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Title: Caroline the Illustrious, vol. 2 (of 2) : Queen-Consort of George II. and sometime Queen-Regent; a study of her life and time
Author: Wilkins, W. H. (William Henry)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Caroline the Illustrious, vol. 2 (of 2) : Queen-Consort of George II. and sometime Queen-Regent; a study of her life and time" ***
VOL. 2 (OF 2) ***
CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS
[Illustration: _Queen Caroline, and the Duke of Cumberland._
_Walter L. Colls Ph. Sc._]
Caroline the Illustrious
Queen-Consort of George II. and
sometime Queen-Regent
_A Study of her Life and Time_
BY
W. H. WILKINS, M.A., F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF “THE LOVE OF AN UNCROWNED QUEEN”
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1901
CONTENTS.
BOOK III. QUEEN CONSORT AND QUEEN REGENT.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE NEW REIGN 3
CHAPTER II.
THE QUEEN AND WALPOLE 29
CHAPTER III.
THE COURT OF QUEEN CAROLINE 53
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROYAL FAMILY 83
CHAPTER V.
CAROLINE’S FIRST REGENCY 112
CHAPTER VI.
THE QUEEN AND THE NATION 136
CHAPTER VII.
THE QUEEN AND LITERATURE 156
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EXCISE SCHEME 184
CHAPTER IX.
FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES 203
CHAPTER X.
CAROLINE AND THE CHURCH 223
CHAPTER XI.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL 249
CHAPTER XII.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 269
CHAPTER XIII.
CAROLINE’S LAST REGENCY 296
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PRINCE AND THE PATRIOTS 325
CHAPTER XV.
THE QUEEN’S ILLNESS AND DEATH 344
CHAPTER XVI.
ILLUSTRISSIMA CAROLINA 361
APPENDIX 369
INDEX 373
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
QUEEN CAROLINE AND THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND _Frontispiece_
_to face page_
KING GEORGE II. From the painting by John Shackleton in the
National Portrait Gallery 14
THE CORONATION BANQUET OF GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE 34
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. From the painting by J. B. Van Loo in the
National Portrait Gallery 46
HAMPTON COURT, TEMP. GEORGE II. 60
HENRIETTA HOWARD (COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK) 78
THE PRINCESS AMELIA (SECOND DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II.) 96
LETTER OF QUEEN CAROLINE TO THE KING OF FRANCE 114
THE ALTSTADT, HANOVER 130
THE PRINCESS CLEMENTINA (CONSORT OF PRINCE JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD
STUART). From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery 146
MRS. CLAYTON (VISCOUNTESS SUNDON) 162
JOHN, LORD HERVEY 178
PHILIP STANHOPE, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. From the painting in the
National Portrait Gallery 194
FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES 214
BENJAMIN HOADLEY, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. From a painting by Mrs.
Hoadley in the National Portrait Gallery 238
ANNE, PRINCESS ROYAL, AND THE PRINCE OF ORANGE 256
AUGUSTA, PRINCESS OF WALES, AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE 284
THE OLD TOLBOOTH, EDINBURGH, TEMP. 1736. From an old print 308
THE PRINCESSES MARY AND LOUISA (DAUGHTERS OF GEORGE II.) 328
THE PRINCESS CAROLINE (THIRD DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II.) 348
HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER ABBEY, TEMP. 1737 364
BOOK III.
QUEEN CONSORT AND QUEEN REGENT.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW REIGN.
1737.
The news of George the First’s death reached England four days after
he had breathed his last at Osnabrück. A messenger, bearing sealed
despatches from Lord Townshend, arrived at Sir Robert Walpole’s house
in Arlington Street at noon on Wednesday, June 14th. He was told that
the Prime Minister was at Chelsea, and he at once repaired thither. He
found the great man at dinner. Walpole was thunderstruck at the news,
for the old King was of so strong a constitution that, despite his
occasional fainting fits, every one expected him to live to a green old
age, as his mother had done before him. His sudden death, too, might
mean the end of the Prime Minister’s political career. But there was
no time for vain regrets--the King was dead, long live the King. So
ordering his horse to be saddled, Walpole rode off at full speed to
Richmond, where George Augustus then was, to announce the tidings and
pay homage to his new Sovereign. The day was hot, and so furiously did
he ride that he killed, his son tells us, two horses between Chelsea
and Richmond; but then his son was given to exaggeration.
Walpole arrived at Richmond Lodge about three o’clock, and requested to
be shown at once into the royal presence. The Duchess of Dorset, who
was in waiting, said it was impossible, as the Prince had undressed and
gone to bed after dinner according to his custom, and the Princess was
resting also, and no one dared disturb them. But Walpole explained that
his business brooked of no delay, and the duchess went to wake them.
The King (as he must now be called), very irate at being disturbed,
came into the ante-chamber in haste with his breeches in his hand--he
was one of those princes who are fated to appear ridiculous even at the
greatest moments of their lives. Walpole fell on one knee, kissed the
hand holding the breeches, and told his Majesty that his royal sire
was dead, and he was King of England. “Dat is von big lie,” shouted
King George the Second, as he had shouted at the Duke of Roxburgh
on a memorable occasion some time before. But Walpole, unlike the
duke, showed no resentment at being given the lie, and for all answer
produced Townshend’s despatch, which gave particulars of the late
King’s death. George snatched the letter from him and eagerly conned
it; but his face did not relax as he read, nor did his manner unbend
towards the Prime Minister. Walpole uttered some words of formal
condolence, but they were ungraciously ignored. After an awkward pause,
he asked the King his pleasure with regard to the Accession Council,
the Proclamation, and other matters necessary to be done at once,
naturally expecting that he should be commanded to attend to them.
“Go to Chiswick, and take your directions from Sir Spencer Compton,”
said the King curtly, and turned his back as an intimation that the
interview was at an end. George the Second then went to tell the great
news to his Queen, and the crestfallen Minister withdrew, to go, as
ordered, to Compton.
Walpole’s reflections on his ride to Chiswick must have been bitter
indeed. Well might he exclaim, as his fallen rival, Bolingbroke,
had done under a similar reverse: “What a world is this and how
does Fortune banter us!” For years he had been Prime Minister with
almost absolute power, enjoying to the full the confidence of his
Sovereign. Suddenly he was stripped of every shred of authority, and
dismissed (for the King’s bidding him go to Compton was tantamount to
a dismissal) without the slightest consideration, like a dishonest
servant. Walpole knew that George the Second owed him a grudge for not
having kept his promises at the reconciliation, and disliked him, as he
disliked all who enjoyed the late King’s favour. But the Prime Minister
hoped that time and Caroline’s influence would put things right. He did
not know that Pulteney had repeated certain remarks he had incautiously
made soon after the reconciliation, when Pulteney asked him what terms
he had got for the Prince of Wales. Walpole answered with a sneer:
“Why, he is to go to court again, and he will have his drums and
guards, and such fine things”. “But,” said Pulteney, “is the Prince to
be left Regent as he was when the King first left England?” Walpole
replied, “Certainly not, he does not deserve it, we have done more than
enough for him; and if it were to be done again, we would not do so
much”.[1] George the Second’s little mind resented slights of this kind
more than greater wrongs, and he now took his revenge.
Sir Spencer Compton, to whom the disconcerted Minister sadly made his
way, had been Speaker of the House of Commons, Treasurer of the Prince
of Wales’s Household, and Paymaster of the Army. Compton was much
more of a courtier than a politician. He was a man of the mediocre
order of ability that often makes a good and safe official; he knew
all about forms, procedure, and precedents, but he was not a leader
of men, and he was quite unprepared for, and quite unequal to, the
great position now thrust upon him. Walpole, who knew the man with
whom he had to deal, felt towards Compton no personal resentment. He
acquainted him briefly with George the First’s death, gave him the new
King’s commands, and added on his own behalf: “Everything is in your
hands; I neither could shake your power if I would, nor would if I
could. My time has been, yours is beginning; but as we all must depend
in some degree upon our successors, and as it is always prudent for
these successors, by way of example, to have some regard for their
predecessors, that the measure they mete out may be measured to them
again--for this reason I put myself under your protection, and for
this reason I expect you will give it. I desire no share of power or
business, one of your white sticks,[2] or any employment of that sort,
is all I ask, as a mark from the Crown that I am not abandoned to the
enmity of those whose envy is the only source of their hate.”[3]
Though Compton was astonished at the news, he did not conceal his
delight at the unexpected honour that had fallen upon him. Walpole’s
speech flattered his vanity, and perhaps also touched his heart; he
grandiloquently promised him his protection, and, thinking he had
nothing to fear from the fallen statesman, took him into his confidence
and consulted him as to how he should proceed. The two Ministers then
drove together to Devonshire House to see the Duke of Devonshire,
President of the Council, and arrange for an immediate meeting of the
Privy Council. At forms Compton was an adept, but when it came to the
speech that had to be put into the King’s mouth he was nonplussed. He
took Walpole aside, and asked him, as he had composed all the speeches
of the late King, to compose this one also. Walpole pretended to demur,
but as Compton persisted, he consented and withdrew to a private room
in Devonshire House to draft the speech, while Compton set off to do
homage to the King and Queen. Walpole must have chuckled over his task,
for if the precedent-loving Compton had only consulted the back folios
of the _Gazette_ he would have found plenty of models for the King’s
speech; but he was so fussed with forms and ceremonies, and so elated
with the sense of his new importance, that he was incapable of thinking
coherently.
The King and Queen had driven up from Richmond in the afternoon, and
were now arrived at Leicester House. The great news had spread abroad,
and all London was flocking to Leicester Fields. When Compton arrived
there, the square was so thronged with people who had assembled to
cheer their Majesties that the coaches and chairs of the mighty, who
were hurrying to pay their court, could scarce make way through the
crowd. Inside Leicester House the walls were already hung with purple
and black, and the Queen appeared in “black bombazine”; but these were
the only signs of mourning, all else wore an aspect of rejoicing and
congratulation. The new King and Queen held a court, the rooms were
thronged with the great nobility and high officials, and persons of
divers parties and creeds struggled up and down the stairs, all anxious
to kiss their Majesties’ hands, and to profess their loyalty and
devotion. The Queen, who had a keen sense of irony, must have smiled
to herself when she contrasted the crowded rooms before her with the
thinly attended receptions which Leicester House (except on great
occasions such as birthdays) had witnessed during the past few years.
This was the proudest hour of Caroline’s life. She had reached the
summit of her ambition, she had become Queen. But the mere show of
sovereignty did not content her, she was determined to be the power
behind the throne greater than the throne. It was not enough for her
that she had become Queen through her husband, she was determined to
rule through him also. Did this inscrutable woman, we wonder, in this
her hour of glory, recall the parallel Leibniz had drawn long before,
when the prospects of the House of Hanover were darkest, between her
and England’s greatest Queen, Elizabeth? May-be, for, like Elizabeth,
Caroline determined to have her Cecil. She knew there was but one man
in England capable of maintaining the Hanoverian dynasty upon the
throne in peace, and that one was Walpole. She had been dismayed when
the King told her that he had sent for Compton, for she knew Compton’s
weakness. But, like a wise woman she did not attempt to thwart her
husband in the first heat of his resentment against his father’s
favourite minister, who had been, willingly or unwillingly, the late
King’s mouthpiece for many slights to him, and perhaps, too, she
thought it would be good for Walpole to be taught a lesson. She bided
her time.
Compton at once had audience of the King. When he came out from the
royal closet he walked across the courtyard to his coach between lines
of bowing and fawning courtiers, all anxious to bask in the rays of the
rising sun. They knew full well what this audience portended. Compton,
greatly flattered by this homage, drove back to Devonshire House,
where he found that the man whom he had superseded had finished the
King’s speech. Compton was graciously pleased to approve the draft; he
took it and copied it in his own handwriting. He then again repaired
to Leicester House to present it to the King. On this occasion he was
accompanied by the Duke of Devonshire and other privy councillors,
including Walpole, who were to be present at the Accession Council.
George the Second liked the speech well enough, but found fault with
one paragraph and desired that it should be altered. Compton wished it
to stand, for he knew not how to change it, but the King was obdurate
and very testy at being opposed. Compton was then so incredibly
foolish, from the point of view of his own interest, as to ask Walpole
to go to the King’s closet and see what he could do. Walpole went,
nothing loath, and improved the occasion by declaring to the King his
willingness to serve him either in or out of office. This was the
Queen’s opportunity. According to some, it was she who suggested that
Walpole should be sent for; she certainly suggested to the King that
perhaps he had been a little hasty, and it would be bad for his affairs
to employ a man like Compton, who had already shown himself inferior in
ability to the Minister whom he was to succeed. But Caroline could do
no more at this juncture than suggest, and leave the leaven to work in
the King’s mind.
George the Second held his Accession Council that same night at
Leicester House. He read his speech to his faithful councillors in
which he lamented “the sudden and unexpected death of the King, my
dearest father,” he spoke of his “love and affection” for England and
declared his intention of preserving the laws and liberties of the
kingdom, and upholding the constitution as it stood. If he felt any
relenting towards Walpole it was not visible in his manner. Compton
took the first place, and the man who had hitherto dominated the
councils of the King, and was still nominally Prime Minister, was
completely ignored by the new Sovereign. The office-seekers were not
slow to follow the lead. For the next few days Leicester House was
crowded every day, but whenever Walpole appeared the courtiers shrank
away from him as though he had the plague. Walpole himself, though he
knew the utter weakness of Compton, had no hope of being continued
in office, and hourly expected to receive the King’s command to give
up the seals. “I shall certainly go out,” he said to his friend Sir
William Yonge, after the Council, “but let me advise you not to go into
violent opposition, as we must soon come in again.” Yonge quickly had
experience of going out, for he was dismissed the next day, the King
had always hated him and called him “stinking Yonge”; Lord Malpas,
Walpole’s son-in-law, was dismissed also. But the public announcement
of the Prime Minister’s dismissal tarried unaccountably--unaccountably
that is to those who were not behind the scenes.
The Queen’s influence was now beginning to tell. At first she persuaded
the King to delay, for she knew that if he delayed he would reflect,
and if he reflected he would change his mind. She reminded him of the
trouble a change of Ministers would involve before he was comfortably
seated on the throne, and she knew the King hated trouble. The King
objected to Walpole’s notorious greed for gold, but the Queen met this
by saying that, with so many opportunities of amassing wealth, he must
by this time have become so rich that he would want no more, and this,
in a lesser degree, applied to his colleagues. “The old leeches,” she
cynically added, “will not be so hungry as the new ones, and will know
their business much better.” The critical situation of foreign affairs
was another of the arguments used by the Queen in favour of Walpole,
for no one had the same grasp of the tangled skeins of foreign policy
as he. The European courts, which did not understand the working of
the English Constitution, might become alarmed at a sudden change of
Ministry and imagine that it foretold a change in England’s foreign
policy, thus creating a general distrust, which would be dangerous to
the reigning dynasty, more especially as there was always the fear
of secret negotiations going on between James and the Roman Catholic
courts of Europe. This was particularly true of France, with whom
it was of the utmost importance to maintain good relations at the
present juncture. Whilst Caroline was thus arguing, as luck would have
it, Horace Walpole, the Prime Minister’s brother, who was ambassador
to France, arrived in England with a letter which his diplomacy had
obtained from Cardinal de Fleury, pledging his master to maintain
the treaties France had entered into with the late King, and to show
goodwill towards George and ill-will to James. All these considerations
told. But the most cogent argument which the Queen urged, and the one
which had undoubtedly the most weight with the King, was the settlement
of the Civil List. The new Civil List, Caroline reminded the King, was
pressing, but a change of Ministers was not. There was nobody so able
as Walpole to secure for them a handsome increase of the Civil List,
for, as the old King said, he “could turn stones into gold”. Why then
let private resentment lead to personal inconvenience?
Nothing was done during the King’s stay at Leicester House, and in the
eyes of the world Compton was still first in the King’s favour. At the
end of the week the Court moved to Kensington, and by that time the
Queen had worked so well that the King sent for Walpole, and asked him
about the Civil List. The new monarch mentioned a sum so large that
Walpole was staggered, accustomed though he was to Hanoverian rapacity;
but he showed nothing of his feeling in his face, and promised to do
his utmost to serve his Majesty. He then had an audience of the Queen,
who confided to him that Compton’s estimate had by no means satisfied
the King’s demands, and he had proposed that she should have only a
poor £60,000 a year. Walpole at once grasped the situation. He declared
that he would obtain a jointure for her Majesty of £100,000 a year,
which was £40,000 more than Compton had proposed, and he would force
Parliament to meet the King’s wishes. It was said that Walpole bought
his influence with the Queen for this extra £40,000 a year, but that
was not wholly true. Quite apart from money, Caroline had wit enough
to see that the interests of the House of Hanover could best be served
by Walpole, and of all English statesmen he was the one who could most
be trusted to frustrate the Jacobites--for the rival claims of the
Stuarts were an ever present danger to the Hanoverian family until
1745. She was, of course, not averse to receiving something in return
for her support, and Walpole, it must be admitted, paid, or rather made
the nation pay, for it handsomely. In addition to the Queen’s £100,000
a year, Somerset House and Richmond Lodge were made over to her. Her
income was double what any queen-consort had enjoyed before, and more
than any has been granted since.
[Illustration: KING GEORGE II.
_From the Painting by John Shackleton in the National Portrait
Gallery._]
Walpole now realised that all that lay between him and power was a
question of money. He therefore went next morning to the King with
carefully prepared estimates. He proposed that his Majesty’s
Civil List should consist primarily of the £700,000 a year paid to
the late King; £100,000 more, which had been paid directly to the
Prince of Wales in the last reign, but which would now be vested in
the King to make what allowance he pleased to his eldest son; and a
further increase of £130,000 a year arising out of certain funds. In
all, therefore, the King would receive the enormous sum of more than
£900,000 a year. This George agreed to, for though he would have liked
more, he had the sense to see that it was impossible to get it. The
Queen had impressed upon him that Walpole was the only man who could
carry such a large increase through the House of Commons. Pulteney and
other Opposition politicians were ready to promise more to gain office,
but their promises were nothing worth, for they had neither the ability
nor the power to carry a large grant through Parliament. The King
therefore took Walpole by the hand, and said that he had considered the
matter, and intended to continue him in office on the understanding
that he would carry through the Civil List, at the sum named. He added
significantly: “Consider, Sir Robert, what makes me easy in this matter
will prove for your ease too; it is for my life it is to be fixed, and
it is for your life”.
Matters thus being settled, the Queen that night at the drawing-room
made known her approval of Walpole in a characteristic manner. Lady
Walpole had come to court to pay her respects to the King and Queen,
but she could not make her way to the royal daïs, for the lords and
ladies turned their backs on the wife of the fallen Minister (as they
considered him), and refused to yield her place. By dint of much
struggling she managed to reach the third row, where she was espied
by the Queen, who, beckoning to her, called out: “There, I am sure,
I see a friend.” The crowd in front immediately divided, and Lady
Walpole performed her obeisance in the sight of the wondering court.
The King and Queen smiled, and chatted with her some little time.
All the courtiers noted it, and, “as I came away,” said Lady Walpole
afterwards, “I might have walked over their heads had I pleased”. Thus
Compton’s brief dream of authority vanished, and Walpole’s tenure in
power was assured. The crowd of placemen who had surrounded Compton
transferred their attentions once more to Walpole, and the former was
now as much deserted as the latter had been. The most extraordinary
part of the whole affair was that, though Compton’s friends, chief
among whom were Mrs. Howard, the Duke of Argyll and Lord Chesterfield,
were plunged into despondency by his fall, Compton himself heeded
little these vicissitudes, and was content to be given, by way of
compensation, a place about the court, the garter, and a peerage under
the title of Earl of Wilmington. If the man had not been such a fool,
he might almost have passed for a philosopher.
When Parliament met a week later it was seen by all the world that
Walpole retained his old place. It was Walpole who proposed and
carried through Parliament the bloated Civil List. Such was the
Minister’s power that no one in the House of Commons dared raise
his voice against it except Shippen the Jacobite, who was known as
“Downright Shippen” for his outspokenness. He had been sent to the
Tower in 1717 for proclaiming in the House of Commons the obvious
truth that George the First “was a stranger to our language and
constitution”; yet, avowed Jacobite though Shippen remained, Walpole
never repeated this error. Walpole had a great respect for him and used
to say he was the only man in Parliament whose price he did not know.
Shippen on his part declared: “Robin and I are two honest men, he is
for King George and I am for King James, but these men in long cravats
only desire place under King George _or_ King James”. Parliament,
having duly passed the Civil List, was dissolved by the King in person,
who had one great advantage over his father in that he was able to read
his speeches in English, albeit with a broad German accent. Walpole
now had it all his own way. All the old King’s Ministers were kept
in office, even the Duke of Newcastle whom the King had especially
hated--all, that is, except Lord Berkeley, who was forced to resign
in consequence of the Queen having found in the late King’s cabinet
a paper (of which mention has already been made) containing a plan
to kidnap the Prince of Wales and send him off to America. Berkeley,
who had drawn up the document, found it convenient to withdraw to
the Continent. No other changes of importance were made. Malpas was
reinstated; Yonge had to remain out of office for a little time longer,
but was eventually given a small post.
The Jacobites had always expected that the death of George the First
would, in some way, benefit the Stuart cause--in what way it is not
clear, for George the Second when Prince of Wales was less unpopular
than his father. But the Jacobites hugged the hope that the death of
the first Hanoverian king would plunge the country into confusion,
and so it might have done, if George the First had not been so
inconsiderate as to die at a moment when the Jacobites were in great
confusion themselves. For the last two or three years James’s little
court had been distracted by internal jealousies and intrigues. Lord
Mar, who superseded Bolingbroke, had, notwithstanding all his services,
been superseded by Hay, whom James appointed his Secretary of State
and created Earl of Inverness. Hay had a wife, who shared in these
barren honours, which, it was said, she had done much to win. Her
brother, Murray, James created Earl of Dunbar. This trio, of whom the
lady was the most arrogant, entirely governed James, who, like a true
Stuart, was swayed by favourites. They created great dissatisfaction
at his court. It was not long before his consort, Clementina, who was
a princess of great beauty and virtue, but extremely high-spirited,
had cause to complain of the insolence of Inverness and his wife. It
was said that Lady Inverness was James’s mistress, and colour was lent
to the rumour by the fact that Clementina insisted upon her dismissal
from her court. James refused, and she withdrew from her husband’s
palace and retired to the convent of St. Cecilia at Rome. A long
correspondence ensued between James and Clementina, but she declined
to return unless Lady Inverness was dismissed, and so brought about
a virtual separation. This domestic scandal did great harm to the
Stuart cause among the Roman Catholic princes of Europe, all of whom
warmly espoused Clementina’s side. The Emperor, who was her kinsman,
was highly displeased, the Queen of Spain, who was her friend, was
indignant, the Jacobites in England were divided amongst themselves,
and in Scotland James’s followers fell off everywhere in numbers and in
zeal. The strongest representations were made to James from every side,
but for a long time he turned a deaf ear to them all. At last, after
protracted negotiations, he accepted Inverness’s resignation and Lady
Inverness went with her husband. Clementina agreed to leave her convent
and rejoin her husband who was then at Bologna. She was actually on the
road when the news arrived of George the First’s death. Immediately all
domestic considerations were swallowed up in the political necessities
of the moment.
Seeing the advisability of being nearer England at this crisis, James
set out from Bologna on the pretext of meeting his consort, but turning
back half-way, he posted with all speed to Lorraine. As soon as he
arrived at Nancy in Lorraine he sent a messenger to Atterbury, who
was acting as his agent in Paris, another to Lord Orrery, his agent
in London, and a third to Lockhart at Liège, who was acting as his
agent for Scotland. James had no lack of courage, and was anxious to
set out for the Highlands at once, though he had neither a settled
scheme nor promise of foreign aid. But the news he received from the
north of the Tweed was discouraging, and the despatches from England
were worse. Lord Strafford wrote to him[4] saying that the tide in
favour of the “Prince and Princess of Hanover,” as he called them,
was too strong at present for the Jacobites to resist, and it would
be better to wait until dissatisfaction broke out again, which he
anticipated would not be long. “I am convinced,” he wrote, “that the
same violent and corrupt measures taken by the father will be pursued
by the son, who is passionate, proud, and peevish, and though he talks
of ruling by himself, he will just be governed as his father was. But
his declarations that he will make no distinction of parties, and his
turning off the Germans make him popular at present.” Strafford, like
many others, made the mistake of leaving Queen Caroline out of his
calculations.
It was impossible for James to stay in Lorraine, for the French
Government, at the instigation of Walpole, ordered the Duke of Lorraine
to expel the “Pretender” from his territory. The duke, who was only a
vassal of France, was forced to obey, and urged his unwelcome guest to
leave Lorraine within three days. So James withdrew under protest. “In
my present situation,” he wrote to Atterbury, “I cannot pretend to do
anything essential for my interest, and all that remains is that the
world should see that I have done my part.”[5] It must be admitted that
he was ready to do it bravely.
James first sought refuge in the Papal State of Avignon, but here again
the relentless English Government, acting through the French, managed
to hunt him out, and the following year the heir of our Stuart Kings
was forced to return a fugitive to Italy. He was joined by Clementina
and afterwards lived harmoniously with her. Unfortunate in all else,
James was at least fortunate in his consort, for all authorities unite
in praising her grace and goodness, her talents and charity.
The immediate danger of a Jacobite rising was thus warded off, but so
long as James and his two sons lived the House of Hanover could not
enjoy undisputed title to the throne of England. In these early days,
as Caroline knew well, it behoved the princes of the new dynasty to
walk warily and court the popular goodwill, for there was always an
alternative king in James, who by a turn of Fortune’s wheel might find
himself upon the throne of his fathers. Though the official world and
most of those in high places were all for the Hanoverian succession,
and though Walpole had the means to corrupt members of Parliament and
buy constituencies as he would, yet the heart of the people remained
very tender towards the exiled royal family and felt a profound
compassion for their misfortunes.
The excitement consequent on the new reign continued for some months,
and the King, not having had time to make himself enemies, was, to
outward semblance, popular. A good deal was due to interested motives.
The court was crowded with personages struggling for place. Lord Orrery
wrote to James inveighing bitterly against “the civility, ignorance
and poor spirit of our nobility and gentry, striving who shall sell
themselves at the best price to the court, but resolved to sell
themselves at any”. Yet he is constrained to add: “There do not appear
to be many discontented people”.[6] Pope, too, who was now quite out
of favour at court, wrote to a friend that the new reign “has put the
whole world into a new state; but,” he adds enviously, “the only use I
have, shall, or wish to make of it, is to observe the disparity of men
from themselves in a week’s time; desultory leaping and catching of
new modes, new manners and that strong spirit of life with which men,
broken and disappointed, resume their hopes, their solicitations, their
ambitions”. The political Jeremiahs of the time bewailed the wholesale
trafficking in places, and the universal corruption. The King himself
did not set a high example of public or private honesty; he had wrung
the highest sum he could from Parliament for his Civil List, and at
one of his early Councils he distinguished himself by an act which can
only be described as dishonest. The timid and time-serving Archbishop
of Canterbury, old Dr. Wake, produced the late King’s will, which had
been entrusted to him, and handed it to George, fully expecting him to
open it and read it to the Council. The King took it without a word,
put it into his pocket, and walked out of the room. The Archbishop was
so taken aback at this proceeding, that neither he nor the other privy
councillors present raised a word in protest. George probably burnt
the will after reading it, in any case it was never seen again. But
the old King, who probably feared that some such fate would befall his
testament, had taken the precaution to make a second copy, which he
entrusted to the safe keeping of his cousin, the Duke of Wolfenbüttel.
The duke soon intimated this fact to the new King of England, and at
the same time hinted that he had no wish to make matters disagreeable
(which he could easily do if he wished, for the King and Queen of
Prussia were furious), if his silence were made worth his while. George
took the hint, and despatched a messenger to Wolfenbüttel promising the
duke a subsidy. In return the messenger brought back the duplicate of
the will, and this too was destroyed.
The only excuse that can be urged for the King’s conduct, which
probably defrauded among others his sister, the Queen of Prussia,
and his son Prince Frederick, was that George the First had treated
the will of his consort, Sophie Dorothea of Celle, in the same way,
to the detriment, it was suspected, of both his son and his daughter.
George the Second also, when Electoral Prince of Hanover, had reason
to believe that his father had unjustly deprived him of a substantial
inheritance which had been left him by his maternal grandfather, the
Duke of Celle. The burning of wills seems to have been a peculiarity of
the Hanoverian family at this time, for a year or two later, Frederick,
Prince of Wales, accused his father of destroying the will of his uncle
Ernest Augustus Duke of York and Bishop of Osnabrück. He died a year
after his brother, George the First, and both Prince Frederick and the
Queen of Prussia declared that they would have largely benefited by his
death had it not been for the chicanery of George the Second. Queen
Caroline always stoutly denied this imputation, and maintained that the
Duke of York had nothing to leave, except £50,000 which he left to his
nephew King George, and his jewels which he bequeathed to his niece the
Queen of Prussia, to whom they were immediately sent. But neither the
King nor the Queen of Prussia were satisfied with this explanation,
and they also had a further dispute with George about the French
possessions of his mother, Sophie Dorothea, which she had inherited
through her mother, Eléonore d’Olbreuse, who was descended from an
ancient Huguenot family of Poitou.
The person who probably lost most by the destruction of George the
First’s will was the Duchess of Kendal, but she did not venture to
lift her voice in protest. George the Second no doubt felt that she
had amassed more than she deserved during the late King’s lifetime,
and if he allowed her to remain in peaceable possession of her plunder
it was as much as she had any right to expect. The duchess seems to
have thought so too, but her daughter, Lady Walsingham, who was also
the late King’s daughter, was not so complaisant. When a few years
later Lord Chesterfield married her in the belief that she was a great
heiress (in which hope he was disappointed), she confided to him that
George the First had left her £40,000 in his will, which had never been
paid. Lord Chesterfield, who was then out of favour at court and had
no hope of regaining it, instituted, or threatened to institute, legal
proceedings to recover the legacy. The case never came into court, for
half the sum, £20,000, was offered, and accepted, as a compromise.
The aged Duchess of Kendal was the only person in the world who really
mourned the late King. Within a week of his death George the First
was as completely forgotten as though he had never been; the only
reminder of his reign was the official mourning. The Duchess of Kendal
had accompanied him on his last journey, but, being indisposed by the
sea voyage, she had tarried at the Hague a day to recover, and, like
Lord Townshend, was following the King on the road to Hanover, when
a messenger rode up to her coach with the tidings of his death. The
duchess was overwhelmed with grief; she beat her breast, tore her hair,
and rent the air with her cries. But her sorrow did not get the better
of her prudence, for, not being sure of the reception that awaited her
from the new King, she resolved to remove herself from his Hanoverian
dominions, and repaired to the neighbouring territory of Wolfenbüttel.
Her fears proved to be groundless, for Queen Caroline harboured towards
the ex-mistress no feelings of ill-will, and it followed that the King
did not either. On the contrary, Caroline had liked the duchess, who,
unlike Lady Darlington, was no mischief-maker, and had personally
interceded with George the First, though unsuccessfully, to restore
her children to the Princess. Moreover she was such an old-established
institution that Caroline had come to look upon her almost in the light
of the late King’s wife. The Queen wrote the following letter to her
within a fortnight of George the First’s death:--
“KENSINGTON, _June 25th, 1727_.
“My first thought, my dear Duchess, has been of you in the misfortune
that has befallen us; I know well your devotion and love for the
late King, and I fear for your health; only the resignation which
you have always shown to the divine will can sustain you under such
a loss. I wish I could convey to you how much I feel for you, and
how anxious I am about your health, but it is impossible for me to
do so adequately. I cannot tell you how greatly this trouble has
affected me. I had the honour of knowing the late King, you know that
to know him was sufficient to make one love him also. I know that
you always tried to render good service to the King (George II.); he
knows it too, and will remember it himself to you by letter. I hope
you realise that I am your friend, it is my pleasure and my duty
to remind you of the fact and to tell you that I and the King will
always be glad to do all we can to help you. Write to me, I pray you,
and give me an opportunity to show how much I love you.--CAROLINE.”
It is impossible to accept literally these expressions of affection.
Allowing for exaggeration they do credit to Caroline’s heart, but
the letter was probably dictated as much by prudence as by sympathy,
for the Duchess of Kendal was then at Wolfenbüttel, and the Duke of
Wolfenbüttel had the duplicate of the late King’s will. Caroline was
anxious to avoid a family scandal, for she knew by experience how bad
these things were for the dynasty, and in the negotiations which passed
between George the Second and the duke it is probable that the Duchess
of Kendal played a part, though it is improbable that she received any
portion of the subsidy. That matters were amicably arranged is shown
by the fact that a few months later the duchess returned to England,
and took up her abode at Kendal House, Twickenham, where she lived
in comfortable retirement until the end of her days. She no longer
appeared at court, but the King and Queen would never permit her to
be molested in any way--so she may be said to have enjoyed their
protection. She made a cult of her George’s memory, dressing always as
a widow and wearing the deepest weeds. She was of a pious, not to say
superstitious, turn of mind, and declared that George the First had
told her that his devotion was so great that he would return to her
even after death. So one day when a raven hopped in at the window the
bereaved duchess took it into her head that this was the reincarnation
of the dead King. She captured the bird, put it into a golden cage,
kept it always by her, and provided for it in her will. Her death took
place in 1743, at the advanced age of eighty-five years. Her wealth was
divided among her German relations, and Kendal House was converted into
a tea garden and afterwards pulled down.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER I:
[1] Pulteney’s _Answer to an infamous Libel_.
[2] The officers of the Royal Household carried white wands.
[3] Hervey’s _Memoirs_.
[4] The Earl of Strafford to James, 21st June, 1727.
[5] James to Atterbury, 9th August, 1727.
[6] Lord Orrery to James, August, 1727.
CHAPTER II.
THE QUEEN AND WALPOLE.
George the First was buried at Herrenhausen in accordance with his
expressed wish. His funeral did not take place until some three months
after his death, and the new King was represented at it by his uncle
the Duke of York. His decision not to go to Hanover for his father’s
obsequies gave rise to much satisfaction in England, and this combined
with his summary dismissal of the Hanoverian favourites was quoted as a
proof of his English predilections.
The court mourning came to an end soon after the funeral, and
preparations were pushed forward with all speed for the coronation.
George the Second determined that it should be a pageant from which
no splendid detail was missing. The King and Queen ordered robes of
extraordinary richness, but Caroline was badly off for jewels. Queen
Anne had possessed a great number of beautiful gems, but Schulemburg,
Kielmansegge, and the other German favourites had so despoiled Anne’s
jewel-chest, that nothing was left for the new Queen but a solitary
pearl necklace. Caroline, however, rose to the occasion and gathered
together for the coronation not only all her personal jewels which
went to make her crown, but many more. When the great day arrived she
appeared, we are told, wearing “on her head and shoulders all the
pearls she could borrow from ladies of quality from one end of the
town, and on her petticoat all the diamonds she could hire of the Jews
and jewellers at the other”.
The coronation of King George the Second and Queen Caroline took
place on October 11th, 1727, with all the solemnity suitable for the
occasion, and more than the usual magnificence. The day was gloriously
fine, and multitudes of people lined the gaily decorated streets.
Caroline was the first Queen Consort to be crowned at Westminster Abbey
since Anne of Denmark, consort of James the First, from whose daughter
Elizabeth the House of Hanover derived its title to the British Crown.
The coincidence was hailed as a propitious omen. The Queens-Consort
subsequent to Anne of Denmark had been Roman Catholics, and Anne and
Mary the Second were Queens-Regnant. Caroline was determined that she
would not be relegated to the background, and, so far as circumstances
permitted, the ceremonial at this coronation followed more closely
that of William and Mary than of James the First and Anne of Denmark.
Yet Mary was a Queen-Regnant who placed all her power in her husband’s
hands; Caroline was a Queen-Consort who took all her power from her
husband’s hands. No two women could be more unlike.
On the day of the coronation the King and Queen set out from St.
James’s Palace before nine o’clock in the morning. The King went to
Westminster Hall direct. The Queen, who put on everything new for the
occasion “even to her shift,” was carried down through St. James’s
Park in her chair to Black Rod’s Room in the House of Lords. There she
was vested in her state robes, and waited until the officials came to
escort her to Westminster Hall. She took her place there by the King’s
side at the upper end of the hall, seated like him in a chair of state
under a golden canopy; the Queen’s chair was to the left of the King’s.
The ceremony of presenting the sword and spurs was then gone through,
and the Dean and Canons of Westminster arrived from the Abbey bearing
the Bible and part of the regalia. The King’s regalia was St. Edward’s
crown, borne upon a cushion of cloth of gold, the orb with the cross,
the sceptre with the dove, the sceptre with the cross, and St. Edward’s
staff. The Queen’s regalia consisted of her crown, her sceptre with
the cross, and the ivory rod with the dove. All these were severally
presented to their Majesties, and then delivered to the lords who were
commissioned to bear them.
At noon a procession on foot was formed from Westminster Hall to the
Abbey. A way had been raised for the purpose, floored with boards,
covered with blue cloth, and railed on either side. The procession was
headed by a military band, and began with the King’s herbwoman and her
maids who strewed flowers and sweet herbs. It was composed in order of
precedence from the smallest officials (even the organ blower was not
forgotten) up to the great officers of state. The peers and peeresses
wearing their robes of state and carrying their coronets in their hands
walked in this procession in order mete, from the barons and baronesses
up to the dukes and duchesses. The Lord Privy Seal, the Archbishop of
York and the Lord High Chancellor followed. Then, after an interval of
a few paces came the Queen, preceded by her crown which was borne by
the Duke of St. Albans. The Queen was supported on either side by the
Bishops of Winchester and London, and she majestically walked alone “in
her royal robes of purple velvet, richly furred with ermine, having a
circle of gold set with large jewels upon her Majesty’s head, going
under a canopy borne by the Barons of the Cinque Ports, forty gentlemen
pensioners going on the outsides of the canopy, and the Serjeants of
arms attending”.[7] The Queen’s train was borne by the Princess Royal
and the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, who were vested in purple robes
of state, with circles on their heads; their coronets were borne behind
them by three peers. The princesses were followed by the four ladies of
the Queen’s Household, the Duchess of Dorset, the Countess of Sussex,
Mrs. Herbert and Mrs. Howard. Immediately after the Queen’s procession
came the Bishop of Coventry bearing the Holy Bible on a velvet cushion.
Then, under a canopy of cloth of gold, walked “His Sacred Majesty, King
George II., in his royal robes of crimson velvet, furred with ermine
and bordered with gold lace, wearing on his head a cap of estate of
crimson velvet, adorned with large jewels, and turned up with ermine”.
The King was supported on either side by bishops, and his train was
borne by four eldest sons of noblemen and the Master of the Robes, and
he was followed by a numerous and splendid company of officials. At the
great west door of the Abbey the procession was met by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, the Dean of Westminster and other ecclesiastical
dignitaries. It moved slowly up the nave to the singing of an anthem.
The King and Queen seated themselves on chairs of state, facing the
altar, and the coronation service, which is really an interpolation
in the office of Holy Communion, began. The Archbishop proceeded with
the Communion service until the Nicene Creed, after which a special
sermon was preached by the Bishop of Oxford. The sermon over, the King
subscribed the Declaration against Transubstantiation and took the
Coronation Oath.
The King then approached the altar, and knelt to be crowned. He was
anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury upon his head, his breast, and
the palms of his hands. He was presented with the spurs, girt with the
sword, and vested with the armills and the imperial pall; the orb with
the cross was placed in his left hand, and the ring was put upon the
fourth finger of his right hand. The Archbishop also delivered to the
kneeling King the sceptre with the cross, and the rod with the dove,
and, assisted by the other bishops present, “put the crown reverently
upon His Majesty’s head, at which sight all the spectators repeated
their loud shouts, the trumpets sounded, and upon a signal given the
great guns in the Park and the Tower were fired. The peers then put
on their coronets.” When the shouts ceased the Archbishop proceeded
with the divine office. He delivered the Bible to the King and read
the benedictions. “His Majesty was thereupon pleased to kiss the
Archbishops and Bishops as they knelt before him one after another.”
Then the _Te Deum_ was sung and the King was lifted upon his throne
and the peers did their homage. During this ceremony medals of gold
were given to the peers and peeresses, and medals of silver were thrown
among the congregation.
[Illustration: THE CORONATION BANQUET OF GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE.]
The Queen now advanced for her coronation. “Her Majesty, supported by
the Bishops of London and Winchester, knelt at the steps of the altar,
and, being anointed with the holy oil on the head and breasts, and
receiving the ring, the Archbishop reverently set the crown upon her
Majesty’s head, whereupon the three princesses and the peeresses put on
their coronets, and her Majesty having received the sceptre with the
cross and the ivory rod with the dove, was conducted to her throne.”
The King and Queen then made their oblations and received the Holy
Communion.
When the long service was over their Majesties proceeded to St.
Edward’s Chapel, where the King was arrayed in a vesture of purple
velvet, but the Queen retained her robes of state. Their Majesties,
wearing their crowns, then returned on foot to Westminster Hall, and
the long train of peers and peeresses, all wearing their coronets,
followed.
In Westminster Hall the King and Queen took their seats on a daïs at a
high table across the upper end of the hall; the three princesses sat
at one end of this table. The nobility and other persons of quality
bidden to the feast seated themselves at tables running down the hall,
and the coronation banquet began. After the first course had been
served, the King’s Champion, who enjoyed that office by virtue of
being Lord of the Manor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire, entered. He was
completely armed in a suit of white armour and was mounted on a “goodly
white horse richly caparisoned”. The Champion carried a gauntlet in his
right hand, and his helmet was adorned with a plume of feathers--red,
white, and blue. Approaching their Majesties’ table the Champion
proclaimed his challenge in a loud voice:--
“_If any person of what degree soever, high or low, shall deny or
gainsay Our Sovereign Lord King George II., King of Great Britain,
France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., and next heir to Our
Sovereign Lord King George I., the last King deceased, to be the Right
Heir to the Imperial Crown of this Realm of Great Britain, or that he
ought not to enjoy the same; here is his Champion who saith that he
lyeth and is a false Traytor, being ready in person to combat with him
and in this quarrel will adventure his life against him on what day
soever he shall be appointed._”
Then the Champion cast down his gauntlet, which, when it had lain
some few minutes, was picked up by a herald and re-delivered to him.
The Champion went through this performance three times, and after
the third he made a low obeisance to the King. Whereupon the cup
bearer brought to the King a gold bowl of wine with a cover, and his
Majesty drank to the Champion and sent him the bowl by the cup bearer.
The Champion, still on horseback, put on his gauntlet, received the
bowl and drank from it, and after making a second reverence to their
Majesties, departed from the hall, taking with him the bowl and cover
as his fee. As soon as the Champion had gone out, the heralds, after
three obeisances to the King, proclaimed his style as follows in Latin,
French and English:
“_Of the Most High, Most Mighty and Most Excellent Monarch George II.,
by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender
of the Faith._”
These ceremonies over the King and Queen proceeded with their dinner.
“The whole solemnity,” we read, “was performed with the greatest
splendour and magnificence, and without any disorder; and what was most
admired in the hall were the chandeliers, branches and sconces, in
which were near two thousand wax candles, which being lighted at once,
yielded an exceeding fine prospect.” Their Majesties did not leave
Westminster Hall until eight o’clock in the evening, when they returned
to St. James’s Palace to rest after their labours. But their loyal
subjects prolonged the rejoicings far into the night with bonfires,
illuminations, ringing of bells, and other demonstrations of joy.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was present at the coronation, wrote
a lively account of the scene, though she was more concerned with
the deportment of her friends and acquaintances than with details of
the ceremonial. She comments on the “great variety of airs” of those
present. “Some languished and others strutted,” she writes, “but a
visible satisfaction was diffused over every countenance as soon as the
coronet was clapped on the head. But she that drew the greater number
of eyes was indisputably Lady Orkney. She exposed behind a mixture of
fat and wrinkles, and before a very considerable protuberance which
preceded her. Add to this the inestimable roll of her eyes, and her
grey hairs, which by good fortune stood directly upright, and ’tis
impossible to imagine a more delightful spectacle. She had embellished
all this with considerable magnificence, which made her look as big
again as usual; and I should have thought her one of the largest
things of God’s making, if my Lady St. John had not displayed all her
charms in honour of the day. The poor Duchess of Montrose crept along
with a dozen black snakes playing round her face, and my Lady Portland,
who has fallen away since her dismissal from Court,[8] represented very
finely an Egyptian mummy embroidered over with hieroglyphics.”[9]
The magnificence of the coronation was the talk of the town for a
long time. As London was very full of persons of quality who had come
from far and near to attend it, the theatre of Drury Lane seized the
opportunity to give a highly ornate performance of _King Henry the
Eighth_, with the coronation of Anne Boleyn at the end of the play, a
scene on which £1,000 (an unheard of sum to spend upon mounting a scene
in those days) was expended. The scene at Drury Lane rivalled in mock
splendour the ceremonial at the Abbey. All the town flocked to see it,
both those who had been present at the real coronation and those who
had not. The King and Queen and the young princesses came more than
once, and graciously expressed their approval. “The Coronation” was
repeated in the provinces for a year or two later.
The City of London was not backward in showing its loyalty to George
the Second; an address was presented to the King, and the Lord Mayor’s
Show was conducted on a scale of unprecedented splendour. The King and
Queen attended in state the banquet at the Guildhall, and some idea of
the entertainment may be gathered from the fact that two hundred and
seventy-nine dishes adorned the feast, and the cost amounted to £5,000.
When the excitement and loyal emotions called forth by the coronation
had subsided the English people were better able to take the measure
of their second King from Hanover. The process of disillusion soon set
in. George the Second had even fewer good qualities than his father. On
the battlefield, like all princes of his house, he had shown physical
courage, though he had no claim to generalship. He had a certain
shrewdness and a vein of caution which kept him from committing any
flagrant errors, however foolishly he might talk. But this was the
most that could be said in his favour. He was vain and pompous, mean,
spiteful and avaricious. All he cared for, it was said, was “money
and Hanover”. He neither spoke nor acted like a King, and his small
mind was incapable of rising to the height of his position. If he were
straightforward it was because he was too stupid to dissemble, and if
he seldom lied it was because it involved too great a strain upon his
narrow imagination. On the surface it would be impossible to imagine
two persons more unsympathetic than the King and Queen, yet the fact
remains that they were devoted to one another. George knew that
his consort was absolutely loyal to his interests, and in the great
loneliness that surrounds a throne he could appreciate the benefit
of having one disinterested person whom he could trust and in whom
he could confide. In his heart of hearts he knew that his Queen was
infinitely his superior, though he would never admit it to himself, to
her, or least of all to the world. Yet in public affairs she swayed him
as she would.
From the time that Caroline became Queen, until her death, she governed
England with Walpole; she did not merely reign but she ruled, and
though she was only Queen Consort, admitted by the English Constitution
to no share in affairs of state, yet practically she was Queen Regnant,
and a more powerful one than any England had known except Elizabeth.
Caroline regarded Elizabeth as her great exemplar, and resembled her
in many ways--in her love of dominion, her jealousy of any rival near
her throne, her diplomatic abilities, her breadth of view in matters of
religion, her contempt for trivialities, and her superiority to mere
convention. She differed from Elizabeth in that she had a good heart,
and though she loved to rule, she was neither tyrannical nor despotic.
Elizabeth exercised her power directly, appropriating even the credit
due to her Ministers; Caroline’s power was indirect and found its way
through tortuous channels. The extent of her power, though suspected,
was never fully realised during her lifetime, except by a few persons
such as Lord Hervey, who came into daily contact with her, and of
course Walpole. Caroline had to be careful not to arouse the King’s
jealousy, for, like many weak men, he loved the outward semblance of
authority, and this the Queen was more than ready to yield him. The
King could have all the show provided she had the substance.
The Queen and Walpole soon came to an understanding, and in the
governing of the King and the kingdom they worked in accord. The Prime
Minister discussed fully with her affairs of state, and together they
planned what should be done. When everything was settled between them,
Caroline undertook to bring the King round to their way of thinking.
This process generally took place in private, but sometimes, if the
matter were urgent, Caroline and Walpole would play into each other’s
hands in another way. The Prime Minister would have a conference with
the Queen over-night, and the next morning, when he was summoned by
the King, Caroline would, as if by accident, enter the royal closet.
She would make a deep obeisance and humbly offer to withdraw. The King
would tell her to stay; she would take a chair, occupy herself with
knotting or something of the kind, and apparently take no interest
in the conversation. The King would ask her opinion. “I understand
nothing of politics, your Majesty knows all,” she would modestly
answer. Delighted with this tribute to his powers George would press
for an answer to his question, and then the game of hoodwink would
begin. From certain secret signs agreed upon between her and Walpole,
the Queen spoke or was silent, gave a qualified opinion or expressed
herself plainly. It was all so well managed that neither the King nor
other ministers present, if there were any, noticed the least thing.
Walpole played with his hat, fidgeted with his sword, took snuff,
pulled out his pocket handkerchief or plaited his shirt frill: each
detail of this dumb show had its secret meaning. This farce was played
not once but many times, over and over again, and though the means
were sorry enough, the end was the good of the nation. The personal
rule of the monarch as it had existed in the days of the Stuarts was
gone for ever; still the King was a force to be reckoned with, and,
in foreign politics especially, Walpole would have found the choleric
little George a terrible stumbling-block in his path had it not been
that the Queen bent him to her will. The King would often announce his
intention of doing something incredibly foolish, she would apparently
agree with him, yet before long she would bring him round to her point
of view, though it was in flat contradiction to his first declaration.
When the King set his face against a certain plan of the Prime
Minister’s or a certain appointment, Walpole would leave the matter
in the Queen’s hands, and by and by the King would suggest to him the
very policy or appointment he had opposed, as though it were an idea of
his own. Caroline talked her sentiments into her husband’s mind and he
reproduced them as faithfully as words talked into a phonograph.
In public the Queen was always obedient, and her manner to the King was
submission itself. “She managed this deified image,” says Lord Hervey,
“as the heathen priests used to do the oracles of old, when, kneeling
and prostrate before the altars of a pageant god, they received with
the greatest devotion and reverence those directions in public which
they had before instilled and regulated in private. And as these idols
consequently were only propitious to the favourites of the augurers, so
nobody who had not tampered with our chief _priestess_ ever received
a favourable answer from our god; storms and thunder greeted every
votary that entered the temple without her protection; calms and
sunshine those who obtained it.” The most farcical thing about it was
that the little domestic tyrant took all this homage as his due, and
to hear him talk his courtiers might think that he was as despotic as
the Cæsars and as autocratic as the Tsar. On one occasion his mind ran
back over English history (with which, by the way, he was imperfectly
acquainted), and he recalled his predecessors on the throne and
contrasted them unfavourably with himself. To quote the same authority:
“Charles I.,” he said, “was governed by his wife; Charles II. by his
mistresses; James II. by his priests; William III. by his men; and
Queen Anne by her women-favourites. His father, he added, had been
by anyone that could get at him. And at the end of this compendious
history of our great and wise monarchs, with a significant, satisfied,
triumphant air, he turned about smiling to one of his auditors, and
asked him--‘And who do they say governs now?’”
The courtier, we may be sure, was too discreet to say, but ill-affected
persons blurted out the truth, and the disaffected journals, from the
_Craftsman_ downwards, railed at Walpole for having bought the Queen,
and at the King for being governed by her. This was repeated over and
over again in ribald verse of which the following will serve as a
specimen:--
You may strut, dapper George, but ’twill all be in vain;
We know ’tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign--
You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.
Then if you would have us fall down and adore you,
Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you.
The Queen and Walpole were always striving to keep these lampoons
away from the King, but some one about the court, probably in the
apartments of Mrs. Howard, told him of the existence of this one, and
he was exceedingly annoyed. He asked Lord Scarborough if he had seen
it. Scarborough admitted that he had. George then asked him who had
shown it to him, but he said he had pledged his honour not to tell.
The King flew into a passion, and said: “Had I been Lord Scarborough
in this situation and you King, the man would have shot me, or I him,
who had dared to affront me, in the person of my master, by showing me
such insolent nonsense”. Scarborough replied that he had not said it
was a _man_ who had shown it to him, which made the King, who regarded
this as a pitiful evasion, angrier than ever. By way of showing his
independence the King for some time after was more than usually testy
with the Queen, contradicting her flatly before all the court whenever
she ventured an opinion, snubbing her unmercifully, pooh-poohing her
wishes, and generally treating her with almost brutal rudeness. The
Queen received this with meekness, and abased herself before the King
more than ever. But all the while her power increased.
Soon after the coronation the country was plunged into a general
election. The Jacobites came off very badly at the polls, and the
Tories little better. Even with the aid of the malcontent Whigs,
the Opposition made a poor muster in point of numbers, and when the
new Parliament met in January, 1728, the Ministerial majority was
even greater than in the last reign. Walpole had won all along the
line. The result no doubt was largely due to the way in which the
Government had bought owners of pocket boroughs, and to the wholesale
bribery wherewith its agents seduced the voters; under such a system
of corruption it was impossible for the voice of the nation to make
itself effectually heard. Even many of those members of Parliament who
were returned to the House of Commons in opposition to Walpole were
eventually bought by him. “Every man has his price” was his cynical
maxim, and he acted upon it so thoroughly that his name became a
byword for corruption. True, the standard of political morality was
not high in those days, the party in power, whether Whig or Tory,
frequently abused the public trust and misused the public money. But
it remained for Walpole to bring organised corruption to such a pitch
that it paralysed popular government, and placed the balance of power,
neither in the Sovereign, nor in the people, but in the hands of a
Whig oligarchy. Such an oligarchy was at this period synonymous with
Walpole himself, for the great Minister brooked no rivals in the King’s
(or rather in the Queen’s) councils. “Sir Robert,” said the shrewd
old Sarah of Marlborough, “likes none but fools and such as have lost
all credit.” His earlier Administrations had included a few strong
men, but one by one they had to go, unable to work with so jealous and
domineering a chief. By bribery Walpole also reduced Parliament to such
a condition of impotence that it was hardly more to be reckoned with
than the King. The Prime Minister had really no one to consider but the
Queen, with whom he had a perfect understanding.
[Illustration: SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
_From the Painting by J. B. Van Loo in the National Portrait Gallery._]
Thus did Caroline and Walpole rule England. The means whereby they
ruled were tainted at the source; the end may, or may not, have
justified the means, but at this distance of time, when the fierce
controversies which gathered around Walpole’s policy have passed into
history, it must be admitted that the results were good. England was
sick unto death of internal and external strife, what she needed was a
strong hand at the helm and a settled government, and under Caroline
and Walpole she secured both, and ten years of peace abroad and
plenty at home in addition. This long peace enabled England to recover
herself within her borders; British credit, which had sunk to zero,
rose higher than it had been for years, trade and commerce increased,
land went up in value, wheat became cheaper, and everywhere signs of
prosperity were manifest. By degrees, and it was here that Caroline’s
tact came in, the different classes of the community were reconciled
to the Hanoverian dynasty; the Church and the country squires held
out the longest, but though they retained a tender sentiment for the
exiled Stuarts they came in some vague way to connect their material
prosperity with the maintenance of the Hanoverian _régime_. This result
was not achieved without some loss, chiefly to be found in the lowering
of the old ideals. The clergy, from causes on which we shall dwell
more fully later, became indifferent, and the Church sank into apathy;
the country gentry lost, together with their old passionate loyalty to
the King, some of their sense of personal responsibility towards their
poorer neighbours, and took a lower view of their duties to the State.
Much of the grossness and selfishness which disfigured the eighteenth
century was due to an excess of material prosperity, and a consequent
lowering of ideals in our national life.
Very soon the King, who when Prince of Wales had always posed as
English in all his sentiments, began his father’s game of sacrificing
English interests to those of Hanover. So subservient was the new
House of Commons, and so unscrupulous were Walpole’s tactics, that
only eighty-four members were found to vote against a proposal to pay
£280,000 to maintain Hessian troops for the benefit of Hanover; and the
subsidy of £25,000 a year for four years to the Duke of Wolfenbüttel,
in return for his promise to furnish troops for a similar purpose, was
passed with very little opposition. The maintenance of the Hessian
troops was part of the price Walpole had to pay the King for preferring
him to Compton, and the Duke of Wolfenbüttel’s subsidy was hush-money
pure and simple, paid for his handing over the late King’s will.
Though the Opposition was weak in numbers, and suffered from a lack
of cohesion in its different groups, it was strong in the quality of
its individual members. Pulteney headed the opposition to Walpole in
the House of Commons, more especially that part of it which included
the malcontent Whigs and the more moderate Tories who supported the
Hanoverian succession. It was Bolingbroke who built up this party,
and he invented for it the name of “Patriots”. Carteret, and later
Chesterfield, were among its leading lights, but Pulteney was the
chief. This remarkable man was in the prime of life, and endowed with
natural and acquired advantages. He was of good birth, and the owner
of great wealth; he had a handsome person, a dignified manner and a
cultured mind. His wit and scholarship almost rivalled Bolingbroke’s,
and as an orator he had few equals, and no superior, in his generation.
Pulteney’s abilities as a statesman were of the highest order; he had
been a colleague of Walpole in earlier days, and stood by him in many
a hard fought fight. He had therefore the strongest claims for place.
But Walpole, jealous of Pulteney’s powers, passed him over for Cabinet
office and offered him a minor post in the Government, and a peerage.
The latter was refused, the former accepted for a time, but Pulteney
soon resigned and went into active opposition. He joined forces with
Bolingbroke, and the first fruit of their union was the _Craftsman_,
a journal which fiercely attacked Walpole and his policy, the second
was the formation of the Patriots’ party. Bolingbroke, though still
excluded from the House of Lords, was able through the medium of the
_Craftsman_ to address himself to the wider constituency of the nation.
His articles against his lifelong enemy were masterpieces of damaging
criticism and polished invective. Besides Bolingbroke, the ablest
political writers of the day contributed to the _Craftsman_.
The most remarkable feature of the Opposition was the fact that it
included men who, though differing widely among themselves, were united
in common hatred of Walpole. There became practically only two parties
in the State, those who were for Walpole and those who were against
him; and the differences between malcontent Whig and Tory, Jacobite and
Hanoverian, sank into comparative insignificance. Thus Pulteney and
Carteret were staunch Hanoverians and Whigs, Barnard was a Hanoverian
Tory, Wyndham a Tory with Jacobite leanings, and Shippen a Jacobite
out and out; Bolingbroke stood among these parties, partaking a little
of them all, and concentrating into himself the essence of their hatred
of Walpole.
No English Minister has ever been hated more than Walpole and none has
had abler foes. The combination of two such master-minds as Bolingbroke
and Pulteney would, under ordinary circumstances, have broken down any
Minister. But the circumstances were not ordinary, and no statesman was
more successful than Walpole in overcoming his enemies. His success
was largely due to the steady support he received from the Queen. To
her wise counsels was also something due. Walpole now refrained from
violent measures against his political opponents, even under intense
provocation. Hitherto in English politics the party in power had
consistently persecuted the party in the minority. But now a new era
set in; it was possible to oppose a powerful Minister and yet not be
sent to the Tower or impeached as a traitor. This more generous policy
may be directly traced to Queen Caroline, for Walpole in George the
First’s reign had been anything but conciliatory, and no Minister
had urged more fiercely than he the impeachment, the exile, and even
the death of his political opponents. It was he who had clamoured
for the execution of the Jacobite peers. But Caroline now exercised
a restraining hand. During her ten years of queenship great freedom
of speech was allowed in Parliament and outside it, and the widest
liberty was given to the press. Impeachment, fining and imprisonment
of politicians in opposition to the Government were things unheard of,
and Caroline was careful to conciliate, or to endeavour to conciliate,
such members of the Opposition as were loyal, or professed themselves
to be loyal, to the Hanoverian dynasty. She remained on good terms
with John, Duke of Argyll, who had been the King’s favourite when
he was Prince of Wales, but who had now gone into the cold shade of
Opposition, and resigned all his offices about the court. She even
received Pulteney much against Walpole’s wish, and she had a smile and
a gracious word for many of the Patriots when they came her way, always
excepting Bolingbroke, whom she never would admit to the least atom of
her favour. In Caroline’s wise policy may be seen the germs of that
strict impartiality which the Sovereign ought to show towards prominent
statesmen, whether they are in office or in opposition. This has now
become almost an unwritten law of the English Constitution.
In a far lesser degree Caroline’s influence may also be traced in the
way in which Walpole, though possessing the power to force through
Parliament any measure he would, refrained from running counter to the
popular will, when that will was unmistakably declared. True, here his
own inherent statesmanship came in, and counselled moderation. But
Caroline also had theories about the popular will and civil liberty
which she had acquired in her youth from Sophie Charlotte of Prussia,
the “Republican Queen,” and this at least may be claimed for her,
that she taught Walpole the art of making his concessions gracefully.
Her love of liberty in matters of religion showed itself in the zeal
with which she urged indulgence to Protestant dissenters; the time
was not supposed to be ripe for the repeal of the penal laws against
them, but annual Acts of Indemnity were passed which practically
gave them the relief they desired, and drew the fangs of the Test
and Corporation Acts. Caroline’s power was most noticeable in the
dispensing of patronage; it is not too much to say that in all the
ten years she was Queen no important appointment, either in Church or
State, was made without her having some voice in it. In this transition
period the judicious distribution of patronage influenced largely the
future of the nation, and the Queen, who saw further ahead than most
of her contemporaries, was fully conscious of its importance. Thus
this princess, who little more than a decade before was a stranger to
the English laws and constitution, was able to shape and guide the
destinies of England.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER II:
[7] “A particular account of the solemnities used at the Coronation
of His Sacred Majesty King George II. and of his Royal Consort Queen
Caroline on Wednesday the 11th October, 1727,” London, 1760. From the
pamphlet the other particulars of the coronation are taken.
[8] She had been appointed governess to the three eldest princesses by
George I., but was dismissed by Queen Caroline.
[9] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s _Letters and Works_. Edited by Lord
Wharncliffe.
CHAPTER III.
THE COURT OF QUEEN CAROLINE.
The court of King George the Second and Queen Caroline was conducted
on a larger scale than any court England had known since the days of
Charles the Second, though it lacked much of the gaiety and more of
the grace that enlivened and adorned the court of the Merry Monarch.
George the Second was a great lover of show, but he had neither wit nor
good taste, and when he assumed the crown he seemed to think that he
ought also to assume a stiffness and pomposity of manner to maintain
his regal dignity. Like all German princes he was a great stickler for
etiquette, and he modelled his court not only on Versailles, which
then served as a pattern for all the courts of Europe, but imported
to it some of the dulness of Herrenhausen, and further regulated it
with strict regard to English precedents in previous reigns. The court
officials were often very hard put to it to unearth them. But the
King was exceedingly precise and resented the most trifling breach
of etiquette as a reflection on his royal dignity. He was a great
authority on dress and ceremonial; he could tell to a hair’s-breadth
the precise width of the gold braid which should adorn the coat of a
gentleman of the bedchamber, and recall with accuracy the number of
buttons required for the vest of a page of the backstairs. The Queen
encouraged and applauded his bent in this direction; it occupied his
mind and left her free to arrange with Walpole the weightier affairs of
the nation.
Leicester House was given up and the court made St. James’s Palace its
headquarters in London. All the Hanoverian mistresses and favourites
who had occupied apartments there during the last reign were turned out
without ceremony. The court of Queen Caroline was more select than that
of George the First. Drunkenness was still a venial offence, but it was
not approved of in the royal presence, and women of notoriously ill
repute were no longer received at St. James’s. When the court was at
St. James’s, drawing-rooms were held several times a week, public days
as they were called, and the King and Queen gave frequent audiences
besides. Court balls often took place, and at the evening drawing-rooms
cards and high play were still in vogue. Every movement of the King
and Queen in public was made the occasion of ceremonial; they attended
divine service at the Chapel Royal in state; they walked in St. James’s
Park followed by a numerous suite, the way kept clear by guards; they
seldom drove out unless preceded by an escort; their visits to the
theatre or opera were always announced beforehand, and their coming
and going made the occasion of a spectacle. The people, with whom the
pomp and circumstance of Royalty is always popular, loved these sights
mightily, and all classes were pleased that there was once more a court
in London. The King and Queen also revived the custom of dining in
public on Sundays. One of the large state rooms of St. James’s Palace
was set apart for the occasion, and at a flourish of trumpets the King
and Queen and the Royal Family entered and sat down to table in the
centre of the room surrounded by the officers of the household. The
courses were served with much ceremony on bended knee. The table was
decked with magnificent plate and a band played during dinner. The
enclosure was railed around, and the public were admitted by ticket,
and allowed to stand behind the barriers and watch the royal personages
eat, a privilege of which they freely availed themselves. After dinner
the King and Queen withdrew to their apartments, their going, as their
coming, being made the occasion of a procession.
One of the first acts of the new King and Queen was to make a tour of
the royal palaces, which had been practically closed to them since
their rupture with George the First. The old King had disliked Windsor
and rarely went there, its grandeur oppressed him, and he and his
German mistresses felt out of their element in a place steeped in
traditions essentially English. George the Second did not care for
Windsor any more than his sire, and excused himself from going there
often on the ground that it was too far from London. He visited the
castle chiefly for the purpose of hunting in the forest. But Caroline
loved royal Windsor greatly, and used to go there during the King’s
absences at Hanover. In one of the recesses of the picture gallery,
now the library, she arranged an extensive and valuable collection of
china; the collection was afterwards dispersed, but some of the china
remains at Windsor Castle until this day, and is the only relic of
Queen Caroline’s occupation.[10]
The King and Queen paid their first visit to Windsor in the autumn of
1728, and great preparations were made to welcome them to the royal
borough. “Last Saturday,” we read, “when their Majesties arrived at
Windsor, the Mayor, aldermen, and capital burgesses were ready in
their formalities to receive them, and the balconies were hung with
tapestry and vast crowds of spectators, but their Majesties came the
Park way. The King and Queen walked in the Park till dinner time. The
next day their Majesties dined in public, when all the country people,
whether in, or out of, mourning, were permitted to see them.”[11] On
this occasion George the Second assumed his stall in St. George’s
Chapel as Sovereign of the Order of the Garter, and made his offering
at the altar. The Queen, with the Duke of Cumberland, the Princess
Royal, and the Princesses Caroline, Mary and Louisa, were present, and
the Queen was seated under a canopy erected on the south side of the
choir. A ball was given in the evening. The royal pair hunted the stag
in Windsor Forest frequently during the visit, and on one occasion
remained out until nine o’clock at night, and on another hunted all
day through the rain, chasing the stag as far as Weybridge. The Queen
followed the hounds in a chaise with one horse, in the same way that
Queen Anne used to hunt in Windsor Forest. During their sojourn at
Windsor the King and Queen received one Mrs. Joy, “a widow lady in the
ninety-fourth year of her age, who had kissed Charles the First’s hand;
she was very graciously received”.[12] The Queen celebrated her first
visit to Windsor by giving £350 at Christmas for releasing insolvent
debtors confined in the town and castle gaol--her favourite form of
charity. The prisoners, to the number of sixteen, were set free.
Kensington was George the Second’s favourite palace, as it had been
his father’s. King George the First rebuilt the eastern front and
added the cupola. He also improved the interior, notably by making
the grand staircase. Then, as now, Kensington Palace was an irregular
building with little pretence to beauty and none to grandeur. But
our first Hanoverian kings loved it; its homeliness reminded them of
Herrenhausen. The Kensington promenades were now revived, and the King
and Queen accompanied by the Royal Family would pace down the walks
between an avenue of bowing and smiling courtiers. Throughout this
reign, and far into the next, Kensington Gardens formed a fashionable
resort, and with the promenades are associated many of the great names
of the eighteenth century. People were admitted to the gardens by
ticket obtainable through the Lord Chamberlain. Thus the promenades
developed into a sort of informal court and were much resorted to by
persons who did not attend drawing-rooms and levées in the ordinary
way, as well as by those who did. The King and the Queen on these
morning walks would make many a person happy by singling him out from
the crowd with a bow, a smile, or the honour of a few words; or, on
the other hand, they would plunge many an aspirant to Court favour
into gloom by ignoring him. The origin of these promenades may be
traced to the daily walks of the Electress Sophia in the gardens of
Herrenhausen, when she used to give audience to her supporters. Like
the old Electress, her grandson and his Queen were great walkers. The
little King used to walk very fast, with a curious strutting step,
and generally forged ahead, leaving his taller and stouter consort
to pant along behind him. In a political skit of the day there is an
amusing reference to Caroline’s custom of dropping behind her husband.
It is headed: “_Supposed to be written on account of three gentlemen
being seen in Kensington Gardens by the King and Queen while they were
walking_”. It was written either by Pulteney or Chesterfield, and
these two were doubtless represented in it, the third being Wyndham
or Bolingbroke. “The great river Euphrates” is the Serpentine, which
Caroline created out of a string of ponds. It runs:--
“Now it came to pass in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of
Babylon, in the eighth month, of the sixth year, the beginning of hay
harvest, that the King and Queen walked arm in arm in the gardens which
they had planted on the banks of the river, the great river Euphrates,
and behold there appeared on the sudden three men, sons of the giants.
Then Nebuchadnezzar the King lifted up his voice and cried: ‘Oh men of
war, who be ye, who be ye, and is it peace?’ They answered him not.
Then spake he and said: ‘There is treachery, oh my Queen, there is
treachery,’ and he turned his face and fled. Now when the Queen had
seen what had befallen the King she girt up her loins and fled also,
crying: ‘Oh my God!’ So the King and Queen ran together, but the King
outran her mightily, for he ran very swiftly; neither turned he to the
right hand nor the left, for he was sore afraid where no fear was, and
fled when no man pursued.”
The King and Queen probably saw Pulteney, Chesterfield and Bolingbroke
coming towards them, and as they were no doubt just then opposing some
pet measure of Walpole and of the court, the King not wishing to
receive their salutations, and not caring to ignore them, turned on his
heel, and, followed by the Queen, hurried off as fast as he could.
Richmond Lodge had now become Caroline’s personal property, and the
Queen continued to be very fond of it, and spent large sums of money in
enlarging the gardens. Soon after Caroline became Queen she gave £500
for railing and improving Richmond Green, and we read: “A subscription
is set on foot among the inhabitants of the town of Richmond for
erecting the effigy of her Majesty in the middle of the green”.[13]
But this intention was apparently never carried out. The Queen also
had a cottage at Kew where she often drove to breakfast from Richmond.
She gave the use of it to her favourite, Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady
Sundon.
[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT, TEMP. GEORGE II.]
Hampton Court, more than any other royal palace, has memories of
Queen Caroline, and many of its rooms remain to this day much as she
left them. The Queen’s dressing-room is almost the same as it was one
hundred and seventy years ago; her high marble bath on one side of the
room may still be seen, and on the other side is the door that led to
her private chapel. Under Caroline’s supervision Hampton Court was
altered in many ways, and in some improved. The great staircase was
completed and decorated; the Queen’s presence chamber and the guard
chamber were altered in a way characteristic of the early Georgian
period. The public dining room, which is one of the finest rooms
in the palace, was also redecorated, and the massive chimney-piece
of white marble which bears the arms of George the Second was placed
in it. Nor did the Queen confine her alterations only to the palace.
She had a passion for gardening, especially landscape gardening, and
the grounds of Hampton Court were considerably changed under her
supervision. It was she who substituted wide sweeping lawns for the
numerous fountains and elaborate flower beds which until then had
ornamented the great fountain garden. Her alterations in many respects
were severely criticised.[14]
Both the King and the Queen had pleasant memories of the place where
they had celebrated their only regency when Prince and Princess of
Wales. The summer after the coronation they came to Hampton Court for
some time, and, as long as the Queen lived, a regular practice was
made of spending at least two months there every summer. From Hampton
Court the King did a great deal of stag hunting; he was especially
fond of the pleasures of the chase and would not forego them on any
account. His enthusiasm was not shared by the lady members of the
royal household. “We hunt,” writes Mrs. Howard from Hampton Court to
Lady Hervey, “with great noise and violence, and have every day a very
tolerable chance to have a neck broke;”[15] and her correspondent,
writing of the same subject, declares her belief that much of Mrs.
Howard’s illness was due to this violent riding. The following is a
description of one of these expeditions:--
“On Saturday their Majesties, together with their Royal Highnesses
the Duke (of Cumberland) and the Princesses, came to the new park by
Richmond from Hampton Court and diverted themselves with hunting a
stag, which ran from eleven to one, when he took to the great pond,
where he defended himself for half an hour, when he was killed. His
Majesty, the Duke, and the Princess Royal hunted on horseback, her
Majesty and the Princess Amelia in a four-wheeled chaise, Princess
Caroline in a two-wheeled chaise, and the Princesses Mary and Louisa
in a coach. Her Majesty was pleased to show great condescension and
complaisance to the country people by conversing with them, and
ordering them money. Several of the nobility attended, amongst them Sir
Robert Walpole, clothed in green as Ranger. When the diversion was over
their Majesties, the Duke, and the Princesses refreshed themselves on
the spot with a cold collation, as did the nobility at some distance of
time after, and soon after two in the afternoon returned to Hampton
Court.”[16]
The Queen always accompanied the King in her chaise, but she cared
nothing for the sport. She took with her her vice-chamberlain, Lord
Hervey, “who loved hunting as little as she did, so that he might ride
constantly by the side of her chaise, and entertain her whilst other
people were entertaining themselves by hearing dogs bark, and seeing
crowds gallop”.[17] The King cared only for stag-hunting and coursing;
he affected to despise fox-hunting, though the sport was very popular
among his subjects. Once, when the Duke of Grafton said he was going
down to the country to hunt the fox, the King told him that: “It was a
pretty occupation for a man of quality, and at his age to be spending
all his time in tormenting a poor fox, that was generally a much better
beast than any of those that pursued him; for the fox hurts no other
animal but for his subsistence, while those brutes who hurt him did it
only for the pleasure they took in hurting.” The Duke of Grafton said
he did it for his health. The King asked him why he could not as well
walk or ride post for his health; and added, if there was any pleasure
in the chase, he was sure the Duke of Grafton can know nothing of
it; “for,” added his Majesty, “with your great corps of twenty stone
weight, no horse, I am sure, can carry you within hearing, much less
within sight, of the hounds.”[18]
At Hampton Court, as at St. James’s, the King and Queen dined in public
on Sundays, and the people came in crowds to see the sight. On one of
these occasions an absurd incident took place. “There was such a resort
to Hampton Court last Sunday to see their Majesties dine,” writes a
news-sheet, “that the rail surrounding the table broke, and causing
some to fall, made a diverting scramble for hats and wigs, at which
their Majesties laughed heartily.”[19] On private evenings at Hampton
Court the only amusement was cards, but now and then the King and Queen
held drawing-rooms, in the audience chamber.[20] Often in summer, when
the nights were fine, the Queen and her ladies would go out and walk
in the gardens. We may picture her pacing up and down the avenues of
chestnut and lime in the warm dusk, or viewing from the gardens the
beautiful palace bathed in the moonbeams. So little is changed to-day
that it requires no great effort of the imagination to re-people
Hampton Court with the figures of the early Georgian era.
One of the most prominent personages at the Court of Queen Caroline
was her favourite, Lord Hervey, whom she had now appointed her
vice-chamberlain, and who enjoyed her fullest confidence. The Queen
delighted to have him about her at all times, and would converse with
him for hours together, asking him questions about a hundred and one
things, and laughing at his clever talk. Lord Hervey was a man of
considerable wit and ability, and undoubtedly an amusing companion. But
he was a contemptible personality, diseased in body and warped in mind,
incapable of taking a broad and generous view of any one or anything;
ignorant of lofty ideals and noble motives himself, he was quite
unable to understand them in others, and always sought some sordid or
selfish reason for every action. The Queen, however, overlooking his
faults, with which she must have been familiar, and his effeminacies
and immoralities, of which she could not have been ignorant, believed
that he was a faithful servant to her, and trusted him in no
ordinary degree. As a sign of her favour she increased his salary as
vice-chamberlain by £1,000 a year, allowed him considerable patronage,
which was worth a good deal more, and made him many valuable presents.
She treated him rather as a son than as a subject. “It is well I am so
old,” she used to say (she was fourteen years Hervey’s senior), “or I
should be talked of over this creature.” No one, however, ever talked
scandal of her Majesty, though some doubted her judgment in choosing
her friends, and it must be confessed that she was unwise in admitting
Hervey to so many of her secrets. Notwithstanding that she heaped
favours upon him, he repaid her with ingratitude, and when she was
dead endeavoured to befoul her memory. But to the Queen’s face he was a
fawning and accomplished courtier, and expressed the greatest zeal in
her service.
Hervey had a nimble and superficial pen, and sometimes employed himself
in writing anonymous pamphlets in defence of the Government and Court
against members of the Opposition. A great many of these anonymous
pamphlets were showered upon the town at this time, and Pulteney
chancing to come across one of them, entitled _Sedition and Defamation
Displayed_, which attacked him and Bolingbroke in no measured terms,
thought it was from Lord Hervey’s pen (it afterwards turned out to be
not so), and wrote a violent answer, also anonymous, called _A Proper
Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel_. This pamphlet abused Walpole, and
by implication the Court, and applied several opprobrious epithets to
Hervey, speaking of him by his nickname “Lord Fanny,” describing him
as “half-man and half-woman,” and dwelling malignantly on his peculiar
infirmities. The pamphlet was warmly resented at court. Like many who
set no bounds to their own malice, Hervey was extremely sensitive to
attack, and wishing to curry favour with the King and Queen he wrote
to Pulteney to know if he were the author of the pamphlet. Pulteney
answered that he would inform him on that point if Hervey would tell
him first whether he was the writer of _Sedition and Defamation
Displayed_. Hervey sent back word to say that he had not written the
pamphlet, and again demanded an answer to his question. Pulteney
returned a defiant message saying that “whether or no he was the author
of the _Reply_ he was ready to justify and stand by the truth of every
word of it, at what time and wherever Lord Hervey pleased”. This was
tantamount to a challenge, and Hervey, though not given to duelling,
could not in honour ignore it. A duel was arranged. “Accordingly,”
writes an eye-witness,[21] “on Monday last, between three and four in
the afternoon, they met in Upper St. James’s Park, behind Arlington
Street, with their two seconds, who were Mr. Fox and Sir J. Rushout.
The two combatants were each of them slightly wounded, but Mr. Pulteney
had once so much the advantage of Lord Hervey that he would have
infallibly run my lord through the body if his foot had not slipped,
and then the seconds took the occasion to part them. Upon which Mr.
Pulteney embraced Lord Hervey, and expressed a great deal of concern
at the accident of their quarrel, promising at the same time that he
would never personally attack him again, either with his mouth or his
pen. Lord Hervey made him a bow without giving him any sort of answer,
and, to use a common expression, thus they parted.” Sir Charles Hanbury
Williams wrote some lines on this duel, in which, addressing Pulteney,
he says:--
Lord Fanny once did play the dunce,
And challenged you to fight;
And he so stood to lose his blood,
But had a dreadful fright.
Among minor figures about the court two of the most familiar were
Lord Lifford and his sister, Lady Charlotte de Roussie. They were the
children of a Count de Roussie, a French Protestant who came over to
England with William of Orange in 1688, and was created by him Earl
of Lifford in the peerage of Ireland. They were typical courtiers of
the baser sort, and would perform the meanest offices and indulge in
the grossest flattery in order to win some rays of the royal favour.
They were not popular with any of the English people about the court.
Hervey tells us: “They had during four reigns subsisted upon the scanty
charity of the English Court. They were constantly, every night in the
country and three nights in the town, alone with the King or Queen for
an hour or two before they went to bed, during which time the King
walked about and talked to the brother of arms, or to the sister of
genealogies, whilst the Queen nodded and yawned, till from yawning she
came to nodding, and nodding to snoring. These two miserable Court
drudges, who were in a more constant waiting than any of the pages
of the backstairs, were very simple and very quiet, did nobody any
hurt, nor anybody but His Majesty any pleasure, who paid them so ill
for all their assiduity and slavery that they were not only not in
affluence, but laboured under the disagreeable burdens of small debts,
which £1,000 would have paid, and had not an allowance from the Court,
that enabled them to appear there even in the common decency of clean
clothes. The King nevertheless was always saying how well he loved
them, and calling them the best people in the world, but though he
never forgot their goodness he never remembered their poverty.”
Another foreign dependent was Schütz, a Hanoverian. Pope, who had lost
the favour of the Court, was very bitter upon those who retained it; in
one of his ballads he sings:--
Alas! like Schütz I cannot pun,
Like Grafton court the Germans,
Tell Pickenbourg how slim she’s grown,
Like Meadows run to sermons.
Hervey satirises Schütz’s dulness as follows:--
And sure in sleep no dulness you need fear
Who, ev’n awake, can Schütz and Lifford bear.
And again--
Charlotte and Schütz like angry monkeys chatter,
None guessing what’s the language or the matter.
While in another of his satires occur these lines:--
There is another Court booby, at once hot and dull,
Your pious pimp Schütz, a mean Hanover tool.
A personage of quite a different order to the foregoing was Henrietta
Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, the authoress of the correspondence with
Lady Hertford. Lady Pomfret was the granddaughter on the paternal side
of Judge Jefferies, on the maternal of the Earl of Pembroke, and on
the strength of the latter claimed descent from Edward the First.
Lady Pomfret accepted the post of lady of the bedchamber, but she was
of a different type to many of the Queen’s ladies. She was a matron
of unimpeachable virtue, the mother of six lovely daughters--all
beauties--of whom, perhaps, the best known was Lady Sophia Fermor,
afterwards Lady Carteret. Lady Pomfret had a keen sense of her dignity,
and she affected a knowledge of literature and the fine arts. The
celebrated “Pomfret Letters,” much admired in their day, are packed
with platitudes, and so dull that they leave no doubt as to the
correctness of her principles. Lady Pomfret was considered by many of
her contemporaries to be a prodigy of learning; she seems rather to
have been a courtly Mrs. Malaprop. She once declared that “It was as
difficult to get into an Italian coach as for Cæsar to take Attica”--by
which she meant Utica. On another occasion some one telling her of a
man “who talked of nothing but Madeira, she asked gravely what language
that was”. But despite her eccentricities she had sterling qualities,
and was as much a credit to the court as her daughters were its
ornaments.
The Queen’s household was numerous, and included the Mistress of
the Robes, the Duchess of Dorset, six ladies of the bedchamber, all
countesses; six bedchamber women and six maids of honour. The two most
prominent members of it were two bedchamber women, Mrs. Clayton, the
Queen’s favourite, and Mrs. Howard, the King’s favourite, who hated
one another thoroughly.
Mrs. Clayton had now great influence with the Queen, more indeed
than any one except Walpole, with whom she came frequently into
collision. She was an irritating woman with an overwhelming sense of
self-esteem. Horace Walpole calls her “an absurd pompous simpleton”.
Lord Hervey credits her with all the virtues, and declares that she
possessed an excellent understanding and a good heart. She undoubtedly
possessed cunning and ability, which she used to such advantage that
she ultimately procured for her stupid husband a peerage, as Viscount
Sundon, and she foisted a large family of needy relatives on to the
public service. She acted as a sort of unofficial private secretary to
the Queen and became the medium of all manner of communications to her
mistress. Many of the letters written to her were really addressed to
Caroline. Walpole heartily disliked Mrs. Clayton and tried in vain to
shake her influence with the Queen. Her ascendency was inexplicable
to him for years, but at last he thought that he had discovered the
reason. When Lady Walpole died, the Queen asked him many questions
about his wife’s last illness and persistently referred to one
particular malady from which, in point of fact, Lady Walpole had not
suffered. The Prime Minister noticed it, and when he came home he said
to his son: “Now, Horace, I know by the possession of what secret Lady
Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen”. Whether her
influence was wholly due to this cause is open to question, for she
stood in high favour before her mistress’s malady began. But for long
years Caroline suffered from a distressing illness of which she would
rather have died than have made it known, and Mrs. Clayton was one of
the few who knew her secret.
All the maids of honour except Miss Meadows had changed since the King
and Queen were last at Hampton Court, but these young ladies were
still of a lively temperament. One evening in the darkness several of
them played at ghost, and stole out into the gardens and went round
the palace rattling and knocking at the windows. Lady Hervey, who had
heard of these frolics, writes to Mrs. Howard: “I think people who are
of such very hot constitutions as to want to be refreshed by night
walking, need not disturb others who are not altogether so warm as they
are; and it was very lucky that looking over letters till it was late,
prevented some people being in bed, and in their first sleep, otherwise
the infinite wit and merry pranks of the youthful maids might have been
lost to the world.”[22]
But, however lively may have been the young maids of honour, one member
of the Queen’s household found Hampton Court dull under the new reign
and its glory departed. Writing to Lady Hervey Mrs. Howard says:--
“Hampton is very different from the place you knew; and to say we
wished _Tom Lepell_, _Schatz_ and _Bella-dine_ at the tea-table,
is too interested to be doubted. _Frizelation_, _flirtation_ and
_dangleation_ are now no more, and nothing less than a Lepell can
restore them to life; but to tell you my opinion freely, the people you
now converse with” (books) “are much more alive than any of your old
acquaintances.”[23]
Mrs. Howard had a good reason to be dispirited, for the new reign had
proved a sad disappointment to her. She had expected, and so had her
friends, that the King’s accession to the throne would bring her an
increase of power, wealth and influence, which would have helped to
compensate her for the equivocal position she occupied, a position
which, as she was a modest woman, could not have been altogether
congenial to her. “No established mistress of a sovereign,” says
Horace Walpole, “ever enjoyed less brilliancy of the situation than
Lady Suffolk.” The only benefit she received was a peerage for her
brother, Sir Henry Hobart, and at the end of a long and trying career
at court she managed to amass a sum, not indeed sufficient to give
her wealth, but to save her from indigence. The Queen once said that
Mrs. Howard received £1,200 a year from the King all the time he was
Prince of Wales, and it was increased to £3,200 a year when he became
King. He also gave her £12,000 towards building her villa at Marble
Hill, near Twickenham, besides several “little dabs” both before and
after he came to the throne. But this represented all that Mrs. Howard
gained, if indeed she gained so much; patronage or influence she had
none, and those who placed their trust in her found themselves out of
favour. After a while the courtiers began to find out that it was more
profitable to pay their suit to Mrs. Clayton, who had the ear of the
Queen, than to Mrs. Howard, who had not the ear of the King. Yet the
King still continued to visit Mrs. Howard for some three or four hours
every evening, at nine o’clock, “but with such dull punctuality that
he frequently walked up and down the gallery for ten minutes with his
watch in his hand if the stated minute was not arrived”.[24] The Queen
was doubtless glad to get rid of him for a time, but Mrs. Howard must
have suffered sadly from the tedium of entertaining her royal master
on these daily visits, and certainly deserved more than she got in
the way of recompense. She had, as one puts it, “the scandal of being
the King’s mistress without the pleasure, the confinement without the
profit”. The Queen took care that the profit was strictly limited.
The King was so mean that at one time he even suggested, indirectly,
that the Queen should pay Mrs. Howard’s husband out of her privy purse
for keeping himself quiet. This was too great a tax even on Caroline’s
complaisance and in one of her bursts of confidence she told Lord
Hervey that when Howard insisted on his wife returning to him, “That
old fool, my Lord Trevor, came to me from Mrs. Howard, and after
thanking me in her name for what I had done, proposed to me to give
£1,200 a year to Mr. Howard to let his wife stay with me; but as I
thought I had done full enough, and that it was a little too much not
only to keep the King’s _guenipes_” (in English trulls) “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 £1,200 a-year I really could not afford it”. So
Howard’s silence was bought out of the King’s pocket, and Mrs. Howard’s
maintenance was partly provided by him, and partly by the Queen, who
gave her a place in her household and so threw a veil of respectability
over the affair.
Mrs. Howard found that she gained so little by the King’s accession,
that she wished to retire from court, but was not allowed to do so.
Meanwhile all her nominations were refused. She seems to have shown her
resentment in divers ways. Her refusal to kneel during the ceremony
of the Queen’s dressing was perhaps one manifestation of it. With
regard to her uprising and retiring, her dressing and undressing, Queen
Caroline followed the custom which had been observed by all kings and
queens of England until George the First, who refused to be bound by
precedent in this matter. Caroline performed the greater part of her
dressing surrounded by many persons. The Queen, who had a great idea
of what was due to her dignity, desired that the bedchamber-woman
in waiting should bring the basin and ewer and present them to her
kneeling. Mrs. Howard objected to this, and, considering the peculiar
relations which existed between her and the King, her objection was
natural enough. But the Queen insisted. “The first thing,” said
Caroline to Lord Hervey later, “this wise, prudent Lady Suffolk” [Mrs.
Howard] “did was to pick a quarrel with me about holding a basin in the
ceremony of my dressing, and 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;
indeed you will. Go, go! fie for shame! Go, my good Howard; we will
talk of this another time.’”
Mrs. Howard went, and in her dilemma wrote to Dr. Arbuthnot to inquire
of Lady Masham, who had been at one time bedchamber-woman to Queen
Anne, whether this disputed point was really according to precedent.
She got little comfort from Lady Masham, who through Arbuthnot
replied:--
“The bedchamber-_woman_ came into waiting before the Queen’s prayers,
which was before her Majesty was dressed. The Queen often shifted
in a morning; if her Majesty shifted at noon, the bedchamber-_lady_
being by, the bedchamber-_woman_ gave the shift to the _lady_ without
any ceremony, and the _lady_ put it on. Sometimes, likewise, the
bedchamber-_woman_ gave the fan to the _lady_ in the same manner; and
this was all that the bedchamber-_lady_ did about the Queen at her
dressing.
“When the Queen washed her hands the page of the backstairs brought
and set down upon a side-table the basin and ewer, then the
bedchamber-_woman_ set it before the Queen, and knelt on the other side
of the table over against the Queen, the bedchamber-_lady_ only looking
on. The bedchamber-_woman_ poured the water out of the ewer upon the
Queen’s hands.
“The bedchamber-_woman_ pulled on the Queen’s gloves when she could not
do it herself.[25]
“The page of the backstairs was called in to put on the Queen’s shoes.
“When the Queen dined in public the page reached the glass to the
bedchamber-_woman_, and she to the _lady_ in waiting.
“The bedchamber-_woman_ brought the chocolate, and gave it without
kneeling.
“In general, the bedchamber-_woman_ had no dependence on the _lady_ of
the bedchamber.”[26]
As Mrs. Howard was not a lady of the bedchamber but bedchamber-woman
only, she found that the Queen had asked of her nothing more than
etiquette required, and after a week of indecision she yielded the
point, and knelt with the basin as commanded. Horace Walpole, who was
fond of imputing base motives to others, says that the Queen delighted
in subjecting her to such servile offices, though always apologising
to her “good Howard”. But there is no evidence to show that the Queen
was capable of such petty spite; she required nothing more than the
duties the office involved, however menial they may seem now. The
Queen, who bore no malice, soon forgave Mrs. Howard this little display
of temper, for she told Lord Hervey: “About a week after, when upon
maturer deliberation, she had done everything about the basin that I
would have her, I told her 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----.”
[Illustration: HENRIETTA HOWARD (COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK).]
The Queen’s morning toilet was generally made by her the occasion
of an informal levée, and to it she would command all those whom
she wished to see on any subject. While her head was being tired a
group would be standing around her, and in the ante-chamber divines
rubbed shoulders with poets, and learned men with politicians and
court ladies. On the Queen’s toilet table would be found not only the
requisites for dressing but a heap of other things--a sermon, a new
book, a poem in her praise, a report as to her gardens and building
plans, a pile of letters on every conceivable subject, and the
memorandum of a minister. All these she would deal with quickly and
characteristically. She would also on these occasions have retailed to
her the latest news, or engage a philosopher and a divine in a dispute
upon some abstract question, and would put in a word in the interval
of having her head tired and washing her hands. Prayers would be read
to her in an adjoining room while she was dressing, in order to save
time. The door was left a little ajar so that the chaplain’s voice
might be heard. The bedchamber-woman was one day commanded to bid the
chaplain, Dr. Maddox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, to begin his
prayers, but seeing a picture of a naked Venus over the fald-stool, the
divine made bold to remark: “And a very proper altar piece is here,
madam!” On another occasion the Queen ordered the door to be closed
for a minute, and then, not hearing the chaplain’s voice, she sent to
know why he was not going on with his prayers. The indignant clergyman
replied that he refused to whistle the word of God through the keyhole.
This latter anecdote is sometimes told of Queen Anne, though, as she
was always very devout in her religious observances, it is far more
likely to be true of Queen Caroline. It is borne out by the following
passage, which occurs in “a dramatic trifle” which Lord Hervey wrote
to amuse the Queen, entitled _The Death of Lord Hervey or a Morning
at Court_. The scene is laid in the Queen’s dressing-room. “The Queen
is discovered at her toilet cleaning her teeth, with Mrs. Purcell
dressing her Majesty’s head, and the princesses, and ladies and women
of the bedchamber standing around her. The Litany is being said in the
next room”:--
_First Parson_ (_behind the scenes_): “From pride, vain glory and
hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness”.
_Second Parson_: “Good Lord deliver us!”
_Queen_: “I pray, my good Lady Sundon, shut a little that door; those
creatures pray so loud, one cannot hear oneself speak.” [_Lady Sundon
goes to shut the door._] “So, so, not quite so much; leave it enough
open for those parsons to think we may hear, and enough shut that we
may not hear quite so much.”
The King seldom honoured these morning levées of his Queen with his
presence, for he disliked cosmopolitan gatherings, but sometimes he
would strut in and clear out the crowd with scant ceremony. On one
occasion he came into the room while the Queen was dressing, and seeing
that his consort’s bosom was covered with a kerchief, he snatched
it away, exclaiming angrily to Mrs. Howard who was in waiting: “Is
it because you have an ugly neck yourself that you love to hide the
Queen’s”? The Queen’s bust was said by sculptors to have been the
finest in Europe.
The Queen was pleased with Mrs. Howard’s submission in the matter
of the basin, and by way of marking her appreciation, she did her
the honour of dining with her at her new villa at Marble Hill--that
famous villa of which Lords Burlington and Pembroke designed the front,
Bathurst and Pope planned the gardens, and Swift, Gay and Arbuthnot
arranged the household. But the Queen would allow Mrs. Howard no
political influence. Compton and Pulteney, Bolingbroke and other
Opposition leaders who had trusted to her found that they had leant on
a broken reed. Indeed Mrs. Howard’s goodwill seemed fatal to all her
friends. It was through her, unwittingly, that Lord Chesterfield lost
the favour of the Queen, though Walpole’s jealousy, and the remembrance
the Queen had of his mocking her in the old days at Leicester House,
had something to do with it.
Chesterfield, who had been appointed in the last reign Ambassador at
the Hague, came over to England some little time after King George the
Second ascended the throne to see his friends and pay his respects
to their Majesties. He at once repaired to Walpole, who said to him
jealously: “Well, my Lord, I find you have come to be Secretary of
State”. Lord Chesterfield declared that he had no such ambition, but
he said: “I claim the Garter, not on account of my late services, but
agreeably with the King’s promise to me when he was Prince of Wales;
besides, I am a man of pleasure, and the blue riband would add two
inches to my size”. The King kept his word, and Chesterfield was given
the Garter, and also the sinecure of High Steward of the Household. All
would have gone well with him if he had not been so unfortunate as to
get again into the Queen’s bad books. “The Queen,” says Horace Walpole,
“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 imprudent to carry it home in
the dark, and deposited it with the mistress. Thus the Queen inferred
great intimacy; thenceforward Lord Chesterfield could obtain no favour
from Court.” The sum which Lord Chesterfield was said to have won on
this occasion was £15,000, which gives some idea of the high play then
in vogue. But he lost far more than he gained--the Queen’s goodwill,
without which no statesman could hold place in the councils of the
King.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER III:
[10] After Queen Caroline’s death George II. rarely went to Windsor,
and so neglected the Castle that when George III. ascended the throne
it was found to be in a ruinous condition.
[11] _Stamford Mercury_, 19th September, 1728.
[12] _Daily Post_, 27th December, 1728.
[13] _Country Journal_, 22nd June, 1728.
[14] Most of them, both in the palace and the gardens, were carried out
by Kent, an unworthy successor to Sir Christopher Wren. Some of Kent’s
work at Hampton Court is very incongruous and inferior.
[15] Accidents were not infrequent at these hunting parties. For
instance, we read in the newspapers of the day:--
“25th August, 1731.--The Royal Family were hunting, and in the chase a
stag started upon the Princess Amelia’s horse, which, being frightened,
threw her.
“28th August, 1731.--The Royal Family hunted in Richmond Park, when the
Lord Delaware’s lady was overturned in a chaise, which went over but
did no visible hurt.”
[16] _Stamford Mercury_, 22nd August, 1728.
[17] Hervey’s _Memoirs_.
[18] _Ibid._
[19] _Stamford Mercury_, 25th July, 1728.
[20] The canopy of crimson silk under which Caroline stood is still
affixed to the wall of the Queen’s audience chamber at Hampton
Court--or was there until lately.
[21] Thomas Pelham to Lord Waldegrave, 30th June, 1730.
[22] Lady Hervey to Mrs. Howard, 7th July, 1729. _Suffolk
Correspondence._
[23] Mrs. Howard to Lady Hervey, September, 1728.
[24] Walpole’s _Reminiscences_. Mrs. Howard was lodged at Hampton Court
in the fine suite of rooms until recently occupied by the late Lady
Georgiana Grey.
[25] Queen Anne’s hands were swollen with gout.
[26] Dr. Arbuthnot to Mrs. Howard, 29th May, 1728. _Suffolk
Correspondence._
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROYAL FAMILY.
1728.
Frederick Louis, the eldest son of George the Second, still remained
at Hanover, though now direct heir to the throne of England, and his
father made no sign. Remembering perchance what a thorn he, when Prince
of Wales, had been in his father’s side, the King was afraid lest his
heir should treat him likewise, and the Queen, whose affection had
gone to her younger son, William, Duke of Cumberland, agreed with her
husband as to the advisability of keeping their first-born away from
England as long as possible. This is more extraordinary when it is
remembered that the policy of George the First in keeping Frederick
at Hanover was, in the early part of his reign, one of his son’s
grievances against him, and he and the Princess frequently urged, both
in private and public, that their son should be brought to England.
But after the birth of William, Duke of Cumberland, they completely
changed their minds, and were as anxious to keep Frederick at Hanover
as they had formerly been to have him in England. They would have liked
to supplant the elder brother by the younger, who was born on British
soil--to give Prince Frederick Hanover only, and reserve the throne of
England for Prince William. They forgot that the English crown was not
theirs to give. In the latter days of George the First’s reign Walpole
urged upon the old King the advisability of bringing his grandson to
England, and George would, it was said, have brought him back with him
after his last visit to Hanover. But his death on the road thither
changed all this.
Neither the King nor the Queen had any affection for their eldest
son, who had grown up a stranger to them, and of whom they received
unfavourable accounts. On the other hand, it is only fair to say that
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was by no means given to flattering any
one, were he prince or peasant, on her visit to Hanover in 1716 spoke
strongly in Frederick’s favour. She writes: “Our young Prince, the
Duke of Gloucester, has all the accomplishments that it is possible
to have at his age, with an air of sprightliness and understanding,
and something so very engaging and easy in his behaviour that he needs
not the advantage of his rank to appear charming. I had the honour
of a long conversation with him last night before the King came in.
His governor retired on purpose, as he told me afterwards, that I
might make some judgment of his genius by hearing him speak without
constraint, and I was surprised by the quickness and politeness that
appeared in everything that he said, joined to a person perfectly
agreeable, and the fine fair hair of the Princess.”
The fact that Frederick had grown up under his grandfather’s influence
prejudiced his parents against him, more especially when they heard
that he espoused the old King’s side in the family quarrel. On the
other hand, his father’s tardiness in summoning him to England after
his accession and his refusal to pay the debts he had made at Hanover
created a bad feeling on Frederick’s part towards his parents. Thus
matters stood for more than a year after the coronation, despite
the representations of Walpole and the clamours of the Opposition,
who attacked the Government for not forcing the King’s hand in this
matter. The Privy Council represented the dangers that would ensue
from suffering the heir to the throne to remain so long away from the
country over which he would one day, under Providence, reign. The King
listened very unwillingly, but while he was hesitating an incident
occurred which hastened his decision.
Prince Frederick, it will be remembered, was betrothed, more or less
formally, to Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, and his grandfather had
promised that the nuptials should be solemnised when he next came to
Hanover, but his death postponed the marriage. George the Second and
Caroline, though they did not absolutely refuse the alliance, declined
to be bound by the late King’s word, and stipulated that their daughter
Amelia should marry the Crown Prince of Prussia as a compensation. The
Queen of Prussia was more than willing, but the King of Prussia did not
want Amelia for a daughter-in-law any more than the King and Queen of
England wanted Wilhelmina, and so matters came to a standstill, to the
despair of Queen Sophie Dorothea. “I will not have a daughter-in-law,”
said the King of Prussia to his Queen, “who carries her nose in the
air and fills my Court with intrigues as others are already doing.
Your Master Fritz [the Crown Prince] shall soon get a flogging at my
hands; and then I will look out for a marriage for him.”[27] The Crown
Prince was quite ready to marry Amelia or any one else, if it would
give him some independence and protection from his father’s ill-usage.
Prince Frederick at Hanover declared himself in love with Wilhelmina,
whom he had never seen, but Wilhelmina was anything but in love with
Frederick. Her mother had so dinned him into her ears, and had given
her such accounts of him, that she had grown to dislike him. “He is a
good-natured prince,” the Queen said to her daughter; “kind-hearted,
but very foolish; if you have sense enough to tolerate his mistresses,
you will be able to do what you like with him.” Wilhelmina declared
that this was not the ideal husband of her young dreams; she wanted
some one whom she could look up to and respect, and she certainly could
not respect Frederick.
Prince Frederick’s vanity was piqued at the delay and he was indignant
at his father’s neglect, so, early in the year 1728, he determined
to take matters into his own hands. He sent Lamotte, a Hanoverian
officer, on a secret mission to Berlin to Sastot, one of the Queen’s
chamberlains. When Lamotte reached Berlin he went to Sastot and said:
“I am the bearer of a most important confidential message. You must
hide me somewhere in your house, that my arrival may remain unknown,
and you must manage that one of my letters reaches the King.” Sastot
promised, but asked if his business were good or evil. “It will be good
if people can hold their tongues,” replied the Hanoverian, “but if they
gossip it will be evil. However, as I know you are discreet, and as
I require your help in obtaining an interview with the Queen, I must
confide all to you. The Prince Frederick Louis intends being here in
three weeks at the latest. He means to escape secretly from Hanover,
brave his father’s anger, and marry the Princess. He has entrusted me
with the whole affair, and has sent me here to find out if his arrival
would be agreeable to the King and Queen, and if they are still anxious
for this marriage. If she is capable of keeping a secret and has no
suspicious people about her, will you undertake to speak to the Queen
on the subject?”[28]
The same evening the chamberlain went to Court and confided to the
Queen the weighty communication with which he was entrusted. The Queen
was overjoyed, and the next day communicated the glad news to her
daughter. “‘I shall at length see you happy, and my wishes realised
at the same time; how much joy at once,’ cried the Queen. ‘I kissed
her hands,’ said Wilhelmina, ‘which I covered with tears.’ ‘You are
crying,’ my mother exclaimed. ‘What is the matter?’ I would not disturb
her happiness, so I answered: ‘The thought of leaving you distresses
me more than all the crowns of the world could delight me.’ The Queen
was only the more tender towards me in consequence, and then left me.
I loved this dear mother truly, and had only spoken the truth to her.
She left me in a terrible state of mind. I was cruelly torn between my
affection for her, and my repugnance for the Prince, but I determined
to leave all to Providence, which should direct my ways.”[29]
The Queen held a reception the same evening, and, as ill-luck would
have it, the English envoy Bourguait came. The Queen, forgetting her
prudence, and thinking the plan was well matured, actually confided to
him the Prince’s project. Bourguait, overwhelmed with astonishment,
asked the Queen if it were really true. “Certainly,” she replied, “and
to show you how true it is, he has sent Lamotte here, who has already
informed the King of everything.” “Oh! why does your Majesty tell me
this? I am wretched, for I must prevent it!” exclaimed the envoy.
Greatly dismayed, the Queen asked him why. “Because I am my Sovereign’s
envoy; because my office requires of me that I should inform him of
so important a matter. I shall send off a messenger to England this
very evening. Would to God I had known nothing of all this!” The
Queen entreated him not to do so, but he was firm, and despatched the
messenger to England. Thus did Queen Sophie Dorothea defeat the scheme
for which she had toiled many years at the very moment of its fruition.
On receipt of the news George the Second sent Colonel Lorne to Hanover,
with commands to bring the Prince over to England without an instant’s
delay. When Lorne arrived at Hanover a few days later he found Prince
Frederick giving a ball at Herrenhausen. He gave the King’s message,
and acted with so much despatch that at the end of the ball the Prince,
escorted by Lorne, and attended by only one servant, quitted Hanover
for ever. His plot had failed; there was nothing else to be done. The
rage and disappointment when the news of the Prince’s departure reached
the Court of Berlin was very great. The King blustered and swore,
called Wilhelmina “English _canaille_,” and beat her and her brother in
a shocking manner; the Queen broke down and took to her bed; Wilhelmina
fainted away. But it was all to no purpose; not only her marriage, but
the double marriage scheme, vanished into thin air.[30]
Frederick did not find a warm welcome awaiting him from his parents.
The Prince landed in England the first week in December (1728), and
made his way to London; he arrived at St. James’s without any ceremony,
and was smuggled up the backstairs as though he had been a pretender
rather than the heir-apparent to the crown. “Yesterday,” we read, “His
Royal Highness Prince Frederick came to Whitechapel about seven in
the evening, and proceeded thence privately in a hackney coach to St.
James’s. His Royal Highness alighted at the Friary, and walked down
to the Queen’s backstairs, and was there conducted to her Majesty’s
apartment.”[31]
It must have been a strange meeting between mother and son. The Queen
received him amiably; the succession could not be altered, so she
determined to make the best of him, but the King was very harsh. George
had an unnatural and deep-rooted aversion to his eldest son, whom he
regarded as necessarily his enemy. This peculiarity was hereditary
in the House of Hanover for some generations, for the Sovereign and
his first-born were always at war with one another. Some pity must be
extended to the young Prince, who never had a fair chance. He was only
twenty-two years of age when he came to England, and he found himself
among strangers and enemies in a country of which he knew nothing. He
was very shy and frightened at first, and his father’s manner did not
tend to reassure him. Lord Hervey says that, “Whenever the Prince
was in the room with him (the King) it put one in mind of stories
that one has heard of ghosts that appear to part of the company but
are invisible to the rest; and in this manner, wherever the Prince
stood, though the King passed him ever so often, or ever so near,
it always seemed as if the King thought the Prince filled a void of
space”. The Prince did not dine in public at St. James’s the Sunday
after his arrival, but the Queen suffered him to hand her into her
pew at the Chapel Royal, and this was his first appearance before the
English Court. But, however much his parents might slight him, the fact
remained that he was, by Act of Parliament, heir to the throne, and,
through the insistence of the Privy Council, the King soon after his
arrival created him Prince of Wales. But he was careful not to give him
the allowance of £100,000 a year which had been voted by Parliament for
the Prince of Wales in the Civil List. True, Parliament had given the
King control over the Prince’s income, and he exercised it by giving
him only a small allowance. The young Prince quickly made friends, some
of them not of a very desirable character. He had been taught to speak
English fairly well, and he had pleasant manners. He had inherited
from his mother a taste for letters, and he also possessed the art
of dissimulation and a love of intrigue. He had not the slightest
affection for either of his parents--how could he have?--and he soon
began to deceive them, a task in which he found plenty to help him.
Lady Bristol in one of her letters gave a very flattering account of
him as being “the most agreeable young man it is possible to imagine,
without being the least handsome, his person little, but very well made
and genteel, a loveliness in his eyes that is indescribable, and the
most obliging address that can be conceived.” The poets praised him;
and one sycophant rhapsodised over him as follows:--
Fresh as a rose-bud newly blown and fair
As op’ning lilies: on whom every eye
With joy and admiration dwells. See, see
He rides his docile barb with manly grace.
Is it Adonis for the chase arrayed
Or Britain’s second hope?
The first hope presumably was the King, the other hopes were the rest
of the royal children. They were not a lovable family, nor was there
any love lost among them. They disliked one another thoroughly, but,
with the exception of Frederick, they were all devoted to their mother,
and they all united, Frederick included, in disliking their father,
who on his part disliked them. The King had rarely a kind word for
any of his children, and in his old age he admitted it. “I know I did
not love my children,” he said. “When they were young I hated to have
them running about the room.” Caroline, on the other hand, was devoted
to all her children, except the Prince of Wales, whom long absence
had estranged from her. One of her first acts after becoming Queen
was to dismiss the state governess, and have her daughters educated
under her immediate supervision. She was a Spartan mother, and a firm
believer in the proverb: “Spare the rod, spoil the child”. The Duchess
of Marlborough relates how on one occasion when she went to see the
Queen, then Princess of Wales, she found her chastising little Prince
William, who was roaring and kicking lustily. The Prince was looking
on complaisantly. The duchess tried to soothe the youthful delinquent.
“Ah, see,” cried George Augustus, “you English are none of you
well-bred, because you were not whipped when you were young.” “Umph!”
quoth her Grace. She afterwards said, “I thought to myself, I am sure
_you_ could not have been whipped when you were young, but I choked it
in”.
Anne, Princess Royal, was now in her twentieth year. She had little
beauty, and her figure was short and squat, but she had fair abilities
and several accomplishments; she could paint well, speak three
languages, and was an excellent musician. Her favourite recreation was
the opera, and she loved to get professional singers and players around
her, and practise with them. She was vain and ambitious, and once told
her mother that she wished she had no brothers, so that she might
succeed to the throne. On the Queen’s reproving her, she said: “I would
die to-morrow to be Queen to-day”. Unfortunately for her ambition,
heirs to thrones or reigning monarchs were in no wise attracted to
her, and so far no eligible candidate for her hand had come forward.
The Queen also once rebuked her for her lack of consideration to her
ladies. She noticed one morning that she kept her lady standing for
a long time, conversing with her on some trifling matter, while she
herself remained seated. In the evening Anne came to her mother to read
to her and was about to sit down. “No, my dear,” said the Queen, “you
must not sit down at present, I intend to keep you standing for as long
a time as you kept Lady ---- in the same position this morning.”
The second daughter, Princess Amelia, or Emily, as she was more
generally called, was better looking than her sister and far cleverer.
In her youth she had considerable pretensions to beauty, and her ready
wit made her the most popular of the princesses. “The Princess Amelia,”
writes Lady Pomfret enthusiastically to Mrs. Clayton, “is the oddest,
or at least one of the oddest princesses that ever was known; she
has her ears shut to flattery and her heart open to honesty. She has
honour, justice, good-nature, sense, wit, resolution, and more good
qualities than I have time to tell you, so mixed that (if one is not
a _devil_) it is impossible to say she has too much or too little of
any; yet all these do not in anything (without exception) make her
forget the King of England’s daughter, which dignity she keeps up with
such an obliging behaviour that she charms everybody. Do not believe
her complaisance to me makes me say one _silible_ more than the rigid
truth; though I confess she has gained my heart and has added one more
to the number of those few whose _desert_ forces one’s affection.”[32]
This paragon of a princess had been the destined bride of the Crown
Prince of Prussia afterwards Frederick the Great, but as the double
marriage scheme fell through she continued single. Several minor German
princes offered themselves, but she did not think them worthy of her
acceptance. Yet she was far from indifferent to admiration, and had a
liking for men’s society. She was of a masculine turn of mind, and her
happiest hours were passed in the hunting field, and the stables and
kennels. She liked to spend much time with her horses and discuss their
points minutely with the grooms, and one Sunday she shocked the good
people of Hampton Court by going to church in a riding costume with a
dog under each arm. She shared her father’s passion for hunting, and
was a far better rider than he. She used to hunt in a costume which was
masculine rather than feminine, and rode hard and fearlessly, followed
by her favourite groom, Spurrier. There is a curious portrait of her in
a round hunting cap and laced scarlet coat, which makes her look like
a man. She had flirtations with the Duke of Newcastle and the Duke of
Grafton; that with the latter was serious. It went on for a long time,
and the Princess seems really to have been attached to him, though he
was much older than she.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS AMELIA.
(SECOND DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II.)]
The Duke of Grafton, the Lord Chamberlain, was a grandson of
Charles the Second, and had the personal beauty and charm of manner
characteristic of the Fitzroys. He made no secret of his attentions to
the Princess, and she received them with a great deal of favour. Queen
Caroline was annoyed at what she considered was the duke’s presumption
in aspiring to be her daughter’s lover. She also resented his familiar
manner towards herself; he frequently addressed her as though he were
her equal, and indeed he considered himself to be a scion of royalty.
He once told her that he believed it was not in her nature to love any
one, to which she replied: “But I love the King”. He answered: “By God,
ma’am, I do not know, but if I were King of France I would soon find
out whether you did or not”. He used to tease her also with the tale
that she was in love with some German prince before her marriage to
the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and ended by saying: “God, ma’am, I
wish I could see the man you _could_ love”. As she could not repress
him, Caroline affected to treat these familiarities as a joke, but she
secretly resented them. She did her best to put an end to the intimacy
between her daughter and the duke, but without much effect. The
Princess Amelia and the duke would go a-hunting together two or three
times a week, and frequently rode away from the rest of the party. On
one occasion at Windsor their attendants lost them altogether, and they
did not return to the castle until long after it was dark. It was
said that they had gone together to a private house in Windsor forest
and there remained. The King was absent from England at the time this
happened, but the Queen was highly incensed, and soundly rated Amelia
on her imprudence. She would have complained to the King about the Duke
of Grafton, but Walpole dissuaded her from doing so. The duke would not
have cared, and it would have done the princess harm.
The year after the King’s accession to the throne Princess Amelia
went to Bath to drink the waters, attended by Lady Pomfret. Royal
visits to Bath were as yet few and far between, indeed the only royal
personages who had visited Bath before the Princess were Queen Anne
(before she came to the throne) with her husband Prince George of
Denmark.[33] Princess Amelia was received by the Mayor and Corporation
in full state, and a hundred young men on horseback met her coach at
the North Gate and formed an escort to her lodgings. Bath had already
become a gay and fashionable place, and many persons of quality and
of no quality at all, who suffered from gout, rheumatism, the results
of dissipation, or that mysterious ailment which the ladies of the
eighteenth century called “vapours,” flocked thither to drink the
waters and kill the time. The pump room and assembly-rooms were
“elegantly fitted” and a band played daily. Breakfast parties were
much the vogue at “one and twenty pence a piece,” and the forenoon
was passed in drinking the waters and listening to the concert. In
the afternoon there were the bowling greens and the promenade in the
gardens skirting the river, the toy shops and the coffee-houses where
the _beau monde_ loitered, drinking “dishes of tea” and eating Bath
buns. In the evening there were cards and dancing--and there was
scandal all day long. Bath was then under the reign of “King” Nash,
who had become its _arbiter elegantiarum_. Opinions differ as to the
services Nash rendered to Bath. Some say he made the place; others that
he merely cloaked the grossness and licentiousness of the fashionable
world there by throwing over it a garb of mock ceremony. Certainly
Bath was a hotbed of gambling, and many undesirable characters were
attracted thither simply by the high play.
Princess Amelia’s arrival caused quite a flutter in the gay world
of Bath. She took the waters in the morning, and after drinking
them strolled in Harrison’s walks, all the men and women of fashion
following after her or keeping within a respectful distance. But there
was one who would not pay her homage, and she was Lady Wigtown, a
Jacobite peeress. One day in the public garden Lady Wigtown met the
Princess face to face, and without taking the slightest notice of
her, she pushed aside the ladies-in-waiting and walked past. Of this
incident Lady Pomfret writes to Mrs. Clayton: “Lady Frances Manners
asked me if I knew my Lady Wigtown (a Scottish countess). I said I had
never heard of her in my life, and believed she had not yet sent to the
Princess; upon which both she and the Duchess of Rutland smiled, and
said: ‘No, nor will, I can tell you; for seeing the Princess coming to
the pump the morning before, she had run away like a Fury for fear of
seeing her; and declares so public an aversion for the King, etc., that
she would not go to the ball made on the Queen’s birthday; and some of
that subscription money remaining, the company had another ball, which
she denied going to, and told all the people it was because the Queen’s
money made it’.”[34]
These balls began at six o’clock in the evening, and were under the
direction of Beau Nash, who commanded that they should be over by
eleven at the latest. When the first stroke of the hour sounded the
Beau waved his wand, and the music ceased, though it were in the middle
of a dance. Once the Princess Amelia objected to this summary ending.
“One more dance, Mr. Nash; remember I am Princess.” “Yes, madam, but I
_reign_ here and _my_ law must be kept.”
It was creditable to the Princess Amelia that Lady Wigtown’s rudeness
made no difference to her courtesy to the other Jacobites and Roman
Catholics, of whom just then Bath was full. Acting under instruction
from her mother, she had a gracious word and a smile for all of them
who came her way. Among others were the unfortunate Lord Widdrington
and his lady. Lord Widdrington was one of the Jacobite peers condemned
to death for the part they had taken in the rising of ’15, but he was
ultimately pardoned, though his estates were forfeited. He brought
his broken health and ruined fortunes to Bath, where he was living in
comparative poverty when the Princess Amelia came there. The Princess
noticed Lady Widdrington in the Pump Room, and asked who she was. When
she was told she talked to her, walked with her, and generally took
much notice of her. “Her kindness,” writes Lady Pomfret, “had such an
effect upon all that sort [Jacobites] in this city that is hardly to
be imagined, and they all speak of the Princess Amelia as of something
that has charmed them ever since.” But another lady in waiting,
Mrs. Tichburne, was perturbed lest the Princess’s graciousness to a
“rebel’s wife” should be misunderstood, and Lady Pomfret thought well
to ask Mrs. Clayton to explain matters to the Queen. She need not have
troubled, for the Princess had only done as the Queen wished.
It is a pity that we cannot take leave of the Princess Amelia with
this pleasing illustration of her amiability. But truth compels us
to add that as she grew older her character sadly deteriorated. She
developed into a hard, mean, inquisitive woman, and was often insolent
without provocation. Perhaps this was due to the crossing of her young
affections, and her nature, driven back upon itself, grew warped in the
cramped atmosphere of the court. In later life Bath continued to be a
favourite resort of the Princess Amelia, for here she could indulge in
her love of cards and scandal without let or hindrance; she used to
play night after night for very high stakes, refreshing herself with
pinches of snuff during the game. One night when she was playing in
the public card room at Bath an old general, who was seated next her,
ventured to take a pinch of snuff out of her box, which stood by him
on the table. She haughtily stared at him without making any remark,
and then beckoning to her footman, ordered him to throw the snuff in
the fire and bring her a fresh box. Little peculiarities like this did
not tend to make her popular, and she grew to be generally disliked.
She lived far into the reign of her nephew George the Third, and died
unmarried.
The third daughter, Princess Caroline, was of a very different
disposition to her elder sisters; she had no beauty, and suffered
from delicate health, but she had much quiet goodness and unobtrusive
piety. When she was a child her parents used to say of her: “Send
for Caroline, and then we shall know the truth”. She was the Queen’s
favourite daughter, and was greatly attached to her. Constantly with
her mother, she was thrown a good deal into the companionship of
Lord Hervey, and conceived for him a deep and lasting love, a most
unfortunate attachment, as Lord Hervey was by no means a worthy object
for her devotion, even if he had been able to requite it properly,
which he could not, as he was married to the beautiful Lepel. Her
attachment flattered his vanity, and he must have secretly encouraged
it. The hopelessness of her passion made no difference to the gentle
Princess; she continued to cherish it until Lord Hervey’s death, and
even after his death she testified her devotion to his memory by
showing great kindness to his children. After she lost her mother she
became a confirmed invalid, and spent her life in retirement and works
of benevolence. She died unmarried.
William, Duke of Cumberland, the second surviving son of George the
Second and Caroline, was at the time they came to the throne a boy, and
had not yet developed those unamiable qualities he displayed in later
life, which earned for him undying infamy as “the butcher of Culloden”.
He was a precocious youth, very grave and solemn in his demeanour, not
caring to play like other boys, but preferring to mope in a corner
over a book, or to gaze at uniforms and military evolutions--for quite
early in life he showed a strong predilection for the army. Some
characteristic anecdotes are related of his early years. When a child
he was taken on one of his birthdays to see his grandfather, George
the First. The King asked him at what time he got up in the morning;
the young duke replied: “When the chimney-sweepers are about”. The
King asked: “Vat are de chimney-sweepers”? “Have you been so long in
England,” said his grandson, “and do not know what a chimney-sweep
is? Why, he is like that man there;” and he pointed to Lord Finch,
afterwards Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham, who was in attendance.
Lord Finch, like the rest of his family, “the black funereal Finches,”
had a very swarthy complexion, and after this he was generally known
by the nickname of “The Chimney Sweep”. On another occasion, after a
display of temper, his mother ordered the duke to be locked up in his
room. When he came out he was downcast and sullen. “William,” inquired
the Queen, “what have you been doing?” “Reading,” he said shortly.
“Reading what?” “The Bible.” “And what did you read there?” “About
Jesus and Mary.” “And what about them?” asked the Queen. “Why,” replied
William, “that Jesus said to Mary: ‘_Woman, what hast thou to do with
me?_’”
Lady Strafford has left an account of the Duke of Cumberland’s birthday
reception, a sort of children’s party which represents the young prince
in a more amiable light:--
“My love” (her son, Lord Wentworth), she writes, “is perfectly well
and vastly delighted with his Court ball. I took him to Court in
the morning, and the Queen cried out: ‘Oh! Lord Wentworth! how do
you do? you have mightily grown! My lady, he is prodigiously well
dressed. I hope you will let him come to our ball to night.’ After
the drawing-room was over the duke had a _levée_ in his own room,
so I desired my brother to take him there, and the duke told him he
hoped he would do him the favour to come at night. But as a great
misfortune Lady Deloraine fell in labour, and was just brought to bed
of a dead son; so they could not have the room they used to dance in
(it being next to hers), so they had a bad little room and they did
not dance French dances. Princess Amelia asked Lord Wentworth to dance
one with her, and afterwards the duke gave him Lady Caroline Fitzroy
for his partner. They had a supper of cold chicken, tongue, jelly and
sweetmeats, but they were (served) in an odd manner, for they had
neither knives nor plates, so that well as my love loves eating, he
says he ate but a leg of a chicken, for he says he did not (think)
it looked well to be pulling greasy bones about in a room full of
princesses; the way of getting rid of the bones was the children threw
them out of the window. The King was present to see them dance, but not
the Queen. The ball ended about half an hour after ten. The duke was
quite free and easy, and extremely civil.”
Of the two younger princesses, Mary and Louisa, there is little to
be said, as they were children during their mother’s lifetime. Mary,
like her sister Caroline, was of a soft and gentle disposition. Some
years after her mother’s death she was married to Frederick, Hereditary
Prince of Hesse-Cassel, an obstinate, ill-tempered prince, who treated
his wife with cruelty and infidelity, and her life was a very unhappy
one. She survived her husband a few years.
Princess Louisa, the youngest of them all, was by far the most
beautiful of Queen Caroline’s daughters, and inherited her mother’s
abilities and accomplishments. She married Frederick, Crown Prince of
Denmark, and in due time became Queen of Denmark. Her married life was
not altogether happy, but she had her mother’s philosophy and made
the best of it. She died of the same illness as Queen Caroline, and
curiously enough from the same cause--concealing the nature of her
malady until it was too late.
Though the King enjoyed an enormous Civil List he was exceedingly
mean to his children. To his daughters, though three of them had now
grown up, he gave little or nothing. Anne and Amelia were often in
need of pocket-money, and not above borrowing of the people about
the court. Their dress allowance was exceedingly small, and if their
mother had not helped them, they would scarcely have been able to make
a presentable appearance at their father’s drawing-rooms. There is a
curious old paper extant,[35] endorsed “Mrs. Powis,” who was probably
dresser to the Princesses, which gives some idea of their wardrobe. The
following extracts may be quoted:--
“_What was delivered yearly for each Princess (Anne, Amelia and
Caroline)_:
“Winter Clothes:--
Two coats embroider’d, one trim’d or rich stuff, and one velvet or
rich silk without.
Three coats brocaded or damask.
A damask night-gown.
Two silk under petecoats, trim’d with gold or silver.
“Summer Clothes:--
Three flower’d coats, one of them with silver.
Three plain or stripped lastrings.
One night-gown and four silk hoops.
Shoes: a pair every week.
Gloves: sixteen dozen in the year; 18s. per dozen.
Tans: no allowance, but they did not exceed eight guineas per annum.
Mouslines and lawns were bought as wanted, no settled price.
“Sundries:--
No certain allowance for ribbons or artificial flowers.
Powder, patches, combs, pins, quilted caps, band boxes, wax, pens
and paper, came to about £40 per annum for the three princesses,
paste for hands and pomatum came from the apothecary, Mr. Tagar,
and did not come into my bill.
I paid the tire woman 129 guineas a year.
I paid for tuning the harpsichord, food for their birds, and many
other little things belonging to their Royal Highnesses, which
were too trifling to mention, which whilst the Duke was with them
came to £50 per annum.
Their Royal Highnesses had each a page of honour and gentleman usher
at £100 sallary.
Each one had a dresser at £50, and one chambermaid, I do not know at
what sallary.
Also one page of the backstairs.
The Princesses used the Queen’s coaches, footmen and grooms.”
The Princesses led singularly idle, purposeless lives; Anne and Amelia
chiefly occupied themselves with card-playing and the petty intrigues
of the court, and the way their father treated them led them early to
lie and practise the arts of dissimulation. Even Princess Caroline,
when we have credited her with all the virtues, remains a colourless
nonentity. The Princesses always appeared at court festivities and took
part in whatever was going on, and the Queen would often relax some of
the stiffness of etiquette for the benefit of the young people. For
instance, sometimes after the evening drawing-rooms she would turn the
function into a ball. We read:--
“On Monday night His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the
Princess Royal opened a ball at Court with a minuet, and afterwards
they danced several set dances with several of the quality till between
four and five o’clock next morning. Her Majesty was richly dressed,
and wore a flowered muslin hood with an edging. The Princess Royal had
the like, which makes it believed that muslins will come into fashion.
There never was seen so great an appearance, either for number or
magnificence as on the like occasion.”[36]
Nor was the King to be outdone in the splendour of his attire; indeed
he outshone the Queen, for he loved dress and display far more. We
read: “His Majesty appeared in a suit of crimson velvet with gold
buttons and button holes, sleeves faced with rich tissue, and a
waistcoat of the same.”
The great days at court were the royal birthdays. The birthdays of
the Prince of Wales and all the royal children were duly celebrated.
The Queen’s birthdays were always largely attended, and so were the
King’s at the beginning of the reign. But after his visits to Hanover
he became very unpopular, and he noted with ire that not only was the
attendance meagre at his drawing-rooms, but there were no new clothes
for the occasion. If any of the great nobility absented themselves
from the drawing-rooms for any time, as some occasionally thought fit
to do, they were generally conciliated by the Queen and persuaded to
put in an appearance again. The birthday drawing-rooms were chiefly
remarkable for the splendour of the clothes, every one appearing in
his best, and even the royal footmen being arrayed in new liveries.
“There was his Majesty in scarlet and gold,” writes a correspondent;
“the Duke of Cumberland in blue trimmed with silver; the Princess Anne
in silver and colours of yellow; the Princess Louisa in a dark green
velvet, embroidered in gold; my Lady Browne in scarlet, with great
roses not unlike large silver soup plates, made in an old silver lace,
and spotted all over her gown.”
But these were great occasions; in the ordinary way the private life of
the court was dull, even in these early days of the reign, and there
was little doing except ombre or quadrille. Peter Wentworth, who was
now one of the Queen’s equerries and was sometimes in attendance on
the Prince of Wales and sometimes on the Princess Royal, gives a fair
description of how the Royal Family spent their evenings. Writing to
his brother Lord Strafford, he says:--
“The quadrille table is well known, and there is a large table
surrounded by my master (the Prince of Wales), the Princesses, the
Duke of Cumberland, the bedchamber ladies, Lord Lumley, and all the
_belle-assemblée_, at a most stupid game, to my mind, lottery ticket.
£100 is sometimes lost at this pastime. The maids play below with the
King in Mrs. Howard’s apartment, and the moment they come up, the Queen
starts up and goes into her apartment.... T’other night Lord Grantham
and the Queen had a dispute about going to a room without passing by
the backstairs; she bade him go and see; he did, and came back as
positive as before. ‘Well,’ says she, ‘will you go along with me if I
show you the way?’ ‘Yes, madam,’ says he. Up she starts, and trots away
with one candle, and came back triumphant over my Lord Grantham. The
_belle-assemblée_ was in an uproar, thinking the King was ill, when I
told them ’twas a wager between the Queen and my Lord Grantham.”[37]
The Queen was fond of these little jokes, for on another occasion
we find Peter Wentworth writing: “Sunday, in the evening the Queen
commanded me to order her a chaise and one horse, and a coach and six
to follow, for Monday, at six o’clock in the morn, and six Life Guards
and two Grenadiers, and your humble servant a-horseback, which was to
be kept a great secret. When I had put her Majesty into her chaise with
Princess Mary, she bid me ride and tell the Colonel of the Guard not
to beat the drum as she passed out [of St. James’s]. We drove to the
foot ferry at Kew, where there was a barge of four oars which carried
her Majesty, Princess Mary, Mrs. Purcell and I to the Queen’s house at
Kew. The whole joke of keeping this a secret was upon Lord Lifford, who
had said ’twas impossible for her Majesty to go out at any time but he
should know it. When we came there, therefore, the Queen sent for the
other Princesses, Lord Hervey and Lord Lifford to breakfast with her.
Lord Hervey, Princess Caroline and Princess Louisa came before ten;
the Queen, Mrs. Purcell and I walked twice round the garden before
they came. We had a fine breakfast, with the addition of cherries
and strawberries we plucked from the garden, some of which the Queen
gave me with her own hand; and said to Lord Hervey _C’est un très bon
enfant_, and repeated it several times, Lord Hervey assenting. I never
suspected she spoke of me, which she, perceiving, said in English: ‘We
are speaking of you; you know I love you, and you shall know I love, I
do really love you’. I made low bows, but had not the impromptu wit nor
assurance to make any other answer.”[38]
And again:--
“On Saturday when the Queen was at Kew, the Blue Horse Guards in stocks
stood sentry there. As she goes up the court she says to Lord Lifford
and me: ‘I’ll lay you what you will he of the right is a Scotsman, and
he of the left an Englishman and a Yorkshireman’. When she came up to
them, she asked him of the right, who was a handsome young fellow and
a gentleman volunteer: ‘What countryman are you?’ ‘A Scotsman, your
Majesty.’ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Hamilton.’ ‘Of what family?’ ‘The dukes
of that name.’ ‘How long have you been in the regiment?’ ‘Ever since it
has been the Duke of Argyll’s.’ Then she turns to t’other man, and asks
what countryman he was? ‘An Englishman, your Majesty.’ ‘Your name?’
‘Hill.’ ‘What county?’ ‘Yorkshire.’ The Queen was pleased and so was
I, for I would always have her pleased, and turned about to my lord
and me, and said: ‘N’est-ce pas que j’ay dit vray? Je connais bien la
physiognomie.’”
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER IV:
[27] _Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth._
[28] _Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth._
[29] _Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth._
[30] Wilhelmina states in her _Memoirs_ that the whole thing was a plot
of George II., who wished to find an excuse for keeping his son away
from England altogether, but the candour of the Queen of Prussia spoilt
it all. But there is nothing to support this statement.
[31] _Daily Post_, 5th December, 1728.
[32] The Countess of Pomfret to Mrs. Clayton, 22nd April, 1728. _Sundon
Correspondence._
[33] Thackeray says in his _Four Georges_: “As for Bath, all history
went and bathed and drank there; George II. and his Queen,” etc. In
point of fact, neither George II. nor Queen Caroline went to Bath.
Princess Amelia went in 1728; the Prince of Orange in 1734, the Prince
and Princess of Wales in 1738, and Princesses Caroline and Mary in 1840.
[34] The Countess of Pomfret to Mrs. Clayton, Bath, 6th May 1728.
[35] In the Manuscript Department, British Museum.
[36] _Daily Advertiser_, 3rd March, 1731.
[37] The Hon. Peter Wentworth to the Earl of Strafford, 10th August,
1730.
[38] The Hon. Peter Wentworth to the Earl of Strafford, London 3rd
June, 1735.
CHAPTER V.
CAROLINE’S FIRST REGENCY.
1729.
In May, 1729, the King, who had been for some time anxious to visit
his Hanoverian dominions, which he had not seen since 1714, got a
short Act passed through Parliament appointing the Queen to act as
Regent in his absence. The King’s visit to Hanover was very unpopular
with his English subjects, who hoped that they had heard of the last
of these journeys when George the First died. As Prince of Wales,
George the Second had always declared that he loved England far better
than Hanover, but this was only in opposition to his father, and soon
after he ascended the throne he avowed himself strongly Hanoverian in
his tastes and found fault with everything in England. In this mood
the best thing for him to do was to return to his own country for a
time, and Walpole no doubt was glad to get him out of the way, while
the Queen eagerly grasped at the authority which the deed of regency
granted her. But she showed none of this eagerness to the King, and
when he announced his intention of leaving England she deplored his
absence with tears, and received his commission on her knees with all
due humility. The King gave the royal assent to the Act of Regency on
May 14th, and three days later he set out for Hanover, accompanied by a
numerous retinue, and Lord Townshend as Minister in attendance.
The Queen appointed the Speaker of the House of Commons, Onslow, to be
her Chancellor during her Regency, and Keeper of the Great Seal. She
held her first Council as Regent five days after the King left. It was
reported in the _London Gazette_ as follows:--
“_At the Court at Kensington the 22nd day of May, 1729._
“Present.
“The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty,
“His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Lord Chancellor, Lord Privy Seal, Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain,
Duke of Somerset, Duke of Bolton, Duke of Rutland, Duke of Argyll,
Duke of Montrose, Duke of Kent, Duke of Ancaster, Duke of Newcastle,
Earl of Westmoreland, Earl of Burlington, Earl of Scarborough, Earl
of Coventry, Earl of Grantham, Earl of Godolphin, Earl of Loudoun,
Earl of Findlater, Earl of Marchmont, Earl of Ilay, Earl of Uxbridge,
Earl of Sussex, Viscount Lonsdale, Viscount Cobham, Viscount
Falmouth, Lord Wilmington, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Master of the Rolls, Sir Paul Methuen, and Henry Pelham,
Esq.
“The King’s Commission appointing Her Most Excellent Majesty the
Queen Regent over this Kingdom, by the Style and Title of Guardian
of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and His Majesty’s Lieutenant within
the same during His Majesty’s absence, was this day by Her Majesty’s
command, opened and read in His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy
Council, after which His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and all
the Lords and others of the Council who were present, had the honour
to kiss Her Majesty’s hand.”
Caroline entered with manifest enjoyment upon the duties of her office,
and discharged them with great ability; she had so long known the
essence of power that it was easy for her to adapt herself to its
outward manifestation. Townshend, who was jealous of Walpole’s favour
with the Queen, endeavoured to induce the King to modify her powers as
Regent, and urged him to send a despatch to that effect from the Hague,
but the King, though he listened, declined to do so; in fact, he knew
better than any one else that his interests were safe in his consort’s
hands.
[Illustration: LETTER OF QUEEN CAROLINE TO THE KING OF FRANCE.]
The Queen-Regent had the power of opening and proroguing Parliament,
signifying the royal assent to acts and measures, appointing bishops,
and of making other important appointments; she also received the
foreign ambassadors and envoys as though she were the King, and
corresponded with foreign sovereigns. Queen Caroline was especially
careful to cultivate and strengthen the good understanding between
England and France, and she wrote several letters to the King of
France, and sent him a present of a dozen hogsheads of perry and
cider.[39]
The most important negotiation in foreign affairs was the Treaty of
Seville, which was practically concluded during Caroline’s regency,
though it was not signed until a little later (November 9th, 1729).
This treaty terminated the long dispute between England and Spain. By
its provisions, English trade to America, which had been interrupted,
was restored. England was given back all that Spain had captured during
the war, and the Asiento Treaty (or contract for supplying negroes, of
establishing certain factories, and of sending one ship to the South
Sea) was confirmed to the South Sea Company. But the most important
feature of the treaty was that Gibraltar was tacitly relinquished by
Spain. It would be too much to claim for Caroline the credit of the
cession of Gibraltar to England, but there is no doubt that her wise
and temperate counsels, and her anxiety not to give needless offence to
Spanish susceptibilities by mentioning the fortress by name, materially
aided William Stanhope, the English plenipotentiary at Madrid, in
conducting the difficult and delicate negotiations which resulted in
the Treaty of Seville. Gibraltar was a question which touched Spanish
pride very nearly, and to see a fortress on its own shores held and
garrisoned by England was as great a humiliation to Spain as England’s
possession of Calais had once been to France.
Time had been, and not so long before, when English Ministers advised
the recession of Gibraltar to Spain, and George the First had written
a letter which contained a promise to restore the fortress at some
future time. This letter had been written upon the advice of Townshend
and Carteret in 1721, and so lately as 1728 we find that Townshend
was still in favour of the cession of Gibraltar. Writing to Poyntz he
declared: “What you proposed in relation to Gibraltar is certainly very
reasonable, and is exactly conformable to the opinion which you know I
have always entertained concerning that place; but you cannot but be
sensible of the violent and almost superstitious zeal which has of late
prevailed among all parties of this kingdom against any scheme for the
restitution of Gibraltar upon any conditions whatsoever.”[40] If the
matter had rested with Townshend, who had obtained the ear of the King
during his absence at Hanover, Gibraltar would probably have been ceded
to Spain.
To Caroline, therefore, acting in conjunction with Walpole, the credit
is due of having retained it for England. True, Gibraltar was not
mentioned by name in the Treaty of Seville, though the Opposition
clamoured for its explicit mention. But the Queen and the Prime
Minister were firm; they were content with the kernel and troubled not
about the husk. The result justified their wisdom. The treaty was
ultimately ratified without conditions, and Gibraltar henceforth became
a recognised possession of England.
In this, as in all other matters, the Queen worked in close accord with
Walpole, and by way of showing the Opposition how little she heeded
their attacks, she publicly marked her favour of the Prime Minister
by going to dine with him, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and
all the Royal Family, at his house at Chelsea, where a magnificent
entertainment was provided for her Majesty. The Queen and the Royal
Family dined in one room, and the rest of the party in another, Walpole
himself waiting on his illustrious guest. Nor did the Queen neglect the
ceremonial side of her office; she kept great state whilst she was at
St. James’s, and on the anniversary (June 11th) of the King’s Accession
she held a court at St. James’s which was one of the most largely
attended of the reign. She also frequently honoured the nobility with
her presence at their entertainments.
At Windsor Caroline kept much company, availing herself of the King’s
absence to go there. At Windsor she felt Queen of England indeed; she
occupied the rooms which had been used by the late Queen Anne, and her
favourite sitting room was the closet wherein Anne first heard of the
great victory of Blenheim, in which hung the banner annually presented
by the Duke of Marlborough, and now by his daughter, who was duchess
in her own right. Caroline held drawing-rooms in the state apartments,
of which the finest were the magnificent St. George’s Hall and the
ball room, hung with tapestry representing the seasons of the year.
The celebrated collection of beauties by Sir Peter Lely, afterwards
removed to Hampton Court, adorned one of the state apartments, and the
private chapel had some exquisite carved work by Grinling Gibbons. Here
Caroline attended divine service, and, seated in the royal closet hung
with crimson velvet, listened to lengthy discourses from Dr. Samuel
Clarke, or some other favourite divine.
It was from Windsor on a notable occasion that she drove to honour
the Earl and Countess of Orkney with a visit to their beautiful seat
at Clieveden. “Yesterday,” writes Peter Wentworth, “the Queen and all
the Royal Family went to dine and supper at Clieveden. How they were
diverted I know not, but I believe very well, for they did not come
home until almost four in the morning.”[41] According to all accounts
the entertainment was very successful, but Lady Orkney’s anxieties as a
hostess seem to have weighed heavily upon her, for we find her writing
a long letter a few days later to Mrs. Howard, expressing her “anguish”
because some little things had gone wrong. Perhaps, Lady Orkney only
wanted a more particular expression of the Queen’s satisfaction. Her
letter may be quoted as an expression of the fulsome servility to
royal personages then in vogue even among the high nobility.
“CLIEVEDEN, _August 5th, 1729_.
“MADAM,
“I give you this trouble out of the _anguish_ of my mind, to have
the Queen doing us the honour to dine here, and nothing performed in
the order it ought to have been! The stools which were set for the
Royal Family, though distinguished from ours, which I thought right,
because the Princess Royal sits so at quadrille, put away by Lord
Grantham,[42] who said there was to be no distinction from princes
and princesses and the ladies. He directed the table-cloths so that
there must be two to cover the table; for he used to have it so; in
short, turned the servants’ heads. They kept back the dinner too long
for her Majesty after it was dished, and was set before the fire,
and made it look not well dressed, the Duke of Grafton saying they
wanted a _maître d’hôtel_. All this vexed my Lord Orkney so--he tells
me he hopes I will never meddle more, if he could ever hope for the
same honour; which I own I did too much, as I see by the success,
but having done it for the late King,[43] and was told that things
were in that order, that it was as if his Majesty had lived here, I
ventured it now, but I have promised not to aim at it more.
“But what I have said shows the greater goodness in the Queen to be
so very easy. I have seen condescension in princesses, but none that
ever came up to her Majesty: nay, not all the good you have ever said
could make me imagine what I saw and heard. We all agreed her Majesty
must be admired; and, if I may use the term, it was impossible to see
her and not love her.
“If you hear of these mismanagements, pray be so good as to say
the house was too little for the reception of the Queen, and so
many great princes and princesses, who, without flattery, cannot
be but respectedly admired. I thought I had turned my mind in a
philosophical way of having done with the world, but I find I have
deceived myself; for I am vexed and pleased with the honours I have
received. I know from your discretion you will burn this, and I hope
will always believe me, etc.,
“E. ORKNEY.”[44]
From Windsor the Queen returned to Kensington, which she made her
headquarters for the rest of the summer, paying visits occasionally
to Hampton Court, Richmond, and Windsor, for the purpose of hunting.
The best idea of the social side of her regency may be gathered from
the letters that Peter Wentworth wrote during this period to Lord
Strafford.[45] They throw curious sidelights on the manners of the
time. To quote seriatim:--
“KENSINGTON, _July 25th, 1729_.
“I have been at Richmond again with the Queen and the Royal Family,
and I thank God they are all very well. We are to go there to-day,
and the Queen walks about there all day long. I shall be no more
her jest as a lover of drink at free cost, not only from her own
observation of one whom she sees every morning at eight o’clock, and
in the evening again at seven, walking in the gardens, and in the
drawing-room till after ten, but because she has my Lord Lifford
to play upon, who this day sen’night got drunk at Richmond. His
manner of getting so was pleasant enough; he dined with my good Lord
Grantham, who is well served at his table with meat, but very stingy
and sparing in his drink, for as soon as his dinner is done he and
his company rise, and no round of toasts. So my lord made good use
of his time whilst at dinner, and before they rose the Prince [of
Wales] came to them and drank a _bonpêre_ to my Lord Lifford, which
he pledged, and began another to him, and so a third. The Duke of
Grafton, to show the Prince he had done his business, gave him (Lord
Lifford) a little shove, and threw him off his chair upon the ground,
and then took him up and carried him to the Queen. Sunday morning
she railed at him before all the Court upon getting drunk in her
company, and upon his gallantry and coquetry with Princess Amelia,
running up and down the steps with her. When somebody told him the
Queen was there and saw him, his answer was: ‘What do I care for
the Queen?’ He stood all her jokes not only with French impudence,
but with Irish assurance. For all you say I don’t wonder I blushed
for him and wished for half his stock. I wonder at her making it
so public. Nobody has made a song; if Mr. Hambleton will make one
that shall praise the Queen and the Royal Family’s good humour, and
expose as much as he pleases the folly of Lord Grantham and Lord
Lifford, I will show it to the Prince, and I know he won’t tell whom
he had it from, for I have lately obliged him with the sight of _Mrs.
Fitzwilliam’s litany_, and he has promised he will not say he had it
from me. So I must beg you to say nothing of this to Lady Strafford,
for she will write it for news to Lady Charlotte Roussie, and then
I shall have Mrs. Fitz. angry with me, and the Prince laughing at
me for not being able to be my own councillor, as I fear you laugh
now. But if you betray me I make a solemn vow I never will tell you
anything again.
“The Queen continues very kind and obliging in her sayings to me, and
gave me t’other day an opportunity to tell her of my circumstances.
As we were driving by Chelsea she asked me what that walled place
was called. I told her Chelsea Park, and in the time of the Bubbles
’twas designed for the silkworms.[46] She asked me if I was not in
the Bubbles. With a sigh, I answered: ‘Yes, that, and my fire had
made me worse than nothing’. Some time after, when I did not think
she saw me, I was biting my nails. She called to me and said: ‘Oh
fie! Mr. Wentworth, you bite your nails very prettily’. I begged her
pardon for doing so in her presence, but said I did it for vexation
of my circumstances, and to save a crown from Dr. Lamb for cutting
them. She said she was sorry I had anything to vex me, and I did well
to save my money. The Prince told her I was one of the most diligent
servants he ever saw. I bowed and smiled as if I thought he bantered
me. He understood me, and therefore repeated again that he meant it
seriously and upon his word he thought that the Queen was happy in
having so good a servant. I told him ’twas a great satisfaction to me
to meet with his Royal Highness’s approbation. He clapped his hand
upon my shoulder and assured me that I had it.
“As we went to Richmond last Wednesday our grooms had a battle
with a carter that would not go out of the way. The good Queen had
compassion for the rascal and ordered me to ride after him and give
him a crown. I desired her Majesty to recall that order, for the
fellow was a very saucy fellow, and I saw him strike the Prince’s
groom first, and if we gave him anything for his beating ’twould be
an example to others to stop the way a purpose to provoke a beating.
The Prince approved what I said, for he said much the same to her
in _Dutch_, and I got immortal fame among the liverymen, who are no
small fools at this Court. I told her if she would give the crown to
anybody it should be to the Prince’s groom, who had the carter’s long
whip over his shoulders. She laughed, but saved her crown.”
“KENSINGTON, _August 14th, 1729_.
“The Queen has done me the honour to refer me for my orders to
her Royal Highness Princess Anne, and what is agreed by her will
please her Majesty; the height of my ambition is to please them
all. I flatter myself I have done so hitherto, for Princess Anne
has distinguished me with a singular mark of her favour, for she
has made me a present of a hunting suit of clothes, which is blue,
trimmed with gold, and faced and lined with red. The Prince of Wales,
Princess Anne, the Duke of Cumberland, Princess Mary and Princess
Louisa wear the same, and looked charming pretty in them. Thursday
se’nnight, Windsor Forest will be blessed with their presence again,
and since the forest _was_ a forest it never had such a fine set of
hunters, for a world of gentlemen have had the ambition to follow his
Royal Highness’s fashion.
“On Saturday last at Richmond Park, Major Sylvine made his appearance
by the Queen’s chaise, and she did him the honour to take notice
of him, telling him she was glad to see he could hunt. He thought
to be witty upon me by telling her Majesty I took such delight in
waiting that he thought it a pity to deprive me of that pleasure. My
good and gracious Queen answered him to my satisfaction and to his
mortification, for she said: ‘Does he? So ’tis a sign he loves me,
and I love him the better for’t.’ He replied he hoped her Majesty did
not think the worse of him. She had the goodness to say ‘No,’ but
repeated again that she loved me the better. Princess Amelia, who was
in the chaise with her, turned her head from Sylvine and smiled most
graciously upon me, which I could answer in no other way than by low
bows to mark the sense of the great honour that was done me. And for
my life I could not forbear getting behind the chaise to triumph over
and insult the major, telling him he had got much by being witty upon
me, which Princess Amelia heard, and laughed again upon me.”
“KENSINGTON, _August 21st, 1729_.
“Yesterday the Queen and all the Royal Family dined at Claremont,[47]
and I dined with the Duke (of Newcastle) and Sir Robert (Walpole),
etc. The Prince of Wales came to us as soon as his, and our, dinner
was over, and drank a bumper of rack-punch to the Queen’s health,
which you may be sure I devotedly pledged, and he was going on
with another, but her Majesty sent us word that she was going to
walk in the garden, so that broke up the company. We walked till
candle-light, being entertained with very fine French horns, then
returned to the great hall, and everybody agreed never was anything
finer lit.
“Her Majesty and Princess Caroline, Lady Charlotte Roussie and Mr.
Schütz played their quadrille. In the next room the Prince had the
fiddles and danced, and he did me the honour to ask me if I could
dance a country-dance. I told him ‘yes’; and if there had been a
partner for me, I should have made one in that glorious company--the
Prince with the Duchess of Newcastle, the Duke of Newcastle with
Princess Anne, the Duke of Grafton with Princess Amelia, Sir Robert
Walpole with Lady Catherine Pelham, who is with child--so they danced
but two dances. The Queen came from her cards to see that sight,
and before she said it, I thought he (Sir Robert Walpole) moved
surprisingly genteelly, and his dancing really became him, which I
should not have believed if I had not seen, and, if you please, you
may suspend your belief until you see the same. Lord Lifford danced
with Lady Fanny Manners; when they came to an easy dance my dear duke
took her from my lord, and I must confess it became him better than
the man I wish to be my friend, Sir Robert, which you will easily
believe. Mr. Henry Pelham[48] danced with Lady Albemarle, Lord James
Cavendish with Lady Middleton, and Mr. Lumley with Betty Spence.
“I paid my court sometimes to the carders, and sometimes to the
dancers. The Queen told Lord Lifford that he had not drunk enough
to make him gay, ‘and there is honest Mr. Wentworth has not drunk
enough’. I told her I had drunk her Majesty’s health; ‘And my
children’s too, I hope?’ I answered ‘Yes’. But she told me there
was one health I had forgot, which was the Duke and Duchess of
Newcastle’s, who had entertained us so well. I told her I had been
down among the coachmen to see they had obeyed my orders to keep
themselves sober, and I had had them all by the hand, and could
witness for them that they were so, and it would not have been decent
for me to examine them about it without I had kept myself sober, but
now that grand duty was over, I was at leisure to obey her Majesty’s
commands. There stood at the farther end of the room a table with
bottles of wine for the dancers to drink, and I went and filled a
bumper of burgundy and drank the duke’s and duchess’s health to Mr.
Lumley, and told him I did it by her Majesty’s command, and then I
went to the dancers, and he to the Queen, and told her I had done so.
When I came to her again she told me she was glad I had obeyed her
commands, and I thanked Mr. Lumley for the justice he had done me in
telling it to the Queen, which drew this compliment from him, that he
should always be ready to do me justice, or any service in his power.
I beg my son may have no occasion to grieve that I have now and again
taken a glass too much, for in my cups I shall call upon Mr. Lumley
to remember me, and ’tis through these merry companions, or through
rich friends that services are done for people.
“The Queen and the Prince have invited themselves to the Duke of
Grafton’s hunting seat, which lies near Richmond, Saturday. He fended
off for a great while, saying his house was not fit to receive them,
and ’twas so old he was afraid ’twould fall upon their heads. But his
Royal Highness, who is very quick at good inventions, told him he
would bring tents and pitch them in his garden, so his Grace’s excuse
did not come off; the thing must be Saturday.
“I have sent you enclosed a copy of my letter I wrote to Lord
Pomfret, which will explain to you how I am made secretary to the
Queen,[49] and before dinner, under pretence to know if I had taken
her Majesty’s sense aright, her Royal Highness (the Princess Royal)
being by when I received the orders, I desired leave to show it her.
She smiled and said: ‘By all means let me see it’. She kept it till
she had dined, read it to the Queen, her brothers and sisters, and
then sent for me from the gentlemen ushers’ table, and gave it to me,
again thanked me, and said it was very well writ, and she saw too
that I could dine at that table without being drunk at free cost.”
“KENSINGTON, _September 2nd, 1729_.
“Yesterday when the Queen was just got into her chaise there came a
messenger who brought her a packet of letters from the King with the
good news that his Majesty was very well. He had left him at the play
this day se’nnight. It also said the guards of Hanover were not to
march, for all differences were accommodated between the King and the
King of Prussia, so that I hope now the match will go forward[50] and
that we shall soon have the King here. The Queen opened the letter
and read it as she went along; the Princess [Anne] and the Duke [of
Cumberland] were riding on before, and neither saw nor heard anything
of this. Therefore I scoured away from the Queen to tell them the
good news, and then I rode back and told the Queen what I had done,
and that I had pleasure to be the messenger of good news. She and
they thanked me and commended what I had done. I have sent you a copy
of the orders I have been given to-day that you may see we go in for
a continual round of pleasure.”
“KENSINGTON, _September 16th, 1729_.
“There was one Mr. W(entworth) who had a very agreeable present
from the Queen. As he went over with her in the ferry boat Saturday
s’ennight she gave a purse to Princess Anne, and bade her give it to
Mr. W(entworth). Then she told him she wished him good luck, and in
order that she might bring it to him, she had given him silver and
gold, a sixpence, a shilling, and a half-guinea. He took the purse,
and gave her Majesty a great many thanks. ‘What,’ said she, ‘will you
not look into’t?’ His answer was: ‘Whatever comes from your Majesty
is agreeable to him;’ though if he had not felt in the purse some
_paper_, he could not have taken the royal jest with so good a grace.
There was a bank bill in’t, which raised such a contention between
him and his wife that in a manner he had better never have had it.
He was willing to give her half, but the good wife called in worthy
Madam Percade to her assistance, and she determined to give a third
to her.
“All this was told the Queen the next day, and caused a great laugh,
but put poor Mr. W(entworth) upon the thought of soliciting the great
Lord L(ifford) for a sum of £15 he had forgotten to pay him in the
South Sea. When the chase was over the Prince clapped Mr. W(entworth)
on the back and wished him joy of his present, and told him now
he would never be without money in his pocket. He replied if his
Highness had not told him so publicly of it, it might have been so,
but now his creditors would tease every farthing from him.”
[Illustration: THE ALTSTADT, HANOVER.]
The King who had been at Hanover five months now made ready to return
to England.[51] He had greatly enjoyed his visit to the Electorate,
and had given several fêtes, including a farewell masquerade in the
gardens of Herrenhausen, where the hedges of clipped hornbeam acted as
screens and the grass as a carpet; the whole scene was illuminated by
coloured lights.[52] The King followed at Hanover the same clockwork
rule he had established in England. “Our life is as uniform as that of
a monastery,” wrote one of the King’s English retinue who was lodged at
the Leine Schloss. “Every morning at eleven and every evening at six we
drive in the heat to Herrenhausen through an enormous linden avenue;
and twice a day cover our coats and coaches with dust. In the King’s
society there is never the least change. At table, and at cards, he
sees always the same faces, and at the end of the game retires into his
chamber. Twice a week there is a French theatre; the other days there
is a play in the gallery. In this way, were the King always to stop in
Hanover, one could take a ten years’ calendar of his proceedings, and
settle beforehand what his time of business, meals, and pleasure would
be.”
It was during this visit of George the Second to Hanover that his
dispute with the King of Prussia came to a crisis. The King of England
resented the King of Prussia’s connivance at his son Frederick’s
disobedience, but he could hardly make that the ostensible pretext for
a quarrel, so he raked up the old grievance of the Prussians having
kidnapped some of his tall Hanoverians for the Potsdam regiment of
guards, and so violent grew the altercation, and so insulting were the
messages of the King of Prussia, that the choleric little George sent
him word challenging him to single combat at any place he would name,
and leaving him the choice of weapons. It would have been a boon to
Europe in general, and to England and Prussia in particular, if these
two royal combatants had met and killed one another as they threatened
to do, but unfortunately such a desirable consummation was prevented
by Lord Townshend, whose remonstrances resulted in a compromise being
patched up between the illustrious cousins. In fact, so amicably were
matters settled that pretended negotiations were again set on foot
for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Wilhelmina. The Prince
professed himself most eager for the match, and wrote to Hotham,
the special envoy at Berlin: “Please, dear Hotham, get my marriage
settled, my impatience increases daily, for I am quite foolishly in
love”. Wilhelmina, however, says that she did not credit these romantic
sentiments, and she thought they were due rather to obstinacy than
love. Her father was quite indifferent as to whether the Prince of
Wales’s desire to wed his daughter proceeded from love or obstinacy;
all he wished was that Wilhelmina should be taken off his hands, and
given a suitable establishment. King George had the same feeling about
Amelia, whom he still desired to marry to the Crown Prince. The King
of Prussia’s answer to this was: “I will agree to my son’s marriage
if he is made Regent of Hanover, and allowed to direct the management
of the electorate till my death, and if provision is made for his
maintenance”. These terms were, of course, impossible, and the matter
came to an end.
The King quitted Hanover with regret, and commanded that everything
should remain at Herrenhausen precisely the same as when he was there.
The pomp and circumstance of the electoral court suffered no abatement
in his absence; the splendid stables containing eight hundred horses
were maintained at their full strength, and the chamberlains, court
marshals, and others continued to receive their full salaries. The King
appointed no regent over the electorate in his absence; his uncle, the
Duke of York was dead, and his son, the Prince of Wales, was now in
England, so he placed the government of the electorate in the hands of
a council of regency, and as a substitute for his own most gracious
presence at the levées the King’s portrait as Elector was placed upon
the vacant throne in the state room at Herrenhausen. Every Saturday
a levée was held as though the Elector (for they did not officially
recognise the King of England at Hanover) had been there, and the
courtiers assembled and made their bow to the picture on the chair
of state just as though it had been the Elector himself. This absurd
ceremony continued through George the Second’s reign, except when he
was at Hanover.
The King landed at Margate on September 11th, and at once posted to
London, where his Queen and Regent was eagerly expecting him. So
anxious was she that when the outriders came on ahead to Kensington
Palace to announce that the King was nearing London, the Queen set out
on foot, accompanied by all her children, and walked from Kensington,
through Hyde Park, down Piccadilly to St. James’s Park where she met
the King’s coach. The King stopped, alighted, and heartily embraced
his consort in the sight of all the people. Then he helped her back
into the coach, when they drove off to Kensington together amid the
cheers of the populace, followed by other coaches containing the King’s
suite and the princes and princesses. The devotion which the Queen
showed to the King and the evident affection he bore her are the best
features (one might almost say the only good features), of the Court
of England at this period. Peter Wentworth, who writes to his brother
of this royal meeting, says: “The King is happily arrived.... You see
I am got into the prints by the honour the Queen did me, alone of all
her servants, to send me to meet the King. I was the only gentleman
servant with her when she walked, Monday se’nnight, with all her royal
children, from Kensington Gardens quite to the island of St. James’s
Park. Passages there are better told than writ, which I design myself
the honour to do very soon--though I find virtue retires no more to
cottages and cells, but secure of public triumph and applause, she
makes the British Court her imperial residence.”
The next day, at a meeting of the Privy Council, the Queen, kneeling,
delivered her commission of regency back into the King’s hands, and
rendered him an account of her stewardship.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER V:
[39] _Daily Post_, 5th July, 1729.
[40] Lord Townshend to Poyntz, 14th June, 1728.
[41] Letter of Peter Wentworth to Lord Strafford, 31st July, 1729.
[42] Chamberlain to the Queen.
[43] On the 5th September, 1724, King George I., attended by many of
the nobility and gentry, dined with Lord Orkney at Clieveden, where he
was magnificently entertained.
[44] _Suffolk Correspondence._
[45] These letters are preserved in the Manuscript Department of the
British Museum. Some of them have been published in the _Wentworth
Papers_, but many of those quoted here have never been printed.
[46] One of the Bubble schemes.
[47] Claremont was one of the seats of the Duke of Newcastle.
[48] The Right Hon. Henry Pelham, son of Lord Pelham and brother of
Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, whose title had been revived in his
favour by George the First.
[49] This was probably a practical joke played on Peter Wentworth, as
he never held the office of secretary to the Queen.
[50] The double marriage scheme which had cropped up again for a brief
space.
[51] Thackeray inaccurately says that “in the year 1729 he (King George
II.) went over two whole years, during which time Caroline reigned
for him in England, and he was not in the least missed by his British
subjects”. The King was only away from March to September, 1729, and
then returned to England, where he remained until 1732, when he again
went to Hanover.
[52] _Vide_ Vehse, _Geschichte der Deutschen Höfe_.
CHAPTER VI.
THE QUEEN AND THE NATION.
1729–1732.
Soon after the King’s return from Hanover, matters came to a crisis
between Townshend and Walpole. Ill-feeling had existed for some time,
and the Treaty of Seville served to irritate it. The King, who had a
great regard for a minister who had served him long and faithfully,
was reluctant to let Townshend go, but the Queen, who saw in him an
obstacle to her plans, was anxious to be quit of him, and when once she
made up her mind, it was not long before she got what she wanted. She
suspected that Townshend was in league with Mrs. Howard, and she could
not forgive his having endeavoured to curtail her powers as Regent.
Moreover, Townshend, who had always treated her with scant respect, had
so far forgotten himself as to make a scene in her presence.
One evening, when the court was at Windsor, the Queen asked Townshend
where he had dined that day, and he told her with Lord and Lady
Trevor. Walpole, who was standing by, said with his usual coarse
pleasantry: “My Lord, madam, I think is grown _coquet_ from a long
widowhood, and has some design upon my Lady Trevor’s virtue, for his
assiduity of late in that family is grown to be so much more than
common civility, that, without this solution, I know not how to account
for it.” That Walpole was only joking was evident from the fact that
Lady Trevor, besides being a most virtuous matron, was very old, and
exceedingly ugly. But Townshend, who was eager to take offence, flew
into a passion, and replied with great warmth: “No, sir, I am not one
of those fine gentlemen who find no time of life, nor any station in
the world, preservatives against follies and immoralities that are
hardly excusable when youth and idleness make us most liable to such
temptations. They are liberties, sir, which I can assure you I am as
far from taking, as from approving; nor have I either a constitution
that requires such practices, a purse that can support them, or a
conscience that can digest them.” He went white to the lips as he said
this, his voice shook, and he trembled with rage, and was ready to
spring at Walpole. His answer was intended to be offensive. Walpole
led a notoriously immoral life, and had lately made himself the talk
of the town by his amour with Maria, or Moll, Skerrett, and the
caricatures and ballads of the day teemed with the coarsest allusions
to this intrigue. But Walpole kept his temper, and, with a shrug of his
shoulders, answered Townshend quietly: “What, my Lord, all this for my
Lady Trevor!” Townshend would have retorted with heat, but the Queen,
who was exceedingly uneasy at the scene, turned the subject with a
laugh, and began to talk very fast about something else.
A variety of causes conspired to aggravate Townshend’s jealousy of
his brother-in-law and former friend. Walpole put the case bluntly
by saying that “so long as the firm was Townshend and Walpole things
went all right, but the moment it became Walpole and Townshend
things went all wrong;” but this was not all the truth. Walpole had
built a magnificent house at Houghton in Norfolk, which completely
overshadowed Townshend’s at Rainham, in the same county. At Houghton he
gave frequent entertainments, to which politicians and place-hunters
flocked in great numbers, turning their backs on Townshend. Walpole
kept a sort of public table, which was much frequented by the country
gentlemen, and the house was always full. Scenes of the wildest
revelry were enacted at Houghton, and Walpole’s hospitality often
degenerated into drunken orgies disfigured by licence of conduct
and coarseness of speech. His annual parties in the shooting season
were said to cost as much as £3,000. “The noise and uproar,” says
Coxe, his panegyrist, “the waste and confusion were prodigious. The
best friends of Sir Robert Walpole in vain remonstrated against the
scene of riot and misrule. As the Minister himself was fond of mirth
and jollity, the conviviality of their meetings was too frequently
carried to excess, and Lord Townshend, whose dignity of deportment and
decorum of character revolted against these scenes, which he called
the bacchanalian orgies of Houghton, not infrequently quitted Rainham
during their continuance.”[53]
To Houghton Walpole often brought his mistress, Maria Skerrett, whom
he maintained openly, notwithstanding that his wife was still alive.
He had one daughter by her.[54] Maria Skerrett’s origin was uncertain,
though it was not so obscure as her enemies made out; she was a friend
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and her contemporaries have testified to
her good heart. But she was an immoral woman of great licence of speech
and behaviour, and it is doubtful whether Walpole was her first lover.
He gave her £5,000 down, and a large allowance. The Prime Minister’s
conduct in this matter gave great disgust to Townshend and the stricter
of his supporters. The Queen, however, made light of it, saying that
she “was glad if he had any amusement for his leisure hours,” but she
couldn’t understand how he could care for a woman who evidently loved
him only for his money. While of Skerrett, she said: “She must be a
clever woman to have made him believe she cares for him on any other
score; and to show you what fools we all are in some point or other,
she certainly has told him some fine story or other of her love and her
passion, and that poor man _avec ce gros corps, ces jambes enflées, et
ce vilain ventre_ believes her. Ah! what is human nature!”
As the differences between Walpole and Townshend extended not only
to their political relations but to their private life, it was not
long before matters came to a crisis. They were dining one night with
Colonel Selwyn and his lady in Cleveland Row, opposite St. James’s
Palace, and after dinner, when Walpole, as usual, had drunk too much
wine, a dispute arose in which the Prime Minister so far lost his
usual good humour as to reply to a taunt of Townshend’s by shouting:
“My Lord, for once there is no man’s sincerity whom I so much doubt as
your Lordship’s”. Townshend, who was of a hasty temperament, sprang at
Walpole and seized him by the throat; the Prime Minister laid hold of
his antagonist in turn, they struggled together and clapped hands on
their swords. The whole party was in an uproar; Mrs. Selwyn shrieked
and ran out of the house to summon the palace guard, but she was
stopped by Henry Pelham, who entreated her not to make a scandal, and
used the same argument with the two Ministers. After a time they were
pacified a little, and a duel was prevented; but the quarrel was too
serious to be patched up.
Townshend shortly after resigned his office in the Government and
withdrew to Rainham; he embarked no more in politics, but spent the
rest of his days in improving agriculture. His retirement meant more
than appeared on the surface, for he had considerable influence with
the King. It involved also the ascendency of the Queen and the defeat
of Mrs. Howard, whose friend he was. Henceforward there was no one to
thwart the influence of the Queen and Walpole. William Stanhope, who
had been created Lord Harrington for his services in connexion with the
Treaty of Seville, was now made Secretary of State. He was an admirable
diplomatist but a poor speaker, and though he made but an indifferent
figure in Parliament, his moderation, prudence and sagacity made him a
very useful minister. Lord Harrington and the Duke of Newcastle were
now the only persons of any importance in the Government except its
chief.
Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, was one of the greatest noblemen of
his time by sheer force of his wealth. He had an enormous rent roll,
he maintained princely establishments, he spent freely on display,
yet he was unable to attach to himself a single friend. “The Duke of
Newcastle,” writes one who knew him, “hath spent half a million and
made the fortunes of five hundred men, and yet is not allowed to have
one real friend.”[55] But the fact that he scattered lavish sums at
elections to support the Hanoverian succession, owned a large number
of boroughs and had vast patronage, sufficed to give him many apparent
friends, from the King downwards. He was a poor speaker, he was weak
and mean-spirited, and his ignorance of matters connected with his
office was almost incredible. On one occasion the defence of Annapolis
was recommended to him. “Ah!” he said after some reflection, “to be
sure, Annapolis ought to be defended; of course, Annapolis must be
defended. By the by, where is Annapolis?” As we have seen, the King
when Prince of Wales had the strongest aversion to him, but now the
duke stood high in office. Yet the King does not seem to have loved
him. “You see,” he said to one of his friends, “I am compelled to take
the Duke of Newcastle to be my minister, though he is not fit to be a
chamberlain in the smallest court of Germany.” But, however poor the
duke’s capacity might be, he had great wealth and influence, and then,
as now, men of his type were foisted on the public service to the
detriment of the nation.
For the first time since the accession of the House of Hanover to the
throne, the Government had respite from Jacobite intrigues. The Treaty
of Seville (1729) and the second Treaty of Vienna (1731) established
friendly relations between the English Government and all the European
powers, so that none of them, not even Roman Catholic countries like
Spain and Austria, could any longer lend outward support to James.
Moreover the Jacobite party lost, almost at the same time, all their
greatest men. Lord Mar died at Aix-la-Chapelle. The Duke of Wharton,
who, while pretending loyalty to his master, had been negotiating for
a return to England, died in Spain in comparative poverty, and so
closed his career of splendid infamy. Bishop Atterbury, the ablest of
all, had fallen out of favour with James, chiefly because of his wish
to bring up the young Prince Charles Edward in the faith of the Church
of England. When James saw the folly of alienating him it was too late.
Atterbury died a few weeks after he had sent to James a copy of his
vindication of the charges brought against him by Lord Inverness, and
the Jacobite cause lost its wisest friend.
James was so unpopular in England at this time, even among his own
supporters, that societies were formed to discuss the propriety of
transferring their allegiance to his son, Prince Charles Edward, and
reports were persistently circulated that the young Prince was to be
taken from his father’s guardianship and brought up in the religion of
the Church of England. This plan was at first supported by Bolingbroke,
who did his utmost to bring it about, and it gained so much credence
that in 1733 Sir Archer Croft declared in the House of Commons that
“The Pretender was the more to be feared because they did not know but
that he was then breeding his son a Protestant”.[56] Had this been
true it would have been the severest possible blow for the Hanoverian
family. It would have done away with their reason for occupying the
throne, and though they could not have been expected to abdicate of
their own free will, yet the personal unpopularity of the King after
the Queen’s death was so great that the rising of ’45 would probably
have had a different ending. But it was not true, for in matters of
religion James was as great a bigot as his father, and Atterbury’s
death put an end to all such plans.
The Duchess of Buckingham often went to Paris to have conferences with
Atterbury on this question, and the Bishop used his influence with her
to prevent the Duke of Berwick from giving a Roman Catholic tutor to
her son, the young duke. The duchess pretended that her interviews with
Atterbury were wholly connected with her son’s education, but Walpole
knew that was only a pretext to hide her Jacobite intrigues. The
duchess had a great position in England as head of the Jacobite ladies;
she was in fact a sort of Jacobite Duchess of Marlborough, and a rival
of that illustrious dowager, whom in arrogance and pride she strongly
resembled. Like her she possessed enormous wealth, and Buckingham House
vied in magnificence with Marlborough House across the park. Both the
duchesses disliked and despised the Hanoverian family, though from
different reasons, and both masked their dislike, and occasionally did
the King and Queen the honour, as they considered it, of attending
their drawing-rooms. The two duchesses were on friendly terms, but
occasionally had their differences. The Duchess of Buckingham lost
her son, and his remains were brought from Rome to be interred in
Westminster Abbey with great pomp. She sent to her neighbour across the
park, the Duchess Sarah, to ask the loan of the funeral car which had
borne the body of the great Duke of Marlborough to St. Paul’s. Sarah
spurned this request with contumely: “It carried my Lord Marlborough,”
she sent word to say, “and it shall never be used for any meaner
mortal.” “I have consulted the undertaker,” wrote back the other
duchess, “and he tells me I can have a finer for twenty pounds.”
The Duchess of Buckingham made frequent journeys to Paris and Rome to
intrigue in favour of the Stuarts, of whom she considered herself one;
she paid visits to Cardinal Fleury at Versailles, but according to a
contemporary[57] she got nothing from the cardinal but compliments
and civil excuses, and was laughed at both in Paris and Rome for her
pompous manner of travelling, in which she affected the state of a
princess of the blood royal. On her visits to Paris she always made
a pilgrimage to the church in which the unburied body of James the
Second lay, and prayed and wept over it. Horace Walpole says, with
a characteristic touch of malice, that despite this outward show of
grief she allowed the royal pall to rot itself threadbare through her
parsimony. It is more likely that sentiment prevented her from having
it repaired. To Sir Robert Walpole, who knew all her intrigues almost
before she embarked upon them, and who treated her as a person of no
importance, she made extraordinary overtures to induce him to join
with her in effecting the restoration of the Stuarts. She knew that
Walpole was very fond of his daughter by Maria Skerrett, and she hinted
to him that it might be possible to wed her to Prince Charles Edward
if he would embrace the Stuart cause. She asked him if he remembered
what Lord Clarendon’s reward had been for helping to restore the royal
family; Sir Robert affected not to understand, and she said: “Was he
not allowed to match his daughter to the Duke of York?” Walpole smiled
and changed the subject. The King had not the same patience with the
Duchess of Buckingham’s eccentricities as his Prime Minister, and would
probably have taken some action against her had not Caroline counselled
the wiser policy of ignoring her Grace’s quixotic proceedings; but on
one occasion the duchess was really frightened lest the King should
discover her little plots. She had quitted England without having
obtained the requisite permission, and she wrote to Walpole from
Boulogne: “I know there is a usual form, as I take it only to be
esteemed, of any peer’s asking permission of the King (or Queen in the
present circumstance) to go out of the kingdom, but even that ceremony
I thought reached not to women, whose being in and out of their country
seemed never to be of the least consequence”. In the same letter she
alludes to her intrigues, and speaks of them as “nonsensical stories”
not worthy of credence. Walpole took her letter to the Queen, who was
then Regent, and they laughed over it together, but they let “Princess”
Buckingham, as they called her, alone.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS CLEMENTINA (CONSORT OF PRINCE JAMES FRANCIS
EDWARD STUART).
_From the Painting in the National Portrait Gallery_]
While the Stuarts were losing ground Caroline was working hard and
incessantly to make the Hanoverian family acceptable to the English
nation. By birth a foreign princess, one who did not arrive upon these
shores until well into middle life, she could not boast that she was
“entirely English” like Queen Anne, but it is remarkable, considering
the great and obvious disadvantages under which she laboured, how well
she succeeded in impressing her personality upon the English people.
She was careful to express herself in public in warm admiration of the
laws, customs and constitution of this country; she often declared
that England owed everything to its liberties. Yet sometimes when the
King abused England, as he invariably did after a visit to Hanover,
speaking of the English people as “king-killers” and “republicans,”
and grumbling at their riches as well as their rights, she would fall
into his vein, and rail against the limited powers of the Crown,
which rendered the King “a puppet of sovereignty” and a servant of
Parliament. It is probable that she chafed against the limitations to
the power of the Sovereign, for she was a woman who loved to rule;
but in theory she was all for liberty and tolerance. But whatever her
predilections, she clearly understood, and acquiesced in, the only
possible terms by which the Hanoverian family were allowed to reign in
England. As she could not increase the limited power of the Crown in
political matters, she determined to increase its unlimited influence
in other directions, and to this end she encouraged everything
which helped to promote the well-being and prosperity of the people,
especially those movements which had a national origin. This was
especially the case with home industries. For example, we read:--
“On Saturday last a considerable body of dealers in bone-lace from
the counties of Bucks, Northampton and Bedford, waited upon her
Majesty with a petition on behalf of their manufacture, and carried
with them a parcel of lace to show the perfection they had brought it
to, and when her Majesty showed her royal intention to encourage the
British manufacturer by receiving them very graciously, and bought a
considerable quantity of lace for the use of the Royal Family, and
several ladies followed her example, the said dealers in lace had the
honour to kiss her Majesty’s hand.”[58] And again: “On Wednesday last
some of the Trustees for Georgia and Sir Thomas Loombe waited upon her
Majesty with the Georgia silk, which is to be wove into a piece for her
Majesty’s wear, from a beautiful pattern which her Majesty chose, and
she, in a most gracious manner, expressed satisfaction at the British
Colonies having produced so fine a silk.”[59]
She was quick to encourage English inventions and enterprise. For
instance: “On Monday Mr. Clay, the inventor of the machine watches in
the Strand, had the honour of exhibiting to her Majesty at Kensington
his surprising musical clock, which gave uncommon satisfaction to all
the Royal Family present, at which time her Majesty, to encourage so
great an artist, was pleased to order fifty guineas to be expended
for numbers in the intended raffle, by which we hear Mr. Clay
intends to dispose of this said beautiful and most complete piece of
machinery.”[60] And again: “On Tuesday a most beautiful hat, curiously
made of feathers in imitation of a fine Brussels lace, was shown to
her Majesty, who, for the encouragement of ingenuity, being the first
of the kind ever made in England, was so good as to purchase it, and
afterwards presented it to the Princess of Wales.”[61]
There was very little social legislation during Walpole’s tenure of
power, the great Minister going on the principle of letting things
alone; but a few useful reforms were passed from time to time, and
in all of them the Queen took a warm interest. One was effected at
the instance of the Duke of Argyll, who brought in a bill that all
proceedings of the courts of justice should be conducted in English
instead of Latin as heretofore. “Our prayers,” said the Duke of Argyll,
“are in our native tongue, so that they are intelligible; and why
should not the laws wherein our lives and properties are concerned be
so, for the same reason?” The measure was carried, notwithstanding
the fact that most of the lawyers strongly opposed the change;
Lord Raymond, for instance, declared that if the bill were passed
the law must likewise be translated into Welsh, since in Wales many
understood no English. Another reform was the purging of the Charitable
Corporation from gross abuses. This corporation had been formed for
the relief of the industrious poor by lending them small sums of money
at legal interest, but had drifted into malpractices and extortionate
usury; penalties were now inflicted upon the malefactors, and the whole
system was reformed.
The Queen’s private charities were very numerous. She would never
refuse a supplicant who sought her aid, in whatever rank of life he
might be, and though her income was large, she spent all of it, chiefly
upon others. She had no sense of the value of money, and with her to
have was to spend, or to give away, not always very wisely perhaps,
but always cheerfully. The journals of the period teem with notices of
her liberality; but, even so, they did not represent a tithe of her
charities, for she gave away much in secret, of which the public never
knew. The following extracts from newspapers, taken almost at random,
will serve to show how wide was her sympathy, and how generous her
impulses:--
“Twelve French Protestants, who were made slaves on account of their
religion, having lately been released from the jails of France on the
representation of their Britannic Majesties, and having arrived here,
a charitable collection is making for them, towards which the Queen has
given £1,000.”[62]
“Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to give and bestow the sum of
£500, as a mark of her royal bounty and charity, towards the relief of
the sufferers in the late dreadful fire at Gravesend in Kent.”[63]
“We hear that her Majesty has ordered a sum of money to relieve poor
housekeepers and other families in necessity.”[64]
“Thursday last week, the wife of the drummer at Woolwich, lately
brought to bed of three children, waited on the Queen, and her Majesty
ordered her fifty guineas.”[65]
“Mr. James Brown, one of the pages of the presence to her Majesty,
having been ill of the palsy this year, and now lying incapable of
doing his duty, her Majesty has been pleased to order that he should be
paid his salary of £40 per annum during his life.”[66]
“On Tuesday last, her Majesty, together with the Duke and the three
Princesses, paid a visit to Mrs. Simpson, whose husband is one of the
keepers of Bushey Park. She is 106 years old, being born in the town
of Cardigan in the year 1625, is now in good health, and has all her
senses, except hearing, perfect. Her Majesty after expressing herself
pleased with the manner of life by which she had preserved herself to
this good old age, made her a present of a purse of gold.”[67]
“As soon as her Majesty heard of the misfortune of the country girl’s
breaking both her thigh bones by the overturning of a cart near Hampton
Court, she sent some ladies to enquire the truth of it, and being
satisfied thereof, her Majesty was graciously pleased to order one
guinea a week to be paid for her lodging, nurse and diet, and directed
the surgeon to take particular care of the girl, and her Majesty would
pay him.”[68]
“Her Majesty being informed of the great benefit the inhabitants of
the city and liberties of Westminster received from the infirmaries
established there for the relief of such of their poor as are sick and
lame, has been graciously pleased to send to each such infirmary a
bounty of £100 to promote so useful a charity.”[69]
“We hear that her Majesty has lately given to the hospital near Hyde
Park Corner, the sum of £100.”[70]
“Last Saturday when the Royal Family returned from hunting, her Majesty
was told by Lady Deloraine that the Princess Louisa had been pleased to
stand godmother to the twins of Mrs. Palairet, wife of her Highness’s
writing master. Whereupon her Majesty ordered the mother and children
to be brought to her, when her Majesty, finding that Mrs. Palairet
intended to suckle them both herself, was graciously pleased with the
courage and tenderness of the mother in undertaking the hard task, and
ordered her a purse of guineas.”[71]
“Last Sunday a great number of the widows of the Navy, whose husbands
died before August, 1732, and were unprovided, waited on the Queen at
Kensington with their humble address of thanks for the provision they
lately received upon their humble petition presented to her Majesty on
Sunday, 29th April.”[72]
“Her Majesty going through Hammersmith was pleased to order ten guineas
for the poor haymakers, who were very numerous on the road.”[73]
“Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to send fifty guineas towards
the relief of the unhappy sufferers by the late fire in Cecil’s Court
in St. Martin’s Lane.”[74]
“Her Majesty has been pleased to declare her royal intention of
bestowing £5,000 towards building and endowing a hospital for foundling
children.”[75]
“Her Majesty has been pleased to order the royal gardens at Richmond
to be free to all in the same manner as those at Kensington are when
the Royal Family does not reside there, so that the walks are full
of company every evening to the great advantage of the town and the
neighbourhood.”[76]
“Her Majesty has been pleased to grant a charter and to give a donation
to the governors of the infirmary at Hyde Park Corner, to establish
themselves into a corporation, the same to be called St. George’s
Hospital.”[77]
Queen Caroline was a constant and generous patron of learning; she
twice gave donations of £1,000 to Queen’s College, Oxford, and she
tried in many ways to advance the interests of education. Science,
especially medical science, found in her a warm supporter. Under the
guidance of Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Royal Society, she lent
her aid to any movement to promote the health of the people, and
any doctor or man of science who distinguished himself was sure of
receiving notice and encouragement from her. Perhaps her most notable
achievement in the advancement of science was the support which she
gave to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who, on her return from the East,
introduced inoculation as a safeguard against smallpox into England.
This beneficent discovery was opposed with great clamour by the clergy,
the more ignorant of the doctors, and the middle and lower classes,
and Lady Mary would certainly have failed had not Caroline stood by
her side from first to last. She and her husband and children were
inoculated, and by her example and determination she prevailed on the
higher classes and the more enlightened people to be inoculated also,
and so make the practice general.
Queen Caroline held firmly to the principle that the welfare of the
people should be the first care of princes, and she strove in every way
to ameliorate their lot. Parliament did little for them in Caroline’s
day, the era of social legislation had scarcely begun to dawn. The
wars of nations, the conflicts of dynasties, the strife of creeds
absorbed all energies, and in the noise and heat thus engendered the
needs of the people were thrust aside and forgotten. The condition of
the poor not only in the large towns, but in the country districts,
was deplorable in the extreme. Many of them were sunk in ignorance and
vice, and treated like beasts of burden. There was much talk about
the liberties of the nation, but the lower classes of the people were
little better than serfs. Neither Whig nor Tory did anything for
them; they had no votes and the politician passed them by. Under such
conditions the influence of one woman, however highly placed, could do
little. Let it be recorded that in an epoch when the duty of man to
his fellow-man was least understood, when the national selfishness was
greatest and the national ideals were lowest, Queen Caroline did what
she could.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER VI:
[53] Coxe’s _Life of Walpole_.
[54] This daughter was eventually given the rank of earl’s daughter,
and married Mr. Churchill, a son of General Churchill. Walpole married
Maria Skerrett after his wife’s death, but she died soon after her
marriage.
[55] Dr. King’s _Anecdotes of My Own Time_.
[56] _Parliamentary History_, vol. viii., p. 1,185.
[57] Dr. King’s _Anecdotes of My Own Time_.
[58] _Daily Courant_, 2nd February, 1730.
[59] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 6th August, 1735.
[60] _Daily Post_, 1st September, 1736.
[61] _Weekly Journal_, 8th May, 1736.
[62] _Stamford Mercury_, 11th January, 1728.
[63] _Daily Post_, 30th January, 1728.
[64] _Fog’s Weekly Journal_, 7th December, 1728.
[65] _Weekly Journal_, 20th July, 1728.
[66] _London Journal_, 24th April, 1731.
[67] _Daily Post_, 23rd September, 1731.
[68] _Daily Courant_, 1st October, 1733.
[69] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 20th April, 1734.
[70] _Reed’s Weekly Journal_, 15th June, 1734.
[71] _Daily Journal_, 26th October, 1734.
[72] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 17th June, 1735.
[73] _General Evening Post_, 17th June, 1735.
[74] _Hooker’s Miscellany_, 12th July, 1736.
[75] _Reed’s Weekly Journal_, 31st July, 1736.
[76] _Universal Spectator_, 11th September, 1736.
[77] _Reed’s Weekly Journal_, 18th September, 1736.
CHAPTER VII.
THE QUEEN AND LITERATURE.
Queen Caroline is distinguished from the other Queens-Consort of
England as the one who took a genuine interest in literature; in this
respect she surpassed all our Queens-Regnant as well, though Elizabeth,
and in a far lesser sense Anne, showed an appreciation of letters. The
age of Elizabeth has been called the golden age of English literature:
the reign of Anne the Augustan period. There can be no doubt as to the
correctness of the first of these designations; the second is open to
cavil. But though the English writers who flourished during the early
part of the eighteenth century could not compare in loftiness or genius
to the writers of the reign of Elizabeth, yet they formed a galaxy of
talent--talent amounting in some instances to positive genius--which
England has never witnessed since. This galaxy shone throughout the
reigns of Anne and George the First, but soon after Caroline came to
the throne its brilliance began to wane. Some of the greatest writers
were dead, and others had already given their best work to the world.
It must be admitted that Queen Caroline’s judgment in literature was
not always as sound as her interest was genuine--in English literature
at least. Her imperfect knowledge of the English language had something
to do with this; one can hardly master the literature of a country if
one does not begin to speak its language until middle life. In French
and German literature she was far better equipped. She had read much
and widely of them both, and of her favourite studies of metaphysics,
philosophy and theology had perhaps taken in more than she could
assimilate. Her correspondence with learned and scientific men kept her
abreast of the best thought of the time, and no work of conspicuous
merit made its appearance in Europe without Caroline’s coming, directly
or indirectly, in touch with its author. When Voltaire, for instance,
visited England he received ready help and generous appreciation at
Caroline’s hands.
Voltaire came to England in 1726, after his quarrel with the Duke de
Sully. Some months’ detention in the Bastille, followed by an order to
quit Paris, had driven him into exile. In the warmth of his welcome
to England he found a balm for his wounded feelings, and he stayed in
this country more than two years. He found in England many congenial
spirits, and delighted in the freedom of discussion and latitude of
opinion everywhere prevalent, from the Court downwards, especially
in the brilliant literary circle where he foregathered. He warmly
admired the religious and civil liberty of England, and testified his
admiration in his _Lettres Philosophiques_, also called _Lettres
sur les Anglais_. He wrote in England his _Tragedy of Brutus_, and
here also he brought out, in 1728, the first edition of his poem _La
Henriade_. To Caroline, who often received him at Leicester House as
Princess of Wales, and who welcomed him with equal cordiality at court
when she became Queen, he dedicated this edition of _La Henriade_. The
dedication, in English, ran as follows:--
“TO THE QUEEN.
“MADAM--It was the fate of Henry the Fourth to be protected by an
English Queen. He was assisted by the great Elizabeth, who was in her
age the glory of her sex. By whom can his memory be so well protected
as by her who resembles so much Elizabeth in her personal virtues?
“Your Majesty will find in this book bold, impartial truths; morality
unstained with superstition; a spirit of liberty, equally abhorrent
of rebellion and of tyranny; the rights of kings always asserted, and
those of mankind never laid aside.
“The same spirit in which it is written gave me the confidence to
offer it to the virtuous Consort of a King who, among so many crowned
heads, enjoys almost alone the inestimable honour of ruling a free
nation; a King who makes his power consist in being beloved, and his
glory in being just.
“Our Descartes, who was the greatest philosopher in Europe before Sir
Isaac Newton appeared, dedicated the _Principles_ to the celebrated
Princess Palatine Elizabeth; not, said he, because she was a princess
(for true philosophers respect princes, and never flatter them); but
because of all his readers she understood him the best, and loved
truth the most.
“I beg leave, Madam (without comparing myself to Descartes), to
dedicate _La Henriade_ to your Majesty upon the like account, and not
only as the protectress of all arts and sciences, but as the best
judge of them.
“I am, with that profound respect which is due to the greatest
virtue as well as the highest rank, may it please your Majesty, your
Majesty’s most humble, most dutiful, and most obliged servant,
“VOLTAIRE.”
Even if we allow for flattery, and Voltaire was not given to flattering
princes, this dedication is a remarkable tribute to Caroline’s mental
powers and her interest in the arts. Voltaire must have known of
her friendship with Sir Isaac Newton; he had probably heard of her
admiration for Queen Elizabeth; and he skilfully wove allusions to both
in his dedication.
The first edition of _La Henriade_ was sold to subscribers at one
guinea a copy, and had a great success. The Queen herself solicited
subscriptions for it among her friends, and the edition was soon
exhausted. Nor did her interest stop here. She persuaded the King to
give Voltaire a present of two thousand crowns, equal to £500, and she
added to this a further present of £200 from her privy purse, and sent
Voltaire her portrait.
English men of letters were not so fortunate as Voltaire in winning
the favour of the court. When she was Princess of Wales Caroline made
welcome any literary man of eminence to Leicester House whatever his
creed or party, Papist or Arian, Jacobite, Whig or Tory. George the
First’s contempt for literature made her graciousness the more marked,
and perhaps it was her affability and eagerness to please that gave
rise to expectations which were later unfulfilled. For it is certain
that many eminent writers of prose and verse expected great things
when Caroline became Queen; and it is equally certain that they were
grievously disappointed. Whether with all the goodwill in the world,
and all the power, the Queen could have satisfied every one of them
may be doubted, for the literary mind is not prone to underrate its
merits. As events turned out she could do little or nothing for any
man of letters, unless he were eligible for preferment in the Church.
She found herself as Queen in a position of less freedom and greater
responsibility. She was as anxious as ever to befriend literary men,
but in this respect she found herself thwarted by the King and opposed
by Walpole; her difficulties too were increased by the fact that nearly
every writer of talent was either openly or secretly hostile to the
Government.
For this hostility Walpole was to blame; he had inaugurated a new
policy. During the reign of William and Anne, and even in the reign
of George the First while Townshend and Stanhope were Prime Ministers,
literary men were courted and caressed by those in authority. In short
it has been well said that “though the Sovereign was never an Augustus
every minister was a Mæcenas”. Lucrative places were found for many
writers in departments of the civil service, and others were aided to
enter Parliament or diplomacy.
But when Walpole became Prime Minister in 1721 he changed all this, and
set his face like a flint against employing literary men in the public
service in any capacity whatsoever. In this he was supported by George
the First, and his successor George the Second, who both despised
literature and never opened a book. The number of readers was far more
limited then than now (though perhaps they were more discriminating),
and writing books was consequently less lucrative. When men of talent
and genius saw the avenues of patronage and of usefulness in the State
suddenly closed to them by the Prime Minister, it is no wonder that
they placed their pens at the service of the Opposition, led as it was
by two men so appreciative of the claims of literature as Bolingbroke
and Pulteney. But Walpole did not heed, and for twenty years followed
the same policy. “No writer need apply” was written over every door
that led to preferment in the State. But in the long run the writers
had their revenge, and his neglect of the pamphleteers was one of the
chief causes that led to Walpole’s fall.
Queen Caroline had promised so fair when Princess of Wales, and
her influence over her husband was known to be so great, that many
literary men looked forward to her coming to the throne as likely to
bring about a revival of the Augustan age of Queen Anne. They were
bitterly disappointed when they found her in close accord with the
Minister who had slammed the door of patronage in their faces, and
many considered that she had betrayed them. They forgot that in an
alliance like that between the Queen and Walpole each had to yield
something, and the Queen yielded some of her interest in letters for
the larger interests she had at stake. It was a pity that with so real
a desire to help literature Caroline was able to do so little. It was
a still greater pity that after she became Queen her relations with
some of the greatest English men of letters, like Swift, Gay and Pope,
were strained to breaking point. The fault was not all on her side,
and in some cases the breach was inevitable, but it was none the less
unfortunate.
[Illustration: MRS. CLAYTON (VISCOUNTESS SUNDON).]
Swift, who had fallen with Bolingbroke in 1714, visited England in
1726, for the first time since the death of Queen Anne, probably with
the object of effecting a reconciliation with the reigning dynasty.
He made the acquaintance of Mrs. Howard through his friends Pope and
Gay, and was introduced by her to Caroline, then Princess of Wales.
Writing years later to the Duchess of Queensberry, who hated Caroline,
Swift declared that “a nameless person” (the Queen) “sent me eleven
messages before I would yield her a visit”. This was surely an
exaggeration, and it was written at a time when Swift, having lost all
hope of preferment from the Queen, was paying his court to the duchess.
Swift no doubt was quite as ready to have an audience as Caroline was
to grant him one. He began the conversation by saying that he knew the
Princess loved to see odd persons, and having seen a wild boy from
Germany, he supposed she now had a curiosity to see a wild dean from
Ireland. Caroline laughed, and found in his genius an excuse for the
lack of courtly manners. He came several times to Leicester House.
Swift returned to Ireland well pleased with his reception, though no
definite promise of what he desired, English preferment, had been given
him. He came again to England early the following year, 1727, as it
proved for the last time. His coming was heralded by the publication
of his famous satire, _Gulliver’s Travels_. Caroline read the book
with delight, and when the author presented himself at Leicester House
welcomed him most graciously. She accepted from him a present of Irish
poplins, and promised him a medallion of herself in return. Swift was
also a constant and welcome guest in the apartments of Mrs. Howard,
and met there, besides many men of letters, politicians of the stamp
of Townshend and Compton. He was in England at the time of George the
First’s death, and kissed the hands of the new King and Queen. For a
time he was full of hope, but his expectations received a shock when
he found Walpole, “Bob the poet’s foe,” confirmed in power. He went
back to Ireland, cast down but not dismayed, and waited there for the
summons that never came.
For some time the dean placed faith in Mrs. Howard, and more especially
in the Queen’s graciousness. He knew also the Queen’s views on Church
matters, and his unorthodoxy, which had hindered Anne from making him
a bishop, would, he thought, be a point in his favour with Caroline.
His commanding literary abilities ought certainly to have given him
a strong claim upon her consideration. But Swift, the friend of
Bolingbroke, was disliked by Walpole, and Caroline distrusted every
one who was intimate with Bolingbroke. Moreover Swift thought, like so
many others, that the way to the King’s favour lay through his mistress
rather than his wife, and on both his visits to England he paid great
court to Mrs. Howard, visiting her frequently, flattering her, telling
her some of his best stories, and writing her some of his wittiest
letters. Caroline, who knew of this friendship, resented it, and
though she gave the great dean audience, and was affable to him as she
was to every one, she made a mental note against his name, and never
helped him to realise his wish of obtaining English preferment. She
had never promised to give it to him, but she had promised to send him
her medallion. Swift, who for some time after his return to Ireland,
kept up a correspondence with Mrs. Howard, wrote to her recalling the
Queen’s promise.
“First, therefore,” he writes, “I call you to witness that I did
not attend on the Queen until I had received her repeated messages,
which, of course, occasioned my being introduced to you. I never asked
anything till, upon leaving England for the first time, I desired
from you a present worth a guinea, and from her Majesty one worth ten
pounds, by way of a memorial. Yours I received, and the Queen, upon
taking my leave of her, made an excuse that she had intended a medal
for me, which not being ready, she would send it me the Christmas
following: yet this was never done, nor at all remembered when I went
back to England the next year, and attended her as I had done before.
I must now tell you, madam, that I will receive no medal from her
Majesty, nor anything less than her picture at half-length, drawn by
Jervas; and if he takes it from another original, the Queen shall at
least sit twice for him to touch it up. I desire you will let her
Majesty know this in plain words, although I have heard I am under her
displeasure....
“Against _you_ I have but one reproach, that when I was last in
England, and just after the present King’s accession, I resolved
to pass that summer in France, for which I had then a most lucky
opportunity, from which those who seemed to love me well, dissuaded me
by your advice. And when I sent you a note, conjuring you to lay aside
the character of a courtier and a favourite upon that occasion, your
answer positively directed me not to go at that juncture; and you
said the same thing to my friends who seemed to have power of giving
me hints, that I might reasonably have expected a settlement[78] in
England, which, God knows, is no great ambition considering the station
I should leave here, of greater dignity, which might easily have been
managed to be disposed of as the Crown pleased....
“I wish her Majesty would a little remember what I largely said to her
about Ireland, when before a witness she gave me leave, and commanded
me to tell here what she spoke to me upon that subject, and ordered
me, if I lived to see her in her present station, to send her our
grievances, promising to read my letter, and do all good offices in her
power for this most miserable and most loyal kingdom, now at the brink
of ruin, and never so near as now.
“As to myself, I repeat again that I have asked nothing more than a
trifle as a memorial of some distinction, which her Majesty graciously
seemed to make between me and every common clergyman; that trifle was
forgot according to the usual method of princes, although I was taught
to think myself upon a footing of obtaining some little exception.”[79]
Whether Mrs. Howard laid this letter before the Queen, as the dean
evidently intended her to do, or spoke to the Queen on the subject,
is not known; in any case Swift would have done better to have written
directly to the Queen herself, or if that were impossible, to have
chosen some more congenial channel of communication than Mrs. Howard.
The Queen was jealous of her influence, and Mrs. Clayton, who disliked
Swift, had been taught to think that ecclesiastical recommendations
were especially within her province. For Mrs. Howard to have asked
the Queen for the meanest curacy for one of her favourites would have
been resented. So it came about that after Swift had waited a few
years longer, heart-sick with deferred hope, he turned on Mrs. Howard
as well as her mistress, though in the former case he was not only
ungrateful but unjust, for the poor lady had not the power, though she
had the will, to help him. But Swift in his Irish exile could not be
expected to know the true inwardness of affairs at Court. “As for Mrs.
Howard and her mistress,” he wrote, “I have nothing to say but that
they have neither memory nor manners, else I should have had some mark
of the former from the latter, which I was promised about two years
ago; but since I made them a present it would be mean to remind them.”
He was extremely sensitive to slights, and he resented the Queen’s
forgetfulness about the medal almost as much as the fact that she
omitted him from her list of preferments. Years after, in a poem which
he wrote on his own death, the old grievance of the medals crops up
again:--
From Dublin soon to London spread,
’Tis told at Court “the Dean is dead,”
And Lady Suffolk in the spleen
Runs laughing up to tell the Queen.
The Queen, so gracious, mild and good,
Cries: “Is he gone? ’tis time he should.
He’s dead, you say--then let him rot;
I am glad the medals were forgot.
I promised him, I own; but when?
I only was the princess then;
And now the consort of a King,
You know, ’tis quite another thing.”
Swift never forgave the Queen’s neglect, and for years, until her
death, Caroline was the subject of his sharpest satirical attacks.
But his satire failed to move her, any more than his presents and
compliments had done. The great dean was left to drag out the remainder
of his days in Ireland, embittered by disappointment and darkened by
despair. Probably Walpole interposed his veto also. It was felt that
such a firebrand was safer in Ireland, and his presence in England
might seriously embarrass the Government. No doubt there was something
to be said from that point of view. But the way in which those in
authority neglected this great genius, until baffled ambition drove him
to drink and madness, will ever remain one of the most tragic pages in
the history of literature.
Gay, like Swift, also had a grievance against the Queen, though if
Swift had any reason on his side, Gay certainly had none. Caroline had
frequently showed him kindness when Princess of Wales, and had promised
to help him when it was in her power. This promise she redeemed within
a few weeks of the King’s accession. She laughingly told Mrs. Howard
that she would now take up the “Hare with many friends”--an allusion to
one of Gay’s fables--and she offered him the post of gentleman usher
to the little Princess Louisa, a sinecure with a salary of £200 a
year, which would be equivalent to £400 in the present day. There was
little else that the Queen could offer him: the public service was now
closed to writers, and as Gay was not in holy orders, he could not be
provided for in the Church. This appointment, she thought, would secure
him from want, and give him leisure for his pen. But Gay, whose head
was quite turned by the adulation of foolish women, not only refused
the Queen’s offer, but resented it as an insult. Soon after he was
taken up by the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, who were among his
kindest friends.
The Duchess of Queensberry was one of the most beautiful and graceful
women of her day; she was a daughter of Lord Clarendon, and therefore
cousin of the late Queen Anne. She was of a haughty disposition,
and considered herself quite equal, if not superior, to the princes
of the House of Hanover. The fact that Gay had been slighted (as he
considered) by Queen Caroline was enough to make her champion his cause
more warmly. Gay soon declared war against the court and the Government
in his famous _Beggars’ Opera_, which teemed with topical allusions and
covert political satire. The character of “Bob Booty,” for instance,
was understood to be Sir Robert Walpole, and was especially a butt
for ridicule. _The Beggars’ Opera_ took the town by storm; it enjoyed
not only an unprecedented run in London, but was played in all the
great towns of England, Ireland and Scotland. It became a fashionable
craze; ladies sang the favourite songs and carried about fans depicting
incidents and characters in the piece; pictures of the actress, Miss
Fenton, who played the leading part, were sold by the thousand, and
songs and verses were composed in her honour; she became a popular
toast and a reigning beauty, and finally married the Duke of Bolton,
who ran away with her. But the Queen and Walpole resented the covert
sarcasm in the play, and when Gay, encouraged by the success of _The
Beggars’ Opera_, wrote a sequel called _Polly_, and had it ready for
rehearsal, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain, acting under the
orders of the King, who was instigated by the Queen, refused to license
the performance. It was said that Walpole was satirized in _Polly_
under a thin disguise as a highwayman, but whatever the reason, the
prohibition of the play only made it more popular. If it could not
be played it could be read, and every one who had a grudge against
Walpole, or the court, bought it when it came out in book form. The
Duchess of Marlborough gave £100 for a single copy, and the Duchess
of Queensberry solicited subscriptions for it within the very precincts
of St. James’s, and at a drawing-room went round the room and asked
even the officers of the King’s household to buy copies of the play
which the King had forbidden to be played. The King caught her in
the act, and asked what she was doing? She replied: “What must be
agreeable, I am sure, to one so humane as your Majesty, for I am busy
with an act of charity, and a charity to which I do not despair of
bringing your Majesty to contribute”. The King guessed what the charity
was, and talked the incident over with the Queen, who so resented the
duchess’s action, which she rightly guessed was aimed more particularly
at herself, that the King’s vice-chamberlain was sent to request her
not to appear at court again. The vice-chamberlain’s message was
verbal; but the duchess immediately wrote a spirited reply:--
“The Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well pleased that the King
hath given her so agreeable a command as to stay from Court, where she
never came for diversion, but to bestow a great civility on the King
and Queen; she hopes that by such an unprecedented order as this is,
that the King will see as few as he wishes at his Court, particularly
such as dare to think or speak truth. I dare not do otherwise, and
ought not, nor could have imagined that it would not have been the very
highest compliment that I could possibly pay the King to endeavour to
support truth and innocence in his house, particularly when the King
and Queen both told me that they had not read Mr. Gay’s play. I have
certainly done right, then, to stand by my own words rather than his
Grace of Grafton’s, who hath neither made use of truth, judgment, nor
honour, through this whole affair, either for himself or his friends.”
The duchess told the vice-chamberlain to take the letter to the King
at once; the vice-chamberlain read it, and thought it so disrespectful
that he begged her to reconsider the matter. Thereupon she sat down
and wrote a second letter which was even worse, so he took the first
after all. The King was beside himself with passion when he received
it, and uttered the most appalling threats. But the duchess went
about unharmed, and laughed him to scorn. She was glad to have this
opportunity of showing her contempt for the “German Court,” as she
called it, and her husband supported her action by resigning his office
of Vice-Admiral of Scotland. Poor Mrs. Howard was the only sufferer,
for Gay and the duchess were both her friends, and she therefore got
the full brunt of the King’s ill temper. Most people took the duchess’s
part, thinking that the court had been impolitic in noticing her action
on behalf of Gay, who became for the moment a popular martyr. “He has
got several turned out of their places,” wrote Arbuthnot to Swift,
“the greatest ornament of the Court banished from it for his sake, and
another great lady (Mrs. Howard) in danger of being _chassée_ likewise,
about seven or eight duchesses pushing forward like the ancient
circumcelliones in the church to see who shall suffer martyrdom on his
account first; he is the darling of the city.”[80]
Gay certainly did not suffer from the Lord Chamberlain’s action,
for the subscriptions to _Polly_ brought him in £1,200, whereas by
_The Beggars’ Opera_, with all its success, he had only gained £400.
Therefore, as Dr. Johnson says, “What he called oppression ended in
profit”.
The Queen’s difference with Pope arose out of the political exigencies
of the hour. Unlike Swift and Gay he expected nothing from her, and
had therefore no disappointment. As a Roman Catholic he was debarred
from all places of honour and emolument, though in the reign of George
the First Secretary Craggs offered him a pension of £300 a year, to be
paid from the secret service money. Pope had been a familiar figure
at Leicester House and Richmond Lodge. He was a great friend of Mrs.
Howard, and a favourite with the maids of honour. Caroline, as Princess
of Wales, had shown him many courtesies, and recognised his genius and
admired his work. But Pope’s friendship with Bolingbroke and hatred of
Walpole necessarily led to a breach between him and the Queen. As Mrs.
Howard’s influence waned and Walpole’s became greater, Pope came no
more to court, and had nothing for the Queen but sneers and ridicule.
His famous quarrel with Lord Hervey also did much to widen the breach,
for the Queen naturally took her favourite’s side. A friend of Lord
Hervey’s in the House of Commons spoke of Pope as “a lampooner who
scattered his ink without fear or decency”. This was true of both
combatants, who showed in a most unamiable light in this sordid
quarrel. The origin of the feud is involved in obscurity, but Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu was undoubtedly in part responsible for it.
Lady Mary, since her return from Constantinople in 1718, had occupied
a unique position in society. She was a chartered libertine, her
conversation grew broader with advancing years, and her wit had more
licence. Between her and Lord Hervey there existed one of those curious
friendships which may sometimes be witnessed between an effeminate man
and a masculine woman, and there seems no doubt that it was of the kind
which is known as “Platonic,” for, after Lord Hervey’s death, when his
eldest son sealed up and sent Lady Mary the letters she had written to
his father, assuring her that he had not looked at them, she wrote to
say that she almost regretted he had not, as it would have proved to
him what most young men disbelieved, “the possibility of a long and
steady friendship subsisting between two persons of different sexes
without the least mixture of love”.
Lady Mary took a house at Twickenham not far from Pope’s beautiful
villa, and, though she was warned not to have anything to do with “the
wicked wasp of Twickenham,” she renewed her friendship with the poet,
and became as intimate with him as before. “Leave him as soon as you
can” wrote Addison to her, “he will certainly play you some devilish
trick else.” But Lady Mary took no heed, perhaps the danger of the
experiment tempted her, and she fooled the little poet to the top of
his bent. Pope, with all his genius, had an undue reverence for rank;
he was flattered by the notice which this clever woman extended to him,
and he genuinely admired her wit and vivacity. Lady Mary’s house was
the rendezvous of many of the courtiers and wits of the day, and here
Pope often met Lord Hervey. Lady Mary delighted in the homage the poet
gave to her ungrudgingly; it flattered her vanity that such a genius
should be at her feet. She wrote to him effusive letters, and in one of
them declared that he had discovered the philosopher’s stone, “since
by making the _Iliad_ pass through your poetical grasp into an English
form, without losing aught of its original beauty, you have drawn the
golden current from Patoclus to Twickenham”. Pope also wrote her the
most extravagant epistles. In one, referring to her portrait, which
had been painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, he says: “This picture dwells
really at my heart, and I made a perfect passion of preferring your
present face to your past”. Again he tells her, “I write as if I were
drunk; the pleasure I take in thinking of your return transports me
beyond the bounds of common decency”.
After a time Lady Mary began to grow rather weary of her poet, but
he, on the contrary, became even more arduous, and was at last led
into making her a passionate declaration of love. She received it
by laughing in his face. Pope was keenly sensitive to ridicule, his
deformity made him more so than most men; he was of a highly strung
disposition, and Lady Mary’s outburst of hilarity was a thing he
could neither forget nor forgive. He withdrew deeply mortified and
offended. His vanity could not understand how the beautiful Lady Mary
could reject him with such disdain if another had not stolen her from
him. He formed the idea that Lord Hervey was his rival, and against
him therefore directed all his malice, spleen and hatred. A scurrilous
paper war began. Lord Hervey dabbled in poetry, not of great merit, and
Pope savagely attacked it. Speaking of one of his own satires, against
which he pretended a charge of weakness had been brought, he says:--
The lines are weak, another’s pleased to say,
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
And again:--
Like gentle Fanny’s was my flow’ry theme
A painted mistress, or a purling stream.
Hervey, who thought his namby-pamby verses really poetry, was stung
to the quick by this contemptuous allusion, and, smarting under the
satire, was foolish enough to retaliate upon Pope in a poor effusion
addressed “To the Imitator of the Satires of the Second Book of
Horace”. It runs:--
Thus, whilst with coward hand you stab a name,
And try at least t’ assassinate our fame;
Like the first bold assassin’s be thy lot;
And ne’er be thy guilt forgiven, or forgot;
But as thou hat’st, be hated by mankind,
And with the emblem of thy crooked mind
Marked on thy back, like Cain, by God’s own hand,
Wander, like him accursed, through the land.
In the same poem Pope was told:--
None thy crabbed numbers can endure
Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure.
This brutal allusion to Pope’s physical infirmities and his birth
stung the most sensitive of poets to the quick. In this duel of wits,
Hervey had chosen verse as his weapon, forgetting that in this line his
adversary had no equal, and Pope seized the advantage. Hervey had set
him an unworthy example, which he did not hesitate to follow, and he
raked up everything which approached physical hideousness, weakness, or
deformity in the person and mind of his adversary. According to Lord
Hailes, “Lord Hervey, having felt some attacks of epilepsy, entered
upon and persisted in a very strict regimen, and thus stopped the
progress and prevented the effects of that dreadful disease. His daily
food was a small quantity of ass’s milk and a flour biscuit. Once a
week he indulged himself with eating an apple; he used emetics daily.
Lord Hervey used paint to soften his ghastly appearance.” All these
weaknesses were seized upon by Pope, and put into a poem wherein Lord
Hervey was satirized as “Sporus”.
Let Sporus tremble! what! that thing of silk!
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass’s milk!
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne’er tastes, and beauty ne’er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way
Whether in florid impotence he speaks
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or, at the ear of Eve, familiar toad
Half froth half venom, spits himself abroad:
In puns or politics, in tales or lies
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all see-saw between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart;
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the Board,
Now trips a lady and now struts a lord.
Eve’s tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed,
A cherub’s face and reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Coxe, alluding to the portrait of Sporus, writes: “I never could read
this passage without disgust and horror, disgust at the indelicacy
of the allusions, horror at the malignity of the poet in laying the
foundation of his abuse on the lowest species of satire, personal
invective, and what is still worse, sickness and debility”. This
condemnation is true of Pope’s verses on Hervey, but it is equally true
of Hervey’s verses on Pope--and it was Hervey who began the personal
abuse.
Lady Mary did not escape either. Pope depicted her as a wanton, scoffed
at her eccentricities, and hinted that she conferred her favours on “a
black man,” the Sultan Ahmed of Turkey.
[Illustration: JOHN, LORD HERVEY.]
Pope also addressed a prose letter to Lord Hervey, which was, if
possible, more bitter and vindictive than his character of “Sporus”. He
thought very highly of his letter, which Wharton styles “a masterpiece
of invective”. To one of his friends Pope wrote: “There is woman’s
war declared against me by a certain lord; his weapons are the same
which women and children use--a pin to scratch, and a squirt to
bespatter. I writ a sort of answer, but was ashamed to enter the lists
with him, and after showing it some people, suppressed it; otherwise
it was such as was worthy of him and worthy of me.” The reason Pope
gives for suppressing this letter, which was not published until after
his death, though privately shown to many, was not the true one. Queen
Caroline got hold of a copy of the epistle, and it was at her express
desire that Pope withheld it. She feared lest it should render her
favourite contemptible in the eyes of the world, and though she was
greatly incensed against Pope, she dissembled her anger, and used her
influence to end this wordy war, in which there could be no doubt that
Pope was the victor.[81]
But though Caroline was unfortunate in her relations with Swift, Gay
and Pope, men whose writings shed a lustre on her era, she was the
means of helping other writers who were eminent in a different way.
Butler, the author of the _Analogy_, and Berkeley, who wrote _The
Minute Philosopher_, she preferred to high office in the Church. For
other writers who were not in holy orders she did what she could. She
befriended Steele at a time when, to use his own words, he was “bereft
both of limbs and speech”.[82] She had often befriended him before in
the course of his chequered career. She reprieved Savage, the natural
son of that unnatural mother the Countess of Macclesfield, when he lay
under sentence of death. And after his wonderful poem, _The Bastard_,
was written, she helped him again with a pension of £50 from her privy
purse. She patronised Somerville, author of _The Chase_, no mean poet
in the opinion of Dr. Johnson; and she sought to support that luckless
playwright William Duncombe. It was one of her sayings that “genius was
superior to the patronage of princes,” but she had a great sympathy
for literary endeavour, however humble. But her patronage of minor
writers was more often dictated by the kindness of her heart than by
the soundness of her judgment. An instance of this was afforded by her
patronage of Stephen Duck, whose fate has been not inaptly compared to
that of Burns--without the genius.
Stephen Duck was the son of a peasant in Wiltshire, and worked as a
day labourer and thresher on a farm at Charlton. He must have had some
ability and a good deal of application, for when his day’s work was
done, he taught himself the rudiments of grammar and a smattering of
history and science. These labours bore fruit in poetry; but the poems
remained unpublished until Duck reached the age of thirty, when he had
the good fortune to attract the notice of a country clergyman named
Spence, who not only lent him books, but found the means for him to
print some of his poems in pamphlet form, including _The Thresher’s
Labour_, a poem descriptive of his own life, and _The Shunamite_. These
poems found their way into the hands of Lord Tankerville and Dr. Alured
Clarke, Prebendary of Winchester, who thought so highly of their merits
that they got up a subscription to aid the author. Dr. Alured Clarke
did more; he wrote to his friend Mrs. Clayton telling her the story of
Duck’s life, and begging her to bring his poems before the notice of
the Queen. By this time Duck had quite a little coterie of admirers in
his own county, who, as Dr. Alured Clarke wrote, thought “the thresher,
with all his defects, a superior genius to Mr. Pope”.[83]
Caroline was much interested in the fact that these poems were written
by a poor thresher, and when the court was at Windsor she commanded
that Duck should be brought there. She was so pleased with his manner
and address that she settled a small annual pension on him, and in 1733
made him one of the yeomen of the guard. Dr. Alured Clarke, by this
time one of the royal chaplains, and Mrs. Clayton acted as the sponsors
of the poet, whose work now became well-known. The most extravagant
ideas were formed concerning it, some considering _The Thresher’s
Labour_ superior to Thomson’s _Seasons_, and others declaring that
the author of _The Shunamite_ was the greatest poet of the age. Thus
encouraged, Duck wrote more poems, and the Queen’s patronage secured
for them a large sale. Naturally many were in praise of his generous
benefactress. Duck in due time took holy orders, to which he had always
a leaning--he was ordained, as a literate, by the Bishop of Salisbury.
Shortly after his ordination, the Queen appointed him keeper of
Merlin’s Cave, a fanciful building she had erected at Richmond. Both
Merlin’s Cave and Duck came in for a great deal of satire from “the
epigrammatic Mæcenases,” as Dr. Alured Clarke calls them, who regarded
both the cave and the patronage of the poet as proofs of the Queen’s
folly rather than her wisdom. Pope wrote:--
Lord! how we strut through Merlin’s Cave, to see
No poets there, but Stephen, you and me.
Swift, writhing under neglect, penned a very caustic epigram:--
The thresher Duck could o’er the Queen prevail:
The proverb says, “No fence against a flail,”
From threshing corn he turns to thresh his brains
For which her Majesty allows him grains,
Though ’tis confessed that those who ever saw
His poems, think them all not worth a straw.
Thrice happy Duck! employed in threshing stubble
Thy toils were lessen’d and thy profits doubled.
Close by Merlin’s Cave the Queen raised another quaint conceit known
as the “Hermitage,” in which she placed busts of Adam Clarke, Newton,
Locke and other dead philosophers. These busts excited the ire of
living worthies. Swift in his _Elegant Extracts_ wrote:--
Lewis, the living genius fed
And rais’d the scientific head:
Our Queen, more frugal of her meat,
Raises those heads that cannot eat.
This drew forth the following repartee, addressed to Swift:--
Since Anna, whom bounty thy merits had fed,
Ere her own was laid low, had exalted your head,
And since our good Queen to the wise is so just,
To raise heads from such as are humbled in dust,
I wonder, good man, that you are not envaulted;
Pr’y thee, go and be dead, and be doubly exalted.
Whereto the dean wittily replied:--
Her Majesty never shall be my exalter;
And yet she would raise me I know, by--a halter.
Stephen Duck’s poetry was popular in its day, but it owed its
popularity to the favour of the Queen rather than to its intrinsic
merit. His talent was not sufficient to overcome the defects of his
early education. Duck realised this far more than his friends, and he
was keenly sensitive to the satire which great writers like Swift and
Pope thought it worth their while to pour upon him. The Queen remained
his constant friend, and preferred him successively to a chaplaincy at
Kew and the rectory of Byfleet in Surrey. But Duck was not a happy man;
his education began too late in life, and he could never accommodate
himself to his altered circumstances. He ended his career by committing
suicide, a few years after the death of his royal patroness.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER VII:
[78] A living.
[79] Dean Swift to Mrs. Howard, Dublin, 21st November, 1730. _Suffolk
Correspondence._
[80] Dr. Arbuthnot to Swift, 19th March, 1729.
[81] In his _Memoirs_ Lord Hervey makes no mention of his quarrel with
Pope or his duel with Pulteney, and slips over the years 1730–1733
without a line of comment. This seems to show that he was not proud of
either of these achievements.
[82] Sir Richard Steele to Mrs. Clayton, May, 1724.
[83] Dr. Alured Clarke to Mrs. Clayton, Winchester, 18th August, 1730.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EXCISE SCHEME.
1732–3.
In May, 1732, the King made his second visit to Hanover, and was absent
from England four months. He invested the Queen with full powers of
Queen-Regent as before. George the Second’s visit to Hanover was again
exceedingly unpopular with the nation, but he was determined to go,
and it was useless to thwart him. This, Caroline’s second regency, was
uneventful, though in it she managed to do something to advance the
cause of prison reform. Knowing the injustices and anomalies of the
criminal law, the Queen’s influence was all on the side of mercy. She
showed a particular distaste to signing death warrants in her capacity
as Regent, and whenever she could possibly do so she pardoned the
criminals. For instance, we read: “On Tuesday the report of the four
criminals who received sentence of death at the late Sessions at the
Old Bailey was made to her Majesty in Council by Mr. Sergeant Raby, and
her Majesty was graciously pleased to show mercy and pardon them”. In
the reform of the prison system the Queen took a direct interest. She
was always anxious, when it was in her power, to release prisoners, and
to make penalties easier for debtors and other offenders,[84] and she
was determined that something should be done to remedy the deplorable
condition of the public prisons.[85] She had taken up this question the
year after the King’s accession to the throne, and during her regency
an inquiry was instituted, which laid bare a frightful system of
abuses; gaolers and warders connived at the escape of rich prisoners,
and subjected poor ones, who could not pay their extortionate demands,
to every sort of cruelty, insult and oppression.
The reports of the Select Committees of the House of Commons teem
with such cases. One report stated that “The Committee saw in the
women’s sick ward many miserable objects lying, without beds, on the
floor, perishing with extreme want; and in the men’s sick ward yet
much worse.... On the giving of food to these poor wretches (though
it was done with the utmost caution, they being only allowed at first
the smallest quantities, and that of liquid nourishment) one died; the
vessels of his stomach were so disordered and contracted, for want of
use, that they were totally incapable of performing their office, and
the unhappy creature perished about the time of digestion. Upon his
body a coroner’s inquest sat (a thing which, though required by law
to be always done, hath for many years been scandalously omitted in
this gaol), and the jury found that he died of want. Those who were
not so far gone, on proper nourishment being given them, recovered, so
that not above nine have died since the 25th March last, the day the
Committee first met there, though, before, a day seldom passed without
a death; and upon the advancing of the spring not less than eight or
ten usually died every twenty-four hours.”[86] The prison referred
to was a London prison, but in the provinces matters were no better.
There was, for example, a petition to the House of Commons, 1725, from
insolvent debtors in Liverpool gaol, stating that they were “reduced
to a starving condition, having only straw and water at the courtesy
of the sergeant”.[87] The Queen was horrified and indignant at these
revelations, and she repeatedly urged on Walpole the reformation of
the prison system, and the revision of the criminal code. But Walpole
was averse to any legislation unless it was demanded by political
exigencies, and the utmost the Queen achieved was a more vigorous
inspection of prisons and the punishment of gaolers detected in cruelty.
In September the King returned from Hanover and took over the reins of
government, an easy task, for Walpole and the Queen had managed so well
that this was a period of peace abroad and prosperity at home.
Walpole was now at the zenith of his power; in the country everything
was quiet, in the Cabinet all his colleagues were submissive. He
enjoyed the fullest confidence of the King and Queen, and he had
apparently complete ascendency in both Houses of Parliament. The
Opposition, though able and active, both in Parliament and out of it,
were unable to lessen the Ministerial majority. “What can you have
done, sir, to God Almighty to make him so much your friend?” exclaimed
an old Scottish Secretary of State at this time to Walpole. The Prime
Minister’s ascendency might have continued serenely had he not the
following year (1733) been so unwise as to depart from his policy of
letting sleeping dogs lie. He brought forward his celebrated excise
scheme. To explain it briefly, Walpole proposed to bring the tobacco
and wine duties under the law of excise, and so ease the land tax.
This land tax, ever since the Revolution of 1688, had borne the great
burden of taxation, and during the wars of Marlborough had risen to as
much as four shillings in the pound. In consequence of the peace and
prosperity enjoyed by the nation the last few years it has been reduced
to two shillings in the pound, and Walpole’s proposed changes would
have the effect of further reducing it or abolishing it altogether.
Walpole hoped by this means to conciliate the landowners and country
gentlemen, who considered that they had to bear an unfair share of
the burdens of the State. Customs had always been levied on wine and
tobacco, and the change proposed had regard chiefly to the method of
collection. An active system of smuggling was carried on, and connived
in and winked at by many people, so that the duties on wine and tobacco
fell very far short of the estimates. Under Walpole’s scheme this
system of wholesale smuggling would be to a great extent stopped, and
he estimated that the excise duties would rise by one-sixth, which
would be more than sufficient to meet the deficit caused by easing the
land tax. He had the hearty support of the court, for the King’s Civil
List depended to some extent on the duties on tobacco and wine, and if
they were increased, the royal income would increase also.
Walpole at first was confident that he would be able to carry this
scheme through without much opposition, but as soon as its purport
became known, even before it was introduced into Parliament, it was
evident that the Prime Minister had seriously miscalculated public
opinion. Both in and out of Parliament the opposition to any extension
of the excise was tremendous; the whole nation rose against it. The
people persisted in regarding the proposed extension as the first step
in a scheme of general excise, in which every necessary of life would
be taxed, and the liberties of the subject interfered with by excise
officers coming into private houses whenever they pleased. It was in
vain for Walpole to vow that “no such scheme had ever entered his
head”; it was in vain to reason or expostulate. Popular indignation
burned to a white heat, and there were plenty of able men ready to fan
the flame. The _Craftsman_ declared that the Prime Minister’s scheme
would ruin trade, destroy the liberties of the people, abrogate Magna
Charta, and make the Crown absolute. The Jacobites and the Tories,
though largely drawn from the landed classes who were to be benefited
by this scheme, rejected with contumely the proffered “bribe” as
they called it. Not only every Jacobite and every Tory, but all the
discontented Whigs, all the politicians who had wished for office and
had not obtained it, all the peers and members of Parliament whom
Walpole at different times had insulted and aggrieved, precipitated
themselves on this opportunity of attacking him.
The Prime Minister was also betrayed in the house of his friends;
there were several great peers holding minor offices under the Crown
who were secretly hostile to Walpole, though they had hitherto masked
their animosity. They now seized this opportunity to undermine him.
Among them were the Dukes of Argyll, Montrose, and Bolton, the Earls
of Stair and Marchmont, and Lords Chesterfield and Clinton. These
malcontents held a secret meeting, and determined to send Lord Stair
to the Queen, to set forth to her the unpopularity of the excise
scheme, and the danger which the Crown ran in supporting it. Lord Stair
had fought in Marlborough’s campaign, and for many years had served
his country with great credit as ambassador to France. Walpole had
treated him shabbily in recalling him from Paris when he came into
collision with Law, the financier, and for a long time there had been
a great deal of ill-feeling. When the Duke of Queensberry resigned,
Walpole sought to make amends by giving the ex-ambassador the post of
Vice-Admiral of Scotland; this post Lord Stair still held, but he had
not forgotten his resentment against Walpole.
The Queen gave Lord Stair an audience one evening in her cabinet in
Kensington Palace. He burst forth into violent invective against the
Prime Minister, saying: “But, madam, though your Majesty knows nothing
of this man but what he tells you himself, or what his creatures and
flatterers, prompted by himself, tell you of him, yet give me leave to
assure your Majesty that in no age, in no reign, in no country, was
ever any Minister so universally odious as the man you support.... That
he absolutely governs your Majesty nobody doubts, and very few scruple
to say; they own you have the appearance of power, and say you are
contented with the appearance, whilst all the reality of power is his,
derived from the King, conveyed through you, and vested in him.”
He then referred to a personal grievance he had against Walpole, in
that Lord Isla, brother of the Duke of Argyll, had been preferred
before him, and given important appointments which he (Lord Stair)
ought to have filled. He quoted this as a proof of Walpole’s power
over the Queen, and said: “For what cannot that man persuade you to,
who can make _you_, madam, love a Campbell? The only two men in this
country who ever vainly hoped or dared to attempt to set a mistress’s”
(Mrs. Howard’s) “power up in opposition to yours were Lord Isla and his
brother, the Duke of Argyll; yet one of the men who strove to dislodge
you by this method from the King’s bosom is the man your favourite has
thought fit to place the nearest to his.” This, however, was a little
too much for the Queen, who was extremely sensitive of any mention
of the peculiar relations which existed between Mrs. Howard and the
King. She sharply rebuked Lord Stair, and desired him to remember that
“he was speaking of the King’s servant, and to the King’s wife”. Lord
Stair therefore said no more on that point, but proceeded forthwith to
the excise scheme, declaring that it would be impossible to force the
measure through the Lords, though corruption might carry it through the
Commons. He added that even if it were possible to carry it into law,
“yet, madam, I think it so wicked, so dishonest, so slavish a scheme,
that my conscience would no more permit me to vote for it than his”
(Walpole’s) “ought to have permitted him to project it”. The Queen
again interrupted him by crying out: “Oh, my lord, don’t talk to me of
your conscience; you make me faint!” This so nettled Lord Stair that he
spoke plainer than ever.
When he had quite talked himself out, it was the Queen’s turn to let
Lord Stair know _her_ mind, which she did with a vigour and directness
that left nothing to be desired.
“You have made so very free with me personally in this conference, my
lord,” she said, “that I hope you will think I am entitled to speak
my mind with very little reserve to you; and believe me, my lord, I
am no more to be imposed upon by your professions than I am to be
terrified by your threats.” She then reminded Lord Stair of the part
he had played in supporting the Peerage Bill in the last reign, which,
she held, was against the interests of the Prince of Wales and the
liberties of the people, and went on to say: “To talk therefore in the
patriot strain you have done to me on this occasion can move me, my
lord, to nothing but laughter. Where you get your lesson I do not want
to know. Your system of politics you collect from the _Craftsman_, your
sentiments, or rather your professions, from my Lord Bolingbroke and my
Lord Carteret--whom you may tell, if you think fit, _that I have long
known them to be two as worthless men of parts as any in this country,
and whom I have not only been often told are two of the greatest liars
and knaves in any country, but whom my own observation and experience
have found so_.”[88]
All this the Queen said, and much more to the same effect, which
convinced Lord Stair that she would do nothing against Walpole, so
he took his leave saying: “Madam, you are deceived, and the King is
betrayed”. He went back to the malcontent peers to tell them of the
interview, from which he was fain to confess he had no results to show;
but he boasted that he had at least told the Queen some home truths
which she would not be likely to forget.
Finding that Walpole was determined, despite remonstrance, to
introduce his excise scheme, and was supported by the King and Queen,
the Opposition organised a popular agitation against it. The whole
country was flooded with pamphlets, and meetings were everywhere
held. Disaffection to the Government ran like wildfire throughout the
land, and from all parts of the kingdom the cry was: “No slavery, no
excise, no wooden shoes”--this last was aimed at the German tendencies
of the court. Public agitation rose to a greater height than it had
done since the Jacobite rising of 1715. The city of London and nearly
every borough in England held meetings to protest against the scheme,
and passed resolutions commanding their representatives to oppose any
extension of the excise in any form whatever. The agitation went on for
months, increasing in volume and in violence, though the scheme was
yet in embryo, and the measure had not been laid before Parliament.
The more timid among Walpole’s supporters took alarm and urged him to
abandon the contemplated measure. But the Prime Minister, who during
these years of almost absolute power had become a dictator, refused to
listen. He paid little heed to the press, and declared that the whole
agitation was a got-up job. If he yielded to clamour in this matter he
would have to do so in others and would be left, he said, with only the
shadow of power.
[Illustration: PHILIP STANHOPE, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.
_From the Painting in the National Portrait Gallery._]
Walpole introduced his Excise Bill into Parliament on March 14th,
1733, in a speech conspicuous for its moderation. He stoutly denied
the report that he intended to propose a general excise. He sketched
the details of his measure as one which affected solely the duties
on tobacco and wine and sought to put down smuggling. “And this,” he
wound up, “is the scheme which has been represented in so dreadful
and terrible a light--this the monster which was to devour the people
and commit such ravages over the whole nation.” The Prime Minister’s
eloquence was of no avail; his denials were not believed, his
moderation was regarded as a sign of weakness. The Opposition rose
in their wrath and denounced the measure root and branch. Pulteney
mocked, Barnard thundered, Wyndham stigmatised excises of every kind as
“badges of slavery”. And the cheers which greeted these denunciations
within the House were caught up by the multitude outside. The doors of
Westminster were besieged by frenzied crowds hostile to the excise
who cheered every member of Parliament opposed to the Bill, and hooted
and yelled at every one who favoured it. To these Walpole incautiously
alluded in his reply, “Gentlemen may give them what name they think
fit; it may be said they come hither as humble supplicants, but I know
whom the law calls sturdy beggars”. The Opposition seized on this
unlucky phrase as showing the arrogant Minister’s indifference to the
poverty of the people, and his desire to deny their right of petition.
Through the rest of his political career Walpole never heard the last
of the “sturdy beggars”. The expression so exasperated the mob that the
same night, when, after thirteen hours’ debate, Walpole was leaving the
House, some of the “sturdy beggars” made a rush at him and would have
torn him to pieces had not his friends interposed and carried him off
in safety.
The King and Queen were intensely interested in the progress of the
measure. Indeed it was said that if their being sent back to Hanover
had depended on the fate of this Bill they could not have been more
excited. Walpole’s friends fell off one by one, and new enemies
declared themselves every day. Yet still the King and Queen stood by
their favourite Minister undismayed. Violent personal attacks were made
upon Walpole during the debate, to which the Prime Minister vigorously
retorted. The King delighted to hear of these retorts, and would rap
out vehement oaths and cry with flushed cheeks and tears in his eyes:
“He is a brave fellow; he has more spirit than any man I ever knew”.
The Queen would join in these acclamations.
Thus matters went on for nearly a month, things going from bad to
worse, majorities in Parliament getting smaller and smaller, supporters
falling off one by one, and the popular ferment growing higher and
higher. Petitions against the Bill poured in from all the large
towns, that of the Common Council of London being the most violent of
all. And the paper war raged unceasingly. “The public,” says Tindal,
“was so heated with papers and pamphlets that matters rose next to a
rebellion.”[89] But despite dwindling majorities and popular clamour,
Walpole remained stubborn. At last, when the storm was at its worst,
it was the Queen who saw the hopelessness of contending against it.
In despair she asked Lord Scarborough, who had always been a personal
friend of the King and herself, and who now threatened to resign his
office, what was to be done. He replied: “The Bill must be dropped, or
there will be mutiny in the army. I will answer for my regiment,” he
added, “against the Pretender, but not against the excise.” Tears came
into the Queen’s eyes. “Then,” said she, “we must drop it.”[90]
The resolution was arrived at none too soon. On April 9th, after a
furious debate in the House, Walpole went to St. James’s and had a
conference with the King and Queen. It was then agreed to drop the
Bill, though it was resolved not to make the intention known for a day
or two longer. Walpole then had a private interview with the Queen, and
offered to resign. It was necessary, he said, that some one should be
sacrificed to appease the fury of the populace, and it was better that
he should be the one. The Queen knew well what he meant, for she had so
identified herself with Walpole’s policy that half the attacks of the
Opposition on the Prime Minister were really veiled attacks upon her.
But she refused to listen to such a suggestion and upbraided Walpole
for having thought her “so mean, so cowardly, so ungrateful,” as to
accept of such an offer, and she assured him that as long as she lived
she would not abandon him. Walpole then made a similar proposition to
the King, but George the Second replied in much the same words as the
Queen had done. Both the King and Queen were greatly distressed at the
turn events had taken. The Queen wept bitterly, but put a bright face
on the matter in public, and held her evening drawing-room as usual.
She was, however, so anxious, that she was forced to pretend a headache
and the vapours, and break up the circle earlier than usual.
The next day, April 10th, was the crucial day. The City of London,
headed by the Lord Mayor in full state, petitioned Parliament against
the Bill, and the citizens attended in such numbers that the string
of coaches ran from Westminster all the way to Temple Bar. When the
division was taken that night, it was found that the Government
had a majority of only sixteen votes, which was a virtual defeat.
The Opposition were wildly excited over their victory, which they
confidently hoped would involve Walpole’s fall and disgrace. Lord
Hervey, who had been sent down to the House to report progress,
hastened back to the King and Queen to tell them the bad news. The
tears ran down the Queen’s cheeks, and for some time she could not
speak. The King cross-questioned Hervey as to who were the members
who had seceded from the Government ranks and helped to swell the
Opposition figures, and as he heard the names, he commented on them
one by one in expressions such as: “A fool!” “An Irish blockhead!” “A
booby!” “A whimsical fellow!” and so forth. But though the King might
swear and the Queen might weep, it was clear that the game was up, and
the sooner they acted upon their intention of abandoning the Bill the
better.
Walpole, too, fully realised this at last, and the howls of public
execration that pursued him might well have daunted even his stout
heart. If there is any truth in Frederick the Great’s story, it was
on this eventful night that Walpole escaped from the infuriated crowd
around Westminster disguised under an old red cloak, and shouting
“Liberty, liberty; no excise!” and made his way to St. James’s to
acquaint the King and Queen of the result of the division. He found the
King armed at all points; he had donned the hat he wore at Malplaquet
and was trying the temper of the sword he had fought with at Oudenarde.
He was ready to put himself at the head of his guards and march out
upon his rebellious and mutinous subjects. But Walpole besought him
to be calm and vowed it was a “choice between abandoning the Excise
Bill or losing the crown”. But this story is probably apocryphal.
What is certain is that Walpole, the evening of the division, had a
small gathering of his staunchest supporters at his house in Arlington
Street. After supper he got up and said: “Gentlemen, this dance it will
no further go”; and announced his intention of sounding a retreat on
the morrow, no doubt to their relief.
On the morrow, April 11th, the House of Commons was crowded from end to
end, and the people thronged not only the approaches to Westminster,
but forced their way into the lobby. Walpole got up in the House and
announced his intention of postponing the measure for two months.
This, though a virtual confession of defeat, was not enough for the
Opposition, who made a great uproar, and the chamber resounded with
hissings, howlings and shouts, which were taken up by the mob outside,
and the threatening murmurs of the multitude could be distinctly heard
within the House itself, rising and falling like the surge of the sea.
So violent and threatening was the mob that at the close of the debate
it was suggested to Walpole that he should make good his escape from
the House by the back way. But the Prime Minister said he would not
shrink from danger, and, surrounded by a body of chosen supporters,
he made his way through a lane of constables. In the lobby there was
great jostling and hustling, and many blows were struck. Several of
Walpole’s supporters were struck and wounded, but the Minister himself
managed to get through unhurt, found his coach and got safely home.
The scenes in the streets of London that night were unparalleled; the
whole city seemed to be on foot; the guards were called out and put
under arms; magistrates were ready to read the Riot Act; and bodies
of constables were drafted in all directions. Had the Bill not been
dropped it is certain that a fearful riot would have broken out, and
London might have presented scenes almost parallel to those witnessed
in Paris nearly a century later. But since the excise was abandoned
the excitement of the populace found vent in jubilations. The Monument
was illuminated, bonfires were lighted in the streets (and within a
day or two, as the news travelled, in every town in England), nearly
all the houses were lighted up, and at Charing Cross Walpole and a fat
woman, representing the Queen, were burnt in effigy, amid the howls and
shrieks of the multitude.
Walpole was not a man to do things by halves, and having found that
public opinion was dead against him on the excise, he determined
to drop the scheme altogether. When, in the next session, Pulteney
endeavoured to fan the flame of opposition by insinuating that it
would be revived, in some form, Walpole out-manœuvred him by frankly
confessing his failure. “As to the wicked scheme,” he said, “as the
honourable gentleman was pleased to call it, which he would persuade
us is not yet laid aside, I for my own part can assure this House I
am not so mad as ever again to engage in anything that looks like an
excise, though in my own private opinion I still think it was a scheme
that would have tended very much to the interests of the nation.”[91]
This frank confession of defeat prevented the Opposition from harping
any longer on the iniquity of the excise. But it reasonably gave them
hope that a Minister who, by his own confession, had brought forward
a scheme which had been rejected with contumely by the nation should
constitutionally be compelled to resign. Popular execration had been
directed not only against the scheme but against its author, and it was
a Pyrrhic victory indeed which routed the host but left the commander
in possession of the field. But Queen Caroline was as good as her word;
she determined never to part with Walpole as long as she lived, and
the King echoed her sentiments. In vain did the Opposition invoke the
sacred ark of the Constitution; they only broke themselves against the
rock of the Queen’s influence.
The group of peers who held office under the Crown and yet had arrayed
themselves against Walpole, in the confident hope that he would be
forced to resign, now found themselves in a peculiarly difficult
position. The King and Queen were indignant with them, nor did
Walpole treat them with magnanimity. He forgave the repugnance of
the nation to his scheme; he could not forgive the repugnance of his
colleagues. Always domineering and impatient of opposition, he now gave
his vengeance full swing. Lord Chesterfield, who held the office of
Lord Steward of the Household, was the first to feel his resentment.
Chesterfield was going up the great staircase of St. James’s Palace two
days after the Excise Bill was dropped, when an attendant stopped him
from entering the presence chamber, and handed him a summons requesting
him to surrender his white staff. In this might be seen also the hand
of the Queen. The same day Lord Clinton, lord of the bedchamber,
Lord Burlington, who held another office, the Duke of Montrose and
Lord Marchmont, who held sinecures in Scotland, and Lord Stair were
dismissed. Other peers were also deprived of their commissions,
including the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham. Thus did Walpole triumph
over his enemies.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER VIII:
[84] Last Friday her Majesty was most graciously pleased to extend her
mercy to William Bales, under order for transportation for fourteen
years, who sometime since was condemned on the Black Act.--_Daily
Gazetteer_, 26th July, 1736.
Her Majesty has been pleased to pardon the three following condemned
to transportation for fourteen years--_viz._, Thomas Ricketts, for
stealing a silver hilted sword, and Thomas Morris and John Pritchard,
for housebreaking.--_Daily Gazetteer_, 7th August, 1736.
The day before the Court removed from Windsor to Richmond her
Majesty gave £80 for discharging poor debtors confined in the town
jail.--_Daily Post_, 19th October, 1730.
[85] Petitions have lately been presented to her Majesty from insolvent
debtors confined in the prisons of this city, the numbers of whom are
so great that several have died lately of the prison distemper, and
others through want.--_Craftsman_, 18th May, 1728.
[86] Second Report of the Select Committee, presented 14th May 1729.
[87] _Commons’ Journals_, vol. xx.
[88] Hervey’s _Memoirs_.
[89] _Tindal’s History._
[90] Maby’s _Life of Chesterfield_.
[91] _Parliamentary History_, vol. ix., p. 254.
CHAPTER IX.
FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.
There was another and more dangerous enemy whom Walpole could not
touch, and of whose dislike he was at this time not fully aware--the
Prince of Wales. Throughout the excise agitation the Prince had
silently and stealthily worked against his parents and the Prime
Minister. He had now become more familiar with the position of affairs
in England, and had learnt the importance of his position in the state.
The Prince was a constant source of trouble to the King, nor was the
blame wholly on Frederick’s side. The Queen urged the advisability
of giving the Prince a separate establishment, and went to look at a
house for him in George Street, Hanover Square, but the King stubbornly
refused to give the necessary money, and so Frederick had perforce to
live with his parents in apartments in one of the palaces, and to be
a daily recipient of his father’s slights. Such a position would have
been trying for the most virtuous and dutiful of sons, and the Prince
was neither virtuous nor dutiful. Moreover, though Parliament granted
the King £100,000 for the Prince of Wales, yet Frederick received
only a small allowance from his father, and even that was uncertain.
Under these circumstances he quickly accumulated debts, which the King
refused to pay. The Queen interceded for him, but in vain, and she
received no gratitude from her son, who resented, as far as he dared,
her being appointed Regent in the King’s absence instead of himself. As
he was entirely dependent on his father for money, he did not venture
to make a public protest, but he cherished a grudge against his mother
for superseding him.
With all these grievances, Frederick soon followed his father’s example
of caballing against his sire, and he found plenty of sympathy from
those who were in opposition to the court and the Government. He had
not been long in England before an opportunity was afforded him of
playing to the popular gallery by an unpopular demand of the Crown to
Parliament to make good a pretended deficiency in the Civil List of
£115,000; it was really a veiled form of making the King a further
grant. The measure was violently opposed by the Opposition, but Walpole
succeeded in carrying it through the House of Commons. A great deal
of ill-feeling against the court was produced in the country by this
extortionate demand, and the _Craftsman_ did its best to fan the
flame of discontent. The Prince of Wales, who was exceedingly sore
at his father’s meanness towards him, pretended to disapprove of the
King’s conduct in making this demand, and was inconsiderate enough
to say so to certain personages, and his words, repeated from mouth
to mouth, did not lose in the journey. Pulteney and Bolingbroke, and
other prominent members of the Opposition, quoted with approval what
the Prince had said, and condoled with him on the way in which he was
treated by his father. The rumour of this reaching the King’s ears
incensed him the more against his son, but he could not act merely on
hearsay. He had no tangible ground of complaint against him, for the
Prince was cautious.
Another cause which drew the Prince towards the Opposition was his
liking for literature and talent. He seems to have had a genuine taste
for _les belles lettres_, he wrote poetry in French and English, some
of it not absolutely indifferent.[92] The cleverest writers sided with
the Opposition and the polished periods of Bolingbroke, the eloquence
of Wyndham, and the wit of Chesterfield and Pulteney, all appealed to
him. Bolingbroke, especially, gained influence with the Prince, and in
time became his political mentor. Apart from the political aspect of
the union, there seems to have been a sincere friendship between the
two. Soon after Frederick came to England, Bolingbroke made overtures
to him, to which the Prince responded graciously, and the first
interview between them, a secret one, took place by appointment at the
house of a mutual friend. Bolingbroke who was the first to arrive,
was shown into the library, and was passing the time by turning over
the leaves of a bulky tome. The Prince entered the room unannounced.
The book fell to the floor, and in his haste to bend the knee,
Bolingbroke’s foot slipped, and had not the Prince stepped forward
to support him he would have fallen to the ground. “My lord,” said
Frederick, with exquisite tact, as he raised him, “I trust this may be
an omen of my succeeding in raising your fortunes.”
The Prince had charming manners, which he inherited from his mother,
and he had other gifts which won for him popularity, notably his
generosity, which verged on extravagance. He had that easy and affable
address which sits so well on a royal personage, and he was popular
with the people. It pleased them to see the heir apparent walking about
the streets unguarded, and followed only by a servant. And Frederick
had always a bow and a smile for the meanest of his father’s subjects
who recognised him.
The Prince’s chief favourite and counsellor was George Budd Doddington,
a curious man, whose geniality and vanity were in marked contrast
to his political intrigues. He was the nephew of Doddington, one
of the wealthiest land owners in England, whose sister had made a
_mésalliance_ with one Bubb, an apothecary of Carlisle. On the death
of Bubb, his widow was forgiven, and her son George succeeded to his
uncle’s vast estates, and assumed the name of Doddington by royal
licence. As he owned two boroughs, he entered the House of Commons and
attached himself to Walpole, but on being refused a peerage by that
statesman he turned against him. He made the acquaintance of the Prince
of Wales soon after his arrival in England, and threw in his lot with
him. Doddington was a useful friend to the Prince in many ways, for, in
addition to his social qualities and knowledge of men, his wealth was
of use. Doddington not only placed his purse at the Prince’s service,
but suffered himself to become the butt of Frederick’s not very refined
jests and practical jokes. “He submitted,” says Horace Walpole, “to
the Prince’s childish horseplay, being once rolled up in a blanket and
trundled downstairs. Nor was he negligent of paying more solid court
by lending his Royal Highness money.” Frederick once observed to some
of his boon companions: “This is a strange country, this England. I am
told Doddington is reckoned a clever man, yet I got £5,000 out of him
this morning; he has no chance of ever seeing it again.” But Doddington
was keenly alive to the social distinction which the Prince’s
friendship conferred upon him, and no doubt received what he considered
an equivalent for the money.
In the Prince’s next move for popularity Doddington played a passive
part. He was generally understood to represent the Prince in the House
of Commons, and when therefore he declined to speak in the House in
favour of the excise, it was regarded as a proof of the Prince’s
lukewarmness; and when another favourite, Townshend, who was the groom
of the bedchamber to the Prince, actually voted against the scheme, it
was understood that the Prince was hostile to it. Wyndham emphasised
this in one of his attacks on Walpole. He denounced corruption and
tyranny, and recalled certain unworthy king’s favourites of former
times: “What was their fate?” he asked. “They had the misfortune to
outlive their master, and his son, as soon as he came to the throne,
took off their heads.” The Prince of Wales was sitting under the
gallery listening to the debate, and the allusion was cheered to the
echo by the Opposition. The Prince’s attitude was further shown by his
exceeding graciousness to Lord Stair, who had told the Queen his mind,
and to Lord Chesterfield, who had offended her past forgiveness.
The King was exceedingly angry, and threatened to turn Townshend
out of the little appointment he held under the Prince, but Walpole
counselled letting him alone. Walpole would have punished Doddington
had he dared, for he regarded him as the chief instigator of the
Prince’s rebellious conduct. This was most unfair, for Doddington’s
advice was always on the side of caution, and his influence had more
than once prevented the Prince from rising in open revolt against his
parents. Walpole forgot for the moment that behind the Prince was one
much greater than Doddington whose enmity never slept, and that one was
Bolingbroke. Though debarred from his seat in the House of Lords, and
unable to raise his voice or vote, Bolingbroke yet, by his genius for
intrigue, the vigour of his political writings and his consummate power
of organisation, had done more than any man to stir up public feeling
against the excise, and to bring Walpole within measurable distance
of his fall. Most of the Opposition were puppets moved by this master
mind, Wyndham was his mouthpiece, even Pulteney at this time was wholly
under his spell. And under the ordinary working of the Constitution,
Bolingbroke would have led his hosts to victory had not the King and
Queen, unconstitutionally, it must be admitted, retained their Prime
Minister.
Meanwhile, though the Prince was proving himself a thorn in the side
of his father and the Government, and though the Opposition championed
his cause with fervour, he could not get his allowance increased, and
he sank deeper and deeper into debt. It came to the ears of old Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, that the Prince was in pecuniary distress,
and she bethought herself of a scheme which would at once gratify her
ambition and wound the feelings of the King and Queen. She asked the
Prince to honour her with a visit to Marlborough House, and, when he
came, she offered him the hand of her favourite granddaughter, Lady
Diana Spencer, in marriage, and promised to give him £100,000 as her
portion. Lady Diana was a young lady of much wit and beauty, and the
Prince, partly because he wanted the money, and partly because he knew
the alliance would anger his father and mother beyond measure, accepted
the offer. All arrangements were made. The day of the marriage was
actually fixed, and the Prince was to be secretly wedded to Lady Diana
by Duchess Sarah’s chaplain in the duchess’s private lodge in Windsor
Great Park. The Royal Marriage Act, which made illegal the marriage
of a member of the royal family without the consent of the reigning
monarch, was not then in existence, and the marriage, if it had been
contracted, would have been valid, and impossible to annul, except
perhaps by a special Act, which would have had no chance of passing
through Parliament. There would have been nothing objectionable about
the marriage except its secrecy, for Lady Diana Spencer (who afterwards
became Duchess of Bedford) was by birth and fortune, as by wit and
beauty, far superior to the petty German princess whom the Prince
afterwards married. But Walpole got to hear of the plot in time, and
was able to prevent the marriage. It is a pity that it did not take
place, for the subsequent interview of the parents with old Duchess
Sarah on the one side and Queen Caroline on the other would have been
one of the most interesting in history.
An early and congenial marriage might have been the saving of the
Prince of Wales. Like his father and grandfather he affected a
reputation for gallantry, and he was always involved in affairs of a
more or less disreputable nature. In pursuit of adventures of this
kind he behaved more like a schoolboy than a prince arrived at years
of discretion. Peter Wentworth gives an account of one of his absurd
escapades. He writes:--
“Thursday morning, as the King and Queen were going to their chaise
through the garden, I told them the Prince had got his watch again. Our
farrier’s man had found it at the end of the Mall with the two seals
to’t. The Queen laughed and said: ‘I told you before ’twas you who
stole it, and now ’tis very plain that you got it from the woman who
took it from the Prince, and you gave it to the farrier’s man to say
he had found it, to get the reward’. (This was twenty guineas, which
was advertised with the promise of no questions being asked.) I took
her Majesty’s words for a very great compliment, for it looked as if
she thought I could please a woman better than his Highness. Really
his losing his watch, and its being brought back in the manner it has
been, is very mysterious, and a knotty point to be unravelled at Court,
for the Prince protests he was not out of his coach in the park on
the Sunday night it was lost. But by accident I think I can give some
account of this affair, though it is not my business to say a word of
it at Court, not even to the Queen, who desired me to tell her all I
knew of it, with a promise that she would not tell the Prince. (And I
desire also the story may never go out of Wentworth Castle again.) My
man, John Cooper, saw the Prince that night let into the park through
St. James’s Mews alone, and the next morning a grenadier told him the
Prince was robbed last night of his watch and twenty-two guineas and
a gold medal by a woman who had run away from him. The Prince bid the
grenadier run after her and take the watch from her, which, with the
seals, were the only things he valued; the money she was welcome to,
he said, and he ordered him, when he had got the watch, to let the
woman go. But the grenadier could not find her, so I suppose in her
haste she dropped it at the end of the Mall, or laid it down there,
for fear of being discovered by the watch and seals, if they should be
advertised.”[93]
The Prince also followed his forbears’ example in setting up an
accredited mistress. His first intrigue was with Miss Vane (the
beautiful Vanilla), daughter of Lord Barnard, and one of the Queen’s
maids of honour, who, it was wittily said, “was willing to cease to
be one on the first opportunity”. Miss Vane had many admirers. Lord
Harrington was one of them, and Lord Hervey declared himself to be
another. But Lord Hervey was fond of posing as a gallant, and his
testimony on the subject of his conquests is of little worth. Miss
Vane had a good deal of beauty, but little understanding, and her
levity and vanity led her into a fatal error. About a year after the
Prince had come to England she gave birth to a son in her apartments
in St. James’s Palace, and the child was baptised in the Chapel Royal,
and given the name of Fitz-Frederick Vane, which was, of course,
tantamount to explaining to all the world that the Prince of Wales was
its father, a fact which the Prince in no wise sought to deny.
Queen Caroline at once dismissed Miss Vane from her service, and
sharply reprimanded the Prince, telling him that in future he must
carry on his intrigues outside the circle of her household. No such
scandal had occurred since the disgrace of Miss Howe. Miss Vane’s
family likewise cast her off. The Prince took a house for her, and made
her an allowance. But the unfortunate girl soon had experience of the
fickleness of men in general, and of princes in particular. Frederick
neglected her, and began to pay marked attentions to Lady Archibald
Hamilton. Lady Archibald was no longer young, she was five and thirty,
and the mother of ten children, and, unlike Miss Vane, she had no
great beauty. But she was clever and intriguing, and soon gained great
ascendency over her royal lover, whose attentions to her became of the
most public description. “He,” says Lord Hervey, “saw her often at her
own house, where he seemed as welcome to the master as the mistress; he
met her often at her sister’s; walked with her day after day for hours
together _tête-à-tête_ in a morning in St. James’s Park; and whenever
she was at the drawing-room (which was pretty frequently) his behaviour
was so remarkable that his nose and her ear were inseparable.”
Miss Vane had small chance with so clever a rival, and Lady Archibald
urged the Prince to get rid of her. In this the Queen concurred, for
she resented the indiscretion of her ex-maid of honour, and as there
was some thought of marrying the Prince at this time, she thought it
best that he should be clear of affairs of this kind. She did not
reflect, or did not know, that by getting rid of Miss Vane she was
merely paving the way for a far more dangerous woman to take her place.
The Prince was easily persuaded to part with Miss Vane. He sent Lord
Baltimore, one of his lords in waiting, to her with a message desiring
her to go abroad for two or three years, and leave her son to be
educated in England. If she complied the Prince was willing to allow
her £1,600 a year for life, the sum he had given her annually since she
had been dismissed from court; if she refused, the message wound up by
saying that: “If she would not live abroad she might starve for him in
England”. The unfortunate young lady was much hurt by the matter and
manner of the communication. She declined to send any answer by Lord
Baltimore, on the ground that she must have time to think. Lord Hervey
says that she then sent for him, and asked him as a friend to advise
her what was best to be done. He and Miss Vane composed a letter to the
Prince, in which the betrayed lady was made to say to her betrayer:--
[Illustration: FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.]
“Your Royal Highness need not be put in mind who I am, nor whence you
took me: that I acted not like what I was born, others may reproach
me; but you took me from happiness and brought me to misery, that I
might reproach you. That I have long lost your heart I have long seen,
and long mourned: to gain it, or rather to reward the gift you made
me of it, I sacrificed my time, my youth, my character, the world, my
family, and everything that a woman can sacrifice to a man she loves;
how little I considered my interest, you must know by my never naming
my interest to you when I made this sacrifice, and by my trusting to
your honour, when I showed so little regard, when put in balance with
my love to my own. I have resigned everything for your sake but my
life; and, had you loved me still, I would have risked even that too
to please you; but as it is, I cannot think, in my state of health,
of going out of England, far from all friends and all physicians I
can trust, and of whom I stand in so much need. My child is the only
consolation I have left; I cannot leave him, nor shall anything but
death ever make me quit the country he is in.”
When Frederick received this letter, instead of being touched by its
pathos, he flew into a rage, and swore that the minx could never have
written it, and he would be revenged on the rascal who helped her to
concoct it. He took all his friends into his confidence, and Miss
Vane took all hers, and the matter soon became the principal topic of
conversation at court, from the Queen and the Princesses downwards.
Miss Vane gained much sympathy by repeating the Prince’s brutal
message, that “if she would not live abroad she might for him starve
in England”. Everybody sympathised with her, and everybody blamed the
Prince, who thereupon threw over Lord Baltimore, and declared that
he had never sent such a message; he must have been misunderstood.
On hearing this, Miss Vane, acting on the advice of Pulteney, who
was thought by many to have written for her the first letter, and
other friends, wrote a more submissive letter to the Prince. In it
she declared that she had certainly received the message from Lord
Baltimore, though she could hardly believe that it came from the
Prince’s lips. It was for him to show whether he had said those words
or not. If he had not, she felt sure he would treat her fairly; if he
had, then all the world would know how she had been ill-treated and
betrayed.
Meanwhile the affair from being the gossip of the court became the
talk of the town, and ballads and pamphlets on the fair Vanilla were
everywhere circulated, under such titles as “Vanilla on the Straw,”
“Vanilla, or the Amours of the Court,” “Vanessa, or the Humours of
the Court of Modern Gallantry,” etc. The Prince seeing that he could
not abandon the lady without considerable discredit, at last agreed
to settle on her £1,600 a year for life, to give her the house in
Grosvenor Street which she had occupied since she had been dismissed
from court, and to allow her son to remain with her--in short, he
yielded all her terms.
Poor Miss Vane did not long enjoy her fortune. Perhaps she really loved
her faithless wooer; she died at Bath soon after, her friends said
of a broken heart. Her child died about the same time. The Queen and
Princess Caroline declared that the Prince showed more feeling at the
loss of this child than they had thought him capable of possessing.
Perhaps it was remorse.
The two elder Princesses, Anne and Amelia, were always quarrelling
with their brother. Amelia at first pretended to be his friend, and
then betrayed him to the King. When the Prince found this out he hated
her, and when the King discovered it he despised her; so she became
disliked by both. Anne, Princess Royal, was at perpetual feud with
her brother, and their strife came to a head, strangely enough, over
music. The Princess had been instructed by Handel, and helped him by
every means in her power. When Handel took over the management of the
opera at the Haymarket, the Princess induced the King and Queen to take
a box there, and to frequently attend the performances. All those who
wished to be in favour with the court followed suit and the Haymarket
became a fashionable resort. The Prince saw in this an opportunity
of annoying his sister, and of showing disrespect to the King and
Queen. He affected not to care about Handel’s music, and set to work
to organise a series of operas at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Party feeling ran very high just then, and seeing that the Prince of
Wales was so much interested in the opera at Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
many of the Opposition, and all those who had a grudge against the
court, made a point of attending the opera there, and it soon became
a formidable rival to the Haymarket. Instead of ignoring this, the
King and Queen took the matter up, and made it a personal grievance.
They patronised Handel more than ever, and made it a point that their
courtiers should do the same. Thus it came about that all those who
appeared at the Haymarket were regarded as the friends of the King and
Queen, and all those who attended Lincoln’s Inn Fields were looked upon
as the Prince’s friends.
Opposition is always popular, and the Prince managed to gather around
him the younger and livelier spirits among the nobility, and the
most beautiful and fashionable of the ladies of quality. Certainly
Lincoln’s Inn Fields was much more patronised, and the King and Queen
and the Princess Royal would often go to one of Handel’s operas at the
Haymarket and find a half empty house. This gave Lord Chesterfield an
opportunity of uttering one of his witticisms. One night when he came
to Lincoln’s Inn Fields he told the Prince that he had just looked in
at the Haymarket, but found nobody there but the King and Queen, “and
as I thought they might be talking business I came away,” he said; a
joke which vastly pleased the Prince, and greatly incensed the court.
Referring to the large attendance of peers at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the
Princess Royal said, with a sneer, that she “expected in a little while
to see half the House of Lords playing in the orchestra in their robes
and coronets”. Conscious of failure she felt extremely bitter against
her brother, and abused him roundly. But the Prince had won and could
afford to laugh at his sister’s invectives. The court was so deplorably
dull, he said, that all those with any pretensions to wit, beauty or
fashion refused to follow its lead, and looked to him, the heir to the
throne, as their natural leader, notwithstanding the way in which he
was treated by the King and Queen.
Certainly the private life of the Court was far from lively. The
clockwork regularity of the King, both in business and in pleasure,
and the limited range of his amusements and interests tended to make
his court appallingly dull--in contrast to the old days at Leicester
House. Mrs. Howard, whose little parties had once been so popular,
now withdrew more and more to herself. She would probably have
retired from court altogether had it not been that by the death of
her brother-in-law, her husband became Earl of Suffolk. As she was
now a countess she could no longer hold the inferior position of
bedchamber-woman, and placed her resignation in the Queen’s hands,
who, however, met the case by making her Mistress of the Robes, and so
retaining her about the court. Lady Suffolk had no longer to perform
the duties at the Queen’s toilet which had given her so much umbrage,
and her position became pleasanter in consequence of the change. We
find her writing to Gay a little later: “To prevent all future quarrels
and disputes I shall let you know that I have kissed hands for the
place of Mistress of the Robes. Her Majesty did me the honour to give
me the choice of lady of the bedchamber, or that which I find so much
more agreeable to me that I did not take one moment to consider it. The
Duchess of Dorset resigned it for me; and everything as yet promises
more happiness for the latter part of my life than I have yet had the
prospect of. Seven nights’ quiet sleep and seven easy days have almost
worked a miracle in me.”[94]
Even Lord Hervey complained bitterly at this time of the monotony
of his daily round. He was dissatisfied, and considered that his
services to the Government and the Crown should be repaid by some
more considerable appointment than the one he held, which most people
thought equal to his abilities, and was certainly in excess of his
deserts. But Walpole, who knew how useful Hervey was as go-between,
would not remove him from his post about the Queen, notwithstanding
his representations. Chafing under this refusal Lord Hervey wrote
the following letter to his friend Mrs. Clayton, another courtier
and favourite who could sympathise with him in his _ennui_. It gives
anything but a flattering picture of the royal circle:--
“I will not trouble you with any account of our occupations at Hampton
Court. No mill-horse ever went in a more constant track, or a more
unchanging circle, so that by the assistance of an almanack for the
day of the week, and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform
yourself fully, without any other intelligence but your memory, of
every transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises,
levées, and audiences fill the morning; at night the King plays at
commerce and backgammon, and the Queen at quadrille, where poor Lady
Charlotte (de Roussie) runs her usual nightly gauntlet--the Queen
pulling her hood, Mr. Schütz sputtering in her face, and the Princess
Royal rapping her knuckles, all at a time. It was in vain she fled
from persecution for her religion: she suffers for her pride what she
escaped for her faith; undergoes in a drawing-room what she dreaded
from the Inquisition, and will die a martyr to a Court, though not to a
Church.
“The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery, and sleeps as
usual between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline; Lord Grantham strolls
from one room to another (as Dryden says) _like some discontented ghost
that oft appears, and is forbid to speak_, and stirs himself about, as
people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn
brisker, which his lordship constantly does, to no purpose, and yet
tries as constantly as if he had ever once succeeded.
“At last the King comes up, the pool finishes, and everybody has their
dismission: their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and my Lord
Lifford; the Princesses to Bilderbec and Lony; my Lord Grantham to Lady
Frances and Mr. Clark; some to supper, and some to bed; and thus (to
speak in the Scripture phrase) the evening and the morning make the
day.”[95]
Lord Hervey may have been prejudiced, but independent testimony comes
from Lady Pomfret, who was then in attendance at court. She writes:
“All things appear to move in the same manner as usual, and all our
actions are as mechanical as the clock which directs them.”[96]
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER IX:
[92] One stanza of his poem addressed to Sylvia (the Princess of Wales)
ends thus:--
“Peu d’amis, reste d’un naufrage,
Je rassemble autour de moi,
Et me ris d’ l’étalage
Qu’a chez lui toujours un Roi!”
[93] The Hon. Peter Wentworth to Lord Strafford, London, 1734.
[94] Lady Suffolk to Gay, Hampton Court, 29th June, 1731. _Suffolk
Correspondence._
[95] Lord Hervey to Mrs. Clayton, Hampton Court, 31st July, 1733.
_Sundon Correspondence._
[96] The Countess of Pomfret to Mrs. Clayton, Hampton Court. _Sundon
Correspondence._
CHAPTER X.
CAROLINE AND THE CHURCH.
In no sphere was Caroline’s influence more marked than in Church
affairs; she held the reins of ecclesiastical patronage in her hands,
and during her ten years’ reign as Queen Consort or Queen-Regent no
important appointment was made in the Church without her consent and
approval. George the Second was a Protestant of the Lutheran type,
not so much from conviction, for he never troubled to inquire into
religious matters, as from education and environment. He had no liking
for the Church of England, but as his office compelled him to conform
to it, he did so without difficulty. The established Church was to him
merely a department of the civil service of which he was the head.
He always accepted the Queen’s recommendations, and was as a rule
indifferent about ecclesiastical appointments.
Walpole was quite as Erastian as the King and even less orthodox.
He had no religious convictions, and did not make pretence to any;
provided the bishops were his political supporters, he cared nothing
for their Church views; they might disbelieve in the Trinity, but
they must believe in him; they might reject the Athanasian Creed
(or the Apostles’ Creed too for that matter), but they must profess
the articles of the Whig faith. In those days the High Church clergy
were Tory, and the Low Church were Whig; therefore Walpole appointed
Low Church bishops, but he had as little liking for the one school
of thought as the other. A thorough-going sceptic himself, he had a
contempt for the latitudinarian clergy, regarding them as men who
sought to reconcile the irreconcilable. But he cared nothing about
their views; all he asked was that they should keep their heterodox
opinions to themselves and not write pamphlets or preach sermons which
stirred up strife in the Church, and made trouble for the Government.
Early in his political career the Sacheverel disturbance had given
him a wholesome dread of arousing the _odium theologicum_, and he
determined never to repeat the mistake he made then, but to let the
Church severely alone. In his ecclesiastical patronage he was guided
chiefly by Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London, and he preferred to appoint
safe men, not particularly distinguished in any way, except when he
deferred to the wishes of the Queen, who kept an eye on all Church
appointments.
Caroline might be described as an unorthodox Protestant. Theology
interested her greatly, but her inquiries carried her into the shadowy
regions of universalism, and the refined Arianism of her favourite
chaplain, Dr. Samuel Clarke. She no more believed in an infallible
Bible than in an infallible Pope. The Protestant Dissenters, whom
she favoured with her patronage, would have recoiled in horror from
her broad views had they known them, and would have denounced her
with little less fervour than they denounced popery and prelacy. But
Caroline took care that they should not know her views, and however
freely she might express herself to Dr. Clarke and Mrs. Clayton, and at
her metaphysical discussions, she kept a seal upon her lips in public.
By law it was necessary that she should be a member of the established
Church, and she was careful always to scrupulously conform to its
worship. She had prayers read to her every morning by her chaplains;
on Sundays and holy days she regularly attended the services in one
of the Chapels Royal. So particular was she that, one Sunday when the
King and Queen were too ill to go to church and had to keep their
beds, the chaplain came and read the service to them in their bedroom.
The Queen made a point of receiving the Holy Communion on the great
festivals of the Church’s year, such as Easter and Christmas; and Lady
Cowper comments on the devoutness of her behaviour on these occasions.
Paragraphs like the following figured at regular intervals in the
_Gazette_: “On Christmas Day the King and Queen, the Prince of Wales,
the Princess Royal, the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, with several of
the nobility and other persons of distinction, received the sacrament
in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s”.[97]
Nor were the lesser festivals of the Church overlooked: “On the Feast
of the Epiphany their Majesties, the King and Queen, the Prince of
Wales, and the three eldest Princesses, went to the Chapel Royal,
preceded by the King’s Heralds and Pursuivants-at-Arms, and heard
divine service. His Grace the Duke of Manchester carried the sword
of state to and from chapel for their Majesties, and his Majesty
and the Prince of Wales made their offerings at the altar, of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh, according to annual custom.” The ending of
the day was of a more secular nature. “At night their Majesties played
at hazard with the nobility for the benefit of the groom porter; and
’twas said the King won six hundred guineas, the Queen three hundred
and sixty, Princess Amelia twenty, Princess Caroline ten, the Duke of
Grafton and the Earl of Portmore several thousand.” Even King Charles
the Martyr, the latest addition to the prayer-book kalendar, was not
forgotten by the family who were keeping his grandson from the throne,
for we read: “Yesterday being the anniversary of the martyrdom of King
Charles the First, their Majesties and the Royal Family attended divine
service, and appeared in mourning, as is usual on that day”.[98]
Thus it will be seen that in the matter of outward conformity to
the rites of the established Church the Queen gave no occasion for
cavil. She gave large sums to Church charities, such as £500 at a time
to the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy; she endowed livings
and restored churches, such as Richmond, Greenwich and Kensington,
presenting to Greenwich a fine peal of bells, and to Kensington a
new steeple. She even feigned an interest in missionary work, and
listened patiently to Berkeley when he expounded to her his scheme for
establishing a missionary college in Bermuda in connection with the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. She did little to forward
it, and he somewhat ungratefully declared that his visits to her
had been so much waste of time, and called her discussions “useless
debates”. Yet, though the Queen did little to convert his heathens, she
remembered Berkeley later, and obtained for him the deanery of Down.
But, with all her outward conformity, Caroline never understood the
peculiar position of the Church of England, nor did she trouble to
understand it. Once, soon after she came to England, Dr. Robinson, then
Bishop of London, who was opposed to Dr. Samuel Clarke’s views, waited
upon her to endeavour to explain the Church’s teaching, but he met with
a repulse. Lady Cowper says: “This day the Bishop of London waited on
my mistress, and desired Mrs. Howard to go into the Princess and say
that he thought it was his duty to wait upon her, as he was Dean of
the Chapel, to satisfy her on any doubts and scruples she might have
in regard to our religion, and explain anything to her which she did
not comprehend. She was a little nettled when Mrs. Howard delivered
this message, and said: ‘Send him away civilly; though he is very
impertinent to suppose that I, who refused to be Empress for the sake
of the Protestant religion, do not understand it fully’.” Caroline’s
words show how little she realised, or sympathised with, the position
of the Church of England; it was to her a Protestant sect--that and
nothing more. The Church of Laud, Juxon, Andrewes, Sancroft and Ken,
the _via media_ between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, did not
appeal to her; in fact she viewed it with dislike. She made no pretence
to impartiality in her patronage, or to holding the balance even
between the different parties in the Church; all her bishops were more
or less of her way of thinking. She would have made Dr. Samuel Clarke
Archbishop of Canterbury when Archbishop Wake died, had it not been for
Bishop Gibson’s temperate remonstrance. He told her that though Clarke
was “the most learned and honest man in her dominions, yet he had one
difficulty--he was not a Christian”. To do Clarke justice, he never
desired a bishopric, and he had doubts about the propriety of accepting
one. Moreover, he preferred his unique position at the court, where he
was, unofficially, the keeper of the Queen’s conscience.
It must be admitted that the Queen in her distribution of
ecclesiastical patronage always recognised the claims of scholarship
and learning, and she took infinite pains to discover the most
deserving men. Among the divines to whom she gave high preferment,
besides Berkeley, were the learned Butler and the judicious Secker,
many years later Archbishop of Canterbury. Secker, when he was Queen’s
chaplain, mentioned to Caroline one day the name of Butler, the famous
author of _The Analogy between Natural and Revealed Religion_. The
Queen said she had thought that he was dead; Secker said: “No, madam,
not dead but buried”. The Queen took the hint, and soon after appointed
Butler Clerk of the Closet. He was thus brought into contact with her,
and she delighted exceedingly in his psychological bent, and would
command him to come to her, on her free evenings, from seven to nine,
to talk philosophy and metaphysics. She caused his name to be put down
for the next vacant bishopric, and on her death-bed she commended
Butler particularly to the King, who carried out his wife’s wishes and
made him Bishop of Durham.
Dr. Thomas Sherlock, a man eminent for his talents and learning, was
much liked by the Queen. She appointed him to the see of Bangor, and
later translated him to Salisbury in succession to his rival Hoadley.
For some time Sherlock filled much the same position with the Queen
that Gibson, Bishop of London, did with Walpole. He was the Queen’s
favourite bishop, and she intended to translate him to London when
Archbishop Wake should die, and Gibson, whom Whiston used to call “the
heir apparent to Canterbury,” should be advanced to the primacy by
Walpole. Between these two eminent prelates, Sherlock and Gibson, there
existed a most unchristian spirit of jealousy, and Gibson besought
Walpole not to allow Sherlock to succeed him in the bishopric of
London. Alas! for the mutability of temporal things: when at last Wake
died, it was not Gibson, but a comparatively unknown bishop, Potter
of Oxford, who succeeded him in the primacy. Before that time arrived
Gibson fell out of favour with Walpole, and Sherlock with the Queen,
for the part they played in securing the rejection of the Quakers’
Relief Bill. Walpole had yielded to the clamour of the Church party so
far as to refuse to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, but by way
of compensation to the dissenters he wished to carry a bill for the
relief of Quakers. It was a point of conscience with the Quakers to
refuse to pay tithes unless compelled to do so by legal force. This
force was always applied, and they paid. All they asked for now was
that the legal proceedings against them should be made less costly.
Walpole was willing to give them this relief and the Queen supported
him, but the bishops, headed by Gibson and seconded by Sherlock, elated
by their recent victory over the Nonconformists, rose against it to a
man, and though the Bill was carried in the Commons it was rejected
by the Lords. The King was highly indignant and denounced the whole
bench of bishops as “a parcel of black, canting, hypocritical rascals”.
Walpole’s resentment was especially levelled against Gibson, and the
Queen’s against Sherlock. The Queen sent for the latter bishop and
trounced him in terms which recall those which Queen Elizabeth was
said to address to her recalcitrant prelates: “How is it possible,”
said Caroline to Sherlock, “you could be so blind and so silly as to
be running a race of popularity with the Bishop of London among the
clergy, and hope you would rise upon the Bishop of London’s ruins (whom
you hate and wish ruined) when you were going hand in hand with him
in these very paths which you hoped would ruin him?... Are you not
ashamed not to have seen this, and to have been at once in this whole
matter, the Bishop of London’s assistant and enemy--tool and dupe?” She
told the crestfallen prelate that in the present temper of the King
and Prime Minister he could hope for neither London nor Canterbury,
and advised him to go to his diocese and try to live it down. As their
dioceses were the last places where Queen Caroline’s bishops were
generally to be found, this was equivalent to a sentence of banishment.
Many years later Sherlock succeeded Gibson as Bishop of London.
The Queen’s chief adviser in Church matters was her favourite, Mrs.
Clayton. Mrs. Clayton had no pretence to learning, and was ignorant
of the rudiments of theology--though, like many women of her type,
she loved to pose as an authority on theological questions. She had
imbibed the Arian principles then fashionable at court, and could
repeat parrot-wise the shibboleth of her party. As she held much the
same views as the Queen (though without her saving graces of learning
and common sense), they often settled between them who should succeed
to the vacant deaneries and bishoprics. Walpole came often in conflict
with Mrs. Clayton over Church appointments, for she was always urging
the Queen to prefer extreme men of heterodox views who gave much
trouble to the Government by their indiscreet utterances. At last,
after several experiences of the vagaries of these bellicose divines,
Walpole remonstrated so strongly that Mrs. Clayton’s recommendations
were chiefly confined to the Irish Church. Here for years she appointed
practically whom she would. The influence of the Queen’s woman of the
bedchamber was well known to aspiring divines, and she was overwhelmed
with letters from parsons and prelates pining for preferment. Many of
these letters (preserved in the Sundon correspondence) are couched in
the most cringing tone, and are full of the grossest flattery. The
deans and bishops _in esse_ or _in posse_ generally followed up their
letters by making her little presents; for instance, we find the Bishop
of Cork sending her a dozen bottles of “green usquebaugh, sealed with
the figure of St. Patrick on black wax,” and another prelate a suit of
fine Irish linen.
Among Mrs. Clayton’s Irish _protégés_ was Dr. Clayton, a kinsman of her
husband, for whom she procured, despite the protest of the Primate of
Ireland, the bishopric of Clogher. Bishop Clayton made several attacks
on the doctrine of the Trinity, and once proposed in the Irish House
of Lords to abolish from the prayer-book the Nicene and Athanasian
Creeds, in a speech of which one of his colleagues remarked, “it made
his ears tingle”. Dr. Clayton was not much of a scholar, and less of
a theologian, and he adapted his views to meet the approval of his
patroness. The letters of this spiritual pastor to Queen Caroline’s
woman of the bedchamber are models of subserviency. Once Mrs. Clayton
rebuked him for a sermon he had preached on the death of Charles the
First, which seemed to her to praise the King overmuch. He at once
wrote to express his regret, and said he would tone it down by adding
“bred up with notions of despotic government under the pernicious
influence of his father”. He placed his patronage, like his opinions,
at her disposal, and kept her informed of everything that went on in
Ireland--acting, in fact, as a sort of spy in the court interest.
His complaisance was rewarded by his patroness, who caused him to be
successively advanced to the wealthier sees of Killala and Cork. Most
effusive was his gratitude: “Mrs. Clayton cannot command what I will
not perform,” he writes, and again: “Could you but form to yourself the
image of another person endued with the same steadiness of friendship,
liveliness of conversation, soundness of judgment, and a desire of
making everybody happy that is about her, which all the world can see
in you, but yourself, you would then pardon my forwardness in desiring
to keep up a correspondence.... If I am free from any vice, I think it
is that of ingratitude.”[99]
Bishop Clayton’s view of the rules that should govern ecclesiastical
preferment are worth quoting. The particular candidate he was
recommending was a son of the Earl of Abercorn, who had taken holy
orders. “What occurs to me at present,” he writes to Mrs. Clayton, “is
the consideration of ecclesiastical preferments in a political view.
It has not been customary for persons either of birth or fortune, to
breed up their children to the Church, by which means, when preferment
in the Church is given by their Majesties, there is seldom any one
obliged but the very person to whom it is given, having no relatives
either in the House of Lords or Commons that are gratified or are
kept in dependence thereby. The only way to remedy which is by giving
extraordinary encouragements to persons of birth and interest whenever
they seek for ecclesiastical preferment, which will encourage others
of the same quality to come into the Church, and may thereby render
ecclesiastical preferments of the same use to their Majesties as
civil employments.”[100] Of the higher interests of the Church or of
religion, it will be noted, this servile prelate makes no mention; but
the fear of the world and the bedchamber woman was always before his
eyes.
Mrs. Clayton had a large number of poor and obscure relatives, many of
whom benefited at the expense of the Church. One of her nieces, Dorothy
Dyves, whom she had made a maid of honour to the Princess Royal, fell
in love with the Princess’s young chaplain, the Reverend Charles
Chevenix, who was not unmindful of the avenues to preferment thus
opened to him. Mrs. Clayton at first refused her consent: she did not
consider a poor chaplain good enough for her niece, but Chevenix made
the following appeal to her:--
“My salary as chaplain to her Royal Highness will, I hope, be thought
a reasonable earnest of some future preferment, and, could I ever be
happy enough to obtain your protection, I might flatter myself that
I should one day owe to your goodness what I can never expect from
my own merit--such a competency of fortune as may make Miss Dyves’s
choice a little less unequal. My birth, I may venture to add, is that
of a gentleman. My father long served, and at last was killed, in a
post where he was very well known--a post that is oftener an annual
subsistence than a large provision for a family, and that small
provision was unfortunately lost in the year ’20. One of my brothers
is now in the army, a profession not thought below people of the first
rank; another, indeed, keeps a shop, but I hope that circumstance
rather deserves compassion than contempt.”[101]
Mrs. Clayton was touched by the frankness of this appeal, but the shop
remained an obstacle for some time. At last she gave her consent.
Chevenix married Dorothy Dyves, and then it was only a question of a
little time for the chaplain to blossom into a bishop. He was in due
course advanced to the see of Killaloe, and afterwards to the richer
one of Waterford. Truly Mrs. Clayton was, as her niece describes
her, one of the most “worthy and generous of aunts”. No one could
be more mindful of family claims. Her patronage was not entirely
ecclesiastical, though she made the Church her speciality; she found
for her brother-in-law a comfortable post in the civil service; she
obtained for her nephews good military and civil appointments, and her
nieces were all made maids of honour. Lord Pembroke sent her a valuable
present--a marble table--and obtained something for a poor relative.
Lord Pomfret gave her a pair of diamond ear-rings, worth £1,400; a
very good investment, for he got in return the lucrative appointment
of Master of the Horse. Mrs. Clayton, or Lady Sundon as she had then
become, was very proud of these diamond ear-rings, and appeared with
them at one of the Queen’s drawing-rooms. This roused the ire of old
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who had once filled a similar position
with Queen Anne. “How can that woman,” said Duchess Sarah in a loud
voice, so that all around might hear, “how can that woman have the
impudence to go about with that bribe in her ear?” “Madam,” replied
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was standing by, “how can people know
where there is wine to be sold, unless there is a sign hung out?”
It can well be imagined that a system of ecclesiastical patronage
conducted on these lines did not result in advantage to the Church.
Walpole appointed bishops for purely political reasons, Mrs. Clayton
for monetary and family consideration, the Queen because their views
coincided with her own. Yet the Queen, though sometimes misled by her
favourites, who traded on her ignorance of the English Church, honestly
tried to appoint the best men according to her lights. The learning
and ability of her bishops were undeniable; their only drawback was
that they did not believe in the doctrines of the Church of which they
were appointed the chief pastors. Without entering into theological
controversy, it may be safely laid down that those who direct an
institution ought to believe in the institution itself. This is
precisely what most of Caroline’s bishops did not do; their energies
were directed into other channels, and their enthusiasms reserved for
other pursuits. Some of her bishops, notably those who were appointed
to sees in Ireland and Wales, never went near their dioceses at all,
while others treated the cardinal doctrines of Christianity with
tacit contempt, if not open unbelief. The indifference of the bishops
filtered down through the lower ranks of the clergy, and gradually
influenced the whole tone of the established Church; if the bishops
would not do their duty they could hardly blame their clergy for
failing in theirs. Moreover, the policy of the Whig Government, in
packing the Episcopal Bench solely with its own partisans, resulted in
the bishops being out of touch with their clergy, for the majority of
the parsons, especially in the country districts, were Tory, and clung
to their political faith as firmly as to their religious convictions.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN HOADLEY, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.
_From a Painting by Mrs. Hoadly in the National Portrait Gallery._]
At no period of her history has the Church of England been in greater
danger than she was from her own bishops and clergy in the reign of
George the Second. On the one hand was a party embittered by defeat,
shut out from all hope of preferment, and inflamed by a spirit of
intolerance in things political and ecclesiastical; on the other was
a party just as intolerant in reality, but hiding its intolerance
under the cloak of broad and liberal views, and with leaders using
the intellect and learning they undoubtedly possessed, to subvert, or
at least to set aside, the doctrines of the Church they had sworn to
believe. Indifference in practice quickly succeeded indifference in
belief, and herefrom may be traced most of the ills which afflicted
the Church of England during the eighteenth century. It was no wonder,
when the established Church was spiritually dead, that earnest-minded
men, disgusted at this condition of things, and hopeless of remedying
it, set up religious bodies of their own. The growth of Methodism
in the eighteenth century was directly due to the shortcomings of
the Church, which had lost its hold on the masses of the people. The
year after Queen Caroline’s death, in 1738, John Wesley returned from
Georgia, and, aided by his brother Charles, began the mission which was
attended with such marvellous results. True, the Wesleys, in words at
least, never wavered in their adherence to the Church of England,
but the discouragement they met with from the bishops and the often
ill-directed zeal of their followers led in time to the inevitable
separation, which was followed later by schisms among the Methodists
themselves.
One of the most typical of the Georgian bishops was Hoadley, who became
successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury and Winchester,
“cringing from bishopric to bishopric”. Hoadley’s career was a striking
illustration of the superiority of mind over body. When he was an
undergraduate at Cambridge he had an illness which crippled him for
life; he was obliged to walk with a crutch, and had to preach in a
kneeling posture. His appearance was exceedingly unprepossessing,
but he completely overcame these natural disadvantages by the sheer
force of his will. He had taken up the Church as a profession, and
from the professional point of view he certainly succeeded in it;
but he does not seem to have believed in the teaching of the Church
whose principles he had nominally accepted. He was a conformist simply
because it paid him to conform. Even a favourable biographer writes:
“So far indeed was Hoadley from adhering strictly to the doctrines of
the Church that it is a little to be wondered at on what principles he
continued throughout life to profess conformity”.
Hoadley early threw in his lot with the Whig party, and in Queen
Anne’s reign was looked upon as the leader of the Low Church divines,
and a staunch upholder of Whig principles. He did not obtain any
considerable preferment until George the First came to the throne, when
he was made a royal chaplain, and soon after advanced to the bishopric
of Bangor. He did not once visit his bishopric during the whole of his
six years tenure of the see, but remained in London, as the leader
of the extreme latitudinarian party, which, since the Princess of
Wales’s patronage, had become the fashionable one, and offered the best
prospects of promotion. He therefore broke with the orthodox section of
the Low Church party, who came to regard him with little less dislike
than High Churchmen. Hoadley’s love of polemics soon brought him into
conflict with Convocation, and led to what was known as the “Bangorian
controversy”. The bishop had preached a sermon before King George the
First on “The nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ,” in which he
denied that there was any such thing as a visible Church of Christ,
or Church authority. Convocation censured the sermon, and would have
proceeded to further measures against the recalcitrant bishop had
not the Government, by an arbitrary exercise of power, suspended it
altogether. Convocation thus prorogued was not summoned again until the
middle of the reign of Queen Victoria. It would weary and not edify to
enter into the details of this dreary Bangorian controversy; the tracts
and pamphlets written upon it numbered nearly two hundred, and the heat
and bitterness were such as only a religious dispute could engender.
Hoadley did not heed his ecclesiastical enemies, for he had staunch
friends at court; he enjoyed not only the favour of the King and the
Princess of Wales, but had the ear of Mrs. Clayton, soon to become a
dispenser of patronage. His letters to her are some of the most fulsome
preserved in her correspondence. “I compare you in my thoughts,” he
writes, “with others of the same kind, and I see with pleasure, so
great a superiority to the many, that I think I can hardly express my
sense of it strongly enough. Compared with them therefore, I may justly
speak of you as one of the superior species, and you will supply the
comparison if I do not always express it, and not think me capable of
offering incense, which I know you are not capable of receiving.”[102]
In 1721 Hoadley was translated from Bangor to the richer see of
Hereford, and two years later to Salisbury, which was wealthier still.
At Salisbury he so far remembered his episcopal duties as to deliver a
primary charge to his clergy, a poor composition. He was not content
with Salisbury, and cast envious eyes upon the rich see of Durham,
which then maintained a prince-bishop. Walpole, who disliked him as
being a _protégé_ of Mrs. Clayton’s, passed him over in favour of Dr.
Talbot, Bishop of Oxford.
Hoadley owed much of his influence with the Whig party to the fact
that he had always shown himself very friendly to Dissenters, and was
in favour of abolishing the iniquitous Test and Corporation Acts and
other disabilities under which they laboured; the animosity of his
enemies arose quite as much from this fact as from their dislike of
his opinions. The Protestant Nonconformists were the backbone of the
Whig party, and the staunchest supporters of the House of Hanover;
they therefore, not unnaturally, expected, in return for their great
political services, that the disabilities which pressed upon them
should be removed. From time to time they gained certain points, and
the Acts were rendered practically innocuous by annual indemnities;
but still they disfigured the Statute Book, and to this the Dissenters
rightly objected. In 1730 a determined attempt was made by the
Dissenters throughout England to secure the repeal of the Corporation
and Test Acts, and they resolved to present a monster petition to
Parliament praying that the matter should be proceeded with forthwith.
This action put the Government into a position of considerable
difficulty, and it was entirely opposed to Walpole’s policy of letting
sleeping dogs lie. Though both he and the Queen (we will leave the King
out of the question, as he does not count) had the fullest sympathy
with the aspirations of Dissenters; yet they saw that to raise this
question at the present time would be to fan the smouldering embers
of religious controversy, and would put new heart and strength into
the Opposition. The clergy of the established Church, almost to a
man, would be against them, and, with a general election impending,
that would mean that the Government would have an active enemy in
every parish and hamlet in the kingdom. Such a reform, though just and
reasonable in itself, would have the effect of alienating a number of
the Government’s lukewarm supporters, and would give an opportunity for
the Roman Catholics to assert themselves and claim relief also, for
they were far more cruelly oppressed than the Protestant Dissenters.
Walpole knew that Hoadley had influence with the Dissenters, and he
and the Queen talked it over, and resolved to ask Hoadley to see the
heads of the dissenting party and endeavour to persuade them not to
bring forward their petition. As Walpole had given offence to Hoadley
by refusing him Durham, the Queen undertook this delicate mission. She
sent for the bishop, and used all her eloquence to bring him round to
her way of thinking. She dwelt on her admiration of his principles
and writings; she said it was in his power to be of great use to the
Government, and to place her, the Queen, under a personal debt of
gratitude, which she would be slow to forget. She pointed out the
danger that would arise from the religious question being raised at the
present time, and she therefore desired him to ask the Dissenters to
postpone their request. Hoadley demurred a good deal, possibly because
the hint of promotion was not definite enough, and pointed out that as
he had always urged the repeal of the offending Acts, he could hardly
turn round now and eat his words. But he said he would feel the popular
pulse, and if it appeared that the present was an inopportune moment
for raising the question, he would endeavour to persuade the Dissenters
to postpone it to a more convenient season.
Soon after this interview a report was promulgated by Walpole to
the effect that “the Queen had sent for the Bishop of Salisbury and
convinced him that this request of the Dissenters was so unreasonable
that he had promised her not to support it”. This report had the very
opposite effect to what was intended. It caused the Dissenters to be
suspicious of their friend, and consequently tended to nullify any
advice he might give them. The bishop went to Walpole in a rage and
said he could be of no service in the matter whatever, and that so far
from persuading the Dissenters from bringing forward their petition, he
should now encourage them to do so. Walpole tried to soothe Hoadley by
fair words, but finding him not amenable to them, he gave him a strong
hint that if he persisted in his intention, he would ruin any chances
of promotion he might have from the Government or the Queen. This
brought the bishop to his bearings; he had more conferences with the
Queen on the subject, and was ultimately bought over to complaisance
by the promise of the next reversion of the see of Winchester. The
Dissenters fell into a trap. From all over England they sent delegates
to London, who on their part entrusted the negotiations with the
Government to a committee of London Nonconformists. As this committee
was composed of tradesmen in the City, or lawyers eager for promotion,
Walpole was able to buy them over singly and collectively, and so,
betrayed by the bishop and their delegates, the Dissenters went to the
wall.
Hoadley had the misfortune to please neither the Government nor the
Dissenters, for neither trusted him; but he probably did not mind, as
he received what he worked for--the see of Winchester. Soon after his
translation to Winchester he proceeded, after the approved fashion of
Mrs. Clayton’s favourites, to show his independence and disburden his
soul, by publishing a pamphlet called _A Plain Account of the Nature
and End of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper_. This set the clergy
by the ears, and they promptly started a heresy hunt, to the great
discomfiture of the Government responsible for Hoadley’s promotion.
An answer was written to the pamphlet by Dr. Brett, in which Hoadley
was attacked with violence and bitterness. The King, who objected to
Hoadley, asked the Queen what she thought of Brett’s answer, which he
had much enjoyed reading, not because of the nature of the controversy,
for which he cared little, but because of the personal abuse of a
prelate whom he disliked. The Queen, who was very much annoyed at
Hoadley’s indiscretion, however much she might agree with his opinions,
began to explain her views on the subject of the controversy. But the
King cut her short testily, 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 persons loving to talk of those 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.” Walpole had evidently entered his protest too, aimed not only
at Hoadley but at Mrs. Clayton. The Queen, who made it a rule never to
oppose her liege in anything, bowed assent 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 Hervey, who
was standing by. “Pray, what is it that charms you in him? His pretty
limping gait?” (and then he acted the bishop’s lameness) “or his nasty,
stinking breath?--phaugh!--or his silly laugh, when he grins in your
face for nothing, and shows his nasty rotten teeth? Or is it 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 hear, was written so long ago)? Or was
it that he would risk losing a shilling a-year more whilst there was
nothing better to be got than what he had? My lord, I am very sorry you
choose your friends so ill; but I cannot help saying, 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 so much above their
desert, to be talking and writing their stuff, to give trouble to the
Government that has shown them that favour; and very modest, and a
canting hypocritical knave to be crying, ‘_The Kingdom of Christ is
not of this world_,’ at the same time that he, as Christ’s ambassador
receives £6,000 or £7,000 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 favours from the Crown, though, by his republican
spirit and doctrine, he would be glad to abolish its power.”[103]
Having delivered himself of this lengthy exordium, the King stopped and
looked at the Queen, as much as to say who dare gainsay him. She had
not been able to get a word in edgeways, but by smiling and nodding she
tried to signify her approval of everything her lord and master said.
This is the only instance on record we have of the King’s direct
interest in ecclesiastical affairs, for, during the Queen’s lifetime,
Church patronage remained in her hands, and even after her death her
expressed wishes were carried out. But when all these were fulfilled,
many aspiring divines, since the Queen and Lady Sundon were no longer
available, paid their court to the King’s mistress, Madame de Walmoden,
afterwards Countess of Yarmouth, and, for the rest of George the
Second’s reign, the royal road to bishoprics ran through the apartments
of the mistress.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER X:
[97] _London Gazette_, 27th December, 1729.
[98] _Daily Courant_, 31st January, 1733.
[99] _Sundon Correspondence._ The Bishop of Killala to Mrs. Clayton,
Dublin, 17th April, 1731.
[100] _Ibid._, 19th March, 1730.
[101] _Sundon Correspondence._ The Rev. Charles Chevenix to Lady
Sundon, London, 24th November, 1734.
[102] _Sundon Correspondence._ Bishop Hoadley to Mrs. Clayton [undated].
[103] Hervey’s _Memoirs_.
CHAPTER XI.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.
1733–1734.
Soon after the withdrawal of the excise scheme the King sent a message
to Parliament with the news that his eldest daughter, the Princess
Royal, was betrothed to the Prince of Orange. The match was not a
brilliant one, for the Prince was deformed, not of royal rank, and
miserably poor. But the “Prince of Orange” was still a name to be
conjured with among the Whigs and the Protestant supporters of the
dynasty generally, and the announcement was popular, as a further
guarantee of the Protestant succession. The Government regained some
of the credit they had lost over the excise scheme and Parliament
willingly voted the Princess a dower of £80,000, which was double the
sum ever given before to a princess of the blood royal.
The Princess Royal had no affection for her betrothed, whom she had
never even seen, but she was exceedingly anxious to be married. It was
said at court that the King of France had once entertained the idea
of asking her hand in marriage for the Dauphin, but her grandfather,
George the First, would not listen to it on account of the difference
of religion. There was no evidence to support this story, and it was
certain that since George the Second had ascended the throne no suitor
of any importance had come forward; so that, despite his drawbacks,
the Prince of Orange was the best husband that could be got. Indeed,
it seemed as though it were a choice between him and no husband at
all. The Prince of Wales was exceedingly indignant with his sister for
getting married before him, and so obtaining a separate establishment,
a thing for which he had hitherto asked in vain. He need not have
envied her, for she was making a match that would satisfy neither her
love nor her ambition.
The Queen showed no enthusiasm for the marriage, and the negotiations
were unduly prolonged. Months passed before everything was settled, and
it was November before the Prince of Orange set out for England and
his intended bride. A royal yacht was sent to escort him to English
shores, and, according to a journal: “The person who brought the
first news of the Prince of Orange being seen off Margate was one who
kept a public house there; who, upon seeing the yacht, immediately
mounted his horse and rode to Canterbury, where he took post horses
and came to St. James’s at eleven o’clock on Monday night. Her Majesty
ordered him twenty guineas and Sir Robert Walpole five. Twenty he hath
since laid out on a silver tankard, on which his Majesty’s arms are
engraved.”[104]
Probably this messenger was the only person who had reason to rejoice
at the arrival of the Prince of Orange. The Prince was lodged in
Somerset House, and many of the nobility went to wait upon him there,
hoping by paying him their court to please the King. They little
knew that the King and Queen were in their hearts opposed to the
match, and had only yielded to it from political exigencies, and the
impossibility of finding any other suitable suitor for their daughter.
The Queen sent Lord Hervey to Somerset House with orders to come back
and tell her “without disguise what sort of hideous animal she was
to prepare herself to see”. The Prince was not nearly so bad as he
had been painted, for though he was deformed, he had a pleasant and
engaging manner. The Queen seemed more interested in the appearance
of the future bridegroom than the bride herself, for the Princess
Royal, when she heard of the arrival of her lover, continued playing
the harpsichord with some of the opera people as though nothing had
happened. “For my part,” said the Queen, “I never said the least word
to encourage her in this marriage or to dissuade her from it.” The
King, too, left the Princess at liberty, but as she was determined to
marry some one, and as the Prince, though not a crowned King, was the
head of a petty state, she said that she was willing to marry him.[105]
The King then remembered his duty as a father, and not too nicely
warned his daughter of the Prince’s physical unattractiveness, but she
said she was resolved, if he were a baboon, to marry him. “Well, then,
marry him,” retorted the King in a huff, “and you’ll have baboon enough
I warrant you.”
The wedding was arranged to take place immediately after the arrival
of the bridegroom elect, but as ill-luck would have it the Prince
fell sick of a fever, and for some months lay dangerously ill. During
the whole time of his sickness none of the Royal Family went to visit
him, or took any notice of him, by command of the King, who wished to
inculcate the doctrine that before his marriage to the Princess the
Prince of Orange was nobody, and could only become somebody through
alliance with the Royal Family. The Prince, though he must have felt
this neglect, behaved with great good sense, and as soon as he was able
to go out, he went to St. James’s Palace to pay his respects as if
nothing had happened. He had an interview with his future bride, and
stayed to dinner with the princesses informally. When the King heard of
it he was very angry, and forbade them to receive him any more without
his permission. The occasion did not arise, for a few days later the
Prince of Orange went to Bath for a cure, and did not return to London
until a fortnight before his wedding.
The marriage took place on March 14th, 1734. The Princess Royal, who
had maintained an impassive front throughout her engagement, neither
evincing pleasure at the Prince’s arrival, nor sorrow at his illness,
showed the same impassive demeanour at her wedding. The ceremony took
place at night in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. A covered gallery of
wood was built outside, through which the procession had to pass. This
gallery gave great offence to old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who
could see it from her windows of Marlborough House. It had been erected
when the wedding was first settled to take place, four months before,
and she was indignant at its being left standing so long. “I wonder,”
she said, “when neighbour George will remove his orange chest.” On
the night of the wedding, the “orange chest” was illuminated from end
to end, and accommodated four thousand people who were favoured with
tickets to see the processions pass. At seven o’clock in the evening
the bridegroom with his attendants was waiting in the great council
chamber of St. James’s, the bride with her ladies was ready in the
great drawing-room, and the King and Queen, with the rest of the Royal
Family were assembled in the smaller drawing-room. Three processions
were then marshalled, that of the bridegroom, that of the bride, and
that of the King and Queen. The Chapel Royal was upholstered for the
occasion more like a theatre than a place of worship, being hung with
velvet, gold and silver tissue, fringes, tassels, gilt lustres, and so
forth. The Prince of Orange was magnificently clad in gold and silver,
and as he wore a long wig that flowed down his back and concealed his
figure, he made a more presentable appearance than was expected. The
Princess Royal was also gorgeously attired; she wore a robe of silver
tissue, and her ornaments included a necklace of twenty-two immense
diamonds; her train, which was six yards long, was supported by ten
bridesmaids, the daughters of dukes and earls, who were also clad
in silver tissue. The Queen and her younger daughters were visibly
affected during the ceremony, and could not restrain their tears at the
sacrifice they considered the Princess was making. The King, who had
shown himself very restive before the wedding, behaved very well on
the day, but the Prince of Wales, though he was tolerably civil to the
bridegroom, could not bring himself to be cordial to the bride.
At twelve o’clock, the Prince and Princess of Orange supped in public
with the Royal Family, and after the banquet, which lasted two hours,
came the most curious part of the ceremony. The English Court had
borrowed a custom from Versailles, and a most trying one it must
have been for the bride and bridegroom. As soon as the Prince and
Princess of Orange had retired, the whole court were admitted to see
them sitting up in bed--that is to say, the courtiers passed through
the room and made obeisance. The bridegroom, now that he had doffed
his fine clothes and peruke, did not look his best, but the bride
maintained her self-possession, even under this ordeal. Referring next
morning to the sight of the princely pair in bed, the Queen exclaimed:
“Ah! mon Dieu! quand je voiois entrer ce monstre pour coucher avec ma
fille, j’ai pensé m’évanouir; je chancelois auparavant, mais ce coup
là m’a assommée.”
The Princesses bewailed the fate of their sister quite as much as their
mother. Princess Amelia declared that nothing on earth would have
induced her to marry such a monster. Their lamentations were wasted.
The Princess of Orange, to her credit be it said, determined to make
the best of her husband, and she behaved towards him in a most dutiful
manner, and made his interests her own.
The Prince and Princess of Orange stayed in England for six weeks after
their marriage, and the Prince bade fair to become a popular hero.
For the time, he quite outshone the Prince of Wales as the idol of
the hour. This was very noticeable at the theatre; when the Prince of
Wales came into the house he was received with but moderate applause,
but the instant the Prince of Orange appeared the whole theatre rang
with shouts and cheers. The King, too, noticed these signs of popular
feeling and became jealous, and anxious to send his son-in-law back
to Holland as soon as possible. The King was exceedingly unpopular,
and the “Prince of Orange” was an ominous name in England to a royal
father-in-law. The City of London, the University of Oxford, and many
towns presented addresses on the occasion of the marriage of the
Princess Royal, which, though couched in complimentary language, yet
contained many covert sarcasms. They dwelt so much on the services
rendered to England by a Prince who bore the name of Orange, and
expressed so fervently the hope that this Prince might follow his great
namesake’s example, that it almost seemed as if they wished him to
depose his father-in-law, as William of Orange had deposed King James.
The address of the City of London, for example, was thus paraphrased:--
Most gracious sire behold before you
Your prostrate subjects that adore you--
The Mayor and citizens of London,
By loss of trade and taxes undone,
Who come with gratulations hearty
Altho’ they’re of the Country Party,
To wish your Majesty much cheer
On Anna’s marriage with Mynheer.
Our hearts presage, from this alliance,
The fairest hopes, the brightest triumphs;
For if one Revolution glorious
Has made us wealthy and victorious.
Another, by just consequence,
Must double both our power and pence:
We therefore hope that young Nassau,
Whom you have chose your son-in-law,
Will show himself of William’s stock,
And prove a chip of the same block.
[Illustration: ANNE, PRINCESS ROYAL, AND THE PRINCE OF ORANGE.]
The King was exceedingly restive under these historical parallels, and
became more and more anxious to speed the parting guest. Therefore,
at the end of April the Prince and Princess of Orange embarked at
Greenwich for Holland. The parting of the Princess with her family was
most affecting--except with her brother the Prince of Wales, who did
not trouble to take leave of her at all. Her mother and sisters wept
bitterly over her, the King “gave her a thousand kisses and a shower
of tears, but not one guinea”. Yet, such is human nature, after a few
weeks the Princess was as much forgotten at the English Court as though
she had never existed.
Another familiar figure disappeared from the Court a few months later
(in November, 1734), namely, Lady Suffolk, better known as Mrs. Howard.
She had often wished to resign her office, but her circumstances for
one reason did not admit of her doing so, and for another the Queen
always persuaded her to remain, lest a younger and less amenable lady
might take her place. The King, who had long since tired of her,
resented this action on the part of the Queen. “I do not know,” he
said, “why you will not let me part with a deaf old woman of whom I am
weary?” Mrs. Howard was weary too, and had come to loathe her bonds.
But what brought matters to a crisis cannot be certainly stated, it was
probably a combination of events.
The year before, shortly after he succeeded to the earldom, Lord
Suffolk died, and Lady Suffolk was left a widow, for which no doubt
she was devoutly thankful. She was now free to marry again; and if she
did not she possessed a moderate competency, which would enable her
to live in a position befitting her rank. Lady Suffolk was friendly
with many members of the Opposition, including Bolingbroke, who was of
all persons most disliked at court. It was said by her enemies that
she had a political intrigue with him, and had met him at Bath. Coxe
tells a story which seems to show that the Queen was at the bottom
of Lady Suffolk’s retirement. “Lord Chesterfield,” he says, “had
requested the Queen to speak to the King for some trifling favour; the
Queen promised, but forgot it. A few days afterwards, recollecting
her promise, she expressed regret at her forgetfulness, and added she
would certainly mention it that very day. Chesterfield replied that her
Majesty need not give herself that trouble, for Lady Suffolk had spoken
to the King. The Queen made no reply, but on seeing the King told him
she had long promised to mention a trifling request to his Majesty, but
it was now needless, because Lord Chesterfield had just informed her
that she had been anticipated by Lady Suffolk. The King, who always
preserved great decorum with the Queen, and was very unwilling to have
it supposed that the favourite interfered, was extremely displeased
both with Lord Chesterfield and his mistress. The consequence was that
in a short time Lady Suffolk went to Bath for her health, and returned
no more to Court.”
It is possible that some such incident occurred, but it could not have
been the immediate cause of Lady Suffolk’s retirement, as she held
office for more than a year after Lord Chesterfield was dismissed in
consequence of voting against the excise. It is true she went to Bath,
and probably met Bolingbroke there too, but it is unlikely that she had
a political intrigue with him. On her return to court, the King seems
first to have ignored her, and then to have insulted her publicly.
This was the last straw, and Mrs. Howard determined to resign at once.
The Duke of Newcastle wrote to Walpole: “You will see by the newspapers
that Lady Suffolk has left the Court. The particulars that I had from
the Queen are, that last week she acquainted the Queen with her design,
putting it upon the King’s unkind usage of her. The Queen ordered her
to stay a week, which she did, but last Monday had another audience,
complained again of her unkind treatment from the King, was very civil
to the Queen, and went that night to her brother’s house in St. James’s
Square.”[106]
The Duke of Newcastle’s statement is borne out by a curious manuscript,
entitled “Memorandum of the conversation between Queen Caroline and
Lady Suffolk, upon Lady Suffolk’s retiring from her Majesty’s service,
1734”.[107] This memorandum was probably jotted down by Lady Suffolk
soon after her interview with the Queen, and runs as follows:--
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, I believe your Majesty will think that I have
more assurance than ever anybody had to stay so long in your family,
after the public manner his Majesty has given me of his displeasure.
But I hope, when I tell you that it occasioned my not waiting sooner
upon your Majesty, you will not think it was owing to assurance. I
have always had, and I hope I have always shown, the greatest duty and
attention for everything that relates to your Majesty, and I could not
think it was proper, whilst you were so indisposed, to trouble you with
anything relating to me, but I come now, Madam, to beg your leave to
retire.”
_The Queen_: “You surprise me. What do you mean? I do not believe the
King is angry. When has he shown his displeasure? Did I receive you as
if you were under mine?”
_Lady Suffolk_: “No, madam. If your Majesty had treated me in the same
manner as his Majesty did, I never could have had the assurance to
appear again in your presence.”
_The Queen_: “Child, you dream. I saw the King speak to you; I remember
now.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Yes, madam, and his words marked more strongly his
displeasure than his silence, before and since.”
_The Queen_: “Tell me, has the King really never been down with you
since your return?”
_Lady Suffolk_: “No, madam. Will your Majesty give me leave to tell
what has passed?...”[108]
_The Queen_: “Upon my word I did not know it.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “I hope you take nothing ill of me....”
_The Queen_: “Come, my dear Lady Suffolk, you are very warm, but
believe me I am your friend, your best friend. You do not know a court.
It is not proper of me to say this, but indeed you do not know a
court.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “I am very sensible that I do not, and feel I do not; I
have had a most convincing proof that I am ignorant. But I am afraid,
madam, if I have not got knowledge in twenty years I never shall now.”
_The Queen_: “Why don’t you talk to your friends? I always do so.
Indeed you cannot judge this for yourself.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, if twenty years’ service has not been able to
prevent me from falling a sacrifice to my enemies, would your Majesty
have me, by calling in my friends, make them answerable for the measure
I shall take, and involve them in my ruin?”
_The Queen_: “Child, your enemies want to get you out, and they will be
the first to drop you. Oh! my dear Lady Suffolk, you do not know, when
you are out, how different people will behave.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, the first part of what your Majesty says I am
very sure of, but really, madam, I do not understand the second part,
and if some people may show me it was the courtier and not me that
was liked, I cannot say that to keep such acquaintances will be any
argument to me to stay at Court. Madam, such are better lost than kept.”
_The Queen_: “You are very warm.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, I beg if, in talking to your Majesty, I say one
word that does not mark the respect both to his and your Majesties,
you will be pleased to tell me; for, madam, I come fully determined to
take my leave, with the same respect, submission and duty, as I have
behaved for twenty years. Your Majesty has often told me that I have
never failed in anything for your service in any of those places that
you have honoured me with. Madam, I do not know how far your Majesty
may think it respectful to make this declaration, but I beg that I
may for a moment speak of the King only as a man that was my friend.
He has been dearer to me than my own brother, so, madam, as a friend
I feel resentment at being ill-treated, and sorry to have lost his
friendship; but as my King and my master I have the greatest submission
to his pleasure, and wish I knew what I was accused of, for I know my
innocence. But, madam, I know it must be some horrid crime.”
_The Queen_: “Oh! fie! you commit a crime! Do not talk so.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, as I know his Majesty’s goodness, his justice,
his warmth of friendship, I know he could not for anything else punish
me so severely.”
_The Queen_: “I daresay that if you have a little patience the King
will treat you as he does the other ladies. I suppose that would
satisfy you.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “No, madam. Why, did you never see him show what you
call ‘respect’ to the Duchess of R---- and to Lady A----? Madam, I
believe and I hope they are ladies of more merit than I, and possibly
in every respect of greater consequence than I am; but in this case is
very different. They have not lived twenty years conversing every day
with his Majesty, nor had the same reason to think themselves honoured
with his friendship as I have had till now; nor has it been in his
power to give the public so remarkable an instance of his displeasure
of them. Consider, madam, I have been absent seven weeks, and returned
sooner than was proper for my health to do my duty in my place to your
Majesty, and to show my respect to his Majesty on his birthday.”
_The Queen_: “I heard that you were at the Bath, and that you did not
design to come back; but I did not mind such reports.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “I heard, too, madam, that I was _not_ to come back,
and that my business was done at Court. I knew, madam, that I had a
mistress who had often told me that she was perfectly satisfied with
my services. I felt I had a king, and master, and a friend, (whom I
could not, nor ever will, suspect of injustice) who would not punish me
without I was guilty, and I knew, madam, I had done nothing. But still
these reports must now make me think his Majesty’s public neglect could
not escape any bystanders, and I know it was remarked, for my brother
came on Thursday morning and asked if it were true that the King took
no notice of me since I came from the Bath.”
_The Queen_: “Well, child, you know that the King leaves it to me. I
will answer for it that all will be as well with you as with any of
the ladies, and I am sure you can’t leave my service then.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Really, madam, I do not see how it is possible for me
to continue in it. I have lost what is dearer to me than anything in
the world. I am to be put upon the footing of the Duchess of R---- or
Lady A----, and so by the public thought to be forgiven of some very
grave offence because I have been your servant twenty years. No, madam,
I never will be forgiven an offence that I have not committed.”
_The Queen_: “You won’t be forgotten. This is indeed the G.L. (_sic_)
why I am forgiven.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, your Majesty and I cannot be named together. It
is a play of words for your Majesty, but it is a serious thing for me.”
_The Queen_: “Why, child, I am the King’s subject as well as you.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, what I mean is what I cannot make your
Majesty understand unless you are pleased to lay aside the Queen and
put yourself in my place for some moments. After twenty years to be
ill-treated without knowing your crime, and then stay upon the foot of
the Duchess of A----!”
_The Queen_: “Upon my word, Lady Suffolk, you do not consider what the
world will say. For God’s sake, consider your character. You leave me
because the King will not be more particular to you than to others.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, as for my character, the world must have
settled that long ago, whether just or unjust, but, madam, I think
I have never been thought to betray his Majesty, or to have done any
dishonest thing by any person whatever, and I defy my greatest enemies
(your Majesty owns I have such) to prove anything against me, and I
cannot and will not submit to anything that may make that believed of
me.”
_The Queen_: “Oh! fie! Lady Suffolk, upon my word that is a very fine
notion out of _Celia_, or some other romance.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “This may not be a very great principle, but I think it
is a just one, and a proper one for me to have.”
_The Queen_: “I will send you down one. Come, you love figures. Let me
persuade you two-thirds. Go down and think of this. There are people
who want to get you out of Court; they will be the first to drop you.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, I consult nobody in this; there is no occasion.”
_The Queen_: “You cannot judge for yourself. Let me prevail. Put
yourself in somebody’s hands and let them act for you. Indeed you are
so warm you are not fit to act for yourself.” (_Repeated the same as I
said before._) “Nor indeed very respectful. But you will repent it. I
cannot give you leave to go.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “If anybody could feel as I feel, and could be so
entirely innocent as to let me be the only sufferer for the advice they
give, I might follow the method your Majesty proposes, but as that is
impossible, I must beg leave to act for myself. I wish I might know
what I am accused of. In my absence I have been ruined in his Majesty’s
favour. At the Bath I have a thousand witnesses of my behaviour. I know
my own innocence. Nobody dare tell me that to my knowledge I have ever
failed in my duty in any manner.”
_The Queen_: “You are very G. L. (_sic_). Not dare to tell you you have
been guilty!”
_Lady Suffolk_: “No, madam, for the Princess and the duke could justify
my behaviour, Lord ---- and many more; what I meant was as regards to
myself. But I cannot think that any wretch is so abandoned to all shame
as to stand having the ---- (pardon the word) before such a number as
was there.”
_The Queen_: “Pray how did you live at the Bath?”
(_Here I told all. Who B. denied, and what happened to Lord B. No
parties distinguishable to me._)
_The Queen_: “Lady Suffolk, pray consider, be calm.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, I beg your Majesty will give me permission to
retire. Indeed I have not slept since I came back to your house, and
believe I never shall under this suspicion of guilt. Madam, will you
give me leave to speak?”
_The Queen_: “Do.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “I am here by your Majesty’s command. Your Majesty
should look upon me when I assert my innocence. Your Majesty knows
what I am accused of.”
_The Queen_: “Oh! oh! Lady Suffolk, you want to get it out of me.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, I do want to face the accusation; I am not
afraid; I know it would be to the confusion of my accusers.”
_The Queen_: “I will not give you leave to go, I tell you plainly. If
you go to-day you go without my consent.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Madam, I beg you to think of my unhappy situation. I
own after what passed, that the next time I saw his Majesty, I should
have dropped down if I had not gone out.”
_The Queen_: “Well, Lady Suffolk, will you refuse me this? Stay a week
longer, won’t you; stay this week at my request.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “Yes, madam, I will obey you, but as I am under his
Majesty’s displeasure, your Majesty will not expect my attendance, or
that I come again to receive your commands.”
_The Queen_: “Yes, I do, and I will see you again, because you will
come again.”
_Lady Suffolk_: “I will obey your Majesty.”
_The Queen_: “Harkee, Lady Suffolk, you will come up as you used to do.”
Lady Suffolk stayed her week and then, despite the arguments of the
Queen, she resigned her appointment, and left the court for ever. She
was forty-eight years of age, and had fairly earned her retirement.
She was not of a nature to live long alone, and the following year
she married George Berkeley, fourth son of Charles, second Earl of
Berkeley, a man not distinguished for fortune or good looks, but who,
nevertheless, made her a very good husband. The King was in Hanover
when he heard of Lady Suffolk’s marriage, and had already given her a
successor. He received the news very philosophically, and wrote to the
Queen:--
“J’étois extrêmement surpris de la disposition que vous m’avez mandé
que ma vieille maîtresse a fait de son corps en mariage à ce vieux
goutteux George Berkeley, et je m’en réjouis fort. Je ne voudrois pas
faire de tels présens à mes amis; et quand mes ennemis me volent, plut
à Dieu que ce soit toujours de cette façon.”
The King probably called Berkeley his enemy because he was a member of
the Opposition. Berkeley died a few years after his marriage with Lady
Suffolk, but she survived him for more than twenty years. She lived, in
dignified retirement, at her villa at Marble Hill, and retained, until
the end of her life, the charm of manner and amiability, which had won
her many friends. Horace Walpole used to visit her in her old age, and
gleaned from her much material for his famous _Memoirs_. She died in
1767, in her eightieth year, having survived George the Second seven
years.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XI:
[104] _Daily Journal_, 8th November, 1733.
[105] The Prince of Orange was hereditary Stadtholder of Friesland, and
Stadtholder by election of Gröningen and Guelderland.
[106] The Duke of Newcastle to Sir Robert Walpole, 13th November, 1734.
[107] This manuscript is preserved in the manuscript department of the
British Museum.
[108] A gap here.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.
1734–1735.
The Court and the Government acquired some little popularity over the
marriage of the Princess Royal, but it soon vanished before the fierce
assaults of the Opposition (or Patriots, as they called themselves) in
Parliament. The first session of 1734 was the last session under the
Septennial Act, and the Patriots strained every nerve to discredit the
Government with the country. A determined effort was made to repeal
the Septennial Act and revive triennial parliaments. This had always
been a favourite scheme of Wyndham and the Tories, though Pulteney,
the leader of the Patriots, had in 1716 voted for the Septennial Act.
But Bolingbroke’s influence compelled Pulteney to eat his words though
he sacrificed his political consistency in doing so. The debate in the
House of Commons on the repeal of the Septennial Act was almost as
exciting as the debates on the excise, and, if possible, a higher level
of eloquence was maintained. Pulteney’s speech, as was natural under
the circumstances, was brief and embarrassed, but Wyndham surpassed
himself and would have carried off the honours of the debate had it not
been for Walpole’s great speech in reply. Walpole, stung out of his
usual indifference by the taunts levelled at him in the _Craftsman_,
and knowing whose hand had penned those scathing words and whose master
mind had organised this attack, launched against Bolingbroke, under the
name of an “anti-minister,” a tremendous philippic. After sketching the
“anti-minister” in no covert terms he continued:--
“Suppose this fine gentleman lucky enough to have gained over to
his party some persons of really fine parts, of ancient families
and of great fortunes; and others of desperate views, arising from
disappointed and malicious hearts; all these gentlemen, with respect to
their political behaviour, moved by him, and by him solely, all they
say, in public or in private, being only a repetition of the words
he has put into their mouths and a spitting out of that venom he has
infused in them; and yet we may suppose this leader not really liked
by any, even of those who so blindly follow him, and hated by all the
rest of mankind. We will suppose this anti-minister to be in a country
where he really ought not to be, and where he could not have been but
by the effect of too much goodness and mercy, yet endeavouring with all
his might, and all his art, to destroy the fountain whence that mercy
flowed.... Let us further suppose this anti-minister to have travelled,
and at every Court where he was, thinking himself the greatest
minister, and making it his trade to reveal the secrets of every Court
he had before been at, void of all faith and honour, and betraying
every master he ever served.”
Walpole’s outburst was undoubtedly provoked by Bolingbroke, but it was
none the less cowardly thus to attack a man who could not answer him.
It was Walpole who had prevented Bolingbroke from fighting openly, who
had shut him out from the Senate, and thus forced him to employ any
weapons that came to his hand. Yet even now he feared his power. A
large minority supported the repeal of the Septennial Act, and in the
general election that followed, though Walpole employed every means to
corrupt the constituencies and spent no less than £60,000 of his own
private fortune besides, the Government majority was largely reduced.
Still Walpole won and it is difficult to see how he could have done
otherwise considering the resources at his command. The Queen took the
keenest interest in the struggle, and her joy at the result showed how
keen had been her apprehensions. “On the whole,” wrote Newcastle soon
after the general election, “our Parliament is, I think, a good one,
but by no means such a one as the Queen and Sir Robert imagine.”[109]
But the Patriots, who had indulged in high hopes over the result of
this appeal to the country, were frankly disappointed. They were
further discouraged by the resolution of Bolingbroke to leave England
for a time--a resolution which was ascribed to different causes. Some
said that money matters had to do with it, others that it was due to
differences between Bolingbroke and Pulteney, or to the retirement of
Lady Suffolk from court, or, most unlikely reason of all, to Walpole’s
denunciation of him in the House of Commons. The probable reason was
that Bolingbroke owned himself beaten, and threw up the cards. He
had led his hosts within sight of victory with consummate skill, but
victory was denied him. Walpole had a new lease of power for seven
years, and who could tell what seven years would bring? There was
nothing more to be done. So Bolingbroke retired to his beautiful
château of Chanteloup in Touraine for a while, and devoted himself to
literature. “My part is over,” he wrote to Wyndham, “and he who remains
on the stage after his part is over deserves to be hissed off.”[110]
The King and Queen, no less than the Government, rejoiced over
Bolingbroke’s departure, but their rejoicings were premature, for he
had left his sting behind him. The Prince of Wales was deeply grieved
at the loss of his political mentor. Before leaving Bolingbroke had
given him a piece of advice--to bring his grievances formally before
the House of Commons, and ask that the £100,000 a year voted for
him should be settled on him by Parliament. Bolingbroke could not
have advised anything more calculated to embarrass the court and the
Government, as he knew full well. If the Prince carried out his advice
he would make the Government unpopular, by forcing them to appear
opposed to a popular demand; he would compel those politicians who
hitherto had sat on the fence to declare themselves definitely in
favour of either father or son, and he would drag the differences of
the Royal Family into the light of day, and do grievous harm to the
dynasty. The Prince was ready to act upon Bolingbroke’s advice, but his
more cautious friends, like Doddington, dissuaded him, and he did not
know how to proceed alone. But he threatened to do so, and the mere
threat sufficed to throw the King and Queen into an extraordinary state
of agitation. The Queen still retained some little influence over her
son, the relations between them had not yet been strained to breaking
point; her influence over her husband was boundless, and she was able,
by preaching at the one and pleading with the other, to avert the
threatened crisis. She assured the Prince that if he carried matters
to extremities he would gain nothing, and she besought the King not
to drive the Prince to extreme measures. The King, therefore, on the
principle of buying off his Danes, reluctantly made over a certain sum,
which sufficed for the Prince’s immediate necessities, and the crisis
was for the moment averted. But it was only for the moment.
This year (1735) the King paid his triennial visit to Hanover. He
appointed the Queen to act as Regent as before, a step which gave great
umbrage to the Prince of Wales, who on this occasion did not trouble to
disguise his feelings, and for the first time showed open disrespect
to his mother’s authority.
On this visit of the King to Hanover he began his _liaison_ with Amelia
Sophia de Walmoden, the wife of Baron de Walmoden, a Hanoverian. This
lady’s youthful charms soon made him forget the retirement of Lady
Suffolk, and her influence over him quickly became greater than Lady
Suffolk’s had ever been. The new mistress had a good deal of beauty,
and considerable powers of fascination; she flattered the King to the
top of his bent, and made him believe he was the only man she had ever
loved, or ever could love, in spite of the fact that she had one, if
not two, other intrigues going on at the same time. She was cautious,
and avoided making enemies by not trespassing in matters outside her
province.
The Queen in England was soon made aware that there was some disturbing
influence at work. The King’s letters to her became shorter, and he
usurped at Hanover some of the prerogatives which belonged to her as
Regent, such as signing commissions, and so forth. He also, through his
minister in attendance, Lord Harrington, cavilled at many of the acts
of the Queen-Regent, a thing he had never done before. In this perhaps
Harrington’s jealousy of Walpole had some share. Harrington knew that,
by embarrassing the Queen, he also embarrassed her chief adviser.
Therefore, between the jealousy of her son at home and the irritability
of her husband abroad, Caroline’s third Regency was anything but a
pleasant one. But she suffered no word of complaint to escape her lips,
and pursued her usual policy of trying to increase the popularity of
the Crown and strengthen the hands of Walpole and the Government. She
was afraid to keep up much state, lest the King in his present mood
should be jealous, so she removed the court to Kensington, where she
lived very quietly, holding only such drawing-rooms as were absolutely
necessary. These she held rather from policy than from pleasure, her
object being to conciliate the powerful Whig peers who were still
dissatisfied with the Government.
The Queen found interest and relaxation in improving her house and
gardens at Richmond. In addition to a dairy and menagerie, which she
had established in the park, she erected several buildings, more
or less ornamental, in the gardens, of which the most peculiar was
the one known as “Merlin’s Cave”. This extraordinary edifice was
approached through a maze of close alleys and clipped hedges. The
_Craftsman_ ridiculed it, and declared that it looked like “an old
haystack thatched over”. A gloomy passage led to a large circular room,
decorated with several allegorical figures, of which we glean the
following account:--
“The figures her Majesty has ordered for Merlin’s Cave are placed
therein, namely: (1) Merlin at a table with conjuring books and
mathematical instruments, taken from the face of Mr. Ernest, page to
the Prince of Wales; (2) King Henry the Seventh’s Queen, and (3)
Queen Elizabeth, who came to Merlin for knowledge; the former from
the face of Mrs. Margaret Purcell, the latter from Miss Paget’s; (4)
Minerva, from Mrs. Poyntz’s; (5) Merlin’s secretary, from Mr. Kemp’s,
one of his Royal Highness the Duke’s grenadiers; and (6) a witch, from
a tradesman’s wife at Richmond. Her Majesty has ordered also a choice
collection of English books to be placed therein.”[111]
The people were much interested in Merlin’s Cave, and as soon as it was
finished the Queen threw it open to the public on certain days, and
crowds applied for admission. Similar imitations of this pleasure house
sprang up all over the country, despite its doubtful taste. So pleased
was the Queen with the cave that she erected another house hard by, and
called it “The Hermitage”. It was built to resemble a rude building
overgrown with moss, and was entered, incongruously, by an enormous
gilt gateway. Merlin’s Cave, the Hermitage, and the improvements in the
house and gardens at Richmond were expensive luxuries, so expensive
that the Queen was unable to pay for them out of her income. But
Walpole humoured her in these hobbies, and made her several little
grants from the Treasury, of which no one was the wiser.
In October the time arrived for the King to tear himself away from
Hanover and his Walmoden. It was necessary for him to be back in London
by October 30th to keep his birthday. He delayed until he could delay
no longer, and, when he had at last to tear himself away, he promised
his mistress that under any circumstances he would be with her next
year by May 29th. The Walmoden, between smiles and tears, publicly
pledged her royal lover a happy return on May 29th, at a farewell
banquet the night before his departure. It was a rash promise for the
King to make, for he had hitherto only visited Hanover once in three
years; and even so, not without protest from his English advisers.
George the Second set out from Hanover on Wednesday, October 22nd, and
arrived at Kensington the following Sunday. The Queen, who had long
been expecting him, received the news just after she returned from
morning chapel. She at once summoned her court, and went on foot to
meet him at the great gate. When the King stepped out of his coach she
stooped and kissed his hand, and he gave her his arm and led her into
the palace. It was only on the occasion of a return from Hanover that
the King offered the Queen his arm; he probably did so in consideration
of her holding the office of Regent, which she had not yet resigned
into his hands. The King held a small reception immediately after his
arrival, but the Queen, who saw that he was ill, soon dismissed the
company. The King had in fact tired himself by travelling too fast,
and for the next few days he was exceedingly unwell; he was also
exceedingly irritable, and every one who came near him, from the Queen
downwards, incurred his wrath. He loudly lamented his beloved Hanover
and abused England. “No English or even French cook could dress a
dinner; no English confectioner set out a dessert; no English player
could act; no English coachman could drive or English jockey ride,
nor were any English horses fit to be drove or fit to be ridden; no
Englishman knew how to come into a room, nor any English woman how to
dress herself.”[112] All this and much more from the King of England!
The Queen had to bear the brunt of his ill-humour, and, what was worse,
had to endure the fear that her influence over him was on the wane.
His manner towards her had completely changed; nothing she could say,
or do, was right, in little things or great. Among other trifles he
noticed that the Queen had taken some bad pictures out of one of the
rooms at Kensington, and replaced them by good ones. The King, who
knew nothing of art, and cared less, for the mere sake of finding
fault, made this a pretext for thwarting his wife. He peremptorily
ordered Lord Hervey to have the new pictures taken away and the old
ones replaced. This was impossible, for some of the pictures had been
destroyed and others sent to Windsor. But Lord Hervey did not dare tell
the King so; he demurred a little and asked the King if he would allow
two Vandykes at least to remain, to which George answered: “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! As for the Vandykes, I do not care whether
they are changed or no, but 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.” “Would your Majesty,” said Lord Hervey, “have the gigantic fat
Venus restored too?” “Yes, my lord; I am not so nice as your lordship.
I like my fat Venus much better than anything you have given me instead
of her.”
Lord Hervey says that he thought that “if his Majesty had liked his
_fat Venus_ as well as he used to do, there would have been none of
these disputations”. He told the Queen next morning what had passed.
She pretended to laugh but was evidently annoyed, and began to wonder
how she could obey the King’s commands. “Whilst they were speaking the
King came in, but by good luck, said not one word of the pictures:
his Majesty stayed about five minutes in the gallery; snubbed the
Queen, who was drinking chocolate, for being always stuffing; the
Princess Emily for not hearing him; Princess Caroline for being grown
fat; the Duke [of Cumberland] for standing awkwardly; Lord Hervey for
not knowing what relation the Prince of Sultzbach was to the Elector
Palatine: and then carried the Queen to walk, and be resnubbed, in the
garden.”
The Queen was very much perturbed by the King’s altered behaviour
towards her, and she took Sir Robert Walpole into her confidence, and
asked him what was to be done. Walpole spoke to her with a frankness
positively brutal. He told her that since the King had tasted “better
things,” presumably the Walmoden, it could not be other than it was;
he reminded the Queen that she was no longer young, and said that
“she should no longer depend upon her person, but her head, for her
influence, as the one would now be of little use to her, and the other
could never fail her.” No woman likes to be told that her personal
charms are gone, and Walpole made this advice the more unpalatable by
recommending the Queen to send for Lady Tankerville, a good looking
but stupid woman, to fill the place left vacant by Lady Suffolk. He
told the Queen that it was absolutely necessary that the King should
have some one to amuse him, “as he could not spend his evenings with
his own daughters after having tasted the sweets of passing them with
other people’s”; therefore, it would be much better that he should have
some one chosen by the Queen than by himself. Lady Deloraine, who was
the other likely candidate for the royal favour, and whom the King had
often noticed when she was governess to the young Princesses, Walpole
regarded as a dangerous woman, and therefore preferred Lady Tankerville.
The Queen resented this advice in her heart, and was deeply hurt; but
on the surface she took it well enough, laughing the matter off as was
her wont. She was not above making some bitter jokes upon the situation
in which she found herself. When she was dressed for the King’s
birthday drawing-room, she pointed to her head-dress and said: “I think
I am extremely fine too, though _un peu à la mode_; I think they have
given me horns.” Whereupon Walpole burst into a coarse laugh, and said
he thought the tire-woman must be a wag. The Queen laughed too, but
flushed angrily.
At this same birthday drawing-room the King noticed that it was poorly
attended, and those who came were indifferently dressed, a sure sign of
his unpopularity. The King, unpopular before, had disgusted his English
subjects by his long stay in Hanover, and by the new ties he had formed
there, for the people had had enough of German mistresses under George
the First. Many of the great noblemen, even the officers of state,
showed their resentment in a diplomatic manner by absenting themselves
from court and retiring into the country. This made the King angrier
than ever, and his manner towards the Queen, who was the only person
upon whom it was safe for him to vent his displeasure, became harsher
than before. She bore it uncomplainingly, until one morning when he
was unreasonable beyond endurance she said half in jest, though with
tears in her eyes, that she would get Walpole to put in a word in her
favour, as nothing she now did was right. The King flew into a passion,
and asked her what she meant by such complaints. “Do you think,” he
said, “I should not feel and show some uneasiness for having left a
place where I was pleased and happy all day long, and being come to one
where I am as incessantly crossed and plagued?” This was a little too
much for the Queen, who for once lost her self-control and turned upon
her tormentor. “I see no reason,” she said, “that made your coming to
England necessary; you might have continued there, without coming to
torment yourself and us: since your pleasure did not call you, I am
sure your business did not, for we could have done that just as well
without you, as you could have pleased yourself without us.” Thereupon
the King, who was as much astonished as Balaam was when his ass spake,
went out of the room, and banged the door.
The King endeavoured to propitiate the Queen by making her a present
of some horses from Hanover. This was a poor sort of gift, as by it
he charged the expense of the horses on her establishment, and used
them himself; most of his presents were of this nature. As she did
not accept the gift with becoming gratitude, he fell foul of Merlin’s
Cave, which had just been completed. The Queen told him that she heard
the _Craftsman_ had abused her hobby. “I am very glad of it,” said
the King, “you deserve to be abused for such childish silly stuff,
and it is the first time I ever knew the scoundrel in the right.”
This conversation took place in the evening, when the King was always
peculiarly irascible. He formerly spent two or three hours of an
evening in Lady Suffolk’s apartments, snubbing and worrying her, but
since that lady had retired, and no one as yet was found to take her
place, he had perforce to spend it with his wife and daughters, and
vent his ill-humour on them. The same evening that he abused Merlin’s
Cave, he found fault with the Queen for giving away money to servants
when she went to visit the nobility in London. The Queen defended
herself by saying that it was the custom, and appealed to Lord Hervey,
who said it was true that such largess was expected of her Majesty.
The King retorted: “Then she may stay at home as I do. You do not see
me running into every puppy’s house, to see his new chairs and stools.
Nor is it for _you_,” said he, turning to the Queen, “to be running
your nose everywhere, and trotting about the town to every fellow
that will give you some bread and butter, like an old girl that loves
to go abroad, no matter whether it be proper or no.” The Queen, who
was knotting, flushed, and tears came into her eyes, but she answered
nothing. Lord Hervey somewhat officiously said that the Queen had a
love of pictures, whereat the King turned to the Queen and poured forth
a flood of abuse in German. She made no reply, but knotted faster than
ever until she tangled her thread and snuffed out one of the candles
in her agitation, whereupon the King, falling back into English, began
to lecture her on her awkwardness. This may be taken as a specimen of
the way the Royal Family spent their evenings for some weeks after the
King’s return from Hanover.
From a hundred little things, the Queen feared that her day was over.
The King always used to stay with her till eleven o’clock in the
morning, before beginning the business of the day; but now he hurried
off soon after nine o’clock, in order that he might write love letters
to Madame de Walmoden. He was a great letter-writer, especially of love
letters, an art in which he excelled, and probably inherited from his
mother, Sophie Dorothea.
[Illustration: AUGUSTA, PRINCESS OF WALES, AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE.]
The only matter in which the King seemed to be at one with his consort,
at this time, was in blaming the Prince of Wales, who took the occasion
of his father’s return to renew his demands. He had for a long time
absented himself from the King’s levées, but he was prevailed upon by
Doddington to appear at one. His appearance, as the King suspected,
foreshadowed a definite demand, which was not long in coming. The
Prince requested that he should have his full income of £100,000 a
year, a separate establishment, and be married. It was no use ignoring
Frederick, he only became more troublesome, so the King determined to
yield the point, which would cost him least money, and get him married
at once. He sent his son a formal message, by five of the Cabinet
Council, to say that, if the Prince liked, he would ask for him the
hand of the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. She was the daughter of
the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, and the King had met her, as if by accident,
on his last visit to Hanover, with a view to seeing if she would
be a suitable wife for his son. It was not a gracious way of meeting
the Prince’s wishes, but Frederick answered with great propriety,
that whoever his Majesty thought a proper match for his son would be
agreeable to him. One of the most irritating features of the Prince’s
conduct was that he was always polite and circumspect to the King and
Queen in public, and disrespectful and disobedient in private. He
followed up his answer by asking how much money he was to get. When
the King, reluctantly, promised to disgorge £50,000 a year, the Prince
expressed great dissatisfaction, but, on the principle of half a loaf
being better than no bread, he determined to accept the sum as an
instalment, and let the marriage go forward.
Lord Delaware was therefore despatched to Saxe-Gotha to complete the
negotiations which had been already set on foot, and bring the bride
over to England. These negotiations took some little time, and the
young Princess naturally wished to pay her farewells before setting
forth to an unknown husband and an unknown land; but the King was so
impatient to return to his Walmoden that after a week or two he sent
word to Delaware to say that if the Princess could not come by the end
of April the marriage must either be put off till the next winter, or
solemnised without him, as to Hanover he would go. This message had the
effect of hastening matters. The Princess Augusta landed at Greenwich
on Sunday, April 25th, 1735, and stayed the night at the palace there.
She had the promise of beauty and the charm that always goes with
youth. At this time she looked, as she was, an overgrown girl, tall
and slender, and somewhat awkward in her movements, but her pleasant
expression and engaging manner soon won her popularity. The poets in
their odes of welcome endowed the youthful pair with all the graces, as
for example:--
That pair in Eden ne’er reposed
Where groves more lovely grew;
Those groves in Eden ne’er enclosed
A lovelier pair than you.
The Prince of Wales went down to Greenwich to meet his bride-elect,
and was much pleased with her. The next day she showed herself to the
people on the balcony of the palace, and was warmly received. The
young Princess was only seventeen years of age; she was quite alone,
unaccompanied by any relative, and could not speak a word of English.
Yet she was allowed to remain at Greenwich forty-eight hours after her
landing in England without any one of the Royal Family going near her
except the Prince. She was treated with the same neglect as the Prince
of Orange had been treated. The excuse put forward on behalf of the
King and Queen was that until she was Princess of Wales there was no
rule of precedence to guide them as to how she should be received. They
were no doubt jealous of the pretensions which the Prince of Wales put
forward; but in any case, even if they could not have gone themselves
to welcome her, they might have sent one of the Princesses to befriend
the young and inexperienced girl in what must necessarily have been a
difficult and delicate position. The Prince endeavoured to make amends
for this neglect by paying his betrothed great attention. He came to
Greenwich again the next day and dined with his future bride. “He
afterwards,” we are told, “gave her Highness the diversion of passing
on the water as far as the Tower and back in his barge, finely adorned,
preceded by a concert of music. Their Highnesses afterwards supped in
public.”[113]
The next morning the Princess was escorted from Greenwich in one of the
royal coaches to Lambeth, and thence she proceeded down the river to
Whitehall in a barge. At Whitehall she landed, and was carried through
St. James’s Park in a sedan chair to the garden entrance of St. James’s
Palace, where the Prince of Wales, who had preceded her, was waiting.
The Prince led his betrothed up to the great drawing-room, where the
King and Queen and all the court were ready to receive her, and curious
to see what she was like. The King had been waiting more than an hour,
for the Princess was late, and he was consequently impatient, and not
in the best of tempers, but the young girl by her tact overcame any
awkwardness that might have attended her reception. She prostrated
herself at the King’s feet, and made a similar obeisance to the Queen.
Her behaviour throughout this trying ceremony was marked by such
propriety and discretion, that she immediately created a favourable
impression, and did away with any prejudice against her.
The Princess was not allowed much time to rest after her journey, for
the marriage was arranged to take place that night, at nine o’clock in
the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. Before the ceremony the King and Queen,
to avoid vexed questions of precedence, dined in private, but the Duke
of Cumberland and the Princesses were commanded to dine with the Prince
and his betrothed. Unfortunately the harmony of this family party was
marred by quarrels over minute questions of ceremony. The King, with
a view to overcoming any difficulties, had ordered the Duke and the
Princesses to go “undressed,” that is, informally, and in other clothes
than those they were to wear later at the wedding. The Prince resented
this as a slight upon himself and his bride, and in return began
disputing as to where, and how, his brother and sisters should sit at
dinner. He demanded that they should be seated upon stools without any
backs, whilst he and his bride occupied armchairs at the head of the
table; also that he and his bride should be served on bended knee,
while the others should be waited upon in the ordinary manner. The King
and Queen had anticipated some of those difficulties, and had coached
the Princesses beforehand in what they were to do. So they flatly
refused to go into the room where dinner was served until the stools
had been carried away and chairs put in their places, but they so far
yielded the other point as to order their personal servants to wait
upon them in the usual manner. Thus the wedding dinner passed off, if
not exactly harmoniously, without any more childish disputes, though
the Princesses went without their coffee as it was offered to them by
a servant of the bride. The dinner, and the altercations in connection
with it, occupied the best part of the afternoon, and the bride had
scarcely time to dress for the wedding.
The wedding procession was formed at eight o’clock, and it took some
time to marshal. The peers and peeresses, and other personages invited
to the wedding, met in the great drawing-room of St. James’s, and then
walked in order of precedence to the chapel. The Bishop of London
performed the marriage ceremony, and the joining of hands was made
known to the public by the firing of guns in St. James’s Park. The
following extract from a contemporary print gives the best account of
the ceremony:--
“Her Highness was in her hair, wearing a crown with one bar, as
Princess of Wales, set all over with diamonds; her robe likewise, as
Princess of Wales, being of crimson velvet, turned back with several
rows of ermine, and having her train supported by four ladies, all of
whom were in virgin habits of silver, like the Princess, and adorned
with diamonds not less in value than from twenty to thirty thousand
pounds each. Her Highness was led by his Royal Highness the Duke of
Cumberland, and conducted by His Grace the Duke of Grafton, Lord
Chamberlain of the Household, and the Lord Hervey, Vice-Chamberlain,
and attended by the Countess of Effingham, and the other ladies of
her household. The marriage service was read by the Lord Bishop of
London, Dean of the Chapel; and, after the same was over, a fine anthem
was performed by a great number of voices and instruments. When the
procession returned, his Royal Highness led his bride; and coming into
the drawing-room, their Royal Highnesses kneeled down and received
their Majesties’ blessing. At half-an-hour after ten their Majesties
sat down to supper in _ambigu_, the Prince and the Duke being on the
King’s right hand, and the Princess of Wales and the four Princesses
on the Queen’s left. Their Majesties retiring to the apartments of
the Prince of Wales, the bride was conducted to her bedchamber, the
bridegroom to his dressing-room, where the Duke undressed him, and his
Majesty did his Royal Highness the honour to put on his shirt. The
bride was undressed by the Princesses, and, being in bed in a rich
undress, his Majesty came into the room, the Prince following soon
after in a night-gown of silver stuff, and cap of the finest lace. The
Quality were admitted to see the bride and bridegroom sitting up in bed
surrounded by all the Royal Family.”[114]
The King had grumbled because there were few new clothes at his
birthday drawing-room, but no such complaint could be made on this
occasion, for the splendour and richness of the costumes had never been
excelled. The Georgian beau was a gorgeous being; the men seemed to
outshine the ladies. We read:--
“His Majesty was dressed in a gold brocade, turned up with silk,
embroidered with large flowers in silver and colours, as was the
waistcoat; the buttons and stars were diamonds. Her Majesty was in
plain yellow silk, robed and faced with pearls, diamonds, and other
jewels of immense value. The Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle, and St.
Albans, the Earl of Albemarle, Lord Hervey, Colonel Pelham and many
other noblemen, were in gold brocades of from three to five hundred
pounds a suit. The Duke of Marlborough was in a white velvet and gold
brocade, upon which was an exceedingly rich _point d’Espagne_. The Earl
of Euston and many others were in clothes flowered or sprigged with
gold; the Duke of Montagu in a gold brocaded tissue. The waistcoats
were universally brocades, with large flowers. ’Twas observed most of
the rich clothes were the manufacture of England, and in honour of our
own artists. The few which were French did not come up to these in
richness, goodness, 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
hath been done for some time.”[115]
After her marriage the Princess of Wales maintained the favourable
impression she created at first, a notable feat considering that she
had been brought up in the seclusion of her mother’s country house in
Saxe-Gotha, and had come to a Court far more splendid than any she
could have ever dreamed of. Walpole, who noted how she had won the
King’s approval and gained the Prince’s esteem, declared that these
“were circumstances that spoke strongly in favour of brains which had
but seventeen years to ripen”. Lord Waldegrave testified that the
Princess distinguished herself “by a most decent and prudent behaviour,
and the King, notwithstanding his aversion to his son, behaved to her
not only with great politeness, but with the appearance of cordiality
and affection”. Even old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who hated
Queen Caroline, and generally had a bad word to say for every one,
relented in favour of the Princess, declaring that she “always appeared
good-natured and civil to everybody”. The Princess’s subsequent conduct
justified these praises, and she showed herself as the years went by to
be a clever woman, with considerable force of character.
At first her position was exceedingly difficult in consequence of the
strained relations between the Prince and his parents. She necessarily
saw more of the Queen than of the King, and though the Queen’s
kindness to her never wavered, there was always a barrier of reserve
between them, for the Prince had now come to dislike his mother even
more than his father. Just before his marriage the Queen had had a
difference with her son over the question whether Lady Archibald
Hamilton was, or was not, to be one of the ladies in waiting to the
Princess; the Prince wishing her to be appointed, and the Queen
declaring that it was not proper that the Prince’s mistress should be
one of his wife’s household. She was undoubtedly right, but the Prince
might have retorted, and he probably did, that he was only following
precedent, since Lady Suffolk had filled a similar position in the
household of his parents. The matter was compromised by only three
ladies in waiting being appointed by the Queen, and the Princess was
left free to nominate one other when she arrived. The Prince gained
such an ascendency over his wife that the first thing she did was
to appoint Lady Archibald Hamilton, who soon became her constant
companion. Lady Archibald was not a wise adviser to the young Princess
even in minor matters, or perhaps she deliberately set about to make
her look ridiculous. The Princess was quite ignorant of the customs of
the English Court, and was imbued by her husband with a strong sense
of what was due to her as Princess of Wales. Either at his bidding or
Lady Archibald’s suggestion, she took to walking in Kensington Gardens
with two gentlemen-ushers going before her, a chamberlain leading her
by the hand, a page holding up her long train, and her maids of honour
and ladies in waiting following behind. The Queen met this grotesque
procession one morning when she was out on her walks, and burst into
peals of laughter. The poor Princess of Wales, who was not conscious of
having done anything wrong, begged to know the reason of her Majesty’s
merriment, whereupon the gentle Princess Caroline so far forgot her
gentleness as to tell her sister-in-law, tartly, that it was ridiculous
for her to walk out like a tragedy queen, when she was merely taking
the air privately in the gardens.
If the King and Queen had thought to pacify their eldest son by
yielding to his wish to be married, they quickly found themselves
mistaken. The Prince accepted this concession only as an instalment,
and immediately began to ask for more. He did not consider his demand
for a separate establishment met by his being given apartments in
the royal palaces, and he refused to be contented with anything less
than the full sum voted for him by Parliament. The King stoutly
refused to yield more and expressed himself very forcibly on, what he
called, his son’s ungrateful conduct. Thus baffled, the Prince began
to raise money right and left by giving bills and bonds payable on
the death of his father and his own accession to the throne, and the
money-lenders were willing to advance him money on these conditions at
an extortionate rate of interest. When the King heard of this he became
greatly frightened lest the rapacity of the usurers should cause them
to hasten his death by assassination. The Queen feared for the King’s
safety too, and had long talks with Walpole and Lord Hervey on the
subject. Lord Hervey, who hated the Prince, offered to bring forward a
bill in the House of Lords making it a capital offence for any man to
lend money on the consideration of the King’s death, but Walpole wisely
pooh-poohed the idea. He strongly objected to bringing the disputes of
the Royal Family before the public, and told the Queen he could see no
way of keeping the Prince in order except through the good influence of
the Princess of Wales. The Queen then tried to discuss matters with the
Princess, but, coached by her husband, she would not listen. She was
very sorry she said, but her Majesty must excuse her, she must decline
to take any part in the controversy. Whatever her husband did was right
in her eyes and it was her duty to obey him, whom she had sworn to
obey. This drew from the Queen the expression: “Poor creature, if she
were to spit in my face I should only pity her for being under such a
fool’s direction, and wipe it off”. She pitied the Princess rather than
blamed her, and allowed this little incident to make no difference to
her behaviour towards her. The Princess no doubt had done wisely and
the Prince showed his appreciation by treating his wife with courtesy
and kindness, and the marriage, which had begun inauspiciously, turned
out better than any one expected.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XII:
[109] Duke of Newcastle to Horace Walpole, 24th May, 1734.
[110] Bolingbroke to Wyndham, 29th November, 1735.
[111] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 21st August, 1735.
[112] Hervey’s _Memoirs_.
[113] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, April, 1736.
[114] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, April, 1736.
[115] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, April, 1736.
CHAPTER XIII.
CAROLINE’S LAST REGENCY.
1736.
The Prince of Wales’s marriage over, the King became very impatient
to return to Hanover. The pledge he had given to Madame Walmoden last
year, that he would be with her on May 29th, had become known to
Walpole, who swore to the Queen that the King should not go if he could
prevent it. The Quakers’ Bill was just then before Parliament and the
bishops were giving a great deal of trouble to the Government in the
House of Lords; the King’s departure for Hanover again so soon would
be another source of embarrassment. But neither Walpole’s protests nor
the Queen’s more diplomatic representations were of any avail with
the King. “I am sick to death of all this foolish stuff,” said the
Defender of the Faith to the Queen one day when she was speaking to him
about the bishops’ action in the House of Lords, “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.”
After this there was clearly nothing more to be said, and in the middle
of May the King set out for Hanover, this time taking Horace Walpole
with him as minister in attendance instead of Harrington, whom the
Queen and Walpole determined should never go with the King to Hanover
again. He again appointed the Queen Regent, and sent a message to the
Prince of Wales telling him that wherever the Queen-Regent resided,
there would be apartments provided for himself and the Princess. The
Prince resented this message, which forced him, he said, to move his
household at the Queen’s pleasure, and made him practically a prisoner
in her palace. That was perhaps an exaggeration, but the order was
evidently designed to prevent the Prince and Princess setting up a
court of their own in the King’s absence. The Prince considered that
his marriage gave him an additional claim to be appointed Regent
instead of the Queen. He therefore tried in many small ways to set
her authority as Regent at defiance, and he trumped up the excuse of
the Princess’s indisposition to hinder him from occupying the same
house as the Queen according to the King’s command. The Queen, who
suspected that this was only an evasion, came up from Richmond, where
she had removed after the King left, to London to find out if the
Princess of Wales were really ill. But her intention was baffled, for
when she arrived she was told that the Princess was in bed and could
not receive her, and when the Queen insisted on being shown to her
daughter-in-law’s chamber, she found the room so dark that she could
scarcely see her, and had to return to Richmond no better informed
than when she set out. Shortly afterwards the Queen removed to Hampton
Court, and with some little delay the Prince and Princess followed, and
had their suite of apartments allotted them there.
The Prince of Wales did not attend the Council when the Queen broke
the seals of the King’s commission making her Regent; he pretended
that he had mistaken the hour. He tried by every possible means to
discredit the Queen-Regent’s authority, and to cultivate popularity at
the expense of his parents. It was fairly easy for him to pit himself
against his father, for the King’s conduct in going to Hanover two
years running, his _affaire_ with the Walmoden, and the fact that he
had left unfilled several commissions in the army because, people
said, he wished to pocket the pay himself, had made him more unpopular
than ever. Some measure of this unpopularity reflected itself upon
the Queen, though she, poor woman, was the greatest sufferer by the
King’s intrigue with the Walmoden. The Princess of Wales also suddenly
discovered that she had scruples about receiving the Sacrament
according to the rites of the Church of England, and declared that she
was a Protestant and a Lutheran. This move, which was probably made by
command of the Prince in order to gain the goodwill of the Dissenters,
gave a great deal of annoyance to the Queen, for the bishops and clergy
were up in arms about it, talked loudly of the Act of Succession, and
declared that if the Princess would not conform to the rites of the
Church of England she would have to be sent back again to Saxe-Gotha.
The Queen spoke to the Prince on the subject, but he declared that he
could do nothing, for when he reasoned to his wife she only wept and
talked of her conscience. However, the threat of being sent back to
Saxe-Gotha effectually abolished the Princess’s scruples; she dried her
tears and attended the services at the chapel at Hampton Court like the
rest of the Royal Family. Yet even when they came to church the Prince
and Princess of Wales managed to show disrespect to the Queen’s office
as Regent. They arranged always to come late, so that the Princess had
to push past the Queen in the royal pew, an uncomfortable proceeding
so far as the Queen was concerned, for she was stout and the pew was
narrow. Moreover, the arrival of the Prince and Princess and a numerous
suite half-way through the service was exceedingly disturbing, so,
after bearing with it two or three Sundays, the Queen sent word that
if the Princess came late she must make her entry by another door. The
Princess, however, persisting, the Queen ordered a servant to stand at
the main entrance of the chapel after she had gone in and not permit
any one to pass until the service was over, which would have the effect
of sending the Princess round to another door, or of keeping her out of
the chapel altogether. The Prince, however, was equal even to this, for
he told the Princess that if she was not ready to go into chapel with
the Queen she was not to go at all, and so neatly avoided yielding the
point.
The Queen, notwithstanding all these studied slights and petty insults,
was determined not to quarrel with her son, and regularly asked
the Prince and Princess to dine with her once or twice a week, and
sometimes invited them to music and cards in the gallery at Hampton
Court in the evening. The Princess came now and then to these latter
functions, the Prince never, though they both were obliged to come
to dinner when the Queen asked them. These dinners could not have
been pleasant to either side; they certainly were not to the Queen,
who, after they were over, used to declare that the dulness of her
daughter-in-law and the silly jokes of her son gave her the vapours,
and she felt more tired than “if she had carried them round the garden
on her back”.
Meanwhile the King at Hanover was enjoying himself with his
enchantress, who had presented him with a fine boy, which it suited her
purpose to declare was his son.[116] The King, who was now fifty-three
years of age, firmly believed her, and his affections became riveted
to Madame Walmoden more firmly than ever. Yet he might well have
doubted, for the lady had many friends to console her in his absence,
and a suspicious incident occurred this summer even while George
was at Hanover. The King was staying, according to his custom, at
Herrenhausen, and Madame Walmoden was living in the apartments set
apart for her by the King in the Leine Schloss. She spent most of her
time with the King at Herrenhausen, returning to the Leine Schloss
at night, where she was sometimes visited by the King. The Leine
Schloss was very different then to what it is now, for it was fronted
by extensive gardens on both banks of the Leine, the gardens through
which poor Sophie Dorothea used to steal, disguised, to Königsmarck’s
lodgings. The Walmoden’s bedchamber was on the garden side of the
palace, and one night a gardener chancing to walk round the palace
in the small hours found a ladder placed immediately under Madame
Walmoden’s window. The man thought this must be the attempt of a
burglar, who had come to steal the lady’s jewels, and made a careful
search round the garden. He presently discovered a man hiding behind
a bush, whom he immediately seized, and, shouting for the guard, had
him placed under arrest. To every one’s astonishment, the prisoner
proved to be no thief, but an officer in the Austrian service, named
Schulemburg, a relative of the Duchess of Kendal’s, who was on a visit
to Hanover in connection with some diplomatic mission. Schulemburg
protested against the indignity put upon him, which he said would be
resented not only by himself, but by his master, the Emperor, and made
such a fuss that the captain of the guard released him at once.
Before the morning the story was all over the palace, and Madame
Walmoden, who had been aroused in the night, was in a great state of
agitation. But her woman’s wit came to her aid. As early as six o’clock
the next morning she ordered her coach and drove off to Herrenhausen
to give her version of the affair to the King before any one else
could tell him. George was still a-bed when the lady arrived, but
being a privileged personage she passed the guards and made her way
to his bedside. She threw herself upon her knees, and besought the
King, between her tears and sobs, to protect her from gross insult,
or allow her to retire from his court for ever; she declared that she
loved him not as a king but as a man, and for his own sake alone, but
wicked envious people, who were jealous of the favour he had shown her,
were plotting to ruin her. The King, astonished at this early visit,
rubbed his eyes, and asked what it all meant. She then told him about
the ladder, and declared that it must have been placed there by design
of a certain Madame d’Elitz with intent to ruin her with the King.
This Madame d’Elitz was also a Schulemburg, a niece of the old Duchess
of Kendal. She was credited with having had intrigues with three
generations of the Hanoverian family, the old King, George the First,
the present King, George the Second, and Frederick, Prince of Wales,
before he came over to England. This was probably an exaggeration, but
it is certain that she was the mistress of George the Second before he
deserted her for the superior charms of the Walmoden. So the story had
at least the element of plausibility. At any rate the King accepted
it, and ordered the captain of the guard to be put under arrest for
having released Schulemburg, and sent word that he should again be
apprehended. But Horace Walpole, the English Minister in attendance,
fearing that this might involve the King in a quarrel with the Emperor,
sent Schulemburg word privately to make speed out of Hanover, which he
did forthwith.
All sorts of versions were given of this ladder incident, which quickly
became known in London, and was much discussed by Queen Caroline and
her court. The King wrote long letters to the Queen in England, telling
her all about the affair, and asking her to judge it impartially for
him, as he was so fond of the Walmoden that he could not judge it
otherwise than partially, and if she were in doubt he asked her to
consult _le gros homme_, Sir Robert Walpole, “who,” he said, “is much
more experienced, my dear Caroline, in these affairs than you, and less
prejudiced than myself in it”. But whatever was the Queen’s opinion
the King remained devoted to his Walmoden, and refused to believe any
evil of her. Whether Caroline really consulted Walpole or not it is
impossible to say; but though she laughed about the incident in public
she wept many bitter tears in private, and her patience was well-nigh
exhausted.
Caroline had no easy part to play in this, her fourth and most
eventful, regency. Her health had been failing for some time, and now
was an ever-present trouble. The knowledge of the King’s infatuation,
and the fear that her influence over him was waning, preyed upon her
mind, and she was further harassed by the covert rebellion against her
authority carried on by the Prince of Wales. All these were troubles
from within, but those from without were also serious. The King was
never so unpopular as now, and his unpopularity reflected itself upon
the Government. There were discontents and disorders in different
parts of the country; a riot broke out in the west of England because
of the exportation of corn, and so violent were the farmers that in
many districts the military had to be called out to quell the tumult.
Another disturbance took place at Spitalfields among the weavers, who
objected to Irishmen working there because they were willing to accept
lower wages and could accustom themselves to a lower standard of living
than Englishmen. A riot broke out and many Irish were killed and others
wounded. Huge mobs assembled, and again the Queen-Regent had to command
that soldiers should be called out, which had the effect of diverting
the rage of the weavers from the Irish to the court. They now began to
curse the Germans even more loudly than they execrated the Irish, and
from cursing the Germans they proceeded to cursing the King and Queen,
and shouting for James the Third. Eventually the soldiers quelled the
riots, but not without bloodshed, and the discontent was all the more
active for being driven below the surface.
Another source of dissatisfaction with the people was the Gin
Act, which had been passed with the object of abating the vice of
drunkenness, and especially the drinking of gin by the lower classes.
Gin drinking at that time was the popular habit, and was carried to
such a degree that the drunkenness of the mob and the depraved and
debased condition of public morals became a crying scandal. The sale
of gin was carried to such an extent in the taverns that a newspaper
of the time informs us: “We hear that a strong-water shop was lately
opened in Southwark with this inscription on the sign:--
Drunk for one penny,
Dead drunk for two pence,
Clean straw for nothing.”[117]
The Gin Act was passed with a view to putting a stop to this sale, but
without success, and the truth that people cannot be made sober by
Act of Parliament was proved up to the hilt. The only result was to
encourage a gang of informers who became the pest of the country. The
Act came into force on September 29th, 1736, and as the date approached
ballads and lamentations of “Mother Gin” were sung about the streets,
the signs of the liquor shops were everywhere put into mourning, and
mock ceremonies on the funeral of “Madam Gin” were carried out by the
mob. To quote from the journals: “Last Wednesday, September 29th,
several people made themselves very merry with the death of ‘Madam
Gin,’ and some of both sexes got soundly drunk at her funeral, of which
the mob made a formal procession with torches.”[118]
All over the country it was the same, and the Act was practically
abortive. The selling of gin was carried on just the same, sometimes
publicly in the shops, more often by hawkers who sold it about the
streets in flasks and bottles under fictitious names. Some of these
names were odd enough, such as “Cuckold’s Comfort,” “Make-Shift,” “The
Ladies’ Delight,” “Colic and Gripe water,” and so forth. Sometimes the
gin was coloured with a drop or two of pink fluid, and sold in bottles,
labelled: “Take two or three spoonfuls of this four or five times a
day, or as often as the fit takes you”. The Act was repealed seven
years later; but the whole of its unpopularity now fell upon Walpole
and the Queen-Regent, especially on the latter, who certainly had urged
its passing, as she wished to abate the crying scandal of drunkenness.
The Prince of Wales, in his quest for popularity, sided with the
people, and was said to have been seen drinking gin publicly in one of
the taverns the very day the Act came into force.
The most serious riot of all took place, not in London or the
provinces, but in Edinburgh. Scotland, though quelled for a time after
the abortive rising of 1715, was still restless under Hanoverian rule,
and it needed but a spark to set the discontent in a blaze. Scotland
had never been reconciled to the Act of Union, and the jealousy of any
interference from England was strongly resented, even by many of those
who refused to acknowledge James as their King. The Porteous Riots
served to bring matters to a climax. These riots had their origin in a
small matter. Two smugglers, named Robertson and Wilson, were arrested
by the officers of the Crown for robbing a collector of customs, and
lay in the Tolbooth, or city gaol of Edinburgh, under sentence of
death. Hanging was the punishment for smuggling in those days, but
practically the severity of the sentence rendered the Act inoperative,
and smuggling was winked at by many honest Scots who regarded these
imposts as an unjust aggression upon their ancient liberties. But in
this case the Government determined to make an example. Great sympathy
was felt for the prisoners by the people, and files were secretly
conveyed to them from outside to aid their escape. The prisoners freed
themselves from their manacles, and cut through a bar of the window.
Wilson insisted on going first, but as he was a stout man he got
fixed in the opening, and there remained, unable to move backwards or
forwards. In this plight he was found in the morning, and the escape of
the prisoners was defeated. Wilson was seized with self-reproach at the
thought that, if it had not been for his wilfulness, Robertson, who was
a younger and slimmer man, would have been saved, and he determined to
do something to help him.
It was the custom in those days for condemned prisoners to be taken to
the Tolbooth church the Sunday before their execution, and be preached
at. Robertson and Wilson went as was customary, escorted by guards,
but as they were coming out Wilson attacked the guards unexpectedly,
and cried to Robertson to escape. In the confusion the latter managed
to do so; he jumped over the pews, and was aided by the sympathetic
congregation. The generous conduct of Wilson excited great popular
sympathy, but Captain John Porteous, who was in command of the city
guard, a rough and brutal man, especially resented the saving of one
prisoner by the other, and determined that Wilson’s execution should
take place the next day. In this decision he was hastened by a rumour
that Wilson would be rescued from the gallows by the mob. He ordered
a double guard around the scaffold, and was said to have forced the
unfortunate victim to wear handcuffs much too small for him as he went
to the place of execution, though the latter showed him his bruised and
bleeding wrists, and protested against this barbarity. “It signifies
little,” said Porteous brutally, “your pain will soon be at an end.”
Wilson answered him in words that were afterwards remembered: “You know
not how soon you yourself may have occasion to ask the mercy which you
are now refusing to a fellow-creature. May God forgive you!”
[Illustration: THE OLD TOLBOOTH, EDINBURGH, TEMP. 1736.
_From an old Print_]
Wilson was hanged by the neck on the gibbet erected in the Grassmarket,
and the execution passed off quietly enough, though an enormous and
threatening crowd had assembled. But when the body had hung on the
gibbet for some time, some of the mob began to throw stones at the
guards and a rush was made for the scaffold to cut down the body,
either to give it decent burial or to see if it could be resuscitated.
Porteous, who was a violent-tempered man and was said to be half-drunk,
ordered the soldiers to fire upon the crowd and even stimulated them
by snatching a musket from a soldier and firing it himself. Several
persons were wounded, and six or seven killed on the spot. The firing
was the signal for a general tumult; Porteous and his soldiers withdrew
with difficulty to the guard-house, pursued by execrations and volleys
of stones. Local feeling was wholly against Porteous; he was arrested
for ordering the soldiers to fire upon the citizens, several of whom
had taken no part in the tumult. His trial took place before the High
Court of Justice in Edinburgh, and he was found guilty and condemned to
death. He was to be hanged on September 8th, 1736, and meanwhile lay in
the Tolbooth. He appealed to London, and the Queen-Regent in Council,
taking into consideration the provocation which Porteous had received,
ordered his reprieve.
When this reprieve arrived at Edinburgh from the Secretary of State’s
Office, under the hand of the Duke of Newcastle, the agitation that
arose was almost beyond belief. The people, who had been thirsting for
the death of Porteous, were like tigers baulked of their prey, and
determined to take the law into their own hands. There is little doubt
that the Lord Provost and city authorities were aware of what was going
to take place, and also the General in command of the troops at the
Castle. They did nothing to prevent it, for their sympathies were with
the people. The night after the Queen’s reprieve arrived in Edinburgh,
a fierce mob arose as if by magic, armed with pikes, bayonets, Lochaber
axes, and any arms they could find, and headed by a man dressed in
woman’s clothes. The rioters made themselves masters of the gates of
the city, disarmed the guard, and marched to the Tolbooth, with shouts
of “Porteous! Porteous!” The unhappy man within, who was entertaining a
party of boon companions on the cheerful news of his reprieve, saw the
glare of the torches, heard the cries, and recognised in them the shout
of his doom. His friends made off as fast as they could, the turnkeys
were seized with panic and ran away, and many prisoners escaped.
Porteous concealed himself in the chimney of his cell. For some time
the old door of the Tolbooth, which was of stout oak, heavily clamped
with iron, resisted the onslaughts of the rioters, but at last they
burned it down, and leaping over the embers rushed into the prison in
search of their prey. The miserable man was soon discovered, dragged
from the chimney, carried outside and hanged in the sight of the mob
from an improvised gibbet made of a barber’s pole. The crowd then
dispersed as suddenly and mysteriously as it had assembled; the method
and precision with which the ringleaders carried out their work, and
the celerity with which they dispersed, showed there was method in
this rough justice, and that it was rather the result of a conspiracy
than an ordinary riot. The next morning not a sign remained of the
night’s dread work except the body of Porteous hanging from the pole.
When the news reached London the Queen was furious at the insult which
she conceived had been especially aimed at her authority as Regent,
and gave vent to language which for vigour would have done credit to
her exemplar, Queen Elizabeth. For the only time on record Caroline
thoroughly lost her temper. She hastily summoned a council and proposed
the wildest measures. The charter of Edinburgh, she said, must be
withdrawn, the Provost must be incapacitated from ever holding office
again, the commander of the garrison must be cashiered, and fines
and imprisonment were to be the order of the day. The Duke of Argyll
endeavoured to put in a moderating word on behalf of his countrymen.
The Queen turned on him with fury, and said that sooner than brook such
an insult she would make Scotland a hunting ground. “In that case,
madam,” said the duke with a bow, “I will take leave of your Majesty,
and go down to my own country to get my hounds ready.” Caroline
recognised the covert threat in the duke’s words, and adjourned the
council. Fortunately her anger was not of a kind to last long, and
wiser counsels prevailed. The Scottish peers defended their countrymen
in the House of Lords, and in the end a compromise was arrived at, by
which the City of Edinburgh had to pay a nominal fine of £2,000, and
the Provost was disgraced.
It was on the Porteous Riots that Sir Walter Scott wrote his celebrated
novel, _The Heart of Midlothian_. He introduces Queen Caroline in
connection with Jeannie Deans, who walked all the way from Edinburgh
to London to plead the cause of her sister, Effie Deans, who was
sentenced to death according to Scottish law for concealing the birth
of her illegitimate child. The father of this child, according to
Scott’s romance, was Robertson, the prisoner who had escaped, and who
was supposed to have headed the mob against Porteous. Of course, in a
novel a good deal of fiction is reared on a slender basis of fact, and
Scott makes some little mistakes. For example, in the Queen’s interview
with Jeannie Deans he makes Lady Suffolk be in attendance, instead of
Lady Sundon (Mrs. Clayton), whereas Lady Suffolk had left the court
two years before; he also places the Queen’s palace at Richmond, where
the interview took place, in Richmond Park, whereas it was in Richmond
Gardens. But this much at least is true, and may be quoted as one of
the many instances of the Queen’s kindness of heart. A certain Scottish
peasant woman named Helen Walker actually did walk from Edinburgh to
London, to plead with the Queen-Regent on behalf of her sister, then
lying under sentence of death in the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. The sister,
who was called Isabella, or Tibbie Walker, had secretly given birth
to an illegitimate child, which shortly afterwards died, and by the
Scottish law of those days she was adjudged, by wilfully concealing
her condition, to have been guilty of its death. At the trial of this
wretched girl, her sister Helen, a rigid Presbyterian, was unwillingly
the principal witness against her sister. When she was asked whether
Tibbie, whom she dearly loved, had ever made known to her the fact of
her condition, she refused to perjure herself by saying that she had,
saying: “It is impossible for me to swear a falsehood”; and thus gave
away her sister’s sole chance of release. According to the Scottish
law, six weeks had to elapse between the sentence and the execution,
and in that time Helen Walker got up a petition praying the Queen for
her sister’s reprieve, signed by some of the principal residents in
Edinburgh, and armed with this she made her way to London on foot.
Arrived there she presented herself, clad in tartan plaid and country
attire, before John, the great Duke of Argyll, who was regarded in
Scotland as a protector of the poor. To him she made appeal. The Duke
of Argyll told the whole story to the Queen, who was so much touched
at the girl’s honesty in refusing to perjure herself, and her sisterly
devotion in making this long pilgrimage, that she granted the pardon at
once, and Helen Walker returned with it to Edinburgh in time to save
her sister. She had trusted “in the Almighty’s strength,” she said.
Whether the Queen gave audience to Helen Walker or not is uncertain
(it would have been characteristic of her if she had done so), but the
other facts of the case are well authenticated.
These exciting public events kept the Queen-Regent busy throughout the
summer and early autumn, and gave her less time to think about her
private troubles. But when the time drew near for the King to return to
England, and he still lingered at Hanover, she became anxious; and when
he wrote to say that he could not be back in England for his birthday,
October 30th, as he had always done before, her tolerance and endurance
began to give way. She took his absence on his birthday as a personal
slight to herself, a sign to all the world that her influence over
him had waned, owing to his passion for another. Her letters to the
King, which were usually of great length, giving him full details of
everything which took place, now became fewer and shorter, and no doubt
abated proportionately in warmth.
Walpole and the Queen had hitherto affected to treat the King’s affair
with Madame Walmoden as a joke, but now they recognised that it was
beyond a joke and might become a public danger as it already was a
public scandal. They therefore put affectation aside and looked the
matter in the face. Walpole repeated, with even greater frankness,
the views he had expressed on the subject some time before, and he
told the Queen that she could no longer keep the King to her side by
the arts and charms she had employed when she was a younger woman.
He therefore recommended that she should maintain her influence by
accepting the situation and making the best of it. Since the King would
not live anywhere long without his Walmoden, the Queen must go so far
as to ask him to bring her to England. The Queen wept bitterly when
the Prime Minister gave her this advice, but at last declared that she
would do as he suggested. Walpole, profligate and cynical though he
was, had his doubts at first whether the Queen, as a wife and a woman,
would carry her complaisance thus far. Two or three days after, when
he met her walking in the gardens at Richmond, she taxed him with not
believing that she would keep her promise. Walpole replied: “Madam,
your Majesty in asking if I disbelieved you, would put a word into my
mouth so coarse that I could not give it place even in my thoughts,
but if you oblige me to answer this question I confess _I feared_”.
“Well,” replied the Queen, “I understand what ‘I feared’ means on
this occasion. To show you that your fears were ill-founded I have
considered what you said to me, and am determined this very day to
write to the King just as you would have me, and on Monday when we meet
at Kensington you shall see the letter.” Accordingly Caroline wrote the
letter and despatched it to her faithless husband, assuring him that
she had nothing but his happiness at heart, and urging him to bring the
Walmoden to England if such a step would conduce to it. Heaven knows
what mortification and anguish the Queen suffered before she brought
herself to write that letter. She has been greatly blamed by the
moralists for writing it, but the great excuse that can be urged for
her is that her action was strongly dictated by political expediency,
for the King’s prolonged absence at Hanover was bringing his throne
into peril.
The Queen went further in her abasement, and even considered the
possibility of taking Madame Walmoden into her personal service in the
same position that Lady Suffolk had occupied, and so throwing an air of
respectability over the arrangement. But from this Walpole dissuaded
her, pointing out that it would deceive no one, and defeat its object,
for the world would be scandalised if the Queen made the King’s
mistress one of her servants, which he said was a different thing from
the King’s making one of the Queen’s servants his mistress, as had been
done in the case of Lady Suffolk--a nice distinction. The King was
delighted with his Queen’s complaisance, and soon sent her an answer
many pages long, in which he praised her to the skies. He said that he
wished to be everything that she would have him to be, but she knew his
nature, and must make allowances for it. “_Mais vous voyez mes passions
ma chère Caroline! Vous connaissez mes foiblesses, il n’y a rien de
caché dans mon cœur pour vous, et plût à Dieu que vous pourriez me
corriger avec la même facilité que vous m’approfondissez! Plût à Dieu
que je pourrais vous imiter autant que je sais vous admirer, et que je
pourrais apprendre de vous toutes les vertus que vous me faites voir,
sentir, et aimer!_” The King then gave for the Queen’s delectation a
detailed description of the Walmoden’s personal charms, over which
Caroline must have made a wry face. He desired that Lady Suffolk’s
lodgings should be made ready for her, as she would avail herself of
the Queen’s kind permission to make her home in England. The Queen
showed the King’s letter to Walpole, and said: “Well now, Sir Robert,
I hope you are satisfied. You see this minion is coming to England.”
But Walpole shook his head, and said that he did not believe she would
come, for she was afraid of the Queen. He had probably received advices
from his brother Horace at Hanover telling him that Madame Walmoden
was not such a fool as they thought her. His surmise proved correct,
for, though the Queen made ready the lodgings, the Walmoden thought
discretion the better part of valour, and remembering the fate of Lady
Suffolk, wisely elected to stay at Hanover.
The question whether Madame Walmoden would come or not agitated the
court, especially the Queen’s household. Some declared that it would
be an outrage and do infinite harm; others inclined to the opinion
that it would be better to bring her over, for if she kept the King
so long in Hanover, thus exasperating the English people, he would go
there once too often, and the nation would never let him come back. The
scandal gradually filtered down through the court to the people. They
did not understand why the King’s absence should be so prolonged, and
sought a cause. No one wanted him back for his own sake, but it was
said that trade suffered because the King was not in London, and the
disaffected seized upon his predilection for Hanover as a pretext for
their disaffection. Many honest people pitied the Queen, a virtuous
matron, they declared, who should not be used so ill, and they thought
it was ridiculous for the King at his age, close on sixty, with a wife
and family, to be playing the gallant, when he ought to be setting an
example to the nation. The most extraordinary bills and satires were
printed and posted up in different parts of the town; one ran to this
effect:--
“It is reported that his Hanoverian Majesty designs to visit his
British dominions for three months in the spring.”
On the gate of St. James’s Palace a more daring bill was posted:--
“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
church-wardens of St. James’s parish, so that 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.”
One day in the City an old broken-down horse was turned out with a
ragged saddle on its back, and a woman’s pillion stuck up behind it. On
the horse’s forehead was fastened this inscription: “Let nobody stop
me, I am the King’s Hanoverian equipage going to fetch his Majesty and
his w----to England.”
In the autumn the Queen removed her court from Hampton Court to
Kensington. The King sent her word from Hanover that she could go
to St. James’s if she liked, but as she was afraid of arousing his
jealousy by keeping too much state, or perhaps because she did not
care to show herself much in public under present circumstances,
she declined, and only went to St. James’s to celebrate the King’s
birthday. The displeasure at his absence was very marked at the
birthday drawing-room; the attendance was meagre, and the clothes
positively shabby. The Queen affected to notice nothing unusual, but
the Prince of Wales openly expressed his approval of these signs of
dissatisfaction, and deliberately played on his sire’s unpopularity to
make himself more popular. But though the Queen was outwardly calm she
was inwardly much concerned, and she made representations so urgent to
the King that at last he gave the long-deferred orders for the royal
yacht to set out for Holland.
On December 7th (1736), after giving a ball and a farewell supper
at Herrenhausen, the King tore himself away from Hanover and his
Walmoden. He arrived four days later at Helvoetsluys, where the yacht
was awaiting him. His daughter, the Princess of Orange, lay in a very
perilous child-bed at the Hague, and had urgently asked her father to
come and see her on his way home, but the King would not leave his
mistress a few hours sooner so as to give himself time to visit his
daughter.
It was soon known in London that the King had set out from Hanover,
and the Queen anxiously awaited his return, she being the only person
in England who really cared whether he came back or not. But a great
storm arose at sea, which lasted for many days, and the King came not,
nor any tidings of him, though a hundred messages a day passed between
St. James’s Palace, where the Queen was, and the Admiralty. No one
knew whether the King had embarked at Helvoetsluys or not; but it was
thought certain that, if he had embarked, his vessel must go down, as
no ship could withstand the tremendous seas then running. As the days
went by and no news came, the suspense at court became great. Wagers
were freely laid on whether the King was drowned or not; many people
opined that he was, and the wish was often father to the thought. The
Prince of Wales went about everywhere, showing himself freely to the
people. When the Queen’s anxiety was at its worst he gave a dinner to
the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and made them a speech, which was loudly
praised. The Queen, who was greatly incensed that the Prince should
give this dinner at such a time, asked particulars about it the next
morning, and when she was told how well it had passed off, and how
popular the Prince was becoming, she exclaimed: “My God, popularity
always makes me sick, but Fritz’s popularity makes me vomit. I hear
that yesterday, on his side of the house, they talked of the King’s
being cast away with the same _sang-froid_ as you would talk of a coach
being overturned, and that my good son strutted about as if he had been
already King.”
Walpole and his friends about the court were much exercised as to what
would happen to the Queen if the King were really drowned, and the
Prince ascended the throne. Walpole declared that “he (the Prince)
would tear the flesh off her bones with hot irons,” so much did he
hate his mother. Lord Hervey, on the other hand, thought that he would
probably make use of the Queen’s great knowledge and experience in the
management of affairs, and her position would not become so intolerable
as some imagined. The Princess Caroline differed from him. “My good
lord,” she said, “you must know very little of him if you believe that,
for in the first place, he hates mamma, in the next, he has so good
an opinion of himself that he thinks he wants no advice, and of all
advice, no woman’s.” She said also that the moment he was King “she
would run out of the house, _au grand galop_”. But the Queen declared
that she would not budge an inch before she was compelled to go.
This uncertainty continued for more than a week, and one morning the
Prince of Wales, with a satisfaction he could ill conceal, came to the
Queen with the news that he had received a letter from a correspondent
near Harwich saying that the night before guns had been heard at sea,
signals of distress, and part of the fleet that escorted the King’s
yacht had been dispersed. The poor Queen passed a day of the greatest
anxiety and depression, but at night a King’s messenger, who had been
three days at sea, and had landed by a miracle at Yarmouth, arrived at
the palace with a letter from the King, telling the Queen that he had
not yet stirred out of Helvoetsluys. Directly the Queen read the letter
she cried out to the whole court: “The King is safe! the King is safe!”
with a joy that showed how greatly she had feared.
The Queen’s satisfaction did not last long. A few days later, the wind
having calmed, it was understood that the King had embarked. Suddenly
the gales arose fiercer than before, and everybody thought that he
was at sea and in great danger. No word of the King reached the court
for ten days more, and then a vessel that had set out with the King
from Helvoetsluys, and continued with the fleet until the storm arose,
brought news that the royal yacht had been seen to tack about, but
whether to return to the harbour or not it was impossible to say. The
tempests continued to rage with unabated violence, and from accounts
that reached the court of guns of distress and shipwrecks, there seemed
little doubt that the King by now was at the bottom of the sea. The
Queen lost all hope and broke down and wept bitterly. In the Prince’s
apartments everything wore a subdued air of excitement; messengers ran
to and fro, and it was said that the Prince already considered himself
King of England. The Queen, hearing this, roused herself and determined
to put a bold face on the matter, and on Sunday December 26th, she went
to the Chapel Royal as usual. She had not been in chapel more than half
an hour when a letter arrived from the King telling her that it was
true he had set out from Helvoetsluys, but owing to the violence of the
tempest he had put back again, with great difficulty, into port, where
he still was detained by contrary winds. It afterwards transpired that
the King had insisted on going forward, and only the good sense of the
admiral in command of the fleet, who flatly refused to obey orders,
saved his life.
The Queen now wrote to the King, telling him all her hopes and fears
and sufferings. She also told him of the Prince’s conduct when it
was thought that he was drowned, and how the different courtiers and
Ministers behaved. The King wrote a letter of great length in answer,
full of the most passionate tenderness. He no longer dilated on the
charms of the Walmoden, but on those of the Queen, expressing his
impatience to rejoin her, and depicting her as “a perfect Venus”.
The Queen could not forbear showing this letter to Walpole, who had
told her so frankly that her beauty had gone, and said: “Do not think
because I show you this that I am an old fool and vain of my person and
charms of this time of day”. But it was evident that she was very much
pleased.
There was no popular enthusiasm about the King’s safety, and one of
the topical jests was “How is the wind with the King? Like the nation
against him.” While the King was still away, waiting at Helvoetsluys
for the wind to change, a great fire broke out at the Temple and the
Prince of Wales went at midnight to help extinguish it. He was hailed
by the crowd with shouts of “Crown him! Crown him!!” and the same cry
was heard when he appeared at the theatre. However, any immediate
question of crowning him was put at rest by the return of the King,
who arrived at St. James’s on January 15th, 1737, after a detention at
Helvoetsluys of five weeks and an absence from England of more than
eight months. The Queen, accompanied by all her children, including the
Prince of Wales, went down to the courtyard of the palace to receive
him as he alighted from his coach. The King embraced her with great
affection, and then gave her his arm to conduct her upstairs. A council
was held the same day and the Queen surrendered into the King’s hands
her office of Regent.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XIII:
[116] This son, according to some authorities, came over to England
with Madame Walmoden, afterwards Countess of Yarmouth, after the
Queen’s death, and was generally known at court as “Master Louis”. But
according to Lord Hervey the child died within a year of its birth.
[117] _Old Whig_, 26th February, 1736. This inscription was afterwards
introduced by Hogarth in his caricature of Gin Lane.
[118] _The Daily Gazetteer_, 2nd October, 1736.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PRINCE AND THE PATRIOTS.
1737.
The King’s narrow escape from drowning really seemed to have given him
a lesson, for he behaved much better on his return to England than he
had done before he went to Hanover. He treated the Queen with great
affection and respect, and praised her frequently before all the court.
He no longer abused England and extolled Hanover, and he did not so
much as mention Madame Walmoden. Perhaps the state of his health had
something to do with his change of conduct; he had contracted a chill
on his journey home, which soon after his return developed into a low
fever. For some time the King was very unwell; he kept to his own
apartments and saw no one but the Queen and, when it was absolutely
necessary, Walpole. Exaggerated rumours soon spread abroad concerning
his condition, though the King himself, the Queen and the Princesses
made light of it. Still the King grew no better, and at last the
Ministers became anxious, and Walpole taxed the Queen with concealing
the King’s true state of health, an imputation which she indignantly
denied. The Prince of Wales and his friends declared that the King’s
constitution had quite broken up, and, even if he recovered from this
illness, it was unlikely that he would long survive. This was a little
too much for the King, and by way of showing that he was not dead yet,
he roused himself from his lethargy, quitted his chamber and resumed
his levées. It was noticed that he looked pale and thin, and it was
generally thought he would not live long, though, as a matter of fact,
he grew better every day after he quitted his chamber.
The King’s ill-health had the result of bringing the Prince of Wales
more prominently before the public. It was felt by many courtiers and
politicians that his coming to the throne was only a question of a
little time, and they were anxious to stand well with him. The alliance
between the Prince and the Patriots now became closer, and the Prince
gave the Opposition his open support in return for their championing
his grievances, which he was determined to have redressed by fair
means or foul. He had written, or caused to be written, _l’Histoire
du Prince Titi_, in which his wrongs were set forth in detail, and
the King and Queen abused under transparent pseudonyms. Translations
of this work were circulated about this time, and gave great offence
at the court, but they influenced to some extent popular feeling in
his favour. The Prince took the leaders of the Opposition into his
confidence, especially rising men like Pitt and Lyttelton. Perhaps
it was these younger and more fiery spirits who urged him to act upon
the advice of Bolingbroke, and set the King at defiance, though it was
generally supposed that Chesterfield prompted him. Certain it was that
the Prince saw in his father’s illness an opportunity of bringing his
claims before Parliament, and determined to delay no longer. The Prince
requested the leaders of the Opposition to raise the question in the
House of Commons. Some were at first reluctant, but influenced no doubt
by the King’s ill-health, Pulteney at last consented to bring forward
the question, and Wyndham and Barnard agreed to support him.
When the King and Queen heard the news they were thrown into an
extraordinary state of agitation. The King was beside himself with
rage; the Queen declared that all these disputes would kill her. The
Government, too, were in a difficult position. The Prince’s demand
that he should have his,£100,000 a year, and a dowry for the Princess
was, on the face of it, reasonable, and, what was more important,
popular; Ministers could not be sure of their majority, and might
suffer defeat. Walpole endeavoured to effect a compromise, and after
great difficulty induced the King to send a message to the Prince the
day before the motion came on in the House, saying that he was prepared
to settle,£50,000 a year on him absolutely, and to give the Princess
a dowry. The Prince declined to consider the message, saying that the
matter was in other hands.
The next day, February 22nd (1737), Pulteney brought forward his
motion in a moderate speech, basing his main argument on precedent,
and the right of the heir-apparent to the Crown to enjoy a sufficient
and settled income. Walpole in his reply laid stress upon the King’s
message to the Prince the previous day, as showing how far the King
was anxious to meet his son’s wishes. He held that Parliamentary
interference between father and son would be highly indecorous. In
the end the Prince’s claims were rejected by a majority of thirty.
This small majority would really have been reduced to a minority if
forty-five Tories with Jacobite leanings had not left the House in a
body, unwilling to give any vote in favour of the heir of Hanover, even
though by doing so they would defeat the Government.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESSES MARY AND LOUISA.
(DAUGHTERS OF GEORGE II.)]
The King and the Queen were overjoyed at the Prince’s defeat, and, in
the first flush of victory, the King was inclined to follow up his
advantage by turning his son immediately out of St. James’s Palace in
the same way as (he might have remembered, but did not) his father had
turned him out. Walpole dissuaded the King from taking so extreme a
step, and then proceeded to urge him to make good his promise to settle
a jointure on the Princess, and make over, £50,000 a year to his son
absolutely. To this the King now demurred, though Walpole pointed out
to him that the victory in the House of Commons had only been gained
on the understanding that the King would carry out his pledges. The
difficulty was complicated by the Prince continuing impenitent.
So far from being downcast by his defeat in the House of Commons, he
called a council of all his friends, and it was resolved to raise the
question anew in the House of Lords, Lord Carteret undertaking to
bring forward the motion, and Chesterfield to support it. Here, too,
he lost, but public sympathy was undoubtedly with him, and to prevent
the scandal from growing, Walpole, Newcastle, and indeed all the King’s
Ministers, urged the necessity of a settlement. One was eventually
made, though not until much later, by the King settling £50,000 a year
on the Prince absolutely, together with £10,000 a year from the Duchy
of Cornwall, and Parliament making up the rest by giving an unusually
large jointure to the Princess of Wales.
The King and Queen were much disgusted at what they considered the
Government’s half-heartedness, and included in their displeasure the
Whigs generally, who had certainly wavered in their devotion to the
court when they heard that the King’s health was so bad. “If the Whigs
can be so little depended upon in the King’s interest,” said the Queen,
“we might as well send for the Tories, who are only too willing to
come; the King has only to beckon to them.” She did not mean what she
said, but Walpole became alarmed. His majority was not so large that
he could pose any longer as a dictator, or afford to dispense with the
Queen’s favour and support. He knew that Lady Sundon was intriguing
against him, and that she had had several interviews with Lord
Carteret. Carteret now expressed his great regret at having championed
the Prince’s cause; he said he was driven into it against his better
judgment; he was full of the Queen’s praises, and vowed that he would
do anything to serve her. He declared that he had great influence over
the Opposition leaders, especially Pulteney and Wyndham, and could
bring them to the Queen’s side if she would only make the sign. All
this was duly repeated by Lady Sundon to the Queen, who listened but
did nothing. She never intended to do anything, but she thought it well
to bring Walpole to his bearings, and in this she quickly succeeded.
Walpole came to her, and told her that he had heard of Carteret’s
overtures, and warned her not to trust him. The Whigs he urged were
the natural support of the Hanoverian family, which was certainly
true, since they had brought them over to England, and the Tories were
but a broken reed. Caroline agreed with all he said, but fell back
upon the lukewarm support which the Whigs had given the King. Even
Walpole, she said, had regarded the Prince’s conduct in too favourable
a light. Walpole told her that he had only striven to bring the Prince
to reason, but he now owned that he had made a mistake. The Queen, he
said, should never again have cause to complain of him on that score,
he saw that the Prince must be overcome. The Queen said she only wanted
him to assure her on that point, and she dismissed him with many
assurances that she would never cease to support him. The immediate
result of this reconciliation was to strengthen the alliance between
the Prince and the Patriots, who now saw in Frederick their only hope
of ever gaining office.
These events took place quite early in the Session, but when Parliament
rose the King said nothing about going to Hanover as Ministers had
feared. In truth he was afraid to go, for he knew that Frederick would
seize upon it as a pretext for some fresh intrigue, and the country was
hardly in a humour to brook another prolonged absence. So he rarely
mentioned the name of Hanover and never that of Walmoden. Most people
about the court thought that the King had forgotten her for Lady
Deloraine, to whom he showed great attention, paying her visits in her
apartments for a long time together, as he had done to Lady Suffolk in
the old days. He also insisted on her sitting next him at the commerce
table, and often walked with her _tête-à-tête_ in the gardens. Lady
Deloraine, who had great beauty but little discretion, was inclined to
boast of her triumphs, for she said to Lord Hervey: “Do you know the
King has been in love with me these two years?” Lord Hervey, who was
afraid to invite dangerous confidences, merely smiled and said: “Who
is not in love with you?” Walpole came across her one day, standing in
the hall at Richmond with a baby in her arms, and said to her: “That
is a very pretty boy, Lady Deloraine; whose is it?” She replied: “Mr.
Windham’s (her husband’s) upon my honour. But,” she added with a
significant laugh, “I will not promise whose the next shall be.” She
moreover told several people that the King had been importunate a long
time, but that she had held out from motives of virtue, which were not
at all appreciated, as her husband, she was sure, did not care.
Whether there was anything between Lady Deloraine and the King or not,
the Queen followed her usual policy of ignoring the intrigue. She knew
what her husband was, and made allowances. Perhaps, too, she was glad
that he should seek distraction from Madame Walmoden, though she knew
that he had not forgotten her. Walpole had told her of an incident
which showed how the King still esteemed his Hanoverian mistress above
Lady Deloraine. He ordered Walpole one day to buy a hundred lottery
tickets, and to charge the amount, £1,000, to the secret service fund
instead of his civil list. Walpole did as he was bid and told Hervey of
this iniquitous transaction, which he said was for the benefit of the
King’s favourite. Hervey thought he meant Lady Deloraine and expressed
his surprise at the largeness of the sum, saying he “did not think his
Majesty went so deep there”. Walpole replied: “No, I mean the Hanover
woman. You are right to imagine he does not go so deep to his lying
fool here. He will give her a couple of the tickets and think her
generously used.”
The relations between the Prince of Wales and his parents went from bad
to worse as the months wore on, but they were not even yet strained
to breaking point. Acting on the advice of his supporters the Prince
still occasionally attended levées and drawing-rooms. The King treated
him as though he were not in the room; the Queen, though she recognised
his presence, did not speak to him more than was absolutely necessary,
and in private she declared that she was afraid to do so lest he should
distort her words. The Prince still resided in his father’s house,
making his headquarters at St. James’s Palace. But when the King and
Queen moved to Hampton Court for the summer he had perforce to go there
too, but much against his will. Though he and the Princess lived under
the same roof as the King and Queen they saw little of them, and only
met them in public.
In July the Prince wrote a letter to the Queen announcing that the
Princess was with child. The Queen congratulated him and the Princess
on the auspicious event, and asked the latter some maternal questions
about her condition. To all these the Princess made the same answer--“I
do not know”. The Queen had doubts, which were shared by her daughters,
as to whether the Princess was really pregnant. Both she and the King
considered the Prince quite capable of palming off a spurious child on
them, and their prejudices against him were so strong that they half
believed he was plotting to do so. They had no wish that the Princess
of Wales should bear children; it was generally thought that she would
not. If she did it would destroy the remaining chance that their
beloved younger son, William, might one day succeed to the crown. The
Prince, who resented these suspicions, wished that his wife should be
confined at St. James’s, but the King determined that the event should
take place at Hampton Court. The Queen declared that “at her labour I
positively will be, let her lie in where she will,” but again expressed
herself sceptical about the Princess being confined at all, as she
could see no signs of it. The Prince, on the other hand, who knew and
resented these suspicions, vowed that his mother should not be present
at the birth, and that the child should be born at St. James’s. He kept
his word.
The court was then at Hampton Court for the summer, and the Prince and
Princess of Wales were there occupying their own suite of apartments.
On Sunday, July 31st, the Princess dined in public with the King and
Queen, but on retiring to her apartments she was seized with pain, and
symptoms of premature confinement became manifest. Notwithstanding the
danger, which perhaps the Prince did not realise, as the Princess’s
confinement was not expected for two months, he determined that she
should at once be secretly removed to St. James’s. He ordered his coach
to be brought round quickly. It was nearly dark, and the Prince’s
apartments were in another wing of the palace to those of the King and
Queen, so they were able to make their exit without being seen. The
poor Princess was carried downstairs, though she begged her husband
to let her remain where she was, and Lady Archibald Hamilton added
her entreaties, but to no effect. The Prince obstinately insisted on
his wife getting into the coach with Lady Archibald and one of her
women. The Prince got in after them, and gave the order to drive with
all speed to St. James’s, and once outside the gates of Hampton Court
they went at full gallop towards London. The Princess moaned in agony,
but the Prince kept saying: “Courage, courage,” telling her by way of
consolation that it would all be over in a minute. They arrived at St.
James’s Palace about ten o’clock: there was nothing ready for them, as
they were not expected. The Princess, shrieking with pain, was carried
upstairs and put to bed, and, there being no sheets in the palace, a
pair of table-cloths had to make shift instead. Within half-an-hour she
was prematurely delivered of a girl child.[119]
Meanwhile at Hampton Court, the King and Queen, all unsuspecting,
passed their evening as usual: the King played commerce below stairs
with Lady Deloraine and the maids of honour; the Queen and the Princess
Amelia played quadrille above; the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey
had their nightly game of cribbage. The party broke up, and all retired
at eleven, without having heard a whisper of what had been going on in
the Prince of Wales’s apartments. The King and Queen had gone to bed
and to sleep, when about half-past one they were aroused by the arrival
of a courier from St. James’s Palace with a message that brooked no
delay. The Queen, startled at being aroused at so unusual an hour,
asked whether the palace was on fire, but Mrs. Tichburne, her dresser,
in fear and trembling explained that the Prince of Wales had sent to
let their Majesties know that the Princess was in labour. The Queen
jumped up immediately and cried out: “My God! My night-gown, I’ll go to
her this moment.” “Your night-gown, madam,” said the worthy Tichburne,
“aye, and your coaches too; the Princess is at St. James’s.” “Are you
mad?” exclaimed the Queen, “or are you asleep, my good Tichburne? you
dream.” Then Mrs. Tichburne told the whole tale of the Princess’s
flight, so far as she understood it. The King raged and swore, and
began to abuse the Queen, saying: “You see, now, with all your wisdom,
how they have outwitted you. This is all your fault. There will be a
false child put upon you, and how will you answer for it to all your
children? This has been fine care and fine management for your son,
William; he is mightily obliged to you; and as for Anne, I hope she
will come over and scold you herself; I am sure you deserve anything
she can say to you.”
The Queen made no answer, but dressed quickly, ordered her coach, and
set out for London at once, accompanied by the Princesses Amelia and
Caroline, and attended by some of the lords in waiting. She arrived at
St. James’s Palace about four o’clock, left her coach, and those who
came with her, at the outer gate, walked alone across the courtyard
and made her way upstairs as fast as she could. At the top of the
stairs she met the Prince in his night-gown. He dutifully kissed her
hand and cheek, and then with scarcely concealed malice told her that
she was too late, the Princess had given birth to a daughter. The
Queen expressed neither surprise nor annoyance, but asked why the
news of the child’s birth had not been sent to her before she started
from Hampton Court. The Prince said that he had written letters to
the King and Queen directly he could; the messenger was already on
the road and she would doubtless find them on her return. The Queen
made no further remark, but asked to see the mother and child. The
Prince then conducted her into the Princess’s chamber. The Queen kissed
the Princess and wished her joy, but expressed her fear that she had
suffered greatly. The Princess dutifully replied: “Not at all; it is
nothing”. Lady Archibald Hamilton brought the child, which was wrapped
up in an old red mantle and some napkins, no proper clothes having yet
been found for it, nor any nurse. The Queen kissed the babe and said:
“The good God bless you, poor little creature; you have come into a
troublesome world”.
The Prince then began a long account of what had happened. The Queen
listened to him without interruption, but when he had quite finished,
she said that it was a miracle the Princess and the child had not been
killed. She added that he and his wife were a couple of young fools
who could not have been aware of the danger they ran, and then she
turned to Lady Archibald and said: “But for you, my Lady Archibald, who
have had ten children, that with your experience, and at your age, you
should suffer these people to act with such a madness, I am astonished;
and wonder how you could, for your own sake as well as theirs, venture
to be concerned in such an expedition”. To this Lady Archibald made
no reply, except to turn to the Prince and say: “You see, sir”. The
Queen then embraced the Princess, wished her good-bye, and told her
that if there was anything she wanted she had only to name it and it
would be done. The Princess, who had evidently been coached in her
part, from between her table-cloths thanked her Majesty, but said she
wanted nothing. The Prince waited on his mother down the stairs, still
in his night-gown, and would have escorted her to her coach, had she
not insisted that he should not accompany her out of doors in such a
plight. The Queen walked across the courts by herself to where the
coaches were waiting. She told the Princesses that she had no doubt the
child was genuine, but she added: “If instead of this poor, little,
ugly she-mouse there had been a brave, large, fat, jolly boy, I should
not have been cured of my suspicions”.
As soon as the Queen had set out from Hampton Court the King sent
express messengers to Walpole and Lord Harrington, requesting them
to hasten to St. James’s to be present at the birth of the Prince’s
child. They went thither with all speed, but like the Queen arrived
too late. Walpole returned to Hampton Court in the course of the
morning, and had a conference with the King and Queen. He agreed
that the insult was intolerable, and must be punished. Walpole had
learnt his lesson, and was now wholly against the Prince. So far from
attempting to moderate the King’s ire he rather sought to inflame it,
and declared that if the King and Queen did not conquer him he would
conquer them. After much discussion and much strong language, the King
sent the Prince a written message, complaining of the “deliberate
indignity” offered to him and the Queen, which he “resented in the
highest degree”. The King was for taking more drastic measures at once,
but Walpole persuaded him to defer them until the Princess was out
of danger, and then strike. The King would gain by waiting a little
he said, for as soon as it was known that the Prince had been guilty
of this grievous act of folly his popularity would wane. In this he
was right, for no sooner did the news get abroad than the public, to
a man, condemned the Prince’s conduct in risking his wife’s life and
that of his unborn child, in order to insult his father and mother. His
friends who had supported him through thick and thin in his endeavour
to get a separate grant from Parliament were unable to find an excuse
for this rash and inconsiderate step, though they urged in palliation
the Prince’s natural pique at the surveillance to which he had been
subjected, and his ignorance of the danger the Princess had run.
The Prince, who soon became aware that he had made a false step, called
a council of his chief supporters, including Carteret, Chesterfield and
Pulteney, who frankly told him that he had put himself in the wrong,
and the best thing he could do would be to patch up a reconciliation
with the King and Queen. In view of this the Prince, a few days later,
thought he would go to Hampton Court to pay his respects to the King
and Queen, but the King, having got ear that he was coming, sent him
a message saying he would not see him. Thereupon ensued a lengthy
correspondence, in which the Prince would not own himself in the wrong.
He expressed himself deeply grieved at having aroused the King’s anger,
but insinuated that the Queen was really responsible for the strained
relations between himself and his father. He thus struck a note which
was taken up by the Prince’s court, and afterwards by the great body of
his supporters. Afraid to strike at the King directly, they threw all
the blame upon the Queen, who they declared had first artfully inflamed
the King’s anger against his son, and now tried to keep him inflexible.
It was a cowardly thing to do, as well as unjust, for the Queen had
always been on the side of peace; but the Prince hated his mother
because the King had appointed her Regent instead of him, and the
Opposition hated the Queen because she had shown herself, through storm
and shine, the firm supporter of Walpole. In pursuance of this policy,
when the Queen, nine days after her daughter-in-law’s confinement,
paid her another visit at St. James’s, the Prince treated his mother
with marked discourtesy; he avoided meeting her at the main entrance,
and only received her at the door of the Princess’s bedchamber; he
refused to speak a word to her during the whole visit, though the Queen
was in the room with him and her daughter-in-law more than an hour.
He could not help escorting her to her coach when she left, but did
it all in dumb show; yet when they reached the coach door, and he saw
that a considerable crowd had assembled, he knelt down in the muddy
street and kissed her hand with every demonstration of respect. At
this hyprocrisy, as Horace Walpole says, “her indignation must have
shrunk into contempt.”[120] The Queen was deeply wounded by her son’s
treatment, and after that she paid no more visits to St. James’s.
These acts irritated the King beyond endurance, and even the Queen was
stung out of her usual calm by the attacks made upon her. But anger and
strong language availed nothing. The Prince was heir to the throne, and
an heir to a throne is never without friends. In Frederick’s case his
friends were all the Patriots; even Carteret, finding his overtures
to the Queen led to nothing, had gone back to him. The triumph of the
Prince would mean the triumph of the Opposition too, the defeat of
the King and Queen, the defeat of the Government. Walpole knew this,
and realised that if any reconciliation were brought about he would
probably have to go. It was obviously to the advantage of the Royal
Family that these quarrels should end, and Lord Hardwicke, the Lord
Chancellor, earnestly strove to bring about a reconciliation. But
Walpole advised the King against it, an easy task, for the King’s
inclination was all for revenge. Another message, an ultimatum, was
therefore composed and sent by the King, denouncing the Prince’s
conduct in the strongest terms, and ending, “It is my pleasure that you
leave St. James’s with all your family”.[121] This was equivalent to a
total separation.
The Prince received the King’s message without comment, and, as the
orders were peremptory, two days later he and the Princess removed
from St. James’s Palace to Kew. All communications between the two
courts were now broken off, and shortly afterwards the Prince took up
his residence at Norfolk House, St. James’s Square, which immediately
became a rival court and the centre of the Opposition, much as
Leicester House had been in the reign of George the First.[122] The
court of Norfolk House, though small in numbers, was not without
brilliancy. The Prince had wit and pleasing manners and was ably
seconded by his young and beautiful consort. His love of letters
attracted many of the ablest writers, and his political views drew
around him the rising men among the Tories. The Prince of Wales’s
court became a focus of all the talents and a rallying place of the
younger Tories, and as time went on, it influenced considerably the
course of English politics. A generation was growing up in the Tory
party which knew not the Stuarts, and saw a way of overthrowing the
Whig ascendency, not by the forcible restoration of James, but in the
peaceable accession of Frederick. They were doomed to wander many years
in the wilderness of opposition before their dreams came true; and
the Whig domination was at last beaten down, not by Frederick, but by
his son. But at this time Frederick’s accession to the throne seemed
comparatively near at hand. It was in view of his future reign, and as
a satire on his father’s, that Bolingbroke composed his magnificent
essay, _The Ideal of a Patriot King_, a sublime conception of
government, but impossible to be acted upon, because it presupposed the
existence of a monarch of almost superhuman wisdom and virtues. Such an
ideal could not be realised in Frederick, nor was it realised in his
son, George the Third.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XIV:
[119] The Princess thus born was afterwards Duchess of Brunswick, and
died in London, March, 1813.
[120] Walpole’s _Reminiscences_, vol. iv. He repeats the same story
in his _Memoirs_, vol. i. Horace Walpole confuses the Queen’s second
visit with her first, otherwise his account tallies with that of Lord
Hervey--_Memoirs_, vol. ii.
[121] Message of the King to the Prince of Wales, 10th September, 1737.
[122] The parallel became closer when Frederick Prince of Wales removed
to Leicester House.
CHAPTER XV.
THE QUEEN’S ILLNESS AND DEATH.
1737.
The Queen’s health had been breaking for some time past, and nothing
but her strength of will and determination not to yield kept her up.
She had never really enjoyed good health since she became Queen. The
last ten years had been a continual struggle against physical weakness;
in the news-sheets of the day mention is frequently made of the
Queen’s indisposition, and nearly always from a different cause. The
list of her ailments and the barbarous and violent remedies resorted
to makes one wonder how she survived so long--gout, ague, rash,
pleurisy, chills, colic--everything, in short, but her secret, and most
dangerous, malady was recorded. But the Queen seldom retired for more
than a day or two, she would never admit that she was really ill, and
was extremely angry if any one said that she was so. The King disliked
to have sick people about him, and resented the Queen’s ailments as
though they were invented for his special annoyance. Caroline was aware
of this peculiarity on the part of her spouse, and would endure agonies
rather than let him suspect that anything was wrong with her. She was
a great sufferer from gout, which sometimes crippled her so much that
she could not move without pain, but so absolute was her devotion to
the King, that she would plunge her swollen legs into ice-cold water,
in order that she might not fail to accompany him on his daily walks.
These desperate remedies no doubt did her infinite harm. But she had
another malady too, which “false delicacy,” as some described it,
though it would be more correct to say “wifely devotion,” made her
conceal. At the birth of her youngest child, Princess Louisa, in 1724,
Caroline suffered a slight internal rupture. Her husband noticed it at
the time, but she said it was nothing, and would pass. Later he taxed
her with it again, and advised her to consult a doctor, but she again
denied it, this time with so much vexation, declaring that he sought a
pretext for neglecting her, that the King promised never to mention it
again. For a time the malady seemed to grow better, or, at any rate,
to remain dormant, but of late it had been troubling her again, and
neglect and concealment made it go from bad to worse.
The Queen took infinite pains to hide the nature of her illness,
frequently consulting doctors, and yet leaving them in ignorance of
her real malady. For years, amid the splendours of her court, in the
plenitude of her power, Caroline had carried with her this dread
secret, and maintained a smiling face to the world. From time to
time she must have suffered agonies, but she bore them with Spartan
heroism. It was only during the King’s absences at Hanover that
she indulged in the luxury of a collapse, and then she ascribed
her weakness to the gout, or any cause but the real one. She held
drawing-rooms as usual, but more than once she had to be wheeled into
the presence-chamber in a chair, physically unable to stand. Of one of
these breakdowns Peter Wentworth writes:--
“The Queen has been so ill. I went every day to the backstairs and had
the general answer that she was better, but I knew when they told me
true and when not, and was often in great pain for my good Queen, but
it is not the fashion to show any at Court. The first day that she came
out into her drawing-room she told a lady, whom I stood behind, that
she had really been very bad and dangerously ill, but it was her own
fault, for she had a fever a fortnight before she came from Kensington,
but she kept it a secret, for she resolved to appear on the King’s
birthday. She owned she did wrong, and said she would do so no more,
upon which I made her a bow, as much as to say, I hoped she would do as
she then said. I believe she understood me for she smiled upon me.”[123]
In some way the Queen connected the decline of her influence over
the King, and his passion for the Walmoden, with the failing of her
physical health, and she struggled against it to the death. It is no
exaggeration to say that she would have died rather than let her
malady become known--in fact her concealment of it led to her death.
This secret anxiety gnawing always at her heart, combined with the
worries she had to endure from without and within, told upon her
strength. For the last two or three years she had been on the rack
daily, a martyr to physical and mental anguish. The infidelity of
the King, the unfilial conduct of the Prince of Wales, the hard work
inseparable from her position, and the effort at all costs to keep a
brave front to the world, told upon her health, until at last she could
bear the strain no longer. It was in vain that she sought relaxation in
her best-loved pursuits; the haunting fear never left her day or night.
Soon after the Prince of Wales had been turned out of St. James’s
Palace the King and Queen removed there from Hampton Court, and
remained over the King’s birthday (October 30th). The Queen busied
herself much this autumn in fitting up a new library which she had
built in the stable yard of St. James’s, on the site now occupied by
Stafford House. It was a large handsome building constructed on the
most approved principles. The Queen was now furnishing it with cases
and books; she had ordered busts of philosophers and learned men to
be placed in the corridor, and had requested the English ambassadors
abroad to collect for her the best Spanish, French and Italian books
to make her collection as complete as possible. When all was finished
she hoped to hold there the intellectual tournaments in which she
delighted, and make the library serve the double purpose of a lecture
room. She used to go there nearly every day to personally superintend
the work, and it was in this library on the morning of Wednesday,
November 9th, that she finally broke down.
The Queen was giving some directions to the workmen when suddenly she
was seized with violent internal pains. She made her way back to St.
James’s Palace as quickly as she could, and went to bed. At two o’clock
there was to be a drawing-room; the King proposed that it should be
postponed, but the Queen, who did not wish it to be known that she was
ill, declared that she felt much better, got up, dressed, and went to
the drawing-room. She smiled and bowed as usual, and even chatted to
some of the company, though she was suffering extremely, and could
scarcely stand. The King noticed nothing amiss, and went on talking for
a long time about some new farce that was the fashion of the hour. At
last he dismissed the court, reminding the Queen, who was by this time
in agony, that she had not spoken to the premier duchess, the Duchess
of Norfolk. The Queen, as she was going out, went to the duchess, and
apologised for the omission with her usual graciousness. On returning
to her room she again went to bed.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS CAROLINE.
(THIRD DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II.)]
The King thought it was only a temporary indisposition, in which belief
she humoured him, and he went off in the evening to play cards with
Lady Deloraine, after having sent for the German court physician to
look after the Queen. Every hour the Queen became worse, but she was
still bent on concealing the cause of her illness, and declared that
she had the colic. She asked Lord Hervey, who was in attendance, what
she should do to ease her pain. Lord Hervey, who was a chronic invalid,
and made himself a worse one by taking quack nostrums, recommended her
a concoction called “snake root”. But the German physician would not
let her take it, and, as the Queen was now in a high fever, he called
in another doctor. In ignorance of her malady, the doctors dosed their
unfortunate patient with a number of horrible decoctions, such as
“Daffy’s Elixir,” “Sir Walter Raleigh’s Cordial,” usquebaugh, and so
forth, and then, as the only effect of these remedies was to make her
violently sick, they sent for Ranby, the surgeon, who bled her into
the bargain. The Princess Caroline, who had sat with her mother all
day, now declared herself seized with rheumatic pains, and Lord Hervey,
who was in his element, dosed her with another nostrum called “Ward’s
Pill,” which, it is not surprising to hear, made her worse. The King
came back at his usual hour, and was much upset at finding the Queen so
ill. By way of showing his anxiety he lay on her bed all night, outside
the coverlet, with the result that he spoilt his night’s rest and hers
too.
The Queen was again bled in the morning (Thursday), and the fever
having abated a little it was thought that she was better. But she
knew that she was not, for she said to the Princess Caroline, who was
suffering from the effects of the pill: “Poor Caroline, you are very
ill too; we shall soon meet again in another place”. At her request the
King held a drawing-room as usual, and the Princess Amelia took her
mother’s place at court. So the day wore on. Towards the evening the
Queen got worse, and in her agony cried aloud to the Princess Caroline:
“I have an ill which nobody knows of”. But, as she gave no particulars,
this was regarded merely as a vague statement. Two more physicians were
called in, and further added to the illustrious patient’s discomfort by
ordering blisters and aperients, both without effect. The King was now
greatly concerned, and sat up all night with his wife.
The next morning (Friday) it was impossible to conceal any longer the
fact that the Queen was seriously ill. The news reached the ears of the
Prince of Wales, who was then at Kew, and he immediately hurried up to
London to inquire after the Queen. The King had an idea that something
of the kind would happen, and gave strict orders that if the Prince
came he was not to be admitted. About an hour after the King had thus
expressed himself, the Prince sent Lord North to St. James’s with a
message saying that he was much grieved to hear of the Queen’s illness,
and asking to be allowed to come and see her. But the King not only
refused to let him come, but returned an answer requesting him to send
no more messages to St. James’s. “This,” said he, “is like one of the
scoundrel’s tricks, it is just of a piece of his kneeling down in the
dirt before the mob to kiss her hand at the coach door, when she came
from Hampton Court to see the Princess, though he had not spoken one
word to her during the whole visit. I always hated the rascal, but now
I hate him worse than ever. He wants to come and insult his poor dying
mother, but she shall not see him.” Later in the day, the Queen, who
had no knowledge of what had passed, said to the King that she wondered
the Prince had not asked to see her yet, as she felt sure that he would
do so, because it would look well before the world. The King then told
her of what had passed and how he had forbidden the Prince to come, or
send any more messages, though, he added, if the Queen really wished to
see her son she could do so. But the Queen emphatically declared that
she had no such wish, and the incident ended. The Prince continued to
send messengers to inquire throughout his mother’s illness.
The next day (Saturday) the Queen grew worse every hour, yet she still,
with a stubbornness which it is impossible to understand, concealed
the true nature of her malady. Towards evening the King, who was
greatly worried, whispered to her that he believed her illness came
from rupture, but she denied it with great warmth and peevishness.
However, the King sent for the surgeon, Ranby, and confided his fears
to him. Ranby at once examined the Queen, and even then she carried
her desire for concealment so far as to declare that she felt the pain
in a different part of her body to that where it really was. But
the surgeon was no longer to be deceived, and having discovered the
rupture, he took the King aside and told him of it, adding that the
Queen was in the utmost danger. The Queen started up in bed in a state
of great excitement, but when the surgeon told her bluntly that it was
no longer possible to conceal the truth, she turned her face to the
wall and wept silently--these were the only tears she shed throughout
her illness. As there was no time to be lost, two more surgeons were
called in, and the same evening an operation was performed. It did not
give relief, nor did the doctors hold out much hope, concealment and
neglect had made the ill past remedy.
The Queen passed a troubled night, and early the next morning (Sunday)
she complained that her wound gave her great pain. The surgeons were
summoned, and discovered that it had already begun to mortify. The
dreaded news was immediately conveyed to the King, and it was feared
the Queen could not live many hours. The King came at once, followed by
the Duke of Cumberland and the Princesses Amelia, Caroline, Mary and
Louisa. The Queen took leave of her weeping husband and children, and
asked them not to leave her until she died. To the Princess Caroline
she commended the care of her younger children, and she bade her son
William be a support to his father, and try to make up for the sorrow
and vexation caused by his elder brother. Of the King she took a most
affectionate farewell, telling him that he knew all her thoughts, and
thanking him for his love and trust of her. She commended to his care
all those who were dependent on her, from the highest to the lowest.
She then drew from her finger the ruby ring he had given her at the
Coronation, and put it upon his, saying: “This is the last thing I have
to give you: naked I came to you, naked I go from you. I had everything
I ever possessed from you, and to you everything I have I return.” She
added one word of advice, which she said she had often given to him
when she was in health--that after her death he should marry again.
At this the King burst into sobs and tears, and vowed he would not,
saying: “Non! Non! j’aurai des maîtresses”.[124] The Queen replied
wearily: “Mon Dieu! cela n’empêche pas”.[125] It was the only hint of
reproach that ever crossed her lips, if we except that other bitter cry
wrung from her in the extremity of her anguish years before: “I have
never lived a day without suffering”. Perhaps the King felt some pangs
of remorse, for he wept over her bitterly; kissed her again and again,
and uttered many endearing words. He had reason to weep, for he was
losing the only being in the world who loved him, and loved him with a
devotion that was as absolute as it was unaccountable.
After this trying scene the Queen fell into a doze and it was thought
that she would pass away in her sleep, but, to every one’s surprise,
she woke up feeling better. She now declared her belief that she would
last until Wednesday, saying that all the great events of her life had
happened on that day; she had been born on a Wednesday, married on a
Wednesday, had her first child on a Wednesday, heard the news of the
late King’s death on a Wednesday, and had been crowned on a Wednesday,
and therefore she would die on a Wednesday. This was the only little
touch of superstition in her character. Later in the day the surgeons
again examined the wound, and, finding that the mortification had not
spread, declared that perhaps after all she would recover.[126] This
revived hope in all breasts but that of the Queen, who knew it to be
only a reprieve. “My heart will not break yet,” she said.
Her reprieve gave her time to see her trusted friend and minister,
Sir Robert Walpole, who arrived in haste on Monday morning from
Houghton, whither he had gone ten days previously to bury his wife.
In consequence of his mourning he had not been sent for officially,
but when he heard the news of the Queen’s danger he came as fast as
post horses could bring him. The Queen had asked for him once or
twice, and when the King heard that Walpole had arrived, and was
in the ante-chamber, he at once gave him audience. Walpole was in
great disorder and distress, for he had been travelling hard and
fast. Despite his great bulk, he knelt down awkwardly and kissed the
King’s hand, and with tears, asked: “How is the Queen?” The King said:
“Come and see yourself, my good Sir Robert,” and carried him off to
the Queen’s bedside. The interview was very short, but the Queen’s
words were to the point. “My good Sir Robert, you see me in a very
indifferent situation. I have nothing to say to you but to recommend
the King, my children, and the kingdom to your care.”[127]
The Queen lingered throughout Monday and Tuesday, and even the dreaded
Wednesday, in much the same condition. On Thursday a change took place
for the worse and she suffered much pain, but she bore it all without
a murmur and had a smile and a cheery word for many. She even joked at
Ranby, the surgeon, when he was dressing her wound, saying: “Before
you begin, let me have a full view of your comical face”; and whilst
he was cutting her she said: “What would you give now to be cutting up
your wife?”[128] The Queen underwent many of these cuttings, but she
bore all with great fortitude, and if sometimes a groan escaped her she
would beg the surgeons not to heed and even apologised to them for
some peevish expressions. Her patience and courage were marvellous, and
her mind remained calm and collected.
All this time the chaplain’s services had not been required. Several
of the bishops remarked on it, and many about the court whispered that
it was not right that the Queen should remain without the consolations
of religion. At last representations were made to Walpole, who
irreligiously shrugged his shoulders. But he asked the Princess Amelia
to acquaint the King and Queen with what was being said, and suggested
that the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Potter) should be sent for. The
Princess Amelia, who knew her mother’s views on religious matters, at
first demurred to taking the message, but afterwards went to the King,
who went to the Queen, who immediately consented. The Archbishop came,
and continued afterwards to pray by her bedside, morning and evening.
But the prayers of the Archbishop were far from satisfying the scruples
of the orthodox, who further required that her Majesty should receive
the Holy Communion.
How far the Archbishop spoke to the Queen on this solemn subject it
is impossible to say. The matter was one between the royal sufferer
and her God. Caroline was, in the wide sense of the word, a religious
woman, one whose religion was not on her lips but in her life; she had
a firm faith in God and trust in His mercy, but she was not, and never
had been, an orthodox Christian. In health, because she conceived
it to be her duty as Queen-Consort, she had scrupulously conformed
to the rites of the Church of England, but now, in the presence of
death, she felt it necessary to be sincere in her convictions and
dispense with them. The Archbishop, who was a godly and tolerant
prelate, and who knew the Queen’s views, probably forbore to press
her on the matter, and we may take it for granted that the Queen did
not receive the last sacrament. It was rumoured about the court that
the Archbishop had celebrated the Communion of the Sick in the royal
chamber, but at the last moment the Queen refused to receive. When the
Archbishop came out of the room he was surrounded by courtiers and
ladies in waiting in the ante-chambers, who eagerly asked him, “My
Lord, has the Queen received?” The Archbishop eluded the question, and
rebuked them by saying “The Queen is in a very heavenly disposition”.
Some, more officious than the rest, told him that it was his duty to
reconcile the Queen to the Prince of Wales. The Archbishop replied
that, whenever the Queen had spoken to him about the unhappy divisions
in the Royal Family, she had spoken with such good sense that it would
be impertinent for him to offer her advice on the subject. By some
authorities it is stated that the Queen, at the last, forgave the
Prince, and one goes so far as to declare that “She sent her blessing
and forgiveness to her son, and told Sir Robert [Walpole] that she
would have sent for him with pleasure, but prudence forbade the
interview as it might irritate and embarrass the King”.[129] On the
other hand Hervey is silent on this point, though he makes the Queen
several times during her illness express resentment against her son,
which was perhaps natural, as his insults were very recent. Her enemies
afterwards declared that she refused the Prince her forgiveness, though
he sent again and again to humbly beseech her blessing. There is a
conflict of testimony here, and the Queen may well have the benefit of
the doubt, for all her life she had laboured in the cause of peace, and
striven to prevent discord in the Royal Family.
The Queen still lingered on, her brain and faculties clear till the
last. But the King’s mind was giving way under the strain. He was
conscious of this to some extent, for he told his pages that if he were
unreasonable in chiding and swearing at them they were not to mind it.
Lord Hervey, in his grim and ghastly account of the Queen’s deathbed,
mocks at the lamentations of the King, and jeers at his behaviour. Yet
there is every reason to believe that his grief was absolutely sincere,
and in the presence of so great a sorrow these gibes should surely have
been stilled. It was all very human and very pitiful. The King was not
one of those who could suffer and be still, his grief was noisy and
garrulous, and he talked incessantly during those trying days to all
whom he met of the Queen’s many virtues and the great and irreparable
loss her death would be to him and the nation. He said the same to his
wife over and over again, and they babbled their love together with
tears and broken words. She knew now that she was first with him, had
always been first with him, and their love was as fresh and fragrant
as when he wooed her in the rose-gardens of Ansbach long ago. Yet,
evidently overwrought by long watching and emotion, the King would
sometimes break off in the middle of his vows of love and devotion to
chide her in the old peevish fashion. Her pain made her very restless,
and she complained that she could not sleep. “How the devil should you
sleep,” burst forth the King, “when you will never lie still a moment?”
or again, when the Queen at his bidding lay perfectly still, the King
would rail at her for looking straight before her, “like a calf waiting
for its throat to be cut”. But Caroline knew better than to blame him
for these rough words, which were more welcome to her than sweetest
music. Her wifely obedience never failed, even at the last. The doctors
said that her strength must be kept up, so the King was always forcing
down her throat all sorts of food and drink. The poor Queen would
swallow whatever he wished, and when he thanked her, she would say:
“It is the last service I can do you”. But her stomach was not so
complaisant, and she could only retain the food for a few minutes. Then
she would bravely try again. For her own sake she wished not to live;
for his she would fain have done so.
So the days wore on, the Queen almost apologising for being so long
in dying. Thursday, Friday and Saturday passed without change, but on
Sunday (November 20th, 1737), the eleventh day of her illness, she
grew weaker every hour. About ten o’clock in the evening the end came
quietly and suddenly. Her last word was _Pray_. The King was with her
when she passed away, and in an agony of grief he kissed the face and
hands of the dead Queen.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XV:
[123] The Hon. Peter Wentworth to the Earl of Strafford, London,
December 10th, 1734.
[124] George the Second kept his word. He never married again, though
he survived the Queen thirty-three years. But within a year of
Caroline’s death he brought Madame de Walmoden over to England, and
later created her Countess of Yarmouth.
[125] _Vide_ Hervey’s _Memoirs_. Also letter of Colonel William Douglas
to Lord Carlisle, 12th November, 1737 (Carlisle MSS.).
[126] Letter of Lady A. Irwin to Earl of Carlisle, 17th November, 1737
(Carlisle MSS.).
[127] Hervey’s _Memoirs_. According to another account, she said: “I
hope you will never desert the King, but continue to serve him with
your usual fidelity,” and pointing to her husband, she added: “I
recommend his Majesty to you”. Mahon’s _History_, vol. ii. _Vide_ also
Horace Walpole’s _Reminiscences_.
[128] Letter of Hon. Peter Wentworth to the Earl of Strafford, 1st
December, 1737. Ranby was then seeking a divorce.
[129] Coxe’s _Life of Walpole_. Horace Walpole also makes a statement
to the same effect, though not so definite.
CHAPTER XVI.
ILLUSTRISSIMA CAROLINA.
Queen Caroline’s funeral took place on the evening of Saturday,
December 17th (1737), in Westminster Abbey. It was her special request
that her obsequies should be as quiet and simple as possible, and the
King respected her wish, though he commanded a general mourning, and
arranged every detail of the ceremonial. During the month that elapsed
between the Queen’s death and her funeral, the body, encased in a
lead coffin and an outer one of English oak, rested in the chamber
wherein she died, which was transformed into a _chapelle ardente_ for
the time being. The walls were hung with purple and black, and tall
tapers burned night and day around the bier. The doors were guarded by
gentlemen pensioners, with their axes reversed, and the King allowed no
one to enter the room except himself and those who watched by the body.
The night before the funeral a brief service was held in the death
chamber by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which the King, the Duke of
Cumberland, and the Princesses Amelia, Caroline, Mary, and Louisa
attended. This was the King’s farewell of all that was mortal of his
Queen, for he was too ill, and too much overcome by grief to attend
her funeral. The service over, the coffin was privately conveyed by
torchlight from St. James’s Palace to the Princes’ Chamber adjoining
the House of Lords. Here the late Queen’s pages watched all night, and
were joined in the morning by her Majesty’s maids of honour. The body
lay in state all that day, guarded by twenty gentlemen pensioners.
At six o’clock in the evening the funeral procession started from the
Princes’ Chamber, and passed through Old Palace Yard to the great north
door of Westminster Abbey, by means of a covered way lined throughout
with black. Though the funeral was officially described as private,
the procession was a long one, and included the Ministers, the court
officials, the physicians who attended the Queen in her last illness,
all those who held places in her household, and many peers. Sir Robert
Walpole followed his royal mistress to her last resting-place. The
Queen’s Chamberlain carried her crown on a black velvet cushion, and
walked immediately before the coffin, which was borne by ten yeomen
of the guard, and covered “with a large pall of black velvet, lined
with black silk, with a fine holland sheet, adorned with ten large
escutcheons painted on satin, under a canopy of black velvet”.[130]
Six dukes acted as pall bearers, and ten members of the Privy Council
bore the canopy; in an equal line on either side marched the gentlemen
pensioners with their arms reversed. Behind the coffin walked the
Princess Amelia as chief mourner. She was supported by the Duke of
Grafton and the Duke of Dorset, and her train was born by the Duchess
of St. Albans and the Duchess of Montagu. The Princess Amelia was
followed by a long train of ladies, including nearly all the duchesses
and a large number of other peeresses, the late Queen’s ladies of the
bedchamber, maids of honour, and bedchamber women. The chief mourner
and all the ladies wore long veils of black crape. The Dean and Canons
of Westminster, wearing their copes, and the choir, augmented by the
choir boys of the Chapel Royal in their habits of scarlet and gold,
bearing wax tapers in their hands, met the coffin at the north door
of the Abbey, and the procession wended its way through the north and
south aisles to Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, the choir chanting the
while the psalm _Domine refugium_. The coffin was rested by the side of
the open grave, hard by the tomb of Henry the Seventh, and the burial
service was proceeded with up to the committal prayers. The Garter King
of Arms then stepped forward and proclaimed the late Queen’s style and
titles in a loud voice.
“Thus it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of the transitory life
to His Divine mercy the late most high, most mighty, and most excellent
princess, Caroline, by the Grace of God Queen-Consort of the most high,
most mighty, and most excellent monarch George the Second, by the Grace
of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the
Faith, whom God bless and preserve with long life, health and honour,
and all worldly happiness.”
Then the choir sang the beautiful anthem which Handel had composed
especially for the occasion:--
“_The ways of Zion do mourn, and she is in bitterness: all her people
sigh and hang down their heads to the ground. How are the mighty
fallen! she that was great among the nations and princess of the
provinces. How are the mighty fallen! When the ear heard her, then it
blessed her: and when the eye saw her, it gave witness of her. How are
the mighty fallen! she that was great among the nations and princess
of the provinces. She delivered the poor that cried: the fatherless
and him that had no helper. Kindness, meekness, and comfort were in
her tongue. If there was any virtue, and if there was any praise, she
thought on those things. Her body is buried in peace, but her name
liveth for evermore_.”[131]
When the last notes of the anthem had died away, the procession
returned to the north door of the Abbey in the same order as it had
come. The coffin under its canopy, with tall tapers burning on either
side, was left in the Chapel. Later a short service was held privately,
when it was lowered to the vault and placed in the large stone
sarcophagus prepared for it.
[Illustration: HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER ABBEY, TEMP. 1737.]
The King remained inconsolable for many months. He saw no one at first
but his daughters, and when he was compelled to see Walpole, or
some other Minister, on important business, he could talk of nothing
but his loss and the great qualities of the late Queen. Many thought
that he would not long survive her; he seemed completely broken down.
The genuineness of his sorrow showed itself in various ways. By her
will the Queen had left everything to him, but it transpired that she
had little to leave except her house at Richmond, her jewels, and the
obligations she had incurred by her charities. When her heart was
touched by cases of poverty, sickness or sorrow, she would not only
relieve immediate necessities, but often grant pensions for life. These
pensions it was found amounted to nearly £13,000 a year. The King took
the full burden on his own shoulders. “I will have no one the poorer
for her death but myself,” he said. He also paid the salaries of every
member of her household until he could otherwise provide for them.
One morning, soon after the Queen’s death, he woke early and sent for
Baron Borgman, one of his Hanoverian suite. When he came the King
said, “I hear you have a picture of the Queen, which she gave you, and
that it is a better likeness than any in my possession. Bring it to
me here.” Borgman brought it to the King, who said it was very like
her Majesty, and burst into tears. “Put it,” he said presently, “upon
that chair at the foot of my bed, and leave me until I ring the bell.”
Two hours passed before he rang, and then he was quite calm. “Take the
picture away,” he said to its owner, “I never yet saw a woman worthy
to buckle her shoe.” Some little time later, he was playing cards
one evening with his daughters. Some queens were dealt to him, and no
sooner did he pick up the cards and perceive them than he burst into
tears, and was unable to go on with the game. Princess Amelia guarded
against a repetition of the scene the following night by privately
ordering all the queens to be taken out of the pack.
The King was very morbid in his grief, and much given to dwelling upon
the material aspect of death. He was very superstitious and a firm
believer in ghouls and vampires. Lord Wentworth gives an illustration
of this in a letter he wrote to his father, Lord Strafford, shortly
after the Queen’s funeral. “Saturday night, between one and two
o’clock, the King waked out of a dream very uneasy, and ordered the
vault, where the Queen is, to be broken open immediately, and have
the coffin also opened; and went in a hackney chair through the Horse
Guards to Westminster Abbey, and back again to bed. I think it is the
strangest thing that could be.” In a subsequent letter he refers to
it again: “The story about the King was true, for Mr. Wallop heard of
one who saw him go through the Horse Guards on Saturday night with ten
footmen before the chair. They went afterwards to Westminster Abbey.”
Thirty-three years later George the Second was buried by his Queen’s
side, and as a last proof of his devotion he left orders that one side
of her coffin should be removed, and one side of his taken away, so
that their bones should mingle, and in death be not divided.[132]
Caroline was widely mourned by all classes of her husband’s subjects.
Even those disaffected to the House of Hanover admitted the high
qualities of the Queen, and the Jacobites tempered their judgment,
when they remembered that she had always been on the side of mercy.
Only from the Prince of Wales’s household and from those who supported
him came any discordant note, and it must be admitted that some of
these were very discordant indeed. In the eighteenth century personal
and political hatreds were carried beyond the grave, and some of the
epigrams and mock epitaphs composed by the Queen’s enemies after her
death form anything but pleasant reading. The fact that she did not
see the Prince of Wales during her last illness was seized upon as a
pretext for attacking her memory.
And unforgiving, unforgiven dies!
cried Chesterfield with bitter sarcasm, while Pope with more subtle
irony wrote:--
Hang the sad verse on Carolina’s urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest.
All parts perform’d, and _all her children blest_!
But these outbursts were overwhelmed in the spontaneous tribute of
affection and respect paid to the dead Queen on all sides. Her loss was
felt to be a national calamity. “The Lord hath taken away His anointed
with a stroke,” cried a preacher, “the breath of our nostrils is taken
away. The great princess is no more under whose shadow we said we
should be safe, and promised ourselves lasting peace--she, whom future
generations will know as Caroline the Illustrious.”[133] And indeed the
Queen’s pre-eminent qualities fit her for no lesser epithet. Caroline’s
character was formed on bold and generous lines, and her defects only
served to bring into stronger relief the purity of her life, the
loftiness of her motives and the excellence of her wisdom. She was
a good hater but a true friend, patient under suffering, strong in
adversity, fond of power, yet using it always for the good of others.
In the words which Frederick the Great applied to her early mentor the
Queen of Prussia, “She had a great soul”.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XVI:
[130] _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, 17th December, 1737.
[131] This same anthem was sung at the memorial service in Westminster
Abbey for Queen Victoria.
[132] The large stone sarcophagus which contains the remains of George
the Second and Queen Caroline stands in the middle of a vault below
Henry the Seventh’s chapel in Westminster Abbey. This vault was used
only for the family of George the Second. But many years after it was
opened to admit the coffin of a child of the Duke of Cumberland. In
1837, when the duke became King of Hanover, he decided to remove this
coffin to Hanover, and the vault was again opened. The two sides that
were withdrawn from George the Second’s and Queen Caroline’s coffin
respectively, were then seen, standing against the wall at the back of
their sarcophagus.
[133] Sermon preached on the death of Queen Caroline by the Rev.
Dr. Crowe, chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, and Rector of St.
Botolph’s, Bishopsgate.
THE END.
APPENDIX.
A LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
UNPUBLISHED MSS.
The despatches of George Louis, Elector of Hanover, to Privy
Councillor von Eltz, and the replies thereto, 1705. Preserved in
the Royal Archives, Hanover.
The despatches of Poley, sometime English Envoy at the Court of
Hanover, 1705. State Paper Office, London.
The despatches of Howe (who succeeded Poley as English Envoy at
Hanover), 1706–7. State Paper Office, London.
The despatches of D’Alais (who succeeded Howe as English Envoy at
Hanover), 1714. State Paper Office.
Bromley’s despatches to Harley, Envoy-Extraordinary to the Court of
Hanover, and Harley’s replies thereto, 1714. State Paper Office,
London.
The memorial of the Electress-Dowager and the Elector of Hanover to
Queen Anne, and the Queen’s reply to the memorial, 1714. State
Paper Office, London.
The despatches of Lord Clarendon, Envoy-Extraordinary to the Court of
Hanover, 1714.
Sundry documents, preserved in the Archives of the Castle of Ansbach,
relating to the Margraves and the castle, which need not be
specified.
Letters from the Hon. Peter Wentworth to his brother Lord Strafford,
1711–1737. MSS. Department, British Museum. (A few of these were
published in 1883.)
Notes of a conversation with Queen Caroline by Lady Suffolk, 1734.
MSS. Department, British Museum.
A Memorandum of the Princesses’ dresses, etc. MSS. Department,
British Museum.
PUBLISHED WORKS.
_La Correspondance de Leibniz avec l’Electrice Sophie de
Brunswick-Lüneburg._ Vol. III.
_Geschichte der Deutschen Höfe_, Vehse. Vol. XVIII.
_Geschichte von Sachsen, Böttiger Flathe._ Vol. II.
_Biographische Denkmaler Varnhagen._ Vol. IV.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s _Letters and Works_. Edited by Lord
Wharnecliffe.
_The Diary of Mary, Countess Cowper_, Lady of the Bedchamber to the
Princess of Wales, 1714–1720.
Lord Hervey’s _Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second_. Edited by
John Wilson Croker.
Lord Mahon’s _History of England from the Peace of Utrecht_, Vols. I.
and II.
Coxe’s _Life of Sir Robert Walpole_, Vols. I. and II.
_The Dictionary of National Biography_, Vol. IX.
Horace Walpole’s _Reminiscences and Works_.
_The History of Hampton Court Palace._ Orange and Guelph Times, Vol.
III., by Ernest Law.
_Notes on the Personal Union between England and Hanover_, by Dr.
A. W. Ward.
_Greater London_, by Edward Walford.
_The Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth._ Translated by
H.R.H. the Princess Christian.
_The Lockhart Memoirs._
Colley Cibber’s _Apology for My Life_.
_The Historical Register_, 1718.
_Parliamentary History_, Vols. VIII. and IX.
_The Criticks_: Being Papers of the Times, 1718.
_The Political State of Great Britain_, Vol. VIII.
Sundry Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission, including Earl de
la Warr’s MSS. preserved at Buckhurst, the Duke of Marlborough’s
MSS. at Blenheim, and the Earl of Carlisle’s MSS. at Castle
Howard.
_The Wentworth Papers_, 1705–1739.
_The Suffolk Correspondence_: Letters to and from Henrietta, Countess
of Suffolk.
Hervey’s _Letter Books_, 1651–1750.
Kemble’s _State Papers and Correspondence_.
House of Commons’ _Journal_, Vol. XX.
_The Etough Papers._
_The Sundon Correspondence._ Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon, by Mrs.
Thomson.
The Earl of Bristol’s _Letter Book_, 1651–1750.
_La Correspondance Secrète du Comte de Broglie._
_Les Mémoires de Berwick_, Vol. II.
_The Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland_, Vol. I.
Macpherson’s _Stuart Papers_, Vol. II.
Dr. King’s _Anecdotes of My Own Times_.
_The Correspondence of Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans._
_An Essay Towards the Character of Queen Caroline_, by Dr. Alured
Clarke.
Wright’s _England under the House of Hanover_.
Maby’s _Life of Chesterfield._
Jesse’s _Memoirs_.
_Our Hanoverian Kings_, by B. C. Skottowe.
_Epitaphium Reginae Carolinae_, 1737.
_A Particular Account of the Solemnities used at the Coronation of
His Sacred Majesty King George II., and his Royal Consort Queen
Caroline, on Wednesday, 11th October, 1727._ London, 1760.
_Ceremonial Proceedings at the Private Interment of Queen Caroline,
1737._
_Dix Années de la Cour de George II._, by Vicomte Frolois. Paris,
1760.
_The London Gazette_, 1714–1737 (official).
Sundry news-sheets and journals 1714–1737, including: _The
Gentleman’s Magazine_, _The Daily Courant_, _The Leiden Gazette_,
_The Freeholder_, _The Craftsman_, _The Daily Post_, _The Weekly
Journal_, _The Daily Journal_, _The Flying Post_, _Mist’s
Journal_, _Brice’s Weekly Journal_, _The Stamford Mercury_, _The
County Journal_, _The Daily Advertiser_, _Fog’s Weekly Journal_,
_Reed’s Weekly Journal_, _The General Evening Post_, _Hooker’s
Miscellany_, _The Old Whig_, etc.
INDEX.
VOLUME II.
Albemarle, Lady, 126.
Amelia, Princess, 94;
at Bath, 97;
and the Prince of Wales, 217;
at Caroline’s funeral, 362.
Anne, Princess Royal of England, 93;
and the Prince of Wales, 217;
betrothal, 249;
marriage, 252.
Appendix, 369.
Arbuthnot, Dr., 76.
Argyll, Duke of, in opposition, 51, 189;
and the Church, 149;
and Caroline, 311.
Atterbury, Prince James’s agent in Paris, 20;
death, 143.
Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, betrothal, 284;
marriage, 289.
Baltimore, Lord, 214.
Berkeley, Dr., 179.
Berkeley, George, 268.
Berkeley, Lord, resignation, 17.
Berwick, Duke of, 144.
Bolingbroke, Viscount, and the Patriots, 48;
and the Prince of Wales, 205, 208;
leaves England, 271.
Bolton, Duke of, 170;
in opposition, 189;
dismissed, 202.
Borgman, Baron, 365.
Bourguait, English Envoy at Berlin, 88.
Brett, Dr., 245.
Bristol, Lady, 92.
Brunswick, Duchess of, 335.
Buckingham, Duchess of, 144.
Burlington, Lord, 202.
Butler, Dr., 179, 229.
Caroline, Queen of England, 3;
Civil List, 12;
and Schulemburg, 26;
coronation, 30;
power of, 40;
and the opposition, 50;
and Windsor, 56, 117;
household, 70;
toilet, 75;
Regent of England, 112, 184, 273, 297;
and the people, 147;
charities, 150;
and vaccination, 154;
and literature, 156;
and prison reform, 184;
and the Church, 223;
and Madame de Walmoden, 314;
illness, 344;
death, 360;
funeral, 361.
Caroline, Princess, 101.
Carteret, Lord, in opposition, 48, 330.
Cavendish, Lord James, 126.
Charles Edward, Prince, 143.
Chesterfield, Lord, in opposition, 48, 190;
Lord Steward of the Household, 81;
dismissed, 202.
Chevenix, Rev. Charles, 235.
Clarke, Dr. Alured, 181.
Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 228.
Clayton, Dr., 232.
Clayton, Mrs., 71;
and the Church, 231;
becomes Lady Sundon, 236.
Clementina, consort of Prince James Stuart, 18.
Clinton, Lord, in opposition, 190;
dismissed, 202.
Cobham, Lord, 202.
Compton, Sir Spencer, Prime Minister, 6;
created Earl of Wilmington, 16.
Croft, Sir Archer, 143.
Crowe, Dr., 368.
Cumberland, Duke of, 102.
D’Elitz, Madame, 302.
De Fleury, Cardinal, 13.
Delaware, Lord, 285.
Deloraine, Lady, 280;
and George II., 331.
De Roussie, Lady Charlotte, 68.
Doddington, George Budd, 206.
Dorset, Duchess of, 70.
Dorset, Duke of, 362.
Duck, Stephen, 180.
Duncombe, William, 180.
Dyves, Dorothy, 235.
Fenton, Miss, 170.
Finch, Lord, 103.
Fleury, Cardinal, 145.
Frederick, Crown Prince of Denmark, 105.
Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Cassel, 104.
Frederick, Prince of Wales, 86;
in England, 90;
in opposition, 203;
and Bolingbroke, 205;
and Lady Diana Spencer, 209;
escapades, 210;
and Miss Vane, 212;
and his sisters, 217;
betrothal, 284;
marriage, 289;
and the Patriots, 326;
at Norfolk House, 342;
and the Queen, 350.
Gay, 168.
George Augustus (George II.), accession, 3;
Civil List, 15;
and George I.’s will, 23;
coronation, 30;
visit to Hanover, 112, 184, 273, 297;
and the King of Prussia, 131;
and the Church, 223;
illness, 325.
George Louis (George I.), will, 23;
funeral, 29.
Gibraltar, 115.
Gibson, Dr., 224.
Grafton, Duke of, 63;
and Princess Amelia, 95;
Lord Chamberlain, 170;
at Caroline’s funeral, 362.
Grantham, Lord, 119.
Hamilton, Lady Archibald, 213;
and the Princess of Wales, 293.
Harrington, Lord, Secretary of State, 141;
and Walpole, 274.
Harwicke, Lord, 342.
Hay, created Earl of Inverness by Prince James, 18.
Hervey, Lord, Vice-Chamberlain to Caroline, 64;
duel with Pulteney, 67;
and Pope, 173;
and the royal family, 220.
Hoadley, Bishop, 239.
Hobart, Sir Henry, raised to peerage, 73.
Hotham, Special Envoy at Berlin, 132.
Howard, Mrs., 73;
and Swift, 164;
becomes Lady Suffolk, 219;
Mistress of the Robes, 219;
resignation, 257;
second marriage, 268;
death, 268.
Isla, Lord, 191.
James Stuart, Prince, 18.
Kendal, Duchess of. (See _Schulemburg_.)
Lamotte, 87.
Lifford, Lord, 68.
Lockhart, Prince James’s agent for Scotland, 20.
Lorne, Colonel, 89.
Louisa, Princess, 105.
Lumley, Mr., 126.
Lytelton, 326.
Maddox, Dr., 79.
Malpas, Lord, dismissed, 11;
reinstated, 18.
Manners, Lady Fanny, 126.
Mar, Earl of, death, 142.
Marchmont, Earl of, in opposition, 190;
dismissed, 202.
Marlborough, Duchess of, 93, 144;
and the Prince of Wales, 209;
and Mrs. Clayton, 236.
Mary, Princess, 104.
Masham, Lady, 76.
Meadows, Miss, 72.
Middleton, Lady, 126.
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 37;
and vaccination, 154;
and Pope, 174;
and Mrs. Clayton, 236;
at Caroline’s funeral, 362.
Montrose, Duchess of, 38.
Montrose, Duke of, in opposition, 189;
dismissed, 202.
Murray, created Earl of Dunbar by Prince James, 18.
Nash, “King,” 98.
Newcastle, Duke of, and Princess Amelia, 95;
in office, 141.
Norfolk, Duchess of, 348.
North, Lord, 350.
Onslow, Chancellor, 113.
Orange, Prince of, betrothal, 249;
marriage, 252.
Orkney, Earl of, 118.
Orkney, Lady, 37.
Orrery, Prince James’s agent in London, 20.
Pelham, Henry, 126.
Pelham, Lady Catherine, 126.
Pembroke, Lord, 236.
Pitt, 326.
Pomfret, Countess of, 69.
Pomfret, Lord, 128;
and Mrs. Clayton, 236.
Pope, 173.
Porteous, Captain, 308.
Portland, Lady, 38.
Potter, Dr., 356.
Poyntz, 116.
Pulteney, head of opposition, 48;
duel with Hervey, 67;
and the Prince of Wales, 327.
Queensberry, Duchess of, 169.
Ranby, 349.
Raymond, Lord, 150.
Robertson, 307.
Robinson, 227.
St. Albans, Duchess of, 362.
St. John, Lady, 38.
Sastot, 87.
Savage, 180.
Scarborough, Lord, 44, 196.
Schulemburg, and George I.’s will, 25;
and Caroline, 26;
death, 28.
Schütz, 69.
Scott, Sir Walter, and the Porteous Riots, 312.
Scrivelsby, Lord of the Manor of, King’s Champion, 35.
Secker, Bishop, 229.
Selwyn, Colonel, 140.
Seville, Treaty of, 115.
Shippen, 17.
Skerrett, Maria, 137.
Sloane, Sir Hans, 154.
Somerville, 180.
Sophie Dorothea, Queen of Prussia, 86.
Spencer, Lady Diana, 209.
Spense, Betty, 126.
Stair, Earl of, in opposition, 190;
dismissed, 202.
Stanhope, English Plenipotentiary at Madrid, 115.
Steele, Sir Richard, 179.
Strafford, Lady, 103.
Strafford, Lord, 20.
Suffolk, Lady. See _Mrs. Howard_.
Sundon, Lady. See _Mrs. Clayton_.
Swift, Dean, 162.
Sylvine, Major, 124.
Talbot, Dr., 241.
Tankerville, Lady, 280.
Tankerville, Lord, 181.
Titchburne, Mrs., 100, 336.
Townshend, Lord, 113;
and Walpole, 136;
resignation, 140;
and the Prince of Wales, 208.
Trevor, Lady, 37.
Vane, Miss, 212.
Voltaire, 157.
Wake, Dr., 23.
Walmoden, Madame de, 274, 300.
Walpole, Lady, 15.
Walpole, Sir Robert, dismissed, 5;
reinstated, 15;
and Caroline, 41;
and Townshend, 136;
at Houghton, 138;
and literature, 160;
and the Excise Scheme, 187;
and the Church, 223;
and Madame de Walmoden, 314;
and Caroline’s illness, 354.
Walsingham, Lady, 25.
Wentworth, Lord, 366.
Wentworth, Peter, 108;
and Caroline, 121.
Wesley, John, 239.
Wharton, Duke of, 142.
Widdrington, Lord, 100.
Wigton, Lady, 98.
Wilhelmina, Princess of Prussia, 86.
William, Duke of Cumberland, 102.
Wilson, 307.
Wolfenbüttel, Duke of, and George I.’s will, 23;
subsidy to, 48.
Wyndham, 208.
Yarmouth, Countess of. See _Walmoden_.
Yonge, Sir William, dismissed, 11;
reinstated, 18.
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.
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