FOOTNOTES:
[12] Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious.”
[13] Suffolk Letters. Wilkins.
[14] “Madge Bellenden, the tallest of the land, and smiling Mary soft and fair as down.”
[15] Coxe’s “Walpole.”
CHAPTER V.
A Double Event Which Did Not Come Off.
In the reign of George the First there had commenced an important negotiation between that King and Frederick William, King of Prussia, having for its object the union of the two royal houses by a double marriage, Prince Frederick Louis, King George’s grandson, was to wed with Wilhelmina, the Princess Royal of Prussia; the Prince Royal of Prussia was to marry the Princess Amelia, sister of Prince Frederick, afterwards Frederick the Great.
This arrangement had been most eagerly fostered by Sophia Dorothy, daughter of George the First, who had espoused the King of Prussia; the negotiations had reached such a successful stage that King George had promised that the nuptials of his grandson with the Princess Wilhelmina should be celebrated at his next visit to Hanover, but his death had prevented the fulfilment of his promise.
There had also been another reason which had tended to delay the marriage, and this had been the sudden secession of King Frederick William of Prussia from the Treaty of Hanover, and this had greatly offended his father-in-law, King George of England.
Other obstacles cropped up, too, at the accession of George the Second, who had, from his earliest years, conceived an intense dislike for his cousin, the Prussian King. This was the subject of a most intense regret on Queen Sophia Dorothy’s part, who had schemed for the union of her daughter Wilhelmina with Prince Frederick for years.
As for Prince Frederick himself, there is little doubt that although he had never seen her, yet he had in a romantic way fallen in love with his cousin Wilhelmina. This was quite a natural phase of his sanguine, artistic character. One can quite understand that his aunt, the Queen of Prussia, had not neglected any of those little manœuvres by which the hearts of young men are moved. She was simply a match-making mother, and was quite cognizant of the fact that Frederick would, if he lived, inherit the Crown of England.
In addition, there was another very strong reason why she should use every endeavour to get her two children settled and away, and that was the extreme brutality of their father, the Prussian King, towards them, who even did not scruple to beat them severely.
If, however, Prince Frederick had fallen in love with the Princess Wilhelmina’s miniature—no doubt the Prussian Queen saw that he had a good one—the Princess, if her Memoirs are to be believed, had conceived no passion for him, but against this she certainly showed feeling when the dénouement came, as women will when they lose a lover.
Her mother had argued with her as to the advantages of the match, as no doubt royal mothers will:
“He is a good-natured Prince,” she urged, “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.”
This art of “tolerating mistresses” seems to be an accomplishment which has been much sought after both by ancient and modern Queens. But this was hardly the kind of argument to foster a romantic passion; yet, on the other hand, Frederick had not exactly constituted himself by reputation the perfect lover.
Left alone in Hanover, almost in regal state, as it was understood there, for he held all the Levees and Courts in the absence of his grandfather, he had run very wild, which was no more than could have been expected under the circumstances.
But for the periodical visits of his grandfather from England, Frederick seems to have been left very much to himself, and with such brilliant examples before him as his father and grandfather, it is not at all to be wondered at that he had mistresses and made a fool of himself generally.
He appears, however, to have been very good friends with his grandfather, King George, and to have taken his part against his father and mother in the quarrels which arose between them and which formed one of the principal scandals of the Court of St. James’s. This conduct on his part did not tend to endear him to his parents, but no doubt he felt himself aggrieved at being left so long neglected in Hanover, and, in addition, he only heard his grandfather’s version of the quarrels.
Prince Frederick then being turned twenty-one, and imagining himself to be passionately in love with his cousin Wilhelmina, could ill brook the diplomatic delays of his father and grandfather.
It must have been a heavy blow to his hopes when the latter died on his way to Hanover, and his promise to have the nuptials of Frederick and Wilhelmina celebrated on his arrival of course fell to the ground. Neither did his successor, George the Second, seem at all in a hurry to have the marriage solemnized, and the delay to a young man of Frederick’s temperament must have been very galling.
It is not at all surprising, therefore, that after waiting more than a year after the death of George the First, he took the matter into his own hands. He determined to get married to his cousin without consulting anyone. For this purpose he contrived an elaborate scheme, and eventually despatched to Berlin a certain trusty Hanoverian officer named La Motte or La Mothe.
This man was charged with a mission to a certain Sastot, a chamberlain of the Queen of Prussia, and probably one who had acted as an agent for her in this matter before. The story cannot be better given than in the very words of the young lady herself, Princess Wilhelmina, as recorded in her diary. La Motte made his appearance at the house of Sastot, and communicated to him the following intelligence:
“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 La Motte, “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.”
Surely this was a most romantic proposal for the good Sastot to listen to!
“He has entrusted me,” proceeded La Motte, “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?”
That very night the Chamberlain Sastot went to the Queen and confided the weighty secret to her as he had promised La Motte.
To the Queen, who had been scheming for years for this very object, Sastot could not well have brought better news.
“I shall at length see you happy and my wishes realized at the same time; how much joy at once.”
Such are the words which the Princess Wilhelmina records of her mother when breaking the news to her.
But the Princess, according to her own account, was by no means overjoyed at the intelligence:
“I kissed her hands,” says Wilhelmina, “which I covered with tears!”
“You are crying!” my mother exclaimed, “what is the matter?”
Here Wilhelmina becomes a little double-faced.
“I would not disturb her happiness,” she writes, “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 continues, “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.” Very pious of the Princess indeed!
The Queen, however, went on her way rejoicing, knowing, perhaps, rather more of her daughter’s disposition and therefore troubling less about her tears.
She was evidently brimming over with high spirits at the Reception which she held that very evening, a most unlucky Reception for her schemes as it turned out. This excellent match-making aunt of Prince Frederick was fated to suffer a terrible disappointment that evening. In a burst of almost incredible confidence she told Bourguait, the English Envoy, the whole plan of Prince Frederick!
The Envoy was astounded at the communication, and asked if it were true.
“Certainly,” replied the Queen, “and to show you how true it is, he has sent La Motte 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 Bourguait.
“Why?” asked the dismayed Queen.
“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!”
He was as good as his word, and the messenger went off that night despite the Queen’s tears.
A good strong man this Bourguait; one not to be moved from his duty by even a Queen, for she no doubt left no stone unturned to divert him from a purpose which would render abortive her years of scheming.
The effects of the message to England were startling.
King George the Second and his Queen Caroline, who had kept their eldest son away from England for fourteen years, and had resisted every persuasion of their Ministers to bring him over, hesitated no longer; a Colonel Lorne was despatched at once to Herrenhausen to bring the Prince to London. He lost no time on the journey, and appeared at Herrenhausen while a ball given by Prince Frederick was in progress. This function, however, interfered in no way with Colonel Lorne’s commands; he induced the Prince to leave Herrenhausen that very night with but one attendant, and Frederick turned his back upon a home which had sheltered him for many years, although it was in a sense no home at all, and in this life saw it no more.
But when the news of the King of England’s coup and the departure of the Prince reached Berlin, the Royal Palace became no fit place for Christians to live in.
The Queen took to her bed, and the Princess Wilhelmina, like other young ladies when they lose their lovers, fainted away, only to come to, apparently and write in her diary “the whole thing was a plot of George the Second,” which sounds very much like the remark of an angry and disappointed young lady, instead of one who wished us to believe that she was inspired with repugnance for Prince Frederick.
Her father, the King, however, who was in a towering rage at the course events had taken, was evidently not in the habit of wasting a good fit of temper on mere fuming. He appeared on the scene and soundly thrashed both Wilhelmina and her brother Frederick, Mr. Wilkins says, “in a shocking manner.”
And the double marriage scheme ended thus ignominiously!
CHAPTER VI.
The Prince and the London of 1728.
Prince Frederick, accompanied by Colonel Lorne and a single servant, traversed Germany and Holland as a private gentleman, and embarked at Helvetsluis for England in the first days of December, 1728.
Never has a tamer arrival of an Heir-apparent been chronicled in history than this coming of the Prince to London. Here is the brief notice of it in the Daily Post of the 8th December, 1728:
“Yesterday 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.”
There! no reception of any sort, no guards turning out, no escort, no tap of drum! It was more like the coming of the Court hairdresser to curl Her Majesty’s wig!
It is said, however, that his mother received him amiably,—after fourteen years’ separation! His father, however, treated him with great harshness. “George,” says Mr. Wilkins, “had an unnatural and deep-rooted aversion to his eldest son, whom he regarded as necessarily his enemy.”
Certainly the boy—for he was little more—had come home in a sort of disgrace, he had been detected in scheming to run away with a young lady, but he had been checkmated, and the matter was ended. Certainly if there grew up in the after time a feeling of resentment against his parents in the Prince’s heart, he had some reason for it. It is agreed on all hands that he never had a chance, and that which might have proved a loving nature—and it was a loving nature as will be shown later on—was warped by ill-treatment and neglect into callousness and depravity.
To a Prince naturally of a nervous and shy disposition this reception in a strange land must have been most painful, especially when one remembers that most of the slights were received from those who ought to have shown him the most affection and consideration.
Lord Hervey gives an insight into the kind of life he led when he first arrived. He says:
“Whenever the Prince was in the room with him (i.e., 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.”
According to Mr. Wilkins, “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 at the English Court.”
One can imagine those naughty maids-of-honour in their boarded-up pew in the gallery—perhaps poor Anne Vane there with them—saying anything but their prayers at their enclosed condition, which prevented them having a good look at the Prince. But if they did happen to catch a glimpse of him this is what they saw according to a contemporary letter of Lady Bristol, who describes him as “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 which is indescribable, and the most obliging address that can be conceived.”
Her account of him, however, falls far short of that which is generally accepted as being a description of his appearance in Smollett’s “Peregrine Pickle,” which depicts him at a Court ball; but as this was evidently some time after his arrival—as it is an event connected with his intrigue with Miss Vane—it is quite likely that he may have had time to add to his stature by natural growth. At a later period he was distinctly and creditably described as being tall. This is Smollett’s version:
“He was dressed in a coat of white cloth, faced with blue satin embroidered with silver, of the same piece with his waistcoat; his fine hair hung down his back in ringlets below his waist; his hat was laced with silver and garnished with a white feather; but his person beggared all description: he was tall and graceful, neither corpulent nor meagre, his limbs finely proportioned, his countenance open and majestic, his eyes full of sweetness and vivacity, his teeth regular, and his pouting lips of the complexion of the damask rose. In short, he was formed for love and inspired it wherever he appeared; nor was he a niggard of his talents, but liberally returned it, at least what passed for such; for he had a flow of gallantry for which many ladies of this land can vouch from their own experience.”
It must be remembered in reading above description of him, that he inherited his mother’s beautiful fair hair and complexion.
The Court poets were not behindhand with their fulsome verses concerning him, of which this is a sample:
“Fresh as a rosebud newly blown and fair
As opening 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?”
Britain’s first hope apparently was George II.
But probably as regards his appearance when he first came to England, Lady Bristol was nearest the mark, though there is no doubt that from this time forward he steadily improved both in stature and in handsomeness of person. Another description of him which will appear in due course will give an idea of the dignity and stateliness to which he attained in his maturer years.
Prince Frederick came from the obscure old town of Hanover with its narrow streets and tall gabled houses to what was then, as it is now, one of the great capitals of the world, London. But yet a very different London to that of our own time. A London of streets narrow and paved with cobbles, unlit save for a few dim swinging oil lamps held across the streets by ropes, leaving the intervening spaces in darkness, so that in winter time a man with a link or torch was an absolute necessity.
The busy London, the shopping London lay principally between Fleet Street and the end of Cheapside. Ludgate Hill was an especially favourite place for dress-buying ladies. As for what we call the “West End” it did not exist, Westminster being a separate town, and between it and London City large expanses of waste land.
Mr. Wilkins gives a good account of the Court and its environs. He says:
“The political and fashionable life of London collected round St. James’s and the Mall. St. James’s Park was the fashionable promenade; it was lined with avenues of trees, and ornamented with a long canal and a duck pond. St. James’s Palace was much as it is now, and old Marlborough House (the residence at that time of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough) occupied the site of the present one; but on the site of Buckingham Palace stood Buckingham House, the seat of the powerful Duke of Buckingham, a stately mansion which the Duke had built in a ‘little wilderness full of blackbirds and nightingales.’ In St. James’s Street were the most frequented and fashionable coffee and chocolate houses, and also a few select ‘mug houses.’ Quaint signs, elaborately painted, carved and gilded, overhung the streets and largely took the place of numbers; houses were known as ‘The Blue Boar,’ ‘The Pig and Whistle,’ ‘The Merry Maidens,’ ‘The Red Bodice,’ and so forth.”
Piccadilly was practically a country road with a few mansions here and there. It ended in Hyde Park, then a wild heath.
Marylebone on the west, and Stepney on the east, were distinct villages some distance away; while as for the south, London appears to have ended at London Bridge, although the “Old Tabard” Inn in the Borough must certainly have existed at that time.
Bloomsbury, Soho and Seven Dials were fashionable suburbs, occupying, perhaps, much the same position as Kensington did fifty years ago. Grosvenor Square had been begun some twelve years, and was probably fairly covered by houses.
The most popular and agreeable mode of communication between London and the Court was by the Thames, and a stately barge with liveried rowers was as much a part of a nobleman’s equipment as his carriage or his “chair.” Very pretty must have been the appearance of the Thames at that time, although there was no Thames Embankment to view it from.
The streets at night were manifestly unsafe, being infested by a description of drunken young blackguards known as “Mohocks,” who apparently “squared” the equally drunken watchmen, and insulted women with impunity.
The public conveyance seems to have been of much the same description as that which one recollects in one’s youth in the shape of the ancient growler, musty and full of damp straw to keep the feet warm, but represented then by a rumbling old disused coach, very mouldy, with straw as above, and in which it must have been a great treat to traverse the irregular cobbles of the metropolitan streets. But with all its drawbacks London of 1728 rose immeasurably superior to London of the twentieth century in one respect, and one respect only. It had no fogs.
The streets apparently rang with more or less agreeable cries of itinerant traders, among which the still familiar cry of the milkman—or perhaps milk-girl—and the tinkle of the muffin bell must even then have been well established. There were, however, other street cries which are unknown to us in the present day, those of the professional rat-catcher and the street gambler, which latter apparently stood in the gutter and rattled a dice-box as an invitation to passers by to come and have a throw, an invitation which, in all probability, ended in disaster to the unwary who accepted it.
Drunkenness, too, was very rife among all classes, the following inscription on a public-house being a fair sample of the tastes of the people:
“Drunk for one penny.
Dead drunk for two pence.
Clean straw for nothing.”[16]
As regards the time for meals in fashionable circles in those days, there was really little difference between those times and our own except that the meals were called by different names.
Dinner was taken in the middle of the day or a little later, which would very well correspond to our luncheon. As for the afternoon, why ladies of quality did very much the same then as they do now; they were trotted about in their sedan-chairs or coaches from one friend’s house to another drinking “dishes” of tea at each and destroying their nervous systems just as they do in 1911. Supper was the most pleasant meal of the day, and might well be set down to correspond with the very late dinner hour of the fashionable world at the present time.
So the world—the beau monde at any rate—has gone on for nearly two hundred years with but very little variation in its feeding time at any rate.
Very much the same might be said of the life in St. James’s Street as it is lived at the present time. There was no electric light, but the scene must have been very much more brilliant especially at night. The men-about-town of those days dressed in silks, satins, and velvets of varied colours, heavily laced with gold. Their sword hilts were either of gold or silver and very often jewelled. They carried in their hands long canes frequently jewelled too, and to add to the stateliness of their appearance they either wore white wigs or had their own hair powdered. The coffee and chocolate houses of St. James’s Street of those days, when full of their patrons, must have presented scenes worth looking upon. White’s Chocolate House was the principal, and the Cocoa Tree its rival, both represented at the present time by clubs of almost identical names. Of clubs, as we understand them, there were none in the year 1728, if we except such as the “October Club” and the “Hell Fire Club,” the former composed of old Jacobite squires who probably met at an inn, and the latter the drunken desecrators of Medmenhain Abbey on the Thames, neither of which societies had a club house as we understand it.
As for the ladies, they outrivalled the sterner sex, as they should do, in the splendour of their attire. They wore powder, patches and hoops—the latter a revival apparently of Elizabeth’s day—which grew in size with the progression of the Georges, until fashion took a sudden revulsion in the days of the last, and left them off altogether, which was considered at the time highly indelicate.
In the earlier period referred to ladies did not scruple to walk abroad with their dresses even more than decolletée, a custom which possibly was not long persevered in on account of the climate. Ladies of the present day will rejoice to hear that enormous muffs were carried.
To sum up this topic so interesting to the softer sex, ladies at that time wore just as many furs and feathers, silks and satins, jewels and fine laces, as they do at the present day, and the craving after them, the debts incurred in their procuring, wrought them, possibly, quite as much harm, and were the cause, no doubt, of just as many broken marriage vows.
The world is very much the same at all times, except that now and then we take on a little extra enamel, which we call civilization, to hide our natural barbarism for a time, as the Greeks and the Romans and the Egyptians before them did—these latter even to having their hollow teeth gold-crowned as we do—until some upheaval from within, or a crushing blow from without, breaks the thin crust, and leaves us just the natural savages we were at first.