No record of this most interesting meeting has, unfortunately, been preserved; one would have liked to have seen a detailed account of it in Doddington’s diary, but there is nothing of it there.
There is no doubt, however, what was the nature of the interview; the wonderful old stateswoman there and then offered the Prince her favourite grand-daughter Lady Diana Spencer in marriage, and with her the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, which she no doubt calculated would come in very handy to the Prince in his involved condition.
It is necessary to make a comparison between the status of Lady Diana and that of the lady—the daughter of a petty German Prince—whom the Prince eventually married to understand that the Duchess’s offer was not by any means so outrageous as one would imagine. Indeed, there are those who think that Lady Diana’s birth and position, combined with her wit and beauty, were far superior to those of the German Princess. Lady Diana was the youngest daughter of Charles, Earl of Sunderland, by Anne, daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough and Sarah his wife, and was undoubtedly a young lady of exceptional wit and beauty.
Although there is strong evidence to prove that the Prince had not forgotten his love for his cousin, the Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, yet he accepted the Duchess of Marlborough’s offer. Some say it was to annoy his royal father and mother—things had reached that stage by then—others said as they naturally would say, Lord Hervey, the Queen’s confidant and really a bitter enemy of her son the Prince, no doubt among the number, that the hundred thousand pounds put into the scale against the Prince’s debts decided the matter, but possibly the young lady’s bright eyes—she was evidently a consenting party—and the persuasions and arguments of the experienced Duchess had something to do with it, at any rate the marriage was arranged to take place secretly in the Duchess’s lodge in Windsor Park, and was to be celebrated by her private chaplain. The very day was fixed.
If the old Duchess had acquired the vulgar habit of rubbing her hands, there is no doubt she did so over this matter, for it promised a repayment of old debts and slights which had been heaping up interest for years.
No Royal Marriage Act existed or had been thought of at that time, and Lady Diana would have been the Prince’s lawful wife in the face of all England beyond question if the ceremony had taken place, but this time the Duchess Sarah had counted without her host, she had either left out of her calculations or ignored a very important personage indeed, viz., Sir Robert Walpole.
It is not at all surprising, when we consider the extraordinary little space which divided the residences of the two young people, that the fact that there was marriage in the air, and that a Royal one to boot, should creep out. Perhaps a confidential maid let the secret out—for there must have been a great question of dresses going on—or the young Prince betrayed it in a burst of confidence over a bowl—he was very good at drinking bon pères as we know—to some boon companion, but at any rate it reached the ears of Sir Robert Walpole, and Sir Robert stretched out his hand—and the arm belonging to it was a long one and could reach all over England and even across the Channel to foreign parts—and behold! the Royal Marriage Scheme of the great Sarah crumbled and was no more. “Sir Robert Walpole was able to prevent the marriage,” history records.
It must have been a dangerous act to have approached Her Grace of Marlborough during the few days following upon her disappointment. History gives us no information as to what she remarked upon the frustration of her hopes at the time, neither is it recorded what course Lady Diana’s grief took at the disappointment. It is safe to assert that both ladies had a “good cry” in private; but how the old Duchess of Buckingham must have chuckled over it!
Lady Diana evidently soon dried her tears, and apparently took the matter as lightly as the Prince did, for very shortly after she became the Duchess of Bedford, viz., on October 12th, 1731, but, unfortunately, died young (on the 27th of September, 1735). But the great Duchess Sarah was not of the nature to forget Sir Robert Walpole’s part in this affair, and it is interesting to read her opinion of him written to Lord Stair in her old age; this opinion was written by the Duchess avowedly for the use of future historians.
“In another book,” she writes, “are a great many particulars which the historian may like to look into; but I have omitted these to relate something of Sir Robert Walpole, which shows that he betrayed the Duke of Marlborough, even at a time when he made the greatest professions to him.