In 1781, at the age of nineteen, the Prince of Wales became ‘lord of himself.’ His mother had been his first governess; and at eight years of age he had been delivered by his father to Dr. Markham and Cyril Jackson, with the injunction to treat him as they would any private gentleman’s son, and to flog him whenever he deserved it. Markham acted up to his instructions. The Prince never bore any ill-will to either preceptor or sub-preceptor for their severity; but he took the earliest opportunity of showing his antagonism against his father. In 1772, when the struggle was going on between Wilkes and the crown—for such were the real adversaries—the young Prince made his sire’s ears tingle indignantly with the popular cry of ‘Wilkes and “forty-five” for ever!’
The young Prince’s preceptors were changed in 1776. Lord Bruce became governor in place of Lord Holdernesse; but he retired almost immediately, vexed, it is said, at the Prince having detected him in the commission of a false quantity. Bishop Hurd and the Rev. Mr. Arnold, under the superintendence of the oatmeal-porridge-loving Duke of Montague, were now entrusted to impart what instruction they might to the Prince and his next brother Frederick. They adopted the old plan of severity; but on endeavouring to carry it into effect, when the high-spirited boys were considerably advanced in their teens, one or both of the royal pupils turned on their preceptor, Arnold, who was about most grossly to castigate them, tore the weapon from his hand, and roughly administered to him the punishment with which they themselves had been threatened.
Excess of restraint marred the education of the two elder sons of Charlotte. Even when the Prince was considered of age, and was allowed his own establishment at Kew, the system of seclusion was still maintained. Such a system had its natural consequences. The Prince, ill at ease with his parents, sought sympathy elsewhere; and he was not yet out of his teens when Charlotte was horrified at hearing his name coupled with that of the most bewitching actress of the day.
Had the father of Miss Darby, the maiden name of Mrs. Robinson, been a man of less philanthropic principles, his daughter, probably, would have been a more virtuous and a more happy woman. She was born at Bristol in 1758, and was looked upon as a little heiress, till her father lost the whole of a not inconsiderable fortune by speculating in an attempt to civilise the Esquimaux Indians!
Miss Darby was, for some time, a pupil of Miss Hannah More; but was herself compelled to turn instructress as early as in her fourteenth year. She was, however, a precocious beauty; and the year previous she had received an offer of marriage, which she had declined. The young teacher worked hard and cheerfully, in order that she might be the better enabled to support her mother. The proceeds of this labour also enabled her to increase the number of her own accomplishments; among others, dancing. Her master was a Covent Garden ballet-master, who introduced her to Garrick, and Roscius brought her out on the stage, in the character of Cordelia with success.
Before she had terminated her sixteenth year she married Mr. Robinson, an articled clerk in an attorney’s office, with a good fortune, upon which the youthful couple lived in splendour till it was gone, and the husband was arrested. His wife then spent fifteen months with him in prison, and then misery drove her again to Garrick, who gave her some instruction, rehearsed Romeo to her Juliet, and, bringing her out in the latter character, gave to the stage one of the handsomest and youngest and most captivating of actresses who had ever charmed the town.
Her Juliet was admirable, but her Perdita, in the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ set the town mad. On the 3rd of December 1779 she played the character in presence of George III., Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the royal family, and a numerous audience. When she entered the green-room, dressed for the part, she looked so bewitching that Smith exclaimed, ‘By Jove! you will make a conquest of the Prince, for you look handsomer than ever.’ Smith’s prediction was true; and letters from the Prince, signed ‘Florizel,’ were delivered to Perdita by no less noble a go-between than the Earl of Essex.
The position of Perdita Robinson at this time was peculiar: her husband was living in profligacy upon the wages of her labour, and she had refused the most brilliant offers made to her on condition of separating from him. She refused them all; but lent too ready an ear to the princely suitor, who now besieged her with indifferently-written letters and promises of never-dying affection. An interview was contrived, first in a boat moored off Kew, and afterwards in Kew Gardens by moonlight, at which the Bishop of Osnaburgh was present—by way of playing propriety, perhaps—and at which there appears to have been little said, but much feared, lest the parties should be found out.
The prince and Perdita became so attached to each other after a few more interviews that she declared she should never forget the magic with which she was wooed, and he presented her with a bond for 20,000l., to be paid on his coming of age. When that period arrived—it happened in a few months—‘Florizel’ would not pay the money, and had grown weary of the lady. To modify her despair, he granted a last interview, in which he declared that his affection for her was as great as ever; and the poor lady, who trusted in the declaration, was passed by on the following day, in the park, without a sign of recognition on the part of her princely betrayer. The remark which she made on this conduct was worthy of Talleyrand for its sting, smartness, and application—but it is as well, perhaps, to leave it unquoted.
She had quitted the stage to please him, and now, in her embarrassment, sought refuge abroad, living in straitened circumstances in Paris, till, by the intervention of Mr. Fox, an annuity was settled upon her of 500l. a-year. With this she maintained some splendour, and she was even noticed by Marie Antoinette as La belle Anglaise. The gift of a purse netted by the royal hand of that unfortunate Queen, and conferred by her on Perdita, showed at once the sovereign lady’s admiration and lack of judgment and propriety.