A forgotten Prince of Wales

by Henry Curties

FOOTNOTES:

[17] A French refugee, named Roussie, who was given an Irish peerage.

[18] One of the South Sea Bubble Schemes.

[19] Claremont was one of the Duke of Newcastle’s seats.

[20] These two were much attached to one another. The Duke was a grandson of Charles II., but hardly an Adonis, as he weighed 20 stone.

[21] The Right Hon. Henry Pelham, son of Lord Pelham, and brother of Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, whose title had been revived in his favour by George the First.

[22] He never was made Secretary to the Queen. This was probably one of Her Majesty’s jokes.

[23] The double marriage scheme which had come up again for a little time.

[24] The Hon. Peter Wentworth to Lord Strafford, London, 1734.

CHAPTER VIII.
The Prince’s Embarrassments.

The Prince of Wales having for the few years immediately succeeding his coming to England occupied his exalted position with a totally inadequate income had, as might reasonably have been expected, become exceedingly involved in debt.

Though possessing no separate establishment of his own (except as will be seen later an illicit one), yet he was placed in a position of much difficulty and temptation.

He appears to have received from his father a small and uncertain allowance, and when pressed by his creditors was absolutely refused assistance by the King.

The intervention of the Queen in favour of Frederick at this period seems to have been quite useless, and from that time forth grew up that sad state of affairs which eventually compassed the total estrangement of the Prince from his father and mother.

It has been said that this treatment would have tried the best of sons, but Frederick’s early training and environment had not been of a nature to breed many of the filial virtues in him. It is quite certain that he felt his humiliating position most acutely, and that the slights and snubs he was subjected to by his father rankled considerably. Not the least of these was the fact that his mother was constituted Regent during the absences of his father in Hanover.

It is not surprising, therefore, that he began to look for at least friendship and support in another direction and found it among the opponents of his father’s Government.

Among the first of this faction to pay court to the Prince was the polished St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, a Secretary of State of Queen Anne, and one who, with the Duke of Ormond and the Earl of Oxford, had been impeached at the accession of George the First at the instigation of Sir Robert Walpole for a supposed plot to place Prince James Stuart on the throne. He had fled the country, some say unwisely, at the time, and had remained abroad for nine years. His pardon had been arranged by his devoted French wife Madame de Vilette, whom he had married whilst in exile, and who came to England and secured the services of that rapacious mistress of George the First, Schulemburg—who had been created Duchess of Kendal—at the price of £12,000.

Though pardoned, his attainder remained in force, his title was still withheld, and he was precluded from inheriting estates and excluded from the House of Lords.

Though deprived of any outward power, yet this brilliant statesman simply ruled the Tory party and moved its principals like so many puppets. It was this talented politician who offered his services to the Prince of Wales, and their first meeting took place at the house of a gentleman acquainted with both. It is said that Bolingbroke came first, and amused himself by reading a book until the Prince’s arrival. This took place somewhat unexpectedly, and before Bolingbroke could replace his book, in the hurry to kneel to the Prince it fell to the floor, and Bolingbroke was within an ace of following it as he slipped in making his obeisance.

What followed gives an insight into the amiability and undoubted charm of the Prince’s nature and his excellent tact. He caught Bolingbroke as he fell, and restoring him to his feet said: “My lord, I trust this may be an omen of my succeeding in raising your fortunes.”

It is said that the Prince inherited his charm of manner from his mother; doubtless he was like her in this respect, and did receive from her this gift. That he did not receive it from his father is certain, as George the Second was uncouthness itself, and was commonly called the “Gruff Gentleman.”

From the day of the meeting of the Prince and Bolingbroke their acquaintance grew, until the statesman became the Prince’s guiding spirit, not always urging him, as may be imagined, under the circumstances, on the road of duty to his parents and his parents’ wishes. There is no doubt that through the Prince Bolingbroke paid back many a wrong and slight received in the years past from Walpole and the Whigs.

Of this influence of Bolingbroke—“the all-accomplished St. John, the Muses friend,” as he was styled by the principal poets of the time—upon the young Prince, Coxe makes the following comment:

“The Prince was fascinated by his conversation and manners. His confident assertions and popular declarations, his affected zeal to reconcile all ranks and conditions, the energy with which he decried the baneful spirit of party, and his plausible theories of a perfect Government without influence or corruption, acting by prerogative, were calculated to dazzle and captivate a young Prince of high spirit and sanguine disposition, and induce him to believe that the Minister (i.e., Walpole) was forming a systematic plan to overthrow the Constitution, and that the cause of opposition was that of honour and liberty.”[25]

The first political matter in which these two were actively engaged was the Excise Act, which was a strong measure of Walpole’s directed against smuggling. In espousing the side of the Opposition, the Prince was certainly making a strong bid for popular favour, for the increased price of tobacco and wines, which would undoubtedly have followed its passage through the two Houses of Parliament, would have been by no means acceptable to the multitude at large.

The Prince’s amiability towards the people had already endeared him to them. He was accustomed to walk abroad accompanied by only one servant, and he was never known to neglect the salute of even the humblest of his father’s subjects, but always had a smile, sometimes a kind word for them.

Walpole introduced his new act into the House of Commons in a very moderate manner on March 14th, 1733, the Prince of Wales sitting under the gallery and listening to the debate. The arguments were heated and prolonged, and adjournments were extended to April 9th, when the Bill was eventually dropped, having regard to the storm of opposition it provoked in the country and especially in the City of London.

During the speeches of the Leaders of the Opposition, which included those of the well-known Pulteney, Wyndham and Barnard, the following point was made by Wyndham against Walpole: he denounced corruption and tyranny, and recalled the favourites of past monarchs.

“What was their fate?” he asked. “They had the misfortune to outlive their master, and his son, as soon as he came to the throne, took off their heads.”

This allusion was cheered to the echo by the Opposition, and was subsequently a grave cause of offence to the King and Queen, whose interests were greatly bound up in the passing of the Act by their favourite minister, Walpole. It is said that if their being sent back to Hanover had depended on the Bill they could not have shown more agitation.

It was therefore not surprising that the failure of the Bill aroused the King’s indignation, especially the support which his son, the Prince of Wales, had given the Opposition sub rosa it is true, but still a sympathy which was very evident.

The Honourable William Townshend, son of the celebrated politician, Viscount Townshend, and Groom of the Bedchamber, and Privy Purse to the Prince of Wales, very nearly lost his appointment and that of A.D.C. to the King through his temerity in voting against the measure.

The Townshend family seem always to have been sympathisers with the Prince, and to have been his good friends, and this association led to incidents which will be dealt with later.

Another of the Prince’s followers at this time, and one who was given much credit for the failure of the Excise Act, was the celebrated Bubb Doddington, a man of great wealth and a very large landowner, but the real credit for this rebuff to the King and Walpole must be given to the brilliant genius of Bolingbroke, which worked behind the Leaders of the Opposition and moved them like so many chess-men on a board. Bolingbroke’s hatred of Walpole was of that intense nature, that it is related by the latter’s brother Horace that upon Bolingbroke’s return to England after his exile an attempt was made to reconcile the two enemies, and Bolingbroke so far mastered his pride as to accept an invitation to dine with Sir Robert at Chelsea, but it is further stated by the same authority that Bolingbroke rose from the table at the first course and left the room; his detestation of the great Minister could no longer be repressed.

Bolingbroke, therefore, was ever working against Walpole and the Court Party (by whom he was intensely hated), and there can be little doubt that he was responsible for the state of affairs between the Prince of Wales and his father and mother which existed at this time, and by so fanning their smouldering distrust and jealousy that it burst into the subsequent flame, which became a visible scandal to the whole country.

The Prince, however, had many other friends among the Opposition beside Bolingbroke and Doddington; his artistic temperament was gratified with the society of the witty Chesterfield (who had recently celebrated his marriage with Schulemburg’s daughter, the Countess of Walsingham, by taking another mistress), Pulteney and the eloquent Wyndham.

It cannot, however, be said that the Prince chose his companions for their virtues; it was rather for the absence of them; but possibly his young mind received as much harm from the crafty and unscrupulous Doddington as all the others put together, who, after all, were, most of them, mere posers in their vices; but Doddington appears to have been a kind of fat Mephistopheles, always pouring into the Prince’s ear advice which on the surface had the appearance of being ingenuous and good, but had ever for its aim the aggrandisement of the giver.

Such is the opinion of Doddington’s character written by one of his connections who published his celebrated diary some years after his death.

George Bubb Doddington was the nephew of a great landowner—one of the wealthiest in England—whose sister had been picked up by an Irish apothecary of the name of Bubb, who practised some say at Carlisle, others at Weymouth, possibly at both places at different times. He appears to have been excluded from the family circle of the Doddington’s, but upon his death his widow seems to have been forgiven and her son George adopted by her rich brother, who eventually bequeathed to him the whole of his vast estates.

The young George Bubb added by royal licence to his own simple and somewhat common designation his uncle’s name and arms, and apparently from that time forth had but one object in life, viz., to obtain a peerage.

He had commenced his career by entering Parliament for one of the two boroughs which he owned, and attaching himself to Walpole. Being, however, refused a peerage by that leader, he forsook him and deserted to the Opposition.

In due course, on the arrival of the Prince in England, and the manner of his reception by the King driving him to seek friends among his father’s opponents, Doddington was very pleased to bend the knee to him, and offer him not only his political support, which was considerable, but later his purse also. This lending of money to the Prince was the origin of the well-known unscrupulous remark, whether truthfully related or otherwise, which has been recorded against Frederick, and if made at all was probably a bit of boastfulness over wine cups to his boon companions, and it must not be forgotten that gentlemen were not at all above boasting in those days: “This is a strange country this England,” the Prince is said to have remarked, “I am told Doddington is reckoned a clever man, yet I got £5,000 out of him this morning, and he has no chance of ever seeing it again.” Another account, however, states that the Prince won it of him at play. Doddington, however, got the full value of the money he lent the Prince of Wales in the social distinction which the position of intimate adviser of the Heir-apparent conferred upon him.

Horace Walpole states that he even allowed himself to be wrapped in a blanket and rolled downstairs for the Prince’s amusement, when that young man was apparently indulging in a drunken frolic with his intimates. But even in his blanket bumping down the stairs it is very probable that he had in his mind’s eye that peerage which he no doubt considered certain when the Prince came to the throne. But much water rolled under London Bridge before George Bubb Doddington’s head was compassed by the golden circlet of a peer, and then only for a little time.