That she began well as a young girl cannot be doubted; she was beautiful and brilliant, and entered life with the very best intentions. Indeed, not one word has ever been said against her character as a wife.
Perhaps the very greatest misfortune which ever happened to her was to have married George Augustus, Electorial Prince of Hanover, and therefore in due course to have become Queen of England.
Perhaps as the consort of the Prince of some petty German State she might have shone as a wife and mother, and brought up her children with good honest affection.
As it was, she early fell under the influence of such men as Sir Robert Walpole—soulless, godless. No, not godless, because their God was Ambition, before which no sacrifice was too great, Honour, Truth, or even the lives of men.
Surely poor Caroline must have fallen far, when she adopted as her constant companion, such a man as Lord Hervey.
But whatever good there was in her—and there was much—seems to have been choked and hidden by her greed for Power, which even led her to pander to her little contemptible husband’s vices.
Her conduct to her eldest son was without excuse, unless her separation of fourteen years from him can be regarded in that light; but it is much more likely that the arrival of the handsome boy, Prince William, had more to do with her forgetfulness.
Unhappily, there is very little doubt that she died unreconciled to Frederick, and that moreover she desired no reconciliation. Had there been any such reconciliation, it would have been made public at the time when such verses as the following were floating about.
Lord Chesterfield wrote an epitaph to the Queen in these words:—
“Here lies unpitied both by Church and State,