The Prince affected to think that he might, perhaps, be able to live in retirement at some of the small German courts, fancying that, under the title of the Earl of Chester, his actions would not be judged of as those of a Prince of Wales. At all events, he declared that to live in England would be ruin and disgrace to him; for that the King hated him, wished to set him at variance with his brothers, and would not even let Parliament assist him till he should marry. The King’s hatred for his son, according to the latter, had existed from the time he was seven years old. Reconciliation was deemed by the Prince impossible; for his father, he said, had not only deceived him, but made him deceive others. The son could not trust the father, and the father had no belief in the veracity of the son.
The ministry were not disinclined, at this time, to increase the Prince’s allowance, provided only that he would appropriate some portion of it to the payment of his debts, renounce his project of going abroad, and consent to a reconciliation with the King, by ceasing to be a man of political party in opposition to the government. The sum proposed was 100,000l. per annum, the half of which was to be reserved for the payment of his debts. The Prince describes the offer as useless, inasmuch as that, though the ministry might sanction it, the King would not hear of it, and Pitt could not carry such a measure in Parliament. The Prince asserted his belief that so rooted was his father’s hatred of him that he would turn out Pitt if he ventured to propose such a measure. Further, the Prince refused to abandon Fox and his other political friends. Lord Malmesbury was very anxious to bring the Prince to terms; but the latter still dwelt upon the bitter paternal hatred. In proof of this he exhibited to Lord Malmesbury copies of the correspondence which had passed between himself and his royal sire on the subject. Lord Malmesbury thus describes the letters, and the spirit which animated the writers:—
‘The Prince’s letters were full of respect and deference, written with great plainness of style and simplicity. Those of the King were also well written, but hard and severe; constantly refusing every request the Prince made, and reprobating in each of them his extravagance and dissipated manner of living. They were void of every expression of parental kindness or affection, and after both hearing them read and perusing them myself, I was compelled to subscribe to the Prince’s opinion, and to confess there was very little appearance of making any impression upon His Majesty in favour of His Royal Highness.’
Lord Malmesbury suggested that, as the Queen must have much at heart the bringing about a reconciliation between her son and his father, such might surely be effected through her and his sisters. The Prince thought it impracticable, and only wished that the public knew all the truth and could judge between him and his sire, anticipating a favourable verdict for himself, which, however, the public would not have given even when in possession of all the facts.
Lord Malmesbury then suggested a means of escape from all difficulties by a marriage which would at once reconcile the King and gratify the nation. The Prince, however, emphatically declared that he would never marry; that he had settled that subject with his brother Frederick; and that his resolution was irrevocable. Lord Malmesbury combated such a resolution, but the Prince remained unconvinced. He owed nothing, he said, to the King. Frederick would marry, and his children would inherit the crown. His adviser suggested that a bachelor King, as he would be, would have less hold on the affections of the people than a married heir and father of children, as his brother would be. ‘The Prince was greatly struck with this observation. He walked about the room apparently angry;’ but, after a few friendly words of explanation, the interlocutors separated, and the scene was at an end.
At the time the Prince said he never would marry he had in his mind that serious marriage which he already had formed with Mrs. Fitzherbert. We may add, with respect to this union and the character of the Prince as a lover, a few words on the authority of Lord Holland.
Never did swain make love so absurdly as the Prince of Wales. For the ‘first gentleman in Europe,’ he was the greatest simpleton, under the influence of ‘passion,’ that ever existed. When he was not silly, he was mean, and he sometimes was both, and heartless to boot, even when he most prattled of the heart-anguish he endured. To Perdita Robinson he was little better than a mere bilking knave. In presence of the majestic Mrs. Fitzherbert he was an undignified coxcomb. He insulted her virtue with proposals which even princes ought not to dare to make without bringing personal chastisement upon themselves. Finding his offers declined, and that the lady was going abroad, he acted, and declared he felt, the utmost despair. But his despair was farcical. He went down to his friends the Foxes, at St. Anne’s, where he ‘cried by the hour, testified the sincerity and violence of his passion and despair by the most extravagant expressions and actions, rolling on the floor, striking his forehead, tearing his hair, falling into hysterics, and swearing he would abandon the country, forego the crown, sell his jewels and plate, and scrape together a competency, to fly with the object of his affections to America.’
The lady proceeded to the continent, but returned in 1785. She came more prepared to listen to the Prince’s wooing than when she left. He now proposed a marriage, but she knew that, she being a Romanist, such a marriage could not be legal. Indeed, it was illegal for any prince of the blood to marry without the King’s consent, before he had attained the age of twenty-five. After that time he was to notify his intention to Parliament, and if that body did not move the King to withhold his consent within a year, the marriage then might be entered upon. Mrs. Fitzherbert, however, frankly enough said that the ceremony would be all nonsense, and that she was ready to trust to his honour. He insisted, however, and the ceremony was duly performed by an English clergyman. After the solemnisation, the certificate was signed by the clergyman and attested by two witnesses, said to have been Catholics. Mrs. Fitzherbert retained the certificate; but out of a generous fear that harm might come to the witnesses if they should become known she tore off their names. The name of the clergyman (who died before George IV. ascended the throne) remains affixed to the document.
Mr. Fox was not present at this ceremony, but reports were so current as to its being about to take place, or to its having taken place, that he addressed to the Prince a very long, a very strong, and a very sensible letter, of which a rough copy (from Fox’s MS.) will be found in Lord Holland’s ‘Memoirs of the Whig Party.’ In this manly letter the writer points out the madness of such a scheme, the terrible consequences that might ensue, the illegality of the manner, and the possibility, should the Prince enter subsequently into a legal matrimonial union, and there being issue by both, of a disputed succession. He advised, argued, did all that a bold man and honest friend could do to warn the Prince against this union, which, as we before mentioned, was currently reported to have taken place. The Prince, in reply, declared that his ‘dear Charles’ might ‘make himself easy, as there not only is, but never was, any grounds for such reports.’ Armed with this authority, Fox denied in Parliament, on the warrant of the Prince, the assertion of such a union having taken place. The wretched liar who had driven him to assert unconsciously a falsehood was now exposed to a double torment. Mrs. Fitzherbert was angry at the public denial, supposing it to be unauthorised, and urged the Prince to have it announced. The latter prevaricated and promised; appealed to Grey, confessing his marriage, and, when Grey would have nothing to do with it, appealing to Sheridan; the latter made a few remarks in the House wide of the real object, and the marriage remained denied, to the great annoyance of the lady, who continued to be respectfully treated by the royal family. These, if they disbelieved the existence of the connection, must have looked upon Mrs. Fitzherbert as being less worthy of their respect than before. The truth, however, is, that their respect was chiefly manifested when Mrs. Fitzherbert separated herself from her most worthless husband. Documents proving the marriage (long in the possession of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s family) have been, since June 1833, actually deposited, by agreement between the executors of George IV. (the Duke of Wellington and Sir William Knighton) and the nominees of Mrs. Fitzherbert (Lord Albemarle and Lord Stourton), at Coutts’s bank, in a sealed box, bearing a superscription:—‘The property of the Earl of Albemarle; but not to be opened by him without apprising the Duke of Wellington,’ or words to that purport.[1]
The author of the Diary illustrative of the court of George IV., referring to the time when the eldest son of Queen Charlotte was subdued by the fascinations of Mrs. Fitzherbert, says that the lady in question ‘had a stronger hold over the Regent than any of the other objects of his admiration, and that he always paid her the respect which her conduct commanded.’ She was styled by those who knew her ‘the most faultless and honourable mistress that ever a prince had the good fortune to be attached to’—a judgment which abounds in a confusion of terms, and exhibits mental perversion in him who pronounced it. Of the Regent’s behaviour to the lady, it may be said that it was as gallant and considerate at first as it was mean and censurable at last. In the early days of their intimacy, when they appeared together at the same parties and were on the point of leaving them, ‘the Prince never forgot to go through the form of saying to Mrs. F., with a most respectful bow, “Madam, may I be allowed the honour of seeing you home in my carriage?”’ ‘It was impossible,’ says the same authority, ‘to be in his Royal Highness’s society and not be captivated by the extreme fascination of his manners, which he inherits from his mother the Queen; for his father has every virtue which can adorn a private character as well as make a king respectable, but he does not excel in courtly grace or refinement.’