Caroline the Illustrious, vol. 1 (of 2)

by W. H. Wilkins

FOOTNOTES TO BOOK II, CHAPTER VIII:

[87] Letter of Lady Hervey to the Countess of Suffolk, Bath, 7th June, 1725.

[88] Letter of the Duchess of Orleans to the Raugravine Louise, Paris, 28th July, 1718.

[89] He was the author of the famous Memoirs of the Reign of George II.

[90] Mary Bellenden (Mrs. John Campbell) to Mrs. Howard, Bath, 1720.

[91] Suffolk Correspondence.

[92] Miss Howe to Mrs. Howard, The Holt, Farnham, 1719 (Suffolk Correspondence).

[93] Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales, eldest son of Lord Scarborough.

[94] The Hon. Bridget Carteret, a maid of honour.

[95] Miss Howe to Mrs. Howard, The Holt, Farnham, 1st October, 1719.

[96] Weekly Journal and Saturday’s Post, 13th June, 1719.

[97] Brice’s Weekly Journal, 30th December, 1719.

[98] The Countess of Bristol to the Earl of Bristol, Richmond, 14th July, 1719.

[99] Daily Post, 23rd August, 1721.

CHAPTER IX.
THE RECONCILIATION. 1718–1720.

The life of the Princess of Wales at this time was apparently an endless round of pleasure. Her days were full of interest and movement, and in the eyes of the world she seemed perfectly happy. But she had her secret sorrow, and a good deal of her gaiety was forced to please her husband. He came first with her, but she was a devoted mother, and there is abundant evidence to show that Caroline felt acutely the separation from her children. The King would not allow them to visit their parents, nor would he suffer the Prince to come and see them, and upon the occasions when the Princess was admitted to St. James’s or Kensington, to visit her children, he at first refused to receive her. She went whenever she could spare an hour from her exacting duties at Leicester House, but she had always to obtain leave from the King. In spite of this separation the little princesses kept their love for their parents, and always greeted their mother with demonstrations of joy when she came, and cried bitterly when she went away. “The other day,” writes the Duchess of Orleans, “the poor little things gathered a basket of cherries and sent it to their father, with a message that though they were not allowed to go to him, their hearts, souls and thoughts were with their dear parents always.”[100] Every effort was made by the Prince and Princess to obtain their children, and the law was set in motion, but after tedious delays and protracted arguments, the Lord Chief Justice, Parker, gave it as his opinion that the King had the sole right to educate and govern his grandchildren, and their parents had no rights except such as were granted to them by the King. This monstrous opinion was upheld by nine other judges. It was strongly opposed by the Lord Chancellor, Cowper, who soon afterwards found it advisable to resign the Chancellorship. The King appointed the complaisant Parker in his room, and further rewarded him by creating him Earl of Macclesfield.

The King’s hatred of his son grew greater as time went on; everything that took place at Leicester House and Richmond Lodge was reported to him by spies in the Prince’s household, and the brilliancy and popularity of the Prince’s court were regarded as signs of impenitent rebellion. George the First had the reputation of being an easy-natured man, slowly moved to wrath, and not vengeful to his Jacobite opponents. But his domestic hatreds were extraordinarily intense. He pursued his unfortunate wife with pitiless vindictiveness, and his hatred of her son was only one degree less bitter. To such an extent did it go, that he drew up a rough draft of an Act of Parliament whereby the Prince, on succeeding to the throne of England, should be forced to relinquish Hanover. This project, which would have been the best possible thing for England, perished still-born, for even the time-serving Parker told the King it was impracticable. George then went so far as to receive without rebuke a proposal which Lord Berkeley had the audacity to make, namely, that the Prince should be spirited off quietly to America. Though the King did not dare act upon it, this plan was put on paper, and after George the First’s death, Caroline, in searching a cabinet, came across the document.

Though the nation as a whole cared little about the disputes of the Royal Family, this unnatural strife between father and son was well known, and formed a common subject of conversation. As time went on and the quarrel showed no signs of healing, it began to tell seriously against the dynasty. In Parliament the subject was never touched upon, but there was always a dread that it might crop up during debate. On one occasion, when the Prince of Wales was present in the House of Lords, Lord North rose to take notice, he said, “of the great ferment that is in the nation”—and then paused. The Prince looked very uncomfortable, and the whole House was in a flutter, but Lord North went on to add, “on account of the great scarcity of silver,” a matter to which Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint, was giving serious attention.

Caroline was sensible of the harm this disunion was doing the dynasty, and tried to keep up appearances as far as she could. When the first soreness was over, she attended occasionally the King’s drawing-rooms (the Prince, of course, never went), and by addressing him in public forced him to make some sort of answer to her remarks. At first it was thought that the Princess’s appearance at the King’s drawing-rooms foreshadowed a reconciliation. The subsidised organs in the press hailed it as imminent. One scribe wrote: “It is with extreme joy that I must now congratulate my country upon the near prospect there is of a reconciliation between his Majesty and his Royal Highness. The Princess of Wales’s appearance at court can forebode no less. A woman of her consummate conduct and goodness, and so interested in the issue, is such a mediator as one could wish in such a cause. And when it is known that she has been in long conference with the King, there can be no doubt but she has first won upon the Prince to make that submission without which ’tis absurd to think of healing the breach.”[101] A petition was also drawn up praying the Princess to act as mediator, which ran as follows:—

“To her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.

“The petition of several loyal subjects, Englishmen and Protestants,

“Humbly sheweth,

“Whereas the difference between his Majesty and the Prince is of such a nature, as not easily to be decided by any subjects; neither can a Ministry presume to intercede with all the freedom requisite to the determination of it: That by this means it still continues to the unspeakable detriment of the public, the deep sorrow of the well affected to your Royal Highness’s family; and the fresh hope and merriment of the disloyal, who were otherwise reduced to the saddest despair. That in such a dismal conjecture we can apply to none so proper as your Royal Highness to assuage these jealousies and reduce both parties to a reunion. Your petitioners therefore beg and entreat your Royal Highness to put in practice that persuasive eloquence by which you are distinguished, and to employ all your interest for this purpose; before the breach be made too wide to admit of a cure, and we involved in irretrievable confusion.

“And your Royal Highness’s petitioners
will ever pray, etc.”

The Princess was both unable and unwilling to mediate in the way suggested, for her sympathies were wholly with her husband. The situation was still exceedingly strained; the King only received the Princess formally and under protest. Caroline probably went to the King’s Court in the hope of softening his heart, and of being allowed to have her children. She was also anxious that her son Prince Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, should be brought over from Hanover, for he was growing up a stranger to her, and the accounts which reached her of his manners and morals were far from reassuring. The malcontent Whigs also considered this a grievance, on the ground that the young Prince should early become acquainted with the country over which he would one day reign. But the King was obdurate. He held that his prerogative gave him absolute power over all the royal children without reference to their parents, and quoted as a precedent Charles the Second’s authority over the daughters of the Duke of York.

Caroline was deeply wounded by this refusal, and shed many bitter tears. But it made no difference to her policy of keeping up appearances at all cost. Outside her immediate circle she ignored the fact that there was a difference in the Royal Family, and was careful always to speak of the King in public with great respect. She paid several visits to seats of the principal nobility and gentry near London—we read of her supping with General Harvey at Mitcham, dining with Lord Uxbridge at Drayton, and so forth—and tried in all ways to maintain the credit of the dynasty with the people. When, therefore, a low fellow insulted her and spat in her face one day as she was crossing Leicester Fields in her chair, he was nearly torn to pieces by the crowd, who resented this gross insult upon a woman, and the only popular member of the Royal Family. The man was handed over to the authorities for punishment, who certainly did not spare the rod if we may judge from the following account:—

“On Thursday morning last, Moore the chairman, who insulted the Princess, was whipped, pursuant to his sentence, from Somerset House to the end of the Hay market. ’Twas observed that during the performance of this corporal exercise (in which the executioner followed his work pretty close), he wore about his neck, tied to a piece of red string, a small red cross; though he needed not to have hung out that infallible sign of his being one of the Pope’s children, since none but an inveterate Papist would have affronted so excellent a Protestant Princess, whom her very worst enemies cannot charge with a fault. The respect her Royal Highness has among all parties was remarkable in the general cry there was all the way he pass’d of ‘Whip him,’ ‘Whip him’; and by the great numbers of people that caressed and applauded the executioner after his work was over, who made him cry, ‘God bless King George’ before he had done with him.”[102]

The King’s court became duller and duller after the departure of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Official personages were bound to attend, but the general circle of the nobility absented themselves, and all the youth, wit and beauty of the town migrated to Leicester House or Richmond. Sometimes not more than six ladies attended the royal drawing-rooms at St. James’s. The first year of the breach the King spent the summer at Hampton Court, accompanied by his mistresses Schulemburg and Keilmansegge, who had now, thanks to the complaisance of Stanhope and his “German Ministry,” been transformed into English peeresses, under the titles of Duchess of Kendal and Countess of Darlington respectively. No doubt they took their “nieces” with them, as they called their illegitimate daughters by the King. The Duchess of Kendal’s “niece,” Melusina, was now grown up, and some years later married Lord Chesterfield. Lady Darlington’s “niece,” Charlotte, was younger, and she, too, in time made an equally good match, marrying Lord Howe.[103] These ladies have left no trace of their occupation of Hampton Court, unless it be the “Frog Walk,” which is said to be a corruption of Frau or Frow walk, so called because the German mistresses used to pace up and down it with George the First. But they made their reign infamous by driving the eminent architect, Sir Christopher Wren, from the office of Surveyor-General, at the age of eighty-six, and after a lifetime spent in the public service. The King was instigated to this shameful act by the Duchess of Kendal. Wren had refused to allow her to mutilate Hampton Court with her execrable taste, and in revenge she sold his place to one William Benson.

MARY, COUNTESS COWPER.

From the Original Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

Under the unlovely auspices of the dull old King and his duller mistresses, Hampton Court was a very different place to what it had been during the summer of the Prince of Wales’s regency. “Our gallantry and gaiety,” writes Pope to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “have been great sufferers by the rupture of the two Courts, here: scarce any ball, assembly, basset-table or any place where two or three are gathered together. No lone house in Wales, with a rookery, is more contemplative than Hampton Court. I walked there the other day by the moon, and met no creature of quality but the King, who was giving audience all alone to the birds under the garden wall.”[104] The King tried to remedy this state of affairs by commanding the Drury Lane Company to come down to Hampton Court and give performances there. The magnificent Great Hall was fitted up as a theatre, and seven plays were performed, of which the favourite was King Henry the Eighth. Steele wrote a prologue, and Colley Cibber tells us that the King greatly enjoyed these plays, “as the actors could see from the frequent satisfaction in his looks at particular scenes and passages”.[105] In that case the King must have read translations beforehand, as he knew no English—certainly not Shakespeare’s English. The expenses of each representation amounted to only £50, but the King was so delighted that he gave the company £200 in addition, which the grovelling Cibber declares was “more than our utmost merit ought to have hoped for”.[106] Basking as he did in the sunshine of the royal favour, Colley Cibber was a stout upholder of the House of Hanover, and a contemner of the House of Stuart. In his comedy The Non-Juror, he roundly abused the Jacobites, and his dedication of it to the King will remain as one of the most fulsome dedications of a fulsome age. It began: “In a time when all communities congratulate your Majesty on the glories of your reign, which are continually arising from the prosperities of your people, be graciously pleased, dread Sire, to permit the loyal subjects of your theatre to take this occasion of humbly presenting their acknowledgements for your royal favour and protection”.

Apparently George liked this gross flattery, for he often went to see Cibber’s plays at Drury Lane. The King hated ceremony, so he dispensed with his coach when he went to the theatre, and set out from St. James’s Palace in a sedan-chair, with his guards and the beef-eaters marching alongside, and two other sedan-chairs carried behind him, which contained the Duchess of Kendal and Lady Darlington respectively. The King would not occupy the royal box, but would choose another in some less prominent position, and would sit far back, behind his two mistresses, taking a pinch of snuff now and then, and laughing at their jokes. None of the English officers of the household were admitted to this box, and the King entered and left the theatre by a private door. Once, when going to the theatre in his chair, the King was shot at by a youth named James Shepherd, but the bullet was very wide of the mark. The lad was condemned to be hanged. On account of his youth, Caroline interceded for him, but without success. He died declaring James to be his only King. Concerning this incident, the Duchess of Orleans writes: “The Princess of Wales has told me about the young man that the King has caused to be killed. The lad was only eighteen years of age, but the King is not in the least ashamed of what he has done; on the contrary, he seems to think that he has done a noble action. I fear the King will come to a bad end. His quarrel with the Prince of Wales gets worse every day. I always thought him harsh when he was in Germany, but English air has hardened him still more.”[107]

Domestic differences had prevented the King from seeing Hanover for nearly two years; but in May, 1719, his impatience could no longer be restrained, and, despite the remonstrances of his Ministers, he determined to pass the summer in his German dominions. He so far relented towards the Princess of Wales as to send her word that she might spend the summer at Hampton Court with her children. The Princess returned a spirited reply to the effect that unless her husband could go with her she would not go. On this occasion a Council of Regency was established, in which no mention whatever was made of the Prince. The Prince and Princess of Wales were not even allowed to hold levées and drawing-rooms during the King’s absence; and his Majesty, by a notice in the Gazette, decreed that these functions should be held by the three young princesses, his grandchildren. The Prince and Princess showed their indignation by leaving town at once for Richmond.

The King then set out for Hanover, taking with him Stanhope as Minister in attendance, and accompanied by the Duchess of Kendal. It was perhaps on this journey to Hanover that the following incident took place, which deserves to be quoted, as offering one of the few incidents George the First gave of good taste: “On one of his journeys to Hanover his coach broke down. At a distance in view was a château of a considerable German nobleman. The King sent to borrow assistance; the possessor came, conveyed the King to his house, and begged the honour of his Majesty accepting a dinner while his carriage was repairing; and in the interim asked leave to amuse his Majesty with a collection of pictures which he had formed in several tours to Italy. But what did the King see in one of the rooms but an unknown portrait of a person in the robes, and with the regalia, of a sovereign of Great Britain. George asked him whom it represented. The nobleman replied, with much diffident but decent respect, that in various journeys to Rome he had been acquainted with the Chevalier de St. George, who had done him the honour of sending him that picture. ‘Upon my word,’ said the King instantly, ‘’tis very like to the family’.”[108]

The hopes of James and his little Court at Rome now began to revive. The prolonged strife between George the First and his son helped to play the game of the Jacobites; and their agents throughout Europe did not hesitate to exaggerate the facts of the unseemly quarrel, and to declare that England was weary of the Hanoverian family (which it was) and eager for a Stuart restoration (which it was not). Mar had been urging Charles the Twelfth of Sweden to send an expedition to Scotland, and Charles was inclined to listen, when his sudden death put an end to James’s hopes. But Spain espoused his cause. Spain was then governed by Cardinal Alberoni. By birth the son of a working gardener, he had begun life as a village priest, and had gradually, by virtue of his many abilities and extraordinary knowledge of men, raised himself from poverty and obscurity to the proud position of a cardinal of the Church and first minister of Spain. Philip, the King, was old and feeble, and entirely ruled by his Queen, and the Queen was governed by Alberoni. The trust was not ill-placed, for the Cardinal’s administrative abilities were great. Under his direction trade revived, public credit was increased, a new navy was fitted out, and the army was reorganised. “Let your Majesty remain but five years at peace,” said he to the Spanish King, “and I will make you the most powerful monarch in Europe.” Unfortunately for his plans Alberoni was of a restless, intriguing disposition. He disliked the trend of England’s foreign policy, and therefore entered into correspondence with James at Rome, and employed agents to foment dissensions in England. The English Government met this with vigorous measures, and a new treaty was concluded with France and the Emperor, which, after the accession of the Dutch, was known as the Quadruple Alliance. Stanhope went to Madrid to see if he could smooth matters with Alberoni, but he did not succeed. The Spanish troops had landed in Sicily, and to prevent the loss of the island, Admiral Byng was despatched to the scene of action with twenty ships of the line. On July 31st, 1718, a naval fight took place between the English and the Spaniards, which resulted in the defeat of the latter. In revenge Alberoni fitted out an armament of five ships to support James. This little fleet was to land on the coast of Scotland, but in the Bay of Biscay it was overtaken by a tempest, and only two of the frigates reached Scotland, having on board the Earls Marischal and Seaforth and the Marquis of Tullibardine, with some arms and three hundred Spanish soldiers. They were joined by a few Highlanders, but, after an insignificant skirmish with the King’s troops, were dispersed.

Meantime James had arrived at Madrid, in response to a special invitation from Alberoni, where he was received with royal honours as King of England, and magnificently lodged in a palace set apart for him and his suite. But when the news of the complete failure of the expedition reached Madrid some months later, Alberoni realised that James was a very expensive guest, and his presence at Madrid was a hindrance to the peace with England that he already wished to make. James, too, was anxious to leave, and a pretext was afforded by the escape of the Princess Clementina, whom he had wedded by proxy. She had at last escaped from Innsbrück, where she had been detained nearly three years. She stole away by night in the disguise of a Scottish maid-servant, and after a long and perilous journey on horseback arrived safe in Venetian territory. On the receipt of this news James took his leave of the Court of Spain, and returned to Rome, where his long-deferred marriage was duly solemnised and consummated.

While these events were taking place, King George had remained at Hanover, heedless of the discontent in England. He returned to London in November, 1719, and a few days later opened Parliament in person. Caroline, true to her policy of keeping up appearances, waited upon the King to congratulate him upon his safe return, and he gave her audience, but controversial matters were not touched upon, and though rumours of reconciliation arose from the interview they were rumours merely. On the contrary, the principal Government measure was aimed indirectly at the Prince of Wales. Stanhope brought forward the Peerage Bill, to limit the royal prerogative in the creation of new peerages. The Prince of Wales had made use of some rash and unguarded expressions as to what he would do when he came to the throne, and the King was induced by jealousy of his son to consent to this limitation of his royal prerogative. The measure was strongly opposed in both Houses, but the head and front of the opposition was Walpole, who had identified himself with the opposition court of Leicester House. He made an eloquent speech in the House of Commons against the measure, with the result that it was defeated by a large majority. The Government did not resign, but they saw the advisability of conciliating Walpole and the malcontent Whigs, and a political reconciliation took place. Walpole and Townshend accepted minor offices in the Government.

Walpole’s accession to the Ministry took the heart out of the Whig opposition, with which the Prince of Wales had more or less identified himself. Having failed to upset the Government, Walpole cast in his lot with them. He set to work with such goodwill that, though for a time he held a subordinate office, he soon became the most powerful member of the Government; he was already the man with the greatest authority in the House of Commons. From this time may be dated Walpole’s alliance with Caroline, and he henceforth played a prominent part in her life.

Robert Walpole, the third son of a Norfolk squire, Walpole of Houghton, was born in 1676. His family had belonged to the landed gentry of England since the days of William the Conqueror, but they had never distinguished themselves in any way. Walpole was educated at Eton, where he had as his school-fellow his future rival, Bolingbroke, and thence proceeded to King’s College, Cambridge. On quitting the university he went back to Houghton with a view to becoming a country squire as his father was. The future statesman spent his days at cattle fairs and agricultural shows, with fox-hunting and hard drinking thrown in by way of recreation. Old Squire Walpole was of a very hospitable turn of mind, and kept open house to his neighbours, who often assembled around his jovial board. “Come, Robert,” he used to say, “you shall drink twice to my once; I cannot permit my son, in his sober senses, to be a witness of the intoxication of his father.” Walpole was married at the age of twenty-five to the beautiful and accomplished Catherine Shorter, a daughter of John Shorter, of Bybrook, Kent. His domestic life was not a model one, both husband and wife arranging to go much as they pleased. Walpole, like his enemy Bolingbroke, was profligate and fond of wine and women, and his young wife also had her intrigues. She had one particularly with Lord Hervey, and her second son (Horace Walpole the younger) was said to be really the son of Lord Hervey. He closely resembled the Herveys in his tastes, appearance and manner; especially in his effeminacy, which was characteristic of the men of the Hervey family. He was quite unlike his reputed father, Walpole, who was a burly county squire, with a loud voice, heavy features and no refinement of manner or speech. Walpole’s wife also (so Lady Cowper says) had an intrigue with the Prince of Wales, and Walpole was cognisant of it, if he did not even lend himself to it, with a view to obtaining the goodwill of the Prince. Both Robert Walpole and his wife were often at Leicester House.

Soon after his marriage Walpole succeeded to the family estate, with a rent-roll of some two thousand a year. He was elected a member for Castle Rising, and he sat in the two last Parliaments of William the Third. In 1702 he was returned as member for Lyme Regis, in the first Parliament of Queen Anne, a borough which he continued to represent for nearly forty years. He quickly made his mark in the House of Commons, and his history from this time onward is to a great extent the history of his country. He was a Whig by conviction and education; he had a passion for work, and a fixed ambition which carried him step by step to the highest offices in the State. His zeal in furthering the Whig cause early won for him the hatred of the Tories, and at the instigation of Bolingbroke, when the Tories came into power, Walpole was charged with corruption and other misdemeanours, and thrown into the Tower. It was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to him, for it called public attention to his personality, and awoke the admiration of his friends. So crowded was his room in the Tower that it resembled a levée; some of the first quality of the town went there, including the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. His confinement in the Tower was not a long one. On the accession of George the First Walpole’s attachment to Whig principles and the House of Hanover was rewarded by his being given a place in the Administration of Lord Townshend, who had married his sister. The rest has been told.

Walpole’s first step after he rejoined Stanhope’s Government was to bring about a reconciliation between the Prince of Wales and the King, and to this end he addressed himself to the Princess of Wales. During the winter of 1719 Walpole had often been twice a day at Leicester House, and he realised, what many were still ignorant of, the great and increasing influence which the Princess exercised over her husband. Moreover, the Princess had recently received the King’s compliments on her birthday for the first time for two years. To the Princess, therefore, Walpole first went with the suggestion of reconciliation, and begged her to induce the Prince to write a submissive letter to the King. Caroline was willing to do all she could to bring about a reconciliation, but she stipulated for one thing above all others—that her children should be returned to her. This Walpole promised, though he must have known at the time that he had no power to make such a promise. The Prince at first blustered and swore, and said that nothing would induce him to make any overtures to the King, and he stipulated that he should have the Regency again, the entrée of the royal palaces, his guards, and, of course, the custody of his children. Walpole told him he would do what he could, and he so “engrossed and monopolised the Princess to a degree of making her deaf to everything that did not come from him”.[109] He then went to the King and told him that the Prince was anxious to submit himself.

The King at first was obdurate, and refused to see his son under any circumstances whatever. “Can’t the Whigs come back without him,” he grumbled to Sunderland. Then he said he would receive him, provided he were brought back “bound hand and foot”. When conditions were hinted, the King at once said that he would have nothing more to do with the matter, and was only persuaded to reconsider his words by his Ministers representing that, unless he could meet them half-way, they would not be able to get his debts paid, which by this time had amounted to £600,000 in excess of the ample Civil List. As the King kept practically no court in England, most of the money must have been spent in Hanover, or given to his Hanoverian minions and mistresses. Ministers argued that a reconciliation would do something to restore public credit, and the long quarrel had seriously affected the popularity of the Royal Family. The Prince was also amenable to this argument, as he, too, was in debt some £100,000, the result, no doubt, of the state he had kept up at Leicester House. Walpole gave the Prince to understand that this sum would be paid, and by way of showing his goodwill, he put him and the Princess in the way of making a little money in South Sea stock.

The Princess was prepared to let everything go if she could only have her children back again, and the Bishop of Norwich went down on his knees to Townshend and Walpole, and swore that the Princess should have her children. She said: “Mr. Walpole, this will be no jesting matter to me; you will hear of this, and my complaints, every day and hour, and in every place, if I have not my children again”. Walpole suggested that the Princess should make overtures to the Duchess of Kendal, who had more influence than any one with the King, and even to this crowning humiliation the Princess stooped, but all to no purpose; the King absolutely refused to agree to any such stipulation. He had become attached, after his fashion, to the three princesses, and he knew that to retain them would be the surest way of wounding the feelings of his daughter-in-law. The Prince, unlike the Princess, was not obdurate on this point, and he was quite willing to let his daughters go for what he considered more substantial benefits. Walpole promised to pay his debts if he would yield this point, and gave him some more South Sea stock; to the Princess he declared that the King was inexorable, and that she must leave everything in his hands, and all would be well. The Princess wept, and said that she was betrayed, and the Prince had been bribed, but her tears and lamentations were all to no effect. It was on this occasion she uttered the exceeding bitter cry: “I can say since the hour I was born, I have not lived a day without suffering”.

Matters having gone thus far, the Prince wrote the required letter, which was delivered to the King on St. George’s Day, April 23rd, 1720. On its receipt Craggs was sent back with a message to the Prince to say that the King would see him. The Prince at once took his chair and went to St. James’s Palace, where the King gave him audience in his closet. The Prince expressed his grief at having incurred his royal sire’s displeasure, thanked him for having given him leave to wait upon him once more, and said that he hoped all the rest of his life would be such as the King would have no cause to complain of. The King was much agitated and very pale, and could not speak except in broken sentences, of which the Prince said the only intelligible words were: “Votre conduite, votre conduite”. The audience was over in five minutes, and the Prince then went to see his daughter, the Princess Anne, who was ill of small-pox in another part of the palace. He then set out on his way back to Leicester House, with this difference, that whereas he had come in a private manner, he now departed with the beef-eaters and a guard around his chair, and amid the shouts of the crowd that had assembled outside the palace gates. In Pall Mall he met the Princess, who was on her way to visit her daughter. She had not been told that the King had sent for her husband, and she was much startled to see him there, thinking he had a bad account of the Princess Anne. He said he had seen the King, and told her the great news. They returned together to Leicester House. “He looked grave,” said Lady Cowper of the Prince, “and his eyes were red and swelled as one has seen him on other occasions when he was mightily ruffled. He dismissed all the company at first, but held a drawing-room in the afternoon.” By that time the royal guards were established at the gates of Leicester House, and the square was full of coaches. Inside “there was nothing but kissing and wishing of joy”. The Prince was so delighted that he embraced Lady Cowper five or six times, whereat the Princess burst into a laugh, and said: “So, I think you two always kiss on great occasions”. The Ministers came to offer their congratulations, including the younger Craggs, who was supposed to have inflamed the King’s mind against the Prince, and to have called the Princess an opprobrious name. He now protested to her that he had done nothing of the kind, offering to swear it on his oath. She replied: “Fie! Mr. Craggs; you renounce God like a woman that’s caught in the fact”.

The King received Caroline the next day when she went to visit her daughters at St. James’s. He gave her a longer audience than he had given his son, for they went into his closet and stayed there an hour and ten minutes. When the Princess at length came out of the royal closet, she told her attendants that she was transported at the King’s “mighty kind reception”. But Walpole had another version of the interview, to the effect that the King had been very rough with her and had chidden her severely. He told her she might say what she pleased to excuse herself, but he knew very well that she could have made the Prince behave better if she had wished, and he hoped henceforth that she would use her influence to make him conduct himself properly. These private interviews over, it was decided to celebrate the reconciliation in a public manner. The Ministers gave a dinner to celebrate the Whig and the royal reconciliation at one and the same time; the King held a drawing-room at St. James’s, to which the Prince and Princess went with all their court. The King would not speak to the Prince nor to any of his suite, except the Duchess of Shrewsbury, who would not be denied. When she first addressed him he took no notice, but the second time she said: “I am come, Sir, to make my court, and I will make it,” in a whining tone of voice, and then he relented so far as she was concerned. But otherwise the drawing-room could hardly be described as harmonious. “It happened,” writes Lady Cowper, “that Lady Essex Robartes was in the circle when our folks came in, so they all kept at the bottom of the room, for fear of her, which made the whole thing look like two armies in battle array, for the King’s court was all at the top of the room, behind the King, and the Prince’s court behind him. The Prince looked down, and behaved prodigious well. The King cast an angry look that way every now and then, and one could not help thinking ’twas like a little dog and a cat—whenever the dog stirs a foot, the cat sets up her back, and is ready to fly at him.”

The reconciliation thus patched up was a hollow one, but it served to hoodwink the public, and it depressed the Jacobites, who had been saying everywhere that even outward harmony was impossible. Neither side was satisfied; the King was indignant at having to receive the Prince at all, and unwilling to make concessions. He would not grant the Prince and Princess the use of any of the royal palaces, and refused to let them come back to live under the same roof with him. He gave them leave to see the three princesses when they liked, but he refused to part with them, and the Ministers conveniently ignored the payment of the Prince’s debts, which indeed were not settled until he came to the throne. All that the Prince and Princess regained were the royal guards and the honours paid officially to the Prince and Princess of Wales, the leave to come to court when they wished, and permission to retain the members of their household, which at one time the King had threatened to discharge en bloc. But the great gain to the Government, and to the House of Hanover, was that a formal notification of the reconciliation was sent to foreign courts, and a domestic quarrel, which had become a public scandal, and threatened to become a public danger, was officially at an end.