From time to time, some traits of men and history oddly remind us of foreign courts in our own day. The Emperor of Germany, a personage in whom ambition and imbecility seem to have contended for the mastery, had commenced a war, which transferred hostilities into Italy. France, Sardinia, and Spain attacked him there, and pushed his army to the walls of Mantua. The position of Radetsky, while he continued constrained by a court which gave him little more than orders and counter-orders, was evidently the fac-simile of Austrian affairs in 1733. “Those affairs,” says Lord Hervey, “were so well managed, that with thirteen thousand men in Lombardy, and provisions for double the number, and ammunition in proportion, those essentials of war were so dispersed and scattered, that, wherever there were provisions there was no ammunition, and where there was ammunition there were no provisions, and where there were men there was neither ammunition nor provisions.”
The German war engaged a good deal of the public attention at this time; but much less in the nation than at the court. Prince Eugene, on the Rhine, marched to the relief of Philipsburg, while Marshal Berwick, with one hundred thousand men, carried on the siege. The high reputation of Prince Eugene had excited the King’s hope that Philipsburg would be relieved. It was, however, taken. This gave rise to a smart saying of the Princess Royal. She observed to Lord Hervey, after the drawing-room, shrugging up her shoulders, “Was there ever any thing so unaccountable as the temper of papa! He has been snapping and snubbing every mortal for this week, because he began to think that Philipsburg would be taken; and this very day, that he hears it is actually taken, he is in as good humour as ever I saw him in my life. But all this seems so odd, that I am more angry at his good humour than I was at his bad.” Lord Hervey said, with that sort of wit which was fashionable at the time, “that this was like David, who, when his child lived wore sackcloth, but when it was dead, shaved and drank wine.”—“It may be like David,” said the Princess, “but I am sure it is not like Solomon.”
The King had a foolish habit of talking of war, of imagining his genius made for renown, and of pronouncing himself infinitely unlucky in not being permitted by his minister to gain laurels in Germany. Walpole exhibited his power in nothing more effectually than in preventing the operation of this thirst for “glory.”—“He could not bear,” said the monarch, “that while he was engaged only in treaties, letters, and despatches, his booby brother, the brutal King of Prussia, should pass his time in camps and in the midst of arms,” neither desirous of the glory, nor fit for the employment.
Walpole, who saw the danger of involving England in this war, and probably the absurdity of going to war for the sake of any foreigners, reminded the King of the existence of the Pretender, and of the probability “that his crown would yet have to be fought for on British ground.” As to the Queen, Lord Hervey said, “the shadow of the Pretender would beat the whole German body.”
His lordship’s knowledge of the world appears to have extinguished all his ideas of its generosity: for he finds a personal motive in every thing. Thus, he assigns three reasons for Walpole’s pacific advice. One was, to avoid new clamour against his administration; the next was, to avoid the unpopularity of new taxes; and the third was, that military business might not throw his power into the hands of military men.
The Memoir then proceeds “to toss and gore” all the prominent public men in succession. It tells us “that the Duke of Newcastle, who always talked as his master talked,” echoed all the King’s “big words,” and expatiated for ever on regaining Italy for the Emperor, chastising Spain, and humbling the pride of France. Next comes the Duke of Grafton; of whom it is said, that loving to make his court as well as the Duke of Newcastle, he talked in the same strain, and for the same reason; but “could never make any great compliment to the King and Queen of embracing their opinions, as he never understood things enough to have one of his own.” Next comes Lord Grantham. “He was a degree still lower, and had the gift of reasoning in so small a proportion, that his existence was barely distinguished from a vegetable.” Then follows Lord Harrington. Of him it is said that, “with all his seeming phlegm, he was as tenacious of an opinion, when his indolence suffered him to form one, as any man living. His parts were of the common run of mankind. He was well bred, a man of honour, and fortunate, loved pleasure, and was infinitely lazy.” The Queen once in speaking of him said, “There is a heavy insipid sloth about that man, that puts me out of all patience: he must have six hours to dress, six more to dine, six more for his intrigues, and six more to sleep; and there, for a minister, are the four-and-twenty admirably disposed of; and if, now and then, he borrows six of those hours, to do any thing relating to his office, it is for something that might be done in six minutes, and ought to have been done six days before.”
We have then another instance of the discomforts of Royalty in those times. The day before the birthday, October 29, 1734, the court removed from Kensington to London, and the Queen, “who had long been out of order with a cough and a little lurking fever, notwithstanding she had been twice blooded, grew every hour worse and worse. However, the King forced her, the night she came from Kensington—the first of Farinelli’s performances—to the Opera, and made her the next day go through all the tiresome ceremonies of drawing-rooms and balls, the fatigues of heats and crowds, and every other disagreeable appurtenance to the celebration of a birthday.”
His lordship observes that “there was a strange affectation of an incapacity of being sick, that ran through the whole royal family. I have known the King to get out of his bed, choking with a sore throat, and in a high fever, only to dress and have a levee, and, in five minutes after it, undress and return to his bed, till the same ridiculous farce of health was to be presented the next day at the same hour. He used to make the Queen, in like circumstances, commit the same extravagances; but never with more danger than at this time. In the morning drawing-room, she found herself so near swooning, that she was forced to send Lord Grantham to the King, to beg he would retire, for that she was unable to stand any longer; notwithstanding which, at night, he brought her into a still greater crowd at the ball, and there kept her till eleven o’clock.”
The recollections of those times constantly bring the name of Lady Suffolk before the eye. We have no wish to advert to the grossnesses connected with the name; but the waning of her power gave a singular pungency to opinion in the palace. The Princesses were peculiarly candid upon the occasion. The Princess Emily “wished Lady Suffolk’s disgrace, because she wished misfortune to most people. The Princess Caroline, because she thought it would please her mother. The Princess Royal was for having her crushed; and, when Lord Hervey made some remonstrance, she replied, that Lady Suffolk’s conduct, with regard to politics, had been so impertinent, that she cannot be too ill used.” It must seem strange to us that such topics should have been in the lips of any women, especially women of such rank—but they seem to have been discussed with the most perfect familiarity; and a name and conduct which ought to have been suppressed through mere delicacy, appear to have furnished the principal conversation of the court.
The next affair was the quarrel with the Princess of Orange, from her reluctance to return to Holland. As she was about to be confined, her husband was desirous that his child should be born in Holland. To this the Princess demurred. However, they at length contrived to send her on board, and she sailed from Harwich; but after she had been some time at sea, she either grew so ill, or pretended to be so ill, that she either was, or pretended to be, in convulsions: we give his lordship’s rather ungallant surmise. On this, and the wind not being quite fair, she obliged the captain of the yacht to put back to Harwich. She then despatched a courier to London with letters, written, as it was supposed, by her own absolute command, from her physician, her accoucheur, and her nurse, to say that she was disordered with her expedition, and that she could not be stirred for ten days from her bed, nor put to sea again, without the hazard of her child’s life and her own. The King and Queen declined giving any orders. The Prince of Orange was written to, and he desired that his wife might go by France to Holland. The King, hating the bustle of a new parting, directed that she should cross the country from Harwich to Dover; but his Majesty, after having been informed that the roads were impassable at this time of the year in a coach, (how strangely this sounds in our day of universal locomotion!) permitted her to come to London and go over the bridge; but it was a positive command that she should not lie in in London, nor even come to St James’s. Accordingly, “after all her tricks and schemes, to avoid going to Holland, and to get back to London, she was obliged to comply with those orders; and had the mortification and disgrace to go, without seeing any of her family, over London Bridge to Dover.”