‘Let me here state, once for all, that from this moment I am sure that Brougham thought of nothing but serving and saving his client. I, who saw him more nearly than any man, can bear witness that from the period in question his whole powers were devoted to her safety and welfare. He felt that the battle must be fought, and resolved to fight it manfully and “to the utterance.”’
The Queen had signified her intention of attending daily in the House during the proceedings, and suitable accommodation and attendance were provided for her. In the House, at all events, she was treated as Queen-consort, and she more than once adverted to the fact when about to take her seat on the throne-like chair and cushion placed at her disposal, near her counsel. Her usual course was to come up from Brandenburgh House early in the morning to the residence of Lady Francis in St. James’s Square. From the latter place she proceeded, in as much ‘state’ as could be got up with her diminished means, to the House of Lords. On these occasions she was attended by Lady Anne Hamilton, her chamberlains, Sir W. Gell and Mr. Keppel Craven, and Alderman Wood, who invariably endeavoured to have the honour of escorting the Queen into the House, but was as invariably forbidden to pass in that way by the local authorities. The alderman, being a member of parliament, was compelled to pass through the entrance allotted to the ‘Commons;’ and the Queen, who was received with military honours, was usually led into the House, or to the apartment assigned to her use, by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and Mr. Brougham, each holding her by a hand.
The royal progress from St. James’s Square to the House of Peers and the return were daily witnessed by a dense multitude, and hailed with acclamations. The Queen thought the popular sympathy for her far stronger than it really was. It did not indeed want for earnestness, intensity, or honesty, but it did not go deep enough to urge the multitude to make any serious demonstration in her favour. They cheered her as she passed, cheered the soldiers who saluted her, and hissed those who failed to show her that mark of respect. They hissed or cheered the peers on their arrival according as they knew that they were opponents or supporters of the Queen. They were especially delighted when they succeeded in compelling a lordly adversary to shout, or seem to shout, for the Queen. They strove mightily to bring the Marquis of Anglesea to this; but on his assertion that rather than do a thing against his inclination they might run him through the body, they laughed, cheered, and let him pass on. The Duke of Wellington served those who assailed him quite as characteristically: he was violently hissed on his way to the House on the first day of the trial; he checked his horse for a moment, looked round with a half-smile, as if the people had been guilty of some absurd mistake, and then quietly walked his horse onward. On another occasion, as he was returning from the House, the mob insisted upon his crying ‘The Queen! the Queen!’ ‘Yes, yes!’ was his reply; but his persecutors were not content therewith, and continued to assail him as he rode slowly forward. At length, wearied with their importunity, he is said to have turned to his assailants and exclaimed, ‘Very well; the Queen then, and may all your wives be like her!’
Caroline was early in her attendance on the 17th of August. She entered the House at ten o’clock, while the names of the peers were being called over. She wore a black satin dress, with a white veil over a plain laced cap. The whole body of peers rose to receive her, and she acknowledged the courtesy with that dignity which she could well assume, and which she could so readily throw off.
It was not till the 19th of August that the case was actually opened by the Attorney-General. The preliminary proceedings were not, however, of much interest, save on the part of the Duke of Leinster, who attempted by motion to get rid of the bill at once, in which he failed, all parties being nearly agreed that there was now no possibility of retrocession. The second incident of interest was in the speech of Mr. Brougham against the bill, and the method by which it sought to crush his illustrious client. While praising her self-denying generosity, which induced her to refrain from all recrimination, he ably adverted to the anomaly of the accused person in a case of divorce being prevented from showing the guilt of her accuser.
On the 19th the Attorney-General opened his case. He professed his conviction that he should state nothing which he could not substantiate on proof, and, reviewing the general course of the Queen’s life abroad, he deduced from it that she had been guilty of conduct which stamped her with shame as Princess and as woman. Caroline entered the House towards the conclusion of his speech, shortly after which he introduced the first of the batch of Italian witnesses lodged near the House, in Cotton Garden, and whose presence there was sufficient to render uneasy the spirit of the philosopher who gave his name to the spot, and the wreck of whose library is among the richest treasures of the British Museum.
The entrance of the first witness gave rise to an incident dramatic in its effect. He was the celebrated Theodore Majocchi, and he no sooner appeared at the bar than the Queen, overcome, as it would seem, at seeing one who owed her much gratitude arrayed against her, exclaimed ‘Oh, traditore! (oh, traitor!)’ and, hurrying from the scene, took refuge in her apartment, from which she did not again issue except to return home. The chief points supposed to have been established by Majocchi were that on the deck of the polacca Bergami slept at night beneath the tent wherein the Princess also slept, and that the same individual attended her when she was in the bath. The tent was partially open in the hot climate beneath which the wayfarers were travelling, and in the bath the Princess wore a bathing dress, so that, if the indiscretion was undoubtedly great, indecorum was not (it was suggested) very seriously injured. Of the remainder of Majocchi’s evidence it has been well remarked, by one who heard it, that ‘all his subsequent assertions did not, in consequence of what he implied by this statement, weigh the worth of two straws with me, for it was of the nature of inference, and deduced by the imagination. Besides, I do think he was a knowing rogue, who forgot to remember many things which perhaps might have changed the hue of his insinuations. I do not say that what he did say was not sufficient to induce a strong suspicion of guilt itself in the members of an English society; but this is the very thing complained of. The Queen was in foreign society, in peculiar circumstances, and yet our state Solomons judge of her conduct as if she had been among the English.’[16] The remark is worth something, for even at so short a distance from town as Ramsgate Sands the law of modesty does not appear to be the same as it is in other parts of England; and as for the incident of the bath, our grandfathers and grandmothers, in the heyday of their youth, used to walk in couples in the ‘Baths of Bath,’ and no one presumed to take offence at the proceeding. The writer last quoted further remarks, as a matter worthy of observation, that Majocchi did not appear to be ‘at all shocked or shamefaced at what he said.’ The inference deduced is that the witness had been ‘taught to dwell so particularly on uncomely things by one who did know how much they would revolt the English.’
It would indeed be revolting to go through all the evidence: it must suffice to tread our way through it as lightly and as quickly as possible. All the government witnesses deposed to an ostentation of criminality in parties who, if guilty, must have been most deeply interested in concealing all evidences of guilt, and one of whom at least knew that she was constantly watched and daily reported of. This contradiction very soon struck Lord Eldon himself, who intimated that some measures should be taken to punish perjury, if it could be proved to have been committed. It is certain that the King’s case was materially damaged at a very early stage of the proceedings, not only by discrepancy in the evidence, but by the suspicious alacrity of the witnesses in tendering it.
A close watcher of Majocchi, when giving his evidence, says: ‘I cannot understand why so much importance is attached to the evidence of Majocchi. He did not state any one thing that indicated a remembrance of his having put a sense of indecorum on the conduct of the Queen at the time to which he referred; and in this, I think, the want of tact in those who arranged the case is glaringly obvious. As men they could not but have often seen that it is the nature of recollected transactions to affect the expression of the physiognomy, and particularly of those kinds of transactions which the traditore knew he was called to prove; yet in no one instance did Majocchi show that there was an image in his mind, even while uttering what were thought the most sensual demonstrations. In all the most particular instances that pointed to guilt he was as abstract as Euclid; a logarithmic transcendent could not have been more bodiless than the memory of his recollections. I do not say that he was taught by others, but I affirm that he spoke by rote.’[17]
Many of the servants examined swore positively to much unseemliness of demeanour between Bergami and the Princess, and some went very much further than this. Of these, several confessed to being hostile to the courier; some were jealous of him; but they all, despite some discrepancy of detail, kept to the leading points of their evidence, which was destructive to the reputation of the Princess.