The journey to Harwich was unmarked by any particular incident, save that everywhere along the route the feeling of curiosity to see the remains of Caroline pass to their last resting-place was accompanied by manifest evidences of respect. Off Harwich were awaiting the Glasgow frigate, two sloops of war, three brigs, and the Pioneer schooner. The coffin was conveyed to the latter, after being unceremoniously swung into a barge, and from the schooner it was transferred to the Glasgow. The little group of mourners followed. They consisted of Lord and Lady Hood, Lady Anne Hamilton, Mr. Austin, Dr. and Mrs. Lushington, and Count Vassali. Her Majesty’s remains were now in charge of Captain Doyle, who, when a midshipman, more than a quarter of a century before, had handed the rope to the royal bride, whereby to help her on board the Jupiter. The squadron set sail, under a salute from Languard fort, and at two o’clock p.m., on Sunday, the 19th, it anchored in the harbour of Cuxhaven.
The Gannet sloop of war conveyed the body up the Elbe to the mouth of the Schwinde, and up the latter it was carried, with a guard of marines and the mourners, by the boats belonging to the Wye sloop, as far as Stade. From this place to Brunswick the body of the unhappy Caroline was borne, by slow journeys, and amid profuse respectful demonstrations on the part of the people. One of its resting-places by the way was at Zell, in the church of which place the body lay for a night upon the tomb of the unfortunate sister of George III., Caroline Matilda Queen of Denmark.
At midnight on Friday, August 24, the last rites were performed over the deceased consort of George IV. The body had been removed from the hearse to a funeral car, which was drawn by some hundred Brunswickers to the cathedral gates. No extraordinary service was allowed to be celebrated at the side of the vault. The Duke of Brunswick was then a minor and an absentee, and the government of the country was administered by the King of England. But though the service was of the most ordinary character, the sexagenarian pastor, Woolf, pronounced an oration above the remains of the Queen. He thanked God for adorning her with high advantages of mind and body, for bestowing upon her a heart full of clemency and benignity, and for placing her where she could, and was resolved to, accomplish much good. But ‘unsearchable, O Eternal, are thy ways!’ was the perplexed pastor’s cry as he adverted to her subsequent career—for terminating which the wisdom of the Almighty was again to be revered.
Among the range of coffins in the vault beneath the cathedral of St. Blaize, at Brunswick, Caroline rests between two which contain two heroic but far from faultless men—her father, who fell at Jena, and her brother, who, at the head of his Black Brunswickers, also fell in avenging him at Waterloo. Speaking of the latter, ‘two small black flags,’ says Russell, ‘the one an offering from the matrons, the other from the maidens of Brunswick, are suspended above his coffin, and its gaudy gold and crimson are still mixed with the brown and withering leaves of the garlands which the love of his people scattered on his bier, when at midnight he was laid among so many of his race who had fought and fell like himself.’ Between the coffins of these two lies that of Caroline of Brunswick, between father and brother slain. Her mother died in exile, yet in her own land; and the grave of her murdered sister Charlotte, the first wife of the Prince of Wurtemburg, would be sought for in vain. Surely here was a household sternly dealt with.
On the Sunday following the funeral the venerable pastor, Woolf, preached a sermon appropriate to the event, and which ended in a panegyric on the character of the Queen. The old man, with singular tenacity, clung to the assertion, that in early life ‘her quick understanding eagerly received every ray of divine truth, and her warm heart and lively feelings were excited and elevated by piety.’ He declared that her sense of religion increased to a confirmed faith, and that pious occupations were dear to her heart. ‘I knew her,’ said the aged advocate, ‘as an enlightened Christian, before she left the country of her birth. She first received from my hands, with pious emotion, the holy Supper of our Lord, and the solemnity of her manner was like her precious devotions, an unsuspected proof of her sincere faith and pious feeling.’ The panegyric would have been, like most articles of the kind, far above the merit of the subject, were it not for the strong qualifying sentence in which the preacher acknowledged that ‘the sense of religion, it was true, did not always preserve her from infirmities and errors;’ but, as he asked after the admission, ‘Where is the mortal, where has there been a saint, who has been always perfect? And,’ said he, aptly and truly enough, whether addressed to the friends or the foes of the poor, ill-used, and erring Caroline of Brunswick—‘And he who erred less may conscientiously ask himself whether he owes that to himself or to his more fortunate situation and the undeserved grace of God?’ It is a query which we are all bound to make when viewing a brother or a sister of the human family who is reputed guilty of offence towards God or man. The latter is ever ready to condemn his neighbour, but never ready to pass sentence on himself. Happy for all that with God there is not only judgment but mercy.
There has been some discussion as to whether Caroline of Brunswick was legally married to the Prince of Wales. There is no doubt, however, to be entertained on the matter. Her husband had, unquestionably, previously married a Roman Catholic lady, and that lady was living when the Prince married Caroline of Brunswick.
By the well-known statute of William and Mary, marrying a Roman Catholic entails exclusion from, and incapability ever to inherit, the crown of this realm.
The Prince clearly forfeited his right to the Crown by his marriage with a Papist.
But he married the lady (with the King’s connivance, he said) without the King’s consent; and, wanting that consent, the marriage (according to the 12th of George III.) was null and void.
This would set aside the marriage, but it would not release the Prince from the consequence of having entered into such a marriage. Horne Tooke was not justified in sneering at the 12th of George III., nor in writing ‘legally, really, worthily, and happily for the country, Mrs. Fitzherbert is Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.’