The opinion of that remarkably sensible woman of the time, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, on this event, can but be read with interest.
“There has been an extraordinary quarrel at Court. The 31st of last month, July, 1737, the Princess fell in labour. The King and Queen both knew she was to lie in at St. James’s, where everything was prepared. It was her first child, and so little a way to London that she thought it less hazard to go immediately away from Hampton Court to London, where she had all the assistance that could be, and everything prepared, than to stay at Hampton Court, where she had nothing, and might be forced to make use of a country midwife. There was not a minute’s time to be lost in debating this matter, nor in ceremonials, the Princess begging earnestly of the Prince to carry her to St. James’s in such a hurry that gentlemen went behind the coach like footmen. They got to St. James’s safe; and she was brought to bed in one hour after. Her Majesty followed them as soon as she could, but did not come until it was all over. However, she expressed a great deal of anger to the Prince for having carried her away, though she and the child were very well. I should have thought it would have been most natural for a grandmother to have said, she had been mightily frighted, but she was so glad it was so well over. The Prince said all the respectful and dutiful things imaginable to her and to the King, desiring her Majesty to support the reasons which made him go away as he did, without acquainting his Majesty with it. And I believe that all human creatures will allow, that this was natural for a man not to debate a thing of this kind, nor to lose a minute’s time for ceremony; which was very useless, considering that it is a great while since the King has spoken to him, or taken the least notice of him. The Prince told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty to the King; but she advised him not. This was Monday morning, and she said Wednesday was time enough. And, indeed, I think in that her Majesty was in the right. The Prince submitted to her counsel, and only writ a very submissive and respectful letter to his Majesty, giving his reasons for what he had done; and this conversation ended, that he hoped that his Majesty would do him the honour to be godfather to his daughter, and that he would be pleased to name who the godmothers would be; and that he left all the directions of the christening entirely to his Majesty’s pleasure. The Queen answered that it would be thought the asking the King to be Godfather was too great a liberty, and advised him not to do it.
National Portrait Gallery.Emery Walker.
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.
“When the Prince led the Queen to her coach, which she would not have had him have done, there was a great concourse of people; and notwithstanding all that had passed before, she expressed so much kindness, that she hugged and kissed him with great passion. The King after this sent a message in writing by my Lord Essex in the following words:
“‘That his Majesty looks upon what the Prince had done in carrying the Princess to London in such a manner, as a deliberate indignity offered to himself and to the Queen, and resented it in the highest degree and forbid him the court.’
“All the sycophants and agents of the Court spread millions of falsities on this occasion, and all the language there was that this was so great a crime that even those that went with the Prince ought to be prosecuted. How this will end nobody yet knows, at least I am sure I don’t.”
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough to Lord Stair, August, 1737.
A pretty satire written before August 29th, 1737, by Dr. Hollings, who attended the Princess of Wales, concerning the baby Princess, but really directed against the Queen.
It is by comparison, not difficult to see on which side Dr. Hollings’s sympathies were. This writing was found among the papers of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.