The bride-elect landed at Greenwich in April, 1736, and, two days after her arrival, was married to Frederick at the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. The Princess was only seventeen years of age and could not speak a word of English. She was tall and slender, with an oval face, regular features, bright, intelligent eyes, and an abundance of light-brown hair. Frederick’s marriage did not make him on better terms with his parents, and in this family quarrel the Princess, who soon showed that she possessed more than usual discretion, sided with her husband. The disputes between the King and the Prince of Wales culminated in an open act of revolt on the part of the latter, when, with incredible folly, he carried off his wife, on the point of her first lying-in, from Hampton Court to St. James’s. Half an hour after her arrival in London the Princess was delivered of a girl child, Augusta, who later in life became Duchess of Brunswick. The King was furious at this insubordination, and as soon as the Princess was sufficiently recovered to be moved, he sent his son a message ordering him to quit St. James’s with all his household. The Prince and Princess went to Kew, where they had a country house; and for a temporary London residence (while Carlton House, which the Prince had bought, was being repaired) they took Norfolk House, St. James’s Square.
A few weeks after this rupture the illustrious Queen Caroline died, to the great grief of the King and the nation. Her death widened the breach in the royal family, for the King considered that his son’s undutiful conduct had hastened his mother’s death. Frederick now ranged himself in open opposition to the King and the government, and gathered around him the malcontent politicians, who saw in Walpole’s fall, or Frederick’s accession to the throne, their only chance of rising to power. The following year, 1738, a son and heir (afterwards George III.) was born to the Prince and Princess of Wales at Norfolk House. This event strengthened the position of the Prince, especially as the King’s health was reported to be failing.
Frederick removed his household to Leicester House in Leicester Fields. It was here, eleven years later, that his posthumous daughter Caroline Matilda was born. Leicester House was built by the Earl of Leicester in the reign of James I. There was a field before it in those days, but a square was subsequently built around the field, and Leicester House occupied the north-east corner of what was then Leicester Fields, but is now known as Leicester Square. It was a large and spacious house, with a courtyard in front, and the state rooms were admirably adapted for receptions and levees, but as a residence it was not so satisfactory. Frederick chiefly made use of Carlton House and Kew for his family life, and kept Leicester House for entertaining. His court there offered a curious parallel to the one his father had held within the same walls in the reign of George I., when the heir to the throne was also at variance with the King. Again Leicester House became the rallying place of the opposition, again its walls echoed with the sound of music and dance, again there flocked to its assemblies ladies of beauty and fashion, elegant beaux, brilliant wits, politicians and pamphleteers. Frederick’s intelligence has been much abused, but he was intelligent enough to gather around him at this time much of what was best in the social life of the day, and his efforts were ably seconded by his clever and graceful wife.
LEICESTER HOUSE, WHERE QUEEN MATILDA WAS BORN.
After the fall of Walpole several of the Prince’s friends took office, and a formal, though by no means cordial, reconciliation was patched up between the King and the Heir Apparent, but there was always veiled hostility between them, and from time to time their differences threatened to become acute. For instance, after the Jacobite rising the Prince of Wales disapproved of the severities of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, “the butcher of Culloden,” and showed his displeasure in no unequivocal manner. When the Jacobite peers were condemned to death the Prince and Princess interceded for them, in one case with success. Lady Cromartie, after petitioning the King in vain for her husband’s life, made a personal appeal, as a wife and mother, to the Princess of Wales, and brought her four children to plead with her as well. The Princess said nothing, but, with evident emotion, summoned her own children and placed them beside her. This she followed by praying the King for Cromartie’s life, and her prayer was granted.
After the reconciliation the Prince and Princess of Wales occasionally attended St. James’s, but since the death of Queen Caroline the court of George II. had lost its brilliancy and become both gross and dull, in this respect contrasting unfavourably with Leicester House. Grossness and dulness were characteristic of the courts of our first two Hanoverian kings, but whatever complaint might be brought against Leicester House, the society there was far livelier and more refined than that which assembled at St. James’s. The popular grievance against Leicester House was that it was too French. France was just then very unpopular in England, and the British public did not like the French tastes of the Prince of Wales—the masques imitated from Versailles, the French plays acted by French players and the petits soupers. High play also took place at Leicester House, but the Princess did her best to discourage this. In the other frivolities which her husband loved she acquiesced, more for the sake of keeping her influence over him than because she liked them. Her tastes were simple, and her tendencies puritanical.
At Kew the Prince and Princess of Wales led a quieter life, and here the influence of the Princess was in the ascendant. Kew House was an old-fashioned, low, rambling house, which the Prince had taken on a long lease from the Capel family. The great beauty of Kew lay in its extensive garden, which was improved and enlarged by Frederick. He built there orangeries and hothouses after the fashion of Herrenhausen, and filled them with exotics. Both Frederick and his wife had a love of gardening, and often worked with their children in the grounds, and dug, weeded and planted to their hearts’ content. Sometimes they would compel their guests to lend a hand as well. Bubb Dodington tells how he went down to Kew on a visit, accompanied by several lords and ladies, and they were promptly set to work in the garden, probably to their disgust. Dodington’s diary contains the following entries:—
“1750, February 27.—Worked in the new walk at Kew.
“1750, February 28.—All of us, men, women and children, worked at the same place. A cold dinner.”[2]
[2] Bubb Dodington’s Diary, edition 1784.