The Princess offended more persons than the mere democracy by her arrogance as Ranger. The evidence of Walpole is conclusive on this subject, and is worth citing, often as I have had to quote from his lively pages. In 1752, he writes: ‘Princess Emily, who succeeded my brother in the Rangership of Richmond Park, has imitated her brother William’s unpopularity, and disobliged the whole country, by refusal of tickets and liberties that had always been allowed. They are at law with her, and have printed in the ‘Evening Post’ a strong memorial, which she had refused to receive. The high-sheriff of Surrey, to whom she had denied a ticket, but on better thought had sent one, refused it, and said he had taken his part. Lord Brooke, who had applied for one, was told he couldn’t have one; and, to add to the affront, it was signified that the Princess had refused one to my Lord Chancellor. Your old nobility don’t understand such comparisons. But the most remarkable event happened to her about three weeks ago. One Mr. Bird, a rich gentleman near the palace, was applied to by the late Queen for a piece of ground that lay convenient for a walk she was making. He replied that it was not proper for him to pretend to make a queen a present, but if she would do what she pleased with the ground he would be content with the acknowledgment of a key and two bucks a year. This was religiously observed till the era of her Royal Highness’s reign. The bucks were denied, and he himself once shut out, on pretence it was fence month (the breeding-time, when tickets used to be excluded, keys never). The Princess was soon after going through his grounds to town. She found a padlock on his gate. She ordered it to be broken open. Mr. Shaw, her deputy, begged a respite till he could go for the key. He found Mr. Bird at home. “Lord, sir, here is a strange mistake! The Princess is at the gate, and it is padlocked.” “Mistake! no mistake at all. I made the road; the ground is my own property. Her Royal Highness has thought fit to break the agreement which her royal mother made with me; nobody goes through my grounds but those I choose should.” Translate this to your Florentines,’ adds Walpole to our legate in Tuscany; ‘try if you can make them conceive how pleasant it is to treat blood royal thus.’
George II., who was more liberal, in many respects, than any of his children, save when these affected liberality for political purposes, finally anticipated the award of law by ordering the park to be thrown open to the public in the month of December 1752. But he could not have kept it closed.
Walpole speaks of the Princess Amelia as if he had never forgotten or forgiven this, or any other of her faults. According to his description, she was for ever prying impertinently into the affairs of other people; silly, garrulous, and importantly communicative of trifles not worth the telling. He paints her as arrogant and insolent; inexcusable, it would seem, in these last respects, simply because she no longer possessed either power or beauty. But these were only eccentricities; there was much of sterling goodness beneath them. She was nobly generous and royally charitable. She was a steady friend and an admirable mistress. In face of such virtues, mere human failings may be forgiven.
Walpole graphically and dramatically describes a scene at her loo-table. The year is 1762, the month December. ‘On Thursday,’ he says, ‘I was summoned to the Princess Emily’s loo. Loo she called it; politics it was. The second thing she said to me was: “How were you the two long days?” “Madam, I was only there the first.” “And how did you vote?” “Madam, I went away.” “Upon my word, that was carving well!” Not a very pleasant apostrophe to one who certainly never was a time-server. Well, we sat down. She said: “I hear Wilkinson is turned out, and that Sir Edward Winnington is to have his place. Who is he?” addressing herself to me, who sat over against her. “He is the late Mr. Winnington’s heir, madam.” “Did you like that Winnington?” “I can’t but say I did, madam.” She shrugged up her shoulders, and continued: “Winnington was originally a great Tory. What do you think he was when he died?” “Madam, I believe what all people are in place.” “Pray, Mr. Montague, do you perceive anything rude or offensive in this?” Here then she flew into the most outrageous passion, coloured like scarlet, and said: “None of your wit. I don’t understand joking on these subjects. What do you think your father would have said if he had heard you say so? He would have murdered you, and you would have deserved it.” I was quite confounded and amazed. It was impossible to explain myself across a loo-table, as she is so deaf. There was no making a reply to a woman and a princess, and particularly for me, who have made it a rule, when I must converse with royalties, to treat them with the greatest respect, since it is all the court they will ever have from me. I said to those on each side of me: “What can I do? I cannot explain myself now.” Well, I held my peace; and so did she, for a quarter of an hour. Then she began with me again, examined me upon the whole debate, and at last asked me directly which I thought the best speaker, my father or Mr. Pitt? If possible, this was more distressing than her anger. I replied, it was impossible to compare two men so different; that I believed my father was more a man of business than Mr. Pitt. “Well, but Mr. Pitt’s language?” “Madam, I have always been remarkable for admiring Mr. Pitt’s language.” At last the unpleasant scene ended; but as we were going away I went close to her and said: “Madam, I must beg leave to explain myself. Your Royal Highness has seemed to be very angry with me, and I am sure I did not mean to offend you; all that I intended to say was, that I supposed Tories were Whigs when they got places.” “Oh!” said she; “I am very much obliged to you. Indeed, I was very angry.” Why she was angry, or what she thought I meant, I do not know to this moment, unless she supposed that I would have hinted that the Duke of Newcastle and the Opposition were not men of consummate virtue, and had not lost their places out of principle. The very reverse was at that time in my head, for I meant that the Tories would be just as loyal as the Whigs when they got anything by it.’
The Princess was not ladylike in her habits. She had a fondness for loitering about her stables, and would spend hours there in attendance upon her sick horses. She of course acquired the ways of those whose lives pass in stables and stable matters. She was manly, too, in her dress. Calamette would have liked to have painted her, as that artist has painted the frock-coat portrait of Madame Dudevant (George Sand). He would have picturesquely portrayed her in the round hat and German riding-habit, ‘standing about’ at her breakfast, sipping her chocolate, or taking spoonsful of snuff. Of this she was inordinately fond, but she accounted her box sacred. A Noli me tangere was engraven on it, but the injunction was not always held sacred. Once, on one of the card-tables in the Assembly Rooms at Bath, her box lay open, and an old general officer standing near inconsiderately took a pinch from it. The indignant Princess immediately called an attendant, who, by her directions, flung the remainder of the contents of the box into the fire.
In June 1786, Walpole, then nearly a septuagenarian, borrowed a dress-coat and sword, in order to dine at Gunnersbury with the Princess. The company comprised the Prince of Wales, the Prince of Mecklenburgh, the Duke of Portland, Lord Clanbrassil, Lord and Lady Clermont, Lord and Lady Southampton, Lord Pelham, and Mrs. Howe. Some of the party retired early. Others, more dissipated, sat up playing commerce till ten. ‘I am afraid I was tired,’ says Horace. The lively old Princess asked him for some verses on Gunnersbury. ‘I pleaded being superannuated. She would not excuse me. I promised she should have an ode on her next birthday, which diverted the Prince; but all would not do. So, as I came home, I made some stanzas not worth quoting, and sent them to her by breakfast next morning.’
In the October following, the daughter of Caroline and George II. died at her house in Cavendish Square, at the east corner of Harley Street. Card-playing and charity were the beloved pursuits of her old age. Her death took place on the last day of October 1786, in the 76th year of her age. Her remains lie in Henry VII.’s chapel in Westminster Abbey.
But the decease of this aged princess appeared a minor calamity compared with the illness which now threatened the King. In presence of this the Queen forgot Mrs. Trimmer and her Sunday Schools; Gainsborough, whom she patronised; public theatricals, and private readings. The illness had been long threatening.
In the ‘Memoirs of the Court and Cabinet of George III.,’ by the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the elder sons of Queen Charlotte are spoken of, and particularly with reference to this period immediately previous to the King’s illness, in a most unfavourable light. The Prince of Wales, we are told, like his two predecessors in the same title, was active in his opposition to the measures of the cabinet and crown. The same spirit, with as little prudence to moderate and more ill-feeling to embitter it, was as lively in the man as in the boy. The Prince was, however, at least consistent in his opposition. ‘The Duke of York,’ says Lord Bulkeley, writing to the Marquis of Buckingham, ‘talks both ways, and I think will end in opposition. His conduct is as bad as possible. He plays very deep and loses, and his company is thought mauvais ton. I am told that the King and Queen begin now to feel “how much sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ingrate child.” When the Duke of York is completely done up in the public opinion, I should not be surprised if the Prince of Wales assume a different style of behaviour. Indeed, I am told, he already affects to see that his brother’s style is too bad.’
Public business, as far as its transaction through ministers was concerned, became greatly impeded through the illness which had attacked the King. It had been brought on by his imprudence in remaining a whole day in wet stockings, and it exhibited itself not merely in spasmodic attacks of the stomach, but in an agitation and flurry of spirits which caused great uneasiness to the Queen, and which, both for domestic and political reasons, it was desirous should not be known.