CHAPTER VIII.
George the Second's Daughters-Anne, Princess of Orange-Princess
Amelia-Princess Caroline-Lord Hervey-Duke of Cumberland.
I am tempted to drain my memory of all its rubbish, and will set down a few more of my recollections, but with less method than I have used in the foregoing pages.
I have said little or nothing of the King's two unmarried daughters. Though they lived in the palace with him, he never admitted them to any share in his politics; and if any of the ministers paid them the compliment of seeming attachment, it was more for the air than for the reality. The Princess Royal, Anne, married in Holland, was of a most imperious and ambitious nature; and on her mother's death, hoping to succeed to her credit, came to Holland on pretence of ill health; but the King, aware of her plan, Was so offended that he sent her to Bath as soon as she arrived, and as peremptorily back to Holland-I think, without suffering her to pass two nights in London.
Princess Amelia, as well disposed to meddle, was confined to receiving court from the Duke of Newcastle, who affected to be in love with her; and from the Duke of Grafton, in whose connexion with her there was more reality.
Princess Caroline, one of the most excellent of women, was devoted to the Queen, who, as well as the King, had such confidence in her veracity, that on any disagreement among their children, they said, "Stay, send for Caroline, and then we shall know the truth."
The memorable Lord Hervey had dedicated himself to the Queen, and certainly towards her death had gained great ascendance with her. She had made him privy-seal; and as he took care to keep as well with Sir Robert Walpole, no man stood in a more prosperous light.
But Lord Hervey, who handled all the weapons of a court, (119) had also made a deep impression on the heart of the virtuous Princess Caroline; and as there was a mortal antipathy between the Duke of Grafton and Lord Hervey, the court was often on the point of being disturbed by the enmity of the favourites of the two Princesses. The death of the Queen deeply affected her daughter Caroline; and the change of the ministry four years after, dislodged Lord Hervey whom for the Queen's sake the King would have saved, and who very ungratefully satirized the King in a ballad, as if he had sacrificed him voluntarily. Disappointment, rage, and a distempered constitution carried Lord Hervey off, and overwhelmed his Princess - she never appeared in public after the Queen's death; and, being dreadfully afflicted with the rheumatism, never stirred out of her apartment, and rejoiced at her own dissolution some years before her father.
Her sister Amelia leagued herself with the Bedford faction during the latter part of her father's life. When he died, she established herself respectably; but enjoying no favour with her nephew, and hating the Princess-dowager, she made a plea of her deafness, and soon totally abstained from St. James's.
The Duke of Cumberland, never, or very rarely, interfered in politics. Power he would have liked, but never seemed to court it. His passion would have been to command the army, and he would, I doubt, have been too ready to aggrandize the crown by it: but successive disgusts weaned his mind from all pursuits, and the grandeur of his sense, (120) and philosophy made him indifferent to a world that had disappointed all his views. The unpopularity which the Scotch and Jacobites spread against him for his merit in suppressing the rebellion, his brother's jealousy, and the contempt he himself felt for the Prince, his own ill success in his battles abroad, and his father's treacherous sacrifice of him on the convention of Closterseven, the dereliction of his two political friends, Lord Holland and Lord Sandwich, and the rebuffing spite of the Princess-dowager; all those mortifications centring on a constitution evidently tending to dissolution, made him totally neglect himself, and ready to shake off being, as an encumbrance not worth the attention of a superior understanding.
>From the time the Duke first appeared on the stage of the public, all his father's ministers had been blind to his Royal Highness's capacity, or were afraid of it. Lord Granville, too giddy himself to sound a young Prince, had treated him arrogantly when the King and the Earl had projected a match for him with the Princess of Denmark. The Duke, accustomed by the Queen and his governor, Mr. Poyntz, to venerate the wisdom of Sir Robert Walpole, then on his death-bed, sent Mr. Poyntz, the day but one before Sir Robert expired, to consult him how to avoid the match. Sir Robert advised his Royal Highness to stipulate for an ample settlement. The Duke took the sage counsel, and heard no more of his intended bride.
The low ambition of Lord Hardwicke, the childish passion for power of the Duke of Newcastle, and the peevish jealousy of Mr. Pelham, combined on the death of the Prince of Wales, to exclude the Duke of Cumberland from the regency (in case of minority,) and to make them flatter themselves that they should gain the favour of the Princess-dowager by cheating her with the semblance of power. The Duke resented the slight, but scorned to make any claim. The Princess never forgave the insidious homage; and, in concurrence with Lord Bute, totally estranged the affection of the young King from his uncle, nor allowed him a shadow of influence.
(119) He had broken with Frederick, Prince of Wales, on having shared the favours of his mistress, Miss Vane, one of the Queen's maids of honour. When she fell in labour at St. James's, and was delivered of a son, which she ascribed to the Prince, Lord Hervey and Lord Harrington each told Sir Robert Walpole that he believed himself father of the child.
(120) the Duke, in his very childhood, gave a mark of his sense and firmness. He had displeased the Queen, an(f she sent him up to his chamber. When he appeared again, he was sullen. "William," said the Queen, "what have you been doing?"— "Reading."—"Reading what?"—"The Bible."—"And what did you read there?"—"About Jesus and Mary.=—"And what about them?"—"Why, that Jesus said to Mary, Woman! what hast thou to do with me?"