But since 'tis only Fred,
Who was alive, and is dead,
There's no more to be said."
And yet, bad though Frederick indubitably was, and deficient in almost every quality that constitutes the gentleman, we must not be too hard on him. The manners of the age made him what he was; and he would have been a wonderfully strong-minded man had he resisted their influence. It may be a trite remark, but I fancy that nothing strikes the historical student more than the change of manners that has taken place in so short a period. When I was a boy, I remember being told by an old female relative that she could perfectly well remember the coronation of George III. In her presence, the reigns of George II. and William IV. seemed to shake hands, and yet what a chasm existed between them. The greater portion of the eighteenth century was a Tophet; we need only read Casanova's Memoirs to see what it was on the Continent; but in England it strikes us even more offensively, because here vice stalked forth with its brazen brow uncovered. In France, on the other hand, there was something Watteau-esque about it, and a slightly redeeming grace. It is true that England had the great blessing of an industrious middle class, among which moral views and the honest customs of Puritanism were maintained; but the aristocratic classes were utterly corrupt. The Hanoverian dynasty introduced, among other blessings, the sauer-kraut tone of German pauper nobility; and its coarseness easily found access among a people in whom every feeling of decency had been destroyed by the fabulously shameless comedians of the Restoration. The family life of the two first Georges was one long offence against propriety. Between the first George and his son the feeling of hatred was so extreme, that, after the death of the former, a document was found in his cabinet containing the proposition and plan to seize the Prince of Wales and ship him off to the colonies, where he could be easily got rid of. When we remember, too, the mistresses whom George I. brought in his train from Hanover—the "Elephant," that enormous lump of flesh, Sophie Freifrau von Kielmansegge, and the "Maypole," her tall, thin rival, the Gräfin Melusine von Eberstein—we can easily understand the coarseness which appears deep-rooted in English society far into the eighteenth century. One thing we may say in favour of this society, that no hypocrisy was displayed. When Lady Dorchester, ex-mistress of James II., once met in her old days, in George I.'s ante-chamber, the Duchess of Portsmouth, ex-mistress of Charles II., and Lady Orkney, ex-mistress of William III., she exclaimed, loudly enough to be heard by all persons, "Good God! who ever could have supposed that we three (well, suppose I say Traviati, as better suited to the age than the plump word employed by her ladyship) should meet at this place?" George II.'s sensible and virtuous wife strove in vain to introduce a more decent tone into polite society; and vice was still rampant far into the reign of her well-meaning grandson.
Early in the eighteenth century, polite society added to its other accomplishments that of the wildest gambling, to which the South-Sea Bubble gave the impulse. At White's, young gentlemen frequently lost in one evening from £5 to £20,000; and at the Cocoa Tree, one night, there was a single stake of £180,000. The unbounded betting mania among the bucks was often displayed in the quaintest forms. Thus, for instance, in 1756, Lords Rockingham and Oxford got up a race between four geese and four turkeys from Norwich to London. English "eccentricity," as the French would call it, had the fullest scope at that time. Take, for instance, Lord Baltimore, whom we find travelling on the Continent, in 1769, with a harem of eight women, on whom he tried all sorts of dietetic experiments. I need only hint at the orgies held in Medmenham Abbey, and the blasphemous travesties of the Hell-fire Club, to which fifteen ladies of the highest rank considered it an honour to belong.
At that time, the governing classes and the governed had scarce anything in common but the air they breathed, or an occasional street row. Fashionable vice affected a publicity which imparts historic value to the satirical descriptions which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has left us. She tells us, inter alia, how, at Sir R. Walpole's seat, a bill was discussed, for the purpose of omitting the "not" from the Ten Commandments. Further on, we find a remark that both sexes have so thoroughly recognised the inconveniences of matrimony that even girls ridiculed it; and the title of "rake" graces women no less than men. Or again, we read that, now-a-days, it is not considered at all improper to say publicly that the Maid of Honour, Mrs. So-and-So, had got over her confinement, but that Miss Whatshername has never thoroughly recovered from her accouchement. With such a tone prevailing in society, we can understand how Lord Chesterfield could reply to the notorious Miss Chudleigh, when she complained of having been falsely accused of giving birth to twins, "For my part, I never believe more than half of what people say."
Under the government of George III. matters became no better. On the contrary, the fashionable world seemed to take a pride in resenting by their conduct the stupid domesticity of "Farmer George." We come across lady topers, who could send the most practised wine-bibbers under the table. Luxury, which was enormously augmented by the return of the Nabobs, who had shaken the pagoda-tree to some effect, was displayed in the realisation of the most wonderful caprices. Family and wedded honour was trampled under foot, and the shamelessness of the women attained incredible proportions. When one of the most notorious demireps, Lady Worseley, ran away with an officer, and the insulted husband sued for a divorce, the lady, in the hope of saving her paramour's purse, summoned as witnesses thirty-two young noblemen and gentlemen, who had all been her lovers with her husband's knowledge. Seven-and-twenty really appeared in court, and one of them added, that Sir Richard once took him up to the roof of the house to show him his wife in her bath—a Venus Anadyomene. On the day of this remarkable trial there was an important motion in the House, and Lord North was very anxious to secure the votes of his whole party. Hence, when he did not see Sir Richard in his place, and the reason for his absence was stated, he exclaimed, "Oh! if all my cuckolds leave me in the lurch, I shall surely be in a minority." An illustration of this remark is afforded in the fact, that the Bishop of Llandaff, when bringing in a bill to regulate the Divorce Court, in 1777, stated, that since George III.'s ascent of the throne, or during only sixteen years, there had been more divorces than during the whole previous history of England. The wives, of course, merely followed the example of their husbands in immorality, as is usually the case. How, indeed, could any check be possible, when a British minister, the Duke of Grafton, could dare to drive out with his mistress, Nancy Parsons, one of the most notorious Anonymas of the day, in the presence of the Court?
When fashionable vice was so openly and unblushingly displayed, it could not fail but that the populace of the capital should now and then break out into excesses of unbridled savagedom, as was more especially the case in the notorious No-Popery riots of 1780. Crimes increased to an extraordinary extent, not only in number, but in brutality. Horrible murders were every-day events, as a glance at the "Annual Register" will afford sickening proof. Members of the aristocracy committed the most aggravated murders. As an instance, an Irish gentleman, after waylaying a rival favoured by his mistress, offered him the choice between death and awful mutilation, and, when the latter was chosen, carried it out in such a way that the mutilated man died. The boldness of the robbers and highwaymen was unbounded. The Lord Chancellor was robbed of the great seal of England, the great Pitt of his plate, the Archbishop of Canterbury's house was broken into, and the French mail stopped and plundered in one of the busiest streets of the metropolis. In vain did a justice, which rivalled crime in barbarity, pass whole batches of death-sentences. In one year (1766), two hundred and twenty-three persons were cast for death at the Assizes, and duly hanged. In 1786, one hundred and thirty-three were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey alone. Very significant signs of the age are the repeated instances of idiotcy, insanity, and suicide. It was not at all uncommon for a noble rake-hell,[6] who had drunk the cup of licentiousness to the dregs, to collect a number of prostitutes for a final orgie, and blow out his brains, either during or immediately after the Bacchanalian revel.[7]
Such was the state of society at the time when Augusta of Saxe-Coburg, Princess of Wales, was left with seven young children, and another shortly expected.[8] She was a young widow, only two-and-thirty years of age, and had not a friend to depend on in the world. The king, her papa-in-law, cordially hated her, and she had not even the consolation of regretting her husband, for, though born a princess, she was a woman after all, and had bitterly felt her late husband's open profligacy with Lady Archibald Hamilton. Prince George alone expressed any regret at his father's death, and that was in a modified form. When he was told of it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough said, "I am afraid, sir, you are not well;" and the prince replied, "I feel something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew."[9]
Sturdy little King George very soon recovered from the shock of his son's death, even if he felt it; for we find that, on March 31, there was a great court at St. James's, where the king appeared for the first time in public since the death of the prince. On this occasion Prince George, with his brothers, waited on his Majesty, who, in the evening, paid a visit of condolence to his daughter-in-law at Leicester House, which he followed up by another visit on April 4, paying great attention to her comforts, and ordering the first quarterly payment of her income in advance.[10] This income was by marriage settlement £100,000 a year; but the princess had formed a resolution to pay her husband's private debts, and kept her word. Shortly after receiving this scrap of comfort, the widow's family was enlarged; on the evening of June 13 the princess walked in Carlton Gardens, supped, and went to bed very well; she was taken ill about six o'clock on the following morning, and at about eight was delivered of a princess—the unfortunate Caroline Matilda. "Both well," Melcombe adds. Could he but have read the future, he might have cried, "Better had she ne'er been born!"