A forgotten Prince of Wales

by Henry Curties

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES, AND HIS SISTERS	[Frontispiece]
LEINE PALACE, HANOVER	Facing page [10]
MARY BELLENDEN	[28]
GEORGE II.	[40]
LORD HERVEY	[96]
MARY LEPEL	[108]
PRINCESS AUGUSTA	[136]
MARY BELLENDEN, DUCHESS OF ARGYLL	[146]
THE PALACE OF HERRENHAUSEN, HANOVER	[156]
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE	[192]
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH	[240]
QUEEN CAROLINE, AND THE YOUNG DUKE OF CUMBERLAND	[262]
PRINCE GEORGE AND PRINCE EDWARD	[346]
BUBB DODDINGTON	[368]

A FORGOTTEN PRINCE OF WALES.

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CHAPTER I.
Which Seizes upon the Prince as he comes into the World.

On the fourth day of cold February in that cold town of Hanover, in the year 1707, of a brilliant and beautiful young mother, in the great palace on the little river Leine, was born—perhaps it would be more correct to say crept into the world, for there was so little noise about it—a Prince of whom in after years his father remarked: “My dear first-born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar and the greatest canaille and the greatest beast in the whole world, and I heartily wish he was out of it.”[1] If this worthy parent—who by-the-bye was no less a personage than King George the Second of England at the time of speaking—had any reason or truth in this most fatherly comment with its charitable tail-piece by way of benediction, then must this little German potentate—by accident King of England—have been gifted in addition to his other fine and gentlemanly qualities of perception, with the power of divining the future, for his dislike, nay, his inveterate hatred, of this little vaunted first-born son commenced at his earliest years. Why, the good God alone knows, for certainly none of His creatures have ever up to the present time succeeded in discovering the cause.

The beautiful young mother then, Caroline, a Princess of Brandenburg-Ansbach, commonly called “Caroline of Ansbach,” married but a year to her George Augustus—only the Electoral Prince[2] at that time—lay happy in her bed in the palace, with her baby beside her, whilst the cold river ran without and the winter winds blew among the dear orange trees in the gardens she was so fond of two miles away at Herrenhausen, and very few people in Hanover and still fewer in England knew that a possible future Prince of Wales had been born into the world, for perhaps after all, very few people very much cared. Anne of England was still on the throne.

So quiet had this matter been kept and so great a surprise was the event that Howe, the English Envoy, wrote home in the following strain:—

“This Court having for some time past almost despaired of the Princess Electoral being brought to bed, and most people apprehensive that her bigness, which has continued for so long, was rather an effect of a distemper than that she was with child, her Highness was taken ill last Friday at dinner, and last night, about seven o’clock, the Countess d’Eke, her lady of the bedchamber, sent me word that the Princess was delivered of a son.”[3]

On the 25th February Howe writes again complaining bitterly like a wicked fairy in a children’s tale, that he has not been invited to the christening which had taken place a few days after the birth in the young mother’s bedroom, when the child had received the names of Frederick Louis. Furthermore, he had not been allowed to see the baby—and presumably to kiss it—until ten days later! This visit, however, appears to have mollified him, for he bursts forth into description: “I found the women,” he says, “all admiring the largeness and strength of the child.”

One can see them doing it, and the dry old Envoy—it is presumed he was a bachelor as he makes no mention of his wife—looking on, and as much at sea with regard to the “points” of a fine baby as a midwife would be at a horse show.

But this unusual secrecy about the birth—which was attributed to the child’s grandfather the Elector, afterwards George the First of England, who was not on the best of terms with Anne our reigning Queen—had another aspect. It was an age of suspicion, suspicion especially of substituted heirs, and the foolishness of not inviting the English Envoy to the birth according to custom, revolting as it would have been to a young modest wife, might have seriously prejudiced the child’s future had he not been born with, and had to struggle against, so many of those distinctive bad qualities so carefully nurtured and indulged by his father and grandfather. On a later occasion his father remarked to his mother a propos of these: “Mais vous voyez mes passions ma chère Caroline. Vous connaissez mes foiblesses.” Yes, that affectionate and long-suffering lady did know his “foiblesses” before she had been his wife very long. Thoroughly to appreciate the nest into which this unfortunate little Prince was born and christened, it is necessary to turn for a moment to the habits and customs of his father and grandfather.

Taking the latter first, the Elector and future King of England was in the habit of retaining without any concealment whatever a minimum of three mistresses. These ladies, this considerate old father-in-law expected his son’s wife to receive and treat with civility, and strange to say Caroline the Princess Electoral did it. Poor soul! She had much more than that to wink at on her own account before long owing to the before-mentioned “foiblesses” of her little husband.

The chief of her father-in-law the Elector’s little harem was a lady of the name of Schulemburg, of an ancient but poor family, who had occupied her exalted position almost from a very plain girlhood, and whose name became subsequently very well known in England.

The first George never distinguished himself as a seeker after beauty. The Schulemburg is described as a tall, thin person, quite bald, wearing a very ugly red wig, and with an uncomely face much marked with the smallpox. This disfigurement she endeavoured to cover with paint with shocking results.

The lady occupying the second position in the seraglio who bore the euphonic name of Kielmansegge, and was the separated wife of a Hamburg merchant, was of exactly opposite dimensions, bulking large with great unwieldiness, she, however, had no need to redden her cheeks, being gifted by Nature with a plenteous colour which she vainly endeavoured to assuage with layers of white powder.

The advent of this Ruler in public with either or both of these fascinating ladies under his immediate protection must have added considerably to his Electoral dignity.

The third of this honourable trio was, strange to say, a beautiful young woman, the Countess Platen, married to a man whose family seems to have provided courtesans for princes for generations, but it was so far to the Count Platen’s credit that when his wife openly became the Elector’s mistress he separated from her. This lady seems to have simply thrust herself into the old Elector’s arms, and appears for a time, at least, to have absorbed most of his superfluous elderly affection.

But about the time that little Prince Frederick Louis, the subject of these Memoirs, was about two years old, a little sister—Anne, named apparently after the Queen of England—having joined him in the nursery, a certain couple of adventurers—for they were nothing better—Henry Howard, third son of the Earl of Suffolk, with his pretty but unscrupulous wife Henrietta, made their appearance at the Court of Hanover. They had come, like many others from England, to throw in their lot with the Elector and his chances of becoming King of England, which at that time were none too sure, but still a good sporting chance.

Henry Howard and his wife had come like the others to better their fortunes, which apparently in their case had arrived at that stage when they could not well be much worse.

It is reported that so short of money were they on their arrival that Mrs. Howard had to cut off her beautiful hair and sell it—her glory!—to provide a conciliatory banquet for some powerful Hanoverian acquaintances. One can almost add a tear to those she surely shed over the shorn locks in private. But the loss of her hair does not appear to have handicapped her in any way from the point of view of fascination. She quickly ingratiated herself with the Elector’s aged mother, Sophia, granddaughter of James the First of England, and Protestant heiress of England by Act of Parliament, talked English with her, and became one of her intimate friends. From this, it was but a step to the favour of Caroline, the wife of the Elector’s son, and Mrs. Hettie Howard was by no means the kind of lady to let grass grow under her feet. She was said to be a great adept at flattery, knowing just how much to tickle the ears of Royalty with Electoral Royalty. She tickled to such effect that she soon became one of the Princess’s ladies-in-waiting, and as such no doubt had the privilege of dandling our Prince Frederick as an infant in her arms.

But apparently she had not as yet hit her mark; it was at the heart of the little Prince’s father that her darts were aimed, and certainly never was a target more ready to receive them. George Augustus had ever posed as a lady’s man, yet this incident was possibly the first which opened the eyes of his young wife to his subsequently deplored “foiblesses.” The Electoral Prince followed in the exemplary footsteps of his father, the Elector; he started the nucleus of a harem, and Mrs. Hettie Howard obligingly became the nucleus! One more good example to set before the little Prince when his eyes—and ears—should open to understand the wicked things of this world!

The comment of George Augustus’s aged grandmother the Electress on this arrangement—with which, by-the-bye, she was rather pleased—was quite German and appropriate. “Ah!” she remarked, “it will improve his English.”

Though the position of the House of Hanover at this time with regard to the throne of England was considered to be good, yet it was by no means sure. The two following letters will, perhaps, throw some light on the period.

The first is from Leibnitz, a savant attached to the Court of Hanover, but at that time in Vienna, and is addressed to Caroline, the Electoral Princess, whom he had known as a brilliant girl under the wing of her aunt Sophia Charlotte, sister of George, at the Court of Berlin.

“Vienna,
“December 16th, 1713.

“I have not troubled your Highness with letters since I left Hanover, as I had nothing of interest to tell you, but I must not neglect the opportunity which this season gives me of assuring your Highness of my perpetual devotion, and I pray God to grant you the same measure of years as the Electress enjoys, and the same good health. And I pray also that you may one day enjoy the title of Queen of England so well worn by Queen Elizabeth which you so highly merit.

“Consequently, I wish the same good things to his Highness, your Consort, since you can only occupy the throne of that great Queen with him. Whenever the gazettes publish favourable rumours concerning you and affairs in England, I devoutly pray that they may become true; sometimes it is rumoured here that a fleet is about to escort you both to England, and a powerful alliance is being formed to support your claims. I have even read that the Tsar is only strengthening his navy in order to supply you with Knights of the Round Table. It is time to translate all these rumours into action, as our enemies do not sleep. Count Gallas, who is leaving for Rome in a few days, tells me that well-informed people in England think that the first act of the present Tory Ministry will be to put down the Whigs, the second to confirm the peace, and the third to change the law of succession. I hear that in Hanover there is strong opposition to all this. I hope it may be so with all my heart.”

The Princess Caroline’s reply.

“Hanover,
“December 27th, 1713.

“I assure you that of all the letters this season has brought me, yours has been the most welcome. You do well to send me your good wishes for the throne of England, which are sorely needed just now, for in spite of all the favourable rumours you mention, affairs there seem to be going from bad to worse. For my part (and I am a woman and like to delude myself) I cling to the hope that, however bad things may be now, they will ultimately turn to the advantage of our House. I accept the comparison which you draw, though all too flattering, between me and Queen Elizabeth as a good omen. Like Elizabeth, the Electress’s rights are denied her by a jealous sister with a bad temper[4], and she will never be sure of the English crown until her accession to the throne. God be praised that our Princess of Wales[5] is better than ever, and by her good health confounds all the machinations of her enemies.”

Poor young Princess Caroline, “the Pure, the Great, the Illustrious,” as Mr. Wilkins calls her. She must, but for her children, have found it none too cheerful in that dreary old Leine Schloss by the river, about which clung the then unsolved mystery of the disappearance of Königsmarck, the lover of the Princess Sophie Dorothea—her husband’s mother—as he left that lady’s chamber and was seen no more. A mystery which remained a mystery until years after when, the floor of an adjoining room being taken up, his body was found beneath.

But apart from this it must have been a dreary life for a young girl, a life of looking on at much over-eating, and over-drinking perhaps, too. A life of low sordid immorality going on under her very nose in which her husband and his father played leading parts; a life in which the higher side of her nature was never called upon, except for the almost habitual display of charity and forbearance to others.

LEINE PALACE, HANOVER.
Birthplace of Frederick, Prince of Wales.

Yet the higher nature was there despite her faults which were many; she possessed the pure gold of a good heart, which saw her through many trials and temptations, and left her, but for her conduct to her eldest son—and some of her correspondence—a clean name in history.

But other more stirring thoughts soon filled the young mother’s head than the frailties of her husband’s family, for when the sum of her nursery reached four and the little Prince Frederick was in his eighth year, the fruit of her hopes ripened, Queen Anne of England died, and a lucky turn of politics in favour of the Whigs, laid open to her the road to a throne.