FOOTNOTES:
[35] Gentleman’s Magazine, April, 1736.
[36] Alas! Poor Mary Bellenden, then fourth Duchess of Argyle, died on the 18th September, that year, still young.
Lightly rest, thy native Scottish soil upon thee, Mary,
Sweet be thy soul’s eternal rest!
CHAPTER XIV.
Lady Archibald.
After the marriage nobody seems to have been able to find sufficiently superlative expressions in which to convey their appreciation of the Princess’s conduct at the wedding. Lord Waldegrave stated that she distinguished herself “by a most decent and prudent behaviour, and the King, notwithstanding his aversion to his son, behaved to her not only with great politeness, but with the appearance of cordiality and affection.” The aged Duchess of Marlborough, who was by no means in love with the Royal Family, said of her “that she always appeared good-natured and civil to everybody.”
While Sir Robert Walpole paid her a greater compliment than all when he observed how she had conquered the gruff old King and attracted her husband’s esteem, he declared that there were “circumstances which spoke strongly in favour of brains which had but seventeen years to ripen.” It may be said here that the Princess’s future conduct fully justified these favourable comments. She had indeed a most difficult and painful part to play, considering the state of affairs which existed between the Prince of Wales, her husband, and his father, and this at the very threshold of her married life was greatly complicated by a most disagreeable episode which ought never to have occurred. This was a dispute between the Queen and Frederick as to whether Lady Archibald Hamilton, the lady of thirty-five with ten children, who had obtained a strong ascendency over the Prince, should be appointed one of the ladies-in-waiting upon the Princess.
The Queen very properly argued that scandal had linked the Prince’s name with this lady’s, and it was invidious to appoint her to his household, but to this, of course, the Prince retorted very improperly—but que voulez-vous with such a father?—that “Lady Suffolk had been appointed to his mother’s household under similar circumstances.” Lady Archibald Hamilton, however, had her way in the end. It was arranged by the astute Queen Caroline that only three ladies-in-waiting on the Princess of Wales should be appointed, leaving Lady Archibald out, and that the fourth should be left to the Princess’s choice. The Queen, no doubt, had a pretty shrewd idea who the fourth lady-in-waiting would be, but was anxious to avoid the responsibility of her appointment; as a matter of fact, later events point to Lady Archibald really being a creature of Queen Caroline’s.
Frederick’s influence over his girl-wife very soon became apparent and was very natural. Lady Archibald’s influence over the Prince also soon became a patent fact, with the result that may be easily imagined, “the Hamilton woman,” as she was called, filled the vacant fourth place among the ladies-in-waiting. Not only was this piece of finesse easily accomplished by her, but she at once began to exert a strong influence over the seventeen-year-old Princess of Wales, which was not to be wondered at. This influence was not exerted for the young Princess’s benefit by any means; it would almost seem that Lady Archibald set herself to work to make this pretty young girl ridiculous in the eyes of the people. Augusta was wholly ignorant of the customs of the country, and of course very easily led by such a person of experience as Lady Archibald.
Under the advice of this lady she was persuaded to walk abroad in Kensington Gardens, preceded by two gentlemen ushers, a chamberlain leading her by the hand, a page in attendance on her train, and the rear brought up by ladies-in-waiting, among whom it is pretty certain the instigator of this absurdity was not present.
The Queen is said to have met this pageant in Kensington Gardens and to have burst into peals of laughter, which very naturally surprised the child Princess. Queen Caroline, however, enlightened her there and then, and compared her to a tragedy queen.
To whose interest was it that this pretty young Princess should be made ridiculous in the eyes of the English people, upon whom she had made a favourable first impression?
Had there not also been another Princess of Wales who had made an equally favourable impression upon the English people and who now was Queen? Had not this lady reigned unrivalled from 1714 to that year 1736, for her daughters were never attractive enough to become popular favourites, and they knew that fact very well and resented it.
Is it not a very plain conclusion to draw, that in this making Augusta absurd in the people’s eyes, Lady Archibald was simply acting under orders from the Queen, who feared her own fading attractions—she was very fat—were likely to suffer by comparison with the youthful radiance of the new Princess of Wales?
In addition, Lady Archibald introduced into the Prince’s household as many of her husband’s relatives as she possibly could, so that his apartments were said to be peopled by Hamiltons. But despite the evil influence of this woman, the Prince and Princess of Wales greatly gained in popularity after their marriage, and very uncomplimentary comparisons were drawn by the public between the affability and courtesy of the young Prince and his bride, and the distinctly phlegmatic German manners of the King. The Queen had always made herself agreeable to the people; she was far too wise to do anything else.
Within a few weeks of her marriage the Princess was witness of a fight in a theatre for the first time, when the celebrated riot of the footmen in Drury Lane took place, these brothers of the shoulder knot and long cane objecting to be shut out of the gallery to which they claimed to be admitted free, and emphasizing their objections by storming the doors of the theatre and starting a free fight within, in which several persons were injured. In the sequel, many of the footmen were marched off to Newgate.
At this time, too, the great William Pitt—“Cornet Pitt,” and afterwards Earl of Chatham—made his first speech in the House of Commons, in seconding the Address of Congratulation to the King on the marriage of his son, which address was moved by Lyttleton. So laudatory was Pitt of the virtues of the son that he mortally offended the father, who never forgave him, and as an instalment of future spite deprived him of his commissions of Cornet.
But little George the King had other fish to fry; he was due at Hanover on the 29th May, and whether Sir Robert Walpole approved or not he intended to go, and keep his tryst with Madame Walmoden and the other members of her select circle. From the King’s point of view it was high time he went to look after his interests in this direction, as there was a certain Captain von der Schulemburg about in connexion with whom a rope ladder was discovered dangling from Madame Walmoden’s bedroom window during the King’s visit. But George had made up his mind to go, and go he would, and did.
Sir Robert Walpole, however, by way of asserting his authority in some shape or form, got him to take his brother Horace with him as Minister in Attendance.
But before departing the King appointed the Queen as his Regent, as usual ignoring his eldest son; at the same time he sent a message to Frederick intimating that wherever the Queen was, there would be provided apartments for him and the Princess. The Prince of Wales very naturally resented this order, which practically constituted him and his wife prisoners in whichever of the Royal palaces the Queen happened to be living. The fact of the Queen being appointed Regent was also a subject of bitter discord between the mother and son, creating a gap which widened day by day.
CHAPTER XV.
A Rope Ladder and Some Storms.
It has been already stated that there was at Hanover a certain Captain von der Schulemberg, whose name became very much coupled with that of the King’s mistress, Madame Walmoden, and it came about in this wise.
Madame Walmoden inhabited certain grand apartments in the old Leine Schloss in the town of Hanover—in which palace it will be remembered that Prince Frederick was born.
The King lived at Herrenhausen Schloss two miles away, and thither the Walmoden was accustomed to drive every morning and spend the day with the King. The King, too, would sometimes return with her to the Leine Palace.
Another important fact must also be mentioned and that is that Madame Walmoden had presented the King with a fine boy, which she, of course, declared to be his. The King was fifty-three, fatuous and ready to believe anything she told him; the birth of this child attached him more to the Walmoden than ever, a consummation she had no doubt calculated upon. Now it came about that one night, when the King was away at Herrenhausen, a muddle-headed gardener with no knowledge of the courtly world and its pretty little ways, stumbled over a ladder in the small hours placed immediately under Madame Walmoden’s window, which looked upon the gardens of the old Leine Schloss, those gardens through which it is said Sophie Dorothea, the mother of George the Second, stole disguised to meet her lover Königsmarck at his lodgings hard by.
The obtuse gardener, instead of leaving the ladder where it was and going his way, officiously thrust his nose into other people’s business, and having carefully examined the ladder—some say it was a rope ladder and fixed to the Walmoden’s window-sill—proceeded to search the gardens, believing as subsequently stated that a robber was planning the removal of the mistress’s jewels. As might have been expected by one less dense he presently discovered a man hiding in some bushes near. This man he seized, and at the same time alarmed the palace guard. This man being placed in the guard room and examined proved as it is stated in one account, “to everyone’s astonishment,” to be a certain officer in the Austrian service named Schulemberg; Captain von der Schulemberg, and certainly not a robber in the ordinary sense of the word. In addition, he was a relative of the Duchess of Kendal—old Melusine von der Schulemberg—the mistress of George the First. How these Hanoverian courtesans and their belongings got mixed up!
Von Schulemberg protested vigorously against his treatment, which he, perhaps, rightly considered a violation of his dignity as a diplomatic envoy from the Court of Vienna, but he did not explain how his diplomatic mission had brought him to the foot of the rope ladder in the Leine Schloss gardens, which ladder led into the bedroom of Madame Walmoden. He, however, made so great a noise in the guard room, striking terror into the heart of the captain of the guard by referring to the vengeance his master, the Austrian Emperor, would exact for this insult to his envoy, that the officer let him go, and he departed into the night, no doubt cursing the gardener.
The story, as may be imagined, was very soon in everybody’s mouth, and Madame Walmoden was thoroughly alarmed; she knew there were plenty to carry the story to the King. But she took her courage in both hands, and did what every woman has done in similar circumstances and will no doubt continue to do as long as women exist on this earth, beloved by natures weaker than their own. She ordered her coach soon after daylight, and by six o’clock was on the road to Herrenhausen to be the first to tell her version of the story to her elderly royal lover.
At Herrenhausen she passed the royal guards who knew her, and went straight to the King’s bedroom. Here she cast herself on her knees by the bed in which little George lay half awakened rubbing his eyes.
She besought him to protect her from insult or allow her to retire from his Court; in a torrent of tears she declared that she loved him, not as a king, but as a man and for himself alone. He must have looked far from loveable at the moment, unshaven and in his nightcap, but these things are never remembered when a pretty and designing woman is making love to a man the wrong side of fifty. George the King rubbed his eyes, and asked for an explanation.
She told him amid her sobs that she was the subject of a dastardly plot, that a certain Madame d’Elitz had caused a ladder to be placed beneath her window, with a view to ruining her with the King.
Now Madame d’Elitz was herself a von der Schulemburg, and was credited by scandal with having been the mistress successively of George the First, George the Second, and Prince Frederick before he came over to England. These achievements, however, are doubted by historians as far as the Prince was concerned, but it is pretty certain she had been the mistress of the two first Georges, father and son. This bringing in of Madame d’Elitz was a stroke of genius, as it opened the door for the Walmoden to tell the King of the arrest of Captain von Schulemberg in the Leine Schloss gardens. It need hardly be said that her story was accepted by King George, who ordered the captain of the Leine Palace Guard to be placed in arrest, and search to be made for von der Schulemberg, that he might be again made prisoner.
THE PALACE OF HERRENHAUSEN, HANOVER.
But here Horace Walpole, the English minister in attendance, secretly interposed; he sent word privately to Schulemberg to be off across the frontier as quickly as he could, and he took care that no obstacles should be put in the way of his doing so, for the last thing, he knew very well, that his brother, Sir Robert, wanted, was trouble with the Austrian Emperor.
And so Madame Walmoden triumphed; but the story spread, even to England, and in Hanover the infantine features of Madame Walmoden’s fine boy were scanned more eagerly than ever for traces of his paternity.
And now, for Queen Caroline in England, a very painful period had commenced. In the first place the Prince of Wales and his wife had taken very unkindly to the restrictions put upon them most unreasonably like two children by the absent King, and not even the influence of Lady Archibald Hamilton could prevent them from showing it.
The commands concerning moving about with the Queen from palace to palace were not complied with, and a very ingeniously arranged succession of illnesses of the Princess utterly defeated the King’s intention. So keenly had the Prince felt the humiliations put upon him by his father in appointing the Queen as Regent instead of himself, that he did not attend the opening of the Commission—which was invariably held when news arrived of the King’s landing on the Continent—but came designedly when the proceedings were over. In this and in many other ways the breach between the Prince and his mother widened, though it must be said that at this time the Queen showed both to him and his wife the utmost patience under very trying circumstances. This was no doubt owing to Walpole, who was, as Prime Minister, very naturally her constant attendant at this time; the patience and good sense of Walpole no doubt kept peace in the Royal Family for a much longer period than it would have been maintained under the counsels of a less sagacious minister, and it is much to be wondered at, that Sir Robert did not use his influence to persuade the King to give the Prince of Wales the full allowance of £100,000 a year to which he was so clearly entitled by the vote of Parliament.
But there was another matter, which was the subject of much discussion at Court and of much pain to the Queen, and this was the hopeless infatuation of the King for Madame Walmoden. It was well known to all the Court that the King had hastened back to Hanover after an interval of only eight months, instead of three years, and that, moreover, he showed no signs of coming back again. But now the Queen was not taking his infidelity with the same calmness which she had shown in former cases; there were signs that her patience was giving out, and that she was losing heart. Her letters were abridged, from the usual four dozen pages to seven or eight; it was this circumstance particularly which alarmed Walpole and others, till at last the rough, uncouth Sir Robert spoke out to her on the subject in perhaps the plainest language in which a subject has ever addressed a King’s wife. He naturally feared with the rest of the Court that her power over the King might die out altogether, especially if she showed any resentment to the infamous conduct of her husband which strangely enough she had never done before. Walpole did not spare her feelings; he reminded her of her age and the beauty of her rival, the Walmoden; he did not scruple to say that the Queen’s attractions had faded, and that she could never expect to regain the ascendency over the King which she had for so long enjoyed. He urged her to resume her long letters to her husband, and to write them in a spirit of humility and submission. Finally, he made the most extraordinary request that has ever been made to a wronged and angry wife; he advised her to write and invite the King to bring back his new mistress to England with him.
No wonder the tears sprang to the Queen’s eyes; but it is said she at once suppressed them, and attracted by the bait of fresh power over her husband temptingly held out by the wily Sir Robert—who wished to get this new mistress of the King into his own power, and under his own eye—the Queen consented to follow his advice.
Then came a time of doubt and apprehension; it was questioned whether the woman in the Queen’s nature would not get the ascendency, and that she would revolt from this vile thing. But she did nothing of the sort; in a few days Walpole had the satisfaction of knowing that the very letter he desired had been sent off to the King. Still Walpole had some distrust of the Queen; she was too calm and too compliant to satisfy him, and he confided to a friend that he could stand the Queen’s anger and reproof, but he was afraid of her when she “daubed” (i.e., flattered).
But the Queen spoke quite calmly of her rival, and actually allotted her rooms in the palace. Moreover, to Walpole’s amazement, she proposed to take her into her own service, no doubt with a view to keeping an eye upon her, as she had done in the case of the King’s former mistress, Lady Suffolk.
But this arrangement Walpole opposed, and she in reply quoted the case of Lady Suffolk; to this Sir Robert rejoined that “there was a difference between the King making a mistress of the Queen’s servant, and making a Queen’s servant of his mistress!”
“The people,” he continued, “might reasonably look upon the first as a very natural condition of things, whilst popular feelings of morality might be outraged by the second.”
The King’s reply to his wife’s letter was just what the old minister had calculated upon; it was full of admiration at his wife’s amiability, and he forthwith proceeded to give her by way of reward glowing descriptions of her rival’s attractions, both of the mind and body. Principally the latter, and he finished up with a fervent tribute to his wife’s virtue, which he longed to imitate, but he excused himself pitifully: “You know my passions, my dear Caroline”—he prided himself on his passions—“you know my weaknesses,” and he finished up with a semi-blasphemous appeal to God that Caroline might cure him of them. But as the Queen had failed to do this as a beautiful young woman, it was rather hopeless to look for a cure that way now that she was fat, getting wrinkled, and nearly fifty-four.
The King about this time also took an opportunity of consulting the Queen on the subject of that very convincing rope ladder which had been discovered dangling from Madame Walmoden’s bedroom window with Captain von der Schulemberg hiding in very close proximity to its earthly end, by which it is supposed that he intended to mount to a very carnal Elysium. Little George was anxious to hear what his wife thought of the matter, which looks very much as if he had not entirely swallowed that very ingenious story sobbed out by the implicated fair one that early morning at Herrenhausen. But much as he valued her opinion, still he advised her to take further advice on the point, as if it were a subject of State importance. He asked her to consult Walpole—who must have been intensely amused, and probably had a good laugh over it with the Queen. Walpole “le gros homme” as he called him, “who,” continued the simple little King, “has more experience in these sort of matters, my dear Caroline, than yourself, and who, in the present affair, must necessarily be less prejudiced than I am.” How they must have roared!
But while the King was wasting his time in Hanover, the Prince and Princess of Wales were growing in popular favour at home, and it must be said that the young couple did their best to further this feeling of the people.
There was slowly and surely growing among the public a feeling of disgust at the King, and it was said by some that it would be better if he remained away in Hanover with his German mistress altogether. Another matter which brought George the Second into disrepute was that it was said he kept several important commissions in the Army vacant, and pocketed the pay attached to them.[37] This was the kind of thing very popular with his late father’s mistresses, Schulemburg and others.
The Queen was greatly commiserated, and indeed was to be pitied under the circumstances, although she had to a great extent brought the trouble on herself by her abominable pandering to her husband’s vices.
Insulting pasquinades now began to make their appearance directed against the King. A lame, blind and aged horse with a saddle and a pillion behind it was sent to wander loose through the streets—in which, of course, there were no police—with a placard tied to its head asking that no one should stop him as he was “the King’s Hanoverian equipage going to fetch His Majesty and his w—— to England.”
But the most insulting of these public notices was that affixed to St. James’s Palace itself and which read as follows:
“Lost or strayed out of this house a man who has left a wife and six children on the Parish. Whoever will give any tidings of him to the Churchwardens of St. James’s Parish so as he may be got again, shall receive four shillings and sixpence reward. N.B.—This reward will not be increased, nobody judging him to deserve a crown.”
Strangely enough the little King was not exasperated with these public satires on his immorality and neglect of his wife. He liked to be considered a Don Juan and a bit of a rake; the only jokes which angered him were those in which he was referred to as a senile libertine, past the age for gallantry.
Meanwhile the friction between Frederick and his mother increased, and was much added to by the conduct of the Princess in arriving late for church on several Sundays, and causing Her Majesty to cease her devotions, rise from her knees, and permit the Princess to squeeze by her—the Queen was very stout and the pew small—to her seat.
This conduct was attributed by those about the Queen to the Prince of Wales, who had designed a studied insult by it, to make his mother look ridiculous, but it is much more likely to have been the thoughtless act of a young girl. However, after two or three Sundays of it, the Queen made arrangements for the Princess to come in at another door. Lord Hervey appears to have been very active in fomenting the disagreement between Queen Caroline and the Prince and Princess of Wales at this time, particularly during a squabble which occurred concerning the removal of Frederick and his wife from Kensington to St. James’s, when they found the dulness of the former place intolerable. The Queen was greatly upset by this, as it is pretty certain that she had received definite orders from her husband not to let the Prince of Wales live in any other palace but that which she inhabited, for the very good reason that he did not want him to set up a separate Court, which would have been in opposition to his own, and in addition, an exceedingly popular one.
The Prince’s letter in reply—written in French—seems to have been a very dutiful one, but was thought to have been written for him by Lord Chesterfield. Lord Hervey unintentionally paid a great compliment to Lord Chesterfield’s accomplishments by saying that the letter might have been written by “Young Pitt,” but was certainly not sufficiently elegant for Lord Chesterfield. It was about this time that the Prince began to sink deeper and deeper into debt, a consequence no doubt of his marriage, and very foolishly began to raise money at enormous interest to be repaid on the death of his father.
This, of course, very soon reached the ears of the Queen, and Lord Hervey appears to have made himself particularly active about the matter. During a discussion which ensued between them the Queen seems to have remarked that she considered the Prince of Wales far too unambitious to wish for the death of his father, to which Hervey replied that if that were so, certainly the feeling did not extend to the Prince’s creditors, who would be immensely benefited by the King’s death. He went so far as to point out that the Sovereign’s life was in jeopardy as a result of the post obits of the Prince of Wales, and suggested that a Bill should be brought into Parliament making it a capital offence for any man to lend money for a premium at the King’s death, and so worked upon the Queen’s feelings that she replied:
“To be sure it ought to be so, and pray talk a little with Sir Robert Walpole about it.”
But Walpole very wisely ignored the suggestion, being, no doubt well aware of the source from which it came; he was far too sagacious to bring the private disputes of the Royal Family before the public.
The Queen then approached the Princess of Wales with a view to engaging her influence to prevent the Prince borrowing money, but the Princess showed her wisdom by declining to take sides against her husband, for which dutiful decision she gained but small thanks from her mother-in-law. But now the King at last decided to tear himself away from Hanover, and at the same time to accept the Queen’s very kindly offer that he should bring his lady love, Madame de Walmoden, to England with him. What an offer from a wife! What a married state for any unfortunate woman to have lived in! King George was in deadly earnest about bringing over his paramour with him, and ordered the apartments lately occupied by Lady Suffolk to be prepared for her, and this it appears, under the Queen’s directions, was done.
This letter of the King was shown to Walpole by Caroline:
“Well now, Sir Robert,” she said, “I hope you are satisfied. You see this minion is coming to England.”
Walpole, however, had evidently received private information from his brother who was Minister in Attendance on the King in Hanover; he shook his head in answer to the Queen’s remark, and said he did not believe that the Walmoden would come, and that, in his opinion, she was afraid of the Queen.
He was quite right; at the last moment, Madame de Walmoden changed her mind—if she really had had any intention of coming—and decided to remain in Hanover; she had no fancy for crossing swords with Caroline. So King George set off in a huff by himself for Helvetsluis en route for home.
The Prince of Wales, meanwhile, had been steadily gaining in popular favour, while it was known that the King had been squandering large sums of money—English money for the most part—in Hanover on German women, a fact which greatly disgusted his English subjects. Frederick very judiciously gave £500 to the Lord Mayor for the purpose of releasing poor freemen of the city from debtors’ prisons. This was particularly exasperating to the Queen, Hervey and other members of the Court party, who knew that this £500 was probably borrowed at usurious interest on a post obit of the King. Frederick and his wife, however, went placidly on their way, leaving their suite at Kensington, where the Queen was, and themselves coming into town and holding a little Court of their own, which was the very thing the little King had tried to prevent.
It may have been reports of these matters, and the growing discontent at his absence which caused the King to hasten to Helvetsluis—he left Hanover on December 7th after a ball and farewell supper at Herrenhausen, without even stopping at the Hague to see his daughter Anne, Princess of Orange, who was at that time at death’s door after the death of a still-born daughter, and had sent him an urgent message to come to her. But George was not a feeling parent, and, above all, disliked anything to do with children.
And now occurred an event which caused in England both consternation and satisfaction; consternation to the Queen and the Court party—Hervey and his like particularly felt it—and satisfaction to the bulk of the English people, who had had quite sufficient of George the Second and his doings and who ardently desired the accession to the throne of their favourite the Prince of Wales.
The wind being fair, and the King being reported arrived at Helvetsluis and about to embark, a terrific hurricane arose in the channel in which it was considered impossible that the Royal Yacht could have lived. Wagers were freely laid in London against the King ever setting foot in his kingdom of England again. The possibilities of the future began to be very freely discussed, even in the Royal Family, and the Queen’s confidant showed decided signs of trimming. The Queen was greatly alarmed, and even imagined that she saw in Frederick signs of satisfaction; she now roundly abused her son to Hervey, saying: “Mon Dieu! Popularity always makes me feel sick, but Fritz’s popularity makes me vomit.”
The Prince, however, appears to have conducted himself very moderately during this period, and to have had every consideration for his mother. Not one infilial remark is recorded of him at this crisis, and if he had made one it is pretty certain to have been noted by his enemy Hervey in his letters, which did not omit much, true or false, which was to the Prince’s discredit.
The Princesses, his sisters, who had been his enemies also, were appalled at the prospect of his becoming King, and one of them declared that it was her intention to depart “au grand galop.” The state of uncertainty as to the King’s safety continued for over a week, during which the fears of the Queen and her party were increased by the news that the sound of guns booming far away in the channel as if fired by ships in distress had been heard from Harwich.
Things began to look very black indeed, and it was thought necessary for the Prince to prepare his mother for the worst, and Lord Hervey also hinted that he thought the King’s case was hopeless.
But the citizens of London who idolized the Prince and Princess of Wales were secretly delighted, and would not have been averse to hearing that the Walmoden was on Board the Royal Yacht with the King. But at the gloomiest moment, a courier who had risked his life in the awful tempest with the crew of the vessel in which he sailed especially to carry a letter to the Queen was “miraculously,” as it was excitedly stated, flung ashore at Yarmouth, and came post haste to London with the news that the King had not embarked at all, but was waiting for fine weather at Helvetsluis. This courageous messenger and the still more courageous crew of the vessel had been three days at sea with the wind in their teeth and their opportune landing was spoken of by mariners in the terms mentioned above.
The Queen showed great joy at hearing everybody cry “The King is safe! the King is safe!” when the courier in his muddy boots arrived, but it was a terrible shock to the partisans of the Prince, and his friends in the City could with difficulty muster up the necessary congratulations.
The Queen who had shown an outward calm during the crisis now expressed herself joyously in characteristic terms:—
“J’ai toujours dit que le Roi n’était pas embarque;” she exclaimed. “On a beau voulu m’effraier cet après-diner avec leur letters, et leur sots, gens de Harwich; j’ai continue à lire mon Rollin, et me moquois de tout cela.”
This was a hit at Frederick who had brought her the news from Harwich in a letter. Rollin was one of her favourite books. But strange to say the matter by no means ended here. Fine weather came with an easterly wind which was just what the King wanted, and matters looked perfectly settled for his return, but it was not so. Scarcely had this fine spell lasted long enough to allow the King time to embark when the wind veered to the north-west and blew again an awful hurricane, worse if possible than the former one which had caused such grave anxiety at the Court. This was on the 20th of December, 1736, and no doubt whatever was now held that the King had embarked as indeed he had. From the 20th to the 24th there was no news of him at all, but on the latter date tidings arrived which were far from reassuring. A shattered mastless sloop was thrown up on the coast, having on board a party of clerks from the Secretary’s office of the King, and these stated that they had sailed with His Majesty from Helvetsluis on the previous Monday, and that they had remained with the rest of the fleet until the storm arose when the Admiral, Sir Charles Wager, had made the signal for each ship to look after itself. When the passengers of the sloop last saw the Royal Yacht, she was “tacking about” with a view apparently to make an endeavour to return to Helvetsluis. So grave was this news considered, that Sir Robert Walpole prevented the Queen from interviewing these shipwrecked clerks. Once more were the hopes and exultations of the Court Party ruthlessly shattered; once more did the partisans of the Prince with his stout friends in the city rub their hands in dark corners. This time the Queen was thoroughly alarmed, and showed it in her countenance. The next day, Christmas Day, was perhaps the gloomiest in men’s knowledge at that time. On this day, probably in the early morning, four ships of the King’s convoy were thrown up in a mastless condition on the coast, and the only account of the King which they could give, was that about six o’clock on the Monday night, the 20th December, a gun was fired by Sir Charles Wager’s order as a signal for the fleet to separate; a kind of sauve qui peut. That the wind continued in its full violence for forty-eight hours after this. One of the letters containing this intelligence was brought by Lord Augustus Fitzroy, second son of the Duke of Grafton, who, though only twenty years of age, was Captain of a man-of-war, “The Eltham,” which had succeeded with great difficulty in getting into Margate that Christmas morning.
This further news was kept from the Queen altogether, and that evening a sad party sat down in the Palace of St. James’s to pretend to play cards, while every ear was strained to catch the least sound which might be the precursor of the news of the King’s death. In basset and cribbage was that Christmas night passed by the Queen, while Sir Robert Walpole, the Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle, Montagu, Devonshire and Richmond, with Lord Hervey, talked of everything they could think of, but the King’s danger, or walked moodily up and down in the shadows.
But the next morning, the 26th, Sir Robert Walpole came to the Queen at nine o’clock and told her all. Then her fortitude gave way and she wept, but not for long. She dried her tears and expressed her intention of going to church—it was a Sunday. This resolve Sir Robert considered most injudicious as it would make the Queen an object of curiosity in public, which in her disturbed state was not desirable. It did not seem to strike this old heathen that she went there to pray, and even if it had, he would have been quite wrong, as the Queen’s own expressed reason was that she would not give up hope, and believe her husband drowned until it became a certainty. That her stopping away from Church would have been construed into an admission of the King’s death. However, all her doubts were ended during the service, as once more an express arrived from the King to tell her he was safe and sound, but had been terribly sea-sick. That after setting sail from Helvetsluis on the previous Monday morning at eight o’clock, he had with difficulty regained that port at three on the following afternoon.
The King blamed Sir Charles Wager for the whole business, and said the Admiral had hurried him on board against his will, whereas, in truth it was the King who was impatient, and who had said that unless the Admiral would sail, he would go over in a packet boat rather than endure Helvetsluis any longer.
“Be the weather what it may,” concluded the irascible little King, “I am not afraid.”
“I am,” laconically responded the Admiral.
George persisted.
“I want to see a storm,” continued the King, “and would rather be twelve hours in one than shut up twenty-four in Helvetsluis.”
“Twelve hours in a storm,” replied the rough and ready Admiral, “four hours would do your business for you.”
The Admiral refused to sail until the wind was fair, clinching the argument by remarking that though the King might make him go, “I,” concluded Sir Charles with satisfaction, “can make you come back again.”
And he did bring him back again, for which the King ought to have been eternally grateful to him, for it was only the splendid seamanship of the Admiral which saved him.
“Sir,” remarked Sir Charles, when they did get back, “you wished to see a storm, how did your Majesty like it?”
“So well,” answered the King, no doubt with a most rueful countenance, for he had been fearfully sick, “that I never wish to see another!”
The Admiral remarked in a letter to a friend at the time: “His Majesty was at present as tame as any about him.”
“An epithet,” comments Lord Hervey who had read the letter, “that his Majesty, had he known it, would, I fancy, have liked, next to the storm, the least of anything that happened to him.”
But there were many of these letters came to the Court by the same ship which brought the King’s, and the above passage of words between George and the Admiral was well known in the King’s suite at Helvetsluis, therefore when the Queen walked about with the King’s letter in her hand praising her husband’s patience, and condemning Admiral Wager as the cause of all their apprehension, it was somewhat difficult for the couriers to keep their countenances when they realized the King’s wilful mendacity to his wife.
All the hopes of the Prince’s party were now crushed, but it is not recorded by Lord Hervey that Frederick gave vent to any other remark but that of thankfulness for his father’s return.
His followers, and especially those in the city, while expressing their thankfulness, qualified it; the common expression in referring to the King’s escape was—“It’s the mercy of God, but a thousand pities!”
It is to be feared that had they heard that the Royal Yacht with the King and Madame Walmoden on board, had sunk in mid-Channel, the expression of their thanks might have been the same without the concluding sentence.
The catch query at the time of this voyage was:
“How’s the wind for the King?”
And the popular answer was:—“Like the nation, against him.”
The danger over, the Queen confided her feelings to her almost inseparable companion the Vice-Chamberlain, Lord Hervey; after telling him of her affection for him—it was a motherly affection, she was fifty-three,—and the pleasure his society gave her she added:
“You and yours should have gone with me to Somerset House[38] and though I have neither so good an apartment there for you as you have here, nor an employment worth your taking, I should have lodged you as well as I could, and given you at least as much as you have now from the King.”
The Queen, however, wrote a very dutiful and tender letter to the King, full of art and flattery, but it seems to have touched George’s heart deeply; perhaps in those twelve hours of tossing in the storms of the Channel, the little man had thought seriously of the foolishness of leaving so good a wife, that in the search after happiness, he was leaving the substance in Caroline—and she was certainly substantial—for the elusive shadow in the Walmoden; anyhow he wrote his Queen a most remarkable letter of thirty pages, more the effusion of an eager lover than an old man for his wife.
“In spite of all the danger I have incurred in this tempest, my dear Caroline,” he wrote, “and notwithstanding all I have suffered, having been ill to an excess which I thought the human body could not bear, I assure you that I would expose myself to it again and again to have the pleasure of hearing the testimonies of your affection, with which my position inspired you. This affection which you testify for me, this friendship, this fidelity, the inexhaustible goodness which you show for me, and the indulgence which you have for all my weaknesses, are so many obligations, which I can never sufficiently recompense, can never sufficiently merit, but which I also can never forget.”[39]
Certainly the storm had shaken the little man very much and left him in a condition which would have proved weak in the crisis which arose after his return, had he not been supported on the one hand by Walpole and on the other by his ever scheming Queen.