Then the Champion cast down his gauntlet, which, when it had lain some few minutes, was picked up by a herald and re-delivered to him. The Champion went through this performance three times, and after the third he made a low obeisance to the King. Whereupon the cup bearer brought to the King a gold bowl of wine with a cover, and his Majesty drank to the Champion and sent him the bowl by the cup bearer. The Champion, still on horseback, put on his gauntlet, received the bowl and drank from it, and after making a second reverence to their Majesties, departed from the hall, taking with him the bowl and cover as his fee. As soon as the Champion had gone out, the heralds, after three obeisances to the King, proclaimed his style as follows in Latin, French and English:
“Of the Most High, Most Mighty and Most Excellent Monarch George II., by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.”
These ceremonies over the King and Queen proceeded with their dinner. “The whole solemnity,” we read, “was performed with the greatest splendour and magnificence, and without any disorder; and what was most admired in the hall were the chandeliers, branches and sconces, in which were near two thousand wax candles, which being lighted at once, yielded an exceeding fine prospect.” Their Majesties did not leave Westminster Hall until eight o’clock in the evening, when they returned to St. James’s Palace to rest after their labours. But their loyal subjects prolonged the rejoicings far into the night with bonfires, illuminations, ringing of bells, and other demonstrations of joy.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was present at the coronation, wrote a lively account of the scene, though she was more concerned with the deportment of her friends and acquaintances than with details of the ceremonial. She comments on the “great variety of airs” of those present. “Some languished and others strutted,” she writes, “but a visible satisfaction was diffused over every countenance as soon as the coronet was clapped on the head. But she that drew the greater number of eyes was indisputably Lady Orkney. She exposed behind a mixture of fat and wrinkles, and before a very considerable protuberance which preceded her. Add to this the inestimable roll of her eyes, and her grey hairs, which by good fortune stood directly upright, and ’tis impossible to imagine a more delightful spectacle. She had embellished all this with considerable magnificence, which made her look as big again as usual; and I should have thought her one of the largest things of God’s making, if my Lady St. John had not displayed all her charms in honour of the day. The poor Duchess of Montrose crept along with a dozen black snakes playing round her face, and my Lady Portland, who has fallen away since her dismissal from Court,[8] represented very finely an Egyptian mummy embroidered over with hieroglyphics.”[9]
The magnificence of the coronation was the talk of the town for a long time. As London was very full of persons of quality who had come from far and near to attend it, the theatre of Drury Lane seized the opportunity to give a highly ornate performance of King Henry the Eighth, with the coronation of Anne Boleyn at the end of the play, a scene on which £1,000 (an unheard of sum to spend upon mounting a scene in those days) was expended. The scene at Drury Lane rivalled in mock splendour the ceremonial at the Abbey. All the town flocked to see it, both those who had been present at the real coronation and those who had not. The King and Queen and the young princesses came more than once, and graciously expressed their approval. “The Coronation” was repeated in the provinces for a year or two later.
The City of London was not backward in showing its loyalty to George the Second; an address was presented to the King, and the Lord Mayor’s Show was conducted on a scale of unprecedented splendour. The King and Queen attended in state the banquet at the Guildhall, and some idea of the entertainment may be gathered from the fact that two hundred and seventy-nine dishes adorned the feast, and the cost amounted to £5,000.
When the excitement and loyal emotions called forth by the coronation had subsided the English people were better able to take the measure of their second King from Hanover. The process of disillusion soon set in. George the Second had even fewer good qualities than his father. On the battlefield, like all princes of his house, he had shown physical courage, though he had no claim to generalship. He had a certain shrewdness and a vein of caution which kept him from committing any flagrant errors, however foolishly he might talk. But this was the most that could be said in his favour. He was vain and pompous, mean, spiteful and avaricious. All he cared for, it was said, was “money and Hanover”. He neither spoke nor acted like a King, and his small mind was incapable of rising to the height of his position. If he were straightforward it was because he was too stupid to dissemble, and if he seldom lied it was because it involved too great a strain upon his narrow imagination. On the surface it would be impossible to imagine two persons more unsympathetic than the King and Queen, yet the fact remains that they were devoted to one another. George knew that his consort was absolutely loyal to his interests, and in the great loneliness that surrounds a throne he could appreciate the benefit of having one disinterested person whom he could trust and in whom he could confide. In his heart of hearts he knew that his Queen was infinitely his superior, though he would never admit it to himself, to her, or least of all to the world. Yet in public affairs she swayed him as she would.
From the time that Caroline became Queen, until her death, she governed England with Walpole; she did not merely reign but she ruled, and though she was only Queen Consort, admitted by the English Constitution to no share in affairs of state, yet practically she was Queen Regnant, and a more powerful one than any England had known except Elizabeth. Caroline regarded Elizabeth as her great exemplar, and resembled her in many ways—in her love of dominion, her jealousy of any rival near her throne, her diplomatic abilities, her breadth of view in matters of religion, her contempt for trivialities, and her superiority to mere convention. She differed from Elizabeth in that she had a good heart, and though she loved to rule, she was neither tyrannical nor despotic. Elizabeth exercised her power directly, appropriating even the credit due to her Ministers; Caroline’s power was indirect and found its way through tortuous channels. The extent of her power, though suspected, was never fully realised during her lifetime, except by a few persons such as Lord Hervey, who came into daily contact with her, and of course Walpole. Caroline had to be careful not to arouse the King’s jealousy, for, like many weak men, he loved the outward semblance of authority, and this the Queen was more than ready to yield him. The King could have all the show provided she had the substance.
The Queen and Walpole soon came to an understanding, and in the governing of the King and the kingdom they worked in accord. The Prime Minister discussed fully with her affairs of state, and together they planned what should be done. When everything was settled between them, Caroline undertook to bring the King round to their way of thinking. This process generally took place in private, but sometimes, if the matter were urgent, Caroline and Walpole would play into each other’s hands in another way. The Prime Minister would have a conference with the Queen over-night, and the next morning, when he was summoned by the King, Caroline would, as if by accident, enter the royal closet. She would make a deep obeisance and humbly offer to withdraw. The King would tell her to stay; she would take a chair, occupy herself with knotting or something of the kind, and apparently take no interest in the conversation. The King would ask her opinion. “I understand nothing of politics, your Majesty knows all,” she would modestly answer. Delighted with this tribute to his powers George would press for an answer to his question, and then the game of hoodwink would begin. From certain secret signs agreed upon between her and Walpole, the Queen spoke or was silent, gave a qualified opinion or expressed herself plainly. It was all so well managed that neither the King nor other ministers present, if there were any, noticed the least thing. Walpole played with his hat, fidgeted with his sword, took snuff, pulled out his pocket handkerchief or plaited his shirt frill: each detail of this dumb show had its secret meaning. This farce was played not once but many times, over and over again, and though the means were sorry enough, the end was the good of the nation. The personal rule of the monarch as it had existed in the days of the Stuarts was gone for ever; still the King was a force to be reckoned with, and, in foreign politics especially, Walpole would have found the choleric little George a terrible stumbling-block in his path had it not been that the Queen bent him to her will. The King would often announce his intention of doing something incredibly foolish, she would apparently agree with him, yet before long she would bring him round to her point of view, though it was in flat contradiction to his first declaration. When the King set his face against a certain plan of the Prime Minister’s or a certain appointment, Walpole would leave the matter in the Queen’s hands, and by and by the King would suggest to him the very policy or appointment he had opposed, as though it were an idea of his own. Caroline talked her sentiments into her husband’s mind and he reproduced them as faithfully as words talked into a phonograph.
In public the Queen was always obedient, and her manner to the King was submission itself. “She managed this deified image,” says Lord Hervey, “as the heathen priests used to do the oracles of old, when, kneeling and prostrate before the altars of a pageant god, they received with the greatest devotion and reverence those directions in public which they had before instilled and regulated in private. And as these idols consequently were only propitious to the favourites of the augurers, so nobody who had not tampered with our chief priestess ever received a favourable answer from our god; storms and thunder greeted every votary that entered the temple without her protection; calms and sunshine those who obtained it.” The most farcical thing about it was that the little domestic tyrant took all this homage as his due, and to hear him talk his courtiers might think that he was as despotic as the Cæsars and as autocratic as the Tsar. On one occasion his mind ran back over English history (with which, by the way, he was imperfectly acquainted), and he recalled his predecessors on the throne and contrasted them unfavourably with himself. To quote the same authority: “Charles I.,” he said, “was governed by his wife; Charles II. by his mistresses; James II. by his priests; William III. by his men; and Queen Anne by her women-favourites. His father, he added, had been by anyone that could get at him. And at the end of this compendious history of our great and wise monarchs, with a significant, satisfied, triumphant air, he turned about smiling to one of his auditors, and asked him—‘And who do they say governs now?’”