CHAPTER IV.
FAMILY AND NATIONAL QUARRELS.
Retirement of Lady Suffolk—Tact of Queen Caroline—Arrogance of Princess Anne—Private life of the royal family—The Count de Roncy, the French refugee—German predilections of the Queen—A scene at court—Queen Caroline’s declining health—Ambitious aspirations of Princess Anne—Bishop Hoadly and the see of Winchester—The Queen and the clergy—The Queen appointed Regent—The King and Madame Walmoden—Lord Hervey’s imaginary post-obit diary—The Queen’s farewell interview with Lady Suffolk—Grief made fashionable—The temper of the King on his return—A scene: dramatis personæ, the King, Queen, and Lord Hervey—Lady Deloraine (Pope’s Delia) a royal favourite—An angry scene between the King and Queen—The King’s opinion of Bishop Hoadly—Dissension between the King and Prince—The royal libertine at Hanover—Court revels—Lady Bolingbroke and the Queen.
The year 1734 was marked by the retirement from court of the lady whom it was the fashion to call the Queen’s rival. Mrs. Howard, on becoming Countess of Suffolk, by the accession of her husband to the earldom in 1731, had been raised to the office of mistress of the robes to the Queen. Her husband died two years subsequently; and, shortly after, the King’s widowed favourite was sought in marriage by another suitor.
Her departure from court was doubtless principally caused by this new prospect of a happier life. It may have been accelerated by other circumstances. Lord Chesterfield, angry with the Queen for forgetting to exert her promised influence for him in obtaining some favour, applied to Lady Suffolk, and informed the Queen of the course he had taken. Caroline thereon told the King that she had had some petition to present on Lord Chesterfield’s behalf, but that as he had entrusted it to Lady Suffolk’s presenting, her own influence would probably be unavailing. The King, fired at the implied affront to his consort, treated his old mistress, now nearly half a century in years, with such severity that she begged to be permitted to withdraw. Lady Suffolk brought her long career at court to a close in this year, previous to her marriage with the Honourable George Berkeley, younger son of the second Earl of Berkeley. He was Master of St. Catherine’s in the Tower, and had served in two parliaments as member for Dover. Horace Walpole, who knew Lady Suffolk intimately when she was residing at Marble Hill, Twickenham, and he at Strawberry Hill, says of her, that she was what may be summed up in the word ‘lady-like.’ She was of a good height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light-brown hair, was remarkably genteel, and was always dressed with taste and simplicity. He adds, ‘for her face was regular and agreeable rather than beautiful, and those charms she retained, with little diminution, to her death, at the age of seventy-nine’ (in July 1767). He does not speak highly of her mental qualifications, but states that she was grave, and mild of character, had a strict love of truth, and was rather apt to be circumstantial upon trifles. The years of her life, after her withdrawal from court, were passed in a decent, dignified, and ‘respectable’ manner, and won for her a consideration which her earlier career had certainly not merited.
The Queen’s influence was even stronger than the favourite’s credit. ‘Except a barony, a red riband, and a good place for her brother, Sir John Hobart, Earl of Buckinghamshire, Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate recommendations. Her own acquisitions were so moderate, that, besides Marble Hill, which cost the King ten or twelve thousand pounds, her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She left the court with an income so little to be envied, that though an economist and not expensive, by the lapse of some annuities on lives not so prolonged as her own, she found herself straitened, and, besides Marble Hill, did not at most leave twenty thousand pounds to her family. On quitting court, she married Mr. George Berkeley, and outlived him.’[12]
It is not certain how far Caroline’s influence was exercised in the removal of Lady Suffolk, whom the Queen, according to some authors, requested to continue some time longer in her office of mistress of the robes. Nor is it important to ascertain. Caroline had higher duties to perform. She continued to serve her husband well, and she showed her opinion of her son, the Prince of Wales, by her conduct to him on more than one occasion. Thus, on New Year’s Day the prince attended his royal sire’s levée, not with any idea of paying his father the slightest measure of respect, but, suspecting that the King would not speak to him, to show the people with what contempt the homage of a dutiful son was met by a stern parent. When Caroline heard of the design, she simply persuaded the King to address his son kindly in public. This advice was followed, and the filial plot accordingly failed.
The Queen was as resolute in supporting the King against being driven into settling a permanent income upon the prince. She spoke of the latter as an extravagant and unprincipled fool, only less ignorant than those who were idiots enough to give opinions upon what they could not understand. ‘He costs the King 50,000l. a-year, and till he is married that may really be called a reasonable allowance.’ She stigmatised him as a ‘poor creature,’ easily led away, but not naturally bad-hearted. His seducers she treated as knaves, fools, and monsters. To the suggestion that a fixed allowance, even if it should be less than what the King paid out for him every year, would be better than the present plan, Caroline only replied that the King thought otherwise; and so the matter rested.
The tact of the Queen was further displayed in the course adopted by her on an occasion of some delicacy. Lord Stair had been deprived of his regiment for attempting to bring in a law whereby the commissions of officers should be secured to them for life. The King said he would not allow him to keep by favour what he had endeavoured to keep by force. Thereupon Lord Stair addressed a private letter to the Queen, through her lord-chamberlain, stuffed with prophetic warnings against the machinations of France and the designs of Walpole.
Caroline, on becoming acquainted with the contents of the epistle, rated her chamberlain soundly, and bade him take it instantly to Sir Robert Walpole, with a request to the latter to lay it before the King. She thus ‘very dexterously avoided the danger of concealing such a letter from the King, or giving Sir Robert Walpole any cause of jealousy from showing it.’ His Majesty very sententiously observed upon the letter, that Lord Stair ‘was a puppy for writing it, and the lord-chamberlain a fool for bringing it.’ The good chamberlain was a fool for other reasons also. He had no more rational power than a vegetable, and his solitary political sentiment was to this effect, and wrapped up in very bad English: ‘I hate the French, and I hope as we shall beat the French.’[13]
The times were growing warlike, and it was on the occasion of the Prince of Orange going to the camp of Prince Eugene that the Princess Anne returned to England. She was as arrogant and as boldly spoken as ever. In the latter respect she manifested much of the spirit of her mother. During her stay at court, the news of the surrender of Philipsburg reached this country. Her highness’s remark thereon, in especial reference to her royal father, is worth quoting. It was addressed to Lord Hervey, who was leading the princess to her own apartment after the drawing-room. ‘Was there ever anything so unaccountable,’ said she, shrugging up her shoulders, ‘as the temper of papa? He has been snapping and snubbing every mortal for this week, because he began to think Philipsburg would be taken; and this very day, that he actually hears it is taken, he is in as good humour as I ever saw him in in my life. To tell you the truth,’ she added, in French, ‘I find that so whimsical, and (between ourselves) so utterly foolish, that I am more enraged by his good, than I was before by his bad, humour.’