“‘What,’ said she, ‘will you not look into ’t!’ His answer was: ‘Whatever comes from Your Majesty is agreeable to him’; though had he not felt in the purse some paper, he could not have taken the royal jest with so good a grace. There was a bank bill in ’t, which raised such a contention between him and his wife that in a manner he had better never have had it. He was willing to give her half, but the good wife called in worthy Madam Percade to her assistance, and she determined to give a third to her.
“All this was told the Queen the next day, and caused a great laugh, but poor Mr. W(entworth) upon the thought of soliciting the great Lord L(ifford) for a sum of £15 he had forgotten to pay him in the South Sea. When the chase was over, the Prince clapped Mr. W(entworth) upon the back and wished him joy of his present, and told him now he would never be without money in his pocket. He replied that if His Highness had not told him so publicly of it, it might have been so, but now his creditors would tease every farthing from him.”
From above it will be seen that these letters of Mr. Wentworth were written during the period of Queen Caroline’s first Regency, when George the Second was abroad, and consequently the Prince of Wales had more freedom of action. From what little can be gathered from them the Prince seems to have been leading a harmless and happy life with his mother, but unfortunately there is another of Mr. Wentworth’s letters which tells a different tale.
It has been said that the position imposed on him by his father, the King, would have tried the most dutiful and virtuous of sons, but then unfortunately Frederick was neither, certainly not the latter. Mr. Wentworth’s letter throws a strong light on this part of the Prince’s life:
“Thursday morning, as the King and Queen were going to their chaise through the garden, I told them the Prince had got his watch again. Our farrier’s man had found it at the end of the Mall with the two seals to ’t. The Queen laughed, and said: ‘I told you before ’twas you who stole it, and now it is very plain you got it from the woman who took it from the Prince and you gave it to the farrier’s man, to say he had found it to get the reward.’ (This was twenty guineas, which was advertised with the promise of no questions being asked). I took Her Majesty’s words for a very great compliment, for it looked as if she thought I could please a woman better than His Highness. Really his losing his watch and its being brought back in the manner it has been is very mysterious, and a knotty point to be unravelled at Court, for the Prince protests he was not out of his coach in the Park on the Sunday night it was lost. But by accident I think I can give some account of this affair, though it is not my business to say a word of it at Court, not even to the Queen, who desired me to tell her all I knew of it, with a promise that she would not tell the Prince (and I desire, also, the story may never go out of Wentworth Castle again).
“My man, John Cooper, saw the Prince that night let into the Park through St. James’s Mews alone, and the next morning a Grenadier told him the Prince was robbed last night of his watch and twenty-two guineas, and a gold medal, by a woman who had run away from him. The Prince bid the Grenadier run after her, and take the watch from her, which, with the seals were the only things he valued; the money she was welcome to, he said, and he ordered him when he had got the watch to let the woman go. But the Grenadier could not find her, so I suppose in her haste she dropped it at the end of the Mall, or laid it down there for fear of being discovered by the watch and seals, if they should be advertised.”[24]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] A French refugee, named Roussie, who was given an Irish peerage.
[18] One of the South Sea Bubble Schemes.
[19] Claremont was one of the Duke of Newcastle’s seats.