[118] The Daily Gazetteer, 2nd October, 1736.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PRINCE AND THE PATRIOTS. 1737.
The King’s narrow escape from drowning really seemed to have given him a lesson, for he behaved much better on his return to England than he had done before he went to Hanover. He treated the Queen with great affection and respect, and praised her frequently before all the court. He no longer abused England and extolled Hanover, and he did not so much as mention Madame Walmoden. Perhaps the state of his health had something to do with his change of conduct; he had contracted a chill on his journey home, which soon after his return developed into a low fever. For some time the King was very unwell; he kept to his own apartments and saw no one but the Queen and, when it was absolutely necessary, Walpole. Exaggerated rumours soon spread abroad concerning his condition, though the King himself, the Queen and the Princesses made light of it. Still the King grew no better, and at last the Ministers became anxious, and Walpole taxed the Queen with concealing the King’s true state of health, an imputation which she indignantly denied. The Prince of Wales and his friends declared that the King’s constitution had quite broken up, and, even if he recovered from this illness, it was unlikely that he would long survive. This was a little too much for the King, and by way of showing that he was not dead yet, he roused himself from his lethargy, quitted his chamber and resumed his levées. It was noticed that he looked pale and thin, and it was generally thought he would not live long, though, as a matter of fact, he grew better every day after he quitted his chamber.
The King’s ill-health had the result of bringing the Prince of Wales more prominently before the public. It was felt by many courtiers and politicians that his coming to the throne was only a question of a little time, and they were anxious to stand well with him. The alliance between the Prince and the Patriots now became closer, and the Prince gave the Opposition his open support in return for their championing his grievances, which he was determined to have redressed by fair means or foul. He had written, or caused to be written, l’Histoire du Prince Titi, in which his wrongs were set forth in detail, and the King and Queen abused under transparent pseudonyms. Translations of this work were circulated about this time, and gave great offence at the court, but they influenced to some extent popular feeling in his favour. The Prince took the leaders of the Opposition into his confidence, especially rising men like Pitt and Lyttelton. Perhaps it was these younger and more fiery spirits who urged him to act upon the advice of Bolingbroke, and set the King at defiance, though it was generally supposed that Chesterfield prompted him. Certain it was that the Prince saw in his father’s illness an opportunity of bringing his claims before Parliament, and determined to delay no longer. The Prince requested the leaders of the Opposition to raise the question in the House of Commons. Some were at first reluctant, but influenced no doubt by the King’s ill-health, Pulteney at last consented to bring forward the question, and Wyndham and Barnard agreed to support him.
When the King and Queen heard the news they were thrown into an extraordinary state of agitation. The King was beside himself with rage; the Queen declared that all these disputes would kill her. The Government, too, were in a difficult position. The Prince’s demand that he should have his,£100,000 a year, and a dowry for the Princess was, on the face of it, reasonable, and, what was more important, popular; Ministers could not be sure of their majority, and might suffer defeat. Walpole endeavoured to effect a compromise, and after great difficulty induced the King to send a message to the Prince the day before the motion came on in the House, saying that he was prepared to settle,£50,000 a year on him absolutely, and to give the Princess a dowry. The Prince declined to consider the message, saying that the matter was in other hands.
The next day, February 22nd (1737), Pulteney brought forward his motion in a moderate speech, basing his main argument on precedent, and the right of the heir-apparent to the Crown to enjoy a sufficient and settled income. Walpole in his reply laid stress upon the King’s message to the Prince the previous day, as showing how far the King was anxious to meet his son’s wishes. He held that Parliamentary interference between father and son would be highly indecorous. In the end the Prince’s claims were rejected by a majority of thirty. This small majority would really have been reduced to a minority if forty-five Tories with Jacobite leanings had not left the House in a body, unwilling to give any vote in favour of the heir of Hanover, even though by doing so they would defeat the Government.
THE PRINCESSES MARY AND LOUISA.
(DAUGHTERS OF GEORGE II.)
The King and the Queen were overjoyed at the Prince’s defeat, and, in the first flush of victory, the King was inclined to follow up his advantage by turning his son immediately out of St. James’s Palace in the same way as (he might have remembered, but did not) his father had turned him out. Walpole dissuaded the King from taking so extreme a step, and then proceeded to urge him to make good his promise to settle a jointure on the Princess, and make over, £50,000 a year to his son absolutely. To this the King now demurred, though Walpole pointed out to him that the victory in the House of Commons had only been gained on the understanding that the King would carry out his pledges. The difficulty was complicated by the Prince continuing impenitent. So far from being downcast by his defeat in the House of Commons, he called a council of all his friends, and it was resolved to raise the question anew in the House of Lords, Lord Carteret undertaking to bring forward the motion, and Chesterfield to support it. Here, too, he lost, but public sympathy was undoubtedly with him, and to prevent the scandal from growing, Walpole, Newcastle, and indeed all the King’s Ministers, urged the necessity of a settlement. One was eventually made, though not until much later, by the King settling £50,000 a year on the Prince absolutely, together with £10,000 a year from the Duchy of Cornwall, and Parliament making up the rest by giving an unusually large jointure to the Princess of Wales.