Is it Adonis for the chase arrayed
Or Britain’s second hope?
The first hope presumably was the King, the other hopes were the rest of the royal children. They were not a lovable family, nor was there any love lost among them. They disliked one another thoroughly, but, with the exception of Frederick, they were all devoted to their mother, and they all united, Frederick included, in disliking their father, who on his part disliked them. The King had rarely a kind word for any of his children, and in his old age he admitted it. “I know I did not love my children,” he said. “When they were young I hated to have them running about the room.” Caroline, on the other hand, was devoted to all her children, except the Prince of Wales, whom long absence had estranged from her. One of her first acts after becoming Queen was to dismiss the state governess, and have her daughters educated under her immediate supervision. She was a Spartan mother, and a firm believer in the proverb: “Spare the rod, spoil the child”. The Duchess of Marlborough relates how on one occasion when she went to see the Queen, then Princess of Wales, she found her chastising little Prince William, who was roaring and kicking lustily. The Prince was looking on complaisantly. The duchess tried to soothe the youthful delinquent. “Ah, see,” cried George Augustus, “you English are none of you well-bred, because you were not whipped when you were young.” “Umph!” quoth her Grace. She afterwards said, “I thought to myself, I am sure you could not have been whipped when you were young, but I choked it in”.
Anne, Princess Royal, was now in her twentieth year. She had little beauty, and her figure was short and squat, but she had fair abilities and several accomplishments; she could paint well, speak three languages, and was an excellent musician. Her favourite recreation was the opera, and she loved to get professional singers and players around her, and practise with them. She was vain and ambitious, and once told her mother that she wished she had no brothers, so that she might succeed to the throne. On the Queen’s reproving her, she said: “I would die to-morrow to be Queen to-day”. Unfortunately for her ambition, heirs to thrones or reigning monarchs were in no wise attracted to her, and so far no eligible candidate for her hand had come forward. The Queen also once rebuked her for her lack of consideration to her ladies. She noticed one morning that she kept her lady standing for a long time, conversing with her on some trifling matter, while she herself remained seated. In the evening Anne came to her mother to read to her and was about to sit down. “No, my dear,” said the Queen, “you must not sit down at present, I intend to keep you standing for as long a time as you kept Lady —— in the same position this morning.”
The second daughter, Princess Amelia, or Emily, as she was more generally called, was better looking than her sister and far cleverer. In her youth she had considerable pretensions to beauty, and her ready wit made her the most popular of the princesses. “The Princess Amelia,” writes Lady Pomfret enthusiastically to Mrs. Clayton, “is the oddest, or at least one of the oddest princesses that ever was known; she has her ears shut to flattery and her heart open to honesty. She has honour, justice, good-nature, sense, wit, resolution, and more good qualities than I have time to tell you, so mixed that (if one is not a devil) it is impossible to say she has too much or too little of any; yet all these do not in anything (without exception) make her forget the King of England’s daughter, which dignity she keeps up with such an obliging behaviour that she charms everybody. Do not believe her complaisance to me makes me say one silible more than the rigid truth; though I confess she has gained my heart and has added one more to the number of those few whose desert forces one’s affection.”[32]
This paragon of a princess had been the destined bride of the Crown Prince of Prussia afterwards Frederick the Great, but as the double marriage scheme fell through she continued single. Several minor German princes offered themselves, but she did not think them worthy of her acceptance. Yet she was far from indifferent to admiration, and had a liking for men’s society. She was of a masculine turn of mind, and her happiest hours were passed in the hunting field, and the stables and kennels. She liked to spend much time with her horses and discuss their points minutely with the grooms, and one Sunday she shocked the good people of Hampton Court by going to church in a riding costume with a dog under each arm. She shared her father’s passion for hunting, and was a far better rider than he. She used to hunt in a costume which was masculine rather than feminine, and rode hard and fearlessly, followed by her favourite groom, Spurrier. There is a curious portrait of her in a round hunting cap and laced scarlet coat, which makes her look like a man. She had flirtations with the Duke of Newcastle and the Duke of Grafton; that with the latter was serious. It went on for a long time, and the Princess seems really to have been attached to him, though he was much older than she.
THE PRINCESS AMELIA.
(SECOND DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II.)
The Duke of Grafton, the Lord Chamberlain, was a grandson of Charles the Second, and had the personal beauty and charm of manner characteristic of the Fitzroys. He made no secret of his attentions to the Princess, and she received them with a great deal of favour. Queen Caroline was annoyed at what she considered was the duke’s presumption in aspiring to be her daughter’s lover. She also resented his familiar manner towards herself; he frequently addressed her as though he were her equal, and indeed he considered himself to be a scion of royalty. He once told her that he believed it was not in her nature to love any one, to which she replied: “But I love the King”. He answered: “By God, ma’am, I do not know, but if I were King of France I would soon find out whether you did or not”. He used to tease her also with the tale that she was in love with some German prince before her marriage to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and ended by saying: “God, ma’am, I wish I could see the man you could love”. As she could not repress him, Caroline affected to treat these familiarities as a joke, but she secretly resented them. She did her best to put an end to the intimacy between her daughter and the duke, but without much effect. The Princess Amelia and the duke would go a-hunting together two or three times a week, and frequently rode away from the rest of the party. On one occasion at Windsor their attendants lost them altogether, and they did not return to the castle until long after it was dark. It was said that they had gone together to a private house in Windsor forest and there remained. The King was absent from England at the time this happened, but the Queen was highly incensed, and soundly rated Amelia on her imprudence. She would have complained to the King about the Duke of Grafton, but Walpole dissuaded her from doing so. The duke would not have cared, and it would have done the princess harm.