On December 7th (1736), after giving a ball and a farewell supper at Herrenhausen, the King tore himself away from Hanover and his Walmoden. He arrived four days later at Helvoetsluys, where the yacht was awaiting him. His daughter, the Princess of Orange, lay in a very perilous child-bed at the Hague, and had urgently asked her father to come and see her on his way home, but the King would not leave his mistress a few hours sooner so as to give himself time to visit his daughter.
It was soon known in London that the King had set out from Hanover, and the Queen anxiously awaited his return, she being the only person in England who really cared whether he came back or not. But a great storm arose at sea, which lasted for many days, and the King came not, nor any tidings of him, though a hundred messages a day passed between St. James’s Palace, where the Queen was, and the Admiralty. No one knew whether the King had embarked at Helvoetsluys or not; but it was thought certain that, if he had embarked, his vessel must go down, as no ship could withstand the tremendous seas then running. As the days went by and no news came, the suspense at court became great. Wagers were freely laid on whether the King was drowned or not; many people opined that he was, and the wish was often father to the thought. The Prince of Wales went about everywhere, showing himself freely to the people. When the Queen’s anxiety was at its worst he gave a dinner to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and made them a speech, which was loudly praised. The Queen, who was greatly incensed that the Prince should give this dinner at such a time, asked particulars about it the next morning, and when she was told how well it had passed off, and how popular the Prince was becoming, she exclaimed: “My God, popularity always makes me sick, but Fritz’s popularity makes me vomit. I hear that yesterday, on his side of the house, they talked of the King’s being cast away with the same sang-froid as you would talk of a coach being overturned, and that my good son strutted about as if he had been already King.”
Walpole and his friends about the court were much exercised as to what would happen to the Queen if the King were really drowned, and the Prince ascended the throne. Walpole declared that “he (the Prince) would tear the flesh off her bones with hot irons,” so much did he hate his mother. Lord Hervey, on the other hand, thought that he would probably make use of the Queen’s great knowledge and experience in the management of affairs, and her position would not become so intolerable as some imagined. The Princess Caroline differed from him. “My good lord,” she said, “you must know very little of him if you believe that, for in the first place, he hates mamma, in the next, he has so good an opinion of himself that he thinks he wants no advice, and of all advice, no woman’s.” She said also that the moment he was King “she would run out of the house, au grand galop”. But the Queen declared that she would not budge an inch before she was compelled to go.
This uncertainty continued for more than a week, and one morning the Prince of Wales, with a satisfaction he could ill conceal, came to the Queen with the news that he had received a letter from a correspondent near Harwich saying that the night before guns had been heard at sea, signals of distress, and part of the fleet that escorted the King’s yacht had been dispersed. The poor Queen passed a day of the greatest anxiety and depression, but at night a King’s messenger, who had been three days at sea, and had landed by a miracle at Yarmouth, arrived at the palace with a letter from the King, telling the Queen that he had not yet stirred out of Helvoetsluys. Directly the Queen read the letter she cried out to the whole court: “The King is safe! the King is safe!” with a joy that showed how greatly she had feared.
The Queen’s satisfaction did not last long. A few days later, the wind having calmed, it was understood that the King had embarked. Suddenly the gales arose fiercer than before, and everybody thought that he was at sea and in great danger. No word of the King reached the court for ten days more, and then a vessel that had set out with the King from Helvoetsluys, and continued with the fleet until the storm arose, brought news that the royal yacht had been seen to tack about, but whether to return to the harbour or not it was impossible to say. The tempests continued to rage with unabated violence, and from accounts that reached the court of guns of distress and shipwrecks, there seemed little doubt that the King by now was at the bottom of the sea. The Queen lost all hope and broke down and wept bitterly. In the Prince’s apartments everything wore a subdued air of excitement; messengers ran to and fro, and it was said that the Prince already considered himself King of England. The Queen, hearing this, roused herself and determined to put a bold face on the matter, and on Sunday December 26th, she went to the Chapel Royal as usual. She had not been in chapel more than half an hour when a letter arrived from the King telling her that it was true he had set out from Helvoetsluys, but owing to the violence of the tempest he had put back again, with great difficulty, into port, where he still was detained by contrary winds. It afterwards transpired that the King had insisted on going forward, and only the good sense of the admiral in command of the fleet, who flatly refused to obey orders, saved his life.
The Queen now wrote to the King, telling him all her hopes and fears and sufferings. She also told him of the Prince’s conduct when it was thought that he was drowned, and how the different courtiers and Ministers behaved. The King wrote a letter of great length in answer, full of the most passionate tenderness. He no longer dilated on the charms of the Walmoden, but on those of the Queen, expressing his impatience to rejoin her, and depicting her as “a perfect Venus”. The Queen could not forbear showing this letter to Walpole, who had told her so frankly that her beauty had gone, and said: “Do not think because I show you this that I am an old fool and vain of my person and charms of this time of day”. But it was evident that she was very much pleased.
There was no popular enthusiasm about the King’s safety, and one of the topical jests was “How is the wind with the King? Like the nation against him.” While the King was still away, waiting at Helvoetsluys for the wind to change, a great fire broke out at the Temple and the Prince of Wales went at midnight to help extinguish it. He was hailed by the crowd with shouts of “Crown him! Crown him!!” and the same cry was heard when he appeared at the theatre. However, any immediate question of crowning him was put at rest by the return of the King, who arrived at St. James’s on January 15th, 1737, after a detention at Helvoetsluys of five weeks and an absence from England of more than eight months. The Queen, accompanied by all her children, including the Prince of Wales, went down to the courtyard of the palace to receive him as he alighted from his coach. The King embraced her with great affection, and then gave her his arm to conduct her upstairs. A council was held the same day and the Queen surrendered into the King’s hands her office of Regent.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XIII:
[116] This son, according to some authorities, came over to England with Madame Walmoden, afterwards Countess of Yarmouth, after the Queen’s death, and was generally known at court as “Master Louis”. But according to Lord Hervey the child died within a year of its birth.
[117] Old Whig, 26th February, 1736. This inscription was afterwards introduced by Hogarth in his caricature of Gin Lane.