The subsequent life of the Prince and Princess of Brunswick was conventional—conventional, that is, according to the standard of royalty in those days. "The Duchess of Brunswick is brought to bed of a brat, and they say she has not been taken care of, and that the Prince is not good to her," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on December 16, 1764; "but I don't believe a word of it." Certainly the Duke was not faithful to his wife, and had many intrigues, the most enduring of which was with Madame de Herzfeldt. "There were some unlucky things in our Court, which made my position difficult," subsequently said Princess Charlotte of Brunswick, who married the Prince of Wales. "My father was most entirely attached to a lady for thirty years who, in fact, was his mistress. She was the beautifullest creature and the cleverest; but though my father continued to pay my poor mother all possible respect, my poor mother could not suffer this attachment. The consequence was that I did not know what to do between them: when I was civil to the one I was scolded by the other; and I was very tired of being shuttlecock between them."
After the death of the Duke at the battle of Jena, his principality fell into the hands of the French, and the Duchess fled to England, where, owing to the difference between her daughter and the Prince of Wales, she lived in semi-retirement until her death on March 23, 1813.
Far more tragic was the fate of the Princess Caroline Amelia, who was married at the age of fifteen to Christian VII, King of Denmark. "The poor Queen of Denmark is gone out alone into the wide world; not a creature she knows to attend her any further than Altona," Miss Talbot wrote to Mrs. Carter on October 4, 1766. "It is worse than dying; for die she must to all she has ever seen or known; but then it is only dying out of one bad world into another just like it, and where she is to have cares and fears, and dangers and sorrows, that will all yet be new to her.... They have just been telling me how bitterly she cried in the coach, as far as anybody saw her." The girl's feelings at this time proved only too truly prophetic of the rest of her brief life. Her husband was an abandoned roué, and, it was said, ill-treated her. After two years, King Christian, without his wife, came to pay a prolonged visit to England, where he was received by George III with great coldness, although, of course, the necessary ceremonials could not be avoided. "As to-morrow is the day you receive foreign ministers, you will acquaint M. de Dieden that I desire he will assure the King, his master, that I am desirous of making his stay in this country as agreeable as possible," George wrote to Lord Weymouth on June 8, 1768. "That I therefore wish to be thoroughly apprised of the mode in which he chooses to be treated, that I may exactly conform to it. This will throw whatever may displease the King of Denmark, during his stay there, on his shoulders, and consequently free me from that désagrément; but you know very well the whole of it is very disagreeable to me."
After Christian's return the relations between him and his Queen were strained to the uttermost. He was now, as a consequence of his dissipations, a physical wreck; and his wife, taking a leaf from his book, committed all sorts of rash and foolish actions. She carried on an intrigue with Stuensee, the Prime Minister, and made no attempt whatever to hide their intimacy. Owing to the intervention of the Queen Dowager, who desired to secure the throne for her younger son Frederick, it was determined to end the scandal. Stuensee was arrested and executed in 1772, and the Queen was sent to Cronenborg, where she was kept in strict confinement. It was suspected that she would meet the same fate as her lover, but this was averted by the action of the British Government, who sent a fleet into the Baltic, when the Queen was released. She went to Stade in Hanover, and afterwards to Zell, where she died on May 10, 1775. Whether her intrigue with the minister was innocent or guilty need not now be argued. "I am going to appear before God," the unhappy woman said on her deathbed. "I now protest I am innocent of the guilt imputed to me, and that I was never unfaithful to my husband."
CHAPTER XVIII
ENGLAND AND AMERICA. II: THE KING'S WAR
In America, the repeal of the Stamp Act had been regarded as a great victory: ships displayed their colours, houses were illuminated, joybells were set ringing. The South Carolina Assembly voted a sum of money for the purchase of a marble statue of William Pitt; and at Philadelphia the principal inhabitants gave a great ball to the English officials, at the conclusion of which the hosts passed an informal resolution: "that to demonstrate our zeal to Great Britain, and our gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, each of us will, on June 4 next, on the birthday of our most gracious sovereign George III, dress ourselves in a new suit of the manufactures of England, and give what homespun we have to the poor." Adams, who certainly was in a position to speak with authority, declared that, "The repeal of the Stamp Act has hushed into silence almost every popular clamour, and composed every wave of popular disorder into a smooth and peaceful calm"; and Lord Chatham in a speech some years later, referring to this time, said, "The Americans had almost forgot, in their excess of gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, any interest but that of the mother-country; there seemed an emulation among the different provinces who should be most dutiful and forward in their expression of loyalty."[147]
This view of the state of affairs in the American colonies was, however, far too deeply tinged with optimism, for, after the first outburst of enthusiasm, the joy of the inhabitants diminished as they reflected upon the malign possibilities inevitably suggested by the Declaratory Act. The well informed were aware that this was intended by the English ministers only as a salve to the King and Parliament; but to the majority it was a menace, and even those who understood the reason for the measure could not feel sure it would never be invoked. So it happened that "there were not wanting many, who, by pamphlets and newspaper publication, prevented the return of cordial affection, and cautioned the colonies against a too implicit reliance on the moderation of the mother country."[148]