Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover, volume 2 (of 2)

VOL. II.
LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET
LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER
BY DR. DORAN, F.S.A. AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS’ ‘HABITS AND MEN’ ETC.
FOURTH EDITION
CAREFULLY REVISED AND MUCH ENLARGED
IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II.
LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty 1875
Death of the Duke of Cumberland—His military career—The soubriquet of the Butcher given him—Anecdotes of him—Marriage of Caroline Matilda—Her married life unhappy—Dr. Struensee— Mésalliances of the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland—The Duke of Cumberland and Lady Grosvenor—The Royal Marriage Act—Olivia Serres—Lord Clive’s present of diamonds to the Queen—Disgusting correspondence of the Duchess of Orleans and Queen Caroline—The Prince of Wales’s juvenile drawing-room—Simple life of the Royal Family at Kew—Prince Frederick and his cottage beauty—Paton and his naval pictures—Royal births—The custom of cake and caudle observed—Petty larcenists—Sarah Wilson and her subsequent life—Death of Princess Mary; and of Princess Augusta, the King’s mother—The Earl of Bute—Neglected education of George III.—Petronilla, Countess Delitz—The Countess of Chesterfield, her conversion by Whitfield—Efforts of Lady Huntingdon to convert the gay Earl of Chesterfield—Mr. Fitzroy—George III. at Portsmouth—Jacob Bryant’s ‘golden rule’—Witty remark of Queen Charlotte—Attendant bards on Royalty; Mark Smeaton, Thomas Abel, David Rizzio—The Princes under the guardianship of Lady Charlotte Finch—The Queen’s benevolence—Satirists.
The favourite son of Caroline, and the favourite brother of the Princess Amelia, died on the last day of October. His health had long been precarious: he had, like his mother, grown extremely corpulent, and his sight had nearly perished. Indeed, he could only see, and that very imperfectly, with one eye—and yet he was comparatively but a young man; not more than forty-four years of age. His course of life, both in its duties, and its so-called pleasures, had made an old man of him before his time. He had had a paralytic stroke, was much afflicted with asthma, and suffered continually from a wound in the leg, which he had received in his first great battle, at Dettingen, and which had never healed.