The Prince, heartily weary of his bargain, asked Lord Malmesbury, after one of these dinners, what he thought of the manners exhibited at them by the Princess. The envoy could not defend them; on the contrary, he expressed his unqualified censure, and informed the Prince of the paternal injunctions of the Duke of Brunswick, whereby he recommended that a strict curb should be kept upon the Princess, or she would certainly emancipate herself. The Prince declared that he saw it too plainly, and half reproachfully asked ‘Harris’ why he had not told him as much before. The envoy, thus appealed to, pleaded the strictness of his commission, which was not discretionary, but which directed him to ask for the hand of the Princess Caroline in marriage, and nothing more; and that, had he presumed to give any opinion of his own upon the lady, he would have been guilty of an impertinent disregard of his instructions, which were at once limited and imperative. Lord Malmesbury endeavoured to put the gentlest construction upon the sentiments expressed by the Duke of Brunswick concerning his daughter, and added that, for his own part, he had seen nothing but slight defects of character, which he hoped might be amended; and that, had he observed anything more serious, he should have considered it his duty to communicate it, but only confidentially, to the King himself. The Prince sighed, appeared to acquiesce, but was neither consoled nor convinced.
The ceremonial of the unhappy marriage was celebrated on Wednesday, the 8th of April, in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. The whole of the royal family previously dined together at the Queen’s Palace, Buckingham House, after which they proceeded to their several apartments at St. James’s to dress. As the Princess passed through the hall of Buckingham House the King saluted her in the heartiest fashion, and then shook as heartily, by both hands, the Prince of Wales who had in vain sought to raise his spirits by the adventitious aid of wine. The bridal party assembled in the Queen’s apartment, and walked from thence to the state drawing-rooms, which were not rendered less gloomy than usual by any addition of festive light. They were ‘very dark,’ says Lord Malmesbury, who walked in the procession, by command of his Majesty. The chapel was very crowded. There is a picture of the interesting scene, which is said to have been painted, at the King’s command, by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, an Irish artist, whom both King and Queen had, formerly, much patronised. All the royal sons and daughters—a beautiful family group they were—are present in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. The bride is dressed in a white satin dress, worked down the front with pearls. She wears a small crown, and from her shoulders falls a robe of rich red crimson velvet, lined with ermine. The Prince of Wales wears a court costume, knee breeches and buckles with pointed shoes. His coat, of blue velvet, is richly ornamented somewhat after the fashion of the ornaments on the dress of his bride. The ladies wear enormous hoops, except the bride, who has no hoop. Their hair is powdered, and their arms project from their bodies in rather a stiff attitude, rendered necessary by the projection of the hoops. They all wear long, white kid gloves, which extend nearly up to the elbow. Ostrich feathers bend or bow on the ladies’ heads, rising from the forehead, and curling gracefully at a considerable height. Near the bride are her ‘maids,’ Lady Mary Osborne, Lady Charlotte Legge, Lady Caroline Villiers, Lady Charlotte Spencer, Lady Caroline Waldegrave. When Queen Charlotte heard of this picture (she appears not to have sat for it) she is said to have declared that if it was brought into Windsor Castle she would go out of it. The King paid for but declined to receive this work, which ultimately was disposed of by lottery, and is now in the Tussaud Gallery, in Baker Street.
The ceremony which it represents was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Moore. The ‘Prince of Wales gave his hat, with a rich diamond button and loop, to Lord Harcourt to hold, and made him a present of it. After the marriage we returned to the Queen’s apartment. The Prince very civil and gracious, but I thought I could perceive he was not quite sincere, and certainly unhappy, and as a proof of it he had manifestly had recourse to wine or spirits.’
Upon this point Lord Holland has afforded ample corroborative evidence. The noble baron has stated that the Prince of Wales had had such recourse to brandy that he with difficulty could be kept upright between two dukes. The wedding was as melancholy a one as was ever celebrated. The only hearty actor in it was the King, who advanced to give the bride away with an eager alacrity. As for the bridegroom, after having been got upon his knees, he rose, unconsciously, but restlessly, before the proper time. The Archbishop paused, the service was interrupted, and the Prince looked very much as if he were inclined to run away. The King, however, had presence of mind for all. He rose from his seat, crossed to where his son was standing with a bewildered air, whispered to him, got him once more upon his knees, and so happily, or unhappily, brought the ceremony to a conclusion.
The usual legal formalities followed; these were succeeded by a supper at Buckingham House, and at midnight the luckless pair retired to their own residence at Carlton House, quarrelling with each other, it is said, by the way. Meanwhile the metropolis around them was rejoicing and exhibiting its gladness by the usual manifestations of much drunkenness and increased illumination to show it by. Asmodeus might have startled the Spanish student that night with an exhibition such as he had never seen beneath any of the unroofed houses of Madrid!
It sounds singular to hear that the young husband’s first serious occupation, on thus beginning life, was the settlement of his debts. These were enormous, and their amount only proved the reckless dishonesty of him who had incurred them. Mr. Pitt proposed that the income of the Prince should be 125,000l. a-year, exclusive of the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall, some 13,000l. more. This was eventually agreed to. In addition, Parliament fixed the jointure of the Princess of Wales at 50,000l. per annum; and the smaller but pleasant items of 20,000l. for jewels and 26,000l. for furnishing Carlton House were also agreed upon. Out of the above-named revenue, however, a yearly deduction was to be made, in order that the debts of the Prince should be discharged within nine years. This deduction he denounced, and his brothers joined him in the denunciation, as a breach of contract, he having married solely upon the promise that his debts should be paid off at once. He immediately claimed the amount of the accumulation of the receipts of the Duchy of Cornwall during his minority. He was answered, on the part of the King, that the receipts had been expended on his education and establishment. The consequent debates were a scandal to the nation, a disgrace to royalty in the person of the Prince, and cruelly insulting to the Princess, as they betrayed to her the fact that the heir-apparent had accepted her as a consort solely on condition that his debts should be paid off. When the Romans made a bargain they confirmed it by breaking a bit of straw between them. This straw was called ‘stipula,’ and the Princess Caroline was the bit of straw that was broken—the stipulation, in fact, whereby it was agreed that if the Prince married the woman whom he already detested his creditors should have satisfaction in full of all demands!
Some of these were found heavy. There was a bill of 40,000l. to his farrier! Bills like these were allowed. Not so an annuity of 1,400l. to Mrs. Crouch, the actress. The Parliament took a commercial view of the matter and disallowed the claim, on the ground that no valuable consideration had been given for the liability which the Prince had voluntarily incurred. For the allowed debts, debentures payable with interest were given, and the Prince immediately withdrew into comparative retirement, in order, as Lord Moira stated in the House of Lords, that he might be able to save enough to discharge certain claims upon his honour. These claims were supposed to exist on the part of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel and the Duke of Orleans, from whom the Prince had borrowed money. Perhaps they included the 10,000l. per annum which he had engaged himself to pay to Mrs. Fitzherbert, whom he had settled in a superb mansion in Park Lane, and comforted with assurances that his attentions to her would be as devoted now as before his marriage! All this was an outrage on the poor bride, whom the Prince took down to Windsor on a visit to the King and Queen. That persons might not suppose this was a commencement of positive domestic and virtuous life, the husband took with him his mistress, Lady Jersey.
The usual formality, which George III. loved, of visiting the public at the theatre, was observed on this occasion, and a short time after the royal marriage the wedded couple were accompanied to Covent Garden by the whole of the royal family. They were very dully entertained with the very worst of O’Keefe’s comedies, ‘Life’s Vagaries,’ in which two cousins fall in love and marry; and so perhaps the piece was thought appropriate. It was followed by ‘Windsor Castle,’ a pièce d’occasion by Pearce, who brought together in it Edward III., Peleus, the Prince of Wales, Minerva, Thetis, and the Countess of Kent. The last lady is represented as expected at the castle; she is detained on her way by an overflow of the Thames which threatens to drown her, and from which she is rescued by the Prince of Wales; whereupon all the heathen gods and goddesses are as much delighted as if they formed an Olympian Royal Humane Society, and exhibit their ecstasy by dancing and singing. In such wise were our rulers entertained when George III. was king.
Queen Charlotte had looked grimly cold upon the Princess, but she gave an entertainment in honour of the event which made Caroline of Brunswick a Princess of Wales. The locality was Frogmore, and the scene was brilliant, except that the hostess looked, as Lord Malmesbury once described her, ‘civil, but stiff,’ and her daughter-in-law superbly dressed, and black as midnight.
Meanwhile, the Prince’s first wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert, was in sorrow. Their honeymoon had not lasted long. The Prince had met Lady Jersey at Brighton, and a letter from him, which was put into Mrs. Fitzherbert’s hands at a dinner at the Duke of Clarence’s, where she had expected to meet the Prince, satisfied her that all intimacy between them had come to an end. From that time, according to what appears to be an erroneous statement in the ‘Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert,’ ‘she never saw the Prince;’ and this interruption of their intimacy was followed by his marriage with the Queen (Princess) Caroline, brought about, as Mrs. Fitzherbert conceived, under the twofold influence of the pressure of his debts on the mind of the Prince, and a wish on the part of Lady Jersey to enlarge the royal establishment, in which she was to have an important situation!