"'No; I will go directly to the Queen,' and away he went.
"The Princess, left during this short moment alone, was in a state of astonishment; and, on my joining her, said—'Mon Dieu! est-ce que le Prince est toujours comme cela? Je le trouve très gros et nullement aussi beau que son portrait.'
"I said his Royal Highness was naturally a good deal affected and flurried at this first interview, but she certainly would find him different at dinner. She was disposed to further criticisms on this occasion, which would have embarrassed me very much to answer, if luckily the King had not ordered me to attend him."
Little comment is required upon such a scene. In charity, we shall suppose that the Prince at the first glance was grievously disappointed with the personal appearance of his bride—that he had formed some exaggerated estimate of her charms, and that the reaction was so strong as to create instantaneous antipathy. A more favourable hypothesis we cannot form; any other must resolve itself into preconcerted insult. Still, this is no justification for conduct which was at once mean and unmanly. There she stood—the daughter of a sovereign prince—his own near kinswoman, whose hand he had voluntarily solicited—young, and not devoid of some personal beauty. Other defects he had not time to observe, and surely, on such an occasion as this, they were not conspicuously prominent. Could any man, with a spark of chivalrous feeling within him, have permitted himself to manifest such tokens of disgust in the presence of a woman, who was to all intents and purposes his wife, and whom he then for the first time beheld? Some there were, wearing before him the princely plume of Wales, who would rather have forfeited that honour than offered insult to a female and a stranger—but the spirit of the Henrys and the Edwards was not there. An interview of a minute's duration—brandy—and an oath! Rare prospects for the felicity and continuance of the future Hymen!—Let us follow Lord Malmesbury through the subsequent scenes.
"The drawing-room was just over. His Majesty's conversation turned wholly on Prussian and French politics, and the only question about the Princess was—'Is she good-humoured?'
"I said, and very truly, 'That in very trying moments I had never seen her otherwise.'
"The King said, 'I am glad of it;' and it was manifest, from his silence, he had seen the Queen since she had seen the Prince, and that the Prince had made a very unfavourable report of the Princess to her. At dinner, at which all those who attended the Princess from Greenwich assisted, and the honours of which were done by Lord Stopford as Vice-Chamberlain, I was far from satisfied with the Princess's behaviour. It was flippant, rattling, affecting raillery and wit, and throwing out coarse, vulgar hints about Lady ——, who was present, and, though mute, le diable n'en perdait rien. The Prince was evidently disgusted, and this unfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when left to herself, the Princess had not the talent to remove; but, by still observing the same giddy manners and attempts at cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increased it till it became positive hatred.
"From this time, though I dined frequently during the first three weeks at Carlton House, nothing material occurred; but the sum of what I saw there led me to draw the inferences I have just expressed. After one of those dinners, where the Prince of Orange was present, and at which the Princess had behaved very lightly and even improperly, the Prince took me into his closet, and asked me how I liked this sort of manners. I could not conceal my disapprobation of them, and took this opportunity of repeating to him the substance of what the Duke of Brunswick had so often said to me, that it was expedient de la tenir serrée, that she had been brought up very strictly, and if she was not strictly kept, would, from high spirits and little thought, certainly emancipate too much. To this the Prince said—'I see it but too plainly; but why, Harris, did you not tell me so before, or write it to me from Brunswick?'
"I replied that I did not consider what the Duke (a severe father himself towards his children) said, of sufficient consequence; that it affected neither the Princess's moral character nor conduct, and was intended solely as a communication which I conceived it only proper to notice to his Royal Highness at a proper occasion, at such a one as now had offered; and that I humbly hoped his Royal Highness would not consider it as casting any real slur or aspersion on the Princess; that as to not writing to his Royal Highness from Brunswick, I begged him to recollect I was not sent on a discretionary commission, but with the most positive commands to ask the Princess Caroline in marriage, and nothing more; that to this sole point, respecting the marriage and no other, these commands went; any reflections or remarks that I had presumed to make, would (whether in praise of, or injurious to her Royal Highness) have been a direct and positive deviation from those his Majesty's commands. They were as limited as they were imperative. That still, had I discovered notorious or glaring defects, or such as were of a nature to render the union unseemly, I should have felt it as a bounden duty to have stated them, but it must have been directly to the King, and to no one else. To this the Prince appeared to acquiesce; but I saw it did not please, and left a rankle in his mind."
We have heard some blame attributed to Lord Malmesbury, in certain quarters, for not having communicated to the Prince his own impressions of the bride. We are inclined to think this censure undeserved, and to look upon his own defence, stated above, as perfectly satisfactory. Even if he had considered it his duty to make any such representation—which it was not—he must have done it at great personal peril. The whole odium—if the marriage had been broken off—would have been attributed to him. Had it gone forward, the coldness of the Prince would inevitably have been set down as the effect of his interference. If he had been trusted with a discretionary commission, much more would have been left in his power; but the marriage was, in point of fact, quite concluded when he received orders to repair to Brunswick. With regard to the Princess, he acted throughout as a sincere and judicious friend in warning and in counselling her. He drew no glittering or extravagant pictures to lead her imagination astray. He prepared her to find the Court of London rather a place of ordeal, beset with many snares and difficulties, than the site of luxury, ease, and indulgence. He did his best to tutor her on the delicate topics of deportment, manners, and conversation; and if he failed, it was only because his counsel was required too late. It is said that the Prince never forgave Lord Malmesbury for his share in this negotiation. If the fact be so, the Prince was both unjust and ungenerous; for it is questionable if there was one, among the other servants of the Crown, who could have discharged so arduous a duty with half the discretion of this accomplished and wise diplomatist. It should be remembered too, by those who have adopted a different view, that Lord Malmesbury had little opportunity, at the first, to investigate the character and habits of the Princess. He was in daily expectation of his recall, and his time, as his diary shows, was greatly occupied with the stirring public events of Europe. Except himself, there was no experienced English statesman on the Continent qualified to give advice at a period when communication with home was hopeless. He therefore became, as it were, the adviser-general to our ambassadors, our army, and the friendly states of Holland and of Austria. He was the only man capable of unravelling and detecting the tortuous policy of Prussia, and almost every moment of his time was engrossed by these stupendous labours. It was only upon the journey home—broken and protracted as it was—that he had the full opportunity of ascertaining, by the use of his own faculties, the faults and imperfections of the Princess, and surely it was then by far too late to interfere.