To see ourselves as ithers see us—
and it was excellent opportunity for such comment. ‘While she was saying this,’ remarks the noble lord, ‘she little reflected in what degree she herself possessed all the impediments and antidotes to love she had been enumerating, and that, “Ah, what is human nature?” was as applicable to her own blindness as to his.’
She certainly illustrated in her own person her assertion that in government nothing was a trifle. Thus, when what was called the Scotch Election Petition was before parliament and threatening to give some trouble to the ministerial side, her anxiety till the question was decided favourably to the Crown side, and her affected indifference after the victory, were both marked and striking. On the morning before the petition was presented, praying the House of Lords to take into consideration certain alleged illegalities in the recent election of sixteen representative peers of Scotland—a petition which the house ultimately dismissed—the anxiety of Caroline was so great ‘to know what was said, thought, or done, or expected on this occasion, that she sent for Lord Hervey while she was in bed; and because it was contrary to the queenly etiquette to admit a man to her bedside while she was in it, she kept him talking upon one side of the door, which was just upon her bed, while she conversed with him on the other for two hours together, and then sent him to the King’s side to repeat to his Majesty all he had related to her.’[19] By the King’s side is meant, not his Majesty’s side of the royal couch, but the side of the palace wherein he had his separate apartments.
It was soon after this period (1735), that the King set out for Hanover, much against the inclination of his ministers, who dreaded lest he should be drawn in to conclude some engagement, when abroad, adverse to the welfare of England. His departure, however, was witnessed by Caroline with much resignation. It gave her infinitely more power and more pleasure; for, as regent, she had no superior to consult or guide, and in her husband’s absence she had not the task of amusing a man who was growing as little amusable as Louis XIV. was when Madame de Maintenon complained of her terrible toil in that way. His prospective absence of even half a year’s duration did not alarm Caroline, for it released her from receiving the daily sallies of a temper that, let it be charged by what hand it would, used always to discharge its hottest fire, on some pretence or other, upon her!
The Queen’s enjoyment, however, was somewhat dashed by information conveyed to her by that very husband, and by which she learned that the royal reprobate, having become smitten by the attractions of a young married German lady, named Walmoden, had had the rascality to induce her to leave her husband—a course which she had readily adopted for the small consideration of a thousand ducats.
This Madame Walmoden brings us back to the times of Sophia Dorothea. Elizabeth, sister of the Countess von Platen who brought about the catastrophe in which Königsmark perished and Sophia Dorothea was ruined, was married, first to von Busch, and secondly to von Weyhe (or Weyke). By this second marriage she had a daughter, who became the wife of General von Wendt. These von Wendts had a daughter also, who married Herr Walmoden. It was this last lady whom the son of Sophia Dorothea lured from her husband, and whom he ultimately raised to the dignity of Countess of Yarmouth.
Not the smallest incident which marked the progress of this infamous connection was concealed by the husband from his wife. He wrote at length minute details of the person of the new mistress, for whom he bespoke the love of his own wife!
Lord Hervey thinks that the pride of the Queen was much more hurt than her affections on this occasion; which is not improbable, for the reasoning public, to whom the affair soon became known, at once concluded that the rise of the new mistress would be attended with the downfall of the influence of Caroline.
The latter, however, knew well how to maintain her influence, let who would be the object of the impure homage of her exceedingly worthless husband. To the letters which he addressed to her with particular unction, she replied with an unction quite as rich in quality and profuse in degree. Pure and dignified as she might seem in discoursing with divines, listening to philosophers, receiving the metrical tributes of poets, or cavilling with scholars, she had no objection to descend from Olympus and find relaxation in wallowing in Epicurus’ stye. Nor did she thus condescend merely to suit a purpose and to gain an end. Her letters, encouraging her husband in his amours with women at Hanover, were coarse enough to have called up a blush on the cheek of one of Congreve’s waiting-maids. They have the poor excuse tied to them of having been written for the purpose of securing her own power. The same apology does not apply to the correspondence with the dirty Duchess of Orleans. Caroline appears to have indulged in the details of that correspondence for the sake of the mere pleasure itself. And yet she has been called a woman without blemish!
The King’s letters to her are said to have extended to sixty, and never to less than forty, pages. They were filled, says Lord Hervey, ‘with an hourly account of everything he saw, heard, thought, or did, and crammed with minute trifling circumstances, not only unworthy of a man to write, but even of a woman to read; most of which I saw, and almost all of them I heard reported by Sir Robert Walpole, to whose perusal few were not committed, and many passages were transmitted to him by the King’s own order; who used to tag several paragraphs with “Montrez ceci et consultez ladessus le gros homme.” Among many extraordinary things and expressions these letters contained was one in which he desired the Queen to contrive, if she could, that the Prince of Modena, who was to come at the latter end of the year to England, might bring his wife with him.’ She was the younger daughter of the Regent Duke of Orleans. The reason which the King gave to his wife for the request which he had made with respect to this lady was, that he had understood the latter was by no means particular as to what quarter or person she received homage from, and he had the greatest inclination imaginable to pay his addresses to a daughter of the late Regent of France. ‘Un plaisir,’ he said—for this German husband wrote even to his German wife in French—‘que je suis sûr, ma chère Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand je vous dis combien je le souhaite!’ If Wycherley had placed such an incident as this in a comedy, he would have been censured as offending equally against modesty and probability.