The death of her husband was a great blow to Augusta Princess of Wales. Suddenly deprived of the prospect of becoming Queen of England, she found herself, at the age of thirty-two, left a widow with eight young children and expecting shortly to give birth to another. Her situation excited great commiseration, and among the people the dead Prince was generally regretted, for despite his follies he was known to be kindly and humane. Elegies were cried about the streets, and very common exclamations were: “Oh, that it were his brother!” “Oh, that it were the Butcher!” Still it cannot be pretended that Frederick was deeply mourned. A conversation was overheard between two workmen, who were putting up the hatchment over the gate at Leicester House, which fairly voiced the popular sentiment: “He has left a great many small children,” said one. “Aye,” replied the other, “and what is worse, they belong to our parish.”
Contrary to expectation the King behaved with great kindness to his daughter-in-law, and a few days after her bereavement paid her a visit in person. He refused the chair of state placed for him, seated himself on the sofa beside the Princess, and at the sight of her sorrow was so much moved as to shed tears. When the Princess Augusta, his eldest granddaughter, came forward to kiss his hand, he took her in his arms and embraced her. To his grandsons the King said: “Be brave boys, be obedient to your mother, and endeavour to do credit to the high station in which you are born”. He who had never acted the tender father delighted in playing “the tender grandfather”.[7]
[7] Vide Horace Walpole’s Reign of George II.
A month after his father’s death Prince George was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, but the young Prince, though always respectful, never entertained any affectionate feelings for his grandfather. This may have been due, in part, to the unforgiving spirit with which the old King followed his son even to the tomb. Frederick’s funeral was shorn of almost every circumstance of state. No princes of the blood and no important members of the government attended, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey “without either anthem or organ”. Of the few faithful friends who attended the last rites, Dodington writes: “There was not the attention to order the board of green cloth to provide them a bit of bread; and these gentlemen of the first rank and distinction, in discharge of their last sad duty to a loved, and loving, master, were forced to bespeak a great, cold dinner from a common tavern in the neighbourhood; at three o’clock, indeed, they vouchsafed to think of a dinner and ordered one, but the disgrace was complete—the tavern dinner was paid for and given to the poor”.[8]
[8] Dodington’s Diary, April 13, O.S., 1751, edition 1784.
Some five months after Frederick’s death his widow gave birth to a princess, the subject of this book. Dodington thus records the event, which, except in the London Gazette, was barely noticed by the journals of the day:—
“On Wednesday, the Princess walked in Carlton Gardens, supped and went to bed very well; she was taken ill about six o’clock on Thursday morning, and about eight was delivered of a Princess. Both well.”[9]
[9] Dodington’s Diary, July 13, O.S., 1751, edition 1784.
The advent of this daughter was hardly an occasion for rejoicing. Apart from the melancholy circumstances of her birth, her widowed mother had already a young and numerous family,[10] several of whom were far from strong, and all, with the exception of her eldest son, the heir presumptive to the throne, unprovided for.