The second son of Queen Charlotte delivered his maiden speech in the House of Lords at the close of 1788. A few months after he made another speech, in private society, which might have had a very fatal issue. He stated that Colonel Lennox (afterwards Duke of Richmond) had been addressed at Daubigny’s club in language to which no gentleman would have quietly listened as the colonel had done. The latter, on parade, asked for an explanation. The Duke refused, ordered him to his post, and offered him ‘satisfaction’ if he felt himself aggrieved. The colonel appealed to the club as to whether the members adopted the Duke’s statement. They remained silent; and the result was a duel on Wimbledon Common, on the 26th of May 1789. Lord Rawdon accompanied the Duke, and the Earl of Winchilsea attended on the colonel. The duel ended with no bloodier finale than the loss of a curl on the part of the Duke. The latter, it was found, had not fired; he refused to fire, bade the colonel fire again if he were not satisfied, and rejected every inducement held out to him to make some explanation. On this the parties separated.
Some littleness of spirit was exhibited in what followed. The colonel was present at a court ball, at which the Queen presided, and formed part in a country dance of which the Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family were also a portion. The Prince, who was remarkable for his gallantry, did not exhibit that quality on the present occasion. He passed over the colonel, and the lady his partner, without ‘turning’ the latter, as the laws of contre-danse required. The Prince’s conduct was imitated by both his brothers and sisters, and the colonel’s partner was thus subjected to most unwarrantable insult. The Queen, who had marked her opinion of the colonel’s conduct by graciously speaking to him, remarking the chafed look of her son, and addressing some inquiry to him, was answered that he was heated, because he disliked the company. Upon this hint the Queen rose, and the festive scene was brought to a disturbed and sudden conclusion.
The fall of the year was passed in the south of England, with Weymouth for head-quarters. The King and Queen were not without peculiar annoyances here, chiefly in the threats of assassination conveyed in private letters. The Queen indeed, like the King, disregarded them, but she feared the evil effect they might have on his excitable mind. Among the visits paid by them to private individuals was one to the Roman Catholic proprietor of Lulworth Castle, Mr. Weld, a relation, by her first marriage, of Mrs. Fitzherbert. They were present in the chapel attached to the castle during the celebration of divine service, and remained while the anthem was sung,—without any ill effects resulting to Protestantism.
In January 1790 the fears of the Queen were again excited for her consort, at whom a stone was thrown by a mad Lieutenant Frick, as his Majesty was on his way to the House of Lords. The muse was hardly more sane or loyal than the lieutenant, for Peter Pindar wrote of this incident:
Folks say it was lucky the stone missed the head,
When lately at Cæsar ’twas thrown;
I think, very different from thousands indeed,
’Twas a lucky escape for the stone.
The Queen, at the time of the King’s illness, was assailed with unmeasured vituperation by the Opposition papers. Even her interviews with Pitt were made base account of, in order to raise the public odium against her. In the present year the ‘Hopes of the Party,’ a caricature so named, by Gillray, served to show the supposed wishes of the Opposition. The caricature represents many revolutionary horrors. Among them is what is termed ‘a pair of pendants,’ showing the Queen and prime minister each hanging from a lamp iron. ‘It is commonly believed,’ says Mr. Wright, in the History from which a passage has been already quoted, ‘that Pitt and Queen Charlotte were closely leagued together to pillage and oppress the nation; and she was far less popular than the King, whose infirmity produced general sympathy, and who had many good qualities that endeared him to those with whom he came in contact. In another part of Gillray’s picture the King is brought to the block, held down by Sheridan, while Fox, masked, acts as executioner. Priestley, with pious exhortations, is encouraging the fallen monarch to submit to his hard fate.’ Later in the year, in September, the Queen’s second son, Frederick Duke of York, married Frederica, eldest daughter of the King of Prussia. The marriage was solemnised on Michaelmas Day, at Berlin. The bride was then in her twenty-fourth year, her husband in his twenty-eighth. She was fair, virtuous, accomplished, and kindly-hearted,—by far too good a wife for the profligate Prince to whom she was allied. The newly-married pair travelled to England through France, where they met with but rough treatment from the republican mob, some of whom very unceremoniously scratched the royal arms off their carriages. The ceremony of marriage was reperformed in England on the 23rd of November by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in presence of the entire royal family. By an addition of 18,000l. to the Duke’s income, his revenue amounted to 35,000l. a year; and an annual 30,000l. was settled on the Duchess, in case of her surviving him.
The Queen, accompanied by the King and the elder branches of her family, paid a visit of welcome to the young couple, which was the most formal and ceremonious matter that can well be conceived. The visit took the form of a tea-party; it ought, therefore, to have been social and chatty, but it was as stiff and silent as much ceremony and formal etiquette could make it. The King’s tea was solemnly handed to him by the Prince of Wales, while the Duchess of York, receiving a cup from the Duke, presented it, with much reverence, to the Queen. But in the cups which cheer and not inebriate, ceremony was soon dissolved; and the King getting loquacious, the family party, before the night was far gone, became as mirthful and pleasant as if it had been made up of more mirthful and pleasant materials.