We have another home-scene depicted by Lord Hervey, which at once shows us an illustration of parental affection and parental indifference. The Princess Anne, after a world of delay, had reluctantly left St. James’s for Holland, where her husband awaited her, and whither she went for her confinement. The last thing she thought of was the success of the opera and the triumph of Handel. She recommended both to the charge of Lord Hervey, and then went on her way to Harwich, sobbing. When she had reached Colchester she, upon receiving some letters from her husband stating his inability to be at the Hague so soon as he expected, started suddenly for Kensington.
In the meantime, in the palace at the latter place Lord Hervey found the Queen and the gentle Princess Caroline sitting together, drinking chocolate, shedding tears, and sobbing, all at the absence of the imperious Lady Anne. The trio had just succeeded in banishing melancholy remembrances by launching into cheerful conversation, when the gallery door was suddenly opened, and the Queen rose, exclaiming, ‘The King here already!’ When, however, she saw that, instead of the King, it was only the Prince of Wales, and ‘detesting the exchange of the son for the daughter, she burst out anew into tears, and cried out, “Oh, God! this is too much!”’ She was only relieved by the entry of the King, who, perceiving but not speaking to his son, took the Queen by the hand and led her out to walk.
This ‘cut direct,’ by affecting to be unconscious of the presence of the obnoxious person, was a habit with the King. ‘Whenever the prince was in a room with him,’ says Lord Hervey, ‘it put one in mind of stories that one has heard of ghosts which appear to part of the company and were invisible to the rest; and in this manner, wherever the prince stood, though the King passed him ever so often, or ever so near, it always seemed as if the King thought the prince filled a void space.’
On the following day, the 22nd of October, the Princess Anne suddenly appeared before her parents. They thought her at Harwich, or on the seas, the wind being fair. Tears and kisses were her welcome from her mother, and smiles and an embrace formed the greeting from her father. The return was ill-advised, but the Queen, with a growing conviction of decaying health, could not be displeased at seeing again her first child.
The health of Caroline was undoubtedly at this time much impaired, but the King allowed her scant respite from labour on that account. Thus on the 29th of this month, although the Queen was labouring under cold, cough, and symptoms of fever, in addition to having been weakened by loss of blood, a process she had recently undergone twice, the King not only brought her from Kensington to London for the birthday, but forced her to go with him to the opera to hear the inimitable Farinelli. He himself thought so little of illness, or liked so little to be thought ill, that he would rise from a sick couch to proceed to hold a levée, which was no sooner concluded than he would immediately betake himself to bed again. His affection for the Queen was not so great but that he compelled the same sacrifices from her; and on the occasion of this birthday, at the morning drawing-room, she found herself so near swooning, that she was obliged to send her chamberlain to the King, begging him to retire, ‘for she was unable to stand any longer.’ Notwithstanding which, we are told by Lord Hervey, that ‘at night he brought her into a still greater crowd at the ball, and there kept her till eleven o’clock.’
Sir Robert Walpole frequently, and never more urgently than at this time, impressed upon her the necessity of being careful of her own health. He addressed her as though she had been Queen Regnant of England—as she certainly was governing sovereign—and he described to her in such pathetic terms the dangers which England would, and Europe might, incur, if any fatal accident deprived her of life, and the King were to fall under the influence of any other woman, that the poor Queen, complaining and coughing, with head heavy, and aching eyes half closed with pain, cheeks flushed, pulse quick, spirits low, and breathing oppressed, burst into tears, alarmed at the picture, and with every disposition to do her utmost for the benefit of her health and the well-being of the body politic.
It was the opinion of Caroline, that in case of her demise the King would undoubtedly marry again, and she had often advised him to take such a step. She affected, however, to believe that a second wife would not be able to influence him to act contrary to the system which he had adopted through the influence of herself and Walpole.
It was during the sojourn of the Princess Anne in England that she heard the details of the withdrawal of Lady Suffolk from court. Everybody appeared to be rejoiced at that lady’s downfall, but most of all the Princess Anne. The King thought that of all the children of himself and Caroline, Anne loved him best. This dutiful daughter, however, despised him, and treated him as an insufferable bore, who always required novelty in conversation from others, but never told anything new of his own. In allusion to the withdrawal of Lady Suffolk from court, this amiable child remarked, ‘I wish with all my heart he would take somebody else, that Mamma might be a little relieved from the occasion of seeing him for ever in her room!’
In November the Princess Anne once more proceeded to Harwich, put to sea, and was so annoyed by the usual inconveniences that she compelled the captain to land her again. She declared that she should not be well enough for ten days to go once more aboard. This caused great confusion. Her father, and indeed the Queen also, insisted on her repairing to Holland by way of Calais, as her husband had thoughtfully suggested. She was compelled to pass through London, much to the King’s annoyance, but he declared that she should not stop, but proceed at once over London Bridge to Dover. He added, that she should never again come to England in the same condition of health. His threat was partly founded on the expense, her visit having cost him 20,000l. Her reluctance to proceed to her husband’s native country was founded, it has been suggested, on her own ambitious ideas. Her brothers were unmarried, and she was anxious, it is thought, that her own child should be English born, as it would stand in the line of inheritance to the throne. However this may be, the Queen saw the false step the daughter had already taken, and insisted on the wishes of her husband, the prince, being attended to; and so the poor foiled Anne went home to become a mother, very much against her will.
The Princess Amelia observed to Mrs. Clayton, the Queen’s bedchamber-woman, that her brother, Prince Frederick, would have been displeased if the accouchement of the princess had taken place in England. To this, Mrs. Clayton, as Lord Hervey observes, very justly remarked, ‘I cannot imagine, madam, how it can affect the prince at all where she lies in; since with regard to those who wish more of your royal highness’s family on the throne, it is no matter whether she be brought to bed here or in Holland, or of a son or a daughter, or whether she has any child at all; and with regard to those who wish all your family well, for your sake, madam, as well as our own, we shall be very glad to take any of you in your turn, but none of you out of it.’