In May 1807 the Princess was accordingly received at court, at a drawing-room held by Queen Charlotte. The latter illustrious lady exhibited no demeanour by which it could be construed that she was happy to see her daughter-in-law. The utmost honour paid her was a cold and rigid courtesy. The Queen was again ‘civil, but stiff.’ The nobility and gentry present were more expansive in the warmth of their welcome. From them the Princess received a homage of apparently cordial respect. Sir Jonah Barrington, in his ‘Personal Sketches of his own Times,’ gives a rather different description of the scene, at which he was present. From this account we collect that the Princess, leaning on the arm of the Duke of Cumberland, appeared in deep mourning—for her father. She ‘tottered’ up to the Queen, as if fearing a repulsive welcome. The reception of her was ‘kind’ on the Queen’s part, ‘and a paroxysm of spirits seemed to succeed, and mark a strange contrast to the manner of her entry. I thought it was too sudden and too decisive. She spoke much and loud, and rather bold. Her circle was crowded, the presentations numerous, but on the whole she lost ground in my estimation.’
On the occasion of the King’s birthday on the following month the Princess again repaired to court. The welcome resembled that which she had received at her last visit, but there was an incident at this which rendered it more interesting, at all events to lookers-on. It was at this drawing-room that the Prince and Princess of Wales encountered each other for the last time. They met in the very centre of the apartment—they bowed, stood face to face for a moment, exchanged a few words which no one heard, and then passed on; he, stately as an iceberg, and as cold—she, with a smile, half mirthful, half melancholy, as though she rejoiced that she was there in spite of him, and yet regretted that her visit was not under happier auspices. The triumph, however, was complete as far as it went, for she assuredly was present that day contrary to the inclination of both her husband and her mother-in-law.
There was one being upon earth whom this Princess unreservedly loved, and of whom she was deprived this year—her father, the Duke of Brunswick. He had been but an indifferent husband and father, but his wife did not complain, and his daughter Caroline feared and adored him.
The father of the Princess of Wales, at the age of seventy-one, perished on the fatal field of Jena, on that day on which Prussia was made to pay the penalty of mingled treachery and imbecility. It had been her policy, throughout the troubles of the time, to save herself at any other nation’s cost. Such a policy caused her to fall into the ruin which overcame her at Jena, without securing the sympathy even of those nations which then fought against the then common enemy. In this battle the father of Caroline had done his utmost to win victory for Prussia, but in vain, and he lost his own life in the attempt. His ability and courage were all cast away. He had with him in the camp a very unseemly companion, in the person of a French actress, who was the friend of his aide-de-camp, Montjoy. This officer was close to him when, in the midst of his staff, and at a distance altogether from where the battle was raging, the old Duke was shot by a man on foot, ‘who presented his carabine so close that the ball went in under the left eye (the Duke was on horseback) and came out above the right, quite through the upper part of the nose.’ It is Lord Malmesbury who suggests, without pretending to assert, that ‘Montjoy’s brother, the Grand Veneur to Prince Max, the pretended King of Bavaria, and who was with Bonaparte, knew exactly where the Duke of Brunswick was to be found, and by a connivance with Montjoy produced the event.’
After the death of the Duke, the Duchess became a fugitive, for the Duchy of Brunswick was in the possession of the French. And accordingly the poor Augusta, at whose birth in St. James’s Palace there had been such scant ceremony and excess of commotion, came now in her old age, and after an absence of forty years, to ask a home at the hearth of the brother who loved her, as she used to say equivocally, as warmly as he could love anything, and of the sister-in-law who, as the poor Duchess knew, regarded her with some dislike, and who was met with the same amount and quality of affection on the part of Augusta of Brunswick.
She had, however, little cause to complain, as far as these relatives were concerned. They received her cordially; and, though they gave her no home in the palace in which she was born, they helped her to an humbler home elsewhere, and occasionally lent it cheerfulness by paying her a visit. In the meantime the widowed mother sat at the hearth of her deserted daughter, and though neither of them had sufficient depth of sentiment to bring her affliction touchingly home to the other, each was sufficiently stricken by severity of real sorrow to render her eloquent upon her own misery, if not attentive to the twice-told tale of her companion.
Meanwhile, there was pressure of another sort upon the Princess—a pressure of debt, incurred principally by the uncertainty with which she had hitherto been supplied with pecuniary means, and also the want of a controlling treasurer to give warning when expenditure was exceeding probable income. Prudent people find such an officer in themselves; but then the Princess was not a prudent person, and among the things she least understood was the management or the worth of money. She was, however, in 1809, in so embarrassed a situation as to render an application to the King’s ministers necessary, when it was found that her debts exceeded 50,000l. A final arrangement was then come to. The Prince and Princess signed a deed of separation. The former consented to pay the debts to the amount of 49,000l. on condition of being held non-responsible for any future liabilities incurred by his consort. Her fixed income was settled at 22,000l. per annum, under the control of a treasurer, who was to discharge the remaining liabilities out of the present year’s income, and to guard against any other occurring in years to come, if he could.
As wide a separation as possible was made between mother and child. They were happy Saturday afternoons that the Princess Charlotte was allowed to spend at Blackheath, where she met the Hon. Miss Wellesley (afterwards Countess of Westmoreland) and other children, and partook of childish delights. Under her grandmother the Queen, at Windsor, she was stiffly disciplined. Once expressing a wish to be allowed to go and say ‘good-bye’ to a young friend who was about to leave England, Queen Charlotte remarked ‘it was contrary to princely dignity to seek after any one.’ Some young girls who had been allowed to come to Windsor, and were the companions of the Princess for an occasional day, were not allowed to grow into familiarity or intimacy. The old Queen’s sour notice of them to her grand-daughter was: ‘I cannot taste these young ladies!’ In this cruel way were all the warm sympathies of a warm-hearted child set at naught.
The relations into which the Prince entered with Lady Hertford, while the question of the guardianship of Miss Seymour was pending, led to the ascendency of that lady, and brought to a final close the intimacy which had existed between the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert. At a dinner given to Louis XVIII., to which she was invited, the Prince replied to her inquiry as to where she was to sit, ‘You know, Madam, you have no place.’ ‘None, sir,’ she rejoined, ‘but what you are pleased to give me.’ He assigned none, and she kept away. The last morning she ever saw the Prince was at a soirée at Devonshire House. The Duchess was conducting her to the Duke’s apartments, where he was confined with the gout, but where he received a few old friends. As the two ladies passed through one of the rooms, Mrs. Fitzherbert saw the Prince and Lady Hertford in a tête-à-tête conversation, and nearly fainted under all the impressions which then rushed upon her mind, but, taking a glass of water, she recovered and passed on.[10]