‘How is the wind for the King?’ was the popular query at the time of this voyage; and the popular answer was, ‘Like the nation—against him.’ And when men who disliked him because of his vices or of their political hopes remarked that the Sovereign had been saved from drowning, they generally added the comment that ‘it was God’s mercy, and a thousand pities!’ The anxiety of Caroline for the King’s safety had, no doubt, been very great—so great, that in it she had forgotten sympathy for her daughter in her hour of trial. Lord Hervey will not allow that the Queen had any worthier motive for her anxiety than her apprehension ‘of her son’s ascending the throne, as there were no lengths she did not think him capable of going to pursue and ruin her.’
She comforted herself by declaring that, had the worst happened, she still would have retained Lord Hervey in her service, and have given him an apartment in her jointure house, (old) Somerset House. She added, too, that she would have gone down on her knees to beg Sir Robert Walpole to continue to serve the son as he had done the father. All this is not so self-denying as it seems. In retaining Lord Hervey, whom her son hated, she was securing one of her highest pleasures; and by keeping Sir Robert in the service of the prince, she would have governed the latter as she had done his father.
Gross as the King was in his acts, he was choice and refined, when he chose, in his letters. The epistle which he wrote, in reply to the congratulations of the Queen on his safety, is elegant, touching, warm, and apparently sincere. ‘In spite of all the danger I have incurred in this tempest, my dear Caroline, and notwithstanding all I have suffered, having been ill to an excess which I thought the human body could not bear, I assure you that I would expose myself to it again and again to have the pleasure of hearing the testimonies of your affection with which my position inspired you. This affection which you testify for me, this friendship, this fidelity, the inexhaustible goodness which you show for me, and the indulgence which you have for all my weaknesses, are so many obligations, which I can never sufficiently recompense, can never sufficiently merit, but which I also can never forget.’ The original French runs more prettily than this, and adapts itself well to the phrases which praised the Queen’s charms and attractions with all the ardour of youthful swain for blushing nymph. The Queen showed the letter to Walpole and Hervey, with the remark that she was reasonably pleased with, but not unreasonably proud of, it. The gentlemen came to the conclusion that the master whom they served was the most incomprehensible master to whom service was ever rendered. He was a mere old cajoler, deceiving the woman whom he affected to praise, and only praising her because she let him have an unconstrained course in vice while she enjoyed one in power.
At length, after a detention of five weeks at Helvoetsluys, the King arrived at Lowestoft. The Queen received information of his coming at four o’clock in the morning, after a sleepless night, caused by illness both of mind and body. When Walpole repaired to her at nine, she was still in bed; and the good Princess Caroline was at her side, trying to read her to sleep. Walpole waited until her Majesty had taken some repose; and meanwhile the Prince of Wales and the Princess Amelia (who was distrusted by her brother and by her mother, because she affected to serve each while she betrayed both) entered into a gossiping sort of conference with him in the antechamber. The prince was all praise, the minister all counsel. Walpole perhaps felt that the heir-apparent, who boasted that, when he appeared in public, the people shouted, ‘Crown him! Crown him!’ was engaging him to lead the first administration under a new reign. The recent prospect of such a reign being near at hand had been a source of deep alarm to Caroline, and also of distaste. She would have infinitely preferred that Frederick should have been disinherited, and his brother William advanced to his position as heir-apparent.
The King arrived in town on the 15th of January 1737. He came in sovereign good humour; greeted all kindly, was warmly received, and was never tired of expatiating on the admirable qualities of his consort. An observer, indifferently instructed, would not have thought that this contemptible personage had a mistress, who was the object of more ardent homage than he ever paid to that wife whom he declared to be superior to all the women in the world. He was fervent in his eulogy of her, not only to herself but to Sir Robert Walpole; and indeed was only peevish with those who presumed to enquire after his health. The storm had something shaken him, and he was not able to open parliament in person; but nothing more sorely chafed him than an air of solicitude and enquiry after his condition by loyal servitors—who got nothing for their pains but the appellation of ‘puppies.’ He soon, however, had more serious provocation to contend with.
The friends of the Prince of Wales compelled him, little reluctant, to bring the question of his income before parliament. The threat to take this step alarmed Walpole, by whose advice a message was sent from the King, and delivered by the lords of the council to the prince, whereby the proposal was made to settle upon him the 50,000l. a-year which he now received in monthly payments at the King’s pleasure, and also to settle a jointure, the amount of which was not named, upon the princess.
Both their Majesties were unwilling to make this proposition; but Walpole assured them that the submitting it to the prince would place his royal highness in considerable difficulty. If he accepted it, the King would get credit for generosity; and if he rejected it, the prince would incur the blame of undutifulness and ingratitude.
The offer was made, but it was neither accepted nor refused. The prince expressed great gratitude, but declared his inability to decide, as the conduct of the measure was in the hands of others, and he could not prevent them from bringing the consideration of it before parliament. The prince’s friends, and indeed others besides his friends, saw clearly enough that the King offered no boon. His Majesty simply proposed to settle upon his son an annual income, amounting to only half of what parliament had granted on the understanding of its being allotted to the prince. The King and Queen maintained with equal energy, and not always in the most delicate manner, that the parliament had no more right to interfere with the appropriation of this money than that body had with the allowances made by any father to his son. The rage of the Queen was more unrestrained than that of her husband; and she was especially indignant against Walpole for having counselled that an offer should be made which had failed in its object, and had not prevented the matter being brought before parliament.
The making of it, however, had doubtless some influence upon the members, and helped in a small way to increase the majority in favour of the government. The excitement in the court circle was very great when an address to the King was moved for by Pulteney, suggesting the desirableness of the prince’s income being increased. The consequent debate was one of considerable interest, and was skilfully maintained by the respective adversaries. The prince’s advocates were broadly accused of lying; and Caroline, at all times and seasons, in her dressing-room with Lord Hervey, and in the drawing-room with a crowded circle around her, openly and coarsely stigmatised her son as a liar and his friends as ‘nasty’ Whigs. Great was her joy when, by a majority of 234 to 204, the motion for the address was defeated. There was even congratulation that the victory had cost the King so little in bribes—only 900l., in divisions of 500l. to one member and 400l. to another. And even this sum was not positive purchase-money of votes for this especial occasion; but money promised to be paid at the end of the session for general service, and only advanced now because of the present particular and well-appreciated assistance rendered.
Let us do the prince the justice to say, that, in asking that his income might be doubled, he did not ask that the money should be drawn from the public purse. When Bubb Dodington first advised him to apply to parliament for a grant, his answer was spirited enough. ‘The people have done quite enough for my family already, and I would rather beg my bread from door to door than be a charge to them.’ What he asked for was, that out of his father’s civil list of nearly a million sterling per annum, he might be provided with a more decent revenue than a beggarly fifty thousand a-year, paid at his father’s pleasure. Pulteney’s motion was denounced by ministers as an infraction of the King’s prerogative. Well, Frederick could not get the cash he coveted from the King, and he would not take it from the public. Bubb Dodington had advised him to apply to parliament, and he rewarded Bubb for the hint by easing him occasionally of a few thousands at play. He exulted in winning. ‘I have just nicked Dodington,’ said he on one occasion, ‘out of 5,000l., and Bubb has no chance of ever getting it again!’