When the King despatched some half dozen lords of his council to propose to the prince that he should espouse the youthful Princess Augusta, he replied, with a tone of mingled duty and indifference, something like Captain Absolute in the play, that ‘whoever his Majesty thought a proper match for his son would be agreeable to him.’
The match was straightway resolved upon; and as the young lady knew little of French and less of English, it was suggested to her mother that a few lessons in both languages would not be thrown away. The Duchess of Saxe Gotha, however, was wiser in her own conceit than her officious counsellors; and remembering that the Hanoverian family had been a score of years, and more, upon the throne of England, she very naturally concluded that the people all spoke or understood German, and that it would really be needlessly troubling the child to make her learn two languages, to acquire a knowledge of which would not be worth the pains spent upon the labour.
When princesses then espoused heirs to thrones they were treated but with very scanty ceremony. Their own feelings were allowed to exercise very little influence in the matter; there was no pleasant wooing time; the bridegroom did not even give himself the trouble to seek the bride—he does not always do so, even now; and when the bride married the deputy who was despatched to espouse her by proxy, she knew as little of the principal as she did of his representative. But the blooming young Princess of Saxe Gotha submitted joyfully to custom and the chance of becoming Queen of England. She was willing to come and win what the Prince of Wales, had not dignity made him ungallant, should have gone and laid at her feet and besought her to accept. Accordingly, the royal yacht, William and Mary, destined to carry many a less noble freight before its career was completed, bore the bride to our shores. When Lord Delawar handed the bride ashore at Greenwich, on the 25th of April 1736, she excited general admiration by her fresh air, good humour, and tasteful dress. It was St. George’s day; no inauspicious day whereon landing should be made in England by the young girl of seventeen, who was to be the mother of the first king born and bred in England since the birthday of James II.
The royal bride was conducted to the Queen’s house in the park, where, as my fair readers, and indeed all readers with equal good sense and a proper idea of the fitness of things, will naturally conclude that all the royal family had assembled to welcome, with more than ordinary warmth, one who came among them under circumstances of more than ordinary interest. But the truth is that there was no one to give her welcome but solemn officers of state and criticising ladies-in-waiting. The people were there of course, and the princess had no cause to complain of any lack of warmth on their part. For want of better company, she spent half an hour with the English commonalty; and as she sat in the balcony overlooking the park, the gallant mob shouted themselves hoarse in her praise, and did her all homage until the tardy lover arrived, whose own peculiar homage he should have been in a little more lover-like haste to pay. However, Frederick came at last, and he came alone. The King, Queen, duke, and princesses sent ‘their compliments, and hoped she was well!’ They could not have sent or said less had she been Griselda, fresh from her native cottage and about to become the bride of the prince without their consent and altogether without their will. But the day was Sunday, and perhaps those distinguished personages were reluctant to indulge in too much expansion of feeling on the sacred day.
On the following day, Monday, Greenwich was as much alive as it used to be on a fine fair-day: for the princess dined in public, and all the world was there to see her. That is to say, she and the prince dined together in an apartment the windows of which were thrown open ‘to oblige the curiosity of the people;’ and it is only to be hoped that the springs of the period were not such inclement seasons as those generally known by the name of spring to us. The people having stared their fill, and the princess having banqueted as comfortably as she could under such circumstances, the Prince of Wales took her down to the water, led her into a gaily decorated barge, and slowly up the river went the lovers—with horns playing, streamers flying, and under a fusillade from old stocks of old guns, the modest artillery of colliers and Other craft anxious to render to the pair the usual noisy honours of the way. They returned to Greenwich in like manner, similarly honoured, and there, having supped in public, the prince kissed her hand, took his leave, and promised to return upon the morrow.
On the Tuesday the already enamoured Frederick thought better of his engagement, and tarried at home till the princess arrived there. She had left Greenwich in one of the royal carriages, from which she alighted at Lambeth, where, taking boat, she crossed to Whitehall. Here one of Queen Caroline’s state chairs was awaiting her, and in it she was borne, by two stout carriers, plump as Cupids but more vigorous, to St. James’s Palace. The reception here was magnificent and tasteful. On the arrival of the bride, the bridegroom, already there to receive her, took her by the hand as she stepped out of the chair, softly checked the motion she made to kneel to him and kiss his hand, and, drawing her to him, gallantly impressed a kiss—nay two, for the record is very precise on this matter—upon her lips. All confusion and happiness, the illustrious couple ascended the staircase hand in hand. The prince led her into the presence of a splendid and numerous court, first introducing her to the King, who would not suffer her to kneel, but, putting his arm around her, sainted her on each cheek. Queen Caroline greeted as warmly the bride of her eldest son; and the Duke of Cumberland and the princesses congratulated her on her arrival in terms of warm affection.
The King, who had been irritably impatient for the arrival of the bride, and had declared that the ceremony should take place without him if it were not speedily concluded, was softened by the behaviour of the youthful princess on her first appearing in his presence. ‘She threw herself all along on the floor, first at the King’s and then at the Queen’s feet.’[25] This prostration was known to be so acceptable a homage to his Majesty’s pride, that, joined to the propriety of her whole behaviour on this occasion, it gave the spectators great prejudice in favour of her understanding.
The poor young princess, who came into England unaccompanied by a single female friend, behaved with a propriety and ease which won the admiration of Walpole and the sneers of old ladies who criticised her. Her self-possession, joined as it was with modesty, showed that she was ‘well-bred.’ She was not irreproachable of shape or carriage, but she was fair, youthful, and sensible—much more sensible than the bridegroom, who quarrelled with his brothers and sisters, in her very presence, upon the right of sitting down and being waited on in such presence!
The squabbles between the brothers and sisters touching etiquette show the extreme littleness of the minds of those who engaged in them. The prince would have had them, on the occasion of their dining with himself and bride the day before the wedding, be satisfied with stools instead of chairs, and consent to being served with something less than the measure of respect shown to him and the bride. To meet this, they refused to enter the dining-room till the stools were taken away and chairs substituted. They then were waited upon by their own servants, who had orders to imitate the servants of the Prince of Wales in every ceremony used at table. Later in the evening, when coffee was brought round by the prince’s servants, his visitors declined to take any, out of fear that their brother’s domestics might have had instructions to inflict ‘some disgrace (had they accepted of any) in the manner of giving it!’
On the day of the arrival of the bride at St. James’s, after a dinner of some state, and after some rearrangement of costume, the ceremony of marriage was performed, under a running salute from artillery, which told to the metropolis the progress made in the nuptial solemnity. The bride ‘was in her hair,’ and wore a crown with one bar, as Princess of Wales, a profusion of diamonds adding lustre to a youthful bearing that could have done without it. Over her white robe she wore a mantle of crimson velvet, bordered with row upon row of ermine. Her train was supported by four ‘maids,’ three of whom were daughters of dukes. They were Lady Caroline Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond; Lady Caroline Fitzroy, daughter of the Duke of Grafton; Lady Caroline Cavendish, daughter of the Duke of Devonshire,—and with the three bridesmaids who bore the name of the Queen was one who bore that of her whom the King had looked upon as really Queen of England—of Sophia, his mother. This fourth lady was Lady Sophia Fermor, daughter of the Earl of Pomfret. Excepting the mantle, the ‘maids’ were dressed precisely similar to the ‘bride’ whom they surrounded and served. They were all in ‘virgin habits of silver.’ Each bridesmaid wore diamonds of the value of from twenty to thirty thousand pounds.