Charlotte's faults, however, were probably mostly due to environment. "Bred up in the rigid formality of a petty German court, her manners were cold and punctilious: her understanding was dull, her temper jealous and petulant."[246] She seems to have had affection for the husband to whom, with all her faults, she made a good wife, although she but rarely gave any overt sign of her feeling for him. "The Queen had nobody but myself with her one morning, when the King hastily entered the room with some letters in his hand, and addressing her in German, which he spoke very fast, and with much apparent interest in what he said, he brought the letters up to her and put them into her hand. She received them with much agitation, but evidently of a much pleased sort, and endeavoured to kiss his hand as he held them. He would not let her, but made an effort, with a countenance of the highest satisfaction, to kiss her. I saw instantly in her eyes a forgetfulness at the moment that any one was present, while drawing away her hand, she presented him her cheek. He accepted her kindness with the same frank affection that she offered it; and the next moment they both spoke English, and talked upon common and general subjects. What they said I am far enough from knowing; but the whole was too rapid to give me time to quit the room; and I could not but see with pleasure that the Queen had received some favour with which she was sensibly delighted, and that the King, in her acknowledgments, was happily and amply paid."[247]
Charlotte, however, had no endearing qualities, or, if she had in her youth, they soon became atrophied by the spirit that forced her to put her dignity before all else. A certain Duchess begged the Queen to receive her niece, about whom an unfounded scandal had been circulated. Her request was refused, and, on leaving the royal presence, she made a further appeal, "Oh, Madam! what shall I say to my poor niece?" "Say," replied Charlotte, "say you did not dare make such a request to the Queen." The Duchess at once resigned the post she held at Court, and the Queen made half a score of bitter enemies. She was a hard woman, and had no consideration for her entourage. Lady Townshend, who was with child, became greatly fatigued at a royal function at which it was, of course, de rigeur to stand, and the Princess of Wales, noticing this, turned to her mother-in-law, and asked, "Will your Majesty command Lady Townshend to sit down?" "She may stand," said Charlotte, petulantly, "she may stand." This was, however, only to be expected in a mother who seldom permitted her offspring to sit in her presence: it is related that when she was playing whist one of her sons fell asleep standing behind her chair. The Duchess of Ancaster suffered by this severe etiquette, but she was a woman of resource, and when in her official capacity she accompanied her royal mistress on a state visit to Oxford, becoming very tired, she drew a small body of troops before her, and, thus sheltered, rested on a convenient bench.
A more favourable picture of Queen Charlotte is drawn by Miss Burney, who thought very highly of her. "For the excellence of her mind I was fully prepared; the testimony of the nation at large could not be unfaithful; but the depth and soundness of her understanding surprised me: good sense I expected; to that alone she could owe the even tenour of her conduct, universally approved, though examined and judged by the watchful eye of multitudes. But I had not imagined that, shut up within the confined limits of a court, she could have acquired any but the most superficial knowledge of the world, and the most partial insight into character. But I find now, I have only done justice to her disposition, not to her parts, which are truly of that superior order that makes sagacity intuitively supply the place of experience. In the course of this month I spent much time alone with her, and never once quitted her presence without fresh admiration of her talents."[248] That Charlotte had common sense combined with strong will may be admitted, nor can it be denied that she could be kind on occasion. She purchased a house in Bedfordshire as a home for poor gentlewomen, and she became the patroness of the Magdalen Hospital; she was gracious to the Harcourts, and was perhaps seen at her best in her intercourse with Mrs. Delany, to whom, after the death of Margaret, Duchess of Portland, the King presented a furnished house at Windsor and an annuity of £300 out of the Privy Purse, the half-yearly payments of which were taken to her by the Queen in a pocket-book, in order that it might not be docked by the tax-collector. The sovereigns met Mrs. Delany for the first time at Bulstrode Park, when George offered a chair to the old lady, who was much confused by his condescension. "Mrs. Delany, sit, down, sit down," said Charlotte, smiling, to set her at her ease, "it is not everybody that has a chair brought her by a King."
Caricature by Wm. Hogarth
JOHN WILKES