CHAPTER V.
PERILS, PROGRESS, AND PASTIMES.
The American War—Dr. Dodd—The Duchess of Queensberry and the ‘Beggars’ Opera’—Royal Progress—Royal Visit to Bulstrode—Mrs. Delany and Queen Charlotte—Birth of Prince Octavius—Strange, the Engraver—The Riots of London—Lady Sarah Lennox—The Prince and his Sire—The Prince’s Preceptors—Errors committed in the education of the Princes—The Prince’s favourite, Perdita Robinson—Marie Antoinette’s present to her—Separate establishment granted to the Prince—Lord North’s facetious remark—Parliamentary provision for the Prince—The Prince’s presence in the House of Commons not acceptable—His pursuit of pleasure—The Duke of Clarence described by Walpole—The Prince of Wales overwhelmed with debts—Dissension in the Royal Family—Marriage proposed to him to extricate him from his debts—The Prince’s connection with Mrs. Fitzherbert—The Prince’s Marriage disclaimed by Mr. Fox—The Prince’s behaviour to Mrs. Fitzherbert—The Prince acknowledges his Marriage to the Queen.
There had been, during the recent years of Charlotte’s married life, no lack of either private or public trials and misfortunes. The struggles of the government at home against the press had signally failed; and that against the American colonies, wherein France, Spain, and Holland were arrayed against England, ended in the acknowledgment, on our part, of the independence of the United States. The unpopularity of the King, who applied for and received 100,000l. per annum in addition to the 400,000l. granted to him at his accession, was extended to the Queen. The King was insulted by a female, said to be insane, as he was proceeding in his chair to the Haymarket Theatre. This circumstance rendered the Queen ill at ease for several days. Her sympathy could at no time, however, induce the King to grant her a favour, if he thought it was against his sense of right. Thus, few persons more interested themselves to rescue the Reverend Dr. Dodd, the forger, from the hands of the executioner, than Queen Charlotte. Her respect for the sacred office was so great that it seemed to be something shocking that a clergyman should be hanged. But George III. remarked that Dodd’s offence was rendered the more grievous from the fact of his being a clergyman, and that the law must take its course.
During the year 1778 many royal ‘progresses’ were made to the fleet, to the fortified towns on the coast, to the various camps, and to the mansions of the nobility. A general air of festivity was exhibited about the Queen and court, but there was nothing in the condition of the affairs of the kingdom to warrant the apparent joy. By sea and land our flag, though not dishonoured, was not triumphant; and for the moment the most unpopular man in the kingdom was the King himself—obstinate in his determination to govern as well as reign, and daily verging towards that disturbed state of mind which ended at last in hopeless insanity.
Meanwhile, however, the home enjoyments of the court were placid and unexciting. In her ‘progresses’ with the King, Charlotte was not reluctant to maintain the state of a Queen. Her ideas on this subject seem strange to us now. Thus, when she held a court in the old royal city of Winchester, her costume consisted of a scarlet riding-habit, faced with blue, and covered with rich gold embroidery. In the same dress, with the addition of a black hat and a large cockade, she accompanied the King on his visits to the various camps established in the south. Nothing, however, could be more simple than the way of life of this royal pair when really ‘at home.’ Its simplicity extracted from a foreigner who witnessed it the remark that such citizen-like plainness was injurious to royalty, and an encouragement to republicanism.
Adopting as far as possible the descriptions of eye-witnesses of scenes in which the sovereigns enacted the principal part, we will now turn to the gossiping Mrs. Delany’s letters for the report of a visit made in 1779 by the Queen and her royal consort and family to the Duke of Portland’s, at Bulstrode. ‘The royal family,’ says the writer, ‘ten in all, came to Bulstrode at twelve o’clock. The King drove the Queen in an open chaise, with a pair of white horses. The Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick rode on horseback; all with proper attendants, but no guards. Princess Royal and Lady Weymouth in a post-chaise. Princess Augusta, Princess Elizabeth, Prince Adolphus (about seven years old), and Lady Charlotte Finch, in a coach. Prince William, Prince Edward, Duke of Montague, and the Bishop of Lichfield, in a coach; another coach full of attendant gentlemen; among others, Mr. Smelt, whose character sets him above most men and does great honour to the King, who calls him his friend, and has drawn him out of his solitude (the life he had chosen), to enjoy his conversation every leisure moment. These, with all their attendants in rank and file, made a splendid figure as they drove through the park and round the court, up to the house. The day was as brilliant as could be wished, the 12th of August, the Prince of Wales’s birthday. The Queen was in a hat, and in an Italian night-gown of purple lustring, trimmed with silver gauze. She is graceful and genteel. The dignity and sweetness of her manner, the perfect propriety of everything she says or does, satisfies everybody she honours with her instructions so much that beauty is by no means wanting to make her perfectly agreeable; and though awe and long retirement from court made me feel timid on my being called to make my appearance, I soon found myself perfectly at ease; for the King’s conversation and good humour took off all awe but what one must have for so respectable a character, severely tried by his enemies at home as well as abroad. The three princesses were all in frocks. The King and all the men were in uniform, blue and gold. They walked through the great apartments, which are in a line, and attentively observed everything, the pictures in particular. I kept back in the drawing-room, and took that opportunity of sitting down, when the Princess Royal returned to me and said the Queen missed me in the train. I immediately obeyed the summons with my best alacrity. Her Majesty met me half-way, and seeing me hasten my steps, called out to me, “Though I desired you to come, I did not desire you to run and fatigue yourself.” They all returned to the great drawing-room, where there were only two arm-chairs, placed in the middle of the room for the King and Queen. The King placed the Duchess Dowager of Portland in his chair, and walked about, admiring the beauties of the place. Breakfast was offered, all prepared in a long gallery that runs the length of the great apartments (a suite of eight rooms and three closets). The King and all his royal children and the rest of the train chose to go to the gallery, where the well-furnished tables were set, one with tea, coffee, and chocolate, another with their proper accompaniments of eatables, rolls, cakes, &c. Another table with fruits and ices in their utmost perfection, which with a magical touch had succeeded a cold repast. The Queen remained in the drawing-room. I stood at the back of her chair, which, happening to be one of my working, gave the Queen an opportunity to say many obliging things. The Duchess Dowager of Portland brought Her Majesty a dish of tea on a waiter, with biscuits, which was what she chose. After she had drunk her tea, she would not return her cup to the Duchess, but got up and would carry it to the gallery herself; and was much pleased to see with what elegance everything was prepared. No servants but those out of livery made their appearance. The gay and pleasant appearance they all made, and the satisfaction all expressed, rewarded the attention and politeness of the Duchess of Portland, who is never so happy as when she gratifies those she esteems worthy of her attentions and favours. The young royals seemed quite happy, from the eldest to the youngest, and to inherit the gracious manners of their parents. I cannot enter upon their particular address to me, which not only did me honour, but showed their humane and benevolent respect for old age. The King desired me to show the Queen one of my books of plants. She seated herself in the gallery, a table and a book laid before her. I kept my distance till she called me to ask some questions about the mosaic paper work; and as I stood before Her Majesty, the King set a chair behind me. I turned with some confusion and hesitation on receiving so great an honour, when the Queen said, “Mrs. Delany, sit down, sit down; it is not every lady that has a chair brought her by a King.” So I obeyed. Amongst many gracious things, the Queen asked me why I was not with the Duchess when she came, for I might be sure she would ask for me. I was flattered, though I knew to whom I was obliged for this distinction, and doubly flattered by that. I acknowledged it in as few words as possible, and said I was particularly happy at that moment to pay my duty to Her Majesty, as it gave me an opportunity to see so many of the royal family, which age and obscurity had deprived me of. “Oh, but,” said Her Majesty, “you have not seen all my children yet.” Upon which the King came up and asked what we were talking about, which was repeated, and the King replied to the Queen, “You may put Mrs. Delany in the way of doing that by naming a day for her to drink tea at Windsor Castle.” The Duchess of Portland was consulted, and the next day fixed upon, as the Duchess had appointed the end of the week for going to Weymouth.’
In 1779 was born the short-lived Prince Octavius. Before the death of this happy little Prince, Strange, the engraver, consented to engrave his portrait. The Queen did not like the politics of the artist, for he was the most determined Jacobite in the kingdom—except his wife. He was so successful, however, with his ‘plate’ of Octavius, that George III. knighted him; and even his wife thought the better of the ‘Elector and Electress of Hanover’ for having made her what ‘the King over the water’ had never thought of doing—Lady Strange.
The following year was that of the riots of London. While that popular tumult was raging the King behaved with courage and common sense; and the Queen, left almost entirely alone at Buckingham House with her children, with equal calmness and intrepidity. The ‘ladies’ who ought to have been in attendance had hurried homeward with their jewels. The Queen did not lose heart at this desertion, but was amply comforted by the frequent yet brief visits of the King, who spent two entire nights, holding council with the heads of the army, in the Queen’s Riding House.
In the September of this year another prince, Alfred—who shared with his brother Octavius the advantages of dying early—was added to the family of George and Charlotte. This increase, perhaps, inspired her with increase of sympathy for others. In the fall of this year she very warmly seconded the project of Mr. Raikes for the foundation of Sunday Schools. The project was sneered at, snubbed, and satirised by a public who, however, were ultimately wise enough to be grateful.
In 1780, Walpole affords us a glimpse of the alleged rival of Queen Charlotte in company with the Queen’s son. ‘The Prince of Wales has lately made a visit to Lady Cecilia Johnstone, where Lady Sarah Napier was.’ She was the Lady Sarah Lennox who had touched the heart of the King some twenty years before. ‘She did not appear, but he insisted on seeing her, and said, “She was to have been there,” pointing to Windsor Castle. When she came down he said he did not wonder at his father’s admiring her, and was persuaded she had not been more beautiful then.’