so the house of Saxe Coburg may be said in later days to have been aggrandized by weddings. The marriage of his patron with the presumptive heiress to the Crown of England was the beginning of Stockmar's subterranean greatness.
The Princess Charlotte expressed herself to Stockmar with regard to the character of her revered parents in the following "pithy" manner:—"My mother was bad, but she could not have become as bad as she was if my father had not been infinitely worse." The Regent was anxious to have the Princess married for two reasons, in the opinion of the judicious author of this memoir—because he wanted to be rid of his daughter, and because when she married she would form less of a link between him and his wife. Accordingly, when she was eighteen, hints were given her through the court physician, Sir Henry Halford (such is the course of royal love), that if she would have the kindness to fix her affections on the hereditary Prince of Orange (afterwards King William II. of the Netherlands), whom she had never seen, it would be exceedingly convenient. The Prince came over to England, and, by the help of a "certain amount of artful precipitation on the part of the father," the pair became formally engaged. The Princess said at first that she did not think her betrothed "by any means so disagreeable as she had expected." In time, however, this ardour of affection abated. The Prince was a baddish subject, and he had a free-and-easy manner, and wanted tact and refinement. He returned to London from some races seated on the outside of a coach, and in a highly excited state. Worst of all, he lodged at his tailor's. The engagement was ultimately broken off by a difficulty with regard to the future residence of the couple, which would evidently have become more complicated and serious if the Queen of the Netherlands had ever inherited the Crown of England. The Princess was passionately opposed to leaving her country. The Regent and his ministers tried to keep the poor girl in the dark, and get her into a position from which there would be no retreat. But she had a temper and a will of her own; and her recalcitration was assisted by the Parliamentary Opposition, who saw in the marriage a move of Tory policy, and by her mother, who saw in it something agreeable to her husband. Any one who wishes to see how diplomatic lovers quarrel will find instruction in these pages.
The place left vacant by the rejected William was taken by Prince Leopold, with whom Stockmar came to England. In Stockmar's Diary of May 5th, 1806, is the entry:—"I saw the sun (that of royalty we presume, not the much calumniated sun of Britain) for the first time at Oatlands. Baron Hardenbroek, the Prince's equerry, was going into the breakfast- room. I followed him, when he suddenly signed to me with his hand to stay behind; but she had already seen me and I her. 'Aha, docteur,' she said, 'entrez.' She was handsomer than I had expected, with most peculiar manners, her hands generally folded behind her, her body always pushed forward, never standing quiet, from time to time stamping her foot, laughing a great deal and talking still more. I was examined from head to foot, without, however, losing my countenance. My first impression was not favourable. In the evening she pleased me more. Her dress was simple and in good taste." The Princess took to the doctor, and, of course, he took to her. A subsequent entry in his Diary is:—"The Princess is in good humour, and then she pleases easily. I thought her dress particularly becoming; dark roses in her hair, a short light blue dress without sleeves, with a low round collar, a white puffed out Russian chemisette, the sleeves of lace. I have never seen her in any dress which was not both simple and in good taste." She seems to have improved under the influence of her husband, whom his physician calls "a manly prince and a princely man." In her manners there was some room for improvement, if we may judge from her treatment of Duke Prosper of Aremburg, who was one of the guests at a great dinner recorded in the Diary:—"Prosper is a hideous little mannikin, dressed entirely in black, with a large star. The Prince presented him to the Princess, who was at the moment talking to the Minister Castlereagh. She returned the duke's two profound continental bows by a slight nod of the head, without looking at him or saying a word to him, and brought her elbow so close to him that he could not move. He sat looking straight before him with some, though not very marked, embarrassment. He exchanged now and then a few words in French with the massive and mighty Lady Castlereagh, by whose side he looked no larger than a child. When he left, the Princess dismissed him in the same manner in which she had welcomed him, and broke into a loud laugh before he was fairly out of the room."
Stockmar's position in the little court was not very flattering or agreeable. The members of the household hardly regarded the poor German physician as their equal; and if one or two of the men were pleasant, the lady who constituted their only lawful female society, Mrs. Campbell, Lady-in-Waiting to the Princess, was, in her ordinary moods, decidedly the reverse. Stockmar, however, in drawing a piquant portrait of her, has recorded the extenuating circumstances that she had once been pretty, that she had had bitter experiences with men, and that, in an illness during a seven months' sea-voyage, she had been kept alive only on brandy and water. Col. Addenbrooke, the equerry to the Princess, is painted in more favourable colours, his only weak point being "a weak stomach, into which he carefully crams a mass of the most incongruous things, and then complains the next day of fearful headache." What a power of evil is a man who keeps a diary!
Greater personages than Mrs. Campbell and Colonel Addenbrooke passed under the quick eye of the humble medical attendant, and were photographed without being aware of it.
"The Queen Mother (Charlotte, wife of George III.). 'Small and crooked, with a true mulatto face.'
"The Regent. 'Very stout, though of a fine figure; distinguished manners; does not talk half as much as his brothers; speaks tolerably good French. He ate and drank a good deal at dinner. His brown scratch wig not particularly becoming.'
"The Duke of York, the eldest son of the Regent's brothers. 'Tall, with immense embonpoint, and not proportionately strong legs; he holds himself in such a way that one is always afraid he will tumble over backwards; very bald, and not a very intelligent face: one can see that eating, drinking, and sensual pleasure are everything to him. Spoke a good deal of French, with a bad accent.'
"Duchess of York, daughter of Frederick William II. of Prussia. 'A little animated woman, talks immensely, and laughs still more. No beauty, mouth and teeth bad. She disfigures herself still more by distorting her mouth and blinking her eyes. In spite of the Duke's various infidelities, their matrimonial relations are good. She is quite aware of her husband's embarrassed circumstances, and is his prime minister and truest friend; so that nothing is done without her help. As soon as she entered the room, she looked round for the Banker Greenwood, who immediately came up to her with the confidentially familiar manner which the wealthy go-between assumes towards grand people in embarrassed circumstances. At dinner the Duchess related that her royal father had forced her as a girl to learn to shoot, as he had observed she had a great aversion to it. At a grand chasse she had always fired with closed eyes, because she could not bear to see the sufferings of the wounded animals. When the huntsmen told her that in this way she ran the risk of causing the game more suffering through her uncertain aims, she went to the King and asked if he would excuse her from all sport in future if she shot a stag dead. The King promised to grant her request if she could kill two deer, one after the other, with out missing; which she did.'
"Duke of Clarence (afterwards King William IV.). 'The smallest and least good-looking of the brothers, decidedly like his mother; as talkative as the rest.'