ became notorious for his malpractices—selling places and trafficking with the funds of the suitors. His enemies resolved to impeach him. This resolution originated at Leicester House, and was carried out with such effect that the chancellor was condemned to pay a fine of 30,000l. George I., knowing that the son whom he hated was the cause of so grave, but just, a consequence, promised to repay to the ex-chancellor the amount of the fine which Lord Macclesfield had himself paid, a few days after the sentence, by the mortgage of a valuable estate. The King, however, was rather slow in acquitting himself of his promise. He forwarded one instalment of 1,000l., but he paid no more, death supervening and preventing the further performance of a promise only made to annoy his son and his son’s wife.

In one respect Lord Macclesfield and the Princess of172 Wales resembled each other—in entertaining a curious feeling of superstition. It will be seen, hereafter, how certain Caroline felt that she should die on a Wednesday, and for what reasons. So, like her, but with more accuracy, the fallen Macclesfield pointed out the day for his decease. In his disgrace he had devoted himself to science and religion. He was, however, distracted by a malady which was aggravated by grief, if not remorse. Dr. Pearce, his constant friend, called on him one day and found him very ill. Lord Macclesfield said: ‘My mother died of the same disorder on the eighth day, and so shall I.’ On the eighth day this prophecy was fulfilled; and the Leicester House party were fully avenged.

The feelings of both prince and princess were for ever in excess. Thus both appear to have entertained a strong sentiment of aversion against their eldest child, Frederick. Caroline did not bring him with her to this country when she herself first came over to take up her residence here. Frederick was born at Hanover, on the 20th of January 1707. He was early instructed in the English language; but he disliked study of every description and made but little progress in this particular branch. As a child, he was remarkable for his spitefulness and cunning. He was yet a youth when he drank like any German baron of old, played as deeply as he drank, and entered heart and soul into other vices, which not only corrupted both, but his body also. His tutor was scandalised by his conduct, and complained of it grievously. Caroline was, at that time, given to find excuses for conduct with which she did not care to be so far troubled as to censure it; and she remarked that the escapades complained of were mere page’s tricks. ‘Would to Heaven they were no more!’ exclaimed the worthy governor; ‘but in truth they are tricks of grooms and scoundrels.’ The Prince spared his friends173 as little as his foes, and his heart was as vicious as his head was weak.

Caroline had little affection for this child, whom she would have willingly defrauded of his birthright. At one time she appears to have been inclined to secure the Electorate of Hanover for William, and to allow Frederick to succeed to the English throne. At another time she was as desirous, it is believed, of advancing William to the crown of England and making over the Electorate to Frederick. How far these intrigues were carried on is hardly known, but that they existed is matter of notoriety. The law presented a barrier which could not, however, be broken down; but, nevertheless, Lord Chesterfield, in his character of the princess, intimated that she was busy with this project throughout her life.

Frederick was not permitted to come to England during any period of the time that his parents were Prince and Princess of Wales. An English title or two may be said to have been flung to him across the water. Thus, in 1717, he was called rather than created Duke of Gloucester. The Garter was sent to him the following year. In 1726 he became Duke of Edinburgh. He never occupied a place in the hearts of either his father or mother.

It is but fair to the character of the Princess of Wales to say that, severe as was the feeling entertained by herself against Lord Macclesfield—a feeling shared in by her consort—neither of them ever after entertained any ill feeling against Philip Yorke, subsequently Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who defended his friend Lord Macclesfield, with great fearlessness, at the period of his celebrated trial. Only once, in after life, did George II. visit Lord Hardwicke with a severe rebuff. The learned lord was avaricious, discouraging to those who sought to rise in their profession, and caring only for the advancement of his own relations. He was once seeking for a place for a174 distant relation, when the husband of Caroline exclaimed, ‘You are always asking favours, and I observe that it is invariably in behalf of some one of your family or kinsmen.’ We shall hereafter find Caroline making allusions to ‘Judge Gripus’ as a character in a play, but it was a name given to Lord Hardwicke, on account of his ‘meanness.’ This feeling was shared by his wife. The expensively embroidered velvet purse in which the great seal was carried was renewed every year during Lord Hardwicke’s time. Each year, Lady Hardwicke ordered that the velvet should be of the length of one of her state rooms at Wimpole. In course of time the prudent lady obtained enough to tapestry the room with the legal velvet, and to make curtains and hangings for a state bed which stood in the apartment. Well might Pope have said of these:—

But this is again anticipating the events of history. Let us go back to 1721, when Caroline and her husband exercised a courage which caused great admiration in the saloons of Leicester House and a doubtful sort of applause throughout the country. Lady Mary Wortley Montague had just reported the successful results of inoculation for the small-pox, which she had witnessed at Constantinople. Dr. Mead was ordered by the prince to inoculate six criminals who had been condemned to death, but whose lives were spared for this experiment. It succeeded admirably, and the patients were more satisfied by the result of the experiment than any one besides. In the year following, Caroline allowed Dr. Mead to inoculate her two daughters, and the doctor ultimately became physician-in-ordinary to her husband.

The medical appointments made by Caroline and her175 husband certainly had a political motive. Thus, the Princess of Wales persuaded her husband to name Freind his physician-in-ordinary just after the latter had been liberated from the Tower, where he had suffered incarceration for daring to defend Atterbury in the House of Commons when the bishop was accused of being guilty of treason. Caroline always had a high esteem for Freind, independently of his political opinions, and one of her first acts, on ceasing to be Princess of Wales, was to make Freind physician to the Queen.

It is said by Swift that the Princess of Wales sent for him to Leicester Fields no less than nine times before he would obey the reiterated summons. When he did appear before Caroline, he roughly remarked that he understood she liked to see odd persons; that she had lately inspected a wild boy from Germany, and that now she had the opportunity of seeing a wild parson from Ireland. Swift declares that the court in Leicester Fields was very anxious to settle him in England, but it may be doubted whether the anxiety was very sincere. Swift’s declaration that he had no anxiety to be patronised by the Princess of Wales was probably as little sincere. The patronage sometimes exercised there was mercilessly sneered at by Swift. Thus Caroline had expressed a desire to do honour to Gay; but when the post offered was only that of a gentleman usher to the little Princess Caroline, Swift was bitterly satirical on the Princess of Wales supposing that the poet Gay would be willing to act as a sort of male nurse to a little girl of two years of age.

The Prince of Wales was occasionally as cavalierly treated by the ladies as the princess by the men. One of the maids of honour of Caroline, the well-known Miss Bellenden, would boldly stand before him with her arms folded, and when asked why she did so, would toss her pretty head, and laughingly exclaim that she did so, not176 because she was cold, but that she chose to stand with her arms folded. When her own niece became maid of honour to Queen Caroline, and audacious Miss Bellenden was a grave married lady, she instructively warned her young relative not to be so imprudent a maid of honour as her aunt had been before her.

But strange things were done by princes and princesses in those days, as well as by those who waited on them. For instance, in 1725, it is reported by Miss Dyves, maid of honour to the Princess Amelia, daughter of the Princess of Wales, that ‘the Prince, and everybody but myself, went last Friday to Bartholomew Fair. It was a fine day, so he went by water; and I, being afraid, did not go; after the fair, they supped at the King’s Arms, and came home about four o’clock in the morning.’ An heir-apparent, and part of his family and consort, going by water from Richmond to ‘Bartlemy Fair,’ supping at a tavern, staying out all night, and returning home not long before honest men breakfasted, was not calculated to make royalty respectable.

Sir Robert Walpole was sojourning at Chelsea, and thinking of nothing less than of the demise of a king, when news was brought him, by a messenger from Lord Townshend, at three o’clock in the afternoon of the 14th of June 1727, that his late most sacred Majesty was then lying dead in the Westphalian palace of his serene highness the Bishop of Osnaburgh. Sir Robert immediately hurried to Richmond, in order to be the first to do homage to the new sovereigns, George and Caroline. George accepted the homage with much complacency, and on being asked by Sir Robert as to the person whom the King would select to draw up the usual address to178 the privy council, George II. mentioned the speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Spencer Compton.

This was a civil way of telling Sir Robert that his services as prime-minister were no longer required. He was not pleased at being supplanted, but neither was he wrathfully little-minded against his successor—a successor so incompetent for his task that he was obliged to have recourse to Sir Robert to assist him in drawing up the address above alluded to. Sir Robert rendered the assistance with much heartiness, but was not the less determined, if possible, to retain his office, in spite of the personal dislike of the King, and of that of the Queen, whom he had offended, when she was Princess of Wales, by speaking of her as ‘that fat beast, the prince’s wife.’ Sir Robert could easily make poor Sir Spencer communicative with regard to his future intentions. The latter was a stiff, gossiping, soft-hearted creature, and might very well have taken for his motto the words of Parmeno in the play of Terence:—‘Plenus rimarum sum.’ He intimated that on first meeting parliament he should propose an allowance of 60,000l. per annum to be made to the Queen. ‘I will make it 40,000l. more,’ said Sir Robert, subsequently, through a second party, to Queen Caroline, ‘if my office of minister be secured to me.’ Caroline was delighted at the idea, intimated that Sir Robert might be sure ‘the fat beast’ had friendly feelings towards him, and then hastening to the King, over whose weaker intellect her more masculine mind held rule, explained to her royal husband that as Compton considered Walpole the fittest man to be—what he had so long been with efficiency—prime-minister, it would be a foolish act to nominate Compton himself to the office. The King acquiesced, Sir Spencer was made president of the council, and Sir Robert not only persuaded parliament, without difficulty, to settle one hundred thousand a year on179 the Queen, but he also persuaded the august trustees of the people’s money to add the entire revenue of the civil list, about one hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year, to the annual sum of seven hundred thousand pounds, which had been settled as proper revenue for a king. Sir Robert had thus the wit to bribe King and Queen, out of the funds of the people, and we cannot be surprised that their Majesties looked upon him and his as true allies. Indeed Caroline did not wait for the success of the measure in order to show her confidence in Walpole. Their Majesties had removed from Richmond to their temporary palace in Leicester Fields, on the very evening of their receiving notice of their accession to the crown; and the next day all the nobility and gentry in town crowded to kiss their hands. ‘My mother,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘among the rest, who, Sir Spencer Compton’s designation and not his evaporation being known, could not make her way between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach nearer to the Queen than the third or fourth row; but no sooner was she descried by her Majesty than the Queen said aloud: “There I am sure I see a friend!” The torrent divided and shrank to either side, “and as I came away,” said my mother, “I might have walked over their heads, had I pleased.”’

George I. had drawn up a will which he coolly thought his successor would respect. Perhaps he remembered that his son believed in ghosts and vampires, and would fulfil a dead man’s will out of mere terror of a dead man’s visitation. But George Augustus had no such fear, nor any such respect, as that noticed above.

At the first council held by George II., Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose hands George I. had deposited his last will and testament, produced that precious instrument, placed it before the King, and composed180 himself to hear the instructions of the deceased parent recited by his heir. The new King, however, put the paper in his pocket, walked out of the room, never uttered a word more upon the subject, and general rumour subsequently proclaimed that the royal will had been dropped into the fire by the testator’s son.

That testator, however, had been a destroyer of wills himself. He had burnt that of the poor old Duke of Zell, and he had treated in like manner the last will of Sophia Dorothea. The latter document favoured both his children more than he approved, and the King, who could do no wrong, committed a felonious act, which for a common criminal would have purchased a halter. Being given to this sort of iniquity himself, he naturally thought ill of the heir whom he looked upon as bound to respect the will of his father. To bind him the more securely to such observance, he left two duplicates of his will; one of which was deposited with the Duke of Wolfenbüttel, the other with another German prince, whose name has not been revealed, and both were given up by the depositaries, for fee and reward duly paid for the service. The copies were destroyed in the same way as the original. What instruction was set down in this document has never been ascertained. Walpole speaks of a reported legacy of forty thousand pounds to the King’s surviving mistress, the Duchess of Kendal, and of a subsequent compromise made with the husband of the duchess’s ‘niece’ and heiress, Lady Walsingham—a compromise which followed upon a threatened action at law. Something similar is said to have taken place with the King of Prussia, to whose wife, the daughter of George I., the latter monarch was reported to have bequeathed a considerable legacy.

However this may be, the surprise of the council and the consternation of the primate were excessive. The181 latter dignitary was the last man, however, who could with propriety have blamed a fellow-man for acting contrary to what was expected of him. He himself had been the warmest advocate of religious toleration, until he reached the primacy and had an opportunity for the exercise of a little harshness towards dissenters. The latter were as much astonished at their ex-advocate as the latter was astounded by the act of the King.

We will not further allude to the coronation of George and Caroline than by saying that, on the occasion in question, these Sovereigns displayed a gorgeousness of taste of a somewhat barbarous quality. The coronation was the most splendid which had been seen for years. George, despite his low stature and fair hair, which heightened the weakness of his expression at this period, was said to be on this occasion ‘every inch a king.’ He enjoyed the splendour of the scene and of himself, and thought it cheaply purchased at the cost of much fatigue.

Caroline was not inferior to her lord. It is true that of crown jewels she had none, save a pearl necklace, the solitary spoil left of all the gems, ‘rich and rare,’ which had belonged to Queen Anne, and which had, for the most part, been distributed by the late King among his favourites of every degree. Caroline wore on the occasion of her crowning, not only the pearl necklace of Queen Anne, but ‘she had on her head and shoulders all the pearls and necklaces which she could borrow from the ladies of quality at one end of the town, and on her petticoat all the diamonds she could hire of the Jews and jewellers at the other; so,’ adds Lord Hervey, from whom this detail is taken, ‘the appearance and the truth of her finery was a mixture of magnificence and meanness, not unlike the éclat of royalty in many other particulars, when it comes to be nicely examined and its sources traced to what money hires and flattery lends.’

182

The Queen dressed for the grand ceremony in a private room at Westminster. Early in the morning she put on ‘an undress’ at St. James’s, of which we are told that ‘everything was new.’ She was carried across St. James’s Park privately in a chair, bearing no distinctive mark upon it, and preceded, at a short distance, by the Lord Chancellor and Mrs. Howard, both of whom were in ‘hack sedans.’ She was dressed by that lady. Mrs. Herbert, another bed-chamber woman, would fain have shared in the honour, but as she was herself in full dress for the ceremony, she was pronounced incapable of attiring her who was to be the heroine of it. At the conclusion of the august affair the Queen unrobed in an adjacent apartment, and, as in the morning, was smuggled back to St. James’s in a private chair.

Magnificent as Caroline was in borrowed finery at her coronation, she was excelled in point of show by Mrs. Oldfield, on the stage at Drury Lane. The theatre was closed on the night of the real event—the government had no idea then of dividing a multitude; but the management expended a thousand pounds in getting up the pageant of the crowning of Anne Boleyn, at the close of ‘Henry VIII.’ In this piece, Booth made Henry the principal character, and Cibber’s Wolsey sank to a second-rate part. The pageant, however, was so attractive, that it was often played, detached from the piece, at the conclusion of a comedy or any other play. Caroline went more than once with her royal consort to witness this representation, an honour which was refused to the more vulgar show, which had but indifferent success, at Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields.

The King’s revenue, as settled upon him by the Whig parliament, was larger than any of our Kings had before enjoyed. Caroline’s jointure, 100,000l. a year, with Somerset House and Richmond Lodge, was double that183 which had been granted previously to any Queen. This success had been so notoriously the result of Walpole’s exertions, that the husband of Caroline, who dealt in very strong terms, began to look complacently on the ‘rogue and rascal,’ thought his brother Horace bearable, in spite of his being, as George used to call him, ‘scoundrel,’ ‘fool,’ and ‘dirty buffoon,’ and he even felt less averse than usual to the two secretaries of state of Walpole’s administration, the Duke of Newcastle, the ‘impertinent fool,’ whom he had threatened at the christening of William, Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Townshend, whom he was wont to designate as a ‘choleric blockhead.’ The issue of the affair was, that of Walpole’s cabinet no one went out but the minister’s son-in-law, Lord Malpas, roughly ejected from the Mastership of the Robes, and ‘Stinking Yonge,’ as the King used elegantly to designate Sir William, who was turned out of the Commission of Treasury, and whose sole little failings were, that he was ‘pitiful, corrupt, contemptible, and a great liar,’ though, as Lord Hervey says, ‘rather a mean than a vicious one,’ which does not seem to mend the matter, and which is a distinction without a difference. After all, Sir William only dived to come up fresh again. And Lord Malpas performed the same feat.

Henceforth, it was understood by every lady, says Lord Hervey, ‘that Sir Robert was the Queen’s minister; that whoever he favoured she distinguished, and whoever she distinguished the King employed.’ The Queen ruled, without seeming to rule. She was mistress by power of suggestion. A word from her in public, addressed to the King, generally earned for her a rebuke. Her consort so pertinaciously declared that he was independent, and that she never meddled with public business of any kind, that every one, even the early dupes of the assertion, ceased at last to put any faith in it. Caroline ‘not184 only meddled with business, but directed everything which came under that name, either at home or abroad.’ It is too much, perhaps, to say that her power was unrivalled and unbounded, but it was doubtless great, and purchased at great cost. That she could induce her husband to employ a man whom he had not yet learned to like was in itself no small proof of her power, considering the peculiarly obstinate disposition of the monarch.

Her recommendation of Walpole was not based, it is believed, upon any very exalted motives. Walpole himself, in his official connections with the Sovereign, was certainly likely to take every advantage of the opportunity to create favourable convictions of his ability. Caroline, in praising his ability to the King, suggested that Sir Robert was rich enough to be honest, and had so little private business of his own that he had all the more leisure to devote to that of the King. ‘New leeches would be not the less hungry;’ and with this very indifferent sort of testimony to her favourite’s worth, Caroline secured a servant for the King and a minister for herself.

The tact of the Queen was so admirable that the husband, who followed her counsel in all things, never even himself suspected but that he was leading her. This was the very triumph of the Queen’s art, and the crowning proof of the simplicity and silliness of the King. It is said that he sneered at Charles I. for being governed by his wife; at Charles II. for being governed by his mistresses; at James led by priests; at William duped by men; at Queen Anne deceived by her favourites; and at his father, who allowed himself to be ruled by any one who could approach him. And he finished his catalogue of scorn by proudly asking, ‘Who governs now?’ The courtiers probably smiled behind their jaunty hats. The wits, and some of them were courtiers185 too, answered the query more roughly, and they remarked, in rugged rhyme and bad grammar—

The two were otherwise described by other poetasters, as—

It is a fact, at which we need not be surprised, that the most cutting satires against the King, as led by his wife, were from the pens of female writers—or said to be so. And this is likely enough; for in no quarter is there so much contempt for a man who leans upon, rather than supports, his wife. The court certainly offered good opportunity for the satirists to make merry with. At the court of Caroline, it must be confessed, there was not much female delicacy, and still less manly dignity—even in the presence of the Queen herself. Thus we hear, for instance, of Caroline, one evening, at Windsor, asking Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Townshend where they had dined that day? My lord replied that he had dined with Lord and Lady Trevor, an aged couple, and the lady remarkable for her more than ordinary plainness. Whereupon Sir Robert, with considerable latitude of expression, intimated, jokingly, that his friend was paying political court to the lord, in order to veil a court of another kind addressed to the lady. Lord Townshend, not understanding raillery on such a topic, grew angry, and in defending himself against the charge of seducing old Lady Trevor, was not content with employing phrases of honest indignation alone, but used illustrations that no ‘lord’ would ever think of186 using before a lady. Caroline grew uneasy, not at the growing indelicacy of phrase, but at the angry feelings of the Peachum and Lockit of the court; and ‘to prevent Lord Townshend’s replying, or the thing being pushed any further, only laughed, and began immediately to talk on some other subject.’4

The mention of the heroes in Gay’s opera serves to remind me that, in 1729, the influence of the Queen was again exerted to lead the King to do what he had not himself dreamed of doing.

Sir Robert Walpole must have been more ‘thin-skinned’ than he is usually believed to have been, if he could really have felt wounded, as it would appear was the case, by the alleged satire of the ‘Beggars’ Opera.’ The public would seem to have been the authors of such satire rather than Gay, for they made application of many passages, to which the writer of them probably attached no personal meaning.

The origin of the piece was certainly not political. It was a mere Newgate pastoral put into an operatic form, and intended to ridicule, what it succeeded in overthrowing for a season, the newly introduced Italian Opera. The piece had been refused by Cibber, and was accepted by Rich, who brought it out at Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, on the 29th of January 1728, with such success, that it was said of it, that it made Gay rich, and Rich gay. Walker was the Macheath, and Miss Fenton, afterwards Duchess of Bolton, the Polly—a character in which she was not approached by either of her three immediate successors, Miss Warren, Miss Cantrell, or sweet Kitty Clive. Johnson says of the piece that it was plainly written only to divert—without any moral purpose, and therefore not likely to do good. This is the truth, no doubt;187 and if Gay put in a few strong passages just previous to representation, it was the public application which gave them double force. Perhaps the application would have been stronger if Quin had originally played, as was intended, the part of Macheath. To step from Macbeth to the highwayman might have had a political signification given to it; and indeed Quin did play, and sing, the captain one night for his benefit—-just as another great tragedian, Young, did, within our own recollection. However, never had piece such success. It was played at every theatre in the kingdom, and every audience was as keenly alive for passages which could be applied against the court and government as they were for mere ridicule against the Italian Opera.

Caroline herself was probably not opposed to the morale of the piece. Her own chairmen were suspected of being in league with highwaymen, and probably were; but on their being arrested and dismissed from her service by the master of her household, who suspected their guilt, she was indignant at the liberty taken and insisted on their being restored. She had no objection to be safely carried by suspected confederates of highwaymen.

The poverty of ‘Polly’ could not render it exempt from being made the scapegoat for the ‘Beggars’ Opera,’ in which Walpole, from whom Gay could not obtain a place, was said to be ‘shown-up,’ night after night, as a thief and the friend of thieves. The ‘Beggars’ Opera’ had a run before its satire was felt by him against whom it was chiefly directed. ‘Polly’ is very stupid and not satirical, but it was a favourite with the author. The latter, therefore, was especially annoyed at receiving an injunction from the lord chamberlain’s office, obtained at the request of Sir Robert, whereby the representation of ‘Polly’ was forbidden in every theatre. The poet determined188 to shame his enemies by printing the piece with a smart political supplement annexed.

Gay was the ‘spoiled child’ of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. They espoused his cause; and the duchess was especially active, urgent, and successful in procuring subscriptions—compelling them, by gentle violence, even from the most reluctant. This zeal for the vexed poet went so far that the duchess solicited subscriptions even in the Queen’s apartment and in the royal drawing-room. There was something pleasant in making even the courtiers subscribe towards the circulating of a piece which royalty, through its official, had prohibited from being acted. The zealous duchess was thus busy with three or four gentlemen, in one corner of the room, when the King came upon them and enquired the nature of her business. ‘It is a matter of humanity and charity,’ said her grace, ‘and I do not despair but that your Majesty will contribute to it.’ The Monarch disappointed Gay’s patroness in this respect, but he exhibited no symptom whatever of displeasure, and left her to her levying occupation. Subsequently, however, in the Queen’s apartment, the subject was talked over between the royal pair, and not till then did George perceive that the conduct of the duchess was so impertinent that it was necessary to forbid her appearing again, at least for the present, at court.

The King’s vice-chamberlain, Mr. Stanhope, was despatched with a verbal message to this effect. The manner and the matter equally enraged Gay’s patroness, and she delivered a note of acknowledgment to the vice-chamberlain, in which she stated that she was both surprised and gratified at the royal and agreeable command to stay away from court, seeing that she had never gone there but for her own diversion, and also from a desire of showing some civility to the King and Queen! The lively189 lady further intimated, that perhaps it was as well that they who dared to speak, or even think, truth, should be kept away from a court where it was unpalatable; although she had thought that in supporting truth and innocence in the palace, she was paying the very highest compliment possible to both their Majesties.

When the note was completed, the writer gave it to Mr. Stanhope to read. The stiff vice-chamberlain felt rather shocked at the tone, and politely advised the duchess to think better of the matter, and write another note. Her grace consented, but the second edition was so more highly spiced, and so more pungent than the first, that the officer preferred taking the latter, which he must have placed before King and Queen with a sort of decent horror, appropriate to a functionary of his polite vocation. The duchess lost the royal favour, and the duke, her husband, lost his posts.

After all, it seems singular, that while so stupid a piece as ‘Polly’ was prohibited, the representation of the ‘Beggars’ Opera’ still went on. The alleged offence was thus seemingly permitted, while visitation was made on an unoffending piece; and subscriptions for the printing of that piece were asked for, as we have seen, by the Duchess of Queensberry, in the very apartments of the Sovereign, who is said to have been most offended at the poet’s alleged presumption.

Other poets and the players advanced in the good will of Caroline and her house by producing pieces complimentary to the Brunswick family. Thus Rich, who had offended the royal family by getting up the ‘Beggars’ Opera,’ in January 1728, produced Mrs. Haywood’s tragedy of ‘Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lunenberg,’ in March 1729. The authoress dedicated her play to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and her object in writing it was to represent one of the ancestors of his royal highness as raised to the190 imperial throne in consequence of his virtues. It may be a question whether Caroline, or her husband, or son, could approve of a subject which exhibited the Brunswick monarch falling under the dagger of an assassin. However this may be, the public was indifferent to the piece and its object; and, after being represented three times, it disappeared for ever and left the stage to be again occupied by the ‘Beggars’ Opera:’ Peachum—Walpole, Lockit—Townshend, and Mat o’ the Mint, type of easy financiers, who gaily bid the public ‘stand and deliver!’

On the first occasion on which George I. left England to visit Hanover, he appointed the Prince of Wales regent of the kingdom during his absence. The prince, in spite of his limited powers—he was unable to act on the smallest point without the sanction of ministers—contrived to gain considerable and well-deserved popularity. George never again allowed him to hold the same honourable office; and the son and father hated each other ever after. In the May of this year, that son, now King, quitted England in order to visit the Electorate, but he did not appoint Frederick, Prince of Wales, as regent during his absence. He delegated that office to the Queen, and most probably by the Queen’s advice. Frederick had not been long in London before the opposition party made him, if not their chief, at least their rallying point. The prince hated his father heartily and openly, and he had as little regard for his mother. When application was made to parliament to pay some alleged deficiencies in the civil list, Frederick was particularly severe on the extravagance of his sire and the method adopted to remedy it. He talked loudly of what he would have done in a similar extremity, or rather of how he would never have allowed himself to fall into so extreme a difficulty. He was doubly in the wrong; ‘in the first place, for saying what he ought only191 to have thought; and, in the next, for not thinking what he ought not to have said.’ It was not likely, even if the King had been so disposed, that the Queen would have consented to an arrangement which would have materially diminished her own consequence. She was accordingly invested with the office of regent; and she performed its duties with a grace and an efficiency which caused universal congratulation that the post had not been confided to other, and necessarily weaker, hands. She had Sir Robert Walpole at her side to aid her with his counsel; and the presence of the baronet’s enemy, Lord Townshend, with the King had no effect in damaging the power effectively administered by Caroline and her great minister.

It was not merely during the absence of the King in Hanover that Caroline may be said to have ruled in England. The year 1730 affords us an illustration on this point.

The dissenters, who had originally consented to the Test and Corporation Acts, upon a most unselfish ground—for they sacrificed their own interest in order that the Romanists might be prevented from being admitted to places of power and trust—now demanded the repeal of those Acts. The request perplexed the crown and ministry, especially when an election was pending. To promise the dissenters (and it was more especially the Presbyterians who moved in this matter) relief would be to deprive the crown of the votes of churchmen; and to reject the petition would be to set every dissenter against the government and its candidates. Sir Robert Walpole, in his perplexity, looked around for a good genius to rescue him from the dilemma in which he was placed. He paused, on considering Hoadly, Bishop of Salisbury. The bishop was the very deus ex machinâ most needed, but he had been shabbily treated on matters of preferment; and Walpole,192 who had face for most things, had not the face to ask help from a man whom he had ill-treated. The Queen stepped in and levelled the difficulty.

Caroline sent for Hoadly to come to her at Kensington. She received the prelate with affability, and overwhelmed him with flattery, compliments on his ability, and grateful expressions touching his zeal and the value of his services in the King’s cause. She had now, she said, a further service to ask at his hands; and, of course, it was one which demanded of him no sacrifice of opinion or consistency: the Queen would have been the last person to ask such a thing of the reverend prelate! The service was this. The dissenters required the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The government did not dispute their right to have such a concession made to them, but it did feel that the moment was inconvenient; and, therefore, Bishop Hoadly, for whom the whole body of dissenters entertained the most profound respect, was solicited to make this opinion known to them, and to induce them to defer their petition to a more favourable opportunity.

The Queen supported her request by such close and cogent arguments, flattered the bishop so adroitly, and drew such a picture of the possibly deplorable results of an attempt to force the repeal of the Acts alluded to at the present moment, that Hoadly may be excused if he began to think that the stability of the House of Hanover depended on the course he should take in this conjuncture. He was not, however, to be cajoled out of his opinions or his independence; he pronounced the restrictive Acts unreasonable politically, and profane theologically. He added, that, as a friend to religious and civil liberty, he would vote for the repeal whenever and by whomsoever proposed. He should stultify himself if he did otherwise. All that was in his ‘little power,’ consistent with his honour and reputation, he would, nevertheless, willingly do. If193 he could be clearly convinced that the present moment was unpropitious for pressing the demand, and perilous to the stability of the government, he would not fail to urge upon the dissenters to postpone presenting their petition until the coming of a more favourable opportunity.

The out-of-door world no sooner heard of this interview between the Queen and the prelate, than a report arose that her Majesty had succeeded in convincing the right reverend father that the claims of the dissenters were unreasonable, and that the bishop, as a consequence of such conviction, would henceforth oppose them resolutely.

Hoadly became alarmed, for such a report damaged all parties. He was very anxious to maintain a character for consistency, and at the same time not to lose his little remnant of interest at court. He tried in vain to get a promise from Sir Robert, that, if the dissenters would defer preferring their claim until the meeting of a new parliament, it should then meet with the government support. Sir Robert was too wary to make such a promise, although he hinted his conviction of the reasonableness of the claim, and that it would be supported when so preferred. But the bishop, in his turn, was too cautious to allow himself to be caught by so flimsy an encouragement; and he was admitted to several subsequent consultations with the Queen; but, clever as she was, she could not move the bishop. Hoadly was resolved that the dissenters should know, that if he thought they might with propriety defer their petition, he would uphold its prayer whenever presented.

In the mean time, Sir Robert extricated himself and the government cleverly. Caroline doubtless enjoyed this exercise of his ability as well as its results. The dissenters, organising an agitation, had established a central committee in London, all the members of which were bound to Sir Robert; ‘all monied men, and scriveners, and chosen by his contrivance. They spoke only to be prompted, and194 acted only as he guided.’5 This committee had a solemnly farcical meeting with the administration, to hold a consultation in the matter. Sir Robert and the speakers confined themselves to the unseasonableness, but commended the reasonableness, of the petition. ‘My lord president looked wise, was dull, took snuff, and said nothing. Lord Harrington (the Mr. Stanhope who had waited on the Duchess of Queensberry) took the same silent, passive part. The Lord-Chancellor (King) and the Duke of Newcastle had done better had they followed that example too; but both spoke very plentifully, and were both equally unintelligible; the one (King) from having lost his understanding, and the other from never having had any.’6

The committee, after this interview, came to the resolution, that if a petition were presented to parliament now in favour of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, ‘there was no prospect of success.’ This resolution saved the administration from the storm threatened by the Presbyterian party. That party considered itself betrayed by its own delegates, the Queen and Sir Robert were well satisfied with the result, and the bishop was looked upon by the dissenters as having supported their cause too little, and by the Queen’s cabinet as having supported it too much.

In this case it may, perhaps, be fairly asserted that the Queen and the minister, while they punished the dissenters, caused the blame to fall upon the church. Their chief argument was, that the opposition of the clergy would be a source of the greatest embarrassment to the administration. It had long been the fashion to make the church suffer, at least in reputation, on every occasion when opportunity offered, and without any thought as to whether the establishment deserved it or not. It was in politics precisely as it was in Sir John Vanbrugh’s comedy of the ‘Provoked Wife.’ It will be remembered that, in that195 dramatic mirror, which represents nature as objects are seen reflected in flawed glass, when the tailor enters with a bundle, the elegant Lord Rake exclaims, ‘Let me see what’s in that bundle!’ ‘An’t please you,’ says the tailor, ‘it is the doctor of the parish’s gown.’ ‘The doctor’s gown!’ cries my lord; and then, turning to Sir John Brute, he exultingly enquires, or requires, ‘Hark you, knight; you won’t stick at abusing the clergy, will you?’ ‘No!’ shouts Brute, ‘I’m drunk, and I’ll abuse anything!’ ‘Then,’ says Lord Rake, ‘you shall wear this gown whilst you charge the watch; that though the blows fall upon you, the scandal may light upon the church!’ ‘A generous design, by all the Gods!’ is the ecstatic consent of the Pantheistic Brute—and it is one to which Amen! has been cried by many of the Brute family since first it was uttered by their illustrious predecessor.

Meanwhile, Caroline could be as earnest and interested upon trifles as she was upon questions of political importance. She loved both to plague and to talk about Mrs. Howard.

That the Queen was not more courteous to this lady than their respective positions demanded there is abundant evidence. In a very early period of the reign Mrs. Howard was required, as bedchamber-woman, to present a basin for the Queen to wash her hands in, and to perform the service kneeling. The etiquette was, for the basin and ewer to be set on the Queen’s table by a page of the back stairs: the office of the bedchamber-woman was then to take both, pour out the water, set it before the Queen, and remain kneeling while her Majesty washed, of which refreshing ceremony the kneeling attendant was the only one who dared be the ocular witness.

This service of genuflexion remained in courtly fashion till the death of Queen Charlotte. In the mean time,196 Mrs. Howard was by no means disposed to render it to Queen Caroline. The scene which ensued was highly amusing. On the service being demanded, said Caroline to Lord Hervey, ‘Mrs. Howard proceeded to tell me, with her little fierce eyes, and cheeks as red as your coat, that, positively, she would not do it; to which I made her no answer then in anger, but calmly, as I would have said to a naughty child:—“Yes, my dear Howard, I am sure you will. I know you will. Go, go; fie for shame! Go, my good Howard; we will talk of this another time.” Mrs. Howard did come round; and I told her,’ said Caroline, ‘I knew we should be good friends again; but could not help adding, in a little more serious voice, that I owned, of all my servants, I had least expected, as I had least deserved it, such treatment from her; when she knew I had held her up at a time when it was in my power, if I had pleased, any hour of the day, to let her drop through my fingers, thus——.’

Caroline’s own account of the fracas between Mrs. Howard and her husband is too characteristic to be passed over. The curious in such matters will find it in full detail in ‘Lord Hervey’s Memoirs.’ In this place it will suffice to say, that, according to Lord Hervey, Mr. Howard had a personal interview with the Queen. Caroline described the circumstances of it with great graphic power. At this interview he had said that he would take his wife out of her Majesty’s coach if he met her in it. Caroline told him to ‘Do it, if he dare; though,’ she added, ‘I was horribly afraid of him (for we were tête à tête) all the time I was thus playing the bully. What added to my fear on this occasion,’ said the Queen, ‘was, that as I knew him to be so brutal, as well as a little mad, and seldom quite sober, so that I did not think it impossible but that he might throw me out of window (for it was in this very room our interview was,197 and that sash then open, as it is now); but as soon as I got near the door, and thought myself safe from being thrown out of the window, I resumed my grand tone of Queen, and said I would be glad to see who would dare to open my coach-door and take out one of my servants; knowing all the time that he might do so if he would, and that he could have his wife and I the affront. Then I told him that my resolution was positively, neither to force his wife to go to him if she had no mind to it, nor to keep her if she had. He then said he would complain to the King; upon which I again assumed my high tone, and said the King had nothing to do with my servants; and, for that reason, he might save himself the trouble, as I was sure the King would give him no answer but that it was none of his business to concern himself with my family; and after a good deal more conversation of this sort (I standing close to the door all the while to give me courage), Mr. Howard and I bade one another good morning, and he withdrew.’

Caroline proceeded to call Lord Trevor ‘an old fool’ for coming to her with thanks from Mrs. Howard, and suggestions that the Queen should give 1,200l. a-year to the husband for the consent of the latter to his wife’s being retained in the Queen’s household. Caroline replied to this suggestion with as high a tone as she could have used when addressing herself to Mr. Howard; but with a coarseness of spirit and sentiment which hardly became a queen, although they do not appear to have been considered unbecoming in a queen at that time. ‘I thought,’ said Caroline, ‘I had done full enough, and that it was a little too much, not only to keep the King’s “guenipes” (trollops) under my roof, but to pay them too. I pleaded poverty to my good Lord Trevor, and said I would do anything to keep so good a servant as Mrs. Howard about me; but that for the 1,200l. a-year,198 I really could not afford it.’ The King used to make presents to the Queen of fine Hanoverian horses, not that she might be gratified, but that he might, when he wanted them, have horses maintained out of her purse. So he gave her a bedchamber-woman in Mrs. Howard; but Caroline would not have her on the same terms as the horses, and the 1,200l. a-year were probably paid—-not by the King, after all, but by the people.

Lord Chesterfield describes the figure of Mrs. Howard as being above the middle size and well-shaped, with a face more pleasing than beautiful.7 She was remarkable for the extreme fairness and fineness of her hair. ‘Her arms were square and lean, that is, ugly. Her countenance was an undecided one, and announced neither good nor ill nature, neither sense nor the want of it, neither vivacity nor dulness.’ It is difficult to understand how such a face could be ‘pleasing;’ and the following is the characteristic of a common-place person. ‘She had good natural sense, not without art, but in her conversation dwelt tediously upon details and minuties.’ Of the man whom she had, when very young, hastily married for love, and heartily hated at leisure, Chesterfield says, ‘he was sour, dull, and sullen.’ The same writer sets it down as equally unaccountable that the lady should have loved such a man, or that the man should ever have loved anybody. The noble lord is also of opinion that only a Platonic friendship reigned between the King and the favourite; and that it was as innocent as that which was said to have existed between himself and Miss Bellenden.

Very early during the intercourse, ‘the busy and speculative politicians of the antechambers, who knew everything, but knew everything wrong,’ imagined that the lady’s influence must be all-powerful, seeing that her199 admirer paid to her the homage of devoting to her the best hours of his day. She did not reject solicitations, we are told, because she was unwilling to have it supposed that she was without power. She neither rejected solicitations nor bound herself by promises, but hinted at difficulties; and, in short, as Chesterfield well expresses it, she used ‘all that trite cant of those who with power will not, and of those who without power cannot, grant the requested favours.’ So far from being able to make peers, she was not even successful in a well-meant attempt to procure a place of 200l. a-year ‘for John Gay, a very poor and honest man, and no bad poet, only because he was a poet, which the King considered as a mechanic.’ Mrs. Howard had little influence, either in the house of the Prince, or, when she became Countess of Suffolk, in that of the King. Caroline, we are told, ‘had taken good care that Lady Suffolk’s apartment should not lead to power and favour; and from time to time made her feel her inferiority by hindering the King from going to her room for three or four days, representing it as the seat of a political faction.’

The social happiness of Caroline began now to be affected by the conduct of her son Frederick, Prince of Wales. Since his arrival in England, in 1728, he had been but coolly entertained by his parents, who refused to pay the debts he had accumulated in Hanover previous to his leaving the Electorate. He was soon in the arms of the opposition; and the court had no more violent an enemy, political or personal, than this prince.

His conduct, however—and some portion of it was far from being unprovoked—did not prevent the court from entering into some social enjoyments of a harmless and not over-amusing nature. Among these may be201 reckoned the ‘readings’ at Windsor Castle. These readings consisted of the poetry, or verses rather, of that Stephen Duck, the thresher, whose rhymes Swift has ridiculed in lines as weak as any which ever fell from the pen of Duck. The latter was a Wiltshire labourer, who supported, or tried to support, a family upon the modest wages of four-and-sixpence a week. In his leisure hours, whenever those could have occurred, he cultivated poetry; and two of his pieces, ‘The Shunamite’ and ‘The Thresher’s Labour,’ were publicly read in the drawing-room at Windsor Castle, in 1730, by Lord Macclesfield. Caroline procured for the poet the office of yeoman of the guard, and afterwards made him keeper of her grotto, Merlin’s Cave, at Richmond. This last act, and the patronage and pounds which Caroline wasted upon the wayward and worthless savage, show that Swift’s epigram upon the busts in the hermitage at Richmond was not based upon truth—

Swift’s anger against the Queen, who once promised him some medals, but who never kept her word, and from whom he had hoped, perhaps, for a patronage which he failed to acquire, was further illustrated about this time in a fiercely satirical poem, in which he says:—

And, in allusion to the princesses and their prospects, he adds, that Caroline ‘hath graces of her own:’—

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The royal patronage of Duck ultimately raised him to the church, and made of him Vicar of Kew. But it failed to bring to the thresher substantial happiness. He had little enjoyment in the station to which he was elevated; and, weary of the restraints it imposed on him, he ultimately escaped from them by drowning himself.

Of the Graces who were the daughters of Caroline, the marriage of one began now to be canvassed. Meanwhile, there was much food for mere talk in common passing events at home. The courtiers had to express sympathy at their Majesties’ being upset in their carriage, when travelling only from Kew to London. Then the son of a Stuart had just died in London. He was that Duke of Cleveland who was the eldest son of Charles II. and Barbara Villiers. In the year 1731 died two far more remarkable people. On the 8th of April ‘Mrs. Elizabeth Cromwell, daughter of Richard Cromwell, the Protector, and grand-daughter of Oliver Cromwell, died at her house in Bedford Row, in the eighty-second year of her age.’ In the same month passed away a man whose writings as much amused Caroline as they have done commoner people—Defoe. He had a not much superior intellectual training to that of Stephen Duck, but he was ‘one of the best English writers that ever had so mean an education.’ The deaths in the same year of the eccentric and profligate Duke of Wharton, and of the relict of that Duke of Monmouth who lost his head for rebellion against James II., gave further subject of conversation in the court circle; where, if it was understood that death was203 inevitable and necessary, no one could understand what had induced Dr. Nichols, of Trinity College, Cambridge, to steal books from the libraries in that university town. The court was highly merry at the precipitate flight of the doctor, after he was found out; but there was double the mirth the next year at the awkwardness of the Emperor of Germany, who, happening to fire at a stag, chanced to shoot Prince Schwartzenberg, his master of the horse. But we turn from these matters to those of wooing and marriage.

In the year 1733 the proud and eldest daughter of Caroline, she who had expressed her vexation at having brothers, who stood between her and the succession to the crown—a crown, to wear which for a day, she averred she would willingly die when the day was over—in the year above named, the Princess Anne had reached the mature age of twenty-four, and her hand yet remained disengaged. Neither crown nor suitor had yet been placed at her disposal. A suitor with a crown was once, however, very nearly on the point of fulfilling the great object of her ambition, and that when she was not more than sixteen years of age. The lover proposed was no less a potentate than Louis XV., and he would have offered her a seat on a throne, which, proud as she was, she might have accepted without much condescension.

It is said that the proposal to unite Louis XV. and the Princess Anne originated with the French minister, the Duke de Bourbon, and that the project was entertained with much favour and complacency, until it suddenly occurred to some one that if the princess became queen in France, she would be expected to conform to the religion of France. This, it was urged, could not be thought of by a family which was a reigning family only by virtue of its pre-eminent Protestantism. It does not seem to204 have occurred to any one that when Maria Henrietta espoused Charles I., she had not been even asked to become a professed member of the Church of England, and that we might have asked for the same toleration in France for the daughter of Caroline as had been given in England to the daughter of the ‘Grand Henri.’ However this may be, the affair was not pursued to its end, and Caroline could not say to her daughter, as Stanislas said to his on the morning he received an offer for her from the young King Louis:—‘Bon jour! ma fille: vous êtes Reine de France!’

Anne was unlucky. She lived moodily on for some half-dozen years, and, nothing more advantageous offering, she looked good-naturedly on one of the ugliest princes in Europe. But then he happened to be a sovereign prince in his way. This was the Prince of Orange, who resembled Alexander the Great only in having a wry neck and a halt in his gait. But he also had other deformities from which the Macedonian was free.

George and Caroline were equally indisposed to accept the prince for a son-in-law, and the parental disinclination was expressed in words to the effect that neither King nor Queen would force the feelings of their daughter, whom they left free to accept or reject the misshapen suitor who aspired to the plump hand and proud person of the Princess Anne.

The lady thought of her increasing years; that lovers were not to be found on every bush, especially sovereign lovers; and, remembering that there were Princesses of England before her who had contrived to live in much state and a certain degree of happiness as Princesses of Orange, she declared her intention of following the same course, and compelling her ambition to stoop to the same modest fortune.

The Queen was well aware that her daughter knew205 nothing more of the prince than what she could collect from his counterfeit presentments limned by flattering artists; and Caroline suggested that she should not be too ready to accept a lover whom she had not seen. The princess was resolute in her determination to take him at once, ‘for better, for worse.’ Her royal father was somewhat impatient and chafed by such pertinacity, and exclaimed that the prince was the ugliest man in Holland, and he could not more terribly describe him. ‘I do not care,’ said she, ‘how ugly he may be. If he were a Dutch baboon I would marry him.’ ‘Nay, then, have your way,’ said George, in his strong Westphalian accent, which was always rougher and stronger when he was vexed; ‘have your way: you will find baboon enough, I promise you!’

Could the aspiring Prince of Orange only have heard how amiably he was spoken of en famille by his future relations, he would perhaps have been less ambitious of completing the alliance. Happily these family secrets were not revealed until long after he could be conscious of them, and accordingly his honest proposals were accepted with ostentatious respect and ill-covered ridicule.

The marriage of the princess royal could not be concluded without an application to parliament. To both houses a civil intimation was made of the proposed union of the Princess Anne and the Prince of Orange. In this intimation the King graciously mentioned that he promised himself the concurrence and assistance of the Commons to enable him to give such a portion with his eldest daughter as should be suitable to the occasion. The Commons’ committee promised to do all that the King and Queen could expect from them, and they therefore came to the resolution to sell lands in the island of St. Christopher to the amount of 80,000l., and to make over that sum to the King, as the dowry of his eldest daughter. The resolution made part of a bill of which it was only one of206 the items, and the members in the house affected to be scandalised that the dowry of a Princess of England should be ‘lumped in’ among a mass of miscellaneous items—charities to individuals, grants to old churches, and sums awarded for less dignified purposes. But the bill passed as it stood, and Caroline, who only a few days before had sent a thousand pounds to the provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, for the rebuilding and adorning of that college, was especially glad to find a dowry for her daughter, in whatever company it might come, provided only it was not out of her own purse.

The news of the securing of the dowry hastened the coming of the bridegroom. On the 7th of November 1732 he arrived at Greenwich, and thence proceeded to Somerset House. His intended wife, when she heard of his arrival, was in no hurry to meet him, but went on at her harpsichord, surrounded by a number of opera-people. The Queen spoke of him as ‘that animal!’ The nuptials were to have been speedily solemnised, but the lover fell grievously sick. When the poor ‘groom’ fell sick, not one of the royal family condescended to visit him, and though he himself maintained a dignified silence on this insulting conduct, his suite, who could not imitate their master’s indifference, made comment thereupon loud and frequent enough. They got nothing by it, save being called Dutch boobies. The princess royal exhibited no outward manifestation either of consciousness or sympathy. She appeared precisely the same under all contingencies; and whether the lover were in or out of England, in life or out of it, seemed to this strong-minded lady to be one and the same thing.

There was no one whom the postponement of the marriage more annoyed than it did the Duchess of Marlborough. She was then residing in Marlborough House, which had been built some five-and-twenty years previously207 by Wren. That architect was employed, not because he was preferred, but that Vanbrugh might be vexed. The ground, in which had formerly been kept the birds and fowls ultimately destined to pass through the kitchen to the royal table, had been leased to the duchess by Queen Anne, and the expenses of building amounted to nearly fifty thousand pounds. The duchess both experienced and caused considerable mortifications here. She used to speak of the King in the adjacent palace as her ‘neighbour George.’ The entrance to the house, from Pall Mall, was, as it still is, a crooked and inconvenient one. To remedy this defect, she intended to purchase some houses ‘in the Priory,’ as the locality was called, for the purpose of pulling them down and constructing a more commodious entry to the mansion; but Sir Robert Walpole, with no more dignified motive than spite, secured the houses and ground, and erected buildings on the latter, which, as now, completely blocked in the front of the duchess’s mansion. She was subjected to a more temporary, but as inconvenient, blockade when the preparations for the wedding of the imperious Anne and her ugly husband were going on. Among other preparations a boarded gallery, through which the nuptial procession was to pass, was built up close against the duchess’s windows, completely darkening her rooms. As the boards remained there during the postponement of the ceremony, the duchess used to look at them with the remark, ‘I wish the princess would oblige me by taking away her orange chest!’

But the sick bridegroom took long to mend; and it was not till the following January that he was even sufficiently convalescent to journey by easy stages to Bath, and there drink in health at the fashionable pump. A month’s attendance there restored him to something like health; and in February his serene highness was gravely disporting himself at Oxford, exchanging compliments and208 eating dinners with the sages and scholars at that seat of learning. Another month was allowed to pass, and then, on the 24th of March 1733, the royal marriage was solemnised ‘in the French Chapel,’ St. James’s, by the Bishop of London.

The ceremony was as theatrical and coarse as such things used to be in those days. The prince must have looked very much as M. Potier used to look in Riquet à la Houppe, before his transformation from deformity to perfection. He was attired in a ‘cloth of gold suit;’ and George and Caroline may be pardoned if they smiled at the ‘baboon’ whom they were about to accept for their son-in-law. The bride was ‘in virgin robes of silver tissue, having a train six yards long, which was supported by ten dukes’ and earls’ daughters, all of whom were attired in robes of silver tissue.’

Nature will assert its claims in spite of pride or expediency; and accordingly it was observed that, after the bridegroom had arrived, and the marriage procession began to move through the temporarily constructed gallery, blazing with light, and glittering with bright gems and brighter eyes, the bride herself seemed slightly touched, and Caroline especially grave and anxious in her deportment. She appeared, for the first time, to feel that her daughter was about to make a great sacrifice, and her consequent anxiety was probably increased by the conviction that it was too late to save her daughter from impending fate. The King himself, who had never been in the eager condition of the seigneur in the song, who so peremptorily exclaims—

manifested more impassibility than ever. Finally, the knot was tied under a salvo of artillery and a world of sighs.

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The ceremony took place in the evening, and at midnight the royal family supped in public. It was a joyous festival, and not before two in the morning did the jaded married couple retire to the bower prepared for them, where they had to endure the further nuisance of sitting up in bed, in rich undresses, while the court and nobility, ‘fresh’ from an exhilarating supper and strong wines, defiled before them, making pleasant remarks the while, as ‘fine gentlemen’ used to make who had been born in our Augustan age.

Caroline felt compassion for her daughter, but she restrained her feelings until her eye fell upon the bridegroom. In his silver tissue night-dress, his light peruque, his ugliness, and his deformity, he struck her as the impersonation of a monster. His ill figure was so ill-dressed, that, looked at from behind, he appeared to have no head, and seen from before, he appeared as if he had neither neck nor legs.8 The Queen was wonderfully moved at the sight—moved with pity for her daughter, and with indignation at her husband. The portion of the ceremony which used to be the merriest was by far the most mournful, at least so far as the Queen’s participation therein was concerned. She fairly cried with mingled vexation, disappointment, and disgust. She could not even revert to the subject, for days after, without crying, and yet laughing too, as the oddity of the bridegroom’s ugliness came across her mind.

The married couple were assuredly a strangely assorted pair. The bride, indeed, was not without common-place charms. In common with a dairy-maid the princess had a lively clear look and a very fair complexion. Like many a dairy-maid, too, of the time, she was very much marked with the small-pox. She was also ill-made, and inclined to become as obese as her royal mother. But210 then the bridegroom! All writers dealing with the subject agree that his ugliness was something extraordinary. No one doubts that he was deformed; but Hervey adds some traits that are revolting. His serene highness did not, like the gods, distil a celestial ichor. He appears, however, not to have been void of sense or good feeling; for when, at the period of his arrival, he was received with very scanty honours and cold ceremony—was made to feel that he was nothing in himself, and could only become anything here by marrying an English princess; when George, if not Caroline, ‘snubbed’ the courtiers who crowded his apartments at Somerset House; and when, in short, the prince of 12,000l. a year was made to feel that but little value was set upon him—he bore it all in silence, or as if he did not perceive it. Let us hope that gallantry for the lady induced the princely Quasimodo thus to act. It was almost more than she deserved; for while the people were ready to believe that the alliance was entered into the better to strengthen the Protestant succession, Anne herself was immediately moved thereto by fear, if she were left single, of ultimately depending for a provision upon her brother Frederick.

Lord Hervey was the master of the ceremonies on this serio-comic occasion. According to his table of precedence, the Irish peers were to walk in the procession after the entire body of the peerage of Great Britain. This was putting the highest Irish peer beneath the lowest baron in Britain. The Hibernian lords claimed to walk immediately after the English and Scotch peers of their own degree. It was the most modest claim ever made by that august body; but, modest as it was, the arrogant peers of Great Britain threatened, if the claim were allowed, to absent themselves from the ceremony altogether! The case was represented to Caroline, and she took the side of right and common sense; but when she211 was told that to allow the Irish claim would be to banish every British peer from the solemn ceremony, she was weak enough to give way. Lord Hervey, in his programme for the occasion, omitted to make any mention of the peers of Ireland at all—thus leaving them to walk where they could. On being remonstrated with, he said that if the Irish lords were not satisfied he would keep all the finery standing, and they might walk through it in any order of precedency they liked on the day after the wedding. One lord grievously complained of the omission of the illustrious Hibernian body from the programme. Lord Hervey excused himself by remarking, that as the Irish house of peers was then sitting in Dublin, he never thought, being an Englishman, of the august members of that assembly being in two places at once.

The claim was probably disallowed because Ireland was not then in union with England, as Scotland was. On no other ground could the claim have been refused; and Caroline saw that even that ground was not a very good one whereon to rest a denial. As it was, the Irish peers felt like poor relations, neither invited to nor prohibited from the joyous doings, but with a thorough conviction that, to use a popular phrase, their room was deemed preferable to their company.

During the week following the marriage, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was employed, after a fashion which suited his tastes extremely well, in escorting his brother-in-law to witness the sights of London. It then appears to have suddenly struck the government that it would be as well to make an Englishman of the bridegroom, and that that consummation could not be too quickly arrived at. Accordingly, a bill for naturalising the prince was brought in and read three times on the same day. It, of course, passed unanimously, and the prince received the intelligence of his having been converted into a Briton212 with a phlegm which showed that he had not altogether ceased to be a Dutchman.

He was much more pleasurably excited in the April of the following year, when he heard that the King had sent a written message to the Commons, intimating that he had settled five thousand a year on the princess royal, and desiring that they would enable him to make the grant for the life of the princess, as it would otherwise determine on his Majesty’s death. The Commons complied with this message, and the Prince of Orange was infinitely more delighted with this Act than with that which bestowed on him the legal rights of an Englishman.

This pleasant little arrangement having been concluded, the prince and princess set out for Holland, from St. James’s, on the 10th of April 1734; and in July of the same year the princess was again in England, not at all to the satisfaction of her sire, and but very scantily to the delight of her mother. The young lady, however, was determined to remain; and it was not till November that she once more returned to her home behind the dykes. The Queen was not sorry to part with her, for just then she was deep in the fracas connected with the dismissal of her husband’s ‘favourite,’ Lady Suffolk, from her office of mistress of the robes to her Majesty, an office in which she was succeeded by the more worthy Countess of Tankerville. The King had the less time to be troubled with thought about ‘that old deaf woman,’ as he very ungallantly used to call his ancient ‘favourite,’ as he, too, was deeply engaged in protesting against the Elector Palatine, who had been very vigorously protesting against the right of the King, as Elector of Hanover, to bear the title of arch-treasurer of the empire.

The commiseration which the Queen had felt for her daughter was shared by the sister of the latter, the213 Princess Amelia, who declared that nothing on earth could have induced her to wed with such a man as the Prince of Orange. Her declaration was accepted for as much as it was worth. The gentle Princess Caroline, on the other hand, thought that her sister, under the circumstances, had acted wisely, and that, had she been so placed, she would have acted in like manner. Nor did the conduct of the bride give the world any reason to think that she stood in need of pity. She appeared to adore the ‘monster,’ who, it must be confessed, exhibited no particular regard for his spouse. The homage she paid him was perfect. ‘She made prodigious court to him,’ says Lord Hervey, ‘addressed everything she said to him, and applauded everything he said to anybody else.’

Perhaps the pride of the princess would not permit a doubt to be thrown upon her supreme happiness. Her brother Frederick strove to mar it by raising a quarrel, on a slight, but immensely absurd, foundation. He reproached her for the double fault of presuming to be married before him, and of accepting a settlement from her father when he had none. He was ingenious in finding fault; but there may have been a touch of satire in this, for Anne was known to have been as groundlessly angry with her brother for a circumstance which he could not very well help, namely, his own birth, whereby the princess royal ceased to be next heir to the crown.

The prince, however, was not much addicted to showing respect to anybody, least of all to his mother. It was because of this miserable want of respect for the Queen that the King, in an interview forced on him by his son, refused to settle a fixed annuity upon him—at least till he had manifested a more praiseworthy conduct towards the Queen.

The anxiety of Frederick on this occasion was not unnatural, for he was deeply in debt, and of the 100,000l.214 granted to the prince by parliament out of the civil list, the King allowed him only 36,000l. The remainder was appropriated by the King, who doubtless made his son’s conduct the rule of his liberality, measuring his supplies to the prince according as the latter was well or ill behaved. It was a degrading position enough, and the degradation was heightened by the silent contempt with which the King passed over his son’s application to be permitted to join in active service. Throughout these first family quarrels, the Queen preserved a great impartiality, with some leaning, perhaps, towards serving her son. Nothing, however, came of it; and, for the moment, Frederick was fain to be content with doing the honours of the metropolis to his ungraceful brother-in-law.

The congratulatory addresses which were presented on the occasion of the marriage had a mordantly satirical tone about them. It is wonderful how George and Caroline, whose unpopularity was increasing at this time, continued to preserve their equanimity at hearing praises rung on the name and services of ‘Orange’—the name of a prince who had become King of England by rendering the questionable service to his father-in-law of turning him off the throne.

The address of the Lords to the Queen, especially congratulating the mother on the marriage of her daughter, was rendered painful instead of pleasant by its being presented, that is spoken, to her by Lord Chesterfield. Caroline had never seen this peer since the time he was dismissed from her husband’s household, when she was Princess of Wales. He had not been presented at court since the accession of the present Sovereign, and the Queen was therefore resolved to treat as an utter stranger the man who had been impertinent enough to declare he designed that the step he took should be considered as a215 compliment to the Queen. The latter abhorred him, nevertheless, for his present attempt to turn the compliment addressed to her by the Lords into a joke. Before he appeared, Caroline intimated her determination not to let the peer’s cool impertinence awe or disconcert her. He really did find what she declared he should, that ‘it was as little in his power for his presence to embarrass her as for his raillery behind her back to pique her, or his consummate skill in politics to distress the King or his ministers.’9

The Queen acted up to this resolution. She received Lords Chesterfield, Scarborough, and Hardwicke, the bearers of the address, in her bedchamber, no one else being present but her children and Lord Hervey, who stood behind her chair. The last-named nobleman, in describing the scene, says: ‘Lord Chesterfield’s speech was well written and well got by heart, and yet delivered with a faltering voice, a face as white as a sheet, and every limb trembling with concern. The Queen’s answer was quiet and natural, and delivered with the same ease that she would have spoken to the most indifferent person in her circle.’

Caroline, however, had more serious matters to attend to during this year than affairs of marriage. Of these we will now briefly speak.

Sir Robert Walpole’s celebrated Excise scheme was prolific in raising political agitations and exciting both political and personal passions. The Peers were, strangely enough, even more resolute against the measure than the Commons; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, that a portion of them took advantage of the popular feeling to further thereby their own particular interests and especial objects.

It is again illustrative of the power and influence of216 Caroline, and of the esteem in which she was held, that a body of the peers delegated Lord Stair to proceed to the Queen, at Kensington, and remonstrate with her upon the unconstitutional and destructive measure, as they designated the Excise project.

Lord Stair was a bold man and was accustomed to meet and contend with sovereigns. He had no doubt of being able to turn Caroline to his purpose. But never did delegate perform his mission so awkwardly. He thought to awaken the Queen’s indignation against Walpole by imparting to her the valuable admonitory knowledge that she was ruled by that subtle statesman. He fancied he improved his position by informing her that Walpole was universally hated, that he was no gentleman, and that he was as ill-looking as he was ill-inclined. He even forgot his mission, save when he spoke of fidelity to his constituents, by going into purely personal matters, railing at the minister whose very shoe-buckles he had kissed in order to be appointed vice-admiral of Scotland, when the Duke of Queensberry was ejected from that post, and accusing Walpole of being manifestly untrue to the trust which he held, seeing that whenever there was an office to dispose of, he invariably preferred giving it to the Campbells rather than to him—Stair. To the Campbells!—he reiterated, as if the very name were enough to rouse Caroline against Walpole. To the Campbells! who tried to rule England by means of the King’s mistress; opposed to governing it by means of the King’s wife.

Caroline heard him with decent and civil patience until he had gone through his list of private grievances, and began to meddle with matters personal to herself and the royal hearth. She then burst forth, and was superb in her rebuke—superb in its matter and manner—superb in her dignity and in the severity with which she217 crushed Lord Stair beneath her fiery sarcasms and her withering contempt. She ridiculed his assertions of fidelity, and told him he had become traitor to his own country and the betrayer of his own constituents. She mocked his complacent assurances that his object was not personal, but patriotic. She professed her intense abhorrence of having the private dissensions of noblemen ripped open in her presence, and bade him learn better manners than to speak, as he had done, of ‘the King’s servants to the King’s wife.’

‘My conscience,’ said Lord Stair.

‘Don’t talk to me of your conscience, my lord,’ said Caroline, ‘or I shall faint.’ The conversation was in French, and the Queen’s precise words were, ‘Ne me parlez point de conscience, milord; vous me faites évanouir.’

The Scottish lord was sadly beaten down, and confessed his disgraceful defeat by requesting her Majesty to be good enough to keep what had passed at the interview as a secret. He added, in French, ‘Madame, le Roi est trompé et vous êtes trahie’—‘The King is deceived and you are betrayed.’ He had previously alluded to Lords Bolingbroke and Carteret, as men worthy indeed to be trusted, and who had the honour and glory of the kingdom at heart. These names, with such testimonial attached to them, especially excited the royal indignation. ‘Bolingbroke and Carteret!’ exclaimed Caroline. ‘You may tell them from me, if you will, that they are men of no parts; that they are said to be two of the greatest liars in any country; and that my observation and experience confirm what is said of them.’10

Stair reiterated his request that the incidents of the private interview should not be further spoken of. Caroline consented; and she must have felt some contempt218 for him as he also promised that he would keep them secret, giving knowledge thereof to no man.

‘Well?’ said Carteret, enquiringly, as he met with Lord Stair after this notable interview with Caroline.

‘Well!’ exclaimed Lord Stair, ‘I have staggered her!’ A pigmy might as well have boasted of having staggered Thalestris and Hippolyta.

A short time subsequently Lord Hervey was with the Queen, in her apartment, purveying to her, as he was wont to do, the floating news of the day. Among other things, he told her of an incident in a debate in parliament upon the army supplies. In the course of the discussion, Carteret had observed that, at the period when Cardinal Mazarin was ruining France by his oppressive measures, a great man sought an audience of the Queen (Anne of Austria, mother of the young King Louis XIV.), and after explaining to her the perils of the times, ended with the remark that she was maintaining a man at the helm who deserved to be rowing in the galleys.

Caroline immediately knew that Lord Stair had revealed what he had petitioned her to keep secret; and feeling that she was thereby exonerated from observing further silence, her Majesty took the opportunity to ‘out with it all,’ as she said in not less choice French: ‘J’ai pris la première occasion d’égosiller tout.’

Reverting to Carteret’s illustration she observed that the ‘great man’ noticed by him was Condé, a man who never had a word to say against Mazarin as long as the cardinal fed a rapacity which could never be satisfied. This was, in some degree, Stair’s position with regard to Walpole. ‘Condé, in his interview with the Queen of France,’ observed the well-read Queen of England, ‘had for his object to impose upon her and France, by endeavouring to persuade her that his private resentments219 were only a consequence of his zeal for the public service.’

Lord Hervey, very gallantly and courtier-like, expressed his wish that her Majesty could have been in the house to let the senate know her wisdom; or that she could have been concealed there, to have had the opportunity of saying, with Agrippine—

The quotation, perhaps, could not have been altogether applicable, but as Lord Hervey quoted it, and ‘my lord’ was a man of wit, it is doubtless as well-placed as wit could make it. The Queen, at all events, took it as a compliment, laughed, and declared, that often when she was with these impatient fellows, ever ready with their unreasonable remonstrances, she was tempted herself to say, with Agrippine, that she was—

a quotation less applicable even than the former, but in which Lord Hervey detected such abundance of wit that he went into a sort of ecstasy of delight at the Queen’s judgment, humour, knowledge, and ability.

When the Excise bill was for the first time brought before the house, the debate lasted till one in the morning. Lord Hervey, during the evening, wrote an account of its progress to the King and Queen; and when he repaired to the palace at the conclusion of the discussion, the King kept him in the Queen’s bed-chamber, talking over the scene, till three o’clock in the morning, and never for a moment remembered that the hungry intelligencer had not dined since the yesterday.

When the clamour against the bill rose to such a pitch that all England, the army included, seemed ready to rise against it, Walpole offered himself as a personal220 sacrifice, if the service and interests of the King would be promoted by his surrender of office and power. It is again illustrative of the influence of Caroline that this offer was made to her and not to the King. He was in truth the Queen’s minister; and nobly she stood by him. When Walpole made the offer in question, Caroline declared that she would not be so mean, so cowardly, or so ungrateful as to abandon him; and she infused the same spirit into the King. The latter had intended, from the first, to reign and govern, and be effectively his own minister; but Caroline so wrought upon him that he thought he had of himself reached the conviction that it was necessary for him to trust in a minister, and that Walpole was the fittest man for such an office. And so he grew to love the very man whom he had been wont to hold in his heart’s extremest hate. He would even occasionally speak of him as a ‘noble fellow,’ and, with tears in his eyes, would listen to an account of some courageous stand Walpole had made in the house against the enemies of the government, and he would add the while a running commentary of sobs.

The Queen’s greatest triumph was this overcoming of her husband’s personal hatred for Walpole. It could not have been an achievement easy to be accomplished. But her art in effecting such achievements was supreme, and she alone could turn to her own purpose the caprices of a hot-headed man, of whom it has been said, that he was of iron obstinacy, but that he was unlike iron in this, that the hotter he became the more impossible it was to bend him. Caroline found him pliant when she found him cool. But then, too, he was most wary, and it was necessary so to act as to cause every turn which she compelled him to make appear to himself as if it were the result of his own unbiassed volition.

Supremely able as Caroline was, she could not, however,221 always conceal her emotion. Thus, at this very period of the agitation of the Excise bill, on being told, at one of her evening drawing-rooms, of the difficulties and dangers which beset the path of the government, she burst into tears, became unusually excited, and finally affecting, and perhaps feeling, headache and vapours, she broke up her quadrille party, and betrayed in her outward manner an apparent conviction of impending calamity. She evinced the same weakness on being told, on a subsequent evening, that Walpole was in a majority of only seventeen. Such a small majority she felt was a defeat; and, on this occasion, she again burst into tears, and for the first time expressed a fear that the court must give way! The sovereign was, at the same time, as strong within her as the woman; and when she heard of the subordinate holders of government posts voting against the minister or declining to vote with him, she bitterly denounced them, exclaiming, that they who refused to march with their leader were as guilty as they who openly deserted, and that both merited condign punishment.11

The King on this occasion was as excited as his consort, but he manifested his feelings in a different way. He made Lord Hervey repeat the names of those who thwarted the views of the crown, and he grunted forth an angry commentary at each name. ‘Lord John Cavendish,’ began Hervey. ‘A fool!’ snorted the King. ‘Lord Charles Cavendish.’ ‘Half mad!’ ‘Sir William Lowther.’ ‘A whimsical fellow!’ ‘Sir Thomas Prendergast.’ ‘An Irish blockhead!’ ‘Lord Tyrconnel.’ ‘A puppy,’ said George, ‘who never votes twice on the same side!’

On the other hand, the populace made their comment on the proceedings of the court. It was rendered in a222 highly popular way, and with much significancy. In the city of London, for instance, the mob hung in effigy Sir Robert Walpole and a fat woman. The male figure was duly ticketed. The female effigy was well understood to mean the Queen.

Her power would, after all, not have followed in its fall that of Walpole. Lord Hervey remarks, that had he retired, Caroline would have placed before the King the names of a new ministry, and that the administration would not have hung together a moment after it had outlived her liking.

In the meantime her indefatigability was great. At the suggestion, it is supposed, of Walpole, she sent for the Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Hoadly, who repaired to the interview with his weak person and stately independence, if one may so speak, upheld by his ‘crutched stick.’ His power must have been considered very great, and so must his caprice; for he was frequently sent for by Caroline, remonstrated with for supposed rebellion, or urged to exert all his good offices in support of the crown. It is difficult to believe that the lengthy speeches reported by Hervey were actually delivered by Queen and bishop. There is nothing longer in Livy, and we are not told that any one took them down. Substantially, however, they may be true. The Queen was insinuating, complimentary, suggestive, and audacious; the bishop all duty, submission, and promise—as far as his consistency and principles could be engaged. But, after all, the immense mountain of anxiety and stratagem was reared in vain, for Walpole withdrew his bill, and Caroline felt that England was but nominally a monarchy.

The year 1734 was marked by the retirement from court of the lady whom it was the fashion to call the Queen’s rival. Mrs. Howard, on becoming Countess of Suffolk, by the accession of her husband to the earldom in 1731, had been raised to the office of mistress of the robes to the Queen. Her husband died two years subsequently; and, shortly after, the King’s widowed favourite was sought in marriage by another suitor.

Her departure from court was doubtless principally caused by this new prospect of a happier life. It may have been accelerated by other circumstances. Lord Chesterfield, angry with the Queen for forgetting to exert her promised influence for him in obtaining some favour, applied to Lady Suffolk, and informed the Queen of the course he had taken. Caroline thereon told the King that she had had some petition to present on Lord Chesterfield’s224 behalf, but that as he had entrusted it to Lady Suffolk’s presenting, her own influence would probably be unavailing. The King, fired at the implied affront to his consort, treated his old mistress, now nearly half a century in years, with such severity that she begged to be permitted to withdraw. Lady Suffolk brought her long career at court to a close in this year, previous to her marriage with the Honourable George Berkeley, younger son of the second Earl of Berkeley. He was Master of St. Catherine’s in the Tower, and had served in two parliaments as member for Dover. Horace Walpole, who knew Lady Suffolk intimately when she was residing at Marble Hill, Twickenham, and he at Strawberry Hill, says of her, that she was what may be summed up in the word ‘lady-like.’ She was of a good height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light-brown hair, was remarkably genteel, and was always dressed with taste and simplicity. He adds, ‘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 does not speak highly of her mental qualifications, but states that she was grave, and mild of character, had a strict love of truth, and was rather apt to be circumstantial upon trifles. The years of her life, after her withdrawal from court, were passed in a decent, dignified, and ‘respectable’ manner, and won for her a consideration which her earlier career had certainly not merited.

The Queen’s influence was even stronger than the favourite’s credit. ‘Except a barony, a red riband, and a good place for her brother, Sir John Hobart, Earl of Buckinghamshire, Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate recommendations. Her own acquisitions were so moderate, that, besides Marble Hill, which cost the King ten or twelve thousand pounds, her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She left the court225 with an income so little to be envied, that though an economist and not expensive, by the lapse of some annuities on lives not so prolonged as her own, she found herself straitened, and, besides Marble Hill, did not at most leave twenty thousand pounds to her family. On quitting court, she married Mr. George Berkeley, and outlived him.’12

It is not certain how far Caroline’s influence was exercised in the removal of Lady Suffolk, whom the Queen, according to some authors, requested to continue some time longer in her office of mistress of the robes. Nor is it important to ascertain. Caroline had higher duties to perform. She continued to serve her husband well, and she showed her opinion of her son, the Prince of Wales, by her conduct to him on more than one occasion. Thus, on New Year’s Day the prince attended his royal sire’s levée, not with any idea of paying his father the slightest measure of respect, but, suspecting that the King would not speak to him, to show the people with what contempt the homage of a dutiful son was met by a stern parent. When Caroline heard of the design, she simply persuaded the King to address his son kindly in public. This advice was followed, and the filial plot accordingly failed.

The Queen was as resolute in supporting the King against being driven into settling a permanent income upon the prince. She spoke of the latter as an extravagant and unprincipled fool, only less ignorant than those who were idiots enough to give opinions upon what they could not understand. ‘He costs the King 50,000l. a-year, and till he is married that may really be called a reasonable allowance.’ She stigmatised him as a ‘poor creature,’ easily led away, but not naturally bad-hearted. His seducers she treated as knaves, fools, and monsters. To the suggestion that a fixed allowance, even if it should226 be less than what the King paid out for him every year, would be better than the present plan, Caroline only replied that the King thought otherwise; and so the matter rested.

The tact of the Queen was further displayed in the course adopted by her on an occasion of some delicacy. Lord Stair had been deprived of his regiment for attempting to bring in a law whereby the commissions of officers should be secured to them for life. The King said he would not allow him to keep by favour what he had endeavoured to keep by force. Thereupon Lord Stair addressed a private letter to the Queen, through her lord-chamberlain, stuffed with prophetic warnings against the machinations of France and the designs of Walpole.

Caroline, on becoming acquainted with the contents of the epistle, rated her chamberlain soundly, and bade him take it instantly to Sir Robert Walpole, with a request to the latter to lay it before the King. She thus ‘very dexterously avoided the danger of concealing such a letter from the King, or giving Sir Robert Walpole any cause of jealousy from showing it.’ His Majesty very sententiously observed upon the letter, that Lord Stair ‘was a puppy for writing it, and the lord-chamberlain a fool for bringing it.’ The good chamberlain was a fool for other reasons also. He had no more rational power than a vegetable, and his solitary political sentiment was to this effect, and wrapped up in very bad English: ‘I hate the French, and I hope as we shall beat the French.’13

The times were growing warlike, and it was on the occasion of the Prince of Orange going to the camp of Prince Eugene that the Princess Anne returned to England. She was as arrogant and as boldly spoken as ever. In the latter respect she manifested much of the spirit of her mother. During her stay at court, the news of the227 surrender of Philipsburg reached this country. Her highness’s remark thereon, in especial reference to her royal father, is worth quoting. It was addressed to Lord Hervey, who was leading the princess to her own apartment after the drawing-room. ‘Was there ever anything so unaccountable,’ said she, shrugging up her shoulders, ‘as the temper of papa? He has been snapping and snubbing every mortal for this week, because he began to think Philipsburg would be taken; and this very day, that he actually hears it is taken, he is in as good humour as I ever saw him in in my life. To tell you the truth,’ she added, in French, ‘I find that so whimsical, and (between ourselves) so utterly foolish, that I am more enraged by his good, than I was before by his bad, humour.’

‘Perhaps,’ answered Lord Hervey, ‘he may be about Philipsburg as David was about the child, who, whilst it was sick, fasted, lay upon the earth, and covered himself with ashes, but the moment it was dead, got up, shaved his beard, and drank wine.’ ‘It may be like David,’ said the princess royal, ‘but I am sure it is not like Solomon.’

It was hardly the time for Solomons. Lord Chancellor King was a man of the people, who, by talent, integrity, and perseverance, rose to the highest rank to which a lawyer can work his way. He lost his popularity almost as soon as he acquired the seals, and these he was ultimately compelled, from growing imbecility of mind, to resign. He was the most dilatory in rendering judgments of all our chancellors, and would never willingly have decided a question, for fear he should decide it incorrectly. This characteristic, joined to the fact of his having published a history of the Apostles’ Creed, extorted from Caroline the smart saying, that ‘He was just in the law what he had formerly been in the Gospel, making creeds228 upon the one without any steady belief, and judgments in the other without any settled opinion. But the misfortune for the public is,’ said Caroline, ‘that though they could reject his silly creeds, they are forced often to submit to his silly judgments.’

The court private life of the sovereigns at this time was as dull as can well be imagined. There were two persons who shared in this life, and who were very miserably paid for their trouble. These were the Count de Roncy and his sister. They were French Protestants, who, for conscience’ sake, had surrendered their all in France and taken refuge in England. The count was created Earl of Lifford in Ireland. His sister, Lady Charlotte de Roncy, was governess to the younger children of George II. Every night in the country, and thrice a week when the King and Queen were in town, this couple passed an hour or two with the King and Queen before they retired to bed. During this time ‘the King walked about, and talked to the brother of armies, or to the sister of genealogies, while the Queen knotted and yawned, till from yawning she came to nodding, and from nodding to snoring.’14

This amiable pair, who had lived in England during four reigns, were in fact hard-worked, ill-paid court-drudges; too ill-paid, even, to appear decently clad; an especial reproach upon Caroline, as the lady was the governess of her children. But they were not harder worked, in one respect, than Caroline herself, who passed seven or eight hours tête-à-tête with the King every day, ‘generally saying what she did not think,’ says Lord Hervey, ‘and forced, like a spider, to spin out of her own bowels all the conversation with which the fly was taken.’ The King could bear neither reading nor being read to. But, for the sake of power, though it is not to be supposed229 that affection had not some part in influencing Caroline to undergo such heavy trial, she endured that willingly, and indeed much more than that.

At all events, she had some respect for her husband; but she despised the son, who, in spite of her opinion of the natural goodness of his heart, was mean and mendacious. The prince, moreover, was weaker of understanding and more obstinate of temper than his father. The latter hated him, and because of that hatred, his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, was promoted to public employment. His sisters betrayed him. Had Caroline not had a contempt for him, she would have influenced the King to a very different line of conduct.

It was said of Frederick, that, from his German education, he was more of a German than an Englishman. But the bias alluded to was not stronger in him than it was in his mother.

Caroline was so much more of a German than of an Englishwoman, that when the interests of Germany were concerned she was always ready to sacrifice the interests of England. Her daughter Anne would have had Europe deluged in blood for the mere sake of increasing her own and her husband’s importance. In a general war she thought he would come to the surface. Caroline was disinclined to go to war for the empire only because she feared that, in the end, there might be war in England, with the English crown for the stake.

There was at this time in London a dull and proud imperial envoy, named Count Kiuski. He was haughty and impertinent in his manner of demanding succour, as his master was in requiring it, from the Dutch. Caroline rallied him on this one day, as he was riding by the side of her carriage at a stag-hunt. She used a very homely and not a very nice illustration to show the absurdity of losing an end by foolishly neglecting the proper means.230 ‘If a handkerchief lay before me,’ said she, ‘and I felt I had a dirty nose, my good Count Kiuski, do you think I should beckon the handkerchief to come to me, or stoop to take it up?’15

Political matters were not neglected at these hunting-parties. Lord Hervey, ‘her child, her pupil, and her charge,’ who constantly rode by the side of her carriage, on a hunter which she had given him, and which could not have been of much use to him if he never quitted the side of his mistress, used to discuss politics while others followed the stag. The Queen, who was fourteen years older than he, used to say, ‘It is well I am so old, or I should be talked of because of this creature!’ And indeed the intercourse was constant and familiar. He was always with her when she took breakfast, which she usually did alone, and was her chief friend and companion when the King was absent. Such familiarity gave him considerable freedom, which the Queen jokingly called impertinence, and said that he indulged in that and in contradicting her because he knew that she could not live without him.

It was at a hunting-party that Lord Hervey endeavoured to convince her that for England to go to war for the purpose of serving the empire would be a disastrous course to take. He could not convince her in a long conversation, and thereupon, the chase being over, he sat down and penned a political pamphlet, which he called a letter, which was ‘as long as a “President’s Message,” and which he forwarded to the Queen.’ If Caroline was not to be persuaded by it, she at least thought none the worse of the writer, who had spared no argument to support the cause in which he boldly pleaded.

We have another home-scene depicted by Lord Hervey, which at once shows us an illustration of parental231 affection and parental indifference. The Princess Anne, after a world of delay, had reluctantly left St. James’s for Holland, where her husband awaited her, and whither she went for her confinement. The last thing she thought of was the success of the opera and the triumph of Handel. She recommended both to the charge of Lord Hervey, and then went on her way to Harwich, sobbing. When she had reached Colchester she, upon receiving some letters from her husband stating his inability to be at the Hague so soon as he expected, started suddenly for Kensington.

In the meantime, in the palace at the latter place Lord Hervey found the Queen and the gentle Princess Caroline sitting together, drinking chocolate, shedding tears, and sobbing, all at the absence of the imperious Lady Anne. The trio had just succeeded in banishing melancholy remembrances by launching into cheerful conversation, when the gallery door was suddenly opened, and the Queen rose, exclaiming, ‘The King here already!’ When, however, she saw that, instead of the King, it was only the Prince of Wales, and ‘detesting the exchange of the son for the daughter, she burst out anew into tears, and cried out, “Oh, God! this is too much!”’ She was only relieved by the entry of the King, who, perceiving but not speaking to his son, took the Queen by the hand and led her out to walk.

This ‘cut direct,’ by affecting to be unconscious of the presence of the obnoxious person, was a habit with the King. ‘Whenever the prince was in a room with him,’ says Lord Hervey, ‘it put one in mind of stories that one has heard of ghosts which appear to part of the company and were 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 space.’

On the following day, the 22nd of October, the Princess232 Anne suddenly appeared before her parents. They thought her at Harwich, or on the seas, the wind being fair. Tears and kisses were her welcome from her mother, and smiles and an embrace formed the greeting from her father. The return was ill-advised, but the Queen, with a growing conviction of decaying health, could not be displeased at seeing again her first child.

The health of Caroline was undoubtedly at this time much impaired, but the King allowed her scant respite from labour on that account. Thus on the 29th of this month, although the Queen was labouring under cold, cough, and symptoms of fever, in addition to having been weakened by loss of blood, a process she had recently undergone twice, the King not only brought her from Kensington to London for the birthday, but forced her to go with him to the opera to hear the inimitable Farinelli. He himself thought so little of illness, or liked so little to be thought ill, that he would rise from a sick couch to proceed to hold a levée, which was no sooner concluded than he would immediately betake himself to bed again. His affection for the Queen was not so great but that he compelled the same sacrifices from her; and on the occasion of this birthday, at the morning drawing-room, she found herself so near swooning, that she was obliged to send her chamberlain to the King, begging him to retire, ‘for she was unable to stand any longer.’ Notwithstanding which, we are told by Lord Hervey, that ‘at night he brought her into a still greater crowd at the ball, and there kept her till eleven o’clock.’

Sir Robert Walpole frequently, and never more urgently than at this time, impressed upon her the necessity of being careful of her own health. He addressed her as though she had been Queen Regnant of England—as she certainly was governing sovereign—and he described to her in such pathetic terms the dangers which233 England would, and Europe might, incur, if any fatal accident deprived her of life, and the King were to fall under the influence of any other woman, that the poor Queen, complaining and coughing, with head heavy, and aching eyes half closed with pain, cheeks flushed, pulse quick, spirits low, and breathing oppressed, burst into tears, alarmed at the picture, and with every disposition to do her utmost for the benefit of her health and the well-being of the body politic.

It was the opinion of Caroline, that in case of her demise the King would undoubtedly marry again, and she had often advised him to take such a step. She affected, however, to believe that a second wife would not be able to influence him to act contrary to the system which he had adopted through the influence of herself and Walpole.

It was during the sojourn of the Princess Anne in England that she heard the details of the withdrawal of Lady Suffolk from court. Everybody appeared to be rejoiced at that lady’s downfall, but most of all the Princess Anne. The King thought that of all the children of himself and Caroline, Anne loved him best. This dutiful daughter, however, despised him, and treated him as an insufferable bore, who always required novelty in conversation from others, but never told anything new of his own. In allusion to the withdrawal of Lady Suffolk from court, this amiable child remarked, ‘I wish with all my heart he would take somebody else, that Mamma might be a little relieved from the occasion of seeing him for ever in her room!’

In November the Princess Anne once more proceeded to Harwich, put to sea, and was so annoyed by the usual inconveniences that she compelled the captain to land her again. She declared that she should not be well enough for ten days to go once more aboard. This caused great234 confusion. Her father, and indeed the Queen also, insisted on her repairing to Holland by way of Calais, as her husband had thoughtfully suggested. She was compelled to pass through London, much to the King’s annoyance, but he declared that she should not stop, but proceed at once over London Bridge to Dover. He added, that she should never again come to England in the same condition of health. His threat was partly founded on the expense, her visit having cost him 20,000l. Her reluctance to proceed to her husband’s native country was founded, it has been suggested, on her own ambitious ideas. Her brothers were unmarried, and she was anxious, it is thought, that her own child should be English born, as it would stand in the line of inheritance to the throne. However this may be, the Queen saw the false step the daughter had already taken, and insisted on the wishes of her husband, the prince, being attended to; and so the poor foiled Anne went home to become a mother, very much against her will.

The Princess Amelia observed to Mrs. Clayton, the Queen’s bedchamber-woman, that her brother, Prince Frederick, would have been displeased if the accouchement of the princess had taken place in England. To this, Mrs. Clayton, as Lord Hervey observes, very justly remarked, ‘I cannot imagine, madam, how it can affect the prince at all where she lies in; since with regard to those who wish more of your royal highness’s family on the throne, it is no matter whether she be brought to bed here or in Holland, or of a son or a daughter, or whether she has any child at all; and with regard to those who wish all your family well, for your sake, madam, as well as our own, we shall be very glad to take any of you in your turn, but none of you out of it.’

But the Queen had other business this year wherewith to occupy her besides royal marriages, or filial indispositions.235 In some of these matters her sincerity is sadly called in question. Here is an instance.

In 1734 the Bishop of Winchester was stricken with apoplexy, and Lord Hervey was no sooner aware of that significant fact—it was a mortal attack—than he wrote to Hoadly at Salisbury, urging him in the strongest terms to make application to be promoted from Sarum to the almost vacant see.

This promotion had been promised him by the King, Queen, and Walpole, all of whom joined in blandly reproving the bishop for being silent when Durham was vacant, whereby alone he lost that golden appointment. He had served government so well, and yet had contrived to maintain most of his usual popularity with the public, that he had been told to look upon Winchester as his own, whenever an opening occurred.

Hoadly was simple enough to believe that the Queen and Walpole were really sincere. He addressed a letter to the King through his ‘two ears’—the Queen and Walpole; and he wrote as if he were sure of being promoted, according to engagement, while at the same time he acted as if he were sure of nothing.

Caroline called the bishop’s letter indelicate, hasty, ill-timed, and such like; but Hoadly so well obeyed the instructions given to him that there was no room for escape, and he received the appointment. When he went to kiss hands upon his elevation, the King was the only one who behaved with common honesty. He, and Caroline too, disliked the man, whom the latter affected a delight to honour, for the reason that his respect for royalty was not so great as to blind him to popular rights, which he supported with much earnestness. On his reception by the King, the latter treated him with disgraceful incivility, exactly in accordance with his feelings. Caroline did violence to hers, and gave him honeyed words,236 and showered congratulations upon him, and pelted him, as it were, with compliments and candied courtesy. As for Sir Robert Walpole, who hated Hoadly as much as his royal mistress and her consort did together, he took the new Bishop of Winchester aside, and, warmly pressing his hand, assured him without a blush that his translation from Sarum to Winchester was entirely owing to the mediation of himself, Sir Robert. It was a daring assertion, and Sir Robert would have hardly ventured upon making it had he known the share Lord Hervey had had in this little ecclesiastical intrigue. Hoadly was not deluded by Walpole, but he was the perfect dupe of the Queen.

Lord Mahon,16 in speaking of Caroline, says that ‘her character was without a blemish.’ Compared with many around her, perhaps it was; but if the face had not spots it had ‘patches,’ which looked very much like them. On this matter, the noble lord appears to admit that some doubt may exist, and he subsequently adds: ‘But no doubt can exist as to her discerning and most praiseworthy patronage of worth and learning in the Church. The most able and pious men were everywhere sought and preferred, and the episcopal bench was graced by such men as Hare, Sherlock, and Butler.’ Of course, Queen Caroline’s dislike of Hoadly may be set down as founded upon that prelate’s alleged want of orthodoxy. It has been noticed in another page, that, according to Walpole, the Queen had rather weakened than enlightened her faith by her study of divinity, and that her Majesty herself ‘was at best not orthodox.’ Her countenance of the ‘less-believing’ clergy is said, upon the same authority, to have been the effect of the influence of Lady Sundon, who ‘espoused the heterodox clergy.’

Lord Mahon also says that the Queen was distinguished237 for charity towards those whom she accounted her enemies. She could nurse her rage, however, a good while to keep it warm. Witness her feeling manifested against that daughter of Lord Portland who married Mr. Godolphin. Her hatred of this lady was irreconcileable, nor was the King’s of a more Christian quality. That lady’s sole offence, however, was her acceptance of the office ‘of governess to their daughter in the late reign, without their consent, at the time they had been turned out of St. James’s, and the education of their children, who were kept there, taken from them.’17 For this offence the King and Queen were very unwilling to confer a peerage and pension on Godolphin in 1735, when he resigned his office of groom of the stole in the royal household. The peerage and pension were, nevertheless, ultimately conferred at the earnest solicitation of Walpole, and with great ill-humour on the part of the King.

Even Walpole, with all his power and influence, was not at this time so powerful and influential but that when he was crossed in parliament he suffered for it at court. Thus, when the Crown lost several supporters in the house by adverse decisions on election petitions, the King was annoyed, and the Queen gave expression to her own anger on the occasion. It was rare indeed that she ever spoke her dissatisfaction of Sir Robert; but on the occasion in question she is reported as having said that Sir Robert Walpole either neglected these things, and judged it enough to think they were trifles, though in government, and especially in this country, nothing was a trifle, ‘or, perhaps,’ she said, ‘there is some mismanagement I know nothing of, or some circumstances we are none of us acquainted with; but, whatever it is, to me these things seem very ill-conducted.’18

The Queen really thought that Walpole was on the238 point of having outlived his ability and his powers to apply it for the benefit of herself and husband. She observed him melancholy, and set it down that he was mourning over his own difficulties and failures. When Caroline, however, was told that Sir Robert was not in sorrow because of the difficulties of government, but simply because his mistress, Miss Skerret, was dangerously ill of a pleuritic fever, the ‘unblemished Queen’ was glad! She rejoiced that politics had nothing to do with his grief, and she was extremely well pleased to find that the prime-minister was as immoral as men of greater and less dignity. And then she took to satirising both the prime-minister and the lady of his homage. She laughed at him for believing in the attachment of a woman whose motives must be mercenary, and who could not possibly see any attraction in such a man but through the meshes of his purse. ‘She must be a clever gentlewoman,’ said Caroline, ‘to have made him believe that she cares for him on any other score; and to show you what fools we all are on some point or other, she has certainly told him some fine story or other of her love, and her passion, and that poor man, with his burly body, swollen legs, and villainous stomach (“avec ce gros corps, jambes enflés, et ce vilain ventre”) believes her!—ah, what is human nature?’ On this rhapsody Lord Hervey makes a comment in the spirit of Burns’ verse—

and it was excellent opportunity for such comment. ‘While she was saying this,’ remarks the noble lord, ‘she little reflected in what degree she herself possessed all the impediments and antidotes to love she had been enumerating, and that, “Ah, what is human nature?” was as applicable to her own blindness as to his.’

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She certainly illustrated in her own person her assertion that in government nothing was a trifle. Thus, when what was called the Scotch Election Petition was before parliament and threatening to give some trouble to the ministerial side, her anxiety till the question was decided favourably to the Crown side, and her affected indifference after the victory, were both marked and striking. On the morning before the petition was presented, praying the House of Lords to take into consideration certain alleged illegalities in the recent election of sixteen representative peers of Scotland—a petition which the house ultimately dismissed—the anxiety of Caroline was so great ‘to know what was said, thought, or done, or expected on this occasion, that she sent for Lord Hervey while she was in bed; and because it was contrary to the queenly etiquette to admit a man to her bedside while she was in it, she kept him talking upon one side of the door, which was just upon her bed, while she conversed with him on the other for two hours together, and then sent him to the King’s side to repeat to his Majesty all he had related to her.’19 By the King’s side is meant, not his Majesty’s side of the royal couch, but the side of the palace wherein he had his separate apartments.

It was soon after this period (1735), that the King set out for Hanover, much against the inclination of his ministers, who dreaded lest he should be drawn in to conclude some engagement, when abroad, adverse to the welfare of England. His departure, however, was witnessed by Caroline with much resignation. It gave her infinitely more power and more pleasure; for, as regent, she had no superior to consult or guide, and in her husband’s absence she had not the task of amusing a man who was growing as little amusable as Louis XIV. was when Madame de Maintenon complained of her terrible240 toil in that way. His prospective absence of even half a year’s duration did not alarm Caroline, for it released her from receiving the daily sallies of a temper that, let it be charged by what hand it would, used always to discharge its hottest fire, on some pretence or other, upon her!

The Queen’s enjoyment, however, was somewhat dashed by information conveyed to her by that very husband, and by which she learned that the royal reprobate, having become smitten by the attractions of a young married German lady, named Walmoden, had had the rascality to induce her to leave her husband—a course which she had readily adopted for the small consideration of a thousand ducats.

This Madame Walmoden brings us back to the times of Sophia Dorothea. Elizabeth, sister of the Countess von Platen who brought about the catastrophe in which Königsmark perished and Sophia Dorothea was ruined, was married, first to von Busch, and secondly to von Weyhe (or Weyke). By this second marriage she had a daughter, who became the wife of General von Wendt. These von Wendts had a daughter also, who married Herr Walmoden. It was this last lady whom the son of Sophia Dorothea lured from her husband, and whom he ultimately raised to the dignity of Countess of Yarmouth.

Not the smallest incident which marked the progress of this infamous connection was concealed by the husband from his wife. He wrote at length minute details of the person of the new mistress, for whom he bespoke the love of his own wife!

Lord Hervey thinks that the pride of the Queen was much more hurt than her affections on this occasion; which is not improbable, for the reasoning public, to whom the affair soon became known, at once concluded that the rise of the new mistress would be attended with the downfall of the influence of Caroline.

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The latter, however, knew well how to maintain her influence, let who would be the object of the impure homage of her exceedingly worthless husband. To the letters which he addressed to her with particular unction, she replied with an unction quite as rich in quality and profuse in degree. Pure and dignified as she might seem in discoursing with divines, listening to philosophers, receiving the metrical tributes of poets, or cavilling with scholars, she had no objection to descend from Olympus and find relaxation in wallowing in Epicurus’ stye. Nor did she thus condescend merely to suit a purpose and to gain an end. Her letters, encouraging her husband in his amours with women at Hanover, were coarse enough to have called up a blush on the cheek of one of Congreve’s waiting-maids. They have the poor excuse tied to them of having been written for the purpose of securing her own power. The same apology does not apply to the correspondence with the dirty Duchess of Orleans. Caroline appears to have indulged in the details of that correspondence for the sake of the mere pleasure itself. And yet she has been called a woman without blemish!

The King’s letters to her are said to have extended to sixty, and never to less than forty, pages. They were filled, says Lord Hervey, ‘with an hourly account of everything he saw, heard, thought, or did, and crammed with minute trifling circumstances, not only unworthy of a man to write, but even of a woman to read; most of which I saw, and almost all of them I heard reported by Sir Robert Walpole, to whose perusal few were not committed, and many passages were transmitted to him by the King’s own order; who used to tag several paragraphs with “Montrez ceci et consultez ladessus le gros homme.” Among many extraordinary things and expressions these letters contained was one in which he desired the Queen to contrive, if she could, that the242 Prince of Modena, who was to come at the latter end of the year to England, might bring his wife with him.’ She was the younger daughter of the Regent Duke of Orleans. The reason which the King gave to his wife for the request which he had made with respect to this lady was, that he had understood the latter was by no means particular as to what quarter or person she received homage from, and he had the greatest inclination imaginable to pay his addresses to a daughter of the late Regent of France. ‘Un plaisir,’ he said—for this German husband wrote even to his German wife in French—‘que je suis sûr, ma chère Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand je vous dis combien je le souhaite!’ If Wycherley had placed such an incident as this in a comedy, he would have been censured as offending equally against modesty and probability.

In the summer of this year, Lord Hervey was absent for a while from attendance on his royal mistress; but we may perhaps learn from one of his letters, addressed to her while he was resting in the country from his light labours, the nature of his office and the way in which Caroline was served. The narrative is given by the writer as part of an imaginary post-obit diary, in which he describes himself as having died on the day he left her, and as having been repeatedly buried in the various dull country houses by whose proprietors he was hospitably received. He thus proceeds:—

‘But whilst my body, madam, was thus disposed of, my spirit (as when alive) was still hovering, though invisible, round your Majesty, anxious for your welfare, and watching to do you any little service that lay within my power.

‘On Monday, whilst you walked, my shade still turned on the side of the sun to guard you from its beams.

‘On Tuesday morning, at breakfast, I brushed away a243 fly that had escaped Teed’s observation’ (Teed was one of the Queen’s attendants) ‘and was just going to be the taster of your chocolate.

‘On Wednesday, in the afternoon, I took off the chillness of some strawberry-water your Majesty was going to drink as you came in hot from walking; and at night I hunted a bat out of your bedchamber, and shut a sash just as you fell asleep, which your Majesty had a little indiscreetly ordered Mrs. Purcel to leave open.

‘On Thursday, in the drawing-room, I took the forms and voices of several of my acquaintances, made strange faces, put myself into awkward postures, and talked a good deal of nonsense, whilst your Majesty entertained me very gravely, recommended me very graciously, and laughed at me internally very heartily.

‘On Friday, being post-day, I proposed to get the best pen in the other world for your Majesty’s use, and slip it invisibly into your standish just as Mr. Shaw was bringing it into your gallery for you to write; and accordingly I went to Voiture, and desired him to hand me his pen; but when I told him for whom it was designed, he only laughed at me for a blockhead, and asked me if I had been at court for four years to so little purpose as not to know that your Majesty had a much better of your own.

‘On Saturday I went on the shaft of your Majesty’s chaise to Richmond; as you walked there I went before you, and with an invisible wand I brushed the dew and the worms out of your path all the way, and several times uncrumpled your Majesty’s stocking.

‘Sunday.—This very day, at chapel, I did your Majesty some service, by tearing six leaves out of the parson’s sermon and shortening his discourse six minutes.’

While these imaginary services were being rendered by the visionary Lord Hervey to the Queen, realities more244 serious and not less amusing were claiming the attention of Caroline and her consort.

In return for the information communicated by the King to the Queen on the subject of Madame Walmoden and her charms, Caroline had to inform her husband of the marriage we have spoken of between Lady Suffolk and Mr. George Berkeley. The royal ex-lover noticed the communication in his reply in a coarse way, and expressed his entire satisfaction at being rid of the lady, and at the lady’s disposal of herself.

When Caroline informed her vice-chamberlain, Lord Hervey, of the report of this marriage, his alleged disbelief of the report made her peevish with him, and induced her to call him an ‘obstinate devil,’ who would not believe merely improbable facts to be truths. Caroline then railed at Lady Suffolk in good set terms as a sayer and doer of silly things, entirely unworthy of the reputation she had with some people of being the sayer and doer of wise ones.

It was on this occasion that Caroline herself described to Lord Hervey the farewell interview she had had with Lady Suffolk. The ex-mistress took a sentimental view of her position, and lamented to the wife that she, the mistress, was no longer so kindly treated as formerly by the husband. ‘I told her,’ said the Queen, ‘in reply, that she and I were not of an age to think of these sort of things in such a romantic way, and said, “My good Lady Suffolk, you are the best servant in the world; and, as I should be most extremely sorry to lose you, pray take a week to consider of this business, and give me your word not to read any romances in that time, and then I dare say you will lay aside all thoughts of doing what, believe me, you will repent, and what I am very sure I shall be very sorry for.”’20 It was at one of these conversations245 with Lord Hervey that the Queen told him that Lady Suffolk ‘had had 2,000l. a year constantly from the King whilst he was prince, and 3,200l. ever since he was King; besides several little dabs of money both before and since he came to the crown.’

A letter of Lady Pomfret’s will serve to show us not only a picture of the Queen at this time, but an illustration of feeling in a fine lady.

Lady Pomfret, writing to Lady Sundon, in 1735, says: ‘All I can say of Kensington is, that it is just the same as it was, only pared as close as the bishop does the sacrament. My Lord Pomfret and I were the greatest strangers there; no secretary of state, no chamberlain or vice-chamberlain, but Lord Robert, and he just in the same coat, the same spot of ground, and the same words in his mouth that he had when I left there. Mrs. Meadows in the window at work; but, though half an hour after two, the Queen was not quite dressed, so that I had the honour of seeing her before she came out of her little blue room, where I was graciously received, and acquainted her Majesty, to her great sorrow, how ill you had been; and then, to alleviate that sorrow, I informed her how much Sundon was altered for the better, and that it looked like a castle. From thence we proceeded to a very short drawing-room, where the Queen joked much with my Lord Pomfret about Barbadoes. The two ladies of the bedchamber and the governess are yet on so bad a foot, that upon the latter coming into the room to dine with Lady Bristol, the others went away, though just going to sit down, and strangers in the place.’

The writer of this letter soon after lost a son, the Honourable Thomas Fermor. It was a severely felt loss; so severe that some weeks elapsed before the disconsolate mother was able, as she says, ‘to enjoy the kind and obliging concern’ expressed by the Queen’s bedchamber-woman246 in her late misfortune. Christianity itself, as this charming mother averred, would have authorised her in lamenting such a calamity during the remainder of her life; but then, oh joy! her maternal lamentation was put an end to and Rachel was comforted, and all because—‘It was impossible for any behaviour to be more gracious than that of the Queen on this occasion, who made it quite fashionable to be concerned’ at the death of Lady Pomfret’s son.

But there were more bustling scenes at Kensington than such as those described by this fashionably sorrowing lady and the sympathising sovereign.

On Sunday, the 26th of October, the Queen and her court had just left the little chapel in the palace of Kensington, when intimation was given to her Majesty that the King, who had left Hanover on the previous Wednesday, was approaching the gate. Caroline, at the head of her ladies and the gentlemen of her suite, hastened down to receive him; and, as he alighted from his ponderous coach, she took his hand and kissed it. This ceremony performed by the regent, a very unceremonious, hearty, and honest kiss was impressed on his lips by the wife. The King endured the latter without emotion, and then, taking the Queen-regent by the fingers, he led her upstairs in a very stately and formal manner. In the gallery there was a grand presentation, at which his Majesty exhibited much ill-humour, and conversed with everybody but the Queen.

His ill-humour arose from various sources. He had heated himself by rapid and continual travelling, whereby he had brought on an attack of a complaint to which he was subject, which made him very ill at ease, and which is irritating enough to break down the patience of the most patient of people.

On ordinary occasions of his return from Hanover247 his most sacred Majesty was generally of as sour disposition as man so little heroic could well be. He loved the Electorate better than he did his kingdom, and would not allow that there was anything in the latter which could not be found in Hanover of a superior quality. There was no exception to this: men, women, artists, philosophers, actors, citizens, the virtues, the sciences, and the wits, the country, its natural beauties and productions, the courage of the men and the attractions of the women—all of these in England seemed to him worthless. In Hanover they assumed the guise of perfection.

This time he returned to his ‘old’ wife laden with a fresh sorrow—the memory of a new favourite. He had left his heart with the insinuating Walmoden, and he brought to his superb Caroline nothing but a tribute of ill-humour and spite. He hated more than ever the change from an Electorate where he was so delightfully despotic, to a country where he was only chief magistrate, and where the people, through their representatives, kept a very sharp watch upon him in the execution of his duties. He was accordingly as coarse and evil-disposed towards the circle of his court as he was to her who was the centre of it. He, too, was like one of those pantomime potentates who are for ever in King Cambyses’ vein, and who sweep through the scene in a whirlwind of farcically furious words and of violent acts, or of threats almost as bad as if the menaces had been actually realised. It was observed that his behaviour to Caroline had never been so little tinged with outward respect as now. She bore his ill-humour with admirable patience; and her quiet endurance only the more provoked the petulance of the little and worthless King.

He was not only ill-tempered with the mistress of the palace, but was made, or chose to think himself, especially angry at trifling improvements which Caroline had carried248 into effect in the suburban palace during the temporary absence of its master. The improvements consisted chiefly in removing some worthless pictures and indifferent statues and placing master-pieces in their stead. The King would have all restored to the condition it was in when he had last left the palace; and he treated Lord Hervey as a fool for venturing to defend the Queen’s taste and the changes which had followed the exercise of it. ‘I suppose,’ said the dignified King to the courteous vice-chamberlain, ‘I suppose you assisted the Queen with your fine advice when she was pulling my house to pieces, and spoiling all my furniture. Thank God! at least she has left the walls standing!’

Lord Hervey asked if he would not allow the two Vandykes which the Queen had substituted for ‘two signposts,’ to remain. George pettishly answered, that he didn’t care whether they were changed or no; ‘but,’ he added, ‘for the picture with the dirty frame over the door, and the three nasty little children, I will have them taken away, and the old ones restored. I will have it done, too, to-morrow morning, before I go to London, or else I know it will not be done at all.’

Lord Hervey next enquired if his Majesty would also have ‘his gigantic fat Venus restored too?’ The King replied that he would, for he liked his fat Venus better than anything which had been put in its place. Upon this Lord Hervey says he fell to thinking ‘that if his Majesty had liked his fat Venus as well as he used to do, there would have been none of these disputations.’

By a night’s calm repose the ill-humour of the Sovereign was not dispersed. On the following morning we meet with the insufferable little man in the gallery, where the Queen and her daughters were taking chocolate; her son, the Duke of Cumberland, standing by. He only stayed five minutes, but in that short time the husband249 and father contrived to wound the feelings of his wife and children. ‘He snubbed the Queen, who was drinking chocolate, for being always stuffing; the Princess Amelia for not hearing him; the Princess Caroline for being grown fat; the Duke of Cumberland for standing awkwardly; and then he carried the Queen out to walk, to be re-snubbed in the garden.’21

Sir Robert Walpole told his friend Hervey that he had done his utmost to prepare the Queen for this change in the King’s feelings and actions towards her. He reminded her that her personal attractions were not what they had been, and he counselled her to depend more upon her intellectual superiority than ever. The virtuous man advised her to secure the good temper of the King by throwing certain ladies in his way of an evening. Sir Robert mentioned, among others, Lady Tankerville, ‘a very safe fool, who would give the King some amusement without giving her Majesty any trouble.’ Lady Deloraine, the Delia from whose rage Pope bade his readers dread slander and poison, had already attracted the royal notice, and the King liked to play cards with her in his daughter’s apartments. This lady, who had the loosest tongue of the least modest women about the court, was characterised by Walpole as likely to exercise a dangerous influence over the King. If Caroline would retain her power, he insinuated, she must select her husband’s favourites, through whom she might still reign supreme.

Caroline is said to have taken this advice in good part. There would be difficulty in believing that it ever was given did we not know that the Queen herself could joke, not very delicately, in full court, on her position as a woman not first in her husband’s regard. Sir Robert would comment on these jokes in the same locality, and with increase of coarseness. The Queen, however, though250 she affected to laugh, was both hurt and displeased—hurt by the joke and displeased with the joker, of whom Swift has said, that—

In spite of the King’s increased ill-temper towards the Queen, and in spite of what Sir Robert Walpole thought and said upon that delicate subject, Lord Hervey maintains that at this very time the King’s heart, as affected towards the Queen, was not less warm than his temper. The facts which are detailed by the gentle official immediately after he has made this assertion go strongly to disprove the latter. The detail involves a rather long extract; but its interest, and the elaborate minuteness with which this picture of a royal interior is painted, will doubtless be considered ample excuse for reproducing the passages. Lord Hervey was eye and ear-witness of what he here so well describes:—

‘About nine o’clock every night the King used to return to the Queen’s apartment from that of his daughter’s, where, from the time of Lady Suffolk’s disgrace, he used to pass those evenings he did not go to the opera or play at quadrille, constraining them, tiring himself, and talking a little indecently to Lady Deloraine, who was always of the party.

‘At his return to the Queen’s side, the Queen used often to send for Lord Hervey to entertain them till they retired, which was generally at eleven. One evening among the rest, as soon as Lord Hervey came into the room, the Queen, who was knotting, while the King walked backwards and forwards, began jocosely to attack Lord Hervey upon an answer just published to a book of his friend Bishop Hoadly’s on the Sacrament, in which the bishop was very ill-treated; but before she had251 uttered half what she had a mind to say, the King interrupted her, and told her she always loved talking of such nonsense, and things she knew nothing of; adding, that if it were not for such foolish people loving to talk of these things when they were written, the fools who wrote upon them would never think of publishing their nonsense, and disturbing the government with impertinent disputes that nobody of any sense ever troubled himself about. The Queen bowed, and said, “Sir, I only did it to let Lord Hervey know that his friend’s book had not met with that general approbation he had pretended.” “A pretty fellow for a friend!” said the King, turning to Lord Hervey. “Pray what is it that charms you in him? His pretty limping gait?” And then he acted the bishop’s lameness, and entered upon some unpleasant defects which it is not necessary to repeat. The stomachs of the listeners must have been strong, if they experienced no qualm at the too graphic and nasty detail. “Or is it,” continued the King, “his great honesty that charms your lordship? His asking a thing of me for one man, and when he came to have it in his own power to bestow, refusing the Queen to give it to the very man for whom he had asked it? Or do you admire his conscience, that makes him now put out a book that, till he was Bishop of Winchester, for fear his conscience might hurt his preferment, he kept locked up in his chest? Is his conscience so much improved beyond what it was when he was Bishop of Bangor, or Hereford, or Salisbury—for this book, I fear, was written so long ago—or is it that he would not risk losing a shilling a year more whilst there was anything better to be got than what he had? I cannot help saying, that if the Bishop of Winchester is your friend, you have a great puppy, and a very dull fellow, and a great rascal, for your friend. It is a very pretty thing for such scoundrels, when they are raised by favour above their deserts, to be252 talking and writing their stuff, to give trouble to the government which has showed them that favour; and very modest for a canting, hypocritical knave to be crying that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world at the same time that he, as Christ’s ambassador, receives 6,000l. or 7,000l. a year. But he is just the same thing in the Church that he is in the government, and as ready to receive the best pay for preaching the Bible, though he does not believe a word of it, as he is to take favour from the Crown, though, by his republican spirit and doctrine, he would be glad to abolish its power.”’

There is something melancholily suggestive in thus hearing the temporal head of a Church accusing of rank infidelity a man whom he had raised to be an overseer and bishop of souls in that very Church. If George knew that Hoadly did not believe in Scripture, he was infinitely worse than the prelate for the simple fact of his having made him a prelate, or having translated him from one diocese to another of more importance and more value. But, to resume:—

‘During the whole time the King was speaking, the Queen, by smiling and nodding in proper places, endeavoured all she could, but in vain, to make her court, by seeming to approve everything he said.’ Lord Hervey then attempted to give a pleasant turn to the conversation by remarking on prelates who were more docile towards government than Hoadly, and who, for being dull branches of episcopacy, and ignorant piecers of orthodoxy, were none the less good and quiet subjects. From the persons of the Church the vice-chamberlain got to the fabric, and then descanted to the Queen upon the newly restored bronze gates in Henry VII.’s Chapel. This excited the King’s ire anew. ‘My lord,’ said he, ‘you are always putting some of these fine things in the Queen’s head, and then I am to be plagued with a thousand253 plans and workmen.’ He grew sarcastic, too, on the Queen’s grotto in Richmond Gardens, which was known as Merlin’s Cave, from a statue of the great enchanter therein; and in which there was a collection of books, over which Stephen Duck, thresher, poet, and parson, had been constituted librarian. The Craftsman paper had attacked this plaything of the Queen, and her husband was delighted at the annoyance caused to her by such an attack.

The poor Queen probably thought she had succeeded in cleverly changing the topic of conversation by referring to and expressing disapproval of the expensive habit of giving vails to the servants of the house at which a person has been visiting. She remarked that she had found it no inconsiderable expense during the past summer to visit her friends even in town. ‘That is your own fault,’ growled the King; ‘for my father, when he went to people’s houses in town, never was fool enough to give away his money.’ The Queen pleaded that she only gave what her chamberlain, Lord Grantham, informed her was usual; whereupon poor Lord Grantham came in for his full share of censure. The Queen, said her consort, ‘was always asking some fool or another what she was to do, and that none but a fool would ask another fool’s advice.’

The vice-chamberlain gently hinted that liberality would be expected from a Queen on such occasions as her visits at the houses of her subjects. ‘Then let her stay at home, as I do,’ said the King. ‘You do not see me running into every puppy’s house to see his new chairs and stools.’ And then, turning to the Queen, he added: ‘Nor is it for you to be running your nose everywhere, and to be trotting about the town, to every fellow that will give you some bread and butter, like an old girl who loves to go abroad, no matter where, or whether it be proper or no.’ The Queen coloured, and knotted a good254 deal faster during this speech than before; whilst the tears came into her eyes, but she said not one word.

Such is the description of Lord Hervey, and it shows Caroline in a favourable light. The vice-chamberlain struck in for her, by observing that her Majesty could not see private collections of pictures without going to the owners’ houses, and honouring them by her presence. ‘Supposing,’ said the King, ‘she had a curiosity to see a tavern, would it be fit for her to satisfy it? and yet the innkeeper would be very glad to see her.’ The vice-chamberlain did not fail to see that this was a most illogical remark, and he very well observed, in reply, that, ‘if the innkeepers were used to be well received by her Majesty in her palace, he should think that the Queen’s seeing them at their own houses would give no additional scandal.’ As George found himself foiled by this observation, he felt only the more displeasure, and he gave vent to the last by bursting forth into a torrent of German, which sounded like abuse, and during the outpouring of which ‘the Queen made not one word of reply, but knotted on till she tangled her thread, then snuffed the candles that stood on the table before her, and snuffed one of them out. Upon which the King, in English, began a new dissertation upon her Majesty, and took her awkwardness for his text.’22

Unmoved as Caroline appeared at this degrading scene, she felt it acutely; but she did not wish that others should be aware of her feelings under such a visitation. Lord Hervey was aware of this; and when, on the following morning, she remarked that he had looked at her the evening before as if he thought she had been going to cry, the courtier protested that he had neither done the one nor thought the other, but had expressly directed his eyes on another object, lest if they met hers, the255 comicality of the scene should have set both of them laughing.

And such scenes were of constant occurrence. The King extracted something unpleasant from his very pleasures, just as acids may be produced from sugar. Sometimes he fell into a difficulty during the process. Thus, on one occasion, when the party were again assembled for their usual delightful evening, the Queen had mentioned the name of a person whose father, she said, was known to the King. It was at the time when his Majesty was most bitterly incensed against his eldest son. Caroline was on better terms with Frederick; but, as she remarked, they each knew the other too well to love or trust one another. Well, the King hearing father and son alluded to, observed, that ‘one very often sees fathers and sons very little alike; a wise father has very often a fool for his son. One sees a father a very brave man, and his son a scoundrel; a father very honest, and his son a great knave; a father a man of truth, and his son a great liar; in short, a father that has all sorts of good qualities, and a son who is good for nothing.’23 The Queen and all present betrayed, by their countenances, that they comprehended the historical parallel; whereupon the King attempted, as he thought, to make it less flagrantly applicable, by running the comparison in another sense. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘the case was just the reverse, and that very disagreeable fathers had very agreeable men for their sons.’ In this case, the King, as Lord Hervey suggests, was thinking of his own father, as in the former one he had been thinking of his son.

But how he drew what was sour from the sweetest of his pleasures is shown from his remarks after having been to the theatre to see Shakspeare’s ‘Henry IV.’ He was tolerably well pleased with all the actors, save256 the ‘Prince of Wales.’ He had never seen, he said, so awkward a fellow and so mean a looking scoundrel in his life. Everybody, says Lord Hervey, who hated the actual Prince of Wales thought of him as the King here expressed himself of the player; ‘but all very properly pretended to understand his Majesty literally, joined in the censure, and abused the theatrical Prince of Wales for a quarter of an hour together.’

It may be here noticed that Shakspeare owed some of his reputation, at this time, to the dissensions which existed between the King and his son. Had it, at least, not been for this circumstance, it is not likely that the play of ‘Henry IV.’ would have been so often represented as it was at the three theatres—Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane. Every auditor knew how to make special application of the complainings and sorrowings of a royal sire over a somewhat profligate son; or of the unfilial speeches and hypocritical assurance of a princely heir, flung at his Sovereign and impatient sire. The house in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields had the reputation of being the Tory house; and the Prince of Wales there was probably represented as a proper gentleman; not out of love to him, but rather out of contempt to the father. It was not a house which received the favour of either Caroline or her consort. The new pieces there ran too strongly against the despotic rule of kings—the only sort of rule for which George at all cared, and the lack of which made him constantly abusive of England, her institutions, parliament, and public men. It is difficult to say what the real opinion of Caroline was upon this matter, for at divers times we find her uttering opposite sentiments. She could be as abusive against free institutions and civil and religious rights as ever her husband was. She has been heard to declare that sovereignty was worth little where it was merely257 nominal, and that to be king or queen in a country where people governed through their parliament was to wear a crown and to exercise none of the prerogatives which are ordinarily attached to it. At other times she would declare that the real glory of England was the result of her free institutions; the people were industrious and enterprising because they were free, and knew that their property was secure from any attack on the part of prince or government. They consequently regarded their sovereign with more affection than a despotic monarch could be regarded by a slavish people; and she added, that she would not have cared to share a throne in England, if the people by whom it was surrounded had been slaves without a will of their own, or without a heart that throbbed at the name of liberty. The King never had but one opinion on the subject, and therefore the theatre at Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields was for ever resounding with clap-traps against despotism, and that in presence of an audience of whom Frederick, Prince of Wales, was chief, and Bolingbroke led the applause.

But even Drury Lane could be as democratic as Lincoln’s Inn. Thus, in the very year of which we are treating, Lillo brought out his ‘Christian Hero’ at Drury Lane, and the audience had as little difficulty to apply the parts to living potentates as they had reluctance to applaud to the echo passages like the following against despotic rulers:—

But ‘Drury’ did not often offend in this guise, and even George and Caroline might have gone to see ‘Junius Brutus,’ and have been amused. The Queen, who well258 knew the corruption of the senate, might have smiled as Mills, in Brutus, with gravity declared that the senators—

and George might have silently assented to the reply of Cibber, Jun., in ‘Messala,’ that—

The Queen’s vice-chamberlain asserts that the King’s heart still beat for Caroline as warmly as his temper did against her. This assertion is not proved, but the contrary, by the facts. These facts were of so painful a nature to the Queen that she did not like to speak of them, even to Sir Robert Walpole. One of them is a precious instance of the conjugal warmth of heart pledged for by Lord Hervey.

The night before the King had last left Hanover for England he supped gaily, in company with Madame Walmoden and her friends, who were not so nice as to think that the woman who had deserted her husband for a King who betrayed his consort had at all lost caste by such conduct. Towards the close of the banquet, the frail lady, all wreathed in mingled tears and smiles, rose, and gave as a toast, or sentiment, the ‘next 29th of May.’ On that day the old libertine had promised to be again at the feet of his new concubine; and as this was known to the select and delicate company, they drank the ‘toast’ amid shouts of loyalty and congratulations.

The knowledge of this fact gave more pain to Caroline than all the royal fits of ill-humour together. The pain was increased by the King’s conduct at home. It had been his custom of a morning, at St. James’s, to tarry in the Queen’s rooms until after he had, from behind the259 blinds, seen the guard relieved in the court-yard below: this took place about eleven o’clock. This year he ceased to visit the Queen or to watch the soldiers; but by nine o’clock in the morning he was seated at his desk, writing lengthy epistles to Madame Walmoden, in reply to the equally long letters from the lady, who received and despatched a missive every post.

‘He wants to go to Hanover, does he?’ asked Sir Robert Walpole of Lord Hervey; ‘and to be there by the 29th of May. Well, he shan’t go for all that.’

Domestic griefs could not depress the Queen’s wit. An illustration of this is afforded by her remark on the Triple Alliance. ‘It always put her in mind,’ she said, ‘of the South Sea scheme, which the parties concerned entered into, not without knowing the cheat, but hoping to make advantage of it, everybody designing, when he had made his own fortune, to be the first in scrambling out of it, and each thinking himself wise enough to be able to leave his fellow-adventurers in the lurch.’

It has been well observed that the King’s good humour was now as insulting to her Majesty as his bad. When he was in the former rare vein, he exhibited it by entertaining the Queen with accounts of her rival, and the many pleasures which he and that lady had enjoyed together. He appears at Hanover to have been as extravagant in the entertainments which he gave as his grandfather, Ernest Augustus. Some of these court revels he caused to be painted on canvas; the ladies represented therein were all portraits of the actual revellers. Several of such pictures were brought over to England, and five of them were hung up in the Queen’s dressing-room. Occasionally, of an evening, the King would take a candle from the Queen’s table, and go from picture to picture, with Lord Hervey, telling him its history, explaining the joyous incidents, naming the persons represented,260 and detailing all that had been said or done on the particular occasion before them. ‘During which lecture,’ says the vice-chamberlain himself, ‘Lord Hervey, while peeping over his Majesty’s shoulders at those pictures, was shrugging up his own, and now and then stealing a look, to make faces at the Queen, who, a little angry, a little peevish, and a little tired at her husband’s absurdity, and a little entertained with his lordship’s grimaces, used to sit and knot in a corner of the room, sometimes yawning, and sometimes smiling, and equally afraid of betraying those signs, either of her lassitude or mirth.’

In the course of the year which we have now reached, Queen Caroline communicated to Lord Hervey a fact, which is not so much evidence of her Majesty’s common-sense, as of the presumption and immorality of those who gave Caroline little credit for having even the sense which is so qualified. Lord Bolingbroke had married the Marchioness de Villette, niece of Madame de Maintenon, about the year 1716. The union, however, was not only kept secret for many years, but when Bolingbroke was under attainder, and a sum of 52,000l. belonging to his wife was in the hands of Decker, the banker, Lady Bolingbroke swore that she was not married to him, and so obtained possession of a sum which, being hers, was her husband’s, and which being her husband’s, who was attainted as a traitor, was forfeit to the Crown. However, as some of it went through the hands of poor Sophia Dorothea’s rival, the easy Duchess of Kendal, and her rapacious niece, Lady Walsingham, the matter was not enquired into. Subsequently Lady Bolingbroke attempted to excuse her husband’s alleged dealings with the Pretender, by asserting that he entered into them solely for the purpose of serving the Court of London. ‘That was, in short,’ said Caroline to Lord Hervey, ‘to betray the Pretender; for though Madame de Villette softened the261 word, she did not soften the thing, which I own,’ continued the Queen, ‘was a speech which had so much impudence and villainy mixed up in it, that I could never bear him or her from that hour, and could hardly hinder myself from saying to her—“And pray, madam, what security can the King have that my Lord Bolingbroke does not desire to come here with the same honest desire that he went to Rome? or that he swears that he is no longer a Jacobite, with any more truth than you have sworn you are not his wife?”’ The only wonder is, considering Caroline’s vivacious character, that she restrained herself from giving expression to her thoughts. She was eminently fond of ‘speaking daggers’ to those who merited such a gladiatorial visitation.

The Queen never exhibited her cleverness in a clearer light than when, in 1735, she got over the expected difficulty arising from a threatened parliamentary address to the throne for the marriage and settlement of the Prince of Wales. She ‘crushed’ it, to use the term employed by Lord Hervey, by gaining the King’s consent—no difficult matter—to tell the prince that it was his royal sire’s intention to marry him forthwith. The King had no princess in view for him; but was ready to sanction any choice he might think proper to make, and the sooner the better. As if the thing were already settled, the Queen, on her side, talked publicly of the coming marriage of the heir-apparent; but not a word was breathed as to the person of the bride. Caroline, moreover, to give the matter a greater air of reality, purchased clothes for the wedding of her son with the yet ‘invisible lady,’ and sent perpetually263 to jewellers to get presents for the ideal future Princess of Wales.

The lady, however, was not a merely visionary bride. It was during the absence of the King in Hanover that it was delicately contrived for him to see a marriageable princess—Augusta of Saxe Gotha. He approved of what he saw, and wrote home to the Queen, bidding her to prepare her son for the bridal.

Caroline communicated the order to Frederick, who received it with due resignation. His mother, who had great respect for outward observances, counselled him to begin his preparations for marriage by sending away his ostentatiously maintained favourite, Miss Vane. Frederick pleased his mother by dismissing Miss Vane, and then pleased himself by raising to the vacant bad eminence Lady Archibald Hamilton, a woman of thirty-five years of age and the mother of ten children. The prince visited her at her husband’s house, where he was as well received by the master as by the mistress. He saw her constantly at her sister’s, rode out with her, walked with her daily for hours in St. James’s Park, ‘and, whenever she was at the drawing-room (which was pretty frequently), his behaviour was so remarkable that his nose and her ear were inseparable, whilst, without discontinuing, he would talk to her as if he had rather been relating than conversing, from the time he came into the room to the moment he left it, and then seemed to be rather interrupted than to have finished.’24

The first request made by Lady Archibald to her royal lover was, that he would not be satisfied with putting away Miss Vane; but that he would send her out of the country. The prince did not hesitate a moment; he sent a royal message, wherein he was guilty of an act of which no man would be guilty to the woman whom he had loved. The264 message was taken by Lord Baltimore, who bore proposals, offering an annuity of 1,600l. a year to the lady, on condition that she would proceed to the continent, and give up the little son which owed to her the disgrace of his birth, but to whom both she and the prince were most affectionately attached. The alternative was starvation in England.

Miss Vane had an old admirer, to whom she sent in the hour of adversity, and who was the more happy to aid her in her extremity as, by so doing, he would not only have some claim on her gratitude, but that he could, to the utmost of his heart’s desire, annoy the prince, whom he intensely despised.

Lord Hervey sat down, and imagining himself for the nonce in the place of Miss Vane, he wrote a letter in that lady’s name. The supposed writer softly reproved the fickle prince, reminded him of the fond old times ere love yet had expired, resigned herself to the necessity of sacrificing her own interests to that of England, and then running over the sacrifices which a foolish woman must ever make—of character, friends, family, and peace of mind—for the fool or knave whom she loves with more irregularity than wisdom, she burst forth into a tone of indignation at the mingled meanness and cruelty of which she was now made the object, and finally refused to leave either England or her child, spurning the money offered by the father, and preferring any fate which might come, provided she were not banished from the presence and the love of her boy.

Frederick was simple enough to exhibit this letter to his mother, sisters, and friends, observing at the same time that it was far too clever a production to come from the hand of Miss Vane, and that he would not give her a farthing until she had revealed the name of the ‘rascal’ who had written it. The author was popularly set down as being Mr. Pulteney.

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On the other hand, Miss Vane published the prince’s offer to her, and therewith her own letter in reply. The world was unanimous in condemning him as mean and cruel. Not a soul ever thought of finding fault with him as immoral. At length a compromise was effected. The prince explained away the cruel terms of his own epistle, and Miss Vane withdrew what was painful to him in hers. The pension of 1,600l. a year was settled on her, with which she retired to a mansion in Grosvenor Street, her little son accompanying her. But the anxiety she had undergone had so seriously affected her health that she was very soon after compelled to proceed to Bath. The waters were not healing waters for her. She died in that city, on the 11th of March 1736, having had one felicity reserved for her in her decline, the inexpressible one of seeing her little son die before her. ‘The Queen and the Princess Caroline,’ says Lord Hervey, ‘thought the prince more afflicted for the loss of this child than they had ever seen him on any occasion, or thought him capable of being.’

One of the most cherished projects of George the Second was the union by marriage of two of his own children with two of the children of the King of Prussia. Such an alliance would have bound more intimately the descendants of Sophia Dorothea through her son and daughter. The double marriage was proposed to the King of Prussia, in the name of the King of England, by Sir Charles Hotham, minister-plenipotentiary. George proposed that his eldest son, Frederick, should marry the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia, and that his second daughter should marry the same King’s eldest son. To these terms the Prussian monarch would not agree, objecting that if he gave his eldest daughter to the Prince of Wales, he must have the eldest, and not the second, daughter of George and Caroline for the Prince of Prussia. Caroline would have agreed to these terms; but George would not yield: the proposed266 intermarriages were broken off, and the two courts were estranged for years.

The Prussian princess, Frederica Wilhelmina, has published the memoirs of her life and times; and Ranke, quoting them in his ‘History of the House of Brandenburgh,’ enters largely into the matrimonial question, which was involved in mazes of diplomacy. Into the latter it is not necessary to enter; but to those who would know the actual causes of the failure of these proposed royal marriages the following passage from Ranke’s work will not be without interest:—

‘Whatever be their exaggerations and errors, the memoirs of the Princess Frederica Wilhelmina must always be considered as one of the most remarkable records of the state of the Prussian court of that period. From these it is evident that neither she herself, nor the Queen, had the least idea of the grounds which made the King reluctant to give an immediate consent to the proposals. They saw in him a domestic tyrant, severe only towards his family, and weak to indifferent persons. The hearts on both sides became filled with bitterness and aversion. The Crown Prince, too, who was still of an age when young men are obnoxious to the influence of a clever elder sister, was infected with these sentiments. With a view to promote her marriage, he suffered himself to be induced to draw up in secret a formal declaration that he would give his hand to no other than an English princess. On the other hand, it is inconceivable to what measures the other party had recourse, in order to keep the King steady to his resolution. Seckendorf had entirely won over General Grumbkoo, the King’s daily and confidential companion, to his side; both of them kept up a correspondence of a revolting nature with Reichenbach, the Prussian resident in London. This Reichenbach, who boasts somewhere of his indifference to outward honours, and who was, at all267 events, chiefly deficient in an inward sense of honour, not only kept up a direct correspondence with Seckendorf, in which he informed him of all that was passing in England in relation to the marriage, and assured the Austrian agent that he might reckon on him as on himself; but, what is far worse, he allowed Grumbkoo to dictate to him what he was to write to the King, and composed his despatches according to his directions. It is hardly conceivable that these letters should not have been destroyed; they were, however, found among Grumbkoo’s papers at his death. Reichenbach, who played a subordinate part, but who regarded himself as the third party to this conspiracy, furnished on his side facts and arguments which were to be urged orally to the King, in support of his statements. Their system was to represent to the King that the only purpose of England was to reduce Prussia to the condition of a province, and to turn a party around him that might fetter and control all his actions; representations to which Frederick William was already disposed to lend an ear. He wished to avoid having an English daughter-in-law because he feared he should be no longer master in his own house; perhaps she would think herself of more importance than he; he should die, inch by inch, of vexation. On comparing these intrigues, carried on on either side of the King, we must admit that the former—those in his own family—were the more excusable, since their sole object was the accomplishment of those marriages, upon the mere suspicion of which the King broke out into acts of violence which terrified his family and his kingdom and astonished Europe. The designs of the other party were far more serious; their purpose was to bind Prussia in every point to the existing system, and to keep her aloof from England. Of this the King had no idea; he received without suspicion whatever Reichenbach wrote or Grumbkoo reported to him.’

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The mutual friends, whose interest it was to keep Prussia and England wide apart, laboured with a zeal worthy of a better cause, and not only broke the proposed marriages, but made enemies of the two Kings. A dispute was built up between them touching Mecklenburgh; and Prussian press-gangs and recruiting parties crossed into the Hanoverian territory, and carried off or inveigled the King of England’s Electoral subjects into the military service of Prussia. This was the most outrageous insult that could have been devised against the English monarch, and it was the most cruel that could be inflicted upon the inhabitants of the Electorate.

The King of Prussia was not nice of his means for entrapping men, nor careful on whose territory he seized them, provided only they were obtained. The districts touching on the Prussian frontier were kept in a constant state of alarm, and border frays were as frequent and as fatal as they were on England and Scotland’s neutral ground, which derived its name from an oblique application of etymology, and was so called because neither country’s faction hesitated to commit murder or robbery upon it. I have seen in the inns near these frontiers some strange memorials of these old times. Those I allude to are in the shape of mandats, or directions, issued by the authorities, and they are kept framed and glazed, old curiosities, like the ancient way-bill at the Swan at York, which announces a new fast coach travelling to London, God willing, in a week. These mandats, which were very common in Hanover when Frederick, after refusing the English alliance, took to sending his Werbers, or recruiters, to lay hold of such of the people as were likely to make good tall soldiers, were to this effect: they enjoined all the dwellers near the frontiers to be provided with arms and ammunition; the militia to hold themselves ready against any surprise; the arms to be examined every Sunday by269 the proper authorities; watch and ward to be maintained day and night; patrols to be active; and it was ordered, that, the instant any strange soldiers were seen approaching, the alarm-bells should be sounded and preparations be made for repelling force by force. The Prussian Werbers, as they were called, were wont sometimes to do their spiriting in shape so questionable that the most anti-belligerent travellers and the most unwarlike and well-intentioned bodies were liable to be fired upon if their characters were not at once explained and understood. These were times when Hanoverians, who stood in fear of Prussia, never lay down in bed but with arms at their side; times when young peasants who, influenced by soft attractions, stole by night from one village to another to pay their devoirs to bright eyes waking to receive them, walked through perils, love in their hearts, and a musket on their shoulders. The enrollers of Frederick, and indeed those of his great son after him, cast a chill shadow of fear over every age, sex, and station of life.

In the meantime the two Kings reviled each other as coarsely as any two dragoons in their respective services. The quarrel was nursed until it was proposed to be settled, not by diplomacy, but by a duel. When this was first suggested, the place, but not the time, of meeting, was immediately agreed upon. The territory of Hildesheim was to be the spot whereon were to meet in deadly combat two monarchs—two fathers, who could not quietly arrange a marriage between their sons and daughters. It really seemed as if the blood of Sophia Dorothea of Zell was ever to be fatal to peace and averse from connubial felicity.

The son of Sophia Dorothea selected Brigadier-General Sutton for his second. Her son-in-law (it will be remembered that he had married that unhappy lady’s daughter) conferred a similar honour on Colonel Derschein.270 His English Majesty was to proceed to the designated arena from Hanover; Frederick was to make his way thither from Saltzdhal, near Brunswick. The two Kings of Brentford could not have looked more ridiculous than these two. They would, undoubtedly, have crossed weapons, had it not been for the strong common sense of a Prussian diplomatist, named Borck. ‘It is quite right and exceedingly dignified,’ said Borck one day, to his master, when the latter was foaming with rage against George the Second, and expressing an eager desire for fixing a near day whereon to settle their quarrel—‘it is most fitting and seemly, since your Majesty will not marry with England, to cut the throat, if possible, of the English monarch; but your faithful servant would still advise your Majesty not to be over-hasty in fixing the day: ill-luck might come of it.’ On being urged to show how this might be, he remarked—‘Your gracious Majesty has lately been ill, is now far from well, and might, by naming an early day for voidance of this quarrel, be unable to keep the appointment.’ ‘We would name another,’ said the King. ‘And in the meantime,’ observed Borck, ‘all Europe generally, and George of England in particular, would be smiling, laughing, commenting on, and ridiculing the King who failed to appear where he had promised to be present with his sword. Your Majesty must not expose your sacred person and character to such a catastrophe as this: settle nothing till there is certainty that the pledge will be kept; and, in the meantime, defer naming the day of battle for a fortnight.’

The advice of Borck was followed, and of course the fight never ‘came off.’ The ministers of both governments exerted themselves to save their respective masters from rendering themselves supremely, and perhaps sanguinarily, ridiculous—for the blood of both would not have washed out the absurdity of the thing.271 Choler abated, common-sense came up to the surface, assumed the supremacy, and saved a couple of foolish kings from slaying or mangling each other. George, however, was resolved, and that for more reasons than it is necessary to specify, that a wife must be found for his heir-apparent; and it was Caroline who directed him to look at the princesses in the small and despotic court of Saxe Gotha. Walpole was the more anxious that the Prince of Wales should be fittingly matched, as a report had reached him that Frederick had accepted an offer from the Duchess of Marlborough of a hundred thousand pounds and the hand of her favourite grand-daughter, Lady Diana Spencer. The marriage, it was said, was to come off privately, at the duchess’s lodge in Richmond Park.

Lord Delawar, who was sent to demand the hand of the Princess Augusta from her brother, the Duke of Saxe Gotha, was long, lank, awkward, and unpolished. There was no fear here of the catastrophe which followed on the introduction to Francesca da Rimini of the handsome envoy whom she mistook for her bridegroom, and with whom she fell in love as soon as she beheld him.

Walpole, writing from King’s College on the 2nd of May 1736, says: ‘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. 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.’

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When the King despatched some half dozen lords of his council to propose to the prince that he should espouse the youthful Princess Augusta, he replied, with a tone of mingled duty and indifference, something like Captain Absolute in the play, that ‘whoever his Majesty thought a proper match for his son would be agreeable to him.’

The match was straightway resolved upon; and as the young lady knew little of French and less of English, it was suggested to her mother that a few lessons in both languages would not be thrown away. The Duchess of Saxe Gotha, however, was wiser in her own conceit than her officious counsellors; and remembering that the Hanoverian family had been a score of years, and more, upon the throne of England, she very naturally concluded that the people all spoke or understood German, and that it would really be needlessly troubling the child to make her learn two languages, to acquire a knowledge of which would not be worth the pains spent upon the labour.

When princesses then espoused heirs to thrones they were treated but with very scanty ceremony. Their own feelings were allowed to exercise very little influence in the matter; there was no pleasant wooing time; the bridegroom did not even give himself the trouble to seek the bride—he does not always do so, even now; and when the bride married the deputy who was despatched to espouse her by proxy, she knew as little of the principal as she did of his representative. But the blooming young Princess of Saxe Gotha submitted joyfully to custom and the chance of becoming Queen of England. She was willing to come and win what the Prince of Wales, had not dignity made him ungallant, should have gone and laid at her feet and besought her to accept. Accordingly, the royal yacht, William and Mary, destined to carry many a less noble freight before its career was completed,273 bore the bride to our shores. When Lord Delawar handed the bride ashore at Greenwich, on the 25th of April 1736, she excited general admiration by her fresh air, good humour, and tasteful dress. It was St. George’s day; no inauspicious day whereon landing should be made in England by the young girl of seventeen, who was to be the mother of the first king born and bred in England since the birthday of James II.

The royal bride was conducted to the Queen’s house in the park, where, as my fair readers, and indeed all readers with equal good sense and a proper idea of the fitness of things, will naturally conclude that all the royal family had assembled to welcome, with more than ordinary warmth, one who came among them under circumstances of more than ordinary interest. But the truth is that there was no one to give her welcome but solemn officers of state and criticising ladies-in-waiting. The people were there of course, and the princess had no cause to complain of any lack of warmth on their part. For want of better company, she spent half an hour with the English commonalty; and as she sat in the balcony overlooking the park, the gallant mob shouted themselves hoarse in her praise, and did her all homage until the tardy lover arrived, whose own peculiar homage he should have been in a little more lover-like haste to pay. However, Frederick came at last, and he came alone. The King, Queen, duke, and princesses sent ‘their compliments, and hoped she was well!’ They could not have sent or said less had she been Griselda, fresh from her native cottage and about to become the bride of the prince without their consent and altogether without their will. But the day was Sunday, and perhaps those distinguished personages were reluctant to indulge in too much expansion of feeling on the sacred day.

On the following day, Monday, Greenwich was as much274 alive as it used to be on a fine fair-day: for the princess dined in public, and all the world was there to see her. That is to say, she and the prince dined together in an apartment the windows of which were thrown open ‘to oblige the curiosity of the people;’ and it is only to be hoped that the springs of the period were not such inclement seasons as those generally known by the name of spring to us. The people having stared their fill, and the princess having banqueted as comfortably as she could under such circumstances, the Prince of Wales took her down to the water, led her into a gaily decorated barge, and slowly up the river went the lovers—with horns playing, streamers flying, and under a fusillade from old stocks of old guns, the modest artillery of colliers and Other craft anxious to render to the pair the usual noisy honours of the way. They returned to Greenwich in like manner, similarly honoured, and there, having supped in public, the prince kissed her hand, took his leave, and promised to return upon the morrow.

On the Tuesday the already enamoured Frederick thought better of his engagement, and tarried at home till the princess arrived there. She had left Greenwich in one of the royal carriages, from which she alighted at Lambeth, where, taking boat, she crossed to Whitehall. Here one of Queen Caroline’s state chairs was awaiting her, and in it she was borne, by two stout carriers, plump as Cupids but more vigorous, to St. James’s Palace. The reception here was magnificent and tasteful. On the arrival of the bride, the bridegroom, already there to receive her, took her by the hand as she stepped out of the chair, softly checked the motion she made to kneel to him and kiss his hand, and, drawing her to him, gallantly impressed a kiss—nay two, for the record is very precise on this matter—upon her lips. All confusion and happiness, the illustrious couple ascended the staircase275 hand in hand. The prince led her into the presence of a splendid and numerous court, first introducing her to the King, who would not suffer her to kneel, but, putting his arm around her, sainted her on each cheek. Queen Caroline greeted as warmly the bride of her eldest son; and the Duke of Cumberland and the princesses congratulated her on her arrival in terms of warm affection.

The King, who had been irritably impatient for the arrival of the bride, and had declared that the ceremony should take place without him if it were not speedily concluded, was softened by the behaviour of the youthful princess on her first appearing in his presence. ‘She threw herself all along on the floor, first at the King’s and then at the Queen’s feet.’25 This prostration was known to be so acceptable a homage to his Majesty’s pride, that, joined to the propriety of her whole behaviour on this occasion, it gave the spectators great prejudice in favour of her understanding.

The poor young princess, who came into England unaccompanied by a single female friend, behaved with a propriety and ease which won the admiration of Walpole and the sneers of old ladies who criticised her. Her self-possession, joined as it was with modesty, showed that she was ‘well-bred.’ She was not irreproachable of shape or carriage, but she was fair, youthful, and sensible—much more sensible than the bridegroom, who quarrelled with his brothers and sisters, in her very presence, upon the right of sitting down and being waited on in such presence!

The squabbles between the brothers and sisters touching etiquette show the extreme littleness of the minds of those who engaged in them. The prince would have had them, on the occasion of their dining with himself and bride the day before the wedding, be satisfied with stools276 instead of chairs, and consent to being served with something less than the measure of respect shown to him and the bride. To meet this, they refused to enter the dining-room till the stools were taken away and chairs substituted. They then were waited upon by their own servants, who had orders to imitate the servants of the Prince of Wales in every ceremony used at table. Later in the evening, when coffee was brought round by the prince’s servants, his visitors declined to take any, out of fear that their brother’s domestics might have had instructions to inflict ‘some disgrace (had they accepted of any) in the manner of giving it!’

On the day of the arrival of the bride at St. James’s, after a dinner of some state, and after some rearrangement of costume, the ceremony of marriage was performed, under a running salute from artillery, which told to the metropolis the progress made in the nuptial solemnity. The bride ‘was in her hair,’ and wore a crown with one bar, as Princess of Wales, a profusion of diamonds adding lustre to a youthful bearing that could have done without it. Over her white robe she wore a mantle of crimson velvet, bordered with row upon row of ermine. Her train was supported by four ‘maids,’ three of whom were daughters of dukes. They 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,—and with the three bridesmaids who bore the name of the Queen was one who bore that of her whom the King had looked upon as really Queen of England—of Sophia, his mother. This fourth lady was Lady Sophia Fermor, daughter of the Earl of Pomfret. Excepting the mantle, the ‘maids’ were dressed precisely similar to the ‘bride’ whom they surrounded and served. They were all in ‘virgin habits of silver.’ Each bridesmaid wore277 diamonds of the value of from twenty to thirty thousand pounds.

The Duke of Cumberland performed the office of father to the bride, and they were ushered to the altar by the Duke of Grafton and Lord Hervey, the lord and vice-chamberlains of the household. The Countess of Effingham and the other ladies of the household left the Queen’s side to swell the following of the bride. The Lord Bishop of London, Dean of the Chapel Royal, officiated on this occasion; and when he pronounced the two before him to have become as one, voices in harmony arose within, the trumpets blazoned forth their edition of the event, the drums rolled a deafening peal, a clash of instruments followed, and above all boomed the thunder of the cannon in the park, telling in a million echoes of the conclusion of the irrevocable compact. A little ceremony followed in the King’s drawing-room, which was in itself appropriate, and which seemed to have heart in it. On the assembling there of the entire bridal party, the newly-married couple went, once more hand in hand, and kneeling before the King and his consort, who were seated at the upper end of the room, the latter solemnly gave their blessing to their children and bade them be happy.

A royally joyous supper succeeded, at half-past ten, where healths were drunk and a frolicsome sort of spirit maintained, as was common in those somewhat ‘common’ times. And then followed a sacred portion of the ceremony, which is now considered as being more honoured in the breach than the observance. The bride was conducted processionally to her sleeping apartment; while the prince was helped to disrobe by his royal sire, and his brother the duke. The latter aided in divesting him of some of his heavy finery, and the King very gravely ‘did his royal highness, the prince, the honour278 to put on his shirt.’ All this must have been considered more than nuisance enough by the parties on whom it was inflicted by way of honour, but the newly-married victims of that day had much more to endure.

When intimation had been duly made that the princess had been undressed and re-dressed by her maids, and was seated in the bed ready to receive all customary and suitable honour, the King and Queen entered the chamber. The former was attired in a dress of gold brocade, turned up with silk, embroidered with large flowers in silver and colours, with a waistcoat of the same, and buttons and star dazzling with diamonds. Caroline was in ‘a plain yellow silk, robed and faced with pearls, diamonds, and other jewels, of immense value. The Dukes of Newcastle, Grafton, and St. Albans, the Earl of Albemarle, 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 brocaded tissue. The waistcoats were universally brocades with large flowers. It was observed,’ continues the court historiographer, ‘most of the rich clothes were of the manufactures of England, and in honour of our own artists. The few which were French did not come up to those in goodness, richness, or fancy, as was seen by the clothes worn by the royal family, which were all of the 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 had been done for some time.’

When all these finely dressed people were assembled, and the bride was sitting upright in bed, in a dress of superb lace, the princely bridegroom entered, ‘in a nightgown of silver stuff and cap of the finest lace.’ He must279 have looked like a facetious prince in a Christmas extravaganza. However, he took his place by the side of the bride; and while both sat ‘bolt upright’ in bed, the ‘quality’ generally were admitted to see the sight, and to smile at the edifying remarks made by the King and other members of the royal family who surrounded the couch.

The record of this happy event would hardly be complete were we to omit to notice that it was made the occasion of a remarkable débût in the House of Commons. An address congratulatory of the marriage was moved by Mr. Lyttelton, and the motion was seconded by Mr. Pitt, subsequently the first Earl of Chatham, who then made his first speech in parliament. The speech made by Lyttelton was squeaking and smart. That of Cornet Pitt, as he was called, was so favourable to the virtues of the son, and, by implication, so insulting to the person of the father, that it laid the foundation of the lasting enmity of George against Pitt—an enmity the malevolence of which was first manifested by depriving Pitt of his cornetcy. The poets were, of course, as polite as the senators, and epithalamia rained upon the happy pair in showers of highly complimentary and very indifferent verse. The lines of Whitehead, the laureate, were tolerably good, for a laureate, and the following among them have been cited ‘as containing a wish which succeeding events fully gratified.’

If these set ringing the most harmonious of the280 echoes which Parnassus could raise on the occasion, the other metrical essays must have been wretched things indeed. But the Muse at that time was not a refined muse. If a laureate would only find rhyme, decency and logic were gladly dispensed with.

The prince was very zealous and painstaking in introducing his bride to the people. For this purpose they were often together at the theatre. On one of these occasions the princess must have had but an indifferent idea of the civilisation of the people over whom she fairly expected one day to reign as queen-consort. The occasion alluded to was on the 3rd of May 1736, when great numbers of footmen assembled, with weapons, in a tumultuous manner, broke open the doors of Drury Lane Theatre, and fighting their way to the stage-doors, which they forced open, they prevented the Riot Act being read by Colonel de Veal, who nevertheless arrested some of the ringleaders and committed them to Newgate. In this tumult, founded on an imaginary grievance that the footmen had been illegally excluded from the gallery, to which they claimed to go gratis, many persons were severely wounded, and the terrified audience hastily separated; the prince and princess, with a large number of persons of distinction, retiring when the tumult was at its highest. The Princess of Wales had never witnessed a popular tumult before; and, though this was ridiculous in character, it was serious enough of aspect to disgust her with that part of ‘the majesty of the people’ which was covered with plush.

The King, in spite of Sir Robert Walpole’s threat, proceeded to Hanover in the month of May. Before he quitted England he sent word to his son that, wherever the Queen Regent resided, there would be apartments for the Prince and Princess of Wales. Frederick looked upon this measure in its true light, namely, as making him a281 sort of prisoner, and preventing the possibility of two separate courts in the King’s absence. The prince determined to disobey his father and thwart his mother. When the Queen removed from one residence to another, he feigned preparations to follow her, and then feigned obstructions to them. He pleaded an illness of the princess which did not exist, and was surprised that his medical men declined to back up his lie by another of their own. The Queen on her side, feigning anxious interest in her daughter-in-law, visited her in her imaginary illness; but the patient, who was first said to be suffering from measles, then from a rash, and finally was declared to be really indisposed with a cold, was kept in a darkened room, and was otherwise so trained to deceive that Caroline left the bed-side as wise as when she went to it. In this conduct towards his mother Frederick was chiefly influenced by his ill-humour at the Queen’s being appointed regent. When she opened the commission at Kensington, which she always did as soon as she received intelligence of the landing of the King in Holland, Frederick would not attend the council, but contrived to reach the palace just after the members had concluded their business.

Though the King delegated all royal power to the Queen, as regent during his absence, he exercised his kingly office when in Hanover by signing commissions for officers. The Queen would not consent that objection should be taken to this course followed by her husband, or that any representation should be made to him on the subject. Such acts, indeed, did not interfere with her great power as regent—a power which she wielded in union with Walpole. These two persons governed the kingdom according to their own councils; but the minister, nevertheless, placed every conclusion at which he and the Queen had arrived before the cabinet council, by the obsequious members of which the conclusions, whatever they were, were sanctioned, and the necessary283 documents signed. Thus Walpole, by the side of the Queen, acted as independently as if he had been King; but of his acts he managed to make the cabinet share with him the responsibility.

The office exercised by the Queen was far from being a sinecure or exempt from great anxieties; but it was hardly more onerous than that which she exercised during the King’s residence in England. Her chief troubles, she was wont to say, were derived from the bishops.

If Caroline could not speak so harshly of the prelates, generally or individually, as her husband, she could reprove them, when occasion offered, with singular asperity. We may see an instance of this in the case of the episcopal opposition to the Mortmain and to the Quakers’ Relief Bills; but especially to the latter. This particular bill had for its object to render more easy the recovery of tithes from Quakers; the latter did not ask for exemption, but for less oppression in the method of levying. The court wished that the bill should pass into law. Sherlock, now Bishop of Salisbury, wrote a pamphlet against it; and the prelates generally, led by Gibson, Bishop of London, stirred up all the dioceses in the kingdom to oppose it, with a cry of The Church in danger. Sir Robert Walpole represented to the Queen that all the bishops were blameable; but that the chief blame rested upon Sherlock, whose opposition was described as being as little to be justified in point of understanding and policy as in integrity and gratitude. Sir Robert declared that he was at once the dupe and the willing follower of the Bishop of London, and that both were guilty of endeavouring to disturb the quiet of the kingdom.

The first time Dr. Sherlock appeared at court after this the Queen chid him extremely, and asked him if he was not ashamed to be overreached in this manner by284 the Bishop of London. She accused him of being a second time the dupe of the latter prelate, who was charged with having misled him in a matter concerning the advancement of Dr. Rundle to an episcopal see. ‘How,’ she asked him, ‘could he be blind and weak enough to be running his nose into another’s dirt again!’ As for the King, he spoke of the prelates on this occasion ‘with his usual softness.’ They were, according to the hereditary defender of the faith, ‘a parcel of black, canting, hypocritical rascals.’ They were ‘silly,’ ‘impertinent’ fellows, presuming to dictate to the Crown; as if it were not the duty of a bishop to exercise this boldness when emergency warranted and occasion suited.

Both bills were passed in the Commons. The Mortmain Bill (to prevent the further alienation of lands by will in mortmain) passed the Lords; but the Quakers’ Relief Bill was lost there by a majority of two.

The Queen was far from desiring that the bishops should be so treated as to make them in settled antagonism with the Crown. She one day ventured to say something in this spirit to the King. It was at a time when he was peevishly impatient to get away to Hanover, to the society of Madame Walmoden, and to the young son born there since his departure. He is reported to have exclaimed to Caroline, when she was gently urging a more courteous treatment of the bishops—‘I am sick to death of all this foolish stuff, and wish, with all my heart, that the devil may take all your bishops, and the devil take your minister, and the devil take the parliament, and the devil take the whole island, provided I can get out of it and go to Hanover.’26

What Caroline meant by moderation of behaviour towards the bishops it is hard to understand; for when Drs. Sherlock and Hare complained to her that, in spite285 of their loyalty to the Crown they were nightly treated with great coarseness and indignity by lords closely connected with the court, Caroline spoke immediately, in the harsh tone and strong terms ordinarily employed by her consort, and said, that she could more easily excuse Lord Hervey, who was chiefly complained of as speaking sharply against them in parliament—‘I can easier excuse him,’ exclaimed her Majesty, ‘for throwing some of the Bishop of London’s dirt upon you than I can excuse all you other fools (who love the Bishop of London no better than he does) for taking the Bishop of London’s dirt upon yourselves.’ She claimed a right to chide the prelates soundly, upon the ground that she loved them deeply; and she made very liberal use of the privilege she claimed. Bishop Hare, in replying, called Lord Hinton, one of Lord Hervey’s imitators, his ‘ape.’ The Queen told this to Lord Hervey, who answered, that his ape, if he came to know that such a term had been applied to him, would certainly knock down the Queen’s ‘baboon.’ Caroline, with a childish spirit of mischief, communicated to Hare what she had done, and what her vice-chancellor had said upon it. The terrified prelate immediately broke the third commandment, exclaiming, ‘Good God! madam, what have you done! As for Lord Hervey, he will satisfy himself, perhaps, with playing his wit off upon me, and calling me Old Baboon; but for my Lord Hinton, who has no wit, he will knock me down.’ The vice-chamberlain, who reports the scene, says—‘This tallied so ridiculously with what Lord Hervey had said to the Queen that she burst into a fit of laughter, which lasted some minutes before she could speak; and then she told the bishop, “That is just, my good lord, what Lord Hervey did do, and what he said the ape would do.”’ The Queen, however, promised that no harm should come to the prelate.

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No inconsiderable amount of harm, however, was inflicted on many of the prelates, including Hare himself. Walpole was disposed to translate him when an advantageous opportunity offered; but Hervey showed him good reason for preferring pliant Potter, then of Oxford. Gibson, the Bishop of London, had been looking to be removed to Canterbury whenever Dr. Wake’s death there should cause a vacancy. He expected, however, that, in accordance with his wish, Sherlock would succeed him in London. The Queen was disposed to sanction the arrangement; but she was frightened out of it by Walpole and Hervey. She accordingly advised Sherlock ‘to go down to his diocese and live quietly; to let the spirit he had raised so foolishly against him here subside; and to reproach himself only if he had failed, or should fail, of what he wished should be done and she had wished to do for him.’

During the absence of the King, in 1736, in Hanover, the Queen Regent had but an uneasy time of it at home. First, there were corn riots in the west, which were caused by the attempts of the people to prevent the exportation of corn, and which could only be suppressed by aid of the military. Next, there were labour riots in the metropolis in consequence of the market being overstocked by Irish labourers, who offered to work at lower rates than the English; and which also the bayonet alone was able to suppress. Thirdly, the coasts were infested by smugglers, whom the prospect of the hangman could not deter from their exciting vocation, and who not only killed revenue officers in very pretty battles, but were heartily assisted by the country people, who looked upon the contrabandists as most gallant and useful gentlemen. Much sedition was mixed up with the confusion which arose from these tumultuary proceedings: for wherever the people were opposed in their inclinations,287 they immediately took to cursing the Queen especially; not, however, sparing the King, nor forgetting, in their street ovations, to invoke blessings upon James III. It was, indeed, the fashion for every aggrieved person to speak of George II., in his character of Elector of Hanover, as ‘a foreign prince.’ When this was done by a nonjuring clergyman named Dixon, who exploded an innocent infernal machine in Westminster Hall (to the great terror of judges and lawyers), which scattered papers over the hall denouncing various acts of parliament—first that against the sale of gin in unlicensed places, then the act for building Westminster Bridge, the one to suppress smuggling, and that which enabled ‘a foreign prince’ to borrow 600,000l. of money sacredly appropriated to the payment of our debts—the Lord Chancellor and the Chief Justice were so affrighted that they called the escapade ‘a treason.’ Caroline summoned a council thereon, and, having at last secured the half-mad and destitute offender, they consigned him to rot in a gaol; although, as Lord Hervey says, ‘the lawyers should have sent him to Bedlam, and would have sent him to Tyburn.’

The popular fury was sometimes so excited that it was found necessary, as in the Michaelmas of this year, to double the guards who had the care of her sacred Majesty at Kensington. The populace had determined upon being drunk, when, where, and how they liked. The government had resolved that they should not get drunk upon gin at any but licensed places; and thereupon the majesty of the people became so furious that even the person of Caroline was hardly considered safe in her own palace.

Nor were riots confined only to England. A formidable one broke out in Edinburgh, based upon admiration for a smuggler named Wilson, who had cleverly robbed288 a revenue officer, as well as defrauded the revenue. The mob thought it hard that the poor fellow should be hanged for such little foibles as these; and though they could not rescue him from the gallows, they raised a desperate tumult as he was swung from it. The town guard fired upon the rioters, by order of their captain, Porteous, and several individuals were slain. The captain was tried for this alleged unlawful slaying, and was condemned to die; but Caroline, who admired promptness of character, stayed the execution by sending down a reprieve. The result is well known; the mob broke open the prison, and inflicted Lynch law upon the captain, hanging him in the market-place, amid a shower of curses and jeers against Caroline and her reprieve.

The indignation of the Queen Regent was almost uncontrollable. She was especially indignant against General Moyle, commander of the troops, who had refused to interfere to suppress the riot. He was tolerably well justified in his refusal; for the magistrates of Edinburgh, ever ready to invoke assistance, were addicted to betray them who rendered it to the gallows if the riot was suppressed by shedding the blood of the rioters. His conduct on this occasion was further regulated by orders from his commander-in-chief. Caroline had no regard for any of the considerations which governed the discreet general; and, in the vexation of her chafed spirit, she declared that Moyle deserved to be shot by order of a court-martial. It was with great difficulty that her ministers and friends succeeded in softening the asperity of her temper. Even Sir Robert Walpole, who joined in representing that it were better to hold Moyle harmless, maintained in private that the general was fool, knave, or coward. Lord Hervey says that the Queen resented the conduct of the Scotch on this occasion, as showing ‘a tendency to shake off all government; and I believe was289 a little more irritated, from considering it in some degree as a personal affront to her, who had sent down Captain Porteous’s reprieve; and had she been told half what was reported to have been said of her by the Scotch mob on this occasion, no one could think that she had not ample cause to be provoked.’

To return to the domestic affairs of Caroline: it is to be observed that the Queen had not seen the King leave England, with indifference. She was aware that he was chiefly attracted to Hanover by the unblushing rival who, on his departure thence, had drunk, amid smiles and tears, to his speedy return. His departure, therefore, something affected her proud spirit, and she was for a season depressed. But business acted upon her as a tonic, and she was occupied and happy, yet not without her hours of trial and vexation, until the time approached for the King’s return.

Bitter, however, were her feelings when she found that return protracted beyond the usual period. For the King to be absent on his birthday was a most unusual occurrence, and Caroline felt that the rival must have some power indeed who could thus restrain him from indulgence in old habits. She was, however, as proud as she was pained. She began to grow cool in her ceremony and attentions to the King. She abridged the ordinary length of her letters to him, and the usual four dozen pages were shortened into some seven or eight. Her immediate friends, who were aware of this circumstance, saw at once that her well-known judgment and prudence were now in default. They knew that to attempt to insinuate reproach to the King would arouse his anger, and not awaken his sleeping tenderness. They feared lest her power over him should become altogether extinct, and that his Majesty would soon as little regard his wife by force of habit as he had long ceased to do by readiness of290 inclination. It was Walpole’s conviction that the King’s respect for her was too firmly based to be ever shaken. Faithless himself, he reverenced the fidelity and sincerity which he knew were in her; and if she could not rule by the heart, it was certain that she might still continue supreme by the head—by her superior intellect. Still, the minister recognised the delicacy and danger of the moment, and, in an interview with Caroline, he made it the subject of as extraordinary a discussion as was ever held between minister and royal mistress—between man and woman. Walpole reminded her of faded charms and growing years, and he expatiated on the impossibility of her ever being able to establish supremacy in the King’s regard by power of her personal attractions! It is a trait of her character worth noticing, that she listened to these unwelcome, but almost unwarrantably expressed, truths with immoveable patience. But Walpole did not stop here. He urged her to resume her long letters to the King, and to address him in terms of humility, submissiveness, duty, and tender affection; and he set the climax on what one might almost be authorised to consider his impudence, by recommending her to invite the King to bring Madame Walmoden with him to England. At this counsel the tears did spring into the eyes of Caroline. The softened feeling, however, only maintained itself for a moment. It was soon forgotten in her desire to recover or retain her power. She promised to obey the minister in all he had enjoined upon her; but Walpole, well as he knew her, very excusably conjectured that there must still be enough of the mere woman in her, to induce her to refuse to perform what she had promised to accomplish. He was, however, mistaken. It is true, indeed, that her heart recoiled at what the head had resolved, but she maintained her resolution. She conversed calmly with Walpole on the best means of carrying it out. But the291 minister put no trust in her assertions until such a letter as he had recommended had actually been despatched by her to the King. She rallied Walpole on his doubts of her, but praised him for his abominable counsel. It was this commendation which alarmed him. He could believe in her reproof; but he affirmed that he was always afraid when Caroline ‘daubed.’ However, he was now obliged to believe, for the Queen spoke calmly of the coming of her rival, allotted rooms for her reception, devised plans and projects for rendering her comfortable, and even expressed her willingness to take her into her own service! Walpole opposed this, but she cited the case of Lady Suffolk. Upon which the minister observed, with infinite moral discrimination, that there was a difference between the King’s making a mistress of the Queen’s servant, and making a Queen’s servant of his mistress. The people might reasonably look upon the first as a very natural condition of things, while the popular virtue might feel itself outraged at the second. Caroline said nothing, but wrote certainly the most singular letter that ever wife wrote to a husband. It was replied to by a letter also the most singular that ever husband addressed to a wife.27 The King’s epistle was full of admiration at his consort’s amiable conduct, and of descriptions of her rival’s bodily and mental features. He extolled the virtues of his wife, and then expressed a wish that he could be as virtuous as she! ‘But,’ wrote he, in very elegant French, ‘you know my passions, my dear Caroline; you know my weaknesses; there is nothing in my heart hidden from you; and would to God,’ exclaimed the mendacious, blaspheming libertine, ‘would to God that you could correct me with the same facility with which you apprehend me! Would to God that I could imitate292 you as well as I admire you, and that I could learn of you all the virtues which you make me see, feel, and love!’

The Queen, then, had not only to look after the affairs of the kingdom in the monarch’s absence, but to assist him with her advice for the better management of his love-affairs in Hanover. With all Madame Walmoden’s affected fidelity towards him, he had good grounds for suspecting that his interest in her was shared by less noble rivals. The senile dupe was perplexed in the extreme. One rival named as being on too familiar terms with the lady was a Captain von der Schulenburg, a relation of the Duchess of Kendal. There was a little drama enacted by all three parties, as complicated as a Spanish comedy, and full of love-passages, rope-ladders, and lying. The closing scene exhibits the lady indignant in asserting her innocence, and the wretched monarch too happy to put faith in her assertions. When left alone, however, he addressed a letter to his wife, asking her what she thought of the matter, and requesting her to consult Walpole, as a man ‘who 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!’ There never was an epithet of obloquy which this miserable fellow flung at his fellow men which might not have been more appropriately applied to himself.

Caroline, doubtless, gave the counsel that was expected from her; and then, having settled to the best of her ability this very delicate affair, she was called upon to interfere in a matter more serious. The young Princess of Wales had scandalised the whole royal family by taking the sacrament at the German Lutheran chapel. Serious remonstrance was made to her on the subject; but the young lady shed tears, and pleaded her conscience. Religious293 liberty, however, was not a thing to be thought of, and she must take the sacrament according to the forms prescribed by the Church of England. She resisted the compulsion, until it was intimated to her that if she persisted in the course on which she had entered, there was a possibility that she might be sent back to Saxe Gotha. Upon that hint she at once joined the Church of England. She had no more hesitation than a Lutheran or Catholic German princess who marries into the Czar’s family has of at once accepting all which the Greek Church enjoins, and which the lady neither cares for nor comprehends.

Nor was this the only church matter connected with the princess which gave trouble to the Queen. The case of conscience was followed by a case of courtesy, or rather, perhaps, of the want of it. The Queen attended divine service regularly in the chapel in Kensington Palace, and set a good example of being early in her attendance, which was not followed by the Prince and Princess of Wales, when they also were in residence at the palace. It was the bad habit of the latter, doubtless at the instigation of her husband, not to enter the chapel till after the service had commenced and the Queen was engaged in her devotions. The princess had then, in order to get to the seat allotted to her, to pass by the Queen—a large woman in a small pew! The scene was unbecoming in the extreme; for the princess passed in front of her Majesty, between her and the prayer-book, and there was much confusion and unseemliness in consequence. When this had been repeated a few times, the Queen ordered Sir William Toby, the princess’s chamberlain, to introduce his royal mistress by another door than that by which the Queen entered, whereby her royal highness might pass to her place without indecorously incommoding her Majesty. The prince would294 not allow this to be done, and he only so far compromised the matter, by ordering the princess, whenever she found the Queen at chapel before herself, not to enter at all, but to return to the palace.

Caroline, offended as she was with her son, would not allow him to pretend that she was as difficult to live with as his father, and so concealed her anger. Lord Hervey so well knew that the prince wished to render the Queen unpopular, that he counselled his royal mistress not to let her son enjoy a grievance that he could trade upon. Lord Hervey said, ‘he could wish that if the prince was to sit down in her lap, that she would only say she hoped he found it easy.’

For the princess the Queen had nothing but a feeling which partook mostly of a compassionate regard. She knew her to be really harmless, and thought her very dull company; which, for a woman of Caroline’s intellect and power of conversation, she undoubtedly was. The woman of cultivated mind yawned wearily at the truisms of the common-place young lady, and made an assertion with respect to her which bespoke a mind more coarse than cultivated. ‘Poor creature!’ said Caroline, of her young daughter-in-law; ‘were she to spit in my face, I should only pity her for being under such a fool’s direction, and wipe it off.’ The fool, of course, was the speaker’s son. The young wife, it must be confessed, was something childish in her ways. Nothing pleased her better than to play half through the day with a large, jointed doll. This she would dress and undress, and nurse and fondle at the windows of Kensington Palace, to the amusement and wonder, rather than to the edification, of the servants in the palace and the sentinels beneath the windows. The Princess Caroline almost forgot her gentle character in chiding her sister-in-law, and desiring her ‘not to stand at the window during295 these operations on her baby.’ The Princess Caroline did not found her reproach upon the impropriety of the action, but upon that of allowing it to be witnessed by others. The lower people, she said, thought everything ridiculous that was not customary, and the thing would draw a mob about her, and make la canaille talk disagreeably!

The act showed the childishness of her character at that time; a childishness on which her husband improved by getting her to apply, through the Queen, for the King’s consent to allow her to place Lady Archibald Hamilton upon her household. Frederick informed his young wife of the position in which the world said the lady stood with regard to him; but he assured her that it was all false. Augusta believed, or affected to believe, or was perhaps indifferent; and Lady Archibald was made lady of the bedchamber, privy purse, and mistress of the robes to the princess, with a salary of nine hundred pounds a-year.

While the ladies of the court discussed the subject of the King, his wife, his favourite, and the favourite of the prince, and seriously canvassed the expediency of bringing Madame Walmoden to England, there were some who entertained an idea that it would be well if the Sovereign himself could be kept out of it. The people took to commiserating Caroline, and many censured her husband for his infidelity, while others only reproved him because that faithlessness was made profitable to foreigners and not to fairer frailty at home. In the meantime, his double taste for his Electorate and the ladies there was caricatured in various ways. Pasquinades intimated that his Hanoverian Majesty would condescend to visit his British dominions at a future stated period. A lame, blind, and aged horse, with a saddle, and a pillion behind it, was sent to wander through the streets, with an inscription on the forehead, which begged that nobody296 would stop him, as he was ‘the King’s Hanoverian equipage, going to fetch his Majesty and his —— to England.’ The most stinging satire of all was boldly affixed to the walls of St. James’s Palace, and was to this effect: ‘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.’

The King himself was rather gratified than otherwise with satires which imputed to him a gallantry (as it is erroneously called) of disposition. He was only vexed when censure was gravely directed against him which had reference to the incompatibility of his pursuits with his position, his age, and his infirmities. He preferred being reproved as profligate, rather than being considered past the period when profligacy would be venial.

Previous to his return to England, he expressed a wish to the Queen that she would remove from Kensington to St. James’s, on the ground that it would be better for her health, and she would be easier of access to the ministers. The road between London and the suburban locality, which may now be said to be a part of it, was at the period alluded to in so wretched a condition, that Kensington Palace was more remote from the metropolis than Windsor Castle is now. Caroline understood her husband too well to obey. She continued, as regent, to live in retirement, and this affectation of disregard for the outward splendour of her office was not unfavourably looked upon by the King.

The Queen’s rule of conduct was not, however, that which best pleased her son. Frederick declared his intention of leaving the suburban palace for London. Caroline was vexed at the announcement of an intention which297 amounted, in other words, to the setting up of a rival court; particularly after the orders which had been communicated from the King to the Prince of Wales, through the Duke of Grafton. Frederick wrote a note in reply, like that of his mother’s, in French, in which he intimated his willingness to remain at Kensington as long as the Queen Regent made it her residence. The note was probably written for the prince by Lord Chesterfield. Caroline inflicted considerable annoyance on her son by refusing to consider him as the author of the note; which, by the way, Lord Hervey thought might have been written by ‘young Pitt,’ but certainly not by Lord Chesterfield. The note itself is only quoted from memory by Lord Hervey, who says that Lord Chesterfield would have written better French, as well as with more turns and points. It closely resembles the character of Lord Chesterfield’s letters in French, which were never so purely French but there could be detected in them phrases which were mere translations of English idioms; and it was precisely because of such a fault that Caroline had suspected that the note was written by an Englishman born. The fact remains to be noticed that, in spite of the promise made by the prince to remain at Kensington, he really removed to London; but, as his suite was left in the suburbs, he considered that his pledge was honourably maintained.

Frederick’s conduct seems to have arisen from a fear of its being supposed that he was governed by others. Had it been the Queen’s interest to rule him by letting him suppose that he was free from the influence of others, she would have done it as readily and as easily as in the case of the King. The Queen considered him so far unambitious that he did not long for his father’s death; but Lord Hervey showed her that if he did not, the creditors who had lent him money, payable with interest at the298 King’s decease, were less delicate in this matter; and that the demise of the King might be so profitable to many as to make the monarch’s speedy death a consummation devoutly to be wished. The life of the Sovereign was thus put in present peril, and Lord Hervey suggested to the Queen that it would be well were a bill brought into parliament, making it a capital offence for any man to lend money for a premium at the King’s death. ‘To be sure,’ replied the Queen, ‘it ought to be so; and pray talk a little with Sir Robert Walpole about it.’ Meanwhile, Frederick Prince of Wales exhibited a liberality which charmed the public generally, rather than his creditors in particular, by forwarding 500l. to the Lord Mayor for the purpose of releasing poor freemen of the City from prison. The act placed the prince in strong contrast with his father, who had been squandering large sums in Germany.

The King’s departure from Hanover for England took place in the night of the 7th to the 8th of December, after one of those brilliant and festive farewell suppers which were now given on such occasions by the Circe or the Cynthia of the hour. Wine and tears, no doubt, flowed abundantly; but, as soon as the scene could be decently brought to an end, the royal lover departed, and arrived on the 11th at Helvoetsluys. His daughter Anne was lying sick, almost to death, at the Hague, where her life had with difficulty been purchased by the sacrifice of that of the little daughter she had borne. The King, however, had not leisure for the demonstration of any parental affection, and he hurried on without even enquiring after the condition of his child. Matter-of-fact people are usually tender, and, if not tender, courteously decent people. The King was a matter-of-fact person enough, but even in this he acted like those highly refined and sentimental299 persons in whom affection is ever on their lips and venom in their hearts.

The wind was fair, and all London was in expectation, but without eagerness, of seeing once more their gaillard of a King, with his grave look, among them. But the wind veered, and a hurricane blew from the west with such violence that every one concluded, if the King had embarked, he must necessarily have gone down, and the royal convoy of ships perished with him. Bets were laid upon the event, and speculation was busy in every corner. The excitement was naturally great, for the country had never been in such uncertainty about their monarch. Wagers increased. Walpole began to discuss the prospects of the royal family, the probable conduct of the possible new sovereign, the little regard he would have for his mother, the faithless guardian he would be over his brother and sisters, and the bully and dupe he would prove, by turns, of all with whom he came in contact. Lord Hervey and Queen Caroline discussed the same delicate question; and the latter, fancying that her son already assumed, in public and in her presence, the swagger of a new greatness, and that he was bidding for popularity, would not listen to Lord Hervey’s assurances that she would be able to rule him as easily as she had done his father. She ridiculed his conduct, called him fool and ass, and averred that while the thought of some things he did ‘made her feel sick,’ the idea of the popularity of Fritz made her ‘vomit.’ As hour was added to hour, amid all this speculation and trouble, and ‘still Cæsar came not,’ reports of loss of life at sea became rife. At Harwich, guns had been heard at night booming over the waters; people had come to the conclusion that they were guns of distress fired from the royal fleet—the funeral dirge of itself and the monarch.300 Communication of this gratifying conclusion was made to Caroline. Prince Frederick kindly prepared her for the worst; Lord Hervey added the expression of his fears that that worst was not very far off; and the Princess Caroline began meditating upon the hatred of her brother ‘for mamma,’ and the little chance there would be of her obtaining a liberal provision from the new king. The Queen was more concerned than she chose to acknowledge; but when gloomy uncertainty was at its highest, a courier, whose life had been risked, with those of the ship’s crew with whom he came over, in order to inform Caroline that her consort had not risked his own, was flung ashore ‘miraculously’ at Yarmouth; whence hastening to St. James’s, he relieved all apprehensions and crushed all expiring hopes, by the announcement that his Majesty had never embarked at all, and was still at Helvoetsluys, awaiting fine weather and favouring gales.

The fine weather came, and the wind was fair for bringing the royal wanderer home. It remained so just long enough to induce all the King’s anxious subjects to conclude that he had embarked, and then wind and weather became more tempestuous and adverse than they were before. And now people set aside speculation, and confessed to a conviction that his Majesty lived only in history. During the former season of doubt, Caroline had solaced herself, or wiled away her time, by reading ‘Rollin’ and affecting to make light of all the gloomy reports which were made in her hearing. There was now, however, more cause for alarm. By ones, and twos, and fours, the ships which had left Helvoetsluys with the King were flung upon the English coast, or succeeded in making separate harbours in a miserably wrecked condition. All the intelligence they brought was, that his Majesty had embarked, that they had set sail in company, that an awful hurricane had arisen, that301 Sir Charles Wager had made signal for every vessel to provide for its own safety, and that the last seen of the royal yacht was that she was tacking, and they only hoped that his Majesty might have succeeded in getting back to Helvoetsluys. Some in England echoed that loyally expressed hope; others only desired that the danger intimated by it might have been wrought out to its full end.

Christmas-day at St. James’s was the very gloomiest of festive times, and the evening was solemnly spent in round games of cards. The Queen, indeed, did not know of the disasters which had happened to the royal fleet; but there was uncertainty enough touching the fate of her royal husband to make even the reading of Rollin appear more decent than playing at basset and cribbage. Meanwhile, the ministers and court officials stood round the royal table, and discoursed on trivial subjects, while their thoughts were directed towards their storm-tost master. On the following morning, Sir Robert Walpole informed her Majesty of the real and graver aspect of affairs. The heart of the tender woman at once melted; and Caroline burst into tears, unrestrainedly. The household of the heir-apparent, on the other hand, began to wear an aspect as though the wished-for inheritance had at last fallen upon it.

The day was Sunday, and the Queen resolved upon attending chapel as usual. Lord Hervey thought her weak in determining to sit up to be stared at. He had no idea that a higher motive might influence a wife in dread uncertainty as to the fate of her husband. Caroline, it is true, was not influenced by any such high motive. She simply did not wish that people should conclude, from her absence, that the Sovereign had perished; and she would neglect no duty belonging to her position till she was relieved from it by law. She accordingly appeared at chapel as usual; and in the very midst of the302 service a letter was delivered to her from the King, in which the much-vexed monarch told her how he had set sail, how the fleet had been scattered, how he had been driven back to Helvoetsluys after beating about for some twenty hours, and how it was all the fault of Sir Charles Wager, who had hurried him on board, on assurance of wind and tide being favourable, and of there being no time to be lost.

The joy of Caroline was honest and unfeigned. She declared that her heart had been heavier that day than ever it had been before; that she was still, indeed, anxious touching the fate of one whose life was so precious, not merely to his family, but to all Europe; and that, but for the impatience and indiscretion of Sir Charles Wager, the past great peril would never have been incurred.

The admiral was entirely blameless. The King had deliberately misrepresented the circumstances. It was the royal impatience which had caused all the subsequent peril. The Sovereign, weary of waiting for a wind, declared that if the admiral would not sail, he would go over in a packet-boat. Sir Charles maintained he could not. ‘Be the weather what it may,’ said the King, ‘I am not afraid.’ ‘I am,’ was the laconic remark of the seaman. George remarked that he ‘wanted to see a storm, and would sooner be twelve hours in one than be shut up for twenty-four hours more at Helvoetsluys.’ ‘Twelve hours in a storm!’ cried Sir Charles; ‘four hours would do your business for you.’ The admiral would not sail till the wind was fair; and he remarked to the King that although his Majesty could compel him to go, ‘I,’ said Sir Charles, ‘can make you come back again.’ The storm which arose after they did set sail was most terrific in character, and the escape of the voyagers was of the narrowest. The run back to the Dutch coast was not effected without difficulty. On landing, Sir Charles observed, ‘Sir, you303 wished to see a storm; how does your Majesty like it?’ ‘So well,’ said the King, ‘that I never wish to see another.’ The admiral remarked, in one of his private letters, giving a description of the event, ‘that his Majesty was at present as tame as any about him;’ ‘an epithet,’ says Lord Hervey, ‘that his Majesty, had he known it, would, I fancy, have liked, next to the storm, the least of anything that happened to him.’

‘How is the wind for the King?’ was the popular query at the time of this voyage; and the popular answer was, ‘Like the nation—against him.’ And when men who disliked him because of his vices or of their political hopes remarked that the Sovereign had been saved from drowning, they generally added the comment that ‘it was God’s mercy, and a thousand pities!’ The anxiety of Caroline for the King’s safety had, no doubt, been very great—so great, that in it she had forgotten sympathy for her daughter in her hour of trial. Lord Hervey will not allow that the Queen had any worthier motive for her anxiety than her apprehension ‘of her son’s ascending the throne, as there were no lengths she did not think him capable of going to pursue and ruin her.’

She comforted herself by declaring that, had the worst happened, she still would have retained Lord Hervey in her service, and have given him an apartment in her jointure house, (old) Somerset House. She added, too, that she would have gone down on her knees to beg Sir Robert Walpole to continue to serve the son as he had done the father. All this is not so self-denying as it seems. In retaining Lord Hervey, whom her son hated, she was securing one of her highest pleasures; and by keeping Sir Robert in the service of the prince, she would have governed the latter as she had done his father.

Gross as the King was in his acts, he was choice and refined, when he chose, in his letters. The epistle which304 he wrote, in reply to the congratulations of the Queen on his safety, is elegant, touching, warm, and apparently sincere. ‘In spite of all the danger I have incurred in this tempest, my dear Caroline, 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.’ The original French runs more prettily than this, and adapts itself well to the phrases which praised the Queen’s charms and attractions with all the ardour of youthful swain for blushing nymph. The Queen showed the letter to Walpole and Hervey, with the remark that she was reasonably pleased with, but not unreasonably proud of, it. The gentlemen came to the conclusion that the master whom they served was the most incomprehensible master to whom service was ever rendered. He was a mere old cajoler, deceiving the woman whom he affected to praise, and only praising her because she let him have an unconstrained course in vice while she enjoyed one in power.

At length, after a detention of five weeks at Helvoetsluys, the King arrived at Lowestoft. The Queen received information of his coming at four o’clock in the morning, after a sleepless night, caused by illness both of mind and body. When Walpole repaired to her at nine, she was still in bed; and the good Princess Caroline was at her side, trying to read her to sleep. Walpole waited until her Majesty had taken some repose; and meanwhile the Prince of Wales and the Princess Amelia305 (who was distrusted by her brother and by her mother, because she affected to serve each while she betrayed both) entered into a gossiping sort of conference with him in the antechamber. The prince was all praise, the minister all counsel. Walpole perhaps felt that the heir-apparent, who boasted that, when he appeared in public, the people shouted, ‘Crown him! Crown him!’ was engaging him to lead the first administration under a new reign. The recent prospect of such a reign being near at hand had been a source of deep alarm to Caroline, and also of distaste. She would have infinitely preferred that Frederick should have been disinherited, and his brother William advanced to his position as heir-apparent.

The King arrived in town on the 15th of January 1737. He came in sovereign good humour; greeted all kindly, was warmly received, and was never tired of expatiating on the admirable qualities of his consort. An observer, indifferently instructed, would not have thought that this contemptible personage had a mistress, who was the object of more ardent homage than he ever paid to that wife whom he declared to be superior to all the women in the world. He was fervent in his eulogy of her, not only to herself but to Sir Robert Walpole; and indeed was only peevish with those who presumed to enquire after his health. The storm had something shaken him, and he was not able to open parliament in person; but nothing more sorely chafed him than an air of solicitude and enquiry after his condition by loyal servitors—who got nothing for their pains but the appellation of ‘puppies.’ He soon, however, had more serious provocation to contend with.

The friends of the Prince of Wales compelled him, little reluctant, to bring the question of his income before parliament. The threat to take this step alarmed Walpole, by whose advice a message was sent from the King, and306 delivered by the lords of the council to the prince, whereby the proposal was made to settle upon him the 50,000l. a-year which he now received in monthly payments at the King’s pleasure, and also to settle a jointure, the amount of which was not named, upon the princess.

Both their Majesties were unwilling to make this proposition; but Walpole assured them that the submitting it to the prince would place his royal highness in considerable difficulty. If he accepted it, the King would get credit for generosity; and if he rejected it, the prince would incur the blame of undutifulness and ingratitude.

The offer was made, but it was neither accepted nor refused. The prince expressed great gratitude, but declared his inability to decide, as the conduct of the measure was in the hands of others, and he could not prevent them from bringing the consideration of it before parliament. The prince’s friends, and indeed others besides his friends, saw clearly enough that the King offered no boon. His Majesty simply proposed to settle upon his son an annual income, amounting to only half of what parliament had granted on the understanding of its being allotted to the prince. The King and Queen maintained with equal energy, and not always in the most delicate manner, that the parliament had no more right to interfere with the appropriation of this money than that body had with the allowances made by any father to his son. The rage of the Queen was more unrestrained than that of her husband; and she was especially indignant against Walpole for having counselled that an offer should be made which had failed in its object, and had not prevented the matter being brought before parliament.

The making of it, however, had doubtless some influence upon the members, and helped in a small way to increase the majority in favour of the government. The307 excitement in the court circle was very great when an address to the King was moved for by Pulteney, suggesting the desirableness of the prince’s income being increased. The consequent debate was one of considerable interest, and was skilfully maintained by the respective adversaries. The prince’s advocates were broadly accused of lying; and Caroline, at all times and seasons, in her dressing-room with Lord Hervey, and in the drawing-room with a crowded circle around her, openly and coarsely stigmatised her son as a liar and his friends as ‘nasty’ Whigs. Great was her joy when, by a majority of 234 to 204, the motion for the address was defeated. There was even congratulation that the victory had cost the King so little in bribes—only 900l., in divisions of 500l. to one member and 400l. to another. And even this sum was not positive purchase-money of votes for this especial occasion; but money promised to be paid at the end of the session for general service, and only advanced now because of the present particular and well-appreciated assistance rendered.

Let us do the prince the justice to say, that, in asking that his income might be doubled, he did not ask that the money should be drawn from the public purse. When Bubb Dodington first advised him to apply to parliament for a grant, his answer was spirited enough. ‘The people have done quite enough for my family already, and I would rather beg my bread from door to door than be a charge to them.’ What he asked for was, that out of his father’s civil list of nearly a million sterling per annum, he might be provided with a more decent revenue than a beggarly fifty thousand a-year, paid at his father’s pleasure. Pulteney’s motion was denounced by ministers as an infraction of the King’s prerogative. Well, Frederick could not get the cash he coveted from the King, and he would not take it from the public. Bubb Dodington had308 advised him to apply to parliament, and he rewarded Bubb for the hint by easing him occasionally of a few thousands at play. He exulted in winning. ‘I have just nicked Dodington,’ said he on one occasion, ‘out of 5,000l., and Bubb has no chance of ever getting it again!’

The battle, however, was not yet concluded. The prince’s party resolved to make the same motion in the Lords which had been made in the Commons. The King and Queen meanwhile considered that they were released from their engagement, whereby the prince’s revenue was to be placed entirely in his own power. They were also anxious to eject their son from St. James’s. Good counsel, nevertheless, prevailed over them to some extent, and they did not proceed to any of the extremities threatened by them. In the meantime, the scene within the palace was one to make a very stoic sigh. The son had daily intercourse with one or both of his parents. He led the Queen by the hand to dinner, and she could have stabbed him on the way; for her wrath was more bitter than ever against him, for the reason that he had introduced her name, through his friends, in the parliamentary debate, in a way which she considered must compromise her reputation with the people of England. He had himself declared to the councillors who had brought him the terms of the King’s offer, that he had frequently applied through the Queen for an interview with the King, at which an amicable arrangement of their differences might be made; but that she had prevented such an interview, by neglecting to make the prince’s wishes known to his father. This story was repeated by the prince’s friends in parliament, and Caroline called heaven and earth to witness that her son had grossly and deliberately lied. In this temper the two often sat down to dinner at the same table. As for the King, although Frederick attended the royal levées, and stood near his royal sire, the latter309 never affected to behold or to consider him as present, and he invariably spoke of him as a brainless, impertinent puppy and scoundrel.28

The motion for the address to the King, praying him to confer a jointure on the princess, and to settle 100,000l. a-year out of the civil list on the prince, was brought before the House of Peers by Lord Carteret. That nobleman so well served his royal client that, before bringing forward the motion, he made an apology to the Queen, declaring that office had been forced on him. The exercise thereof was a decided failure. The Lords rejected the motion, on a division of 103 to 40, the minority making strong protest against the division of the House, and in very remarkable language. The latter did not trouble their Majesties, and this settling of the question helped to restore Walpole to the royal favour, from which he had temporarily fallen.

There was another public affair which gave the Queen as much perplexity as any of her domestic troubles. This was the investigation into the matter of the Porteous riot at Edinburgh, with the object of punishing those who were most to blame. It is not necessary to detail this matter at any length, or indeed further than the Queen was personally connected with it. She was exceedingly desirous that it should be decided on its merits, and that it should not be made a national matter of. On this account, she was especially angry with the Duke of Newcastle, on whom she laid the blame of having very unnecessarily dragged up to London such respectable men as the Scotch judges; and she asked him ‘What the devil he meant by it?’ While the affair was still pending, but after the judges had been permitted to go back again, the Queen remarked to Lord Hervey, ‘she should310 be glad to know the truth, but believed she should never come at it—whether the Scotch judges had been really to blame or not in the trial of Captain Porteous: for, between you and the Bishop of Salisbury’ (Sherlock), said she, ‘who each of you convinced me by turns, I am as much in the dark as if I knew nothing at all of the matter. He comes and tells me that they are all as black as devils; you, that they are as white as snow; and whoever speaks last, I believe. I am like that judge you talk of so often in the play (Gripus,29 I think you call him), who, after one side had spoken, begged t’others might hold their tongue, for fear of puzzling what was clear to him. I am Queen Gripus; and since the more I hear the more I am puzzled, I am resolved I will hear no more about it; but let them be in the right or the wrong, I own to you I am glad they are gone.’

The city of Edinburgh was ultimately punished by the deposition of its provost, Mr. Wilson, who was declared incapable of ever serving his Majesty, and by the imposition of a fine of two thousand pounds sterling. The ‘mulct’ was to go to the ‘cook-maid widow of Captain Porteous, and make her, with most unconjugal joy, bless the hour in which her husband was hanged.’30

The conduct of Caroline, when Sir John Bernard proposed to reduce the interest on the National Debt from four to three per cent., again presents her to us in a very unfavourable light. Not only the Queen, but the King also was most energetically opposed to the passing of the bill. People conjectured that their Majesties were large fundholders, and were reluctant to lose a quarter of the income thence arising, for the good of the nation. The bill was ultimately thrown out, chiefly through the opposition of Walpole. By this decision, the House311 stultified its own previously accorded permission (by 220 to 157) for the introduction of the bill. Horace Walpole, the brother of Sir Robert, was one of those who voted first for and then against the bill—or first against and then for his brother. We must once more draw from Lord Hervey’s graphic pages to show what followed at court upon such a course:—‘Horace Walpole, though his brother made him vote against the three per cent., did it with so ill a grace, and talked against his own conduct so strongly and so frequently to the Queen, that her Majesty held him at present in little more esteem or favour than the Duke of Newcastle. She told him that because he had some practice in treaties, and was employed in foreign affairs, he began to think he understood everything better than anybody else; and that it was really quite new his setting himself up to understand the revenue, money matters, and the House of Commons better than his brother! “Oh, what are you all but a rope of sand, that would crumble away in little grains, one after another, if it was not for him?” And whenever Horace had been with her, speaking on these subjects, besides telling Lord Hervey, when he came to see her, how like an opinionative fool Horace had talked before them, she used to complain of his silly laugh hurting her ears, and his dirty body offending her nose, as if she had never had the two senses of hearing and smelling, in all her acquaintance with poor Horace, till he had talked for three per cent. Sometimes she used to cough and pretend to retch with talking of his dirt; and would often bid Lord Hervey open the window to purify the room of the stink Horace had left behind him, and call the pages to burn sweets to get it out of the hangings. She told Lord Hervey she believed Horace had a hand in the “Craftsman,” for that once, warmed in312 disputing on this three-per-cent. affair, he had more than hinted to her that he guessed her reason for being so zealous against this scheme was her having money in the stocks.’

When such coarseness was common at court, we need not be surprised that dramatic authors, whose office it is to hold the mirror up to nature, should have attempted to make some reflection thereon, or to take license therefrom, and give additional coarseness to the stage. Walpole’s virtuous indignation was excited at this liberty—a liberty taken only because people in his station, and far above his station, by their vices and coarseness, justified the license. It was this vice, and not the vices of dramatic authors, which first fettered the drama and established a censorship. The latter was set up, not because the stage was wicked, but in order that it should not satirise the wickedness of those in high station. The Queen was exceedingly delighted to see a gag put upon both Thalia and Melpomene.

The vice was hideous. They who care to stir the offensive mass will find proof enough of this hideousness in the account given by Lady Deloraine, the wife of Mr. Windham, of the King’s courtship of her, and his consequent temporary oblivion of Madame Walmoden. This new rival of the Queen, a charming doll of thirty-five years of age, was wooed by the King in a strain which the stage would hardly have reproduced; and his suit was commented upon by the lady, in common conversation with lords and ladies, with an unctuousness of phrase, a licentiousness of manner, and a coolness of calculation such as would have disgraced the most immodest of women. This coarseness of sentiment and expression was equally common. When it was said that Lord Carteret was writing a history of his times, and that noble author himself313 alleged that he was engaged in ‘giving fame to the Queen,’ the latter, one morning, noticed the alleged fact to Lord Hervey. The King was present, and his Majesty remarked:—‘I dare say he will paint you in fine colours, the dirty liar.’ ‘Why not?’ asked Caroline; ‘good things come out of dirt sometimes. I have ate very good asparagus raised out of dung?’ When it was said that not only Lord Carteret, but that Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield were also engaged in writing the history of their times, the Queen critically anticipated ‘that all the three histories would be three heaps of lies; but lies of very different kinds: she said Bolingbroke’s would be great lies; Chesterfield’s little lies; and Carteret’s lies of both sorts.’31 It may be added, that where there were vice and coarseness there was little respect for justice or for independence of conduct. The placeman who voted according to his conscience, when he found his conscience in antagonism against the court, was invariably removed from his place.

In concluding this chapter, it may be stated that when Frederick was about to bring forward the question of his revenue, the Queen would fain have had an interview with the son she alternately despised and feared, to persuade him against pursuing this measure—the carrying out of which she dreaded as prejudicial to the King’s health in his present enfeebled state. Caroline, however, would not see her son, for the reason, as the mother alleged, that he was such an incorrigible liar that he was capable of making any mendacious report of the interview, even of her designing to murder him. She had, in an interview with him, at the time of the agitation connected with the Excise bill, been compelled to place the Princess Caroline, concealed, within hearing, that she might be a witness in case of the314 prince, her brother, misrepresenting what had really taken place.

When the King learned the prince’s intentions, he took the matter much more coolly than the Queen. Several messengers, however, passed between the principal parties, but nothing was done in the way of turning the prince from his purpose. It was an innocent purpose enough, indeed, as he represented it. The parliament had entrusted to the King a certain annual sum for the prince’s use. The King and Queen did not so understand it, and he simply applied to parliament to solicit that august body to put an interpretation on its own act.

The supposed debilitated condition of the King’s health gave increased hopes to the prince’s party. The Queen, therefore, induced him to hold levées and appear more frequently in public. His improvement in health and good humour was a matter of disappointment to those who wished him dying, and feared to see him grow popular.

The animosity of the Queen and her daughter, Caroline, against the Prince of Wales was ferocious.32 The mother cursed the day on which she had borne the son who was for ever destroying her peace, and would end, she said, by destroying her life. There was no opprobrious epithet which she did not cast at him; and they who surrounded the Queen and princess had the honour of daily hearing them hope that God would strike the son and brother dead with apoplexy. Such enmity seems incredible. The gentle Princess Caroline’s gentlest name for her brother was ‘that nauseous beast;’ and in running over the catalogue of crimes of which she declared him capable, if not actually guilty, she did not hesitate to say315 that he was capable of murdering even those whom he caressed. Never was family circle so cursed by dissension as this royal circle; in which the parents hated the son, the son the parents; the parents deceived one another, the husband betrayed the wife, the wife deluded the husband, the children were at mutual antagonism, and truth was a stranger to all.

The parliament, having passed a Land-tax bill of two shillings in the pound, exempted the Prince of Wales from contributing even the usual sixpence in the pound on his civil-list revenue, and settled a dowry on his wife of 50,000l. per annum, peremptorily rejected Sir John Bernard’s motion for decreasing the taxation which weighed most heavily on the poor.33 The public found matter for much speculation in these circumstances, and they alternately discussed them with the subject of the aggressive ambition of Russia. The latter power was then invading the Crimea with two armies under Munich and Lasci. The occupier of the Muscovite throne stooped to mendacity to veil the real object of the war; and there were Russian officers not ashamed to be assassins—murdering317 the wounded foe whom they found lying helpless on their path.34

The interest in all home and foreign matters, however, was speedily lost in that which the public took in the matter, which soon presented itself, of the accession of an heir in the direct hereditary line of Brunswick.

The prospect of the birth of a lineal heir to the throne ought to have been one of general joy in a family whose own possession of the crown was contested by the disinherited heir of the Stuart line. The prospect, however, brought no joy with it on the present occasion. It was not till within a month of the time for the event that the Prince of Wales officially announced to his father, on the best possible authority, the probability of the event itself. Caroline appears at once to have disbelieved the announcement. She was so desirous of the succession falling to her second son, William, that she made no scruple of expressing her disbelief of what, to most other observers, was apparent enough. She questioned the princess herself, with more closeness than even the position of a mother-in-law could justify; but for every query the well-trained Augusta had one stereotyped reply—‘I don’t know.’ Caroline, on her side, resolved to be better instructed. ‘I will positively be present,’ she exclaimed, ‘when the promised event takes place;’ adding, with her usual broadness of illustration, ‘It can’t be got through as soon as one can blow one’s nose; and I am resolved to be satisfied that the child is hers.’

These suspicions, of which the Queen made no secret, were of course well known to her son. He was offended by them; offended, too, at a peremptory order that the birth of the expected heir should take place in318 Hampton Court Palace; and he was, moreover, stirred up by his political friends to exhibit his own independence, and to oppose the royal wish, in order to show that he had a proper spirit of freedom.

Accordingly, twice he brought the princess to London, and twice returned with her to Hampton Court. Each time the journey had been undertaken on symptoms of indisposition coming on, which, however, passed away. At length one evening, the prince and princess, after dining in public with the King and Queen, took leave of them for the night, and withdrew to their apartments. Up to this hour the princess had appeared to be in her ordinary health. Tokens of supervening change came on, and the prince at once prepared for action. The night (the 31st of July) was now considerably advanced, and the Princess of Wales, who had been hitherto eager to obey her husband’s wishes in all things, was now too ill to do anything but pray against them. He would not listen to such petitions. He ordered his ‘coach’ to be got ready and brought round to a side entrance of the palace. The lights in the apartment were in the meantime extinguished. He consigned his wife to the strong arms of Desnoyers, the dancing-master, and Bloodworth, an attendant, who dragged, rather than carried, her down stairs. In the meantime, the poor lady, whose life was in very present peril, and sufferings extreme, prayed earnestly to be permitted to remain where she was. Subsequently she protested to the Queen that all that had been done had taken place at her own express desire! However this may be, the prince answered her prayers and moans by calling on her to have courage; upbraiding her for her folly; and assuring her, with a very manly complacency, that it was nothing, and would soon be over! At length the coach was reached. It was the usually capacious vehicle of the time, and into it319 got not only the prince and princess, but Lady Archibald Hamilton and two female attendants. Vriad, who was not only a valet-de-chambre, but a surgeon and accoucheur, mounted the box. Bloodworth, the dancing-master, and two or three more, got up behind. The prince enjoined the strictest silence on such of his household as remained at Hampton Court, and therewith the coach set off, at a gallop, not for the prince’s own residence at Kew, but for St. James’s Palace, which was at twice the distance.

At the palace nothing was prepared for them. There was not a couch ready for the exhausted lady, who had more than once on the road been, as it seemed, upon the point of expiring; not even a bed was ready for her to lie down and repose upon. No sheets were to be found in the whole palace—or at least in that part over which the prince had any authority. For lack of them, Frederick and Lady Hamilton aired a couple of tablecloths, and these did the service required of them.

In the meantime, notice had been sent to several officers of state, and to the more necessary assistants required, to be present at the imminent event. Most of the great officers were out of the way. In lieu of them arrived the Lord President, Wilmington, and the Lord Privy Seal, Godolphin. In their presence was born a daughter, whom Lord Hervey designated as ‘a little rat’ and described as being ‘no bigger than a tooth-pick case.’

Perhaps it was the confusion which reigned before and at her birth which had some influence on her intellects in after life. She was an extremely pretty child, not without some mental qualifications; but she became remarkable for making observations which inflicted pain and embarrassment on those to whom they were addressed. In after years, she also became the mother of that Caroline320 of Brunswick who herself made confusion worse confounded in the family into which she was received as a member—that Caroline whom we recollect as the consort of George IV. and the protectress of Baron Bergami.

At Hampton Court, the King and Queen, concluding that their dear son and heir had, with his consort, relieved his illustrious parents of his undesired presence for the night, thought of nothing so little as of that son having taken it into his head to perform a trick which might have been fittingly accompanied by the ‘Beggars’ Opera’ chorus of ‘Hurrah for the Road!’

No comedy has such a scene as that enacted at Hampton Court on this night. While the prince was carrying off the princess, despite all her agonising entreaties, the rest of the royal family were quietly amusing themselves in another part of the palace, unconscious of what was passing. The King and the Princess Amelia were at commerce below-stairs; the Queen, in another apartment, was at quadrille; and the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey were soberly playing at cribbage. They separated at ten, and were all in bed by eleven, perfectly ignorant of what had been going on so near them.

At a little before two o’clock in the morning, Mrs. Tichborne entered the royal bedchamber, when the Queen, waking in alarm, asked her if the palace was on fire. The faithful servant intimated that the prince had just sent word that her royal highness was on the point of becoming a mother. A courier had just arrived, in fact, with the intelligence. The Queen leaped out of bed and called for her ‘morning gown,’ wherein to hurry to the room of her daughter-in-law. When Tichborne intimated that she would need a coach as well as a gown, for that her royal highness had been carried off to St. James’s, the Queen’s astonishment and indignation were equally great. On the news being communicated to the King,321 his surprise and wrath were not less than the Queen’s, but he did not fail to blame his consort as well as his son. She had allowed herself to be outwitted, he said; a false child would despoil her own offspring of their rights; and this was the end of all her boasted care and management for the interests of her son William! He hoped that Anne would come from Holland and scold her. ‘You deserve,’ he exclaimed, ‘anything she can say to you.’ The Queen answered little, lest it should impede her in her haste to reach London. In half an hour she had left the palace accompanied by her two daughters, and attended by two ladies and three noblemen. The party reached St. James’s by four o’clock.

As they ascended the staircase, Lord Hervey invited her Majesty to take chocolate in his apartments after she had visited the princess. The Queen replied to the invitation ‘with a wink,’ and a significant intimation that she certainly would refuse to accept of any refreshment at the hands of her son. One would almost suppose that she expected to be poisoned by him.

The prince, attired, according to the hour, in nightgown and cap, met his august mother as she approached his apartments, and kissed her hand and cheek, according to the mode of his country and times. He then entered garrulously into details that would have shocked the delicacy of a monthly nurse; but, as Caroline remarked, she knew a good many of them to be ‘lies.’ She was cold and reserved to the prince; but when she approached the bedside of the princess, she spoke to her gently and kindly—womanly, in short; and concluded by expressing a fear that her royal highness had suffered extremely, and a hope that she was doing well. The lady so sympathisingly addressed, answered, somewhat flippantly, that she had scarcely suffered anything, and that the matter in question was almost nothing at all. Caroline transferred322 her sympathy from the young mother to her new-born child. The latter was put into the Queen’s arms. She looked upon it silently for a moment, and then exclaimed in French, her ordinary language, ‘May the good God bless you, poor little creature! here you are arrived in a most disagreeable world.’ The wish failed, but the assertion was true. The ‘poor little creature’ was cursed with a long tenure of life, during which she saw her husband deprived of his inheritance, heard of his violent death, and participated in family sorrow, heavy and undeserved.

After pitying the daughter thus born, and commiserating the mother who bore her, Caroline was condemned to listen to the too minute details of the journey and its incidents, made by her son. She turned from these to shower her indignation upon those who had aided in the flight, and without whose succour the flight itself could hardly have been accomplished. She directed her indignation by turns upon all; but she let it descend with peculiar heaviness upon Lady Archibald Hamilton, and made it all the more pungent by the comment, that, considering Lady Archibald’s mature age, and her having been the mother of ten children, she had years enough, and experience enough, and offspring enough, to have taught her better things and greater wisdom. To all these winged words, the lady attacked answered no further than by turning to the prince, and repeating, ‘You see, sir!’ as though she would intimate that she had done all she could to turn him from the evil of his ways, and had gained only unmerited reproach for the exercise of a virtue, which, in this case, was likely to be its own and its only reward!

The prince was again inclined to become gossiping and offensive in his details, but his royal mother cut him short by bidding him get to bed; and with this message323 by way of farewell, she left the room, descended the staircase, crossed the court on foot, and proceeded to Lord Hervey’s apartments, where there awaited her gossip more welcome and very superior chocolate.

Over their ‘cups,’ right merry were the Queen and her gallant vice-chamberlain at the extreme folly of the royal son. They were too merry for Caroline to be indignant, further than her indignation could be shown by designating her son by the very rudest possible of names, and showing her contempt for all who had helped him in the night’s escapade. She acknowledged her belief that no foul play had taken place, chiefly because the child was a daughter. This circumstance was in itself no proof of the genuineness of the little lady, for if Frederick had been desirous of setting aside his brother William, his mother’s favourite, from all hope of succeeding to the throne, the birth of a daughter was quite as sufficient for the purpose as that of a son.35 The Queen comforted herself by remarking that, at all events, the trouble she had taken that night was not gratuitous. It would at least, as she delicately remarked, be a ‘good grimace for the public,’ who would contrast her parental anxiety with the marital cruelty and the filial undutifulness of the Prince of Wales.

While this genial pair were thus enjoying their chocolate and gossip, the two princesses, and two or three of the noblemen in attendance, were doing the same in an adjoining apartment. Meanwhile Walpole had arrived, and had been closeted with the prince, who again had the supreme felicity of narrating to the unwilling listener all the incidents of the journey, in telling which he, in fact, gave to the minister the opportunity which Gyges was afforded by Candaules, or something very like it, and for324 which Frederick merited, if not the fate of the heathen husband, at least the next severe penalty short of it.

The sun was up long before the royal and illustrious party dispersed. The busy children of industry, who saw the Queen and her equipage sweep by them along the Western Road, must have been perplexed with attempts at guessing at the causes of her Majesty being so early abroad, in so wayworn a guise. The last thing they could then have conjectured was the adventure of the night—the scene at Hampton Court, the flight of the son with his wife, the pursuit of the royal mother with her two daughters, the occurrence at St. James’s—or, indeed, any of the incidents of the stirring drama that had been played out.

From the hour when royalty had been suddenly aroused to that at which the Queen arrived at Hampton Court Palace—eight in the morning, George II. had troubled himself as little with conjecturing as his subjects. When the Queen detailed to him all that had passed, he poured out the usual amount of paternal wrath, and of the usual quality. He never was nice of epithet, and least of all when he had any to bestow upon his son. It was not spared now, and what was most liberally given was most bitter of quality.

Meanwhile, both prince and princess addressed to their Majesties explanatory notes in French, which explained nothing, and which, as far as regards the prince’s notes, were in poor French and worse spelling. Everything, of course, had been done for the best; and the sole regret of the younger couple was, that they had somehow, they could not guess how or wherefore, incurred the displeasure of the King and Queen. To be restored to the good opinion of the latter was, of course, the one object of the involuntary offenders’ lives. In short, they had had their way; and, having enjoyed that exquisite325 felicity, they were not reluctant to pretend that they were extremely penitent for what had passed.

The displeasure of Caroline and her consort at the unfeeling conduct of Frederick was made known to the latter neither in a sudden nor an undignified way. It was not till the 10th of September that it may be said to have been officially conveyed to the prince. On that day the King and Queen sent a message to him from Hampton Court, by the Dukes of Grafton and Richmond and the Earl of Pembroke, who faithfully acquitted themselves of their unwelcome commission at St. James’s. The message was to the effect, that ‘the whole tenor of the prince’s conduct for a considerable time had been so entirely void of all real duty, that their Majesties had long had reason to be highly offended with him; and, until he withdrew his regard and confidence from those by whose instigation and advice he was directed and encouraged in his unwarrantable behaviour to his Majesty and the Queen, and until he should return to his duty, he should not reside in a palace belonging to the King, which his Majesty would not suffer to be made the resort of those who, under the appearance of an attachment to the prince, fomented the divisions which he had made in his family, and thereby weakened the common interest of the whole.’ Their Majesties further made known their pleasure that ‘the prince should leave St. James’s, with all his family, when it could be done without prejudice or inconvenience to the princess.’ His Majesty added, that ‘he should, for the present, leave the care of his grand-daughter until a proper time called upon him to consider of her education.’ In consequence of this message, the prince removed to Kew on the 14th of September.

The King and Queen now not only treated their son with extraordinary severity, and spoke of him in the coarsest possible language, but they treated in like manner326 all who were suspected of aiding and counselling him. Their wrath was especially directed against Lord Carteret, who had at first deceived them. That noble lord censured, in their hearing, a course of conduct in the prince which he had himself suggested, and, in the hearing of the heir-apparent, never failed to praise. When their Majesties discovered this double-dealing, and that an attempt was being made to convince the people that in the matter of the birth of the princess royal, the Queen alone was to blame for all the disagreeable incidents attending it, their anger was extreme. The feeling for Lord Carteret was shown when Lord Hervey one day spoke of him with some commiseration—his son having run away from school, and there being no intelligence of him, except that he had formed a very improper marriage. ‘Why do you pity him?’ said the King to Lord Hervey: ‘I think it is a very just punishment, that, while he is acting the villainous part he does in debauching the minds of other people’s children, he should feel a little what it is to have an undutiful puppy of a son himself!’

Fierce, indeed, was the family feud, and undignified as fierce. The Princess Amelia is said to have taken as double-sided a line of conduct as Lord Carteret himself; for which she incurred the ill-will of both parties. The prince declared not only that he never would trust her again, but that, should he ever be reconciled with the King and Queen, his first care should be to inform them that she had never said so much harm of him to them as she had of them to him. The Princess Caroline was the more fierce partisan of the mother whom she loved, from the fact that she saw how her brother was endeavouring to direct the public feeling against the Queen. She was, however, as little dignified in her fierceness as the rest of her family. On one occasion, as Desnoyers, the dancing-master, had concluded his lesson to the young327 princesses, and was about to return to the prince, who made of him a constant companion, the Princess Caroline bade him inform his patron, if the latter should ever ask him what was thought of his conduct by her, that it was her opinion that he and all who were with him, except the Princess of Wales, deserved hanging. Desnoyers delivered the message, with the assurances of respect given by one who acquits himself of a disagreeable commission to one whom he regards. ‘How did the prince take it?’ asked Caroline, when next Desnoyers appeared at Hampton Court. ‘Well, madam,’ said the dancing-master, ‘he first spat in the fire, and then observed, “Ah, ah! Desnoyers; you know the way of that Caroline. That is just like her. She is always like that!”’ ‘Well, M. Desnoyers,’ remarked the princess, ‘when next you see him again, tell him that I think his observation is as foolish as his conduct.’

The exception made by the Princess Caroline of the Princess of Wales, in the censure distributed by the former, was not undeserved. She was the mere tool of her husband, who made no confidante of her, had not yet appreciated her, but kept her in the most complete ignorance of all that was happening around her, and much of which immediately concerned her. He used to speak of the office of wife in the very coarsest terms; and did not scruple to declare that he would not be such a fool as his father was, who allowed himself to be ruled and deceived by his consort.

In the meantime, he treated his mother with mingled contempt and hypocrisy. When, nine days after the birth of the little Princess Augusta, the Queen and her two daughters again visited the Princess of Wales, the prince, who met her at the door of the bedchamber, never uttered a single word during the period his mother remained in the room.

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He was as silent to his sisters; but he was ‘the agreeable “rattle”’ with the members of the royal suite. The Queen remained an hour; and when she remarked that she was afraid she was troublesome, no word fell from the prince or princess to persuade her to the contrary. When the royal carriage had arrived to conduct her away, her son led her downstairs, and at the coach door, ‘to make the mob believe that he was never wanting in any respect, he kneeled down in the dirty street, and kissed her hand. As soon as this operation was over, he put her Majesty into the coach, and then returned to the steps of his own door, leaving his sisters to get through the dirt and the mob, by themselves, as they could. Nor did there come to the Queen any message, either from the prince or princess, to thank her afterwards for the trouble she had taken, or for the honour she had done them in this visit.’ This was the last time the mother and son met in this world. Horace Walpole well observes of the scene that it must have caused the Queen’s indignation to shrink into mere contempt.

The Queen’s wrath never subsided beyond a cold expression of forgiveness to the prince when she was on her death-bed; but she resolutely refused to see him when that solemn hour arrived, a few months subsequently. She was blamed for this; but her contempt was too deeply rooted to allow her to act otherwise to one who had done all he could to embitter the peace of his father. She sent to him, it is said, her blessing and pardon; ‘but conceiving the extreme distress it would lay on the King, should he thus be forced to forgive so impenitent a son, or to banish him if once recalled, she heroically preferred a meritorious husband to a worthless child.’36

Had the prince been sincere in his expressions when329 addressing either of his parents by letter after the delivery of his wife, it is not impossible but that a reconciliation might have followed. His studied disrespect towards the Queen was, however, too strongly marked to allow of this conclusion to the quarrel. He invariably omitted to speak of her as ‘your Majesty;’ Madam, and you, were the simple and familiar terms employed by him. Indeed, he more than once told her that he considered that the Prince of Wales took precedence of the Queen-consort; at which Caroline would contemptuously laugh, and assure her ‘dear Fritz’ that he need not press the point, for even if she were to die, the King could not marry him!

It was for mere annoyance’ sake that he declared, at the end of August, after the christening of his daughter, that she should not be called the ‘Princess Augusta,’ but the ‘Lady Augusta,’ according to the old English fashion. At the same time he declared that she should be styled ‘Your Royal Highness,’ although such style had never been used towards his own sisters before their father’s accession to the crown.

It will hardly be thought necessary to go through the documentary history of what passed between the Sovereigns and their son before he was finally ejected from St. James’s Palace. Wrong as he was in his quarrel, ‘Fritz’ kept a better temper, though with as bitter a spirit as his parents. On the 13th of September, the day before that fixed on for the prince’s departure, ‘the Queen, at breakfast, every now and then repeated, I hope in God I shall never see him again; and the King, among many other paternal douceurs in his valediction to his son, said: Thank God! to-morrow night the puppy will be out of my house.’ The Queen thought her son would rather like, than otherwise, to be made a martyr of; but it was represented to her, that however much it might330 have suited him to be made one politically, there was more disgrace to him personally in the present expulsion than he would like to digest. The King maintained that his son had not sense of his own to find this out; and that as he listened only to boobies, fools, and madmen, he was not likely to have his case truly represented to him. And then the King ran through the list of his son’s household; and Lord Carnarvon was set down as being as coxcombical and irate a fool as his master; Lord Townshend, for a proud, surly booby; Lord North, as a poor creature; Lord Baltimore, as a trimmer; and ‘Johnny Lumley’ (the brother of Lord Scarborough), as, if nothing else, at least ‘a stuttering puppy.’ Such, it is said, were the followers of a prince, of whom his royal mother remarked, that he was ‘a mean fool’ and ‘a poor-spirited beast.’

While this dissension was at its hottest, the Queen fell ill of the gout. She was so unwell, so weary of being in bed, and so desirous of chatting with Lord Hervey, that she now for the first time broke through the court etiquette, which would not admit a man, save the Sovereign, into the royal bed-chamber. The noble lord was with her there during the whole day of each day that her confinement lasted. She was too old, she said, to have the honour of being talked of for it; and so, to suit her humour, the old ceremony was dispensed with. Lord Hervey sate by her bed-side, gossiped the live-long day; and on one occasion, when the Prince of Wales sent Lord North with a message of enquiry after her health, he amused the Queen by turning the message into very slipshod verse, the point of which is at once obscure and ill-natured, but which seems to imply that the prince would have been well content had the gout, instead of being in her foot, attacked her stomach.

The prince had been guilty of no such indecency as331 this; but there was no lack of provocation to make him commit himself. When he was turned out of St. James’s, he was not permitted to take with him a single article of furniture. The royal excuse was, that the furniture had been purchased, on the prince’s marriage, at the King’s cost, and was his Majesty’s property. It was suggested that sheets ought not to be considered as furniture; and that the prince and princess could not be expected to carry away their dirty linen in baskets. ‘Why not?’ asked the King; ‘it is good enough for them!’

Such were the petty circumstances with which Caroline and her consort troubled themselves at the period in question. They at once hurt their own dignity and made their son look ridiculous. The great partisan of the latter (Lord Baltimore) did not rescue his master from ridicule by comparing his conduct to that of the heroic Charles XII. of Sweden. But the comparison was one to be expected from a man whom the King had declared to be, in a great degree, a booby, and, in a trifling degree, mad.

As soon as the prince had established himself at Kew, he was waited on by Lord Carteret, Sir William Wyndham, and Mr. Pulteney. The King could not conceal his anger under an affected contempt of these persons or of their master. He endeavoured to satisfy himself by abusing the latter, and by remarking that ‘they would soon be tired of the puppy, who was, moreover, a scoundrel and a fool; and who would talk more fiddle-faddle to them in a day than any old woman talks in a week.’

The prince continued to address letters both to the King and Queen, full of affected concern, expressed in rather impertinent phrases. The princess addressed others, in which she sought to justify her husband’s conduct; but as in all these notes there was a studied disrespect of332 Caroline, the King would neither consent to grant an audience to the offenders, nor would the Queen interfere to induce him to relent.

The Queen, indeed, did not scruple to visit with her displeasure all those courtiers who showed themselves inclined to bring about a reconciliation; and yet she manifested some leaning towards Lord Carteret, the chief agent of her son. This disposition alarmed Walpole, who took upon himself to remind her that her minister could serve her purpose better than her son’s, and that it was of the utmost importance that she should conquer in this strife. ‘Is your son to be bought?’ said Walpole. ‘If you will buy him, I will get him cheaper than Carteret.’ Caroline answered only with ‘a flood of grace, good words, favour, and professions’ of having full confidence in her own minister—that is, Walpole himself—who had served her so long and so faithfully.

A trait of Caroline’s character may here be mentioned, as indicative of how she could help to build up her own reputation for shrewdness by using the materials of others. Sir Robert Walpole, in conversation with Lord Hervey, gave him some account of an interview he had had with the Queen. The last-named gentleman believed all the great minister had told him, because the Queen herself had, in speaking of the subject to Lord Hervey, used the precise terms now employed by Walpole. The subject was the lukewarmness of some of the noblemen about court to serve the King: the expression used was—‘People who keep hounds must not hang every one that runs a little slower than the rest, provided, in the main, they will go with the pack; one must not expect them all to run just alike and to be equally good.’ Hervey told Walpole of the use made by the Queen of this phrase, and Sir Robert naturally enough remarked, ‘He was always glad when he heard she repeated as her own333 any notion he had endeavoured to infuse, because it was a sign what he had laboured had taken place.’

Meanwhile the prince was of himself doing little that could tend to anything else than widen the breach already existing between him and his family. He spoke aloud of what he would do when he came to be King. His intentions, as reported by Caroline, were that she, when she was Queen-dowager, should be ‘fleeced, flayed, and minced.’ The Princess Amelia was to be kept in strict confinement; the Princess Caroline left to starve; of the little princesses, Mary and Louisa, then about fourteen and thirteen years of age, he made no mention; and of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, he always spoke ‘with great affectation of kindness.’

Despite this imprudent conduct, endeavours continued to be made by the prince and his friends, in order to bring about the reconciliation which nobody seemed very sincere in desiring. The Duke of Newcastle had implored the Princess Amelia, ‘For God’s sake!’ to do her utmost ‘to persuade the Queen to make things up with the prince before this affair was pushed to an extremity which might make the wound incurable.’ The Queen is said to have been exceedingly displeased with the Duke of Newcastle for thus interfering in the matter. The Princess of Wales, however, continued to write hurried and apparently earnest notes to the Queen, thanking her for her kindness in standing godmother to her daughter, treating her with ‘Your Majesty,’ and especially defending her own husband, while affecting to deplore that his conduct, misrepresented, had incurred the displeasure of their Majesties. ‘I am deeply afflicted,’ so runs a note of the 17th of September, ‘at the manner in which the prince’s conduct has been represented to your Majesties, especially with regard to the two journeys which we made from Hampton Court to London the week previous334 to my confinement. I dare assure your Majesties, that the medical man and midwife were then of opinion that I should not be confined before the month of September, and that the indisposition of which I complained was nothing more than the cholic. And besides, madam, is it credible, that if I had gone twice to London with the design and in the expectation of being confined there, I should have returned to Hampton Court? I flatter myself that time and the good offices of your Majesty will bring about a happy change in a situation of affairs, the more deplorable for me inasmuch as I am the innocent cause of it,’ &c.

This letter, delivered as the King and Queen were going to chapel, was sent by the latter to Walpole, who repaired to the royal closet in the chapel, where Caroline asked him what he thought of this last performance? The answer was very much to the purpose. Sir Robert said, he detected ‘you lie, you lie, you lie, from one end of it to the other.’ Caroline agreed that the lie was flung at her by the writer.

There was as much discussion touching the reply which should be sent to this grievously offending note as if it had been a protocol of the very first importance. One was for having it smart, another formal, another so shaped that it should kindly treat the princess as blameless, and put an end to further correspondence, with some general wishes as to the future conduct of ‘Fritz.’ This was done, and the letter was despatched. What effect it had upon the conduct of the person alluded to may be discerned in the fact that when, on Thursday, the 22nd of September, the prince and princess received at Carlton House the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London, with an address of congratulation on the birth of the Princess Augusta, the lords of the prince’s present council distributed to everybody in the room copies of the King’s message335 to the prince, ordering him to quit St. James’s, and containing reflections against all persons who might even visit the prince. The lords, particularly the Duke of Marlborough and Lords Chesterfield and Carteret, deplored the oppression under which the Prince of Wales struggled. His highness also spoke to the citizens in terms calculated—certainly intended—to win their favour.

He did not acquire all the popular favour he expected. Thus, when, during the repairs of Carlton House, he occupied the residence of the Duke of Norfolk, in St. James’s Square—a residence which the duke and duchess refused to let to him, until they had obtained the sanction of the King and Queen—‘he reduced the number of his inferior servants, which made him many enemies among the lower sort of people.’ He also diminished his stud, and ‘farmed all his tables, even that of the princess and himself.’ In other words, his tables were supplied by a cook at so much per head.

His position was one, however, which was sure to procure for him a degree of popularity, irrespective of his real merits. The latter, however, were not great nor numerous, and even his own officers considered their interests far before those of him they served—or deserted. At the theatre, however, he was the popular hero of the hour, and when once, on being present at the representation of ‘Cato,’37 the words—

were received with loud huzzas, the prince joined in the applause, to show how he appreciated, and perhaps applied, the lines.

Although the King’s alleged oppression towards his son was publicly canvassed by the latter, the prince and336 his followers invariably named the Queen as the true author of it. The latter, in commenting on this filial course, constantly sacrificed her dignity. ‘My dear lord,’ said Caroline, once, to Lord Hervey, ‘I will give it you under my hand, if you have any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first-born is the greatest ass, and the greatest liar, and the greatest canaille, and the greatest beast, in the whole world, and that I most heartily wish he was out of it!’ The King continued to treat him in much the same strain, adding, courteously, that he had often asked the Queen if the beast were his son. ‘The Queen was a great while,’ said he, ‘before her maternal affection would give him up for a fool, and yet I told her so before he had been acting as if he had no common sense.’ While so hard upon the conduct of their son, an entry from Lord Hervey’s diary will show us what was their own: the King’s with regard to decency, the Queen’s with respect to truth.

Whilst the Queen was talking one morning touching George I.’s will and other family matters, with Lord Hervey, ‘the King opened her door at the further end of the gallery; upon which the Queen chid Lord Hervey for coming so late, saying, that she had several things to say to him, and that he was always so long in coming, after he was sent for, that she never had any time to talk with him. To which Lord Hervey replied, that it was not his fault, for that he always came the moment he was called; that he wished, with all his heart, the King had more love, or Lady Deloraine more wit, that he might have more time with her Majesty; but that he thought it very hard that he should be snubbed and reproved because the King was old and Lady Deloraine a fool. This made the Queen laugh; and the King asking, when he came up to her, what it was at, she said it was at a conversation Lord Hervey was reporting337 between the prince and Mr. Lyttelton, on his being made secretary. The King desired him to repeat it. Lord Hervey got out of the difficulty as he best could. When the Queen and my lord next met, she said: “I think I was one with you for your impertinence.” To which Lord Hervey replied, “The next time you serve me so, madam, perhaps I may be even with you, and desire your Majesty to repeat as well as report.”’38

It may be noticed here, that both Frederick and the Queen’s party published copies of the French correspondence which had passed between the two branches of the family at feud, and that in the translations appended to the letters, each party was equally unscrupulous in giving such turns to the phrases as should serve only one side, and injure the adverse faction. Bishop Sherlock, who set the good fashion of residing much within his own diocese, once ventured to give an opinion upon the prince’s conduct, which at least served to show that the prelate was not a very finished courtier. Bishops who reside within their dioceses, and trouble themselves little with what takes place beyond it, seldom are. The bishop said that the prince had lacked able counsellors, had weakly played his game into the King’s hands, and made a blunder which he would never retrieve. This remark provoked Caroline to say—‘I hope, my lord, this is not the way you intend to speak your disapprobation of my son’s measures anywhere else; for your saying that, by his conduct lately, he has played his game into the King’s hands, one would imagine you thought the game had been before in his own; and though he has made his game still worse than it was, I am far from thinking it ever was a good one, or that he had ever much chance to win.’

Caroline, and indeed her consort also, conjectured338 that the public voice and opinion were expressed in favour of the occupants of the throne from the fact, that the birthday drawing-room of the 30th of October was the most splendid and crowded which had ever been known since the King’s accession. That King himself probably little cared whether he were popular or not. He was at this time buying hundreds of lottery-tickets, out of the secret-service money, and making presents of them to Madame Walmoden. A few fell, perhaps, to the share of Lady Deloraine: ‘He’ll give her a couple of tickets,’ said Walpole, ‘and think her generously used.’ His Majesty would have rejoiced if he could have divided so easily his double possession of England and Hanover. He had long entertained a wish to give the Electorate to his second son, William of Cumberland, and entertained a very erroneous idea that the English parliament could assist him in altering the law of succession in the Electorate. Caroline had, perhaps, not a much more correctly formed idea. She had a conviction, however, touching her son, which was probably better founded. ‘I knew,’ she said, ‘he would sell not only his reversion in the Electorate, but even in this kingdom, if the Pretender would give him five or six hundred thousand pounds in present; but, thank God! he has neither right nor power to sell his family—though his folly and his knavery may sometimes distress them.’39

After the birth of the Princess Louisa, on the 12th of December, 1724, Caroline, then Princess of Wales, was more than ordinarily indisposed. Her indisposition was of such a nature that, though she had made no allusion to it herself, her husband spoke to her on the subject. The princess avoided entering upon a discussion, and sought to satisfy the prince by remarking that her indisposition was nothing more than what was common to her health, position, and circumstances. For some years, although the symptoms were neglected, the disease was not aggravated. At length more serious indications were so perceptible to George, who was now King, that he did not conceal his opinion that she was suffering from rupture. This opinion she combated with great energy, for she had a rooted aversion to its being supposed that she was afflicted with any complaint. She feared lest the fact, being known, might lose her some of her husband’s340 regard, or lead people to think that with personal infirmity her power over him had been weakened. The King again and again urged her to acknowledge that she suffered from the complaint he had named, and to have medical advice on the subject. Again and again she refused, and each time with renewed expressions of displeasure; until at last, the King, contenting himself with expressing a hope that she would not have to repent of her obstinacy, made her a promise never to allude to the subject again without her consent. The secret, however, was necessarily known to others also; and we can only wonder that, being so known, more active and effective measures were not taken to remedy an evil which, in our days, at least, formidable as it may appear in name, is so successfully treated as almost to deserve no more serious appellation than a mere inconvenience.

Under an appearance of, at least, fair health, Queen Caroline may be said to have been gradually decaying for years. Her pride and her courage would not, however, allow of this being seen; and when she rose, as was her custom, to curtsey to the King, not even George himself was aware of the pain the effort cost her. Sir Robert Walpole was long aware that she suffered greatly from some secret malady, and it was not till after a long period of observation that he succeeded in discovering her Majesty’s secret. He was often closeted with her, arranging business that they were afterwards to nominally transact in presence of the King, and to settle, as he imagined, according to his will and pleasure. It was on some such occasion that Sir Robert made the discovery in question. The minister’s wife had just died; she was about the same age as Caroline, and the Queen put to the minister such close, physical questions, and adverted so frequently to the subject of rupture, of which Sir Robert’s wife did not die, that the minister at once came341 to the conclusion that her Majesty was herself suffering from that complaint.40 This was the case: but the fact was only known to the King himself, her German nurse (Mrs. Mailborne), and one other person. A curious scene often occurred in her dressing-room and the adjoining apartment. During the process of the morning toilette, prayers were read in the outer room by her Majesty’s chaplain, the latter kneeling the while beneath the painting of a nude Venus—which, as Dr. Madox, a royal chaplain on service, once observed, was a ‘very proper altar-piece.’ On these occasions, Walpole tells us that, ‘to prevent all suspicion, her Majesty would frequently stand some minutes in her shift, talking to her ladies, and, though labouring with so dangerous a complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a desire of the King, that every morning, at Richmond, she walked several miles with him; and more than once, when she had the gout in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such fits of perspiration as routed the gout; but those exertions hastened the crisis of her distemper.’

In the summer of 1737 she suffered so seriously, that at length, on the 26th of August, a report spread over the town that the Queen was dead.41 The whole city at once assumed a guise of mourning—gay summer or cheerful autumn dresses were withdrawn from the shop windows, and nothing was to be seen in their place but ‘sables.’ The report, however, was unfounded. Her Majesty had been ill, but one of her violent remedies had restored her for the moment. She was thereby enabled to walk about Hampton Court with the King; but she was not equal to the task of coming to London on the 29th of the same month, when her grand-daughter342 Augusta was christened, and King, Queen, and Duchess of Saxe Gotha stood sponsors, by their proxies, to the future mother of a future Queen of England.

At length, in November 1737, the crisis above alluded to occurred, and Caroline’s illness soon assumed a very grave character. Her danger, of which she was well aware, did not cause her to lose her presence of mind, nor her dignity, nor to sacrifice any characteristic of her disposition or reigning passion.

It was on Wednesday morning, the 9th of November, that the Queen was seized with the illness which ultimately proved fatal to her. She was distressed with violent internal pains, which Daffy’s Elixir, administered to her by Dr. Tessier, could not allay. The violence of the attack compelled her to return to bed early in the morning; but her courage was great and the King’s pity small, and consequently she rose, after resting for some hours, in order to preside at the usual Wednesday’s drawing-room. The King had great dislike to see her absent from this ceremony; without her, he used to say, there was neither grace, gaiety, nor dignity; and, accordingly, she went to this last duty with the spirit of a wounded knight who returns to the field and dies in harness. She was not able long to endure the fatigue. Lord Hervey was so struck by her appearance of weakness and suffering, that he urged her, with friendly peremptoriness, to retire from a scene for which she was evidently unfitted. The Queen acknowledged her inability to continue any longer in the room, but she could not well break up the assembly without the King, who was in another part of the room, discussing the mirth and merits of the last uproarious burlesque extravaganza, ‘The Dragon of Wantley.’ All London was then flocking to Covent Garden to hear Lampe’s music and Carey’s light nonsense; and Ryan’s Hamlet was not half so much cared for as Reinhold’s343 Dragon, nor Mrs. Vincent’s Ophelia so much esteemed as the Margery and Mauxalinda of the two Misses Young.

At length, his Majesty having been informed of the Queen’s serious indisposition, and her desire to withdraw, took her by the hand to lead her away, roughly noticing, at the same time, that she had ‘passed over’ the Duchess of Norfolk. Caroline immediately repaired her fault by addressing a few condescending words to that old well-wisher of her family. They were the last words she ever uttered on the public scene of her grandeur. All that followed was the undressing after the great drama was over.

In the evening Lord Hervey again saw her. He had been dining with the French ambassador, and he returned from the dinner at an hour at which people now dress before they go to such a ceremony. He was again at the palace by seven o’clock. His duty authorised him, and his inclination prompted him, to see the Queen. He found her suffering from increase of internal pains, violent sickness, and progressive weakness. Cordials and various calming remedies were prescribed, and while they were being prepared, a little ‘usquebaugh’ was administered to her; but neither whisky, nor cordials, nor calming draughts could be retained. Her pains increased, and therewith her strength diminished. She was throughout this day and night affectionately attended by the Princess Caroline, who was herself in extremely weak health, but who would not leave her mother’s bedside till two o’clock in the morning. The King then relieved her, after his fashion, which brought relief to no one. He did not sit up to watch the sufferer, but, in his morning gown, lay outside the bed, by the Queen’s side. Her restlessness was very great, but the King did not leave her space enough even to turn in bed; and he was so uncomfortable that he was kept awake and ill-tempered throughout the night.

344

On the following day the Queen was bled, but without producing any good effect. Her illness visibly increased, and George was as visibly affected by it. Not so much so, however, as not to be concerned about matters of dress. With the sight of the Queen’s suffering before his eyes, he remembered that he had to meet the foreign ministers that day, and he was exceedingly particular in directing the pages to see that new ruffles were sewn to his old shirt-sleeves, whereby he might wear a decent air in the eyes of the representatives of foreign majesty. The Princess Caroline continued to exhibit unabated sympathy for the mother who had perhaps loved her better than any other of her daughters. The princess was in tears and suffering throughout the day, and almost needed as much care as the royal patient herself; especially after losing much blood by the sudden breaking of one of the small vessels in the nose. It was on this day that, to aid Broxholm, who had hitherto prescribed for the Queen, Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Hulse were called in. They prescribed for an obstinate internal obstruction which could not be overcome; and applied blisters to the legs—a remedy for which both King and Queen had a sovereign and silly disgust.

On the 11th, the quiet of the palace was disturbed by a message from the Prince of Wales, making enquiry after the condition of his mother. His declared filial affection roused the King to a pitch of almost ungovernable fury. The royal father flung at the son every missile in his well-stored vocabulary of abuse. There really seemed something devilish in this spirit at such a time. In truth, however, the King had good ground for knowing that the assurances of the prince were based upon the most patent hypocrisy. The spirit of the dying Queen was nothing less fierce and bitter against the prince and his adherents—that345 ‘Cartouche gang,’ as she was wont to designate them. There was no touch of mercy in her, as regarded her feelings or expressions towards him; and her epithets were not less degrading to the utterer and to the object against whom they were directed, than the King’s. She begged her husband to keep her son from her presence. She had no faith, she said, in his assertions of concern, respect, or sympathy. She knew he would approach her with an assumption of grief; would listen dutifully, as it might seem, to her laments; would ‘blubber like a calf’ at her condition; and laugh at her outright as soon as he had left her presence.

It seems infinitely strange that it was not until the 12th of the month that the King hinted to the Queen the propriety of her physicians knowing that she was suffering from rupture. Caroline listened to the suggestion with aversion and displeasure; she earnestly entreated that what had hitherto been kept secret should remain so. The King apparently acquiesced, but there is little doubt of his having communicated a knowledge of the fact to Ranby, the surgeon, who was now in attendance. When the Queen next complained of violent internal pain, Ranby approached her, and she directed his hand to the spot where she said she suffered most. Like the skilful man that he was, Ranby contrived at the same moment to satisfy himself as to the existence of the more serious complaint; and having done so, went up to the King, and spoke to him in a subdued tone of voice. The Queen immediately suspected what had taken place, and, ill as she was, she railed at Ranby for a ‘blockhead.’ The surgeon, however, made no mystery of the matter; but declared, on the contrary, that there was no time to be lost, and that active treatment must at once be resorted to. The discovery of the real malady which was threatening the Queen’s life,346 and which would not have been perilous had it not been so strangely neglected, cost Caroline the only tears she shed throughout her trying illness.

Shipton and the able and octogenarian Bussier were now called in to confer with the other medical men. It was at first proposed to operate with the knife; but ultimately it was agreed that an attempt should be made to reduce the tumour by less extreme means. The Queen bore the necessary treatment patiently. Her chief watcher and nurse was still the gentle Princess Caroline. The latter, however, became so ill, that the medical men insisted on bleeding her. She would not keep her room, but lay dressed on a couch in an apartment next to that in which lay her dying mother. Lord Hervey, when tired with watching—and his post was one of extreme fatigue and anxiety—slept on a mattress, at the foot of the couch of the Princess Caroline. The King retired to his own bed, and on this night the Princess Amelia waited on her mother.

The following day, Sunday, the 13th, was a day of much solemnity. The medical men announced that the wound from which the Queen suffered had begun to mortify, and that death must speedily supervene. The danger was made known to all; and of all, Caroline exhibited the least concern. She took a solemn and dignified leave of her children, always excepting the Prince of Wales. Her parting with her favourite son, the young Duke of Cumberland, was touching, and showed the depth of her love for him. Considering her avowed partiality, there was some show of justice in her concluding counsel to him that, should his brother Frederick ever be King, he should never seek to mortify him, but simply try to manifest a superiority over him only by good actions and merit. She spoke kindly to her daughter Amelia, but much more than kindly to the gentle Caroline, to whose care she consigned her two youngest daughters, Louisa and Mary. She347 appears to have felt as little inclination to see her daughter Anne, as she had to see her son Frederick. Indeed, intimation had been given to the Prince of Orange to the effect that not only was the company of the princess not required, but that should she feel disposed to leave Holland for St. James’s, he was to restrain her, by power of his marital authority.

The parting scene with the King was one of mingled dignity and farce, touching incident and crapulousness. Caroline took from her finger a ruby ring, and put it on a finger of the King. She tenderly declared that whatever greatness or happiness had fallen to her share, she had owed it all to him; adding, with something very like profanity and general unseemliness, that naked she had come to him and naked she would depart from him; for that all she had was his, and she had so disposed of her own that he should be her heir. The singular man to whom she thus addressed herself acted singularly; and, for that matter, so also did his dying consort. Among her last recommendations made on this day, was one enjoining him to marry. The King, overcome, or seemingly overcome, at the idea of being a widower, burst into a flood of tears. The Queen renewed her injunctions that after her decease he should take a second wife. He sobbed aloud; but amid his sobbing he suggested an opinion that he thought that, rather than take another wife, he would maintain a mistress or two. ‘Eh, mon Dieu!’ exclaimed Caroline, ‘the one does not prevent the other! Cela n’empêche pas!’

A dying wife might have shown more decency, but she could hardly have been more complaisant. Accordingly, when, after the above dignified scene had been brought to a close, the Queen fell into a profound sleep, George kissed her unconscious cheeks a hundred times over, expressed an opinion that she would never wake to recognition again, and gave evidence, by his words and actions, how deeply348 he really regarded the dying woman before him. It happened, however, that she did wake to consciousness again; and then, with his usual inconsistency of temper, he snubbed as much as he soothed her, yet without any deliberate intention of being unkind. She expressed her conviction that she should survive till the Wednesday. It was her peculiar day, she said. She had been born on a Wednesday, was married on a Wednesday, first became a mother on a Wednesday, was crowned on a Wednesday, and she was convinced she should die on a Wednesday.

Her expressed indifference as to seeing Walpole is in strong contrast with the serious way in which she did hold converse with him on his being admitted to a parting interview. Her feeling of mental superiority over the King was exhibited in her dying recommendation to the minister to be careful of the Sovereign. This recommendation being made in the Sovereign’s presence was but little relished by the minister, who feared that such a bequest, with the Queen no longer alive to afford him protection, might ultimately work his own downfall. George, however, was rather grateful than angry at the Queen’s commission to Walpole, and subsequently reminded him with grave good-humour, that he, the minister, required no protection, inasmuch as the Queen had rather consigned the King to the protection of the minister; and ‘his kindness to the minister seemed to increase for the Queen’s sake.’

The day which opened with a sort of despair, closed with a faint prospect of hope. The surgeons declared that the mortification had not progressed; and Lord Hervey does not scruple to infer that it had never begun, and that the medical men employed were, like most of their colleagues, profoundly ignorant of that with which they professed to be most deeply acquainted. The fairer prospect was made known to the Queen, in order to349 encourage her, but Caroline was not to be deceived. At twenty-five, she remarked, she might have dragged through it, but at fifty-five it was not to be thought of. She still superstitiously looked to the Wednesday as the term of her career.

All access to the palace had been denied alike to the Prince of Wales and to those who frequented his court; but in the confusion which reigned at St. James’s some members of the prince’s family, or following, did penetrate to the rooms adjacent to that in which lay the royal sufferer, under pretence of an anxiety to learn the condition of her health. Caroline knew of this vicinity, called them ‘ravens’ waiting to see the breath depart from her body, and insisted that they should not be allowed to approach her nearer. Ample evidence exists that the conduct of the Prince of Wales was most unseemly at this solemn juncture. ‘We shall have good news soon,’ he was heard to say, at Carlton House: ‘we shall have good news soon; she can’t hold out much longer!’ There were people who were slow to believe that a son could exult at the idea of the death of his mother. These persons questioned his ‘favourite,’ Lady Archibald Hamilton, as to the actual conduct and language adopted by him; and at such questions the mature mistress would significantly smile, as she discreetly answered: ‘Oh, he is very decent!’

The prospect of the Queen’s recovery was quite illusory and short-lived. She grew so rapidly worse, that even the voices of those around her appeared to disturb her; and a notice was pinned to the curtain of her bed, enjoining all present to speak only in the lowest possible tones. Her patience, however, was very great: she took all that was offered to her, however strong her own distaste; and when operations were proposed to her, she submitted at once, on assurance from the King that he sanctioned what the medical men proposed. She did not lose her sprightly350 humour even when under the knife; and she once remarked to Ranby, when she was thus at his mercy, that she dared say he was half sorry it was not his own old wife he was thus cutting about. But the flesh will quiver where the pincers tear; and even from Caroline terrible anguish would now and then extort a groan. She bade the surgeons, nevertheless, not to heed her silly complaints, but to do their duty irrespective of her grumbling.

All this time there does not appear to have been the slightest idea in the mind either of the sufferer or of those about her that it would be well were Caroline enabled to make her peace with God. The matter, however, did occupy the public thought; and public opinion pressed so strongly, that, rather than offend it, Walpole himself recommended that a priest should be sent for. The recommendation was made to the Princess Amelia, and in the obese minister’s usual coarse fashion. ‘It will be quite as well,’ he said, ‘that the farce should be played. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Potter) would perform it decently; and the princess might bid him to be as short as she liked. It would do the Queen neither harm nor good; and it would satisfy all the fools who called them atheists, if they affected to be as great fools as they who called them so!’

Dr. Potter accordingly was summoned. He attended morning and evening. The King, to show his estimation of the person and his sacred office, invariably kept out of his wife’s apartment while the archbishop was present. What passed is not known; but it is clear that the primate, if he prayed with the Queen, never administered the sacrament to her. Was this caused by her irreconcilable hatred against her son?

It is said that her Majesty’s mistress of the robes, Lady Sundon, had influenced the Queen to countenance none but the heterodox clergy. Her conduct in her last moments351 was consequently watched with mingled anxiety and curiosity by more than those who surrounded her. The public generally were desirous of being enlightened on the subject. The public soon learned, indirectly at least, that the archbishop had not administered to the Queen the solemn rite. On the last time of his issuing from the royal bedchamber, he was assailed by the courtiers with questions like this:—‘My lord, has the Queen received?’ All the answer given by the primate was, ‘Gentlemen, her Majesty is in a most heavenly frame of mind.’ This was an oracular sort of response; and it may be said that if the Queen was in a heavenly frame of mind, she must have been at peace with her son, as well as with all men, and therefore in a condition to receive the administration of the rite with profit and thankfulness. It was known, moreover, that the Queen was not at peace with her son, and that she had not ‘received;’ she, therefore, could not have been, as the archbishop described her, ‘in a most heavenly frame of mind.’ All that the public knew of her practical piety was, that the Queen had been accustomed, or said she had been accustomed, to read a portion of Butler’s ‘Analogy’ every morning at breakfast. It was of this book that Bishop Hoadly remarked, that he could never even look at it without getting a head-ache.

Meanwhile, the King, who kept close in the palace, not stirring abroad, and assembling around him a circle of hearers, expatiated at immense length upon the virtues and excellences of the companion who was on the eve of departure from him. There was no known or discoverable good quality which he did not acknowledge in her; not only the qualities which dignify woman, but those which elevate men. With the courage and intellectual strength of the latter, she had the beauty and virtue of the former. He never tired of this theme, told it over again and again, and ever at an interminable length. The352 most singular item in his monster dissertation was his cool assurance to his children and friends that she was the only woman in the world who suited him for a wife; and that, if she had not been his wife, he would rather have had her for his mistress than any other woman he had ever seen or heard of.

This was the highest possible praise such a husband could bestow; and he doubtless loved his wife as well as a husband, so trained, could love a consort. His own sharp words to her, even in her illness, were no proof to the contrary; and amid tokens of his uncouth tenderness, observing her restless from pain, and yet desirous of sleep, he would exclaim, ‘How the devil can you expect to sleep when you never lie still a moment?’ This was meant for affection; so, too, was the remark made to her one morning when, on entering her room, he saw her gazing, as invalids are wont to gaze, idly on vacancy, ‘with lack-lustre eye.’ He roughly desired her to cease staring in that disagreeable way, which made her look, he said, with refined gallantry, just like a calf with its throat cut!

His praise of her, as Lord Hervey acutely suggested, had much of self-eulogy in view; and when he lauded her excellent sense, it had especial reference to that exemplification of it when she was wise enough to accept him for a husband. He wearied all hearers with the long stories which he recounted both of Caroline and himself, as he sat at night, with his feet on a stool, pouring out prosily his never-ending narrative. The Princess Amelia used to endeavour to escape from the tediousness of listening by pretending to be asleep, and to avenge herself for being compelled to listen by gross abuse of her royal father when he left the room—calling him old fool, liar, coward, and a driveller, of whose stories she was most heartily sick.

And so matters went on, progressively worse, until353 Sunday the 20th—the last day which Caroline was permitted to see upon earth. The circumstances attending the Queen’s death were not without a certain dignity. ‘How long can this last?’ said she to her physician, Tessier. ‘It will not be long,’ was the reply, ‘before your Majesty will be relieved from this suffering.’ ‘The sooner the better,’ said Caroline. And then she began to pray aloud: and her prayer was not a formal one, fixed in her memory by repeating it from the Book of Common Prayer, but a spontaneous and extemporary effusion, so eloquent, so appropriate, and so touching, that all the listeners were struck with admiration at this last effort of a mind ever remarkable for its vigour and ability. She herself manifested great anxiety to depart in a manner becoming a great Queen; and as her last moment approached, her anxiety in this respect appeared to increase. She requested to be raised in bed, and asked all present to kneel and offer up a prayer in her behalf. While this was going on she grew gradually fainter; but, at her desire, water was sprinkled upon her, so that she might revive, and listen to, or join in, the petitions which her family (all but her eldest son, who was not present) put up to Heaven in her behalf. ‘Louder!’ she murmured more than once, as some one read or prayed, ‘Louder, that I may hear.’ Her request was complied with; and then one of her children repeated audibly the Lord’s Prayer. In this Caroline joined, repeating the words as distinctly as failing nature would allow her. The prayer was just concluded when she looked fixedly for a moment at those who stood weeping around her, and then uttered a long-drawn ‘So——!’ It was her last word. As it fell from her lips the dial on the chimney-piece struck eleven. She calmly waved her hand—a farewell to all present and to the world; and then tranquilly composing herself upon her bed, she breathed a sigh, and so expired. Thus died Caroline;354 and few Queens of England have passed away to their account with more of mingled dignity and indecorum.

On Thursday, the 15th of November 1757, Sir Robert Walpole wrote as follows to his brother Horace: ‘The Queen was taken ill last Wednesday.... It was explicitly declared and universally believed to be gout in the stomach.... The case was thought so desperate that Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Hulse were on Friday sent for, who totally despaired. Necessity at last discovered and revealed a secret which had been totally concealed and unknown. The Queen had a rupture which is now known not to have been a new accident.... But will it ever be believed that a life of this importance should be lost, or run thus near, by concealing human infirmities?’

To these accounts of the Queen’s illness it may be added that Nichols, in his ‘Reminiscences,’ says that Dr. Sands suggested that a cure might be effected by injecting warm water, and that Dr. Hulse approved of the remedy and method. It was applied, with no one present but the medical men just named; and though it signally failed, they pronounced it as having succeeded. Their terror was great; and when they passed through the outer apartments, where the Duke of Newcastle congratulatingly hugged Hulse, on his having saved the Queen’s life, the doctor struggled with all his might to get away, lest he should be questioned upon a matter which involved, perhaps, more serious consequences than he could, in his bewilderment, then accurately calculate.

The Princess Caroline, as soon as the Queen had apparently passed away, put a looking-glass to her lips, and finding it unsullied by any breath, calmly remarked, ‘’Tis over!’ and thenceforward ceased to weep as she had done while her mother was dying. The King kissed the face and hands of his departed consort with unaffected355 fervour. His conduct continued to be as singular as ever. He was superstitious and afraid of ghosts; and it was remarked on this occasion, that he would have people with him in his bedroom, as if their presence could have saved him from the visitation of a spirit. In private, the sole subject of his conversation was ‘Caroline.’ He loved to narrate the whole history of her early life and his own: their wooing and their wedding, their joys and vexations. In these conversations he introduced something about every person with whom he had ever been in anything like close connection. It was observed, however, that he never once mentioned the name of his mother, Sophia Dorothea, or in any way alluded to her. He purposely avoided the subject; but he frequently named the father of Sophia, the Duke of Zell, who, he said, was so desirous of seeing his grandson grow up into an upright man, that the duke declared he would shoot him if George Augustus should prove a dishonest one!

Amid all these anecdotes, and tales, and reminiscences, and praises, there was a constant flow of tears shed for her who was gone. They seemed, however, to come and go at pleasure; for in the very height of his mourning and depth of his sorrow, he happened to see Horace, the brother of Sir Robert Walpole, who was weeping for fashion’s sake, but in so grotesque a manner, that when the King beheld it, he ceased to cry, and burst into a roar of laughter.

Lord Hervey foretold that his grief would not be of a lasting quality; and, in some degree, he was correct. It must be confessed, however, that the King never ceased to respect the memory of his wife. Walpole only thought of how George might be ruled now that the Queen was gone, and he speedily fixed upon a plan. He had been accustomed, he said, to side with the mother against the mistress. He would now, he added, side with the mistress356 against the children. He it was, who proposed that Madame Walmoden should now be brought to England; and, in a revoltingly coarse observation to the Princess Caroline, he recommended her, if she would have any influence with her father, to surround him with women, and govern him through them!

But other parties had been on the watch to lay hold of the power which had now fallen from the hand of the dead Caroline.

The dissension in the royal family, which was caused by the conduct of the Prince of Wales at the period of the birth of his eldest daughter, Augusta, was, of course, turned to political account. It was made even of more account in that way when the condition of Caroline became known. Lord Chesterfield, writing to Mr. Lyttelton from Bath, on the 12th of November 1737, says: ‘As I suppose the Queen will be dead or out of danger before you receive this, my advice to his royal highness (of Wales) will come full late; but in all events it is my opinion he cannot take too many and too respectful measures towards the Queen, if alive, and towards the King, if she is dead; but then that respect should be absolutely personal, and care should be taken that the ministers shall not have the least share of it.’

At the time when Caroline’s indignation had been aroused by the course adopted by the prince, when his wife was brought from Hampton Court to St. James’s for her confinement, his royal highness had made a statement to Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Harrington, which they were subsequently required to put down in writing as corroborative evidence of what the prince had said to the Queen. In reference to the inditers of these ‘minutes of conversation,’ Lord Chesterfield advises that the disrespect which he recommends the prince to exhibit towards the ministry shall be more marked ‘if in the357 course of these transactions the two evidences should be sent to, or of themselves presume to approach the prince; in which case (says the writer) he ought to show them personal resentment; and if they bring any message from the King or Queen which he cannot refuse receiving, he should ask for it in writing, and give his answer in writing; alleging publicly for his reason, that he cannot venture anything with people who have grossly both betrayed and misrepresented private conversation.’42

Through the anticipated natural death of the Queen, the opposition hoped to effect the political death of Walpole. ‘In case the Queen dies,’ writes Chesterfield, ‘I think Walpole should be looked upon as gone too, whether he be really so or no, which will be the most likely way to weaken him; for if he be supposed to inherit the Queen’s power over the King it will in some degree give it him; and if the opposition are wise, instead of treating with him, they should attack him most vigorously and personally, as a person who has lost his chief support. Which is indeed true; for though he may have more power with the King than any other body, yet he will never have that kind of power which he had by her means; and he will not even dare to mention many things to the King which he could without difficulty have brought about by her means. Pray present my most humble duty to his royal highness,’ concludes the writer, ‘and tell him that upon principles of personal duty and respect to the King and Queen (if alive), he cannot go too far; as, on the other hand, with relation to the ministers, after what has passed he cannot carry his dignity too high.’ The same strain is continued in a second letter, wherein it is stated with respect to the anticipated death of the Queen: ‘It is most certain that Sir Robert must be in the utmost distress, and can never358 hope to govern the King as the Queen governed him;’ and he adds, in a postscript: ‘We have a prospect of the Claude Lorraine kind before us, while Sir Robert’s has all the horrors of Salvator Rosa. If the prince would play the rising sun, he would gild it finely; if not, he will be under a cloud, which he will never be able hereafter to shine through.’ Finally, exclaims the eager writer: ‘Instil this into the Woman’—meaning by the latter the Prince of Wales’s ‘favourite,’ Lady Archibald Hamilton, who ‘had filled,’ says Lord Mahon, ‘the whole of his little court with her kindred.’ According to Horace Walpole, ‘whenever Sir William Stanhope met anybody at Carlton House whom he did not know, he always said, “your humble servant, Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton.”’

A fortnight after Chesterfield contemptuously calls Lady Archibald ‘the Woman,’ he begins to see the possibility of her rising to the possession of political influence, and he says to Mr. Lyttelton: ‘Pray, when you see Lady Archibald, assure her of my respects, and tell her that I would trouble her with a letter myself, to have acknowledged her goodness to me, if I could have expressed those acknowledgments to my own satisfaction; but not being able to do that, I only desire she would be persuaded that my sentiments with regard to her are what they ought to be.’43 In such wise did great men counsel and intrigue for the sake of a little pre-eminence, which never yet purchased or brought with it the boon of happiness.

Much has been said, and many opposite conclusions drawn, as to the religious character of Caroline. In our days, such a woman would not be allowed to wear the reputation of being religious. In her days, she may with more justice have been considered so. And yet she was far below a standard of much elevation. When we hear her boasting—or rather asserting, as convinced of the fact—that ‘she had made it the business of her life to discharge her duty to God and man in the best manner she was able,’ we have no very favourable picture of her360 humility; though at the same time we may acquit her of hypocrisy.

Her patronage of the well-meaning but mischievous, the learned but unwise Whiston is quite sufficient to condemn her in the opinion of many people. Here was a man who had not yet, indeed, left the Church of England for the Baptist community, because the Athanasian creed was an offence to him, but he had pronounced Prince Eugène to be the man foretold in the Apocalypse as the destroyer of the Turkish Empire, had declared that the children of Joseph and Mary were the natural brothers and sisters of Christ, set up a heresy in his ‘Primitive Christianity Revived,’ made open profession of Arianism, boldly made religious prophecies which were falsified as soon as made, and, more innocently, translated ‘Josephus,’ and tried to discover the longitude. Caroline showed her admiration of heterodox Whiston by conferring on him a pension of fifty pounds a-year; and as she had a regard for the mad scholar, she paid him with her own hand, and had him as a frequent visitor at the palace. The King was more guarded in his patronage of Whiston, and one day said to him, as King, Queen, and preacher were walking together in Hampton Court Gardens, that his opinions against Athanasianism might certainly be true, but perhaps it would have been better if he had kept them to himself. Now Whiston was remarkable for his wit and his fearlessness, and looking straight in the face of the man who was King by right of the Reformation, and who was the temporal head of the Church and, ex-officio, Defender of the Faith, he said: ‘If Luther had followed such advice, I should like to know where your Majesty would have been at the present moment.’ ‘Well, Mr. Whiston,’ said Caroline, ‘you are, as I have heard it said you were, a very free speaker. Are you bold enough to tell me my361 faults?’ ‘Certainly,’ was Whiston’s reply. ‘There are many people who come every year from the country to London upon business. Their chief, loyal, and natural desire is to see their King and Queen. This desire they can nowhere so conveniently gratify as at the Chapel Royal. But what they see there does not edify them. They behold your Majesty talking, during nearly the whole time of service, with the King—and talking loudly. This scandalises them; they go into the country with false impressions, spread false reports, and effect no little mischief.’ The Queen pleaded that the King would talk to her, acknowledged that it was wrong, promised amendment, and asked what was the next fault he descried in her. ‘Nay, madam,’ said he, ‘it will be time enough to go to the second when your Majesty has corrected the first.’

What Caroline said of her consort was true enough. At chapel, the King, when not sleeping, would be talking. Dr. Young thought, by power of his preaching, to keep him awake; but the King, on finding that the new chaplain was not giving him what he loved, ‘a short, good sermon,’ soon began to exhibit signs of somnolency. Young exerted himself in vain; and when his Majesty at length broke forth with a snore, the poet-preacher felt his vanity so wounded that he burst into tears. Where Kings and Queens so behaved, no wonder that young ensigns flirted openly with maids of honour, and that Lady Wortley Montague should have reason to write to the Countess of Bute: ‘I confess I remember to have dressed for St. James’s Chapel with the same thoughts your daughters will have at the opera.’

It is not likely that Archbishop Potter was sent for by Caroline herself in her last illness, for she liked the prelate as little as Whiston himself did. But Potter, the first of scholars, in spite of the sneers of academical Parr,362 was, although a staunch Whig, and esteemed by Caroline and her consort for his sermon preached before them at their coronation, yet a very high churchman, one who put the throne infinitely below the altar, and thought kings very far indeed below priests. This last opinion, however, was very much modified when the haughty prelate, son of a Wakefield linendraper, had to petition for a favour. His practice, certainly, was not perfect, for he disinherited one son, who married a dowerless maiden out of pure love, and he left his fortune to the other, who was a profligate and squandered it.

But even Caroline could not but respect Potter for his jealousy with regard to the worthily supplying of church benefices. Just after the Queen had congratulated him on being elected to the highest position in the Church of England, Potter called on a clerical relative, to announce to him the intention of his kinsman to confer on him a valuable living. The archbishop unfortunately found his reverend cousin busily engaged at skittles, and the prelate came upon him just as the apostolic player was aiming at the centre pin, with the remark, ‘Now for a shy at the head of the Church!’ He missed his pin, and also lost his preferment. Neither of their Majesties, however, thought Potter justified in withholding a benefice on such slight grounds of offence. Neither George nor Caroline approved of clergymen of any rank inveighing against amusements. I may cite, as a case in point, the anger with which the King, in his heart, visited Gibson, Bishop of London, for denouncing masquerades, and for getting up an episcopal address to the throne, praying ‘for the entire abolition of such pernicious diversions.’ The son of Sophia Dorothea was especially fond of masquerades, and his indignation was great at hearing them denounced by Gibson. This boldness shut the latter out from all chance of succeeding to Canterbury.363 Caroline looked with some favour, however, on this zealous and upright prelate; and her minister, Walpole, did nothing to obstruct the exercise of his great ecclesiastical power. ‘Gibson is a pope!’ once exclaimed one of the low church courtiers of Caroline’s coterie. ‘True!’ was Walpole’s reply, ‘and a very good pope too!’

It must be confessed, nevertheless, that the church and religion were equally in a deplorable state just previous to the demise of Caroline. That ingenious and learned Northumbrian, Edward Grey, published anonymously, the year before the Queen’s death, a work upon ‘The Miserable and Distracted State of Religion in England upon the Downfall of the Church Established.’ A work, however, published the same year, and which much more interested the Queen, was Warburton’s famous ‘Alliance between Church and State.’ This book brought again into public notice its author, that William Warburton, the son of a Newark attorney, who himself had been lawyer and usher, had denounced Pope as an incapable poet, and had sunk into temporary oblivion in his Lincolnshire rectory at Brant Broughton. But his ‘Alliance between Church and State’ brought him to the notice of Queen Caroline, to whom his book and his name were introduced by Dr. Hare, the Bishop of Chichester. Caroline liked the book and desired to see the author; but her last fatal illness was upon her before he could be introduced, and Warburton had to write many books and wait many years before he found a patron in Murray (Lord Mansfield) who could help him to preferment.

Queen Caroline made of Butler’s ‘Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature’ a sort of light-reading book, which was the ordinary companion of her breakfast-table. Caroline may have liked to dip into such profound fountains; but I doubt whether she often looked into the ‘Analogy,’ as it was not364 published till 1736, when her malady was increasing, and her power to study a work so abstruse must have been much diminished. Still she admired the learned divine, who was the son of a Wantage shopkeeper, and who was originally a Presbyterian Dissenter—a community for which German Protestant princes and princesses have always entertained a considerable regard. Caroline did not merely admire Butler because high churchmen looked upon him, even after his ordination, as half a dissenter; she had admired his Rolls Sermons, and when Secker, another ex-Presbyterian whom Butler had induced to enter the church, introduced and recommended him to Queen Caroline, she immediately appointed him clerk of the closet. It could have been very little before this, that Secker himself—who had been a Presbyterian, a doctor, a sort of sentimental vagabond on the Continent, and a free-thinker to boot—had been, after due probation and regular progress, appointed rector of St. James’s. Walpole declares that Secker owed this preferment to the favour of the Queen, and Secker’s biographers cannot prove much to the contrary. At the period of Caroline’s death he was Bishop of Bristol, and that high dignity he is also said to have owed to the friendship of Caroline. I wish it were only as true, that when the Prince of Wales was at enmity with the King and Queen, and used to attend St. James’s Church, his place of residence being at Norfolk House, in the adjacent square—I wish, I say, it were true that Secker once preached to the prince on the text, ‘Honour thy father and mother.’ The tale, however, is apocryphal; but it is true that the prince himself, at the period of the family quarrel, was startled, on entering the church, at hearing Mr. Bonny, the clerk in orders, rather pointedly beginning the service with, ‘I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned,’ &c.

But, perhaps, of all the members of the church, Caroline365 felt regard for none more than for Berkeley. He had been an active divine long, indeed, before the Queen visited him with her favour. His progress had been checked by his sermons in favour of passive obedience and non-resistance—sermons which were considered not so much inculcating loyalty to Brunswick as denouncing the revolution which opened to that house the way to the throne. Berkeley had also incurred no little public wrath by destroying the letters which Swift’s Vanessa had bequeathed to his care, with a sum of money for the express purpose of their being published. But, on the other hand, he had manifested in various ways the true spirit of a Christian and a philosopher, and had earned immortal honour by his noble attempt to convert the American savages to Christianity. But it was his ‘Minute Philosopher’—his celebrated work, the object of which was to refute scepticism, that gained for him the distinction of the approval of Caroline. The expression of such approval is warrant for the Queen’s sincerity in the cause of true religion. So delighted was the Queen with this work, that she procured for its author his nomination to the Bishopric of Cloyne. Never was reward more nobly earned, more worthily bestowed, or more gracefully conferred. It did honour alike to the Queen and to Berkeley; and it raised the hopes of those who were ready to almost despair of Christianity itself, when they saw that Religion yet had its great champions to uphold her cause, and that, however indifferent the King might be to the merits of such champions, the Queen herself was ever eager to acknowledge their services and to recompense them largely as they merited.

In controversial works, however, Caroline always delighted. She had no greater joy in this way than setting Clarke and Leibnitz at intellectual struggle, watching the turns of the contest with interest, suggesting,366 amending, adding, or diminishing, and advising every well-laid blow, by whichever antagonist it was delivered. It may be asked, Was there not in all this rather more love of intellectual than of religious pursuits? The reader must judge.

Caroline loved the broad English comedy of her time, and saw no harm in the very broadest. She was especially fond of the ‘Queen of Comedy,’ Mrs. Oldfield, but affected to be a little shocked at the way in which she was living with General Churchill. One day, when Mrs. Oldfield had been reading at Windsor, and was walking on the terrace with the court, the Queen said to her, ‘I hear, Mrs. Oldfield, that you and the General are married.’ ‘Madam,’ answered the actress, playing her very best, ‘the General keeps his own secrets.’ After Mrs. Oldfield’s death, the Queen bought her collection of plays for a hundred and twenty guineas.

Lord Chesterfield says of Caroline, in his lively way, that ‘she was a woman of lively, pretty parts.’ She merits, however, a better epitaph and a more sagacious chronicler. ‘Her death,’ adds the noble roué, ‘was regretted by none but the King. She died meditating projects which must have ended either in her own ruin or that of the country.’ Dismissing, for the present, the last part of this paragraph, we will say that Caroline was mourned by more than by the King; but by none so deeply, so deservedly, so naturally as by him. He had not, out of affection for her, been less selfish or less vicious than his inclinations induced him to be. He was faithless to her, but he never ceased to respect her; and in those days a husband of whom nothing worse could be said was rather exemplary of conduct than otherwise. It was a sort of decorum by no means common. One could have almost thought him uxorious; for he not only allowed himself to be directed in all important matters requiring367 judgment and discretion by the guidance of her more enlightened mind, but he never drew a picture of beauty and propriety in woman but all the hearers felt that the original of the picture was the Queen herself. It is strange, setting aside more grave considerations for the rule of conduct, that, with such a wife, he should have hampered himself with ‘favourites.’ These he neither loved nor respected. A transitory liking and the evil fashion of the day had something to do with it; and besides, he had a certain feeling of attachment for women who were obsequious and serviceable. These he could rule, but his wife ruled him. Nor could the women be compared. Sir Robert Walpole, an unexceptionable witness in this case, asserts that the King loved his wife’s little finger better than he did Lady Suffolk’s whole body. For that reason it was that Walpole himself so respectfully kissed the small, plump, and graceful hand of the Queen rather than propitiate the good-will of the favourite.

Caroline shared the vices in which her husband indulged, by favouring the indulgence. She was not the more excusable for this because Archdeacon Blackburn and other churchmen praised her for encouraging the King in his wickedness. Her ground of action was not founded on virtuous principle. She sanctioned, nay promoted, the vicious way of life followed by her consort merely that she might exercise more power politically and personally. She depreciated her own worth and attractions in order to heighten those of the favourites whom the King most affected, and by way of apologising for his being attracted from her to them. Actually, she had as little regard for married faith as the King himself. The Queen regarded his doings with such complacency as to give rise to a belief that she had never cared for the King, and was therefore jealouslessly indifferent as to the disgraceful tenor of his life. An allusion368 was once made in her presence, when the Duke of Grafton was by, to her having in former times not been unaffected by the suit of a German prince. ‘G—d, madam,’ said the duke, in the fashionable blasphemous style of the period, ‘I should like to see the man you could love!’ ‘See him?’ said the Queen, laughingly; ‘do you not then think that I love the King?’ ‘G—d, madam,’ exclaimed the ostentatious blasphemer, ‘I only wish I were King of France, and I would soon be sure whether you did or did not.’

Caroline has been laughed at for her patronage of such a poet as Duck. She had wit enough to see the merit of Gay. On her accession she offered him the honourable post of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa—a sinecure worth 200l. a-year, and a stepping-stone to other preferment; Gay peremptorily and scornfully declined the offer. Accordingly, Cibber was preferred to Gay for the post of laureate. Caroline had always been kind to this ‘tetchy’ poet. In 1724, when Gay’s play, ‘The Captives,’ had failed on the stage, she invited him to read it at Leicester House. On being ushered into the august company, Gay, nervous from long waiting, tragedy in hand, bashful and blundering, fell over a stool, thereby threw down a screen, and set his illustrious audience in a comical sort of confusion, amid which the kind-hearted princess did her best to put Gay at ease in his perplexities.

The King—to return to that royal widower—indubitably mourned over his loss, and regarded with some rag, as it were, of the dignity of affection her memory, and that with a tearful respect. He was for ever talking of her, even to his mistress; and Lady Yarmouth (as Madame Walmoden was called), as well as others, had to listen to the well-conned roll of her queenly virtues, and to the royal conjectures as to what the advice of Caroline369 would have been in certain supervening contingencies. There was something noble in his remark, on ordering the payment to be continued of all salaries to her officers and servants, and all her benefactions to benevolent institutions, that, if possible, nobody should suffer by her death but himself. We almost pity the wretched but imbecile old man too, when we see him bursting into tears at the sight of Walpole, and confessing to him, with a helpless shaking of the hands, that he had lost the rock of his support, his warmest friend, his wisest counsellor, and that henceforth he must be dreary, disconsolate, and succourless, utterly ignorant whither to turn for succour or for sympathy.

This feeling never entirely deserted him; albeit, he continued to find much consolation where he had done better not to have sought it. Still, the old memory would not entirely fade, the old fire would not entirely be quenched. ‘I hear,’ said he, once to Baron Brinkman, as he lay sleepless, at early morn, on his couch, ‘I hear you have a portrait of my wife, which was a present from her to you, and that it is a better likeness than any I have got. Let me look at it.’ The portrait was brought, and so placed before the King that he could contemplate it leisurely at his ease. ‘It is like her,’ he murmured. ‘Place it nearer me and leave me till I ring.’ For two whole hours the baron remained in attendance in an adjoining room, before he was again summoned to his master’s presence. At the end of that time, he entered the King’s bedroom, on being called. George looked up at him, with eyes full of tears, and muttered, pointing to the portrait: ‘Take it away; take it away! I never yet saw the woman worthy to buckle her shoe.’ And then he arose, and went and breakfasted with Lady Yarmouth.

A score of years after Caroline’s death, he continued370 to speak of her only with emotion. His vanity, however, disposed him to be considered gallant to the last. In 1755, being at Hanover, he was waited upon by the Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and all her unmarried daughters. The provident and maternal duchess had an object, and she was not very far from accomplishing it. The King considered all these young ladies with the speculative look both of a connoisseur and an amateur. He was especially struck by the beauty of the eldest, and he lost no time in proposing her as a match to his grandson and heir-apparent, George, Prince of Wales, then in his minority. The prince, at the prompting of his mother, very peremptorily declined the honour which had been submitted for his acceptance, and the young princess, her mother, and King George were all alike profoundly indignant. ‘Oh!’ exclaimed the latter with ardent eagerness, to Lord Waldegrave, ‘oh, that I were but a score of years younger, this young lady should not then have been exposed to the indignity of being refused by the Prince of Wales, for I would then myself have made her Queen of England!’ That is to say, that if the young Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel could only have been introduced to him while he was sitting under the shadow of the great sorrow which had fallen upon him by the death of Caroline, he would have found solace for his grief by offering her his hand. However, it was now too late, and the gay old monarch, taking his amber-headed cane, feebly picked his way to Lady Yarmouth and a game at ombre.

Lord Chesterfield allowed Caroline some degree of female knowledge. If by this he would infer that she had only a portion of the knowledge which was commonly possessed by the ladies her contemporaries, his lordship does her great injustice. Few women of her time were so well instructed; and she was not the less371 well-taught for being in a great degree self-taught. She may have been but superficially endowed in matters of theology and in ancient history; but, what compensated at least for the latter, she was well acquainted with what more immediately concerned her, the history of her own times. Lord Chesterfield further remarks, that Caroline would have been an agreeable woman in social life if she had not aimed at being a great one in public life. This would imply that she had doubly failed, where, in truth, she had doubly succeeded. She was agreeable in the circle of social, and she not merely aimed at, but achieved, greatness in public life. She was as great a queen as queen could become in England under the circumstances in which she was placed. Without any constitutional right, she ruled the country with such wisdom that her right always seemed to rest on a constitutional basis. There was that in her, that, had her destiny taken her to Russia instead of England, she would have been as Catherine was in all but her uncleanness; not that, in purity of mind, she was very superior to Catherine the Unclean.

The following paragraph in Lord Chesterfield’s character of Caroline is less to be contested than others in which the noble author has essayed to pourtray the Queen. ‘She professed wit, instead of concealing it; and valued herself on her skill in simulation and dissimulation, by which she made herself many enemies, and not one friend, even among the women the nearest to her person.’ It may very well be doubted, however, whether any sovereign ever had a ‘friend’ in the true acceptation of that term. It is much if they acquire an associate whose interest or inclination it is to be faithful; but such a person is not a friend.

Lord Chesterfield seems to warm against her as he proceeds in his picture. ‘Cunning and perfidy,’ he says, ‘were the means she made use of in business, as all372 women do for want of a better.’ This blow is dealt at one poor woman merely for the purpose of smiting all. Caroline, no doubt, was full of art, and on the stage of public life was a mere, but most accomplished, actress. It must be remembered, too, that she was surrounded by cunning and perfidious people. Society was never so unprincipled as it was during her time; and yet, amid its unutterable corruption, all women were not crafty and treacherous. There were some noble exceptions; but these did not lie much in the way of the deaf and dissolute earl’s acquaintance.

‘She had a dangerous ambition,’ continues the same author, ‘for it was attended with courage, and, if she had lived much longer, might have proved fatal either to herself or the constitution.’ It is courage like Caroline’s which plucks peril from ambition, but does not indeed make the latter less dangerous to the people; which is, perhaps, what Chesterfield means. With respect to the Queen’s religion, he says: ‘After puzzling herself in all the whimsies and fantastical speculations of different sects, she fixed herself ultimately in Deism, believing in a future state.’ In this he merely repeats a story, which, probably, originated with those whose views on church questions were of a ‘higher’ tendency than those of her Majesty. And after repeating others, he contradicts himself; for he has no sooner stated that the Queen was not an agreeable woman, because she aimed at being a great one, than he adds, ‘Upon the whole, the agreeable woman was liked by most people—but the Queen was neither esteemed, beloved, nor trusted by anybody but the King.’ At least, she was not despised by everybody; and that, considering the times in which she lived, and the discordant parties over whom she really reigned, is no slight commendation. It is a praise which cannot be awarded to the King.

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Let us add, that not only has Chesterfield said of Caroline that she settled down to Deism, ‘believing in a future state,’ but he has said the same, and in precisely the same terms, of Pope and—upon Pope’s authority—of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. Here is at least a double and, perhaps, as we should hope, a triple error.

The popular standard of morality was deplorably low throughout the reigns of the first two Georges. Marlborough was ridiculed for the unwavering fidelity and affection which he manifested towards his wife. There were few husbands like him, at the time, in either respect. He was satirised for being superior to almost irresistible temptations; he was laughed at for having prayers in his camp—for turning reverently to God before he turned fiercely against his foes; the epigrammatists were particularly severe against him because he was honest enough to pay his debts and live within his income. But ‘his meanness?’ Well, his meanness might rather be called prudence; and if his censurers had nourished in themselves something of the same quality, it would have been the better for themselves and their contemporaries, and, indeed, none the worse for their descendants. One of the alleged instances of Marlborough’s meanness is cited, in his having once played at whist with Dean Jones, at which he left off the winner of sixpence. The dean delayed to pay the stake, and the duke asked for it, stating that he wanted the sixpence for a chair to go home in. It seems to me that the meanness rested with the rich dean in not paying, and not with the millionaire duke in requiring to be paid.

No man ever spoke more disparagingly of Marlborough than his enemy, Lord Peterborough, though even he did justice to Marlborough’s abilities; but Lord Peterborough was especially severe on the duke’s love of money. The latter spent wisely, the former squandered profusely, and374 cheated his heirs. The duke in the Bath-rooms, dunning a dean for sixpence, is not so degrading a picture as Peterborough, in the Bath market, cheapening commodities, and walking about in his blue ribbon and star, with a fowl in his hand and a cabbage or a cauliflower under either arm. Peterborough was lewd and sensual, vain, passionate, and inconstant, a mocker of Christianity, and a remorseless transgressor of the laws of God and man. He was superior to Marlborough only in one thing—in spelling. A poor boast. Compare the duke, leading a well-regulated life, and walking daily with his God, to Peterborough, whose only approaches to religion consisted in his once going to hear Penn preach, because he ‘liked to be civil to all religions,’ and in his saying of Fenelon that he was a delicious creature, but dangerous, because acquaintance with him was apt to make men pious!

Marlborough’s favourite general, Cadogan, was one of the ornaments of the court of George and Caroline down to 1726. They had reason to regard him, for he was a staunch Whig, although, as a diplomatist, he perilled what he was commissioned to preserve. His morality is evidenced in his remark made when some one enquired, on the committal of Atterbury to the Tower for Jacobite dealings, what should be done with the bishop? ‘Done with him!’ roared Cadogan; ‘throw him to the lions!’ Atterbury, on hearing of this meek suggestion, burst out with an explosion of alliterative fierceness, and denounced the earl to Pope ‘as a bold, bad, blundering, blustering, bloody bully!’ The episcopal sense of forgiveness was on a par with the sentiment of mercy which influenced the bosom of the soldier.

But Marlborough’s social, severe, and domestic virtues were not asked for in the commanders of following years. Thus Macartney, despite the blood upon his hand, stained375 in the duel between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun, was made colonel of the twenty-first regiment six years previous to the Queen’s death. General Webb, who died two years previously, was thought nothing the worse for his thrasonic propensity, and was for ever boasting of his courage, and alluding to the four wounds he had received in the battle of Wynendael. ‘My dear general,’ said the Duke of Argyle, on one of these occasions, ‘I wish you had received a fifth—in your tongue; for then everybody else would have talked of your deeds!’

Still more unfavourably shines another of the generals of this reign. Lord Cobham did not lack bravery, but he owed most of his celebrity to Pope. He did not care how wicked a man was, provided only he were a gentleman in his vices; and he was guilty of an act which Marlborough would have contemplated with horror—namely, tried hard to make infidels of two promising young gentlemen—Gilbert West, and George, subsequently Lord, Lyttelton.

Marlborough, too, was superior in morality to Blakeney, that brave soldier and admirable dancer of Irish jigs; but who was so addicted to amiable excesses, of which court and courtiers thought little at this liberal period, that he drank punch till he was paralysed. And surely it was better, like Marlborough, to play for sixpences, than, like Wade, to build up and throw down fortunes, night after night, at the gaming-table. But there was a more celebrated general at the court of the second George than the road-constructing Wade. John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, was one of those men in high station whose acts tend to the weal or woe of inferior men who imitate them. Stair was for ever gaily allowing his expenditure to exceed his income. His sense of honour was not so keen but that he would go in disguise among the Jacobites, profess to be of them, and betray their confidence. And376 yet even Lord Stair could act with honest independence. He voted against Walpole’s Excise scheme, in 1733, although he knew that such a vote would cost him all his honours. He was accordingly turned out from his post of lord high admiral for Scotland. Caroline was angry at his vote, yet sorry for its consequences. ‘Why,’ said she to him, ‘why were you so silly as to thwart Walpole’s views?’ ‘Because, madam,’ was the reply, ‘I wished you and your family better than to support such a project.’ Stair merits, too, a word of commendation for his protesting against the merciless conduct of the government with respect to the captive Jacobites; and, like Marlborough, he was of praiseworthy conduct in private life, zealous for Presbyterianism, yet tolerant of all other denominations, and, by his intense attachment to a Protestant succession, one of the most valuable supporters of the throne of George and Caroline. Both the men were consistent; but equal praise cannot be awarded to another good soldier of the period. The Duke of Argyle, when out of office, declared that a standing army, in time of peace, was ever fatal either to prince or nation; subsequently, when in office, he as deliberately maintained that a standing army never had in any country the chief hand in destroying the liberties of the state. This sort of disgraceful versatility marked his entire political career; and it is further said of him that he ‘was meanly ambitious of emolument as a politician, and contemptibly mercenary as a patron.’ He had, however, one rare and by no means unimportant virtue. ‘The strictest economy was enforced in his household, and his tradesmen were punctually paid once a month.’ This virtue was quite enough to purchase sneers for him in the cabinet of King George and the court of Queen Caroline.

In the last year of the reign of that King died General377 Hawley, whose severity to his soldiers acquired for him in the ranks the title of lord chief justice. An extract from his will may serve to show that the ‘lord chief justice’ had little in him of the Christian soldier. ‘I direct and order that, as there’s now a peace, and I may die the common way, my carcase may be put anywhere, ’tis equal to me; but I will have no more expense or ridiculous show than if a poor soldier, who is as good a man, were to be buried from the hospital. The priest, I conclude, will have his fee—let the puppy take it. Pay the carpenter for the carcase-box. I give to my sister 5,000l. As to my other relations, I have none who want, and as I never was married, I have no heirs; I have, therefore, long since taken it into my head to adopt one son and heir, after the manner of the Romans; who I hereafter name, &c.... I have written all this,’ he adds, ‘with my own hand, and this I do because I hate all priests of all professions, and have the worst opinion of all members of the bar.’

Having glanced at these social traits of men who were among the foremost of those who were above the rank of mere courtiers around the throne of the husband of Caroline, let us quit the palace, and seek for other samples of the people and the times in the prisons, the private houses, and the public streets.

With regard to the prisons, it is easier to tell than to conceive the horrors even of the debtors’ prisons of those days. Out of them, curiously enough, arose the colonisation of the state of Georgia. General Oglethorpe having heard that a friend named Castle, an architect by profession, had died in consequence of the hardships inflicted on him in the Fleet Prison, instituted an enquiry, by which discovery was made of some most iniquitous proceedings. The unfortunate debtors, unable to pay their fees to the gaolers, who had no salary and lived upon what they378 could extort from the prisoners and their friends, were subjected to torture, chains, and starvation. The authorities of the prison were prosecuted, and penalties of fine and imprisonment laid upon them. A better result was a parliamentary grant, with a public subscription and private donations, whereby Oglethorpe was enabled to found a colony of liberated insolvents in Georgia. Half of the settlers were either insolvent simply because their richer and extravagant debtors neglected to pay their bills; the other half were the victims of their own extravagance.

Bad roads and ill-lighted ways are said to be proofs of indifferent civilisation when they are to be found in the neighbourhood of great cities. If this be so, then civilisation was not greatly advanced among us, in this respect, a century and a quarter ago. Thus we read that on the 21st of November 1730, ‘the King and Queen, coming from Kew Green to St. James’s, were overturned in their coach, near Lord Peterborough’s, at Parson’s Green, about six in the evening, the wind having blown out the flambeaux, so that the coachman could not see his way. But their Majesties received no hurt, nor the two ladies who were in the coach with them.’

If here was want of civilisation, there was positive barbarity in other matters. For instance, here is a paragraph from the news of the day, under date of the 10th of June 1731. ‘Joseph Crook, alias Sir Peter Stranger, stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, for forging a deed; and after he had stood an hour, a chair was brought to the pillory scaffold, in which he was placed, and the hangman with a pruning-knife cut off both his ears, and with a pair of scissors slit both his nostrils, all which he bore with much patience; but when his right nostril was seared with a hot iron, the pain was so violent he could379 not bear it; whereupon his left nostril was not seared, but he was carried bleeding to a neighbouring tavern, where he was as merry at dinner with his friends, after a surgeon had dressed his wounds, as if nothing of the kind had happened. He was afterwards imprisoned for life in the King’s Bench, and the issues and profits of his lands were confiscated for his life, according to his sentence.’

It was the period when savage punishment was very arbitrarily administered; and shortly after Sir Peter was mangled, without detriment to his gaiety, at Charing Cross, the gallant Captain Petre had very nearly got hanged at Constantinople. That gallant sailor and notable courtier had entertained our ambassador, Lord Kinneal, on board his ship, and honoured him, on leaving the vessel at nine o’clock at night, with a salute of fifteen guns. The Sultan happened to have gone to bed, and was aroused from his early slumbers by the report. He was so enraged, that he ordered the captain to be seized, bastinadoed, and hanged; and so little were King George and Queen Caroline, and England to boot, thought of in Turkey at that day, that it was with the greatest difficulty that the British ambassador could prevail on the Sultan to pardon the offender. The court laughed at the incident. Cromwell would have avenged the affront.

But we must not fancy that we were much less savage in idea or action at home. There was one John Waller, in 1732, who stood in the pillory in Seven Dials, for falsely swearing against persons whom he accused as highway robbers. The culprit was dreadfully pelted during the hour he stood exposed; but at the end of that time the mob tore him down and trampled him to death. Whether this, too, was considered a laughable matter at court is not so certain. Even if so, the courtiers were380 soon made serious by the universal sickness which prevailed in London in the beginning of the year 1732. Headache and fever were the common symptoms; very few escaped, and a vast number died. In the last week of January, not less than fifteen hundred perished of the epidemic within the bills of mortality. There had not been so severe a visitation since the period of the plague. But our wonder may cease that headache and fever prevailed, when we recollect that gin was being sold, contrary to law, in not less than eight thousand different places in the metropolis, and that drunkenness was not the vice of the lower orders only.

It has been truly said of Queen Caroline that, with all her opportunities, she never abused the power which she held over the King’s mind, by employing it for the promotion of her own friends and favourites. This, however, is but negative, or questionable praise. There is, too, an anecdote extant, the tendency of which is to show that she was somewhat given to the enjoyment of uncontrolledly exercising the power she had attained for her personal purposes. She had prepared plans for enclosing St. James’s Park, shutting out the public, and keeping it for the exclusive pleasure of herself and the royal family. It was by mere chance, when she had matured her plans, that she asked a nobleman connected with the Board which then attended to what our Board of Woods and Forests neglects, what the carrying out of such a plan might cost. ‘Madam,’ said the witty and right-seeing functionary, ‘such a plan might cost three crowns.’ Caroline was as ready of wit as he, and not only understood the hint, but showed she could apply it, by abandoning her intention.

And yet, she doubtless did so with regret, for gardens and their arrangement were her especial delight; and she381 did succeed in taking a portion of Hyde Park from the public, and throwing the same into Kensington Gardens. The Queen thought she compensated for depriving the public of land by giving them more water. There was a rivulet which ran through the park; and this she converted, by help from Hampstead streams and land drainage near at hand, into what is so magniloquently styled the Serpentine river. It is not a river, nor is it serpentine, except by a slight twist of the imagination.

This Queen was equally busy with her gardens at Richmond and at Kew. The King used to praise her for effecting great wonders at little cost; but she contrived to squeeze contributions from the ministry, of which the monarch knew nothing. She had a fondness, too, rather than a taste, for garden architecture, and was given to build grottoes and crowd them with statues. The droll juxtaposition into which she brought the counterfeit presentments of defunct sages, warriors, and heroes caused much amusement to the beholders generally.

There was one child of George and Caroline more especially anxious than any other to afford her widowed father consolation on the death of the Queen. That child was the haughty Anne, Princess of Orange. She had strong, but most unreasonable, hopes of succeeding to the influence which had so long been enjoyed by her royal mother; and she came over in hot haste from Holland, on the plea of benefiting her health, which was then in a precarious state. The King, however, was quite a match for his ambitious and presuming child, and peremptorily rejected her proffered condolence. This was done with such prompt decision, that the princess was compelled to return to Holland immediately. The King would not allow her, it is said, to pass a second night in the metropolis. He probably remembered her382 squabbles with his father’s ‘favourite,’ Miss Brett; and the disconsolate man was not desirous of having his peace disturbed by the renewal of similar scenes with his own ‘favourite,’ Lady Yarmouth.

Of all the eulogies passed upon Caroline, few were so profuse in their laudation as that contained in a sermon preached before the council at Boston, in America, by the Rev. Samuel Mather. There was not a virtue known which the transatlantic chaplain did not attribute to her. As woman, the minister pronounced her perfect; as queen, she was that and sublime to boot. As regent, she possessed, for the time, the King’s wisdom added to her own. Good Mr. Mather, too, is warrant for the soundness of her faith; and he applied to her the words in Judith: ‘There was none that gave her an ill word, for she feared God greatly.’

William III. is recorded as having said of his consort, Mary, that if he could believe any mortal was born without the contagion of sin, he would believe it of the queen. Upon citing which passage, the Bostonian exclaims: ‘And oh, gracious Caroline, thy respected consort was ready to make the same observation of thee; so pure, so chaste, so religious wast thou, and so in all good things exemplary, amidst the excesses of a magnificent court, and in an age of luxury and wantonness!’ And he thus proceeds: ‘The pious Queen was constant at her secret devotions; and she loved the habitation of God’s house; and from regard to the divine institutions, with delight and steadiness attended on them. And as she esteemed and practised every duty of piety towards the Almighty, so she detested and frowned on every person and thing that made but an appearance of what was wicked and impious. As she performed every duty incumbent on her towards her beloved subjects, so she383 deeply reverenced the King; and while his Majesty honours her and will grieve for her to his last moments, her royal offspring rise up and call her blessed.’

‘Seven are the children,’ said the preacher, ‘which she has left behind her. These, like the noble Roman Cornelia, she took to be her chief ornaments. Accordingly, it was both her care and her pleasure to improve their minds and form their manners, that so they might hereafter prove blessings to the nation and the world. What a lovely, heavenly sight must it have been to behold the majestic royal matron, with her faithful and obsequious offspring around her! So the planetary orbs about the sun gravitate towards it, keep their proper distance from it, and receive from it the measures of light and influence respectively belonging to them. Such was—oh, fatal grief!—such was the late most excellent Queen.’

The issue of the marriage of Caroline and George II. comprised four sons and five daughters—namely, Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, born January 20, 1706; Anne, Princess of Orange, born October 22, 1708; Amelia Sophia, born June 10, 1711; Caroline Elizabeth, born May 31, 1713; William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, born April 15, 1721; the Princess Mary, born February 22, 1723; the Princess Louisa, born December 7, 1724. All these survived the Queen. There was also a prince born in November 1716, who did not survive his birth; and George William, Duke of Gloucester, born November 2, 1717, who died in February of the year following.

At the funeral of Caroline, which was called ‘decently private,’ but which was, in truth, marked by much splendour and ceremony, not the King, but the Princess Amelia, acted as chief mourner; and the anthem, ‘The Ways of Zion do mourn,’ was ‘set to Musick by384 Mr. Handell.’ Of all the verses poured out on the occasion of her death, two specimens are subjoined. They show how the Queen was respectively dealt with by the Democritus and Heraclitus of her subjects:—

The above panegyric was drawn up as a reply to an epitaph of another character, which was then in circulation, from the pen of a writer who contemplated his subject in another point of view. It was to this effect:—

The era of peace ended with Caroline. Walpole endeavoured to prolong the era, but Spanish aggressions against the English flag in South America drove the ministry into a war. The success of Vernon at Porto Bello rendered the war highly popular. The public enthusiasm was sustained by Anson, but it was materially lowered by our defeat at Carthagena, which prepared the way for the downfall of the minister of Caroline. Numerous and powerful were the opponents of Walpole, and no section of them exhibited more fierceness or better organisation than that of which the elder son of Caroline was the founder and great captain.

Frederick, however, was versatile enough to be able to devote as much time to pleasure as to politics.

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As the roué Duke of Orleans, when regent, and indeed before he exercised that responsible office, was given to stroll with his witty but graceless followers, and a band of graceful but witless ladies, through the fairs of St. Laurent and St. Germain, tarrying there till midnight to see and hear the drolleries of ‘Punch’ and the plays of the puppets, so the princes of the royal blood of England condescended, with much alacrity, to perambulate Bartholomew Fair, and to enjoy the delicate amusements then and there provided. An anonymous writer, some thirty years ago, inserted in the ‘New European Magazine,’ from an older publication, an account of a royal visit, in 1740, to the ancient revels of St. Bartholomew. In this amusing record we are told, that ‘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 yeomen of the guards 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 he388 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. However strange,’ adds the author, ‘this circumstance may appear to the present generation, yet it is nevertheless strictly true; for about 1740, when the revels of Smithfield were extended to three weeks and a month, it was not considered derogatory to persons of the first rank and fashion to partake in the broad humour and theatrical entertainments of the place.’

In the following year the divisions between the King and the prince made party-spirit run high, and he who followed the sire very unceremoniously denounced the son. To such a one there was a court at St. James’s, but none at Carlton House. Walpole tells a story which illustrates at once this feeling and the sort of wit possessed by the courtiers of the day. ‘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, &c.” Don’t you love her? Lord Lincoln does her daughter.’ Lord Lincoln, the nephew of the Duke of Newcastle, the minister, was a frequenter of St. James’s, and, says Horace, ‘not only his uncle-duke, but even Majesty is fallen in love with him. He talked to the King at his levée without being spoken to. That389 was always thought high treason, but I don’t know how the gruff gentleman liked it.’ The gruff gentleman was the King, and the phrase paints him at a stroke, like one of Cruikshank’s lines, by which not only is a figure drawn, but expression given to it.

The prince’s party, combined with other opponents, effected the overthrow of Caroline’s favourite minister, Walpole, in 1742. The succeeding cabinet, at the head of which was Lord Wilmington, did not very materially differ in principles and measures from that of their predecessors. In the same year died Caroline’s other favourite, Lady Sundon, mistress of the robes.

‘Lord Sundon is in great grief,’ says 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 ear-rings, of fourteen hundred pounds value.” One day that she wore them at a visit at old Marlbro’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.’ That King, unsustained by his390 consort, appears to have become anxious to be reconciled with his son the Prince of Wales, at this time, when reports of a Stuart rebellion began to be rife, and when theatrical audiences applied passages in plays, in a favourable sense to the prince. The reconciliation was effected; but it was clumsily contrived, and was coldly and awkwardly concluded. An agent from the King induced the prince to open the way by writing to his father. This was a step which the prince was reluctant to take, and which he only took at last with the worst possible grace. The letter reached the King late at night, and on reading it he appointed the following day for the reception of Frederick, who, with five gentlemen of his court, repaired to St. James’s, where he was received by ‘the gruff gentleman’ in the drawing-room. The yielding sire simply asked him, ‘How does the princess do? I hope she is well.’ The dutiful son answered the query, kissed the paternal hand, and respectfully, as far as outward demonstration could evidence it, took his leave. He did not depart, however, until he had distinguished those courtiers present whom he held to be his friends by speaking to them; the rest he passed coldly by. As the reconciliation was accounted of as an accomplished fact, and as the King had condescended to speak a word or two to some of the most intimate friends of his son; and finally, as the entire royal family went together to the Duchess of Norfolk’s, where ‘the streets were illuminated and bonfired;’ there was a great passing to and fro of courtiers of either faction between St. James’s and Carlton House. Secker, who went to the latter residence with Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, to pay his respects, says that the prince and princess were civil to both of them.

The reconciliation was worth an additional fifty thousand pounds a-year to the prince, so that obedience to a father could hardly be more munificently rewarded.391 ‘He will have money now,’ says Walpole, ‘to tune up Glover, and Thomson, and Dodsley again:—

Et spes et ratio studiorum in Cæsare tantum.’

There was much outward show of gladness at this court, pageants and ‘reviews to gladden the heart of David and triumphs of Absalom,’ as Walpole styles his Majesty and the heir-apparent. The latter, with the princess, went ‘in great parade through the city and the dust to dine at Greenwich. They took water at the Tower, and trumpeting away to Grace Tosier’s—

Like Cimon, triumphed over land and wave.’

In another direction, there were some lively proceedings, which would have amused Caroline herself. Tranquil and dull as Kensington Palace looks, its apartments were occasionally the scene of more rude than royal fracas. Thus we are told of one of the daughters of the King pulling a chair from under the Countess Deloraine, just as that not too exemplary lady was about to sit down to cards. His Majesty laughed at the lady’s tumble, at which she was so doubly pained, that, watching for revenge and opportunity, she contrived to give the Sovereign just such another fall. The sacred person of the King was considerably bruised, and the trick procured nothing more for the countess than exclusion from court, where her place of favour was exclusively occupied by Madame Walmoden, Countess of Yarmouth.

We often hear of the wits of one era being the butts of the next, and without wit enough left to escape the shafts let fly at them. Walpole thus describes a drawing-room held at St. James’s, to which some courtiers resorted in the dresses they had worn under Queen Anne. ‘There were so many new faces,’ says Horace, ‘that I scarce knew where I was; I should have taken it for Carlton House, or my Lady Mayoress’s visiting day, only the392 people did not seem enough at home, but rather as admitted to see the King dine in public. It is quite ridiculous to see the number of old ladies, who, from having been wives of patriots, have not been dressed these twenty years; out they come with all the accoutrements that were in use in Queen Anne’s days. Then the joy and awkward jollity of them is inexpressible; they titter, and, wherever you meet them, are always going to court, and looking at their watches an hour before the time. I met several at the birth-day, and they were dressed in all the colours of the rainbow; they seem to have said to themselves twenty years ago: “Well; if I ever do go to court again, I will have a pink and silver, or a blue and silver,” and they kept their resolutions.’

The English people had now been long looking towards that great battle-field of Europe, Flanders, mingling memories of past triumphs with hopes of future victories. George II. went heartily into the cause of Maria Theresa, when the French sought to deprive her of her imperial inheritance. In the campaign which ensued was fought that battle of Dettingen which Lord Stair so nearly lost, where George behaved so bravely, mounted or a-foot, and where the Scots Greys enacted their bloody and triumphant duel with the gens-d’arme of France.

Meanwhile, Frederick was unemployed. When the King and the Duke of Cumberland proceeded to the army in Flanders, a regency was formed, of which Walpole says, ‘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.’

When the King and the duke returned from their triumphs on the Continent, the former younger for his achievements, the latter older by the gout and an accompanying limp, London gave them a reception worthy of the most renowned of heroes. In proportion as the393 King saw himself popular with the citizens did he cool towards the Prince of Wales. The latter, with his two sisters, stood on the stairs of St. James’s Palace to receive the chief hero; but though the princess was only confined the day before, and Prince George lay ill of the small-pox, the King passed by his son without offering him a word or otherwise noticing him. This rendered the King unpopular, without turning the popular affection towards the elder son of Caroline. Nor was that son deserving of such affection. His heart had few sympathies for England, nor was he elated by her victories or made sad by her defeats. On the contrary, in 1745, when the news arrived in England of the ‘tristis gloria,’ the illustrious disaster at Fontenoy, which made so many hearts in England desolate, Frederick went to the theatre in the evening, and two days after, he wrote a French ballad, ‘Bacchic, Anacreontic, and Erotic,’ addressed to those ladies with whom he was going to act in Congreve’s masque, ‘The Judgment of Paris.’ It was full of praise of late and deep drinking, of intercourse with the fair, 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. But this solitary civility cannot induce us to change our self-gratulation at the fact that a man with such a heart was not permitted to ascend the throne of Great Britain. In the year after he wrote the ballad alluded to, he created a new opposition against the crown, by the counsels of Lord Bath, ‘who got him from Lord Granville: the latter and his faction acted with the court.’ Of the princess, Walpole says, ‘I firmly believe, by all her quiet sense, she will turn out a Caroline.’

In this year, 1743, died that favourite of George I. who more than any other woman had enjoyed in his394 household and heart the place which should have belonged to his wife Sophia Dorothea. Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg, of the days of the Electorate, died Duchess of Kendal by favour of the King of England, and Princess of Eberstein by favour of the Emperor of Germany. She died at the age of eighty-five, immensely rich. Her wealth was inherited by her so-called ‘niece,’ Lady Walsingham, who married Lord Chesterfield. ‘But I believe,’ says Walpole, ‘that he will get nothing by the duchess’s death—but his wife. She lived in the house with the duchess, where he had played away all his credit.’

George loved to hear his Dettingen glories eulogised in annual odes sung before him. But, brave as he was, he had not much cause for boasting. The Dettingen laurels were changed into cypress at Fontenoy by the Duke of Cumberland in 1744, whose suppression of the Scottish rebellion in 1745 gained for him more credit than he deserved. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which our Continental war was concluded in 1748, gave peace to England, but little or no glory.

The intervening years were years of interest to some of the children of Caroline. Thus, in June 1746, the Prince of Hesse came over to England to marry the second daughter of Caroline, the Princess Mary. He was royally entertained; but on one occasion met with an accident which Walpole calls ‘a most ridiculous tumble t’other night at the opera. They had not pegged up his box tight after the ridotto, and down he came on all fours. George Selwyn says he carried it off with an unembarrassed countenance.’

In a year Mary was glad to escape from the brutality of her husband and repair to England, under pretext of being obliged to drink the Bath waters. She was an especial favourite with her brother, the Duke of Cumberland, and with the Princess Caroline.

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The result of this marriage gave little trouble to the King. He was much more annoyed when the Prince of Wales formally declared a new opposition (in 1747), which was never to subside till he was on the throne. ‘He began it pretty handsomely, the other day,’ says Walpole, ‘with 143 to 184, which has frightened the ministry like a bomb. This new party wants nothing but heads; though not having any,’ says Horace, wittily, ‘to be sure the struggle is fairer.’ It was led by Lord Baltimore, a man with ‘a good deal of jumbled knowledge.’ The spirit of the father certainly dwelt in some of his children. The King, we are told, sent Steinberg, on one occasion, to examine the prince’s children in their learning. The boy, Prince Edward, acquitted himself well in his Latin grammar, but Steinberg told him that it would please his Majesty and profit the prince, if the latter would attend more to attain proficiency in the German language. ‘German, German!’ said the boy; ‘any dull child can learn that!’ The prince, as he said it, ‘squinted’ at the baron, and the baron was doubtless but little flattered by the remark or the look of the boy. The King was probably as surprised and as little pleased to hear the remark as he was a few months later to discover that the Prince of Wales and the Jacobite party had united in a combined parliamentary opposition against the government. However, Prince Edward’s remark and the Prince of Wales’s opposition did not prevent the King from conferring the Order of the Garter on the little Prince George in 1749. The youthful knight, afterwards King of England, was carried in his father’s arms to the door of the King’s closet. There the Duke of Dorset received him, and carried him to the King. The boy then commenced a speech, which had been taught him by his tutor, Ayscough, Dean of Bristol. His father no sooner heard the oration commenced, than he interrupted396 its progress by a vehement ‘No, no!’ The boy, embarrassed, stopped short; then, after a moment of hesitation, recommenced his complimentary harangue; but, with the opening words, again came the prohibitory ‘No, no!’ from the prince, and thus was the eloquence of the young chevalier rudely silenced.

But it was not only the peace of the King, his very palaces were put in peril at this time. The installation of Lady Yarmouth at Kensington, after the fracas occasioned by Lady Deloraine, had nearly resulted in the destruction of the palace. Lady Yarmouth resided in the room which had been occupied by Lady Suffolk, who disregarded damp, and cared nothing for the crop of fungi raised by it in her room. Not so Lady Yarmouth, at least after she had contracted an ague. She then kept up such a fire that the woodwork caught, and destruction to the edifice was near upon following. There were vacant chambers enough, and sufficiently comfortable; but the King would not allow them to be inhabited, even by his favourite. ‘The King hoards all he can,’ writes Walpole, ‘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.’

The division which had again sprung up between sire and son daily widened until death relieved the former of his permanent source of vexation. This event took place in 1751. Some few years previous to that period, the Prince of Wales, when playing at tennis or cricket, at Cliefden, received a blow from a ball, which gave him some pain, but of which he thought little. It was neglected; and one result of such neglect was a permanent weakness of the lungs. In the early part of this year he had suffered from pleurisy, but had recovered—at least, partially recovered. A previous fall from his horse had rendered him more than usually delicate. Early in March he had been in397 attendance at the House of Lords on occasion of the King, his father, giving his royal sanction to some bills. This done, the prince returned, much heated, in a chair with the windows down, to Carlton House. He changed his dress, put on light, unaired clothing, and, as if that had not been perilous enough, he had the madness, after hurrying to Kew and walking about the gardens there in very inclement weather, to lie down for three hours after his return to Carlton House, upon a couch in a very cold room which opened upon the gardens. Lord Egmont alluded to the danger of such a course; the prince laughed at the thought. He was as obstinate as his father, to whom Sir Robert Walpole once observed, on finding him equally intractable during a fit of illness, ‘Sir, do you know what your father died of? Of thinking he could not die.’ The prince removed to Leicester House. He ridiculed good counsel, and before the next morning his life was in danger. He rallied, and during one of his hours of least suffering he sent for his eldest son, and, embracing him with tenderness, remarked, ‘Come, George, let us be good friends while we are permitted to be so.’ Three physicians, with Wilmot and Hawkins, the surgeons, were in constant attendance upon him, and, curiously enough, their united wisdom pronounced that the prince was out of danger only the day before he died. Then came a relapse, an eruption of the skin, a marked difficulty of breathing, and an increase of cough. Still he was not considered in danger. Some members of his family were at cards in the adjacent room, and Desnoyers, the celebrated dancing-master, who, like St. Leon, was as good a violinist as he was a dancer, was playing the violin at the prince’s bedside, when the latter was seized with a violent fit of coughing. When this had ceased, Wilmot expressed a hope that his royal patient would be better, and would pass a quiet night. Hawkins detected symptoms which398 he thought of great gravity. The cough returned with increased violence, and Frederick, placing his hand upon his stomach, murmured feebly, ‘Je sens la mort!’ (‘I feel death!’). Desnoyers held him up, and feeling him shiver, exclaimed, ‘The prince is going!’ At that moment the Princess of Wales was at the foot of the bed: she caught up a candle, rushed to the head of the bed, and, bending down over her husband’s face, she saw that he was dead.

So ended the wayward life of the elder son of Caroline; so terminated the married life of him, which began so gaily when he was gliding about the crowd in his nuptial chamber, in a gown and night-cap of silver tissue. The bursting of an imposthume between the pericardium and diaphragm, the matter of which fell upon the lungs, suddenly killed him whom the heralds called ‘high and mighty prince,’ and the heir to a throne lay dead in the arms of a French fiddler. Les extrêmes se touchent!—though Desnoyers, be it said, was quite as honest a man as his master.

Intelligence of the death of his son was immediately conveyed to George II., by Lord North. The King was at Kensington, and when the messenger stood at his side and communicated in a whisper the doleful news, his Majesty was looking over a card-table at which the players were the Princess Amelia, the Duchess of Dorset, the Duke of Grafton, and the Countess of Yarmouth. He turned to the messenger, and merely remarked in a low voice, ‘Dead, is he? Why, they told me he was better;’ and then going round to his mistress, the Countess of Yarmouth, he very calmly observed to her, ‘Countess, Fred is gone!’ And that was all the sorrow expressed by a father at the loss of a first-born boy, who had outlived his father’s love. The King, however, sent kind messages to the widow, who exhibited on the occasion much courage and sense.

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As the prince died without priestly aid, so was his funeral unattended by a single bishop to do him honour or pay him respect. With the exception of Frederick’s own household and the lords appointed to hold the pall, ‘there was not present one English lord, not one bishop, and only one Irish peer (Limerick), two sons of dukes, one baron’s son, and two privy councillors.’ It was not that want of respect was intentional, but that no due notice was issued from any office as to the arrangement of the funeral. The body was carried from the House of Lords to Westminster Abbey, but without a canopy, and the funeral service was performed, undignified by either anthem or organ.

But the prince’s friend, Bubb Dodington, poured out a sufficient quantity of expressed grief to serve the entire nation, and make up for all lack of ceremony or of sorrow elsewhere. In a letter to Mann, he swore that the prince was the delight, ornament, and expectation of the world. In losing him the wretched had lost their refuge, balm, and shelter. Art, science, and grace had to deplore the loss of a patron, and in that loss a remedy for the ills of society had perished also! ‘Bubb de Tristibus’ goes on to say, that he had lost more than any other man by the death of the prince, seeing that his highness had condescended to stoop to him, and be his own familiar friend. Bubb protested that if he ever allowed the wounds of his grief to heal he should be for ever infamous, and finally running a-muck with his figures of speech, he declares—‘I should be unworthy of all consolation if I was not inconsolable.’ This is the spirit of a partisan; but, on the other side, the spirit of party was never exhibited in a more malignantly petty aspect than on the occasion of the death of the prince. The gentlemen of his bedchamber were ordered to be in attendance near the body, from ten in the morning till the conclusion of the funeral. The government, however, would order them no refreshment, and the400 Board of Green Cloth would provide them with none, without such order. Even though princes die, il faut que tout le monde vive; and accordingly these poor gentlemen sent to a neighbouring tavern and gave orders for a cold dinner to be furnished them. The authorities were too tardily ashamed of thus insulting faithful servants of rank and distinction, and commanded the necessary refreshments to be provided. They were accepted, but the tavern dinner was paid for and given to the poor.

The widowed Augusta, who had throughout her married life exhibited much mental superiority, with great kindness of disposition, and that under circumstances of great difficulty, and sometimes of a character to inflict vexation on the calmest nature, remained in the room by the side of the corpse of her husband for full four hours, unwilling to believe in the assurances given her that he was really dead. She was then the mother of eight children, expecting to be shortly the mother of a ninth, and she was brought reluctantly to acknowledge that their father was no more. It was six in the morning before her attendants could persuade her to retire to bed; but she rose again at eight, and then, with less thought for her grief than anxiety for the honour of him whose death was the cause of it, she proceeded to the prince’s room and burned the whole of his private papers. By this action the world lost some rare supplementary chapters to a Chronique Scandaleuse.

The death of Frederick disconcerted all the measures of intriguing men, and brought about a great change in the councils of the court as of the factions opposed to the court. ‘The death of our prince,’ wrote Whitfield, ‘has afflicted you. It has given me a shock; but the Lord reigneth, and that is my comfort.’ The Duchess of Somerset, writing to Dr. Doddridge, says on the same subject: ‘Providence seems to have directed the blow where we thought ourselves the most secure; for among the many401 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 of considerable talents.’

The opposition which the prince had maintained against the government of the father who had provoked him to it was not undignified. Unlike his sire, he did not ‘hate both bainting and boetry;’ and painters and poets were welcome at his court, as were philosophers and statesmen. It was only required that they should be adverse to Walpole. Among them were the able and urbane wits, Chesterfield and Carteret, Pulteney and Sir William Wyndham; the aspiring young men, Pitt, Lyttelton, and the Grenvilles: Swift, Pope, and Thomson lent their names and pens to the prince’s service; while astute and fiery Bolingbroke aimed to govern in the circle where he affected to serve.

All the reflections made upon the death of the prince were not so simple of quality as those of the Duchess of Somerset. Horace Walpole cites a preacher at Mayfair Chapel, who ‘improved’ the occasion after this not very satisfactory or conclusive fashion: ‘He had no great parts, but he had great virtues—indeed, they degenerated into vices. He was very generous; but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people; and then, his condescension was such that he kept very bad company.’ Not less known, and yet claiming a place here, is the smart Jacobite epitaph, so little flattering to the dead, that had all Spartan epitaphs been as little laudatory, the Ephori would have402 never issued a decree entirely prohibiting them. It was to this effect:

I have not mentioned among those who were the frequenters of his court the name of Lady Huntingdon. Frederick had the good sense to appreciate Lady Huntingdon, and he did not despise her because of a little misdirected enthusiasm. On missing her from his circle, he enquired of the gay, but subsequently the godly, Lady Charlotte Edwin, where Lady Huntingdon could be, that he no longer saw her at his court. ‘Oh, I dare say,’ exclaimed the unconcerned Lady Charlotte—‘I dare say she is praying with her beggars!’ Frederick had the good sense and the courage to turn sharply round upon her, and say: ‘Lady Charlotte, 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.’ This phrase was not forgotten when the adapter of Cibber’s ‘Nonjuror’ turned that play into the ‘Hypocrite,’ and, introducing the fanatic Mawworm, put into his mouth a sentiment uttered for the sake of the laugh which it never failed to raise, but which originated, in sober sadness, with Frederick, Prince of Wales.

The character of Caroline’s son was full of contradictions. He had low tastes, but he also possessed those of a gentleman and a prince. When the ‘Rambler’ first appeared, he so enjoyed its stately wisdom that he403 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 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 500l. 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 the accident of birth.

The prince not only protected poets but he wooed the Muses. Those shy ladies, however, loved him none the better for being a benefactor to their acknowledged children. The rhymes of Frederick were generally devoted to the ecstatic praises of his wife. The matter was good, but the manner was execrable. The lady deserved all that was said, but her virtues merited a more gracefully skilful eulogist. The reasoning was perfect, but the rhymes halted abominably. But how could it be otherwise? Apollo himself would not stoop to inspire a writer who, while piling up poetical compliments above the head of his404 blameless wife, was paying adoration, at all events not less sincere, to most worthless ladies of the court? The apparently exemplary father within the circle of home, where presided a beautiful mother over a bright young family, was a wretched libertine outside of that circle. His sin was great, and his taste of the vilest. His ‘favourites’ had nothing of youth, beauty, or intellect to distinguish them, or to serve for the poor apology of infidelity. Lady Archibald Hamilton was plain and in years when she enjoyed her bad pre-eminence. Miss Vane was impudent, and a maid of honour by office; nothing else: while Lady Middlesex was ‘short and dark, like a cold winter’s day,’ and as yellow as a November morning. 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. He walked the streets unattended, to the great delight of the people; 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 illustriously 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. But his virtue was too often—like his love for popular and parliamentary liberty—rather affected than real; and at all events, not to be relied upon.

When a deputation of Quakers waited on the prince to solicit him to support by himself and friends a clause of the Tything bill in their favour, he replied: ‘As I405 am a friend to liberty in general, and to toleration in particular, I wish you may meet with all proper favour; but, for myself, I never gave my vote in parliament; and to influence my friends or direct my servants in theirs does not become my station. To leave them entirely to their own consciences and understandings is a rule I have hitherto prescribed to myself, and purpose through life to observe.’ Andrew Pitt, who was at the head of the deputation, replied: ‘May it please the Prince of Wales, I am greatly affected with thy excellent notions of liberty, and am more pleased with the answer thou hast given us than if thou hadst granted our request.’ But the answer was not a sincere one, and the parliamentary friends and servants of the prince were expected to hold their consciences at his direction. Once Lord Doneraile ventured to disregard this influence; upon which the prince observed: ‘Does he think that I will support him unless he will do as I would have him? Does he not consider that whoever may be my ministers, I must be king?’ Of such a man Walpole’s remark was not far wide of truth when he said that Frederick resembled the Black Prince only in one circumstance—in dying before his father!

He certainly exhibited little of the chivalrous spirit of the Black Prince. In 1745, vexed at not being promoted to the command of the army raised to crush the rebellion, and especially annoyed that it was given to his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, who had less vanity and more courage, he ridiculed all the strategic dispositions of the authorities; and when Carlisle was being besieged by the rebels, a representation in paste of the citadel was served up at his table, at dessert, which, at the head of the maids of honour, he bombarded with sugar-plums.

The young Prince George, afterwards George III.,406 ‘behaved excessively well on his father’s death.’ The words are Walpole’s; and he establishes his attestation by recording, that when he was informed of his father’s decease, he turned pale and laid his hand on his breast. Upon which his reverend tutor, Ayscough, said, very much like a simpleton, and not at all like a divine, ‘I am afraid, sir, you are not well.’ ‘I feel,’ said the boy, ‘something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew.’ It was not the speech of a boy of parts, nor an epitaph deeply filial in sentiment on the death of a parent; but one can see that the young prince was conscious of some painful grief, though he hardly knew how to dress his sensations in equivalent words.

Another son of Frederick, Edward, Duke of York, was ‘a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He is a sayer of things,’ remarks Walpole. Nine years after his father’s death, Prince Edward had occasion to pay as warm a compliment to Lady Huntingdon as ever had been paid her by his father. The occasion was a visit to the Magdalen, in 1760. A large party accompanied Prince Edward from Northumberland House to the evening service. They were rather wits than worshippers; for among them were Horace Walpole, Colonel Brudenell, and Lord Hertford, with Lords Huntingdon and Dartmouth to keep the wits within decent limits. The ladies were all gay in silks, satins, and rose-coloured taffeta; there were the Lady Northumberland herself, Ladies Chesterfield, Carlisle, Dartmouth, and Hertford, Lady Fanny Shirley, Lady Selina Hastings, Lady Gertrude Hotham, and Lady Mary Coke. Lord Hertford, at the head of the governors, met the prince and his brilliant suite at the doors, and conducted him to a sort of throne in front of the altar. The clergyman, who preached an eloquent and impressive407 sermon from Luke xix. 20, was, not many years after, dragged from Newgate to Tyburn, and there ignominiously hung. Some one in the company sneeringly observed that Dr. Dodd had preached a very Methodistical sort of sermon. ‘You are fastidious indeed,’ said Prince Edward to the objector: ‘I thought it excellent, and suitable to season and place; and in so thinking, I have the honour of being of the same opinion as Lady Huntingdon here, and I rather fancy that she is better versed in theology than any of us.’ This was true, and it was gracefully said. The prince, moreover, backed his opinion by leaving a fifty-pound note in the plate.

The last nine years of the reign of the consort of Caroline were of a very varied character. The earliest of his acts after the death of Frederick was one of which Caroline would certainly not have approved. In case of his demise before the next heir to the throne should be of age, he, with consent of parliament, named the widow of Frederick as regent of the kingdom. This appointment gave great umbrage to the favourite son of Caroline, William, Duke of Cumberland, and it was one to which Caroline herself would never have consented.

But George now cared little for what the opinions of Caroline might have been; and the remainder of his days was spent amid death, gaiety, and politics. The year in which Frederick died was marked by the decease of the husband of Caroline’s eldest daughter, of whose plainness, wooing, and marriage I have previously spoken. The Prince of Orange died on the 11th of October 1751.409 He had not improved in beauty since his marriage, but, increasingly ugly as he became, his wife became also increasingly jealous of him. Importunate, however, as the jealousy was, it had the merit of being founded on honest and healthy affection.

The immediate cause of the prince’s death was an imposthume in the head. Although his health had been indifferent, his death was rather sudden and unexpected. Lord Holdernesse was sent over from England by the King, Walpole says, ‘to learn rather than to teach,’ but certainly with letters of condolence to Caroline’s widowed daughter. She is said to have received the paternal sympathy and advice in the most haughty and insulting manner. She was proud, perhaps, of being made the gouvernante of her son; and she probably remembered the peremptory rejection by her father of the interested sympathy she herself had offered him on the decease of her mother, to whose credit she had hoped to succeed at St. James’s.

But George himself had little sympathy to spare, and felt no immoderate grief for the death of either son or son-in-law. On the 6th of November 1751, within a month of the prince’s death, and not very many after that of his son and heir to the throne, George was at Drury Lane Theatre. The entertainment, played for his especial pleasure, consisted of Farquhar’s ‘Beaux Stratagem’ and Fielding’s ‘Intriguing Chambermaid.’ In the former, the King was exceedingly fond of the ‘Foigard’ of Yates and the ‘Cherry’ of Miss Minors. In the latter piece, Mrs. Clive played her original part of ‘Lettice,’ a part in which she had then delighted the town—a town which could be delighted with such parts—for now seventeen years. Walpole thus relates an incident of the night. He is writing to Sir Horace Mann, from Arlington Street, under the date of the 22nd of November 1751: ‘A certain King,410 that, whatever airs you may give yourself, you are not at all like, was last week at the play. The intriguing chambermaid in the farce says to the old gentleman, ‘You are villainously old; you are sixty-six; you can’t have the impudence to think of living above two years.’ The old gentleman in the stage-box turned about in a passion, and said, “This is d—d stuff!”’

George was right in his criticism, but rather coarse than king-like in expressing it. Walpole too, it may be noticed, misquotes what his friend Mrs. Clive said in her character of Lettice, and he misquotes evidently for the purpose of making the story more pointed against the King, who was as sensitive upon the point of age as Louis XIV. himself. Lettice does not say to Oldcastle ‘you are villainously old.’ She merely states the three obstacles to Oldcastle marrying her young mistress. ‘In the first place your great age; you are at least some sixty-six. Then there is, in the second place, your terrible ungenteel air; and thirdly, that horrible face of yours, which it is impossible for any one to see without being frightened.’ She does, however, add a phrase which must have sounded harshly on the ear of a sensitive and sexagenarian King; though not more so than on that of any other auditor of the same age. ‘I think you could not have the conscience to live above a year or a year and a half at most.’ The royal criticism, then, was correct, however roughly expressed.

In the same year, 1751, died another of the children of George and Caroline—Louisa, Queen of Denmark. She had only reached her twenty-seventh year, and had been eight years married. Her mother loved her, and the nation admired her for her grace, amiability, and talents. Her career, in many respects, resembled that of her mother. She was married to a king who kept a mistress in order that the world should think he was411 independent of all influence on the part of his wife. She was basely treated by this king; but not a word of complaint against him entered into the letters which this spirited and sensible woman addressed to her relations. Indeed, she had said at the time of her marriage that, if she should become unhappy, her family should never know anything about it. She died, in the flower of her age, a terrible death, as Walpole calls it, and after an operation which lasted an hour. The cause of it was the neglect of a slight rupture, occasioned by stooping suddenly when enceinte, the injury resulting from which she imprudently and foolishly concealed. This is all the more strange, as her mother, on her death-bed, said to her: ‘Louisa, remember I die by being giddy and obstinate, in having kept my disorder a secret.’ Her farewell letter to her father and family, a most touching address, and the similitude of her fate to that of her mother, sensibly affected the almost dried-up heart of the King. ‘This has been a fatal year to my family,’ groaned the son of Sophia Dorothea. ‘I 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.’

The Countess of Suffolk (the servant of Caroline and the mistress of Caroline’s husband) was among the few persons whom the eloquence and fervour of Whitfield failed to touch. When this latter was chaplain to Lady Huntingdon, and in the habit of preaching in the drawing-room of that excellent and exemplary woman, there was an eager desire to be among the privileged to be admitted to hear him. This privilege was solicited of Lady412 Huntingdon by Lady Rockingham, for the King’s ex-favourite, Lady Suffolk. The patroness of Whitfield thought of Magdalen repentant, and expressed her readiness to welcome her, an additional sheep to an increasing flock. The beauty came, and Whitfield preached neither more nor less earnestly, unconscious of her presence. So searching, however, was his sermon, and so readily could the enraged fair one apply its terrible truths to herself, that it was only with difficulty she could sit it out with apparent calm. Inwardly, she felt that she had been the especial object at which her assailant had flung his sharpest arrows. Accordingly, when Whitfield had retired, the exquisite fury, chafed but not repentant, turned upon the meditative Lady Huntingdon, and well nigh annihilated her with the torrent and power of her invective. Her sister-in-law, Lady Betty Germain, implored her to be silent; but only the more unreservedly did she empty the vials of her wrath upon the saintly lady of the house, who was lost in astonishment, anger, and confusion. Old Lady Bertie and the Dowager Duchess of Ancaster rose to her rescue; and, by right of their relationship with the lady whom the King delighted to honour, required her to be silent or civil. It was all in vain: the irritated fair one maintained that she had been brought there to be pilloried by the preacher; and she finally swept out of the room, leaving behind her an assembly in various attitudes of wonder and alarm; some fairly deafened by the thundering echoes of her expressed wrath, others at a loss to decide whether Lady Huntingdon had or had not directed the arrows of the preacher, and all most charmingly unconscious that, be that as it might, the lady was only smarting because she had rubbed against a sermon bristling with the most stinging truths.

Whitfield made note of those of the royal household who repaired to the services over which he presided in413 Lady Huntingdon’s house. In 1752, when he saw regularly attending among his congregation one of Queen Caroline’s ex-ladies, Mrs. Grinfield, he writes thereupon: ‘One of Cæsar’s household hath been lately awakened by her ladyship’s instrumentality, and I hope others will meet with the like blessing.’

In 1755 England and France were at issue touching their possessions in Canada. The dispute resulted in a war; and the war brought with it the temporary loss of the Electorate of Hanover to England, and much additional disgrace; which last was not wiped out till the great Pitt was at the helm, and by his spirited administration helped England to triumph in every quarter of the globe. Amid misfortune or victory, however, the King, as outwardly ‘impassible’ as ever, took also less active share in public events than he did of old; and he lived with the regularity of a man who has a regard for his health. Every night, at nine o’clock, he sat down to cards. The party generally consisted of his two daughters, the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, two or three of the late Queen’s ladies, and as many of the gentlemen of the household—whose presence there was a proof of the Sovereign’s personal esteem for them. Had none other been present, the party would have been one on which remark would not be called for. But at the same table with the children of good Queen Caroline was seated their father’s mistress, the naturalised German Baroness Walmoden—Countess of Yarmouth. George II. had no idea that the presence of such a woman was an outrage committed upon his own children. Every Saturday, in summer, he carried those ladies, but without his daughters, to Richmond. They went in coaches-and-six, in the middle of the day, with the heavy horse-guards kicking up the dust before them—dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in the same dusty parade; and his414 Majesty fancied himself the most gallant and lively prince in Europe.44

He had leisure, however, to think of the establishment of the sons of Frederick; and in 1756 George II. sent a message to his grandson, now Prince of Wales, whereby he offered him 40,000l. a-year and apartments at Kensington and St. James’s. The prince accepted the allowance, but declined the residence, on the ground that separation from his mother would be painful to her. When this plea was made, the prince, as Dodington remarks in his diary, did not live with his mother, either in town or country. The prince’s brother Edward, afterwards created Duke of York, was furnished with a modest revenue of 5,000l. a-year. The young prince is said to have been not insensible to the attractions of Lady Essex, daughter of Sir Charles Williams. ‘The prince,’ says Walpole, ‘has got his liberty, and seems extremely disposed to use it, and has great life and good humour. She has already made a ball for him. Sir Richard Lyttelton was so wise as to make her a visit, and advise her not to meddle with politics; that the Princess (Dowager of Wales) would conclude that it was a plan laid for bringing together Prince Edward and Mr. Fox. As Mr. Fox was not just the person my Lady Essex was thinking of bringing together with Prince Edward, she replied, very cleverly, “And, my dear Sir Richard, let me advise you not to meddle with politics neither.”’

From the attempt to establish the Prince of Wales under his own superintendence, the King was called to mourn over the death of another child.

The truth-loving Caroline Elizabeth was unreservedly beloved by her parents, was worthy of the affection, and repaid it by an ardent attachment. She was fair, good, accomplished, and unhappy. The cause of her unhappiness415 may be perhaps more than guessed at in the circumstance of her retiring from the world on the death of Lord Hervey. The sentiment with which he had, for the sake of vanity or ambition, inspired her was developed into a sort of motherly love for his children, for whom she exhibited great and constant regard. Therewith she was conscious of but one strong desire—a desire to die. For many years previous to her decease she lived in her father’s palace, literally ‘cloistered up,’ inaccessible to nearly all, yet with active sympathy for the poor and suffering classes in the metropolis.

Walpole, speaking of the death of the Princess Caroline, the third daughter of George II., says: ‘Though her state of health had been so dangerous for years, and her absolute confinement for many of them, her disorder was, in a manner, new and sudden, and her death unexpected by herself, though earnestly her wish. Her goodness was constant and uniform, her generosity immense, her charities most extensive; in short, I, no royalist, could be lavish in her praise. What will divert you is that the Duke of Norfolk’s and Lord Northumberland’s upper servants have asked leave to put themselves in mourning, not out of regard for this admirable princess, but to be more sur le bon ton. I told the duchess I supposed they would expect her to mourn hereafter for their relations.’

The princess died in December 1757, and early in the following year the King was seized with a serious fit of illness, which terminated in a severe attack of gout, ‘which had never been at court above twice in his reign,’ says Walpole, and the appearance of which was considered as giving the royal sufferer a chance of five or six years more of life. But it was not to be so; for the old royal lion in the Tower had just expired, and people who could ‘put that and that together’ could not but pronounce oraculary that the royal man would follow the416 royal brute. ‘Nay,’ says Lord Chesterfield to his son, ‘this extravagancy was believed by many above people.’ The fine gentleman means that it was believed by many of his own class.

It was not the old King, however, who was first to be summoned from the royal circle by the Inevitable Angel. A young princess passed away before the more aged Sovereign. Walpole has a word or two to say upon the death of the Princess Elizabeth, the second daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, who died in the September of this year. The immediate cause of death was an inflammation, which carried her off in two days. ‘Her figure,’ he says, ‘was so very unfortunate that it would have been difficult for her to be happy; but her parts and application were extraordinary. I saw her act in “Cato” at eight years old (when she could not stand alone, but was forced to lean against the side-scene), better than any of her brothers and sisters. She had been so unhealthy that, at that age, she had not been taught to read, but had learned the part of Lucia by hearing the others study their parts. She went to her father and mother, and begged she might act. They put her off as gently as they could; she desired leave to repeat her part, and when she did, it was with so much sense, that there was no denying her.’

Before George’s hour had yet come, another child was to precede the aged father to the tomb. In 1759 Anne, the eldest and least loved of the daughters of Caroline, died in Holland. At the period of her birth, the 9th of October 1709, her godmother, Queen Anne, was occupying the throne of England; her grandfather, George, was Elector of Hanover; Sophia Dorothea was languishing in the castle of Ahlden, and her father and mother bore the title of Electoral Prince and Princess. She was born at Hanover; and was five years old when, with her417 sister, Amelia Sophia, who was two years younger, her mother, the Princess Caroline, afterwards Queen, arrived in this country on the 15th of October 1714. She early exhibited a haughty and imperious disposition; possessed very little feeling for, and exercised very little gentleness towards, those who even rendered her a willing service. Queen Caroline sharply corrected this last defect. She discovered that the princess was accustomed to make one of her ladies-in-waiting stand by her bedside every night, and read aloud to her till she fell asleep. On one occasion the princess kept her lady standing so long, that she at last fainted from sheer fatigue. On the following night, when Queen Caroline had retired to rest, she sent for her offending daughter, and requested her to read aloud to her for a while. The princess was about to take a chair, but the Queen said she could hear her better if she read standing. Anne obeyed, and read till fatigue made her pause. ‘Go on,’ said the Queen; ‘it entertains me.’ Anne went on, sulkily and wearily; till, increasingly weary, she once more paused for rest and looked round for a seat. ‘Continue, continue,’ said the Queen, ‘I am not yet tired of listening.’ Anne burst into tears with vexation, and confessed that she was tired both of standing and reading, and was ready to sink with fatigue. ‘If you feel so faint from one evening of such employment, what must your attendants feel, upon whom you force the same discipline night after night? Be less selfish, my child, in future, and do not indulge in luxuries purchased at the cost of weariness and ill-health to others.’ Anne did not profit by the lesson; and few people were warmly attached to the proud and egotistical lady.

The princess spent nearly twenty years in England, and a little more than a quarter of a century in Holland; the last seven years of that period she was a widow. Her last thoughts were for the aggrandisement of her family;418 and, when she was battling with death, she rallied her strength in order to sign the contract of marriage between her daughter and the Prince Nassau Walberg, and to write a letter to the States General, requesting them to sanction the match. Having accomplished this, the eldest daughter of Caroline laid down the pen, and calmly awaited the death which was not long in coming.

It remains for us now only to speak of the demise of the husband of Caroline. On the night of Friday, the 25th of October 1760, the King retired to rest at an early hour, and well in health. At six (next morning) he drank his usual cup of chocolate, walked to the window, looked out upon Kensington Gardens, and made some observation upon the direction of the wind, which had lately delayed the mails from Holland, and which kept from him intelligence which he was anxious to receive, and which he was saved the pain of hearing. George had said to the page-in-waiting that he would take a turn in the garden; and he was on his way thither, at seven o’clock, when the attendant heard the sound of a fall. He entered the room through which the King was passing on his way to the garden, and he found George II. lying on the ground, with a wound on the right side of his face, caused by striking it in his fall against the side of a bureau. He could only say, ‘Send for Amelia,’ and then, gasping for breath, died. Whilst the sick, almost deaf, and purblind daughter of the King was sent for, the message being that her father wished to speak to her, the servants carried the body to the bed from which the King had so lately risen. They had not time to close the eyes, when the princess entered the room. Before they could inform her of the unexpected catastrophe, she had advanced to the bedside: she stooped over him, fancying that he was speaking to her, and that she could not hear his words. The poor lady was sensibly shocked; but419 she did not lose her presence of mind. She despatched messengers for surgeons and wrote to the Prince of Wales. The medical men were speedily in attendance; but he was beyond mortal help, and they could only conclude that the King had died of the rupture of some vessel of the heart, as he had for years been subject to palpitation of that organ. Dr. Beilby Porteous, in his panegyrising epitaph on the monarch, considers his death as having been appropriate and necessary. He had accomplished all for which he had been commissioned by Heaven, and had received all the rewards in return which Heaven could give to man on earth:—

George II. died possessed of considerable personal property. Of this he bequeathed 50,000l. between the Duke of Cumberland and the Princesses Amelia and Mary. The share received by his daughters did not equal what he left to his last ‘favourite’—Lady Yarmouth. The legacy to that German lady, of whom he used to write to Queen Caroline from Hanover, ‘You must love the Walmoden, for she loves me,’ consisted of a cabinet and ‘contents,’ valued, it is said, at 11,000l. His son, the Duke of Cumberland, further received from him a bequest of 130,000l., placed on mortgages not immediately recoverable. The testator had originally bequeathed twice that amount to his son; but he revoked half, on the ground of the expenses of the war. He describes him as the best son that ever lived, and declares that he had never given him cause to be offended: ‘A pretty strong comment,’ as Horace Walpole remarks, when detailing the incidents of the King’s decease, ‘on the affair of Klosterseven.’ The King’s jewels were worth,420 according to Lady Suffolk, 150,000l.: of the best of them, which he kept in Hanover, he made crown jewels; the remainder, with some cabinets, were left to the duke. ‘Two days before the King died,’ says Walpole, ‘it happened oddly to my Lady Suffolk. She went to make a visit at Kensington, not knowing of the review. She found herself hemmed in by coaches, and was close to him whom she had not seen for so many years, and to my Lady Yarmouth; but they did not know her. It struck her, and has made her sensible to his death.’

Intelligence of the King’s decease was sent, as before said, to the Prince of Wales, by the Princess Amelia. The heir-apparent, however, received earlier intimation of the fact through a German valet-de-chambre, at Kensington. The latter despatched a note, which bore a private mark previously agreed upon, and which reached the heir to so much greatness as he was out riding. He knew what had happened by the sign. ‘Without surprise or emotion, without dropping a word that indicated what had happened, he said his horse was lame, and turned back to Kew. At dismounting he said to the groom: “I have said this horse was lame; I forbid you to say to the contrary.”’ If this story of Walpole’s be true, the longest reign in England started from a lie.

In the meantime there was the old King to bury, and he was consigned to the tomb with a ceremony which has been graphically pictured by Horace Walpole. He describes himself as attending the funeral, not as a mourner, but as ‘a rag of quality,’ in which character he walked, as affording him the best means of seeing the show. He pronounced it a noble sight, and he appears to have enjoyed it extremely. ‘The Prince’s chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast421 chandeliers of silver, on high stands, had a very good effect. The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing a torch—the horse-guards lining the outsides—their officers, with drawn sabres and crape sashes, on horseback—the drums muffled—the fifes—bells tolling—and minute guns—all this was very solemn.’ There was, however, something more exquisite still in the estimation of this very unsentimental rag of quality. ‘The charm,’ he says, ‘the charm was the entrance to the Abbey, where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich robes, the choir and almoners bearing torches; the whole Abbey so illuminated that one saw it to greater advantage than by day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest chiaro oscuro. There wanted nothing but incense and little chapels here and there, with priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could not complain of its not being Catholic enough. I had been in dread of being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the heralds were not very accurate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to keep me in countenance. When we came to the chapel of Henry VII. all solemnity and decorum ceased; no order was observed, people sat or stood where they could or would; the yeomen of the guard were crying out for help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin; the bishop read sadly, and blundered in the prayers. The fine chapter, Man that is born of a woman, was chanted, not read; and the anthem, besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well for a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances. He had a dark-brown adonis, with a cloak of black cloth, and a train of five yards. Attending the funeral of a father could not be pleasant; his leg extremely bad, yet422 forced to stand upon it near two hours; his face bloated and disturbed with his late paralytic stroke, which has affected, too, one of his eyes; and placed over the mouth of the vault, into which, in all probability, he must himself soon descend; think how unpleasant a situation. He bore it all with a firm and unaffected countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself back into a stall, the archbishop hovering over him with a smelling-bottle; but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass, to spy who was or who was not there, spying with one hand and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very theatrical to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the chamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the King’s order.’

Speaking of the last year of the life of George II., Walpole remarks, with a truth that cannot be gainsaid: ‘It was glorious and triumphant beyond example; and his death was most felicitous to himself, being without a pang, without tasting a reverse, and when his sight and hearing were so nearly extinguished that any prolongation could but have swelled to calamities.’

CHAPTER I.
THE COMING OF THE BRIDE.

The eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, was yet young when his grandfather began to consider the question of his marriage; and, it is said, had designed to form a union between him and a princess of the royal family of Prussia. The design, if ever formed, entirely failed; and while those most anxious for the Protestant succession were occupied in naming princesses worthy to espouse an heir to a throne, that heir himself is said to have fixed his young affections on an English lady, whose virtues and beauty might have made her eligible had not the accident of her not being a foreigner barred her way424 to the throne. This lady was Lady Sarah Lennox; and a vast amount of gossip was expended upon her and the young prince by those busy persons whose chief occupation consists in arranging the affairs of others. It is impossible to say how far this young couple were engaged; but the fact, as surmised, rendered the friends of the prince, now George III., more anxious than ever to see him provided with a fair partner on the throne.

George III. had first been ‘smitten’ by seeing Lady Sarah Lennox making hay in a field close to the high road in Kensington. She was charming in feature, figure, and expression; but her great beauty, according to Henry Fox, was ‘a peculiarity of countenance that made her at the same time different from, and prettier than, any other girl I ever saw.’ At a private court ball, the young King said to Lady Susan Strangways: ‘There will be no coronation until there is a Queen, and I think your friend is the fittest person for it; tell her so from me.’ Subsequently, the enamoured monarch had an opportunity of asking Lady Sarah if she had received the message confided to Lady Susan. On the young lady replying in the affirmative, and on her being asked what she thought of it, her answer was: ‘Nothing, sir!’ Her friends, however, thought a good deal of it. As Lady Sarah was once entering the presence chamber, Lady Barrington gently pulled the skirt of her dress, and said: ‘Let me go in before you; for you will never have another opportunity of seeing my beautiful back.’ Lady Barrington was famed for the beauty of her shoulders. Lady Sarah, too, had thought more about the King’s message than she had confessed to the King himself.

When the news reached her that the young Sovereign was about to marry a ‘Princess of Mecklenburgh,’ she wrote to Lady Susan: ‘Does not your choler rise at hearing this. I shall take care to show that I am not425 mortified to anybody; but if it is true that one can vex anybody with a cold, reserved manner, he shall have it, I promise him.’ Anon, the writer thinks she only liked him a little, and the ‘disappointment affected her only for an hour or two.’ Ultimately, she remarks: ‘If he were to change his mind again (which can’t be, tho’), and not give a very, very good reason for his conduct, I would not have him. We are to act a play and have a little ball, to show that we are not so melancholy quite!’ And thus the disappointment was ostensibly got over.

Walpole has described the lady who first raised a tender feeling in the breast of George in very graphic terms: ‘There was a play at Holland House, acted by children; not all children, for Lady Sarah Lennox’ (subsequently Lady Sarah Napier) ‘and Lady Susan Strangways played the women. It was ‘Jane Shore.’ Charles Fox was Hastings. The two girls were delightful, and acted with so much nature that they appeared the very things they represented. Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can conceive; and her very awkwardness gave an air of truth to the sham of the part, and the antiquity of the time, kept up by her dress, which was taken out of Montfaucon. Lady Susan was dressed from Jane Seymour. I was more struck with the last scene between the two women than ever I was when I have seen it on the stage. When Lady Sarah was in white, with her hair about her ears, and on the ground, no Magdalen of Correggio was half so lovely and expressive.’

But there is a pretty romance extant, based, as even romances may be, upon some foundation of reality; and, according to the narrators thereof, it is said that the King, when yet only Prince of Wales, had been attracted by the charms of a young Quakeress, named Lightfoot (of the vicinity of St. James’s Market), long before he had felt subdued by the more brilliant beauty of Lady426 Sarah Lennox. The romance has been recounted circumstantially enough by its authors and editors; and, if these are to be trusted, the young prince was so enamoured that, finding his peace of mind and happiness depended on his being united to the gentle Hannah, he made a confidant of his brother, Edward, Duke of York, and another person, who has never had the honour of being named, and in their presence a marriage was contracted privately at Curzon Street Chapel, Mayfair, in the year 1759!

A few years previous to this time, Mayfair had been the favourite locality for the celebration of hurried marriages, particularly at ‘Keith’s Chapel,’ which was within ten yards of ‘Curzon Chapel.’ The Reverend Alexander Keith kept open altar during the usual office hours from ten till four, and married parties for the small fee of a guinea, license included. Parties requiring to be united at other hours paid extra. The Reverend Alexander so outraged the law that he was publicly excommunicated in 1742; for which he as publicly excommunicated the excommunicators in return. Seven years before George is said to have married Hannah Lightfoot at Curzon Chapel, James, the fourth Duke of Hamilton, was married at ‘Keith’s’ to the youngest of the beautiful Misses Gunning—‘with a ring of the bed-curtain,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘and at half an hour after twelve at night.’

The rest of the pretty romance touching George and Hannah is rather lumbering in its construction. The married lovers are said to have kept a little household of their own, and round the hearth thereof we are further told that there were not wanting successive young faces, adding to its happiness. But there came the moment when the dream was to disappear and the sleeper to awaken. We are told by the retailers of the story that Hannah Lightfoot was privately disposed of—not by427 bowl, prison, or dagger, but by espousing her to a gentle Strephon named Axford, who, for a pecuniary consideration, took Hannah to wife, and asked no impertinent questions. They lived, at least Hannah did, for a time, in Harper Street, Red Lion Square. The story is an indifferent one, but it has been so often alluded to that some notice of it seemed necessary in this place.

Something more than rumour asserts that the young King was attracted by the stately grace of Elizabeth Spencer, Countess of Pembroke, who is described as a living picture of majestic modesty. In after years, the King looked on the mother of the Napiers, and on the above-named countess, with a certain loving interest. In the intervals of his attacks of insanity, it is said that he used to dwell with impassioned accents on the former beauty of the majestic countess.

The King’s mother had been most averse to the Prussian connection. Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, is said to have done his best to further a union with a subject. The Princess-dowager of Wales and Lord Bute would have selected a princess of Saxe Gotha; but it was whispered that there was a constitutional infirmity in that family which rendered an alliance with it in no way desirable. Besides, George II. said he had had enough of that family already. A Colonel Græme was then despatched to Germany, and rumour invested him with the commission to visit the German courts, and if he could find among them a princess who was faultless in form, feature, and character, of sound health and highly accomplished, he was to report accordingly. Colonel Græme, love’s military messenger, happened to fall in at Pyrmont with the Princess-dowager of Strelitz and her two daughters. At the gay baths and salutary springs of Pyrmont very little etiquette was observed, even in those very ceremonious times, and great people went about428 less in masquerade and less strait-laced than they were wont to do at home, in the circle of their own courts. In this sort of negligé there was a charm which favoured the development of character, and under its influence the scrutinising colonel soon vicariously fell in love with the young Princess Charlotte, and at once made the report which led to the royal marriage that ensued.

There were persons who denied that this little romantic drama was ever played at all; but as the colonel was subsequently appointed to the mastership of St. Catherine’s Hospital, the prettiest bit of preferment possessed by a Queen-consort, other persons looked upon the appointment as the due acknowledgment of a princess grateful for favours received.

But, after all, the young King is positively declared to have chosen for himself. The King of Prussia at that time was a man much addicted to disregard the rights of his contemporaries, and among other outrages committed by his army, was the invasion, and almost desolating, of the little dominion of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, the ducal possession of the Princess Charlotte’s brother. This act inspired, it is said, the lady last-named to pen a letter to the monarch, which was as full of spirit as of logic, and not likely to have been written by so young a lady. The letter, however, was sufficiently spirited and conclusive to win reputation for the alleged writer. Its great charm was its simple and touching truthfulness, and the letter, whether forwarded to George by the Prussian king, or laid before him by his mother the princess-dowager, is said to have had such an influence on his mind, as to at once inspire him with feelings of admiration for the writer. After praising it, the King exclaimed to Lord Hertford: ‘This is the lady whom I shall select for my consort—here are lasting beauties—the man who has any mind may feast and not be satisfied. If the disposition429 of the princess but equals her refined sense, I shall be the happiest man, as I hope, with my people’s concurrence, to be the greatest monarch in Europe.’

The lady on whom this eulogy was uttered was Charlotte Sophia, the younger of the two daughters of Charles Louis, Duke of Mirow, by Albertina Elizabeth, a princess of the ducal house of Saxe Hilburghausen. The Duke of Mirow was the second son of the Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and was a lieutenant-general in the service of the Emperor of Germany when Charlotte Sophia was born, at Mirow, on the 16th of May 1744. Four sons and one other daughter were the issue of this marriage. The eldest son ultimately became Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and to the last-named place the Princess Charlotte Sophia (or Charlotte, as she was commonly called) and her family removed in 1751, on the death of the Duke Charles Louis.

At seven years of age she had for her instructress that verse-writing Madame de Grabow, whom the Germans fondly and foolishly compared with Sappho. The post of instructress was shared by many partners; but, finally, to the poetess succeeded a philosopher, Dr. Gentzner, who, from the time of his undertaking the office of tutor to that of the marriage of his ‘serene’ pupil, imparted to the latter a varied wisdom and knowledge, made up of Lutheran divinity, natural history, and mineralogy, Charlotte not only cultivated these branches of education with success, but others also. She was a very fair linguist, spoke French perhaps better than German, as was the fashion of her time and country, could converse in Italian, and knew something of English. Other accounts say that she did not begin to learn French till she knew she was to leave Mecklenburgh. Her style of drawing was above that of an ordinary amateur; she danced like a lady, and played like an artist. Better430 than all, she was a woman of good sense, she had the good fortune to be early taught the great truths of religion, and she had the good taste to shape her course by their requirements. She was not without faults, and she had a will of her own. In short, she was a woman; a woman of sense and spirit, but occasionally making mistakes like any of her sisters.

The letter which she is said to have addressed to the King of Prussia, and the alleged writing of which is said to have won for her a crown, has been often printed; but, well known as it is, it cannot well be omitted from pages professing to give, however imperfectly, as in the present case, some record of the supposed writer’s life: no one, however, will readily believe that a girl of sixteen was the actual author of such a document as the following: ‘May it please your Majesty ... I am at a loss whether I should congratulate or condole with you on your late victory over Marshal Daun, Nov. 3, 1760, since the same success which has covered you with laurels has overspread the country of Mecklenburgh with desolation. I know, Sire, that it seems unbecoming my sex, in this age of vicious refinement, to feel for one’s country, to lament the horrors of war, or wish for the return of peace. I know you may think it more properly my province to study the arts of pleasing, or to inspect subjects of a more domestic nature; but, however unbecoming it may be in me, I cannot resist the desire of interceding for this unhappy people.

‘It was but a very few years ago that this territory wore the most pleasing appearance; the country was cultivated, the peasants looked cheerful, and the towns abounded with riches and festivity. What an alteration at present from such a charming scene! I am not expert at description, nor can my fancy add any horrors to the picture; but, sure, even conquerors themselves would431 weep at the hideous prospects now before me. The whole country, my dear country, lies one frightful waste, presenting only objects to excite terror, pity, and despair. The business of the husbandman and the shepherd are quite discontinued. The husbandman and the shepherd are become soldiers themselves, and help to ravage the soil they formerly cultivated. The towns are inhabited only by old men, old women, and children; perhaps here and there a warrior, by wounds or loss of limbs rendered unfit for service, left at his door; his little children hang round him, ask a history of every wound, and grow themselves soldiers before they find strength for the field. But this were nothing, did we not feel the alternate insolence of either army, as it happens to advance or retreat in pursuing the operations of the campaign. It is impossible to express the confusion even those who call themselves our friends create; even those from whom we might expect redress oppress with new calamities. From your justice, therefore, it is we hope relief. To you even women and children may complain, whose humanity stoops to the meanest petition, and whose power is capable of repressing the greatest injustice.’

The very reputation of having written this letter won for its supposed author the crown of a Queen-consort. The members of the privy council, to whom the royal intention was first communicated, thought it almost a misalliance for a King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland to wed with a lady of such poor estate as the younger daughter of a very poor German prince. Had they been ethnologists, they might have augured well of a union between Saxon King and Sclavonic lady. The Sclave blood runs pure in Mecklenburgh.

It was on the 8th of July 1761 that the King announced to his council, in due and ordinary form, that having nothing so much at heart as the welfare and432 happiness of his people, and that to render the same stable and permanent to posterity being the first object of his reign, he had ever since his accession to the throne turned his thoughts to the choice of a princess with whom he might find the solace of matrimony and the comforts of domestic life; he had to announce to them, therefore, with great satisfaction, that, after the most mature reflection and fullest information, he had come to a resolution to demand in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, a princess distinguished by every amiable virtue and elegant endowment, whose illustrious line had continually shown the firmest zeal for the Protestant religion, and a particular attachment to his Majesty’s family. Lord Hardwicke, who had been fixed upon by the King as his representative commissioned to go to Strelitz, and ask the hand of the Princess Charlotte Sophia in marriage, owed his appointment and his subsequent nomination as master of the buckhounds to his Majesty, to the circumstance that at the King’s accession he had been almost the only nobleman who had not solicited some favour from the Crown. He was so charmed with his mission that everything appeared to him couleur de rose, and not only was he enraptured with ‘the most amiable young princess he ever saw,’ but, as he adds in a letter to his friend, Mr. Mitchel, gratified at the reception he had met with at the court of Strelitz, appearing as he did ‘upon such an errand,’ and happy to find that ‘the great honour the King has done this family is seen in its proper light.’ The business, as he remarks, was not a difficult one. There were no thorns in his rosy path. The little court, he tells us, exerted its utmost abilities to make a figure suitable for this occasion, and, in the envoy’s opinion, they acquitted themselves not only with magnificence and splendour, but with great taste and propriety. His lordship completed the treaty433 of marriage on the 15th of August. His testimony touching the bride runs as follows:—‘Our Queen that is to be has seen very little of the world; but her very good sense, vivacity, and cheerfulness, I dare say, will recommend her to the King, and make her the darling of the British nation. She is no regular beauty; but she is of a very pretty size, has a charming complexion, very pretty eyes, and finely made. In short, she is a very fine girl.’

Mrs. Stuart, daughter-in-law of Lord Bute, left the following note of the early life of the princess, and of the marriage-by-proxy ceremony, derived from the Queen herself:—

‘Her Majesty described her life at Mecklenburgh as one of extreme retirement. She dressed only en robe de chambre, except on Sundays, on which day she put on her best gown, and after service, which was very long, took an airing in a coach-and-six, attended by guards and all the state she could muster. She had not “dined” at table at the period I am speaking of. One morning her eldest brother, of whom she seems to have stood in great awe, came to her room in company with the duchess, her mother.... In a few minutes the folding doors flew open to the saloon, which she saw splendidly illuminated; and then appeared a table, two cushions, and everything prepared for a wedding. Her brother then gave her his hand, and, leading her in, used his favourite expression—“Allons, ne faites pas l’enfant, tu vas être Reine d’Angleterre.” Mr. Drummond then advanced. They knelt down. The ceremony, whatever it was, proceeded. She was laid on the sofa, upon which he laid his foot; and they all embraced her, calling her “La Reine.”’

‘La Reine’ was not such ‘a very fine girl’ as not to be startled by the superior beauty of the two principal ladies who were sent to escort her to London. When the434 Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh first looked upon the brilliant Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, she could not help exclaiming, with a sentiment apparently of self-humility, ‘Are all the women in England as beautiful as you are?’

The convoying fleet sent to conduct the princess to England was commanded by the great Lord Anson. The Tripoline ambassador could not but admire the honour paid by his Majesty in sending so high an officer—‘the first eunuch,’ as the Mahometan called him—to escort the bride to her new home.’

When the marriage treaty had been formally concluded, after some delay caused by the death of the mother of the princess, the little city of Strelitz became briefly mad with joy and exultation. There were illuminations, balls, fireworks, and artillery; and for two days stupendous state banquets followed each other, and said much for the digestion of those who enjoyed them. On the 17th of August the princess left Strelitz, accompanied by her brother, the grand duke, and in four days arrived at Stade amid demonstrations of great delight on the part of the population, ever grateful for an excitement and especially so for one afforded them by a young Queen—as the bride elect was already considered. On the 22nd she embarked at Cuxhaven amid a salute from the whole fleet. For more than a week she was as disrespectfully tossed and tumbled about by the rough sea, over which her path lay, as the Hero of New Zealand buffeting the waves to meet her dusky Leander. During the voyage a wave washed a sailor from the deck, and he perished in the surging waters. At the end of the voyage the bride was, rather unnecessarily informed of the calamity. She had been undisturbed by any cry of ‘Man overboard!’

The royal yacht which bore the youthful bride was435 surrounded by the squadron forming the convoy; and across as boisterous a sea as ever tried a ship or perplexed a sailor the bride was carried in discomfort but safety, till, on the evening of Sunday, the 6th of September, the fleet and its precious freight arrived off Harwich. It was Sunday evening, and the fact was not known in London till Monday morning. The report of the ‘Queen’ having been seen off the coast of Sussex on Saturday was current, but there was great uncertainty as to where she was, whether she had landed, or when she would be in town. ‘Last night, at ten o’clock,’ says Walpole on Tuesday morning, ‘it was neither certain where she landed nor when she would be in town. I forgive history for knowing nothing, when so public an event as the arrival of a new Queen is a mystery even at this very moment in St. James’s Street. This messenger who brought the letter yesterday morning, said she arrived at half an hour after four, at Harwich. This was immediately translated into landing, and notified in those words to the ministers. Six hours afterwards it proved no such thing, and that she was only in Harwich Road; and they recollected that half an hour after four happens twice in twenty-four hours, and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was. Well, the bride’s-maids whipped on their virginity; the New Road and the parks were thronged; the guns were choking with impatience to go off; and Sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty, was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart. Five, six, seven, eight o’clock came, and no Queen.’

The lady so impatiently looked for remained on board the yacht throughout the Sunday night. Storm-tost as she had been, she had borne the voyage well, and had ‘been sick but half an hour, singing and playing on the harpsichord all the voyage, and been cheerful the whole time.’

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On Monday she landed, but not till after dinner, and then was received in the ancient town by the authorities, and with all the usual ceremonies which it is the curse of very great people to be fated to encounter. Had the young King been a really gallant monarch he would have met his bride on the sea-shore; but etiquette does not allow of sovereigns being gallant, and the princess was welcomed by no higher dignitary than a mayor. In the afternoon she journeyed leisurely on to Colchester, where she was entertained at the house of a loyal private individual, Mr. Enew. Here Captain Birt served her with coffee, and Lieutenant John Seaber waited on her with tea; this service being concluded, an inhabitant of the town presented her with a box of candied eringo-root. This presentation is always made, it would seem, to royalty when the latter honours Colchester with a passing visit. The old town is, or was, proud of its peculiar production, ‘candied eringo-root.’ On the occasion in question the presenter learnedly detailed the qualities of the root; and the young princess looked as interested as she could while she was told that the eringium was of the Pentandria Digynia class, that it had general and partial corollæ, and that its root was attenuant and deobstruent, and was therefore esteemed a good hepatic, uterine, and nephritic. Its whole virtue, it was added, consists in its external or cortical part. There was a good opportunity to draw a comparison between the root and the bride, to the advantage of the latter, had the exhibitor been so minded; but the opportunity was allowed to pass, and the owner of the eringo failed to allude to the fact that the beauty in the royal features was surpassed by the virtue indwelling in her heart.

The royal visitor learned all that could well be told her, during her brief stay, of the historical incidents connected with the place, and having taken tea and coffee437 from the hands of veteran warriors, and candied eringo from Mr. Green, and information touching the visits of Queen Mary and Elizabeth from the clergy and others, the Princess Charlotte, or Queen Charlotte, as she was already called, continued her journey, and by gentle stages arrived at Lord Abercorn’s house at Witham, ‘’twixt the gloaming and the murk,’ at a quarter past seven. The host himself was ‘most tranquilly in town;’ and the mansion was described as ‘the palace of silence.’ The new arrivals, however, soon raised noise enough within its walls; for notwithstanding the dinner before landing, some refreshment taken at Harwich, and the tea, coffee, and candied eringo-root at Colchester, there was still supper to be provided for the tired Queen and her escort. The first course of the supper consisted of a mixture of fowl and fish, ‘leverets, partridges, carp, and soles, brought by express from Colchester, just time enough for supper.’ There were besides many made dishes, and an abundance of the choicest fruits that could be procured. The Queen supped in public, one of the penalties which royalty used to pay to the people. That is, she sat at table with open doors, at which all comers were allowed to congregate to witness the not too edifying spectacle of a young bride feeding. This exploit was accomplished by her Majesty, while Lord Hardwicke and the gallant Lord Anson stood on either side of the royal chair, and to the satisfaction of both actress and spectators.

The Queen slept that night at Witham, and the next day went slowly and satisfiedly on as far as ancient Romford, where she alighted at the house of a Mr. Dalton, a wine-merchant. In this asylum she remained about an hour, until the arrival of the royal servants and carriages from London which were to meet her. The servants having commenced their office with their new mistress438 by serving her with coffee, the Queen entered the royal carriage, in which she was accompanied by the Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton. As it is stated by the recorders of the incidents of that day that her Majesty was attired ‘entirely in the English taste,’ it may be worth adding, to show what that taste was, that ‘she wore a fly-cap with rich lace lappets, a stomacher ornamented with diamonds, and a gold brocade suit of clothes with a white ground.’ Thus decked out, the Queen, preceded by three carriages containing ladies from Mecklenburgh and lords from St. James’s, was conveyed through lines of people, militia, and horse and foot guards to London. ‘She was much amused,’ says Mrs. Stuart, ‘at the crowds of people assembled to see her, and bowed as she passed. She was hideously dressed in a blue satin quilted jesuit, which came up to her chin and down to her waist, her hair twisted up into knots called a tête de mouton, and the strangest little blue coif at the top. She had a great jewel like a Sevigné, and earrings like those now worn, with many drops, a present from the Empress of Russia, who knew of her marriage before she did herself.’ She entered the capital by the suburb of Mile End, which for dirt and misery could hardly be equalled by anything at Mirow and Strelitz. Having passed through Whitechapel, which must have given her no very high idea of the civilisation of the British people, she passed on westward, and proceeding by the longest route, continued along Oxford Street to Hyde Park, and finally reached the garden-gate of St. James’s at three in the afternoon. Before she left Romford, one of the English ladies in attendance recommended her to ‘curl her toupée; she said she thought it looked as well as that of any of the ladies sent to fetch her; if the King bid her she would wear a periwig; otherwise she would remain as she was.’

‘Just as they entered Constitution Hill one of the ladies439 said to the other, looking at her watch, “We shall hardly have time to dress for the wedding.” “Wedding!” said the Queen. “Yes, Madam, it is to be at twelve.” Upon this she fainted. Lady Effingham, who had a bottle of lavender water in her hand, threw it in her face.’ The travelling bride had, up to this time, exhibited much self-possession and gaiety of spirit throughout the journey, and it was not till she came in sight of the palace that her courage seemed to fail her. Then, for the first time, ‘she grew frightened and grew pale. The Duchess of Hamilton smiled; the princess said, “My dear duchess, you may laugh, you have been married twice; but it’s no joke to me.”’

Walpole, writing at ‘twenty minutes past three in the afternoon, not in the middle of the night,’ says: ‘Madam Charlotte is this instant arrived; the noise of the coaches, chaise, horsemen, mob, that have been to see her pass through the parks, is so prodigious that I cannot distinguish the guns.’

When the royal carriage stopped at the garden-gate the bride’s lips trembled, and she looked paler than ever, but she stepped out with spirit, assisted by the Duke of Devonshire, lord-chamberlain. Before her stood the King surrounded by his court. A crimson cushion was laid for her to kneel upon, and (Mrs. Stuart tells us) mistaking the hideous old Duke of Grafton for him, as the cushion inclined that way, she was very near prostrating herself before the duke; but the King caught her in his arms first, and all but carried her upstairs, forbidding any one to enter.

Walpole says of her that she looked sensible, cheerful, and remarkably genteel. He does not say she was pretty, and it must be confessed that she was rather plain; too plain to create a favourable impression upon a youthful monarch, whose heart, even if the story of the440 Quakeress be a fiction, was certainly pre-occupied by the image of a lady, who, nevertheless, figured that night among the bride’s-maids—namely, Lady Sarah Lennox. ‘An involuntary expression of the King’s countenance,’ says Mr. Galt, ‘revealed what was passing within, but it was a passing cloud—the generous feelings of the monarch were interested; and the tenderness with which he thenceforward treated Queen Charlotte was uninterrupted until the moment of their final separation.’ This probably comes much nearer to the truth than the assertion of Lady Anne Hamilton, who says: ‘At the first sight of the German princess, the King actually shrunk from her gaze, for her countenance was of that cast that too plainly told of the nature of the spirit working within.’ Lord Hardwicke is said to have sent to his wife an unfavourable description of the Queen’s features, which Lady Hardwicke read aloud to her friends. It is added that George III., on hearing of it, was greatly offended.

The King, as before mentioned, led his bride into the palace, where she dined with him, his mother the princess-dowager, and that Princess Augusta who was to give a future queen to England, in the person of Caroline of Brunswick. After dinner, when the bride’s-maids and the court were introduced to her, she said, ‘Mon Dieu, il y en a tant, il y en a tant!’ She kissed the princesses with manifest pleasure, but was so prettily reluctant to offer her own hand to be kissed, that the Princess Augusta, for once doing a graceful thing gracefully, was forced to take her hand and give it to those who were to kiss it, which was prettily humble and good. This act set the Queen talking and laughing, at which some severe critics declared that the illustrious lady’s face seemed all mouth. Northcote subsequently declared that Queen Charlotte’s plainness was not a vulgar, but an elegant, plainness. The artist saw another grace in her.441 As he looked at Reynolds’s portrait of her, fan in hand, Northcote, remembering the sitting, exclaimed, ‘Lord, how she held that fan!’

It is singular that although the question touching precedency, in the proper position of Irish peers on English state occasions, had been settled in the reign of George II., it was renewed on the occasion of the marriage of Queen Charlotte with increased vigour. The question, indeed, now rather regarded the peeresses than the peers. The Irish ladies of that rank claimed a right to walk in the marriage procession immediately after English peeresses of their own degree. The impudent wits of the day declared that the Irish ladies would be out of their vocation at weddings, and that their proper place was at funerals, where they might professionally howl. The rude taunt was made in mere thoughtlessness, but it stirred the high-spirited Hibernian ladies to action. They deputed Lord Charlemont to proceed to the court of St. James’s, and not only prefer but establish their claim. The gallant champion of dames fulfilled his office with alacrity, and crowned it with success. The royal bride herself was written to, but she, of course, could only express her willingness to see as many fair and friendly faces about her as possible; and she referred the applicants to custom and the lord-chamberlain. The reference was not favourable to the claimants, and Lord Charlemont boldly went to the King himself. The good-natured young monarch was as warm in praise of Irish beauty as if he was about to marry one, but he protested that he had no authority, and that Lord Charlemont must address his claim to the privy council. When that august body received the ladies’ advocate, they required of him to set down his specific claim in writing, so that the heralds, those learned and useful gentlemen, might comprehend what was asked, and do solemn justice to rank and precedency on442 this exceedingly solemn occasion. Lord Charlemont knew nothing of the heralds’ shibboleth, but he found a friend who could and did help him in his need, in Lord Egmont. By the two a paper was hurriedly drawn up in proper form, and submitted to the council. The collective wisdom of the latter pronounced the claim to be good, and that Irish peeresses might walk in the royal marriage procession immediately after English peeresses of their own rank, if invited to do so. The verdict was not worth much, but it satisfied the claimants. If the whole Irish peerage, the female portion of it at least, was not at the wedding, it was fairly represented, and when Lord Charlemont returned to Dublin, the ladies welcomed him as cordially as the nymphs in the bridal of Triermain did the wandering Arthur. They showered on him flowers of gratitude, and their dignity was well content to feel assured that they might all have gone to the wedding if they had only been invited.

At seven o’clock the nobility began to flock down to the scene of the marriage in the royal chapel. The night was sultry, but fine. At nine, and not at twelve, the ceremony was performed by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury; and perhaps the most beautiful portion of the spectacle was that afforded by the bride’s-maids, among whom Lady Sarah Lennox, Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Elizabeth Keppel were distinguished for their pre-eminent attractions. During the whole ceremony, it is said that the royal bridegroom’s eyes were kept fixed on Lady Sarah especially. That the Queen could not have been so perfectly unpossessed of attractive features as some writers have declared her, may be gathered from a remark of Walpole’s, who was present, and who, after praising the beauty of the bride’s-maids, and that of a couple of duchesses, says: ‘Except a pretty Lady Sunderland, and a most perfect beauty, an Irish443 Miss Smith, I don’t think the Queen saw much else to discourage her.’ The general impression was different. What this was may be understood by a passage in a letter addressed to Mrs. Montagu’s brother, the Rev. William Robertson, by a friend, in October 1761: ‘The Queen seems to me to behave with equal propriety and civility; though the common people are quite exasperated at her not being handsome, and the people at court laugh at her courtesies.’

All the royal family were present at the nuptials. The King’s brother, Edward, Duke of York, was at his side; and this alleged witness of the King’s alleged previous marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, says Lady Anne Hamilton, ‘used every endeavour to support his royal brother through the trying ordeal, not only by first meeting the princess in her entrance into the garden, but also at the altar.’

The Queen was in white and silver. ‘An endless mantle of violet-coloured velvet,’ says Walpole, ‘lined with crimson, and which, attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes half-way down her waist.’

After the ceremony their Majesties occupied two state chairs on the same side of the altar, under a canopy. The mother of the monarch occupied a similar chair of state on the opposite side; the other members of the royal family were seated on stools, while benches were given to the foreign ministers to rest upon. At half-past ten the proceedings came to a close, and the return of the marriage procession from the chapel was announced by thundering salutes from the artillery of the park and the Tower. ‘Can it be possible,’ said the humble bride, ‘that I am worthy of such honours?’

Walpole says of the royal bride that she did nothing444 but with good humour and cheerfulness. ‘She talks a good deal,’ says the same writer, ‘is easy, civil, and not disconcerted.’ While the august company waited for supper, she sat down, sung, and played; conversed with the King, Duke of Cumberland, and Duke of York, in German and French. She was reported to have been as conversant with the last as any native, but Walpole only says of it that ‘her French is tolerable.’ The supper was in fact a banquet of great splendour and corresponding weariness. ‘They did not get to bed till two;’ by which time the bride, who had made a weary journey through the heat and dust, and had been awake since the dawn, must have been sadly jaded. ‘Nothing but a German constitution,’ said Mrs. Scott, ‘could have undergone it.’ The same lady says:—‘She did not arrive in London till three o’clock, and besides the fatigue of the journey, with the consequences of the flutter she could not avoid being in, she was to dress for her wedding, be married, have a drawing-room, and undergo the ceremony of receiving company after she and the King were in bed, and all the night after her journey and so long a voyage.’ There are no old fashioned nuptial ceremonies to record and to smile at. Walpole alludes to a civil war and campaign on the question of the bedchamber. ‘Everybody is excluded but the minister; even the lords of the bedchamber, cabinet councillors, and foreign ministers; but it has given such offence that I don’t know whether Lord Huntingdon must not be the scapegoat.’

On the 9th of September the Queen held her first drawing-room. ‘Everybody was presented to her, but she spoke to nobody, as she could not know a soul. The crowd was much less than at a birthday; the magnificence very little more. The King looked very handsome, and talked to her with great good humour. It does not445 promise as if these two would be the two most unhappy persons in England from this event.’

In contrast with this account of an eye-witness stands the deposition of Lady Anne Hamilton, a passage from whose suppressed book may be cited rather than credited. It reflects, however, much of the popular opinion of that and a far later period. ‘In the meantime,’ writes the lady just named, ‘the Earl of Abercorn informed the princess of the previous marriage of the King, and of the existence of his Majesty’s wife; and Lord Hardwicke advised the princess to well inform herself of the policy of the kingdom, as a measure for preventing much future disturbance in the country, as well as securing an uninterrupted possession of the throne to her issue. Presuming, therefore, that the German princess had hitherto been an open and ingenuous character, such expositions, intimations, and dark mysteries were ill-calculated to nourish honourable feelings, but would rather operate as a check to their further existence. To the public eye the newly married pair were contented with each other; alas! it was because each feared an exposure to the nation. The King reproached himself that he had not fearlessly avowed the only wife of his affections; the Queen, because she feared an explanation that the King was guilty of bigamy, and thereby her claim, as also that of her progeny (if she should have any), would be known to be illegitimate. It appears as if the result of those reflections formed a basis for the misery of millions, and added to that number millions yet unborn.’

This probably is solemn nonsense, as it is certainly indifferent English. We get back to comic truth, at least, in an anecdote told by Cumberland, of Bubb Dodington, who, ‘when he paid his court at St. James’s to her Majesty, upon her nuptials, approached to kiss her hand, decked in an embroidered suit of silk, with lilac446 waistcoat and breeches, the latter of which, in the act of kneeling down, forgot their duty, and broke loose from their moorings in a very indecorous and uncourtly manner.’ As for the forsaken Ariadne, Lady Sarah Lennox was very soon united to Sir Charles Bunbury; and subsequently to Colonel George Napier, by whom she became mother of ‘the Napiers’, one of whom used to speak sneeringly of George IV. as his ‘cousin.’ Lady Sarah’s old royal lover never made any secret of his admiration of her. The last time he was ever at the play with Queen Charlotte, he remarked to her, of one of the most accomplished of actresses, ‘Miss Pope is still like Lady Sarah!’

Between the wedding drawing-room and the coronation the King and Queen appeared twice in public, once at their devotions and once at the play. On both occasions there were crowds of followers, and some disappointment. At the chapel-royal, the preacher, the Rev. Mr. Schultz, made no allusion to the august couple, but simply confined himself to a practical illustration of his text, ‘Provide things honest in the sight of all men.’ It was a text from the application of which a young sovereign couple might learn much that was valuable, without being preached at. But the crowd, who went to stare, and not to pray, would have been better pleased to have heard them lectured, and to have seen how they looked under the infliction. The King had expressly forbidden all laudation of himself from the pulpit, but the Rev. Dr. Wilson, and Mason the poet, disobeyed the injunction, and, getting nothing by their praise, joined the patriotic side in politics immediately. At the play, to which the King and Queen went on the day after attending church, to witness Garrick, who was advertised to play Bayes, in the ‘Rehearsal,’ the King was in roars of laughter at Garrick’s comic acting; which even447 made the Queen smile, to whom, however, such a play as the ‘Rehearsal’ and such a part as Bayes must have been totally incomprehensible, and defying explanation. No royal state was displayed on this occasion, but there were the penalties which are sometimes paid by a too eager curiosity. The way from the palace to the theatre was so beset by a violently loyal mob that there was difficulty in getting the royal chairs through the unwelcome pressure. The accidents were many, and some were fatal. The young married couple did not accomplish their first party of pleasure, shared with the public, but at the expense of three or four lives of persons trampled to death among the crowd that had assembled to view their portion of the sight.

The St. ‘James’s Chronicle’ thus reports the scene which took place on the occasion of the royal visit to Drury Lane, on Friday, the 11th of September: ‘Last night, about a quarter after six, their Majesties the King and Queen, with most of the royal family, went to Drury Lane playhouse to see the “Rehearsal.” Their Majesties went in chairs, and the rest of the royal family in coaches, attended by the horse-guards. His Majesty was preceded by the Duke of Devonshire, his lord-chamberlain, and the Honourable Mr. Finch, his vice-chamberlain; and her Majesty was preceded by the Duke of Manchester, her lord-chamberlain, and Lord Cantalupe, her vice-chamberlain, the Earl of Harcourt, her master of the horse, and by the Duchess of Ancaster and the Countess of Effingham. It is almost inconceivable, the crowds of people that waited in the streets, quite from St. James’s to the playhouse, to see their Majesties. Never was seen so brilliant a train, the ladies being mostly dressed in the clothes and jewels they wore at the royal marriage. The house was quite full before the doors were open, so that out of the vast multitude that waited the opening of the448 doors, not a hundred got in; the house being previously filled, to the great disappointment and fatigue of many thousands; and we may venture to say that there were people enough to have filled fifty such houses. There was a prodigious deal of mischief done at the doors of the house; several genteel women, who were imprudent enough to attempt to get in, had their clothes, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs, all torn off them. It is said a girl was killed, and a man so trampled on that there are no hopes of his recovery.’

Among the congratulatory addresses presented to the Queen, on the occasion of her marriage, there was none which caused so much remark as that presented by the ladies of St. Albans. They complained that custom had deprived them of the pleasure of joining in the address presented by the gentlemen of the borough, and that they were therefore compelled to act independently. They profited by the occasion to express a hope that the example set by the King and Queen would be speedily and widely followed. The holy state of matrimony, the St. Albans ladies assured her Majesty, had fallen so low as to be sneered at and disregarded by gentlemen. They further declared that if the best riches of a nation consisted in the amount of population, they were the best citizens who did their utmost to increase that amount: to further which end the ladies of St. Albans expressed a loyal degree of willingness, with sundry logical reasonings which made even the grave Charlotte smile.

It is unnecessary perhaps to enter detailedly upon the programme of the royal coronation. All coronations very much resemble each other; they only vary in some of their incidents. That of George and Charlotte had well-nigh been delayed by the sudden and unexpected strike of the workmen at Westminster Hall. These handicraftsmen had been accustomed to take toll of the public449 admitted to see the preparations; but soldiers on guard, perceiving the profit to be derived from such a course, allowed no one to enter at all but after payment of an admission fee sufficiently large to gratify their cupidity. The plunderers of the public thereupon fell out, and the workmen struck because they had been deprived of an opportunity of robbing curious citizens. The dispute was settled by a compromise; an increase of wages was made to the workmen, and the military continued to levy with great success upon the purses of civilians, as before.

Nothing further remained to impede the completion of the preparations for the spectacle; but by another strike, a portion, at least, of the public ran the risk of not seeing the spectacle at all. The chairmen and drivers of hired vehicles had talked so largely of their scale of prices for the Coronation Day, that the authorities threatened to interfere and establish a tariff; whereupon the chairmen and their brethren solemnly announced that not a hired vehicle of any description should ply in the streets at all on the day in question; and that if there were a sight worth seeing, the full-dressed public might get to it how they could: they should not ride to it. Thereupon, great was the despair of a very large and interested class. Appeals, almost affectionate in expression, were made to the offended chairmen who led the revolt, and they were entreated to trust to the generous feelings of their patrons, willing to be their very humble servants, for one day. The amiable creatures at last yielded, when it was perfectly understood that the liberal sentiment of riders was to be computed at the rate of a guinea for a ride from the West-end to the point nearest the Abbey which the chairmen could reach. Not many could penetrate beyond Charing Cross, where the bewildered fares were set down amid the mob and the mud, to work their way through both as best they might.

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One class of extortionate robbers only succeeded in making unwarrantable gain without interference on the part of the authorities, or appeal on that of the public. The class in question consisted of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who exacted five guineas a foot as the rent or hire of the space for the erection of scaffolding for seats. This caused the tariff of places to be of so costly a nature, that, willing as the public were to pay liberally for a great show, the seats were but scantily occupied.

The popular eagerness which existed, especially to see the young Queen, was well illustrated in the person of a married lady, for whom not only was a front room taken, from the window of which she might see the procession pass, but a bedroom also engaged, and a medical man in attendance; the lady’s condition of health rendering it probable that both might be required before the spectacle had concluded.

Much had been said of the Queen’s beauty, but to that her Majesty had really little pretension. The public near enough to distinguish her features were the more disappointed, from the fact that the portrait of a very pretty woman had been in all the print-shops as a likeness of the young Queen. The publisher, however, had selected an old engraving of a young beauty, and erasing the name on the plate, issued the portrait as that of the royal consort of his Majesty George III. Many were indignant at the trick, but few were more amused by it than her Majesty herself.

As illustrative of the crowds assembled, even on places whence but little could be seen, it may be mentioned that the assemblage on Westminster Bridge (which was no ‘coign of vantage,’ for the platform on which the procession passed could hardly be discovered from it) was so immense as to give rise to a report, which long prevailed,451 that the structure of the bridge itself had been injured by this superincumbent dead weight.

The multitude was enthusiastic enough, but it was not a kindly endowed multitude. The mob was ferocious in its joys in those days. Of the lives lost, one at least was so lost by a murderous act of the populace. A respectable man in the throng dropped some papers, and he stooped to recover them from the ground. The contemporary recorders of the events of the day detail, without comment, how the mob held this unfortunate man forcibly down till they had trampled him to death! The people must have their little amusements.

It was, perhaps, hardly the fault of the people that these amusements were so savage in character. The people themselves were treated as savages. Even on this day of universal jubilee they were treated as if the great occasion were foreign to them and to their feelings; and a press-gang, strong enough to defy attack, was not the least remarkable group which appeared this day among the free Britons over whom George and Charlotte expressed themselves proud to reign. Such a ‘gang’ did not do its work in a delicate way, and a score or two of loyal and tipsy people, who had joyously left their homes to make a day of it, found themselves at night, battered and bleeding, on board a ‘Tender,’ torn from their families, and condemned to ‘serve the King’ upon the high seas.

The interior of the Abbey displayed, so says the ‘St. James’s Chronicle,’ the finest exhibition of genteel people that the world ever saw. That was satisfactory. The Countess of Northampton carried three hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds upon her, and other ladies dropped rubies and other precious stones from their dresses in quantity sufficient to have made the fortune of any single finder. The day, too, did not pass452 without its ominous aspect. As the King was moving with the crown on his head, the great diamond in the upper portion of it fell to the ground, and was not found again without some trouble.

Perhaps the prettiest, though not the most gorgeous portion of the show, was the procession of the Princess-dowager of Wales from the House of Lords to the Abbey. The King’s mother was led by the hand of her young son, William Henry. These and all the other persons in this picturesque group were attired in dresses of white and silver; and the spectators had the good sense to admire the corresponding good taste. The princess wore a short silk train, and was consequently relieved from the nuisance of being pulled back by train-bearers. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders in hanging curls, and the only ornament upon her head was a simple wreath of diamonds. She was the best dressed and perhaps not the least happy of the persons present.

The usual ceremonies followed. The Westminster boys sang ‘Vivat Regina’ on the entry of the Queen into the Abbey, and ‘Vivat Rex’ as soon as the King appeared. The illustrious couple engaged for a time in private devotions, were presented to the people, and the divine blessing having been invoked upon them, they sat to hear a sermon of just a quarter of an hour in length, from Drummond, Bishop of Salisbury. The text was sermon in itself. It was from I Kings, x. 9: ‘Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.’ The episcopal comment was not a bad one; but when the prelate talked, as he did, of our constitution being founded upon the principles of purity and freedom, and justly poised between the extremes of power and liberty, his sentiment was but poorly illustrated by the presence of that press-gang without, with whom was much453 power over a people who, in such a presence, enjoyed no liberty.

Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, placed the crowns on the heads of the Sovereigns, and did not get kissed in return, as was formerly the custom, at least on the part of a newly crowned king. But perhaps the prettiest incident took place when the King was about to partake, with the Queen, of the Sacrament. He desired that he might first put aside his crown, and appear humbly at the table of the Lord. There was no precedent for such a case, and all the prelates present were somewhat puzzled, lest they might commit themselves. Ultimately, and wisely, they expressed an opinion that, despite the lack of authorising precedent, the King’s wishes might be complied with. A similar wish was expressed by Queen Charlotte; but this could not so readily be fulfilled. It was found that the little crown fixed on the Queen’s head was so fastened, to keep it from falling, that there would be some trouble in getting it off without the assistance of the Queen’s dressers. This was dispensed with, and the crown was worn by the Queen; but the King declared that in this case it was to be considered simply as part of her dress, and not as indicating any power or greatness residing in a person humbly kneeling in the presence of God.

The remainder of the ceremonial was long and tedious, and it was quite dusk before the procession returned to the Hall. In the meantime, the champion’s horse was champing his bit with great impatience, as became a horse of his dignity. This gallant grey charger was no other than that which bore the sacred majesty of George II. through the dangers of the great and bloody day at Dettingen. The veteran steed was now to be the leader in the equestrian spectacle at the banquet of that monarch’s successor.

Although there was ample time for the completion of everything necessary to the coronation of George and454 Charlotte, the earl-marshal forgot some very indispensable items; among others, the sword of state, the state-banquet chairs for the King and Queen, and the canopy. It was lucky that the crown had not been forgotten too. As it was, they had to borrow the ceremonial sword of the Lord Mayor, and workmen built a canopy amid the scenic splendours of Westminster Hall. These mistakes delayed the procession till noon.

It was dark when the procession returned to the Hall; and as the illuminating of the latter was deferred till the King and Queen had taken their places, the cortège had very much the appearance of a funeral procession, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the Knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse. There were less dignified incidents than these in the course of the day’s proceedings; the least dignified was an awkward rencounter between the Queen herself and the Duke of Newcastle, behind the scenes. Walpole says that ‘some of the procession were dressed over night, slept in arm chairs, and were waked if they tumbled on their heads.’ Noticing some of the ladies present, the same writer adds: ‘I carried my Lady Townshend, Lady Hertford, Lady Anne Conolly, my Lady Hervey, and Mrs. Clive to my deputy’s house at the gate of Westminster Hall. My Lady Townshend said she should be very glad to see a coronation, as she never had seen one. “Why,” said I, “madam, you walked at the last.” “Yes, child,” said she, “but I saw nothing of it. I only looked to see who looked at me.” The Duchess of Queensberry walked; her affectation that day was to do nothing preposterous. Lord Chesterfield was not present either in Abbey or Hall; for, as he said of the ceremony, he was “not alive enough to march, nor dead enough to walk at it.”’

The scene in the banqueting-hall is further described by Grey and also by Walpole. Grey says of the scene in455 Westminster Hall: ‘The instant the Queen’s canopy entered fire was given to all the lustres at once by trains of prepared flax that reached from one to the other. To me it seemed an interval of not half a minute before the whole was in a blaze of splendour ... and the most magnificent spectacle ever beheld remained. The King, bowing to the lords as he passed, with his crown on his head and the sceptre and orb in his hands, took his place with great majesty and grace. So did the Queen, with her crown, sceptre, and rod. Then supper was served on gold plate. The Earl Talbot, Duke of Bedford, and Earl of Effingham, in their robes, all three on horseback, prancing and curvetting like the hobby-horses in the “Rehearsal,” ushered in the courses to the foot of the hautpas. Between the courses the champion performed his part with applause.’ ‘All the wines of Bordeaux,’ Walpole writes to George Montagu, ‘and all the fumes of Irish brains cannot make a town so drunk as a royal wedding and a coronation. I am going to let London cool, and will not venture into it again this fortnight. Oh, the buzz, the prattle, the crowds, the noise, the hurry! Nay, people are so little come to their senses, that, though the coronation was but the day before yesterday, the Duke of Devonshire had forty messages yesterday, desiring admissions for a ball that they fancied was to be at court last night. People had sat up a night and a day, and yet wanted to see a dance! If I was to entitle ages, I would call this “the century of crowds.” For the coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million, that is. The multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions made Palace Yard the liveliest spectacle in the world: the ball was most glorious. The blaze of lights, the richness and variety of habits, the ceremonial, the bunches of peers and peeresses, frequent and full, were as awful as a pageant can be; and yet, for the King’s sake and my456 own, I never wish to see another; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effingham’s promise fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept of their proceedings. Lord Effingham vowed the earl-marshal’s office had been strangely neglected, but he had taken such care for the future that the next coronation would be regulated in the most exact manner imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very great; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln’s gallery, and even walked about the hall indecently in the intervals of the procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Roxana, was the finest figure at a distance. She complained to George Selwyn that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would have a wig and a stick. “Pho!” said he, “you will only look as if you were taken up by the constable.” She told this everywhere, thinking that the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth! Lady Pembroke alone, at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty. The Duchess of Richmond as pretty as nature and dress, with no pains of her own, could make her. Lady Spencer, Lady Sutherland, and Lady Northampton, very pretty figures. Lady Kildare, still beauty itself, if not a little too large. The ancient peeresses were by no means the worst party. Lady Westmoreland still handsome, and with more dignity than all. The Duchess of Queensberry looked well, though her locks are milk-white. Lady Albemarle very genteel; nay, the middle age had some good representatives in Lady Holdernesse, Lady Rochford, and Lady Strafford, the perfectest little figure of all. My Lady Suffolk ordered her robes, and I dressed part of her head, as I made some of my Lord Hertford’s dress, for you know no profession comes amiss to me, from a tribune of the people to a habit-maker. Do not457 imagine that there were not figures as excellent on the other side. Old Exeter, who told the King he was the handsomest man she ever saw; old Effingham, and Lady Say and Sele, with her hair powdered and her tresses black, were an excellent contrast to the handsome. Lord B. put on rouge upon his wife and the Duchess of Bedford in the Painted Chamber; the Duchess of Queensberry told me of the latter, that she looked like an orange peach, half red and half yellow. The coronets of the peers and their robes disguised them strangely. It required all the beauty of the Dukes of Richmond and Marlborough to make them noticed. One there was, though of another species, the noblest figure I ever saw, the high constable of Scotland, Lord Errol: as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the giants at Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person that one considered him as acting so considerable a part in that very hall where a few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block. The champion acted his part admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His associates, Lord Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the Duke of Bedford, were woeful. Lord Talbot piqued himself on backing his horse down the Hall, and not turning its rump towards the King; but he had taken such pains to dress it to that duty that it entered backwards; and at his retreat, the spectators clapped—a terrible indecorum, but suitable to such Bartholomew Fair doings. He had twenty démêlés, and came off none creditably. He had taken away the table of the Knights of the Bath, and was forced to admit two in their old place, and dine the other at the Court of Requests. Sir William Stanhope said, “We are ill-treated, for some of us are gentlemen.” Beckford told the earl it was hard to458 refuse a table to the City of London, whom it would cost ten thousand pounds to banquet the King, and that his lordship would repent it if they had not a table in the hall; they had. To the barons of the Cinque Ports, who made the same complaint, he said, “If you come to me as lord-steward, I tell you it is impossible; if as Lord Talbot, I am a match for any of you;” and then he said to Lord Bute, “If I were a minister, thus would I talk to France, to Spain, to the Dutch; none of your half-measures.”’

With all the solemnity, there was some riot. A passage from a letter written by one James Heming (quoted in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 2nd S., V. II., p. 109) says: ‘Our friend Harry, who was upon the scaffold at the return of the procession, closed in with the rear; at the expense of half a guinea was admitted into the Hall; got brimful of his Majesty’s claret, and in the universal plunder, brought off the glass her Majesty drank in, which is placed in the beaufet as a valuable curiosity.’ There was long a tradition current, that among the spectators at the great ceremony in the Hall was no less a person than the Young Pretender, who was said to have been there incognito, and not without some hope of seeing the gauntlet, defiantly thrown down by the champion, taken up by some bold adherent of his cause. Indeed, it is further reported that preparation had been made for such an attempt, but that (fortunately) it accidentally failed. The Pretender, so runs the legend, was recognised by a nobleman, who, standing near him, whispered in his ear that he was the last person anybody would expect to find there. ‘I am here simply out of curiosity,’ was the answer of the wanderer; ‘but I assure you that the man who is the object of all this pomp and magnificence is the person in the world whom I least envy.’ To complete the chain of reports, it may be further noticed that Charles Edward was said to459 have abjured Romanism, in the new church in the Strand, in the year 1754.

The night after the coronation there was an unusually grand ball at court. The Queen’s bride’s-maids danced in the white bodiced coats they had worn at the wedding. The Duke of Ancaster was resplendent in the dress which the King had worn the whole of the day before at the coronation, and which he had graciously ordered to be presented to the duke, whose wife was the Queen’s mistress of the robes! The King and Queen retired at eleven o’clock; not an early hour for the period.

There was great gaiety in town generally at this period. The young Queen announced that she would attend the opera once a week—that seemed dissipation enough for her, who had been educated with some strictness in the quietest and smallest of German courts. The weekly attendance of royalty is thus commented upon by Walpole: ‘It is a fresh disaster to our box, where we have lived so harmoniously for three years. We can get no alternative but that over Miss Chudleigh’s; and Lord Strafford and Lady Mary Coke will not subscribe unless we can. The Duke of Devonshire and I are negotiating with all our art to keep our party together. The crowds at the opera and play when the King and Queen go are a little greater than what I remember. The late royalties went to the Haymarket when it was the fashion to frequent the other opera in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields. Lord Chesterfield one night came into the latter, and was asked if he had been at the other house? “Yes,” said he, “but there was nobody but the King and Queen; and as I thought they might be talking business, I came away.”’

The theatres, of course, adopted the usual fashion of reproducing the ceremony of the coronation on the stage. Garrick, considering that he was a man of taste, displayed great tastelessness in his conduct on this occasion. After460 ‘Henry VIII.,’ in which Bensley played the King, Havard acted Wolsey, and Yates—what was so long played as a comic part—Gardiner, and in which Mrs. Pritchard played the Queen, and Mrs. Yates Anne Boleyn, a strange representation of the ceremonial was presented to the public. Garrick, it is said, knowing that Rich would spare no expense in producing the spectacle at the other house, and fearing the cost of competition with a man than whom the stage never again saw one so clever in getting up scenic effects till it possessed Farley, contented himself with the old, mean, and dirty dresses which had figured in the stage coronation of George II. and Caroline. The most curious incident of Garrick’s show was, that by throwing down the wall behind the stage, he really opened the latter into Drury Lane itself, where a monster bonfire was burning and a mob huzzaing about it. The police authorities did not interfere, and the absurd representation was continued for six or seven weeks, ‘till the indignation of the public,’ says Davis, ‘put a stop to it, to the great comfort of the performers, who walked in the procession, and who were seized with colds, rheumatism, and swelled faces, from the suffocation of the smoke and the raw air from the open street.’ Their Majesties did not witness the representation of the coronation at either house. Their first visit was paid to Drury Lane, when the Queen commanded the piece to be played, and her selection was one that had some wit in it. The young bride chose, ‘Rule a Wife and have a Wife.’ The royal visit took place on the 26th of November.

At Covent Garden ‘Henry the Fifth,’ with the coronation, was acted twenty-six times; and ‘Richard the Third,’ with the same pageant, was played fourteen times. That exquisite hussey, Mrs. Bellamy, walked in the procession as the representative of the Queen. Their Majesties paid their first visit in state, on the 7th of January461 1762. The King, with some recollection, probably, of his consort’s ‘bespeak’ at Drury Lane, commanded the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor.’ So that in this respect the new reign commenced merrily enough. It had its bons mots. When some persons expressed surprise at the Queen having named Lady Northumberland one of the ladies of her bedchamber, Lady Townshend said, ‘Quite right! the Queen knows no English. Lady Northumberland will teach her the vulgar tongue!’

The entire population seemed surprised at having got a young Queen and King to reign over them; and, except an occasional placard or two, denouncing ‘petticoat government,’ and pronouncing against Scotch ministers and Lord George Sackville, there seemed no dissatisfied voice in the whole metropolis. The graces of the young Sovereign were sung by pseudo-poets, and Walpole, in graceful prose, told of his surprise at seeing how completely the whole levée-room had lost its air of a lion’s den. ‘The Sovereign don’t stand in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of German news: he walks about and speaks to everybody. I saw him afterwards on the throne, where he is graceful and genteel; sits with dignity, and reads his answers to addresses well. It was the Cambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle, in his doctor’s gown, and looking like the Médecin malgré lui. He had been vehemently solicitous for attendance, for fear my Lord463 Westmoreland, who vouchsafes himself to bring the address from Oxford, should out-number him. Lord Litchfield and several other Jacobites have kissed hands. George Selwyn says, “They go to St. James’s because now there are so many Stuarts there.”’

In allusion to the crowds of nobles, gentle and simple, going up to congratulate the King, or to view the processions flocking to the foot of the throne, or surrounding the King, as it were, when he went to the first parliament, Walpole remarks: ‘The day the King went to the house I was three quarters of an hour getting through Whitehall. There were subjects enough to set up half a dozen petty kings: the Pretender would be proud to reign over the footmen only; and, indeed, unless he acquires some of them, he will have no subjects left; all their masters flock to St. James’s.’ In a few words he describes the scene at the theatre on the King’s first visit, alone. ‘The first night the King went to the play, which was civilly on a Friday, not on the opera night, as he used to do, the whole audience sang God save the King in chorus. For the first act the press was so great at the door that no ladies could go to the boxes, and only the servants appeared there, who kept places. At the end of the second act the whole mob broke in and seated themselves.’ The play was ‘Richard the Third,’ in which Garrick represented the king. George III. repeated his visit on the 23rd of December to see ‘King John.’

His Majesty grievously offended Garrick on this night, by a manifestation of what the latter considered very bad taste. The King preferred Sheridan in Faulconbridge to Garrick in King John; and when this reached the ears of Garrick, he was excessively hurt; and, though the boxes were taken for ‘King John,’ for several nights, the offended ‘Roscius’ would not allow the play to have its proper run.

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But there were other stages, on which more solemn pageants had to be performed. The Sovereigns had yet to make their first appearance within the city liberties.

The Queen was introduced to the citizens of London on Lord Mayor’s Day; on which occasion they may be said emphatically to have ‘made a day of it.’ They left St. James’s Palace at noon, and in great state, accompanied by all the royal family, escorted by guards, and cheered by the people, whose particular holiday was thus shared in common. There was the usual ceremony at Temple Bar of opening the gates to royalty and giving it welcome; and there was the once usual address made at the east end of St. Paul’s Churchyard, by the senior scholar of Christ’s Hospital School. Having survived the cumbrous formalities of the first, and smiled at the flowery figures of the second, the royal party proceeded on their way, not to Guildhall, but to the house of Mr. Barclay, the patent-medicine-vendor, an honest Quaker whom the King respected, and ancestor to the head of the firm whose name is not unmusical to Volscian ears—Barclay, Perkins, and Co.

Robert Barclay, the only surviving son of the author of the same name, who wrote the celebrated ‘Apology for the Quakers,’ was an octogenarian, who had entertained, in the same house, two Georges before he had given welcome to the third George and his Queen Charlotte. The hearty old man, without abandoning Quaker simplicity, went a little beyond it, in order to do honour to the young Queen; and he hung his balcony and rooms with a brilliant crimson damask, that must have scattered blushes on all who stood near—particularly on the cheeks of the crowds of ‘Friends’ who had assembled within the house to do honour to their Sovereigns. How the King—and he was at the time a very handsome young monarch—fluttered all the female Friends465 present, and set their tuckers in agitation, may be guessed from the fact that he kissed them all round, and right happy were they to be so greeted. The Queen smiled with dignity, her consort laughed and clapped his hands, and when they had passed into another room, the King’s young brothers followed the example, and in a minute had all the young Quakeresses in their arms—nothing loath. Those were unceremonious days, and ‘a kiss all round’ was a pleasant solemnity, which was undergone with alacrity even by a Quakeress.

In the apartment to which the King and Queen had retired the latter was waited on by a youthful grand-daughter of Mr. Barclay, who kissed the royal hand with much grace, but would not kneel to do so, a resolute observance of consistent principle which made the young Queen smile. Later in the day, when Mr. Barclay’s daughters served the Queen with tea, they handed it to the ladies-in-waiting, who presented it kneeling to their Sovereign—a form which Rachel and Rebecca would never have submitted to. From the windows of this house, which was exactly opposite Bow Church, the Queen and consort witnessed the Lord Mayor’s procession pass on its way to Westminster, and had the patience to wait for its return.

The Princess of Wales was a spectator of the show on this occasion, with her son, King George, and her daughter-in-law, Queen Charlotte. Her husband, Frederick, Prince of Wales, once stood among the crowd in Cheapside to view the return of the Mayor’s procession to Guildhall. He was recognised by some members of the Saddlers Company, by whom he was invited into their ‘stand,’ erected in the street. He accepted their invitation, and made himself so agreeable that the company unanimously elected him their ‘Master,’ an office which he accepted with great readiness.

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Queen Charlotte and George III. were the last of our sovereigns who thus honoured a Lord Mayor’s Show. And as it was the last occasion, and that the young Queen Charlotte was the heroine of the day, the opportunity may be profited by, to show how that royal lady looked and bore herself in the estimation of one of the Miss Barclays, whose letter descriptive of the scene appeared forty-seven years subsequently, in 1808. ‘About one o’clock papa and mamma, with sister Western to attend them, took their stand at the street-door, where my two brothers had long been to receive the nobility, more than a hundred of whom were then waiting in the warehouse. As the royal family came, they were conducted into one of the counting-houses, which was transformed into a very pretty parlour. At half-past two their Majesties came, which was two hours later than they intended. On the second pair of stairs was placed our own company, about forty in number, the chief of whom were of the Puritan order, and all in their orthodox habits. Next to the drawing-room doors were placed our own selves—I mean papa’s children, none else, to the great mortification of visitors, being allowed to enter; for, as kissing the King’s hand without kneeling was an unexampled honour, the King confined that privilege to our own family, as a return for the trouble we had been at. After the royal pair had shown themselves at the balcony, we were all introduced, and you may believe, at that juncture, we felt no small palpitations. The King met us at the door (a condescension I did not expect), at which place he saluted us with great politeness. Advancing to the upper end of the room, we kissed the Queen’s hand, at the sight of whom we were all in raptures, not only from the brilliancy of her appearance, which was pleasing beyond description, but being throughout her whole person possessed of that inexpressible something that is beyond a set of features,467 and equally claims our attention. To be sure she has not a fine face, but a most agreeable countenance, and is vastly genteel, with an air, notwithstanding her being a little woman, truly majestic; and I really think, by her manner is expressed that complacency of disposition which is truly amiable; and though I could never perceive that she deviated from that dignity which belongs to a crowned head, yet on the most trifling occasions she displayed all that easy behaviour that negligence can bestow. Her hair, which is of a light colour, hung in what is called coronation-ringlets, encircled in a band of diamonds, so beautiful in themselves, and so prettily disposed, as will admit of no description. Her clothes, which were as rich as gold, silver, and silk could make them, was a suit from which fell a train supported by a little page in scarlet and silver. The lustre of her stomacher was inconceivable. The King I think a very personable man. All the princes followed the King’s example in complimenting each of us with a kiss. The Queen was upstairs three times, and my little darling, with Patty Barclay and Priscilla Ball, were introduced to her. I was present and not a little anxious on account of my girl, who kissed the Queen’s hand with so much grace that I thought the princess-dowager would have smothered her with kisses. Such a report was made of her to the King, that Miss was sent for, and afforded him great amusement, by saying ‘that she loved the King, though she must not love fine things, and her grandpapa would not allow her to make a curtsy.’ Her sweet face made such an impression on the Duke of York, that I rejoiced she was only five instead of fifteen. When he first met her, he tried to persuade Miss to let him introduce her to the Queen; but she would by no means consent till I informed her he was a prince, upon which her little female heart relented, and she gave him her468 hand—a true copy of the sex. The King never sat down, nor did he taste anything during the whole time. Her Majesty drank tea, which was brought her on a silver waiter by brother John, who delivered it to the lady-in-waiting, and she presented it kneeling. The leave they took of us was such as we might expect from our equals; full of apologies for our trouble for their entertainment—which they were so anxious to have explained, that the Queen came up to us, as we stood on one side of the door, and had every word interpreted. My brothers had the honour of assisting the Queen into her coach. Some of us sat up to see them return, and the King and Queen took especial notice of us as they passed. The King ordered twenty-four of his guard to be placed opposite our door all night, lest any of the canopy should be pulled down by the mob, in which there were one hundred yards of silk damask.’

Gog and Magog have never looked down on so glorious a scene and so splendid a banquet as enlivened Guildhall, at which the Queen and her consort were royally entertained, at a cost approaching 8000l. Both Sovereigns united in remarking that ‘for elegance of entertainment the city beat the court end of the town.’ A foreign minister present described it as a banquet such only as one king could give another. And it was precisely so. The King of the City exhibited his boundless hospitality to the King of England. The majesty of the people had the chief magistrate for a guest.

The majesty of the people, however, if we may credit the Earl of Albemarle, the author of the ‘Memoir of the Marquis of Rockingham and his Contemporaries,’ was by no means so civil to the royal guests as the occasion warranted.

On the 9th of November, George III., who had been married only two months, went in state with his youthful469 Queen, to dine with the Lord Mayor. It was their Majesties’ first visit to the city. Mr. Pitt, yielding to Lord Temple’s persuasions, and, as he afterwards declared, ‘against his better judgment,’ went with him in his carriage, and joined the procession. Pitt, the ‘great commoner,’ the terrible ‘Cornet of Horse,’ hated and dreaded by Sir Robert Walpole, had only just resigned office, because he could not get his colleagues to agree with him in an aggressive policy against Spain, to be at war with which power was then a passion with the people. For this reason Pitt was their idol and the court party their abomination. Hence, the result of Pitt’s joining the procession might partly have been anticipated. The royal bride and bridegroom were received by the populace with indifference, and Pitt’s late colleague with cries of ‘No Newcastle salmon!’ As for Lord Bute, he was everywhere assailed with hisses and execrations, and would probably have been torn in pieces by the mob, but for the interference of a band of butchers and prize-fighters, whom he had armed as a body-guard. All the enthusiasm of the populace was centred in Mr. Pitt, who was ‘honoured45 with the most hearty acclamations of people of all ranks; and so great was the feeling in his favour, that the mob clung about every part of the vehicle, hung upon the wheels, hugged his footman, and even kissed his horses.’

The royal bride must have been astonished, and the bridegroom was indignant at what, a few days after the banquet, he called ‘the abominable conduct of Mr. Pitt.’ The court members of parliament were directed to be personally offensive to him in the house, and all the fashionable ladies in town went to see the noble animal baited.

The year of pageants ended with matters of money. Parliament settled on Queen Charlotte 40,000l. per470 annum, to enable her the better to support the royal dignity; with a dowry of 100,000l. per annum, and Richmond Old Park and Somerset House annexed, in case she should survive his Majesty. On the 2nd of December the King went in state to the House to give the royal assent to the bill. The Queen accompanied him; and when the royal assent had been given, her Majesty rose from her seat and curtsied to him the grateful acknowledgments which were really due to the representatives of the people who gave the money.

Somerset House was but an indifferent town residence for either Queen or queen-dowager, and the King showed his taste and gratified Queen Charlotte when, in lieu of the above-named residence, he purchased for her that red-brick mansion which stood on the site of the present Buckingham Palace, and was then known as ‘Buckingham House.’ It was subsequently called the ‘Queen’s House.’ The King bought it of Sir Charles Sheffield for 21,000l., and settled it on his consort by an act of parliament obtained some years afterwards. Therein were all the children born, with the exception of their eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, who was born at St. James’s Palace; who demolished the old house in 1825, and erected on its site one of the ugliest palaces by which the sight was ever offended. Queen Victoria has had some difficulty to make it a comfortable residence; to render it beautiful was out of the power even of her Majesty’s architect, Mr. Blore. The edifice of his predecessor, Nash, defied all his efforts.

In Queen Charlotte’s time Mr. Wyatt erected a grand staircase. West’s pictures soon filled the great gallery, and that artist at least would not complain, as so many others did, that the Queen and King were mean patrons of art, seeing that the latter, to gratify his consort, paid West no less than 40,000l. for his labours. The principal471 of these pictures are now at Hampton Court. The ‘Regulus’ brought West a very liberal pension. The dining-room was adorned with pictures by Zucchero, Vandyke, Lely, Zoffani, Mytens, and Houseman. The Queen’s house, although intended as a simple asylum for its royal owners from the oppressive gorgeousness and ceremony of St. James’s, did not lack a splendour of its own. The crimson drawing-room, the second drawing-room, and the blue-velvet room, were magnificent apartments, adapted for the most showy of royal pageants, and adorned with valuable pictures. Queen Charlotte had hardly been installed in this her own ‘House,’ when her husband commenced the formation of that invaluable library which her son, on demolishing her house, made over to the nation, and is now in the British Museum.

The son just alluded to was George IV. Under the pretence of being about to repair Buckingham House, he applied to the Commons to afford the necessary supplies. These were granted under the special stipulation that repairs (and not rebuilding) were intended. The King and his architect, Nash, however, went on demolishing and reconstructing until the fine old mansion disappeared, and a hideous palace took its place, at a tremendous cost to the public. Neither of the children of Charlotte who lived to ascend the throne resided in this palace. The old building was the property of a queen-consort, the new one was first occupied by a Queen-regnant, the daughter of Charlotte’s third son, Edward. The first great event in Queen Charlotte’s life, after she became mistress of Buckingham House, was her becoming the mother of him who destroyed it—George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales.

In 1762 Horace Walpole says: ‘The King and Queen are settled for good and all at Buckingham House, and are stripping the other palaces to furnish it. In short,472 they have already fetched pictures from Hampton Court, which indicates their never living there; consequently Strawberry Hill will remain in possession of its own tranquillity, and not become a cheese-cake house to the palace. All I ask,’ says the cynic in lace ruffles, ‘all I ask of princes is not to live within five miles of me.’ Even thus early in the reign, the King’s health gave rise to some disquietude. ‘The King,’ writes Walpole to Mann, ‘had one of the last of those strong and universally epidemic colds, which, however, have seldom been fatal. He had a violent cough, and oppression on his breast, which he concealed, just as I had; but my life was of no consequence, and having no physicians in ordinary, I was cured in four nights by James’s powder, without bleeding. The King was blooded seven times and had three blisters. Thank God, he is safe, and we have escaped a confusion beyond what was ever known on the accession of the Queen of Scots. Nay, we have not even a successor born. Fazakerly, who has lived long enough to remember nothing but the nonsense of the law, maintained, according to its wise tenets, that, as the King never dies, the Duke of York must have been proclaimed King; and then be unproclaimed again on the Queen’s delivery. We have not even any standing law for the regency; but I need not paint you all the difficulties there would have been in our situation.’

The difficulty was overcome; the King recovered, the royal couple lived quietly, and when they were disposed to be gay and in company, they already exhibited a spirit of economy which may illustrate the saying, that any virtue carried to excess becomes a vice. On the 26th of November the Queen and the King saw ‘a few friends’; the invitations only included half a dozen strangers, and the entire company consisted of not more than twelve or thirteen couple. The six strangers were Lady Caroline473 Russell, Lady Jane Stewart, Lord Suffolk, Lord Northampton, Lord Mandeville, and Lord Grey. Besides these were the court habitués, namely the Duchess of Ancaster and her Grace of Hamilton, who accompanied the Queen on her first arrival. These ladies danced little: but on the other hand, Lady Effingham and Lady Egremont danced much. Then there were the six maids of honour, Lady Bolingbroke—who could not dance because she was in black gloves, and Lady Susan Stewart in attendance upon ‘Lady Augusta.’ The latter was that eldest daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at whose birth there had been such a commotion, and who was commonly called the Lady Augusta, in obedience to her father’s wishes, who was fond of this old-fashioned English style of naming our princesses. The noblemen in waiting were Lords March, Eglintoun, Cantilupe, and Huntingdon. There were ‘no sitters-by,’ except the King’s mother, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady Bute. At this select party, which commenced between half-past six and seven, the King danced the whole time with the Queen; and the Lady Augusta, future mother of the next Queen of England, with her four younger brothers. The dancing went on uninterruptedly till one in the morning: the hungry guests separated without supper; and so ended the young couple’s first and not very hilarious party.

That young couple certainly began life in a prosaically business-like way. To suit the King’s convenience, one opera night was changed from Tuesdays to Mondays, because the former was ‘post-day’ and his Majesty too much engaged to attend; and the Queen would not have gone on Tuesdays without him. There was more questionable taste exhibited on other occasions. Eight thousand pounds were expended on a new state-coach, which was ‘a beautiful object crowded with474 improprieties.’ The mixture of palm-trees and Tritons was laughed at; the latter as not being adapted to a land-carriage; the former as being as little aquatic as the Tritons were terrestrial.

It was, perhaps, with reference to the Queen’s first supperless party that Lord Chesterfield uttered a bon mot, when an addition to the peerage was contemplated. When this was mentioned in his presence, some one remarked: ‘I suppose there will be no dukes made.’ ‘Oh, yes, there will!’ exclaimed Chesterfield, ‘there is to be one’ ‘Is? who?’ ‘Lord Talbot; he is to be created Duke Humphrey, and there is to be no table kept at court but his.’

The young nobility, who had formed great expectations of the splendour and gaiety that were to result, as they thought, from the establishment of a new court, with a young couple at the head of it, were miserably disappointed that pleasure alone was not the deity enshrined in the royal dwelling. To the Queen’s palace they gave the name of Holyrood House, intending to denote thereby that it was the mere abode of chill, gloom, and meanness. But, be this as it may, the English court was now the only court in Europe at which vice was discountenanced, and virtue set as an example and insisted on in others. With respect to the routine followed there, it certainly lacked excitement, but was hardly the worse for that. The Queen passed most of her mornings in receiving instruction from Dr. Majendie in the English tongue. She was an apt scholar, improved rapidly, and though she never spoke or wrote with elegance, yet she learned to appreciate our best authors justly, and was remarkable for the perfection of taste and manner with which she read aloud. Needle-work followed study, and exercise followed needle-work. The Queen usually rode or walked in company with the King475 till dinner-time; and in the evening she played on the harpsichord, or sang aloud—and this she could do almost en artiste; or she took share in a homely game of cribbage, and closed the innocently spent day with a dance. ‘And so to bed,’ as Mr. Pepys would say—without supper.

The routine was something changed when her Majesty’s brother, Prince Charles of Strelitz, became a visitor at the English court in February 1762. He was a prince short of stature, but well-made, had fine eyes and teeth, and a very persuasive way with him. So persuasive, indeed, that he at one time contrived to express from the King 30,000l. out of the civil-list revenue, to pay the debts the prince had contracted with German creditors.

In the meantime, matters of costume, as connected with court etiquette, were not considered beneath her Majesty’s notice. Her birth-day was kept on the 18th of January, to make it as distinct as possible from the King’s, kept in June, and to encourage both winter and summer fashions. For the latter anniversary a dress was instituted of ‘stiff-bodied gowns and bare shoulders;’ and invented, it was said, ‘to thin the drawing-room.’ ‘It will be warmer, I hope,’ says Walpole, in March, ‘by the King’s birth-day, or the old ladies will catch their deaths. What dreadful discoveries will be made both on fat and lean! I recommend to you the idea of Mrs. Cavendish when half stark!’ The Queen’s drawing-rooms, however, were generally crowded by the ladies; and no wonder, when seventeen English and Scotch unmarried dukes might be counted at them. The especial birthday drawing-room on the anniversary of the King’s natal day was, however, ill attended, less on the King’s account than on that of his minister, Lord Bute. Meanwhile, court was made to the Queen by civilities shown to a476 second brother who had come over to visit her, allured by affection and the success which had attended the elder brother. Lady Northumberland’s fête to this wandering prince was a ‘pompous festine;’ ‘not only the whole house, but the garden was illuminated, and was quite a fairy scene. Arches and pyramids of lights alternately surrounded the enclosure; a diamond necklace of lamps edged the rails and descent, with a spiral obelisk of candles on each hand; and dispersed over the lawn with little bands of kettle-drums, clarinets, fifes, &c., and the lovely moon who came without a card.’ Queen Charlotte knew how to perform a graceful action gracefully as well as any queen who ever shared the throne. Thus, Lady Bolingbroke having been trusted by the Duchess of Bedford with a superb enamelled watch to exhibit to her Majesty, the latter desired her to put it on, that she might the better judge of its ornamental effect. She was obeyed, and thereupon she made a present of it to the happy lady, remarking, that the watch looked so well upon her ‘it ought to remain by Lady Bolingbroke’s side.’

But the great event of the year was the birth of the heir-apparent. It occurred at St. James’s Palace, on the 12th of August. In previous reigns such events generally took place in the presence of many witnesses; but on the present occasion the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor alone were present in that capacity.

‘Many rejoiced,’ writes Mrs. Scott, the sister of Elizabeth Montagu, ‘but none more than those who have been detained all this hot weather in town to be present at the ceremony. Among them, no one was more impatient than the chancellor, who, not considering any part of the affair as a point of law, thought his presence very unnecessary. His lordship and the archbishop477 must have had a fatiguing office; for, as she was brought to bed at seven in the morning, they must have attended all night, for fear they should be absent at the critical moment. I wish they were not too much out of humour before the prince was born to be able to welcome it properly.’

The royal christening will be, however, of more interest than details of the birth of the prince. The ceremony was performed in the grand council chamber, the Archbishop of Canterbury—‘the right rev. midwife, Thomas Secker,’ as Walpole calls him—officiating. Walpole, describing the scene, on the day after, says: ‘Our next monarch was christened, last night, George Augustus Frederick. The Princess (Dowager of Wales), the Duke of Cumberland, and the Duke of Mecklenburgh, sponsors. The Queen’s bed, magnificent and, they say, in taste, was placed in the drawing-room; though she is not to see company in form, yet it looks as if they had intended people should have been there, as all who presented themselves were admitted, which were very few, for it had not been notified; I suppose to prevent too great a crowd. All I have heard named, besides those in waiting, were the Duchess of Queensberry, Lady Dalkeith, Mrs. Grenville, and about four other ladies.’

It was precisely at the period of the christening of this royal babe that the marriage of her who was to be the mother of his future wife was first publicly spoken of. In September Walpole expresses a hope to his friend Conway that the hereditary Prince of Brunswick is ‘recovering of the wound in his loins, for they say he is to marry the Princess Augusta.’ Walpole, however, would have nothing to do with the new Prince of Wales. ‘With him,’ he says, ‘I am positive never to occupy myself. I kissed the hand of his great-great-grandfather; would it not be preposterous to tap a volume of478 future history, of which I can never see but the first pages?’

Poor Queen Charlotte did not escape scandal. Less than twenty years after her death a M. Gailliardet published, in 1836, a memoir of the celebrated Chevalier d’Eon, founded, it is said, on family papers. In this book, the young Queen Charlotte was described, in the year 1763, as giving interviews by night to the chevalier, and the Prince of Wales, just named, was said to be their son. Many years after Gailliardet’s book had appeared a M. Jourdan published ‘Un Hermaphrodite,’ which was a wholesale plagiarism from Gailliardet. Jourdan denied this fact; when Gailliardet declared that the whole story about the Queen and the chevalier was pure fiction! Jourdan then affirmed that he had nothing to do with ‘Un Hermaphrodite,’ and had only put his name to it. In this way is calumny propagated. If we may judge from a letter written about this time, by Mrs. Scott, the Queen was not a person to attract chevaliers. The Queen’s ‘person,’ she says, ‘is not the only thing that displeases. There is a coarseness and vulgarity of manners that disgust much more. She does not seem to choose to fashion herself at all.’

In 1761 not a more gorgeously attired queen, in presence of the public, was to be found than ours. But we learn that, in 1762, the first thing of which the Queen got positively weary was her jewels. At first, seeing herself endowed with them, her joy was girlish, natural, and unfeigned. But the gladness was soon over. It was the ecstacy of a week, as she herself said a quarter of a century later; and there was indifference at the end of a fortnight. ‘I thought at first,’ said she, ‘I should always choose to wear them; but the fatigue, and trouble of putting them on, and the care they required, and the fear of losing them; why, believe me, madam, in a fortnight’s time I longed for my own earlier dress and wished never to see them more.’

This was said to Miss Burney, subsequently her dresser and reader, who adds that the Queen informed her that dress and shows had never been things she cared for, even in the bloom of her youth; and that neatness and comfort alone gave her pleasure in herself as in others. The Queen confessed that ‘the first week or fortnight of being a Queen, when only in her seventeenth480 year, she thought splendour sufficiently becoming her station to believe she should choose thenceforth constantly to support it. But it was not her mind,’ says Miss Burney, ‘but only her eyes that were dazzled, and therefore her delusion speedily vanished, and her understanding was too strong to give it any chance of returning.’

This is pretty, but it has the disadvantage of not being exactly true. The Queen may have been indifferent for a while to the wearing or the value of diamonds, but later in life, if she did nurse a cherished passion, it was for these glittering gewgaws. The popular voice, at least, accused her of this passion, and before many years elapsed it was commonly said that no money was so sure to buy her favour as a present of diamonds. That she could, however, condescend to very simple tasks is well known. This is illustrated by her visit to Mrs. Garrick, at Hampton. The Queen found the ex-actress engaged in peeling onions, and Charlotte sat down, and, by helping her in her employment, saved her from the annoyance of being ashamed of it.

In 1763 the country hailed the advent of peace and the retirement of Lord Bute from office. The Queen’s popularity was greater than that of the King, and even men of extremely liberal politics greeted her ‘mild and tender virtues.’ She now encouraged trade by her splendid fêtes, and was one of those persons who, by enjoying festive grandeurs calmly, acquire a reputation for calmly despising them. In August 1763 she became the mother of a second prince, Frederick, afterwards Duke of York.

One of the first acts of the Queen, this same year, was a graceful act of benevolence. The young mother had thought and a heart for young orphans—of gentility. For parentless children of gentle blood she established a481 home in Bedfordshire. At the head of the house was placed a lady who, with many comforts, enjoyed the liberal salary of 500l. per annum. In return for this she superintended the instruction of the young ladies (who were not admitted till they had attained the age of fifteen—age of folly and of fermentation, as some one has called it) in embroidery. The first produce of their taste and toil was the property of their patroness, the young Queen, and was converted into ornaments for window curtains, chairs, sofas, and bed furniture for Windsor Castle and the ‘Queen’s House’ in St. James’s Park.

This was, perhaps, rather a calculating benevolence; but the Queen paid 500l. a year for fifty years for it, and her Majesty was not wanting in true charity. In a later period of her reign the middle classes of Windsor were thrown into much misery by the breaking of the bank there. Many individuals of the class alluded to held the 1l. notes of this bank; and the paper had now no more value than as paper. The Queen, on hearing the case, ordered her treasurer to give cash for these notes on their being presented, and this was done to the extent of 400l. Her daughters acted as clerks, and never was there so hilarious a run upon the bank as on this royal house at Windsor.

The year 1765 opened in some sense auspiciously—with a royal marriage. Caroline Matilda was the posthumous daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and was born in July 1751. The terms of her marriage with Christian, Crown Prince of Denmark, were settled in January of this year; but, on account of the extreme youth of the contracting parties, they were not carried into effect until two years had elapsed. Meanwhile, the young bride, who had been remarkable for her beauty, grace, and elegance—and above all for her vivacity—seemed almost to fade away, so nervously anxious did she482 become as to the obligation by which she was bound and its possible results. Before the espousals were completed her affianced husband had become King of Denmark, and when Queen Charlotte congratulated her sister-in-law she little thought of the hard fate that was to follow upon the ceremony. As for the following year, it was a time of much anxiety and distress, and the people were scarcely good-humoured enough in 1765 to welcome the birth of a third prince, in the person of William Henry, afterwards Duke of Clarence.

The reports circulated at this time, to the effect that the Queen interfered in state affairs, were discredited by those who certainly did not lack the means of getting at the truth. The rumour appears to have been believed by Mr. Stanhope; but Lord Chesterfield, in writing to his son, and noticing his belief in the good foundation of such a rumour, says: ‘You seem not to know the character of the Queen; here it is. She is a good woman, a good wife, a tender mother, and an unmeddling queen. The King loves her as a woman, but I verily believe has never yet spoken one word to her about business.’

The reports regarding her were at once atrocious and absurd. They were the falser because they spoke of her having insisted on a repetition of her marriage ceremony with the King, and that the same was performed by Dr. Wilmot, at Kew Palace. The motive for this proceeding was ascribed to the alleged fact of the death of Hannah Lightfoot, with whom rumour was resolved that the King had been wedded, and that now a legal marriage might be solemnised between the Queen and himself. The atrocity of rumour was illustrated by a report that in consequence of an attack of illness which had affected, for a short time, the King’s mental faculties, the Queen, armed with a law which, in the case of an interruption in the483 exercise of the royal authority, gave a power of regency to her Majesty, or other members of the royal family, assisted by a council, had exercised the most unlimited sway over the national affairs, to the injury of the nation.

The only part of this which is true is where the King’s illness is referred to. That he had been mentally affected was not known beyond the palace, and to but a very few within it. He went with the Queen to Richmond in the month of April, announcing an intention to spend a week there; but, on the third day, he appeared unexpectedly at the levée held by the Queen. This was so contrived in order to prevent a crowd. He was at the drawing-room on the following day, and at chapel on Good Friday. He looked pale, but it was the fixed plan to call him well, and far-seeing people hoped that he was so. His health was considered as very precarious, but what was chiefly dreaded was—consumption.

He acted with promptitude in this matter, by going down to the House, and in an affecting and dignified spirit, urging the necessity of appointing a regency, in case of some accident happening to himself before the heir-apparent should become of age. The struggle on this bill was one of the most violent which had ever been carried on by two adverse factions. By a mere juggle practised on the King, the clauses of the bill passed by the Lords, after some absurd discussion as to what was meant by the ‘royal family,’ excluded his mother, the Princess-dowager of Wales, as though she were not a member of it. The struggle was as fierce in the Commons; for ministers dreaded lest, with the Princess-dowager, they might get her protégé, Lord Bute, for ‘King!’ The political antagonists professed a super-excellence of what they did not possess—patriotism; and after a battle of personalities, the name of the Princess-dowager484 was inserted next after that of the Queen (whom some were desirous to exclude altogether), as capable, with certain assistance named, of exercising the power of regency, and the Lords adopted the bill which came to them thus amended.

The Queen, it is hardly necessary to observe, had no opportunity under this bill to exercise any present power, had she been ever so inclined. It was only in after years that her enemies made the accusation against her, when they wanted the memory which mendacious persons are said to chiefly require. With respect to the desired omission of the name of the King’s mother from the regency, it was fixing on her a most unmerited stigma. The attempt to prove that she was not of the royal family was to say, in other words, that she was not akin to her own son. It is not known whether the Queen herself thought so, nor did people care what a fiction of law might say thereupon. The Princess-dowager’s name was placed next to that of Queen Charlotte in the new Regency bill.

There is little more of personal detail connected with the Queen this year that is of much interest. Her eldest son already wore a long list of titles, had been honoured with the Order of the Garter, and returned brief answers to loyal deputations. He was born twice a duke, once an earl and baron, and Lord High Steward of Scotland. He was Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, and Baron of Renfrew; and a few days after his birth his mother smilingly laid upon his lap the patent whereby he was created Prince of Wales. His brother Frederick had been, ere he could speak, named Bishop of Osnaburgh; and Queen and King were equally hurt by the ‘Chapter,’ who acknowledged their diocesan, but refused to entrust to him the irresponsible guardianship of the episcopal funds. The Queen’s thoughts were drawn away from485 this matter, for a moment, by the birth (already noticed) of William Henry, on the 21st of August—the second of her children destined to ascend the throne. This was the little prince who so delighted the good Mrs. Chapone, and by his engaging ways won the heart of Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Winchester.

But while some princes were flourishing, others were fading. The health of the Duke of Cumberland, the dearly loved son of Caroline, had long been precarious. As early as April in this year his favourite sister, Amelia, residing at Gunnersbury, had felt much alarm on his account. ‘The Duke of Cumberland is actually set out for Newmarket to-day; he, too, is called much better, but it is often as true of the health of princes as of their prisoners, that there is little distance between each and their graves. There has been lately a fire at Gunnersbury which burned four rooms; her servants announced it to Princess Amelia with that wise precaution of “Madam, do not be frightened!”—accordingly, she was terrified. When they told her the truth, she said, “I am very glad; I had expectation my brother was dead.”’46 The expectation seemed natural. A few months more only were to elapse before he who was so over-praised for his generalship at Culloden, and so over-censured for his severity after it, was summoned to depart.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

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