FOOTNOTES TO BOOK II, CHAPTER X:
[110] The Duchess of Ormonde to Swift, 18th August, 1720.
[111] The Political State of Great Britain gives a list of these bubbles, in July, 1720, amounting to 104.
[112] Letter of Decius in Mist’s Journal.
[113] St. Luke xxii. 67, 68.
[114] Pope to Swift, 1723.
[115] This was a mistake, as Bolingbroke never went to Rome. He entered James’s service at Barr and quitted it at Versailles.
[116] The Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth. Carlyle drew largely on these Memoirs for the first two volumes of his Frederick the Great. But the book has since been admirably translated into English by H.R.H. the Princess Christian, and the quotations which follow are taken from her translation.
CHAPTER XI.
TO OSNABRÜCK! 1723–1727.
After the reconciliation of the Royal Family the Princess of Wales resumed the place she had occupied at the King’s court in the early days of the reign, but in a modified degree. She was restored to her position and precedence, and she regularly attended the drawing-rooms at St. James’s, and would make a point of addressing the King in public and so compel him to answer her. After a while the King relented towards her, and asked her to take the lead at ombre and quadrille, as she used to do, and her card-table was surrounded by courtiers as in former days. But he maintained his resentment against his son, to whom he seldom addressed a syllable in public, and rarely received him in private. The King’s quarrel from the first had been with the Prince of Wales rather than with the Princess, and Caroline incurred his displeasure only because she insisted on siding with her husband against her father-in-law. George the First had always recognised her character and abilities, and he knew how great her influence was over the Prince. It was because she would not use this influence to further the King’s ends that he disliked her, but he liked talking to her, or rather listening to her talk, for he was a man of few words himself. During the sermon in the Chapel Royal, he often discussed public men and questions with her, a favour he never extended to his son. The King was so surrounded by favourites and mistresses that the royal pew was the only place where Caroline could be sure of an uninterrupted conversation with him, an opportunity of which she freely availed herself, often to the discomfiture of the preacher, for the King would sometimes raise his voice very loud. On one of these occasions the Princess and the King were discussing Walpole. “Voyez quel homme,” said the King, “he can convert even stones into gold”; an appreciation Caroline noted at the time, and tested later when need arose.
Walpole now carried everything before him. He was the King’s first Minister, and enjoyed his unbounded confidence; he was practically dictator in the Government, and his word was law in the House of Commons. But he no longer stood high in the favour of the Prince of Wales; he had not been able, or he had not been willing, to fulfil the promises he had made at the reconciliation. The Prince disliked him because his debts were still unpaid, because he was given no share in the Regency, and because Walpole had “betrayed him,” as he said, “to the King”. The Princess, too, owed him a grudge, because he had not restored her children to her, and because on more than one occasion he had spoken of her with great disrespect. In the matter of invective Caroline, however, was able to repay the debt with interest, Walpole’s gross bulk, coarse habits, and immoral life all lending barbs to her satire. Despite these amenities, there was a tacit understanding between the Princess and Walpole. Though in adverse camps each respected the other’s qualities; Walpole saw in Caroline a woman far above the average in intellect and ability, the tragedy of whose life was that she was married to a fool; while the Princess needed not the King’s recommendation to discover the great abilities of the powerful Minister.
Though Caroline frequently pressed Walpole on the subject of her children, he always pleaded that he could do little, the King was inexorable, and the Princesses Anne, Amelia and Caroline remained until the end of the reign in the King’s household under the care of their state governess, Lady Portland. The Princess, however, gained concessions as time went by; in addition to the free access to her daughters at all times guaranteed at the reconciliation, they were allowed to visit her at Leicester House and Richmond, and sometimes to appear at the opera with her in the royal box. The enforced separation made no difference to the affection the princesses bore to their mother, but they gradually assimilated some of the contempt for their father which was freely expressed at the King’s court, and in later years they (except the gentle Caroline) often spoke of him with disrespect.
During the next few years the Princess of Wales gave birth to three more children, one son, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, at whose birth there were great rejoicings, and who was ever his mother’s favourite child, and two daughters, Mary and Louisa.[117] The Prince of Wales was anxious to have another son, and when the courtiers came to congratulate him on the birth of the Princess Louisa, he said testily, “No matter, ’tis but a daughter”. These children were all born at Leicester House, and remained under the care of their parents, the King only claiming the elder children, Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, who was still at Hanover, and the three eldest princesses. The younger family helped Caroline to bear the separation from her elder children.
As George the First grew old his court became duller; not even Caroline could infuse much life into it, or restore the gaiety of the early days of the reign. Many causes contributed to this. One was the depression brought about by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. The after-effects were felt for a long time, and many of the nobility, who had lost heavily, retired to their country seats to retrench, and had perforce to give up the pleasures of town. As Lord Berkeley wrote in 1720: “So many undone people will make London a very melancholy place this winter. The Duke of Portland is of that number, and indeed was so before.”[118] London continued depressed for some years. The Prince and Princess of Wales did their best to make society a little brighter, but they did not throw themselves into court festivities with the same zest as of yore. They were older, their taste for pleasure had lost its keenness, and the novelty of the first Hanoverian reign had quite worn off.
The glory of Leicester House had to a great extent departed also; the reconciliation robbed it of its attractiveness as a centre of opposition, and now that the Prince and Princess went to St. James’s again, all the royal festivities took place there. Moreover, the courtiers who had thrown in their lot with the Prince of Wales frankly owned themselves disappointed; in spite of all the Prince’s loud boasting and defiance, the reconciliation was little short of an unconditional surrender. Events clearly proved that they had overrated his influence, and underrated the King’s power. The King had won all along the line; he was likely to live to a green old age, perhaps even to outlive the Prince, and the sycophants were anxious to bask in the royal favour again and catch some sprinklings from the fountain of honour. So they turned their backs on Leicester House, which, in truth, was not so attractive as it had been, for it had lost some of its brightest ornaments. The beautiful Bellenden was married, and in the Prince’s disfavour; the fair Lepel had wedded Lord Hervey, and retired to the country, where she occupied herself in writing tedious letters to Mrs. Howard and others, which, though they bear witness to the correctness of her principles, almost make one doubt the sparkling wit with which her contemporaries have credited her. Perhaps marriage had exercised a sobering influence, though she showed not the slightest affection for her husband. Poor Sophia Howe was dying in obscurity of a broken heart. The maids of honour who had taken the place of these had not the esprit and beauty of their predecessors. But the popularity of the Princess of Wales continued unabated, and Leicester House was always crowded at her birthday receptions. Thus in 1724 we read:—
“Sunday last, being St. David’s Day, the birthday of the Princess of Wales, the Stewards of the Societies of Ancient Britons, established in honour of the said anniversary, went and paid their duty to their Royal Highnesses at Leicester House, where they had a most gracious reception, and their Royal Highnesses were pleased to accept of the leek. On Monday the court at Leicester House, to congratulate her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales on her birthday, was the most splendid and numerous that has been known, the concourse being so great that many of the nobility could not obtain admittance and were obliged to return without seeing the Prince and Princess. The Metropolitans of Canterbury and York, together with most of the other bishops, met at the Banqueting House at Whitehall, and proceeded thence in their coaches to Leicester House. The Lord High Chancellor in his robes, and such of the Judges as are in town, went also thither to pay their compliments, as did most of the foreign Ministers, particularly the Morocco Ambassador; but they who were thought to surpass all in dress and equipage were the Duchesses of Buckingham and Richmond, the Earl of Gainsborough and the Countess of Hertford. At one o’clock the guns in the park proclaimed the number of her Royal Highness’s years, and at two their Royal Highnesses went to St. James’s to pay their duty to his Majesty, and returned to Leicester House to dinner, and at nine at night went again to St. James’s, where there was a magnificent ball in honour of her Royal Highness’s birthday.”[119]
In 1725 the rejoicings were if possible more general; there were bonfires and illuminations in the principal streets of London and Westminster, and several of the nobility illuminated their mansions. For instance: “Monday last, the anniversary of the birthday of the Princess of Wales was celebrated by his Grace the Duke of Leeds in a very extraordinary manner in his house upon Mazy Hill, near Greenwich, there being planted before his Grace’s door three pyramids, which consisted of a great number of flambeaux, and two bonfires, one between each pyramid, besides which the house was very finely illuminated on the outside, the novelty of which drew a great concourse of people to the place, where the Royal Family’s health, together with those of the Ministers and State, were drunk with universal acclamations, to which end wine was served to the better sort and strong beer to the populace.”[120] In 1726 we are told: “There was the most splendid and numerous Court at Leicester Fields that has ever been known; a great number of ladies of quality were forced to return home without being able to procure access to the Princess”.[121] And in 1727: “The English at Gibraltar celebrated the 1st March, being her Royal Highness’s birthday, in a very extraordinary manner, the ordnance of the garrison and the men-of-war discharging vast quantities of shot at the Spaniards, and there was also a most numerous and shining Court at Leicester House”.[122] Certainly no such honours have been paid to any Princess of Wales as those paid yearly to Caroline, and the record of them shows that she succeeded in impressing her personality upon the nation, even when she occupied a difficult and subordinate position.
The Prince and Princess of Wales had to be very careful to avoid arousing afresh the hostility of the King. The Prince was never again admitted to any share in the Regency, but when the King was away at Hanover they indulged in some little extra state, which was immediately put down on his return. At one time they contemplated a visit to Bath for the Princess to take the waters, and thence to make a semi-state progress through Wales, but the plan was frustrated by the King’s jealousy. They sought to make themselves popular with all classes. We read of their attending a concert at the Inner Temple and a ball at Lincoln’s Inn, and on one Lord Mayor’s Day, when the civic procession went on the Thames to Westminster by barges, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their little son, Prince William, witnessed the show from Somerset Gardens. “Some barges rowed up to the wall, and the liverymen offering wine to their Royal Highnesses, they accepted the same, and drank prosperity to the City of London, which was answered by acclamations of joy.”[123] One year the Prince and Princess of Wales, attended by many of their court, went to St. Bartholomew’s Fair, and enjoyed themselves heartily among the booths and roundabouts, mingling with the crowd, and staying there until a late hour at night.
The King did not behave generously to his daughter-in-law; all his gold and jewels went to his mistresses, but when he came back from one of his last visits to Hanover, he brought with him a curious specimen of humanity, called the “wild boy,” whom he gave to the Princess. Great curiosity was excited in Court circles by this strange present. We read: “The wild boy, whom the King hath presented to the Princess of Wales, taken last winter in the forest by Hamelin, walking on all fours, running up trees like a squirrel, feeding on twigs and moss, was last night carried into the drawing-room at St. James’s into the presence of the King, the Royal Family and many of the nobility. He is supposed to be about twelve or thirteen, some think fifteen, years old, and appears to have but little idea of things. ’Twas observed that he took most notice of his Majesty, whom he had seen before, and the Princess giving him her glove, he tried to put it on his own hand, and seemed much pleased with a watch which was held to strike at his ear. They have put on him blue clothes lined with red, and red stockings, but the wearing of them seems extremely uneasy to him. He cannot be got to lie on a bed, but sits and sleeps in a corner of the room. The hair of his head grows lower on the forehead than is common. He is committed to the care of Dr. Arbuthnot, in order to try whether he can be brought to the use of speech and made a sociable creature. He hath begun to sit for his picture.”[124]
Caroline may possibly have had some influence with the King in delaying the Queen of Prussia’s cherished scheme of the double marriage. An incident also contributed to delay it. There had always been jealousy between the Hanoverian Government and the Court of Berlin, and a very trifling matter served to stir up bad blood. The King of Prussia had formed a regiment of giants in which he took great pleasure and pride. In order to get men of the necessary height and size, he had to seek for recruits all over Europe, and his recruiting sergeants often took them by force. King George had sent his son-in-law some tall Hanoverians, and would have sent him some more, but when the King was absent in England the Hanoverian Government threw difficulties in the way. Frederick William’s recruiting sergeants, chancing to light upon some sons of Anak in Hanoverian territory, carried them off by force. This made a great turmoil at Hanover; the men were demanded back, the King of Prussia refused, and the relations between Berlin and Hanover became strained. When King George came to Hanover again, in 1726, the King and Queen of Prussia paid him a visit, the King to smooth matters with his father-in-law, and the Queen to settle the details of the proposed alliance. King George, however, wished to postpone the marriage on the ground that the parties were too young; Wilhelmina was then only fifteen years of age, and the Duke of Gloucester seventeen. But the Queen of Prussia pointed out that the precocious youth had already set up a mistress of his own, and therefore the plea of youth was unavailing. George then excused himself on the ground that the English Parliament had not yet been consulted about the marriage, but he gave the Queen a definite promise that, when he came to Hanover again, the marriage should be celebrated. He never came again—alive.
The Queen of Prussia had to be content with this promise, and she probably felt that she could afford to wait, as she had won over to her side the Duchess of Kendal, whose influence was all-powerful with the King. The Duchess, who had now been created Princess of Eberstein, enjoyed in her old age a powerful position, and she was paid court to, not only by the Queen of Prussia, but directly or indirectly by the most powerful monarchs of Europe. She was in correspondence with the Emperor at Vienna, and no doubt receiving money from him on the plea of furthering his interests, and she was in indirect communication with the King of France. The curious correspondence between Louis the Fifteenth and his Ambassador at the Court of St. James’s, Count de Broglie, reveals how much importance was attached to gaining her influence. In one of his despatches the envoy says:—
“As the Duchess of Kendal seemed to express a desire to see me often, I have been very attentive to her; being convinced that it is highly essential to the advantage of your Majesty’s service to be on good terms with her, for she is closely united to the three Ministers[125] who now govern.”[126] And again: “The King visits her every afternoon from five till eight, and it is there that she endeavours to penetrate the sentiments of his Britannic Majesty, for the purpose of consulting the three Ministers, and pursuing the measures which may be thought necessary for accomplishing their designs. She sent me word that she was desirous of my friendship, and that I should place confidence in her. I assured her that I would do everything in my power to merit her esteem and friendship. I am convinced that she may be advantageously employed in promoting your Majesty’s service, and that it will be necessary to employ her, though I will not trust her further than is absolutely necessary.”[127] The King of France was quite convinced that it was necessary to gain her friendship, for he writes: “There is no room to doubt that the Duchess of Kendal, having a great ascendency over the King of Great Britain and maintaining a strict union with his Ministers, must materially influence their principal resolutions. You will neglect nothing to acquire a share of her confidence, from a conviction that nothing can be more conducive to my interests. There is, however, a manner of giving additional value to the marks of confidence you bestow on her in private, by avoiding in public all appearances which might seem too pointed; by which you will avoid falling into the inconvenience of being suspected by those who are not friendly to the duchess; at the same time a kind of mysteriousness in public on the subject of your confidence, will give rise to a firm belief of your having formed a friendship mutually sincere.”[128]
These backstair intrigues of France with the Duchess of Kendal probably helped forward the defensive alliance which England concluded at Hanover with France and Russia, commonly known as the Treaty of Hanover, a treaty in which English interests were sacrificed for the benefit of Hanover. “Thus Hanover rode triumphant on the shoulders of England,” wrote Chesterfield of it. Yet bad as it was from the English point of view, its provisions did not altogether satisfy the grasping Hanoverians, and Walpole was blamed by them for not having done more for them. Walpole had long realised that the duchess was a force to be reckoned with. “She is in effect as much Queen of England as ever any was,” he said of her once, and he declared the King “did everything by her.” He soon had occasion to feel her power.
The Duchess of Kendal resented Walpole’s influence with his master. It was a peculiarity of this strange creature that she was jealous of any one who enjoyed the confidence of the King, were he man or woman; she had been largely responsible for the fall of Townshend in the early days of the reign, she had been a thorn in the side of Stanhope, and she now directed her energies to undermining the power of Walpole. At first she did not make any impression, for the King was fond of “le gros homme,” as he called his Prime Minister. He made him a Knight of the Bath, an order which he revived, and afterwards gave him the Garter, the highest honour in the power of the Sovereign. He openly declared that he would never part with him. In his favour he even broke his rule of not admitting Englishmen to his private intercourse, and spent many an evening with Walpole at Richmond, where he had built a hunting lodge. He would drive down there to supper, and he and the Prime Minister would discuss politics over a pipe, and imbibe large bowls of punch, for they both habitually drank more than was good for them. The Duchess of Kendal became jealous of these convivial evenings, and bribed some of the King’s Hanoverian attendants to repeat to her what passed, and to watch that the King did not take too much punch. But the effort was not very successful, for the servants could not understand what was said. Walpole could speak no German and little French, and so he and George conversed mainly in Latin, the only language they had in common. Walpole used afterwards to say that he governed the kingdom by means of bad Latin.
The Duchess of Kendal gained an able ally in Bolingbroke, who had now returned again to England, and through the influence of the duchess had gained the restoration of his title and estates, though not his seat in the House of Lords. “Here I am then,” he wrote to Swift, “two-thirds restored, my person safe, and my estate, with all the other property I have acquired or may acquire, secured to me; but the attainder is kept carefully and prudently in force, lest so corrupt a member should come again into the House of Lords, and his bad leaven should sour that sweet untainted mass.” Bolingbroke now entered into an alliance with the opposition in the House of Commons, and intrigued with the Duchess of Kendal to oust Walpole from the King’s favour. Had they been given time, they might have succeeded. The Duchess of Kendal presented to the King a memorial, drawn up by Bolingbroke, on the state of political affairs, and she persuaded him to grant the fallen statesman a private audience. Walpole declared years later that the King showed him the memorial, and it was at his suggestion that George the First consented to receive Bolingbroke. During the whole time Bolingbroke was closeted with the King, Walpole stated that he was waiting in the ante-chamber, and when the audience was over, he asked the King what Bolingbroke had said. The King replied indifferently: “Bagatelles, bagatelles”. But the fact that the King, who had dismissed Bolingbroke from office, and refused to receive him in 1714, when he first came to England, (though that was before his attainder), now consented to give him a special audience looked ominous for his great rival. Bolingbroke boasted that the King was favourably inclined to him, and only deferred making him Prime Minister until his return from Hanover, where he was soon setting out. But he could have had no grounds for the latter statement, though what he and the Duchess of Kendal might have achieved in time it is impossible to say.
Since the King’s visit to Hanover the previous summer, his divorced wife, Sophie Dorothea, had died at Ahlden (November 13th, 1726), after thirty-three years’ captivity in her lonely castle, where she had never ceased from the first hour of her imprisonment to demand release. Prince Waldeck arrived in England with secret despatches giving an account of the ill-fated princess’s last moments, and the Courts of Hanover and Berlin assumed mourning, for the deceased Princess was the mother of the Queen of Prussia, and by birth Princess of Celle. It would have suited the King better to ignore the death of his hated consort altogether, but he was unable to do so after the public notice that had been taken of it by the Court of Berlin. So he had a notice inserted in the London Gazette to the effect that the “Duchess of Ahlden” had died at Ahlden on the date specified. He countermanded the court mourning at Hanover, and he would not allow the Prince and Princess of Wales to assume mourning for their mother, or make any allusion to her death. He himself, the very day he received the news, went ostentatiously to the theatre, attended by his mistresses. But he was superstitious, and therefore a good deal worried by remembering a prophecy that he would not survive his wife a year.
It was rumoured that the King morganatically married the Duchess of Kendal soon after Sophie Dorothea’s death, and that the Archbishop of York performed the ceremony privately. But there was nothing to prove the rumour, and the duchess was never acknowledged as the King’s wife, either morganatically or otherwise. She always assumed airs of virtue and respectability, and was regular in her attendance of the services at the Lutheran Chapel Royal, though one of the pastors in years gone by had refused to administer the sacrament to her, on the ground that she was living with the King in unrepentant adultery. He was soon replaced by another more complaisant. It is exceedingly unlikely that a morganatic marriage took place, for the King, shortly after the death of his ill-treated consort, took to himself another mistress, who in time might have proved a formidable rival to the old-established favourites. On this occasion he selected an Englishwoman, Anne Brett, a bold and handsome brunette, who was the daughter of the divorced Countess of Macclesfield by her second husband, Colonel Brett. Anne demanded a coronet as the price of her complaisance and the old King was so enamoured that he promised her everything she wished. He lodged her in St. James’s Palace, gave her a handsome pension, and promised the title and coronet on his return from Hanover. He set out thither on June 3rd, 1727, accompanied by the Duchess of Kendal, and Lord Townshend as Minister in attendance.
Mistress Brett was left in possession of the field, for Lady Darlington had ceased to count, and she soon gave the court a taste of her quality. Her apartments adjoined those of the King’s granddaughters, Anne, Amelia and Caroline, and Mistress Brett ordered a door leading from her rooms to the garden to be broken down. The Princess Anne ordered the door to be blocked up again, whereat Mistress Brett flew into a rage, and told the workmen to pull down the barriers. But she had met her match in the Princess Anne, who, haughty and determined beyond her years, immediately sent other men to enforce her orders. When the dispute was at its height, news came from Hanover that the King was dead. Anne Brett was turned out of St. James’s Palace, her coronet vanished into air, and she was more than content, some years later, to marry Sir William Leman, and retire into obscurity. The King’s death foiled more than Anne Brett’s expectations; it shattered Bolingbroke’s hopes to the dust, and postponed indefinitely the double marriage scheme so dear to the heart of the Queen of Prussia.
The King had landed in Holland four days after leaving Greenwich, and he set out to accomplish the overland journey to Hanover, apparently in his usual health. The Duchess of Kendal stayed behind at the Hague to recover from the crossing, which always made her ill. Attended by a numerous escort, the King reached Delden, on the frontier of Holland, on June 9th. Hard by he paid a visit to the house of Count Twittel, where he ate an enormous supper, including several water-melons. His suite wished him to stay the night at Delden, but after resting there a few hours to change horses, he set off again at full speed in the small hours of the morning. According to Lockhart it was here that the letter was thrown into the King’s coach which had been written by the ill-fated Sophie Dorothea, upbraiding her husband with his cruelty, and reminding him of the prophecy that he would meet her at the divine tribunal within a year and a day of her death.[129] Whether it was the letter, or the supper, or a combination of both, it is impossible to say, but soon after leaving Delden the King became violently disordered and fell forward in a fit. When he partly recovered, his attendants again urged him to rest, but he refused. The last stage of the journey was accomplished in furious haste, the King himself urging on the postilions and shouting: “To Osnabrück, to Osnabrück!” Osnabrück was reached late at night, but by that time the King was insensible. His brother, the Duke of York, Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, came out to meet him. The King was borne into the castle, and restoratives were applied, but he never recovered consciousness, and breathed his last in the room where he had been born sixty-seven years before.
Thus died the first of our Hanoverian Kings. To judge him impartially we must take into consideration his environment and the age in which he lived. So viewed, there is something to be said in extenuation, something even in his favour. His profligacy was common to the princes of his time, his coarseness was all his own. He was a bad husband, a bad father, bad in many relations of life, but he was not a bad king. He kept his compact with England, he was strictly a constitutional monarch, he respected the rights of the people, and his views on civil and religious liberty were singularly enlightened. His excessive fondness for Hanover was an undoubted grievance to his English subjects, but, on the other hand, it did him honour, as it showed that he did not forget his old friends in the hour of prosperity. Though as King of England he was a stranger in a strange country, and surrounded by faction and intrigue, he played a difficult part with considerable skill. The great blot upon his reign was the execution of the Jacobite peers; the great stain upon his private life, the vindictive cruelty with which he hounded his unfortunate wife to madness, and death. For the first he was only partly responsible, the second admits of no palliation. Yet with all his failings he was superior to his son, who now succeeded him as King George the Second.