The animosity of the Queen and her daughter, Caroline, against the Prince of Wales was ferocious.[32] The mother cursed the day on which she had borne the son who was for ever destroying her peace, and would end, she said, by destroying her life. There was no opprobrious epithet which she did not cast at him; and they who surrounded the Queen and princess had the honour of daily hearing them hope that God would strike the son and brother dead with apoplexy. Such enmity seems incredible. The gentle Princess Caroline’s gentlest name for her brother was ‘that nauseous beast;’ and in running over the catalogue of crimes of which she declared him capable, if not actually guilty, she did not hesitate to say that he was capable of murdering even those whom he caressed. Never was family circle so cursed by dissension as this royal circle; in which the parents hated the son, the son the parents; the parents deceived one another, the husband betrayed the wife, the wife deluded the husband, the children were at mutual antagonism, and truth was a stranger to all.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BIRTH OF AN HEIRESS.
Russian invasion of the Crimea—Announcement of an heir disbelieved by the Queen—Princess of Wales conveyed to St. James’s by the Prince in a state of labour—Birth of a Princess—Hampton Court Palace on this night—The palace in an uproar—Indignation of Caroline—Reception of the Queen by the Prince—Minute particulars afforded her by him—Explanatory notes between the royal family—Message of the King—His severity to the Prince—The Princess Amelia double-sided—Message of Princess Caroline to the Prince—Unseemly conduct of the Prince—The Prince an agreeable ‘rattle’—The Queen’s anger never subsided—The Prince ejected from the palace—The Queen and Lord Carteret—Reconciliation of the royal family attempted—Popularity of the Prince—The Queen’s outspoken opinion of the Prince—An interview between the King, Queen, and Lord Hervey—Bishop Sherlock and the Queen—The King a purchaser of lottery-tickets.
The parliament, having passed a Land-tax bill of two shillings in the pound, exempted the Prince of Wales from contributing even the usual sixpence in the pound on his civil-list revenue, and settled a dowry on his wife of 50,000l. per annum, peremptorily rejected Sir John Bernard’s motion for decreasing the taxation which weighed most heavily on the poor.[33] The public found matter for much speculation in these circumstances, and they alternately discussed them with the subject of the aggressive ambition of Russia. The latter power was then invading the Crimea with two armies under Munich and Lasci. The occupier of the Muscovite throne stooped to mendacity to veil the real object of the war; and there were Russian officers not ashamed to be assassins—murdering the wounded foe whom they found lying helpless on their path.[34]
The interest in all home and foreign matters, however, was speedily lost in that which the public took in the matter, which soon presented itself, of the accession of an heir in the direct hereditary line of Brunswick.
The prospect of the birth of a lineal heir to the throne ought to have been one of general joy in a family whose own possession of the crown was contested by the disinherited heir of the Stuart line. The prospect, however, brought no joy with it on the present occasion. It was not till within a month of the time for the event that the Prince of Wales officially announced to his father, on the best possible authority, the probability of the event itself. Caroline appears at once to have disbelieved the announcement. She was so desirous of the succession falling to her second son, William, that she made no scruple of expressing her disbelief of what, to most other observers, was apparent enough. She questioned the princess herself, with more closeness than even the position of a mother-in-law could justify; but for every query the well-trained Augusta had one stereotyped reply—‘I don’t know.’ Caroline, on her side, resolved to be better instructed. ‘I will positively be present,’ she exclaimed, ‘when the promised event takes place;’ adding, with her usual broadness of illustration, ‘It can’t be got through as soon as one can blow one’s nose; and I am resolved to be satisfied that the child is hers.’
These suspicions, of which the Queen made no secret, were of course well known to her son. He was offended by them; offended, too, at a peremptory order that the birth of the expected heir should take place in Hampton Court Palace; and he was, moreover, stirred up by his political friends to exhibit his own independence, and to oppose the royal wish, in order to show that he had a proper spirit of freedom.
Accordingly, twice he brought the princess to London, and twice returned with her to Hampton Court. Each time the journey had been undertaken on symptoms of indisposition coming on, which, however, passed away. At length one evening, the prince and princess, after dining in public with the King and Queen, took leave of them for the night, and withdrew to their apartments. Up to this hour the princess had appeared to be in her ordinary health. Tokens of supervening change came on, and the prince at once prepared for action. The night (the 31st of July) was now considerably advanced, and the Princess of Wales, who had been hitherto eager to obey her husband’s wishes in all things, was now too ill to do anything but pray against them. He would not listen to such petitions. He ordered his ‘coach’ to be got ready and brought round to a side entrance of the palace. The lights in the apartment were in the meantime extinguished. He consigned his wife to the strong arms of Desnoyers, the dancing-master, and Bloodworth, an attendant, who dragged, rather than carried, her down stairs. In the meantime, the poor lady, whose life was in very present peril, and sufferings extreme, prayed earnestly to be permitted to remain where she was. Subsequently she protested to the Queen that all that had been done had taken place at her own express desire! However this may be, the prince answered her prayers and moans by calling on her to have courage; upbraiding her for her folly; and assuring her, with a very manly complacency, that it was nothing, and would soon be over! At length the coach was reached. It was the usually capacious vehicle of the time, and into it got not only the prince and princess, but Lady Archibald Hamilton and two female attendants. Vriad, who was not only a valet-de-chambre, but a surgeon and accoucheur, mounted the box. Bloodworth, the dancing-master, and two or three more, got up behind. The prince enjoined the strictest silence on such of his household as remained at Hampton Court, and therewith the coach set off, at a gallop, not for the prince’s own residence at Kew, but for St. James’s Palace, which was at twice the distance.
At the palace nothing was prepared for them. There was not a couch ready for the exhausted lady, who had more than once on the road been, as it seemed, upon the point of expiring; not even a bed was ready for her to lie down and repose upon. No sheets were to be found in the whole palace—or at least in that part over which the prince had any authority. For lack of them, Frederick and Lady Hamilton aired a couple of tablecloths, and these did the service required of them.
In the meantime, notice had been sent to several officers of state, and to the more necessary assistants required, to be present at the imminent event. Most of the great officers were out of the way. In lieu of them arrived the Lord President, Wilmington, and the Lord Privy Seal, Godolphin. In their presence was born a daughter, whom Lord Hervey designated as ‘a little rat’ and described as being ‘no bigger than a tooth-pick case.’