And now occurred an event which caused in England both consternation and satisfaction; consternation to the Queen and the Court party—Hervey and his like particularly felt it—and satisfaction to the bulk of the English people, who had had quite sufficient of George the Second and his doings and who ardently desired the accession to the throne of their favourite the Prince of Wales.
The wind being fair, and the King being reported arrived at Helvetsluis and about to embark, a terrific hurricane arose in the channel in which it was considered impossible that the Royal Yacht could have lived. Wagers were freely laid in London against the King ever setting foot in his kingdom of England again. The possibilities of the future began to be very freely discussed, even in the Royal Family, and the Queen’s confidant showed decided signs of trimming. The Queen was greatly alarmed, and even imagined that she saw in Frederick signs of satisfaction; she now roundly abused her son to Hervey, saying: “Mon Dieu! Popularity always makes me feel sick, but Fritz’s popularity makes me vomit.”
The Prince, however, appears to have conducted himself very moderately during this period, and to have had every consideration for his mother. Not one infilial remark is recorded of him at this crisis, and if he had made one it is pretty certain to have been noted by his enemy Hervey in his letters, which did not omit much, true or false, which was to the Prince’s discredit.
The Princesses, his sisters, who had been his enemies also, were appalled at the prospect of his becoming King, and one of them declared that it was her intention to depart “au grand galop.” The state of uncertainty as to the King’s safety continued for over a week, during which the fears of the Queen and her party were increased by the news that the sound of guns booming far away in the channel as if fired by ships in distress had been heard from Harwich.
Things began to look very black indeed, and it was thought necessary for the Prince to prepare his mother for the worst, and Lord Hervey also hinted that he thought the King’s case was hopeless.
But the citizens of London who idolized the Prince and Princess of Wales were secretly delighted, and would not have been averse to hearing that the Walmoden was on Board the Royal Yacht with the King. But at the gloomiest moment, a courier who had risked his life in the awful tempest with the crew of the vessel in which he sailed especially to carry a letter to the Queen was “miraculously,” as it was excitedly stated, flung ashore at Yarmouth, and came post haste to London with the news that the King had not embarked at all, but was waiting for fine weather at Helvetsluis. This courageous messenger and the still more courageous crew of the vessel had been three days at sea with the wind in their teeth and their opportune landing was spoken of by mariners in the terms mentioned above.
The Queen showed great joy at hearing everybody cry “The King is safe! the King is safe!” when the courier in his muddy boots arrived, but it was a terrible shock to the partisans of the Prince, and his friends in the City could with difficulty muster up the necessary congratulations.
The Queen who had shown an outward calm during the crisis now expressed herself joyously in characteristic terms:—
“J’ai toujours dit que le Roi n’était pas embarque;” she exclaimed. “On a beau voulu m’effraier cet après-diner avec leur letters, et leur sots, gens de Harwich; j’ai continue à lire mon Rollin, et me moquois de tout cela.”
This was a hit at Frederick who had brought her the news from Harwich in a letter. Rollin was one of her favourite books. But strange to say the matter by no means ended here. Fine weather came with an easterly wind which was just what the King wanted, and matters looked perfectly settled for his return, but it was not so. Scarcely had this fine spell lasted long enough to allow the King time to embark when the wind veered to the north-west and blew again an awful hurricane, worse if possible than the former one which had caused such grave anxiety at the Court. This was on the 20th of December, 1736, and no doubt whatever was now held that the King had embarked as indeed he had. From the 20th to the 24th there was no news of him at all, but on the latter date tidings arrived which were far from reassuring. A shattered mastless sloop was thrown up on the coast, having on board a party of clerks from the Secretary’s office of the King, and these stated that they had sailed with His Majesty from Helvetsluis on the previous Monday, and that they had remained with the rest of the fleet until the storm arose when the Admiral, Sir Charles Wager, had made the signal for each ship to look after itself. When the passengers of the sloop last saw the Royal Yacht, she was “tacking about” with a view apparently to make an endeavour to return to Helvetsluis. So grave was this news considered, that Sir Robert Walpole prevented the Queen from interviewing these shipwrecked clerks. Once more were the hopes and exultations of the Court Party ruthlessly shattered; once more did the partisans of the Prince with his stout friends in the city rub their hands in dark corners. This time the Queen was thoroughly alarmed, and showed it in her countenance. The next day, Christmas Day, was perhaps the gloomiest in men’s knowledge at that time. On this day, probably in the early morning, four ships of the King’s convoy were thrown up in a mastless condition on the coast, and the only account of the King which they could give, was that about six o’clock on the Monday night, the 20th December, a gun was fired by Sir Charles Wager’s order as a signal for the fleet to separate; a kind of sauve qui peut. That the wind continued in its full violence for forty-eight hours after this. One of the letters containing this intelligence was brought by Lord Augustus Fitzroy, second son of the Duke of Grafton, who, though only twenty years of age, was Captain of a man-of-war, “The Eltham,” which had succeeded with great difficulty in getting into Margate that Christmas morning.