THE
QUEENS OF ENGLAND
OF THE
HOUSE OF HANOVER

VOL. II.

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

LIVES
OF THE
QUEENS OF ENGLAND
OF THE
HOUSE OF HANOVER

BY
DR. DORAN, F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS’ ‘HABITS AND MEN’ ETC.

FOURTH EDITION

CAREFULLY REVISED AND MUCH ENLARGED

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.

LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty
1875

CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.

LIVES
OF THE
QUEENS OF ENGLAND.

CHARLOTTE SOPHIA.—Cont.

CHAPTER IV.
BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES.

Death of the Duke of Cumberland—His military career—The soubriquet of the Butcher given him—Anecdotes of him—Marriage of Caroline Matilda—Her married life unhappy—Dr. Struensee—Mésalliances of the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland—The Duke of Cumberland and Lady Grosvenor—The Royal Marriage Act—Olivia Serres—Lord Clive’s present of diamonds to the Queen—Disgusting correspondence of the Duchess of Orleans and Queen Caroline—The Prince of Wales’s juvenile drawing-room—Simple life of the Royal Family at Kew—Prince Frederick and his cottage beauty—Paton and his naval pictures—Royal births—The custom of cake and caudle observed—Petty larcenists—Sarah Wilson and her subsequent life—Death of Princess Mary; and of Princess Augusta, the King’s mother—The Earl of Bute—Neglected education of George III.—Petronilla, Countess Delitz—The Countess of Chesterfield, her conversion by Whitfield—Efforts of Lady Huntingdon to convert the gay Earl of Chesterfield—Mr. Fitzroy—George III. at Portsmouth—Jacob Bryant’s ‘golden rule’—Witty remark of Queen Charlotte—Attendant bards on Royalty; Mark Smeaton, Thomas Abel, David Rizzio—The Princes under the guardianship of Lady Charlotte Finch—The Queen’s benevolence—Satirists.

The favourite son of Caroline, and the favourite brother of the Princess Amelia, died on the last day of October. His health had long been precarious: he had, like his mother, grown extremely corpulent, and his sight had nearly perished. Indeed, he could only see, and that very imperfectly, with one eye—and yet he was comparatively but a young man; not more than forty-four years of age. His course of life, both in its duties, and its so-called pleasures, had made an old man of him before his time. He had had a paralytic stroke, was much afflicted with asthma, and suffered continually from a wound in the leg, which he had received in his first great battle, at Dettingen, and which had never healed.

He was born when his mother was yet Princess of Wales. She loved him because he was daring and original; qualities which he evinced by his replies to her when she was lecturing him as a wayward child. For the same reasons was he liked by his grandfather, at whose awkward English the graceless grandson laughed loudly, and mimicked it admirably.

It is not astonishing that his mother loved him, for as he grew in years he (up to a certain time) grew in grace and dignity. In outward bearing, as in mental endowments, he was very superior to his brother, the Prince of Wales: he was gentlemanlike without affectation; and accomplished without being vain of his accomplishments. Never was a prince so popular, so winning in his ways, as William of Cumberland during his minority.

He was but twenty-two years of age when he accompanied George II. to the field and shared in the bloody honours of the day at Dettingen. The honours he reaped here, however, were fatal to him. They led to his being placed in chief command of an army before he was fitted to do more than lead a brigade. In ’45, when the French invested Tournay under Marshal Saxe, the son of Aurora Königsmark, the Duke of Cumberland was placed in command of the English and Dutch forces, numerically very inferior to the foe, and charged with leading them to force the enemy to raise the siege. The attempt was made in the great battle of Fontenoy, where we gained a victory, and yet were vanquished. We beat the enemy, but, through want of caution, exposed ourselves to a cross fire of batteries, against which valour was impotent. It cost us ten thousand men and unmerited loss of reputation.

The rose which had fallen from his chaplet the duke replaced at Culloden, where he fought one of the battles whereby the hopes of the Stuarts were crushed in half an hour. The alleged severity of the young general, after the battle, gave him the name of the ‘Butcher.’ The duke was not ashamed of the name. He wore it with as much complacency as though it had been a decoration. With regard to his severities, it may be said that, terrible as they were, they had the effect of deterring men from rushing into another rebellion, which would have cost more blood than the duke ever caused to be shed by way of prevention.

But not from his contemporaries. For himself and his troops the popular heart beat high with admiration and sympathy; and while the public hand scattered rewards in profuse showers upon the army, parliament increased the duke’s reward, and colleges offered him their presidential chairs. He was familiarly called ‘the Duke,’ as Marlborough had been before him, and as Wellington was after him.

As he grew in manhood his heart became hardened; he had no affection for his family, nor fondness for the army, for which he had affected attachment. When his brother died, pleasure, not pain, made his heart throb, as he sarcastically exclaimed, ‘It is a great blow to the country, but I hope it will recover in time.’ The death, if it did not place him next to the throne, at least gave him hopes of being regent should his sire die before the young heir was of age.

It was, however, the bloody Mutiny Act, of which he was really the author, which brought upon him the universal execration. ‘The penalty of death,’ says Walpole, ‘came over as often as the curses of the commination on Ash Wednesday.’ He who despised popularity was philosophically content when deprived of it. He was dissolute and a gambler. He hated marriage, and escaped from being united with a Danish princess by the adroit manœuvre of getting his friends to insist upon a large settlement from the royal father, too avaricious to grant it.

If he was lashed into fury by his name being omitted from the Regency Bill, he was more sensitively wounded still, by being made to feel that English uncles had, before this, murdered the nephews who were heirs to the throne. He was incapable of the crime, for it could have profited him nothing. The knowledge, however, that popular opinion stigmatised him as being capable of committing an offence so sanguinary was a torture to him. One day, Prince George, his nephew, entered his room. It was a soldier’s apartment, hung with arms. He took down a splendid sword to exhibit it to the boy. The future husband of Charlotte turned pale, evidently suspecting that his uncle was on sanguinary thoughts intent. The duke was dreadfully shocked, and complained to the Princess-dowager of Wales that scandalous prejudices had been instilled into the child against him.

In 1757 he reluctantly assumed the command of the army commissioned to rescue Hanover from the threatened invasion of the French. His opponent was Marshal D’Estrées, from before whom he fell back at the Rhine, and to whom he disgracefully surrendered Hanover, by the infamous convention of Klosterseven. When the King saw him enter Kensington Palace, after his peremptory recall, the monarch exclaimed, ‘Behold the son who has ruined me and disgraced himself!’ That son, who declared he had written orders for all he did, and who certainly was invested with very full powers, resigned all his posts; and the hero of Dettingen and pacificator of North Britain became a private gentleman, and took to dice, racing, and other occupations natural then, or common at least, to gentlemen with more money than sense or principle. There is a good trait remembered of him at this period of his career. He had dropped and lost his pocket-book at Newmarket; and declined to make any more bets, saying that ‘he had lost money enough for that day.’ In the evening the book was brought to him by a half-pay officer who had picked it up. ‘Pray keep it, sir,’ said the duke, ‘for if you had not found it, the contents would, before this, have been in the hands of the blacklegs.’ Another favourable trait was his desire to give commissions to men who earned them on the field. He felt that while any ‘fool’ might purchase a commission, it was hard to keep it back from the man who had fought for it. He once promoted a sergeant to an ensigncy, and, finding him very coolly treated by his brother officers, the duke refused to dine with Lord Ligonier unless—pointing to the ensign—he might bring his ‘friend’ with him. This recognition settled the question.

The duke, cheated by his father’s will, and sneered at by Marshal Saxe; with no reputation but for bravery, and no merit as a country gentleman but that of treating his labourers with some liberality, lived on as contentedly as though he were quietly enjoying all possible honour. His good-humoured gallantry was of a hearty nature. When George III., in 1762, complimented Lady Albemarle, in full drawing-room, on the victories achieved by her husband, the Duke of Cumberland stepped across the room to her and enthusiastically exclaimed, ‘If it was not in the drawing-room I would kiss you.’ He was a constant attendant at these ceremonies. On the morning of the 31st of October he had been to court, and had conversed cheerfully with Queen Charlotte. It was the last time she ever beheld him. He subsequently dined in Arlington Street with Lord Albemarle, and appeared in good health, although the day before, when playing at picquet with General Hodgson, he had been confused and mistook his cards. Early in the evening he was at his town-house, 54, Upper Grosvenor Street, when the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Northington called upon him. As they entered the room he was seized with a suffocation. One of his valets, who was accustomed to bleed him, was called, and prepared to tie up his arm; but the duke exclaimed, ‘It is all over!’ and immediately expired in Lord Albemarle’s arms.

Thus died the favourite son of Caroline of Anspach, to place a crown on whose brow she would have sacrificed her own life. He was an indifferent general, who outlived the reputation he acquired at Culloden, where it was impossible that he should be beaten. Where to be vanquished was possible he never had the good luck of being victor. But he cared as little for fame as he did for money; and his neglect in the latter case is testified by the fact that nearly eighteen hundred pounds, in bank notes, were found in the pocket of one of his cast-off suits, of which a present had been made, after the duke’s death, to one of his hussars. The hussar had the honesty to return the money.

The King behaved with appropriate delicacy on this occasion. When Lord Albemarle, the duke’s executor, presented to the King the key of his uncle’s cabinet, George III. returned it, bidding Lord Albemarle use his own discretion in examining all private papers, and in destroying all such as the duke himself probably would not have wished to be made public. On the 28th of December the death of his Majesty’s youngest brother, Prince Frederick, at the early age of sixteen years, threw additional gloom on the circle of the royal family. At least, so say the journalists of the period.

At this time the King and Queen resided chiefly at Richmond, in very modest state, and with very few servants. Their chief amusement, amid the turmoil of politics and the crush of factions, consisted in ‘going about to see places,’ as Walpole describes their visits to such localities as Oatlands and Wanstead; and the ‘call’ of the Queen at Strawberry Hill, which the sovereign lady could not see, for the sufficient reason that the sovereign lord was in bed and unable to perform the necessary honours.

The youngest daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, was married by proxy on the 1st of October 1766, in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, to Christian VII., King of Denmark. Queen Charlotte was not present, she having given birth, only two days previously, to Charlotte Augusta, Princess Royal, and subsequently Duchess of Wurtemburg.

The King of Denmark was an exceedingly small, but not an ill-made, a weakly, not an ill-favoured man. His character was, however, in every respect detestable; and when poor Caroline Matilda passed on in tears, amid the congratulations of the court of Queen Charlotte, her tears were better founded than their smiles. She was speedily treated with cruelty, and abandoned at home while her lord travelled in foreign countries and indulged in profligacy. Queen Charlotte accorded him a more hearty reception than he deserved when he came over to England, two years subsequent to the marriage. At that time his absurdly pompous airs were the ridicule of the circle at the Queen’s and at Carlton House, the residence of the Princess-dowager of Wales.

After spending some years in travel, he returned, neither a wiser nor a better man, to Denmark. In his suite was the German physician, Struensee. This man enjoyed his master’s utmost confidence. He soon gained that of the young Queen also, who sought by his means to be reconciled to the King. He was, on the other hand, hated by the Queen-mother and other branches of the royal family; particularly in his character of reformer of political abuses. They contrived to overthrow him, procured a warrant for his execution from the King, and involved the young Queen in his ruin, on the ground of an improper familiarity between them. The triumphant enemies of Struensee would have put Caroline Matilda also to death but for the appearance in the Baltic of a British fleet under Admiral Keith, by whom she was carried off to Zell, where she died in 1775, neglected, unhappy, and under the weight of accusation of a charge of which she has never been proved guilty.

It may be stated here, that of all the children of Frederick, Prince of Wales, George III. can be said to have been the only one happily married. The second son, William Henry, the amiable, assiduous, brave, but not over-accomplished Duke of Gloucester (born in 1743), scandalised Queen Charlotte and the court by a mésalliance which he contracted, in 1766, with Maria, Countess-dowager of Waldegrave. This marriage was not, indeed, especially unhappy to the contractors of it, except inasmuch as they were embarrassed by being obliged for some time to keep it secret, and that when discovered, the royal husband and his noble wife were for a long period banished from court. They resided during a portion of their time of exile in Italy; and at Rome, the Pope himself had so much esteem for the Prince that his Holiness, on one occasion, declined to take precedence of him when their carriages encountered in the streets. The Holy Father drew on one side, and courteously waited while the Prince, in obedience to the bidding of the Universal Bishop, passed on. The children of this union were subsequently acknowledged as the legal heirs of their parents. The duke died in 1805.

The third son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Henry, Duke of Cumberland (after the death of his uncle ‘the Duke’), born in 1744, more grievously offended Queen Charlotte by a mésalliance than his brother. He was fierce of temper, frivolous of character, and foppish in his dress. In the year 1770 the attentions of the duke to Lady Grosvenor were so marked, and so ridiculous, that everybody talked about them, except her husband. The lady, when a Miss Vernon, had been first seen by Lord Grosvenor as she and a companion were leaving Kensington Gardens, flying under sudden and heavy rain. He looked at and pitied the shower-bearing nymphs, as Aristophanes styles maidens so molested, and he offered them an asylum in his carriage. Soon after, Miss Vernon was the married mistress of his house; and the union would have been happy had not the foolish prince appeared to disturb it. He speedily contrived to seduce Lady Grosvenor from her duty. He followed her about in disguises, often betraying himself by his fopperies and imbecility, slept whole nights in woods like any Corydon not subject to the infirmities of nature, and subsequently had 10,000l. to pay for the ruin he brought to Lord Grosvenor’s hearth. But this guilt did not so much flurry Queen Charlotte as the marriage of the duke in the following year with Mrs. Horton, a widow, daughter of Lord Carhampton, who was much older than the senseless and coarse-minded prince, her husband.

This act of folly caused him to be permanently banished from court. The Queen would never consent to a reconciliation; and the King, to prevent such unions in future, brought in the Royal Marriage Act. By this act no prince or princess of the blood could marry without consent of the Sovereign before the age of twenty-five. After that age the royal sanction was still to be applied for; but if withheld the prince or princess had a resource in the privy council. To this body the name of the individual to whom the English member of the royal family desired to be married was to be given, and if parliament made no objection within the year the enamoured parties were at liberty to enter into the holy bond of matrimony. Queen Charlotte, who was exceedingly ‘nice’ on such matters, thought that she at least prevented all such alliances among her own children. She little thought how one of her sons would twice offend.

The duke died childless and a widower in 1790, but a paternity derived from him was claimed by ‘Olivia Serres,’ who professed to be the daughter of a second marriage. Her claim was never heeded, but she used to patronise the cheaper minor theatres, whose bills announced her presence as that of ‘H.R.H. the Princess Olivia of Cumberland.’ She was as much a princess as the counterfeits upon the stage, but not more so.

There are two more children of Frederick yet to be mentioned. These are Edward, Duke of York, the second son, born in 1739, and the Princess Louisa Anne, born ten years later. Neither of these was married. A report, nevertheless, was long prevalent that the weak (he voted against ministers on the American Stamp Act) but witty duke was privately married to a lady at Monaco, where he died in 1767. The Princess Louisa, his sister, was almost from her birth the victim of slow consumption, which finally ended her life when she was in the eighteenth year of her age.

A circumstance occurred in 1767 which was not advantageous to the memory or reputation of Queen Caroline, and which did not raise her in the opinion of Queen Charlotte. The latter, however, was too much occupied in contemplating with delight the Indian presents brought over to her by Lord Clive to trouble herself much about the character of Caroline. These consisted of two diamond drops worth twelve thousand pounds. In the year just named the Duchess of Brunswick’s repositories were examined by her executors, and among other things discovered therein were not less than eight hundred letters addressed by the Duchess of Orleans, second wife of the brother of Louis XIV., to Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea, Princess of Wales, and to Ulric, Duke of Brunswick. From this correspondence selections have been published, which have disgusted most persons who have read them. The portions suppressed must have been edifying indeed. But even if no more had come under the eyes of the wife of George Augustus than what publishers have ventured to print, there would still be evidence enough to show that, although Caroline conversed with philosophers, her mind could descend to be dragged through the filthiest pollution. There was not much refinement in the age, it is true; but, impure as it may have been, the fact that Caroline could submit to have such letters addressed to her, or to read a second, is proof that it was more radically rotten and profoundly unclean than has been generally supposed.

The most interesting domestic event of the following year was the juvenile drawing-room held by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. The boy heir-apparent was, perhaps, too early initiated into the solemnities of festivals and gorgeous ceremonies. On this occasion he was attired in a crimson suit, his brother of York in one of blue and gold, while the Princess Royal and the younger branches of the family were grouped together on a sofa in Roman togas. The happy mother looked upon them with delight, and thought the scene worthy of a painter. The public did not share the enthusiasm nor approve of the royal taste for extensive displays; and when the youthful Prince of Wales gave a ball and supper this year at the Queen’s House the mob broke into the court-yard, drove a hearse round it, and saluted the revellers, old and young, with anything but shouts of compliment or congratulation.

But if the town life of the royal family was one of considerable display, private life at Kew was of the very simplest aspect. Their Majesties were early risers, an example which, forcible as the fashion is which royalty deigns to offer, was not followed very generally even by their own household, except such persons whose services were needed. A king and queen rising at six and spending the first two hours of the day emphatically as their own, undisturbed by business of state, afforded a singular spectacle to those who could remember the indolent habits of the late court, for it was only on rare occasions that George II. was an early riser. Caroline was never so by choice. At eight o’clock there was a joyous family breakfast, at which the Sovereigns were surrounded by the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburgh, as the second son was called before he was created Duke of York, the Princes William and Edward, and the Princess Royal. At this morning festival the children were not bound to the silence which they always observed in presence of their parents in public. After breakfast the younger children were brought in, and with these the King and Queen spent an hour of amusement, while the elder princes were away at exercise of body or mind.

Queen Charlotte generally, and often in company with the King, presided at the children’s early dinner. Such attendance was the forerunner of the early dinners which the King subsequently took himself. A weekly holiday was passed by the whole family in Richmond Gardens. This was, in some sort, a continuation of a custom commenced by George II. His custom, however, had not so pure a motive as that observed by George III. and Queen Charlotte, who took innocent delight in witnessing innocent enjoyment. In the cottage there, erected from her own design, she would ply the needle (Queen Adelaide was not a more indefatigable worker) while the King read aloud to her, generally from Shakspeare. The Sovereign loved the poet as deeply as the great Duke of Marlborough did, who knew nothing of English history, save what he had gathered from the not altogether indisputable authority of the great poet. ‘Whatever charms,’ says an ‘observer,’ with more enthusiasm than elegance, ‘ambition or folly may conceive to surround so exalted a station, it is neither on the throne nor in the drawing-room, in the splendour or the joys of sovereignty, that the King and Queen place their felicity. It is in social and domestic gratifications, in breathing the free air, admiring the works of nature, tasting and encouraging the elegances of art, and in living without dissipation. In the evening all the children pay their duty at Kew House before retiring to bed; after which the King reads to her Majesty; and having closed the day with a joint act of devotion, they retire to rest. This is the order of each revolving day, with such exceptions as are unavoidable in their high stations.

‘The Sovereign is the father of the family; not a grievance reaches his knowledge that remains unredressed, nor a character of merit or ingenuity disregarded; his private conduct, therefore, is as exemplary as it is amiable.’

Alexander Young, referring to the period when the Prince of Wales was not above twelve years old, furnishes us with a picture that represents the Queen’s sons as so many Cincinnati at the plough, or rather like Diocletian cultivating cabbages; only that he did not take to the healthy pursuit until he had lost a throne, whereas the English heir-apparent had not yet gained one. The young princes were, perhaps, more like the royalty of Cathay, whose greatest glory was to cultivate the soil, and delude itself into the idea that it was being useful to mankind. Nevertheless the royal pursuits of the Prince of Wales and his brother of York were harmless at least. ‘A spot of ground in the garden at Kew was dug by his royal highness the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of York, who sowed it with wheat, attended the growth of their little crop, weeded, reaped, and harvested it, solely by themselves. They thrashed out the corn and separated it from the chaff; and at this period of their labour were brought to reflect from their own experience upon the various labours and attention of the husbandman and farmer. The princes not only raised their own crop, but they also ground it; and, having parted the bran from the meal, attended the whole process of making it into bread, which it may well be imagined was eaten with no slight relish. The King and Queen partook of the philosophical repast, and beheld with pleasure the very amusements of their children rendered the source of useful knowledge.’

The second son of Charlotte was not very far advanced in his teens when he carried his love of rustic pursuits to rustic persons. He so especially admired one cottage beauty in the neighbourhood of Kew or Windsor that his absences from home became rather too numerous and too prolonged to escape notice. The royal truant was less narrowly watched than strictly looked after upon being missed. On one of these occasions something more powerful than conjecture took the enquirers to a certain cottage door, and on looking into the room upon which it opened there sat the second son of Queen Charlotte, Duke of York and Bishop of Osnaburgh, upon a wooden stool shelling peas!

Reference has been made to the patronage which both Queen Charlotte and King George extended to art. Their patronage of painters was not, generally speaking, on a liberal scale. They requested Paton to bring to the palace, for their inspection, the naval pictures intended for Saint Petersburgh. The artist obeyed, but at a cost of fifty pounds for carriage. He was repaid in thanks, but he received no pecuniary compensation. On another occasion twenty-five pounds was given to an artist for a picture worth four times the sum. The artist had a friend in Dr. Wolcot, and the satires of Peter Pindar avenged the disappointed painter.

It was the excuse of both King and Queen that their increasing family prevented them from exercising all the liberality they could wish. However the fact may or may not have influenced the plea, it could not be denied that the circle round the royal hearth was annually enlarging. In 1767 was born Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent; and in the following year the Princess Augusta Sophia. At this period the old custom was still observed of admitting the public to ‘cake and caudle.’ Among the loyal young ladies who flocked to the palace to see the infant princess were two who partook so plentifully of the caudle as to lose their discretion, and to walk away with the cup in their keeping. They were detected, and were pardoned after kneeling to ask for forgiveness. The inequality in the application of the law was as marked then as it is now. Petty larcenists of high birth, as these young ladies were, were permitted to escape; not so a poor Sarah Wilson, who, yielding to a strong temptation in the year 1771, filched one or two of the Queen’s jewels, and was condemned to be executed. It was considered almost a violation of justice that the thief should be saved from the halter, and be transported instead of hanged. She was sent to America, where she was allotted as slave or servant to a Mr. Dwale, Bud Creek, Frederick County. Queen Charlotte would have thought nothing more of her had her Majesty not heard, with some surprise, that her own sister, Susannah Caroline Matilda, was keeping her court in the plantations. Never was surprise more genuine than the Queen’s; it was exceeded only by her hilarity when it was discovered that the Princess Susannah was simply Sarah Wilson at large. That somewhat clever girl, having stolen a queen’s jewels, thought nothing, after escaping from the penal service to which she was condemned, of passing herself off as a queen’s sister. The Americans—so in love were some of them with the greatness they affected to despise—paid royal honours to the clever impostor. She passed the most joyous of seasons before she was consigned again to increase of penalty for daring to pretend relationship with the consort of King George. The story of the presuming girl, whose escapades, however, were not fully known in England at the time, served, as far as knowledge of them had reached the court, to amuse the ‘gossips’ who had assembled in 1770 about the cradle of the young Elizabeth, and still more those who, in the following year, greeted the new Prince Ernest, one of the three sons of Charlotte destined to wear a crown.

The fourth daughter of Caroline and George II. died on the 14th of June in this year, 1771. She was born on the 22nd of February, 48 years before. Before she had completed her eighteenth year she was married to Frederick, Prince of Hesse, a man whose naturally brutal temperament was rendered still more brutal after his passing over from Protestantism to Romanism. This aggravation of a naturally bad temper was not the immediate result of the change of religion, but of the political restrictions to which such change subjected him. Never had wife a more vicious and unfeeling husband than poor Mary; never had husband a more submissive and uncomplaining wife than Frederick of Hesse. His death relieved her of a most inhuman tyrant, and her last days were spent in a happy tranquillity.

The person of Her Majesty at this period is described as having been easy and graceful, rather than striking or majestic. They who could not call her handsome, which she never was, compromised the matter by describing the contour of her face as delicate and pleasing. Her well-shaped forehead and her beautiful teeth, no inconsiderable items in a face, were her chief beauties. Her bright chestnut-coloured hair would have been an additional beauty to have been reckoned, but that it was generally hidden under thick layers of powder—so long, at least, as powder was in fashion. Of her hands and arms the royal lady was proud to a very late period of her life; and amateurs, in the early term of her reign, eulogised the beauties of a neck, which soon very well bore the discreet veil with which it was wisely and modestly covered. Her countenance was naturally benignant, except when flushed, as it could sometimes be, by an offended feeling; and it was naturally pallid, ‘except,’ says an anonymous writer ‘(which happened not unfrequently), when a blush of diffidence suffused her modest cheek.’

The succeeding year to that last named brought mourning with it, for the death of the mother of George III. On the death of her husband she was appointed the chief guardian of her eldest son, in case of the demise, before that son’s majority, of the king, his grandfather. In the meantime she was really his guardian during that king’s lifetime. This office, however, she shared with Lord Bute, who, according to the scandal-mongers, was less attached to the pupil than to the pupil’s mother. Of this attachment the Prince of Wales himself is said to have had full knowledge, and did not object to Lord Bute taking solitary walks with the Princess, while he could do the same with Lady Middlesex. However this may be, the Princess and Lord Bute kept the Prince George in very strict seclusion after his father’s death. The future husband of Charlotte had, however, abundance of teachers, but a paucity of instruction. One taught him ‘deportment,’ another imbued him with Jacobitism. Dr. Thomas did honestly his little ineffective best. Lord Bute superintended Dr. Thomas, and the Princess said the boy was slow, and the masters indifferent.

The boy would probably have been an accomplished scholar had his preceptors been more careful in their training. There was the stuff and also the taste in him; but he was neglected, and the lost ground was never recovered. His affection for his mother was strong, and she deserved it. She was not a favourite with the people, and she did not deserve her unpopularity. George III. and Queen Charlotte visited her regularly every evening at eight o’clock. After one of these filial visits, in February 1772, when her health had been long declining, she expressed a hope that she might pass a good night. The hope was fulfilled, but death came in the morning. Never was woman more praised or censured than she. Her merit lay, perhaps, between both. Her son adored her, Queen Charlotte respected her, and a commercial country should reverence the memory of a woman who, out of her own jointure, paid off all the debts which her husband left at his decease. During the illness of the Dowager-Princess of Wales, her daughter, the Princess of Brunswick, arrived in England, on her mother’s invitation. The Princess was coolly treated by her brother, George III., and by Queen Charlotte. She was ill lodged in a furnished house in Pall Mall, while the Prince of Mecklenburg had apartments in the royal palace. Charlotte was jealous of Augusta, her sister-in-law, and could not help showing it unbecomingly. At the Court held on the Queen’s birthday Augusta was attended by Lady Gower, an old friend, and one of her former ladies-in-waiting. Lady Gower followed the Princess into the ball-room, and sat next to her—Lady Gower’s friend, the Duchess of Argyle, courteously making way for her. The Queen was excessively angry. A few days later, all her ladies being present, Her Majesty said, crossly, to the Duchess of Argyle, ‘Duchess, I must reprimand you for letting Lady Gower take place of you as lady to the Princess of Brunswick. I had a mind to speak to you on the spot, but would not, for fear of saying anything I should repent of, though I should have thought it. The Princess of Brunswick has nothing to do here, and I insist on your recovering the precedence you gave up. One day or other my son will be married, and then I shall have his wife’s ladies pretending to take place in my palace, which they shall not do.’ The Princess of Brunswick left England in a naturally angry mood. The King, reluctantly and tardily, paid both her journeys, and gave her 1,000l. besides. Her mother left her nothing.

The death of a woman of less note caused some conversation in Queen Charlotte’s circle, soon after the demise of the Princess-dowager of Wales, and it may be fittingly noticed here.

Petronilla Melusina was the illegitimate daughter of George I. and Mdlle. von der Schulenburg (Duchess of Kendal). It was the discovery of her birth (in 1693) that stirred Sophia Dorothea to the resolution to leave Hanover. Petronilla came to England, passed as her mother’s niece, and was created Countess of Walsingham. She became acquainted in this country with Lady Huntingdon, and that good, active, eccentric, but earnest apostle of the Gospel, Whitfield. With the latter Petronilla maintained a long correspondence, and she is spoken of as being a gem in the crown which metaphor placed upon the preacher’s brow.

In 1733, this lady married the Earl of Chesterfield, and in her name her husband is said to have compelled George II. to pay him a very large sum, which also, according to report, was bequeathed her by George I. in the will which was destroyed. She led as gay and careless a life as her lord, but not for so long a period as he. She was in the very height of her enjoyment of the splendour of the great world, when, attracted by curiosity to the obscurely lighted drawing-room of Lady Huntingdon, where Whitfield was preaching, she learned, for the first time, to heed as well as hear the story of the brighter splendour of a greater, and the night and anguish of a more terrible, world than the one in which she was the chief lady of the revels, and the fascinator, not to be resisted, of every man in it except her husband. It was here she first felt that all was not so well with her heart, nor so safe for her soul, as should be. She was a woman of strong mind, and she at once braved all the storm with which fools and fine gentlemen pelted her, by boldly declaring the difference which had come over her views, and that which should in future mark her practice. She would fain have retired altogether from the world, but in obedience to her husband, who exacted from her a service which he never repaid, she went occasionally to court. At each visit it was remarked that her costume diminished in finery, but increased in taste. At her last visit among the gay and panting throng she appeared in a plain but elegant dress of sober brown brocade, ‘powdered with silver flowers.’ A smile may mock this humility of a court lady, but the costly and continental simplicity was encountered by her half-brother the King (for it was in George II.’s time that this occurred) with a frown. He had not yet learned to honour pious men or women of any creed, and he had little respect for Lady Huntingdon or Whitfield. He accordingly made two or three steps in advance to the shrinking lady, and rather rudely remarked, ‘I know who selected that gown for you; it must have been Mr. Whitfield. I hear you have been a follower of his for this year and a half.’ Lady Chesterfield mildly replied, ‘I have, and very well do I like him,’ and withdrew; but she afterwards used to regret that she had not said more when she had so excellent an opportunity for uttering a word in season with effect.

Lady Huntingdon hoped, for some time, that a sense of religion might soon touch the heart of the Earl, who continued to be polite and impious to the last. He laughingly called death a leap in the dark, and he obstinately refused the light which would have saved him from leaping to his destruction. The nearest approach he ever made to being converted by Lady Huntingdon was when he once sent her a subscription towards building a chapel, and earnestly implored her not to expose him to ridicule by revealing the fact!

His noble wife—for she was a wife—true woman, rising above the shame of her birth, and resolute to save even him who was resolute and resigned to perish, was most assiduous at the death-bed of a husband who was as anxious as Charles II. to be courteous and civil, even in death. His last day on earth was the 24th of March, 1773; and his courtesy had well-nigh failed him when he heard that his wife had sent for Mr. Rowland Hill to attend him. ‘Dear Lady Chesterfield,’ says Lady Huntingdon, in one of her letters detailing ‘the blackness of darkness’ which had thickened round his dying moments, ‘Dear Lady Chesterfield could not be persuaded to leave his room for an instant. What unmitigated anguish has she endured! But her confidential communications I am not at liberty to disclose. The curtain has fallen; his immortal part has passed to another state of existence. Oh, my soul, come not thou unto his end!’

This wife, the illegitimate daughter of George I., was not even mentioned incidentally in a will which recognised the services of menials, and rewarded them with ostentation. But after Chesterfield’s death the mansion in May Fair, and its great room, and its dark, mysterious boudoirs, curtained with blue and silver tissue, and slightly echoing the rustle of silks that were not worn by the wife of the lord of the house—over all these there came a change. The stage remained, but the actors and audiences were different, and now we see that once little girl who usurped in Hanover a love to which she was not legitimately entitled, a sober woman grown, throwing open her saloons to Rowland Hill and the eager multitude who thronged to hear that hearty, honest, and uncompromising man. In March 1777, Horace Walpole wrote: ‘Lady Chesterfield has had a stroke of palsy, but may linger some time longer.’ In September of the following year, the record is: ‘Lady Chesterfield is dead, at above fourscore. She was not a girl when she came over with George I.’ ‘She was very like him,’ Walpole writes, in the following month to Cole, ‘as her brother, General Schulenburg, is, in black, to the late King.’

Such was the end of that lady whose birth in 1693 had so severely wounded the pride and self-dignity of Sophia Dorothea. ‘I was with her to the last,’ says Lady Huntingdon, ‘and never saw a soul more humbled in the dust before God, on account of her own vileness and nothingness, but having a sure and steadfast hope of the love and mercy of God in Christ, constantly affirming that his blood cleanseth from all sin. The last audible expressions which fell from her a few moments before her final struggle were, “Oh, my friend, I have hope, a strong hope—through grace.” Then, taking my hand, and clasping it earnestly between hers, she exclaimed with much energy, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”’

Between the period of the birth of the last child of Queen Charlotte and the date last named Her Majesty had presented other claimants upon the love and liberality of the people. These were Augustus (Sussex), born in 1773; Adolphus (Cambridge), in 1774; Mary, in 1776; and Sophia, in 1777. Walpole compares a Mrs. Fitzroy with the Queen. ‘Mrs. Fitzroy,’ he writes, ‘has got a seventh boy. Between her and the Queen, London will be like the senate of old Rome, an assembly of princes. In a few generations there will be no joke in saying, “Their Highnesses the Mob.”’ Meanwhile a Queen, thus constantly occupied, performed all household and matronly duties in a way that won respect even from those who detected in her faults of temper or errors in politics. Of her method and success in training some of her children we have this evidence. The King took frequent excursions, while the Queen kept house at home. Of one of these, a visit to the fleet at Portsmouth, Walpole writes: ‘All England is gone to meet King George at Portsmouth. The Duchess of Northumberland gives forty guineas for a bed, and must take her chamber-maid into it. I did not think she would pay so dear for such company. His Majesty, because the post-chaises of gods are as immortal as their persons, would not suffer a second chaise to be sent for him; and therefore, if his could and did break down, he would enter Portsmouth in triumph in a hack.’

When the youngest of the daughters of Her Majesty was about six years old, the well-known Jacob Bryant heard the Queen make a remark to the child which he (the author of the ‘Treatise on the Authenticity of the Scriptures and Truth of the Christian Religion’) considered and cited as high authority for a mode of reasoning which he adopted when speaking of the obstacles that encumber the way even of the seekers after truth. He is alluding to those who are discouraged because the truth they would fain seize is not yet obvious to them; and he bids them wait with patience and not be discouraged. ‘I have high authority,’ he says, ‘for this mode of reasoning, which I hope I may take the liberty to produce. When a great personage some years ago was visiting the royal nursery, a most amiable princess (the Princess Mary, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester), then about six years old, ran with a book in her hand, and tears in her eyes, and said, “Madam, I cannot comprehend it! I cannot comprehend it!” Her Majesty, with true parental affection, looked upon the princess, and bade her not to be alarmed. “What you cannot comprehend to-day, you may comprehend to-morrow; and what you cannot attain to this year, you may arrive at the next. Do not therefore be frightened with little difficulties, but attend to what you do know, and the rest will come in time.”’ This was good common sense, and Mr. Bryant calls it ‘a golden rule, well worthy our observation.’ Charlotte, too, could say a witty as well as a wise thing. The year 1775 was unmarked by the birth of an heir or heiress in Brunswick’s line. The Queen’s own birthday drawing-room was all the more brilliant. ‘The crowd,’ says Walpole, ‘was excessive, and had squeezed, and shoved, and pressed upon the Queen in the most hoyden manner. As she went out of the drawing-room, somebody said, in flattery, that “the crowd was very great.” “Yes,” said the Queen, “and wherever one went, the Queen was in everybody’s way.”’

Her Majesty displayed even more readiness in patronising such men as the author above named than she did in the patronage of musicians, fond as she and her royal consort were of the really tuneful art. In old days the honour of British queens was said to be most safe when it had a bard for its attendant protector. At a comparatively early period the Queen furnished the grateful Prince of Wales with a chaplain, whose chief duty was comprised in daily reading prayers in the young prince’s presence, and, if we may judge by the result, not very much to the young prince’s profit. Among those who were candidates for the office was the too celebrated Dr. Dodd; but though the Queen was in some degree interested in him, on account of his reported ability, she united heartily with the King in refusing to nominate him to the responsible duty. The elder princes were, as early as 1773, located at Carlton House, under the guardianship of Lady Charlotte Finch, almost daily superintended by the Queen. The latter was, however, always glad to escape from town to Kew, which had come into the King’s possession on the death of his mother, and for which the residence at Old Richmond had been abandoned. It was at Kew that she received Beattie, for whom she had procured a pension of 200l. a-year, right royal reward, for his indifferent work on the Immutability of Truth. The well-recompensed author was in too good a humour with the royal lady to see any fault in her. He even pronounced her English ‘fair,’ and herself as ‘most agreeable.’ The portraits of her, he thought, hardly rendered her justice, and the expression of her eye and of her smile was declared by him to be most engaging.

She was not so favourably considered by some of her own court. Thus, the wearers of the fashionable long feathers denounced her bad taste when the Queen issued her decree against their being worn at court. The decree, however, was not issued without great provocation, a dowager-duchess having appeared at a drawing-room with a head-dress of feathers a yard and a quarter in height. The sight was so ridiculous that Charlotte would, for a long time, neither tolerate them in others nor wear them herself. The maids of honour grumbled as heartily at this as they did at the rule of the Queen’s household which did not provide them with supper. The fair ladies’ remonstrance on this latter subject almost amounted to a mutiny. The affair was ended by compromise. Their salary was raised, and each maid received on her marriage a gift of 1,000l. from the Queen.

The latter frowned when the heavy bargain was concluded, but she changed the frown for a smile on being told that the Prince of Wales had corrected Lord Bruce for making a false quantity. Next to his being a gentleman she hoped he would be a scholar, and here was a prospect of her hopes being realised!

As a sample of the Queen’s benevolence we may cite the following record. In the action off Brest, in which the adversaries fought with a valour which did honour to both parties and enhanced the glory of the victors, there was no ship more distinguished in the fray than the gallant but luckless Quebec. This vessel blew up in the action, and out of her numerous crew only seventeen persons escaped. Among the latter was a master’s mate, named William Moore, afterwards Captain Moore. He was desperately wounded in the shoulder and leg, and he conceived little hopes of ever being, like the old commodore in the song, fit for sea again. Meanwhile, however, he had a friend at court, in the person of a kinsman named Ashburner, who was mercer to the Queen. The kind-hearted tradesman was exhibiting his wares to Her Majesty, when amid his commendations of them he contrived to introduce his cousin’s name and condition, with some commiserating comment upon his hard fate. The Queen was extremely judicious in her acts of charity, and she simply told the mercer to send the master’s mate down to Windsor, if he were well enough to bear the journey. The very command was sovereign spermaceti to his wounds, and in a day or two the sadly battered sailor was comfortably lodged at Windsor, the patient of the Queen’s own surgeon and physician. He took some time to cure, but the desired result was achieved at last, and the master’s mate now stood in presence of the Queen to thank her, which the pale sailor did with faltering expression of gratitude, for the royal benevolence which had again made a man of him. To a query from the royal lady, he protested that he felt perfectly equal for the performance of duty again. ‘So I hear from the doctor,’ said Queen Charlotte. ‘And I have spoken about you to the King, and there, Mr. Moore, is His Majesty’s acknowledgments for your gallantry and sufferings when afloat.’ Mr. Moore thought the Queen and King an exceedingly civil couple to say so much about the performance of a matter of duty, and he was about to retire from the presence, when the Queen said, smilingly, ‘Mr. Moore, will not you see what His Majesty says?’ The master’s mate obeyed, and was rewarded for his obedience by finding that he had been promoted to a lieutenancy on board the Mercury. This was a good deed gracefully enacted. Not less so was another of which the Queen was the author, whereby she procured for the widow and large family of Captain Farmer, who fell in the Quebec, an annuity which made really princely provision for the widow and children of the slain commander.

The poets of 1779 were not addicted to satire, except in jest. Thus one, in a rhymed dialogue, makes one of his interlocutors say to the other—

I own your satire’s just and keen;

Proceed, and satirise the Queen.

To which the reply is—

With all my heart.—The Queen, they say,

Attends her nurs’ry every day;

And, like a common mother, shares

In all her infants’ little cares.

What vulgar, unamusing scene,

For George’s wife and Britain’s queen.

’Tis whispered also at the palace

(I hope ’tis but the voice of malice)

That (tell it not in foreign lands)

She works with her own royal hands;

And that our sovereign’s sometimes seen

In vest embroidered by his queen.

This might a courtly fashion be

In days of old Andromache;

But modern ladies, trust my words,

Seldom sew tunics for their lords.

What secret next must I unfold?

She hates, I’m confidently told—

She hates the manners of the times

And all our fashionable crimes,

And fondly wishes to restore

The golden age, and days of yore,

When silly, simple women thought

A breach of chastity a fault,

Esteem’d those modest things, divorces,

The very worst of human curses;

And deem’d assemblies, cards, and dice

The springs of every sort of vice.

Romantic notions! all the fair

At such absurdities must stare;

And, spite of all her pains, will still

Love routs, adultery, and quadrille.

Well, is that all you find to blame,

Sir Critic, in the royal dame?

All I could find to blame? no, truly!

The longest day in June and July

Would fail me ere I could express

The half of Charlotte’s blemishes.

Those foolish and old-fashioned ways

Of keeping holy Sabbath days,

That affectation to appear

At church, the Word of God to hear:

That poor-like plainness in her dress,

So void of noble tawdriness:

That affability and ease

That can her menial servants please,

But which incredibly demean

The state and grandeur of a queen:

These, and a thousand things beside,

I could discover and deride.

But here’s enough; another day

I may, perhaps, renew my lay.

Are you content?

Not quite, unless

You put your satire to the press.

For sure a satire in this mode

Is equal to a birthday ode.

No doubt of it! and much better written and applied than any of the birthday odes of the period. The fact was, that if there were strong prejudices, there were also simple virtues at court. The King would have no ode sung to him, as his predecessors had, on New Year’s day; and the Queen would not allow Twelfth Night to be celebrated by the usually ruinous play at ‘hazard.’ No wonder the poets praised her.

The King loved Kew, and hated Hampton Court because George II. had once struck him there. Of the royal domestic life at the former place a contemporary observer has given a sketch, when the royal parents were still young and their offspring still children:—

‘Their Majesties rise at 6 o’clock in the morning, and enjoy the two succeeding hours in a manner which they call their own. At 8 o’clock the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburg, the Princess Royal, and the Princes William and Edward are brought from their respective apartments to breakfast with their illustrious parents. At 9 o’clock the younger children attend to lisp or smile their good-morrows; and while the five eldest are closely applying to their tasks, the little ones and their nurses pass the whole morning in Richmond Gardens. The King and Queen frequently amuse themselves with sitting in the room while the children dine, and once a week, attended by the whole offspring in pairs, make the little delightful tour of Richmond Gardens. In the afternoon, while the Queen works, the King reads to her. In the evening all the children again pay their duty at Kew House before they retire to bed, and the same order is observed through each returning day. Exercise, air, and light diet are the grand fundamentals in the King’s idea of health. His Majesty feeds chiefly on vegetables, and drinks but little wine. The Queen is what many private gentlewomen would call whimsically abstemious; for, at a table covered with dishes, she prefers the plainest and simplest dish, and seldom eats of more than two things at a meal. Her wardrobe is changed every three months; and while the nobility are eager to supply themselves with foreign trifles, her care is that nothing but what is English shall be provided for her wear.’

CHAPTER V.
PERILS, PROGRESS, AND PASTIMES.

The American War—Dr. Dodd—The Duchess of Queensberry and the ‘Beggars’ Opera’—Royal Progress—Royal Visit to Bulstrode—Mrs. Delany and Queen Charlotte—Birth of Prince Octavius—Strange, the Engraver—The Riots of London—Lady Sarah Lennox—The Prince and his Sire—The Prince’s Preceptors—Errors committed in the education of the Princes—The Prince’s favourite, Perdita Robinson—Marie Antoinette’s present to her—Separate establishment granted to the Prince—Lord North’s facetious remark—Parliamentary provision for the Prince—The Prince’s presence in the House of Commons not acceptable—His pursuit of pleasure—The Duke of Clarence described by Walpole—The Prince of Wales overwhelmed with debts—Dissension in the Royal Family—Marriage proposed to him to extricate him from his debts—The Prince’s connection with Mrs. Fitzherbert—The Prince’s Marriage disclaimed by Mr. Fox—The Prince’s behaviour to Mrs. Fitzherbert—The Prince acknowledges his Marriage to the Queen.

There had been, during the recent years of Charlotte’s married life, no lack of either private or public trials and misfortunes. The struggles of the government at home against the press had signally failed; and that against the American colonies, wherein France, Spain, and Holland were arrayed against England, ended in the acknowledgment, on our part, of the independence of the United States. The unpopularity of the King, who applied for and received 100,000l. per annum in addition to the 400,000l. granted to him at his accession, was extended to the Queen. The King was insulted by a female, said to be insane, as he was proceeding in his chair to the Haymarket Theatre. This circumstance rendered the Queen ill at ease for several days. Her sympathy could at no time, however, induce the King to grant her a favour, if he thought it was against his sense of right. Thus, few persons more interested themselves to rescue the Reverend Dr. Dodd, the forger, from the hands of the executioner, than Queen Charlotte. Her respect for the sacred office was so great that it seemed to be something shocking that a clergyman should be hanged. But George III. remarked that Dodd’s offence was rendered the more grievous from the fact of his being a clergyman, and that the law must take its course.

During the year 1778 many royal ‘progresses’ were made to the fleet, to the fortified towns on the coast, to the various camps, and to the mansions of the nobility. A general air of festivity was exhibited about the Queen and court, but there was nothing in the condition of the affairs of the kingdom to warrant the apparent joy. By sea and land our flag, though not dishonoured, was not triumphant; and for the moment the most unpopular man in the kingdom was the King himself—obstinate in his determination to govern as well as reign, and daily verging towards that disturbed state of mind which ended at last in hopeless insanity.

Meanwhile, however, the home enjoyments of the court were placid and unexciting. In her ‘progresses’ with the King, Charlotte was not reluctant to maintain the state of a Queen. Her ideas on this subject seem strange to us now. Thus, when she held a court in the old royal city of Winchester, her costume consisted of a scarlet riding-habit, faced with blue, and covered with rich gold embroidery. In the same dress, with the addition of a black hat and a large cockade, she accompanied the King on his visits to the various camps established in the south. Nothing, however, could be more simple than the way of life of this royal pair when really ‘at home.’ Its simplicity extracted from a foreigner who witnessed it the remark that such citizen-like plainness was injurious to royalty, and an encouragement to republicanism.

Adopting as far as possible the descriptions of eye-witnesses of scenes in which the sovereigns enacted the principal part, we will now turn to the gossiping Mrs. Delany’s letters for the report of a visit made in 1779 by the Queen and her royal consort and family to the Duke of Portland’s, at Bulstrode. ‘The royal family,’ says the writer, ‘ten in all, came to Bulstrode at twelve o’clock. The King drove the Queen in an open chaise, with a pair of white horses. The Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick rode on horseback; all with proper attendants, but no guards. Princess Royal and Lady Weymouth in a post-chaise. Princess Augusta, Princess Elizabeth, Prince Adolphus (about seven years old), and Lady Charlotte Finch, in a coach. Prince William, Prince Edward, Duke of Montague, and the Bishop of Lichfield, in a coach; another coach full of attendant gentlemen; among others, Mr. Smelt, whose character sets him above most men and does great honour to the King, who calls him his friend, and has drawn him out of his solitude (the life he had chosen), to enjoy his conversation every leisure moment. These, with all their attendants in rank and file, made a splendid figure as they drove through the park and round the court, up to the house. The day was as brilliant as could be wished, the 12th of August, the Prince of Wales’s birthday. The Queen was in a hat, and in an Italian night-gown of purple lustring, trimmed with silver gauze. She is graceful and genteel. The dignity and sweetness of her manner, the perfect propriety of everything she says or does, satisfies everybody she honours with her instructions so much that beauty is by no means wanting to make her perfectly agreeable; and though awe and long retirement from court made me feel timid on my being called to make my appearance, I soon found myself perfectly at ease; for the King’s conversation and good humour took off all awe but what one must have for so respectable a character, severely tried by his enemies at home as well as abroad. The three princesses were all in frocks. The King and all the men were in uniform, blue and gold. They walked through the great apartments, which are in a line, and attentively observed everything, the pictures in particular. I kept back in the drawing-room, and took that opportunity of sitting down, when the Princess Royal returned to me and said the Queen missed me in the train. I immediately obeyed the summons with my best alacrity. Her Majesty met me half-way, and seeing me hasten my steps, called out to me, “Though I desired you to come, I did not desire you to run and fatigue yourself.” They all returned to the great drawing-room, where there were only two arm-chairs, placed in the middle of the room for the King and Queen. The King placed the Duchess Dowager of Portland in his chair, and walked about, admiring the beauties of the place. Breakfast was offered, all prepared in a long gallery that runs the length of the great apartments (a suite of eight rooms and three closets). The King and all his royal children and the rest of the train chose to go to the gallery, where the well-furnished tables were set, one with tea, coffee, and chocolate, another with their proper accompaniments of eatables, rolls, cakes, &c. Another table with fruits and ices in their utmost perfection, which with a magical touch had succeeded a cold repast. The Queen remained in the drawing-room. I stood at the back of her chair, which, happening to be one of my working, gave the Queen an opportunity to say many obliging things. The Duchess Dowager of Portland brought Her Majesty a dish of tea on a waiter, with biscuits, which was what she chose. After she had drunk her tea, she would not return her cup to the Duchess, but got up and would carry it to the gallery herself; and was much pleased to see with what elegance everything was prepared. No servants but those out of livery made their appearance. The gay and pleasant appearance they all made, and the satisfaction all expressed, rewarded the attention and politeness of the Duchess of Portland, who is never so happy as when she gratifies those she esteems worthy of her attentions and favours. The young royals seemed quite happy, from the eldest to the youngest, and to inherit the gracious manners of their parents. I cannot enter upon their particular address to me, which not only did me honour, but showed their humane and benevolent respect for old age. The King desired me to show the Queen one of my books of plants. She seated herself in the gallery, a table and a book laid before her. I kept my distance till she called me to ask some questions about the mosaic paper work; and as I stood before Her Majesty, the King set a chair behind me. I turned with some confusion and hesitation on receiving so great an honour, when the Queen said, “Mrs. Delany, sit down, sit down; it is not every lady that has a chair brought her by a King.” So I obeyed. Amongst many gracious things, the Queen asked me why I was not with the Duchess when she came, for I might be sure she would ask for me. I was flattered, though I knew to whom I was obliged for this distinction, and doubly flattered by that. I acknowledged it in as few words as possible, and said I was particularly happy at that moment to pay my duty to Her Majesty, as it gave me an opportunity to see so many of the royal family, which age and obscurity had deprived me of. “Oh, but,” said Her Majesty, “you have not seen all my children yet.” Upon which the King came up and asked what we were talking about, which was repeated, and the King replied to the Queen, “You may put Mrs. Delany in the way of doing that by naming a day for her to drink tea at Windsor Castle.” The Duchess of Portland was consulted, and the next day fixed upon, as the Duchess had appointed the end of the week for going to Weymouth.’

In 1779 was born the short-lived Prince Octavius. Before the death of this happy little Prince, Strange, the engraver, consented to engrave his portrait. The Queen did not like the politics of the artist, for he was the most determined Jacobite in the kingdom—except his wife. He was so successful, however, with his ‘plate’ of Octavius, that George III. knighted him; and even his wife thought the better of the ‘Elector and Electress of Hanover’ for having made her what ‘the King over the water’ had never thought of doing—Lady Strange.

The following year was that of the riots of London. While that popular tumult was raging the King behaved with courage and common sense; and the Queen, left almost entirely alone at Buckingham House with her children, with equal calmness and intrepidity. The ‘ladies’ who ought to have been in attendance had hurried homeward with their jewels. The Queen did not lose heart at this desertion, but was amply comforted by the frequent yet brief visits of the King, who spent two entire nights, holding council with the heads of the army, in the Queen’s Riding House.

In the September of this year another prince, Alfred—who shared with his brother Octavius the advantages of dying early—was added to the family of George and Charlotte. This increase, perhaps, inspired her with increase of sympathy for others. In the fall of this year she very warmly seconded the project of Mr. Raikes for the foundation of Sunday Schools. The project was sneered at, snubbed, and satirised by a public who, however, were ultimately wise enough to be grateful.

In 1780, Walpole affords us a glimpse of the alleged rival of Queen Charlotte in company with the Queen’s son. ‘The Prince of Wales has lately made a visit to Lady Cecilia Johnstone, where Lady Sarah Napier was.’ She was the Lady Sarah Lennox who had touched the heart of the King some twenty years before. ‘She did not appear, but he insisted on seeing her, and said, “She was to have been there,” pointing to Windsor Castle. When she came down he said he did not wonder at his father’s admiring her, and was persuaded she had not been more beautiful then.’

In 1781, at the age of nineteen, the Prince of Wales became ‘lord of himself.’ His mother had been his first governess; and at eight years of age he had been delivered by his father to Dr. Markham and Cyril Jackson, with the injunction to treat him as they would any private gentleman’s son, and to flog him whenever he deserved it. Markham acted up to his instructions. The Prince never bore any ill-will to either preceptor or sub-preceptor for their severity; but he took the earliest opportunity of showing his antagonism against his father. In 1772, when the struggle was going on between Wilkes and the crown—for such were the real adversaries—the young Prince made his sire’s ears tingle indignantly with the popular cry of ‘Wilkes and “forty-five” for ever!’

The young Prince’s preceptors were changed in 1776. Lord Bruce became governor in place of Lord Holdernesse; but he retired almost immediately, vexed, it is said, at the Prince having detected him in the commission of a false quantity. Bishop Hurd and the Rev. Mr. Arnold, under the superintendence of the oatmeal-porridge-loving Duke of Montague, were now entrusted to impart what instruction they might to the Prince and his next brother Frederick. They adopted the old plan of severity; but on endeavouring to carry it into effect, when the high-spirited boys were considerably advanced in their teens, one or both of the royal pupils turned on their preceptor, Arnold, who was about most grossly to castigate them, tore the weapon from his hand, and roughly administered to him the punishment with which they themselves had been threatened.

Excess of restraint marred the education of the two elder sons of Charlotte. Even when the Prince was considered of age, and was allowed his own establishment at Kew, the system of seclusion was still maintained. Such a system had its natural consequences. The Prince, ill at ease with his parents, sought sympathy elsewhere; and he was not yet out of his teens when Charlotte was horrified at hearing his name coupled with that of the most bewitching actress of the day.

Had the father of Miss Darby, the maiden name of Mrs. Robinson, been a man of less philanthropic principles, his daughter, probably, would have been a more virtuous and a more happy woman. She was born at Bristol in 1758, and was looked upon as a little heiress, till her father lost the whole of a not inconsiderable fortune by speculating in an attempt to civilise the Esquimaux Indians!

Miss Darby was, for some time, a pupil of Miss Hannah More; but was herself compelled to turn instructress as early as in her fourteenth year. She was, however, a precocious beauty; and the year previous she had received an offer of marriage, which she had declined. The young teacher worked hard and cheerfully, in order that she might be the better enabled to support her mother. The proceeds of this labour also enabled her to increase the number of her own accomplishments; among others, dancing. Her master was a Covent Garden ballet-master, who introduced her to Garrick, and Roscius brought her out on the stage, in the character of Cordelia with success.

Before she had terminated her sixteenth year she married Mr. Robinson, an articled clerk in an attorney’s office, with a good fortune, upon which the youthful couple lived in splendour till it was gone, and the husband was arrested. His wife then spent fifteen months with him in prison, and then misery drove her again to Garrick, who gave her some instruction, rehearsed Romeo to her Juliet, and, bringing her out in the latter character, gave to the stage one of the handsomest and youngest and most captivating of actresses who had ever charmed the town.

Her Juliet was admirable, but her Perdita, in the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ set the town mad. On the 3rd of December 1779 she played the character in presence of George III., Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the royal family, and a numerous audience. When she entered the green-room, dressed for the part, she looked so bewitching that Smith exclaimed, ‘By Jove! you will make a conquest of the Prince, for you look handsomer than ever.’ Smith’s prediction was true; and letters from the Prince, signed ‘Florizel,’ were delivered to Perdita by no less noble a go-between than the Earl of Essex.

The position of Perdita Robinson at this time was peculiar: her husband was living in profligacy upon the wages of her labour, and she had refused the most brilliant offers made to her on condition of separating from him. She refused them all; but lent too ready an ear to the princely suitor, who now besieged her with indifferently-written letters and promises of never-dying affection. An interview was contrived, first in a boat moored off Kew, and afterwards in Kew Gardens by moonlight, at which the Bishop of Osnaburgh was present—by way of playing propriety, perhaps—and at which there appears to have been little said, but much feared, lest the parties should be found out.

The prince and Perdita became so attached to each other after a few more interviews that she declared she should never forget the magic with which she was wooed, and he presented her with a bond for 20,000l., to be paid on his coming of age. When that period arrived—it happened in a few months—‘Florizel’ would not pay the money, and had grown weary of the lady. To modify her despair, he granted a last interview, in which he declared that his affection for her was as great as ever; and the poor lady, who trusted in the declaration, was passed by on the following day, in the park, without a sign of recognition on the part of her princely betrayer. The remark which she made on this conduct was worthy of Talleyrand for its sting, smartness, and application—but it is as well, perhaps, to leave it unquoted.

She had quitted the stage to please him, and now, in her embarrassment, sought refuge abroad, living in straitened circumstances in Paris, till, by the intervention of Mr. Fox, an annuity was settled upon her of 500l. a-year. With this she maintained some splendour, and she was even noticed by Marie Antoinette as La belle Anglaise. The gift of a purse netted by the royal hand of that unfortunate Queen, and conferred by her on Perdita, showed at once the sovereign lady’s admiration and lack of judgment and propriety.

For some time she resided alternately in England and France, but ultimately, she settled at Brighton, about the time that Mrs. Fitzherbert was there in the brightest of her beauty and the height of her splendour. The ex-actress wrote pretty poetry, and was the authoress of a dozen novels: poetry and romances are now forgotten; but the former does not want for tenderness of sentiment and expression, nor the latter for power and good sense. Finally, in 1799, she undertook the poetical department of the Morning Post, retained her office for a few months, and died in the year 1800.

Perdita was not without her grievous faults; but she had her virtues, too. She was the loving and helping child of her mother, and she was the loving and helping mother of her child. For her mother and her daughter she worked at her literary occupations with unwearied fervour, and even Hannah More may have refrained from casting reproach on her erring and yet not worthless pupil.

In 1783 the Prince of Wales had allotted to him a separate establishment. He could have none more appropriate than that old Carlton House which had been the residence of his grandfather, Frederick Prince of Wales—a man whom he resembled in many respects. The old house was originally built on a part of the royal garden around St. James’s Palace, a lease whereof was granted for that purpose by Queen Anne to Henry Boyle, Lord Carlton. This was in 1709. Sixteen years subsequently, on the death of Lord Carlton, the house was occupied by his heir and nephew, Richard Boyle (Lord Burlington, the architect), who seven years later (1732) gave it to his mother, the Dowager Lady Burlington, by whom, in the same year, it was made over to Frederick Prince of Wales, father of George III. The gardens, laid out by Kent, like Pope’s grounds at Twickenham, extended westward as far as Marlborough House. The first change that Frederick made was to construct a bowling-green, the healthy exercise of bowls being then fashionable; and he inaugurated his entry by a grand ball, given, as the Daily Post says, ‘to several persons of quality and distinction of both sexes.’

George Prince of Wales found the old house rather antiquated as to fashion and dilapidated as to condition, and he employed Holland, the architect, to correct these defects. The artist did that, and more. He added the Ionic screen, some of the pillars of which are now in Queen Charlotte’s favourite gardens at Kew, and the Corinthian portico, the columns of which, when the house was taken down in 1827, were transferred to the National Gallery. On the two residences of the two eldest sons of Queen Charlotte, Southey, in his ‘Espriella’s Letters,’ has a remark worth quoting. The Duke of York’s mansion (Melbourne House, Whitehall), now known as Dover House, was distinguished by a circular court, which served as a sort of entrance-hall. It still remains, and may be seen from the street. The distinguishing feature of Carlton House was the row of pillars in front. ‘These two buildings being described to the late Lord North, who was blind in the latter part of his life, he facetiously remarked, “Then the Duke of York, it should seem, has been sent to the round-house, and the Prince of Wales is put in the pillory.”’

Meanwhile, despite the Prince’s escapades, the least innocent of which was his visiting a Quaker’s meeting disguised as a female Friend—where he was betrayed by the appearance of his leather breeches, seen through the pocket-hole of the gown—despite these and other escapades, the Queen’s affection for her son was in no wise diminished. In 1782 she had brought tambouring into fashion by embroidering for him, with her own hands, a waistcoat, which he wore at the first ball at which his sister, the princess royal, appeared in public. The Queen, however, had more serious subjects for her consideration. She had to mourn over the death of the infant Alfred, and for the loss of a sister. We find also, this year, the first direct proof of her having interfered in politics. It was in 1782 that Charlotte commissioned Hutten, the Moravian, to enter into correspondence with Franklin, with a view of conciliating matters with the United States.

The eldest son of Queen Charlotte began life very amply provided for; Parliament gave him 100,000l. as an outfit, and 50,000l. annually by way of income. Three months after the birth of his youngest sister, Amelia, in November 1783, he took his seat in the House of Peers, joined the opposition, gave himself up to the leading of the opposition chiefs, whether in politics or vices, was praised by the people for his spirit, and estranged from the King, who did not like the principles of those who called themselves his son’s friends, and who held in horror the vices and follies for which they were distinguished. He was as often present under the gallery of the Commons as in his seat in the Lords. Such a presence is never acceptable, in such a place, to the representatives of the people. It perhaps influences the votes, and certainly affects the liberty of debate. As much was hinted to the Prince, when he used to watch the struggle in the Commons between the Coalition and Pitt. He made the hint his excuse for being disgusted with politics, and thereupon devoted himself to but one pursuit—the love of pleasure. But if he had only one pursuit, it had many varieties and objects. He hunted after what was called ‘pleasure’ in every form, squandered fortunes in not finding it, and made what he called ‘love’ and extraordinary presents to two ladies at one and the same time. Mrs. Crouch, the actress, and Mrs. Fitzherbert (whom he married), were the Lucy and Polly to whom this light-of-heart prince gaily sang his ‘How happy could I be with either!’

Walpole speaks very highly (in 1783) of the Prince’s brother, William Henry, whom he met at Gunnersbury, the suburban seat of the old Princess Amelia. ‘He had been with the Princess in the morning,’ writes Walpole, ‘and returned of his own accord to dinner. She presented me to him, and I attempted, at the risk of tumbling on my nose, to kiss his hand, but he would not let me. You may trust me, madam, who am not apt to be intoxicated with royalty, that he is charming. Lively, cheerful, talkative, manly, well-bred, sensible, and exceedingly proper in all his replies. You may judge how good-humoured he is, when I tell you that he was in great spirits all day, though with us old women; perhaps he thought it preferable to Windsor.’

The Prince of Wales was already overwhelmed with debt. The domestic comfort of the Queen was even more disturbed than that of her consort by the solicitations made by the so-called friends of the Prince of Wales to induce the King to pay the debts of his eldest son. Her Majesty’s confidence is said to have been fully placed at this time upon Mr Pitt. A conversation is spoken of as having passed between the Queen and the minister, in which he is reported as having said, ‘I much fear, your Majesty, that the Prince, in his wild moments, may allow expressions to escape him that may be injurious to the crown.’ ‘There is little fear of that,’ was the alleged reply of the Queen; ‘he is too well aware of the consequences of such a course of conduct to himself. As regards that point, therefore, I can rely upon him.’ Mr. Pitt inquired if her Majesty was aware of the intimacy which then existed between Mrs. Fitzherbert and the heir-apparent, and that reports of an intended marriage were current? ‘He is now so much embarrassed,’ added the minister, ‘that at the suggestion of his friend Sheridan he borrows large amounts from a Jew who resides in town, and gives his bonds for much larger amounts than he receives.’

In the family dissensions caused by this unhappy subject neither sire nor son behaved with fairness and candour. In 1784, the Prince had been required to send in an exact account of his debts, with a view to their liquidation. The King had, at least, intimated that he would discharge the Prince’s liabilities if this account was rendered. The account was rendered; but, after having been kept for months, it was returned as not being exact. The inexactness of this statement consisted of an item of 25,000l. being entered without any explanation as to whom it was owing. The Prince refused to make such explanation, on the ground that it was a secret of honour between him and his noble creditor, in whom many persons affected to see the famous, or infamous, Duke of Orleans. The King declared that, if the Prince was ashamed to explain the nature of the debt, his father ought not to be expected to pay it; and there the matter rested.

By the following year his debts amounted to 160,000l., and he could see no chance of relief but by going abroad. His first idea was of a residence in Holland, and he was ready to proceed thither as a private individual, should the King refuse to consent to his leaving England. All that he wished for, according to his own declarations, was to economise, to live in retirement, and remain unknown, until he could appear in a style suitable to his rank. He complained of the unreasonableness of the King’s proposition, that he should lay by 10,000l. a-year to pay his debts, at a time, he said, when his expenses were twice as great as his income. Such complaint could only come from a radically dishonest man; for it is only such a man who, with an income on which he could very well afford to live—and spare—could complacently talk of even allowing his expenses to exceed his revenue.

The Prince affected to think that he might, perhaps, be able to live in retirement at some of the small German courts, fancying that, under the title of the Earl of Chester, his actions would not be judged of as those of a Prince of Wales. At all events, he declared that to live in England would be ruin and disgrace to him; for that the King hated him, wished to set him at variance with his brothers, and would not even let Parliament assist him till he should marry. The King’s hatred for his son, according to the latter, had existed from the time he was seven years old. Reconciliation was deemed by the Prince impossible; for his father, he said, had not only deceived him, but made him deceive others. The son could not trust the father, and the father had no belief in the veracity of the son.

The ministry were not disinclined, at this time, to increase the Prince’s allowance, provided only that he would appropriate some portion of it to the payment of his debts, renounce his project of going abroad, and consent to a reconciliation with the King, by ceasing to be a man of political party in opposition to the government. The sum proposed was 100,000l. per annum, the half of which was to be reserved for the payment of his debts. The Prince describes the offer as useless, inasmuch as that, though the ministry might sanction it, the King would not hear of it, and Pitt could not carry such a measure in Parliament. The Prince asserted his belief that so rooted was his father’s hatred of him that he would turn out Pitt if he ventured to propose such a measure. Further, the Prince refused to abandon Fox and his other political friends. Lord Malmesbury was very anxious to bring the Prince to terms; but the latter still dwelt upon the bitter paternal hatred. In proof of this he exhibited to Lord Malmesbury copies of the correspondence which had passed between himself and his royal sire on the subject. Lord Malmesbury thus describes the letters, and the spirit which animated the writers:—

‘The Prince’s letters were full of respect and deference, written with great plainness of style and simplicity. Those of the King were also well written, but hard and severe; constantly refusing every request the Prince made, and reprobating in each of them his extravagance and dissipated manner of living. They were void of every expression of parental kindness or affection, and after both hearing them read and perusing them myself, I was compelled to subscribe to the Prince’s opinion, and to confess there was very little appearance of making any impression upon His Majesty in favour of His Royal Highness.’

Lord Malmesbury suggested that, as the Queen must have much at heart the bringing about a reconciliation between her son and his father, such might surely be effected through her and his sisters. The Prince thought it impracticable, and only wished that the public knew all the truth and could judge between him and his sire, anticipating a favourable verdict for himself, which, however, the public would not have given even when in possession of all the facts.

Lord Malmesbury then suggested a means of escape from all difficulties by a marriage which would at once reconcile the King and gratify the nation. The Prince, however, emphatically declared that he would never marry; that he had settled that subject with his brother Frederick; and that his resolution was irrevocable. Lord Malmesbury combated such a resolution, but the Prince remained unconvinced. He owed nothing, he said, to the King. Frederick would marry, and his children would inherit the crown. His adviser suggested that a bachelor King, as he would be, would have less hold on the affections of the people than a married heir and father of children, as his brother would be. ‘The Prince was greatly struck with this observation. He walked about the room apparently angry;’ but, after a few friendly words of explanation, the interlocutors separated, and the scene was at an end.

At the time the Prince said he never would marry he had in his mind that serious marriage which he already had formed with Mrs. Fitzherbert. We may add, with respect to this union and the character of the Prince as a lover, a few words on the authority of Lord Holland.

Never did swain make love so absurdly as the Prince of Wales. For the ‘first gentleman in Europe,’ he was the greatest simpleton, under the influence of ‘passion,’ that ever existed. When he was not silly, he was mean, and he sometimes was both, and heartless to boot, even when he most prattled of the heart-anguish he endured. To Perdita Robinson he was little better than a mere bilking knave. In presence of the majestic Mrs. Fitzherbert he was an undignified coxcomb. He insulted her virtue with proposals which even princes ought not to dare to make without bringing personal chastisement upon themselves. Finding his offers declined, and that the lady was going abroad, he acted, and declared he felt, the utmost despair. But his despair was farcical. He went down to his friends the Foxes, at St. Anne’s, where he ‘cried by the hour, testified the sincerity and violence of his passion and despair by the most extravagant expressions and actions, rolling on the floor, striking his forehead, tearing his hair, falling into hysterics, and swearing he would abandon the country, forego the crown, sell his jewels and plate, and scrape together a competency, to fly with the object of his affections to America.’

The lady proceeded to the continent, but returned in 1785. She came more prepared to listen to the Prince’s wooing than when she left. He now proposed a marriage, but she knew that, she being a Romanist, such a marriage could not be legal. Indeed, it was illegal for any prince of the blood to marry without the King’s consent, before he had attained the age of twenty-five. After that time he was to notify his intention to Parliament, and if that body did not move the King to withhold his consent within a year, the marriage then might be entered upon. Mrs. Fitzherbert, however, frankly enough said that the ceremony would be all nonsense, and that she was ready to trust to his honour. He insisted, however, and the ceremony was duly performed by an English clergyman. After the solemnisation, the certificate was signed by the clergyman and attested by two witnesses, said to have been Catholics. Mrs. Fitzherbert retained the certificate; but out of a generous fear that harm might come to the witnesses if they should become known she tore off their names. The name of the clergyman (who died before George IV. ascended the throne) remains affixed to the document.

Mr. Fox was not present at this ceremony, but reports were so current as to its being about to take place, or to its having taken place, that he addressed to the Prince a very long, a very strong, and a very sensible letter, of which a rough copy (from Fox’s MS.) will be found in Lord Holland’s ‘Memoirs of the Whig Party.’ In this manly letter the writer points out the madness of such a scheme, the terrible consequences that might ensue, the illegality of the manner, and the possibility, should the Prince enter subsequently into a legal matrimonial union, and there being issue by both, of a disputed succession. He advised, argued, did all that a bold man and honest friend could do to warn the Prince against this union, which, as we before mentioned, was currently reported to have taken place. The Prince, in reply, declared that his ‘dear Charles’ might ‘make himself easy, as there not only is, but never was, any grounds for such reports.’ Armed with this authority, Fox denied in Parliament, on the warrant of the Prince, the assertion of such a union having taken place. The wretched liar who had driven him to assert unconsciously a falsehood was now exposed to a double torment. Mrs. Fitzherbert was angry at the public denial, supposing it to be unauthorised, and urged the Prince to have it announced. The latter prevaricated and promised; appealed to Grey, confessing his marriage, and, when Grey would have nothing to do with it, appealing to Sheridan; the latter made a few remarks in the House wide of the real object, and the marriage remained denied, to the great annoyance of the lady, who continued to be respectfully treated by the royal family. These, if they disbelieved the existence of the connection, must have looked upon Mrs. Fitzherbert as being less worthy of their respect than before. The truth, however, is, that their respect was chiefly manifested when Mrs. Fitzherbert separated herself from her most worthless husband. Documents proving the marriage (long in the possession of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s family) have been, since June 1833, actually deposited, by agreement between the executors of George IV. (the Duke of Wellington and Sir William Knighton) and the nominees of Mrs. Fitzherbert (Lord Albemarle and Lord Stourton), at Coutts’s bank, in a sealed box, bearing a superscription:—‘The property of the Earl of Albemarle; but not to be opened by him without apprising the Duke of Wellington,’ or words to that purport.[1]

The author of the Diary illustrative of the court of George IV., referring to the time when the eldest son of Queen Charlotte was subdued by the fascinations of Mrs. Fitzherbert, says that the lady in question ‘had a stronger hold over the Regent than any of the other objects of his admiration, and that he always paid her the respect which her conduct commanded.’ She was styled by those who knew her ‘the most faultless and honourable mistress that ever a prince had the good fortune to be attached to’—a judgment which abounds in a confusion of terms, and exhibits mental perversion in him who pronounced it. Of the Regent’s behaviour to the lady, it may be said that it was as gallant and considerate at first as it was mean and censurable at last. In the early days of their intimacy, when they appeared together at the same parties and were on the point of leaving them, ‘the Prince never forgot to go through the form of saying to Mrs. F., with a most respectful bow, “Madam, may I be allowed the honour of seeing you home in my carriage?”’ ‘It was impossible,’ says the same authority, ‘to be in his Royal Highness’s society and not be captivated by the extreme fascination of his manners, which he inherits from his mother the Queen; for his father has every virtue which can adorn a private character as well as make a king respectable, but he does not excel in courtly grace or refinement.’

It should be added, that the intelligence no sooner reached the ears of the Queen than she commanded the attendance of her son, and insisted on knowing the whole truth. The Prince is declared not only to have acknowledged the fact of the marriage, but to have asserted that no power on earth should separate him from his wife. He is reported to have added, in reference to the King’s alleged marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, that his father would have been a happier man had he remained firm in standing by the legality of his own marriage. It would be difficult to say who was at hand to take down the Prince’s speech on this occasion; but, according to the author last named, it was substantially as follows:—‘But I beg farther that my wife be received at court, and proportionately as your Majesty receives her, and pays her attention from this time, so shall I render my attentions to your Majesty. The lady I have married is worthy of all homage, and my very confidential friends, with some of my wife’s relations only, witnessed our marriage. Have you not always taught me to consider myself heir to the first sovereignty in the world? Where then will exist any risk of obtaining a ready concurrence from the House in my marriage? I hope, madam, a few hours’ reflection will satisfy you that I have done my duty in following the impulse of my inclinations, and, therefore, I await your Majesty’s commands, feeling assured you would not blast the happiness of your favourite prince.’ The Queen is said to have been softened by his rather illogical reasoning. It is certain that her Majesty received Mrs. Fitzherbert at a drawing-room in the following year with very marked courtesy.

Sixteen years later, and of course long after the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Caroline of Brunswick, Mrs. Fitzherbert was still so high in the Prince’s favour that we find the following record in Lord Malmesbury’s Diary, under the date of May 25, 1803:—‘Duke of York came to me at five, uneasy lest the Duchess should be forced to sup at the same table as Mrs. Fitzherbert, at the ball to be given by the Knights of the Bath, on the 1st of June. Talks it over with me—says the King and Queen will not hear of it. On the other side, he wishes to keep on terms with the Prince. I say, I will see Lord Henley, who manages the fête, and try to manage it so that there shall be two distinct tables, one for the Prince, to which he is to invite, another for the Duke and Duchess, to which she is to invite her company.’ The dislike of Mrs. Fitzherbert for the Duchess of York was as determined as that entertained by the same lady against Fox, whom she never forgave for denying the fact of her marriage with the Prince.

The Prince’s pecuniary embarrassments pressed more heavily upon him than the troubles arising from his amours. The Prince, in his difficulties, again had recourse to the Queen. He revealed to her the amount of both his difficulties and debts, and reports credited him with having uttered a menace to the effect that, if the King failed to provide some means for the payment of those debts, there were State secrets which he would certainly reveal, whatever the consequences might be, as, suffering as he did from the treatment he met at his father’s hands, he was an object of suspicion or contempt to half the kingdom. The Queen would not engage herself by any promise, but she sent for Mr. Pitt. After this last interview the minister repaired to Carlton House, and the message he bore showed the amount of influence possessed by the Queen. The Prince was assured that means would be found for the discharge of his liabilities. The King promised an additional 10,000l. a year out of the civil list, and Parliament subsequently voted the sum of 161,000l. to discharge the debts of the Prince, with an additional sum of 20,000l. to finish the repairs of Carlton Palace. That mansion had been dull and silent, but it was soon again brilliant, and gaily echoing with the most festive of sounds.

CHAPTER VI.
COURT FORMS AND COURT FREEDOMS.

Loss of the American Colonies—Political Struggle—The King’s health unsatisfactory—Life of the Royal Family at Windsor—Mrs. Delany—The Queen and the Widow—Early service in the Chapel Royal at Windsor—Rev. Tom Twining and Miss Burney—Miss Burney’s Reception by the Queen—Promenade of the Royal Family on the terrace—The Queen’s ‘dressing’—The Queen’s partiality for Snuff—Country life of the Royal Family at Kew—Princess Amelia; the King’s great affection for her—Scene on the birthday of the Princess—Margaret Nicholson’s attempt to assassinate the King—The Queen’s dread—Her fondness for Diamonds—Mrs. Warren Hastings—The present from the Nizam of the Deccan—Unpopularity of the King and Queen—Their affection for each other—The Queen’s tenderness to Mrs. Delany—Reconciliation of the King and the Prince—A pleasant scene—Another Court Incident.

The loss of the American Colonies, and the triumph of Lord North and Fox, two men whom the King hated, and who forced an Administration upon him, had, in various degrees, a serious effect upon his health. He became dejected, but when Fox’s India Bill was thrown out by the Lords he had the firmness—a firmness suggested by the Queen—to turn the obnoxious Cabinet out. Pitt succeeded as prime minister, and no one saw him in that post with greater pleasure than Charlotte.

She continued to support both King and Minister through the tremendous political struggle which followed, and during which Pitt more than once expressed his determination to resign. ‘In such case I must resign too,’ said the King, adding that he would sooner retire with the Queen to Hanover than submit to a ministry whose political principles he detested. The public admired his firmness, and for a season he was again popular—popular, but not safe. His health was in an unsatisfactory state; and it was at a season when he required to be kept in a state of composure that an attempt was made to stab him by an insane woman named Nicholson, as he was leaving St. James’s Palace by the garden entrance, on the 2nd of August, 1786. As he received a paper which she presented, the woman stabbed at him, but with no worse result than piercing his waistcoat.

Before we show how the news of this attempt was received at Windsor, where the Queen was then sojourning, we may glance briefly at the nature of the life passed there. It was generally of a pleasing aspect.

The benevolence of the Queen and her consort was well illustrated in their conduct to Mrs. Delany. The lady in question was a Granville by birth, and in the first flush of her youth and beauty had been married, against her inclination, to a middle-aged squire, named Pendarves, who was much like what middle-aged squires were in those not very refined days. Mr. and Mrs. Pendarves passed much such a life as that described by the young Widow Cheerly as having been that of herself and the squire, her lord; and the lady, too, became a widow almost as early. She was, however, of mature age when she married her old and esteemed acquaintance, Dr. Delany, the friend of Swift. After being a second time a widow, she found a home with the Dowager-duchess of Portland, and when death deprived her of this friend also she found a new home and new friends in Queen Charlotte and King George. They assigned to her a house in Windsor Park, in the fitting-up of which both Queen and King took great personal interest, and the former settled upon her an annuity of 300l. When the good old lady went down to take possession of her new habitation the King was there ready to receive her, like a son establishing a mother in a new home. His courtesy was felt, and it was of the right sort, for while it brought him there to welcome the new guest, it would not allow him to stay there to embarrass her. With similar delicacy, when the Queen came down to visit her new neighbour, she put her at once at her ease by her own affability; and when, before leaving, she placed in Mrs. Delany’s hands the paper signed by the King, and authorising her to draw her first half-year of her little revenue, it was done with a grace which prevented the object of it from feeling that she was reduced to the condition of a pensioner.

These parties remained, as long as Mrs. Delany lived, on terms of as much equality as could exist between persons so different in rank. In Mrs. Delany’s little parlour the Queen would frequently take tea. It was a social banquet in which she delighted; and years afterwards, in her old age, she was as fond of going down to Datchet to take tea with Lord James Murray (afterwards Lord Glenlyon, grandfather of the present Duke of Athol) as she was at this early period of enjoying the same ‘dish’ with the fine old ‘gentlewoman’ who was her most grateful pensioner. Queen and widow corresponded with each other, lived as ladies in the country who esteem each other are accustomed to live; and when the doctor’s relict had not what was to her, good old soul, the supreme bliss of entertaining the Queen, she enjoyed the inexpressible felicity of receiving at tea the young princes and princesses. A riotous, romping, good-natured group these made; and many a sore headache they must have inflicted on the aged lady, who was too loyal to be anything but proud of such an infliction incurred in such a cause.

The letters of Queen Charlotte to her ‘dear friend’ are on small subjects, expressed in a small way, and terminating with a mixture of condescension and dignity, with good wishes from ‘your affectionate Queen.’

Mrs. Delany speaks in her own letters with well-warranted praise of one circumstance which marked the routine of royal life at Windsor. Every morning throughout the year, at eight o’clock, the Queen, leaning on the King’s arm, led her family procession to the Chapel Royal, for the purpose of attending early morning prayer. One of the most pleasing features in the Queen’s routine of daily life was to be found in this exemplary practice of hers. The Queen never forced any one to follow her example; she left it to the consciences of all. She was independent, too, in her opinions, and though she joined fervently with the King in the prayer, ‘Give peace in our time, O Lord!’ and acknowledged (with more truth than the stereotyped expression itself would seem to convey—so illogical is it with its impertinent ‘because’) that none other fought for us but God alone, yet would she not remain silent, as the King invariably did, when the Athanasian Creed was being repeated. That awful and overwhelming judicatory denunciation at the close shocked the mind of the monarch whose own penal laws, however, were the most sanguinary in Europe. The Queen, as is the case with most ladies in church matters, had less mercy, and she heartily joined in the sentence which so stringently winds up the creed which, after all, was not written by Athanasius.

When the Rev. Tom Twining heard that the celebrated Miss Burney was about to be dresser and reader to the Queen, he exclaimed, ‘What a fine opportunity you will have of studying the philosophy of human capacity in the highest sphere of life!’ ‘Goodness me! madam!’ he exclaims, admiringly; ‘are you to take care of the robes yourself?’ Miss Burney hardly knew what she would have to do or what her opportunities might be, but she was not long in acquiring the knowledge in question.

Indeed, she picked up much acquaintance with court routine on the first day of her arrival at the Queen’s lodge. She found a royal mistress who was extremely anxious to calm the fluttering agitation of her new attendant, and who received her, if not as a friend, yet in no respect as a servant. Gracious as was the reception, the young lady was not sorry to escape to the dinner-table of the ladies and gentlemen in waiting. How graphically does she describe the German officer there who was in waiting on the Queen’s brother, Prince Charles of Mecklenburgh: ‘He could never finish a speech he had begun, if a new dish made its appearance, without stopping to feast his eyes upon it, exclaim something in German, and suck the inside of his mouth; but all so openly, and with such perfect good-humour, that it was diverting without being distasteful.’ The old ceremonious forms had not yet become quite extinct at court. Men did not kneel on serving the Queen, but they never sat down in her presence. How they contrived to dine comfortably at the royal table defies conjecture, if the following paragraph is to be taken literally: ‘I find it has always belonged to Mrs. Swellenburgh and Mrs. Haggerdorn to receive at tea whatever company the King or Queen invite to the lodge, as it is only a very select few that can eat with their Majesties, and those few are only ladies; no man, of what rank soever, being permitted to sit in the Queen’s presence.’ The royal table must then have been the dullest in the palace; and no wonder it is that bishops, peers, officers, and gentlemen enjoyed themselves so thoroughly, in less dignity and more comfort, with the maids of honour and ladies of less official greatness.

Nothing was, indeed, more homely and hearty than the promenades made by the illustrious couple, their children all about them, on the terrace, of an evening, or when they assembled in the concert-room, where ‘nothing was played but Handel.’ The time was a transition time; feudality was growing faint, and the best of kings were losing their prestige of infallibility. Still there was much of ceremony both at bed and board; that of the latter has been already mentioned. That at bed-time was not so cumbersome as the ceremony observed at the coucher of Marie Antoinette, but it was still of a high and ponderous, yet affectionate, formality. The Queen was handed into her dressing-room by the King, followed by the Princess Royal and the Princess Augusta. The King, on leaving the room, kissed his daughters, who in their turn ceremoniously kissed their royal mother’s hand, and bade her ‘good-night.’ This done, the Queen placed herself in the hands of her ‘women,’ who, in as brief a time as was consistent with the dignity of her whom they tended, fitted the royal lady for repose. The Queen paid, with a formal curtsey, every sign of respect, by whomsoever offered her, as she passed along.

It is said that Burnet introduced the fashion of high-partitioned pews in the Chapel Royal to prevent the flirting that was constantly going on between the officers and maids of honour. Upon some plea for decorum, rather than because of offence, Queen Charlotte had appointed separate tables for the ladies and gentlemen in waiting; but as she did not forbid them to invite each other, or, as was very often the case with the gentlemen, to invite themselves, the division of tables was only nominally maintained.

The Queen’s ‘dressing,’ deprived as it was of some of the ceremonies of an olden time, was nevertheless not without its formality. Her new ‘dresser,’ Miss Burney, was not always in time, disliked at first, but wisely got over her dislike, being summoned by a bell, and was so nervous as to mar her services. No maid was permitted to remain in the apartment during the time the Queen was ‘tiring.’ One lady dresser handed to the other the portions of dress required. ‘’Tis fortunate for me,’ says Miss Burney, ‘I have not the handing of them. I should never know which to take first, embarrassed as I am, and should run a prodigious risk of giving the gown before the hoop, and the fan before the neck-kerchief.’

The actual ‘dressing for the day’ took place at one o’clock, and included the then elaborate matter of powdering. Till the hair-dresser was admitted for the completion of this last matter, the Queen, while being dressed, read the newspapers; but when the powderer came she dismissed the attendants, who had previously covered her up in a peignoir, and was then left alone with the artist, who must have looked very ridiculous in casting, as the Queen must have looked in receiving, the impenetrable clouds of powder which he continued to fling at and about the royal head. But there was another sort of powder patronised by the Queen—the mother of George IV. condescended to take snuff. In the admixture and scent of this she was curiously learned; and Miss Burney filled her boxes and damped the contents when they had got too dry, to her great satisfaction.

There is a fashion in country-towns observed by ladies who go out in chairs to parties, consisting in their carrying with them some portion of their dress, to be adjusted at the locality where they are about to spend the evening. This fashion, too, is a relic of the days of Queen Charlotte. ‘On court days,’ says Miss Burney, ‘the Queen dresses her head at Kew, and puts on her drawing-room apparel at St. James’s. Her new attendant dresses all at Kew, except tippet and long ruffles, which she carries in paper to save from dusty roads.’ It was the etiquette at St. James’s that the finishing of the Queen’s dressing there should be the work of the bedchamber-woman. It consisted of little more than tying the necklace, handing the fan and gloves, and bearing the Queen’s train as she left the room. This she did alone, only as far as the anteroom; there the lady of the bedchamber became the ‘first trainbearer,’ and the poor Queen had two annoyances to put up with instead of one.

From the cumbrous ceremonies of St. James’s the Queen was glad enough to escape to Kew. At the latter place, indeed, ceremony, as far as the royal family was concerned, was left outside the gates. The sovereigns were thoroughly ‘at home,’ and the Queen enjoyed a ‘country life,’ not as Marie Antoinette did, a dairymaid in diamonds, at Trianon, but as a simple English country lady. The foreigners who visited the court at this time were disgusted by the republican look which it wore. It was simple and plain enough, at Kew that is, to have pleased even Franklin. The King was really there what he was popularly called everywhere, ‘Farmer George;’ the Queen was his true dame, the plainest of the plain things around her. The children—that is, the younger portion of them—were as unaffected as their parents, and the little Princess Amelia was the fairy of the place, if one may speak of a fairy in connection with farming. However grave the King might look, through pressure of public events, the little hand of the Princess Amelia, placed by the Queen in his, always touched his heart, and a look into the child’s eyes ever brought a smile into his own. Never daughter more closely nestled in a father’s heart than Amelia did in that of George III. The Queen loved, but the King adored her. At Kew, father and child appeared more unrestrained in the hearty demonstrations of their love than elsewhere. Indeed, everything at Kew was free and unrestrained; and it was no offence there if any of the attendants did pass a room the door of which was open and somebody royal within. In France, they who desired to enter an apartment in which the Queen was, scratched, but never knocked, at the door. In England, at least in Queen Charlotte’s time, the etiquette was also not to knock at, but to shake the handle of, the door. Another ceremony was observed in order to avoid ceremony. When royal birthdays occurred during the Queen’s stay at Windsor the family walked on the terrace, which was crowded with people of distinction, who took that mode of showing respect, to avoid the trouble and fatigue of attending at the following drawing-room. Here is a scene on the birthday of the Princess Amelia, drawn by one who was present:—

‘It was really a mighty pretty procession. The little Princess, just turned three years old, in a robe-coat covered with fine muslin, a dressed closed cap, white gloves, and a fan, walked on alone and first, highly delighted in the parade, and turning from side to side to see everybody as she passed; for all the terracers stand up against the walls to make a clear passage for the royal family the moment they come in sight. Then follow the King and Queen, no less delighted themselves with the joy of their little darling.’[2]

The Princess Royal, at this time, is said to have shown more respect and humility to her parents than any of the other children of the family. She passed on in this birthday procession, accompanied by ladies, and her sisters, similarly accompanied, followed her. Happy were they to whom Queen or King addressed a few words as they stopped on their way; and astounded were the adorers of etiquette when they saw the little Princess Amelia, on recognising Miss Burney, not only go up to kiss her, but actually kissed by her. The Queen herself was probably more surprised than pleased. But it was a birthday! At other seasons etiquette was so rigidly observed (always excepting at Kew) that the children of the royal family never spoke in the presence of the King and Queen, except to answer observations made to them. The Queen, too, as well as she was able, watched over the religious education of her daughters, and always assembled them around her to listen to a course of religious reading by herself. This she did with gravity and good judgment, as became indeed a woman of ordinary good sense.

We have already, incidentally, noticed the attempt made upon the life of the King by Margaret Nicholson. The attack was not known to the Queen till it was announced to her by the King in person. As soon as the poor mad woman had been arrested, the Spanish ambassador posted down to Windsor, to be in readiness to inform her Majesty of the truth, in case of any exaggerated reports reaching her ear. When the King entered the Queen’s apartment at Windsor, on his return from London, he wore a rather joyous air, and exclaimed, in a naturally joyous tone, ‘Well, here I am, safe and well, though I have had a very narrow escape of being stabbed.’ The consternation in the family circle was great; several of the ladies burst into tears, for every one was fond of George III., albeit he was accused of Stuart fondness for the exercise of kingly prerogative. The Queen alone did not at first weep, but pale and agitated she turned round to those who did, and said that she envied them. The relief of tears, however, soon comparatively restored her, and she was enabled, with some outward show of calmness, to listen to the King’s details of the occurrence. Into these he entered with the hilarity of a man whose feelings are naturally not very finely strung, but who is strongly persuaded that escape from assassination is rather a matter to be jocund than solemn over. He did not want for a sense of gratitude at his escape, but nothing could prevent his being gay over it. He told the details, therefore, as though they partook something of a joke. He noticed that the knife had slightly cut or grazed his waistcoat; and said he, ‘It was great good luck that it did not go further. There was nothing beneath it but some thin linen and a good deal of fat.’

The matter, however, pressed heavily upon the spirits of the Queen. She dreaded lest this attempt should be only a part of a great conspiracy, and feared that the conspirators would not rest satisfied with the mere attempt. The idea was natural at the time, for democracy then was daily barking at, if not biting, kings; and so universally spread was the feeling through one class throughout Europe that the King of England had no cause to deem himself specially exempt from such attempts. George III. had the courageous spirit common to most of the princes of his house, and would not stand aloof from his people because the princes of other houses were at issue with their people. The Queen felt greater distrust, but she was partially reassured by the tone taken by the English papers. The pulpit and the press spoke out in tones which showed that, however the country might be divided upon questions connected with politics, it would not tolerate the idea of regicide. These things were known to Queen Charlotte, and comforted the poor lady, who, for a time, could not think of her husband being in London without a spasmodic horror. She pored over the English papers, in order to draw from them comfort and consolation; and it was when reading one of the warmly loyal articles therein, beginning with the words of the coronation anthem, ‘Long live the King! may the King live for ever!’ that she shed the most copious tears that yet had fallen from her, and drew comfort from what she read. Perhaps the words brought back to her recollection the period, a quarter of a century before, when she had listened to that anthem for the first time, and, glancing back over the long period that had since then elapsed, she perhaps dared to hope that the protection which had been so far vouchsafed would be continued. Another quarter of a century indeed was vouchsafed before the splendour of the reign began to wane in the mental gloom which settled around the King; but already had begun those domestic troubles which were inflicted upon her by the unfilial conduct of her heartless eldest son.

At present, however, she could only think of, and be grateful for, the escape of the King. Loyalty visited her somewhat oppressively in its congratulations, and the next drawing-room was so crowded, and its ceremonies so long, that the Queen was half dead with fatigue before it was over. She found rest and welcome sympathy at ever-pleasant Kew. There the inhabitants welcomed their royal patrons with a zeal, warmth, beer-drinking, and fireworks such as had not been exceeded in any part of the empire. But it was a sort of honour-festival in which the Queen could partake without fatigue. She enjoyed it heartily; and more emphatically than was her wont, even when most pleased, she exclaimed, ‘I shall love little Kew for this as long as I live!’

When Charlotte, on her first visit to the City, charmed even the eyes of the fair Quakeresses who surrounded her at the Barclays’ by the splendour of her diamonds, she already had the reputation of possessing a desire for acquiring precious stones. Such desire was at one time a mere fashion, like the mania which squandered thousands on a flower, or the madness which at a later period prevailed to be possessed, at whatever cost, of porcelain.

The people were reminded of the Queen’s fondness for diamonds at the period when the name of Warren Hastings began to be unpleasantly canvassed in England. The return of that remarkable personage from India was preceded by that of his scarcely less remarkable wife. Soon after her arrival Mrs. Hastings appeared at court, and nothing could exceed the graciousness of the reception she met with from Queen Charlotte. The popular tongue soon wagged audaciously, if not veraciously, on this royal welcome to a lady who was commonly said to have come to England with a lapful of diamonds. For such glittering presents it was said that Queen Charlotte sold her favour and protection. There was, no doubt, much exaggeration in the matter; but the supposed protection of the court, and the alleged manner in which it was said to have been purchased, were as injurious to Hastings as any of the invectives thundered against him by Burke. At the time that the monster impeachment was going on, a present from the Nizam of the Deccan to the King arrived in England. It was a splendid diamond, and was consigned, for presentation, to Warren Hastings, who handed it over to Lord Sydney, but who was present himself at the time when that nobleman duly offered the glittering gift to the King. Its ready acceptance, at a time when Hastings was on his trial, was misconstrued; and that popular voice which so often errs, notwithstanding the assertion that when uttered it is divinely inspired, immediately concluded that at least a bushelful of diamonds, presented to the King and Queen, had bought impunity for the alleged great offender. Ridicule, satire, caricature, violent prose, and execrable rhyme were levelled at both their Majesties in consequence. According to those who were about the person of the Queen, she had better jewels in her virtues than in caskets of precious gems. Miss Burney, in her portrait of the Queen, may be said to contemplate her through pink-coloured spectacles. But, setting aside what predilection induces her to say, enough remains to satisfy an unprejudiced person that there was much amiability, penetration, and good sense in the character of Charlotte. She was more dignified in her visits at the houses of subjects than any of her predecessors had been. She preferred reading the ‘Spectator’ to reading novels, and indeed had very little regard for novel-writers, and none at all for Madame de Genlis, with whom she very wisely counselled Miss Burney not to correspond.

Of the affection which existed between the Queen and her husband here is a pretty incident:—‘The Queen had nobody but myself with her one morning, when the King hastily entered the room with some letters in his hand, and addressing her in German, which he spoke very fast, and with much apparent interest in what he said, he brought the letters up to her and put them into her hand. She received them with much agitation, but evidently of a much pleased sort, and endeavoured to kiss his hand as he held them. He would not let her, but made an effort, with a countenance of the highest satisfaction, to kiss her. I saw instantly in her eyes a forgetfulness at the moment that any one was present, while, drawing away her hand, she presented him her cheek. He accepted her kindness with the same frank affection that she offered it, and the next moment they both spoke English, and talked upon common and general subjects. What they said I am far enough from knowing; but the whole was too rapid to give me time to quit the room, and I could not but see with pleasure that the Queen had received some favour with which she was sensibly delighted, and that the King, in her acknowledgments, was happily and amply paid.’[3]

This sort of incident, it may be said, is of commonplace frequency in private life, short of the hand-kissing; but it also serves to show that there was an affection existing at this period which, happily, is not a rare one in common life. And Charlotte could condescend to the level of that so-called common life, and to them who belonged to it exhibit her natural goodness. Witness for her the directions which she sent on a cold November morning to good old and parcel-blind Mrs. Delany. ‘Tell her,’ said she, ‘that this morning is so very cold and wet that I think she will suffer by going to church. Tell her, therefore, that Dr. Queen is of opinion she had better stay and say her prayers at home.’ She showed her concern still more when, after having lent to Miss Burney that abominable and absurd tragedy of Horace Walpole’s, ‘The Mysterious Mother,’ she presented her with Ogden’s Sermons, wherewith to sweeten her imagination. Perhaps Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, on his visit to Windsor this year, rather underrated the royal power to appreciate sermons. Mrs. Delany asked him for a copy of one which he had preached before their Majesties. The prelate answered that the sermon would not do at all for her. It was a mere plain Christian sermon, he said, made for the King and Queen, but it wouldn’t do for a bel esprit.

The royal household was sometimes disturbed by family dissensions; thus in 1787 the Prince of Wales would not attend the birthday drawing-room of the Queen, but he sent her written congratulations on the return of the day. The coldness existing between mother and son kept the latter from court. ‘I fear it was severely felt by his royal mother,’ says Miss Burney, ‘though she appeared composed and content.’ Of party-spirit at this time, when party-spirit ran so high and was so fierce and bitter in quality, the Diarist last named asserts that the Queen had but little. She declares her Majesty to have been liberal and nobly-minded, ‘beyond what I had conceived her rank and limited connections could have left her, even with the fairest advancements from her early nature; and many things dropped from her, in relation to parties and their consequences, that showed a feeling so deep upon the subject, joined to a lenity so noble towards the individuals composing it, that she drew tears from my eyes in several instances.’

This year saw the reconciliation of the Prince with his parents, and a public manifestation of this reconciliation of the heir-apparent with his family took place on the terrace at Windsor Castle. The Prince appeared there, chiefly that by his presence he might do honour to a particular incident—the presentation of the Duchesse de Polignac and her daughter, the Duchesse de Guiche, to the King and Queen. The noble visitors themselves, to do honour to the occasion, repaired to the terrace, attired, as they thought, in full English costume—‘plain undress gowns, with close ordinary black silk bonnets.’ They were startled at finding the Queen and the Princesses dressed with elaborate splendour. For the spectators, however, the most interesting sight was that of the heir-apparent conversing cordially with his illustrious parents. The lookers-on fancied that all, henceforth, would be serene, and that ‘Lovely Peace’ would reign undisturbedly.

But a pleasanter scene even than this was witnessed shortly after in the Queen’s dressing-room. Her Majesty was under the hands of her hair-dresser, and in the room, during the ceremony, were Mr. de Luc, Mr. Turbulent (a pseudonym), and Miss Burney. The Queen conversed with all three. But the sacrilegious and well-named Turbulent, instead of fixing there his sole attention, contrived, ‘by standing behind her chair and facing me, to address a language of signs to me the whole time, casting up his eyes, clasping his hands, and placing himself in various fine attitudes, and all with a humour so burlesque that it was impossible to take it either ill or seriously.... How much should I have been discountenanced had her Majesty turned about and perceived him, yet by no means so much disconcerted as by a similar Cerberic situation; since the Queen, who, when in spirits, is gay and sportive herself, would be much farther removed from any hazard of misconstruction.’[4] Nor was this the only ‘pleasant’ incident of the year. It was not long after the above that Lady Effingham, at Windsor, exclaimed to the Queen, ‘Oh, ma’am, I had the greatest fright this morning. I saw a huge something on Sir George’s throat. “Why, Sir George,” says I, “what’s that? a wen?” “Yes,” says he, “countess, I’ve had it three-and-twenty years.” However, I hear it’s now going about—so I hope your Majesty will be careful!’

One more court incident of this year will afford us a specimen of playfulness as understood by the Prince of Wales. The latter was at Windsor with the Duke of York, who had just returned from the Continent, after an absence from England of seven years. His return caused great joy both to the King and Queen; but it was not a joy of long enduring.

‘At near one o’clock in the morning, while the wardrobe-woman was pinning up the Queen’s hair, there was a sudden rap-tap at the dressing-room door. Extremely surprised, I looked at the Queen, to see what should be done; she did not speak. I had never heard such a sound before, for at the royal doors there is always a particular kind of scratch used, instead of tapping. I heard it, however, again, and the Queen called out, “What is that?” I was really startled, not conceiving who could take so strange a liberty as to come to the Queen’s apartment without the announcing of a page; and no page, I was very sure, would make such a noise. Again the sound was repeated, and more smartly. I grew quite alarmed, imagining some serious evil at hand, either regarding the King or some of the Princesses. The Queen, however, bid me open the door. I did; and what was my surprise to see there a large man, in an immense wrapping great-coat, buttoned up round his chin, so that he was almost hid between cape and hat. I stood quite motionless for a moment; but he, as if also surprised, drew back. I felt quite sick with sudden terror—I really thought some ruffian had broken into the house, or a madman. “Who is it?” cried the Queen. “I do not know, ma’am,” I answered. “Who is it?” she called aloud; and then, taking off his hat, entered the Prince of Wales. The Queen laughed very much, and so did I too, happy in this unexpected explanation. He told her eagerly that he only came to inform her there were the most beautiful northern lights to be seen that could possibly be imagined, and begged her to come to the gallery windows.’[5]

CHAPTER VII.
SHADOWS IN THE SUNSHINE.

The Princess Amelia—Her connection with the Duke of Grafton—Beau Nash and the Princess—Her despotism as Ranger of Richmond Park—Checked by Mr. Bird—A Scene at her Loo-table—Her fondness for stables—Her eccentric Costume—Inordinate love of Snuff—Her Death—Conduct of the Princes—The King’s Illness—Graphic picture of the state of affairs—Lord Thurlow’s treachery—Heartlessness of the Prince—Deplorable condition of the Queen—The King delirious—Particulars of his Illness—Dr. Warren—Melancholy scene—The King wheedled away to Kew—Placed under Dr. Willis—The Prince and Lord Lothian eavesdroppers—The King’s Recovery—The King unexpectedly encounters Miss Burney.

One event of this year brings us back to the persons and memories of the age of Caroline. Three-quarters of a century had passed away since the day when the then little Princess Amelia Sophia, who was born in Hanover, arrived in London, some three years old, at the period when her parents ascended the throne of England. She was an accomplished and a high-spirited girl, and grew into an attractive and ‘lovable’ woman. No prince, however, ever came to the feet of Amelia Sophia. She did not, nevertheless, want for lovers of a lower dignity. Walpole, in allusion to this, states of her that she was ‘as disposed to meddle’ in State matters as her elder sister Anne; and that ‘she was confined to receiving court from the Duke of Newcastle, who affected to be in love with her; and from the Duke of Grafton, in whose connection with her there was more reality.’

The latter connection is said to have been more romantic than platonic. The Princess and the Duke were given to riding out in company, conversing together in the recesses of windows, keeping together when out hunting, and occasionally losing themselves together in Windsor Forest and other places convenient for lovers to lose themselves in. This last incident in the love passages of the Princess’s life afforded great opportunity for good-natured gossips to indulge in joking, and for ill-natured gossips to indulge in affectedly indignant reproof. The Princess troubled herself very little with the remarks of others on her conduct. It was only when Queen Caroline was worked upon by the ill-natured gossips to notice and to censure the intimacy which existed between the Princess and the Duke that Amelia took the matter somewhat to heart, and wept as a young lady in such circumstances was likely to do at finding a violent end put to her violent delights. The Queen indeed threatened to lay the matter before the King, and it is said that it was only through the good and urgent offices of Sir Robert Walpole that so extreme a course was not taken.

Like her sister Anne, Amelia was rather imperious in disposition, and she never found but one man who openly withstood her. That man was Beau Nash. The Beau had fixed eleven o’clock at which dancing should cease in the rooms at Bath, where he was despotic Master of the Ceremonies. On one occasion, when the Princess was present, the hour had struck, and Nash had raised his jewelled finger, in token that the music was to stop, and the ladies were to ‘sit down and cool,’ as the Beau delicately expressed it. The imperious daughter of Caroline was not disposed to end the evening so early, and intimated to the Master her gracious pleasure that there should be another country dance. Nash looked at her with surprise. He laughed an agitated laugh, shook all the powder out of his wig in signifying his decided refusal, and, muttering something about the laws of the Medes and Persians, set down the Princess as a rather ill-bred person.

In her way she was as imperious as Nash; and as Ranger of Richmond Park she was as despotic as the Beau within his more artificial territory at Bath. She kept the park closed, sacred to the pleasure and retirement of royalty and the favoured few. There were, however, some dreadfully democratic persons at Richmond, who had a most obstinate conviction that the public had a right of passage through the park, and they demanded that the right should be allowed them. The royal Ranger peremptorily refused. Democratic cobblers immediately went to law with her, and proved that the right was with them. The Princess yielded to the counsel of her own legal advisers, and, allowing the right of passage, made a very notable concession; she planted rickety ladders against the walls, and bade the ladies and gentlemen of the vicinity pass through the park as they best could by such means. But the persevering people maintained that if they had right of passage the right must be construed in a common-sense way, and that passage implied a pass or gate by which such passage might be made. The royal lady thought the world was coming to an end when the vulgar dared thus to ‘keep standing on their rights’ in presence of a princess. She was in some measure correct; for the age of feudal royalty was coming to a close, and that great shaking-up of equality was beginning from which royalty has never perfectly recovered. The troublesome people, accordingly, kept most vexatiously to the point, and after a fierce struggle they compelled their Ranger to set open a gate whereby they might have free and constant access to their own park. Had this daughter of Caroline been a wise woman, she would have cheerfully gone through this gate with the people, and so, sharing in their triumph, would have won their love. But ‘Emily,’ as she was often called, was of quite another metal, and was so disgusted at the victory achieved by the vulgar that she threw up her office in disgust, and declared that the downfall of England commenced with the opening of Richmond Park.

The Princess offended more persons than the mere democracy by her arrogance as Ranger. The evidence of Walpole is conclusive on this subject, and is worth citing, often as I have had to quote from his lively pages. In 1752, he writes: ‘Princess Emily, who succeeded my brother in the Rangership of Richmond Park, has imitated her brother William’s unpopularity, and disobliged the whole country, by refusal of tickets and liberties that had always been allowed. They are at law with her, and have printed in the ‘Evening Post’ a strong memorial, which she had refused to receive. The high-sheriff of Surrey, to whom she had denied a ticket, but on better thought had sent one, refused it, and said he had taken his part. Lord Brooke, who had applied for one, was told he couldn’t have one; and, to add to the affront, it was signified that the Princess had refused one to my Lord Chancellor. Your old nobility don’t understand such comparisons. But the most remarkable event happened to her about three weeks ago. One Mr. Bird, a rich gentleman near the palace, was applied to by the late Queen for a piece of ground that lay convenient for a walk she was making. He replied that it was not proper for him to pretend to make a queen a present, but if she would do what she pleased with the ground he would be content with the acknowledgment of a key and two bucks a year. This was religiously observed till the era of her Royal Highness’s reign. The bucks were denied, and he himself once shut out, on pretence it was fence month (the breeding-time, when tickets used to be excluded, keys never). The Princess was soon after going through his grounds to town. She found a padlock on his gate. She ordered it to be broken open. Mr. Shaw, her deputy, begged a respite till he could go for the key. He found Mr. Bird at home. “Lord, sir, here is a strange mistake! The Princess is at the gate, and it is padlocked.” “Mistake! no mistake at all. I made the road; the ground is my own property. Her Royal Highness has thought fit to break the agreement which her royal mother made with me; nobody goes through my grounds but those I choose should.” Translate this to your Florentines,’ adds Walpole to our legate in Tuscany; ‘try if you can make them conceive how pleasant it is to treat blood royal thus.’

George II., who was more liberal, in many respects, than any of his children, save when these affected liberality for political purposes, finally anticipated the award of law by ordering the park to be thrown open to the public in the month of December 1752. But he could not have kept it closed.

Walpole speaks of the Princess Amelia as if he had never forgotten or forgiven this, or any other of her faults. According to his description, she was for ever prying impertinently into the affairs of other people; silly, garrulous, and importantly communicative of trifles not worth the telling. He paints her as arrogant and insolent; inexcusable, it would seem, in these last respects, simply because she no longer possessed either power or beauty. But these were only eccentricities; there was much of sterling goodness beneath them. She was nobly generous and royally charitable. She was a steady friend and an admirable mistress. In face of such virtues, mere human failings may be forgiven.

Walpole graphically and dramatically describes a scene at her loo-table. The year is 1762, the month December. ‘On Thursday,’ he says, ‘I was summoned to the Princess Emily’s loo. Loo she called it; politics it was. The second thing she said to me was: “How were you the two long days?” “Madam, I was only there the first.” “And how did you vote?” “Madam, I went away.” “Upon my word, that was carving well!” Not a very pleasant apostrophe to one who certainly never was a time-server. Well, we sat down. She said: “I hear Wilkinson is turned out, and that Sir Edward Winnington is to have his place. Who is he?” addressing herself to me, who sat over against her. “He is the late Mr. Winnington’s heir, madam.” “Did you like that Winnington?” “I can’t but say I did, madam.” She shrugged up her shoulders, and continued: “Winnington was originally a great Tory. What do you think he was when he died?” “Madam, I believe what all people are in place.” “Pray, Mr. Montague, do you perceive anything rude or offensive in this?” Here then she flew into the most outrageous passion, coloured like scarlet, and said: “None of your wit. I don’t understand joking on these subjects. What do you think your father would have said if he had heard you say so? He would have murdered you, and you would have deserved it.” I was quite confounded and amazed. It was impossible to explain myself across a loo-table, as she is so deaf. There was no making a reply to a woman and a princess, and particularly for me, who have made it a rule, when I must converse with royalties, to treat them with the greatest respect, since it is all the court they will ever have from me. I said to those on each side of me: “What can I do? I cannot explain myself now.” Well, I held my peace; and so did she, for a quarter of an hour. Then she began with me again, examined me upon the whole debate, and at last asked me directly which I thought the best speaker, my father or Mr. Pitt? If possible, this was more distressing than her anger. I replied, it was impossible to compare two men so different; that I believed my father was more a man of business than Mr. Pitt. “Well, but Mr. Pitt’s language?” “Madam, I have always been remarkable for admiring Mr. Pitt’s language.” At last the unpleasant scene ended; but as we were going away I went close to her and said: “Madam, I must beg leave to explain myself. Your Royal Highness has seemed to be very angry with me, and I am sure I did not mean to offend you; all that I intended to say was, that I supposed Tories were Whigs when they got places.” “Oh!” said she; “I am very much obliged to you. Indeed, I was very angry.” Why she was angry, or what she thought I meant, I do not know to this moment, unless she supposed that I would have hinted that the Duke of Newcastle and the Opposition were not men of consummate virtue, and had not lost their places out of principle. The very reverse was at that time in my head, for I meant that the Tories would be just as loyal as the Whigs when they got anything by it.’

The Princess was not ladylike in her habits. She had a fondness for loitering about her stables, and would spend hours there in attendance upon her sick horses. She of course acquired the ways of those whose lives pass in stables and stable matters. She was manly, too, in her dress. Calamette would have liked to have painted her, as that artist has painted the frock-coat portrait of Madame Dudevant (George Sand). He would have picturesquely portrayed her in the round hat and German riding-habit, ‘standing about’ at her breakfast, sipping her chocolate, or taking spoonsful of snuff. Of this she was inordinately fond, but she accounted her box sacred. A Noli me tangere was engraven on it, but the injunction was not always held sacred. Once, on one of the card-tables in the Assembly Rooms at Bath, her box lay open, and an old general officer standing near inconsiderately took a pinch from it. The indignant Princess immediately called an attendant, who, by her directions, flung the remainder of the contents of the box into the fire.

In June 1786, Walpole, then nearly a septuagenarian, borrowed a dress-coat and sword, in order to dine at Gunnersbury with the Princess. The company comprised the Prince of Wales, the Prince of Mecklenburgh, the Duke of Portland, Lord Clanbrassil, Lord and Lady Clermont, Lord and Lady Southampton, Lord Pelham, and Mrs. Howe. Some of the party retired early. Others, more dissipated, sat up playing commerce till ten. ‘I am afraid I was tired,’ says Horace. The lively old Princess asked him for some verses on Gunnersbury. ‘I pleaded being superannuated. She would not excuse me. I promised she should have an ode on her next birthday, which diverted the Prince; but all would not do. So, as I came home, I made some stanzas not worth quoting, and sent them to her by breakfast next morning.’

In the October following, the daughter of Caroline and George II. died at her house in Cavendish Square, at the east corner of Harley Street. Card-playing and charity were the beloved pursuits of her old age. Her death took place on the last day of October 1786, in the 76th year of her age. Her remains lie in Henry VII.’s chapel in Westminster Abbey.

But the decease of this aged princess appeared a minor calamity compared with the illness which now threatened the King. In presence of this the Queen forgot Mrs. Trimmer and her Sunday Schools; Gainsborough, whom she patronised; public theatricals, and private readings. The illness had been long threatening.

In the ‘Memoirs of the Court and Cabinet of George III.,’ by the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the elder sons of Queen Charlotte are spoken of, and particularly with reference to this period immediately previous to the King’s illness, in a most unfavourable light. The Prince of Wales, we are told, like his two predecessors in the same title, was active in his opposition to the measures of the cabinet and crown. The same spirit, with as little prudence to moderate and more ill-feeling to embitter it, was as lively in the man as in the boy. The Prince was, however, at least consistent in his opposition. ‘The Duke of York,’ says Lord Bulkeley, writing to the Marquis of Buckingham, ‘talks both ways, and I think will end in opposition. His conduct is as bad as possible. He plays very deep and loses, and his company is thought mauvais ton. I am told that the King and Queen begin now to feel “how much sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ingrate child.” When the Duke of York is completely done up in the public opinion, I should not be surprised if the Prince of Wales assume a different style of behaviour. Indeed, I am told, he already affects to see that his brother’s style is too bad.’

Public business, as far as its transaction through ministers was concerned, became greatly impeded through the illness which had attacked the King. It had been brought on by his imprudence in remaining a whole day in wet stockings, and it exhibited itself not merely in spasmodic attacks of the stomach, but in an agitation and flurry of spirits which caused great uneasiness to the Queen, and which, both for domestic and political reasons, it was desirous should not be known.

The very attempt at concealment gave rise to various alarming reports. The best answer that could be devised for the latter was to allow the King to appear at the levée at the end of October. The Queen suffered much when this plan was resolved upon; and it had the result, which she expected, of over-fatiguing the King and rendering him worse. At the close of the levée, the King remarked to the Duke of Leeds and Lord Thurlow, the latter of whom had advised him to take care of himself and return to Windsor: ‘You then, too, my Lord Thurlow, forsake me, and suppose me ill beyond recovery; but whatever you or Mr. Pitt may think or feel, I, that am born a gentleman, shall never lay my head on my last pillow in peace and quiet as long as I remember the loss of my American Colonies.’ This loss appears to have weighed heavily on his mind, and to have been one of the great causes by which it was ultimately overthrown.

Early in November he became delirious, but the medical men, Warren, Heberden, and Sir G. Baker, could not tell whether the malady would turn, at a critical point, for life or death; or whether, if for the former, the patient would be afflicted or not with permanent loss of reason. The disease was now settled in the brain, with high fever. The Princes of the Blood were all assembled at Windsor, in the room next to that occupied by the sufferer, and a regency bestowing kingly power on the Prince of Wales was already talked of.

When the fact of the King’s illness could no longer be with propriety concealed, the alarm without the royal residence was great, and the disorder scarcely less within. The most graphic picture of the state of affairs is drawn by Lord Bulkeley. ‘The Queen,’ he says, ‘sees nobody but Lady Constance, Lady Charlotte Finch, Miss Burney, and her two sons, who, I am afraid, do not announce the state of the King’s health with that caution and delicacy which should be observed to the wife and the mother, and it is to them only that she looks up. I understand her behaviour is very feeling, decent, and proper. The Prince has taken the command at Windsor, in consequence of which there is no command whatsoever; and it was not till yesterday that orders were given to two grooms of the bedchamber to wait for the future, and receive the inquiries of the numbers who inquire; nor would this have been done if Pitt and Lord Sydney had not come down in person to beg that such orders might be given. Unless it was done yesterday, no orders were given for prayers in the churches, nor for the observance of other forms, such as stopping the playhouses, &c., highly proper (?) at such a juncture. What the consequence of this heavy misfortune will be to government, you are more likely to know than I am; but I cannot help thinking that the Prince will find a greater difficulty in making a sweep of the present ministry in his character of Fiduciary Regent than in that of King. The stocks are already fallen two per cent., and the alarms of the people of London are very little flattering to the Prince. I am told that message after message has been sent to Fox, who is touring with Mrs. Armistead on the continent; but I have not heard that the Prince has sent for him, or has given any orders to Fox’s friends to that effect. The system of favouritism is much changed since Lord Bute’s and the Princess Dowager’s time; for Jack Payne, Master Leigh, an Eton schoolboy, and Master Barry, brother to Lord Barrymore, and Mrs. Fitz, form the cabinet at Carlton House.’

The afflicted King, for a time, grew worse, then the Opposition affected to believe that his case was by no means desperate. Their insincerity was proved as symptoms of amelioration began to show themselves. Then they not only denied the fact of the King’s improved health, but they detailed all the incidents they could pick up of his period of imbecility, short madness, or longer delirium. But, in justice to the Opposition, it must be remarked that the greatest traitor was not on that side, but on the King’s. The Lord Chancellor Thurlow was intriguing with the Opposition when he was affecting to be a faithful servant of the crown. His treachery, however, was well known to both parties; but Pitt kept it from the knowledge of George III., lest it should too deeply pain or too dangerously excite him. When Thurlow had, subsequently, the effrontery to exclaim in the House of Lords, ‘When I forget my King, may my God forget me!’ a voice from one behind him is said to have murmured, ‘Forget you! He will see you d—d first.’

There was assuredly no decency in the conduct of the heir-apparent or of his next brother. They were gaily flying from club to club, party to party, and did not take the trouble even to assume the sentiment which they could not feel. ‘If we were together,’ says Lord Grenville, in a letter inserted in the ‘Memoirs,’ ‘I would tell you some particulars of the Prince of Wales’s behaviour towards the King and Queen, within these few days, that would make your blood run cold, but I dare not admit them to paper because of my informant.’ It was said that if the King could only recover sufficiently to learn and comprehend what had been said and done during his illness, he would hear enough to drive him again into insanity. The conduct of his elder sons was marked, not only by its savage inhumanity, but by an indifference to public and private opinion which distinguishes those fools who are not only without wits, but who are also without hearts. When the Parliament was divided by fierce party strife, as to whose hands should be confided the power and responsibilities of the regency, the occasion should have disposed those likely to be endowed with that supreme power to seek a decent, if temporary, retirement from the gaze of the world. Not so the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. They kept open houses, and gaily welcomed every new ally. They were constant guests at epicurean clubs and convivial meetings. They both took to deep play, and both were as fully plucked as they deserved. There was in them neither propriety of feeling nor affectation of it.

The condition of the Queen was deplorable, and a succession of fits almost prostrated her as low as her royal husband. The Prince of Wales himself ‘seemed frightened,’ says Mr. Neville to the Marquis of Buckingham, ‘and was blooded yesterday,’ November 6, the second day of the King’s delirious condition; but as phlebotomy was a practice of this princely person when in love, one cannot well determine whether his pallor arose from filial or some less respectable affection.

Up to this time the King had grown worse, chiefly through total, or nearly total, loss of sleep. He bewailed this with a hoarse, rapid, yet kindly tone of voice; maintaining that he was well, or that to be so he needed but the blessing of sleep. The Queen paced her apartment with a painful demonstration of impatient despair in her manner; and if, by way of solace, she attempted to read aloud to her children or ladies, any passage that reminded her of her condition and prospects made her burst into tears.

Previous to the first night of the King’s delirium he conducted, as he had always been accustomed to do, the Queen to her dressing-room, and there, a hundred times over, requested her not to disturb him if she should find him asleep. The urgent repetition showed a mind nearly overthrown, but the King calmly and affectionately remarked that he needed not physicians, for the Queen was the best physician he could have. ‘She is my best friend,’ said he; ‘where could I find a better?’

The alarm became greater when the fever left the King, after he had three times taken James’s powders, but without producing any relief to the brain. The Queen secluded herself from all persons save her ladies and the two eldest Princes. These, as Lord Bulkeley said, did not announce to her the state of the King’s health with the caution and delicacy due to the wife and mother who now depended on them. This dependence was so complete that the Prince of Wales, as before said, took the command of everything at Windsor, one result of which was a disappearance of everything like order. The Queen’s dependence on such a son was rather compulsory than voluntary. When he first came down to Windsor, from Brighton, the meeting was the very coldest possible, and when he had stated whence he came her first question was when he meant to return. However, it is said that when the King broke out, at dinner, into his first fit of positive delirium, the Prince burst into tears.

The sufferer was occasionally better, but the relapses were frequent. The Queen now slept in a bed-room adjoining that occupied by the King. He once became possessed with the idea that she had been forcibly removed from the bed, and in the middle of the night he came into the Queen’s room with a candle in his hand, to satisfy himself that she was still near him. He remained half-an-hour, talking incoherently, hoarsely, but good-naturedly, and then went away. The Queen’s nights were nights of sleeplessness and tears.

In the Queen’s room could be heard every expression uttered by the King, and they were only such as could give pain to the listener. His state was at length so bad that the Queen was counselled to change her apartments, both for her sake and the King’s. She obeyed, reluctantly and despairingly, and confined herself to a single and distant room. In the meanwhile, Dr. Warren was sent for, but the King resolutely refused to see him. He hated all physicians, declared that he himself was only nervous, and that otherwise he was not ill. Dr. Warren, however, contrived to be near enough to be able to give an opinion, and the Queen waited impatiently in her apartment to hear what that opinion might be. When she was told, after long waiting, that Dr. Warren had left the castle, after communicating his opinion to the Prince of Wales, she felt the full force of her altered position, and that she was nor longer first in the castle next to the King.

The Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, some of the medical men, and other gentlemen kept a sort of watch in the room adjacent to that in which the King lay, and listened attentively to all he uttered. He surprised them, one night, by suddenly appearing among them, and roughly demanding what they were there for. They endeavoured to pacify him, but in vain. He treated them all as enemies; but not happening to see his second son, who had discreetly kept out of sight, but was present, he said, touchingly, ‘Freddy is my friend; yes, he is my friend!’ Sir George Baker timidly persuaded the poor King to return to his bed-room; but the latter forced the doctor into a corner, and told him that he was an old woman, who could not distinguish between a mere nervous malady and any other. The Prince, by sign and whispers, endeavoured to induce the other gentlemen to lead his father away. All were reluctant, and the King remained a considerable time, till at last a ‘Mr. Fairly’ took him boldly by the arm, addressed him respectfully but firmly, declaring that his life was in peril if he did not go again to bed, and at length subdued the King, who gave himself up like a wearied child. These details were eagerly made known to the Queen by the Prince with ‘energetic violence.’ Her Majesty’s condition was indeed melancholy, but at its worst she never forgot to perform little acts of kindness to her daughters and others. The conduct of the Princesses was such as became their situation. They, with their mother, had fallen from their first greatness, and the Prince of Wales was supreme master. Nothing was done but by his orders. The Queen ceased to have any authority beyond the reach of her own ladies. ‘She spent the whole day,’ says Miss Burney, ‘in patient sorrow and retirement with her daughters!’

The King expressed a very natural desire to see these daughters, but he was not indulged. Indeed, the practice observed towards him appears, if the accounts may be trusted, extremely injudicious. The public seem to have thought so; for, on stopping Sir George Baker’s carriage, and hearing from him that the King’s condition was very bad, they exclaimed, ‘More shame for you!’

The Prince of Wales was extremely desirous to remove the King from Windsor to Kew. The King was violently averse from such removal, and the Queen opposed it until she was informed that it had the sanction of the physicians. Kew was said to be quieter and more adapted for an invalid. The difficulty was, how he was to get there. Of his own will he would never go. The Prince and physicians contrived a plan. The Queen and Princesses were to leave Windsor early, and, as soon as the King should be told of their departure, his uneasiness would be calmed by an assurance that he would find them at Kew. The Queen yielded reluctantly, on being told that it would be for her consort’s advantage; and she and her daughters proceeded, without state and in profound grief, to Kew. Small accommodation did they find there; for half the apartments were locked up, by the Prince’s orders, while on the doors of the few allotted to the Queen and her slender retinue, some illustrious groom of the chambers had scratched in chalk the names of those by whom they were to be occupied! Night had set in before the King arrived. He had been wheedled away from Windsor, on promise of being allowed to see the Queen and their daughters at Kew. He performed the journey in silent content; and, when he arrived—the promise was broken! The Queen and children were again told that it was all for the best; but a night, passed by the King in violence and raving, showed how deeply he felt the cruel insult to which he had been subjected. In the meantime, preparations to name the Prince regent were going on, the King’s friends being extremely cautious that due reserve should be made for their master’s rights, in case of what they did not yet despair of—his recovery. His physicians were divided in opinion upon the point; but they all agreed that the malady, which had begun with a natural discharge of humour from the legs, had, by the King’s imprudence, been driven to the bowels, and that thence it had been repelled upon the brain. They endeavoured, without too sanguinely hoping, to bring the malady again down to the legs.

Their efforts were fruitless. Addington and Sir Lucas Pepys were more sanguine than their colleagues, of a recovery; but the condition of the patient grew daily more serious, yet with intervals of calm lucidity. It was at this juncture that Dr. Willis, of Lincoln, was called in. This measure gave great relief to the Queen; for she knew that cases of lunacy formed Dr. Willis’s specialité, and she entertained great hopes from the treatment he should adopt. The doctor was accompanied by his two sons. They were (and the father especially) fine men, full of cheerfulness, firm in manner, entertaining respect for the personal character of the King, but caring not a jot for his rank. They at once took the royal patient into their care, and with such good success—never unnecessarily opposing him, but winning, rather than compelling, him to follow the course best suited for his health—that, on the 10th of December, the Queen had the gratification to see him, from the window of her apartment, walking in the garden alone, the Willises being in attendance at a little distance from him.

There was a party who desired least of all things the recovery of the monarch. The Prince of Wales, during his father’s malady, took Lord Lothian into a darkened room, adjacent to that of the King, in order that the obsequious lord might hear the ravings of the sovereign, and depose to the fact, if such deposition should be necessary!

The year 1789 opened propitiously. On its very first morning the poor King was heard praying, aloud and fervently, for his own recovery. A report of how he had passed the night was made to the Queen every morning, and generally by Miss Burney. The state of the King varied so much, and there was so much of painful detail that it was desirable should be concealed, that the task allotted to Miss Burney was sometimes one of great delicacy. On the worst occasions she appears to have spared her royal mistress’s feelings with much tact and judgment, and her face was the index of her message whenever she was the bearer of favourable intelligence. The highest gratification experienced by the Queen at the period when hopes revived of the King’s recovery, was when she heard that her husband had remembered on the 18th of January that it was her birthday, and had expressed a desire to see her. This joy, however, was forbidden him for a time, and apparently not without reason. A short period only had elapsed after the birthday when the King suddenly encountered Miss Burney in Kew Gardens, where she had ventured to take exercise, under the impression that the sick monarch had been taken to Richmond. As it was the Queen’s desire, derived from the physicians, that no one should attempt to come in the King’s way, or address him if they did, Miss Burney no sooner became aware of whom she had thus unexpectedly encountered, than she turned round and fairly took to her heels. The King, calling to her by name, and enraptured to see again the face of one whom he knew and esteemed, pursued as swiftly as she fled. The Willises followed hard upon the King, not without some alarm. Miss Burney kept the lead in breathless affright. In vain was she called upon to stop: she ran on until a peremptory order from Dr. Willis, and a brief assurance that the agitation would be most injurious to the King, brought her at once to a stand-still. She then turned and advanced to meet the King, as if she had not before been aware of his presence. He manifested his intense delight by opening wide his arms, closing them around her, and kissing her warmly on each cheek. Poor Miss Burney was overwhelmed, and the Willises were delighted. They imagined that the King was doing nothing unusual with him in the days of his ordinary health, and were pleased to see him fulfilling, as they thought, an old observance.

The King would not relax his hold of his young friend. He entered eagerly into conversation, if that may be deemed conversation in which he alone spoke, or was only answered by words sparingly used and soothingly intoned. He talked rapidly, hoarsely, but only occasionally incoherently. His subjects of conversation took a wide range. Family affairs, political business, Miss Burney’s domestic interests, foreign matters, music,—these and many other topics made up the staple of his discourse. He was at least rational on the subject of music, for then he commenced singing from his favourite Handel, but with voice so hoarse and ill-attuned that he frightened his audience. Dr. Willis suggested that the interview should close; but this the King energetically opposed, and his medical adviser thought it best to let him have his way. He went on, then, wildly as before, but manifesting much shrewdness; showed that he was aware of his condition, and expressed more than suspicion of assaults made upon his authority during his own incapacity. He talked of whom he would promote when he was fully restored to health, and whom he would dismiss—made allusion to a thousand projects which he intended to realise, and attained a climax of threatening, with a serio-comic expression, that when he should again be King he would rule with a rod of iron.

After various attempts at interruption, the Willises at length succeeded in obtaining his consent to return to the house, and Miss Burney hastened to the Queen’s apartment to inform her of all that had passed. The Queen listened to her tale with breathless interest; made her repeat every incident; and augured so well from all she heard, that she readily forgave Miss Burney her involuntary infraction of a very peremptory law. That the Queen’s augury was well founded may be seen in the fact that, on the 12th of February following, King and Queen together walked in Kew Gardens—he, happy and nervous; she, in much the same condition; and both, as grateful as mortals could be for inestimable blessings vouchsafed to them.

During the progress of the King’s illness, while all was sombre and silent at Kew, political intrigue was loud and active elsewhere. The voice of the Queen herself was not altogether mute in this intrigue. She had rights to defend, she had spirit to assert them, and she had friends to afford her aid in enabling her to establish them.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE ‘FIRST GENTLEMAN’ AND HIS PRINCIPLES.

Inconsistency of the Whigs—The Tories become radical reformers—Party spirit—A restricted Regency scorned by the Prince—Compelled to accept it—The King’s rapid recovery—Incredulity of the Princes in regard to the King’s recovery—A family scene at Kew—Ball at White’s Club on the King’s recovery, and unbecoming conduct of the Princes—Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s—Indecent conduct of the Princes—Grief of the King—Expectations of the Prince disappointed—Caricatures and satires.

When the Queen first changed her apartments at Windsor, her exclamation, as she entered her new abode, was an assertion of her desolate helplessness, and a deploring hesitation as to what course she was bound to take. She was soon stirred to action. Her eldest son was active in the field against her, and her spirit was speedily aroused to protect and further her own interests. The Parliament had been made acquainted with the condition of the King, by a report from the privy council. With this the legislature was not satisfied. Parliamentary committees sat, before which bodies the King’s physicians made detailed depositions, whereby the King’s existing incapacity to transact public business was established beyond doubt. Upon this the Whigs, with Fox at their head (he had hurried home from Italy, deplorably ill, to perform this service for the Prince of Wales), declared that the royal incapacity caused the government of the kingdom to fall, as a matter of right, upon the heir-apparent. This assertion, which is a full and complete embracing of the law of divine right, and a trampling under foot of the authority of the parliament, was made in 1788, just one hundred years after the grandfathers of these very Whigs had established the authority of the people in parliament above that of the crown, and made the King who reigned and did not govern, merely the first magistrate of a free people.

On the other hand the Tories, with Pitt for their leader, declared that thus to annihilate the sovereignty of the people in parliament was treason against the constitution, which, in a juncture like the present, bestowed on the people’s representatives the right of naming by whom they would be governed. Thus the Tories were in truth radical reformers; and, in truth, quite as serious, both parties being equally insincere, fighting only for place, and caring little for aught beyond.

The whole country, upon this, became Tory in spirit—as Toryism had now developed itself. Fox in vain explained that he meant that the administration of the government belonged to the Prince of Wales, only if Parliament sanctioned it. In vain the Prince of Wales, through his brother the Duke of York, proclaimed in the House of Lords that he made no claim whatever, but was, in fact, the very humble and obedient servant of the people.

It was precisely because he did assert this claim that the Queen and her friends were alarmed. Should the Prince be endowed with the powers of regent, without restriction, the Queen would be reduced to a cypher, Pitt would lose his place, the ministry would be overthrown with him, and, should the King recover, difficulties might arise in the way of the recovery also of his authority.

Party spirit ran high on this matter, but there was little patriotism to give it dignity. Among the ministry, even, waverers were to be found, who were on the Prince’s side when the King’s case seemed desperate, and who veered round to the Sovereign’s party as soon as there appeared a hope of his recovery.

A restricted regency the Prince of Wales affected to look upon with ineffable scorn. His royal brothers manifested more fraternal sympathy than filial affection, by pretending to think their brother’s scorn well-founded. They all changed their minds as soon as they saw, by Pitt’s parliamentary majorities, that they could not help themselves. Ultimately, the Prince consented, with a very ill grace, to the terms which Pitt and the Parliament were disposed to force upon him. Never did man submit to terms which he loathed with such bitterness of disappointed spirit as the Prince did to the following conditions; namely:—

That the King’s person was to be entrusted to the Queen; her Majesty was to be also invested with the control of the royal household, and with the consequent patronage of the four hundred places connected therewith, including the appointments of lord-steward, lord-chamberlain, and master of the horse. The Prince, as regent, was further to be debarred from granting any office, reversion, or pension, except during the King’s pleasure; and the privilege of conferring the peerage was not to be allowed to him at all.

With a fiercely savage heart did he accept these terms; and when the Irish Parliament, in its eagerness to encourage dissension in England, invited him to take upon himself the unrestricted administration of the Irish government during the royal incapacity, the warmth and ardent gratitude expressed by the Prince in his reply, showed how willingly he would have accepted the invitation if he had only dared.

And now the day was appointed for bringing the Regency Bill regularly before Parliament—the 3rd of February—and the clauses were already under discussion when, a fortnight later, the lord chancellor (Thurlow) announced to the house that the King was declared by his medical attendants to be in a state of convalescence.

When Prince Henry was detected in taking the crown from the head of his invalid and slumbering father, he met the reproof which ensued with tender expressions of sorrow and respect. There was little of similar depth of feeling when the Prince of Wales, with the Duke of York, saw his father for the first time after his recovery. Queen Charlotte alone was present with her husband and sons. The last entered the King’s room, and issued therefrom, without a trace of emotion upon their faces or in their bearing. The chagrin with which they saw the power which they had coveted slip from them, might have taught them wisdom, but it only drove them to wine, cards, masquerades, and the profligacy which goes in company therewith. They were not as men rejoicing that Heaven had been merciful to their father and King, but as men striving to forget, amid a hurricane of vicious pleasures, that their sire had really been the object of such mercy. The Prince had indeed some misgivings as to what George III. might think of his conduct during the King’s malady; but he affected to assert that it would meet with approbation, while that of Mr. Pitt, he thought, would receive from the monarch a strong reproof. The Duke of York was far less careful as to the paternal, and as little to the public, opinion. He ran up scores in open tennis-courts with well-known black-legs, and promised payment as soon as he had received from his father certain arrears of revenue due to him as Bishop of Osnaburg.

These princely sons were among the last to acquiesce in the opinion that their father was sane, and competent again to exercise his constitutional authority. Lord Grenville thus graphically describes a family scene at Kew:—‘The two Princes were at Kew yesterday, and saw the King in the Queen’s apartment. She was present the whole time, a precaution for which, God knows, there was but too much reason. They kept him waiting a considerable time before they arrived, and after they left him drove immediately to Mrs. Armistead’s in Park Street, in hopes of finding Fox there, to give him an account of what had passed. He not being in town, they amused themselves yesterday evening with spreading about a report that the King was still out of his mind, and with quoting phrases of his to which they gave that turn. It is certainly a decent and becoming thing, that when all the King’s physicians, all his attendants, and his two principal ministers agree in pronouncing him well, his two sons should deny it! And the reflection that the Prince of Wales was to have had the government, and the Duke of York the command of the army, during his illness, makes this representation of his actual state, when coming from them, more peculiarly proper and edifying! I bless God that it is some time before these matured and ripened virtues will be visited upon us in the form of a government.’[6]

In the meantime the monarch got so undeniably well and competent to govern, that even his nearest and most expectant heirs could no longer deny the, to them, most unwelcome truth. A ball was given by White’s Club to celebrate this event, and the Princes of course were present to show how they were gratified by it! The ball was announced to take place at the Pantheon, and the Prince of Wales, who had engaged to attend, previously did his wretched utmost to render the attendance of others as thin as possible, by canvassing all his friends and admirers to keep away. The club had transmitted to the Prince and the Duke of York a large number of tickets for the accommodation of themselves and the acquaintances to whom, it was presumed, they might be desirous to pay the compliment of presenting them with admissions. The brothers sent the whole of these tickets to Hookham’s in Bond Street for sale! The club, on hearing of this insulting proceeding, and to prevent the admission of improper persons at a fête which had a private and exclusive character, intimated by advertisement that no ticket would entitle its holder to admittance which did not bear on it the signature of a subscriber to the ball, or of the person to whom the committee had sent such ticket. This did not teach the Duke decency. He affixed his princely title to the tickets, to make them saleable and valid; and he himself attended a ball given expressly in his honour, at the Horse Guards.

The first, and graceful, feeling of the Monarch, that he was bound to make a public expression of his thanks to Heaven for his recovery, caused his ministers and friends, and particularly the Queen, much embarrassment. They were afraid of the excitement and its probable consequences. But George III. was now in the condition once noticed by Hunter, the surgeon, in himself. ‘My mind,’ said the latter, ‘is still inclined to odd thoughts, and I am tempted to talk foolishly; but I can govern myself.’ The King was in better health than is here indicated, and he bore himself throughout the day—the 25th of June, 1789—as became a grateful man, abounding in piety, and not dispossessed of wisdom. The disgraceful rivalry of his eldest son had almost marred the day. The followers of the latter were posted along the first part of the route between the palace and St. Paul’s, and their cheers, associated with his name, put him in high good humour, which was however converted into as high displeasure when the running fire of cheers between Charing Cross and the cathedral was raised only in honour of his father. His conduct, and indeed that of his brothers York and Cumberland, as also of their cousin the Duke of Gloucester, in the cathedral, during service, disgusted all who witnessed it. They talked aloud to one another during the whole otherwise solemn proceeding; and it is only to be regretted that no man was present, with courage equal to his authority, to sternly reprove, or summarily remove, them.

The scene at St. Paul’s, as regarded the King himself, was at once magnificent and touching. The internal arrangements were excellent, and the King was composed and devout throughout the service; attentive to the latter, and especially to the anthem, which he had himself selected. His air of sincerity and gratitude was most marked. The Queen was much affected at the solemnity of their first entrance; and the King, who looked reduced, scarcely less so. Lady Uxbridge, who was in attendance on the Queen, nearly fainted away. ‘As the King went out of the church,’ writes Mr. Bernard to the Marquis of Rockingham, ‘he seemed to be in good spirits, and talked much to the persons about him; but he stared and laughed less than I ever knew him on a public occasion.’ Mr. Fox and most of the Opposition party were there; and while the Queen returned thanks for the King’s recovery, as she looked upon the sons near her, who interrupted the solemnity of the scene by their talking, she might have felt that she had other things to be thankful for also. She must have known, by the conduct of the Prince of Wales, that, had the King’s illness lasted much longer, he would have accepted the invitation of the Irish Parliament, and assumed a regency in Ireland, with sovereign power. He would have accomplished then what O’Connell, so long after, failed in achieving—a government altogether independent of, and in antagonism with, England.

After the return of the procession the Prince of Wales and Duke of York entered Carlton House, where, having put on regimentals, they proceeded to the ground in front of Buckingham House, at the windows of which the royal family had stationed themselves, the King and Queen being most prominent; and there, heading the whole brigade of guards, fired a feu-de-joie in honour of the occasion. The grave Lord Bulkeley, a spectator of the scene, thus describes the remainder of the proceedings: ‘The Prince, before the King got into his carriage—which the whole line waited for before they filed off—went off on a sudden with one hundred of the common people, with Mr. Weltje in the middle of them, huzzaing him; and this was done evidently to lead if possible a greater number and to make it penetrate into Buckingham House. The breach,’ adds Lord Bulkeley, ‘is so very wide between the King and Prince, that it seems to me to be a great weakness to allow him any communication with him whatever; for, under the mask of attention to their father and mother, the Prince and Duke of York commit every possible outrage, and show every insult they can devise to them.... I believe the King’s mind is torn to pieces by his sons,’ adds the noble lord. And then, in allusion to the King’s expressed desire to visit Hanover, the writer remarks thereon: ‘He expects to relieve himself by a new scene, and by getting out of the way and hearing of the Prince of Wales, with the hope of being able to detach the Duke of York, whom he fondly and doatingly loves, and prevailing on him to marry on the Continent; of which there is no chance, for in my opinion he is just as bad as the Prince, and gives no hopes of any change or amendment whatever in thought, word, or deed.’

A very short time after the King’s recovery the first remark made by the sufferer, on growing convalescent, to Lord Thurlow, was—‘What has happened may happen again. For God’s sake! make some permanent and immediate provision for such a regency as may prevent the country from being involved in disputes and difficulties similar to those just over.’ Thurlow and Pitt agreed on the expediency of the measure, but were at issue relative to the details. When the measure did come before Parliament, Queen Charlotte was equally indignant against the Prince of Wales and against those who advocated his claims. It may be added here that the conduct of her three eldest sons continued to be of the most insulting nature to the Queen. They could not forgive her for allegedly standing between them and the power which they coveted. From congratulatory balls, at which she had announced her intention to be present, they kept away all persons over whom they had any influence; and at a ball given by the French ambassador on the 30th of May the Prince of Wales and the Dukes of York and Clarence would neither dance nor remain to supper, lest they should have the appearance of paying the smallest attention to her Majesty, who was present.

The assertion of the Prince of Wales that his royal father would approve of what he had done, and censure Pitt, proved to be totally unfounded. The King conveyed to the Parliament, through the lord chancellor, his approval of the measures taken by ministers, and expressed his gratitude that so much zeal had been manifested by them and Parliament for the public good and for the honour and interest of the crown. Following this came a sweep of all who held removeable offices under the crown, and who had opposed the Queen’s interests and the King’s cause by supporting the views of the Prince. Among the ejected were the Duke of Queensberry, the Marquis of Lothian, Lord Carteret, and Lord Malmesbury.

Mr. Wright, in his ‘History of England under the House of Hanover, illustrated from the caricatures and satires of the day,’ states that the popularity of the ministers did not increase in the same proportion as that of the King; for the reason that though the people approved of the constitutional measures they had adopted at the late crisis, the same people very well knew that they were as little impelled by patriotism as their adversaries. Mr. Wright notices ‘a rather celebrated caricature,’ by Gillray, entitled ‘Minions of the Moon,’ published a little later. It is dated the 23rd of December 1791, but is generally understood to refer to this affair. It is a parody on Fuseli’s picture of ‘The Weird Sisters,’ who are represented with the features of Dundas, Pitt, and Thurlow. They are contemplating the disk of the moon, which represents, on the bright side, the face of the Queen, and on the shrouded side that of the King, now overcast with mental darkness. The three minions are evidently directing their devotions to the brighter side.

CHAPTER IX.
ROYALTY UNDER VARIOUS PHASES.

Bishop Watson a partisan of the Prince—The bishop’s reception by the Queen—The Prince’s patronage of the bishop—Bishop Watson’s views on the Regency—Laid on the shelf—The Prince and the bishop’s ‘Apology’—Ball given on the King’s recovery by Brookes’s Club; Mrs. Siddons, as Britannia—The Queen’s Drawing-room on the occasion—Mrs. Siddons’s readings at Buckingham House—Gay life of the Duke of York—Popularity of the Duke of Clarence—His boundless hospitality at the Admiralty—Duel between the Duke of York and Colonel Lennox—Littleness of spirit of the Princes—Royal visit to Lulworth Castle—Assault on the King—Caricatures of the day—Marriage of the Duke of York—Ceremonious royal visit to the young couple—Caricatures of the Duchess of York—Unhappy in her marriage—The Duchess and Monk Lewis—Alleged avarice of the King and Queen—Dr. Johnson’s opinion of the King—Etiquette at Court—The Sailor Prince ‘too far gone’ for a minuet—The Royal family at Cheltenham—The mayor and the master of the ceremonies—Questionable taste of the Queen in regard to the drama—Moral degradation of England during the reign of the first two Georges—Mrs. Hannah More’s ideas on morality; and Rev. Sydney Smith’s witty remark on it—A delicate hint by the Queen to Lady Charlotte Campbell—The Prince’s pecuniary difficulties—The Prince and affairs of the heart—Mésalliance of the Duke of Sussex.

Among the few bishops who took the ‘unrestricted’ side on the Regency Bill, Bishop Watson of Llandaff was the most active. No doubt his activity was founded on conscientiousness, for many able men of the period were to be found who were by no means violent partisans, yet who were ready to maintain that, according to the constitutional law, the right of exercising the power of regent in the case of incapacity on the part of the reigning sovereign rested in the next heir, the Prince of Wales. There is as little doubt as to the Queen’s having looked with considerable disfavour on all who held such sentiments. Among those who did was this Bishop of Llandaff. If Queen Charlotte felt towards the prelate as Queen Caroline used to do towards those who stood between her and her wishes, the fault, if fault there were, was not attributable to her, but to the minister. He, right or wrong—and most persons who knew what the conduct of the elder son of Charlotte was will agree that he was at least morally right—he, the minister, represented to her that all who supported the Prince and opposed the ministerial measure which gave great power to the Queen were enemies of the sovereign. Charlotte believed this, and perhaps the Whig bishop is not wrong who says that the Queen lost, in the opinion of many, the character she had hitherto maintained in this country by falling in with the designs of the minister. These many were, however, only the Whigs. It is nevertheless unfortunately true that the Queen distinguished by different degrees of courtesy on the one hand, and by meditated affronts on the other, those who had voted with and those who had voted against the ministers, ‘inasmuch,’ says Bishop Watson, ‘that the Duke of Northumberland one day said to me, “So, my lord, you and I also are become traitors.”’

At the drawing-room held on the King’s recovery the Queen received Bishop Watson with a degree of coldness which, he says, ‘would have appeared to herself ridiculous and ill-placed could she have imagined how little a mind such as mine regarded in its honourable proceedings the displeasure of a woman, though that woman happened to be a Queen.’ But it must not be forgotten that if the Queen had, as it were, two faces for the two parties into which society at Court was divided, her eldest son exhibited the same characteristic, and he was accordingly eminently cordial with the prelate of Llandaff. When, at the drawing-room above-named, the Queen looked displeased as the bishop stood before her, the Prince of Wales, who was standing by her side, immediately asked him to come and dine with him. A more unseemly proceeding cannot well be imagined. ‘On my making some objection,’ says the bishop, ‘to dining at Carlton House, the Prince turned to Sir Thomas Dundas and asked him to give us a dinner at his house on the following Saturday.’ The party was arranged, the guests met, and, while they were waiting for dinner, the Prince took the bishop by the button-hole, and, says the prelate, ‘he explained to me the principle on which he had acted during the whole of the King’s illness, and spoke to me with an afflicted feeling of the manner in which the Queen had treated himself. I must do him the justice to say that he spoke, in this conference, in as sensible a manner as could possibly have been expected from an heir-apparent to the throne and from a son of the best principles towards both his parents.’

The especial words ‘in this conference’ would seem to imply that the son of Charlotte did not always speak in so sensible a manner as could have been expected from a royal heir-apparent. It would have been as well, too, if the bishop had told his readers what the principle was on which the Prince had grounded his conduct throughout the King’s illness. When he simply talks of the Prince as a son imbued with the best principles towards both his parents, he would have done well if he had added whether he was considering that son politically or morally. It must have been politically, for the right reverend prelate did not impress upon his younger friend that a mother’s faults should be invisible to the eyes of her children; but, on the other hand, he rather emphatically charged her with ill-humour by advising the Prince ‘to persevere in dutifully bearing with his mother’s ill-humour till time and her own good sense should disentangle her from the web which ministerial cunning had thrown around her.’ Now to persevere in a line of conduct is to continue in that already entered upon, and the line followed by the Prince was one of continual insult and provocation against the Queen. The bishop confesses an inclination to think well of her. ‘I was willing,’ he writes, ‘to attribute her conduct during the agitation of the regency question to her apprehensions of the King’s safety, to the misrepresentations of the King’s minister, to anything rather than a fondness for power.’ There is something inexpressibly ingenuous in the paragraph which follows:—‘Before we rose from table at Sir Thomas Dundas’s, where the Duke of York and a large company were assembled, the conversation turning on parties, I happened to say I was sick of parties, and should retire from all public concerns. “No,” said the Prince, “and mind who it is that tells you so, you shall never retire—a man of your talents shall never be lost to the public.”’ This testimony of himself was recorded by the bishop in 1814, and was published by his son in the Queen’s lifetime in 1817. Like the passage touching the Queen, it gave offence to the principal person concerned in it. The aged Queen was not pleased to have her ‘ill-humour’ registered before the world, nor was her son flattered by the innuendo which was conveyed in the paragraph which chronicled his promise of conferring preferment on the Bishop of Llandaff. Dr. Watson died prelate of that small diocese.

The clergy of the diocese of Llandaff presented congratulatory addresses to both their Majesties upon the King’s recovery. Those addresses were written by Bishop Watson; and in that which he presented to Queen Charlotte he inserted a paragraph which he avows, in his memoirs, that he knew would be disagreeable to her. The address in question, after expressing that the sympathy of every family had been extended to the Queen in her late distress, complimenting her on the sincerity of her piety, the amiableness and purity of her manners as Queen, wife, and mother, and referring, in laudatory terms to the concern which she had exhibited for the Monarch during his late unhappy situation, thus proceeds:—‘We observed in the deliberations of Parliament a great diversity of opinions as to the constitutional mode of protecting the rights of the Sovereign during the continuance of his indisposition; but we observed no diversity whatever as to the necessity of protecting them in the most effectual manner. This circumstance cannot fail of giving solid satisfaction to your Majesty; for, next to the consolation of believing that in his recovery he has been the especial object of God’s mercy, must be that of knowing that during his illness he was the peculiar object of his people’s love; that he rules over a free, a great, and an enlightened nation, not more by the laws of the land than by the wishes of the people.’

Upon this text of his own constructing, the bishop makes the following comment in his ‘Autobiography’:—‘The first part of this last paragraph I knew would be disagreeable to the Queen, as it contradicted the principle she wished to be generally believed, and the truth of which alone could justify her conduct—that the opposition to the minister was an opposition to the King. Now, as there was not a word of disaffection to the King in any of the debates in either House of Parliament during the transaction of the regency, and as I verily believe the hearts of the Opposition were as warm with the King, and warmer with the constitution, than those of their competitors, I thought fit to say what was, in my judgment, the plain truth.’ The bishop, however, loses sight of the fact that Queen, ministers, and a great majority of the people desired a restricted regency, in order that the rights of the Sovereign should suffer nothing, in case of recovery; and that Queen, ministers, and a great majority of the people felt that the Prince of Wales had no divine right to the regency, but had by his public and private conduct shown that he was entirely unworthy of holding any powers but under constitutional limitation.

Previous to the King’s recovery, the Bishop of Llandaff had expressed himself as having been miserably neglected by Mr. Pitt, and ‘I feel the indignity as I ought.’ The bishop declares that he was overlooked, for want of political pliancy. However, we have seen that, in the allegedly offended Queen’s presence, the Prince of Wales ostentatiously patronised the prelate, and subsequently made a post-prandial promise touching preferment, which he never fulfilled. The bishop strongly suspected that the Queen stood in his way. In 1805, the Duke of Grafton wrote to him, to give him early intimation that the Archbishop of Canterbury was not expected to live; but ‘I had no expectation of an archbishopric,’ says Dr. Watson, ‘for the Duke of Clarence had once said to me, (speaking in conversation no doubt the language of the court), ‘they will never make you an archbishop; they are afraid of you.’ In the following year, the bishopric of St. Asaph became vacant, and Dr. Watson applied for it to Lord Grenville, stating that it ‘would be peculiarly acceptable to himself.’ ‘It was given to the Bishop of Bangor; and the bishopric of Bangor was given to the Bishop of Oxford.’ Hereupon, the diocesan of Llandaff, suspecting that the Queen’s influence was exercised against him over the King, addressed a letter to the Duke of Clarence, begging him to lay the same, which contained a statement of the writer’s wishes, before the Prince of Wales, whom the bishop ‘most earnestly entreated to take some opportunity of doing him justice with the King.’ Years, however, passed on; and, in 1810, we find the right reverend prelate expressing himself in doubt ‘whether it is by her or by his Majesty that I am laid on the shelf.’ In fact, he was by far worse treated at the hands of the Prince of Wales, whose cause he had supported against Queen, ministers, and a great majority of the people, than he ever was by the Queen herself. The Prince had intimated that such a champion should not go without his reward; and that the Prince would not forget the prelate. His Highness did, however, completely forget the right reverend father. We do him wrong: he remembered him on one occasion. On the 3rd of May 1812 there was a dinner party at Carlton House. At these parties it was no uncommon thing for the Regent to tell stories which sent the Queen’s fan up to her face, with a remonstrating ‘George! George!’ to induce him to have some respect for decency. On the occasion in question, however, the conversation turned on immorality and irreligion. Mr. Tyrrwhitt thereupon told a story how he had been in society with a Sussex baronet, who gave utterance to such profligate and atheistic opinions that Mr. Tyrrwhitt was obliged to leave the room, after recommending the blasphemer and libertine to look into Bishop Watson’s ‘Apology’ for that Bible which the baronet so scoffed at. At the royal table ‘the baronet’s answer was produced and read, expressive of the greatest thankfulness for having had it put into his hands, as it not only had decided and clearly proved the error and fallacy of every opinion he had before entertained, but had afforded him a degree of secret comfort and tranquillity that his mind had previously been a stranger to.’ The Regent thereupon bethought himself of his old friend of Llandaff, and ordered Mr. Braddyll to communicate to him the highly gratifying anecdote. Dr. Watson returned his best thanks for ‘this instance of a Prince’s remembrance of a retired bishop;’ and therewith ended the patronage of the Regent, which was not more profitable to the prelate than the alleged opposition or indifference of the Queen.

The Prince’s party were somewhat ashamed, it would seem, at what had taken place in connection with White’s Club ball; and the Club at Brookes’s resolved to render themselves blameless in the eyes of the Queen, who was supposed to be more indignant than her consort at the measures of their elder sons and their followers. The club at Brookes’s hired the Opera-house, and gave a festival to the ladies, consisting of a concert, recitations, a ball, and a supper. At this festival Mrs. Siddons was engaged to appear as Britannia, and recite some silly verses, by silly Merry, in which laudation of the King was qualified by political instructions to the people. ‘Long may he rule a willing land!’ was declaimed by the actress with solemn and melodious dignity; and this line was followed by the hint to the people that ‘Oh, for ever may that land be free!’ A long roll of ‘infinite deal of nothings’ followed, in which scant courtesy was paid to the Queen; and Mrs. Siddons, having got to the end of her ‘lines,’ astonished the spectators by an exhibition of the ‘pose plastique,’ assuming the ‘exact attitude of Britannia, as impressed upon our copper coin.’

Having noticed what took place at the King’s drawing-room, omission must not be made of the Queen’s, held by her in March, especially to receive congratulations upon the happy recovery of her consort. More than usual splendour did honour to the occasion. The Queen sat on a chair of state, under a canopy, and surrounded by the great officers of her household. Eye-witnesses declare that the blaze of diamonds which covered her Majesty was something more than the ordinary glory. Around the Queen’s neck, too, was a double row of gold chain, supporting a medallion. ‘Across her shoulders was another chain of pearls, in three rows; but the portrait of the King was suspended from five rows of diamonds, fastened loose upon the dress behind, and streaming over the person with the most gorgeous effect. The tippet was of fine lace, fastened with the letter G, in brilliants of immense value. In front of her Majesty’s hair, in letters formed of diamonds, were easily legible the words, “God save the King.” The Princesses were splendidly, but not equally, adorned. The female nobility wore emblematical designs, beautifully painted on the satin of their caps, and fancy teemed with the inventions of loyalty and joy. At half-an-hour after six o’clock, her Majesty quitted the drawing-room for duties still more interesting.’

What these duties were, after the long drawing-room, Mr. Boaden, from whose ‘Life of Kemble’ the details are borrowed, does not inform us; but he adds, in a burst of eloquence not unlike the tone of some of the dramas of which he discourses so pleasantly, that he cannot forbear from expressing the full conviction of his understanding and his heart, that no more glorious being than the consort of George III. ever existed. ‘I have lived,’ he says, ‘to see a miserable delusion withdraw some part of the affection of the multitude for a time; but she was in truth the idol of the people, and they paid to her that sort of homage as if in her person they were reverencing the form of Virtue itself.’

The same unreserved panegyrist, describing her Majesty’s visit to Covent Garden Theatre on the 15th of April 1789, states that she was accompanied by three of the Princesses—the Princess Royal, most unassuming of all Charlotte’s daughters; the Princess Augusta, so careless as to what she was dressed in, provided only that she were dressed; and the Princess Elizabeth, who was always anxious to be doing little services for people about the court, as if she wished to forget that she was burdened by being great, and by the formalities which she must observe, to give greatness dignity. Mr. Boaden strikingly describes the scene. ‘The Queen entered the royal box alone; the Princesses not being, for a few minutes, ready. On the appearance of the Queen, a shout arose, of transport, from the spectators; the curtain ran up, and displayed a transparency which had the words, in striking letters, Long live the King! and May the King live for ever!’ For all this no preparation could be sufficient; and tears fortunately came to her relief. In this state she paid her compliments to her people. On the entrance of the Princesses, the emotion somewhat subsided—

It seemed she was a Queen

Over her passion, which, most rebel-like,

Sought to be king o’er her.

The entertainments of the evening had no allusion whatever to the event. They consisted of ‘He would be a Soldier,’ and ‘Aladdin.’ The simple introduction, by Edwin, of giving the King’s health, was the only allusion made to passing events. But the house cheered, and the Queen smiled and nodded her gratification.

Whilst on the subject of theatricals, it may be noticed that the King and Queen not only patronised Mrs. Siddons, but that the patronage which they showed to this lady was not confined to witnessing and applauding her performances on the stage. She was a frequent visitor at Buckingham House and Windsor; and she was among the first to discover that the King’s mind was affected. On occasion of one of her visits, after her task was done of reading a play, at a high desk, before which she stood, the King went up to her, and presented her with a blank paper—blank, with the exception that his signature was at the bottom of it. Such a gift intimated that the giver bound himself to make any amount of pecuniary provision which the will of the actress might choose to name, above the royal signature. The paper was doubtless received with a graceful and grateful dignity, but with equal propriety it was, on the earliest opportunity, presented blank, as it was received, to the Queen. Her Majesty was very pointed in the expression of her approbation at conduct so delicate and dignified; but the virtue of Mrs. Siddons was left to be its own reward.

While the Duke of York was leading a ‘gay’ life, running in debt, and falling asleep over his cards (his constant habit), to find himself a great loser when he awoke, his next brother, Clarence, with some lively propensities, too, contrived to maintain considerable popularity. He was of a popular profession. At the age of thirteen the King sent him as midshipman on board a man-of-war, and told him to fight his way. He obeyed the injunction by having a set-to with another ‘middy,’ soon after he was afloat, and secured, in this way, the respect of his fellow-officers. He served under Keith, Hood, and Nelson. His sole remark on first seeing the last-named gallant ‘shadow,’ was, that his tail seemed more than he had strength to carry. The little Duke was present in several actions, and shared in several victories. When the Spanish commander, Don Juan de Langera, was brought prisoner on board the ‘Prince George,’ and was told that the smart and active midshipman whom he had observed on duty at the gangway was a prince of the blood, and son of the reigning King, the brave but unlucky captain exclaimed, ‘Well may England be queen of the seas, when the son of her sovereign is engaged in such a duty!’ The companions of the young Prince were not the most suitable for a youth of his condition and prospects, as far as refinement is concerned; they were rude, but I question if their principles of conduct were not as good as any by which modern middies and lieutenants are influenced. In some respects they were better, for I do not imagine that if any one of the lieutenants of Keith, Hood, or Nelson, had fallen into such a scrape as befel Lieutenant Royer of the ‘Tiger,’ he would have expressed ‘satisfaction’ at being permitted, at the theatre, to use the identical glass through which a hostile commander had watched the destruction of a British ship. The rough and ready manner of old days is better than the refinement which takes such form and expression as this; and William Henry was little the worse for the former, although Beau Brummell did say of him that he was never good for anything but to walk about a quarterdeck and cry ‘luff.’

Walpole writes of him, in 1789: ‘The Duke of Clarence, no wonder, at his age, is already weary of a house in the middle of a village, with nothing but a green short apron to the river, a situation only fit for an old gentlewoman, who has put out her knee-pans and loves cards.’ The writer adds, that were the Duke a commoner and a candidate, Richmond, if it were a borough, would return him unanimously. ‘He pays his bills regularly himself, locks up his doors that his servants may not stay out late, and never drinks but a few glasses of wine.’ Miss Burney’s report would lead us to a different conclusion. Walpole adds: ‘Though the value of crowns is mightily fallen of late at market, it looks as if his Royal Highness thought they were still worth waiting for. Nay, it is said, he tells his brothers he shall be King before either. This is fair, at least.’

William Henry was not always so blameless in his economy as Queen Charlotte loved to see him. His hospitality at the Admiralty was unbounded; but when it is remembered that the exercise of it during fifteen months ran him in debt to the amount of not less than three-and-twenty thousand pounds, such hospitality is rather to be censured than eulogised. He was as profuse when King, until his treasurer, Sir F. Watson, confessed his inability to go on.

The second son of Queen Charlotte delivered his maiden speech in the House of Lords at the close of 1788. A few months after he made another speech, in private society, which might have had a very fatal issue. He stated that Colonel Lennox (afterwards Duke of Richmond) had been addressed at Daubigny’s club in language to which no gentleman would have quietly listened as the colonel had done. The latter, on parade, asked for an explanation. The Duke refused, ordered him to his post, and offered him ‘satisfaction’ if he felt himself aggrieved. The colonel appealed to the club as to whether the members adopted the Duke’s statement. They remained silent; and the result was a duel on Wimbledon Common, on the 26th of May 1789. Lord Rawdon accompanied the Duke, and the Earl of Winchilsea attended on the colonel. The duel ended with no bloodier finale than the loss of a curl on the part of the Duke. The latter, it was found, had not fired; he refused to fire, bade the colonel fire again if he were not satisfied, and rejected every inducement held out to him to make some explanation. On this the parties separated.

Some littleness of spirit was exhibited in what followed. The colonel was present at a court ball, at which the Queen presided, and formed part in a country dance of which the Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family were also a portion. The Prince, who was remarkable for his gallantry, did not exhibit that quality on the present occasion. He passed over the colonel, and the lady his partner, without ‘turning’ the latter, as the laws of contre-danse required. The Prince’s conduct was imitated by both his brothers and sisters, and the colonel’s partner was thus subjected to most unwarrantable insult. The Queen, who had marked her opinion of the colonel’s conduct by graciously speaking to him, remarking the chafed look of her son, and addressing some inquiry to him, was answered that he was heated, because he disliked the company. Upon this hint the Queen rose, and the festive scene was brought to a disturbed and sudden conclusion.

The fall of the year was passed in the south of England, with Weymouth for head-quarters. The King and Queen were not without peculiar annoyances here, chiefly in the threats of assassination conveyed in private letters. The Queen indeed, like the King, disregarded them, but she feared the evil effect they might have on his excitable mind. Among the visits paid by them to private individuals was one to the Roman Catholic proprietor of Lulworth Castle, Mr. Weld, a relation, by her first marriage, of Mrs. Fitzherbert. They were present in the chapel attached to the castle during the celebration of divine service, and remained while the anthem was sung,—without any ill effects resulting to Protestantism.

In January 1790 the fears of the Queen were again excited for her consort, at whom a stone was thrown by a mad Lieutenant Frick, as his Majesty was on his way to the House of Lords. The muse was hardly more sane or loyal than the lieutenant, for Peter Pindar wrote of this incident:

Folks say it was lucky the stone missed the head,

When lately at Cæsar ’twas thrown;

I think, very different from thousands indeed,

’Twas a lucky escape for the stone.

The Queen, at the time of the King’s illness, was assailed with unmeasured vituperation by the Opposition papers. Even her interviews with Pitt were made base account of, in order to raise the public odium against her. In the present year the ‘Hopes of the Party,’ a caricature so named, by Gillray, served to show the supposed wishes of the Opposition. The caricature represents many revolutionary horrors. Among them is what is termed ‘a pair of pendants,’ showing the Queen and prime minister each hanging from a lamp iron. ‘It is commonly believed,’ says Mr. Wright, in the History from which a passage has been already quoted, ‘that Pitt and Queen Charlotte were closely leagued together to pillage and oppress the nation; and she was far less popular than the King, whose infirmity produced general sympathy, and who had many good qualities that endeared him to those with whom he came in contact. In another part of Gillray’s picture the King is brought to the block, held down by Sheridan, while Fox, masked, acts as executioner. Priestley, with pious exhortations, is encouraging the fallen monarch to submit to his hard fate.’ Later in the year, in September, the Queen’s second son, Frederick Duke of York, married Frederica, eldest daughter of the King of Prussia. The marriage was solemnised on Michaelmas Day, at Berlin. The bride was then in her twenty-fourth year, her husband in his twenty-eighth. She was fair, virtuous, accomplished, and kindly-hearted,—by far too good a wife for the profligate Prince to whom she was allied. The newly-married pair travelled to England through France, where they met with but rough treatment from the republican mob, some of whom very unceremoniously scratched the royal arms off their carriages. The ceremony of marriage was reperformed in England on the 23rd of November by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in presence of the entire royal family. By an addition of 18,000l. to the Duke’s income, his revenue amounted to 35,000l. a year; and an annual 30,000l. was settled on the Duchess, in case of her surviving him.

The Queen, accompanied by the King and the elder branches of her family, paid a visit of welcome to the young couple, which was the most formal and ceremonious matter that can well be conceived. The visit took the form of a tea-party; it ought, therefore, to have been social and chatty, but it was as stiff and silent as much ceremony and formal etiquette could make it. The King’s tea was solemnly handed to him by the Prince of Wales, while the Duchess of York, receiving a cup from the Duke, presented it, with much reverence, to the Queen. But in the cups which cheer and not inebriate, ceremony was soon dissolved; and the King getting loquacious, the family party, before the night was far gone, became as mirthful and pleasant as if it had been made up of more mirthful and pleasant materials.

Despite the great popularity of the excellent Duchess, the caricaturists spared neither her nor her royal father and mother-in-law. In one of the satirical prints by Gillray, the King and Queen—the latter most outrageously caricatured—are represented in ridiculous attitudes of joy: the King is fairly ‘kicking up his heels’ in ecstasy, offering eager welcome to the Duchess. The Queen is holding out her apron to receive some of the wealth and jewels which her daughter-in-law was popularly supposed to have brought with her. The latter has her apron full of money, and the Duke is introducing her to his parents.

The poor Duchess was soon one of the unhappiest of wives. The profligacy and shameless infidelity of her husband, to whom she had been fondly attached, disgusted her. His extravagance involved him in a ruin from which he could never relieve himself, and which his creditors never forgot. It made many a hearth cold, and it brought misery to that of the Duchess. For six years she bore with treatment from the ‘commander-in-chief’ such as no trooper under him would have inflicted on a wife equally deserving. At the end of that time the ill-matched pair separated, and the Duchess withdrew from the world; but in her retirement she forgot none of the duties which it could fairly demand of her. She was beloved by all, and was popularly and affectionately mentioned by the popular voice as ‘the poor soldier’s friend.’

She was indeed the friend of all who needed her service, and did not refuse even to give to poor ‘Monk’ Lewis the meed of admiration which his little vanity required. He was once met coming in tears from the Duchess’s drawing-room; and on intimating to his questioner that they had their source in the very kind and flattering things the Duchess had said to him, the weeper was roughly consoled by his acquaintance, with the soothing advice, to ‘Never mind, as perhaps she did not mean it!’

Never was the alleged avarice of the King and Queen more bitterly satirised than during this year (1791). The King, however, was a cheerful giver, and the amount of property which the Queen left at her death proves that she was no hoarder. The caricaturists, nevertheless, smote them mercilessly. Peter Pindar assailed them in coarse and witless lines, that had in them a certain rough humour, but as ill-natured as rough. Gillray exhibited them as cheapening wares in the streets of Windsor. In another print, the King, in the commonest of garbs, was seen toasting his own muffins; and the Queen, with a hideous twist given to her now plain features, and with pockets bursting with the national money, was depicted busily engaged in frying sprats for supper. In another, the Queen is sourly commanding her highly-disgusted daughters to take their tea without sugar, as a saving to papa. There were many of a similar cast, and not a few which exposed the vices to which the Princes of the family—young men of great hopes and with much kindliness of feeling, but with little principle—had unfortunately surrendered themselves.

The King himself was ever depicted as slovenly both in dress and gait—the Queen as mean in attire and sharply sour of visage. The latter always wears a far more acute, but a less inquiring, air than her husband. This was a true reflection. After Dr. Johnson had his celebrated interview with the monarch at Buckingham Palace, he is said to have declared that ‘His Majesty seems to be possessed of some good nature and much curiosity; as for his nous, it is not contemptible. His Majesty, indeed, was multifarious in his questions; but, thank God, he answered them all himself.’

The public discontent and the general distress increased greatly at this time, and had their effect in throwing a gloom over the court circle. The old formality and not a very diminished festivity were still, however, maintained there, and the republican fashions of France were held in abhorrence at Windsor.

The sons of Queen Charlotte were not so formal in their behaviour towards her, before witnesses, as the daughters were. The Duke of York was now the most observant of ceremony, but he exhibited therewith a show, perhaps a reality, of very tender feeling. Even on common occasions the household of the Queen was encumbered by much stiffness of observance of etiquette. It was not an uncommon occurrence for the Duke of York to attend at his mother’s toilette, conversing with her during its closing progress. When this was the case, and the dresser’s task was done, that lady could not leave the room if the Duke happened to stand between her and the door; to cross the Duke would have been a terrible breach of good manners. Nor could the Queen help the dresser; all that the illustrious lady could do was to watch till the Duke changed his position, and then with a smile, and a ‘Now, I will let you go,’ give freedom to the dresser, longing for liberty.

The Prince William (Duke of Clarence) was the least courteous of the sons of Charlotte. But it must be remembered that he not only went early to sea, but it was at a time when roughness of manner was considered as more becoming to a naval officer than refinement; to support the character, the young Prince probably assumed more coarseness of style and speech than was really natural to him. The Queen’s birthday drawing-room, in 1791, was followed by a ball, at which the pretty Princess Mary was to dance her first minuet in public, and her brother, the sailor Prince, had promised to be her partner. But previous to the ball there was a dinner, and at a birthday dinner more champagne was drunk by the Prince than on ordinary days. Under its inspiration, the Duke found his way to the table of some of the ladies and gentlemen in waiting. There he ruled as king, insisted upon more champagne, compelled the not-unwilling gentlemen to drink with him glass after glass, laughed at its effects upon them and himself, smacked the servants on the shoulder, abused them good humouredly, praised his sister Mary, had more champagne, kissed the hand of old Madam Schwellenberg with infinite mock heroics, was always going and never went, and ended all he said with the common oath of gentlemen, a loudly-uttered ‘By G—!’ With a morning so spent, he was not likely to be steady enough for the minuet at night. In fact, he was incapable of appearing at the ball at all; much to the chagrin of the Queen; still more to that of the Princess Mary, to whom, however, the offender made less apology the next morning than confession, that on the Queen’s birthday he had been ‘too far gone’ to think of dancing.

The Prince of Wales was not more temperate even on ordinary occasions; and he was less heartily courteous to ladies than his brothers, while perhaps he was more formally polite. Miss Burney describes him as staring at her when she was in attendance upon the Queen, not haughtily or impertinently, she says, but in an ‘extremely curious manner’—probably as Don Juan may have looked upon Zerlina.

With all the Queen’s respect for the formality of court, she enjoyed herself most when she was least observant of it. Reading the letters of Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, she liked to talk them over with Miss Burney, who could explain so many circumstances connected with them which would, otherwise, have been incomprehensible to the Queen. She loved to hear her dresser’s graphic account of Warren Hastings’ trial, whither she had sent her with a reticule stuffed full of cakes from the Queen’s own table. At Cheltenham, when she accompanied the King thither previous to his late illness, the royal residence was of such contracted dimensions, and so scant of accommodation, that her Majesty dressed and undressed in the drawing-room. Many of her ladies would not have submitted half so cheerfully as she did to such an arrangement. In the rural expeditions of the royal pair, there was indeed a comic sort of mixture of formality and fun. At Weymouth, for instance, when the King went to take his ‘dip,’ the royal machine was followed by another full of fiddlers and other musical persons, who, as the monarch plunged into the ocean, saluted him and the bold deed with ‘God save the King,’ horribly out of tune!