To her own offspring mercy she denied,
And, unforgiving, unforgiven died.
CHAPTER X.
THE REIGN OF THE WIDOWER.
Success of Admiral Vernon—Royal visit to ‘Bartlemy Fair’—Party-spirit runs high about the King and Prince—Lady Pomfret—The mad Duchess of Buckingham—Anecdote of Lady Sundon—Witty remark of Lady Mary Wortley—Fracas at Kensington Palace—The battle of Dettingen—A precocious child—Marriage of Princess Mary—A new opposition—Prince George—Lady Yarmouth installed at Kensington—Death of Prince Frederick—Conduct of the King on hearing of this event—Bubb Dodington’s extravagant grief—The funeral scant—Conduct of the widowed Princess—Opposition of the Prince to the King not undignified—Jacobite epitaph on the Prince—The Prince’s rebuke for frivolous jeer on Lady Huntingdon—The Prince’s patronage of literary men—Lady Archibald Hamilton, the Prince’s favourite—The Prince and the Quakers—Anecdote of Prince George—Princely appreciation of Lady Huntingdon.
The era of peace ended with Caroline. Walpole endeavoured to prolong the era, but Spanish aggressions against the English flag in South America drove the ministry into a war. The success of Vernon at Porto Bello rendered the war highly popular. The public enthusiasm was sustained by Anson, but it was materially lowered by our defeat at Carthagena, which prepared the way for the downfall of the minister of Caroline. Numerous and powerful were the opponents of Walpole, and no section of them exhibited more fierceness or better organisation than that of which the elder son of Caroline was the founder and great captain.
Frederick, however, was versatile enough to be able to devote as much time to pleasure as to politics.
As the roué Duke of Orleans, when regent, and indeed before he exercised that responsible office, was given to stroll with his witty but graceless followers, and a band of graceful but witless ladies, through the fairs of St. Laurent and St. Germain, tarrying there till midnight to see and hear the drolleries of ‘Punch’ and the plays of the puppets, so the princes of the royal blood of England condescended, with much alacrity, to perambulate Bartholomew Fair, and to enjoy the delicate amusements then and there provided. An anonymous writer, some thirty years ago, inserted in the ‘New European Magazine,’ from an older publication, an account of a royal visit, in 1740, to the ancient revels of St. Bartholomew. In this amusing record we are told, that ‘the multitude behind was impelled violently forwards, and a broad blaze of red light, issuing from a score of flambeaux, streamed into the air. Several voices were loudly shouting, ‘Room there for Prince Frederick! make way for the Prince!’ and there was that long sweep heard to pass over the ground which indicates the approach of a grand and ceremonious train. Presently the pressure became much greater, the voices louder, the light stronger, and, as the train came onward, it might be seen that it consisted, firstly of a party of yeomen of the guards clearing the way; then several more of them bearing flambeaux, and flanking the procession; while in the midst of all appeared a tall, fair, and handsome young man, having something of a plump foreign visage, seemingly about four-and-thirty years of age, dressed in a ruby-coloured frock-coat, very richly guarded with gold lace, and having his long flowing hair curiously curled over his forehead and at the sides, and finished with a very large bag and courtly queue behind. The air of dignity with which he walked; the blue ribbon and star-and-garter with which he was decorated; the small, three-cornered, silk court-hat which he wore while all around him were uncovered; the numerous suite, as well of gentlemen as of guards, which marshalled him along; the obsequious attention of a short stout person who, by his flourishing manner, seemed to be a player: all these particulars indicated that the amiable Frederick, Prince of Wales, was visiting Bartholomew Fair by torchlight, and that Manager Rich was introducing his royal guest to all the amusements of the place. However strange,’ adds the author, ‘this circumstance may appear to the present generation, yet it is nevertheless strictly true; for about 1740, when the revels of Smithfield were extended to three weeks and a month, it was not considered derogatory to persons of the first rank and fashion to partake in the broad humour and theatrical entertainments of the place.’
In the following year the divisions between the King and the prince made party-spirit run high, and he who followed the sire very unceremoniously denounced the son. To such a one there was a court at St. James’s, but none at Carlton House. Walpole tells a story which illustrates at once this feeling and the sort of wit possessed by the courtiers of the day. ‘Somebody who belonged to the Prince of Wales said he was going to court. It was objected, that he ought to say “going to Carlton House;” that the only court is where the King resides. Lady Pomfret, with her paltry air of learning and absurdity, said, “Oh, Lord! is there no court in England but the King’s? sure, there are many more! There is the Court of Chancery, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of King’s Bench, &c.” Don’t you love her? Lord Lincoln does her daughter.’ Lord Lincoln, the nephew of the Duke of Newcastle, the minister, was a frequenter of St. James’s, and, says Horace, ‘not only his uncle-duke, but even Majesty is fallen in love with him. He talked to the King at his levée without being spoken to. That was always thought high treason, but I don’t know how the gruff gentleman liked it.’ The gruff gentleman was the King, and the phrase paints him at a stroke, like one of Cruikshank’s lines, by which not only is a figure drawn, but expression given to it.
The prince’s party, combined with other opponents, effected the overthrow of Caroline’s favourite minister, Walpole, in 1742. The succeeding cabinet, at the head of which was Lord Wilmington, did not very materially differ in principles and measures from that of their predecessors. In the same year died Caroline’s other favourite, Lady Sundon, mistress of the robes.
‘Lord Sundon is in great grief,’ says Walpole. ‘I am surprised, for she has had fits of madness ever since her ambition met such a check by the death of the Queen. She had great power with her, though the Queen affected to despise her; but had unluckily told her, or fallen into her power by, some secret. I was saying to Lady Pomfret, “To be sure she is dead very rich.” She replied with some warmth, “She never took money.” When I came home I mentioned this to Sir Robert. “No,” said he, “but she took jewels. Lord Pomfret’s place of master of the horse to the Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond ear-rings, of fourteen hundred pounds value.” One day that she wore them at a visit at old Marlbro’s, as soon as she was gone, the duchess said to Lady Mary Wortley, “How can that woman have the impudence to go about in that bribe?” “Madam,” said Lady Mary, “how would you have people know where wine is to be sold unless there is a sign hung out?” Sir Robert told me that in the enthusiasm of her vanity, Lady Sundon had proposed to him to unite with her and govern the kingdom together: he bowed, begged her patronage, but, he said, he thought nobody fit to govern the kingdom but the King and Queen.’ That King, unsustained by his consort, appears to have become anxious to be reconciled with his son the Prince of Wales, at this time, when reports of a Stuart rebellion began to be rife, and when theatrical audiences applied passages in plays, in a favourable sense to the prince. The reconciliation was effected; but it was clumsily contrived, and was coldly and awkwardly concluded. An agent from the King induced the prince to open the way by writing to his father. This was a step which the prince was reluctant to take, and which he only took at last with the worst possible grace. The letter reached the King late at night, and on reading it he appointed the following day for the reception of Frederick, who, with five gentlemen of his court, repaired to St. James’s, where he was received by ‘the gruff gentleman’ in the drawing-room. The yielding sire simply asked him, ‘How does the princess do? I hope she is well.’ The dutiful son answered the query, kissed the paternal hand, and respectfully, as far as outward demonstration could evidence it, took his leave. He did not depart, however, until he had distinguished those courtiers present whom he held to be his friends by speaking to them; the rest he passed coldly by. As the reconciliation was accounted of as an accomplished fact, and as the King had condescended to speak a word or two to some of the most intimate friends of his son; and finally, as the entire royal family went together to the Duchess of Norfolk’s, where ‘the streets were illuminated and bonfired;’ there was a great passing to and fro of courtiers of either faction between St. James’s and Carlton House. Secker, who went to the latter residence with Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, to pay his respects, says that the prince and princess were civil to both of them.