The bride was, meantime, herself anxious to depart to her new home; her mother, fussy, fond, and agitated, was desirous to accompany her a part of the way; and Lord Malmesbury, who had been honoured with the gift of a ‘snuff-box’ from the Duke and a diamond watch from the Princess, was quite as willing to get to the end of his mission. There was the impatient Prince, too, in London; but the diplomatist held his powers from the King, and rather obeyed the precise and deliberate order of the monarch than the urgently gallant appeals of his princely son.
In due form, therefore, the marriage treaty, drawn up in English and Latin—French was prohibited, by royal order—was signed by all the high contracting parties on the 4th of December. After the pleasant labour a sumptuous banquet followed, and the envoy and Duchess announced to the bridegroom at home that his bride would set out on the 11th, provided by that time intelligence was received of the sailing from England of the fleet which was to serve for a wedding escort across the sea.
The Duke of Brunswick was a man who, whenever he asserted that he was going to speak to you with perfect frankness, was really about to treat you with anything but candour. Even in his breast, however, the feelings of the father were not always dormant; and occasionally he manifested considerable perception with regard to the true nature of his daughter’s position. ‘He was perfectly aware,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘of the character of the Prince, and of the inconveniences that would result with almost equal ill effect either from his liking the Princess too much or too little.’ The Duke was as thoroughly cognisant of the peculiar disposition of Queen Charlotte, and, curiously enough, ‘he never mentioned the King.’ The paternal comment on his own daughter was thoroughly impartial: ‘She is not a fool,’ said he, ‘but she has no judgment; and she has been severely brought up, as was very necessary with her.’ He knew well where peril lay, and, to do him justice, he did his little best to save his daughter from the danger.
The severity of the education of the Princess was only imaginary, or, if it had existed, it had been entirely ineffective. We may judge of this by remarking what the Duke begged of the envoy—to recommend to the Princess discretion; to pray of her not to be curious, nor free in giving her opinions aloud upon individuals and things—a fault which this severely-trained young lady inherited from her mother, who, throughout her life, had been given to ‘appeler un chat, un chat!’ and who was excessively free, easy, and loud-tongued in her dissertations upon both men and manners. The poor Duke probably thought of the mother, too, when he asked Lord Malmesbury to advise his daughter never to be jealous of her husband, and ‘if he had any gouts, not to notice them.’ The Duke added that he had written all this down in German for his daughter’s benefit, but he thought it would be none the worse for being repeated orally by Lord Malmesbury. These audiences and consultations of the morning were succeeded by dinners and operas in the evening, and the Princess Caroline was of course the heroine of every festival.
A cynic might have laughed, a more religious philosopher would have sighed, at the further illustration of the severity of manners at the ducal court, and the ‘serene’ anxiety for the proper conduct of the newly-married Princess. The Duke actually sent his mistress to engage Lord Malmesbury to set the bride in a right path. Mademoiselle de Hertzfeldt represented to the envoy the necessity of being very strict with the Princess. The courtesan champion of morality represented the Duke’s daughter as not clever, neither was she ill-disposed, ‘but of a temper easily wrought on, and had no tact.’ The good lady thought that the envoy’s advice would have more effect than the paternal counsel, as, ‘although the Princess respected him, she also feared him as a severe rather than an affectionate father; that she had no respect for her mother, and was inattentive to her when she dared.’ No more terrible testimony could be rendered against a daughter than this. For if a girl love not her mother, whom shall she ever love? and if she hide not her disregard from the mother whom she cannot in her heart honour, whom will she ever truly regard? The Princess was as anxious in imploring guidance and direction from Lord Malmesbury as any of her relatives, and she was probably quite as sincere in asking for counsel.
At dinner and supper, concert and opera, there was the same diet and the same song. For hours of a morning the paternal admonitions were poured into the bride’s ear, and for hours of an evening Lord Malmesbury had to listen to what the Princess had been told. The advice was good of its sort, but its constant repetition shows that the Duke had great fears touching his daughter’s character. The Duke wished to make her feel ‘that the high situation in which she was going to be placed was not simply one of amusement and enjoyment; that it had its duties, and those perhaps hard and difficult to fulfil.’ Lord Malmesbury was especially invoked not to desert the Princess in England. The Duke was quite right in foreseeing that future peril, and what future peril for his daughter, lay in that direction. ‘He dreaded the Prince’s habits.’ Well he might. They were not dissimilar from his own. On the very evening that the Duke told the envoy that he dreaded the Prince’s habits, Lady Eden, who had just arrived at Brunswick from London, told Lord Malmesbury that ‘Lady ——,’ meaning, doubtless, Lady Jersey, ‘was very well with the Queen; that she went frequently to Windsor, and appeared as a sort of favourite.’ ‘This, if true,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘is most strange, and bodes no good.’ The intelligence seems to have strongly impressed the envoy; and when, in the evening, he sat next the Princess Caroline at supper, he counselled her ‘to avoid familiarity, to have no confidants, to avoid giving any opinion, to approve but not to admire excessively, to be perfectly silent on politics and party, to be very attentive and respectful to the Queen—to endeavour, at all events, to be well with her.’ He was evidently thinking of the rival that was already well with the Queen, and still better with the Prince. This condition of things boded no good. The Princess, whose eyes were red with tears—the consequence of taking leave of some of the dear young friends of her heart—had good cause to weep on. Never was bridal attended by prospect more forlorn. The bride, however, was as variable as an April day. On the evening following that just noticed, Lord Malmesbury records that he sat ‘next to Princess Caroline at table; she improves very much on closer acquaintance—cheerful, and loves laughing.’
The penalty of her new position came before her, too, in another shape. She was beset with applications for her patronage, and she was induced to seek for Lord Malmesbury’s aid to realise the expectations of the petitioners. He at once counselled her to have nothing to do with such matters, and to check or stop solicitation at once, by intimating that she could not interfere in any way in England by asking political or personal favours for others. Lord Malmesbury added that, if she were sincerely desirous to further the fortunes of a really deserving person, he would find means to enable her to accomplish what she wished. But even then it were far better, he said, not to engage herself by any promise. He added much more of excellent admonitory advice, in all of which the Princess readily acquiesced. He especially counselled her to be discreet in all her questions. She promised solemnly that she would, and forthwith she began to put some queries to him touching the Prince’s ‘favourite.’ Not that she knew Lady Jersey to be the occupier of so bad an eminence. Still the question was indiscreet. ‘She appeared to suppose her an intriguante, but not to know of any partiality or connection between her and the Prince. I said that, with regard to Lady ——, she and all her other ladies would frame their conduct towards her by hers towards them; that I humbly advised her this should not be too familiar or too easy; and that it might be affable without forgetting she was Princess of Wales; that she should never listen to them when they attempted anything like a commerage, and never allow them to appear to influence her opinion by theirs. She said she wished to be popular, and was afraid I recommended her too much reserve; that probably I thought her too proné à se livrer. I said I did; that it was an amiable quality, but one that in her situation could not be given way to without great risk; that, as to popularity, it never was retained by familiarity; that it could only belong to respect, and was only to be acquired by a just mixture of dignity and affability. I quoted the Queen as a model in this respect.’[7]
Lord Malmesbury thoroughly understood the characters both of the Princess Caroline and the Queen Charlotte. Of the latter the Princess expressed great fear, and added a conviction that the Queen would be jealous of her and do her harm. On that very account she was advised to be scrupulously attentive in rendering to this terrible mother-in-law, as she seemed, every mark of respect due to her; and the Princess was further counselled to set a guard upon her too prompt tongue in the Queen’s presence, and to be especially careful not to drop any light remarks. The bride promised all she was asked, and then observed, by way of illustration of her watchfulness, that she was quite aware that the Prince was leger; that she had been prepared on that point, and was determined never to appear jealous, however much she might be provoked. Her monitor commended the wisdom of a resolution which he said he believed (but it must have been in a diplomatic sense) she would never be called upon to put in force. Still more diplomatically, he added that if she ever did ‘see any symptoms of a gout in the Prince, or if any of the women about her should, under the love of fishing in troubled waters, endeavour to excite a jealousy in her mind,’ he entreated her, ‘on no account to allow it to manifest itself.’ Sourness and reproaches on the part of even a young neglected wife, it was suggested, not only would not reclaim a husband whose ‘tottering affections’ might be won back by patient endurance and softness, but reproof and vexation would only survive to give additional value to her rival and that rival’s charms. In short, my Lord as good as intimated that, if she would only re-enact the part of Griselda, she would please her husband; whereas, if she ran counter to his wishes, ‘it would probably make him disagreeable and peevish, and certainly force him to be false and dissembling.’
But if the English envoy enlightened the bride upon the character of the Prince, her father’s mistress, Mdlle. de Hertzfeldt, was not less liberal in affording to Lord Malmesbury portraits of the Princess, drawn in all lights and with no lack of shadow. One lecture from the ‘favourite,’ which the envoy set down in French, deserves to be quoted, in spite of its length. ‘I conjure you’—thus began the anxious lady—‘I conjure you to induce the Prince, from the very commencement, to make the Princess lead a retired life. She has always been kept in much constraint and narrowly watched, and not without cause. If she suddenly finds herself in the world, unchecked by any restraint, she will not walk steadily. She has not a depraved heart—has never done anything wrong—but her words are ever preceding her thoughts. She gives herself up unreservedly to whomsoever she happens to be speaking with; and thence it follows, even in this little court, that a meaning and an intention are given to her words which never belonged to them. How then will it be in England, where she will be surrounded, so it is said, by cunning and intriguing women, to whom she will deliver herself body and soul, if the Prince allows her to lead a dissipated life in London, and who will make her say just what they please, and that the more easily as she will speak of her own accord, without being conscious of what she has uttered? Besides, she has much vanity, and, though not void of wit, she has but little principle. Her very head will be turned if she be too much flattered or caressed, or if the Prince spoil her; and it is quite as essential that she should fear as that she should love him. It is of the utmost importance that he should keep her closely curbed; that he should also compel her respect for him. Without this, she will assuredly go astray! I know,’ added she to the noble envoy, who wrote down her speech in his Diary as soon as it was delivered, ‘I know that you will not compromise me, for I speak as to an old friend. I am attached heart and soul to the Duke. I have devoted myself to and lost myself for him. I have the welfare of his family at heart. He will be the most wretched of men if his daughter does not succeed better than her elder sister. I repeat, she has never done anything that is bad; but she is without judgment, and she has been judged of accordingly. I fear the Queen. The Duchess here, who passes her entire life in thinking aloud or in never thinking at all, does not like the Queen; and she has talked too much about her to her daughter. Nevertheless, the happiness of the Princess depends upon being well with the Queen; and for God’s sake,’ exclaimed the Duke’s devoted mistress, who so airily satirised the Duke’s lawful wife, ‘say as much to her as indeed you have done already. She heeds you; she finds that you speak reason cheerfully; and you will make more impression on her than her father, of whom she is too much afraid, or than her mother, of whom she is not afraid at all.’
That night there was a masquerade at the court opera-house. Amid the gay and festive throng the envoy never left the side of the bride, over whom it was his mission to watch. He talked with her in a strain which became so gay a scene, but on every jest hung counsel. She was for giving way to the temper of the entertainment; but as the Princess grew more hilarious and ‘more mixing,’ he checked the rising spirit of fun, and prevented its becoming ‘fast and furious,’ by treating her with a vast outlay of increased seriousness and respect.