FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XI:
[104] Daily Journal, 8th November, 1733.
[105] The Prince of Orange was hereditary Stadtholder of Friesland, and Stadtholder by election of Gröningen and Guelderland.
[106] The Duke of Newcastle to Sir Robert Walpole, 13th November, 1734.
[107] This manuscript is preserved in the manuscript department of the British Museum.
[108] A gap here.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. 1734–1735.
The Court and the Government acquired some little popularity over the marriage of the Princess Royal, but it soon vanished before the fierce assaults of the Opposition (or Patriots, as they called themselves) in Parliament. The first session of 1734 was the last session under the Septennial Act, and the Patriots strained every nerve to discredit the Government with the country. A determined effort was made to repeal the Septennial Act and revive triennial parliaments. This had always been a favourite scheme of Wyndham and the Tories, though Pulteney, the leader of the Patriots, had in 1716 voted for the Septennial Act. But Bolingbroke’s influence compelled Pulteney to eat his words though he sacrificed his political consistency in doing so. The debate in the House of Commons on the repeal of the Septennial Act was almost as exciting as the debates on the excise, and, if possible, a higher level of eloquence was maintained. Pulteney’s speech, as was natural under the circumstances, was brief and embarrassed, but Wyndham surpassed himself and would have carried off the honours of the debate had it not been for Walpole’s great speech in reply. Walpole, stung out of his usual indifference by the taunts levelled at him in the Craftsman, and knowing whose hand had penned those scathing words and whose master mind had organised this attack, launched against Bolingbroke, under the name of an “anti-minister,” a tremendous philippic. After sketching the “anti-minister” in no covert terms he continued:—
“Suppose this fine gentleman lucky enough to have gained over to his party some persons of really fine parts, of ancient families and of great fortunes; and others of desperate views, arising from disappointed and malicious hearts; all these gentlemen, with respect to their political behaviour, moved by him, and by him solely, all they say, in public or in private, being only a repetition of the words he has put into their mouths and a spitting out of that venom he has infused in them; and yet we may suppose this leader not really liked by any, even of those who so blindly follow him, and hated by all the rest of mankind. We will suppose this anti-minister to be in a country where he really ought not to be, and where he could not have been but by the effect of too much goodness and mercy, yet endeavouring with all his might, and all his art, to destroy the fountain whence that mercy flowed.... Let us further suppose this anti-minister to have travelled, and at every Court where he was, thinking himself the greatest minister, and making it his trade to reveal the secrets of every Court he had before been at, void of all faith and honour, and betraying every master he ever served.”
Walpole’s outburst was undoubtedly provoked by Bolingbroke, but it was none the less cowardly thus to attack a man who could not answer him. It was Walpole who had prevented Bolingbroke from fighting openly, who had shut him out from the Senate, and thus forced him to employ any weapons that came to his hand. Yet even now he feared his power. A large minority supported the repeal of the Septennial Act, and in the general election that followed, though Walpole employed every means to corrupt the constituencies and spent no less than £60,000 of his own private fortune besides, the Government majority was largely reduced. Still Walpole won and it is difficult to see how he could have done otherwise considering the resources at his command. The Queen took the keenest interest in the struggle, and her joy at the result showed how keen had been her apprehensions. “On the whole,” wrote Newcastle soon after the general election, “our Parliament is, I think, a good one, but by no means such a one as the Queen and Sir Robert imagine.”[109]
But the Patriots, who had indulged in high hopes over the result of this appeal to the country, were frankly disappointed. They were further discouraged by the resolution of Bolingbroke to leave England for a time—a resolution which was ascribed to different causes. Some said that money matters had to do with it, others that it was due to differences between Bolingbroke and Pulteney, or to the retirement of Lady Suffolk from court, or, most unlikely reason of all, to Walpole’s denunciation of him in the House of Commons. The probable reason was that Bolingbroke owned himself beaten, and threw up the cards. He had led his hosts within sight of victory with consummate skill, but victory was denied him. Walpole had a new lease of power for seven years, and who could tell what seven years would bring? There was nothing more to be done. So Bolingbroke retired to his beautiful château of Chanteloup in Touraine for a while, and devoted himself to literature. “My part is over,” he wrote to Wyndham, “and he who remains on the stage after his part is over deserves to be hissed off.”[110]
The King and Queen, no less than the Government, rejoiced over Bolingbroke’s departure, but their rejoicings were premature, for he had left his sting behind him. The Prince of Wales was deeply grieved at the loss of his political mentor. Before leaving Bolingbroke had given him a piece of advice—to bring his grievances formally before the House of Commons, and ask that the £100,000 a year voted for him should be settled on him by Parliament. Bolingbroke could not have advised anything more calculated to embarrass the court and the Government, as he knew full well. If the Prince carried out his advice he would make the Government unpopular, by forcing them to appear opposed to a popular demand; he would compel those politicians who hitherto had sat on the fence to declare themselves definitely in favour of either father or son, and he would drag the differences of the Royal Family into the light of day, and do grievous harm to the dynasty. The Prince was ready to act upon Bolingbroke’s advice, but his more cautious friends, like Doddington, dissuaded him, and he did not know how to proceed alone. But he threatened to do so, and the mere threat sufficed to throw the King and Queen into an extraordinary state of agitation. The Queen still retained some little influence over her son, the relations between them had not yet been strained to breaking point; her influence over her husband was boundless, and she was able, by preaching at the one and pleading with the other, to avert the threatened crisis. She assured the Prince that if he carried matters to extremities he would gain nothing, and she besought the King not to drive the Prince to extreme measures. The King, therefore, on the principle of buying off his Danes, reluctantly made over a certain sum, which sufficed for the Prince’s immediate necessities, and the crisis was for the moment averted. But it was only for the moment.
This year (1735) the King paid his triennial visit to Hanover. He appointed the Queen to act as Regent as before, a step which gave great umbrage to the Prince of Wales, who on this occasion did not trouble to disguise his feelings, and for the first time showed open disrespect to his mother’s authority.
On this visit of the King to Hanover he began his liaison with Amelia Sophia de Walmoden, the wife of Baron de Walmoden, a Hanoverian. This lady’s youthful charms soon made him forget the retirement of Lady Suffolk, and her influence over him quickly became greater than Lady Suffolk’s had ever been. The new mistress had a good deal of beauty, and considerable powers of fascination; she flattered the King to the top of his bent, and made him believe he was the only man she had ever loved, or ever could love, in spite of the fact that she had one, if not two, other intrigues going on at the same time. She was cautious, and avoided making enemies by not trespassing in matters outside her province.
The Queen in England was soon made aware that there was some disturbing influence at work. The King’s letters to her became shorter, and he usurped at Hanover some of the prerogatives which belonged to her as Regent, such as signing commissions, and so forth. He also, through his minister in attendance, Lord Harrington, cavilled at many of the acts of the Queen-Regent, a thing he had never done before. In this perhaps Harrington’s jealousy of Walpole had some share. Harrington knew that, by embarrassing the Queen, he also embarrassed her chief adviser. Therefore, between the jealousy of her son at home and the irritability of her husband abroad, Caroline’s third Regency was anything but a pleasant one. But she suffered no word of complaint to escape her lips, and pursued her usual policy of trying to increase the popularity of the Crown and strengthen the hands of Walpole and the Government. She was afraid to keep up much state, lest the King in his present mood should be jealous, so she removed the court to Kensington, where she lived very quietly, holding only such drawing-rooms as were absolutely necessary. These she held rather from policy than from pleasure, her object being to conciliate the powerful Whig peers who were still dissatisfied with the Government.
The Queen found interest and relaxation in improving her house and gardens at Richmond. In addition to a dairy and menagerie, which she had established in the park, she erected several buildings, more or less ornamental, in the gardens, of which the most peculiar was the one known as “Merlin’s Cave”. This extraordinary edifice was approached through a maze of close alleys and clipped hedges. The Craftsman ridiculed it, and declared that it looked like “an old haystack thatched over”. A gloomy passage led to a large circular room, decorated with several allegorical figures, of which we glean the following account:—
“The figures her Majesty has ordered for Merlin’s Cave are placed therein, namely: (1) Merlin at a table with conjuring books and mathematical instruments, taken from the face of Mr. Ernest, page to the Prince of Wales; (2) King Henry the Seventh’s Queen, and (3) Queen Elizabeth, who came to Merlin for knowledge; the former from the face of Mrs. Margaret Purcell, the latter from Miss Paget’s; (4) Minerva, from Mrs. Poyntz’s; (5) Merlin’s secretary, from Mr. Kemp’s, one of his Royal Highness the Duke’s grenadiers; and (6) a witch, from a tradesman’s wife at Richmond. Her Majesty has ordered also a choice collection of English books to be placed therein.”[111]
The people were much interested in Merlin’s Cave, and as soon as it was finished the Queen threw it open to the public on certain days, and crowds applied for admission. Similar imitations of this pleasure house sprang up all over the country, despite its doubtful taste. So pleased was the Queen with the cave that she erected another house hard by, and called it “The Hermitage”. It was built to resemble a rude building overgrown with moss, and was entered, incongruously, by an enormous gilt gateway. Merlin’s Cave, the Hermitage, and the improvements in the house and gardens at Richmond were expensive luxuries, so expensive that the Queen was unable to pay for them out of her income. But Walpole humoured her in these hobbies, and made her several little grants from the Treasury, of which no one was the wiser.
In October the time arrived for the King to tear himself away from Hanover and his Walmoden. It was necessary for him to be back in London by October 30th to keep his birthday. He delayed until he could delay no longer, and, when he had at last to tear himself away, he promised his mistress that under any circumstances he would be with her next year by May 29th. The Walmoden, between smiles and tears, publicly pledged her royal lover a happy return on May 29th, at a farewell banquet the night before his departure. It was a rash promise for the King to make, for he had hitherto only visited Hanover once in three years; and even so, not without protest from his English advisers.
George the Second set out from Hanover on Wednesday, October 22nd, and arrived at Kensington the following Sunday. The Queen, who had long been expecting him, received the news just after she returned from morning chapel. She at once summoned her court, and went on foot to meet him at the great gate. When the King stepped out of his coach she stooped and kissed his hand, and he gave her his arm and led her into the palace. It was only on the occasion of a return from Hanover that the King offered the Queen his arm; he probably did so in consideration of her holding the office of Regent, which she had not yet resigned into his hands. The King held a small reception immediately after his arrival, but the Queen, who saw that he was ill, soon dismissed the company. The King had in fact tired himself by travelling too fast, and for the next few days he was exceedingly unwell; he was also exceedingly irritable, and every one who came near him, from the Queen downwards, incurred his wrath. He loudly lamented his beloved Hanover and abused England. “No English or even French cook could dress a dinner; no English confectioner set out a dessert; no English player could act; no English coachman could drive or English jockey ride, nor were any English horses fit to be drove or fit to be ridden; no Englishman knew how to come into a room, nor any English woman how to dress herself.”[112] All this and much more from the King of England!
The Queen had to bear the brunt of his ill-humour, and, what was worse, had to endure the fear that her influence over him was on the wane. His manner towards her had completely changed; nothing she could say, or do, was right, in little things or great. Among other trifles he noticed that the Queen had taken some bad pictures out of one of the rooms at Kensington, and replaced them by good ones. The King, who knew nothing of art, and cared less, for the mere sake of finding fault, made this a pretext for thwarting his wife. He peremptorily ordered Lord Hervey to have the new pictures taken away and the old ones replaced. This was impossible, for some of the pictures had been destroyed and others sent to Windsor. But Lord Hervey did not dare tell the King so; he demurred a little and asked the King if he would allow two Vandykes at least to remain, to which George answered: “I suppose you assisted the Queen with your fine advice when she was pulling my house to pieces and spoiling all my furniture: thank God, at least she has left the walls standing! As for the Vandykes, I do not care whether they are changed or no, but for the picture with the dirty frame over the door, and the three nasty little children, I will have them taken away and the old ones restored; I will have it done too to-morrow morning before I go to London, or else I know it will not be done at all.” “Would your Majesty,” said Lord Hervey, “have the gigantic fat Venus restored too?” “Yes, my lord; I am not so nice as your lordship. I like my fat Venus much better than anything you have given me instead of her.”
Lord Hervey says that he thought that “if his Majesty had liked his fat Venus as well as he used to do, there would have been none of these disputations”. He told the Queen next morning what had passed. She pretended to laugh but was evidently annoyed, and began to wonder how she could obey the King’s commands. “Whilst they were speaking the King came in, but by good luck, said not one word of the pictures: his Majesty stayed about five minutes in the gallery; snubbed the Queen, who was drinking chocolate, for being always stuffing; the Princess Emily for not hearing him; Princess Caroline for being grown fat; the Duke [of Cumberland] for standing awkwardly; Lord Hervey for not knowing what relation the Prince of Sultzbach was to the Elector Palatine: and then carried the Queen to walk, and be resnubbed, in the garden.”
The Queen was very much perturbed by the King’s altered behaviour towards her, and she took Sir Robert Walpole into her confidence, and asked him what was to be done. Walpole spoke to her with a frankness positively brutal. He told her that since the King had tasted “better things,” presumably the Walmoden, it could not be other than it was; he reminded the Queen that she was no longer young, and said that “she should no longer depend upon her person, but her head, for her influence, as the one would now be of little use to her, and the other could never fail her.” No woman likes to be told that her personal charms are gone, and Walpole made this advice the more unpalatable by recommending the Queen to send for Lady Tankerville, a good looking but stupid woman, to fill the place left vacant by Lady Suffolk. He told the Queen that it was absolutely necessary that the King should have some one to amuse him, “as he could not spend his evenings with his own daughters after having tasted the sweets of passing them with other people’s”; therefore, it would be much better that he should have some one chosen by the Queen than by himself. Lady Deloraine, who was the other likely candidate for the royal favour, and whom the King had often noticed when she was governess to the young Princesses, Walpole regarded as a dangerous woman, and therefore preferred Lady Tankerville.
The Queen resented this advice in her heart, and was deeply hurt; but on the surface she took it well enough, laughing the matter off as was her wont. She was not above making some bitter jokes upon the situation in which she found herself. When she was dressed for the King’s birthday drawing-room, she pointed to her head-dress and said: “I think I am extremely fine too, though un peu à la mode; I think they have given me horns.” Whereupon Walpole burst into a coarse laugh, and said he thought the tire-woman must be a wag. The Queen laughed too, but flushed angrily.
At this same birthday drawing-room the King noticed that it was poorly attended, and those who came were indifferently dressed, a sure sign of his unpopularity. The King, unpopular before, had disgusted his English subjects by his long stay in Hanover, and by the new ties he had formed there, for the people had had enough of German mistresses under George the First. Many of the great noblemen, even the officers of state, showed their resentment in a diplomatic manner by absenting themselves from court and retiring into the country. This made the King angrier than ever, and his manner towards the Queen, who was the only person upon whom it was safe for him to vent his displeasure, became harsher than before. She bore it uncomplainingly, until one morning when he was unreasonable beyond endurance she said half in jest, though with tears in her eyes, that she would get Walpole to put in a word in her favour, as nothing she now did was right. The King flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant by such complaints. “Do you think,” he said, “I should not feel and show some uneasiness for having left a place where I was pleased and happy all day long, and being come to one where I am as incessantly crossed and plagued?” This was a little too much for the Queen, who for once lost her self-control and turned upon her tormentor. “I see no reason,” she said, “that made your coming to England necessary; you might have continued there, without coming to torment yourself and us: since your pleasure did not call you, I am sure your business did not, for we could have done that just as well without you, as you could have pleased yourself without us.” Thereupon the King, who was as much astonished as Balaam was when his ass spake, went out of the room, and banged the door.
The King endeavoured to propitiate the Queen by making her a present of some horses from Hanover. This was a poor sort of gift, as by it he charged the expense of the horses on her establishment, and used them himself; most of his presents were of this nature. As she did not accept the gift with becoming gratitude, he fell foul of Merlin’s Cave, which had just been completed. The Queen told him that she heard the Craftsman had abused her hobby. “I am very glad of it,” said the King, “you deserve to be abused for such childish silly stuff, and it is the first time I ever knew the scoundrel in the right.” This conversation took place in the evening, when the King was always peculiarly irascible. He formerly spent two or three hours of an evening in Lady Suffolk’s apartments, snubbing and worrying her, but since that lady had retired, and no one as yet was found to take her place, he had perforce to spend it with his wife and daughters, and vent his ill-humour on them. The same evening that he abused Merlin’s Cave, he found fault with the Queen for giving away money to servants when she went to visit the nobility in London. The Queen defended herself by saying that it was the custom, and appealed to Lord Hervey, who said it was true that such largess was expected of her Majesty. The King retorted: “Then she may stay at home as I do. You do not see me running into every puppy’s house, to see his new chairs and stools. Nor is it for you,” said he, turning to the Queen, “to be running your nose everywhere, and trotting about the town to every fellow that will give you some bread and butter, like an old girl that loves to go abroad, no matter whether it be proper or no.” The Queen, who was knotting, flushed, and tears came into her eyes, but she answered nothing. Lord Hervey somewhat officiously said that the Queen had a love of pictures, whereat the King turned to the Queen and poured forth a flood of abuse in German. She made no reply, but knotted faster than ever until she tangled her thread and snuffed out one of the candles in her agitation, whereupon the King, falling back into English, began to lecture her on her awkwardness. This may be taken as a specimen of the way the Royal Family spent their evenings for some weeks after the King’s return from Hanover.
From a hundred little things, the Queen feared that her day was over. The King always used to stay with her till eleven o’clock in the morning, before beginning the business of the day; but now he hurried off soon after nine o’clock, in order that he might write love letters to Madame de Walmoden. He was a great letter-writer, especially of love letters, an art in which he excelled, and probably inherited from his mother, Sophie Dorothea.
AUGUSTA, PRINCESS OF WALES, AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE.
The only matter in which the King seemed to be at one with his consort, at this time, was in blaming the Prince of Wales, who took the occasion of his father’s return to renew his demands. He had for a long time absented himself from the King’s levées, but he was prevailed upon by Doddington to appear at one. His appearance, as the King suspected, foreshadowed a definite demand, which was not long in coming. The Prince requested that he should have his full income of £100,000 a year, a separate establishment, and be married. It was no use ignoring Frederick, he only became more troublesome, so the King determined to yield the point, which would cost him least money, and get him married at once. He sent his son a formal message, by five of the Cabinet Council, to say that, if the Prince liked, he would ask for him the hand of the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. She was the daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, and the King had met her, as if by accident, on his last visit to Hanover, with a view to seeing if she would be a suitable wife for his son. It was not a gracious way of meeting the Prince’s wishes, but Frederick answered with great propriety, that whoever his Majesty thought a proper match for his son would be agreeable to him. One of the most irritating features of the Prince’s conduct was that he was always polite and circumspect to the King and Queen in public, and disrespectful and disobedient in private. He followed up his answer by asking how much money he was to get. When the King, reluctantly, promised to disgorge £50,000 a year, the Prince expressed great dissatisfaction, but, on the principle of half a loaf being better than no bread, he determined to accept the sum as an instalment, and let the marriage go forward.
Lord Delaware was therefore despatched to Saxe-Gotha to complete the negotiations which had been already set on foot, and bring the bride over to England. These negotiations took some little time, and the young Princess naturally wished to pay her farewells before setting forth to an unknown husband and an unknown land; but the King was so impatient to return to his Walmoden that after a week or two he sent word to Delaware to say that if the Princess could not come by the end of April the marriage must either be put off till the next winter, or solemnised without him, as to Hanover he would go. This message had the effect of hastening matters. The Princess Augusta landed at Greenwich on Sunday, April 25th, 1735, and stayed the night at the palace there. She had the promise of beauty and the charm that always goes with youth. At this time she looked, as she was, an overgrown girl, tall and slender, and somewhat awkward in her movements, but her pleasant expression and engaging manner soon won her popularity. The poets in their odes of welcome endowed the youthful pair with all the graces, as for example:—
That pair in Eden ne’er reposed
Where groves more lovely grew;
Those groves in Eden ne’er enclosed
A lovelier pair than you.
The Prince of Wales went down to Greenwich to meet his bride-elect, and was much pleased with her. The next day she showed herself to the people on the balcony of the palace, and was warmly received. The young Princess was only seventeen years of age; she was quite alone, unaccompanied by any relative, and could not speak a word of English. Yet she was allowed to remain at Greenwich forty-eight hours after her landing in England without any one of the Royal Family going near her except the Prince. She was treated with the same neglect as the Prince of Orange had been treated. The excuse put forward on behalf of the King and Queen was that until she was Princess of Wales there was no rule of precedence to guide them as to how she should be received. They were no doubt jealous of the pretensions which the Prince of Wales put forward; but in any case, even if they could not have gone themselves to welcome her, they might have sent one of the Princesses to befriend the young and inexperienced girl in what must necessarily have been a difficult and delicate position. The Prince endeavoured to make amends for this neglect by paying his betrothed great attention. He came to Greenwich again the next day and dined with his future bride. “He afterwards,” we are told, “gave her Highness the diversion of passing on the water as far as the Tower and back in his barge, finely adorned, preceded by a concert of music. Their Highnesses afterwards supped in public.”[113]
The next morning the Princess was escorted from Greenwich in one of the royal coaches to Lambeth, and thence she proceeded down the river to Whitehall in a barge. At Whitehall she landed, and was carried through St. James’s Park in a sedan chair to the garden entrance of St. James’s Palace, where the Prince of Wales, who had preceded her, was waiting. The Prince led his betrothed up to the great drawing-room, where the King and Queen and all the court were ready to receive her, and curious to see what she was like. The King had been waiting more than an hour, for the Princess was late, and he was consequently impatient, and not in the best of tempers, but the young girl by her tact overcame any awkwardness that might have attended her reception. She prostrated herself at the King’s feet, and made a similar obeisance to the Queen. Her behaviour throughout this trying ceremony was marked by such propriety and discretion, that she immediately created a favourable impression, and did away with any prejudice against her.
The Princess was not allowed much time to rest after her journey, for the marriage was arranged to take place that night, at nine o’clock in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. Before the ceremony the King and Queen, to avoid vexed questions of precedence, dined in private, but the Duke of Cumberland and the Princesses were commanded to dine with the Prince and his betrothed. Unfortunately the harmony of this family party was marred by quarrels over minute questions of ceremony. The King, with a view to overcoming any difficulties, had ordered the Duke and the Princesses to go “undressed,” that is, informally, and in other clothes than those they were to wear later at the wedding. The Prince resented this as a slight upon himself and his bride, and in return began disputing as to where, and how, his brother and sisters should sit at dinner. He demanded that they should be seated upon stools without any backs, whilst he and his bride occupied armchairs at the head of the table; also that he and his bride should be served on bended knee, while the others should be waited upon in the ordinary manner. The King and Queen had anticipated some of those difficulties, and had coached the Princesses beforehand in what they were to do. So they flatly refused to go into the room where dinner was served until the stools had been carried away and chairs put in their places, but they so far yielded the other point as to order their personal servants to wait upon them in the usual manner. Thus the wedding dinner passed off, if not exactly harmoniously, without any more childish disputes, though the Princesses went without their coffee as it was offered to them by a servant of the bride. The dinner, and the altercations in connection with it, occupied the best part of the afternoon, and the bride had scarcely time to dress for the wedding.
The wedding procession was formed at eight o’clock, and it took some time to marshal. The peers and peeresses, and other personages invited to the wedding, met in the great drawing-room of St. James’s, and then walked in order of precedence to the chapel. The Bishop of London performed the marriage ceremony, and the joining of hands was made known to the public by the firing of guns in St. James’s Park. The following extract from a contemporary print gives the best account of the ceremony:—
“Her Highness was in her hair, wearing a crown with one bar, as Princess of Wales, set all over with diamonds; her robe likewise, as Princess of Wales, being of crimson velvet, turned back with several rows of ermine, and having her train supported by four ladies, all of whom were in virgin habits of silver, like the Princess, and adorned with diamonds not less in value than from twenty to thirty thousand pounds each. Her Highness was led by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, and conducted by His Grace the Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and the Lord Hervey, Vice-Chamberlain, and attended by the Countess of Effingham, and the other ladies of her household. The marriage service was read by the Lord Bishop of London, Dean of the Chapel; and, after the same was over, a fine anthem was performed by a great number of voices and instruments. When the procession returned, his Royal Highness led his bride; and coming into the drawing-room, their Royal Highnesses kneeled down and received their Majesties’ blessing. At half-an-hour after ten their Majesties sat down to supper in ambigu, the Prince and the Duke being on the King’s right hand, and the Princess of Wales and the four Princesses on the Queen’s left. Their Majesties retiring to the apartments of the Prince of Wales, the bride was conducted to her bedchamber, the bridegroom to his dressing-room, where the Duke undressed him, and his Majesty did his Royal Highness the honour to put on his shirt. The bride was undressed by the Princesses, and, being in bed in a rich undress, his Majesty came into the room, the Prince following soon after in a night-gown of silver stuff, and cap of the finest lace. The Quality were admitted to see the bride and bridegroom sitting up in bed surrounded by all the Royal Family.”[114]
The King had grumbled because there were few new clothes at his birthday drawing-room, but no such complaint could be made on this occasion, for the splendour and richness of the costumes had never been excelled. The Georgian beau was a gorgeous being; the men seemed to outshine the ladies. We read:—
“His Majesty was dressed in a gold brocade, turned up with silk, embroidered with large flowers in silver and colours, as was the waistcoat; the buttons and stars were diamonds. Her Majesty was in plain yellow silk, robed and faced with pearls, diamonds, and other jewels of immense value. The Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle, and St. Albans, the Earl of Albemarle, Lord Hervey, Colonel Pelham and many other noblemen, were in gold brocades of from three to five hundred pounds a suit. The Duke of Marlborough was in a white velvet and gold brocade, upon which was an exceedingly rich point d’Espagne. The Earl of Euston and many others were in clothes flowered or sprigged with gold; the Duke of Montagu in a gold brocaded tissue. The waistcoats were universally brocades, with large flowers. ’Twas observed most of the rich clothes were the manufacture of England, and in honour of our own artists. The few which were French did not come up to these in richness, goodness, or fancy, as was seen by the clothes worn by the Royal Family, which were all of the British manufacture. The cuffs of the sleeves were universally deep and open, the waists long, and the plaits more sticking out than ever. The ladies were principally in brocades of gold and silver, and wore their sleeves much lower than hath been done for some time.”[115]
After her marriage the Princess of Wales maintained the favourable impression she created at first, a notable feat considering that she had been brought up in the seclusion of her mother’s country house in Saxe-Gotha, and had come to a Court far more splendid than any she could have ever dreamed of. Walpole, who noted how she had won the King’s approval and gained the Prince’s esteem, declared that these “were circumstances that spoke strongly in favour of brains which had but seventeen years to ripen”. Lord Waldegrave testified that the Princess distinguished herself “by a most decent and prudent behaviour, and the King, notwithstanding his aversion to his son, behaved to her not only with great politeness, but with the appearance of cordiality and affection”. Even old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who hated Queen Caroline, and generally had a bad word to say for every one, relented in favour of the Princess, declaring that she “always appeared good-natured and civil to everybody”. The Princess’s subsequent conduct justified these praises, and she showed herself as the years went by to be a clever woman, with considerable force of character.
At first her position was exceedingly difficult in consequence of the strained relations between the Prince and his parents. She necessarily saw more of the Queen than of the King, and though the Queen’s kindness to her never wavered, there was always a barrier of reserve between them, for the Prince had now come to dislike his mother even more than his father. Just before his marriage the Queen had had a difference with her son over the question whether Lady Archibald Hamilton was, or was not, to be one of the ladies in waiting to the Princess; the Prince wishing her to be appointed, and the Queen declaring that it was not proper that the Prince’s mistress should be one of his wife’s household. She was undoubtedly right, but the Prince might have retorted, and he probably did, that he was only following precedent, since Lady Suffolk had filled a similar position in the household of his parents. The matter was compromised by only three ladies in waiting being appointed by the Queen, and the Princess was left free to nominate one other when she arrived. The Prince gained such an ascendency over his wife that the first thing she did was to appoint Lady Archibald Hamilton, who soon became her constant companion. Lady Archibald was not a wise adviser to the young Princess even in minor matters, or perhaps she deliberately set about to make her look ridiculous. The Princess was quite ignorant of the customs of the English Court, and was imbued by her husband with a strong sense of what was due to her as Princess of Wales. Either at his bidding or Lady Archibald’s suggestion, she took to walking in Kensington Gardens with two gentlemen-ushers going before her, a chamberlain leading her by the hand, a page holding up her long train, and her maids of honour and ladies in waiting following behind. The Queen met this grotesque procession one morning when she was out on her walks, and burst into peals of laughter. The poor Princess of Wales, who was not conscious of having done anything wrong, begged to know the reason of her Majesty’s merriment, whereupon the gentle Princess Caroline so far forgot her gentleness as to tell her sister-in-law, tartly, that it was ridiculous for her to walk out like a tragedy queen, when she was merely taking the air privately in the gardens.
If the King and Queen had thought to pacify their eldest son by yielding to his wish to be married, they quickly found themselves mistaken. The Prince accepted this concession only as an instalment, and immediately began to ask for more. He did not consider his demand for a separate establishment met by his being given apartments in the royal palaces, and he refused to be contented with anything less than the full sum voted for him by Parliament. The King stoutly refused to yield more and expressed himself very forcibly on, what he called, his son’s ungrateful conduct. Thus baffled, the Prince began to raise money right and left by giving bills and bonds payable on the death of his father and his own accession to the throne, and the money-lenders were willing to advance him money on these conditions at an extortionate rate of interest. When the King heard of this he became greatly frightened lest the rapacity of the usurers should cause them to hasten his death by assassination. The Queen feared for the King’s safety too, and had long talks with Walpole and Lord Hervey on the subject. Lord Hervey, who hated the Prince, offered to bring forward a bill in the House of Lords making it a capital offence for any man to lend money on the consideration of the King’s death, but Walpole wisely pooh-poohed the idea. He strongly objected to bringing the disputes of the Royal Family before the public, and told the Queen he could see no way of keeping the Prince in order except through the good influence of the Princess of Wales. The Queen then tried to discuss matters with the Princess, but, coached by her husband, she would not listen. She was very sorry she said, but her Majesty must excuse her, she must decline to take any part in the controversy. Whatever her husband did was right in her eyes and it was her duty to obey him, whom she had sworn to obey. This drew from the Queen the expression: “Poor creature, if she were to spit in my face I should only pity her for being under such a fool’s direction, and wipe it off”. She pitied the Princess rather than blamed her, and allowed this little incident to make no difference to her behaviour towards her. The Princess no doubt had done wisely and the Prince showed his appreciation by treating his wife with courtesy and kindness, and the marriage, which had begun inauspiciously, turned out better than any one expected.